Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Erosion and Storm Water Runoff: sPower Solar Farm Project: Watershed Environmental Analysis

The University of Richmond has announced their partnership with sPower’s Spotsylvania Solar Energy Center that is to be developed in the next two years to contribute to their 2050 carbon neutrality goals. The university is supposed to have 20 MWs of the 500 MW solar development, which should produce enough energy to account for 100% of the electricity usage on campus. This will make the University of Richmond the first institution of higher education in the southeast to match 100% of its electricity needs with solar energy and will decrease the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60% (University of Richmond 2019). While this is a huge step for the university, the solar development has been receiving a lot of opposition from the community of Spotsylvania in concern for the potential environmental impacts that will come from the solar project. This solar project is extremely large scale and has unavoidable environmental impacts, but sPower has designed extensive mitigation strategies to combat them. This report discusses where those environmental concerns are coming from, focusing specifically on erosion and storm water runoff from the installation of the solar panels, as well as the mitigation strategies designed by sPower. The goal of this report is to look further into the information released to the public by sPower, to expand on the information in a simpler but educational way, so that any stakeholder of the solar project can understand the information presented.
Understanding Continuance Intention of Mobile Payment Services: An Empirical Study

ABSTRACT Research on continued use of mobile payment services is scarce. To address part of this research gap, we examine a research model, derived from IT continuance, risk-trust, and affect-cognition literature. The results show that user satisfaction with mobile payment services has a substantive positive impact on continuance intention with such services; the disconfirmation of preadoption perceived usefulness about mobile payment services positively impacts user satisfaction and postadoption perceived usefulness; the disconfirmation of preadoption perceived risk about mobile payment services negatively impacts user satisfaction and positively impacts postadoption perceived risk; postadoption perceived usefulness is positively associated with continuance intention; user satisfaction positively impacts both institution-based trust in mobile payment technologies and trust beliefs in service providers; institution-based trust shows a positive impact on postadoption perceived usefulness and a negative impact on postadoption perceived risk.
Saturation of Grain Refinement during Severe Plastic Deformation of Single Phase Materials: Reconsiderations, Current Status and Open Questions

Grain refinement of materials by severe plastic deformation, investigation and understanding of their properties and phenomena has been a subject of intensive research over the last three decades. Along with the invention and development of these processes it has been recognized, that grain refinement is not indefinite but stagnates for single phase materials. Accordingly, the minimum grain sizes achievable are in the range between 50 and 500 nm. Motivated to find ways to overcome these limitations, effort has been made to understand the reasons behind. Various processes were suggested to cause saturation of grain fragmentation. While all of these assumptions and models were not based on direct observations, recently in-situ approaches allowed significant progress in understanding microstructural evolution and the principle restoration processes during severe straining. It is the aim of this work to recap important earlier findings, reconsider proposed models and to present our current understanding of the processes limiting grain refinement upon severe straining. Further it will be discussed, that similar processes generally occur during deformation of such fine scaled materials. They do not only govern saturation of grain refinement during severe deformation but more important also the mechanical response and performance of these materials. This motivates an in-depth understanding and therefore open questions as well as discrepancies between various experiments will be deliberately highlighted to stimulate further research and thus progress within this area. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.MF201918]
Diversity of Zingiberaceae and traditional uses by three indigenous groups at Lore Lindu National Park, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

Research on gingers and their traditional uses by three different indigenous ethnic groups at Lore Lindu National Park, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia was carried out from February to June 2018. The objectives of the research was to gain information about the diversity of the family Zingiberaceae and its traditional uses by the Topo Baria, Toi Toro Muma and To Kaili Ledo people. Key informants were traditional healers (sando), traditional leaders (adat), community leaders, village leaders, religion leaders, government officers and crafts-people. The interviews were recorded using audio recorders and notebooks. Samples of plants were collected and photographed while recording the information. Response was obtained by “Snowball technique”. A total of 24 species of Zingiberaceae were used of which 19 were determined to species level. Eight species were collected from natural forest, while 14 were recorded from agricultural habitat. Four of the species were endemic to Sulawesi (Alpinia eremochlamys, A. rubricaulis, Etlingera acanthodes and E. flexuosa). Fourteen species were not native to Sulawesi but widely cultivated in the region. The information about the uses by the Topo Baria was not adequate whereas the contrary the Toi Toro Muma and To Kaili Ledo used several species for various daily purposes, such as medicine, spice, cosmetics, ornamentals, or to be eat freshly.
Mid-Holocene climate change over China: model–data discrepancy

Abstract. The mid-Holocene period (MH) has long been an ideal target for the validation of general circulation model (GCM) results against reconstructions gathered in global datasets. These studies aim to test GCM sensitivity, mainly to seasonal changes induced by the orbital parameters (longitude of the perihelion). Despite widespread agreement between model results and data on the MH climate, some important differences still exist. There is no consensus on the continental size (the area of the temperature anomaly) of the MH thermal climate response, which makes regional quantitative reconstruction critical to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the MH climate patterns. Here, we compare the annual and seasonal outputs from the most recent Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (PMIP3) models with an updated synthesis of climate reconstruction over China, including, for the first time, a seasonal cycle of temperature and precipitation. Our results indicate that the main discrepancies between model and data for the MH climate are the annual and winter mean temperature. A warmer-than-present climate condition is derived from pollen data for both annual mean temperature (∼0.7 K on average) and winter mean temperature (∼1 K on average), while most of the models provide both colder-than-present annual and winter mean temperature and a relatively warmer summer, showing a linear response driven by the seasonal forcing. By conducting simulations in BIOME4 and CESM, we show that surface processes are the key factors creating the uncertainties between models and data. These results pinpoint the crucial importance of including the non-linear responses of the surface water and energy balance to vegetation changes.
Microleakage of a Self-Adhesive Flowable Composite, a Self-Adhesive Fissure Sealant and a Conventional Fissure Sealant in Permanent Teeth with/without Saliva Contamination

Objectives: Application of fissure sealants is a practical method for prevention of occlusal pit and fissure caries. Microleakage is an important factor affecting the success of fissure sealant treatment. This study aimed to assess the microleakage of a self-adhesive flowable composite, a self-adhesive fissure sealant and a conventional fissure sealant in permanent teeth with/without saliva contamination. Materials and Methods: This in vitro, experimental study evaluated 108 extracted human third molars, which were randomly divided into six groups (n=18) of control, Denu-Seal conventional fissure sealant applied on etched enamel with/without saliva contamination, Vertise Flow self-adhesive flowable composite applied on rinsed and dried enamel with/without saliva contamination and Prevent Seal self-adhesive fissure sealant applied on rinsed and dried enamel with/without saliva contamination. Microleakage was assessed using the dye penetration technique and subsequent observation of samples under a stereomicroscope. Data were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Tukey’s test. Results: Microleakage of the conventional fissure sealant with/without saliva contamination was significantly lower than that of other groups (P<0.05). Conclusion: Microleakage of the conventional fissure sealant is less than that of self-adhesive fissure sealant and self-adhesive composite, irrespective of saliva contamination.
PENGEMBANGAN E-MODUL BERBASIS PROJECT BASED LEARNING PADA MATA PELAJARAN SIMULASI DIGITAL UNTUK SISWA KELAS X STUDI KASUS DI SMK NEGERI 2 SINGARAJA

Abstrak Tujuan penelitian ini (1) Untuk mengimplementasikan hasil Pengembangan E-Modul Berbasis Project Based Learning Pada Mata Pelajaran Simulasi Digital Untuk Siswa Kelas X Studi Kasus Di SMK Negeri 2 Singaraja, (2) Untuk mengetahui respon siswa terhadap Pengembangan E-Modul Berbasis Project Based Learning Pada Mata Pelajaran Simulasi Digital Untuk Siswa Kelas X Studi Kasus Di SMK Negeri 2 Singaraja. Jenis penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah Penelitian dan Pengembangan Research and Development (R & D) dengan model pengembangan ADDIE . Subjek penelitian ini yaitu siswa kelas X Tata Boga 5 SMK Negeri 2 Singaraja tahun ajaran 2015/2016. Untuk mengetahui respon siswa terhadap e-modul yang dikembangkan, diperoleh dengan menggunakan metode kuisioner dengan alat pengumpulan data berupa angket. Hasil analisis respon siswa menunjukkan bahwa persentase siswa yang memberikan respon sangat baik sebesar 60%, persentase siswa yang memberikan respon baik sebesar 40%, dan tidak ada siswa yang memberikan respon cukup, kurang maupun sangat kurang. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian terhadap pengembangan e-modul pada mata pelajaran simulasi digital secara keseluruhan persentase respon siswa menunjukkan angka 90,6 % dapat dikategorikan sangat baik. Kata kunci: E-Modul, R&D , ADDIE , Respon, Simulasi Digital. Abstract The purposes of this study were (1) to impelements design of the E-modul development by the Project Based Learning model in the Digital Simulation subject for X grade students of SMK Negeri 2 Singaraja, (2) To know the response of the students toward the E-modul development by the Project Based Learning model in the Digital Simulation subject for X grade students of SMK Negeri 2 Singaraja. The type of this study was using Research and Development (R&D) with applied the method ADDIE model. The subject of this study was class of X Tata Boga 5 SMK Negeri 2 Singaraja in study year 2015/2016. The response of the students toward the e-modul development, was obtained by using questionnaire method. The result of the student’s responses were indicated that the percentages were 60% for the Very Good-response by 40% of the Good-response. Overall on the result of this study, by the percentage of 90% can be categorized as Very Good. Keywords : e-modul, Research and development, ADDIE, response, simulasi digital
Automated Hierarchy Discovery for Planning in Partially Observable Environments

Planning in partially observable domains is a notoriously difficult problem. However, inmany real-world scenarios, planning can be simplified by decomposing the task into a hierarchy of smaller planning problems. Several approaches have been proposed to optimize a policy that decomposes according to a hierarchy specified a priori. In this paper, we investigate the problem of automatically discovering the hierarchy. More precisely, we frame the optimization of a hierarchical policy as a non-convex optimization problem that can be solved with general non-linear solvers, a mixed-integer non-linear approximation or a form of bounded hierarchical policy iteration. By encoding the hierarchical structure as variables of the optimization problem, we can automatically discover a hierarchy. Our method is flexible enough to allow any parts of the hierarchy to be specified based on prior knowledge while letting the optimization discover the unknown parts. It can also discover hierarchical policies, including recursive policies, that are more compact (potentially infinitely fewer parameters) and often easier to understand given the decomposition induced by the hierarchy.
An Efficient Representation-Based Subspace Clustering Framework for Polarized Hyperspectral Images

Recently, representation-based subspace clustering algorithms for hyperspectral images (HSIs) have been developed with the assumption that pixels belonging to the same land-cover class lie in the same subspace. Polarization is regarded to be a complement to spectral information, but related research only focus on the clustering for HSIs without considering polarization, and cannot effectively process large-scale hyperspectral datasets. In this paper, we propose an efficient representation-based subspace clustering framework for polarized hyperspectral images (PHSIs). Combining with spectral information and polarized information, this framework is extensible for most existing representation-based subspace clustering algorithms. In addition, with a sampling-clustering-classification strategy which firstly clusters selected in-sample data into several classes and then matches the out-of-sample data into these classes by collaborative representation-based classification, the proposed framework significantly reduces the computational complexity of clustering algorithms for PHSIs. Some experiments were carried out to demonstrate the accuracy, efficiency and potential capabilities of the algorithms under the proposed framework.
Modification of Nitinol Biomaterial for Medical Applications

In the paper, a review of modification methods which have been applied to Nitinol intermetallic compound used as biomaterial for medical applications, is carried out. A variety of methods used for Nitinol improvement, beginning from its manufacture, covers mechanical treatment, heat treatment, chemical processing including water boiling, electropolishing, plasma ion implantation, coating to improve the corrosion resistance, minimize nickel leaching, improve osseointegration, and/or vascular compatibility, sterilization and disinfection. Nitinol alloying by addition of a third element to replace Ti or Ni has an enormous effect on phase transformation, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility of the newly created ternary Nitinol alloy. Unfortunately, the ternary nitinol alloys – apart from NiTiCu in actuators and NiTiCr in wires used as a pulling-pushing tool in minimally invasive spine operation – have not found a widespread industrial application yet. One of the most effective surface finishing operations used for metallic biomaterials, with a special attention directed to Nitinol, appears to be magnetoelectropolishing (MEP). A uniform magnetic field used in MEP process can be generated by permanent magnets or by electromagnets. MEP leads to refinement of surface chemical composition impossible to achieve by standard electropolishing. During MEP of alloys and intermetallic World Scientific News 96 (2018) 35-58 -36compounds, ferromagnetic elements, such as Fe (from stainless steels) or Ni, are primarily removed from the surface so that the passive film on Nitinol is totally composed of titanium oxide. One more unique feature of metal samples after MEP is their de-hydrogenation noticed both in stainless steels, niobium, titanium and Nitinol. In fact, the fatigue resistance of Nitinol after MEP referred to asreceived, dependent on the refinement and displacement of inclusions, increases from three to seven times.
A Validation of ERA5 Reanalysis Data in the Southern Antarctic Peninsula—Ellsworth Land Region, and Its Implications for Ice Core Studies

Climate reanalyses provide key information to calibrate proxy records in regions with scarce direct observations. The climate reanalysis used to perform a proxy calibration should accurately reproduce the local climate variability. Here we present a regional scale evaluation of meteorological parameters using ERA-Interim and ERA5 reanalyses compared to in-situ observations from 13 automatic weather stations (AWS), located in the southern Antarctic Peninsula and Ellsworth Land, Antarctica. Both reanalyses seem to perform better in the escarpment area (>1000 m a.s.l) than on the coast. A significant improvement is observed in the performance of ERA5 over ERA-Interim. ERA5 is highly accurate, representing the magnitude and variability of near-surface air temperature and wind regimes. The higher spatial and temporal resolution provided by ERA5 reduces significantly the cold coastal biases identified in ERA-Interim and increases the accuracy representing the wind direction and wind speed in the escarpment. The slight underestimation in the wind speed obtained from the reanalyses could be attributed to an interplay of topographic factors and the effect of local wind regimes. Three sites in this region are highlighted for their potential for ice core studies. These sites are likely to provide accurate proxy calibrations for future palaeoclimatic reconstructions.
Deformation of Ionospheric Potential Pattern by Ionospheric Hall Polarization

The present study shows that the ionospheric Hall polarization can deform the high‐latitude ionospheric convection field, which is widely considered to be a manifestation of the convection field in the magnetosphere. We perform the Hall polarization field separation with a potential solver by changing the conductance distribution step by step from a uniform one to a more realistic one. We adopt dawn‐dusk and north‐south symmetric distributions of conductance and region 1 (R1) field‐aligned current (FAC). The pair of the primary field of the R1 system and each gradient of off‐diagonal component of conductance tensor (Hall conductance) generates the Hall polarization field and consequently causes potential deformations as follows. (a) The equatorward gradient causes clockwise rotation. (b) The gradient across the terminator, together with the effect of the equatorward gradient, causes the dawn‐dusk asymmetry. (c) The high conductance band in the auroral region causes kink‐type deformations. In particular, a nested structure at the equatorward edge of the band in the midnight sector well resembles the Harang Reversal. Result (a) can explain the clockwise bias inexplicable by the IMF‐By effect alone, the combination of (a) and (b) can explain the clearness and unclearness in the round or crescent shapes of the dawn‐dusk cells depending on the IMF‐By polarity, and (c) suggests that the ionosphere may not need the upward‐FAC for the formation of the Harang Reversal. We suggest that the final structure of the ionospheric potential is established by the combined effects of the magnetospheric requirements (external causes) and ionospheric polarization (internal effect).
Long-Distance LIDAR Mapping Schematic for Fast Monitoring of Bioaerosol Pollution over Large City Areas

Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) atmospheric sensing is a major tool for remote monitoring of aerosol pollution and its propagation in the atmosphere. Combining LIDAR sensing with ground-based aerosol monitoring can form the basis of integrated air-quality characterization. When present, biological atmospheric contamination is transported by aerosol particles of different size known as bioaerosol, whose monitoring is now among the basic areas of atmospheric research, especially in densely-populated large urban regions, where many bio-aerosol-emitting sources exist. Thus, promptly identifying the bioaerosol sources, including their geographical coordinates, intensities, space-time distributions, etc., becomes a major task of a city monitoring system. This chapter argues in favor of integrating a LIDAR mapping schematic with in situ sampling and characterization of the bioaerosol in the urban area. The measurements, data processing, and decision-making aimed at preventing further atmospheric contamination should be performed in a near-real-time mode, which imposes certain demands on the typical LIDAR schematics, including long-range sensing as a critical parameter, especially over large areas (10 – 100 km2). In this chapter, we describe experiments using a LIDAR schematic allowing near-real-time long-distance measurements of urban bioaerosol combined with its ground-based sampling and physicochemical and biological studies.
Direct Synthesis of Large-Area Graphene on Insulating Substrates at Low Temperature using Microwave Plasma CVD

With a combination of outstanding properties and a wide spectrum of applications, graphene has emerged as a significant nanomaterial. However, to realize its full potential for practical applications, a number of obstacles have to be overcome, such as low-temperature, transfer-free growth on desired substrates. In most of the reports, direct graphene growth is confined to either a small area or high sheet resistance. Here, an attempt has been made to grow large-area graphene directly on insulating substrates, such as quartz and glass, using magnetron-generated microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition at a substrate temperature of 300 °C with a sheet resistance of 1.3k Ω/□ and transmittance of 80%. Graphene is characterized using Raman microscopy, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, optical imaging, UV–vis spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Four-probe resistivity and Hall effect measurements were performed to investigate electronic properties. Key to this report is the use of 0.3 sccm CO2 during growth to put a control over vertical graphene growth, generally forming carbon walls, and 15–20 min of O3 treatment on as-synthesized graphene to improve sheet carrier mobility and transmittance. This report can be helpful in growing large-area graphene directly on insulating transparent substrates at low temperatures with advanced electronic properties for applications in transparent conducting electrodes and optoelectronics.
Theory of ultrafast electron transfer from localized quantum states at surfaces .

The ability of materials to transfer electrons is a basic property controlling the functionality and performance of devices at the nanoscale. Of particular importance is the tranfor of electros at surfaces as a fundamental process in catalytic and photocatalytic applications. This work aims along these lines at a theoretical description of resonant charge injection at surfaces using a combination of density functional theory and Green's functions. A close comparison with available data from core-hole-clock experiments is maintained throughout the work and confirms the validity and predictive power of our first-principles approach. This is demonstrated on the basis of three prototypical systems where we study fundamental aspects of charge transfer, providing additional, often complementary information to the interpretation of the experiments. First, we present a detailed study of the effects of structural fluctuations on elastic charge transfer for isonicotinic acid adsorbed on rutile (110) in relation to photovoltaic applications. Second we explore spin-dependent charge injection from core-excited argon resonances on Co(0001) and Fe(110), with possible implications for spintronics. Third, we examine the directionality of charge transfer from sulfur related resonances at surfaces of layered 1T-TaS2 in the commensurate charge density wave phase.