Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lifestyle and chronic kidney disease in elderly

Summary Lifestyle has an important effect on many elements of health. Lifestyle-related risk factors for chronic kidney disease (CKD) include low fluid intake, alcohol abstinence, high alcohol consumption, smoking, low physical activity, high energy and macro- and micronutrient intake. Prolongation of human life span is associated with long-term exposure to environmental and behaviour factors; thus, the influence of lifestyle on health is increased in the elderly population. Although lifestyle-related risk factors can be modified, changing behaviors can be difficult. Furthermore, evidence demonstrating that lifestyle modification decreases the risk for CKD and improves kidney outcomes is limited. This is especially true in the elderly population because some effects of adverse behaviours, such as endothelial dysfunction and arteriosclerosis, are irreversible. This review summarizes the current knowledge concerning the effects of lifestyle factors and their modification on the occurrence and progression of CKD, focusing on the elderly population.
Photonics meet digital art

The paper focuses on the work of an interdisciplinary project between photonics and digital art. The result is a poster collection dedicated to the International Year of Light 2015. In addition, an internet platform was created that presents the project. It can be accessed at http://www.magic-of-light.org/iyl2015/index.htm. From the idea to the final realization, milestones with tasks and steps will be presented in the paper. As an interdisciplinary project, students from technological degree programs were involved as well as art program students. The 2015 Anniversaries: Alhazen (1015), De Caus (1615), Fresnel (1815), Maxwell (1865), Einstein (1905), Penzias Wilson, Kao (1965) and their milestone contributions in optics and photonics will be highlighted.
CHANGES IN INTIMA MEDIA THICKNESS, ANKLE BRACHIAL INDEX AND FLOW MEDIATED DILATION IN PRE HYPERTENSIVE INDIVIDUALS

Introduction: Prehypertension (PH) is a state being on the frontier between the physiological referent arterial pressure values and pathological ones. The opinion concerned with its treatment is contradictory. Vascular alteration is an object of interest. Material and methods: Intima Media Thickness (IMT), Ankle Brachial Index (ABI) and Flow Mediated Dilation (FMD) indices were examined in 103 individuals with PH and 45 normotensives. Anthropometric and clinical chemical methods were also applied. The statistical processing was carried out by МS Excel 2000 and SPSS 11.0. Results: The pre hypertensives’ metabolic profile was unfavorable, they are overweight and have bigger waist size, reflecting in higher cardiovascular risk. The percentage of FMD is reduced as an expression of endothelial function. Structural vascular alterations are not registered – ITM and ABI values are of no significant difference in the two followed up groups. Conclusion: The therapeutic approach in prehypertensives should be directed to reestablishment of the endothelial function.
Transnational entrepreneurship, social networks, and institutional distance: Toward a theoretical framework

Purpose Transnational entrepreneurship can be considered a new stream of research where migrant entrepreneurship and international business research fields intersect. The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical framework to address the following research question: How do transnational entrepreneurs (TEs) develop their competitive advantage to succeed in a global market? Design/methodology/approach Based on the strategic entrepreneurship approach and dynamic capability perspective, this paper suggests a theoretical framework to extend the understanding on how TEs may develop their competitive advantage to succeed in a global market. Findings The suggested theoretical framework exhibits how the social ties of TEs affects their firm performance through the mediating effect of a bundle of two organizational processes (opportunity sensing and opportunity seizing) and the moderating effect of institutional distance between countries of origin and residence. Practical implications TEs should not solely focus on their ethnic social ties. That is why this paper suggests that ethnic ties in the country of origin and the country of residence (COR) may lead to higher firm performance only if systematically used alongside nonethnic ties in the COR. Furthermore, it is crucial for TEs to understand the importance of dynamic capabilities in developing and sustaining their competitive advantage. Originality/value Based on the strategic entrepreneurship approach, this paper suggests a social tie-based model of the dynamic capability to address the theoretical void in the transnational entrepreneurship literature. The linkage between social tie and performance which has been in a black box is examined in terms of how strong and weak social ties may affect different underlying processes of TEs’ dynamic capabilities differently. In contrast to the common conceptualization of institutional distance as a negative moderator in international business literature, institutional distance is theorized as a positive moderator in the suggested theoretical model of transnational entrepreneurship.
A New Approach to Producing Geographic Profiles of HIV Prevalence: An Application to Malawi

Sub-national estimates of HIV prevalence can inform the design of policy responses to the HIV epidemic. Such responses also benefit from a better understanding of the correlates of HIV status, including the association between HIV and geographical characteristics of localities. In recent years, several countries in Africa have implemented household surveys (such as Demographic and Health Surveys) that include HIV testing of the adult population, providing estimates of HIV prevalence rates at the sub-national level. These surveys are known to suffer from non-response bias, but are nonetheless thought to represent a marked improvement over alternatives such as sentinel surveys. At present, however, most countries are not in a position to regularly field such household surveys. This paper proposes a new approach to the estimation of HIV prevalence for relatively small geographic areas in settings where national population-based surveys of prevalence are not available. The proposed approach aims to overcome some of the difficulties with prevailing methods of deriving HIV prevalence estimates (at both national and sub-national levels) directly from sentinel surveys. The paper also outlines some of the limitations of the proposed approach.
Wear-Out Failure Analysis of an Impedance-Source PV Microinverter Based on System-Level Electrothermal Modeling

In this paper, the wear-out performance of an impedance-source photovoltaic (PV) microinverter (MI) is evaluated and improved based on two different mission profiles. The operating principle and hardware implementation of the MI are first described. With the experimental measurements on a 300-W MI prototype and system-level finite-element method simulations, the electrothermal models are built for the most reliability-critical components, i.e., power semiconductor devices and capacitors. The dependence of the power loss on the junction/hotspot temperature is considered, the enclosure temperature is taken into account, and the thermal cross-coupling effect between components is modeled. Then, the long-term junction/hotspot temperature profiles are derived and further translated into components’ annual damages with the lifetime and damage accumulation models. After that, the Monte Carlo simulation and Weibull analysis are conducted to obtain the system wear-out failure probability over time. It reveals that both the mission profile and the thermal cross-coupling effect have a significant impact on the prediction of system wear-out failure, and the dc-link electrolytic capacitor is the bottleneck of long-term reliability. Finally, the multimode control with a variable dc-link voltage is proposed, and a more reliable dc-link electrolytic capacitor is employed, which results in a remarkable reliability improvement for the studied PV MI.
Investigation on Standardization of Modal Space by Ratio for MDOF Micro-Macro Bilateral Teleoperation Control System

This paper presents the research on micro-macro bilateral teleoperation control system of two ink planar manipulator. The micro-macro bilateral control system consists of different size between master and slave system using geared DC-motor. Both master and slave manipulators are actuated by DC-Micromotor attached to planetary gearhead to increase the output torque. In the previous researches the most common actuators used were linear motor and direct-drive DC motors. However, the application of DC motor with gearhead are vast in industry, which need high output force or torque. Thus in this paper, research on micro-macro bilateral teleoperation control system is proposed with the use of gear with the DC-motor. The micro-macro bilateral teleoperation control system provides the human operator with a sense of feel to a micro or macro environment as if it is in the same scale environment. Thus a standardization method is proposed to achieve micro-macro bilateral teleoperation control system. During the experiment, experiment on free motion and contact motion are conducted to validate the proposed setup in bilateral teleoperation control system. The position and torque responses of both master and slave manipulators are observed. The operationality and reproducibility of this proposed system are evaluated through proposed experimental results.
EXPLORING ENHANCEMENTS TO THE AGILE APPROACH FOR MID-SIZED ENTERPRISES IN THE SERVICES SECTOR

Companies need to thrive in a dynamic environment, responding to it in an agile way. Within a company’s ICT domain, a key to achieving agility is to use agile software development. Experience, together with a literature review, has shown that the agile software development family of methods does not naturally fit into the context of medium to large enterprises. This article focuses on the challenges associated with agile software development. The main contribution of the article is to affirm that a class-of-problems exists – i.e., that many practitioners face challenges in implementing existing agile software development approaches successfully in medium to large enterprises. We also gather data via multiple interviews to show that the class-of-problems exists in a real-world enterprise that currently applies agile software development in medium-sized governmental bodies.
Comparative efficacy of herbal and synthetic methionine on performance of some haematological and biochemical parameters in domestic laying hens

A feeding trial was conducted to determine the bioefficacy of herbal methionine (HM) compared to synthetic methionine (SM) in the diets of domestic laying hens. The herbal methionine (Meth-o-Tas ® ) was supplied by Intas Pharmaceutical Limited, India. The HM and SM were added to a standard diet at 0.5 and 1.0 kg per ton and fed to 144 laying birds, 30 weeks of age, housed in 3 birds per cage unit. The birds were divided into 4 dietary treatments of 36 birds each and each treatment group was replicated 4 times with 9 birds per replicate. The trial lasted for 112 days and was divided into 4 periods of 28 days each. At the end of the feeding trial, 2 birds per replicate, representing 8 birds per treatment were sacrificed for the determinations of haematological and plasma biochemical profiles, liver weight and abdominal fat pad. Layers fed on diets supplemented with HM produced less (P ≤ 0.01) eggs, had lower egg mass output (P ≤ 0.01) and final body weight (P ≤ 0.05) and poorer feed conversion efficiency (P ≤ 0.05) than those layers fed on diets supplemented with SM. Feed intake was not affected (P ≥ 0.05) by dietary methionine source. Exterior and interior egg quality characteristics such as egg weight, shell thickness, albumen weight and albumen height decreased (P ≤ 0.05) with dietary supplementation of HM. Dietary supplementation of HM reduced (P ≤ 0.05) abdominal fat pad. Total protein and albumin decreased (P ≤ 0.05) with dietary supplementation of HM. Plasma and liver total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations were lowered (P ≥ 0.05) in birds fed on diets supplemented with HM. The activities of plasma and liver alanine transferase (ALT), aspartate transferase (AST) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were not altered (P ≥ 0.05) by HM supplementation. All haematological variables determined were not affected by HM supplementation. Under the conditions of this study, it was concluded that herbal methionine (Meth-o-Tas
Should Egypt Shift to Inflation Targeting Framework? : Evidence Using Velocity of Money and Money Multiplier

The Central Bank of Egypt has announced its intention to move to an inflation targeting framework when its prerequisites are satisfied. This raises an important question regarding the rationality of shifting to inflation targeting instead of monetary aggregate targeting currently applied. Thus, if the monetary authorities can achieve monetary stability using its current monetary policy, it should continue target monetary aggregates. A successful monetary aggregate targeting regime hinges on two pillars: (1) the stability of the relationship between that targeted monetary aggregate and nominal GDP which implies a stable velocity of circulation. (2) The monetary aggregate must be under the control of the central bank which requires the stability or predictability of money multiplier. Therefore, the paper aims at examining the stochastic structure of both money multiplier and velocity of M1 and M2 using Variance Ratio tests of LO and MacKinlay (1988) and (1989), Chow and Denning (1993) and wild bootstrap of Kim (2006).
Graphical modelling of dynamic relationships in multivariate time series

The identification and analysis of interactions among multiple simultaneously recorded time series is an important problem in many scientific areas. Of particular interest are directed interactions that describe the dynamics of the systems and thus help to determine the causal driving mechanisms of the underlying system. The dynamic relationships among multiple series intuitively can be visualized by a path diagram (or graph), in which the variables are represented by vertices or nodes, and directed edges between the vertices indicate the dynamic or causal influences among the variables. In this chapter, we review recent results on the properties of such graphical representation, which show that path diagrams provide an ideal basis for discussing and investigating causal relationships in multivariate time series. The key role in this graphical approach is played by so-called global Markov properties, which provide graphical conditions for the (in-)dependencies that may be observed if only subprocesses instead of the full process are considered. Such considerations are, for example, central for the discussion of systems that may contain latent variables. The empirical analysis of dynamic interactions is commonly based on the concept of Granger causality. While this concept is well understood in the time domain, the time series of interest often are characterized in terms of their spectral properties. Therefore, particular emphasis will be given to the the frequency domain interpretation of Granger causality and the graphical concepts discussed in this chapter.
National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF) for Nepal: Necessity or Waste of Money? Experts’ Standpoint

A purpose of this study was to understand whether NVQF is the necessity for the sustainable prosperity of TVET sector of Nepal or just a waste of money. The study had been carried out applying qualitative methodology in the form of narrative enquiry. The understanding and perception of five TVET experts were detailed with the help of following questions, viz. (a) how do you perceive for the necessity of NVQF in Nepal and (b) what are the major challenges and how can we cope with these challenges for the successful implementation of NVQF in Nepal. The experts understanding and experiences revealed that not only NVQF but also NQF are in dire need to streamline the education system of Nepal. However, there are many challenges and issues both at the policy level and at the implementation stage. These challenges and issues need to be strategically addressed from the very beginning of the NVQF project, otherwise, it could be just like “pouring water into sand”.
Dynamic MRI reconstruction from undersampled data with an anatomical prescan

The goal of dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (dynamic MRI) is to visualize tissue properties and their local changes over time that are traceable in the MR signal. We propose a new variational approach for the reconstruction of subsampled dynamic MR data, which combines smooth, temporal regularization with spatial total variation regularization. In particular, it furthermore uses the infimal convolution of two total variation Bregman distances to incorporate structural a priori information from an anatomical MRI prescan into the reconstruction of the dynamic image sequence. The method promotes the reconstructed image sequence to have a high structural similarity to the anatomical prior, while still allowing for local intensity changes which are smooth in time. The approach is evaluated using artificial data simulating functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and experimental dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance data from small animal imaging using radial golden angle sampling of the k-space.
Unravelling the composition of soil belowground microbial community before sowing transgenic cotton

Vital L. , Narvaez J.A. , Cruz M.A., Ortiz E.L. , Sanchez E. , Mendoza A. (2017): Unravelling the composition of soil belowground microbial community before sowing transgenic cotton. Plant Soil Environ. , 63: 512–518. Soils harbour enormously diverse bacterial communities that interact specifically with plants generating beneficial interactions between them. This study was the first approach to assess bacterial communities before sowing with three cotton genotypes, including both transgenic and conventional ones. The structure of bacterial communities was identified using the next generation sequencing analysis, ion torrent PGM (Personal Genome MachineTM) sequencer technology, based on the V2–V3 16S rRNA gene region. Quantitative insights into microbial ecology pipeline were used to identify the structure and diversity of bacterial communities in bulk soil samples collected in the northeast of Mexico. Bulk soil textures and chemical properties, including most nutrients, were homogeneous in these bulk soil samples. Relative abundance analysis showed similar bacterial community structures. Dominant taxonomic phyla were Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes and Bacteroidetes, whereas the main families were Bacillaceae, Chitinophagaceae and Rhodospirillaceae with an abundance average of BS1 (bulk soil sample), BS2 and BS3 (24.85, 19.74 and 19.71%, respectively). Alpha diversity analysis showed a high diversity (Shannon and Simpson index) and a large value of the observed species found in bulk soils samples. These results allowed establishing the previous bacterial structural community in an unused soil before sowing it with a transgenic crop for the first time.
Trade,Financial and Growth Nexus in Pakistan

This paper empirically investigates the impact of trade and financial liberalization on economic growth in Pakistan using annual observations over the period 1961-2005. The analysis is based on the bound testing approach of cointegration advanced by Pesaran et al (2001). The empirical findings suggest that both trade and financial liberalization policies play an important role in enhancing economic growth in Pakistan in the long-run. However, the short-run responses of real deposit rate and trade policy variables are very low, suggesting further acceleration of reform process. The feedback coefficient suggests a very slow rate of adjustment towards long-run equilibrium. The estimated equation remains stable over the period of study as indicated by CUSUM and CUSUMQ stability tests.
The relationship between indices of hepatocellular injury and anthropometric measurements in some Babcock University Students, Ilisan, Ogun State, Nigeria

The anthropometric measurements of some apparent healthy Babcock University students (53 male and 47 female) were investigated in this study with a view to estimating the various anthropometric parameters, blood pressure components and hepatocellular injury indices (Aspartate aminotransferase - AST, Alanine aminotransferase - ALT, and Alkaline phosphatase - ALP) in different blood groups. Blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose (FPG), AST, ALT, ALP, weight, height, unblical circumference (UC), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), were determined using standard procedures; body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage (BF%), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) and other body composition (body surface area (BSA), fat free body mass (FFBM), fat mass, total body water (TBW), intracellular fluid (ICF), extracellular fluid (ECF)) were calculated to assess overweight and obesity. While no significant difference (p > 0.05) was observed in the age, diastolic blood pressure (DBP), heart rate, FPG, weight, BMI, BSA, UC, WC, HC and WHR values of male when compared with the female counterpart; a significant (p 0.05) was observed in the activities of AST, ALT and ALP of male when compared with the female counterpart. Also there was no significant difference in AST, ALT when stratified according to various ABO blood groups of both male and female subjects. A significant positive relationship was observed between the ALP and FFBM (r = 0.369, p < 0.01); and BSA (r = 0.284, p < 0.01) male. Also AST significantly correlated positively with WC (r = 0.448, p < 0.01), HC (0.292, p < 0.05), UC (r = 0.402, p < 0.05), WHR (r = 0.410, p < 0.01) and WHtR (r = 0.429, p < 0.01) in the female subjects. ALP was directly correlated significantly with fat mass (r = 0.289, p < 0.05) in the female subjects. Thus these findings in young adults suggest potential clinical utility of including WC, HC,