Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The changing African art and design curriculum: narratives from teacher education

Abstract This is a comparative study of the indigenization of teacher education art and design curricular in Botswana and Zimbabwe. The study methodology involved a critical review of various policies, art curricular, operational documents and focus group discussions with art and design lecturers in associate teachers’ colleges. Results revealed a general gravitation toward African narratives as evidenced in the curricular documents, instructional strategies and examinations. There was, however, a predominance of Western art in the curricular for both countries. The study proposes establishing deliberate equilibrium between Western and African art as well as implementing an eclectic didactical and pedagogical approach which will expose the student to local, regional and the expansive world art.
Life Cycle Cost Assessment of Offshore Wind Farm: Kudat Malaysia Case

The Government of Malaysia has set a striving target to achieve a higher usage of renewable energy (RE) in the energy mix which is currently around 2% of the country’s electricity. Yet, the government intends to increase this ratio up to 20% by the year 2025. Most of the renewable energy in Malaysia comes from hydropower and biomass sources. Meanwhile, numerous studies have been conducted to determine the feasibility of wind energy in Malaysia. Several locations were reported to be economically viable for wind energy development such as Kudat, Mersing, and Kuala Terengganu. This study presents and discusses the whole life cycle cost analysis of an offshore wind farm in Kudat, Malaysia and determines the cost drivers of offshore wind energy developments. It covers the wind data collection and analysis, breakdown of whole life cycle cost structure, and calculation of the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). Results showed that almost 67% of the total cost was incurred by the capital expenditure (CAPEX), and around 26% by operation and maintenance costs (OPEX), while decommissioning costs (DECOM) reached up to 7% of the whole life cycle costs. The LCOE was calculated and determined to be USD 127.58/MWh.
Choosing the best approach for paraesophageal hiatal hernia repair: a narrative review

: The optimal approach for repairing large paraesophageal hernia (PEH) is unclear. Historically, these were initially approached through a transthoracic incision, then shifted to a laparotomy. Now laparoscopy has been the most common approach for at least the past decade, during which time the robotic approach has also increased in utilization. This article reviews the pros and cons of the different approaches, including recurrence rates, morbidity, and mortality. Using this information, we propose a general framework for the utilization of each approach as a reference for surgeons in their clinical decision making and operative planning. Laparoscopic (and/or robotic) approaches are best suited for small PEHs or cases of reflux alone. Robotic technology can aid in crural repair and potentially reduce long-term recurrence compared to traditional laparoscopy, while maintaining the benefits of quicker recovery. A laparotomy should generally be reserved for patients with recurrent PEH and severe intra-abdominal adhesions or urgent situations such as obstruction, gangrene, or conversion from laparoscopy. Due to the high risk of recurrence, patients with larger PEHs (type III or IV) or risk factors for recurrence (obesity, shortened esophagus, chronic cough, or constipation), should be strongly considered for a transthoracic approach. It is unclear if mesh offers benefits long term, but there is a small incidence of catastrophic mesh complications that should also be considered. Non-operative management of PEH, though occasionally utilized for asymptomatic patients, should generally be avoided due to a high risk of PEH-related complications and mortality. 9
Examining the antecedents and consequences of sustainable green supply chain management from the perspective of ecological modernization: evidence from Taiwan’s high-tech sector

In recent years, environmental sustainability has stimulated enterprises worldwide to not only develop green and sustainable innovations but also to move toward green and sustainable supply chain management. This study integrated the ideas of green supply chain management (GSCM) and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) to define sustainable green supply chain management (SGSCM). Previous studies on GSCM/SSCM have contributed to research and practice, but few have explored the antecedents and consequences of GSCM/SSCM simultaneously. To address this research gap, we linked ecological modernization (EM) theory with SGSCM and sustainability performance to build a comprehensive research model. A total of 300 valid questionnaires were collected from electrical and electronics firms in Taiwan. The empirical results demonstrated that awareness of and pressure to engage in EM significantly positively affected SGSCM. Moreover, SGSCM significantly positively influenced sustainability performance (i.e. environmental, economic, and social performance). These findings should convince enterprises to actively promote SGSCM.
Initial Experience with Robotic Surgical Exclusion of the Left Atrial Appendage

Introduction: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a major modifiable risk factor associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke. It is an independent predictor of mortality and is associated with poorer outcomes among stroke patients. AF affects approximately 2.7 million people with a stroke rate of 3.5% per year. Amongst individuals with non-valvular AF that experience embolic stokes, 90% arise from the left atrial appendage (LAA), and consequently left atrial appendage closure can be considered for patients unable to tolerate anticoagulation medications. Surgical exclusion of the LAA decreases the yearly risk of stroke to 0.7% when used in combination with a Maze procedure. While not as effective in preventing strokes as other anti-arrhythmic procedures such as a maze, epicardial exclusion via endovascular or epicardial techniques can be used to eliminate the thrombogenic, low-flow cavity of the left atrial appendage, theoretically reducing the stroke risk by 90%. Epicardial clipping can be done through a sternotomy while performing a concomitant procedure, or via a minimally invasive approach using a video-assisted surgical or a robotic approach. We present here our initial institutional experience of epicardial clipping of the LAA using a robotic assisted thoracoscopic approach. Results: The mean age was 75.9-years. The mean CHA2DS2VASC score was 4.3, and the mean HAS-BLED. score was 3.1. The mean postoperative length of stay was 2.2 days. Two cases were aborted due to an inability to achieve domain, and dense pleural adhesions, respectively. One patient developed acute pericarditis postoperatively that was easily treated with colchicine and pain medication. Another patient developed respiratory failure because of over-sedation. Finally, one of the patients developed hemorrhagic shock due to bleeding from pericardiophrenic artery, resulting in return to the operating room for median sternotomy. Conclusion: Epicardial LAA clipping using a robotic approach shows promising results for high risk patients with AF, with fewer complications. Long term success in preventing stroke is still yet to be determined, but short-term results are encouraging and equivocal to the minimally invasive approach.
Using the Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm to Solve the Point Coverage Problem with Moving Targets in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been used in many sectors in recent years. Easy deployment and low prices are the main reasons for using WSN. On the other hand, power source limitations and unstructured overlay networks are the major concerns in these kinds of networks. Region coverage is one of the problems that should be solved smartly in order to maximize the productivity of the network. Appropriate sensor selection and efficient energy usage are essential in region coverage. Pointwise coverage is a well-known version of the coverage problem. Since this is an NP-complete problem, many approaches have already been designed to solve it. The main shortcoming in previous works is the short network lifetime due to high energy consumption. In this paper, an enhanced method has been proposed based on the Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm (COA). By means of an adjusted version of the cuckoo search and a heuristic fitness function, it has been possible to expand the lifespan of the network. The proposed algorithm is composed of three phases: the first phase is setting up, the second phase is the selection, and the third phase is stable status. Simulation results show that the proposed method in comparison with recent works has achieved a sensible optimization in energy consumption, lifetime, and coverage quality.
Using the Nonlinear Duffing Effect of Piezoelectric Micro-Oscillators for Wide-Range Pressure Sensing

This paper investigates the resonant behaviour of silicon-based micro-oscillators with a length of 3600 µm, a width of 1800 µm and a thickness of 10 µm over a wide range of ambient gas (N2) pressures, extending over six orders of magnitude from 10−3 mbar to 900 mbar. The oscillators are actuated piezoelectrically by a thin-film aluminium-nitride (AlN) layer, with the cantilever coverage area being varied from 33% up to 100%. The central focus is on nonlinear Duffing effects, occurring at higher oscillation amplitudes. A theoretical background is provided. All relevant parameters describing a Duffing oscillator, such as stiffness parameters for each coverage size as well as for different bending modes and more complex modes, are extracted from the experimental data. The so-called 2nd roof-tile-shaped mode showed the highest stiffness value of −97.3∙107 m−2s−2. Thus, it was chosen as being optimal for extended range pressure measurements. Interestingly, both a spring softening effect and a spring hardening effect were observed in this mode, depending on the percentage of the AlN coverage area. The Duffing-effect-induced frequency shift was found to be optimal for obtaining the highest pressure sensitivity, while the size of the hysteresis loop is also a very useful parameter because of the possibility of eliminating the temperature influences and long-term drift effects of the resonance frequency. An reasonable application-specific compromise between the sensitivity and the measurement range can be selected by adjusting the excitation voltage, offering much flexibility. This novel approach turns out to be very promising for compact, cost-effective, wide-range pressure measurements in the vacuum range.
Analysis and Evaluation of the Feasibility of Positive Energy Districts in Selected Urban Typologies in Vienna Using a Bottom-Up District Energy Modelling Approach

This article investigates the potential of selected urban typologies in Vienna to reach the state of Positive Energy Districts (PED) by achieving a positive annual energy balance. It follows the EU initiative for implementing at least 100 PED in Europe by 2025. Four urban typologies have been assessed using the bottom-up energy modelling tool MAPED that enables a simplified energy demand-supply analysis at the district scale. Considering relevant urban typologies in different construction periods, the analysis focused on converting the allocated building stocks into PED by employing comprehensive thermal refurbishment and energy efficiency measures, electrification of end-uses and fuel switching, exploitation of local renewable energy potential, and flexible interaction with the regional energy system. The results reveal that a detached housing district can achieve a positive annual energy balance (for heat and power) of 110% due to the fact that there are sufficient surfaces (roofs, facades, open land) available for the production of local renewable energy, whereas the remaining typologies fail to achieve the criteria with an annual balance ranking between 61% and 97%, showing additional margins for improvement to meet the PED conditions. The presented concept offers a practical approach to investigate the PED suitability of urban typologies. It will help the Austrian Ministry for Climate Action and Environment to identify appropriate strategies for the refurbishment of existing urban areas towards the PED standard.
Fintech and responsibility: Buy-now-pay-later arrangements

Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) arrangements have rapidly emerged as a short-term debt option, and like other innovative and disruptive Fintech, challenge existing regulation. BNPL arrangements avoided prescribed ‘responsible lending’ legislative obligations, which applied to similar short-term credit products. Instead, BNPL relies on ‘responsible spending’ in providing a potentially cheaper option than alternatives such as credit cards. We describe the interplay of regulation and responsibility with BNPL. A survey investigates whether a key demographic (young adults) have an appetite or skill for responsible use. We analyse the preference for BNPL relative to credit cards and the role of financial literacy and traits including propensity to plan and save. The findings suggest that financial literacy reduces perceived BNPL benefits and that lower financial literacy is associated with more benefits and less risks. JEL Classification: G53, D14, G51, G41, G18
Compact Wideband Circularly Polarized Dipole Antenna Using Modified Quadrature Hybrid Couplers

In this communication, we propose a novel circularly polarized (CP) dipole antenna fed by modified quadrature hybrid couplers (QHCs). In a conventional CP antenna, such as a sequentially rotated structure, the electrical length of the line connecting the radiating elements changes as the frequency changes. This characteristic produces a narrow axial ratio (AR) bandwidth and changes the radiation patterns of the array antenna at different frequencies. A modified QHC with minimal variation in the phase and amplitude difference between the output ports over a wide frequency range is used to achieve wide AR bandwidth and stable radiation patterns. The −10 dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 4.1–7.6 GHz (58.3%), and the 3 dB AR bandwidth is 4.8–7.4 GHz (43.3%). The maximum gain is 4.4 dBic, and the 3 dB gain bandwidth is 5–7.5 GHz (40%). The antenna size is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$21\times 21\times0.2032$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm<sup>3</sup> (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.42\times 0.42\times 0.004\lambda _{o}^{3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at 6 GHz).
Comparative Analysis of Fractal Properties of Solar Faculae

Present study is aimed at investigating the solar faculae area from 1990 to 2007 which partially covered the22nd and 23rd solar cycle. Rescaled Range Analysis (RRA) and Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) have beenadopted to evaluate the behaviour of nonlinear dynamics of solar faculae area. Results show that the value of Hurstexponent for solar faculae area from RRA and DFA is negatively correlated. It means it is non-persistent and longrange correlated. Obtained result is inaccurate so the only solution is to transform the data into stationary data by takingdifferencing. RRA is applied on residuals and RRA to evaluate the fractal property of the time series. Solar faculae areainvestigated in this study is fractal in nature and predictable ass well. Moreover, the time series of solar faculae area isnon-linear as established by the Brock – Dechert – Scheinkman (BDS) test results
Sentence Semantic Matching Based on 3D CNN for Human–Robot Language Interaction

The development of cognitive robotics brings an attractive scenario where humans and robots cooperate to accomplish specific tasks. To facilitate this scenario, cognitive robots are expected to have the ability to interact with humans with natural language, which depends on natural language understanding (NLU) technologies. As one core task in NLU, sentence semantic matching (SSM) has widely existed in various interaction scenarios. Recently, deep learning–based methods for SSM have become predominant due to their outstanding performance. However, each sentence consists of a sequence of words, and it is usually viewed as one-dimensional (1D) text, leading to the existing available neural models being restricted into 1D sequential networks. A few researches attempt to explore the potential of 2D or 3D neural models in text representation. However, it is hard for their works to capture the complex features in texts, and thus the achieved performance improvement is quite limited. To tackle this challenge, we devise a novel 3D CNN-based SSM (3DSSM) method for human–robot language interaction. Specifically, first, a specific architecture called feature cube network is designed to transform a 1D sentence into a multi-dimensional representation named as semantic feature cube. Then, a 3D CNN module is employed to learn a semantic representation for the semantic feature cube by capturing both the local features embedded in word representations and the sequential information among successive words in a sentence. Given a pair of sentences, their representations are concatenated together to feed into another 3D CNN to capture the interactive features between them to generate the final matching representation. Finally, the semantic matching degree is judged with the sigmoid function by taking the learned matching representation as the input. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets demonstrate that 3DSSM is able to achieve comparable or even better performance over the state-of-the-art competing methods.
Fast food in the city? Nomadic flying-foxes commute less and hang around for longer in urban areas

Urbanization creates novel ecological spaces where some species thrive. Geographical urbanization promotes human–wildlife conflict; however, we know relatively little about the drivers of biological urbanization, which poses impediments for sound wildlife management and conservation action. Flying-foxes are extremely mobile and move nomadically in response to flowering resources, but are now increasingly found in urban areas, for reasons that are poorly understood. To investigate the mechanisms behind flying-fox urbanization, we examined the movement of 99 satellite tracked grey-headed flying-foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) over 1 year in urban versus non-urban environments. We found that tracked individuals preferentially visited major-urban roosts, exhibited higher fidelity to major-urban roosts, and foraged over shorter distances when roosting in major-urban areas. In contrast to other colonial species, there were no density-dependent effects of colony size on foraging distance, suggesting that at a landscape scale, flying-foxes distribute themselves across roosts in an ideal-free manner, minimizing competition over urban and non-urban foraging resources. Yet, males consistently foraged over shorter distances than females, suggesting that at a local scale foraging distances reflect competitive inequalities between individuals. Overall, our study supports the hypothesis that flying-fox urbanization is driven by increased spatiotemporal availability of food resources in urban areas; however, unlike in other species, it is likely a consequence of increased urban visitation by nomadic individuals rather than a subset of the population becoming “urban residents” per se. We discuss the implications of the movement behavior we report for the conservation and management of highly mobile species.
Experiments and modeling on an air-water interface populated by biological molecules

This thesis addresses flow-induced packing of amphiphilic bio-molecules along an air-water interface. Pentadecanoic acid (PDA) is selected as model system. Experiments are based on a shear flow provided in an annular channel whose floor is put in rotation. The liquid surface is covered by a Langmuir layer of PDA submitted to a bulk-driven shear at the liquid surface and to a 2-D shear along it, as well. Phase transition from liquid-expanded (LE) to liquid-condensed (LC) phases is observed under Brewster angle microscopy (BAM) and investigated based on area fraction distribution of the LC phase after permanent regime is established. The distribution of condensed phase demonstrates a radially-inwards packing along the liquid surface induced by centrifugation of the subphase. For a growing level of centrifugation, the Langmuir film experiences a strong morphological transition at meso scale, driven by a balance between surface shear and line tension. For a highly-densified PDA film, LC domains are stratifying. If sub-phase rotation is large enough (Re as large as 1000), bulk shearing is responsible for LC domains break-up in agreement with literature. An analytical modelling is proposed at a small Reynolds number with a new integral formulation which enables estimation of the Boussinesq number as well as the measurement of viscous stratification.
How do executive pay and its gap with employee pay influence corporate performance? Evidence from Thailand tourism listed companies

PurposeThe authors investigate how executive pay and its gap with employee pay influence the performance of Thailand tourism listed companies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors manually collect data on the executives' and employees' remunerations for Thailand tourism listed companies and use the data for the authors’ OLS regression analysis. To check the robustness of the results to potential endogeneity issues, the authors employ the two-stage least-squares regression analysis and the impact threshold for a confounding variable approach.FindingsThe authors find that short-term executive compensation enhances firm performance, and that long-term executive compensation reduces the likelihood of unfavorable corporate performance. The authors also find that the gap in short-term pay between executives and employees has an inverted-U relation with firm performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis study suggests that higher executive pay relative to employee pay could encourage executives to work hard to improve corporate performance, but that too large a pay gap between executives and employees could impair employees' morale and harm firm performance.Practical implicationsIt is important for tourism companies to not only pay executives well but also avoid too large a pay gap between executives and employees.Social implicationsThis study implies the important role of compensation design in contributing to employee engagement and good performance for tourism firms.Originality/valueThis study sheds light on agency problems between executives and employees in tourism companies and provides new evidence and insights on compensation research in the tourism sector in emerging markets.