Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HYDROGEN PEROXIDE CONCENTRATION SENSOR USING FIBER

The concentration measurements of various solutions are of great interest in many of industrial processes as a mean of quality production control. In this paper the Fiber Bragg Grating is fabricated by phase mask technique on single mode Ge-B codoped photosensitive fiber with KrF (248 nm) source. The grating region etched with HF (40%) to act as a concentration sensor, which affects the resonance wavelength with change in surrounding media (hydrogen peroxide) concentration. We have analyzed hydrogen peroxide for various low level concentrations in the range of 1-12 ppm level. The sensor acts effectively sensitive to small changes in hydrogen peroxide concentration.
Design and Implementation of a Web-Based E-Learning in Zambia For Primary and Secondary Schools: A Case Study of Selected Urban and Rural Schools in Solwezi District

A new technology platform for the education system is creating with the development of information technology. Web-based training platforms enable teachers to plan lessons and develop easy to use digital resources to put assessments and tasks and automatically monitor the progress of every student or the entire class. The specific objectives of the study were as follow: to determine the effect of peer interaction on academic performance and analyse the effect of a web-based e-learning in Zambia for primary and secondary schools. The survey questionnaire was administered to pupils in slowest district. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics with the aid of the statistical package. The piloted data was analysed to calculate its reliability and special attention was given to relevance of survey questionnaire and clarity of instructions for this research. Results of the study showed that pupils have access to E-learning and their exposure to a great extent. The study revealed that majority of the respondents had mobile phones which had internet facility on them to access the on line lessons and had knowledge of the existence of a web-based e learning using phones and spent between thirty minutes to three hours per day. In addition, the study revealed that the use of elearning had affected academic performance of the pupils negatively and that there was direct relationship between the use of new technology and the performance. The study recommends that students with mobile phones having internet facility should be encouraged to use it to supplement their learning rather than sitting in class always and wait for teachers to teach them. Students should be encouraged to limit the time they spend in class with their teachers per day and advise them to substitute those hours to read and learn using E-LearningLearning option allows students to learn the course without moving out of their place where as they have to compulsorily attend the traditional classrooms for learning in the classroom learning option. Web based learning offers huge opportunities for learning and access to a vast amount of knowledge and information. Web based learning should not always be viewed as the method of choice because barriers such as inadequate equipment can easily distract the student learning. The technology must therefore be applied appropriately and not used simply because it is available and new. Hence both teachers and pupils have particular expectations of this means of course delivery. Keywords— Computer Based Training (CBT), Internet-Based Training (IBT), Web-Based Instruction (WBI), Advanced Distributed Learning(ADL), Distributed Learning (DL), Distance Learning, Online Learning (OL), Mobile Learning (Or M-Learning) Or Remote Learning And Learning Management Systems (LMS). The International Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Research ISSN: 3471-7102, ISBN: 978-9982-70-318-5 2 Paper-ID: CFP/1697/2020 www.ijmdr. net CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE
AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF WORK STATUS ON JOB SATISFACTION IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY- FOCUS STUDY OF LUSAKA DISTRICT

The study sought to determine the impact of work status on job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance in the hospitality industry in Zambia and hence made use of descriptive research design together with a purposive sampling technique. A sample size of 105 employees from the hospitality industry was used in this study. Sources of data in this particular study included both primary and secondary sources. In order to specifically address the research questions, the Likert scaled questionnaire was used to gather primary data. The study used both correlation and logistic regression analyses to find out the effect of work status on Job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance. The study found that work status had a significant positive effect on job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance. The study therefore recommended that firstly, organizations should offer acceptable working conditions for all employees regardless of their employment status. Secondly, the study recommended that Organizations should give opportunities for career advancement and incentives as this will contribute to organization commitment. Lastly, the study also recommended that Part time employees should be treated equally like their fulltime counterparts to ensure job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance.
Public good bargaining under mandatory and discretionary rules: experimental evidence

We experimentally test a model of public good bargaining due to Bowen et al. (Am Econ Rev 104:2941–2974, 2014) and compare two institutions governing bargaining over public good allocations. The setup involves two parties negotiating the distribution of a fixed endowment between a public good and each party’s individual account. Parties attach either high or low weight to the public good and the difference in these weights reflects the degree of polarization. Under discretionary bargaining rules, the status quo default allocation to the group account (in the event of disagreement) is zero while under the mandatory bargaining rule it is equal to the level last agreed upon. The mandatory rule thus creates a dynamic relationship between current decisions and future payoffs, and our experiment tests the theoretical prediction that the efficient level of public good is provided under the mandatory rule while the level of public good funding is at a sub-optimal level under the discretionary rule. Consistent with the theory, we find that proposers (particularly those attaching high weight to the public good) propose significantly greater allocations to the public good under mandatory rules than under discretionary rules and this result is strengthened with an increase in polarization. Still, public good allocations under mandatory rules fall short of steady state predictions, primarily due to fairness concerns that prevent proposers from exercising full proposer power.
[RE] Background-Aware Pooling and Noise-Aware Loss for Weakly-Supervised Semantic Segmentation

The following paper is a reproducibility report for Background-Aware Pooling and Noise-Aware Loss for Weakly-2 Supervised Semantic Segmentation [12] published in CVPR 2021 as part of the ML Reproducibility Challenge 2021. 3 The repository is available at this link with the PyTorch Lightning [4] Extension available at this link. 4
Evaluation of Factors Influencing Implementation of Total Quality Management in manufacturing: Case of Zambezi Portland cement in Ndola

Implementation of total quality management has become critical area by many industries owing to the increasing competitive advantage of products and services. Total Quality Management is a management philosophy, which can gradually improve the way we conduct business. Nevertheless, Zambia as a less developed country is still in the infant stage of the TQM system. Manufacturing of cement companies do compose part of the main industrial structures in Zambia. The objectives of this research were; to establish the level of commitment to which management influences the implementation of TQM system at Zambezi Portland Cement; to investigate the role of customers on the implementation of TQM system in the company; to determine if ‘plan, do, check and act’ cycle is implemented at Zambezi Portland Cement. The type of research design applied was a nonexperimental design. This study utilized the qualitative research method. The target population in this study constituted all employees of Zambezi Portland Cement. The type of sampling design applied was nonprobability sampling design, using convenience sampling. And also, from non-intervention studies, exploratory since it is on small scale as well as descriptive and purposive studies were utilized. Operational definitions Age: refers to how old somebody is. Gender: refers to either male or female Implementation of TQM system: Adoption of TQM in manufacturing sectors; commitment to quality standards, and holistic involvement of people in quality management. Total Quality Management: This is management philosophy applied to attain competitive advantage in business environment. Top management commitment: Refers to Management’s commitment to implementing the TQM through leadership, provision of resources and work culture. The International Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Research ISSN: 3471-7102, ISBN: 978-9982-70-318-5 2 Paper-ID: CFP/1400/2019 www.ijmdr. net Introduction Overview The aim of the study was to evaluate the factors that influence the implementation of total quality management system (TQM) in the manufacturing of cement at Zambezi Portland in Ndola City. These factors to be evaluated included; management’s commitment; customer focus; and continuous improvement.
Acquiescence Bias Inflates Estimates of Conspiratorial Beliefs and Political Misperceptions

Abstract Scholars, pundits, and politicians use opinion surveys to study citizen beliefs about political facts, such as the current unemployment rate, and more conspiratorial beliefs, such as whether Barack Obama was born abroad. Many studies, however, ignore acquiescence-response bias, the tendency for survey respondents to endorse any assertion made in a survey question regardless of content. With new surveys fielding questions asked in recent scholarship, we show that acquiescence bias inflates estimated incidence of conspiratorial beliefs and political misperceptions in the United States and China by up to 50%. Acquiescence bias is disproportionately prevalent among more ideological respondents, inflating correlations between political ideology such as conservatism and endorsement of conspiracies or misperception of facts. We propose and demonstrate two methods to correct for acquiescence bias.
Beyond Bot Detection: Combating Fraudulent Online Survey Takers✱

Different techniques have been recommended to detect fraudulent responses in online surveys, but little research has been taken to systematically test the extent to which they actually work in practice. In this paper, we conduct an empirical evaluation of 22 anti-fraud tests in two complementary online surveys. The first survey recruits Rust programmers on public online forums and social media networks. We find that fraudulent respondents involve both bot and human characteristics. Among different anti-fraud tests, those designed based on domain knowledge are the most effective. By combining individual tests, we can achieve a detection performance as good as commercial techniques while making the results more explainable. To explore these tests under a broader context, we ran a different survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The results show that for a generic survey without requiring users to have any domain knowledge, it is more difficult to distinguish fraudulent responses. However, a subset of tests still remain effective.
STEM Education: Current and future trends in laboratory-based education

 Abstract — Laboratory experiments constitute a significant educational tool in the area of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education. During the past two decades, a considerable number of published research papers have been devoted to Virtual and Remote Labs (VRLs), the use of which is currently spreading across STEM domains and educational levels. Lately, Augmented Reality Remote Labs (ARRLs) have entered the research field. In this paper, some current trends and challenges are identified and discussed, after a brief overview of the state-of-the-art concerning the different types of labs related to STEM in secondary education and lifelong learning.
Discrete-Time Adaptive Posicast Controller for Uncertain Time-Delay Systems

This paper presents the discrete-time Adaptive Posicast Controller (APC). The APC is an adaptive controller with explicit delay compensation built upon the ideas of the classical Smith Predictor, finite spectrum assignment (FSA) and adaptive control. A known result in the computer implementation of FSA is that as the approximation of the finite integral term gets finer, the stability margins get smaller. It can be shown that this approximation can even result in instability. Since it is based on FSA, APC also has the same issue. Although in earlier automotive (experimental) and flight control (simulation) implementations dramatic performance improvements were obtained, the full benefit of APC could not be realized due to this sensitivity to the integral approximation. In this paper, this problem is solved by developing discrete-time APC and thus eliminating the need for approximation. Simulation results are reported where APC is applied to control the longitudinal dynamics of a jet transport aircraft. These results demonstrate improved performance compared to conventional model reference adaptive controller (MRAC) and compared to the discrete-time approximation of the continuos APC. With the development of this discrete version, APC represents one of the most powerful candidates to handle uncertainties and time-delays in system dynamics.
Antimicrobial Activities of Extracellularly Synthesized Silver Nanoparticles from Aspergillus Flavus and Alternaria Alternata

This study was carried out to evaluate the extracellular biosynthesis of Silver Nanoparticles using Aspergillus flavus and Alternaria alternata isolated from fruit waste (Orange) samples using the vegetative and cell-free filtrate method. The antimicrobial activity was performed against Escherichia coli and Streptocous fecalis. Characterization of the silver nanoparticles was achieved using Color change, UV-Visible Spectrophotometry and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The Nanoparticles showed UV-Visible absorbance peaks that correspond to the Plasmon resonance of silver nanoparticles. The FTIR spectra showed the presence of aromatic and aliphatic amines, confirming the presence of proteins as the stabilizing agent surrounding the silver nanoparticles. The silver nanoparticles showed higher antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli. Silver nanoparticles (1mM) from Aspergillus flavus were not significantly different (p<0.05) from Nitrofurantoin. The use of these fungi for silver nanoparticles synthesis offers the benefits of ecofriendliness and amenability for large-scale production and shows that biosynthesized silver nanoparticles can be effective as an alternative therapy in solving antimicrobial resistance problems.
HAEMATOLOGICAL VARIATIONS OF THE QUANTITIES OF THE PARAMETERS IN THE FISH CATLA CATLA EXPOSED TO DICHLOROVOS TECHNICAL GRADE AND 76% EC (NUVAN) AS EFFECTS

Hamatological changes as impediments in the fish Catla catla (Hamilton) exposed in the laboratory conditions (in vivo) due to the Dichlorvos an organo phosphate, both technical grade and 76% EC (Nuvan) are studied. The fish blood parameters studied includes erythrocytes (RBC), White blood corpscules (WBC), Haemoglobin (Hb), Haematocrit value (Hct & PCV), Mean corpuscular volume (MCV), Mean corpsuclar Haemoglobin (MCH) and Mean corpsuclar haemoglobin concentration (MCHC) of which the first four are analysed to determine them quantitatively and the last three are determined as by calculation. The RBC, Hb and HCt decreased whereas WBC increased and accordingly the calculated and MCV, MCH and MCHC are too varied. Due to the toxic stress the blood regeneration of components failed to function normally and to cope the toxic action leucocytes increased. The effects of the pesticide of technical grade and 76% EC (Nuvan) both in lethal and sublethal concentration had a significant impact and in total the metabolism is impaired hence the growth will be limited as the fish is for culture candidate species.
EFFECT OF BREATHING EXERCISES ON PERCEIVED STRESS LEVEL AMONG THE FRENCH-SPEAKING COMMUNITY IN ABU DHABI, UAE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN ONLINE AND MOBILE APPLICATION DELIVERY METHODS

Breathing exercises have many health benefits, especially in terms of stress reduction. Several studies have examined the effect of breathing on stress levels; however, there is a lack of studies comparing delivery methods. This study aimed to compare the difference in perceived stress levels in people who performed breathing exercises faceto-face using an online video conferencing tool versus people who used a mobile breathing application. The sample consisted of sixty-two French-speaking individuals living in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Before beginning the study, volunteers completed the Perceived Stress Scale-14 items. Those with results that showed a medium to a high level of stress were recruited. Participants were randomly divided into two groups, the internet meeting (IM) group, and the mobile application (MA) group. The participants of the IM group were subject to direct training breathing classes via an internet meeting program once per week for four weeks; each session lasted 20 minutes (including welcoming, explanations, questionnaire, breathing exercises, and discussion with the researcher); they were then instructed to apply the breathing exercises on their own two other times per week. The MA group used the “Breathe: Relax and Focus” mobile application three times per week for 5 minutes for four weeks. At midpoint and endpoint, all participants completed the PSS-14 to measure their perceived stress. Results showed that both delivery methods were equally successful in reducing perceived stress. This study paves the way to show that it is essential to consider the delivery methods used in stress management and that the future of clinical practice is moving towards the administration of blended treatment delivery.
OP-GBEV210160 1..14

Despitelife’sdiversity,studiesofvariationoftenremindusofoursharedevolutionarypast.Abundantgenomesequencingandanalyses of gene regulatory networks illustrate that genes and entire pathways are conserved, reused, and elaborated in the evolution of diversity. Predating these discoveries, 19th-century embryologists observed that though morphology at birth varies tremendously, certain stages of vertebrate embryogenesis appear remarkably similar across vertebrates. In the mid to late 20th century, anatomical variabilityofearlyand late-stageembryosandconservationofmid-stagesembryos (the“phylotypic” stage)wasnamedthehourglass model of diversification. This model has found mixed support in recent analyses comparing gene expression across species possibly owing to differences in species, embryonic stages, and gene sets compared. We compare 186 microarray and RNA-seq data sets covering embryogenesis in six vertebrate species. We use an unbiased clustering approach to group stages of embryogenesis by transcriptomicsimilarityandaskwhethergeneexpressionsimilarityofclusteredembryonicstagesdeviatesfromanullexpectation.We characterize expression conservation patterns of each gene at each evolutionary node after correcting for phylogenetic nonindependence. We find significant enrichment of genes exhibiting early conservation, hourglass, late conservation patterns in both microarray and RNA-seq data sets. Enrichment of genes showing patterned conservation through embryogenesis indicates diversification of embryogenesis may be temporally constrained. However, the circumstances under which each pattern emerges remain unknown and require both broad evolutionary sampling and systematic examination of embryogenesis across species.
Studying Responses to Norm Violations Using Computer Games

Even though following norms is a sign of proper conduct within a society, there are studies showing that norm violators are afforded and perceived with more power than norm abiders. This paper describes a video game research tool created to understand the When, Why and How of these findings. Within our configurable resource-management first-person multiplayer game, players can follow or violate norms during resource collection and transactions. Additionally, one player, the leader, is responsible for taking or giving power to other players, while distributing resources and selecting the following leader. We conducted an experiment with 20 participants to verify if the implemented tool was consistent with previous findings. Subjects played the leader role, interacting with two confederates, a norm violator and a norm abider. We measured power perception and affordance given subjects’ game actions and survey answers, finding results that contradicted prior studies: only 35% of subjects selected the norm violator as leader and most subjects favoured the norm abider compared to the norm violator during resource distribution. We realized that the scenario of our experiment was unbalanced the norm violator’s behaviour was extremely selfish compared to the norm abider. Still, we noticed that some participants perceived the norm violators as more skilful and, therefore, more worthy of power.
Root Tragedy of the Commons: What is it and Where Might it Occur?

Understanding how plants change their root foraging strategy in the presence of neighbors is of paramount importance for plant ecology and agriculture. The root tragedy of the common (RToC) is a plant behavior predicted by game theory models in which competing plants forage for soil resources inefficiently. The RToC is generally assumed to be induced by non-self root recognition, and researchers consider root overproliferation and reduced fitness with respect to a plant growing solo as the trace left by plants engaging in an RToC in experiments and model results. Herein, I first challenge both notions, and argue that the RToC is a suboptimal phenotypically plastic response of plants that is based in soil resource information exclusively. Second, I discuss how this new perspective carries important implications for the design of experiments investigating the physiological mechanisms underlying observable plant root responses. Finally, I discuss why placing the RToC theory in the context of more general root research is fundamental: The RToC represents a mechanistic foundation for understanding the belowground behavior of plants interacting with neighbors, and a spatially explicit approach to RToC may produce more comprehensive results.