Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of a team-based framework for conducting self-assessment of continuous improvement

The study presented in this paper is based on two basic premises: first, that successful CI is dependent on shop floor level involvement and participant in improvement efforts; and secondly, that the term self-assessment clearly implies that those whose performance is being measured are involved in conducting the assessment process. Excerpts from a longitudinal case study in a Danish manufacturing organization demonstrate how teams involved in the process of conducting self-assessment of CI developed a better understanding of the basic principles of CI, as well as how these principles relate to their own work processes, and a deeper understanding of their organization’s strategy and objectives. Introduction Using self-assessment tools to measure an organization’s current status on Continuous Improvement (CI) and to plan future process improvement activities is becoming widely accepted and practiced (Azhashemi & Ho, 1999; Zink & Schmidt, 1998). It has been reported that members of the organization that participate in the process of selfassessment of CI may development a deeper understanding of the fundamental principles of CI as they are applicable to their own organization, and an increased motivation to participate in subsequent improvement activities (Cangas, 1996; Shergold & Reed, 1996; Larsstuen, 1999). Traditionally, those participating in the self-assessment process have included individual managers or small management groups; the relevant literature does not provide any examples of self-assessment being conducted at the shop floor level by shop floor production workers or teams. Considering the degree to which CI models focus on shop floor participation and involvement in the planning, directing, and implementing of improvement activities, a method for successfully conducting selfassessment at the shop floor level is clearly warranted. It is proposed herein that such a method of conducting self-assessment will not only be more compatible with CI (e.g., shop floor involvement) than management-directed self-assessment, but will also facilitate the learning and increased motivation to participate in CI activities reported by managers involved in CI assessment. The objective of this paper is therefore to address the lack of empirical experience within the area of shop floor team self-assessment of CI and therein contribute to the literature on team level involvement in continuous improvement. In particular, the question under examination in this paper is: How can self-assessment of CI be conducted with shop floor teams, in order to facilitate learning related to CI and to increase motivation to participate in CI activities? In an effort to answer this question, excerpts from an on-going longitudinal case study in which a framework for conducting self-assessment of CI with shop floor teams is being developed and tested through an action research methodology are presented. The process by which self-assessment of CI was conducted with seven shop floor teams is described, with focus on both practical issues and how the process
Champs de Markov Triplets pour la classification de données à structure complexe

We address the issue of classifying complex data. We focus on three main sources of complexity, namely the high dimensionality of the observed data, the dependencies between these observations and the general nature of the noise model underlying their distribution. We investigate the recent Triplet Markov Fields and propose new models in this class that can model such data and handle the additional inclusion of a learning step in a consistent way. One advantage of our models is that their estimation can be carried out using state-of-the-art Bayesian clustering techniques. As generative models, they can be seen as an alternative, in the supervised case, to discriminative Conditional Random Fields. Identifiability issues and possible phase transition phenomena underlying the models in the non supervised case, are discussed while the models performance is illustrated on real data exhibiting the mentioned various sources of complexity. Key-words: Triplet Markov model, Supervised classification, Conditional independence, High dimensional data, Mixture of Gaussian, EM algorithm, Mean field approximation, Identifiability, Phase transition, Texture recognition. Champs de Markov Triplets pour la classification de données à structure complexe Résumé : Nous abordons le problème de la classification de données à structure complexe. Nous nous intéressons à trois sources de complexité, à savoir la grande dimension des données observées, les dépendances entre ces observations et la nature générale du modèle de bruit sous-jacent à leurs distributions. Nous étudions les récents modèles de Markov Triplets et proposons de nouveaux modèles de cette famille permettant de modéliser de telles données, ainsi que d’inclure une phase d’apprentissage de manière consistante. Un avantage de nos modèles est que leur estimation peut être effectuée à l’aide de techniques bayésiennes standards. En temps que modèles génératifs, ils peuvent être vus comme une alternative, dans le cas supervisé, aux modèles discriminatifs de champs de Markov conditionnels. Le problème de l’identifiabilité ainsi qu’un phénomène possible de transition de phase sont discutés. La performance de ces modèles est illustrée sur des données réelles présentant les différentes sources de complexité mentionnées précédemment. Mots-clés : Modèle de Markov Triplet, Classification supervisée, Indépendance Conditionnelle , Données de grande dimension, Mélange de gaussiennes, Algorithme EM, Approximation en champ moyen, Identifiabilité, Transition de phase, Reconnaissance de textures. Triplet Markov fields for the classification of complex structure data 3
Phytochemical Investigation of Lepionurus sylvestris Blume and Their Anti-Diabetes Effects via Anti-Alpha Glucosidase and Insulin Secretagogue Activities Plus Molecular Docking

This study presents a phytochemical investigation of Lepionurus sylvestris leaf extracts and their anti-diabetic activities. Traditionally, L. sylvestris leaves were used as vegetables and food in local recipes, but the root extracts of the plant can also be used in body tonic and erectile dysfunction treatments. Following a preliminary anti-diabetic activity screening test, the 80% ethanolic leaf extract exhibited potent anti-alpha glucosidase activity. So, the leaves’ active components were selected for further investigation. Firstly, the plant was extracted via maceration using lower to higher polarity solvents such as hexane, ethyl acetate, ethanol, and water, respectively, to obtain the four crude extracts. Then, the phytochemicals contained in this plant were investigated via classical column chromatography and spectroscopy techniques. Anti-diabetic activity was evaluated via anti-alpha glucosidase and insulin secretagogue assays. The results showed that five compounds were isolated from the fractionated ethanolic leaf extract: interruptin A; interruptin C; ergosterol; diglycerol; and 15-16-epoxy-neo-cleoda-3,7(20),13(16),14-tetraene-12,17:18,19-diolide, a new diterpene derivative which is herein referred to as lepionurodiolide. Interruptin A and the new diterpene derivative exhibited the greatest effect on anti-alpha glucosidase activity, showing IC50 values of 293.05 and 203.71 μg/mL, respectively. Then, molecular docking was used to study the sites of action of these compounds. The results showed that interruptin A and the new compound interacted through H-bonds with the GLN279 residue, with a binding energy of −9.8 kcal/mol, whereas interruptin A and C interacted with HIS280 and ARG315 a with binding energy of −10.2 kcal/mol. Moreover, the extracts were investigated for their toxicity toward human cancer cells, and a zebrafish embryonic toxicity model was used to determine herbal drug safety. The results indicated that ethyl acetate and hexane extracts showed cytotoxicity to both Hela cells and human breast adenocarcinomas (MCF-7), which was related to the results derived from using the zebrafish embryonic toxicity model. The hexane and ethyl acetate presented LC50 values of 33.25 and 36.55 μg/mL, respectively, whereas the ethanol and water extracts did not show embryonic toxicity. This study is the first of its kind to report on the chemical constituents and anti-diabetic activity of L. sylvestris, the leaf extract of which has been traditionally used in southern Thailand as a herbal medicine and food ingredient.
Geology, mineralization, and hydrothermal alteration and relationships to acidic and metal-bearing surface waters in the Palmetto Gulch area, southwestern Colorado

4 INTRODUCTION. 5 METHODS. 6 GEOLOGY AND MINERALIZATION OF THE STUDY AREA . 7 Regional Geology. 7 Volcanic Stratigraphy. 8 Intrusive Rocks. 10 Structure of the Study Area. 11 Geology of Mineral Deposits in the Palmetto Gulch Area . 11 Alteration Assemblages. 14 DUMP LEACHATE STUDIES. 15 STREAM SEDIMENT SAMPLES . 17 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. 17 Water Quality Data and Relationship to Geology and Mineralization . 17 REFERENCES CITED. 20
A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union

Rugby union has undergone immense change in the past two decades - introducing a World Cup, accepting professionalism and creating a global market in players - yet no authoritative English-language general history of the game has been published in that time. Until now. "A Game for Hooligans" brings the game's colourful story up to date to include the 2007 World Cup. It covers all of the great matches, teams and players but also explores the social, political and economic changes that have affected the course of rugby's development. It is an international history, covering not only Britain and France but also the great rugby powers of the southern hemisphere and other successful rugby nations, including Argentina, Fiji and Japan.Contained within are the answers to many intriguing questions concerning the game, such as why 1895 is the most important date in both rugby-union and rugby-league history and how New Zealand became so good and have remained so good for so long. There is also a wealth of anecdotes, including allegations of devil-worship at a Welsh rugby club and an account of the game's contribution to the Cuban Revolution. This is a must-read for any fan of the oval ball.
Exchange Rate Undervaluation and Manufactured Exports : A Deliberate Strategy ?

La série des Etudes et Documents du CERDI est consultable sur le site : Les commentaires et analyses développés n'engagent que leurs auteurs qui restent seuls responsables des erreurs et insuffisances. Abstract Recent literature suggests that a proactive exchange rate policy in accordance with price incentives (i.e. undervaluation) can foster manufactured exports and growth. This paper is built on these recent developments and investigates, using a sample of 52 developing countries, whether such a proactive exchange rate policy is adopted. The results show that during the period 1991-2005 a number of countries has used undervaluation to foster the price competitiveness of manufactured exports.
The role of perceived feasibility and perceived desirability on entrepreneurial behaviour through goal and implementation intentions of students in Southeast Vietnam

Purpose: This study examines the relationship between perceived intention (perceived feasibility and perceived desirability), goal and implementation intentions and entrepreneurial behavior of final-year students in Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong Province, Dong Nai Province and Ba Ria Vung Tau Province. Vietnamese schools and the government both provide support to students who desire to set up a business. Design/Methodology/Approach: The relationship between perceived intention (perceived feasibility and perceived desirability), goal, implementation intentions and entrepreneurial behavior was determined by the 368 students who have been starting the business using the AMOS-SEM estimation method. Findings: The result shows that perceived feasibility and perceived desirability have positively influenced goal and implementation intentions and goal and implementation intentions have positively impacted entrepreneurial behaviour. Conclusion: In this study, entrepreneurial behaviour is directly explained by two factors, namely goal and implementation intention. It is also indirectly defined by perceived feasibility and desirability. Practical Implications: The study’s findings have implications for both university and student policies. Entrepreneurial ideas and implementation intentions have an impact on behavior. Limitations: Convenient sampling in this study could potentially impact the accuracy of the outcomes in terms of representation. Contribution to Literature: This study extends the Event Entrepreneur model (EEM) by adding the implementation intention factor into the model.
The EOS CERES Global Cloud Mask

To detect long-term climate trends, it is essential to produce long-term and consistent data sets from a variety of different satellite platforms. With current global cloud climatology data sets, such as the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Experiment (ISCCP) or CLAVR (Clouds from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer), one of the first processing steps is to determine whether an imager pixel is obstructed between the satellite and the surface, i.e., determine a cloud 'mask. ' A cloud mask is essential to studies monitoring changes over ocean, land, or snow-covered surfaces. As part of the Earth Observing System (EOS) program, a series of platforms will be flown beginning in 1997 with the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) and subsequently the EOS-AM and EOS-PM platforms in following years. The cloud imager on TRMM is the Visible/Infrared Sensor (VIRS), while the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is the imager on the EOS platforms. To be useful for long term studies, a cloud masking algorithm should produce consistent results between existing (AVHRR) data, and future VIRS and MODIS data. The present work outlines both existing and proposed approaches to detecting cloud using multispectral narrowband radiance data. Clouds generally are characterized by higher albedos and lower temperatures than the underlying surface. However, there are numerous conditions when this characterization is inappropriate, most notably over snow and ice of the cloud types, cirrus, stratocumulus and cumulus are the most difficult to detect. Other problems arise when analyzing data from sun-glint areas over oceans or lakes over deserts or over regions containing numerous fires and smoke. The cloud mask effort builds upon operational experience of several groups that will now be discussed.
Ecological and Economic Feasibility of Inductive Heating for Sustainable Press Hardening Processes

Press hardening is an established process for producing high-strength, lightweight structural automotive parts, utilising roller hearth furnaces to heat metal sheets. It presents a non-negligible source of greenhouse gas emissions in part production processes. This paper investigates the ecological and economic advantages of induction as an alternative heating method and identifies break-even scenarios. Therefore, specific energy demands for various furnace and induction heating operating states are determined and applied to different energy system transition scenarios. It can be shown that while induction heating can be more energy efficient than furnace heating, its ecological and economic advantages are highly dependent on regional electricity-to-gas price ratios and electric energy emission factors. For high good-mass flows (0.5 kg/s) and 80% production capacity utilisation, an electricity-to-gas price ratio lower than 1.24 and an emission factor lower than 250 g CO2 /kWh are required.
Adaptive Compositional Continual Meta-Learning

This paper focuses on continual meta-learning, where few-shot tasks are heterogeneous and sequentially available. Recent works use a mixture model for meta-knowledge to deal with the heterogeneity. However, these methods suffer from parameter inefficiency caused by two reasons: (1) the underlying assumption of mutual exclusiveness among mixture components hinders sharing meta-knowledge across heterogeneous tasks. (2) they only allow increasing mixture components and cannot adaptively filter out redundant components. In this paper, we pro-pose an A daptive C ompositional Continual M eta-L earning (ACML) algorithm, which employs a compositional premise to associate a task with a subset of mixture components, allowing meta-knowledge sharing among heterogeneous tasks. Moreover, to adaptively adjust the number of mixture components, we propose a component spar-sification method based on evidential theory to filter out redundant components. Experimental results show ACML outperforms strong baselines, showing the effectiveness of our compositional meta-knowledge, and confirming that ACML can adaptively learn meta-knowledge.
Obesity as a risk factor for multiple myeloma: insight on the role of adipokines

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a hematologic disorder characterized by the accumulation of malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow. Genetic and environmental factors are contributed to the etiology of MM. Notably, studies have shown that obesity increases the risk of MM and worsens outcomes for MM patients. Adipokines play an important role in mediating the close association between MM and metabolic derangements. In this review, we summarize the epidemiologic studies to show that the risk of MM is increased in obese. Accumulating clinical evidence suggests that adipokines could display a correlation with MM. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that adipokines are linked to MM, including roles in the biological behavior of MM cells, cancer-associated bone loss, the progression of MM, and drug resistance. Current and potential therapeutic strategies targeted to adipokines are discussed, proposing that adipokines can guide early patient diagnosis and treatment.
From glows to graphics: The invention of visuality in early electronic media systems

By going through a history of electronic visuality, from fluorescence glows in European laboratories in the nineteenth century to the computer screen in the twentieth century, this paper discusses technical image operations in the interaction between media machines and media people. Examining this set of apparatus from the evolution of a neglected technical object – the vacuum tube, it traces the history of the screen and the temporal-spatial composition of electronic graphics in television, radar, and early computer systems. In doing so, it outlines the entangled history of analog and digital displays and demonstrates the impossibility of neglecting the role of the human observer in the technical invention of visuality.
Blockseminar Geometrische Gruppentheorie Karlsruhe-Münster-Regensburg

Thompson’s groups F , T and V carry some unusual properties which have made them counterexamples to a collection of conjectures in group theory. This seminar focuses on these groups, higher dimensional analogues and more generally Thompson-like classes of groups. We will learn about several different descriptions and representations of those groups, e.g. tree diagrams, diagram groups, local similarity groups etc. We will examine basic group theoretic properties as well as finiteness properties and properties related to amenability. Classical texts such as those from Cannon/Floyd/Parry, K. S. Brown, etc. but also more recent ones from M. G. Brin, J. T. Moore, etc. are taken as reference.
Performance Assessment and LCA of a PCM-Based Coating for Residential Buildings of the North-West Mediterranean Region

—The paper focuses on the thermo-economic and life cycle assessment of three different Phase-Change Materials (PCM) for use in residential buildings on the North-West Italian coast. For the purpose of this work, we considered the climatic conditions of the city of Genoa, Italy, and used publicly available weather data from year 2020. We numerically assessed three PCMs against conventional thermal insulating materials, on three different flat wall geometries, using a one-dimensional heat transfer model, implemented in MATLAB. The most relevant characteristic of PCMs is their phase transition condition. Our model is based on the assumption that PCM transitions occur in a specific temperature range, and this yields to an instantaneous increase of their specific heat. Subsequently, based on a 25-year PCM life cycle assumption, we carried out a thermo-economic analysis based on the Net Present Value (NVP) index, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a carbon dioxide (CO2) saving estimation. Linear regression was used to predict the future economic and environmental scenarios. Simulation results showed that PCM performance is not as high as expected when benchmarked against a conventional insulating material. Specifically, PCMs do not reduce winter thermal demand and CO 2 emissions over their life cycle are twice those of the classical insulator taken as a reference. We then numerically evaluated their performance in a warmer climate, corresponding to a South Mediterranean region, and under these conditions PCMs outperformed against conventional insulators, thus justifying their current higher cost.
Analysis of the structure and metabolic function of microbial community in cigar tobacco leaves in agricultural processing stage

The agricultural fermentation processing of cigar tobacco leaves (CTLs), including air-curing and agricultural fermentation, carried out by tobacco farmers has rarely been studied. In this study, we have investigated the microbial community in the CTLs during air-curing and agricultural fermentation by 16S rRNA and ITS gene high-throughput sequencing. The results showed that the richness of microbial communities gradually increased with the development of agricultural fermentation, which means that not all microorganisms in CTLs come from the fields where tobacco grows, but gradually accumulate into CTLs during the fermentation process. Enterobacteriaceae, Chloroplast, and Alternaria were the dominant genera in the air-cured CTLs. Aquabacterium, unclassified Burkholderiaceae, Caulobacter, Brevundimonas, and Aspergillus were the dominant genera in the agriculturally fermented CTLs. Acinetobacter, Methylobacterium, Sampaiozyma, and Plectosphaerella first significantly increased, and then significantly decreased during agricultural processing. The changes in microbial communities are mainly related to their different functions during fermentation. This means that when the fermentation effect of the original microbial community in cigar tobacco leaves is not ideal, we can optimize or design the microbial community based on the fermentation function that the microbial community needs to achieve. These results may help adjust and optimize the agricultural fermentation process of CTLs, and help develop the quality of CTLs and increase the income of tobacco farmers.