Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oracle or Obstacle?: Individual Level Knowledge, Heterogeinity and Innovation

Boundary spanning is one way to accumulate diverse knowledge. This paper examines the conditions under which boundary spanning increases the value of project participants contributions to team production. Statistical findings from logit regressions show that the cost-benefit tradeoff of boundary spanning depends on whether the focal project is aimed at exploitation or exploration. If the focal project is mostly explorative, diverse knowledge is a valuable resource; in projects where the focus is on exploitation, diverse knowledge impedes project performance. The findings in this paper confirm and extend research on boundary spanning and organizational learning.
Impact of Different Vegetation Zones on the Velocity and Discharge of Open-Channel Flow

Different types of vegetation widely exist in rivers and wetlands. The vegetation will affect the ecological environment and flow process, thus becoming increasingly significant in river engineering and aquatic environmental management. Previous research on vegetated flow is mainly to understand the flow structure of open channels with fully covered one-layer vegetation. However, vegetation often grows along a river bank and co-exists in different heights. The present paper presents experimental results about the flow characteristics of an open-channel with two sides covered by differently layered vegetation, focusing on the effect of vegetation on the velocity distribution and discharge. Two heights of dowels in 10 cm and 20 cm were used to simulate rigid vegetation and arranged in a linear form on both sides of a channel bed under emergent and fully submerged flow conditions. The velocity at different positions was obtained using ADV (Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry). Measured results demonstrate that there exists a shear layer between free-flow and vegetated zones, indicating that the flow transition occurs between fast-moving flow in the free zone and slowly obstructed flow in the vegetated zone and induces a high shear layer and transverse coherent vortices near the interface. Furthermore, compared with the emergent condition, the discharge through the free-flow region slightly decreases under full submerged conditions while the discharge in the vegetated region increases, indicating that the vegetation does not significantly change the discharge percentage in the free region. These findings on differently-layered vegetation would help riparian management practices to maintain healthy ecological and habitat zones.
Investigation on Numerical Simulation of Chloride Transport in Unsaturated Concrete

Marine atmosphere environment accelerates the process of chloride penetration into concrete under the coupling effect of ambient temperature and relative humidity, thereby reducing the durability and service life of concrete. This paper aims to investigate the change of water equilibrium saturation and the chloride transport properties of concrete materials in different environments. The water equilibrium saturation tests at three temperatures and five relative humidity (RH) and salt spray erosion tests at three temperatures were performed. The influence of RH and temperature on the equilibrium saturation of concrete and the influence of temperature and time on the chloride diffusion coefficient are investigated. The results show that, in the process of moisture absorption and desorption, the equilibrium saturation of concrete gradually decreases as temperature rises. At the same depth of concrete, the chloride content gradually increases with temperature increasing, as well as the chloride diffusion coefficient. However, as the corrosion time of salt spray increases, the altering of chloride diffusion coefficient becomes less. Based on the Kelvin equation, a relationship between capillary pressure and water saturation in concrete was established, and a moisture transfer model for concrete in the process of moisture absorption and desorption was derived. Further, based on the established chloride diffusion equation and heat balance equation, a model of temperature-wet-chloride coupling chloride transfer was derived. Theory model simulation results show the transfer speed of chloride under the coupling of diffusion and capillary is higher than pure diffusion in moisture in the absorption process. However, the opposite is true in the desorption process. Moreover, with the increment of saturation rate, the capillary effect on chloride transport is enhanced.
Unleashing the Barriers to CSR Implementation in the SME Sector of a Developing Economy: A Thematic Analysis Approach

The notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of sustainability has been a part of the academic discussion in recent years. Different studies have also highlighted the inability of the SME sector to implement a CSR plan to achieve sustainability objectives. However, why this sector is unable to adopt CSR is something that has not been properly attended by contemporary scholars. Against this backdrop, the current study aims to explore the major barriers that inhibit SMEs from implementing CSR and sustainability measures. The current study data were collected from the senior management of different SMEs in Pakistan and were analyzed using thematic analysis to extract different patterns of themes. The results unveil that the “lack of finances” is the most critical barrier for CSR, followed by the “lack of CSR knowledge. ” The implications for theory and practice are also discussed in detail.
Maternal-Child Health Outcomes from Pre- to Post-Implementation of a Trauma-Informed Care Initiative in the Prenatal Care Setting: A Retrospective Study

Background: There has been an increase in use of trauma-informed care (TIC) approaches, which can include screening for maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) during prenatal care. However, there is a paucity of research showing that TIC approaches are associated with improvements in maternal or offspring health outcomes. Using retrospective file review, the current study evaluated whether differences in pregnancy health and infant birth outcomes were observed from before to after the implementation of a TIC approach in a low-risk maternity clinic, serving women of low medical risk. Methods: Demographic and health data were extracted from the medical records of 601 women (n = 338 TIC care, n = 263 pre-TIC initiative) who received prenatal care at a low-risk maternity clinic. Cumulative risk scores for maternal pregnancy health and infant birth outcomes were completed by health professionals. Results: Using independent chi-squared tests, the proportion of women without pregnancy health risks did not differ for women from before to after the implementation of TIC, χ2 (2, 601) = 3.75, p = 0.15. Infants of mothers who received TIC were less likely to have a health risk at birth, χ2 (2, 519) = 6.17, p = 0.046. Conclusion: A TIC approach conveyed modest benefits for infant outcomes, but not maternal health in pregnancy. Future research examining other potential benefits of TIC approaches are needed including among women of high socio-demographic and medical risk.
Priority scheduling with cost considerations

Abstract Although many articles have been published on the general priority scheduling problem, very few have been concerned with directly minimizing costs. The few studies which do consider overall costs do not use these costs in establishing a job's priority in the queue. This paper investigates how the time and cost performance of jobs are affected by the use of a rule which directly considers costs. A simulation model of a hypothetical job shop is used to examine several of these cost rules, as well as some common rules concerned with the timeliness of jobs. Performance measures include both time-oriented and cost-oriented measures. The results indicate that rules which directly consider costs (or profit) may prove practical for a manager where minimization of WTP and maximization of ROT are the primary and secondary objectives of the company
The balancing act: Managing emerging issues of elearning projects at the University of Sydney

In 2004, the University of Sydney broadened its approach to information and communication technology (ICT) in learning and teaching with a widespread initiative focusing on elearning. Two of the purposes of the elearning initiative are to maintain the central ICT services which provide quality assurance for ICT-supported student learning across the whole institution, and to assist the three colleges of the University to accomplish their teaching and learning goals related to ICT through the development of strategic college-based projects. This paper focuses on the latter strategy by giving an overview of the management and implementation of the first round of college-based projects. The project managers' reflections, as well as results from surveys conducted with key stakeholders of strategic projects (both academic and general staff), are then reviewed to identify important emerging issues which need to be addressed if balance is to be achieved between change and comfort during the implementation of the new team-based working style. Issues are centred around the project management environment in universities, the changing roles and responsibilities of academic and general staff and their communities of practice, and the need for improved collaboration and communication between these merging groups.
The application of the Just-in-Time philosophy in the Chinese construction industry

The Just-in-Time (JIT) philosophy originated from the Toyota Production System (TPS) and has been used in the manufacturing i ndustry for many decades. It has helped to increase the productivity of the indu stry and has also increased the quality of its products. In rece nt years, numerous studies in developed countries have endeavoured to introduce JIT in the cons truction industry to reap similar benefits. This study focused on applying JIT to the Chinese construction industry with the goal of improving its performance and thus its competitiveness. This paper discusses the current state of the Chinese construction industry; presents the potential impediments to implementing JIT; and proposes a framework for JIT implementation in the areas of design, procurement, construction and inspection. The results of this study suggest that government and educational institutions should play a key role in spearheading the application of JIT in the construction industry in China.
Approach to contraception in the primary health care: barrier, behavioral and pharmaceutical methods

Contraception is a critical tool in achieving favorable family planning, which has been reported with remarkable outcomes on the individual and country-based levels. Using contraceptive approaches has been reported to be cost efficacious with minimal side effects. It gives couples more freedom, privacy and control over their lives, which might also enhance the quality of life of these individuals. In the present study, we have reviewed evidence from current studies in the literature about the different approaches to contraception in primary care. We have discussed the different barrier and non-barrier approaches that have been validated in the literature as efficacious approaches that can achieve contraception. We also reviewed the safety profiles for the different modalities and whether they can be used or not. Overall, couples should consult with the primary care physician before approaching any modality to give them a better judgment about the potential benefits and risks of each suitable contraception tool. We suggest that educational campaigns should also be conducted to increase awareness and attitude about family planning and using contraceptive modalities to expand the application and favorable outcomes of using these tools.
Multi-Objective Trajectory Planning for Slung-Load Quadrotor System

In this article, multi-objective trajectory planning has been carried out for a quadrotor carrying a slung load. The goal is to obtain non-dominated solutions for path length, mission duration, and dissipated energy cost functions. These costs are optimized by imposing constraints on the slung-load quadrotor system’s endpoints, borders, obstacles, and dynamical equations. The dynamic model of a slung-load quadrotor system is used in the Euler-Lagrange formulation. Although the differential flatness feature is mostly used in this system’s trajectory planning, a fully dynamic model has been used in our study. A new multi-objective Genetic Algorithm has been developed to solve path planning, aiming to optimize trajectory length, mission time, and energy consumed during the mission. The solution process has a three-phase algorithm: Phase-1 is about randomly generating waypoints, Phase-2 is about constructing the initial non-dominated pool, and the final phase, Phase-3, is obtaining the solution. In addition to conventional genetic operators, simple genetic operators are proposed to improve the trajectories locally. Pareto Fronts have been obtained corresponding to exciting scenarios. The method has been tested, and results have been presented at the end. A comparison of the solutions obtained with MOGA operators and MOPSO over hypervolume values is also presented.
Breaking the centralized barrier for cross-device federated learning

Federated learning (FL) is a challenging setting for optimization due to the heterogeneity of the data across different clients which can cause a client drift phenomenon. In fact, designing an algorithm for FL that is uniformly better than simple centralized training has been a major open problem thus far. In this work, we propose a general algorithmic framework, M IME , which i) mitigates client drift and ii) adapts an arbitrary centralized optimization algorithm such as momentum and Adam to the cross-device federated learning setting. M IME uses a combination of control-variates and server-level optimizer state (e.g. momentum) at every client-update step to ensure that each local update mimics that of the centralized method run on i.i. d. data. We prove a reduction result showing that M IME can translate the convergence of a generic algorithm in the centralized setting into convergence in the federated setting. Moreover, we show that, when combined with momentum-based variance reduction, M IME is provably faster than any centralized method –the ﬁrst such result. We also perform a thorough experimental exploration of M IME ’s performance on real world datasets (implemented here).
Effects of background noise on the speech acoustics of people with aphasia

Effects of Background Noise on the Speech Acoustics of People With Aphasia Kirsten Dixon Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science This study investigated the effect of hearing six background noise conditions (silent baseline, pink noise, monologue, lively conversation, one-sided phone call, and cocktail noise) on acoustic measures of speech production during story retells in people with aphasia. Eleven individuals with aphasia and 11 ageand gender-matched control participants took part in the study. Participants heard the background noise conditions through open-back headphones while they retold six short stories. The examiner calculated mean and standard deviation of intensity, mean and standard deviation of fundamental frequency (F0), and speech rate in words per minute. A Matlab application that identified pauses (i.e., periods of silence greater than 200 ms) computed a speaking time ratio measure (i.e., time speaking versus time pausing). With the exception of the monologue and one-sided phone call condition, both people with aphasia and control participants significantly increase their intensity and F0 in the presence of background noise. Additionally, participants with aphasia have significantly lower speaking time ratios and speaking rates when compared to control participants. Participants make acoustic changes while hearing background noise; speech intensity rises in an effort to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, while mean F0 increases due to a presumed rise in subglottal pressure. Further research is suggested to investigate other acoustic differences, possibly at the segmental level, between speech produced in informational and energetic background noise.
CD93 Signaling via Rho Proteins Drives Cytoskeletal Remodeling in Spreading Endothelial Cells

During angiogenesis, cell adhesion molecules expressed on the endothelial cell surface promote the growth and survival of newly forming vessels. Hence, elucidation of the signaling pathways activated by cell-to-matrix adhesion may assist in the discovery of new targets to be used in antiangiogenic therapy. In proliferating endothelial cells, the single-pass transmembrane glycoprotein CD93 has recently emerged as an important endothelial cell adhesion molecule regulating vascular maturation. In this study, we unveil a signaling pathway triggered by CD93 that regulates actin cytoskeletal dynamics responsible of endothelial cell adhesion. We show that the Src-dependent phosphorylation of CD93 and the adaptor protein Cbl leads to the recruitment of Crk, which works as a downstream integrator in the CD93-mediated signaling. Moreover, confocal microscopy analysis of FRET-based biosensors shows that CD93 drives the coordinated activation of Rac1 and RhoA at the cell edge of spreading cells, thus promoting the establishment of cell polarity and adhesion required for cell motility.
Production and Characterization of Nucleocapsid and RBD Cocktail Antigens of SARS-CoV-2 in Nicotiana benthamiana Plant as a Vaccine Candidate against COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has put global public health at high risk, rapidly spreading around the world. Although several COVID-19 vaccines are available for mass immunization, the world still urgently needs highly effective, reliable, cost-effective, and safe SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus vaccines, as well as antiviral and therapeutic drugs, to control the COVID-19 pandemic given the emerging variant strains of the virus. Recently, we successfully produced receptor-binding domain (RBD) variants in the Nicotiana benthamiana plant as promising vaccine candidates against COVID-19 and demonstrated that mice immunized with these antigens elicited a high titer of RBD-specific antibodies with potent neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we engineered the nucleocapsid (N) protein and co-expressed it with RBD of SARS-CoV-2 in Nicotiana benthamiana plant to produce an antigen cocktail. The purification yields were about 22 or 24 mg of pure protein/kg of plant biomass for N or N+RBD antigens, respectively. The purified plant produced N protein was recognized by N protein-specific monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies demonstrating specific reactivity of mAb to plant-produced N protein. In this study, for the first time, we report the co-expression of RBD with N protein to produce a cocktail antigen of SARS-CoV-2, which elicited high-titer antibodies with potent neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2. Thus, obtained data support that a plant-produced antigen cocktail, developed in this study, is a promising vaccine candidate against COVID-19.
Cross-phase-modulation-induced nonlinear phase noise in WDM direct-detection DPSK systems

In direct-detection differential-phase-shift-keying (DPSK) systems, the signal-spontaneous emission beat noise introduces phase noise due to Kerr nonlinearity. In wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) systems, this nonlinear phase noise comes not only from the channel itself through self-phase modulation (SPM) but also from the other channels through cross-phase modulation (XPM). In this paper, we theoretically and experimentally investigate XPM-induced nonlinear phase noise. We calculate the performance degradation of DPSK systems caused by XPM-induced nonlinear phase noise in addition to SPM-induced phase noise and experimentally verify it using a 600-km nonzero-dispersion-shifted-fiber link.
DO VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY AND HEPATITIS C VIRUS INFECTION PLAY A ROLE IN OXIDATIVE STRESS IN PATIENTS ON MAINTENANCE HEMODIALYSIS?

ABSTRACT Background Elevated oxidant levels and low antioxidant levels in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) play a significant role in the development of endothelial dysfunction, atherogenesis and cardiovascular disease (CVD). A deficiency in vitamin D (Vit.D) is also suggested to be responsible for the generation of oxidative stress (OS) and CVD. Among dialysis patients, conflicting data exist concerning the relationship between hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and OS. We studied the relationship between 25Vit.D level, HCV infection, and plasma 8 iso-prostaglandin F2 α (8-ISO-PGF2α) as an OS marker in an Egyptian hemodialysis (HD) cohort. Methods One hundred and twenty ESRD patients on HD were initially recruited to the study but only 88 patients have met the inclusion and none of the exclusion criteria. Midweek predialysis session blood samples were collected for the measurement of 25(OH) Vit.D, plasma 8-ISO-PGF2α, high sensitivity C – reactive protein (hs-CRP), and intact parathyroid hormone (intact PTH). Patients were stratified into two groups according to the presence or absence of serum antibodies against HCV and their plasma 8-ISO-PGF2α were compared. Results Vit.D deficiency was noted in 93% of the participants; the median 8-ISO-PGF2α level was 382 pg/mL. No significant correlation between Vit.D and 8-ISO-PGF2α levels was found. Thirty-two participants (36%) were HCV+ and their 8-ISO-PGF2α levels were significantly lower relative to in the seronegative group (median 171 vs. 647 pg/mL; P < 0.006). Conclusion In this Egyptian HD cohort, Vit D deficiency was highly prevalent, yet failed to show any correlation with F2-isoprostanes. HCV+ HD patients might be shielded from OS.
COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance and Hesitancy among Singaporean Primary Healthcare Workers

BackgroundFactors affecting COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy among primary healthcare workers (HCW) remain poorly understood. This study aims to identify factors associated with vaccine acceptance and hesitancy among HCW.MethodsA multi-centre online cross-sectional survey was performed across 6 primary care clinics from May to June 2021, after completion of vaccination exercise. Demographics, profession, years working in healthcare, residential status, presence of chronic medical conditions, self-perceived risk of acquiring COVID-19 and previous influenza vaccination were collected. HCW who accepted vaccine were then asked to rank their top 5 reasons for vaccine acceptance; HCW who were vaccine hesitant had to complete the 5C scale on psychological antecedents of vaccination.Results557 out of 1182 eligible HCW responded (47.1%). 29 were excluded due to existing contraindications. Among 557 respondents, vaccine acceptance rate was 94.9% (n=501) and 5.1% were hesitant (n=27). COVID-19 vaccine acceptance was not associated with sex, age, ethnicity, profession, number of years in healthcare, living status, presence of chronic diseases, self-perceived risk or previous influenza vaccination. The top 3 reasons for COVID-19 vaccine acceptance ranked by 501 HCW were to protect their family and friends, protect themselves from COVID-19 and due to high risk of acquiring COVID-19 because of their jobs. The 15-item questionnaire from the 5C psychological antecedents of vaccination was completed by 27 vaccine hesitant HCW. The mean scores for the components of the 5Cs were: ‘Confidence’ (3.96), ‘Complacency’ (3.23), ‘Constraint’ (2.85), ‘Calculation’ (5.79) and ‘Collective responsibility’ (4.12). ConclusionCOVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is a minute issue among Singapore primary HCW, having achieved close to 95% acceptance rate with 5% hesitancy rate. Future studies can focus on other settings with higher hesitancy rates, and acceptance of booster vaccinations with the emergence of the delta COVID-19 variant.Trial RegistrationThis study was approved by the National Healthcare Group (NHG) Domain Specific Review Board (DSRB), Singapore on 26th April 2021 (Reg No. 2021/00213).