Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhancing User Experience in E-Learning: Real-Time Emotional Analysis and Assessment

This study addresses the limited research on the user experience of e-learning platforms, specifically focusing on cognitive and emotional outcomes. The study proposes a non-invasive method to assess the emotional effects associated with e-learning platforms. The experiment involved 23 university students and compared the effectiveness of a real-time face and eye detection methodology (MIORA) with a retrospective questionnaire (SAM) to understand the emotional responses during user-platform interaction. Usability issues were intentionally introduced in the system to observe students' emotional reactions and examine the consistency between the two tools. The results confirmed the hypothesis that real-time non-invasive tools for assessing emotional reactions are more comprehensive and reliable compared to the SAM questionnaire. These tools also allow for dynamic adaptations to the site's usability and interface based on the student's emotional reactions, potentially enhancing satisfaction, and learning outcomes. These findings provide valuable insights for future research on the impact of emotional responses to e-learning platforms on user experience and learning outcomes. Ultimately, this study lays a foundation for effectively assessing the emotional outcomes of e-learning to improve online and hybrid education.
The Medical Staff’S Perception of Stigma in Sexually Transmitted Diseases

This study aims to evaluate the perception of the medical staff about the stigma related to sexually transmitted diseases (STD) in Romania, the difficulty of the case management of patients with STD, the anxiety induced by the diagnostic, the treatment compliance and the financial considerations involved. Materials and method. 50 participants from the medical staff evaluate the themes involved through an anonymous questionnaire. For statistical processing we used R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Results. 82% of the medical staff identified a higher anxiety level at STD patients, in 80% of cases patients preferred to consider sources of contamination other than sexual intercourse, 78% of patients with STD requested keeping the professional secret towards the sexual partners. There was a statistically significant correlation between the presence of a higher anxiety level at the STD patients and the feeling of self-blame (p<0.01), the request of keeping the professional secret towards their partners and the repetitive addressability for the same STD (p=0.006). Conclusions. The medical framework perceives the STD patients’ concern to be stigmatized. This phenomenon has its impact through the individual consequences to engage in suboptimal medical behaviors, but also through consequences over the community and on the expenses of the medical system. The treatment of patients with STD represents a challenge for the medical team, considering the numerous intentions not to recognize the cause of disease, to question the ways of transmission, to protect the partner and the misconceptions regarding the complexity and high cost of the treatment.
More mobility means more impact on climate change: prospects for household leisure mobility in France

Given the growing dependence of tourism on transport and the contribution of tourism mobility to global warming, this activity might be seriously questioned by mitigation policies. This paper explores prospects for household tourism and leisure mobility and their associated impacts on climate change. Household mobility patterns associating various forms of tourism trips and proximity leisure outings are developed. Their comparison shows that less conventional tourism does not necessarily implies less mobility, also the critical impact of long haul travel on climate change, and that fundamentally the future impacts are strongly associated with the individual choices between tourism and the other uses of spare time.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIVIDEND PAYOUT AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: A STUDY OF LISTED COMPANIES IN KENYA

Several theories have been documented on the relevance and irrelevance of dividend policy. Many authors continue to come up with different findings from their studies on the relevance of dividend policy. This research sought to establish the relationship between dividend payout and firm performance among listed firms in the Nairobi Securities Exchange. Regression analysis was carried out to establish the relationship between dividend payout and firm performance. The findings indicated that dividend payout was a major factor affecting firm performance. Their relationship was also strong and positive. This therefore showed that dividend policy was relevant. It can be concluded, based on the findings of this research that dividend policy is relevant and that managers should devote adequate time in designing a dividend policy that will enhance firm performance and therefore shareholder value.
Why do employees choose defensive silence?: How concerns with formal powerholders undermine self-efficacy to dissent

ABSTRACT This study used structurational divergence theory (SDT) to explain why employees’ concerns with powerholders can encourage them to select defensive silence in their approach to workplace problems. A survey of working adults (N = 276) revealed employees who had a concern with powerholders were more likely to select defensive silence as compared to employees who were concerned about other types of workplace concerns. Results indicated that perceptions of structurational divergence—and the loss of agency and immobilization that characterize it—are associated with employees’ selection of defensive silence instead of dissent. Implications for structurational divergence theory and organizational silence conclude the paper.
Toxicological interactions between spinosad and essential oils in the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata

In recent decades, the use of biopesticides for pest management has increased, especially in modern and organic agriculture. Spinosad is a biopesticide approved in many countries for its use against Ceratitis capitata. However, an increasing amount of pest resistance against spinosad had been found in different pest species. In the present study, we propose the use of a combination between essential oils (EOs) and spinosad as a way to contribute to the development of sustainable alternatives, integrating natural substances with anti‐insect properties and reducing the amount of commercial active ingredients by synergistic effects. Our primary objective was to investigate the synergistic potential of EOs and spinosad in order to enhance the insecticidal efficacy against C. capitata adults. We evaluate the toxic effect of the EOs of Baccharis spartioides (Hook), Eucalyptus cinerea (F. Muell. ex Benth) and Schinus areira (Linneo), the bioinsecticide spinosad and their combinations. We evaluated the combined toxicities of EOs from B. spartioides, E. cinerea and S. areira with spinosad and characterized the LD50 of each mixture and each substance administered topically alone on male and female individuals of C. capitata. A synergistic effect was observed for the B. spartioides–spinosad mixture in females and the S. areira–spinosad mixture in both sexes, and an antagonistic effect was found for the B. spartioides–spinosad mixture and the E. cinerea–spinosad mixture in males. Considering these results, we suggest the use of the EO from S. areira combined with spinosad as an alternative way of controlling C. capitata.
An algebraic approach of Polya processes

Polya processes are natural generalization of Polya-Eggenberger urn mod- els. This article presents a new approach of their asymptotic behaviour via moments, based on the spectral decomposition of a suitable finite difference transition operator on polynomial functions. Especially, it provides new results for large processes (a Polya process is called small when 1 is simple eigenvalue of its replacement matrix and when any other eigenvalue has a real part ≤ 1/2; otherwise, it is called large). Resume Les processus de Polya sont une generalisation naturelle des modeles d'urnes de Polya-Eggenberger. Cet article presente une nouvelle approche de leur comportement asymptotique via les moments, basee sur la decomposition spectrale d'un operateur aux differences finies sur des espaces de polynomes. En particulier, elle fournit de nouveaux resultats sur les grands processus (un processus de Polya est dit petit lorsque 1 est valeur propre simple de sa matrice de remplacement et lorsque toutes les autres valeurs propres ont une partie reelle ≤ 1/2 ; sinon, on dit qu'il est grand).
HMI Design for Chain-Braking Event Based on V2V Communication

Due to the occlusion of front vehicles, in most cases, drivers can only be reactive to the lead vehicle directly ahead of it (DLV) in chain braking scenarios. Research on connected vehicles has suggested that the awareness of traffic flow in chain braking scenarios can improve traffic safety. Thus, in a video simulation experiment, we explored the safety benefits and users’ acceptance of two windshield-displayed V2V-communication-based HMIs that inform the chain braking events, one with streaming video from the camera in front of the DLV (vHMI) and the other with warning sign informing chain braking events (sHMI). We found that both HMIs improved drivers' understanding of the situation and reduced reaction time and braking response time (BRT) compared to that of the baseline condition (without HMIs). Further, users reported higher usability and satisfaction with sHMI. This research highlights the benefits of providing front-traffic information to drivers in chain braking scenarios.
Orthogonal Polynomials Concerning to the Abel and Lindel¨of Weights and Their Modifications on the Real Line

Orthogonal polynomials related to Abel and Lindel¨of weight functions on R , as well as ones related to some products of these weight functions, are considered. Using the moments of the weight functions, the coe ffi cients in the three-term recurrence relations are determined in the explicit form. Also, some connections with Meixner-Pollaczek polynomials with real parameters are presented.
Safety evaluation of heterogeneous traffic

With the development of self-driving technology, the day when autonomous vehicles share roads with traditional human-operated vehicles seems to be around the corner. This makes the safety evaluation of this so-called heterogeneous traffic particularly important. In this thesis, by conducting microscopic heterogeneous traffic simulation on the simulation platform SUMO, the impact of autonomous vehicles on traffic safety and efficiency is studied. In order to obtain more accurate results, the initial car-following model and lane-changing model in SUMO need to be modified and calibrated using real-world data before being implemented in the simulation. As some previous research have shown, the types of vehicles involved on driving situation have an impact on drivers’ driving behaviours. The neglect of this impact has led to errors when reproducing the realistic driving behaviour with the existing carfollowing and lane-changing models. In this thesis, the models are modified by setting appropriate value for some related parameters to reflect this impact. Then the models are calibrated using the data extracted from highD dataset. Three performance indicators, namely number of conflicts, number of lane-changing and a speed performance indicator,are proposed to rate the error in terms of car-following, lanechanging and safety aspect. After the calibration, the best set of parameter values is selected and used to represent those human-operated vehicles in the heterogeneous traffic simulation. As for the autonomous vehicles, both zero-error Intelligent Driver Model (IDM) and Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) model are used to present two different types of autonomous vehicles. After getting all the models needed, the heterogeneous traffic simulation is conducted in SUMO. Several indicators, such as time to collision and number of lane-changing, etc., are used to evaluate the safety and efficiency of traffic. The results are different when using different autonomous car models. For the zero-error IDM case, the results show that traffic safety and efficiency increase as the penetration rate of autonomous vehicles increases. For the CACC model, the traffic efficiency increases with the increase in the penetration rate, but the traffic safety deteriorates when the penetration rate is low, and it slowly improves only after the penetration rate is higher than 0.5. The simulation results help to understand the impact that autonomous vehicles will bring on heterogeneous traffic.
THE MAINTENANCE OF GROUP IDENTITY THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKS IN THE BAY OF PLENTY DUTCH COMMUNITY

Abel Tasman, a Dutchman, was the first person to put New Zealand on European maps over three hundred years ago (in 1642) and today there are over twentyeight thousand people living in New Zealand who identify themselves as Dutch and twenty-seven thousand people speaking the Dutch language. Previous research has explored various aspects of Dutch migration, including migrant experiences, culture and language yet only de Bres (2004) compares the experiences of Dutch immigrants across time periods of their arrival. Cultural retention and maintenance has mainly been assessed via the use of the Dutch language rather than through other methods, such as Dutch customs and social networks. The main reason for this research is to compare the experiences and cultural identity of the three ‘waves’ of Dutch migrants, which has not been undertaken before. This study interviewed six Dutch settler families living in the Bay of Plenty, from three time-periods (1950s; 1960s to 1980s; and 1990s to today) and across generations in order to compare their experiences and assess if and how they maintain their Dutch identity through their use of customs and social networks. Open-ended questionnaires and interview schedules were used to interview the sixteen participants. Content analysis was undertaken for the majority of the questionnaire and interview schedules. For the remaining questions that focused on social networks, the structural aspects of the social support for participants
Mechanical properties of additively manufactured die with numerical analysis in extrusion process

Extrusion process has been used for many decades as a transformation and shaping technology in the plastic processing industry. In this study the die deformation, critical for the extrudate product quality, was investigated in the plastic extrusion process by numerical modelling and compared with the experimental results. Dies with various thickness were fabricated by stereolithography (SLA) additive manufacturing (AM). COMSOL Multiphysics was applied as a modelling tool to simulate the experiments. Hence in this work a Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) numerical model based on the finite element method has been developed. The FSI model solves full Navier-Stokes (N-S) equation for the insert flow, while its output serves as an applied distributed load, e.g. as a boundary condition, for the structural analysis of the extruder. Eventually, this model can enable to identify the potential areas in the extrusion die where structural failure might occur.
Article; Agriculture and Environmental Biotechnology Molecular Detection of Bacteria in Plant Tissues, Using Universal 16s Ribosomal Dna Degenerated Primers

Highly specific, sensitive and rapid tests are required for the detection and identification of covert bacterial contaminations in plant tissue cultures. Current methods available for this purpose are tedious, time consuming, highly error prone, expensive, require advanced technical expertise and are sometimes ineffective. We report here the development of a sensitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based method for the rapid detection and identification of bacteria occurring in plant tissue cultures. A total of 121 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) coding regions from 14 different groups of bacteria, algae and plants, available in the Gene Bank/European Molecular Biology Laboratory databases, were aligned and several conserved DNA sequences of bacterial origin were identified. From those, five degenerated primers were designed in order to amplify only the bacterial DNA present in mixed plant/bacteria genomic DNA extracts. A known amount of bacterial suspension of either covert Pseudomonas or covert Bacillus were added to in vitro plant leaves and total plant/bacterial DNA extracted using three different methods to determine the lowest number of bacteria required to be present in order to allow their detection. The highest sensitivity of the bacterial cell detection was 2.5 £ 10 6 cells of both Bacillus and Pseudomonas inoculums, using template DNA prepared by the MiniPrep method. Generation of PCR amplification fragments was achieved only for the 16S rDNA bacterial gene by using four combinations of degenerated primers. Successive sequence analysis of these amplified fragments led to the rapid detection and molecular identification of bacteria covertly associated with plants. Introduction Plant cell and tissue culture is an important tool for the aseptic production of cells, tissues and organs in both basic and applied research. It has been extensively employed in commercial production of plant metabolites, biotransformation of pharmaceuticals, production of proteins including antibiotics, plant genetic manipulation and massive production of plants in the horticultural industry. [1] It is very important that in vitro cultures are free of biological contamination and are maintained as aseptic cultures during manipulation, growth and storage. Contamination management is focused on the elimination of micro-arthropods, fungi, bacteria and viruses/viroids. [2] The danger of contaminants is well known in the majority of commercial and scientific plant tissue culture laboratories and losses due to contamination still average between 3% and 15% at every subculture. Most of these constantly occurring losses are caused by fungal, yeast, and bacterial contaminants. [3] Roughly 20%À55% of contamination losses to in vitro plant cultures are caused …
Sacrifice Ratio or Welfare Gain Ratio? Disinflation in a DSGE Monetary Model

When taken to examine disinflation monetary policies, the current workhorse DSGE model of business cycle fluctuations successfully accounts for the main stylized facts in terms of recessionary effects and sacrifice ratio. We complement the transitional analysis of the short-run costs with a rigorous welfare evaluation and show that, despite the long-lasting economic downturn, disinflation entails non-zero overall welfare gains.
Identification of Influential Users in Online Social Network: A Brief Overview

Information networks where users join a network, publish their own content, and create links to other users are called Online Social Networks (OSNs). Nowadays, OSNs have become one of the major platforms to promote both new and viral applications as well as disseminate information. Social network analysis is the study of these information networks that leads to uncovering patterns of interaction among the entities. In this regard, finding influential users in OSNs is very important as they play a key role in the success above phenomena. Various approaches exist to detect influential users in OSNs, starting from simply counting the immediate neighbors to more complex machine-learning and message-passing techniques. In this paper, we review the recent existing research works that focused on identifying influential users in OSNs.
Don't Just Talk About the Weather - Manage It! A System for Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Internet Performance and Connectivity

In an environment where Internet access is mission-critical, Intel has created the Internet Measurement and Control System (IMCS) with three objectives: 1) Devise quantitative measures of Internet performance; 2) Monitor those metrics to detect performance problems before customers and employees start calling; and 3) Enable first line support in the Network Operations Center (NOC) to handle as many problems as possible without having to escalate to network engineering staff. Intel implements IMCS by measuring key statistics of ping measurements, HTTP GETs, and router accounting tables. Boundary conditions are set up for the key statistics, and alerts are sent if those conditions are exceeded. The NOC personnel that receive the alerts use predefined scripts for each kind of alert. To make IMCS accessible to all and very usable, IMCS presents all of its information on the Web. Even network debugging tools like ping and traceroute are accessible through web interfaces. IMCS has proven successful in detecting problems and changes in the Internet infrastructure, although problems have been encountered because of IMCS's active measurement techniques. Future improvements to IMCS include fixing the configuration format of boundary condition definitions, adding more services to be monitored, increasing the use of passive measurements, and improving how alerts are reported.
Decentralized frequency support control based on distributed PV’s adaptive power reserve

High integration of PV diminishes system inertia, which jeopardizes the system frequency stability. Adjusting PVs’ output according to demand is an active power control method requiring no energy storage devices, which realizes grid frequency support by a certain reserved power of PV. To equally reserve power between different PVs without communication, this paper combines the operation characteristics of the PV module on the right side of the maximum power point and proposes the characteristic of power reserve and adaptive power reserve-frequency supporting control. Furthermore, irradiance and temperature sensors, cumbersome mathematical computation, and accurate measurement of PV module parameters can be eliminated. Finally, simulations are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
Characterizing Sources of Variability in Zebrafish Embryo Screening Protocols 1

There is a need for fast, efficient, and cost-effective hazard identification and characterization of chemical hazards. This need is generating increased interest in the use of zebrafish embryos as both a screening tool and an alternative to mammalian test methods. A Collaborative Workshop on Aquatic Models and 21st Century Toxicology identified the lack of appropriate and consistent testing protocols as a challenge to the broader application of the zebrafish embryo model. The National Toxicology Program established the Systematic Evaluation of the Application of Zebrafish in Toxicology (SEAZIT) initiative to address the lack of consistent testing guidelines and identify sources of variability for zebrafish-based assays. This report summarizes initial SEAZIT information-gathering efforts. Investigators in academic, government, and industry laboratories that routinely use zebrafish embryos for chemical toxicity testing were asked about their husbandry practices and standard protocols. Information was collected about protocol components including zebrafish strains, feed, system water, disease surveillance, embryo exposure conditions, and endpoints. Literature was reviewed to assess issues raised by the investigators. Interviews revealed substantial variability across design parameters, data collected, and analysis procedures. The presence of the chorion and renewal of exposure media (static versus static-renewal) were identified as design parameters that could potentially influence study outcomes and should be investigated further with studies to determine chemical uptake from treatment solution into embryos. The information gathered in this effort provides a basis for future SEAZIT activities to promote more consistent practices among researchers using zebrafish embryos for toxicity evaluation.