Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can the Female Sarpanch Deliver? Evidence from Maharashtra

This study examines the impact of mandated reservations for female sarpanch (elected heads of gram panchayats) on perceptions of service delivery and women’s democratic participation. Using survey data from Sangli district in Maharashtra, it finds that the availability of basic public services is significantly higher in female sarpanch villages compared to the male sarpanch villages when the former have been in the job for three to three-and-a-half years. Indeed, reservations have had a significant positive impact on the democratic participation of women in female sarpanch villages though the positive effects in terms of service delivery and democratic participation will take some more time to materialise. I ndia took an important step towards deepening democracy when it passed the 73rd amendment in 1993 which put in place the elected gram panchayat (local elected body) at the village level. One of the important features of this amendment was to give reservations to the scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and women. The amendment states that 33% of the gram panchayat seats and 33% of the sarpanch (the elected head of the gram panchayat) seats should be reserved for women. Every gram sabha gets a female sarpanch by rotation and the gram sabha is reserved for a female sarpanch after every 10 years. This was indeed a crucial step considering the low status of women in India and their consequent low participation in the public life. 1
A global database of seafloor hydrothermal systems, including a digital database of geochemical analyses of seafloor polymetallic sulfides

No product description provided by publisher. This series is produced to expedite the release of information by making unedited manuscript material available to the public in advance of formal publication, and to act as a repository for relevant supporting data that are referred to in published reports. Open Files can be maps; reports; voluminous data sets resulting from multiparameter geophysical and geochemical surveys; consultants' reports; preliminary, unvetted field and laboratory results. They are all critically reviewed by one specialist. The series is geared towards specialists (mining industry, land-use planning, geoscience students) rather than the general public
What's Next?: After Stage-Gate

OVERVIEW: As the creator of the Stage-Gate® process, I am often asked, “What's next after stage-gate? ” For years, I've not had an answer. Now, we're seeing new approaches emerging from progressive companies that represent a new generation of idea-to-launch processes. In some cases, it's an evolution of Stage-Gate to a better, faster model; in other firms, its closer to a revolution, moving to a very different system. But there is anything but unanimity as to what the next generation idea-to-launch system should be. This article looks at what leading firms are doing to move beyond their current idea-to-launch methodology and tries to integrate these practices into a next-generation system.
Cca-Secure Key Encapsulation Mechanism Based on Factoring Assumption

ABSTRACT In this article a key encapsulation mechanism is presented which is based on squaring function, where the input element is from QR+N, where QR+N denotes the signed quadratic residue group, and N is a Blum integer. The article presents the soundness, the efficiency and the proof of CCA security of the proposed mechanism
Structural Breaks and Unit Roots in Indian Macroeconomic Variables

This study intends to examine the presence of structural breaks in Indian GDP, GNP and its various components. We have used recently developed unit root test suggested by Narayan and Popp (2010), which can identify two structural breaks. It is found that the extensive reforms in the 1990’s affected the growth of GDP, GNP and sectors such as trade, Finance and public administration while agriculture and manufacturing sectors are unaffected. The 1980’s initial reforms have impact on GDP, GNP, Finance and public administration. It is found that post 1990 reforms implemented in India failed to have an effect on agriculture and manufacturing. This necessitates further reforms in agriculture and manufacturing sector to accelerate the growth in these sectors. This is the first study to use the Narayan and Popp (2010) unit root test with two structural breaks to check the stationarity of the economic times series and identify the breaks in Indian context.
Binder-free Sn–Si heterostructure films for high capacity Li-ion batteries

This study fabricated and demonstrated a functional, stable electrode structure for a high capacity Li-ion battery (LIB) anode. Effective performance is assessed in terms of reversible lithiation for a significant number of charge–discharge cycles to 80% of initial capacity. The materials selected for this study are silicon and tin and are co-deposited using an advanced manufacturing technique (plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition), shown to be a scalable process that can facilitate film growth on 3D substrates. Uniform and hybrid crystalline–amorphous Si nanowire (SiNW) growth is achieved via a vapour–liquid–solid mechanism using a Sn metal catalyst. SiNWs of less than 300 nm diameter are known to be less susceptible to fracture and when grown this way have direct electrical conductivity to the current collector, with sufficient room for expansion. Electrochemical characterisation shows stable cycling at capacities of 1400 mA h g−1 (>4 × the capacity limit of graphite). This hybrid system demonstrates promising electrochemical performance, can be grown at large scale and has also been successfully grown on flexible carbon paper current collectors. These findings will have impact on the development of flexible batteries and wearable energy storage.
The estimation of bioactive compounds in selected vegetable juices from organic and conventional production.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the content of bioactive compounds in the vegetable juices (beetroot, carrot and tomato) from the certified organic and conventional production. The juices were bought in the shops with the organic and conventional food. The analyses showed that organic vegetable juices contained significantly more dry matter and total phenolic acids than their conventional counterparts. The carrot juice contained the highest concentration of dry matter and phenolic acids among all organic juices. The conventional vegetable juices contained significantly more vitamin C, total flavonoids and total carotenoids in comparison with their organic counterparts. The beetroot juice was most abundant in vitamin C, and tomato juice in total flavonoids and total carotenoids among all conventional juices. The studies on the nutritional value of the market organic vs. conventional juices have the importance for the consumers, however the results are not only dependent on the applied agrotechnology, but also on the cultivar and processing factors.
Amplified Hypoxia Induced Tumor-Cell Death In vitro

Cancer is the state of cells marked by unregulated proliferation. There are several characteristic features attributed to its occurrence so as to demarcate itself from the normal tissue system, and one of them is Angiogenesis, that ensures its continued survival in the body. Angiogenesis, in the recent past has become a nucleus of notice and has hence opened new portals in the realm of cancer therapy. Anti-Angiogenic studies have made hysteric escalations in the evolution of effectual anti-cancer drugs. This review, in an attempt to contribute to the contemporary therapies, talks about a novel therapeutic approach of targeting tumor cells by depriving oxygen from them through increased hypoxia which surpasses their minimum requirement for oxygen; the latter achieved by interfering at the interface of oxygen diffusion between the blood vessels and tumor cells.
Study the Effect of Using Low-Cost Dielectric Lenses with Printed Log-Periodic Dipole Antennas for Millimeter-Wave Applications

Design of V-band high-gain printed log periodic dipole array (PLPDA) antenna loaded with a low-cost spherical dielectric lens is introduced. The proposed antenna consists of microstrip-line-fed log-periodic dipole antenna designed to operate in the V-band with a peak gain of 12.64 dBi at 60 GHz. To enhance the antenna gain, a dielectric lens is installed. The antenna prototype is fabricated and then tested experimentally using Agilent E8364B PNA Network Analyzer. Experimental results agree well with the simulated ones. The simulated results show that the proposed antenna can work from 42 GHz up to 82 GHz with a fractional impedance bandwidth of 64.5% covering the whole V-band (50–75 GHz). At 60 GHz, the proposed antenna has peak gain of 26.79 dBi with a gain variation of 3.5 dBi across the whole V-band with stable radiation patterns over the operating band. The proposed PLPDA antenna achieves good side-lobe suppression, excellent front-to-back ratio in both E- and H-planes, and low cross-polarization levels over the entire frequency range. These unique features will make this antenna suitable for different interesting applications such as millimeter-wave radar and imaging applications.
Comparison of Different Blockages on the Renin Angiotensin System in Murine Schistosomal Fibrosis.

The inhibition of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) display anti-fibrogenic effects in liver cirrhosis, however RAS influence on schistosomal fibrosis has not been totally clarified. Thus, our objective was to compare the activities of different antihypertensive drugs on the inhibition of the RAS in murine schistosomal fibrosis. BALB/c mice (n=40) weighing 20g were subjected to inoculation of 50 cercariae and subdivided in three groups: the first group (n=15), animals were treated with losartan (10 mgkg-1 body weight); the second group (n=15) was treated with lisinopril (10 mgkg-1 body weight); while the third group (n=10) was treated with proportional volume of 0.9% NaCl, daily for 12 weeks. For this purpose, histological analysis, RT-PCR of genes related to hepatic fibrosis, as well as TGF􀀂1 and p42/44 MAPK protein quantification were evaluated. There was observed a decrease in the collagen deposits in animals treated with losartan (p<0.01) and lisinopril (p<0.01) once compared to the controls. This improvement was accompanied by a reduction of 􀀁-SMA labeled cells (p<0.001 and p<0.001) and procollagen 􀀁1(I) gene expression in both treated groups (p<0.05 and p<0.05). However, only losartan induced diminution of TGF􀀂1 and TIMP1 gene expression (p<0.01 and p<0.01), and TGF􀀂1 protein amount. Diversely, p42/44 MAPK protein was augmented in lisinopril group. Our findings demonstrated the effect of lisinopril and losartan on the decrease of hepatic fibrosis in murine schistosomiasis. The main mechanism of this process involves anti-fibrogenic activity via inhibition of TGF􀀂1 and TIMP1 by losartan treatment.Nevertheless, other possible mechanisms associated to lisinopril treatment may be implicated.
How Social Exchange in Hospitals Can Influence Adoption of Clinical IT

Nowadays, performance of hospitals is being influenced by technological change in the healthcare sector. Hospitals (public or private) are using clinical IT in order to get better quality of health care delivery and improve physicians' performance. However, previous studies pointed out that healthcare professionals are different from others in terms of accepting new technologies. Literature supported that healthcare professionals experience some concerns on using clinical IT which is trying to change their routine work activities. The unused clinical IT systems in a hospital setting have no results but wasting resources which utilized in the implementation stage. Thus, studies are trying to identify factors affecting healthcare professionals' adoption of clinical IT from different views. In this study, we try to improve the current technology acceptance models among healthcare professionals by including the unique characteristic of physicians and social relationship in a hospital. To evaluate the proposed model, a survey conducted among 300 healthcare professionals in Malaysia. To test the model in this context, the structural equation modeling has been used. The results showed the importance of some variables in predicting healthcare professionals' intention to use clinical IT. These variables are perceived threat to professional autonomy, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, social relationship with team members and social relationship with the supervisor in a hospital. The model proposed by this study can explain 53% of the variance of healthcare professionals' intention to adopt clinical IT in a hospital setting.
Improving Power Quality Parameters in AC Transmission Systems Using Unified Power Flow Controller

According to development of electric power consumption, and increasing nonlinear loads in power systems, production of electric power with a high quality is the main problem of power engineering. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the problems of power quality in the power systems in order to improve it. For improving these parameters a Unified Power Flow Controller is designed and simulated in multi-machine power system. The on-line designed process is based on PWM method which all the power quality parameters can be improved. In the proposed control method, the harmonic distortion of the system is decreased and the voltage oscillations of the DC capacitor will be improved. Simulations that are done by the PSCAD/EMTDC software show the effectiveness and precision of this designing. Also the experimental results are compared with the simulation results. From the results, it observed that the experimental results closely agree with the simulation results .
DMS air/sea flux and gas transfer coefficients from the North Atlantic summertime coccolithophore bloom

Dimethylsulfide (DMS) atmospheric and oceanic concentrations and eddy covariance air/sea fluxes were measured over the N. Atlantic Ocean during July 2007 from Iceland to Woods Hole, MA, USA. Seawater DMS levels north of 55°N ranged from 3 to 17 nM, with variability related to the satellite‐derived distributions of coccoliths and to a lesser extent, chlorophyll. For the most intense bloom region southwest of Iceland, DMS air/sea fluxes were as high as 300 μmol m−2 d−1, larger than current model estimates. The observations imply that gas exchange coefficients in this region are significantly greater than those estimated using most gas transfer parameterizations. South of 55°N, DMS levels were lower and the gas transfer coefficients were similar to those observed in other regions of the ocean. The data suggest that DMS emissions from the bloom region may be significantly larger than current estimates. The anomalous gas exchange coefficients likely reflect strong near‐surface, water column DMS gradients influenced by physical and biological processes.
A Strategy of Quantum Image Filtering in Frequency Domain

In the field of quantum image processing, the method for quantum image representation has been a hot issue. However the computational complexity of the whole preparation for the mature model (Flexible Representation of Quantum Images) is too high. In this paper we present a fast image storage method based on the transformation about two quantum image representation models. Then a filtering algorithm is proposed via using quantum Fourier transform. With low time complexity, the good performance of this filtering operation can be presented in the simulation experiments.
A comparison study on different MLPG(LBIE) formulations

Comparison studies on the accuracy provided by five different elastostatic Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) type formulations, based on Local Boundary Integral Equation (LBIE) considerations, are made. The main differences of these MLPG(LBIE) formulations, as they compared to each other, are concentrated on the treatment of tractions on the local and global boundaries and the way of imposing the boundary conditions of the elastostatic problem. Both the Moving Least Square (MLS) approximation scheme and the Radial Basis Point Interpolation Functions (RBPIF) are exploited for the interpolation of the interior and boundary variables. Two representative elastostatic problems are solved and the relative error L2 norms of displacements obtained by the aforementioned MLPG(LBIE)/MLS and MLPG(LBIE)/RBPIF formulations are evaluated for regular and irregular distributions of nodal points, as well as for different support domain radii. Useful conclusions on the accuracy and the stability of a MLPG(LBIE) method are addressed. keyword: Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin method, MLPG, Local Boundary Integral Equation method, LBIE, MLS, RBPIF, elasticity.
New Thoughts on the Prospects of Petroleum Potential in the Eger Rift (Czech Republic)

The present paper highlights the problem related to the source of hydrocarbons in the Eger Rift in Czech Republic. The authors discuss the existence of polygenetic deep sources of hydrocarbons. The investigations are based on direct indicators of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (abbr. PAHs). Among the diverse components of PAHs has been recognized typomorphic oil association – videlicet: phenanthrene, chrysene, pyrene and benzo(a)pyrene. On the basis of new geochemical, geological and mathematical data the oil and gas potential of Eger Rift is also discussed.
Robust Image Matching Algorithm Using SIFT on Multiple Layered Strategies

As for the unsatisfactory accuracy caused by SIFT (scale-invariant feature transform) in complicated image matching, a novel matching method on multiple layered strategies is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the coarse data sets are filtered by Euclidean distance. Next, geometric feature consistency constraint is adopted to refine the corresponding feature points, discarding the points with uncoordinated slope values. Thirdly, scale and orientation clustering constraint method is proposed to precisely choose the matching points. The scale and orientation differences are employed as the elements of -means clustering in the method. Thus, two sets of feature points and the refined data set are obtained. Finally, 3 * delta rule of the refined data set is used to search all the remaining points. Our multiple layered strategies make full use of feature constraint rules to improve the matching accuracy of SIFT algorithm. The proposed matching method is compared to the traditional SIFT descriptor in various tests. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the traditional SIFT algorithm with respect to correction ratio and repeatability.
Multiple origins of viviparity, or reversal from viviparity to oviparity? The European common lizard ( Zootoca vivipara , Lacertidae) and the evolution of parity

The evolution of viviparity in squamates has been the focus of much scientific attention in previous years. In particular, the possibility of the transition from viviparity back to oviparity has been the subject of a vigorous debate. Some studies have suggested this reversal is more frequent than previously thought. However, none of them provide conclusive evidence. We investigated this problem by studying the phylogenetic relationships between oviparous and viviparous lineages of the reproductively bimodal lizard species Zootoca vivipara. Our results show that viviparous populations are not monophyletic, and that several evolutionary transitions in parity mode have occurred. The most parsimonious scenario involves a single origin of viviparity followed by a reversal back to oviparity. This is the first study with a strongly supported phylogenetic framework supporting a transition from viviparity to oviparity. © 2006 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2006, 87, 1–11.
Abundance and condition indices of coyotes on Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, Oregon

—U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff at Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge (HMNAR), southeastern Oregon, documented high pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) fawn mortality, subsequent low fawn recruitment, and declining pronghorn numbers from 1996 to 1999. Coyote (Canis latrans) predation was the primary cause, accounting for 60–85% of fawn mortalities each year, and fawns were not physiologically predisposed to predation. Therefore, we investigated certain coyote population parameters (age structure, survival, density, physiology) to evaluate how or if these factors influence coyote predation rates on pronghorn fawns. We captured 11 coyotes (5 male and 6 female) in December 1998. Age of captured animals ranged from 1.7 to 10.7 yrs (x– = 5.0 years), and all coyotes appeared healthy upon capture. There were no known mortalities through December 1999. We estimated pre-whelping (December through February 1997–1999) density from howling surveys conducted within HMNAR to be 0.40–0.53 km–2. Compared to other published studies, we found significant (P ≤ 0.05) differences in selected blood parameters (e.g., blood urea nitrogen, total protein, white blood cell counts), indicating coyote nutrition may be marginal to deficient during winter at HMNAR. A high percentage of coyotes (91%) tested positive for serum-neutralizing antibodies to canine parvovirus. We judged that parasite (Toxascaris spp., Alaria spp., Sarcocystis spp., and Isospora spp.) prevalence and intensity were not high enough to influence coyote condition. Based on our data, the coyote population at HMNAR is old aged, at a relatively high density, and stable, but their nutrition may be marginal to deficient during winter. Presently, we are unable to draw direct conclusions relating the parameters we sampled with predation rates by this unexploited coyote population.
Improved onset detection for traditional flute recordings using convolutional neural networks

The usage of ornaments is key attribute that defines the style of a flute performances within the genre of Irish Traditional Music (ITM). Automated analysis of ornaments in ITM would allow for the musicological investigation of a player’s style and would be a useful feature in the analysis of trends within large corpora of ITM music. As ornament onsets are short and subtle variations within an analysed signal, they are substantially more difficult to detect than longer notes. This paper addresses the topic of onset detection for notes, ornaments and breaths in ITM. We propose a new onset detection method based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained solely on flute recordings of ITM. The presented method is evaluated alongside a state-of-the-art gen eralised onset detection method using a corpus of 79 full-length solo flute recordings. The results demonstrate that the proposed system outperforms the generalised system over a range of musi cal patterns idiomatic of the genre.
Customer Relationship Management: A Platform for Customer Loyalty in Banking Sector in Ogun State.

This paper examines the relationship between Customer Relationship Management and Customer Loyalty in the banking sector in Ogun State. A sample of 80 respondents was drawn from the customers of Zenith bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Sterling bank and United Bank of Africa through the use of purposive sampling technique. Data were gathered by using structured questionnaire. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between customer relationship management and customer loyalty. The study concluded that the higher the implementation of customer relationship management the higher the customer loyalty. Keywords: Banking Sector, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Satisfaction, and Customer Loyalty.