4,407 research outputs found

    Beam scanning by liquid-crystal biasing in a modified SIW structure

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    A fixed-frequency beam-scanning 1D antenna based on Liquid Crystals (LCs) is designed for application in 2D scanning with lateral alignment. The 2D array environment imposes full decoupling of adjacent 1D antennas, which often conflicts with the LC requirement of DC biasing: the proposed design accommodates both. The LC medium is placed inside a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) modified to work as a Groove Gap Waveguide, with radiating slots etched on the upper broad wall, that radiates as a Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA). This allows effective application of the DC bias voltage needed for tuning the LCs. At the same time, the RF field remains laterally confined, enabling the possibility to lay several antennas in parallel and achieve 2D beam scanning. The design is validated by simulation employing the actual properties of a commercial LC medium

    Technologies and Applications for Big Data Value

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    This open access book explores cutting-edge solutions and best practices for big data and data-driven AI applications for the data-driven economy. It provides the reader with a basis for understanding how technical issues can be overcome to offer real-world solutions to major industrial areas. The book starts with an introductory chapter that provides an overview of the book by positioning the following chapters in terms of their contributions to technology frameworks which are key elements of the Big Data Value Public-Private Partnership and the upcoming Partnership on AI, Data and Robotics. The remainder of the book is then arranged in two parts. The first part “Technologies and Methods” contains horizontal contributions of technologies and methods that enable data value chains to be applied in any sector. The second part “Processes and Applications” details experience reports and lessons from using big data and data-driven approaches in processes and applications. Its chapters are co-authored with industry experts and cover domains including health, law, finance, retail, manufacturing, mobility, and smart cities. Contributions emanate from the Big Data Value Public-Private Partnership and the Big Data Value Association, which have acted as the European data community's nucleus to bring together businesses with leading researchers to harness the value of data to benefit society, business, science, and industry. The book is of interest to two primary audiences, first, undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in various fields, including big data, data science, data engineering, and machine learning and AI. Second, practitioners and industry experts engaged in data-driven systems, software design and deployment projects who are interested in employing these advanced methods to address real-world problems

    The relationships between job crafting, idiosyncratic deals, internal locus of control, psychological empowerment, and work engagement among Pakistani academicians: a moderated mediation model

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    This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship between job crafting, idiosyncratic deals and work engagement among academicians of Pakistani public universities. This study also examined the moderating effects of internal locus of control on job crafting–psychological empowerment and idiosyncratic deals–psychological empowerment relationships. The motivational process of job demands-resources (JD-R) theory was used to underpinned the study framework. A cross-sectional survey using the simple random sampling technique was carried out to elicit responses from the participants. Using an online survey, 324 useable responses were obtained which is 53.33% response rate. The data analysis was conducted using the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicated that both job crafting and idiosyncratic deals have a significant positive relationship with work engagement. Likewise, psychological empowerment partially mediated the relationship between job crafting, idiosyncratic deals, and work engagement. Interestingly, internal locus of control did not moderate the idiosyncratic deals–psychological empowerment relationship but did moderate the job crafting–psychological empowerment relationship. Counterintuitively, the relationship between job crafting and psychological empowerment became stronger when internal locus of control was high. Further, internal locus of control enhanced the indirect effect of job crafting on work engagement through psychological empowerment. However, the indirect effect of internal locus of control on the relationship between idiosyncratic deals and work engagement through psychological empowerment did not meet the standard for significance. Further, job crafting had a stronger effect on psychological empowerment and work engagement for academicians with an internal locus of control. The results show that the top management of the public universities need to consider the impact of psychological empowerment and internal locus of control to usurp these to enhance academicians’ work engagement

    The Multifaceted Nature of Food and Nutrition Insecurity around the World and Foodservice Business

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    The international concept of food security is a situation where all people have physical, social, and economic access at all times to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. All four parameters (availability, access, utilization, and stability) should therefore be measured to determine food security status.Taking into account these premises, this book aims to present original research articles and reviews concerning the following: Agriculture and food security; Agri-tourism and its potential to assist with food security; Business–science cooperation to advance food security; Competing demands and tradeoffs for land and water resources; Consumer behavior, nutritional security and food assistance programs; Food and health; Global and local analyses of food security and its drivers; Global governance and food security; Infectious and non-infectious diseases and food security; Reducing food loss and waste; Reducing risks to food production and distribution from climate change; Supply chains and food security; Technological breakthroughs to help feed the globe; Tourism food security relationship; Urbanization, food value chains, and the sustainable, secure sourcing of food; Food and service quality at food catering establishments; Consumer behavior at foodservice operations (restaurants, cafés, hotels)

    Green Economy and Sustainable Development

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    Considering the importance of the challenges for sustainable development, this Book is intended to disseminate the results of cutting-edge research and broadcast the opinions of scientists from around the world, providing technological breakthroughs in green energy and urbanism, recycling and modernization of basic industries, conducting fundamental research on the economic problems of the transition to sustainable development

    New Research and Trends in Higher Education

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    This book aims to discuss new research and trends on all dimensions of Higher Education, as there is a growing interest in the field of Higher Education, regarding new methodologies, contexts, and technologies. It includes investigations of diverse issues that affect the learning processes in Higher Education: innovations in learning, new pedagogical methods, and new learning contexts.In this sense, original research contributions of research papers, case studies and demonstrations that present original scientific results, methodological aspects, concepts and educational technologies, on the following topics:a) Technological Developments in Higher Education: mobile technology, virtual environments, augmented reality, automation and robotics, and other tools for universal learning, focusing on issues that are not addressed by existing research;b) Digital Higher Education: mobile learning, eLearning, Game-based Learning, social media in education, new learning models and technologies and wearable technologies for education;c) Case Studies in Higher Education: empirical studies in higher education regarding digital technologies, new methodologies, new evaluation techniques and tools, perceptions of learning processes efficiency and digital learning best practice

    Hepatocellular Carcinoma

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    Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents one of the most significant global health issues, given its high prevalence and the challenging nature and physiology of the liver and hepatic surgery, in its many forms. This means that the most appropriate management for HCC should incorporate a multidisciplinary approach, combining the expertise from several different specialties. This book showcases the various steps in the development, diagnosis, staging, and management of HCC and provides views and thoughts from true experts in the field. As such, it is a useful resource for any physician or surgeon, whether training or practicing, who is interested in caring for patients with HCC

    Sequence data mining and characterisation of unclassified microbial diversity

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    In the last two decades, sequencing has become increasingly affordable and a routine tool to study the microbial community of a given environment. Metagenomics has revolutionised the way microbes are identified and studied in this age of biological data science because it provides a relatively unbiased view of the composition of microbial communities we interact with every day, which are integral to our ecosystem. These technological advances have led to an exponential growth of raw data repositories that save, distribute and archive these metagenomic datasets. Since metagenomics presents the ultimate opportunity to capture, explore and identify uncultivated microbial genomic sequences, these metagenomic datasets harbour a large proportion of unknown sequences that do not bear any similarity to known sequences readily available in the standard sequence data repositories. The aim of this thesis was to systematically catalogue, quantify and potentially characterise the unknown sequences embedded within the metagenomic datasets. To this end, a comprehensive, portable, modular framework called UnXplore was developed to determine the proportion of unknown sequences included in human microbiome datasets. UnXplore was applied to a range of different human microbiomes and showed that on average 2% of assembled sequences were categorised as unknown meaning that they did not bear any sequence similarity to known sequences. A third of the unknown sequences were shown to contain large open reading frames indicating the coding potential and biological origin of the unknowns. Furthermore, a small proportion of these potentially coding sequences were shown to have functional similarities as they were deemed to contain known protein domain signatures. These results indicated that unknown sequences captured through the UnXplore framework were not artefacts and were indeed of biological origin. To test this formally, supervised kmer-based machine learning models were devised, tested and validated. These models are currently distributed in a package called TetraPredX that can accurately predict whether a sequence originated from bacteria, archaea, virus or plasmid. TetraPredX models were applied to the unknown sequence dataset and revealed that the majority of unknown sequences are of biological origin. Furthermore, TetraPredX results demonstrated that >70% of all long unknown sequences (i.e. >1kb) are likely to be of virus origin indicating an unexplored diversity of viruses that is yet to be fully characterised and classified. In order to catalogue the diversity of virus sequences in human microbiome samples analysed here, an extensive virus discovery analysis was carried out on the contigs assembled through UnXplore. This helped to characterise a vast diversity of prokaryotic, eukaryotic and unclassified virus sequences captured in a range of human microbiomes. The results obtained here demonstrate the need to systematically interrogate metagenomic datasets to fully comprehend and compile the presence of both known and unknown uncultivated microbes within them. A comprehensive survey of metagenomic datasets carried out in this manner would provide a more complete picture of the known and unknown organisms that surround us

    A Professional Teacher Disposition, Defined and Assessed Through Peer Reviewed Literature from 1985 to 2021: A Narrative Review

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    In education, the word disposition has been used to describe the social, verbal, and physical attributes teachers possess and demonstrate in their interactions with students. Educational theorists and practitioners alike agree that effective teachers are far more than simply well-educated individuals who have successfully completed a teacher preparation program. The concept of disposition contributes to the field of education by capturing the “more” that an effective teacher embodies; it is an enacted combination of an educator’s content knowledge, preparation, and ways of being. This dissertation examines the notion of disposition and explores how the term has evolved from the time it was formally introduced to the educational lexicon in the mid 1980’s until today. As a narrative review, the goal of this dissertation is to “tell the disposition story” in academic terms. Several key themes emerge from an analysis of relevant literature, namely, that disposition is connected to morality, and motivates teachers to professional service enacted through community, science, tradition, and social justice. Using these ideas, the paper also offers a brief examination of how disposition is practically oriented within thirteen of Oregon’s teacher preparation programs, through an analysis of these programs’ web presence. This analysis explores how various institutions have incorporated the idea of dispositions into their programmatic priorities and serves as a snapshot of how programs enact disposition in practice, compared to the theoretical ideas derived from the literature review. In this way, a future study of teacher preparation programs and their treatment of disposition is proposed
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