Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FUZZY AHP-FUZZY PROMETHEE APPROACH IN EVALUATION OF E-SERVICE QUALITY: CASE OF AIRLINE WEB SITES

In recent years, as internet access facilities have become widespread, companies are in the position of using their websites effectively so as to compete and reach their customers easily. Therefore, organizations have begun to attach importance to the notion of electronic service quality in order to increase the quality of services presented over the internet. Because it is difficult to measure e-service quality, the use of the Fuzzy decision-making approach, which enables an assessment under uncertain circumstances, emerges as an effective problem-solving tool. In this context, the aim of the paper is to evaluate the e-service quality of websites by Fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. Firstly, the level of significance of e-service quality dimensions that are presented by Parasuraman et al. (2005) is determined by Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) according to the surveys which are fulfilled by a decision-making team. Afterwards, the e-service quality performance of websites of the airline corporations is assessed with the Fuzzy PROMETHEE method by using the data obtained from customers through surveys. In the application of the study, the websites of four companies which operate in the Turkish aviation industry, Onur Air, Pegasus, Sun Express and Turkish Airlines, are taken into consideration and ranked with regards to their e-service quality performances.
Semantic Change and Semantic Stability: Variation is Key

I survey some recent approaches to studying change in the lexicon, particularly change in meaning across phylogenies. I briefly sketch an evolutionary approach to language change and point out some issues in recent approaches to studying semantic change that rely on temporally stratified word embeddings. I draw illustrations from lexical cognate models in Pama-Nyungan to identify meaning classes most appropriate for lexical phylogenetic inference, particularly highlighting the importance of variation in studying change over time.
Comparison of HRV spectral analysis methods for unconstrainedly measured ECG

For ubiquitous healthcare, interests for unconstrained method for ECG measurement have increased in the biomedical engineering field. Recently, capacitive-coupled method was introduced as the unconstrained method. However, the ECGs obtained from this method have many motion artefact noises, so heart rate data becomes intermittent finally. In this paper, spectral analysis methods of heart rate variability (HRV) for intermittent heart rate (HR) data are compared through simulation of artificial and real intermittent HR data. As the index of comparison, LF/HF ratio is used, which is a parameter reflecting the sympatho-vagal balance. In conclusion, the Burg's algorithm of parametric method has the lowest error, and the Lomb-Scargle (LS) periodogram of uneven method has the worst result. But, in low intermittent number, LS periodogram is the best.
Enhanced Activity and Stability of Gold/Ceria-Titania for the Low-Temperature Water-Gas Shift Reaction

Gold supported on ceria-zirconia is one of the most active low temperature water-gas shift catalysts reported to date but rapid deactivation occurs under reaction conditions. In this study, ceria-titania was evaluated as an alternative catalyst support. Materials of different Ce:Ti compositions were synthesized using a sol-gel methodology and gold was supported onto these using a deposition-precipitation method. They were then investigated as catalysts for the low-temperature water-gas shift reaction. Au/Ce0.2Ti0. 8O2 exhibited superior activity and stability to a highly active, previously reported gold catalyst supported on ceria-zirconia. High activity and stability was found to be related to the support comprising a high number of oxygen defect sites and a high specific surface area. These properties were conducive to forming a highly active catalyst with well-dispersed Au species.
2D Attentional Irregular Scene Text Recognizer

Irregular scene text, which has complex layout in 2D space, is challenging to most previous scene text recognizers. Recently, some irregular scene text recognizers either rectify the irregular text to regular text image with approximate 1D layout or transform the 2D image feature map to 1D feature sequence. Though these methods have achieved good performance, the robustness and accuracy are still limited due to the loss of spatial information in the process of 2D to 1D transformation. Different from all of previous, we in this paper propose a framework which transforms the irregular text with 2D layout to character sequence directly via 2D attentional scheme. We utilize a relation attention module to capture the dependencies of feature maps and a parallel attention module to decode all characters in parallel, which make our method more effective and efficient. Extensive experiments on several public benchmarks as well as our collected multi-line text dataset show that our approach is effective to recognize regular and irregular scene text and outperforms previous methods both in accuracy and speed.
Free amino acids and proteins dynamics in somatic embryogenesis of African pearwood

African pearwood (Baillonella toxisperma Pierre) is one of the biggest trees of the Central Africa rainforest. It offers number of uses but the species is classified as vulnerable. This study is conducted in view of its domestication via somatic embryogenesis. Here we analyzed the variations of free amino acids, soluble and ionically bound proteins during different stages of somatic embryogenesis in halfstrength Murashige and Skoog and in half-strength Driver and Kuniyuki media. In both media respectively, the endogenous levels of free amino acids, soluble and ionically bound proteins respectively were low in embryogenic calli [(0.30, 0.72); (0.15, 0.72); (0.09, 0.35) mg/g FM ] then increased significantly in globular embryos [(1.60, 0.93); (0.39, 5.35); (0.17, 1.26) mg/g FM)]. Finally, the levels of all these somatic embryogenesis markers decreased significantly in bipolar embryos [(1.41, 0.54); (0.24, 1.89); (0.20, 0.84) mg/g FM] excepted in MS/2, in which ionically bound proteins content increased to 0.20 mg/g FM. Free amino acids, soluble and ionically bound proteins amounts may play a key role in globular somatic embryos formation, while bipolar somatic embryos differentiation could be associated to specific types of those biochemical markers.
Tensor Canonical Correlation Analysis

In many applications, such as classification of images or videos, it is of interest to develop a framework for tensor data instead of ad-hoc way of transforming data to vectors due to the computational and under-sampling issues. In this paper, we study canonical correlation analysis by extending the framework of two dimensional analysis (Lee and Choi, 2007) to tensor-valued data. Instead of adopting the iterative algorithm provided in Lee and Choi (2007), we propose an efficient algorithm, called the higher-order power method, which is commonly used in tensor decomposition and more efficient for large-scale setting. Moreover, we carefully examine theoretical properties of our algorithm and establish a local convergence property via the theory of Lojasiewicz's inequalities. Our results fill a missing, but crucial, part in the literature on tensor data. For practical applications, we further develop (a) an inexact updating scheme which allows us to use the state-of-the-art stochastic gradient descent algorithm, (b) an effective initialization scheme which alleviates the problem of local optimum in non-convex optimization, and (c) an extension for extracting several canonical components. Empirical analyses on challenging data including gene expression, air pollution indexes in Taiwan, and electricity demand in Australia, show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed methodology.
Characterization of virulence genes in typical and atypical enteropathogenic Escherichia coli

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) is a major cause of diarrhea in infants and children in developing countries. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of EPEC in children with diarrhea by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method targeting the eae gene. The presence of virulence gene including bfpA was also investigated by PCR, for the differentiation of typical and atypical EPEC strains. We also sought to determine the presence of virulence gene including efa-1, fimH and lpfDo113 of the isolated strains. Stool samples were collected from 313 less than 5 years old children with diarrhea at Shahid Beheshti Hospital, Kashan, Iran, from November 2009 to May 2010. Specimens were examined by PCR test to determine the eae gene to detect of EPEC pathotype and also the frequency of genes coding virulence factors of EPEC such as bfpA, efa-1, fimH and lpfDo113 were analyzed. Results showed that 51 cases (28.6%) out of 178E. coli isolated were EPEC. The percentage of isolated EPECs carrying virulence genes were bfpA (tEPEC) (11.8%), efa1 (2%), fimH (98%) and lpfDo113 (13.7%). Variable frequency of EPEC virulence factors isolated from children with diarrhea needs further studies for creating epidemiological map of diarrheal infections caused by EPEC. Key words: Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli, virulence genes, diarrhea, children, polymerase chain reaction.
Cortical Thickness and Functional Networks Modules by Cortical Lobes

This study aims to investigate topological organization of cortical thickness and functional networks by cortical lobes. First, I demonstrated modular organization of these networks by the cortical surface frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital divisions. Secondly, I mapped the overlapping edges of cortical thickness and functional networks for positive and negative correlations. Finally, I showed that overlapping positive edges map onto within-lobe cortical interactions and negative onto between-lobes interactions.
Fundamentals of Multi-Numerology 5G New Radio.

The physical layer of 5G cellular communications systems is designed to achieve better flexibility in an effort to support diverse services and user requirements. OFDM waveform parameters are enriched with flexible multi-numerology structures. This paper describes the differences between Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems and new radio (NR) from the flexibility perspective. Research opportunities for multi-numerology systems are presented in a structured manner. Finally, inter-numerology interference (INI) results as a function of guard allocation and multi-numerology parameters are obtained through simulation.
Anomaly Detection Methods for Categorical Data

Anomaly detection has numerous applications in diverse fields. For example, it has been widely used for discovering network intrusions and malicious events. It has also been used in numerous other applications such as identifying medical malpractice or credit fraud. Detection of anomalies in quantitative data has received a considerable attention in the literature and has a venerable history. By contrast, and despite the widespread availability use of categorical data in practice, anomaly detection in categorical data has received relatively little attention as compared to quantitative data. This is because detection of anomalies in categorical data is a challenging problem. Some anomaly detection techniques depend on identifying a representative pattern then measuring distances between objects and this pattern. Objects that are far from this pattern are declared as anomalies. However, identifying patterns and measuring distances are not easy in categorical data compared with quantitative data. Fortunately, several papers focussing on the detection of anomalies in categorical data have been published in the recent literature. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of the research on the anomaly detection problem in categorical data. Previous review articles focus on either the statistics literature or the machine learning and computer science literature. This review article combines both literatures. We review 36 methods for the detection of anomalies in categorical data in both literatures and classify them into 12 different categories based on the conceptual definition of anomalies they use. For each approach, we survey anomaly detection methods, and then show the similarities and differences among them. We emphasize two important issues, the number of parameters each method requires and its time complexity. The first issue is critical, because the performance of these methods are sensitive to the choice of these parameters. The time complexity is also very important in real applications especially in big data applications. We report the time complexity if it is reported by the authors of the methods. If it is not, then we derive it ourselves and report it in this article. In addition, we discuss the common problems and the future directions of the anomaly detection in categorical data.
Development of an Efficient in Vitro Regeneration System for Endangered Wild Orange Citrus Chrysocarpa L.

A method for in-vitro propagation of wild type Indian orange ( Citrus chrysocarpa L.) was developed by shoot organogenesis from seed. Mature seed embryos were used as explants and treated with different hormones and plant growth regulators on MS medium for callus, shoots and roots induction. For callus induction seed embryos were treated with different concentration of 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), 6-benzylaminopurine (BA) and a-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and maximum 90.90% callus was observed on MS medium supplemented with 2, 4 -D at 16.0 µM concentration. Approximately 85% of the callus was granular, while 15% was smooth and compact. Maximum 83.33% shoot regeneration were observed on MS medium supplemented with BA at 13µM concentration. Regenerated shoots were rooted on MS medium supplemented with different hormones and maximum 80% roots were observed in MS medium supplemented with 10 µM Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). The regenerated plantlets were successfully acclimatized in ex-situ condition for further study.
Neoadjuvant sipuleucel-T induces both Th1 activation and immune regulation in localized prostate cancer

ABSTRACT Sipuleucel-T is the only FDA-approved immunotherapy for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The mechanism by which this treatment improves survival is not fully understood. We have previously shown that this treatment can induce the recruitment of CD4 and CD8 T cells to the tumor microenvironment. In this study, we examined the functional state of these T cells through gene expression profiling. We found that the magnitude of T cell signatures correlated with the frequency of T cells as measured by immunohistochemistry. Sipuleucel-T treatment was associated with increased expression of Th1-associated genes, but not Th2-, Th17 – or Treg-associated genes. Post-treatment tumor tissues with high CD8+T cell infiltration was associated with high levels of CXCL10 expression. On in situ hybridization, CXCL10+ cells colocalized with CD8+T cells in post-treatment prostatectomy tumor tissue. Neoadjuvant sipuleucel-T was also associated with upregulation of immune inhibitory checkpoints, including CTLA4 and TIGIT, and downregulation of the immune activation marker, dipeptidylpeptidase, DPP4. Treatment-associated declines in serum PSA were correlated with induction of Th1 response. In contrast, rises in serum PSA while on treatment were associated with the induction of multiple immune checkpoints, including CTLA4, CEACAM6 and TIGIT. This could represent adaptive immune resistance mechanisms induced by treatment. Taken together, neoadjuvant sipuleucel-T can induce both a Th1 response and negative immune regulation in the prostate cancer microenvironment.
SIMULATION OF WAVES IN PORO-VISCOELASTIC ROCKS SATURATED BY IMMISCIBLE FLUIDS: NUMERICAL EVIDENCE OF A SECOND SLOW WAVE

We present an iterative algorithm formulated in the space-frequency domain to simulate the propagation of waves in a bounded poro-viscoelastic rock saturated by a two-phase fluid. The Biot-type model takes into account capillary forces and viscous and mass coupling coefficients between the fluid phases under variable saturation and pore fluid pressure conditions. The model predicts the existence of three compressional waves or Type-I, Type-II and Type-III waves and one shear or S-wave. The Type-III mode is a new mode not present in the classical Biot theory for single-phase fluids. Our differential and numerical models are stated in the space-frequency domain instead of the classical integrodifferential formulation in the space-time domain. For each temporal frequency, this formulation leads to a Helmholtz-type boundary value problem which is then solved independently of the other frequency problems, and the time-domain solution is obtained by an approximate inverse Fourier transform. The numerical procedure, which is first-order correct in the spatial discretization, is an iterative nonoverlapping domain decomposition method that employs an absorbing boundary condition in order to minimize spurious reflections from the artificial boundaries. The numerical experiments showing the propagation of waves in a sample of Nivelsteiner sandstone indicate that under certain conditions the Type-III wave can be observed at ultrasonic frequencies.
Preferences toward the constructivist smart classroom learning environment: examining pre-service teachers’ connectedness

ABSTRACT The constructivist smart classroom learning environment is quickly emerging as an alternative classroom model that integrates active learning with advanced technology to improve learners’ socialization and achievement. This research examines pre-service teachers’ (n = 462) preferences toward this learning environment, as well as the predictive association between connectedness and other critical learning environment features. All pre-service teachers had at least one semester of actual experience as participants learning in this environment. The data was collected through a questionnaire, and a series of linear regressions were conducted to examine the hypothesized relationships. Connectedness was positive and significantly associated with all smart classroom features examined: inquiry learning, student negotiation, reflective thinking, functional design, multiple sources, usefulness, and ease of use. Pre-service teachers who preferred constructivist smart classroom learning environments tended to be those in their first year of post-secondary education, as well as those with higher levels of technology self-efficacy. Gender was not observed to significantly influence preferences. The findings show connectedness to be a central and critical feature that can be used to cultivate more appropriate environments from the participants’ perspective.
Effects of wind farm construction and operation on mire and wet heath vegetation in the Monte Maior SCI, north-west Spain.

As part of the environmental impact assessment for the construction of a wind farm within the Monte Maior Natura 2000 Site of Community Importance (SCI) in Galicia, north-west Spain, a complete analysis of the development site’s important mire and wet heath plant communities was performed. The study included phytosociological characterisation, species-area metrics, calculation of α and β diversity, and analysis of physiognomical characteristics such as life forms, distribution ranges and phenology. Permanent quadrats were monitored for three years after construction of the wind farm in order to identify and describe any changes in floristic composition. Two phytosociological associations were recognised in mire habitat, namely Eleocharitetum multicaulis (Litorelletea uniflorae) and Carici durieui-Sphagnetum papillosi subas. ericetosum mackaianae (Oxycocco-Sphagnetea), whilst the wet heath was assigned to Gentiano pneumonanthe-Ericetum mackaianae (Calluno-Ulicetea). The two plant communities shared most physiognomical characteristics and 13–33% of species. Low values were obtained for α and β diversity, with about nine species per square metre for heathland and ten species per square metre for mire habitat. Hemicryptophytes dominated and no therophytes were recorded. The dominant plant families were Poaceae in heathlands and Cyperaceae in mires, and most of the species flowered in early or late summer. Both communities were stable and no change in any of the attributes investigated was observed during the study period. The results indicate that, so long as the traditional land use of low-intensity grazing can be maintained, there are no major hazards for these plant communities. However, some of the data suggest that the improvement of access to the area provided by the wind farm may result in an increase in human activity which could affect environmental conditions and thus the longer-term stability of the plant communities.
Who works beyond the 'standard' retirement age and why?

With life expectancy increasing, and changes to public policy aimed at encouraging older workers to stay in the workforce, the conditions under which people decide to retire have changed in recent years. This report describes the characteristics of those who continue to work beyond the age of 65. The findings show that two groups of workers, in terms of their educational qualifications, are more likely to remain working—the most and least educated—while labour force participation of those with vocational qualifications declines.
Procedure for Impact Testing of Fused Recycled Glass

Recycled glass material is made from hundred percent recycled bottle glass and consume less energy than re-melt technology. It also uses no additives in the manufacturing process allowing the recycled glass material, in principal, to go back to the recycling stream after end-of-use, contributing to the circular economy with a low ecological impact. Previous research with low temperature fused recycled bottle glass was developed for the manufacturing of interior tiles and commissioned by an architectural practice for a new build which was based on sustainable principles. The research considered objective mechanical criteria such as flexural bending strength, stability and stain and scratch resistance. It also emphasized on aesthetic development such as colouring, translucency, texture and reproducibility. Continuing from previous research results the material is believed to behold properties in which it can be used for other architectural applications such as pavements, wall cladding, or even non-structural furniture. This is a relatively new architectural material of which there has been little publications in material specifications or processes for mechanical testing. The aim of this paper is to investigate the procedure for testing the recycled glass material for impact resistance, so it can be applied to pavements and other surfaces which are at risk of impact during service. A review of different impact test procedures for construction materials was undertaken, comparing methodologies and international standards applied to other materials such as natural stone, ceramics and glass. A new drop weight impact testing machine was designed and manufactured in-house to perform these tests. As a case study, samples of the recycled glass material were manufactured with two different thicknesses and tested. The impact energy was calculated theoretically, obtaining results with 5 and 10 Joules. The results on the material were subsequently discussed. Improvements on the procedure can be made using high speed video technology to calculate velocity just before and immediately after the impact to know the absorbed energy. The initial results obtained in this procedure were positive although repeatability needs to be developed to obtain a correlation of results and finally be able to validate the procedure. The experiment with samples showed the practicality of this procedure and application to the recycled glass material impact testing although further research needs to be developed.