Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Competitive adsorption of metals on volcanic ash active sites from multi-metal solutions

Merapi Volcanic Ash (MVA) was used to study the competitive adsorption of several metal cations (Cu 2+ ,Zn 2+ , Cd 2+ , Pb 2+ and Hg 2+ ) from multi-metal ions solution within various experimental conditions. The properties of adsorbent were characterized with XRD, FESEM-EDX and FT-IR. The influence of pre-treatment condition, contact time, pH of solution, adsorbent dosage, initial metal concentration and temperature on multi-metals adsorption were investigated. The characterization results showed that the MVA exhibited the presence of aluminate, quarts and maghematite. The maximum adsorption capacities for all metal ions were observed at pH 6 and adsorbent dosage of 0.1 g L -1 . The adsorption reached equilibrium within 120 minutes. Adsorption equilibrium study showed that Freundlich isotherm model fitted very well with the Zn, Pb, Cd and Cu while adsorption on Hg was best fitted with Langmuir isotherm model. The kinetic of adsorption on multi-metal ions were best described by pseudo-second order kinetic model. The thermodynamic properties confirmed that the adsorption of multi-metal ions onto MVA was spontaneous and endothermic in nature. The activation energy, E a of the adsorption process showed that it was a chemisorption process. The results showed that MVA could be used as a low-cost material for the adsorption of multi-metals in water treatment.
ATTRIBUTES OF DESTINATION COMPETITIVENESS: A FACTOR ANALYSIS

A model is developed to capture the main elements of competitiveness highlighted in the general literature, while appreciating the special issues involved in exploring the notion of destination competitiveness as emphasized by tourism researchers. Associated with the model is a set of indicators that can be used to measure the competitiveness of any given destination. These indicators, comprising both objective and subjective measures, were identified from the major elements comprising the generic destination competitiveness model and also from discussions at workshops held in Korea and Australia in 2001. This article has three major objectives: to display a model of destination competitiveness that identifies key success factors in determining destination competitiveness; to display the findings arising from the application of factor analysis to survey data collected in a study of Australian and Korean tourism industry stakeholders; to explore issues for further research arising from the study.
A NOTE ON CHOICE OF RESIDENTIAL LOCATION IN TRAVEL COST DEMAND MODELS

where x is number of visits to a site, p is price, y is a (k x 1) vector of observed individual characteristics, and e is a random component. 1' is a (1 x k) parameter vector and p, is a scalar parameter. Hundreds of models with this basic demand relationship as a basis have been estimated (see Smith's 1989 review). My concern is that the price used in this model may be endogenous because people base decisions about where to live, in part, on proximity to recreation sites. If so, unobserved taste characteristics in the error term e will be
Long Term Consumption of Ibie Leave (Mucuna Flagellipes) Diets Improves Visuo-Spatial Learning and Memory in Swiss White Mice

The system of use of plants for food and drug dates back to the early man on earth [1]. The use of natural products with medicinal properties for chronic and acute diseases is as old as human existence [2] long ago, animal products, plant and mineral are the main sources of medicine [3,4]. About 40% of the population of the technologically and economically advanced countries like the U.S.A, U.K, still makes use of alternative remedies, including herbal medicine for disease prevention and cure [5]. In addition, compounds Plant based medicine has over time become man’s prime therapeutic weapon and still is as seen in its continued use in treatment of diseases up till today [6]. All over the world, humans have used a variety of numbers of native plants in the cure of diseases since prehistoric times [7,8]. There is hardly any person who does not take herbal remedy daily in one form or the other. This is true as reports by [9] revealed, in anyone who eats vegetables, takes medicinal herbs, be it lettuce and spinach in Sumerians who described well established medicinal plants as laurel caraway and thyme. Also, the Chinese herbal book dating from about 2,700 BC listed medicinal plants and their uses [10]. Many cultures have used different types of plants or materials derived from them in preventing and treating diseases through history [11]. Its efficacy is justified by its continued use. It is for the development of modem chemistry that has led to the discovery and identification of the materials in plants that serves as drugs or basic material for the synthesis of many important drugs used today. These drugs been synthesized from the knowledge acquired from studies of the mechanism of chemicals and their actions first separated from herbs. Thus, researchers in medicinal herbs have increased in order to ascertain their chemical compositions which are medicinally active. Mucuna flagellipes which is commonly called cow itch and locally called Ibie. There is abundance of macro elements like calcium magnesium and iron [12]. The pod hairs have been used in India to treat snakebite [13] while in West Africa; it is the stem that is used for treating of snakebite [14]. Their stems have been Abstract
Patterns and comparisons of human-induced changes in river flood impacts in cities

Abstract. In this study, information extracted from the first global urban fluvial flood risk data set (Aqueduct) is investigated and visualized to explore current and projected city-level flood impacts driven by urbanization and climate change. We use a novel adaption of the self-organizing map (SOM) method, an artificial neural network proficient at clustering, pattern extraction, and visualization of large, multi-dimensional data sets. Prevalent patterns of current relationships and anticipated changes over time in the nonlinearly-related environmental and social variables are presented, relating urban river flood impacts to socioeconomic development and changing hydrologic conditions. Comparisons are provided between 98 individual cities. Output visualizations compare baseline and changing trends of city-specific exposures of population and property to river flooding, revealing relationships between the cities based on their relative map placements. Cities experiencing high (or low) baseline flood impacts on population and/or property that are expected to improve (or worsen), as a result of anticipated climate change and development, are identified and compared. This paper condenses and conveys large amounts of information through visual communication to accelerate the understanding of relationships between local urban conditions and global processes.
The Effects of Kolb's Experiential Learning Model on Successful Intelligence in Secondary Agriculture Students.

Experiential learning is an important pedagogical approach used in secondary agricultural education. Though anecdotal evidence supports the use of experiential learning, a paucity of empirical research exists supporting the effects of this approach when compared to a more conventional teaching method, such as direct instruction. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to examine the effects of an experiential learning approach to instruction on the successful intelligence of secondary agricultural education students, as measured across three domains – practical intelligence, analytical intelligence, and creative intelligence. It was concluded students who received the experiential learning treatment produced higher creativity scores that were domain specific. In addition, they scored higher in their practical use of knowledge when compared to their direct instruction counterparts. However, regardless of treatment, both direct instruction and experiential learning yielded similar analytical knowledge scores. Thus, it was recommended agricultural educators utilize a blended approach of instruction to provide balanced growth in all four modes of learning.
The Relationship Between Organisational Culture, Strategy And Performance - A Survey Of Companies Listed In The Nairobi Stock Exchange

7 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION. 9 1.1 Background.9 1.1.1 Organisation's Culture. 9 1.1.2 Cultural Types. 9 1.1.3 Concept of Strategy. 10 1.1.4 Types of Strategy.10 1.1. 5 Organisation's Performance. 10 1.1. 6 Link between Culture, Strategy and Performance. 11 1.1. 7 Uniqueness of Firms Listed in the Nairobi Stock Exchange.11 1.2 Statement of the Research Problem. 12 1.3 Objectives of the study.14 1.4 Significance of the Study. 14 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW . 15 2.1 Corporate Strategy.15 2.2 Corporate Culture. 20 2.3 Organisation's Performance.24 2.4 Corporate Strategy, Culture and Performance. 27 CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. 31 3.
Opportunities and Challenges of Application-Power Control in the Age of Dark Silicon

In the age of dark silicon on-chip power control is a necessity. Upcoming and state of the art embedded- and cloud computer system-on-chips (SoCs) already provide interfaces for fine grained power control. Sometimes both: core- and interconnect-voltage and frequency can be scaled for example. To further reduce power consumption SoCs often have specialized accelerators. Due to the rising specialization of hard- and software general purpose oper- ating systems require changes to exploit the power saving opportunities provided by the hardware. However, they lack detailed hardware- and application-level-information. Application-level power control in turn is still very uncommon and diffi cult to realize. Now a days vendors of mobile devices are forced to tweak and patch system-level software to enhance the power effi ciency of each individual product. This manual process is time consuming and must be re- iterated for each new product. In this paper we explore the opportunities and challenges of automatic application-level power control using compilers.
Practical Data-Leak Prevention for Legacy Applications in Enterprise Networks

Organizations must control where private information spreads; this problem is referred to in the industry as data leak prevention. Commercial solutions for DLP are based on scanning content; these impose high overhead and are easily evaded. Research solutions for this problem, information flow control, require rewriting applications or running a custom operating system, which makes these approaches difficult to deploy. They also typically enforce information flow control on a single host, not across a network, making it difficult to implement an information flow control policy for a network of machines. This paper presents Pedigree, which enforces information flow control across a network for legacy applications. Pedigree allows enterprise administrators and users to associate a label with each file and process; a small, trusted module on the host uses these labels to determine whether two processes on the same host can communicate. When a process attempts to communicate across the network, Pedigree tracks these information flows and enforces information flow control either at end-hosts or at a network switch. Pedigree allows users and operators to specify network-wide information flow policies rather than having to specify and implement policies for each host. Enforcing information flow policies in the network allows Pedigree to operate in networks with heterogeneous devices and operating systems. We present the design and implementation of Pedigree, show that it can prevent data leaks, and investigate its feasibility and usability in common environments.
THE UNRELAXED DYNAMICAL STRUCTURE OF THE GALAXY CLUSTER ABELL 85

For the first time, we explore the dynamics of the central region of a galaxy cluster within r500 ∼ 600 h−1 kpc from its center by combining optical and X-ray spectroscopy. We use (1) the caustic technique, which identifies the cluster substructures and their galaxy members with optical spectroscopic data, and (2) the X-ray redshift fitting procedure, which estimates the redshift distribution of the intracluster medium (ICM). We use the spatial and redshift distributions of the galaxies and of the X-ray-emitting gas to associate the optical substructures to the X-ray regions. When we apply this approach to Abell 85 (A85), a complex dynamic structure of A85 emerges from our analysis: a galaxy group, with redshift z = 0.0509 ± 0.0021 is passing through the cluster center along the line of sight dragging part of the ICM present in the cluster core; two additional groups, at redshift z = 0.0547 ± 0.0022 and z = 0.0570 ± 0.0020, are going through the cluster in opposite directions, almost perpendicularly to the line of sight, and have substantially perturbed the dynamics of the ICM. An additional group in the outskirts of A85, at redshift z = 0.0561 ± 0.0023, is associated with a secondary peak of X-ray emission, at redshift . Although our analysis and results on A85 need to be confirmed by high-resolution spectroscopy, they demonstrate how our new approach can be a powerful tool to constrain the formation history of galaxy clusters by unveiling their central and surrounding structures.
Differential Cytokine Levels in Adults Induced by a Novel Candidate TB Boost Vaccine, MVA85A-According to Previous BCG Vaccination Status

MVA85A is a candidate boost vaccine for TB. A previously reported study showed no differences in response to MVA85A in 10 BCG vaccinated (BCG+) and 11 BCG naive (BCG-) adult Gambians. Here we evaluated the effect of pre-existing plasma cytokines in both groups before and after MVA85A vaccination on the vaccine-induced immune response. Pre-vaccination levels of IL-8 were higher in BCG+ subjects, whilst MCP-1 levels were lower compared to BCG-. Following MVA85A vaccination, concentrations of IL-8, IL-18, IL-12(p70) and MCP-1 were differentially induced between BCG+ and BCG- groups. The implications of these findings depend on their role in TB pathogenesis.
Biotic dispersal in eelgrass Zostera marina

Dispersal is a critical process in the life history of nearly all plant species and can be facili - tated by both abiotic and biotic mechanisms. Despite an abundance of vertebrate fauna utilizing seagrass meadows as a feeding area and thus capable of consuming and excreting seeds, little work has been conducted on biotic seed dispersal mechanisms. The objectives of this study were to (1) determine whether seeds of the seagrass Zostera marina could pass through the digestive systems of resident and tran - sient vertebrates of a seagrass bed and remain viable and (2) determine seed retention times in the guts of each species to estimate dispersal distances of Z. ma- rina seeds by vertebrate dispersers. Excretion and germination rates of consumed seeds for 3 fish species (Fundulus heteroclitus,Sphoeroides maculatus,Lagodon rhomboides), 1 turtle species (Malaclemys terrapin) and 1 waterfowl species (Aythya affinis) showed Z. marina seeds could survive passage through spe- cies' digestive systems and successfully germinate. Excretion rates were generally highest for F. hetero- clitus, S. maculatus, and M. terrapin, lowest for A. affi- nis, and moderate for L. rhomboides. Analyses sug - gest seeds were significantly affected by species' digestive tracts. Maximum dispersal distances are es- timated to be 200, 60, 1500, and 19 500 m for F. hetero- clitus, L. rhomboides, M. terrapin, and A. affinis, re- spectively. Data here provide strong evidence that biotic dispersal can occur in Z. marina, and biotically transported seeds can be dispersed to isolated areas unlikely to receive seeds via abiotic mechanisms. Bio - tic dispersal may rival or exceed abiotic mechanisms. Future seagrass dispersal models should incorporate biotic dispersal as a seed transport mechanism.
The effectiveness of FFAs in hedging freight rate risk in the Dry Cargo Panamax Sector

The shipping industry is subject to a unique demand and supply mechanism that makes the market very volatile and exposes ship owners and shippers to a number of risks, one of which is freight rate risk. Owners naturally aim to control freight risk in an effort to secure constant earnings from a vessel. One method to reduce freight risk exposure is to take opposite positions in a corresponding paper trade. This is known as derivative hedging and features the ship owner placing a bet on the downside of the market; i.e. falling freight rates. That way one hopes to mitigate the losses incurred in the physical market (spot) with the gains made on the hedge. The hedging tools analyzed in this study are future contracts, namely forward freight agreements (FFA). They are priced through an index reflecting future prices of the underlying market to be hedged and can be short sold, because they are cash settled. The downfall of BIFFEX contracts has shown that the effectiveness of FFAs as hedging tools depends on how well the indicating chart reflects the physical market. Indices are often composites of a number of routes or ship segments and eventually lack representing accuracy. For modern Panamax FFA contracts the relationship between spot and future prices is tested statistically using regression analysis. The results show high correlation between the plotted variables, suggesting that much of the variance in the physical segment can be explained by developments on the future market as well; hence there is high potential for hedges to be effective. The issue of effectiveness is elaborated further, also with respect to other factors, such as counter party risk and a lack of liquidity in a market. The latter of which is an issue in today’s shipping environment, which experiences a reduction in the number of people willing and able to trade FFAs. No matter how well the index represents the market, there always has to be somebody acting as counter party. Nevertheless, although liquidity risk may arise from the quality of a FFA, it may have other origins and may not be used to judge hedging effectiveness as such. The overall opinion is that for the sector handled (Panamax) and for the viewed route composition, FFAs appear to be very effective risk minimizers. But ship segments are much diversified and may not all show similar hedging results. Further, the spot rates are averages received from routes between world regions that consider a range of ports on either side. Therefore, the true effectiveness for individual routes (port-to-port) may only be assessed by further refinement of sailing distances.
Evaluation of the emissions and uncertainties of PM2.5 originated from vehicular traffic and domestic wood combustion in Finland

Primary fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) emissions from low-altitude sources, such as traffic and domestic combustion, may cause immediate exposure near the source. In this paper we present emission estimate and uncertainty analysis of PM 25 emissions from the vehicular traffic and domestic wood combustion sectors. Our estimate of national PM 2.5 emissions in 2000 from domestic wood combustion was 7.6 Gg a -1 and that from vehicular traffic, including non-exhaust emissions, 5.8 Gg a -1 . These values correspond to 25% and 19% of the national total PM 25 emissions, respectively. The uncertainties were high for non-exhaust traffic and domestic wood combustion emissions, 37% down, 53% up and 36% down, 50% up of the mean value (95% confidence interval limits), respectively. For traffic exhaust emissions, the uncertainties were lower, 11% down, 13% up. Uncertainties in the domestic combustion emission factors were the most important individual parameters accounting for total uncertainty.
Epidemiology and Functional Outcome of Head Injury in Rural Kenya

Background : Head injury is a major cause of disability, morbidity, and mortality and is responsible for a significant proportion of all traumatic deaths. The aim of this study was to document the epidemiology and factors influencing functional recovery in patients treated for head injury in a rural institution in Kenya. Methods : A retrospective analysis of 209 patients admitted to the surgical unit at Consolata Hospital and diagnosed with head injury between January 2009 and December 2012. Outcome was assessed according to the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) score at the time of discharge from hospital. Results : There were 180 men (86.1%) and 29 women (13.9%). The median age was 30 years. Road traffic accidents (56.7%), assault (23.9%), and falls (15.4%) were the leading causes of head injury. The distribution of head injury severity was mild in 72.5%, moderate in 9%, and severe in 18.5%. Good functional recovery was achieved by 139(66.5%) of the patients in our series, whereas moderate and severe disability accounted for 18.2% and 5.3% while mortality accounted for 10%. Increasing age (p=0.006), a lower GCS score at admission, pupillary abnormalities, a history of loss of consciousness and admission into our Intensive Care Unit were all associated with poorer outcomes (p<0.000). Conclusion : Outcome depended on age, initial GCS score, pupillary abnormalities, history of loss of consciousness and admission into our Intensive Care Unit. These findings can be used to improve the management criteria in rural hospitals but we recommend establishment of a standardized surveillance system for head injuries to aid in development of new, more effective, targeted prevention strategies. Key Words : Head injury, Outcome, Epidemiology, Incidence
Low Temperature Direct Bonding between PEEK (Polyetheretherketone) and Pt via Vapor-Assisted Vacuum Ultraviolet Surface Modification

Direct bonding between PEEK (polyetheretherketone) and Pt was achieved at 150 °C via a vapor-assisted VUV (vacuum ultraviolet) surface modification method. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed that the PEEK and Pt outer surfaces were modified with hydrate bridge layers. A model calculation of gas content during VUV irradiation suggested that the water vapor molar concentration should be optimized to no more than 0.088 mol/m. The strain energy release rate calculation indicated that the energy required to debond the PEEK-Pt interface reached 270 mN/m, which was higher than the energy required to break the bulk PEEK (42 mN/m). SEM observation of fractured PEEK-Pt bonding agreed well with the calculation result that the fracture occurred within PEEK substrate. Thus, the PEEK-Pt bonding was considered strong enough. This technology is expected to be applied in biomedical MEMS applications.
Codificación de red y sus aplicaciones. network codificatin and its applications

This paper presents an overview of a new technique in the field of information theory called network coding. Network coding has become a promising and active research topic in networking. Several benefits related to the flow of information such as the optimal use of bandwidth and reduced delays in end-to-end networks have been reported in literature. Our work in this paper focuses mainly on the following aspects of network coding: model approach, application areas and benefits obtained by using this technique. The issues discussed in this paper cover both fixed and mobile networks. The aim of this paper is to show the reader the importance and potential of this technique and the applications being developed around it.
A User-Centered Approach for Social Recommendations

Recommender Systems represent useful tools helping users to find "what they need" from a very large number of candidates and supporting people in making decisions in several contexts. In this paper, we propose a novel user-centered and social recommendation approach in which several aspects related to users, i.e., preferences, opinions, behavior, feedbacks, are considered and integrated together with items' features and context information within a general framework that can support different applications using proper customizations (e.g., recom- mendation of news, photos, movies, travels, etc.). Preliminary experiments on system accuracy show how our approach provides very promising and interesting results. Keywords-Recommender Systems; Sentiment Analysis; Context- Awareness.