Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transformational Leadership Style and Organizational Learning: The Mediate Effect of Organizational Culture

Purpose: The present study aims to investigate the influence of transformational leadership style (TFL) on organizational learning (OL). More specifically, it aims to examine the mediating effect of organizational culture (OC) on this relationship, in the context of ministries operating in Palestine. Design/methodology/approach: The present study utilized the hypothesis–deductive testing approach. Two hypotheses were proposed for testing. The data were collected from 475 managers at 23 ministries in Gaza by using self adminstarted questionniers and the data aggregated by individual level. Findings: The results demonstrated that organizational culture was a significant predictor of organizational learning and functioned as a fully mediator between the transformational leadership style and organizational learning. Research limitations/implications: A key limitation of this study is its cross-sectional nature. It is possible that at least certain aspects of transformational leadership and its impact on organizational culture and organizational learning emerge with some kind of time lag. This study also used the perceptions of leader-self report as its data source, which may cause potential common source bias. Practical implications: The findings of this research will assist policy makers of the Palestinian ministries to optimize the allocations of resources in its hiring, rewarded, training and other functions of human resource management to have the right leaders for building a learning organization. Originality/value: The results of this study provide evidence in support the mediating effect of organizational culture on the relationship between transformational leadership style and organizational learning, which represents a response to many calls to conduct further research in this area, and will be of interest to those in the field.
Interrelated Factors Influencing the Adoption Decision of AIS Applications by SMEs in Jordan

This study aims to identify the main factors that either facilitating (motivating) or inhabiting the adoption decision of AIS by small –medium sized companies in Jordan. In order to accomplish the research objectives, a conceptual framework was designed. The conceptual framework includes three major interrelated factors: organizational, technological and environmental factors. The data for this research were collected through email survey with 101 respondents. The target respondents were the small-medium sized companies in Jordan and the key respondent approach was used. A group of twenty factors, employed as variables from the previous studies and models of adoption were listed and examined in a neutral manner, without pre-classifying them as barriers or incentives, through email surveys sent to key respondent in the SMEs. Respondents were asked to indicate how these factors influence their AIS adoption decisions. Furthermore, a comparison analysis has conducted to show how these factors are perceived differently among those who have adopted as AIS, those that will not adopt it all and those that might adopt it in the near future. The finding showed that only twelve of these factors were found significant, eight labeled as incentives and four labeled as barriers. However, the set cost factor was the only shared one perceived as a barrier among all groups. The results showed the three groups adopt perceive factors differently. The research has finalized with some theoretical and practical implications and recommendations.
Structural controls on englacial esker sedimentation: Skeiðarárjökull, Iceland

Abstract We have used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to observe englacial structural control upon the development of an esker formed during a high-magnitude outburst flood (jökulhlaup). The surge-type Skeiðarárjökull, an outlet glacier of the Vatnajökull ice cap, Iceland, is a frequent source of jökulhlaups. The rising-stage waters of the November 1996 jökulhlaup travelled through a dense network of interconnected fractures that perforated the margin of the glacier. Subsequent discharge focused upon a small number of conduit outlets. Recent ice-marginal retreat has exposed a large englacial esker associated with one of these outlets. We investigated structural controls on esker genesis in April 2006, by collecting >2.5km of GPR profiles on the glacier surface up-glacier of where the esker ridge has been exposed by meltout. In lines closest to the exposed esker ridge, we interpret areas of englacial horizons up to ~30m wide and ~10–15m high as an up-glacier continuation of the esker sediments. High-amplitude, dipping horizons define the base of esker materials across many lines. Similar dipping surfaces deeper in the profiles suggest that: (1) the dipping surfaces beneath the esker are englacial tephera bands; (2) floodwaters were initially discharged along structurally controlled englacial surfaces (tephra bands); (3) the rapid increase in discharge resulted in hydrofracturing; (4) establishment of preferential flow paths resulted in conduit development along the tephra bands due to localized excavation of surrounding glacier ice; and (5) sedimentation took place within the new accommodation space to form the englacial structure melting out to produce the esker.
CLASSIFICATION OF LIDAR DATA FOR GENERATING A HIGH-PRECISION ROADWAY MAP

Generating of a highly precise map grows up with development of autonomous driving vehicles. The highly precise map includes a precision of centimetres level unlike an existing commercial map with the precision of meters level. It is important to understand road environments and make a decision for autonomous driving since a robust localization is one of the critical challenges for the autonomous driving car. The one of source data is from a Lidar because it provides highly dense point cloud data with three dimensional position, intensities and ranges from the sensor to target. In this paper, we focus on how to segment point cloud data from a Lidar on a vehicle and classify objects on the road for the highly precise map. In particular, we propose the combination with a feature descriptor and a classification algorithm in machine learning. Objects can be distinguish by geometrical features based on a surface normal of each point. To achieve correct classification using limited point cloud data sets, a Support Vector Machine algorithm in machine learning are used. Final step is to evaluate accuracies of obtained results by comparing them to reference data The results show sufficient accuracy and it will be utilized to generate a highly precise road map.
Cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiometabolic risk factors in schoolchildren from Colombia : The FUPRECOL Study

The objectives of this study are to investigate the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiovascular risk factors in schoolchildren and to evaluate the degree of association between overall and abdominal adiposity and cardiorespiratory fitness. A total of 1,875 children and adolescents attending public schools in Bogota, Colombia (56.2% girls; age range of 9–17.9 years). A cardiovascular risk score (Z-score) was calculated and participants were divided into tertiles according to low and high levels of overall (sum of the skinfold thicknesses) and abdominal adiposity. Schoolchildren with a high level of overall adiposity demonstrated significant differences in seven of the 10 variables analyzed (i.e. systolic and diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, triglycerides/HDL-c ratio, total cholesterol, glucose and cardiovascular risk score). Schoolchildren with high levels of both overall and abdominal adiposity and low cardiorespiratory fitness had the least favorable cardiovascular risk factors score. These findings may be relevant to health promotion in Colombian youth.
Verifying Anti-Security Policies Learnt from Android Malware Families

Android malware has been increasingly identiﬁed and organised into families [28, 36], e.g., Geinimi, Basebridge, Spitmo, Zitmo, and Ginmaster, etc. This human-decided organisation was based on some unexpected behaviours exhibited in malware instances, e.g., intercept incoming messages then send them out via Internet connections, load classes from a hidden payload then execute commands from remote servers, and send premium messages constantly, and so on; and malware instances in one family share some common unexpected behaviours [17, 29]. We study the problem of verifying Android applications to deny these behaviours. That is, (a) to formalise and learn unexpected behaviours from malware instances exploiting their family information, so-called anti-security policies; (b) and verify target applications against these policies efﬁciently, so as to decide whether a target application has any unexpected behaviour. Our main contributions are : (a) we implement a static analysis tool to construct an extended B¨uchi automaton for each Android application to approximate its behaviours, considering a broad range of features of Java and the Android framework [3]; (b) we develop an efﬁcient machine-learning-centred method to construct sub-automata as anti-security policies from thousands of malware instances across hundreds of malware families; (c) we demonstrate the effectiveness of anti-security policy veriﬁcation by showing how it helps reveal covert channels in a scenario of collusion attacks. We show that using the veriﬁcation results against anti-security policies as input features, the classiﬁcation performance on new malware detections is improved dramatically, in particular, the precision and recall are respectively 8% and 51% better than those using APIs calls and permissions as input features. We compare anti-security policies for malware families to their manual descriptions, which have been produced by malware analysts or third-party researchers [1, 2
Screening and optimization of extracellular lipases by Acinetobacter species isolated from oil -contaminated soil in South Korea

A total of 53 strains of bacteria were isolated from oil contaminated soil collected in South Korea. The isolated bacteria were screened using spirit blue agar and Rhodamine-B agar media. Two of the isolated strains exhibited a greater clear zone than the others, indicating higher lipase activity. Therefore, these two strains (BK43 and BK44) were selected and identified based on their morphological and physiological characteristics. The 16S rRNA gene sequencing was also implemented. Phylogenetic analyses based on the results of 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that BK43 and BK44 were close in identity to Acinetobacter junii . The optimum pH and temperature for lipase production by BK43 were found to be 6.0 at 30°C, after 24 h of incubation, while BK44 were found to be 6.0 at 25°C, after 12 h of incubation. In addition, increased enzymatic production was obtained when the organisms were cultured in medium supplemented with 1% sucrose as the carbon source. Among the different lipase inducers tested, both strains utilized Tween 80 and produced a great level of extracellular lipase. Overall, the results of the present study demonstrate that the genus Acinetobacter is good for extracellular lipase production under acidic conditions.
Creating a user performance brief: An action research study

Background Establishing client needs during the formative stages of a project (before design commences) is becoming an increasingly important role for the facility manager (FM). With knowledge of the organisation and the functional and technical imperatives of a process or service, the FM can play a key role in the creation and development of the initial performance based brief that can guide the design team. A number of pre-design processes and activities are being developed that work through client strategic and organisational issues and organise the client’s needs and requirements into an agreed performance brief before the design team becomes involved. Tapping into the knowledge and experience of stakeholders through their involvement in pre-design workshops is a common feature of many of these project inception approaches. Objectives The aim of the work was to create a strategically positioned client performance brief with a clear and workable statement of the project requirements that the client group has agreed and committed itself to. Rather than adopting a sterile prescriptive approach to identifying the stakeholder’s briefing requirements a performance-based document should provide flexibility in design team interpretation. The performance brief can then provide a sound basis for the development and interpretation of innovative design. Methodology This action research study of the early stages of a project used strategic needs analysis. This approach uses a workshop setting to involve and focus stakeholders in discussing, proposing and identifying a range of strategic options for the proposed project. The development of a range of realistic options is a crucial part of any process and in SNA this stage has received particular attention with the use of a problem structuring computer program, Situation Structuring. Individual workshop participants then express their preferences for the final options using a second software package (Strategizer) and after a short period for analysis the results are presented to a second workshop for discussion. The second workshop discussed and decided on the preferred strategic direction. The chosen direction may be based on an option previously identified or it may consist of an amalgam of the favoured features of a number of the previous options. The performance brief can then be prepared to reflect stakeholder’s and the workshop’s preferences. Results The application describes the relocation of a library with community facilities. The process involved with the development of organizational strategic options with the stakeholders is described. The creation and identification of user performance indicators to guide the design development process is illustrated and a sample of the final performance brief is provided.
Imaging of THz waves in 2D photonic crystal structures embedded in a slab waveguide

We present space- and time-resolved simulations and measurements of single-cycle terahertz (THz) waves propagating through two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal structures embedded in a slab waveguide. Specifically, we use a plane wave expansion technique to calculate the band structure and a time-dependent finite-element method to simulate the temporal evolution of the THz waves. Experimentally, we measure the space–time evolution of the THz waves through a coherent time-resolved imaging method. Three different structures are laser machined in LiNbO3 crystal slabs and analyzing the transmitted as well as the reflected THz waveforms allows determination of the bandgaps. Comparing the results with the calculated band diagrams and the time-dependent simulations shows that the experiments are consistent with 3D simulations, which include the slab waveguide geometry, the birefringence of the material, and a careful analysis of the excited modes within the band diagrams.
MOLECULAR TAGGING OF KARNAL BUNT RESISTANCE GENES OF Triticum monococcum L. TRANSFERRED TO Triticum aestivum L.

Triticum monococcum, a diploid wheat has been found to be an excellent source of resistance. against several wheat diseases including Karnal bunt. The F 3 population of the cross synthetic amphiploid (T. dt.irum-T. monococcum) x T.aestivum cv. WL 711(non­ necrotic) was used to identify Karnal bunt resistant derivatives. Screening for Karnal bunt resistance was done under artificial inoculation at the boot stage. The somatic chromosome number of the resistant plants was 29, 41 and 42 with some univalents and multivalents. The microsatellite markers already mapped to the A genome of wheat were used to tag the Karnal bunt resistance gene(s) of T. monococcum transferred to T. aestivum. The T. monococcum specific alleles of the wheat microsatellite (WMS) loci gwm382, gwm369, gwm637, gwm156 and gwm617 mapped on 2AS, 3AS, 4AL, SAL and 6AL chromosomes, respectively were found to be associated with Karnal bunt resistance in different resistant derivatives.
Hydrated phases and pore solution composition in cement- solidified saltstone waste forms

The mineral phases and pore solution composition of hydrated cement- solidified synthetic saltstone waste forms are quantified using thermogravimetric analysis, quantitative X-ray powder diffraction, and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. Although the synthetic waste contained additional sulfate, the overall chemistry of the system suppressed the formation of sulfate-bearing mineral phases. This was corroborated by the pore solution analysis that indicated very high sulfur concentrations. After one year of hydration, the mineral phases present and the composition of the pore solution are stable, and are generally consistent with expectations based on the hydration of high volume portland cement replacement mixtures.
Predicting and mitigating the impacts of global change on species' distributions

Global change is expected to accelerate extinction rates substantially. Accurately predicting species responses to future climate and land use changes and the conservation effectiveness of protected areas are critical. Here, I test whether species distribution models can predict how species' ranges shift through time and if protected areas are more robust to recent global change impacts than areas lacking formal protection. Purely spatial species distribution
Effect of Chronic Alcohol Consumption on Phosphatidylcholine Hydroperoxide Content of Rat Liver and Brain

Purpose: To investigate the correlation between alcohol-induced oxidative stress and tissue phosphatidylcholine hydroperoxide (PC-OOH) content of rat liver and brain. Methods: Ten Wistar rats were divided into two groups: one group was given 20 % ethanol (5 g/kg) and the other the same volume of normal saline, orally once a day for 6 weeks. Catalase activity, malondialdehyde (MDA) content, total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and PC-OOH content of liver and brain were determined. Results: The ethanol-treated group had lower catalase activity and total antioxidant capacity. MDA level in the liver was 0.33 ± 0.07 μM/mg protein which is significantly (p < 0.05) higher than that of the control group (0.17 ± 0.06 μM/mg protein), but in brain, there was no significant difference. PC-OOH level in the ethanol-treated group was 46.91 ± 12.87 pmol/mg in liver and 71.97 ± 26.12 pmol/mg protein in brain while PC-OOH level of control group was 21.40 ± 10.71 pmol/mg protein in liver and that in brain was 25.29 ± 5.67 pmol/mg protein pmol. Thus, PC-OOH levels in both liver and brain were significantly (p < 0.05) higher than that of control group. PC-OOH content in the liver and brain correlated significantly (p < 0.05) with catalase activity and total antioxidant capacity (TAC). Conclusion: The study demonstrates that PC-OOH content in liver and brain tissues may be a marker for alcohol-induced oxidative stress.
Acousto-electric transport in epitaxial monolayer graphene on SiC

We report on the piezoelectric excitation and acoustic charge transport by gigahertz surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in epitaxial monolayer graphene (EG) on SiC. The GHz SAWs frequencies were generated by interdigital transducers fabricated on a piezoelectric island on the SiC substrate. Acoustic transport studies in a Hall bar geometry show that the propagating SAW field transports carriers in EG, the transport direction being determined by the direction of the acoustic beam. Carrier transport is driven by drift in the piezoelectric field induced by the SAW in EG.
GLICERIDI DELL'ACIDO BUTIRRICO NELLE DIETA DEI BROILER: EFFETTI SULL'ISTOLOGIA DELLA MUCOSA INTESTINALE E SULLA COMPOSIZIONE DELLA CARCASSA

Aim of the study was to verify the effects of butyric acid glycerides, as a supplemental ingredient in the diet, on live performance of broiler chickens and on the morphology of their small intestine, since short chain fatty acids are known as selective protection factors against intestinal microbial parasites, potent growth promoters of the gut wall tissues, also in terms of immune modulation response. An experiment was carried out on 150 Ross 308 female chickens, allotted to 5 treatments, over a 35 d ays period: the control, with soybean oil as the energy supplement, and 4 treatments with increasing amounts (0.2, 0.35, 0.5, 1% mixed feed) of a mixture of butyric acid glycerides (mono-, diand t r i g l yc e r i d e s ) . Treated animals showed a higher live weight at slaughtering (P<0.05) with a better feed conversion rate. The carcase characteristics were not influenced, but the small intestine wall resulted slightly modified with shorter villi, longer microvilli (P<0.01) and larger crypts depth in jejunum (P<0.01), only with lowest concentration of the supplement (0.2%). It is concluded that butyric acid glycerides are an efficient supplement to broilers’ diets, deserving particular attention as a possible alternative to antimicrobial drugs, which have been banned in Europe.
Investigation of Mode I fracture toughness of red Verona marble after thermal treatment

The present paper aims to assess the effect of freeze/thaw cycles on fracture behaviour of a natural stone: the red Verona marble. A wide variety of specimen types and methods to determine Mode I fracture toughness of natural stones are available in the literature and, in this context, the model originally proposed for plain concrete, i.e. the Two-Parameter Model (TPM), is adopted. Such a method is able to take into account the slow nonlinear crack growth occurring before the peak load, typical of quasi-brittle materials, with the advantage of easy specimen preparation and simple test configuration. In the present paper, the atmospheric ageing is simulated by means of thermal pre-treatments consisting of freeze/thaw cycles. Experimental tests are carried out using three-point bending Single-Edge Notched (SEN) specimens, according to the TPM procedure. The effects of thermal treatment on both mechanical and fracture parameters are examined in terms of elastic modulus and fracture toughness, respectively. KEYWORDS. Mode I Fracture Toughness; Red Verona Marble; Thermal Treatment; Two-Parameter Model.