Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determination of phthalates - effects of extraction parameters on recovery

SUMMARY Phthalates are ubiquitous contaminants in indoor environments, and are reported to cause adverse health effects. Due to their semi-volatile nature, phthalate samples require a multistep preparation before quantification with GC-MS. Many different sampling media, extraction procedures, and solvents are utilized in phthalate analytics, while comparisons and justifications for each choice are lacking. In this study, phthalate recoveries were compared from glass fibre filter (GFF), XAD resin + GFF, and polyurethane foam (PUF) after ultrasonic treatment (US), and Soxhlet extraction (SX) with different solvents. The recoveries varied between phthalates, sampling media, solvents, and extraction methods. The overall best performance was obtained using US and toluene (TOL) for GFF; SX and TOL for XAD+GFF; and dichloromethane and US for PUF. The recoveries ranged between 76 and 131 %. Each of these combinations is suitable in terms of recovery, whereas selecting the optimum sampling medium to be used in the air samplings requires further research.
? Do the Common Pathogenetical Mechanisms to Initiate Periodontitis and Rheumatoid Arthritis Exist ?

Periodontitis and rheumatoid arthritis belong to the chronic destructive inflammatory diseases. Both entities have some common pathological mechanisms. The similarities in the pathogenesis of the two were presented basing on the available literature. Additionally, the clinical results in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and periodontitis were presented (Dent. Med. Probl. 2009, 46, 4, 465–469).
Adoption of 3G Service in Bangladesh: A Conceptual Framework

Recent technological development has made the mobile service more affordable. The third generation mobile technology service 3G has brought these services faster. University students are a large user of these mobile services and they are in the perfect age to adopt any better technological innovation. To move on with the advanced world, internet is an inseparable issue and advanced technological innovation like 3G has made the internet use more comfortable. Adoption of 3G can bring greater benefit of internet use. With this view, thus this study is focused on evaluating the considerable factors in adoption of 3G. This study has gone through several literatures. [1], [2] These studies mainly addressed adoption of 3G in relation to perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness etc. However still there are some factors which are not considered in the literature like; perceived cost, perceived enjoyment and perceived service quality. To address this deficiency, the current study has proposed a conceptual framework (See figure*). To understand the proposed framework, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is considered as a grounded theory. In the proposed framework perceived cost, perceived enjoyment and perceived service quality on 3G adoption is considered as new factors in the context of university students of Bangladesh. It will apply empirically considering both private and public university students of Bangladesh. It is expected that the current study will contribute theoretically proving the relationship of perceived cost, perceived enjoyment and perceived service quality with other variables and practically it will be helpful for service operators.
Approaches of Impact Analysis Assessment and Classification towards Projects Changes

Change impact analysis has been defined as identifying the potential consequences of a change, or estimating what needs to be modified to accomplish a change. The term "impact analysis" is used with many meanings, it’s used for characterizing and comparing diverse impact analysis approaches, it corresponds to how an approach is used to accomplish impact analysis and how an approach does impact analysis internally, and the effectiveness of the impact analysis approach. As the project management community recognize the growing need to identify consequences of changes, impact analysis is making its way into the software process and dependencies between project life cycle objects are becoming more numerous and complex as many IT projects grow beyond a large number of requirements. Therefore, this paper deals more on investigating further how software practitioners use and make use of impact analysis as part of the process of managing change and how impact analysis is applied during software changes. The improvement of primary data with project management practitioners will be identified.
Benchmarking Organisational Capability using The 20 Keys

Organisations have over the years implemented many improvement initiatives, many of which were applied individually with no real, lasting improvement. Approaches such as quality control, team activities, setup reduction and many more seldom changed the fundamental constitution or capability of an organisation. Leading companies in the world have come to realise that an integrated approach is required which focuses on improving more than one factor at the same time - by recognising the importance of synergy between different improvement efforts and the need for commitment at all levels of the company to achieve total system-wide improvement. The 20 Keys approach offers a way to look at the strenqth of organisations and to systemically improve it, one step at a time by focusing on 20 different but interrelated aspects. One feature of the approach is the benchmarking system which forms the main focus of this paper. The benchmarking system is introduced as an important part of the 20 Keys philosophy in measuring organisational strength. Benchmarking results from selected South African companies are provided, as well as one company's results achieved through the adoption of the 20 Keys philosophy.
Knowledge of female genital cutting among parents in south west Nigeria

Objective: To find out the knowledge of FGC among parents in south west Nigeria. Study design: Descriptive crosssectional survey method was used to conduct the study. Study period: March 2009 to December 2009. Sample size: 536 parents from 3 selected state capitals in south west Nigeria. Study variables: Age, gender and educational status. Statistical analysis: Descriptive and inferential statistics (mean, standard deviation, t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT). Results: The study revealed that there is no significant difference in the knowledge of parents on FGC based on gender. The null hypotheses were not rejected, because the calculated value t=1.91 obtained, was less than the table value of 1.96 at 534 degrees of freedom at 5% level of significance. This shows respondents did not differ in their knowledge about FGC based on gender whereas, other null hypotheses were rejected, because there existed significant differences in the parents’ knowledge of FGC based on age and educational status with calculated F-values 7.62 and 7.62, while the table values were 2.08 and 2.12 respectively. Duncan Multiple Range Test was employed to determine the significant differences existed between and within the group of means where ANOVA was used. Conclusion: On the basis of the findings, it was recommended that parents, community leaders, religious leaders as well as traditional rulers should be educated on the hazards of FGC and should inculcate in their people on how to stop harmful traditional practices. Government should enact a law to prohibit FGC; there should be public enlightenment campaign to the general public about consequences and health hazards of FGC on the victim. Also community health education should be organized for traditional circumcisers to stop this harmful to stop this harmful practice among girls and women.
Analysis of specific attentional functions in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) : implications for ADHD subtyping theory

It is important to understand the neurobiological, cognitive, and behavioral factors that underlie ADHD and the ADHD subtypes. It has often been hypothesized that the ADHD-Combined Type (ADHD-CT) and ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive Type (ADHD-PI) subtypes may be the result of different underlying factors and may be associated with different types of attentional deficits. The current study compared 30 children with ADHD-CT and 35 children with ADHD-PI on several neuropsychological variables associated with various aspects of attentional processing. However, it is important to note that only 47 (22 with ADHD-CT and 25 with ADHD-PI) of the participants were assessed with some of the experimental measures. All participants were between the ages of 6 years, 0 months and 12 years, 11 months. Participants were evaluated using several neuropsychological measures associated with various aspects of attentional processing in order to test five hypotheses regarding possible subtype differences in specific types of attention. The attentional processes of interest included response activation, sustained attention, encoding/working memory, the focus/execute aspect of attention, and attentional stability. These constructs were taken from the theories of Tucker and Williamson (1984) and Mirsky and Colleagues (1999). The attentional measures used in this study were taken from the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA), the Children’s Memory Scale (CMS), and the Wechsler Intelligence Test for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III). Analysis of possible subtype differences in the occurrence rate of reading disabilities was also conducted. Finally, post hoc analyses were conducted in order to test the hypothesis that specific attentional processes might impact other specific aspects of the neuropsychological functioning of children with ADHD. The attentional processes of interest were response activation and attentional stability. The dependent variables for the post hoc analyses included measures of language ability as well as behavioral ratings of attention and hyperactivity. No statistically significant group differences were found for any of the variables reflecting the five aspects of attentional processing. Nor were any significant subtype differences in the occurrence rate of reading disabilities or the post hoc analyses. The post hoc analyses did not yield statistically significant results either. Finally, weaknesses of the current study as well as future directions for ADHD research were discussed.
Analysis and reduction of EMI conducted by a PWM inverter-fed AC motor drive system having long power cables

This paper analyzes conducted EMI generated by a PWM inverter-fed induction motor drive system. It is shown experimentally and analytically that resonant phenomena in a high-frequency range beyond a dominant resonant frequency are originated from the behavior of power cables as a distributed-constant circuit. Spectra of common-mode and differential-mode currents are simulated by means of introducing a distributed-constant model of the power cables, which consists of a 20-step ladder circuit. As a result, it is also shown that these resonances can be damped out by a single common-mode transformer (CMT) and three differential-mode filters (DMFs), both of which have been proposed by the authors.
The effect of climate change on partial migration – the blue tit paradox

Climate change has proven to affect various aspects of the migration of birds. In response to milder winters making the habitat more profitable and increasing the survival of residents, the migratory fraction of partially migratory populations has been predicted to decline. We studied the blue tit Parus caeruleus, a common partial migrant in southern Sweden. The numbers migrating at Falsterbo, a migratory passage site in SW Sweden, has increased during the last decades, in parallel with increasing winter and annual temperatures. Migration data from Falsterbo were compared with yearly indices of the size of the breeding population as estimated by the Swedish National Bird Monitoring Programme. Over the study period 1975–2004, also the breeding population has increased in size. The proportion of blue tits migrating each year did not change over the study period, or possibly even increased slightly, which is in contrast to how climate change has been predicted to influence populations containing both migratory and resident individuals. The most important factors determining the intensity of blue tit migration in a given year was the size of an important winter food source, the beech mast crop (more migrants at lower crops) and the size of the breeding population (more migrants at higher densities).
Customized Dictionary Learning for Subdatasets with Fine Granularity

Sparse models have a wide range of applications in machine learning and computer vision. Using a learned dictionary instead of an “off-the-shelf” one can dramatically improve performance on a particular dataset. However, learning a new one for each subdataset (subject) with fine granularity may be unwarranted or impractical, due to restricted availability subdataset samples and tremendous numbers of subjects. To remedy this, we consider the dictionary customization problem, that is, specializing an existing global dictionary corresponding to the total dataset, with the aid of auxiliary samples obtained from the target subdataset. Inspired by observation and then deduced from theoretical analysis, a regularizer is employed penalizing the difference between the global and the customized dictionary. By minimizing the sum of reconstruction errors of the above regularizer under sparsity constraints, we exploit the characteristics of the target subdataset contained in the auxiliary samples while maintaining the basic sketches stored in the global dictionary. An efficient algorithm is presented and validated with experiments on real-world data.
Combining Importance-Performance Analysis with Analytic Hierarchy Process for Enhancing Satisfaction

This paper aims to explain how to combine the importance-performance analysis (IPA) and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to make a better decision. We investigate the relevant relationships among the attributes for enhancing satisfactions on online education services by combining the methodologies of both IPA and AHP. In the course of estimating pair-wise comparisons among attributes, the back-propagation neural network is employed. As an empirical study, we consider how to manage the important attributes (or factors) for enhancing satisfactions on online education services. A questionnaire survey on satisfactions of online courses for Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test was conducted. IPA is a simple but useful technique to determine the status of attributes, but it does not indicate how each attribute should be treated to enhance a managerial goal. However, combination of IPA & AHP can answer the question of what to do with attributes to achieve a goal, which is satisfying customers in this paper. IPA and AHP are very powerful methods, respectively, but when combined, the effect is more than doubled. It is attempted to combine the two very useful methods, IPA & AHP, and the results indicate not only the current status of the attributes, but also the direction of them to achieve a goal. 
Ricardian Equivalence, Twin Deficits, and the Feldstein-Horioka Puzzle in Egypt

Egypt has presented important budget imbalances. This paper tries to evaluate whether Egypt's public deficit has had any impact on current account imbalances, examining the validity of the twin-deficit hypothesis for Egypt. We conclude for the presence of a (weak) long-run relationship between the budget deficit and the current account deficit. Yet, we reject the twin-deficit hypothesis: we found evidence in favour of a reverse Granger-causality running from the external deficit to the budget deficit. Further, we conclude against the validity of full Ricardian equivalence in Egypt and present evidence in favour of a high degree of capital mobility.
No Support for the Watching Eyes Effect Across Three "Lost Letter" Field Experiments

The watching eyes effect has been hotly debated in recent years. Interestingly, field studies often reveal strong effects of eye images on various forms of prosociality. Here, we explored the watching eyes effect on prosociality - in terms of lost letter return rates. We conducted three field experiments, in which we dropped a total of 540 letters in 13 different neighborhoods in the Netherlands (six of high SES and seven of low SES). The envelopes had printed stylized eyes, flowers (or no logo, for Experiments 1 and 2). Combined analysis of all three experiments revealed no significant effect of eye images on lost letter return rates. There was also no interaction between eyes and SES but also no main effect of SES levels on lost letter return rates. Overall, these null results suggest that minimal cues to being watched may not be that powerful in promoting forms of prosociality that entail a certain cost and do not have obvious benefits for the individual, such as return of lost letters.
WHAT ENGLISH DO WE SPEAK IN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXTS?: A CONCRETE LANGUAGE WITH ITS PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

O conceito de ‘expressao concreta’ utilizada por Bachtin e o seu Circulo poe em questao a abordagem linguistica que propoe como unico modelo a lingua padrao para todos os uentes. Que tipo de Ingles e o que falamos, tambem os falantes de outras lingua maternas, para tratar de assuntos especificos -- negocios, politica, formacao – em contextos internacionais? E evidente que este Ingles ja nao transmite mais a cultura Britânica, mas aquela dos utentes locais, com acentos e vocabulario diferentes de acordo com o contexto especifico e as exigencias dos falantes. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: expressao concreta, lingua padrao, contextos internacionais. Abstract The concept of ‘concrete utterance’ maintained by Bakhtin and its Circle leads to rethink the linguistic approach that proposes a model, or a standard language to all its users. The widely spread phenomenon of English used for specific purposes by speakers of other languages, in the domains of laws, business, politics, education and academics, among the many, poses a debate about what English language we speak in a global context. And consequently, what language is acceptable according to the ‘ norm’. If we consider that in international contexts only few English native-speakers, if any, are involved in the use of English as a vehicular, or a common foreign language, it is immediately evident that a new medium is in use, distant from British culture connotations, and more often locally connoted in terms of different accents, even new lexis adequately chosen by the concrete users in a given, specific, unique context. KEYWORDS: concrete utterance, standard language, global context.
A ROBUST METHOD FOR STEREO VISUAL ODOMETRY BASED ON MULTIPLE EUCLIDEAN DISTANCE CONSTRAINT AND RANSAC ALGORITHM

Abstract. Visual Odometry (VO) is a critical component for planetary robot navigation and safety. It estimates the ego-motion using stereo images frame by frame. Feature points extraction and matching is one of the key steps for robotic motion estimation which largely influences the precision and robustness. In this work, we choose the Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF (ORB) features by considering both accuracy and speed issues. For more robustness in challenging environment e.g., rough terrain or planetary surface, this paper presents a robust outliers elimination method based on Euclidean Distance Constraint (EDC) and Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC) algorithm. In the matching process, a set of ORB feature points are extracted from the current left and right synchronous images and the Brute Force (BF) matcher is used to find the correspondences between the two images for the Space Intersection. Then the EDC and RANSAC algorithms are carried out to eliminate mismatches whose distances are beyond a predefined threshold. Similarly, when the left image of the next time matches the feature points with the current left images, the EDC and RANSAC are iteratively performed. After the above mentioned, there are exceptional remaining mismatched points in some cases, for which the third time RANSAC is applied to eliminate the effects of those outliers in the estimation of the ego-motion parameters (Interior Orientation and Exterior Orientation). The proposed approach has been tested on a real-world vehicle dataset and the result benefits from its high robustness.
Multi-closure-interval Linear Prediction Analysis Based on Phase Equalization

This paper presents a multi-closure-interval linear prediction (MCLP) analysis based on phase equalization in order to remove the effect of subglottal resonance in speech signals for estimating a vocal-tract spectrum. The validity of this method is evaluated by using a vocal-tract simulator that models vocal- tract losses and the subglottal system. Results show that the proposed method improves the estimation accuracy of a vocal- tract spectrum compared with the conventional MCLP method.
Performance, Bone Parameters and Phosphorus Excretion of Broilers Fed Low Phosphorus Diets Supplemented with Phytase from 23 to 40 Days of Age

2 Abstract: An experiment was conducted using 300 growing Ross 308 broilers from 23 to 40 days of age. Six dietary treatments were formulated. A basal diet contained 1.48% Dicalcium Phosphate (DCP) was used as a contr ol diet (diet 1). Diets 2 and 3 contained 50% and 25% of the DCP of diet 1 (0.74 and 0.37%, respectively), while diet 4 was formulated without DCP. Diets 3 and 4 were fed without or with supplemented phytase enzyme (500 U/kg). Every dietary treatment was fed to 5 replicates (10 chicks each). The results showed no significant differences between birds fed diets containing 1.48 % DCP or 0.74% DCP on BWG, FI and FCR. Reducing dietary DCP level to 0.37% slightly decreased BWG compared with birds fed 0.74% DCP with inferior value of FCR. When DCP was removed from the diet BWG significantly (p<0.01) decreased and FCR recorded worth value. Addition of 500 U phytase/kg to diet 3 of 0.37% DCP significantly enhanced BWG (p<0.01), feed intake and FCR (p<0.05). Addition of phytase to the diet of no DCP did improve neither BWG nor FCR. Decreasing dietary DCP did not significantly affect length, weights and width of tibia either with or without phytase supplementation. However, birds fed the highest level of dietary DCP showed the highest values of tibia weight and length among the different groups. Tibia breaking strength (kgf) significantly (p<0.001) decreased as dietary DCP level decreased. Addition of phytase significantly (p<0.001) improved tibia breaking strength and tibia ash %. Addition of phytase to diet of low DCP did increase tibia Ca and P to reach values comparable with those of the control diet. Decreasing dietary DCP showed significant (p<0.001) decrease in the excreted Ca and P. Addition of phytase to diets of low or no DCP also decreased (p<0.001) the excreted Ca and P. This means that phytase increased the utilization of dietary Ca and P. The excreted Ca and P decreased by 41.22% and 55.26%, respectively, when birds were fed diet of no DCP compared to those fed the control diet. Also, addition of phytase enzyme to diets of low or no DCP decreased the excreted percentage of Ca and P. It could be concluded that reducing dietary P level and using phytase enzyme could be used to limit quantity of P excreted from broilers. This reduce such impact in environmental pollution.