Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Corporate disclosure and credit market development

ABSTRACT The nexus between corporate disclosure and credit market development as well as whether the nexus is sensitive to the income classification of countries is not well delineated in the empirical literature. The objective of this paper is to interrogate these issues. In addressing these important issues, we rely on a panel of 122 countries and deploy a battery of econometric techniques. Generally, we find that corporate disclosure promotes credit market development. The results from the analysis of subsamples suggest that the effect of corporate disclosure on credit market development is sensitive to creditor rights protection and the income status of a country. In particular, there is evidence that the interaction between corporate disclosure and creditor rights protection significantly benefits the credit markets only in upper-middle-income countries.
Bisphenol A Acts As Developmental Agonist in Culex Quinquefasciatus Say

Plastic – derived Bisphenol A (BPA) contaminated sewages in Trivandrum, Kerala, India are mosquito breeding sites. After summer rain, BPA in the stagnant water samples ranged between 0.86 and 1.14ppm. 1.0 ppm BPA is considered as environmentally relevant concentration. Present study revealed that BPA is a developmental agonist of Culex quinquefasciatus. Embryonic and larval development are shortened by BPA but pupal development is unaffected. Under the atmospheric temperature of 26 to 310C lifecycle was completed within 312 hours but during summer it was completed within 278 hours, meanwhile atmospheric temperature ranged between 30 and 370C. Reduction in the duration of development due to BPA was 50 to 70 hours during summer and 60 to 80 hours in other seasons. Larval – pupal stadium of the mosquito has three surges of 20-hydroxy ecdysone(20-HE), at 24,32 and 48th hour of the 4th instar. BPA resulted dose-dependent advancement of 20-HE peaks, Phospholipase A2 induction and expression of Ecdysone receptor EcRA and Ecdysone inducible gene E75A, which culminated in early pupation. Adults emerging from 1.0 ppm BPA treatment did not show significant difference in sanguivory and fecundity compared to control but pupae developed in 2 and 4 ppm BPA were significantly small.
Is Historical Study of Nahwu on Madrasah Basra and Kufa Important to Teach? The Analysis of Opinion on Indonesian AFL Students

The knowledge of nahwu has been taught in many universities in Indonesia. However, the study of the nahwu taught is still limited to a study oriented to the science of tools in learning Arabic and ignores historical, theoretical aspects such as Madrasah Basra and Kufa. Therefore, this study aims to prove whether this historical, academic study is essential to be taught to Indonesian AFL students. This research uses a quantitative approach with a descriptive type. The questionnaire was given to several 20 fifth-semester AFL students with three open-ended questions about their knowledge of Madrasah Basra and Kufa. The results of this study indicate that 60% of students are familiar with Madrasah Basrah and Kufa. Most of them hear about Madrasah Basrah and Kufa for the first time in college (75%), in pesantren (8.3%), on the internet (8.3%), at high school (8.3%), and from the sermon (8.3%.). Moreover, the students generally know about Madrasah Basrah and Kufa's differences, but it is only limited to the differences in terms and I'rab. Therefore, the learning of nahwu needs to be developed by paying attention to the historical aspects of the nahwu development, especially the differences from Madrasah Basrah and Kufa.
Experimental and First-Principles Theoretical Study of Structural and Electronic Properties in Tantalum-Doped In2O3 Semiconductor: Finding a Definitive Hyperfine Interaction Assignment

In this work we present an experimental and theoretical study from first-principles of the structural, electronic, and hyperfine properties of Ta-doped In2O3 semiconductor. The ab initio electronic structure calculations in the Ta-diluted In2O3 system enabled to obtain the structural lattice distortions and the hyperfine parameters when the Ta atom is placed at each cationic site of the bixbyite crystal structure. To this purpose we used the full-potential augmented plane wave plus local orbital (FP-APW+lo) method, within the density functional theory. The obtained results indicate that the substitutional Ta probe-impurity produces strong changes on the local structure. In addition, we performed accurate time-differential perturbed γ–γ angular correlations (TDPAC) key experiments in 181Hf(→181Ta)-implanted In2O3 samples with high crystallinity, in order to obtain high quality measurements of the electric-field gradient tensor (EFG) that unraveled the controversy settled in the literature and overcome diss.
Quality of Malaria and HIV Rapid Diagnostic Test kits (RDTs) in health facilities and medicines outlets in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana

Background: Questions remain on the quality of malaria and HIV Rapid Diagnostic Test kits (RDTs) stocked and used in health facilities in Ghana. The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) in Ghana is mandated to regulate RDTs for quality. By this, all RDTs must be registered, and each brand given a unique registration number. This study aimed to assess the quality of malaria and HIV RDTs in health facilities in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, using FDA standards. Method: Data was obtained using structured questionnaire from 400 facilities in three districts in the Greater Accra region. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select the health facilities including retail medicine outlets. Information on the registration status of the RDTs and conditions under which they were stored were gathered. RDTs kept in air conditioned or well-ventilated rooms were considered as being stored under good condition. RDTs, registered by the FDA and appropriately stored were considered to be of good quality. Data was coded, stored, and analyzed using STATA version 15. Results: About 17% of the malaria RDTs stocked in the pharmacies were unregistered, 85.7% in hospitals were registered. Also, 83.3% of HIV RDTs in the Policlinics were registered. Registration status of the RDTs were associated with the districts in which the health facilities were located (p = 0.006). The RDTs were generally stored under good conditions (99.5%). Over forty percent (41.9%) of user practitioners interviewed rated the quality of the malaria RDTs as good and 59.2% rated HIV RDTs as very good. Conclusion: Though there were some unregistered RDTs whose quality cannot be ascertained, the quality of malaria and HIV RDTs in the facilities assessed were rated as good and likely to produce good results for malaria and HIV case detection.
Associations between Cognitive Concepts of Self and Emotional Facial Expressions with an Emphasis on Emotion Awareness

Recognising our own and others’ emotions is vital for healthy social development. The aim of the current study was to determine how emotions related to the self or to another influence behavioural expressions of emotion. Facial electromyography (EMG) was used to record spontaneous facial muscle activity in nineteen participants while they passively viewed negative, positive and neutral emotional pictures during three blocks of referential instructions. Each participant imagined themself, another person or no one experiencing the emotional scenario, with the priming words “You”, “Him” or “None” presented before each picture for the respective block of instructions. Emotion awareness (EA) was also recorded using the TAS-20 alexithymia questionnaire. Corrugator supercilii (cs) muscle activity increased significantly between 500 and 1000 ms post stimulus onset during negative and neutral picture presentations, regardless of ownership. Independent of emotion, cs activity was greatest during the “no one” task and lowest during the “self” task from less than 250 to 1000 ms. Interestingly, the degree of cs activation during referential tasks was further modulated by EA. Low EA corresponded to significantly stronger cs activity overall compared with high EA, and this effect was even more pronounced during the “no one” task. The findings suggest that cognitive processes related to the perception of emotion ownership can influence spontaneous facial muscle activity, but that a greater degree of integration between higher cognitive and lower affective levels of information may interrupt or suppress these behavioural expressions of emotion.
Exploring gendered change: concepts and trends in gender equality assessments

Abstract More than a quarter century after the Beijing Platform for Action solidified the importance of gender equality in international development, it is timely to review the conceptual approaches used to assess the gendered impacts of interventions. This paper presents a systematic review of recent investigations of gender equality from development-related academic literature (2009–2019) using two analytical approaches. First, we visualise trends based on bibliographic, methodological, contextual and conceptual aspects (n = 150). Second, we explore the theoretical approaches used to conceptualise gendered change through co-citation analysis (n = 61). Our trend analysis shows a breadth of relevant disciplinary perspectives but limited geographic and content foci. Additionally, very few studies explore gender equality dynamics that involve men and boys. Our exploration of theoretical foundations identifies four conceptualisations of gendered change, each reflecting the divergent disciplines, actors and interests that operate in the gender and development space. These conceptualisations each rely on and expand the concept of empowerment. By critically reflecting on feminist principles, future studies can transcend narrower empowerment framings and contribute more meaningfully to the aim of gender transformative development. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021. 1911636 .
Facial Emotion Recognition Using Transfer Learning in the Deep CNN

Human facial emotion recognition (FER) has attracted the attention of the research community for its promising applications. Mapping different facial expressions to the respective emotional states are the main task in FER. The classical FER consists of two major steps: feature extraction and emotion recognition. Currently, the Deep Neural Networks, especially the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), is widely used in FER by virtue of its inherent feature extraction mechanism from images. Several works have been reported on CNN with only a few layers to resolve FER problems. However, standard shallow CNNs with straightforward learning schemes have limited feature extraction capability to capture emotion information from high-resolution images. A notable drawback of the most existing methods is that they consider only the frontal images (i.e., ignore profile views for convenience), although the profile views taken from different angles are important for a practical FER system. For developing a highly accurate FER system, this study proposes a very Deep CNN (DCNN) modeling through Transfer Learning (TL) technique where a pre-trained DCNN model is adopted by replacing its dense upper layer(s) compatible with FER, and the model is fine-tuned with facial emotion data. A novel pipeline strategy is introduced, where the training of the dense layer(s) is followed by tuning each of the pre-trained DCNN blocks successively that has led to gradual improvement of the accuracy of FER to a higher level. The proposed FER system is verified on eight different pre-trained DCNN models (VGG-16, VGG-19, ResNet-18, ResNet-34, ResNet-50, ResNet-152, Inception-v3 and DenseNet-161) and well-known KDEF and JAFFE facial image datasets. FER is very challenging even for frontal views alone. FER on the KDEF dataset poses further challenges due to the diversity of images with different profile views together with frontal views. The proposed method achieved remarkable accuracy on both datasets with pre-trained models. On a 10-fold cross-validation way, the best achieved FER accuracies with DenseNet-161 on test sets of KDEF and JAFFE are 96.51% and 99.52%, respectively. The evaluation results reveal the superiority of the proposed FER system over the existing ones regarding emotion detection accuracy. Moreover, the achieved performance on the KDEF dataset with profile views is promising as it clearly demonstrates the required proficiency for real-life applications.
Dynamic Earthquake Triggering in Southern California in High Resolution: Intensity, Time Decay, and Regional Variability

Earthquake triggering by seismic waves has been recognized as a phenomenon for nearly 30 years. However, our ability to study dynamic triggering has been limited by our ability to capture the triggering stresses accurately and record the resultant earthquakes. Here we use full waveforms from a dense seismic network and a modern, high‐resolution seismic catalog to measure triggering in Southern California from 2008 to 2017 based on interevent time ratios. We find that the fractional seismicity rate change, which we term triggering intensity or triggerability, as a function of peak strain change for the period of ∼20 s due to distant earthquakes is monotonically increasing and compatible with earlier measurements made with a disjoint data set from 1984 to 2008. A triggering strain of 1 microstrain is equivalent to the local productivity generated by an M1.8 earthquakes. This result implies that a prediction of seismicity rate changes can be made based on recorded ground shaking using the same formalism as currently used for aftershock prediction. For a teleseismic event, this small level of triggering occurs throughout the region and thus aggregates to a regional effect. We find that the triggering rate decays after the triggerer follows an Omori‐Utsu law, but at a much slower rate than a typical aftershock sequence. The slow decay rate suggests that an ancillary process such as creep or fluid flow must be part of dynamic triggering. The prevalence of triggering in areas of creep or fluid involvement reinforces this inference. A triggering cascade of secondary earthquakes is insufficient to explain the data.
Financial Literacy: The Impact on the Profitability of the SMEs in Kuching

This study aims at investigating the financial knowledge, financial behaviour and the attitude towards finance amongst on small medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) in Kuching. More specifically on how these powerful factors affect the profitability on fast growing business enterprises in largest city in the Borneo Island over the last decade. The research takes a descriptive approach fitting its underlying pursue and draws interesting conclusions with over 75% response rate. Analysis of the data collected clearly reveals that the knowledge of finance in general relates significantly stronger to the bottom line of these business entities relative to the owners’ financial attitude and their ensuing behaviour towards financial decision making. Therefore, small medium entrepreneurs are highly recommended to participate in financial education on a regular basis to keep them well informed and equipped with the latest ways of managing the finances of their businesses to ensurebetter financial planning, execution and monitoring of enterprises that inevitably will lead to increased and sustainable earnings.
Captology in game-based education: a theoretical framework for the design of persuasive games

ABSTRACT Research relevant to Captology in education is in its infancy. Despite its relative newness, a dearth of literature exists on the subject that addresses the design of a persuasive game for educational purposes. Up to this point, the literature does not include any instructional design theories or theoretical frameworks that can be used specifically to design a persuasive game for educational use. This paper provides a theory-driven framework to guide instructional and game designers through the process of persuasive game design in education. The framework was developed based on multiple theories in learning, motivation, psychology, communication, as well as in other related disciplines. The framework covers the attitude-to-behavior process in designing persuasive games comprehensively: starting with strategies of designing a persuasive message and moving to principles of sending the message, which is followed by addressing the player’s motivation, ability, cognition, and metacognition when receiving the message, and ending with the conditions that surround the player’s behavior change due to the attitude. Research-based suggestions for the design of persuasive games for educational purposes are provided.
Evaluation of Fixed Absorber Reactivity Measurement in the Prototype Fast Reactor Monju

Abstract In the prototype fast breeder reactor Monju, fixed absorber worth was measured as the difference of core reactivity measured by control rod worth between cores with and without a single fixed absorber or three fixed absorbers. In this paper, the measurements are evaluated in detail, and their reliability and usefulness as validation data are investigated through a comparison with calculations using the latest neutronics design methodology developed at Japan Atomic Energy Agency. Calculated-to-experiment values and their uncertainties of fixed absorber worth were 1.00 ± 0.05 and 1.02 ± 0.04, respectively. Through this study, the measurements and calculations were found consistent and reliable.
Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction With the Modified Jobe Technique in Baseball Pitchers

Background: Tearing and insufficiency of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) of the elbow result in valgus instability, which can lead to pain while throwing and decline in performance in overhead athletes. Purpose: To assess the clinical results of a modified UCL reconstruction technique using 1 bone hole in the ulna and 1 bone tunnel in the humerus in baseball players. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: The inclusion criteria were medial elbow pain preventing effective playing, clinically medial elbow laxity, and magnetic resonance imaging results consistent with UCL injury. Patients who were engaged in other sports and in other positions in baseball except pitchers were excluded from this study. Our modified Tommy John procedure was performed via a muscle-splitting approach and an original single-bone-tunnel technique, using a suture anchor. After a minimum of 24 months, patients were evaluated using the Conway scale and the Timmerman-Andrews score. Results: Of 31 patients, 20 baseball pitchers (20 male: 5 high school, 5 collegiate, 8 nonprofessional, and 2 professional pitchers) were reviewed. The mean patient age at the time of operation was 21.9 years, and the mean postoperative follow-up period was 35.1 months (range, 24-66 months). The mean Timmerman-Andrews subjective score improved significantly from pre- to postoperatively (from 68.3 to 98.3; P < .05); the objective score also improved significantly (from 81.1 to 96.4; P = .01). No complications were detected at the latest follow-up. Overall, 19 patients were able to return to their preinjury level of sports or higher. Conclusion: UCL reconstruction with 1 bone hole in the ulna and 1 bone tunnel in the humerus demonstrated satisfactory results in baseball pitchers. Our modified technique was safe and achieved satisfactory clinical results, with a 95% rate of return to sports.
A Powerful Antidote to Physician Burnout: Intensive Healthy Lifestyle and Positive Psychology Approaches

Burnout rates among physicians are rapidly rising. Leaders in the movement to address burnout have made the case that health care workplaces need to foster a culture of well-being, including trusting coworker interactions, collaborative and transparent leadership, work-life balance, flexibility, opportunities for meaningful work and for professional development, and effective 2-way communication. The rationale for focusing on organizational change to prevent burnout has pointed to persistent symptoms of burnout even when individual healthy lifestyle interventions are adopted. However, a case can be made that the lifestyle interventions were not implemented at the level of intensity recommended by the lifestyle medicine evidence-base to secure the desired improvement in physical and mental health when facing significant personal and environmental stressors. The lifestyle medicine community has the ethical mandate to advocate for intensive healthy lifestyle approaches to burnout prevention, in conjunction with organizational supports. By combining comprehensive and intensive lifestyle changes with organizational cultures of well-being, we can more effectively turn the tide of physician burnout.
Containing the good idea fairy: A deep dive into Navy firearms restriction policy

ABSTRACT Statement of Problem: US Navy suicide is an ongoing concern, with more than half of suicide deaths each year related to firearms. Although decreasing firearms access by those who are at risk for suicide has been well-established as a tactic for reducing risk, implementation of firearms restrictions has a significant cultural and occupational impact among service members that may increase the stigma of seeking mental health care. During a recent Deep Dive review of all previous year suicide deaths, subject matter experts from across the US Navy identified significant variability in command utilization of firearms restriction. Methodology: Based on this finding, a review was conducted to identify best practice for firearms restriction related to suicide risk across the US military services and municipal police departments. Findings: Findings from this review suggested that the Department of the Navy may benefit from adopting consistent standards for disarming and rearming service members at risk for suicide, base decisions on objective suicide risk rather than routine stressors, decrease access primarily when service members are off duty, and engage with service members to decrease core drivers of suicide behavior through command channels. Implications: Implementing these recommendations may be a crucial step in balancing precautions to decrease suicide risk with the stigma of firearms restriction in military settings.
A Secure and Decentralized DLaaS Platform for Edge Resource Scheduling Against Adversarial Attacks

Edge Computing is promising for latency-sensitive applications. However, current edge resource scheduling is inefficient. Deep Learning as a Service (DLaaS) provides deep learning methods to optimize the resource scheduling problem, but faces great challenges of security and reliability. On one hand, DLaaS training agents and raw data are exposed to various adversarial attacks. On the other hand, dishonest DLaaS trainers can generate poisoned models to attack the DLaaS system. In this article, we propose SAPE, a Secure and decentralized DLAaS Platform in Edge computing. SAPE allows users to submit their tasks, which will be scheduled to the appropriate edge clusters to minimize the task execution time. We formulate the resource scheduling problem and develop the federated deep reinforcement learning (DRL) method to optimize the problem and resist the adversarial attacks of DLaaS. We utilize blockchain and propose a consortium-based verification scheme to improve the reliability of the federated training process, protecting the DLaaS models from being poisoned and compromised. We conduct experiments to evaluate the latency and security performance of SAPE and the federated DRL scheduling policy. The results show that SAPE outperforms the traditional schemes when defending against adversarial attacks towards the DLaaS platform in edge computing.