Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IT Governance Maturity and IT Outsourcing Degree: An Exploratory Study

The generic rationale of IT governance and IT outsourcing is similar. Both aim to increase business value delivery from IT. This article examines empirically how IT governance maturity evaluations of 109 senior executives in 20 enterprises differ, between those enterprises that have outsourced their IT function selectively and those enterprises that have conducted total outsourcing of their IT function. We collected survey data with an instrument, which builds on a generic IT governance framework and measures IT governance maturity. The article also evaluates whether the survey instrument is applicable to research that compares selective versus total outsourcing in the context of IT governance. In statistical analysis, we found several differences between selective and total IT outsourcers
Systematic Position of Histomonas meleagridis Based on Four Protein Genes

Abstract Phylogenetic trees based on parabasalid sequences of the small subunit rRNA placed Histomonas meleagridis in close proximity to Dientamoeba fragilis, Tritrichomonas foetus, and Monocercomonas sp. In this study, we sequenced partial genes of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), enolase, and α-tubulin from 2 strains of H. meleagridis. We found 5 different GAPDH sequences, 6 different enolase sequences, and 3 α-tubulin sequences. Phylogenetic trees based on the obtained sequences showed a close relationship of H. meleagridis with T. foetus and, to some extent, Monocercomonas sp. In conclusion, our findings further corroborate the ssu rRNA–based tree. Consequently, our study also supports the hypothesis that H. meleagridis secondarily lost cytoskeletal structures.
Energy-Optimal Adaptive Cruise Control based on Hybrid Model Predictive Control with Mixed-Integer Quadratic Programming

This paper presents a novel design of energyoptimal adaptive cruise control (EACC) for internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles based on hybrid model predictive control (HMPC), which optimally plans the vehicle speed trajectory for higher energy efficiency through taking both traffic and road information ahead into account. HMPC is proposed in this work to cope with the discrete control variable for switching the ICE on and off. HMPC is formulated as a mixed-integer quadratically constrained quadratic programming problem (MIQCQP), which is recast as a mixed-integer second order cone programming (MISOCP) problem. The performance of HMPC-based EACC is evaluated in real driving conditions and compared with linear MPC, as well as with receding horizon dynamic programming (RHDP).
Resource Allocation in Combined Fog-Cloud Scenarios by Using Artificial Intelligence

Although both cloud and fog computing technologies provide great on-demand services for the users, but none of them could singly guarantee the Quality of Service for the Internet of Things (IoT) based delay-sensitive applications. Therefore, cooperation between fog and cloud servers is of great importance. In this paper, we discuss about an artificial intelligence (AI) based task distribution algorithm (AITDA), which aims to reduce the response time and the Internet traffic by distribution of the tasks between fog and cloud servers. Our case study is a delay-sensitive application that runs in a situation where the computing capability of fog servers is restricted, and the internet connection is unstable (like vessels on the oceans). The primary trial of the AITDA shows that this method noticeably reduces the response time and internet traffic in comparison to the cloud-based and foz-based approaches.
Educational Computer Game for learning History: Impact on learners' level of knowledge and learners' satisfaction

Educational computer games have been adopted, for a long time, as a valuable tool in the learning and teaching of several subjects such as physics concepts, science, reading and spelling. These games are considered as a powerful instrument for teaching as they and succeeded in improving learners' motivation, increase learners' desire to learn, make learning more enjoyable, and lead learners to complete more difficult work. However, the use of these games for learning also has potential to affect the learning experience negatively if the game designer does not balance between a set of critical factors. Generally, the right combination of fun gameplay and appropriate learning experience constitutes a good opportunity for creating an effective educational game that supports the learners to acquire knowledge and to increase their competency. In this context, this paper introduces and describes a new educational computer game, called “LAST MISSION”, especially designed for learning the history of the World War 1 and the World War 2. In addition, this work seeks, through a pilot study, to investigate whether the use of this educational computer game has a positive effect on learners' level of knowledge and learners' satisfaction.
Use of pooled time series in the study of naturally occurring clinical events and problem behavior in a foster care setting.

Pooled time series is an underused analytic technique with the potential to increase researchers' ability to exploit clinical data. This article demonstrates the value of pooled time series by analyzing the behavior of youths in a specialized foster care treatment setting in response to a naturally occurring clinical event: changes in the number of youths living together in a treatment foster care setting. Pooled time series moves beyond typical clinical analyses with an increased capability of controlling statistically for complex within-subject effects and with a clinically useful measure of effect size. The complexity of the intrasubject data made it virtually impossible to determine the relevant significance (i.e., clinical meaning) of the clinical event by the use of standard n = 1 visual analysis procedures or standard statistical methods (e.g., chi square). After things such as autocorrelation and individual time trends were statistically controlled, each additional youth increased the number of problematic behaviors by one behavior per youth per day on the Parent Daily Report.
Health Care Management with KeepCare

Wireless sensing is part of our lives; major technological breakthroughs in the areas of sensors, integrated circuits, and also on wireless communications, led to the creation of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Such networks have multiple uses, from monitoring and tracking of people and goods, to the coordination and processing of activities in different contexts; they are used in industry, defence and healthcare applications. As part of this use in healthcare applications KeepCare, a solution based on monitoring, tracking and processing of healthcare related information, is presented in this paper. This solution uses a WSN based application to monitor peoples' health and quality of life through vital signs and activity information received via wireless sensors. This solution monitors users such as elderly, people suffering from chronic conditions in their home environment, but can as well be used in athletes or other professionals (e.g. first responders) that need to be monitored under hazardous conditions.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, Systemic & Topical

Autism Spectrum Disorders/Pervasive Developmental Disorders: Assessment and Treatment Bone Growth Stimulators: Electrical (Invasive, Noninvasive), Ultrasound Complementary and Alternative Medicine Infertility Services Lyme Disease Treatment – Antibiotic Treatment Negative-Pressure Wound Therapy/Vacuum-Assisted Closure (VAC) for Non-Healing Wounds Pneumatic Compression Devices and Compression Garments Tissue-Engineered Skin Substitutes
Generic assembly patterns in large ecological communities

Ecological communities have mainly been investigated theoretically in two ways: piecewise, a few species at a time; or as complex networks, simulated in exhaustive detail. But our empirical knowledge of networks is limited, and the space of simulation models and parameters is mindbogglingly vast. We show that a large fraction of that space of possibilities exhibits generic dynamics, which can be predicted from a single minimal model. To demonstrate this, we consider a wide array of ecological models, from resource competition to predation and mutualism, known to display very different behaviors for a few species. We simulate large communities, and show that equilibrium diversity, functioning and stability can often be predicted analytically from only four broad statistical properties of the community. Our approach provides a convenient framework for exploring generic patterns in ecosystem assembly and quantifying the added value of detailed models and measurements.
Manahij App as a Tool to Enhance Students’ Performance Utilizing Data Analytics and Academic Supervision - Case Study: National University Sudan

Mobile applications can play a significant role in supervision of learning and education as it is difficult for teachers to follow-up on all the learners at the same time. Using mobile apps can offer opportunities to support and guide students by collecting data about their usage manner and educational behaviour, which can also be reported. Problems identified can be analyzed and easily solved by adopting convenient pedagogic models. A mobile app called MANAHIJ is a product found to build a knowledge base for public and higher education to support learning process and sustainable education. This study aims at providing a follow-up tool that inspects online students’ learning activities through mobile application and provide them, their instructors and parents with reports to enhance their academic performance upon analyzing their accessibility to detected fields of syllabus. MANAHIJ APP is adapted to act as a students’ data collector during their accessing fields of syllabus that is uploaded to the APP. Data collected is analyzed and results are then sent to the instructor, students themselves and parents to be studied and come out with required educational treatments to support students’ academic performance. The experiment has been conducted on a students’ sample in $2 ^{{\mathrm {nd}}}$ year at National University Khartoum where academic advice and more quizzes lead to better action and show positive responses amidst students scores and better academic achievements.
Validity of 3 clinical techniques for the measurement of static foot posture in older people.

STUDY DESIGN Concurrent validity study. OBJECTIVES To determine the validity of 3 clinical methods for assessing static foot posture in older people. BACKGROUND Variations in the structure of the medial longitudinal arch are thought to influence lower extremity function; however, the validity of clinical measurements has not been fully established. METHODS AND MEASURES Clinical measurements of arch index (AI), navicular height (NH), and Foot Posture Index (FPI) were performed on 95 subjects (31 men and 64 women), aged 62 to 94 years (mean +/- SD, 78.6 +/- 6.5 years). These clinical measurements were then correlated with 3 arch-related measurements from radiographs: navicular height (NHr), calcaneal inclination angle (CIA), and calcaneal first metatarsal angle (C1MA). RESULTS All 3 clinical measures demonstrated significant associations with each of the radiographic parameters (P<.01). NH was highly correlated with NHr (Pearson r = 0.79), followed by C1MA (r = -0.53), and CIA (r = 0.44). The AI was highly correlated with the C1MA (r = 0.71) and CIA (r = -0.68), but only moderately correlated with NHr (r = 0.52). The FPI demonstrated weaker correlations with the radiographic parameters (NHr, r = 0.59; CIA, r = 0.36; C1MA, r = 0.42). CONCLUSION Clinical measurements of AI, NH, and FPI provide valid information regarding the structure of the medial longitudinal arch; however, each test may reflect different aspects of arch structure. NH would appear to be the most useful clinical measure, as it is simple to perform and provides an accurate representation of the skeletal alignment of the medial longitudinal arch. Further refinement of the clinical measurement of NH is now required to improve its moderate intratester and intertester reliability.
Cultural Heritage Design Element Labeling System With Gamification

Cultural heritage (CH) artifacts, such as ceramics and clothes, reflect the unique characteristics of ancient cultures and have the potential to be sustainably employed in modern design and entertainment. In particular, the shape of ceramics reflects regional and historical characteristics, so datafication is a promising avenue to preserve these assets for future generations. However, design is a specialized domain that requires significant human (expert and novice) labor. This often tedious process decreases the labeler’s motivation to complete the task, and data consistency varies with the experience and motivation of the labeler. To increase engagement, we developed an image labeling platform with graphical icon-based labeling methods and introduced gamification. The robust labeling methods with gamification increased novices’ engagement and decreased the workload of expert and novice labelers, but decreased data agreement between experts and novices, so we consider opportunities for gamification within the specialized cultural heritage domain.
Scheduled Fault Tolerant Integral Sliding Mode Control for BWB Aircraft

Due to the unconventional layout of a Blended Wing Body aircraft the available actuators provide little control authority: this situation is exacerbated in situations where the actuators are subject to actuator faults and failures. This paper proposes an optimised integral sliding mode scheme, with control allocation, to ensure that the actuators provide the best possible system performance without producing infeasible input signals in the presence of faults and failures. This is predominantly achieved through a novel form of Sliding Mode Control. The scheme is tested on the lateral dynamics of a 6 DoF non-linear model of a Blended Wing Body aircraft in the presence of severe actuator faults and failures.
Randomized trial of a brief physiotherapy intervention compared with usual physiotherapy for neck pain patients: Cost-effectiveness analysis

Objectives: To assess the cost-effectiveness of brief physiotherapy intervention versus usual physiotherapy management in patients with neck pain of musculoskeletal origin in the community setting. Methods: A cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted alongside a multicenter pragmatic randomized controlled clinical trial. Individuals 18 years of age and older with neck pain of more than 2 weeks were recruited from physiotherapy departments with referrals from general practitioners (GPs) in the East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire regions in the United Kingdom. A total of 139 patients were allocated to the brief intervention, and 129 to the usual physiotherapy. Resource use data were prospectively collected on the number of physiotherapy sessions, hospital stay, specialist, and GP visits. Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) were estimated using EQ-5D data collected at baseline, 3 and 12 months from the start of the treatment. The economic evaluation was conducted from the U.K. National Health System perspective. Results: On average, brief intervention produced lower costs (£−68; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], £−103 to £−35) and marginally lower QALYs (−0.001; 95 percent CI, −0.030 to 0.028) compared with usual physiotherapy, resulting in an incremental cost per QALY of £68,000 for usual physiotherapy. These results are sensitive to patients' treatment preferences. Conclusions: Usual physiotherapy may not be good value for money for the average individual in this trial but could be a cost-effective strategy for those who are indifferent toward which treatment they receive.
A Multilingual Natural Stress Emotion Database

In this paper, we describe an ongoing effort in collecting and annotating a multilingual speech database of natural stress emotion from university students. The goal is to detect natural stress emotions and study the stress expression differences in different languages, which may help psychologists in the future. We designed a common questionnaire of stress-inducing and non-stress-inducing questions in English, Mandarin and Cantonese and collected a first ever, multilingual corpus of natural stress emotion. All of the students are native speakers of the corresponding language. We asked native language speakers to annotate recordings according to the participants' self-label states and obtained a very good kappa inter labeler agreement. We carried out human perception tests where listeners who do not understand Chinese were asked to detect stress emotion from the Mandarin Chinese database. Compared to the annotation labels, these human perceived emotions are of low accuracy, which shows a great necessity for natural stress detection research.
Evidence of a role for galectin‐1 in acute inflammation

Galectin‐1 (Gal‐1), a member of a family of β‐galactoside‐binding proteins, has been suggested to play key roles in immunological and inflammatory processes. The present study deals with the concept of an in vivo role for Gal‐1 in acute inflammation by using the rat hind paw edema test. Local administration of Gal‐1 (0.5, 2, 4 and 8 μg / ml) inhibited acute inflammation induced by bee venom phospholipase A2 (PLA2) when it was injected 30 min before the enzyme or co‐injected together with PLA2. The anti‐inflammatory effect was prevented by a specific antibody, but independent of its carbohydrate‐binding properties. In contrast, Gal‐1 failed to inhibit histamine‐induced edema. Histopathological studies showed a clear reduction of the inflammatory process when Gal‐1 was injected before PLA2, evidenced by a diminished number of infiltrated polymorphonuclear neutrophils and scarce degranulated mast cells. The anti‐inflammatory effect was also assessed in vitro, showing that Gal‐1 treatment reduced prostaglandin E2 secretion and arachidonic acid release from stimulated peritoneal macrophages. Results presented here provide the first evidence for a role of Gal‐1 in acute inflammation and suggest that the anti‐inflammatory effect involves the inhibition of both soluble and cellular mediators of the inflammatory response.
Towards a framework for building automatic recommendations of answers in MOOCs' Discussion Forums

In this paper, we propose a framework for building automatic recommendations of answers in MOOCs' Discussion Forums. The general aim of this research is to contribute to addressing the MOOCs' dropout rate issue due to the lack of interactivity and scaffolding for learners especially in discussion forums. To this end, the proposed system provides learners with automatic adequate answers to the inquiries and questions they posted in discussion forums. The proposed answering approach is accomplished in two main phases: The Answering System identifies firstly a learner's question among a panoply of exchanged messages within discussion forums. Then, it provides to the learner suitable suggested answers based on similar existing posts, which would help the learner getting immediate preliminary answers without the need to wait for a formal feedback from the instructor. In a second hand, the system builds and recommends an appropriate answer using MOOCs' videos, based on automated crawling and indexing methods and applying web mining and recommendation strategies.
Exposure to environmental enrichment elicits differential hippocampal cell proliferation: Role of individual responsiveness to anxiety

Environmental enrichment (EE) is a largely employed behavioral procedure in which animals are exposed to high stimulation compared with conventional housing conditions. Animal exposure to an EE exerts beneficial effects on the performance of different learning tasks and induces a number of behavioral, neurochemical, and neuroanatomical changes including hippocampal cell proliferation. However, the importance of voluntary interaction with the environment in these changes has not been clearly resolved yet. Moreover, the effects of a complex environment on animal emotionality still remains questionable and has not been explored in detail under conditions that allow unmasking individual responses among subjects in a group. The present study was aimed at exposing groups of rats to an EE, and analyzing individual differences in activity levels during EE sessions. We observed differences with respect to the activity level displayed by rats during the enriched sessions, which correlated with differences in the rate of hippocampal cell proliferation. It is suggested that exposure to EE may reduce anxiety‐like behaviors and may elicit individual differences on emotional reactions positively linked with hippocampal neurogenesis and testosterone levels. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2007.
Haptic Instrumentation for Physical Rehabilitation of Stroke Patients

The recovery of hand functions in post-stroke patients relies on the length of therapy that is available to them. Rehabilitation exercises supervised by occupational therapists are characterized by repetitiveness and a constant increase in intensity. However, due to resource limitations, facilities and time allocated to recovering stroke patients restrict the maximum level of rehabilitation that can be attained. Various efforts have therefore been spent into rehabilitation themes set in virtual environments, sometimes using haptic devices, in order to create affordable stand-alone systems that patients could use at home. This study carries forward in that direction by implementing hapto-virtual reality based exercises for the purposes of hand rehabilitation. In this paper, we present a haptic-based rehabilitation system that can be set in the patient's own house to provide him/her with treatment that is not restricted by time and facilities and that offers continuous evaluation of the patient's improvement
Effects of osmolytes on stable UUCG tetraloops and their preference for a CG closing base pair

ABSTRACT Osmolytes have the potential to affect the stability of secondary structure motifs and alter preferences for conserved nucleic acid sequences in the cell. To contribute to the understanding of the in vivo function of RNA we observed the effects of different classes of osmolytes on the UNCG tetraloop motif. UNCG tetraloops are the most common and stable of the RNA tetraloops and are nucleation sites for RNA folding. They also have a significant thermodynamic preference for a CG closing base pair. The thermal denaturation of model hairpins containing UUCG loops was monitored using UV-Vis spectroscopy in the presence of osmolytes with different chemical properties. Interestingly, all of the osmolytes tested destabilized the hairpins, but all had little effect on the thermodynamic preference for a CG base pair, except for polyethylene glycol (PEG) 200. PEG 200 destabilized the loop with the CG closing base pair relative to the loop with a GC closing base pair. The destabilization was linear with increasing concentrations of PEG 200, and the slope of this relationship was not perturbed by changes in the hairpin stem outside of the closing pair. This result suggests that in the presence of PEG 200, the UUCG loop with a GC closing base pair may retain some preferential interactions with the cosolute that are lost in the presence of the CG closing base pair. These results reveal that relatively small structural changes may influence how osmolytes tune the stability, and thus the function of a secondary structure motif in vivo.