Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of laser-scan technology to analyse topography and flow in a weir pool

The development of laser-scan techniques provides opportunity for detailed terrain analysis in hydrologic studies. Ground based scans were used to model the ground surface elevation in the area of a stream gauge weir over an area of 240 m 2 at a resolution of 0.05 m. The terrain model was used to assess the possibility of flow bypassing the weir and to calculate stream flow during filling of the weir pool, prior to flow through the weir notch. The mapped surface shows a subtle low-lying area at the south end of the structure where flow could bypass the weir. The flow calculations quantify low-flows that do not reach the weir notch during small rain events and flow at the beginning of larger events in the ephemeral stream.
Composite order bilinear pairing on elliptic curve for dual system encryption

In this paper, we explore the pairing-based cryptography on elliptic curve. The security of protocols using composite order bilinear pairing on elliptic curve depends on the difficulty of factoring the number N. Here, we show how to construct composite ordinary pairing-friendly elliptic curve having the subgroup of composite order N by using Cocks-Pinch Method. We also introduce dual system encryption to transform Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) scheme built over prime-order bilinear, to composite order bilinear groups. The new Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) is secured since it uses the Dual System Encryption methodology which guaranteed full security of the new IBE system.
Quantitative phase imaging by common-path interferometric microscopy: application to super-resolved imaging and nanophotonics

Quantitative phase imaging needs of a holographic setup in order to retrieve the sample phase distribution. Often this new phase information is obtained at the cost of reducing the useful range in other parameters of the imaging system such as field of view or resolution. We devised an experimental setup that allows complex amplitude evaluation and phase image quantification of three-dimensional (3-D) samples in wide- field digital holographic microscopy. The basis is a common-path interferometric configuration that can be implemented in two configurations depending on the position and the basic period of the grating: static grating and windowed Fourier filtering method or with phase-shifting moving grating. Both configurations allow complex amplitude recovery and, thus, quantitative phase imaging of the sample under test. Moreover, by combining the basic setup with tilted illumination and time multiplexing, it is possible to generate a synthetic aperture enlargement that improves the final image resolution. Experimental results validated our concepts.
Sustainable Pervious Concrete Incorporating Palm Oil Fuel Ash as Cement Replacement

Pervious concrete is one of the best materials used in sustainable drainage system to control the stormwater at source. The use of waste materials in concrete is able to reduce the negative impacts of concrete towards the environment. Therefore, this study presents the development of a sustainable pervious concrete by partially replacing cement with palm oil fuel ash (POFA) from palm oil industry. Properties, including void content, compressive and tensile strength as well as permeability were discussed. The results indicated that it is possible to produce sustainable pervious concrete by incorporating POFA. Furthermore, pervious concrete containing POFA showed higher water permeability and void content but lower compressive and tensile strength than control pervious concrete. However, the obtained compressive and tensile strength were within the acceptable range which is reported for strengths of pervious concrete.
LOCAL TELEVISION AS A BUSINESS: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES OF COMMERCIAL TELEVISION STATIONS IN SERBIA/ЛОКАЛНA ТЕЛЕВИЗИЈА КАО БИЗНИС: КОМПАРАТИВНЕ ПЕРСПЕКТИВЕ КОМЕРЦИЈАЛНИХ ТЕЛЕВИЗИЈСКИХ СТАНИЦА У СРБИЈИ

The aim of this paper is to examine in which way the following factors influence TV owners‟ strategies for the development of television as a business in the turbulent media market of Serbia: 1) the size of the news market and local media environment, 2) the response to technological changes, 3) economic status of the television outlet, and 4) clientelism. For the purpose of this case study, in-depth interviews were conducted with the owners of six local commercial TV stations located in different regions in Serbia. The results show that instead of developing professional resources for a highly competitive media environment, TV owners are fighting for bare survival. However, their strategies for the development of television as a business can be divided into two camps: one group expects the help of the state to overcome financial constraints, while the other seeks to develop e-business and web advertising as models of sustainable growth on the market. Key words: local TV stations, commercial television, TV owners, business strategies, economic crisis. Циљ овог рада је да испита на који начин следећи фактори утичу на страте- гије телевизијских власника да развијају телевизију као бизнис на турбулентном медијском тржишту у Србији: 1) величина медијског тржишта и локално медијско окружење, 2) одговор на технолошке промене, 3) економски статус теле- визије и 4) клијентелизам. За потребе студије случаја спроведени су дубински интервјуи са власницима шест локалних приватних телевизија у различитим ре- гионима Србије. Резултати показују да се власници локалних телевизија, уместо да развијају професионалне ресурсе за потребе високо компетитивног медијског окружења, боре за опстанак на тржишту. Њихове стратегије за развој телевизије као бизниса подељене су у две групе: једна група власника очекује помоћ држа- ве у превазилажењу финансијских потешкоћа, док друга група развија еле- ктронски бизнис и интернет оглашавање као моделе одрживог развоја и раста на тржишту. Кључне речи: локалне ТВ станице, приватне телевизије, власници телевизија, бизнис стратегије, економска криза.
A Review on Population Structure, Genetic Diversity Analysis, Genetic Distance between Population and Genetic Singularity in Livestock

This review was undertaken to clarify importance of genetic diversity and genetic distance of domestic livestock species in the future. Importance of farm animal genetic resources is very diverse, particularly for the poor and under smallholder production systems in the developing world. Uses include subsistence consumption of livestock products, manure, traction, savings, risk management, capital accumulation and socio-cultural functions. The present domestic animal diversity as represented in the multitude of our livestock breeds is the result of thousands of generations of rural communities manipulating their livestock populations according to the requirements of their environment, their subsistence needs and cultural concepts. Genetic characterization has recently been the method of describing and classifying livestock breeds/populations using measures of genetic distances between populations. Genetic markers like microsatellites, and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and recently the whole genome are tools used for characterizing genetic diversity between and within populations. Hence, SNP is more preferable to other markers for developing countries due to its simplicity, ability to differentiate variations, useful to identify genes of economically important traits and it is cheap. Keywords: Genetic marker, SNP, Genetic Diversity Analysis, Genetic Distance
"You must be very intelligent...?": Gender and Science Subject Uptake

The reasons that fewer girls than boys choose to study physics have, with few national exceptions, been an on-going academic and policy concern. This paper considers how ‘common-sense’ ideas about subject choice are gendered and are based on notions of ‘natural’ interest and ‘natural’ abilities of boys and girls. It identifies instances of such reasoning in sociological theories, most recently Catherine Hakim’s preference theory. Drawing on ethnomethodology and Bourdieu’s framework for the analysis of modes of knowledge production, the paper argues that ‘common-sense’ reasoning produces and reproduces gendered understandings about ‘appropriate’ and ‘natural’ male and female interests and abilities. Secondary qualitative analysis from a study on science uptake demonstates how girls who express interest in physics have to justify such preferences.
Implementing small scale processes at the soil-plant interface – the role of root architectures for calculating root water uptake profiles

Abstract. In this paper, we present a stand alone root water uptake model called aRoot, which calculates the sink term for any bulk soil water flow model taking into account water flow within and around a root network. The boundary conditions for the model are the atmospheric water demand and the bulk soil water content. The variable determining the plant regulation for water uptake is the soil water potential at the soil-root interface. In the current version, we present an implementation of aRoot coupled to a 3-D Richards model. The coupled model is applied to investigate the role of root architecture on the spatial distribution of root water uptake. For this, we modeled root water uptake for an ensemble (50 realizations) of root systems generated for the same species (one month old Sorghum). The investigation was divided into two Scenarios for aRoot, one with comparatively high (A) and one with low (B) root radial resistance. We compared the results of both aRoot Scenarios with root water uptake calculated using the traditional Feddes model. The vertical rooting density profiles of the generated root systems were similar. In contrast the vertical water uptake profiles differed considerably between individuals, and more so for Scenario B than A. Also, limitation of water uptake occurred at different bulk soil moisture for different modeled individuals, in particular for Scenario A. Moreover, the aRoot model simulations show a redistribution of water uptake from more densely to less densely rooted layers with time. This behavior is in agreement with observation, but was not reproduced by the Feddes model.
RASMAP: Plataforma de Realidad Aumentada Sin Marcadores en Entornos Móviles para el Desarrollo de Asistentes Personales TIN2006-15418-C03

The aim of this project is to advance in the knowledge of the technology that makes possible the development of a platform that by means of the application of the augmented reality technologies and using tracking technologies based in vision without markers, facilitate the development of Wearable Personal Assistant. The development of this platform implies approaching several technological challenges: o To overcome the limitations inherent in the mobile devices: speed, capacity of memory, capacity of storage, graphical features, … o To obtain tracking systems that they do not need to alter or to adapt the environment. o To optimize for the transmission and reproduction of multimedia contents through wireless networks on mobile devices The quality and usefulness of the scientific-technological results obtained will be validated developing 2 demonstrators, one in the area of the Cultural Heritage as a guide for visitors and other one in the area of mechanical engineer as assistant for the e-learning.
HLA RTI performance evaluation

The performance of three Run-Time Infrastructures (RTI) is measured. Two open source implementations (Portico version 0.8 and CERTI version 3.3.0) and one commercial implementation (MAK version 3.2) have been subjected to a specific test under ideal conditions using a dedicated Federate Object Model. This paper reports on the results of this test for each of the RTIs. We looked at the round-trip time for a federate to send an attribute update to another federate, and then to received the same update back. The attribute size was varied. This test is the first of a series of tests to be conducted on different RTIs to evaluate the performance under ideal conditions, and then later under more realistic conditions. The first test also entailed getting to know the interfaces of the different RTIs. This also contributed to the reestablishment of the use of HLA in our research unit. It is also planned to use more RTIs, from different vendors Initial results show that although the MAK RTI implementation had a limitation in terms of the data size that can be transmitted for the best effort transport setting, it had a low round-trip time as compared to CERTI and Portico.
Healing leadership: the serving leader's impact on patient outcomes in a clinical environment

The future of health care is a topic that has significant importance to patients and caregivers alike for generations to come. As the health care industry becomes more complex, leadership and the examination of how to most effectively apply it to meet efficiency standards and optimize the patient experience will become paramount. Through this paper the authors provide the foundation for meeting this need through an innovative and socially adept frame- work that identifies the critical character attributes of a serving leader and the powerful impact that serving leaders can have on patient outcomes in the health care setting. This framework is grounded in a leadership theoretical foundation and contextually examined through qualitative methods. As the business of health care becomes more complex and more competitive, finding ways to improve processes and create healing environments conducive to improved patient outcomes will differentiate average health care and excellent health care in the future. This paper provides the impetus for successfully addressing these needs through the development of serving leaders, and three specific characteristics: emotional care, presence, and awareness.
Labour Productivity Performance of Small Agro-Processing Firms in Mbeya and Morogoro, Tanzania

This paper examines human capital factors affecting labour productivity in small agro-processing firms. Labour productivity is a measure of a firm’s efficiency that is affected by different factors, among them includes human capital factors represented by education, experience, and training. A survey of 107 agro-processing firms was conducted in Mbeya and Morogoro Regions, Tanzania. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis was employed in estimating the effect of factors on labour productivity. Results show that the trend of labour productivity among different types of small agro-processing firms varies. Animal feed, cooking oil and milling firms tend to have higher labour productivity than bakeries and milk processing firms. Moreover, the experience of workers, education of managers and female managers has a positive effect on labour productivity in small agro-processing firms. Contrary to expectations, the number of workers with education above standard seven has a negative effect on labour productivity. Through these findings the study recommends investment in physical and human capital factors for the growth of labour productivity and employment creation. Key words: Labour productivity, Small Agro-processing firms, Tanzania
A METHOD OF FINE-GRAINED SHORT TEXT SENTIMENT ANALYSIS BASED ON MACHINE LEARNING

Text sentiment analysis plays an important role in social network information mining. It is also the theoretical foundation and basis of personalized recommendation, circle of interest classification and public opinion analysis. In view of the existing algorithms for feature extraction and weight calculation, we find that they fail to fully take into account the influence of sentiment words. Therefore, this paper proposed a fine-grained short text sentiment analysis method based on machine learning. To improve the calculation method of feature selection and weighting and proposed a more suitable sentiment analysis algorithm for features extraction named N-CHI and weight calculation named W-TF-IDF, increasing the proportion and weight of sentiment words in the feature words Through experimental analysis and comparison, the classification accuracy of this method is obviously improved compared with other methods.
Evaluating the Intrinsic Similarity between Neural Networks

We present Forward Bipartite Alignment (FBA), a method that aligns the topological structures of two neural networks. Neural networks are considered to be a black box, because neural networks contain complex model surface determined by their weights that combine attributes non-linearly. Two networks that make similar predictions on training data may still generalize differently. FBA enables a diversity of applications, including visualization and canonicalization of neural networks, ensembles, and cross-over between unrelated neural networks in evolutionary optimization. We describe the FBA algorithm, and describe implementations for three applications: genetic algorithms, visualization, and ensembles. We demonstrate FBA’s usefulness by comparing a bag of neural networks to a bag of FBA-aligned neural networks. We also show that aligning, and then combining two neural networks has no appreciable loss in accuracy which means that Forward Bipartite Alignment aligns neural networks in a meaningful way.
Herbal Wisdom: memory and migration

Within contemporary Western herbal medicine, traditional knowledge and modern science are combined to provide a unique meeting of patient, practitioner and plant. In the Australian context, herbalists have based their practice on knowledge which originates from the traditions of Europe, and has more recently been influenced by traditional medicine from Asia. The combination of these diverse ways of knowing—traditional and modern, Eastern and Western—means herbal practitioners are influenced by ancient philosophy alongside phytochemistry and biomedical sciences. The challenge for herbal medicine today is that faced by all living (as opposed to ossified) traditions: how is a practice forged which retains what is valuable from the past while establishing relevance to the 21st century? We illustrate these issues in the context of the conference theme of ‘food for thought’ and consider medicinal plants which are used for the improvement of cognition. We focus on the therapeutic use of common herbs from the Eastern and Western traditions and present the scientific research which shows their ability to facilitate cognitive function and the laying down of memory. We also tell their traditional stories which indicate that these actions have been recognised and utilised for centuries. We go on to demonstrate, via case studies, the clinical application of this knowledge and in particular the importance of ancient practice of synergistic prescribing which occurs when a number of herbs are prescribed together in a formula. Scientific understanding of the basis of this practice is being developed which further complements and validates traditional herbal wisdom.
Frugivory, Post‐feeding Flights of Frugivorous Birds and the Movement of Seeds in a Brazilian Fragmented Landscape

Habitat fragmentation can break down the movement processes of frugivorous animals, thus influencing the relationship between plants and their seed dispersers by altering the number and identity of seed dispersers, and their relative contribution to seed dispersal. We studied the assemblages of frugivorous birds, their composition, species richness, and visitation rates to fruiting plants growing in the different landscape elements (forest fragments, live fences, and trees isolated in pastures) embedded in a Brazilian fragmented, agricultural landscape. By following the post‐feeding movements of frugivorous birds, we inferred the direction of seed movement from and to each of these landscape elements. Fruiting trees growing at different landscape elements were visited by frugivorous birds at similar rates. Isolated trees attracted a greater and distinct bird assemblage than trees in forest fragments or live fences. Judging by the post‐feeding flights of birds, the seeds of isolated trees were the most likely to reach all the landscape elements considered, but the contribution of isolated trees to the seeds falling in forested habitats or pastures depended on their degree of isolation. A few bird species were able to move widely, visiting fruiting plants in all landscape elements, and promoting long‐distance dispersal for plants. These few birds are of special interest because they are mobile links that connect habitats in fragmented landscapes with their seed dispersal services.
EFFECTS OF VARIATION OF PARTICLE SIZE AND WEIGHT FRACTION ON THE TENSILE STRENGTH AND MODULUS OF PERIWINKLE SHELL REINFORCED POLYESTER COMPOSITE

The effects of variation of particle size and weight fraction on the tensile strength and Youngs modulus of periwinkle shell reinforced polyester composite have been investigated. Particulate reinforced polyester composites incorporating varying amounts of periwinkle shell particles (10, 20, 30, 35, 40 and 45 wt %) of different particle sizes were characterized for their tensile strength and modulus of elasticity. The tensile strength and elastic modulus improved with decreasing particle size while they increased with increasing particle loading in the range of particle sizes tested. Increase in strength with small particle sizes and increased particle loading was attributed to increase in surface area which enhanced load transfer between the polyester matrix and periwinkle shell particles.
Oil and Gas Rents and Civilian Violence in the Middle East and North Africa, 1990–2004: A Resource Curse, or Rentier Peace?

Acts of civilian violence have long plagued parts of the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. Extant research debates whether countries that rely on natural resource revenue for economic solvency are more or less likely to experience such violent events. This analysis takes a novel approach to this issue, examining the unique effects of publicly and privately controlled oil and gas rents on civilian violence in the MENA region from 1990 to 2004. Data on civil violence events are drawn from the World Handbook of Political Indicators IV. Results indicate that publicly owned oil and gas rents reduce civilian violence, while privately owned oil and gas rents do not significantly affect such events. This lends support to the notion that oil and gas rents are not necessarily a curse, and can actually foster a “rentier peace. ” More broadly, these results underscore the importance of delineating ownership structure when examining the relationship between natural resources and conflict.
Infinite-Dimensional Autoregressive Systems and the Generalized Dynamic Factor Model

The Generalized Dynamic Factor Model is usually represented as an infinite-dimensional moving average of the common shocks plus idiosyncratic components. Here I argue that such representation can only be the solution (reduced form) of a deeper, structural, infinite-dimensional system of equations which contain both an autoregressive and a moving average part. I give conditions for the solutions of such infinite-dimensional systems to make sense and be weakly stationary, and study their decomposition into common and idiosyncratic components. Interesting links to long memory as generated by aggregation are also shown. Résumé : Le Modèle à Facteurs Dynamiques Généralisé est habituellement représenté comme une moyenne mobile infinie des chocs communs à laquelle s’ajoutent des composantes idiosyncratiques. Dans cet article, nous expliquons que cette représentation n’est que la solution (sous forme réduite) d’un système d’équations plus profond, structural, de dimension infinie, et contenant à la fois une partie autorégressive et une partie à moyenne mobile. Nous livrons des conditions qui garantissent que les solutions de tels systèmes sont faiblement stationnaires et nous analysons leur décomposition en composantes communes et idiosyncratiques. Enfin, nous établissons des liens avec la mémoire longue qui est engendrée par agrégation.