Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PHENOL CONTENT AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY BETWEEN NON-CONVENTIONAL CURCUMA CAESIA ROXB. AND CURCUMA AMADA ROXB

The present study aimed to investigate the phenol content and antioxidant activity of a nonconventional Curcuma sp. namely, Curcuma caesia in comparison with another species, Curcuma amada. The total phenol contents of the methanolic rhizome extracts of C. amada and C. caesia were 37.64 and 44.33 mg Tannic acid equivalents (TAE)/g dry material, respectively. The reducing power, and superoxide, ABTS and DPPH radical scavenging activities of C. caesia were higher than C. amada. These results supported that the non-conventional C. caesia could be an economically important plant species due to its antioxidant potential.
A computer environment to support the strategic decision‐making process in construction firms

A computer environment to support the strategic decision‐making process in construction firms is presented. The system implements modelling concepts originally developed to evaluate project execution strategies, extending and generalizing the modelling methodology to a broader range of strategic decisions. An application to a construction firm's strategic planning is used in this paper to illustrate the modelling process. The computer system is designed to help the users in building a conceptual model for the decision problem, this model is a simplified structure of the variables and interactions that influence the decisions being analysed, including internal as well as external factors. An analytical model is then designed to predict the impact of these strategies, integrating expert knowledge and assessments of the strategic planning team into a mathematical model. The mathematical component uses concepts of cross‐impact analysis and probabilistic inference to capture uncertainties and interactions among project variables. The system provides multiple analysis capabilities, including sensitivity analysis, selected outcome prediction, isolated or combined effect of strategies and changes in performance due to changes in the external environment. The system allows management to test different combinations of long‐term strategies and predict expected sales, market share or other measures of performance.
OPTIMISED CONTROL OF SHEET METAL PRESS LINES

Determining the control parameters for sheet metal press lines is a large scale and complex optimisation problem. These control parameters determine velocities, time constants, and cam values of critical interactions between the equipment. The complexity of this problem is due to the nonlinearities and high dimensionality. Classical optimisation techniques often underperform in solving this kind of problems within a practical timeframe. Therefore, specialised techniques need to be developed for these problems. An existing approach is simulation-based optimisation, which is to use a simulation model to evaluate the trial solutions during the optimisation. In this paper, an efficient simulation-based optimisation algorithm for large scale and complex problems is proposed. The proposed algorithm extends the cooperative coevolutionary algorithm, which optimises subproblems separately. Hence, the optimisation problem must be decomposed into subproblems that can be evaluated separately. To optimise the subproblems, the proposed algorithm allows using embedded deterministic algorithms, next to stochastic genetic algorithms, getting the flexibility of using either type. It also includes a constructive heuristic that creates good initial feasible solutions to expedite the optimisation. The extension enables solving complex, computationally expensive problems efficiently. The proposed algorithm has been applied on an automated sheet metal press line from the automotive industry. The objective is to find control parameters that maximise the line’s production rate. The results show that the proposed algorithm manages to find optimal control parameters efficiently within the practical timeframe. This is a step forward in press line optimisation since to the authors’ knowledge this is the first time a press line has been optimised efficiently in this way.
Automated UAV-based mapping for airborne reconnaissance and video exploitation

Airborne surveillance and reconnaissance are essential for successful military missions. Such capabilities are critical for force protection, situational awareness, mission planning, damage assessment and others. UAVs gather huge amount of video data but it is extremely labour-intensive for operators to analyse hours and hours of received data. At MDA, we have developed a suite of tools towards automated video exploitation including calibration, visualization, change detection and 3D reconstruction. The on-going work is to improve the robustness of these tools and automate the process as much as possible. Our calibration tool extracts and matches tie-points in the video frames incrementally to recover the camera calibration and poses, which are then refined by bundle adjustment. Our visualization tool stabilizes the video, expands its field-of-view and creates a geo-referenced mosaic from the video frames. It is important to identify anomalies in a scene, which may include detecting any improvised explosive devices (IED). However, it is tedious and difficult to compare video clips to look for differences manually. Our change detection tool allows the user to load two video clips taken from two passes at different times and flags any changes between them. 3D models are useful for situational awareness, as it is easier to understand the scene by visualizing it in 3D. Our 3D reconstruction tool creates calibrated photo-realistic 3D models from video clips taken from different viewpoints, using both semi-automated and automated approaches. The resulting 3D models also allow distance measurements and line-of- sight analysis.
Retraction Retracted : Expression Profiling of Transcriptome and Its Associated Disease Risk in Yang Deficiency Constitution of Healthy Subjects Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

At the request of the authors, the article titled “Expression Profiling of Transcriptome and Its Associated Disease Risk in Yang Deficiency Constitution of Healthy Subjects” [1] has been retracted. The data were found to be unreliable and need to be reanalyzed, and the results cannot support the conclusions. According to the new standards for diagnosing constitutions in Traditional Chinese Medicine, samples B16 and B21 cannot be included in the Yang deficiency constitution. B16 also belongs to the Qi stagnation constitution and B21 also belongs to the phlegm dampness constitution. The discussion stated that “Yang deficiency constitution often led to occurrence of immune diseases, such as enteritis due to immune problems, arthritis, lowered metabolism, and cancers,” but the work did not test causation and studied gene expression differences that have been previously associated with those conditions rather than directly studying the conditions.The conclusion that the study “proves [the] existence of Yang deficiency constitution” cannot be supported because the study did not validate this.
Hydrogen recovery from ammonia purge gas by a membrane separator: A simulation study

In this study, a two‐dimensional mathematical model is proposed for modeling the hollow fiber membrane (HFM) separators for hydrogen (H2) recovery unit implemented in the Razi Petrochemical Company (Imam Khomeini Port, Iran) to capture hydrogen from ammonia (NH3) purge gas. In this regard, computational fluid dynamics is applied to solve the equations of momentum and mass transfer in the laminar flow conditions. Axial and radial diffusion for mass transfer inside the membrane fibers and axial diffusion within the shell side of separator were considered. The distributions of concentration, velocity, and mass transfer fluxes were achieved by the model. As the new insights, the effects of feed flow rate and feed gas concentration on mass transfer of H2 were investigated. Moreover, fluid velocity profile and H2 fluxes in the tube (fiber), membrane, and shell sides of the HFM separator were studied. The results of simulation were compared with the industrial data and showed that the present developed model has excellent agreement with the experimental data with a low mean deviation value of 3.5%.
Cultural issues in commencing the supervision of Chinese Research students

This paper discusses the impact Chinese students' culturally-specific features might have on the processes by which they commence their higher degrees by research candidature. We explain how existing frameworks in cross-cultural studies and an appreciation of the different educational background might be used to create a better understanding of the Australian supervisor-Chinese PhD student relationship. We provide strategies to deal with features of Australian academic culture which the Chinese candidate might find confronting so as to maximise the chances of a successful start to candidature and a reduction in the possibility of problems arising.
Predicting First Time Involvement in the Juvenile Justice System Among Emotionally Disturbed Youth Receiving Mental Health Services.

Columbus Childrens Research InstituteRates of mental illness among youth in the juvenile justice system are exceptionallyhigh, yet the understanding of the process by which some mentally ill youth end up injuvenile justice, whereas others stay in the mental health system is relatively undevel-oped. The goal of the present study is to extend previous research ndings by focusingprospectively on 659 youth between the ages of 8 and 17 years who were enrolled inMedicaid with a psychiatric diagnosis. Of those with no prior involvement with thejuvenile justice system at baseline, 12% had contact with the juvenile justice systemwithin 1 year. Those who were older, exhibited more externalizing behaviors, and camefrom minority backgrounds were more likely to come into contact with the juvenilejustice system. Dual-system involvement was common, suggesting that a more inte-grated approach between these systems needs to be developed with a special emphasison minority youth who exhibit externalizing disorders.
The application of tannin extract from plants to reduce the concentration of arsenic.

This research prepared the tannins extract from agricultural wastes i.e. rice straw, tea leaves, longan leaves and banana leaves with fresh water for 2 months. The highest concentration of tannin was banana leaves (6,464.98 mg/L) followed by longan leaves (4,478.99 mg/L), rice straw (4,000.00 mg/L) and tea leaves (1,397.95 mg/L) respectively. Tannins extract were used for arsenic treatment in synthetic waste water. The result showed the efficiency of arsenic removal by 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 mg/L of tannins concentration from banana leaves were 50.82%, 52.54%, 54.56%, 58.42% and 51.01% respectively, tea leaves were 69.74%, 73.42%, 60.29%, 63.60% and 70.54% respectively, longan leaves were 61.03%, 56.07%, 54.36%, 40.01% and 51.80% respectively and rice straw were 53.68%, 46.70%, 55.23%, 49.22% and 54.11% respectively which indicated that there were not significantly differed to arsenic reducing. In addition, increasing of pH in solution from 2.5 to 5.5, 6.5, 7.5 and 8.5 led to decrease of arsenic removal efficiency.
WHAT CUSTOMERS REALLY WANT: EXPLORING SERVICE QUALITY DIMENSIONS IN A RETAIL LOYALTY PROGRAMME.

The introduction of customer relationship marketing instruments by retailers has been strongly advocated in recent years both in theory and practice. Consequently loyalty programmes have become an increasingly popular choice of marketing strategy by retailers particularly those holding the notion that such loyalty programmes are an important strategy and mechanism for retailers to build store traffic, increase basket size and increase frequency by creating deeper relationship ties with their customer base. However, despite the enthusiastic response given to loyalty programmes by retailers and customers alike, the current position of loyalty programmes is at a crossroads where some quarters in the marketing industry have begun to question the effectiveness of such programmes in garnering customers’ support and loyalty. So far, most research suggests that customers value loyalty programmes mainly because of the benefits and economic gain, however, previous researchers also noted that the programme service quality is also important. Based on this premise, this paper reports on the results of a preliminary study of the literature which has been conducted in an attempt to understand the issue and role of service quality in retail loyalty programmes as well as factors that are important in loyalty programme service quality.
Old Wine in New Bottles: Testing the Keynesian Preposition of Twin Deficit in Case of Pakistan

In this endeavor an attempt has been made to investigate the linkage between the current account deficit and budget deficit in Pakistan in order to test the validity of the Keynesian stance, which states that there is positive and significant relationship between the said variables. Autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) is used for the robustness of long-run relationship between current account deficit and budget deficit in the presence of control variables. For short run dynamics ECM (Error Correction mechanism) has applied. To test the validity of the Keynesian proposition and the Ricardian equivalence in the case of Pakistan multivariate Granger causality test developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) has applied. The empirical analysis in this paper partially supports the Keynesian view that there is a positive relationship between current account deficit and budget deficit In terms of policy implication it is recommended that any policy measures to reduce the budget deficit in Pakistan could well assist in reducing the Pakistan’s current account deficit, which will ultimately leads to sustain economic growth.
Screening of Potential Aspergillus spp. for Production of Fermented Soybean with High Antioxidative Activity

Thirty two strains of Aspergillus spp. were screened by their ability to increase antioxidative capacity of fermented soybean broth. Among all strains tested, soybean inoculated with A. oryzae BCC 3088 exhibited the highest ABTS . + scavenging activity, followed by those inoculated with A. terricola BCC 3026, A. ornatus BCC 3101 and A. oryzae BCC 3083, respectively. The similar results were observed when these strains were inoculated in solid-state fermentation of soybeans as shown by both ABTS . + scavenging activity and ferric reducing ability power (FRAP). Analysis of aglycone isoflavones in fermented soybeans after fermentation suggested that the proportion of aglycones in total isofla- vones was highest in soybeans inoculated with A. oryzae BCC 3088, followed by A. terricola BCC 3026, A. ornatus BCC 3101, A. oryzae BCC 3083 and non-inoculated fermented soybeans, respectively. Assay of s-glucosidase activity indicated that the high s-glucosidase activity was related to the high antioxida- tive activity which was a culture- dependent characteristic of starter organisms. The results indicated the potential of A. oryzae BCC 3088 for production of fermented soybean with high antioxidative activity.
The Leak Pathway: A Pathway in Flux

The epithelial cell tight junction structure is the site of the transepithelial movement of solutes and water between epithelial cells (paracellular permeability). Paracellular permeability can be divided into two distinct pathways, the Pore Pathway mediating the movement of small ions and solutes and the Leak Pathway mediating the movement of large solutes. Claudin proteins form the basic paracellular permeability barrier and mediate the movement of small ions and solutes via the Pore Pathway. The Leak Pathway remains less understood. Several proteins have been implicated in mediating the Leak Pathway, including occludin, ZO proteins, tricellulin, and actin filaments, but the proteins comprising the Leak Pathway remain unresolved. The properties of the Leak Pathway, such as its molecular mechanism, its regulation, and whether or not it has a potential size limit, remain controversial. This review will trace the evolution of the Leak Pathway concept from its origins, will discuss the current information about the properties of the Leak Pathway, and will discuss recent research suggesting a possible molecular basis for the Leak Pathway. Based on these findings, we propose a model for the molecular mechanism underlying the Leak Pathway and its regulation.
Microfocus X-ray imaging of Brazil nuts for quality control

Non-destructive quality assessment of food prior to processing is desirable in commercial facilities due to its non-invasive nature, for economic reasons and for its safety appeals. Grading Brazil nuts in this way allows for the separation of undesirable nuts to avoid contamination during the automatic nut-shelling process. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of X-ray phase contrast enhanced imaging in assessing nut quality . For this goal, details of the imaging technique are described and phase contrast X-ray and microtomography imaging of nut samples are investigated. Both high quality (i.e. “sound”) nuts as well as treated nuts were examined. It was concluded that both the X-ray imaging and tomography techniques have the potential to discriminate morphological features of the nut and to identify “sound” kernels from atypical ones. Larger nuts and nuts with a larger gap area between shell and kernel were concluded to have more atypical formations. Both techniques also seemed promising for use in automatic sorting lines. However, by using microtomography, the visualization of finer formations not noticeable in the X-ray images was possible. Further studies shall be carried out to investigate the nature of these formations, how they affect nut quality and their evolution with storage time.
Evaluation of Third-Order Method for the Tests of Variance Component in Linear Mixed Models

Mixed models provide a wide range of applications including hierarchical modeling and longitudinal studies. The tests of variance component in mixed models have long been a methodological challenge because of its boundary conditions. It is well documented in literature that the traditional first-order methods: likelihood ratio statistic, Wald statistic and score statistic, provide an excessively conservative approximation to the null distribution. However, the magnitude of the conservativeness has not been thoroughly explored. In this paper, we propose a likelihood-based third-order method to the mixed models for testing the null hypothesis of zero and non-zero variance component. The proposed method dramatically improved the accuracy of the tests. Extensive simulations were carried out to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed method in comparison with the standard first-order methods. The results show the conservativeness of the first order methods and the accuracy of the proposed method in approximating the p-values and confidence intervals even when the sample size is small.
The relation between organizational trust, organizational support and organizational commitment

Organizations are bodies composed of people who gather in order to reach specific objectives. This situation prompts the organizations to produce people oriented policies and increase the interest in the subject of organizational commitment. However, there are not much academic studies in Turkey on organizational commitment. The general objective of this research was to assess the relationship between organizational trust, organizational support and organizational commitment of administrators/teachers. The participants of this research were administrators/teachers who are employed in the secondary education schools in the provincial centre of Bolu, Turkey. The sample was not taken in the research and it was worked on all universe. This research is in the form of a relational screening model and was both descriptive and explanatory in terms of aim. 601 usable surveys were gathered for this research using three scales. The explanation of the relation between the organizational trust, organizational support and organizational commitment levels of the teachers and administrators with a mathematical model has been realized via multiple linear regression analysis and in the analyses enter method has been used. When the variance analysis regarding the perceptions of the administrators and teachers about organizational trust, organizational support and organizational commitment is inspected, the organizational commitments of the administrators and teachers exhibit a meaningful difference according to the joint impact of organizational trust and organizational support. The multiple linear regression model calculated has been also supported by LISREL software. According to the findings obtained as a result of the studies carried out within this framework, it is concluded that organizational trust and organizational support are the most substantial factors that affect the organizational commitment. In accordance with the findings of this research, it can be stated that organizational trust and organizational commitment of the administrators/teachers will be stronger when they feel that their organizations are supportive and bound up in them. Key words: Organizational trust, organizational support and organizational commitment.
A Simple Approximation to Bias in Gene–Environment Interaction Estimates When a Case Might Not Be the Case

Case-control genetic association studies are often used to examine the role of the genetic basis in complex diseases, such as cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. The role of the genetic basis might vary by non-genetic (environmental) measures, what is traditionally defined as gene-environment interactions (GxE). A commonly overlooked complication is that the set of clinically diagnosed cases might be contaminated by a subset with a nuisance pathologic state that presents with the same symptoms as the pathologic state of interest. The genetic basis of the pathologic state of interest might differ from that of the nuisance pathologic state. Often frequencies of the pathologically defined states within the clinically diagnosed set of cases vary by the environment. We derive a simple and general approximation to bias in GxE parameter estimates when presence of the nuisance pathologic state is ignored. We then perform extensive simulation studies to show that ignoring presence of the nuisance pathologic state can result in substantial bias in GxE estimates and that the approximation we derived is reasonably accurate in finite samples. We demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approximation in a study of Alzheimer’s disease.
Detector imperfections in photon-pair source characterization

We analyse how imperfections in single-photon detectors impact the characterization of photon-pair sources. We perform exact calculations to reveal the effects of multi-pair emissions and of noisy, non-unit efficiency, nonphoton-number resolving detections on the Cauchy–Schwarz parameter, on the second-order auto-correlation and cross-correlation functions, and on the visibilities of both Hong–Ou–Mandel and Bell-like interferences. We consider sources producing either two-mode squeezed states or states with a Poissonian photon distribution. The proposed formulas are useful in practice to determine the impacts of multi-pair emissions and dark counts in standard tests used in quantum optics.