Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lignes de propagation intégrées à fort facteur de qualité en technologie CMOS. Application à la synthèse de circuits passifs millimétriques

L’objectif de ces travaux est le developpement en technologie integree standard d’une topologiede ligne de propagation optimisee en termes de pertes, d’encombrement et de facteur de qualiteaux frequences millimetriques. Cette topologie nommee S-CPW (Shielded CoPlanarWaveguide) utilise le phenomene d’ondes lentes afin de miniaturiser longitudinalement la ligned’un facteur compris entre 1,3 et 3,2 par rapport a des topologies classiques. Disposantegalement de faibles pertes, les lignes developpees presentent un facteur de qualite eleve parfoissuperieur a 40, a 60 GHz. A partir de l’etude du champ electromagnetique dans la structure, unmodele electrique a ete developpe. C’est le premier modele dans la litterature prenant en compteles pertes dans ce type de guide d’onde. Plusieurs dispositifs passifs integres realises avec deslignes S-CPW dans differentes technologies CMOS ont ete caracterises jusqu’a 110GHz. Lacompacite et les faibles pertes d’insertion obtenues pour la mesure de filtres a stubs et dediviseurs de puissance permettent de reussir l’integration de circuits passifs compacts entechnologie microelectronique CMOS standard aux frequences millimetriques.
Using boolean and fuzzy logic combined with analytic hierarchy process for hazardous waste landfill site selection: A case study from Hormozgan province, Iran

Hazardous wastes include numerous kinds of discarded chemicals and other wastes generated from industrial, commercial, and institutional activities. These types of waste present immediate or long-term risks to humans, animals, plants, or the environment and therefore require special handling for safe disposal. Landfills that can accept hazardous wastes are excavated or engineered sites where these special types of waste can be disposed of securely. Since landfills are permanent sites, special attention must be afforded in selecting the location. This paper investigated the use of the Boolean theory and Fuzzy logic in combination with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methods by applying GIS and IDRISI software for the selection of a hazardous waste landfill site in the Iranian province of Hormozgan. The best location was determined via the Fuzzy and the Boolean methodologies. By collating the area selected for the hazardous waste landfill, this study found that Fuzzy logic with an AND operator had the best options for this purpose. In the end, the most suitable area for a hazardous waste landfill was about 1.6 km2 which was obtained by employing Fuzzy in combination with AHP and by using an AND operator. In addition, all the fundamental criteria affecting the landfill location were considered.
Acceptance of Smart Phone by Younger Consumers in Malaysia

The sales of smart phone are rapidly increasing in Malaysia and in the global markets. Which means that, smart phone has a great opportunity in the future growth of the mobile industry. The aim of this research is to determine the acceptance of smart phone by younger consumers in Malaysia. A total of 113 useable questionnaires was collected and analyzed through SPSS. Google doc form was utilized to create the online questionnaire. The data collection method utilized in this paper was online interview. The result shows that, perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), and Internet self-efficacy (ISE) significantly influenced the acceptance of smart phone by younger consumers in Malaysia. However, no relationship exists among Internet self-efficacy, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Future studies should explore more on other factors to determine the acceptance of smart phone.
Personality traits, fair division strategy equity preferences and levels of trust

Fair division strategies involve the splitting up of resources in such a way that each participant receives a fair or equitable share. Factors which may influence the preference of these strategies have been the subject of much research in both the economical and psychological fields. These include the big five traits of agreeableness, extraversion and gender, age and education levels. 110 participants completed a questionnaire measuring big five trait levels and measuring equity of division strategy preferences in partner, network and general trust level scenarios. The study showed a positive relationship between extraversion and higher education levels with equity of fair division strategies and a preference for more equitable strategies for closer trust levels.
Effects of stocking-density in flow-through system on the mussel Perna perna larval survival

This study evaluated the effects of larval densities, cultured in flow-through system, in the yield and quantity of larvae. The first experiment compared the larval yield of a flow­through system (80 larvae mL -1 ) and a batch system (8 larvae mL -1 ), which resulted in a higher yield and number of larvae in the flow­through system, after 23 days. The second experiment compared two larval densities (20 and 45 larvae mL -1 ) in flow­through system. The densities affected the yield after 15 and 23 days and the larvae final quantity after all tested times (8, 15, and 23 days). After 23 days of larviculture, the yield was highest for 20 larvae mL -1 and the larval number for 45 larvae mL -1 . The third experiment also compared two larval densities (100 and 150 larvae mL -1 ) in flow­through system. The larvae densities did not affect the yield and number of larvae for all tested times (8, 15, and 23 days). In general, the yield has reduced at higher larval densities. Therefore, considering the number of suitable larvae for settlement, the flow-through system was more efficient than the static system. However, in general, we observed reduced yield with high larval stocking-density in flow-through system.
Evidence for transient, local ion foreshocks caused by dayside magnetopause reconnection

Abstract. We present a scenario resulting in time-dependent behaviour of the bow shock and transient, local ion reflection under unchanging solar wind conditions. Dayside magnetopause reconnection produces flux transfer events driving fast-mode wave fronts in the magnetosheath. These fronts push out the bow shock surface due to their increased downstream pressure. The resulting bow shock deformations lead to a configuration favourable to localized ion reflection and thus the formation of transient, travelling foreshock-like field-aligned ion beams. This is identified in two-dimensional global magnetospheric hybrid-Vlasov simulations of the Earth's magnetosphere performed using the Vlasiator model ( http://vlasiator.fmi.fi ). We also present observational data showing the occurrence of dayside reconnection and flux transfer events at the same time as Geotail observations of transient foreshock-like field-aligned ion beams. The spacecraft is located well upstream of the foreshock edge and the bow shock, during a steady southward interplanetary magnetic field and in the absence of any solar wind or interplanetary magnetic field perturbations. This indicates the formation of such localized ion foreshocks.
Sukuk and Conventional Bonds: Shareholder Wealth Perspective

Purpose This study aims to comprehensively examine the stock market effects of announcements by firms to issue conventional bonds versus Sukuk. In addition, the authors investigate whether the choice of instrument depends on the tax status and government backing of the issuing firm. They split the sample into whole (2000-2015), pre-crisis (2000-2007) and post-crisis (2010-2015) subsamples. Design/methodology/approach The authors use event study methodology, market model and FTSE Bursa Malaysia EMAS index on 14 different event windows of which five are symmetric and nine are asymmetric. Further, parametric and distribution-free tests are used to investigate the difference of cumulative abnormal returns when using the two instruments (Sukuk and conventional bonds). For the choice of issuing conventional bonds or Sukuk, Heckman procedure is employed to control for the self-selection of the announcement effects. Findings The analysis indicates only insignificant difference in reaction to Sukuk and conventional bond issuances for the overall period and pre-crisis period. However, and importantly, they find strong evidence supporting the Malaysian stock abnormal return reaction to Sukuk compared to conventional bond issuances after the global financial crisis. Interestingly, they find that tax incentives and government backing are significant determinants in issuing Sukuk over conventional bonds. Such evidence is confirmed when using a wide range of robustness checks including four different market indices and both parametric and non-parametric tests. Research limitations/implications The empirical analysis is subject to limitations. First, the sample is limited to Sukuk issues domiciled in Malaysia. Second, given that Sukuk are collateralized whereas conventional bonds are not, it would only seem logical for the former to be issued by riskier firms whereas the latter would be issued by stronger firms with stable cash flows. The future research can explore this issue some more. Finally, comparing Sukuk with other similar ethical sources of traded capital may provide insights into the globalization of such economic, trade and financial reforms in and outside Malaysia. Originality/value To the author’s knowledge, no research has been conducted studying the differential and conflicting results to announcement of Sukuk issuance in the literature, nor the stock market effects of announcements to issue Sukuk over the pre-crisis (2000-2007) and post-crisis (2010-2015) periods. Thus, the study attempts to assess previous findings and contribute additional evidence that investigates the issue in rich setting.
Solving OLG Models with Many Cohorts, Asset Choice and Large Shocks

The paper presents a computationally efficient method to solve overlapping generations models with asset choice. The method is used to study an OLG economy with many cohorts, up to 3 different assets, stochastic volatility, short-sale constraints, and subject to rather large technology shocks. On the methodological side, the main findings are that global projection methods with polynomial approximations of degree 3 are sufficient to provide a very precise solution, even in the case of large shocks. Globally linear approximations, in contrast to local linear approximations, are sufficient to capture the most important financial statistics, including not only the average risk premium, but also the variation of the risk premium over the cycle. However, global linear approximations are not sufficient to reliably pin down asset choices. With a risk aversion parameter of only 4, the model generates a price of risk, measured as the Sharpe ratio, that is almost half of what it is for US stocks. However, the asset price fluctuations and the equity premium are much smaller than in US data.
Presentación de una encuesta para la realización de estudios sociales sobre el impacto del ruido urbano

espanolTomando como referencia la amplia bibliografia existente con relacion a los efectos y molestias subjetivas del ruido urbano sobre el ciudadano, se ha elaborado una encuesta en la que se han recogido todos aquellos puntos de interes que en mayor o menor medida pueden ser aplicables al estudio de la molestia producida por el ruido en cualquier entorno urbano. La encuesta elaborada permite, ademas, poder realizar un estudio general sobre el entorno mas cercano al ciudadano y su grado de satisfaccion con dicho entorno. Dado su caracter modular, es posible variar su extension en funcion de la investigacion concreta que se desee realizar. EnglishIt has been developed an opinion poll considering the broad bibliography related with the subjective effects and annoyance due to urban noise on the citizens, where most of the relevant aspects related with the annoyance or bother produced by the urban noise has been considered. Our opinion poll also allows making a general study about the environment of the citizens and their degree of satisfaction with this environment. Due to its modular condition, the extension of this opinion poll can be changed as a function of the research in progress.
THE TECHNOLOGY MAPPING METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING THE CONSTRUCTION PERFORMANCE

Globalization and increased international competitiveness point at the need for on-going improvement of the effectiveness of the industries in terms of the achievement of the quality and quantity of the required production output and the efficiency of the production processes. The Technology Status and Technological Capabilities are indicated to play an important role in the production performance of industries in literature of the last decade. Adequate management and policy plans that should be formulated to enhance an improved production performance in industries require insight in the actual status of technologies and technological capabilities in the production sector. This insight forms the basis for the development of new products and production systems. Benchmarking the performance -including the state of art of technologies and technological capabilities- enables the management of firms and the policy makers in industries to compare their performance with industry norms and market expectations and improve the major factors that have an impact on this. A proper methodology to benchmark the construction performance and to map the essential elements that have an impact on this is not readily available. This paper describes the principles of the so-called Technology Mapping Methodology that was developed and the results of its application in the construction industry. The key-elements in the theoretic framework that forms the basis for this methodology includes the market requirements and expectations, the status of technological capabilities, the technology status and the production performance and the socio-economic development status of the country. The last element is useful for international comparisons of the production performance which enhances the value of the benchmarking in the perspective of the increasing international competitiveness. The studies rendered a considerable amount of valuable data that could serve to support Construction Management and Policy Making with the objective to improve the Construction Performance. It also discusses the need for further research to establish a technology database similar to the existing socioeconomic databases in the countries.
A Two-Step Approach for Optimal Control of Kinetic Batch Reactor with electroneutrality condition

In the article a Multi-Step Solution Technique were used. This technique enables to translate a complex optimal control problem to easier nonlinear programming problems. Efficiency of the designed algorithm was verified on a real-live optimal control problem of a stiff and highly nonlinear differential-algebraic system with constraints. One of the algebraic state equations takes the form of an electroneutrality condition, which ensures failure-free run of the production process. The simulations were executed in MATLAB, which is a commonly known programming environment. Streszczenie. W artykule wykorzystano technikȩ wieloetapowego poszukiwania rozwiazania. W ten sposob zlozony problem sterowania optymalnego mozna traktowac jako grupȩ prostszych problemow programowania nieliniowego. Dzialanie wykorzystanego w pracy algorytmu najlepiej widac na problemie doboru optymalnego sterownia dla zlozonego ukladu opisanego za pomoca nieliniowych rownan rozniczkowo-algebraicznych z ograniczeniami. Jedno z algebraicznych rownan stanu przybiera postac warunku elektronetralności zapewniajacego bezawaryjny przebieg procesu. Symulacje zostaly przeprowadzone w środowisku MATLAB. (Dwustopniowe podejście do sterowania optymalnego reaktorem wsadowym z warunkiem elektroobojȩtności)
Scaffolding students' knowledge integration: prompts for reflection in KIE

Encouraging students to be autonomous is an important goal of the scaffolded knowledge integration framework. Knowledge integration requires students to expand their repertoire of ideas but unless those ideas are reflected upon, they cannot be linked to and reconciled with current ideas. Students are capable of doing this kind of reflection but, many need scaffolding. Scaffolding here in the form of reflection prompts can help students be autonomous integrators of their knowledge. This research investigated learning and design questions. It determined whether reflection prompts promote knowledge integration for students working on science projects and investigated the effects of students' different dispositions on their reflection. It explored which characteristics of prompts best support students in knowledge integration. The learning results indicate that prompting students to reflect significantly increases knowledge integration in science projects. Yet similar prompts elicit qualitatively diverse responses from students. Students who focus on their ideas perform significantly better on the end product than do other students who focus on their actions or activities. Furthermore, students who indicate that they understand everything perform significantly worse on the final project than do other students. The design results show that self-monitoring prompts, which encourage planning for and reflection on activities, help students to demonstrate an integrated understanding of the relevant science; while activity prompts, which guide the inquiry process, are less successful in prompting knowledge integration.
GENERATION DE PARCOURS RECOMMANDES DANS UN WEB COMMUNAUTAIRE

Ce papier presente des recherches en cours dans l'equipe Bases de Donnees du LTCI sur un des aspects de la semantique dont on cherche a doter le web: le "parcours" de lecture (ou de visite) qui obeit a une intention narrative, demonstrative ou pedagogique (decouverte, initiation, interpretation.) et qui exprime une "recommandation" d'auteur (guide, demonstrateur ou pedagogue). On se situe dans le contexte des sites construits par une communaute partageant un meme schema de connaissances (une ontologie) dans son domaine specifique (astronomes amateurs, enseignants en informatique.), mais dans lequel les roles de collecteur, d'indexeur et de concepteur de parcours sont distingues. On suppose que les concepteurs font beaucoup de reutilisation des ressources documentaires collectees par la communaute et que leur "creativite" est plus dans l'invention de nouveaux plans ou parcours (c'est a dire de documents "virtuels" composant de facons nouvelles des fragments de documents deja crees). Une maquette a ete realisee (en PHP/mySQL et Java) pour valider une architecture fonctionnelle destinee a preparer la generation automatique de "parcours recommandes" comme un des composants du portail que la communaute pourrait offrir a "son public".
Making Project Groups Work II: The Impact of Group Process Training and Role Assignment on the Performance and Perception of Information Systems Project Teams.

Many project teams in organizations are highly structured, members have clearly defined roles, and they possess knowledge about how to effectively manage their projects and meetings. On the other hand, students in educational environments lack significant experience working in teams. Therefore, student teams are often poorly structured, members commonly have difficulty developing functional roles, and communication and coordination problems persist. The research described in this paper demonstrated the impact of these problems by interjecting two interventions in student project teams in a core business course on information systems at East Carolina University (North Carolina) : training on group process and the role assignment. The results of a controlled experiment show that both interventions had positive impacts on student project teams. Team members that were assigned roles reported higher cohesion and produced higher quality projects than did team members in the control group. Furthermore, cohesion and project quality was highest in teams that received both training and role assignments. Findings and implications for future research are discussed. Figures present: dependent/independent variables; student roles; training session topics; sequence of data collection and course instructors; means/standard deviation scores for dependent measures; and trends in cohesion data for treatments/time periods. (Contains 28 references.)
Effects of Mergers and Acquisitions on Profitability and Earnings Per Share of Selected Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria

Firms adopt mergers and acquisitions as a strategy for growth and to enhance profitability. This study examines the effects of mergers and acquisitions on profitability and Earnings per Share of selected deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study utilized secondary data obtained from the Annual financial reports of the banks under study. Analysis of pre- and post -merger data were carried out. Two hypotheses were developed and tested. Independent Sample t- test and Simple regression analysis were used to the hypotheses. Results revealed that there was a significant difference in profits between the periods as profits improvement tremendously immediately after the mergers. It was also revealed that there was significant effect of global financial crisis on EPS. The study recommends that Bail-out funds should be provided the banks in need as done to union bank and others. It also recommends that proper legal framework should be instituted to mitigate the effect of post global financial crisis. Key words: Merger, Acquisition, Profitability, Earnings per Share, Global Financial Crisis
Architecting Business and IS/IT Strategic Alignment for Extended Enterprises

Incorporating information systems and information technology (IS/IT) is badly needed in extended enterprises. For this purpose, the enterprise engineering approach offers important benefits; however there is no complete framework to define and model IS/IT components and their strategic alignment with the business strategy. This paper presents an enterprise architecture framework for extended enterprises which improves not only the strategic alignment process inside each individual company, but also the strategic alignment process for the extended enterprise. The main aim of this paper is to provide a modelling framework from the enterprise engineering approach which includes the components to model the IS/IT strategy and allow the extended enterprise to improve strategic alignment process. A comparative analysis has been done of lifecycle phases, modelling views and the strategic alignment between different enterprise architectures. Next, the required building blocks have been proposed: IS/IT conceptualization, strategic dependencies, alignment heuristics, maturity model and application portfolio (as-is and to-be). This proposal has been applied in the collaborative order management process of a ceramic tile company with its suppliers and consumers.