Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ecophysiology of seed germination in Digitaria insularis ((L.) Fedde)

The invasive behaviour of sourgrass (Digitaria insularis) in cultivated areas is due to its strategy of aggressive regeneration, which is based on seed germination. Knowledge of the physiological ecology of this species can contribute to the development of management and control strategies. The aim of this research was to understand the effects of provenance, temperature and light on the germination of sourgrass seeds collected in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo in the cities of Americana, Botucatu and Sao Jose do Rio Preto and in the state of Parana in the city of Sao Miguel do Iguacu. The seeds were left to germinate at temperatures of 15, 25, 35 and 45 °C, both with and without light. The number of normal seedlings was recorded daily from seven to 60 days. After this period, the seeds together with substrate, were transferred to 25 oC with light, and a daily count was made for all treatments until the end of germination (75 days after sowing). The seeds of D. insularis are positively photoblastic. Seed germination in this species depends on provenance. A temperature of 4 5 °C for germination is lethal to the seeds. The temperature of 35 °C in the presence of light is the most favourable condition for seed germination.
Cognitive Distortion as Predictor of In-school Adolescents’ Depressive Symptoms and Academic Performance in South-South, Nigeria

The purpose of this study was to ascertain how cognitive distortion could predict in-school adolescents’ depressive symptoms and academic performance in the South-South Nigeria. The study adopted a correlation design with a sample of in-school adolescents who showed evidence of cognitive distortion (N=798). In-School Adolescents’ Cognitive Distortion Questionnaire (ISACDQ), In-School Adolescents’ Depression Inventory (ISADI) and Academic Performance Scale (APS) were used for data collection while linear regression statistics procedure was adopted to analyse the data. Results show that cognitive distortion predicts in-school adolescents’ depressive symptoms to a low degree while it predicts academic performance to a high degree. Based on the findings, conclusion, implication and limitations were drawn. Keywords: Cognitive Distortion, in-school Adolescents, Depressive Symptoms, Academic performance.
Modelling the Mechanical Response of Adobe Components under Uniaxial Loading

This paper presents a constitutive relationship to describe the uniaxial response in statics of brick and mortar samples of Adobe, a traditional masonry whose components are made of sundried soil mixture reinforced with fibres. Only recently Adobe has been attracting scientific attention, primarily as a consequence of the dramatic failures these structures have suffered in regions prone to earthquakes. Furthermore, it possesses eco-friendly material properties which are attractive features for western countries forced to reduce the environmental impact of modern building industry. Nevertheless, the mechanical properties of Adobe are still largely neglected, especially with regards to the influence of soil mixture components. The study of the structural performance of masonry starts from the assessment of the material performance of its components. Thus, an extensive characterization campaign was performed by Delft University of Technology and the Military Engineering Laboratory of the Netherlands. Three types of bricks and one type of mortar with different mixture components proportions, were subjected to granulometry, moisture content, density tests and uniaxial compressive and three point bending tests. Predictive formulations for compressive and tensile strength and deformation values have been proposed by the authors. These relations include the dependency of mixture components and moisture content. In this paper, constitutive laws are developed for Adobe in pure compression and tension validated by experimental results. In compression, the force-displacement curves were interpolated according to several existing constitutive laws and the model originally developed by Priestley for concrete masonry elements was finally selected as best fitting. Despite the differences in terms of mechanical parameters, the analytical assessment revealed that the experimental force-displacement graphs of all the different types of bricks could be interpolated using the same model with the same calibrating values. Furthermore, the uniaxial response in tension was derived according to an inverse approach. A numerical model recently developed by the authors and calibrated with respect to the compressive and bending tests was used to simulate uniaxial tensile tests. Also in tension, a common trend among types was observed. The results of the constitutive modelling frames components of Adobe within the class of quasi brittle (geo) materials, with particular reference to concrete. This paper presents the experimental results of the tested samples and the related analytical and numerical modelling.
The High Time Resolution Universe pulsar survey - X. Discovery of four millisecond pulsars and updated timing solutions of a further 12

We report on the discovery of four millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the High Time Resolution Universe (HTRU) pulsar survey being conducted at the Parkes 64-m radio telescope. All four MSPs are in binary systems and are likely to have white dwarf companions. In addition, we present updated timing solutions for 12 previously published HTRU MSPs, revealing new observational parameters such as five proper motion measurements and significant temporal dispersion measure variations in PSR J1017−7156. We discuss the case of PSR J1801−3210, which shows no significant period derivative (˙ P) after four years of timing data. Our best-fit solution shows a ˙ P of the order of 10 −23 , an extremely small number compared to that of a typical MSP. However, it is likely that the pulsar lies beyond the Galactic Centre, and an unremarkable intrinsic ˙ P is reduced to close to zero by the Galactic potential acceleration. Furthermore, we highlight the potential to employ PSR J1801−3210 in the strong equivalence principle test due to its wide and circular orbit. In a broader comparison with the known MSP population, we suggest a correlation between higher mass functions and the presence of eclipses in 'very low-mass binary pulsars', implying that eclipses are observed in systems with high orbital inclinations. We also suggest that the distribution of the total mass of binary systems is inversely-related to the Galactic height distribution. Finally, we report on the first detection of PSRs J1543−5149 and J1811−2404 as gamma-ray pulsars.
The Suitability and Efficacy of Perioperative Antibiotics in Relation with the Surgical Wound after Appendectomy

There is no research currently exist about the use of ceftriaxone as perioverative antibiotics for appendicitis patient in Haji General Hospital Surabaya, so its relationship with the surgical wound after appendectomy is remain unknown. This research is conducted to determine the suitability and efficacy of ceftriaxone, also to identify other factors that influence the surgical wound. This was a prospective cohort study of 25 patients (a ge ≥ 15 years old) between June – August 2015. The specimens culture demonstrated that 12 bacteria were E. coli, 1 ESBL- producing E. coli and 12 negative. Antibiotics susceptibility testing showed that 41,67% E. coli was susceptible to ceftriaxone. There was no significant relationship between suitability of postoperative antibiotics and surgical wound after appendectomy in non-perforated cases (p=0,505), while perforated case defined a significant relationship (p=0,011). The factors which significantly related with surgical wound were gender (p=0,014) and duration of surgery (p=0,017). Ceftriaxone was still effective as perioperative antibiotics. Postoperative antibiotics were only required for perforated appendicitis, whereas prophylactic antibiotic was known to be adequate in the case of non-perforated.
Food Safety Knowledge and Practice of Street Food Vendors in Rural Northern Ghana

Food safety amongst street food vendors is becoming a major public concern especially in urban areas of the developing world where this industry is expanding rapidly. There is rarely any information on street food safety issues in rural northern Ghana where this industry is equally growing rapidly. We therefore conducted this study to assess the knowledge level and evaluate food safety and hygiene practices amongst street food vendors in a rural district of northern Ghana. A cross sectional study was carried out in the Nadowli district where 200 street food vendors were randomly selected from of both densely and none densely populated areas of food vendors. Knowledge level amongst vendors concerning food safety practices was 100%. Although over 96% washed their hands after some major activities, about 13% of them did not use soap. The main storage forms of leftover foods were consumption by friends and family members (13%), reheating (13%) and refrigeration (11.5%). Water storage containers were also found to be used for other activities. 71% of the vendors had undergone medical screening despite a high knowledge level (100%) of its importance. Street food vendors in this rural northern setting generally have a high knowledge level on food safety issues but however do not translate this knowledge into practice.
Performance on the Road: Examining the Critical Role of Training Effectiveness Amongst the Blue-Collar Employees in Bahrain

The present study attempted to investigate the role or training effectiveness on the employee performance of blue-collar employees working in Bahrain Transportation sector. Therein, the study examined the effectiveness of five different training programs offered to large vehicle drivers serving in the transportation industry. A total of 135 bus drivers from Alsadiq transport company Bahrain were sampled for the study to outline the effectiveness of three major training programs that they were offered including Customer Handling & Passenger Safety, Health & Hygiene and Guide to traffic laws and driving in Bahrain on their driving performance. Structural equation modeling using smart PLS was used for the present study for data analysis and interpretation. The study found a significant relationship impact of two programs on their driving performance of the respondents. The study forwards theoretical and practical implications and scope for further studies.
A search for hypercompact H iiregions in the Galactic Plane

We have carried out the largest and most unbiased search for hypercompact (HC) HII regions. Our method combines four interferometric radio continuum surveys (THOR, CORNISH, MAGPIS and White2005) with far-infrared and sub-mm Galactic Plane surveys to identify embedded HII regions with positive spectral indices. 120 positive spectrum HII regions have been identified from a total sample of 534 positive spectral index radio sources. None of these HII regions, including the known HCHII regions recovered in our search, fulfills the canonical definition of an HCHII region at 5 GHz. We suggest that the current canonical definition of HCHII regions is not accurate and should be revised to include a hierarchical structure of ionized gas that results in an extended morphology at 5 GHz. Correlating our search with known ultracompact (UC) HII region surveys, we find that roughly half of detected UCHII regions have positive spectral indices, instead of more commonly assumed flat and optically thin spectra. This implies a mix of optically thin and thick emission and has important implications for previous analyses which have so far assumed optically thin emission for these objects. Positive spectrum HII regions are statistically more luminous and possess higher Lyman continuum fluxes than HII regions with flat or negative indices. Positive spectrum HII regions are thus more likely to be associated with more luminous and massive stars. No differences are found in clump mass, linear diameter or luminosity-to-mass ratio between positive spectrum and non-positive spectrum HII regions.
An Abrupt Shift in the Indian Monsoon 4000 Years Ago

Climates, Landsca Geophysical Mon © 2012. American 10.1029/2012GM The emergence of high-resolution proxy records from the Asian monsoon region suggests that the monsoon system is bistable and can abruptly transition between a suppressed and active state. This observation is critical in considering how the monsoon system may have influenced the development of societies across South and East Asia during the Holocene. Using a new high-resolution (~5 years/sample) speleothem stable isotope record from northeast India that spans the early and midHolocene, a number of abrupt changes in the oxygen isotopic composition of precipitation (δOp) are documented. The most dramatic of these events occurred ~4000 years ago when, over the course of approximately a decade, isotopic values abruptly rose above any seen during the early to mid-Holocene and remained at this anomalous state for almost two centuries. This event occurs nearly synchronously with climatic changes documented in a number of proxy records across North Africa, the Middle East, the Tibetan Plateau, southern Europe, and North America. We hypothesize that the excursion could represent a shift toward an earlier Indian Summer Monsoon withdrawal or a general decline in the total amount of monsoon precipitation. The new record provides a very significant advance with respect to age control and sample resolution of terrestrial climate change over South Asia during this period when a number of major societal changes occurred. While evidence of a causal relationship between climate and the reorganization of the Indus Valley and Old Kingdom Nile civilizations is beyond the scope of this study, the tight age constraints of the record show with a high degree of certainty that much of the documented deurbanization of the Indus Valley at 3.9 kyr B.P. occurred after multiple decades of a shift in the monsoon’s character but before the monsoon returned to its previous mid-Holocene state.
Palmprint biometric data acquisition: extracting a consistent Region of Interest (ROI) for method evaluation

Traditionally personal identification was based on possessions. This could be in the form of a physical key, ID card, passport, or some kind of knowledge based entry system such as a password. All of these are prone to attack where impersonation of your identity for some kind of immediate financial gain, or the more serious identity theft, is possible simply by being in physical possession of an identity device or knowledge of a password. In contrast biometric identification attempts to identify who you are. Iris or retina patterns, palmprint, fingerprint, face and voice recognition are well known examples of biometric attributes. Some biometrics such as fingerprints were established in the latter 19 century well before computers were commonplace. Others such as face, iris and voice recognition have emerged as computer technology and methodologies have developed. More recent research has also devoted attention to internal physiological biometrics based on brain (electroencephalogram), heart activity (electrocardiogram) and palm vein patterns. Even your personal gait based on how you walk has been investigated. Both security and forensic applications compete to find the best identification method trading off accuracy for performance depending on the intended application. This thesis is a continuation of previous research to develop a tool for distributed palmprint image data gathering. This would enable researchers to concentrate on method evaluation whilst not losing valuable time in data validation. This simple tool will enable palmprint biometric diversity across continents to be gathered. This thesis continues by establishing how to extract a consistent region of interest in the acquired palmprint images from a mobile phone ,or statically mounted digital, camera. The importance of establishing a consistent region of interest is considered by studying a simple existing identification method applied to a known palmprint database. In the discussions and conclusions the usefulness of this method is established and the final research outlined that is needed to finalize the palmprint acquisition tool for academic research.
D S ] 1 4 O ct 2 01 8 Maximizing Stochastic Monotone Submodular Functions by using Test Scores

We study the problem of maximizing a stochastic monotone submodular function subject to a cardinality constraint as well as the more general problem of maximizing a welfare function, defined as the sum of stochastic monotone submodular functions, each associated with a cardinality constraint. The model captures the diminishing returns property and stochasticity of production that arise in real-world situations. Our focus is on approximation guarantees of algorithms that select items based on their individual test scores: parameters of distributions of individual values of items such as mean or quantile parameters. For maximizing a single function, we show that there exist test scores such that greedy selection of items with respect to these test scores guarantees a constant-factor approximation for a broad class of functions. For maximizing the sum of stochastic submodular functions, we show that there exists a test score-based algorithm that guarantees aΩ(1/ log(k)) approximation where k is the maximum cardinality constraint. Our results are established by using a novel approach that leverages connections between discrete optimization and sketching of set functions.
The Robustness of the Sovereign-Bank Interconnection: Evidence from Contingent Claims Analysis

We analyze the interconnection between the sovereign and banking sector risk in the peripheral euro area countries over the 2004Q4-2013Q2 period. Applying the contingent claims methodology, we build indicators of sovereign and banking sector risk (incorporating both market and balance sheet based information) and assess their interconnection in comparison with existing market-based indicators of banking and sovereign distress. We use three different statistical measures of interconnection based on principal components analysis, Granger causality network and Diebold-Yilmaz's connectedness index, and apply them to quarterly credit risk data. The empirical results shows strong connectedness and comovement between country-level banking and sovereign risk indicators. We find evidence of bi-directional bank-sovereign linkage for Spain and Italy during the European sovereign debt crisis period. For the late crisis period, we find weak interconnection and more divergence across the various risk indicators. Our findings also suggest that secondary and derivatives market indices are more driven by common underlying factors than are contingent claim based risk measures.
Family Governance at Work

A growing body of research is concerned with how family governance influences innovation. Yet the organizational issues that family governance engenders for innovation processes have been largely overlooked. In a study of six small- and medium-size family enterprises, we investigate the design decisions that fit family and business logics to create high-performing new product development programs. Our results reveal three design principles concerning teams, leadership, and incentives that diverge from customary approaches of organizing for new product development, adding important dimensions to the determinants of successful new product development in small- and medium-size family enterprises.
Drying Kinetics of Saw Dust in Tray Dryer

Drying kinetics of palm wood saw in tray drying covering wide range in operating conditions have been investigated in the present study. The drying rate increased with an increase in the temperature and flow rate of the heating medium increased, and decreased with an increase in the bed height. A model has been developed based on Fick’s law of diffusion to explain the drying kinetics.
Towards a helmet assessment metric capable of predicting diffuse brain injury while accounting for focal head injury

191 words) Helmets certified by today’s linear acceleration based criteria are credited with all-but eliminating fatal focal injury in sports. Brain injuries may still occur where there is absence of severe focal injury leading to discussions regarding how helmet assessment methods might move towards the inclusion of impact parameters relevant to brain injury. To first understand the relationship between kinematic measures and computed brain strain, we conducted hundreds of impacts using the 50 th percentile Hybrid III head-neck equipped with an ice hockey helmet. We then input the three-dimensional impact kinematics to a finite element brain model called the Simulated Injury Monitor (SIMon) to compute brain strain measures including the cumulative strain damage measure (specifically CSDM-15). Resultant change in angular velocity (ΔωR) was the single best kinematic predictor for CSDM-15 and better predicted strain than the current helmet certification metric, peak g. The best two-variable model included peak angular acceleration and ΔωR, though an efficient model for predicting CSDM-15 that included at least one linear and one angular kinematic included two variables: peak g and ΔωR. A preliminary metric based on peak g and ΔωR was presented and a possible threshold limit was proposed.
A MIXED SPACEBORNE SENSOR APPROACH FOR SURFACE MODELING OF AN URBAN SCENE A BSTRACT

3D surface models are vital for sustainable urban management studies and there is a nearly unlimited range of possible applications. Alongor across-track pairs from the same set of sensor imagery may not always be available or uneconomic for a certain study area. Therefore a photogrammetric approach is proposed in which a Digital Surface Model (DSM) is extracted from a stereo pair of satellite images, acquired by different sensors. The results demonstrate that a mixed sensor approach may offer a sound alternative to the more established alongtrack pairs. However, one should consider several criteria when selecting a suitable stereo pair. Two cloud-free acquisitions are selected from the Ikonos and Quickbird image archive, characterized by sufficient overlap and optimal stereo constellation in terms of complementarity of azimuth and elevation angle. A densely built-up area in Istanbul, Turkey, covering 151 km2 and with an elevation ranging between sea level and approximately 160 m is presented as test site. In addition to the general complexity of modeling the surface and elevation of an urban environment, multi-sensor image fusion has other particular difficulties. As the images are acquired from a different orbital pass, at a different date or instant of time and by a different sensor system, radiometric and geometric dissimilarities can occur which may hamper the image matching process. Strategies are presented for radiometric and geometric normalization of the multi-temporal and multi-sensor imagery and to deal with the differences in sensor characteristics. The accuracy of the generated surface model is assessed by comparison with 3D reference points, 3D rooftop vector data and surface models extracted from an along-track Ikonos stereo pair and an Ikonos triplet. Results show that it is feasible to extract a DSM of a highly urbanized area from a mixed sensor pair, with accuracies comparable with those observed from a DSM