Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
GUARANTEEING QoS IN BLUETOOTH SCATTERNET SENSOR NETWORK

Bluetooth is a low power and cost-effective short range wireless network technology working in 2.4GHz ISM band. Bluetooth can be implemented either in piconet or Scatternet. In piconet the devices can communicate with each other forming a network with maximum of 8 nodes (1 master and 7 slaves). Two or more piconets can be connected through a common Bluetooth device (a gateway or bridge) to form a Scatternet. But the difficult thing is to achieve Quality of service (QoS) in Bluetooth particularly in the Scatternet. Quality of service refers to the efficient management of system resources, which includes the parameters like bandwidth, delay, jitter etc. This paper addresses guaranteed QoS in a Bluetooth scatternet by considering mainly two constraints namely Packet Loss and Waiting time . The above two constraints are met in a Bluetooth scatternet under high traffic congestion, which increases packet delay and causes channel wastage thereby affecting QoS. In the existing First In First Out (FIFO) scheme the slaves are served by the master in accordance with the arrival of the request offered by respective slaves in the form of ‘first come first serve’ technique. So a proposal to simulate a new priority based scheduling scheme like DST (Dynamic Scheduling Technique) has been implemented, which overcomes the pitfalls like packet loss, waiting time, and high congestion in the FIFO scheduling scheme. The results shows that the proposed DST scheduling that carries dynamic priorities for the requesting slaves by employing dynamic scheduling technique, which assures and guaranties the QoS parameters.
Tensile Strength of Denture Base Material Reinforced With Zirconia Nanoparticle and Glass Fibers

ABSTRACT Purpose: The current study was conducted to determine the effect of hybrid reinforcement with zirconium oxide nanoparticles (NZ) and glass fibers (GF) on the tensile strength of denture base resin. Materials and methods: Different ratios of NZ/ GF were added into resin at a fixed concentration of 5% by weight. For each formulation (one control and 7 experimental groups), ten specimens were prepared in a dumbbell shape using a stainless steel mold. Tensile strength was evaluated by using a universal testing machine. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to study the fractured surfaces. Results: Tensile strength of the specimens reinforced with NZ/GF in varying ratios was found to be higher than that of the control group. Among the hybrid groups, the specimens reinforced with 50%NZ-50%GF showed the highest tensile strength. SEM fractographs showed multiple lamellae displayed surface, which is characteristic of strong material. Weak adhesion and pull out of fibers from the matrix were seen in high concentration GF. Conclusion: The incorporation of 50%NZ-50%GF into acrylic denture base appeared to improve the tensile strength.
THE INFLUENCE OF WATER QUALITY ON THE HOUSING PRICE AROUND LAKE ERIE

The primary objective of this paper is to estimate the influence of Lake Erie water quality on the housing price by taking spatial effects into account. The robust LM tests for spatial autocorrelation suggested that spatial error model specification is more likely model in our study. Fecal coliform counts and Secchi depth disk reading are used as water quality measures. In order to overcome the spatio-temporal aspects of Secchi depth disk reading data, Kriging was used for spatial prediction. We found the significant influences of both water quality measures on housing values. Gradient effects considering the distance from a beach and water quality variables are also observed.
Reassessment of elemental concentration data of sediments from the western delta of the Nile River

The present study re-examines geochemical data produced by instrumental neutron activa- tion analysis (INAA) of sixty-two fired clay sed- iment samples from the western Nile delta in Egypt. The goal is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of principal component analysis (PCA) and bivariate data splitting (BDS), two widely used data analysis methods, in success- fully sorting differing sediment chemistries. Both PCA and BDS are performed using vari- ous data formats [i.e. original, calcium (Ca)- corrected, scandium (Sc)-normalized, or loga- rithmically (log10) transformed]. Both PCA and BDS are shown to sort differing chemistries well. While PCA has the advantage of speed, BDS has the advantage of providing specific chemical clarity and the opportunity to assess the degree of sand dilution more precisely. In PCA, the data format is semi-immaterial, while in BDS, different formats of the data may hin- der, rather than enhance, data interpretation, depending on the questions being asked.
Sexist humor: Local and systemic manifestations of privilege and disadvantage

The present study emerges from research that discusses a distinction between local and systemic manifestations of oppression. Local context refers to meaning in the immediate situation, whereas systemic context refers to broader meanings. The purpose was to examine effects of simultaneous local privilege and systemic disadvantage on motivation and performance outcomes. Specifically, it examined effects of sexist humor using three conditions—women-disparaging, mendisparaging, and control jokes—on women's career interest and math performance. The men-disparaging condition provided a test of simultaneous privilege in the local context of men-disparaging jokes, but systemic disadvantage in context of a math setting. Tentative results suggest effects of local and systemic context may be contingent upon the domain of interest. Women's interest in masculine careers increased in the men-disparaging condition. Women indicated standardized tests were more unfair and showed a pattern of lower math performance in both genderdisparaging conditions.
Bio-Oil Production by Pyrolysis of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch in Nitrogen and Steam Atmospheres

This work investigated the bio-oil production from oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) by continuous pyrolysis reactor under nitrogen and steam atmospheres as sweeping gas. The study parameters were particle size, biomass feeding rate, reactor temperature, and reactor sweeping gas. The EFB particle ranges were below 500 micrometers, between 500 - 1180 micrometers and 1180 - 2230 micrometers. Feeding rates were 150, 350, and 550 rpm. Both factors were analyzed by single factor ANOVA. Additionally, Box-Behnken design was used to investigate temperature (350oC - 600oC) under the following nitrogen and steam flow rates as sweeping gas: 0, 100, and 200 cm3/min of nitrogen and 0, 9, and 18 cm3/min of steam. The mathematical model from Box-Behnken design succeeded in predicting the optimal conditions for normal and nitrogen atmospheres. A particle size below 1180 μm was determined to be optimal for bio-oil production. In a normal atmosphere or no sweeping gas, the condition was 475oC and 450 rpm of feed rate. The optimal condition for nitrogen atmosphere was 530oC, 450 rpm of feed rate, and 200 cm3/min of nitrogen flow rate. However, steam as sweeping gas caused high uncertainty and the model was unable to predict the optimal conditions accurately. The biooils from normal, nitrogen, steam, and mixed atmospheres were analyzed for general characteristics. NMR and GC-MS were used to analyze chemical compositions in the bio-oils. Relationships between physical and chemical characteristics were determined and discussed.
Phase segmentation of X-ray computer tomography rock images usingmachine learning techniques: an accuracy and performancestudy

Abstract. Performance and accuracy of machine learning techniques to segment rock grains, matrix and pore voxels from a 3-D volume of X-ray tomographic (XCT) grayscale rock images was evaluated. The segmentation and classification capability of unsupervised (k-means, fuzzy c-means, self-organized maps), supervised (artificial neural networks, least-squares support vector machines) and ensemble classifiers (bragging and boosting) were tested using XCT images of andesite volcanic rock, Berea sandstone, Rotliegend sandstone and a synthetic sample. The averaged porosity obtained for andesite (15.8 ± 2.5 %), Berea sandstone (16.3 ± 2.6 %), Rotliegend sandstone (13.4 ± 7.4 %) and the synthetic sample (48.3 ± 13.3 %) is in very good agreement with the respective laboratory measurement data and varies by a factor of 0.2. The k-means algorithm is the fastest of all machine learning algorithms, whereas a least-squares support vector machine is the most computationally expensive. Metrics entropy, purity, mean square root error, receiver operational characteristic curve and 10 K-fold cross-validation were used to determine the accuracy of unsupervised, supervised and ensemble classifier techniques. In general, the accuracy was found to be largely affected by the feature vector selection scheme. As it is always a trade-off between performance and accuracy, it is difficult to isolate one particular machine learning algorithm which is best suited for the complex phase segmentation problem. Therefore, our investigation provides parameters that can help in selecting the appropriate machine learning techniques for phase segmentation.
Lunar mare volcanism in the eastern nearside region derived from Clementine UV/VIS data

Abstract— Clementine UV/VIS multi‐spectral data were used to map mare deposits in the eastern lunar nearside region (Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Fecunditatis, Mare Serenitatis, Mare Crisium, Mare Nectaris) to understand the volcanic history of this region. An array of Clementine and Clementine‐derived data were used to classify mare basalts; these include: 750 nm albedo, UV/VIS ratio, 1 μm absorption signatures, and Clementine derived FeO and TiO2 contents. We have successfully identified several new geological units and have determined their spectral characteristics. For example, the relatively younger low‐Ti basalts were recognized in the eastern part of Mare Tranquillitatis. The central low‐Ti basalts in Mare Serenitatis, which had been classed as mISP, were divided into 2 groups. In Mare Nectaris, 2 types of mare basalts were identified, while only 1 group was recognized in the previous study. The stratigraphy constructed from the spectral analysis indicates that the mare deposits tend to become younger in the northern maria, including Serenitatis and Crisium, and older in the southern maria, including Tranquillitatis, Fecunditatis, and Nectaris. According to the relationship between the titanium contents of the mare units and their stratigraphy, the titanium content decreases with time in the early stage but increases toward the end of volcanism in the Serenitatis and Crisium region, while it increases with time but finally decreases in the Tranquillitatis and Fecunditatis region. In connection with the distribution of mare basalts, a large amount of high‐Ti mare basalts are found in Mare Tranquillitatis, especially in the western part, while other maria are covered by low‐Ti basalts. The iron contents show a similar distribution to that of titanium.
Are NoSQL data stores useful for bioinformatics researchers

The big data challenge in bioinformatics is approaching. Data storage and processing, instead of experimental technologies, are becoming the slower and more costly part of research. Biological data typically have large size and a variety of structures. The ability to efficiently store and retrieve the data is important in bioinformatics research. Traditionally, large datasets are either stored as disk-based flat-files or in relational databases. These systems become more complicated to plan, maintain and adjust to big data applications as they follow rigid table schema and often lack scalability, e.g. for data aggregation. Meanwhile, non-relational databases (NoSQL) emerge to provide alternative, flexible and more scalable data stores. In this study, we aim to quantitatively compare the latencies of different data stores on storing and querying proteomics datasets. We show benchmarks for typical relational and non-relational systems for both, in-memory and disk-based configurations and compare them to a simple flat-file based approach. We will focus on the latencies of storing and querying proteomics mass spectrometry datasets and the actual space consumption inside the data stores. Experiments are carried out on a local desktop with medium-sized data, which is the typical experimental settings of individual bioinformatics researchers. Results show that there are significant latency differences among the considered data stores (up to 30 folds). In certain use cases, flat file system can achieve comparable performance with the data stores. Keywords-relational vs. non-relational databases, proteomics data, storing and querying latencies __________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________
Exploiting Unlabeled Data in Concept Drift Learning

: Learning unlabeled data in a drifting environment still receives little attention. This paper presents a concept tracker algorithm for learning concept drift that exploits unlabeled data. In the absence of complete labeled data, instance classes are identified using a concept hierarchy that is incrementally constructed from data stream (mostly unlabeled data) in unsupervised mode. The persistence assumption in temporal reasoning is then applied to infer target concepts. Empirical evaluation that has been conducted on information-filtering domains demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach.
Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii „Al

In this paper we present the foliar response reaction induced by atmospheric pollutants on the Aesculus hippocastanum L. and Tilia tomentosa L. species situated around Iaşi city`s air quality monitoring stations. Pollutants monitored by the five stations are represented by gaseous (sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone) and solid pollutants (dust prone to sedimentation). Our investigations focused on morphological observations and tracked the dynamic of physiological and biochemical changes induced on leaves as compared with the unpolluted ones. We emphasized that the large amount of dry leaves is not always related to necrotic leaf surface. It was found that the amount of chlorophyll a and b and the intensity of photosynthesis aren`t always correlated, as already known from literature.
Comparative Study to Investigate the Sense of Teacher Efficacy between Male and Female Teachers

The purpose of the study was to investigate the sense of efficacy between male and female teachers in Attock, Pakistan. Teacher’s efficacy is a simple idea with significant implications. The sample of the study consisted of 70 respondents consisting 35 female and 35 male elementary school teachers from District Attock. It was a survey type study. A questionnaire was developed in Urdu Language based on Tschannen – Moran and Hoy, (2001) teacher efficacy scale. To analyze the data, ttest was used. Female teachers have better self-efficacy than male teachers. Female teachers have higher self-efficacy than males on efficacy to influence classroom management, instructional strategies students, engagement subscales. Female teachers performed better due to their high perception in their self-efficacy than male teachers in the public elementary schools in district Attock.
Geographic variation and genetic relationships in populations of the Androniscus dentiger complex from Central Italy (Isopoda, Oniscidea, Trichoniscidae)

Androniscus dentiger is a terrestrial isopod distributed from Great Britain to North Africa, inhabiting humid edafic environments, superficial underground compartments and both natural and artificial caves. In this study allozyme data have been used to investigate the geographic variation and the genetic relationships of several populations of A. dentiger from Central Italy, using as outgroups populations from four congeneric species, A. calcivagus, A. cfr. subterraneus, A. spelaeorum, and A. degener. Multivariate analysis of A. dentiger allele frequencies indicates the existence of a group of populations (group A) distributed in a wide geographic area which are genetically slightly differentiated, and several populations (arbitrarily defined as group B) which show differentiation levels comparable to those observed between the morphologically well differentiated species. The low valley of the river Tiber seems to act as an effective geographic barrier between the populations from group A and the remaining ones. The genetic divergence between populations within the group A seems to have a recent origin. This is suggested by the low genetic distances and heterozygosity values within the group A, and by the very low number of private alleles occurring in this group. The high degree of intraspecific and interspecific genetic differentiation is not consistent with the levels of morphological differentiation traditionally used to distinguish different species within this genus. On the whole, these data suggest that A. dentiger might be considered as a complex of cryptic/sibling species.
An organizational economics approach to the existence of sharecropping

Th e paper provides a new explanation for the existence of sharecropping in agriculture from the perspective of organizational economics. Similar to a multinational enterprise’s decision of whether to enter a joint venture or to choose a wholly owned subsidiary, we can see sharecropping as a joint venture and a fi xed rent contract as a wholly owned subsidiary when we stand in the tenant’s position. Our analysis shows that when the landlord has a strong enough comparative advantage in exerting one type of eff ort, he/she tends to choose the share contract.
ACOUSTIC EMISSION TESTING - DEFINING A NEW STANDARD OF ACOUSTIC EMISSION TESTING FOR PRESSURE VESSELS Part 1: Quantitative and comparative performance analysis of zonal location and triangulation methods

For decades now, acoustic emission (AE) testing of pressure vessels has been used in France, Europe and the rest of the world. There are several regulatory rules, codes and standards worldwide, which define the application rules of this method. Since 2004, France has officially adopted a Best Practices Guideline [1] used as a reference for customers and service providers to apply this technology to various pressure vessels. According to the Guideline, like several other European (European standards) or American (ASME) codes, AE testing can be applied based on two techniques (zonal location method and planar source location by triangulation method). However, no comparative study of their performance, thus enabling their assessment, has been carried out. By means of simple simulation calculations, this study highlights the significant differences in performance between these two techniques. The effects of other fundamental parameters, for example, acquisition threshold, are also quantified with respect to AE usage. This study may also be used as a basis for defining a new AE testing standard specifically and quantitatively defining the expected performance of a given configuration. Today, the CETIM may apply this new testing methodology based on significant feedback enabling a greater reproducibility and sensitivity of AE testing.
Loss of the Lipopolysaccharide Core Biosynthesis rfaD Gene Increases Antimicrobial Chemokine Binding and Bacterial Susceptibility to CCL28 and Polymyxin: A Model for Understanding the Interface of Antimicrobial Chemokines and Bacterial Host Defense Avoidance Mechanisms

Loss of the Lipopolysaccharide Core Biosynthesis rfaD Gene Increases Antimicrobial Chemokine Binding and Bacterial Susceptibility to CCL28 and Polymyxin: A Model for Understanding the Interface of Antimicrobial Chemokines and Bacterial Host Defense Avoidance Mechanisms Cynthia Lew Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BYU Master of Science In order to better understand the mechanism of antimicrobial chemokine activity, including binding to and killing of bacteria, random transposon mutagenesis was performed in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. Resulting mutants were screened for increased binding to chemokine and high binding clones were selected for further study. One mutant, designated mutant 27, was found to have a single insertion mutation in the rfaD gene. The rfaD gene product is involved in heptose biosynthesis, one of the sugars of the inner core oligosaccharide of Gram‐ negative lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Mutant 27 was found to bind both CCL25 and CCL28, two antimicrobial chemokines, more efficiently than the wild type bacteria. This clone was also found to be more susceptible to CCL28‐ mediated killing and polymyxin activity. Complementation with a plasmid bearing the full rfaDFC operon restored the wild type phenotype in both regards. These data suggest that normal LPS expression by Y. pseudotuberculosis serves to protect the bacteria from the antimicrobial function of chemokines and other antimicrobial proteins of the mammalian innate immune system.
The relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance among engineering students in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

The field of engineering and mathematics are interconnected with each other. Thus, the engineering students need to perform well in their mathematics skill in order to get better grades. However, not everyone has the courage and confident when it comes to mathematics. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the level of self- efficacy and academic performance of the UTM’s engineering students and to know whether there is a relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance among them. This study adopted the set of questionnaire from the Sources of Mathematics Self-Efficacy (SMES) and it was distributed to 107 final year students from Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, UTM. The self-efficacy was measured by using the four dimensions, which were mastery, vicarious experience, social persuasion, and emotional and physiological states. The result revealed that self-efficacy had a positive significant but weak relationship with the academic performance among the respondents. Finally, suggestions are offered for the UTM’s curriculum developer to reconsider self-efficacy in designing the academic modules, as well as the recommendations to the future research.
The Importance of Distinguishing Allocentric and Egocentric Search Strategies in Rodent Hippocampal-Dependent Spatial Memory Paradigms: Getting More Out of Your Data

While the brain works as a dynamic network, with no brain region solely responsible for any particular function, it is generally accepted that the hippocampus plays a major role in memory. Spatial memory operates through the hippocampus with communica- tion with the prefrontal and parietal cortices. This chapter will focus on two separate reference frames involved in spatial memory, egocentric and allocentric, and outline the differences of these reference frames and associated search strategies with relevance to behavioural neuroscience. The importance of dissociating these search strategies is put forward, and steps researchers can take to do so are suggested. Neurophysiological and clinical differences between these spatial reference frames are outlined to further support the view that distinguishing them would be beneficial. to be required to confirm the creation of an allocentric map, it provides a depth and breadth to understanding the cognitive processes occurring post-experimental intervention or modification. We strongly encourage and recommend the adoption of search strategy analy sis and comparison between experimental groups, in order to gain the most from your data.