Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DESIGN VERIFICATION OF AN EXISTING 8-STOREY IRREGULAR STEEL BUILDING BY 3-D DYNAMIC AND PUSHOVER ANALYSES

Regarding that several buildings, specially irregular ones, which have been designed by using recent seismic design codes, have shown some vulnerability against earthquakes it can be said that there is still a need for modification of some of the seismic design codes for building systems. In this paper an irregular 8-story steel building, designed based on the Iranian National Seismic Standard, has been considered to verify its existing design by performing three-dimensional linear dynamic and nonlinear pushover analyses. Time History Analyses (THA) have been performed by applying the accelerograms of some local earthquakes in different configurations such as: only the principal horizontal component in that direction which leads to higher response values; the principal horizontal component in either of the principal directions and 30% of its values in the other direction, simultaneously. Pushover Analyses have been performed by using NISA-II program, which can consider both material and geometric nonlinearities. In this case the applied forces have been considered as the lateral forces of the Seismic Standard, without the effect of the response modification factor, multiplied by a coefficient of 1.7, suggested by most of well-known codes. All of nine loading categories recommended by design codes for steel building have been considered for analysis. Response quantities considered for comparison of the results include the displacements in different levels of the building, shear and axial forces and also bending moments in some corner, side, and middle columns and some bracing elements, and finally the stresses in the critical members. Numerical results show that in the case of multi-component excitations the response values can be much higher than those resulted by code recommended loadings. Furthermore, the nonlinear behavior of this building is very different from that assumed in the Code Seismic Analysis. This difference is more remarkable for the corner columns.
Preparation and properties of fish cracker from different freshwater fish species

Fish crackers made from freshwater fishes is a new dimension in fish cracker industry. In this study, three species were chosen based on their general preference and acceptability by Malaysian. Together with other ingredients, these crackers were prepared using standard formulation and tested in laboratory for their proximate analysis and physical characteristic analysis includes linear expansion, oil absorption, color measurement and texture. Sensory analysis for overall acceptability was carried out among trained panelist in the school. The results for proximate composition and physical analysis showed that there were significant differences (p<0.05) between different species of fish crackers. There were also significant differences (p<0.05) between fish crackers of fried and un-fried crackers in terms of its proximate contents and physical appearance. It can be said that the high value of linear expansion increases the absorption of oil by crackers but decreasing their hardness properties. From the sensory evaluation results, the overall acceptability was the Bighead carp fish crackers.
Gamma radiosensitivity study on MRQ 74 and MR 269 , two elite varieties of rice ( Oryza Sativa L . )

Gamma ray, a mutagen used in crop and ornamental plant breeding, is expected to induce novel mutations. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of different doses of gamma-ray (Caesium-137) irradiation on the germination rate, plant height, and appropriate dose for causing boom in two varieties of local rice, namely, MRQ74 and MR269. Dry MRQ74 and MR269 seeds were irradiated at 0, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, and 700 Gy. Hydroponic germination under controlled conditions followed. The germination rate and the height of the plantlets were investigated as morphological responses. Consequently, compared with the control samples, the plantlets that were given low doses (0 and 100 Gy) showed an increase in height, whereas those given doses ranging from 200 to 500 Gy showed a reduction in germination rate and height. At doses exceeding 500 Gy, physiological damage on the seedling height became severe and none of the varieties survived. Doses between 340 and 360 Gy caused a 40% reduction in seedling height in MR269 and MRQ74. Doses between 351 and 365 Gy caused a LD50 dose in MR269 and MRQ74, respectively. [Ahsan A. Kadhimi; Arshad Naji ALhasnawi; Anizan Isahak; Mehdi Farshad Ashraf; Azhar Mohamad;Wan Mohtar Wan Yusoff AND Che Radziah Che Mohd Zain. Gamma radiosensitivity study on MRQ74 and MR269, two elite varieties of rice (Oryza Sativa L.). Life Sci J 2016;13(2):85-91]. ISSN: 1097-8135 (Print) / ISSN: 2372-613X (Online). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 14. doi:10.7537/marslsj13021614.
Termiticide Performance Against Formosan Subterranean Termites ( Isoptera : Rhinotermitidae ) * by

Fourteen Mississippi soils representing a range of soil properties were treated with bifenthrin, chlorfenapyr, or fipronil at two rates of each ter­ miticide. Treated soils were placed in well-drained containers, then watered. Two weeks post-treatment, core samples were removed, divided into three 5-cm sections, and evaluated in constant exposure assays for efficacy against the Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermesformosanus Shiraki. Bifen­ thrin treatments had the highest overall mortality, followed by fipronil, then chlorfenapyr treatments after 24 and 48h exposure. After 24h, untreated controls and all termiticide treatments had highest mortality in low clay soils. In 0.06% bifenthrin treatments, mortality was highest at low pH. At both rates ofchlorfenapyr and Iipronil, there were interactions between clay and pH. When differences among soils occurred, mortality was highest at low pH. After 48h exposure, all treatments had highest mortality on low clay soils. In 0.06% bifenthrin, 0.125% chlorfenapyr, and 0.25% chlorfenapyr treatments, mortality was highest on low pH soils. Clay-pH interactions oc­ curred at both fipronil rates, with higher mortality at low pH occurring only among medium clay soils. Effects oforganic carbon could not be interpreted independently of clay and pH effects because not all combinations of soil properties were available for testing. Within a treatment, termite mortality did not differ with section of the core sample (top, center, or bottom) after
DISTRIBUTION AUTOMATION SOLUTIONS – IMPACT ON SYSTEM AVAILABILITY IN DISTRIBUTION NETWO RKS

With customers and also regulators increasing their focus on supply reliability in electricity supply, this i mportant aspect of power quality is coming more and more int o focus of system operators – especially in distribution ne tworks. In this context, cost-effective measures and concepts to improve supply reliability are becoming a key facto r f r economic system operation. A basic prerequisite for the planning and implementation of such measures and concepts is a thorough understanding of the correla tions between the various factors influencing a system’s supply reliability performance. This paper presents the results of a related study analyzing the impact of different intelligent automation solu tions on the reliability performance of different medium vol tage distribution networks. The respective system topolo gies are modeled and the resulting system reliability perfor mance is determined by probabilistic reliability calculation s, delivering e.g. the SAIDI and SAIFI values. The res ults show that the distribution automation solutions can h ve a very significant impact on both the SAIDI and SAIFI performance of the systems – typically even if only a small share of ring main units is automated.
DEER-VEHICLE COLLISIONS IN LUBELSKIE REGION IN POLAND . SAFETY COEFFICIENTS

In the investigations, the number of collisions with red deer (Cervus elaphus Linnaeus, 1758), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus Linnaeus, 1758), and elks (Alces alces Linnaeus, 1758) registered on the roads of 18 districts of the Lubelskie region in Poland in 2011-2013 was analysed. The relationships between the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions and the abundance of the analysed animal species, forestation, road density, and the number of registered vehicles in the districts were examined. The trend towards changes in these factors was analysed and safety coefficients, i.e. the number of accidents per 1000 vehicles, the number of accidents per 1-km 2 area, the number of accidents per 1000 animals, accident density, and animal density per 1-km 2 area, were calculated. 1073 wildlife-vehicle collisions were recorded in the analysed period (2011-2013). Over half of the traffic incidents, i.e. 66%, were collisions with roe deer, collisions with red deer represented 27%, and accidents with elks accounted for 7%. The distribution of the wildlife-vehicle collisions was not uniform across the Lubelskie region. The greatest numbers were noted in Puławy (161), Lubartów (132), and Biała Podlaska (107) Districts, which was probably related to the substantial increase in the abundance of the analysed animal species and in the number of registered vehicles. The lowest number of incidents was noted in Janów (14), Opole (14), and Łęczna (18) Districts.
THE EFFECTS OF POWERSOURCE INTERVENTION ON STUDENT UNDERSTANDING OF BASIC MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES

This report describes results from field-testing of POWERSOURCE formative assessment alongside professional development and instructional resources. The researchers at the National Center for Research, on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing (CRESST) employed a randomized, controlled design to address the following question: Does the use of POWERSOURCE strategies improve 6th-grade student performance on assessments of the key mathematical ideas relative to the performance of a comparison group? Sixth-grade teachers were recruited from 7 districts and 25 middle schools. A total of 49 POWERSOURCE and 36 comparison group teachers and their students (2,338 POWERSOURCE, 1,753 comparison group students) were included in the study analyses. All students took a pretest of prerequisite knowledge and a transfer measure of tasks drawn from international tests at the end of the study year. Students in the POWERSOURCE group used sets of formative assessment tasks. POWERSOURCE teachers had exposure to professional development and instructional resources. Results indicated that students with higher pretest scores tended to benefit more from the treatment as compared to students with lower pretest scores. In addition, students in the POWERSOURCE group significantly outperformed control group students on distributive property items and the effect was larger as pretest scores increased. Results, limitations and future directions are discussed.
IMPACT OF LEAN MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ON ORGANIZATIONAL OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE IN INDIA A STUDY

Lean management system is not a new term, it is a very old term but popularized in recent times. It is a systematic approach that focuses on identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement and flows in the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection. The research intends to build up the accord between various operational change techniques, to address the connection between the operational attributes (lean) and operational performance of the association. Variables from which the extraction of the outcomes has been established include operational performance, daily schedule adherence, repeat production and flow oriented layout. The positive association is being established amongst the operational performance and the daily schedule adherence, flow oriented layout and the repeat production. It is suggested to the supply chain management that they must entail their production team for having repetition in their work and become efficient in their production. They must be reached to their optimization level, where they have to extract less waste and have high level of the production.
Communities in Social Networks : A Case Study of Brazilian

Online social networks are groups of actors formed by computer-mediated social interaction. These interactions are capable of establishing new forms of groups and communities. Based on a discussion over several concepts of community and virtual community we propose the virtual community as a specific form of online social network. This theoretical debate is brought to the field studying the system named Fotolog during 2005 and 2006. Fotolog (www.fotolog.com) is a web service that allows for its users to post photographs or images with an associated text and other users may comment on each other’s posts. From the collected data, we propose a typology for communities found in these networks, based on their structure (network) and composition (social ties and social capital). We define three types of communities as associative virtual communities, emergent virtual communities and hybrid virtual communities. We further discuss this proposal according to our theoretical review, pointing out weaknesses and limitations of the study. We finish the paper with our major points in the study and some suggestions for future works.
A Comparative Study between Traditional Mineral Nutrition and Alternative Sources on Anise Plant

The effect of different alternative fertilizer sources in comparison with the traditional mineral nutrition on growth characters, yield components and oil content of Pimpinella anisum L. plant was investigated. The alternative sources used in this study were cattle manure (CM), phosphorein, and Halex-2. Combination among these sources or with 1/2 recommended dose of NPK chemical fertilizers were also studied. All treatments applied significantly promoted the growth, fruit yield and volatile oil content compared to the untreated control. The GC-MS results showed that the main components of volatile oil were anethole and carvone. The chemical analysis of anise leaves indicate that the total chlorophyll and carotenoids content, total carbohydrates percentage in leaves and fruits and N, P and K percentages were significantly improves as a result of applying any fertilization treatment compared to the control. The nitrate and nitrite of anise fruits were significantly reduced as a result of using any alternative fertilizer treatment however; the RD treatment recorded the highest values in this respect. The combination treatments among alternative sources or combined with 1/2 recommended dose of NPK chemical fertilizers were more effective than separate application. In order to obtain high quality of anise fruits and volatile oil, decrease the production cost, protect the environment from pollution and save the chemical fertilizers, the treatment of using Halex-2 plus phosphorein or at least adding 1⁄2 RD to Halex-2 or phosphorein bio-fertilizers was recommended. These treatments came in the second rank after the RD of chemical fertilizer and without significant difference in most cases.
AMYLASE ACTIVITY OF BACILLUS AMYLOLIQUEFACIENS AND ASPERGILLUS NIGER FROM AGRO INDUSTRIAL WASTES BY SOLID STATE FERMENTATION

The solid state fermentation (SSF) has been reputable as a superior technique for the enzyme production. The present study targeted on the amylase production from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and Aspergillus niger by using different agro industrial waste like sago waste, rice bran and wheat bran as substrate with the use of SSF techniques and tested for its activity. The effect of different parameters such as time, pH and temperature were also tested. B. amyloliquefaciens and A. niger was identified as the best producers of amylase at pH 7 and maximum production was in rice bran and wheat bran. Substrates tested for amylase production could be effectively exploited in the future production of various commercial products.
A simple transfer-learning extension of Hyperband

Hyperband [1] has become a popular method to tune the hyperparameters (HPs) of expensive machine learning models, whose performance depends on the amount of resources allocated for training. While Hyperband is conceptually simple, combining random search to a successive halving technique to reallocate resources to the most promising HPs, it often outperforms standard Bayesian optimization when solutions with moderate precision are sufﬁcient. In this paper, we propose a model-based extension of Hyperband, replacing the uniform random sampling of HP candidates by an adaptive non-uniform sampling procedure. We show that our extension not only improves the precision resolution of Hyperband but also supports transfer learning, both, within a Hyperband run and across previous HP tuning tasks. We apply the method to the problem of tuning the learning rate when solving linear regression problems and to the optimization of the HPs of XGBoost binary classiﬁers across different datasets, showing that we favorably compare with recently proposed extensions of Hyperband.
An Audit of Neonates Admitted to the Paediatric General Ward in a Tertiary Hospital, in South Africa

South Africa is one of the countries in which neonatal mortality has remained the same or decreased slowly over the past 20 years. Many newborns are discharged after birth and readmitted within a few days. The Integrated management of childhood and neonate illness (IMCNI) guidelines uses seven danger signs to identify sick young infants. Aim: The aim of the study was to determine the profile and outcome of neonates admitted to the general paediatric wards at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH). Methodology:Audit of all newborns (<28days) admitted to the general wards from 1 January 2011 to 30 April 2011. Results: A total of 75 neonates were admitted with a mean weight of 3.2 kg (SD 0.65). The majority of neonates 41/75 (54.6%) were male and 21/75 (28%) were Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-exposed. In the HIV-exposed group only 16/21 (76%) were on HIV prophylaxis. The most important clinical signs were tachypnoea (RR>60) 34 (46.6%) and jaundice 30 (41.1%). Most neonates, 45 (61%) were referred from the local clinic. The most common diagnoses were bronchopneumonia (BRPN) 22 (29.3%), neonatal sepsis (NNS) 27 (36%) and jaundice 20 (26.7%). Two patients died (2.7%) from NNS and BRPN. Conclusions: A proportion of the neonates are admitted from home to the general paediatric ward with mostly NNS, BRPN and jaundice. Although the mortality is low, admission to a neonatal ward may be more appropriate. IMCNI guidelines remain the most sensitive indicator of the need for admission, and “routine” investigations are often a non-contributor.
Biodiversity , species interactions , and functional roles of ants ( Hymenoptera : Formicidae ) in fragmented landscapes : a review . – Myrmecological News

Ants play a central role in understanding the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on communities and ecosystems because of their diversity, abundance, and functional roles in ecosystems. Species interactions involving ants are widespread and include other insects, plants, and vertebrates. Ants often do not show strong relationships between species richness and habitat area, but shifts in ant species composition are a more general pattern with an average 75% turnover in species composition among habitat fragments. Shifts in ant species composition and relative abundance due to habitat fragmentation have direct and indirect effects on species interactions of ants, including sap-feeding insects, seed dispersal, and vertebrate mutualisms. The loss of some ant species from small habitat fragments may have widespread effects in ecosystems because of their function roles as keystone mutualists or in soil modification. Boundary dynamics of ants across habitat edges and the surrounding land uses are particularly important to understanding the effects of habitat fragmentation because steep abiotic and biotic gradients may facilitate invasive ant species and cause sharp changes in the abundance and species interactions of native ant species.
Zagreb Indices of Bridge and Chain Graphs

We show how the first and second Zagreb indices of bridge and chain graphs are determined from the respective indices of the component graphs. The special cases when the bridge and chain graphs are built from copies of the same component are also elaborated. Using these results, the Zagreb indices of some classes of chemical graphs and nanostructures are computed.
PATTERNS OF FISH DIVERSITY IN THE RUPUNUNI SAVANNAHS , GUIANA SHIELD

The Rupununi Savannahs in south-western Guyana, (South America) contain an extremely rich and complex fish fauna. The area represents a possible connection point for fishes of the Amazon and Guiana Shield drainage systems, enabled by seasonal flooding between rivers at the upper-course of these two systems. Fish were surveyed from five sites in the Rupununi Savannahs during April 2004. Data from two previous studies in the area (1964 and 2002), were used to examine possible changes in the fish fauna through space and time. The differences found between these studies indicate that the fish species composition has changed during the last 45 years. These changes include the overall increased diversity of the area, and a decrease in the number of fishes shared between drainages. The effects this may have on the rest of the Guiana Shield are considered; but at this time appear to have little influence outside of the Essequibo drainage. The fish composition of the Guiana Shield appears to be mainly characterised by the morphological history of South-American rivers. Seasonal changes within the Rupununi Savannahs are also observed and thought to be primarily due to fish migration patterns. 1 22 Woodsland Road, Hassocks, W.Sussex, BN6 8HG, UK. E-mail: jake.bicknell@googlemail.com Patterns of Fish Diversity: Jake Bicknell Rupununi Savannahs
ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE-FIRM PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIP

In the matter of corporate governance reforms, an important aspect is whether the implementation of corporate governance principles and codes has a posi tive impact on firm performance. The literature testing the relationship between different corporate governance mechanisms and firm performance is extensive. Over time, a lot of corporate governances mechanisms were studied in relation to firm performance and the most used are: CEO duality, board size, proportion of nonexecutive directors, board committees, ownership structure and concentration, managers’ compensation and incentives schemes . With time, different authors began to use more comprehensive measures for corporate governance rather than a single variable or a single governance mechanism, the so called corporate governance indexes. Regarding performance there are three main approaches to firm performance in social science research: research based on market prices, accounting ratios and total factor profitability.The most used performance measures are: Tobin’s Q, return on equity, return on asset and economic value added. In our paper, we present the studies undertaken since the 1990 ’s regarding the relationship between different mechanisms of corporate governance and firm performance and between corporate governance index and performance for both developed and developing countries around the world. Regarding the working tools used in this theoretical research we can mention the longitudinal method, by presenting the evolution in time of empirical studies on the research topic and the comparative method used in presenting the resulys of different studies mentioned in our paper. The results of the studies are inconclusive, some studies founded a strog positive relation, others founded a negative correlation between corporate governance and firm performance, while a third category of studies didn’t found any relationship at all. We used participative observation method by issuing conclusions on the potential causes of the inconclusive results on the exis tence and nature of the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance.