Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perceptions of Tone at the Top from the Inside: Insights into Audit Pricing

Tone at the top plays an important role in entities’ internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) and in auditors’ planning and risk assessment decisions. Using a novel measure based on employee perceptions, we find that strong tone at the top is associated with reduced audit pricing and that this relation holds even for firms that report effective ICFR. This relation is stronger when employees’ tone perceptions are more consistent throughout the organization, when accounting is more complex, and when earnings manipulation risk is higher. We also find that strong tone is negatively associated with the incidence of reported material weaknesses and positively associated with positive abnormal accruals, and that the management integrity component of tone is more strongly associated with audit pricing than is the quality of management communication. Finally, we find evidence that auditors become familiar with employees' tone perceptions in the normal course of an audit.
A 4D printed active compliant hinge for potential space applications using shape memory alloys and polymers

This paper presents the proof-of-concept for a 4D printed active compliant hinge with a selectively variable stiffness for the deployment and reorientation of satellite appendages. We use 4D printing to create an active compliant hinge capable of bending to a given angular position, holding the position without consuming energy and reorienting itself multiple times in a slow and controlled manner without using rigid mechanisms and, therefore, requiring no lubrication. The deployment and the reorientation of the hinge are achieved by exploiting thermally induced stiffness modulation of one of the constituting materials and two antagonistic shape memory alloy actuators. The hinge is specifically designed for the case study of a 6U CubeSat with two orientable solar panels. In this work, we first explain the working principle of the hinge and propose three different actuation strategies to increase the energy collection of the considered CubeSat. Second, we describe the specific functional and geometric requirements of the hinge, the resulting design and the fabricated functional prototype. The latter is tested in a standard laboratory environment to measure the range of motion, the energy consumption and the actuation time. Finally, the feasibility of the three proposed actuation strategies is evaluated considering the corresponding net increase in collected energy. The results show that the hinge is compatible with the stowing requirements and capable of achieving maximum angular positions larger than 90° in both directions and holding any intermediate position with an accuracy of less than 3°. The three actuation strategies considered lead, in a standard laboratory environment, to an increase in energy generation between 54% and 72%.
Nanoscale studies of membrane dynamics via STED- Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy

Molecular membrane dynamics in living cells are often obscured from the observer because of the limited spatial resolution of conventional far-field optical microscopy. The superior spatial resolution of stimulated emission depletion (STED) nanoscopy provides new insights into the dynamic processes within the plasma membrane. In combination with the high temporal resolution of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), we record and characterize the diffusion of membrane constituents within nanoscale observation areas. In the first part of the thesis, we compare STED-FCS data of various fluorescent lipid analogs and proteins in the plasma membrane of living cells. Our results reveal distinct modes of diffusion which can be differentiated according to the chemical structure of the molecules. Phosphoglycerolipids diffuse freely and only weakly interact with other membrane constituents. Sphingolipids exhibit a strong molecular confinement due to the formation of hydrogen bounds within the ceramide backbone or between large polar head groups. Transmembrane proteins corral in compartments built by the cellular cytoskeleton. We implement Monte-Carlo simulations to support and explain our experimental results. In the second part of the thesis, we enhance the experimental STED-FCS setup by the integration of a fast scanning unit. This newly developed concept not only enables us to perform calibration-free measurements of slowly diffusing particles but also visualizes spatial diffusion heterogeneities along the scan trajectory.
Ultrathin acoustic absorbing metasurface based on deep learning approach

Acoustic metasurface has become one of the most promising platforms for manipulating acoustic waves with the advantage of ultra-thin geometry. The conventional design method of acoustic metasurface relies on numerical, trial-and-error methods to retrieve effective properties of the locally resonant unit cells. It is often inefficient and requires significant efforts to investigate the enormous number of possible structures with different physical and geometric parameters, which demands huge computational resources. This is especially when modeling narrow cavities where thermoviscous loss has to be considered. In this paper, a deep learning-based acoustic metasurface absorber modeling approach is introduced to significantly reduce the characterization time while maintaining accuracy. Based on a convolutional neural network (CNN), the proposed network can model wide absorption spectrum response in the timescale of milliseconds. The performance of the implemented network is compared with other classical machine learning methods. Using CNN, we have demonstrated an ultrathin metasurface absorber having perfect absorption at an extremely low frequency of 38.6 Hz with an ultrathin thickness down to λ/684 (1.3 cm). The total path length for the propagating waves inside the channel is about λ/5.7 which breaks the quarter-wavelength resonator theory. The network prediction is validated using the experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of this physical mechanism. Furthermore, we propose a broadband low-frequency metasurface absorber by coupling unit cells exhibiting different properties based on the supercell concept. This approach is attractive for applications necessitating fast on-demand design and optimization of a metasurface acoustic absorber.
Self-feeding formation of atomically thin molybdenum nanoflakes on MoS2 monolayer

The decoration of atomically thin metal flakes on two-dimensional (2D) material membranes to impart intriguing properties for applications such as sensors and catalysis has attracted tremendous interest. Here, we report the formation of atomically thin Mo nanoflakes on a molybdenum disulfide monolayer (ML-MoS2) via a ‘self-feeding’ process using in situ transmission electron microscopy. Driven by energetic e-beam irradiation and thermal excitation, metallic Mo atoms preferentially segregate out and aggregate around mirror twin boundaries in the host MoS2 ML, which then assemble into metallic nanoflakes: the associated dynamic process captured at the atomic scale. The Mo atoms constituting the nanoflakes tend to sit on the Mo-top and S-top sites if they are viewed as absorbed atoms with respect to the ML-MoS2 substrate, which is further confirmed by theoretical calculations. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the entire system, i.e. metallic Mo nanoflakes sitting on the ML-MoS2 structure, exhibits overall metallic behavior, thus offering an efficient way to tune the electronic properties of the host MoS2. Such controlled fabrication can also enrich the 2D material family and provide new opportunities for exploiting their applications in catalytic and sensing devices.
Almost additive multifractal analysis for flows

Building on the construction of equilibrium measures, we establish a conditional variational principle for the multifractal spectra of an almost additive family with respect to a continuous flow Φ such that the entropy map μ ↦ h μ (Φ) is upper-semicontinuous. We also show that the spectrum is continuous and that in the case of hyperbolic flows the corresponding irregular sets have full topological entropy. More generally, we consider the spectrum for the u-dimension and obtain corresponding results.
Evaluation of the Factors Influencing the Trust of Millennial Citizens in E-Government

This study aims at identifying the effect of the millennial generation’s perceptions regarding risks, security, and trust in the Internet when utilizing e-government services. A total of 291 data items were collected through online surveys and this information was analysed quantitatively with the SEM method by employing the Smart PLS application. The confidence of this generation in applications is observed to be influenced by software quality and trust in the internet, but not information quality and faith in the government. Furthermore, trust in the internet is unaffected by internal risk, while the intention to use this medium is influenced by reliance on applications and also affected user behaviour.
InN crystal habit, structural, electrical, and optical properties affected by sapphire substrate nitridation in N-polar InN/InAlN heterostructures

Indium nitride (InN) is a very promising direct bandgap semiconductor material for near-infrared optoelectronic devices and high speed transistors, however InN growth is much more challenging compared to other III-N semiconductors. In this study we analysed the impact of pre-growth vicinal c-plane sapphire substrate nitridation on the electrical, optical, and strucutral properties of N-polar InN/InAlN heterostructures and the InN crystal habit. While a short cool-down nitridation phase resulted in a high quality InAlN layer and low quality InN layer, it was the opposite for a long cool-down nitridation phase. A trade-off between the electrical and optical properties was observed: the short nitridation cool-down produced InN layers with a higher electron mobility of 629 cm2 V−1 s−1 and low photoluminescence (PL) emission, and the long one resulted in InN with a ∼21% lower electron mobility of 497 cm2 V−1s−1 but strong PL emission. Also, a very different InN crystal habit was observed for either case. The short nitridation cool-down was conducive to the formation of a continuous layer consisting mostly of coalesced downward-pointing hexagonal pyramids, while the long one led to a layer of upward-pointing hexagonal pyramids. The local decomposition of an AlON layer produced by sapphire nitridation and variations in the InAlN surface morphology resulting in a preferential attraction of growth species and localised change in the surface free energy contributions were most likely responsible for these observations. Our results also suggest N-polar buffer layers are likely to produce coalesced InN layers with a high electron mobility, while metal-polar buffer layers may facilitate the growth of high crystal quality pyramidal InN with a strong optical response.
COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance in the US and UK in the Early Phase of the Pandemic: AI-Generated Vaccines Hesitancy for Minors, and the Role of Governments

This study presents survey results of the public's willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 during an early phase of the pandemic and examines factors that could influence vaccine acceptance based on a between-subjects design. A representative quota sample of 572 adults in the US and UK participated in an online survey. First, the participants' medical use tendencies and initial vaccine acceptance were assessed; then, short vignettes were provided to evaluate their changes in attitude towards COVID-19 vaccines. For data analysis, ANOVA and post hoc pairwise comparisons were used. The participants were more reluctant to vaccinate their children than themselves and the elderly. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in vaccine development did not influence vaccine acceptance. Vignettes that explicitly stated the high effectiveness of vaccines led to an increase in vaccine acceptance. Our study suggests public policies emphasizing the vaccine effectiveness against the virus could lead to higher vaccination rates. We also discuss the public's expectations of governments concerning vaccine safety and present a series of implications based on our findings.
Oxidative transformation of aromatic amines: mechanistic insights from multielement stable isotope analyses

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coupled to gas chromatography/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC/IRMS) was used to elucidate the effects of N-atom protonation on the analysis of N and C isotope signatures of selected aromatic amines. Precise and accurate isotope ratios were measured using polydimethylsiloxane/divinylbenzene (PDMS/DVB) as the SPME fiber material at solution pH-values that exceeded the pKa of the substituted aniline’s conjugate acid by two pH-units. Deviations of δ N and δC-values from reference measurements by elemental analyzer IRMS were small (<0.9h) and within the typical uncertainties of isotope ratio measurements by SPMEGC/IRMS. Under these conditions, the detection limits for accurate isotope ratio measurements were between 0.64 and 2.1 mg L−1 for δN and between 0.13 and 0.54 mg L−1 for δC, respectively. Substantial inverse N isotope fractionation was observed by SPME-GC/IRMS as the fraction of protonated species increased with decreasing pH leading to deviations of −20h while the corresponding δC-values were largely invariant. From isotope ratio analysis at different solution pHs and theoretical calculations by density functional theory, we derived equilibrium isotope effects, EIEs, pertinent to aromatic amine protonation of 0.980 and 1.001 for N and C, respectively, which were very similar for all compounds investigated. Our work shows that N-atom protonation can compromise accurate compound-specific N isotope analysis of aromatic amines.
An Anatomically Constrained Model of V1 Simple Cells Predicts the Coexistence of Push–Pull and Broad Inhibition

The spatial organization and dynamic interactions between excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs that define the receptive field (RF) of simple cells in the cat primary visual cortex (V1) still raise the following paradoxical issues: (1) stimulation of simple cells in V1 with drifting gratings supports a wiring schema of spatially segregated sets of excitatory and inhibitory inputs activated in an opponent way by stimulus contrast polarity and (2) in contrast, intracellular studies using flashed bars suggest that although ON and OFF excitatory inputs are indeed segregated, inhibitory inputs span the entire RF regardless of input contrast polarity. Here, we propose a biologically detailed computational model of simple cells embedded in a V1-like network that resolves this seeming contradiction. We varied parametrically the RF-correlation-based bias for excitatory and inhibitory synapses and found that a moderate bias of excitatory neurons to synapse onto other neurons with correlated receptive fields and a weaker bias of inhibitory neurons to synapse onto other neurons with anticorrelated receptive fields can explain the conductance input, the postsynaptic membrane potential, and the spike train dynamics under both stimulation paradigms. This computational study shows that the same structural model can reproduce the functional diversity of visual processing observed during different visual contexts. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Identifying generic connectivity motives in cortical circuitry encoding for specific functions is crucial for understanding the computations implemented in the cortex. Indirect evidence points to correlation-based biases in the connectivity pattern in V1 of higher mammals, whereby excitatory and inhibitory neurons preferentially synapse onto neurons respectively with correlated and anticorrelated receptive fields. A recent intracellular study questions this push–pull hypothesis, failing to find spatial anticorrelation patterns between excitation and inhibition across the receptive field. We present here a spiking model of V1 that integrates relevant anatomic and physiological constraints and shows that a more versatile motif of correlation-based connectivity with selectively tuned excitation and broadened inhibition is sufficient to account for the diversity of functional descriptions obtained for different classes of stimuli.
Study on the Nitrogen Release Law of Bamboo Charcoal-coated Urea and Its Biological Utilization Effects

[Objective]The study about the nitrogen releasing law of bamboo-charcoal coated urea and the biologic utilization effect was to find the coated urea with high efficiency,low price and simple production technology. [Method]Two kinds of bamboo-charcoal coated urea(BCCU)with different coating thickness were made by using bamboo-charcoal and macromolecule polymer as coating material.The experiments of soil eluviate,ammonia volatilization in corn field and potted plant of corn were conducted to study the nitrogen releasing law and the biologic utilization effect of self-made BCCU. [Result]The BCCU showed some slow-release capability and their accumulated nitrogen releasing rates in 29 d were 9.93%-16.27% lower than that of normal urea.Compared with the normal urea,the volatilization rate of ammonia in BCCU reduced to 16.66%-31.8%,the biomass of corn and nitrogen utilization rate increased by 12.8%-24.1% and 10.5%-16.99%,respectively. [Conclusion]Bamboo-charcoal in coated urea not only had some slow-release capability,but also had some adsorbability,which would reduce the eluviation and volatilization of nitrogen and protect environment from N pollution.
PSYCHOSOCIAL EXPERIENCES , ASTHMA AND GXE 1 Title : Psychosocial experiences modulate asthma-associated genes through gene-environment interactions

Social interactions and the overall psychosocial environment have a demonstrated impact on health, particularly for people living in disadvantaged urban areas. Here we investigated the effect of psychosocial experiences on gene expression in peripheral blood immune cells of children with asthma in Metro Detroit. Using RNA-sequencing and a new machine learning approach, we identified transcriptional signatures of 20 variables including psychosocial factors, blood cell composition and asthma symptoms. Importantly, we found 174 genes associated with asthma that are regulated by psychosocial factors, and 349 significant gene-environment interactions for gene expression levels. These results demonstrate that immune gene expression mediates the link between negative psychosocial experiences and asthma risk. Main Text: Introduction Psychosocial experiences have long been recognized to affect human health(Miller et al. 2009). Intrapersonal processes (e.g. emotionality(Pressman et al. 2019; Smith et al. 2004), interpersonal social relationships(Repetti et al. 2002; Robles et al. 2014)) and broader structural environments (e.g. neighborhood quality and socioeconomic status (SES)(Gallo and Matthews 2003) are all associated with the morbidity and severity of diseases such as asthma(Harrison 1998), cancer(Meyer and Mark 1995), cardiovascular disease (Everson-Rose and Lewis 2005), as well as mortality rates(Holt-Lunstad et al. 2010; Chida and Steptoe 2008). Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the respiratory tract that disproportionately affects children(Moorman et al. 2012). It is one of the costliest pediatric health conditions(Weiss et al. 2000), and a leading cause of school absenteeism(Akinbami and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics 2006). Financially struggling cities, such as Detroit, are at an especially high risk for asthma morbidity and mortality(Sullivan et al. 2002). While environmental and genetic factors lead to the development of asthma and affect the health of children with asthma(von Mutius 2000, 2009; Umetsu et al. 2002), psychosocial stress is a critical factor contributing to asthma severity(Wright et al. 1998, 2005; Shankardass et al. 2009; Chen and Miller 2007; Sandberg et al. 2000). Understanding the biological pathways underlying these associations is crucial to strengthen the causal claims linking psychosocial experiences and health. The growing field of social genomics investigates how various dimensions of a person's social and psychological environment influence gene expression(Cole 2014; Slavich and Cole 2013; . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license available under a (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted October 1, 2020. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07. 16.206912 doi: bioRxiv preprint
Graphene CVD: Interplay Between Growth and Etching on Morphology and Stacking by Hydrogen and Oxidizing Impurities

The growth of high quality graphene layers by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) has been found to strongly depend on growth conditions with results varying greatly from one laboratory to another for nominally identical conditions. We report the results of a systematic investigation of the role of hydrogen and oxidizing impurities present in the gas feedstock during the growth and cooling stages in low-pressure CVD. First, we show that for a partial pressure of oxidizing impurities below 1 ppb, hydrogen is not required for graphene growth from methane. Second, we demonstrate that purified hydrogen does not etch graphene films at typical growth temperatures. Third, a flow of purified hydrogen during cooling counterbalances graphene etching by oxygen, thus protecting the films. Films grown under high purity conditions (low level of oxidizing impurities) exhibit a higher bilayer and multilayer coverage; Surprisingly some of these bi- and multilayer graphene islands are twisted with respect to the first graphene.
Validation of Pb nuclear data by Monte Carlo analyses of sample reactivity experiments at Kyoto University Critical Assembly

Sample reactivity experiments on the uncertainty analyses of Pb nuclear data are carried out by substituting Al plates for Pb ones at the Kyoto University Critical Assembly, as part of basic research on Pb–Bi for the coolant. Numerical simulations of sample reactivity experiments are performed with the Monte Carlo calculation code MCNP6.1 together with four nuclear data libraries JENDL-3.3, JENDL-4.0, ENDF/B-VII.0 and JEFF-3.1, to examine the accuracy of cross-section uncertainties of Pb isotopes by comparing measured and calculated sample reactivities. A library update from JENDL-3.3 to JENDL-4.0 is demonstrated by the fact that the difference between Pb isotopes of the two JENDL libraries is dominant in the comparative study, through the experimental analyses of sample reactivity by the MCNP approach. In addition, JENDL-4.0 reveals a slight difference from ENDF/B-VII.0 in all Pb isotopes and 27Al, and from JEFF-3.1 in 238U and 27Al. Based on these results, further experiments are needed to investigate the uncertainties of Bi isotopes with the use of the Pb–Bi and Bi plates.
Sponsor, Institutional Investor, and Quotation: Theory and Evidence from China

How do interactions between institutional investors and sponsors affect the quotations in IPOs? This paper provides evidence that connections between the above two agencies result in variations in the institutional investors' quoted prices and quotation frequency in China stock market. Using a Bartik-style identification strategy that links shocks to connections between institutional investors and sponsors in China, we find that a stronger connection between a sponsor and an institutional investor lowers the quoted price to a realistic level and increases the probability that the investor joins the quotation of the sponsor's main-board IPO during the "three highs" period in which the "favor quotation" is common. This relationship will be more significant for quotation frequency when more investors are connected to sponsors within a city. Moreover, the mouth-to-mouth effect tends to be weaker in cities with more investors.