Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
University of Birmingham An assessment of the use of native and denatured forms of okra seed proteins as coagulants in drinking water treatment

9 The effects of temperature, storage time and water pH on the coagulation performance of 10 okra seed protein in water treatment were assessed. In a jar test experiment, okra salt extract 11 (OSEX) achieved a notable improvement in treatment efficiency with storage time and 12 showed good performance in quality after thermal treatment at 60, 97 and 140C 13 temperatures for 6, 4 and 2 hours respectively. The performance improvement of more than 14 8% is considered to be due to the denaturation and subsequent removal of coagulation15 hindering proteins in okra seed. Furthermore, the results of a Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate 16 Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) analysis show two distinctive bands of 17 protein responsible for the coagulation process after denaturation. It was further shown that at 18 optimal coagulant dose, the pH of the treated water remained unaffected as a result of the 19 protein’s buffering capability during coagulation. Therefore, denatured okra seed exhibited 20 improved performance compared to the native crude extract and offers clear benefits as a 21 water treatment coagulant. 22
How Integrated Are Corporate Bond and Stock Markets?

In this paper, I study the degree of market integration between US corporate bonds and stocks of the corresponding issuing firms, accounting for their characteristics. I find that short-selling constraints are essential restrictions to optimal Sharpe ratio portfolios that yield admissible portfolio positions and implied pricing errors within quoted bid-ask spreads. My empirical evidence suggests that markets are more integrated for larger firms, with more liquid corporate bonds and stocks. Similarly, firms that are more leveraged, have a higher asset growth and profitability feature a greater extent of integration between their debt and equity securities.
Dimensions of Brand Equity affecting Consumption of Ḥalāl/Ḥarām Products: Moderating Role of Islamic Work Ethics

This paper investigates impact of two dimensions of brand equity i.e. brand image and brand awareness on the consumption patterns of ḥalāl/ḥarām products when the consumers are aware of the Islamic Work Ethics (IWE) of the entity or firm from which they are buying the product. The data were collected from 307 respondents through online surveys and self-administered questionnaires based on a five-point Likert scale. Correlation and regression analyses were carried out to examine the effect of the dimensions of brand equity on consumption patterns of consumers. The findings suggest that both dimensions of brand equity have a positive impact on consumption patterns of consumers as found by regression analysis. The moderating effect of Islamic Work Ethics (IWE) was tested by multiple regression for the two dimensions of brand equity and it was found that IWE of the branding entity increases the strength of the relationship between the dimensions of brand equity and the consumption of the consumers. There are implications for marketers and policy makers. They should keep in mind that Muslims prefer ḥalāl products and thus stress upon the importance of including ḥalāl branded products in their list of promoted brands. The main contribution of this paper is that it examines how the IWE of the chosen firm ultimately affect the consumption of ḥalāl/ḥarām products. The paper also provides managerial implications.
Information Gaps for Scaling-up Programs to Improve Zinc Nutrition

A recent publication of the International Zinc Nutrition Consultative Group (IZiNCG) discusses how adequate zinc nutrition is necessary for optimal child health, physical growth, and normal pregnancy outcomes (IZiNCG, 2004). Recent community-based intervention trials have found that zinc supplementation decreases rates of diarrhea and acute lower respiratory infections among young children (Zinc Investigators Group, 1999), two of the most important causes of child mortality in lower income countries. Several studies have detected significantly reduced death rates among children who receive supplemental zinc (Sazawal et al, 2001; Baqui et al, 2002; Brooks et al, 2005). Notably, a recent Lancet series on child mortality estimated that universal (>90 percent) coverage with intervention programs to prevent zinc deficiency would reduce child mortality by approximately five percent globally. This places zinc programs among the top five suggested approaches for ensuring improved child survival (Jones et al, 2003). In addition to the effects of zinc on morbidity and mortality from common childhood infections, a number of studies indicate that preventive zinc supplements increase the linear growth and weight gain of stunted or underweight children (Brown et al, 2002).
Erroneous Accounting and Industry Investment Efficiency: Evidence from Restatements

This study documents that restatements of previously published financial statements by U.S. firms are associated with a significant decrease in value for their competitor firms. In contrast to the established contagion explanation, the drop in value occurs because competitors condition their investments on financial statements that are revealed, ex post, to be erroneous. Controlling for the contagion effect, competitors are found to experience a larger decrease in value if they made more inefficient investments in the past. Furthermore, investment allocation is less efficient in industries with more restatements and the inefficiency arises mainly because of over-investment. The value decrease is also larger for competitors of restating firms with a greater market share and for competitors whose industry definition is closer to the industry definition of restating firms. ∗Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Telephone: +1 (514) 3985394. Email address: art.durnev@mcgill.ca. Art Durnev thanks the Institut de Finance Mathématique de Montréal (IFM2) for supporting this research. †John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Telephone: +1 (514) 848 24 24, extension 2747. Email address: cmangen@jmsb.concordia. ca. Claudine Mangen thanks the Concordia University Research Fund for funding.
Discussion of “Welfare Effects of Tax Policy in Open Economies: Stabilization and Cooperation”∗

Jinill Kim and Sunghyun Kim explore the behavior of optimal tax rate rules in a one-sector stochastic growth or real business cycle (RBC) model, a small open-economy RBC model, and a two-country RBC model. The central question of the paper is whether optimized tax rate rules are procyclical or countercyclical across the three economies. The consensus is, according to Kim and Kim, that optimal tax rates are often countercyclical in closed economies, but in open economies less is known. The models share several elements in common. The closed (domestic) economy generates supply-side Solow growth dynamics using a firm’s production technology and capital accumulation by a household in response to an exogenous total factor productivity (TFP) shock, At, which evolves as a first-order autoregression, AR(1). The TFP shock represents aggregate risk against which the household and firm cannot insure. The household approximates a permanent income (PI) consumer and supplies capital and labor to the firm. The model also has a cost of adjustment in investment and a (domestic) government that raises revenue by placing proportional tax rates on consumption, τC,t, labor income, τL,t, and capital income, τK,t, of the household. The small open economy issues international bonds, Bt, which creates adjustment costs that appear in household and government budget constraints. The two-country model includes a foreign twin of the domestic economy, which adds
ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION ITEMS IN THE 1985 NES PILOT STUDY

Results obtained from the 1985 Pi lot study indicate that highly valid and reliable measures of political information can be incorporated into the semi-annual NES surveys with little expenditure of new resources. This conclusion rests on a simple, somewhat surprising finding: A 22-item information scale pieced together from odd items in the 1984 pre/post election study performs almost as well as -and often fully as well as -a variety of scales built from the 27 information items carried in the Pilot. In view of the strong showing by standard NES items, the NES Board needs to take only modest steps to improve the measurement of political information. These steps would include the addition of a few new items, replacement of three existing items, and minor adjustments in the formats of the "candidate location" items. Extensive additions would be valuable to some scholars and would have useful payoffs, but, in my opinion, the cost would be difficult to justify. The principal threat to this assessment is a question raised by Shanta Iyengar ( 1985): That question is: Is a respondents· level of political information a highly general trait, such that someone who is well-informed on one subject is very likely to be well-informed on others as well? Or do people tend to acquire information about only a few subjects and remain relatively ignorant about most others? From the perspective of measuring political information, this question is a consequential one. If information is a general trait, researchers can confidently use a single, all-purpose measure of information to study information effects across a range of
Cardiac magnetic resonance in myocarditis-- do we need more tools ? Ressonância magnética cardíaca na miocardite-- necessitamos de mais ferramentas ?

Based on its unique tissue characterization features, cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) has become the non-invasive gold standard for the diagnosis of myocarditis and a class I recommendation to identify myocarditis in the latest European heart failure guidelines. The use of CMR in this context may avoid invasive procedures such as coronary angiography and endomyocardial biopsy. In 2009, the Lake Louise criteria were published for the diagnosis of myocarditis using CMR. These criteria have recently been updated, driven by new data and technical advances, particularly the development of pixel-wise mapping of T1 and T2 relaxation times. The updated Lake Louise criteria adopt a ‘2 out of 2’ approach, with one positive T2-based criterion (as a marker of myocardial edema) and one T1-based criterion (as a marker of myocardial injury), to increase specificity. This update is in line with the most commonly used approach worldwide, in which the combination of T2-imaging and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) has been widely adopted. Developments in mapping techniques may further improve the accuracy of the technique and can be used to provide evidence for either of these two criteria. Evidence of pericardial involvement and systolic
What do 911 Communication Workers need ? A discussion of unique characteristics and possible intervention strategies

Notes d’idées Printemps 2014 ABSTRACT There is overwhelming literature regarding occupational stress, coping, and burnout within emergency responder populations, such as police, fire, and ambulance responder; however the pertinent literature often overlooks the importance of emergency (911) communications workers as the first point of contact in an emergency. The present paper discusses the unique qualities and worker characteristics of communication workers. These characteristics include shift-work, secondary trauma exposure, lack of nonverbal cues, emotional labour, hypervigilance, and lack of control. It also proposes several approaches for addressing occupational stress within this population, including a discussion of the need for tailored supports and possible primary, secondary and tertiary intervention strategies at the individual and organizational levels ______________________________________________________
Quantum Quenching in Two-Dimensional Spin-1 Bose Gases

Structure formation in spinor Bose-Einstein condensate are systems of significant interest: they have both superfluid and magnetic order, lending themselves interesting dynamical textures after a quench. Following previous theoretical work on quenches from finite to zero magnetic field, we explore the consequences of quenching to a variety of different final magnetic field strengths in this dissertation — not just zero. Our studies begin with developing an algorithm to propagate this complex, multi-modal system using an adaptive-step Runge-Kutta-based partial differential equation solver. We use this to evolve trajectories that approximately describe the full quantum field dynamics using the Truncated Wigner formalism. In our results we observe a quenched spinor condensate reorganize itself for various different quench depths, observing experimentally-known phenomenon such as spontaneous magnetization, coarsening in long-time dynamics, and domain formation. We also observe never-before seen behavior, including the light-cone-esque propagation of correlations in the shallow quench regime, and a gradual spontaneous ordering of the mean correlation
Organization Structure as a Determinant of Strategic Plan Implementation and Performance of public Level Four Hospitals in Kericho County, Kenya

Success of any organization depends not only on how good its strategic plan is, but also on how well the strategic plan is implemented. Many reforms have taken place in the health sector since devolution came into force, some mid-term and long – term development policies and implementation plans have been advanced to improve the health sector and provide quality services to the public. Implementation of various strategies in the health sector has faced a myriad of issues ranging from insufficient resources, technology, issues in organizational structures and culture. Some of these issues are brought due to devolution of health sector. The objective of the study was to determine the relationship between organization structure as a determinant of strategic plan implementation and organization performance of level four hospitals in Kericho County. Exploratory research design was used for the study. The study targeted 198 employees among them: medical officers, human resource personnel, clinicians, nurses, finance officers, procurement and subordinate staff in the public level four hospitals within the county out of which a sample size of 132 respondents were selected for the study using stratified sampling method. Data was collected using structured and unstructured questionnaires. Content validity was checked together with the supervisor and subject matter experts while instrument reliability was determined through Cronbach’s Alpha method where a reliability score of 0.7 was considered ideal. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics and presented using tables, graphs and charts. The results indicated that organization structure affect significantly the performance of level four hospitals in Kericho County (β = 0.332, p < 0.00) indication a strong relationship between the variables under study. The study recommended that there is need to adapt to an organization structure that can allow easy and efficient implementation of strategies. Employees should also be in cooperated well in decision making so as to motivate them and ensure that they corporate while implementing strategies. The research study may enable hospitals to establish the importance of implementing effective strategic plans in order to enhance organizational performance
Behavioural analysis of Village Weavers Ploceus cucullatus in an Ethiopian breeding colony during incubation: 1. Females

We used video recordings to perform a behavioural analysis of a Village Weaver Ploceus cucullatus colony in Awash National Park, Ethiopia. We focused specifically on female behaviour during the pair-formation, egg-laying and early-incubation phases of the nesting cycle. A factor analysis revealed that females’ temporal investments can be partitioned into three broad behavioural categories: (1) behaviours associated with aggression, (2) time away/ inside nest, and (3) behaviours associated with copulation. Time budgets revealed females spent approximately 61% of their time away from the colony and 38% of their time inside their nests. The performance of individual behaviours was largely a function of temporal and social factors, including when the birds were observed and the personality of the territorial male. Females invested more time away from the nest earlier and more time inside the nest later in the observation period. One aspect of a territorial male’s personality, boldness, was a predictor of several female behaviours: a female Village Weaver was significantly more likely to remain on a territory if the resident male had a tendency not to flee during colony-wide disturbances. Lastly, a path analysis revealed that females exhibited consistent sequential patterns of behaviour.
A Pilot Study: The Acute Effects of a Novel Kinetic Chain Weight-Supported Resistance Training Technique

Kinetic Chain Resistance Training (KCRT) has been used to promote gains in muscular strength. The Finisher� is a gravity-modified resistance devises which offers weight-supported kinetic chain stimuli. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a six week pre- to post- Finisher� training intervention would have on muscular strength in 39 healthy volunteers.
EMOTIONAL AWARENESS IN VIRTUAL HUMANS WITH CASE-BASED

In order for virtual humans to become emotionally intelligent, they must have the ability to detect emotions within humans. A comparison on the usefulness toward this goal is made between appraisal and feeling emotion theories and between Bayesian networks and cased-based reasoning (CBR) to implement am emotion model. Feeling theory implemented using CBR is tested to evaluate the effectiveness of the representation in determining an emotion from a given input.
An Approach to Reduce Noise in Speech Signals Using an Intelligent System: BELBIC

The two widespread concepts of noise reduction algorithms could be observed are spectral noise subtraction and adaptive filtering. They have the disadvantage that there is no parameter to distinguish between the speech and the noise components of same frequency. In this paper, an intelligent controller, BELBIC, based on mammalian limbic Emotional Learning algorithms is used for increasing the speech quality from a noisy environment. Here the learning ability to train the system to recognize and the output thus obtained would be the fundamental frequency of the speech spectrum thus reducing the noise level to minimum. The parameters on which the reduction of noise from the input speech spectrum depends have also been studied. The real time implementations have been done using Simulink and the results of the analysis thus obtained are included in the end.
Does trade liberalization affect labor market churning?

The trade literature on heterogeneous firms emphasizes the importance of intraindustry reallocation in response to trade liberalization. The theory, also supported by empirical evidence, indicates that more productive firms select into export markets and less productive firms exit with reductions in trade restrictions. This adjustment within the product market suggests that labor market churning will also result, as firms expand or contract their labor forces to reflect the new market structure. Using establishment-level data on employment and wages in the US and detailed trade and tariff data, we examine the effects of changes in trade policy due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on labor market churning. We exploit variation in tariff rates over commodities and time for identification. According to our preliminary results, indicators of trade openness significantly contribute to labor churning within industries most affected by NAFTA, including the automotive, chemicals, and apparel industries. While results are only suggestive so far, they demonstrate that further probing is worthwhile and necessary. ∗Address: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Postal Square Building Rm 4945, 2 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20212-0001 USA. Email: sun.hugette@bls.gov. Phone: +1 202 691 7419. Fax: +1 202 691 7425. †The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the official positions or policies of the BLS or the views of other BLS staff members. Any remaining errors are the authors’ only.
Combined Empirical and Analytical Virtual Sensing for Full-Field Dynamic Response Estimation

A full-field dynamic response can be estimated using a limited number of vibration sensors on a structure. Virtual sensing techniques estimate unmeasured quantities using the available physical sensors. Combined empirical and analytical virtual sensing is introduced to reduce the uncertainty of the estimation. First, empirical virtual sensing utilizes the redundancy of the sensor network to compute less noisy signal estimates. The actual noisy measurements are then replaced with their empirical estimates in subsequent analytical virtual sensing. Analytical virtual sensing utilizes the mode shapes obtained from the finite element model as a basis to estimate the response of the unmeasured quantities of interest. Four different algorithms were compared using numerical simulations: analytical and combined virtual sensing using either ordinary least squares (OLS) or weighted least squares (WLS). Combined virtual sensing outperformed analytical virtual sensing in all cases.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COST EFFECTIVE METHOD FOR MEASURING THE VARIATION OF AREA IN CONTRASTING SCUTE PIGMENTATION IN CHELONIANS

—Metapopulations of chelonians often vary widely in the amount of contrasting carapace scute pigment. To date, measurement of such variation has been undertaken using a myriad of techniques from non-quantitative descriptive techniques to the use of expensive image capture techniques and processing software. This paper describes a rigorous, cost effective method using freely available software and a basic digital camera to quantify the comparative area of light and dark patterning for a species supporting high contrast carapace patterning. To validate the method, I used a sample population of Northern Spider Tortoises (Pyxis arachnoides brygooi) to test for age and sex dependent variation in scute color contrast. A reduction of dark pigmentation was correlated with increased age, and females were found to have a greater amount of dark pigmentation than males. This technique provides researchers with an alternative to expensive image capture software and processing techniques in cases where all that is required is a robust method for the quantification of contrasting dark and light area of patterning.
Drivers of groundwater utilization in water-limited rice production systems in Nepal

ABSTRACT Most rice farmers in Nepal’s Terai region do not fully utilize irrigation during breaks in monsoon rainfall. This leads to yield losses despite abundant groundwater resources and ongoing expansion of diesel pumps and tubewell infrastructure. We investigate this puzzle by characterizing delay factors governing tubewell irrigation across wealth and precipitation gradients. After the decision to irrigate, different factors delay irrigation by roughly one week. While more sustainable and inexpensive energy for pumping may eventually catalyze transformative change, we identify near-term interventions that may increase rice farmers’ resilience to water stress in smallholder-dominated farming communities based on prevailing types of irrigation infrastructure.