Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Sodium Hydroxide on Mechanical Characteristics of Kenaf Fibers Reinforced Concrete

This article shows the experimental analysis of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) effects on the mechanical properties upon the addition of kenaf fibres to the concrete mixture. The compression and flexural tests were carried out on seven different concrete mixtures for 28 days to evaluate the mechanical characteristics. Hence, the experimental trials comprise of seven different mixtures of concrete; the control (without the addition of kenaf fibre) was represented as the first mixture. The following six concrete mixtures contain different kenaf fibre volume fractions (1% and 2%); they were treated with 1%, 3% and 6% of sodium hydroxide concentrations in order to investigate their performances. The experimental results show that the compressive and flexural strengths of kenaf fibres reinforced concrete increase as sodium hydroxide concentration increases. Besides, it is worth noting that the addition of kenaf fibres has an insignificant effect on the compressive strength of the concrete owing to the reduction in concrete density. Therefore, the results of this study demonstrated that the concrete flexural strength increased to up to 12%) upon the addition of 1% kenaf fibre associated with 6% NaOH. Moreover, the failure state increasingly changed to ductile from brittle.
Dynamics of a Discrete-time Predator-Prey Model of Leslie type with Predator Harvesting

In the present work, we attempt to analyze the discrete form of Leslie type predator-prey system with the extension of nonlinear type harvesting of predators. The proposed model is obtained with the help of theory of piecewise constant argument for differential equations. We give the local stability properties of all possible non-negative fixed points. Also, our study reveals that the discrete system admits two bifurcations which are flip and Neimark-Sacker by making the use of center manifold argument and bifurcation theory, where the harvesting parameter is varied in order to take place of such bifurcations. Some simulations are carried out to depicts the obtained analytical results such as bifurcation plots and phase portraits. Also, it can be confirmed from numerical simulations that the considered system exhibits chaotic behavior for smaller values of harvesting parameter and becomes stable for larger values of same parameter. The largest Lyapunov exponents are plotted to show the sensitivity of chaotic regime.
Magnetized water induces changes in the antioxidant properties of some medicinal plants extracts

Magnetized water or clustered water is an effective solvent and has the ability to dissolve the nutrients easier and faster than purified water. The objective was to explore the effect of magnet on the constituents of aqueous medicinal plants extracts. Aqueous extracts (infusion or overnight; 1% w/v) of Cinnamomum verum (cinnamon) bark, Salvia officinalis (sage) leaves, Zingiber officinale Rosc (ginger) tuberous and Symphytum officinale (comfrey) seeds were prepared and then divided into two parts, one part was exposed to magnetic disc (0.15 Tesla) for 1 hour. The UV-visible spectra of each extract were obtained and the total flavonoids, allantoin and the reducing power were determined. The UV-visible spectra showed changes in the magnitude of the absorbance peak, appearance of new peaks and shifted peaks in the magnetized aqueous extract compared with non-magnetized extracts. The changes in the total flavonoids, allantoin and the reducing power in the magnetized extract did not follow specific pattern. The magnet induces changes in the constituents of medicinal plants via its effect on the electrical properties of water. Key words: Medicinal plants, magnet, antioxidants
Stage 2 : Assessing the relevance of the review of e-learning theories , frameworks and models and the mapping table to evaluators

Introduction The purpose of this brief review is to examine the review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models (see Stage 2 Learning Models (Version 1)) and the developing Mapping Table (see Stage 2 Mapping (Version 1)) of the JISC-funded E-Learning Models Desk Study, to explore their relevance to evaluators. To achieve this, it is first necessary to clarify what it meant by 'evaluation' and who might be deemed to be an 'evaluator'.
Validation of an Instrument for Measuring Adherence to Treatment With Immunomodulators in Patients With Multiple Myeloma

Background: Validate the Treatment Adherence Measure (TAM) instrument in outpatients with MM concerning construct validity, reliability and the ceiling and floor effects. Methods: This cross-sectional study included patients diagnosed with MM previously treated with an immunomodulator for at least one month, aged 18 or over, and followed-up in the investigated outpatient clinics. Adherence to immunomodulators was measured by TAM. The TAM’s reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha; The association between adherence and health-related quality of life was investigated to analyze the divergent and convergent construct, measured by the Quality of Life Questionnaire core (QLQ-C30) and the Quality of Life Questionnaire Multiple Myeloma module (QLQ-MY20). The presence of a ceiling or floor effect in the TAM was also analyzed. Results: Eighty-four patients were included in the study, achieving 97.6% adherence. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.41, and the hypothesis of convergent construct validity was confirmed, with statistical significance, in contrast to the hypothesis of divergent construct validity. The presence of the ceiling effect in TAM suggested that this instrument does not allow changes to be detected in individuals concerning adherence to IMiDs. Conclusion: TAM instrument did not show satisfactory validity and reliability to measure MM’s adherence. MM patients treated at oncohematological outpatient clinics in a metropolitan region of southeastern Brazil showed high adherence to IMiDs.
The Structure, Energy, Confinement, and Enhancement of Hot Spots between Two Nanoparticles

Hot spots (HSs) between two nanoparticles (NPs) can be considered the canonical example of plasmonic coupling effects and are able to achieve huge enhancements of signals from molecules in fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy. In this work, it is found that these HSs between two NPs can be modeled as a superposition of sub-HSs that are located on the surface of each NP of the pair, a fact that can be important to describe plasmon coupling effects. The analyzed HSs are almost fully characterized by means of their energy, degree of localization, and mean enhancement, quantities that are able to give a measure of their performance. It is demonstrated that the interplay between the energy and degree of localization is what actually determines the enhancement in a general way, that is, HSs with similar energy could have a large/small enhancement depending on their degree of localization.
Drying of Garlic Slices (Allium Sativum L.) and its Effect on Thiosulfinates, Total Phenolic Compounds and Antioxidant Activity During Infrared Drying

This study was conducted to evaluate moisture transfer and changes of thiosulfinates, total phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity of garlic slices during infrared drying at temperatures from 50 to 80C and powers from 675 to 2,025 W. Drying time was significantly shortened with increasing infrared drying temperature. Thiosulfinates showed no significant changes versus moisture content during the whole drying period at 50, 60 and 70C, while a notable degradation of thiosulfinates was observed at 80C. Total phenolic compounds in garlic slices all rapidly decreased versus moisture content initially at all investigated drying conditions. Whereas the total phenolic compounds in dried garlic slices significantly enhanced with drying temperature from 50 to 80C at 1,575 W. Antioxidant activity increased during infrared drying, which was contradictory with the changes of total phenolic compounds and thiosulfinates. Pratical Applications This work are useful for the processing of garlic slices by infrared drying to obtain the optimum benefits of bioactive compounds present in this food product during drying. Infrared drying is reported as a promising method on foodstuff processing, which impinges on the material, penetrates it, and converts the infrared energy into heat. Therefore, it is more energy saving as well as reduce drying time. In this study, drying time was significantly shortened with increasing infrared drying temperature. A remarkable decrease of total phenolic compounds versus moisture content was observed during infrared drying. Meanwhile, thiosulfinates of garlic showed fluctuation over the moisture content decreased, except a notable degradation of thiosulfinates was observed at 80C. Conflicting results were found in antioxidant activity that a clear increasing trend with decreasing moisture content during infrared drying process.
Total solids-retention in activated sludge: modelling and simulation

www.witpress. com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Ecology and The Environment, Vol 182, © 2014 WIT Press doi:10.2495/WP140281 Water Pollution XII 321 Research on new ways for minimizing the residues generated in biological wastewater treatment has been encouraged within the context of activated sludge models (ASM). One of the methods used for minimizing sludge is through the elimination of traditional sludge wastage (WAS), while build-up of the inert solids in aeration tanks and is avoided by other means; the development of fine screens to remove the inert particulate organic fraction (XI), hydrocyclones for inorganic suspended solids (ISS) and different kinds of on-line digesters to further biodegrade the endogenous residues (XP) via the return activated sludge line (RAS). In this research, a model and a simulation program was developed, which was able to mimic the apparent behavior of such activated sludge variants with low-solids-production (LSP-AS). This model is an extended ASM1 assuming a small first order biodegradation constant for XP (kXP = 0.007 d-1) and black boxes representing the XI and ISS inerts-removal. The simulations depict the way that different components of solids build up in the aeration tanks when traditional activated sludge (C-AS) is operated at very high solids retention times (> 100 d). The simulations showed that the C-AS process could, hypothetically, be replaced by LSP-AS variants with similar levels of active biomass and of mixed-liquor suspended solids. The kXP was approximately 0.007 d-1 and, for this case, at least 2% (and 6%) of the RAS flow had to be sieved (and digested, respectively), to avoid the accumulation of XI, ISS and XP. Furthermore, the size of the on-line digester was about twice the volume of the aeration tank.
Prevalence of low back pain and its relation to stress and study hours among medical students in University of Hail in Saudi Arabia

Background: Low Back Pain (LBP) involves the muscles, nerves, and bones of the back are considered a very common disease. It can affect many individuals around the world. The etiology of LBP in relation is influenced by long study hours, high occupational burdens and sedentary lifestyle. We aim to explore the effect of stress and studying on university students at the University of Hail. Methods: This is across-sectional questionnaire-based study involving 197 male and female medical students in University of Hail. It was carried out from May to September 2020 using the standardized Nordic questionnaire to assess low back pain while K10 questionnaire was used to assess the psychological stress. Results: Out of 197 students, 22.3% of medical students reported LBP, with 68.2% reported LBP in the last 7 days. Furthermore, 97.7% and 86.4% of students had LBP that interfered with their work and leisure activities, respectively. The mean stress score was 23.35 ± 9.68 with a significant association between LBP and stress level (P = 0.000). Conclusion: The prevalence rate of LBP was 22.3% while the prevalence of stress was 52.3%. Meanwhile, the risk factors associated with worse LBP are being in medical school for more than two years, female gender, obesity and having severe stress level.
Raman microscopic analysis of wood after treatment with the ionic liquid, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride

Abstract Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) was treated with the ionic liquid (IL) 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([C2mim][Cl]), which is a solvent for cellulose, and the changes in the chemical components and their distribution in wood cell walls have been investigated by Raman microscopy. Raman spectra, recorded from various areas of the cell walls, showed that lignin in the compound middle lamellae (CML) and cell corners (CC) was resistant to the reaction with [C2mim][Cl], but its molecular structure changed partially. The reactivity of cellulose and hemicelluloses with [C2mim][Cl] was higher than that of lignin in the cell wall, and the cell wall structure was maintained even in an advanced state of the reactions. The effects of [C2mim]-[Cl] on cellulose and hemicelluloses in the cell wall were homogeneous, whereas that of lignin was inhomogeneous.
Facial Expressions and the Business Cycle: Assessing the Information Content of Communicated Emotions

This paper is the first to consider the link between information conveyed by the facial expressions of a range of economic actors and economic activity. A collection of photographs is used to construct indicators of emotions communicated by the facial expressions. The indicators correspond to the US economy for the period 1996-2018. Significant links between the level of economic activity and indices of emotional states are observed. Beyond contemporaneous associations, the indicators are shown to anticipate business cycle dynamics. Indices summarizing emotions linked to policy making and the stock market contain more information than indicators linked to corporations.
DYNAMIC BEHAVIOUR OF SHREDDED RUBBER SOIL MIXTURES

Residential buildings in high population density areas are seismically vulnerable to the action of major seismic events. The high cost and technical difficulties related to the use of advanced seismic isolations systems precludes its installation to low-to-medium rise buildings in the developing world. The environmental issues attributed to the stockpiling of scrap tires and its use as tire derived fuel has led research to explore viable recycling solutions in civil engineering projects. Several authors have proposed a novel seismic isolation system by mixing recycled rubber tires with sand particles. However, research to date has been mainly focused on the dynamic properties of this mixture in the low-to-medium strain range at a specific loading cycle. This paper has studied the dynamic properties in the medium-to-large shear strain amplitude (0.05%-1%) of shredded rubber-soil mixtures (ShRm). The influence of the rubber percentage, size ratio, shear strain amplitude and number of cycles have been evaluated. The shear modulus decreases at larger rubber percentages and strain amplitudes. The damping ratio has been found to increase by adding 10% rubber but it decays at greater rubber percentages. The results show that the dynamic properties of ShRm are affected by the number of cycles at the strain amplitude assessed in this paper. However, the addition of up to 30% of shredded rubber particles increase significantly the resilience of sand particles against cyclic loading leading to a reduction in the stiffness and damping degradation.
Resource Allocation in Full-Duplex Uncoordinated Communication Systems with NOMA

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a major driving use case of future communication systems. 5G and beyond networks should be properly designed to meet the quality of service (QoS) requirements of IoT devices in terms of massive access, data rates, latency and reliability. In this paper, we study the uncoordinated spectrum and power allocation problems in an uplink IoT network. In the considered setting, IoT devices aim at organizing their transmissions, without any coordination, on the available frequency channels and power levels. To enhance performance, we propose the deployment of full-duplex relays as well as the use of non-orthogonal multiple access and queuing at the level of the relays. A new algorithm, based on the multi-player multi-armed bandits framework, is proposed with the aim of reducing the transmit power of IoT devices. Simulation results validate the convergence of the proposed algorithm. Results also confirm the superior performance of the proposed technique in terms of satisfying QoS requirements and reducing the needed user transmit power when compared to two baseline schemes.
Interfacial and Annealing Effects on Primary α-Relaxation of Ultrathin Polymer Films Investigated at Nanoscale

The influence of interfacial interactions and annealing time on dynamics of the α-relaxation in ultrathin poly(vinyl acetate) films deposited on different substrates has been studied using local dielectric spectroscopy at ambient pressure and controlled humidity. After annealing at 323 K for about 3 days, for polymer films supported on gold and aluminum substrates, an increase of the relaxation rate with decreasing film thickness below 30–35 nm was observed, whereas for films deposited on silicon substrates a thickness-independent dynamics was found for films as thin as 12 nm. The difference in size effect on dynamics of the films could reasonably be related to the difference in interfacial energy between polymer films and substrates, even though a criterion simply based on interfacial energy cannot be used to explain all the results. In fact, further annealing at a higher temperature evidenced an annealing-dependent dynamics in films prepared on aluminum substrates consistent with the presence of long-li.
Effects of polyethylene glycol on the structure and filtration performance of thin-film PA-Psf composite forward osmosis membranes

ABSTRACT In forward osmosis, internal concentration polarization is related to the properties (e.g., hydrophilicity, porosity, structural resistant) of membrane support layer. In this work, polyethylene glycol with a low molecular weight of 400 Da was introduced as a support layer additive during the fabrication of thin-film polyamide-polysulfone composite forward osmosis membranes. The forward osmosis performances including water flux and reverse salt flux of the membranes were tested in the mode of AL-FS where the membrane active layer faced toward feed solution. Results showed that the addition of polyethylene glycol would reduce internal concentration polarization and improve membrane performance in forward osmosis by means of enhancing membrane hydrophilicity and changing pore morphologies of membrane support layer. The membrane prepared with 6 wt. % polyethylene glycol was found to exhibit the highest water flux of 47.4 Lm−2h−1 with a reverse salt flux of 7.6 gm−2h−1 when using DI water and 2.0 M NaCl as the feed and the draw solution, respectively, indicating an optimal polyethylene glycol dosage of 6 wt. % in this work.
Gravity study of the Norcia intermountain basin (central Italy)

We present the results of a gravity investigation conducted in the Norcia Intermountain Basin (central Italy) in order to obtain a subsurface picture of its structural setting and to estimate the thickness of the Quaternary infill sediments. Our survey resulted in 210 measurements, placed evenly in the whole Norcia Plain. We produced gravity anomaly maps that show the Quaternary thickness spatial distribution within the basin and identify buried faults affecting the bedrock in the northern basin sector. 2.5D models along close spaced profiles were used to construct a 3D density model and a map of the bedrock top surface elevation. Our results suggest that the northern sector of the Norcia Intermountain Basin has been affected by a strong tectonic activity with respect to the southern sector where the top of the bedrock is eroded and buried by a thin layer of alluvial gravels.
RECYCLED GLASS WASTE EXPANDED BY A MICROWAVE HEATING TECHNIQUE

The authors present in this paper an original technology for the recovery of glass waste. From the glass waste by heating in the microwave oven, melting and transforming the initial load into a glass foam are performed. The heating method is based on microwave irradiation, a technique used by some industrial producers. Laboratory experiments have resulted in products with physical, mechanical and morphological characteristics, such as those manufactured industrially (compressive strength of 5.5 MPa, thermal conductivity of 0.06 W/m K, porosity of 86.8%, with homogeneous pores with dimensions between 1.0-1.6 mm). The specific energy consumption was very low (0.83 kWh/kg) compared to the industrial one, with the theoretical possibility of reduction with maximum 25%.
Search for lepton-flavor-violating decays of B mesons

We have searched a sample of 9.6 million BB-bar events for the lepton-flavor-violating decays B --> h e^{+-} mu^{-+}, B^+ --> h^- e^+ e^+, B^+ --> h^- e^+ mu^+, and B^+ --> h^- mu^+ mu^+, where h is pi, K, rho, and K*(892), a total of sixteen modes. We find no evidence for these decays, and place 90% confidence level upper limits on their branching fractions that range from 1.0 to 8.3 X 10^{-6}.
Profile of Students’ Critical and Creative Thinking Skills

This study aims to profile the critical and creative thinking skills of high school students in science. The research was employed a quantitative descriptive method. The participants involved in the research were consisted of 108 students for critical thinking skill measurement and 129 students for creative thinking skill assessment. The sample was determined by random cluster sampling. The students’ critical thinking skills was measured using 5 essay questions which assess aspects of reasoning, inferencing, situations, clarity, and overviewing. In addition, the 4 essay questions were used to assess students’ creative thinking skills on aspect of fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. The results of the findings revealed that students’ critical and creative thinking skills are still in the low category, indicating the lack of students understanding in science concepts. Keywords—critical thinking skill, creative thinking skill,
TransClim (v1.0): A chemistry-climate response model for assessing the effect of mitigation strategies for road traffic on ozone

Abstract. Road traffic emits not only carbon dioxide (CO2), but also other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOC) and carbon monoxide (CO). These chemical species influence the atmospheric chemistry and produce ozone (O3) in the troposphere. Ozone acts as a greenhouse gas and thus contributes to anthropogenic global warming. Technological trends and political decisions can help to reduce the O3 effect of road traffic emissions on climate. In order to assess the O3 response of such mitigation options on climate, we developed a chemistry-climate response model called TransClim (Modelling the effect of surface Transportation on Climate). It considers road traffic emissions of NOx, VOC and CO and determines the O3 change and its corresponding stratospheric-adjusted radiative forcing. Using a tagging method, TransClim is further able to quantify the contribution of road traffic emissions to the O3 concentration. The response model bases on lookup-tables which are generated by a set of emission variation simulations performed with the global chemistry climate model EMAC (ECHAM5 v5.3.02, MESSy v2.53.0). Evaluating TransClim against independent EMAC simulations reveals very low deviations of all considered species (0.01–7 %). Hence, TransClim is able to reproduce the results of an EMAC simulation very well. Moreover, TransClim is about 6000 times faster in computing the climate effect of an emission scenario than the complex chemistry-climate model. This makes TransClim a suitable tool to efficiently assess the climate effect of a broad range of mitigation options for road traffic or to analyse uncertainty ranges by employing Monte-Carlo simulations.