Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EFFECTS OF ROADSIDE TREES ON THE THERMAL ENVIRONMENT WITHIN A STREET CANYON

In this paper, the micro-climate and the sensible heat flux in a street with thick tree crowns was investigated from a series of observations during summer. The difference of air temperature is negligible throughout the day compared to a parallel street without tree crowns. However, for the radiation field, there is a clear shielding effect for solar radiation and downward long wave radiation, consequently the road surface temperature will differ. The sensible heat flux at three meters height above the road surface was measured by scintillation method. The heat flux in the street with tree crowns was similar to that without tree crowns, although there was a large difference in road surface temperature between them. The estimated exhaust heat was extremely large and the measured heat flux was dominated by this artificial heat flux. Such a large exhaust heat could partly be explained by the parked vehicles in both sides of the roadway which would keep the air conditioning running.
An advanced On-line Wind Resource Prediction system for the optimal management of wind park

The paper presents an advanced wind forecasting system that uses on-line SCADA measurements, as well as numerical weather predictions as input to predict the power production of wind parks 48 hours ahead. The prediction tool integrates models based on adaptive fuzzy-neural networks configured either for short-term or long-term forecasting. In each case, the model architecture is selected through non-linear optimization techniques. The forecasting system is integrated within the MORE-CARE EMS software developed in the frame of a European research project. Within this on-line platform, the forecasting module provides forecasts and confidence intervals for the wind farms in a power system, which can be directly used by economic dispatch and unit commitment functions. The platform can run also as a stand-alone application destined only for wind forecasting. Detailed results are presented on the performance of the developed models on a real wind farm using HIRLAM numerical weather predictions as input.
Growth Performance and Economics of Production of Bunaji Bulls Grazing Natural Pasture Supplemented with Diets Containing Graded Levels of Sweet Orange Peels

A feeding trial using 12 bunaji bulls, aged between eighteen months and having an average weight of 156kg were randomly divided into 4 treatment groups. The animal groups were allotted the treatment diets containing 0, 25, 50 and 75 % sweet orange peels as replacement for maize offal in a completely randomized design. Parameters measured were concentrate intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio and economics of production. The experiment lasted for 203 days. Results showed that total concentrate intake was 223.40kg, 253.98kg, 250.14kg and 254.47kg for 0 %, 25 %, 50 % and75 % SOPM respectively. There were no significant differences (P>0.05) among the treatment groups for total concentrate intake, mean concentrate intake and feed conversion ratio. Total weight gain, mean weight gain and metabolic weight gain showed significant differences (P<0.05) between the experimental groups. Diet containing 50 % SOPM yielded significantly higher value (P<0.05) than the rest of the treatments, while T1 (0% SOPM) gave the least value. This results show that the SOPM is safe and not harmful to the health of the animals. There were no significant differences (P>0.05) in all the production parameters such as cost of feed consumed by animals, cost/kg weight gained, total cost of production, revenue and benefit derived from the sales of the animals. However, treatment 3 (50% SOPM) had relatively more revenue than control. The result also show that SOPM favour better growth of the bulls and therefore livestock farmers can incorporate up to 50% SOP for both performance and economic gain in the diet of their animals.
Currency Options and Central Bank Intervention: The Case of Colombia

In November 1999, the Colombian monetary authority implemented an intervention scheme in which it would intervene through the selling of call and put currency options, instead of undertaking direct operations in the foreign exchange spot market. Although it has been suggested that intervention with currency options should help to stabilize the exchange rate, it has also been claimed that its success depends to a great extent on the particular speci cation of the option contract. In this work, we study the stabilizing potential of the option contracts introduced by the Colombian monetary authority to intervene in the foreign exchange market. For this purpose, we evaluate their impact on the volatility and the short-term equilibrium level of the exchange rate COP/USD. Our results indicate that, even though option contracts introduced by the Colombian Central Bank a¤ect the exchange rate in the manner suggested in the literature, they do not signi cantly reduce its volatility during the intervention period.
Paving the Way for A Sustainable and Efficient SiO2/TiO2 Photocatalytic Composite

Although photocatalysis is an extraordinary and tremendously explored topic, there is a need to find new ways to encourage the production of composite materials that are economical, efficient and with limited environmental impact. Nanocatalysts may benefit from appropriate support material for many reasons. In this study, TiO2 was deposited on SiO2, so that the silica not only provides the macroscopic structure on which the TiO2 is formed, but it positively affects the photocatalytic activity as well. This is because of the greater specific surface area which favors the adsorption of pollutants near the photocatalyst, the higher amount of surface-adsorbed water and hydroxyl groups and the inhibition of the photogenerated electron-hole recombination. The choice of preparing the Ti-precursor starting from titanium shavings and to directly deposit TiO2 on micrometric-sized silica by a simple hydrothermal method highlights the process sustainability. The results showed that it is possible to produce a photocatalytic composite from secondary materials, exhibiting excellent photocatalytic properties, comparable to the pristine one, and opening the possibility for large-scale production.
Corporate Governance and Firm Performance : Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts

This paper investigates the impacts of a firm’s sto ck liquidity on corporate governance and firm performance. Due to its unique corporate governance d regulatory features, the REIT industry provides a natural experiment to highlight the corp orate governance implications of stock liquidity. Using a sample of REITs in US from 1992 to 2008, we find that stock illiquidity, measured by Amihud illiquidity, effective spread, a nd percentage of zero volume days, has a significant negative impact on future firm performa nce. Such an impact is more economically significant for REITs with low institutional owners hip, with low dividends and with managerial entrenchment. Moreover, we find that stock liquidit y enhances different corporate governance mechanisms, including: (i) monitoring by long-term institutional investors; (ii) managerial incentives and efficiency of managerial compensatio ns; and (iii) turnovers of key governance committees that impact managerial compensation and monitoring activities. Overall, our findings support corporate governance implications of stock liquidity.
Chapter 3 Crazy Japanese subtitles ? Shedding light on the impact of impact captions with a focus on research methodology

This paper addresses intralingual captions called “impact captions” (Park 2009) that have become an integral part of entertainment TV programmes in parts of Asia. These captions are different from the mainstream intralingual captions designed for accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. Aimed at enhancing the entertainment value of a programme for hearing viewers, impact captions are designed to draw the viewer’s attention to particular elements according to the TV producer’s perspective. Despite the prevalent and increasing use of such captions, however, they are created without formal guidelines at the discretion of TV producers. Focusing on these novel captions which fall outside the norms of TV captions elsewhere, this paper discusses their impact on viewers while exploring methodological issues in eye-tracking research. The initial experiment results show few fixations in the caption area; despite the participants declaring that they read the captions, viewers fixate far more on the middle region of the screen where faces are shown. The paper discusses the limitations and advantages of reception studies based on eye-tracking while contributing towards further refinement of empirically-oriented reception studies in audiovisual translation (AVT) research.
Solution growth technique for iron copper sulphide ternary thin film and its optical characteristics

Ternary thin films of Iron Copper Sulphide were grown on glass substrate using cheap and simple solution growth technique with EDTA, TEA and NH3 as complexing agents. The deposited films were characterized using PYE-UNICO-UV-2102 PC Spectrophotometer and optical microscopy. The optical properties considered revealed high absorbance and reflectance but low transmittance in the UV; low values of absorbance and reflectance accompanied with high transmittance in the VIS. Over all, the absorptive coefficient ranged from 0.1x10 to 1.65x10m, the real part of the refractive index ranged from 1.2 to 2.3, the optical conductivity ranged from 0.03x10s to 0.6x10s, the extinction coefficient ranged from 0.005 to 0.038, its direct band gap ranged from 2.4eV to 2.8eV, the indirect band gap ranged from 0.6eV to 1.0eV and its complex dielectric constant from (1.4 + j 0.005) to (5.2 + j 0.136). These properties suggest that the films are suitable for solar cell applications.
Hierarchical Seq 2 Seq : Learning Representations of Online Spoken Speech

Learning neural representations of speech is a fundamentally hard problem due to the complexities of sequences. However, the length of the spectrogram in time is longer than what recurrent neural networks can easily manage, especially in sequence to sequence (Seq2Seq) models where the length of the recurrent network is twice as long due to the presence of both an encoder and a decoder. In this paper, we present a Hierarchical Seq2Seq (HSeq2Seq) model to learn representations from online spoken speech. HSeq2Seq exponentially and recursively breaks the spectrogram time dimension down by a breakdown factor which makes the model efficient from both neural and computational aspects. We also introduce a new loss calculation method called the cake loss which includes more detailed optimization terms at intermediate layers of the encoder and decoder. Our results on audio-based and multimodal sentiment analysis demonstrate the strength of this model on long-term speech representation learning.
Possible Risks of a too Early Adoption of Euro in Romania

The aim of this article is to identify a possible risks generated by the Euro adoption for the Romanian economy, starting from the costs identified by the Optimal Currency Area theory. In this respect, we analyse the degree of convergence of Romanian economy related to the Euro Area. We use for this comparison of the Structural Convergence Index and the Index of Occupational Convergence, the Commercial Integration Degree using the trade intensity, and the Synchronization Degree of Business Cycles of Romania with the Euro Area through the analysis of correlation coefficients for business activity indicators i.e. GDP and Industrial Production Index. The background of the economic crisis was a test for the perspectives of Euro adoption by Romania; where, the negative external shock was transmitted through the trade channels with foreign partners. The monetary policy of the country proved to be inefficient in neutralizing the corresponding negative effects. The solution envisaged by the authorities was the use of an external adjustment mechanism rather than an internal one. However, in this case, the negative effects of the crisis will persist in the economy and will increase the adoption costs under the circumstances of a structural divergence between the Romanian economy and the Euro Area. Key-words: economic convergence, trade integration, business cycle synchronization. JEL Classification: E32, F15, F44.
Perspectives on gendered education development in Nigeria : Evidence from Yobe state , Nigeria , 2009-2015

Article history: Received 14 October 2017 Received in revised form 1 November 2017 Accepted 2 November 2017 Available online 15 November 2017 This paper explores the efforts of Girl Child Education (GCE) development put in place by Governor Gaidam’s regime in Yobe state, Nigeria from 2009 to 2015 as a tool for achieving gendered education development. It aims to provide the description and analysis of democratic regime performance in the development of Girl Child Education (GCE) through the perspectives and experiences of democratic stakeholders in democratic governance process in the state. The qualitative study is therefore based on the narratives of indepth interviews with democratic and education stakeholders and the review of education policy documents. The findings suggest that although there have been efforts to address the challenges of GCE through concerted efforts, the gender distribution of pupils and students at basic education levels reveals a low representation of girls than boys in Yobe state. The failure to achieve gender parity in education development is associated with poor access, lack of female role models, social, political, cultural and economic reasons and Boko Haram insurgency. This paper recommends that these issues can be addressed if more schools are established for girls, inspirations from female educators and roles models, better economic and political empowerment for young women and girls, and ensuring a peaceful and conducive learning atmosphere for the girls and women.
Accidental Teachers' Mistakes in Solving Physics Probolems: Teachers Didactogenic

There are many studies was conducted to analyze the relation between teacher’s knowledge and student’s achievement. But, none of the study that discuss about teachers accidentally-mistakes in solving physics problem. The aim of this study is to describe didactogenic or the teacher’s mistake which accidentally happened that can cause students misconception based on gender. The participants of this study were 6-man teachers and 6-woman teachers who represented six subdistricts in Pontianak City. They were asked to assess about several physics’ problems by answer, correct and incorrect. Three concepts in the study were Newton’s First Law, Newton’s Second Law, and Newton’s Third Law. There were eight questions represented the concepts. The Results reveals most of teacher’s comments have didactogenic both men and women. There are five (5) men and four (4) women had didactogenic on Newton’s First Law, All participants on Newton’s Second Law, six (6) men and five (4) women on Newton’s Third Law. According to the results of this study, the man teachers have more didactogenic than woman teachers. Incorrect answer can make teachers do more didactogenic than correct answer. This study recommends in order to analyze cause and impact of teachers didactogenic, and how to decrease it. Keywords—teachers didactogenic, newton’s law
Acceptance of Moodle as a Teaching/Learning Tool by the Faculty of the Department of Information Studies at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman based on UTAUT

Article history: Received 18 February 2016 Revised 08 Marchl 2016 Accepted 11 April 2016 This research aims to explore the acceptance of Moodle as a teaching and learning tool by the faculty of the Department of Information Studies (IS) at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in the Sultanate of Oman. The researchers employed the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to examine the effects of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions on the behavioural intention of SQU faculty members to employ Moodle in their instruction. Data were collected by the interview method. Results showed the emergence of two faculty groups: one uses Moodle and one does not use Moodle. In group that uses Moodle, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and behavioural intention are positively related, thereby influencing the faculty members’ use behavior. In addition to the aforementioned UTAUT constructs, four additional factors affect Moodle’s adoption. These moderators are gender, age, experience and the voluntariness of use, amongst which gender exhibits the least influence on Moodle adoption. That is, male and female faculty generally both use the learning platform. Although some members of the group that does not use Moodle exhibit optimistic performance expectancy for technology, the overall perception in this regard for Moodle is negative. The other UTAUT constructs exert no influence on this group’s adoption of the learning platform.
Recent Work in Machine Transliteration for Indian Languages

Machine Transliteration is an important part of Natural Language Processing applications, mainly required for transliterating Named Entity (NE) from one language to another. There are several transliteration systems available for Global languages like English, German, French, Chinese, Korean, Arabic and Japanese but research for Indian languages is still at an infant stage. In this survey, we review the various approaches introduced for few Indian languages likes Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu languages.
Generation and propagation of ship-borne waves-Solutions from a Boussinesq-type model C

Ship-borne waves are of significant interest for the design of port and waterway infrastructure and the maintenance of its surrounding environment. Computation of these nonlinear and dispersive waves has mainly been focusing on their near-field generation as a fluid-body interaction problem. This study presents an approach for the computation of ship waves generated by a moving pressure disturbance with phase-resolving and depthaveraged equations. To support a wide range of applicability, the paper deals with the evolution of the vessel wedge compared to an analytical solution for sub-to supercritical speeds and the assessment of wave patterns from a broad range of pressure term dimensions, including cross-references to findings in other studies. The conducted numerical experiments showcase the typical response of a Boussinesq-type model to a simplified moving pressure disturbance and identify the main factors and criteria for ship-wave propagation in the far-field of a vessel. Finally, a unique field dataset underlines the capability of an extended Boussinesq-type model to compute the propagation of vessel waves over an irregular bathymetry.
Growth effects of trade barriers in South Africa : What is the role of investment vs . productivity ?

The relationship between foreign trade openness and growth is a challenge for economic analysis. Econometric approaches struggle with endogeneity of foreign trade and trade policy and endogenous interaction between investment and productivity. We offer an alternative route to identification and quantification of channels of effects based on calibration of a Ramsey growth model. The model is designed to reproduce the changing openness in South Africa 1960-2005. Productivity growth is assumed generated by innovation and adoption, and trade openness affects international productivity spillovers and catching up to the world technology frontier. International sanctions and protectionism are represented by a calibrated tariff equivalent, and the counterfactual elimination of the tariff equivalent shows large potential for GDP growth. According to our preferred parameterization increased trade share by 10% points raises GDP level over time by about 15%. Separating the effects of openness between investment and productivity we find that about 2/3 of the increase in GDP is due to increased productivity, working either directly or indirectly via investment profitability. JEL: F14, F43, O33, O41, O55;
Diversity and ecology of ground dwelling ants at Khao Nan National Park , southern Thailand

Khao Nan National Park (KNNP) is located in the southern part of Thailand. Its flora and fauna are diverse, however there is little information about the diversity of ants. The aim of this study was to determine species diversity and ecology of ants at KNNP. Three study sites (Baucheak Trail, Pra Forest and Sunantha Trail) were chosen and at each three permanent plots of 30x30 m were selected at least 500 m apart. The ant sampling was extracted from leaf litter by the Winkler bag method. Physical factors of precipitation, humidity, air temperature, and soil temperature were recorded during the collection of ants every two months between January 2006 and January 2007. A total number of 172 species and 43 genera belonging to 9 subfamilies were identified. The top five dominant genera of ants were Pheidole (27 species) following by Tetramorium (14 species), Camponotus (13 species), Pachycondyla (12 species), and Crematogaster (9 species). The influence of the study sites on the species number of ants in this study indicated that the study sites had an affect on the species number. Regarding the environmental factors, the results showed that the individual numbers of Pheidole was significantly negatively correlated to precipitation, whereas Pachycondyla was significantly negatively correlated to humidity, while both genera were significantly positively correlated to air temperature and soil temperature. Moreover, Camponotus was the only genus significantly positively correlated to the air temperature.
Ischemic preconditioning protects motor neurons against ischemic injury by inducing endoplasmic reticulum stress , upregulating GRP 78 and inhibiting caspase-12 activation

It has been established that ischemic preconditioning (IPC) via brief ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) induces resistance to the lethal cell ischemia. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the involvement of endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) in the IPC mediated protection against ischemic motor neuron injury. A rat model of spinal cord ischemia was established by clamping the infrarenal aorta. A total of 96 male Wistar rats were allocated at random into four groups: Sham, IPC, I/R and IPC+I/R. IPC consisted of 2 cycles of 5 min of ischemia and 5 min of reperfusion. In the I/R group, the aortic occlusion was continued for 45 min and then aorta patency was restored. The spinal cord was removed at 4, 8, 24 or 48 h, following 45 min of transient ischemia. Neurological function was evaluated prior to sacrifice, and histological changes were assessed using hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining. A terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated dUTP nick end labeling assay was conducted to detect apoptotic cells. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot analysis were used to assess the expression of glucose regulated protein 78 (GRP78) and caspase 12. The results indicated that IPC markedly reduced motor neuron death during the subsequent ischemia. Elevated protein expression of GRP78 was observed, with a peak at 4 h of reperfusion in the IPC+I/R group, correlating with the ischemic tolerance time window. The results of the western blot and immunohistochemical analyses indicated that GRP78 expression was associated with the mitigation of caspase-12 activation. These results suggested that IPC induced ERS, upregulated GRP78 and inhibited the activation of caspase-12 in motor neurons, thus protecting the spinal cord against I/R injury in rats.