Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Utilisation of a 2D solid state detector array for dose assessment and reconstruction of cancer treatment fields using megavoltage photon beams

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Regulatory Bodies, Academic Freedom and Institutional Autonomy in Africa: Issues and Challenges – The Nigerian Example

Academic freedom is often described as a four-fold right of a university to determine for itself on academic grounds, who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study. It also entails the freedom of a university to select its own staff and to determine its own standards, as well as the freedom of both staff and students to free expression in their teaching, studying, publishing and research. Institutional autonomy, on the other hand, is the freedom an educational institution en- joys in managing its internal affairs without undue interference from outside bodies or persons, especially from the government or its agencies. An effec- tive enjoyment of academic freedom, however, requires institutional autonomy. In recent times, Nigerian universities have witnessed many issues challeng- ing their academic freedom and institutional autonomy such as summary dismissal of university teachers for being critical of government educational policies and other related issues. Against this background, this article ar- gues that the establishment of regulatory bodies such as the Nigerian Uni- versities Commission, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board and the like has eroded the previous autonomy and freedom enjoyed by the univer- sities in the four cardinal ways mentioned above. The article advocates a system which adequately guarantees academic freedom. It also commends to Nigeria and other African countries the South African position which guarantees the right to academic freedom and scientific research in its Con- stitution.
A mixed‐interpolation finite element method for incompressible thermal flows of electrically conducting fluids

A new mixed‐interpolation finite element method is presented for the two‐dimensional numerical simulation of incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows which involve convective heat transfer. The proposed method applies the nodal shape functions, which are locally defined in nine‐node elements, for the discretization of the Navier–Stokes and energy equations, and the vector shape functions, which are locally defined in four‐node elements, for the discretization of the electromagnetic field equations. The use of the vector shape functions allows the solenoidal condition on the magnetic field to be automatically satisfied in each four‐node element. In addition, efficient approximation procedures for the calculation of the integrals in the discretized equations are adopted to achieve high‐speed computation. With the use of the proposed numerical scheme, MHD channel flow and MHD natural convection under a constant applied magnetic field are simulated at different Hartmann numbers. The accuracy and robustness of the method are verified through these numerical tests in which both undistorted and distorted meshes are employed for comparison of numerical solutions. Furthermore, it is shown that the calculation speed for the proposed scheme is much higher compared with that for a conventional numerical integration scheme under the condition of almost the same memory consumption. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Parametric control to a type of quasi-linear second-order systems via output feedback

ABSTRACT This paper considers the design of output feedback control for a type of quasi-linear second-order systems with the time-varying coefficient matrices containing the state variables and a time-varying parameter vector. Based on the solution to a type of second-order generalised Sylvester matrix equations, general complete parameterisation of a quasi-linear output feedback controller is established with respect to the state variables, the time-varying parameter vector, the constant closed-loop system and another two groups of arbitrary parameters, and also for the left and right closed-loop eigenvectors matrices. With the proposed parametric output feedback control, the closed-loop system can be transformed into a constant linear system with desired eigenstructure. Finally, simulation results are provided to illustrate the convenience and effectiveness of application in the general spacecraft rendezvous problem.
The Effects of Cardiac Rehabilitation including Nordic Walking in Patients with Chronic Coronary Syndromes after Percutaneous Coronary Interventions in Elective Mode

Background: Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with chronic coronary syndrome (CCS) is a worldwide method of coronary revascularisation. The aim of this study was to assess the immediate and long-term effects of Nordic Walking (NW) training added to a standard cardiac rehabilitation programme on physical activity (PA) and capacity and life quality, as well as selected proatherogenic risk factors. Methods: The studied group comprised 50 patients (considering exclusion criteria, 40 patients), aged 56–70, with CCS after elective PCI qualified them for a 6-weeks-long cardiac rehabilitation. The follow-up period lasted 4 months, and control visits occurred at 2 and 4 months. The studied patients were randomly divided into two groups: control group—standard cardiac rehabilitation programme and experimental group—standard cardiac rehabilitation programme additionally combined with NW training. Results: The cardiac rehabilitation programme in the experimental, compared to the control group, increased intense PA (from 731.43 ± 909.9 to 2740 ± 2875.96 vs. from 211.43 ± 259.43 to 582.86 ± 1289.74 MET min/week) and aerobic efficiency—VO2peak (from 8.67 ± 0.88 to 9.96 ± 1.35 vs. from 7.39 ± 2 to 7.41 ± 2.46 METs), as well as quality of life according to the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire (from 3.57 ± 0.51 to 4.14 ± 0.36 vs. from 3.29 ± 0.47 to 3.57 ± 0.51 points). The walking distance assessed with the 6-min walk test did not differ between the groups before the beginning of the rehabilitation programme. Both at the I follow-up and II follow-up time points, a significant increase in the walking distance was noted in the control and experimental groups compared to baseline, and the difference between both groups was significant at the end of follow-up (378.57 ± 71.35 vs. 469.29 ± 58.07, p = 0.003). Moreover, NW had a positive effect on the modulation within selected biochemical risk factors of atherosclerosis, as well as subjective quality of life and well-being. Conclusions: Introducing NW training into the cardiac rehabilitation process proved to be a more effective form of therapy in patients with CCS treated via PCI, as compared to the standard cardiac rehabilitation programme alone.
Indoor Environmental Quality in Residential Care Facilities: A Scoping Review with Design Focus

Elderly adults experience physical and cognitive deterioration, which makes them more dependent on others for their daily needs. It is not always possible to provide adequate care in their own homes, emphasizing the crucial need for qualified residential care facilities (RCFs). Given that elderly spend most of their time indoors, it's crucial to provide a good indoor environment quality (IEQ) at RCF. Using the PRISMA scoping review approach, this study seeks to review the body of knowledge about IEQ elements of RCFs. A keyword search yielded 1044 possible papers; however, after removing irrelevant articles and duplications, only 94 papers remained to be reviewed. A snowball search was used to add 32 papers, and finally 126 papers were included in this paper.
Functions of bounded variation and curves in metric measure spaces

Abstract An approximation modulus, the AM $\mathrm{AM}$ -modulus, for a family of paths is introduced in a metric measure space ( X , d , ν ) ${(X,d,\nu)}$ . It is shown that a function of bounded variation in X is a BV function on almost every path with respect to the AM $\mathrm{AM}$ -modulus. Properties of the AM $\mathrm{AM}$ -modulus, its relations to the usual M 1 ${M_{1}}$ -modulus and to the BV-capacities of condensers are studied. Only minimal assumptions on X and the measure ν are employed.
An Efficient and Robust Fingerprint-Based Localization Method for Multiflloor Indoor Environment

Fingerprint-based indoor localization is one of the most promising solutions for various Intelligent Internet of Things (IIoT) systems. However, recent studies show that the key design challenges of current fingerprint-based localization techniques come from the following three aspects: 1) temporal variation caused by various patterns of IIoT device operations and stochastic fluctuation of wireless signals; 2) spatial unevenness of collected received signal strength indicator (RSSI) samples due to complex multifloor environments; and 3) high feature sparsity of collected RSSI samples in large areas. To address these challenges, we present a localization architecture for multifloor indoor localization in multibuilding environment and accordingly propose a fingerprint-based localization method (referred to as GrowNetLoc) based on gradient boosting neural network (GrowNet) and long short-term memory (LSTM) network. Regarding building/floor identification, the gradient ensemble model GrowNet is utilized for extracting the mapping relationship between uneven RSSI samples and building/floor indices. Regarding location estimation, the LSTM network is adopted as one layer of base learner to extract temporal features of RSSI samples, and a gradient boosting strategy is further used for overcoming the sample sparsity issue and improving the location estimation performance. Extensive experiments are conducted on real datasets and the results demonstrate that GrowNetLoc has superior localization accuracy and robustness performance compared with the existing methods.
Online collaborative note-taking and discussion forums in flipped learning environments

As the number of students learning in online and flipped contexts grows, an important question arises: to what extent is it necessary to have places or activities where students interact regarding course content? The present paper looked at three flipped learning environments: one with no online collaboration, one featuring an online discussion forum and one involving online collaborative note-taking. The subjects (N = 178) were all graduate students taking a flipped version of an English scientific writing class at a university in South Korea. The results show that students in the experimental conditions with online collaboration (collaborative note-taking and discussion forums) outperformed peers in the control condition (no online collaboration) on individual writing assignments. Furthermore, there was a benefit in the experimental condition with discussion forums regarding students’ group writing scores compared to the control group. These results show the value of implementing online student-to-student collaboration in flipped learning contexts and that both modes of collaboration tested herein add value to students’ learning. Implications for practice or policy: Incorporating online collaborative learning activities improves performance in flipped courses. Using collaborative forums and collaborative note-taking provide similar benefits. and their implementation will improve the online portion of a flipped class. Flipped classes generally include an online lecture component but should also feature online collaboration as well.
A revision of “Trinitichelys” maini (Testudinata: Baenidae) and additional material of its new genus from the Lewisville Formation (Woodbine Group, Cenomanian), Texas, USA

New cranial and postcranial (including shell and thin sections) material of the baenid turtle “Trinitichelys” maini is described and the species is taxonomically revised and referred to a new genus, Gehennachelys. The hypodigm of G. maini is expanded to include informative specimens allowing for a more comprehensive morphological understanding and shell reconstruction, as well as more thorough comparisons with confamilials.This taxon is phylogenetically placed at the base of Baenodda. Gehennachelys maini comb. nov. lacks a contribution of the posteriormost vertebral scale to the carapace margin and an omega-shaped femoral-anal sulcus, both historically regarded as baenodd synapomorphies, despite showing derived cranial characters for Baenodda. This inconsistency challenges the utility of these traits in diagnosing baenodds and highlights problems in resolving baenid relationships. Gehennachelys demonstrates that baenodds evolved as early as the middle Cenomanian, and it likely dispersed to southwestern Appalachia during a regression in the early Cenomanian, becoming the terminal baenid from the eastern North American landmass. Brent Adrian. Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, 900 S. Cady Mall, Tempe, Arizona, 85287 USA. badrian@asu.edu Heather F. Smith. Department of Anatomy, 19555 N. 59th Avenue, Midwestern University, Glendale, Arizona 85308 USA. hsmith@midwestern.edu Christopher R. Noto. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin Parkside, Kenosha, Wisconsin, 53141, USA. noto@uwp.edu
Utility of Hooded Broadcast Sprayer in Reducing Herbicide Particle Drift in Cotton

Use of hooded sprayers to mitigate spray particle drift during pesticide applications in cotton has not been investigated. Therefore, experiments were conducted in cotton fields in 2021 and 2022 to compare particle drift of dicamba applied with open and hooded broadcast sprayers at six different spray qualities: Fine (F), Medium (M), Coarse (C), Very Coarse (VC), Extremely Coarse (EC), and Ultra Coarse (UC). A fluorescent tracer dye was mixed and applied with the dicamba solution to measure drift deposition at different downwind distances up to 105 m from the target area. Results showed particle drift for F and M spray qualities applied with a hooded sprayer were reduced up to 94% and 77%, respectively, out to 10 m downwind from the application area compared to the open boom sprayer. Hooded sprayer decreased particle drift for C and VC spray qualities as well but only for short distances downwind (≤ 5 m). Sprayer type did not affect the particle drift for EC and UC spray qualities and it was also significantly lower than other spray qualities across both sprayer types. From 20 to 60 m downwind, dicamba applications with hooded sprayer exhibited as much as 42% less drift than open boom sprayer applications regardless of the spray quality. These data suggested that hooded sprayers are effective in reducing particle drift in cotton and thus can be utilized as a viable spray drift management technique for herbicide applications in cotton.
AdaptorNAS: A New Perturbation-Based Neural Architecture Search for Hyperspectral Image Segmentation

Hyperspectral image segmentation is an emerging area with numerous applications, including agriculture, forestry, environment monitoring, and remote sensing. This paper proposes a new neural architecture search algorithm, named AdaptorNAS, for hyperspectral image segmentation. AdaptorNAS aims to design the optimum decoder for any given encoder. In our approach, the search space of AdaptorNAS is a large deep neural network (DNN), and the optimal decoder is derived by pruning the large DNN via a perturbation-based pruning strategy. Verified on three popular encoders, i.e., ResNet-34, MobileNet-V2, and EfficientNet-B2, AdaptorNAS can design high-speed decoders that are significantly better than six common hand-crafted decoders. Additionally, with the EfficientNet-B2 encoder, AdaptorNAS (mIoU of 92.47% and mDice of 95.15%) outperforms the state-of-the-art NAS algorithms and hand-crafted network architectures on the hyperspectral image segmentation task. We also introduce a new hyperspectral image dataset of 4,625 images for objective evaluation in hyperspectral image segmentation research.
Seed Hull Fracture Resistance of Upland and Pima Cotton Cultivars

Seed durability is a current issue of cotton ginners, who have noted smaller and weaker seed, lower seed grades, and increased seed coat fragments within ginned cotton fiber. To better understand the differences in the seed hull properties of Upland (Gossypium hirsutum L.) and Pima (G. barbadense L) seed, compression testing was conducted to determine the seed hull fracture resistance of both species. Plants were grown in Five Points, CA, U.S., for two years. After roller ginning, seed were conditioned to standard environmental conditions and were compressed until rupture on a material strength tester. Seed of the Pima cultivars generally required greater maximum compressive force and energy to rupture than did the seed of the Upland cultivars. However, when the seed were compressed in a vertical orientation, a few individual Upland cultivars did have compression properties within the range of values observed for the Pima cultivars. Hence, it is possible to find Upland seed with compression properties comparable to or slightly greater than those of some Pima seed. Differences in the data for the two years showed that growing environment affects seed hull strength properties. The results should help clarify some conflicting literature regarding the relative strength attributes of Gossypium species seed.
Investigation of Flow over the Airfoil NACA 0010-35 with Various Angle of Attack

This report is using the finite element analysis method to investigate the performance of an airfoil (NACA 0100-35), which uses 2D computational fluid dynamics simulations based on ANSYS to find the lift and drag coefficients under different conditions. The boundary conditions are defined as follows: The density is 1kg/ , gauge pressure is 0, and airflow velocity is 50m/s. Also the Reynolds number is considered during the simulation. As a result, the simulation shows the stalling points and efficiencies of the airfoil under different angles of attack. The simulation also plots the contours and stream lines in these conditions.
Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Abortion among Undergraduate Health Science Students of Kathmandu Metropolitan City

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) defines abortion as pregnancy termination prior to twenty weeks of gestation or a fetus born weighing less than 500g. Abortion in Nepal was legalized in 2002, and the first legal abortion services started on March 18, 2004 (Safe Abortion Law). In developing regions, approximately 99% of the global maternal deaths in 2015 and early 8% of maternal deaths are abortion-related. Unsafe abortion is a public health concern because of its serious reproductive health consequences and impact on maternal morbidity and mortality. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 384 undergraduate students in colleges in Kathmandu Metropolitan City. Structured, self-administered questionnaires were used for data collection. Data were processed using IBS SPSS v. 25.0. Descriptive statistics and the chi-square test were used. Results: The study showed that two-thirds (66.7%) of study participants had good knowledge of abortion, while 33.3% had poor knowledge. Overall, there was a positive attitude toward abortion. Age, sex, residence, religion, ethnicity, type of family, educational level of parents, and occupation of parents were not significantly associated with levels of knowledge on abortion. Conclusion: Two-thirds of respondents had good knowledge of abortion. Still, a large proportion had poor knowledge regarding abortion, although the study participants were from a health science background. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that health education initiatives target such youth about abortion and its complications, which helps reduce morbidity and mortality associated with unsafe abortion.
Using the Aqueous Phase Produced from Hydrothermal Carbonization Process of Brown Seaweed to Improve the Growth of Phaseolus vulgaris

Seaweeds are considered a biomass for third-generation biofuel, and hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is a valuable process for efficiently disposing of the excess of macroalgae biomass for conversion into multiple value-added products. However, the HTC process produces a liquid phase to be disposed of. The present study aims to investigate the effects of seed-priming treatment with three HTC-discarded liquid phases (namely AHL180, AHL240, and AHL300), obtained from different experimental procedures, on seed germination and plant growth and productivity of Phaseolus vulgaris L. To disentangle the osmotic effects from the use of AHL, isotonic solutions of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 have also been tested. Seed germination was not affected by AHL seed-priming treatment. In contrast, PEG-treated samples showed significantly lower seed germination success. AHL-treated samples showed changes in plant biomass: higher shoot biomass was recorded especially in AHL180 samples. Conversely, AHL240 and AHL300 samples showed higher root biomass. The higher plant biomass values recorded in AHL-treated samples were the consequence of higher values of photosynthesis rate and water use efficiency, which, in turn, were related to higher stomatal density. Recorded data strongly support the hypothesis of the AHL solution reuse in agriculture in the framework of resource management and circular green economy.
Responses to noise in urban parks and in rural quiet areas

Nowadays the protection of quiet areas is an issue of increasing importance, as also recognized in the European Directive 2002/49/EC on the environmental noise [1]. Dealing with the demanded protection of quiet areas, it is important to characterize the soundscape of these environments properly, taking into account the multidimensionality of the individual perception which includes the effects of non-acoustic factors on subjective evaluation, such as visual impression and matching the personal expectation of the environment with the actual experience. This paper describes two experimental investigations carried out recently in Italy. The first deals with noise surveys and collection of subjective appraisals of three urban parks in Naples and the second consists of laboratory listening tests where sounds recorded binaurally in countryside parks have been mixed with sounds from some type of sources at different signal-to-noise ratios and played back by headphones to a group of subjects. The results obtained show that the subject's expectation to hear a sound in a specific environment, that is its congruence with the environment where it is heard, influences the corresponding annoyance. In particular, the more the sound is congruent with the expectation of the park, the less is the evoked annoyance and, conversely, the more is its acceptability. Furthermore, the acceptability of the sound increases with decreasing of its level and detectability of non natural sounds.