Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methodologies for transferring DNA into eukaryotic microalgae

Agitation with glass beads, electroporation and microparticle bombardment are all used to transfer exogenous genes into unicellular eukaryotic algae (microalgae). For nuclear transformation most researchers use glass beads techniques or, to a lesser extent, electroporation, while for chloroplast transformation bombardment is often used. Glass bead agitation and electroporation require the removal of the cell wall while bombardment can be performed with intact microalgae. Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has been the microalga most commonly transformed, but success has also been reported with Volvox carteri, Chlorella spp. , Dunaliella salina, Haematococcus pluvialis, Euglena gracilis, diatoms (Phaeodactylum tricornutum, Navicula saprophila, Cyclotella cryptica and Thalassiosira weissflogii), dinoflagellates (Amphidinium klebsii and Symbiodinium microadriaticum) and red algae (Porphyridium spp and Cyanidioschyzon merolae). The first C. reinhardtii transformants produced by making use of Agrobacterium tumefaciens have also been reported. A comparison of the above methods might help provide the information necessary to successfully transform further microalgal species. Additional key words: electroporation, glass beads, particle bombardment, transformation of microalgae.
Real-time IO Trace Analysis of Smartphone Users

As the number of smartphone users increases, so do the computational power of the smartphone devices and the number of applications that exploit network and storage; however, as multiple applications are running concurrently, fighting for limited resources such as CPU and storage, it is becoming more difficult to satisfy users’ everyday needs. Although smartphone manufacturers and application developers are striving to improve the efficiency and the performance of applications, their effort seems to fall far behind in solving low IO performance problem. In this paper, we captured and analyzed IO traces of two users who exhibit different IO patterns; user1 mostly used the smartphone to listen to music and read postings on Facebook application and user2 used Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) or Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) to watch videos. From this experiment, we found the following: about 28% of all traffic was generated during 11:00 to 12:00 and 21:00 to 22:00; /data partition received 37% of all IO traffic; the number of write IOs was 12 times higher than the number of read IOs; about 33% of all IOs accessed miscellaneous files; and SQLite and SQLite-journal accesses constitute about 21% and 26% of all IOs, respectively. Keywords-component; Android, Smartphone, IO Characterization
Deconstructing dual-mode provision in a digital era

Our motivation for a special edition of the journal focusing on dual-mode provision, was in part because we were all initially working in distance education units within conventional institutions and wanted to reflect on our own practices and experiences; but it was also because we were increasingly encountering growth in similar practices in other institutions we were engaging with in forums such as the National Association for Distance Education and Open Learning in South Africa (see http://www.nadeosa.org.za/), the Distance Education Association of Southern Africa (see http://www.deasa.org/), the Distance Education and Teachers Training in Africa biennial conference (see http://www.deta.up.ac.za/) and OER Africa (see http://www.oerafrica.org/). In addition, early in 2017, one of us also visited the United States and engaged with representatives of a number of formerly single-mode contact institutions which had introduced online programmes and were attracting students from outside the states where they were located, in most cases in numbers that dwarfed the traditional contact provision. While acknowledging that this is part of a more general trend towards embracing open and flexible provision in response to changing student demands and the possibilities presented by technology (Naidu, 2017), we are reminded of Evans' (1999, p. 284) acknowledgement that the notion of ‘flexible delivery’ in the Australian context had arisen, at least partly, in response to government interventions to ‘rationalise’ distance education provision; so the approaches and practices of distance education provision within contact institutions was happening behind the scenes. More recently, King (2012) cautions that a continuing reluctance to engage explicitly with the particular demands of distance education provision may put the quality and effectiveness of such provision at risk in institutions that have become dual mode, when they were originally established as single-mode contact institutions. These reflections on the Australian context resonate with our own experiences in South and Southern Africa and suggest the need to deconstruct the notions of flexible, dual-mode and distance education provision.
EGF SIMULATION OF HIGH FREQUENCY GROUND MOTION . A CASE STUDY FOR Mw = 5 . 0 CENTRAL MARMARA FAULT EARTHQUAKE

This study aim to simulate midsize earthquake (Mw=5.0) recorded on the northwestern portion of North Anatolian Fault Zone in Marmara Sea. Computations of realistic time histories for different locations around Marmara region would be a big contribution for earthquake hazard studies. Several researchers tried to model high frequency ground motions in Marmara Region using stochastic simulation technique depends on calculated velocity structure model. Because Marmara Region has geological complexities and heterogenic crustal structure that kind of velocity model can be produced unrealistic results. The empirical Green’s function (EGF) method is one of the simplest techniques for predicting ground motion including geological heterogeneity effects. We used ground motion simulation algorithm based on EGF developed by Hutchings and Wu (1990) to obtain three dimensional time history for five different broadband stations. Similarities between recorded and simulated traces reveal that EGF method successfully represent geological heterogeneity in Marmara region.
Flexible beam shaping system for the next generation of process development in laser micromachining

Current developments in industrial laser micromachining with USP-lasers show that in new applications the process development using standard Gaussian intensity distributions is often no longer sufficient. For example complex laser processes like filament cutting or the need for a process parallelization demonstrate that there is a strong demand for shaping the laser beams focal intensity distribution in two or three dimensions. Phase modulation of the laser beam using a spatial light modulator is an effective method to electronically alter intensity distributions with high degree of freedom. In scientific literature multiple publications demonstrating the advantages of spatial light modulators (SLM) for micro processing can be found. However, until today this technology could not be transferred into an industrial product for laser micro processing. Within this paper a prototype of a fully integrated flexible beam shaping solution for machine integration is presented. Tested with average USP-laser powers of up to 60 W a powerful tool for the next generation of process development is
SBSS-DM and ANDROID : two small missions for Space-Based Space Surveillance and Active Debris Removal Demonstrations

In recent years the concern about the future exploitation of space has been growing due to the risk that uncontrolled space debris poses to the space environment and therefore to the survivability of operational spacecraft. Two main regions of concern exist, GEO, where most of the commercial telecommunications satellites orbit, and LEO, where many scientific missions observing the Earth fly. Of special concern is the sun synchronous orbit, of special interest for Earth sciences. The population of debris in this region has been growing, increasing the risk of a collision and hence the exponential increase in the number of debris. This paper intends to recall and resume the results of two projects carried out by GMV in collaboration with QinetiQ in which two different demonstration missions’ concepts targeting two central aspects of the debris remediation problem were outlined: 1) Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS-DM) and 2) Active Debris Removal (AnDROiD). In the frame of the SBSS-DM assessment study, different architecture of operational mission were evaluated and several trade-off performed so to determine which solution/s could better fulfil the users requirements with reduced costs and while minimising the associated technological risks. Similarly the AnDROiD mission was proposed as small scale missions focusing on the feasibility of removing small debris objects (100-200kg) while testing on orbit at least two different capture techniques before the actual deorbiting of the target, a net and a robotic arm.
Monitoring of Rail Track Using Guided Wave Ultrasound

Continuously welded rail track is an example of an effectively onedimensional waveguide where guided waves can propagate large distances making it possible to monitor a length of rail from a single location. In heavy duty rail lines the high axle loads and varying levels of tension in the rail cause cracks and eventually complete breakage of the rail. While inspections, using conventional ultrasonic and magnetic induction techniques, are performed periodically and repairs are made when cracks are detected a disturbingly large number of rail breaks occur around the world. Fortunately, only a small number of breaks result in train derailments. Nevertheless, the consequences of derailments led to the development of a guided wave ultrasound break detection system in South Africa. This system operates by transmitting guided waves between permanently installed transmit and receive transducers spaced approximately 1km apart. The system is currently installed on 840 km of a heavy duty rail line and is described along with performance achieved and challenges. Research being conducted to add a pulse-echo mode of operation to the system for crack detection, location and monitoring is presented. This includes hybrid FESAFE modelling of the interaction of guided wave modes with different cracks and field measurements of reflections from welds using transducer arrays and model – based signal processing. Results indicate that it should be possible to detect cracks in the rail head at long range. Detection of cracks in the foot of the rail remains a difficult but important challenge.
Design of a Spherical Robot With Cable-Actuated Driving Mechanism

This paper presents the kinematics and dynamics of a spherical robot with a mechanical driving system that consists of four cable-actuated moving masses. Four cable-pulley systems control four tetrahedrally-located movable masses and the robot functions by shifting its center of mass to create rolling torque. The cable actuation decreases overall mass and, therefore, allow for less energy expenditure, as compared to other moving mass mechanisms that translate the masses by powered-screws. Additionally, the design allows the center of mass for the static (spherical shell, electronics, motors etc.) and dynamic mass (moving masses) to be at the geometric center at any given time, therefore has potential for tumbleweeding when needed. The derived equations of motion are verified by means of simulations.
Recovering Displacements and Transients from Strong Motion Records Using the Wavelet Transform

Recovering the displacement time history from the acceleration record has been the subject of much research over several decades. The problem is caused by drifts in the baseline of the acceleration time history, which after double-time integration lead to dc shifts in the velocity and linear and/or quadratic trends in the displacement time history. This paper demonstrates a method yields results which other methods have not been able to produce. The core of the method is the application of the bi-orthogonal wavelet transform with which to filter and decimate the time history. This produces a low-frequency time series (the ‘fling’) as well as the higher frequencies. The acceleration offsets and dc shifts are automatically corrected by the algorithm. It is inferred that the recovered transients may be due to ground tilts/rotations. The results are based on the 1999 Chi-Chi event using stations TCU052 and TCU129.
The Influence of Endwall Contouring and Fillet Shapes on the Performance of Transonic Turbine Stage Nozzle Guide Vane

The present study is intended to investigate numerically the effect of fillet and axisymmetric endwall shapes on loss reduction in a highly loaded low aspect ratio transonic turbine stage. The fillets and endwall contouring shapes are applied over nozzle guide vanes. The aerodynamic performance of two contoured endwalls with and without fillets are studied and results are compared with the base case (cylindrical endwall). The 3D viscous compressible analysis is carried out using commercial CFD Code CFX-14.5 using SST k-ω turbulence model. Maximum reduction of 30.6% in mass averaged total pressure loss coefficient is achieved for endwall contour having S-type variation along with fillet.
FACTORS INFLUENCING PROJECT PERFORMANCE AMONG KENYAN UNIVERSITIES IN KISUMU COUNTY

Performance of the project is considered as a source of concern to both public and private sector clients. The main purpose of the study was to assess the factors influencing project performance among Kenyan Universities in Kisumu County. The study used a combination of cross-sectional and descriptive survey. In this particular study the population was made up of 12 project managers and 124 employees. The study employed stratified random sampling technique in which the researcher sub-divided his population into 4 public universities. Purposive sampling technique was used to draw a sample from population. In this study the sample consisted 30% of the target population. This study employed the use of questionnaires for project manager. A value of Cronbach alpha above 0.70 was used as a reasonable test of scale reliability. This entailed the use of mode, percentages for descriptive statistics and chi square for inferential statistics. Multiple regression model enabled the researcher to test the hypothesis stated. The study found that planning, management support, human capital, communication and monitoring evaluation have a positive and significant effect on project performance. The availability of professional evaluators has also made it possible for regular check of input activities. High performance is evidenced since the prescribed amount of work is accomplished within the stipulated time. There is also need for highly qualified personnel for the project and employees that are committed to working for the project. There therefore imperative for project planners to define the project objectives.
ADAPTATION OF METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS OF READING STRATEGIES INVENTORY : TURKISH HIGHER EDUCATION SAMPLE

Metacognition in reading or metacognitive awareness of reading strategies is considered an important factor enhancing reading comprehension and distinguishing skilled from unskilled readers. The aim of the study is to adapt the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) to Turkish higher education students. The study comprised of 437 students from a state university in Turkey. For research purposes; the translation of the original scale from English to Turkish was performed with the assistance of eight linguists with a high proficiency in both Turkish and English languages, one program development expert and one testing and evaluation expert, the factor structure was investigated with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the reliability was identified with McDonald's Omega (ω), and the criterion validity was examined with the use of Metacognitive Skills Scale (MSS) and Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). CFA analyses confirmed the three-dimensional structure of the scale with fit indices varying from good to almost good. Positive significant relationships were found between MARSI, MSS and SILL. McDonald’s Omega was found as . 93 for the whole scale. It is suggested that the Turkish version can be used as a tool to increase higher education students’ metacognitive awareness and use of strategies while reading and is expected to benefit researchers and practitioners in higher education. * Dr., Milli Savunma Üniversitesi, Kara Astsubay Meslek Yüksekokulu, El-mek: tolgasensei@gmail.com ** Doç. Dr., Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Buca Eğitim Fakültesi, El-mek: irfan.ybakan@gmail.com 670 Tolga ERDOĞAN İrfan YURDABAKAN Turkish Studies Volume 13/19, Summer 2018 STRUCTURED ABSTRACT
GENETIC DIVERSITY ANALYSIS OF COTTON ( Gossypium hirsutum L . ) GENOTYPES USING RAPD MARKERS

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L. 2n=52, family: Malvaceae) is one of the most important commercial fiber and oil yielding crop in India. Genetic variability and relationships among fifteen cotton genotypes were investigated using six RAPD primers. These primers amplified a total of 61 bands/alleles out of which 55 bands were polymorphic (90.16 %) with an average of 9.16 bands per primer. The primer OPA-07, OPA-18 and OPD-05 demonstrated 100 % polymorphism. The polymorphic information content (PIC) was recorded from 0.858 to 0.903. The phylogenetic tree constructed by UPGMA method generated two main clusters, (cluster I and II) with a genotype G. Cot-18 grouped as solitary in cluster I. The cluster II consisted of rest of the genotypes grouped together in their respective subclusters. Large numbers of single type of markers could be screened for genetic diversity in cotton genotypes and utilized diverse genotypes in crop improvement programme to enhance crop productivity of cotton.
Effects of Copper Slag as Partial Replacement for Fine Aggregate in Geopolymer Concrete Neethu

In recent years the rise of concrete production costs has always been a concern of concrete producers and consumers. Using industrial waste to replace cement and part of aggregate can reduce its cost and environmental pollution. In this study, an attempt has been done to use supplementary cementitious materials such as Flyash and GGBFS as replacement for the cement and industrial by product such as copper slag as partial replacement for fine aggregate in concrete. The strength, durability and bond strength characteristics of fly ash and GGBFS based geopolymer concrete with and without the fine aggregate replacement have been compared. The results indicated that geopolymer concrete with 40% copper slag as fine aggregate replacement showed an improvement of 17.5%, 13.94% and 22.72% in the 28 th day compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and flexural strength respectively in comparison with the geopolymer concrete without copper slag, but in terms of durability of geopolymer concrete, it is found to be more water absorbent.
Prevention of Stealthy Attacks through Privacy Mechanism in Wireless Ad hoc Networks

Objectives: Stealthy attacks are a kind of attacks which injects route fabrication information and producing false identification in network. In this paper, we evaluate these two stealthy attacks against a privacy mechanism as Distinct Authentication Key Approach (DAKA) in MANET. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Wireless networks are becoming the most popular in today communication systems, where users prefer to have wireless connectivity regardless of its geographic location. However, the openness of wireless communications increases the threat to MANET under its conditions. It is very challenging to validate false identify in a stealthy node behaviour as it gives a normal impression and in case of route fabrication they modify the routing path which leads a high number of packet loss. The DAKA provides a Secure Route Discovery Mechanism and data routing through a privacy and certificate authentication methodology. Findings: We evaluate the proposed approach by measuring Packet Delivery Ratio, Avg. End-to-End Delay, Control Overhead and Packet Drop Ratio with varying the number of malicious nodes in a fixed number of nodes and traffic. Application/ Improvements: The simulation experiment result shows successfully alleviation of the malicious nodes and achieves the needed performance.
ACCURACY OF BONE AND CARTILAGE MODELS OBTAINED FROM CT AND MRI 1

Accurate three-dimensional (3D) models of bone and cartilage are required to estimate joint surface interactions, such as cartilage-to-cartilage contact patterns and to evaluate tissue response to load, intervertebral disc strain or cartilage strain, during in vivo movement. Information obtained from these highly accurate 3D models can be used to evaluate the efficacy of different surgical techniques and to track disease progression, for example cartilage thinning in osteoarthritis.
Fusion Fourier descriptors from the EM

The target recognition from Radar images was a crucial step in our research. This paper presents a process a nd an adopted approach f or Automatic Target recognition using Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) image . Indeed, the process adopted is composed of three steps. In the first step , we achieve the edge detection using of three techniques : Fisher, K - means and Expectation - M aximization (E - M) . Each of these techniques is combined with Watersheds (WS) algorithm to obtain the closed target shape. In order to ensure that the shape descriptors must be accurate, compact and invariant to several geometrical transformations (tran slation, rotation, scal e, etc.), we have used Fourier Descriptor computed on each obtained shape. To achieve a classification task in the last step, several techniques can be used to perform recognition tasks. We have used the nearest - neighbor classifier to retrieve a nearest kn own target for each unknow n target in the test dataset. Finally, in order to validate our proposed approach a database of ISAR images reconstructed from anechoic chamber simulations will be used . The simulation results using Fisher, E - M and K - Means method s will be presented in the last section of this paper
Comparative Precipitation of Heavy Organics from Wellhead , Separator and Flowline Crude Oil Samples using hydrocarbon solvents of different chain length

The effect of difference in carbon number of the n-alkane precipitants on the precipitation of heavy organics from wellhead, separator and flowline crude oil samples was studied. N-pentane, n-hexane, n-heptane and their corresponding binary mixtures were used to precipitate the heavy organics from the crude oils using the simple or normal laboratory precipitation method. The result obtained showed that n-pentane precipitant yielded the highest precipitate at the three locations of the production system while n-heptane yielded the least precipitate (nC5> nC6 > nC7). Similarly, 1:1 nC5:nC6 binary mixtures recorded the highest precipitates while 1:1 nC6:nC7 recorded the least (1:1 nC5:nC6> 1:1 nC5:nC7> 1:1 nC6:nC7). The result is in agreement with previous reports that the lower carbon number n-alkane precipitants yield more precipitate than the higher carbon number. Crude oils from wellhead showed the highest precipitation tendency followed by those from Flowline and Separator.