Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sliding collapse in masonry structures : experimental tests

Thirty-three static load tests were carried out in dry masonry walls. These walls have been subjected to their self-weight and to a horizontal load to promote a sliding failure between the blocks. The point of application of the load has been unchanged. All the walls have been constructed with the same ninety eight blocks. The disposition of the blocks have been done randomly in each of the walls to place the imperfections randomly too. The two objectives of this work have been: firstly, to obtain plenty of sliding tests which could enable to form a statistical judgment of the results, and secondly, to compare them with the results from several numerical methods commonly used, especially with the non Standard Limit Analysis (nSLA) ones.
Creating Smart and Healthy Cities by Exploring the Potentials of Emerging Technologies and Social Innovation for Urban Efficiency: Lessons from the Innovative City of Boston

The wide-spread adoption of the Smart City concept has introduced a new era of computing paradigm with opportunities for city administrators and stakeholders in various sectors to re-think the concept of urbanization and development of healthy cities. With the world population rapidly becoming urban-centric especially amongst the emerging economies, social innovation will assist greatly in deploying emerging technologies to address the development challenges in core sectors of the future cities. In this context, sustainable health-care delivery and improved quality of life of the people is considered at the heart of the healthy city agenda. This paper examines the Boston innovation landscape from the perspective of smart services and innovation ecosystem for sustainable development, especially in transportation and healthcare. It investigates the policy implementation process of the Healthy City agenda and eHealth economy innovation based on the experience of Massachusetts’s City of Boston initiatives. For this purpose, three emerging areas are emphasized, namely the eHealth concept, the innovation hubs, and the emerging technologies that drive innovation. This was carried out through empirical analysis on results of public sector and industry-wide interviews/survey about Boston’s current initiatives and the enabling environment. The paper highlights few potential research directions for service integration and social innovation for deploying emerging technologies in the healthy city agenda. The study therefore suggests the need to prioritize social innovation as an overarching strategy to build sustainable Smart Cities in order to avoid technology lock-in. Finally, it concludes that the Boston example of innovation economy is unique in view of the existing platforms for innovation and proper understanding of its dynamics, which is imperative in building smart and healthy cities where quality of life of the citizenry can be improved.
Modelling the Volatility of Financial Assets using the Normal Inverse Gaussian distribution: With an application to Option Pricing

In the original GARCH model of Bollerslev (1986) conditional normality is assumed, and although the model was immediately applied to model financial returns the assumption has been found to be violated empirically for many time series. Thus, since then alternative distributions like the Student’s t-distribution in Bollerslev (1987) and the Generalized Error Distribution in Nelson (1991) have been introduced and analyzed along with a host of other mor eo r less exotic distributions (see e.g. Lambert & Laurent (2001)). In the present paper we will analyze the Normal Inverse Gaussian distribution, which has been introduced to financial econometrics recently. In relation to the GARCH literature it was used in Forsberg & Bollerslev (2002) to model the ECU/USD exchange rate. In this paper the focus is on modelling individual stock returns, and using Realized Volatility as a measure of daily variance we provide evidence that the Normal Inverse Gaussian framework can provide a good description of the returns of some major US stocks. We also provide estimation results for a NIG GARCH model for these assets. The second part of this paper shows how the NIG GARCH model can be used in an option valuation context. We perform a Monte Carlo study which illustrates that incorporating excess kurtosis and skewness in the option pricing model could potentially explain some of the systematic pricing errors of Gaussian GARCH models found in the literature (see e.g. Stentoft (2005)). However, the results on the empirical performance of the option pricing model are somewhat disappointing and further research is called for in this area.
Self-Shrinkage Behaviors of Waste Paper Fiber Reinforced Cement Paste considering Its Self-Curing Effect at Early-Ages

The aim of this paper was to study how the early-age self-shrinkage behavior of cement paste is affected by the addition of the waste paper fibers under sealed conditions. Although the primary focus was to determine whether the waste paper fibers are suitable to mitigate self-shrinkage as an internal curing agent under different adding ways, evaluating their strength, pore structure, and hydration properties provided further insight into the self-cured behavior of cement paste. Under the wet mixing condition, the waste paper fibers could mitigate the self-shrinkage of cement paste and, at additions of 0.2% by mass of cement, the waste paper fibers were found to show significant self-shrinkage cracking control while providing some internal curing. In addition, the self-curing efficiency results were analyzed based on the strength and the self-shrinkage behaviors of cement paste. Results indicated that, under a low water cement ratio, an optimal dosage and adding ways of the waste paper fibers could enhance the self-curing efficiency of cement paste.
Importance of adsorption for CCN activity and hygroscopic properties of mineral dust aerosol

This study uses published data on dust‐water interactions to examine the importance of including water adsorption effects when describing the hygroscopic and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) behavior of mineral dust aerosol. Adsorption activation theory (AT) better represents fresh dust‐water interactions than Köhler theory (KT), as i) a consistent set of adsorption parameters can describe the hygroscopic behavior of dust (under both sub and supersaturated conditions), and ii) the dependence of critical supersaturation, sc, with particle dry diameter, Ddry, is closer to observations. The long adsorption timescale could also contribute to the large differences observed between dry and wet generated dust hygroscopicity. If KT and AT are consistently applied to the same dust size distribution, KT predicts up to tenfold higher CCN and 40% higher droplet number concentration than AT. This profoundly different behavior between the theories suggests that both may be required for a comprehensive description of atmospheric dust CCN activity.
ANALISIS RESPON SISWA DAN GURU TERHADAP PENGGUNAAN MULTIMEDIA INTERAKTIF DALAM PROSES PEMBELAJARAN MATEMATIKA

Abstra k Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalis bagaimana respon siswa kelas XI dan respon guru Matematika di MAN 2 Model medan terhadap penggunaan Multimedia Interaktif dalam proses pembelajaran matematika. Ada sebanyak 150 orang siswa dan 8 orang guru matematika disekolah tersebut yang menjadi sampel penelitian. Dalam penelitian ini ada dua permasalahan yang diselidiki yaitu bagaimana respon siswa terhadap penggunaan Multimedia Interaktif di dalam proses pembelajaran matematika dan bagaimana respon guru terhadap penggunaan Multimedia Interaktif di dalam proses pembelajaran matematika. Data yang diperoleh dalam penelitian ini berupa data angket respon siswa dan data angket respon guru. Data tersebut dianalisis menggunakan metode deskriptif analitis untuk memperoleh jawaban dari permasalahan yang terdapat pada penelitian. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian diketahui 88% siswa memberikan respon positif terhadap penggunaan multimedia interaktif di dalam proses pembelajaran matematika. Dan sebanyak 75% guru memberikan respon positif terhadap penggunaan multimedia interaktif di dalam proses pembelajaran matematika dikarenakan kegiatan pembelajaran yang dilakukan menggunakan multimedia interaktif lebih aktif dan terasa menyenangkan bagi siswa maupun guru. Kata Kunci : multimedia interaktif, respon siswa, respon guru, pembelajaran matematika, deskriptif analitis, MAN 2 Model, Medan Abstract This study aims to analyze how the response class XI student and teacher responses Mathematics at MAN 2 Model field on the use of Interactive Multimedia in the learning process of mathematics. There are as many as 150 students and eight teachers to the school mathematics that the research samples. In this study, there are two issues being investigated is how the students' response to the use of Interactive Multimedia in the learning process of mathematics and how the response of teachers to use the Interactive Multimedia in the learning process of mathematics. The data obtained in this study a student questionnaire responses of data and data questionnaire responses of teachers. The data were analyzed using descriptive analytical method for the answers to the problems found in the study. Based on the survey results revealed 88% of students responded positively to the use of interactive multimedia in the learning process of mathematics. And as much as 75% of teachers responded positively to the use of interactive multimedia in the learning process because the math lesson activities using interactive multimedia more active and feels good for both students and teachers. Keywords: interactive multimedia, students response, teacher responses, learning mathematics, descriptive analysis, MAN 2 Model, Medan.
Indirect abelian theorems and a linear Volterra equation

where k and xo are real, c _ 0, and a(t) satisfies (H1) a(t) E C(O, oo) n L,(O, 1). a(t) is nonnegative and nonincreasing, limt, , a(t) =0, and O<a(O+)<oo; (H2) a(t) is convex downward; i.e., for 0<8< 1 and 0< tl < t3 <cc, ea(tl) + (1 -e)a(t3) a(t2), where t2 = etl + (1 -e)t3. By a familiar theorem on Volterra equations, (1.1) has a unique solution in C'[O, oo). We define u(t) as the solution of (1.1) with k=O, xo= 1, and we let w(t) = ft u(Q) dJ. It is easily checked that the solution of (1.1) is given by xou(t) + kw(t). Treating (1.1) as a special case of a nonlinear equation, Levin proved in [5] that if a(t) E C [0, oo), a(t) X a(O), and (-1)ka(k)(t) _ O for O < t < oo, k =O, 1, 2, 3, then
Understanding Dropouts in MOOCs

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have developed rapidly in recent years, and have attracted millions of online users. However, a central challenge is the extremely high dropout rate — recent reports show that the completion rate in MOOCs is below 5% (Onah, Sinclair, and Boyatt 2014; Kizilcec, Piech, and Schneider 2013; Seaton et al. 2014). What are the major factors that cause the users to drop out? What are the major motivations for the users to study in MOOCs? In this paper, employing a dataset from XuetangX1, one of the largest MOOCs in China, we conduct a systematical study for the dropout problem in MOOCs. We found that the users’ learning behavior can be clustered into several distinct categories. Our statistics also reveal high correlation between dropouts of different courses and strong influence between friends’ dropout behaviors. Based on the gained insights, we propose a Context-aware Feature Interaction Network (CFIN) to model and to predict users’ dropout behavior. CFIN utilizes context-smoothing technique to smooth feature values with different context, and use attention mechanism to combine user and course information into the modeling framework. Experiments on two large datasets show that the proposed method achieves better performance than several state-of-the-art methods. The proposed method model has been deployed on a real system to help improve user retention.
Avaliação da qualidade de pepinos em conserva

O trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar as características físicas, as físico-químicas e a rotulagem de 11 marcas de pepinos em conserva comercializados no município de Itaqui, RS. Foram realizadas a contagem do número de pepinos nos recipientes, a determinação do diâmetro e do comprimento dos pepinos, peso bruto, peso líquido, peso drenado, espaço livre, vácuo, pH, acidez total titulável e cloretos. Os rótulos das amostras de pepinos em conserva avaliados obedeceram às normas de rotulagem geral de acordo com a legislação. Os valores de peso líquido e drenado foram superiores aos especificados pelos fabricantes. O espaço livre no frasco continente variou de 0,83 a 2,23 cm e o vácuo apresentou valores entre 2,67 e 8,33 pol. Hg. A acidez total titulável apresentou valores entre 0,48 e 0,92 g de ácido acético/100 g. O pH em todas as amostras foi menor do que 4,5. Os teores de cloretos variaram de 1,70 a 3,47 g de cloreto de sódio/100 g. Pode-se afirmar que os pepinos em conserva avaliados são seguros, pois apresentaram pH menor que 4,5. No entanto, as marcas comercializadas não apresentaram padrão para as demais variáveis, pois foram encontradas diferenças nesses parâmetros avaliados.
Photon-noise limited sensitivity in titanium nitride kinetic inductance detectors

We demonstrate photon-noise limited performance at sub-millimeter wavelengths in feedhorn-coupled, microwave kinetic inductance detectors made of a TiN/Ti/TiN trilayer superconducting film, tuned to have a transition temperature of 1.4 K. Micro-machining of the silicon-on-insulator wafer backside creates a quarter-wavelength backshort optimized for efficient coupling at 250 μm. Using frequency read out and when viewing a variable temperature blackbody source, we measure device noise consistent with photon noise when the incident optical power is >0.5 pW, corresponding to noise equivalent powers >3×10−17 W/Hz. This sensitivity makes these devices suitable for broadband photometric applications at these wavelengths.
Three-dimensional magnetotelluric modeling using difference equations­ Theory and comparisons to integral equation solutions

We have developed an algorithm for computing the magnetotelluric response of three‐dimensional (3-D) earth models. It is a difference equation algorithm that is based on the integral forms of Maxwell’s equations rather than the differential forms. This formulation does not require approximating derivatives of earth properties or electromagnetic fields, as happens when using the second‐order vector diffusion equation. Rather, one must determine how averages are to be computed. Side boundary values for the H fields are obtained from putting two‐dimensional (2-D) slices of the model into a larger‐scale 2-D model and solving for the fields at the 3-D boundary positions. To solve the 3-D system of equations, we propagate an impedance matrix, which relates all the horizontal E fields in a layer to all the horizontal H fields in that same layer, up through the earth model. Applying a plane‐wave source condition and the side boundary H field values allows us to solve for the unknown fields within the model. The r.
Central haemodynamics of hypertension

Invasive data on central haemodynamics in healthy normotensive subjects are scarce, and studies in hypertensives are limited as well. A summary of the available data on central haemodynamics in hypertensives and normotensives in the same age groups is presented. Hypertension reflects a disturbance in the balance between cardiac output (CO) and total peripheral resistance (TPR), ranging from a pattern of high CO and normal TPR in young age and early hypertension, to a normal-to-low CO and high TPR in more established hypertension. An early sign of impairment of cardiac pump function in hypertension is most readily seen in stroke volume, particularly during exercise. Drug therapy may reduce blood pressure in hypertensives by reducing CO, TPR, or both. Ideally a perfect antihypertensive agent should be able to reduce blood pressure to normal level by reducing TPR and restoring normal cardiac pump function both at rest and during exercise. But so far, no ideal drug has been found that can fully normalize the haemodynamic disturbance of hypertension.
Electronic Structure and Optical Conductivity of ZnCo 2 O 4 With PBE and TB-mBJ Potentials

We present the electronic and optical conductivity for ZnCo2O4 compound. The full-potential augmented plane plus local orbitals method based on the density functional theory is used within the PBE and TB-mBJ scheme. The optimized unit cell length a0 and internal parameter u are in agreement with experimental data. The band gap obtained using TB-mBJ shows a significant improvement over PBE value and is close to the experimental data. Optical conductivity has been calculated for the energy range 0-14 eV.
Local solvability of left invariant differential operators on the Heisenberg group

Representation-theoretic criteria are given for the local solvability of left invariant differential operators homogeneous under dilations. In this note we prove that a sufficient condition for the local solvability of a homogeneous left invariant differential operator on the Heisenberg group is that the image of the operator under any infinite dimensional irreducible unitary representation be invertible. This result was conjectured by Rockland [7], and the proof given here is based mainly on his approach. Let Hn be the Heisenberg group of dimension 2n + 1; i.e. Hn is the simply connected nilpotent Lie group whose Lie algebra bn is spanned by X,, X2, . *. *, Xn, Y,, Y2, * * Y,T, satisfying [. ;, YkI = 8Ik, with all other commutators zero. A differential operator D on Hn is left invariant if D (iJ) = g (DJ), for any g E Hn and any function f; here gf is the function x -* f( gx). By the exponential map any Z E bn may be identitifed with a left invariant differential operator: (Zf)(g) d f(g exp tZ)] Conversely, any left invariant differential operator on Hn may be written as a polynomial in the elements of bn with constant coefficients. The algebra tn carries a family of automorphisms Sr, defined for r > 0 by Sr(Xj) = rXj, 8r( Yj) = rYj, j = 1, 2, . , n, and 8r(T) = r2T. Sr may be extended to polynomials on tn by defining Sr (lZ2 . .Zk) = 6r(Zi)6r(Z2) . r(Zk) 8r is well defined by the Birkhoff-Poincare-Witt theorem (e.g. [2]). A left invariant differential operator is homogeneous of degree d if 6r(D) = rdD. Every irreducible unitary representation X of Hn on a Hilbert space V determines an irreducible representation of bn also denoted 7, by T(Z)v = [ d (exp tZ)vl, Z E n, V E V. Received by the editors March 23, 1978. AMS (MOS) subject classifications (1970). Primary 58G15, 22E30; Secondary 35H05, 22E45.
A Taxonomic Study of the Genus Streptomyces by Analysis of Ribosomal Protein ATL 30

The ribosomal AT-I30 proteins from 81 species of the genus Streptomyces as listed by Williams et al. in Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology were analyzed. My results provided further evidence that the genus Streptomyces is well circumscribed. On the basis of levels of AT-L30 N-terminal amino acid sequence homology, the strains were classified into four groups (groups I to IV) and a nongrouped category, whose members contained amino acid sequences characteristic of each species. A phylogenetic tree constructed on the basis of the levels of similarity of the amino acid sequences revealed the existence of six clusters within the genus. The first cluster contains the members of groups I and I1 together with several other species; the second cluster contains the members of groups I11 and IV and several other species; the third cluster contains Streptomyces ramulosus and Streptomyces ochraceiscleroticus; the fourth cluster contains only Streptomyces rimosus; the fifth cluster contains Streptomyces aurantiacus and Streptomyces tubercidicus; and the sixth cluster contains Streptomyces albus and Streptomyces sulphureus. Considerable agreement between the results of the AT-L30 analyses and the results of numerical phenetic classification was found, although there were numerous disagreements in details. For example, four groups (groups I to IV) defined by the AT-L30 analysis data did not correlate with the aggregate groups defined by numerical classification. In general, but not always, the species classified in a particular cluster in the numerical classification system had the same or similar AT-L30 terminal amino acid sequences. The AT-UO analysis data were more consistent with the 16s rRNA analysis data than with the numerical classification data, indicating that there was a good correlation between the four groups defined by AT-L30 analysis data and the aggregate groups defined by 16s rRNA analysis data. I stress that discrepancies between results of phenetic analyses and results of phylogenetic analyses should be taxonomically significant and can be resolved by other taxonomic approaches, such as DNA relatedness analysis.
The variable effects of arrest on criminal careers: The Milwaukee domestic violence experiment

This research was supported by grant 86IJCXKO43 to the Crime Control Institute from the National Institute ofJustice. The points of view or opinions stated herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Justice or the Milwaukee Police Department. We are deeply indebted to former Milwaukee Police Chief Robert J. Ziarnik for his support of this research and to Chief Philip Arreola for continuing that support. We also thank Kathleen Stolpman and the staff of the Sojourner Truth House for their maintenance of hotline records of repeat violence. This article also reflects the work of many Crime Control Institute staff members and interviewers and the advice of Drs. Joel Garner, Albert J. Reiss, Jr., Robert Boruch, and Kinley Larntz, as well as Lucy Friedman and Allen Andrews. Most important were the officers who carried out the experiment, all of whom entered eligible cases into it: Joseph Vukovich, Zygmunt Lipski, Kenneth Jones, Michael Dubis, Lawrence Roberts, Thomas Skovera, Alan Singer, Frederick Birts, Thomas Bohl, Daniel Halbur, Peter Panasiuk, Scott Rinderle, Michael Braunreiter, Timothy Koceja, John Bogues, Edgar Bullock, Kim Stack, "Mick" Heinrich, Jerome Sims, John Wallace, Wayne Armon, Rosalie Gallegos, Edward Prah, Dean Schubert, Richard Thompson, Debra Glass, Cheryl Switzer, Robert Eckert, Daniel Kent, Tracy Becker, Steven Fyfe, Jeffery Watts, Gregory Blumenberg, Mark Hilt, and Kathleen Borkowski. * Lawrence W. Sherman is Professor of Criminology, University of Maryland and President, Crime Control Institute. Ph.D. Yale University, 1976. Janell D. Schmidt is Director, Milwaukee Office, Crime Control Institute. M.S., University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 1985. Dennis P. Rogan is Vice President, Crime Control Institute. Ph.D., University of Maryland, 1988. Douglas A. Smith is Professor of Criminology, University of Maryland. Ph.D., Indiana University, 1982. Patrick R. Gartin is Associate in Criminology, University of Florida. Ph.D., University of Maryland, 1992. Ellen G. Cohn is Visiting Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Indiana University at Indianapolis. Ph.D., Cambridge University, 1991. Dean J. Collins is Deputy Inspector, Milwaukee Police Department. M.S., University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 1973. Anthony R. Bacich is Captain, Milwaukee Police Department. M.S., University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 1986.