Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Finite Volume Scheme for Diffusion Equations on Distorted Quadrilateral Meshes

A finite volume scheme is discussed for discretizing diffusion operators. Both cell-center unknowns and cell-vertex unknowns are used originally in the construction of the finite volume scheme. Then cell-vertex unknowns are eliminated by expressing them locally as linear combinations of cell-center unknowns, which is derived by the following process. First we construct a special control-volume for each cell-vertex and then design a finite volume scheme in this control-volume to obtain a linear relation between cell-vertex unknowns and cell-center unknowns. Hence cell-vertex unknown can be expressed by the combination of neighboring cell-center unknowns, and the resulting scheme has only cell-center unknowns like standard finite difference methods. Specially, the scheme can naturally treat problems with discontinuous coefficients. Its another advantage is that highly distorted meshes can be used without the numerical results being altered remarkably. We prove theoretically that the finite volume scheme is stable and has first-order accuracy on distorted meshes. Moreover, we have tested the scheme on a few elliptic and parabolic equations. Numerical results exhibit the good behavior of our scheme.
Adipose-derived stem cells transfected with pEGFP-OSX enhance bone formation during distraction osteogenesis

This study was designed to investigate the effects of local delivery of adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) transfected with transcription factor osterix (OSX) on bone formation during distraction osteogenesis. New Zealand white rabbits (n=54) were randomly divided into three groups (18 rabbits per group). A directed cloning technique was used for the construction of recombinant plasmid pEGFP-OSX, where EGFP is the enhanced green fluorescence protein. After osteodistraction of the right mandible of all experimental rabbits, rabbits in group A were treated with ADSCs transfected with pEGFP-OSX, group B with ADSCs transfected with pEGFP-N1, and group C with physiological saline. Radiographic and histological examinations were processed after half of the animals within each group were humanely killed by injection of sodium pentothal at Week 2 or 6 after surgery. The distraction bone density was measured as its projectional bone mineral density (BMD). Three parameters were measured, namely, the thickness of new trabeculae (TNT), and the volumes of the newly generated cortical bone (NBV1) and the cancellous bone (NBV2) of the distracted regions. Good bone generation in the distraction areas was found in group A, which had the highest BMD, TNT, and NBV in the distraction zones among the groups. There was no significant difference in bone generation in the distraction areas between groups B and C. The results indicate that the transplantation of ADSCs transfected with pEGFP-OSX can effectively promote bone generation during distraction in vivo.
New evidence on the impact of foreign aid on economic growth

Foreign aid inflows have grown significantly in the post-war period. Many studies have tried to assess the effectiveness of aid at the microand macro-level. While microevaluations have found that in most cases aid ‘works’, those at the macro-level are ambiguous. This paper assesses the impact of foreign aid on growth for a large sample of developing countries. We use an augmented Fischer-Easterly type model and estimate this using both cross-section and panel data techniques. The results strongly support the view that foreign aid does have some positive impact on growth, conditional on a stable macroeconomic policy environment. We also find that these results vary according to income level, levels of aid allocation and geographical location. Outline
Putting gender into context: An interactive model of gender-related behavior.

A model that describes conditions influencing the display of gender-related behavior is presented as a supplement to existent models of sex differences. Whereas many previous models stress the importance of distal factors, our model emphasizes the degree to which gender-related behavior is variable, proximally caused, and context dependent. More specifically, we propose that gender-related behaviore are influenced by the expectations of perceivers, self-systems of the target, and situational cues. This model of gender-related behavior builds on theory and data in the areas of (a) expectancy confirmation processes and (b) self-verification and self-presentation strategies. Support for the model is presented, and suggestions are offered for its future development.
Humor as a Communication Strategy in Social Networking Services

The Internet manifests itself as a space of collective creativity where humor and positive emotions’ representation are dominant strategies of communication. The aim of this paper is to explore the connections between humorous content of Russian users’ timeline pages in social networking services (SNS) and their gender and age. The corpus of timeline pages (news feed and wall) was collected from 500 SNS users aged between 15 and 30. The results of the study confirm that gender and age play a significant role in humor’s application by SNS users. We found two key tendencies in humor usage connected to demographics of SNS users. Male SNS users applied humor aimed to emphasize problems of dominance by contrast to female SNS users who paid more attention to problems of conformity. These problems were highlighted by SNS users according to their age either related to interpersonal relations in adolescence or associated with public relations in youth and adulthood. The findings revealed that humor has been intended to represent the key needs of individuals as cues for comprehending their personality by other users. At this rate humor becomes a tool for SNS users to indicate their state, to build communication with unfamiliar people, and to be on the same wavelength with significant others.
Large character sums: Pretentious characters and the Pólya-Vinogradov theorem

In 1918 Polya and Vinogradov gave an upper bound for the maximal size of character sums, which still remains the best known general estimate. One of the main results of this paper provides a substantial improvement of the Polya-Vinogradov bound for characters of odd, bounded order. In 1977 Montgomery and Vaughan showed how the Polya-Vinogradov inequality may be sharpened assuming the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis. We give a simple proof of their estimate and provide an improvement for characters of odd, bounded order. The paper also gives characterizations of the characters for which the maximal character sum is large, and it finds a hidden structure among these characters
Phylogenetic Analysis of Mitochondrial Dna: Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Relationships in Two Fish Taxa (pisces: Mugilidae and Cyprinidae)

studies as a basis for systematic reconstructions and analyses of direction and rate of evolution take an important place in biological sciences [1]. Great interest in phylogenetic reconstructions and problems connected to them gave rise to various divisions, tendencies , and methods that are used to clarify and specify the similarity and differences among taxa in all levels of organization. The fundamental thesis of the evolutionary hypothesis states that changes on molecular level of organisms lead to changes on other levels. In a classic work of Spirin, Belozersky, et al. 50 years ago it was shown that " … DNA has pronounced species specificity, close species having fewer differences in DNA composition compared to systematically distant ones " [2]. The development of this inference has resulted in wide use of comparative analysis of nucleotide sequences to solve taxo-nomic and systematic problems in all groups of the organic world [3]. The reason for usage of this approach is the fact that in a process of divergence, DNA accumulates nucleotide substitutions (mutations) that lead to biochemical , physiological, morphological, and ethological changes and, eventually, to the origin of new species and groups of species. To compare DNA sequences and uncover differences various methods are used at the present time, ranging from different variants of DNA–DNA-hybridization to direct comparison of nucleotide sequences of genes and genome regions [3]. The accumulated empirical data allow the assertion that molecular-genetic analysis can be successfully used to solve many disputable questions of systematics and phylogeny of taxa. Molecular methods 1349 Abbreviations: mtDNA) mitochondrial DNA; PCR) poly-merase chain reaction; RFLP) restriction fragment length polymorphism. Abstract—To solve some systematic questions as well as to study genetic variability and evolutionary relationships in two groups of fish belonging to the Mugilid (Mugilidae) and Cyprinid (Cyprinidae) families, we have used restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) fragments amplified in polymerase chain reaction. The analysis of three mtDNA fragments of 7220 bp total length of six Mugilid species has shown that Mediterranean Liza aura-ta, L. ramada, L. saliens, and Chelon labrosus form a common cluster, L. aurata and C. labrosus being the closest relatives, whereas L. haematocheilus (syn. C. haematocheilus) of the Sea of Japan forms a sister group to the Mediterranean cluster. It was found that Chelon and Liza genera are paraphyletic, and therefore their division into two genera is unnatural and they should be synonymized. According to priority, …
Assessment of Streamside Management Zones for Conserving Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities Following Timber Harvest in Eastern Kentucky Headwater Catchments

Headwater streams generally comprise the majority of stream area in a watershed and can have a strong influence on downstream food webs. Our objective was to determine the effect of altering streamside management zone (SMZ) configurations on headwater aquatic insect communities. Timber harvests were implemented within six watersheds in eastern Kentucky. The SMZ configurations varied in width, canopy retention and best management practice (BMP) utilization at the watershed scale. Benthic macroinvertebrate samples collected one year before and four years after harvest indicated few differences among treatments, although post-treatment abundance was elevated in some of the treatment streams relative to the unharvested controls. Jaccard index values were similar across SMZ treatments after logging, indicating strong community overlap. These findings suggest that stream invertebrate communities did respond to the timber harvest, though not negatively. Results also suggest that SMZ criteria for aquatic habitats in steeply sloping topography, including at least 50 percent canopy retention and widths of at least 16.8 m, appear to be adequate for protecting benthic macroinvertebrate communities from logging impacts.
Critical Currents of 100-m Class Ag-Sheathed Sr0.6K0.4Fe2As2 Tape Under Various Temperatures, Magnetic Fields, and Angles

In 2017, Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Science successfully fabricated a 115-m Ag-sheathed Sr<sub>0.6</sub>K<sub>0.4</sub>Fe<sub>2</sub>As<sub>2</sub> (Sr122) tape. In this paper, we measured the critical currents (<italic>I<sub>c</sub></italic>) of a sample cut from the 115-m tape at temperatures ranging from 10K to 30 K, different applied magnetic fields, and magnetic field angles. The <italic>I<sub>c</sub></italic>-temperature dependency, <italic>I<sub>c</sub></italic>-magnetic field dependency, and <italic>I<sub>c</sub></italic>-field angle dependency of the sample were investigated. This paper introduces the experimental details including the sample preparation and the experimental setup along with the measurement results. The results show that the Sr<sub>0.6</sub>K<sub>0.4</sub>Fe<sub>2</sub>As<sub>2</sub> tape is able to carry a substantial superconducting current in the temperature range of 10K–20 K under moderate magnetic field. The <italic>I<sub>c</sub></italic> anisotropy of Sr122 tape in magnetic field is much smaller than that of cuprate superconductors. We believe that the results of this study are helpful to explore the application feasibility of this material.
State Constrained Variable Structure Control for Active Heave Compensators

Heave compensation systems are widely used to decouple the load motion from wave-induced vessel motion for the equipment handling on the ocean. Researches have been made to achieve successful compensation, yet few of them discusses the inherent constraints of the systems, such as bounded compensator’s stroke and max actuator’s velocity. This paper presents a solution for active heave compensation systems with such constraints by means of variable structure control. The controller’s complexity on design procedures and effectiveness are compared with a trajectory planning control method which turns out that the variable structure controller is more suitable to apply to the active heave compensators. The back-stepping method is used to robustly stabilize this variable structure system and for the aim of a decrease on the high robust gain due to uncertain friction term, a modified decoupled friction observer is used which is also verified by both theoretical and experimental analyses. To compensate for the time delay of the motion reference unit (MRU), a heave prediction algorithm is used. The experimental results show that most heave motion can be compensated when the motion and its velocity are feasible, while no hit occurs otherwise.
An Improved Power Loss Modeling of the MOSFET Using the Flyback SMPS

The paper addresses that the some special and improved analytical conduction and switching power loss modeling of the power MOSFET is taken into account to evaluate the performance and reliability of the high power conversion systems as extraterrestrial versatile documentations for the semiconductor selections and industrial applications. The simple power loss modeling encourages the compactness, high power density for the high switching frequency flyback SMPS. The design optimizations and loss modeling deals out the effective and reliable information to implement the low profile flyback SMPS and performance parameters of the power MOSFET for the practical engineer.
Molecular environs and triggered star formation around the large Galactic infrared bubble N 24

A multi-wavelength analysis of the large Galactic infrared bubble N 24 is presented in this paper in order to investigate the molecular and star-formation environment around expanding H ii regions. Using archival data from Herschel and ATLASGAL, the distribution and physical properties of the dust over the entire bubble are studied. Using the Clumpfind2d algorithm, 23 dense clumps are identified, with sizes and masses in the range 0.65–1.73 pc and 600–16 300 M⊙, respectively. To analyse the molecular environment in N 24, observations of NH3 (1,1) and (2,2) were carried out using the Nanshan 26-m radio telescope. Analysis of the kinetic temperature and gravitational stability of these clumps suggests gravitational collapse in several of them. The mass–size distributions of the clumps and the presence of massive young protostars indicate that the shell of N 24 is a region of ongoing massive-star formation. The compatibility of the dynamical and fragmentation timescales and the overabundance of young stellar objects and clumps on the rim suggest that the ‘collect-and-collapse’ mechanism is in play at the boundary of the bubble, but the existence of the infrared dark cloud at the edge of bubble indicates that a ‘radiation-driven implosion’ mechanism may also have played a role there.
Mobile Phones and Financial Services in Developing Countries: a review of concepts, methods, issues, evidence and future research directions

Abstract Research concerning mobile phones and financial services in developing countries has undergone rapid growth in recent years. This paper seeks to improve understanding of the current state of knowledge by reviewing the content of 43 research articles. A framework is developed that differentiates research activity according to a lifecycle model that incorporates financial needs, design, adoption and impact. The review finds that research to date has resulted in a high level of practitioner involvement, providing valuable links from the mobile phone industry to the research community but, as a consequence, research has become too narrowly defined. Thus, issues of assessing financial need and the measurement of impact have been comparatively neglected, while application design and adoption studies have received greater attention. This paper suggests a future direction for research and practice within the mainstream of micro-financial services and finance for the poor, correcting this imbalance, and contributing towards the mobiles-in-development-research agenda.
Lung cancer invading the fissure to the adjacent lobe: more a question of spreading mode than a staging problem.

OBJECTIVES Lung cancer invading beyond the interlobar pleura, classified as T2a in the new TNM, is a rare entity with a poor outcome. Our purpose was a better understanding of the mechanisms of this particular behaviour and its prognostic value. METHODS Patients who underwent surgery between 1984 and 2007 were reviewed. We focused on T1 and T2 tumours. Tumours not traversing the pleural elastic layer were defined as PL0, extending through the layer as PL1 and extending to the surface of the visceral pleura as PL2. We considered three groups: group 1, tumours invading the lobar fissure, group 2, PL0-tumours and group 3, PL1 + PL2 tumours and studied their pathology and prognostic characteristics. RESULTS The distribution was as follows: group 1 n = 154, group 2 n = 2310 and group 3 n = 651. Pneumonectomy was necessary in 55.2% and bilobectomy in 19.5% of group 1, and N-involvement was present in 55.8% (significantly more than other groups). The mean tumour size (42.7 ± 12 mm) was bigger in group 1. Post-operative mortality was as follows: -5.2, -3.5 and 3.2% in groups 1, 2 and 3, respectively (P = 0.49). Five-year survival rates were: group 1: 38.9%, group 2: 52.5% and group 3: 43.4%; P = 0.00002. Survival was not different between groups concerning pN1 and pN2, but poorer in groups 1 and 3 than in group 2 in pN0 patients, P = 0.0057. Survival was 48.1, 37.9 and 38.4% for tumours between 31 and 70 mm in groups 2, 1 and 3, respectively, P = 0.0024 (but P = 0.65 between groups 1 and 3). Pneumonectomy was a poor prognostic factor in all groups, but survival between pneumonectomy and bilobectomy was not different in group 1. Multivariate analysis confirmed intralobar invasion to be an independent factor of poor prognosis, as well as visceral pleura invasion. CONCLUSIONS Tumours invading through the fissure have a significant effect on long-term survival in the first stages of lung cancer but also in all stages because of their size and important locoregional spread. Their prognostic value is due to pleural invasion, whose role in lung cancer dissemination is worth further research.
GA-based Fractal and Neuroevolution Compressions

This paper presents a compression methodology using genetic algorithms and web-services to test it. The algorithm combines two well-known algorithms of fractal and neural network compressions, making some improvements in their implementation. Thus, in fractal compression we increased speed of compression by a genetic search and in neural networks we used neuroevolution approach for adaptive neural networks. This type of network uses previously processed data to increase the compression rate. In general case, our algorithm outperformed JPEG by 12%.
Latency evaluation of networking mechanisms for game traffic

Large improvements in computer technology allow thousands of users to concurrently interact in a virtual game. Due to this development, the body of work analyzing game traffic has grown considerably in the recent past. However, little work has been done to examine and compare networking techniques with respect to meeting the stringent latency requirements that are common for networked games. Most interactive games need response times between 100 and 1000 ms depending on the game genre [6]. In this paper, we evaluate different techniques for delivering packets in a timely manner. In particular, we compare existing user-space middleware running on top of UDP and reliable, fair transport protocols like TCP and SCTP. In addition, we evaluate some "low latency" extensions to TCP, SCTP and one of the middleware platforms. We present results concerning packet latency and bandwidth requirements for the different approaches.
A Novel Three Phase Transformerless Inverter with Negative Grounding for PV Application

Three phase transformerless inverters are quite popular due to its high efficiency and compact structure. However, removal of the isolation transformer can lead to varying common mode voltage across the PV parasitic capacitance. This leads to the flow of a large common mode leakage current which compromises the safety of the inverter. One method to tackle this issue is applying only those vectors wherein the common mode voltage remains constant. However, this reduces the inverter modulation index and leads to poor dc link utilization. In this paper, a novel three phase transformerless inverter is presented wherein the leakage current is directly eliminated by grounding the PV negative terminal. Moreover, the proposed topology facilitates the application of all the active vectors thereby improving the dc link utilization. The proposed topology employs stored energy modulation (SEM) thereby reducing the interlinking capacitor size. The proposed topology is analyzed in detail and its control is discussed. Simulations of the proposed inverter confirm the feasibility and good performance of the inverter.
The promise of electronic data capture in respiratory medicine

In the 17th century the English physician John Floyer, himself severely asthmatic, used symptom diaries to record his own and his patients’ symptoms to understand the determinants of asthma exacerbations, and inform disease management 1. If long-term serial data on designated patients with chronic lung disease were available to physicians, it could fundamentally change clinical practice and influence the design of clinical research studies. However, methods of symptom diary data collection that frustrate patients and which require analysis by physicians before interpretation are unlikely to achieve broad success. A recent editorial in the European Respiratory Journal 2 drew attention to the emphasis, in current guidelines for asthma management 3 and in the conduct of clinical trials in asthma 4, of the importance of estimating “future risk” to patients. The concept has equal relevance in other chronic lung diseases. Guidances issued by both the European Medicines Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration 5, 6 have contemplated and encouraged the adoption of patient reported outcomes (PROs) in chronic disease research. The report by Liu et al. 7 in the current issue of the European Respiratory Journal describes the experimental evaluation of a mobile telephone-based system compared with a paper diary for monitoring the management of adult asthmatics, and found significant clinical improvements in the electronically monitored patients. As noted in a recent meta-analysis of studies of electronic patient-reported symptom monitoring in respiratory disease 8, there are as yet an inadequate number of published reports of studies with robust designs and formal evaluation in this area, and the study by Liu et al. 7 is a welcome addition. The approach taken to symptom diary data collection was inexpensive and used technologies that are becoming almost universally available. Importantly, this study also showed good patient …