Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Minimum Wage Policy and Country’s Technical Efficiency

Recently, the government has decided that Malaysia would introduce a minimum wage policy. However, some quarters argued against the idea of a nationwide minimum wage asserting that it will lead to an increase in the cost of doing business and thus will hurt Malaysian competitiveness. Although standard economic theory unambiguously implies that wage floors have a negative impact on employment, the existing empirical literature is not so clear. Some studies have found the expected negative impact on employment, yet others have found no impact or, in occasional cases, a positive effect of minimum wages on jobs. It is also argued that, a minimum wage law, if pegged above the market wage, could leads to a general misallocation of resources and loss of efficiency in the overall economy. However, there is no study linking minimum wage on a country’s efficiency. Hence, the objective of this study is to analyse the effect of minimum wage policy on a country’s technical efficiency. To achieve the objective, in the first stage, we estimate technical efficiency for all the sample countries by using the non-parametric method. In the second stage, after having estimated the efficiency scores, we analysed the effect of minimum wage on efficiency by estimating a Tobit regression fixed-effect model where the efficiency scores is included as the dependent variable. Results of the study show that there is no difference in technical efficiency between countries with and without minimum wage policy. Hence, minimum wage policy is not harmful to an economy’s efficiency. Furthermore, looking at the countries with minimum wage policy, the amount of minimum wage up to a certain level has a positive effect on economic efficiency. The results suggest that minimum wage helps in increasing a country’s efficiency provided that the rate does not exceed the optimal level
Carbon Nanomaterials Based Membranes

In the past few years, there is impressive breakthrough for the research on nano structured materials to solve global significant challenges like, water, energy, environment, medicine etc. Among various nanomaterials, carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) are gaining significant interest to the material scientists to develop advanced membranes for novel separation processes. It is believed that CNM based membranes have the potential to overcome the inherent limitations of conventional membranes separations.
Automatic Determination of Blood Flow Velocity in Brain Microvessels in a Cerebral Infarction Model Mouse Using a Small Implantable CMOS Imaging Device

In this study, we used a small implantable complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) imaging device developed by our research group to estimate the blood ow changes by focusing on the movement of red blood cells in the captured movements. Conventional methods for determining blood ow velocity have limitations in that variation occurs due to manual measurement. Therefore, we developed a novel technique to measure blood ow in the brain. This method involves calculating the changes of selected pixels using a normalized cross-correlation coef cient. Using this cross-correlation method, we analyzed a mouse cerebral infarction model to detect changes in brain activity. The results of analysis showed that the average velocity of blood ow upstream of the infarction site decreased while the velocity in blood vessel parallel to the infarction increased after occlusion was induced. These results thus con rmed that the new method can detect blood velocity changes, suggesting the feasibility of the cross-correlation method for estimating blood ow velocity.
Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Challenges

Background: Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) are the most common mesenchymal neoplasms of the digestive system. They originate from the interstitial cells of Cajal and are characterized by the over expression of KIT protein (Tyrosine Kinase), and they pose a diagnostic and therapeutic dilemma. Objective: A challenge in diagnosis and treatment of GIST Patients & Methods: This is a retrospective study of GIST cases that diagnosed and treated in our center during the past 5 years. These studies include clinical characteristics, imaging techniques, neoadjuvant therapy, surgical techniques, immunohistochemistry, and prognosis of such cases. Results: Sixteen patients were diagnosed as having GIST (12 males/4 females) with a mean age 62 years (31-83 years). Diagnosis was made preoperatively in 11 patients (69%) and intraoperatively with histopatholgical confirmation in five patients (31%). The site of the tumor was detected in the stomach in 6 cases (37.5%), one in duodenum (6.25%), five in small intestine (31.25%), one in mesentery (6.25%), two in colon (12.5%) and one rectal GIST (6.25%). The main presentation of the disease was anemia, GIT bleeding and abdominal mass. Fourteen patients considered resectable and they were operated upon (87.5%) and in two patients (12.5%) neadjuvant therapy was started with favorable response in one case and poor response in other one with advanced GIST. All patients received Imatinib as adjuvant therapy. Mean follow up period was 33 months (4-54 months). Conclusion: GIST is a complex and challenging disease that requires a multidisciplinary approach in specililized center for better prognosis of such disease.
PREDICTION OF CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR USING CMA

The process of extracting certain sequential pattern that exceeds the minimum support threshold is called Sequential Pattern Mining. It has been used to predict various aspects of customer buying behavior for a long time. The sequence that is discovered using sequential pattern mining algorithm reveals the chronological relation between the items and provides valuable information which will help in developing the marketing strategies. There are various approaches proposed for sequential pattern mining. But in the existing sequential pattern mining approaches, the cyclic behavior of the buying pattern and the interval between the two consecutive items is hardly known. The proposed algorithms can be implemented and supplied to test against teal time customer data from the consumer goods company. The experimental results illustrate how the model can be used to predict likely purchases within a certain time limit.
Revisiting revisitation in computer interaction: organic bookmark management.

According to Milic-Frayling et al. (2004), there are two general ways of user browsing i.e. search (finding a website where the user has never visited before) and revisitation (returning to a website where the user has visited in the past). The issue of search is relevant to search engine technology, whilst revisitation concerns web usage and browser history mechanisms. The support for revisitation is normally through a set of functional built-in icons e.g. History, Back, Forward and Bookmarks. Nevertheless, for returning web users, they normally find it is easier and faster to re-launch an online search again, rather than spending time to find a particular web site from their personal bookmark and history records. Tauscher and Greenberg (1997) showed that revisiting web pages forms up to 58% of the recurrence rate of web browsing. Cockburn and McKenzie (2001) also stated that 81% of web pages have been previously visited by the user. According to Obendorf et al. (2007), revisitation can be divided into four classifications based on time: short-term (72.6% revisits within an hour), medium-term (12% revisits within a day and 7.8% revisits within a week), and long-term (7.6% revisits longer than a week)
Fatty Acid Composition Of Citrullus Lanatus (Egusi Melon) Oil And Its Effect On Serum Lipids And Some Serum Enzymes

Oil from the seeds of Citrullus lanatus (egusi melon) was extracted and its fatty acid composition determined. The extracted oil was used in diet formulation and fed (as a supplement to cholesterol-based diet) to rats for a period of 6 weeks to determine its effect on serum lipids and some selected serum enzymes used to aid diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. The control rats were fed a diet containing 5% cholesterol without egusi melon oil while the experimental rats received a diet containing 5% cholesterol with 5% egusi melon oil. Serum cholesterol in the total, free and esterified forms were determined weekly. In addition, serum activities of LDH, ALT, AST, and γ-GT were also monitored. Egusi melon oil with a rich content of polyunsaturated fatty acid was found to produce a significant reduction (p<0.05) in serum total, free and esterified cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations. A similar corresponding significant reduction (p<0.05) in serum activities of the enzymes were observed in the egusi melon oil-fed rats. In addition, feeding egusi melon oil (5% in the diet) to rats reduced severe atherosclerosis in the aorta. Histopathological examination showed that egusi melon oil reduced foam cell formation and inhibited smooth muscle cell migration in the blood vessel of rats. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to hypercholesterolemia.
Genetic diversity of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides in Nigeria using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers

Colletotrichum gloeosporioides is the causal agent of yam anthracnose disease in Nigeria. Differential cultivars and amplified fragment length polymorphic DNA markers were used to assess the extent of genetic diversity among 39 isolates of the pathogen. Fourteen (14) pathotypes of the pathogen were identified based on inoculation of a differential set of Dioscorea alata genotypes of which pathotype P11 was the most virulent attacking all differential D. alata host genotypes, while pathotype P8 was the least virulent. 52% of the isolates were avirulent, 23% were slightly virulent and 25% were virulent. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis confirmed genetic variation among the C. gloeosporioides isolates and was effective in establishing genetic relationships between them. However, the grouping of the isolates based on AFLP analysis was not directly related to virulence groups or geographical origin of the isolates. The genetic variation in C. gloeosporioides is important in choosing strategies to develop durable resistance Keywords: Anthracnose disease, pathotypes, genetic diversity, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers, yam
Unsupervised Distance-Based Outlier Detection In High Dimensional Data

The attention in anomaly is difficult since they include important and actionable data in lots of domains, for example invasion and recognition of fraud furthermore to medical diagnosis. It had been in recent occasions observed that distribution of point reverse-neighbour counts become skewed in high dimensions that results within phenomenon referred to as hubness. We offer a unifying vision of role concerning reverse nearest neighbour counts within problems strongly related not viewed anomaly recognition, and concentrate on high dimensionality effects on not viewed anomaly-recognition techniques in addition to hubness phenomenon. The feel of anti-hubs happens because high dimensionality when neighbourhood dimension is small in comparison with data size. These anti-hubs occurrence is strongly associated with anomaly in high-dimensional furthermore to low dimensional data.
OPTIMAL CAPACITOR PLACEMENT FOR LOSS REDUCTION IN DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS USING FUZZY AND HARMONY SEARCH ALGORITHM

This paper presents a new two-stage methodology using fuzzy and Harmony search algorithm (HSA) for the placement of capacitors on the primary feeders of the radial distribution systems with an objective to reduce the power losses and to improve the voltage profile. In the first stage, fuzzy approach is used to find the optimal capacitor locations and in the second stage, Harmony search algorithm is used to find the optimal sizes of the capacitors. The proposed method is tested on 15-bus, 33-bus, 34-bus and 69-bus test systems and the results are presented.
Comparison between scaling law and nonparametric Bayesian estimate for the recurrence time of strong earthquakes

According to the unified scaling theory the probability distribution function of the recurrence time ∆T is a scaled version of a base function and the average value of ∆T can be used as a scale parameter for the distribution. The base function must belong to the scale family of distributions: tested on different catalogues and for different scale levels, for Corral (2005) the (truncated) generalized gamma distribution is the best model, for German (2006) the Weibull distribution. The scaling approach should overcome the difficulty of estimating distribution functions over small areas but theorical limitations and partial instability of the estimated distributions have been pointed out in the literature.
GrpString: An R Package for Analysis of Groups of Strings

The R package GrpString was developed as a comprehensive toolkit for quantitatively analyzing and comparing groups of strings. It offers functions for researchers and data analysts to prepare strings from event sequences, extract common patterns from strings, and compare patterns between string vectors. The package also finds transition matrices and complexity of strings, determines clusters in a string vector, and examines the statistical difference between two groups of strings.
Study on Intelligent Control of Metal Filling System by Welding Robots in the Open Environment

robot model of three-arm and five-degree freedom plus large scope of traversing welding was established, and decoupling of models of "large scope of traversing", "triangle movement of two arms" and "spherical movement of one arm" was realized. The model of "triangle movement of two arms "is able to use geometrical calculation to solve the kinematics inverse problem , avoid the multiplicity, improve the calculation speed, eliminate the blind spots of the motions of welding gun of welding robot, and simplify the kinematic pair of kinematic mechanism for the arc filling strategy during welding travelling of robot. Binocular stereo vision camera was used to detect the edges of welds, and laser array sensor was used to detect the amount of metal filling of welds. In completely open conditions, feedback was fused based on sensor data to realize the welding tracking control by welding robot. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
Aerodynamic Stall Suppression on Airfoil Sections Using Passive Air-Jet Vortex Generators

This paper presents an experimental and computational study of a passive version of the air-jet vortex-generator flow control system for the delay or suppression of trailing-edge boundary-layer separation and subsequent stall. The results show that a passive vortex-generating jet flow control system, which uses the high pressure from the leading-edge attachment line to feed the upper-surface air jets, can effectively delay trailing-edge separation and subsequent stall to higher angles of attack, without the need for any active energy input and without significant drag penalty.
Motivation and Achievement of Middle School Mathematics Students

Mathematics achievement among K-12 students has been a long-standing concern in schools across the United States. A possible solution to this mathematics achievement problem is student motivation. A survey was administered to 65 mathematics students at a Midwestern middle school to determine their beliefs and attitudes related to motivation and mathematics achievement. Significant positive correlations were found between internal motivation and self-reported mathematics grades, self-reported grades and enjoyment, self-reported grades and confidence, and self-reported grades and parental involvement. Independent t-tests between high- and low-achieving students found significant differences in beliefs regarding intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, mathematics value, mathematics enjoyment, mathematics confidence, parental involvement, and parental intrinsic motivation. There were no statistically significant gender differences in achievement or attitudes towards mathematics.
CONVERSION OF TURBOCHARGED DIESEL ENGINE TO OPERATE SOLELY WITH HYDROUS ETHANOL

This paper discusses the conversion of a turbocharged diesel engine to operate with hydrous ethanol, using procedures developed in Innovation Lab of UFPB, IL. An diesel engine, brand Perkins, model 1104C-44TAG2, was converted to operate with hydrous ethanol at the time that it amended its compression ratio of 18:1 to 9.3:1, suitable for an Otto Cycle engine to non-occurrence of detonation fuel. Comparing experimental data generated for the converted engine tests (which ranged the ignition advance, stoichiometric air/fuel ratio and rotation at 1800 rpm) with those obtained in tests with the original engine, and converted, 45 kWe, a cost reduction of 34% with Ignition Advance of 20°. It was taken into account in this analysis, and data on fuel consumption, the cost of diesel, R$ 1.90/liter, and hydrous ethanol, R$ 0.70/liter. Regarding the gaseous emissions, depending on the load, it was found that the NOX ranged from 50 to 1050 ppm, CO, 1 to 3%, CO2, 12 to 15% and HC 150 to 450 ppm.
The influence of network topological models on the prediction of end-to-end loss probabilities

In last years new procedures to generate Internet-like topologies have been proposed, stemming from the evidence of a power-law behavior of real networks. Realistic networks generators are necessary for simulation and performance evaluation of data communication systems. Assuming a simple loss model for the links, the present investigation shows that the adoption of a specific topological model for the Internet graph (here, the Waxman or the Barabasi-Albert model) may affect, to a certain extent, the estimates of the loss probabilities for end-to-end communications obtained by simulation (e.g. via NS-2 package).
CHANGE USING UAV PHOTOGRAMMETRY SONGJUNG BEACH , KOREA

Natural beach is controlled by many factors related to wave and tidal forces, wind, sediment, and initial topography. For this reason, if numerous topographic data of beach is accurately collected, coastal erosion/acceleration is able to be assessed and clarified. Generally, however, many studies on coastal erosion have limitation to analyse the whole beach, carried out of partial area as like shoreline (horizontal 2D) and beach profile (vertical 2D) on account of limitation of numerical simulation. This is an important application for prevention of coastal erosion, and UAV photogrammetry is also used to 3D topographic data. This paper analyses the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to 3D map and beach volume change. UAV (Quadcopter) equipped with a non-metric camera was used to acquire images in Songjung beach which is located south-east Korea peninsula. The dynamics of beach topography, its geometric properties and estimates of eroded and deposited sand volumes were determined by combining elevation data with quarterly RTK-VRS measurements. To explore the new possibilities for assessment of coastal change we have developed a methodology for 3D analysis of coastal topography evolution based on existing high resolution elevation data combined with low coast, UAV and on-ground RTK-VRS surveys. DSMs were obtained by stereo-matching using Agisoft Photoscan. Using GCPs the vertical accuracy of the DSMs was found to be 10 cm or better. The resulting datasets were integrated in a local coordinates and the method proved to be a very useful fool for the detection of areas where coastal erosion occurs and for the quantification of beach change. The value of such analysis is illustrated by applications to coastal of South Korea sites that face significant management challenges. * Corresponding author
Goats husbandry in the agro-pastoral system of northern areas of Pakistan

This paper covers goats productive aspect of bigger multi-sectoral research study conducted during 199 9 - 2001. A 2 x 3 factorial design in Genstat program was used to check whether developed infrastructure (transect at 2 level) and agro-ecological zones at 3 levels has significant effect on the performance of goats. Parameters such as changes in body conditio n score (BCS), abortion, birth weight and growth rate performances were compared in relation to winter stored offered resources in both transects. Higher (33%) feed sufficiency in terms of the Metabolisabl e Energy (ME) for live weight maintenance in the st ored feed in the Karakorum Highway (KKH) transect compared to the Gilgit Ghizer Region (GGR) transect (P < 0.05). Resul ts revealed that an overall one unit increase in feed sufficiency could reduce abortion by 8 % in the goat flocks (R 2 = 0.42). Goats in the GGR transect showed less abortion under severe sub-main tenance levels of Metabolisable Energy (ME) compared to the KKH transect where does lost more foetuses under sub-maintenance feeding but improved when ME supply approached their requirements. Results further revealed that goats BCS significant ly influenced birth weight of kids (P<0.001), but t he relationship did not differ by transect. However regression analysis worthily s howed that a unit increase in the dam BCS increase d weights at birth in offspring by about 1.08 kg (R 2 = 0.85). Percent liveweight loss in goats was sign ificantly (25%) greater in the GGR transect than in the KKH transect during 150 days of winter (P < 0.05). Percent weight loss of mature goats was not significantly influenced by cropping zone (P= 0.079), but goats in the single c ropping zone (SCZ) tended to lose 7 % more weight than goats in the double cropping zone (DCZ). Productive parameters generally did not differ between transect but the significa ntly (P< 0.05) higher feed sufficiency in the KKH gave animals significant pot ential to productive and reproductive performance i n response to the more abundant feed resource per animal in this transect.