Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Undergraduate Medical Students’ Perception about Learning in Small Group at University of Sharjah

Learning in small groups is a key instructional strategy in medicine and more so in the problem based curriculum (PBL). It is perceived that working in small groups enhances acquisition, processing and retention of the ever increasing medical knowledge. Learning in small group will help the students to be better learner and improve their personal, social and cognitive skills. The objective of this study is to describe undergraduate medical students’ perception toward small group learning in a PBL curriculum. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among the undergraduate medical students in the phase 2 of their MBBS program at University of Sharjah. A total of 277 undergraduate medical students participated in the study. The mean age of the study population was 20 years and 61% were female students. The most rewarding experiences as perceived by medical students were exposure to different views (71%), making friends (57%) improving their grades (52%) and underwent personal development (46%). The main disadvantages of small group learning were waste of time (55%), side talks (16%), and other distractions (14%). Majority of students had a positive perception towards small group learning and agreed that it enhances their collaborative learning and team work skills. Small group learning was perceived as a key instructional method in the PBL curriculum [3] and it enhances their grades, learning outcomes, personal development and critical thinking abilities [4].
A three-fold framework for understanding HRM practices in South-Eastern European SMEs

Purpose – We study particular structural and organisational factors affecting the formality of human resource management (HRM) practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South-Eastern European (SEE) post-communist countries, in particular Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) in order to understand the antecedents of formalization in such settings. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting a quantitative approach, this study analyses data gathered through a survey of 168 managers of SMEs from throughout the region. Findings – The results show that HRM in SMEs in the SEE region can be understood through a three-fold framework which includes: degree of internationalisation of SMEs, sector of SMEs and organisational size of SMEs. These three factors positively affect the level of HRM formalisation in SEE SMEs. These findings are further attributed to the particular political and economic context of the post-communist SEE region. Research limitations/implications – Although specific criteria were set for SME selection, we do not suggest that the study reflects a representative picture of the SEE region because we used a purposive sampling methodology. Practical implications – This article provides useful insights into the factors which influence HRM in SMEs in a particular context. The findings can help business owners and managers understand how HRM can be applied in smaller organisations, particularly in post-communist SEE business contexts. Originality/value – HRM in SMEs in this region has hardly been studied at all despite their importance. Therefore, this exploratory research seeks to expand knowledge relating to the application of HRM in SMEs in SEE countries which have their business environments dominated by different dynamics in comparison to western European ones.
Human Posture Recognition: Background Subtraction and Skeletonization

With the advent of new and improved technology in the market, it has become extremely important to gather information and create user friendly applications. Be it for security purposes or tracking purposes, monitoring human activities to create a human gesture-friendly interface is now a major branch of research. We hope to present one such method to observe and interpret human activities. This paper describes methods to obtain human activity records (in the form of images or videos) and perform suitable actions on these records to extract useful information out of them. Background subtraction is the initial one of the most important procedures performed on the image or video. Next comes preprocessing the record to improve quality. Then finally comes Skeletonisation. We focus on Background Subtraction method using the image pixels and Skeletonisation in this paper and provide the basic steps and strategies regarding it.
Activity and Variety of Soil Microorganisms Depending on the Diversity of the Soil Tillage System

Soil is an ecosystem capable of producing the resources necessary for the development of the living organisms. Soil microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) are responsible for biomass decomposition, biogenic element circulation, which makes nutrients available to plants, biodegradation of impurities, and maintenance of soil structure. The presence of microorganisms in soil depends on their chemical composition, moisture, pH, and structure. Human activity has an indispensable influence on the formation of ecosystems. Soil till age has an impact on the chemical and physical parameters of the soil, and thus on its biological properties. The use of inappropriate agro-technology can lead to degradation of the soil environment. Changes in soil properties may cause changes in soil abundance, activity, and diversity. Cultivation can affect microorganisms, causing their mortality and reducing the availability of nourishment in the soil. Therefore, it is extremely important to assess the diversity and microbiological activity of soil in relation to soil-tillage technology.
SI-POF Transmission with OFDM and Sub-carrier Pairwise Coding

In this study, data transmission over step-index plastic optical fiber (SI-POF) is demonstrated using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme with sub-carrier pairwise coding (PWC). To investigate the performance of OFDM with PWC, a simulation study is implemented with QPSK and 16-QAM format using the Gaussian theoretical frequency response for a 60 m SI-POF channel. For a data rate of 200 Mbps with QPSK-OFDM, the study shows that compared to equalization, PWC offers about 1.5 dB improvement at a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10−3. An experiment is then set-up with a 60 m SI-POF that uses an eye-safe resonant cavity light emitting diode (RC-LED) as the optical source. The experiment shows that at a bit rate of 200 Mbps with QPSK-OFDM, PWC offers a 1.82 dB improvement in SNR at a BER of 10−3. For the same data rate with 16-QAM-OFDM, PWC offers about 1.1 dB Q2-factor improvement for a modulation index of 0.8. The study therefore shows that PWC improves the BER performance of an SI-POF link that uses OFDM.
Interactive comment on “Tropical cyclogenesis in a tropical wave critical layer: easterly waves” by T. J. Dunkerton et al

In fluid dynamics ’Lagrangian’ commonly refers to particles or parcels: their (i) displacement, (ii) rate of change of displacement (equal to the local fluid velocity) and (iii) local rate of change of fluid properties or material. Materially conserved quantities, such as adiabatic invariants, experience zero rate of change following the particle or parcel, unless nonconservative sources and sinks of the quantity are present. In elementary textbooks, students usually encounter the material derivative first, in the primitive equations, followed by its expansion into advective Eulerian form.
Derivation of aerosol properties from satellite measurements of backscattered ultraviolet radiation

We discuss the theoretical basis of a recently developed technique to characterize aerosols from space. We show that the interaction between aerosols and the strong molecular scattering in the near ultraviolet produces spectral variations of the backscattered radiances that can be used to separate aerosol absorption from scattering effects. This capability allows identification of several aerosol types, ranging from nonabsorbing sulfates to highly UV-absorbing mineral dust, over both land and water surfaces. Two ways of using the information contained in the near-UV radiances are discussed. In the first method, a residual quantity, which measures the departure of the observed spectral contrast from that of a molecular atmosphere, is computed. Since clouds yield nearly zero residues, this method is a useful way of separately mapping the spatial distribution of UV-absorbing and nonabsorbing particles. To convert the residue to optical depth, the aerosol type must be known. The second method is an inversion procedure that uses forward calculations of backscattered radiances for an ensemble of aerosol models. Using a look-up table approach, a set of measurements given by the ratio of backscattered radiance at 340-380 nm and the 380 nm radiance are associated, within the domain of the candidate aerosol models, to values of optical depth and single-scattering albedo. No previous knowledge of aerosol type is required. We present a sensitivity analysis of various error sources contributing to the estimation of aerosol properties by the two methods.
Emerging Access Control Techniques in Cloud Computing: A Survey

Cloud computing is widely getting acceptance due to its low cost and shared computing capabilities. However trust, security and privacy are the major concerns in cloud environment. A systematic survey was done on various emerging access control mechanisms being employed in cloud environments. The existing access control mechanisms strive to achieve greater flexibility, scalability, dynamic support, security, and fine-grained access. Encryption based access control techniques able to achieve data security along with privacy protection. However they require additional key management infrastructure. Providing support to a continuously varying user dynamics and supporting a multi-user setting also getting importance. Protecting the data from cloud learning and forbidding the server accessing user access structure is effectively tackled at the cost of complexity and computational burden. Ensuring trust on the server side at the same time providing real user with required access are the major challenges in implementing a prominent access control. This paper analyses various access control mechanisms with pros and cons in cloud computing environment.
ATTITUDES OF HINDUSTANI MOTHERS TOWARDS CHILD LABOUR The Case of Nickerie – Suriname

To gain insight in the hidden causes of child labour among the Hindustani, research is conducted regarding the attitudes of Hindustani mothers. Although the Surinamese government set several protection and educational policies to eradicate child labour, 9.6% of the children still conduct one form or another of prohibited labour (MICS, 2010). ILO (2013) has indicated poverty, family size and urbanization as causes of child labour, but poverty remains pivotal. Since a couple of years the economic situation in Suriname is deteriorating. Not all who live in poverty let their children conduct child labour. According to the current research the attitudes of parents towards child labour is distinctive, since it is believed that social behavior stems from attitudes. In this study the multicomponent model of attitudes (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) and Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (2005) are used to examine the attitudes of Hindustani mothers with no or low income. In this qualitative study, in-depth interviews were used to confirm the expectation that not only the socioeconomic determinants will show up as root causes for the attitude formation, but also the experienced childhood and culture of the parents. The study focuses specifically on the Hindustani people of the West coast of Suriname. 1 Note: Readers should take into account that this paper is work in progress. Therefore, the author requests, that no part of this paper will be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means. Social Psychological Insights in the Prevalence of Child Labour Anton de Kom University – IMWO Page 2 of 12
Acibenzolar-S-methyl induces lettuce resistance against Xanthomonas campestris pv. vitians

Acibenzolar-S-methyl (Benzo [1,2,3] thiadiazole-7-carbothioic acid-S-methyl ester, ASM; Bion 50 WG) was found to be more protective for lettuce against bacterial speck disease caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. vitians. The experiments were conducted under controlled climatic conditions in the greenhouse, and induction of defense mechanism using ASM treatment against challenged inoculation with X. campestris pv. vitians was studied. It was effective in reducing the severity of disease and bacterial growth when compared with control and copper hydroxide. Pathogen growth was also followed with specific PCR before the typical symptom development on leaf tissues. Equal plant tissues collected from infected pnjm, lants were used in order to compare different treatments and pathogen invasion. The induction interval (48) before inoculation period was convenient for the control of pathogen by ASM treatment. The findings show that ASM treatment in inoculated plants has long lasting effect to induce defense-related enzymes, contributing to the enhancement of plant resistance. The effect was comparable with copper treatment. As a marker of resistance, PR protein activity chitinase showed remarkable increase, depending on decreasing bacterial growth in planta.
Political Party Mortality in Established Party Systems: A Hierarchical Competing Risks Approach

Existing scholarship offers few answers to fundamental questions about the mortality of political parties in established party systems. Linking party research to the organization literature, we conceptualize two types of party death, dissolution and merger, reflecting distinct theoretical rationales. They underpin a new framework on party organizational mortality theorizing three sets of factors: those shaping mortality generally and those shaping dissolution or merger death exclusively. We test this framework on a new data set covering the complete life cycles of 184 parties that entered 21 consolidated party systems over the last five decades, resorting to multilevel competing risks models to estimate the impact of party and country characteristics on the hazards of both types of death. Our findings not only show that dissolution and merger death are driven by distinct factors, but also that they represent separate logics not intrinsically related at either the party or systemic level.
Strong consistency of Krichevsky-Trofimov estimator for the number of communities in the Stochastic Block Model

In this paper we introduce the Krichevsky-Trofimov estimator for the number of communities in the Stochastic Block Model (SBM) and prove its eventual almost sure convergence to the underlying number of communities, without assuming a known upper bound on that quantity. Our results apply to both the dense as well as the sparse regimes. To our knowledge this is the first strong consistency result for the estimation of the number of communities in the SBM, even in the bounded case.
On the who-rule in Dual Resource Constrained (DRC) manufacturing systems

The who-rule is a labour allocation rule used in labour and machine-limited dual resource constrained (DRC) systems. A who-rule selects one worker out of several workers to be transferred to a work centre. By means of a practical instance, the paper shows that the who-rule plays a role in the daily practice of worker assignment. Previous simulation studies, however, either have not mentioned the who-rule or have treated it as a fixed factor. The present study will explore the need of including the who-rule in simulation studies. It will describe in detail at what decision moments the who-rule needs to be applied in simulation. Further, it will explore the flow time effects of applying different who-rules in several DRC systems where labour flexibility is limited and workers differ with respect to task proficiencies, the number of skills they possess and the loads of work centres for which they are responsible. As with other labour allocation rules, the impact of the who-rule depends on the specific DRC shop modelled. The paper will show that the average labour utilization, and the types and extent of worker differences, determine the impact of the who-rule on shop performance.
Laboratory impacts into dry and wet sandstone with and without an overlying water layer: Implications for scaling laws and projectile survivability

Abstract— Scaling laws describing crater dimensions are defined in terms of projectile velocity and mass, densities of the materials involved, strength of the target, and the local gravity. Here, the additional importance of target porosity and saturation, and an overlying water layer, are considered through 15 laboratory impacts of 1 mm diameter stainless steel projectiles at 5 km s−1 into a) an initially uncharacterized sandstone (porosity ˜17%) and b) Coconino Sandstone (porosity ˜23%). The higher‐porosity dry sandstone allows a crater to form with a larger diameter but smaller depth than in the lower‐porosity dry sandstone. Furthermore, for both porosities, a greater volume of material is excavated from a wet target than a dry target (by 27–30%). Comparison of our results with Pi‐scaling (dimensionless ratios of key parameters characterizing cratering data over a range of scales) suggests that porosity is important for scaling laws given that the new data lie significantly beneath the current fit for ice and rock targets on a πv versus π3 plot (πv gives cratering efficiency and π3 the influence of target strength). An overlying water layer results in a reduction of crater dimensions, with larger craters produced in the saturated targets compared to unsaturated targets. A water depth of approximately 12 times the projectile diameter is required before craters are no longer observed in the targets. Previous experimental studies have shown that this ratio varies between 10 and 20 (Gault and Sonett 1982). In our experiments ˜25% of the original projectile mass survives the impact.
Moderating role of Boards' Equity ownership on the relationship between Corporate Governance and the Performance of Bailed-out Banks in Nigeria

This paper proposes the moderating role of board equity ownership in the relationship between corporate governance and performance of banks in an era of post banking crisis that called for a bailout reform. The board attributes were selected based on the peculiar problem of the banking sector, and based on the board functions that captures monitoring (agency theory based). Keywords: Corporate governance, Board equity ownership, Banks performance
Exchange rate pass-through to various price indices: empirical estimation using vector error correction models

The extent to which exchange rate fluctuations are passed through to domestic prices is of high relevance for open economies and for monetary authorities targeting price stability. Existing empirical studies estimating the exchange rate pass-through for Switzerland are based on either single equation estimation or on VAR models. However, these approaches feature some major drawbacks. The former cannot account for dynamic interactions between the time series and both methods disregard long-run equilibrium relations between the variable levels. This paper contributes to the evidence on the exchange rate pass-through in Switzerland by using a vector error correction model, which has the advantage of incorporating both short-run dynamics and long-run equilibrium relations among variables. The results reveal a significant impact of exchange rate shocks on various price (sub-)indices. Pass-through to import prices is substantial both in the short-run and in the long-run and occurs relatively quickly. It is slower, but still considerable in the long-run for the consumer price index and some of its sub-indices. Producer prices react significantly to exchange rate shocks as well. In contrast, consumer price inflation for services and for goods of domestic origin show hardly any significant response. The findings of this paper indicate a decline in the pass-through over time.
Dynamic actuation of a novel laser-processed NiTi linear actuator

A novel laser processing technique, capable of locally modifying the shape memory effect, was applied to enhance the functionality of a NiTi linear actuator. By altering local transformation temperatures, an additional memory was imparted into a monolithic NiTi wire to enable dynamic actuation via controlled resistive heating. Characterizations of the actuator load, displacement and cyclic properties were conducted using a custom-built spring-biased test set-up. Monotonic tensile testing was also implemented to characterize the deformation behaviour of the martensite phase. Observed differences in the deformation behaviour of laser-processed material were found to affect the magnitude of the active strain. Furthermore, residual strain during cyclic actuation testing was found to stabilize after 150 cycles while the recoverable strain remained constant. This laser-processed actuator will allow for the realization of new applications and improved control methods for shape memory alloys.
SeDaTiVe: SDN-Enabled Deep Learning Architecture for Network Traffic Control in Vehicular Cyber-Physical Systems

The rapid growth in the transportation sector has led to the emergence of smart vehicles that are equipped with ICT. These modern smart vehicles are connected to the Internet to access various services such as road condition information, infotainment, and energy management. This kind of scenario can be viewed as a vehicular cyber-physical system (VCPS) where the vehicles are at the physical layer and services are at the cyber layer. However, network traffic management is the biggest issue in the modern VCPS scenario as the mismanagement of network resources can degrade the quality of service (QoS) for end users. To deal with this issue, we propose a software defined networking (SDN)-enabled approach, named SeDaTiVe, which uses deep learning architecture to control the incoming traffic in the network in the VCPS environment. The advantage of using deep learning in network traffic control is that it learns the hidden patterns in data packets and creates an optimal route based on the learned features. Moreover, a virtual-controller-based scheme for flow management using SDN in VCPS is designed for effective resource utilization. The simulation scenario comprising 1000 vehicles seeking various services in the network is considered to generate the dataset using SUMO. The data obtained from the simulation study is evaluated using NS-2, and proves that the proposed scheme effectively handles real-time incoming requests in VCPS. The results also depict the improvement in performance on various evaluation metrics like delay, throughput, packet delivery ratio, and network load by using the proposed scheme over the traditional SDN and TCP/IP protocol suite.
Walsh’s Contract and Transparency about Central Bank Preferences for Robust Control

Within a New Keynesian model subject to misspecification, we examine the quadratic contracts in a delegation framework where government and private agents are uncertain about central bank preferences for model robustness. We show that, in the case of complete transparency, the optimal penalty is decreasing in terms of the preference for robustness. In effect, a central bank reacts more aggressively to supply shocks when the model misspecification grows larger. Furthermore, beginning from the equilibrium of perfect transparency and assuming that the average preference for robustness is sufficiently high, the central bank has then an incentive to be less transparent in order to reduce the optimal penalty. Under similar conditions, we also find that greater opacity will increase inflation and output variability.