Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soft X-ray Emissions from Planets, Moons, and Comets

A wide variety of solar system bodies are now known to radiate in the soft x-ray energy ( 10 keV) x-rays result mainly from the electron bremsstrahlung process. In this paper we present a brief review of the x-ray observations on each of the planetary bodies and discuss their characteristics and proposed source mechanisms.
A Survey on Enhancing User Navigation Using Web Transformation

Currently there are billions of internet users worldwide. A primary function of Web sites is to serve necessary information to the users. But Web sites are not always as successful or as usable as they could be. Discovery of required information in a website is a difficult task. Web site effectiveness depends on need of users. Web site users can encounter various problems when trying to acquire knowledge from a Web site and trying to use a Web site's functionalities. It is important to improve the navigation of website because they are mostly use for collecting information and for business purpose. Thus, it is important for the provider of a Web site to ensure that it is developed in a way that it should be useful for users. Designing a website which efficiently and effectively retrieves required Web pages on the Web is becoming a challenge. A main primary cause is that web developers may have understanding of how a web site should be design can be different from that of users this cause will lead to the problem for user to locate their intended information, however, the measure of website effectiveness should be the satisfaction of the users rather than that of the developers. Various techniques have been proposed to solve the problems.
Asset Supply and Private Information in Over-The-Counter Markets ∗

This paper studies asset supply and trading dynamics in a decentralized market with incomplete information. New assets are issued in a primary market through efficient auctions and then trade amongst investors who have heterogeneous valuations in an over-the-counter (OTC) secondary market. The innovation regarding the OTC market literature is that, in all trades, investors’ valuations for the asset are private information. The innovation regarding the literature on trade under private information is that the distribution of investors’ valuations is endogeneous—it depends on trading dynamics in the OTC secondary market. We calibrate the model to match features of the U.S. municipal bond market between 2005-2014 and examine the effects of private information on key financial market indicators such as trade volume, asset issuance, secondary market liquidity, and welfare.
Bioactive Phytochemicals in Flaxseed-With Particular Emphasis on the Secoisolariciresinol Oligomer

Flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) is rich in health-promoting bioactive compounds. Among plant foods, flaxseed has the highest content of lignans, mainly in the form of secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG). Flaxseed oil also has a very high concentration of the essential omega-3 fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). This thesis presents studies on both SDG and ALA. An HPLC method for quantification of SDG in hydrolysed flaxseed extracts was developed and used to compare the SDG content in 29 flaxseed cultivars (6.1-13.3 mg/g seed, dry weight). Full spectroscopic (NMR) data were obtained for two compounds, 4-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl-p-coumaric acid (CoAG) and 4-O-β-Dglucopyranosyl-ferulic acid, eluting before SDG in the HPLC system developed. NMR analyses provided the first evidence that SDG in flaxseed is bound in a linear oligomeric structure with an average composition of five SDG residues interlinked by four 3-hydroxy-3-methyl glutaric acid residues (average size 4 kDa). Chromatographic (UHPLC, GPC, SPE) and spectroscopic (MALDI-TOF) analyses of seven different flaxseed cultivars showed that the size of the SDG oligomers differed among cultivars depending on seed SDG/CoAG ratios. In attempts to decrease the use of fish-based feeds in aquaculture, vegetable oils are being assessed as replacements for fish oil. However, this has hitherto resulted in decreased levels of the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (n-3 HUFA) that make fish a healthy food choice for humans. Previous studies have shown that sesamin, a lignan from sesame seed, is able to increase conversion of ALA to n-3 HUFA in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) but less efficiently than expected when flaxseed oil, given its high ALA content, was used. In order to investigate whether high levels of ALA or possibly minor compounds in flaxseed oil could be responsible for the low n-3 HUFA formation, rainbow trout were fed diets containing purified flaxseed triacylglycerols (PFSO) with and without sesamin. However, it was found that PFSO was unable to increase ALA conversion compared with unaltered flaxseed oil and that PSFO with or without sesamin addition had the opposite effect to unaltered flaxseed oil with or without sesamin addition, respectively. The reasons for these effects are discussed.
The Knowledge Base of Primary EFL Teachers – Pre-service and In-service Teachers’ Perceptions

This exploratory study aims to investigate pre-service and in-service teachers' perceptions regarding the knowledge and skills required for effective language teaching at primary level. A mixed-method sequential approach was employed to data collection and analysis and was carried out in two phases. Data were initially obtained through a questionnaire-based survey and supplemented by individual and focus group interviews. The findings have highlighted the primacy of subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, showing evidence that both are necessary in order to avoid fragmented language teaching. The importance of teacher language awareness in forming the bridge between these two types of knowledge has also been stressed. The issues discussed can be used for future planning in the field of initial teacher education, especially in countries where early foreign language learning forms part of their educational agenda. Index Terms—pre-service language teacher education, primary school teachers, teacher knowledge
An Analysis on Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction of Teachers in Private Schools Under International and Central Syllabi in Kanyakumari District of Tamilnadu

Teachers of private schools work in an extremely competitive and challenging environment. The purpose of this study is to identify the effect of Organizational Commitment on Job Satisfaction in Private schools under international and central curriculums in Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu. This research paper is based on a review of academic research papers and surveys. The primary data has been collected through the help of questionnaires. Secondary data is being used to identify the commitment related problems of South Indian Educational Institutions. The three commitments have been taken as independent variables and educational sustained productivity as the dependent variable. The results indicate that Organizational Commitment is significantly related to Job Satisfaction in South Indian Private Schools. The research findings revealed that there exists positive relationship between Teachers’ commitments and their Job satisfaction. The results are an indication that there is a good and strong relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable organizational commitment. There is a large pool of employees employed by educational institutions. It is vital to maintain a committed and satisfied workforce. This paper would be of value to researchers seeking information on how commitment and sustained productivity are linked. This is an original contribution and not published anywhere else.
JEPonline Dancing is More Effective than Treadmill Walking for Blood Pressure Reduction in Hypertensive Elderly Women

Sousa FEV, Nascimento EF, Souza LHR, Olher RR, Souza MK, Neves RVP, Rosa TS, Mendes MT, Peruchi LH, Simões HG, Sampaio TMV, Moraes MR. Dancing is More Effective than Treadmill Walking for Blood Pressure Reduction in Hypertensive Elderly Women. JEPonline 2016;19(1):124-134. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cardiovascular effects of dancing and walking, and the biochemical mechanisms involved in each. Ten hypertensive elderly women (64.5 ± 5.1 yrs) were submitted to three session that consisted of 60 min of intervention with a 72-hr interval between each condition. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) was monitored before, during, and at 60 min post-exercise recovery (Rec). Blood lactate (lac) and nitric oxide (NO2 ̄) were measured at rest and at 60 min Rec. Only the dance session increased lac levels (∆ = + 0.79 mM, P<0.05) and reduced SBP at the 30th-min of Rec (∆ = -15 ± 4 mmHg, P<0.05) when compared to pre-exercise resting values. NO2 ̄ increased immediately post-exercise for both exercise sessions (P<0.05). There were no significant differences within and between the control and walking sessions for the post-exercise NO2 ̄ (P>0.05). The findings indicate that dancing was more effective than treadmill walking in reducing SBP in elderly women with controlled hypertension.
Neural Network-based Adaptive Sliding Mode Control Method for Tracking of a Nonholonomic Wheeled Mobile Robot with Unknown Wheel Slips , Model Uncertainties , and Unknown Bounded External Disturbances

This article represents a neural network-based adaptive sliding mode control (ASMC) method for tracking of a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot (WMR) subject to unknown wheel slips, model uncertainties and unknown bounded disturbances. Selfrecurrent wavelet neural networks (SRWNN) are employed in order to approximate unknown nonlinear functions due to the unknown wheel slips, model uncertainties, and unknown bounded external disturbances. By doing this, their harmful effects are compensated effectively. Thanks to this control method, a desired tracking performance of the closed-loop control system is achieved where the position tracking errors converge to an arbitrarily small neighborhood of the origin, regardless their initial values. According to Lyapunov theory and LaSalle extension, the stability of the whole closed-loop system is guaranteed to achieve the desired tracking performance. It is unnecessary to preliminarily offline train the neural network weights since they are easily initiated. Online tuning algorithms are established and used, for training the weights. Computer simulations are implemented to demonstrate the validity and efficiency of this proposed control method.
Learning and Repair Techniques for Self-Healing Systems

Abstract : Techniques were investigated for enabling systems to recover from data structure corruption errors. These errors could occur, for example, because of software errors or because of attacks. The technique developed contains three components. The first component observes the execution of training runs of the program to learn key data structure consistency constraints. The second component takes the learned data structure consistency constraints and examines production runs to detect violations of the constraints. The third component updates the corrupted data structures to eliminate the violations. The goal is not necessarily to restore the data structures to the state in which a (hypothetical) correct program would have left it, although in some cases our system may do this. The goal is instead to deliver repaired data structures that satisfy the basic consistency assumptions of the program, enabling the program to continue to operate successfully. A prototype system that contained these three components and the system was applied to two programs, BIND (part of the Internet Domain Name System (DNS)) and FreeCiv (a freely distributed multi-player game). Experience with BIND indicated that the technique can eliminate previously existing undesirable behavior in this program. The technique was applied to FreeCiv in the context of a Red Team experiment. The results of this experiment show that, on this program and for the workload in the Red Team experiment, our system significantly out-performed the DARPA Self-Regenerative System metrics: it recognized 80% (not just 10%) of the attacks, and it recovered from 60% (not just 5%) of them.
Mass Claims in Land and Property Following the Arab Spring: Lessons from Yemen

The Arab Spring uprisings have released a flood of land and property conflicts, brought about by decades of autocratic rule. Expropriations, corruption, poor performance of the rule of law, patronage and sectarian discrimination built up a wide variety of land and property transgressions over approximately 30 years. The result has been the creation of longstanding, acute grievances among large components of national populations who now seek to act on them. If new, transitional or reforming governments and their international partners fail to effectively attend to such grievances, the populations concerned may act on them in ways that detract from stability. This article critiques the case of Yemen, whose transitional government, with international support, initiated a land and property mass claims process in the South in order to address a primary grievance of the southern population as part of the National Dialogue transition. A series of techniques are described that would greatly improve the mass claims process once it inevitably recommences after the Houthi conflict comes to an end. These improvements would attach more importance to socio-political realities and how to quickly attend to them, as opposed to an over-reliance on specific legalities. Such an approach could have wider utility among Arab Spring states seeking to address similar land and property grievances.
Vigilia: Securing Smart Home Edge Computing

Smart home IoT devices are becoming increasingly popular. Modern programmable smart home hubs such as SmartThings enable homeowners to manage devices in sophisticated ways to save energy, improve security, and provide conveniences. Unfortunately, many smart home systems contain vulnerabilities, potentially impacting home security and privacy. This paper presents Vigilia, a system that shrinks the attack surface of smart home IoT systems by restricting the network access of devices. As existing smart home systems are closed, we have created an open implementation of a similar programming and configuration model in Vigilia and extended the execution environment to maximally restrict communications by instantiating device-based network permissions. We have implemented and compared Vigilia with forefront IoT-defense systems; our results demonstrate that Vigilia outperforms these systems and incurs negligible overhead.
Mind the Gap: Organizational Learning and Improvement in an Underperforming Urban System

Drawing on the theoretical lens of organizational learning, and utilizing the methodological approaches of social network and case-study analyses, our exploratory study examines whether schools under sanction exhibit the necessary processes, relationships, and social climates that support organizational learning and improvement. We also investigated the degree to which length of time under sanction affects the processes, relationships, and social climates of schools as well as the extent to which the relationships and climate of the larger district facilitate or hinder improvement in schools under sanction. Results indicate sparse ties within these schools, suggesting limited connectedness of staff with greater connectivity in the school that was newly placed on sanction. We also found school climates that did not support the type of collaboration necessary to bring about organizational learning and improvement. Finally, we found that a negative social climate and weak underlying relationships between district leaders inhibited the flow of ideas and practices district-wide, especially to these low-performing schools. These findings have important implications for school and district improvement under high-stakes accountability policies.
Public Acceptance of and Benefits from Agricultural Biotechnology: A Key Role for Verifiable Information

Huffman, W.E. and Abebayehu Tegene. "Public Acceptance of and Benefits from Agricultural Biotechnology: A Key Role for Verifiable Information," in V. Santaniello, R.E. Evenson and D. Zilberman, eds. Market Development for Genetically Modified Foods, CAB International, 2002, pp. 179-189.
Influence of Extraction Parameters on Hydroalcohol Extracts of the Stem Bark of Rapanea ferruginea Mez Using Myrsinoic Acid B as Marker

Purpose: To evaluate the influence of extraction parameters on standardization of hydroalcoholic extract of Rapanea ferruginea Mez. Methods: A 3 3 factorial design was used to evaluate the influence of alcohol concentration (50, 70 and 90 % v/v), extraction time (2, 6 and 10 h), and particle size of the herbal drug (0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 mm) on the pH, dry residue and myrsinoic acid B (MAB) content of hydroalcoholic extracts by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. Results: For the extracts, there was inverse correlation between dry residue and MAB content (p < 0.8046). The parameter that had the greatest influence on extraction process was alcohol concentration (p < 0.007) followed by particle size (p < 0.046). However, extraction time did not influence the process in terms of MAB (p < 0.675). Although, the highest MAB content was obtained with 70 % v/v alcohol and extraction time of 6 h, the best methodology for extractive preparation was the use of 90 % v/v alcohol and extraction time of 2 h because it resulted in a higher yield of MAB per solution volume, i.e,, with regard to MAB content and mass yield. Conclusion : The results indicate that 90 % v/v alcohol and extraction time of 2 h have optimum influence on extraction process and were the best conditions for obtaining a standardized extract of R. ferruginea , using the method employed in this study. Thus, the findings of this study are a contribution to the development of a new phytopharmaceutical intermediate product. Keywords : Rapanea ferruginea, Hydroalcoholic extract, Myrsinoic acid B, Phytopharmaceutical, Factorial desing, Standardization
Fundamental parameters of the LMC clusters NGC 1836, NGC 1860, NGC 1865, SL 444, LW 224 and SL 548

Complementing our recent Washington photometric studies on intermediate age and young Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) clusters, we now turn our attention to six previously unstudied star clusters in the transition range 200-700 Myr. We study NGC 1836, 1860 and 1865, which are projected on the LMC bar; SL 444, also located in the central disc but outside the bar; and LW 224 and SL 548, both located in the outer disc. We derive ages and metallicities from extracted T 1 versus C-T 1 colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), using theoretical isochrones recently computed for the Washington photometric system. For the metallicity determinations, these CMDs are particularly sensitive. We also estimate ages and metallicities of the surrounding fields of NGC 1860 and 1865 by employing the δT 1 index defined in Geisler et al. (1997, AJ, 114, 1920) and theoretical isochrones. By adding the present cluster sample to those of our previous studies, we now gather 37 LMC clusters with homogeneous parameter determinations, which are employed to probe the chemical enrichment of the LMC and its spatial distribution. On average, inner disc clusters turned out to be not only younger than the outer ones, but also more metal-rich; some have solar metal content. Furthermore, inner clusters located to the west of the LMC centre are younger and more metal-rich than their eastern counterparts. We propose that a bursting formation mechanism, with an important formation event centred at ∼2.0 Gyr, provides a better description of the cluster age-metallicity relation than a closed-box chemical evolution model. In the outer disc, the field star formation seems to have lasted until 2 Gyr ago while it continued in the inner disc for almost 1 Gyr longer.
Wideband quasi‐yagi antenna fed by microstrip‐to‐slotline transition

This letter presents a wideband quasi‐Yagi antenna fed by a microstrip‐to‐slotline transition. The transition consists of a microstrip radial stub and slot radial stub, both at 90° but with different radii, to achieve wideband impedance matching. The antenna has a measured fractional bandwidth of approximately 46% (4.64–7.42 GHz) for a −10 dB reflection coefficient and a flat gain of 6.0–6.75 dBi with a front‐to‐back ratio and cross‐polarization level better than 17 and −15 dB, respectively, across the bandwidth. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:150–153, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26504
Bayesian model averaging for estimating non-stationary soil moisture data

Soil moisture content is largely dependent on the location-specific soil constituents and the current stage of the hydrological cycle. Due to the seasonal climatic effects, soil moisture estimation is a crucial step for agricultural drought monitoring and irrigation control. Large scale estimation can be performed using active or passive remote sensing techniques, which are usually regarded as being too coarse for farm-scale decision making. In the other hand, indirect in-situ measurements of soil water tension, moisture and temperature can be easily obtained and transmitted when using wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we address the problem of the spatial and temporal uncertainty of soil moisture estimation from field measurements. A novel Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) technique is used to correctly estimate the varying dynamics of soil moisture data at different locations and horizons. In particular, a hierarchical mixture of a Gaussian processes (GPs) is fitted to the noisy observed data and non-stationarity is assumed as a result of the heterogeneity of the different sampling times and locations. The model is tested with real data captured in the Maule region in Chile and results are compared to the standard stationary GP model.
Number 10 / 08 A volume-preserving sharpening approach for the propagation of sharp phase boundaries in multiphase lattice Boltzmann simulations

Lattice Boltzmann models that recover a macroscopic description of multiphase flow of immiscible liquids typically represent the boundaries between phases using a scalar function, the phase field, that varies smoothly over several grid points. Attempts to tune the model parameters to minimise the thicknesses of these interfaces typically lead to the interfaces becoming fixed to the underlying grid instead of advecting with the fluid velocity. This phenomenon, known as lattice pinning, is strikingly similar to that associated with the numerical simulation of conservation laws coupled to stiff algebraic source terms. We present a lattice Boltzmann formulation of the model problem proposed by LeVeque and Yee [J. Comput. Phys. 86, 187] to study the latter phenomenon in the context of computational combustion, and offer a volume-conserving extension in multiple space dimensions. Inspired by the random projection method of Bao and Jin [J. Comput. Phys. 163, 216] we further generalise this formulation by introducing a uniformly distributed quasi-random variable into the term responsible for the sharpening of phase boundaries. This method is mass conserving and the statistical average of this method is shown to significantly delay the onset of pinning.