Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implementation of digital lock-in and concentration measurement for Wavelength Modulation Spectroscopy (WMS) based sensors using MATLAB

Wavelength Modulation Spectroscopy (WMS) using tunable diode laser is a versatile method for determination of concentration, temperature and velocity of absorbing gaseous molecules. This technique finds major application in industrial and scientific areas. An important component of sensors/systems based on these techniques is the phase sensitive detection for demodulation, in the form of hardware or software based lock-in amplifier. This paper presents the details of (a) a MATLAB based Digital Lock-in amplifier technique for extraction of harmonics (1f & 2f), from the wavelength modulated optical absorption signal, and (b) a MATLAB based program for calculating the oxygen concentration from 1f and 2f harmonics. The oxygen concentration has been measured using MATLAB implemented digital lock-in-amplifier and concentration computation formula. The deviation in the measured Oxygen concentration from the actual Oxygen concentration supplied through the mass flow controllers is less than 1%. The oxygen concentration measured using digital Lock-in amplifier has a deviation within 0.2% as compared to measurement from hardware measuring device.
Demonstration of a molybdenum- and vanadium-independent nitrogenase in a nifHDK-deletion mutant of Rhodobacter capsulatus.

In Rhodobacter capsulatus there exists, in addition to a conventional Mo-containing nitrogenase, a second, Mo-indendent nitrogenase which was demonstrated in wild-type cells as well as in cells of a nifHDK- mutant. To construct this R. capsulatus mutant, a 4-kb BglII-HindIII fragment encompassing nifK, nifD and most of the nifH coding region was substituted by an interposon coding for kanamycin resistance. The alternative nitrogenase is repressed by molybdenum. Mo concentration greater than 1 ppb in the growth medium prevented diazotrophic growth of nifHDK- cells and the expression of nitrogenase activity. The Mo-independent nitrogenase was maximally derepressed in activated carbon-treated media which contained less than 0.05 ppb Mo, high concentrations of iron (1 mM ferric citrate) and serine as N source. Under N2-fixing and optimal Mo-deficient conditions, nifHDK- cells grew with a doubling time of 9 h. The highest activity achieved with whole cells was 1.2 nmol ethylene.min-1.mg protein-1. Vanadium neither stimulated nor inhibited growth and activity. The alternative nitrogenase reduced acetylene to both ethylene and ethane. With whole cells (nifHDK-) the proportion of ethane varied over 2-5% depending on the amount of residual traces of Mo in the medium. The addition of Mo to a growing, nitrogenase-active culture resulted in a slow decrease of total activity but also in a simultaneous increase of ethane production up to 40%. In contrast, cell-free extracts and the purified enzyme did not show any or only very little ethane formation (0-0.4%). Both enzyme components appeared to be very labile proteins. Component 2 lost almost all its activity during cell breakage. With component 1 in crude extracts, if complemented with the stable component 2 of the Mo-nitrogenase from Xanthobacter autotrophicus, a recovery of 50% of the original whole cell activity could be achieved. During purification, component 1 (from the nifHDK- mutant) remained remarkably stable. The partially purified component 1 had a pH optimum (acetylene reduction) of 7.8-8.0, relatively high affinity to acetylene (Km = 0.055 mM) and was analyzed to contain 20 mol Fe atoms/mol protein, 0.2 mol Mo atoms and negligible amounts of V, W and Re. The dithionite-reduced dinitrogenase appeared to be ESR-silent. The results indicate that the alternative nitrogenase of R. capsulatus is not a vanadium enzyme but rather a heterometal-free Fe-nitrogenase or a nitrogenase with an as-yet-unidentified heterometal atom.
Fibrinogen fragments and platelet dysfunction in uremia.

BACKGROUND The uremic state is characterized by subnormal platelet aggregation. Fibrinogen fragments, usually absent in normal human blood, but present in uremic plasma, may play a role in uremic platelet dysfunction. METHODS To examine this hypothesis, we investigated the availability and function of fibrinogen receptors [glycoprotein (GP) IIb-IIIa] on uremic and normal platelets, as well as the effect of fragments obtained from chymotrypsin digestion of human fibrinogen on normal platelets. The availability of fibrinogen receptors was examined using anti-GP IIb-IIIa antibodies and flow cytometry, whereas receptor function was assessed by the receptor's ability to mediate fibrinogen binding and platelet aggregation. RESULTS Platelet aggregation and the availability of GP IIb-IIIa were lower in uremic patients when compared with normal controls. Flow cytometric analysis showed that fibrinogen fragments decreased the binding of anti-CD61, an activation-independent anti-GP IIIa monoclonal antibody, to resting normal platelets. These fragments also reduced the binding of PAC-1, an activation-dependent anti-GP IIb-IIIa monoclonal antibody, to adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-activated normal platelets. In addition, the binding of radiolabeled fibrinogen to activated normal platelets and platelet aggregation in response to ADP were both decreased by fibrinogen fragments. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that fibrinogen fragments impair platelet function by occupying fibrinogen receptors prior to cell activation, thus preventing the binding of intact fibrinogen to platelets after subsequent stimulation. These observations also suggest a plausible mechanism by which endogenous fibrinogen fragments present in uremic plasma may contribute to platelet dysfunction.
Cross-Investment: A Second Front of Economic Rivalry

Everyone knows that Japan has profited for more than a decade from a continuous trade surplus with the U.S. However, Japan has also become a large capital exporter—with America, previously a major capital exporter, now being a principal recipient. Japanese investments in the U.S. take many forms and have been growing rapidly. In fact, Japan has become America's third largest foreign investor. Like trade competition, this second front of economic rivalry represents an increasingly formidable Japanese challenge to U.S. business—now mounted on America's home grounds. On the other side, by 1983, only Canada and Switzerland surpassed Japan as the target for new U.S. direct investment abroad. This article examines the history and practice of cross-investment between the U.S. and Japan. The full story of cross-investment involves a larger tale, that of growing similarities and persistent differences in the government policies, industrial structures, and corporate strategies of the two countries. The growth in similarities represents an increasingly potent weapon in the arsenal of managers and policymakers in the U.S. and Japan.
Lack of sleep, work and the long hours culture: evidence from the UK Time Use Survey

Sleep is functional for individual and societal well-being, with partial sleep deprivation associated with adverse health and safety consequences. Surprisingly, sleep is absent from work—life balance debates and has remained largely under-researched by sociologists. This article examines the relationship of insufficient sleep duration with occupational circumstances and family responsibilities, providing a contribution to the examination of the health consequences of working patterns in the UK. We analyse time use data from 2000, focusing on a sub-sample of workers aged 20—60 years (n = 2882). Nested logistic regression modelling is used to identify the segments of the working population getting a short sleep duration that if sustained may have negative health outcomes. An inverse relationship between working hours and sleep duration is found, which is stronger for men than women. Shift work and social class are also significant predictors of short sleep for men.
Ownership Structure Changes in the Insurance Industry: An Analysis of Demutualization

This article focuses on the demutualization process and investigates why certain mutuals undergo this organizational structure change. The primary motivation for conversion is access to capital. By statute, mutual firms are limited in their capital-raising activities while stock firms can attract funds through a variety of stock and debt offerings. By examining the financial characteristics of firms that demutualize, changes in business practices in the years surrounding conversion can be observed. Determinants of the conversion decision are explored through logistic regression. In the years before demutualization, converting property-liability mutuals exhibit significantly lower surplus-to-asset ratios. This capital constraint eases after demutualization. Converting life-health mutuals hold a significantly lower proportion of liquid assets; in addition, they have a higher proportion of separate accounts under management. This liquidity constraint and increased focus on a higher managerial discretion activity drive the demutualization decision. For both property-liability and life-health converting mutuals, support for the access to capital hypothesis is found. Copyright The Journal of Risk and Insurance.
Are Commodity and Stock Markets Independent of Each Other? A Case Study in India

The temporal relationship between the commodities market and the stock market has a lot of implications for not only the participants of the markets but also for the policy makers, the producers of the commodities, and, in the case of developing nations, the economy as a whole. This relationship may be studied using various methods and by identifying the lead-lag relationship between the values of representative indices of the markets. The history of the organized commodity derivatives market in India dates back to the 19th century with the establishment of the Cotton Trade Association, where cotton futures contracts were traded in 1875, barely a decade after trading in commodity derivatives started in Chicago. In this article, the dynamics of such information transfer among the commodities spot, commodities derivatives, and stock markets in India are studied, using the information theoretic concept of entropy, which captures non-linear dynamic relationships as well.
Tourism-Led Growth Hypothesis: A Case Study of Pakistan

Economists are of the view that tourism leads to economic development just like human and physical capital and exports. A few studies have discussed this issue empirically. The current study aims to estimate the long-run relationship between income from tourism and the economic growth of Pakistan by using the annual time series data of 1971–2008, and by employing the Johansen Juselius cointegration, autoregressive distributed lag model and rolling windows bounds testing approach to check the stability of the model. The results confirm the long-run relationship between income from tourism and economic growth and explain that income from tourism has led economic growth in Pakistan except in the years 2006, 2007, and 2008.
The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks in Credit and Labor Markets with Search and Matching Frictions

By introducing search and matching frictions in both the labor and the credit markets into a cash in advance New Keynesian DSGE model, we provide a novel explanation of the incomplete pass-through from policy rates to loan rates. We show that this phenomenon is ineradicable if banks possess some power in the bargaining over the loan rate of interest, if the cost of posting job vacancies is positive and if firms and bank sustain costs when searching for lines of credit and when posting credit vacancies, respectively. We also show that the presence of credit market frictions moderates the reactions of output and wages to a monetary shock, and that the transmission of monetary policy shocks to output and inflation is more relevant than suggested by the recent literature.
Transaction-related issues and construction project performance

Transaction cost economics deals with costs incurred at the pre-contract phase such as the costs of conducting market research, exploring financial opportunities, conducting a feasibility study, organizing a bidding/negotiation and managing design; and with costs incurred in the post-contract phase such as the costs of administering the contract, administering change orders and claims, resolving disputes and managing incentives. Many researchers have investigated the factors that affect project performance over the years, but neglected to consider transaction-related issues. The effects of transaction-related issues on project performance are investigated in this study. Project performance is measured on the basis of completion within budget and on schedule, compliance with quality standards, and satisfaction of the owner. Transaction-related issues include the magnitude of transaction costs, the uncertainty in the transaction environment, and the owner’s and the contractor’s roles in the transaction. Hypotheses are tested by using a structural equation model using data collected from a survey administered to construction owners. The findings indicate that project performance can be stronger if the uncertainty in the transaction environment is minimized, transaction costs are kept low, and owners and contractors are sensitive to transaction-related issues.
Is the Impact of Public Investment Neutral Across the Regional Income Distribution? Evidence from Mexico

Abstract This article investigates the contribution of public investment to the reduction of regional inequalities, with a specific application to Mexico. We examine the impact of public investment according to the position of each region in the conditional distribution of regional income by using quantile regression as an empirical technique. The results confirm the hypothesis that regional inequalities can indeed be attributed to the regional distribution of public investment;the observed pattern shows that public investment mainly helped to reduce regional inequalities among the richest regions.
Gasa: A New Page Replacement Algorithm for NAND Flash Memory

NAND flash memory has been widely used as storage medium in diverse environments due to its light weight, low power consumption, and high I/O performance. Page replacement is an important operation in NAND flash- based storage systems. However, traditional replacement algorithms designed for magnetic disks fail to meet the needs of NAND flash memory due to inherent features such as asymmetric I/O latencies and erase-before- write. In order to address this problem, this paper proposes a new page replacement algorithm, called Ghost buffer Assisted and Self-tuning Algorithm (GASA). GASA reduces expensive flash write operations by evicting cold clean pages preferentially and maintains reasonable buffer hit ratios via a ghost buffer. In addition, GASA is self-tuning due to the use of a simple learning scheme, thus adaptively matching different workloads and buffer sizes. Experimental results based on real-world OLTP traces demonstrate that GASA offers a good trade-off between the hit ratio and the flash write count, thus achieving better I/O performance than the state-of-the-art page replacement algorithms.
An Inconsistency in Sec Disclosure Requirements? The Case of the 'Insignificant' Private Target

Although the SEC's main charge is to ensure the disclosure of material information, the SEC has not always consistently defined materiality. We show that acquisitions of privately-held targets classified as "insignificant" by the SEC appreciably affect market prices, and therefore are "material" by the SEC's definition. We find significant returns in transactions with targets as small as 2% -- compared with the SEC's disclosure threshold of 20% -- of the acquirer. Further, an average of 19 undisclosed private acquisitions per year exceed the median IPO value in the same year for our sample period. However, because the SEC deems these transactions insignificant, information like target financial statements remains undisclosed to the market. Disclosure rules regarding target financial statements thus create a regulatory disconnect, in which information that is "material" is "insignificant" and therefore not disclosed.
Mixed Evidence on Mixed Tenure Effects: Findings from a Systematic Review of UK Studies, 1995–2009

Mixed tenure is a key feature of UK housing and regeneration policy. Following an earlier review-of-reviews pertaining to mixed tenure effects (Bond et al., 2011), this paper presents a systematic review of the UK evidence published between 1999 and 2005. The majority of the available evidence is cross-sectional, mostly derived from modest-quality case-study research across nearly 100 sites, supplemented by a very few secondary studies using national data. Six broad domains of outcomes have been investigated across 27 studies. Some positive impacts of mixed tenure were found in the social and residential domains, though notably without impacts on social capital. The evidence for mixed tenure effects in the environmental, safety and economic domains is very mixed. In the human capital domain of health and education, the evidence is sparse. A stronger theoretical base (including the assessment of causal mechanisms) is required to guide future research on mixed tenure effects, which should be longer term and longitudinal in nature, using comparison case studies and secondary data.
Health and disease in adults with Down syndrome.

BACKGROUND The increasing life expectancy of persons with Down syndrome calls for a knowledge of conditions that frequently occur in adults with the syndrome and of which health personnel should be particularly aware. METHOD The article is based on a literature search in PubMed and the authors' clinical experience with the patient group. RESULTS Altered immune system function, muscular hypotonia, dysmorphic otolaryngologic features and premature ageing contribute to health problems. The group is susceptible to infections, particularly of the respiratory and the gastrointestinal tract. Congenital heart defects may give rise to symptoms, also in adults. Many also develop mitral valve disease, including those without congenital heart defects. Hypothyroidism develops in up to half, and coeliac disease in one of five. Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome occurs in approximately half. Sensorineural hearing loss and cataract may occur before the age of 30. Atlantoaxial instability occurs, and radiological examination of the neck must take place before intervention under general anaesthesia. Behavioural changes with loss of skills, withdrawal, psychomotoric retardation and mutism occur frequently from the age of 30 and may be symptoms of mental illness or the onset of Alzheimer's dementia. INTERPRETATION Adults with Down syndrome need to undergo regular medical examinations, and we recommend an annual check-up with the primary doctor. Screening for hearing loss and cataract is also recommended every three and five years, respectively. In the event of concomitant symptoms, particularly related to neurological and psychiatric conditions, the patient can be referred to the habilitation service.
Cardiac Anesthesia and Surgery in Geriatric Patients

The average age of US population is steadily increasing, with more than 15 million people aged 80 and older. Coronary artery disease and degenerative cardiovascular diseases are particularly prevalent in this population. Consequently, an increasing number of elderly patients are referred for surgical intervention. Advanced age is associated with decreased physiologic reserve and significant comorbidity. Thorough preoperative assessment, identification of the risk factors for perioperative morbidity and mortality, and optimal preparation are critical in these patients. Age-related changes in comorbidities and altered pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics impacts anesthetic management, perioperative monitoring, postoperative care, and outcome. This article updates the age-related changes in organ subsystems relevant to cardiac anesthesia, perioperative issues, and intraoperative management. Early and late operative outcome in octogenarians undergoing cardiac surgery are reviewed. The data clearly indicate that no patient group is “too old” for cardiac surgery and that excellent outcomes can be achieved in selected group of elderly patients.
Neural Network and Linear Regression methods for prediction of students' academic achievement

Prediction of students' academic performance is very crucial to any university management to reduce the rate of attrition among students upon graduation. This paper describes a Neural Network (NN) Prediction model that is used to predict the academic performance of students. The outcomes of this model are then compared to results using Linear Regression (LR). This paper presents a comparison study between the effects of fundamental subjects and English courses on the overall final performance of students. The study was carried out at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Malaysia. Grade Points (GP) of students' fundamental subjects results were used as independent variables or input predictor variables while CGPA in the final semester that is at semester eight is used as the output or the dependent variable. Performances of the models were measured using the coefficient of Correlation R and that of Mean Square Error (MSE). The outcomes of the study from both models indicate a strong correlation between fundamental results for core subjects with the final CGPA. English courses had little effects on the final CGPA.
On the Mechanism of Coagulation Inhibition on Surfaces with End Point Immobilized Heparin

Summary A well established technique to improve blood compatibility of artificial materials for use in the circulation is to coat the surface with heparin. The present report describes the antithrombin mediated inhibition of thrombin and factor Xa by surfaces modified with end point immobilized heparin. The reaction was followed by conventional chromogenic substrate based enzyme assays as well as by immunological measurement of the enzyme inhibitor (thrombin-antithrombin) complex formation. Both enzymes were rapidly inactivated by heparin surfaces after selective presaturation with antithrombin on the immobilized high affinity heparin molecules. The thrombin inhibitory capacity was enhanced when both high and low affinity heparin were preadsorbed with inhibitor. The main part of the thrombin-antithrombin complex formed remained bound to the surface, however, without functionally blocking the activity of the high affinity sequence of the immobilized heparin. Aliquots of recalcified plasma were slowly rotated in loops of heparinized tubing to investigate whether the main thromboresistant function of the surface was exerted at the level of thrombin or by inactivation of preceding enzymes. After 1 h no visible clotting occurred and only trace amounts of thrombin (0.07 IU/ml), measured as thrombin-antithrombin complexes, had been formed. In non-heparinized loops and in the test tube plasma clotted after 20 min. The thrombin generation when clotting occurred was in the order of 10 IU/ml. It is concluded that the immobilized heparin mediates inhibition of the coagulation cascade prior to prothrombin activation.