Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of animal movement using opportunistic individual identifications: application to sperm whales

Data sets in which animals are identified individually in different places and times may contain considerable information on movements. However; if the probability that an animal is reidentified depends on its movement pattern, then standard methods of analyzing movement are not applicable. I show that modifications of maximum likelihood methods, in which the identifications themselves establish the spatial and temporal distri- bution of effort, can be used to derive movement parameters in three situations: (1) Iden- tifications in one location allow calculation of the "lagged identification rate" (the prob- ability of reidentification after various time lags) as well as estimation of residence times inside, and outside, the study area. (2) When more than one study area is sampled, it is possible to derive lagged identification rates between them and to estimate movement rates between areas and other population parameters. (3) Movements through continuous space can be described by diffusion rates (rates of population spread), and plots of squared displacement against time lag. To simplify computation, and to permit the analysis of large data sets, summed nonindependent log-likelihoods can be maximized in place of the true log-likelihood to obtain approximately unbiased parameter estimates, and binomial, mul- tinomial, or hypergeometric models can be approximated by the Poisson distribution. The first and third of the techniques were verified using simulated data, and all were applied to a 13-yr data set of identifications of sperm whales in the South Pacific Ocean. Residence times in waters close to the Galapagos Islands were of the order of 8 d, but during the study period there was a substantial net movement out of the Galapagos region and into waters of the coastal eastern tropical Pacific. Diffusion rates of sperm whales were -700 km2/d over time scales from 1 to 100 d but decreased considerably over time scales of years, indicating displacements of -50 km/d within home ranges spanning -1000 km. Although giving relatively imprecise estimates of movement parameters compared to more standard methods, the techniques considered here should be particularly useful when ex- amining animal movements over long time scales.
In the Classroom Who is the Real Owner? Or How a Simple Pepsi-Cola Story Can Help Students Build Critical Thinking Skills

Besides language competence, international students must develop a systematic approach to processing information and follow up with co-construction of the knowledge acquired. Critical thinking is a crucial principle commonly required in North American universities for evaluating academic texts. This practice may present certain difficulties for English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) students, as they may be influenced by cultural norms accepted in the academic environment of their home country or by dissimilar approaches to evaluating academic texts. This article discusses our classroom experience with assisting EAL students, predominantly from China and Saudi Arabia, in developing critical thinking skills; however, the operational model offered may also be useful with students from other cultural backgrounds.
Convolution Neural Network with Sample Stretch for SAR Target Recognition

Convolution neural networks doing well in the field of image classification obeys the precondition that test images are similar to the train images. In SAR vehicle image classification field, the recognition rate drops rapidly as the depression angle increasing. The difference of SAR imaging in depression angle obviously affects the classification accuracy of SAR images. In order to overcome the low accuracy in the classification of three categories of SAR vehicles, experiments with a train set composed of depression angle 17° images and a test set composed of depression angle 45° from MSTAR database are explored. To make the test and train set become more similar, the test images are stretched in both horizontal and vertical directions. The stretched method is verified through the cross-correlation coefficient experiments. Meanwhile, an improved structure of convolutional neural network is adopted in the paper to act as the classifier. The recognition accuracy is compared with other traditional machine learning methods and the A-ConvNets method. The results show that the stretching method and the proposed CNN exceed most of existing classifiers in SAR vehicle recognition.
Exploring Teachers’ Propensity for Technology Adoption in Business Education

Abstract In many developing nations of the world, competence in information and communication technology (ICT) is seen as a key enabling factor for both personal and national advancement and progress. A major challenge facing such countries is the need to overcome overt and hidden obstacles to technology adoption. School teachers are regarded as the essential drivers of ICT. This article reports on a quantitative study that investigated Business Education teachers’ propensities for technology adoption among a random sample of 204 Business Educa tion teachers in the Ethekwini region of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Questionnaires were issued to these teachers to ascertain their responses to statements that linked closely to the constructs used in the study, which were extracted from technology adoption theories/models. The findings indicated that the teachers were quite positive towards the perceived usefulness and relative advantages of computers, were motivated and felt that they cou ld use computers with ease. However, they were not confident that the necessary conditions existed to facilitate their use of computers in teaching and learning. Unless the Department of Education takes cognizance of teachers’ propensity for technology adoption and the factors that seem to be hindering ICT integration, the vision and goals of the White Paper on E-Education may not become a reality in schools in KwaZulu-Natal.
The Relationship Between Teacher Attitude and Self-Efficacy for Inclusive Practices in Turkey

This study aims to investigate the relationship between Turkish teachers’ attitudes and their self-efficacy for inclusive practices using a relational survey design. Study participants included a total of 1163 preschool, classroom, subject-matter, and special-education teachers from four different geographical regions in Turkey. The data was collected using the Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale (SACIE-R) and the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practice (TEIP) Scale. The data were analyzed using the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation and Multiple Linear Regression tests with the help of SPSS. The results reported a positive significant relationship between teachers’ attitudes and self-efficacy for inclusive practices. Results also revealed teacher self-efficacy to be a significant predictor of their attitudes towards inclusive education.
Information Needs of Post Myocardial Infarction (MI) Patients: Nurse's Perception in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC)

Patient education has been considered as an integral component of care for patient after myocardial infarction. Post myocardial infarction patients require information and knowledge related to their conditions to reduce anxiety and aid recovery. The objective of this study was to identify nurses’ perception on information needs of post MI patients of UKMMC. A cross sectional study using Cardiac Patient Learning Needs Inventory (CPLNI) adopted from Timmins and Kalizer (2002) was used. It comprises seven cate-gories: related to anatomy and physiology, psychological factor, life style factor, medi-cation information, dietary information, physical activity, and symptom management. This study was conducted in coronary care unit (CCU), coronary rehabilitation ward (CRW), medical ward 1 and medical ward 2 from January 2007 to March 2007. 56 res-pondents (96%) who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were recruited in this study. Results showed that CCU and CRW respondents ranked symptom management as their first ranking followed by medication, life style factor, anatomy and physiology, dietary in-formation, physical activity and psychological factor. However, respondents in Medical Ward 1 and 2 reported and ranked medication information as their top priorities fol-lowed by symptom management, psychological factors, dietary information, physical activity, anatomy and physiology and life style factor. There were significant differ-ences between ward nurses’ responses with their perception related to anatomy and physiology, psychology factor, life style factor, physical activity, and symptom man-agement with p value<0.05. This study concluded that the information needs are not always perceived in unison by nursing personnel as the CCU and CRW nurses ranked symptoms management as the cardinal factor whilst Medical Ward 1 and 2 nurses give paramount importance to medication. In order to improve this situation for post MI pa-tient, information need has to be tailored, individualized and prioritized based upon their needs
On Baseline Corrections and Uncertainty in Response Spectrafor Baseline Variations Commonly Encounteredin Digital Accelerograph Records

Most digital accelerograph recordings are plagued by long-period drifts, best seen in the velocity and displacement time series obtained from integration of the acceleration time series. These drifts often result in velocity values that are nonzero near the end of the record. This is clearly unphysical and can lead to inaccurate es- timates of peak ground displacement and long-period spectral response. The source of the long-period noise seems to bevariations in the acceleration baseline in many cases. These variations could be due to true ground motion (tilting and rotation, as well as local permanent ground deformation), instrumental effects, or analog-to-digital con- version. Very often the trends in velocity are well approximated by a linear trend after the strong shaking subsides. The linearity of the trend in velocity implies that no vari- ations in the baseline could have occurred after the onset of linearity in the velocity time series. This observation, combined with the lack of any trends in the pre-event motion, allows us to compute the time interval in which any baseline variations could occur. We then use several models of the variations in a Monte Carlo procedure to derive a suite of baseline-corrected accelerations for each noise model using records from the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake and several earthquakes in Turkey. Comparisons of the mean values of the peak ground displacements, spectral displacements, and resid- ual displacements computed from these corrected accelerations for the different noise models can be used as a guide to the accuracy of the baseline corrections. For many of the records considered here the mean values are similar for each noise model, giving confidence in the estimation of the mean values. The dispersion of the ground-motion measures increases with period and is noise-model dependent. The dispersion of in- elastic spectra is greater than the elastic spectra at short periods but approaches that of the elastic spectra at longer periods. The elastic spectra from the most basic proces- sing, in which only the pre-event mean is removed from the acceleration time series, do not diverge from the baseline-corrected spectra until periods of 10-20 sec or more for the records studied here, implying that for many engineering purposes elastic spec- tra can be used from records with no baseline correction or filtering.
Determinants and Performance of Sugar Export in Tanzania

Tanzania ministries as well as sugar board of Tanzania are not aware of recent sugar markets trends. This study attempts to examine performance of Tanzania sugar exports and estimate sugar exports supply function for 1977-2013 periods. To estimate annual growth rates for quantities of sugar produced, consumed, imported and exported, geometric average was used by means of detailed data from country statistics through NBS, FAO and ITC computations. Multivariate regression model was used to estimate supply function. The results of the estimation revealed that, for the period of 35 years, annual growth rates of Tanzania sugar production and consumption was 3% and 7% respectively. Since, domestic factories was less than 60% productive efficient, indicating that there remains considerable scope to increase production hence exports by improving technical and allocative efficiency of existing idle resources. Thus, sugar export price has positive significant relationship while consumer price index has negative relationship with sugar exports supply. Quantity of domestic product of sugar, exchange rate and GDP are not statistically significant in explaining their impact on sugar exports supply. Moreover, Tanzania is a net exporter of molasses which is extracted or refined from sugar and is a net importer of sugar confectionery by-product. Thus, these are major sugar by-products which have significant economic implications to sugar industry stakeholders, whereby, the country is losing from sugar confectionery and gaining significantly from molasses. It is recommended that, production of sugar should increase significantly so as to satisfy both domestic and regional/foreign markets.
Application of mycorrhizae to ornamental horticultural crops: lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum) as a test case

Ornamental crops are high-cash crops, grown under greenhouse conditions in semi-arid regions in Israel where a reduction in the native population of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) is expected due to routine soil disinfection. The application of AMF inoculum to the soil has been shown to be effective at improving plant growth and enhancing plant resilience to abiotic and biotic stresses. One of our aims is to introduce mycorrhizal application to ornamental crops, and a test case is presented here for two cultivars of lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum), one of the major ornamental crops grown in Israel. Several different methods of AMF application and their effects on growth, yield and vase life were examined in lisianthus grown in two different semi-arid locations in southern Israel. AMF enhanced lisianthus growth and yield, especially when introduced to the growth medium during seeding and to the pit hole during planting. Significantly enhanced growth and yield parameters included flowering stem length (58 ± 0.7 and 65.1 ± 0.7 cm for control and AMF treated, respectively) and number of flowering stems per square meter (73 ± 9 and 106 ± 6 for control and AMF treated, respectively); positive but non-significant effects were recorded on stem weight, number of flowers per stem and vase life of cut flowers. Yield enhancement was recorded under both low and regular phosphorus conditions. Although not significant, higher resilience against two pathogenic fungi was also recorded following AMF inoculation (23 ± 13 and 41 ± 10 surviving plants for control and AMF treated, respectively). Hence, AMF is suggested to be a useful growth amendment for promotion of lisianthus commercial production, and may potentially be applied to additional ornamental crops.
ERP Implementation Lifecycle in SMEs – A Review

Saturation is visible in ERP implementation in large enterprises but has huge potential in SMEs. With SMEs impacting large portion of economy, the focus has shifted to globalization, building partnerships, developing value networks, and managing the huge information flow across and within SMEs nowadays. Due to rising business demands, SMEs are adopting ERP systems and the vendors now focus more on implementing ERP in SMEs for effective information management. The current study summarizes research on enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems implementation within the domain of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The SMEs suffer from resource poverty which increases the risk of ERP adoption. SMEs are structured very distinctively compared to LEs, thus the ERP implementation model, practices, and methodologies are different from Les and should be perceived differently. The main purpose of this article is to observe the areas that lack sufficient research within the ERP in SMEs domain, appraise with current research findings that could felicitate practitioners, suppliers, and SMEs while implementing ERP in SMEs, and suggest research avenues for future. Moreover, this study signifies the current practices in SMEs, the impellingtheories, and adaptive frameworks that are discussed in existing literature on ERP implementation in SMEs.
Quantitative Density under Higher Rank Abelian Algebraic Toral Actions

We generalize Bourgain-Lindenstrauss-Michel-Venkatesh's recent one-dimensional quantitative density result to abelian algebraic actions on higher dimensional tori. Up to finite index, the group actions that we study are conjugate to the action of $U_K$, the group of units of some non-CM number field $K$, on a compact quotient of $K\otimes_{\mathbb Q}\mathbb R$. In such a setting, we investigate how fast the orbit of a generic point can become dense in the torus. This effectivizes a special case of a theorem of Berend; and is deduced from a parallel measure-theoretical statement which effectivizes a special case of a result by Katok-Spatzier. In addition, we specify two numerical invariants of the group action that determine the quantitative behavior, which have number-theoretical significance.
A model perspective on total tropospheric O3 column variability and implications for satellite observations

[1] In recent years several methods have been developed that derive total tropospheric O3 columns from satellite measurements. However, one issue that has not been paid much attention to is the interpretation of (extratropical) total tropospheric O3 columns. Different processes contribute to the total tropospheric O3 column: stratosphere-troposphere exchange, tropospheric O3 production and loss, transport and the height of the tropopause. Each process contributes differently to the total tropospheric O3 column variability depending on season, geographical location, and altitude. This paper investigates the contribution of these different processes on total tropospheric O3 column variability using a chemistry-climate model simulation of tropospheric O3, and reflects on the implications for total tropospheric O3 column measurements. On the basis of tropospheric O3 column (satellite) measurements and without other sources of information (e.g., model simulations, observations of other trace species) it is not possible to determine the separate contributions by the aforementioned processes to the extratropical total tropospheric O3 column variability. Furthermore, typical extratropical synoptic-scale (daily) total tropospheric O3 column variability is of the order of 10 DU (1-σ value), implying the errors in (satellite) measurements should be of the order of magnitude at maximum (∼10 DU) for daily measurements. For tropical total tropospheric O3 column (satellite) measurements the requirements are less stringent because the most important variability occurs on seasonal timescales. Errors in tropical total tropospheric O3 column (TTOC) measurements should be of the order of 5 DU for monthly means.
Prevalence of Periodontitis in Dental Students in University Technology Mara

Alveolar bone loss is one of the main features of periodontitis, bitewing radiographs has been used to evaluate the alveolar bone level. The objectives of this study were to evaluate and compare the prevalence of periodontitis in both genders of dental students in Universiti Teknologi MARA. One hundred and eighteen bite wing radiographs of 59 dental students of year 2 and 3 were collected from their previous clinical projects. Eighteen radiographs were excluded due to current active orthodontic treatment. All radiographs were scanned and uploaded to specific computer software to measure the amount of bone loss in the radiographs. The distance from cementoenamel junction to alveolar crest were measured in millimeters of each mesial and distal sites of upper and lower bicuspids, 1st molar and mesial site of 2nd molar. Measurements of 1322 sites were analyzed using students T-test to compare gender differences. All the students showed 100% prevalence of periodontitis due to more than 1mm bone loss at least in one site. High prevalence of periodontitis was found among all dental students. Males showed higher prevalence than females. Future management programs should be scheduled to prevent progression of bone loss among dental students.
Globalization and the Decline of the Welfare State in Less-Developed Countries

Why have trends in government welfare spending in developing countries diverged from those in developed countries? I address this question by investigating the effects of capital and trade flows on government welfare spending in fifty-three developing countries. Using an original measure of labor power in developing countries, I test the links between international markets, labor's political strength, and the welfare state. I argue that labor's collective-action problems, caused by large populations of low-skilled and surplus workers, offset labor's potential political gains from globalization. I show that when the proportion of low-skilled workers in a nation is high, globalization will lead to a decline in welfare spending. Most significantly, the results suggest that in nations where labor-market institutions are not yet well developed, government social-welfare spending is constrained by international market, forces.
Model-free Knockoffs for SLOPE-Adaptive Variable Selection with Controlled False Discovery Rate

Automatic selection of true explanatory variables and controlling fraction of false discovery rate (FDR) in the linear model has received considerable attention in machine learning. The ordered regularization is an important component of the linear model and plays a key role in solving such kind of problems. Although there have been some models proposed for determining relevant features in either low-dimensional or high-dimensional space. However, there exists no single sorted model that can work in both low-high dimensions cases. This paper introduces a model called mSLOPE (model-free SLOPE) which is a mixed methodology based on model-free (MF) knockoffs and sorted Lone penalized estimation (SLOPE). mSLOPE uses original design matrix augmented with MF knockoffs matrix. The original feature matrix and MF matrix have the same covariance structure. Advantages of mSLOPE include, (i) it identifies true regressors in any dimension, (ii) it is an adaptive and computationally tractable and (iii) it gains power relative to its competitors through an exact control of FDR in any dimensions. Experimental results on both synthetic and real data show that mSLOPE gains superior power and accurate FDR control than state-of-the-art baselines.
Ammonia volatilization and yield components after application of polymer-coated urea to maize

A form of increasing the efficiency of N fertilizer is by coating urea with polymers to reduce ammonia volatilization. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of polymer-coated urea on the control of ammonia volatilization, yield and nutritional characteristics of maize. The experiment was carried out during one maize growing cycle in 2009/10 on a Geric Ferralsol, inUberlândia, MG, Brazil. Nitrogen fertilizers were applied as topdressing on the soil surface in the following urea treatments: polymer-coated urea at rates of 45, 67.5 and 90 kg ha-1 N and one control treatment (no N), in randomized blocks with four replications. Nitrogen application had a favorable effect on N concentrations in leaves and grains, Soil Plant Analysis Development (SPAD) chlorophyll meter readings and on grain yield, where as coated urea had no effect on the volatilization rates, SPAD readings and N leaf and grain concentration, nor on grain yield in comparison to conventional fertilization.