Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural and adsorption behaviour of ZnO/aminated SWCNT-COOH for malachite green removal: face-centred central composite design

In this study, an effective adsorbent was synthesized to remove malachite green (MG), which is one of the toxic dyes. Firstly, single walled carbon nanotube with carboxylated acid (SWCNT-COOH) was functionalized with diethylenetriamine and a new nanocomposite was obtained using nano zinc oxide (ZnO) powder. The effects of pH (3–7), the amount of adsorbent (5–15 mg) and the initial concentration (10–50 mg L–1) of the solution on the adsorption uptake were investigated. The optimal parameters that maximize the adsorption uptake according to the specified working range are found to be 4.63 for pH, 49.94 mg L–1 for initial concentration, 5.25 mg for the adsorbent dose, and the maximum adsorption capacity has been found as 52.26 mg g–1. The excellent fitting of the pseudo-second kinetic model with (R2 = 0.9912) was fitted the experimental data. The Freundlich isotherm model gave a clue about the type of adsorption. Furthermore, thermodynamic results showed that adsorption process was endothermic.
Has the Great Recession Shaped a Crisis Generation of Critical Citizens? Evidence from Southern Europe

ABSTRACT This article examines the potential emergence of a ‘new’ and ‘critical’ political generation in Southern Europe after an exceptionally intense political period. Using country-specific classifications of political generations, we first describe the evolution of a combination of two main attitudes towards the political system – frequency of political discussion and satisfaction with democracy – and then propose a fourfold typology: happy, critical, unengaged and disillusioned citizens. Grounded on political socialisation theories we hypothesise that the crisis generation, which developed its main political attitudes during the Great Recession, will be particularly critical in the long term, combining dissatisfaction with political engagement. To identify this potential new generation, we use a longitudinal perspective and Eurobarometer data from 1985 to 2019 and find empirical support to identify such a ‘critical generation’ in Spain and Greece. In contrast, results in Italy and Portugal suggest an increase in happy citizens who are satisfied with how democracy works and who are politically engaged.
From short excursions to long-term projects: agency, interest and productive deviations in school

ABSTRACT Students’ interest pathways are fashioned not only from existing educational resources and opportunities, but importantly also by extending beyond them. In this study, we conceptualise these extensions as productive deviations and engage in a comparative analysis of various productive deviations we have identified in our ethnographic study of seven 5th and 6th grade FUSE Studios – an alternative learning infrastructure for schools. Our analysis shows that the deviations can vary from short term excursions to semester-long projects and can also become the focus of other students’ interests.
Workplace spirituality, well-being at work and employee loyalty in a gig economy: multi-group analysis across temporary vs permanent employment status

PurposeThis study aims to examine the influence of workplace spirituality on employee loyalty toward the organization, mediated through well-being at work. Furthermore, the study endeavors to test the difference in conceptual model estimates, across two groups of employees: those who work on contract/temporary and permanent basis. The study gains relevance particularly in the context of the emerging sharing economy, where jobs are primarily characterized by short-term contracts and freelancing.Design/methodology/approachThis descriptive study was conducted among a sample of 523 educators working in private educational institutions in India. Self-reporting questionnaires were administered among the respondents, who were selected through the purposive sampling method. Structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis were done to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsThe analysis revealed that workplace spirituality enriched employee well-being and loyalty toward the organization and evidence were found for indirect effects too. Variances were observed in the relationships, with respect to the different employment statuses of the personnel. Significant differences in the relationships were not found across temporary and permanent employment statuses. Interestingly, temporary employees experienced stronger influences between meaningful work, well-being and word-of-mouth. Results suggest the relevance of understanding employees' differential work experiences and attitudes and thus facilitate human resource strategies accordingly.Originality/valueThis study is pioneering in conceptualizing and testing a theoretical model linking workplace spirituality, well-being at work and employee loyalty, particularly in the context of employees who differ in their employment status, which is a critical aspect of modern-day organizations. Unlike traditional workplaces, in recent times, people come together and work along for shorter terms, as the case of a sharing economy and the thus emergent interpersonal dynamics between each other and with the workplace has significant repercussions on the organization. Theoretical and managerial implications with regard to the experience of workplace spirituality and job outcomes are elaborated, thus striving to fill a gap in the existing literature.
Digital active gate drive of SiC MOSFETs for controlling switching behavior—Preparation toward universal digitization of power switching

In this paper, a digital active gate driver for SiC power MOSFETs is proposed. High‐frequency switching with SiC power MOSFETs can realize an integrated power circuit with higher power density. However, the large surge voltage and ringing caused by the fast switching will lose the reliability of the device and increase electromagnetic interference (EMI) problems. To achieve high‐frequency switching without these drawbacks, an active gate driver based on the architecture of a digital‐to‐analog converter has been designed. The gate‐source voltage waveform of the MOSFET is generated directly and flexibly by a multibit gate signal sequence, considering the device characteristics and a variety of circuit conditions. Effective gate signal sequences are investigated by focusing on the switching trajectory on the state space of the device, which is discretely controlled through successive transitions between operating points. Experimental and simulated results confirm that the proposed gate driver effectively suppresses and regulates the surge voltage and ringing during turn‐off.
Religion as a Dominant Logic for Entrepreneurial Activities: Theorizing the Dynamics in and Around ‘We’d Meat Burger, Kazakhstan’

As religion gains prominence in several countries, research to understand the dynamics between religion and business becomes critical. Extant research paid scant attention to the influence of religion on entrepreneurial activities. To develop insights into this phenomenon, we conduct reflexive field-based case study research on a family business in Kazakhstan that experienced the inclusion of religion as a dominant logic in the management. Kazakhstan provides an interesting context to study the phenomenon as religion gained prominence in post-Soviet Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Our study reveals how religion can influence the entrepreneurial mind and activities and transform the family business. Our inductive theorization offers a process model of entrepreneurial journey under the influence of religion and its impact on the organizing of family business. The model consists of influenced disruption, creative combination and pragmatic adaptation through which the entrepreneur with religion as a dominant logic can transform the family business and attain organizational stability. For academia, the study contributes to extend the scholarly understanding of religion as an influencer in entrepreneurship and family business. For practice, our work shows how religious principles as constraints can enact creativity and innovation in organizational transformation.
Electrocoagulation as an efficacious technology for the treatment of wastewater containing active pharmaceutical compounds: a review

ABSTRACT The presence of emerging pollutants in the environment can pose potential risks to the natural ecosystem. Hence, the efficacious removal of emerging pollutants, like pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, beta blockers and analgesics, from wastewater has recently been a major area of concern for the researchers, since these biorefractory compounds can bioaccumulate in living beings and can also transform into other toxic compounds in the natural environment. Since pharmaceuticals are not efficiently removed through conventional wastewater treatment technologies; hence, trace concentrations of these can be found in the treated effluent. Thus, the development of reliable and efficient treatment technologies for the removal of pharmaceuticals is imperative. Electrocoagulation (EC) can treat these compounds effectively. In this review, the application of EC for the removal of pharmaceuticals, critical parameters that influence the treatment efficiency, comparison of EC with chemical coagulation and the economics pertaining to EC have been discussed. The presence of different pharmaceuticals in wastewater, their respective concentrations and their adverse effects on the ecosystem have also been elucidated. Thus, this state-of-the-art review provides updated information on the application of EC for the removal of pharmaceuticals and assists readers to take this technology a step forward for commercialization to produce treated water safely for different reuse purposes.
A Secure and Efficient Cluster-Based Authentication Scheme for Internet of Things (IoTs)

: IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Network (6LoWPAN) provides IP connectivity to the highly constrained nodes in the Internet of Things (IoTs). 6LoWPAN allowsnodes with limited battery power and storage capacity to carry IPv6 datagrams over the lossy and error-prone radio links offered by the IEEE 802.15. 4 standard, thus acting as an adoption layer between the IPv6 protocol and IEEE 802.15. 4 network. The data link layer of IEEE 802.15. 4 in 6LoWPAN is based on AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), but the 6LoWPAN standard lacks and has omitted the security and privacy requirements at higher layers. The sensor nodes in 6LoWPAN can join the network without requiring the authentication procedure. Therefore, from security perspectives, 6LoWPAN is vulnerable to many attacks such as replay attack, Man-in-the-Middle attack, Impersonation attack, and Modification attack. This paper proposes a secure and efficient cluster-based authentication scheme (CBAS) for highly constrained sensor nodes in 6LoWPAN. In this approach, sensor nodes are organized into a cluster and communicate with the central network through a dedicated sensor node. The main objective of CBAS is to provide efficient and authentic communication among the 6LoWPAN nodes. To ensure the low signaling overhead during the registration, authentication, and handover procedures, we also introduce lightweight and efficient registration, de-registration, initial authentication, and handover procedures, when a sensor node or group of sensor nodes join or leave a cluster. Our security analysis shows that the proposed CBAS approach protects against various security attacks, including Identity Confidentiality attack, Modification attack, Replay attack, Man-in-the-middle attack, and Impersonation attack. Our simulation experiments show that CBAS has reduced the registration delay by 11%, handoff authentication delay by 32%, and signaling cost by 37% compared to the SGMS (Secure Group Mobility Scheme) and LAMS (Light-Wight Authentication & Mobility Scheme).
Energy Saving Control Approach for Trajectory Tracking of Autonomous Mobile Robots

This research presents an adaptive energy-saving H2 closed-form control approach to solve the nonlinear trajectory tracking problem of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). The main contributions of this proposed design are as follows: closed-form approach, simple structure of the control law, easy implementation, and energy savings through trajectory tracking design of the controlled AMRs. It is difficult to mathematically obtained this adaptive H2 closed-form solution of AMRs. Therefore, through a series of mathematical analyses of the trajectory tracking error dynamics of the controlled AMRs, the trajectory tracking problem of AMRs can be transformed directly into a solvable problem, and an adaptive nonlinear optimal controller, which has an extremely simple form and energy-saving properties, can be found. Finally, two test trajectories, namely circular and S-shaped reference trajectories, are adopted to verify the control performance of the proposed adaptive H2 closed-form control approach with respect to an investigated H2 closed-form control design.
Mechanisms of Metabolic Adaptation in Wine Yeasts: Role of Gln3 Transcription Factor

Wine strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae have to adapt their metabolism to the changing conditions during their biotechnological use, from the aerobic growth in sucrose-rich molasses for biomass propagation to the anaerobic fermentation of monosaccharides of grape juice during winemaking. Yeast have molecular mechanisms that favor the use of preferred carbon and nitrogen sources to achieve such adaptation. By using specific inhibitors, it was determined that commercial strains offer a wide variety of glucose repression profiles. Transcription factor Gln3 has been involved in glucose and nitrogen repression. Deletion of GLN3 in two commercial wine strains produced different mutant phenotypes and only one of them displayed higher glucose repression and was unable to grow using a respiratory carbon source. Therefore, the role of this transcription factor contributes to the variety of phenotypic behaviors seen in wine strains. This variability is also reflected in the impact of GLN3 deletion in fermentation, although the mutants are always more tolerant to inhibition of the nutrient signaling complex TORC1 by rapamycin, both in laboratory medium and in grape juice fermentation. Therefore, most aspects of nitrogen catabolite repression controlled by TORC1 are conserved in winemaking conditions.
ETM-IoT: Energy-Aware Threshold Model for Heterogeneous Communication in the Internet of Things

: The internet of things (IoT) has a wide variety of applications, which in turn raises many challenging issues. IoT technology enables devices to closely monitor their environment, providing context-aware intelligence based on the real-time data collected by their sensor nodes. The IoT not only controls these devices but also monitors their user’s behaviour. One of the major issues related to IoT is the need for an energy-efficient communication protocol which uses the heterogeneity and diversity of the objects connected through the internet. Minimizing energy consumption is a requirement for energy-constrained nodes and outsourced nodes. The IoT nodes deployed in different geographical regions typically have different energy levels. This paper focuses on creating an energy-efficient protocol for IoT which can deal with the clustering of nodes and the cluster head selection process. An energy threshold model is developed to select the appropriate cluster heads and also to ensure uniform distribution of energy to those heads and member nodes. The proposed model envisages an IoT network with three different types of nodes, described here as advanced, intermediate and normal nodes. Normal nodes are first-level nodes, which have the lowest energy use; intermediate nodes are second-level nodes, which have a medium energy requirement; and the advanced class are third-level nodes with the highest energy use. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms other existing algorithms. In tests, it shows a 26% improvement in network lifetime compared with existing algorithms.
Photonic-assisted FSK signal generation based on carrier phase-shifted double sideband modulation

An approach to generate high-speed and wideband frequency shift keying (FSK) signals based on carrier phase-shifted double sideband (CPS-DSB) modulation is proposed and experimentally validated. The core part of the scheme is a pair of cascaded polarization-sensitive LiNbO3 Mach–Zehnder modulators and phase modulators, whose polarization directions of the principal axes are mutually orthogonal to each other. A proof-of-concept experiment is carried out, where a 0.5 Gb/s FSK signal with the carrier frequencies of 4 and 8 GHz and a 1 Gb/s FSK signal with the carrier frequencies of 8 and 16 GHz are generated successfully.
El fraude fiscal en México: una revisión de sus causas y motivaciones

brinda el sistema tributario. Abstract The issue of tax fraud and the ways in which it can manifest itself have not only affected public finances in Mexico but has also eroded the confidence of those taxpayers who do comply with their tax obligations and who perceive a tax system that is unfair, inequitable and with serious problems in terms of its design. The objective of this work focuses on identifying the main motives that originate and motivate the commission of fraudulent acts, based on the hypothesis that there is citizen resistance to voluntary and conscious contribution, due to the misuse of the resources collected by the state. Using the technique of the survey to students of the Public Accounting area of the University Centre for Economics and Adminis-trative Sciences-CUCEA, of the University of Guadalajara (México), the opinions that they have about tax fraud are analyzed, obtaining as a result, the verification of theories regarding tax awareness and the opportunity that the tax system offers them.
A Novel Standardized Inflammatory Cell-Modulated 3D Tumor Tissue Model for Analysis of Tumor-Stroma Interaction and Drug Discovery

The last decades were marked by substantial progress in understanding the role of tumor-supporting inflammatory reactions in tumor growth and progression. While in vivo data substantiate the contribution of the inflammatory infiltrate and of tumor associated fibroblasts in promoting tumor growth and progression, little is known about the dynamic interaction of these two stromal cell types and their reciprocal influence on each other and on the tumor cells. Mechanistical analyses of these crucial interactions require a standardized and easy to manipulate environment. We therefore established a 3D organotypic in vitro model for epithelial tumors to analyze the interaction of macrophages, neutrophils and fibroblasts in the tumor microenvironment of malignant tumors. In the 3D model, epithelial tumor cells are grown on a collagen type I gel containing fibroblasts, macrophages and neutrophils. Comparable to the in vivo setting, the cytokine driven interaction between macrophages and fibroblasts markedly influences invasion and enhances M2 differentiation in the presence of tumor cells. Addition of neutrophils further leads to a strikingly enhanced tumor invasion associated with an increased expression of MMP-9 and a N2 differentiation of neutrophils. Thus, this novel 3D model provides an in vivo like tissue context to analyze tumor stroma interactions and presents an excellent tool for targeted interference. As such, the model is highly suitable for pharmaceutical screening of novel therapeutics. However, the use of collagen type 1 with its known batch to batch variability as ECM equivalent prohibits the model-standardization that is needed for pharmaceutical testing. Therefore, the 3D in vitro tumor-stroma model was adapted to the use of a bioinert dextran-hydrogel providing a highly standardized and easily modifiable scaffold material that allows the recovery of cells after pharmaceutical experiments. Comparable to the collagen-based model, cells maintained their physiological proliferation, migration and differentiation. Utilizing this standardized model, the efficacy and the tissue impact of novel pharmaceuticals can be investigated in detail with respect to cell morphology, behavior, viability as well as gene expression profiles thereby providing a 3D hydrogel tumor stroma a model that is of great interest for the pharmaceutical industry.
Model for Anticipating Failures by Omission in Calculation Grids

Computer grids are infrastructures in which heterogeneous and distributed resources offer very high computing or storage performance. If they offer extreme computing performance, they are also subject to the appearance of many failures related to this type of architecture. While performing tasks, if the response time of a node in the system incomprehensibly exceeds the requirements of the specifications, the node experiences an omission failure. The task running in the failed node will be unavailable until the node resumes normal activity. Waiting not being a possible solution, many fault tolerance methods have been proposed. Despite this large number of fault tolerance methods on offer, computer grids are still prone to many failures by omission. In this work, a numerical study of the failures by omission which occur in the calculation grids during the execution of the tasks was carried out and a model allowing anticipating its failures was proposed with the formalism PDEVS (Parallel Discret EVent system Specification).
Network Analysis for Projects with High Risk Levels in Uncertain Environments

: The critical path method is one of the oldest and most important techniques used for planning and scheduling projects. The main objective of project management science is to determine the critical path through a network representation of projects. The critical path through a network can be determined by many algorithms and is useful for managing, monitoring, and controlling the time and cost of an entire project. The essential problem in this case is that activity durations are uncertain; time presents considerable uncertainty because the time of an activity is not always easily or accurately estimated. This issue increases the need to use neutrosophic theory to solve the critical path problem. Real-world problems are characterized by a lack of precision, consistency, and completeness. The concept of neutrosophic sets has been introduced as a generalization of fuzzy, intuitionistic fuzzy, and crisp sets to overcome the ambiguity surrounding real-world problems. Truth-, falsity-, and indeterminacy-membership functions are used to express neutrosophic elements. This study was performed to examine a neutrosophic event-oriented algorithm for determining the critical path in activity-on-arc networks. The activity time estimates are presented as trapezoidal neutrosophic numbers, and score and accuracy functions are used to obtain a crisp model of the problem. An appropriate numerical example is then used to explain the proposed method.
Low Nitrous Oxide Emissions in a Boreal Spruce Forest Soil, Despite Long-Term Fertilization

Nitrogen (N) fertilization can increase stem wood production by several hundred percent in boreal forests. At the same time, there are concerns about the environmental consequences of N fertilization, especially considering losses of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) to the atmosphere. Soils are a large contributor to N2O emissions on a global scale. The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of long-term nutrient optimization fertilization on N2O emissions in a boreal forest in Northern Sweden. Field N2O flux measurements were conducted during 2 years with manual and automatic chambers, as well as gas probes in the snow. The N2O emissions were generally low during the whole period of measurements, both from the control and fertilized plots. The emissions were generally highest during the winters, as well as the variability in the observed values. Overall, N2O emissions from fertilized plots were about twice the control, which could be explained by changes in the soil carbon-to-nitrogen ratio.