Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A study on the Dynamic Capabilities in Higher Education Institutions ~ Examination on the variation of business organizations from educational settings ~

This study purported to explore the dynamic capabilities of facilitating educational improvement in Taiwanese universities of technology, and to further investigate the structural relationships among the five domains of dynamic capabilities. Research data were collected from a sample of 278 administrative personnel in universities of technology, and then analyzed undertaking Ridit Analysis Method, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Based on conclusions, several concrete recommendations were finally provided for the educational improvement in universities of technology and future researches.
The Representation, Generalized Binet Formula and Sums of The Generalized Jacobsthal p-Sequence

In this study, a new generalization of the usual Jacobsthal sequence is presented, which is called the generalized Jacobsthal p-sequence. The generating matrix, the generalized Binet formula, the generating functions and the combinatorial representations of the generalized Jacobsthal p-sequence are investigated. Moreover, certain sum formulae consisting of the terms of the generalized Jacobsthal p-sequence are given. Keywords: Jacobsthal sequence; Generating matrix; Binet formula; Combinatorial representation DOI: 10.17350/HJSE19030000038 Full Text:
New Screens and Young People: Crossing Times and Boundaries what roles do they play in their everyday life

New information and communications technologies have become extremely dynamic. While content in the past was more or less controlled and regulated, it is now more and more free to access, and increasingly independent of any formal institutional framework. Images on screens, which used to be viewed on different platforms in specific locations and at more predictable times, now cross through space and time, and this particularly for the younger generations. Some questions arise in this context: what is the role and what are the effects, for example, of film content and video games on young people? What role does rating systems play with respect to these young people and their parents? In order to answer such questions, we need to understand their needs, expectations and skills. Some consider young people to be passive, easy to manipulate, unaware of their values and entirely lacking in critical thinking skills. Others see them instead as active users, capable of using knowledge and competencies. Given our objectives, we chose a qualitative approach designed to take young people’s everyday environment into account in the construction of their relationships to on-screen images. Family interviews (semi-structured interview guides), logbooks and digital video cameras were used to gather information in the families. Discussion groups were held with young people and parents separately and evaluation groups with young people aged 14-16 were held in our research facilities. Answers to such questions about the effects of images were found to be complex and full of nuances, despite the fact that there are some who would want simple yes or no answers that support their views. “This invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. ″ Plato, Pheadrus, 275b, 300 B.C.
Lifestyle Intervention and Weight Reduction for Obese Elderly as to Flailty and Sarcopenia

In many countries, one of the medical serious problem has been increasing metabolic syndrome (Met-S) such as obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Consequently, several kinds of nutritional therapies have been continued including Calorie Restriction (CR), low carbohydrate diet (LCD) and other diets. Weight reduction has been effective for treatment of these patients, and various trials have been reported so far concerning diet, exercise, weight reduction and intensive lifestyle intervention (ILI).
title : A metaheuristic method to design off-grid community electrification projects with renewable energies

1) Matteo Ranaboldo Affiliation and address: The Technical University of Catalonia Department of Mechanical Engineering 2) Alberto García-Villoria Affiliation and address: The Technical University of Catalonia Institute of Industrial and Control Engineering 3) Laia Ferrer-Martí Affiliation and address: The Technical University of Catalonia Department of Mechanical Engineering 4) Rafael Pastor Moreno Affiliation and address: The Technical University of Catalonia Institute of Industrial and Control Engineering
Half‐day to full‐day kindergarten: an analysis of educational change scores and demonstration of an educational research collaboration

The benefits of all‐day kindergarten are increasingly supported by educational policy groups. Rigorous, prospective empirical research is impractical for schools of limited fiscal means where education must take priority over institutional research. However, post‐hoc analyses of archival and informal measures can provide invaluable information concerning educational issues of national concern. A method of university and elementary school collaboration was employed in evaluating the educational effects of a transition from half‐day to full‐day kindergarten in an economically challenged suburban–rural school district in Maine. A child developmental scale and educational measures were used to evaluate differences in improvement scores between children enrolled in half‐day kindergarten one year and children enrolled in full‐day kindergarten the following year. Additional measures addressed parent and teacher attitudes toward full‐day kindergarten. Overall, children enrolled in full‐day kindergarten showed greater improvement than children in half‐day kindergarten. Results of teacher and parent questionnaires indicated a high degree of satisfaction with full‐day kindergarten. The research effort, based on a service learning model, provided a cost‐effective strategy for recovering and analyzing archival data.
Consumption and the Rebound Effect: An Industrial Ecology Perspective

Measures taken to protect the environment often have other, unintended effects on society. One concern is that changed behavior may offset part of the environmental gain, something that has variously been labeled “take‐back” or “rebound. ” In energy economics, the rebound effect encompasses both the behavioral and systems responses to cost reductions of energy services as a result of energy efficiency measures. From an industrial ecology perspective, we are concerned about more than just energy use. Any given efficiency measure has several types of environmental impacts. Changes in the various impact indicators are not necessarily in the same direction. Both co‐benefits and negative side effects of measures directed to solve one type of problem have been identified. Environment is often a free input, so that a price‐based rebound effect is not expected, but other indirect effects not connected to the price, such as spillover of environmental behavior, also occur. If the costs and impact of products that are already environmentally friendly are reduced, the “rebound” can be in the opposite, desired direction. Furthermore, I identify technical spillover effects. Hence a number of related effects, often producing positive results, are not as well understood. Household environmental impact assessments and eco‐efficiency assessments take into account the rebound effect, but they do not necessarily take into account these other effects. The analysis hence indicates that the current focus on the rebound effect is too narrow and needs to be extended to cover co‐benefits, negative side effects, and spillover effects.
Control as a key success factor in supply chain alliances

Research into supply chain alliances has identified a number of key success factors. However, alliance success has not been systematically linked to the control mechanisms employed used in them. We argue that alliance partners need to balance trust building and control mechanisms and that the optimal level of control and trust varies with the alliance form. In this paper we propose a theoretical model that refines and extends the existing alliance success models in supply chain management by introducing control mechanisms as a key success factor and the alliance form as a moderator of trust and control.
Effect of Nitrate Adaptation on the Bactericidal Activity of an Experimental Chlorate Product Against Escherichia coliin Cattle

An experimental chlorate product (ECP) developed by the United States Department of Agriculture has been shown to have bac- tericidal effects against enteropathogens such as Escherichia coli. In studies with broilers and pigs, the bactericidal activity of ECP was enhanced by prior adaptation of gastrointestinal microflora to nitrate. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of nitrate adaptation on the bacterici- dal activity of ECP against E colii n
Greatest Eigenvalue Time Vector Approach for Blind Detection of Malicious Traffic

Recently, blind techniques have been applied to detect malicious traffic and attacks in honeypots. The honeypot traffic can be divided into legitimate and malicious traffic, where the legitimate traffic corresponds to DHCP, broadcasting, and synchronization. In practice, other servers connected to the network may be also targets for attacks and malicious traffic. Therefore, it is crucial to develop detection techniques for malicious traffic for such computers. In this paper, we propose a solution that blindly detects malicious traffic for any computer connected to the network. We validate our proposed solution considering two types of malicious traffic: synflood and portscan. Keywords—Eigenvalue Decomposition; Model Order Selection; Detection.
The African rain forest : main characteristics of changes in vegetation and climate from the Upper Cretaceous to the Quaternary

This chapter sets out to give a historical overview of the African rain forest from its origins, towards the end of the Cretaceous period. The areas around the Gulf of Guinea, in particular from Ivory Coast to Nigeria and especially Cameroon, Gabon and Congo, appear to have been already occupied at this time by wet tropical forest formations mainly composed of Angiosperms which were then becoming established. In the course of the Tertiary period the combined effect of the equator being situated further north than now and the development of the Antarctic ice cap favoured the development of wet tropical conditions over a large part of North Africa which in turn led to the extension of tropical forest to various sites on the shores of the Tethys Sea. There were probably at this time common taxa and similar vegetation patterns stretching from the Gulf of Guinea to the Tethys Sea. Towards the end of the Tertiary, the equator reached its present position and the northern hemisphere ice caps appeared, and these phenomena resulted in the disappearance of the forest formations spread across the north of Africa, and the concentration of these formations near the equatorial zone around the Gulf of Guinea and in the Congo–Zaire basin. From 800 000 years ago onwards the marked glacial variations at middle and high latitudes in both hemispheres, with a periodicity of about 100 000 years determined by the orbital variations of the earth around the sun, lowered temperatures in equatorial areas and brought arid climates at times of maximum glacial extension. The most arid periods resulted in the fragmentation of the forest cover, and the forest biotopes and their biodiversity were preserved in a series of refugia. The lowering of temperatures also resulted in the extension of montane flora to low altitudes, with migration of montane flora and fauna between main mountain ranges. These compounded phenomena of isolation and migration, probably involving genie exchange, must have resulted in numerous speciation phenomena. Subsequently, such montane flora or fauna became isolated on mountain areas during periods of maximum warming, in the last instance in the course of the Holocene, when a vast forest cover became re-established from Guinea westwards, and to the East as far as the Lake Victoria area. The phases of maximum fragmentation, which appear to have been connected with only the coldest periods – in the last instance during the second part of isotopic stages 6 (from c. 160 to 130 000 years) and 2 (from c. 24 to 12000 years BP) – relate to less than 10% of the last 800 000 years, and the phases of maximum forest extension would likewise appear to be less than 10% of the period. The remaining 80–90% of the time relates to ‘intermediate situations’ which varied from period to period, and these intermediate extension situations seem to have been the norm over the larger part of the Quaternary, rather than the present situation which is closer to a situation of maximum extension.
Hepatitis C Virus-Specific Th17 Cells Are Suppressed by Virus-Induced TGF-β1

IL-17-secreting T (Th17) cells play a protective role in certain bacterial infections, but they are major mediators of inflammation and are pathogenic in organ-specific autoimmune diseases. However, human Th17 cells appear to be resistant to suppression by CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ regulatory T cells, suggesting that they may be regulated by alternative mechanisms. Herein we show that IL-10 and TGF-β suppressed IL-17 production by anti-CD3-stimulated PBMC from normal individuals. TGF-β also suppressed IL-17 production by purified CD4+ T cells, whereas the inhibitory effect of IL-10 on IL-17 production appears to be mediated predominantly by its effect on APC. An examination of patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) demonstrated that Ag-specific Th17 cells are induced during infection and that these cells are regulated by IL-10 and TGF-β. PBMC from HCV Ab-positive donors secreted IL-17, IFN-γ, IL-10, and TGF-β in response to stimulation with the HCV nonstructural protein 4 (NS4). Furthermore, NS4 induced innate TGF-β and IL-10 expression by monocytes from normal donors and at higher levels from HCV-infected patients. Neutralization of TGF-β, and to a lesser extent IL-10, significantly enhanced NS4-specific IL-17 and IFN-γ production by T cells from HCV-infected donors. Our findings suggest that both HCV-specific Th1 and Th17 cells are suppressed by NS4-induced production of the innate anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-10 and TGF-β. This may represent a novel immune subversion mechanism by the virus to evade host-protective immune responses. Our findings also suggest that TGF-β and IL-10 play important roles in constraining the function of Th17 cells in general.
Heterogeneity in distribution of An. gambiae s.l and 2La chromosomal inversion in western Kenya

Environmental heterogeneity determines the distribution of disease vectors. Understanding vector distribution is important in evaluating malaria control measures. An assessment of distribution of An. gambiae was undertaken in lowand high-elevation zones of western Kenya based on 2La inversion. An. gambiae s.s. comprised 90.3% in high-elevation zones while An. arabiensis was 76% in low-elevation zone. The 2La inversion which facilitates local adaptation to degree of aridity showed significant variations in distribution of the two alternative arrangements. Frequency of inverted arrangement (2La) was 14.3% in high-elevation and 52% in low-elevation zones. Frequency of standard arrangement (2La+) was 57.1% in high-elevation and 25% low-lying zones. Observations were that vector species are differentially distributed and adapted to environmental heterogeneities in study areas. Heterogeneous vector system complicates malaria control targeting vector as observed elsewhere in Africa. An. gambiae s.s. along altitudinal gradient deviated significantly from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium suggesting restricted gene flow, which could relate to differences in microclimatic conditions.
Conservation of microsatellite regions across legume genera increases marker repertoire in pigeonpea

Microsatellite markers from chickpea, common bean, fieldpea and lentil were studied for their transferability and ability to reveal polymorphism in pigeonpea with an objective to use them in linkage map construction and tagging of agronomically important traits. Out of total one hundred and sixty three genic and genomic markers from four legume genera screened on six pigeonpea genotypes, 58 were found to be transferable in pigeonpea. Maximum transferability (47%) was shown by markers from common bean, followed by lentil, fieldpea and chickpea. The average polymorphism information content value with genic and genomic markers was found to be 0.60 to 0.50 respectively. These transferable markers will add to the pool of available markers for genotyping and mapping of important traits in Cajanus. This study also demonstrated that genic markers are not only transferable across genera but also are at par with genomic markers in detecting polymorphism.
Global Land Grabbing and Trajectories of Agrarian Change: A Preliminary Analysis

‘Land grab’ has become a catch-all phrase to refer to the current explosion of (trans)national commercial land transactions mainly revolving around the production and export of food, animal feed, biofuels, timber and minerals. Two key dimensions of the current land grab – namely, the politics of changes in land use and property relations change (and the links between them) – are not sufficiently explored in the current literature.We attempt to address this gap by offering a preliminary analysis through an analytical approach that suggests some typologies as a step towards a fuller and better understanding of the politics of global land grabbing.
Economic Growth , Labour Market and Demographic Patterns DIVISIÓN

The purpose of this work is to study the dynamic interaction between income growth, demographic variables pattems and labour market characterístics. We develop a general and simple framework of economic growth with unemployment, endogenous population growth and age structure. Our dynamic results show a potential role for state intervention and institutions in order to enhance growth or smooth out its irregular pattern. Unemployment rate and per capita income dynamics fluctuate along cycles of different períods, and they may even ha ve aperiodic paths. The characterístics of labour market institutions are an endogenous source of instability. In particular, as the rigidity of the labour market lacreases, the possibility of irregular behaviour increases as well. Next, we show how the introduction of endogenous population growth generates a demographic transition that affects the dynamics of unemployment and economic growth rate. Speciffically, the entrance of the young population to the labour forcé could smooth fluctuations caused by labour market rígidities. However, this stabilising factor would dissappear by the delayed entrance into the labour market due to the age structure mechanism. The delay, corresponding to the Malthusian cycle, is one source of endogenous oscillations and economic growth. The paper aims to contribute to the literature that studies understand the origin and nature of long run macroeconomic fluctuations in economic growth models.
Pursuing Credibility in Performance Evaluation of VoIP over Wireless Mesh Networks

There has been an increasingly interest in real-time multimedia services over wireless networks in the last few years, for the most part due to the proliferation of powerful mobile devices, and the potential ubiquity of wireless networks. Nevertheless, there are some constraints that make their deployment over Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) somewhat difficult. Due to the dynamics of WMNs, there are significant challenges in the design and optimization of such services. Impairments like packet loss, delay and jitter affects the end-to-end speech quality (Carvalho, 2004). Experimenters have been proposing solutions to the challenges found so far, and comparing them before implementation is a mandatory task. There exists a necessity of designing efficient tools for enhancing the computational effort of the performance modeling and analysis of VoIP over WMNs. Structural complexity of such highly dynamic systems causes that in many situations computer simulation is the only way of investigating their behavior in a controllable manner, allowing the experimenter to conduct independent and repeatable experiments, in addition to the comparison of a large number of system alternatives. Stochastic simulation is a flexible, yet powerful tool for scientifically getting insight into the characteristics of a system being investigated. However, to ensure reproducible results, stochastic simulation imposes its own set of rules. The credibility of a performance evaluation study is greatly affected by the problem formulation, model validation, experimental design, and proper analysis of simulation outcomes. Therefore, a fine-tuning of the parameters within a simulator is indispensable, so that it closely tracks the behavior of a real network. However, the lack of rigor in following the simulation methodology threatens the credibility of the published research (Pawlikowski et al., 2002; Andel & Yasinac, 2006; Kurkowski et al., 2005). The aim of this chapter is to provide a detailed discussion of these aspects. To do so, we used as a starting point the observation that the optimized use of the bandwidth of wireless networks definitely affects the quality of VoIP calls over WMN. Since the payload size of VoIP packets is usually smaller than the header size, much network resource is spent for conveying control information instead of data information. Hence, VoIP header compression is an alternative to reduce the use of the bandwidth needed to transmit control information, thereby increasing the percentage of bandwidth used to carry payload information. 9
Search for double beta decay processes in 106Cd with the help of 106CdWO4 crystal scintillator

A search for the double processes in 106Cd was carried out at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories of the INFN (Italy) with the help of a 106CdWO4 crystal scintillator (215 g) enriched in 106Cd up to 66%. After 6590 h of data taking, new improved half-life limits on the double beta decay processes in 106Cd were established at the level of 10^{19} - 10^{21} yr. A possible resonant enhancement of the neutrinoless2EC processes is estimated in the framework of the QRPA approach. The radioactive contamination of the 106CdWO4 crystal scintillator is reported.
Long-term observation of aerosol-cloud relationships in the Mid-Atlantic of the United States

Abstract. Long-term ground-based observations (2006 to 2010) of aerosol and cloud properties derived from passive radiometric sensors deployed at an atmospheric measurement field station in the Baltimore–Washington corridor operated by Howard University were used to examine aerosol indirect effect on cloud optical depth (COD), liquid water path (LWP), cloud droplets effective radius ( R e ) and cloud droplets number concentration ( N d ). A higher frequency of clouds with large COD (> 20) and small R e ( 2.5 ) value. Evidence of aerosol indirect effect is found where for polluted cases the mean and median values of COD and N d distributions were elevated while the mean and median values of R e were decreased. Further reinforcing this conclusion is the result that the mean and median values of LWP distributions did not show prominent difference between clean and polluted cases, this implies that differences between the two cases of influential factors on cloud properties were relatively controlled. Moreover aerosol indirect effects were found insignificant when LWP was small but significant when LWP was large through the analysis of sensitivity of N d to LWP under different aerosol loading and the measurements of aerosol size distribution.