Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of ICT Connectedness, Permeability, Flexibility, and Negative Spillovers on Burnout and Job and Family Satisfaction

This study investigates the effects of information and communication technologies (ICTs), permeability, flexibility, and spillovers of work into home and home into work on job burnout and job and family satisfaction. Results from a random sample of 612 office workers show that individuals who reported being satisfied with their jobs tended to feel that the Internet could help them accomplish work-related tasks, that traditional media could help them relax after work, and had a highly permeable boundary between their home domain and a highly flexible work environment. On the other hand, people who experienced low job satisfaction faced high work spillovers into home life and high burnout. The findings underscore that the connectedness of ICTs is not the main issue for assessing the consequences associated with ICTs. Rather, individual control over what passes through the boundaries shapes the consequences people experience.
An Evaluation of the African Leadership in ICT Programme from a Quality Assurance Perspective

Abstract The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of the African Leadership in ICT (ALICT-LATIC) course delivery model, offered by the Global e-Schools and Communities Initiatives (GESCI) from a quality assurance perspective taking into account the delivery model, cultural context, and the distributed nature of the programme and its participants, from a geographical perspective. In this paper, we look at the key concepts governing the ALICTLATIC course, such as the provision of transnational education and blended learning provisions. Through a series of steps including desk studies, expert observation and the application of the eLearning Maturity Model, we conduct an evaluation of the eLearning provision from a quality assurance perspective. We can reasonably argue at this stage that the current blended learning model is conducive for the development of skills and competencies as expected in terms of intended outcomes and learner experience. The quality of the course is comparable to academic standards adopted by institutions of higher education through their internal and external quality mechanisms.
Numerical solution of the moment equations using kinetic flux-splitting schemes

Processes in rarefied gases are accurately described by the Boltzmann equation. The solution of the Boltzmann equation using direct numerical methods and direct simulation Monte Carlo methods (DSMC) is very time consuming. An alternative approach can be obtained by using moment equations, which allow the calculation of processes in the transition regime at reduced computational cost. In the current work, a finite volume method is developed for the solution of these moment equations. The numerical scheme is based on kinetic schemes, similar to those developed for the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations by Deshpande (1986), Perthame (1990), Xu et al. (2005), Le Tallec and Perlat (1998), and others.
The Role of Reaction Parameters on the Preparation and Properties of Carboxymethyl Cassava Starch

The role of reaction variables on carboxymethylation of cassava starch was investigated using a statistically experimental design approach. The reaction was carried out in an isopropanol-water mixture at 40°C for 3 h. The reaction parameters under investigation included water fraction in the reaction medium, the ratio of sodium hydroxide to anhydroglucose unit (AGU) and the ratio of sodium monochloroacetate (SMCA) to AGU. The dependent responses were degree of substitution (DS) of CMS and the reaction efficiency (RE) of the carboxymethylation. Carboxymethyl cassava starches with DS in the range of 0.01 to 0.86 were prepared. The result from regression analysis indicated that the most important factors in controlling the DS of CMS were sodium hydroxide and SMCA contents followed by water content. Response surface plots suggested that the optimal levels of sodium hydroxide and water content to achieve CMS with high DS were at the intermediate values. Similar effects of sodium hydroxide and water content were also observed on the RE while SMCA content had a negative effect; increasing SMCA content resulted in lower RE. The optimal conditions to achieve the highest DS and RE were found to be at a water content of 17-19% with a molar ratio of sodium hydroxide to AGU of 1.8-1.9 and a molar ratio of SMCA to AGU between 1.1-1.5. Carboxymethyl cassava starch with various DS was also prepared. The properties of CMS as affected by the degree of modification were also discussed.
A Discrete Fourier Transform Framework for Localization Relations

Localization relations arise naturally in the formulation of multi-scale models. They facilitate statistical analysis of local phenomena that may contribute to failure related properties. The computational burden of dealing with such relations is high and recent work has focused on spectral methods to provide more efficient models. Issues with the inherent integrations in the framework have led to a tendency towards calibration-based approaches. In this paper a discrete Fourier transform framework is introduced, leading to an extremely efficient basis for the localization relations. Previous issues with the Green’s function integrals are resolved, and the method is validated against finite element analysis.
The Impact of Risk-Modeling Disclosures on the Market Perception of Banks’ Estimated Fair Value Gains and Losses for Financial Instruments

We examine whether and how measures of market and credit risk modeling identified from banks’ financial reports enhance the returns-relevance of their estimated annual unrealized fair value gains and losses for financial instruments. To capture differences in market liquidity and fair valuation difficulties across types of financial instruments, we distinguish unrealized gains and losses that are recorded in net income versus recorded in other comprehensive income versus calculable using financial statement note disclosures. We predict and generally find that banks’ market (credit) risk modeling enhances the returns-relevance of their unrealized fair value gains and losses, more so for less liquid instruments subject to greater market-risk-related (credit-riskrelated) valuation difficulties and during periods for which market (credit) risk is higher. We obtain these findings both for banks’ unadjusted risk modeling measures and for the portions of these measures that we model as attributable to banks’ risk modeling activities, but not for the portions we model as attributable to banks’ disclosure of these activities.
The Phonetics of Multiple Vowel Lengthening in Japanese

Many languages exploit a short vs. long lexical contrast in vowels. In most, if not all of these languages, the contrast is binary. In Japanese, however, speakers can lengthen vowels to express emphasis, and multiple degrees of lengthening can be used to express different degrees of emphasis. This paper offers the first experimental documentation of this emphatic vowel lengthening phenomenon. The current results demonstrate that, among the seven speakers recorded, at least a few speakers show six-levels of distinction in duration, and all but one speaker showed a steady linear correlation between duration and level of emphasis. We conclude that Japanese speakers have articulatory control that allows them to make very fine-grained durational distinctions, which go beyond mere binary short vs. long distinctions.
The role of E-portfolios in higher education: their perceived value and potential to assist undergraduate computing students

Whilst not a new concept, ePortfolios embrace the interactive nature of Web 2.0 technology and are beginning to show signs of bringing about a new pedagogy in education. The wide range of commercial and open source ePortfolio and associated tools currently available allows students to maintain an online repository of digital artefacts. These tools can facilitate reflective, collaborative and lifelong learning, and allow students to showcase skills, knowledge and understanding. A key benefit identified in the literature is the ability to create a personalised and reflective learning experience. Previous research has shown that the lack of competent and effective use of ePortfolios and the inability of students fully to recognise the benefits to them as learners, are hindering their widespread use. This paper focuses on a small pilot research project, which seeks to identify the Web 2.0 tools that students following undergraduate awards in technology subjects across various levels at the authors’ institution are currently using. It investigates the extent to which students keep a digital record of their learning and how they perceive ePortfolios as a learning tool. The students were surveyed by questionnaire providing quantitative data. Qualitative information was also gained by interviewing a smaller group of those students individually to ascertain whether they were able to identify the value of an ePortfolio and how they might envisage using one in their learning. The outcome of this initial study has helped to determine whether an ePortfolio application was worthy of further development and trialling as a subsequent project.
Quality Assessment of Generated Hardware Designs Using Statistical Analysis and Machine Learning

In order to continuously increase design productivity, engineers and researchers rely on automation frameworks for hardware design purposes. This does not only guarantee an easier implementation of components, but creates a larger margin for improvement by generating design variants. Within this framework, a major problem for optimizing the generated design is retrieving data from which a prediction function (e.g. area, speed, power consumption) could be learned correctly (since a complete generation, i.e. synthesis of the hardware design, is too computationally expensive to be performed for a wide set of variants). In particular, the data used for learning the prediction function should be representative of valid design possibilities and be generated in an efficient way. As one contribution, this paper describes how Statistical Analysis (SA) and Machine Learning (ML) are used to guarantee the quality of the data. At the same time, its retrieval should avoid time consumption and manual effort. Therefore, this paper also proposes an automatic approach to generate representative and valid configuration samples both to improve the efficiency and to avoid manual effort during the retrieval. To point out this concept, we implement the generation of data for the estimation of the area of a Register Interface (RI) component. The proposed methods, implemented through SA and ML, allow to supervise the correctness of the generated data and the learning process itself. As a consequence, given the correctly generated data, the process of learning the RI area through a data-driven ML algorithm guarantees a still accurate (R = 0.98) but 600x faster estimation.
Lackadaisical quantum walk for spatial search

Lackadaisical quantum walk (LQW) has been an efficient technique in searching for a target state in a database which is distributed in a two-dimensional lattice. We numerically study the quantum search algorithm based on the lackadaisical quantum walk in one and two dimensions. It is observed that specific values of the self-loop weight at each vertex of the graph is responsible for such a speedup of the algorithm. Searching for a target state in one-dimensional lattice with periodic boundary conditions is possible using lackadaisical quantum walk, which can find a target state with [Formula: see text] success probability after [Formula: see text] time steps. In two dimensions, our numerical simulation up to [Formula: see text] for specific sets of target states suggests that the lackadaisical quantum walk can search one of the [Formula: see text] target states in [Formula: see text] time steps.
ROUTE CHOICE MODELLING FOR BICYCLE TRIPS

This paper intends to find out which parameters have the highest influence on bicyclists' route-choice-behaviour and how they contribute. There are many attributes considered throughout different studies that are favoured by cyclists. The attributes are the basis for generating a function which predicts the route choice of cyclists. The paper aims at making a comparison between distance-based routes and attribute-based routes. The model for creating the bicycle route choice program is based on the network model of Norrkoping, Sweden. The preferred attributes of the model each assign a weight in the cost function of the model for each link of the urban network. The algorithm of the lowest cost function route searches the shortest path in terms of assigned link costs over the whole network. For comparing the results of the cost function and the shortest route (between an origin-destination), the model has a shortest path finding algorithm between different Origin and Destination pairs implemented. It has been viewed that around 25% of all cumulative routes do not show any distance differences between the shortest path distance and attributes based solution. With the used weights of the Standard scenario, it can be seen that the trade-off between shortest distance and safety respectively comfort can be optimized, fulfilling both criteria (distance and safety/comfort).
Discursive (de)-legitimation strategies in the media - a case study of Finnish co-operation negotiations during the economic downturn in 2008-2015

The broad objective of this research is to understand legitimacy and specifically the process of legitimation. The aim is to further the existing organizational literature on legitimacy and legitimation processes by researching discursive legitimation strategies used to legitimate or delegitimate co-operation negotiation announcements in the Finnish media during 2008-2015. In addition, the study aims at finding distinguishing features between the media outlets. This research is a qualitative case study analyzing a collection of news articles. The news articles were extracted from two Finnish media outlets, Helsingin Sanomat and Yle. To build an understanding of the legitimation process, a critical discourse analysis as a research method was applied. The analysis was divided into two distinguishing parts. First, a comprehensive thematic analysis was used to organize the news articles into specific themes based on the discussed issues and topics in the media materials. During the final step, an overall textual analysis was conducted to understand how the themes were used for discursive (de)-legitimation purposes. The findings, based on the critical discourse analysis, support the legitimation strategies and their particular discursive features that were revealed in previous literature. The strategies, from most common to least common are: rationalization, authorization, moralization, normalization, and narrativization. All of the strategies were used in various ways to establish legitimacy or illegitimacy of the co-operation negotiation announcements. It seems that rationalization and authorization has an important role in (de)-legitimating the co-operation negotiation announcements, as two-thirds of all cases are based on those. In addition, a new connection between factual news articles and taken-for-grantedness was found. Finally, the differences between Helsingin Sanomat and Yle were highlighted and a general structure for constructing a news article about co-operation negotiations was former. The most distinguishing difference was that Helsingin Sanomat used (de)-legitimation strategies multiple times more often compared to Yle.
Soft Mapping between Hierarchical Classifications

Indexing by means of a hierarchical classification is a common method of organising information for subsequent ease of access. The semantic web makes use of this approach by allowing entities to be grouped into classes, with a sub-class / super-class structure. Frequently, different data sources use different hierarchical classification structures, which complicates the task of integrating information from multiple sources. In this paper, we outline a method for automatically determining a soft mapping between the classes in different hierarchies, using a previously described method for identifying equivalence instances. In turn, the identification of the correct category can improve the instance matching performance. A trial application mapping between genres in large movie databases is presented.
The relationship between apparent motion and object files

Object files (OFs) play an important role in theories of mid-level vision. On some influential views, OFs operate and persist only via spatiotemporal continuity. One open question concerns what occurs when direct spatiotemporal continuity is absent: Do OFs move in accordance with any motion correspondence ultimately resolved? Specifically, do OFs accord with apparent motion (AM) correspondences, which arise despite a lack of continuous spatiotemporal stimulation? In Experiment 1, subjects were presented with an AM display consisting of two circles that, across two frames, were seen as moving between two noncontiguous locations. The two objects were primed with two symbols and were then moved in a single step; a third symbol appeared, and could either match the symbol from the closer or the further object. We found a robust object specific preview benefit (OSPB) for the shorter path, in other words, the path along which AM was perceived. In order to control for the possibility that priming occurs at any nearby object, in Experiment 2, the original two objects never disappeared, but two new objects appeared in the would-be AM locations. No AM was perceived, and no OSPB obtained. In the third experiment the OSPB effect persisted even when motion along the shorter path included an unlikely featural transformation (circles turning into squares). In Experiment 4, which was nearly identical to Experiment 2, no OSPB obtained despite unique featural matches between the initial and new objects, seemingly because no AM was perceived. In Experiment 5, we failed to find an effect of featural priming, even when distance between the objects was equated. Finally, we extended the OSPB effect to two additional kinds of AM—line motion (Experiment 6) and phi motion (Experiment 7), supplying strong evidence that AM correspondences and OF correspondences are controlled by the same basic rules.
Mathematics Teachers and Digital Technology: A Quest for Teachers’ Professional Development in Indonesia

This article aims to explore a possible criterion of digital technology mathematics teachers’ professional development[1]. The criterion was canvassed through qualitative exploratory study which involve a hybrid model of DigiTech TPD, online published articles of related TPD, and theoretical perspective which relate to digital technology in mathematics education. Related frameworks (Drijverset al, 2010; Trocki & Hollebrands, 2018) and content analysis were utilized to analyze the first two data. Theoretical perspectives of digital technology in mathematics education were accounted to reflect prior data and explore the criterion. We found that the current TPD[2]has not developed the knowledge of task design and supported teachers' roles in orchestrating technology-rich mathematics teaching as seen in the low level of tasks and teachers' orchestration in the classroom. Related articles on TPD in Indonesia show that the programs have not touched decisive factors of successfully implementing digital technology. An alternative criterion for DigiTech TPD is explored which includes three aspects namely theoretical approach, model and content. It could be alternative point of departure for designing and conducting DigiTech TPD in Indonesia.
Development of a data-mining system for differential profiling of cell glycoproteins based on lectin microarray

Lectin microarray is an emerging technique enabling multiplex glycan profiling in a direct, rapid and sensitive manner. So far, there has been no robust system available for efficient data-mining to realize differential profiling, which is an effective approach to biomarker investigation. In the present paper, we describe a practical strategy for proteomics-based glycan-related biomarker discovery, with an example of mice embryonal carcinoma and embryonic stem cells and their differentiated forms with retinoic acid. Data were processed by the microarray system using a max-normalization procedure after a gain-merging process, followed by principal component analysis.
Can Current Packet Analysis Software Detect BitTORRENT Activity or Extract Files From BTP and uTP Traffic Streams

BitTorrent is a peer to peer file sharing protocol used to exchange files over the internet, and is used for both legal and illegal activity. Newer BitTorrent client programs are using proprietary UDP based protocols as well as TCP to transmit traffic, and also have the option of encrypting the traffic. This network forensic research examined a number of packet analysis programs to determine whether they could detect such traffic from a packet captures of a complete file transmitted using one of four protocol options. The four states examined were: TCP without encryption, TCP with encryption, μTP without encryption and μTP with encryption, and the six programs investigated were: Network Miner, Tcpxtract, Honeysnap, OpenDPI, Netwitness Investigator and SPID. Of the six programs investigated, none of them were fully able to fully reconstruct a file, with most not even able to detect that the traffic related to BitTorrent usage. The Netwitness Investigator program was able to extract the announce and scrape files. The signature based SPID was able to partly match TCP based torrent traffic, but could not identify μTP traffic. The conclusion is that until new tools are developed, forensic investigators must continue to rely on artifacts created by the BitTorrent clients themselves in order to locate evidence in the event that a crime has been alleged.
Evaluation of the Antibacterial Activity of Silver Nanoparticles of Carica papaya, Allium cepa and Azadirachta indica: an Invitro Study

The rates of nosocomial infections, especially by those caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria, are increasing alarmingly over the globe. Although more rigorous infection control measures are being implemented, it is clear that the current modalities to reduce nosocomial infections are not sufficient. In hospitals, textiles are an excellent substrate for bacterial growth under appropriate conditions of moisture and temperature. Several studies have found that personnel in contact with contaminated textiles were the source of transmission of the microorganisms to susceptible patients causing infection. Due to the growing demand for comfortable, clean, and hygienic textile goods, an urgent need for production of antimicrobial textile bed sheets has arisen. With the advent of new technologies, the growing needs of consumers in terms of health and hygiene can be fulfilled without International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 5 Number 4 (2016) pp. 689-697 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com