Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electronic Governance and Employees’ Performance in the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government in Kenya

Electronic governance is a strategic intervention that government agencies implement streamline operations and improve service delivery. Although e-governance is linked to performance, the effect of e-governance on employees’ performance has not been exhausted empirically. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the influence of e-governance on employees’ performance in the Immigration Department of the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government in Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design which was cross sectional in nature. The target population for the study was 516 comprising employees of the immigration department from three selected locations in Nairobi City County, Kenya. A sample size of 103 respondents was selected using stratified proportionate random sampling. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and regressional analysis. The results revealed that e-governance practices have been adopted at a moderate level despite considerable influence on employees’ performance. Further the findings showed that electronic governance as indicated by e-visa processing has a statistically significant influence on the employees’ performance. The study recommends that the immigration office should provide an effective online feedback system for e-visa processing that would provide real-time service delivery.
Physical Properties of Cement-Based Paste and Mortar With Dehydrated Cacti Additions

This article presents results for the physical characterization of mortar cubes fabricated with botanical (green) dehydrated additions such as nopal (Opuntia ficus indica) and aloe vera. A total of 84 mortar cubes were fabricated with and without these natural additions and tested for a period up to 900 days. Mortar without such additions served as controls. The natural dehydrated additions, nopal and aloe vera, were mixed with CPO cement (the name used in Mexico for type I Portland cement) at different percent replacements (0%, 1%, 2%, and 4%). To characterize physical properties of such mixtures, four tests were performed at ˜900 days: total void content, compressive strength, ultrasound wave propagation, and wet electrical resistivity. Marginal improvements were observed within the dehydrated aloe vera replacement mixtures. Dehydrated nopal additions did increase the physical performance of the mortar with time.
Microwave performance of 0.25μm doped channel GaN/AlGaN heterostructure field effect transistor at elevated temperatures

The authors report the DC and microwave performance of a 0.25 /spl mu/m gate doped channel Al/sub 0.14/Ga/sub 0.86/N/GaN HFETs exhibiting a cutoff frequency of 37.5 GHz and a maximum frequency of oscillations of 80.4 GHz. The calculations of the Fermi level position and comparison with the expected conduction band discontinuity confirm that the channel in these transistors is doped. DC and microwave characteristics of these devices do not change much with temperature up to at least 200 and 90/spl deg/C, respectively.
High stability and radiation-resistance broadband fiber-optic source

Two type of output spectrum profile, flat and gauss profile were realized with gain flatten filter and edge filter respectively. For high performance fiber optic gyroscope application, a vary parameters control technology was taken and the less than 0.5 ppm/ °C mean wavelength stability and less than 1% output power stability were achieved within operation temperature -45 °C - +70 °C . To developing radiation-resistance broadband source, the erbium-doped fiber radiation characteristic was studied experimentally and the super-fluorescent fiber source configuration parameters and pump laser diode power were optimized. The radiation-resistance super-fluorescent fiber source module was made. Experimental test shows that two type of SFS, include gauss and flat profile spectrum, can stand against more than 50Krad(Si) radiation dose.
Supply chain management resilience: a theory building approach

Interest in supply chain disruptions and respective negative consequences has been growing in the last years and the topic is becoming a main stream. This paper aims to propose a model for supply chain resilience management. An inductive theory building approach is used; being identified patterns of management across companies to build a theoretical and testable supply chain resilience model. To this end, content analysis of archival information on 77 companies affected by the Japan earthquake 2011 was used to identify the negative consequences of this event and the patterns of response practices used by companies to avoid or overcome those negative effects. The main conclusions of the study are that despite the earthquake provoked several negative effects, the companies failed to sustain their operations because capacity shortages and material shortages. These failures characterise the earthquake negative effects on supply chain.
Quality for the individual and for the company in the business‐to‐business market: Concepts and empirical findings on trade‐offs

Purpose – The aim of this article is to increase knowledge of the nature of quality in the business‐to‐business market by focusing on the individual and company level aspects of quality. This is relevant because the distinction between individual and company levels in the context of quality has received very little attention in the literature. Also, there is little knowledge of the processes that can lead to quality trade‐off situations between organizational and individual goals.Design/methodology/approach – This article is based on empirical qualitative study on quality in business‐to‐business professional services.Findings – This article introduces the concepts of quality for the individual and for the company in the business‐to‐business market. It also contributes by explaining and analyzing processes increasing the likelihood of trade‐off between quality for the individual and quality for the company.Research limitations/implications – The present study is characterized by the general limitations: la.
Design of Low-Pass Type Inverter: UWB Band-Pass Filter with Low Spurious Characteristics

In this paper, we present the design method for a low-pass type inverter, which can effectively suppress the spurious response associated with band-pass filters. The inverter has a length of λ/4 and employs not only a stepped-impedance configuration but also asymmetrical and bending structures in order to improve frequency selectivity and compactness. The inverter is applied as an impedance/admittance inverter to the ultra-wideband (UWB) band-pass filter. The UWB band-pass filter configuration is based on a stub band-pass filter consisting of quarter-wavelength impedance inverters and shunt short-circuited stubs λ/4 in length. The asymmetrical stepped-impedance low-pass type inverter improves not only the spurious responses, but also the return loss characteristics associated with a UWB band-pass filter, while a compact size is maintained. The UWB band-pass filter using the proposed inverters is fabricated and tested. The measured results show excellent attenuation characteristics at out-band frequencies, which exceed 18 ㏈ up to 39 ㎓. The insertion loss within the pass-band (from 3.1 to 10.6 ㎓) is below 1.7 ㏈, the return loss is below 10 ㏈, and the group delay is below 1 ㎱.
Review of CPT based design methods for estimating axial capacity of driven piles in siliceous sand

The Cone Penetration Test has been used for more than 30 years for soil exploration purposes. Its similarities in mode of installation with driven piles provides the potential of linking key variables of pile design and performance, such as base resistance and shaft friction, to measured cone tip resistance. Large scale pile load tests, performed in the last two decades, have shown better agreement with recent CPT based design criteria, than with conventional American Petroleum Institute (API) earth pressure approach design guidelines. The CPT based design methods provide a more coherent framework for incorporating soil dilation, pile size effect, pile plugging during installation, and the friction at the pile-soil interface. A review, of four recent CPT based design methods and the API design guidelines, for estimating axial capacity of driven piles in siliceous sands was performed by comparing their predictive performance to six documented on-shore piles with load tests. First, a detailed site investigation based on CPT data was performed to validate the provided soil profile, and to evaluate the accuracy of the CPT readings to identify and classify soil strata. Three piles were selected for further study and axial capacity calculations. Three of the design methods, UWA-05, ICP-05 and NGI-05, prove to accurately predict axial pile capacities for on-shore short piles founded on sites where sand dominates. Analysis against a larger and more detailed database is required to validate their performance in multilayer soil profiles. Thesis Supervisor: Andrew J. Whittle Title: Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Determination of Reliability of Rotor-Annular Seals System by Theory of Runs of Random Functions

The paper discusses forced combined angular-radial oscillations of rotor centrifugal pump model under the influence of random forcings. System reliability is evaluated using the theory of random functions runs: the probability of finding a random vector of quality system “rotor-annular seals” in the range of admissible values of its parameters is determined. Evaluation of the influence of erosive wear of sealing surfaces in the process of pump operating on reliability system is made.
On Small-Signal Stability of Wind Power System with Full-Load Converter Interfaced Wind Turbines

—Small-signal stability analysis of power system oscillations is a well established ﬁeld within power system analysis, but not much attention has yet been paid to systems with a high penetration of wind turbines and with large wind power plants. In this paper an analysis is presented which assess the impact of full-load converter interfaced wind turbines on power system small-signal stability. The study is based on a 7 generator network with lightly damped inter-area modes. A detailed wind turbine model with all grid relevant control functions is used in the study. Furthermore is the wind power plant (WPP) equipped with a WPP voltage controller and comparisons are presented. The models of wind turbine and WPP voltage controller are kindly provided by Siemens Wind Power A/S for this work. The study is based on modal analysis which are complemented with simulations on the nonlinear system.
Cycles of engagement : how public sector clients and their consultants engage on IT projects

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how public sector clients engage with external clients on information technology projects. It does so by gathering documentary and interview information from clients and consultants on five public sector IT projects. The data were analysed using thematic and template analysis, resulting in a potential model of how project participants build engaged relationships. Little research has investigated the client-consultant relationship on IT projects and a literature review revealed little theoretical basis to model engagement between participants arriving new to a project with no pre-existing relationships. By drawing on related literature and qualitative research data, the thesis develops a conceptual model of engagement with components that explain engaged relationships in terms of interaction between conditions and behaviours. Emerging behaviours are identified as sharing, sense making and adapting and these behaviours arise from conditions of environment, participants and expertise. Sharing and sense making behaviours reinforce each other, and lead to adapting, and a consequence of adapting is the potential to change conditions. Adapting conditions alters behaviours, which in turn can alter conditions, thus implying that once started, engagement is a dynamic self-replicating phenomenon with cycles that a manager or consultant can identify and alter for the benefit of the project. The research contributes to theory by offering an understanding of the phenomenon of engagement between participants on projects, demonstrating the self-reinforcing role of conditions and behaviours and adding to theories of client-consultant relationships. The research findings offer consultants and their clients a means to identify how they can deliberately alter engagement to improve a project’s process.
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON THE EFFECT OF MAGNETICFLUX TO REDUCE EMISSIONS AND IMPROVE COMBUSTION PERFORMANCE IN A TWO-STROKE, CATALYTIC-COATED, SPARK-IGNITION ENGINE

The two stroke spark ignition engine is the greatest contributor of the total vehicular pollution in a country like India. It is therefore an item that requires great attention in order to reduce fuel consumption and its concomitant pollution. The use of strong magnetic charge in the fuel line gives a complete and clean burn so that power is increased while operating expenses are reduced. The magnetic flux on the fuel line dramatically reduces harmful exhaust emissions while increasing mileage, thereby saving money and improving engine performance. It increases combustion efficiency and provides higher-octane performance. The experimental results show that the magnetic flux on fuel reduces the carbon monoxide emission up to 13% in a base engine, 23% in a copper-coated engine and 29% in a zirconia-coated engine.
Tested or not? - A categorical examination of HIV/AIDS testing among workers in the South African construction industry

AbstractHIV/AIDS voluntary counseling and antibody testing (VCT) is the cornerstone of HIV/AIDS prevention. Prevalence rates for the infection in the South African construction industry exceed those of most other sectors. Little is known about the testing status of different categories of construction workers. A field-administered questionnaire survey gathered data from 512 site-based construction employees in the Western Cape, South Africa. Bivariate tests of association and bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression were used to explore demographic determinants of testing. The results indicate that (1) age, gender, employment type, and firm predict testing status, with older workers, females, permanent workers, and workers employed by firms with proactive intervention management more likely to have been tested than their counterparts; (2) education and race are not determinants of testing status; (3) workers aged 30 years and younger are the least likely to have been tested, particularly thos.
Sodium contamination in integrated MEMS packaged by anodic bonding

A study of ionic contamination of SiO/sub 2/ during anodic bonding is presented, using metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors as test structures. We found that anodic bonding caused the sodium concentration to increase with values between 10/sup 10/cm/sup -2/ and 10/sup 13/cm/sup -2/. The largest increases resulted in sodium concentrations that are incompatible with CMOS electronics. The gate electrodes were found to partly shield the oxide from contamination. A PECVD nitride film protected the capacitors more efficiently. The results show that nitride protection of the electronics is essential to minimise sodium contamination if anodic bonding is used to package monolithically integrated MEMS.
Self-organising heterogeneous cellular networks

The mobile communications market has experienced massive growth over the past 10 years, fuelled by the continuing take up of mobile services in the developing world and the exponential mobile data growth seen in the developed world. Current forecasts predict that today’s global mobile data traffic is set to rise by over 1000% by the year 2017 and in order to cope with this demand current 2nd and 3rd generation mobile networks are now evolving toward self-organising 4th generation heterogeneous networks in most markets. To address these capacity challenges this thesis firstly explores novel means to maximise the capacity of the existing macrocell network, therefore delaying the deployment of small cells and their associated costs. To do this it considers both higher order sectorisation and self-organising dynamic antenna tilt at the macrocell and shows through both detailed simulation and field trials that both techniques provide a reasonable capacity gain and therefore delay the need for the deployment of small cells. However, given current traffic forecasts, it is accepted that small cells will be required in the future and this thesis also considers the use of Self-Organising Network techniques to ensure that these small cells are located as close as possible to traffic hotspots to maximise their traffic and cost effectiveness. The thesis then goes on to show the effectiveness of low powered small cells to offload traffic from a co-channel macrocell layer and finally proposes a number of Self-Organising Network methods to maximise traffic offload from the macrocell layer onto a deployed small cell layer.
Failure Surface and Plastic Potential in Deviatoric Plane of Bangkok Clay

This paper presents an experimental investigation on the failure surface and plastic potential in deviatoric plane of Bangkok Clay. The results of torsional shear hollow cylinder and triaxial tests with various principal stress directions and magnitudes of intermediate principal stress on undisturbed Bangkok Clay specimens are presented. The obtained stress-strain behaviors assert clear evidences of anisotropic characteristics of Bangkok Clay. Both failure surface and plastic potential in deviatoric plane of Bangkok Clay are demonstrated as isotropic and of circular shape (Drucker-Prager type) which implies an associated flow rule. Concerning the behavior of Bangkok Clay found from this study, the discussions on the effects of employed constitutive modeling approach on the resulting numerical analysis are made.
Contracting Relationship Trends and Transitions

Construction industry reports worldwide have called for radical cultural changes to reduce adversarial conflicts and increase productivity levels. These reports have recommended reintegration of fragmented function and teams through different teamworking approaches such as partnering and alliancing. The theoretical basis for such approaches can be tracked back to relational contracting (RC) principles. Recent teamworking initiatives have met with some success, based on structured cooperation between owners and contractors. However, the full benefits of these cooperative approaches may only materialize if (1) all potential team members/project partners are selected on the basis of relevant rationalized evaluation criteria; (2) all stakeholders work closely together as a coalesced team with common objectives, and (3) these arrangements are underpinned by government-sponsored, proper change initiatives. These approaches and arguments are analyzed in this paper, aiming at developing the required project cultu.
Catalytic fast pyrolysis of Pearl Millet and Sida cordifolia L. to investigate products distribution and bio-oil quality

Fast pyrolysis is an attractive way of converting abundant biomass resources into valuable products such as bio-oil. Nevertheless, high oxygenated compounds and water content of bio-oil limit its direct use as fuel or chemicals. Catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP) is able to improve bio-oil properties so that downstream upgrading processes can be economically feasible. In this study five different catalysts such as zeolite socony mobil-5 (ZSM-5), cerium dioxide (CeO2), zirconium dioxide (ZrO2), zinc oxide (ZnO), and sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) were employed due to their potential in enhancing bio-oil properties. CFP of pearl millet (PM) and Sida cordifolia (Sida) was performed to investigate the effects of catalysts on the products distribution and chemical contents of bio-oil. The results showed that bio-oil yield decreased during CFP regardless of catalyst and biomass types. Among all catalysts, CeO2 was found to be the most suitable to produce acids and alkanes from CFP of PM; and acids, ketones, and aromatics from CFP of Sida. The high production of ketones from PM and alkanes from Sida was observed with Na2CO3 catalyst. The ZrO2 catalyst indicated the high aromatics production from PM, whereas alcohols, amines, and others were abundant in bio-oil from CFP of PM using ZSM-5. Overall, PM and Sida can be used to produce fuel or value-added chemicals through CFP.
A strategic approach to disseminating sports safety guidelines: an application of the Diffusion of Innovations theory for New South Wales, Australia

Safety guidelines and risk management processes have little impact if no one knows about them, decides to use them, uses them in the way they are intended, or uses them over a long period of time. There has been recent interest in facilitating the translation of evidence-based sports injury prevention interventions into sustained safety policy and practice in real-world community sports settings. In 2009, the New South Wales state governments department of sport and recreation convened a multi-agency key stakeholder partnership to develop a whole-of-sport overarching safety plan and accompanying practical safety guidelines. The aim was to assist state sporting organisations (SSOs) and community sports providers to adopt a strategic, evidence-based and sustainable approach to safety. Previous research had identified that higher-order sports administration bodies (eg, SSOs) have a relatively unsophisticated approach to facilitating the adoption of new policies and practices at the community level, focusing on information distribution and awareness raising. In an endeavour to enhance the sustained use of safety guidelines, we developed a strategic approach to diffusion based on the Diffusion of Innovations theory of EM Rogers. This paper discusses the development of a strategic approach to diffusion of safety-related guidelines in the sports sector, including concepts and principles such as the innovation-decision process, the role of opinion leaders and change-agents, use of mass media and interpersonal communication channels, the adopters perceptions of the characteristics of an innovation, and attributes of early and late adopters of innovations.
Performance-based design of active/hybrid protective systems for vibration reduction of buildings

In this paper, we present two control strategies for applications to civil engineering structures, referred to as the generalized H2 control and L1 control, respectively. Both control strategies are capable of addressing the performance-based design of structures, in the sense that the design requirements for the peak response quantities, such as peak interstory drifts, peak shear forces, peak floor accelerations, etc., can be satisfied. Likewise, these two controllers minimize the upper bound of the peak response of the controlled output vector. The design procedures for these two controllers are formulated in the framework of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) so that the LMI toolbox in MATLAB can be used effectively and conveniently for the controller design. These control strategies are applied herein to the wind-excited benchmark problem to demonstrate their applicability to practical problems as well as their control performances. Simulation results illustrate that the performances of both the generalized H2 controller and the L1 controller are very plausible in comparison with the LQG control method.