Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
General Regularities of Wood Surface Roughness

The surface roughness of wood products is depending on many factors related both to wood properties and wood working operational parameters. Probably this is the reason why there are no generally valid correlation determining surface roughness parameters as a function of influencing factors. In particular, the account of wood structure in the surface roughness interpretation proved to be difficult. In the last years an important progress was made in recognizing the role of the anatomical structure of wood species in the attainable surface roughness. The introduction of a structure number made it possible to express and characterize the different wood species numerically. The aim of these studies was the separation of roughness components due to the anatomical structure and the woodworking operation. Using a special finishing technique, the roughness component due to woodworking operations was not significant and could be separated. The same specimens were also subjected to different woodworking operations using cutting velocities between 10 and 50 m/s. The processing of experimental data resulted in a chart showing the minimum roughness component due to different woodworking operations. Special experimental investigation was conducted to clear the influence of edge dullness on the surface roughness, especially on its Abbott-parameters. The measurements showed that the Rk-parameter is a good indicator to predict edge dullness.
Botulinum toxin A in children with cerebral palsy: evaluation of therapy using the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI)

Abstract Several controlled studies have shown that in children with cerebral palsy, botulinum toxin A (BTX/A) can decrease muscular hyperactivity associated with spasticity and improve function. Studies have hitherto focused on the dimensions of impairment and functional limitations. In this pilot study with BTX/A in children with cerebral palsy, we used the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI) to evaluate the effect of treatment. PEDI is a reliable and valid instrument that focuses on assessing disability in daily life. Patients with cerebral palsy (n = 17, median age 5.5 years, age range 2.5 to 16.5 years) were treated with BTX/A for pes equinus (n = 8) or adductor spasm (n = 9). PEDI assessment was carried out before and 1 month after the first treatment with BTX/A. Scaled scores were calculated according to the user’s manual for the Mobility domain with scores near „0” reflecting low capability and scores near „100” reflecting high capability. We found a significant improvement in the mobility domain-caregiver dimension from 52.3% ± 26.6% to 56.6% ± 26.7% (mean, standard deviation P < 0.05), as well as in the self care domain-functional skills from 63.6% ± 18.7% to 65.2% ± 19.6% (mean, standard deviation P < 0.05). Our data indicate that in young patients with cerebral palsy, BTX/A therapy of the lower extremity can reduce the disability. For these patients PEDI is a valuable assessment instrument that reflects the effect of treatment with BTX/A on the disability. (J Pediatr Neurol 2003; 1(1): 29–34).
Age Dating Groundwater Plumes Based on the Ratio of 1,1-Dichloroethylene to 1,1,1-Trichloroethane: An Uncertainty Analysis

In principle, when 1,1-dichloroethylene (DCE) is formed from the hydrolysis of 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA), the ratio of DCE to TCA can be used to determine how long hydrolysis has been occurring and, consequently, the age of a TCA release to groundwater. The rate of hydrolysis appears to depend only on groundwater temperature, and sorption does not appear to have a significant effect on the hydrolysis rate. This article focuses on the uncertainties and biases in estimating the age of a TCA release from DCE/TCA ratios. Two methods are examined: (1) the use of one-time ratio measurements together with a laboratory-derived hydrolysis rate constant and (2) the use of time series data collected over a number of years. When the uncertainty in concentration measurements is small, the principal uncertainty for one-time measurements is due to the uncertainty in estimating the rate of hydrolysis at groundwater temperatures from laboratory data. For one-time measurements, we estimate 95% confidence levels for time estimates under favorable conditions of about - 25%. When time series data are available, using these data may be more or less accurate. The principal source of uncertainty then is due to uncertainty in concentration measurements. In interpreting field data, the age obtained should be recognized as an average based on when contact between water and TCA began. This may be different than a spill date for pure phase spills of TCA. Under some circumstances time estimates can be made when biodegradation of TCA as well as hydrolysis occurs.
Potential of oak acorn with and without polyethylene glycol as an alternative to corn in broiler diets

This study was conducted to investigate the potential for replacing corn with oak acorn (OA), a tannin-rich feedstuff, and the possible role of polyethylene glycol (PEG) in reducing detrimental effects of OA on broilers. A 3 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments was used with three levels of OA (0, 150, and 200 g/kg diet), with and without 10 g/kg PEG. A total of 528 one-day-old male and female Cobb 500 broiler chicks were randomly assigned to one of six experimental treatments, with four replicates of 22 birds each. OA was included in the starter (days 1–21) and finisher (days 22–42) diets as a replacement for corn, without changing the dietary levels of other ingredients. The results indicated that dietary inclusion of OA, without PEG, significantly reduced bodyweight gain (BWG) overall (days 1–42) and resulted in worse finisher and overall feed conversion ratios (FCR). PEG had no significant effect on the performance of birds fed diets without OA, but improved overall the BWG of birds receiving 150 and 200 g/kg OA as well as finisher and overall the FCR of birds given 150 g/kg OA. Liver and pancreas weights were not significantly influenced by OA level, PEG or their interaction. Feeding with 200 g/kg OA had deleterious effects on some tibia traits. In conclusion, a significant interaction between OA level and PEG indicates that PEG has the potential to reduce the adverse effects of OA, leading to improved performance. Thus, up to 150 g/kg OA could be included in PEG-supplemented diets, without adverse effects on performance or the tibia traits of broilers. Keywords : High-tannin feedstuff, performance, poultry nutrition, tibia characteristic
The Influence of Corrosion Damage on Low Cycle Fatigue Life ofReinforcing Steel Bars S400

In this study the influence of corrosion and seismic load (low-cycle fatigue LCF) in the mechanical performance of reinforcing steel bars of S400 grade with 10 mm nominal diameter was investigated. There took place 140 tensile, LCF and salt spray tests which performed on reinforcing bars in different conditions. The results show that the corrosion level and surface conditions are the main parameters which affect to the low-cycle fatigue life of reinforcing bars. Moreover, through a non-linear regression analysis of the experimental data, a model of predicting the expectancy life of the corroded rebars was conducted. This prediction was based on two models: the first model was about an imposed of (total) strain amplitudes (eα) and the second model on predicting the strength degradation per cycle of fatigue in correlation with the plastic strain amplitudes (ep). Both the experimental study and the prediction modeling conducted for the same steel grade S400 with and without ribs. The model prediction of non-linear regression analysis, show a good agreement with the observed experimental results and adequately confirmed the experimental results showing that from the first levels of corrosion, the degradation of their life expectancy was obvious as well the rebars without ribs (smoothed) which present more advanced mechanical behavior and life expectancy against to the respective ribbed rebars.
Prevalence and severity of asthma symptoms in school-age children in the city of Duque de Caxias , Rio de Janeiro , Brazil *

* Study carried out in the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Correspondence to: José Laerte Boechat. Rua da Conceição, 188 sala 1901 A Centro CEP 24020-083 Niterói, RJ Phone: 55-21 2717 9695. E-mail: jboechat@nitnet.com. br Submitted: 14 May 2004. Accepted, after review: 10 November 2004. Background: Asthma is considered the most common chronic childhood disease. However, there have been few studies on the prevalence of asthma in Brazil.
Influence of Pollutants Ionic Charge on Their Photodegradation by Fly Ash Derived CeO 2 /Zeolite-NaX Catalyst

The management of waste material for the environmental remediation is the fast growing field of research. Dyes and organic molecules are extensively used in the textile industry and unused content is discharged into the nearby water resources. This creates severe problems in the aquatic system. In this direction, our recently synthesized photocatalyst CeO 2 /Zeo-NaX derived from coal fly ash is employed for the visible light degradation of cationic charged dye methylene blue, anionic charged dye methyl orange and neutral organic compound p-nitroaniline. The study reveals that the photocatalyst is more efficient towards the degradation of cationic dye (methylene blue) over anionic dye (methyl orange) and neutral organic molecule (p-nitroaniline).
International Real Business Cycles

We ask whether a two-country real business cycle model can account simultaneously for domestic and international aspects of business cycles. With this question in mind, we document a number of discrepancies between theory and data. The most striking discrepancy concerns the correlations of consumption and output across countries. In the data, outputs are generally more highly correlated across countries than consumptions. In the model we see the opposite.
SUBJECTIVITY, IDEOLOGY AND THE FEMININE IN JOHN DONNE'S POETRY

This paper will explore some of the directions that a semiotically based theory of ideology might need to pursue. The theory in the paper comes from many sources, but is based primarily on the notion of language as social semiotic (Halliday 1978), seeing language as actively symbolising the social system, its pattern of variation representing metaphorically the variation that characterises human cultures. A systemic-functional analysis of the lexica-grammar of a group of poems on apparently diverse themes from John Donne's poetry reveals that a remarkably narrow set of choices in meaning is actually made. There are certain regularities in the situation types (the semiotic construct of context) which the poems enact/encore and these seem to impose limitations on the register or kinds of choices in meaning that can be made. Intertextually, the choices tend to be recurrent, both in grammar, and across the semantic fields spanned by the lexis.
Guiding family-based obesity prevention efforts in low-income children in the US, Part 1: What determinants do we target?

The current study aims to provide a descriptive summary of the current state of empirical evidence for behavioral determinants related to pediatric overweight in low-income children that can be influenced by families. Pubmed and PsychINFO databases were searched for the period of March 2003-April 2006. Data from trend, mechanistic, observational and prevention studies were extracted on participant age and income, and study design and findings. Conclusion statements were formulated with respect to strength of evidence supporting the association of each determinant with overweight. Evidence supported the addition of three new determinants to the existing list of nine: dietary energy density, sleep duration and parenting style. Sufficient evidence from the four types of studies was lacking for food variety, portion size and stress. Combined with other recent reviews, there is current evidence to support a total of 12 family-modified determinants of pediatric overweight. A relative lack of attention on lowincome families and children was also noted. This review represents an integral first step in guiding future efforts toward identification of low-income children participating in USDA’s food assistance and education programs who are at highest risk for becoming overweight.
The Financing of Public - Private Partnership (Ppp) Projects in Romania - An Evaluation of the Awareness and Know- How among Romanian Organizations

In many countries, anti-crisis public measures focus on higher public investment or investment in public objectives, like investment in infrastructure projects, as an important mean to maintain economic activity during the crisis and support a rapid return to sustained economic growth. An instrument to realize these investments is the Public-Private Partnership (hereinafter PPP). Nevertheless, PPP’s are vulnerable to the economic impact of the crisis. Although the final consequences and duration of the crisis are not yet known, the effects on PPP’s can already be identified and estimated. The crisis has made the conditions for this instrument more difficult. Despite some signs of recovery, the volumes and values of the PPP projects currently closing is still significantly below the level reached before the crisis. The topic of PPP financing has never been more important than under the current crisis. Alternative innovative solutions are being sought, new markets need to be opened in order to enable the further development of PPP, the stakeholder organizations have to increase their level of understanding regarding the new environment for PPP.
Path Planning for Tottori City Bus Network using Two-stage Shortest Path Algorithm

We have developed a path planning system for the bus network in Tottori as Web service. This system finds appropriate paths using the location information of the starting point and the destination obtained through GPS or landmark databases and the current time. Our path planning method can find paths including not only bus transfer but walking transfers. But it is not perfect to search the path by only Dijkstra’s Shortest Path Algorithm. So, Two-stage search method is introduced to search for all the bus routes. The system searches the path by using the shortest path estimation gotten from Dijkstra’s Algorithm in the 1st stage and selects the most suitable path by using several condition of lopping off branch in the 2nd stage. Experiments are examined to validate the system.
Polymeric recrystallized spherical agglomerates of felodipine by quasi-emulsion solvent diffusion method

The objective of the present work was to study the effect of different polymers on the solubility and dissolution rate of Felodipine (FL) a poorly water soluble antihypertensive, by spherically agglomeration using acetone, water and dichloromethane as good solvent, poor solvent and bridging liquid, respectively. The quasi-emulsion solvent diffusion technique was used as a method for spherical agglomeration. The hydrophilic polymers like polyvinyl pyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol, and polyethylene glycol were used in agglomeration process. The pure drug (FL) and its agglomerates with different polymers were characterize by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), IR spectroscopic studies and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The DSC results indicated that decrease in melting enthalpy related to disorder in the crystalline content. PXRD studies also showed changes in crystallanity, IR spectroscopy revealed that there were no chemical changes in the recrystallized agglomerates. The spherical agglomerates with different polymers exhibited marked increase in solubility (41.01 μg mL-1) and dissolution rate (98.83% in 120 mins) as compared with FL. The SEM studies showed that the agglomerates posseeses a good spherical shape. The recrystallized agglomerates also exhibited higher micromeritic properties (bulk density, tapped density and angle of repose).
Dealing with Uncertainty in PV-Powered Microgrids: An Optimal Corrective Approach

With the aim of increasing the penetration of renewables in the energy matrix, microgrids could play a major role. However, microgrids powered by renewable energy sources bring along a higher level of uncertainty, derived from the stochastic nature of this type of energy sources. The fact of having an uncertain production along with the usually-uncertain consumption in this type of electric systems, poses different challenges for their management in terms of power quality, planning and scheduling, among others. This work presents an approach to deal with this uncertainty in a PV-powered microgrid, particularly for its energy management, with the aim to improve its performance.
Volcano flank instability in the Lesser Antilles Arc: Diversity of scale, processes, and temporal recurrence

[1] The 1997 Boxing Day collapse, a remarkable feature of the ongoing eruption of Soufriere Hills on Montserrat, has prompted new interest in the study of volcano stability in the Lesser Antilles. Building on a few cases documented in the literature, we have now identified at least 47 flank collapse events on volcanoes of the Caribbean arc where this type of behavior is characteristic and repetitive. About 15 events occurred on active volcanoes within the last 12,000 years. In the northern part of the arc, flank collapses are repetitive, do not exceed 1 km3 in volume, occur in all directions, and are promoted by intense hydrothermal alteration and well-developed fracturing of the summit part of the edifices. In contrast, infrequent but large sector collapses, with volumes up to tens of km3, are typical of the southern volcanoes. They are always directed to the west as a result of the high overall slopes of the islands toward the deep back-arc Grenada Basin. Because Caribbean islands are small, a large part of the resulting debris avalanches have flowed into the sea thus contributing voluminous and sudden inputs of volcaniclastic sediments to the Grenada Basin. Deposits from such submarine flows have been identified during the recent AGUADOMAR and CARAVAL oceanographic cruises and traced to their source structures on land. Edifice collapses have a major influence on subsequent volcanic activity but also are of high concern because of their tsunamigenic potential.
EMG EVALUATION OF FATIGUE DURING ISOMETRIC CONTRACTIONS IN FEMALE ROWERS

Relatively few studies were carried out to quantify muscle fatigue resulting from isometric contractions in elite female athletes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate fatigue profile of 30seconds duration isometric contractions using surface electromyography (EMG) in female elite rowers. The subjects were eleven healthy female athletes between 16-24 years of age. The Vastus Lateralis (VL) muscle of the dominant leg was chosen for the EMG recordings. Experimental set up was designed in accordance to the rowing sport. While the hip joints for all the subjects were brought to a 100 flexion, the knee joints were brought to a 90 flexion. The range of the knee joint angle (15) during the movement was set from 90 to 105 for each subject. The maximal value of MVC was used as the reference value to determine a load of 75% of MVC for each subject. The median frequency (MDF) and the mean frequency (MNF) of the power spectrum and Root Mean Square (RMS) were computed for the surface EMG signal. Least squares line fittings were computed for time series of each parameter to find initial and final values of MDF, MNF and RMS parameters. These values were compared by Wilcoxon test. Significant decreases were found between initial and final values for both MDF and MNF (p<0.01). Also, significant decrease (p<0.01) was found between initial and final RMS. The shift of the EMG power spectrum to lower frequency content has been reported in the literature accompanied by an increase of RMS values. As only few studies have been carried out with women subjects, our RMS results may indicate a special compensatory strategy of muscle load sharing or differences in muscle fiber content in these female rowers.
Intense air-sea exchange and heavy rainfall: impact of the northern Adriatic SST

Abstract. Over the northern Adriatic basin, intense air-sea interactions are often associated with heavy precipitation over the mountainous areas surrounding the basin. In this study, a high-resolution mesoscale model is employed to simulate three severe weather events and to evaluate the effect of the sea surface temperature on the intensity and location of heavy rainfall. The sensitivity tests show that the impact of SST varies among the events and it mainly involves the modification of the PBL characteristics and thus the flow dynamics and its interaction with the orography.
Analysis on Total Factor Productivity of Chinese Information Service Industry and Influencing Factors

The paper uses the productivity index based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) to calculate the total factor productivity (TFP) from 2008 to 2014, and also compares the differnces of TFP changes in three regions: eastern, central and western part. Then we use the panel data model to seek and discuss the factors affecting the regional difference of total factor productivity growth. Results indicate that Chinese information service industry’s total factor productivity shows a rising trend; the investment on education level and information level has a significant role in promoting the improvement of technological progress, technology efficiency and productivity; in addition, R&D, government behavior and urbanization are the important factors that affect regional difference of the development of Chinese information service industry.
An Adaptive Texture Synthesis Algorithm

Patch-based texture synthesis has proven to produce reasonable results for a wide variety of texture classes. In this paper, an effective adaptive texture synthesis method is proposed based on the popular Image Quilting and the general framework of Hybrid Texture Synthesis (HTS) algorithm. Our algorithm uses the Fourier domain for finding the best match candidate patches, and adaptively splits them so as to use as large as possible patches to preserve global structure within the input texture. Finally, the newly chosen patch is adaptively composited into the synthesized result to remove seams and discontinuities in the overlap region. Results from our implementation show that our algorithm produces high-quality texture at low computational cost. Our algorithm is also flexible to obtain the trade-off between visible quality and speed.
Adoption of Food Safety Practices in Milk Production: Implications for Dairy Farmers in India

This study investigates the status, estimates the cost, and identifies the determinants of compliance with food safety measures in milk production in India. The study is based on the cross section primary data collected at the farm level in 3 states of India, namely, Bihar, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh, in the year 2007. These states capture the geographical and institutional diversity of milk production and marketing in the country. The study shows that the status of compliance with food safety measures at the dairy farm level is not encouraging and a lot of efforts are needed to bridge this gap. The adoption intensity of food safety practices shows wide inter- and intraregional variations. This intensity depicts a positive relationship with herd size. The additional cost of compliance with food milk safety measures reveals an inverse relationship with herd size. The adoption intensity of food safety practices has been found to be influenced by the dairy farmers' characteristics. Herd size, education level, expertise in dairying, and integration of dairy farmers with modern milk supply chain have positive influence on the adoption intensity of food safety practices at the farm level. The positive relationship between adoption intensity of food safety measures and farmers' realization of milk price would influence farmers for greater adoption of these measures.