Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Energy audit in ladies hostel

Conservation and management of energy have assumed tremendous significance in the last decade, particularly in large institutions. Reducing energy bill in a large institution has become a great challenge. This paper is a case study referring to the energy audit in a boarding area of an educational institution. In India power consumption is high compared to generation. Hence this paper is a small trial on reducing the monthly energy bill of a ladies hostel. First, the total electrical equipments used in the hostel were studied and the areas where power consumption is high were noted. Thus this paper states the proposal through which the energy bill can be reduced.
Does estrogen prevent skin aging? Results from the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I)

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relation between noncontraceptive estrogen use and skin wrinkling, dryness, and atrophy. DESIGN Cross-sectional analysis of a national probability sample-based cohort study. SETTING Multiple community sites throughout the United States. PARTICIPANTS Postmenopausal women (n = 3875) aged 40 years and older at baseline. MEASUREMENTS Skin conditions (wrinkling, dryness, and atrophy) were ascertained using a uniform clinical examination by trained dermatology resident physicians. Self-reported use of estrogen before the baseline examination, sunlight exposure, and smoking history were obtained by standardized interview. Body mass index, a measure of weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters, was evaluated in uniform examination clothing. RESULTS Mean (+/-SD) age of the participants was 61.6 (+/-9.0) years and mean (+/-SD) number of years since menopause was 15.6 (+/-9.4). Most were white (83.7%), the remainder being African American (15.9%) or another race (0.4%). Atrophy was present in 499 (16.2%), dry skin in 1132 (36.2%), and wrinkled skin in 880 women (28.2%). The prevalence of all 3 skin conditions was lower in African American women compared with white women. Information on hormone use was available for 3403 participants (88%). Among all women, after adjustment for age, body mass index, and sunlight exposure, estrogen use was associated with a statistically significant decrease in the likelihood of senile dry skin (odds ratio, 0.76; 95% confidence interval, 0.60-0.97). The odds of wrinkling were substantially lower in estrogen users, adjusted for age, body mass index, and sun exposure (odds ratio, 0.68; 95% confidence interval, 0.52-0.89) and additionally for smoking (odds ratio, 0.67; 95% confidence interval, 0.44-1.01). In multivariable models, estrogen use was not associated with skin atrophy. CONCLUSION These results strongly suggest that estrogen use prevents dry skin and skin wrinkling, thus extending the potential benefits of postmenopausal estrogen therapy to include protection against selected age- and menopause-associated dermatologic conditions.
Impact of the business innovation strategy on new product development success measurement

The ability to develop new products to compete in existing or new markets is a core competency of many successful companies. Companies can assess their success from different perspectives, including the overall innovation strategy at company level. This paper evaluates 56 success metrics through the course of product lifecycle (PLC), by considering the influence of the company's business innovation strategy. Data is collected by using survey questionnaires with experienced product development managers of 21 Canadian and Danish companies, mainly practicing in mechatronics and aerospace industry. Outcomes show no statistically significant difference among innovation strategy attributes. `Financial' and `market share' are the most important success indicators in early PLC with `product' and `process management performance' being more important in the late phase. Moreover, sets of success metrics are proposed during course of the PLC. These aim to guide companies in determining critical success factors and set ideal practices in measuring the success of their products.
Beyond Blaming: Congruence in Large Systems Development Projects

As early as 1852, Charles Babbage could see symptoms of decay and infer from them a vision of future performance. In so doing he provides a perfect description of the blaming style of communication that emerges in "decaying" organizations-be they nations or software engineering organizations. What is a blaming style of communication, and why is it important in systems development? In order to answer these questions, you should first understand the concept of congruence. Congruence describes the human experience of alignment between the internal and external-what is thought and felt (the internal), and what is said and how it is said (the external). Congruence is integrity at the most basic level and thus has immense value to a project and each individual in it. Without integrity, we cannot build trust; without trust, we don't feel safe; without safety we have a hard time being congruent. Thus, congruence reinforces congruence in a powerful loop that improves the chances of producing a quality product, on time, and within budget.
Realistic Simulation for Rainy Scene

Study of rain dynamic simulation is an important research topic in computer graphics. This paper proposes a dynamic simulation of realistic rain scene based on particle system and raindrops texture. This method dissects the principle of atomization phenomenon, and fuses the raindrops’ depth texture and scene background to simulate a hazy atomization. In addition, it also introduces wind field and lightening in the rain scene so as to enhance sense of reality. Finally, the paper renders the whole scene by constructing the rain scene and applying ray tracing algorithm. The experimental results show that: the present method can simulate the rain dynamic realistically and efficiently, which is of a high practical value.
Effective Spell Checking by Learning User Behavior

This paper describes a spell checking system that learns user behavior. Based on that insight, the system with high likelihood suggests correct replacements for incorrect words and declares unknown, but correct words to be correct. The system relies on three dictionaries, a so-called user history file, and two logic modules to carry out the learning and spell checking. Tests have proved that the system is very fast and highly reliable. Specifically, the top ranked replacement word for an incorrect word was the correct word 96% of the time. Words that were not in the large dictionary but that nevertheless were correct, for example, persons' names, compound words, and control commands, were declared to be correct 82% of the time. It was never observed that an incorrect word was accepted as correct.
Avoiding Energy Holes Problem using Load Balancing Approach in Wireless Sensor Network

Clustering wireless sensor network is an efficient way to reduce the energy consumption of individual nodes in a cluster. In clustering, multihop routing techniques increase the load of the Cluster head near the sink. This unbalanced load on the Cluster head increases its energy consumption, thereby Cluster heads die faster and create an energy hole problem. In this paper, we propose an Energy Balancing Cluster Head (EBCH) in wireless sensor network. At First, we balance the intra cluster load among the cluster heads, which results in nonuniform distribution of nodes over an unequal cluster size. The load received by the Cluster head in the cluster distributes their traffic towards direct and multihop transmission based on the load distribution ratio. Also, we balance the energy consumption among the cluster heads to design an optimum load distribution ratio. Simulation result shows that this approach guarantees to increase the network lifetime, thereby balancing cluster head energy.
Three-Phase Series-Connected Modular Multilevel Converter for HVDC Application

The three-phase series-connected modular multilevel converter (SC-MMC) is presented as one option for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) tap to reduce the cost of an HVDC station. Compared with conventional three-phase parallel-connected MMC, the number of semiconductor switches in SC-MMC is reduced by one-third to withstand the same dc voltage. First, the paper studies the operating principle of SC-MMC, and then presents an interspacing phase-shifted pulsewidth-modulated method which could improve the waveform of the output ac voltage for a given switching frequency. Next, the control strategy based on the identical real power input of each phase is proposed to balance the dc voltage of each phase under an unbalanced grid condition. The current limit of switching devices is also taken into consideration to protect SC-MMC from overcurrent. Furthermore, a universal zero-sequence current controller is developed as one part of the control strategy. In addition, an innovative method to suppress the third harmonics of ac current is presented. With the third harmonic suppression strategy, the SC-MMC can operate with much smaller SM capacitors without deteriorating the ac current, which contributes to the cost reduction further. Finally, simulation results obtained in PSCAD/EMTDC are provided to validate the proposed control strategies.
De novo sequencing and SNP discovery in the Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos)

Development of molecular markers that are well-suited for use in studies on wildlife dispersal can greatly enhance conservation efforts of species affected by climate change and human-induced landscape alterations. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are a promising marker for such studies; however, development of SNPs in non-model species with limited or no sequence data can be challenging. This study addresses these challenges in a unique way. Reduced representation libraries (RRL) of ten individual brown bears representing the geographic range in Sweden were high-throughput sequenced on one lane of the Illumina HiSeq2000, yielding reads 100 bases in length. These reads were filtered and processed following two methods: assembly using ABySS and alignment using Stacks. Putative SNPs were then called. The alignment-only method using Stacks was not only simpler and more efficient, it also utilized 4X more reads and yielded 30X more SNPs than the assembly method. The putative SNPs showed a clear haplotype pattern that distinguished the two known lineages of brown bear in Sweden. The outcome of this study is a good start for further work in the development of a SNP-based dispersal model with the brown bear as the model species.
Fiber Weave Effect - a performance-limiting factor

Fiberglass weave patterns in a dielectric material influence the voltage and timing margins by adding skew in a differential pair traces due to unequal velocities of the transmitted signals, converging to a less differential signal at the receiver that contributes to intersymbol interference, closer eye, reduced bit-error-rate (BER) and increased electromagnetic interference (EMI). The Fiber Weave Effect (FWE) is simulated in the present paper through the MWO environment presenting an overview of this performance-limiting factor for differential signaling.
PHENOLIC WASTEWATER TREATMENT

A simple experimental set-up was used to study the treatability aspect of phenolic wastewater. Three types of systems: i) activated sl udge (A.S), ii) granular activated carbon (A.C) and iii) activated sludge plus activat ed carbon (A.S + A.C) were experimented under different phenol loadings (100, 200 and 300 mg/l) and different flow rates (21.6 and 43.2 l/d) with initial COD con centration 500 mg/l. Phenol toxic effect on biomass was also investigated. The A.S + A.C system gave the highest COD and phenol % removal comparing with the other two systems. Results showed that increasing phenol loading had an adverse effect on treatment efficiency for all cases. Respirometric analysis indicated that, for A.S syst em, µ^H decreased from 3.20 d -1 at 0.0 mg/l phenol concentration to 2.26 d -1 at 100 mg/l phenol concentration. Increasing phenol load to 300 mg/l results in decreasing µ^H to only 1.21 d -1 . In order to confirm these results, the toxic effect was measured by fol lowing the fraction of Specific Oxygen Uptake Rate (SOUR) loss between the sludge with zero phenol and the sludge dosed with phenol. Results obtained indicated an in creasing of toxicity factor from 0.325 at phenol concentration of 100 mg/l to 0.63 a t phenol concentration of 300 mg/l.
Density control of ZnO nanowires grown using Au-PMMA nanoparticles and their growth behavior

Au nanoparticles stabilized by poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) were used as a catalyst to grow vertically aligned ZnO nanowires (NWs). The density of ZnO NWs with very uniform diameter was controlled by changing the concentration of Au-PMMA nanoparticles (NPs). The density was in direct proportion to the concentration of Au-PMMA NPs. Furthermore, the growth process of ZnO NWs using Au-PMMA NPs was systematically investigated through comparison with that using Au thin film as a catalyst. Au-PMMA NPs induced polyhedral-shaped bases of ZnO NWs separated from each other, while Au thin film formed a continuous network of bases of ZnO NWs. This approach provides a facile and cost-effective catalyst density control method, allowing us to grow high-quality vertically aligned ZnO NWs suitable for many viable applications.
Microemulsions based on paeonol-menthol eutectic mixture for enhanced transdermal delivery: formulation development and in vitro evaluation

Abstract In this work, microemulsion-based gels were prepared for transdermal delivery of paeonol. Microemulsions containing eutectic mixtures of paeonol and menthol were developed. The obtained microemulsions were evaluated for particle size, viscosity and physical stability. The selected microemulsions were incorporated into Carbopol gels. Drug crystallization behavior during a short-term storage was compared and in vitro permeation and deposition study were conducted on mouse skin. Results showed that the eutectic liquids of paeonol and menthol at all ratio (6:4, 5:5 and 4:6) could form microemulsions but with significantly different physical characteristics. As the ratio of paeonol increased, the prepared microemulsions exhibited larger droplet size, higher viscosity and quicker crystal growth. Microemulsion containing paeonol and menthol at a ratio of 4:6 possessed the smallest size of 27 nm. Accordingly, the related gel showed better physical stability during 10 days of storage, as well as the highest percent of drug deposition (111.8 μg/cm2) and steady-state flux (0.3 μg/cm2 h). These results suggested that the microemulsion formulation is a preferable approach for enhanced skin permeation, and the microemulsion based on drug–menthol eutectic mixture might be used as a potential transdermal delivery system for better therapeutic efficacy.
Characterization of a two-gene locus from Bartonella bacilliformis associated with the ability to invade human erythrocytes

Bartonella bacilliformis, the agent of human Oroya fever, invades erythrocytes and causes a severe hemolytic anemia. The ability of two minimally invasive strains of Escherichia coli (DH5 alpha and HB101) to invade human erythrocytes was enhanced 6- to 39-fold by transformation with pIAL1, a plasmid containing a 1,469-bp BamHI fragment from the B. bacilliformis chromosome. Invasiveness was confirmed by gentamicin protection and transmission electron microscopy. DNA hybridization analysis confirmed the presence of the locus in B. bacilliformis KC583 and KC584 and its absence in E. coli chromosomal DNA. Sequencing of the DNA insert of pIAL1 revealed tandem open reading frames of 510 and 558 bp, designated ialA and ialB, respectively. Invasion assays with E. coli containing only an ialA or ialB recombinant suggest that both genes are necessary for invasiveness. The ialA gene is predicted to code for a polypeptide of 170 amino acids (20.1 kDa), and ialB is predicted to code for a polypeptide of 186 amino acids (19.9 kDa). In vitro transcription and translation of pIAL1 produced insert-specific protein bands with masses of approximately 21 and 20 kDa when analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Expression of ialA and ialB in E. coli maxicells produced proteins with masses of approximately 21 kDa (IalA) and 18 kDa (IalB). Maxicell and computer analyses suggest that IalB contains an N-terminal secretory signal sequence which is posttranslationally cleaved. Searches of various DNA and protein databases revealed that IalA contains an N-terminal region of 35 amino acids with a high degree of homology to an NTPase consensus domain. There is 63.6% sequence conservation between the IalB protein and the invasion-associated protein Ail of Yersinia enterocolitica.
Real-time UAV Target Tracking System Based on Optical Flow and Particle Filter Integration

This paper presents a design and implementation of a real-time, vision-based target tracking system for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The particle filter framework integrated with Lucas-Kanade optical flow technique to predict and correct the state of the moving target based on its dynamic and observation models. The optical flow estimates the corresponding feature points in the new image frame related to the previously detected/estimated points. The Maximum Likelihood Estimation SAmple Consensus (MLESAC) method is applied to estimate the ego-motion transformation matrix using the old and new sets of the feature points. This matrix is incorporated with the target dynamic model to give more accurate prediction results of its state. Two optimized types of features are extracted to build the target observation model. They include extended Haar-like rectangles and edge orientation histogram (EOH) features. A Gentle AdaBoost classifier is applied on these features to distinguish and choose the best predefined number of features that highly represent the target. The vectorization approach is used to reduce the calculation cost due to the matrix manipulations. The proposed tracking system is tested on different scenarios of the on-time modified VIVID database and achieved real time tracking speed with 95% successful tracking rate.
Finding Translation Pairs from English-Japanese Untokenized Aligned Corpora

This paper proposes a new algorithm for finding translation pairs in an English-Japanese parallel aligned corpus. Unlike previous methods, our algorithm does not presuppose a separate tokenizer for Japanese, but finds translation pairs as "side-effects" of unsupervised tokenization of Japanese sentences by using information from the English sentences. The algorithm is based on the observation that two Japanese sentences tend to have a common word when their English mates (i.e., aligned sentences) contain the same word. We implemented this idea as an unsupervised tokenization of Japanese with extended Hidden-Markov-Models (HMMs), where hidden n-gram probabilities (i.e., state transition probabilities) are affected by co-occurring words in the English part. Our experiment on finding noun-noun translation pairs achieved 76.3% accuracy, which was 0.4 points lower than the result using supervised tokenization.
Marinobacter aquaticus sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium from a solar saltern.

A moderately halophilic bacterium designated strain M6-53T was isolated from water of a pond from a marine saltern located in Huelva, south-west Spain. Cells of the strain were Gram-stain-negative, strictly aerobic, motile, slightly curved rods, able to grow in media containing 5-25 % (w/v) NaCl (optimal growth at 10 %, w/v), at temperatures from 20 to 40 °C (optimally at 37 °C) and at pH 6.5-9 (optimally at pH 7.0). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences placed the new isolate within the genus Marinobacter, with the type strains of the most closely related species being Marinobacter persicus IBRC-M 10445T (98.5 % similarity), Marinobacter oulmenensis Set74T (97.2 %) and Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus ATCC 49840T (97.1 %). The major fatty acids present in strain M6-53T were C18 : 1ω9c (29.5 %), C16 : 0 (26.7 %), C12 : 0 3-OH (15.1 %), C18 : 0 (10.2 %) and C16 : ω9c (9.6 %). The G+C content of the genomic DNA for this strain was determined to be 56.4 mol%. The DNA-DNA hybridization values between strain M6-53T and M. persicus CECT 7991T, M. oulmenensis CECT 7499T and M. hydrocarbonoclasticus DSM 50418 were 8, 41 and 38 %, respectively. These values are lower than the accepted 70 % threshold and showed that the new isolate represented a different species within the genus Marinobacter. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence and the phenotypic, genotypic and chemotaxonomic features of this new isolate support the placement of strain M6-53T as a representative of a novel species of the genus Marinobacter, for which we propose the name Marinobacter aquaticus sp. nov., with strain M6-53T (=CECT 9228T=LMG 30006T) as the type strain.
Business Case Control in Project Portfolios—An Empirical Investigation of Performance Consequences and Moderating Effects

Practitioners place strong emphasis on business cases with the expectation that using business cases to inform and drive investment decisions will assist in creating value from those investments. Maximizing the value generated by project investments is a central aim of the project portfolio management, and the business case provides the underlying rationale for the evaluation of the value created in each project. However, research regarding the use of business cases at a project portfolio level is scarce, and there is a little guidance for portfolio managers on when and how to control the business cases. We identify three elements of a business case control at the portfolio level-the initial review, the ongoing monitoring during the project execution, and the postproject tracking until the business case is realized-and investigate the relationship between business case control and project portfolio success. Furthermore, we analyze enablers and contingencies for the application of the business case control. Based on a cross-industry sample of 183 firms, we find that the business case control is positively related to the project portfolio success. Accountability for business case realization and corresponding incentive systems increase this positive effect. Finally, we show that the portfolio complexity also positively moderates the relationship.
3 Tesla MRI detects deterioration in proximal femur microarchitecture and strength in long‐term glucocorticoid users compared with controls

Glucocorticoid‐induced osteoporosis (GIO) is the most common secondary form of osteoporosis, and glucocorticoid users are at increased risk for fracture compared with nonusers. There is no established relationship between bone mineral density (BMD) and fracture risk in GIO. We used 3 Tesla (T) MRI to investigate how proximal femur microarchitecture is altered in subjects with GIO.
Analysing The Knowledge and Practice of Hibah (Inter Vivos Gift) Within The Contextual Form of Islamic Estate Planning in Malaysia: Variations Across Control Variables

Hibah is a means of estate disposal for Muslims. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it attempts to investigate the knowledge of hibah in terms of rulings , service of hibah in Malaysia and legislation. Secondly, it studies the practice of making hibah (inter vivos gift) within the contextual form of Islamic estate planning in Malaysia by means of investigating its variations across selected control variables. A survey via questionnaire is carried out on 263 respondents in PeninsularMalaysia starting from September 2012 until December 2012 using a purposive sampling. Analysis methods namely descriptive and chi-square are employed. Only three variables are significant. Findings from this study are important for the industry as it can be utilized to understand the consumers’ behavior and reinforce the industry of Islamic estate planning in Malaysia.