Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Two-Phased Guidance Law for Impact Angle Control with Seeker’s Field-of-View Limit

A two-phased guidance problem with terminal impact angle constraints and seeker’s field-of-view limit is addressed in this paper for a missile against a nonmaneuvering incoming target. From the conventional PN guidance without any constraints, it is found that satisfying the impact angle constraint causes a more curved missile trajectory requiring a large look angle. To avoid the look angle exceeding the seeker’s physical limit, a two-phased look angle control guidance scheme with the terminal constraint is introduced. The PN-typed guidance law is designed for each guidance phase with a specific switching condition of line-of-sight. The proposed guidance law is comprised of two types of acceleration commands: the one in the initial phase which aims at controlling the missile’s look angle to reach the limit and the other for final phase which is produced by switching the navigation gain. The monotonicity of the line-of-sight angle and look angle is analyzed and proved to support the proposed method. To evaluate the specific navigation gains for both initial and final phases, the scaling coefficient between them is discussed by solving a quadratic equation with respect to the initial navigation gain. To avoid a great abrupt acceleration change at the switching instant, a minimum coefficient is chosen. Extensive simulations are performed to validate the efficiency of the proposed approach.
Explaining Cognitive Lock-In: The Role of Skill-Based Habits of Use in Consumer Choice

We introduce and test a theory of how the choices consumers make are influenced by skill-based habits of use-goal-activated automated behaviors that develop through the repeated consumption or use of a particular product. Such habits can explain how consumers become locked in to an incumbent product. The proposed theory characterizes how the amount of experience with the incumbent product, the occurrence of usage errors while learning to use that product, and the goal that is activated at the time a choice is made interrelate to influence consumer preference. The results of three experiments support the theory's predictions. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc.
When Faculty Use Instructional Technologies: Using Clark's Delivery Model to Understand Gender Differences

Instructional and learning technologies are playing an increasingly important role in postsecondary education, but there is evidence that a number of differences exist in how females and males approach, per- ceive, and implement these technologies. As faculty start to offer more of their courses using flexible delivery methods such as Web-based con- ferencing, it is important to understand what gender differences may exist in faculty members' approaches to instructional and communica- tions technologies so that this process may be better facilitated. This paper has three purposes: to highlight some of the major gender-related differences noted in the literature, including some from a feminist per- spective; to present and discuss related findings found in an exploratory, post-hoc analysis of survey data collected from our institution; and finally, to suggest areas for future research. Richard Clark's (1994) model distinguishing between Instructional and Delivery Technologies provides a framework for this discussion.
Autoimmune Response Confers Decreased Cardiac Function in Patients with Rheumatic Mitral Lesion following Valve Replacement

Purpose: To explore the effect of autoimmune response on the decreased cardiac function in patients with rheumatic mitral lesion following valve replacement. Methods: In this case-controlled study, 29 patients who had undergone valve replacement as a result of mitral lesion were enrolled (mean age = 48.7 years). Twenty healthy volunteers were selected as control (mean age = 47.5 years). Plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), high –sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and echocardiographic indices of heart function in the two groups were investigated, respectively. Body mass index (BMI) was also calculated. Results: TNF-α, IL-6 and hs-CRP levels in plasma were significantly higher than those in controls (p < 0.05; 22.23 pg/mL vs. 13.24 pg/mL, 53.42 pg/mL vs. 9.57 pg/mL, and 2.12 μg/mL vs. 0.97 μg/mL, respectively). The indices of left atrial diameter (LAD), left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LDD) and isovolumetric contraction time (ICT) were significantly higher (p < 0.05; 4.72 cm vs. 3.78 cm, 4.85 cm vs. 4.37 cm, and 76.38 ms vs. 66.24 ms, respectively), but those of early diastolic velocity (Ea), late diastolic velocities (Aa) and ejection time (ET) were significantly lower (p < 0.05; 7.65 cm/s vs. 16.8 cm/s, 5.56 cm/s vs. 12.9 cm/s, and 261.54 ms vs. 276.14 ms, respectively). Two-dimensional echocardiography obtained the same results. Conclusion: Valve replacement in patients with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) does not attenuate inflammatory response; rather, autoimmune response would keep affecting decreased heart function in RHD patients who have received mitral valve replacement. Keywords: Tumor necrosis factor-α, Interleukin-6, High sensitivity C reactive protein, Mitral lesion, Mitral valve replacement
Discovering Play Store Reviews Related to Specific Android App Issues

Mobile App reviews may contain information relevant to developers. Developers can investigate these reviews to see what users of their apps are complaining about. However, the huge volume of incoming reviews is impractical to analyze manually. Existing research that attempts to extract this information suffers from two major issues: supervised machine learning methods are usually pre-trained, and thus, does not provide the developers the freedom to define the app issue they are interested in, whereas unsupervised methods do not guarantee that a particular app issue topic will be discovered. In this thesis, we attempt to devise a framework that would allow developers to define topics related to app issues at any time, and with minimal effort, discover as many reviews related to the issue as possible. Scalable Continuous Active Learning (S-CAL) is an algorithm that can be used to quickly train a model to retrieve documents with high recall. First, we investigate whether S-CAL can be used as a tool for training models to retrieve reviews about a specific app issue. We also investigate whether a model trained to retrieve reviews about a specific issue for one app can be used to do the same for a separate app facing the same issue. We further investigate transfer learning methods to improve retrieval performance for the separate apps. Through a series of experiments, we show that S-CAL can be used to quickly train models that can to retrieve reviews about a particular issue. We show that developers can discover relevant information during the process of training the model and that the information discovered is more than the information that can be discovered using keyword search under similar time restrictions. Then, we show that models trained using S-CAL can indeed be reused for retrieving reviews for a separate app and that performing additional training using transfer learning protocols can improve performance for models that performed below expectation. Finally, we compare the performance of the models trained by S-CAL at retrieving reviews for a separate app against that of two state-of-the-art app review analysis methods one of which uses supervised learning, while the other uses unsupervised learning. We show that at the task of retrieving relevant reviews about a particular topic, models trained by S-CAL consistently outperform existing state-of-the-art methods.
The impact of service encounter quality in service evaluation: evidence from a business‐to‐business context

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the impact of service encounter quality within a service evaluation model. The conceptual model seeks to incorporate the following constructs: service encounter quality, service quality, customer satisfaction, perceived value, loyalty to the firm and loyalty to the employees.Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model was developed based on a comprehensive literature review. A questionnaire was developed with item measures that captures the constructs in the conceptual model. A survey of business customers was undertaken, and a response rate of 18.6 per cent was obtained. The data are analysed via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.Findings – Service encounter quality is directly related to customer satisfaction and service quality perceptions, and indirectly to perceived value and loyalty. The paper offers insights into the specifics of business‐to‐business service dynamics by examining the role of service quality, satisfaction, value .
Correlation of portal vein diameter with the presence of oesophageal varices in chronic liver disease: a prospective study

Background: Guidelines recommends upper gastrointestinal endoscopy for all the patients with cirrhosis of liver to rule out portal hypertension. Many patients may not be willing to undergo this unpleasant procedure or resources may not be available. In this study, authors aim to identify the effectiveness of portal vein size as a non-invasive predictor of esophageal varices.Methods: In this prospective observational study of 30 patients, patients with liver cirrhosis without a previous history of upper GI bleeding were included between November 2012 and October 2014. Relevant clinical parameters were assessed which included physical examination, complete hemogram, biochemical workup, upper GI endoscopy and ultrasonographic measurement of portal vein diameter.Results: Out of the study population 70% of the patients had Oesophageal varices. Ultrasonography abdomen showed portal vein dilatation(>13mm) in 66.6% cases. The mean portal vein diameter in our study group was 13.1mm and majority of patients had portal vein between 13-13.9 mm (43.3%). A cut-off point of more than 13 mm had strong significant relationship (p<0.01) with presence of esophageal varices (sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 90% and positive predictive value of 95.24%). Higher grades of esophageal varices exists with larger portal vein size.Conclusions: From present study, authors conclude that portal vein size and its dilatation detected ultrasonographically can determine the presence of esophageal varices and can hence identify the subset of patients who require endoscopy for the prophylactic management of variceal bleeding. Therefore, reduce the burden on the endoscopy units, avoiding unnecessary screening endoscopies. Apart from being non-invasive, portal vein diameter is a relatively inexpensive and easily reproducible parameter.
Predictions for the detection of Earth and Mars Trojan asteroids by the Gaia satellite

The European Space Agency Gaia satellite, planned for launch in late 2013, will perform systematic astrometric observations of the whole sky over a five year period. During this mission many thousands of Solar System Objects down to magnitude V = 20 will be observed including Near-Earth Asteroids and objects at Solar elongations as low as 45 ◦ , which are difficult to observe with ground-based telescopes. We simulated the detection of Trojan asteroids in the orbits of Earth and Mars by Gaia. We find that Gaia will not detect the Earth Trojan 2010 TK7 although it will detect any Earth Trojans with diameters larger than 600 m. We also find that Gaia will detect the currently known Mars Trojans and could discover more than 100 new Mars Trojans as small as 400 m in diameter. The results of the Gaia mission will test the predictions about the Mars Trojan asteroid population and lead to greater understanding about the evolution of the Solar System.
Selection of high yielding Jatropha curcas L. accessions for elite hybrid seed production.

Phenotypic selection of individuals is the first step in a selective breeding program for elite hybrid seed production. In this study, a total of 295 Jatropha curcas individuals raised from cuttings representing 21 accessions, collected from eight different countries were evaluated for growth performance. The evaluation was done at the Biodiesel Research Station of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Pilah from December 2012 to December 2013. Individual plants from each accession were observed on several agronomic and yield related traits and all the data were recorded periodically. Performance of each accession was analyzed using Statistical Analysis System (SAS) 9.4. Four traits which were plant height (PH), number of flowers per inflorescence (NFI), number of female flowers per inflorescence (NFFPI) and hundred seed weight (HSW) showed significant differences among the accessions after one year of planting. Maximum values for each trait were 115.5 cm for PH, 6 for number of branches per plant (BPP), 9 for number of inflorescences per plant (NIPP), 25 for number of fruits per plant (NFPP), 5 for number of fruits per inflorescence (NFPI), 191 for NFI, 10 for NFFPI, 81.0 g for HSW and 70 for number of seeds per plant (NSPP). Accession number 1 from Thailand showed the best performance for most traits. A highly significant and positive correlation was found between NFPP and NSPP. Based on superior trait values for NIPP, NFPP, NFPI, NFI, NFFPI and HSW, five plants from accession UKMJC 01, 04, 05, 13 and 14 have been selected for generating elite intraspecific hybrids.
The Control of Porting in Two-Sided Markets

A sizable literature has grown up in recent years focusing on two-sided markets in which economies of scale combined with complementarities between a platform and its associated `software' or `services' can generate indirect network effects (that is positive feedback between the number of consumers using that platform and the utility of an individual consumer). In this paper we introduce a model of `porting' in such markets where porting denotes the conversion of `software' or `services' developed for one platform to run on another. Focusing on the case where a dominant platform exists we investigate the impact on equilibrium and the consequences for welfare of the ability to control porting. Specifically, we show that the welfare costs associated with the `control of porting' may be more significant than those arising from pricing alone. This model and its associated results are of particular relevance because of the light they shed on debates about the motivations and effects of actions by a dominant platform owner. Recent examples of such debates include those about Microsoft's behaviour both in relation to its operating system and its media player, Apple's behaviour in relation to its DRM and iTunes platform, and Ebay's use of the cyber-trespass doctrine to prevent access to its site.
Israel-Stewart Approach to Viscous Dissipative Extended Holographic Ricci Dark Energy Dominated Universe

This paper reports a study on the truncated Israel-Stewart formalism for bulk viscosity using the extended holographic Ricci dark energy (EHRDE). Under the consideration that the universe is dominated by EHRDE, the evolution equation for the bulk viscous pressure in the framework of the truncated Israel-Stewart theory has been taken as , where is the relaxation time and is the bulk viscosity coefficient. Considering effective pressure as a sum of thermodynamic pressure of EHRDE and bulk viscous pressure, it has been observed that under the influence of bulk viscosity the EoS parameter is behaving like phantom, that is, . It has been observed that the magnitude of the effective pressure is decaying with time. We also investigated the case for a specific choice of scale factor; namely, . For this choice we have observed that a transition from quintessence to phantom is possible for the equation of state parameter. However, the CDM phase is not attainable by the state-finder trajectories for this choice. Finally it has been observed that in both of the cases the generalized second law of thermodynamics is valid for the viscous EHRDE dominated universe enveloped by the apparent horizon.
Acoustic targets at South Georgia and the South Orkney Islands during a season of krill scarcity

Dual frequency (38 and 120 kHz) acoustic surveys of shelf-break regions in the vicinity of the Willis Islands, South Georgia, and Coronation Island, South Orkneys, both in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, were carried out from RRS 'James Clark Ross' during January 1994. The difference in echo signal strength between the 2 frequencies [deltaMVBS (mean volume backscattering strength) = MVBS 120 kHz - MVBS 38 kHz] was used to partition acoustic targets into 3 biological categories: Antarctic krill Euphausia superba, nekton (larger than krill) and zooplankton (smaller than krill). Krill density estimates were derived for both survey areas, and the relative contribution of each class of target to overall regional pelagic biomass determined. Krill distribution in both regions was extremely patchy, resulting in a highly skewed frequency distribution of density; for example one echo-integration interval contained 104 times the mean krill density. An approximate 6-fold difference in mean krill abundance was detected between the 2 areas but, in comparison with previously published density estimates, krill densities in both regions were extremely low (1.7 and 10.7 gm-2 for Willis and Coronation Islands respectively). Gross regional differences in pelagic faunal composition were apparent from inspection of echo charts, and were quantified by detailed analysis of acoustic signals. The water column in the vicinity of the Willis Islands was characterised by a series of diffuse but continuous scattering layers visible only at 120 kHz, and 73% by mass of acoustic targets in this region were classified as zooplankton. In marked contrast, the Coronation Island region was dominated by dense, discrete acoustic target patches which were classified as larger, nektonic, sound scatterers (fish or squid), and only 12% of targets there were classified as zooplankton. Elsewhere, data from predator diet analyses carried out at Bird Island, South Georgia, during the same season that our acoustic measurements were made, confirm the profoundly low levels of krill availability there and support the acoustic observation that the Willis Islands region contained large numbers of small zooplankton such as the amphipod Themisto gaudichaudii. Similarly, available data on analyses of stomach contents of Chinstrap penguins nesting in a neighbouring region within an oceanographic setting similar to that of Coronation Island reveal the presence of more fish in the diet than usual. Conclusions drawn from acoustic observations as to the relative regional composition of pelagic biomass are therefore clearly supported by independent evidence gathered from predators, and the value of integrating predator/prey and acoustic studies to characterise the content of localised marine ecosystems is demonstrated.
Some Recent Developments in Markov Chain Monte Carlo for Cointegrated Time Series

We consider multivariate time series that exhibit reduced rank cointegration, which means a lower dimensional linear projection of the process becomes stationary. We will review recent suitable Markov Chain Monte Carlo approaches for Bayesian inference such as the Gibbs sampler of [41] and the Geodesic Hamiltonian Monte Carlo method of [3]. Then we will propose extensions that can allow the ideas in both methods to be applied for cointegrated time series with non-Gaussian noise. We illustrate the efficiency and accuracy of these extensions using appropriate numerical experiments.
Why do Plants Wilt? Investigating Students’ Understanding of Water Balance in Plants with External Representations at the Macroscopic and Submicroscopic Levels

In order to understand water balance in plants, students must understand the relation between external representations at the macroscopic, microscopic, and submicroscopic levels. This study investigated how Slovenian students (N = 79) at the primary, secondary, and undergraduate tertiary levels understand water balance in plants. The science problem consisted of a text describing the setting, visualizations of the process occurring in a wilted plant stem, and five tasks. To determine students’ visual attention to the various elements of the tasks, we used eye tracking and focused on the total fixation duration in particular areas of interest. As expected, primary school students showed less knowledge and understanding of the process than the secondary school and university students did. Students with correct answers spent less time observing the biological phenomena displayed at the macroscopic and submicroscopic levels than those with incorrect answers, and more often provided responses that combined the macro-, micro-, and submicroscopic levels of thought. Learning about difficult scientific topics, such as the water balance in plants, with representations at the macroscopic and submicroscopic levels can be either helpful or confusing for learners, depending on their expertise in using multiple external representations, which is important to consider in biology and science education.
The Relationship between Unemployment and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Granger Causality Approach

The study examined the relationship between unemployment and economic growth in Nigeria; and specifically focused on the impact of unemployment on economic growth for the period 1980-2013. Cointegration test, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) technique and Granger causality test were employed in the analysis. The variables utilized in the investigation include real gross domestic product (RGDP), unemployment rate (UNEMP) and private consumption expenditure (PCE). Stationarity test was conducted and the results indicated that all the variables except UNEMP were stationary at level; however, UNEMP became stationary after first differencing. The cointegration test result revealed that long run relationship exists among the variables under study. More so, VECM result showed that unemployment has negative and significant impact on RGDP. Finally, the Granger causality results indicated unidirectional relationship between UNEMP and RGDP, with causality running from RGDP to UNEMP. Based on the findings above, the study therefore, recommends that government should as a matter of urgency create more employment opportunities to absorb the teeming population of the unemployed labour force in the country through modernization of the agricultural sector, bring in modern equipment in the facilities of agriculture to make the sector more attractive to all citizens despite one’s qualifications and profession, as that alone would go a long way in reducing unemployment level in the country. Keywords: Nigeria, Economic growth, Unemployment, Cointegration, Granger causality