Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influences of cement brands and mixing ratios on the physico-mechanical properties of cement bonded particleboards made of wood particles of Gmelina arborea, Afzelia africana and Triplochiton scleroxylon

Cement bonded particleboards (CBPs) were produced of wood particles of Gmelina arborea, Afzelia africana and Triplochiton scleroxylon using two brands of ordinary portland cement manufactured by two different domestic cement companies operating in Nigeria known as Dangote PLC and Lafarge Company. The admixture of wood particles and cement for production of the CBPs were done at mixing ratios of 1:1, 1:1.5 and 1:2 (weight to weight basis). The properties such as water absorption and thickness swelling at 24 hours, density, modulus of rupture (MOR), modulus of elasticity (MOE) and impact bending strength were determined. The results of the study reveal that the density ranged from 0.61 to 0.92 g/cm3. Meanwhile, water absorption and thickness swelling were found to be 30.34 to 72.44 % and 11.43 to 10.77 % at 24 hours, respectively. The bending properties obtained from the laboratory tests ranged from 115.77 to 826.55 N/mm2 and from 1157.70 to 4773.38 N/mm2 for MOR and MOE, respectively, while impact bending strength ranged from 41.70 to 238.49 N/mm2, respectively. As the cementious content increases from 50 % to 66.3 % and wood content decreases from 50 % to 33.4 %, the properties such as density, MOR, MOE and impact bending strength increased, while water absorption and thickness swelling decreases. The statistical results showed that such factors as wood species, cement type and mixing ratio had significant influence on the physical and mechanical properties of CBPs. The study reveals that CBPs made of wood particles of Triplochiton scleroxylon and Dangote cement brand at the ratio of 1:2 were more dimensionally stable, denser and stronger while CBPs of wood particles of Afzelia africana were stiffest and most rigid. As concluded, cement brand had significant importance in qualities of CBPs, which can be attributed to chemical compositions found in materials used. Keywords: cement, physical, mechanical, wood, particleboards, mixing ratio
The effect of a novel herbicide adjuvant in treating Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii)

Abstract Invasive woody perennials pose an immense threat to the diversity and function of many ecosystems, including forests in the eastern United States. While herbicide treatments have proven effective in controlling many plant invasions, there is considerable interest in the refinement of herbicide prescriptions to improve efficacy and prevent non-target damage. Adjuvants are widely utilized to improve herbicide efficacy, but research on novel adjuvants is often lacking. Furthermore, adjuvant research has generally focused on enhancement of foliar herbicide absorption, and few studies focus on adjuvant utility for other herbicide delivery techniques such as cut stump treatments. We evaluated 2XL—a cocktail of cellulase enzymes derived from fungi—as a potential herbicide adjuvant for use with glyphosate applied in a cut stump treatment due to its ability to degrade a key component of cell walls. We conducted a field experiment using the cut stump method of treatment (cut surface treated with herbicide) on a problematic invasive shrub, Amur honeysuckle [Lonicera maackii (Rupr.) Herder]. We tested combinations of three concentrations of 2XL with five concentrations of glyphosate and hypothesized that low concentrations of glyphosate combined with 2XL would be as effective in limiting the resprouting of L. maackii as higher concentrations of glyphosate without the enzymes. Our results indicated that 2XL did not improve glyphosate efficacy for reducing the number of resprouting stems or the length of the longest resprouting stem within the same or following year as treatment. Limited data indicated the combination of 2XL and glyphosate applied at 30 g L–1 slightly increased resprouting in the year following treatment. While 2XL did not improve glyphosate efficacy, our results showed effective control of L. maackii at the lowest concentration of glyphosate tested (30 g L–1), suggesting that concentrations lower than those typically applied may be effective in controlling L. maackii within parameters similar to those tested here.
Intracranial paragangliomas versus schwannomas: Role of dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion and diffusion MRI

Differentiating paragangliomas from schwannomas and distinguishing sporadic from neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF 2)‐related schwannomas is challenging but clinically important. This study aimed to assess the utility of dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MRI (DSC‐MRI) and diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) in discriminating infratentorial extra‐axial schwannomas from paragangliomas and NF2‐related schwannomas.
Effect of Olive Tree – Barley/Common Vetch Agroforestry System on Soil Organic Matter Under Low-Input Conditions in a Tunisian Semi-Arid Climate

ABSTRACT The use of cover crops within olive groves, be they legume, non-legume or a mixture, has become more widespread in recent years as a practice of environmental sustainability to improve soil organic matter. Using both SC: a sole-crop and AC: an alley-cropping, Hordeum vulgare L. and Vicia sativa L. were studied with olive trees 2016 to 2019. The aim was to determine the effects of both of these systems on: TB: total biomass, POXC: Permanganate oxidizable Carbon and SOC: Soil Organic Carbon, TN: Total Nitrogen, C:N ratio; and P: available Phosphorus. These parameters were measured on 192 soil samples collected at 0–20 and 20–40 cm soil depths before planting and after crop harvesting. The results showed that within the relatively short time of three seasons, cover crops increased SOC slightly overall. Compared to the SC, AC limited crop and weed growth and produced significantly less TB, especially in 2017–18, a particularly dry season. This can be explained by the initial state of the soil which was significantly affected by the cropping system. AC enhanced SOC and stabilized the POXC during all three cropping seasons for all treatments. Mixed crop (barley and vetch) significantly increased TN in the AC over the three cropping seasons and decreased the C:N ratio. However, with barley and vetch in pure stand, the mean TN was similar to that of fallow. Also, this type of agroforestry increased the mean available phosphorus with barley, vetch and a mixture of the two compared to fallow.
Area deprivation and respiratory morbidities in children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia

Infants and children diagnosed with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) have a higher likelihood of recurrent hospitalizations and asthma‐like symptoms. Socio‐environmental factors that influence the frequency and severity of pulmonary symptoms in these children during the preschool age are poorly understood. In this study, we used the Area Deprivation Index (ADI) to evaluate the relationship between the socio‐environmental exposures in children with BPD and respiratory outcomes during the first few years of life.
Dietary knowledge, attitudes and practices: a cross-sectional survey of type 2 diabetic patients in two tertiary hospitals in Jos, Nigeria

Diet is a crucial aspect of diabetes management and healthy eating is one of the main focus in preventing type 2 diabetes mellitus. Despite mounting evidence of the role of the dietary approach in the management of diabetes mellitus, studies still show low adherence to dietary recommendations. This study aimed at assessing the dietary knowledge, attitudes, and practices of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients in two tertiary hospitals in Jos, Nigeria. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study among 448 type 2 diabetic patients using systematic random sampling. Quantitative data was collected using a self- administered questionnaire and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. A 95% confidence interval was used and a probability value of P≤0.05 was considered statistically significant. The study revealed that dietary knowledge of type 2 diabetic patients attending tertiary health care facilities in Jos, Nigeria was poor, their attitudes were positive, but they had poor dietary practices. A significant association was observed between marital status (P=0.022), religion (P=0.003), education level (P=0.000), employment status (P=0.000), family history (P=0.012), and dietary knowledge. This study highlights the importance of proper health education as this could possibly improve dietary knowledge, dietary practices that potentially change patient outcomes.
PENGARUH KEMASAN DAN HARGA PADA KEPUTUSAN PEMBELIAN MINUMAN ISOTONIK

This study aimed to determine the effect of packaging and pricing on purchase decision of isotonic drinks. Variable of packaging was limited to structural elements, as these elements were getting less attention by previous research. Data were obtained from 261 employees and students in South Jakarta, using structured questionnaires. The questionnaires was developed based on research instruments from former research. The study used purposive sampling technique. Results from regression analysis showed that packaging and the price were significantly related to the purchase decision. The price effect was greater than the product packaging. The results also showed that there were significant differences in the variance of packaging, pricing, and purchase decisions based on groups of age, education level, the brand chosen, the intensity of purchase, and the place of purchase.
Hourly rolling correction of precipitation forecast via convolutional and long short‐term memory networks

In order to improve precipitation forecast from GRAPES_Meso V4.0 in China, we propose a 1–6‐h rolling correction solution, based on infrared (IR) channels from geostationary meteorological satellite and surface observation data. In particular, we design a deep learning extrapolation model to predict the evolution of cloud clusters based on convolutional neural networks and long short‐term memory networks. The predicted cloud clusters, together with the relationship between the rainfall area and the cloud position, are applied to correct the 1–6‐h precipitation forecast. We conduct comprehensive experiments to evaluate the proposed solution over China. Experimental results show that the deep learning model can successfully capture spatial characteristics and temporal variations between the sequences, and achieve reliable predictions of cloud clusters. The analysis further indicates that the rolling correction solution via the predicted cloud clusters has improved the precipitation forecast in China. The distribution of corrected precipitation forecast is more consistent with the observed precipitation compared to GRAPES_Meso forecast. In particular, the rolling correction model could enhance the forecast on “rain/no‐rain” events, light rain, and moderate rain according to TS, ETS, BIAS, and FAR metrics.
Extrinsic motivations behind mobile shopping: what drives regular and occasional shoppers?

PurposeThis paper aims at shedding light on the competing extrinsic motivations behind the mobile shopping process of regular and occasional shoppers. Price and convenience, shopping security, order delivery and post-sale service are investigated as antecedents of the mobile shopping attitude-intention path.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis is based on a multigroup structural equation model (SEM) developed on 903 online questionnaires collected among Chinese shoppers in a pre-Covid-19 pandemic retailing context.FindingsFindings evidence contrary motivations behind the attitude – intention to shop using a mobile retail app of regular and occasional shoppers. While all the investigated aspects result to be positively relevant for regular m-shoppers, shopping security and post-sale service do not impact the attitude – intention path of occasional mobile shoppers. Results support retailers’ strategies in the context of mobile shopping growth.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the emerging retailing literature on mobile shopping by offering a comparison of the motivations behind the mobile shopping intention of regular and occasional shoppers. Extrinsic motivations before, during and after the transaction are jointly investigated in the study.
End-Wall Boundary Layers and Blockages of Multistage Axial Compressors Under Different Conditions

End-wall boundary layers and induced blockages are important factors for multistage axial compressors’ performance. This paper investigates hub and shroud end-wall boundary layers, and the corresponding blockages of a five-stage axial compressor under different conditions. The results show that the hub displacement thickness increases from the front to rear stage, whereas the shroud displacement thickness remains almost the same. At the design point, the blockage increases from 2.4% for the front stage to 14.7% for the rear stage, which is dominated by the hub displacement thickness. Under different operating conditions of 100% speed, the blockage is almost the same for the front stage, but increases significantly for the rear stage from 6.0% at near choke to 22.2% at near surge. At peak-efficiency points of different rotational speeds, the blockage remains almost the same. The steady and unsteady results show almost the same trends of displacement thickness and blockage. Compared to unsteady simulations,.
International Quality Certification and Firms’ Innovation Performance in Bali, Lampung, and South Sulawesi

Tujuan dari studi ini adalah untuk menganalisa perbedaan antara performa inovasi perusahaan yang memiliki dan tidak memiliki sertifikasi kualitas internasional di Bali, Lampung, dan Sulawesi Selatan. Ketiganya adalah tiga provinsi di luar pulau Jawa yang tercakup dalam Enterprise Survey gelombang terakhir di Indonesia (Bank Dunia, 2015). Ada 288 perusahaan di tiga provinsi tersebut yang menjadi partisipan dalam survey. Data hasil survey dianalisa menggunakan statistik deskriptif, uji chi-square (dengan Yates’ continuity correction dan Fisher’s Exact Test) serta uji Mann-Whitney U. Hasil analisa menunjukkan bahwa hanya 9,7 persen perusahaan memiliki sertifikasi kualitas internasional sebagai cerminan standar kualitas mereka. Uji chi-square memperlihatkan bahwa perbedaan signifikan tampak pada tipe inovasi proses dan organisasi, sementara inovasi produk tidak signifikan. Bila dihubungkan dengan kendala, uji Mann-Whitney mengungkapkan bahwa kendala-kendala yang dihadapi perusahaan dengan dan tanpa sertifikasi tidak signifikan secara statistik. Berbeda dengan studi terdahulu yang dominan menganalisa dampak sertifikasi terhadap performa operasional, penjualan, atau finansial, studi ini memberikan fokus kepada performa inovasi dengan data empiris unik berkonteks tiga provinsi di Indonesia yang berlokasi di luar pulau Jawa.
A GENRE AND COLLOCATIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE NEAR-SYNONYMS TEACH, EDUCATE AND INSTRUCT: A CORPUS-BASED APPROACH

This study investigated three synonymous verbs, teach, educate, and instruct, in terms of their collocational patterns and distribution across genres. Data were drawn from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2021) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The findings from this investigation revealed that from distribution patterns among text types, teach is far more widely and commonly used than educate and instruct, with the highest frequency among eight genres. The frequency data also revealed that all three synonyms are preferred in formal genres than in spoken conversation, as represented by academic literature. The results also revealed that grouping of noun collocates into categories offers more insightful information about each target synonym’s co-occurring authentic use. This can be more helpful to EFL students than simply looking up a term in a dictionary or relying on native speakers’ intuition, which may not be dependable or trustworthy.
Recording the facts : a generic recording system for animal palaeopathology

The impact of animal disease on human societies has been highly publicised recently, both as a consequence of diseases that have spread amongst animal populations (e.g. foot and mouth), as well as those that have ‘jumped’ from animal to human populations (e.g. HIV, bird flu and BSE). Non-disease-related pathologies can also provide much information about human-animal interactions, such as the use of animals for traction or riding. While the human, social and economic effect o f such conditions is profound, the study of their impact on past human populations has been widely neglected. This is partly due to the inconsistent manner in which incidences of animal disease (palaeopathology) have been collected, recorded and interpreted which, together with the typically low incidence of specimens per site, has precluded any detailed studies of regional or temporal trends. The aim of this project was to improve the study of animal palaeopathology in order to attain a better appreciation of the potential for such research to resolve archaeological questions. This was to be achieved by designing, developing and implementing a methodology to overcome these problems and enable the past impact of animal disease to be better understood. The primary objectives were to: 1. Design and develop a generic methodology to facilitate the consistent recognition, recording and description of animal palaeopathological data; 2. Implement the methodology within a database system; 3. Apply and critically evaluate the methodology, using assemblages from the Roman legionary fort at Alchester and the Roman town of Colchester, and demonstrate the benefits of adopting a systematic approach to recording animal palaeopathology.
Human Exposure Assessment to Wearable Antennas: Effect of Position and Interindividual Anatomical Variability

(1) Background: This work aims to assess the human exposure to the RF-EMFs emitted by a wearable antenna. (2) Methods: a wearable antenna tuned at f = 2.45 GHz was tested by placing it in six realistic configurations relative to a male and female human model. The exposure assessment was performed by means of computational methods to estimate the SAR10g distributions at 1W of input power. (3) Results: (i) for all the configurations the SAR10g distributions resulted always mainly concentrated on a superficial area immediately below the antenna itself; (ii) the obtained values have shown that the configuration with the highest exposure value was when the antenna was posed on the arm; (iii) the exposure tends to be higher for male model. (4) Discussion and Conclusions: This work highlights the importance of performing an exposure assessment when the antenna is placed on the human wearer considering the growth of the wearable technology and its wide variety of fields of application, e.g., medical and military.
The integration of quality management system in construction industry

Malaysian construction industry is facing problems to assure the construction quality due to the increasing demand in quality of delivered product. Therefore, Malaysian construction industry must impose on higher quality product to compete aggressively both at regional or international industry. The concept of quality management system has been introduced to the construction industry to control the product quality and continually improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its performance. The main thrust of a quality management system is to define the processes that will lead to the quality of end result or product. However, the implementation of quality management system is often treated independently within an organization and this contributes to the limitation of the system. With regards to the current system that has been implemented independently, the concept of integrated quality management system is introduced. Integrated quality management system is a combination of various quality management systems such as Environmental Management System and Occupational Safety and Health Management System into one coherent management system. The main aim of this study is to review the potential of applying integrated management system to construction industry. The methodologies adopted for this study are interviews with expert panel, conducting case studies and questionnaire survey. Hence, the results of study are important for the construction industry that wishes to enhance their end product quality and performance. It is found that there is a strong potential in applying integrated quality management system. Indeed this study has found that there are few construction companies have implemented this integrated system. The main challenges for applying this system are higher initial cost and lack of understanding of the concept.
Predicting Students’ Financial Knowledge from Attitude towards Finance

Attitude towards finance and financial attitude are very different constructs. Despite the popularity of the latter, it has recently been subject to criticism. Following Di Martino and Zan (2010), the former explicitly considers emotions and beliefs (about self and finance) and the mutual relationship between them. At present, there is a paucity of evidence on how ‘attitude toward finance’ may impact financial knowledge: this is a new area of inquiry in academic literature. Research is at a preliminary stage, although the jigsaw of financial literacy is receiving greater attention worldwide. This study measures individual attitudes towards finance and determines the effects of this profile on financial knowledge level. It uses about 500 economics students in Italy as sample respondents. It is based on a structured questionnaire survey as a data collection method. The data is analysed using Structural Equation Modeling. A significant positive correlation is found between financial knowledge and attitude toward finance. The direction of causality is found to be from attitude toward finance to financial knowledge, and this finding suggests that attitude toward finance can play an important role in financial education. Among the various dimensions of attitude toward finance, emotional disposition towards finance, and secondly, the self-confidence level, are the most influential factors on economic students’ financial knowledge level. Gender is also found to be closely correlated to both financial knowledge and attitude toward finance. Findings mainly suggest the importance of attitude toward finance on financial knowledge. For policymakers, the results of this study could indicate new ways of solving the financial illiteracy problem.
Improved gender classification using Discrete Wavelet Transform and hybrid Support Vector Machine

Gender recognition, across different races and regardless of age, is becoming an increasingly important technology in the domains of marketing, human-computer interaction and security. Most state-of-the-art systems consider either highly constrained conditions or relatively large databases. In either case, often not enough attention is paid to cross-racial age-invariant applications. This paper proposes a~method of hybrid classification, which performs well even with a small training set. The design of the classifier enables the construction of reliable decision boundaries insensitive to an aging model as well as to race variation. For a training set consisting of one hundred images, the proposed method reached an accuracy level of 90%, whereas the best method known from the literature, tested under the restrictions imposed on the database, achieved only 78% accuracy.