Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transfer Incentives for High-Performing Teachers

There is growing concern that the nation’s most effective teachers are not working in the schools with the most disadvantaged students. Evidence on teacher-effectiveness gaps, as measured by teachers’ contribution to student achievement growth (“value added”), is just emerging, but with some exceptions, researchers are finding that the distribution of effective teachers tends to favor schools with lower poverty levels. To improve student performance in schools serving disadvantaged students, one potential strategy is to use monetary incentives to recruit teachers who are most successful in raising student test scores to transfer to teach in these schools.
Consumer Acceptance of Cloud Computing Based Gaming

Cloud computing is a set of technologies that provide efficient and effective usage of information technology resources. The application of cloud computing in games is a new market that is currently growing. Applying cloud computing to games results in a new gaming platform for the users, referred to as cloud gaming. This new platform has a set of different features that affect the user acceptance of this new platform.
Application of Coir Fibres as Concrete Composites for Disaster prone Structures

Investigations to overcome the brittle response and limiting post – yield energy absorption of concrete led to the development of fibre reinforced concrete using discrete fibres within the concrete mass. A wide variety of fibres have been proposed by the researchers such as steel, glass, polypropylene, carbon, polyester, acrylic and aramid etc., Over half of the population around the world is living in slums and villages. The earthquake damages in rural areas get multiplied mainly due to the widely adopted non – engineered constructions. On the other hand, in many smaller towns and villages in southern part of India, materials such as nylon, plastic, tyre, coir, sugarcane bagasse and rice husk are available as waste. So, here an attempt has been made to investigate the possibility of reusing these locally available rural waste fibrous materials as concrete composites. Since the materials used are locally available rural fibres, a detailed characterization is planned. A concrete mix has been designed to achieve the minimum grade of M20 as required by IS 456 – 2000. The investigation contains four phases. In the first phase, to identify the effects on workability and mechanical strength properties due to the addition of these rural fibres, workability tests such slump, vee – bee, air content tests and the mechanical strength tests on standard specimens such as compressive strength, split tensile strength, modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity and shear strength were conducted on the different fibrous concrete specimens to obtain the optimum volume fraction and length of fibres. Totally 174 cubes, 348 cylinders, 174 flexure specimens and 174 shear specimens were cast and tested. Based on the experimental results of workability and mechanical strength studies, a constant length of 50 mm and two volume fractions such as 0.5% and 1% are chosen for further studies. By analysing the results, empirical relations also have been proposed for mechanical strength properties and compared with the experimental results. From these results, it is concluded that even though addition of fibres reduces the workability of fresh concrete, marginal improvements in the mechanical strength properties are observed which ranges from 10% to 20%.
Effect of Lactococcus garvieae , Lactococcus lactis and Enterococcus faecalis on the behaviour of Staphylococcus aureus in microfiltered milk

The effect of four strains of Lactococcus garvieae, three strains of Lactococcus lactis and one strain of Enterococcus faecalis on Staphylococcus aureus SA15 growth in microfiltered milk was evaluated. Lactococcus and Enterococcus strains were co-cultured with S. aureus in microfiltered milk and in medium buffered at pH 6.8. All Lactococcus and Enterococcus strains were able to inhibit S. aureus growth after 6 h of incubation. Inhibition by L. lactis and E. faecalis strains could be partially attributed to the decrease in pH below 6.0 as it has been observed in medium buffered at pH 6.8. L. garvieae strains were the most effective to inhibit S. aureus growth without acidification. Inhibition of S. aureus could not be attributed neither to production of lactate, acetate or nor to antistaphylococcal substance. Amino acids competition was not involved in the inhibition by L. garvieae as addition of valine, isoleucine, threonine, methionine and phenylalanine did not suppress the inhibition of S. aureus. r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fibroblast Cell Viability Effectiveness between the Highlands and Lowlands Coconut Water (Cocos Nucifera L.)

Tooth avulsion is a tooth that completely detached from its socket. The purpose of this study is to determine the differences of the effectiveness of coconut water in the dwarf variety from highlands and lowlands on fibroblast cell viability. Coconut water from each habitat was picked randomly. Samples were divided into five groups. Group 1 was the media control, group 2 was the cell control, group 3 was HBSS, group 4 was the coconut water from highlands, and group 5 was the coconut water from lowlands. To determine the BHK-21 fibroblast cell viability after 4 hours of submerging, MTT assay was used. The absorbance was read by ELISA reader with wavelength 620nm. The results were analyzed using One-way ANOVA with α=0.05. There are significant differences in each group. Coconut water from highlands has cell viability percentage of 8%, while the coconut water from lowlands has 54%. Based on the CD50% parameter, coconut water from the lowlands is more effective than coconut water from the highlands. The coconut water in the dwarf variety from the lowlands is more effective than the coconut water from the highlands towards BHK-21 fibroblast cell viability for 4 hours.
The Impact of Macroeconomic Indicators on Indian Stock Prices: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract The purpose of the present study is to examine the long run and the short run relationship between stock price and a set of macroeconomic variables for Indian economy using annual data from 1979 to 2014. The long run relationship is examined by implementing the ARDL bounds testing approach to co-integration. VECM method is used to test the short and long run causality and variance decomposition is used to predict long run exogenous shocks of the variables. The results confirm a long run relationship among the variables. Evidence suggests that Economic growth, inflation and exchange rate influence stock prices positively. However, crude oil price influences the stock price negatively. This implies that the increase in oil price induces inflationary expectation in the mind of investors and hence stock prices are adversely affected. The VECM result indicates that short run and long run unidirectional causality running from economic growth and FDI to stock prices in India. The result of the variance decomposition shows that stock market development in India is mostly explained by its own shocks. The Government can take steps to control the crude oil price in India and Investors’ confidence has to be gained by boosting the economic growth of the economy through appropriate policy tools.
Comparative Effects of Different Soil Conditioners on Wheat Growth and Yield Grown in Saline-sodic Soils

Among abiotic stresses, salinity is the main abiotic stress limiting crop growth and yield worldwide. Improving agri-food production in salt-prone areas is the key to meet the increasing food demands in near future. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of different soil conditioners, gypsum (GYP), citric acid (CA), ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), on growth and yield of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grown in salinesodic soil. Gypsum was applied at a rate of 100% soil gypsum requirement while other amendments were applied each at a rate of 5 g kg-1 of soil. The results showed that EDTA treatment increased pH and electrical conductivity (ECe) of soil while pH significantly decreased when treated with citric acid. Soil sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) decreased in all treatments following the order: CT > PVA > EDTA > CA > GYP. Addition of CA positively affected growth parameters as compared to other soil conditioners including plant height, number of tillers per plant, number of spikes per plant, plant dry weight and grain yield while EDTA negatively affected these parameters. Addition of CA also significantly increased photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate and chlorophyll contents while EDTA decreased these parameters. We conclude that increase in plant growth and yield with CA might be due to the effect of CA on soil properties which positively affected plant physiological parameters.
High-Definition 3D Reconstruction in Real-Time from a Moving Depth Sensor

This paper proposes a method to reconstruct 3D point clouds of a static scene in real-time by a moving depth sensor. Based on a base-line 3D reconstruction algorithm which fuses depth maps from the moving camera, a depth map enhancement module is embedded in the depth fusion stage to improve the level of details of reconstructed 3D models. Depth enhancements using the Sobel operator and the Laplacian operator are applied for speed and quality considerations. Experiments for real-time reconstruction of 3D scenes, especially the reconstruction of 3D human faces are provided to validate the proposed method. The reconstruction results are inspiring in their high definition compared with the original base-line algorithm.
Relationship between severity of venous calcifications and symptoms of phlebosclerotic colitis.

AIM To examine the correlation between the severity of venous calcifications and the clinical symptoms of phlebosclerotic colitis. METHODS This was a retrospective study. The data, including the numbers of episodes of active disease, were collected from the medical records at Taipei Veterans General Hospital and Wei Gong Memorial Hospital in Taiwan between January 2005 and December 2014. All computed tomography images with or without contrast enhancement were obtained using a multiple detector computed tomography scanner. The scanning range reached from the dome of the diaphragm to the pelvis. The severity of calcification at the tributaries of the portal vein was measured using a four-grade scoring system of the calcification of phlebosclerotic colitis. The episodes of active disease were defined as symptoms of fever, abdominal pain, severe constipation, bowel obstruction, vomiting or diarrhea based on a review of the medical records. Spearman's correlation analysis was used to examine the correlation between the numbers of episodes of active disease and the severity of the calcification of the mesenteric veins. RESULTS More than 3000 cases were reviewed from 2005 to 2014, and a total of 12 patients from Taipei Veterans General Hospital and Wei Gong Memorial Hospital were enrolled according to our inclusion criteria. Among these 12 patients, the mean age of the six males and the six females was 61.8 ± 11.5 years. All patients exhibited typical imaging characteristics, consisting of threadlike calcifications and colonic wall thickening in the standard radiographs and calcifications along the colonic and mesenteric vessels or associated with colonic wall thickening and adjacent fat stranding in the computed tomography images. The median score of the severity of the venous calcifications was 18 ± 13, and the median number of active disease episodes was 1 ± 1.75. Spearman's correlation analysis revealed that the number of episodes of active phlebosclerotic colitis disease significantly positively correlated with the severity of the calcification of the mesenteric veins (r = 0.619, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION The extent of mesenteric venous calcification is strongly associated with the number of episodes of active disease among patients with phlebosclerotic colitis.
Modeling of Bit Error Rate in Cascaded 2 R Regenerators Filip Öhman

This paper presents a simple and efficient model for estimating the bit error rate (BER) in a cascade of optical reamplification and reshaping (2R) regenerators. The model includes the influences of amplifier noise, finite extinction ratio (ER), and nonlinear reshaping. The interplay between the different signal impairments and the regenerating nonlinearity is investigated. It is shown that an increase in nonlinearity can compensate for an increase in noise figure or decrease in signal power. Furthermore, the influence of the improvement in signal ER along the cascade and the importance of choosing the proper threshold of the nonlinearity are investigated.
Americas Conference on Information Systems ( AMCIS ) 2008 Concepts from Coevolution in Information Systems

This paper provides an overview of definitions and concepts from coevolution that may be useful in the domain of information systems (IS). Both the management literature and the information systems literature are reviewed to highlight insights that have been drawn from coevolution. Aspects of coevolution that have been considered important in the literature include the dynamic, emergent nature and the mutli-levelness of coevolutionary processes. The nature of the coevolutionary relationship has not received as much attention. This paper presents a classification scheme drawn from Thompson (2005) that can be used to explore the nature of coevolutionary interactions in more depth. It is suggested that future IS research applying a coevolutionary framework can be enhanced with a deeper consideration of the nature of the interactions and with the incorporation of theories from the social sciences.
Practical Indoor Localization using Bluetooth Master

Localization is a problem that has been addressed using a variety of technologies. In this thesis the use of Bluetooth for indoor localization is studied. The advantage of this technology over others is that it is pervasively available, is relatively cheap and has a relatively low power consumption. Especially the fact that Bluetooth is integrated in a wide range of mobile devices, makes its use attractive. The question being answered by this thesis is which design of a Bluetooth based localization system works well for indoor environments. The context of the localization system is that of an office building in which the location of employees is tracked. The main contribution of this thesis is a practical evaluation of Bluetooth as a technology for indoor localization. Received Signal Strength in the inquiry phase of the Bluetooth device discovery protocol has been identified as the most suitable localization measure. This measure, however, has the disadvantage that the sample rate is relatively low. Tests have shown that at least one minute is required to collect a sufficient number of samples. Because of the relatively low sample rate, accurate location estimation of moving people is not possible. To study the localization performance of Bluetooth for indoor environments a number of localization algorithms were tested. These algorithms include: Ecolocation, calibrated and uncalibrated Log-Normal Shadowing model based algorithms and fingerprinting based algorithms. For each algorithm localization accuracy was computed using datasets which were collected in a test environment. Furthermore, the effect of several controllable and uncontrollable parameters on localization accuracy was tested for the algorithms. The controllable parameters that were tested are: number of access points and window size, and the uncontrollable parameters that were tested are: device orientation, device height, transmitter power level and environment structure. An analysis of the effects of these parameters shows that the uncalibrated algorithms are less sensitive to the uncontrollable parameters. These algorithms, however, require more access points to achieve reasonable localization accuracy. The main conclusion of this thesis is that the uncalibrated localization algorithms are best suitable for indoor localization. This is because of the low impact of the uncontrollable parameters on their localization performance. Which algorithm works the best depends on the number of access points that can detect a target. For 5 access points or less, Ecolocation appears to yield the best location estimates. Otherwise, the uncalibrated Log-Normal Shadowing model based algorithm performs the best.
Study of Various Methods for Securing Data Communication

--In this modern era, with a lot of internet based applications various organizations, companies, govt. agencies, etc. communicate digitally. A lot of multimedia data are generated and transmitted which are easier to edit, modify and duplicate. So sharing this data is a critical issue due to security problems. Hence some techniques are needed to protect the shared data. Cryptography is a technique by which the original data can be converted to some other format by the help of a key which without the knowledge of key cannot be read by an outsider. We can make this communication more secure by using the concept of Steganography along with Cryptography. Steganography is hiding the sensitive information in some media e.g. hiding a text file in an image file, etc. to transfer the information securely over the communication network. This paper presents various encryption and steganography techniques that are in practice today.
Novel RC sinusoidal oscillator using second-generation current conveyor

A novel second-generation current conveyor (CCII)-based resistance-capacitance (RC) sinusoidal oscillator operating over a wide dynamic range is described. The oscillation condition and the oscillation frequency can be adjusted independently by two control resistors. The circuit proposed makes use of grounded capacitors and is suitable for implementation with the commercially available integrated circuit chip AD844 from Analog Devices which implements a CCII+. The circuit enjoys low sensitivities and is suitable for integration. Experimental results are given, showing close agreement with the theoretical conclusions.
DOES ECONOMIC-GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION AFFECT INNOVATION PROCESSES IN RUSSIAN REGIONS?

A favourable economic-geographical position (EGP) of regions and cities is one of the factors of their socio-economic development. Economic agents can take advantages of their proximity to the major markets of goods and services, thereby reducing their transport costs and increasing their profitability. In the sphere of innovation, proximity to the innovation centres may also significantly affect the creation of new knowledge and technologies, due to the existence of tacit knowledge and knowledge spillovers. The authors propose the term ‘innovation-geographical position’ by analogy with EGP. It has been demonstrated that location matters to regional innovation output. If there is 1 % more new technologies in neighbouring regions, there are approximately 0.35–0.58 % more newly created technologies in the target region. Proximity to the world centres of new technologies has even greater impact.
Changes of gene expression in electrically stimulated and contralateral rat soleus muscles

In this study we investigate the effect of a single session of high‐intensity contractions on expression of pleiotropic genes and, in particular, those genes associated with metabolism in soleus muscle from electrically stimulated (ES) and contralateral (CL) limbs. The right limbs of male Wistar rats were submitted to contractions by 200‐ms trains of electrical stimulation at 100‐HZ frequency with pulses of 0.1 ms (voltage 24 ± 3 V) delivered each second for 1 hour. Soleus muscles were isolated 1 hour after contraction, and gene expression was analyzed by a macroarray technique (Atlas Toxicology 1.2 Array; Clontech Laboratories). Electrical stimulation increased expression in 92 genes (16% of the genes present in the membrane). Sixty‐six genes were upregulated in both ES and CL soleus muscles, and expression of 26 genes was upregulated in the ES muscle only. The most altered genes were those related to stress response and metabolism. Electrical stimulation also raised expression of transcription factors, translation and posttranslational modification of proteins, ribosomal proteins, and intracellular transducers/effectors/modulators. The results indicate that a single session of electrical stimulation upregulated expression of genes related to metabolism and oxidative stress in soleus muscle from both ES and CL limbs. These findings may indicate an association with tissue hypertrophy and metabolic adaptations induced by physical exercise training not only in the ES but also in the CL non‐stimulated muscle, suggesting a cross‐education phenomenon. Muscle Nerve, 2009
Mg 2 +-doped poly (-caprolactone ) / siloxane biohybrid electrolytes

Electrolytes based on a poly(-caprolactone) (PCL)/siloxane organic/inorganic host framework doped with magnesium triflate (Mg(CF3SO3)2) were synthesized by the solgel process. In the biohybrid matrix short PCL chains are covalently bonded via urethane linkages to the siliceous network. In this study the salt content of samples was identified using the conventional n notation, where n indicates the number of (C(=O)(CH2)5O) PCL repeat units per Mg 2+ ion. Materials with compositions ranging from n= to 2 were prepared. The only composition prepared that is not entirely amorphous is that with n = 1. Xerogels with n ≥ 7 are thermally stable up to up to at least 200 oC. The most conducting ormolyte of the series is that with n = 26 (5.9x10 -9 and 9.8x10 -7 Scm -1 at 24 and 104 oC, respectively).
Plant species identities and fertilization in fl uence on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal colonisation and soil bacterial activities

Plant species influence soil microbial communities, mainly through their functional traits. However, mechanisms underlying these effects are not well understood, and in particular how plant/ microorganism interactions are affected by plant identities and/or environmental conditions. Here, we performed a greenhouse experiment to assess the effects of three plant species on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) colonization, bacterial potential nitrification (PNA) and denitrification activities (PDA) through their functional traits related to nitrogen acquisition and turnover. Three species with contrasting functional traits and strategies (from exploitative to conservative), Dactylis glomerata (L.), Bromus erectus (Hudson) and Festuca paniculata (Schinz and Tellung), were cultivated in monocultures on soil grassland with or without N fertilization. Fertilization impacted some plant traits related to nutrient cycling (leaf and root N concentration, root C:N) but did not affect directly microbial parameters. The highest PDA and PNA were observed in D. glomerata and F. paniculata monocultures, respectively. The highest AMF colonization was obtained for F. paniculata, while B. erectus exhibited both the lowest AMF colonization and bacterial activities. Bacterial activities were influenced by specific above-ground plant traits across fertilization treatments: above-ground biomass for PDA, shoot:root ratio and leaf C:N ratio for PNA. Mycorrhizal colonization was influenced by below-ground traits either root dry matter content or root C:N. Hence, AMF colonization and bacterial activities were impacted differently by species-specific plant biomass allocation, root traits and nutrient requirement. We suggest that such effects may be linked to distinct root exudation patterns and plant abilities for nutrient acquisition and/or nutrient competition. ã 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.