Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of chemical extraction parameters on corn husk fibres characteristics

Corn husk fibres have been extracted by alkalization process at different alkali concentrations and treatment durations. The effects of extraction process parameters on the physical properties, mechanical properties and thermal durability characteristics of corn husk fibres are investigated. Chemical structures of the fibres are studied by infrared spectroscopy measurements. The average length, linear density and moisture content of extracted fibres decrease with the increase in alkaline concentration and duration. Breaking force decreases with increased alkaline concentrations. Increasing treatment duration for all concentration levels increases the breaking force, tenacity and initial modulus up to a point and then decreases them with further increase in duration. The highest tensile performance could be obtained from 5-10 g/L NaOH treatment for 60 90 min. Alkalization under harsher conditions results in higher thermal durability up to 320C with higher cellulose fraction, but lower durability above this temperature. The FTIR spectrum analysis proves higher cellulose but lower hemicellulose and lignin contents with harsher treatment conditions. The marginal effect of concentration decreases for higher concentrations which suggests that the available sites for chemical reaction are occupied at moderate concentrations.
Examination the Impact of Total Quality Management Practices in Achieving Strategic Agility: Applied Study on the Jordanian Private Hospitals

Strategic agility enables organizations to respond and react quickly for the continuous and accelerated changes in their business environment and enhance its competitive advantage to survive. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to determine the impact of quality management practices on achieving the strategic agility in the Jordanian private hospitals that located in Amman city, which amount (40) hospital. The sample of the study included all the study population. The sampling unit and analysis (respondents) composed of (285) managers and chief of divisions working in the target hospitals with concentrate to whom their work relates to quality management and strategic planning. In order to achieve the study objectives, the researcher designed a questionnaire consisting of (27) paragraph to collect the required data from study sample. The multiple regression analysis was used to testing the hypotheses. Empirical results found that the total quality management practices have a positive impact on strategic agility, and the highest impact was for the customer orientation and supplier management. Based on these results the study recommending that the hospitals should focus largely on their customer orientation, managing their supplier’s quality, obtain top management support, and involve their employees in its total quality efforts in order to achieve strategic agility and gain sustainable competitive advantage thus maintain their survival. Also the study recommending that conducting more future research and studies on the relationship between total quality management and strategic agility in the different contexts, because the current study and its results limited to the Jordanian private hospitals. Keywords: Total Quality Management Practices, Supplier Management, Top Management Support, Customer Orientation, Employee Involvement, Strategic Agility
Monitoring Rheological Properties in Biological Systems by Fluorescence Spectroscopy using Borondipyrromethene (Bodipy) Dyes: A Mini Review

This short review covers recent progress in the field of fluorescent rheology probes focussing on the Borondipyrromethene (Bodipy) dye. Attention is paid to the how the level of fluorescence output from molecular Bodipy systems responds to the local viscosity, and what information can be revealed from the measurements. In particular, the use of Bodipy dyes for looking at local viscosity in membranes, cells and other biological media is discussed.
Asymmetric Information Arrival and the Short-Run Dynamics of Australian Dollar Volatility: a Mixture of Distributions Approach

Contemporary commentators point to excess volatility within the FX market as an indicator of market inefficiency. It is thought that the excessive volatility is being driven by speculation. Policy options have emerged which focus on bounding volatility via government regulation of speculation. These options make implicit assumptions; one, that volatility is excessive and two, that it is speculation which is driving volatility. What is not sufficiently understood is the role public information arrival plays in terms of explaining returns and its volatility impact. It is the purpose of this paper to simply model Australian Dollar returns and volatility with public information arrival, which has been classified into categories so as to ascertain whether total information arrival or the arrival of specific types of information is related to changes in returns and volatility. We use an EGARCH model so as to pick up the asymmetric impacts of good and bad news. We find evidence from both a GARCH and EGARCH model that public information plays an important role in the determination of AUD returns and volatility and that good news impacts are less then negative ones. We also find that economic information in relation to full information set has a greater relationship to volatility. This has some interesting implications in terms of the volatility debate. Rather then regulating speculation, it may be more relevant to clarify information.
PHITS - Applications to radiation biology and radiotherapy

PHITS is a 3-dimensional general-purpose Monte Carlo code, which can transport of all varieties of hadrons and heavy ions with energies up to around 100 GeV/nucleon. To be able to estimate the biological damage from neutrons with PUTTS, a feature has been included to treat low energy neutron collisions as "events" which means that the energy and momentum is conserved in each event and makes it possible to extract the kinetic energy distributions of all the residual nuclei without using any local approximation. To estimate the direct biological effects of radiation, mathematical functions, for calculating the microdosmetric probability densities in macroscopic material, have been incorporated in PUTTS. This makes it possible to instantaneously calculate the probability densities of lineal and specific energies around the trajectories of high energetic charged particle tracks. A method for estimating the biological dose has also been established by using the improved PUTTS coupled to a microdosimetric kinetic model.
Role of Medicinal Plants for Health Perspective: Special Reference to Antioxidant Potential

Medicinal plants provide major source of molecules with medicinal properties due to presence of natural compounds. In these components, antioxidant substances are of particular interest. The oxidative stress that leads to progression of disorders such as: cardiovascular diseases, degenerative conditions, rheumatic disorders, metabolic syndrome, and in aging can be reduced with the help of antioxidant properties of medicinal plants and act as key-feature of modern multi-potent remedies.
When amplification with weak values fails to suppress technical noise

The application of postselection to a weak quantum measurement leads to the phenomenon of weak values. Expressed in units of the measurement strength, the displacement of a quantum coherent measuring device is ordinarily bounded by the eigenspectrum of the measured observable. Postselection can enable an interference effect that moves the average displacement far outside this range, bringing practical benefits in certain situations. Employing the Fisher information metric, we argue that the amplified displacement offers no fundamental metrological advantage, due to the necessarily reduced probability of success. Our understanding of metrological advantage is the possibility of a lower uncertainty in the estimate of an unknown parameter with a large number of trials. We analyze a situation in which the detector is pixelated with a finite resolution, and in which the detector is afflicted by random displacements: imperfections which degrade the fundamental limits of parameter estimation. Surprisingly, weak-value amplification is no more robust to them than a technique making no use of the amplification effect brought about by a final, postselected measurement.
Influence of the Grander Technology in the Physical Properties of the Self-Etch Adhesive System

Aim: The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of the Grander technology in reducing the surface tension and contact angle of self-etch adhesive system. Materials and methods: Distilled water and Xeno III self-etch adhesive system (Dentsply) were modified by physical contact with the flexible unit Grander system to revitalize water, for 48 hours, resulting in four groups: Group CW-distilled water under normal conditions; Group CA-Xeno III adhesive system under normal conditions; Group GW-distilled water system modified by the Grander system; Group GA-Xeno III adhesive system modified by the Grander system. Surface tension and contact angle of the adhesive system and water in normal and Grandermodified conditions was measured with a goniometer. ANOVA and Tukey test were used to analyze the results (5%). Results and conclusion: For surface tension, ANOVA showed p < 0.05, what indicated significant differences between the groups. The mean values (D/cm) for the groups were: CW-72.4 a; GW-69.45 b; GA: 31.17 c; CA-29.98 c. The results showed a significant reduction of surface tension for distilled water modified by Grander system. Grander technology did not interfere in the surface tension and contact angle physical properties of the Xeno III self-etch adhesive system. Clinical significance: Grander technology is a method that revitalizes water by physical spatial restructuring of its molecules. The modify of an adhesive system, also a liquid with an aqueous solvent, can provide a reduction in surface tension and contact angle, increasing its wetness capacity and therefore ensuring a greater diffusibility.
GENE CLUSTERING BASED ON CO-OCCURRENCE WITH CORRECTION FOR COMMON EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY

As the number of sequenced genomes increases rapidly, new approaches are needed for the computational annotation of protein functions and to better understand the ecological roles of genomes. In this thesis, a gene clustering approach based on the correlated evolution method (Pagel) and hierarchical clustering is proposed to find sets of co-occurring genes according to their weighted phylogenetic profiles. Hierarchical clusters can be cut at many different levels of similarity; since our primary interest is the evaluation of functional associations, we used the semantic similarity of Gene Ontology terms to optimize the choice of cuts in the hierarchy, and to evaluate our clustering outcomes. The results can be used to predict the functions of the unannotated genes and to discover candidate sets of lateral gene transfer events. We applied this approach to the gene set of the large clostridial genome “Lachnospiraceae bacterium 3-1-57FAA-CT1”, and generated informative clusters of genes with correlated evolutionary histories, which in many cases shared functional similarity as well. We compared the results of our method to the recently described approach, Clustering by Inferred Modules of Evolution (CLIME), and found considerable similarity between the two sets of predictions. However, our hierarchical clustering approach allows the exploration of degrees of protein similarity, and the generation of smaller or larger clusters as appropriate. In both cases, we found strong evidence that clusters of genes having similar phylogenetic histories also tend to be functionally linked.
A Grid Connected Photovoltaic System with a Multilevel Inverter and a LeBlanc Transformer

In this paper a novel power conversion structure for grid-connected photovoltaic applications is presented. This structure is based on a multilevel inverter and on a LeBlanc transformer. The proposed multilevel power converter uses two single-phase voltage source inverters and a four wire voltage source inverter. The Le-Blanc transformer is connected at the output of the multilevel inverter. The configuration of the PV system is based on the multi-string technology. The structural design of this new power converter allows a seven level shaped output voltage wave at the output of the multilevel inverter. To control this power converter a sliding mode controller with a vectorial modulator is used. This control system allows obtaining a fast a robust response for the multilevel inverter. Several experimental results are presented, confirming the expected performance of the proposed power conversion structure. KeywordsPhotovoltaic power conversion; grid connection; multilevel converter; LeBlanc transformer; cascade structure; sliding mode controller.
A New Perspective of Investment Modelling at the European Union Level Alin OPREANA

The study that represents the subject of this paper follows the analysis of the investment function and the influencing factors at the European Union level. The research has, as a starting point, the hypothesis that there is a negative relationship between the European Union investments and tax rates. For verifying this hypothesis, the structural equation modeling is used (SEM), and the same technique is applied in the second part of the research, which will track the development of the investments’ model at the European Union level. The results will highlight the relationships that are established between specific variables that characterize the volume of investments.
Improvement of paromomycin production by Streptomyces rimosus subsp paromomycinus NRRL 2455 using gamma irradiation mutagenesis

Streptomyces(S.) rimosus NRRL 2455 produces paromomycin, a 2-deoxystreptamine aminocyclitol aminoglycoside antibiotic (2DOS-ACAGA) with broad-spectrum activity against most of the Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria as well as protozoa. The mutation has become one of the beneficial methods used in enhancing the microbial production. Improvement of the paromomycin production by S. rimosus NRRL 2455 was achieved via irradiation mutagenesis using gamma (ˠ) radiation. The culture of S. rimosus was irradiated with different doses of gamma radiation (3, 4 and 5 KiloGray (KGy) to find out the best dose for the mutation that gave 99.99% killing. The optimum dose was found to be 4 KGy. Six morphologically changed colony types appeared on tryptic soy agar plates. These colonies were bio-assayed for their antimicrobial activity against standard Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 using agar well diffusion technique. A mutant coded 5M showed about 1.44, and 2 fold increase in its activity as compared with the wild-type when cultivated in basal culture or optimized media (soybean meal 30 g/L, NH4CL 4 g/L, CaCO3 5 g/L and glycerol 40 ml/L), respectively. Moreover, high genetic stability was observed upon subsequent culturing of 5M-mutant. Therefore, S. rimosus mutant-5M can be used as a potential industrial strain for paromomycin production.
Development of Networks Model in The Serious Game of Agribusiness Management for Decision Making

This research developed a decision-making process in the agribusiness management system and analyzed the behavior of fixed point for identifying the position of agribusiness interaction. Agribusiness is represented as node that work together in the market to maintain the stability of market. Based on agribusiness management and data modeling, there are four conditions of the inter-company networks: (1) mutual dependence, (2) mutual independence, (3) unbalanced dependece, (4) unbalanced independence. The experiment results are the mutual dependence conditioan the fixed point towards stable value come near 0. The mutual independence, fixed point towards stable value, but stability value still not yet come near 0. The unbalanced dependece, fixed point oscillate and convergence. While the unbalanced independence, fixed point start oscillation.
Online-mobile service cross-channel cognitive evaluations in a multichannel context

Since the advent of mobile commerce, many firms have added a mobile (m-) service to their existing offline and online services. The adoption of an m-service in a multichannel context is not only influenced by factors directly associated with the m-service, but also by cross-channel cognitive evaluations emanating from other existing channels. These cross-channel evaluations can lead to evaluative synergies and dissynergies that can influence consumer decision-making. To explore empirically the impact of cross-channel synergies and dissynergies between the online service and the m-service offered by the same firm, against the background of expectation-transfer theory and status-quo-bias theory, data were collected from 666 online-service users. Consistent with expectation-transfer theory and status-quo-bias theory, the results of the study demonstrated that cross-channel evaluative synergies and dissynergies do indeed impact salient m-service beliefs. The results suggest that managers can leverage the cross-channel synergies emanating from online trust and ease-of-use beliefs to enhance the adoption of the m-service. The results also suggest that, to enhance wider adoption, the marketing managers of m-services need to mitigate the status-quo-bias effects emanating from online-service facilitating conditions, and lower online-service risk perceptions.
Universities and public research institutes

Public sector research refers to those R&D activities performed in institutions that are either publicly owned or operated or that depend to a large extent on government block funding for their research activities. Such institutions fall into two main categories: universities and public research institutes (PRIs). In addition to research, universities perform the important function of teaching, while PRIs usually solely provide direct R&D support to business firms and public authorities. Countries differ markedly in the proportions of public R&D performed in universities and PRIs: for example, some countries, such as Sweden and the United Kingdom, are university-centred, whereas others, such as Korea and Russia, perform a large part of their public R&D in PRIs.
Measuring the Net Benefit of an E-Commerce for a University: A Case Study of the University of Surabaya’s E-Commerce

E-commerce is the use of telecommunication network, the internet in particular, to conduct business activities such as purchasing, sales of goods and services, after sales services and many other kinds of business processes. Although e-commerce could deliver dramatic positive impacts for an organization, an e-commerce implementation require an considerable amount of investment and the result of that large investment is hard to measured. The objective of this study is to measure the net benefit of an e-commerce for a university using a case study of the University of Surabaya’s e-commerce. To measure the net benefits, this paper will use the updated Delone & McLean Information System Success Model due to the popularity of their model among I.S. researchers. Although, this study is unable to quantify the net benefits in term of money of an e-commerce implementation, this study reveals how an e-commerce can be used by a university to generate various significant positive impacts towards its customers, to its staffs, to the organization itself and also to the environment
Interactive comment on “Low molecular weight organic anions (carboxylates) increase microbial activity and alter microbial community composition in uncontaminated and diesel contaminated soil” by B. C. Martin et al

General comments: In this article, the authors used microcosm experiments to determine the impact of two types of carboxylates (citrate and malonate), combined or individually, on microbial composition, activity, and degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons. Generally, the paper has been well written and very well presented through both text and illustrations. However, given that the experiments were conducted in microcosms, this article would have benefited immensely from tests on more organic compounds known to be exuded by plant roots within the rhizosphere instead of just one group. Nonetheless, it is still a useful contribution to this area of research.
A Numerical Approach for Solving First Order Integro-Differential Equations

A polynomial spline of degree n is made up of polynomial segments of degree n that are connected in a way that guarantees the continuity of the function and of its derivatives up to order n-1. This paper presents a numerical method based on cubic spline function with a free boundary condition for the solution of first order integro-differential equations. The solution procedure of this technique is simple and straightforward. Several test examples are considered to demonstrate the applicability and performance of the method. The results obtained by the proposed method are co mpared with the exact solutions and some existing results in literatures.
Molecular Characterization and Phylogenetic Analysis of Seven Flavobacterium columnare Strains Isolated from Freshwater Fishes of Eastern India

| Flavobacterium columnare is the causative agent of columnaris disease in most of the freshwater fishes. In the present study, molecular and phylogenetic analysis were used to demonstrate the genetic diversity among F. columnare strains isolated from freshwater fishes e.g. Catla catla, Labeo rohita, Anabas testudineus, Carassius auratus. A prominent band of 1.5 Kbp was observed for all the seven strains of F. columnare. A phylogenetic tree was constructed with the 16S rDNA sequences of these seven strains with other published F. columnare strain sequences available in the GenBank. Sequence identity and phylogenetic study revealed F. columnare strains isolated form Catla catla were closely related to each other and strains isolated from Labeo rohita, Anabas testudineus, Carassius auratus were distantly related to each other. In conclusion, F. Columnare strains infecting freshwater fishes were different to each other as revealed by 16S rDNA and phylogenetic studies.