Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FPGA based area-power-performance analysis of LMS filter using conventional and proposed multipliers

This paper compares LMS filter-based adaptive channel equalizer, implemented on Vertex 7 FPGA using several existing and proposed multipliers. The three main performance parameters taken into consideration are the consumed resources (in terms of lookup tables), utilized power (among various design components), and the performance achieved (in terms of observed frequency). The results show the area-power-performance tradeoff amongst the conventional and proposed multipliers based designs. It is to mention that the proposed multipliers result in more compact systems due to less utilization of resources in all means.
Do macroeconomic indicators determine income inequality in selected African countries?

This study investigates the effect of macroeconomic variables on income distribution in Africa using panel data from 2001 to 2016. This is motivated by the high degree of income inequality and poverty in the region. Twenty-eight (28) African countries were selected to capture every region. The selection of countries and the choice of this period were informed by data availability. The variables of interest were income inequality obtained from the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID), while the Gross Domestic Product, Inflation, and Unemployment were obtained from the World Bank database. A dynamic panel model using the Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) estimator was used to control for both individual and time-specific effects. The Heterogeneous aspect of the Augmented Dicky-Fuller (ADF), the Levine-Lin-Chu test and, the Im-Pesaran-Shin (IPS) panel units root process were utilized to test for the stationarity of the panel data. The results of the General Method of Moment (GMM) indicate a significant negative relationship between income inequality and economic growth. The study rejected the existence of the Kuznets curve hypothesis, and concludes that Inflation rate, Wage rate and labour force impact negatively income inequality, while unemployment and education impact positively.
National ambient air quality standardization in Indonesia: A mini-review and critical mind map

PP RI No. 41 1999 has been the only legitimate policy of national ambient air quality standard in Indonesia since more than 20 years ago. Most of standard for air quality parameters were set based on precautionary principle. It ratified other ambient air quality standards globally which is less representative from real conditions in Indonesia. Due to possibility of massive changes in national air quality conditions and various technological and non-technological factors driving them. The needs of national ambient air quality revision in Indonesia is raising. In addition, air quality as public value needs to be managed strategically by Indonesia’s government in order to provide basic need of society. More representative standard is a key for better monitoring and controlling ambient air quality in Indonesia. Hence, we proposed a critical mind map of integrated approach, air quality standardization principle, and brief process on how to reset national ambient air quality standard. It included the path role of public administrator, private administrator, and theorist in defining integrated framework of status quo and snap prediction. This mind map can be used as base of re-standardization ambient air quality in Indonesia. Furthermore, upcoming greater legitimate policy on this issue is gladly looked forward.
Prospects of Mother Tongue as a Medium of Instruction in Nigerian Primary Level Education

This paper investigates the prospects in the use of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in Nigeria’s primary level of education. With the multilingual nature of Nigeria, many scholars have continued to clamour for the use of indigenous languages as a medium of instruction in Nigeria’s primary schools. This paper also seeks to justify the reasons why mother tongue education may not be feasible in the nearest future especially with the numerous roles that the English language plays in Nigeria, and the myriads of difficulties which constitute stumbling blocks to its realization. In doing this, two research questions were generated, and data collected from 150 primary school teachers, from both private and public primary schools in Gwagwalada Area Council of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) through purposive sampling technique. The instrument for data collection is a well-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire is made up of two sections, sections A and B. Section A sought for demographic data of respondents, while section B sought for information on the factors militating against mother tongue as a medium of instruction in primary schools in Nigeria. The data collected were analyzed using Crombatch Alpha, mean and standard deviation. The result of the analysis revealed that the multilingual nature of Nigeria, and lack of names of instructional materials and science equipment in the indigenous languages are impediments to the use of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in Nigerian primary level of education.
Wafer Crack Detection Based on Yolov4 Target Detection Method

In recent years, the breakthrough of deep learning technology has brought a qualitative leap in the field of industrial detection. In the past, defects that are difficult to detect by traditional image methods can be detected by deep learning automatic feature extraction to find the expression of difficult samples. In the field of industrial silicon wafer defect detection, with the help of deep learning target detection algorithm, it can effectively adapt to different size, illumination, depth, length of defects. In this paper, yolov4 target detection algorithm is applied to silicon wafer crack problem. Yolov4 target detection algorithm uses many training skills, such as weighted residual connection (WRC), cross stage partial connections (SCP), cross Mini batch Normalization (CmBN), self-adaptive training (SAT) and mish activation make yolov4 better trained on a GPU, and can achieve 98.23% detection accuracy on the wafer crack detection data set.
AHP and TOPSIS Integration for Green Supplier Selection: A Case Study in Indonesia

Recently, the problem of global warming arising from manufacturing activities has attracted attention. One of the triggers of global warming is the aspect of production. This aspect requires raw materials supplied by the supplier. The selection of the right supplier by considering environmental aspects can reduce the problem of global warming. The purpose of this study is to integrate the AHP and TOPSIS methods in green supplier selection. Eight criteria are used to select suppliers weighted by the AHP method. AHP weighting results are used to select suppliers with the TOPSIS method. A case study was applied to an offset printing company in Indonesia. The results show that the quality criteria have the highest importance. In addition, the results showed that the AHP and TOPSIS methods were easy to use in Green Supplier Selection.
Seaweed drying characterization via serial statistical criteria analysis

In drying seaweeds, it is important to describe its drying behavior using semi-theoretical models. Predicting the best drying model for the seaweed was commonly done by testing the goodness of the curve for seaweed drying models by calculating the coefficient of determination R2, the reduced chi square X 2, root means square error (RMSE) and mean bias error (MBE). However, it is essential to rank the drying models before selection by assessing its performance index Φ and mean relative deviation (MRD). It is also necessary to test the normality by evaluating the skewness and kurtosis statistics using the D’ Agostino Pearson test which is the best test for goodness of fit. The simple sample run test statistics and confidence interval must also be satisfied These are the conditions that should be met under the serial statistical criteria analysis. This study utilized it to choose the best drying model for seaweeds. Employing this statistical analysis for testing commonly used drying models, Modified Page model emerged as the best model that depicts the drying behavior of the seaweeds with accuracy of 99.98% and highest performance index of 452.1967.
Bio‐Inspired Soft Grippers Based on Impactive Gripping

Grasping and manipulation are fundamental ways for many creatures to interact with their environments. Different morphologies and grasping methods of “grippers” are highly evolved to adapt to harsh survival conditions. For example, human hands and bird feet are composed of rigid frames and soft joints. Compared with human hands, some plants like Drosera do not have rigid frames, so they can bend at arbitrary points of the body to capture their prey. Furthermore, many muscular hydrostat animals and plant tendrils can implement more complex twisting motions in 3D space. Recently, inspired by the flexible grasping methods present in nature, increasingly more bio‐inspired soft grippers have been fabricated with compliant and soft materials. Based on this, the present review focuses on the recent research progress of bio‐inspired soft grippers based on impactive gripping. According to their types of movement and a classification model inspired by biological “grippers”, soft grippers are classified into three types, namely, non‐continuum bending‐type grippers, continuum bending‐type grippers, and continuum twisting‐type grippers. An exhaustive and updated analysis of each type of gripper is provided. Moreover, this review offers an overview of the different stiffness‐controllable strategies developed in recent years.
‘Under attack’: Responsibility, crisis and survival anxiety amongst manager-academics in UK universities

Based on a small-scale qualitative study, the article explores the perceptions of manager-academics on the state of the UK’s higher education sector. Universities have been undergoing a process of marketisation for some time now, but recent changes to the regulation and audit of their activities – as well as uncertainty engendered by broader events – arguably make this a turbulent period for the sector. Despite a growing body of critical work on academic labour in the ‘neoliberalising’ university, the management of these institutions remains an under-researched subject. The article considers perceptions of crisis and responsibility amongst a group of manager-academics who conceive the sector as being ‘under attack’, before exploring the relationship of ‘survival anxiety’ to audit, metrics and rankings. The article concludes by considering why the perceptions of senior academic managers matter for the future of universities.
The Threshold Effects on Consumer Choice and Pricing Decisions

Problem definition: This paper investigates the threshold effects on the consideration set formation for consumers and the associated pricing decisions for firms. Academic/practical relevance: In the class of random utility maximization choice models, consumers choose the alternative with the largest utility after resolving utility uncertainties for all options. However, in practice, consumers may not inspect all available alternatives due to bounded rationality or search cost. Methodology: This paper incorporates bounded rationality into consumer choice behavior: in the first stage, a representative consumer forms her consideration set by removing alternatives whose nominal utility is lower than the largest by a threshold; in the second stage, she examines all alternatives in her consideration set and chooses the one with the highest realized utility. Results: For the Gumbel-distributed random utilities, we derive the two-stage threshold multinomial logit model with a consideration set. For the pricing problem, we show the quasi-same-markup/same-utility policy is optimal: high-cost products charge the prices such that their profit markups are the same, and low-cost products charge prices such that their nominal utilities are the same. For the price competition, there may exist zero, one, two, or infinite Nash equilibria, depending on the magnitude of the threshold effects. Managerial implications: Our analysis shows that the consideration set and bounded rationality play an important role in consumer choice behavior, so they should be taken into account in firms’ decision making.
Influence of the Cadastral Value of the Urban Land and Neighborhood Characteristics on the Mean House Mortgage Appraisal

As house mortgage appraisal values have played a leading role in the 2007–2012 financial crisis, it is important to develop robust mass appraisal models that correctly estimate these values. The present paper intends to propose a methodology to examine the spatial distribution of house mortgage appraisal values. To do so, we analyzed the effect that these values, cadastral urban land values, characteristics of houses, and socioeconomic conditions and services in neighborhoods, have on house mortgage appraisal values in the 70 boroughs of Valencia (Spain). Econometric and spatial models were used, and variables were calculated as the mean and weighted values per boroughs. Our results showed that the hierarchy of cadastral values impacted mortgage appraisal values. Conversely, not all the boroughs-related variables influenced the mean mortgage values of houses, although some did anomalously. We conclude that the spatial error or autoregressive models provided very good fit results, which somewhat improved the ordinary least square model. Moreover, house mortgage appraisal values may be influenced by not only cadastral values but also by some district characteristics like mean family property size, vehicle age, distance from a metro station or from infant or primary education centers.
Parents attitudes toward the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine: A new concept in the State of Qatar

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the leading causes of cervical and genital cancer in both genders. Purpose: To delineate parental attitude regarding HPV in Qatar. Methods: A cross-sectional study using a questionnaire was conducted at Sidra Medicine, Qatar. Results: A total of 334 questioners were completed. More than 60% of the parents were not aware that HPV can cause cervical and genital cancer. When asked about the level of comfort in giving their children a vaccine that would prevent them from getting genital cancer, 77% of the participants answered “very comfortable. ” Interestingly, less than 4% of the parents stated that their children's primary care physicians ever mentioned that such a vaccine exists. When asked about the most preferable mode of receiving information regarding the HPV vaccine, 54% preferred the clinician's office, followed by 34% of whom preferred social media. In terms of the preferred age to receive the vaccine, 45% of the participants preferred to administer the vaccine to their children before they were mature enough to understand sexual relations, while 22% recommended vaccination right before marriage and 15% preferred to wait till they were grown up and decide for themselves. Furthermore, only 42% of the caregivers agreed that it is important to explain to their children that the vaccine can protect against some of the sexually transmitted infections. Finally, approximately 20% of the participants were not convinced about the HPV vaccine. Conclusion: A large proportion of parents residing in Qatar have a positive perception regarding the HPV vaccine. TheParents' attitudes and perceptions are considered indispensable targets for community health intervention. We will share the result of our study with the ministry of public health in Qatar with a goal to incorporate the HPV vaccine in the National Immunization Schedule.
Short‐term load demand forecasting through rich features based on recurrent neural networks

With the emerging penetration of renewables and dynamic loads, the understanding of grid edge loading conditions becomes increasingly substantial. Load modelling researches commonly consist of explicitly expressed load models and non-explicitly expressed techniques, of which artiﬁcial intelligence approaches turn out to be the major path. This paper reveals the artiﬁcial intelligence-based load modelling technique to enhance the knowledge of current and future load information considering geographical and weather dependencies. This paper presents a recurrent neural network based sequence to sequence (Seq2Seq) model to forecast the short-term power loads. Also, a feature attention mechanism, which is along channel and time directions, is developed to improve the efﬁciency of feature learning. The experiments over three publicly available datasets demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed model.
Contribution of human capital to the economic potential of the region

Rapid technological renewal and digitalization of the economy entail transformation of labor relations and an intensive change in the content of labor. The current reality forces us to revise our views on methods of assessing the social and labor sphere and the human factor in the economy. Human capital is regarded as a generally recognized factor in social and economic development. The results of numerous studies of human capital do not yet provide an unambiguous answer about the degree of its direct impact on the nature and dynamics of economic growth. At the same time, a review of the results of many empirical studies yields a conclusion about a stable relationship between human capital and the dynamics of economic development. In the study of human capital, the significance of the region is very high, since the behavioral, activity and systemic characteristics of the development of society, including economic potential, are formed primarily at this level. To identify the prerequisites and conditions that affect the formation of regional human capital, the analysis of the state and development trends of human capital should be supplemented with the characteristics of the socio-economic environment, where this process takes place. The authors use an updated version of the MRW model to assess the contribution of the human capital in Kaliningrad region, the Russian exclave, to its socio-economic development, and to determine the parameters of the socio-economic development of the region that can be treated as an integral part of its human capital. The accumulated human capital realized through labor potential becomes in turn a key factor in the economic development.
Phish Me, Phish Me Not

ABSTRACT While phishing has evolved over the years, it still exploits one of the weakest links in any information system — humans. The present study aims at describing who the potential phishing victims are. We constructed two types of phishing messages that represented two basic categories of phishing e-mails: regular and spear-phishing. In cooperation with the IT management of a municipality in the southwestern region of the United States, we sent these messages to the municipality’s employees and collected demographic data about individuals employed by the organization. We then applied eight supervised learning methods to classify the municipality’s employees into two groups: phished and not-phished. Our results indicate that spear-phishing yields a significantly higher response rate than regular phishing and that some machine learning methods yield high classification accuracy in predicting phishing victims. We finally provide discussion of the results as well as the future implications.
Genome Assessment of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Probiotic Bacteria and a Literature Review

Having various clinical applications, probiotic bacteria are currently used in the diet. There are reports of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in these bacteria that can be transferred to other microflora and pathogenic bacteria. The aim of the study is to examine whole-genome sequence analysis in bacteria with probiotic properties. Moreover, this study follows existing issues about the importance and presence of ARGs in these bacteria the dangers of which may affect human health in the years to come. In the present study, 126 complete probiotic bacterial genomes were collected and analysed for ARGs. The results of the study shows there are various antibiotic resistant genes of in these bacteria some of which can be transmitted to other bacteria. We propose microorganisms be applied as a probiotic element in various types of products, antibiogram be conducted for a large number of antibiotics and analysis of complete genome sequence for ARGs prediction.
MRI guided wearable near infrared spectral tomography: simulation study

A new low-cost imaging system has been developed for MRI-guided Near-Infrared Spectral Tomography (MRI-NIRST) for breast cancer detection. In this new system, 8 flexible sensing strips with 4 source fibers and 4 photodetectors will be applied directly to the breast, from nipple towards chest-wall, to cover the entire breast. For each source illumination, data will be collected at 32 detector locations. The feasibility of this new imaging system was demonstrated using 3D simulation breast phantoms that created from real breast MR images. Our results indicated that total hemoglobin in a tumor smaller than 1 mm could be recovered with this system.
Dynamical analysis of miniature optoelectronic oscillators based on whispering-gallery mode modulators with quadratic nonlinearity

Whispering-gallery mode resonators (WGMR) have been used instead of fiber delay lines for energy storage in ultra-pure microwave generation using optoelectronic oscillators (OEOs). They can reduce the size of the OEOs by replacing the optical fiber delay line, thereby simplifying the OEO architecture. So far, there has been no mathematical framework to understand the dynamics of these miniature OEOs. We propose a theoretical model based on a field envelope approach that describes their nonlinear dynamics. We perform a stability analysis of the stationary states and characterize the critical gain leading to microwave oscillations as a function of the detuning frequency of the central mode, and as a function of the intrinsic properties of the WGMR.
OBTENÇÃO E CARACTERIZAÇÃO DE COMPÓSITOS POLIMÉRICOS BIODEGRADÁVEIS PRODUZIDOS COM RESÍDUOS AGROENERGÉTICOS (BAGAÇO DA CANA-DE-AÇÚCAR, AMIDO DE MILHO E GLICEROL)

O desenvolvimento de novas metodologias para a producao de biopolimeros biodegradaveis por meio de recursos renovaveis tem se apresentado como alternativa para a reducao de impacto ambiental provocado pelos polimeros derivados de petroleo. O amido, fibra lignocelulosica e plastificante estao conquistando, cada vez mais espaco nesse segmento. O amido, alem de ser barato e abundante na natureza, ja se destaca na producao de biopolimeros, necessitando de tratamento especial, como a adicao de fibra, plastificante, para produzir um produto mais resistente. O objetivo deste trabalho foi produzir e caracterizar um material composito biodegradavel fabricado a partir de residuos agroenergeticos (bagaco da cana-de-acucar, amido de milho e glicerol). O procedimento baseou-se na tecnica de casting, utilizada em materiais polimericos que permitem ser derramados por baixa viscosidade, obtendo uma forma desejada atraves da confeccao de um molde. Foi produzida a matriz de amido com bons resultados nos ensaios mecânicos e posteriormente, produzidos os compositos polimericos com a aderencia da fibra de bagaco de cana-de-acucar. Os compositos polimericos apresentaram altos valores de resistencia a tracao, e modulo Young, e valores baixos de alongamento na ruptura. Os ensaios de infravermelho mostram bandas semelhantes entre os compositos, apresentaram tambem, baixa densidade e solubilidade em agua, e alta degradabilidade em solos com alto teor de umidade. Os ensaios de microscopia eletronica por varredura mostraram grânulos de amido intactos, acarretando a uma reducao da forca de resistencia e alongamento.