Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structure and properties of polypropylene/organic rectorite nanocomposites

Abstract Melt blending using a twin-screw extruder was used to prepare composites of polypropylene (PP)/organic rectorite (PR). The organic rectorite (OREC) was modified with dodecyl benzyl dimethyl ammonium bromide (1227). Wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and transmission electron microscopy were used to investigate the dispersion of OREC in the composites. The d spacings of OREC in PR composites was greater than in OREC itself. The dispersion of OREC particles in the PP polymer matrix was fine and uniform when the clay content was small (2 wt.%). The rheology was characterized using a capillary rheometer. The processing behaviour of the PR system improved as the amount of OREC added increased. Non-isothermal crystallization kinetics were analysed using differential scanning calorimetry. It was shown that the addition of OREC had a heterogeneous nucleation effect on PP, and can accelerate the crystallization. However, only when fine dispersion was achieved, and at lower rates of temperature decrease, was the crystallinity greater. Wide-angle X-ray diffraction and polarized light microscopy were used to observe the crystalline form and crystallite size. The PP in the PR composites exhibited an α-monoclinic crystal form, as in pure PP, and in both cases a spherulite structure was observed. However, the smaller spherulite size in the PR systems indicated that addition of OREC can reduce the crystal size significantly, which might improve the ‘toughness’ of the PP. The mechanical properties (tensile and impact strength) improved when the amount of OREC added was appropriate. Dynamic mechanical analysis showed that the storage modulus (E’) and loss modulus (E’’) of the nanocomposites were somewhat greater than those of pure PP when an appropriate amount of OREC was added. Finally, thermogravimetric analysis showed that the PR systems exhibited a greater thermal stability than was seen with pure PP.
RV-coefficient and its significance test in mapping brain functional connectivity

The statistic of RV-coefficient is a good substitute for the Pearson correlation coefficient to measure the temporal similarity of two local brain regions. However, the hypothesis test of RV-coefficient is a hard problem which limits its application. This paper discussed the problem in details. Since the distribution of RV-coefficient is unknown, we do not know a critical p-value to statistically test its significance. We proposed a new strategy to test the significance of RV calculated from fMRI. In order to approximate the p-value, we elicited the first two moments of the population permutation distribution of RV; we then derived a formula to more closely approximate the normal distribution with these transformed statistics. These transformations of statistics are suggested for a precise approximation to the permutational p-value even under large number of observations. This strategy of test can greatly reduce the computational complexity and avoid "calculation catastrophe", we then use the statistic of RV to extract the map of functional connectivity from fMRI and test its significance with the strategy proposed here.
Assessment of clinical, hematological, radiological parameters for prediction of difficult laparoscopic cholecystectomy at a tertiary health care centre

Background: Since its introduction in the mid 1980’s, laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) has been widely used for symptomatic cholelithiasis. In recent years it has been considered as a gold standard for treatment of symptomatic cholelithiasis. Recent studies have reported that the rate of conversion of LC to open cholecystectomy (OC) is 1.5-19%. The aim of the present study was to predict the difficulties of performing laparoscopic cholecystectomy in symptomatic cholelithiasis. Further, the possibility of converting LC to open cholecystectomy was also investigated using various haematological, clinical, and radiological tool such as USG.Methods: The present prospective study was conducted in in Nehru Hospital of BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur, India over a period of 12 months on in-patients from various surgical wards undergoing LC. The patients were primarily divided into two groups consisting of those undergoing LC and those converted to OC respectively. Parameters like gender, age, body mass index, associated complains, total leukocyte count (TLC) and levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were assessed as potential risk factors for conversion.Results: 50 patients were considered for this study. Results indicated that rate of conversion of LC to OC was found to be maximum for patients belonging to male gender, 31-40 years old, were obese, had previous history of upper abdominal surgery and had raised levels of TLC and ALP. Patients having multiple stones and contracted gall bladder also had a higher incidence of conversion to OC.Conclusions: From results obtained in this study, it could be concluded that parameters like age, gender, obesity, history of upper abdominal surgery, raised levels of TLC and ALP, incidences of multiple stones and contracted gall bladder posed significant risk for LC and acted as predictors for conversion to OC.
Automated Software Testing of JavaScript Web Applications

Modern software is becoming more and more complex and manual testing cannot keep up with the need for high-quality reliable software: often due to the complexity of event-driven software, manual testing is done. This comes with many disadvantages in comparison with automated testing. The increased importance of having a secure, reliable online presence requires testing of JavaScript web applications. This thesis explores the current state of Automated Testing for JavaScript web applications, presents a new Automated Testing Framework and gives an outlook on future research. It intends to resolve some of the complexity issues to allow for automated testing.
Association between body iron stores and level of oxidatively modified DNA bases

It appears that the presence of labile iron pool (LIP, iron not bound to proteins) in cells can result in the production of reactive oxygen species namely C OH radical which may be responsible for the formation of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2N-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG) in the cellular DNA. This oxidatively modified molecule is regarded as a good biomarker of cancer risk and a general index of oxidative stress in relation to other diseases. There are numerous data suggesting that oxidative stress may be involved in the development of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. It has been observed that heterozygosity for hereditary hemochromatosis (a disease with abnormal iron storage) is a risk factor for vascular diseases. Previously we have demonstrated higher levels of LIP in a group of atherosclerotic patients when compared with the control group. This suggests that LIP may increase the risk of disease development. The aforementioned condition may lead to oxidative stress, which is manifested by a higher level of 8-oxodG in blood lymphocytes, and may be one of the factors responsible for the development of cardiovascular diseases. We have also reported the relationship between LIP and the endogenous level of 8-oxodG in human lymphocytes of the colon cancer patients. Good correlation has been determined between LIP and oxidatively modified nucleoside. The results of our studies on piglets supplemented with iron dextran (FeDex) also show an increase in the 8-oxodG level in hepatic DNA. These findings confirm the possibility that iron overload may favor the persistence of harmful LIP which may catalyze generation of the potentially carcinogenic 8-oxodG moiety in the cellular DNA.
Classification Research with Attention-based Recurrent Neural Networks

Text classification is one of the principal tasks of machine learning. It aims to design proper algorithms to enable computers to extract features and classify texts automatically. In the past, this has been mainly based on the classification of keywords and neural network semantic synthesis classification. The former emphasizes the role of keywords, while the latter focuses on the combination of words between roles. The method proposed in this paper considers the advantages of both methods. It uses an attention mechanism to learn weighting for each word. Under the setting, key words will have a higher weight, and common words will have lower weight. Therefore, the representation of texts not only considers all words, but also pays more attention to key words. Then we feed the feature vector to a softmax classifier. At last, we conduct experiments on two news classification datasets published by NLPCC2014 and Reuters, respectively. The proposed model achieves F-values by 88.5% and 51.8% on the two datasets. The experimental results show that our method outperforms all the traditional baseline systems.
Factors impacting information governance in the mobile device dual‐use context

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reveal factors that impact information governance within the mobile technology implementation in organizations in the dual‐use context.Design/methodology/approach – Case study methodology was used and 15 semi‐structured interviews were conducted with records and information management (RIM) and information security professionals from different types of organizations.Findings – There are three main findings. First, stakeholder support is critical to drive the change and leverage organizational security culture. Second, records mobility with data security dimension represents the biggest challenge for RIM stakeholders. Third, mobile strategy and security framework are two must‐win areas for a successful mobile implementation.Research limitations/implications – The paper does not include any end‐user perspective in interviews and this end‐user context is missing.Practical implications – Awareness through education and training of employees needs to be given very part.
Delivering Knowledge Across Boundaries: A Case Study of Bankco's Offshoring Projects

Although prior empirical studies have repeatedly suggested that knowledge sharing between offshore clients and vendors is critical for the success of offshoring relationships, much less is known about the actual processes of knowledge delivery across organizational knowledge boundaries in these offshoring projects. To fill the research gap and enrich the academic litera-ture, we propose a process framework to demonstrate the actual processes in which knowledge is delivered across boundaries between vendors and clients in the offshoring arrangements. By combining the framework of knowledge boundary and theory of absorptive capacity to analyse the case of BankCo’s offshoring project, the stages are identified, through which various types of knowledge are sequentially delivered from clients to vendors by several processes in each stage. In particular, our study reveals that a strategic shift from total global offshoring project to global distributed teamwork renders BankCo an opportunity to overcome the hindrance of pragmatic boundary and insufficient absorptive capacity of the offshoring vendors.
Vehicle routing for public transport with adapted simulated annealing

Fil: Rodriguez, D. A. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnologico Bahia Blanca. Planta Piloto de Ingenieria Quimica (I). Grupo Vinculado al Plapiqui - Investigacion y Desarrollo en Tecnologia Quimica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ciencias e Ingenieria de la Computacion. Laboratorio de Investigacion y Desarrollo en Computacion Cientifica; Argentina
Low Pressure DC-Plasma System for the Modification of Polymeric Membrane Surfaces

The main objectives of this work were to develop a lab-scale direct current (DC) glow discharges plasma system for modification of organic and inorganic membranes. Characteristics of plasma system were presented under the discharge of five gases (Ar, N2, air, O2, and CO2). A Langmuir double probe was used for the evaluation of the electron temperature (Te) and electron density (ne) of plasmas. The current and voltage (I-V) characteristic curves were analyzed. Relationships between breakdown voltage (VB) of gases and products of gas pressure and inter-electrode gap (pd) were studied in form of Paschen curves. The results showed that Te of plasma in various gases was in the range of 4-13 eV, while the ne varied between 108 and 109 cm-3. The plasma generated at different gas pressure and applied voltage is in the normal and abnormal modes. Finally, the constructed DC-plasma system was utilized for modification of polymeric membrane surfaces. Treatment time, discharge power and type of gas were varied. The tailoring of membrane surfaces was analyzed through the water contact angle and percent-weight loss (PWL) measurements, DMTA, AFM, XPS and FTIR spectrum. It could be shown that DC-plasma from this system can be used to modify the surface of polymeric membranes.
Can the administration be trusted? An analysis of the concept of trust, applied to the public sector

In the first part of this paper, we present the various academic debates and, where applicable, questions that remain open in the literature, particularly regarding the nature of trust, the distinction between trust and trustworthiness, its role in specific relationships and its relationship to control. We then propose a way of demarcating and operationalizing the concepts of trust and trustworthiness. In the second part, on the basis of the conceptual clarifications we present, we put forward a number of "anchor points" regarding how trust is apprehended in the public sector with regard to the various relations hips that can be studied. Schematically, we distinguish between two types of relations hips in the conceptual approach to trust: on one hand, the trust that citizens, or third parties, place in the State or in various public sector authorities or entities, and on the other hand, trust within the State or the public sector, between its various authorities, entities, and actors. While studies have traditionally focused on citizens' trust in their institutions, the findings, limitations and problems observed in public - sector coordination following the reforms associated with New Public Management have also elicited growing interest in the study of trust in the relationships between the various actors within the public sector. Both the theoretical debates we present and our propositions have been extracted and adapted from an empirical comparative study of coordination between various Swiss public - service organizations and their politico - administrative authority. Using the analysis model developed for this specific relationship, between various actors within the public service, and in the light of theoretical elements on which development of this model was based, we propose some avenues for further study - questions that remain open - regarding the consideration and understanding of citizens' trust in the public sector.
Social Information Processing in Students with and without Learning Disabilities.

This paper examines differences between students with and without learning disabilities (LD) in processing social information within the context of a social information processing model. It proposes that language problems may not be the sole cause for poor social skills in students with learning disabilities and suggests that social remediation programs consider the possible underlying processing difficulties that may affect these students and their ability to process social information. The paper first explains the social information processing model. It concludes that this model assumes processes that occur at a rapid rate and largely at an unconscious level, with conscious processing taking place only in relatively novel situations with attention given only while such information is in short term memory. The paper then examines characteristics of students with learning disabilities and their characteristic difficulties with memory in information processing. The following section connects students with LD to social information processing by showing how memory processing difficulties affect these students' social perceptions. The final two sections discuss poor social relational behavior in students with and without LD and implications of this theory for social skills intervention. (Contains 21 references.) (DB) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Social Information Processing in Students With and Without Learning Disabilities. John K. McNamara, Simon Fraser University U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDU TIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. 2 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
Sustainable Production of Asphalt Using Biomass as Primary Process Fuel

The production of construction materials is very energy intensive and requires large quantities of fossil fuels. Asphalt is the major road paving material in Europe and is being produced primarily in stationary batch mix asphalt factories. The production process requiring the most energy is the heating and drying of aggregate, where natural gas, fuel oil or LPG is burned in a direct-fired rotary dryer. Replacing this energy source with a more sustainable one presents several technical and economic challenges, as high temperatures, short startup times and seasonal production variations are required. This paper analyses different pathways for the use of biomass feedstock as a primary process fuel. The analysed cases consider the gasification of straw and wood chips and the direct combustion of wood pellets. The additional use of syngas from the gasifier for the production of heat or combined heat and power is further evaluated during hours without asphalt production. The challenges of having varying seasonal production can be solved by this integration of the production unit to the utility system. The results show the economic and technical feasibility of using biomass for process heating in the asphalt factory. The dryer demand of 6.4 MW can be covered with a biomass input between 7.1 and 8.6 MW. District heat can be produced at competitive prices below 40 € per MWh.
Stable isotope composition of faeces as an indicator of seasonal diet selection in wild herbivores in southern Africa

13 C values showed that wildebeest and warthog selected predominantly C4 plant material throughout the year. Impala ingested significantly more C3 plant material during the winter months than in all other months. Nyala also ingested more browse during winter. The nitrogen content of wildebeest faeces was significantly lower in winter than in summer, suggesting a possible decline in diet quality during the dry winter months. No significant seasonal trend in faecal nitrogen content was evident for nyala or warthog. Nitrogen contents of impala faeces were significantly higher in spring than in other seasons. Faecal isotopic and nutrient content analyses appear to be useful indicators of short-term diet selection and nutritional status of free-ranging herbivores. Analyses show resource parti- tioning among the different herbivores at finer time resolutions than can be obtained from bone collagen or isotopic analysis of tooth enamel.
Title Infection after fracture osteosynthesis – Part II : Treatment

In the first part of this article, we have discussed the pathogenesis, clinical presentation, diagnosis and classification of infection after fracture osteosynthesis with implants, termed here as osteosynthesis-associated infection (OAI). Prolonged antibiotic treatment is usually necessary. Implant retention and maintenance of fracture stability to allow for fracture healing in spite of infection are allowed for OAI. Depending on the severity of infection, status of fracture healing and host status, the treatment follows five common pathways. These are non-operative treatment, debridement with implant retention, conversion of fixation, implant removal and suppression therapy. The decision-making process leading to each treatment pathway and challenging scenarios is discussed in detail.
Exact Solutions of a High-Order Nonlinear Wave Equation of Korteweg-de Vries Type under Newly Solvable Conditions

By using the integral bifurcation method together with factoring technique, we study a water wave model, a high-order nonlinear wave equation of KdV type under some newly solvable conditions. Based on our previous research works, some exact traveling wave solutions such as broken-soliton solutions, periodic wave solutions of blow-up type, smooth solitary wave solutions, and nonsmooth peakon solutions within more extensive parameter ranges are obtained. In particular, a series of smooth solitary wave solutions and nonsmooth peakon solutions are obtained. In order to show the properties of these exact solutions visually, we plot the graphs of some representative traveling wave solutions.
Measuring the impact of financial flows on macroeconomic variables: the case of Brazil after the 2008 crisis

The effects of changes in foreign portfolio investment flows on Brazilian GDP and investment during the financial crisis of 2008 are evaluated through impulse-response functions, parsimonious models, and out of sample forecasts. Impulse-response functions results show a positive relation between fixed income flows and GDP and investment, but this relation is not as strong between the real variables and equity flows, although these flows anticipate GDP and investment behavior. Expectations seem to have an important role in explaining GDP and investment, which also have an influence on flows. The reduced vulnerability of the Brazilian economy consequently lessened the effect of the crisis when compared with previous crisis episodes.
Prospects of bicar as soil amendment in Nepal hill farming systems

Burning of biomass under controlled temperature and oxygen limited environment produces biochar along with syn-gases and bio-oil. A significant volume of literatures portray biochar as a remedial option to meet growing needs of amending agricultural soils for global food security and carbon sequestration to curb climate change. Biochar has generated huge interests among agro-practitioners mainly for its two sets of benefits. The first set of benefits is about desirable changes in soil function that includes enhanced soil microbial activity, retention of nutrients and moisture, alkaline effect for treating acidic soils and, increased porosity on soil structure. The second set includes enhanced adaptive capacity of agricultural systems to climate change impacts, and, carbon sequestration due to its recalcitrant nature that remain in soil for a very long period. These acclaimed effects of biochar on soils are among the much sought-after remedies to heal a number of soil health ailments that millions of farmers and policy planners are looking for. However, effectiveness of biochar has yet to be examined carefully in different soil types over diverse topography corresponding with local cropping patterns. Matching properties of soils with those of biochar is a prerequisite for any interventions aimed at soil amendment. Properties of biochar generally depend on feedstock types, and temperatures during pyrolysis. This review analyses major published works on different aspects of biochar with the key question of whether promotion of biochar could be a viable solution to address some of the critical concerns of soil productivity in the Nepal mid hills and concludes with a note that there are serious knowledge gaps in two fronts – systematic practice of biochar production and application in agricultural farms is yet to take off, and, documented evidences of effectiveness of biochar on various soil types and cropping patterns are insignificant.