Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microscale Quantification of the Absorption by Dissolved and Particulate Material in Coastal Waters with an ac-9

Abstract Measuring coastal and oceanic absorption coefficients of dissolved and particulate matter in the visible domain usually requires a methodology for amplifying the natural signal because conventional spectrophotometers lack the necessary sensitivity. The WET Labs ac-9 is a recently developed in situ absorption and attenuation meter with a precision better than ±0.001 m−1 in the raw signal, which is sufficient to make these measurements in pristine samples. Whereas the superior sensitivity of the ac-9 has been well documented, the accuracy of in situ measurements for bio-optical applications has not been rigorously evaluated. Obtaining accurate results with an ac-9 requires careful attention to calibration procedures because baselines drift as a result of the changing optical properties of several ac-9 components. To correct in situ measurements for instrument drift, a pressurized flow procedure was developed for calibrating an ac-9 with optically clean water. In situ, micro- (cm) to fine- (m) scale.
THE LEGALITY OF CENTRALISED PUBLIC PROCUREMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

The reform of public procurement at an operational level has been high on the agenda of the South African National Treasury and is illustrated by the incremental introduction of centralised features into the South African procurement system. To ensure lawful reform this paper seeks to determine the legal parameters of centralising the South African procurement system at an operational level by analysing the ruling regulatory framework and case law. This paper clarifies the current challenges faced by South Africa in public procurement taking into account the Annual Reports of Provincial and Local Government as well as material findings of the Auditor-General. Further, this paper examines the underlying reasons for centralising and decentralising procurement systems and the practical issues experienced by foreign jurisdictions in implementing such systems as well as its effect on bidding markets. It is proposed that an analysis of the ruling regulatory framework and relevant case law should guide the finding that lawful centralisation is limited and the promulgation of legislation introducing prominent centralised features should be closely scrutinised against the constitutional provisions relating to local government and public finance management.
Functionality of disorder in muscle mechanics

A salient feature of skeletal muscles is their ability to take up an applied slack in a ms time scale. Behind this passive phenomenon is a collective folding of a system of interacting bi-stable elements. These interactions have long range character and therefore the behavior of the system in force and length controlled ensembles is different. As a result, there are two adjacent but distinct critical points. We show that the account of steric incommensuration between myosin and actin filaments places the elementary force producing units of skeletal muscles close to both critical points. Such ’double-criticality’ contributes to the system’s ability to perform robustly in the presence of perturbations and suggests that geometric frustration may be functional.
Microwave-assisted synthesis of porous ZnO/SnS 2 heterojunction and its enhanced photoactivity for water purification

Porous ZnO/SnS2 nanocomposites with adjustable SnS2 contents were prepared via microwave-assisted heating of different aqueous solutions of SnS2 precursors in the presence of fixed amount of ZnCO3 nanoparticles at pH 7. The structures, compositions, BET specific surface areas, and optical properties of the as-prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, N2 adsorption, and UV-Vis absorption spectra. Photocatalytic activities of the samples were tested by the removal of aqueous ciprofloxacin, CrVI, and methylene blue under visible-light (λ > 420 nm) irradiation. The experimental results reveal that the as-prepared heterogeneous nanostructures exhibit much higher visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity for the degradation of the pollutants than pure SnS2 nanocrystals. The photocatalytic degradation rates (Ct/C0) of the pollutants for the most active heterogeneous nanostructure are about 10, 49, and 9 times higher than that of pure SnS2. The enhanced photocatalytic activities exhibited by the heterojunctions could be ascribed to the synergetic effect of enhanced absorption in the visible region and the reduced rate of charge carrier recombination because of efficient separation and electron transfer from the SnS2 to ZnO nanoparticles.
Effect of prolonged electrode potential cycling on the conduction properties of poly(o-aminophenol) film electrodes

Fil: Tucceri, Ismael Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnologico la Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquimicas Teoricas y Aplicadas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Plata; Argentina
TDR modeling for near-surface moisture profile measurement

Conventional time domain reflectometry (TDR) for measurement of water content typically uses a parallel waveguide buried in the material under test, and provides a measure of the mean permittivity and hence water content of a volume surrounding the waveguide. Here we describe an alternative arrangement whereby the waveguide is positioned outside the material. With the altered arrangement, the mean near-surface water content may be deduced using a modeling technique. However, by making measurements at several different positions of the waveguide relative to the material, we show that combining forward modeling with an inversion technique enables the near-surface water content profile to be determined. Using laboratory measurements, we demonstrate that for a coarse-grained soil, an accuracy of 2% volumetric water content is feasible when using an accurate time domain reflectometer, a selfcalibration technique and the Topp equation for translation of real permittivity to soil water content. We then outline two improvements on the modeling and inversion techniques. The first is a simplification of the forward problem that reduces the size of the field matrix and the number of unknown variables. We then describe how combining the simplification with alternative approaches to the inverse calculation can yield improvements in calculation time.
False Misbehavior Elimination of Packet Dropping Attackers during Military Surveillance using WSN

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of many sensor nodes with low cost and power capability. The nature of WSN makes it easily prone to security attacks and paves way for attackers to easily eavesdrop the network. One of the deadliest attacks is the packet dropping attack by the intruder where the destruction caused to the network becomes inexplicable. It causes the intruder to lure all the packets and drop which will ultimately disrupt the military functionalities. It becomes essential to detect the attacker in split second before rendering heavy damage to the data and the network. Nodes in a WSN are usually highly energy-constrained and expected to operate for long periods from limited on-board energy reserves and there is a high need for energy-efficient operations. In this paper, a novel algorithm is developed to improve the existing Watchdog monitoring system to detect the false misbehaving node and to eliminate it in short time during surveillance. The existing Watchdog mechanism consumes more energy to compute the Sinkhole node in the network and its trustworthiness also becomes debatable. The simulation results show that exact elimination of the malicious node is done. Moreover, a greater percentage reduction in energy consumption is achieved by the proposed method that makes it more viable for military applications to detect the attacker.
Film evidence in war crimes trials: Two case studies

The use of atrocity film evidence within international war crimes trials has been a controversial issue, in part, due to its conflict with the conventional common law rule against admitting hearsay evidence into trials and relative to "fair trial" norms. Such controversies are particularly evident in relation to the dramatic use of Nazi Concentration Camp at Nuremberg, which has been subjected to varied debate. To this end, much of this debate is centred on whether the screening of the atrocity film had a “prejudicial impact” or whether it was justified on the basis of “serving the interests of justice” and contributing towards a “fair trial. ” This area merits a study to compare the problematic use of Nazi Concentration Camp at Nuremberg, with the use of atrocity film evidence at The Hague, within the Popovic et al trial, to identify whether any valid lessons have been learned and incorporated. By adopting a comparative approach between the atrocity films deployed, both within the world’s first and second war crimes tribunal, the learning experience of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is evident. This thesis will discuss whether - on the basis of the two case studies - such evidence may now have become "normalised" and if so what are its implications?
Housing Quality in Informal Settlements and Urban Upgrading in Ibadan, Nigeria (A Case Study of Apete in Ibadan)

The paper examines the causes and characteristics of informal settlements in the assessment of housing quality. The paper identifies the problems that have aided informal settlements to: urbanization, poverty, growth of informal sector, non-affordability of land and housing shortage. The paper asserts that the informal settlements have serious adverse effects on the people’s health, their built environment and housing quality. The secondary data was obtained from books, journals and seminar papers while the primary data relating to housing quality were obtained by means of structured questionnaire. The paper argues that, although the urban upgrading possesses great potential for improving housing quality in informal settlements, there is a need to rethink and repackage the upgrading exercise so that majority can benefit from it. It is necessary to incorporate community participation into the urban upgrading in order to assist the very poor that cannot take care of their housing consumption needs. Therefore, government is encouraged to see informal settlements as a solution to new city planning rather than problem to the urban areas.
Screening and classification of ordinary chondrites by Raman spectroscopy

Classification of ordinary chondrite meteorites generally implies (1) determining the chemical group by the composition in endmembers of olivine and pyroxene, and (2) identifying the petrologic group by microstructural features. The composition of olivine and pyroxene is commonly obtained by microprobe analyses or oil immersion of mineral separates. We propose Raman spectroscopy as an alternative technique to determine the endmember content of olivine and pyroxene in ordinary chondrites, by using the link between the wavelength shift of selected characteristic peaks in the spectra of olivine and pyroxene and the Mg/Fe ratio in these phases. The existing correlation curve has been recalculated from the Raman spectrum of reference minerals of known composition and further refined for the range of chondritic compositions. Although the technique is not as accurate as the microprobe for determining the composition of olivine and pyroxene, for most of the samples the chemical group can be easily determined by Raman spectroscopy. Blind tests with ordinary chondrites of different provenance, weathering, and shock stages have confirmed the potential of the method. Therefore, we suggest that a preliminary screening and the classification of most of the equilibrated ordinary chondrites can be carried out using an optical microscope equipped with a Raman spectrometer.
Spoken Arabic News Classification Based on Speech Features

: One of the most important consequences of what is known as the "Internet era" is the widespread of varied electronic data. This deployment urgently requires an automated system to classify these data to facilitate search and access to the topic in question. This system is commonly used in written texts. Because of the huge increase of spoken files nowadays, there is an acute need for building an automatic system to classify spoken files based on topics. This system has been discussed in the previous researches applied to spoken English texts, but it rarely takes into consideration spoken Arabic texts because Arabic language is challenging and its dataset is rare and not suitable for topic classification. To deal with this challenge, a new dataset is established depending on converting the common written text (ALJ-NEWS) which is widely used in researches in classifying written texts. Then, keywords extraction method is implemented in order to extract the keywords representing each class depending on using DTW. Finally, topic identification, based on (MFCC, PLP-RASTA) as speech features and (DTW, HMM) as identifiers, is created using a technique that is different from the traditional way, using ASR to extract the transcriptions. Regarding the evaluation of the system, F1-measure, precision and recall are used as evaluation metrics. The proposed system shows positive results in the topic classification field. The F1-measure for topic identification system using DTW classifier records 90.26% and 91.36% using HMM classifier in the average. In addition, the system achieves 89.65% of keywords identification accuracy.
Scientific Papers Retrieval with an Emphasis on Graph-based Structural Information

With the increasing spread of science, various methods have been proposed to restore more and better scientific documents according to the needs and requests of users. Since there is no complete information for some documents, users have to access the metadata including the name of authors and their affiliation, the publication date, and references used for the document by accessing to the documents. Therefore, extraction of information based on the structural and geometrical characteristics of the document can be very helpful in retrieving relevant and required documents. In this paper, after extracting metadata using geometrical features of documents and graph-based model, the relationships between different entities such as documents, authors, journals, and conferences are modeled for more efficient information retrieval. The extracted and refined data, stored in the graph model, are available in a web-based user interface. To produce the results of each query, the related documents are retrieved based on the graph’s relationships, the quality of each document, and their citation score. To evaluate the proposed method, the PubMed and D2SPR databases are used. The results from the experiments show that the number of retrieved documents in the proposed method is 60% higher than the PubMed database search engine and 80% higher than D2SPR. Moreover, nDCG with an average of 0.824 in the proposed approach has a significant distance with the average of 0.30 in Pubmed search engine. While the average of F-measure on D2SPR dataset is 0.834 for the suggested system, the value is 0.71 in the current study. Keywords— Metadata Extraction; Information Retrieval; Knowledge Graph Data Model; Structural Data
The Magnitude and Distance Decay of Trade in Goods and Services: New Evidence for European Countries

Abstract Using a newly assembled, consistent and disaggregated dataset (12 goods and 7 services) on internal and bilateral trade for 25 European countries, we analyse the difference between trade in goods and services. The measurement of both trade in goods and trade in services is improved over earlier research, allowing us to compare trade in goods and services in a coherent and systematic way. First, our dataset is made consistent with the domestic demand and production and the total exports and imports at the sector and product levels. Second, we explicitly control for re-exports. We find that, although goods are more often bilaterally traded than services, the volume of bilateral trade in services does not attenuate less with distance than the volume of bilateral trade in goods.
Investigation of the optical properties of MoS2 thin films using spectroscopic ellipsometry

Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) characterization of layered transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) thin films grown by vapor phase sulfurization is reported. By developing an optical dispersion model, the extinction coefficient and refractive index, as well as the thickness of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) films, were extracted. In addition, the optical band gap was obtained from SE and showed a clear dependence on the MoS2 film thickness, with thinner films having a larger band gap energy. These results are consistent with theory and observations made on MoS2 flakes prepared by exfoliation, showing the viability of vapor phase derived TMDs for optical applications.
The information on evolutive development involved in adaptation on local and/or regional ambient, which leads to diversification of different breeds/types within species, together with the data on genetic relationships among local breeds

Autochthonous Pramenka (Zackel) sheep has been recognized as an important element of regional agro-biodiversity, relevant to the tradition that encompasses the cultural heritage of Serbia. The recognition that locally adapted animal breeds gained genetic resistance and adaptability through evolution; modern sustainable farming practices are far more attuned to the need for preserving and utilizing Zackel sheep types. The risk factors leading to rapid and severe decline in Vlashko-Vitoroga Zackel sheep population have been described in the paper. The objective of the study was to obtain the data necessary for development of conservation and sustainable use strategies of Vlashko-Vitoroga Zackel sheep. Determination of the conservation value upon characteristics of the breed was performed, in aim to identify priorities in accordance with the criteria of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The positive and negative characteristics of the Vlashko-Vitoroga Zackel sheep, opportunities for utilization, as well as ambiental challenges that affect the breed were analyzed in the paper. The importance of this breed for maintenance of cultural tradition, landscape preservation and longterm rural development by in-situ conservation through utilization is also discussed in the paper.
Towards single particle imaging of human chromosomes at SACLA

Single particle imaging (SPI) is one of the front-page opportunities which were used to motivate the construction of the first x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs). SPI’s big advantage is that it avoids radiation damage to biological samples because the diffraction takes place in femtosecond single shots before any atomic motion can take place in the sample, hence before the onset of radiation damage. This is the ‘diffract before destruction’ theme, destruction being assured from the high x-ray doses used. This article reports our collaboration’s first attempt at SPI using the SACLA XFEL facility in June 2015. The report is limited to experience with the instrumentation and examples of data because we have not yet had time to invert them to images.
On the Role of Priors in Generalized Matching Pursuit to Reconstruct Wavefields from Multicomponent Streamer Data

In conventional single-component data acquisition, a common way to solve the problem of reconstructing aliased seismic data is to use priors that are computed at low frequencies and applied at high frequencies. In contrast, parametric matching pursuit methods such as Generalized Matching Pursuit applied on multicomponent data do not need priors in most conditions to achieve accurate reconstruction under aliasing. In this paper, we examine how and when soft priors can provide further robustness to multichannel matching pursuit algorithms. We illustrate our concepts on synthetic data generated by finite-difference modelling and on data acquired by a 3D-4C towed cable array. We find that multicomponent data allow matching pursuit algorithms to compute and use the priors in ways that are not possible with single-component data. For instance, the priors can be estimated by matching pursuit within an intermediate temporal frequency band, where the signal-to-noise ratios of all the components are high, while the data are already subject to spatial aliasing. The priors generated at these intermediate frequencies can then be used at higher frequencies where the aliasing is stronger, and also at lower frequencies, still aliased and affected by stronger noise.
Web-based education against computer anxiety of greek health care professionals

Although several studies in different countries have explored the extent to which health care professionals use biomedical technology as well as the computer and the internet, few researches are available on this subject in Greece. One hundred health care professionals of the main Hospitals of Western Greece, participated during last four years, to a web-based course, including basic computer skills that designed to assist the faculty in becoming comfortable computer users. The applications addressed included: introduction to MS Windows, electronic mail, word processing, presentation and database applications, library on-line searches of literature databases and introduction to internet browsers. The participants completed a-16 item questionnaire before and after the course. The mean age for the participants were 40.5 years. Overall, 32.6% of the entire sample could use the computer, 67.4% could not. Slightly more than two thirds (75%) of the entire health care professionals had never used the internet, and 25% had. The total improvement of new technology familiarization was statistically significant (usually p<0.0001). Improved efforts such as inclusion of more web-based courses in health care curricular or in life long learning programs additionally with establishment of computer laboratories are required to increase the health care professional's access to computers and internet, conquering computer anxiety.
Investigating the possible connection between λ Bootis stars and intermediate Population II type stars

Context The it Bootis stars are located at the upper maid sequence of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and exhibit a peculiar abundance pattern. The light elements (C, N, O, and S) present solar abundances whereas all other elements are moderately to strongly underabundant It has not yet been determined whether that abundance pattern is intrinsic, or is restricted to the stellar surface. Aims. If we follow the hypothesis that the A Bootis stars are intrinsically metal-weak, then there should be a connection with the intermediate Population II and F-weak objects. Such a possible affinity has not been previously investigated. Methods. We present detailed elemental abundances, including those of the light elements carbon and oxygen, for 38 bright intermediate Population If and F-weak objects. In addition, we investigate the kinematic characteristics of the groups, Results. From photometric. spectroscopic, and kinematic data, there is no distinction between the intermediate Population II and F-weak type stars. We therefore conclude that the two groups are identical. However, it is possible to distinguish the lambda Bootis stars from the intermediate Population II stars on the basis of elemental abundances though not in terms of their kinematics. Conclusions. The lambda Bootis stars seem to be distinct from the intermediate Population II group. Further asteroseisrnologic investigations and analyses of spectroscopic binary systems are needed to strengthen this conclusion.