Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validation of a numerical particle based method for free surface flow downstream of sluice gates

This study is a numerical investigation in which a meshfree computational method known as the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is applied to examine its efficiency and accuracy in predicting the flow field variables of free surface flow passing a sluice gate. For this purpose, the numerical 2D SPHysics model, as an implementation of the computational SPH method, is adopted. The numerical code is validated against the theoretical and experimental results of previous works. The validation is performed taking into consideration the conjugate flow depths and velocities for different total upstream heads passing under a fixed gate opening height. The quantitative agreement between the results computed by the numerical 2D SPHysics code and the theoretical and experimental results is fairly good confirming that the numerical code is robust in predicting the flow properties in sluice gates. Then, the validated code is used to find the energy dissipation rate for various total upstream heads and Froude numbers. The results obtained in this study are promising, indicating that the numerical model can be considered as an efficient alternative tool for hydraulic engineers to predict and understand the flow behavior in hydraulic structures.
Active disturbance rejection control approach to output‐feedback stabilization of lower triangular nonlinear systems with stochastic uncertainty

In this paper, we apply the active disturbance rejection control approach to output‐feedback stabilization for uncertain lower triangular nonlinear systems with stochastic inverse dynamics and stochastic disturbance. We first design an extended state observer (ESO) to estimate both unmeasured states and stochastic total disturbance that includes unknown system dynamics, unknown stochastic inverse dynamics, external stochastic disturbance, and uncertainty caused by the deviation of control parameter from its nominal value. The stochastic total disturbance is then compensated in the feedback loop. The constant gain and the time‐varying gain are used in ESO design separately. The mean square practical stability for the closed‐loop system with constant gain ESO and the mean square asymptotic stability with time‐varying gain ESO are developed, respectively. Some numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed output‐feedback control scheme. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Compendium of medically important snakes, venom activity and clinical presentations in Ghana

Background Snake bite envenoming (SBE) is one neglected tropical disease that has not received the needed attention. The sequelae of burdensome disability and mortality impact the socioeconomic life of communities adversely with little documentation of SBE in health facility records in Ghana. This study details SBE and snake distribution, habits/habitats, type of venom expressed and clinical manifestations. Methodology We conducted a structured thematic desk review of peer reviewed papers, books and reports from repositories including PubMed, World Health Organization (WHO) and Women’s & Children’s Hospital (WCH) Clinical Toxinology Resources using bibliographic software EndNote and search engine Google Scholar with the following key words; snakes, medical importance, snake bites, venom and venom type, envenomation, symptoms and signs, vaccines, venom expenditure, strike behaviour and venom-metering + Ghana, West Africa, Africa, World. We also reviewed data from the District Health Information Management System (DHIMS) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS). Outcome variables were organized as follows: common name (s), species, habitat/habit, species-specific toxin, clinical manifestation, antivenom availability, WHO category. Findings Snake bites and SBE were grouped by the activity of the expressed venom into neurotoxic, cardiotoxic, haemorrhagic, cytotoxic, myotoxic, nephrotoxic and procoagulants. Neurotoxic snake bites were largely due to elapids. Expressed venoms with cardiotoxic, haemorrhagic, nephrotoxic and procoagulant activities principally belonged to the family Viperidae. Snakes with venoms showing myotoxic activity were largely alien to Ghana and the West African sub-region. Venoms showing cytotoxic activity are expressed by a wide range of snakes though more prevalent among the Viperidae family. Snakes with neurotoxic and haemorrhagic venom activities are prevalent across all the agro-ecological zones in Ghana. Conclusion/Significance Understanding the characteristics of snakes and their venoms is useful in the management of SBE. The distribution of snakes by their expressed venoms across the agro-ecological zones is also instructive to species identification and diagnosis of SBE.
Meaning of wellness in caring science based on Rodgers's evolutionary concept analysis.

BACKGROUND Wellness is a holistic, multidimensional, and process-oriented property on a continuum. It has been used interchangeably with and is undifferentiated from concepts such as health and well-being without an in-depth clarification of its theoretical foundations and a reflection on its meaning. The concept of wellness is frequently used, but its definition remains unclear. AIM To conceptually and theoretically explore the concept of wellness to contribute to a deeper understanding in caring science. METHOD Rodgers' evolutionary concept analysis was applied to the theoretical investigation of data from publications of international origins. The focus was on antecedents, attributes, consequences, surrogate and related terms, and contextual references. A literature search was performed through a manual review of reference lists and an online search in CINAHL and PubMed via EBSCO, and in ProQuest. Abstracts were examined to identify relevant studies for further review. The inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed papers in English; papers published in scientific journals using the surrogate terms 'wellness', 'health', 'health care', and 'health care and wellness'; and papers discussing and/or defining the concept of wellness. Twenty-six studies met the inclusion criteria. RESULTS Based on the findings from this concept analysis, a definition of wellness was developed: 'a holistic and multidimensional concept represented on a continuum of being well that goes beyond health'. Implications for nursing practice were correspondingly presented. CONCLUSION Wellness is defined as a holistic and comprehensive multidimensional concept represented on a continuum of being well, that goes beyond health. It calls attention by applying the salutogenic perspective to health promotion in caring science. It is strongly related to individual lifestyle and health behaviour and is frequently used interchangeably with health and well-being without an in-depth clarification of its theoretical foundation.
This is the Table I Want! Interactive Data Transformation on Desktop and in Virtual Reality

Data transformation is an essential step in data science. While experts primarily use programming to transform their data, there is an increasing need to support non-programmers with user interface-based tools. With the rapid development in interaction techniques and computing environments, we report our empirical findings about the effects of interaction techniques and environments on performing data transformation tasks. Specifically, we studied the potential benefits of direct interaction and virtual reality (VR) for data transformation. We compared gesture interaction versus a standard WIMP user interface, each on the desktop and in VR. With the tested data and tasks, we found time performance was similar between desktop and VR. Meanwhile, VR demonstrates preliminary evidence to better support provenance and sense-making throughout the data transformation process. Our exploration of performing data transformation in VR also provides initial affirmation for enabling an iterative and fully immersive data science workflow.
Gel-controlled droplet spreading

Spreading and stationary droplets of a thermally responsive fluid on a heated surface are studied. The fluid undergoes a reversible gel formation at elevated temperature. The spatio-temporal pattern of gel formation within the droplet is examined using an experimental method based on spectral domain optical coherence tomography and time varying speckle patterns. Two stages of gel formation can be distinguished: first, a thin crust appears starting at the contact line. Second, a gel layer appears above the heated plate and then expands upward. We attribute the first stage of gel formation to solvent evaporation and heating through the air and the second to thermal conduction through the fluid from the base. Gel formation at the contact line is likely responsible for the arrest of spreading droplets, but was not detectable with our experimental protocol at the time of contact line arrest, suggesting that this arose over a microscopic length scale. Overall, substrate heating provides an effective way to control the final shape of droplets of thermo-responsive fluids.
Temperature-dependent optical band structure and defect mode in a one-dimensional photonic liquid crystal

ABSTRACT We analysed the propagation of an electromagnetic wave in a one-dimensional periodic system composed of a finite set of E7 liquid crystal mixture slabs in a twisted configuration alternated by homogeneous and isotropic dielectric layers. For different incident angles of the circularly polarised wave, we studied the optical band structure for reflectance and transmittance considering that the dielectric matrix of the device depends on temperature and wavelength. We demonstrated that the position of the band can be moved from visible to short-infrared spectrum region by increasing the thickness of the layers. We found that for a fixed incident angle, the band spectrum shifts towards the short-wavelength region as the temperature gets increasing, whereas, for a constant temperature, such a spectrum moves towards larger frequencies as the incident angle increases. We show that when one of the homogeneous and isotropic slabs has a different size compared with the remaining ones, a defect mode is induced in the band structure whose frequency can be thermally tuned. Graphical Abstract
Caregiver Psychological Burden in Pediatric Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Associations with Caregiver Sociodemographic and Biopsychosocial Variables.

OBJECTIVE To investigate, via systematic review and meta-analysis, caregiver sociodemographic and biopsychosocial factors associated with anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and stress of caregivers in the pediatric chronic pain context. METHODS EMBASE, Medline, and PsycINFO databases were searched from their inception to the search date (April 4, 2022). Studies were included if they examined caregivers of youth with chronic pain, were published in a peer-reviewed journal and assessed at least one quantitative association between relevant variables. Qualitative and intervention studies were excluded. A total of 3,052 articles were screened. Risk of bias was assessed using the JBI Checklist for analytical cross-sectional studies. Meta-analyses were conducted using robust variance estimation for associations reported in at least three studies, as well as a narrative synthesis of the evidence. RESULTS Fourteen studies assessing 1,908 caregivers were included in this review. Meta-analytic results showed a positive pooled correlation coefficient between caregiver catastrophizing about their child's pain and caregiver anxiety (r = 0.51; 95% CI: 0.35-0.65; p<.01) and depression (r = 0.45; 95% CI: 0.29-0.58; p < .01). Self-blame and helplessness were related to increased caregiver anxiety (r = 0.55; 95% CI: 0.40-0.67; p<.01), but not depression. No significant relationship was found for pain-promoting behavior and anxiety or depression. The qualitative synthesis of all other eligible studies showed associations between relevant psychological burden variables and various caregiver factors, which were mainly psychosocial. CONCLUSION Results should be interpreted with caution due to the small number of studies. Further research is needed to get a better understanding of these relationships and to examine the causal direction of effects.
Promoting the activity of a receptor tyrosine phosphatase with a novel pH‐responsive transmembrane agonist inhibits cancer‐associated phenotypes

Cell signaling by receptor protein tyrosine kinases (RTKs) is tightly controlled by the counterbalancing actions of receptor protein tyrosine phosphatases (RPTPs). Due to their role in attenuating the signal‐initiating potency of RTKs, RPTPs have long been viewed as therapeutic targets. However, the development of activators of RPTPs has remained limited. We previously reported that the homodimerization of a representative member of the RPTP family (protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor J or PTPRJ) is regulated by specific transmembrane (TM) residues. Disrupting this interaction by single point mutations promotes PTPRJ access to its RTK substrates (e.g., EGFR and FLT3), reduces RTK's phosphorylation and downstream signaling, and ultimately antagonizes RTK‐driven cell phenotypes. Here, we designed and tested a series of first‐in‐class pH‐responsive TM peptide agonists of PTPRJ that are soluble in aqueous solution but insert as a helical TM domain in lipid membranes when the pH is lowered to match that of the acidic microenvironment of tumors. The most promising peptide reduced EGFR's phosphorylation and inhibited cancer cell EGFR‐driven migration and proliferation, similar to the PTPRJ's TM point mutations. Developing tumor‐selective and TM‐targeting peptide binders of critical RPTPs could afford a potentially transformative approach to studying RPTP's selectivity mechanism without requiring less specific inhibitors and represent a novel class of therapeutics against RTK‐driven cancers.
Computation of Electrical Conductivities of Aqueous Electrolyte Solutions: Two Surfaces, One Property

In this work, we computed electrical conductivities under ambient conditions of aqueous NaCl and KCl solutions by using the Einstein–Helfand equation. Common force fields (charge q = ±1 e) do not reproduce the experimental values of electrical conductivities, viscosities, and diffusion coefficients. Recently, we proposed the idea of using different charges to describe the potential energy surface (PES) and the dipole moment surface (DMS). In this work, we implement this concept. The equilibrium trajectories required to evaluate electrical conductivities (within linear response theory) were obtained by using scaled charges (with the value q = ±0.75 e) to describe the PES. The potential parameters were those of the Madrid-Transport force field, which accurately describe viscosities and diffusion coefficients of these ionic solutions. However, integer charges were used to compute the conductivities (thus describing the DMS). The basic idea is that although the scaled charge describes the ion–water interaction better, the integer charge reflects the value of the charge that is transported due to the electric field. The agreement obtained with experiments is excellent, as for the first time electrical conductivities (and the other transport properties) of NaCl and KCl electrolyte solutions are described with high accuracy for the whole concentration range up to their solubility limit. Finally, we propose an easy way to obtain a rough estimate of the actual electrical conductivity of the potential model under consideration using the approximate Nernst–Einstein equation, which neglects correlations between different ions.
A polynomial-time algorithm for approximating the ground state of 1D gapped Hamiltonians

A (deterministic) polynomial-time algorithm is proposed for approximating the ground state of (general) one-dimensional gapped Hamiltonians. Let $\epsilon,n,\eta$ be the energy gap, the system size, and the desired precision, respectively. Neglecting $\epsilon$-dependent subpolynomial (in $n$) and constant factors, the running time of the algorithm is $n^{O(1/\epsilon)}$ for $\eta=n^{-O(1)}$ and is $n^{O(1)}$ for $\eta=n^{-o(1)}$.
Training Doctoral Students in Educational Statistics in the United States: A National Survey

Although numerous research studies have focused on issues related to the teaching of statistics, few studies have focused on the training of people who may become statistics teachers. The purpose of this study was to examine doctoral students' preparation in statistics in the field of education. A national survey was conducted of twenty-seven quantitative methods (QM) programs. One QM professor from each program was identified and asked to describe and evaluate the training of QM and non-QM doctoral students at his or her institution. The vast majority of professors indicated that most or all of the students in their QM programs received training in the “old standard” procedures ‐‐ ANOVA, multiple regression, and traditional multivariate procedures, whereas fewer than half of the professors indicated that most or all of their QM students received training in more recent procedures such as bootstrapping and multilevel models. Professors were also asked to rate the skills of their QM students in areas such .
Effects on the Human Tear Film of Applying Skin Lipids to the Ocular Surface

Purpose: The effect of skin lipids on the formation and stability of the human tear film was investigated. Methods: Skin swab substances (SSSs) were applied to the eyes of volunteers and studied using fluorescein or with TearView, which records infrared emissivity showing tear film integrity in real time. Results were compared with similar experiments using castor oil, freshly collected meibum, or acetic acid, which simulated the low pH of the skin. Results: Fluorescein and TearView results were comparable. TearView showed the natural unaltered tear film over the whole eye, instant changes to the tear film, and meibomian gland activity. Minimal amounts of SSS destroyed the integrity of the film and caused pain. Corneal epithelial damage could be detected. TearView showed that SSS stimulated meibomian gland secretion if applied directly to the posterior eyelid margin. Excess meibum had no effect on the tear film spread or integrity. Castor oil formed floating lenses on the tear film which were spread by a blink but then condensed back toward themselves. There was no pain or surface damage with these oils. Conclusions: SSS contamination of the ocular surface disrupts the tear film, causes stinging, and fluorescein staining of the corneal epithelial cells after a blink. SSS stimulates meibomian gland activity. It is possible that various ocular conditions associated with dry eye, such as blepharitis and ocular rosacea, may compromise a meibomian lipid barrier of the eye lid margin. Skin lipids would then have access to the ocular surface and cause dry eye symptoms.
Positivity and qualitative properties of solutions of fourth-order elliptic equations

Cette these concerne l'etude de certains problemes elliptiques d'ordre 4 et, notamment, des proprietes qualitatives des solutions. Ces problemes apparaissent dans de nombreux domaines, par exemple dans la theorie des plaques et dans la geometrie conforme, et, compares a leurs homologues du deuxieme ordre, ils presentent des difficultes intrinseques, surtout liees a l'absence de principe de maximum. Premierement on etudie la positivite des solutions dans le cas des conditions au bord de Steklov, qui sont intermediaires entre les conditions de Dirichlet et de Navier. Elles apparaissent naturellement dans l'etude des minimiseurs de la fonctionnelle de Kirchhoff-Love, qui represente l'energie d'une plaque encastree soumise a l'action d'une force exterieure, en fonction d'un parametre $\sigma$. On trouve des conditions suffisantes sur le domaine pour que les minimiseurs de la fonctionnelle soient positifs. De plus, pour ces domaines on etudie une version generalisee de la fonctionnelle. En utilisant des techniques variationnelles, on examine l'existence et la positivite des etats fondamentaux, ainsi que leur comportement asymptotique pour les valeurs pertinentes de $\sigma$. Dans la deuxieme partie de la these on etablit des estimations uniformes a priori pour des problemes semi lineaires du quatrieme ordre dans $\mathbb R^4$, et donc avec des non linearites exponentielles. On considere des conditions au bord soit de Dirichlet soit de Navier et on suppose que les non linearites sont positives et sous-critiques. Nos arguments combinent des estimations uniformes pres du bord et une analyse de blow-up. Enfin, en utilisant la theorie du degre, on obtient l'existence d'une solution.
High power mid-IR OPCPA system pumped by a femtosecond Yb-doped fiber amplifier

We describe an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) architecture built around a state of the art Yb-doped fiber femtosecond pump source delivering 300 fs 400 μ pulses at a repetition rate 125 kHz (50 W average power) and a central wavelength of 1030 nm. The short pump pulse duration compared to bulk Yb:YAG or Nd:YVO4 based systems results in a number of important advantages. First, it allows efficient seeding at 1550 nm using supercontinuum generation directly from the pump pulses in a bulk YAG crystal, resulting in extremely robust passive pump-signal synchronization. The short pump pulse duration also allows the use of millimeter to centimeter lengths of bulk materials to provide stretching and compression for the signal and idler, which minimizes the accumulation of higher-order spectral phase. Finally, the shorter pump pulse duration increases the damage peak intensity, permitting the use of shorter nonlinear crystals to perform the amplification, which increases the spectral bandwidth of the parametric process. Additional experiments are performed to sort out the phenomena that limit power scaling in MgO:PPLN crystals. The OPCPA stages are all operated in collinear geometry, allowing the use of both signal and idler without the introduction of angular chirp on the latter. These points result in the dual generation of 70 fs 23 μJ signal pulses at 1550 nm and 60 fs 10 μJ idler pulses at 3070 nm from a simple setup, with the added benefit of inherent CEP stability of the idler pulses.