Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors influencing the utilization of financial facilities for under pressure irrigation system

The major purpose of this study was to determine factors influencing the utilization of financial facilities provided for under pressure irrigation system by farmers. The total population for this study was 250 participants who adopted the under pressure irrigation systems and 100 respondents were selected by using random sampling methods. The result indicates that 45% of the variance in the perception of respondents about factors influencing them to utilize the financial facilities could be explained by the necessary conditions, amount of water available, social consequences, installation difficulties and number of farming lands.
Boomerang independent contractors: an experimental study using a psychological contract approach

Abstract The increasing prevalence of nontraditional work arrangements has led to new talent management challenges for organizations. Given independent contractors (ICs) have the potential to bring considerable value to an organization, it is in an organization’s best interest to establish a pool of loyal talent that is willing to return when needed (i.e. as boomerang ICs). Through the lens of the psychological contract, we examine factors that can contribute to retaining independent contractors. Using an international sample of ICs and an experimental research design, we demonstrate that ICs are less likely to return to an organization after a perceived psychological contract breach during a previous project for the same organization. This is especially true if they voluntarily work on a contract basis. Importantly, our results suggest that expectations of both a transactional and relational nature influence independent contractor loyalty to organizations. Our findings extend the limited research on talent management in nontraditional work arrangements, producing important theoretical and practical implications for the management of independent contractors within organizations.
High-gain subwavelength resonant cavity antennas based on metamaterial ground planes

Planar metamaterial surfaces with negative reflection phase values are proposed as ground planes in a high-gain resonant cavity antenna configuration. The antenna is formed by the metamaterial ground plane (MGP) and a superimposed metallodielectric electromagnetic band gap (MEBG) array that acts as a partially reflective surface (PRS). A single dipole positioned between the PRS and the ground is utilised as the excitation. Ray analysis is employed to describe the functioning of the antennas and to qualitatively predict the effect of the MGP on the antenna performance. By employing MGPs with negative reflection phase values, the planar antenna profile is reduced to subwavelength values (less than λ/6) whilst maintaining high directivity. Full-wave simulations have been carried out with commercially available software (Microstripes™). The effect of the finite PRS size on the antenna radiation performance (directivity and sidelobe level) is studied. A prototype has been fabricated and tested experimentally in order to validate the predictions.
Suitability of FDTD-based TCAD tools RF design of mobile phones

This paper discusses the general suitability and possible limitations of an enhanced finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation environment for straightforward and efficient RF design of complex transmitters. The study was conducted using a current commercially available multi-band mobile phone. Simulations were conducted in free space and with various dielectric loads, whereby different parameters were evaluated such as impedance, efficiency, far-field as well as near-field distributions of e-fields and h-fields, and the specific absorption rate (SAR). The results were compared to measurements. In addition, mechanical-design issues that showed a significant influence on the electromagnetic (EM) field behavior could be predicted by simulations and were experimentally reproduced. The accurate prediction of all essential performance parameters obtained by straightforward simulations suggests that appropriately enhanced software packages are suitable for device design in industrial research and development environments with few limitations, provided flexible graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and graded meshes combined with local grid-refinement schemes are available.
Effects of organic and inorganic fertilization with bio-inoculants on the sustainable management of plant-parasitic nematodes infesting okra (Abelmoschus esculentus)

Root-knot nematodes are believed to be amongst the biological constraints causing severe damage and a great reduction in the productivity of okra. The purpose of this study was to apply organic matter and non-symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria to minimize the addition of chemical fertilizers that constantly pollute the environment. Experimental studies were conducted in the field for two summers to determine the effect of inoculations of non-symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria, such as Azotobacter chroococcum and Azospirillum brasilense singly and in combinations, with different recommended doses of inorganic nitrogen as well as organic matter such as neem seed cake on the growth, yield, and organic parameters of the okra crop towards the management of plant-parasitic nematodes. The results show a significant reduction in nematode multiplication through soil application of nitrogen-fixing bacteria and neem seed cake along with different recommended doses of nitrogen inoculated plants. Azotobacter was found to be less effective than Azospirillum in agronomic parameters and nematode control. The most pronounced increases were observed in the yield and growth parameters such as plant height, fresh as well as dry weights, fruit weights/plant, number of total fruits/plant and primary branches, chlorophyll content, and ascorbic acid content when A. chroococcum and A. brasilense were added concomitantly in various combinations. Agronomic parameters such as NPK content in the plant as well as in residual soil increased considerably in almost all the combinations irrespective of these biofertilizers and neem seed cake. In conclusion, the combined application of a 100% recommended dose of nitrogen fertilizer along with Azospirillum and neem seed cake is recommended for better growth and yield of okra with better control of nematodal population.
BCKDK alters the metabolism of non-small cell lung cancer

Background Metabolic reprogramming is a major feature of many tumors including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Branched-chain α-keto acid dehydrogenase kinase (BCKDK) plays an important role in diabetes, obesity, and other diseases. However, the function of BCKDK in NSCLC is unclear. This study aimed to explore the function of BCKDK in NSCLC. Methods Metabolites in the serum of patients with NSCLC and the supernatant of NSCLC cell cultures were detected using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Colony formation, cell proliferation, and cell apoptosis were assessed to investigate the function of BCKDK in the progression of NSCLC. Glucose uptake, lactate production, cellular oxygen consumption rate, extracellular acidification rate, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) were measured to examine the function of BCKDK in glucose metabolism. The expression of BCKDK was measured using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, western blot, and immunohistochemical assay. Results Compared with healthy controls and postoperative NSCLC patients, increased branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) and decreased citrate were identified in the serum of preoperative NSCLC patients. Upregulation of BCKDK affected the metabolism of BCAAs and citrate in NSCLC cells. Knockout of BCKDK decreased the proliferation and exacerbated apoptosis of NSCLC cells ex vivo, while increased oxidative phosphorylation and, ROS levels, and inhibited glycolysis. Conclusions BCKDK may influence glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation by regulating the degradation of BCAA and citrate, thereby affecting the progression of NSCLC.
Comprehensive Evaluation of Effect of Climate in Mechanistic–Empirical Pavement Design GuidePredictions

Climatic and environmental conditions have significant effects on pavement performance but have been inadequately considered in previous design methods. The Mechanistic–Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) accounts for these effects through the use of the enhanced integrated climatic model. The present study examined the effects of climate on pavement performance predictions and the effects of climatic file generation by using MEPDG. The paper details the effort required to compare performance predictions for composite pavement consisting of asphalt cement over portland cement concrete (PCC) for 610 locations across the United States, with the use of MEPDG, Version 1.0. Analysis of the results was performed at the national, regional, and local levels. Although in general the results agree with the anticipated trends of environmental effects on pavement performance, the prediction of performance according to the predicted transverse cracking in the PCC layer was found to contain inconsistencies. These inconsistencies are attributed to the quality of the climatic data. The paper concludes that the MEPDG climatic database should be cleansed of incomplete or questionable climatic data files to ensure reliable performance prediction.
From Warriors to Mere Chicken Men, and Other Troubles: An Ordinary Language Survey of Notions of Resilience in Ngakarimojong

ABSTRACT We examine some vernacular concepts that reflect Karamojong understanding and everyday experience of resilience following a devastating disarmament process, and what this means for resilience-driven humanitarian-development processes. We found that whereas humanitarian-development actors view market development, improved security, and accessibility as indicators of increased resilience capacity, local people paint a contrasting picture of a region with mounting inequality. We argue that Ngakaramojong concepts of resilience are, for the most part, unseen or ignored by humanitarian-development programming. In their current form, resilience-based intervention appears to neutralise and dismantle those aspects of communities that make them resilient in the first place.
A 25μm pitch LWIR staring focal plane array with pixel-level 15-bit ADC ROIC achieving 2mK NETD

CEA-Leti MINATEC has been involved in infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) development since many years, with performing HgCdTe in-house process from SWIR to LWIR and more recently in focusing its work on new ROIC architectures. The trend is to integrate advanced functions into the CMOS design for the purpose of applications demanding a breakthrough in Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD) performances (reaching the mK in LWIR band) or a high dynamic range (HDR) with high-gain APDs. In this paper, we present a mid-TV format focal plane array (FPA) operating in LWIR with 25μm pixel pitch, including a new readout IC (ROIC) architecture based on pixel-level charge packets counting. The ROIC has been designed in a standard 0. 18μm 6-metal CMOS process, LWIR n/p HgCdTe detectors were fabricated with CEA-Leti in-house process. The FPA operates at 50Hz frame rate in a snapshot integrate-while-read (IWR) mode, allowing a large integration time. While classical pixel architectures are limited by the charge well capacity, this architecture exhibits a large well capacity (near 3Ge-) and the 15-bit pixel level ADC preserves an excellent signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at full well. These characteristics are essential for LWIR FPAs as broad intra-scene dynamic range imaging requires high sensitivity. The main design challenges for this digital pixel array (SNR, power consumption and layout density) are discussed. The electro-optical results demonstrating a peak NETD value of 2mK and images taken with the FPA are presented. They validate both the pixel-level ADC concept and its circuit implementation. A previously unreleased SNR of 90dB is achieved.
Nanostructured Modifications of Titanium Surfaces Improve Vascular Regenerative Properties of Exosomes Derived from Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Preliminary In Vitro Results

(1) Background: Implantation of metal-based scaffolds is a common procedure for treating several diseases. However, the success of the long-term application is limited by an insufficient endothelialization of the material surface. Nanostructured modifications of metal scaffolds represent a promising approach to faster biomaterial osteointegration through increasing of endothelial commitment of the mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). (2) Methods: Three different nanotubular Ti surfaces (TNs manufactured by electrochemical anodization with diameters of 25, 80, or 140 nm) were seeded with human MSCs (hMSCs) and their exosomes were isolated and tested with human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) to assess whether TNs can influence the secretory functions of hMSCs and whether these in turn affect endothelial and osteogenic cell activities in vitro. (3) Results: The hMSCs adhered on all TNs and significantly expressed angiogenic-related factors after 7 days of culture when compared to untreated Ti substrates. Nanomodifications of Ti surfaces significantly improved the release of hMSCs exosomes, having dimensions below 100 nm and expressing CD63 and CD81 surface markers. These hMSC-derived exosomes were efficiently internalized by HUVECs, promoting their migration and differentiation. In addition, they selectively released a panel of miRNAs directly or indirectly related to angiogenesis. (4) Conclusions: Preconditioning of hMSCs on TNs induced elevated exosomes secretion that stimulated in vitro endothelial and cell activity, which might improve in vivo angiogenesis, supporting faster scaffold integration.
Visual Skills in Airport-Security

An experiment examined visual performance in a simulated luggage-screening task. Observers participated in five sessions of a task requiring them to search for knives hidden in x-ray images of cluttered bags. Sensitivity and response times improved reliably as a result of practice. Eye movement data revealed that sensitivity increases were produced entirely by changes in observers' ability to recognize target objects, and not by changes in the effectiveness of visual scanning. Moreover, recognition skills were in part stimulus-specific, such that per- formance was degraded by the introduction of unfamiliar target objects. Implications for screener training are discussed. Recent concern over aviation security has focused interest on the role of airport-security screeners in keeping weapons and other potential threats off aircraft. The job of these screeners is to examine x-ray images of carry-on luggage to detect the presence of suspicious or threatening objects. Unfortunately, screeners often work under con- ditions characterized by high levels of noise and time stress. More problematically, their task—detecting weak and infrequent visual signals among high levels of background clutter—is inherently diffi- cult, straining the perceptual and cognitive capacities of the typical human observer (Harris, 2002). Efforts to optimize screener training and redesign the screeners' task, bringing it more in line with the limits of human perception and cognition, are therefore a priority in aviation security. To date, relatively little research appears to have focused directly on human performance in the task of aviation security screening (for an exception, see Gale, Mugglestone, Purdy, & McClumpha, 2000). Knowledge of visual search in other domains, however, is likely to provide a strong foundation for understanding the security screeners' task. Study of applied visual search in medical image inspection and other real-world domains has led to a multistage model of search performance (Kundel, Nodine, & Carmody, 1978; Nodine, Krupinski, & Kundel, 1993). The first stage consists of a rapid, global assessment
Photonic crystal optical fibers for dispersion compensation and Raman amplification: Design and experiment

An optimal design of photonic crystal optical fibers for simultaneous dispersion compensation and Raman amplification is investigated by numerical simulation using the finite‐difference simultaneous over‐relaxation method. The proposed fiber was fabricated and experimental characterization results are presented. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 872–874, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI.10. 1002/mop.22294
Determinants of debt-to-equity and its impact on the performance of industrial companies listed on Amman Stock Exchange

This paper focuses on investigating the determinants of the debt-to-equity ratio, and its impact on the performance of 20 industrial companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). It uses a numerical research model comprised of two operations: data envelopment analysis (DEA) followed by regression analysis, that is to identify the key determinants of the said ratio and examine the effects of it and its determinants on companies’ performances. Furthermore, the paper detects that firm risk has a substantially positive impact on debt-to-equity and firm size; whereas tangibility and liquidity have a substantially negative impact on debt-to-equity. Finally, the study finds that debt-to-equity and firm size both have a substantially negative impact on performance; contrastingly, liquidity and tangibility and possess a substantially positive impact on the industrial companies’ performances. The importance of exploring the research problem lies in its potential to further benefit and help the industry leaders in the ASE, and stakeholders of these industries, in developing an action plan that determines the debt-to-equity ratio for financing they will need in order to optimize the company’s sustainability and profit generation (Drobetz & Fix, 2005).
Global Output-Feedback Prescribed Performance Control of Nonlinear Systems With Unknown Virtual Control Coefficients

This article is concerned with the output-feedback tracking control problem for a class of nonlinear systems. The challenge lies in how to drive the tracking error to a prescribed region in a given time globally, under both unknown nonlinear functions and unknown virtual control coefficients. To deal with the unknown control direction, an orientation function is exploited in lieu of the Nussbaum gain technique, the supervisory switching strategy, and the parameter estimation approach. To attain global tracking performance, a tuning function is employed to adjust the tracking error, and a barrier function is used to combat this error. The resulting controller guarantees the prescribed tracking performance and the boundedness of the signals in the closed loop for any initial condition.
Gender and Location as Factors Determinants of Secondary School Students Civic Engagement in Oyo State, Nigeria

The research adopted a descriptive research design of the survey type. The population consisted of 411,912 public secondary school students in Oyo State, Nigeria’s urban and rural areas. The study sample consisted of 600 public secondary school students’ selected using multistage sampling procedures, including simple random sampling techniques and stratified random sampling techniques. The instrument used to collect data was a questionnaire titled ‘Students’ Civic Engagement Questionnaire’ (SCEQ). The instrument’s validity was established through the face and content validity while the instrument’s reliability was determined using the Cronbach alpha method and a reliability coefficient of 0.72 was obtained. The data collected were analyzed using inferential statistics of the t-test to test the hypotheses formulated. All hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed no significant difference between male and female students’ attitudes towards civic engagement, but there is a significant difference between the civic engagement of secondary school students living in rural and urban areas. It was recommended that students be enlightened and encouraged to participate in civic obligations especially in urban areas such as community service to develop positive attitudes towards civic engagement.
What GATA-3 told us in breast carcinoma? 2 Years of single tertiary center experience

Aim: Our study aims to find the relationship between the degree of GATA-3 expression in breast cancer and other prognostic factors such as ER, PR, HER-2, Ki67, and axillary metastasis. Materials and Methods: The cases in which GATA-3 immunohistochemical staining was applied to breast cancer tissues between 2018 and 2020 were detected. Immunohistochemically stained preparations of ER, PRG, GATA-3, Ki-67, and HER-2 of these cases were obtained from the hospital archive and evaluated by two pathologists. Results: As a result, GATA-3 was directly proportional to PR and ER and inversely proportional to Ki 67. GATA-3 expression was associated with a higher Ki-67 mitotic index compared to the percentage of ER and PR expression. Conclusion: According to the results of our study, indicating GATA-3 positivity and negativity as well as the degree of expression in the pathology reports of breast tumors will help the clinician in terms of differentiation and prognosis of the tumor. Finally, breast tumors with high GATA-3 loss should be evaluated as more primitive tumors and the patients with these tumors should be followed up more closely.
Analysis of ℒ1 adaptive output feedback control; equivalent LTI controllers

Abstract The recently developed ℒ 1 adaptive control theory is a promising approach to robust adaptive control. Due to the specific architecture used in ℒ 1 adaptive controllers, robustness and adaptation are separated. High adaptation gains do not affect robustness because the input signal is limited by a low-pass filter and adaptation only occurs within the bandwidth of the system. The approach was initially developed for state feedback control. In this paper, the extension of the approach to output feedback controllers is analyzed and it is concluded that the current output feedback scheme does not provide adaptation. An equivalent LTI controller can be formulated for both output feedback approaches described in Hovakimyan and Cao [2010]. It is shown that for a specific choice of filters commonly used in applications, the equivalent LTI controller is a proportional-integral controller.