Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microbial Diversity of the Chinese Tiger Frog (Hoplobatrachus rugulosus) on Healthy versus Ulcerated Skin

Simple Summary As amphibians’ skin is highly sensitive to the environment, skin defects such as ulceration may pose a particular threat to them. Our study has found a stark difference in the microbial communities between healthy and ulcerated Hoplobatrachus rugulosus skin. The proportion and type of bacteria differed between the two groups, and we suggest that ulceration on the skin may lead to changes in skin microbial communities. The functional pathways of skin microbes may be influenced by ulceration on the skin surface of H. rugulosus. We also found that Vogesella is more abundant in healthy H. rugulosus, which may be a potential probiotic candidate for the reduction or removal of pathogens. Abstract The Chinese tiger frog (Hoplobatrachus rugulosus) is extensively farmed in southern China. Due to cramped living conditions, skin diseases are prevalent among unhealthy tiger frogs which thereby affects their welfare. In this study, the differences in microbiota present on healthy versus ulcerated H. rugulosus skin were examined using 16S rRNA sequences. Proteobacteria were the dominant phylum on H. rugulosus skin, but their abundance was greater on the healthy skin than on the ulcerated skin. Rhodocyclaceae and Comamonadaceae were the most dominant families on the healthy skin, whereas Moraxellaceae was the most dominant family on the ulcerated skin. The abundance of these three families was different between the groups. Acidovorax was the most dominant genus on the healthy skin, whereas Acinetobacter was the most dominant genus on the ulcerated skin, and its abundance was greater on the ulcerated skin than on the healthy skin. Moreover, the genes related to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways of levels 2–3, especially those genes that are involved in cell motility, flagellar assembly, and bacterial chemotaxis in the skin microbiota, were found to be greater on the healthy skin than on the ulcerated skin, indicating that the function of skin microbiota was affected by ulceration. Overall, the composition, abundance, and function of skin microbial communities differed between the healthy and ulcerated H. rugulosus skin. Our results may assist in developing measures to combat diseases in H. rugulosus.
Spectral characterization of the constant sign Green's functions for periodic and Neumann boundary value problems of even order

In this paper we will characterize the interval of real parameters M in which the Green’s function G M , related to the operator T 2 n [ M ] u ( t ) : = u ( 2 n ) ( t )+ Mu ( t ) coupled to periodic, u ( i ) ( 0 ) = u ( i ) ( T ) , i = 0 ,. , 2 n − 1, or Neumann, u ( 2 i + 1 ) ( 0 ) = u ( 2 i + 1 ) ( T ) = 0, i = 0 ,. , n − 1, boundary conditions, has constant sign on its square of de ﬁ nition. More concisely, we will prove that the optimal values are given as the ﬁ rst zeros of G M ( 0 , 0 ) or G M ( T / 2 , 0 ) , depending both on the sign of G M and on the fact whether 2 n is, or is not, a multiple of 4. Such values will be characterized as the eigenvalues of the operator u ( 2 n ) related to suitable boundary conditions. This characterization allows us to obtain such values without calculating the exact expression of the Green’s function.
An Investigation of English Language Needs of Engineering Undergraduates at Jawzjan University

% Ahmad Shah Qasemi, Ainol Haryati Ibrahim Center for Modern Languages and Human Sciences Universiti Malaysia Pahang‚ Lebuhraya Tun Razak, 26300 Gambang, qasemiahmadshah@gmail.com,%ainol@ump.edu. my% % % ABSTRACT The purpose of this investigation was to identify the English language needs of the students currently studying at the engineering faculties of Jawzjan University in Afghanistan. A total of 212 under-graduate engineering students from the second and third year classes took part in this investigation. The main tool for data collection was a student questionnaire used to gauge learners‚Äô perceptions on their needs pertaining to the English language. The findings of the study show that the English language proficiency of most of the students is at the average and good level, and most of the students study English for academic purpose and for their future profession. Likewise, the students believe that their English language proficiency has a significant effect on their academic performance in content subjects. Furthermore, the current English language program and classroom resources do not fulfill their needs as they prefer to have a class with lots of activities or more studentcentered. Moreover, a majority of the students were not satisfied with the amount of time allocated for English classes. It is hoped that the findings of this study would be the basis for designing a suitable course that would meet students needs.
Determinants of organizational performance: a case of Punjab Police

In the last three decades, the security issues have been raised in the state of the Punjab (Pakistan) which ultimately leads to the breakdown of the country’s economy. However, the purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of the political interference on the performance of Punjab police (Pakistan) with the moderating role of organizational support. To elicit the findings, a total of 159 survey questionnaires were compiled from station house officers (SHOs) of Punjab police (Pakistan). Furthermore, this study has applied PLS-SEM technique to analyze the data. The findings reveal that a negatively significant effect of political interference on the performance of Punjab police (Pakistan). Moreover, the findings also showed the significant moderating effect of organizational support in the instance of political interference.
A modelling approach for evaluating the effects of design variables on bridge condition ratings

Abstract While routine inspections are commonly used to assess the structural integrity, safety and maintenance needs of individual highway bridges, data from these inspections can also be used to study performance of bridges at the inventory level. This paper presents a novel method by which inspection data can be used to evaluate design variables and inform future designs. In particular, inspection data from prestressed concrete bridges in south-eastern United States were used to develop artificial neural networks models for estimating the condition rating of bridge decks and superstructures as a function of skew angle and span length, as well as, bridge age, width and traffic level. Once developed and validated, the neural network models were used for an array of simulations that were designed using a full factorial approach. The objective of the simulations was to identify skew angles and span lengths that correlate with the highest inspection ratings. It was determined that deck ratings are highest for smaller skew angles and shorter span lengths, whereas superstructure ratings are minimally impacted by larger skews and unrelated to span length. The conclusions of this study will be helpful in understanding the implications of bridge design variables on the long-term performance of bridge decks and superstructures. Though the trends and conclusions noted in this study are to be seen within the scope of the data considered, the approach demonstrated in this paper can be applied to address other questions of bridge performance.
Multiphase forces on bend structures – influence of upstream disturbance

Piping structures are generally subjected to high dynamic loading due to multiphase fluid forces. In particular subsea structures are very vulnerable as large flexibility is required to cope for instance with thermal stresses. The forces due to multiphase flow are characterized by a broadband spectrum with high amplitudes. These forces differ with flow regimes and are still difficult to predict. Therefore a joint industry project was setup to perform both large scale (6”) flow tests and to qualify CFD procedures and settings to calculate these forces with sufficient accuracy.
Feasibility of Extruded Brewer’s Spent Grain as a Food Ingredient for a Healthy, Safe, and Sustainable Human Diet

This study aimed to determine the effect of the extrusion process on the nutritional and bioactive profiles of brewer’s spent grain (BSG), contributing to nutrition security by applying a circular economy concept. Response surface methodology was used to optimize the effect extrusion parameters (moisture content, screw speed, and barrel temperature ) had on BSG’s soluble dietary fiber, free glucose, and overall antioxidant capacity. Proximate composition analyses, amino acid profile, extractable polyphenolic content, and antioxidant capacity of BSG and brewer’s spent grain extruded under optimal conditions (BSGE) were carried out. Food safety was analyzed by their microbiological quality, gluten, and acrylamide content. Optimal extrusion conditions were 15.8% of moisture content, 164.3 revolutions per min and 122.5 °C. BSGE presented 61% more soluble dietary fiber than BSG, lower digestible starch, 0.546% of free glucose, and protein quality parameters mostly like those reported for egg, soy, and milk. Despite this, BSG’s overall antioxidant capacity was not improved after thermomechanical processing; BSGE had significantly higher extractable polyphenolic content in its alkali extracts, which were determined qualitatively by high-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight assay in its hydro-alcoholic acid extracts. Furthermore, although it is not gluten free, BSGE is a safe food ingredient with acceptable microbiological quality and no acrylamide.
pyFC: a TRIM-based fission chamber pulse shape simulator

This report presents the code system pyFC (python-based simulation of Fission Chambers) which simulates the pulse creation in fission chambers. The current pulses in a fission chamber are generated due to the ionization of the filling gas by the heavy ion emitted from the neutron induced fission in the fissile deposit. In pyFC the path of the heavy ion and the spatial distribution of the charges emerging from the ionization process are simulated with the TRIM code, and the parameters of the charge collection between the electrodes are computed with the BOLSIG software. The coupling of the codes is done in Python. The report presents the physical and geometrical considerations implemented in pyFC and the verification of the code through comparison with the results of Chester, a CEA code for simulation of fission chambers.
Survey on Performance and Energy consumption of Fault Tolerance in Network on Chip

Network on Chip (NoC) is a communication subsystem, which has the logic for sending and receiving the data from different sources in a single IC, is adopting the technology of VLSI making it to be as compact as possible. However, the increasing probability of failures in NoC’s has been raising concern among the researchers due to large scale integration of components. In specific the issues of fault-tolerance, increase in length of global wires of NoC has to be addressed for on chip and multi core architectures. This survey presents a perspective on existing NoC Fault-tolerant algorithm and a Corresponding distributed fault analysis strategy that encourages in observing the fault status of individual NoC components and their adjacent communication links. The analysis of the Fault-tolerant Network subjected to dynamic workloads for large scale applications is also equally important. This research paper mainly emphasizes on Fault tolerant NoC strategies summarizing over thirty research papers. Full Text: PDF
Locating and protecting facilities subject to random disruptions and attacks

Recent events such as the 2011 Tohōku earthquake and tsunami in Japan have revealed the vulnerability of networks such as supply chains to disruptive events. In particular, it has become apparent that the failure of a few elements of an infrastructure system can cause a system-wide disruption. Thus, it is important to learn more about which elements of infrastructure systems are most critical and how to protect an infrastructure system from the effects of a disruption. This dissertation seeks to enhance the understanding of how to design and protect networked infrastructure systems from disruptions by developing new mathematical models and solution techniques and using them to help decision-makers by discovering new decision-making insights. Several gaps exist in the body of knowledge concerning how to design and protect networks that are subject to disruptions. First, there is a lack of insights on how to make equitable decisions related to designing networks subject to disruptions. This is important in public-sector decisionmaking where it is important to generate solutions that are equitable across multiple stakeholders. Second, there is a lack of models that integrate system design and system protection decisions. These models are needed so that we can understand the benefit of integrating design and protection decisions. Finally, most of the literature makes several key assumptions: 1) protection of infrastructure elements is perfect, 2) an element is either fully protected or fully unprotected, and 3) after a disruption facilities are either completely operational or completely failed. While these may be reasonable assumptions in some contexts, there may exist contexts in which these assumptions are limiting. There are several difficulties with filling these gaps in the literature. This dissertation describes the discovery of mathematical formulations needed to fill these gaps as well as the identification of appropriate solution strategies. This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council Dissertation Director: —————————————————————————– Edward A. Pohl, Ph.D. Dissertation Committee: —————————————————————————– Manuel D. Rossetti, Ph.D. (Co-Director) —————————————————————————– Scott J. Mason, Ph.D. —————————————————————————– Russell D. Meller, Ph.D. —————————————————————————– Chase E. Rainwater, Ph.D. c ©2012 by Hugh R. Medal All Rights Reserved Dissertation Duplication Release I hereby authorize the University of Arkansas Libraries to duplicate this thesis when needed for research and/or scholarship. Agreed Hugh Richard Medal Refused Hugh Richard Medal
Photovoltaic performance of n-type SnS active layer in ITO/PEDOT:PSS/SnS/Al structure

The present paper discusses the influence of Tin Sulphide's grain size on the performance of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/SnS/Al structured solar cells fabricated by thermal evaporation. The grain sizes were maintained in the range of 11-18~nm by controlling the thickness of SnS films. While the open circuit voltage (Voc) was found to be a constant for this structure, Parameters such as short circuit current density (Jsc), series resistance (Rs), parallel resistance (Rp), ideality factor and the overall efficiency were found to be dependent on the SnS grain size and incident light intensity. The experimental work directly reconfirms the theoretical results and ideas raised in literature by early researchers.
Identifying crucial sustainability assessment criteria for container seaports

Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify crucial sustainability assessment criteria in the context of international port sector. Design/methodology/approach Data collection was based on a questionnaire survey from 135 managers and supervisors at major international ports in Taiwan, including Keelung, Taichung and Kaohsiung. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to identify crucial sustainability assessment criteria at ports. Findings A total of 31 important sustainable assessment criteria were adapted from previous studies in terms of environmental, economic and social issues. Results revealed that social issues with respect to staff job security and safety were ranked as the most important sustainability assessment criteria, followed by environmental protection when handling cargo, facilitation of economic activities, port traffic accidents prevention and cargo handled safely and effectively. In contrary, respondents revealed their less importance in the criteria, namely, mitigating light influence on neighboring residents, considering the arrangement of vehicles when constructing port transportation system, avoiding using unpolluted land in port area and hiring minority groups and consulting interests groups when making port projects. Four sustainability assessment dimensions were identified, namely, environmental material, economic issue, environmental practices and social concerns. Research limitations/implications The research findings indicated that economic issue was deemed as the most important dimension of sustainability assessment criteria from a port operator’s perspective, followed by environmental practices, social concerns and environmental material. Practical implications for port sustainability assessment were discussed in this research. Originality/value Although a majority of previous studies on sustainability assessment have been discussed, there is still a lack of investigation of sustainability assessment in the context of port sector. This study not only develops sustainability assessment attributes but also highlights the important criteria of sustainability assessment. Further, this study identified four crucial sustainability assessment factors, which provide helpful information for port corporations to identify important criteria and policy of sustainability assessment.
Analysis of the Effect of University Specialization of Academic Fields on University Education Outcomes

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of university specialization of academic fields on the key education outcomes: the graduate employment rate and student enrollment rate. The results are as follows. First, the influence of the university specialization variable on the student enrollment rate and graduate employment rate is non-significant. Second, analysis of the university department and specialization show partial positive influences for the natural sciences and medicine, the humanities and social sciences show contradictory influences of both positive and negative effects for specialization indicators, and other departments did not have a significant impact. The implications of this study are as follows. First, regarding future studies for university specialization, there is a need to develop variables that can be applied to the changing state of university education regarding university specialization, in addition to its external aspects. Second, to enhance the competitiveness of a university through university specialization in South Korea, the direction and implementation of higher education and university evaluation policies need to be reviewed regarding university specialization policies.
Field and Laboratory Properties of Roller-Compacted Concrete Pavements

Roller-compacted concrete (RCC) pavements present three primary challenges relative to conventional concrete pavement: mixture design, structural design details, and construction process and verification. An investigation was initiated to reconcile the discrepancy between the field and laboratory properties of RCC pavements because of differences in laboratory mixture design procedures and field construction processes. Four RCC pavement projects in Illinois were selected for field coring along with sampling of RCC constituent materials for replication of the laboratory mixture design. Density measurements of field cores indicated that density decreased with depth into the pavement structure and the relative density at paving-lane joints could be as low as 80%. Statistical differences in compressive strength and fracture properties between field and laboratory samples were observed and result from differences in density. A 4% difference in density between field and laboratory samples resulted in an approximate 45% difference in compressive strength. The reduction in field RCC strength and fracture properties relative to the values obtained in the laboratory will result in decreased slab flexural capacity and field performance. Application of the gyratory compactor demonstrated that it can be used repeatedly to compact most RCC mixtures to similar target densities as the modified Proctor method and field-extracted cores. The gap between field and laboratory properties of RCC can be reduced by application of high-density pavers; improvement in mixture design procedure with the gyratory compaction method; a foundation layer beneath the RCC that is stiffer, thicker, or both; reduced RCC lift thicknesses to achieve specified density; or all of these.
Harnessing the Power of Multi-Source Data: an Exploration of Diversity and Similarity.

Harnessing the Power of Multi-source Data: an Exploration of Diversity and Similarity by Yang Liu Doctor of Philosophy Chair: Mingyan Liu This dissertation studies a sequence of problems concerning the collection and utilization of data from disparate sources, e.g., that arising in a crowd-sourcing system. It aims at developing learning methods to enhance the quality of decision-making and learning task performance by exploiting a multitude of diversity, similarity and interdependency inherent in a crowd-sourcing system and among disparate data sources. We start our study with a family of problems on sequential decision-making combined with data collection in a crowd-sourcing system, where the goal is to improve the quality of data input or computational output, while reducing the cost in using such a system. In this context, the learning methods we develop are closed-loop and online, i.e., decisions made are functions of past data observations, present actions determine future observations, and the learning occurs as data inputs arrive. The similarity and disparity among different data sources help us in some cases to speed up the learning process (e.g., in a recommender system), and in some other cases to perform quality control over data input for which ground-truth may be non-existent or cannot be obtained directly (e.g., in a crowd-sourcing market using Amazon Mechanical Turks (AMTs)).
Model Penerimaan User Dalam Implementasi SAP (Systems Application and Product) dengan Menggunakan Model UTAUT

This study aims to analyze the SAP ERP system acceptance model using "Unified Theory of Acceptance and Usage of Technology" (UTAUT). UTAUT model identifies four factors driving acceptance as an independent variable performance expectation (performance expectancy), effort expectancy (effort expectancy), social influence (social influence) and supporting conditions (facilitating conditions). In addition to the four factors of the UTAUT model, this study adds Anxiety as independent variables. As dependent variable is a symbolic adoption that measures user acceptance and attitude in using the system (attitude toward system use) as an intervening variable between the independent variables and the dependent variable. Based on 39 samples taken from the Islamic University of Indonesia Yogyakarta concluded that the model of acceptance of the SAP system with the case of this study, there are four factors that influence the acceptance of performance expectations, business expectations, anxiety, and attitudes shown to affect user acceptance by the SAP system. While the influence of social, managerial intervention and support conditions are not shown to affect user acceptance by the SAP system.
Seismic Damage Reduction of a Structural System based on Nontraditional Sliding Interfaces with Graphite Lubrication

ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose a free-standing structure that is unanchored to its foundation and has a cost-efficient interface consisting of common construction materials (steel, mortar, and iron) with graphite lubrication; this structure is expected to behave as an earthquake-resistant structure during small earthquakes and a base-isolated structure during large earthquakes. To realize the structure, this study examined the frictions of the interfaces in shaking table tests. In addition, the seismic responses of the free-standing structures based on the interfaces were examined via incremental dynamic analyses with 44 ground motions and a simple model of typical Japanese steel structures.