Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emerging Venue Considerations for Event Management: The Case of Ireland

Event venues represent a focal point for infectious disease transmission among attendees and event stakeholders, creating lasting uncertainty within the industry post-COVID-19. There is now a need to investigate emerging venue considerations for the event industry as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Ireland as a case, a quantitative questionnaire was used on a sample of event managers. Event venue monitoring for COVID-19 is lacking, while risk mitigation procedures focus more on attendees already at the venue rather than avoiding infected persons entering the venue. Risk assessments now comprise COVID-19 risk; however, a lack of resources means regular health and safety has shown signs of weakening. Government and local authority resources and financial support are required. Pre-venue procedures of symptom screening and proof of vaccination, combined with venue procedures for disinfection of venue spaces, table service, and appropriate ventilation have proven to be effective COVID-19 risk mitigation procedures. Additionally, ICT (information and communications technology) could disseminate up-to-date health guidelines through customer-centric digital environments representing enhanced information sharing to avoid uncertainty and support pro-social intentions of event attendees and compliance with event venue COVID-19 risk mitigation procedures.
Experimental assessment of fractal scale similarity in turbulent flows. Part 3. Multifractal scaling

Earlier experimental assessments of fractal scale similarity in geometric properties of turbulent flows are extended to assess the applicability of multifractal scale-similarity in the conserved scalar field ζ(x, t) and in the true scalar energy dissipation rate field ∇ζ·∇ζ(x, t). Fully resolved four-dimensional spatio-temporal measurements from a turbulent flow at Reλ≈41 and Reδ≈3000 are analysed. The utility of various classical constructs for identifying multifractal scale similarity in data records of finite length is examined. An objective statistical criterion based on the maximum allowable scale-to-scale variation L1(ε) in multiplier distributions 〈P(Mε)〉 obtained from multifractal gauge fields is developed to allow accurate discrimination between multifractal and non-multifractal scaling in finite-length experimental data records. Results from analyses of temporal intersections show that for scales greater than 0.03 λν/u, corresponding to 1.4 λD/u, the scalar dissipation field clearly demonstrates a scale-invariant similarity consistent with a multiplicative cascade process that can be modelled with a bilinear multiplier distribution. However, the conserved scalar field from precisely the same data does not follow any scale similarity consistent with a multiplicative cascade at scales below 0.5 λν/u. At larger scales, there are indications of a possible scale-invariant similarity in the scalar field, but with a fundamentally different multiplier distribution.
Optimal Selection of IFN-α-Inducible Genes to Determine Type I Interferon Signature Improves the Diagnosis of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by the production of autoantibodies specific to self-molecules in the nucleus, cytoplasm, and cell surface. The diversity of serologic and clinical manifestations observed in SLE patients challenges the development of diagnostics and tools for monitoring disease activity. Elevated type I interferon signature (IFN- I) in SLE leads to dysregulation of innate and adaptive immune function, resulting in autoantibodies production. The most common method to determine IFN-I signature is measuring the gene expression of several IFN-α-inducible genes (IFIGs) in blood samples and calculating a score. Optimal selection of IFIGs improves the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the diagnosis of SLE. We describe the mechanisms of the immunopathogenesis of IFN-I signature (IFNα production) and its clinical consequences in SLE. In addition, we explore the association between IFN-I signature, the presence of autoantibodies, disease activity, medical therapy, and ethnicity. We discuss the presence of IFN-I signature in some patients with other autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic and multiple sclerosis, Sjogren’s syndrome, and dermatomyositis. Prospective studies are required to assess the role of IFIG and the best combination of IFIGs to monitor SLE disease activity and drug treatments.
Micromagnetic study of spin-transfer-torque switching of a ferromagnetic cross towards multi-state spin-transfer-torque based random access memory

We study spin-transfer-torque (STT) switching of a cross-shaped ferromagnet with unequal branches as the free layer in a magnetic tunnel junction using micromagnetic simulations. The free layer in the magnetic tunnel junction is thus designed to have four stable energy states using shape anisotropy. Switching shows distinct regions with increasing current density. Stability of the states against thermal fluctuations is considered, and the validity of the results for different dimensions and material parameters of the free layer ferromagnet is investigated. The results could be useful for a multi-bit STT-based memory.
Rate-controlling deformation mechanisms in drawn tungsten wires

ABSTRACT Undeformed tungsten suffers from a brittleness that makes it unsuitable for applications at low temperatures. Cold-worked tungsten materials such as drawn wires or rolled plates can however show considerable ductility even at low temperatures. The reason for this behaviour is so far not understood. We investigated a series of potassium-doped tungsten wires that were subsequently drawn from one sintered ingot, making them chemically identical. Hence, the properties of the wires could be studied without the influence of different impurity levels. Using transient mechanical tests, namely repeated stress relaxation experiments and strain-rate jump tests, the effective activation volumes and strain-rate sensitivities m of the wires were determined at room-temperature. Based on the obtained results, it is deduced that the motion of screw dislocations by formation and dissociation of kink-pairs is controlling the rate of plastic deformation in all wires that show plasticity at room temperature. It is hence concluded that the ductility of drawn tungsten wires at low temperatures is not due to a change in the rate-controlling deformation mechanisms, but should be a consequence of the microstructural and textural changes during wire drawing.
The Influence of Family Milieu on Dental Anxiety in Adolescents—A Cross-Sectional Study

Parents play a significant role in the development of dental anxiety in their adolescent children. This cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the influence of family milieu on adolescents’ dental anxiety. The level of dental anxiety (Dental Anxiety Scale—DAS) was evaluated in 100 adolescent dental patients (ages 13–18 years) and their parents. Parents supplied information about family demographics and their personal experiences of dental treatment. Concomitantly, the family’s behavior was observed during the dental encounter. The adolescents’ mean DAS score was 9.83 ± 2.05. Adolescents’ DAS was higher when their parents’ memories from their own dental encounters were negative. A positive correlation was found between adolescents’ dental anxiety and that of their father (r = 0.52, p < 0.001) and mother (r = 0.79, p < 0.001). The following variables showed a significant ability to predict adolescents’ dental anxiety (stepwise regression): mother’s DAS (B = 0.57), adolescent’s behavior at the dental visit (B = 0.87), being the firstborn child (B = −0.44), father’s DAS (B = 0.13), and mother’s level of education (B = −0.10). The results showed that intra-family relationships and behavior, parents’ education, dental fear, and memories from previous treatments play an important role in defining the level of dental anxiety in their adolescent children.
Smoothing dispersed counts with applications to mortality data

Abstract Mortality data are often classified by age at death and year of death. This classification results in a heterogeneous risk set and this can cause problems for the estimation and forecasting of mortality. In the modelling of such data, we replace the classical assumption that the numbers of claims follow the Poisson distribution with the weaker assumption that the numbers of claims have a variance proportional to the mean. The constant of proportionality is known as the dispersion parameter and it enables us to allow for heterogeneity; in the case of insurance data the dispersion parameter also allows for the presence of duplicates in a portfolio. We use both the quasi-likelihood and the extended quasi-likelihood to estimate models for the smoothing and forecasting of mortality tables jointly with smooth estimates of the dispersion parameters. We present three main applications of our method: first, we show how taking account of dispersion reduces the volatility of a forecast of a mortality table; second, we smooth mortality data by amounts, ie, when deaths are amounts claimed and exposed-to-risk are sums assured; third, we present a joint model for mortality by lives and by amounts with the property that forecasts by lives and by amounts are consistent. Our methods are illustrated with data from the Continuous Mortality Investigation.
Fast Eye Movements and Slow Eye Movements in Congenital Neurosensorial Deaf Subjects as Assessed by 2D video-Oculography™

Aims: There is evidence that the deprivation of a sensory system at early developmental stage may lead to a functional change of the remaining one(s). Even if this process has been widely studied, results are still controversial. In particular, the auditory system might affect the oculomotor control, since saccades or fast eye movements (FEMs) and slow eye movements (SEMs) are modulated by the cochleo-vestibular input. It follows that hearing impairment would affect the SEM and saccadic pattern. Therefore, in this study FEMs and SEMs have been evaluated in congenital deaf subjects in order to state whether early auditory deprivation has influence on the oculomotor function. Study Design: Case-control study.
Misadventures in Toxicology: Concentration Matters for Testosterone-Induced Neurotoxicity

Testosterone is the predominant androgen in men and has important physiological functions. Due to declining testosterone levels from a variety of causes, testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is increasingly utilized, while testosterone is also abused for aesthetic and performance-enhancing purposes. It has been increasingly speculated that aside from more well-established side effects, testosterone may cause neurological damage. However, the in vitro data utilized to support such claims is limited due to the high concentrations used, lack of consideration of tissue distribution, and species differences in sensitivity to testosterone. In most cases, the concentrations studied in vitro are unlikely to be reached in the human brain. Observational data in humans concerning the potential for deleterious changes in brain structure and function are limited by their inherent design as well as significant potential confounders. More research is needed as the currently available data are limited; however, what is available provides rather weak evidence to suggest that testosterone use or abuse has neurotoxic potential in humans.
Teacher-made tests: why they matter and a framework for analysing mathematics exams

ABSTRACT Classroom assessment research in the United States has shifted away from the examination of teacher-made tests, but such tests are still widely used and have an enormous impact on students’ educational experiences. Given the major shifts in educational policy in the United States, including the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards, I argue that researchers should examine the tests and quizzes that teachers create and administer in order to determine whether those policies have had the intended impact of teachers’ assessment practices. Furthermore, these investigations should be grounded in discipline-specific conventions for developing and demonstrating knowledge. I then propose a research-based framework for analysing mathematics exams that focuses on alignment with learning goals, cognitive complexity, variety of task formats, attentiveness to culture and language, and clarity of expectation. This framework is meant to be used formatively, helping researchers, administrators, and teachers identify strengths and areas for growth.
F1·Fo ATP Synthase/ATPase: Contemporary View on Unidirectional Catalysis

F1·Fo-ATP synthases/ATPases (F1·Fo) are molecular machines that couple either ATP synthesis from ADP and phosphate or ATP hydrolysis to the consumption or production of a transmembrane electrochemical gradient of protons. Currently, in view of the spread of drug-resistant disease-causing strains, there is an increasing interest in F1·Fo as new targets for antimicrobial drugs, in particular, anti-tuberculosis drugs, and inhibitors of these membrane proteins are being considered in this capacity. However, the specific drug search is hampered by the complex mechanism of regulation of F1·Fo in bacteria, in particular, in mycobacteria: the enzyme efficiently synthesizes ATP, but is not capable of ATP hydrolysis. In this review, we consider the current state of the problem of “unidirectional” F1·Fo catalysis found in a wide range of bacterial F1·Fo and enzymes from other organisms, the understanding of which will be useful for developing a strategy for the search for new drugs that selectively disrupt the energy production of bacterial cells.
A Study of Temperature and Residence Time Influence on Waste Tire Pyrolysis Products Yield

Pyrolysis is a sufficient method for recycling waste tire into useful energy by-products Pyrolytic oil and char. In this study, a waste tire sample was used to study the effect of the temperature and residence time as well as the combined effects on the Pyrolytic oil and char yields during the pyrolysis process. Waste tire sample was pyrolyzed at three distinct temperatures 400, 450, and 500°C, with 30, 45, and 60 minutes’ residence time. Each batch weighed 50 g of sample, the heating rate for each experiment kept constant at 5°C/min. After the pyrolysis product yields were determined for all of samples, a regression model that predicts product yield as functions of temperatures with residence time analysis using factorial ex-periment design (ANOVA) research was performed to test the significance of temperature and residence time influence on products yield. The findings of this study reveal that the sample was completely decomposed at 450°C, the Pyrolytic oil yield is obtained maximum that is 24wt% at temperatures of 450°C with a pyrolysis residence time of 60 minutes, and char was achieved maximum that is 41.94wt. % at temperature of 450°C with a residence time of 30 minutes. The yield of Pyrolytic oil increases with temperature range increasing from 400°C to 450°C, but decreasing when temperature increase from 450°C to 500°C. Char yield decreases with temperature range increase from 400°C to 500°C. Temperature and residence time interacts to affect the Pyrolytic oil. At 500°C, char yield remains nearly constant from 30min to 60min. Temperature and residence time interactions does not affect char yield. The regression model analysis shows that the temperature is highly significant factor on products yields.
Segmentation of Pulmonary Nodules Based on IAD-VNet

Pulmonary nodules are lung cancer's early manifestations. In order to judge benign and malignant diagnoses, it is necessary to manually mark the nodule position on CT slices, which is time-consuming and unstable. In order to accurately segment pulmonary nodules in CT images, an IAD-VNet network is proposed to automatic segmentation of pulmonary nodules and to assist doctors in diagnosis. In IAD-VNet, a deep aggregation structure is introduced, and the IAD-VNet network iteratively aggregates feature maps of different scales to perform deep fusion of shallow and deep features, which strengthens the transfer of features at different depths and refines shallow features fully. A deep supervision strategy is introduced to ensure that the network is fully trained. At the same time, the weight learning module is utilized to obtain the weights of different depth features, and a weighted summation is performed to obtain the final segmentation result. Then the segmentation accuracy is improved. Furthermore, the IAD-VNet network introduces dense connections in some deep encoding/decoding modules, which improves the utilization of the feature map by the network and alleviates the gradient disappearance of the network. The results on the LUNA16 dataset show that the dice similarity coefficient, precision, and recall achieved by the segmentation model are 0.835, 0.846, and 0.837, respectively. Compared with other segmentation methods, the IAD-VNet network has good robustness and can obtain good segmentation results for lung nodules of different shapes and sizes, providing a good basis for further diagnosis.
Preconditioned Iterative Methods for Two-Dimensional Space-Fractional Diffusion Equations

In this paper, preconditioned iterative methods for solving two-dimensional space-fractional diffusion equations are considered. The fractional diffusion equation is discretized by a second-order finite difference scheme, namely, the Crank-Nicolson weighted and shifted Grunwald difference (CN-WSGD) scheme proposed in [W. Tian, H. Zhou and W. Deng, A class of second order difference approximation for solving space fractional diffusion equations , Math. Comp., 84 (2015) 1703-1727]. For the discretized linear systems, we first propose preconditioned iterative methods to solve them. Then we apply the D’Yakonov ADI scheme to split the linear systems and solve the obtained splitting systems by iterative methods. Two preconditioned iterative methods, the preconditioned generalized minimal residual (preconditioned GMRES) method and the preconditioned conjugate gradient normal residual (preconditioned CGNR) method, are proposed to solve relevant linear systems. By fully exploiting the structure of the coefficient matrix, we design two special kinds of preconditioners, which are easily constructed and are able to accelerate convergence of iterative solvers. Numerical results show the efficiency of our preconditioners.
Comparisons and comments concerning recent calculations for flow past a circular cylinder

This note has two aspects. The first concerns comparisons between the theoretical predictions of Smith (1979b) and the calculations of Fornberg (1980) for flow past a circular cylinder: there is quite good agreement overall, in such quantities as the drag, the front stagnation point pressure, the eddy pressure and the skin friction. The second aspect concerns comments and reservations on the calculated eddy lengths and discrepancies at higher Reynolds numbers.
Solution for the fourth moment of waves propagating in random media

A series expression is developed for the fourth moment of a beamed field incident on a random phase screen or an extended medium. The series has a symmetry that allows its first few terms to generate useful approximations at both low and high spatial frequency. The parabolic wave equation, the Markov approximation, and Gaussian refractive index fluctuations are assumed. The result for the phase screen is obtained by Green's function techniques. The extended-medium result is derived in an analogous manner by using path integral methods. The same results are also derived by moment-equation methods. The behavior of the leading terms is compared to previous results for plane-wave and point-source geometries.
Experimental Investigation and Modeling for the Influence of Adding Date Press Cake on Drinkable Yogurt Quality

The extraction of date syrup produces a large quantity of by-product known as date press cake (DPC). This study aimed to utilize valuable ingredients of the DPC by adding 0 (Control), 2, 4, and 6% (g/100 g) of its powder to drinkable yogurt before fermentation. The physicochemical properties, texture profile, and sensory evaluation of the treated DPC-based drinkable yogurt (DPC drinkable yogurt) were measured after fermentation and 5, 10, and 15 days of storage at 4 °C. The modeling of the most critical quality attributes, i.e., pH, acidity, syneresis, water holding capacity (WHC), viscosity, and color difference (ΔE), was conducted to predict their values based on the DPC percentage and storage period. The DPC drinkable yogurt’s total solids, protein, and fat ranged between 11.19–11.83, 3.10–3.42, and 2.26–2.34%, respectively. Adding 2–6% DPC slightly increased the pH of DPC drinkable yogurt and decreased its acidity (p > 0.05) during storage. Increasing the DPC percent in DPC drinkable yogurt decreased the syneresis value, and WHC increased during storage. The color parameters and viscosity of DPC drinkable yogurt recorded the highest value at the end of the storage period for all treatments and increased steadily with the increase in DPC. The evaluation of the prediction models indicated that the predicted values were close to the actual experimental values for pH (R2 = 0.779), acidity (R2 = 0.973), syneresis (R2 = 0.961), WHC (R2 = 0.989), viscosity (R2 = 0.99), L* (R2 = 0.919), a* (R2 = 0.995), b* (R2 = 0.922), and ΔE (R2 = 0.921). The textural analysis indicated that increasing the concentration of DPC in the DPC drinkable yogurt increased hardness (g), springiness, cohesiveness, and gumminess and decreased adhesiveness and resilience during cold storage. The evaluation of sensory acceptance during the cold storage of the DPC drinkable yogurt was conducted by 30 expert panelists. Each panelist received four cups of 10 mL drinkable yogurt treatments at 5–10 °C. The evaluation results indicated that adding 2% of DPC was closest in overall sensory acceptability to the control sample (p < 0.05). This study revealed the potential use of DPC in drinkable yogurt as a natural, functional, and low-cost ingredient to improve the fiber content, physicochemical properties, and overall acceptability. Therefore, the fermented DPC-based yogurt drink has the potency to be a practical, value-added, and novel alternative to dairy-based yogurt.
LES in the Surface Layer: Surface Fluxes, Scaling, and SGS Modeling

Abstract The surface fluxes in the fine-mesh numerical codes used in small-scale meteorology are typically diagnosed from resolvable-scale variables through surface-exchange coefficients. This is appropriate if the aspect ratio (length/height) of the grid volume adjacent to the surface is very large, as in mesoscale models. The aspect ratio can approach unity in large-eddy simulation (LES) codes for the planetary boundary layer, however. In that limit the surface-exchange coefficients are random variables, and it is shown through analysis of surface-layer measurements and LES results that their fluctuation levels can be large. As an alternative to surface-exchange coefficients, the authors derive conservation equations for the surface scalar and momentum fluxes in LES. Scaling relations for resolvable-scale variables in the surface layer are developed and used to simplify these equations. It is shown that, as the grid aspect ratio decreases toward unity, local time change, horizontal advection, production.