Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Behavior of Low Grade Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Made with Fresh and Recycled Brick Aggregates

In recent years, recycled aggregates from construction and demolition waste (CDW) have been widely accepted in construction sectors as the replacement of coarse aggregate in order to minimize the excessive use of natural resources. In this paper, an experimental investigation is carried out to observe the influence of low grade steel fiber reinforcements on the stress-strain behavior of concrete made with recycled and fresh brick aggregates. In addition, compressive strength by destructive and nondestructive tests, splitting tensile strength, and Young’s modulus are determined. Hooked end steel wires with 50 mm of length and an aspect ratio of 55.6 are used as fiber reinforcements in a volume fraction of 0% (control case), 0.50%, and 1.00% in concrete mixes. The same gradation of aggregates and water-cement ratio () were used to assess the effect of steel fiber in all these concrete mixes. All tests were conducted at 7, 14, and 28 days to perceive the effect of age on different mechanical properties. The experimental results show that around 10%～15% and 40%～60% increase in 28 days compressive strength and tensile strength of steel fiber reinforced concrete, respectively, compared to those of the control case. It is observed that the effect of addition of 1% fiber on the concrete compressive strength is little compared to that of 0.5% steel fiber addition. On the other hand, strain of concrete at failure of steel fiber reinforced concrete has increased almost twice compared to the control case. A simple analytical model is also proposed to generate the ascending portions of the stress-strain curve of concrete. There exists a good correlation between the experimental results and the analytical model. A relatively ductile failure is observed for the concrete made with low grade steel fibers.
Development of an Ecoliteracy Scale Intended for Adults and Testing an Alternative Model by Structural Equation Modelling

Ecoliteracy is to understand and internalise sustainable ecological relationship in the nature and to transfer this sustainable lifestyle to daily life despite the fact that ecoliteracy does not have only one and unique definition. However, it is difficult to measure ecoliteracy due to it being a complex concept. There are many subsets of ecoliteracy. One of the t he aim of this study is therefore to develop an ecoliteracy scale intended for adults which is based on ecological intelligence, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, economy and green consumer behaviour. The other aim of the study is to test an alternative model among these subsets. According to this model economy, emotional and social intelligences are subsets of ecological intelligence. Ecological intelligence has directly link to green consumer behaviours at the second stage of the model. All the goodness of fit values are at an acceptable level according to the explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis. The results are Cronbach alpha: 0.78; KMO: 0.830; X 2 /df: 4.09; RMSEA: 0.087; SRMR: 0.0783; GFI, AGFI, IFI, and CFI ≥ 0.80. There are 20 items within the scale.
Online Supervised Learning Approach for Machine Scheduling

Due to rapid growth of computational power and demand for faster and more optimal solution in today’s manufacturing, machine learning has lately caught a lot of attention. Thanks to it’s ability to adapt to changing conditions in dynamic environments it is perfect choice for processes where rules cannot be explicitly given. In this paper proposes on-line supervised learning approach for optimal scheduling in manufacturing. Although supervised learning is generally not recommended for dynamic problems we try to defeat this conviction and prove it’s viable option for this class of problems. Implemented in multi-agent system algorithm is tested against multi-stage, multi-product (cid:29)ow-shop problem. More speci(cid:28)cally we start from de(cid:28)ning considered problem. Next we move to presentation of proposed solution. Later on we show results from conducted experiments and compare our approach to centralized reinforcement learning to measure algorithm performance.
Prestack Kirchhoff time migration of 3D coal seismic data from mining zones

Conventional seismic data processing methods based on post‐stack time migration have been playing an important role in coal exploration for decades. However, post‐stack time migration processing often results in low‐quality images in complex geological environments. In order to obtain high‐quality images, we present a strategy that applies the Kirchhoff prestack time migration (PSTM) method to coal seismic data. In this paper, we describe the implementation of Kirchhoff PSTM to a 3D coal seam. Meanwhile we derive the workflow of 3D Kirchhoff PSTM processing based on coal seismic data. The processing sequence of 3D Kirchhoff PSTM includes two major steps: 1) the estimation of the 3D root‐mean‐square (RMS) velocity field; 2) Kirchhoff prestack time migration processing. During the construction of a 3D velocity model, dip moveout velocity is served as an initial migration velocity field. We combine 3D Kirchhoff PSTM with the continuous adjustment of a 3D RMS velocity field by the criteria of flattened common reflection point gathers. In comparison with post‐stack time migration, the application of 3D Kirchhoff PSTM to coal seismic data produces better images of the coal seam reflections.
Midterm Results Of Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) In Developmental Dysplasia Of The Hip (DDH)

According to Crowe, 27 hip were Type 1, 12 hips were Type 2, 5 hips were Type 3, and 7 hips were Type 4. Mean Harris hip score was improved from 31 to 93,23. Complications were 2 acetabular cup migration and 1 femoral stem migration in the early period as well as dislocation in 5 hips during the early postoperative period. During introducing the femoral stem or intraoperative reduction of 9 hips (17.65%) a fissure in the femur occurred. Also there were 2 hips with trochanteric bursitis and one with femoral stem failure. There was no nervous injury.
Contribution à la conception d'architecture de calcul auto-adaptative intégrant des nanocomposants neuromorphiques et applications potentielles

Dans cette these, nous etudions les applications potentielles des nano-dispositifs memoires emergents dans les architectures de calcul. Nous montrons que des architectures neuro-inspirees pourraient apporter l'efficacite et l'adaptabilite necessaires a des applications de traitement et de classification complexes pour la perception visuelle et sonore. Cela, a un cout moindre en termes de consommation energetique et de surface silicium que les architectures de type Von Neumann, grâce a une utilisation synaptique de ces nano-dispositifs. Ces travaux se focalisent sur les dispositifs dit «memristifs», recemment (re)-introduits avec la decouverte du memristor en 2008 et leur utilisation comme synapse dans des reseaux de neurones impulsionnels. Cela concerne la plupart des technologies memoire emergentes : memoire a changement de phase – «Phase-Change Memory» (PCM), «Conductive-Bridging RAM» (CBRAM), memoire resistive – «Resistive RAM» (RRAM). Ces dispositifs sont bien adaptes pour l'implementation d'algorithmes d'apprentissage non supervises issus des neurosciences, comme «Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity» (STDP), ne necessitant que peu de circuit de controle. L'integration de dispositifs memristifs dans des matrices, ou «crossbar», pourrait en outre permettre d'atteindre l'enorme densite d'integration necessaire pour ce type d'implementation (plusieurs milliers de synapses par neurone), qui reste hors de portee d'une technologie purement en «Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor» (CMOS). C'est l'une des raisons majeures pour lesquelles les reseaux de neurones bases sur la technologie CMOS n'ont pas eu le succes escompte dans les annees 1990. A cela s'ajoute la relative complexite et inefficacite de l'algorithme d'apprentissage de retro-propagation du gradient, et ce malgre tous les aspects prometteurs des architectures neuro-inspirees, tels que l'adaptabilite et la tolerance aux fautes. Dans ces travaux, nous proposons des modeles synaptiques de dispositifs memristifs et des methodologies de simulation pour des architectures les exploitant. Des architectures neuro-inspirees de nouvelle generation sont introduites et simulees pour le traitement de donnees naturelles. Celles-ci tirent profit des caracteristiques synaptiques des nano-dispositifs memristifs, combinees avec les dernieres avancees dans les neurosciences. Nous proposons enfin des implementations materielles adaptees pour plusieurs types de dispositifs. Nous evaluons leur potentiel en termes d'integration, d'efficacite energetique et egalement leur tolerance a la variabilite et aux defauts inherents a l'echelle nano-metrique de ces dispositifs. Ce dernier point est d'une importance capitale, puisqu'il constitue aujourd'hui encore la principale difficulte pour l'integration de ces technologies emergentes dans des memoires numeriques.
Using Geography Textbooks in Competence-Based Education: A Study about the Actors in Germany

Competence-orientation plays a meaningful role in many recent school curricula. But how are the theoretical and conceptual approaches of competence-orientation based on educational research interpreted by in-service teachers, teacher trainers and representatives of the school administration? And which approaches of competence-orientation are implemented in every day school life? Therefore the article focuses on the subjective concepts of competence-orientation of different participants (stakeholders at school, seminaries for teacher education and ministry of education) in the educational system. Initially, the individual topics and hypotheses are generated based on qualitative expert interviews with these stakeholders. The stakeholders at the seminaries for teacher education and the ministry of education suggest a strong use of media other than the licensed textbooks, or a different way of making use of the provided materials and tasks within the textbooks than it is intended. However, it seems that most inservice teachers stick to the combination of tasks and materials arranged within the textbooks. Thus suggests, that every day school lessons are not competence-oriented in the way, the stakeholders at seminaries for teacher education and at the ministry of education want them to be. One cause may be the textbooks, which should provide a new, different combination of tasks and materials for competence-based education to enable competence-based education in every day school life.
The Power of DOE: How to Increase Experimental Design Success and Avoid Pitfalls

Personal empirical experience when lecturing and consulting shows that not only students, but also experienced engineers familiar with DOE, show much more interest in the modeling of a process than to statistical inference, neglecting attention to “boundary conditions” of the process. But exactly the observation of ancillary boundary conditions of experiments, such as minimizing Beta-risk and noise, is determinant for the efficient execution of an experimental design and the effective application of DOE derived models. This essay focuses attention to the must-dos in the DOE statistics approach in order to avoid research pitfalls by presenting a fail-proof 14-step approach when applying DOE modeling.
Partial Purification and Characterization of Xylanase from Bacillus weihenstephanensis Strain ANR1 using Watermelon Rind

Aim: The aim of this study is to partially purify and characterize xylanase from Bacillus weihenstephanensis strain ANR1 using watermelon rind as a substrate. Materials and Methods: The soil bacterium, B.weihenstephanensis strain ANR1 was grown at 37°C for 72 h on rotary incubator shaker at 150 rpm in a flask containing 250 ml of medium. The xylanase enzyme was partially purified using ammonium sulfate precipitation and dialysis. It was further purified using DEAE-sepharose chromatography. Molecular weight of the xylanase enzyme was determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Results and Discussion: The xylanase enzyme was partially purified to a fold of 8.15 and a yield of 83.56%. Molecular weight of the protein was found to be 45 kDa. The purified enzyme was found to be optimally active at pH of 7.0 and at a temperature of 37°C. Conclusion: Based on the results obtained, the purified xylanase enzyme from B. weihenstephanensis strain ANR1 using watermelon rind as a substrate can be effectively used in various food industrial applications
P1.9.29 Global Machine-to-Machine Sensor Network for Wide Area Healthcare Service

The global machine-to-machine (M2M) network is proposed to support wide area healthcare service using the concept of IPv6 over low power wireless personal area (6LoWPAN). This network can give international healthcare services between countries and intercity healthcare services between cities with the excellent accessibility in a hierarchical network structure. Low power embedded wearable sensors are designed to measure health parameters dynamically and connected to the M2M node for wireless transmission through the internet or external IP enable networks via the M2M gateway. Practical tests were conducted by the M2M gateway with the effective use of IEEE 802.15. 4 and the 6LoWPAN protocol in wide area. The physical health state is estimated by the heart rate variability analysis in time and frequency domain with the significant information of autonomic nervous system in the server. Our approach for the global M2M network is managed to process the large amount of biomedical signals through the 6LoWPAN and internet accurately. Patients may comfortably monitor their own health condition regardless of the place in the global M2M network environment.
Effect of Debt Financing Options on Financial Performance of Firms Listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange, Kenya

In spite of the dominance of the capital structure debate among both academic researchers and practitioners in the field of corporate finance over the last three decades, finding an optimal capital structure remains an ever-elusive gem. In particular, many contemporary firms are yet to find the optimum debt levels that maximises shareholder value. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of debt configurations namely short-term, long-term and total debt on firm financial performance measured as return on assets and return on equity of listed firms in Kenya. The study utilizes panel econometric techniques named pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE) to analyze the effects of debt on financial performance of 40 non-financial firms listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange between 2009 and 2015. Empirical results show that short-term, long-term and total debt have negative and statistically significant effects on returns on assets across OLS and RE. However, the debt measures have no significant effects on returns on equity across all estimation methods. These mixed empirical results partially follow both the trade-off and Modigliani and Miller’s theoretical predictions and partly contradict the very theories. Consequently, financial managers should adjust debt levels to ensure that they operate at the optimum points. On the other hand, credit institutions should only finance businesses up to the point where profitability is maximized to mitigate against default risks associated with overleveraging.
Development and Optimization of w/o/w Multiple Emulsion of LisinoprilDihydrate Using Plackett Burman and Box-Behnken Designs

The aim of the present study was to develop water-in-oil-in-water (w/o/w) type Multiple Emulsion of Lisinopril dihydrate for enhancing its oral bioavailability via enhanced permeation. For primary emulsification, corn oil was used as the oil phase, Span 83 as the lipophilic surfactant and Xanthan gum was used as the viscosity enhancer. Primary emulsion was re-emulsified with aqueous phase containing Tween 20 as hydrophilic surfactant. Preliminary screening was performed using a 12-run, 8-factor, 2-level Plackett–Burman design followed by Box Behnken Design for optimization. MEs were characterized and evaluated for macroscopic and microscopic properties, globule size, entrapment efficiency, rheological properties, in vitro and ex vivo drug release and stability studies. In vitro drug diffusion study was done through dialysis bag and ex vivo permeability studies were performed in Franz diffusion cell using rat intestine. The optimized w/o/w ME showed globule size and entrapment efficiency of 15.65 + 1.967 μm and 87.35 + 3.79 % respectively. Drug flux was found to be 119.3 μg/cm2/h for drug loaded w/o/w ME and 105. 1μg/cm2/h for plain drug solution. The overall results of the studies showed the potential of the w/o/w ME as promising drug delivery system for Lisinopril dihydrate.
Di-interstitial diffusivity and migration path calculations based on tight-binding Hamiltonian molecular dynamics

Molecular dynamics calculations were performed for di-interstitial-silicon based on the tight-binding model for silicon. Calculation results indicate that the di-interstitial can diffuse into crystalline silicon as fast as the mono-interstitial silicon. Three kinds of the stable configurations were found: T, Z, and W-configuration. The T-configuration is the lowest while the W is the higher energy level configuration. A critical-path method (a saddle-point search algorithm) revealed the di-interstitial migration pathway. The T to W transition needs about 0.96 eV of the barrier energy, and the W to W transition can occur for less than 0.1 eV barrier energy. Therefore, di-interstitials can show a long-range hop via the W-W transition which should be thermally initiated by the T-W transition (reorientation).
Analytical solutions of the balance equation for the scalar variance in one-dimensional turbulent flows under stationary conditions

This study presents 1D analytical solutions for the ensemble variance of reactive scalars in one-dimensional turbulent flows, in case of stationary conditions, homogeneous mean scalar gradient and turbulence, Dirichlet boundary conditions, and first order kinetics reactions. Simplified solutions and sensitivity analysis are also discussed. These solutions represent both analytical tools for preliminary estimations of the concentration variance and upwind spatial reconstruction schemes for CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)—RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) codes, which estimate the turbulent fluctuations of reactive scalars.
A Comparison of Improvements in Spectrum Sensing Methods in Cognitive Radio Using Various Techniques

As a result of an increasing growth in wireless technologies, it is inevitable to focus on managing spectral resources. Hence there is an increase in demand for available spectrum. The main way of handling this spectrum congestion is done using smart /intelligent radio systems called cognitive radios. Cognitive radios deals with the sharing of available spectrum between primary users and secondary users in an opportunistic way. Amongst all the functions of cognitive radios, spectrum sensing is of primary importance. Spectrum sensing is the searching of white spaces or empty spaces in the spectrum to make it available for secondary users when primary users are not in use. Out of various techniques employed for cognitive radios spectrum sensing, energy detection mode of sensing is optimal and an algorithm for the same has been proposed here. This paper also deals with various metrics considered to evaluate the performance of the system.
Seasonal transitions of zonally symmetric circulations

Previous work has shown that the intensity of the equilibrated Hadley circulation in a zonally symmetric atmosphere will increase nonlinearly as the magnitude of an off-equatorial heat source is enhanced beyond a threshold value (Plumb and Hou 1992) or as the maximum of a meridional heating profile is moved off the equator (Lindzen and Hou 1988). These findings suggest that an insolation forcing which varies with a smooth seasonal cycle may cause comparatively abrupt transitions in the Hadley circulation as the thermal forcing oscillates between regimes in which linear and nonlinear atmospheric responses are expected. On the other hand, the circulation may not always be in equilibrium with the thermal forcing. Fang and Tung (1999) found that there was no abrupt change in the Hadley circulation in a dry, zonally symmetric model as the maximum of the thermal forcing was moved meridionally in an annual cycle.
Eco-Labeling and Retailer Pricing Strategies: The U.K. Haddock Market

In attempts to differentiate their store imagery, grocery retailers frequently introduce new products, which are often rich in extrinsic attributes such as claims regarding healthiness and environmental sustainability. This paper explores retailers’ pricing strategies for product attributes of haddock in the United Kingdom. The results show that retailers’ pricing strategies vary, in particular for extrinsic product attributes such as eco-labels and country-of-origin. The high price premium generated from the most advocated eco-labels and an emphasis upon promotion strategies appear to play a role in the success of high-end retailers, and may have implications for any heightened competitive responses by larger retail chains in the future.
SME finance and the construction of value in Rwanda

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how entrepreneurs, banks, the government, and alternative lending respond to finance gaps for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This paper considers valuation as a sociological construct where actors use different calculative devices, forming an assemblage that partly positions valuation of entrepreneurial finance as a contested and socially constructed process. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the concept of “calculative devices”, the study articulates discursive institutional practices embedded within SME lending. This case study draws on analyses of 30 semi-structured interviews and archival data, government reports, and newspaper articles. Findings The study identified three triggers in Rwanda that were rooted in the informal and unincorporated nature of the SME governance structure, the lack of capacity for SME owners to manage their own projects, and normalising language around collateral requirements that marginalised the realities of SMEs, contributing to stagnation for SME finance. Practical implications The research provides direction for understanding how calculative devices create new forms of valuation of entrepreneurship in developing countries, particularly when human and non-human actors come together in an assemblage. The study calls for further research to demonstrate the embedded power of valuation practices and the performance of value in entrepreneurial finance. Originality/value The study brings new findings to the market creation literature by extending the notion of distributive calculative agency to SME finance. The study mobilises theory to interpret how discursive institutional practices are embedded within a country’s finance infrastructure, yielding unintended consequences for SME growth.