Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Removal of Crystal Violet from Textile Wastewater Using Palm Kernel Shell-Derived Biochar

In this study, we explored the adsorption potential of biochar derived from palm kernel shell (BC-PKS) as an affordable adsorbent for the removal of crystal violet from wastewater. Kinetics, equilibrium, and thermodynamics studies were carried out to evaluate the adsorption of crystal violet onto BC-PKS. The kinetics adsorption process followed the pseudo-second-order model, indicating that the rate of adsorption is principally controlled by chemisorption. The adsorption equilibrium data were better fitted by the Langmuir isotherm model with a determination coefficient of 0.954 and a maximum adsorption of 24.45 mg/g. Thermodynamics studies found the adsorption of crystal violet by BC-PKS to be endothermic with increasing randomness at the BC-PKS/crystal violet interface. The percentage removal and adsorption capacity increased with the pH of the solution, as the negative charges on the biochar surface at high pH enhance the electrostatic attraction between crystal violet molecules and BC-PKS. Increasing the BC-PKS dosage from 0.1 to 1.0 g increased percent removal and decreased the adsorption capacity of crystal violet onto BC-PKS. Therefore, biochar from agricultural by-products, i.e., palm kernel shell, can be cost-effective adsorbents for the removal of crystal violet from textile wastewater.
An Artificial Neural Network Framework for Pedestrian Walking Behavior Modeling and Simulation

Movement behavior models of pedestrian agents form the basis of computational crowd simulations. In contemporary research, a large number of models exist. However, there is still no walking behavior model that can address the various influence factors of movement behavior holistically. Thus, we endorse the use of artificial neural networks to develop walking behavior models because machine learning methods can integrate behavioral factors efficiently, automatically, and data-driven. In this paper, we support this approach by providing a framework that describes how to include artificial neural networks into a pedestrian research context. The framework comprises 5 phases: data, replay, training, simulation, and validation. Furthermore, we describe and discuss a prototype of the framework.
Facial Biometric System for Recognition Using Extended LGHP Algorithm on Raspberry Pi

In today’s world, where the need for security is paramount and biometric access control systems are gaining mass acceptance due to their increased reliability, research in this area is quite relevant. Also with the advent of IOT devices and increased community support for cheap and small computers like Raspberry Pi its convenient than ever to design a complete standalone system for any purpose. This paper proposes a Facial Biometric System built on the client-server paradigm using Raspberry Pi 3 model B running a novel local descriptor based parallel algorithm. This paper also proposes an extended version of Local Gradient Hexa Pattern with improved accuracy. The proposed extended version of LGHP improved performance as shown in performance analysis. Extended LGHP shows improvement over other state-of-the-art descriptors namely LDP, LTrP, MLBP and LVP on the most challenging benchmark facial image databases, i.e. Cropped Extended Yale-B, CMU-PIE, color-FERET, LFW, and Ghallager database. Proposed system is also compared with various patents having similar system design and intent to emphasize the difference and novelty of the system proposed.
Corporate Hypocrisy and Counterproductive Work Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model of Organizational Identification and Perceived Importance of CSR

When companies say one thing and do another in a corporate social responsibility context, they run the risk of corporate hypocrisy. Apart from the negative attitudes within customers, the purpose of our study was to explore what consequence corporate hypocrisy would cause on employees. This study investigated the possible link between corporate hypocrisy and employees’ counterproductive work behaviors with a moderated mediation model. Based on social identity theory, our research found that the influence of corporate hypocrisy on organization-directed counterproductive work behaviors was partially mediated by organizational identification, while the first stage of mediation is moderated by the levels of employees’ perceived importance of corporate social responsibility. Data from 259 employees in China, collected across three time periods, suggest that corporate hypocrisy will lead to a decrease of organizational identification, triggering CWB against the company. The indirect effect of corporate hypocrisy on CWB-O via organizational identification is enhanced when employees’ perceived importance of corporate social responsibility is high. Our findings provide contributions to both corporate running and theoretical research.
Trimethyl 4,4′,4′′-(ethene-1,1,2-triyl)tribenzoate

The tandem in situ double Suzuki coupling reaction of a diborated ethylene compound containing electron-withdrawing aromatic ester groups was studied. The major product is derived from the Suzuki coupling involving the boryl group and an aryliodide derivative followed by preferential protodeboronation of the second boryl ligand.
Convective Heat Transfer Enhancement through Laser-Etched Heat Sinks: Elliptic Scale-Roughened and Cones Patterns

The efficient dissipation of localized heat flux by convection is a key request in several engineering applications, especially electronic ones. The recent advancements in manufacturing processes are unlocking the design and industrialization of heat exchangers with unprecedented geometric characteristics and, thus, performance. In this work, laser etching manufacturing technique is employed to develop metal surfaces with designed microstructured surface patterns. Such precise control of the solid-air interface (artificial roughness) allows to manufacture metal heat sinks with enhanced thermal transmittance with respect to traditional flat surfaces. Here, the thermal performance of these laser-etched devices is experimentally assessed by means of a wind tunnel in a fully turbulent regime. At the highest Reynolds number tested in the experiments ( R e L ≈ 16 , 500 ), elliptic scale-roughened surfaces show thermal transmittances improved by up to 81% with respect to heat sinks with flat surface. At similar testing conditions, cones patterns provide an enhancement in Nusselt number and thermal transmittance of up to 102% and 357%, respectively. The latter results are correlated with the main geometric and thermal fluid dynamics descriptors of the convective heat transfer process in order to achieve a predictive model of their performance. The experimental evidence shown in this work may encourage and guide a broader use of micro-patterned surfaces for enhancing convective heat transfer in heat exchangers.
Politics of Cultural Tourism in the North Sumatera Samosir Island

Tourism has become a very promising industry in increasing economic development. Each region is competing to market their area as a tourist destination in order to get foreign exchange. All resources, such as natural resources, human resources, special interest resources, especially cultural resources, are all maximized for the advancement of tourism. In an effort to increase regional income, the Samosir Regency Government of North Sumatra Province took a breakthrough to attract tourists to visit Samosir Island. One of the efforts made is by demonstrating cultural tourism, which is the ritual performance of mangalahat horbo bius ritual. This show is held every year in the Horas Samosir Fiesta event. The mangalahat horbo bius ritual performance began in 2008 at Batu Hobon, Limbong Sagala Village, Sianjur Mulamula Samosir Sub District. Since it was made a ritual, the mangalahat horbo bius became a show on Samosir Island, there were pros and cons in the community where the Catholic Church supported the show as the way to spread religion. Meanwhile the Samosir Regency government as the initiator of the show, has the aim to attract the interest of the visit. The party who openly rejected the show was the Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP). Since the beginning, the mangalahat horbo bius ritual performance has experienced controversy in the community. The aim is to attract visits to the Samosir Island area to be counter productive. Therefore, at every mangalahat horbo bius ritual performance, the number of tourist visits to Samosir Island always decreases. In this case the local community is less supportive of the show while tourists visiting Samosir Island avoid the mangalahat horbo bius ritual show for reasons of showing sadism.
Optimization of internal reference genes for qPCR in human pancreatic cancer research

Background Pancreatic cancer (PC) has been becoming a common cancer with high mortality and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is one of the best choices for researching gene expression. Internal reference genes, such as actin beta (ACTB) and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphatide hydrogenase (GAPDH) have long been used in relative quantification analysis. But evidence shows that some internal reference genes expression may vary in different tissues, cell lines and different conditions. The present study aimed to find more stable internal reference gene for qPCR experiment in PC. Methods Total RNA of human PC tissues were prepared using TRIZOL reagent. qPCR was performed using FastStart Universal SYBR Green Master to reflects the expression of target genes. Normfinder and geNorm were used to analyze the stability of chosen internal reference genes Results According to the results of NormFinder and geNorm, eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2B subunit alpha (EIF2B1) and importin 8 (IPO8) were the same most stable internal reference genes in PCs and non-neoplastic tissues. In addition, EIF2B1 and IPO8 remained the most stable internal reference genes only in PCs. Using a normalization factor NF2 by geNorm as reference, the normalized GAPDH and ACTB expression levels were obviously up-regulated by 3.29- and 2.23-fold change, meanwhile ribosomal protein S17 (RPS17) were down-regulated by 0.77-fold change in PCs comparing with corresponding adjacent tissues. Conclusions The use of the combination of EIF2B1 and IPO8 would provide more stable results in differential expression analysis and prognostic analysis of PC.
Voltage Balancing Control of Series-Connected SiC MOSFETs by Using Energy Recovery Snubber Circuits

Power semiconductor switches are usually connected in series to achieve higher blocking voltage. However, the series-operation of semiconductor devices is not easy due to unequal voltage sharing. In comparison with silicon (Si) devices, series-connecting silicon carbide (SiC) devices are even more challenging due to their ultrafast switching speed. In this article, a novel snubber circuit topology with energy recovery capability is proposed to control the voltage sharing of series-connected SiC mosfets. The snubber circuits operate with a self-balancing technique; thus, the required control and sensing circuits are simple. The proposed method maintains the snubber capacitor voltage nearly constant, so the snubber capacitors are not fully discharged during the devices on-state. Besides, excess snubber energy can be transferred back to the dc bus, so the induced snubber loss is minimal. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed snubber circuit topology in a half-bridge inverter with four SiC mosfets connected in series.
Preparation of Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes Embedded Electroconductive Multi-Microchannel Scaffolds for Neuron Growth under Electrical Stimulation

Objectives To prepare the conductive MWCNT (multiwall carbon nanotube)-agarose scaffolds with multi-microchannel for neuron growth under electrical stimulation. Methods The scaffolds were produced by gradient freeze and lyophilization methods. The synthesized materials were characterized by SEM and near-infrared spectroscopy, and their microstructure, swelling-deswelling, conductivity, biocompatibility, and shape memory behavior were measured. A three-dimensional culture model by implanting cells into scaffolds was built, and the behaviors of RSC96 cells on scaffolds under electrical stimulation were evaluated. Results The addition of MWCNT did not affect the pore composition ratio and shape memory of agarose scaffolds, but 0.025% wt MWCNT in scaffolds improved the swelling ratio and water retention at the swelling equilibrium state. Though MWCNTs in high concentration had slight effect on proliferation of RSC96 cells and PC12 cells, there was no difference that the expressions of neurofilament of RSC96 cells on scaffolds with MWCNTs of different concentration. RSC96 cells arranged better along the longitudinal axis of scaffolds and showed better adhesion on both 0.025% MWCNT-agarose scaffolds and 0.05% MWCNT-agarose scaffolds compared to other scaffolds. Conclusions Agarose scaffolds with MWCNTs possessed promising applicable prospect in peripheral nerve defects.
Generational Patterns of Digital News Consumption

Digital high-choice media environments (Prior, 2007; Van Aelst et al., 2017) lead to fragmented and polarized news consumption. The concept of news repertoires was introduced to analyze media use in a cross-media environment. News repertoires were found to be diverse across countries, to be dependent on age groups, socioeconomic status, and to have effects on political knowledge and participation (Diehl et al., 2018; Edgerly et al., 2018; Stromback et al., 2018; Wolfsfeld et al., 2016). The aim of this study is to identify different news repertoires in Croatia and to test the effects of generational belonging and socioeconomic status on the formation of these repertoires. It has been shown over time that age and political interest are more important predictors of increasingly diversified and polarized news consumption (Bergstrom et al., 2019; Stromback et al., 2013). This study discusses the interplay of sociodemographic factors and political interest in driving news consumption across different generations. The analysis is based on data from Reuters Digital News Survey conducted in Croatia in 2018. Latent class analysis is used to identify news repertoires and the covariates which form them. The analysis resulted in identifying five news repertoires: minimalists, digital-born users, traditionalists, commercial media users and eclectics.
Mortality and Morbidity of Surgical Management of Geriatric Ankle Fractures.

INTRODUCTION The incidence of geriatric ankle fractures is rising. With the substantial variation in the physiologic and functional status within this age group, our null hypothesis was that mortality and complications of open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) between patients who are aged 65 to 79 are equivalent to ORIF in patients who are aged 80 to 89. METHODS Patients with ankle fracture were identified using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnosis codes. Patients treated with ORIF were identified using the Current Procedural Terminology codes. Patients were divided into two age cohorts: 65 to 79 years of age and 80 to 89 years of age. The primary outcome studied was 30-day mortality. Secondary outcomes included 30-day readmission, revision surgery, surgical site infection, sepsis, wound dehiscence, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, blood transfusion, urinary tract infection, pneumonia, stroke, myocardial infarction, renal insufficiency or failure, and length of hospital stay. RESULTS Our cohort included 2,353 ankle fractures: 1,877 were among 65 to 79 years of age and 476 were among 80 or older. Thirty-day mortality was 3.2-fold higher in the 80 to 89 years of age group compared with the 65 to 79 years of age group (1.47% versus 0.48%, P = 0.019). However, after controlling for the ASA class, 80 to 89 years of age patients no longer had a significantly higher mortality (P = 0.0647). Similarly, revision surgery rate (3.36% versus 1.81%, P = 0.036), transfusion requirement (2.94% versus 1.49%, P = 0.033), urinary tract infection (1.89% versus 0.75%, P = 0.023), and hospital length of stay (4.9 versus 2.9 days, P < 0.0001) were all significantly higher in the 80 to 90 years of age group compared with the 65 to 79 years old group. However, after controlling for the ASA class, 80 to 89 years old patients no longer had a rate of complications in comparison to the 65 to 79 years old age group. DISCUSSION After controlling for comorbidities (ie, the ASA class), no increased risk is observed for the 30-day mortality or complication rate between geriatric ankle fracture in the 65 to 79 years old and the 80 to 99 years old age groups. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Prognostic level III, retrospective study.
Optimization Algorithms for Tibetan-Chinese Neural Machine Translation

Tibetan-Chinese neural machine translation (NMT) is facing serious resource scarcity problem. This paper compares the application effect of multiple neural network optimization algorithms under the condition of resource scarcity, and proposes an optimization method which is suitable for resource scarcity languages. Then, by which it improving the performance of the Tibetan-Chinese NMT. Experimental results show that when choosing a suitable optimization algorithm, the Tibetan-Chinese NMT can still exceed the traditional statistical machine translation (SMT) and achieve better translation performance.
The ‘how’ and ‘why’ of fitness app use: investigating user motivations to gain insights into the nexus of technology and fitness

Abstract Fitness tracking applications have demonstrated to be viable tools to help people meet the recommended guidelines of physical activity. Nevertheless, attrition rates of these applications are high. This indicates the need to thoroughly understand the unique motivations of users of these applications. Most importantly, why do these users turn to mHealth technologies and why do they continue utilizing them once the novelty associated with initial adoption wears off? To find this out we used computational methods to scrape user data from a popular fitness app (BodySpace) and conducted a thematic data analysis of user responses to questions about how they started using the app and why they love it. Findings of this study shed light on the unique motivations of this users and reveal possible design strategies than could be utilized within fitness tracking applications.
Combining three grain mutants for improved‐quality sweet corn

Our goal was to improve sweet corn (Zea mays L.) by the novel approach of combining three grain mutants in one plant, shrunken‐2 (sh2sh2), purple (Pr1Pr1C1C1), and opaque‐2 (o2o2), for increased sugar, anthocyanin, and tryptophan content, respectively. We crossed purple opaque‐2 waxy maize with sweet corn inbred lines. In the segregating selfed progenies, the opaque‐2 gene was detected by the genetic marker phi057, the two other genes by the visual markers purple and shrunken. The purple opaque‐2 sweet corn performed well in field tests; it had high total sugar content as required for sweet corn, improved protein quality indicated by 30% higher tryptophan content, and a 10‐fold higher anthocyanin content than yellow kernel maize. This new sweet corn germplasm is a first step toward developing specialty maize with increased health benefits.
Automatic Sleep Disorders Classification Using Ensemble of Bagged Tree Based on Sleep Quality Features

Sleep disorder is a medical disease of the sleep patterns, which commonly suffered by the elderly. Sleep disorders diagnosis and treatment are considered to be challenging due to a time-consuming and inconvenient process for the patient. Moreover, the use of Polysomnography (PSG) in sleep disorder diagnosis is a high-cost process. Therefore, we propose an efficient classification method of sleep disorder by merely using electrocardiography (ECG) signals to simplify the sleep disorders diagnosis process. Different from many current related studies that applied a five-minute epoch to observe the main frequency band of the ECG signal, we perform a pre-processing technique that suitable for the 30-seconds epoch of the ECG signal. By this simplification, the proposed method has a low computational cost so that suitable to be implemented in an embedded hardware device. Structurally, the proposed method consists of five stages: (1) pre-processing, (2) spectral features extraction, (3) sleep stage detection using the Decision-Tree-Based Support Vector Machine (DTB-SVM), (4) assess the sleep quality features, and (5) sleep disorders classification using ensemble of bagged tree classifiers. We evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method in the task of classifying the sleep disorders into four classes (insomnia, Sleep-Disordered Breathing (SDB), REM Behavior Disorder (RBD), and healthy subjects) from the 51 patients of the Cyclic Alternating Pattern (CAP) sleep data. Based on experimental results, the proposed method presents 84.01% of sensitivity, 94.17% of specificity, 86.27% of overall accuracy, and 0.70 of Cohen’s kappa. This result indicates that the proposed method able to reliably classify the sleep disorders merely using the 30-seconds epoch ECG in order to address the issue of a multichannel signal such as the PSG.
Controls on large boulder mobility in an ‘auto‐naturalized’ constructed step‐pool river: San Clemente Reroute and Dam Removal Project, Carmel River, California, USA

A 1200 m‐long river segment of Carmel River (California) was constructed to bypass trapped reservoir sediment when San Clemente Dam was removed from the Carmel River in 2015. Hundreds of large boulders were used to construct 53 steps in an 800 m‐long reach of the project. Nearly all the boulders were scattered to new locations in high flows of 2017, and have been relatively stable since that time. We analysed the causes of incipient motion and distance travelled for 226 randomly selected large boulders (0.5–1.8 m) impacted by a flood event in winter of 2019. Channel width, water depth, and isolation from neighbouring boulders were the main variables controlling individual large boulder incipient motion during a 10‐year peak flow event in the ‘auto‐naturalized’ constructed step‐pool river in 2019. There is weak statistical evidence that a combination of shear stress and the presence of boulders located laterally downstream of the subject boulder controlled the distance the boulder moved. Frequentist statistics and Akaike information criterion model comparison determined that boulder size, boulder shape, boulder roundness, and local thalweg slope were not good predictors of large boulder incipient motion or distance transported. Average dimensionless critical shear value for the four largest mobilized boulders (1.5–1.6 m) was 0.014. We describe the geomorphic history of the site and use our results to discuss potential causes of unanticipated large boulder transport at the site that occurred in a <2‐year peak flow of winter 2016 soon after step construction. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.