Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of age, sex and obesity on blood pressure levels in a tribal population.

The influence of age, sex, body mass index (BM! ) and skin fold thickness at triceps and subscapular regions on blood pressure was investigated among Manzai Mali, an agricultural tribe from Andhra Pradesh. Relatively higher levels of blood pressure are observed in this . transitional tribe compared to the neighbouring traditional tribes which may be attributed to the acculturization process. Manzai Mali women recorded significantly higher mean levels of SBP and DBP than men. The multiple regression analysis indicates that SBP increases significantly along with age, body mass index and triceps skinfold thickness. Also, DBP raises markedly with age. The regression coefficient for sex infers that the variability in DBP is significant between men and women compared to SBP. The regression coefficients of BM! and TSF are although positive for SBP and DBP, the influence is significant for SBP only.
Service quality and customer satisfaction among mobile telephony subscribers in Nairobi

ix CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Research Problem . 3 1.3 Research Objectives . 5 1.4 Value of the Study . 5 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW . 6 2.1 Service Quality. 6 2.2 Quality Models. 6 2.3 Customer Satisfaction . 10 2.4 Measures of Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Mobile Telephony Context . 10 2.5 Mobile Service in Kenya . 11 2.6 Choice of service quality model for the Study. 12 2.7 Gap Analysis . 14 CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY . 16 3.1 Research Design. 16 3.2 Population . 16 3.3 Sample Design . 16 3.4 Data Collection . 18 3.5 Data Analysis . 21 CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF RESULTS . 22 4.1 Response Rate . 22 4.2 Demographics Characteristics of the Respondents . 22 4.3 Reliability of Instrument . 24
Effect of Synthetic Voice Intelligibility on Speech Comprehension

This research investigated the differential impact of synthetic voice quality and text difficulty on comprehension of extended prose. Sixty participants listened to five easy and five difficult passages in one of three speech modes: natural speech, VOTRAX (low intelligibility), or DECtalk (high intelligibility). Comprehension of DECtalk was equal to that of natural speech, whereas comprehension of VOTRAX was significantly poorer than with natural speech or DECtalk. Subjects were also asked to shadow passages of each speech type as a measure of resource processing demands. It was found that shadowing accuracy was significantly better for natural speech than for DECtalk and shadowing of DECtalk was markedly superior to that of VOTRAX. The results of this study suggest that resource-demand measures alone may not be appropriate to predict performance in practical applications. Specifically, overall comprehension may not suffer despite on-line losses in processing. These findings also point to a differential allocation of cognitive resources by speech synthesizers of differing intelligibility.
Potential environmental impacts of using refuse derived material for landfill capping

In this study, the potential impacts on leachate emissions of applying a pretreated refuse-derived material as a capping layer on top of a municipal solid waste landfill were researched. Leachate emissions and stability against degradation were investigated with reference to the untreated material. Results from percolation leaching tests were analysed by multivariate data analysis and chemical speciation modelling. During 6 month aerobic pretreatment in composting windrows with forced aeration, the waste was stabilized against aerobic degradation measured as respiration activity down to 15% of the original value. Initial percolation leachate concentrations were reduced by 40% for As, by 50% for Co, by 60% for Ni, Pb, and total sulfur, by 40% for sulfate-sulfur, by 96% for ammonium nitrate, and by 62% for dissolved organic carbon. An increase was observed by a factor of 4 for Cd, by a factor of 150 for Cu, by a factor of 3 for Zn. Principle Component Analysis revealed that the leaching characteristics of the pretreated material developed towards those of a top soil used as reference material. Increasing the flow rate in column percolation experiments led to lower leachate concentrations at liquid to solid ratios of 10. Constructing a capping layer from the pretreated material is likely to have impacts on the leachate treatment system.
A Software Development Process Model Integrated to a Performance Measurement System

Software development process has been considered engineering for less than 50 years. During its evolution, many papers were presented proposing software development models that allow the adaptation of Software Engineering basis to the reality of the companies. It is also known that this industry has been suffering to attend cost, deadlines and/or functionalities. Besides, there are more companies requiring tight targets and the use of performance measurement systems becomes important to enable control, evaluation, prevention and understanding about processes, products and services. Focusing these two issues, this study was conducted, having as a goal the creation of a software development process model that integrates performance measurement systems concepts. As a result of this research, the GMQA Model, acronym from Brazilian Portuguese to Management, Measurement, Quality, and Documentation, is presented. This research details how the model was design and evolved based on a set of presentations to companies from the software industry.
A Study on the Consumer Complaining behavior Regarding Functional Health Foods

This study examined the consumer complaining behavior after purchasing functional health foods and investigated the variables which influence public and private consumer complaining behavior. The subjects of this study were 206 consumers who were dissatisfied after purchasing functional health foods. The survey was conducted during September. 15-October 6, 2003. Percentiles, frequencies, means, and logistic regression were utilized for data analysis with SPSS program. Major findings were as follows: 1 The groups reporting public complaining behavior were over college graduate, high income workers, professional and clerical workers(demographic variables). Purchasing related variable were high purchasing price, strategy of sales person and. ad, purchasing channel through door to door sales, telemarketing, multi level sales, and home shopping, purchasing purpose of weight control and cosmetic. 2. The groups reporting private complaining behavior were high school graduate, low income workers, housewives and the unemployed(demographic variables). Purchasing related variable were low purchasing price, the case of consumer need, purchasing in the shop, purchasing purpose of health restoration.
Liquid chromatographic/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometric study of the phenolic composition of cocoa (Theobroma cacao).

Liquid chromatography coupled with ionspray mass spectrometry in the tandem mode (LC/MS/MS) with negative ion detection was used for the identification of a variety of phenolic compounds in a cocoa sample. Gradient elution with water and acetonitrile, both containing 0.1% HCOOH, was used. Standard solutions of 31 phenolic compounds, including benzoic and cinnamic acids and flavonoid compounds, were studied in the negative ion mode using MS/MS product ion scans. At low collisional activation, the deprotonated molecule [M - H](-) was observed for all the compounds studied. For cinnamic and benzoic acids, losses of CO(2) or formation of [M - CH(3)](-*) in the case of methoxylated compounds were observed. However, for flavonol and flavone glycosides, the spectra present both the deprotonated molecule [M - H](-) of the glycoside and the ion corresponding to the deprotonated aglycone [A - H](-). The latter ion is formed by loss of the rhamnose, glucose, galactose or arabinose residue from the glycosides. Different fragmentation patterns were observed in MS/MS experiments for flavone-C-glycosides which showed fragmentation in the sugar part. Fragmentation of aglycones provided characteristic ions for each family of flavonoids. The optimum LC/MS/MS conditions were applied to the characterization of a cocoa sample that had been subjected to an extraction/clean-up procedure which involved chromatography on Sephadex LH20 and thin-layer chromatographic monitoring. In addition to compounds described in the literature, such as epicatechin and catechin, quercetin, isoquercitrin (quercetin-3-O-glucoside) and quercetin-3-O-arabinose, other compounds were identified for the first time in cocoa samples, such as hyperoside (quercetin-3-O-galactoside), naringenin, luteolin, apigenin and some O-glucosides and C-glucosides of these compounds.
Experiences With Intimate Partner Violence Among Latina Women

This study examined experiences with intimate partner violence in 292 Latina women classified as U.S. born, immigrant, or migrant-seasonal workers. High lifetime rates of violence were found, with 33.9% reporting physical violence, 20.9% reporting sexual coercion, and 82.5% reporting psychological aggression. Rates of violence in the preceding year were also high, with 18.5% experiencing physical violence, 14.4% experiencing sexual coercion, and 72.6% experiencing psychological aggression. Participants' marital status and partners' substance use were associated with victimization. The present findings suggest the need for screening for intimate partner violence and associated risk factors in settings that serve Latina women.
System Analysis of SPAM

Increasing reliance on the electronic mail (e-mail) has attracted spammers to send more and more spam e-mails in order to maximizing their financial gains. These unwanted e-mails are not only clogging the Internet traffic but are also causing storage problems at the receiving servers. Besides these, spam e-mails also serve as a vehicle to a variety of online crimes and abuses. Although several anti-spam procedures are currently employed to distinguish spam e-mails from the legitimate e-mails yet spammers and phishes obfuscate their e-mail content to circumvent anti-spam procedures. Efficiency of anti-spam procedures to combat spam entry into the system greatly depend on their level of operation and a clear insight of various possible modes of spamming. In this paper we investigate directed graph model of Internet e-mail infrastructure and spamming modes used by spammers to inject spam into the system. The paper outlines the routes, system components, devices and protocols exploited by each spamming mode.
Information Certification under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Implications for Computing Educators

Information content contained in scheduled annual reports and released to the public is normally accepted as accurate. In addition to the relatively structured format used for preparing the listing, the report is supposed to have been audited by highly reputable accounting conglomerates. In the new millennium, misinformation and improper relationships between companies and auditing firms created a shock in the financial world. To remedy the problem, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed. One of the stipulated provisions required executives to certify that the publicly released information was correct. This study examines the compliance of executives with the information certification provision. Specifically, this research reports on the proportion of companies that are able to meet the deadlines, their auditing firms, and auditing firm switches. The results of this study should be of interest to law enforcement individuals, accountants, financial auditors, and information systems experts. Computing educators will find the outcomes reported in this study especially useful because complying with
A NEW METHOD FOR AUTOMATIC MULTIPLE PARTIAL DISCHARGE CLASSIFICATION

A new wavelet based feature parameter have been developed to represent the characteristics of PD activities, i.e. the wavelet decomposition energy of PD pulses measured from non-conventional ultra wide bandwidth PD sensors such as capacitive couplers (CC) or high frequency current transformers (HFCT). The generated feature vectors can contain different dimensions depending on the length of recorded pulses. These high dimensional feature vectors can then be processed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to map the data into a three dimensional space whilst the first three most significant components representing the feature vector are preserved. In the three dimensional mapped space, an automatic Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm is then applied to classify the data cluster(s) produced by the PCA. As the procedure is undertaken in a three dimensional space, the obtained clustering results can be easily assessed. The classified PD sub-data sets are then reconstructed in the time domain as phase-resolved patterns to facilitate PD source type identification. The proposed approach has been successfully applied to PD data measured from electrical machines and power cables where measurements were undertaken in different laboratories.
TNF‐α/TNFR2 Regulatory Axis Stimulates EphB2‐Mediated Neuroregeneration Via Activation of NF‐κB

HIV‐1 infected individuals are at high risk of developing HIV‐associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) as HIV infection leads to neuronal injury and synaptic loss in the central nervous system (CNS). The neurotoxic effects of HIV‐1 are primarily a result of viral replication leading to the production of inflammatory chemokines and cytokines, including TNF‐α. Given an important role of TNF‐α in regulating synaptic plasticity, we investigated the effects of TNF‐α on the development of neuronal processes after mechanical injury, and we showed that TNF‐α treatment stimulates the regrowth of neuronal processes. To investigate transcriptional effects of TNF‐α on synaptic plasticity, we analyzed both human neurosphere and isolated neuronal cultures for the regulation of genes central to synaptic alterations during learning and memory. TNF‐α treatment upregulated Ephrin receptor B2 (EphB2), which is strongly involved in dendritic arborization and synaptic integrity. TNF‐α strongly activates the NF‐κB pathway, therefore, we propose that TNF‐α‐induced neurite regrowth occurs primarily through EphB2 signaling via stimulation of NF‐κB. EphB2 promoter activity increased with TNF‐α treatment and overexpression of NF‐κB. Direct binding of NF‐κB to the EphB2 promoter occurred in the ChIP assay, and site‐directed mutagenesis identified binding sites involved in TNF‐α‐induced EphB2 activation. TNF‐α induction of EphB2 was determined to occur specifically through TNF‐α receptor 2 (TNFR2) activation in human primary fetal neurons. Our observations provide a new avenue for the investigation on the impact of TNF‐α in the context of HIV‐1 neuronal cell damage as well as providing a potential therapeutic target in TNFR2 activation of EphB2. J. Cell. Physiol. 231: 1237–1248, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Effects of X‐irradiation on the content of amino acids in the developing rat cerebellum 1

ONE APPROACH to determining the localization and functional properties of free amino acids has been to follow their developmental changes and to correlate the changes observed with the known maturational events characteristic of the brain structure under study (AGRAWAL, DAVIS and HIMWICH, 1966; KURIYAMA et al., 1968; HUDSON, VERNADAKIS and TIMIRAS, 1970). The cerebellum of the rat is particularly amenable to developmental studies because it is immature at birth and undergoes accelerated maturation during the first 30 postnatal days, a period when cytoarchitectural changes (ALTMAN, 1969) and certain biochemical changes (BALAZS ef a[., 1968; VALCANA, VERNADAKIS and TIMIRAS, 1969) have been well-studied. In addition, the effects of various agents interfering with normal brain development such as those induced by X-irradiation, have been well-characterized in this tissue (ALTMAN, ANDERSON and WRIGHT, 1967; HAMORI, 1969). Thus, in our present study we have sought to compare the developmental patterns of free amino acids in the cerebellum of control and X-irradiated rats. To determine whether any differences observed could be accepted as general to all brain areas or specific to the cerebellum, the cerebral cortex and brain stem were also studied at the earliest post-radiation interval.
Modelling customer loyalty in financial services: A hybrid of formative and reflective constructs

Purpose – Customer loyalty is a focal concern for marketers who seek to identify its antecedents and causal structure with the aim of better understanding, predicting and managing loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to model both current behaviour (measured as share of wallet) and future intentions as measures of customer loyalty, to quantify the link between current and future behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – A hybrid model, combining reflective and formative constructs, was developed, moving away from the traditional “reflective only” approach to explain customer loyalty. New predictors such as variety seeking, “resistance to change” and risk taking behaviour were tested to explain loyalty.Findings – While “risk” is traditionally viewed as a key variable in financial services, this study finds that variety seeking and “resistance to change” predicted current behaviour and future behavioural intentions better than risk. Higher explanatory power and better model fit was found for a hybrid model c.
An Efficient FUFP-tree Maintenance Algorithm for Record Modification

The Frequent-Pattern-tree (FP-tree) is an efficient data structure for association-rule mining without the generation of candidate itemsets. It is used to compress a database into a tree structure, which stores only large items. When the underlying data is updated, the FP-tree, however, needs to process all the transactions in a batch way. In this paper, we thus attempt to extend the FP-tree construction algorithm for the efficient handling of record modification. An expeditious FP-tree (FUFP-tree) structure is used to ease the tree update process. An FUFP-tree maintenance algorithm is also proposed for reducing the execution time in reconstructing the tree when records are modified. Experimental results show that the proposed FUFP-tree maintenance algorithm for record modification runs faster than the batch FP-tree construction algorithm for handling updated records and generates nearly the same tree structure as the FP-tree algorithm. The proposed approach can thus achieve a good trade-off between execution time and tree complexity.
To Favor Survival Under Food Shortage, the Brain Disables Costly Memory

Hunger and Memory During starvation, are all brain functions slowed down, or are specific functions disabled to save energy? Plaçais and Preat (p. 440) investigated how the brain of Drosophila deals with severe resource limitation. The brain cut selected expenses to reduce the threat to survival and switched off the formation of aversive long-term memory that depends on costly protein synthesis. However, Hirano et al. (p. 443) focused on mild food-deprivation, which actually enhanced long-term memory formation. Presumably, improved memory should enhance survival when competing for limited food. After longer food deprivation, enhancement of aversive long-term memory decreased, while that of appetitive long-term memory remained high: Presumably, as starvation nears, it becomes more important to pursue food at all costs, and so appetitive memory takes precedence over aversive memories. Different types of memory interact in fed versus starved states to promote survival-oriented behavior. The brain regulates energy homeostasis in the organism. Under resource shortage, the brain takes priority over peripheral organs for energy supply. But can the brain also down-regulate its own consumption to favor survival? We show that the brain of Drosophila specifically disables the costly formation of aversive long-term memory (LTM) upon starvation, a physiological state required for appetitive LTM formation. At the neural circuit level, the slow oscillations normally triggered in two pairs of dopaminergic neurons to enable aversive LTM formation were abolished in starved flies. Transient artificial activation of these neurons during training restored LTM formation in starved flies but at the price of a reduced survival. LTM formation is thus subject to adaptive plasticity that helps survival under food shortage.
The importance of coffee ( Coffea arabica L . and Coffea canephora

© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 0233-111X/05/0510-0371 (Insect Biocontrol Laboratory, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Bldg. 011A, Beltsville, Maryland 20705 USA; 1Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 USA; 2Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Bldg. 001, Beltsville, Maryland 20705 USA)
Context‐specific acquisition of location discrimination by hippocampal place cells

The spatially localized firing of rodent hippocampal place cells is strongly determined by the local geometry of the environment. Over time, however, the cells can acquire additional inputs, including inputs from more distal cues. This is manifest as a change in firing pattern (‘remapping’) when the new inputs are manipulated. Place cells also reorganize their firing in response to non‐geometric changes in ‘context’, such as a change in the colour or odour of the environment. The present study investigated whether the new inputs acquired by place cells in one context were still available to the cells when they expressed their altered firing patterns in a new context. We found that the acquired information did not transfer to the new context, suggesting that the context inputs and the acquired inputs must interact somewhere upstream of the place cells themselves. We present a model of one possible such interaction, and of how such an interaction could be modified by experience in a Hebbian manner, thus explaining the context specificity of the new learning.
“ A Review on Channel Capacity Enhancement in Multiuser OFDM ”

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) has successfully prevented ISI in a frequency selective wireless environment. The growing demand on wireless communication service has created the necessity to support higher data rates for multimedia services. As next generation wireless communication networks are expected to provide broadband multimedia services such as voice, web browsing, video conferencing etc. For high data rate achievement one must enhance the capacity of the wireless communication system. The capacity of a communication system can be enhanced by using OFDM system. An interesting application of OFDM is in Multiuser OFDM systems in which multiple users share the same channel and the total transmit power. Due to independent multipath fading characteristic for each user, channel diversity is also created. This survey studies the methods that have been proposed in the literature to allocate the resources and achieve better Performances in data rates and Bit error rates and minimum transmit power levels. And also review on different channel capacity enhancement techniques used in OFDM system is SVD (Singular Value Decomposition), water filling algorithm.
Connectedness properties and splittings of groups with isolated flats

In this paper we study CAT(0) groups and their splittings as graphs of groups. For one-ended CAT(0) groups with isolated flats we prove a theorem characterizing exactly when the visual boundary is locally connected. This characterization depends on whether the group has a certain type of splitting over a virtually abelian subgroup. In the locally connected case, we describe the boundary as a tree of metric spaces in the sense of Świątkowski. A significant tool used in the proofs of the above results is a general convex splitting theorem for arbitrary CAT(0) groups. If a CAT(0) group splits as a graph of groups with convex edge groups, then the vertex groups are also CAT(0) groups.