Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interaction-free measurements with electrons and optical field enhancement at nanotips

Sogenannte wechselwirkungsfreie Messungen sind ein aus der Quantenmechanik bekanntes Interferenzphanomen, mit dessen Hilfe die Anwesenheit eines Objekts detektiert werden kann, ohne das Objekt in irgendeiner Weise zu storen. Der erste Teil dieser Arbeit befasst sich mit wechselwirkungsfreien Messungen mit Elektronen. Integriert in ein Mikroskop konnte diese Technik es ermoglichen, die bei Elektronenmikropskopie auftretenden Strahlenschaden erheblich zu reduzieren. Es werden verschiedene Ansatze zur Realisierung von wechselwirkungsfreien Messungen mit Elektronen und die dabei auftretenden Schwierigkeiten besprochen. Hauptthema hierbei ist der benotigte Elektronen-Strahlteiler. Wir stellen einen moglichen Ansatz vor, der auf der Kontrolle und dem Einschluss eines Elektronenstrahls durch Mikrowellenfelder beruht. Mit diesem Strahlteiler ist es gelungen, einen langsamen Elektronenstrahl mit kinetischer Energie von ungefahr 1 eV in zwei Strahlen zu spalten. Wir diskutieren in einem vereinfachten quantenmechanischen Modell, welche Eigenschaften ein solcher Strahlteiler aufweisen muss, um Elektronenwellen ohne Storung zu teilen und wechselwirkungsfreie Messungen zu ermoglichen. Auserdem beschaftigen wir uns mit der Anwendung von interaktionsfreien Messungen in der Bildgebung, insbesondere mit der Frage, inwiefern sie die Messung und Unterscheidung von Graustufen erlauben. Es stellt sich heraus, dass die Messung von Graustufen im typischen Interferenzaufbau einer wechselwirkungsfreien Messung zwar moglich ist, aber der dabei entstehende Schaden am Messobjekt nur in speziellen Fallen geringer ist als in einer herkommlichen Transmissionsmessung. Wir untersuchen auch den Einfluss von Phasenverschiebungen. Bei Messobjekten, die Graustufen aufweisen und Phasenverschiebungen verursachen, konnen wechselwirkungsfreie Messungen fur Objekte mit hoher Transparenz weniger Schaden verursachen als konventionelle Transmissionsmessungen und Messungen mit einem Mach-Zehnder-Interferometer. Ein weiteres Thema dieser Arbeit ist die optische Feldverstarkung an Nanospitzen. Wir untersuchen in numerischen Simulationen uber einen grosen Parameterbereich, wie die Hohe der Feldverstarkung von der Geometrie und dem Material der Spitze abhangt. Dabei stellen wir fest, dass neben dem Krummungsradius der Spitze auch der Offnungswinkel einen uberraschend grosen Einfluss auf die Feldverstarkung hat, welchen wir durch ein vereinfachtes Modell qualitativ erklaren konnen. Anwendung findet die optische Feldverstarkung in der Photoemission von Elektronen aus scharfen Metallspitzen. Hierzu zeigen wir Experimente in verschiedenen Regimes der Photoemission: einerseits Multiphotonenemission mit einem Erbium-Faserlaser und andererseits Photoemission im Starkfeldregime mit einem Titan-Saphir-Oszillator. Letztere Messungen erlauben es, mit Hilfe einer neuen, auf Elektronen-Ruckstreuung beruhenden Methode die optische Feldverstarkung in unmittelbarer Nahe der Spitzenoberflache zu ermitteln. Die so erhaltenen Ergebnisse stimmen gut mit den Simulationen uberein.
Model-Free Reinforcement Learning for Real-World Robots

Reinforcement Learning allows an artificial agent to learn how to perform a task, given only sensory inputs, and rewards to be maximized. Reinforcement Learning has been successfully applied to several industrial settings, such as energy production and management, transportation, networks, banking, and health care. However, a challenge of Reinforcement Learning, that prevents its wide-spread deployment in many real-world settings, is the need for the agent to learn. When no simulator for a task is available, the agent must learn on the physical system, or the user-facing software. In this case, any mistake made by the agent while learning, due to its still incomplete knowledge or the task, or its inherent need to explore, may have costly effects. In this thesis, we consider real-world tasks that may benefit from Reinforcement Learning, and for which there is no simulator available. We focus on sampleefficiency, that measures how little interactions with the environment the agent needs before learning the task. We believe that with high sample-efficiency (fast learning), few errors are made, leading to an acceptable cost of training the agent. We follow a research line that starts with theoretical insights and algorithms, and aims towards practical applications on physical platforms. We review several families of Reinforcement Learning algorithms, then introduce our first contribution, the model-free actor-critic Bootstrapped Dual Policy Iteration algorithm (BDPI). Thanks to its use of off-policy critics, and an explicit actor, BDPI achieves high-quality exploration and sample-efficiency. Our second theoretical contribution is a formalism, based on the Options framework, that allows an agent to learn partially-observable tasks (with a discrete memory) in a sample-efficient way. Fi-
Integrating GRACE products and land surface models to estimate changes in key components of terrestrial water storage in the Nile River Basin

The Nile River Basin (NRB) is facing extreme pressure on its water resources due to an alarmingly increasing population that is extremely vulnerable in aspects of irrigation and hydropower. The NRB ascends itself to remotely sensed approaches with high resolution of spatial and temporal coverage as disparate to ground-based in-situ observations due to its size and limited access from basin countries. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) allow a unique opportunity to investigate the changes in key components of Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS). Differences in tuning parameters and processing strategies result in GRACE TWS solutions with regionally specific variations and error patterns. We explored the spatiotemporal changes of the TWS time series, trend, uncertainties, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) among different GRACE TWS. We had also investigated the key terrestrial water storage components (surface water, soil moisture, and groundwater storage changes). The results show that the uncertainty of GRACE spherical harmonic (SH) solutions are higher than the mass concentration (mascon) over the NRB, and the Center for Space Research-mascons (CSR-M) noted the first best performance. Substantially, significant long-term (2003–2017) negative groundwater and soil moisture trend demonstrates a potential depletion over NRB. Despite an increase in precipitation and TWS time series, the rate of decline noted to increase rapidly from 2008, thus indicating the possibility of human-induced change ( e.g., for irrigation purposes). Thus, the result of this study provides a guiding principle for future studies in TWS change-related hydro-climatic change over NRB and similar basins.
Study on limiting factors of water eutrophication of the network of rivers in plain.

Influences of light intensity, temperature and nutrients (N, P) on algal growth in the water of network of rivers in plain were studied in this test. It is shown that amount of algae increased logarithmically with increase in light intensity in the range of 1 000 5 000 luxes and with rise in temperature from 15 ℃ to 30 ℃, and 4 000 luxes and 30 ℃ is most favorable. But the influence of temperature was more obvious than that of light intensity. When consistency of T P was 0.1 0.75 mg/L in water, the algal increases logarithmically with the consistency growing up, but it didn't happen with the T N. The specific growth is the highest when the consistency of T P0.5 mg/L, T N1.0 mg/L, and the influence of P is greater than N.
The space group of prehnite

The space groups of different constituent domains in prehnite crystals from Farmington, Conn. , were identified by single crystal X-ray diffraction, transmission and replication electron microscopy, and electron diffraction. A domain with space group P2cm is predominant in both X-ray and electron diffraction patterns. Sub-microscopic interpenetrational polysynthetic twinning of this domain simulates the space group Pncm. The latter can be observed by X-ray diffraction of apparently single macro-crystals, and by electron diffraction on twinned micro-crystals. A domain with space group P2/n is detectable in minor proportions by X-ray diffraction of macro-crystals, but has yet to be identified by electron diffraction.
Survey on Machine Learning for Intelligent End-to-End Communication Toward 6G: From Network Access, Routing to Traffic Control and Streaming Adaption

The end-to-end quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) guarantee is quite important for network optimization. The current 5G and conceived 6G network in the future with ultra high density, bandwidth, mobility and large scale brings urgent requirement of high efficient end-to-end optimization methods. The conventional network optimization methods without learning and intelligent decision ability are hard to handle the high complexity and dynamic scenarios of 6G. Recently, machine learning based QoS and QoE aware network optimization algorithms emerge as a hot research area and attract much attention, which is widely acknowledged as the potential solution for end-to-end optimization in 6G. However, there are still many critical issues of employing machine learning in networks, especially in 6G. In this paper, we give a comprehensive survey on the recent machine learning based network optimization methods to guarantee the end-to-end QoS and QoE. To easy to follow, we introduce the investigated works following the end-to-end transmission flow from network access, routing to network congestion control and adaptive steaming control. Then we discuss some open issues and potential future research directions.
A case-control study on psychotropic substance use and risk of Axis I psychiatric disorders in HIV-infected gay or bisexual men in Hong Kong

Background: Psychotropic substance use is common in HIV-infected gay or bisexual men (GBM). This study examined the association between Axis I psychiatric disorders and active psychotropic substance use, and identified factors affecting the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in HIV-infected GBM.Methods: This is a cross-sectional case-control study taken place in an HIV clinic and community organisations serving people living with HIV or GBM in Hong Kong. Participants were 62 HIV-infected self-identified GBM who reported psychotropic substance use in the past 1 year (cases), and 55 HIV-infected self-identified GBM without psychotropic substance use in the past 1 year and had negative toxicology tests at recruitment (controls). The Chinese-bilingual Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (Axis I, Patient version) was followed to establish the psychiatric diagnoses. Socio-demographic data, level of social support, HIV-related data, and pattern of psychotropic substance use were collected. Results: Cases had lower level of social support (p=0.02), more depressive disorders (AOR 3.4, 95% CI 1.3-8.7, p=0.01) and psychotic disorders (AOR 7.2, 95% CI 1.2-41, p=0.03) but not anxiety disorders. Significant difference in the prevalence of psychiatric disorders was only evident for disorders with onset after HIV diagnosis. Methamphetamine dependence (AOR 6.63, 95% CI 1.53-228.72, p<0.01), weekly methamphetamine use for 2 years or more (AOR 18.6, 95% CI 1.26-274.69, p=0.03), using methamphetamine beyond chemsex (AOR 4.76, 95% CI 1.17-19.41, p=0.03) were significant predictors for psychiatric disorders in the cases in separate logistic regression models. Duration of HIV diagnosis was a significant independent predictor in all three models. Conclusions: Active psychotropic substance use in HIV-infected gay or bisexual men was associated with a 3-fold increase in Axis I psychiatric disorders. This increase in psychiatric disorders was predicted by the severity, duration and context of methamphetamine use and the duration of HIV diagnosis.
The Intergenerational Welfare Implications of Disease Contagion

Using endogenous, age-dependent measures of the value of statistical lives (VSL), this paper examines the demographic implications of recessions driven by disease contagions. Depending on the age-distribution mortality profile of the disease, long-run welfare losses resulting from the recession may outweigh lost VSL’s directly attributable to the disease. This is because disease contagions that induce high levels of hospitalization simultaneously impact aggregate output, via a recession caused by social-distancing, and the productivity of health care services. The efficiency of health investment falls driving down life expectancy (LE). VSL’s fall both because LE’s fall and the marginal value of health care investment falls. Using the Hall and Jones (2007) model of age-specific, endogenous health investment, it is shown that the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 will lead to lost welfare for young agents that exceeds VSL’s lost from the disease. If COVID-19 had the same age-mortality profile as the 1918 Spanish Flu, where more young agents died, contagion-mitigation policies that cause deep recessions would still be socially optimal since more of the high-valued lives of young people would be saved.
Methodology for the Development of a Competence Framework for STE(A)M Educators

The STE(A)MonEdu Project aims to increase the adoption and impact of STE(A)M education by investing in the community of stakeholders and the professional development of educators. Focusing on the professional development of educators, it aims firstly to compile a competence framework for STE(A)M educators and then design appropriate training offers. In this paper, we first discuss the competency-based perspective, alongside with the related work regarding competence frameworks for STE(A)M education. Subsequently, the proposed methodology for the development of a STE(A)M educator competence framework and profile are described, based on a modified Delphi technique and taking advantage of the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu).
Understanding students’ perceptions of dimensions of engineering culture in Ecuador

There is significant engineering education research in the United States on understanding disciplinary engineering culture. Although culture is a complex phenomenon, understanding aspects of it, especially at the disciplinary level, is important to identify paths to improve engineering education in general. For example, understanding how students’ perceive different aspects of their engineering major and their identity formation as engineers can help us understand how to develop effective pedagogical and curricular interventions that help students become effective practicing engineers ready to adapt to the challenges of the contemporary workforce. Understanding disciplinary culture in engineering is also important in order to attract and retain more underrepresented populations into engineering. However, in Latin America, and in Ecuador specifically, there has not been much research in engineering education focused on understanding how students perceive the different patterns of cultural traits in engineering majors. The purpose of this study is to explore how students in civil, environmental, electronics, industrial, and mechanical engineering perceive different dimensions associated with culture.Specifically, we are using Sharma (2010) instrument, developed to measure constructs associated with culture. Sharma’s work was based on Hofstede’s theory of dimensions of national cultures (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity) (Hofstede, 2003), a very well-known theory used to measure culture in different contexts around the world. While Hofstede’s theory is correlational rather than causal, we argue that a better understanding of disciplinary culture from the perspective of characteristics aligned with aspects of the discipline will be valuable to get an initial understanding of students’ perceptions. Data were collected from 75 students during the Fall semester 2019. The students are from the polytechnic college at a liberal arts university in Ecuador. The survey was translated into Spanish and was reviewed by several native Spanish speakers. We piloted the survey with several students. The survey was administered online. Results provide preliminary information on how students perceive aspects of culture like uncertainty avoidance, individualism, power distance, and masculinity. We discuss the relationship of these constructs with aspects of the engineering program. Implications for research and practice are provided
The potential anti- African Swine Fever Virus effects of medium chain fatty acids on in vitro pig feed and water models

Background African swine fever (ASF) is an important disease affecting swine and has a significant economic loss on both the developed and developing world but due to the lack of vaccines, drug, and effective control measures, ASF virus remains a serious threat to global pork production. The activities of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) against viral pathogens have been reported previously. However, the effects of this family on ASFV have been not yet investigated. In this study, we evaluated the potential effects of MCFAs in individual and synergistic forms, to prevent and/or reduce ASFV infection using in vitro feed and water models. Results The potential effects of MCFAs, including C8, C6-C8-C10 (1:1:1 ratio) and C8-C10-C12 (1:1:1 ratio) against a field ASFV strain isolated in Red River Delta region of Vietnam were further examined by real-time PCR in in vitro feed and water models. All tested products have shown a strong antiviral effect against ASFV infectivity at doses of 0.375% and 0.5% in both feed and water assays. Interestingly, the synergistic MCFAs have shown clearly their potential activities against ASFV in which at lower dose of 0.25%, pre-treatment with product 2 and 3 induced significant increases at the level of Cq value when compared to positive control and/or product 1 (P < 0.05). Conclusions To our knowledge, it is the first report on in vitro examination of the anti-ASFV activities of the MCFAs. Our findings suggested that all tested products, both individual and synergistic forms of MCFAs, have possessed a strong anti-ASFV effect and this effect is dose- dependence in in vitro feed and water models. Additionally, synergistic effects of MCFAs are more effective against ASFV when compared to individual form. The further studies focusing on in vivo anti-ASFV effects of MCFAs are very important to bring new insight into the mode of ASFV-reduced action by these compounds in swine feed and water consumption.
Collateral Rental Yield and CIP Arbitrages

An ongoing puzzle is that funding rates for derivatives are different than those of cash market instruments having equivalent cash-flows, resulting in large and persistent cash-derivative bases. These bases are arbitrage opportunities. For the prominent case of cross-currency basis, representing violation of Covered Interest Rate Parity (CIP), I show that accounting for a frictionless costly collateral rental yield, an institutional feature of derivative contracts, explains away up to about four fifths of this violation. I build two unique empirical estimates of this yield. The first assumes the actual collateral rental yield is unobservable and generates it from a Kalman filter latent factor affine model. The second assumes that the collateral rental yield is observable and proxies it using differences of the difference in the risk-free and OIS rates between bilateral currencies. I use three different alternative proxies for the risk-free rate - General Collateral repo, BOX, and T-bill rates. Both approaches yield the same results, sharply reduced apparent violations. The collateral rental yield is independent of other costs or risk-based returns due to intermediary frictions, suggesting that previously documented CIP violations mostly reflect institutional details of derivatives contracts rather than frictions.
Pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency: updating the clinical, metabolic and mutational landscapes

Background : Pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDC) catalyzes the irreversible decarboxylation of pyruvate into acetyl-CoA which ultimately generates ATP. PDC deficiency can be caused by alterations in any of the genes encoding its several subunits, and the resulting phenotype, though very heterogeneous, mainly affects the neuro-encephalic system. The aim of this study is to describe and discuss the clinic, metabolic and genotypic profiles of thirteen PDC deficient patients, thus seeking to establish possible genotype-phenotype correlations. Results : The mutational spectrum revealed that seven patients (54 %) carry mutations in the PDHA1 gene , encoding the E1α subunit, five patients (38 %) carry mutations in the PDHX gene, encoding the E3 binding protein, and the remaining patient (8 %) harbors mutations in the DLD gene, encoding the E3 subunit. These data corroborate PDHA1 mutations as the predominant cause of PDC deficiency, though revealing a notable prevalence of PDHX mutations among Portuguese patients, most of them carrying a seemingly private mutation (p.R284X). The biochemical analyses revealed high lactate and pyruvate plasma levels whereas de ratio L/P was under 16; enzymatic activities, when compared to control values, revealed to be independent from the genotype and ranged from 8.5% to 30% which may be considered a cut-off value for primary PDC deficiency. Concerning the clinical features, all patients displayed developmental delay/psychomotor retardation, the severity of which seems to correlate with the type and localization of the mutation carried by the patient. The therapeutic options essentially go through the administration of a ketogenic diet and supplementation with thiamine, although arginine aspartate intake revealed to be beneficial in some patients. Moreover, the in silico analysis of the missense mutations present in this PDC deficient population allowed to understand the molecular mechanism underlying these pathogenic variants. Conclusion : The identification of the disease-causing mutations, together with the functional and structural characterization of the mutant protein variants, allows to get insight on the severity of the clinical phenotype and the selection of the most appropriate therapy.
Relationships between ideal figure, lifestyle habits, physical activity and self-rated health in Japanese female healthcare students

Background Self-rated health (SRH), a subjective perception of an individual’s overall health, is widely used in public health. The transition from adolescence to young adulthood is a critical period, with significant changes in lifestyle and dietary habits. It is therefore important to understand the self-rated health of young Japanese women. The aim of this study to provide basic data on the epidemiological features of SRH in female students of healthcare subjects, including their recognition of appropriate physique, lifestyle habits, and levels of physical activity. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a total of 1101 female students of healthcare subjects in Japan. Body mass index was calculated from body height and weight using data from periodic health examinations, and lifestyle habits, physical activity, and self-rated health were self-reported using several previously-validated scales. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship between self-rated health and scores for lifestyle habits and physical activity, adjusting for grade and smoking. Results The odds ratio of poor/fair self-rated health was 1.87 (95% confidence interval (Cl) 1.13–3.24) for lower vs higher levels of activity, 5.38 (3.59–8.10) for those with vs. without insomnia, and 0.44 (0.28–0.69) for the group who wanted to be thin, rather than those whose ideal weight was standard. Conclusions Young women tend to want to be thin, so it is important to provide health education that will help them to understand appropriate weight on a medical basis, and prevent health problems caused by the inappropriate idealization of thinness.