Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CLTdesigner – A SOFTWARE TOOL FOR DESIGNING CROSS LAMINATED TIMBER ELEMENTS : 1 D-PLATE-DESIGN

In the last few years the engineered building product cross laminated timber (CLT) has become very common in timber engineering applications – in particular as ceiling and wall elements in singleand multi-storey buildings. In order to provide save and reliable design guidelines numerous design concepts have been developed. Especially for the 1D-plate design of CLT, as discussed in this paper, references are made to the “bearing model for CLT-plates in bending” given in [1], which takes into account parallel system effects and laminating effects as well. This model has been already implicit anchored in technical approvals for CLT and implemented in the herein presented CLTdesigner. This software tool does the essential verification of bending and shear stresses for the ultimate limit state (ULS) for persistent, transient and accidental (fire) design situations, as well as for the verification of deformation and vibration in case of serviceability limit state (SLS) design according to the European standard EN 1990 and EN 1995. This software tool shall be able to simplify the design process of CLT for engineers and master carpenters in practice, and stimulate the wider application of CLT.
PUPAL WEIGHT AS A KEY INDICATOR FOR QUALITY OF MASS PRODUCED ADULT QUEENSLAND FRUIT FLY BACTROCERA TRYONI ( FROGGATT ) ( DIPTERA : TEPHRITIDAE ) IN 1997 / 1998

Quality parameters at the Camden sterile fruit fly production facility during the 1997/98 season were examined, particularly in their relationship with pupal weight. Percent emergence was positively related to pupal weight while lifespan was negatively related. There was no relationship between flight ability and pupal weight. The Flight Ability Index was adversely affected by irradiation. These results were compared with field reports and overseas information, which largely agreed with the facility data. The possible impact on sterile release programs is discussed.
A Study on Cytological Spectrum of Salivary Gland Lesions with Histological Correlation in a Tertiary Care Institute

FNAC of salivary gland lesions has an established role in preoperative diagnosis and management of patients. Although clinical and radiological parameters help to narrow the differential diagnosis , cytological diagnosis is required to plan appropriate treatment. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the varied cytological spectrum of salivary gland lesions and correlate with age, gender, anatomical site and histopathology.
Screening of nutritional factors through a Plackett-Burman experimental design during the solubilization of tricalcium phosphate by Penicillium hispanicum

Phosphorus plays a fundamental role in plant metabolic processes. Lack of phosphorus in agricultural soils is compensated with chemical fertilizers, which increase the cost of production and contaminate the environment. One approach to avoid this situation is the use of P-solubilizing fungi as biofertilizers. In this study, the solubilization of Ca3(PO4)2 by five native soil-borne micromycetes (SBM) isolated from the rhizosphere of Carica papaya plants was evaluated. The significant nutritional factors involved in the solubilization of Ca3(PO4)2 by Penicillium hispanicum were determined through a Plackett-Burman experimental design (PBED). Both Penicillium SP1 (108.5 mg/L) and P. hispanicum (106.5 mg/L) solubilized 100% of Ca3(PO4)2 at six days of culture. All studied SBM decreased the pH of the culture mediumfrom 4.15 (control) to <2.45. The PBED revealed that the solubilization of Ca3(PO4)2 by P. hispanicum was significantly influenced (P < 0.05) by low values of MnSO4 (0.002 g/L), (NH4)2SO4 (0.25 g/L) and pH (4.0) and a high amount of Ca3(PO4)2 (0.75 g/L). Total protein content was influenced significantly (P <0.05) by low amounts of glucose (5.0 g/L), yeast extract (0.25 g/L), inoculum (1×105 conidia/mL) and pH (4.0) and high amounts of MgSO4 (0.15 g/L), FeSO4 (0.003 g/L) and Ca3(PO4)2 (0.75 g/L). Meanwhile, biomass production was significantly (P < 0.05) influenced by a high level of glucose (15.0 g/L) and inoculum amount (1×107 conidia/mL). In conclusion, P. hispanicum is a good candidate for further field experiments to test Ca3(PO4)2 solubilization in poor soils that lack Cand N sources.
Mitigating Satisficing in Cognitively Demanding Grid Questions: Evidence from Two Web-Based Experiments

Satisﬁcing often has been assumed to be a hazard to response quality in web surveys because interview supervision is limited in the absence of a human interviewer. Therefore, devising methods that help to mitigate satisﬁcing poses an important challenge to survey methodology. The present article examines whether splitting up cognitively demanding grid questions into single items can be an effective means to reduce measurement error and nonresponse resulting from survey satisﬁcing. Furthermore, we investigate whether modifying the question design decreases the adverse effects of low ability and motivation of the respondents on response quality. The statistical analyses in our study relied on data from two web-based experiments with respondents from an opt-in and a probability-based online panel. Our results showed that us-ing single items increased the response times compared to the use of standard grid questions, which might indicate a greater response burden. However, the use of single items signiﬁcantly reduced the amount of response nondifferentiation and nonsubstantive responses. Our results further showed that the impact of respondent ability and motivation on the likelihood of satisﬁcing was moderated by the question design.
Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

We report on the effects of using an atomic layer deposited ZnO transparent buffer layer with> 10 Ω cm resistivity on the performance of CdZnS/CdTe solar cells grown by metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD). The buffer film thickness is adjusted by optical modelling to suppress the reflection losses at the front contact. A clear improvement, up to 1.8% in conversion efficiency, was obtained in comparison to reference devices without the ZnO buffer layer, thanks to the enhancement of the current density (Jsc) and fill factor (FF). Device spectral response showed improved collection for most of the visible region. Reflectance measurements confirmed that the ZnO film reduced the optical reflectance around the transparent front contact. This effect permitted light management through the front contact leading to an improvement of the Jsc and hence the photovoltaic conversion efficiency. These results are intriguing since the literature on CdTe solar cells did not previously report improvement to the photocurrent and device response through controlling the highly-resistive transparent buffer layer.
A Novel Approach Of Microstrip Fed Planar Monopole Antenna For WSN Applications At 2.4ghz ISM Band

: In this research article a condensed planar monopole antenna is proposed for wireless sensor networks which operates at 2.4GHz ISM bands. The suggested antenna model is printed on a 16×23×0.8mm 3 FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant Ɛ r =4.4. We have modeled different U shape slots in various directions on the rectangular patch. At every stage by inserting the slot, we observed the antenna tunes from 4.25 GHz to our required operating frequency 2.4GHz. Simulation results are observed in HFSS V15 and prototype antenna results are matched with the simulated one. In general, the smaller size patch antennas works at high frequencies but the proposed Inverted U shaped slots and the side slots helped to tune the antenna to lower resonance around 2.4GHz with better gain and return loss. Its smaller size makes it very useful for wireless sensor networks applications around 2.4 GHz frequencies.
The decisive role of the crystalline crust faults in the Black Sea opening

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Phenotypical Detection of Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamases Producing Escherichia coli, from Clinical Isolates in Riyadh Region, Al-Kharj City, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Background and objective: the aim of the present study was to identify the phenotypical detection of extended spectrum betalactamases, (ESBL) Phenomenon among Escherichiacoli isolated from clinical samples in King Khalid Hospital and Price Sultan Center, Alkharj City, Riyadh Region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Materials and Method: A total of 174 isolates of Escherichia coli were isolated by standard microbiological method, and identified by BD Phoenix system (Becton Dickinson, USA), full automated microbiological machine confirmed by API 20 E (BioMérieux, Marcy L’Etoile, France). The antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of the isolates was determined by BD Phoenix system confirmed by E. test (Epsilometer test), (Oxioid, UK) according to CLSI guideline (2008). The Extended spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) producing Escherichia coli were screened by BD Phoenix system confirmed by double disk diffusion method. p-value < 0.05 was counted as statistically significant. Result: more than forty two percent was found to be positive for ESBL producers and 57.5% as non-ESBL producers, urine samples were the most frequent in this study, males were more prevalent to ESBL producers than females, high resistant of ESBL producers was observed among different family of antibiotics including, pipracillin (76.3%), ampicillin (76.3%), tetracycline (62.7%), ceftriaxone (60.0%), cefuroxime (55.0%), trimethoprime / sulphamexazole (54.8%), azitronam (54.1%) and amoxicillin / Clavulanic acid (53.6%). Meropenes, imipenem, amikacin and tigycyline were the most active against ESBL producers. Conclusion: The prevalence of ESBL producers in this study was high compared with others studies performed in Saudi Arabia, so it requires sound infection control measures, antimicrobial management and measures to detect and control their spread should be considered.
Alcohol consumption among nursing students of a university center

Fernandes MA, Moita FK, Nascimento MPV, Santos JDM, Paiva MHP. Alcohol consumption among nursing students of a university center. SMAD, Rev Eletrônica Saúde Mental Álcool Drog. 2019;15(2):38-44. doi: https://dx.doi. org/10.11606/issn.1806-6976.smad. 2019.000401 SMAD, Rev. Eletrônica Saúde Mental Álcool Drog. 2019 Apr.-June;15(2):38-44 DOI: 10.11606/issn.1806-6976.smad. 2019.000401 www.revistas. usp.br/smad/
Training and development in small professional services firms

Purpose: This study examined whether participation in training and development (T&D) events is associated with employees’ affective commitment and propensity to enact innovative behaviours in small professional services firms. The study also investigated associations between both attitudes towards T&D and policy and practice supportive of T&D and levels of participation in T&D events. Design/methodology/approach: Data from 203 employees in small professional services firms employing 50 or fewer staff were analysed using regression analysis and PROCESS macro. Findings: Only policy and practice supportive of T&D was associated with participation levels. Participation in T&D events was positively related to affective commitment. Furthermore, employees who participated in more T&D events were more likely to enact innovative behaviours, while affective commitment mediated the positive relationship between number of T&D events attended and innovative behaviours. Contrary to expectations, neither participation in just training, nor participation in just development, was associated with either attitudes or behaviours. Practical implications: The findings have important implications for small firms which tend to rely on wholly workbased experiences for the development of employees’ knowledge and skills. Such an approach to learning for work may inadvertently shape a workforce that lacks commitment to the organisation and that has a diminished capacity for innovative behaviours. Originality/value: There is limited research on how T&D affects attitudes and behaviours in small firms. Large and small firms are fundamentally different, thus findings from studies in large firms may not extend to small firms.
Intergenerational Income Mobility in the UK:New evidence using the BHPS and Understanding Society

Using a new dataset combining the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society, I estimate the intergenerational income elasticity in the UK for individuals born between 1973 and 1991. Employing the traditional OLS approach as well as an alternative two-stage residual method that better controls for life-cycle effects, my results indicate that the intergenerational income elasticity is approximately 0.25. This means that around one quarter of every additional 1% of income advantage enjoyed by parents is passed on to their children. I also estimate income rank coefficients, which are a measure of positional mobility in the income distribution and these results corroborate the analysis of elasticities. These main results are largely robust to changes in the specifications of the model, sample restrictions and to the use of different measures of income. I also obtain regional estimates of mobility, and find large differences between the North and South of England
On The Reproductive Relationships and Molecular Analysis of the Marshallagia Marshalli and M . Occidentalis ( Nematoda : Ostertagiinae )

The article study the experience of identifying Marshallagia marshalli and M. occidentalis nematodes, which are supposedly constitute two morphologically distinct variants of the species, as well as their molecular identification. In the organism of small cattle infected with M. marshalli, obtained in a mono-invasive state, species belonging to both morphs were found, which indicates that there is no genetic isolation between them. When studying the nucleotide sequence of these morphs, no differences were found between them. Experimental data, as well as the results of molecular work, confirm that M. occidentalis is a minor morph of the species M. marshalli.
Diversification within an equity factor-based framework

As factor-based investing has increased in popularity since the financial crisis, so has the number of products available for investors to choose from. Underlying each of these products is a set of design choices whether they are explicitly or implicitly made. For investors we believe it is critically important that they understand these design choices in order to assess how a strategy is likely to perform in the different environments it will invariably face.
Reconstruction and Alignment of Biological Networks

The rapid progress in high throughput biology and the continuous generation of huge amounts of genomic, proteomic and metabolomic data underscore the need for computational tools that integrate and analyze these data. In this thesis we study two fundamental problems in this context, network reconstruction and alignment. In a network reconstruction problem, one looks for a protein-protein interaction subnetwork that connects a set of phenotypically-related proteins in a network of physical interactions. Such a subnetwork elucidates the signaling pathways between the input proteins. We developed subnetwork reconstruction methods for connecting sets of proteins derived from experimental data in multiple conditions sharing a common biological process, e.g., genetic screens performed using different technologies or transcriptional responses to variants of the same virus. When the studied process is a disease, the proteins in the output subnetwork are predicted to play a role in the disease, and could thus be prioritized for further research. Additionally, by requiring certain density properties from the desired subnetworks, we devised a framework for detecting highly interacting disease-related protein complexes. In a network alignment problem, one seeks a mapping between the nodes of two networks that preserves topology. Alignment algorithms have been applied to biological networks, aiming to transfer knowledge between species as well as to study their evolution. One of these network types is metabolic networks, which represent the set of metabolic processes in a cell. Metabolic networks are often represented using a fluxbased model, which describes the flow rate of metabolites through the reactions under a steady state assumption. We devised a framework for aligning the reactions of two metabolic networks that makes use of this model. Unlike sequence or topology based approaches, our alignment strategy is functional in nature, and relies on the description of a reaction by means of the implications incurred by its deletion over the network
Quantitative hardrock hydrogeology in a regional scale

In the hydrogeological characterisation of an area, two quantitat ive aspectsare to be taken into account, namely th e geological sett ing that defines the geometry and anatomy of a hydrogeological environment, and the spatial and t ime variat ions of available natural groun dwater resources, that most ly depend on recharge possibil it ies. Methodological approaches aiming to quanti fy th ese two aspects in hardrock areas at a regional scale are presented. A hardrock environment can be defined as an intrica te hierarchical system consist ing of inhomogeneous elements of different extent.A regionally prevailing transmissivity, mostly in units m'ld with anomalies ranging from 0.1 m'ld up to 100 m'ld , seems to be very similar in hardrock environments th roughout th e world.Considering this regio nal distribu t ion of tran smissivit y, natural groundwater resources typically depend on th e prevail ing climatic conditions.On a backgro und of the Eart h's basic climatic zonation (arid, humid, temperate zones),a vertical climatic differenti ation (mountains,lowlands,etc.) is of imp ortance.Under favourable conditi ons in temperate climatic zones natural groundwater resources might reach up to 15 Li s km' in the highest parts of hardrock mountainous areas.
Variational Bayes Color Deconvolution with a Total Variation Prior

In digital brightfield microscopy, tissues are usually stained with two or more dyes. Color deconvolution aims at separating multi-stained images into single stained images. We formulate the blind color deconvolution problem within the Bayesian framework. Our model takes into account the similarity to a given reference color-vector matrix and spatial relations among the concentration pixels by a total variation prior. It utilizes variational inference and an evidence lower bound to estimate all the latent variables. The proposed algorithm is tested on real images and compared with classical and state-of-the-art color deconvolution algorithms.
Guiding Evolutionary Strategies with Off-Policy Actor-Critic

Evolutionary strategies (ES) and off-policy learning algorithms are two major workhorses of Reinforcement learning (RL): ES adopt a simple blackbox approach to optimization but it can be slightly more sample inefficient; off-policy learning is by design more sample efficient but the updates can be unstable. Motivated by their trade-offs, we propose CEM-ACER, a combination of Cross-entropy method, a standard ES algorithm, and Actor-critic with experience replay (ACER), an off-policy actor-critic algorithm. Our proposal relies on a key insight: off-policy algorithms provide a natural mechanism to efficiently evolve parameter populations as part of an ES algorithm. Across a wide range of benchmark control tasks, we show that CEM-ACER balances the strengths of CEM and ACER, leading to an algorithm that consistently outperforms its individual building blocks, as well as other competitive baseline algorithms.
Two-stage performance engineering of container-based virtualization

Cloud computing has become a compelling paradigm built on compute and storage virtualization technologies. The current virtualization solution in the Cloud widely relies on hypervisor-based technologies. Given the recent booming of the container ecosystem, the container-based virtualization starts receiving more attention for being a promising alternative. Although the container technologies are generally considered to be lightweight, no virtualization solution is ideally resource-free, and the corresponding performance overheads will lead to negative impacts on the quality of Cloud services. To facilitate understanding container technologies from the performance engineering's perspective, we conducted two-stage performance investigations into Docker containers as a concrete example. At the first stage, we used a physical machine with “just-enough” resource as a baseline to investigate the performance overhead of a standalone Docker container against a standalone virtual machine (VM). With findings contrary to the related work, our evaluation results show that the virtualization's performance overhead could vary not only on a feature-by-feature basis but also on a job-to-job basis. Moreover, the hypervisor-based technology does not come with higher performance overhead in every case. For example, Docker containers particularly exhibit lower QoS in terms of storage transaction speed. At the ongoing second stage, we employed a physical machine with “fair-enough” resource to implement a container-based MapReduce application and try to optimize its performance. In fact, this machine failed in affording VM-based MapReduce clusters in the same scale. The performance tuning results show that the effects of different optimization strategies could largely be related to the data characteristics. For example, LZO compression can bring the most significant performance improvement when dealing with text data in our case. (Less)