Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Global Value Chain Participation and Firms’ Innovations: Evidence from Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Viet Nam

Participation in the global value chain could lead to different impacts on small and medium firms’ performances. In this paper, we examine the relationship between the participation of the Vietnamese economy in the global value chain and small and medium firms’ innovation in Viet Nam over the period 2007–2015. Using data from the Viet Nam Small and Medium Enterprise survey, we test whether a higher share of foreign value added in exports is likely to make small and medium firms innovate. To address the problem of omitted variable biases, we use the Chinese domestic value added in gross exports to the world as an instrument for foreign value added in gross exports in Viet Nam. We find that foreign value added in gross exports negatively correlates with firms’ decision to introduce new products but positively associates with firms’ decision to improve existing products. These relationships are more profound for firms in industrial zones and nonexporting firms. We also find evidence that the foreign value added in gross exports increases firm sales and have more subcontracts, which may help small and medium firms have more resources to innovate. As small and medium firms tend to improve existing products when they are more involved in global value chains, the government could use policies to incentivize small and medium firms to demand better technology, thereby improving the innovation system and creating a favorable environment in which to transfer new technology. These policy packages may include access to finance for those who invest in learning and adopt better technologies.
Factors Associated with Estimated Fertilization and Service Efficiency of Cows

Summary Embryonic mortality was estimated by using the difference between percentage of estrous cycles recurring between 18 and 25 days for the cows which were bred at the previous estrus compared with those which were not bred. The study included 6,719 calvings carried to term, 668 abortions, and 1,915 estimated embryos lost, for a total of 9,302 fertilizations. The estimated embryonic loss for all cows was 20.6% and abortion loss was 7.2%. Clinically normal cows averaged 11.4% and clinically normal cows and heifers averaged 16.6% embryonic loss. Though fertilizing capacity was equal, normal heifers had a significantly higher embryo loss than cows in their second and third reproductive periods. Fourth and fifth reproductive period cows had the highest efficiency as determined from the percentage of services carried to term. Fertilizations per service and embryo loss declined markedly with increasing age. Reproductive efficiency was very low for cows with infections of the genital tract and estimated embryo loss exceeded 40%. Losses were equally high for cows with cystic ovaries. Cows having only short estrous cycles averaged 28.8% embryo loss and 24.2% services carried to term. Cows with an abnormal calving from the preceding gestation averaged 14.4% embryo loss and 39.2% services carried to term. Monthly differences in reproductive efficiency were relatively unimportant as compared with yearly differences.
Robust Terrain-Aided Navigation through Sensor Fusion

To make autonomous, affordable ships feasible in the real world, they must be capable of safely navigating without fully relying on GPS, high-resolution 3D maps, or high-performance navigation sensors. We suggest a method for estimating the position using affordable navigation sensors (compass and speed log or inertial navigation sensor), sensors used for perception of the environment (cameras, echo sounder, magnetometer), and publicly available maps (sea charts and magnetic intensity anomalies maps). A real-world field trial has shown that the proposed fusion mechanism provides accurate and robust navigation, applicable for affordable autonomous ships.
The dynamics of auxin transport

The plant hormone auxin is transported with a well defined velocity through many tissues. To explain this, one type of theory proposes that a polar mechanism operates at the interface between two cells. I show that, if auxin diffuses freely through the interior of cells, then there is an upper limit to the velocity that can be achieved by such a mechanism. This is compatible with the observed velocities provided that the diffusion constant for auxin within a cell is not much less than that measured for auxin in aqueous media. Cytoplasmic streaming, unless specially organized, would not assist the movement of auxin. This is because rapid diffusion between streams will cancel out any directed motion. I also show that the permeability that characterizes the forward movement between cells must exceed a certain limit. If auxin moves mainly through the cytoplasm, which occupies only a small part of the volume of a cell, then the permeability per unit area of membrane needed to achieve a given velocity is much reduced. Transport would be channelled through the cytoplasm if the membrane bounding the vacuole were relatively impermeable to auxin. The theory that I develop leads to predictions about, for example, the route of auxin and its concentration gradients within cells, and the dependence of velocity on cell length.
Validation of the Ethiopian Version of eHealth Literacy Scale (ET-eHEALS) in a Population with Chronic Disease

Background Although the measurement scale developed by Norman and Skinner is the widely used scale to assess consumers’ eHealth literacy, translating and validating the scale for the language of the target population under consideration is necessary. Amharic is the official national language ﻿of Ethiopia, with 29.3% of native speakers. Methods The total sample size calculated was 187 with 6% non-response rate. The internal consistency of the ET-eHEALS was measured using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Test–retest reliability was assessed by re-administering the ET-eHEALS questionnaire to 74 patients which is 40% of the total sample size. Construct validity was evaluated using ﻿exploratory factor analysis. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) statistic and Bartlett’s test of sphericity were used to check the suitability of performing the factor analysis. Results Of the respondents, 63.1% (n=118) were males and 55.1% (n=103) were aged between 18 and 35 years, with 57.2% (n=107) of the participants being educated to high school diploma level or higher. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the translated ET-eHEALS total score was 0.94. Test–retest reliability of ET-eHEALS total score was acceptable for both agreements and consistent with ICC (﻿interclass correlation coefficient) of 0.92. The KMO ratio of sampling appropriateness was acceptable (0.91), and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant with p < 0.001. The EFA (﻿exploratory ﻿factor ﻿analysis) extracted two factors based on an extraction principle of a minimum eigenvalue of one. The extracted factor explained 80.2% of the common variance which is 51.8% for factor 1 and 28.4% for factor 2. Except for item, item fit for both infit and outfit mean squares were within the adequate range (0.5–1.5). Conclusion This study depicted that ET-eHEALS is a consistent and valid instrument to evaluate Amharic-speaking chronic patients’ eHealth literacy level. Since there is no prior validation of eHEALS in low-income country, this finding may indicate important directions for further improvement in eHEALS item performance in resource-limited settings.
Blogger or President? Exploitation of Patterns in Entity Type Graphs for Representative Entity Type Classification

Thirty years of the Web have led to a tremendous amount of contents. While contents of the early years have been predominantly “simple” HTML documents, more recent ones have become more and more “machine-interpretable”. Named entities - ideally explicitly and intentionally annotated - pave the way toward a semantic exploration and exploitation of the data. While this appears to be the golden sky toward a more human-centric Web, it not necessarily is. The key-point is simple: “the more the merrier” is not necessarily the case along all dimensions. For instance, each and every named entity provides via the Web of data a plenitude of information potentially overwhelming the end-user. In particular, named entities are predominantly annotated with multiple types without any order of importance associated. In order to depict the most concise type information, we introduce an approach towards Pattern Utilization for Representative Entity type classification called PURE. To this end, PURE aims at exploiting solely structural patterns derived from knowledge graphs in order to “purify” the most representative type(s) associated with a named entity. Our experiments with named entities in Wikipedia demonstrate the viability of our approach and improvement over competing strategies.
Density-distribution patterns of egg parasitoids in freshwater habitats

Abstract Similar in effect to predators, egg parasitoids could have a significant effect on the distribution of host and its’ population dynamics. However, knowledge about the biology and ecology of aquatic parasitoids and their effects on the host are very limited. The aim of this study was to determine whether the density of parasitoids is affected by several environmental determinants and if there is a temporal change of density during the season, particularly in relation to the host population dynamics (from order Odonata in this study). In total, 266 individuals of parasitoid wasps (from four families utilizing damselflies as hosts) were identified. The density of parasitoids did not change significantly during the season regardless of the population dynamics of model host L. sponsa and other odonates, while there was a significant effect of habitat type on the density of parasitoids. This indicates that eggs of Odonata represent only one of several host taxa. This indicates that egg parasitoids of aquatic invertebrates are host generalists preferring open over afforested habitats.
Mapping aquatic faunal exchanges across the Sunda shelf, South-East Asia, using distributional and genetic data sets from the cyprinid fish Barbodes gonionotus (Bleeker, 1850)

The islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo and mainland South-East Asia are encompassed by a shallow marine shelf, the Sunda shelf. The striking faunal similarities between countries bordering the Sunda shelf have been attributed to faunal exchanges across the shelf during Pleistocene glacial maxima when sea levels fell by up to 120 m and the shelf was exposed and drained by large river systems which connected many of today's rivers. The widespread distribution of fish species reflecting extensive faunal exchange across the area is predicted to be observed within species through the broad geographic distribution of genetic lineages. Here I report a discontinuous species distribution across the region for the cyprinid fish, Barbodes gonionotus. Mitochondrial DNA control region sequence and nuclear locus data from populations sampled across the species range, suggest that the present species distribution largely reflects faunal exchanges early in the Pleistocene and that these two regional population groupings.
Relationship Between Brain Volume and Brain Width in Mammals and Birds

Abstract. In this study, we explored the relationship between brain volume and brain width in a wide range of extant mammals and birds in an effort to determine whether brain width could be used as an appropriate variable for estimating the brain volume of extinct species. The relationship between brain volume and brain width in extant species was assessed using computed tomography images of mammalian skulls from 55 species representing 13 orders, and avian skulls from 64 species representing 21 orders. Brain volume and brain width showed a strong linear correlation in both mammals and birds. We also discovered that brain volume of extant as well as extinct mammals and birds can be estimated on the basis of brain width. The brain widths of Cynodontia, Triconodonta, and non-avian Theropoda were relatively narrower than those of extant mammals and birds. This data indicates that compared to their early ancestors, the brain width of both mammals and birds has increased with respect to brain endocast volume. Thus, on the basis of our results we have concluded that the relationship between brain volume and brain width is useful for estimating the brain volume of extinct mammals and birds. In addition, it was found that relative brain width of both mammals and birds has increased throughout their evolutionary history from early ancestors to extant species.
Preliminary investigation of the mechanisms of DDT and pyrethroid resistance in Culex quinquefasciatus Say (Diptera: Culicidae) from Saudi Arabia

High levels (>1000-fold) of resistance to DDT, permethrin and deltamethrin were detected in Culex quinquefasciatus Say from Saudi Arabia. Biochemical enzyme and metabolic studies indicated that there is evidence for a metabolic basis to both the organochlorine and pyrethroid resistances. Electrophysiological studies indicated that there is no kdr -type mechanism conferring resistance to the pyrethroid lambda-cyhalothrin neurophysiologically, although there is evidence of cross-resistance between DDT and the pyrethroids by bioassays. There was a change in the oxidase system in both the DDT- and permethrin-selected strains and an increase in glutathione transferase activity in the DDT-selected line. Metabolic studies indicated that both oxidases and glutathione transferases are involved with DDT resistance as DDA and DDE were the predominant metabolites after a 5-h in-vitro incubation period. Permethrin resistance is likely to involve an increase in oxidative degradation, but further metabolic studies are needed to confirm this.
Design Principles for Comprehensible Process Discovery in Design Principles for Comprehensible Process Discovery in Process Mining Process Mining

“Spaghetti-like” process models discovered through process mining are challenging to comprehend, especially, for inexperienced users. But, at the same time, they contain potential insights for decision-makers. Designing process discovery techniques that work well in both aspects – being comprehensible and providing valuable information, for various data sets – is a challenging task in process mining. Therefore, we adopt metrics from various disciplines such as information theory, business process modelling, process mining, graph aesthetics, and cognitive load theory to deﬁne design principles for process discovery techniques in regards to model characteristics and visual layout principles. Each of the design principles includes a metric and reference value to ensure their testability and to provide quantitative orientation to designers. To assure that model comprehensibility does not come at the cost of losing essential information, we introduce an entropy-based measure as a boundary condition that expresses the amount of information a model encodes. We assess the effectiveness of the design principles in terms of their applicability in an experimental evaluation with synthetic and real-world event log data.
Rapid evolution of great kiskadees on Bermuda: an assessment of the ability of the island rule to predict the direction of contemporary evolution in exotic vertebrates

Aim To determine whether an exotic bird species, the great kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus), has diverged in morphology from its native source population, and, if so, has done so in a manner predicted by the island rule. The island rule predicts that insular vertebrates will tend towards dwarfism or gigantism when isolated on islands, depending on their body size. For birds, the island rule predicts that species with body sizes below 70–120 g should increase in size. The great kiskadee has a mean mass of c. 60 g in its native range, therefore we predicted that it would increase in size within the exotic, and more insular, Bermudan range.
Associations of changes in patient characteristics and management with decrease in mortality rates of men and women with ST-elevation myocardial infarction – a propensity score-matched analysis

Introduction The aim of this study is to estimate how much of the recent decrease in mortality among patients with myocardial infarction with ST-segment elevation (STEMI) can be attributed to improved treatment strategies, and how much it is related to changes in baseline clinical characteristics, and to compare these findings for men and women. Material and methods This was a retrospective analysis of 32,790 patients with STEMI from the Polish Registry of Acute Coronary Syndromes PL-ACS hospitalised in 2005 and 2011. Changes in treatment strategies including pharmacotherapy were analysed. Observed in-hospital and 12-month mortality rates were compared with the outcomes in the groups matched on the propensity scores. Results There was a substantial improvement in STEMI patient management between 2005 and 2011 in Poland. It included greater use of percutaneous coronary interventions and other guideline-based adjunctive therapies, and it was associated with a significant decline in in-hospital mortality. Relative 12-month mortality reduction rates were less pronounced and more related to changes in patients’ clinical characteristics. Higher mortality risk reductions were observed in women and were driven by relatively more positive changes in their baseline risk profiles when compared to men. Conclusions The progress in the treatment strategies has helped to achieve better survival rates in STEMI patients. However, the ongoing changes in clinical characteristics of patients also played an important role, especially in women. Clinicians should focus on modifiable risk factors and post-discharge management to possibly prolong the positive aspects of in-hospital efforts.
Multi-Scale Deep Representation Aggregation for Vein Recognition

The recent success of Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) for various computer vision tasks such as image recognition has already demonstrated its robust feature representation ability. However, the limitation of training database on small scale vein recognition tasks restricts its performance because the recognition result of DCNN depends heavily on the number of trainsets. This motivates the design of a Multi-Scale Deep Representation Aggregation (MSDRA) model based on a pre-trained DCNN for vein recognition. First, the multi-scale feature maps are extracted by a pre-trained DCNN model. Second, a local mean threshold approach is designed to preliminarily remove the noisy information of multi-scale feature maps and generate the selected feature maps. Third, we propose an Unsupervised Vein Information Mining (UVIM) method to localize vein information of selected feature maps for generating a binary vein information mask, and then the vein information mask is utilized to keep useful deep representation and discard the background information. Finally, the discriminative multi-scale deep representations, which are generated by using the vein information mask to aggregate multi-scale feature maps, are concatenated into the final compact feature vectors, and then a Support Vector Machine (SVM) is introduced for final recognition. Our proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on two benchmark vein databases. Moreover, an additional experiment using the subset of PolyU Palmprint database illustrates the system’s generalization ability and robustness.
Management of Recurrent Pterygium with Severe Symblepharon Using Mitomycin C, Double Amniotic Membrane Transplantation, Cryopreserved Limbal Allograft, and a Conjunctival Flap

Purpose The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of management of recurrent pterygium with severe symblepharon using mitomycin C, double amniotic membrane transplantation, cryopreserved limbal allograft, and a conjunctival flap. Patients and Methods This retrospective case series included 10 eyes of 10 patients with recurrent pterygium with severe symblepharon. Eight patients have diplopia in primary gaze. All patients underwent pterygium excision, application of mitomycin C (MMC), double amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT), cryopreserved limbal allograft (CLA) transplantation, and placement of a conjunctival flap. Outcome measures were visual acuity, astigmatism, and recurrence. Recurrence was defined as the presence of fibrovascular proliferative tissue crossing the limbus. Results The patients’ mean age was 73.8 years. The mean follow-up period was 3.0 years. The mean preoperative and postoperative best-corrected visual acuities (logMAR conversion) were 0.43 and 0.30, respectively. The mean preoperative and postoperative astigmatism were –3.89 diopters and –1.54 diopters, respectively, and there was a significant difference. No recurrence occurred in any of the eyes. Symblepharon was released in all eyes. Diplopia in primary gaze was resolved in all eyes. Conclusion Management of recurrent pterygium with severe symblepharon using MMC, double AMT, CLA, and a conjunctival flap was an effective treatment.
Circadian E-boxes and surrounding CpG islands are free from methylation throughout the day

Circadian E-boxes in the promoters of mPer1, mPer2, mCry1 and mDBP play a key role in regulating rhythmic gene expression by recruiting the BMAL1/CLOCK heterodimer. However, each of these circadian E-boxes seems different from one another. In the mouse liver, BMAL1/CLOCK binds to E-boxes in the mPer1 and mPer2 promoters constantly but binds with dynamic daily changes to mCry1 and mDBP promoters. It is unclear whether DNA methylation of these circadian E-boxes and the surrounding CpG islands would affect protein/DNA interactions and lead to distinct binding features. In the present study, bisulfite sequencing analysis indicated that all E-boxes and their surrounding CpG islands were free from methylation, suggesting that DNA methylation does not determine distinct binding features. The methylation status of the E-box in the MAP kinase phosphatase 1 (MKP1) promoter was also examined. Our results indicated that DNA methylation does not regulate the tissue-specific clock control of MKP1.
Some Aspects of Growth and Reproduction of the Bearded Seal, Erignathus barbatus (Erxleben)

This preliminary study is based on material from 113 specimens from the eastern Canadian Arctic. Animals may be aged from the claws up to 9 to 16 years. The male matures at 7 and the female at 6 years. The pup is produced around May 1 and the males are probably in full rut in mid-May. Females which have produced a pup forego ovulation until after the male rut, thus establishing a two-year cycle of pup production. The embryo implants during a 11/2-month period around early August, after 21/2 months of delay in development. The animal grows from 120 cm. in nose–tail length at birth to about 235 cm. The female increases her length by about 33% in the first year and reaches about 91% of her final length at puberty, at 6 years; these figures are somewhat larger than expected from the growth patterns of other Pinnipedia.
Sustainable Coastal Tourism in Tanjung Kelayang, Indonesia

ABSTRACT Special economic zone established in Tanjung Kelayang aims at the development of coastal tourism. We conducted a survey to assess how sustainably this development is managed. We distributed 150 semi-structured questionnaires and asked the stakeholders (tourists, local residents, administrators, employees, etc.) to rate three main components of management: (1) the effectiveness of the policy of coastal tourism management planning, (2) the increase in socio-economic activity and (3) minimizing environmental impact. We also asked the respondents to assess the existing as well as the expected management. The respondents gave highest ratings to socio-economic activity followed by planning policy, whilst minimizing environmental impacts received least rating; this ranking was maintained both for the existing and expected management. Our results suggest that more efforts should be given to minimizing environmental efforts to ensure sustainable development of coastal tourism in Tanjung Kelayang.