Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Co-Integration Analysis of Interest Rate Spread and Corporate Bond MarketDevelopment in Selected African Economies

This paper examines the relationship between interest rate spread and corporate bond market development in thirteen African economies comprising of Botswana, Egypt Mauritius Nigeria, Tunisia, Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Cote d’Ivorie, Ghana Namibia, Tanzania from 2004 and 2014 using fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) in an autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) framework. Subsisting literature suggests that in bank-based economies, interest rate spread could adversely affect the potency of corporate bond market development; and thus limits the financial market competitiveness. The result provides evidence that corporate bond issue, as a proxy for financial development is negatively influenced by interest rate gap in the short and long term. The result affirms the ‘group interest' theorem in these African economies leading to a deterrent in competitive financial development. The ECM coefficient satisfies a priori expectation, affirms the short run dynamic relationship, which implies long run equilibrium from the annual speed of adjustment, which is about 100 percent. The paper suggests policy recommendations for the reduction in interest rate, and thus the spread to encourage the growth of corporate bond issues for a market-led financial development.
Nursing spoken corpora for understanding nursing assignments.

We have built Spoken Corpora using voice data that were obtained by monitored and recorded daily nursing assignments in hospitals. The devices, we have developed are able to monitor daily nursing assignments and record multimedia data, such as video, voice, pedometer, acceleration, and. so on. Focusing on voice data, we have built two types of corpora one for analyzing nursing tasks and the other for collecting nursing terms. This work represents the first trail in Japan to develop such special devices and to make corpora for understanding nursing assignments. In this paper, we report our experiments done in "E-nightingale Project," present an effective task analysis of nursing activities, and describe results of an analysis of nursing terms for developing "Automatic Time Study Survey System. "
Experimental results on junction charge-coupled devices

In junction charge-coupled devices (JCCD's) unique possibilities exist for charge injection and charge detection, which make this device an interesting candidate for analog as well as digital applications. Based on potential calculations published earlier, two processes A and B have been designed for fabricating JCCD's. The essential steps for obtaining a smooth channel potential in process A are a very light phosphorus implantation over the whole device and a phosphorus implantation through the same window used to diffuse the p-type gates. In process B, one phosphorus implantation over the whole device is used and V-groove etching provides the separation between the p-type gates. Devices have been realized with different process parameters. Irregularities in the channel potential were measured using special test devices. The best devices in process A have a transfer inefficiency of 10-5and a charge-handling capability of 5.1011electrons/cm2. In this process, with only seven masking steps, bipolar NPN transistors, and n-channel JFET's were also realized. These excellent results have stimulated further research on analog and digital applications of JCCD's.
Motion Based Perceptual Distortion and Rate Optimization for Video Coding

Most conventional distortion metrics regard a video frame as a static image, and seldom exploit using the motion information of video frames in succession. Moreover, these methods usually calculate the visual distortion based on the independent spatial pixels. Recently, many researches show that the way people perceive the video signals is similar to the way filters process signals in the frequency domain. Therefore, in order to achieve better visual quality, we introduce a novel distortion measurement into the video coding system, which is consistent with human visual perception, and establish a perception-based rate-distortion optimization model. In this paper, we adopt Gabor filter family to decompose the video signals into frequency domain, and combine the video motion information to measure the perceptual distortion. We call it Motion tuned Distortion metric For Video coding (MDFV). After that we set up an MDFV based rate-distortion optimization model to select the best encoding mode. The experimental results show that the proposed approach is effective.
Some challenges in teaching citizenship in an Islamic context: Pakistan Studies teachers’ perspectives and practices in relation to teaching about identity

In Pakistan, the school subjects of Social Studies, Civics and Pakistan Studies are explicitly used to construct Pakistani national identity and young people’s sense of citizenship. This article draws upon interviews with 27 Pakistan Studies teachers from a town in the Punjab region of Pakistan. The interviews aimed to explore the teachers’ perceptions and teaching practices with respect to teaching about regional, national and global identity content within the area of Pakistan Studies. The research found that in seeking to reconcile conflicting binary policy discourses most of the teachers continued to subscribe to relatively traditional pedagogical practices constrained by an examination system that overwhelmingly assesses students’ knowledge of textbook content. Most of the teachers had more inclination towards developing students’ national identity based upon Sunni Islamic values rather than multi-layered identities, reflecting more localized cultural diversity or global outlooks and viewpoints.
Evaluation of peak flow and symptoms only self management plans for control of asthma in general practice.

OBJECTIVE--To compare a peak flow self management plan for asthma with a symptoms only plan. DESIGN--Randomisation to one of the self management plans and follow up for a year. SETTING--Four partner, rural training practice in Norfolk. SUBJECTS--115 Patients (46 children and 69 adults) with asthma who were having prophylactic treatment for asthma and attending a nurse run asthma clinic. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--The number of doctor consultations, courses of oral steroids, and short term nebulised salbutamol treatments and the number of patients who required doctor consultations, courses of oral steroids, and short term nebulised salbutamol. RESULTS--Both self management plans produced significant reductions in the outcome measures but there were no significant differences in the degree of improvement between the groups. The results were similar for children and adults. The proportions of patients requiring a doctor consultation fell from 98% (50/51) to 66% (34/51) in the peak flow group and from 97% (62/64) to 53% (34/64) in the symptoms only group and the proportions requiring oral steroids from 73% (34/46) to 47% (21/46) and 52% (31/60) to 12% (7/60). The median number of doctor consultations was reduced from 8.0 to 2.0 in the peak flow group and from 4.5 to 1.0 in the symptoms only group. CONCLUSIONS--The peak flow meter was not the crucial ingredient in the improved illness of the two groups. Teaching patients the importance of their symptoms and the appropriate action to take when their asthma deteriorates is the key to effective management of asthma. Simply prescribing peak flow meters without a system of self management and regular review will be unlikely to improve patient care.
Differences in patterns of care: reablation and nephrectomy rates after needle ablative therapy for renal masses stratified by medical specialty.

OBJECTIVE We aimed to study differences in reablation rates, modality utilization, and outcomes after renal tumor cryoablation (CA) and radiofrequency ablation (RFA), stratified by medical specialty. METHODS A literature review was performed to identify papers reporting renal RFA and CA results. Patient demographics and clinical and pathological variables were collected, as were ablation success and salvage treatment rates. RESULTS Interventional radiologists (IR) reported more experience with renal RFA than with CA (31.4% v 11.3% of all reported cases, p < 0.001). However, the majority of renal RFA and CA are performed by urologists. The percutaneous approach was used far more often with RFA than with CA, reflecting this preference by radiologists (80.9% v 23.4%, p < 0.01). The mean tumor size, cancer-specific survival rates, mean follow-up duration, and salvage nephrectomy rates were not statistically different between CA and RFA. Tumor reablation rates were significantly higher for RFA than for CA (7.4% v 0.9%, p = 0.009). RFA reablation rate correlated closely to surgeon specialty, such that 72% of reablations were reported by IR, while only 28% were performed primarily by urologists (p < 0.0001). This was despite IR being primary surgeons in only 31.4% of first tumor ablations. Salvage nephrectomy was performed more after CA than after renal RFA, probably because 89% of CA were done by urologists. There were no reablations in the laparoscopically approached cases. CONCLUSIONS Cancer-specific outcomes after renal tumor CA and RFA are similar. However, RFA has required more reablations to achieve 95% cancer-specific survival rates. IR reported more experience with RFA, and urologists reported more experience with CA. Overall, RFA and CA reablation rates are significantly higher when a percutaneous approach is used and seemed to correlate with surgeon specialty.
Loose excitation–secretion coupling in astrocytes

Astrocytes play an important housekeeping role in the central nervous system. Additionally, as secretory cells, they actively participate in cell‐to‐cell communication, which can be mediated by membrane‐bound vesicles. The gliosignaling molecules stored in these vesicles are discharged into the extracellular space after the vesicle membrane fuses with the plasma membrane. This process is termed exocytosis, regulated by SNARE proteins, and triggered by elevations in cytosolic calcium levels, which are necessary and sufficient for exocytosis in astrocytes. For astrocytic exocytosis, calcium is sourced from the intracellular endoplasmic reticulum store, although its entry from the extracellular space contributes to cytosolic calcium dynamics in astrocytes. Here, we discuss calcium management in astrocytic exocytosis and the properties of the membrane‐bound vesicles that store gliosignaling molecules, including the vesicle fusion machinery and kinetics of vesicle content discharge. In astrocytes, the delay between the increase in cytosolic calcium activity and the discharge of secretions from the vesicular lumen is orders of magnitude longer than that in neurons. This relatively loose excitation‐secretion coupling is likely tailored to the participation of astrocytes in modulating neural network processing. GLIA 2016;64:655–667
Investigating the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis in Egypt: The Role of Renewable Energy and Trade in Mitigating GHGs

This paper aims to investigate the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for Egypt during the period 1971-2012. Also, it attempts to examine the potential role of renewable energy and trade in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in Egypt. Accordingly, the study examines the dynamic relationship between the GHG emissions, economic growth (real gross domestic product [GDP] per capita), renewable energy consumption (% of total), and trade openness. Using Autoregressive Distributed Lag bounds testing approach, the empirical evidence of the EKC hypothesis is analyzed. The main findings of the analysis, concerning the validity of EKC, reveal that the EKC hypothesis does not exist for GHG emissions in Egypt for both short - and long-term. In addition, the empirical results indicate the potential significant role of renewable energy to reduce GHG emissions. However, it has been found that trade openness has insignificant impact on GHG emissions.
Urinary nitrogen constituents in the postsurgical preterm neonate receiving parenteral nutrition.

Minimal information is available defining urinary nitrogen constituents in preterm neonates receiving parenteral nutrition (PN). The study objective was to evaluate 24-hour urine collections for total urinary nitrogen (TUN), urinary urea nitrogen (UUN), and the nitrogen content in creatinine, ammonia, free amino acids, protein, hippuric acid, and uric acid at baseline (days 1 to 2 of PN and days 1 to 3 after surgery) and 7 days later in eight preterm, postsurgical neonates. Calculation of undetermined nitrogen was also completed. Comparisons with historic, normal data were made for each urinary nitrogen constituent. At baseline, PN provided 59 +/- 10 nonprotein kcal/kg.day-1 and 430 +/- 54 mg/kg.day-1. At day 7, PN provided 106 +/- 23 nonprotein kcal/kg.day-1 and 432 +/- 30 mg/kg.day-1. TUN, UUN, and protein nitrogen decreased significantly from baseline at day 7 (p < .05). The percentages of TUN as amino acids, creatinine, and uric acid nitrogen were calculated. Percent amino acid nitrogen (6.0 +/- 2.3% vs 8.4 +/- 1.5%, p < .05), percent creatinine nitrogen (1.6 +/- 0.5% vs 2.9 +/- 0.8%, p < .001) and percent uric acid nitrogen (1.7 +/- 0.9% vs 3.6 +/- 2.1%, p < .05) increased significantly at day 7. The observed urinary free amino acid nitrogen fraction represented a higher percentage of TUN both at baseline and at day 7 when compared with term neonatal reference data, whereas creatinine nitrogen, uric acid nitrogen, and protein nitrogen represented a lower percentage of TUN. However, amino acid and creatinine nitrogen as a percentage of TUN were similar to levels in milk formula-fed preterm infants. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Molecular Fingerprints of Environmental Carcinogens in Human Cancer

Identification of specific molecular changes (fingerprints) is important to identify cancer etiology. Exploitable biomarkers are related to DNA, epigenetics, and proteins. DNA adducts are the turning point between environmental exposures and biological damage. DNA mutational fingerprints are induced by carcinogens in tumor suppressor and oncogenes. In an epigenetic domain, methylation changes occurs in specific genes for arsenic, benzene, chromium, and cigarette smoke. Alteration of specific microRNA has been reported for environmental carcinogens. Benzo(a)pyrene, cadmium, coal, and wood dust hits specific heat-shock proteins and metalloproteases. The multiple analysis of these biomarkers provides information on the carcinogenic mechanisms activated by exposure to environmental carcinogens.
What’s hot in entrepreneurship research 2018?

Taking stock of what has been achieved in a particular research field, where a field currently stands, and where it might move to in the near future is an important undertaking. In this research brief, we present the results of a survey of 225 experienced entrepreneurship researchers who shared their insights on a) what topical areas are currently important in entrepreneurship research and b) what methods might be especially useful to provide interesting and relevant answers to old and new research questions. The results suggest no dramatic differences in the relevance of topics compared to our original survey conducted five years ago (Kuckertz 2013), but do indicate that the field is moving forward in terms of methods by embracing the “gold standard” of academic rigor inspired by the natural sciences (e.g., experimental designs) and by considering methods that make it possible to capture the complexity of entrepreneurial phenomena.
Pain assessment tools.

Vol 8 No 6 October 2000 This article has been subjected to double blind peer review Rachael Colley RN, BSc (Hons), PhD, is Staff Nurse, AE Robert Crouch RN, FRCN, is Consultant Nurse/Senior Lecturer, Southampton A&E Department Rachael Colley and Robert Crouch describe an observational study to examine the use of pain assessment tools (PAT) during the triage assessment of patients attending two A&E departments clinical pain assessment
Autologous Cardiomyocyte Transplantation Using a Biodegradable Polymer Scaffold

Background To achieve a more reliable way of transplanting cardiomyocytes, we conducted an autologous cardiomyocyte transplantation using a biodegradable scaffold, instead of a syringe injection, as a vehicle for transporting cells in an ovine myocardial infarction model. Materials and Methods A myocardial infarction was created in sheep using sequential ligation of the homonymous artery and its diagonal branch. Autologous cardiomyocytes from the right ventricular infundibulum were cultured and seeded onto a biodegradable polymer scaffold. Three months after creating myocardial infarction, the two animals were re-anesthetized and cardiomyocyte-seeded scaffolds were implanted in the infarcted area. The animals were kept alive for a further month, and then sacrificed for postmortem heart examinations. Light microscopic analysis and an immunohistochemical study for myoglobin were performed. Results On postmortem gross examinations, the polymer scaffolds were visible in the background of well-demarcated thin-walled anteroseptal myocardial infarcts. Microscopic analysis showed abundant myoglobin-stained cells between the fiber strands of the polymer scaffolds. However, there is a possibility that some of these cells might have been giant cells reacting to foreign material. Conclusion The transplantation of cultured autologous cardiomyocytes into an infarct region using a biodegradable scaffold instead of syringe injection provides another promising option for cardiomyocyte transplantation, which warrants further study.
Research on Hybrid-Cloud-Based User Privacy Protection of O2O Platform

O2O (Online-to-Offline) is a new rapidly growing e-commerce model. It combines offline physical business with online network marketing and electronic payment to provide convenient and efficient localized services for consumers. However, user privacy concerns have become one of the challenging issues affecting further O2O e-commerce applications. Taking the catering takeaway O2O e-commerce as an example, the user privacy and cost issues occurring in the big data era are presented through analyzing of the service model of current mainstream catering takeaway platforms. A hybrid-cloud-based privacy preserving application framework for catering takeaway O2O e-commerce is proposed. The similarities between users are calculated using SimRank model and user-restaurant relationship diagram. Considering their personalized privacy requirements, the users are grouped and anonymized. Even if the attacker obtains all the transaction information stored on the public cloud, the transaction relationship of a specific order cannot be uniquely identified. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed user privacy protection method is illustrated by an example.
Macroeconomic Modelling at the Institute: Hopes, Challenges and a Lasting Contribution

The Institute is a world leader in macroeconomic modelling and forecasting. It has produced quarterly economic forecasts for around sixty years, supported by macroeconomic models. The aim of the original builders of macroeconomic models was to transform understanding of how economies worked and use that knowledge to improve economic policy. In the early years, when computers were rare, macroeconomic modelling was a new frontier and Institute economists were among the first to produce a working model of the UK economy. It is remarkable how quickly models were being used to produce forecasts, assess policy and influence the international macroeconomic research agenda. The models built at the Institute were mainstream in the sense that they followed the contents of standard macroeconomic textbooks, developed with the subject, and fitted the facts as they were known at the time. There were continual improvements in understanding as the subject developed in response to new ideas and developments in the global economy. This article celebrates the development of macroeconomic modelling at the Institute and the contribution it has made to public life.
How Social Status Contributes to Sustainable Livelihoods? An Empirical Analysis in Ethiopia

This paper scrutinized the links between social status and income of rural households to provide insight into how social status is indicated and used as a strategy for improving livelihood income. It also provides a brief look into some selected key determinants of livelihood income. We applied a two-stage least-squares estimation to household-level data from rural areas in the Tigray regional state of Ethiopia. We also proposed the latent class analysis model to identify the number of classes for the variable “social status”. The results indicate that livelihood income is significantly affected by households’ social status, indicating that high status household heads tend to enhance their participation in different social networks with the intention of strengthening the social bonds that they have and improving their status in the community, which in turn has an economic payback. Apart from this, household heads’ access to off-farm work, size of owned land, exposure to multimedia, livestock ownership and spatial proximity to towns were the variables that have significant positive effects on livelihood income.
Parenting: what are the critical attributes?

OBJECTIVE Identifying the critical attributes of the parenting concept. MATERIAL AND METHOD The parenting attributes are the process, activity, and interaction regarding to rearing and educating a child, which is undertaken by parent or parental figure. Those aim at developing a child's growth, development, and well-being. CONCLUSION The specific parenting attributes can be applied to practice, education, and research in the area of pediatric, family and community health care.
Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 4G/5G polymorphism is associated with coronary artery disease risk: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND The aim of the current study was to evaluate the association of PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphism with coronary artery disease (CAD) risk using a meta-analysis. METHODS All eligible studies were identified through a search of PubMed, EMBASE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Database of Chinese Scientific and Technical Periodicals, and China Biology Medical literature database (CBM) before June 2014. The association between the PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphism and CAD risk was estimated by odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS A total of 72 studies including 23557 cases and 21526 controls were eventually collected. The PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphism was significant associated with CAD risk in overall population (OR=1.19, 95% CI 1.10-1.28, P < 0.00001). The combination of adjusted ORs for CAD was 1.20 (95% CI 1.03-1.40, P=0.02). This polymorphism was associated with CAD risk in Caucasians (OR=1.10, 95% CI 1.02-1.19, P=0.01) and Asians (OR=1.46, 95% CI 1.21-1.75, P < 0.0001). This polymorphism significantly increased MI risk (OR=1.15, 95% CI 1.06-1.25, P=0.001). In the subgroup analysis by age, this polymorphism was significantly associated with early-onset CAD risk (OR=1.21, 95% CI 1.02-1.43, P=0.03). In the gender subgroup analyses, a statistically significant association was found in male CAD patients (OR=1.10, 95% CI 1.01-1.20, P=0.04). Both T2DM patients and non-T2DM patients carrying 4G allele showed increased CAD risks (OR=2.23, 95% CI 1.27-3.92, P=0.005 and OR=1.64, 95% CI 1.19-2.25, P=0.002, respectively). CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis suggested that PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphism was a risk factor for CAD.