Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Cost of Breaking an Exchange Rate Peg: Synthetic Control Estimation

This paper uses synthetic control estimation to measure the impact of switching exchange rate regimes from fixed to floating on sovereign credit risk. The study confirms the statistically significant short-term cost of breaking a peg. The results demonstrate that breaking the exchange rate peg incurs an increase in the average risk premium by 0.22–0.34 standard deviations for two to five months. The study also investigates peg-formation episodes and finds that switching the regime from floating to fixed and switching the regime from fixed to floating have asymmetric impacts on the country risk spread, and it confirms the hypothesis that investors consider breaking an exchange rate peg as breaking central bank’s commitment to monetary stability.
The biological effects of fermented camel milk fortified with sage (Salvia officinalis L.) and mint (Mentha piperita) leaves powder on alloxan-induced diabetic rats

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic metabolic condition described by persistent hyperglycemia due to low secretion of insulin, insulin resistance, or a combination of both. Many studies suggested the potential anti-diabetic effect of camel milk and the important role of the bioactive components of mint and sage in decreasing the side effects of diabetes disease. This study was designed to assess the anti-diabetic potential of fermented camel milk fortified with sage or mint leaves powder (1 and 1.5%) in alloxan-induced diabetic rats. Methods: Forty-two adult normal male albino rats were taken for the study where one group was kept as the non-diabetic control group (6 rats) while others 36 rats were made diabetic by alloxan injection (150 mg/kg of body weight). Among diabetic rats, a control (+) group (6 rats) was kept and referred to as diabetic control whereas the other 5 groups (7rats each) of diabetic rats were fed on fermented camel milk (FCM) or fermented camel milk fortified with sage or mint leaves powder( 1 and 1.5%). Results: The oral administration of fermented camel milk fortified with sage or mint leaves powder caused a significant decreased in blood glucose level and lipid profile, and increased in insulin level compared to the control (+) and FCM groups, and the best results were observed with fermented camel milk fortified with 1.5% sage powder. The results also found that the fermented camel milk fortified with sage or mint leaves powder improved the liver and kidney functions of diabetic rats. Importantly, treatment of diabetic animals fermented camel milk fortified with sage or mint leaves powder resulted in significant amelioration of the histopathological changes of pancreatic, liver, and kidney observed in diabetic animals. Conclusion: Our study recommends the use of sage and mint leaves powder (at a ratio of 1.5%) with fermented camel milk to produce functional food products with anti-diabetic activity.
Strategies for Bacterial Eradication from Human and Animal Semen Samples: Current Options and Future Alternatives

The primary role of semen processing and preservation is to maintain a high proportion of structurally and functionally competent and mature spermatozoa, that may be used for the purposes of artificial reproduction when needed, whilst minimizing any potential causes of sperm deterioration during ex vivo semen handling. Out of a multitude of variables determining the success of sperm preservation, bacterial contamination has been acknowledged with an increased interest because of its often unpredictable and complex effects on semen quality. Whilst antibiotics are usually the most straight-forward option to prevent the bacterial contamination of semen, antimicrobial resistance has become a serious threat requiring widespread attention. As such, besides discussing the consequences of bacteriospermia on the sperm vitality and the risks of antibiotic overuse in andrology, this paper summarizes the currently available evidence on alternative strategies to prevent bacterial contamination of semen prior to, during, and following sperm processing, selection, and preservation. Alternative antibacterial supplements are reviewed, and emphasis is given to modern methods of sperm selection that may be combined by the physical removal of bacteria prior to sperm preservation or by use in assisted reproductive technologies.
Temporal spectral measurements of corn and soybean crops

A ground-based, hand-held radiometer, configured to measure red and photographic infrared spectral radiances, was successfully used to collect in situ temporal spectral measurements of corn and soybean crops. Significant relationships were found between the radiance data and the biomass, plant height, percentage crop cover, percentage crop chlorosis, and percentage leaf loss. The results of this experiment show conclusively that hand-held radiometers can be used to collect spectral data that are highly correlated to several agronomic variables. These findings suggest approaches for agronomic research, and confirm the value of remote sensing of agricultural targets.
Vitamin D Deficiency and Its Association With Cardiovascular Diseases Among Patients Attending a Private Tertiary Sector Cardiovascular Heart Clinic in Nairobi

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is a common condition that affects approximately 30-50% of the worldwide population. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk of cardiometabolic diseases and is considered a cardiovascular risk factor globally. Methods: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study that aimed to identify the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and its associations with the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk profile of patients presenting for cardiac evaluation at Primecare Heart Clinic, a private heart clinic in Nairobi, Kenya, between January 1, 2020 and January 31, 2022. Results: Females with vitamin D deficiency composed 58.87% of the study participants. The average 10-year Framingham CVD risk level of the vitamin D-deficient participants was 7.09%. Participants with vitamin D deficiency that were older and had low serum high-density lipoprotein C (HDL-C) levels and high systolic blood pressure (BP) had a higher risk of CVDs. Male participants were at five times higher risk of CVDs. Vitamin D-deficient patients who were older and had a low HDL cholesterol level and high systolic BP are at a high risk of CVDs. The two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test value was 345.6992, and the p-value was 0.002884. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that a low level of vitamin D was associated with a higher Framingham cardiovascular risk score and cardiovascular risk in patients. Nonetheless, this is a retrospective study, which is a major limitation of this study.
Variabel Mediasi Komitmen: Kompetensi Aparatur, dan Sumber Pendapatan Pada Kinerja Aparatur

Penelitian ini terkait bidang akuntansi Sektor publik yang bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh kompetensi aparatur dan sumber pendapatan terhadap kinerja melalui komitmen pada pemerintah desa. Penelitian ini bersifat deskriptif kuantitatif. Instrumen pengumpulan data menggunakan kuesioner. Sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah perangkat desa yang bekerja di pemerintahan desa yang berjumlah 150 orang. Dalam penelitian ini, metode pengambilan sampel menggunakan proporsional sampling. Alat analisis data yang digunakan adalah Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Dari hasil analisis data diperoleh beberapa kesimpulan bahwa kompetensi sumber daya manusia dan sumber pendapatan berpengaruh signifikan terhadap komitmen, dan kompetensi sumber daya manusia dan sumber pendapatan berpengaruh signifikan terhadap kinerja, dalam pemerintahan desa di Aceh serta kompetensi sumber daya. Sumber daya manusia dan sumber pendapatan secara tidak langsung mempengaruhi kinerja pengelolaan keuangan melalui komitmen pada kinerja pemerintah desa.
Prevalence of Pseudoexfoliation Syndrome Among Adult Spanish in the Salnés eye Study

Purpose: To estimate the prevalence of Pseudoexfoliation syndrome (PXF) and to investigate its relationship with systemic and ocular diseases and lifestyle factors in a general adult population in north-western Spain. Methods: An age-stratified random sample of 1155 subjects was drawn from the population aged 40 years and over of O Salnés (Spain). From 937 eligible subjects, 619 (66.1%) participated (mean age (Standard Deviation [SD]): 63.4 (14.5) years, range: 40–96, 37.0% males). An interview to collect past history of ocular and systemic diseases and lifestyle details, and a comprehensive ophthalmic evaluation were performed. Study subjects with typical pseudoexfoliative material on the anterior capsule or in the pupil margin were labelled as having PXF. A design based analysis was performed and all calculations were weighted to give unbiased estimates. Results: The prevalence of PXF was 6.5% (95% confidence interval [CI]:4.9–8.1). PXF rates increased significantly with age (P = 0.000). No cases of PXF were detected in subjects between 40 and 60 years. Prevalence of PXF was 8.0% (95% C I5.4–11.6) in men and 5.4% (95% CI 3.8–7.6) in women (P = ns). The prevalence of glaucoma in subjects with PXF was 19.6% (95% CI 8.2–40.0). After controlling for age and sex, glaucoma, cataract surgery, rose bengal staining and diabetes were associated with PXF but only glaucoma and rose bengal staining associations remained significant in a multivariate model. Conclusions: PXF is common among older individuals in north-western Spain. Subjects with pseudoexfoliation have a significantly higher prevalence of glaucoma than subjects without. An abnormal ocular surface detected by rose bengal staining is highly prevalent among subjects with pseudoexfoliation.
Impact of Adolescents' Family Meal Eating Patterns upon their Weight Control Behaviors at Secondary Schools in Baghdad City

Objective: The study aimed to identify the adolescents' family meal eating patterns, and find out the relationship between adolescents' family meal eating patterns and their weight control behaviors. Methodology: A descriptive study was conducted on impact of adolescents' family meal eating patterns upon their weight control behaviors in secondary schools at Baghdad city, starting from 20th of April 2013 to the end of October 2014. Non- probability (purposive) sample of 1254 adolescents were chosen from secondary schools of both sides of Al-Karkh and Al-Russafa sectors. Data was collected through a specially constructed questionnaire format include (54) items multiple choice questions. The validity of the questionnaire was determined through a panel of experts related to the field of the study, and the reliability through a pilot study. The data were analyzed through the application of descriptive statistical analysis frequency, & percentages, and inferential statistical analysis, chi-square, are used. Results: The study results revealed the study sample mostly (38.4%, 40.3%, 40.3%, 31.4%, 38.5%, 41.4%, and 33.1%) always and sometimes eat meals rich with fat, carbohydrate and sweetly elements shown that in breakfast meal like fried eggs, fried vegetables and cream, better with jam, while in lunch and dinner mostly the adolescents and their family (41.0%, 67.2%, 55.7%, 37.7%, 52.5%, 41.3%, 32.3%, 41.2%, and 31.4%) sometimes interest bringing and eating burger, shawerma and falafel sandwich from out, also half percent the study sample sometimes eating healthy foods like cooking and fresh colure vegetables at home, more than one third and half of them (37.4%)and (38.1%)daily and sometimes eat fast food in or out home. The study sample eating habits with the family at home, eating snacks, fast food in and out home, have highly significant association with their total weight control behaviors methods. Recommendation: The study recommended that should adolescents' family have more intervention to follow regular mealtime and eating healthy foods to prevent and protect them from excessive risk weight gain at future.
EU Wide Monitoring Survey on Waste Water Treatment Plant Effluents

The main objective of this research project (“Fate Sees”) was to verify on a European-wide scale the occurrence of as many as possible organic and inorganic chemical contaminants in WWTP effluents, in order to get a European overview. In the year 2010, effluents from 90 European waste water treatment plants (WWTPs) were collected and analysed in total for 160 organic chemicals and 20 inorganic trace elements. The analyses were complemented by applying also effect-based monitoring approaches aiming at estrogenicity and dioxin-like toxicity analysed by in vitro reporter gene bioassays, and yeast and diatom culture acute toxicity optical bioassays.
Head and Neck Tumor Histopathological Image Representation with Pr with Pre- Trained Conv ained Convolutional Neur olutional Neural Network and Vision al Network and Vision Transformer

Image representation via machine learning is an approach to quantitatively represent histopathological images of head and neck tumors for future applications of artificial intelligence-assisted pathological diagnosis systems. Objective: This study compares image representations produced by a pre-trained convolutional neural network (VGG16) to those produced by a vision transformer (ViT-L/14) in terms of the classification performance of head and neck tumors. Methods: Whole-slide images of five oral tumor categories (n = 319 cases) were analyzed. Image patches were created from manually annotated regions at 4096, 2048, and 1024 pixels and rescaled to 256 pixels. Image representations were classified by logistic regression or multiclass Support Vector Machines for binary or multiclass classifications, respectively. Results: VGG16 with 1024 pixels performed best for benign and malignant salivary gland tumors (BSGT and MSGT) (F1 = 0.703 and 0.803). VGG16 outperformed ViT for BSGT and MSGT with all magnification levels. However, ViT outperformed VGG16 for maxillofacial bone tumors (MBTs), odontogenic cysts (OCs), and odontogenic tumors (OTs) with all magnification levels (F1 = 0.780; 0.874; 0.751). Conclusion: Being more texture-biased, VGG16 performs better in representing BSGT and MSGT
FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND LOYALTY AND SERVICE QUALITY OF CHINESE RESTAURANTS IN BANGKOK CHINATOWN

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and service quality in Bangkok’s Chinatown in the building of these strongrelationship. Design/methodology/approach - This research was conducted using primary data. The questionnaire was based on dimensions of expectations and perception scales of the modified DINESER model. A total of 400 questionnaires were analyzed by the Independent Sample t-test, ANOVA, Multiple Regression, Chi-square and Paired Sample t-test. Findings - According to the findings, there is a difference of customer’s satisfaction based on demographic characteristics, the difference between customer perception and customer expectation.Moreover, there is no different of service quality based on demographic characteristic,and service quality that have influence to customers’ satisfaction. The customer satisfaction has a positive relation on customs loyalty. Practical implications - The restaurant managers lean more about demographic characteristics that can affect the customer satisfaction and use this information to create better service performance and increase the customer satisfaction. Finally, they can be able to strengthen their customer loyalty to promote and recommendation the good reputation of the restaurant in Bangkok Chinatown.This can also guide the restaurant managers how to retain old customers and develop more potential customers.
Youth tourism markets in Australia: comparing the travel behaviours of international English language students and backpackers

This study explored select youth tourism markets in Australia by assessing differences and similarities in travel behaviours for international English language students and backpacker travellers. These two markets were compared in relation to tourist destinations visited, travel activities, and travel patterns including party size, type of transportation and accommodation. Both primary and secondary data were considered. Both groups were likely to emphasise experiencing the Australian natural environment, they wanted to understand Australian culture and its lifestyle and they did participate in a wide range of activities. It was also found that there were substantial differences between the travel patterns and preferences of the two groups. International English language student travellers were more likely to travel with a large group of people and had a strong tendency to use public hotel or motel accommodation. The results of the study also indicated that compared to backpackers, international students were more likely to be interested in city-based travel activities. The findings of this comparative study could provide subtle guidelines to help attract different components of the international youth traveller market.
Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy for a Better Prognosis of Heart Failure: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy is a frequently used treatment option for achieving a better prognosis in patients with heart failure (HF). However, due to reported adverse effects, patients are often hesitant to consider this treatment. Consequently, the aim of this systemic review and meta-analysis is to further investigate the effects of MSCs on survival outcomes, hospital readmissions, and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in individuals with pre-existing HF. We systematically searched PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane Library to review studies published up until July 16, 2023. Risk ratios were generated using the extracted data for all the outcomes except LVEF. The mean difference was generated for LVEF. Sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate heterogeneity, and the risk of bias tool was used to assess the quality of the included studies. Fourteen randomized controlled trials were included in the meta-analysis. Pooled results revealed that the MSC therapy group did not significantly affect the outcomes of cardiovascular death, rehospitalization rate, myocardial infarction, recurrence of HF, and total death when compared to a control group. However, MSC therapy was significantly associated with an increased LVEF (RR = 3.35; 95% CI: 0.79-5.72; p = 0.010; I2 = 95%). Upon sensitivity analysis, MSC therapy was significantly associated with a decreased hospitalization rate (RR = 0.46; 95% CI: 0.34-0.64; p < 0.00001; I2 = 0%). MSC transplantation results in a significantly improved LVEF and rehospitalization rate.
Opportunities and limitations to social learning for sustainability: empirical insights from a participatory approach to community-based resource management in the Philippines

ABSTRACT Social learning is increasingly identified as a valuable tool in the pursuit of sustainable development agenda in the same manner that participatory processes are seen as important avenues for creating social learning situations. Through an empirical case study of participatory processes undertaken to rehabilitate a community-based irrigation system in the Philippines, this study explores two interrelated questions: what feature of the participatory irrigation management approach implemented in the Philippines facilitates social learning, and what were the limiting factors for its long-term success? One of the most prominent features of participatory approaches elucidated in this case study is the integration of traditional institutions into more contemporary formalized farmer associations. While this approach helped legitimize intervention and enhanced local cooperation for a successful project implementation, our findings underscores the need for carefully designed participatory processes that are specifically aimed at creating long term learning outcomes. Further study is recommended to further explore how social learning can be facilitated beyond the intervention phase of project-based participatory approaches.
Spatiotemporal Constrained Optimization Model for Efficient Salient Object Detection model

- This paper exhibits a new model for video salient object discovery called spatiotemporal constrained optimization model, which endeavors spatial and transient signs just as a nearby imperative to accomplish a worldwide saliencyoptimization. For a vigorous movement estimation of salient objects, Here enhancing a novel way to deal with model the movement signs from visual network field, the saliency_map of the earlier video outline and the movement history of progress location, which can recognize the moving salient objects from differing changing foundation regions. Besides, a viable objectness measure is proposed with natural geometrical elucidation to separate some solid object and foundation areas, which gave as the premise to characterize the forefront potential, foundation potential and the imperative to help saliency proliferation. These possibilities and the requirement are planned into the projected SCOM structure to create an ideal saliency map for each casing in a video and furthermore it demonstrates the sort of activity in the video outlines. The proposed model is broadly assessed on the generally utilized testing benchmark datasets.
Comparative Study of Orbital Indices in Human Dry Skulls Obtained from People in Eastern Region of Nepal

Aim: The aim of this study is to measure the known variables of orbital indices with utilization of human dry skulls among people in eastern region of Nepal. Materials and Methods: The parameters (such as orbital height [OH], orbital breadth [OB], and orbital index [OI]) were used for comparative analysis of orbital indices in collected skull samples. Based on these morphological features, each human dry skull was categorized into megaseme, mesoseme, and microseme groups. The determination of orbital indices with known parameters (such as OH, OB, and OI) was carried out in next. Results and Discussion: Here, we observed that abundantly 54% of people had OI >89 that had laid us to report that majority of population in this area belongs to the megaseme group. Mesoseme was next to grasp population as 32% of collected skulls were having OI values between 83 and 89. The remaining 14% were set into microseme with OI values <83. We further investigated the pattern of variation in both right-and left-sided OH, OB, and OI, and their findings were peculiar to interestingly report in our study among people residing in this part of the world.
Isolation and Characterization of Rhizobacteria from Brassica juncea L. plant

Rhizospheric area of plant is populated with diversified array of numerous bacteria. The current investigation was undertaken to isolate, characterize and identify plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) from rhizosphere of Brassica Juncea L. (a variety of mustard). Identification was made with the combined effort of morphological and biochemical characterization. I6s rRNA sequencing technique was also used for some selected strains. On the basis of systematic and scientific investigations a comparative study of each isolate was made. The identified bacterial strains were belonged to genus proteus, Escherichia, Staphylococcus, Achromobacter, Lysinibacillus, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Streptococcus and enterococcus. It was concluded that a diverse group of bacterial population exist in the rhizosphere of Brassica Juncea L.