Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimization of Oil Removal by Sugarcane Bagasse using Response Surface Methodology

Oily wastewater is one of the environmental concerns nowadays. The seriousness of oil pollution problem comes in sync with the expansion of oil exploration and production activities, as well as industrial growth around the world. In this study, the ability of sugarcane bagasse in removing oil in synthetic oil wastewater was investigated. Parameters affecting oil removal such as concentrations of synthetic oil wastewater, biosorbent dosage and contact time were optimized using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) via Box Behnken Design. Sugarcane bagasse showed excellent efficiency in removing oil with percentage removal up to 98.73% at 1.3 h contact time with 3.06 g of biosorbent dosage and 16.9% of synthetic oil wastewater concentration. The use of sugarcane bagasse in removing oil in water was successfully prove in this study.
Corporate governance in Sri Lanka: the status quo

This paper examines the existing corporate governance environment, practices, and institutional framework in Sri Lanka and evaluates their effectiveness to identify current issues and challenges. Sri Lanka is an emerging and rapidly growing market economy in South Asia with a liberalised economic and trade policies associated with FDI, international trade, and export-led development policies. Sri Lanka's corporate governance (CG) systems and practices have been largely influenced by both colonial economic policies and post-independence govt policies. Its CG practices consists of promoting dispersed ownerships, increasing size of a board and decreasing directorship per director, greater involvement of internationally recognized few audit firms in accounting and auditing functions, professional orientations of company secretariat services. The provisions of Companies Act, the role of Securities and Exchange Commission, professional accounting and auditing institutions, Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the country's regularity environment play a significant role in the implementation of CG systems in the country. With the rapid expansion of the corporate sector in recent years, there is need for improving the current regularity mechanism in the country. The paper addresses the issue of whether the current governance mechanisms in Sri Lanka are adequate to respond to the needs of the fast changing business environment in Sri Lanka and to face the challenges posed by the changing domestic and global corporate environment.
Nutraceutical, therapeutic, and pharmaceutical potential of Aloe vera: A review

The present review explains therapeutic and pharmaceutical potential of Aloe vera a well-known plant grows in semi-arid climate of tropical and subtropical regions. This article emphasizes important uses of A. vera constituents as dietary nutraceutical, medicinal, and therapeutic potential. Plant is cultivated for agricultural and medicinal and decoration purposes for indoors as a potted plant. Plant is a good depository of chemical constituents which display a very wide array of biological activities such as anticancer, antiparasitic, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritic, antiparasitic, antitumor, antioxidant, chemopreventive, hepatoprotective, and gastroprotective. Plant is used to prepare skin protective/care gels mainly for soothing, moisturizing, and wound healing. Thick watery plant sap works are added as key ingredient in many beauty products. Plant leaves are used to generate aroma, beverages, skin lotion, cosmetics, or ointments for minor burns. Plant contains vitamins, enzymes, minerals, sugars, lignin, saponins, salicylic acids, and amino acids as main ingredients. Plant is a good source of Vitamins A, C, and E, which are antioxidants. It also contains Vitamin B12, folic acid, and choline watery juicy of A. vera leaf which contains important minerals such as calcium, chromium, copper, selenium, magnesium, manganese, and potassium. Plant ingredients were found active against gingivitis, psoriasis, and used for herbal therapy in inflammatory bowel disease. A. vera contains important fatty acids mainly steroids such as cholesterol, campesterol, β-sitosterol, and lupeol. Aloin and emodin act as analgesics, antibacterials, and antivirals while lupeol shows antiseptic and analgesic properties. It also contains auxins and gibberellin hormones that help in wound healing and have anti-inflammatory action. Saponins that are the soapy substances display cleansing and antiseptic properties.
The Trends and Patterns of the Capital Structure and Performance of the Nigerian Banks

This study analyzed the trends and patterns of capital structure and performance of financial firms in the Nigerian banking sectorwith panel data of 14 commercial banks in Nigeria over the periods 2005-2012.Descriptive methods of analysis were employed to analyze the trends and performance. The result showed that the banks exhibit 75.2% short-term financing. It shows that Nigerian banks relied heavily on external finance which is short-term in nature. Also, the result revealed that towards the end of 2008 and early 2009, the collapse of the interbank markets brought about a critical reassessment of the banksby the Central Bank of Nigeria. The study suggests that policy makers should find the means of overhauling the banking sector before its impending doom and a policy measures capable of increasing the fixed asset base of Nigerian banks.
The potential for upgrading traditional fermented foods through biotechnology

Fermented foods play an important socio–economic role in developing countries as well as making a major contribution to the protein requirements of natural populations. In general, traditional fermented foods are made under primitive conditions, which result in low yield and poor quality. This paper outlines the present status of some indigenous fermented foods and beverages with some information on the microbiology and biochemistry of the fermentations. Among these are ogi, a fermented cereal gruel used as a weaning food, pito and burukutu, alcoholic cereal beverages. Dawadawa from fermented oil seeds is also popular as nutritious non–meat protein foods, while serving as a condiments and flavors in soups. Traditionally, women carry out fermented food processing activities. The production is craft-based despite the dawn of science and technology. The techniques they use are labour intensive, time consuming and have low productivities, with success depending upon observation of good manufacturing practice. Factors contributing to lack of consumer appeal of indigenous manufactured foods will be also considered. In the change from craft to a technology based production system, several strategies should be adopted. These include the use of starter cultures, stabilization of spontaneous fermentations, and production of food processing enzymes. In view of the considerable range of technologies for improving traditional bioprocessing, the challenges and potential application of biotechnology in upgrading these foods will be discussed. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (5), pp. 375-380, 2005
Political Connections, Local Interests and Environmental Performance

Though there are studies on the relation between political connections and financial performance in the current literature, few have addressed the issue of political connections within the context of the environment. Thus, the goal of this study was to prove, in theory, that political connections and local interests negatively affect the environmental performance in the short and long run under the conditions faced by China.
Unveiling the mystery: investigating L2 reading motivation in an EFL classroom

Research in L2 reading motivation has gained impetus and provided many insights into understanding the components of motivation and factors that affect L2 learners in terms of reading motivation. Although many studies can be found on L1 reading motivation, studies on L2 reading motivation seem to be relatively meager. Since action research encompasses a sequence of events and an approach to problem solving, the present study addressed to examine whether; (1) this sample of Turkish University students differ in terms of their intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation and (2) a change in methodology has an impact on the L2 reading motivation. Participants responded to a Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) and took part in focus group interviews. Results revealed that L2 reading motivation was affected by extrinsic factors mostly and the changes in methodology and the instructional elements had a crucial effect on intrinsic and mostly extrinsic motivation, reading amount and performance. Results foreshadowed insightful methodological changes.
Contribuciones al alineamiento de nubes de puntos 3d para su uso en aplicaciones de captura robotizada de objetos

RESUMEN: En aplicaciones de captura robotizada se ha hecho necesario el uso de informacion tridimensional de los objetos que son manipulados. Esta informacion puede obtenerse mediante dispositivos de adquisicion 3D, tales como escaneres laser o camaras de tiempo de vuelo, que proporcionan imagenes de rango de los objetos. En este trabajo de tesis se presenta un nuevo enfoque para encontrar, sin disponer de una estimacion previa, la transformacion rigida que produzca una alineacion adecuada de las nubes de puntos obtenidas con esos dispositivos. El algoritmo realiza una busqueda iterativa de correspondencias mediante la comparacion de descriptores 2D en varios niveles de resolucion utilizando para ello una medida de similitud especificamente disenada para el descriptor propuesto en esta tesis. Este algoritmo de alineamiento se puede utilizar tanto para modelado 3D como para aplicaciones de manipulacion de objetos en situaciones en las que los objetos esten parcialmente ocluidos o presenten simetrias.
The Global Leadership Life Inventory: development and psychometric properties of a 360-degree feedback instrument

The purpose of this paper is to describe the design of Global Leadership Life Inventory (GlobeInvent), a 360-degree leadership feedback instrument. This instrument is presently used in executive programmes to help identify the operational mode of individual executives. Proper use of this instrument enables the user to determinate those areas of leadership behaviour where improvement is needed. Because most studies pay attention only to the surface manifestations of leadership, most leadership feedback instruments, in turn, are not concerned with the psychodynamic processes that underlie leaders' character and behaviour. To address this gap, the GlobeInvent is based on a clinical orientation to the study of leadership. This approach provides a more complete analysis of the ‘inner theatre’ of leaders – that is, what makes them tick – as well as measuring the dynamic, two-way relationship between leaders and followers. The first step in designing the instrument was to pinpoint significant themes pertaining to exemplary leadership. To that end, semi-structured interviews with senior executives were held. The leadership dimensions that emerged from that process were then tested on an international sample of senior executives. Analysis of the data from the testing confirmed the existence of twelve robust dimensions with a high reliability and internal consistency. Because the GlobeInvent is a 360-degree feedback instrument, this article addresses differences between ‘Self’ scores and scores given by others (‘Observers’), gender differences in scoring and the influence of nationality, management experience and age on test results. The implications of using such an instrument as a 360-degree feedback tool are reviewed, and suggestions for future research are offered.
Fitting the Fermi-LAT GeV excess: On the importance of including the propagation of electrons from dark matter

An excess of gamma rays at GeV energies has been pointed out in the Fermi-LAT data. This signal comes from a narrow region centred around the Galactic center and has been interpreted as possible evidence for light dark matter particles annihilating either into a mixture of leptons-antileptons and bb¯ or into bb¯ only. Focusing on the prompt gamma-ray emission, previous works found that the best fit to the data corresponds to annihilations proceeding predominantly into bb¯. However, here we show that omitting the photon emission originating from primary and secondary electrons produced in dark matter annihilations, and undergoing diffusion through the Galactic magnetic field, can actually lead to the wrong conclusion. Accounting for this emission, we find that not only are annihilations of ∼10 GeV particles into a purely leptonic final state allowed, but the democratic scenario actually provides a better fit to the spectrum of the excess than the pure bb¯ channel. We conclude our work with a discussion on constraints on these leptophilic scenarios based on the AMS data and the morphology of the excess.
Solar Wind Electron Acceleration via Langmuir Turbulence

The solar wind electrons observed at 1 AU are characterized by velocity distribution functions (VDF) that deviate from the Maxwellian form in a high energy regime. Such a feature is often modeled by a kappa distribution. In the present paper a self-consistent theory of quiet-time solar wind electrons that contain a power-law tail component, , fv \ a is discussed. These electrons are assumed to be in dynamic equilibrium with enhanced electrostatic fluctuations with peak frequency near the plasma frequency (i.e., the Langmuir turbulence). In order to verify the theoretical prediction, the solar wind electrons in the high-energy range known as the super-halo distribution detected by WIND and STEREO spacecraft are compared against the theoretical model where it was found that the theoretical power-law index is intermittent with regard to the observed range of indices, thus indicating that the turbulent equilibrium model of suprathermal solar wind electrons may be valid.
NEW QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF CONTRIBUTING FACTORS TO STRENGTH OF DISK SUPERALLOYS

The contributions of multiple strengthening factors to the 0.2% flow stress have been studied in a cast and wrought Ni-Co base disk superalloy with varying grain size, twin fraction and bimodal or trimodal ′ size distributions. The alloy was heat-treated within the ′ sub- and super-solvus temperature ranges between 1100 o C to 1180 o C, followed by two step aging heat-treatment. The contribution of each strengthening factor are analyzed by measuring its Vickers hardness at over a structural scale ranging from nano to micro levels and then by converting the hardness differences to the contribution to the 0.2% flow stress on the basis of the empirical relation: 0.2=2.46Hv. The results clearly show that the contribution of grain boundary strengthening decreased and reached zero with increasing solution temperature. The behavior followed Hall-Petch effect and Zener’s pinning model, and strongly depended on the size and volume fraction of pinning primary ′ that is un-dissolved during solution treatment. Meanwhile, the contributions of secondary and tertiary ′ precipitation strengthening increased with increasing temperature. The behaviors also strongly depend on the volume fraction of the primary ′ since the designed total volume fraction of ′ of the alloy is approximately 0.5. As a result, the combinations of these strengthening factors lead to the maximum flow stress at solution temperature of 1135 o C. This would suggest that the primary ′ plays an important role to optimize the microstructure combination through the solution heat-treatment.
On the computation of means on Grassmann manifolds

Given a set of data points on a Grassmann manifold sufficiently close to each other, one way to define their centroid or geometric mean is via the minimizer of a certain cost function. If one chooses the cost as the sum of squared geodesic distances between a given point and all the data points we end up with the definition of the Karcher mean. In this paper we analyze the critical points for this cost function. I. INTRODUCTION In recent years numerical methods for the computation of means on differentiable manifolds have awoken increased interest. Since the seminal paper by Karcher, cf. (13), several papers have been published, emphasizing mainly differen- tial geometric aspects as well as statistical applications in connection with convexity concepts, cf. (8), (14), (15), to cite just a few. The reason for new interest into the topic of computing averages, means or the like on differentiable manifolds, lies in the fact, that in applications, noise is often an intrinsic obstacle during the process of measurement. In modern engineering applications state variables as well as other observables do not lie necessarily in a vector space. Instead, they might be elements of a nonlinear differentiable manifold. This often requires the generalization of the con- cept of means and other statistical tools, now also from a computational point of view. There has been done already a lot in this direction. We mention computer graphics, cf. (7), pose estimation in robotics, DNA-modeling or geology, where averaging over rotations play an important role, cf. (9), (19), linear algebra and matrix analysis, cf. (3), (4), (5), (6), (20), signal process- ing, cf. (18), variational problems, cf. (16), and more recently also in medical imaging, computer vision and distributed consensus problems (21), (22), (23). In this paper we discuss the computation of the Karcher mean on the real Grassmann manifold. Only a little has been done in this direction for this important compact symmetric space, see however (10) or (2). The Riemannian geometry of this manifold is exploited to derive explicit formulas for the exponential map and its inverse. The critical point set of the distance function related to the Karcher mean is computed. To derive a gradient or Newton-like algorithm is then straight forward.
in Middle Eastern and North African Economies Quinlan School of Business 9-1-2009 Determinants of Turkish Fdi Abroad

This study examines the determinants of Turkish outward FDI employing a gravity model. The model estimates the impact of traditional gravity variables, as well as openness, labour productivity, infrastructure, institutions and economic stability on FDI outflows from Turkey to 11 countries, which account for approximately 90% of Turkish outward FDI stock, over the period 1999-2005 years using panel data random effects technique. The results reveal that Turkish FDI has a market-seeking pattern with foreign markets being substituted for domestic market by Turkish firms. On the other hand, economic instability in Turkey emerges as a major deterrent of FDI outflows. Additionally, our results suggest the possibility of FDI in vertically differentiated products in host countries by Turkish investors as well as the importance of push factors.
Sovereign Risk, Private Credit, and Stabilization Policies

In this paper we examine the impact of bailout policies in small open economies that are subject to financial frictions. We extend standard endogenous default models in two ways. First, we augment the government’s choice set with a bailout option. In addition to the standard choice of defaulting or repaying the debt, a government can also choose to ask for a third-party bailout, which comes at a cost of an imposed borrowing limit. Second, we introduce financial frictions and a financial intermediation channel, which tie conditions on the private credit market to the conditions on the sovereign credit market. This link has been very strong in European countries during the recent sovereign crisis. We find that the existence of a bailout option reduces sovereign spreads and, through the described link, private credit rates as well. The implementation of a rescue program reduces output losses and increases welfare, measured in consumption equivalent terms. Moreover, bailout benefits emerge even when a government only has the option of asking for a bailout, but does not take advantage of it.
Volume Extraction from Body Scans for Bra Sizing

We present a novel method for bra sizing based on surface scan data. While the current standard of finding the proper size for brassieres is based on only two 1-dimensional measurements, our approach takes the entire shape information into account. We propose to use the breast’s volume as a good approximation for that shape. To compute the breast volume we introduce a robust and automatic algorithm based on measuring the volume difference of a torso with and without the breasts. Finally, we compare our novel sizing strategy to the traditional sizing of bras. We will show a better distribution across the population of test-subjects. Using the surface scan data in combination with our volume based sizing approach we can furthermore generate mean body shapes for every bra size which is of great benefit for bra development.
Investigating High School Effectiveness Using College Performance: An Analysis of Residuals.

The purpose of this study was to relate college-level or univeristy-level student performance to high school effectiveness, which was measured in terms of the college performance of a high school's graduates, after controlling for students' academic aptitude. Unusually effective schools were identified by examining the resiluals of a multiple regression analysis. It was hypothesized that certain schools would be unusually effective, in that graduates would have higher grade point averagE,s (GPAs) than would be expected given their academic aptitude as measured by the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and by their socioeconomic environment. The analysis was conducted using 111,703 freshmen in a large univesity system from 301 high schools and 162 school sysems. Multiple regression equations predicting college SPA were developed for each institution by gender and minority status. Inuependent variables included: SAT scores; the proportions of free 'mid reduced lunches at each high school; and college experience as measured by credit hours attempted and earned. There was a clear tendency for rural schools to nurture graduates who achieved higher GPAs c.han SAT scores or socioeconomic status would predict. Urban schools were more likely to produce students of lower achievement than predicted. The method appears promising for extending assessment perspectives beyond internal college or university concerns. (SLD) **********************************X*********************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) /fhis document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it O Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality Points of view or opinions slated in this dock, merit do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)," INVESTIGATING HIGH SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS USING COLLEGE PERFORMANCE: AN ANALYSIS OF RESIDUALS