Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A QCM Sensor Array-Based Electronic Tongue With the Optimized Oscillator Circuit Using FPGA

In this paper, an electronic tongue (ET) based on a quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor array was designed and the methods for sensor data analysis were described. In this regard, as chemical sensors, QCM crystals coated with three different phthalocyanines were employed to discriminate toxic chemicals in liquid media. For sensors’ preparation, an automatic coating instrument was developed based on the airbrush technique. The oscillator circuits used in the coating instrument and measurement setup were optimized to minimize the noise and mutual interference of the other oscillator circuits in the sensor array. The designed measurement system, which was responsible for collecting and storing data, communicating with a computer, consisted of a field-programmable gate-array-based control unit. The measurement system collected training data from the sensor array, and then computer application using MATLAB used an artificial neural network to find the composition of toxic chemicals in the sample water. The measurement system was tested for three different toxic chemicals, and the average success rate in predicting them was 4.08%. The desired chemicals can be detectable by preparing the necessary sensor array with the proposed ET.
An FPGA-based MVDR Beamformer Using Dichotomous Coordinate Descent Iterations

The FPGA design of an adaptive antenna array beamformer is presented. The complex-valued array weights are calculated using the MVDR algorithm whose implementation is based on dichotomous coordinate descent (DCD) iterations. The DCD algorithm allows the multiplication-free solution of the normal equations, resulting in an area-efficient FPGA design that requires approximately 400 slices for the DCD core. Antenna beampatterns obtained from weights calculated in the fixed-point FPGA platform are compared with those of a floating-point simulation. The comparison shows good match of the results for linear arrays of as large as 64 elements. For a 64-element array, the proposed design could provide a weight update rate as high as 28 kHz.
A micro-computed tomography evaluation of long-oval canal preparation using reciprocating or rotary systems.

AIM To evaluate, using micro-computed tomography, the preparation of long-oval root canals using a single reciprocating system versus a multiple-file rotary system. METHODOLOGY Distal canals of thirty mandibular molars were selected and randomly assigned to one of two instrument groups (n = 15): Reciproc 40 (VDW, Munich, Germany) or BioRaCe system (FKG Dentaire, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland). The teeth were scanned before and after preparation of the canal by a SkyScan 1172 micro-computed tomography scanner at 11-μm resolution. Morphometric variations were measured by volume increases and by the remaining untreated canal surface area in the entire canal and as well as in each third of the canal. Data were compared using the Mann-Whitney test. RESULTS The Reciproc system left significantly more areas untouched (P < 0.001) in the cervical and middle thirds (18.14% and 21.82%) as compared to BioRaCe (8.14% and 11.35%). The Reciproc system had the greatest increase in volume of both the entire canal and the apical third (P < 0.5). CONCLUSIONS Neither technique was able to completely prepare the outline of long-oval canals. The Reciproc system removed more tooth structure. The BioRaCe left fewer untouched dentine walls in the more coronal thirds of the canal, whilst Reciproc left fewer in the apical third.
Minzhu guanli: the democratization of factory management in the Chinese revolution

From 1948 to 1951, the Chinese Communist Party attempted to implement a policy of ‘democratic management’ in urban industry. Minzhu guanli entailed various, sometimes contradictory elements including worker participation in management organs, the rationalization of factory production, and improvements in worker welfare. It was hoped that such reforms would not only help to build up working-class support for the revolutionary party, but would also improve production by relying on the initiative and creativity of the ‘worker masses’. Although short-lived and largely unsuccessful, experiments with democratic management in state-run factories in the early years of the People's Republic represent one of the most ambitious efforts to overcome capitalist relations of production. Although the CCP never went so far as to advocate worker control along syndicalist lines, minzhu guanli was aimed, in part, at overcoming alienation and the separation of decision making and implementation at the factory level. This paper draws upon diverse sources reporting on experiments with ‘democratic management’ throughout China. It assesses the conditions surrounding the implementation of participatory forms of factory management in order to determine which factors facilitated or hindered such reforms. The discussion includes a wide range of industrial enterprises and groups of workers in order to illuminate the underlying structures that conditioned the success or failure of democratic management. The concluding section traces the fate of minzhu guanli to the present day and assesses the implications of these experiences for China's experiment in socialism.
Determinants of volatility on international tourism demand for South Korea: an empirical note

This article examines volatility and its determinants of international tourism demand for Korea. Based on the exponential generalized autoregressive heteroskedasticity model, some evidences are found such that the leverage effects are presented in the tourism demand, and the determinants of volatility are country specific. The finding illustrates that the specific characteristics of a particular origin country should be taken into account to develop policies or plans for tourism industries.
Lynch syndrome-related small intestinal adenocarcinomas

Lynch syndrome is an autosomal-dominant disorder caused by defective DNA mismatch repair (MMR) genes and is associated with increased risk of malignancies in multiple organs. Small-intestinal adenocarcinomas are common initial manifestations of Lynch syndrome. To define the incidence and characteristics of Lynch syndrome-related small-intestinal adenocarcinomas, meticulous familial and clinical histories were obtained from 195 patients with small-intestinal adenocarcinoma, and MMR protein immunohistochemistry, microsatellite instability, MLH1 methylation, and germline mutational analyses were performed. Lynch syndrome was confirmed in eight patients (4%), all of whom had synchronous/metachronous malignancies without noticeable familial histories. Small-intestinal adenocarcinomas were the first clinical manifestation in 37% (3/8) of Lynch syndrome patients, and second malignancies developed within 5 years in 63% (5/8). The patients with accompanying Lynch syndrome were younger (≤50 years; P=0.04) and more likely to have mucinous adenocarcinomas (P=0.003), and tended to survive longer (P=0.11) than those with sporadic cases. A meticulous patient history taking, MMR protein immunolabeling, and germline MMR gene mutational analysis are important for the diagnosis of Lynch syndrome-related small-intestinal adenocarcinomas. Identifying Lynch syndrome in patients with small-intestinal adenocarcinoma can be beneficial for the early detection and treatment of additional Lynch syndrome-related cancers, especially in patients who are young or have mucinous adenocarcinomas.
Societal Preferences, Partisan Agents, and Monetary Policy Outcomes

If different producer groups have divergent interests concerning macroeconomic policies, how do societal preferences translate into state policy outcomes? I develop and test a party-as-agent framework for understanding the importance of societal preferences with regard to monetary policy under capital mobility. Following the principal-agent model, political parties function as agents for different societal principals. Rightist parties tend to represent internationally oriented business groups with preferences for monetary convergence, while leftist parties do the same for domestically oriented groups preferring monetary autonomy under capital mobility. I present statistical evidence showing that OECD leftist governments have been associated with more monetary autonomy and currency variability than their rightist counterparts, even after controlling for basic economic indicators such as inflation. The statistical evidence also shows that societal group size tends not to explain either autonomous monetary policy choices or exchangerate stability. Thus even large and wealthy societal groups may be unable to obtain their preferred policy outcome when their respective partisan agents do not hold government power.
Early Childhood Education: The Sustainability of the Benefits of Preschool Participation in Abbott Districts.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THE BENEFITS OF PRESCHOOL PARTICIPATION IN ABBOTT DISTRICTS The landmark New Jersey Supreme Court school funding case, Abbott v. Burke, established the availability of preschool for all threeand four-year-olds living within the state's thirty-one poorest districts as a means of eradicating the effects of poverty. Longitudinal studies have shown the value of high quality preschool programs for improving student achievement, immediately and well into adulthood. This quantitative study examines the sustainability of the benefits of high-quality preschool in an Abbott District. This research examines to what extent academic achievement in third grade is influenced by continuous enrollment, by comparing the differences in academic outcomes between students who have a history of continuous enrollment in the same school and those who have changed schools since preschool or those who have never attended preschool in the district. Links between participation in preschool and mobility support the contention that preschool participation positively impacts student achievement, while mobility negatively impacts the sustainability of benefits. Seven questions guided the researcher in investigating how the interaction of preschool participation and socioeconomic status, gender, mobility, absences; and a school's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) status affects the sustainability of benefits through the third grade, as measured by the State-mandated assessment in language arts literacy and mathematics. Results align with the literature and identify participation in a quality preschool program as a primary factor affecting student achievement. Findings captured pertinent information as to how participation in a quality preschool is sustained through the third grade, especially for students who remain at the same school. Mobility negatively impacts student achievement and the sustainability of benefits of preschool participation. This study revealed that the school's NCLB status is negatively associated with the benefits of preschool participation. The sustainability of benefits for students enrolled in schools that failed to meet the adequate yearly progress, as monitored by NCLB Legislation, is lower than for students enrolled in schools that meet all the requirements. Additionally, when a school fails to meet NCLB's requirements for three years in a row, the benefits are sustained the least, and once the school implements interventions, students' achievement improves. As schools start to implement interventions to change the school's status, student achievement is better sustained all the way through the third grade. Student attendance, gender, and socioeconomic status do not affect the sustainability of the benefits of preschool participation. In summary, the academic benefits of preschool participation are sustained through the third grade, but when students move between schools the
Genotyping of Mycobacterium leprae on the Basis of the Polymorphism of TTC Repeats for Analysis of Leprosy Transmission

ABSTRACT The polymorphism of TTC repeats in Mycobacterium leprae was examined using the bacilli obtained from residents in villages at North Maluku where M. leprae infections are highly endemic (as well as from patients at North Sulawesi of Indonesia) to elucidate the possible mode of leprosy transmission. TTC genotypes are stable for several generations of passages in nude mice footpads and, hence, are feasible for the genotyping of isolates and epidemiological analysis of leprosy transmission. It was found that bacilli with different TTC genotypes were distributed among residents at the same dwelling in villages in which leprosy is endemic and that some household contacts harbored bacilli with a different genotype from that harbored by the patient. Investigations of a father-and-son pair of patients indicated that infections of bacilli with 10 and 18 copies, respectively, had occurred. Genotypes of TTC repeats were found to differ between a son under treatment and two brothers. These results reveal the possibility that in addition to exposure via the presence of a leprosy patient with a multibacillary infection who was living with family members, there might have been some infectious sources to which the residents had been commonly exposed outside the dwellings. A limited discriminative capacity of the TTC polymorphism in the epidemiological analysis implies the need of searching other useful polymorphic loci for detailed subdivision of clinical isolates.
Clonal groups of high‐level gentamicin‐resistant Enterococcus faecium isolated from municipal wastewater and clinical samples in Tehran, Iran

Aims: Clonality among high‐level gentamicin‐resistant Enterococcus faecium (HLGR‐EF) isolates obtained from clinical and sewage treatment plants (STP) were investigated using PhePlate system (PhP), ribotyping and pulsed‐field gel electrophoresis (PFGE).
Overeducation, undereducation and the British labour market

This paper addresses the issue of overeducation and undereducation using for the first time a British dataset which contains explicit information on the level of required education to enter a job across the generality of occupations. Three key issues within the overeducation literature are addressed. First, what determines the existence of over and undereducation and to what extent are over and undereducation substitutes for experience, tenure and training? Second, to what extent are over and undereducation temporary or permanent phenomena? Third, what are the returns to over and undereducation and do certain stylized facts discovered for the US and a number of European countries hold for Britain?
Information And Communication Technology And The Measurement Of Volume Output And Final Demand - A Five-Country Study

Information and communication technology (ICT) products have undergone rapid technical change. Where quality improvements occur, they should be reflected in official price and quantity indices, otherwise there is a tendency to over-estimate price movements and under-estimate volume changes of ICT products. Statistical offices deal with this issue but the degree and nature of quality-adjustment of price indices of ICT products varies considerably between OECD countries. The present study simulates measurement effects on key economic variables (real output, private final consumption, government expenditure, investment, exports and imports) and productivity, under the assumption that the price indices of ICT products are fully quality-adjusted. The paper draws on a large selection of empirical studies to identify differences between quality-adjusted and unadjusted price changes and uses detailed information from input-output tables to assess their weights in final demand. Effects on GDP and its components are quantified for five selected OECD countries.
Exceptional disease courses after the use of CAM: selection, registration, medical assessment, and research. an international perspective.

OBJECTIVES To describe the different approaches that investigators in several countries have used to obtain, register, assess, and research exceptional case histories after the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). METHODS Searches have been carried out currently in the databases PubMed and MEDLINE((R)) using the keywords: exceptional disease course/best and worst cases/best-case series + use of CAM. We have only found a few papers limited to best-case series and cancer. Furthermore, we have used the "snowball method" by contacting researchers in different countries starting with with the National Cancer Institute in the United States in order to get information about ongoing approaches to obtain, register, assess, and research exceptional case histories after the use of CAM. RESULTS There appears to be a gap between "evidence-based" knowledge drawn from randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses and experience-based knowledge of treatment outcomes reported by patients and CAM providers. Several research groups in different countries have initiated studies on patients experiencing exceptional treatment outcomes after the use of CAM. Four different approaches to collecting and assessing such case histories have been identified. Three of the approaches collect histories from the treatment providers, whereas the fourth recruits case histories mainly from patients themselves. The medical assessments are generally similar, and seek to document whether the course of disease is different than would have been expected in a conventional treatment situation. CONCLUSIONS Given differences in the current procedures, the establishment of an international formal collaboration for the recruitment, assessment, and study of exceptional patients is likely to take time. Comparative studies may, however, generate new knowledge about exceptional disease courses across disease categories, cultural contexts, and national boundaries. Our recommendations are that therapeutic approaches that show promising results should warrant prospective study and randomized clinical trials. In addition we recommend that there be (1) agreement on the definition of an exceptional patient, (2) agreement on the interpretation of treatment results, (3) agreement on content requirements of medical records, (4) more consideration of worst cases, (5) more international exchange of experience with registration procedures, and (6) more international exchange of experience with medical assessment procedures.
Infrequent Housing Adjustment, Limited Participation, and Monetary Policy

This paper asks why monetary contractions have strong effects on the housing market. The paper presents a model with staggered housing adjustment in which monetary policy has real effects in the absence of any rigidity in producer pricing or wages. Limited participation in financial markets leads to a rise in the real mortgage rate following an increase in the nominal short rate. Since households must take on a mortgage to consume housing, the rise in the real interest rate reduces the share of residential investment in output.
Detecting periodically collapsing bubbles: a Markov‐switching unit root test

This paper addresses the problem of testing for the presence of a stochastic bubble in a time series in the case that the bubble is periodically collapsing so that the asset price keeps returning to the level implied by the market fundamentals. As this is essentially a problem of identifying the collapsing periods from the expanding ones, we propose using a generalization of the Dickey-Fuller test procedure which makes use of the class of Markov regime-switching models. The potential of the new methodology is illustrated via simulation, and an empirical example is given.
Residential segregation and employment outcomes of rural migrant workers in China

In China, many rural migrant workers live in urbanising villages that are usually located in peripheral areas of major cities. Different from the spatial mismatch literature in which locations of minorities in the US are constrained by racial discrimination in the housing market, the residential segregation of rural migrant workers in China is largely due to China’s unique institutional context (e.g. land tenure system, hukou system) and the exclusionary housing regulations. Those living in these urbanising villages could incur both negative spatial mismatch effects and positive spillover effects. Through a survey across four mega-regions in China that are currently experiencing the most rapid urbanisation, we collect unique information on rural migrant workers’ attitudes towards living in urbanising villages, and therefore are able to address the self-selection bias that has broadly existed in many previous studies on residential segregation and spatial mismatch. The models show that the net effect of residential segregation in urbanising villages on migrant workers’ employment outcomes (both employment propensity and wage) appears to be positive, suggesting the spillover effects override the spatial mismatch effects. Current policy proposals by government officials to demolish urbanising villages should be accompanied by alternative policies to assist with housing migrant workers in appropriate locations that not only reduce spatial mismatch effects but also maintain positive spillover effects.
A novel method for spatio-temporal pattern analysis of brain fMRI data

A novel data processing procedure for fMRI was suggested in this paper, by which spatial and temporal characteristics of stimuli-induced signal dynamic responses can be investigated simultaneously. First the multitaper spectral estimation was utilized to estimate the spectrum of each voxel; the significance of the line frequency components at the interested frequency was tested to detect the task-related cortex areas; the temporal independent component analysis (tICA) was then applied to the activated voxels to obtain stimuli-induced signal dynamic responses. The advantages of this procedure are: few assumptions are needed for the cerebral hemodynamics and spatial distribution of task-related areas, problems which often appear in tICA analysis of fMRI data, such as the lack of stability, reliability and robustness, are overcome by the suggested method.
Teacher-Community Cooperation to Promote Sustainability of Wetlands in Kenya

This study was undertaken with 83 teachers from 54 primary schools in Kenya. Its purpose was to establish how teachers relate with the local community and how they harness this interaction to promote sustainability of wetlands within their locality. Data were collected using questionnaires, interviews and observation. Results of the study indicated that teachers acknowledge the value of, and threats to, their local wetlands. Some teachers reported interacting and engaging in diverse activities with members of the community to conserve the local wetlands. Forums for interaction and action mentioned by the teachers included public baraza, women’s groups, church, youth groups, local community, parents’ meetings and environmental days. Use of these forums differed. The approaches used to involve the community in awareness and action ranged from theoretical arguments to visits to wetlands, use of wetland resources, ecomanagement and political action. The responses by teachers revealed lack of engagement with the real local wetland problems. This study demonstrated existence of a potential but under-utilised opportunity that can be harnessed by environmental education programmes to champion the sustainability of wetlands.