Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of oxidative stress in patients with tul aremia

Tularemia, a zoonotic acute febrile invasive diseas e with rapid intracellular replication resulting in high bacterial densities, accumulation of phagocytes, an d extensive tissue necrosis; may be related to increased free radical production and antioxidant d epletion and; oxidative stress. The aim of this stu dy was to investigate serum malondialdehyde (MDA) leve l and superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx) activities in patients with tula remia during preand post-treatment period and to compare results obtained with data from healthy sub jects. A total of 90 subjects (40 patients with tularemia and 50 healthy controls) were enrolled in this study. Peripheral venous blood samples were taken from patients before and 3 months after the t reatment. In the control group, blood samples from healthy volunteers were collected only once. Serum MDA level and SOD, GSHPx activities were measured. In the ‘before treatment’ group, MDA conc entration was significantly higher than the control group (p<0.001), but GSH-Px activity was lower than the control group (p = 0.006). The SOD activity wa s similar in the ‘before treatment’ group and the con trol group (p = 0.235). MDA concentration decreased in the ‘after treatment’ group (p<0.001). In the ‘a fter treatment’ group, MDA concentration was significantly higher than the control group (p<0.00 1). GSH-Px activity in the ‘after treatment’ group, but the difference was statistically insignificant (p = 0.105). GSH-Px activity was slightly higher in the control group compared to the ‘after treatment’ gro up, but the difference was statistically insignific ant (p = 0.08). SOD activity has not changed in the ‘af ter treatment’ group (p = 0.163). Also, SOD activit y was similar in the control and the ‘after treatment’ gr oup (p = 0.391). In conclusion, the data obtained f rom the present study showed that patients with tularem ia are exposed to oxidative stress, and oxidative stress decreases after the treatment.
Initial Electrical Parameter Validation in Lead-Acid Battery Model Used for State Estimation

Abstract The paper presents a current impulse-based excitation method for lead-acid batteries in order to define the initial electrical parameters for model-based online estimators. The presented technique has the capability to track the SoC (State of Charge) of a battery, however, it is not intended to be used for online SoC estimations. The method is based on the battery’s electrical equivalent Randles’ model [1]. Load current impulse excitation was applied to the battery clamps during discharge while the voltage and current was logged. Based on the Randles’ model, a model function and a fit function were implemented and used by exponential regression based on the measured data. The diffusion-related non-linear characteristic of the battery was approximated by a capacitorlike linear voltage function for speed and simplicity. The initial capacitance of this bulk capacitor was estimated by linear regression on measurements recorded in the laboratory. Then, the RC parameters of the equivalent battery model were derived from exponential regression on transients during each current impulse cycle. The battery model with initial RC parameters is suitable for model-based online observers.
The Accounting Implication of Cultural Dimensions on Financial Reporting: A Study of Selected Manufacturing Companies in Nigeria

This study extends the literature on the impact of cultural dimensions on financial reporting practice and disclosure patterns of selected manufacturing companies in Nigeria by investigating the extent to which cultural dimensions (i.e. power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity) influences financial reporting (mirrored by professionalism, uniformity, conservatism and secrecy). These cultural dimensions have served as a basis for a number of risks of material misstatements in the financial reporting process and an impediment to reducing differences in financial reporting rules that exist across countries. The study adopted a survey research design and data were collected by the use of questionnaires and analyzed using the ordinary least square (OLS) method. The results from the test of hypotheses revealed that financial reporting is significantly influenced by cultural dimensions. Finally, the study recommended that since accounting practice and financial reporting to a large extent is a product of its environment, there should be a direct link between cultural dimensions and financial reporting as it is potentially useful for users of accounting information because this provides them with supplementary information on the likelihood of material errors in financial statements. Keywords: Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism, Masculinity
Adoption and impact of an award winning post-harvest technology: The ASI rice thresher in the Senegal River Valley

In Senegal, one of the highest rice import-dependent countries in Sub-Saharian Africa, double cropping is recommended in the new national program for the Great Offensive for Food and Abundance (GOANA) to boost rice production. This target impels the respect of cropping calendar by using improved technologies like the ASI thresher-cleaner. The causal or treatment effect framework (ATE and LATE) is used to estimate the ASI adoption rate and impact. The results show that the true ASI adoption rate would be 86 % if all the population of irrigated rice farmers were exposed to it. The socioeconomic characteristics that increase the probability to adopt the ASI thresher are farmer experience, farm size, and participation to ASI field experiments and/or contact with service providers, and lag between ASI invention (1997) and first awareness. Indeed, irrigated rice farmers who recently become aware of the ASI thresher represent a highly potential group of adopters. The results show, as well, that the ASI thresher adoption could help irrigated rice farmers to cope with labour scarcity by decreasing significantly the number of workers needed. The labour-gain would be 22 man-days per hectare in the subpopulation of potential adopters.
Biofiltration of acetic acid vapours using filtering bed compost from poultry manure - pruning residues - rice husks

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are generated by important economic activities such as: Chemical production plants, industrial areas, agricultural and livestock farms and waste treatment plants. These VOCs could generate annoyance and repercussions on health of the employees and the surrounding communities. Biofiltration is one of the most efficient biological technologies to eliminate these contaminants on streams with medium concentrations and high flows. Moreover, it has several advantages related to low costs of implementation and maintenance. In this work, packing materials were obtained through a composting process carried out under controlled conditions. Poultry manure (PM) as main substrate and pruning residues (PR) or rice husks (RH) as bulking materials were used during composting. Two isolated acrylic barrels (210 L) with automatized aeration were used as composters. These systems were fed with PM:PR and PM:RH in a volume ratio of 1:1 to obtain two different composts used as packing materials. A biofiltration battery was used to evaluate acetic acid removal efficiency from an air stream through the composting beds. The material moisture was fixed in 50% w.w. and the system assessment was carried out using an empty bed retention time of 66 s. The biofiltration system was exposed to concentrations in the range of 7,240 to 14,480 ppm. The removal efficiency, of both biofilters, during the experiment was in the range of 77.1 to 99.9 %. The low pollutant removal was associated with a high initial VOCs concentration in the gas stream. Nevertheless, the pruning residues bed showed a better operative performance to the transient conditions evaluated.
Periodontal Status in Patients Suffering from Diabetes Mellitus in Relations to Glycosylated Hemoglobin Level and the Level of Oral Hygiene

Introduction. It has been known that periodontitis is one of the most common oral diseases in patients having diabetes mellitus (DM). The aim of this study was to examine the influence of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level and the level of oral hygiene on periodontal status of patients suffering from DM. Material and Methods. The research included 50 people with type 2 DM randomly selected. Based on values of HbA1c, patients were divided into two groups: well controlled DM (HbA1c≤8.5%) and poorly controlled DM (HbA1c>8.5%). Patients with poorly and well controlled DM were further grouped into subgroups depending on the level of oral hygiene. For each patient, during the clinical examination, periodontal parameters were determined: plaque index (PI), sulcus bleeding index (SBI), the level of junctional epithelium (LJE) and periodontal pocket depth (PPD). Results. The results showed that patients with well controlled disease and good oral hygiene had lower values of the examined periodontal parameters (SBI and PPD) then patients with poorly controlled DM and worse oral hygiene (p<0.01 for SBI, p<0.05 for PPD). Conclusion. The results of this study indicate the important role of oral hygiene for periodontal status of patients with DM.
Trade Growth and Poverty: A Case of Pakistan

It is generally argued that open trade is crucial for economic growth and development. The economic literature also argues that growth is an important option for reducing poverty in developing countries. The paper analyzed the causality between the trade, growth and poverty for Pakistan using annual time series data from 1973-2009. Granger causality results based on Error-Correction Models have shown that in the case of Pakistan there exists two way relationship between trade and growth in the long-run but for the short-run growth enhance the trade. For the growth and poverty, there exists long-run relation from growth to poverty while for the short-run there exists no relationship. It may be concluded that international trade can play an important role towards growth and ultimately alleviation of poverty. From the policy perspective government should focus on trade.
On Making Robots Invisible-in-Use

A major challenge facing human-robot interaction is un- derstanding how to people will interact and cope with increasingly agentic objects in their everyday lives. As more robotic technolo- gies enter human environments, it is critical to consider other mod- els of human-robot interaction that do not always require focused attention from people. Ubiquitous computing put forth the perspec- tive that computers should not always be the focus of our attention, but that computing should weave itself into the fabric of our ev- eryday lives. Similarly, robots might be the center of attention in some interactions, but might be even more effective when they fade into one's attentional background. In this line of thought, the current study presents results from interviews (N=19) and surveys (N=46) regarding personal experiences with tools that became invisible-in- use, shedding light upon ways that robots might do the same. We present the lessons learned from these open-ended interviews and surveys in the context of larger theories of making tools invisible-in- use (9), functional (16), ready-at-hand (8), proximal (14), and/or in the periphery of one's experience (24).
Spectral Stacking: Unbiased Shear Estimation for Weak Gravitational Lensing

We present a new method for the estimation of shear in gravitational lensing from a set of galaxy images with unknown distribution of shapes. Common procedures first compute an estimate of some characteristic feature for each individual galaxy and then average over these. The average can be used to estimate the shear as it becomes independent of the individual galaxy shapes with increasing number of images. A common problem of the previous methods is that the estimators of the features are biased. Here we introduce “spectral stacking” which uses the power spectrum as a characteristic feature of the individual galaxies. If the galaxy images are contaminated by Poisson noise, an unbiased estimator of the power spectrum exists which is used in the analysis. Furthermore, the power spectrum is independent of the location of the individual galaxy centers provided the smoothed galaxy intensities decay sufficiently fast. No further assumptions are necessary. The algorithm won the main contest of the Great08 challenge.
Comparison of Estimators for Stress-Strength Reliability in the Gompertz Case

In this paper, the Bayesian and non Bayesian estimation problem of reliability, R = P (Y < X), will be considered when X and Y are two independent but not identically random variables belonging to the Gompertz distribution. The three estimation methods applied were the maximum likelihood, uniformly minimum variance unbiased, and Bayes estimators. A numerical illustration is used to compare the three different estimators.
COMPUTER-AIDED DETECTION OF CLUSTERED CALCIFICATION USING IMAGE MORPHOLOGY

The presence of microcalcification clusters in the mammogram image is a significant sign for the breast cancer at an early stage. The early detection increases the chance for successful treatment and complete recovery of the patient [1]. At present, the detection of microcalcification is still difficult because of their fuzzy nature, low contrast and low distinguish-ability from their surroundings [2, 3]. The interpretations of their presence are very difficult because of their morphological features. Microcalcifications are very small, typically between 0.1 and 1.0 mm, which means that they can be easily overlooked by a radiologist [4]. The purpose of this paper is to identify the location of suspicious areas to assist radiologists for diagnosis. The proposed method is divided into four steps: (a) image preprocessing (b) image enhancement using image morphology (c) individual calcification detection using intensity threshold, where pixels with high intensity are considered as suspicious pixels; and finally (d) clustered calcification detection, where suspicious pixels in close proximity are grouped into clusters. 17 images with calcification marked by expert radiologists from MiniMIAS database [5] were tested to evaluate the detection of the proposed method. From the tested images that contain 3 types of breast tissue consisting of fatty, fatty-glandular and dense-glandular. There are 2 types of calcifications presented in the tested image, benign and malignant. From 17 images with calcification marked from MiniMIAS, all calcifications locations were correctly detected. At this point, this is just a preliminary experiment. The author cannot claim that this method can successfully detect for all mammographic images. Larger image database is needed to improve the proposed method. Request for more mammographic images from Thailand Breast Center is in processing.
Dynamical systems with generalized hyperbolic attractors: hyperbolic, ergodic and topological properties

Abstract We introduce a class of dynamical systems on a Riemannian manifold with singularities having attractors with strong hyperbolic behavior of trajectories. This class includes a number of famous examples such as the Lorenz type attractor, the Lozi attractor and some others which have been of great interest in recent years. We prove the existence of a special invariant measure which is an analog of the Bowen-Ruelle-Sinai measure for classical hyperbolic attractors and study the ergodic properties of the system with respect to this measure. We also describe some topological properties of the system on the attractor. Our results can be considered a dissipative version of the theory of systems with singularities preserving the smooth measure.
The Role of Career Self-Efficacy on the Effect of Parental Career Behaviors on Career Exploration: A Study on School of Tourism and Hotel Managementâ€™ Students

This study aims to investigate the impact of parental career behaviors on undergraduate studentâ€™s career exploration and the mediating role of career self-efficacy. In the literature it is suggested that some social and individual factors facilitate studentsâ€™ career exploration. Therefore, parental career behaviors and career self-efficacy is considered as predictors of studentâ€™s career exploration attitudes within the scope of the study. In this respect, data which are collected from 405 undergraduate students having an education on tourism and hotel management field by the survey method are analyzed by using the structural equation modeling. The results of the study indicate that parental career behaviors which are addressed support; interference and lack of engagement have a significant effect on studentâ€™s career exploration behaviors such as intended-systematic exploration, environment exploration and self-exploration. In addition, it has been found that one of the dimensions of parental career behaviors addressed as a lack of engagement has a significant effect on career self-efficacy levels of students. However, research results indicate that studentâ€™s career self-efficacy has a significant effect on only the self-exploration dimension. On the other hand, career self-efficacy has a partial mediating role between lack of engagement attitudes of parents and career exploration behaviors of students.
Toward a Good Decision to Improve the Weight of Control of Expenditure for Local Communities

In order to improve the weight control of local government spending, we have developed a technique to supervise the classification of local authorities according to their expense ratios. This aims to develop the repository of rules and decision-making skills of business leaders of local communities and enabling to detect frauds in expenditure ratios that cause weakness of the Current Flow margin (CCF).
Production and Characterisation of Microfine Sized Palm Oil Fuel Ash ( POFA ) Originated from Bau , Lundu Palm Oil

This paper investigates an effective and economical way for laboratory scale production of micro fine sized palm oil fuel ash (POFA) using an electric powder grinder. The raw POFA obtained from the palm oil mill is initially grinded by using Los Angeles abrasion machine, and then sieved using 150 μm sieve before it is burned in a furnace at 500°C. The burned POFA is then grinded using electric powder grinder to obtain the targeted micro fine sized. The physical, morphological and chemical properties of the micro fine sized POFA produced are analysed in the form of cement paste using Particle Size Analyzer (PSA), nitrogen sorption by using BET method, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). The results show that 96% micro fine sized POFA is produced when using the optimum grinding process. The microstructural analyses of cement paste with 20% micro fine sized POFA replacement give the optimum results that contribute to higher compressive strength. The overall results of this research show that the optimum grinding process by using electric powder grinder is relevant and can be used as pioneering work in the concrete production industry.
Sharka Disease in Bulgaria: Past, Present and Future

ABSTRACT This review is an attempt to synthesize almost 70 years investigations of Sharka disease in Bulgaria. The results obtained from first virus discovery, disease dissemination throughout stone fruit growing regions, present virus incidence on different Prunus species, natural hosts of the virus, virus detection, strain characterization, susceptibility of plum, peach and apricot cultivars to Sharka disease and virus control measures applied in the past and today are presented.
Planetary nebulae and determination of the bulge–disk boundary

Abstract In this paper, a sample of planetary nebulae in the Galaxy's inner-disk and bulge is used to find the galactocentric distance that optimally separates these two populations in terms of their abundances. Statistical distance scales were used to investigate the distribution of abundances across the disk–bulge interface, while a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was used to find the distance at which the chemical properties of these regions separate optimally. The statistical analysis indicates that, on average, the inner population is characterized by lower abundances than the outer component. Additionally, for the α-element abundances, the inner population does not follow the disk's radial gradient toward the Galactic Center. Based on our results, we suggest a bulge–disk interface at 1.5 kpc, marking the transition between the bulge and the inner disk of the Galaxy as defined by the intermediate-mass population.
Multiseasonal predictions with a coupled tropical ocean-global atmosphere system

The Center for Ocean‐Land‐Atmosphere Studies anomaly coupled prediction system, using a sophisticated dynamical model of the tropical Pacific Ocean and the global atmosphere, is described. The resolution of the component models is moderate, with the atmospheric spectral model truncated at triangular total wavenumber 30 and 18 vertical levels. The ocean model is a Pacific Basin model with 0.58 latitude and 1.58 longitude resolution in the waveguide and 20 vertical levels. The performance of the uncoupled component models motivates the anomaly coupling strategy and has led to the development of a simple empirical technique for converting the 850-mb zonal wind into a zonal surface stress that is used in the prediction experiments described here. In developing ocean initial conditions, an iterative procedure that assimilates the zonal wind stress based on the simulated sea surface temperature anomaly error is applied. Based on a sample of 78 18-month hindcasts, the predictions have useful skill in the Nino-3 region for at least 12 months. The systematic error of the predictions is shown to be relatively small because the ocean initial conditions are in reasonable equilibrium with the ocean
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORTING AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE. A literature study on the explaining factors

The relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting and financial performance have been subject to many empirical studies. This paper discusses the different explaining factors behind this relationship, by first providing a theoretical framework on CSR reporting, different managerial motives and the General Reporting Initiative principles. Finally this theoretical framework will be underpinned by different empirical studies examining the relationship between CSR reporting and financial performance.
Discharge Growth Simulation between Parallel-Plate Electrodes Using Various Computation Techniques

In this work, a simulation of the discharge growth between parallelplate electrodes is built up based on various computation techniques. The continuity equations of different particle species existing in the discharge are solved by the characteristic method. The electric field is evaluated by a disc method and one dimensional Poisson’s equation. Excited atoms or molecules and photons due to photoionization process is also included. The secondary electrons due to u.v. light, positive ion and delayed and/or undelayed photon cathode bombardment are evaluated. In this respect various computation techniques led to select the most accurate method used in the discharge simulation which enables the discharge to be traced to later stages. The total gap current and breakdown time are discussed. N2 gas is implemented in gap to study the discharge growth using various computation techniques.