Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
INFLUENCE OF INFLATION RATE ON MACHINERY HIRE RATES IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Cost overrun is encountered in various construction projects and even with various advancement, the issue remains. When cost overrun occurs in any construction project, it not only affects the project also leaves marks on the construction industry as well. Machinery hire rates are important while finalizing the project budget and when the rates change annually it may result in project cost overrun. Due to these facts, this study investigates the effect of inflation rate on machinery hire rates. Inflation is a powerful influencing factor in deviating the prices and the rates which result in cost overrun. Statistical analysis was performed where the Spearman correlation was used as the data possess a nonlinear behaviour. The overall result came significant as the inflation rate showed a strong relationship with 9 machinery hire rates demonstrating that the inflation rate is the most prominent factor in deviating the rates. Three (3) machinery hire rates showed a moderate relationship, whereas 1 showed a weak relationship with the inflation rate. Therefore, a consideration of the inflation rate should be made in budget estimation.
Energy Management of Hybrid Electric Vehicles: 15 years of development at the Ohio State University

The aim of this paper is to document 15 years of hybrid electric vehicle energy management research at The Ohio State University Center for Automotive Research (OSUCAR). Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) technology encompasses many diverse aspects. In this paper we focus exclusively on the evolution of supervisory control strategies for on-board energy management in HEV. We present a series of control algorithms that have been developed in simulation and implemented in prototype vehicles for charge-sustaining HEVs at OSU-CAR. These solutions span from fuzzy-logic control algorithms to more sophisticated model-based optimal control methods. Finally, methods developed for plug-in HEVs energy management are also discussed
Implementing Geriatric Frailty Screening in Acute Care

Practice Problem: Frailty is a syndrome of age-related physiologic decline characterized by an increased burden of symptoms and higher susceptibility to adverse health, including higher functional decline rates, pressure ulcers, falls, and delirium. In the general medicine unit of this project, geriatric patients were not screened for frailty. PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this project was: In hospitalized patients 65-years-of-age and older (P), how does implementing a geriatric frailty screening tool (I), compared to standard assessments (C), influence frailty identification and personalized plans of care (O) over eight weeks (T)? Evidence: Literature supports screening for frailty in the hospitalized geriatric population. Intervention: For eight weeks, a group of four RN clinicians piloted the CFS and collected data on patient appropriateness for screening, completion of screening, CFS scores, and influence of CFS scoring on personalized patient care plans. Outcome: Statistical analysis results suggest that completing the CFS and adjusting the individualized plan of care were related to one another. Conclusion: Applying best practices to identify frailty during hospitalization demonstrated a measurable influence on health promotion in acutely ill geriatric patients.
Superconducting power-system transductor

Interest in the use of the series transductor for fault limiting in power systems has been renewed by the concept of employing a superconciucting DC winding. This has removed the earlier disadvantage of excessive size, losses and cost, while retaining the inherent robustness of basic construction. A mathematical model of such a transductor has been developed, and various computer runs of the model are given to illustrate the fundamental principles of operation of the device in various fault-limiting modes
Three dimensional PVD virtual reactor for VLSI metallization

A three dimensional Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) virtual reactor is presented which uses 3-d particle flux data generated by equipment level models in order to simulate 3-d metal film profiles for VLSI scale features. A calibration methodology which links the 3-d virtual reactor with a computationally efficient "3-2d" simulator is demonstrated, and an accuracy criteria which specifies when the full 3-d code is more accurate than its 3-2d counterpart is calculated. Experimental Ti/Al depositions were performed for 3-d structures, and the corresponding SEM cross sections are compared to simulated data.
Short-time Effect of Sterile Kinesio Tape applied during Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction on Edema, Pain and Range of Motion

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of edema, pain, and range of motion of knee by sterile kinesio taping within 3 days after ACLR. We hypothesized that sterile taping which is a new material of kinesio taping reduces knee pain and swelling and improves knee range of movement after ACLR. Fifty-sixth subjects who underwent an elective ACLR with were randomized into intervention(n=28) and control groups(n=28). Subjects from both groups received standardized postoperative physiotherapy. Pain by VAS, total ROM of the knee, and circumferential girth were measured at the first, second- and third-day post-surgery. There were found statistically significant differences in all study parameters within each group. Comparison of the study parameters between both groups revealed a statistical significance at various time points except the reduction of pain in the taping group in the early postoperative phase (between the first and second day) (P<0.05). There was no statistical significance in the reduction of swelling or improvement of knee total ROM with kinesio taping. This study showed that sterile kinesio taping reduced pain, improved ROM of the knee and decreased edema in the early post-operative period after ACLR.
Reduction of Voltage Ripple in DC Link of Wind Energy Conservation System Using Modified DC-DC Boost Converter

Renewable energy provisions must be extracted in a more resourceful way, with a power converter added to the mix. If the supply-demand curve rises with the seasons, it becomes clear that renewable energy sources are used to provide clean energy. This clean energy cannot be used on load directly due to fluctuating conditions, to solve this problem a modified DC to DC converter with a ripple-free output is introduced. The Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) and Solar PV were combined to achieve a constant DC output in a hybrid renewable energy conversion system. For renewable energy applications, a redesigned converter with ripple-free output is used. The simulation is made under MATLAB/SIMULINK and experimental parameters were measured using a nominal prototype.
PERFORACIONES ESCALARIFORMES EN VASOS DE ÁRBOLES NATIVOS DE CHILE SCALARIFORM PERFORATION PLATES IN THE VESSELS OF CHILEAN WOODS

Perforation plates are openings in the end walls of vessel elements, allowing water fl ow between neighboring vessel elements in longitudinal direction. There are many types of perforation plates, simple, scalariform, reticulate and foraminate. In this study a classifi cation and description of scalariform plates was made, as a contribution to the knowledge of anatomic wood structure of native species. To determine the number of bars and spaces between bars per scalariform perforation plate, were selected 10 species of natives Angiosperm of Chile having this type perforation. Species were Aextoxicon punctatum Ruiz et Pavon, Laureliopsis philippiana (Looser) Schodde, Laurelia sempervirens (Ruiz et Pavon) Tul. , Weinmannia trichosperma Cav. , Caldcluvia paniculata (Cav.) D.Don. , Eucryphia cordifolia Cav. , Citronella mucronata (Ruiz et Pavon) D. Don, Luma apiculata (DC.) Burret, Escallonia revoluta (Ruiz et Pavon) Pers. , Azara serrata Ruiz et Pavon.
Adaptive Design of Experiments for Safety Evaluation of Automated Vehicles

Automated Vehicles (AVs) need to be thoroughly evaluated in order to ensure their driving capabilities. However, comprehensive evaluations are intractable due to both time and monetary costs. To address this problem, we propose an Adaptive Design of Experiments (ADOE) method to evaluate the safety of AVs. Using this method, a Surrogate Model (SM) is established and updated iteratively. SM in ADOE is used to approximate the results of AV testing and help to select the next concrete scenario to be tested in each iteration. Two different ADOE approaches are proposed in this study for different testing purposes. Since the choice of the surrogate model has a profound impact on the performance of the ADOE method, 6 surrogate models were compared with two logical scenarios at different scales – a car following logical scenario and a cut-in logical scenario. Results show that Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) is suitable for both ADOE approaches. And both proposed ADOE approaches achieved desired performance. Scenario-oriented ADOE made full use of each concrete scenario, capturing one collision case for every 1.12 test runs in the car following logical scenario, while SM-oriented ADOE successfully depicted the boundary between safety and danger. Using 0.46% test resources compared to enumeration, the SM-oriented ADOE found 93.9% dangerous scenarios with 90.9% precision. ADOE approaches have great potential in accelerating the evaluation of AV safety.
Decision-making in product quality based on failure knowledge

Decision-making in product quality is an indispensable stage in product development, in order to reduce product development risk. Based on the identification of the deficiencies of quality function deployment (QFD) and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), a novel decision-making method is presented that draws upon a knowledge network of failure scenarios. An ontological expression of failure scenarios is presented together with a framework of failure knowledge network (FKN). According to the roles of quality characteristics (QCs) in failure processing, QCs are set into three categories namely perceptible QCs, restrictive QCs, and controllable QCs, which present the monitor targets, control targets and improvement targets respectively for quality management. A mathematical model and algorithms based on the analytic network process (ANP) is introduced for calculating the priority of QCs with respect to different development scenarios. A case study is provided according to the proposed decision-making procedure based on FKN. This methodology is applied in the propeller design process to solve the problem of prioritising QCs. This paper provides a practical approach for decision-making in product quality. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Online intercultural exchange: A case study in work and organisational psychology

ABSTRACT Acquiring intercultural competences is critical in order to avoid prejudice and increase tolerance in the global workforce. This case study describes and evaluates a learning experience designed to develop intercultural competences. Cross-cultural leadership theories were incorporated into the syllabus of a Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP) course. Students applied these theories while gaining international exposure through Online Intercultural Exchanges (OIE). Students from the University of Valencia (Spain) and the University Centre of Brasília (Brazil) participated in the exchange. The sample was composed of 22 undergraduate psychology students who worked in international pairs to address cross-cultural leadership. Results showed that students gained knowledge about cross-cultural leadership, developed intercultural competences, and evaluated the learning experience as satisfactory. These findings encourage the use of OIE to incorporate cross-cultural aspects in WOP.
Comprehensive Evaluation of Feedback-Based Freeway Ramp-Metering Strategy by Using Microscopic Simulation: Taking Ramp Queues into Account

One of the major criticisms of ramp metering has been delay caused on the ramps because of the queues created by ramp control strategies. Recently, several researchers proposed strategies that explicitly consider ramp queues when metering rates are determined. An isolated "feedback"-based ramp-metering strategy (mixed control) is presented. In addition to regulation of ramp input from the freeway, the strategy calls for regulation of ramp queues by explicitly incorporating them into the model. Mixed control is tested using PARAMICS, a microscopic traffic simulation package, on a calibrated test network located in Hayward, California. In addition to mixed control, ALINEA and new control are implemented. Because the focus here is on evaluation of isolated ramp control strategies, change in demand caused by ramp metering is not considered. The system is defined as the upstream, downstream, and ramp links around the metered ramp. The performance of two freeway demand patterns (congested and overcongested) is compared. From the simulation results, all the strategies tested were found to be quite effective in optimizing freeway traffic conditions [reduction in mean congestion duration on the freeway downstream link, mean downstream occupancy, and travel time (upstream and downstream links)]. However, mixed control produced the best system results (upstream, downstream, and ramp links) by achieving optimal flow on the highway while keeping the queue length on the ramp small enough to prevent spillover onto the arterial network.
Does morphological complexity affect word segmentation? Evidence from computational modeling

How can infants detect where words or morphemes start and end in the continuous stream of speech? Previous computational studies have investigated this question mainly for English, where morpheme and word boundaries are often isomorphic. Yet in many languages, words are often multimorphemic, such that word and morpheme boundaries do not align. Our study employed corpora of two languages that differ in the complexity of inflectional morphology, Chintang (Sino-Tibetan) and Japanese (in Experiment 1), as well as corpora of artificial languages ranging in morphological complexity, as measured by the ratio and distribution of morphemes per word (in Experiments 2 and 3). We used two baselines and three conceptually diverse word segmentation algorithms, two of which rely purely on sublexical information using distributional cues, and one that builds a lexicon. The algorithms' performance was evaluated on both word- and morpheme-level representations of the corpora. Segmentation results were better for the morphologically simpler languages than for the morphologically more complex languages, in line with the hypothesis that languages with greater inflectional complexity could be more difficult to segment into words. We further show that the effect of morphological complexity is relatively small, compared to that of algorithm and evaluation level. We therefore recommend that infant researchers look for signatures of the different segmentation algorithms and strategies, before looking for differences in infant segmentation landmarks across languages varying in complexity.
Wet and dry period identification method through serial correlation decomposition

ABSTRACT The serial correlation coefficient is the linear dependence procedure used most frequently to identify the short-memory dependence in a given hydrometeorology time series. The serial correlation formulation can be decomposed into four hydrometeorologically important parts: the wet (surplus) spell and dry (deficit) spell (drought) durations in addition to up-crossing and down-crossing components. The only negative values are available for up-crossing and down-crossing cases in the two successive standard variate multiplications, which implies that the first-order serial correlation coefficient has a lower dependence value with more contributions from the up- and down-crossing components. The difference between this methodology and those available in the literature is in the explicit use of the correlation coefficient for the identification of the abovementioned drought features. The validity of this new methodology is revealed through extensive Monte Carlo simulation and actual application to lengthy (1840–2003) Danube River monthly and annual discharges.
The Development of the Ant Algorithm for Solving the Vehicle Routing Problems

This article presents the results of research and development of modification of ant algorithms for solving vehicle routing problems with a variety of verification. The problem is NP-hard - this class of problems has a no polynomial complexity, they do not have accurate decisions now. The ant algorithm belongs to a class of algorithms based on Swarm intelligence . The concept of swarm intelligence was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Wang jing in 1989 (1). Swarm intelligence is a self-organizing system, consisting of many agents, representing a multi-agent system. Agents obey simple rules of behavior in the environment. Their simple interaction determines a collective adaptation. Thus, the formation of swarm intelligence is based on the behavior of simple agents. Due to the interaction between the agents, the system forms a collective "mind", "memory", which is used by all the participants of the system. Examples of such systems are ant colony (2-3), a swarm of bees (4-5), a flock of birds, fish, etc.
EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE, COMPANY SIZE, AND PROFITABILITY ON CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY DISCLOSURES

Considering how much impact on the environment due to the business activities of mining companies. So companies need to maximize CSR disclosure to gain the trust of stakeholders so that the company can maintain its business life cycle. Therefore, the company needs to establish good relationships with stakeholders. The disclosure of CSR is in this case seen as the method by which existing information about the environmental and social responsibility activities of the organization can develop a good connection to the stakeholders. This study attempts to assess the impact on disclosure of corporate social responsibility by environmental performance, company volume and profitability. The topic of the study is a mining corporation listed between 2014 and 2019 on the Indonesian stock exchange (IDX). In this investigation, collected data was used. In order to collect the samples for this investigation, purposive samples were used. This study uses descriptive statistics to assess the data, whilst the hypotheses can be evaluated via multiple linear regression. Hypotheses show that corporate social responsibility disclosure has little and little impact on the environmental performance and size of the company (CSR). Profitability has a strong beneficial impact on company social responsibility disclosure (CSR). In addition, the disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is favorably and considerably influenced when environmental performances, firm size and profitability are examined together.
Dopaminergic challenge dissociates learning from primary versus secondary sources of information

Some theories of human cultural evolution posit that humans have social-specific learning mechanisms that are adaptive specialisations moulded by natural selection to cope with the pressures of group living. However, the existence of neurochemical pathways that are specialised for learning from social information and from individual experience is widely debated. Cognitive neuroscientific studies present mixed evidence for social-specific learning mechanisms: some studies find dissociable neural correlates for social and individual learning whereas others find the same brain areas and, dopamine-mediated, computations involved in both. Here we demonstrate that, like individual learning, social learning is modulated by the dopamine D2 receptor antagonist haloperidol when social information is the primary learning source, but not when it comprises a secondary, additional element. Two groups (total N = 43) completed a decision-making task which required primary learning, from own experience, and secondary learning from an additional source. For one group the primary source was social, and secondary was individual; for the other group this was reversed. Haloperidol affected primary learning irrespective of social/individual nature, with no effect on learning from the secondary source. Thus, we illustrate that neurochemical mechanisms underpinning learning can be dissociated along a primary-secondary but not a social-individual axis. These results resolve conflict in the literature and support an expanding field showing that, rather than being specialised for particular inputs, neurochemical pathways in the human brain can process both social and non-social cues and arbitrate between the two depending upon which cue is primarily relevant for the task at hand.
Biotechnology for Improving Food Security in Rwanda

About 200 Million people in the world suffer from hunger. The United Nations (2007) estimates that the world population will reach 8.1 Billion people by 2030. Meeting global food requirements will necessitate increasing food production by 50%. The most attractive strategy to meet this challenge is to increase smallholder agricultural productivity. This strategy will not only increase food supply, it will also increase smallholder incomes, reduce malnutrition and improve livelihoods of the poor. Biotechnology has the potential to increase the world’s food output and reduce food insecurity. Plant biotechnology offers a wide scope of possibilities for increasing productivity, diversification and development of a more sustainable agriculture. This technology includes biopesticide production, plant tissue culture techniques, and the use of advanced molecular biology techniques for plant transformation, genomic analysis coupled with breeding and plant disease diagnoses. Agricultural biotechnology will contribute to food security through technologies that improve yield and quality and can easily be adopted by small scale farmers. The technology should, therefore, be simple, low cost and have little risk to humans and the environment. Tissue culture offers such kind of technology. This communication discusses the status of tissue culture research In Rwanda and how modern biotechnology has led to increased productivity and food security in some developing countries.
Influence of SiO2 nanoparticles on the microstructure, mechanical properties, and thermal stability of Portland cement nanocomposites

In the context of the microstructure of nano-SiO2 cement nanocomposites, information regarding the tricalcium silicate (C3S) and dicalcium silicate (C2S) phases during the hydration reaction remains inadequate. Therefore, in this research, the effects of different SiO2 nanoparticles contents on the microstructures, mechanical performance, and thermal stability of cement nanocomposites were investigated. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results highlighted that the incorporation of nano-SiO2 enhanced the microstructure of the nanocomposites by decreasing the Ca(OH)2, C3S, and C2S peaks, leading to a higher production of calcium silicate hydrate (CSH) products. Moreover, the intensity of the unhydrated gypsum phase increased with the increase in the nano-SiO2 contents, which was suggestive of the retardation effect of nano-SiO2 on the aluminate phases and aluminate reaction. Furthermore, the addition of nano-SiO2 considerably enhanced the flexural strength and thermal stability of the nanocomposites compared to the control composites. The optimum ratio of nano-SiO2 was 1 wt%.