Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Perceived Career Development Opportunities in Predicting Employee Commitment and Subjective Career Satisfaction of Middle Managers in Commercial Banks in Sri Lanka

In today’s dynamic and uncertain employment climate, both employers and employees must play an active role in the development of employee careers. This research fills a gap in the existing literature by evaluating the role of organizational career development opportunities in predicting subjective career satisfaction and commitment of employees in a developing country context. Under-standing the impact of career development opportunities provided by the employer and their effects on subjective career satisfaction and commitment is important to both the organization and the individual in the current uncertain and unpredictable employment climate. Data were collected, via an online survey, from 224 middle managers of commercial banks in Sri Lanka, and evaluated using multiple hierarchical regression analysis. The findings, which have important implications for policymakers, indicate that the employee's perception of the provision of career development opportunities by the organization promotes them to develop their subjective career satisfaction and commitment. These outcomes provide implications to the extended model of social cognitive career theory and Meyer and Allen's model of commitment. In terms of policy implications, the organizations should create a supportive career development culture to build a belief in employees that the organization they work for cares about their career needs. This belief can be built by considering individual employees’ personal career goals in the implementation of career development programs and informing employees about available career development opportunities within the organization. The limitations of the study and the directions for future research are also discussed.
A Quantitative Approach for Determining Lung Cancer Nodule using Fuzzy Connectedness Technique in CT scan Images

In males the most common reason for the death nowadays is lung cancer. From the past few years computed tomography has gained its popularity in detection of lung cancer. The application of image processing has increased day by day. The lungs are a pair of spongy, air filled organs located on either side of the chest. Lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking and passive smoking. This paper proposes a method for segmentation of lung cancer based on lung region, tumour intensity, blood vessels intensity and threshold. This study shows the outcome of applying image processing operation like, pre-processing and segmentation. Proposed work uses the fuzzy connectedness technique. The Lung segmentation method shows the quantitative results such as fast, strong and improves the performance of strong clinical tasks.
A New Approach to the Irreversible Investment Problem

This paper solves the irreversible investment decision problem under uncertainty by a new real options method. It yields a Shadow Net Present Value rule such that the investment is triggered only when the shadow revenue of the investment reaches the investment cost. This paper hence corrects and extends the conventional Net Present Value (NPV) rule by ﬁguring out the proper NPV of the investment. Meanwhile, the investment policy is shown to be correct and consistent with the real options theory since the shadow revenue records the economic value of the investment by deducting the option premium of waiting from the real revenue. This method allows for a generalization of the conventional analysis to all semi-martingale processes with deterministic or stochastic discount rates. Especially, we provide an explicit characterization of the threshold value when the uncertainty is speciﬁed as an exponential L´evy process. To highlight the signiﬁcance of risk preferences on the decision rule, this paper also addresses the utility-based extension of the standard real option model. The investment policy in such a model is identiﬁed in the same form as that in the proﬁt-maximization problem but signalled by the shadow utility process . The joint eﬀect of risk aversion and jumps on the trigger value is analyzed through examples.
Design and Assist-as-Needed Control of an Intrinsically Compliant Robotic Orthosis for Gait Rehabilitation

ii Acknowledgements . iv List of Figures . ix List of Tables . xii List of Acronyms, Abbreviations and Mathematical Notations . xiii Chapter 1. Human Gait Rehabilitation: A Review. 1 1.1. Human Gait . 1 1.2. Spinal Cord Injuries and Stroke as Causes of Gait Disorders . 2 1.3. Conventional Gait Rehabilitation: Theory and Practice . 3 1.4. Robot Assisted Gait Rehabilitation . 5 1.5. Robotic Orthoses for Treadmill Training . 6 1.5. 1. Commercial robotic orthoses . 7 1.5. 2. Research prototype robotic orthoses . 8 1.6. Gait Training Strategies . 10 1.6. 1. Trajectory tracking . 11 1.6. 2. Impedance control . 11 1.6. 3. Adaptive control . 13 1.7. Training Protocols and Evaluation Methods . 15 1.8. Literature Findings and Research Motivation . 17 1.8. 1. Robotic orthosis Design . 17 1.8. 2. Trajectory tracking Control . 19 1.8. 3. Muscle activation patterns during robot assisted gait . 19 1.8. 4. Impedance control for interactive gait training . 20 1.8. 5. Assist-as-Needed gait training . 21 1.9. Research Outline . 22 1.9. 1. Problem definition . 22 1.9. 2. Research objectives . 23 1.10. Thesis Overview . 24 1.11. Chapter Summary . 26 Chapter 2. Robotic Orthosis Design . 28 2.
Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria in Nigerian Fermented Food Condiments

Food borne diseases remain a growing public health problem gotten through the consumption of contaminated food and water. A world health organization report, 2015 estimated 600million episodes of illness due to contaminated food worldwide. Amongst all age groups, Africa bore the greatest burden of diarrhoeal diseases. Gram-negative bacteria have become a significant challenge to the control of infection as a result of acquisition of antibiotic resistant genes. This is especially of concern in Nigeria where fermented condiments are important part of daily meals and sometimes consumed without cooking. This work thus identifies Gram negative bacteria from fermented condiments and evaluates the antibiotic resistance profile of the bacterial isolates. The fermented condiments- Iru (Parkia biglobosa) (67), Ogiri-igbo (Ricinus communis) (58), Ukpaka (Pentaclethra macrophylla) (22) and Okpei (Prosopis africana) (42), were obtained from markets in Abuja, Gboko, Lokoja, Okenne, Abeokuta, Ibadan, Ijebu-Ode, Ilorin, Lagos, Ondo and Ore. Coliform and faecal coliform test was done. Isolation of the Gram-negative bacteria was done using MacConkey agar. Taxonomic studies were carried out on the isolated Gram negative bacteria. Determination of antibiotic resistance profile of the Gram-negative bacteria was done by disc diffusion method. Ukpaka (Pentaclethra macrophylla) samples had the highest percentage occurrence of coliforms (100%). Faecal coliform were more prevalent in Ukpaka (20%) and Iru (16.67%). Klebsiella pneumonia was prevalent in the 3 of the fermented condiments (Iru, Ogiri and Ukpaka). Escherichia coli was the most frequent Gram-negative bacteria in Okpei samples. The relatively high recovery rates of Gram-negative bacteria shows possible contamination of fermented condiments by human pathogens. The isolates from Ukpaka showed the highest resistance (55.3%) to Cotrimoxazole. The effect of the resistance of Gram-negative bacteria to antibiotics could be transmission of resistant strains from farm to house, treatment failure and a limited choice of antibiotics used for treatment.
ENZYMATIC HYDROLYSIS AS A MEANS OF RECOVERING BOVINE HIDES: LABORATORY AND MEDIUM SCALE TRIALS, CHARACTERIZATION OF HYDROLYSATES AND SCALE-UP TO SEMI-INDUSTRIAL SCALE

A current hot topic in the field of environmental protection and development of valua ble new products is represented by the recovery of food waste from the meat sector. The present study focused on the recovery of bovine hides by means of a sustainable method. Enzymatic hydrolysis was selected as a potential green methodology for use in the production of protein hydrolysates to be applied on an industrial scale. For this purpose, the enzymatic hydrolysis of bovine hides with Alcalase was investi-gated following a multiscale approach: lab-scale, medium-scale and semi-industrial pilot plant. Alcalase proved to be highly efficient due to its ability to degrade collagen, the main protein of hides. Under optimized conditions, the hydrolysis of hides at lab-and medium-scales resulted in approx. 85% protein solubilisation after 6 hours, with a consistent release of free amino acids and a degree of hydrolysis of 17-19%. How-ever, in the pilot plant, solubilisation decreased due to difficulties in mixing bovine hides in the reactor, which was compensated with a longer reaction time to achieve virtually total protein solubilisation ( ∼ 98%). The present data therefore demonstrate the applicability of the process at semi-industrial scale in protein recovery with a reduced amount of waste by-products.
Structure of the Rat xl-Acid Glycoprotein Gene

The complete nucleotide sequence of the rat oal-acid glycoprotein gene has been determined from an isolated lambda recombinant bacteriophage. Southern blot analysis and DNA sequencing indicate that there is only one gene per genome; it contains six exons and is located within a 3,200-base-pair fragment starting from a TATA box and extending to the polyadenylation signal AATAAA. Transcription starts 37 base pairs upstream from the beginning of the translation codon ATG. The TATA box (TATAAA) lies 26 base pairs upstream from this site. The gene contains several potential glucocorticoid receptor-binding sites, both inside and outside the structural gene.
Isolation of Lactic Acid Bacteria from Tarhana

Tarhana is a staple food in Turkey and produced mainly by the fermentation of wheat flour and yogurt. There are variations in its use, it can be consumed as a snack, or as a soup, and its exact ingredients vary between different geographical regions. Our study aims to isolate and identify lactic acid bacteria in tarhana samples via biochemical and molecular biology identification techniques. Three different tarhana samples were studied for bacterial Gram reactions, catalase activity, gas production, growth at 10°C and 45°C, in 6% and 16% NaCl concentrations and at pH 4,4 and pH 9,6 for the biochemical tests. For the molecular biology experiments, PCR-RFLP, sequencing and RAPD-PCR were performed to identify organisms at the species and strain level.
Ε FFECTS OF β -B LOCKERS AND A NXIETY ON C OMPLI CATION R ATES A FTER A CUTE M YOCARDIAL I NFARCTION

Background Anxiety is common after acute myocardial infarction and increases the number of complications and the length of stay in the hospital. Anxiety-induced activation of the sympathetic nervous system is hypothesized to be an underlying cause of increased complication rates. Little is known about whether use of β -blockers eliminates the effects of anxiety on complication rate and length of stay. The in
Real time data colection and processing for aircraft maintenance enhancement (REACT)

– REACT aims to develop an innovative real-time Aircraft/Ground framework to collect, transmit and concentrate aircraft and ground data. This data will be processed to offer maintenance services information for predicting, planning-ahead and supporting aircraft maintenance execution. In the scope of REACT, features of new mobile tools will be also researched with the objective of enhancing the efficiency of maintenance execution.
Smart Cities: A Systematic Mapping on an Academic Basis and

Smart Cities belong to a multidisciplinary research area, which does not yet have a formal definition and may have different meanings depending on the context. In view of this, the objective of this work is to map the term "Smart City" in the scientific field. For such, the scientific publications present in Scopus' data base, accessed by the Periodicals portal of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel (CAPES), were researched. As results, 61,435 publications were found, which after the inclusion criteria, 632 publications remained to be analyzed. China was the country that presented the largest number of publications with a total of 94 documents. The analysis of annual publications showed that there was an increase in the number of publications over the years, especially between 2018 and 2019. The main contributions of this work were the provision of a knowledge base that can be used by both scientists and researchers and developers of the organizations, identifying gaps and opportunities to be explored. Abstract Smart Cities belong to a multidisciplinary research area, which does not yet have a formal definition and may have different meanings depending on the context. In view of this, the objective of this work is to map the term "Smart City" in the scientific field. For such, the scientific publications present in Scopus' data base, accessed by the Periodicals portal of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel (CAPES), were researched. As results, 61,435 publications were found, which after the inclusion criteria, 632 publications remained to be analyzed. China was the country that presented the largest number of publications with a total of 94 documents. The analysis of annual publications showed that there was an increase in the number of publications over the years, especially between 2018 and 2019. The main contributions of this work were the provision of a knowledge base that can be used by both scientists and researchers and developers of the organizations, identifying gaps and opportunities to be explored.
4 Feature-index-based similar shape retrieval

Efficient retrieval of images containing matching (or similar) shapes is an important prob lem in image database management. A few shape similarity-based image retrieval tech niques have been reported in the literature. Most of these techniques are designed to deal only with images of rigid objects and cannot easily handle shape similarity-based retrieval of images of articulated objects (i.e., objects with one or more joints with movable com ponents). Some of these techniques are incapaole of handling images of overlapping and touching objects. In this paper, a new feature-index-based shape similarity-based image retrieval technique, which is capable of handling images of rigid as well as articulated objects, is proposed. The proposed technique can also retrieve images of overlapping and touching objects that satisfy the query constraints. In this approach structural com ponents of a shape called features are represented as points in a multidimensional space. Any multidimensional point access index structure can be used to organize shape features. Given a query shape or image, a query shape feature is selected and similar (or matching) shape features belonging to images in the database are found by searching the feature index structure. If the query shape and a stored shape containing any of the retrieved matching features are found to be similar (or satisfy similarity constraints), the stored shape is included in the response to the query.
Driver Fatigue Detection Based on SVM

Driver fatigue is an important factor that causes traffic accidents.It can prevent traffic accidents to install a fatigue detection system in the car.In the real conditions,the driver's head and eyes are in motion,this makes the fatigue feature extraction become more difficult.External interference and the impact of lighting also make it a challenging problem to determine accurately the driver's fatigue.A method to detect driver fatigue with support vector machine is introduced.First,the video of driver's head is captured,and then the video images are processed,features of the eyes,mouth,nodding frequency of head are extracted,at last,support vector machines are used to determine the driver's fatigue status.The experiment results show that fatigue detection accuracy rate reached 97.80%,and the method is suitable for driver fatigue detection.
INITIAL DEVELOPMENT AND SAMPLE DIMENSIONING OF RUBBER TREE CLONES DESENVOLVIMENTO INICIAL E DIMENSIONAMENTO AMOSTRAL EM CLONES

: The current success of rubber cultivation is related to the use of clones adapted to different edaphoclimatic regions. Hence, it is important to evaluate variables that are correlated with yield. However, a common problem is choosing the plot dimensions where these variables will be measured. In view of the above, the objective of this work was to evaluate the initial development of two rubber tree clones and to determine the ideal sample unit size to characterize trunk circumference, tree height and bark thickness. The variables circumference at breast height (CBH), total height (Ht) and bark thickness (BT) were measured in seven plots of 680.4 m², in addition to determining the plot size to satisfactorily sample each of the variables measured in each clone, 52 months after planting. At 52 months, clone RRIM 937 showed better development than RRIM600 in relation to the analyzed variables. The ideal sample unit size is different for the variables in the following order: trunk circumference> total height> bark thickness. The measurement of plots with 15 trees is adequate to represent the variability of the analyzed variables, considering the acceptable error of 10%.
Subthreshold Nanosecond Laser Treatment of Intermediate AMD without Reticular Pseudodrusen: Real-world Three-year Follow-up Study

Abstract Background Subthreshold nanosecond laser (SNL) has been proposed to reduce the risk of intermediate age-related macular degeneration (iAMD) progressing to late AMD. The phase 3 LEAD Study post-hoc analysis indicates a potentially large benefit from SNL treatment of eyes without reticular pseudodrusen. This real-world study reports the three-year outcomes of SNL treatment of iAMD without reticular pseudodrusen (RPD). Methods An observational retrospective single-centre cohort study of all patients with iAMD, centre-involving large soft drusen without RPD, treated with SNL and with three-year follow up. The primary outcome measured was progression to late AMD; neovascular AMD (nAMD) or geographic atrophy (GA). Results There were 120 eyes of 64 patients. At baseline, the cohort had a high-risk profile; drusen median area, volume and largest diameter were 0.70mm2 (IQR: 0.20 to 1.50), 0.03mm3 (IQR: 0.01 to 0.08) and 835m (IQR: 446.50 to 1398.50) respectively and hyperreflective foci were present in 56.67% and hyporeflective drusen cores in 25.83%. Eyes had a mean of 3.03 treatments. By three years, progression to late AMD occurred in 5.83% of eyes, all to GA. Mean visual acuity declined very slightly. Conclusion The three-year progression rate was low compared with published 36-month natural histories for iAMD without RPD. The progression rate was similar to the LEAD study SNL-treated group without RPD. This study supports the hypothesis that SNL for the iAMD without RPD may reduce progression to late AMD. Further investigation is warranted.
Universality of universal health coverage: A scoping review

Background: Universal health coverage (UHC) is achieved in the primary healthcare pathways. UHC is about population coverage, services coverage and financial protection. Tracer indicators are used to measure the progress towards UHC. There is inadequate evidence that assesses the extent of the universality of UHC. Evidence is, therefore, needed to map the existing literature and summarize the issues covered in the dimensions of UHC. Methods: A systematic search was carried out in the Web of Science and PubMed databases. Hand searches were also conducted to find articles from Google Scholar, the World Bank Library, the World Health Organization Library, the United Nations Digital Library Collections, and Google. Articles on UHC coverage, financial risk protection, quality of care, and inequity were included. A stepwise approach was used to identify and select relevant studies, conduct data charting, collation and summarization, as well as report results. Simple descriptive statistics and narrative synthesis were used to present the findings. Results: Forty-seven papers were included in the final review. One-fourth of the articles (25.5%) were from the African region and 29.8% were from lower-middle-income countries. More than half of the articles (54.1%) used a quantitative research approach. Of included articles, coverage was assessed by 53.2% of articles; financial risk protection by 27.7%, inequity by 25.5% and quality by 6.4% of the articles as their main research objectives or mentioned in the result section. Most (42.5%) of the articles investigated health promotion and 2.1% palliation and rehabilitation services. Policy and health care level and cross-cutting barriers were identified in the progress of UHC. Conclusions: The results of the study showed that majorities of evidence were from the African region. Methodologically, the quantitative approach was a more frequently used research design to investigate UHC. Palliation and rehabilitation health care services need attention in the analysis of the progress towards UHC. The finding of the current evidence is noteworthy to focus on the quality and inequity of health services in future UHC research. Comprehensive evidence is needed to fully understand and progressively realize UHC.
Assessment of genetic diversity in a set of rice ( Oryza sativa L.)genotypes using molecular markers

Assessment of genetic diversity in a set of rice ( sativa L) genotypes using molecular marker. Abstract The assessment of genetic diversity in the germplasm is an essential pre requisite for a breeding programme. In the present study genetic diversity was analysed in a set of 94 genotypes evaluated for various yield attributes under high temperature stress using 48 SSR primers. A total of 129 alleles were detected by 48 primers among 94 rice genotypes with an average of 2.7 alleles per primer. The number of alleles generated by each marker varied from 1 to 4. The Polymorphism Information Content values ranged from 0.19 to 0.60 with an average of 0.41. Twenty six SSR primers revealed PIC values higher than the average. The genetic dissimilarity index ranged from 0.04 to 0.92. The dendrogram generated using DAR with indicated that the 94 genotypes were clustered into three distinct clusters with two sub clusters in each cluster. The selected genotypes will be useful in the on-going breeding programme and will help in broadening the genetic base of the breeding material
Aggressive and mild Potato virus Y isolates trigger different speciﬁc responses in susceptible potato plants

Differences in the early responses of two potato cultivars, Igor and Nadine, to two isolates of Potato virus Y (PVY), the aggressive PVY NTN and the mild PVY N , were monitored. Microarray and quantitative real-time PCR analyses were carried out to identify differentially expressed genes after inoculation with each virus isolate. Additionally, symptom severity and development was observed and the amount of virus isolate accumulated in systemically infected leaves was evaluated, where a signiﬁcantly higher amount of PVY NTN was detected. Microarray analysis revealed 572, 1288 and 1706 differentially expressed genes at 0 Æ 5, 12 and 48 h post-inoculation, respectively in cv. Igor, with a similar pattern observed in cv. Nadine. Microarray and quantitative real-time PCR results implied an earlier accumulation of sugars and lower photosynthesis in leaves inoculated with the aggressive isolate than in leaves inoculated with the mild isolate. The PVY NTN isolate did not activate early differential expression of the Fe-superoxide dismutase and pectin methylesterase inhibitor (PMEI) genes, indicating a delay in plant response relative to that following PVY N inoculation. Differences in the expression of the b -glucan-ase-I gene were also observed in early plant responses to inoculation with each virus isolate. N isolate. Microarray hybridization