Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Public Value of Reducing the Incidence of Oil Spill Accidents in Korean Rivers

Oil spill accidents involving cars or boats for transport in rivers can contaminate drinking water sources. During the past ten years, an annual average of forty-six cases of oil spill accidents have occurred in Korean rivers. Because of this, the Korean government is seeking to reduce the incidence of oil spill accidents in rivers by half. This article aims to evaluate the public value of the reduction. Household willingness to pay (WTP) for the reduction was investigated, applying the contingent valuation approach. A survey of 1000 households was carried out in Korea. The data on the WTP were gathered using a dichotomous choice question and analyzed employing the spike model. The mean WTP estimate is obtained as KRW 6188 (USD 5.28) per household per annum, which is statistically meaningful. The total public value expanded to the population amounts to KRW 120.8 billion (USD 103.0 million) per year. The information can be utilized in policy-making and decision-making about the reduction of the incidence of oil spill accidents in rivers by half.
Propranolol reduces the anxiety associated with day case surgery.

OBJECTIVE To find out if propranolol, a non-cardioselective beta-blocker, can reduce the anxiety associated with day case surgery. DESIGN Prospective randomized double blind trial. SETTING University hospital, Ireland. SUBJECTS An unselected group of 53 patients undergoing day case surgery. INTERVENTION Subjects randomised to receive either propranolol (10 mg) or placebo on the morning of operation. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Blood pressure; pulse, anxiety, pain score and patient satisfaction. RESULTS Mean (SD) Hospital Anxiety and Depression score was significantly lower in the propranolol group than in the control group (2.5 (0.7) compared with 4.6 (0.7), p < 0.0001) before discharge. CONCLUSION A low dose of propranolol given on the morning of day case surgery significantly reduced patients' anxiety.
Shading derivation from an unspecified object for augmented reality

We propose a method to derive shading by referring to an unspecified object to synthesize CG objects realistically into an actual scene. Since our method does not require specific light probes and can be implemented with a commercial RGB + depth sensor, it is applicable to consumer environments. The method conducts spherical harmonic (SH) basis functions regression against luminance of the reference object on the basis of its surface normal. The regression is done along with regularization that constrains the ratios of weights of SH basis functions. The regularization we force is shown to be effective in eliminating ringing artifacts of derived shading. Our method should also be robust to the changing of reference objects because it may refer to various objects. Hence, we evaluated our derived shading with a perceptual indication and showed our method is able to robustly derive perceptually diffuse shading regardless of the reference object's specular reflectance property.
Estimation in Bayesian Disease Mapping

Summary Recent work on Bayesian inference of disease mapping models discusses the advantages of the fully Bayesian (FB) approach over its empirical Bayes (EB) counterpart, suggesting that FB posterior standard deviations of small‐area relative risks are more reflective of the uncertainty associated with the relative risk estimation than counterparts based on EB inference, since the latter fail to account for the variability in the estimation of the hyperparameters. In this article, an EB bootstrap methodology for relative risk inference with accurate parametric EB confidence intervals is developed, illustrated, and contrasted with the hyperprior Bayes. We elucidate the close connection between the EB bootstrap methodology and hyperprior Bayes, present a comparison between FB inference via hybrid Markov chain Monte Carlo and EB inference via penalized quasi‐likelihood, and illustrate the ability of parametric bootstrap procedures to adjust for the undercoverage in the “naive” EB interval estimates. We discuss the important roles that FB and EB methods play in risk inference, map interpretation, and real‐life applications. The work is motivated by a recent analysis of small‐area infant mortality rates in the province of British Columbia in Canada.
: 1 H I Delay Performance for Supporting Real-time Traffic in a Cognitive Radio Sensor Network

Traditional wireless sensor networks (WSNs) working in the license-free spectrum suffer from uncontrolled interference as the license-free spectrum becomes increasingly crowded. Designing a WSN based on cognitive radio can be promising in the near future in order to provide data transmissions with quality of service requirements. In this thesis, we introduce a cognitive radio sensor network (CRSN) and analyze its performance for supporting real-time traffic. The network devices opportunistically access vacant (or available) channels in the licensed spectrum. When the current channel becomes unavailable, the devices can switch to a new channel. Three types of real-time traffic are considered, constant-bit-rate (CBR) traffic, bursty traffic, and Poisson traffic. For the CBR traffic, a fixed number of packets are generated periodically; for the bursty traffic, a burst of packets are generated periodically and the number of packets in each burst is random; and for the Poisson traffic, the packet arrivals follow Poisson process. We derive the average packet transmission delay for each type of the traffic. The analytical results are verified by computer simulations. Our results indicate that real-time traffic can be effectively supported in the CRSN, and packets with the Poisson arrivals may experience longer average delay than the bursty arrivals.
GDP dynamics and unemployment changes in developed and developing countries

ABSTRACT We design a new specification of Okun’s model that takes the following features into account: estimation of the relation in first differences, the possible lagged effect of GDP dynamics on unemployment changes, the persistence of unemployment rate dynamics, the possible different values of Okun coefficients under recession (with respect to periods of increases in GDP), the existence of cross-country institutional and structural differences (i.e. country-specific Okun coefficients), the additional effect on unemployment caused by large adverse shocks such as financial crises. A distinctive feature of this article is its consideration of a large set of countries for which we find differentiated Okun coefficients. Moreover, we focus in particular on the distinction between developed and developing countries, and on the additional impact of financial crises. From an econometric point of view, the model developed belongs in the family of linear mixed-effects models. The estimation method uses an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. Our results confirm the general validity of ‘Okun’s law’; they show the Okun coefficient differences between high- and low-income countries; and they evidence an additional impact of some types of financial crisis on the unemployment dynamics of developed economies.
Instrument Validity in Manuscripts Published in the Journal of Agricultural Education between 2007 and 2016

We examined authors’ treatment of instrument validity in a stratified random sample (n = 94) of quantitative studies published in the Journal of Agricultural Education from 2007 to 2016. A majority (78.7%) of studies reported use of either a researcher-developed instrument (41.5%) or an existing instrument modified by the researchers (37.2%). In 67.0% of articles, authors validated the instrument for the study reported; in 16.0%, the authors claimed instrument validity based on previous studies. Authors made no claim for instrument validity in 11.7% of articles and claimed an unspecified form of validity in another 11.7%. Among the 72 articles where specific validity claims were made, 67 (93.1%) claimed face and content validity, either alone or in combination with other forms of validity. Claims for content, concurrent, and discriminant validity, either alone or in combination with other forms of validity, were made in 11 (15.3%) of the 72 articles. Among 70 articles claiming face, content, or construct validity, 91.4% included a description of the validation panel; panelists were most often described as ‘experts’ (70.3%), although their area(s) of expertise were specified in only 29.7% of articles. We conclude with specific recommendations intended to shift the profession’s subjective norms related to instrument validity.
Moving From Federated to Integrated Architectures in Automotive: The Role of Standards, Methods and Tools

Cost pressure, flexibility, extensibility and the need for coping with increased functional complexity are changing the fundamental paradigms for the definition of automotive and aeronautics architectures. Traditional designs are based on the concept of a Federated Architecture in which integrated hardware/software components [Electronic Control Units (ECUs)] realize mostly independent or loosely interconnected functions. These components are connected by bus and cooperate by exchanging messages. This paradigm is now being replaced by the Integrated Architecture, - the concept comes from Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) introduced by the avionics community (see C. B. Watkins and R. Walter, ? Transitioning from federated avionics architectures to integrated modular avionics? , in Proc. 26th Digital Avionics Syst. Conf., Oct. 2007) but it is certainly general and applicable to other fields and in particular, automotive - in which software components can be supplied from multiple sources, integrated on the same hardware platform or physically distributed and possibly moved from one CPU to another without loss of functional and time correctness and providing a guaranteed level of reliability. This shift will decouple software design from the hardware platform design and provide opportunities for the optimization of the architecture configuration, increased extensibility, flexibility and modularity. However, the integration of software components in a distributed system realizing a complex functional behavior and characterized by safety, time and reliability constraints requires a much tighter control on the component model and its semantics, new methods and tools for analyzing the results of the composition, whether by simulation or formal methods, and methods for exploring the architecture solution space and optimizing the configuration. We provide a general overview of existing challenges and possible solutions to the design and analysis problem, with special focus on the automotive domain. The development of such methods and tools must necessarily consider compatibility with existing modeling languages and standards, including UML, AUTOSAR and synchronous reactive models, on which the widely used commercial products Simulink and SCADE are based.
Analysis of temporal and spatial expression of the CcaR regulatory element in the cephamycin C biosynthetic pathway using green fluorescent protein

The DNA‐binding capability of a key secondary metabolite regulatory element (CcaR) in the Streptomyces clavuligerus cephamycin C pathway was investigated by gel mobility retardation and DNase I footprinting analysis. These results revealed that CcaR specifically binds to the promoter region of the lysine‐ε‐aminotransferase gene (lat). Green fluorescent protein (GFP) was subsequently used as a reporter to analyse in vivo expression of CcaR. The corresponding isogenic strain containing ccaR::gfp in the chromosome produced cephamycin C at levels similar to those of wild‐type S. clavuligerus. Confocal laser scanning microscopy revealed that expression of CcaR in liquid culture was temporally dynamic and spatially heterogeneous in S. clavuligerus mycelia. The highly fluorescent seed culture mycelia quickly lost fluorescence upon inoculation into fresh culture medium. The characteristic green colour reappeared in a small portion of mycelia during mid‐exponential growth phase. As the culture aged, the population expressing CcaR expanded, and the expression level increased. This was followed by a reduction in the CcaR‐expressing population towards the end of the culture period. During peak expression, CcaR was distributed uniformly in mycelia, but became localized distal to the chromosome when the culture entered stationary phase. In solid phase analysis, abundant CcaR expression was evident in the substrate mycelia, but was completely absent in aerial hyphae. These results show regulatory linkage between ccaR and lat, whose expression profile showed a similar spatial decoupling between morphogenesis and antibiotic production. In addition, visualizing CcaR within S. clavuligerus mycelia demonstrates a distinct pattern of localization over the course of physiological differentiation.
Privatization and nationalization cycles

This paper studies the cycles of nationalization and privatization in resource-rich economies as a prime instance of unstable institutional reform. The authors discuss the available evidence on the drivers and consequences of privatization and nationalization, review the existing literature, and present illustrative case studies. This leads to the main contribution of the paper: a static and dynamic model of the choice between private and national regimes for the ownership of natural resources. In the model, the basic tradeoff is given by equality (national ownership) versus efficiency (private ownership). The connection between resource ownership and the equality-efficiency tradeoff is given by the incentives for effort that each regime elicits from workers. The resolution of the tradeoff depends on external and domestic conditions that affect the value of social welfare under each regime. This leads to a discussion of how external conditionssuch as the commodity priceand domestic conditionssuch as the tax system-- affect the choice of private vs. national regimes. In particular, the analysis identifies the determinants of the observed cycles of privatization and nationalization.
Muscle glycogen availability and temperature regulation in humans.

The effects of intramuscular glycogen availability on human temperature regulation were studied in eight seminude subjects immersed in 18 degrees C water for 90 min or until rectal temperature (Tre) decreased to 35.5 degrees C. Each subject was immersed three times over a 3-wk period. Each immersion followed 2.5 days of a specific dietary and/or exercise regimen designed to elicit low (L), normal (N), or high (H) glycogen levels in large skeletal muscle groups. Muscle glycogen concentration was determined in biopsies taken from the vastus lateralis muscle before and after each immersion. Intramuscular glycogen concentration before the immersion was significantly different among the L, N, and H trials (P less than 0.01), averaging 247 +/- 15, 406 +/- 23, and 548 +/- 42 (SE) mmol glucose units.kg dry muscle-1, respectively. The calculated metabolic heat production during the first 30 min of immersion was significantly lower during L compared with N or H (P less than 0.05). The rate at which Tre decreased was more rapid during the L immersion than either N or H (P less than 0.05), and the time during the immersion at which Tre first began to decrease also appeared sooner during L than N or H. The results suggest that low skeletal muscle glycogen levels are associated with more rapid body cooling during water immersion in humans. Higher than normal muscle glycogen levels, however, do not increase cold tolerance.
Efficiency of the Indian Stock Market : An Empirical Study

Based on an analysis of 70 companies listed in the ‘A’ list category on the Bombay Stock Exchange, this paper by Belgaumi is an attempt to test the weak form efficiency of the Indian stock market. By subjecting the weekly share prices to Serial Correlation Analysis and Runs Test, the author finds that the Indian stock exchanges are efficient in the weak form and that the independence assumption regarding the movements of share prices over short period holds good.
Activity and Distribution of Methane-Oxidizing Bacteria in Flooded Rice Soil Microcosms and in Rice Plants (Oryza sativa)

The activity and distribution of CH(inf4)-oxidizing bacteria (MOB) in flooded rice (Oryza sativa) soil microcosms was investigated. CH(inf4) oxidation was shown to occur in undisturbed microcosms by using (sup14)CH(inf4), and model calculations indicated that almost 90% of the oxidation measured had taken place at a depth where only roots could provide the O(inf2) necessary. Slurry from soil planted with rice had an apparent K(infm) for CH(inf4) of 4 (mu)M and a V(infmax) of 0.1 (mu)mol g (dry weight)(sup-1) h(sup-1). At a depth of 1 to 2 cm, there was no significant difference (P > 0.05) in numbers of MOB between soil from planted and nonplanted microcosms (mean, 7.7 x 10(sup5) g [fresh weight](sup-1)). Thus, the densely rooted soil at 1 to 2 cm deep did not represent rhizospheric soil with respect to the number of MOB. A significantly increased number of MOB was found only in soil immediately around the roots (1.2 x 10(sup6) g [fresh weight](sup-1)), corresponding to a layer of 0.1 to 0.2 mm. Plant-associated CH(inf4) oxidation was shown in a double chamber with carefully washed intact rice plants. Up to 90% of the CH(inf4) supplied to the root compartment was oxidized in the plants. CH(inf4) oxidation on isolated roots was higher and had a larger variability than that in soil slurries. Roots had an apparent K(infm) for CH(inf4) of 6 (mu)M and a V(infmax) of 5 (mu)mol g (dry weight)(sup-1) h(sup-1). The average number of MOB in homogenized roots was larger than on the rhizoplane and increased with plant age. MOB also were found in surface-sterilized roots and basal culms, indicating the ability of these bacteria to colonize the interior of roots and culms.
The relationship between circulating osteoprotegerin levels and bone mineral metabolism in healthy women

objective Osteoprotegerin (OPG) is a recently identified cytokine that acts as a decoy receptor for the RANK ligand. Moreover, OPG has been shown to be an important inhibitor of osteoclastogenesis in animal models. However, the relationship between circulating OPG levels and female bone status in human populations is unclear. In this study we undertook to investigate the relationship between circulating OPG levels and bone mineral metabolism in healthy women.
Positioning urban buses: GNSS performances

GNSS present an interesting solution for lots of operational urban public transport modes because of their independence of infrastructure and land equipments. However, their performances have to be evaluated and sometimes enhanced. This paper will present the development of the ANGO localization solution devoted to urban guided buses. GNSS accuracy has been estimated along the line from simulations and experimental campaigns.
Optimisation of ultrasound-assisted extraction of puerarin and total isoflavones from Puerariae Lobatae Radix (Pueraria lobata (Wild.) Ohwi) with response surface methodology.

INTRODUCTION Isoflavones, particularly puerarin, are a group of important components from Puerariae Lobatae Radix (PLR) which show diverse pharmacological activities, therefore giving rise to the development of various extraction methods. Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) has been explored for isoflavone extraction from PLR as it provides higher extraction efficiency compared with traditional methods. OBJECTIVE To optimise the UAE conditions for puerarin and total isoflavone extraction from PLR using response surface methodology (RSM). METHODOLOGY Samples were prepared by use of ultrasound-assisted extraction, and then subjected to HPLC analysis. Box-Behnken Design (BBD), a widely used form of RSM, was used for the optimisation of the UAE process. RESULTS The effects of ethanol concentration, extraction time and the solvent-to-material ratio on the yields of puerarin and total isoflavones were investigated. The Box-Behnken experimental results demonstrate that optimal extraction was obtained with an ethanol concentration of 71.35%, an extraction time of 49.08 min and a solvent-to-material ratio of 21.72 for puerarin, and an ethanol concentration of 80.00%, an extraction time of 55.00 min and a solvent-to-material ratio of 12.81 for total isoflavones. The yields of puerarin and total isoflavones were 41 ± 0.63 mg/g and 128 ± 0.82 mg/g, respectively, under the optimised extraction conditions, which are in agreement with the values predicted by the RSM. CONCLUSION The RSM allows for optimising the extraction parameters such that maximum extraction of puerarin and total isoflavones was achieved experimentally.
A New Approach to Evidence Synthesis in Traumatic Brain Injury: A Living Systematic Review

Living systematic reviews (LSRs) are online summaries of health care research that are updated as new research becomes available. This new development in evidence synthesis is being trialled as part of the Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury (CENTER-TBI) project. We will develop and sustain an international TBI knowledge community that maintains up-to-date, high quality LSRs of the current state of knowledge in the most important questions in TBI. Automatic search updates will be run three-monthly, and newly identified studies incorporated into the review. Review teams will seek to publish journal updates at regular intervals, with abridged updates available more frequently online. Future project stages include the integration of LSR and other study findings into “living” clinical practice guidance. It is hoped these efforts will go some way to bridging current temporal disconnects between evidence, guidelines, and practice in TBI.
High work function metal oxides for the hole contact of silicon solar Cells

The applicability of molybdenum, tungsten and vanadium oxide as a hole contact for silicon wafer based solar cells is explored. The Si heterojunctions for which these materials are in direct contact with the c-Si absorber, featuring an additional a-Si:H passivation layer or where these materials are used as an additional contact layer in-between the TCO / a-Si:H(p) Schottky contact are addressed. Compared to the standard TCO / a-Si:H(p) / a-Si:H(i) / c-Si heterojunction an efficiency (1 %abs) and fill factor gain (1.5 %abs) is obtained if a-Si:H(p) is replaced by molybdenum and if tungsten oxide is applied as an additional contact layer at the TCO / a-Si:H(p) contact. For the simple structure without intrinsic and doped a-Si:H and tungsten or vanadium oxide in direct contact to the c-Si absorber, efficiencies comparable to the reference were obtained.