Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generalized models for prediction of pentachlorophenol adsorption by natural soils

Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is an ionogenic substance for which soil adsorption is a function of soil characteristics, solution composition, and pH. Generalized sorption models are developed to predict the sorption of PCP by natural soils. The proposed models use easily measured system variables as predictors, to capture the effects of soil, solution, and solute properties on the overall sorption process. Although these empirical models do not provide a mechanistic explanation of the process, they clearly demonstrate and quantify the correlation between the process variables and can be adapted to modeling of subsurface transport of PCP and to the design of soil remediation technologies, such as soil washing and bioremediation. Soil properties, such as cation-exchange capacity, particle size distribution, and organic carbon content, and soil-solution properties, such as soil-to-solution ratio and pH, and the aqueous solubility of PCP were found to be good predictors of the partitioning of this compound between the solid and the aqueous phases. The methodology developed here can be used to derive generalized nonlinear or log-linear models for other ionogenic substances for which the organic carbon-normalized partition coefficient does not adequately describe sorption by natural soils.
Policing the Streets: Legal Compliance among People Experiencing Homelessness

Objective: Drawing on work into the dynamics of authority-subordinate relationships, we examined whether police procedural justice, legitimacy and deterrence predict compliance with the law among people experiencing homelessness. Hypotheses: We hypothesized that people living on the streets of London will be less attuned to the relational and value-relevant aspects of police activity, i.e. that the well-established procedural justice – legitimacy – compliance pathway will not work for this highly marginalized group. We also predicted that motivations to engage in criminal behavior will vary significantly according to the nature of the behavior concerned (minor, street population specific, and serious crime). Method: A survey that included measures of procedural justice, police legitimacy, deterrence, risk of sanction, morality and compliance was completed by 200 people experiencing homelessness on the streets of an inner London borough (87% male, 49% aged between 45-64, 37% white British). Results: Procedural fairness and perceptions of police legitimacy did not explain variation in any of the three types of compliance (i.e. statistically significant effects were not detected). Police effectiveness positively predicted compliance via perceived risk of sanction, but only for offences that can be occasionally be important for survival on the streets, e.g. begging. Morality was associated with all three types of compliance behaviors, with the more wrong behaviors were perceived to be, the greater the compliance with those behaviors. Conclusions: The lack of relevance of relational connections to legal authority may be down to marginalization, alienation and the need to survive. More research is needed into the sorts of marginalized communities for whom structural factors may reduce normative group connections.
A Novel Intrinsic Force Sensing Method for Robot Manipulators During Human–Robot Interaction

Robotic manipulators require contact force sensing capabilities to sense the contact force between the manipulator and an object. Specifically, for humans and robots to coexist in the work environment, the robot must be able to detect an external force applied by a human. This study presents a new intrinsic force sensing method for robot manipulators that can obtain accurate information of the external force applied by a human during human–robot interaction. The method employs a robot cover, which is typically utilized in robot manipulators. Unlike conventional force sensing methods, a six-axis force/torque sensor is placed between the cover and the link of the robot manipulator. As a result, the proposed method provides information of the three-axis contact force applied to the cover surface and its contact location. Therefore, the cover itself becomes a sensorized cover based on the intrinsic force sensing method. To evaluate its sensing performance, the sensorized cover is experimentally validated using reference sensors. Finally, an experiment is performed in which the robot successfully recognizes letters written on the cover, indicating a high level of contact force sensing performance.
Exploring Zero-Shot Emotion Recognition in Speech Using Semantic-Embedding Prototypes

Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) makes it possible for machines to perceive affective information. Our previous research differed from conventional SER endeavours in that it focused on recognising unseen emotions in speech autonomously through machine learning. Such a step would enable the automatic leaning of unknown emerging emotional states. This type of learning framework, however, still relied on manual annotations to obtain multiple samples of each emotion. In order to reduce this additional workload, herein, we propose a zero-shot SER framework employing a per-emotion semantic-embedding paradigm to describe emotions in zero-shot SER, instead of using the sample-wise descriptors. Aiming to optimise the relationship between emotions, prototypes, and speech samples, this framework includes two types of learning strategies: Sample-wise learning and emotion-wise learning. These strategies apply a novel learning process to speech samples and emotions, respectively, via specifically designed semantic-embedding prototypes. We verify the utility of these approaches by performing an extensive experimental evaluation on two corpora on three aspects, namely the influence of different types of learning strategies, emotional-pair comparison, and the selections of semantic-embedding prototypes and paralinguistic features. The experimental results indicate that it is applicable to use semantic-embedding prototypes for zero-shot emotion recognition in speech, despite the influence of choosing optimal strategies and prototypes.
High-temperature separation of carbon dioxide and hydrogen by sorption-enhanced water-gas shift and palladium membranes

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Comparison of titania nanotube-supported cobalt catalysts prepared by impregnation and homogeneous precipitation for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis

The properties and catalytic performance of Co/TiO2 nanotubes prepared by impregnation (Imp) and homogeneous precipitation (HP) for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis were investigated. HP makes cobalt particles enrich the exterior surface of the support, while for the Imp catalyst, cobalt particles are distributed on both external and internal surfaces of the support. The HP catalyst displays a twofold higher activity as well as superior C5+ selectivity. The low activity of the Imp catalyst can be attributed to the strong Co–TiO2 interaction and less available active cobalt sites.
Unraveling the Key Features of the Reactive State of Decatungstate Anion in Hydrogen Atom Transfer (HAT) Photocatalysis

The decatungstate anion [W10O32]4– is a widely used photocatalyst for promoting hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) reactions. The mechanism implicated in the activation of organic substrates, however, still needs to be clarified and has been claimed to involve an unknown relaxed excited state of triplet multiplicity, tagged wO. A subpicosecond investigation allowed us to follow early events leading to the chemically reactive species. A hot singlet excited state (S1HOT) has been individuated through pump–probe experiments, yielding S1 by ultrafast decay (<1 ps). The reactive species wO arises from S1 in competition with decay to S0 (efficiency ca. 0.5) and has been detected spectroscopically by flash photolysis experiments, with peculiar absorption bands in the near-UV (370 nm) and visible (600–800 nm) regions. TD-DFT calculations demonstrated that excitation to S1 occurs through a ligand to metal charge transfer (LMCT) transition, involving a displacement of electron density from dicoordinated (bridging) oxygen.
Marketing Capabilities Model for Pharmaceutical Business in Thailand

There are few studies in the past which have worked on evaluating the capability of the marketing teams as the means of generating an effective strategy in terms of competiveness in the market and creation of advantage that is held by a firm in the market. However, the aim behind conducting this research is to find an effective mechanism or formula to have better performance in the export field, internationalization success, and marketing communication mainly by analyzing the role that is played by the marketing capabilities. Moreover, the researcher has mapped the relationship which exists between the capabilities and communication with the mediating impact of competitive strategy has also been evaluated in this research paper. The population of this study was the employees of different pharmaceutical firms of Thailand, and the sample was 300 entrepreneur of pharmaceutical business. The results and findings show that the impact of marketing capabilities has been favorable to enhance the export performance of the sector. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that the mediating variable of competitive strategy also positively mediates the relationship that exists between the variables of marketing capabilities and marketing communication. This study has significant implications on MC and export performance.
Depression, Anxiety, Psychosomatic Symptoms, and Perceived Social Support in Type D and Non-type D Individuals

Objectives: This study examines depression, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, and perceived social support among type D and non-type D individuals. Methods: A total of 300 individuals aged 18 to 40 years were recruited in the investigation. We used the distress personality scale (DS 14), Pakistan anxiety and despondency scale, psychosomatic symptoms, and perceived social support scales to obtain the study data. The study participants were divided into Type D (n=166) and non-Type D individuals (n=134) based on their DS 14 cut-off scores. In this descriptive study, a random cluster sampling technique was utilized to choose the samples. The study was conducted from September to December 2017. Data analysis was performed utilizing independent samples t-test and regression analysis. Results: The recurrence of the Type D personality was 55%. Results indicated a considerable difference between Type D and non-Type D personality on depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic side effects (P < 0.001 for all side effects). The findings also suggest that Type D individuals perceived less social support from family, friends, and significant others. Conclusion: People with type D character qualities show more depression, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, and less perceived social support when compared with non-Type D people.
A Major Genetic Mechanism Involved in Resistance to Malaria in Western Amazonia

Abstract Malaria, the world’s most important cause of infectious morbidity and mortality, has a widespread geographical distribution in the tropical region, while its endemicity is very heterogeneous. The Amazonia region, due mainly to its relatively low demographic index, is characterized as an hypo-endemic region. A population of 182 individuals, living in Portuchuelo, State of Rondônia, Brazil, right bank of the Madeira river (8° 37′ S, 63° 49′ W) was surveyed, in order to ascertain data on the epidemiological aspects of malaria and some other infectious diseases. Two main phenotypes involved with Plasmodiuminfection were studied: a) the presence of symptomless infection i.e., presence of Plasmodium, diagnosed either by traditional thick smear or by PCR amplification of Plasmodium ribosomal DNA in blood samples; b) the reported number of previous malaria episodes. Segregation analysis was applied to both phenotypes. There were no evidences of any type of familial mechanisms acting on the distribution of the symptomless phenotype in this population, since there was no significant familial aggregation. As for the number of malarial episodes, this phenotype showed clear signs of Mendelian inheritance. The most parsimonious model includes a co-dominant major gene with frequency of q= 0.15 and a small multifactorial component (H= 0.08). Due to this frequency and the mode of inheritance, this finding seemed to be independent of the Hb, Fy or G-6- PD polymorphisms.
Computational method for risk assessment of regional socio-economic development

In this study, we present the computational method for risk assessment of the socio-economic development of regions. An attempt has been made to develop a method for the determination of integral risk indicators of socio-economic development based on the joint use of the methods of factor analysis and expert evaluation. This approach has increased the reliability of the calculations and made it possible to analyze the influence of socio-economic indicators on the risk level of socio-economic development. The integral risk indicator shows the effect of the inconsistency in the level of factor provision on the socio-economic development of the j-th region (district) in comparison with the general situation in the country (regions). The closer the value of integral risk indicator is to 1, the higher the level of risk in this region. Using Kyiv region districts as an example, the process of risk assessment for regional socio-economic development has been considered. The results obtained in this investigation demonstrate that the presented computational method solves the problem of formalization of risk assessment for the socio-economic development of regions.
Empirical Aesthetics: An overview

This chapter offers a general overview of Empirical Aesthetics. It begins with a definition of the field’s main goals, a summary of its history from its modern foundations to the 1990s, and an introduction to contemporary accounts of aesthetic appreciation. We then highlight the key components of Empirical Aesthetics (object, person, and context), which provide the basic organization for the book, and summarize the field’s basic methods. We end by presenting the subdomains of Empirical Aesthetics, and the neighboring fields it interacts with.
A thematic analysis of social identity and injury in CrossFit®.

The purpose of this study was to explore the viability of the social identity approach as a 21 theoretical framework for examining injury in the context of a group exercise program, 22 CrossFit®. Specifically, we sought to identify values of group exercise participants relevant to 23 overuse risk behaviors as well as participants’ responses to criticisms about injury. Via thematic 24 analysis, observations of a CrossFit® setting (N = 31) and interviews of members (N = 14) 25 yielded three social identity content (i.e., Being Hard Core, Achieving Results, Camaraderie). 26 Behaviors employed to enact these social identity content (e.g., engage in frequent, high- 27 intensity workouts; attend despite low-level pain; encourage others to continue despite pain; 28 withhold pain reports from group leaders) enabled members to obtain positive evaluations or 29 avert negative evaluations of group members yet also incurred higher overuse injury risk. We 30 also identified two prominent types of responses of CrossFit® members to criticisms about 31 injury in CrossFit® activity: Compare dimensions (e.g., how well members handled the injuries; 32 the effort they put into prevention; health benefits; strength gained) of the group which were 33 perceived as superior to other contexts, and denounce critics. These response types were 34 interpreted to reflect social creativity and polarization, respectively. Altogether, the findings 35 indicate that group-based psychological factors contribute to overuse injury, advancing previous 36 literature in which intra- and inter-personal factors were the primary focus. This study 37 contributed to the literature by identifying theory-based injury risk factors in group exercise 38 contexts which may inform future injury-prevention interventions. 39
Improved Social Ski Driver-Based MPPT for Partial Shading Conditions Hybridized With Constant Voltage Method for Fast Response to Load Variations

In this paper, an Improved Social Ski Driver based MPPT algorithm (ISSD-MPPT) has been proposed. Single dynamic tuning parameter making the algorithm implementation simpler as compared to the others. Besides, the ISSD-MPPT also increased the convergence speed (CS) by 38.75% compared to the conventional Social Ski Driver algorithm (SSD). Then, a new approach to increase the response speed during load variations, which is applicable in any conventional dc-dc converter, has been proposed. Different complex Partial Shading Conditions (PSCs) were tested on a buck-boost converter with an average tracking time less than 1s and a tracking efficiency of 99.8%. The MPPT rating through rating computation technique proved the proposed method consists of a higher number of features, with fast CS for irradiance and load variations, along with the low power fluctuations during the tracking state.
New Public Management in the Developing Countries: Effects and Implications on Human Resource Management

Understanding the linkage between New Public Management (NPM) reforms and Human Resource Management (HRM) are required to be highlighted. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) used as a research methodology to discuss the implementation of NPM reforms, gaps and challenges of NPM, and the effects and implications of these gaps and challenges on HRM. This paper contributes to the existing literature by offering important lessons and experiences of the implemented NPM reforms, alongside their major gaps and challenges towards HRM in the developing world. The discussion and conclusion are presented at the end.
REDUCE COSTS IN THE MODERN MANUFACTURING ENVIRONMENT: CASE STUDY WITH IMPLEMENTATION OF TARGET COSTING AND ε -CONSTRAINT METHOD

This article investigates the role of target costing and e -constraint method for reducing costs in the modern manufacturing environment that characterized by an intensification of global competition and rapid progress of information and manufacturing technology. It is based on case study in an Algerienne manufacturing company. In this study it was found that target costing and e -constraint method together provide considerable advantages to users of these practices in reducing of costs.
Effects of the pre-irradiation storage procedure on the dose response of a Fricke xylenol orange gel dosimeter

Abstract The Fricke xylenol orange (FX) gel system is a chemical dosimeter characterized by good sensitivity, linear dose response, tissue equivalence, no toxicity, easy preparation, reproducibility and low cost. Thanks to the presence of the gelatinous matrix, the system is particularly suitable to perform reliable 3D mapping of the absorbed dose spatial distribution via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or optical techniques. The aim of this work is to study in a systematic way the influence of the pre-irradiation storage procedure upon sensitivity, dose response stability and lifetime of use of a FX gel system made with gelatin from porcine skin subjected to homogeneous irradiation. For this purpose, different pre-irradiation storage procedures, in terms of temperature and duration of each storage step, were investigated. In order to evaluate the dose response stability, the optical analyses of the samples were performed up to 6 hours after irradiation. Moreover, the samples were irradiated at time intervals of 24 hours for up to 7 days after preparation in order to evaluate the system lifetime of use. Regardless of their thermal and temporal life, the samples show linear dose responses in the investigated dose range (3-24 Gy) and an increase of sensitivity with the time elapsed between preparation and irradiation. Among the three pre-irradiation storage procedures considered here, a procedure that provides the best dose response stability and lifetime of use was identified and recommended for further use. The analyzed dosimetric system possesses good properties that make it promising for medical application, particularly concerning the evaluation of pre-treatment plan quality assurance within the conformational external beam radiotherapy
Digital literacy and online child abuse among primary school children in Langata Sub-county, Nairobi City County in Kenya

Kenya introduced Digischool to public primary schools to prepare children for today’s digital world attracting a cyber-threat landscape. Utilising a descriptive cross-sectional design within a concurrent mixed approach, the study examined the relationship between digital literacy intervention and online child abuse among primary school children in Langata sub-county. Targeted, were children between 9 and 17 years from private and public primary schools, teachers, parents and policy makers and child protection officers. Godden’s formula informed purposive and random sampling of 384 respondents, plus a 10% (423) respondents for Key Informant interviews and focused discussions. Quantitative and qualitative data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics and content analysis with the help of SPSS version 22 and Nvivo version 12 respectively. The study revealed stakeholders intervened in online child abuse at various levels using a number of strategies. The study revealed a significant relationship between the type of school and exposure to online. Since the p-value (0.000) was less than alpha (0.05) and we conclude there was a significant relationship between the type of school and exposure to online child abuse. There is need for a systems thinking and concerted multi-sectorial approach to improvement of digital literacy hence protecting children online.