Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TRANSIENT PCDD AND PCDF CONCENTRATIONS IN AN MWC

Introduction Time-resolved evaluations of municipal waste combustor (MWC) performance have shown that concentrations of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDDs/Fs) and related pollutants undergo significant changes as a response to transient events: startups, shutdowns, and other upset combustion conditions. During and after transient combustion conditions, PCDD/F raw gas levels have been shown to increase by one to two orders of magnitude. The consensus holds that the dominant formation mechanism during steady state operation of waste combustors is de novo synthesis due to oxychlorination reactions of carbonaceous deposits. However, during transient conditions, the mechanism appears to change, at least in part: the PCDD to PCDF ratio increases, the homologue profile shifts to lower chlorinated congeners, and the isomer patterns change. Transient conditions, typically indicated by elevated CO, lead to soot formation which has been shown to be active for PCDD/F formation in the presence of metal-catalyst-containing fly ash. The rapidity and duration of the increased PCDD/F concentration response to these transients is largely undocumented but is likely a function of combustor geometry and operating conditions.
How the Brain Understands Spoken and Sung Sentences

The present study investigates whether meaning is similarly extracted from spoken and sung sentences. For this purpose, subjects listened to semantically correct and incorrect sentences while performing a correctness judgement task. In order to examine underlying neural mechanisms, a multi-methodological approach was chosen combining two neuroscientific methods with behavioral data. In particular, fast dynamic changes reflected in the semantically associated N400 component of the electroencephalography (EEG) were simultaneously assessed with the topographically more fine-grained vascular signals acquired by the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). EEG results revealed a larger N400 for incorrect compared to correct sentences in both spoken and sung sentences. However, the N400 was delayed for sung sentences, potentially due to the longer sentence duration. fNIRS results revealed larger activations for spoken compared to sung sentences irrespective of semantic correctness at predominantly left-hemispheric areas, potentially suggesting a greater familiarity with spoken material. Furthermore, the fNIRS revealed a widespread activation for correct compared to incorrect sentences irrespective of modality, potentially indicating a successful processing of sentence meaning. The combined results indicate similar semantic processing in speech and song.
The Composition and Interaction of the Gut Microbiota in Four Species of Wild Dragonflies

Dragonflies are natural enemies for a host of insects, which mainly feed on mosquitoes and other insect pests. Bacterial communities in the dragonfly gut impact on host survival, ecology and evolution; however intestinal microbiota diversity in these insects is not well understood. In this study, we used the Illumina Miseq PE300 platform to characterize intestinal microbiota communities in four dragonfly species(Pantala flavescens Fabricius; Orthetrum sabino Drury; Coenagrion dyeri Fraser and Brachythemis contaminate Fabricius). Our results showed that microbiota densities and species in the dragonfly gut were rich and varied; these microbes showed complex interrelationships suggesting the host species had a major impact on gut community richness. The diversity of intestinal microbes may be related to the species and the habitats of dragonflies. Proteobacteria and Firmicutes were common in the four samples and represented core members of the dragonfly gut microbiota, accounting for approximately 99.00%. At the genus level, Serratia (83%), Lactococcus (41.5%), Hafnia (55.8%) and Lactococcus (71.7%) were dominant populations in the four groups (d1, h1_1, h1 and q1). Our results provide a basis for future research on gut bacteria functions in the dragonflies.
Transportation Mergers

This study investigates valuation effects of mergers and acquisitions in the freight transportation industry. It is found that mergers and acquisitions create synergistic gains, especially tender offers, consistent with the view that freight transportation mergers and acquisitions occur for synergistic reasons rather than management’s desire for empire building or perk consumption. Both target’s and bidder’s shareholders are better-off, but most of the synergistic gains accrue to the target’s shareholders. Targets’ valuation effects are greater for vertical rather than horizontal mergers, indicating a positive valuation for firms that control and manage a more extensive supply chain. The bidders’ wealth effects are greater for friendly mergers. Overall, the findings have important implications for professional practice and the development of the theoretical literature.
Towards a device-free passive presence detection system with Bluetooth Low Energy beacons

In an era of smart information systems and smart buildings, detecting, tracking and identifying the presence of attendants inside of enclosed rooms have evolved to a key challenge in the research area of smart building systems. Therefore, several types of sensing systems were proposed over the past decade to tackle these challenge. Depending on the component’s arrangement, a distinction is made between so-called device-based active and device-free passive sensing systems. Here we focus on the device-free passive concept and introduce a strategy of using Bluetooth Low Energy beacons for device-free presence detection.
Botanical Pesticide Nerium indicum Alters Prolactin Cells of Stinging Catfish, Heteropneustes fossilis

Effect of Nerium indicum leaf extract exposure on histo-cytology of prolactin cells were investigated in Heteropneustes fossilis. Fish were subjected to 11.27 mg/L (80% of 96 h LC50) and 2.81 mg/L (20% of 96 h LC50) of Nerium indicum leaf extract for shortand long-term, respectively. After sacrificing the fish, blood was collected on 24, 48, 72 and 96 h in short-term and after 7, 14, 21, and 28 days in long-term experiment and analyzed for serum calcium levels. Pituitary glands were fixed on these intervals. No alteration was noticed in serum calcium levels of H. fossilis at 24 h. Serum calcium levels decreased from 48 h to 96 h. In prolactin cells of fish no histological alteration was observed throughout the shortterm exposure. Nerium indicum caused decrease in serum calcium levels of H. fossilis on day 14 which progresses till 28 days. Up to 14 day following treatment with Nerium indicum leaf extract no histological change in the prolactin cells of H. fossilis has been noticed. These cells exhibit slight degranulation on day 21, however, the nuclear volume remains unchanged. Further degranulation of these cells has been noticed following 28 day exposure. Nuclear volume records an increase and at some places, vacuolization and cytolysis are also observed.
The Nurse Engagement and Wellness Study

Results: Health indicators in the cohort were comparable or better than in the broader United States population, and lifetime stress exposure was lower than among students from other majors. Exposure to more lifetime stressors was associated with greater risk for various health conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, and depression. Conversely, better social, environmental, behavioral, and personal profiles were associated with protective effects for the same health conditions.
Knowledge and Attitude Towards Antibiotic Usage: A Questionnaire-Based Survey Among Pre-Professional Students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences on Jeddah Campus, Saudi Arabia

Introduction: Knowledge and attitudes towards proper antibiotic usage among students in medical and other health allied fields play a vital role in limiting the pandemic of antibiotic resistance. This study aimed to assess knowledge and attitudes toward antibiotic usage among pre-professional students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences on Jeddah Campus, Saudi Arabia. Methods: A self-administered cross-sectional survey of 347 first year students was conducted at the College of Science and Health Professions, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences using a validated questionnaire. Results: Nearly 63% of the students had a moderate level of knowledge. Two third of the students (69.7%) correctly knew that antibiotics are indicated for the treatment of bacterial infections. However, about 36% of the students incorrectly thought that antibiotics are also used to treat viral infections, while 28.5% were not sure. Only 38.8% of the students were aware of antibiotic resistance phenomena in relation to the overuse of antibiotics. Furthermore, only 27.3% correctly knew that penicillin is an antibiotic, and 74.4% were not sure if Paracetamol is an antibiotic. With regard to attitudes, 25.7% believed that taking antibiotics when having cold symptoms could help them to recover faster, while 39.6% expected antibiotics to be prescribed for common cold symptoms. Conclusion: The students have misconception regarding antibiotic use indications. Therefore, awareness campaigns are needed to promote student’s use of antibiotics in young generations particularly among the pre-professional health sciences students.
Stronger together: comparing and integrating camera trap, visual, and dung survey data in tropical forest communities

Accurate estimations of animal populations are necessary for management, conservation, and policy decisions. However, methods for surveying animal communities disproportionately represent specific groups or guilds. For example, transect surveys can provide robust data for large arboreal species but underestimate cryptic or small-bodied terrestrial species, whereas camera traps have the inverse tendency. The integration of information from multiple methodologies would provide the most complete inference on population size or responses to putative covariates, yet a simple, robust framework that allows integration and comparison of multiple data sources has been lacking. We use 27,813 counts of 35 species or species groups derived from concurrent visual transects, dung transects, and camera trap surveys in tropical forests and compare them within a generalized joint attribute modeling framework (GJAM) that both compares and integrates field-collected dung, visual, and camera trap data to quantify the speciesand traitspecific differences in detection for each method. The effectiveness of survey method was strongly dependent on species, as well as animal traits. These differences in effectiveness contributed to meaningful differences in the reported strength of a known important covariate for animal communities (distance to nearest village). Data fusion through GJAM allows clear and unambiguous comparisons of the counts provided from each different methodology, the incorporation of trait information, and fusion of all three data streams to generate a more complete estimate of the effects of an anthropogenic disturbance covariate. Research and conservation resources are extremely limited, which often means that field campaigns attempt to maximize the amount of information gathered especially in remote, hard-to-access areas. Advances in these understudied areas will be accelerated by analytical methods that can fully leverage the total body of diverse biodiversity field data, even when they are collected using different methods. We demonstrate that survey methods vary in their effectiveness for counting species based on biological traits, but more importantly that generative models like GJAM can integrate data from multiple sources in one cohesive statistical framework to make improved inference in understudied environments.
Long Term Evolution of the Costs and Benefits of Business Groups: Korean Chaebols between weak premium, strong discount, and strong premium

This paper analyzes the long-term evolution of the costs and benefits associated with a chaebol, a South Korean diversified business group. Chaebol-affiliated firms in Korea have displayed dramatic changes in their costs and benefits along three time periods (1984-1988, 1990-1995, and 2001-2003). They did not suffer a value loss relative to non-affiliated firms in the 1980s, but did so in the 1990s. In the post-crisis period, however, they began to show value gains. To identify the causes of these changes, we examine if chaebol firms prioritize profit stability over profit maximization, over-invest in less profitable industries, cross-subsidize the low performing affiliates of their group, and possess greater debt capacity, consequently enjoying lower tax burdens. We discover that in the 1980s, chaebol firms generally enjoyed various perks such as tax breaks, but shied away from excessive investment activities. In the 1990s, their performance worsened due to substantial over-investment, despite several advantages. However, after massive restructuring and sorting out following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, chaebols emerged as very profitable firms with less over-investment despite fewer tax perks. JEL classification: G32; G34
Effects of needle peening and shot peening for stainless steel welded joint on the crack size rendered harmless

Introduction Welded joints are often used in large steel structures. Fatigue cracks tend to initiate at the welded joints (especially at the weld toe) due to tensile residual stresses and stress concentration. Tensile residual stresses result from the effects of heat applied during the welding process. A discontinuous portion of the weld beads cause stress concentration. Peening methods such as needle peening (NP) and shot peening (SP) are expected to be effective for improving fatigue strength of welded joints. Non-destructive inspections are typically conducted prior to performing peening on welded joints in steel structures. However, detection limits are associated with non-destructive inspection, and it is not possible to detect cracks below a certain size. The reliability of welded joints is decreased by the undetected cracks. It is possible to improve reliability of welded joints if peening can be used to mitigate the effect of the fatigue cracks. Recently, Houjou et al. [1] reported that the fatigue limit of a stainless steel welded joint containing a crack-like surface defect at the weld toe could be improved by NP and surface defects could be rendered harmless by NP. However, the effects of SP on the fatigue limit of welded joints with surface defects are unclear.
Mathematical Foundation for Ensemble Machine Learning and Ensemble Portfolio Analysis

In ensemble machine learning we combine decisions of experts to derive at a decision that is better than the individual ones. The process of combining these decisions can be as simple as majority voting or simple averaging or it can be more complicated and involve multiple steps. In this paper we consider the application of ensemble machine learning to the problem of constructing portfolios from individual decisions of multiple experts. We will compare the performance of portfolios constructed by simple averaging and by a novel multistage decision algorithm. This new algorithm constructs a portfolio from subsets of stocks in individual portfolios. Compared to these individual portfolios and a portfolio constructed by simple averaging, the portfolios constructed by proposed method could result in higher annualized return and a modest increase in volatility. We provide extensive numerical comparisons on the viability of the new approach.
Limited Attention and the Deadline Effect: Simple Spending Rules in the Field

We examine behavior in a dynamic planning problem in a residential community which serves as an arguably clean field context for estimating spending rules. Surveying a sample of program participants about their spending plans, we find that spending smoothly is the most frequently preferred plan. In examining actual spending data, participants vary widely in terms of their implementation of such a plan. An increasing fraction of participants begin to smooth their spending as the program’s expiration deadline nears. We claim that the explanation for this pattern is limited attention to the planning task, which we identify by classifying participants’ spending rules and estimating structural breaks in which participants switch into smoothing their spending for at least two weeks in a row. Limited attention participants are economically influential, responsible for driving the bulk of retail sales growth in the last month of the year. Our results suggest that imposing deadlines may be helpful towards individuals’ dynamic planning tasks.
Barriers to Border Trade along the East-West Economic Corridor : The Case of Thailand-the Lao PDR Trade on the Border of Mukdahan Province

201 Abstract— The objective of this research is to study the barriers impeding trade along the East-West Economic Corridor. The border trade activities between Thailand and the Lao PDR occurring on the border of Mukdahan Province was chosen for this study since this area has been widely accepted as a major entrance not only to Lao PDR but Vietnam basically owing to its geographically advantages. This research employs both qualitative and quantitative research techniques to collect and analyze its data so that the research questions can be answered. It started with compiling qualitative data from various sources and activities prior to operationalizing them via questionnaire survey. Findings show that barriers affecting trade between Thai and Lao PDR can be categorized into three main groups based on sources of these impediments, i.e. barriers induced by overseas economic and political conditions, those derived from factors related to Thai government, and barriers influenced by factors internal to the trading firm. It can be concluded that major sources of border trading barriers are failure of both Thai and Lao public administration to facilitate trade flows between the two countries. Suggestions are thus proposed to Thai central and local governmental authorities to adjust and improve their roles and responsibilities so that we are able to improve border trading performance between the two countries and can expect favorable and sustained consequences of EWEC development project.
Polypharmacy Is Associated with Lower Memory Function in African American Older Adults

Although previous research has linked polypharmacy to lower cognitive function in the general population, we know little about this association among economically challenged African American (AA) older adults. This study explored the link between polypharmacy and memory function among AA older adults. This community-based study recruited 399 AA older adults who were 65+ years old and living in economically disadvantaged areas of South Los Angeles. Polypharmacy (taking 5+ medications) was the independent variable, memory function was the outcome variable (continuous variable), and gender, age, living arrangement, socioeconomic status (educational attainment and financial strain), health behaviors (current smoking and any binge drinking), and multimorbidity (number of chronic diseases) were the covariates. Linear regression was used for data analyses. Polypharmacy was associated with lower scores on memory function, above and beyond covariates. Among AA older adults, polypharmacy may be linked to worse cognitive function. Future research should test the mechanisms by which polypharmacy is associated with lower levels of cognitive decline. There is a need for screening for memory problems in AA older adults who are exposed to polypharmacy.
Polysomnography and antidiuretic hormone secretion pattern in children with primary nocturnal enuresis

Background Nocturnal enuresis (NE) is one of the most common pediatric sleep-related problems. Data on sleep patterns in children with NE are conflicting. Objective We aimed at studying the sleep architecture, associated breathing problems, and its relation to antidiuretic hormone (ADH) in children with primary NE. Patients and methods This study included 31 children aged 6-18 years with primary monosymptomatic NE and 16 healthy matched controls. They were subjected to a single overnight polysomnography and assessment of ADH levels at 9-11 a.m. and 9-11 p.m. Results Enuretic children had significantly prolonged sleep latency and higher stage N1 percentage, less total sleep time, lower sleep efficiency, and lower rapid eye movement sleep percentage compared with the control group. Ten (32.2%) NE children had nocturnal arrhythmia, whereas six (19.35%) had a respiratory distress index more than 5. Reversed ADH secretion pattern was present in 82% of the NE children. Children with reversed ADH secretion had lower stage N1 and respiratory distress index, and higher sleep efficiency, compared with NE children with normal ADH rhythm. Conclusion Primary NE is associated with disturbed sleep architecture. NE could be a presenting symptom for hidden sleep disordered breathing. The association of NE with cardiac arrhythmia is an interesting finding that requires further research. Most NE children have a reversed pattern of ADH secretion.
Emotional Intelligence and Positive Affect as Protective Factors against Burnout in Syrian Teachers: The Role of Emotional Intelligence on the Relationship with the Students Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

Understanding the relationship between teachers’ em otional intelligence and student misconduct was the goal of this research. We assume d that teachers high in emotional intelligence establish good working relationships w ith students by being attentive to students’ needs. In a sample of 300 Syrian teachers, emotiona l intelligence was assessed with the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS; Wong & Law, 2002). Results showed that perceived emotional intelligence of teachers was ne gatively related to student misconduct and that this relationship was mediated by teachers’ at tention to student needs. Our findings highlight the role of teachers’ emotional intellige nc in shaping social interactions in the classroom and lead to some practical implications f r teacher education.
Dynamic modeling and parametric analysis of differentia gearbox used in electric vehicle

The aim of this study is to perform the modeling and parametric analysis of dynamic mesh force in the light of resonance modes. Firstly, dynamic modeling of a differential gearbox has been performed by using the lumped parameter method. Then, the resonant points from Campbell diagrams were studied for the first three critical harmonic orders. Furthermore, two case studies were proposed in order to investigate the impact of radial clearance and face width on the dynamic mesh force along with resonance. Simultaneously, resonance identification and elimination were studied for two working conditions. Results show that the influence of lowering face width of pinions is more effective on mesh force reduction and resonance elimination as opposed to the first case study by enhancing wheel side mesh stiffness.
Predatory Trading in Mutual Funds

I hypothesize that mutual fund managers sell shares to induce price pressure in stocks owned by competitor funds in order to hurt competitors’ performance, thereby improving their own funds’ relative performance. I find that this predatory trading occurs primarily among top-ranked funds where the flow-performance relation is highly convex and in the fourth quarter when the incentives are the strongest. Predatory trading is not widespread, however, because managers anticipate and respond to the threat of predation. Specifically, smaller funds own fewer shares in illiquid stocks that are also held by larger competing funds ranked nearby. My paper is the first to provide evidence of strategic predatory trading by mutual funds and the resulting impact on the equilibrium allocation of assets within the mutual fund industry. JEL Classification: G11, G23