Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Faculty’s and Postgraduate Students’ Awareness of and Attitudes to Using the Institutional Repository

Institutional repositories (IRs) play an essential role in preserving universities’ intellectual output, enhancing access to research, and increasing the visibility of scholars and their institutions. IRs are therefore expected to be accepted and optimally utilised by scholars. However, the literature reveals that IRs are growing at a slower pace than anticipated, and that it has not been easy to convince faculty members to contribute their work to IRs. Therefore, this study examined the awareness of the faculty and postgraduate students at the University of Swaziland (UNISWA) of their IR, and also assessed their attitudes to using their IR. The study was underpinned by the post-positivist paradigm, and the quantitative research approach was used. The study adopted a survey design with questionnaires administered to the faculty and postgraduate students. The results of the study revealed that most of UNISWA’s faculty knew about the existence of the IR, whereas the majority of the postgraduate students were not aware of it. It was established that the most popular sources of hearing about the IR were colleagues, institutional emails, and seminars and/or workshops. The results further revealed that even though the majority of the faculty was aware of the IR, very few contributed their research. The reasons cited for the poor uptake of the university’s IR included lack of awareness, few or no publications to contribute, and no time to access the IR due to heavy workloads. The faculty and postgraduate students also preferred to be assisted by librarians in archiving content in the IR. The issues discussed in this article have implications for the enhancement of research, practice, and policy in the context of developing countries.
Power Management Strategy for an Electric Vehicle Driven by Hybrid Energy Storage System

The selection, sizing, and management of energy storage system for an electric vehicle (EV) are critical while considering later's large-scale deployment. The complementary nature of battery and ultracapacitor (UC) makes the combination a suitable hybrid energy storage system (HESS) for EV since the peak to average power demand ratio is very high especially for an urban drive commonly characterized by frequent acceleration and deceleration. A suitably sized UC combined with the battery pack provides necessary high power density as well as high energy density. The HESS makes the EV more effective with improved dynamic response, higher kilometers per charge, and longer battery life. This paper presents a fuzzy logic control based power management strategy to employ UC to relieve the battery of peak discharge currents as well as rapid charging currents. The power conditioning unit limits the battery current as well as its rate of change by maintaining the UC state of charge in the desired limits. The paper presents some of the key simulation and experimental results for a prototype EV system tested for various modes of operations.
Adaptive trade-offs in fish energetics and physiology: insights from adaptive differentiation among juvenile salmonids

Juveniles of different salmonid species often co-exist along environmental gradients, making them a useful model for identifying dominant trade-off axes and their stability within a biological hierarchy (e.g., from individuals to populations to species). In this perspective, we use multivariate trade-offs among juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) as a case study to explore broader-scale patterns of trait association. Multivariate ordination identified a dominant trade-off axis between high growth, consumption, and growth efficiency versus high aerobic scope and active metabolism among individual juvenile rainbow trout and three ecologically divergent rainbow trout populations. This pattern suggests a dominant trade-off between growth and active metabolism among individuals and populations, facilitated by simple developmental controls on increased energy intake (larger digestive tract, potentially more risky foraging behavior). In contrast, the adaptive trade-off differentiating species appears to have shifted to maximizing growth and consumption (rainbow trout) versus maximizing growth efficiency (coho), based on evolved differences in foraging strategy and digestive physiology. The generality of these patterns remains uncertain, but trade-offs related to growth efficiency may be an underappreciated dimension of adaptive differentiation in fishes, and their relationship to digestive strategy and active metabolism warrants further investigation.
Walking Faster and Farther With a Soft Robotic Exosuit: Implications for Post-Stroke Gait Assistance and Rehabilitation

<italic>Objective:</italic> Soft robotic exosuits can improve the mechanics and energetics of walking after stroke. Building on this prior work, we evaluated the effects of the first prototype of a portable soft robotic exosuit. <italic>Methods:</italic> Exosuit-induced changes in the overground walking speed, distance, and energy expenditure of individuals post-stroke were evaluated statistically and compared to minimal clinically important difference scores. <italic>Results:</italic> Compared to walking without the exosuit worn, the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$< $</tex-math></inline-formula>5 kg exosuit did not substantially modify speed, distance, or energy expenditure when worn unpowered. In contrast, when powered on to provide an average 22.87 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm$</tex-math></inline-formula> 0.58 %bodyweight of paretic plantarflexor force assistance during stance phase and assist the paretic dorsiflexors during swing phase to reduce drop-foot, study participants walked a median 0.14 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm$</tex-math></inline-formula> 0.06 m/s faster during the 10-meter walk test and traveled 32 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm$</tex-math></inline-formula> 8 m farther during the six minute walk test (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P < 0.05$</tex-math></inline-formula>). <italic>Conclusions:</italic> Individuals post-stroke can leverage the paretic plantarflexor and dorsiflexor assistance provided by soft robotic exosuits to achieve clinically-meaningful increases in speed and distance.
Pythagorean fuzzy combinative distance-based assessment with pure linguistic information and its application to financial strategies of multi-national companies

Abstract This article addresses the issue of selecting Financial Strategies in Multi-National companies (F.S.M.). The F.S. M. typically has to consider multiple factors involving multiple stakeholders and, hence, can be handled by applying an appropriate Multi-Criteria Group Decision-Making (M.C.G.D.M.) approach. To address this issue, we develop an M.C. G.D. M. framework to tackle the F.S. M. problem. To handle inherent uncertainty in business decisions as reflected by linguistic reasoning, we embark on constructing a Linguistic Pythagorean Fuzzy (L.P.F.) M.C. G.D. M. framework that is capable of tackling both uncertain decision information and linguistic variables. The proposed approach extends the combinative distance-based assessment (C.O.D.A.S.) method into the L.P.F. environment, and processes decision input expressed as Pythagorean fuzzy sets (P.F.S.) and pure linguistic variables (rather than converting linguistic information into fuzzy numbers). The developed L.P.F. -C.O. D.A. S. technique aggregates the L.P.F. information and is applied to the F.S. M. problem with uncertain linguistic information. A comparative analysis is carried out to compare the results obtained from the proposed L.P.F. -C.O. D.A. S. approach with those from other extensions of C.O. D.A. S. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to check the impact of changes in a distance threshold parameter on the ranking results.
AVIAN BODY WEIGHTS FROM THE LOWER RIO XINGU BRAZIL

Bond, J. 1 WO. Tvienty-third . Supplement to the Check-list of Birds of the West Indies f 1956J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia. Bond, J. & Meyer de Schauensee, R. 1944. The Birds. Pp. 7-45 in 'Results of the fifth George Vanderbilt Expedition (1941)'. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia Monograph No. 6. Brudenell-Bruce, P. G. C. 1975. The Birds af Netn Providence and the Bahama Islands. Collins. Buden, D. W. 1987a. The Birds nf the Southern Bahamas. B.O. U. Check-list No. 8. British Ornithologists' Union, Buden. D. W. 1987b. Birds of the Cay Sal Bank and Ragged Islands,Bahamas. Florida Sci. 50:21-33. Green way, J. C. Jr. 1933. A name for the Gulden Warbler of Old Providence Island. Prat. Nets England Zool. Cl. 13: 63 bis-64 bis, Olson, 5. L. & Hilgartner. W. H, 1982, Fossil and subfossil birds from the Bahamas, Pp. 22—fifl in S. L, Olson Ed., 'Fossil vertebrates from the Bahamas'. Smithsonian Contrib. to Pateobiol. 48. Olson, S. L. , Pregill, G. K. & Hilgartner, W. B. (in press). Studies on fossil and extant vertebrates from San Salvador (Watling's Island), Bahamas. Smithsnnian Ctmtrib. to Zoology. Ridgway, R. 1914. The birds of North and Middle America. Bull. U.S. Nail. Mus. No, 50. ft 6. Short, L. L, 1982. Woodpeckers of the World. Delaware Mus. Nat. Hist., Monograph Series No. 4. Sprunt, A. 1984. The status and conservation of seabirds of the Bahama Islands. Pp. 157-168 in ). P. Croxall, P. G, H, Evans & R. W. Schreiver (Eds) 'Status and Conservation of World's Seabirds'. Internal. Coun. Bird Pres. Tech. Publ. No. 2. Wetmore, A. 1938. Bird remains from the West Indies. Auk 55: 51-55.
Reduction of Surgical Smoke in the Operating Room

Abstract In the operating room, the surgical team faces a wide range of occupational hazards, one of which is the exposure to surgical smoke. The team is regularly exposed to surgical smoke that is generated by the thermal destruction of tissue from the use of electrocautery or heat-generating devices. There has been a growing interest in the potential health hazard that exposure to surgical smoke poses, subsequently generating the need for a more robust safety practice by the surgical team. The necessity to gather evidence to support the implementation of strategies that promote adoption of a smoke-free operating room is the aim of this research. Exposure to surgical fumes can potentially have a detrimental impact on an individual's personal and professional life; thus, it is important to take measures to reduce the risk.
Magnitudes and Spatial Patterns of Interdecadal Temperature Variability in CMIP6

Attribution and prediction of global and regional warming requires a better understanding of the magnitude and spatial characteristics of internal global mean surface air temperature (GMST) variability. We examine interdecadal GMST variability in Coupled Modeling Intercomparison Projects, Phases 3, 5, and 6 (CMIP3, CMIP5, and CMIP6) preindustrial control (piControl), last millennium, and historical simulations and in observational data. We find that several CMIP6 simulations show more GMST interdecadal variability than the previous generations of model simulations. Nonetheless, we find that 100‐year trends in CMIP6 piControl simulations never exceed the maximum observed warming trend. Furthermore, interdecadal GMST variability in the unforced piControl simulations is associated with regional variability in the high latitudes and the east Pacific, whereas interdecadal GMST variability in instrumental data and in historical simulations with external forcing is more globally coherent and is associated with variability in tropical deep convective regions.
Global profiling of SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG/ IgM responses of convalescents using a proteome microarray

COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2, and has become a global pandemic. There is no highly effective medicine or vaccine, most of the patients were recovered by their own immune response, especially the virus specific IgG and IgM responses. However, the IgG/ IgM responses is barely known. To enable the global understanding of SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG/ IgM responses, a SARS-CoV-2 proteome microarray with 18 out of the 28 predicted proteins was constructed. The microarray was applied to profile the IgG/ IgM responses with 29 convalescent sera. The results suggest that at the convalescent phase 100% of patients had IgG/ IgM responses to SARS-CoV-2, especially to protein N, S1 but not S2. S1 purified from mammalian cell demonstrated the highest performance to differentiate COVID-19 patients from controls. Besides protein N and S1, significant antibody responses to ORF9b and NSP5 were also identified. In-depth analysis showed that the level of S1 IgG positively correlate to age and the level of LDH (lactate dehydrogenase), especially for women, while the level of S1 IgG negatively correlate to Ly% (Lymphocyte percentage). This study presents the first whole picture of the SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG/ IgM responses, and provides insights to develop precise immuno-diagnostics, effective treatment and vaccine.
Ultrasonic Flaw Recognition by Multi-Angle Phased Array Data Integration

This study presents a method of ultrasonic flaw identification using phased array ultrasonic inspection data. Raw data from each individual channel of the phased array ultrasonic inspection are obtained. The data trimming and de-noising are employed to retain the data within the boundary of the inspected object and remove the speckle noise components from the raw data, respectively. The resulting data are passed into a sequence of signal processing operations to identify embedded flaws. A shape-based filtering method is proposed to reduce the intensity of geometric noise components due to the non-uniform microstructures introduced in the manufacturing process. The resulting data matrices are integrated to obtain the intensity matrix of the possible flaw regions. Thresholding is applied to the intensity matrix to obtain the potential flaw regions, followed by a connected component analysis to identify the flaws. The overall method is demonstrated and validated using realistic phased array experimental data.
Phylogenetic Analysis of Bacillus cereus sensu lato Isolates from Commercial Bee Pollen Using tRNACys-PCR.

Endospore-forming bacteria related to the Bacillus cereus group produce toxins that cause illnesses in organisms from invertebrates to mammals, including foodborne illnesses in humans. As commercial bee pollen can be contaminated with these bacteria, a comprehensive microbiological risk assessment of commercial bee pollen must be incorporated into the relevant regulatory requirements, including those that apply in Mexico. To facilitate detection of members of this group of bacteria, we have developed a PCR strategy that is based on the amplification of the single-copy tRNACys gene and specific genes associated with tRNACys to detect Bacillus cereus sensu lato (B. cereus s.l.). This tRNACys-PCR-based approach was used to examine commercial bee pollen for endospore-forming bacteria. Our analysis revealed that 3% of the endospore-forming colonies isolated from a commercial source of bee pollen were related to B. cereus s.l. , and this result was corroborated by phylogenetic analysis, bacterial identification via MALDI-TOF MS, and detection of enterotoxin genes encoding the HBL and NHE complexes. The results show that the isolated colonies are closely related phylogenetically to B. cereus, B. thuringiensis, and B. bombysepticus. Our results indicate that the tRNACys-PCR, combined with other molecular tools, will be a useful approach for identifying B. cereus s.l. and will assist in controlling the spread of potential pathogens.
Catalytic activity of nickel(II) oxide nanoparticle-[C60]fullerene nanowhisker composite for reduction of 4-nitroaniline

Abstract Nickel(II) oxide nanoparticles were prepared using the sol-gel method. Subsequently, a nickel(II) oxide nanoparticle-[C60]fullerene nanowhisker composite was synthesized using the nickel oxide(II) nanoparticle dispersion, C60-saturated toluene, and isopropyl alcohol via the liquid-liquid interfacial precipitation (LLIP) method. The resulting composite was characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The catalytic activity of the nickel(II) oxide nanoparticle-[C60] fullerene nanowhisker composite for 4-nitroaniline reduction was evaluated with ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy. The kinetic study confirmed that the reduction of 4-nitroaniline using the hybrid nanocomposite followed a pseudo-first order reaction.
Troponin-T Levels Can Predict Left Ventricle Remodeling in Chronic Hemodialysis Patients

Objective: Cardiac troponin T (cTnT) is an important marker in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) in the prediction of cardiovascular outcomes. We aimed to evaluate whether cTnT levels will provide further information about left ventricular geometric pattern in CRF as the result of patient’s volume status and efficacy of hemodialysis. Method: Sixty-one patients who underwent hemodialysis three times a week for more than 3 months (mean 19 months) were included the study. One day before the mid-dialysis session, blood samples were taken from the patients in the hemodialysis program and cTnT was studied. All patients underwent echocardiographic examination one day before the second hemodialysis session of the week by the same cardiologist. Results: When the groups were compared in terms of echocardiographic volume parameters; left atrium diameter, left ventricle (LV) mass, LV mass index were found to be higher in the cTnT positive group. The eccentric LV hypertrophy pattern was significantly more frequent in the cTnT-positive group (p:0.04). Conclusion: cTnT levels increase in hemodialysis patients with eccentric LV hypertrophy as the result of hypervolemia. In conclusion, cTnT could be used as a marker of LV geometric pattern and as a method for planning the treatment modalities in hemodialysis patients.
Studies on suppression of bacterial leaf blight by rice endophytic bacteria under field condition

A total of 45 endophytic bacterial isolates were isolated from the healthy rice cultivars viz; MTU 1010, BPT 5204 and NLR 34449 cultivated in Nellore and Chittoor districts of Andhra Pradesh. All the isolated endophytic bacterial isolates were evaluated for their antagonistic effect against bacterial leaf blight (BLB) pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae by agar well diffusion method. The diameter of inhibition zone formation ranged from 0 mm to 16.8 mm. Among 45 isolates, EMP-5 and EBK-3 isolates showed highest antagonistic effect with inhibition zone of 16.8 mm and 16.6 mm, respectively. Isolate EMP 5 was used for the management of BLB under field condition. Among all the treatments, treatment T5 (i.e., seed treatment with EMP-5 @ 109 cells ml-1 + foliar application of EMP-5 @109 cells ml-1) exhibited highest reduction in disease index (4.92 %), increased plant growth promoting ability with plant height of 80.8 cm, increase in the no. of effective tillers (97.4 %), grain yield (5340 kg ha-1) and straw yield (6013 kg ha-1) over the untreated control. The results strongly emphasize that endophytic bacteria (EMP-5) could be efficiently used for management of bacterial leaf blight.
Investigation on the Efficiency of International Tourism Industry in Sri Lanka: An Application of DEA Production Frontier Approach

This study attempted at evaluating the performance of international tourism industry in Sri Lanka in terms of technical efficiency with the use of nonparametric production frontier approach which is based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). Accordingly, different DEA specifications were employed related to different combinations of outcomes of tourism industry. Official tourism receipts, direct employment generation and foreign guest nights were considered as outputs while number of beds / number of hotel rooms, international tourist arrivals and all items tourist price index was treated as inputs into the different models. Finally, a single model was estimated amalgamating all three different outputs into one model for the sample period. Findings revealed that the tourism industry has been operating inefficiently within the last three decades and have possibilities for further improvements altering the inputs of the industry since DEA efficiency scores are relative measures. It further revealed that investment on construction work such as construction of more hotels is wastage of resources and some strategies should be formulated to increase the room occupancy rate and control inflation on tourism activities in terms of the tourist prices. Marketing or promotional strategies need to be initiated to increase international visitor arrivals as well as average room occupancy rates since the industry is prevailing increasing returns to scale efficiency.
The Concentration of Personal Wealth in Italy 1995–2016

Italy is one the countries with the highest wealth-to-income ratio in the developed world. Yet, despite the growing policy interest, knowledge about the size distribution of wealth is currently limited. In this paper we expand our windows of observation on the distribution of personal wealth using a novel source on the full record of inheritance tax files. The data cover up to 63% of the deceased population and are available between 1995 and 2016, a period of substantial economic turbulence and structural reform for the Italian economy. Our benchmark results rely on the distribution of the net wealth observed in the National Accounts balance sheets. Unlike available statistics estimated from household survey data, our results point to a strong rise in wealth concentration and inequality since the mid-1990s. Whereas the level of wealth concentration in Italy is in line with those of other European countries, its time trend appears more in line with the U.S. experience. Moreover, Italy stands out as one of the countries with the strongest decline in the wealth share of the bottom 50% of the adult population. We explore the role of household wealth portfolios, accumulation patterns during the life cycle, and inheritance flows, its concentration, and taxation patterns as main drivers of the trends observed. A range of alternative series of wealth concentration helps us better understand the role of adjustments and imputations and is based on a multi-series approach, i.e., comparing the pieces of information given by different and competing sources. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper)
Accurate scale estimation for visual tracking with significant deformation

Scale variation of a target frequently appears in tasks of visual tracking. Accurate scale estimation is challenging due to deformation, occlusion, rotation, change in the view angle and diversity of tracking object categories. Most tracking methods employ an exhaustive search of scales to estimate the target scales. However, only finite and discrete scales are usually searched due to the expensive computation requirement. Here, the authors propose a novel scale estimation method based on bounding box regression (BBR). They first formulate the scale tracking as a regression problem, and search for the entire continuous scale space without being limited by a manually specified number of scales. Then they extend the original single-channel BBR to multi-channel situations, to allow for better employment of multi-channel features. To further take advantage of the time prior information of training samples, they derive a time-related sample weighted multi-channel BBR. Besides, they propose a quantitative measurement, scale divergence degree, to reflect the diversity of sampling strategy. Experimental results on OTB-2015D dataset demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves outstanding scale estimation performance for visual tracking with significant deformation.