Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection and Classification of Road Damage Based on Image Morphology and K-NN Method (K Nearest Neighbour)

Road pavement is a supporting factor for national development, especially in the distribution of trade in goods and services as well as the movement of human mobility. Road maintenance needs to be done regularly so that the road is always in good condition, but the weather and road loads are the things that cause road damage. Road damage is generally categorized into cracks, alligator cracks and potholes. The purpose of this research is to utilize image processing to detect and classify the types of road damage. The steps involved include: image acquisition with a digital camera, conversion of RGB images into grayscale images, image normalization, selection of damage points, counting histogram bins, determining damage bins, calculating noise with image morphology (closing and opening) using a disk element structure of size 5, calculating radial vector and finally classifying road damage using the K-NN (K Nearest Neighbor) method with 3 classes and a K value of 11. The image from the classification results is then calculated the level of damage based on the category according to the SDI (Surface Distress Index) provisions, where the level of crack damage is seen from the width of the crack, the alligator crack is seen from the percentage of damaged area compared to the segment under review and the pathole is seen from many holes. The test used 597 images consisting of 95% training data and 5% test data, the results obtained that the accuracy of this research reached 83%.
In Vivo Nutritional Assessment of the Microalga Nannochloropsis gaditana and Evaluation of the Antioxidant and Antiproliferative Capacity of Its Functional Extracts

Nannochloropsis gaditana is a microalga with interesting nutritional and functional value due to its high content of protein, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and bioactive compounds. However, the hardness of its cell wall prevents accessibility to these components. This work aimed to study the effect of a treatment to increase the fragility of the cell wall on the bioavailability of its nutrients and functional compounds. The antioxidant and antiproliferative capacity of functional extracts from treated and untreated N. gaditana was assessed, and the profile of bioactive compounds was characterized. Furthermore, to study the effect of treatment on its nutrient availability and functional capacity, an in vivo experiment was carried out using a rat experimental model and a 20% dietary inclusion level of microalgae. Functional extracts from treated N. gaditana exhibited higher antioxidant activity than the untreated control. Furthermore, the treated microalga induced hypoglycemic action, higher nitrogen digestibility, and increased hepatic antioxidant activity. In conclusion, N. gaditana has interesting hepatoprotective, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory potential, thus proving itself an ideal functional food candidate, especially if the microalga is treated to increase the fragility of its cell wall before consumption.
A survey of white water corrosivity in European paper mills

The corrosivity of paper machine white water in thirty North European paper and board mills is reported. White water corrosivity in this report refers to corrosion rate measurements of mild steel and brass using a polarization resistance technique. White water was recycled more for machines of higher productivity. Papermaking variables such as pH, temperature, and the presence of alum and other additives correlated with corrosivity better than did the amount of discharge observed among all paper categories. M. A. Hubbe, Student, and D. F. Bowers, Research Associate, The Institute of Paper Chemistry, Appleton, WI 54912. A survey of white water corrosivity in European paper mills M. A. Hubbe and D. F. Bowers
Is Cervical Stabilization Exercise Immediately Effective in Patients with Chronic Neck Pain and Upper Cervical Spine Dysfunction? Randomized Controlled Trial

Purpose: To compare the effectiveness of a single exercise session with manual therapy techniques in the segments of the upper cervical spine (C0–1, C1–2 and C2–3), against a single exercise session in patients with chronic neck pain and mobility deficits in the upper cervical spine. Methods: A single-blind randomized controlled trial was performed. Fifty-eight patients were recruited (29 for the manual therapy and exercise group and 29 for the exercise group) who presented chronic neck pain and upper cervical spine dysfunction. The exercise focused on the deep muscles. The manual therapy combined manipulations and mobilizations with these exercises. Cervical range of motion, flexion-rotation test, pressure pain threshold and pain intensity were measured by a blind evaluator before and after the intervention. Results: Compared to pre-intervention, after intervention, the exercise group was significantly lower in terms of the range of motion, flexion-rotation test, and pressure pain threshold (p < 0.05). The manual therapy and exercise group improved in upper cervical flexion, the flexion-rotation test and intensity of pain (p < 0.05). Conclusions: It may be necessary to normalize the mobility of the upper cervical spine before cervical stabilization training, in patients with chronic neck pain and mobility deficits in the upper cervical spine.
Digital Technology Experiences of BSED-Science Students in A State University

In response to transformation of educational landscape, schools all over the world have begun using digital technology to boost students’ interest and academic performance. Students have been exposed to new learning methods that involve technology. However, excessive and irresponsible use of digital technology may lead to more dangers than benefits. Some of these disadvantages such as poor academic performance, academic failure, or unsatisfactory grades (Flanagan, 2008) prove that an increased amount of time that the youth spend on these activities poses negative effects to their online learning. This prompted the researchers to conduct a study on the advantages and drawbacks of digital technology. It used an explanatory-sequential research design and utilized convenience sampling for the quantitative phase using questionnaire. There were 15 participants randomly selected from 100 BSED students Major in Science for the qualitative phase and were also interviewed using Guide Questions. The qualitative data was evaluated using thematic analysis, while the quantitative data was analyzed through descriptive statistical analysis and exploratory factor analysis using Jeffrey's Amazing Statistics Application (JASP). Findings revealed that students use various digital technologies for both educational and non-educational purposes, such as smartphones and Google Classroom, and Facebook and Mobile Legends, respectively. The impact of digital technology on students' online learning can be either favorable or detrimental, depending on the students' experiences, perspective or attitude, and utilization.
Silicon-Integrated Two-Dimensional Phononic Band Gap Quasi-Crystal Architecture

Silicon integrated phononics, dealing with the integration of phononic band gap (PBG) crystals, also referred to as the acoustic or elastic band gap crystals, into silicon is an area of research originating within the last two decades and has important implications for the study of basic physics as well as for the realization of a device platform that may be utilized to build important and practical signal processing and sensor devices and other structures in engineering applications. PBG research appears to display the potential for application in electronics to heat and noise control (e.g. insulators), photonics for enhanced photon-phonon interaction and control, mechatronics and reliability in micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) for anchor loss reduction and vibration stabilization, energy harvesting, acoustics for impedance matching layers and metamaterials, material science and nanotechnology, nano-acoustics (for example, graphene based structures), nano-photonics (for example, to control the PBG of materials utilized in tera-hertz lasers), communications for low power signal processing elements and so forth. This thesis is focused on researching the realization of the relatively new phenomenon of two-dimensional classical elastic wave PBG phenomenon to create novel MEMS technologies utilizing silicon processing techniques. Within the thesis a new device architecture is proposed and referred to as the phononic band gap quasi-crystal (PBG QC) architecture. Numerical simulations report that behavior that resembles PBG behavior will only occur for limited combinations of PBG QC feature dimensions and silicon plate thicknesses. Utilizing novel geometries we have fabricated practical silicon-plate PBG QC MEMS devices that appear to be the first of their kind in a silicon MEMS technology. Current approaches to the micro-integration of PBG crystals rely on exotic piezo-
An Arbitrated Networked Control Systems Approach to Cyber-Physical Systems

Systems such as advanced driver assistance systems for automobiles or smart metering systems are summarized under the term Cyber-Physical Systems. They have in common that they are embedded in a physical system and communicate with each other over a shared network. In this work, new approaches to the design of Cyber-Physical Systems are presented. Core of these approaches is the integrated design of the controllers and the communication network. The theoretical results are verified by suitable simulations.
The Role of Computational Chemistry in Corrosion Inhibition: a Review

Metals and alloys corrosion is one of the most challenging and damaging occurrence that is linked with enormous economic and safety losses, and it becomes more severe during some manufacturing processes by which metallic surfaces are treated for other industrial application processes. The use of corrosion inhibitors is one of the best way to protect metals and alloys against damage. The problem of the environmental toxicity of some of the employed inhibitors and the high cost involved in controlling and preventing corrosion have prompted this review. Computational chemistry methods are mostly significant in reducing the cost of protecting metals and alloys against corrosion. This review article begins with the summary of the most used computational methods, parameters and, finally, summarizes the results of some studies made by different authors in the field of corrosion science and engineering. 5-sulfamethoxazoleazo-3-phenyl-2-thioxo-4-thiazolidinone), as corrosion inhibitors for MS in an acidic medium, using DFT at the B3LYP/6-31G (d, p) and B3LYP/6-311G (d, p) basis set levels. Ab initio calculations using the HF/6-31G (d, p) and HF/6-311G (d, p) methods for quantum chemical parameters/descriptors, namely, E HOMO , E LUMO , ΔE, μ, A, I, X, η,  , polarizability (α), Mulliken charges and fraction of electrons transferred (ΔN) from the inhibitors to Fe, were calculated and correlated with the experimental IE%. Quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) approach and a composite index of some quantum chemical parameters/descriptors were also considered to characterize the studied molecules IE. The results showed that the IE% of the studied rhodanine azosulfa drugs was closely related to their theoretical IE%, but with varying degrees of the correlation coefficient (R 2 ). The IE% also increased in E HOMO and decreased in E HOMO -E LUMO , and the areas containing N and S atoms were the most possible sites for bonding to the Fe surface, by donating the lone pair electrons to its empty d-orbital.
A Small Peptide Increases Drug Delivery in Human Melanoma Cells

Melanoma is the most fatal type of skin cancer and is notoriously resistant to chemotherapies. The response of melanoma to current treatments is difficult to predict. To combat these challenges, in this study, we utilize a small peptide to increase drug delivery to melanoma cells. A peptide library array was designed and screened using a peptide array-whole cell binding assay, which identified KK-11 as a novel human melanoma-targeting peptide. The peptide and its D-amino acid substituted analogue (VPWxEPAYQrFL or D-aa KK-11) were synthesized via a solid-phase strategy. Further studies using FITC-labeled KK-11 demonstrated dose-dependent uptake in human melanoma cells. D-aa KK-11 significantly increased the stability of the peptide, with 45.3% remaining detectable after 24 h with human serum incubation. Co-treatment of KK-11 with doxorubicin was found to significantly enhance the cytotoxicity of doxorubicin compared to doxorubicin alone, or sequential KK-11 and doxorubicin treatment. In vivo and ex vivo imaging revealed that D-aa KK-11 distributed to xenografted A375 melanoma tumors as early as 5 min and persisted up to 24 h post tail vein injection. When co-administered, D-aa KK-11 significantly enhanced the anti-tumor activity of a novel nNOS inhibitor (MAC-3-190) in an A375 human melanoma xenograft mouse model compared to MAC-3-190 treatment alone. No apparent systemic toxicities were observed. Taken together, these results suggest that KK-11 may be a promising human melanoma-targeted delivery vector for anti-melanoma cargo.
Student Outcomes from the Pilot Test of a Comprehensive School Safety Framework for High Schools: Student Ownership, Accountability, and Responsibility for School Safety (SOARS)

This paper has two purposes: First, we describe the components of the Student Ownership, Accountability, and Responsibility for School Safety (SOARS) framework in the context of the literature on school safety. Second, we offer outcomes from a pilot study testing the framework's impact on student perceptions of: (a) school belonging, (b) sense of personal safety, (c) level of disruption, (d) level of delinquency, (e) responsibility for school safety, (f) engagement in victimizing behavior, and (g) sense of being victimized by peers. We conducted a study with two conditions, intervention and control. The study was conducted in Oregon and Illinois. Four high schools participated in the study. Two high schools received access to the SOARS framework and two high schools served as controls. We collected usage data of the Advocatr app, the central components of the SOARS framework, as well as survey data from students. We examined Advocatr use by overall frequency as well as across student race and gender. Survey data were analyzed using an ANCOVA analytic approach. Almost all outcomes were in the desired direction. Intervention effects on student-reported school belonging, sense of personal safety, and level of disruption reached statistical significance. Effect sizes ranged from small to medium, with the largest effect in students’ perceptions of personal safety. We contextualize our study in the literature on school safety and describe the alignment of the SOARS components with existing recommendations for increasing students’ safety at school.
Role of Participation in Activities and Perceived Accessibility on Quality of Life among Nondisabled Older Adults and Those with Disabilities in Israel during COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, quality of life (QoL) was reduced among many groups, including Israeli older adults. This study investigated perceived QoL, perceived accessibility of the living environment, and participation in activities among nondisabled older adults and those with disabilities in the community. It also examined whether the perceived accessibility’s effect on QoL occurs directly and/or indirectly via mediators of participation in community activities. A voluntary and anonymous survey was administered from February to May 2021 to 495 participants aged 60 and older. Respondents completed three questionnaires: WHOQOL-BREF, Community Integration Questionnaire-Revised (CIQ-R), and Perceived Accessibility of Living Environment (PALE). The main finding was that participation in activities in the community had a direct positive impact on QoL. Perceived accessibility of the living environment also had indirect positive effects on QoL through participation in activities in the community, for those without disabilities but, interestingly, not for those with disabilities. Hierarchal linear regressions revealed that participation in activities explained 53.3% of the variance for both groups while perceived accessibility added 1.1% for the nondisabled. We conclude that accessibility of living environment is a good indicator of positively perceived QoL through participation in various activities in the community for nondisabled older adults. This may be especially important during a pandemic.
Analysis of Intrusion Detection Approaches for Network Traffic Anomalies with Comparative Analysis on Botnets (2008–2020)

Botnets are conglomerations of traded PCs (bots) that are remotely controlled by its originator (botmaster) under a command-and-control (C&C) foundation. Botnets are the making dangers against cutting edge security. They are the key vehicles for several Internet assaults, for example, spam, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, rebate distortion, malware spreading, and phishing. This review paper depicts the botnet examined in three domains: preview of botnets, observation, and analysis of botnets, apart from keeping track of them and protecting against them too. We have also attempted to the various ways to indicate differing countermeasures to the botnet dangers and propose future heading for botnet affirmation look into a consolidated report on the energy investigation and future headings for botnet break down are also been presented in this paper.
WeaselBoard : zero-day exploit detection for programmable logic controllers.

Critical infrastructures, such as electrical power plants and oil refineries, rely on programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to control essential processes. State of the art security cannot detect attacks on PLCs at the hardware or firmware level. This renders critical infrastructure control systems vulnerable to costly and dangerous attacks. WeaselBoard is a PLC backplane analysis system that connects directly to the PLC backplane to capture backplane communications between modules. WeaselBoard forwards inter-module traffic to an external analysis system that detects changes to process control settings, sensor values, module configuration information, firmware updates, and process control program (logic) updates. WeaselBoard provides zero-day exploit detection for PLCs by detecting changes in the PLC and the process. This approach to PLC monitoring is protected under U.S. Patent Application 13/947,887.
Employee’s innovative personality and self-efficacy

Innovation, a concept that has been researched in the organizational behaviour literature for almost 30 years, is extremely important for the sustainable success of organizations. In today’s dynamic world along with economic, social and political changes, customer needs and expectations are also changing. The formulas that lead a company to success yesterday mean nothing today. Therefore, for companies to continue their existence in an increasingly changing and complex environment, they need to be able to adapt to the speed of this change and even give direction when necessary. Changes occurring in the world require the restructuring of organizations, the way they do business and the quality of the workforce they need to adapt to this change. Undoubtedly, it is the human resource of the organization that will initiate and maintain this change. At this point, human resources is a strategic power for organization that is as important as the economic and technological power. Having employees with high innovative thinking and behaving skills creates a competitive advantage for companies. There may be many organizational, individual and environmental predictors of innovative behaviours. On the other hand, employees who have enough belief and courage that they can succeed in a job are known to initiate innovations. In other words, the employee's perception of self-efficacy is necessary for innovative behaviours. In this study, the concept of self-efficacy, which is assumed to be a predictor of innovative behaviours, will be discussed. The concept of self-efficacy, which expresses the effort to set new goals for oneself and to reach these goals with courage, determination and relentlessly, is an extremely important determinant for innovative behaviours. Self-efficacy perception has a very important place in an individual's job selection, career success and professional progress. Therefore, it is extremely important to know the factors that affect the perception of self-efficacy. In this study, the following question was asked by considering the perception of self-efficacy in the context of personality traits: Is the concept of self-efficacy affected by the personality trait of openness to innovation? This study was carried out in order to answer this question. In this context, the sample of the research consists of 503 people working in various institutions in the public and private sectors. Qualitative research method was used for this study. Perception of general self-efficacy and openness to innovation have been measured with scales whose validity and reliability have been tested in many studies before. The obtained data were analysed by referring to the relevant quantitative analyses (descriptive statistics, reliability, factor and correlation). As a result of the analyses, significant findings were obtained. The findings were evaluated in the context of the relevant literature in the discussion section. Possible research suggestions for future studies are proposed in this section.
Does the Quality of Beauty E-commerce Impact Online Purchase Intention? The Role of Perceived Enjoyment and Perceived Trust

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between Website Quality, Perceived Enjoyment, Perceived Trust that can involve Purchase Intention of Skincare Products. This study will employ a theoretical lens of S-O-R (stimulus-organism-response). The proposed model is tested to 476 participant users of beauty e-commerce sites using survey approach by Lime Survey. Partial least square structural equation modelling was used for the analysis (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed that Quality of a website, Perceived Enjoyment, and Perceived Trust has a positive significant effect on Online Purchase Intention, Website Quality has a positive significant effect on Perceived Enjoyment and Perceived Trust, and Perceived Enjoyment and Perceived Trust can mediate perfectly between Website Quality and Online Purchase Intention. This paper show implication that e-retailer should improve the quality of beauty e-commerce especially on visual and display appeal quality, to facilitate and comfort consumers about their purchasing decisions, also beauty e-commerce sites should give more attention to delivery and transaction security.
A fully-monolithic SiGe-BiCMOS transceiver chip for 24 GHz applications

This paper presents the design of a VCO and a frequency divider integrated together with a phase-frequency detector and a mixer on one transceiver chip for a 24GHz FM-CW radar system. The VCO is a differential varactor-tuned microstrip oscillator with 1.25GHz tuning frequency, which delivers a flat output power of 7dBm at each of the two differential 50/spl Omega/ loads over the entire frequency range. Additional differential RF-outputs drive the inputs of the receiver circuits, a frequency divider with a division ratio of 32 and a single-balanced-mixer. The transmitter circuit has been fully integrated in the Motorola production 0.35/spl mu/m SiGe-BiCMOS technology.