Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid Surface-Wave Dispersion and Plane-Wave Reflection Analyses of Planar Corrugated Surfaces by Asymptotic Corrugations Boundary Conditions Even for Oblique Azimuth Planes

The asymptotic corrugations boundary condition (ACBC) is used together with classical theory of vector potentials to analyze planar corrugations. A transcendental characteristic equation is derived, from which the dispersion diagram can be obtained, thereby conveying surface wave passband and stopband properties, even for propagation within oblique azimuth planes as well as both principal TE and TM polarizations. From the formulation, field distributions for the regions within the grooves and above the corrugations can also be generated. When compared with the dispersion graphs obtained from characteristic equations derived by the classical transverse resonance technique (TRT), the newly presented ACBC method provides superior accuracy. Explicit formulas for the complex reflection coefficient (amplitude and phase) for both TE and TM polarized plane-wave incidences are also derived as closed-form analytic functions of all parameters (especially the azimuth phi angle of incidence) using a novel concept of unusual transversely phased plane-waves. These proposed approaches are massively more efficient than full-wave solvers, providing unparalleled speedup of computation by thousands of times. The surface-wave and reflection properties of planar corrugations are thus herein analyzed in a unified, complete, and elegant manner that is also highly efficient but yet accurate. This thorough work is thus a great boost to the continued use of corrugated surfaces as artificial magnetic conductors (AMC), electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures, and soft/hard surfaces in all walks of antenna design, especially in terms of speed and accuracy.
CFNet: An Eigenvalue Preserved Approach to Multiscale Building Segmentation in High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images

In recent years, AI and deep learning (DL) methods have been widely used for object classification, recognition, and segmentation of high-resolution multispectral remote sensing images. These DL-based solutions perform better compared with the traditional spectral algorithms but still suffer from insufficient optimization of global and local features of object context. In addition, failure of code-data isolation and/or disclosure of detailed eigenvalues cause serious privacy and even secret leakage due to the sensitivity of high-resolution remote sensing data and their processing mechanisms. In this article, class feature modules have been presented in the decoder part of an attention-based CNN network to distinguish between building and nonbuilding (background) area. In this way, context features of a focused object can be extracted with more details being processed while the resolution of images is maintained. The reconstructed local and global feature values and dependencies in the proposed model are maintained by reconfiguring multiple effective attention modules with contextual dependencies to achieve better results for the eigenvalue. According to quantitative results and their visualization, the proposed model has depicted better performance over others' work using two large-scale building remote sensing datasets. The F1-score of this model reached 87.91 and 89.58 on WHU Buildings Dataset and Massachusetts Buildings Dataset, respectively, which exceeded the other semantic segmentation models.
Design Thinking Framework Toward Management Control System in Environmental Dynamism: An Innovation Perspective

Design thinking has been largely acknowledged as a technical advancement in business circles in terms of technology, innovation, creativity, and flexibility. Design techniques are becoming more and more popular among organizational executives as a cure-all for uncertainty and upheaval, so it is important to take environmental dynamism into account. However, with few exceptions, design thinking studies are most entrenched in considering various organization factors rather than environmental and control systems. The purpose of the present article is to shed insights into the relationship between design thinking and management control systems under the condition of a dynamic setting. Moreover, the article also presents design thinking as a strategic innovation concept that links to and works to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Further, we develop the framework that hypothesized design thinking relationship to diagnostic and interactive control systems (ICSs) in the domain of environmental dynamism and competitive advantage. A survey was conducted on research and development intensive firms varying from manufacturing to service. The results of this article revealed that design thinking is strongly linked with ICSs and sustainable competitive advantage. The present article suggests an imperative way toward integration of the concept of design thinking in businesses while considering environmental factors, given the growing scholarly interest in both design thinking and management control systems. The article also offers fruitful research directions and analyzes the ramifications of such directions for theory and practice.
Actuator gains for a toothless permanent-magnet self-bearing motor

Permanent-magnet self-bearing motors provide independent bearing and motoring functionality in a single magnetic actuator. Typically, self-bearing motor designs use toothed stators to provide minimum reluctance flux paths that create the magnetic bearing forces necessary to support the rotor. These toothed designs can have significant cogging torque, rendering them ineffective for smooth torque applications such as those found in aerospace. A toothless permanent-magnet self-bearing motor can provide smooth torque production and adequate bearing force for low-gravity environments. Characterization of the open-loop gains for this actuator is necessary for linear controller development. In this paper simple algebraic equations are derived for the motoring and bearing current gains, and an analytical method is presented for computing the negative stiffness. The analytical method solves the Dirichlet boundary value problem (BVP) in the eccentric annulus for the magnetomotive force (MMF) in the air gap subject to harmonic boundary conditions. A conformal transformation to bipolar coordinates is used, yielding a BVP that is solvable by separation of variables. Expressions for the flux density, Maxwell force on the rotor, and the negative stiffness in terms of the MMF are presented. A sample problem is presented that illustrates the flux distribution in the air gap and the operating principals of this actuator type.
Rhizobacterial compositions and their relationships with soil properties and medicinal bioactive ingredients in Cinnamomum migao

Introduction Rhizobacterial communities and their metabolites can affect plant growth, development, and stress resistance, as well as the biosynthesis and accumulation of bioactive compounds in medicinal plants. This relationship has been well-characterized in many medicinal herbs, although much less commonly in medicinal trees. Methods Here, we analyzed the composition and structure of Cinnamomum migao rhizobacterial communities across nine growing regions in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi, China, as well as differences in soil properties and fruit bioactive compounds. Results Results showed that the C. migao rhizobacterial communities exhibited high species richness, but location-specific differences in structure. Site-specific differences in soil properties and bioactive compounds were also observed. Furthermore, rhizobacterial community compositions were correlated with both soil properties and fruit bioactive compounds, metabolism-related functions were most common in C. migao rhizobacteria. Discussion Several bacterial genera, including Acidothermus, Acidibacter, Bryobacter, Candidatus_Solibacter, and Acidimicrobiales, potentially promote the biosynthesis and accumulation of 1,8-cineole, cypressene, limonene, and α-terpineol, Nitrospira and Alphaproteobacteria may play an inhibitory role. Finally, our results emphasized the critical role that soil pH and nitrogen levels play in driving rhizobacterial community structure, and specific functional bacteria can also counteract with soil properties, Acidibacter and Nitrospira can affect soil pH and nitrogen effectiveness. Overall, this study provides additional insight into the complex correlation of rhizosphere microorganisms with bioactive ingredients and soil properties of medicinal plants.
Comparative study of risk assessment for noncommunicable diseases among out patients visiting urban and rural health centers in Belagavi, Karnataka

Purpose/Background: Hence, this comparative study of risk assessment was carried out among out patients visiting urban and rural health centers. This study aimed to find out and compare the risk factors for NCDs among out-patients visiting urban and rural health centers. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in Urban health centre Rukmini Nagar and Rural health centre Vantamuri. Using convenient universal sampling, 200 out-patients from urban area and 200 from rural area were selected. The data were entered into MS-EXCEL and analyzed using SPSS software. Results: In urban area, males were more common (53.7%), whereas females were more common in rural areas (53.8%). Maximum study participants were laborers in urban area (24.5%), whereas home makers were common in rural area (40.5%). Most people in urban areas (11.5%) were indulged in smoking, whereas only 5% smoked in rural area. Participants in urban area had higher waist circumference (20.5%) than those in rural area (17.5%). Physical inactivity was more in rural area (68%), as compared to urban area (47%). 29.5% of participants were found to be at risk for NCDs in urban area, whereas 30% of those were found to be at risk in rural area. Conclusions: Awareness regarding ill effects of risk factors: smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and obesity should be created among the community through health education and behavioral change communication to prevent its progression as a disease in future.
Levels of Anxiety and Stress Experienced by Nurses in Inpatient Units

Objective: To assess state-trait anxiety levels and their correlation with occupational stress and socio-biographical and occupational factors in nursing professionals. Materials and Methods: This quantitative, cross-sectional, analytical study was conducted in the inpatient units of a university hospital in southern Brazil, with the participation of 162 nursing professionals. For data collection, socio-biographical and occupational forms, the Stress-Symptom Scale, the Workplace Stress Scale, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory were used. The data were analyzed based on descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Nursing professionals have moderate levels of state-trait anxiety. There is a positive correlation between state-trait anxiety scores, stress scores, and stress dimensions (rho = 0.811, p < 0.001). “Trait” anxiety is associated with years of experience in nursing (PR 0.97) and psychic-mental health follow-up (PR 1.97). “State” anxiety is associated with sex (PR 0.54), education (PR 2.26), and hours of sleep (PR 0.92). Conclusions: “State” anxiety is associated with sex, age, higher education level, and psychic-mental health follow-up; however, years of experience in nursing and hours of sleep were found to be protective factors.
Distributionally robust reinsurance with expectile

Abstract We study a distributionally robust reinsurance problem with the risk measure being an expectile and under expected value premium principle. The mean and variance of the ground-up loss are known, but the loss distribution is otherwise unspecified. A minimax problem is formulated with its inner problem being a maximization problem over all distributions with known mean and variance. We show that the inner problem is equivalent to maximizing the problem over three-point distributions, reducing the infinite-dimensional optimization problem to a finite-dimensional optimization problem. The finite-dimensional optimization problem can be solved numerically. Numerical examples are given to study the impacts of the parameters involved.
Genetic analysis of the frozen microbiome at 7900 m a.s.l., on the South Col of Sagarmatha (Mount Everest)

ABSTRACT Microbial communities in alpine environments >7,500 m.a.s.l. have not been well studied using modern cultivation-independent sequencing approaches due to the challenges and danger associated with reaching such high elevations. For this reason, we know little about the microorganisms found in sediments on Earth’s tallest mountains, how they reach these surfaces, and how they survive and remain active at such extreme elevations. Here, we explore the microbial diversity recovered from three sediment samples collected from the South Col (~7,900 m.a.s.l.) of Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) using both culturing and next generation sequencing approaches (16S rRNA gene, internal transcribed spacer [ITS] region, and 18S rRNA gene sequencing). Both approaches detected very low diversity of bacteria, protists, and fungi that included a combination of cosmopolitan taxa and specialized microorganisms often found at high elevations like those of the genera Modestobacter and Naganishia. Though we managed to grow viable cultures of many of these taxa, it remains likely that few, if any, can be active in situ at the South Col. Instead, these high-elevation surfaces may act as deep-freeze collection zones of organisms deposited from the atmosphere or left by climbers scaling the Earth’s highest mountain.
Rapid‐phase transitions of GeTe‐Sb2Te3 pseudobinary amorphous thin films for an optical disk memory

Amorphous films having a component of the stoichiometric GeTe‐Sb2Te3 pseudobinary alloy system, GeSb2Te4 or Ge2Sb2Te5 representatively, were found to have featuring characteristics for optical memory material presenting a large optical change and enabling high‐speed one‐beam data rewriting. The material films being sandwiched by heat‐conductive ZnS layers can be crystallized (low power) or reamorphized (high power) by laser irradiation of very short duration, less than 50 ns. The cooling speed of the sandwiched film is extremely high: more than 1010 deg/s, which permits the molten material to convert to the amorphous state spontaneously; whereas, a low‐power pulse irradiation of the same duration changed the exposed portion into the crystalline state. The optical constant changes between the amorphous state and the crystalline state of them were measured to be large: from 4.7+i1.3 to 6.9+i2.6 and from 5.0+i1.3 to 6.5+i3.5, respectively. The crystallized portion was known to have a GeTe‐like fcc structure .
Fokker–Planck model for computational studies of monatomic rarefied gas flows

In this study, we propose a non-linear continuous stochastic velocity process for simulations of monatomic gas flows. The model equation is derived from a Fokker–Planck approximation of the Boltzmann equation. By introducing a cubic non-linear drift term, the model leads to the correct Prandtl number of 2/3 for monatomic gas, which is crucial to study heat transport phenomena. Moreover, a highly accurate scheme to evolve the computational particles in velocity- and physical space is devised. An important property of this integration scheme is that it ensures energy conservation and honours the tortuosity of particle trajectories. Especially in situations with small to moderate Knudsen numbers, this allows to proceed with much larger time steps than with direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), i.e. the mean collision time not necessarily has to be resolved, and thus leads to more efficient simulations. Another computational advantage is that no direct collisions have to be calculated in the proposed algorithm. For validation, different micro-channel flow test cases in the near continuum and transitional regimes were considered. Detailed comparisons with DSMC for Knudsen numbers between 0.07 and 2 reveal that the new solution algorithm based on the Fokker–Planck approximation for the collision operator can accurately predict molecular stresses and heat flux and thus also gas velocity and temperature profiles. Moreover, for the Knudsen Paradox, it is shown that good agreement with DSMC is achieved up to a Knudsen number of about 5.
A Direct Near-Field Observation of Conversion Between Waveguide Modes and Leaky Modes in Periodic Metal Structures

In order to directly observe the conversion between guided-wave modes and leaky-wave modes in a periodic structure, quadrilateral periodic metal diaphragms arranged in two ways on metal surfaces were analyzed. In the first scheme, each unit cell in the periodic structure contains a metal diaphragm, of which the dispersion characteristics of periodic structures were analyzed by the finite element method. The results of the numerical simulation show that by adjusting lattice constants of periodic structures and geometrical parameters of metal diaphragms, the transmission bandwidth of the present 1-D periodic metal diaphragm structures could be limited to X-band, where the transmission characteristics are easy to be measured. In the second scheme, a pair of mirror-symmetric and staggered quadrilateral metal diaphragms is introduced into a unit cell. It can be found in the theoretical calculation that a new dispersion curve, which passes through the light line in a high frequency range, can be exhibited. The propagation constants of dispersion curves become complex numbers and provide highly directional electromagnetic radiation that scans as the frequency changes. After the relative positions of the two metal diaphragms were properly adjusted, the frequency range of the forbidden band gap between two dispersion curves can be minimized, so as to increase the transmission bandwidth of the 1-D periodic metal structures. The experimentally measured results show that the dispersion curves of the two periodic structures were highly consistent with the theoretical results. The narrowing of the band gap could be verified by measuring the $S$ -parameters. The near-field measurement of the periodic metal structures can demonstrate the conversion between the guided-wave modes and the leaky-wave modes, and the far-field measurement can show the frequency dependence of beam elevation. We expect that these artificial material structures could be widely used for designing new microwave and terahertz band devices.
Inactivation of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms in a test liquid using pulsed electric fields

Experiments have been carried out to investigate the effect of pulsed electric fields (PEFs) on the inactivation of microbial populations suspended in liquids using nonflowing and continuous flowing test chambers. Electric fields of /spl sim/30 kV/cm, and a pulse duration of 500 ns, were generated from a coaxial table Blumlein pulse forming network (PFN) and applied to a parallel plate, circular electrode test configuration. Sample microorganisms were grown under standardized conditions and were introduced into test liquids in order to produce known population densities within the treatment celt. The organisms investigated include the mold Aspergillus niger, the yeast Sacckaromyeces cerevisiae, and the bacterial pathogens Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The PEF studies were undertaken at a sample temperature range of 25/spl deg/C-30/spl deg/C, and the effect of the number of pulses on the test microbial population was studied. The results of this investigation showed that the greater the number of pulses applied, the larger the corresponding reduction in microbial cells/spores obtained. With the exception of dormant fungal spores, all of the test organisms were reduced by -3 to 4 log orders after 3000 pulses. The number of B. Cerus cells was reduced by -7.5 log orders after 15 000 pulses, of which 10 000 pulses were applied in a flowing system followed by 5000 pulses in a static system.
Role of Resuscitation Promoting Factor-like Protein from Nocardiopsis halophila

Resuscitation promoting factors (Rpf), a class of proteins secreted by gram-positive bacteria including actinobacteria, promote the resuscitation of dormant bacteria and spore germination. Here, we describe the reconstitution of the resuscitation promoting activity of the Rpf protein from Nocardiopsis halophila CGMCC 4.1195T in vitro and in vivo. The Rpf protein was expressed in the host Escherichia coli BL21 codon plus (DE3) and was confirmed to have a significant resuscitation effect on the viable but non-culturable (VBNC) N. halophila. Subsequently, the rpf gene of N. halophila was knocked out. We found that the growth rate of the mutant strain (Δrpf) was slower than that of the wild strain, and the former produced significantly shorter spores than the wild-type strain. Our results confirmed the activity of the Rpf protein in N. halophila to promote dormant bacteria resuscitation. This study will lay the foundation for the application of the Rpf protein from N. halophila to exploit actinomycetes resources.
Evidential Variety and Mixed-Methods Research in Social Science

Abstract Mixed-methods research (MMR)—the combination of qualitative and quantitative data within the same design to strengthen causal inference—is gaining prominence in the social sciences but its benefits are contested. There remains confusion over which methods to mix and what is the point of mixing them. We argue that variety of evidence is what matters, not of data or methods, and that distinct epistemic principles underlie its added value for causal inference. The centrality of evidential variety also implies that strong causal pluralism is untenable as a foundation for MMR.
KTFEv2: Multimodal Facial Emotion Database and its Analysis

In recent years, the focus of human emotion analysis has gradually shifted towards not only using visible information, but also thermal infrared (IR) information. This requires a great deal of facial emotion data both in visible and thermal IR information. However, most existing databases contain either visible information or posed thermal IR information only. For these reasons, we propose and establish a multimodal facial emotion database including both natural spontaneous visible and thermal IR videos. Beside updating more thermal infrared information, the built dataset in this study also enhances the information of intensity emotions. In which, each emotion is classified into three levels (low, medium, and high). Seven spontaneous emotions from thirty subjects are recorded in the database. Audio and visual stimuli were used to elicit emotions during the experiment. After the standard procedure of collecting data finished, the database has been through the careful annotation and verification procedure. Furthermore, the built database is analyzed by using modern machine learning models such as CNN, ResNet50, YOLO, and using a combination of different models to analyze the dataset. The obtained results are feasible and show that this dataset is useful for use in practice. The results of thermal data analysis provide us with a promising idea for future research on estimating human emotion.