Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of Continuance Intention to Use Mobile Money Transfer: An Integrated Model

Mobile Money Transfer (MMT) technology had become essential daily transactions in several developing countries. The unbanked population and those from low and middle-income classes mainly adopt this technology. In Somalia, two major telecommunication companies had introduced this technology especially in south-central regions in the country. Through MMT technology, citizens can send money to and receive from family members and friends, pay bills and other transactions and do shopping, selling, and buying from most of small and medium businesses. The present study examines the factors influencing users’ continuous intention to use MMT technology by employing an integrated model. Using self-administered questionnaire, the study’s data have been collected from a total of 398 consumers in all seventeen districts of Banadir region, Somalia. Structural Equation Modeling approach using SmartPLS 3 software was employed to test the hypothesized integrated model. The results suggested that perceived usefulness, trust, subjective norms and satisfaction have significantly contributed to MMT consumers’ continuous intention. In addition, this study addressed the antecedent factors for the major predictors, which were seldom explored in prior research. The results have presented practical and theoretical implications.
Improving K-means method via shrinkage estimation and LVQ algorithm

Abstract Clustering is an important task in statistics and many other scientific fields. In this note, we propose an improved K-means clustering approach called ‘enhanced shrinkage K-means’ based on the James-Stein estimator and learning vector quantization (LVQ) algorithm. The basic idea of this new algorithm is taking into account of the strength of both unsupervised clustering and supervised classification methods, in which we shrink the clustering centers toward the prototype vector via James-Stein estimator. We carry out extensive simulation studies and real data analysis to evaluate the performance of this new approach, and obtain encouraging results.
Development of Oncolytic Adenoviruses for the Management of Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related deaths in men globally. Androgen receptor (AR) signalling plays a vital role in initiation and progression and antiandrogens are standard of care first-line therapeutics. However, resistance frequently develops resulting in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Management of CRPC is currently chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy but is mostly palliative due to rapid development of resistance. The need for novel approaches to eliminate mCRPC is compelling; a promising option is replication-selective (oncolytic) adenoviruses with demonstrated efficacy in preclinical models of multidrug-resistant PCa. The safety of various viral mutants has been confirmed in numerous clinical trials with minimal toxicity in patients. Importantly, oncolytic adenoviruses synergise with the current standard of care for mCRPC even in treatment-resistant cells. In early phase I–II clinical trials, promising efficacy in patients with localised PCa was reported after intratumoural administration, and phase III trials are underway. To enable systemic delivery, for targeting of mCRPC, further developments are necessary because of the short half-life of the adenoviral mutants in human blood. Current progress in preventing the high- affinity binding of adenovirus to erythrocytes, hepatocyte uptake, and elimination by hepatic Kupffer cells will be described.
A Compact UWB Slot Antenna with Band-Notched Design Using Parasitic Stripe

W. Kueathaweekun, C. Benjangkaprasert, N. Anantrasirichai, and T. Wakabayashi Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL), Ladkrabang, Bangkok, 10520, Thailand E-mail: kanoppin@kmitl.ac. th, kkweerat@kmitl.ac. th The Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST), Bangkok, Thailand E-mail: a_nop@hotmail.com School of Information Science and Technology, Tokai University, Hirasuka, Kanagawa, 259-1292, Japan E-mail: wakaba@et.u-tokai.ac. jp
Nonsteady flow of water and oil through inhomogeneous porous media

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Tibial pilon fractures: functional results and evaluation of quality of life

Objective: To evaluate the functional outcome and quality of life of patients with open tibial pilon fractures (AO - 43C3) undergoing surgical treatment with ligamentotaxis by means of external fixation for initial damage control, followed by open reduction and internal fixation at a later date. Methods: An original study was conducted between September 2009 and July 2013. A total of 16 patients were examined during outpatient follow-up visits. Identification questionnaires and a specific foot and ankle evaluation (the Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle score, AOFAS) were completed, along with an SF-36 quality of life evaluation. Results: Most patients showed a good range of motion (ROM), achieving a mean AOFAS score of 65 points (out of 100 possible points). The SF-36 questionnaire revealed low mean scores in the physical functioning, physical role functioning and bodily pain domains, with 60, 37 and 51 points, respectively. The average score in the general health domain was 84 points (out of a possible 100 points). Conclusion: There was significant functional and quality of life impairment in patients affected by this type of fracture, even with the use of staged treatment. Level of Evidence III; Retrospective Comparative Study.
Adaptive nonlinear backstepping control using mended recurrent Romanovski polynomials neural network and mended particle swarm optimization for switched reluctance motor drive system

A switched reluctance motor (SRM) drive system has highly nonlinear uncertainties owing to a convex construction. It is hard for the linear control methods to achieve good performance for the SRM drive system. An adaptive nonlinear backstepping control system using the mended recurrent Romanovski polynomials neural network and mended PSO with an adaptive law and an error estimated law is proposed to estimate the lumped uncertainty and to compensate the estimated error in order to enhance the robustness of the SRM drive system. Additionally, in accordance with the Lyapunov stability theorem, the adaptive law in the mended recurrent Romanovski polynomials neural network and the error estimated law are established. Furthermore, to help improve convergence and to obtain better learning performance, the mended particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is utilized for adjusting the two varied learning rates of the two parameters in the mended recurrent Romanovski polynomials neural network. Finally, some experimental results and a comparative analysis are verified that the proposed control scheme has better control performances for controlling the SRM drive system.
Design and Simulation of Hybrid Double Solenoid Valve Actuator

This paper proposes a novel hybrid valve actuator (HVA) with permanent magnet (PM) and electromagnet (EM) magnetomotive force (MMF) for variable valve timing camless engine. Traditional double solenoid valve actuator (DSVA) has inherent problem of high power consumption, as armature is at equilibrium position away from electromagnet therefore to move armature to open/close position and for keeping armature latched to EM. Hybrid PM/EM valve actuator is proposed in this study. The finite element analysis is performed with Ansys Maxwell on static characteristics of traditional DSVA and HVA on bases of actuator holding force. The equivalent model of static analysis is introduced into Ansys Simplorer for dynamic analysis. The simulation results depict reduce power consumption and transition time of proposed HDSVA over DSVA.
Absolute dimensions of solar-type eclipsing binaries - EF Aquarii: a G0 test for stellar evolution models

Context. Recent studies have shown that stellar chromospheric activity, and its effect on convective energy transport in the envelope, is most likely the cause of significant radius and temperature discrepancies between theoretical evolution models and observations. Accurate mass, radius, and abundance determinations from solar-type binaries exhibiting various levels of activity are needed for a better insight into the structure and evolution of these stars. Aims. We aim to determine absolute dimensions and abundances for the solar-type detached eclipsing binary EF Aqr, and to perform a detailed comparison with results from recent stellar evolutionary models. Methods. uvby light curves and uvbyβ standard photometry were obtained with the Stromgren Automatic Telescope. The broadening function formalism was applied on spectra observed with HERMES at the Mercator telescope in La Palma, to obtain radial velocity curves. State-of-the-art methods were applied for the photometric and spectroscopic analyses. Results. Masses and radii with a precision of 0.6% and 1.0% respectively have been established for both components of EF Aqr. The )
The Effect of Repetition on Incidental Legal Vocabulary Learning Through Long-Term Exposure to Authentic Videos

This study intends to identify the minimal number of repetitions needed for successful incidental learning of legal vocabulary after watching authentic videos as a leisure time activity. It also examines the effectiveness of long-term exposure to authentic videos for incidental learning of legal vocabulary. For this purpose, the participants were distributed between two groups: the incidental and the control one. The incidental group had to watch 5 hours of authentic TV documentary Forensic Files. Fourteen target legal words had from 4 to 46 repetitions in the videos. The post-tests measured incidental learning of two aspects of the target words: form recognition and meaning recall. The overall results revealed that watching five hours of authentic videos leads to incidental learning of legal vocabulary. The results of the form recognition post-test suggest that the possible minimal number of repetitions for successful incidental learning of this aspect of the legal words may lie around 14 repetitions. No definite conclusion could be drawn about the minimal number of repetitions necessary for successful recall of the meanings of the target words.
Robotic Pancreaticoduodenectomy: Fad or the Future?

The introduction of robotics has opened a new era in general and digestive surgery. Several advanced procedures are now performed with the robotic technique providing superior dexterity to surgeons while maintaining the profile of safety and benefits of minimally invasive surgery for patients. Pancreatic surgery, one of the last area of resistance to minimally invasive surgery, has not been spared by this surgical revolution. An increasing number of studies provided by high volume institutions have proven the safety and feasibility of robotics for pancreatic surgery. Pancreaticoduodenectomy, one of the most advanced surgical procedures in abdominal surgery, represents the most common type of pancreatic resection performed by robotic approach. The safety and feasibility is at present well demonstrated but its advantages over open and laparoscopic surgery and its long term oncologic outcomes are still to be proven in prospective studies. This article reviewed the current experience of robotic pancreaticoduodenectomy reported in the international literature evaluating its safety, feasibility, short and long term outcomes. The increasing number of reports dealing with this topic proven the growing interest of digestive surgeon for this approach which certainly will constitute the approach of choice for minimally invasive pancreatic surgery in the next future.
A Haskell EDSL for Nested Data-parallel Design-space Exploration on GPUs

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) offer potential for very high performance; they are also rapidly evolving. Obsidian is an embedded language for implementing high performance kernels to be run on GPUs. We would like to have our cake and eat it too; we want to raise the level of abstraction beyond CUDA code and still give the programmer control over the details relevant to kernel performance. To that end Obsidian includes guaranteed elimination of intermediate arrays and predictable space/time costs, while also providing array functions that are polymorphic across different levels of the GPU’s hierarchical structure, providing a limited form of nested data parallelism. We walk through case-studies that demonstrate how to use Obsidian for rapid design exploration, resulting in better performance than hand-tuned kernels in an existing GPU language.
Health Status Of Leisure Walkers In Kuwait

Aim: This study is designed to assess health status among pedestrians using different walking paths in several areas around Kuwait during March to June 2005. This cross-sectional research evaluates the prevalence of respiratory complaints and assesses the possible confounding effects that may be associated with distribution of disease. Methods: The adapted method is a self-report questionnaire to extract information about health status using a convenience sampling technique. The selected sample was pedestrians from both genders and all age groups using walking-paths. The data was analyzed by calculating proportions, and odd ratios were estimated using a logistic regression model. Results: The outcome revealed that nearly a quarter of the sample had some kind of respiratory diseases. Females were twice more likely to have food allergy than males. Genetic factors and gender are the main risk determinants that are associated with respiratory diseases, and specifically tobacco smoking is an extra confounder that is related to cases with asthma and bronchitis. Conclusion: This study indicate that a quarter of the sample who use walking paths in Kuwait have some kind of respiratory disease or allergy. Key words: Kuwait, Walking, physical activity, Respiratory diseases, Asthma.
Identifying Extension Information Delivery Methods For Environmental Issues

The primary purpose of this study was to identify the types of information sources that farmers find useful, and the human resource organizations they depend upon when confronted with environmental issues. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. This research is available in Journal of Applied Communications: http://newprairiepress.org/jac/vol75/iss2/2 Identifying Extension Information Delivery Methods For Environmental
Using satellite observations of precipitation and soil moisture toconstrain the water budget of a land surface model

Early warning of agricultural drought can enable decision makers to act to improve food security. Land-surface models are useful tools to inform such monitoring systems, but model errors are problematic. We show that satellite-derived estimates of shallow soil moisture can be used to calibrate a land-surface model at the regional scale in Ghana, using data assimilation techniques. The modified calibration significantly improves model estimation of soil moisture. Specifically, we find a 44 % reduction in root-mean-squared error for a 5-year hindcast after assimilating a single year of soil moisture observations to update model parameters. The use of an improved remotely-sensed rainfall dataset contributes to 10 % of this reduction in error. Improved rainfall data has the greatest impact on model estimates during the seasonal wetting-up of soil, with the assimilation of remotely sensed soil moisture having greatest impact during drying down. The significant reduction in root-mean-squared error we find after assimilating a single year of observations bodes well for the production of improved soil moisture forecasts over sub-Saharan Africa where subsistence farming remains prevalent.
Coaxial cable analogs of multilayer dielectric optical coatings

We study the properties of periodic coaxial cable structures (coaxial photonic crystals), where the periodicity consists of alternating cables with low and high impedance. We show that the electrical signal that propagates through these structures leads to similar phenomena as the light propagating through the corresponding multilayer dielectric optical coating structures. In this way, Bragg reflectors, optical thin-film filters, and Fabry–Perot resonators are reproduced in the megahertz frequency range. This represents an inexpensive way of experimentally investigating wave propagation in locally periodic media.
Ontogenetic stages in the long bone histology of sauropod dinosaurs

Abstract Long bones (femora, humeri) are the most abundant remains of sauropod dinosaurs. Their length is a good proxy for body length and body mass, and their histology is informative about ontogenetic age. Here we provide a comparative assessment of histologic changes in growth series of several sauropod taxa, including diplodocids (Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, indeterminate Diplodocinae from the Tendaguru Beds and from the Morrison Formation), basal macronarians (Camarasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Europasaurus), and titanosaurs (Phuwiangosaurus, Ampelosaurus). A total of 167 long bones, mainly humeri and femora, and 18 limb girdle bones were sampled. Sampling was performed by core drilling at prescribed locations at midshaft, and 13 histologic ontogenetic stages (HOS stages) were recognized. Because growth of all sauropod long bones is quite uniform, with laminar fibrolamellar bone being the dominant tissue, HOS stages could be recognized across taxa, although with minor differences. Histologic ontogenetic stages generally correlate closely with body size and thus provide a means to resolve important issue like the ontogenetic status of questionable specimens. We hypothesize that sexual maturity was attained at HOS-8, well before maximum size was attained, but we did not find sexually differentiated growth trajectories subsequent to HOS-8. On the basis of HOS stages, we detected two morphotypes in the Camarasaurus sample, a small one (type 1) and a larger one (type 2), presumably representing different species or sexual dimorphism.
Nucleon form factors from Nf=2+1+1 twisted mass fermions at the physical point

In this proceedings we present results on the nucleon electromagnetic and axial form factors of both the connected and disconnected light and strange quarks contributions. The simulations are performed using a large volume ensemble (5.12 fm) ensemble of Nf=2+1+1 twisted mass fermions with a clover term, and the quark masses fixed to their physical values. Various analysis techniques such as the single-state, two-state and summation fits have been employed to control possible excited states contamination. The momentum dependence of the electromagnetic form factors is fitted to extract the magnetic moment and the electric and magnetic radii.
Hayek’s approach to cognitive and social order

The human being can be regarded as a product of evolution. She has prevailed in the evolutionary process because of her ability to create and to use knowledge. The creation and the use of knowledge depend on the cognitive and on the social order. Both types of order are interdependent. Hayek sought to analyze the principles of both types of order. In particular, he based his analysis on three research disciplines: Evolutionary Epistemology, Cognitive Psychology, and Systems Theory. In this article, we recapitulate and revise his respective analysis. Hayek’s approach thus appears as particularly sustainable and powerful.
CONTAMINATION OF THE HANDLES AND BASES OF SHOPPING CARTS BY PATHOGENIC AND MULTI-DRUG RESISTANT BACTERIA

Background and Aims: Shopping carts (SCs) are considered as highly contaminated public surfaces, and may play a role in transmission of some harbor heterotrophic bacteria to human being. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the hygienic conditions and presence of heterotrophic bacteria on the surface of the handles and bases of SCs taken from shopping stores in Al-Mafraq city, Jordan. Methods: Five different SCs were selected randomly from four shopping stores (designated as A, B, C and D) during May through June, 2011. Two dry swab samples were taken from each SC, one from the handle and another one from the base. All samples were cultured on nutrient agar as none selective medium and incubated aerobically at 37 °C for 48 hours. The resulting number of colony forming units (CFUs) in each plate was converted to CFU per cm surface area. The species of bacterial isolates were determined by biochemical tests and 16S rDNA sequencing. Results: The number of heterotrophic bacteria per SC range between 6 to 133 CFU/cm surface area for the cart handles and between 6 to 300 CFU/cm surface area for the cart bases, indicating higher numbers of heterotrophic bacteria in the cart bases as well as more fluctuations in the number of heterotrophic bacteria at the handles and bases of SCs. These analyses also confirmed the presence of seven coliform and three noncoliform species on the tested surface of the handles and bases of the selected stores. These include E. coli spp. , Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, Burkholderia cepacia, Yersinia enterocolitica, Tatumeella ptyseas, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Shigella sonnei, Bacillus cereus, and Bacillus pumilus. European Scientific Journal September 2014 edition vol.10, No.27 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e ISSN 18577431 155 Conclusion: The resulting data revealed that some of these species are pathogenic as well as a multi-drug resistant. These data also indicated that poor sanitation and hygiene conditions appear to exist among the tested SCs of the selected stores. It also suggest that these SCs might act as source of transmitting of pathogens which might pose a serious health risk to shoppers. Therefore, this study pleads for a strong cleaning approaches for SCs as well as community education to promote hand hygiene, both of which are important and complementary.
Effect of Surface Modification by Ammonia Plasma on Vascular Graft: PET Film and PET Scaffold

Nowadays, poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) textiles, either knitted or woven, are largely used as substitutes for replacement of medium and large calibre (10–40 mm) arteries. Unfortunately, these substitutes do not perform well when they are used to replace small diameter arteries due to thrombogenicity and compliance mismatch issues. Surface treatments were often used as the first step to solve thrombogenicity issues. For example, low pressure ammonia plasma processes can provide modification of the top ≈ 10–50 A of polymer surface without affecting bulk properties of materials. This work compared ammonia plasma surface modifications of PET film (flat surface) and PET scaffolds (porous surface). Plasma treatments lead to a higher amount of nitrogen as well as amino groups on scaffolds compared to films. N/C maximum was reached for PET film and scaffold after plasma treatments of 5 s and 100 s, respectively. Highest amine concentration on films and scaffolds were obtained at short treatment time, specifically 1 s. In addition, high resolution spectra of C 1s confirmed that amino groups were mainly grafted on aromatic rings. Nodule formation was observed after plasma treatment with atomic force microscopy. Their size and shape increased with longer treatment time.