Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring the integrity of your business

Describes part of a research and development programme focusing on business integration. Provides analysis of integration and introduces a reference model for business integration. Details an audit method which measures the level of integration within a business with respect to the reference model. Illustrates the application of the audit method through a case study. Concludes with a brief discussion on the significance of the work described, its limitations and potential benefits.
A Reconfiguration-based Defect Tolerance Method for Nanoscale Devices

In this paper, a novel defect tolerance and test method is proposed for highly defect prone reconfigurable nanoscale devices. The method is based on searching for a fault-free implementation of functions in each configurable nanoblock. The proposed method has the advantage of not relying on defect location information (defect map). It also removes the requirement of per chip placement and routing. A simulation tool is developed and several experiments are performed on MCNC benchmarks to evaluate defect tolerance and yield achievable by the proposed method. A greedy search algorithm is also developed in this simulation program that finds a fault-free configuration of each function of an application on a nanoblock of the device. The experiments are performed for different defect rates and under different values of redundancy provided for the device model. The results show that the proposed method can achieve high yields in acceptable amount of test and reconfiguration time under very high defect densities and with minimum amount of redundancy provided in the device
Centering prayer for women receiving chemotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer: a pilot study.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To explore the feasibility of implementing centering prayer in chemotherapy treatment and assess its influence on mood, spiritual well-being, and quality of life in women with recurrent ovarian cancer. DESIGN Descriptive pilot study. SETTING Outpatient chemotherapy treatment suite in a large cancer center in the midwestern United States. SAMPLE A convenience sample of 10 women receiving outpatient chemotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer. METHODS A centering prayer teacher led participants through three one-hour sessions over nine weeks. Data were collected prior to the first session, at the conclusion of the final session, and at three and six months after the final session. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES Feasibility and influence of centering prayer on mood, spiritual well-being, and quality of life. FINDINGS Most participants identified centering prayer as beneficial. Emotional well-being, anxiety, depression, and faith scores showed improvement. CONCLUSIONS Centering prayer can potentially benefit women with recurrent ovarian cancer. Additional research is needed to assess its feasibility and effectiveness. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING Nurses may promote or suggest centering prayer as a feasible intervention for the psychological and spiritual adjustment of patients with recurrent ovarian cancer.
Variability of Predictability of the Daily Peak Load Using Lyapunov Exponent Approach : Case of Tunisian Power System

This study addresses the problem of the expected variability of predictability of the load curves in the Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas (STEG). For this purpose, the maximum prediction horizon of the daily peak load time series was investigated using the largest Lyapunov exponent estimation. The results may explain the recent observed degradation of forecast accuracy due to the increase in air conditioning load.
Investigation of Copper–Carbon Nanotube Composites as Global VLSI Interconnects

Applicability of copper–carbon nanotube (Cu-CNT) composites as on-chip global VLSI interconnects is investigated comprehensively. Electrical modeling of Cu-CNT composite interconnects is carried out by virtue of effective complex conductivity. The performances, including time delay and step response, are characterized based on the equivalent circuit model. Finally, the crosstalk effect between coupled Cu-CNT composite interconnects is analyzed.
Parasitological and Molecular Features of the Hepatozoon Species in the Myocardium of Japanese Martens (Martes melampus melampus)

Abstract The Hepatozoon species in the myocardium of Japanese martens (Martes melampus melampus) was characterized by histological and molecular methods. Histologically, granulomatous nodules with Hepatozoon sp. merozoites/gametocytes, or schizonts, or both were observed in the hearts of Japanese martens. The most frequently observed forms were merozoites/gametocytes within phagocytes; each host cell included a zoite, which was not microscopically identifiable as a merozoite or gametocyte. Schizonts were oval in shape and 36.9 ± 5.7 × 28.9 ± 3.4 µm in size; each schizont had approximately 20–60 nuclei. The size of the merozoites could not be measured because no mature schizonts were observed. In the analyses of the partial 18S rRNA gene sequence, it was strongly suggested that the Hepatozoon sp. in Japanese marten and the Hepatozoon sp. in pine marten (Martes martes) in Scotland were the same species.
Representation through parties? Environmental attitudes and party stances in Europe in 2013

Public demand for environmental policies can only influence policies when political parties incorporate environmentalism into their platforms. The economic downturn that began in 2009 may have caused European parties to abandon their commitment to environmentalism as they focused on solutions to the economic crisis. Particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, where commitment to the environment is not as central to party competition, public environmental concerns may have been placed on the periphery of the policy agenda. Examining this issue, this study finds that political parties, especially mainstream parties, in Western Europe represented economic and environmental preferences of voters about equally as well in 2013 as they did prior to the economic crisis. However, in Central and Eastern Europe, parties tended to be less responsive to environmental preferences, presumably because economic differences dominate political divisions in newer democracies. It is concluded that environmental interests are well protected by mainstream actors in the West, though less so in Europe’s newer democracies.
An empirical examination of the pricing of exchange‐traded barrier options

Actively traded barrier options were introduced on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1998. This market provides a unique laboratory in which to empirically examine their pricing. This is particularly so given that, for a number of these options, otherwise identical standard European options were simultaneously traded. As a result, the pricing of barrier options may be compared both with their theoretical valuations and with the pricing of otherwise identical European options. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:1049–1064, 2004
Broadband methods for online grid impedance measurement

Grid impedance is an important parameter for the operation and control of grid-connected inverters used for the integration of solar, wind, and other distributed generation resources. Since the grid impedance usually varies over time and with grid operation conditions, online measurement is required for adaptive control of grid-connected inverters. Existing online measurement methods based on impulse perturbation and Fourier analysis require large current or voltage injection that may interfere with normal operation of the inverter. This paper proposes the use of maximum-length binary sequence (MLBS) injection and averaging Fourier techniques to overcome the drawbacks of impulse injection. Experimental results based on a three-phase grid-connected inverter are presented and used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Calibrating Biosensors in Flow-Through Set-Ups: Studies with Glucose Optrodes

The research and development of selective analytical systems, not requiring pre-treatment of samples and rapidly providing information in real time, is receiving increasing attention in various areas of human life (Chen et al, 2011;Palmisano et al, 2000;Maestre et al, 2005;Jia et al, 2004;Surareungchai et al, 1999;Tsai & Doong, 2005;Gulce et al, 2002;Akin et al, 2011;Mishra et al, 2012). For example, as environmental pollution poses a serious threat to the human health, there is an urgent demand to monitor pollutants and initiate appropriate environ‐ mental pollution treatment in the real time course. In the field of food quality control, the product quality and healthiness are the main factors, influencing customer satisfaction. The number of food processing and manufacturing mistakes can be minimized with risk assess‐ ment and continuous checking of the production process, e.g. in dairy farms, it is necessary to control the quality of raw milk on site in order to detect the presence of the residues of different antibiotics and other potentially harmful compounds before loading milk into the dairy production process.
Australia's Cash Economy: Are the Estimates Credible?

The method of "excess sensitivity" of Bajada (1999, 2001, 2002) indicates a large underground economy in Australia, with estimates of unrecorded income around 15 per cent of official GDP. These estimates concern policymakers, especially those agencies responsible for national accounts, tax collection, economic stabilization and law enforcement. We show that the method exhibits a severe form of non-robustness, in which the results change markedly with a simple change in the units of measurement of the variables. There is a separate problem in which a key parameter is set to an unrealistic value that makes the estimates many times too high.
The Effect of Coil Modeling on the Predicted Induced Electric Field Distribution During TMS

We investigated the effect on the predicted induced field inside the head tissues of the numerical model adopted for simulating the excitation coil during transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). A commercially available eight-shaped coil was modeled in four different ways. The electric field inside a detailed (2 mm resolution) and anatomically realistic numerical phantom of the human head was calculated with the impedance method. The results revealed differences of more than 170% in the maximum local value of electric field, depending on the coil model. It was shown that the predicted amount of involved tissue in the brain varied as well, pointing to the importance of correct source modeling before individualized patient treatment planning can be introduced. The calculations showed clearly that an eight-shaped TMS coil should not be modeled as two single thin-wire loops, since this approach may yield inaccurate induced field distributions.
Conditional probability density function estimation with sigmoidal neural networks

Real-world problems can often be couched in terms of conditional probability density function estimation. In particular, pattern recognition, signal detection, and financial prediction are among the multitude of applications requiring conditional density estimation. Previous developments in this direction have used neural nets to estimate statistics of the distribution or the marginal or joint distributions of the input-output variables. We have modified the joint distribution estimating sigmoidal neural network to estimate the conditional distribution. Thus, the probability density of the output conditioned on the inputs is estimated using a neural network. We have derived and implemented the learning laws to train the network. We show that this network has computational advantages over a brute force ratio of joint and marginal distributions. We also compare its performance to a kernel conditional density estimator in a larger scale (higher dimensional) problem simulating more realistic conditions.
Sources and Effects of Utility-Theoretic Inconsistency in Stated-Preference Surveys

goods and services (Cattin and Wittink; Louviere). More recently, health economists have recognized SP as an appropriate technique for quantifying health-care preferences (Johnson, Banzhaf, and Desvousges; Johannesson, Jbnsson, and Karlsson; Ryan and Hughes). SP analysis encompasses several multiresponse, multiattribute, preferenceelicitation techniques that allow respondents to systematically evaluate trade-offs among multiple environmental attributes or among environmental and nonenvironmental attributes.
Covered Interest Parity: A High-Frequency, High-Quality Data Study

Profitable deviations from covered interest parity (CIP) represent riskless arbitrage opportunities and so indicate market ineffic iency. Previous empirical work on CIP uses noncontemporaneously sampl ed data and reports mixed results. This paper uses high-frequency (te n-minute), high-quality data, gathered personally by the author in th e London foreign-exchange market, to test the CIP condition. The resu lts overwhelmingly support the market-efficiency hypothesis. Copyright 1987 by The Review of Economic Studies Limited.
Insertion of Be Atoms in C60 Fullerene Cages: Be@ C60.

Radioactive endohedral Be@C60 can be detected using radiochemical and radiochromatographic techniques in the final solvent. Such a 7Be atom can penetrate into the C60 cage to produce Be@C60 by a recoil process of the nuclear reactions. An ab initio molecular dynamics simulation was carried out to demonstrate that a direct insertion process is really possible. Both the experimental and the theoretical results were consistent with each other. [S0031-9007(96)01431-7]
Determination of young's modulus using AFM nanoindentation. Applications on bone structures

Progression of nanoscale material testing techniques has produced new perspectives for studying the effect of musculoskeletal diseases on the weight-bearing tissues. Growing understanding of small scale mechanical behavior enhances prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and osteoarthrosis, as well as engineering of artificial prosthesis. Nanoscale indentation testing may be conducted with an atomic force microscope (AFM). Several different calibration and data analysis methods have been introduced for the AFM-nanoindentation. The main goal of this paper is to review the most used calibration methods, especially for analyzing the cantilever spring constant. A particular interest on the testing of bone microstructure is taken into account. Also, this paper describes the initial method of analyzing bone structures using nanoindentation with the Atomic Force Microscope, developed by the research team and relates the issues and problems encountered in the validation process.
The Budget Deficit and the Dollar

This study examines the reasons for changes in the real exchange rate between the dollar and the German mark from the beginning of the floating rate regime in 1973 through 1984. The econometric analysis focuses on the effects of anticipated structural budget deficits and monetary policy in the United States and Germany and the changes in U.S. profitability induced by changes in tax rules. The possible impact of a number of other variables is also examined. The evidence indicates that the rise in expected future deficits in the budget of the U.S. government has had a powerful effect on the exchange rate between the dollar and the German mark. Each one percentage point increase in the ratio of future budget deficits to GNP increased the exchange rate by about 30 percentage points. Changes in the growth of the money supply also affect the exchange rate. Changes in tax rules and in the inflation-tax interaction that altered the corporate demand for funds did not have any discernible effect on the exchange rate. A separate analysis confirms that there is an equilibrium structural relation between the dollar-DM exchange rate and interest rates in the United States and Germany. An increase of one percentage point in the real interest rate differential has been associated with a rise in the DM-dollar rate of about 5 percent.
Vascular function in the diagnostic categories of polycystic ovary syndrome.

BACKGROUND Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, it is unknown whether CVD risk is equivalent across the different diagnostic categories or phenotypes of PCOS, particularly in the new phenotypes that affect up to 50% of women with PCOS. Surrogate markers of CVD include endothelial function and arterial stiffness that are independent risk factors for CVD. The primary aim of this study was to assess whether milder phenotypes of PCOS have elevated CVD risk compared with controls. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study, conducted in an academic medical centre, of overweight premenopausal women with either National Institute of Health (NIH) PCOS (n = 29) or milder non-NIH PCOS (n = 25) and controls without PCOS (n = 27). Primary outcomes were markers of vascular health, including endothelial function [peripheral arterial tonometry (PAT), asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1)] and arterial stiffness [central pulse wave velocity (PWVc)]. Secondary outcomes were insulin resistance, glucose tolerance and inflammation (C-reactive protein). RESULTS ADMA was significantly different across the three groups (P = 0.003). ADMA was similar for NIH and non-NIH PCOS (0.56 ± 0.01 versus 0.53 ± 0.02 µmol/l, P = 1.0) and higher for both NIH PCOS compared with controls (0.56 ± 0.01 versus 0.46 ± 0.02 µmol/l, P = 0.003) and non-NIH PCOS compared with controls (0.53 ± 0.02 versus 0.46 ± 0.02 µmol/l, P = 0.046). PAI-1 (P = 0.20), PAT (P = 0.95) and PWVc (P = 0.67) were similar for the three groups. All results were maintained after adjustment for age and body mass index where significant differences in these potentially confounding factors occurred between groups. CONCLUSIONS Women with NIH and non-NIH PCOS have elevated ADMA compared with controls independent of age and adiposity. This suggests that CVD risk, reflected by endothelial dysfunction, is increased in both traditional NIH and new milder non-NIH PCOS phenotypes. However, no differences in other markers of endothelial function or arterial stiffness were apparent between phenotypes in this PCOS cohort.
Sources of Growth in Morocco: An Empirical Analysis in a Regional Perspective

This paper investigates the Moroccan growth experience since 1960 and compares it with the rest of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While Morocco and the MENA have faced a decreasing growth rate over the period, Moroccan growth was higher and much more volatile. The contribution of labor to growth remained constant over the period, while the contributions of capital and total factor productivity decreased markedly. The growth experience of Morocco was further impacted by the predominance of a rural population and the frequency of drought years. In contrast to the MENA, human capital had a positive impact on growth.
İstanbul Menkul Kıymetler Borsası (İMKB) İçin Zayıf Etkinlik Sınaması: Stokastik Birim Kök ve Kalman Filtre Yaklaşımı

In this study, the weak efficiency of the Istanbul Stock Exchange (1SE) National 100 Price Index was investigated using weekly data between 1986-2002 period employing Random Walk Process. As an alternative to the previous studies concerning the weak efficiency of ISE, stochastic unit root analysis was performed for price changes. Secondly, roots for each time point were estimated by Kalman Filter Method. Thus, weak efficiency of the ISE was determined for each time point instead of a periodic determination. Moreover, with the exception of 1987, ISE data was not seen to be weak in efficiency.
Women Participation in SMEs Business A Case Study of Sindh Province

The article analyses the women participation in SMEs business. The rapid absorption of women into the labor market has been influenced by several factors. The rapid economic growth was due largely to important growth in the SMEs business, where substantial and proportionally larger increase of female workers has been registered. Among all sectors of the economy, the SMEs have recorded the highest growth rate during the last decade. The increase in the female labor force participation in SMES business may also be attributable to improving economic incentives in employment and policies favoring the employment of women. In addition, the combined effects of increased years of schooling, access to family planning services, improved maternal and child care, leading to arise in the average age at marriage, have allowed women to take advantage of the increased employment opportunities. Survey was conducted from 300 women in SMEs business in rural Sindh by using simple random technique from four districts, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Kandhkot/Kashmore and Larkana Districts. Questionnaire was the basic tool to find out the major challenges of rural women as an entrepreneur business. It was revealed that there is great potential of rural women I doing the various entrepreneur business like in Kandhkot, Jacobabad, Rali, Ajrak and Sindhi caps they are very much unique and they were generating income from there families. It was further revealed that the rural women is less confident and their husbands were always given them hard time once they are exposing them selves to out side the boundaries of the house. The biggest challenges which they were facing they were doing all business in house, lack of marketing facilities, Karo Kari criminal activities and they were deprived from the basic rights. This study contributes and explores the Rural Women challenges in SMEs business and how these critical unethical problems we can overcome like KARO KARI, and other various social issues growth.
Genotypic analysis of UK keratitis-associated Pseudomonas aeruginosa suggests adaptation to environmental water as a key component in the development of eye infections.

To examine temporal dynamics of corneal infection (keratitis)-associated Pseudomonas aeruginosa, we compared the genetic characteristics of isolates collected during two different time periods (2003-2004 and 2009-2010) using an ArrayTube genotyping system. The distribution of keratitis-associated isolates from the two studies (n = 123) among a database of P. aeruginosa strains of non-ocular origin (n = 322) indicated that 71% of UK keratitis-associated P. aeruginosa isolates clustered together, and there was no evidence for major variations in the distribution of clone types between the two collections. Our analysis indicates the presence of a 'core keratitis cluster', associated with corneal infections, that is related to the P. aeruginosa eccB clonal complex, which is associated with adaptation to survival in environmental water. This suggests that adaptation to environmental water is a key factor in the ability of P. aeruginosa to cause eye infections.
Discriminative training based on the criterion of least phone competing tokens for large vocabulary speech recognition

In our approach, we first collect a competing token set for each physical HMM from training data. An off-line token collection procedure is used in this work to collect the competing-tokens from word lattices. Then we re-estimate HMM parameters discriminatively to minimize the total number of competing tokens counted in the phone level. The phone token counts are approximated by a sigmoid-based objective function. The GPD algorithm is used to adjust HMM parameters to minimize the objective function. In this work, a merging mechanism and a gradient normalization in the HMM tied-state level are proposed to improve the generalization power of our discriminative training method. The proposed method is evaluated on the resource management (RM) and the switchboard (a 24-hr mini-train set) tasks. Experimental results clearly show that our new discriminative training method achieves significant improvements over our best MLE models in both tasks, namely about 8% and 4.5% relative error rate reduction in RM and switchboard respectively, over the best MLE models.