Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UNDERSTANDING COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT ACTORS WITHIN A SOCIAL NETWORK TECHNOLOGY

The disjointed group of actors who team up to work on a project constitutes a collective entity that is represented by social networks. The advancement of social network technologies enhances the researcher’s ability to understand individual and collective actions in order to effectively solve problems, make decisions, enrich knowledge, and reach consensus. These technologies enable the interfacing of actors who belong to the project network in order to facilitate the execution of project activities in collaboration. Since the aggregation of either individual or collective actors’ actions constitutes project activities, this research investigates the nature of these actions within a project organization, defined as a social structure that is represented as a project network through a webenabled social network system. The actions form and reveal patterns that are scrutinized as routines within the project organizations. Of particular interest to this research are the potential gains in the efficiency, profits, and effectiveness of satisfactorily executed routines as an aggregation of actions. Moreover, this new kind of collective intelligence allows for the exploration of how actions performed through a web-enabled social network system may collectively act more intelligently than they have done before. It is critical, therefore, to scientifically explore actions within web-enabled social network environments through the study of routines executed by (1) single actors and (2) the aggregate of single individual actors. For this purpose, we developed theoretical constructs as framework for collective intelligence. Articulated by human-centered actions, four main constructs are involved in the framework: (1) social actors and communities of practice, (2) social structures, or organizations, (3) social objects as forms of representation of information, and (4) web-enabled social network technology. Examples of expected benefits are the facilitation of group strategies to reach decisions and control of group performance.
PROCESY PRO PODPORU ROZHODOVÁNÍ SEMESTRÁLNÍ PRÁCE

This thesis deals with algorithms for supporting decision processes. Firstly, Analytic Hierachy Process (AHP) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) developed by prof. Thomas L. Saaty are described. Basic principles and the implementation in Java programing language of the decision processes are explained. Both processes are then analyzed and their pros and cons and also practical aspect are explained. Secondly, the genetic algorithm NSGA-II developed by Kalyanmoy Deb is described. There are also basic principles and implementation in Java programing language explained. There are finaly the results of NSAG-II algorithm presented.
Statistical Mechanical Study of Code-Division Multiple-Access Multiuser Detectors —Analysis of Replica Symmetric and One-Step Replica Symmetry Breaking Solutions—

We study the problem of performance evaluation of code-division multiple-access (CDMA) multiuser detectors by means of statistical mechanics using the replica method. The replica symmetric solutions were analyzed previously. As is well known, the replica symmetric solution becomes unstable when the temperature (magnitude of noise) is lowered. In this paper, we investigate both the behavior and the stability of the replica symmetric solutions in the low temperature region. We find that the solutions have complicated bifurcation structures in the low temperature region where the solutions coexist. We also find that there are two types of replica symmetry breaking, Almeida–Thouless (AT)-instability and freezing. We obtain the one-step replica symmetry breaking solution in each case. Further, we compare the theoretical results with the results from the Monte-Carlo simulations. Consequently, we find that the theoretical results agree with the numerical simulations.
A Procedure for Building Reduced reliable Training Datasets from Real-World Data

Dimensionality reduction and anomalous data detection are important tasks in machine learning and data mining applications. Many real-world datasets are affected by errors and variable redundancy and this fact can generate problems when the data are used to develop accurate models exploiting some training procedures for parameters tuning. In this paper an automatic procedure is proposed combining detection of unreliable data and reduction of dimensionality to be adopted before exploiting the data to develop a model for prediction purposes. The method has been tested on several datasets belonging to the UCI repository and industrial fields. The results of tests are showed and discussed in the paper. The proposed approach provide a good prediction accuracy providing a minimal but essential dataset.
A Call for Conservation Scientists to Empirically Study the Effects of Human Population Policies on Biodiversity Loss

The world is changing more quickly now than it ever has before, predominantlydue to our large consumption rates and population size. Despite this epoch beingwell-accepted as the “Anthropocene”, it is surprising that there is still a lack ofwillingness by many conservation scientists to engage with the consequencesof human population dynamics on biodiversity. We highlight the importanceof addressing the effects of our population abundance, density and growthrate on conservation and note that environmental organisations are beginningto embrace this problem but the take-up amongst conservation researchers toempirically study their effect on biodiversity is slow. We argue that the lack ofpublished research may partly be because the topic is still considered taboo. Wetherefore urge conservation scientists to direct more of their research efforts onthis issue, particularly to examples that highlight the effects of Population, Healthand Environment (PHE) projects and female education initiatives on biodiversity.
What is the Monetary Standard, or, How Did the Volcker-Greenspan FOMCs Tame Inflation?

A consensus now exists that central banks, which possess a monopoly over the creation of fiat money (the monetary base), control trend inflation. But how do they exercise this control, especially given that their use of the interest rate as the policy instrument renders money endogenous (determined by market forces)? This paper considers two alternatives. First, central banks control inflation through the way that they manipulate the unemployment rate (subject to a trade-off between changes in inflation and the amount of excess unemployment as summarized in a Phillips curve). Second, and alternatively, central banks control inflation by following consistent procedures that combine two characteristics. Through their consistency, these procedures provide for a nominal anchor by causing the public to expect low trend inflation that is stable in the sense of being unaffected by inflation and recession shocks. Also, they allow the price system to work in the sense of allowing market forces to determine real variables such as the unemployment rate.
DSTATCOM CONTROL METHODS TO RESEARCHERS AND APPLICATION ENGINEERS DEALING WITH HARMONIC SUPPRESSION ISSUES

With the widespread use of harmonic generating devices, the control of harmonic currents to maintain a high level of power quality is becoming increasingly important. An effective way for harmonic suppression is the harmonic compensation by using active power filter. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of DSTATCOM and is aimed at providing a broad perspective on the status of DSTATCOM control methods to researchers and application engineers dealing with harmonic suppression issues. Many control techniques have been designed, developed, and realized for active filters in recent years. This paper presents different types of Synchronous reference frame methods for real time generation of compensating current for harmonic mitigation and reactive power compensation. All the techniques are analyzed mathematically and simulation results are obtained which are being compared in terms of its compensation performance with different parameters under steady state condition. Shunt compensation for medium voltage distribution systems requires higher rating for voltage source converters (VSCs). Ratings of the semiconductor devices in a VSC are always limited; therefore, for higher rated converters it is desirable to distribute the stress among the number of devices using multilevel topology. Cascaded multilevel configuration of the inverter has the advantage of its simplicity and modularity over the configurations of the diode-clamped and flying capacitor multilevel inverters. Application of cascaded multilevel converters for shunt compensation of distribution systems has been described in Literature. This paper presents an investigation of five-Level Cascaded H – bridge (CHB) Inverter as Distribution Static Compensator (DSTATCOM) in Power System (PS) for compensation of reactive power and harmonics. The advantages of CHB inverter are low harmonic distortion, reduced number of switches and suppression of switching losses. A CHB Inverter is considered for shunt compensation of a 11 kV distribution system. Finally a level shifted PWM (LSPWM) and phase shifted PWM (PSPWM) techniques are adopted to investigate the performance of CHB Inverter. The results are obtained through Matlab/Simulink software package. The proposed DSTATCOM is simulated for both linear and nonlinear loads. KeywordsDSTATCOM, Power Quality Level Shifted Pulse Width Modulation (LSPWM), Phase Shifted Pulse Width Modulation (PSPWM), Proportional-Integral (PI) Control.
Surfing and dining on the “plastisphere”: Microbial life on plastic marine debris

Plastic marine debris represents a global threat for the marine environment, having serious consequences for the ocean, the wildlife and the human health. While the plastics distribution, fate, persistence and toxicity mechanisms for the marine fauna have been more studied in the last decade, small efforts have been devoted to identify and characterize marine microbes that colonize plastic and microplastic debris in the ocean, and their potential to degrade plastics. Here we review the knowledge on the microbial biodiversity and degradation mechanisms of marine plastic debris, and present data, based on metagenomic analyses, on the distribution patterns of genes potentially involved in microbially-mediated plastic degradation in coastal locations across the global ocean. Most studies on plastic-colonizing microbes have focused on seawater rather than sediment, with most studies underlining striking differences in composition between assemblages attached to plastic particles and those in the surrounding environment. The diversity of microbes attached to plastic is high, and the core epiplastic microbial assemblages include often hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria, as well as prokaryotic and eukaryotic phototrophs. Several marine microbes have shown to be able to degrade or deteriorate plastic in the laboratory, or to grow on plastic as the only source of carbon, while indirect evidences suggest that microbially-mediated degradation of recalcitrant plastics also occur in the ocean, though at very low rates. Metagenomic analyses show that plastic degradation-related genes are present in microbial assemblages in several coastal ocean sites, with relative abundance related to the magnitude of plastic pollution at each site. Further research is required to study microbial plastic-degraders in the marine ecosystem, to decipher and exploit the potential of microbial consortia to degrade or mineralize plastic compounds, and to better understand the fate and residence times of plastic waste in the ocean.
DUTCH DIPHTHONG AND LONG VOWEL REALIZATIONS AS CHANGING SOCIO-ECONOMIC MARKERS

To judge the influence of speaker background on the quality of five long vowels and diphthongs /o U /, /e I /, /Au/, /EI/, and /2y/ in Standard Dutch, the spectra of these vowel realizations in spontaneous speech were measured for 70 subjects, and analyzed with regard to the subjects’ regions of education and residence, their level of education and occupation, as well as their sex and age. Our preliminary analyses indicated that high educated speakers lowered (higher F1, articulated more open) the long vowels and diphthongs and diphthongized them stronger than low educated speakers. There seemed to be effects of age but more data were needed to specify these. The new data show that besides the level of education or occupation, the factor ’age group’ has a major effect on the variations in speech production. The vowel attributes ’onset’ and ’degree of diphthongization’ were affected variably by speaker background data. Speakers of the older generation hardly differed in their realization behavior, contrary to the younger and middle aged speakers. The higher educated displayed systematic age patterns, the lower educated did not. A slight effect of region of residence was found for the females from the north peripheral residence region, who had higher onsets for /o U /. An effect of sex was found within the youngest age group, where higher educated males differed from higher educated females by their stronger diphthongization of /e I / and /o U /. The vowel variations that were related to age reflected several pronunciation changes in progress.
Direct and indirect effects of nitrogen supply and disease source structure on rice sheath blight spread

Savary, S. , Castilla, N. P., Elazegui, E A. , McLaren, C. G. , Ynalvez, M. A. , and Teng, P. S. 1995. Direct and indirect effects of nitrogen supply and disease source structure on rice sheath blight spread. Phytopathology 85~959-965. Effects of nitrogen and type of disease source on focal expansion of rice sheath blight (caused by Rhizoctonia solani) were studied in. two field experiments. Four disease source types, represented by inoculated individual hills at the center of experimental plots, were obtained by combining two inoculum doses with two heights of inoculation in the canopy. Compared with the low inoculum dose, there was a small but significant increase of disease severity on source hills with the higher inoculum dose, and no disease developed on noninoculated controls. Severity on the sheaths was higher on hills inoculated at the sheath level than on hills inoculated at the leaf level. Conversely, leaf severity was higher on hills inoculated at the leaf level than on hills inoculated at the sheath level. Increased nitrogen supply increased host plant tissue contacts (leaf-to-leaf and leaf-to-sheath), increased the capacity of the canopy to retain moisture, and increased the leaf nitrogen content in both experiments. The size of sheath blight foci was much larger in the rainy (3,000 to 30,000 cmz) than in the dry (250 to 1,100 cm2) season. In both experiments, foci expanded most rapidly in the high nitrogen supply (120 kg per ha) level compared with medium (80 kg per ha) and no nitrogen supply. Positioning of inoculum in the upper layer of the canopy (leaf level) on source hills resulted in faster spread of foci than positioning in the lower layer (sheath level). Multiple regression and path coefficient analyses suggested that nitrogen drives focal expansion in sheath blight essentially via indirect effects: increased tissue contacts in the canopy and higher leaf wetness.
The use of unit-level census data for research on poverty: a multiscale approach

Unit-level data (individual, household or farm) from the 1988 population and 1993 agricultural censuses of Honduras have been integrated into a Geographic Information System (GIS). We showed how poverty indices can be computed for different scales of aggregation from village to country, and how they compare to other published figures. Indicators derived from the analysis of well-being ranking by local informants in 90 communities have been extrapolated to the entire country by means of proxy indicators computed from reasonably well correlated census data. We found that the choice of the indicator as well as the scale of analysis result different geographical representations of distributions of poverty, which may affect significantly the relevance and impact of poverty alleviation policies. We briefly introduce spatial statistical methods to process the data on a given scale, which allows analyses of correlation with other factors significant on the same scale. The same methods also help to detect errors in the data or to determine the optimum scale of a particular indicator.
Cardiorespiratory Fitness of Young Malawian Adults

Background:The interpretation of cardiopulmonary fitness values is based on previously published standard reference values. In other situations, this may cause considerable inaccuracies since cardiorespiratory fitness in a specific population is determined by physical activity habits, geographic living area, body composition, genetics, and other factors, thus, reference values may differ significantly among various populations. The objective of this study was to determine cardiorespiratory values measured as maximal oxygen uptake for young Malawian adults and compare these values with the reference values established for other foreign populations. Methods: This was a cross sectional study involving 133 (62 males and 71 females) apparently healthy young adults aged from 20 to 29 years randomly selected from the Malawian population. Participants performed the Rockport submaximal treadmill exercise test. Measures of body weight, post-exercise heart rate and time to walk one mile were obtained and used to predict VO2max as a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness. Results: MeanVO2max was53.9±12.5 mL.kg-1.min-1 for males and38.8±12.0for females indicating excellent cardiorespiratory fitness for males and good cardiorespiratory fitness for females according to the cooper institute data published by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). Conclusion:Cardiorespiratory fitness measured as VO2max for apparently healthy young Malawian adults have been provided and appear to be within similar ranges as those of some other foreign populations.
UNI VERSITY OF NAIROBI SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATICS THE DETERMINANTS OF ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS (EHIS) ADOPTION AND USAGE FROM HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS’ STAFF PERSPECTIVE: CASE STUDY OF KENYA’S HEALTH SECTOR BY Bernard Nyamali Mokua

Quality healthcare is the extent to which health services provided to individuals and patient populations improve desired health outcomes. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) specifically Electronic Health information systems (EHIS) have made significant impact on healthcare industry in the globally. A well-functioning EHIS is an integrated effort to collect, process, report and use health information and knowledge to influence policy and decisionmaking, programme action, individual and public health outcomes, and research. Its adoption and use, has transformed the way healthcare services are delivered and has impacted significantly health care procedures, work practices, treatment outcomes and cost reduction. However EHIS’s full potential has not been realized, because there are many challenges affecting adoption of ICT solutions in developing countries. These failures of EHIS adoption can be linked to other factors such as social cultural, psychological and organizational besides technical factors (Mwai, 2011). In this study, reviewed user acceptance literature and discussed application of prominent theories and models in studying ICT adoption and use behaviors, empirically compared them in adoption and use and formulated a framework that integrates elements across the theories and models suitable for adoption and use of EHIS in the health industry. In the initial stages of data collection I used qualitative and open-ended research approaches to expand and enrich the conceptual framework. Four healthcare providers I clustered into three categories: Rural setup, urban setup and city setup that participated in this research. Using subjective sampling I selected informants who mainly end-users are using the system on a day to day basis.The analysis was conducted using SPSS where descriptive statistics were also generated including frequency. Inferential statistics were also generated including regression coefficient, and eventually and framework for adoption and use of EHIS from the staff perspectivewas generated. The findings of the study indicate the fact that five determinants: Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Enjoyment, Security of Records and Awareness in combination with other determinants influence adoption and use of EHIS.
Parabolic pulse generation using tapered microstructured optical fibres

This paper presents a numerical study of parabolic pulse generation in tapered microstructured optical fibres (MOFs). Based on our results and the algorithms presented, one can determine the linear taper profile (starting and finishing pitch values and taper length) needed to achieve parabolic pulse shaping of an initial Gaussian pulse shape with different widths and powers. We quantify the evolution of the parabolic pulse using the misfit parameter and show that it is possible to reach values significantly better than those obtained by a step index fibre.
Sooty Mold on Lemon Trees - First Recording from El-Beida City, Libya

Sooty molds are a lineage of follicolous fungi that cover the upper surface of leaves with black mycelia. Sooty molds do not infect plants, but grow on surfaces where honeydew deposits accumulate. Sooty moulds fungi proliferate in abundance on the foliage of lemon subsisting on the honeydew secreted by insects. whiteflies was found in different stages on lower leaf surface. The black color was checked and Alternaria alternata described and reported as new recorded on lemon leaves were infected with white fly in El-Beida, Libya.
New approaches to automatic headline generation for Arabic documents

A headline is considered a condensed summary of a document. The necessity for automatic headline generation has been on the rise due to the need to handle a huge number of documents, which is a tedious and time-consuming process. Instead of reading every document, the headline can be used to decide which ones contain important and relevant information. There are two major approaches to automatic headline generation. The first is linguistic, in which the knowledge about the structure of the language itself is considered. The second approach is statistical and it comprises all quantitative approaches to automated language processing. However, the Arabic language has a different statistical structure than the English language, and requires special treatment to generate Arabic headlines, especially when there is no dedicated technique for the Arabic language. Therefore, two new statistical methods in automatic headline generation have been developed to create representative headlines for textual documents in the Arabic language. The first is an extractive method based on character cross-correlation, and the second one is an abstractive method based on the hidden Markov model (HMM). The extractive method achieved ROUGE-L of (0.1938) and the HMM method achieved ROUGE-L of (0.2332). In addition, both techniques were assessed via human examiners who evaluated the resulting headlines. Key words: Summarization, automatic headline generation, hidden Markov model, language model