Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
STATISTICAL MODELLING OF FDC AND RETURN PERIODS TO CHARACTERISE QDF AND DESIGN THRESHOLD OF HYDROLOGICAL EXTREMES

In this paper, firstly, flow duration curves (FDCs) for hydrological extremes were calibrated for a range of aggregation levels and seasons to provide compressed statistical information for water resources management at selected temporal scales and seasons. Secondly, instead of the common approach of using return periods, T (years) for deriving discharge duration frequency (QDF) relationships, the method of using exceedance frequencies, E (%) was introduced so as to provide answer to important question like, what is the streamflow at a given aggregation level and selected E (%)? Thirdly, the concept of estimated design threshold (EDT) was introduced and proposed for consideration in the risk analysis for design of water resources structures. This study was based on the long daily discharge record for the period 1950 - 2008 at station 1EF01 in Kenya, on the Nzoia river with watershed area of 12,676 km² located in the North Eastern quadrant of Lake Victoria Nile Sub Basin. In the statistical modelling of FDCs and T (years), suitable extreme value distributions (EVD) were selected and calibrated to fit nearly independent high flows and low flows. The FDCs and T-curves were used to determine the EDT. The FDCs were used to model the QDF relationships. To derive QDF relationships of hydrological extremes, for a given range of aggregation levels, extreme value analysis (EVA) was carried out and suitable EVD selected. Next was the calibration of parameters of the EVD and analysis of relationship between the model parameters and aggregation levels. Finally, smooth mathematical relationships were derived using little but acceptable modifications to the model parameters. Such constructed QDF relationships can be used for various applications to estimate cumulative volumes of water available during droughts or floods at various aggregation levels or E (%) of hydrological extremes. The EDT when obtained for a range of aggregation levels can also be used to understand climate variability, and the modeled FDCs can be useful in enhancing forecasts of hydrologic variables under climate variability and/or change.
Combining Monetary and Fiscal Policy in an SVAR for a Small Open Economy

This paper combines a monetary structural vector-autoregression (SVAR) with a fiscal SVAR for Poland. Fiscal foresight, in the form of implementation lags, is accounted for with respect to both discretionary government spending and tax changes. We demonstrate the importance of combining monetary and fiscal transmission mechanisms. However, ignoring fiscal foresight has no statistically significant effects. We calculate an initial government spending multiplier of 0.14, which later peaks at 0.48. The tax multiplier is close to zero. We also find that monetary policy in Poland transmits mainly through the real sector, that is through real GDP and the real exchange rate.
Evaluation of Teacher's Knowledge with Anthropological Theory of the Didactic Approach: A Case Study

This study aims to determine the content of the teaching of reproduction in living things within the didactic system for 6th class pupils in primary education by focusing on “teacher and knowledge”. In this study which is a case study, study group consists of two teachers who work at the same school but have different degree education and experience. Observation and interview have been used from data sources which have an important role in case studies. At the result of study, it has been found that the effect of HSE exam (The High School Entrance Examination) on teachers who work at a school where HSE exam scores are higher is bigger than that of curriculum at the constituting the content of teaching regarding reproduction in living things. The teacher’s bachelor of degrees and the duration of their experience have not created a difference in teaching style and choice, it could be said that the constitutional effect of school is much more decisive.
The anxiety-proficiency relationship and the stability of anxiety: The case of Chinese university learners of English and Japanese

Adopting a longitudinal design, this study investigates the effects of foreign language anxiety on foreign language proficiency over time within English and Japanese learning contexts. It also explores the stability of anxiety in English and Japanese over time and the stability of anxiety across English and Japanese. Chinese university students (N=146), who were simultaneously learning Japanese and English, participated in this study. Data were collected twice over a 2-month interval, using the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, the English Proficiency Scale, and the Japanese Proficiency Scale. Results showed that anxiety changes had a significantly negative, but weak, correlation with the development of overall proficiency and the proficiency in sub- skills such as reading or speaking, for both English and Japanese, suggesting the interference of anxiety with proficiency levels. Anxiety in Japanese tended to decrease significantly over time, but no significant change was found for English. Furthermore, no significant difference between anxiety in Japanese and English was found at either testing time.
Farmer experience with perennial pastures in the mixed farming areas of southern New South Wales: on-farm participatory research investigating pasture establishment with cover-cropping

Abstract. In 2009, 95 farmers in the mixed farming zone of southern New South Wales (NSW), average annual rainfall 450–700 mm, were surveyed about their use of perennial pasture species. Survey responses indicated that, on average, 52% of land was under crop, 29% contained perennial pasture and 19% annual pastures. The proportion of land sown to perennial pastures and the species used differed with rainfall. Farmers identified concerns about the cost of establishment and poor survival of perennial pasture species as constraints to wider adoption. The survey also revealed that cover-cropping (sowing pasture species under the final grain crop in a cropping phase) was the dominant method of pasture establishment. Large-scale, on-farm participatory experiments were sown with the farm machinery, three at Ariah Park and one at Brocklesby in southern NSW in 2009 (annual rainfall 100 mm less than long-term average), and a further two experiments (one at each location) commenced in 2010 (annual rainfall >200 mm above average). These experiments compared the effect of cereal cover-crop sowing rate (standard rates used by the collaborating farmer and half of the standard rate) on the establishment of the perennials lucerne (Medicago sativa), phalaris (Phalaris aquatica), cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata), and chicory (Cichorium intybus) sown in different mixes and rates with various annual legume species. The persistence and productivity of individual species were monitored for 2 years after sowing. Results indicated little or no effect of the presence of a cover-crop on the initial establishment of any of the perennials, but pasture species survival were severely affected by cover-crop sowing rates as low as half of the farmer practice (10 kg barley or 12 kg wheat ha–1) in 2009. Despite higher than average annual rainfall in 2010 and 2011, the residual effect of establishing pastures under a cover-crop in 2009 was poorer persistence and lower productivity by lucerne at the standard cover-cropping rate, and by phalaris, cocksfoot and chicory at all cover-crop rates, and an increased incidence of weeds. Similar responses to cover-cropping occurred between 2010 and 2012, even with the wetter establishment conditions in 2010, for phalaris, chicory and weeds, despite demonstration at Ariah Park that higher populations of individual perennial species could be achieved by doubling the sowing rate of pasture seed in 2010. Lucerne compensated for lower plant numbers by increasing herbage growth in response to rainfall, but phalaris could not and total pasture productivity over the first 2 years after establishment was greatly reduced by the use of cover-crops in both 2009 and 2010. Cover-cropping also reduced annual legume seedset, which could have implications for future pasture performance. Lucerne was the most consistently productive perennial pasture species evaluated regardless of establishment technique or climatic conditions.
Mechanical Properties of a Ti-Nb-Al Shape Memory Alloy

Ni-free Ti-base shape memory alloys (SMA) have been systematically developed by our group for biomedical applications in order to replace Ti-Ni SMAs which posses the possibility of Ni-hypersensitivity. In this study, superelastic behavior of solution-treated Ti-24 mol%Nb-3 mol%Al alloy was investigated by means of tensile tests at room temperature (RT) as well as microstructural observation. The alloy was fabricated by Ar arc-melting followed by a homogenization at 1273 K and then cold-rolled with the reduction of 99% in thickness without intermediate annealing. The cold-rolled sheets were solution treated at 1273 K for 1.8 ks in vacuum. Then, cyclic loading-unloading tensile tests were performed at RT. In the tensile tests, the tensile direction was systematically changed from rolling direction (RD) to transverse direction (TD) in the plane of the cold-rolled sheets. It was found by the tensile tests that the superelastic behavior strongly depends on the tensile direction and the number of deformation cycles. The solution-treated alloy after 99% cold rolling exhibits the best superelasticity when loaded along RD. The nature of the anisotropy in the superelastic behavior is discussed related with the texture developed during the fabrication process. It is concluded that the thermo-mechanical treatment performed in this study is quite useful as a superelastic treatment for the Ti-base SMAs, and that this alloy should be used industrially by taking into account such anisotropy of superelasticity.
Indigenous Chicken Production System and Breeding Practice in Southern Tigray, North Ethiopia

Village chicken production plays crucial role in improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers. A study was conducted in southern Tigray, North Ethiopia with the aim to generate data on indigenous chicken production system and breeding practice. The generated data could be potentially used in the chicken selection, improvement program and strategy under typical farmers’ management condition. To address the study objective, semi-structured questionnaires, participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and field observations were employed. A multi-stage sampling procedure was employed to select study sites and respondents. First the study area was stratified into three agroecological zones (highland, midland and lowland) based on altitude. About 180 chicken producers (60 from each agro-ecology) were involved in the individual household survey. Descriptive statistics and General Linear Model (GLM) of SPSS version 20 (2011) were used to analyze the data. It was found that the indigenous chicken production system is characterized with backyard scavenging (100%) with seasonal supplementation of feed (100%). The average chicken holding per households was 24.31 ± 1.21 with 57% exotic, 37% local and 6% crossbred. Farmers rank body weight, conformation, plumage color and comb type as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, respectively as trait for chicken selection. Newcastle disease (Locally called fengil) is the most important disease in the areas. Farmers dominantly use traditional medications (ethno-veterinary treatment) to address the diseases problem. Access to health extension service is very limited. The local chickens are valued for majority of important adaptive and economically important traits. The trend in introducing, dissemination and crossbreeding activities are increasing form to time. Awareness should be created on chicken production and management, immunization programs, risk and preventive measures on exposure of chickens to disease and predators as well as breeding practice.
Floquet spin and spin-orbital Hamiltonians and doublon-holon generations in periodically driven Mott insulators

We consider Mott insulators driven by periodic coherent laser radiation, using both single orbital and multi-orbital models, noting that the latter is of more interest in solid state systems. We derive general expressions for the resulting periodically driven spin models and spin-orbital models using time-dependent perturbation theory. First, we show that the effective exchange interactions of the Floquet Hamiltonians are highly tunable by the frequency, amplitude, and polarization of the laser. Second, we take the effect of finite bandwidth of excitations into account and study possible heating effects. Using the same formalism with a slight modification we also consider the small frequency regime and study the dielectric breakdown of Mott insulators.
Good Girls Go to the Polling Booth, Bad Boys Go Everywhere

Abstract Participation research routinely reveals a gender gap with regard to most forms of political engagement. In the recent literature, differences in the availability of resources and civic skills are usually invoked as an explanation for this pattern. This theory focuses primarily on adult behavior and has not as yet been investigated among young people, for whom we can assume that resources are distributed more equally. In this article, we examine gender differences in the anticipation of political participation among American fourteen-year-olds, building on the 1999 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement study (n = 2,811). First, the results show that girls at this age mention even more actions they intend to engage in than do boys, so clearly the gender gap with regard to the level of participation has not yet emerged at that age. Second, we observe distinct patterns with regard to the kinds of actions favored, with girls being drawn more towards social movement-related forms of participation than boys, and with boys favoring radical and confrontational action repertoires as compared to girls. The results are important for the reconceptualization of the concept of political participation as well as for theories that explain the gender gap.
Preservice Turkish Teachers' Views and Perceived Competence Related to Inclusive Education.

The focus of this study was to examine the influence of special education course on preservice teachers' views of inclusive education. “Scale for view of inclusive education” was applied to 68 pre-service teachers and based on the pre and post-test scores, ten pre-service teachers were selected for identifying their views and perceived competences related to inclusive education. Case study design was used in the study and collected data analyzed by using content analysis. The findings indicated that preservice teachers presented both positive and negative views related to inclusive education while the present inclusive education practices they observed and the fear of unfavorable impact on regular students formed the reasons for negative view of inclusion. The results showed that lack of training in and experience with special needs students caused preservice teachers to illustrate low level perceived competences while experience with students with special needs resulted in high level perceived competences.
Ahmeid M, Armstrong M, Gadoue S, Algreer M, Missailidis P. Real- Time Parameter Estimation of DC-DC Converters using a Self-tuned Kalman Filter. IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics 2016

To achieve high performance control of modern DC-DC converters, using direct digital design techniques, an accurate discrete model of the converter is necessary. In this paper, a new parametric system identification method, based on a Kalman filter (KF) approach is introduced to estimate the discrete model of a synchronous DC-DC buck converter. To improve the tracking performance of the proposed KF, an adaptive tuning technique is proposed. Unlike many other published schemes, this approach offers the unique advantage of updating the parameter vector coefficients at different rates. The proposed KF estimation technique is experimentally verified using a Texas Instruments TMS320F28335 microcontroller platform and synchronous step down DC-DC converter. Results demonstrate a robust and reliable real-time estimator. The proposed method can accurately identify the discrete coefficients of the DC-DC converter. This paper also validates the performance of the identification algorithm with time varying parameters; such as an abrupt load change. The proposed method demonstrates robust estimation with and without an excitation signal, which makes it very well suited for real-time power electronic control applications. Furthermore, the estimator convergence time is significantly shorter compared to many other schemes, such as the classical Exponentially weighted Recursive Least Square (ERLS) method. Index Terms — DC-DC converter, Kalman Filter, Parameters Estimation, RLS method, System Identification.
Paradigms of choice in manufacturing strategy: Exploring performance relationships of fit, best practices, and capability‐based approaches

Purpose – The paper sets out to test relationships between performance improvements and the three classical manufacturing strategy paradigms of fit, best practices, and capabilities defined by Voss.Design/methodology/approach – Regression analyses are carried out on an international sample of 697 manufacturers of fabricated metal products, machinery, and equipment.Findings – The results indicate that capability learning and best practices are positively related to performance improvements in quality, flexibility, and dependability, whereas internal fit appears to be negatively related to flexibility improvements.Research limitations/implications – The study reinforces the need for research to explore the nature and role of the three paradigms jointly rather than in isolation. In particular, more research is needed to assess the merits of maintaining fit between operations structure and processes.Practical implications – Improving performance in areas such as quality, flexibility, and delivery can be achie.
WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS? EXAMINING A MODEL OF ANTECEDENTS OF CAREER EXPECTATIONS

Objetivo: avaliar se percepcoes de politicas/praticas de recursos humanos (RH), bem-estar no trabalho e expectativas de futuro organizacional atuam como antecedentes de expectativas de carreira na organizacao. Originalidade/Lacuna/Relevância/Implicacoes: a questao “Como sera meu futuro nesta organizacao? ” e parte relevante da vida laboral, sendo importante avaliar que variaveis influenciam as expectativas dos individuos sobre seu futuro profissional. Baseado em contribuicoes teoricas e pesquisas pregressas sobre carreira, bem-estar e RH, o modelo testado articula variaveis analisadas isoladamente pela literatura. Principais aspectos metodologicos: nessa pesquisa quantitativa, 305 profissionais de uma autarquia federal responderam a um questionario eletronico com escalas validadas no Brasil. Os dados foram analisados por modelos de equacoes estruturais. Sintese dos principais resultados: o s efeitos de bem-estar no trabalho e de expectativas de futuro organizacional nas expectativas de carreira foram positivos e de magnitude moderada, no primeiro caso, e forte, no segundo. O efeito de percepcoes de politicas/praticas de RH nas expectativas de carreira foi totalmente mediado por bem-estar no trabalho e expectativas de futuro organizacional. Principais consideracoes/conclusoes: os resultados suportaram relacoes concebidas teoricamente ou detectadas em pesquisas qualitativas anteriores. Em termos praticos, os dados sugerem que o aprimoramento de politicas/praticas de RH pode incrementar o bem-estar no trabalho e as expectativas de futuro organizacional e, por fim, estimular expectativas de carreira na organizacao favoraveis. Como a pesquisa foi limitada a uma organizacao, investigacoes futuras devem examinar o modelo em outras organizacoes.
ISLAMIC BANKING EXPANSION AND DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS IMPORTANCE: A REVIEW BASE STUDY

Islamic banking which is the central point of Islamic financing attempt to increase the usage of its services. Basic rules of Islamic banking are attempt to provide welfare for the society. It would be important for Islamic banks to identify their clients based on their demographic belonging segmentation. This study is an attempt to offer a new insight to Islamic banking services customers’ demographic segmentation to enhance expansion of Islamic banking services usage. This study provide detailed information for Islamic banks to offer their services in better manner based on its end user characteristics.
The Validity of the Reynolds Equation in Modeling Hydrostatic Effects in Gas Lubricated Textured Parallel Surfaces

Microdimples generated by laser surface texturing (LST) can be used to enhance performance in hydrostatic gas-lubricated tribological components with parallel surfaces. The pressure distribution and load carrying capacity for a single three-dimensional dimple, representing the LST, were obtained via two different methods of analysis: a numerical solution of the exact full Navier-Stokes equations, and an approximate solution of the much simpler Reynolds equation. Comparison between the two solution methods illustrates that, despite potential large differences in local pressures, the differences in load carrying capacity, for realistic geometrical and physical parameters, are small. Even at large clearances of 5% of the dimple diameter and pressure ratios of 2.5 the error in the load carrying capacity is only about 15%. Thus, for a wide range of practical clearances and pressures, the -Simpler approximate Reynolds equation can safely be applied to yield reasonable predictions for the load carrying capacity of dimpled surfaces.
Domain decomposition vs. overset Chimera grid approaches for coupling CFD and CAA

This study is a sequel of previous studies done by the authors on coupling CFD and CAA ((1) - (2)). In this paper is recalled the Discontinuous Galerkin method used with the coupling techniques and some new developments are presented. Results are presented for 2D laminar configurations such as a subsonic flow around a cylinder and a mixing layer.
Reducing electromagnetic interferences in flyback AC-DC converters based on the frequency modulation technique

One of the most preferable types of switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) is the flyback converter, due to its wide range of application areas. Properties such as low cost, provision of multiple output voltage terminals, and higher efficiencies make it important, and hence its usage in technologies including cell phone chargers, personal computers, set-top boxes, and televisions is increasing. Special attention should be paid to the design of this type of converter due to its working principles and electromagnetic interference (EMI) performance. Rapid switching of high current and high voltage during the operation of SMPS causes an EMI problem. The level of the EMI noise should be reduced in order to not interfere with the operation of other equipment. One of the methods for mitigating EMI emissions is the frequency modulation (FM) technique. In this paper, the FM technique, which has been increasingly used as an EMI-reduction method in SMPS, is investigated. The modulation technique that was applied to the switching frequency of the flyback converter is analyzed and its effect on the EMI performance is discussed. The FM technique was tested on an AC-DC flyback converter prototype that was built with an L6566B integrated circuit. Conducted emission noises from the SMPS were measured using an EMI receiver. Experimental results showed that EMI levels were reduced after the application of the FM method.