Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Monitoring And Evaluation And Sustainability Of Mwisoko Project, Rwanda

The study examined the contribution of monitoring and evaluation on sustainability of Mwisoko project in Rwanda. Specifically, this research ascertains effect of monitoring and evaluation planning, process, and tools on sustainability of Mwisoko project in Nyarugenge District. A descriptive and correlation research designs were used. The target population comprised of 345 (three key employees of Mwisoko project, two employees of Kigali City, one employee of Nyarugenge district, and 340 business enterprises beneficiaries of the project). Quantitative data was gathered using questionnaire survey while qualitative data was obtained using interview guide. A descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze quantitative information. Information obtained from secondary source was analyzed using content analysis. A multiple regression model was adopted to test correlation between variables. Results indicated that monitoring and evaluation planning was positively correlated with sustainability of Mwisoko project (b=0.168, p=0.002). Monitoring and evaluation process was positively significant to the sustainability of Mwisoko project (b=0.257, p value=0.000). Monitoring and evaluation tools is strongly related to sustainability of Mwisoko project (b=0.372, pvalue=0.000). The study recommends that Mwisoko project stakeholders should hire external experts to do M&E Planning related to project for enhancing the sustainability of projects. Beneficiaries should participate in design, planning and conception of monitoring and evaluation process for increasing the success of project in City of Kigali. There is a need to plan an adequate design for different tasks and estimate the total cost, means to plan according to the budget as well as empower the management of Mwisoko project.
Government Accounting Standards in Moderating the Influence of Organizational Culture and the Implementation of Good Government Governance Principles on Fraud Detection

This work is focused on the impact of organization culture implementation and application of the principles of good government governance against fraud detection with government accounting standards as a moderating variable. This work has a thorough analysis with respondents being heads of regional government organizations and heads of accounting departments throughout Banten province. SEM PLS is used to analyze the data of this study. The questionnaires used in this work are obtained using surveying methods. The results clearly revealed the application of organizational culture and the principles of good government governance have a positive and significant effect on fraud detection, while government accounting standards as a moderator variable do not have a strong enough influence on organizational culture variables and the principles of good government governance in fraud detection.
Research and Demonstration of Video Streaming on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Networks

Abstract : This project has led to a number of findings and conclusions. The main results concern the task of using one or more Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to relay messages or videos between two distant ground nodes. A protocol, called load-carry-and-deliver (LCAD), has been developed and implemented, where a UAV load from a source ground node, carries the data while flying to the destination, and finally delivers the data to a destination ground node. For delay-tolerant applications like latency-insensitive bulk data transfer and video streaming, it is demonstrated in field experiments that LCAD can maximize throughput. In addition, the project delivered a simple lab demonstration system to AFRL which shows the feasibility of dynamically adapting video source coding, based on the quality of the video transporting wireless link.
Double-Shift: A Low-Power DNN Weights Storage and Access Framework based on Approximate Decomposition and Quantization

One major challenge in deploying Deep Neural Network (DNN) in resource-constrained applications, such as edge nodes, mobile embedded systems, and IoT devices, is its high energy cost. The emerging approximate computing methodology can effectively reduce the energy consumption during the computing process in DNN. However, a recent study shows that the weight storage and access operations can dominate DNN's energy consumption due to the fact that the huge size of DNN weights must be stored in the high-energy-cost DRAM. In this paper, we propose Double-Shift, a low-power DNN weight storage and access framework, to solve this problem. Enabled by approximate decomposition and quantization, Double-Shift can reduce the data size of the weights effectively. By designing a novel weight storage allocation strategy, Double-Shift can boost the energy efficiency by trading the energy consuming weight storage and access operations for low-energy-cost computations. Our experimental results show that Double-Shift can reduce DNN weights to 3.96%–6.38% of the original size and achieve an energy saving of 86.47%–93.62%, while introducing a DNN classification error within 2%.
The Air War in El Salvador

Abstract : The Civil War in El Salvador, which lasted from 1980 to 1992, was one of the largest and bloodiest insurgencies that the Western Hemisphere has seen. During the 12-year war, an estimated one hundred thousand people died-fairly horrendous losses for a country of only five million people. The war in El Salvador saw significant involve involvement by the United States in the form of military and economic aid, advisors, and training. During the course of the war, the United States poured $4.5 billion of economic aid into the country and over $1 billion in military aid. Almost a quarter of the US military aid was provided to the Salvadoran Air Force. Some aspects of the war in El Salvador and the US involvement have been told in numerous books and publications. Yet, all though air power played a major role in the conflict, its story has not been dealt with in any detail. In deed, there are no books or major journal articles specifically on the history of the Salvadoran Air Force during the war. Considering that the Salvadoran war provides us with one of the most recent examples of the use of airpower in a counterinsurgency campaign, this is a significant gap in the literature about the use of airpower in modern warfare.
Serum Interleukin (IL)-23 and IL-17 Profile in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Patients Could Differentiate between Severe and Non-Severe Disease

Interleukin (IL)-17 and IL-23 are crucial for mediating gut mucosal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which has led to new therapeutic strategies. We assessed the relevancy of IL-17 and IL-23 serum levels as potential biomarkers towards severe IBD discrimination and disease-related complications. Sixty-two patients diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) were included. Serum IL-17 and IL-23 were measured by sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). IL-23 and fecal calprotectin (FCal) were significantly higher in severe CD (p < 0.001) and UC (p < 0.001 and p = 0.001, respectively), compared to mild or moderate. Elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) was correlated with severe disease only in CD (p = 0.008), whereas for UC, disease severity was associated with increased IL-17 values (p < 0.001). Diagnostic role of IL-23 was superior to FCal in discriminating between severe and mild to moderate CD (p < 0.001). IL-23 levels were also significantly higher in CD patients with intestinal complications (p = 0.04). Both IL-17 and IL-23 correlate with IBD severity, and IL-23 might be a promising novel biomarker for severe CD. Identifying the dominant IL pathway involved in IBD severity could serve as guidance for clinical decision-making on biologic therapy.
Service Quality Indicators in Education Setting:Application of RIDIT Method to Likert Scale Surveys

Likert scale is an efficient tool that is utilized to gather data related to attributes, perceptions, values, intensions, habits and behavior changes. The present work illustrates application feasibility of RIDIT method adapted from Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) to Likert scale surveys. The proposed method has been used for selection of quality attributes in technical education setting. The performance of an institute is likely to be influenced by quality of the teacher, quality of the students, infrastructure, administration, extent of training and placement and many others. It is felt that quality and performance evaluation is necessary not only for appraisal but it is also required to improve overall service quality. In consideration of the above, the study highlights that service quality as a multi-attribute estimate. Application of RIDIT method has been proposed to determine the significant factors influencing overall quality index of an institute that would be helpful in comparing various institutes and selecting the best one for academic purposes.
SketchStudio: Rapid Prototyping Tool for 2.5D Animated Design Scenarios

It is challenging to visualize the end-user experiences of large and complex systems involving various spatial elements and multiple-user interactions. To support experience prototyping of these systems in the early design phases, we present SketchStudio, a prototyping tool for producing animated design scenarios of large and complex systems. The tool allows designers to specify the user experience over time and space by simply composing a node graph. It instantly generates unique 2.5D animated design scenarios by blending 2D sketches and 3D characters. Further, the tool supports virtual reality mode for immersive views of the created scenario prototype.
Comparison of Potential Critical Feature Sets for Simulator-Based Target Identification Training

Abstract : Effective representation of armored vehicles in simulation displays demands a careful evaluation of human perceptual capabilities. This is especially true for computer-generated target displays, which must provide sufficient detail to allow vehicle identification within limitations of computer processing time and display resolution. Even in image generation and display systems not incurring such limitations, the image detail should not exceed human perceptual and cognitive information processing capabilities. Care must be given to vehicle representation to assure that the features represented and emphasized are those most valuable for identifying targets. The current research compared the effectiveness of two different sets of vehicle features for target identification training. Results showed that the two sets of features, in the context of the training in which they were embedded, produced equivalent levels of target identification accuracy, and both produced large gains in performance. Results also revealed that any effects due to range-specific learning of features were very small relative to the improvement produced by training, and were significant when data for one of the programs were analyzed separately.
Cyber Vision and Cyber Force Development

Abstract : Widely reported compromises to the Department of Defense global information grid (GIG) punctuate a recent study by the Defense Science Board that the primary focus of a cyber force must remain the assurance of mission-essential functions (MEF) of the commander. Additionally, the distinction between intelligence (Title 50) and offense (Title 10) authorities notwithstanding, the proliferation of digital technology and the overlap between networks and computers blurred the traditional boundaries between offensive and defensive activities. Organizationally, the activation on 1 October 2009 of the US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) brought together computer network attack (CNA) and computer network defense (CND) activities of the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW) and the Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO) under the USCYBERCOM. It is in this environment that the USAF vision of global vigilance, global reach, and global power across the full spectrum of conflict from peacetime to major combat operations drives the science and technology (S&T) requirements for cyber operations, as well as the educational requirements for cyber force development. Essential to USAF cyber forces is an organizing construct with a primary responsibility for assuring the USAF mission-essential functions in a contested cyber environment and a deployed responsibility to the joint force commander (JFC) through an expeditionary framework. However, properly educating that force of cyber warriors is a prerequisite.
Metabolic Syndrome with Oppositional Defiant Disorder in an 11 Year Old Girl

Metabolic Syndrome in adolescent in India is of recent origin due to the better socioeconomic conditions and the growing obesity epidemic. An 11 year old female child presented with features of Metabolic Syndrome and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Child was treated with antihypertensive medication and put on dietary and exercise regimen. Child was given counselling for the Oppositional Defiant Disorder after being evaluated by Psychiatrist.
Force servo control of a commercial gantry robot

Sandia National Laboratories is investigating robotic handling of spent nuclear fuel shipping casks for the proposed geologic waste repositories. Robotic handling will impact not only the design of the transportation casks but also the overall design of the waste repository. A goal of robotic handling is reduction of personnel radiation exposure. One of the major technology development areas has been the integration of sensors into the control of the robot system to allow operation in semi-structured environments. In particular, a multiaxis force sensor is used to make robot trajectory corrections based on the contact forces between the robot and cask. This force feedback system allows contact swipes (smears) to be made on the cask surface in a safe, repeatable manner. 9 refs., 3 figs., 1 tab.
Creative work beyond the creative industries: An introduction

Creative occupations exist across the entire economy. The creative worker’s habitus cannot be discovered by looking only in film studios, games companies or artist’s garrets. Work practices, evolved through the traditions of the creative and performing arts, are now deployed to create new services and products across all sectors, to develop process innovations, and to change the distribution thereof. Yet the bulk of academic study of creative work (both functionalist and critical), as well as the content of higher/further professional education programs and everyday understanding of creative workers, focuses on one subset of the Creative Industries: those involved in the production of cultural goods or services (film, television, music etc.) for consumption by the general public. And further, the bulk of existing academic work focuses on those creative workers employed in cultural production industries. However, as recent work has shown, this focus misses both the large (and increasing) number of creative workers embedded in industries beyond the core Creative Industries (for example, manufacturing, banking, mining) and those creative workers and firms that supply services to business as well as to the general public, such as architects, technical writers, and graphic designers (see Cunningham 2013; Potts and Cunningham 2008; Potts, Cunningham, Hartley and Omerod 2008). This book focuses on this subset of very important, and yet under-recognized creative workers: embedded creative workers and providers of creative services into other sectors of the economy, as indicated in the following taxonomy (Figure 1.1), which juxtaposes occupation and industry sector.
Using distributed learning as a measure to capture additional data on the quality of technology enhanced learning (TEL)

The Australasian Council on Open Distance and E-learning (ACODE) benchmarks were the first major attempt, in an Australasian context, to bring a consistent framework to the use of e-Learning at higher education institutions (HEIs). Successful as these were, given the HEI need to interpret the benchmarks differently in accordance to institutional culture, they were not able to fully capture measures of quality of technology enhanced learning (TEL). Ongoing research is demonstrating that distributed leadership can prove to be an additional dimension in establishing quality measures pertinent to TEL activity at HEIs based on identification of role and boundary of activities within a university to help attest to internal efforts and support (fiscal, human, programmatic, and technical) driving the TEL offerings provided by universities.
ON-LINE DETERMINATION OF OPTIMAL HYSTERESIS BAND AMPLITUDES IN DIRECT TORQUE CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVES

In conventional direct torque control (DTC) of induction machines, undesirable flux and torque ripples are produced. These occur since non of the selected inverter's voltage vectors are able to generate the exact voltage required to produce the desired changes in the electromagnetic torque and stator flux linkage in most of the switching instances. In addition, when direct torque control is implemented in a digital form these ripples will increase due to sampling and computation delays. In this paper, the influences of the amplitudes of flux and torque hysteresis bands and the sampling time of control program on the torque and flux ripples are investigated. A new method is then proposed for the determination and application of optimal hysteresis band amplitudes in DTC to reduce flux and torque ripples, and prevent the inverter switching frequency to exceed a desired limit. Extensive simulation results confirm the superiority of the DTC under the proposed method over the conventional DTC.
Methodologies for On‐Demand Dispersion Engineering of Waves in Metasurfaces

Dispersion is one common yet critical property of all kinds of waves. It is related to the spatial and spectral evolution of waves in structured materials. This review gives a summary of the methodologies used for the on‐demand dispersion engineering of waves in metasurfaces, which possess many unusual properties such as extremely short wavelength, diffraction‐less directional propagation, and tunable phase shift, resulting in many exciting applications with performances beyond the limitations set by traditional geometric and physical optics. Since most metasurfaces could be continuously transformed from simple thin films, the methodologies proposed here are universal and may be applied to analyze and design various functional metasurfaces.
Proyecto 2.0: herramientas de la web social de apoyo a la elaboración de proyectos

Web 2.0 or social web is understood as the group of applications and resources of Internet that facilitate the exchange of information and the collaborative work. Most of these tools are free and can be applied during the preparation and the communication of academic projects. Apart from minimizing the time and the effort, its use promotes the collaboration and communication, the critical appraisal and the exchange of knowledge. Under the denomination “Project 2.0” a teaching material has been produced with a selection of these technological resources classified in function of their utility during the different phases of development of the project: searching information, creating virtual surveys, reading and synthesis of the documents, storing files in the cloud, analyzing data, creating conceptual maps, writing, managing bibliographic references, preparing the presentation for the oral presentations, etc. This resource has been presented in the different subjects “Projects” at Escola Tecnica Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial i Aeronautica de Terrassa (ETSEIAT) of the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya • BarcelonaTech (UPC). In a very near future the use of these tools in the preparation of the final degree projects on the part of the students is going to be extended and evaluated.
Newspaper on e-paper with WiFi transfer: The newspaper of the future

An e-newspaper is the result of newspaper content adapted to electronic paper. Electronic paper is a display technology which has many favourable attributes. It is a passive display technology which means that it can have the appearence of paper due to its high contrast, it is readable like paper due to only changing its pixels when the image changes and also uses very little power making it suitable for mobile uses. Making an e-newspaper service has many challenges, the areas focused on in this thesis are namely layout and distribution. There is great differences between an online newspaper and a paper newspaper, and the question is which direction is suitable for an e-newspaper. Some of the factors that plays a role includes rates of updates, feel of quality, ``charm'' and of course personal preferences. Distribution is split in two different approaches, pull or push. The latter most preferable because it gives the quickest updates in an automatic fashion. The reason for considering pull distribution is because it is more suited for devices that wishes to limit the time with an active air interface. There was made a demonstration of such an e-newspaper service, with a standard template, online newspaper inspired, layout and pull distribution to accomodate the chosen e-paper device's poor battery life. The pull distribution was further user initiated to conserve even more power. The software made for this demonstration can be found in the accompanying archive file. There was a test group, which evaluated the demonstration for a period of time. They did not completely agree with the layout choices, as they favoured a layout closer to the original paper source. That the download was user initiated was not a great problem though.
Psychotherapy in old age: older adults’ sexual distress concerning their sexual well-being

ABSTRACT Age and sexual difficulties show a relevant influence in older adults’ sexual well-being (SWB). The objective of this study was to assess sexual issues that affect SWB, revealed by older adults in person-centered therapy, using qualitative research. Interviews with 114 older participants, aged 65 to 82 years, living in the community were submitted to content analysis. Eight main themes emerged from the results of the content analysis: Partner unavailability, family issues, physical changes, worries about hygiene, sexual dysfunctions, fear of physical abuse, and sexual transmitted diseases. This study was relevant toward identifying the sexual issues older adults feel regarding their SWB, as shared in therapy. Older adults referred their greatest issues to be partner unavailability, sexual dysfunctions and physical changes due to aging.
Reducing Free Riding in Peer-to-Peer Systems with Supervised Teaming

Peer-to-peer technology has produced thriving communities in which peers contribute bandwidth to each other. However, when free riding occurs, these communities will not be able to sustain themselves without incentives to enforce this contribution. This thesis presents Supervised Teaming, a peer-to-peer transfer protocol that gives uploading peers, called supervisors, control over a team of downloading peers, called team members. The team members are given an incentive to transfer data among each other, effectively reducing the upload cost of the supervisors to one piece of data while still duplicating this piece to every team member. Using transport efficiency, time efficiency, and sharing ratio as performance metrics, we prove that Supervised Teaming performs equally to BitTorrent under best-case scenarios and several factors better, depending on the chosen team size, under flash crowds and free riding scenarios. Furthermore, we have implemented a peer-to-peer client that can use both the BitTorrent protocol and a simplified version of the Supervised Teaming protocol. The experiments we have performed with this client verify that Supervised Teaming performs as expected.