Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Access to Finance in the SME Sector: A South African Perspective

The study provides a comprehensive discussion on access to finance by the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector in South Africa. Access to finance has been noted as one of the major challenges impeding the survival and growth of the SME sector in South Africa. The problems of access to finance, gaps and the reasons for the gaps in SME financing in South Africa are discussed. Gaps in SME financing were discussed in relation Stiglitz and Weiss (1981) credit rationing theory which advocates that agency problems and asymmetric information are the main reasons for the credit rationing behaviours of credit providers to SMEs. This paper is a review to identify gaps in literature regarding the financing of SMEs in South Africa. It is revealed that access to finance by SMEs is still a major challenge impeding the realisation of the full potential of SMEs as engines of poverty alleviation, employment creation and economic growth at large. Therefore it is recommended that policy recommendations aimed at solving access to finance challenges must be empirically tested on a regular basis and progress in that regard must be constantly monitored and revised to eradicate the problem.
APORTES A LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA BIOLOGÍA

ISSN: 1852-8864 APORTES A LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA BIOLOGÍA ctualmente, la biodiversidad se encuentra amenazada por problemas ambientales globales y locales, como el cambio climático, la pérdida de hábitats y la introducción de especies exóticas (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2003). En las zonas áridas y semiáridas de Argentina, los ecosistemas y su biodiversidad sufren perturbaciones provocadas por diferentes factores como el sobrepastoreo, la tala de bosques, el avance de la frontera agrícola, la megaminería y la urbanización no planificada. Debido a esto, son importantes las acciones de conservación que tiendan a proteger a las especies nativas, muchas de las cuales son endémicas -especies con distribuciones restringidasy altamente especialistas en el uso de los recursos.
Generation capacity expansion with CO2 emission and transmission constraints in an oligopolistic market

The European Union is committed to cut Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHGs) by 30% of 1990 levels by 2020; other countries are committed to make similar reductions under a global agreement. Some technical options are available on the supply side, to reduce GHG and other harmful emissions by the power sector. Therefore, it is important to analyze what type of power generation technologies will be chosen by companies under different CO 2 mitigation targets. Several models look into Generation Expansion Planning in oligopolistic markets; however, they do not consider the impact of CO 2 reduction targets and the transmission constraints together. This study presents a Generation Expansion planning model with transmission constraints for analyzing the implications of CO 2 emission mitigation constraints for investment decisions in oligopolistic electricity markets. The results of the model are presented with reference to the Italian power sector, responsible for 32% of national CO 2 emissions.
NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE ACCURACY OF THE VORTEX METHOD WITH AND WITHOUT REMESHING.

This article presents progress in the direction of a fully meshless formulation of the vortex method. Given that the Lagrangian formulation results in loss of blob overlap over time, a vortex method needs to incorporate some form of spatial adaption to maintain accuracy of discretization. The standard approach, motivated by the requirements of the particle strength exchange viscous scheme for an ordered particle field, has been the remeshing of vortices onto a grid. This in effect brings back the mesh to an otherwise meshless method, which has been subject of much debate. Presently, we investigate the accuracy of the vortex method with and without the standard remeshing. In addition, we formulate a new spatial adaption scheme, akin to the concept of rezoning, but based on ideas of radial basis function interpolation so that a regular mesh is not needed. Numerical experiments demonstrate the capacity of a considerable increase in accuracy. The vortex method (VM) is a Lagrangian, grid-free approach to solving the Navier-Stokes equations in vorticity formulation. It is based on spatially discretizing the vorticity field with elements (vortex blobs) that move with the local fluid velocity. The Lagrangian nature, however, implies that, due to strain, the blobs grow apart in some directions and cluster together in others. As the blobs cease to overlap they lose their ability to recover the smooth vorticity field and accuracy is lost. The widespread solution to this problem is remeshing the particle field, for which high-order interpolation kernels are used in tensor product formulations. (One should mention that some authors dislike the designation “remeshing” and instead refer to the process as “redistribution”. This may be justified as no mesh connectivity is required in the process; it does incur confusion, however, when there is a viscous scheme called vortex redistribution method.) Standard remeshing effectively controls the error due to Lagrangian distortion and long-time calculations are possible. Numerical investigations, however, demonstrate that the remeshing algorithms themselves introduce noticeable errors. In other words, these schemes bring back the mesh to an otherwise mesh-less method, and with it some numerical dissipation. Presently, experiments with a rezoning strategy based on solving the collocation problem for the blob circulation strengths have proved very encouraging. It is demonstrated that higher accuracy is possible, and in addition opportunities have been generated for providing a correction for the core spreading viscous scheme, as well as for variable resolution in the
POPULATION ECOLOGY OF CLEOME VISCOSA L., A DESERT SUMMER ANNUAL

The present study was designed to investigate the demographic patterns of Cleome viscosa L. , which is the common summer annual of Sindh desert. Demographic studies were carried out at two site named as site ‘A’ and site ‘B’. Plants exhibited Deveey type I survivorship curves, characteristic of annuals. Populations of C. viscosa were found to be highly dynamic on spatial scale. Soil moisture content, competition and grazing were some of the factors responsible for the considerable variations in the plant density and growth of plants. Plants inhabiting site ‘B; exhibited better vegetative and reproductive growth due to greater amounts of soil nutrients and high water holding capacity of the soil (thereby providing better soil moisture regime). C. viscosa at both the sites possessed persistent seed bank. The below ground seed bank was much diverse than the above ground vegetation. C. viscosa produced light weighted seeds in large numbers. Wind is the predominant agent for the dispersal of seeds. Seeds traveled grater distances mainly due to their lighter weights and taller mother plants.
Phase-matched second harmonic generation in asymmetric double quantum wells

Efficient (∼1%) second harmonic generation, resonantly enhanced near λ=8.6 μm, has been observed in asymmetric double multi-quantum well structures. We used (i) edge-emitting waveguide geometry where the phase matching was achieved by incorporating a separate multiple quantum well region which modifies (via the Kramers–Kronig relation) the dispersion of light and (ii) 45° wedge multi-bounce geometry where the phases of second harmonic waves generated at sequential bounces were synchronized by changing the angle of incidence.
Quantifying the Contribution of Search to Wage Inequality

We empirically establish that one-third of job transitions leads to wage losses. Using a quantitative on-the-job search model, we find that 60 percent of them are movements down the job ladder. Accounting for them, our baseline calibration matches the large residual wage inequality in US data while attributing only 13.7 percent of overall wage inequality to the presence of search frictions in the labor market. We can trace the difference between ours and previous much higher estimates to our explicit modeling of nonvalue improving job-to-job transitions.
A Simple and Efficient Broadcasting Scheme for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Network wide broadcasting is a basic operation in mobile ad hoc networks. Counter-Based broadcasting scheme is well suited for highly mobile networks because of its simplicity. The paper presents several improvements on the counter-based broadcasting scheme and proposes an enhanced counter-based broadcasting scheme, CBB+. Analyses and simulations have shown that CBB+ operates more efficiently than the original counter-based scheme. It has higher reachability, fewer rebroadcasts and lower delay.
Luciano, G and Shardlow, MJ (2018)Manchester Metropolitan at SemEval- 2018 Task 2: Random Forest with an Ensemble of Features for Predicting Emoji in Tweets. In: 12th International workshop on semantic evaluation

We present our submission to the Semeval 2018 task on emoji prediction. We used a random forest, with an ensemble of bag-ofwords, sentiment and psycholinguistic features. Although we performed well on the trial dataset (attaining a macro f-score of 63.185 for English and 81.381 for Spanish), our approach did not perform as well on the test data. We describe our features and classification protocol, as well as initial experiments, concluding with a discussion of the discrepancy between our trial and test results.
Plasma Concentrations of GLP-1 and PYY in Rats Fed Dietary Fiber Depend on the Fermentability of Dietary Fiber and Respond to an Altered Diet

Background: It was reported to be associated with intake of dietary fiber and gut hormone. We compared the effect of dietary fiber on the plasma concentration of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and peptide YY (PYY). Methods: Firstly, male Wistar rats (10 wk old) were fed a fiber-free diet (FF diet, AIN-93G-based diet without cellulose) or one of nine FF diets with 5% dietary fiber for 21 days. Cellulose, guar gam (GG), partially hydrolyzed guar gum (PHGG), sugar beet fiber (BF), konjac mannnan (KM), raffinose (RF), hydroxypropyl starch (HPS), hydroxypropyl distarch phosphate (HPDP) and Akamoku (AK) were used as dietary fiber sources. Secondly, we then determined whether the concentrations of GLP-1 and PYY in portal and aorta plasma and microbiota in cecal contents responded to an altered diet. Male Wistar rats (10 wk old) were fed the PHGG diet for 20 days before being changed to the FF diet. Results: The amount of short chain fatty acids (SCFA) in the cecal contents markedly increased in rats fed the GG, PHGG, BF, KM, RF, HPS or HPDP diets compared with SCFA in rats fed the FF, CL or AK diets. The concentrations of GLP-1 and PYY in portal plasma positively correlated with the concentration of SCFA in the cecal contents and cecal tissue weight. The concentrations of GLP-1 and PYY, in the altered diet group decreased to the same concentration as that measured in the FF group. However, it was low the similarities in the cecal bacteria population. Conclusion: The plasma concentrations of GLP-1 and PYY increased with increasing the amounts of SCFA, the products of DF fermentation, in the cecal contents. GLP-1 and PYY plasma concentrations and SCFA concentrations in the cecal contents rapidly responded to the altered diet, but the cecal bacteria population did not.
The Number of Leydig Cells, Sertoli Cells, and Spermatogonia are Lower towards a Little Rats that Their Parent Given Genistein during Periconception Period

The testis was composed by the cells of Leydig, Sertoli, and Spermatogenic. The cells formation itself was able to be disrupted by exposure to an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) since the prenatal period. The research was intended to prove that Genistein could obstruct the formation of Leydig cells, Sertoli cells, Spermatogenic of rats. The randomized post-test only control group design method was conducted towards white female Wistar rats, 12-13 weeks old, has been had one child, could normally eat and drink. The analysis unit was the child of mother rat treatment group that given Genistein of 10 mg/kg/day and the control group that received distilled water, each of them were 15. The research was done in the Laboratory of Faculty of Veterinary Medical, Udayana University, from January to July 2016. The computer was used for analyzing the data using, with α of 0.05. The result was the Genistein child had an average of 5.464 Sertoli cell, 11.120 Leydig cell, and 48.427 spermatogonia, whereas, the control group had an average of 8.173 Leydig cells, 12.987 Sertoli cells, and 69.547 spermatogonia. There were significant differences between the two groups ( p 0.000). The conclusion was that an average of Leydig cells, Sertoli cells, and Spermatogonia lower in children whose their parent rats given Genistein during Periconception period.
Pharmacological justification for the ethnomedicinal use of Amblygonocarpus andongensis stem bark in pain relief

Amblygonocarpus andongensis (family: Mimosaceae) is ethnomedicinally used in Northern Nigeria for the relief of pain. The methanolic extract of the plant stem bark was evaluated for anti-nociceptive activity using acetic acid-induced writhing model and formalin test in mice. Anti-inflammatory property was tested on egg albumin-induced oedema in rats while agar dilution method was used for antimicrobial effect. The acute toxicity effect (LD50) was also determined via intraperitoneal route. The results showed the LD50 value to be 547.7 mg/kg i.p. There was a significant (P < 0.05) dose-dependent reduction of acetic acid-induced pain at 50, 100, 200 mg/kg i.p. The extract at the same doses significantly (P < 0.05) inhibited pains in both early and late phases of the formalin test. However, the extract showed neither anti-inflammatory nor anti-microbial effects. The results corroborate the folkloric use of the plant.
What factors Influence Internal migration and Wage Growth?: an Empirical Analysis of Private Formal Sector in Bolgatanga-Ghana

The primary aim of this study is to explore the determinants of wage growth velocity in personal formal sector of Bolgatanga Municipality. A primary data collection technique was used and sample size of 345 individuals interviewed using a well structured interview schedule and questionnaire by convenient sampling. Ordinary least square method is applied to study the dependency of growth rate of wage on different variables in Bolgatanga Municipality. Findings reveal that education, gender, experience, household area and marital status of the respondents absolutely affect growth of wages at less than 1% level of significance.
ANALGESIC EFFECT AND ANTI-INFLAMMATORY ACTIVITY OF AQUEOUS EXTRACT OF BOSWELLIA DALZIELII (BURSERACEAE) STEM BARK

Objective: To evaluate the analgesic effect and anti-inflammatory properties of Boswellia dalzielii (Burseraceae), a medicinal plant commonly used in northern Nigeria as an anti-diarrhoeal, antipyretic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory agent. Methods: Three doses (25 mg/kg, 50 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg) of the crude aqueous extract of Boswellia dalzielii were evaluated for analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities using the acetic acid-induced writhing test, formalin-induced nociception and formalin-induced hind paw oedema in rats. The acute oral toxicity was carried out using the up and down procedure as described by the OECD guidelines. Results: All doses (25, 50 and 100 mg/kg) of the extract tested were effective against acetic acid induced abdominal constrictions producing a percentage inhibition of (55.43, 69.56 and 71.73%) respectively. A percentage inhibition of the formalin-induced nociception of (7.31, 31.70 and 48.78%-early phase) and (12.82, 21.79 and 48.71%-late phase) respectively was also produced. For the acetic acid writhing test, the percentage inhibition obtained at the dose of 50 and 100 mg/kg (69.56 and 71.73%) were higher than that of the standard drug (Piroxicam, 10 mg/kg) (59.78%). For formalin-induced nociception, the test extract at 100 mg/kg showed a higher percentage inhibition compared to Piroxicam, in early (48.78 and 43.90%) and late phase (48.71 and 39.74 %) respectively. The extract, however, did not show a significant activity against formalin-induced paw oedema at all the doses used. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that Boswellia dalzielii has significant analgesic properties comparable to that of the standard drug (10% Piroxicam), thus validating the traditional claim of its antinociceptive property.
Essential oil composition of Artemisia annua L. at different growth stages

Chemical composition of the essential oils obtained from the aerial parts of Artemisia annua at vegetative, pre-bloom, bloom and post-bloom stages was determined using GC and GC/MS analysis. The yields of essential oil were 0.14%, 0.34%, 0.64% and 0.54% (w/w), respectively at different growth stages. A total of 67 compounds were identified. Oxygenated monoterpenes (39.0%–57.0%) constituted the main fraction of the oils followed by sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (11.8%–26.2%) and monoterpene hydrocarbons (4.2%–15.1%). The main compounds identified in all the analyzed samples were camphor (28.6%–31.7%), 1,8-cineole (2.1%–20.8%), germacrene D (3.8%–12.0%), β-caryophyllene (2.8%–6.9%), trans-β-farnesene (0.7%–4.5%), α-pinene (0.5%– 2.4%), p-cymene (0.8%–2.3%) and terpinen-4-ol, (0.9%–2.1%). The results indicated considerable quantitative variations in both oil yield and chemical composition at different growth stages and artemisia ketone and artemisia alcohol were found to be absent in the oils.
Modelling Income Distribution in the Czech Republic with aSpecial Focus on Income Distribution of Professionals inInformatics

This paper deals with the modeling of income distribution in the Czech Republic in 2008. The values of the net year household income per capita (in CZK) are evaluated from data based on the Results of the Living Conditions Survey (a national module of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)) that has been organized yearly by the Czech Statistical Office since 2005. Data for the whole sample are analyzed and the comparison with the group of professionals in informatics is given. In the survey Czech households are taken as statistical units and we will analyze an occupation of a head of a household. The group of occupations in informatics is not included in the questionnaire the closest groups are scientists and experts in physics and related sciences, architects and engineers (the creative workers)”. This paper focuses on the use of lognormal distribution. In this paper moment and quantile methods, maximum likelihood or L-moment methods are used to estimate parameters of lognormal distribution. Using various methods we obtain different estimates of parameters of the theoretical distribution. The magnitude of these differences is shown in the paper together with the impact of these differences on characteristics of income.
New miniature broadband CPW-to-slotline transitions

This paper proposes a novel class of uniplanar coplanar waveguide (CPW)-to-slotline transitions, which is particularly suitable for monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuits. Instead of using CPW series stub printed in the ground plane, as is the case in classical CPW-to-slotline transition, this paper shows the capability to use a CPW series stub printed in the center conductor of the CPW. Compared to classical CPW-to-slotline transitions, the proposed transitions have the following advantages: additional degrees of freedom, lower radiation loss, larger bandwidth, higher compactness, and a major reduction of the number of air bridges that are potentially expensive to build. One alternative configuration that appears to have some merit involves the use of the slotline ring resonator, which does not suffer from open-end or short-end effects and, therefore, gives more accurate resonance frequency, provides an accurate localized zero or infinite impedance point, and maintains low- or high-input impedance values over a wide frequency range, depending on the feed type. A principle of achieving such high-quality transitions is detailed and also confirmed by experimental and theoretical results, which are in good agreement up to 50 GHz. A maximum fractional bandwidth of 160% is achieved for a 10-dB return loss, and the corresponding insertion loss is less than or equal to 2 dB.
Revisiting Consumer Ethnocentrism: Review, Reconceptualization, and Empirical Testing

Prior research has suggested that many consumers prefer domestic to foreign products, even when the quality is lower and the price is higher. Such bias is attributed to consumer ethnocentrism. This study critically examines the current conceptualizations of consumer ethnocentrism and proposes an extension of its conceptual boundaries and measurement. It determines that consumer ethnocentrism is a multidimensional construct that encompasses five dimensions: prosociality, cognition, insecurity, reflexiveness, and habituation. Empirical evidence from the United Kingdom and the United States demonstrates that the extended measurement instrument better predicts consumers’ preferences for local brands at the expense of foreign brands.
How Smart City practices create comfortable environments for low mobile population groups

The article covers the arrangement of comfortable conditions for physically challenged and low mobile residents in urban environments. Currently, these social categories are discriminated in urban societies. Contemporary cities, their infrastructure fail to satisfy their needs. Their ability to move around and fulfill their potential in urban spaces is limited. In the article, the author provides the findings of the sociological survey, conducted in Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo region, in 2015 – 2016. The survey’s mission was to find out whether the principles of reasonable adjustment of an urban environment to the needs of various groups of residents needed to be integrated into the public policy. This problem turns particularly relevant in the context of the development and introduction of the Smart City practices.
Modeling C preprocessor metaprograms using purely functional languages

The preprocessor of the C language provides a convenient base to de ne relatively complex source-to-source transformations. Describing these transformations is possible by using parametrized, so called function-like macros. In fact, the structure of these macros can be almost arbitrarily compound, limited only by the actual preprocessor implementation [1]. However, writing and understanding these macros is usually fairly di cult. The lack of typing, the statelessness, and the uncommon syntax are the main reasons of this di culty. To support the development of these preprocessor metaprograms, a model for each of the macros can be implemented with a function in a purely functional language. If only a well-de ned, restricted set of the chosen language is used, then a working functional implementation can be translated back into a preprocessor metaprogram. This translation leads to easily recognizable patterns in the resulting program, thus makes its maintenance and understanding easier. Furthermore, testing and prototyping may need less e ort using an initial implementation in a functional language. This method is similar to the Haskell to C++ template compilation described in [2]. The absence of types in the macro system is expressed by the signature of these functions: they de ne mappings between strings. Because they are pure, the lack of a global state is also simulated. The abstraction level is increased by using basic arithmetic, conditionals, pattern matching, tupleand list-manipulation functions. The process of the modeling and the translation of the functional elements into preprocessor macros will be presented using the abstractions provided by the preprocessor subset of the Boost MPL library [3].