Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors that Affect Banks Acceptance of Electronic Cheque Clearing System: Evidence from Ghana

Although cash is the major form of payment system used in most developing countries, with the current trend in value of cheques processed through ECCS, it is a matter of time for cheques to become the dominant payment system. With the upward trend in the adoption and usage of ECCS in many countries, it is important to study the nature of the technology and understand factors that influence banks to accept the system. Previous research in e-banking adoption and acceptance has directed attention towards e-banking channels other than ECCS and level of analysis used is usually focused on the individual rather than the organisation. This study addresses these research gaps by exploring banks' acceptance factors among Ghanaian Banks. Using Technology Acceptance Model which is expanded with System Quality, Information Quality and Trust, the researchers undertook the study from the perspective of positivism, adopting a quantitative methodology to achieve the objectives. The research examined 25 commercial banks and 5 savings and loans companies which have different ways of adopting the technology. A survey instrument was used to gather data and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using Partial Least Squares (PLS) as the statistical model to analyse the data gathered. The findings supported all the hypothesis presented and showed that Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use are the major factors influencing banks' acceptance of the technology. Trust, IQ and SQ also affect banks' acceptance of ECCS positively but indirectly through PEOU and PU. The level of significance of PEOU was marginally lower compared to the level of significance for PU. The study therefore concurred with previous studies that in contexts where effective task execution substantially depends on the system such as the case with ECCS, beliefs about the system usefulness are more dominant in shaping acceptance than belief about ease of use.
Early X-ray and optical observations of the soft gamma-ray repeater SGR 0418+5729

Emission of two short hard X-ray bursts on 2009 June 5 disclosed the existence of a new soft gamma-ray repeater, now catalogued as SGR 0418+5729. After a few days, X-ray pulsations at a period of 9.1 s were discovered in its persistent emissio n. SGR 0418+5729 was monitored almost since its discovery with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer(2‐10 keV energy range) and observed many times with Swift (0.2‐10 keV). The source persistent X-ray emission faded by a factor �10 in about 160 days, with a steepening in the decay about 19 days after the activation. The X-ray spectrum is well described by a simple absorbed blackbody, with a temperature decreasing in time. A phase-coherent timing solution over the �160 day time span yielded no evidence for any significant evolution of the spin period, implying a 3� upper limit of 1:1 × 10 −13 s s −1 on the period derivative and of �3 × 10 13 G on the surface dipole magnetic field. Phase-resolved spectroscopy provided evid ence for a significant variation of the spectrum as a function of the stellar rotation, pointing to the presence of two emitting caps, one of which became hotter during the outburst. Finally, a deep observation of the field of SGR 0418+5729 with the new Gran Telescopio Canarias 10.4-m telescope allowed us to set an upper limit on the source optical flux of i 0 > 25:1 mag, corresponding to an X-ray-tooptical flux ratio exceeding 10 4 , consistent with the characteristics of other magnetars.
Face Photo Sketch Recognition using Rule Based Fuzzy

In today’s digital era,face recognitionhas found a lot of importance in biometrics technology. Face is an important part of a person which can be used to verify one’s identity.Inforensics science, face sketch recognition is used to identify criminal or suspects. In this paper, an approach has been proposed for face sketch recognition using rule based fuzzy. A forensic sketch is to be matched with mug-shot photos stored in database. The proposed approach converts the original face photos into synthesized sketches to reduce the modality differences between the original photo and the forensic sketch. Faces are extracted from synthesized sketches and features are extracted from these synthesized sketches i.e. the face portion is separated from background and stored in database. Method used for extracting features is blob feature extraction and the extracted features are intensity, area and equivalent diameter of the faces. Features of forensic sketches to be matched are extracted and given to fuzzy rule based approach has been used to find possible matches between forensic sketch and mug-shot photos stored in the database. The possible matches are compared with the forensic sketch using a correlation coefficient to find the best match.
Trends in atmospheric evaporative demand in Great Britain using high-resolution meteorological data

Observations of climate are often available on very different spatial scales from observations of the natural environments and resources that are affected by climate change. In order to help bridge the gap between these scales using modelling, a new dataset of daily meteorological variables was created at 1 km resolution over Great Britain for the years 1961–2012, by interpolating coarser resolution climate data and including the effects of local topography. These variables were used to calculate atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) at the same spatial and temporal resolution. Two functions that represent AED were chosen: one is a standard form of potential evapotranspiration (PET) and the other is a derived PET measure used by hydrologists that includes the effect of water intercepted by the canopy (PETI). Temporal trends in these functions were calculated, with PET found to be increasing in all regions, and at an overall rate of 0.021 ± 0.021 mm day−1 decade−1 in Great Britain. PETI was found to be increasing at a rate of 0.019 ± 0.020 mm day−1 decade−1 in Great Britain, but this was not statistically significant. However, there was a trend in PETI in England of 0.023 ± 0.023 mm day−1 decade−1. The trends were found to vary by season, with spring PET increasing by 0.043 ± 0.019 mm day−1 decade−1 (0.038 ± 0.018 mm day−1 decade−1 when the interception correction is included) in Great Britain, while there is no statistically significant trend in other seasons. The trends were attributed analytically to trends in the climate variables; the overall positive trend was predominantly driven by rising air temperature, although rising specific humidity had a negative effect on the trend. Recasting the analysis in terms of relative humidity revealed that the overall effect is that falling relative humidity causes the PET to rise. Increasing downward short- and longwave radiation made an overall positive contribution to the PET trend, while decreasing wind speed made a negative contribution to the trend in PET. The trend in spring PET was particularly strong due to a strong decrease in relative humidity and increase in downward shortwave radiation in the spring.
The Varying Effect of Foreign Shocks in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper investigates the impact of international shocks – interest rate, commodity price and industrial production shocks – on key macroeconomic variables in ten Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries by using near-VAR models and monthly data from the early 1990s to 2009. In contrast to previous work, the empirical analysis takes explicit account of the possibility of (multiple) structural breaks in the underlying time series. We establish strong evidence of structural breaks, particularly along the years 2007 and 2008, suggesting the very relevant impact of the recent global crisis on CEE economies. Moreover, our results suggest that the way how countries react to world commodity price shocks is related to the underlying economic structure and the credibility of the monetary policy. We also find that some countries like Slovakia and Slovenia – already euro area members – react stronger to foreign industrial production shocks than other countries and that the responses to such shocks are strongly correlated for selected CEE countries. Nevertheless, our results also shed light on substantial differences in responses to foreign interest rate shocks that originate from the US or the euro area.
Landfill liners from dam reservoir sediments

Abstract Landfill liners from dam reservoir sediments. Every municipal solid waste landfill has to be properly secured to protect the natural environment from possible leachate. Most often an artificial sealing is used, which is based on a soil liner from cohesive soils (clays, silts). Usability evaluation of bottom sediments from Rzeszowski Reservoir for building these liners was presented in the paper. Sediments from dam reservoirs, gathered as a result of the siltation process, can be a valuable material for earthworks purposes. Determination of their possible ways of usage is important, especially before the planned dredging, because thanks to that this material will not be put on a heap. Based on the analysis of the geotechnical parameters of these sediments it was stated that this material can be preliminary allowed for using in liners.
D, E, and F layers in the daytime at high-latitude terminator ionosphere of Mars: Comparison with Earth's ionosphere using COSMIC data

[1] We report the first model result for ion production rates and densities of positive ions, negative ions, and electrons in the dayside Martian ionosphere from 0 to 220 km. These calculations are made at solar zenith angle 77° for low solar activity periods. The calculated electron density is compared with the radio occultation measurements made by Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) and Mars 4/5 on Mars and by Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) on Earth. Our calculation suggests that the daytime ionosphere of Mars can be divided into D, E, and F layers at altitude ranges ∼25–35 km, ∼100–112 km, and ∼125–145 km with the concentrations 7 × 101 cm−3, 2.4 × 104 cm−3, and 8.4 × 104 cm−3 owing to the impact of galactic cosmic rays, X rays (10–90 A), and solar EUV (90–1026 A) radiations, respectively. The water cluster ions H3O+(H2O)n, NO2−(H2O)n, and CO3−(H2O)n are dominated in the D region, while NO+, CO2+, and O2+ are major ions in the E and F regions. The calculated E and F peak heights are in good agreement with MGS observation. The value of D peak density is lowered by 1 and 2 orders of magnitude from the measurements on Mars and Earth, respectively. The height of F layer peak is lower by factor of 1.8 in the Martian ionosphere as compared to that observed in the ionosphere of Earth. E regions are created at nearly the same heights in the ionospheres of both planets, but the layer thickness is considerably less on Mars than on Earth. This implies that solar EUV energy is deposited within smaller-altitude range in the upper ionosphere of Mars as compared to the corresponding altitude range in the upper ionosphere of Earth.
Static Deformation Due to a Long Tensile Fault of Finite Width in an Isotropic Half-Space Welded with an Orthotropic Half-Space

Closed-form analytical expressions for displacements and stresses at any point of a two- phase medium consisting of a homogeneous, isotropic, perfectly elastic half-space in welded contact with a homogeneous, orthotropic, perfectly elastic half-space caused by a tensile fault of finite width located at an arbitrary distance from the interface in the isotropic half-space are obtained. The Airy stress function approach is used to obtain the expressions for the stresses and displacements. The vertical tensile fault is considered graphically. The variations of the displacements with the distance from the fault and with depth for various cases have been studied graphically. Also horizontal and vertical displacement of the surface are presented graphically.
The Relation-Ship between Phytoalexin Production in Plant and Plant Resistance to Fungal Infection.

The phytoalexin accumulation in the leaves and whole plants of two cultivators of Alfalfa plants, resistant and susceptible to the fungus Verticillium albo-atrum isolates (V1) Virulent and (V2) AVirulent and many species were investigated, the results showed that different isolates and species of Verticillium fungus induce the resistant and susceptible cultivar of Alfalfa to produce different amount of phytoalexin. But the two cultivars produce similar amount of phytoalexin in response to either pathogenic isolates (V1) or the non pathogenic isolates (V2).
Automatic Image Annotation Using CMRM with Scene Information

Searching of digital images in a disorganized image collection is a challenging problem. One step of image searching is automatic image annotation. Automatic image annotation refers to the process of automatically assigning relevant text keywords to any given image, reflecting its content. In the past decade many automatic image annotation methods have been proposed and achieved promising result. However, annotation prediction from the methods is still far from accurate. To tackle this problem, in this paper we propose an automatic annotation method using relevance model and scene information. CMRM proposed by [5] is one of automatic image annotation method based on relevance model approach. CMRM method assumes that regions in an image can be described using a small vocabulary of blobs. Blobs are generated from segmentation, feature extraction, and clustering. Given a training set of images with annotations, this method predicts the probability of generating a word given the blobs in an image. To improve annotation prediction accuracy of CMRM, in this paper we utilize scene information incorporate with CMRM. Our proposed method is called scene-CMRM. Global image region can be represented by features which indicate type of scene shown in the image. Thus, annotation prediction of CMRM could be more accurate based on that scene type. Our experiments showed that, the methods provides prediction with better precision than CMRM does, where precision represents the percentage of words that is correctly predicted.
The significance of beta for stock returns in Australian markets

We report that betas of portfolios of Australian stocks possess a high level of stability, implying that beta is a meaningful measure of a portfolio's market risk exposure. Further, by allowing broad demarcations of company size and liquidities, we show that beta appears not to be rewarded continuously, but discretely, across thresholds of company size and stock liquidity. We conclude that beta remains relevant in the description of the risk-reward structure of asset pricing in Australian markets.
Decreased protein binding of moxifloxacin in patients with sepsis?

The mean (SD) unbound fraction of moxifloxacin in plasma from patients with severe sepsis or septic shock was determined by ultrafiltration to 85.5±3.0% (range 81.9 and 91.6%) indicating a decreased protein binding of moxifloxacin in this population compared with the value of 58–60% provided in the Summary of Product Characteristics. However, previous investigations neglected the influence of pH and temperature on the protein binding of moxifloxacin. Maintaining physiological conditions (pH 7.4, 37°C) – as in the present study – the unbound fraction of moxifloxacin in plasma from healthy volunteers was 84%. In contrast, the unbound fraction of moxifloxacin was 77% at 4°C and 66–68% in unbuffered plasma or at pH 8.5 in fair agreement with previously published data. PK/PD parameters e.g. fAUC/MIC or ratios between interstitial fluid and free plasma concentrations, which were obtained assuming a protein binding rate of moxifloxacin of 40% or more, should be revised.
MoS2 Nanosheets for HER and LIB

Very high surface area thin nanosheets of MoS2, with also low lateral dimension, as well as high number of edges sites, were prepared via a solvent free, easily controllable and scalable process. The syntheses were performed by thermolysis of ammonium thiomolybdates (NH4)2MoS4 in a continuous flow reactor, monitored with a mass spectrometer. The precursor decomposition was promoted in the temperature range 25-400°C, obtaining amorphous MoS2. Nanosheets were obtained thought a successive annealing, while material order can be improved by progressively increasing temperature and time. It was found that the annealing time at the end of the first step determines a reduction of the final nanosheets lateral size and number of layers. The samples were characterized by Raman Spectroscopy, Scanning (SEM) and Transmission (TEM-EDS) Electron Microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TG-DTG-MS), X-ray diffraction (XRD).
A FAST GA-BASED METHOD FOR SOLVING TRUSS OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS

Due to the complex structural issues and increasing number of design variables, a rather fast optimization algorithm to lead to a global swift convergence history without multiple attempts may be of major concern. Genetic Algorithm (GA) includes random numerical technique that is inspired by nature and is used to solve optimization problems. In this study, a novel GA method based on self-adaptive operators is presented. Results show that this proposed method is faster than many other defined GA-based conventional algorithms. To investigate the efficiency of the proposed method, several famous optimization truss problems with semi-discrete variables are studied. The results reflect the good performance of the algorithm where relatively a less number of analyses is required for the global optimum solution. Kewords: genetic algorithm- optimization- structural optimization.
Optimal integrated abundances for chemical tagging of extragalactic globular clusters

High resolution integrated light (IL) spectroscopy provides detailed abundances of distant globular clusters whose stars cannot be resolved. Abundance comparisons with other systems (e.g. for chemical tagging) require understanding the systematic offsets that can occur between clusters, such as those due to uncertainties in the underlying stellar population. This paper analyses high resolution IL spectra of the Galactic globular clusters 47 Tuc, M3, M13, NGC 7006, and M15 to (1) quantify potential systematic uncertainties in Fe, Ca, Ti, Ni, Ba, and Eu and (2) identify the most stable abundance ratios that will be useful in future analyses of unresolved targets. When stellar populations are well-modelled, uncertainties are ~0.1-0.2 dex based on sensitivities to the atmospheric parameters alone; in the worst case scenarios, uncertainties can rise to 0.2-0.4 dex. The [Ca I/Fe I] ratio is identified as the optimal integrated [alpha/Fe] indicator (with offsets <0.1 dex), while [Ni I/Fe I] is also extremely stable to within <0.1 dex. The [Ba II/Eu II] ratios are also stable when the underlying populations are well modelled and may also be useful for chemical tagging.
Structure of bee-flower system in the coastal sand dune of Abaeté, northeastern Brazil

For twelve months (from January to December of 1996) we investigated bee-flower interactions in a sea coastal ecosystem in Bahia, Brazil. Samples were taken three times each month. 3983 individuals belonging to 49 bee species, grouped in 13 morph-functional categories, visited 66 plant species belonging to 39 botanic families. It was observed 310 interactions between bees and plants at species level. The use of floral resources by bees was not homogeneous; most of the plant species received a low number of visitors. No restricted plant-bee species relationship in resource use concerning the subset of analyzed interactions was detected. In Abaete the generalist relationships predominated.
Taxonomic uncertainty in pest risks or modelling artefacts? Implications for biosecurity policy and practice

Various aspects of uncertainty have become topical in pest risk modelling discussions. A recent contribu tion to the literature sought to explore the effect of taxonomic uncertainty on modelled pest risk. The case study involved a high profile plant pathogen Puccinia psidii, which causes a major disease of plants within the Myrtaceae family. Consequently, the results and recommendations may attract a wide range of interest in the biosecurity and pest risk modelling communities. We found the study by Elith et al. (2013) includ ed a number of methodological issues that limit some of the specific and general conclusions reached in the paper. We discuss these issues and the ensuing implications for biosecurity management. We also draw attention to the need for pest risk modellers and biosecurity managers to find ways to communicate more effectively. We urge modellers and managers alike to develop a better understanding of the challenges and limitations of modelling species potential distributions across novel climates, and to be able to appreciate the meanings and limitations of models framed in different ways.
PREMISE Insect Model: Integrated Population Dynamics Model for the Ex-ante Evaluation of IPM against Insect Pest

Codling moth Cydia pomonella L. is the most serious pest of apple and pear worldwide and causes damage and decreased yields. To minimize this risk, IPM tools can be applied to reduce the use of chemicals. A cost-effective application of IPM depends on the number of insects at the time of application. Several conditions and factors influence the lifecycle and numbers of generations within a year. In order to perform ex-ante evaluations of the cost-effectiveness of IPM measures against pest insects, the generic PREMISE insect model has been developed, which integrates insect's population dynamics, the climate and other conditions, applied measures, economics, environment and human health (residues). This paper describes these components of the PREMISE insect model, and how these components interact to assess the cost-effectiveness of IPM measures and the effects on the environment and human health. Codling moth is used as a case study for this generic model.
Mid-Polish Trough inversion – seismic examples, main mechanisms, and its relationship to the Alpine-Carpathian collision

Numerous brittle deformations related to the Late Cretaceous inversion of the Mid-Polish Trough (MPT) have been identified in its various parts using seismic data. The role of Zechstein evaporitic deposits during basin evolution and inversion is also described. A model for the Pomeranian segment of the MPT has been constructed that includes significant decoupling between pre-Zechstein basement and Mesozoic sedimentary infill. In areas without significant influence of Zechstein deposits on tectonic processes, classical inversion structures have been interpreted like reverse faults and uplifted basement blocks. Thickness reductions and local angular unconformities pointing to syn-tectonic sedimentation often accompany these inversion structures. Correlation of well and seismic data allows for fairly precise dating of the inversion activity in various parts of the MPT. For the NW segment indirect observations suggest that inversion activity spanned Turonian to Campanian times, whereas in SE segment inversion could have started in Coniacian, was active in Santonian and Campanian, and reached its peak in Maastrichtian times. Inversion along the NE boundary of the MPT (Koszalin-Chojnice tectonic zone) was associated with strike-slip movements. In this area the first stage of the inversion-related uplift of axial part of the MPT can be dated as post-Turonian and pre-Maastrichtian, the second stage, related to strike-slip movements, as middle Maastrichtian. Maastrichtian is also the age of transverse strike-slip activity along Gŕojec fault. All these dates generally conform to the main compressive events within the Alpine-Carpathian orogenic belt, which suggests some sort of mechanical coupling between this orogenic belt and its foreland.