Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EMAS: Unfulfilled Expectations And Challenges Associated With The Planned Publication Of The New ISO 14001:2015

The reconciliation of economic growth with environment is currently one of the biggest challenges facing Europe and the world. Demand for natural resources is growing, and global competition in this field causes an increase in pressure on the environment. The necessity of efficient usage of resources entails the need for changes in production models. In this regard, implementing of environmental management systems (EMS) such as international normalized ISO 14001 or European EMAS (Eco-management and Audit Scheme) has enjoyed popularity since the mid-90s and seems to be inevitable. However, some of implemented systems in organisations suffer problems. They are not as effective as was expected and in some points dash companies’ hopes. In many cases, management systems are run in the operating level and often they are not sufficiently connected with strategic management and planning. Judging from the number of EMAS registered organisations (compared with ISO 14001) EMAS seems to be a fiasco. A weak system of incentives, insufficient availability of support funds, inadequate information and promotion make the current number of registered organisations not exceed 3000 and it still decreases. Poor knowledge of the society about EMAS and low recognisability of the EMAS logo makes the system a rather useless tool in the communication and marketing fields. The purpose of the considerations contained in the paper is, on the one hand, to describe the unmet expectations of organisations after the implementation of EMAS with regard to the promises made in the strategic documents and on the other hand, to pay attention to challenges that EMAS will face after the publication of the new ISO 14001:2015 standard. Sustainable Development, Vol. 1 313 www.witpress. com, ISSN 1743-3509 (on-line) WIT Transactions on The Built Environment, Vol 168, © 2015 WIT Press doi:10.2495/SD150271
A New Cathodoluminescence System for Nanoscale Optics, Materials Science, and Geology

Cathodoluminescence (CL) spectroscopy is a technique that can be used to unravel optical and material properties at the nanoscale. This article describes a novel CL detection system. The system sensitivity, the modularity, and the capability to perform angle-resolved CL imaging enable many new research directions. We introduce the technique and give a description of the setup as well as the different CL emission processes. Subsequently, we show a number of practical examples where the technique is used in the fields of nanophotonics, materials science,
Survival and Risk Factors of Extremely Preterm Babies (< 28 weeks) in the Three Iranian Hospitals

The present study aimed to evaluate the survival rate of extremely preterm infant (<28 weeks), predictive factors, and the risk of mortality in three training hospitals of Tehran city to make better decisions to improve public health and reduce neonatal mortality. This prospective, cohort study was conducted during 2014 to 2015. Infants with the gestational age ≤28 weeks were enrolled. Their information was collected by using data collection forms and clinical risk index for infants. Infants were followed up until one month after the birth, and their outcomes were determined. Chi -square test was used for survival analysis. Binary Logistic regression was also applied to find out the factors associated with infants’ survival. Among the 325 followed up infants, 166 (51%) were intra-uterine fetal death (IUFD), and 159 (49%) remained alive after birth. The infants’ overall survival rate was 62 (39%) within one month after birth. Multivariate Logistic regression analysis indicated that three factors of birth weight, gestational age (GA), and fifth minute Apgar score had a negative significant relationship with the survival rate of infants ( P <0.05). Receiving corticosteroid and female neonatal can had a positive significant relationship with the survival rate of infants ( P <0.05). The survival rate of preterm infants was 39%. Younger maternal age, lower neonatal birth weight, and GA can increase the risk of neonatal mortality. Also, receiving corticosteroid and female gender of neonate can decrease the risk of neonatal mortality. These items were important that affected infants’ survival and could be considered in predicting it in neonatal intensive care units.
The concept of argument , and informal logic

Informal logic studies the identification, analysis, evaluation, criticism and construction of arguments. An argument is a set of one or more interlinked premiss-illativeconclusion sequences. Premisses are assertives, not necessarily asserted by anyone. Conclusions can be assertives or directives. Either can be expressed either in language or by visual images or physically. Two arguments can be linked either by having a conclusion of one as a premiss of the other or by having one as a premiss of the other. A box-arrow system for diagramming arguments thus conceived is illustrated with reference to three expressed arguments; the diagrams show that the diagramming system can handle conditional proof, argument about an arbitrary instance as a proof of a universal generalization, argument by cases, and reductio ad absurdum. A postscript lists issues in informal logic and gives some indication of the range of positions taken on these issues.
Chromian spinels as petrogenetic indicators : Thermodynamics and petrological applications

A model is developed for the thermodynamic properties of chromian spinels of petrological interest. It is formulated for the simplifying assumptions that (1) cations exhibit only long-range, nonconvergent ordering between tetrahedral and octahedral sites and that (2) the vibrational Gibbs energy may be described by a Taylor expansion of only second degree for seven linearly independent variables of composition and ordering. The model is calibrated using (l) the partitioning relations of Mg and Fe between spinels and olivine, (2) the distribution coefrcients for the exchange of Al and Cr between spinels and (Al,Cr)'O, solid solutions, (3) the features of the miscibility gaps in chromium titanium aluminum spinels, (4) the activity composition data in the chromite-magnetite subsystem, and (5) the constraints of cation site ordering. It is consistent with the observations summarized by Sack and Ghiorso (1991) for Cr-free spinels. The calibration is achieved with the further simplifying assumption that all thermodynamic parameters corresponding to second-degree Taylor coefrcients are constants independent of temperature (i.e., there are no excess vibrational entropies of mixing). The proposed model is internally consistent with the thermodynamic data of Berman (1988) and our previous analyses of the solution properties of olivine, orthopyroxene, and rhombohedral oxides (Sack and Ghiorso, 1989; Ghiorso, 1990a). We develop a geothermometer based on the exchange of Mg and Fe between olivine and spinel that may be applied with confidence to assemblages that formed at low pressures and at temperatures between 400 and 1400 'C. We utilize this geothermometer to define equilibration temperatures for subassemblages of olivine * spinel in metamorphosed ultramafic rocks of the greenschist-amphibolite facies. Phase relations within the spinel prism [(Fe,MgXAl,Cr,Fe3*)rOo] are calculated for temperatures over the range 500-600 "C and compare favorably with petrologic observations.
Agricultural marketing in the western region of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: attitudes and perceptions.

A questionnaire was administered to farmers of the Western Region of Abu Dhabi to determine farming practices as well as perceptions and attitudes toward expanding their marketing reach into other Gulf Coast Council countries. This region is targeted for expansion by the Abu Dhabi government. As very little research has been performed in this region an overview of the area is presented followed by a discussion of satisficing theory that will be used to interpret the farmer’s responses. The overwhelming majority of farms in the region are part-time or hobby endeavors thus the farmers enjoy many benefits that cannot be measured in monetary terms. Descriptive and quantitative procedures examined attitudes toward expanding marketing strategies. Logistic regression provided several models that revealed farmers preferences. This allowed the researchers to compare attitudes and perceptions to current activity and government policies. Many barriers to full-scale commercial agricultural production exist and were presented. Due to these barriers, the prevailing opinion of farmers in the region, the government programs were considered a success for the most part.
Rejuveniles and Growth

Rejuveniles are "people who cultivate tastes and mind-sets traditionally associated with those younger than themselves" [Noxon, C. , 2006. Rejuvenile. Crown Publishers]. In this paper, we study a standard AK growth model of overlapping generations populated by rejuveniles. For our purposes, rejuveniles are old agents who derive utility from "keeping up" their consumption with that of the current young. We find that such cross-generational keeping up is capable of generating interesting equilibrium growth dynamics, including growth cycles. No such growth dynamics is possible either in the baseline model, one where no such generational consumption externality exists, or for almost any other form of keeping up. Steady-state growth in a world with rejuveniles may be higher than that obtained in the baseline model.
Enlightening Communities and Parents for Improving Student Learning Evidence from Randomized Experiment in Niger

Providing local communities with authority to manage school resources is a popular education policy in the developing world. However, recent studies suggest that this type of intervention has limited impact on student learning outcomes. To investigate how communities can effectively utilize school resources, we conducted a randomized experiment in Niger by providing school grants and training for school committees to increase communities’ awareness of student learning and improve resource management. The result shows that, when the training was conducted with grant provision, communities increased activities that enhanced student effort, and student test scores in math and French remarkably improved, particularly for low-performing children. As a secondary effect of the training, parents, who have realized their children are not learning the basics at school, increased their contribution to school committees and their support for children’s home study. These results suggest that sharing information and knowledge with communities and raising their awareness is a key to enhancing effectiveness of community participation and school grants policy.
Total dose radiation hardening and testing issues of CMOS static memories

A radiation hardened circuit should be both processed and designed for hardness. It is demonstrated that the MOSIS two micron CMOS technology exhibits radiation hardened properties, making it particularly suitable for a design methodology in which circuitry is added to compensate for the radiation induced degradation of the zero input noise margin. The non-ideal behavior of the compensation circuitry is explained and application of the circuitry in a static RAM cell is explored. <<ETX>>
Democracy And Good Governance In Relation To Development And Underdevelopment: Africa’s Experience

Today’s approach to democracy in Africa is very far from what is desired and the consequence is that good governance had been sacrificed on the altar of mediocrity. This has led to the collapsed of some democracies in Africa making development in Africa looks like an impossible task. We had rather seen underdevelopment enthroned almost everywhere in the continent thereby strengthening dependency in Africa. This has become worrisome. The paper adopts as its methodology historical/descriptive and prescriptive approaches. The paper therefore attempts to operationalize the concepts: Democracy, Good governance, development and underdevelopment to give the reader a leeway to understand the main trust of the paper. The thrust of this paper therefore is to examine Democracy and Good governance in relation to Development and Underdevelopment: Africa’s experience. Finally, the prognoses.
Medical Image Processing Based on Mathematical Morphology

In the thesis, the author proposes an approach of image processing based on the features of medical image. First, using the space domain to enhance the image and improve clarity. And then process it by using mathematical morphology. Mathematical morphology is a method of nonlinear filters, which could be used for image processing including noise suppression, feature extraction, edge detection, image segmentation, shape recognition, texture analysis, image restoration and reconstruction, image compression etc. the method has been more and more widely used. Keywords-Medical image, Feature extraction, Edge detection,Image processing
A Psychophysiological Evaluation of an Effective Recognition Technique Using Interactive Dynamic Virtual Environments

— Recording psychological and physiological correlates of human performance within virtual environments and interpreting their impacts on human engagement, ‘immersion’ and related emotional or ‘effective’ states is both academically and technologically challenging. By exposing participants to an effective, real-time (game-like) virtual environment, designed and evaluated in an earlier study, a psychophysiological database containing the EEG, GSR and Heart Rate of 30 male and female gamers, exposed to 10 games, was constructed. Some 174 features were subsequently identified and extracted from a number of windows, with 28 different timing lengths (e.g. 2, 3, 5, etc. seconds). After reducing the number of features to 30, using a feature selection technique, K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) methods were subsequently employed for the classification process. The classifiers categorised the psychophysiological database into four effective clusters (defined based on a 3-dimensional space – valence, arousal and dominance) and eight emotion labels (relaxed, content, happy, excited, angry, afraid, sad, and bored). The KNN and SVM classifiers achieved average cross-validation accuracies of 97.01% (±1.3%) and 92.84% (±3.67%), respectively. However, no significant differences were found in the classification process based on effective clusters or emotion labels.
EFFECTS OF HELIX ANGLE VARIATIONS ON STABILITY OF LOW IMMERSION MILLING

Abstract: The stability behavior of low immersion helical end milling processes is investigated in this paper. Low radial immersion milling operations involve interrupted cutting which induces chatter vibration under certain cutting conditions. Time Finite Element Analysis (TFEA) is suggested for an approximate solution for delayed differential equations encountered during interrupted milling. An improved TFEA is proposed which includes the effects of helix angle variations on cutting force, cutting time and specific cutting force coefficients. For this purpose, five different cases were distinguished for engagement limits of the cutting edges. It has been observed that an increase in the helix angle improves the stability limit of the process. This is related to the flip bifurcation lobes that start to separate from the main lobes and shape isolated unstable islands. By further increasing the helix angle, unstable islands will vanish.
Individual behavior and emergent properties of fish schools: a comparison of observation and theory

Polarity, group velocity, and inter-individual spacing are characteristics of fish schools that strongly affect individual school members. However, these characteristics are group-level 'emergent properties': collective outcomes of behavioral interactions among members, not under direct control of any single member. The relationships between members' behaviors and the emergent group properties they produce are complex and poorly understood. In this study, we quantified 3D trajectories of all individual fish within 4- and 8-fish populations of Danio aequipinnatus, using stereo videography and a computerized tracking algorithm. We compared group polarity, group speed, and mean nearest-neighbor distances of schools within these populations to a simulation model that explored how fish responded to attraction/repulsion, alignment and random forces. Real fish exhibited a high degree of temporal variability in both polarity and group speed. Polarity and speed of simulated schools depended very strongly on the strength of the alignment force. Time-averaged polarity of real fish schools was most similar to simulated schools when alignment force was 1 to 5 % of the attraction/repulsion force. For both real and simulated fish, a clear relationship existed between group speed and polarity: polarized groups were faster than non-polarized groups. We propose a multi-dimensional state space where several emergent property statistics are represented along the axes, and suggest certain 'preferred' ranges of state space within which animal groups tend to localize, and in which they can sustain distinct types of regular architecture.
Antibacterial Effect of Silver Nanoparticles Produced by Fungal Process on Textile Fabrics and Their Effluent Treatment

Microorganisms play an important role in toxic metal remediation through reduction of metal ions. Studies demonstrated that silver ions may be reduced extracellularly using Fusarium oxysporum to generate stable gold or silver nanoparticles in water. These particles can be incorporated in several kinds of materials such as cloths. These cloths with silver nanoparticles are sterile and can be useful in hospitals to prevent or to minimize infection with pathogenic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus. In this work, the extracellular production of silver nanoparticles by F. oxysporum and its antimicrobial effect when incorporated in cotton fabrics against S. aureus were studied. In addition, all effluent was bioremediated using treatment with C. violaceum. The results showed that cotton fabrics incorporated with silver nanoparticles displayed a significant antibacterial activity against S. aureus. The effluent derived from the process was treated with C. violaceum and exhibited an efficient reduction in the silver nanoparticles concentration. In conclusion, it was demonstrated the application of biological synthesis to silver nanoparticles production and its incorporation in cloths, providing them sterile properties. Moreover, to avoid any damage to the environment the effluent containing silver nanoparticles can be treated with cyanogenic bacterial strains.
Female and Male Whole Spinal Alignment and Cervical Kinematic Responses in Rear Impacts

The susceptibility of women to Whiplash Associated Disorders (WADs) has been the focus of numerous epidemiologic studies. Summarising the epidemiologic WAD studies, women were found to be at three times higher risk of sustaining WADs than men. Analysis of insurance claims records indicate that certain whiplash protection seats have reduced the risk of sustaining WADs more effectively for men than for women. However, many aspects of WADs are still unknown, including what role gender differences play in the risk of sustaining WADs. In order to obtain fundamental knowledge to understand the gender difference involved in the risk of sustaining WADs, this thesis reanalysed previous rear impact sled test series comprising female and male volunteers to clarify the dynamic characteristics of inertia-induced cervical vertebral kinematics during rear impacts for women and men. Furthermore, cervical spinal alignment has been suggested as one of several possible causes of the gender differences seen in the risk of sustaining WADs. In addition, it has been reported that the initial position of the thoracolumbar spine against a seatback affects vertebral kinematics as well as the cervical spine. Therefore, this study also investigated whole spinal alignments in one automotive seated posture using an upright open MRI system for both genders, and estimated average gender specific spinal alignment patterns. During rear impacts, the female subjects presented with a more pronounced S-shape in the cervical spine than the male subjects, beyond the voluntary muscle-induced cervical kinematics range for female subjects. In contrast, for the male subjects, the peak S-shape appeared within the voluntary muscle-induced cervical kinematics range. The estimated average spinal alignment pattern in the automotive seated posture was slight kyphotic, or almost straight cervical spine with less-kyphotic thoracic spine for the female subjects, and lordotic cervical spine with more pronounced kyphotic thoracic spine for the male subjects. The findings support previous studies which have indicated influences of cervical spinal alignment on cervical vertebral kinematics. Potential impacts of any gender differences in whole spinal alignment on cervical vertebral kinematics can be investigated with a whole-body human finite element model in future work based on this thesis.
The impact of maternal smoking in Kentucky and effect of the Giving Infants and Families Tobacco-free Starts pilot project on smoking cessation and birth outcomes

OF DISSERTATION THE IMPACT OF MATERNAL SMOKING IN KENTUCKY AND EFFECT OF THE GIVING INFANTS AND FAMILIES TOBACCO-FREE STARTS PILOT PROJECT ON SMOKING CESSATION AND BIRTH OUTCOMES Smoking during pregnancy remains a significant public health issue despite knowledge about the adverse maternal and fetal health effects. This research had six purposes: identifying effective smoking cessation strategies for low income pregnant women; identifying characteristics of Kentucky women who smoke during pregnancy; estimating the role of smoking on birth outcomes in Kentucky; exploring the impact of tobacco reduction on birth outcomes; identifying the characteristics of women participating in the Giving Infants and Families Tobacco-free Starts (GIFTS) pilot program; and evaluating the impact of GIFTS on smoking status and birth outcomes. Seven randomized controlled trials targeting low income women with smoking cessation interventions identified social support and incentives as promising strategies. Only one study focused on women living in rural settings. Live birth certificate data from 2004-2008 revealed that 26% of Kentucky women reported smoking during pregnancy. Continuing to smoke approximately doubled the odds for low birth weight (LBW) [Estimated Odds Ratio 1.95 (95% Confidence Interval 1.87-2.03)] and no breastfeeding initiation (NBI) [1.93 (1.87-1.98)] versus no pre-pregnancy smoking. Continuers also had higher odds for preterm birth (PTB) [1.25 (1.20-1.29)] and neonatal intensive care unit admissions (NICU) [1.20 (1.14-1.26)]. Reducers and quitters had increased odds of LBW and NBI. The probability of quitting relative to the probability of continuing was increased for women aged less than 25, non-White, Hispanic, graduate degree, obese and "other" payor source for the delivery. The GIFTS program targeted pregnant women receiving local health department services who reported recent or current tobacco use. Significantly increased odds of participation were identified for women reporting 1-5 [2.05 (1.06-3.94) ], 6-10 [2.06 (1.10-3.83)] and ≥11 [2.17 (1.12-4.20)] cigarettes per day compared to those reporting no cigarettes. Women with one [1.55 (1.07-2.24)] or two [1.83 (1.21-2.76)] previous quit attempts also had increased odds for participation compared to those with no quit attempts. GIFTS participants were significantly less likely to have preterm infants (p=.0369) than a matched comparison group. No significant differences were found on tobacco cessation, tobacco reduction or cessation, LBW, NICU, or NBI. This research has implications for future cessation efforts as well as policy development.