Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying Competencies for Baccalaureate Level Construction Education: Enhancing Employability of Young Professionals in the Construction Industry

The competence of a construction program in the core area of construction project management is in imparting to its students the necessary expertise in order to practice professionally in the construction industry. The study identifies the competencies for baccalaureate level construction education in Alberta, Canada. To achieve the study objectives, a questionnaire survey was carried out to collect information on industry's perspective on construction professional competences. Responses from 32 construction industry professionals were analyzed. The results suggest that the construction acumen, project management and leadership, business acumen, professionalism, and communications were considered as the most important (top five) and desirable competencies for baccalaureate level construction education. Other important competencies include building techniques, international project management, research, cost management, conflict resolution, ability to learn, contracts management, risk management, teamwork, and technological competency, procurement management. It is recommended that the breadth and depth of the core's syllabi ensures sufficient coverage of fundamental and extended topics on construction project management. Construction programs should help to equip our students better to participate in the local and global construction industries that await them. The findings from this study would also be valuable for all academicians and researchers involved in the area of academic development in general.
Learning Robotic Contact Juggling

Robotic contact juggling is a challenging task in which robots must control the movement of a ball rapidly and indirectly without holding it while keeping the ball in and sometimes out of contact with the robot’s body. In this work, we address the problem of learning such robotic contact juggling from trial and error via model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL). The key insight is that complex robot-ball interactions of the contact juggling actually consist of a small set of simple dynamics that each corresponds to a distinct interaction "primitive" such as touching and releasing the ball. Accordingly, we develop a tailored MBRL method that incrementally fits a set of simple dynamics models to the movements of a robot and a ball while also learning a switching model that can select a proper dynamics model depending on the current state and action. The learned model can then be used in an MBRL framework to seek optimal juggling control. We demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach on a simulator of contact juggling performed by a robotic arm.
Development of the Parasitoid Chelonus insularis (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) in Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) Larvae Reared on Castor Bean and Maize Leaves

Abstract The use of artificial diets for rearing natural enemies is an expensive technique with negative implications in the development of parasitoids. The aim of this study was to determine the effects on the development of the parasitoid Chelonus insularis Cresson (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) using as the host Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) larvae reared on castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) and maize (Zea mays L.) leaves. Twenty-five egg masses of S. frugiperda were exposed to adult parasitoids of C. insularis. One hundred twenty-three larvae were fed with castor bean leaves and 309 larvae with maize. Survival of S. frugiperda larvae and emergence of healthy adults of C. insularis were recorded. Durations of the developmental stages, weight per parasitoid, length of the radial cell, and total length of the forewing also were recorded. No significant differences were determined between the two host plants with respect to survival of S. frugiperda larvae or the emergence of healthy adults of C. insularis. Durations of the developmental stages of the parasitoid were longer on castor bean leaves than on maize. The length of the radial cell and the total length of the forewing were greater on parasitoids that emerged from castor bean-reared larvae than those reared on maize for both females and males. The weight per parasitoid did not differ. Chelonus insularis can be maintained in S. frugiperda larvae reared on castor and maize leaves but, based on these results, the use of castor bean leaves favors the size of the parasitoid.
When Emotions are Triggered by Single Musical Notes: Revealing the Underlying Factors of Auditory-Emotion Associations

Can emotion be experienced when the auditory sense is stimulated by a single musical note (Q1), and do variables such as musical skills, age, and personality traits have an influence in auditory-emotion associations (Q2)? An experiment was conducted, in which 130 participants were asked to listen to single musical notes and rate their experienced emotional state. They also had to rate their musical proficiency, sound sensitivity, strongest learning style, and complete a reduced version of the Big-Five personality test (BFI-10). Results regarding Q1 show a correlation between lower notes and sadness, and higher notes and joy, confirming previous auditory-emotion association research, while presenting new knowledge into how emotion associates with single musical notes. Results regarding Q2 show that musical proficiency (low vs high), learning style (aural vs physical), personality (level of Conscientiousness) had an effect on how participants emotionally experienced single musical notes. The results presented in this study will provide a starting point that can help develop a new auditory-visual framework that uses understandings on emotion, personality and other variables in the development of more personalised human-computer interfaces. This new framework can be used in applications that can help in learning to paint or play an instrument; promoting positive mental health, or exploring new forms of creative expression e.g., writing a song with a paint brush as the instrument or painting a picture with a piano as your brush.
The Diet Problem

This is a story about connections. If a certain event hadn't happened way back in 1937, then 10 years later it is certain that linear programming and the simplex method would never have happened (at least not then), and many people's lives and the way some enterprises plan their future would have turned out quite differently.
Mixture Preparation and Combustion Variability in a Spray-Guided DISI Engine

In an attempt to study the numerous contributors towards cyclic variations in combustion in a direct injection spark ignition engine, simultaneous high-speed imaging of fuel injection and flame growth are undertaken on a crankangle resolved basis in a single-cylinder optical research engine. Batches of images from 100 consecutive cycles are acquired for all conditions with synchronised incylinder pressure logging. The engine is motored and fired at stoichiometric conditions at 1500 RPM under part-load and wide-open-throttle conditions (0.5–1.0 bar intake pressure), with injection timing set early in the intake stroke to promote homogeneous mixture formation with a centrally mounted multi-hole injector. Liquid impingement is observed on the cylinder walls and on the piston crown with early intake injection and multiple injection strategies are employed in an attempt to reduce impingement and alter mixture preparation and subsequent combustion. The effects are investigated for iso-octane and pump-grade gasoline at engine coolant temperatures of 50 and 90 °C. Gasoline sprays showed severe deformation and partial collapse of the individual spray plumes at 90 °C, leading to a different mixture formation process relative to iso-octane, which showed no such effects at this engine temperature. Using multiple fuel injections per cycle, but maintaining the same overall air-to-fuel ratio with single-injection strategies, a significant reduction in direct impingement on the walls was observed, together with different flame growth relative to single injection. These results suggest that injection strategy and type of fuel is playing an important role in the mixture preparation process, even for homogeneous early direct injection, and that different types of multiple-injection strategies alone have the potential to modify significantly in-cylinder phenomena, affect combustion and potentially exhaust emissions.
EVALUATION OF ASCE/SEI 7 PROVISIONS FOR DETERMINATION OF SEISMIC DEMANDS ON NONSTRUCTURAL COMPONENTS

The equations for calculating seismic demands on nonstructural components are currently available in ASCE/SEI 7, Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures. While implementation of these equations in design has certainly improved seismic performance of nonstructural components, it should be recognized that these equations are strongly empirically based. Using recently collected data from instrumented buildings during strong motion excitation, this paper investigates the adequacy of currently adopted design equations to represent realistic demands. Preliminary results suggest that some effects, such as diaphragm deformation and torsional response of buildings that are accounted for in many parts of ASCE/SEI 7, but neglected in the context of nonstructural component, can significantly affect the seismic demands on nonstructural components. Moreover, assumptions made in ASCE/SEI 7 regarding distributions of vertical and horizontal seismic demands on nonstructural components do not articulate well with recorded data and results from analytical simulations.
Condensation of Halogenated Refrigerants Inside Smooth Tubes

The paper presents a new predicting model to compute the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop during condensation inside smooth tubes when operating with pure or blended halogenated refrigerants, including the new high-pressure HFC fluids, for which the existing predicting methods are inadequate. The suggested model is based on a predictive study of the flow patterns occurring during the condensation process. Predictions from this new procedure are compared both with the authors' experimental data and with a wide experimental data bank from independent authors; excellent agreement is demonstrated in almost all cases. Heat transfer coefficients were obtained during condensation of refrigerants R-22, R-134a, R-125, R-32, R-236ea, R-407C, and R-410A in an 8 mm inside diameter plain tube, carried out at a saturation temperature ranging between 30 and 50°C, and mass velocities varying from 100 to 750 kg/(m2·s), over the entire vapor quality range. For zeotropic blended refrigerants, such as R-407C, the Silver (1947) and Bell and Ghaly (1973) correction has been implemented in the prediction.
Understanding the Implementation of Social Customer Relationship Management in the North African Context: An Integrated Theory Perspective

ABSTRACT Social customer relationship management (CRM) deals with integrating social media data with traditional CRM in order to engage customers. This paper extends the Technology-Organization-Environment model with the diffusion of innovation theory to obtain insights into the factors and differences driving the use of social CRM in firms in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia (n = 211). We find that the key factors driving the use of social CRM are organizational, through top management support and employee IT skills. Environmental factors also play a role, particularly through competitive pressure Compatibility, as a technology factor, is apparently not an antecedent to use. Our research also finds differences in social CRM use according to gender and industry, with male managers and those in ICT, media, training, and consulting more likely to use social CRM. This study differs from past studies by focusing on use rather than on adoption while examining a new context to provide additional insight for theory and practice.
RDS: a cloud-based metaservice for detecting data races in parallel programs

Data races are notorious concurrency bugs which can cause severe problems, including random crashes and corrupted execution results. However, existing data race detection tools are still challenging for users to use. It takes a significant amount of effort for users to install, configure and properly use a tool. A single tool often cannot find all the bugs in a program. Requiring users to use multiple tools is often impracticable and not productive because of the differences in tool interfaces and report formats. In this paper, we present a cloud-based, service-oriented design and implementation of a race detection service (RDS)1 to detect data races in parallel programs. RDS integrates multiple data race detection tools into a single cloud-based service via a REST API. It defines a standard JSON format to represent data race detection results, facilitating producing user-friendly reports, aggregating output of multiple tools, as well as being easily processed by other tools. RDS also defines a set of policies for aggregating outputs from multiple tools. RDS significantly simplifies the workflow of using data race detection tools and improves the report quality and productivity of performing race detection for parallel programs. Our evaluation shows that RDS can deliver more accurate results with much less effort from users, when compared with the traditional way of using any individual tools. Using four selected tools and DataRaceBench, RDS improves the Adjusted F-1 scores by 8.8% and 12.6% over the best and the average scores, respectively. For the NAS Parallel Benchmark, RDS improves 35% of the adjusted accuracy compared to the average of the tools. Our work studies a new approach of composing software tools for parallel computing via a service-oriented architecture. The same approach and framework can be used to create metaservice for compilers, performance tools, auto-tuning tools, and so on.
Neuromuscular Performance and Injury Risk Assessment Using Fusion of Multimodal Biophysical and Cognitive Data: In-field Athletic Performance and Injury Risk Assessment

Athletes rely on rationally bounded decisions of coaches and sports physicians to optimize performance, improve well-being, and reduce risk of injuries. These decisions are subjective or require costly tests that are not necessarily predictive of in-game performance or cannot predict risk of injury. This paper presents an approach to remedy this shortcoming by providing coaches and sports medicine teams with reliable tools for objective, quantitative assessment of in-field performance and risk of injury. The proposed method uses advanced physiological signal processing, data driven modelling, and multi-modal data fusion techniques applied to data recorded from unobtrusive wearable sensors in tasks and conditions that closely resemble those observed in the field during training or even a game. We postulate that the required data for this prediction task include joint kinematics from inertial measurement units or accelerometers, muscle surface electromyography, ground reaction force, electrocardiography, heart rate and heart rate variability, oxygen saturation, respiration rate, and pupillometry data. The required analysis methods include physiological signal processing, feature extraction, and data-driven modeling techniques to estimate neuromuscular properties, identify joint and leg stiffness, and assess cognitive performance from pupillometry and heart rate variability.
Wideband 4 × 4 Butler Matrix employing microstrip‐slot technique

The design of a 4 × 4 Butler Matrix for use in a multibeam antenna array operating over a wide frequency band is presented. To achieve wideband characteristics, this beam‐forming network uses two microstrip dielectric layers with coupling slots in a common ground plane. The designed device is compact in size and does not use crossovers. Its prototype is manufactured. Its performance is assessed via full‐wave electromagnetic simulations and measurements. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 52:2632–2636, 2010; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.25577
Cluster Analysis and Digital Filtering of TEM Data

The long-offset transient electromagnetic (LOTEM) method (Strack, 1992) is a technique to determine the distribution of subsurface conductivity. It uses a grounded wire transmitter through which a strong square wave current is injected into the ground. Usually two horizontal electric field components and the time derivative of the vertical magnetic field are recorded.
Interaction between the Tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on an Interannual Time Scale

ABSTRACT Based on the fifth-generation reanalysis of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the Hadley Centre sea surface temperature (SST) data, and the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) precipitation data, the interaction between the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on an interannual time scale is investigated using correlation, regression, and composite analyses, and the quantitative estimates of the relative and collective contribution of the tropical North Atlantic (NTA) and equatorial Atlantic (ETA) SST anomalies to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are presented. An El Niño or La Niña event can cause a same-sign SST anomaly in the NTA in the following boreal spring, accounting for 33% of the interannual variability of the NTA SST. The NTA SST anomaly may excite a same-sign SST anomaly of the ETA in boreal summer with an ETA SST anomaly of 0.44°C per 1°C NTA SST anomaly. Moreover, an SST anomaly in the NTA and ETA can cause an opposite-sign SST anomaly in the equatorial Pacific during the following winter. The NTA SST anomaly influences the central equatorial Pacific with a Niño 3.4 SST anomaly of −0.85°C per 1°C NTA SST anomaly, while the ETA SST anomaly exerts an impact on the central-eastern equatorial Pacific with a Niño 3.4 SST anomaly of −1.85°C per 1°C ETA SST anomaly based on a multiple regression analysis. The composite analyses based on Ensemble-Based Predictions of Climate Changes and Their Impacts (ENSEMBLES) hindcasts show that the ETA SST anomaly in summer acts as a primary contributor to the interaction between the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The ETA impact can relay and amplify the NTA SST anomaly such that it affects the equatorial Pacific. The collective impact of spring NTA and summer ETA SST anomalies can explain 33% of the total variance of the winter Niño 3.4 index. This study deepens our understanding of the interannual interaction between the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and highlights the role of the tropical Atlantic Ocean, especially the ETA region, in the pan-tropical air–sea interaction.
Serum Tie-1 is a Valuable Marker for Predicting the Progression and Prognosis of Cervical Cancer

Objective: To investigate whether serum Tie-1 (sTie-1) is a valuable marker for predicting progression and prognosis of cervical cancer. Methods: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect serum sTie-1 concentrations in 75 cervical cancer patients, 40 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) patients, and 55 healthy controls without cervical lesions, and sTie-1 levels were compared between the groups. Receiver operating characteristic curves was used to evaluate the diagnostic value of sTie-1. The relationship between sTie-1 concentrations in patients with cervical cancer and clinicopathological features and prognosis were analyzed, and the risk factors for postoperative recurrence were determined using univariate and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression. Results: We found that sTie-1 concentrations gradually increased according to lesion severity (i.e., cancer vs. CIN; p < 0.05) and were significantly elevated in adenocarcinoma compared with healthy controls. sTie-1 levels strongly distinguished between cervical cancer patients and the healthy controls (area under the curve = 0.846; cut-off value = 1,882.64 pg/ml; sensitivity = 74.6%; specificity = 96.4%). Moreover, sTie-1 levels in cervical cancer patients were significantly associated with tumor size, advanced tumor stage, lymph node metastasis, and reduced 4-years progression-free survival. Cervical cancer patients with high sTie-1 concentrations had a 3.123-fold [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.087–8.971, p = 0.034] higher risk for tumor recurrence. Conclusions: Elevated sTie-1 levels in patients with cervical carcinoma were associated with tumor progression and poor prognosis, indicating that sTie-1 may be a valuable marker for predicting progression and prognosis of cervical cancer.
Exploration of the reasons for delays in construction

Construction sites are dominated by chaos and complexity, enforcing challenging conditions for establishing reliable and robust schedules that are easy to observe. The consequence is a large amount of delayed activities that again results in an unreliable schedule. Last planner system (LPS) was introduced as a production planning and control system to increase the reliability of scheduling task. By focusing on the removal of constraints, the LPS has successfully decreased the number of delayed activities. To further decrease delays, this research investigates the causes for delays at three construction cases. In total, 5424 scheduled activities were followed, whereof 1450 were delayed. The delayed activities were, besides the unidentified ones, categorized into 11 different categories and a statistical test of means was performed. The research revealed six often-occurring causes to delay: connecting work, change in work plans, workforce, external conditions, material and construction design. Furthermore, the study revealed five seldom-occurring causes to delay: space, equipment, rework, unexpected conditions, and safety. The findings have been structured in accordance to the preconditions used in the LPS theory. Therefore, the results can directly be applied to the making-ready process and used as guidance of where to intervene in attempt to reduce future delay.
Recording the Speech of Children with Atypical Development: Peculiarities and Perspectives

The paper considers the possibility of using the unified speech recording protocol for research of speech in typically and atypically developing children. The research protocol includes using the model situations: dialogue, repetition, picture description, and playing. The peculiarities of speech recording in model situations for children with atypical development are described. The data on the speech of children with autism spectrum disorders, Down syndrome, and intellectual disabilities obtained in model situations are presented. The perspectives of future work taking into account creating an interactive computer program - a virtual assistant (“friend”) to avoid the contribution of individual characteristics of the experimenter and parents in the model situations are discussed.