Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preparation and growth mechanism of one-dimensional NdB6 nanostructures: nanobelts, nanoawls, and nanotubes

Three kinds of one-dimensional (1D) neodymium hexaboride (NdB6) nanostructures, including nanobelts, nanoawls, and nanotubes, have been synthesized through a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process with a self-catalyzed mechanism. For the first time, we report the preparation of NdB6 nanotubes. The morphology and crystalline structure are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Transmission electron microscopy images show that they have different growth directions: [111], [001], and [110], respectively. In addition, detailed growth mechanisms of the nanobelts, nanoawls, and nanotubes are presented. A droplet induced self-catalyzed mechanism, self-catalyzed with a vapor–solid mechanism, and diffusion limited self-catalyzed mechanism are proposed to explain the growth of nanobelts, nanoawls, and nanotubes, respectively.
Self-tuning fuzzy nonsingular proportional-integral-derivative type fast terminal sliding mode control for robotic manipulator in the presence of backlash hysteresis

The external disturbances and backlash hysteresis kind of nonlinearity present in the manipulator system can greatly affect the tracking performance of the system. In order to undo the effects of these external disturbances and backlash hysteresis, a robust controller is established based on the integration of self-tuning fuzzy nonsingular proportional-integral-derivative (PID) type fast terminal sliding mode control and time delay estimation (TDE). In this paper, TDE plays the part of estimating the unknown dynamics of the robotic manipulator and nonsingular PID type fast terminal sliding mode control in which the gains of PID are tuned using fuzzy logic system to get multiple beneficial characteristics, such as lower steady-state error, finite-time convergence and little chattering. In addition, the derivative of unknown dynamics that is considered to be bounded is dealt by utilizing the adaptive technique. Moreover, Lyapunov theorem is used to study the overall stability of the system. Finally, a comparative study in terms of trajectory tracking has been carried out between the proposed controller and other existing advanced control approaches using PUMA560 robot in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller in the presence of external disturbances and bacsklash hysteresis.
The Role of Signaling and Social Identity in Crowdfunding: Evidence from BRICS Countries

This study examines the effect of signaling and the social identity inherent in the project owner in determining the success factor of a crowdfunding project. The study is tested using 580 data from projects in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS countries) during the period from 2012 to the beginning of 2019. Using ordinary least square (OLS) as analysis technique, it is found that the signaling effect that is explained through comments and updates has a positive and significant influence in supporting funding success. Signaling is an ultimate way to eliminate asymmetric information in online transactions including in crowdfunding. Social identity effects on crowdfunding also show positive and significant results in influencing the success of funding explained through the number of project publications on Facebook. Project publication on Facebook is one of the examples of electronic word-of-mouth that has been proven to affect crowdfunding campaigns. On the other hand, it is not proven that the social identity effect explained by the number of friends on Facebook has a significant influence on the success of crowdfunding in the BRICS countries. The number of Facebook friends is long associated with identity sentiment that results in higher funding during the project campaign. However, this research shows no evidence due to some limitations surrounding the data.
Nonlinear Sorption of Organic Contaminant during Two-Dimensional Transport in Saturated Sand

Multi-dimensional transport studies are necessary in order to better explain the fate of contaminants in groundwater. In this study, a two-dimensional transport experiment with organic contaminants in saturated sand was conducted to investigate the migration of the organic contaminant plume in multi-dimensional flow conditions. The transport test was conducted using toluene as a model organic contaminant in a saturated sand box under steady flow conditions. The initial plume was generated via injection at a point source. After 24 h, the plume distribution was delineated by interpolating toluene concentrations in the porewater samples. The mass centers of the toluene and the conservative tracer were almost coincident, but the size of the toluene plume was significantly reduced in longitudinal as well as transversal directions. The appropriateness of several types of sorption models were compared to describe the toluene sorption in two-dimensional transport system using numerical modeling. Among the sorption models, the Langmuir model was found to be the most appropriate to describe the sorption of toluene during two-dimensional transport. The results showed that two-dimensional experiments are better than one-dimensional column experiments in identifying the adsorption characteristics that occur during transport in saturated aquifers.
Effects of hydrocarbon solvents on simultaneous improvement in displacement and sweep efficiencies during CO2-enhanced oil recovery

ABSTRACT The addition of hydrocarbon solvent such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to the CO2 stream leads to miscible conditions in reservoirs at lower pressures by reducing the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP). Under miscible conditions, improved displacement and vertical sweepout occur simultaneously. The influences of LPG concentration and composition on the displacement and sweep efficiencies during CO2-LPG enhanced oil recovery (EOR) were investigated. Enhanced displacement efficiency was assessed through oil viscosity reduction and oil saturation change. Moreover, the miscible flooding induced by LPG addition, which resulted in increased solvent viscosity and a lower density difference between the injected fluid and reservoir oil, provided a smaller viscous gravity number, and improved the sweep efficiency, alleviating the impact of solvent gravity override. For CO2-LPG EOR, oil recovery increased up to 52% as compared with that for CO2 flooding. The amount of incremental oil recovery with 100% butane in the LPG was 16%, as compared with the 100% propane case. Mitigated gravity override enabled CO2-LPG EOR to enhance sweep efficiency. Results indicated that the compositional modeling of the EOR process with the addition of LPG provided more accurate prediction on the performance of CO2-LPG EOR.
Around-the-Clock USD/MXN Volatility: Macroeconomic Announcement Spillovers and FX Market Intervention Mechanisms

This paper advances the literature on the dynamics of the U.S. Dollar-Mexican Peso (USD/MXN) volatility process by leveraging high-frequency data. First, it documents the factors that characterize the intraday volatility process of the USD/MXN exchange rate at high frequencies based on a sample of five-minute returns from 2008 to 2017. Second, it empirically identifies the effects and the relative impact on the USD/MXN volatility process of various macroeconomic announcements, at different frequencies. The results conclude that the most impactful releases are associated with the monetary policy announcements by the Federal Reserve and Banco de MA©xico, together with the publication of some U.S. and China macroeconomic data. Furthermore, the results suggest that the different mechanisms implemented by Mexico's FX Commission have accomplished their objective of stabilizing the volatility of the USD/MXN.
PENERAPAN SEASONAL GENERALIZED SPACE TIME AUTOREGRESSIVE SEEMINGLY UNRELATED REGRESSION (SGSTAR SUR) PADA PERAMALAN HASIL PRODUKSI PADI

Ordinary Least Square (OLS) is general method to estimate Generalized Space Time Autoregressive (GSTAR) parameters. Parameter estimation by using OLS for GSTAR model with correlated residuals between equations will produce inefficient estimators. The method that appropriate to estimate the parameter model with correlated residuals between equations is Generalized Least Square (GLS), which is usually used in Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR). This research aims to build the seasonal GSTAR SUR model as model of rice yield forecasting in three locations by using the best weighting. Weights used are binary weights, inverse distance and normalization of cross correlation. Data which used in this research are the data of rice yield per quarter in three districts in Central Java, namely Banyumas, Cilacap and Kebumen. The data from the period of January 1981 to December 2014 as training data and the period of January 2015 to December 2018 as validation data. The resulting is a model that has a seasonal effect with the autoregressive order and the spasial order limited to 1 so the model formed is SGSTAR (41)-I(1)(1)3. The best model produced is the SGSTAR SUR (41)-I(1)(1)3 model with inverse distance weighting because it fulfills both assumptions, residuals white noise and residuals normally multivariate distribution. Additionally, it has the smallest MAPE value when compared the other weighting, that is 20%. This MAPE value indicates that the accuracy rate of forecast is accurate.Keywords: Rice yield, Seasonal, GSTAR, SUR.
Feasibility Study of Irrigation Development for Sustainable Natural Resources Management Under Changing Climate of Jabi Tehnan Woreda, Amhara Regional State of Ethiopia

Irrigation development has been identified as one of the priority investment sectors in Ethiopia and the government has been implementing a number of efforts that enhance the planning and implementation of small-scale irrigation projects in the country. The aim was to identify the potential, feasibility and profitability of irrigation development for spices production mainly pepper in Jabi woreda of West-Gojjam, Amhara region. It has been observed that majority of the population, live in the rural area with crop production as the main livelihood option, arable land constitutes the largest portion of the ‘woreda’ land use type with cultivated land accounting for 49.8% (58,262 ha), uncultivable land 4.4% or 5,208 ha, natural forest 5.5% or 6,502 ha, bush land /scrubland and or natural pasture accounts 17.6% or 20,662 ha, settlement 9.3% or 10,931 ha and others account 13% or 15,389 ha. The altitude varies from 1400 to 2300 m a.s. l. This woreda is mostly characterized by Haplic Nitisols soil type which is highly productive type of soil in Ethiopia. In most of the fields, the slope gradient ranges from 0% to 5%. The project was studied to irrigate the command area through gravity close pipe conveyance system of surface irrigation with head work of wire division from Lah River. It was studied that about 45,595 ha is suitable irrigable land for surface irrigation of which about 45% (20,105 ha) of suitable land under Lah rive. An agronomic cropping pattern and production calendar of the farming system had identified for the sustainable supply of raw material for the agro-processing plant. Therefore, in the dry season using full irrigation 200ha pepper, 40ha rosemary and 10ha moringa had been under production whereas under rainfed with supplemental irrigation chickpea and field pea 130ha, white and black cumin 40ha and garlic 30ha was produced. The total investment cost of the project was estimated about ETH Birr 48.1 million. The implementation of the proposed irrigation project would require diversion of Lah River and 0.365 m3/sec of water was diverted from the river to the project command area. The minimum flow of the Lah River was 1.99 m3/sec at 95% probability. Thus, downstream impact of abstraction by the project was insignificant. Therefore, it could be concluded that there was no severe or immitigable impacts that could prevent the implementation of the proposed irrigation development.
Efektivitas Model Pembelajaran 3CM (Cool-Critical-Creative-Meaningfull) terhadap Kemampuan Berpikir Kritis Siswa SMP

AbstrakPembelajaran matematika diharapkan dapat mengasah kemampuan berpikir kritis, meskipun pembelajaran secara daring. Penelitian bertujuan menerapkan salah satu model pembelajaran yang menekankan pada aspek berpikir kritis yaitu model 3CM (Cool-Critical-Creative-Meaningfull) pada materi bangun ruang sisi datar dan menganalisis dampaknya terhadap kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa. Populasi penelitian adalah seluruh siswa SMPN di Salatiga, sampelnya 82 siswa dari SMPN 1 Salatiga dan SMPN 6 Salatiga yang dibagi menjadi kelompok eksperimen 1 dan 2. Desain penelitian eksperimen semu ini adalah randomized control grup pretest-postest design. Instrumen tes berbentuk 7 soal uraian, terdiri dari pretest dan posttest dengan rubrik penilaian berdasarkan aspek Focus, Reason, Inference, Situation, Clarity, and Overview. Uji hipotesis menunjukkan penerapan model pembelajaran 3CM dengan dua jenis kegiatan creative yang berbeda yaitu berbasis project dan berbasis problems posing menghasilkan kemampuan berpikir kritis yang sama. Penerapan 3CM dimungkinkan untuk menggunakan dua jenis kegiatan tersebut dalam melakukan aspek creative guna mengasah kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa. The Effectiveness of The 3 CM (Cool-Critical-Creative-Meaningful) Learning Model on The Critical Thinking Ability of SMP StudentsAbstractMathematics learning is expected to hone thinking skills, although learning must be done boldly. This study aims to apply a learning model that emphasizes the critical thinking aspect, namely the 3CM (Cool-Critical-Creative-Meaningful) model on the flat-sided building material, and analyze its impact on students' critical thinking skills. The study population was all students of SMPN in Salatiga, the sample was 82 students from SMPN 1 Salatiga and SMPN 6 Salatiga who were divided into experimental 1 and 2 groups. This quasi-experimental research design was a randomized control group pretest-posttest design. The test instrument is in the form of a description of 7 questions consisting of a pretest and posttest with a rubric based on aspects Focus, Reason, Inference, Situation, Clarity, and Overview. Hypothesis testing that the application of the 3CM learning model with different types of Creative (based on project and problems posing) activities results in the same critical thinking skills.
Effects of a blend of cinnamaldehyde-eugenol and capsicum (Xtract® Ruminant 7065) and ionophore on performance of finishing Holstein steers and on characteristics of ruminal and total tract digestion

ABSTRACT Our objective was to evaluate the interaction of supplemental essential oils (EO) and monensin (MON) on performance and digestion. Two levels of EO (0 vs 0.011% Xtract®) and two levels of MON (0 vs 33 mg/kg) were evaluated in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement. Treatment effects on 216-d growth performance were evaluated in 96 Holstein steers. Supplemental MON enhanced (P ≤ 0.05) ADG, DMI and gain efficiency. Without EO, MON improved (P < 0.05) gain efficiency and dietary NE. However, in diets with both EO and MON, gain efficiency and dietary NE were not different from non-supplemented diets (interaction, P < 0.10). Treatment effects on characteristics of digestion were evaluated using four cannulated steers. Ruminal digestion of OM and N were greater for MON alone. Ruminal digestion of OM and N were similar for EO-alone vs MON-alone, but not by the combination of the two (interaction P ≤ 0.02). Supplemental MON enhanced (P ≤ 0.02) total tract digestion of OM and N. We conclude that supplemental EO-alone or MON-alone may enhance gain efficiency and NE value of the diet. However, effects are negated when fed in combination. Treatment effects on performance are consistent with digestion measures.
Modelling and Simulation of Distributed UAV Swarm Cooperative Planning and Perception

As an emerging topic, the swarm of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been attracting great attention. Due to the indeterminacy of sensors, distributed cooperative swarms have been considered to be efficient and robust but challenging to design and test. To facilitate the development of distributed swarms, it has been proposed to utilise a simulation platform for cooperative UAVs using imperfect perception. However, the existing simulation platforms cannot satisfy this demand due to a few reasons. First, they are designed for a specific purpose, and their functionalities are difficult to extend. Second, the existing platforms lack compatibility to be applied to different types of scenarios. Third, the modelling of these platforms is too simplified to simulate flight motion dynamic and noisy communication accurately, which may cause a difference in performance between the simulation and real-world application. To address the mentioned issues, this paper models the problem and proposes a simulation platform for distributed swarm cooperative perception, which addresses software engineering concerns and provides a set of extendable functionalities of a cooperative swarm, including communication, estimation, perception fusion, and path planning. The applicability of the proposed platform is verified by simulations with the real-world application. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed system is viable.
Data Integrity Preservation Schemes in Smart Healthcare Systems That Use Fog Computing Distribution

The volume of data generated worldwide is rapidly growing. Cloud computing, fog computing, and the Internet of things (IoT) technologies have been adapted to compute and process this high data volume. In coming years information technology will enable extensive developments in the field of healthcare and offer health care providers and patients broadened opportunities to enhance their healthcare experiences and services owing to heightened availability and enriched services through real-time data exchange. As promising as these technological innovations are, security issues such as data integrity and data consistency remain widely unaddressed. Therefore, it is important to engineer a solution to these issues. Developing a damage assessment and recovery control model for fog computing is critical. This paper proposes two models for using fog computing in healthcare: one for private fog computing distribution and one for public fog computing distribution. For each model, we propose a unique scheme to assess the damage caused by malicious attack, to accurately identify affected transactions and recover damaged data if needed. A transaction-dependency graph technique is used for both models to observe and monitor all transactions in the whole system. We conducted a simulation study to assess the applicability and efficacy of the proposed models. The evaluation rendered these models practicable and effective.
ERYTHROMYCIN POLYLACTIC ACID MICROSPHERES FOR LUNG TARGETING

AIM: To prepare polylactic acid microspheres of Erythromycin for Lung targeting. METHEDS: The orthogonal test design was used to optimize the technology of preparation. The character of the microspheres, drug release in vitro, stability and tissue distribution were examined. RESULTS: The Erythromycin polylactic acid microspheres was regular in its morphology. Drug was enveloped in microspheres but not physically mixed with PDLLA. The average particle size was 11.65mm with over 94% of the microspheres being in the range of 5~20mm; The drug loading and the incorporation efficiency were 18% and 60% respectively. The microspheres were stable for three month at 4℃ and room temperature. The in vitro release properties could be expressed by the Higuchi抯 equation: y = 28.067 + 3.8515t1/2 (r = 0.9834). Comparing with injection, the drug in microspheres was more concentrated in lung tissue. CONCLUSION: Erythromycin polylactic acid microspheres showed significant sustained release and lung targeting.
From voluntary to mandatory non-financial disclosure following Directive 2014/95/EU: an Italian case study

Abstract This study investigates the non-financial disclosure in an Italian banking group following Directive 2014/95/EU over a period of eight years, from its voluntary (2013–2017) to mandatory (2018–2020) implementation. The paper relies both on primary and secondary data sources. It first adopts a content analysis on non-financial reports while considering other relevant available material. Second, the study relies upon semi-structured interviews and seminars to gather primary data. The analysis has been interpreted in light of institutional theory in order to understand the institutional forces driving non-financial disclosure. Results show that non-financial disclosure significantly increased in quantity after the regulation; however, the improvement in quality is fairly low, with the exception of themes relevant to the company under investigation. Through the lens of institutional theory, it emerges that an interplay of institutional mechanisms co-existed within the bank, during two periods of reporting for different topics of disclosure.
Ion-pair-RP-HPLC determination of dobesilates and their related substances

Objective:To establish an ion-pair-RP-HPLC method for the determination of dobesilates(including calcium dobesilate and ammonium dobesilate) and their related substances.Methods:The separation was performed on a Kromasil 100-5C18 column(250 mm×4.6 mm,5 μm). The mobile phase was composed of acetonitrile-methyl alcohol-0.2% tetrabutyl ammonium bromide in 0.2% potassium dihydrogen phosphate solution(pH 3.10±0.05),(10∶25∶65). The detection was carried out with a UV detector and the detective wavelength was set at 260 nm.The flow rate was 1.0 mL·mL-1 and the column temperature was 30 ℃. Results:The calibration curves of calcium dobesilate and ammonium dobesilate were both linear between 20.0-500 μg·mL-1;The correlation coefficient were 0.9999,0.9998,separately.The corresponding least detection limits were 1.44 ng and 1.64 ng,separately.The precisions were good(RSD=0.21%,0.23%). Conclusion:The method is credible and the results of the determination are accurate.
A Multi-Site Study of the ACT Raising Safe Kids Program in Portugal

ABSTRACT The present study examined outcomes of the ACT-Raising Safe Kids (ACT-RSK) program in central Portugal. ACT-RSK is a family violence and child abuse prevention program for parents and caregivers of young children. Forty-one parents of children aged three to nine years completed the ACT-RSK group program and the research measures. The study took place at three community based agencies, one school, and one shelter in central Portugal. Pre/post-program comparisons indicated that, following completion of the ACT-RSK program, ACT completers had improved parenting behaviors, improved responding to perceived child misbehavior, improved monitoring and limit-setting on children’s media use, and improved knowledge of child development.