Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying the Dynamic Influence of Economic Policy Uncertainty on Enterprise Investment Using Functional Data Analysis

Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) is one of the important influencing factors for enterprise investment. By its nature, enterprise investment is dynamically affected by uncertainty. We examine the time-varying impact of EPU on the level of corporate investment by introducing functional data analysis (FDA). Based on smoothing the discrete data of 106 China Securities Index (CSI) 300 firms into the continuous curve, we examine the dynamic relationship between EPU on corporate investment level and investment efficiency. In addition, we explore the effect of EPU on the level of corporate investment and investment efficiency after grouping regressions in a functional model. The findings show the following: Firstly, there is a suppressive effect of rising EPU on the level of corporate investment. However, when the EPU is low, it has a significant promoting effect on the level of corporate investment and gradually decreases with the increase of uncertainty level. Secondly, elevated EPU has a promoting effect on the efficiency of corporate investment. The inhibitory effect on firm investment efficiency is observed at low EPU and changes to a promotional effect at high EPU. Thirdly, increasing EPU has a greater inhibitory role in the investment level of nonstate firms and a greater promotional role in the investment efficiency of state firms. We seek to expand the research on the impact of macrouncertainty on microfirm investment and introduce FDA to provide a meaningful reference to solve the current controversial issue.
Estimating the aboveground biomass and carbon stocks of tall shrubs in a prerestoration degraded salt marsh

Wetlands play a vital role in Earth's carbon cycle and provide important ecosystem services. Their ability to perform their roles can be compromised by human activities that destroy or impair their functioning. The restoration of degraded wetlands may allow carbon cycle functioning, as well as other services, to be recovered. Predicting the potential outcomes from any restoration project requires upfront consideration, including via modeling possible changes in carbon stocks. In this study, we quantified the carbon stocks in tall shrub vegetation proliferating in a degraded salt marsh that is currently the subject of an extensive restoration project. We produced allometric models to estimate biomass and carbon stocks for three tall shrub species, which, along with other freshwater and upland species in the area, will die with continued restoration. Therefore, estimating the potential for carbon losses in biomass is important. We also developed a means of estimating carbon stocks in other nontree plants in the estuary area. Useful equations for estimating the biomass of tall shrubs are limited in general and lacking for degraded systems. Our study adds to the literature on carbon stocks in shrub species and fills a data gap for degraded ecosystems. It also contributes to the broader carbon feasibility study of the aforementioned restoration project that was designed to predict the overall net impact of the project on greenhouse gas emissions in the ecosystem.
Shrestha, P. N. (2020). Dynamic Assessment of Students’ Academic Writing: Vygotskian and Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspectives

Shrestha, P. N. (2020). Dynamic Assessment of Students’ Academic Writing: Vygotskian and Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspectives Springer International Publishing. XXVI+246 pp. $139.99 (Hard Cover) ISBN: 978-3-030-55844-4; $99.99 (Soft Cover) ISBN: 978-3-030-55847-5; $79.99 (eBook) ISBN: 978-3-030-55845-1
Improved fully-connected neural network approach for decoupling microstrip antenna array design

This article presents an improved fully-connected neural network (FCNN) approach to design a decoupling microstrip antenna array. Through combing the advantage of waveguide (WG) structure and complementary double split ring resonator (CDSRRs), a novel decoupling structure is proposed, which can effectively suppress the mutual coupling between two close patches, and our improved FCNN can predict the geometry of the proposed antenna array to obtain the desired isolation. To demonstrate the validity and reliability of this method, the improved FCNN approach is used to predict the geometric parameters of the proposed antenna array when the distance of patch is reduced to 8 mm, 7mm and 6 mm. The measurement results of the predicted antenna arrays show that, their corresponding isolations are 51.16 dB, 41.99 dB and 42.43 dB respectively. The improved FCNN approach is proved to obtain the optimal isolation with lower computational complexity.
Ready to Learn Online? Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkey

This paper deals with the impact of Turkey’s shift to remote learning after being hit by the Covid-19 crisis. It focuses on Turkey’s official digital education platform, namely the Education Information Network (EBA), which is used to continue primary, secondary and high school education uninterruptedly during the lockdowns. The paper investigates the impact of online learning by looking at the issue from the perspective of the government as well as the perspective of the stakeholders, which are directly or indirectly affected by the change from face-to-face to online learning. It asks to what extent the government could pursue an inclusive education policy during the crisis. As for the methodology, the paper employs document analysis and qualitative interviewing. The data are gathered from official state documents and a series of semi-structured interviews which were conducted with K-12 school teachers, students and parents in Turkey in January 2021. The paper argues that Turkey could achieve the goal of maintaining the educational services during the crisis with its existing digital infrastructure. However, it is significant to overcome the digital divide for the empowerment of the ICT-based distance learning and the achievement of an egalitarian and inclusive education.
VMware Virtual SAN Cookbook

The perfect guide to successful VMware Virtual SAN implementation and operations, with recipes to guide you through the processAbout This BookDesign a Virtual SAN infrastructure from selecting hardware to full capacity.Deploy and manage a software-defined storage solution with VMware Virtual SANPrepare for architectural and scale changes as your enterprise grows and developsWho This Book Is ForIf you are an administrator of a VMware vSphere infrastructure and want to simplify storage delivery by integrating storage into vSphere, this book is for you. No extensive storage background is needed as VMware Virtual SAN integrates into the existing vSphere solutions with which you are already familiar.What You Will LearnPrepare your infrastructure for VMware Virtual SANPlan and build infrastructure solutions to suit your needsImplement VMware Virtual SANExploit the power of policy-based managementIncrease or decrease the scale of your Virtual SAN as needs changeMonitor your Virtual SAN infrastructure effectivelyRespond to and troubleshoot problemsIn DetailVMware Virtual SAN is a radically simple, hypervisor-converged storage, designed and optimized for vSphere virtual infrastructure. VMware introduced the software to help customers store more and more virtual machines.As data centers continue to evolve and grow, managing infrastructure becomes more challenging. Traditional storage solutions like monolithic storage arrays and complex management are often ill-suited to the needs of the modern data center. Software-defined storage solutions, like VMware Virtual SAN, integrate the storage side of the infrastructure with the server side, and can simplify management and improve flexibility.This book is a detailed guide which provides you with the knowledge you need to successfully implement and manage VMware VSAN and deployed infrastructures.You will start with an introduction to VSAN and object storage, before moving on to hardware selection, critical to a successful VSAN deployment. Next, you will discover how to prepare your existing infrastructure to support your VSAN deployment and explore Storage policy-Based Management, including policy changes, maintenance, validation, and troubleshooting VSAN. Finally, the book provides recipes to expedite the resolution process and gather all the information required to pursue a rapid resolution.Style and approachA practical guide to implementing VMware Virtual SAN filled with recipes, tips, and detailed explanations.
The efficiency of a small sized hand-made shaped charge

Shaped charges are widely used in many different fields. The two main users of shaped charges are the military, where shaped charges are used as a weapon against armoured targets, and the oil industry, to perforate wells. Very often, shaped charges are the subject of scientific research focused on optimising shaped charge parameters and increasing the efficiency of shaped charges. Considering a significant number of parameters affecting the penetration depth, the optimization of shaped charge parameters is a complex process. This paper describes research on the efficiency of small handmade shaped charges. In this research, two methods are used, the first one involves simulations with numerical software and the second one is site testing. AUTODYN software was used for the numerical simulations. One of the simulations was focused on the shape and velocity of the shaped charge jet and the second on the penetration of the jet into the target material. On-site efficiency of shaped charges at different standoff distances was tested. The experimental result was compared with the AUTODYN simulation result for hand-made shaped charges placed at a distance of 90 mm from the target material. The results of the simulations agree very well with the results of the site tests. Some advantages and disadvantages of each approach are also observed.
BAA-Net: attention-based CNN for automatic placental segmentation of MR images

The placenta is an important organ for the material exchange between the fetus and the mother. The abnormal placenta may lead to fetal intrauterine growth restriction, invasive placenta and other related diseases, thus endangering the health of both the mother and fetus. Accurate segmentation of placental tissue in fetal magnetic resonance images could help diagnose placental abnormalities. However, the manual segmentation of placenta is very time-consuming, and the semi automatic placental segmentation methods still require the operator’s interaction. In this paper, we proposed a fully automatic placental segmentation method, in which BiO-Net is used as the backbone network and is further improved by embedding Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling (ASPP) and attention mechanism, termed as BAA-Net. To retain more details of boundary information, the ASPP module was introduced to the encoder for capturing high-resolution feature maps to improve the placental segmentation performance. Because different feature channels from the encoder and decoder have different effects on the segmentation task, to make better use of the most useful features, four channel attention modules were introduced into the decoder to highlight the most relevant feature channels. To evaluate the performance of the proposed BAA-Net, MR images of 20 pregnant women were used for the experiments. The Dice and average symmetric surface distance (ASSD) obtained by our BAA-Net are 0.8674 and 2.8880 mm, respectively. The experimental results show that the proposed BAA-Net is effective for the automatic placental segmentation, comparing with the existing methods. Accurate placental segmentation is conducive to the diagnosis of placental abnormalities, which has important clinical significance.
Tapping Into The World Halal Market: Some Discussions on Malaysian Laws And Standards, Jurnal Syariah

Recently, the HDC or Halal Development Corporation took over the administration of halal from JAKIM (Department of Islamic Development of Malaysia) to establish a specific body that is fully in charge of the halal administration. This appears to be one of the initiatives the government has implemented to raise Malaysia’s standing as a major player in the world halal industry. In its implementation there must also be laws imposing criminal liability on the violation of halal, as well as particular standards for its achievement. This article discusses the laws that impose criminal liability as well as the Malaysian Halal Standard to determine whether Malaysia can position itself as the ‘model’ country for taking charge of halal matters globally.
Academic implications of screen use and sedentary behaviour in a school with a 1-to-1 device policy

ABSTRACT Schools are implementing 1-to-1 device policies, and as a result students are increasingly using mobile devices for multiple purposes. This use is in addition to other sedentary behaviours. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between different types of sedentary behaviours, including technology use by device type and purpose, with academic achievement. School children (n = 934) in grades 5 through 12 at an Australian school with a ‘bring-your-own’ device policy completed a survey on sedentary behaviours and technology use. Mean total sedentary time was 12.9 (SD 8.7) hours per day, and mean screen use was 6.7 (SD 5.7) hours per day. Duration of technology use for nearly all devices and all purposes (except some school work) was negatively associated with academic performance, though the relationships were often non-linear. Support is needed for children to develop wise habits of technology use and overall sedentary behaviours.
Workability, strength, and shrinkage of ultra-high-performance seawater, sea sand concrete with different OPC replacement ratios

An experimental investigation on the chemical, physical, mechanical, and shrinkage of seawater and sea sand-based ultra-high-performance concrete (UHP-SWSSC) with supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) (i.e. slag and silica fume) is reported. Several mixes were designed with varying proportions of SCMs (25%, 37.5%, 50%, and 62.5% of binder), aggregate source, and water-to-binder ratio. Heat evolution, density, workability, compressive strength development, and long-term autogenous and drying shrinkage of UHP-SWSSC were monitored. Seawater accelerates cement hydration as reflected in the heat evolution, and consequently, dictates the early-age strength, and autogenous shrinkage. SCM addition although limits the early-age strength development offers a comparable 90 days strength. The chloride content increases from marine resources and may limit the application to nonstructural components. Nonetheless, a UHP-SWSSC mix with 50% OPC replaced by 37.5% slag and 12.5% silica fume is recommended in this study, which can achieve satisfactory workability, long-term strength, and shrinkage properties.
Normalization techniques for CNN based analysis of surgical cone beam CT volumes

Purpose: The choice of input normalization has effects on the generalization and performance of deep neural networks. While this topic is explored for 2D imaging applications, the influence of different normalization techniques on medical imaging modalities, e.g. cone-beam CT (CBCT), differs due to a different value range and distribution. In this paper a good normalization technique for intra-operatively acquired surgical CBCT volumes is presented. Methods: A set of normalization strategies, namely histogram equalization, min-max scaling, z-score normalization, linear look up table (LUT) with clipping and sigmoid function with clipping is compared on a CBCT volume classification task. Results: The results show that a combination of parameterized LUTs and clipping with the range [-710, 1640] HU independent of the underlying intensity histogram provides the best performance for the task at hand. Conclusions: The clipping based normalization technique helps to compress the feature space to the relevant range. By this approach, most of the information about the intensity values of soft tissue and bone is retained. The clipping range presented in this paper is valid for surgical CBCTs.
Neuroscience nurses’ comprehension of collaborating with and involvement of relatives: A qualitative interview study

Within the field of neurological disease, it seems that involvement of relatives is of utmost importance since the patients often are affected in several areas (physical, cognitive, and emotional) which impair their ability to participate in decision-making about their treatment and care. This study aimed to illuminate neuroscience nurses’ comprehension of collaborating with and involvement of relatives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 neuroscience registered nurses. The qualitative data were analyzed utilizing inductive thematic analysis. The COREQ checklist was applied. The analysis identified how collaboration with, and involvement of relatives are perceived as a focus for nursing care and a resource for both patients and registered nurses. Registered nurses having personal experience as a relative find it easier to establish a relationship with relatives. This study emphasizes the importance of the establishment of a trusting relationship between registered nurses and relatives for a positive collaboration and thus involvement of relatives.
Antioxidant Properties of Croton zehntneri Pax et Hoffm. Essential Oil and Its Inclusion Complex with β-Cyclodextrin Prepared by Spray Drying

Croton zehntneri Pax et Hoffm. is a plant from Northeastern Brazil, whose main component of its essential oil is estragole. Its thermal instability and low aqueous solubility prevent its technological application. This study aimed to prepare and characterize the Croton zehntneri essential oil (CZEO) complexed with β-cyclodextrin (β-CD), and to evaluate antioxidant activity of free and complexed-CZEO in vitro systems by the elimination of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radicals (DPPH•), 2,2’-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS•+), hydroxyl and nitric oxide, as well as their ability to transfer electrons by the reducing potential. The infrared spectroscopy and thermal techniques demonstrated the formation of the inclusion complex (Est/β-CD) obtained by spray drying method. The free CZEO and its Est/β-CD at 0.9, 1.8, 3.6, 7.2, 14.4 and 28.8 μg mL–1 showed the ability to remove DPPH• (EC50 (half maximal effective concentration) 26.06 and 9.46 μg mL–1, respectively) and ABTS•+ (EC50 22.73 and 4.47 μg mL–1, respectively), nitric oxide inhibition (EC50 17.65 and 2.68 μg mL–1, respectively), hydroxyl radical sequestration (EC50 23.42 and 2.34 μg mL–1, respectively) and reducing potential (EC50 46.48 and 12.47 μg mL–1, respectively). The formation of the inclusion complex significantly increases its antioxidant potential.
Determining When Simplified Agile Project Management Is Right for Small Teams

Abstract: Agile project management was developed in the information technology industry as a way of increasing efficiency, productivity, and responsiveness to customers. Many projects with highly uncertain scopes, tasks, task precedence relationships, and/or resources are difficult to handle with traditional planning tools. Better planning in such cases does not lead to better outcomes. An agile approach that maximizes productivity and quality within the resource and time constraints can be superior whether or not the project is IT related. This article addresses when a simplified agile project management methodology can be appropriate for small teams both in academia and in industry.
Energy efficient links and routers for multi-processor computer systems

As multi-processor computer systems become more prevalent in today’s computer industry, it is clear that routers and interconnection networks are critical components of these multi-processor systems. Therefore, there is a need to obtain accurate area and power models for these critical components so that we can better understand the area and power tradeoffs as we balance the on-chip and off-chip communication energy given a fixed energy budget. In this thesis, we propose an alternative method to understanding the power and area tradeoffs for routers by not solely relying on analytical models, on which most current studies done on this topic are based. Instead, in this thesis we propose analyzing the area versus power tradeoff for these routers and interconnection networks using an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) flow in a commercially available IBM 90nm process technology. This thesis shows that multiplexer routers are more area and power efficient compared to matrix routers since matrix routers quickly exhibit a quadratic-like increase in area and power as the number of ports and port width increases. In addition, we show that there is a real gain in area when the router is shared among 4 or more cores. The savings by sharing the same router among multiple cores does not continue indefinitely, since after a certain port number and port width size, the increase in the crossbar size can no longer be compensated by sharing the router. So for a fixed port-width, there is always a sweet spot for the number of ports where a local minimum can be found for the Router Area Overheard per Core. By examining and analyzing the router design space, we show that for maximum area and power efficiency, it is much better to use a multiplexer router with 8-ports as opposed to matrix routers. Moreover, keeping the flit size to 32-bits or 64-bits results in a larger Router Area Overheard per Core savings as opposed to
Potential of mechanical surface treatment for mould and die production

Abstract The use of mechanical surface treatment methods can extraordinarily increase the productivity in mould and die making processes. The present paper shows how deep rolling and machine hammer peening can smoothen machined surfaces in order to substitute manual polishing processes. Initial roughness of Ra > 3 μm can be smoothed to Ra < 1 μm, independent from the treated material. For a further improvement of the surface quality, a closer look is given to the influence of geometric effects in hammer peening. Both procedures also increase the surface hardness by work hardening. The influence on the attainable work hardening depth is examined in detail. When combined with thermal hardening operations, hardness and smoothness are still influenced positively, although this combination may be constrained by crack nucleation beneath.
Green Approach Using RuO2/GO Nanocomposite for Low Cost and Highly Sensitive pH Sensing

Monitoring the real-time status of food products using pH sensors is important to determine if pathogens are present and growing, which in turn affects food quality. A promising material for pH sensors is ruthenium dioxide (RuO2) due to its chemical stability and excellent performance. Furthermore, graphene oxide (GO) provides an electrode with large surface area and good electrical properties. Here, in situ sol-gel deposition of RuO2 nanoparticles on the surface of GO as a facile, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly approach is used for the fabrication of a flexible pH sensor. As-synthesized GO-RuO2 nanocomposites with a low volume were applied on the surface of screen printed carbon paste. The obtained GO-RuO2 nanocomposite pH sensor achieved high pH sensitivity (55.5 mV/pH) in the pH range of 4-10, up to 4 times higher compared to the unmodified carbon electrode. The increased sensitivity is due to the positive role of RuO2 nanoparticles densely anchored across the GO sheets. It also shows low drift (0.36 mV/hr) and low hysteretic width. Considering this novel method and material with the cost-effective green synthesis approach, as well as excellent pH sensing properties, GO-RuO2 can be considered as a promising material for production of high-performance electrochemical pH sensors.