Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robotic Mowing of Tall Fescue at 90 mm Cutting Height: Random Trajectories vs. Systematic Trajectories

Tall fescue (Schedonorus arundinaceus (Schreb.) Dumort. ) is often managed with a cutting height ranging from 70 to 100 mm in ornamental lawns. Some autonomous mowers have been specifically designed to maintain mowing height in the same range. Generally, autonomous mowers operate by following random trajectories, and substantial overlapping is needed to obtain full coverage of the working area. In the case of tall grass, this may cause lodging of grass plants, which in turn may reduce turf quality. The introduction of a navigation system based on systematic trajectories has the potential to improve the performances of autonomous mowers with respect to machine efficiency and turf quality. With the aim of determining the effects of reduced mowing frequency and systematic navigation systems on turf quality and mower performances in terms of working time, energy consumption and overlapping, the performances of two autonomous mowers working with random and systematic trajectories were tested on a mature tall fescue lawn at 90 mm cutting height. The working efficiency was approximately 80% for the systematic trajectories and approximately 35% for the random trajectories; this was mainly due to the lower overlapping associated with systematic trajectories. Turf quality was slightly higher for the mower working systematically (a score of 8 using a 1–9 score with 1 = poor, 6 = acceptable and 9 = best) compared to the one working randomly (quality of 7 and 6 on a 1–9 scale with 1 = poor and 9 = best). No appreciable lodging was observed in either case. For tall, managed lawns, systematic trajectories may improve autonomous mowers’ overall performances.
A Comparative Study on Engineering Student's Performance between the Single-Gender Classroom and Co-educational Classroom: A Case Study of Islamic University of Technology

The purpose of this research was to conduct a comparative study to find out which setting performs better between students in the Co-educational Instruction setting and Students in the Single-gender Instruction set. In this research process, the researchers compared the performance of students who receive instruction in a single-gender classroom with the performance of other students who receive instruction in a co-educational classroom. The study population was 756 students of single and mixed-gender streams, classified into two groups (A & B). Out of this, one single-gender male class of 268 students (group A) and one COED class of 488 students (group B) were sampled from the Islamic University of Technology (IUT) in Bangladesh. The research adopted a quasi-experimental research design. The instruments used for data collection were the summative assessment of both groups' first and second-semester results that serve as test instruments. Frequency counts and the Arithmetic means were used for descriptive analysis. The independent sample t-test was used to test the hypotheses. Social learning theory emphasizes the importance of biological, social, and cultural impacts on human behavioral development and learning, especially on gender and genders specific traits and roles. Based on the analyses and interpretation of the data, the researcher found that male students perform better academically in single-gender classes, contrary to their academic performance when mixed with females in the same classes. Thus, single-gender instruction could be a more favorable environment for male students than a co-educational instruction environment.
Tourist memory and childhood landscape

ABSTRACT Tourist memory serves as an important source of information for future travel plans and forests life development of individuals. Although extensive research has examined the impacts of tourist memory on travel behaviors and tourists’ emotions, very few studies have examined tourist memory from the perspective of childhood landscape. This study adopts the in-depth interview method (n=105) to examine the long-term impacts of childhood tourist memories on adulthood and future development by two different study groups: the new generation and the old generation. Results indicate that tourist memory can enrich individuals’ identity and nostalgia through the childhood landscape. Moreover, the childhood landscape shaped from tourism experiences affects the long-term development processes of tourists’ personalities, parenting, and life attitudes. Study findings conclude that tourist memory and nostalgia can affect an individual’s future decision-making and practice. This study enriches tourist memory and family tourism theories and provides management implications to enhance childhood landscape in tourism marketing.
Potential influence of a planned landfill on a high karst plateau in Southwestern Montenegro to nearby karstic springs

The potential threat of a landfill projected on a high karst plateau in southwest Montenegro is investigated with respect to the subjacent nearby springs. The locality is called Duboki do. As the springs are used for drinking water supply this investigation is urgently needed. For the springs exist two hypotheses concerning their catchment area: I) from the high karst plateau, or II) from a topographically lower area. The stable H- and O-isotope ratios of water samples from the springs are compared with precipitation isotope data, to reveal the catchment area of the springs. The isotope results indicate that the catchment area of the springs is at higher altitude fitting to, and in good agreement with, winter precipitation from the high karst plateau of the planned land-fill locality.
Cultivars performance and blackberry pruning management

There was increased fruit consumption with potential health benefits in the last years, being blackberry one of these fruits. The objective of this work was to evaluate the performance of Blackberry cultivars and the influence of main stem management on BRS-Tupy cultivar. The first experiment assessed the cultivars: BRS-Tupy, Cherokee, Xavante, and Guarani; in the second experiment the evaluated prunings were: drastic winter pruning, 2, 3, and 4 main primocanes. The variables analyzed were: green and dry leaf mass, leaf area, number and average fruit mass, production per plant, average size and percentage of fruit moisture, and soluble solids. In relation to average weight, fruit size and yield, BRS-Tupy cultivar was superior in both cycles evaluated. As for soluble solids the Cherokee cultivar was superior, but only in the 2016/17 cycle. In the second experiment, in terms of number of fruits and production, pruning of 4 primocanes in the 2016/17 cycle was superior, but in the next cycle the pruning of 3 primocanes equaled it in the production variable. The drastic pruning in these variables is shown to be lower in the two cycles evaluated. Concerning the variable size of fruit, a significant difference was found only in the 2017/18 cycle, where drastic pruning presented smaller fruits. Thus, it can be concluded that, in general, BRS-Tupy cultivar presents the best productive results and that pruning with 4 primocanes initially stands out alone.
Application of embedded edge terminations to reduce the edge radiation and noise in high-speed printed circuit boards

With the increase in the core frequencies of devices and reduction of edge rates of the drivers, it is becoming very important to limit the noise and radiation from printed circuit boards (PCBs). In order to meet the regulatory radiation limits of the FCC and other agencies worldwide, a shingent “design for electromagnetic compatibility” approach is necessary. A major source of noise in high-speed PCBs is the power plane resonances, which are excited by the multiple reflections of radial waves from edges of circuit boards. This noise due to the radial waves is also a major contributor to the edge radiation from PCBs. This paper reports further results on a technique to suppress the power plane resonance’s using a magnetically lossy material embedded between the power and ground planes of a circuit board. In this paper we present the effect of this lossy material on the edge radiation from the PCB. We also present further measurements showing the reduction of power distrihution noise by the application of this material as an edge terminator. The material used here to edge-terminate the PCB is a high resistivity material, which depends on its characteristic magnetic loss to dampen the radial waves. The near-field measurement technique is used on a single layer circuit board to show the reduction of edge radiation from the board. Time domain measurements with a sampling scope show a reduction in the power distribution noise when pulses are reflected from the edges of a board with edge terminations.
Religious Education as a 21st Century Practice: A Quantitative Study of the Perceptions of In-Service and Pre-Service Teachers Concerning New Learning Skills

Abstract This study compares quantitatively the perceptions of Finnish pre-service and in-service religious education (RE) teachers concerning future skills needed in the context of RE. The data consists of questionnaires (N = 157) collected from RE student teachers (n = 74) and practicing RE teachers (n = 83). Three groups of respondents were formed: students, established teachers and teachers in the induction phase. The perceptions of twenty-first century skills of the three groups were analyzed using the SPSS program. On the basis of the results, the different groups all saw different interaction-related skills as key skills for an RE teacher. Consideration of social issues and diversity in the context of RE was also seen as important. Religious literacy and the use of technology were anticipated to be emphasized in the future. In addition, critical thinking was interpreted as relevant in the context of RE. By contrast, for example, productivity and leadership were perceived as less relevant parts of religious education.
Biological Studies of Combustion Atmospheres

There is evidence supported by statistical information from fire deaths that many fire fatalities occur as a result of incapacitation of the victims by the toxic products given off during the early stages of fires, thereby preventing escape from the fire, rather than from direct exposure to heat or other factors. As an essential part of understanding these problems, a study has been made of the mechanisms of incapacitation resulting from exposures to atmospheres of ther mal decomposition products from polymeric materials. Under conditions ap proved by the Home Office Inspector, individual cynomolgus monkeys were ex posed to atmospheres increasing in separate experiments from very low smoke concentrations until early signs of physiological effects were detected. Measure ments were made of two kinds of physiological parameters: vital signs (respira tion, electrocardiography and respiratory blood gases) and parameters indicating effects on the nervous system (electroencephalography, auditory evoked poten tials, nerve conduction velocity). The atmospheres generated were designed to study the effects of hypoxia, hypercapnia, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and thermal decomposition products from wood, polyacrylonitrile, polyurethane foam, polypropylene, polystyrene and nylon produced under pyrolytic or ox idative conditions at a range of temperatures. The main findings were that the composition and hence the toxicity of the products from individual materials could vary considerably depending upon the different conditions of temperature and degree of oxygenation under which they were decomposed. However, despite the great complexity in chemical composition of the test atmospheres, the basic toxic effects on the animals were relatively simple, and for each in dividual atmosphere the toxicity was always dominated by one of these factors; carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, or irritants. The role of each of these fac tors in causing incapacitation in real fires is discussed.
Causal Interventional Training for Image Recognition

Deep learning models often fit undesired dataset bias in training. In this paper, we formulate the bias using causal inference, which helps us uncover the ever-elusive causalities among the key factors in training, and thus pursue the desired causal effect without the bias. We start from revisiting the process of building a visual recognition system, and then propose a structural causal model (SCM) for the key variables involved in dataset collection and recognition model: object, common sense, bias, context, and label prediction. Based on the SCM, one can observe that there are “good” and “bad” biases. Intuitively, in the image where a car is driving on a high way in a desert, the “good” bias denoting the common-sense context is the highway, and the “bad” bias accounting for the noisy context factor is the desert. We tackle this problem with a novel causal interventional training (CIT) approach, where we control the observed context in each object class. We offer theoretical justifications for CIT and validate it with extensive classification experiments on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and ImageNet, e.g., surpassing the standard deep neural networks ResNet-34 and ResNet-50, respectively, by 0.95% and 0.70% accuracies on the ImageNet. Our code is open-sourced on the GitHub https://github.com/qinwei-hfut/CIT.
Fusion of SAR Interferometry and Polarimetry Methods for Landslide Reactivation Study, the Bureya River (Russia) Event Case Study

In this paper, we demonstrate the estimation capabilities of landslide reactivation based on various SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) methods: Cloude-Pottier decomposition of Sentinel-1 dual polarimetry data, MT-InSAR (Multi-temporal Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) techniques, and cloud computing of backscattering time series. The object of the study is the landslide in the east of Russia that took place on 11 December 2018 on the Bureya River. H-α-A polarimetric decomposition of C-band radar images not detected significant transformations of scattering mechanisms for the surface of the rupture, whereas L-band radar data show changes in scattering mechanisms before and after the main landslide. The assessment of ground displacements along the surface of the rupture in the 2019–2021 snowless periods was carried out using MT-InSAR methods. These displacements were 40 mm/year along the line of sight. The SBAS-InSAR results have allowed us to reveal displacements of great area in 2020 and 2021 snowless periods that were 30–40 mm/year along the line-of-sight. In general, the results obtained by MT-InSAR methods showed, on the one hand, the continuation of displacements along the surface of the rupture and on the other hand, some stabilization of the rate of landslide processes.
A Comprehensive Analysis of the Thrombin Binding Aptamer Containing Functionalized Pyrrolo-2’-deoxycytidines

Aptamers constitute an answer for the growing need for targeted therapy development. One of the most well-known representatives of this group of compounds is thrombin binding aptamers (TBA) targeted towards thrombin. The TBA inhibitory activity is determined by its spatial arrangement, which consists of two G-tetrads linked by two shorter TT loops and one longer TGT loop and folds into a unimolecular, antiparallel G-quadruplex structure. Interesting properties of the aptamer can be further improved via the introduction of a number of chemical modifications. Herein, a comprehensive analysis of the influence of pyrrolo-2’-deoxycytidine (Py-dC) and its derivatives on TBA physicochemical and biological properties has been presented. The studies have shown that the presence of modified residues at the T7 position of the TGT loop has only minor effects on TBA thermodynamic stability without affecting its folding topology. All analyzed oligomers exhibit anticoagulant properties, but only aptamer modified with a decyl derivative of Py-dC was able to inhibit thrombin activity more efficiently than unmodified, parental compounds. Importantly, the same compound also possessed the potential to effectively restrain HeLa cell line growth.
Comment on nhess-2021-369

(1) My main suggestion is related to Figure 4 and the respective text. The most noteworthy point of this event and the corresponding study is that there were TWO earthquakes with an interval less than 2 hours between them. The authors declare that the tsunami waves associated with both events are clearly seen in Figure 4. But for readers (in contrast to the authors) this is not obvious! What the authors should do is to construct the theoretical dispersion curves for both events (following papers of González and Kulikov, 1993 and Kulikov, 2006) and demonstrate that the observed f-t extrema are in good agreement with the theory. BTW, the source regions of these two events are relatively small; therefore, the dispersive effects for propagating waves should be clearly seen in the wavelet plots. All details and necessary equations can be found in Fine et al. (2019).
Unified Flexural Resistance Equations for Stability Design of Steel I-Section Members: Uniform Bending Tests

The 2004 AASHTO and 2005 AISC provisions for flexural design of steel I-section members have been revised in their entirety relative to previous specifications to simplify their logic, organization, and application, while also improving their accuracy and generality. This paper evaluates the lateral-torsional and flange local buckling (LTB and FLB) predictions from these and previous specifications versus uniform bending experimental test results. A total of 154 rolled and 123 welded I-section member LTB tests, and 11 rolled and 36 welded I-section member FLB tests are considered. Reliability indices are estimated for load and resistance factor design (LRFD) of buildings based on the test statistics combined with established statistics for material and fabrication bias factors and the ASCE 7 load model. The notional reliability for LTB is found to be reasonably constant and consistent with the targeted level in the first AISC LRFD specification of 1986. The unified equations, combined with a design-oriented procedure for calculation of elastic LTB K factors, are shown to capture the test results accurately throughout the inelastic and elastic LTB ranges, leading to substantial liberalization of the calculated resistances in certain cases. The mean resistances for inelastic LTB and FLB are captured accurately by a linear equation in the corresponding slenderness parameters. The reliability for FLB is found to be slightly higher than that for LTB.
JOB BEHAVIOR OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT MANAGERS: DETERMINANTS AND ASSESSMENT

The paper reports the findings of an investigation into the psychosocial aspects of the work of construction project managers (PMs) in the United Kingdom. A theoretical model, which identified the different variables that may influence the behavior and effectiveness of PMs was developed. This study has used an adapted form of the behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) to measure a PM's effectiveness. The technique yielded five behavioral dimensions by which a PM's role may be described, and it was used in a survey involving 62 PMs. Analysis of the data suggests that a PM's effectiveness was influenced by situational and personal variables. The results strongly suggest that by understanding the complexity of such relationships, construction firms can influence the direction and behavior of PMs. The results also suggest that the behavior of PMs and project performance varied independently.
Relationship between age, milk production and order of goats during automatic milking

Slovak White goats were included in an experiment that was conducted in 3 periods from July to September. e average age and lactation stage of goats at the beginning of the first period were 1 380 days (46 months) and 167 days. We used a parallel milking parlor for eight goats. Two observers recorded the order of goats at entering the milking parlor. e control measurement of milk production was performed on the following day after the observation period. After finishing the experiment, out of the total number of 139 animals 24 goats were selected that entered the parlor as the first (group F) in all observations and 24 goats that entered the parlor as the last (group L). We found significant differences in average daily milk production between the individual periods (1st period 1 209 ml; 2nd period 1 516 ml; 3rd period 1 061 ml). Significant correlations between the order of entry into the milking parlor and milk production were found in all three periods (r = 0.237 ** ; 0.235 ** ; 0.400 ** ). e correlation between the order and age was significant only in the third period ( r = 0.244 * ). Group F consisted of 52% horned goats, group L of 21% only. Group F had 63% of goats at the age of 4-5 years and only 8% animals at the age of 1-2 years. 42% goats of group L were at the age from 4 to 5 years, and 33% at the age from 1 to 2 years. Goats of group F produced more milk than the animals of group L. Significant differences between the groups were observed especially at the third lactation. e results indicate that the behavior of goats when entering the milking parlor is influenced by the age and level of milk production. e age and milk produc - tion of goats can have a significant impact on their order at machine milking.
Software integration in mobile robotics, a science to scale up machine intelligence

The present work tackles integration in mobile robotics. Integration is often considered to be a mere technique, unworthy of scientific investigation. On the contrary, we show that integrating capabilities in a mobile robot entails new questions that the parts alone do not feature. These questions reflect the structure of the application and the physics of the world. We also show that a successful integration process transforms the parts themselves and allows to scale up mobile-robot intelligence in real-world applications. In Chapter 2 we present the hardware. In Chapter 3, we show that building a low-level control architecture considering the mechanic and electronic reality of the robot improves the performances and allows to integrate a large number of sensors and actuators. In Chapter 4, we show that globally optimising mechatronic parameters considering the robot as a whole allows to implement slam using an inexpensive sensor with a low processor load. In Chapter 5, we show that based on the output from the slam algorithm, we can combine infrared proximity sensors and vision to detect objects and to build a semantic map of the environment. We show how to find free paths for the robot and how to create a dual geometric-symbolic representation of the world. In Chapter 6, we show that the nature of scenarios influences the implementation of a task-planning algorithm and changes its execution properties. All these chapters contribute results that together prove that integration is a science. In Chapter 7, we show that combining these results improves the state of the art in a difficult application : autonomous construction in unknown environments with scarce resources. This application is interesting because it is challenging at multiple levels : For low-level control, manipulating objects in the real world to build structures is difficult. At the level of perceptions, the fusion of multiple heterogeneous inexpensive sensors is not trivial, because these sensors are noisy and the noise is non-Gaussian. At the level of cognition, reasoning about elements from an unknown world in real time on a miniature robot is demanding. Building this application upon our other results proves that integration allows to scale up machine intelligence, because this application shows intelligence that is beyond the state of the art, still only combining basic components that are individually slightly behind the state of the art.