Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
X-ray diffraction studies of VO2 thin films

The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of strain in vanadium dioxide (VO2) thin films. Vanadium dioxide undergoes a metal-insulator transition involving radical changes in the electrical conductivity, and strain is one of the parameters which can influence the transition characteristics. In form of a thin film, vanadium dioxide is subjected to strain which arises from the lattice mismatch between the substrate and the film. To study the effect of strain, a set of vanadium dioxide thin films with thickness from 20 to 240 nm were grown using pulsed laser deposition method, and the structure of the films were characterized using X-ray diffraction. The surface morphology of the thin films was also examined using atomic force microscopy. In the insulating state, the films were composed of both M1 and M2 phases of vanadium dioxide. The transition was observed to be controlled by M2 phase in films which were thinner than 100 nm and by M1 phase in thicker films. The presence of M2 phase was caused by strain. The metal-insulator transition occurred at much wider temperature range in thinner films which were more strained than the thicker films showing more abrupt transitions. The relaxation of the strain in thicker films resulted in misorientation of the crystallites and caused the surface roughness to increase with the film thickness.
CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT, CIVIL ECONOMY AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM

The present contribution aims at providing a sort of inspection-table to put to test the fundamental hypothesis of the True Wealth of Nations project, i.e.: “The economic and cultural criteria identified in the tradition of Catholic Social Thought (CST) provide an effective path to sustainable prosperity for all”. By adopting an history of ideas approach, in the sense of Arthur Lovejoy, I will endeavour to show that at the times of civil humanism (XIV and XV centuries), the principles of CST were able to inspire and mould the institutional set-up of a model of social order aimed at the common good. While I refer the reader to A. Yuengert’s paper in this volume for a definition of what one should mean by sustainable prosperity in the sense of human flourishing, in what follows a will address a three-fold question. First, in what sense, exactly, can it be argued that Catholic ethics served to nourish and inform the spirit of capitalism? Second, what meaning (and what value) should we attribute to the wide-ranging, lively debate on Max Weber’s thesis of a nexus between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism? Third, finally, what underlies the recent revival of interest both in historical and economic research aimed at assessing the relevance of culture to economic outcomes and, more specifically, studying the impact of religious beliefs on the civic and economic progress of a nation or a community?
Livestock Browsing, Not Water Limitations, Contributes to Recruitment Failure of Dobera glabra in Semiarid Ethiopia

Abstract The study used nursery and field experiments to investigate why recruitment of Dobera glabra (Forssk) Poir. , a native food source for both humans and livestock, often fails in the semiarid rangelands of Afar, Ethiopia. We hypothesized that soil water limitations and browsing by livestock would be the primary mechanisms accounting for the failure of natural regeneration. We used three sets of experiments—1) seedling performance in response to shade and watering in a nursery, 2) field regeneration with and without browsing, and 3) regeneration beneath trees with and without browsing—to examine regeneration success. Seedlings were established in plots from seeds sown directly into the soil for nursery and field experiments, but natural germination occurred beneath trees. Survival and relative growth rates (RGR) were used to monitor seedling performance. Seedlings that received neither shade nor watering treatments had lower seedling survival (53 ± 15%) as compared with other treatment combinations. Highest seedling survival was recorded under shade and 1 d watering ṡ wk−1 treatment combinations (92 ± 1%). However, shade treatments had a minimal increase on seedling RGR. Water limitation is not a crucial limiting factor for D. glabra recruitment, as 53% of the seedlings survived without both shade and supplemental water for 1 yr. Field experiments, however, demonstrated that browsing greatly reduced seedling survival (below 15%) and suppressed growth of surviving seedlings, suggesting that browsing is the major factor preventing natural recruitment. Natural recruitment of D. glabra is unlikely with the existing continuous and intensive grazing/browsing in Afar rangelands, where the mobility of pastoralists is restricted. We suggest that planting nursery-raised seedlings in home gardens of settled pastoralists and establishment of grazing reserves in some key range sites that contain D. glabra could help offset the recruitment failure of native food species D. glabra in Afar rangelands.
The Measurement Model for Freelance Worker Performance Employed by Middle Class Contractor to Improve the Quality of Building

Improving the quality of freelance worker (foreman, skilled worker and unskilled laborer) has important role in improving the quality of the building. The objectives of this research to determine the main factors that affect the quality of freelance worker and establish the most proper steps in improving the quality of freelance workers. The research was carried out in 40 middle class contractors in Malang. The data was collected through questionnaire and interview. The AHP method (Analytical Hierarchy Process) was implemented in order to select alternative solutions. The analysis result recommends that there are three most important items that correlate with the improvement of freelance worker performance, the advance and the change of technology, the business competition among companies, the management demand to improve working standard.
Ribosomal protein S3 gene expression of Chironomus riparius under cadmium, copper and lead stress

Heavy metals are of interest because they are often present at significant levels in the environment and can have severe effects on the aquatic environment. To examine the effects of oxidative stress induced by heavy metals on chironomids, the full-length cDNA of ribosomal protein S3 (RpS3) from Chironomus riparius was determined using molecular cloning. The basal expression of the RpS3 gene was not affected by changes in environmental rearing conditions such as temperature, media, and sediment type. However, RpS3 gene expression in C. riparius increased significantly in response to exposure to cadmium, copper, and lead, regardless of the exposure level. These results suggest that expression of the RpS3 gene, which is associated with the DNA repair process, may be used as an indicator of oxidative stress induced by heavy metals during environmental risk assessment. Key words: Chironomus riparius, ribosomal protein S3, cadmium, copper; lead, environmental risk assessment.
POWER OF SOFT SKILLS DETERMINING ACADEMIC CAREER SATISFACTION: EMPIRICIAL STUDY ON RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

Recent debate on skill acquisition by employees focuses on skill shortages (lacking required skills) and skills gaps (lack proficiency in the job) (Hurrell, 2015). Technical skills are not only ones considered in this context. As mostly discussed in literature, performing a job requires several technical skills that are acquired by knowledge in cognitive sense and influenced by an individual’s intelligence. However, such skills are not enough for today, there is a need to have interpersonal, human, people or behavioral skills in order to apply technical ones in the workplace (Weber, Finley, Crawford, Rivera, 2009) that are not reliant on abstract reasoning, are involving interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities to facilitate mastered performance in particular contexts (Hurrell, Scholarios and Thompson, 2012). Thus, technical skills are discussed to complement with soft skills such as human, conceptual, interpersonal and leadership etc. to allow the proper expression, implementation and collaboration of knowledge assets (Brill, Gilfoil and Doll, 2014; Weber, Crawford, Lee and Dennison, 2013). Even there is not a precise taxonomy of such skills; in literature four categories are mostly used to define them as leadership/people/ relationship; communication; management and organization, cognitive skills and knowledge (Kantrowitz, 2005). In this context, the ultimate aim of this study is to discuss whether academician’s soft skills (e.g. communication, interpersonal relations, openmindness, positive attitudes, teamwork, creativity etc.) have an impact on their satisfaction from their career. This study also argues that without having soft skills, how a prospective academician, here Research Assistants, could prepare his students for the future demanding more than technical skills in order to manage themselves and their careers. Proposed sample consists of research assistants who are working in a state university located in Istanbul. The importance of this study lies in the changing role of educational institutions especially universities and the changing role of academia as well
LSTM based Network Traffic Volume Prediction

Predicting network traffic volume has become a popular topic recently due to its support in many situations such as detecting abnormal network activities and provisioning network services. Especially, predicting the volume of the next upcoming traffic from the series of observed recent traffic volume is an interesting and challenging problem. In past, various techniques are researched by using time series forecasting methods such as moving averaging and exponential smoothing. In this paper, we propose a long short-term memory neural network (LSTM) based network traffic volume prediction method. The proposed method employs the changing rate of observed traffic volume, the corresponding time window index, and a seasonality factor indicating the changing trend as input features, and predicts the upcoming network traffic. The experiment results with real datasets proves that our proposed method works better than other time series forecasting methods in predicting upcoming network traffic.
Non-linear multiple regression analysis for predicting seasonal streamflow using large scale climate mode

New South Wales which is one of the major contributors of Australia’s agricultural income, often undergoes extreme climate conditions like droughts and floods due to its geographical location and climatic inconsistency, resulting in high inter-annual variation in streamflow. This study presents a solution to this problem developing streamflow prediction models with long lead time scale using the statistical Multiple NonLinear Regression (MNLR) techniques. While most of the past studies were concentrated on revealing the relationship between streamflow and single concurrent or lagged climate indices, current endeavour is to explore the combined impacts of large scale climate drivers to forecast seasonal streamflow considering their relationship to be non-linear. Several oceanic and atmospheric climate indices are selected considering their influence on the streamflow of NSW which includes four major climate drivers of this region PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), IPO (Inter Decadal Pacific Oscillation), IOD (Indian Ocean Dipole) and the ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) indices. The developed models with all the possible combinations show significantly good results in terms of Pearson correlation(r), and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The outcomes of MNLR models are compared to the best models of Multiple Linear Regression(MLR) analysis which was performed in one of the previous studies of this research. MNLR models are evident to outperform the MLR models in terms of Pearson correlation (r) values in both calibration and validation stages, verifying the non-linear relationship between seasonal streamflow and large-scale climate drivers. The maximum correlations are obtained as 0.46, 0.39, 0.52 in the calibration period and 0.71, 0.85 and 0.79 in the validation period for the Singleton, Coggan and North Cuerindi stations respectively. Though the correlation values are not very high, they are statistically significant. The time series plot of the observed and simulated streamflow for the best developed models, show the limitations of this study as the models fail to predict unusual phenomenon like droughts or floods. Sophisticated non-linear models are expected to provide better predictions; thus, such methods will be attributed to the extension of this research study.
The mystery of molten metal

Recent advances in scientifi c understanding of high-temperature materials processing using novel experimental methodologies have shed light on the complex role of surface and interface phenomena. New in-situ studies on molten metal/solid ceramic interactions using a unique experimental complex at the Foundry Research Institute, Krakow, have revealed a number of unusual observations in materials processing at high temperatures. We present some such unusual observations and their explanation with reference to liquid metal processing of Al, Ni, and Ti, and their alloys in contact with oxide ceramics. In particular, we focus on the following aspects: primary oxidation of Al from residual water vapor or oxygen, capillary purification to remove surface oxide, substrate protection by CVD carbon, roughening due to spinel whisker formation, inclusions in castings due to mechanical detachment, fl oatation due to buoyancy forces, and segregation due to directional solidifi cation, modifi cation of the solid surface morphology by metal vapor ahead of the liquid, and the complication due to multi-component alloys melted in crucibles made from complex oxide-based ceramics. In the case of Ti, rapid reactions with oxides result in undesirable volumetric changes that create diffi culty in casting high-quality Ti parts, particularly by investment casting. Nanoscale (e.g., colloidal) coatings based on Y2O3 protect crucibles and hold ladles against such attack. Practical insights and recommendations for materials processing emerging from the fundamental studies on high- temperature interfacial phenomena have been described.
Unraveling scienti ﬁ c impact: Citation types in marketing journals ☆ Intern. J. of Research in Marketing

scientometrics the types, on of scienti c indebtedness the types. In typesofcitationrepresentonly15%ofallcitations.Wealso types. the determinants the effect across all types, of which only are statistically signi ﬁ cant all citation types. For a signi ﬁ cant U-effect of challenging commonly held beliefs on counts, but only three of the citation types: af rmation, and perfunctory Our ﬁ c to the
DynMR : A Dynamic Slot Allocation Framework for MapReduce Clusters in Big Data Management using DHSA and SEPB

MapReduce is one among the famous processing model for huge scale information (Big Data) processing in distributed computing. Since there may be a possibility of slot based MapReduce framework (eg. Hadoop MRv1) displaying some poor execution as a result of its unoptimized resource allocation. To venture on this, this paper finds and further streamlines the data distribution and resource allocation from the following three key perspectives. To begin with, because of the pre-configuration of the map slots and reduce slots which are not replaceable slots can be extremely under used. Since map slots may be completely used while reduce slots are empty and the other way around, considering the slot based model we set forth an option strategy called Dynamic Hadoop Slot Allocation. It unwinds the slot allocation parameters to permit slots to be reallocated to map or reduce task assignments relying upon their needs. Second the speculative execution can handle the straggler issue which sufficiently fit to enhance the execution for a job however to determine the expense of cluster proficiency. In context of this we further show Speculative Execution Performance Balancing so as to adjust the execution exchange between a single job and a batch of jobs. Third, delay scheduling has indicated to enhance the information and data locality at the fair cost. On the other hand we propose a method called Slot Pre Scheduling that can enhance the data locality yet with no effect on cost. At last by melding all the strategies together we make an orderly slot allocation framework called DynMR (Dynamic Map Reduce) which can enhance the execution of MapReduce workloads significantly.
Possibilities of competition indices to describe competitive differences between Scots pine families.

Possibilities of distance-independent and -dependent competition indices to describe the competition stress of an individual tree was studied in southern Finland. Five half-sib open-pollinated families and one check lot of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) was used as study material in order to analyse competitive interactions of crown form and stand density variation. Almost all competition indices correlated strongly with radial increment. Thus distance-independent indices were adequate to describe competition in young row plantations, where distance effects between trees were implicitly eliminated. Correlations between indices and height increment were not significant. Along with the increase in competition, the width and length of the crown and the diameter increment of the stem of some narrow-crowned families decreased slowly compared to wide-crowned families.
Capítulo 6 Cambios en los patrones espaciales durante la sucesión temprana en un deslizamiento

Questions: 1. Do the general spatial patterns of early colonization change over time and differ among the areas of the landslide? 2. Do the spatial patterns of the dominant pioneer species change over time and differ among the areas of the landslide? 3. Are there changes on the spatial patterns of germination and mortality? 4. Do the intraand inter-specific interactions differ among the areas of the landslide? Location: A large, highly heterogeneous landslide (Casita Volcano, Nicaragua). Methods: We performed point patterns analyses using univariate Ripley ́s K(t) and Van Lieshout and Baddeley ́s J(t) density functions under a null model of CSR (Complete Spatial Randomness), and bivariate extensions of these functions under null models of independence and random labelling. Results: The general spatial pattern of colonization changed substantially during early succession, and varied in the same way as the spatial patterns of the dominant pioneer species. Aggregation increased in the unstable and infertile areas of landslide because to abiotic heterogeneity, and regularity increased in the most stable and fertile areas of landslide because of the occurrence of negative interactions, as predicted by the Non-random Mortality Hypothesis. Inter-specific competition existed between Muntingia calabura and Trema micrantha, and intraspecific competition occurred among individuals of T. micrantha. The nature of the interactions shifted among the different areas of the landslide. Presence of aggregation was strongly influenced by human-induced disturbances, especially fire. Conclusions: Geomorphological stability and fertility of substrates, and presence of human disturbances, dictated spatiotemporal changes in colonization pattern, and the nature and intensity of interactions between neighbouring plants.
Determinants of behavioural intention to use e-payment system in Nigerian retail industry: A conceptual extension of UTAUT with concern for customers

A number of scholars have emphasised the need for change in business processes. These changes are often necessitated by new technological development, changing consumer preference, cultural pluralism, knowledge capital, and globalization . It is therefore paramount that business organisations must embrace change in order to survive the competitions in nowadays ever-growing technology-driven marketplace. Nigerian business environment is not in isolation in this regard, owing to the introduction of new payment process to the economy; the cash-less policy, which entails all business to change their payment process to an electronic based. There is so much resistance to change from the merchants, thus calls for a research to identify the factor that can influence the merchants to adopt the change. The volume and value of cash-based transactions in Nigeria is high and expected to rise. This is linked to non-adoption of new e-payment process introduced by the Central Bank. The adoption of Point of Sale (POS) terminal is reported to be very low. A number of researchers have used several technology adoption theories to answer a similar phenomenon, but their studies were fragmented. Thus the Unified Theory of acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) combined eight among those numerous theories and models of technology adoption, toward a unified view. However, several studies that used UTAUT and investigate behavioural intention to use technology yielded conflicting findings. Therefore the current study, based on review of past literature, observed that despite the important of customers to every business enterprise, it was found that previous researchers have neglected their influence on managers' behavioural intention. Thus the current study conceptualised that managers' behavioural intention to use POS is expected to be influenced by their concern for customers. Therefore, the current research proposed to extend UTAUT with a new construct "Concern for Customers", to enhance the current understanding of behavioural intention. Specifically, to investigate the managers' behavioural intention to use point of sale (POS) terminal in Nigerian retail industry. This research contributes in two folds; practically and theoretically. Customer is the main focus of any business enterprise, thus require attention. This concern for customer is expected to influence the decision of retail industry managers. Therefore, by incorporating this construct into technology adoption research, findings of the will help the industry players and regulators in formulating policies that considers the customer's preference. The conceptual paper compares only on the fundamental concepts and findings, thus calls for an empirical validation of the proposed framework.