Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Infrastructure Management Process Maturity Model: Development and Testing

To better serve society, infrastructure organizations must manage their civil infrastructure systems effectively and efficiently, employing best practices in infrastructure management and relevant information systems. As information systems mature, communications follow a general trend away from informal human-to-human communications towards computer-to-computer information exchange. For efficient implementation of computer-based exchange of information, these communications must be formally described. As part of a larger study into the formalization of communications within the infrastructure industry, this paper examines the level to which work processes and communications are formalized and designed at present within the domain of infrastructure management. The research adopts a maturity model approach. There are many maturity models available in different industries, but their focus is on the maturity of the way work processes and communication are operated and managed, not the way these work processes and communications are formalized and designed. To address the issue, an Infrastructure Management-Process Maturity Model (IM-PMM) is developed to assess the degree to which work processes and communications are formalized within a specific engineering domain, namely infrastructure management. A five-step approach is used to develop the IM-PMM: define the problem, compare existing maturity models, develop the model, apply the model, and evaluate the maturity model. This paper describes the development and application of the Infrastructure Management-Process Maturity Model (IM-PMM) that can benchmark the current level of maturity of work processes and communications in the domain of infrastructure management. The proposed IM-PMM uses a scale of five levels of maturity (stages) and uses three core elements (i.e. process/transaction map definition, actor/role definition, and information definition) to benchmark existing work processes, plus one additional element (message definition) to benchmark existing communications. The proposed model has been applied and tested in the domain of infrastructure management using a structured interview approach. The resulting data show that existing work processes and communications are typically accomplished in an ad hoc manner, emphasizing the need for further improvements in the way that work processes and communications are defined if infrastructure organizations intend to deploy advanced information systems. The proposed IM-PMM would help the transaction development personnel (including transaction analysts, transaction designers, software developers, process modellers, and industry experts) to assess and benchmark the maturity of the work processes and communications in the domain of infrastructure. As part of the evaluation, the proposed IM-PMM is verified through testing and applying it in the domain of infrastructure management; future work will conduct validation through industry expert review.
Generational differences in work attitudes: evidence from the hospitality industry

Our understanding of employee attitudes and their impact on business outcomes has been further complicated in recent years by the newest cohort of service workers. Known as Generation Y (Gen Y), they appear to approach employment in a manner different to that of their predecessors. A review of the academic literature reveals little empirical evidence to support an appropriate understanding of the impact of such difference. This paper provides an overview of a large-scale study into generational differences in employee attitudes and reports on the preliminary data analysis of a survey of over 900 hospitality employees. The most important initial finding from the data analysis is that, on the whole, Gen Y employees have lower scores on those constructs that an organization should be attempting to maximize. Non-Gen Y employees are more satisfied with their jobs, more engaged and more affectively committed to the organization they work for than their Gen Y counterparts, amongst a range of other important constructs. Conversely, Gen Y employees display higher scores on the constructs that an organization would want to minimize in its staff. Gen Y employees are more likely to be planning to quit their jobs, are more likely to perform poorly if their co-workers are doing so, and are also more likely to switch jobs for no particular reason. The discussion covers implications for management as well as directions for future research.
Catalytic Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol Using Nanosized Cu/Ni Schiff-Base Complexes and Their Metal Oxide Nanoparticles

In this work, nanosized Cu and Ni Schiff-base complexes, namely ahpvCu, ahpnbCu, and ahpvNi, incorporating imine ligands derived from the condensation of 2-amino-3-hydroxypyridine, with either 3-methoxysalicylaldehyde (ahpv) or 4-nitrobenzaldehyde (ahpnb), were synthesized using sonochemical approach. The structure and properties of the new ligands and their complexes with Ni(II) and Cu(II) were determined via infrared (IR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), electronic spectra (UV-Vis), elemental analysis (CHN), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), molar conductivity (Λm), and magnetic moment (μeff). The combined results revealed the formation of 1:1 (metal: ligand) complexes for ahpvCu and ahpvNi and 1:2 for ahpnbCu. Additionally, CuO and NiO nanoparticles were prepared by calcination of the respective nanosized Cu/Ni complexes at 500 °C, and characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Significantly, the as-prepared nanosized Schiff-base Cu/Ni complexes and their oxides showed remarkable catalytic activity towards the selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol (BzOH) in aqueous H2O2/ dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) solution. Thus, catalytic oxidation of BzOH to benzaldehyde (BzH) using both ahpvCu complex and CuO nanoparticles in H2O2/DMSO media at 70 °C for 2 h yielded 94% and 98% BzH, respectively, with 100% selectivity.
Community-Based Participatory Research for Health

If Thomas Kuhn (1962) is correct, a field of inquiry develops in stages. Some members of a field of inquiry recognize anomalies in the foundational beliefs and seek better explanations of problems, such as health and economic disparities, and practices of inquiry about them. A few distinctive achievements or discoveries provide the new approaches greater legitimacy. Eventually, a critical mass of information and researchers develops and the alternative explanations and research practices offer canons of practice, which mark an advanced stage of the development of an emerging field of inquiry. This special issue of the Michigan Journal and Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein’s edited volume, Community-Based Participatory Research for Health, offer evidence that the field of community-based participatory research (CBPR) has reached an important developmental point as a field. The forthcoming Community-Based Research and Higher Education: Principles and Practices (Strand, Marullo, Cutforth, Stoecker, & Donohue, 2003); the recently published The Handbook of Action Research (Reason & Bradbury, 2001); and Ernest Stringer’s recent work (1999) and forthcoming work on participatory action research in higher education provide further evidence that we have exemplars of the methods of participatory research and canons for their practice, even if we cannot as yet agree on a single name. Whatever the nuances among the terms, there is coherence. We are talking about research that
Automatic Document Summarization: A Project for the Data Structures Subject

Automatic document summarization is the process of creating a short version of a given document (text) by means of a computer program. The aim is to find the most important issues of the original text. There are two broadly accepted techniques for conforming the text summary: (i) extraction and, (ii) abstraction. On the one hand, the extraction techniques just “extract” those parts of the document considered the most imporant, for instance, keywords, keyphrases, sentences or paragraphs. On the other hand, abstraction can condense a text more strongly than extraction, providing coherence to the summary which requires the use of more complex techniques of natural language generation technology. In this project, the student will use two different approaches in order to obtain a document extract. The extract will consist of the k most representative sentences for the given document. The extracted sentences will be considered a kind of summary. The first approach will be the “TextRank model”, whereas the second will use a simple ranking method based on the Jaccard coefficient.
Extrapair fertilization and genetic similarity of social mates in the Mexican jay

Inbreeding depression should favor the ability of females to avoid inbreeding or minimize its effects. We tested for a relationship between genetic similarity of social pairs and the occurrence of extrapair fertilization (EPF) in the Mexican jay (Aphelocoma ultramarina). Multilocus minisatellite and microsatellite DNA fingerprinting was used to detect extrapair young and measure genetic similarity between social parents. We found that 12 of 31 (39%) nests had at least one EPF and 15 of 93 (16%) young were the result of EPF. The mean DNA fingerprinting band sharing score between social mates who had at least one EPF was significantly higher than the mean band sharing score between mates who did not (0.35 versus 0.25). The mean band sharing score for non-EPF dyads (0.25) was similar to the background band sharing among nonrelatives (0.23). The mean band sharing score for mates that had an EPF was significantly higher than that of nonrelatives (background) and was significantly lower than that of half-siblings (0.52). Our results showed a highly significant relationship between genetic similarity of social mates and incidence of EPF. Copyright 2005.
The Relationship between Self-Efficacy and Language Proficiency: A Case of Iranian Medical Students

Research findings from several academic domains have demonstrated that students’ judgments of their own academic capabilities or self-efficacy beliefs influence their academic behaviors and performances. But there has been very few studies exploring the self-efficacy of Medical students and its effect on their language success. So, the present research aims to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between medical students' self-efficacy and their language proficiency. Moreover, this study tried to examine the variation of students' self-efficacy based on their different majors in medical sciences. To this end, 120 students studying in different majors in Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences were selected as the participants of this study. In order to measure students' language proficiency, Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP) was administered. Another instrument was the self-efficacy questionnaire which was an adaptation of Bandura's questionnaire included 40 items with subsequent choices on a 5-point Likert-scale. The results of the study indicated that there was a positive relationship between students' self-efficacy and language proficiency. Besides, it was revealed that students' major had an effect on both language proficiency and self-efficacy. Finally, pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research were provided.
IMPROVING MARKETING STRATEGIES TO ACCELERATE TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE FOR THE BASIC CEREAL: THE NIGER CASE

In Niger as in most of semiarid Sub-Saharan Africa the fallow system has become a historic event as a result of increasing population pressure and has not yet been replaced with increased input use due to low product prices. As a result nutrient mining is becoming prevalent and cereals yields declining. So it is necessary to develop marketing and other strategies to increase farmers' incomes from the use of increased inputs for soil fertility especially inorganic fertilizers. In the farm model, two goals (subsistence food storage and harvest income) are first achieved, before maximizing income, in a linear programming framework with various states of nature. This is an alternative way of handling risk based on farmer's actual observed behavior. Hence this approach is simpler and easier to verify behaviorally than the more abstract trade-offs between expected income and variance used in the general framework of risk analysis. The three marketing strategies considered are: the evolution of new product markets for food and feed to moderate the between year price collapse resulting from good and sometimes even normal weather conditions; the development of alternative public (and NGO) policies rather than subsidized prices or gifts of food aid to drive down the high cereal prices of adverse weather years; the facilitation of inventory credit so that farmers can get access to income for a series of obligations that need to be paid at harvest time without being obligated to sell their grains at the post harvest price collapse period. Individually these marketing strategies result in farmers' income increases of 35%, 38%, and 49% when combined with new technology introduction. The technology alone effect is a 30% increase but most farmers in semiarid region, unless they have had long experience with inorganic fertilizer, do not adopt the technology alone. Introduction of the marketing strategies in various combinations results in further technology diffusion and income gains of 35 to 49% above those of new technology alone. Developed countries are very concerned with having policies to assure the profitability of agriculture and the consequent rapid introduction of new technologies. Developing countries need to develop similar types of policy support without introducing price distortions or discouraging private sector development.
Economic Impact Of Cultural Tourism

The subject of analysis in the paper is economic impact of cultural tourism and identification of the main factors which directly affect cultural tourism revenues. Most countries do not have a statistical system of monitoring and analysing individual factors of cultural tourism such as the number of arrivals of cultural tourists and consumption of cultural tourists. Therefore, it is hard to assess the economic impact of cultural tourism. In cultural tourism, cultural assets are prepared and placed on the tourist market, i.e. cultural resources are transformed into cultural tourism products. The main objective is fulfilling tourists' needs, and achieving positive effects which includes economic effects. Identification of the economic impact of cultural tourism is important because cultural resources have an inestimable value for the local community. Tourism valorisation should be used in order to achieve the necessary maximum effects with minimum negative impacts which tourism may leave on cultural resources. The objective of the paper is to identify the economic contribution of cultural tourism in the Republic of Croatia and to propose a model of identification of economic impact of cultural tourism.
Asymptotics of the Weil-Petersson metric

We consider the Riemann moduli space $\mathcal M_{\gamma}$ of conformal structures on a compact surface of genus $\gamma>1$ together with its Weil-Petersson metric $g_{\mathrm{WP}}$. Our main result is that $g_{\mathrm{WP}}$ admits a complete polyhomogeneous expansion in powers of the lengths of the short geodesics up to the singular divisors of the Deligne-Mumford compactification of $\mathcal M_{\gamma}$.
The Study of Parents’ Words, Behavior and Attitude as the Means to Build the Children’s Character in Bulukumba Regency

Parents’ words, behavior and attitude can serve as the media or means to build the children’s character. This research is aimed to describe, analyze, and explain the implementation of parents’ words, behavior and attitude as the means to build the children’s positive character in Bulukumba Regency. The data includes parents and children speech, while the research resources were from the parents by using hand phone as the tool. The other instrument used during the research was the field note. The data of the research were analyses using the model created by Miles and Huberman (1993) consisting of data collection, unitization, note taking, service, and the tentative or temporary conclusion drawing, validation, final conclusion or hypothesis. The result of the research showed that the words, behavior and attitude of the parents toward the children in Bulukumba can be seen as follows: 1) utterance used with the declarative way which is meant as asking, containing communicative, friendship and character values 2) the implementation of the parents’ words, behavior and attitude in accordance with the imperative way possesses creative character building. 3) Words uttered in interrogative way which means urgent, possesses honest character building.
“The people that no-one notices”? – The power of building control inspectors in sustainable construction.

In England, national building regulations govern aspects of a building’s environmental performance. The profession of Building Control Inspector reviews designs and on-site construction in order to evaluate, and ultimately certify, compliance with the regulations, but little research has been carried out previously to investigate the role of these professionals in sustainable construction. A qualitative study was conducted comprising semi-structured interviews with 20 building inspectors and four key informants from professional bodies in England. The building inspectors tended to position their power as wholly derived from the regulations, thus constraining their contribution on sustainability to regulation enforcement. However, this stood in contrast to their descriptions of day-to-day activities which included providing advice and guidance, effective membership of design teams and a collaborative relationship with contractors/builders, architects and members of the public. Application of French and Raven’s (1959; Raven 1992) typology of social influence demonstrates that, in fact, other bases of power are available to, and are used by, building inspectors. The primary conclusion is that, with greater recognition of the varied bases of power available to them, building inspectors could extend their influence in daily working interactions to facilitate more sustainable construction.
Using Chip Master Planning in Automatic ASIC Design Flow to Improve Performance and Buffer Resource Management

Modern integrated circuits consist of millions of standard cells and routing paths. In nano-scale designs, mis-prediction is a dominant problem that may diminish the quality of physical design algorithms or even result in the disruption of the convergence of the design cycle. In this paper, a new planning methodology is presented in which a master-plan of the chip is constructed at the early levels of the physical design, preparing for the operation of the subsequent physical design stages. As a proof of concept study, the proposed planning design flow is applied to both wire planning and buffer resource planning, and the outcomes are compared against conventional contributions. Experimental results reveal considerable improvements in terms of performance, timing yield and buffer usage.
International Leadership as a Process: The case of China in Southeast Asia

Leadership theory in IR still lacks a coherent approach, and it is analytically useful to use eclectic lenses by combining all factors related to power and the usage of power to gain leadership status. I define the term "international leadership" as a process in which a state mobilizes its resources to influence a group of other states (followership) in order to achieve a common goal. In the empirical investigation, I will focus on China's abilities to lead in Southeast Asia. Despite the fact that there are many advantages for China, the mechanism of transforming power resources into regional leadership is still questionable.
High Resolution Sequence Stratigraphy And Reservoir Characterization Of The Hartha Formation In Ahdab Oilfield

** Abstract The Hartha Formation is one of the economically important formations which deposited during the Creataceous period, and the most heterogeneous from one place to another because of the complexities of sedimentary basin and the movements that influenced it. This this research is interested in studying the Upper Campanian - Lower Maastrichtian succession (Hartha Formation) in Ahdab oilfield (Ad - 1) which located in the middle of Iraq within the Mesopotamian basin (Tikrit - Amara Subzo ne). The present study includes two parts; the first is facies analysis and stratigraphic history, and the second is the study of petrophysical properties and reservoir characterizations for this succession. Facies analy sis enable the recognition of six main facies associations in the studied succession; these are basinal, open shelf margin, foreslope, rudistbiostorm, Shoal and restricted platform (lagoon). The Hartha succession represents deposition of two cycles of third order, these cycles where deposited during successive episodes of relative sea level rises and still stand. There are nine petrophysical horizons observed in the studied succession named (I, II, III, IV, V,VI, VII, VIII and IX), four of them are good reservoir horizons which are: (III, IV,VI, and VIII). The dolomitiz ed horizon as (II, V and VII) are matching with the still stand or regress ed sea level, where during these stages the diagenesis processes (dol omitization and cementation) were active. The permeability - porosity relationship for the carbonate rocks showing a good match with the general facies and petrophysical properties for the studied succession. ﺔﺻﻼﺧﻟا
Anurans from preserved and disturbed areas of Atlantic Forest in the region of Etá Farm, municipality of Sete Barras, state of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract: We provide information on the diversity and natural history of anurans from preserved and disturbed habitats in the region of Etá Farm, municipality of Sete Barras, state of São Paulo, Brazil. The region is covered by rainforest and plantations of banana and peach palm. From April, 2013 to March, 2014 we sampled amphibians mainly with pitfall traps with drift fences and visual and auditory surveys. A total of 9813 individuals of 36 species of anurans from nine families were recorded in this study. A larger number of species was found in forests (29 species), followed by peach palm plantations (21 species), and banana plantations (17 species). The areas of peach palm plantation and forests showed the greatest similarity in species composition. The vegetation type with the highest number of exclusive species was the forest, whereas only four species were exclusive of the peach palm plantation, and none was exclusive of the banana plantation. Species accumulation curves indicated that our sampling effort was not enough to sample all the species that occur in the region. Our results reinforce the importance of forested habitats for the maintenance of anuran diversity in the Atlantic forest. The preservation of large fragments of forest in the region of Etá Farm is necessary to preserve the diverse amphibian fauna of this region.