Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of financial performance of public transport businesses in Kenya: case of Kiambu county

v TABLE OF CONTENTS . vi LIST OF TABLES . x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . xi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Background of the Study. 1 1.1.1 Financial Performance . 2 1.1.2 Determinants of Financial Performance . 3 1.1.3 Relationship between Financial Performance and its Determinants. 3 1.1.4 Matatu Business in Kenya . 4 1.2 Research Problem . 5 1.3 Research Objective . 7 1.4 Value of the Study . 7 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW . 8 2.
WHAT CLOUD USERS (SaaS PROVIDERS) SHOULD KNOW ABOUT DISECONOMIES OF SCALE

This paper identifies potential diseconomies of scale for cloud users. The paper questions if the scale benefit currently available to cloud users is sustainable for long term. The paper highlights specific economies and diseconomies across supply-side savings, demand-side savings and multi-tenancy efficiency from cloud user perspectives. The paper argues that diseconomies will kick in if cloud users do not maintain scale benefit. The paper offers concrete recommendations for cloud users to maintain the scale benefit by offsetting sources of diseconomies. Finally, implications for future from potential diseconomies are presented.
USE OF A VAGINAL SPHERES DEVICE IN THE CONSERVATIVE TREATMENT OF STRESS URINARY INCONTINENCE: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Hypothesis / aims of study There is strong evidence so as to recommend pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) as the first line treatment for stress urinary incontinence (SUI), especially in mild to moderate symptomatic women. However, despite vaginal medical devices such as vaginal spheres (also known as vaginal Kegel balls) are becoming increasingly popular, little is known regarding its efficacy as adjuvant therapies to PFMT. We hypothesised if the use of vaginal spheres with PFMT compared to the same PFMT scheme without any device was effective and safe in the treatment of stress UI. Secondarily, we studied adherence to this physiotherapy.
EVIDENCE BASED INFORMATION ON THE MEDICAL IMPORTANCE OF DIETARY FIBRE Kehinde

The human body functions best on a diet that is low in sodium, contains a moderate amount of protein a nd is high in fibre, complex carbohydrates, vegetables and fruits . Interest in dietary fibre recently resurfaced bec ause of its potential beneficial effects for health. Associations between high fibre intake and lower incidence of human dis eases, such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and bowel diseases have been reported. High fibre diet is linked with low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and total cholesterol and good cardiovascular health. It is also implica ted in the alleviation of age – related diseases such as cance r and dementia. The importance of dietary fibre in human health and bodily mechanisms has continued to be a subject of discussion within the scientific community. Dietary fibre has important health benefits in childhood, especially in promoting normal laxation. Currently, children c onsume amounts of dietary fibre that appear to be inadequate for o ptimal health promotion and disease prevention. In view of the medical importance of dietary fibre viz-a-viz incre as s in reported cases of chronic life – threatenin g diseases, this paper aims at reviewing the current trend with a vi ew to further emphasize the need for intake of food s rich in fibre for the benefit of man and animals. It was established t at dietary fibre is a preventive as well as a cur ative agent in the daily diet and ways to improve the fibre content of p pular foods should be sought.
Valuers' liability: the impact of torts reform in Queensland

Historically there has been a correlation between the economic cycles and litigation in the area of professional negligence relating to valuers. Negligence actions have principally been instigated by financiers for valuations prepared during more buoyant economic times but where there has been a subsequent loss due to a reduction in property value. More specifically during periods of economic downturn such as 1982 to 1983 and 1990 to 1998 there has been an increased focus by academic writers on professional negligence as it relates to property valuers. Based on historical trends it is anticipated that the end of an extended period of economic prosperity such as has been experienced in Australia, will once again be marked by an increase in litigation against valuers for professional negligence. However, the context of valuers liability has become increasingly complex as a result of statutory reforms introduced in response to the Review of the Law of Negligence Final Report 2002 (“the IPP Report”), in particular the
G x E INTERACTION OF YIELD AND YIELD CONTRIBUTING CHARACTERS IN CHILLI (Capsicum frutescens L.) USING AMMI MODEL

Ten chilli ( Capsicum frutescens L.) genotypes were subjected to an experiment for analysis of stability and genotype-environment interaction in randomized complete block design with four environments using additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) model. Parameters for experimentation were number of fruits per plant, fruit diameter, leaf area index, fruit length without panicle, number of seeds per fruit and individual plant fruit yield. A significant mean sum of square due to Genotype (G), Environment (E) and G × E interaction for all the characters was showed by combined ANOVA, suggested differential responses of genotypes in different environments. The AMMI biplots for yield indicated that, BD-2059 and Bogura Jatt were stable across the environments. Genotype Kalo Dhawna morich had positive interaction effect was better suited to favourable environment for most of the traits. According to AMMI characterisation, Env-2 was found highly favourable for better expression of the studied traits for all the genotypes.
Deep Heterogeneous Autoencoders for Collaborative Filtering

This paper leverages heterogeneous auxiliary information to address the data sparsity problem of recommender systems. We propose a model that learns a shared feature space from heterogeneous data, such as item descriptions, product tags and online purchase history, to obtain better predictions. Our model consists of autoencoders, not only for numerical and categorical data, but also for sequential data, which enables capturing user tastes, item characteristics and the recent dynamics of user preference. We learn the autoencoder architecture for each data source independently in order to better model their statistical properties. Our evaluation on two MovieLens datasets and an e-commerce dataset shows that mean average precision and recall improve over state-of-the-art methods.
Wet deposition of atmospheric inorganic nitrogen at five remote sites in the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract. Since the mid-20th century, nitrogen (N) deposition has shown an increasing trend in the Tibetan Plateau (TP), where alpine ecosystems are sensitive to elevated N deposition. However, the quantitative characterization of N deposition in the TP remains unclear, due in most part to the lack of in situ measurement. Using the Tibetan Observation and Research Platform network, we conducted short-term in situ measurements of major ions (NO3−, Cl−, SO42−, NH4+, Na+, K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+) wet deposition at five remote sites in the TP during 2011–2013. At Southeast Tibet Station, Nam Co Station, Qomolangma Station, Ngari Station, and Muztagh Ata Station, the NH4+–N wet deposition was 0.63, 0.68, 0.92, 0.36, and 1.25 kg N ha−1 yr−1, respectively; the NO3−–N wet deposition was 0.28, 0.24, 0.03, 0.08, and 0.30 kg N ha−1 yr−1, respectively; and the inorganic N wet deposition was 0.91, 0.92, 0.94, 0.44, and 1.55 kg N ha−1 yr−1, respectively. The inorganic N wet deposition mainly occurred in the form of NH4+–N during summer at all sites. Results of enrichment factor analysis and principal component analysis demonstrated that both NH4+–N and NO3−–N wet deposition in the TP were mainly influenced by anthropogenic activities. Backward trajectory analysis showed that the inorganic N deposition at Muztagh Ata Station was mainly transported from central Asia and the Middle East through westerlies. At Southeast Tibet Station, Nam Co Station, Qomolangma Station, and Ngari Station, the inorganic N deposition was mainly contributed by anthropogenic sources in south Asia, and was mainly transported by the Indian monsoon. Combining site-scale in situ measurements of inorganic N wet deposition in this and previous studies, the average wet deposition of atmospheric NH4+–N, NO3−–N, and inorganic N in the TP was estimated to be 1.06, 0.51, and 1.58 kg N ha−1 yr−1, respectively. The average NH4+–N : NO3−–N ratio in precipitation in the TP was approximately 2 : 1. Results from the present study suggest that earlier estimations based on chemical transport model simulations and/or limited field measurements likely overestimated substantially the regional inorganic N wet deposition in the TP. To clarify the total N deposition in the TP more clearly, it is essential to conduct long-term monitoring of both wet and dry deposition of atmospheric N in various climate zones in the TP in the future.
Involuntary Remembering of Words in Various Attentional Demands

Theoretical accounts of attention and its role in involuntary remembering are discussed within the frameworks of P.I. Zinchenko and levels of processing by Craik and Lockhart. A levels-of-attention framework is proposed on the grounds of the ideas discussed. In the experimental study participants had to perform orienting tasks with words under four different instructions implying different attentional demands with subsequent recall of words, font colors, and spatial locations. Instructions corresponded to hypothetical levels of attention. The fifth condition including voluntary remembering was also used. Recall and confidence rates were measured. Taken together, these two measures revealed a gradual increment in objective (correct recall) and subjective (confidence-related) memory representations of words with hypothetical levels of attention. Nevertheless, voluntary remembering was found to yield maximum recall and confidence rates.
Pruned Committee Neural Network Based on Accuracy and Diversity Trade-off for Permeability Prediction

Committee Machine (CM) or ensemble introduces a machine learning technique that aggregates some learners or experts to improve generalization performance compared to single member. The constructed CMs are sometimes unnecessarily large and have some drawbacks such as using extra memories, computational overhead, and occasional decrease in effectiveness. Pruning some members of this committee while preserving a high diversity among the individual experts is an efficient technique to increase the predictive performance. The diversity between committee members is a very important measurement parameter which is not necessarily independent of their accuracy and essentially there is a tradeoff between them. In this paper, first we constructed a committee neural network with different learning algorithms and then proposed an expert pruning method based on diversity and accuracy tradeoff to improve the committee machine framework. Finally we applied this proposed structure to predict permeability values from well log data with the aid of available core data. The results show that our method gives the lowest error and highest correlation coefficient compared to the best expert and the initial committee machine and also produces significant information on the reliability of the permeability predictions.
Combined Effect of NSI and SFP on Solar Electron Neutrino Oscillation

The combined effect of spin-flavor precession (SFP) and the nonstandard neutrino interaction (NSI) on the survival probability of solar electron neutrinos (assumed to be Dirac particles) is examined for various values of , , and . It is found that the neutrino survival probability curves affected by SFP and NSI effects individually for some values of the parameters (, , and ) get close to the standard MSW curve when both effects are combined. Therefore, the combined effect of SFP and NSI needs to be taken into account when the solar electron neutrino data obtained by low energy solar neutrino experiments is investigated.
Using Sideband Transitions for Two-Qubit Operations in Superconducting Circuits

We demonstrate the time-resolved driving of two-photon blue sideband transitions between superconducting qubits and a transmission line resonator. As an example of using these sideband transitions for a two-qubit operation, we implement a pulse sequence that first entangles one qubit with the resonator and subsequently distributes the entanglement between two qubits. We show the generation of 75% fidelity Bell states by this method. The full density matrix of the two-qubit system is extracted using joint measurement and quantum state tomography and shows close agreement with numerical simulation.
An IT oriented approach supporting the integration of technical risk, quality, environment and safety management in construction

"I.T Context I.T. plays a key role to connect risk management with an integrated three dimension management system integrating quality, environment and safety management. Planning Techniques in construction aims to support the decision integration in the on/off site interfaces of construction processes. Starting just from the design phase the quality management strategies integrated with the performance theory allow to formulate a full list of requirements for project activities which can effectively stored in product models of construction elements. The technical risk analysis aims to operate a large performances analysis in on/off site processes. The risk analysis supports quality management in construction planning for determining a graduation of levels of performance required to the management system, which means identifying the specific project criticality in time, cost and quality fields and combining the most appropriate measures of prevention. Objective The objective for the developing research has been focussed on a planning technique integrating the information flow from the design phase to the construction process, oriented to allow the main contractor and the subcontractors to utilize quality plans schemas and risk analysis deriving from design phases as input in the risk analysis detailing and quality plans refinement. Methodology By a widespread collaborative analysis, dealt with an AI planning methodology applied in the construction domain, it might be possible to identify all actions aiming at reducing and preventing failure risk, intended as specific non conformance risk of elements and activities characteristics, and develop the right organizing strategies to increase the contractor's reactivity toward failure and defects. The Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) methodology and the quality management applied to the construction planning are developed by means an intensive data exchange involving the project operators – e.g. designer, owner, contractor and subcontractor – in identifying the failure risk and in planning the prevention and control measures. Results An experimental FMEA system for analyzing risk factors in construction planning is advanced. Based on a schema of integrated tools, the techniques aims to provide a cooperative planning system toward a systematic approach representing a non conformance technical risk analysis in construction management. "
The feminine mystique: feminism, sexuality, motherhood

This article explores the depiction of the Marvel Comics' villain and shapeshifter, Mystique, over her 30 years plus career. The article is devoted to a feminist perspective of Mystique's representation as a ‘monstrous’ mother who subverts patriarchal authority; the portrayal of her ‘unspoken’ lesbian relationship with her lover, Destiny; and her depiction as the ‘bad’ feminist in opposition to the ‘good’ feminist, Ms Marvel. As a female; lesbian; mutant; and villain, she is alluring, openly sexual, and enigmatic, inciting ambivalence. As a figure without an origin story she is unknown and is continually trying to be ‘fixed’ by writers and readers alike. As a shapeshifter Mystique evokes ideas of flow, grotesqueness, abjection, and otherness – the classic marginalized female/feminine other.
A New Architecture Based on Artificial Neural Network and PSO Algorithm for Estimating Software Development Effort

Software project management has always faced challenges that have often had a great impact on the outcome of projects in future. For this, Managers of software projects always seek solutions against challenges. The implementation of unguaranteed approaches or mere personal experiences by managers does not necessarily suffice for solving the problems. Therefore, the management area of software projects requires tools and means helping software project managers confront with challenges. The estimation of effort required for software development is among such important challenges. In this study, a neural-network-based architecture has been proposed that makes use of PSO algorithm to increase its accuracy in estimating software development effort. The architecture suggested here has been tested by several datasets. Furthermore, similar experiments were done on the datasets using various widely used methods in estimating software development. The results showed the accuracy of the proposed model. The results of this research have applications for researchers of software engineering and data mining.
Body Mass Index at Puberty Schoolchildren in Romania, Urban Areas

In recent years, the prevalence of overweight increased as a result of complex interactions between genes, dietary intake, physical activity and environment. The aim of this study is to estimate the incidence of overweight of a sample of pupils and if there are significant differences in terms of demographic variables, such as gender and age, as well as body mass index and anthropometric indicators, such as height and weight. In order to obtain data on the overweight, anthropometric indicators, such as height and weight, were measured and the body mass index (BMI) was calculated, to a total of 261 schoolchildren, between 12 and 15 years. An ANOVA 2 (gender) x 2 (age) was performed to determine if there are significant differences between the dependent variable (body mass index) and the independent variables. The results show significant differences in body mass index according to the age (F(3,254) = 5.35; p < 0.05; R = . 059) and the gender (F(3, 254) = 4.19; p < 0.05; R = . 047) of the schoolchildren. A very strong positive relationship between BMI and weight, according to the gender, was found and a high direct correlation between height and weight, according to the gender, was found, too. No relationships are found between body mass index according to the age of the measured schoolchildren. Measured anthropometric indicators show significant increases. A high percentage of overweight schoolchildren, are obese. WHO recognizes that overweight, in childhood and adolescence, represents a major problem for industrialized countries. © 2017 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy. org.uk
FROM FUNDAMENTAL BRAIN TUMOR SCIENCE TO INTERDISCIPLINARY BEDSIDE CARE; THE OUTCOME REPORT FROM THE NEURO-ONCOLOGY SCIENTIFIC CLUB SECOND MEET- UP (NOSC-2), 19th APRIL 2012, MASHHAD, IRAN

The second session of the interval meetings of the Neuro-Oncology Scientific Club (NOSC-2)Mashhad, took place on 19th April 2012 in Mashhad, Iran. NOSC is an interdisciplinary forum providing updates in brain tumor diagnosis and management. The focus for this scientific meeting was how fundamental brain tumor science can foster clinical advances in treating patients with glial brain tumors and glioblastoma multiforme in particular. Having experts from radiation oncology, neurosurgery, neuroradiology, pathology, neurology and medical genetics under one roof, turned this meeting to a touching platform for redirecting debates while putting brain tumor patients’ survival and quality of life first. This is expected to lead to provincial and later countrywide practice guidelines for interdisciplinary management of brain tumors. Translational research, bridging fundamental science to bedside care for brain tumors is also on schedule for NOSC activities. During the “NOSC-2” meeting, current brain tumor international guidelines were reviewed to ensure compatibility to our local setting and practice. Furthermore, strategies for brain tumor patient referral and bidirectional collaboration between various allied disciplines were lined up. Research opportunities in basic science and clinical neuro-oncology within Mashhad University of Medical Sciences cancer research center were shared and targeted. The current draft of the provincial brain tumor registry (PBTR) software was presented. PBTR was agreed to be installed in two distinguished oncology centers in Mashhad as pilot. Taking initial steps towards provincial practice guideline definition (primarily for high grade gliomas) will be the main agenda constituent for the upcoming NOSC session to be held in mid September 2012. KeywordsBrain tumor, interdisciplinary care, translational research, NOSC, guideline definition group, registry, Mashhad International Journal of Medical and Clinical Research ISSN:0976-5530 & E-ISSN:0976-5549, Volume 3, Issue 5, 2012 Citation: Anvari K. , et al. (2012) From Fundamental Brain Tumor Science to Interdisciplinary bedside Care; the Outcome Report from the Neuro-Oncology Scientific Club Second meet-up (NOSC-2), 19th April 2012, Mashhad, Iran. International Journal of Medical and Clinical Research,ISSN:0976-5530 & E-ISSN:0976-5549, Volume 3, Issue 5, pp.-168-175. Copyright: Copyright©2012 Anvari K. , et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
MALE OR FEMALE? GENDER STEREOTYPING IN A SAMPLE OF ITALIAN COLLEGE STUDENTS

The purpose of this study was to explore the gender stereotypy concerning toys, traits, and jobs in a sample of 120 Italian college students attending the Faculty of Psychology in Catania. The authors measured the “gender stereotypy threshold” ranging from 70% to 100%, using the technique of forced choice relating to male and female silhouettes. College students attributed toys connected to aesthetic appearance and domestic activities to the female silhouette, while toys linked to technology and strategy, warfare, and locomotion were attributed to the male silhouette. The typical traits associated with the male silhouette were mainly linked to negative characteristics while those referring to the female silhouette evoked both positive and negative behaviors. Lastly, the typical jobs attributed to the male silhouette were characterized both by practical-manual activities and highly specialized ones, while those linked to the female silhouette were addressed to a reduced number of practical-manual activities mostly belonging to housework. Significant effects for sex and age groups were found: girls scored higher in gender stereotyping than boys and younger college students scored higher than older ones in the gender stereotyping. Future research could deepen this topic in different fields of study (i.e. hobbies and sport).