Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stochastic polarized line formation. I. Zeeman propagation matrix in a random magnetic field

This paper considers the effect of a random magnetic field on Zeeman line transfer, assuming that the scales of fluctuations of the random field are much smaller than photon mean free paths associated to the line formation (micro-turbulent limit). The mean absorption and anomalous dispersion coefficients are calculated for random fields with a given mean value, isotropic or anisotropic Gaussian distributions azimuthally invariant about the direction of the mean field. Following Domke & Pavlov (1979, Ap&SS, 66, 47), the averaging process is carried out in a reference frame defined by the direction of the mean field. The main steps are described in detail. They involve the writing of the Zeeman matrix in the polarization matrix representation of the radiation field and a rotation of the line of sight reference frame. Three types of fluctuations are considered : fluctuations along the direction of the mean field, fluctuations perpendicular to the mean field, and isotropic fluctuations. In each case, the averaging method is described in detail and fairly explicit expressions for the mean coefficients are established, most of which were given in Dolginov & Pavlov (1972, Soviet Ast., 16, 450) or Domke & Pavlov (1979, Ap&SS, 66, 47). They include the effect of a microturbulent velocity field with zero mean and a Gaussian distribution. A detailed numerical investigation of the mean coefficients illustrates the two effects of magnetic field fluctuations: broadening of the \sigma-components by fluctuations of the magnetic field intensity, leaving the \pi-components unchanged, and averaging over the angular dependence of the \pi and \sigma components. For longitudinal fluctuations only the first effect is at play. For isotropic and perpendicular fluctuations, angular averaging can modify the frequency profiles of the mean coefficients quite drastically with the appearance of an unpolarized central component in the diagonal absorption coefficient, even when the mean field is in direction of the line of sight. A detailed comparison of the effects of the three types of fluctuation coefficients is performed. In general the magnetic field fluctuations induce a broadening of the absorption and anomalous dispersion coefficients together with a decrease of their values. Two different regimes can be distinguished depending on whether the broadening is larger or smaller than the Zeeman shift by the mean magnetic field. For isotropic fluctuations, the mean coefficients can be expressed in terms of generalized Voigt and Faraday-Voigt functions $H^{(n)}$ and $F^{(n)}$introduced by Dolginov & Pavlov (1972, Soviet Ast., 16, 450). These functions are related to the derivatives of the Voigt and Faraday-Voigt functions. A recursion relation is given in an Appendix for their calculation. A detailed analysis is carried out of the dependence of the mean coefficients on the intensity and direction of the mean magnetic field, on its root mean square fluctuations and on the Lande factor and damping parameter of the line.
Java Parallel Implementations of Kohonen Self-Organizing Feature Maps

The Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM) is an important tool to find a mapping from high-dimensional space to low dimensional space. The time a SOM requires increases with the number of neurons. A parallel implementation of the algorithm can make it faster. This paper investigates the most recent parallel algorithms on SOMs. Using Java network programming utilities, improved parallel and distributed system are set up to simulate these algorithms. From the simulations, we conclude that those algorithms form good feature maps.
AN IN VI VO STUDY ON THE WOUND HEALING ACTIVITY OF CELLULOSE - CHITOSAN COMPOSITE INCORPORATED WITH SILVER NANOPARTICLES IN ALBINO RATS

Natural polymers are used as compounds for the designing of drugs in the treatment of different ailments. Chitosan and silver nanoparticle h ave proven wound healing properties individually. As both have wound healing property, the combination of these two may show improvement in wound healing activity. Thus, the composite were evaluated for various in vitro evaluation tests to ascertain the ap plicability of prepared combination for wound healing activity. These films were evaluated for water absorption capacity, antibacterial activity, tensile strength and in vivo wound healing studies by excision wound model using albino rats. The drug loaded films have shown significant difference in water absorption capacity and antibacterial activity when compared to optimized blank composite film. There was no significant difference in tensile strength of drug loaded films when compared to blank composite f ilms. Percentage of wound contraction was better for wounds treated with gentamycin loaded composite film than blank composite film. With the above results, it was concluded that gentamycin loaded Chitosan - Cellulose - Silver nanoparticle composite(C - Ch - Ag) f ilms had shown more wound healing properties than Chitosan - Cellulose - Silver nanoparticle
Openness, Uncertainty, and Social Spending: Implications for the Globalization-Welfare State Debate

We extend the literature on openness and spending in developing countries arguing that the effect of increasing openness depends on both regime type and the level of openness. Democracies respond to increases in openness by increasing spending while dictatorships respond by decreasing spending. However, the degree to which countries pursue the strategy of choice depends on the level of openness. In autarkic countries, an increase in import competition has more severe consequences for perceptions of job insecurity and dislocation. In response, government management of openness will be more vigorous under these conditions regardless of whether the leader increases or decreases spending. Economic selection mechanisms at work will produce an outcome wherein, at higher levels of openness, further import liberalization has smaller effects on perceptions of job insecurity and dislocation. Hence, both the demand and the supply of government management of openness will be lower.
Analysis of the Impact of Credit on Smallholder Farmers’ Income, Expenditure and Asset Holding in Edja District, Guraghe Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia

Smallholder farmers in Ethiopia cannot fully utilize improved agricultural technologies and recommended amount of inputs by using their own funds. They need credit to solve the liquidity constraint thereby to properly adopt new technologies. Therefore, the major concern of this study was to assess the impact of credit from MFIs on smallholder farmers’ income, expenditure and asset holding. For the purpose of the study primary data were collected from three sample kebeles. A total of 120 households comprising 60 credit users and 60 non-users were selected randomly from the total number of households of each sampled kebeles. In addition, secondary data were collected from relevant organizations. Propensity Score Matching Technique was employed to analyze the impact of credit on smallholder farmers’ income, expenditure and asset holding. The result of the study revealed that keeping other things constant, access to credit has significant impact on farmers’ income, expenditure and asset holding. Therefore, promoting microfinance institutions in wider range of areas and providing farmers with other factors of production are critical factors that needs be practiced by stakeholders in the study area. Keywords: Micro- finance, Credit, Impact, Propensity Score Matching.
Paper Title: Uber-nization of Transport: An Investigation into the Sustainability of Ride-Sharing Applications in Malaysia

Commuting trips is projected to hit 72 million alongside the urban population growth 75% by 2020. However, transportation mode availability has only grown by 8% over the last 5 years, thereby creating an unfulfilled demand gap in transportation. This has led to delays in public transportation, causing a ripple effect on work productivity. Suppressed demand affects riders’ decision to use public transportation, spurred the use ride-sharing in the past 2 years in Malaysia. The research aims to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of ridesharing services and to identify target segments of ride-sharing users in order to tailor offerings and solutions to them, thus assisting the government and industry to improve the sustainability of the transportation landscape of the country. The integration of the Technology Acceptance Model and Theory of Planned Behaviour adopted for this research aims to understand the adoption usage of the ride sharing app user’s consumer behavior. From a purposive convenient snowball sampling of 107 out 144 samples multiple linear regression and Hayes Process for mediation show significant results between the constructs of Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness, Attitude and Intention in using ride sharing apps. The analysis was followed by a two-step cluster deriving 4 distinct clusters of ride-sharing users with individual consumer behavior and corresponding demographic characteristics. Results of this research can see larger applications replicated across various contextual scenarios and geographies not limited to just the transportation industry.
Data-Driven Misconception Discovery in Constraint-based Intelligent Tutoring Systems

Students often have misconceptions in the domain they are studying. Misconception identification is a difficult task but allows teachers to create strategies to appropriately address misconceptions held by students. This project investigates a data-driven technique to discover students' misconceptions in interactions with constraint-based Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs). This analysis has not previously been done. EER-Tutor is one such constraint-based ITS, which teaches conceptual database design using Enhanced Entity-Relationship (EER) data modelling. As with any ITS, a lot of data about each student's interaction within EER-Tutor are available: as individual student models, containing constraint histories, and logs, containing detailed information about each student action. This work can be extended to other ITSs and their relevant domains.
Natural Gradient Eliminates Plateaus in Multilayer Perceptions Learning

The present memo studies the topological and metrical structures ofthe parameter space of neural networks, in particular multilayer perceptrons. It is important to study such geometrical structures for evaluating learning abilities of various algorithm. We further propose the natural Riemannian gradient learning algorithm which is powerful not only in the asymptotic regime but also in the intermediate regime
Study of Strange Charmed Meson Family Using HQET

Recently LHCb predicted spin 1 and spin 3 states and which are studied through their strong decays and are assigned to fit the and states in the charm spectroscopy. In this paper, using the heavy quark effective theory, we state that assigning as the mixing of states is rather a better justification to its observed experimental values than a pure state. We study its decay modes variation with hadronic coupling constant and the mixing angle . We appoint spin 3 state as the missing state and also study its decay channel behavior with coupling constant . To appreciate the above results, we check the variation of decay modes for their spin partners states, that is, and , with their masses and strong coupling constant, that is, and . Our calculation using HQET approach gives mixing angle of the state for to lie in the range ( radians radians). Our calculation for coupling constant values gives to lie within value range of and to be 0.40. We expect from experiments to observe this mixing angle to verify our results.
Subjective Health and Subjective Well-Being (The Case of EU Countries)

Article presents the concept of subjective health in the context of the structure of subjective well-being. We emphasize the structural link between satisfaction with health as a life domain and satisfaction with a life as a whole within cognitive part of subjective well-being. To explain the link between life satisfaction as a whole and satisfaction with health we apply Needs Conceptual Model of Subjective Well-Being and bottom-up approach. We recognize that objective life domains—life circumstances are mirrored and evaluated by human consciousness. The more or less favourable objective life circumstances are, the better or worse is the satisfaction with them by an individual. From the very general perspective, in empirical part of the article, we present both objective and subjective health situation and the life satisfaction in EU countries. We use Eurostat and European Values Survey data. Satisfaction of needs leads to increased level of subjective weal-being. When objective health by an individual is being compared to the certain standard, it fits in to the system of overall satisfaction with life. It means that the whole process starts at the point of objective health and ends at the point of life satisfaction.
Numerical Investigations of a Reconfigurable Patch Antenna using Thin Ferrite Film

The aim of this work consists of a design and a numerical study of a reconfigurable patch antenna by integrating a thin film of ferrite with a thickness of 50 μm. This antenna is printed on a magneto-dielectric composite substrate. The application of a static magnetic field, that strongly influences the permeability of the ferrite, allows the agility control of the resonant frequency. For this purpose, a patch antenna is studied and designed to operate at 2.45 GHz (suitable for Wi-Fi applications). The obtained results show that the proposed antenna can achieve a tuning in resonant frequency range of 5-87 MHz.
Computing Popov Forms of Polynomial Matrices

This thesis gives a deterministic algorithm to transform a row reduced matrix to canonical Popov form. Given as input a row reduced matrix R over K[x], K a field, our algorithm computes the Popov form in about the same time as required to multiply together over K[x] two matrices of the same dimension and degree as R. Randomization can be used to extend the algorithm for rectangular input matrices of full row rank. Thus we give a Las Vegas algorithm that computes the Popov decomposition of matrices of full row rank. We also show that the problem of transforming a row reduced matrix to Popov form is at least as hard as polynomial matrix multiplication.
Planning for an Uncertain Future: Promoting adaptation to climate change through flexible and forward-looking decision making

The need for decision making that is flexible, forward-looking and able to adapt to the unexpected is clear. One approach for achieving this is 'Flexible and Forward-Looking ​ Decision Making' (FFDM). But what is it, and how can it be operationalised in practice? This report documents the activities of the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA) in seeking to strengthen FFDM among district development actors. It describes research carried out while trialling an innovative and interactive tool to promote FFDM – a ‘game-enabled reflection approach’ – accompanied by capacity-building activities. ACCRA undertook case studies at the district level in three countries; Uganda, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. Building on these three case studies, this report outlines key findings and makes recommendations on how to better support decision making processes for an uncertain future. It does so in view of helping to understand the use of FFDM as well as the effectiveness and limitations of a game-enabled reflection approach.
Antidiabetic and hypolipidemic effects of mahanimbine (carbazole alkaloid) from murraya koenigii (rutaceae) leaves

Murraya koenigii leaves (Rutaceae) are used traditionally in Indian Ayurvedic system to treat diabetes. The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of mahanimbine (carbazole alkaloid from Murraya koenigii leaves) on blood glucose and serum lipid profiles on streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced in adult male Wistar rats by intra-peritoneal injection of streptozotocin (45mg/kg). Mahanimbine (50 and 100mg/kg) were administrated as a single dose per week to the diabetic rats for 30 days. The control group received 0.3% w/v sodium carboxy methyl cellulose for the same duration. Fasting blood sugar and serum lipid profiles were measured in the diabetic and non-diabetic rats. In addition, in vitro alpha amylase and alpha glucosidase inhibitory effects of mahanimbine were performed. Results: In the diabetic rats, the elevated fasting blood sugar, triglycerides, low density lipoprotein, very low density lipoprotein levels were reduced and high density lipoprotein level was increased by mahanimbine at a dose of 50 and 100mg/kg (i.p). In addition, mahanimbine showed appreciable alpha amylase inhibitory effect and weak alpha glucosidase inhibitory effects when compared with acarbose. Conclusions: The present study indicated that mahanimbine possess anti-hyperglycemic and anti-lipidemic effects. Thus results suggesting mahanimbine has beneficial effect in the management of diabetes associated with abnormal lipid profile and related cardiovascular complications. Keywords: Streptozotocin; Hypoglycemic; Hypolipidemic; Mahanimbine
Convective Schrödinger Equation: Insights on the Potential Energy's Role to Wave Particle Decay

In this paper, we coupled the Quantum Mechanics conventional Schrodinger’s equation, for the particles, with the Maxwell’s wave equation, in order to study the potential’s role on the conversion of the electromagnetic field energy to mass and vice versa. We show that the dissipation (“conductivity”) factor and the particle implicit proper frequency are both related to the potential energy. We have also derived a new expression for the Schrodinger’s Equation considering the potential energy into this equation not as an ad hoc term, but also as an operator (Hermitian), which has the scalar potential energy as a natural eigenvalue of this operator.
AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN CREATIVE ADVERTISING AND ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS IN PAKISTAN

The importance of creativity in advertising as one of the primary factor for advertising effectiveness has been much advocated by advertising professionals and academicians particularly in a cluttered media. Industry experts argue that advertisements have to be more creative to break through the greater media clutter and develop an impression for the brand. This study examines the potential effectiveness of award winning television advertisements in Pakistan in both single and three advertising exposures. To ensure a real life advertising situation, both creative and control advertisements were embedded in a television program which were shown to two separate groups of research subjects with single and three advertising exposures respectively. Based on recall of the experimental advertisements in single and three exposures, subjects’ tapped their responses about brand and advertisement attitude and lastly purchase intent. Contrary to expectations, the finding of this study in single exposure does not verify the superior performance of creative advertising in terms of recall, brand and advertisement attitude and purchase intent. However, in three exposures, creative advertisements developed significantly more favorable brand and advertisement attitude and greater unaided brand recall than control advertisements. Creative advertisements developed greater mean purchase intent for the advertised brands than control group of advertisements; however, it just slipped from attaining significance. Being an optimum and more mature response of research participants in three exposures as compared to single exposure, the results of this study in three exposures conclude that creative advertisements are really more effective than conventional advertisements and bestow value to the advertised brands.
at UWindsor

The objective of this paper is to describe the pedagogical and related organizational approaches implemented for mobile learning utilized between a school board and its partnered institutions: Faculties of Education and research institutes. While the two learning events described here were intended to provide mobile ICT-enabled and collaborative learning opportunities for students, the research component of the project was designed to explore the adoption of video-conferencing technology and other collaborative Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) amongst educators. The objective was to evaluate, from the educators’ perspectives, the benefits and obstacles associated with the use of emerging technologies within daily, classroom pedagogy. In order to do so, the authors have chosen two learning events that are very different in terms of their targeted populations, organizational complexity, and pedagogical goals. These learning events were also reflected upon by three in-service teachers from the school board (participants in one of the events), as well as five pre-service teachers, from one of the partner universities, who were observers of the events. A qualitative data analysis process revealed that these two groups have respectively realist and idealist views on ICT integration within schools. The authors concluded that ICT-enabled learning is best adopted through lived experiences and that those may be used to initiate and maintain paradigmatic transition between the various stages of learning on the teacher development continuum (idealist (cid:198) realist (cid:198) realistic-idealist), a process by which teachers become inspired users and promoters of innovative tools for mobile ICT learning in the classroom.
Bidding for nothing? The pitfalls of overly neutral framing

ABSTRACT Neutral framing is a standard tool of experimental economics. However, overly neutral instructions, which lack any contextual clues, can lead to strange behaviour. In a contextless second-price auction for a meaningless good, a majority of subjects enter positive bids – likely a case of cognitive experimenter demand effect. Subjects may interpret the lack of context as being tasked with bidding in the experiment. Adding another auction that has a context drastically reduces the positive bids in the meaningless auction.
Effectiveness of occupational therapy in remediating handwriting difficulties in primary students: cognitive versus multisensory interventions

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of cognitive versus multisensory interventions on handwriting legibility of primary students referred to occupational therapy for handwriting difficulties. Using a randomized three-group research design, 72 first and second-grade students were assigned to either a cognitive intervention, multisensory intervention, or no intervention (control) group. Letter legibility was measured before and after 10 weeks of intervention. Analysis of variance of difference scores showed no statistically significant difference between the intervention groups. Grade 1 students improved with or without intervention, but grade 2 students showed dramatic improvement with cognitive intervention compared to multisensory intervention (d = 1.09) or no intervention (d = .92). Several students in both grades showed declining performance in the multisensory and control groups, but no students had lower legibility after cognitive intervention. These results challenge current occupational therapy practice of using a multisensory approach for remediation of handwriting difficulties, especially for students in grade 2. Handwriting Remediation iv