Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CHALLENGE-BASED LEARNING EXPERIENCES

A challenge-based learning experience is a learning experience where the learning takes places through the identification, analysis and design of a solution to a sociotechnical problem. It is typically multidisciplinary, takes place in an international context and aims to find a solution, which is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. Challengebased learning has become a buzzword in the last decade, following the US National Academy of Engineering creation of a list of “grand challenges” for engineering for the 21th century. Since then, many universities have introduced challenge-based learning in their educational offerings. However, there has so far been little overview or comparison of possible implementation of challenge-based learning experiences. This paper aims to address this gap by reviewing and comparing four selected challenge-based learning experiences. We identify commonalities and unique traits amongst them and identify avenues for future development in this area.
Development and Performance Evaluation of a Small Scale Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Plant

This study presents the design and testing of a waste-to-energy plant by incineration of small scale municipal solid waste to produce steam for electricity production. The average total waste generated within the study area was found to be 55,800kg/day, with an estimated calorific value of 13,958kJ/kg. The waste samples were collected, dried, shredded and weighed in order to reduce the moisture content to the acceptable minimum and decreases the surface area of the sample that will allow easier penetration of heat. The incinerator was designed using CATIA-5 software. The key performance indices of the developed plant are maximum furnace temperature, residence time, mass flow rate, steam pressures and amount of steam generated keeping the mass of waste constant per test but varying the air flow. The moving grate is inclined at an angle of 12° while the volume of the incineration combustion chamber was calculated to be 0.267m3. 150kg of small scale waste was fed into the combustion chamber of the incinerator to produce heat in order to fire the boiler filled to 70 litre capacity level. Tests were carried out with natural air flow and forced air supplied through the primary air nozzles at an air velocity of 6.2m/s. The obtained temperature/pressure results were: 464°C/5 bar and 528°C/7 bar and 542°C/7 bar for tests 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The steam produced in the boiler was able to run a steam turbine used to generate electricity. Preliminary results showed that such a plant could be used to complement the power supplied to the University as a set of 36 - 12V DC bulbs were powered for 15 minutes.
Pre-licensure examination as predictor of licensure examination for teachers result

Licensure examination for teachers (LET) is the major requirement of teachers in the Philippines before practicing teaching profession. As such, it is imperative to monitor necessary parameters to increase passing percentage of teachers in LET. This study attempted to examine the relationship between performance in pre-LET and LET of 71 elementary education (BEEd) and 127 secondary education (BSEd) graduates in one university in the Philippines. Individual and aggregated data were secured from the college of teacher education dean’s office and Professional regulations commission (PRC). Using the descriptive-correlation method of research, this study presented the null hypothesis that pre-licensure is not a predictor of LET results. Findings showed that there is a notable relationship between the pre-LET and LET examination performances. Using linear regression analysis, ratings attained by the graduates in pre-LET can predict the performance in LET with higher level of confidence. The study confirmed that for general education (GenEd) and professional education components of licensure examination for BEEd, the pre-LET scores of education graduates are significant predictors.
Configuration study of an acoustic wave sensor on a continuous elastic support

This paper has exploited a new acoustic sensor method for determining moving acoustic wave loads from the structural responses through an inverse process. This new method is completely different from the principle of conventional acoustic wave sensors which use certain piezoelectric materials to generate the acoustic wave. Specifically, a beam structure with elastic foundation supports acting as a sensor configuration is studied. The time-domain response of an Euler–Bernoulli beam supported by an elastic foundation and excited by a traveling sinusoidal excitation is obtained based on an assumed basis function approach and by the finite element method. Moving wave loads are well identified in the time domain through an inverse process with the help of the Tikhonov regularization technique to solve ill-conditioned problems. To evaluate the method and examine various configurations, various levels of random noise are added to the simulated displacements and velocities to study the effect of noise in moving wave load identification. In addition, some of the configuration parameters of interest include the beam material, geometry, and thickness, and the elastic foundation properties. Results obtained from the simulations show that this sensor configuration can be effective in identifying moving wave loads.
Physiologic Scoring Systems versus Glasgow Coma Scale in Predicting In-Hospital Mortality of Trauma Patients; a Diagnostic Accuracy Study

Introduction: In recent years, several scoring systems have been developed to assess the severity of trauma and predict the outcome of trauma patients. This study aimed to compare Rapid Emergency Medicine Score (REMS), Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS), Injury Severity Score (ISS), and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) in predicting the in-hospital mortality of trauma patients. Methods: This diagnostic accuracy study was done on adult patients admitted to the emergency department (ED) between June 21, 2019, and September 21, 2020, following multiple trauma. Patients were followed as long as they were hospitalized. The REMS, MEWS, GCS, and ISS were calculated after data gathering and comprehensive assessment of injuries. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis was performed to examine the prognostic performance of the four different tools. Results: Of the 754 patients, 32 patients (4.2%) died and 722 (95.8%) survived after 24 hours of admission. The mean age of the patients was 38.54 ± 18.58 years (78.9% male). The area under the ROC curves (AUC) of REMS, MEWS, ISS, and GCS score for predicting in-hospital mortality were 0.942 (95% CI [0.923-0.958]), 0.886 (95% CI [0.861-0.908]), 0.866 (95% CI [0.839-0.889]), and 0.851 (95% CI [0.823-0.876]), respectively. The AUC of REMS was significantly higher than GCS (p=0.035). The sensitivities of GCS ≤ 11, ISS ≥ 13, REMS ≥ 4, and MEWS ≥ 3 scores for in-hospital mortality were 0.56, 0.97, 0.81, and 0.94, respectively. Also, the specificities of GCS, ISS, REMS, and MEWS scores for in-hospital mortality were 0.93, 0.82, 0.81, and 0.85, respectively. Conclusion: It seems that REMS is more accurate than GCS, ISS, and MEWS in predicting in-hospital mortality ≥ 24 hours of multiple trauma patients.
PERFORMANCE OF DRIVER-VEHICLE SYSTEM IN EMERGENCY AVOIDANCE

By means of a new test method for simulating automotive accidents on ordinary roads, we found that while both experienced and inexperienced drivers have the same initial steer input to avoid an unexpected obstacle, experienced drivers display more stable performance in the subsequent control of the vehicle. Further, utilizing driver's transfer functions we studied a mathematical simulation of test results and obtained parameters for both experienced and inexperienced drivers. These indicate that when vehicle yaw response is greatly delayed, inexperienced drivers may lose control, while experienced drivers will secure control of the vehicle. /Author/
Pilot Study on the Current Management of Children with COVID-19 In Hospitals in Bangladesh; Findings and Implications

Objective: The focus on COVID-19 in children in low- and middle-income countries including Bangladesh has been on addressing key issues including poor vaccination rates as well as mental health issues, domestic violence and child labour. However, the focus on optimally managing children in hospitals is changing with new variants and concerns with the development of hyperinflammatory syndromes. There are also concerns with the overuse of antimicrobials to treat patients with COVID-19 in hospitals enhancing resistance rates. The Bangladesh Paediatric Association have developed guidelines to improve patient care building on national guidance. Consequently, there is a need to document the current management of children with COVID-19 in Bangladesh and use the findings for future guidance. Methods: Rapid analysis of the management of children with COVID-19 among eight private and public hospitals in Bangladesh with varying numbers of in-patient beds using purposely developed case report forms (CRFs). The CRFs were piloted before full roll-out. Results: Overall low numbers of children in hospital with COVID-19 (4.3% of in-patient beds). The majority were male (59.6%) and aged 5 years or under (63.5%). Reasons for admission included respiratory distress/ breathing difficulties with 94.2% of COVID-19 cases confirmed. All children were prescribed antibiotics empirically, typically those on the Watch list of antibiotics and administered parenterally, with only a small minority switched to oral therapy before discharge. There was appreciable prescribing of Vitamins (C and D) and zinc and encouragingly limited prescribing of other antimicrobials (antivirals, antimalarials and antiparasitic medicines). Length of stay was typically 5 to 10 days. Conclusion: Encouraging to see low hospitalisation rates and limited use of antimicrobials apart from antibiotics. Concerns with high empiric use of antibiotics and limited switching to oral formulations can be addressed by instigating antimicrobial stewardship programmes. We will be monitoring this. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.20(5) 2021 p.188-198
Towards Industrialisation in Tanzania: Drivers and Barriers to Green Manufacturing

For the industrialization efforts to be fruitful and sustainable, they should be coupled with Green Manufacturing (GM) which simply implies clean manufacturing. This study analyses the drivers and barriers to GM in Tanzania. It specifically analyses the drivers and barriers to GM and ranks them for prioritisation. The study made the use of cross-sectional primary data which were collected using interviewer administered questionnaires from a random sample of 185 manufacturing firms in two purposively selected regions of Dodoma and Mwanza in Tanzania. In the analysis, the Binary Logistic regression was used to estimate the drivers and barriers to GM using the STATA software. The results showed that some of the significant drivers to green manufacturing include; firm size, firms resources, current legislation, incentives, and public pressure, The significant barriers included high short term costs, low customer demand, technological risk, lack of awareness and unclear benefits. It was also found that the highest ranked driver to GM was the firm size and the highest ranked barrier to GM was the short term costs. The study finally recommends that the relevant authorities should prioritize on the significant drivers and barriers to GM so that the move towards industrialisation in Tanzania can be more fruitful and sustainable.
Palm kernel cake in high-concentrate diets improves animal performance without affecting the meat quality of goat kids

Context Goat farming is an important socio-economic activity. The feedlot system allows the finishing of the animals in short periods through use of concentrated diets; however, these diets increase the system’s production costs. Palm kernel cake (PKC) has proved to be a good alternative feed source in diets for cattle and sheep because of its nutritional characteristics and potential to reduce production costs. Aim This experiment aimed to evaluate the effect of high-concentrate diets with the inclusion of PKC on carcass traits and meat quality of feedlot goat kids. Methods Thirty-two crossbred, castrated Boer goat kids, 4 months old and of average initial body weight 19.65±3.00kg, were used in the study. The animals were assigned to treatments in a completely randomised design, with four experimental diets containing PKC at 0%, 12%, 24%, and 36% on a dry matter basis. Measurements included total weight gain at slaughter, quantitative and sensory meat characteristics, and fatty acid profile. Key results A quadratic effect (P<0.05) on total weight gain, and on meat marbling, lightness, and yellowness, was observed. The highest total weight gain and marbling were recorded with the diet containing 12% PKC. Loin eye area was also highest at 12% PKC, then decreased, whereas protein content and shear force increased (P<0.05) at the higher PKC levels. Diet affected (P<0.05) saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. No effect was observed from the inclusion of PKC on sensory attributes or on nutritional quality of the lipid fraction of the meat. Conclusion It is recommended the use up to 12% of this alternative source of nutrients, owing to the higher total weight gain and improved quantitative aspects of the goat kids’ meat such as marbling and loin eye area. Implications High-concentrate diets and the use of by-products for animal nutrition have become common in animal production systems. The increasing use of PKC in animal nutrition leads us to determine the best dietary inclusion level, avoiding undesirable production or product quality characteristics.
Analgesic radiation therapy for bone metastasis in Dakar

Background: Three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy is a new tool in the Senegalese therapeutic arsenal. Symptomatic bone metastases affect the quality of life of patients. Analgesic radiotherapy is proposed to patients to relieve them. Patients and methods: A prospective descriptive study was carried out on all patients with symptomatic bone metastasis. Hypo-fractionated radiotherapy was performed on the painful site. The visual analogue scale was used to assess pain before radiotherapy, 72 hours and one week after. Results: The sex ratio was 0.5. The median age at diagnosis of symptomatic metastasis was 53 years. All patients received 8 Gy (Gray) in one session. A complete response was noted one week post radiotherapy. Conclusion: Analgesic radiotherapy improves the quality of life of patients with symptomatic bone metastasis.
Engineering characteristics of soil stabilised with saw dust ash and cement

ABSTRACT The study herein investigates the performance of Saw Dust Ash (SDA) in combination with cement for soil stabilisation. Performance of SDA is studied with respect to compressive strength, shear strength, penetration and deformation responses. For a certain cement content, the compressive strength reaches a maximum value with the increase of SDA and the corresponding SDA content is defined as the optimum content. Optimum SDA content varies within 6–12% based on the percent of cement added. When optimum amount of SDA is added, 28 days’ compressive strength of 2406–5625 kPa was achieved for varying amount of cement (3–7%). The mechanical response is illustrated using microstructural observations. Results from direct shear tests revealed that with the inclusion of 6–15% SDA with cement, improved shear strength parameters (cohesion, angle of internal friction) can be obtained; an angle of internal friction as high as 40 was achieved herein. Compression index can be reduced by 32–41% compared to unstabilised soil if optimum amount of SDA-cement is added. It is concluded that considering compressive strength, shear strength, penetration resistance and compressibility, SDA can effectively be used along with cement for stabilisation of clay soil.
Vibration characteristics of steel–concrete composite floor systems

Trends towards long-span, lightweight floors in steel–concrete composite construction are resulting in structures possessing low natural frequencies, and potentially susceptible to vibration problems. The most common source of vibrations is caused by human activities on the floor, however, in some instances, mechanically induced vibrations from air conditioning plant, etc. may also be problematic. In this paper the serviceability assessment of floor vibration occasioned by walking activities is considered. Over 30 years ago concerns were raised regarding vibrations induced by walking on steel–concrete composite floors that satisfied traditional deflection criteria. In response to these concerns, design criteria based on a simple impulsive loading function from a person rising onto the balls of the feet, and suddenly dropping onto the heels has been used as a measure of floor acceptability. More recently, design procedures have been developed that more realistically consider the excitation of the floor from walking activities. In the first part of this paper a historical review of acceptability criteria for floor vibrations will be made. Following this, the current design methodologies for steel–concrete composite floors will be reviewed prior to the presentation of results from a series of in situ vibration tests on a wide variety of floor types. After comparing the test results with current guidance, design recommendations and suggestions for future research will be given.
Stability of teleoperation systems under time-varying delays by using Lyapunov-Krasovskii techniques

Abstract This paper investigates the stability of a teleoperation system under time-varying communication delays. The system is a laboratory platform consisting on a scale model of a gantry crane, teleoperated by means of a haptic device. This paper focuses on the problems arising from the time-varying nature of the UDP communication delay. First, the actual delay is investigated and bounds on its magnitude and on its time-derivative are estimated, emulating different geographical connections. Second, a recent Lyapunov-Krasovkii technique taken from the literature (Zhao et al. 2007) is applied to the model of the system and stability bounds are obtained for the position error (PE) architecture. The method is applied for different controller parameters and delay bounds, and it is compared to a frequency-domain technique (Kao and Rantzer, 2007), showing reasonably non-conservative results.
CCTV and crime displacement: A quasi-experimental evaluation

The installation of CCTV cameras in the historic centre of Malaga in March 2007 was the main crime prevention initiative implemented in the city during the past few years. This was one of the first multi-camera CCTV installations on streets in Spain, which is why a proper evaluation of its effectiveness is so important for the future use of such cameras. Using a quasi-experimental design with a pre/post test, we collected data from interviews with CCTV operators, police officers and local authority officials and from surveys of pedestrians and shopkeepers. The team also examined police crime data and CCTV incident data. In this paper we will discuss the results in terms of the following three hypotheses relating to crime reduction, displacement and public security: (a) the use of cameras reduces the levels of crime, whether property crime (robberies and burglaries), crimes against people or both; (b) some of those crimes are displaced to nearby areas within or close to the city centre where there is no camera coverage but where there are similar opportunities to commit crimes; and (c) people claim to feel safer in the city centre after dark after the cameras were introduced.
Simultaneous measurements of foveal and peripheral aberrations with accommodation in myopic and emmetropic eyes

The difference in peripheral retinal image quality between myopic and emmetropic eyes plays a major role in the design of the optical myopia interventions. Knowing this difference under accommodation can help to understand the limitations of the currently available optical solutions for myopia control. A newly developed dual-angle open-field sensor was used to assess the simultaneous foveal and peripheral ( 20∘ nasal visual field) wavefront aberrations for five target vergences from -0.31 D to -4.0 D in six myopic and five emmetropic participants. With accommodation, the myopic eyes showed myopic shifts, and the emmetropic eyes showed no change in RPR. Furthermore, RPR calculated from simultaneous measurements showed lower intra-subject variability compared to the RPR calculated from peripheral measurements and target vergence. Other aberrations, as well as modulation transfer functions for natural pupils, were similar between the groups and the accommodation levels, foveally and peripherally. Results from viewing the same nearby target with and without spectacles by myopic participants suggest that the accommodative response is not the leading factor controlling the amplitude of accommodation microfluctuations.
Generalized Reich–Ćirić–Rus-Type and Kannan-Type Contractions in Cone 
 b
 -Metric Spaces over Banach Algebras

In this paper, we firstly introduce the generalized Reich‐Ćirić‐Rus-type and Kannan-type contractions in cone b -metric spaces over Banach algebras and then obtain some fixed point theorems satisfying these generalized contractive conditions, without appealing to the compactness of X . Secondly, we prove the existence and uniqueness results for fixed points of asymptotically regular mappings with generalized Lipschitz constants. The continuity of the mappings is deleted or relaxed. At last, we prove that the completeness of cone b -metric spaces over Banach algebras is necessary if the generalized Kannan-type contraction has a fixed point in X . Our results greatly extend several important results in the literature. Moreover, we present some nontrivial examples to support the new concepts and our fixed point theorems.
Relative Mobility (Rf) Analysis of Albumin Isolates from Snakehead Fish (Ophiocephalus striatus) Extracted at Different Temperatures and Times

Snakehead fish was a fish that has a high albumin content. Snakehead fish was used in the health sector known as medicinal freshwater fish, to accelerate the process of healing wounds after surgery and childbirth. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relative mobility (Rf) of the snakehead fish (Ophiocephalus striatus) albumin isolates by steaming at different temperatures and times. The research method for analyze the relative mobility (Rf) of the snakehead fish (Ophiocephalus striatus) albumin isolates by using gel filtration column chromatography, was detected by the SDS-PAGE electrophoresis method. Electrophoresis was carried out at a constant voltage of 125 v/ slab. Gel staining was carried out with Commasie Brilliant Blue R-250 in methanol-acetic acid-water. A standard protein mixture consisting of: myosin (200.0 kDa), β-galactosidase (116.3 kDa), phosphorylase B (97.4 kDa), bovine serum albumin (66, 2 kDa), ovalbumin (45.0 kDa), carbonic anhydrose (31.0 kDa), trypsin inhibitor (21.5 kDa), lysozyme (14.4 kDa) and aprotinim (6.5 kDa). The data analysis of this research was descriptive analysis to see the photos of the electrophoresis results. Meanwhile, for the analysis, the measurement of albumin isolation by gel filtration Sephadex G-75 was carried out with a divided plot design. The results showed that SDS-PAGE electrophoresis with the most complex amount of protein was albumin isolate, the effect of the steaming temperature was 40 oC for 30 minutes, located in 5 ml of the 1st fraction, 5 ml of the 2nd fraction and 5 ml of the 3rd fraction, with values of relative mobility (Rf) 0.0833 to 0.6944.