Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF pH SENSITIVE AMPIPHILLIC NEW COPOLYMER OF METHYL METHACRYLATE GRAFTED ON MODIFIED STARCH: INFLUENCES OF REACTION VARIABLES ON GRAFTING PARAMETERS

Objectives: The present study was performed to investigate the effect of graft copolymerization on modified maize starch for providing a pH sensitive matrix system along with the moisture, chemical and thermal resistance. Methods: Starch was acetylated with acetic anhydride using 0.5N NaOH as a catalyst and methyl methacrylate (MMA) was grafted onto acetylated starch (Ast) by using ceric ion induced free radical polymerization. Different reaction parameters such as initiator concentration, monomer concentration, reaction time and temperature were optimized to get maximum graft yield (45.93%) and graft efficiency (94.64%). Physicochemical properties were characterized by FTIR, 1H NMR, [13]C NMR, SEM, X-RD and TG-DTA analysis. Results: Structures of acetylated starch and graft copolymer was confirmed by IR and NMR spectroscopic analysis. Particle shape and morphology were studied by SEM which shows that graft copolymerization leads to enhancement of roughness of carbohydrate surface. Moreover, graft copolymer has been found to be more moisture and chemical resistant. TG-DTA studies revealed that the decomposition temperature of grafted starch was higher than that of native starch and acetylated starch. A suitable mechanism to explain initiation, propagation and termination of graft copolymerization has also been proposed. Conclusions: Graft copolymer showed higher acid, base and thermal resistance, lower crystallinity and increased moisture resistance as compared to the acetylated and native starch. Swelling behavior at pH 1.2-10 revealed that graft copolymer provided a pH sensitive matrix system and may be useful to overcome the harsh environment of the stomach.
Preferences of Teaching Methods and Techniques in Mathematics with Reasons

In this descriptive study, the goal was to determine teachers' preferred pedagogical methods and techniques in mathematics. Qualitative research methods were employed, primarily case studies. 40 teachers were randomly chosen from various secondary schools in Kirsehir during the 2015-2016 educational terms, and data were gathered via semi-structured interviews. While analyzing the data, a categorical descriptive analysis technique was employed in which participants' opinions were divided into categories and sub-categories, and quotations were included to ensure opinions were reflected accurately. Results of these interviews showed that teachers preferred techniques such as 'Question and Answer' and 'Demonstration' that offered relative ease of use. Techniques such as 'Scenario' and 'Case Study' had fallen out of favor, as they required greater preparation and use of educational materials.
“Super-deblended” Dust Emission in Galaxies. II. Far-IR to (Sub)millimeter Photometry and High-redshift Galaxy Candidates in the Full COSMOS Field

We present a “super-deblended” far-infrared (FIR) to (sub)millimeter photometric catalog in the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), prepared with the method recently developed by Liu et al., with key adaptations. We obtain point-spread function fitting photometry at fixed prior positions including 88,008 galaxies detected in VLA 1.4, 3 GHz, and/or MIPS 24 μm images. By adding a specifically carved mass-selected sample (with an evolving stellar mass limit), a highly complete prior sample of 194,428 galaxies is achieved for deblending FIR/(sub)mm images. We performed “active” removal of nonrelevant priors at FIR/(sub)mm bands using spectral energy distribution fitting and redshift information. In order to cope with the shallower COSMOS data, we subtract from the maps the flux of faint nonfitted priors and explicitly account for the uncertainty of this step. The resulting photometry (including data from Spitzer, Herschel, SCUBA2, AzTEC, MAMBO, and NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array at 3 and 1.4 GHz) displays well-behaved quasi-Gaussian uncertainties calibrated from Monte Carlo simulations and tailored to observables (crowding, residual maps). Comparison to ALMA photometry for hundreds of sources provides a remarkable validation of the technique. We detect 11,220 galaxies over the 100–1200 μm range extending to zphot ∼ 7. We conservatively selected a sample of 85 z > 4 high-redshift candidates significantly detected in the FIR/(sub)mm, often with secure radio and/or Spitzer/IRAC counterparts. This provides a chance to investigate the first generation of vigorous starburst galaxies (SFRs ∼ 1000 M⊙ yr−1). The photometric and value-added catalogs are publicly released.
Preparation of catalysts on model supports using wet chemical methods and the construction of a device for the in-situ measurement of sum frequency generation spectroscopy at the solid-liquid interface

The first part of this work details the development and testing of surface science methods for use at solid-liquid interfaces, while the second part of this thesis presents results of surface science investigations into wet chemical catalyst preparation techniques on single-crystalline substrates. In the first part of this thesis, tests were conducted using an electrochemical scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) and sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy to take in-situ measurements at the solid-liquid interface. Magnesium phthalocyanine was used as a model molecule to be imaged using an electrochemical STM. It was imaged successfully both in-situ and ex-situ on an Au(111) single crystal and ex-situ on an FeO(111)/Pt(111) thin film. This demonstrated that molecular resolution was achievable, even under in-situ conditions using this equipment. An experimental setup has been designed and built to take sum frequency generation spectroscopy measurements both on samples under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions and at the solid-liquid interface. This was achieved by connecting a liquid cell to a standard UHV chamber via a transfer chamber to allow for clean transfer between UHV and liquid environments without compromising the quality of the vacuum. Initial in-situ measurements were obtained of the spectrum of a self assembled monolayer of octadecanethiol on the Au(111) surface in air, ethanol and water. In the second part of this thesis, the deposition of palladium and gold particles on iron oxide thin films using wet chemical methods was investigated. Wet chemical Pd deposition on Fe3O4(111)/Pt(111) has been studied previously, but more information was required about the importance of the rinsing step. Rinsing with water until a steady state was reached was found to be sufficient to reduce deposited palladium species to metallic palladium in a manner similar to what is observed from annealing in vacuum. After this rinsing step, small particles could be seen dispersed over the entire surface, confirming the previous model for homogeneous distribution of palladium from solution. Different mechanisms have been proposed for palladium deposited at low and high pH values. Rinsing with water was found to be an effective method for removing chlorine from the surface, although some palladium is lost. In all cases chlorine levels dropped below the detection limit after rinsing until a steady state was achieved. For gold deposition, a procedure was found for creating small, well dispersed gold particles on an Fe3O4(111)/Pt(111) surface. The removal of chlorine through rinsing was found to be critical to maintain dispersion, with significant aggregation observed for unrinsed samples. Gold was deposited on to the surface using a grafting type mechanism similar to what is observed for gold deposition on TiO2. The deposited gold species were easily reduced either through annealing in vacuum or rinsing with water.
Improving Novice Teachers’ Instructional Practice Using Technology Supported Video-based Reflection System: The Role of Novice Teachers’ Beliefs

The use of technology supported video-based reflection has become an essential tool for teacher education. This present study seeks to investigate the effect of video-based reflection to the novice teacher conception of teaching belief and the nature of the novice teacher comments on i-Critical reflection on teaching system (iCRT) for improving their instructional practice. Particularly, this research employed qualitative method with a case study approach. By using purposive sampling, there are fifty-third years of chemistry education students who have registered for microteaching course were selected. A mixed-type data analysis approach used in this present study, the data collected is quantitative and qualitative data. The main findings indicated that novice teachers positively changed their conception of teaching belief. The results of data analysis were six major themes related to the nature of comments provided by novice teachers through the iCRT system; classroom management, teacher feedback, teacher Student Interaction, teaching assignment, teaching design, teaching skill.
Management and performance of publics companies in African: A critical look at posts public sector restructuring in Cameroon

Enrolling in the new theories of management of public enterprises, this paper addresses the issue of whether management and governance within the Cameroon Postal Services (CAMPOST) have been improved following the restructuring of this Cameroonian public corporate. It also questioned the aforementioned efficiency of governance and its impact on economic, financial and social performance indicators. The results show that due to poor governance structures, the restructuring has not benefited the performance of CAMPOST. Responsibilities are first on the side of the Cameroonian State that has not been able to set up a strong governance structure. Furthermore, managers’ opportunism pushed the company deeply into poor performance. Thus, fundamental reforms are necessary in order to equip the state with strong institutions with a view to reducing the problems of corruption and gross waste of public funds that bankrupt more than one country in Africa. This study is a valuable input to the debate on institutional reforms to help improve the performance of public enterprises in Africa and Cameroon in particular.
Millennial‐scale depositional cycles related to British Ice Sheet variability and North Atlantic paleocirculation since 45 kyr B.P., Barra Fan, U.K. margin

Lithology, lithic petrology, planktonic foraminiferal abundances, and clastic grain sizes have been determined in a 30 m-long core recovered from the Barra Fan off northwest Scotland. The record extends back to around 45 kyr B.P., with sedimentation rates ranging between 50 and 200 cm/kyr. The abundance of ice-rafted debris indicates 16 glacimarine events, including temporal equivalents to Heinrich events 1–4. Enhanced concentrations of basaltic material derived from the British Tertiary Province suggest that the glacimarine sediments record variations in a glacial source on the Hebrides shelf margin. Glacimarine zones are separated by silty intervals with high planktonic foraminifera concentrations that reflect an interstadial circulation regime in the Rockall Trough. The results suggest that the last British Ice Sheet fluctuated with a periodicity of 2000–3000 years, in common with the Dansgaard-Oeschger climate cycle.
Adipocyte fatty acid binding protein in OVA-induced asthmatic mice

Objective: To investigate the expression of adipocyte fatty acid binding protein (A-FABP) in OVA-induced asthmatic mice. Methods: Healthy female BALB/c mice were randomly divided into control group and asthma group. A-FABP in lung tissues was located using immunohistochemical staining and quantified by Western blot. A-FABP in serum was quantified by ELISA. Results: A-FABP mainly expressed in the cytoplasm of airway epithelial cells (AECs), macrophages and vessel endothelial cells (VECs). The expression of A-FABP was significantly higher in asthma group than control group (P<0.05). Conclusion: A-FABP might be involved in the pathophysiological process of asthma.
Bottlenecks in the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the coverage of the first and second intifada in the Flemish press

Various authors suggest that the public’s knowledge of the Israeli—Palestinian conflict is inadequate. As it is generally accepted that public opinion on international news items is mainly formed by media content, the international media are often held responsible for sustaining the prevailing misconceptions about the Israeli—Palestinian conflict by covering the conflict parties in a biased and imbalanced way. This study focuses on the representation of Israelis and Palestinians in the news coverage of the first and second intifada by the Flemish press. By way of a content analysis, evolutions and discrepancies in the coverage of both intifadas are described in a longitudinal analytical perspective. The authors conclude that the portrayal of the Palestinian actors shifts from a rather positive view during the first intifada period to a more critical portrayal during the period of the second intifada. At the same time, there is an opposite move in the representation of the Israeli actors in the conflict. Although our results show differences in the distinct portrayals, they do not provide sufficient evidence to conclude unequivocally that the coverage of the first and second intifada is unbalanced. Indeed, the authors find that while some variables definitely favour the Israeli point of view (e.g. the use of sources), others clearly sustain the Palestinian side (e.g. the individualization of victims). In other words, the Flemish dailies cover the first and second intifada in quite a balanced way, contrary to what international studies on the coverage of the Israeli—Palestinian conflict have concluded regarding the media in different national settings.
Non-Destructive Global and Localized 2D T1/T2 NMR Relaxometry to Resolve Microstructure in Apples Affected by Watercore

Apples can be considered as having a complex system formed by several structures at different organization levels: macroscale (>100 μm) and microscale (>100 μm) and microscale (<100 μm). This work implements 2D T1/T2 global and localized relaxometry sequences on whole apples to be able to perform an intensive non-destructive and non-invasive microstructure study. The 2D T1/T2 cross-correlation spectroscopy allows the extraction of quantitative information about the water compartmentation in different subcellular organelles. A clear difference is found as sound apples show neat peaks for water in different subcellular compartments, such as vacuolar, cytoplasmatic and extracellular water, while in watercore-affected tissues such compartments appear merged. Localized relaxometry allows for the predefinition of slices in order to understand the microstructure of a particular region of the fruit, providing information that cannot be derived from global 2D T1/T2 relaxometry.
Popularity among Teenage Girls in Adelaide and Shanghai: A Pilot Q-Method Study

Being popular is of crucial importance to adolescents and particularly to teenage girls. In the past, popularity was measured via sociometric ratings and was seen as being well liked and accepted. In recent years, western researchers have asked teens themselves to express their views of popularity. This has led to a new view of popularity as being publically visible and prestigious and not necessarily well-liked. To investigate teenage girls’ perceptions of popularity we utilized Q methodology which is concerned with the scientific study of subjectivity. Our samples were 40 14 - 16 year old girls from Adelaide, South Australia, and 53 16 - 19 year old girls from Shanghai, China. The South Australian study revealed two factors, the first (reported in this paper) called “pretty girl popularity” was concerned with physical attractiveness and fashionable appearance, and characterized by an anti-authority attitude. In the Shanghai sample, only one dominant factor emerged—it defined popular girls as being even tempered, sincere, forgiving, outgoing and energetic while unpopular girls were seen as being relationally aggressive and self-centred. The differences between our two samples may be related to the different cultural contexts of Adelaide and Shanghai, the former relating to an individualistic ethic and the latter concerned more with social harmony.
Projection onto Epigraph Sets for Rapid Self-Tuning Compressed Sensing MRI

The compressed sensing (CS) framework leverages the sparsity of MR images to reconstruct from the undersampled acquisitions. CS reconstructions involve one or more regularization parameters that weigh sparsity in transform domains against fidelity to acquired data. While parameter selection is critical for reconstruction quality, the optimal parameters are subject and dataset specific. Thus, commonly practiced heuristic parameter selection generalizes poorly to independent datasets. Recent studies have proposed to tune parameters by estimating the risk of removing significant image coefficients. Line searches are performed across the parameter space to identify the parameter value that minimizes this risk. Although effective, these line searches yield prolonged reconstruction times. Here, we propose a new self-tuning CS method that uses computationally efficient projections onto epigraph sets of the ${\ell }_{{1}}$ and total-variation norms to simultaneously achieve parameter selection and regularization. In vivo demonstrations are provided for balanced steady-state free precession, time-of-flight, and T1-weighted imaging. The proposed method achieves an order of magnitude improvement in computational efficiency over line-search methods while maintaining near-optimal parameter selection.
Effect of technostress on job performance and coping strategies among academic staff of a tertiary institution in north-central Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Technostress is a general feeling of anxiety and negative impact on thoughts, behaviours, attitudes and body when a person is expected to deal with technology. It can lead to poor job performance and decreased productivity among workers. Coping strategies for technostress include: getting adequate user friendly software; encouragement of employees to communicate amongst others. This study aimed to assess its effect on job performance as well as presence of coping mechanisms among academic staff of University of Jos, Nigeria. METHODOLOGY : This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study involving 144 academic staff selected from all the 12 faculties of the University of Jos via multi-stage sampling technique. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data which was entered and analyzed using Epi-info version 3.5. 4 statistical software. A 95% confidence interval was used and a probability value of p ? 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS : Technostress significantly affected the job performance of 57 (39.6%) respondents to some extent, 47 (32.6%) to a very little extent, 27 (18.8%) to no effect and 13 (9.0%) to a great extent. Commonest symptoms of technostress experienced were neck ache 66 (45.8%) and blurred vision 61 (42.4%). The respondents ranked technology-based training 87 (60.4%) and effective time management 87 (60.4%) the highest as strategies for coping with technostress. CONCLUSION : Stress management and technology-related training should be organized for the staff of the university. Easily accessible high speed internet network with wide coverage could be made available to all academic staff of the university in all campuses.
Dynamic modelling of retrogressive landslides with emphasis on the role of clay sensitivity

This paper presents a detailed numerical study of the retrogressive failure of landslides in sensitive clays. The dynamic modelling of the landslides is carried out using a novel continuum approach, the particle finite element method, complemented with an elastoviscoplastic constitutive model. The multiwedge failure mode in the collapse is captured successfully, and the multiple retrogressive failures that have been widely observed in landslides in sensitive clays are reproduced with the failure mechanism, the kinematics, and the deposition being discussed in detail. Special attention has been paid to the role of the clay sensitivity on each retrogressive failure as well as on the final retrogression distance and the final run‐out distance via parametric studies. Moreover, the effects of the viscosity of sensitive clays on the failure are also investigated for different clay sensitivities.
Recalibration Methodology to Compensate for Changing Fluid Properties in an Individual Nozzle Direct Injection System

Limited advancement of direct injection pesticide application systems has been made in recent years, which has hindered further commercialization of this technology. One approach to solving the lag and mixing issues typically associated with injection-based systems is high-pressure individual nozzle injection. However, accurate monitoring of the chemical concentrate flow rate can pose a challenge due to the high pressure, low flow, and changing viscosities of the fluid. A methodology was developed for recalibrating high-pressure chemical concentrate injectors to compensate for fluid property variations and evaluate the performance of this technique for operating injectors in an open-loop configuration. Specific objectives were to (1) develop a method for continuous recalibration of the chemical concentrate injectors to ensure accurate metering of chemicals of varying viscosities and (2) evaluate the recalibration method for estimating individual injector flow rates from a system of multiple injectors to assess potential errors. Test results indicated that the recalibration method was able to compensate for changes in fluid kinematic viscosity (e.g., from temperature changes and/or product variation). Errors were less than 3.4% for the minimum injector duty cycle (DCi) (at 10%) and dropped 0.2% for the maximum DCi (at 90%) for temperature changes of up to 20°C. While larger temperature changes may be expected, these test results showed that the proposed method could be successfully implemented to meet desired injection rates. Because multiple injectors would be used in commercial deployment of this technology, a method was developed to calculate the desired injector flow rate using initial injector calibration factors. Using this multi-injector recalibration method, errors ranged from 0.23% to 0.66% between predicted and actual flow rates for all three injectors.