Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Different Eggshell Temperatures Between Embryonic Day 10 and 18 on Broiler Performance and Susceptibility to Ascites

The aim of the current study was to determine the effects of low (33.3-36.7 ˚C), control (37.8-38.2 ˚C) and high (38.9-40.0 ˚C) eggshell temperatures (ESTs) between days 10-18 of incubation on broiler performance and susceptibility to ascites. The effects of different ESTs on hatchling weight were significant. The highest residual yolk sac weight (7.7 g) and relative yolk sac weight (18.7%) were observed in high EST group, whereas the highest yolk-free body weight (36.22 g) was obtained in the control group. Relative post-hatch heart weight was lower in the high EST group (0.64%) compared with the control (0.84%) and low (0.88%) EST groups. At 6 weeks of age, body weights of broilers of the low, control, and high EST groups were 2172.6, 2543.9, 2282.6 g respectively. During the 6-week life span, the feed conversion ratio of broilers in the low (1.86) and high (1.83) EST groups was significantly worse than of those in the control EST group (1.68). Higher packed cell volume (PCV) and red blood cell (RBC) values were obtained in the high EST group relative to the other groups, whereas hemoglobin (Hb) level was lower in the control group than in the others. The relative heart weights and right ventricular to total ventricular (RV:TV) ratio for low, control, and high EST group were 0.46, 0.40, 0.37 g and 0.27, 0.28, 0.33% respectively. In conclusion, incubation length, yolk sac absorption, residual yolk sac weight, yolk-free BW, post-hatch performance, and heart, blood parameters, abdominal fluid accumulation at slaughter age are affected by changes in EST between incubation days 10 to 18.
Correlating volume and surface features in additively manufactured metal parts

INTRODUCTION Additive manufacture (AM) is starting to become viable as an option for the production of high value parts that were not previously feasible because of spatial restrictions in machining operations. Metal AM, particularly, presents an attractive method of manufacture for parts in the biomedical and aerospace industries. However, notable barriers exist towards the adoption of AM technologies in industry, the most significant of which relates to requirements for further understanding of AM processes [1].
Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Nanofibers Made by Sea–Island‐Type Conjugated Melt Spinning and Laser‐Heated Flow Drawing

Nylon-6/poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) ultra-multi-island sea-island conjugated melt-spun fibers are flow-drawn at a draw ratio of 174 with heating by CO 2 laser irradiation. Continuous PET nanofibers that have a diameter of 39 nm could be obtained from the flow-drawn fiber with further drawing and removal of the sea component. In addition, the drawn fiber has a strength of 0.54 GPa. This result shows that a PET nanofiber having a strength almost equal to that of a conventional PET fiber can be obtained by the combination of conjugate-melt-spinning and laser-heated flow-drawing.
Innovation, human capital and exogenous shocks

Strategic entrepreneurship is about the simultaneous exploitation of existing advantages and the creation and exploitation of new opportunities. These are often referred to as the strategyand the entrepreneurship dimension, respectively. We examine how the relative emphasis on the two dimensions of strategic entrepreneurship affects how firms behave with respect to human capital in the context of one particular exogenous shock, namely recessions. We hypothesize and find that the higher the focus on the entrepreneurial dimension, the more firms invest in training, the more likely they are to hire, and the more likely they are to lay off employees. Finally, we also find that these firms are more likely to combine the accumulation of human capital through training with both hiring and firing. In sum, these findings show how challenges and opportunities created by environmental change differ depending on the relative emphasis on the two dimensions. They also show how firms focusing on the entrepreneurial dimension more actively pursue the opportunities created by increased labor market imperfections in recessions. These results contribute to the literature by highlighting how recessions affect firms’ flow of human capital investments, and subsequently stocks, depending on their weighting of the two dimensions of strategic entrepreneurship.
Everett Rogers’ diffusion of innovation and the possibility of its application in the dissemination of renewable energy sources

The author of the diffusion theory of innovation is Everett Rogers an American sociologist, who in 1962 published a book entitled "Diffusions of innovations", presenting the issues related to the dissemination of a new solution within the market. The presented concept of diffusion of innovation is still current and can be applied to almost every sector that brings a new product to market.
Habitat requirements of the long‐tailed ground squirrel (Spermophilus undulatus) in the southern Altai

The long-tailed ground squirrels Spermophilus undulatus represent the most abundant burrowing herbivorous species in the southern Altai grasslands and are suggested to play an important role in the maintenance of this mountain ecosystem. The aim of this study was to identify the key features that influence their habitat use in the southern part of the Altai Republic (south-west Siberia, Russia). The research area represents a complete sequence of altitudinal vegetation zones from steppe, forest-steppe, forest, sub-alpine and alpine tundra. Our results suggest that S. undulatus prefers short-grass steppes, near the water source and with a thin layer of a chernozem soil containing a large amount of coarse clastics. The species strictly avoids forests and tolerates only a low density of bush cover. Altitude and exposure to sun do not represent significant factors in the habitat choice of S. undulatus. Neither the presence of pikas nor the presence of marmots influences habitat selection of the ground squirrels. Strong preferences for habitats near a water source may limit the distribution of the species to mountain areas. Degree of human disturbance was not a significant factor affecting distribution and the species even displays slight preferences for heavily grazed habitat near human settlements and roads. Intensive grazing prevents shrubs and forest invasion, keeps vegetation low and thus provides appropriate conditions for the ground squirrels, favouring an open habitat where predators can be easily detected by sight. Our results suggest that the habitat selection of ground squirrels may be determined rather by a protection from predators and burrowing conditions than by food availability.
DUSAN STOSIC Q-GAUSSIANS FOR PATTERN RECOGNITION

Pattern recognition plays an important role for solving many problems in our everyday lives: from simple tasks such as reading texts to more complex ones like driving cars. Subconsciously, the recognition of patterns is instantaneous and an innate ability to every human. However, programming (or “teaching”) a machine how to do the same can present an incredibly difficult task. There are many situations where irrelevant or misleading patterns, poorly represented classes, and complex decision boundaries make recognition very hard, or even impossible by current standards. Important contributions to the field of pattern recognition have been attained through the adoption of methods of statistical mechanics, which has paved the road for much of the research done in academia and industry, ranging from the revival of connectionism to modern day deep learning. Yet traditional statistical mechanics is not universal and has a limited domain of applicability outside this domain it can make wrong predictions. Non-extensive statistical mechanics has recently emerged to cover a variety of anomalous situations that cannot be described within standard Boltzmann-Gibbs theory, such as non-ergodic systems characterized by long-range interactions, or long-term memories. The literature on pattern recognition is vast, and scattered with applications of non-extensive statistical mechanics. However, most of this work has been done using non-extensive entropy, and little can be found on practical applications of other non-extensive constructs. In particular, non-extensive entropy is widely used to improve segmentation of images that possess strongly correlated patterns, while only a small number of works employ concepts other than entropy for solving similar recognition tasks. The main goal of this dissertation is to expand applications of non-extensive distributions, namely the q-Gaussian, in pattern recognition. We present our contributions in the form of two (published) articles where practical uses of q-Gaussians are explored in neural networks. The first paper introduces q-Gaussian transfer functions to improve classification of random neural networks, and the second paper extends this work to ensembles which involves combining a set of such classifiers via majority voting.
Improving Obstetrical Outcomes in Cesarean Sections, by Utilizing Evidence-Based Strategies

Cesarean sections are the most commonly performed surgery in the USA. Changing poli- cies and clinical information have resulted in improved outcomes for both mothers and babies. We describe evidence-based best practices for a multi-strategy approach to reduce cesarean section rates, increasing safety and success of vaginal births after cesarean section, decreasing complication rates in higher order cesarean sections, and accurate estimations of blood loss. In addition, we present a novel approach of utilizing venous lactate levels to identify the need for blood transfusions in the resuscitation of women with postpar- tum hemorrhage. Given that pregnancy is a life event, we describe increased self-reported stress levels in women during pregnancy and after the birth. In summary, adoption of the best practices outlined herein will greatly enhance the safe practice of cesarean sections.
On Dispersion in Oscillatory Annular Flow Driven Jointly by Pressure Pulsation and Wall Oscillation

Longitudinal dispersion of solute released in an unsteady flow between two coaxial cylinders is re-examined in the presence of first order chemical kinetics in the bulk flow. The flow unsteadiness is caused by the oscillation of the outer tube around its axis as well as by a periodic pressure gradient. Unlike some previous works, the gap width of the annular tube is used as the typical length scale which is physically meaningful to a greater extent. In order to employ the method of moment, a finite difference implicit scheme has been adopted to solve the Aris integral moment equations arising from the unsteady convective diffusion equation for all time periods. The individual and combined effects of different velocity components resulting from steady and timedependent parts of the driving forces are examined and they are identified based on their functionality. In any flow situation, wall factor is found to have a larger contribution in velocity as well as in dispersion compared to the pressure factor. The behaviour of dispersion coefficient with the variation of radius ratio, bulk flow reaction parameter, and frequency parameters have been examined. Dispersion coefficient is found to diminish with the increase of the reaction-rate in the bulk flow, whereas the effect of the radius ratio on the dispersion coefficient is fixed by the form of the velocity distribution. The axial distributions of mean concentration are approximated using Hermite polynomial representation from the first four central moments for a range of different reaction-rate parameters. It has been found that, irrespective of the flow situation, the peak of the concentration distribution decreases with the increase in reaction rate parameter.
UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS Mergers and Acquisitions and Firm Performance in Zimbabwe BY EARNEST MANJENGWA

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are one of the most important corporate growth strategy actions being used by companies the world over. Zimbabwe has not been left out. As such, this dissertation sought to investigate the impact of M&A on the performance of ZSE listed companies from 2004 to 2012 using panel data (pooled OLS regression) methodology. A sample of 14 listed non-financial sector firms was used. The data was grouped into two samples; the full sample that consisted all the 14 companies and the M&A sample that consisted only those companies within the full sample which had experienced M&A activity within the period under review. For the dependent variables, this dissertation used ROA and ROE as measures of firm‟s financial performance while the independent variables were merger, firm age, firm size, leverage, risk (for the respective measures of performance), tangibility and liquidity. The results revealed no significant effect of M&A on firm performance. However, firm performance was positively and significantly affected by firm age, firm size, and liquidity. Tangibility had a negative and significant effect on firm performance. Risk was significant in explaining firm performance but had either a positive or negative impact on firm performance. The findings of this dissertation were limited and only applicable to the non-financial sectors of Zimbabwe.
How fast can we learn maximum entropy models of neural populations?

Most of our knowledge about how the brain encodes information comes from recordings of single neurons. However, computations in the brain are carried out by large groups of neurons. Modelling the joint activity of many interacting elements is computationally hard because of the large number of possible activity patterns and limited experimental data. Recently it was shown in several different neural systems that maximum entropy pairwise models, which rely only on firing rates and pairwise correlations of neurons, are excellent models for the distribution of activity patterns of neural populations, and in particular, their responses to natural stimuli. Using simultaneous recordings of large groups of neurons in the vertebrate retina responding to naturalistic stimuli, we show here that the relevant statistics required for finding the pairwise model can be accurately estimated within seconds. Furthermore, while higher order statistics may, in theory, improve model accuracy, they are, in practice, harmful for times of up to 20 minutes due to sampling noise. Finally, we demonstrate that trading accuracy for entropy may actually improve model performance when data is limited, and suggest an optimization method that automatically adjusts model constraints in order to achieve good performance.
Carbon Nanotubes in Biomedicine and Biosensing

Since carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were discovered by Iijima in 1991(Iijima, 1991), they have become the subject of many studies because of their unique electrical, optical, thermal, and mechanical properties(Ouyang, Huang, & Lieber, 2002; Thostenson, Ren, & Chou, 2001; Troiani, Miki-Yoshida, Camacho-Bragado, Marques, Rubio, Ascencio, et al., 2003; Wan, Dong, & Xing, 1998). Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be visualized as a sheet of carbon atoms rolled up into a tube with a diameter of around tens of nanometers. There are two main types of CNTs, Single-walled (SWCNTs) and multi-walled carbonnanotubes (MWCNTs), the latter being formed by several concentric layers of rolled graphite (Figure 1). In particular, SWCNTs are characterized by a high aspect ratio. Moreover, Their versatile physicochemical features enable the covalent and noncovalent introduction of several biomedicine and biosensing application relevant entities. Thus exploitation of their unique electrical, optical, thermal, and spectroscopic properties in a biological context is hoped to yield great advances in the therapy of disease and detection biomolecules such as DNA, antigen–antibody, cells, and other biomolecules.
Climate change of Mars‐like planets due to obliquity variations: implications for Mars

The obliquities of the terrestrial planets could have undergone large‐amplitude fluctuations. Because the obliquity changes affect the latitudinal distribution of solar radiation, they may have played important roles in the climatic evolution of the planets. We have investigated the effects of obliquity changes on the climate of Mars‐like planets with CO2 atmosphere by using a one‐dimensional energy balance climate model. Our numerical results show that the obliquity changes would result in the drastic changes of atmospheric pressure (climate jumps) by runaway sublimation of permanent CO2 ice. We also found that given a small solar constant and large obliquity, “ring‐shaped” regions with permanent CO2 ice forms at the mid‐latitude.
Investor Rationality and House Price Bubbles: Berlin and the German Reunification

Abstract We analyze the behavior of investors in the Berlin rental apartment house market over the years 1980-2004. Using constant-quality multipliers ( price- rent ratios), we reject the hypothesis that multipliers in the market were set in a rational manner. Supported by narrative evidence, we conjecture that investors misjudged the economic effects of the German reunification. To examine this, we employ a stylized structural economic model and analyze the effects of shocks on rational multipliers. It seems that investors confused the reunification with a permanent supply side shock to the economy. By basing their investment decisions on this misjudgement, investors behaved irrationally, but in a very uncertain and unprecedented environment.
An Enterprise Approach for Pathology Reporting Utilizing PDFFunctionality for the Electronic Medical Record

Background: Shortcomings of plain text renderings of pathology reports in the electronic medical records (EMRs) are widely known. As the pathology reports grow in complexity, Portable Document Format (PDF) renderings of pathology reports are seen as a flexible solution. Since 3/2014, our group has successfully implemented architecture for PDF functionality for pathology report integration into the EMR. Design: We outlined our architectural framework. Within our architectural framework, pathology reports are first generated as MS Word documents. They are then exported into both HL7 and PDF formats in the EMR. The clinicians may then choose to view either format. The HL7 interface message contains the file location path of the PDF, and the PDF reports are stored on the hospital servers for display retrieval within the EMR. As the HL7 feed is maintained, data can still be extracted into the institutional data warehouse (IDW). The retained HL7 rendering of the report allows copy/pasting of the pathology report into clinical documents. A reconciliation report is generated to match the transmissions sent with those received. Results: The number of PDF reports sent across the interface from 3/2014 to 5/2015 total 191,868. The monthly reports sent range from 11,449 to 14,422 per month, with a median & average of 12,419 and 12,791, respectively. Conclusions: PDF renderings of pathology reports have been successfully integrated into the EMR system. PDF reports bypass errors that may occur when HL7 strips the formatting from MS Word documents, such as blood counts or gene mutation lists. Use of visual analytics is also possible with PDF reports. Most commercially available EMRs have the capability of displaying PDF documents. We hope that our experience can serve as a framework for PDF functionality in EMRs.
40Ar/39Ar dating of Usol'skii sill in the south‐eastern Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province: evidence for long‐lived magmatism

Main part of the Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province was formed in a short time‐span at the Permo‐Triassic boundary c. 250 Ma. New 40Ar/39Ar dating results for the Usol'skii dolerite sill in south‐eastern part of the province indicate its probable emplacement c. 6 Myr after the main Permo‐Triassic magmatic phase. Compilation of the published 40Ar/39Ar and U‐Pb ages implies that basaltic and related magmatism lasted in total as long as 22–26 Myr. Therefore, similar to other large igneous provinces, magmatism of the Siberian Traps combined voluminous short‐lived and less prominent long‐lived events.
Food Safety and Security in Romania An Econometric Analysis in the Context of National Agricultural Paradigm Transformation

Food safety represents a current topic, with significant implications and diverse approaches within the specialized literature. In the context of globalization and integration of agricultural markets, the necessity of guaranteeing food safety is imperative for the functionality of contemporary agricultural systems. The radical transformation of the national agricultural systems as a result of the influences imposed by the convergence with the requirements and directions of the European agricultural model entails a significant change for the markets of agri-food products, affecting the food trade, its structure and, implicitly, food safety. In this context, the main objective of the present paper is to examine food safety in Romania using an econometric approach to the phenomenon. Nine fundamental variables are considered, for which the causal relationship between food safety and the exogenous variables taken into analysis is tested. The time frame for data availability for all the variables is 1990-2011. The obtained results highlight the transformations of paradigm of the national agricultural model from the perspective of the dimensions regarding food safety, confirming results from previous studies.
Profitability and Pricing in Treasury Bill Auctions: Evidence from Pakistan

Behaviour in the first three years of auctions for Pakistani treasury bills is studied. Bidding strategies rapidly converged to a consistent pattern after the auctions started in 1991. Factors that influenced the expected profitability of auction participation are identified. Auction participation was on average low and did not differ between types of bidders. Prices bids are found to reflect both ‘buy and sell’ and ‘buy and hold’ strategies, and were affected by risk considerations and bidder-specific variables. The Pakistani experience suggests the robustness of auctions as a market-based allocation mechanism, and their value in public debt management.
Relationship Between Self-Compassion, Self-Perception, and Stuttering Severity

The present study investigated the possibility of a relationship between self-compassion, self-perception, and stuttering severity in adults who stutter. Four adults who identify as people who stutter were administered the Self-Compassion Scale, the Self-Perception Profile for Adults, the Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering, and the Stuttering Severity Instrument. Results indicated a negative correlation between stuttering severity and selfcompassion. A relationship was found between self-perception and stuttering severity and selfcompassion in only one participant. It was concluded that practices of self-compassion may be beneficial in speech therapy for adults who stutter, and that both self-perception and selfcompassion scales may be used in treatment in order to increase awareness of personality strengths and coping mechanisms in people who stutter. Results indicate that implementation of a healthy coping mechanism, such as self-compassion, may be further warranted for individuals with increased stuttering severity. The Relationship Between Self-Compassion, Self-Perception, and Stuttering Severity 3