Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Overview of the Technology Acceptance Model: Origins, Developments and Future Directions

User acceptance of technology has been an important field of study for over two decades now. Although many models have been proposed to explain and predict the use of a system, the Technology Acceptance Model has been the only one which has captured the most attention of the Information Systems community. Thus, it is essential for anyone willing to study user acceptance of technology to have an understanding of the Technology Acceptance Model. This paper provides a historical overview of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by summarizing the evolution of TAM, its key applications, extensions, limitations, and criticisms from a selective list of published articles on the model. Current observations indicate that although TAM is a highly cited model, researchers share mixed opinions regarding its theoretical assumptions, and practical effectiveness. It is concluded that research in TAM lacks sufficient rigor and relevance that would make it a well established theory for the IS community.
Tips for successful power-up of today's high-performance FPGAs

The requirements Most FPGA manufacturers require the core voltage (VCORE), and possibly the I/O (VIO) or other voltage rails, to ramp up monotonically to a certain voltage with ±5% steady-state tolerance, at a rate between tmin/VCORE and tmax/VCORE as shown in Figure 1. The primary reason for the monotonic rise is either an internal power-on-reset (POR) circuit or an external supervisory reset chip that is used to enable certain sensitive analog circuitry, such as a phase-lock loop (PLL) controlled by a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). For example, if the voltage were to rise above the POR threshold, then dip below the trip point (outside the POR’s hysteresis range) and rise again, the VCO would change frequencies and/or phase, causing the PLL to fall out of phase and lose synchronization. As shown in Figure 1, further complicating an FPGA power rail’s monotonic ramp-up requirement is an inescapable surge current at startup. This surge current, ICOREmax, which consists of capacitance charging current and the FPGA start-up current, can be much greater than the steady-state current, ICORESS. Each power rail of an FPGA has a minimum amount of bypass/decoupling capacitance that is used to minimize voltage troughs during load transient steps. This decoupling capacitance is usually on the order of several hundred microfarads. Using ic = C dv/dt, we can easily see that, depending on the speed at which the converter is attempting to ramp the rail voltage, the start-up current could be on the order of amperes. In addition, FPGA manufacturers specify minimum in-rush current requirements in the ampere range for some of their devices. These in-rush currents are needed not only to charge the capacitances of the millions of internal components of the FPGA but also to momentarily supply current through a low resistance path to ground created by, for example, stacked complementary transistors that are both on. So, during startup, the power rail’s point-of-load dc/dc converter must simultaneously be able to supply a large in-rush current and to maintain a monotonically ramping output voltage with a certain dv/dt. Therefore, in addition to other components it is powering, the converter’s input power supply must be capable of supplying large load currents (load transients) for short periods of time. Since these types of power supplies with low source/output impedance and fast response times are usually expensive, more often a less expensive, lower-current, slower supply is chosen; and decoupling capacitors are added to its output to lower its output impedance. Unfortunately, simply adding more capacitance to such a supply can make its response time even worse and can further complicate the ramp time and surge-current issue. Texas Instruments Incorporated Power Management
Self-tuning position tracking control of an electro-hydraulic servo system in the presence of internal leakage and friction

Friction and the internal leakage significantly deteriorates the performance of an electro-hydraulic servo system. Hence, an adaptive scheme could be better choice to handle these effects. Therefore, in this paper a Self-tuning fuzzy PID (SFPID) control scheme is employed for the position tracking performance of an electro-hydraulic servo system. A mathematical model of the system was designed with the consideration of internal leakage and friction inside the system. The internal leakage flow was implemented by introducing several levels and the friction was modeled using LuGre model. The self tuning capability of PID controller was achieved through fuzzy logic theory and the PID controller parameters namely, Kp, Ki and Kd were tuned by selecting appropriate fuzzy rules. The capability of the proposed controller was examined through simulation works in Matlab Simulink and validation was carried out in the real system. The results indicate that the proposed controller successfully improves the positioning performance of the system. The proposed controller can be applied potentially to control the modern equipments positioning applications.
Biting Back: Tackling Repeat Burglary and Car Crime

The project contributes to a Home Office programme of work on repeat victimisation. Previous work has established the potential scope for reducing crime by preventing repeat victimisation. The purpose of this twoyear project is to consider how forces might tackle repeat victimisation as part of their crime management strategies for burglary and car crime, and to provide guidance on how the current obstacles to this might be overcome. The project is being conducted by staff from the University of Manchester, who are working with the police on Huddersfield Division of West Yorkshire Police to develop and implement a strategy for preventing repeat burglary and motor vehicle crime as part of the operational policing of a police division. The project has been running for over a year and development of the strategy has involved a wide range of local agencies, including the police, local authority, victim support, the university and the media. This report documents the research and events leading up to implementation of the strategy on 1 October 1994. A further report next year will describe how the strategy has developed and what it has achieved in terms of crime reduction and detection.
Managing the multinationals : an international study of control mechanisms

Contents: Preface Introduction 1. Theoretical Building Blocks 2. Integration, Configurations and Performance 3. Research Design and Methodology 4. Results: Theoretical Building Blocks 5. Results: Integration, Configurations and Performance 6. Conclusion, Discussion, Limitations and Implications References Index
Land-use Dynamics in Lupila Ward of Makete District in Southern Highlands of Tanzania

This article examines Land-Use (LU) dynamics in Lupila ward of Makete District in Southern Highlands of Tanzania. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to track LU change in Lupila ward from 1984 to 2014. Geographical information system (GIS) was employed to track LU/Land-Cover (LU/LC) change from 1984 to 2014. The questionnaire, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), in-depth interview and field observations were used to supplement GIS. The data were collected from 87 respondents through questionnaire, FGDs and in-depth interview. Five LU/LC classes were identified, which are agriculture with scattered settlement, natural forests, woodlands, bushlands and grasslands. The identified LU/LC classes changed (increased and decreased) over time. Findings from respondents indicated that LU/LC change was mainly caused by the introduction of exotic tree species and decline in soil fertility. Based on the findings, the study recommends that it is imperative for the respective authority to introduce LU plan in each village so as to rescue resources like natural forests from being depleted.
Validation and Reliability of the Chinese Version of the Miller Behavioral Style Scale

Objectives: To test the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of Miller Behavioral Style Scale(C-MBSS). Methods: The forward-back-translation procedure was adopted in the translation of the Miller Behavioral Style Scale. Content validity was assessed in a panel of experts. In a sample of 1343 individuals, reliability and construct validity were assessed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and factor analysis. For exploratory factor analysis, parallel analysis was used to decide number of factors, principal axis factoring and direct oblimin rotation method were used to select factor. For confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling was established to verify the extracted factor structure.Results: The C-MBSS achieved conceptual and semantic equivalence with the original scale. The item content validity index(I-CVI) of each item ranged from 0.78 to 1, and the averaging scale content validity index(S-CVI/ Ave) was 0.95. The cronbach`s alpha coefficient for the scale and sub-scales were over 0.6. The exploratory factor analysis resulted in 2-factor assumption for each hypothetical threat-evoking scenario. Confirmatory factor analysis provided confirmatory evidence for the second-order factor structure of 2-factor solution (Monitoring and Blunting) and demonstrated a good fit between theoretical model and data. Conclusions: This study verified the psychometric properties of the C-MBSS and indicated that the C-MBSS can be used to identify individual`s information-seeking style in Chinese population. With the use of the C-MBSS, health care professionals in China can deliver health education based on patients’ information-seeking behavior, which can improve the effect of health education and patients’ health outcomes.
Exploring Heuristics for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Split Deliveries and Time Windows

Abstract : This dissertation investigates the Vehicle Routing Problem with Split Deliveries and Time Windows. This problem assumes a depot of homogeneous vehicles and set of customers with deterministic demands requiring delivery. Split deliveries allow multiple visits to a customer and time windows restrict the time during which a delivery can be made. Several construction and local search heuristics are tested to determine their relative usefulness in generating solutions for this problem. This research shows a particular subset of the local search operators is particularly influential on solution quality and run time. Conversely, the construction heuristics tested do not significantly impact either. Several problem features are also investigated to determine their impact. Of the features explored, the ratio of customer demand to vehicle ratio revealed a significant impact on solution quality and influence on the effectiveness of the heuristics tested. Finally, this research introduces an ant colony metaheuristic coupled with a local search heuristic embedded within a dynamic program seeking to solve a Military Inventory Routing Problem with multiple-customer routes, stochastic supply, and deterministic demand. Also proposed is a suite of test problems for the Military Inventory Routing Problem.
Between Community and University: A Collaborative Ethnography with Young Graduates from a Mexican Intercultural University

Intercultural higher education in Mexico aims at creating new, culturally and linguistically adapted professional profiles in order to empower indigenous youth and their communities. For about a decade, so-called intercultural universities have been emerging in rural and indigenous contexts which offer academic courses with an intercultural approach in indigenous languages, in communication, in sustainability, in health and in law. In this contribution we reflect upon the methodology employed in a collaborative ethnography carried out with one of these new Mexican intercultural universities, the Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVI) and particularly with their alumni. We present findings obtained throughout ten years of collaborative-ethnographic field work that combines principles of an “activist anthropology” and of a “doubly reflexive ethnography”. Our article analyzes how in the course of the process of educational interculturalization new methodological solutions appear and how these nourish, rejuvenate and decolonize classical anthropological ethnography, which remains all too monological and extractivist in its orientation.
Modelling and Robust Control of Production Force of a Wave Energy Converter

Lifesaver is a point-absorber wave energy converter developed by Fred. Olsen. She is currently deployed off the coast of England for pre-commercial testing. Lifesaver consists of a toroidal floater supporting three Power-Take Off (PTO) units moored separately to the seabed. The mooring lines are kept taut by electrical generators. Large force oscillations have been encountered in the mooring lines during testing. The source of force oscillations is identified as velocity fluctuations in the PTO drive train due to sudden saturation of generator torque. The unfavorable transient response is a result of low stiffness in the mooring line combined with large inertia in the drive train. A numerical model of the mooring line and PTO unit is developed for use in control system development. The system dynamics are identified through a frequency analysis of a linearized model. Based on these findings a Kalman filter observer is developed to estimate force and force gradient from the angular velocity of the electrical generator. Three different controllers are proposed to mitigate the undesirable force oscillations. The first prevents sudden saturation by limiting the generator force gradient, and should be straight-forward to implement. Proportional-derivative (PD) feedback of the rope force is enabled by the Kalman filter, and is shown to effectively mitigate the unwanted behavior. However, PD feedback reduces the stability margin of the controller and must be implemented with care. A control algorithm using hysteresis is explored. The hysteretic controller behaves in a predictable and similar manner independent of the incoming wave, and has the potential of increasing robustness during high sea states. Real-time optimization of the main control parameter using extremum seeking is explored. The algorithm may be used to track a time-varying optimum due to changes in sea state. The adaptation rate is limited by the high peak-to-average power ratio of Lifesaver.
Comparing Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for Detecting the In Vitro Activity of Colistin against Different Gram-Negative Bacilli

The surge in the prevalence of Multidrug-Resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacterial infections with limited treatment led to colistin reusing to treat MDR infections. This study aimed to determine economical, simple, and reliable colistin susceptibility testing methods as an alternative to the microdilution technique. We compared seven colistin susceptibility testing methods, including quantitative and qualitative, namely: Disk diffusion, E-test, ComASPTM SensiTest Colistin, Colistin broth disk elution, and colistin agar test CHROMagarTM COL-APSE, and BD Phoenix ID/AST automated identification and susceptibility testing system to the gold standard Broth Microdilution (BMD). Whole-genome sequencing was performed on all isolates to determine if the genetic resistant factors affect the phenotypic profile of the colistin resistance. Our results revealed that disk diffusion is still an ineffective method for measuring colistin susceptibility in Gram-negative Bacilli with the highest major error (31.75%), the lowest Kappa 0 (0%), and categorical agreement (68.25%) values. Phoenix, and CompASPTM SensiTest colistin methods have remained superior in reproducibility, sturdiness, and simplicity of use, similar to the currently recommended broth microdilution procedure; with high sensitivity of 95.56%, and 97.73%, specificity of 95.24, and 100%, and Kappa values of 0.89 and 0.95, respectively. This study revealed that Phoenix, and ComASPTM SensiTest colistin methods are recommended for routine microbiology laboratories with a large workload.
Motorcycle Rider Protective Apparel Wearing: Observational Study Results from the Brisbane and Canberra Regions

The continued growth in popularity of motorcycling is an area of concern within the road safety domain due to the vulnerability of motorcyclists sustaining injury in the event of a crash. Currently in Australia only motorcycle helmets are mandatory for motorcyclists or pillions to wear and there is no legislative standard for other protective apparel. This paper reports the results obtained from a series of motorcyclists’ apparel observational studies undertaken in the Brisbane and Canberra regions. The sites selected for the research were designed to enable the observation of both recreational and commuter riders. The results highlight both similarities and differences in the type of protective apparel worn by motorcyclists and pillions observed across the two regions. Encouragingly, across all the sites the majority of riders were wearing protective apparel on their upper body. However, a lower proportion of riders were observed wearing protective apparel on their lower body, particularly at the commuter sites in Brisbane. Similarly, the wearing of full face helmets was very high, except at the commuter sites in Brisbane. The generally lower use of protective apparel among commuter riders in Brisbane would appear to reflect both situational factors, such as climate, and the higher proportion of scooters observed at the sites. The implications of these results are discussed and recommendations are made for future research to identify factors that influence the wearing of protective motorcycle apparel.
CARI NAIRAS: Calculating Flight Doses from NAIRAS Data using CARI

The CARI computer program is galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) dose calculation software developed by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. It serves the aerospace industry and flying public by providing a means of calculating GCR doses for flights, and as such, is a valuable radiation monitoring tool aiding industry and individuals in their radiation protection efforts. The information the software provides is also used by research scientists to investigate health effects of chronic exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation present in the atmosphere. CARI-6 and previous versions were increasingly inaccurate above 60,000 feet because of the superposition approximation built into their global dose rate tables. This report describes CARI-NAIRAS, a new version of CARI that uses pre-calculated global tables of dose rates generated by the NAIRAS (Now-Cast of Atmospheric Ionizing Radiation for Aviation Safety) system developed at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center. The NAIRAS system uses the NASA radiation transport code HZETRN (High charge (Z) and Energy TRaNsport), which does not use the superposition approximation, as well as satellite and ground-based data inputs to generate the global tables. CARI-NAIRAS is shown to be in good agreement with Monte Carlo based calculations in the altitude range 27,000 to 87,000 feet, thus eliminating the need for the altitude limit of 60,000 ft. Flight dose estimates are similar to those of CARI-6 and CARI-7. For 24 of the 32 flights investigated, CARI-NAIRAS estimated an effective dose within 20% of the mean of the three programs (CARI-6W, CARI-7, and CARI-NAIRAS). CARI-NAIRAS estimates are expected to improve once the latest version of HZETRN is incorporated into NAIRAS.
Environmental sustainability in the construction Industry in developing countries: a study of embodied energy of low-cost housing.

The embodied energy (EE) of a residential building is estimated at 20-40% of operation energy over its total usable life. However, this varies from one context to the other due to the primary energy used, technological advancement of a particular context and the methods used for the inventory analysis. Despite the lack of monetary value, EE analysis (EEA) is recommended for the selection of building materials at the design stage in terms of environmental loads. However, little attention has been paid to this area in developing countries, particularly, the Sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the increasing demand of building materials deemed to rise with urbanisation in this region, the acceleration of environmental impacts is also inevitable. Therefore, data based tools are required to complement the existing policy and regulatory frameworks. In this study, EE of masonry and roof components of low-cost housing in Malawi will be assessed. The process based-hybrid energy analysis is employed to evaluate energy and the greenhouse gases related to the manufacturing, transportation of building materials and the assembling and maintenance of the entire residential building. This paper in particular, presents part of the conceptual framework of the study focusing on EE analysis especially the methods used and the associated problems based the literature review. So far, it is noted that the inventory analysis stage, which involves the evaluation of energy requirements, is the essential part of the EEA because of the various methods employed. Although the existing methods are sufficient relative to the available data, there is an urgency to increase the process data sets to enhance the reliability of the existing methods. Therefore, in addition to enhancing knowledge and understanding of life-cycle thinking to the construction stakeholders and decision makers in the selection of building materials, this study will also contribute to such data.
DRIVING EXPERIENCE AND RESPONSE LATENCIES IN HAZARD PERCEPTION

Thirty-six subjects of the same age (median 24 years) but of different driving experience looked at videotaped traffic scenes and estimated risks involved. The subject groups included those with no licence; with little driving experience (under 10 000 km, median 2 700 km); and with moderate driving experience (over 40 000km, median 60 000 km). Due to the fact that subjects with no driving licence were included, "neutral" task was chosen; each subject was given a potentiometer to be turned from the risk minimum to the risk maximum, 145 degrees altogether. The subjects, one from each group in each of the 12 sessions, were instructed to respond to changes in risk as fast as possible. The results showed that even quite simple stimulus changes induced faster reactions among experienced drivers. When reliable differences between groups appeared, the moderately experienced group was always the first to respond, inexperienced one the second, and the no-licence group the last. These results indicate that, with experience at the wheel, drivers learn to identify early relevant cues of potential hazards and to respond to them at shorter latencies even in quite simple situations. (TRRL)