Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal allocation of subjects in a matched pair cluster-randomized trial with fixed number of heterogeneous clusters

In cluster-randomized trials, investigators randomize clusters of individuals such as households, medical practices, schools or classrooms despite the unit of interest are the individuals. It results in the loss of efficiency in terms of the estimation of the unknown parameters as well as the power of the test for testing the treatment effects. To recoup this efficiency loss, some studies pair similar clusters and randomize treatment within pairs. However, the clusters within a treatment arm might be heterogeneous in nature. In this article, we propose a locally optimal design that accounts the clusters heterogeneity and optimally allocates the subjects within each cluster. To address the dependency of design on the unknown parameters, we also discuss Bayesian optimal designs. Performances of proposed designs are investigated numerically through some data examples.
Vegetation Classification and Habitat Types of Gambella National Park

Gambella National Park has a diverse set of habitat types which Ethiopia shares with its neighbor, South Sudan, and the park is considered as one of the top wildlife areas of Ethiopia. The objectives of this research were to determine vegetation types and identify habitat types on recent satellite imageries. The method used for vegetation data collection was transects lines. PC-ORD software was used for analyzed vegetation data while Rapid Eye image 5 m resolution 2012 was analyzed by ArcGIS version 10.1 to classify the habitats map of Gambella National Park. The cluster analysis classified the Gambella National Park into 6 vegetation communities, and the relative abundance and relative frequency were used for naming vegetation community types. However, the satellite image had classified the Gambella National Park into 5 major habitat types.
Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Diversity Management in Nigeria Breweries in Oyo State, Nigeria

Cases of ethnic bias and other forms of discrimination still take places in organizations during hiring, promotion and other employer-employee relation practices. Hence, managements are faced with the big challenge of managing its diverse workforce and emotional intelligence of their employees. This study investigated the impact of emotional intelligence on diversity management in Nigeria Breweries Oyo State. A total of 100 staff in Nigeria Breweries Oyo State in which 55 (55.0%) were male while 45 (45.0%) were female. The study was a survey which employed Descriptive research design and questionnaire was used to obtain the relevant data. The collected data were analyzed using Pearson rho Correlation and Regression Analysis with the application of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21.0. The results showed that that there is joint significant relationship between emotional intelligence on diversity management It was recommended that emotional intelligence concept would integrate the development programs and job-related training provided to employees to improve their skills, providing a foundation for practicable knowledge.
Modeling VXX under jump diffusion with stochastic long‐term mean

We develop a model for the VXX, the most actively traded VIX futures exchangetraded note (ETN), using Duffie, Pan, and Singleton’s (2000) affine jump diffusion, where the volatility process has jumps and a stochastic long-term mean. We calibrate the model parameters using the VIX term structure data and show that our model provides the theoretical link between the VIX, VIX futures and the VXX. Our model can be used for pricing VIX futures, the VXX and other short-term VIX futures exchange-traded products (ETPs). Our model could be extended to price options on the VXX and other short-term VIX futures ETPs.
Relationship between uric acid and creatinine in pre-diabetic and diabetic patients: Vidarbha region of Maharashtra

Prediabetes is a glucose homeostasis condition characterized by decreased absorption to glucose or reduced fasting glucose. Both of these are reversible stages of intermediate hyperglycaemia providing an increased type II DM risk. Pre-diabetes can therefore be viewed as a significant reversible stage which could lead to type II DM, and early detection of prediabetes may contribute to type II DM prevention. Prediabetes patients are at high risk for potential type II diabetes, and 70 percent of them appear to develop Type II diabetes within 10 years. The present study includes total 200 subjects that include 100 Prediabetic patients, 50 T2DM patients and 50 healthy individual. Blood samples were collected from the subjects were obtained for FBS, PPBS, Uric acid and Creatinine estimation, from OPD and General Medicine Wards. Present study showed low levels of Serum Uric Acid in prediabetic and T2DM patients were decreased as compared to control group, while the level of creatinine in prediabetic and diabetic were elevated as compared to control group, were not statically significant. Serum Uric Acid was high in control group and low in prediabetic and diabetic patients. Serum creatinine was declined in control group and increased in prediabetic and diabetic patients with increasing Fasting blood glucose level.
Towards a Generalized Synthetic Strategy for Variable Sized Enantiopure M4L4 Helicates

The reliable and predictable synthesis of enantiopure coordination cages is an important step towards the realization of discrete cages capable of enantioselective discrimination. We have built upon our initial report of a lantern-type helical cage in attempts to expand the synthesis into a general approach. The use of a longer, flexible diacid ligand results in the anticipated cage [Cu4(L1)4(solvent)4] with a similar helical pitch to that previously observed and a cavity approximately 30% larger. Using a shorter, more rigid ligand gave rise to a strained, conjoined cage-type complex when using DABCO as an internal bridging ligand, [{Co4(L2)4(DABCO)(OH2)x}2 (DABCO)]. The expected paddlewheel motif only forms for one of the Co2 units within each cage, with the other end adopting a “partial paddlewheel” with aqua ligands completing the coordination sphere of the externally facing metal ion. The generic approach of using chiral diacids to construct lantern-type cages is partially borne out, with it being apparent that flexibility in the core group is an essential structural feature.
Mixing Design for Optimizing Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Phenolic Components and Anthocyanins from Blue Berries and Grape Marc

ABSTRACT Waste from fruit processing can be used for obtaining additives as colorants and antioxidant compounds by extraction processes. Despite there are many works optimizing parameters as temperature and solvent concentration during this process, the mixture of solvents has not been optimized yet. Therefore, the present work aimed to find the optimum solvent mixture among water, ethanol, and acetone to obtain the maximum yields of phenolic compounds and monomeric anthocyanins from blue berry and grape marc by ultrasound-assisted extraction. For that, the Reticular Simplex Mixtures Design was used to obtain the models that can predict the optimum values of extraction yields. As a result, the quadratic model successfully fit the experimental data, demonstrating the best mixture solvents were the ones that presented a high percentage of water. This result was obtained not only for phenolic compound, but also for monomeric anthocyanin extraction from blue berry and grape marc. Further, using the optimum mixture, values of 502.2 GAE/100 g of phenolic compound and 1349.1 mg/100 g of monomeric anthocyanins from blue berry and 2642.4 GAE/100 g of phenolic compounds and 31.5 mg/100 of monomeric anthocyanins from grape marc were obtained. In conclusion, the optimum solvent demonstrated to be efficient extracting both components increasing the extraction yields and reducing the cost of extraction. Finally, by overlapping the optimization plot, a unique solvent mixture for obtaining a high yield of phenolic compound and anthocyanins at the same time from blue berry and grape marc was obtained.
Health risk assessment of Brazil nut consumption by aflatoxin biomarker in urine samples

Aflatoxins are the main mycotoxin related to the contamination of Brazil nut and an important product extracted from the Amazon region that has a high number of consumers due to its health benefits. Considering the frequent occurrence of aflatoxins in Brazil nuts, it is necessary to study the levels of exposure to these toxins associated with its consumption using biomarkers. To do this, a study was carried out with 30 volunteers of both sexes, where each volunteer received a kit containing Brazil nuts for the ingestion of 2 (two) units / day for 30 days. Urine samples were collected from each volunteer at 0 and 30 days, and the level of Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) was determined by ELISA using the Helica Kit®. A questionnaire was used to obtain information on weight, height, age, medication use, pathological conditions, frequency of weekly consumption of certain foods more susceptible to aflatoxin contamination, and 24-h food recall. Of the 30 samples analyzed at time 0 (zero) for exposure, AFM1 presented positive results in 3 (10%) samples with a range of 2.75-70.41 ng/mL. In the analysis of the 30 days after Brazil nut consumption, the presence of AFM1 in the urine was not detected, suggesting that Brazil nut consumption did not generate impact on the urinary levels and exposure to AFM1. In conclusion, no association was found between food consumption of food susceptible to aflatoxin contamination and concentration of AFM1 in urine. Key words: Aflatoxin, nuts, ELISA, selenium.
Improving Sentence Retrieval Using Sequence Similarity

Sentence retrieval is an information retrieval technique that aims to find sentences corresponding to an information need. It is used for tasks like question answering (QA) or novelty detection. Since it is similar to document retrieval but with a smaller unit of retrieval, methods for document retrieval are also used for sentence retrieval like term frequency—inverse document frequency (TF-IDF), BM25, and language modeling-based methods. The effect of partial matching of words to sentence retrieval is an issue that has not been analyzed. We think that there is a substantial potential for the improvement of sentence retrieval methods if we consider this approach. We adapted TF-ISF, BM25, and language modeling-based methods to test the partial matching of terms through combining sentence retrieval with sequence similarity, which allows matching of words that are similar but not identical. All tests were conducted using data from the novelty tracks of the Text Retrieval Conference (TREC). The scope of this paper was to find out if such approach is generally beneficial to sentence retrieval. However, we did not examine in depth how partial matching helps or hinders the finding of relevant sentences.
Neural network models for soil moisture forecasting from remote sensed measurements

Machine learning techniques are employed to describe the temporal behavior of soil moisture using meteorological data as inputs. Three different Artificial Neural Network models, a feedforward Multi-Layer Perceptron, a Long-Short Term Memory and the Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System, are trained and their results are compared. The soil moisture is expressed in terms of Soil Water Index, derived from satellite retrievals, with the last known value also being used as input. The results are promising as the proposed methodology relies on free-access data with a worldwide coverage, allowing to easily estimate the forthcoming soil moisture. The knowledge of the expected value of this variable could be extremely useful for irrigation scheduling and it is the basis of Decision Support Systems to efficiently manage water resources in agriculture.
Frequency of extreme freeze events controls the distribution and structure of black mangroves (Avicennia germinans) near their northern range limit in coastal Louisiana

Climate change is expected to result in the tropicalization of coastal wetlands in the northern Gulf of Mexico, as warming winters allow tropical mangrove forests to expand their distribution poleward at the expense of temperate salt marshes. Data limitations near mangrove range limits have hindered understanding of the effects of winter temperature extremes on mangrove distribution and structure. Here, we investigated the influence of extreme freeze events on the abundance, height and coverage of black mangroves (Avicennia germinans) near their northern range limit in Louisiana.
Study the Role of Human Umbilical Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Experimental Model of Spinal Cord Injury

plenty researches have studied the role of rodent’s bone marrowmesenchymal stem cells in spinal cord injury (SCI), but limited researches scoped the light on the use of human umbilical-mesenchymal stem cells (HUMSCs). Aim: we investigated two routes (intravenously, intratheically) on the recovery of SCI using HUMSCs. Methodology: Umbilical cords were collected. Wharton’s jelly was scraped off, cultured, isolated HUMSCs was immunophenotyped. Rats (n=40) were divided into 5 groups: Control group (SCI only), Sham group (SCI + intravenous administration of physiological saline solution (PSS)), IL group (SCI + intralesional administration of HUMSCs), IV1 group (SCI + intravenous administration of HUMSCs) and IV2 group (SCI + intravenous administration of double amount of HUMSCs divide by a time interval of a week). Day after surgery, 1x10 HUMSCs were transplanted on the 3 treated groups, but IV2 group took another dose after one week. Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor rating scale was measured for 6 weeks. Spinal cords were dissected and cryosections were stained. Results: HUMSCs were fibroblast like appearance and they were +ve for CD29, CD90 and –ve for CD45. BBB scale showed that from the first week to the six week there were significant improvement between the 3 treated groups as compared to control group (P<0.05), IV2 group showed the best BBB improvement with the smallest lesion then IV1 and IL groups respectively, while there were no significant difference between control group and sham group. Conclusion: HUMSCs are useful in subsequent motor recovery after SCI.
Implementasi Metode Waterfall Pada Aplikasi Perpustakaan Berbasis Web

Abstract: The library is part of the source of educational facilities because it provides additional information or knowledge for students and also for the general public. The demand for library services quickly is a top priority in the information field. The variety of data that is processed by libraries, as well as people who are increasingly intelligent in choosing and using library services, make these institutions have to think of appropriate solutions. At this time in processing data in the library is still using a manual system. Therefore a system is needed that can facilitate library processing data and facilitate library members or the public in obtaining information. The development of technology is increasing, so from the problem it is proposed that there is a change in the old system into a new system with web-based computer technology. The method used in the development of this software uses the Waterfall Model which is a systematic development model. Data collection methods that the authors use to collect data needed in this paper are: Observation, interview methods, and library methods. Through a computer connected to the internet network users can search and get various information, anywhere and anytime by accessing the website. With this system, it is expected to be able to overcome the various needs of users to obtain information and facilitate librarians in processing library data. Keywords: Information Systems, Library, Website Abstrak - Perpustakaan merupakan bagian dari sumber sarana pendidikan karena memberikan tambahan informasi atau pengetahuan bagi siswa dan juga bagi masyarakat umum. Permintaan pelayanan perpustakaan secara cepat merupakan prioritas utama dari bidang informasi. Beragamnya data yang diolah oleh perpustakaan, serta masyarakat yang semakin cerdas dalam memilih dan menggunakan jasa perpustakaan membuat institusi tersebut harus memikirkan solusi yang tepat. Pada saat ini dalam pengolahan data di perpustakaan masih menggunakan sistem manual. Maka dari itu dibutuhkan sistem yang dapat mempermudah perpustakan dalam mengolah data serta mempermudah anggota perpustakaan atau masyarakat dalam memperoleh informasi. Perkembangan teknologi yang semakin meningkat, maka dari permasalahan tersebut diusulkan adanya perubahan sistem lama kedalam sistem yang baru dengan teknologi komputer berbasis web. Metode yang digunakan pada pengembangan perangkat lunak ini menggunakan Model Waterfallyaitu model pengembangan yang sifatnya sistematis. Metode pengumpulan data yang penulis gunakan untuk mengumpulkan data-data yang di perlukan dalam penulisan ini yaitu: Observasi, metode wawancara, dan metode pustaka. Melalui komputer yang terkoneksi dengan jaringan internetuser dapat mencari dan mendapatkan berbagai informasi, dimana saja dan kapan saja dengan mengakses website. Dengan adanya sistem ini, diharapkan mampu mengatasi berbagai kebutuhan user untuk memperoleh informasi serta mempermudah pustakawan dalam mengolah data perpustakaan. Kata Kunci : Sistem Informasi, Perpustakaan, Website
Pollen’s contributions to Siberias forests

How pollen shapes forests and forestry can be illustrated using Siberia’s boreal forests which have historically produced some of the highest pollen concentrations in the Northern Hemisphere. Pollen’s contributions are categorized as follows: 1) forests and timber, 2) nontimber products and services and 3) emerging research at the forest-atmosphere interface. Examples are drawn from Pinus sylvestris (Scots pine), Pinus sibirica (Siberian stone pine) and Pinus koreansis (Korean pine). Pine pollen is not only vital to timber and nontimber products but it serves as a well-studied model system for atmospheric studies.
Enforcement, Managerial Discretion, and the Informativeness of Accruals

Abstract I examine the effect of strengthening the enforcement of financial reporting on managers’ accrual decisions and the consequences for the informativeness of accruals. Using a sample of publicly listed German firms subject to a substantive enforcement change in 2005, I find that, consistent with the prior literature, the extent of managerial discretion in accruals declined after the introduction of the stricter enforcement regime. However, the findings on the predictive ability of accruals with respect to future cash flows and future earnings and the contemporaneous association between stock returns and accruals suggest that the informativeness of accruals also declined after the introduction of the stricter enforcement regime. This adverse effect is particularly strong when compared with a control group of publicly listed firms in Austria and Switzerland that operated in a similar institutional and economic environment but faced no substantive enforcement change. Overall, the findings suggest that stricter enforcement can have adverse consequences in the form of lower accrual informativeness.
Nurses’ Knowledge, Practice, and Confidence after the Training Program on Wound Care at the Agriculture General Hospital in Vietnam

Aims: Wound care is the basic technique in patient care which has direct effects on treatment outcome. However, the Agriculture General Hospital (AGH), Vietnam, has never organized a continuing professional development (CPD) training program based on Vietnam’s Basic Nursing Competency Standards (VNBNCS) for their nurses. This study aimed to examine the knowledge, practice, and confidence level among nurses at the AGH after 12 months of implementing a VNBNCS-based wound care training program. Methodology: This descriptive and comparative study assessed the changes in knowledge, practice, and confidence scores of 43 nurses at five clinical departments before and 12 months after the training program (April 2018 to June 2019). Data were collected using a self-administrated knowledge questionnaire with 48 items, a 13-item confidence checklist, and a 16-item skills checklist. EpiData 3.1 and SPSS 18.0 were used to enter and analyze data, respectively. Results: The mean scores of knowledge (113.70 ± 14.75 vs. 129.7 ± 19.6), and practice (63.21 ± 19.99 vs. 132.07 ± 4.31) statistically significantly increased 12 months after training (p p < 0.001). Conclusion: Nurses’ wound care-related knowledge, practice, and confidence have improved 12 months after training. This demonstrates the VNBNCS-based wound care training program developed by Viet Duc University Hospital is suitable for use in the AGH and has achieved its promising initial outcomes. This program should be duplicated in other health facilities.
Conditional Ground-Motion Model for Damaging Characteristics of Near-Fault Ground Motions Based on Instantaneous Power

The velocity pulse in near-fault ground motions has been used as a key characteristic of damaging ground motions. Characterization of the velocity pulse involves three parameters: presence of the pulse, period of the pulse, and amplitude of the pulse. The basic concept behind the velocity pulse is that a large amount of seismic energy is packed into a short time, leading to larger demands on the structure. An intensity measure for near-fault ground motions, which is a direct measure of the amount of energy arriving in short time, called instantaneous power (IP (T1)), is defined as the maximum power of the bandpass-filtered velocity time series measured over a time interval of 0.5T1, in which T1 is the fundamental period of the structure. The records are bandpass filtered in the period band (0.2T1−3T1) to remove the frequencies that are not expected to excite the structure. Zengin and Abrahamson (2020) showed that the drift is better correlated with the IP (T1) than with the velocity pulse parameters for records scaled to the same spectral acceleration at T1. A conditional ground-motion model (GMM) for the IP is developed based on the 5%-damped spectral acceleration at T1, the earthquake magnitude, and the rupture distance. This conditional GMM can be used for record selection for near-fault ground motions that captures the key features of velocity pulses and can lead to a better representation of the median and variability of the maximum interstory drift. The conditional GMM can also be used in a vector hazard analysis for spectral acceleration (T1) and IP (T1) that can be used for more accurate estimation of drift hazard and seismic risk.