Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Team Projects in Computing Education

Team projects are a way to expose students to conflicting project objectives, and “[t]here should be a strong real-world element … to ensure that the experience is realistic” [ACM/IEEE-CS 2015b]. Team projects provide students an opportunity to put their education into practice and prepare them for their professional careers. The aim of this special issue is to collect and share evidence about the state-of-practice of team projects in computing education and to help educators in designing and running team projects. From a record number of 69 submitted abstracts, 19 were invited to submit a full paper. Finally, nine papers were accepted for publication in this and a subsequent issue. The articles presented in the present issue cover the following topics: real projects for real clients, open source projects, multidisciplinary team projects, student and team assessment, and cognitive and psychological aspects of team projects.
Modeling Interest Rate Dynamics for the Bank of Ghana Rates Modeling Interest Rate Dynamics for the Bank of Ghana Rates using the Hull-White Model using the Hull-White Model

: Interest rates play an important role in the ﬁnancial environment, affecting business transactions directly or indirectly. Fluctuations in interest rates caused largely by demand and supply of credit, regulated by the apex banks, impacts business transactions in the Economy. Understanding the dynamics of interest rates is therefore very important to Financial institutions, individual and corporate investors. In this work, the dynamics of Bank of Ghana’s, daily interest rates, ( Jan 2020 - July 2021) is modeled using the Hull-White model. London interbank offer rates, for the same period are included in the analysis. By estimating the parameters of the model, and using a computation algorithm for the solution of the SDE of the model; It is found that the mean reverting model captured the BOG and LIBOR rates well, largely maintaining the trend of the data structure. It also pointed to the presence of jumps in the data sets.
The Influence of Out-of-Home Advertising on Subscribers' Awareness on MTN Project Fame

This study investigated the influence of Out-Of-Home advertising on subscribers' awareness of MTN Project Fame. This study which is divided into five parts employed the survey research approach using structured questionnaire for data collection from the target respondents of MTN subscribers. The simple percentage method was used for analysis of survey data. The study established that Out-Of-Home advertising does not significantly influence subscribers' awareness of MTN Project Fame as subscribers are mostly aware of the MTN Project Fame Programme through other advertising media, television being the common medium; again, it was discovered that Out-Of-Home advertising for the MTN project fame programme influences the number of subscribers' to the MTN network. It was therefore recommended that MTN should continue to improve their use of the Out-Of-Home advertising medium by placing advert materials such as electronic billboards, posters etc. in vantage-point positions where the subscribers' views are not obstructed.
Nanostructured Lipid Carriers, Novel Approach for Drug Delivery: A Comprehensive Review

In recent decades different drug delivery methods have appeared and an interesting aspect of this has been the development of nanoscale drug delivery systems (DDS). Lipid Nanocarriers in various forms have limitless opportunities in the field of drug delivery, which have been recently investigated for their huge potential. Among them, Nanostructured Lipid Carriers (NLC’s) have most evolved for their advantages such as low toxicity, good biocompatibility, higher bioavailability, moreover, better drug release profile, greater drug loading capacity, drug targeting controlled release, physical and chemical stability over other lipid nanoparticles. It has a wide range of applications in the drug delivery system as a novel carrier when compared to other colloidal carriers. It also overcomes the issues with multiple lipid particulate carriers due to tremendous advantages. A novel sort of drug delivery system such as NLC's can form concentrated dispersions as they are stable in various environmental conditions. It is a promising delivery that can be used in the future in the pharmaceutical market. This review outlines the structure, properties, types, advantages and disadvantages, components of NLC’s, techniques, and equipment involved in the preparation and evaluation of NLC’s, pharmaceutical applications, and its future perspective as a pharmaceutical carrier.
Computational Archeaology Chronological attribution of Sinhalese inscriptions using deep learning approaches

: A study of this caliber can be identified as a profound source for a wealth of knowledge as the aim of this study is to present chronological attribution of Sinhalese inscriptions based on deep learning approaches. Inscriptions shed light on a multitude of information such as chronicled civilizational thought, economic status, language evolution, cultural boundaries, details of royal officers, local rules, ethnic groups, land tenure, religious activities, beliefs, and trade and industries. Inscriptions are major assets to showcase inclusive of listed above, multitude information; hence, the benefits served by a study of high caliber, especially to the historical heritage research and to the heritage tourism. Several computer-aided solutions have been proposed to resolve the recognition of inscriptions in the Sri Lankan context. But this paper proposes an optimized classification. A dataset of five hundred images of original Sinhalese inscriptions dating from the 3 rd century BC to the present was used to train and test the models. This study adopts four deep learning models to classify Sinhalese inscriptions: a newly proposed convolutional neural network model, and the pre-trained models Inception-v3, VGG-19, and ResNet-50. Palaeographical and morphological rules were adopted in the manual classification of Sinhalese inscriptions into a number of eras, namely, the Early Brahmi (3 rd century BC to 1 st century AD), Late Brahmi (2 nd century AD to 4 th century AD), Transitional Brahmi (5 th century AD to 7 th century AD), Medieval Sinhala (8 th century AD to 14 th century AD), and Modern Sinhala (15 th century AD to the present). The results of the study indicate promising outcomes with accuracies of 70.66%, 85.94%, 57.44%, and 58.77% respectively for used four models. Further, the study revealed that the Inception-v3 model outperformed in classifying the Sinhalese inscriptions in respective eras.
Disaster resilience of transportation infrastructure and ports – An overview

Contemporary literature on disaster resilience of transportation infrastructure and seaports is reviewed. There is a considerable body of literature on disaster resilience in terms of engineering and technical resilience of infrastructure to disasters. Resilience of communities is also a subject of wide research. The impact of disasters on transportation infrastructure and their resilience has been studied by researchers, mainly in the context of the developed world. There is a considerable paucity of such studies on the resilience of transportation infrastructure in the multimodal context, even in the developed world. Studies on the impact of disasters on the interface of maritime transport and land based transport in a seaport centered setting are scarce. Most studies in this context have been spurred in the aftermath of 9/11 and hence are essentially security oriented. In general it is observed that there is still no widely accepted measure for resilience of transportation infrastructure for any mode of transportation. The review also exposes the lack of serious research on the impact of disasters on the resilience of transportation and port infrastructure in the developing countries. Areas requiring further attention from researchers are identified.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Protocol for a national audit on self-reported confidence levels, training requirements and current practice among trainee doctors in the UK

Background: As the incidence and prevalence of diabetes increases across the world, resource pressures require doctors without specialist training to provide care for people with diabetes. In the UK, national standards have been set to ensure quality diabetes care from diagnosis to the management of complications. In a multi-centre pilot study, we have demonstrated a lack of confidence among UK trainee doctors in managing diabetes. Suboptimal confidence was identified in a number of areas, including the management of diabetes emergencies. A national survey would clarify whether the results of our pilot study are representative and reproducible. Methods/Design: Target cohort : All postgraduate trainee doctors in the UK. Domains Studied: The self reported online survey questionnaire has 5 domains: (1) confidence levels in the diagnosis and management of diabetes, (2) working with diabetes specialists, (3) perceived adequacy of training in diabetes (4) current practice in optimising glycaemic control and (5) perceived barriers to seeking euglycaemia. Assessment tools : Self-reported confidence is assessed using the ‘ Confidence Rating ’ (CR) scale for trainee doctors developed by the Royal College of Physicians. This scale has four points - ( ’ not confident ’ (CR1), ‘ satisfactory but lacking confidence ’ (CR2), ‘ confident in some cases (CR3) and ‘ fully confident in most cases ’ (CR4). Frequency of aspects of day-to-day practice is assessed using a six-point scale. Respondents have a choice of ‘ always ’ (100%), ‘ almost always ’ (80-99%), ‘ often ’ (50-79%), ‘ not very often ’ (20-49%) and ‘ rarely ’ (5-19%) or never (less than 5%).
Aneurysms: A Word of Caution WEB in Partially Thrombosed Intracranial

SUMMARY: Despite the proved safety and efﬁcacy of Woven EndoBridge (WEB) ﬂow disruption in conventional intracranial saccular aneurysms, the literature on its use in partially thrombosed intracranial aneurysms is scarce. We report a series of 4 patients in whom partially thrombosed intracranial aneurysms were treated with the WEB. The 2 patients who received additional intraluminal treatment withconventionalstentsmadeagoodclinicalrecovery.Meanwhile,thosepatientswhoweretreatedwiththeWEBalonehadfatalrupture of the aneurysm at short-to medium-term follow-up. This small, select case series demonstrates that WEB placement with adjunctive stent placement may be an effective treatment in the management of partially thrombosed intracranial aneurysms, which merits further validation. However, exclusive intrasaccular ﬂow disruption may have an adverse inﬂuence on the natural history of this disease.
Biological and

: Since a long time ago, Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) is part of the catalog of the greatest threats to public health in the world, due to its ability to transmit important arboviruses, such as dengue, chikungunya, zika and yellow fever.
Clinical outcomes of transfusion-associated iron overload in patients with refractory chronic anemia

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of transfusion-associated iron overload in patients with chronic refractory anemia. Methods: Clinical manifestations, main organ function, results of computed tomography (CT), endocrine evaluation, and serum ferritin levels were analyzed retrospectively in 13 patients who were transfusion-dependent for more than 1 year (receiving . 50 units of red blood cells) to determine the degree of iron overload and efficacy of iron-chelating therapy. Results: Serum ferritin levels increased to 1,830–5,740 ng/mL in all patients. Ten patients had abnormal liver function. The CT Hounsfield units in the liver increased significantly in eleven patients, and were proportional to their serum ferritin levels. Skin pigmentation, liver dysfunction, and endocrine dysfunction were observed in nine patients with serum ferritin . 3,500 ng/mL, eight of whom have since died. Interestingly, serum ferritin levels did not decrease significantly in nine transfusion-dependent patients who had received 15–60 days of iron-chelating therapy. Conclusion: Transfusion-dependent patients may progress to secondary iron overload with organ impairment, which may be fatal in those who are heavily iron-overloaded. The CT Hounsfield unit is a sensitive indicator of iron overload in the liver. Iron chelation therapy should be initiated when serum ferritin is . 1,000 ng/mL and continued until it is , 1,000 ng/mL in transfusional iron-overloaded patients.
China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities

China has emerged as an economic powerhouse (projected to have the largest economy in the world in a little over a decade) and is taking an ever-increasing role on the world stage. China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities will help the United States and the rest of the world better comprehend the facts and dynamics underpinning China's rise--an understanding that becomes more and more important with each passing day. Additionally, the authors suggest actions both China and the United States can take that will not only maximize the opportunities for China's constructive integration into the international community but also help form a domestic consensus that will provide a stable foundation for such policies. Filled with facts for policymakers, this much anticipated book's narrative-driven, accessible style will appeal to the general reader. This book is unique in that it analyzes the authoritative data on China's economy, foreign and domestic policy, and national security. * The expert judgments in this book paint a picture of a China confronting domestic challenges that are in many ways side effects of its economic successes, while simultaneously trying to take advantage of the foreign policy benefits of those same successes. China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities from The China Balance Sheet Project, a joint, multiyear project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Peterson Institute, discusses China's military modernization, China's increasing soft power influence in Asia and around the world, China's policy toward Taiwan, domestic political development, Beijing's political relations with China's provincial and municipal authorities, corruption and social unrest, rebalancing China's economic growth, the exchange rate controversy, energy and the environment, industrial policy, trade disputes, and investment issues.
ASYMPTOTIC BEHAVIOR OF POSITIVE SOLUTIONS TO SEMILINEAR ELLIPTIC EQUATIONS IN ℝ n

We investigate the asymptotic behavior of positive solutions to the elliptic equation (0.1) in . We obtain a conclusion that, for n 3, -2 0 and q > p > 1, any positive radial solution to (0.1) has the following properties: and always exist if , . In addition, we prove that the singular positive solution of (0.1) is unique under some conditions.
A queuing model with a randomized depletion of inventory

In this paper, we study an M/M/ 1 queue, where the server continues to work during idle periods and builds up inventory. This inventory is used for new arriving service requirements, but it is completely emptied at random epochs of a non-homogeneous Poisson process, whose rate depends on the current level of the acquired inventory. For several shapes of depletion rates, we derive diﬀerential equations for the stationary density of the workload and the inventory level and solve them explicitly. Finally, numerical illustrations are given for some particular examples, and the eﬀects of this depletion mechanism are discussed.
Generating Private and Fair Long-Sequenced Longitudinal Healthcare Records

—Generating long-sequenced longitudinal health-care records is critical as it has numerous potential applications. Long-sequenced longitudinal data allow us to better understand and find patterns from the data. However, privacy concerns make it challenging to share the data, and real-world data is not bias-free. Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) have been used to synthesize healthcare records, but the high dimensionality of these data makes them challenging to generate. From these motivations
Effect of Economic Recession on the Performance of Selected Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria

he paper examined “Effect of Economic Recession on the Performance T of Selected Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria”. It used secondary data; the secondary data used are textbooks, articles, journals, manuals and annual reports from the year 2012 to 2017. The population size used for this study was the entire 15 Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria during the period under review, while only 5 was adopted as sample size because they were identified by Moody's Investors Service as the most affected banks in Nigeria during the recession. Judgmental sampling technique was adopted for the study while regression and correlation analyses using E-views 9.0 statistical software packages were used to analyze the data and tested the formulated hypotheses at 5% level of significance. The paper revealed that there is a significant relationship between the volume of transactions and deposit growth in Nigeria's deposit money banks and concluded that economic recession has a serious negative effect on the volume of transaction and tax rate which affects banks' performance variables like deposit growth and profit margin. It was recommended that Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria should increase their volume of transactions by going into merger and acquisition or leverage social advertising to target prospects and existing customers on content marketing i.e. products or services valuable to customers.
Pengaruh Budaya Kerja, Motivasi Dan Kepuasan Kerja Terhadap Kinerja Pegawai Pada Kantor Badan Pertanahan Nasional Kota Padang

Kantor Badan Pertanahan Nasional Kota Padang merupakan instansi yang bergerak pada bidang pertanahan yang sesuai dengan ketentuan peraturan perundang-undangan. Terdapat adanya masalah pada Kantor Badan Pertanahan Kota Padang terhadap pegawai yang menjadi penyebab rendahnya nilai kualitas dalam pelayanan dan mutu sumber daya manusia. Berdasarkan permasalahan tersebut, maka tesis ini bertujuan untuk menguji dan menganalisis pengaruh budaya kerja, motivasi kerja dan kepuasan kerja terhadap kinerja pegawai Kantor Badan Pertanahan Kota Padang. Dalam penelitian ini seluruh populasi dijadikan sebagai sampel, sehingga jumlah sampel pada penelitian ini sebanyak 44 orang responden dan teknik pengambilan sampel ini menggunakan Total Sampling. Jenis dan sumber data yang digunakan peneliti yaitu data primer dan sekunder, sedangkan untuk teknik analisis menggunakan analisis deskriptif, uji kelayakan angket dan uji asumsi klasik dengan model regresi ganda. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa budaya kerja berpengaruh terhadap tingkat kinerja pegawai Kantor Badan Pertanahan Kota Padang, motivasi kerja berpengaruh pada tingkat kinerja pegawai Kantor Badan Pertanahan Kota Padang, dan kepuasan kerja berpengaruh terhadap tingkat kinerja pegawai Kantor Badan Pertanahan Kota Padang Kata Kunci: Budaya Kerja, Motivasi Kerja, Kepuasan Kerja, Kinerja.
The Sano

This series of articles for rehabilitation in practice aims to cover a knowledge element of the rehabilitation medicine curriculum. Nevertheless, they are intended to be of interest to a multidisciplinary audience. The competency addressed in this article is to justify and describe a complex intervention for patients with chronic low back pain before evalutation in a randomised controlled trial. AbstractObjective: To justify and describe an integrated rehabilitation programme for patients with chronic low back pain prior to evaluation in a randomized controlled trial. Method: The Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) checklist was used as a structural framework for the description of the integrated rehabilitation programme. As a part of the description, the Medical Research Council guidance, ‘Developing and evaluating complex interventions’, was used as a framework to justify the integrated rehabilitation programme. Intervention description: The integrated rehabilitation programme adopts a participatory biopsychosocial approach integrating inpatient activities supported by a multidisciplinary team and learning located within the patient’s own environment. The integrated rehabilitation programme comprises 3 weeks of inpatient stay and 11 weeks of home-based activities. The inpatient part of the programme consists of 38 clinical activities, some of them delivered more than once. The 38 clinical
SDV: Simple Double Validation Model-Based Ofﬂine Reinforcement Learning

Ofﬂine reinforcement learning (RL) aims to learn effective policies from recorded data without further interactions in the environments that are often costly or risky. Model-based algorithms, which begin by constructing an environmental model and then learn the policy under the model, have become a promising approach. However, most existing works have been over-conservative to avoid the out-of-distribution error induced by the model generated samples, leading to poor performance instead. In this work, we propose a novel model-based ofﬂine RL method, named Simple Double Validation (SDV). The main idea of SDV is to introduce an additional guidance model to assist the agent in determining the rationality of the states, combined with an advantage weighting factor to avoid effects that could potentially mislead the models due to suboptimal samples. In this way, the agent can be guided to more favourable states with reliable decisions. We evaluated SDV on the widely studied ofﬂine RL benchmarks and demonstrated its state-of-the-art performance. At the same time, our work introduces the idea of double validation and model advantage weighting into the ﬁeld of model-based ofﬂine RL, providing new insights for future research.
Vertical Foreclosure with the Choice of Input Specifications

We develop an equilibrium model of vertical foreclosure with the choice of input specifications. Vertical foreclosure occurs as the upstream division of the integrated firm makes a specialized input for its sister downstream division while it would, as an independent firm, provide a generalized input. The changes in incentives with vertical integration can be explained by the externalities the choice of a specialized input entails; vertical integration allows the upstream firm to internalize the benefit of raising the rival firm's costs at the downstream level. We derive conditions for equilibrium vertical foreclosure to occur and discuss its welfare consequences.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Cross-Lingual Speaker Discrimination Using Natural and Synthetic Speech

This paper describes speaker discrimination experiments in which native English listeners were presented with either nat-ural speech stimuli in English and Mandarin, synthetic speech stimuli in English and Mandarin, or natural Mandarin speech and synthetic English speech stimuli. In each experiment, listeners were asked to decide whether they thought the sentences were spoken by the same person or not. We found that the re-sults for Mandarin/English speaker discrimination are very similar to results found in previous work on German/English and Finnish/English speaker discrimination. We conclude from this and previous work that listeners are able to identify speakers across languages and they are able to identify speakers across speech types, but the combination of these two factors leads to a speaker discrimination task which is too difﬁcult for listeners to perform successfully, given the quality of across-language speaker adapted speech synthesis at present.