Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Crystal chemistry of tetrahedrite

The crystal chemistry of tetrahedrite can be rationalized by considering the structure, commonly written asr"M(l)uIIIM(2)6ftrXI"Y3l4"'Z [where M(l) : Cu, Fe, Zn,Mn, Hg, Cd; M(2) : Cu, Ag; X : Sb, As, Bi, Te; Y and Z : S, Sel, to be generally analogous to sodalite, i.e., a framework of corner-connected M(l)Y" tetrahedra forming a series of cavities that contain ZM(2)6 octahedra rather than an interframework cation or anion as in sodalite. Adaptation of modeling techniques originally applied to sodalite-group minerals allows for the interpretation ofthe structural effects ofcomposition on tetrahedrite that has been previously hindered by the lack ofstructural studies. Framework rotation (@) is caused by the rotation of the framework tetrahedra about their 4 axes and is increased by increases in the M(IFY and X-Y bond lengths, but decreased by increases in the spinner-blade length. Distortion of framework tetrahedra is negligibly affected by the M(l)-Y bond length and greatly afected by the X-Y bond length. Increases in the spinner-blade length cause the distortion to decrease, then increase, implying a state of no distortion to the framework polyhedra at particular values of the spinner-blade length and @. Because the structural effects of temperature, pressure, and composition are somewhat analogous in minerals, these results indicate that natural tetrahedrite composition may provide some indication of the thermal and baric conditions at the time of formation.
Evaluating Groundwater Nitrates from On-Lot Septic Systems, a Guidance Model for Land Planning in Pennsylvania

As land development in Pennsylvania continues to expand into rural areas, land owners, planners and regulators struggle to balance development with the need to provide sustainable drinking water quality. In many areas throughout the state, residential subdivisions will use conventional on -lot septic systems and water wells. When lots are clustered into high density subdivisions, nitrates from septic systems, lawn fertilizers or historic land use can concentrate in the shallow groundwater at levels exceeding safe drinking water standards. Once in the groundwater, nitrates are mobile and fairly recalcitrant and tend to persist for long periods of time , sometimes migrating great distances down-gradient from the source. Dilution from infiltrating groundwater recharge is the primary attenuation process for nitrates ; so that providing sufficient lot or open space acreage to allow offsetting groundwater recharge for each septic system is essential to maintain water quality. A mass balance model is presented in this paper as a planning tool to estimate the lot size needed to provide sufficient recharge to maintain nitrate concentrations below a desired water quality goal. The model adapts similar methods presented by others with multiple elements of the nitrate-groundwater system in a unique manner that incorporates common input variables, Pennsylvania specific default values, or more complex site specific information so that is can be used by a variety of user abilities .
The Role of Direct Democracy and Federalism in Local Power

Alienation to politics weakens political competition and can undermine the acceptance and legitimacy of democracy as a political system. Governance and representation problems at the local level cause part of citizens? lack of power and political alienation. Citizens have local power if they can influence the political process so that its outcomes are closer to their preferences and if they feel to be effective in the political sphere. In order to increase citizens? local power, we emphasize the role of institutions of local governance. Local democratic governance is concerned about the relationship between citizens and local government institutions, political representatives and officials. This relationship is fundamentally shaped by the federal structure of a nation? s government and by the scope and depth of citizens? participation possibilities in the political process.
Universal limit mapping in grazing bifurcations

Grazing bifurcations are nonsmooth bifurcations that occur in impacting mechanical oscillators. A sign of the lack of smoothness is a square root expression that arises in mappings describing the dynamics. Certain types of grazing bifurcations involve chaotic bands, or period adding cascades with or without chaotic bands. There is also a characteristic scaling behavior present. Here this type of bifurcation is investigated, and the self-similarity under scaling is used to derive a renormalized limit mapping. A study of the dynamics of the limit mapping identifying all attractors for all parameter values is also presented. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
Optical, Infrared, and Ultraviolet Observations of the X-Ray Flash XRF 050416A

We present ultraviolet, optical, and infrared photometry of the afterglow of the X-ray flash XRF 050416A taken between approximately 100 s and 36 days after the burst. We find an intrinsic spectral slope between 1930 and 22200 Å of β = -1.14 ± 0.20 and a decay rate of α = -0.86 ± 0.15. There is no evidence for a change in the decay rate between approximately 0.7 and 4.7 days after the burst. Our data imply that there is no spectral break between the optical and X-ray bands between 0.7 and 4.7 days after the burst and are consistent with the cooling break being redward of the Ks band (22200 Å) at 0.7 days. The combined ultraviolet/optical/infrared spectral energy distribution shows no evidence for a significant amount of extinction in the host galaxy along the line of sight to XRF 050416A. Our data suggest that the extragalactic extinction along the line of sight to the burst is only approximately AV = 0.2 mag, which is significantly less than the extinction expected from the hydrogen column density inferred from X-ray observations of XRF 050416A assuming a dust-to-gas ratio similar to what is found for the Milky Way. The observed extinction, however, is consistent with the dust-to-gas ratio seen in the Small Magellanic Cloud. We suggest that XRF 050416A may have a two-component jet similar to what has been proposed for GRB 030329. If this is the case, the lack of an observed jet break between 0.7 and 42 days is an illusion due to emission from the wide jet dominating the afterglow after approximately 1.5 days.
Interactions of gaseous nitric acid with surfaces of environmental interest

Gaseous nitric acid removal by surfaces in experimental systems and in the atmospheric boundary layer is rapid. However, neither the form of HNO3 on surfaces nor its impact on the properties of the thin surface film are known. We report here studies of surfaces that have been exposed at room temperature (295 ± 2 K) to gaseous mixtures of water vapor with HNO3 at concentrations from 46 ppb to 4 × 103 ppm. The surfaces were probed using a combination of Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), non-contact atomic force microscopy (AFM), time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Exposure of borosilicate glass, quartz, and thin Teflon films to mixtures of gaseous HNO3 and water vapor leads to the subsequent uptake of much larger amounts of water than occurs on the corresponding unexposed surfaces. Infrared spectra show evidence for the formation of nitric acid–water complexes on the surface that leads to this enhanced water uptake. On borosilicate glass, exposure to the nitric acid–water vapor mixture results in surface segregation of the trace metal oxides and their nitrates formed from reaction with HNO3. The majority of these oxides can be removed by rinsing with water; however, smaller, segregated regions of ZnO remain on the surface. The implications for heterogeneous reactions in thin films on surfaces in laboratory systems and in the atmosphere are discussed.
The Effect of Sex and Weaning Age on Growth Performance of First Generation Lambs Derived from Crossing Â½Romanov and Zel

The increase in birth rate is one of the most important objectives in sheep breeding. One way to increase the birth rate and yield is to hybrid the weak native breeds with those of strong from the view point. To this aim, the study has investigated the effects of sex and weaning age on the first-generation lambs growth result according to ½Romanov and Zel. Also it has used the completely randomized factorial experiments with 6 treatment and 4 replication. The lambs weaning age has been 40, 50 and 75 days. The experimental diets have been the same to the all treatments in terms of energy, protein and other nutrients. The feed intake given to lambs has been measured and weighed with interval specification. By evaluating the feed consumption results and daily weighing, in 2 first weeks, as well as fourth and fifth weeks, there were significant differences have been observed in sex and weaning age (p<0.05). In the fourth 2 weeks, a significant statistical difference has observed in the feed conversion ratio (p<0.05). By result investigation, it has been observed that the male lambs have had better performances than the females in the term of feed consumption, feed conversion ratio and daily weight gaining during the experiment weeks. The lambs of 75 days have had the best performance in feed consumption and daily weight gain.
Phylogenetic placement of North American subterranean diving beetles (Insecta: Coleopera: Dytiscidae)

A phylogenetic analysis of Hydroporinae (Coleoptera; Dytiscidae) is conducted with emphasis on placement of the North American subterranean diving beetles Psychopomporus felipi Jean, Telles & Miller, Ereboporus naturaconservatus Miller, Gibson & Alarie, and Haedeoporus texanus Young & Longley. Analyses include 49 species of Hydroporinae, representing each currently recognized tribe except Carabhydrini Watts. Data include 21 characters from adult morphology and sequences from seven genes, 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, cytochrome c oxidase I, cytrochrome c oxidase II, histone III, elongation factor Iα, and wingless. The combined data were analyzed using parsimony and mixed-model Bayesian tree estimation, and the combined molecular data were analyzed using maximum likelihood. Less inclusive branches (genera, genus-groups, and tribes) are well-supported under each criterion, but relationships among tribes are not. These branches are short, poorly supported and in conflict among the estimation methods. Because of certain anomalous relationships in the parsimony and likelihood results, and greater consistency of the Bayesian results with morphological data, this is our preferred phylogenetic estimate. Haedeoporus Young & Longley is related to Neoporus Guignot, Heterosternuta Guignot, and other members of the Hydroporus-group of genera of Hydroporini sensu lato. Psychopomporus Jean, Telles & Miller and Ereboporus Miller, Gibson & Alarie are nested within the Graptodytes-group of genera of Hydroporini sensu lato, and are the only North American members of this otherwise Mediterranean group. Congruent results between optimality criteria indicate that Hydroporini sensu lato is conspicuously non-monophyletic.
Reproductive Health Issues and Incidence of Some Reproductive Tract Infections Among Muslim Women in Purdah in Jos-Nigeria.

Candidiasis and Trichomoniasis are the commonest Reproductive Tract Infections (RTIs) amongst women in purdah in the capital city of Jos- Nigeria. Majority of these women (>68%) have primary education as the highest educational qualification and majority of them (>92%) are full time house wives. The study has also revealed that there is a high level (57%) delay in seeking for reproductive health needs , which were only remedied due to persistence of symptoms. This gives us the inference as to the myriad of sequalae that might have resulted in cases of asymptomatic RTIs. The most reproductive health needs of women in purdah are inadequate facilities in clinics/hospitals. This factor as well as other factors such as poor education, unilateral decision making by some men in purdah in matters of reproductive needs, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Qu’ran have immensely contributed to the increasing cases of RTIs among these women. These problems can be reduced to the minimum by educating both the men and the women in purdah with the best medium being the radio/television programs. KEY WORDS: Purdah, Reproductive Health, Infection, Women.
Tactile Sensing and Position Estimation Methods for Increased Proprioception of Soft-Robotic Platforms

Tactile Sensing and Position Estimation Methods for Increased Proprioception of Soft-Robotic Platforms Nathan McClain Day Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science Soft robots have the potential to transform the way robots interact with their environment. This is due to their low inertia and inherent ability to more safely interact with the world without damaging themselves or the people around them. However, existing sensing for soft robots has at least partially limited their ability to control interactions with their environment. Tactile sensors could enable soft robots to sense interaction, but most tactile sensors are made from rigid substrates and are not well suited to applications for soft robots that can deform. In addition, the benefit of being able to cheaply manufacture soft robots may be lost if the tactile sensors that cover them are expensive and their resolution does not scale well for manufacturability. Soft robots not only need to know their interaction forces due to contact with their environment, they also need to know where they are in Cartesian space. Because soft robots lack a rigid structure, traditional methods of joint estimation found in rigid robots cannot be employed on soft robotic platforms. This requires a different approach to soft robot pose estimation. This thesis will discuss both tactile force sensing and pose estimation methods for soft-robots. A method to make affordable, high-resolution, tactile sensor arrays (manufactured in rows and columns) that can be used for sensorizing soft robots and other soft bodies isReserved developed. However, the construction results in a sensor array that exhibits significant amounts of cross-talk when two taxels in the same row are compressed. Using the same fabric-based tactile sensor array construction design, two different methods for cross-talk compensation are presented. The first uses a mathematical model to calculate a change in resistance of each taxel directly. The second method introduces additional simple circuit components that enable us to isolate each taxel electrically and relate voltage to force directly. This thesis also discusses various approaches in soft robot pose estimation along with a method for characterizing sensors using machine learning. Particular emphasis is placed on the effectiveness of parameterbased learning versus parameter-free learning, in order to determine which method of machine learning is more appropriate and accurate for soft robot pose estimation. Various machine learning architectures, such as recursive neural networks and convolutional neural networks, are also tested to demonstrate the most effective architecture to use for characterizing soft-robot sensors.
A Comparative Analysis of the Relationship among Quality Instruction, Teacher Self-Efficacy, Student Background, and Mathematics Achievement in South Korea and the United States.

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast student, teacher, and school factors that are associated with student mathematics achievement in South Korea and the United States. Using the data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011, this study examines factors that are linked to teachers who deliver quality instruction with high self-efficacy in both countries. We also investigate the association between teachers with high-quality instruction and high self-efficacy and 8th graders’ mathematics achievement. It was found that teachers’ perceived academic emphasis was commonly associated with teachers who claimed to provide high-quality mathematics instruction with high self-efficacy. However, the two countries’ results differed in the association between teachers’ opportunities to learn in professional development programs and high-quality instruction with high self-efficacy. While ‘teachers’ opportunities to learn in professional development programs’ was a significant factor that leads to quality instruction and high self-efficacy in the United States, it was not significant in South Korea. In addition, while students in the United States tended to have higher math achievement scores when their teachers delivered high-quality instruction with high self-efficacy, there was no such association in South Korea.
Challenging Common Assumptions in the Unsupervised Learning of Disentangled Representations

The key idea behind the unsupervised learning of disentangled representations is that real-world data is generated by a few explanatory factors of variation which can be recovered by unsupervised learning algorithms. In this paper, we provide a sober look at recent progress in the field and challenge some common assumptions. We first theoretically show that the unsupervised learning of disentangled representations is fundamentally impossible without inductive biases on both the models and the data. Then, we train more than 12000 models covering most prominent methods and evaluation metrics in a reproducible large-scale experimental study on seven different data sets. We observe that while the different methods successfully enforce properties ``encouraged'' by the corresponding losses, well-disentangled models seemingly cannot be identified without supervision. Furthermore, increased disentanglement does not seem to lead to a decreased sample complexity of learning for downstream tasks. Our results suggest that future work on disentanglement learning should be explicit about the role of inductive biases and (implicit) supervision, investigate concrete benefits of enforcing disentanglement of the learned representations, and consider a reproducible experimental setup covering several data sets.
Impact of bushfire and climate variability on streamflow from forested catchments in southeast Australia

Abstract This paper quantifies the impacts of bushfire and climate variability on streamflow from three southeast Australian catchments where bushfires occurred in February 1983. Three hydrological models (AWRA-L, Xinanjiang and GR4J) were first calibrated against streamflow data from the pre-bushfire period and then used to simulate runoff for the post-bushfire period with the calibrated parameters. The difference in simulated streamflow between pre- and post-bushfire periods provides an estimate of the impact of climate variability on streamflow. The impact of bushfire on streamflow is quantified by removing the climate variability impact from the difference in mean annual observed streamflow between post- and pre-bushfire periods. For the first 15 years after the 1983 bushfires, the results from hydrological models for the three catchments indicate that there is a substantial increase in streamflow; this is attributed to initial decreases in evapotranspiration and soil infiltration rates resulting from the fires, followed by logging activity. After 15 years, streamflow dynamics are more heavily influenced by climate effects, although some impact from fire and logging regeneration may still occur. The results show that hydrological models provide reasonably consistent estimates of bushfire and climate impacts on streamflow for the three catchments. The models can be used to quantify relative contributions of forest disturbance (bushfire, logging and other forest management) and climate variability. The results presented can also help forest managers understand the relationship between bushfire and climate variability impacts on water yield in the context of climate variability.
Sustaining the Buyout Governance Model: Inside Secondary Management Buyout Boards

We examine the impact of private equity (PE) directors and their human capital on operating performance in a unique hand collected sample of 200 secondary management buyouts (SMBOs) during 2000-2015. We show that PE directors’ human capital tends to play statistically and economically important role in performance. Financial (rather than operational) experience of PE directors in acquiring PE firms tends to have a substantial impact on post-SMBO profitability while high level business education is especially important in post-SMBO growth performance enhancement. Complementary expertise, provided by directors in buying and selling PE firms, plays an important role only in post-SMBO growth improvements. Overall, our results provide evidence that governance benefits of the buyout model tend not to be exhausted in the primary buyout stage but the effects in the secondary buyout phase depend on the nature of PE directors’ human capital resource, notably in respect of the balance between board monitoring and advisory roles. Our study therefore adds to growing evidence on how ownership and life-cycle nature of firms affect sustainability of boards fulfilling their roles. The results are robust to sample selection bias, different types of PE firms and different measures of human capital.
A Survey on Public Web Service Repositories

Web service Technology has been developing rapidly as it provides a flexible application-to-application interaction mechanism. Several ongoing research efforts focus on various aspects of Web service technology, including the modeling, specification, discovery, composition and verification of Web services. The approaches advocated are often conflicting-based as they are differing expectations on the current status of Web services as well as differing models of their future evolution. One way of deciding the relative relevance of the various research directions is to look at their applicability to the currently available Web services. To this end, we conducted a survey on currently publicly available Web service repositories. Our aim is to get an idea of the number, complexity and composability of these Web services and see if this analysis provides useful information about the near-term fruitful research directions.
Like Parents, Like Citizens: Mexican Children’s Political Socialization

This paper addresses how future citizens are being socialized in Mexico, and more specifically, what is the role of family communication and viewing news in shaping civic awareness and political participation. The analyzed data comes from a survey to Mexican children enrolled in the 6 th year of elementary school in three cities of the North East of Mexico (n = 1544). The analytical strategy consisted in developing a full structural equation model to test both the validity of the constructs proposed, and the hypothetical relationships among those constructs. Results reinforced the central role of parents in shaping future citizens, by having an effect on children’s attitudes to political participation. Otherwise, TV news viewing was found as having an effect on children’s civic awareness, but just a weak effect on children’s attitudes to political participation. The paper concludes with a final elaboration regarding theoretical and public policy implications from those findings; more specifically, it offers guidelines for educational interventions that take advantage from the relevance of parents on shaping Mexican future citizens. Keywords: Political socialization, political communication, civic development, public opinion, structural equation models. Submission date: 2013-05-30 Acceptance date: 2013-12-08