Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Provocative Event, Media, and Religious Choice: The Pussy Riot Case as a Natural Experiment

This paper uses the famous events related to Pussy Riot as a natural experiment to examine the effect of alternative media on church membership. A differences-in-differences strategy is used to explore the effect in question. The hypothesis is that, given a lack of religious background on the majority of the population and strong temporal interest in religious issues promoted by some provocative event, mass media can substantially affect religious choice. To check if this is the case, we compare the dynamics of religious choice of those exposed to alternative media reports on church topics and the rest of the people. As a proxy of familiarity with an alternative view, we use a dummy variable for using Internet. Our main result is that, during the experiment run over the year 2012, the growth of self-reported Orthodox and strict Orthodox believers was significantly lower in the treatment group than in the control group. Exposure to alternative media coverage turned out to heavily affect religious choice.
Allelopathic potential of Argemone mexicana L. a tropical weed

Effect of Argemone mexicana L. on seed germination and early seedling growth of six crop species was investigated. Aqueous extract of A. mexicana inhibited germination, root and shoot growth of all the test species. The species showed differential response. Germination was reduced by the aqueous shoot extract in the order: pearlmillet > mustard > wheat> carrot> corn > turnip. Root length was reduced in the order:corn> pearl-millet> wheat > mustard > turnip> carrot, whereas shoot length was reduced in the order: pearl-millet> wheat> corn > turnip> mustard > carrot. Decaying A. mexicana in sandy loam soil at a rate of 5,10,20 g / 400 g soil substantialy inhibited germination and seedling growth of pearl-millet. Bioassay of the extract of A. mexicana revealed three phenolic inhibitors and paper chromatography revealed the presence of p-hydroxybenzoic, vanillic and salicylic acids.
Controlled release formulation of levocetirizine dihydrochloride by casein microparticles

The study aims to develop a microparticulate casein based delivery system by the controlled drug delivery approach using Levocetirizine dihydrochloride as the model drug. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) studies substantially indicates the presence of molecularly dispersed drug within the particles with preserved stability during microencapsulation. In vitro release studies of levocetirizine dihydrochloride loaded microparticles were performed by simulating the condition of gastrointestinal tract, and showed the minimal drug leakage (less than 5%) at acidic pH (1.2) and significantly higher release at basic pH (7.4). The results were found to be critical in confirming the role of casein microparticles as potential candidate for the controlled and targeted release of levocetirizine dihydrochloride. Key words: Extended release, casein, levocetirizine dihydrochloride, steric stabilization.
Optimal workplacement for robotic friction stir welding task

Robotic manipulators are widely used in industry for welding processes. Inadequate joint stiffness in the manipulators often limits their use for high quality welding operations because of the deformation errors produced during the process. As a matter of fact, welding quality deteriorates with decreasing joint stiffness. This paper presents an approach to determine an optimal workspace of operation by minimizing the lateral deflection errors in position and orientation of the end effector during Friction Stir Welding. This has been done by estimating the errors in position and orientation of the end effector, also the point of contact with work piece which directly affects welding quality, when it experiences a wrench during welding operation. The technique was applied to an elastodynamic model of a 6 DOF manipulator with different path constraints for welding process to achieve optimal task placement. In a nutshell, optimal starting position or an optimal direction of motion for best welding quality can be precisely computed or even both together can be calculated but with numerical complexity.
A semicoherent glitch-robust continuous-gravitational-wave search method

Isolated nonaxisymmetric rotating neutron stars producing continuous-gravitational-wave signals may undergo occasional spin-up events known as glitches. If unmodeled by a search, these glitches can result in continuous wave signals being missed or misidentified as detector artifacts. We outline a semicoherent glitch-robust search method that allows identification of continuous wave signal candidates that contain glitches and inferences about the model parameters. We demonstrate how this can be applied to the follow-up of candidates found by wide-parameter space searches. We find that a Markov chain Monte Carlo method outperforms a grid-based method in speed and accuracy.
Cache Me If You Can: Reflections on Geocaching from Junior/Intermediate Teacher Candidates

Junior/Intermediate teacher candidates were introduced to a geocaching activity (a high-tech scavenger hunt using hand-held GPS devices) that addressed the two principal strands from the Social Studies curriculum in Ontario, Canada, namely; (a) Heritage and Citizenship and (b) Canada and World Connections as well as specific expectations from the Mathematics, Health and Physical Education, Language and Literacy, and Science and Technology curriculae. Through a mixed-methods research design, surveys and reflective journal entries were analyzed to determine the attitudes, perspectives, and opinions of teacher candidates. Results have determined that the vast majority of participants found the geocaching experience vastly efficacious and highly valuable. Specifically, participants responded favourably to six principal categories, namely; (a) fun and enjoyment, (b) discovery learning, (c) space and place learning, (d) future application considerations, (e) cross-curricular integration ideas, and (f) social skills application.
An Observation Data Driven Simulation and Analysis Framework for Early Stage C. elegans Embryogenesis

Recent developments in cutting-edge live microscopy and image analysis provide a unique opportunity to systematically investigate individual cell’s dynamics as well as simulation-based hypothesis testing. After a summary of data generation and analysis in the observation and modeling efforts related to C. elegans embryogenesis, we develop a systematic approach to model the basic behaviors of individual cells. Next, we present our ideas to model cell fate, division, and movement using 3D time-lapse images within an agent-based modeling framework. Then, we summarize preliminary result and discuss efforts in cell fate, division, and movement modeling. Finally, we discuss the ongoing efforts and future directions for C. elegans embryo modeling, including an inferred developmental landscape for cell fate, a quasi-equilibrium model for cell division, and multi-agent, deep reinforcement learning for cell movement.
LOCAL SOLUTIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT: FACILITATING NATIONAL STRATEGIES IN NEW ZEALAND

How should New Zealand respond to the multiple, intertwined and fast- changing impacts of globalization? What strategies are available to this small South Pacific country and how may these be facilitated? This empirical re- search frames the facilitation of selected local solutions in a global environ- ment within the theoretical perspective of pluralism and communicative ac- tion. The facilitation of aspects of national policies in the domains of science funding, economic development and regional growth is reviewed. Electronic meeting technology was employed. The focus question is: 'Does electronic discourse increase the success of local solutions in a global environment? ' 1. A New Zealand Response to Globalization Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run, it is almost everything. A country's abil- ity to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker. (Krugman 1997) Raising productivity is the core economic challenge for New Zealand over the medium term. Small, high-productivity economies rely heavily on international connections - the flows of people, capital, trade and ideas between countries around the world (New Zealand Government 2009). In the current era of globalization, New Zealand's com- bined lack of any major home market effect, small population and lack of major ag- glomeration effects, and the extreme geographical isolation, breaks the usual link be- tween entrepreneurship, innovation and growth (McCann 2009). Domestic policy set- tings in science funding, economic development, and regional planning are critical to making the most of international opportunities. A well-funded science sector encour- ages entrepreneurial and innovative activity to be located in New Zealand and facili- tates international knowledge transfer. Economic development improves competitive- ness in global markets, including those in the Asia-Pacific region. Regional planning in Auckland, New Zealand's major growth area, attracts skilled migrants and reduces the loss of New Zealand-born citizens to Australia and other countries (Cheshire 2012) (Fig. 1).
Technical and Culturally Sensitive Solutions to Foster Sustainable Housing in Southern Angola

Studying housing solutions demands a multidisciplinary concern in order to come up with comprehensive answers able to account for physical, social and cultural needs. It is, therefore, fundamental to bring up those needs into the housing creation process. In the City of Ondjiva, in Southern Angola, as throughout the world we can observe a lack of habitability in its slum areas, associated to the existing economic conditions. In most cases the settlement isn’t provided with basic infrastructures, does not respond adequately to the climatic demands, which leads to the development of unhealthy environments. Additionally, the house in the city follows European or contemporaneous models which don’t produce culturally oriented answers for the local inhabitants. As a result, the poorest housing areas are characterized by two major inadequacies: constructive and cultural. This proposal intends to bring into the discussion the need for architectural solutions that are culturally sensitive (user-oriented), as solely technical solution appears to be detrimental to the diversity of ways of life characteristic of contemporary cities. Furthermore, it intends to alert to the need of exploring new technologies in order to turn the expertise accessible to the housing construction current actors, in a context of great poverty. The goal of this proposal is to create an innovative IT tool, an Expert System which will integrate both results from environmental-behavior studies of a specific cultural group, and sustainable design solutions. It will be produced as a tool to help in the design of individual housing profiles and consist on the construction of a System of Relations between three pre-established group of settings, cultural, everyday life activities and architectural, in order to find a multidisciplinary response for the problematic of housing inadequacy and lack of constructive, comfortable and hygienic conditions.
CFD Simulation of Vortex Induced Vibration of a Cylindrical Structure

This thesis presents the investigation of the flow characteristic and vortex induced vibration (VIV) of a cylindrical structure due to the incompressible laminar and turbulent flow at Reynolds number 40, 100, 200 and 1000. The simulations were performed by solving the steady and transient (unsteady) 2D Navier-Stokes equation. For Reynolds number 40, the simulations were set as a steady and laminar flow and the SIMPLE and QUICK were used as the pressure-velocity coupling scheme and momentum spatial discretization respectively. Moreover, the transient turbulent flow was set for Re 100, 200 and 1000 and SIMPLE and LES (large Eddies Simulation) were selected as the pressure-velocity coupling solution and the turbulent model respectively. The drag and lift coefficient (Cd and Cl) were obtained and verified to the previous studies and showed a good agreement. Whilst the vibration frequency (fvib), the vortex shedding frequency (fv), the Strouhal number (St) and the amplitude of the vibration (A) were also measured.
European Journal of Education Studies-ISSN 2501-1111

In this research, the relationships between organizational values, job satisfaction, organizational silence and affective commitment perceptions of managers and teachers working in schools were examined. The research data were collected from 706 school administrators and teachers. Four scales were used in the study: Management Scale According to Values, Teaching Satisfaction Scale, Organizational Silence Scale and Affective Commitment Scale. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was developed to determine the relationship between variables. The data obtained in the SEM show that all hypotheses of the study are accepted. According to these findings, organizational values positively affect job satisfaction and affective commitment. Organizational values have a negative effect on organizational silence. Job satisfaction has a positive effect affective commitment. Organizational silence negatively affects affective commitment. Job satisfaction increases the influence of organizational values on affective commitment with the role of mediator. Organizational silence diminishes the role of the mediator and the influence of organizational values on affective commitment.
TRC 7 / 14 Iterative Statistical Bug Isolation via Hierarchical Instrumentation

Cooperative statistical bug isolation approaches monitor program runtime behavior from end-user executions and apply statistical techniques to pinpoint likely causes of field failures. Having end-users to run fully instrumented programs is extremely undesirable, as it adds tremendous performance overhead to end-users; it is also unnecessary, since in practice major part of these programs are error-free and need no instrumentation. In order to reduce the monitoring and computational costs as well as the performance overhead of end-users, we propose a novel iterative (and cooperative) statistical bug isolation approach for field failures via hierarchical instrumentation (HI). Different from the existing iterative approaches, our approach via HI does not only maintain small end-user overhead, but also performs iterative bug isolation automatically without developers’ intervention, thereby relieving developers of repetitive efforts in isolating bugs. In this paper, we formalize the concept and principles behind the HI technique, and demonstrate its practicality through experimentations. Our experiments show that this new approach via HI saves significant instrumentation effort and sharply reduces runtime overhead, while upholding the accuracy of bug isolation.
Solubility of Nanocrystalline Cerium Dioxide: Experimental Data and Thermodynamic Modeling

Ultrafine 5 nm ceria isotropic nanoparticles were prepared using the rapid chemical precipitation approach from cerium(III) nitrate and ammonium hydroxide aqueous solutions. The as-prepared nanoparticles were shown to contain predominantly Ce(IV) species. The solubility of nanocrystalline CeO2 at several pH values was determined using ICP-MS and radioactive tracer methods. Phase composition of the ceria samples remained unchanged upon partial dissolution, while the shape of the particles changed dramatically, yielding nanorods under neutral pH conditions. According to X-ray absorption spectroscopy investigation of the supernatant, Ce(III) was the main cerium species in solution at pH < 4. Based on the results obtained, a reductive dissolution model was used for data interpretation. According to this model, the solubility product for ceria nanoparticles was determined to be log Ksp = −59.3 ± 0.3 in 0.01 M NaClO4. Taken together, our results show that the pH dependence of ceria anti- and pro-oxidant activit.
Network traffic forcasting in information-telecommunication system of Prydniprovsk Railways based on neuro-fuzzy network

Purpose . Continuous increase in network traffic in the information-telecommunication system (ITS) of Prydniprovsk Railways leads to the need to determine the real-time network congestion and to control the data flows. One of the possible solutions is a method of forecasting the volume of network traffic (inbound and outbound) using neural network technology that will prevent from server overload and improve the quality of services. Methodology. Analysis of current network traffic in ITS of Prydniprovsk Railways and preparation of sets: learning, test and validation ones was conducted as well as creation of neuro-fuzzy network (hybrid system) in Matlab program and organization of the following phases on the appropriate sets: learning, testing, forecast adequacy analysis. Findings. For the fragment (Dnipropetrovsk – Kyiv) in ITS of Prydniprovsk Railways we made a forecast (day ahead) for volume of network traffic based on the hybrid system created in Matlab program; MAPE values are as follows: 6.9% for volume of inbound traffic; 7.7% for volume of outbound traffic. It was found that the average learning error of the hybrid system decreases in case of increase in: the number of inputs (from 2 to 4); the number of terms (from 2 to 5) of the input variable; learning sample power (from 20 to 100). A significant impact on the average learning error of the hybrid system is caused by the number of terms of its input variable. It was determined that the lowest value of the average learning error is provided by 4-input hybrid system, it ensures more accurate learning of the neuro-fuzzy network by the hybrid method. Originality. The work resulted in the dependences for the average hybrid system error of the network traffic volume forecasting for the fragment (Dnipropetrovsk-Kyiv) in ITS Prydniprovsk Railways on: the number of its inputs, the number of input variable terms, the learning sample power for different learning methods. Practical value . Forecasting of network traffic volume in ITS of Prydniprovsk Railways will allow for real-time identification of the network congestion and control of data flows.
Hemoencephalography - A new therapy for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Case report

SUMMARY Background. Hemoencephalography (HEG) is cortical circulatory biofeedback using refracted light tuned to oxygenated hemoglobin, emitted into the skull and detected at the scalp using a photoelectric cell. Red light at 660 nm is used as the probe, with changes in the returning refracted light representing changes in cortical circulation. Method. A single-subject design case study was employed. TL, at age twelve, had a well-established diagnosis of ADHD given by pediatric neurologists, and required significant stimulant medication that was clinically effective. He was performing well in school on Concerta 36 mg at 7 a.m. and Ritalin 5 mg at 4 p.m. Off medication, he had significant abnormalities on IVA testing (Attention Quotient or AQ = 78) and in the quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG). Using HEG, the patient engaged the system to exercise increases in signals corresponding to cortical circulation in the prefrontal cortex. QEEG, Continuous Performance Testing (CPT) and clinical status measure.
IMPACT OF DIGITAL LITERACY ON THE ENGINEERING CURRICULUM

As most of engineering activities lies today in the Digital World, today engineers have to be confident in the use of the 21 st century digital environment. Digital Literacy includes critical localization, evaluation and use of information in the digital environment. This environment (including the Web) is evolving into a set of community spaces and communication tools that enable collaborative activities like discovering, exchanging, commenting, criticizing and building information where future engineers will have to collaborate as professionals. Hence Digital Literacy is becoming a key set of competencies for the 21 st century engineer. It encompasses digital extensions of many personal, professional and interpersonal skills included in the CDIO syllabus, such as Knowledge Discovery, Critical Thinking, Curiosity and Lifelong learning or Communications. Therefore, we claim that it shall be transversally included in engineering curricula, as practice of standard digital engineering skills. Wikis, blogs are nowadays state of the art tools for social learning. They encourage analytic and synthetic work on ideas. Hence they represent good tools for active learning practice as basis for integrated approach. We present three progressive experiments conducted in our institution, where such tools have been used to foster such digital skills and scientific knowledge at the same time. Lastly, the main difficulty to introduce such tools is definitely the faculty adoption of such tools as faculty may still be reluctant to use digital tools in education. We discuss our approach for faculty development in numerical skills, based on a mix of: early adopters support, communities of practice, institution requirements, animations and practical workshops.
A Narrower Perspective? From a Global to a Developed-Countries Gender Gap Index: a Gender Statistics Excercise

In this paper, we focus our attention on a particular composite index of gender equality, the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI), highlighting problematics and weaknesses and proposing a different approach structured in four steps. The starting point of our analysis is to narrow the research to a small group of OECD countries: in this way it is possible to lower the gender analysis in a homogeneous socio-cultural framework and introduce a fifth dimension related to the time use. Next, to explore which variables have a greater impact on the gender gap persistence among these countries, we propose a different weighting method, based on the structural equation modeling (SEM). Through the study of official data, the effects of these steps on the final ranking of countries were then analyzed, allowing reflections from both the methodological and socio-cultural point of view.
The Financial Literacy of Non-business University Students in South Africa

Abstract The objective of the study was to assess the level of financial literacy of non-business university students in South Africa. Financial literacy impacts on an individual’s financial decisions especially in the area of savings, borrowing, retirement planning, or portfolio choice. Data was collected through the use of self-administered questionnaires in a survey. The survey was conducted at two universities located in Gauteng and Limpopo provinces of South Africa. The participants in the study were final year agriculture and chemistry students. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis. The results indicated that non-business students have a low level of financial literacy. Recommendations to improve the financial literacy of students are suggested