Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance of a lead–carbon negative electrode based on a Pb–C electrodeposited porous graphite/Pb conductive net skeleton

A novel Pb-electrodeposited porous graphite (PG)/Pb conductive net skeleton was prepared by electroplating. The PG/Pb was also used as a negative electrode to study its electrochemical performance. The morphologies of skeleton and negative electrode were characterised by scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive spectrometry. Results showed that the skeleton and electrode had a three-dimensional porous structure and that the lead-based active material evenly covered the surface, which can improve electrochemical performance. Cyclic voltammetry and charge–discharge tests were then performed to study electrochemical performance. Results showed markedly restrained hydrogen evolution and a wide working-potential range (−1.05 to −1.3 V versus Hg/Hg2SO4). The PG, which had a high specific surface area and increased capacitance, acted as a buffer and enforced the charge and discharge acceptance, thereby enabling the electrode to discharge 271, 103 and 48 s at current densities of 3.4, 8.6 and 17.2 A/g, respectively. After 50 cycles, specific capacity almost did not decrease, which effectively restrained the irreversible sulphation and improved battery capacity and lifespan. The prepared electrode had excellent electrochemical performance and can be used as a novel negative electrode in lead-acid batteries.
Zero‐voltage switching half‐bridge pulse width modulation DC–DC converter with switched capacitor active snubber cell for renewable energy applications

In this paper, soft switching isolated half‐bridge converter with a new active snubber cell that uses switched capacitor for renewable energy applications is proposed. The proposed snubber cell does not consist any magnetic element so that its structure is quite simple. Furthermore, the auxiliary switches in the proposed active snubber cell are exposed to only half of the input voltage. There is no additional voltage and current stress on any semiconductor devices. All semiconductor power devices in the proposed converter are operated by soft switching. The proposed converter is analyzed thoroughly, and the theoretical analyzes are affirmed by an implementation having 300‐VDC input, 20‐VDC output, 75‐W output power, and 150‐kHz switching frequency. The overall hard switching efficiency of the converter is increased from 86.4% to 92.9% by aid of the proposed soft switching snubber cell.
Inactivation of UmuC Protein Significantly Reduces Resistance to Ciprofloxacin and SOS Mutagenesis in Escherichia coli Mutants Harboring Intact umuD Gene

Background: Ciprofloxacin induces SOS response and mutagenesis by activation of UmuD’2C (DNA polymerase V) and DinB (DNA polymerase IV) in Escherichia coli, leading to antibiotic resistance during therapy. Inactivation of DNA polymerase V can result in the inhibition of mutagenesis in E. coli. Objectives: The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of UmuC inactivation on resistance to ciprofloxacin and SOS mutagenesis in E. coli mutants. Methods: Ciprofloxacin-resistant mutants were produced in a umuC- genetic background in the presence of increasing concentrations of ciprofloxacin. The minimum inhibitory concentration of umuC-mutants was measured by broth dilution method. Alterations in the rifampin resistance-determing region of rpoB gene were assessed by PCR amplification and DNA sequencing. The expression of SOS genes was measured by quantitative real-time PCR assay. Results: Results showed that despite the induction of SOS response (overexpression of recA, dinB, and umuD genes) following exposure to ciprofloxacin in E. coli umuC mutants, resistance to ciprofloxacin and SOS mutagenesis significantly decreased. However, rifampicin-resistant clones emerged in this genetic background. One of these clones showed mutations in the rifampicin resistance-determining region of rpoB (cluster II). The low mutation frequency of E. coli might be associated with the presence and overexpression of umuD gene, which could somehow limit the activity of DinB, the location and type of mutations in the β subunit of RNA polymerase. Conclusions: In conclusion, for increasing the efficiency of ciprofloxacin against Gram-negative bacteria, use of an inhibitor of umuC, along with ciprofloxacin, would be helpful.
Economic Growth Modelling in West Nusa Tenggara Using Bayesian Spatial Model Approach

Received : 09-11-2020 Revised : 15-03-2021 Accepted : 01-04-2021 Online : 16-04-2021 Economic growth is a measure of the welfare of the people in an area. Economic movement is characterized by the number of goods and services produced. The high amount of goods produced and the services used are of course strongly influenced by the amount of available capital, the labor involved, and the level of technology used. The measuring instrument or a reflection of economic growth is the Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP). The purpose of this study is to model economic growth in NTB in 2018. In this study, GRDP modeling was carried out using the Bayesian Spatial approach. Based on the results of testing the spatial dependency and spatial heterogeneity, it shows that there is a spatial dependence on the GRDP of districts / cities in NTB Province. From the analysis conducted, it was found that ρ was positive and insignificant at the 10% level. The parameter estimation results show that the number of workers, the value of capital and the number of workers weighed are variables that have a significant effect on the model. Thus the GRDP of an area in West Nusa Tenggara is influenced by the number of workers, the value of capital and the total labor weight and the GRDP of other surrounding areas. Keyword:
State-of-the-Art Optical Devices for Biomedical Sensing Applications—A Review

Optical sensors for biomedical applications have gained prominence in recent decades due to their compact size, high sensitivity, reliability, portability, and low cost. In this review, we summarized and discussed a few selected techniques and corresponding technological platforms enabling the manufacturing of optical biomedical sensors of different types. We discussed integrated optical biosensors, vertical grating couplers, plasmonic sensors, surface plasmon resonance optical fiber biosensors, and metasurface biosensors, Photonic crystal-based biosensors, thin metal films biosensors, and fiber Bragg grating biosensors as the most representative cases. All of these might enable the identification of symptoms of deadly illnesses in their early stages; thus, potentially saving a patient’s life. The aim of this paper was not to render a definitive judgment in favor of one sensor technology over another. We presented the pros and cons of all the major sensor systems enabling the readers to choose the solution tailored to their needs and demands.
The Impact of Enterprise Resource Planning System of Human Resources on the Employees’ Performance Appraisal in Jordan

The aim of this study is to determine the impact of Enterprise Resource Planning System of human resources on the employees’ performance Appraisal in Jordan. It investigates the relationship between System Quality, Information Quality, Service Quality, User Satisfaction; and Performance Appraisal. The study was motivated because most of the literature about ERP systems in Jordan has focused on the success and failure factors of the ERP systems. Jordanian National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) was chosen to conduct the study because it has implemented a new electronic performance appraisal system based on the ERP system. Data were collected via questionnaires from 98 managers and department heads working at Jordanian National Electric Power Company (NEPCO). The results of this study revealed that there is a significant effect of System Quality, Information Quality and User Satisfaction of Enterprise Resource Planning System on Performance Appraisal, while Service Quality has no effect on Performance Appraisal. Therefore, the important recommendation is to improve the service quality of the system and to bring encouragement and confident to the users towards the success of the system.
Antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of flavonoids isolated from wood of sweet cherry tree (Prunus avium L.)

Abstract Sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) is a tree widely cultivated in temperate regions for its tasty and healing fruits. Pruning works on the tree give each year considerable amounts of woody wastes that hardly have any utility. The aims of this work were to detect the most active antioxidants present in a cherry pruning wood sample, to isolate and characterize them, and study the antimicrobial and antibiofilm activities of components found in the wood ethyl acetate extract against a selection of foodborne microorganisms. The online HPLC–DPPH technique allowed the detection of two active antioxidant peaks that, after being isolated by a combination of countercurrent chromatography (FCPC) and conventional preparative techniques, and subsequent structural characterization by NMR, MS and polarimetry, resulted to be (‒)-catechin (1) and (‒)-taxifolin (4). Other components of the cherry wood extract were also isolated, among which compounds 1, 4, and (+)-dihydrowogonin (12) have never been reported in P. avium. A selection of the isolated flavonoids was submitted to antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity evaluations against strains from type culture collections, as well as on multi-resistant strains previously isolated in our laboratory. Those compounds with antimicrobial activity detected in preliminary screenings by standard agar diffusion tests ‒the flavan-3-ol 1, the flavanonols 4 and (+)-aromadendrin (5), the flavanone (+)-pinocembrin (15), and the flavone tectochrysin (17)‒ were subjected to the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) test, showing all of them MIC values of 100 μg/mL. Compound 4 also induced a significative inhibition on the formation of biofilms by Enterobacter sp. UJA37p at a concentration of 1 μg/mL and a significative disruption of preformed biofilm by this strain at 0.1 µg/mL. Similar results on biofilm disruption were observed with compound 17.
Human-Machine Cooperative Trajectory Planning for Semi-Autonomous Driving Based on the Understanding of Behavioral Semantics

This paper presents a novel cooperative trajectory planning approach for semi-autonomous driving. The machine interacts with the driver at the decision level and the trajectory generation level. To minimize conflicts between the machine and the human, the trajectory planning problem is decomposed into a high-level behavior decision-making problem and a low-level trajectory planning problem. The approach infers the driver’s behavioral semantics according to the driving context and the driver’s input. The trajectories are generated based on the behavioral semantics and driver’s input. The feasibility of the proposed approach is validated by real vehicle experiments. The results prove that the proposed human–machine cooperative trajectory planning approach can successfully help the driver to avoid collisions while respecting the driver’s behavior.
Markovian Analysis of Covid-19 Dynamics

Covid-19 is an emergency and viral infection with its outbreak being termed as one of the great epidemics in the 21st century causing so many deaths, which made WHO declare it as a pandemic emergency. This virus is new and comes with its characteristics of which randomness and uncertainty are among its common features. In this paper, we developed a model for carrying out an analysis of COVID-19 dynamics using Markov-chain theory methodology. Here, we employed the use of conditional probability distribution as embedded in the Markov property of our chain to construct the transition probabilities that were used in determining the probability distributions of COVID-19 patients as well as predicting its future spread dynamics. We provide a step-by-step approach to obtaining probability distributions of infected and recovered individuals, of infected and recovering and of a recovered patient being getting infected again. This study reveals that irrespective of the initial state of health of an individual, we will always have probabilities P_RI/〖(P〗_IR+P_RI) of an individual being infected and P_RI/〖(P〗_IR+P_RI) of an individual recovering from this disease. Also, with increasing ‘n’, we have an equilibrium that does not depend on the initial conditions, the implication of which is that at some point in time, the situation stabilizes and the distribution X_(n+1) is the same as that of X_n. We envision that the output of this model will assist those in the health system and related fields to plan for the potential impact of the pandemic and its peak.
An Experimental Study on the Impact of Contact Design on Web Survey Participation

In higher education institutions, web surveys are frequently used for educational, research, and administrative purposes. One of the consequences of this is increasing oversurveying of higher education students, leading to low response rates. This naturally has important implications for the validity of web survey results. Consequently, we set up a methodological experiment at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, whereby the total student population was invited to participate in a web survey in order to investigate which features of contact design can positively influence web survey participation. We particularly focus on subject line content, the communication of deadlines and their timing, as well as the delays between contact moments. The results reveal that students were more likely to respond to a web survey invitation when the subject line is written in the national language in multilingual contexts. Furthermore, although the findings did not indicate an advantage of using a deadline, they also suggested that if a deadline is to be used, a longer deadline might be more beneficial.
Latent Dirichlet Allocation and t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding Enhance Scientific Reading Comprehension of Articles Related to Enterprise Architecture

As the amount of scientific information increases steadily, it is crucial to improve fast-reading comprehension. To grasp many scientific articles in a short period, artificial intelligence becomes essential. This paper aims to apply artificial intelligence methodologies to examine broad topics such as enterprise architecture in scientific articles. Analyzing abstracts with latent dirichlet allocation or inverse document frequency appears to be more beneficial than exploring full texts. Furthermore, we demonstrate that t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding is well suited to explore the degree of connectivity to neighboring topics, such as complexity theory. Artificial intelligence produces results that are similar to those obtained by manual reading. Our full-text study confirms enterprise architecture trends such as sustainability and modeling languages.
Identification and Synthesis of Impurities Formed During Prasugrel Hydrochloride Preparation

Prasugrel hydrochloride is designated chemically as 5[1(RS)-2-cyclopropyl-1-(2-fluorophenyl)-2-oxyethyl]-4,5,6,7tetrahydrothieno[3,2-c]pyridine-2-yl acetate hydrochloride (1). The literature synthesis (Scheme-I) involves condensation of 2-bromo-1-cyclopropyl-2-(2-fluorophenyl)ethanone (2) with 5,6,7,7a-tetrahydrothieno[3,2-c]pyridine -2(4H)-one hydrochloride (3) in the presence of base and acetonitrile gives 5(2-cyclopropyl-1-(2-fluorophenyl)-2-oxoethyl)-5,6,7,7atetrahydrothieno[3,2-c]pyridin-2(4H)-one (4), on treatment with acetic anhydride in presence of base and DMF affords prasugrel base (5) which on reaction with hydrochloric acid in presence of acetone gives prasugrel hydrochloride (1).
Weathering the Economic Impact of COVID-19: Challenges Faced by Microentrepreneurs and Their Coping Strategies during Movement Control Order (MCO) in Malaysia

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis that has caused a punishing economic impact on businesses, particularly due to many countries adopting measures such as the Movement Control Order (MCO) to curb the spread of the COVID-19 disease. The impact hits the most on microentrepreneurs since they are not able to operate their businesses, of which the margins of profit and resources are relatively small. The purpose of this research was to explore the challenges faced by microentrepreneurs during MCO and their coping strategies used to overcome these challenges. This study utilized the qualitative case study approach and collected interview data among the identified microentrepreneurs that met the criterion sampling. The findings uncover that these microentrepreneurs typically faced challenges related to restricted cash flows, lack of customers and supplies shortage issues which impacted their income and business operations during MCO. These challenges were addressed using coping strategies, namely having the ability to control stress, developing a strong spiritual relationship with God, applying problem solving thinking skills, utilizing social capital (offline and online), and optimizing digital marketing. It is recommended that government agencies, NGOs, and social movement bodies contribute to microentrepreneurs by organising and engaging in digital empowerment programs to enable rural entrepreneurs to leverage on their access to digital commerce, internet marketing and alike.
Study on Flow Mechanism of a Morphing Supercritical Airfoil

In order to maintain the best performance in flight, a new concept, morphing aircraft, has been proposed, which can change the real-time aerodynamic characteristics under different flight conditions. The key problem is to figure out the response of strong flow instability caused by structure changes during the morphing. To solve this problem, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and wind tunnel tests (WTT) were employed. The results show that the deformation of thickness and camber angle of the airfoil will significantly change the distribution of pressure and result in obvious hysteresis loops of lift and drag. With the increase of deformation frequency and amplitude, the instability increases correspondingly. Moreover, the unsteady effect caused by camber deformation is much stronger than that caused by thickness deformation. In addition, the flow structures on the airfoil, such as the shock strength and boundary separation location, have a delay in response to structure changes. Therefore, there will be a hysteresis between airfoil deformation and aerodynamic characteristics, which means strong flow instability.
Interaksi Dosen-Mahasiswa Pada Pembelajaran Daring Bahasa Jepang

Menyebarnya wabah Covid-19 di seluruh dunia menimbulkan dampak yang menyebabkan banyak universitas terpaksa mengubah sistem belajar menjadi pembelajaran daring. Namun muncul keraguan mengenai pelaksanaannya, terutama mengenai partisipasi dosen dan mahasiswa dalam pembelajaran. Dalam penelitian ini, penulis ingin mencari tahu bagaimana pelaksanaan pembelajaran daring Bahasa Jepang dilihat dari interaksi yang terjadi antara dosen dan mahasiswa. Untuk itu, dilakukan observasi pada 6 mata kuliah keterampilan Bahasa Jepang yang dilaksanakan pada platform aplikasi pembelajaran Google Classroom. Data penelitian diambil dari ujaran dosen dan mahasiswa pada bagian stream dan classwork aplikasi Google Classroom selama bulan April 2020. Berdasarkan hasil analisa coding dan kategorisasi terhadap data tersebut, ditemukan bahwa interaksi yang terjadi antara dosen dan mahasiswa cenderung bersifat prosedural di mana dosen memberikan instruksi mengenai pelaksanaan pembelajaran, tugas dan ujian. Selain itu terlihat juga upaya untuk menjaga hubungan sosial antar dosen dan mahasiswa. Walaupun interaksi tersebut penting dalam pembelajaran, namun hal ini tidak secara langsung bermanfaat bagi peningkatan pemahaman dan kemampuan Bahasa Jepang mahasiswa. Dibutuhkan usaha agar interaksi bersifat kognitif muncul dalam pembelajaran dengan membuka ruang diskusi dan pemberian feedback secepatnya.
Multiphysics modeling of multiferroic artificial materials by the finite element method

This paper proposes an investigation of the magnetoelectric (ME) effect of multiferroic artificial ME composite combining a piezoelectric matrix medium incrusted of magnetostrictive particles. The modeling has been performed on a 0-3 type multiferroic artificial ME composite in using a multiphysics code based on the finite element method. The simulation results show the variability of the magnetoelectric coefficient when the random dissemination of the magnetostrictive particles is applied.
Genotypes x Environments Interaction of Soybean Lines in Various Shading Environments

Soybean (Glycine max (L) Merr. ) planted in land space among stands of other crops especially forest trees experience shading stress due to less sunlight penetration. The objective of the study was to identify the performance and yield stability of soybean genotypes in various shading environments. Field research was conducted in 2018 on 15 soybean genotypes consisted of 12 promising soybean lines and three check varieties (Dena 1, Dena 2, and Grobogan) in 10 shading environments (cassava, maize, orange, teak, eucalyptus, oil palm, and no shading). Randomized block design and repeated four times was used in each location. Result of the study showed that the response of the genotypes to grain yield was significantly difference in each environment or location. Stability of genotypes were grouped into 3, namely 1 genotype classified as unstable and recommended for less optimal environments, 6 genotypes (5 promising lines and 1 check variety) which were classified as stable and adaptive in 10 test locations, and 8 genotypes (6 promising lines and 2 check varieties) classified as unstable in 10 test locations. Based on seed yield and yield components average, one line (Grob/Pander-395-2) had a high average seed yield (1.84 tha Original Research Article Sundari et al.; ARRB, 36(3): 77-92, 2021; Article no.ARRB. 67282 78 ), high seeds weight per plant (14.8 g), high weight of 100 seeds (21.6 g), and stable in 10 location (indicated by non significant both regression coefficient and regression deviation). Therefore, Grob/Pander-395-2 could be recommended for being grown in shading environments across the country.