Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Students' Understanding on Newton's Third Law in Identifying the Reaction Force in Gravity Interactions.

Background:In the past three decades, previous researches showed that students had various misconceptions of Newton’s Third Law. The present study focused on students’ difficulties in identifying the third-law force pair in gravity interaction situations.Materials and methods:An instrument involving contexts with gravity and non-gravity associated interactions was designed and conducted among students in junior secondary school, senior high school and university.Results:The finding revealed that students in all grades did statistically worse in gravity interaction contexts and had general difficulties in distinguishing interaction forces and balanced forces. However, students improved their reasoning on third-law force pair with the increase of grade level irrespective of contexts. Special difficulties for junior secondary school students in understanding gravity interaction were also addressed.Conclusions:It is important to emphasize that the educational contexts of gravity interactions should be paid more attention to.
Theoretical Aspects of Designing New Vaccines for Breast Cancer: Docking Studies of Peptide/HLA-A2.1 Complexes

of a master’s thesis at the Duquesne University. Master’s supervised by Professor Jeffrey D. Evanseck No. of pages in text: 61 HER2/neu is a transmembrane glycoprotein that is overexpressed in many tumors, including ovarian and breast cancers. The HER2/neu peptide IISAVVGIL (GP2) is recognized by tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in the context of human class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC) HLA-A2.1. One limiting-factor for using GP2 as a tumor vaccine is its poor affinity for HLA-A2.1, even though it has the correct peptide-binding motif. The research aims are to develop an accurate docking method for the binding of GP2 to HLA-A2.1, to understand the molecular forces that give rise to strong binding, and to predict mutations that lead to new tumor vaccines. AutoDock and GOLD have been used for docking calculations. The binding free energies from AutoDock correlate qualitatively with experiment. The docked structures for 14 ligands from Autodock3 are in good agreement with experiment. However, the ligands are not fully flexible. GOLD allowed full flexibility to reproduce experimental GP2 structure.
Genetic variability of agronomic traits and chemo diversity in the genus Ocimum

K E Y W O R D S © 2018 Islamic Azad University, Shahrood Branch Press, All rights reserved. ISSN: 2588-3631 (Online) ISSN: 2588-3623 (Print) Trends in Phytochemical Research (TPR) Volume 2 Issue 2 June 2018 Genetic variability of agronomic traits and chemo diversity in the genus Ocimum Rajendra P. Patel1, Rakshapal Singh1, Raj Kishori Lal2, , Pankhuri Gupta3, Anju Kesarwani1 and Nitu Goyal2 1Biology Central Facility, CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow (U.P.), PIN-226015, India 2Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow (U.P.), PIN-226015, India 3Department of Bio-technology, CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow (U.P.), PIN-226015, India The present study was performed to explore genetic and chemotypic variability among five Ocimum species. Genotypes were evaluated from pooled data over three locations for two consecutive years (2007-2008 and 2008-2009). High genotypic coefficient variation and phenotypic coefficient variation were observed for leaf area (63.55 and 63.80, respectively), essential oil yield (40.37 and 41.0, respectively) and leaf width (33.91 and 39.29, respectively). Maximum heritability estimate in broad sense was observed for leaf area (99.20%), leaf length (98.79%) and essential oil (98.36%). High genetic advance over mean was observed for the essential oil yield (80.59%), leaf width (74.43%), leaf length (69%) and essential oil content (64.71%). In addition, path coefficient analysis showed maximum positive direct effects of plant canopy (4.21), leaf width (3.80), followed by essential oil (2.49%) and fresh herb yield (0.95). The essential oils of Ocimum species were grouped in four chemical groups of compounds. The accessions of O. tenuiflorum, O. basilicum and O. gratissimum were found to be rich with phenylpropanoids. The results clearly showed variation in important economic traits can facilitate selection for further improvement in Ocimum genotypes. Received: 02 August 2017 Revised: 16 February 2018 Accepted: 26 May 2018 ePublished: 05 June 2018 Correlations Genetic advance Chemo diversity Heritability Ocimum Path coefficient analysis Corresponding authors: Raj Kishori Lal Tel: +91-0522 2718523; Fax: +91-05222342666 E-mail address: rajkishorilal@gmail.com
Assuring Quality in E-Learning Course Design: The Roadmap.

Quality Assurance (QA) concepts and applications in Higher Education (HE) emerge from evolving meanings related to HE’s dynamic relationship with social, economic, cultural, and technological developments. The latter has been redefined by the growth spurred by the forms distance and online education acquired during the last decades. Creating a roadmap with clearly articulated meanings of quality and consistent key actions fills a need for the involved communities to reground the research, policy-making, and the related discourse. Our current work consists of a thorough meta-analysis on all available research in every identified pertinent field. It is a qualitative review of the concepts, definitions, and approaches about quality in general, but also specifically, in e-learning in HE, as they have globally appeared in peer-reviewed journals, government reports, and web pages. As we left no stone unturned in enquiring regarding the meanings, uses, evolution, and applicability of the revealed variables it is our hope that the roadmap we provide here will guide future research and support policy-making in the field. The present study is part of the research project e-learning Quality Assurance Design Standards in Higher Education (e-QADeSHE), which was funded by Laureate International Universities as the winning research project for the International David Wilson Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (2015 edition).
Bioprospecting and Characterization of poly-β- hydroxyalkanoate (PHAs) producing Pseudomonas Spp. isolated from edible oil contaminated soil

Plastics have battle to biological breakdown that result in its accumulation in the environment. This accentuates the need to search for biodegradable polymer, which is readily disposable and degradable. Bacteria synthesize and accumulate polyhydroxy alkanote (PHA) as carbon source under limiting conditions of nutrients. Bioprospecting for poly-β-hydroxyalkanoate (PHA)-accumulating micro-organisms was carried out in edible oil contaminated soil of north Gujarat region. They were isolated in unbalanced culture medium (high carbon/nitrogen ratio) with various edible oil used as carbon source. PHAs producing bacteria were identified by staining with Sudan black and solubilising cellular components in sodium hypochlorite. Two bacterial strains isolated, screened and characterized from edible oil contaminated soil samples were selected due to their capacity of growing in the presence of edible oil and at the same time producing PHA. The isolates were identified by PCR of the 16S rDNA gene using universal primers. The isolates were Psudomonas aeruginosa and Pseudomonas fluorescence .
Late Holocene climate variability in the southwestern Mediterranean region: an integrated marine and terrestrial geochemical approach

Abstract. A combination of marine (Alboran Sea cores, ODP 976 and TTR 300 G) and terrestrial (Zonar Lake, Andalucia, Spain) geochemical proxies provides a high-resolution reconstruction of climate variability and human influence in the southwestern Mediterranean region for the last 4000 years at inter-centennial resolution. Proxies respond to changes in precipitation rather than temperature alone. Our combined terrestrial and marine archive documents a succession of dry and wet periods coherent with the North Atlantic climate signal. A dry period occurred prior to 2.7 cal ka BP – synchronously to the global aridity crisis of the third-millennium BC – and during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (1.4–0.7 cal ka BP). Wetter conditions prevailed from 2.7 to 1.4 cal ka BP. Hydrological signatures during the Little Ice Age are highly variable but consistent with more humidity than the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Additionally, Pb anomalies in sediments at the end of the Bronze Age suggest anthropogenic pollution earlier than the Roman Empire development in the Iberian Peninsula. The Late Holocene climate evolution of the in the study area confirms the see-saw pattern between the eastern and western Mediterranean regions and the higher influence of the North Atlantic dynamics in the western Mediterranean.
Bending and Free Vibration Analyses of Rectangular Laminated Composite Plates Resting on Elastic Foundation Using a Refined Shear Deformation Theory

In this paper, a closed form solution for bending and free vibration analyses of simply supported rectangular laminated composite plates is presented. The static and free vibration behavior of symmetric and antisymmetric laminates is investigated using a refined first-order shear deformation theory. The Winkler–Pasternak two-parameter model is employed to express the interaction between the laminated plates and the elastic foundation. The Hamilton’s principle is used to derive the governing equations of motion. The accuracy and efficiency of the theory are verified by comparing the developed results with those obtained using different laminate theories. The laminate theories including the classical plate theory, the classical first-order shear deformation theory, the higher order shear deformation theory and a three-dimensional layerwise theory are selected in order to perform a comprehensive comparison. The effects of the elastic foundation parameters, orthotropy ratio and width-to-thickness ratio on the bending deflection and fundamental frequency of laminates are investigated.
The Use of External Performance Expectations in the Target Setting of Executive Annual Bonus Contracts

Although anecdotal evidence suggests that externally informed approaches are increasingly used in targetsetting practices, only limited evidence in the literature addresses what types of external information sources are used in target setting. We examine how externally informed performance expectations, such as analysts’ annual earnings forecasts, influence target setting for executive bonus contracts. Using performance target data from S&P 1500 firms, we find that analyst earnings forecasts are positively associated with firms’ bonus target revisions and that target accuracy improves with the incorporation of analyst forecasts into target setting. Furthermore, we find that the use of analyst forecasts in target setting is more pronounced when the forecasts are more informative about future firm performance and when they are less likely to be influenced by managers. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests.
Leakage from medically-certified to self-certified workplace absence among norwegian employees

ABSTRACT There are two different kinds of sickness absence in Norway: self-certified absence (SCA), and medically-certified absence (MCA). In this study of 6437 Norwegian employees, we applied logistic regression models for a dichotomous SCA variable on initially 38 independent variables including age and gender. Our findings showed that employees reporting long-term health issues but no record of MCA in the past 12 months (9.4% of the employees), had significantly higher odds of SCA than other employees. We claim that this constitutes a leakage of workplace absence from MCA to SCA, since these employees have long-term health issues. In addition, we found that women in this group were more likely to reduce their workload to part-time jobs, compared to other women. We suggest that basing MCA on diagnoses from a certified list contributes to leakage of employees with specific characteristics from MCA to SCA.
Continuum sources from the THOR survey between 1 and 2 GHz

We carried out a large program with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA): "THOR: The HI, OH, Recombination line survey of the Milky Way". We observed a significant portion of the Galactic plane in the first quadrant of the Milky Way in the 21cm HI line, 4 OH transitions, 19 radio recombination lines, and continuum from 1 to 2 GHz. In this paper we present a catalog of the continuum sources in the first half of the survey (l=14.0-37.9deg and l=47.1-51.2deg, |b|<1.1deg) at a spatial resolution of 10-25", with a spatially varying noise level of ~0.3-1 mJy/beam. The catalog contains ~4400 sources. Around 1200 of these are spatially resolved, and ~1000 are possible artifacts, given their low signal-to-noise ratios. Since the spatial distribution of the unresolved objects is evenly distributed and not confined to the Galactic plane, most of them are extragalactic. Thanks to the broad bandwidth of the observations from 1 to 2 GHz, we are able to determine a reliable spectral index for ~1800 sources. The spectral index distribution reveals a double-peaked profile with maxima at spectral indices of alpha = -1 and alpha = 0 , corresponding to steep declining and flat spectra, respectively. This allows us to distinguish between thermal and non-thermal emission, which can be used to determine the nature of each source. We examine the spectral index of ~300 known HII regions, for which we find thermal emission with spectral indices around alpha = 0. In contrast, supernova remnants (SNR) show non-thermal emission with alpha = -0.5 and extragalactic objects generally have a steeper spectral index of alpha = -1. Using the spectral index information of the THOR survey, we investigate potential SNR candidates. We classify the radiation of four SNR candidates as non-thermal, and for the first time, we provide strong evidence for the SNR origin of these candidates.
An efficient global technique for solving the network constrained static and dynamic economic dispatch problem

This paper presents a new approach for solving the economic load dispatch (ELD) problem with generator constraints and transmission losses. The constrained globalized Nelder-Mead algorithm is a newly proposed algorithm for solving economic dispatch problems with and without valve-point effects. Convex and nonconvex cost functions with equality and inequality constraints are difficult to optimize. To circumvent these problems, a robust global technique is desirable. In this paper, the constrained globalized Nelder--Mead algorithm is proposed to optimize the ELD problem globally using variance variable probability. To validate the proficiency of the proposed approach, statistical studies have been accomplished for different test systems of static economic dispatch including 3-unit convex and nonconvex systems without losses, a 6-unit convex system with losses, 13-unit nonconvex systems without losses, and a 20-unit nonconvex system without losses. The proposed model proficiency is verified by applying it to dynamic economic dispatch for test systems including a 3-unit convex system with no losses and a 5-unit nonconvex system with losses. Comparison of the proposed algorithm with other optimization algorithms reported in the literature shows that the proposed algorithm is quite robust. The proposed algorithm has improved results from 0.0001% to 4.44% in different case studies.
Determinants of economic growth in Hong Kong: The role of stock market development

Abstract We assessed the impact of stock market development on growth in Hong Kong for the period 1986Q2 to 2015Q4. By constructing a composite index of stock market development and controlling for the key determinants of growth, we found stock market development to promote growth both in the short and long run. We further constructed an alternative index of stock market development and found this conclusion to be robust. Our findings are broadly consistent with the growth experience of Hong Kong. Policies meant to promote stock market development may enhance growth in Hong Kong as well.
Collection/aggregation algorithms in Lagrangian cloud microphysical models: Rigorous evaluation in box model simulations

Abstract. Recently, several Lagrangian microphysical models have been developed which use a large number of (computational) particles to represent a cloud. In particular, the collision process leading to coalescence of cloud droplets or aggregation of ice crystals is implemented differently in various models. Three existing implementations are reviewed and extended, and their performance is evaluated by a comparison with well-established analytical and bin model solutions. In this first step of rigorous evaluation, box model simulations, with collection/aggregation being the only process considered, have been performed for the three well-known kernels of Golovin, Long and Hall. Besides numerical parameters, like the time step and the number of simulation particles (SIPs) used, the details of how the initial SIP ensemble is created from a prescribed analytically defined size distribution is crucial for the performance of the algorithms. Using a constant weight technique, as done in previous studies, greatly underestimates the quality of the algorithms. Using better initialisation techniques considerably reduces the number of required SIPs to obtain realistic results. From the box model results, recommendations for the collection/aggregation implementation in higher dimensional model setups are derived. Suitable algorithms are equally relevant to treating the warm rain process and aggregation in cirrus.
Relationships between body fat depots, carcass composition, live weight and body condition scores in Blanca Celtibérica goats

The relationships between body fat depots, carcass composition and body condition scores (BCS), assessed on lumbar, sternal and tail regions were determined in 19 adult Blanca Celtiberica goats. After slaughter the omental, mesenteric, kidney and pelvic fat were separated and weighed. The left side of the carcass was separated into muscle, bone plus remainder, subcutaneous and intermuscular fat. All body fat depots and carcass composition tissues have a logarithmic or semilogarithmic relationship with body condition scores. All body condition scores assessed on lumbar and sternal regions were better predictors than live weight (LW) of the body fat depots and carcass composition. The body condition score assessed on the sternal region was a better predictor than the other body condition methods for all fat depots and carcass composition except for the heart and pelvic fat. The variations in omental, mesenteric, subcutaneous, intermuscular, pelvic and kidney weight of fat depots per unit change in sternal body condition score (SBCS) were determined. These changes suggest that the increases in SBCS from 2.5 to 3.5 or from 3.5 to 4.5 result in the greatest rate of deposition occurring in the subcutaneous and omental fat depots.
Thunderstorm analysis for a TGF/lightning coincidence case in Colombia

In this paper we present a study about a TGF detected by RHESSI on August 2013 in the north of Colombia. The TGF occurred ~235ms after the third cloud-to-ground stroke of a multiple stroke-flash and ~120 km away from the sub-satellite point. The long lived thunderstorm producing the TGF is analyzed. Satellite data of cloud tops and lightning evolution show that the TGF occurred during the mature phase of the thunderstorm when cloud-to-ground lightning rates and coldest cloud covered area were high. Surface CAPE of the thunderstorm at TGF time presented a relatively low value. The analysis showed that cloud tops of the thunderstorm reached the tropopause, located at ~15 km. These results are discussed and compared with previous analysis of thunderstorms producing TGFs.
Comparison of the suitability of three pest leafminers (Diptera: Agromyzidae) as hosts for the parasitoid Dacnusa sibirica (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

The suitability of Liriomyza sativae Blanchard, L. trifolii (Burgess) and L. bryoniae (Kaltenbach) as hosts of the solitary larval-pupal parasitoid Dacnusa sibirica Telenga was studied. This parasitoid is used as a biological control agent against L. trifolii and L. bryoniae. The parasitoid laid eggs in L. sativae, but no adult parasitoids emerged from the puparia. In contrast, D. sibirica adults emerged from the puparia of L. trifolii and L. bryoniae, and there was no significant difference in emergence rate, female developmental time, or sex ratio when parasitizing these two host species. The parasitoid adults that emerged from the L. bryoniae puparia were significantly larger than those from L. trifolii puparia. In conclusion, D. sibirica, a useful biological control agent of L. trifolii and L. bryoniae, cannot control L. sativae.
Insider Trading and Financing Constraints

Insider trading may alleviate financing constraints by conveying value-relevant information to the market (the information effect) or may exacerbate financing constraints by impairing market liquidity and distorting insiders’ incentives to disclose value-relevant information (the confidence effect). We examine the significance of these two contrasting effects by investigating the link between insider trading and financing constraints as measured by the investment-cash flow sensitivity. We find that, overall insider trading exacerbates financing constraints; however the information effect dominates the confidence effect for insider purchases. Only trades by executive directors are significantly related to financing constraints.
The development of inclusive learning relationships in mainstream settings: A multimodal perspective

Abstract The debate regarding the inclusion of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in mainstream education in the UK partly revolves around what makes the classroom environment inclusive. Through the potential offered by the specific qualitative methodologies employed, this study aimed to explore the development of teachers’ pedagogical practices and learning relationships upon the inclusive education of children with special educational needs and disabilities in two primary school classes. The study considered the views and behaviours of primary school pupils with and without special educational needs, primary school teachers and teaching assistants (TAs) in one mainstream school. Drawing on a multimodal approach to discourse analysis to account for the complex relationships between symbolic and non-verbal modes of classroom signification, the study explored how meaning is produced in classrooms and children’s modes of communication, as well as in teachers’ practices. The two classes are compared on the basis of teaching observations, interviews, transcripts of dialogues, and analyses of classroom organisation and decoration. This paper suggests that the greatest influence on the educational and social outcomes of students with special educational needs is the behaviour and practices of the classroom teacher.