Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Energy splitting between 2s and 2p excitons in hBN-encapsulated monolayer WSe2

Optical sum-frequency generation spectroscopy reveals a clear dipole-inactive <tex>$2p$</tex> exciton peak in hBN-encapsulated monolayer WSe<inf>2</inf> under excitation with broadband picosecond near infrared laser pulses <tex>$(\hslash\omega=0.56\sim 1.3\text{eV})$</tex>. The splitting energy between <tex>$2s$</tex> and <tex>$2p$</tex> states is determined as 8. 8 ± 0.1 meV.
Multi-Scale and Multi-Direction GAN for CNN-Based Single Palm-Vein Identification

Despite recent advances of deep neural networks in hand vein identification, the existing solutions assume the availability of a large and rich set of training image samples. These solutions, therefore, still lack the capability to extract robust and discriminative hand-vein features from a single training image sample. To overcome this problem, we propose a single-sample-per-person (SSPP) palm-vein identification approach, where only a single sample per class is enrolled in the gallery set for training. Our approach, named MSMDGAN + CNN, consists of a multi-scale and multi-direction generative adversarial network (MSMDGAN) for data augmentation and a convolutional neural network (CNN) for palm-vein identification. First, a novel data augmentation approach, MSMDGAN, is developed to learn the internal distribution of patches in a single image. The proposed MSMDGAN consists of multiple fully convolutional GANs, each of which is responsible for learning the patch distribution within an image at a different scale and at a different direction. Second, given the resulting augmented data by MSMDGAN, we design a CNN for single sample palm-vein recognition. The experimental results on two public hand-vein databases demonstrate that MSMDGAN is able to generate realistic and diverse samples, which, in turn, improves the stability of the CNN. In terms of accuracy, MSMDGAN + CNN outperforms other representative approaches and achieves state-of-the-art recognition results.
Linear Dichroism in High Temperature Superconductors in THz Range

We measure as a function of sample orientation, doping, temperature, and energy, the Faraday rotation of linearly polarized THz light by high temperature cuprate superconductors. We observe a linear dichroism signal which increases with decreasing frequency and may exhibit resonances in the THz (1–6 meV) range. Preliminary results also show strong temperature dependence to the Faraday rotation signal.
Sensorized Facemask With Moisture-Sensitive RFID Antenna

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the use of filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) is increasingly widespread. Since the masks’ wetness can reduce its filtering capabilities, the World Health Organization advises to replace the FFRs if they become too damp, but currently, there is no practical way to monitor the masks’ wetness. A low-cost moisture sensor placed inside the FFRs could discriminate a slightly damp mask from a wet one, which must be replaced. In this letter, a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag exploiting an auto-tuning microchip for humidity sensing is designed and tested during an ordinary working day and a physical exercise. The tag returns about 1 unit of the digital metric every 3 mg of water generated by breathing and sweating, and it can identify excessively wet masks from commonly used ones.
Parts-per-million water vapor sensing using an ultrahigh-Q THz disc microresonator

We report on the first demonstration of a THz gas spectrometer using a sub-wavelength thick ultrahigh-Q THz disc microresonator. Leveraging the microresonator's ultrahigh quality factor in excess of 120,000 and the intrinsically large evanescent field, allows for the implementation of a very compact spectrometer without the need for complex multi-pass gas cells. Water vapor concentrations as low as 4 parts per million at atmospheric conditions have been readily achieved in these proof-of-concept experiments.
Enhancing Atomic Instruction Emulation for Cross-ISA Dynamic Binary Translation

Dynamic Binary Translation (DBT) is a key enabler for cross-ISA emulation, system virtualization, runtime instrumentation, and many other important applications. Among several critical requirements for DBT, it is important to provide equivalent semantics for atomic synchronization instructions such as Load - Link / Store - Conditional (LL/SC), which are mostly included in the reduced-instruction set architectures (RISC) and Compare-and-Swap(CAS), which is mostly in the complex instruction set architectures (CISC). However, the state-of-the-art DBT tools often do not provide a fully correct translation of these atomic instructions, in particular, from RISC atomic instructions (i.e. LL/SC) to CISC atomic instructions (i.e. CAS), due to performance concerns. As a result, some may cause the well-known ABA problem, which could lead to wrong results or program crashes. In our experimental studies on QEMU, a state-of-the-art DBT, that runs multi-threaded lock-free stack operations implemented with ARM instruction set (i.e. using LL/SC) on Intel x86 platforms (i.e. using CAS), it often crashes within 2 seconds. Although attempts have been made to provide correct emulation for such atomic instructions, they either result in heavy execution overheads or require additional hardware support. In this paper, we propose several schemes to address those issues and implement them on QEMU to evaluate their performance overheads. The results show that all of the proposed schemes can provide correct emulation and, for the best solution, can achieve a min, max, geomean speedup of 1.25x, 3.21x, 2.03x respectively, over the best existing software-based scheme.
Granulation Technology for Bioproducts

Introduction. Theory of Granulation. Fluidized Bed Granulation. Spray Drying of Bioproducts. Extrusion and Spheronization. High-Intensity Mixer Granulators. Microencapsulated Enzymes and Live Mammalian Cells. Liquid Phase Granulation. Large Scale Freeze-Drying of Bacterial Concentrates. Fluidized Bed Drying of Granular Bioproducts. Coating of Granular Bioproducts. Granulation Processes for Industrial Enzymes. Process and Equipment Selection.
High-quality ultrathin gate oxide prepared by oxidation in D2O

In this letter, we present a process to incorporate deuterium at the Si/SiO2 interface using deuterium oxide (D2O) as an oxidizing gas. We have investigated the electrical and reliability characteristics of ultrathin gate oxide grown in D2O ambient. Compared with a control oxide grown in H2O, an oxide grown in D2O exhibits a significant reduction of charge trapping and interface state generation. Based on secondary ion mass spectroscopy analysis, we found a deuterium-rich layer at the Si/SiO2 interface. The improvement of electrical and reliability characteristics can be explained by the deuterium incorporation at the Si/SiO2 interface.
A Stacked Embedded DRAM Array for LPDDR4/4X using Hybrid Bonding 3D Integration with 34GB/s/1Gb 0.88pJ/b Logic-to-Memory Interface

Increasing demand for DRAM scaling and high-bandwidth has driven DRAM technology to 3D/2.5D integration. With the innovative Hybrid Bonding technology, a new Stacked Embedded DRAM (SEDRAM) architecture was developed on LPDDR4/4X product. In this SEDRAM, a DRAM array wafer and logic wafer were fabricated separately and then face-to-face fusion connected through ultra-high-density, low-resistance Hybrid Bonding. By separating the control, I/O, DFT and periphery circuits to a logic die, SEDRAM offers a novel approach to DRAM product development and accomplishes an extremely high-bandwidth logic-to-memory interface speed of 34GBps per 1Gb with low power consumption as low as 0.88pJ/bit.
High-Resolution 3-Dimensional Contact Deformation Tracking for FingerVision Sensor With Dense Random Color Pattern

Recent studies on vision-based tactile sensing have shown promising results on the perception of contact information, which could improve the performance of dexterous manipulations. However, 3-dimensional contact deformation tracking at a higher resolution is desired and remains a challenge for vision-based tactile sensors with monocular configurations. In this work, a similar hardware structure to our previous FingerVision sensor is adopted. The dot markers are replaced with a novel random color pattern as the sensor's tracking target and a dense optical flow algorithm is used to track the deformation of its elastic contact interface. This results in a more accurate 2-dimensional deformation field estimation at a higher resolution in comparison with that obtained using sparse dot markers. Additionally, the denser and more accurate deformation field enables depth estimation with better fidelity. To achieve depth estimation purely from the optical flow field, Gaussian density feature extraction and processing framework are proposed. The resulting depth map can be used independently as a tactile sensing modality, or jointly with the accurate in-plane displacement field as a more complete deformation tracking of contact interfaces for vision-based tactile sensors.
Palladium- and copper-catalyzed highly selective mono-coupling between 2,6-diiodoanisoles and terminal alkynes in the production of alkynylated anisoles as potential precursors of benzo[b]furans

The coupling reaction between 2,6-diiodoanisoles and terminal alkynes using Pd(PPh3)2Cl2 and CuI as catalysts and diisopropylamine as base in toluene at room temperature for 12 h produced selectively alkynylated 2-iodoanisoles, in good to excellent yields (52-95%), which are useful building blocks with potential application in the synthesis of functionalized benzo[b]furans.
A Vehicular Crowd-sensing Incentive Mechanism for Temporal Coverage

Vehicular Crowd-sensing (VCS) is a new data collection paradigm that leverages the unique characteristics of vehicular mobility to collect sensing data. One of the main challenges for VCS is how to assign sensing tasks among participant so as to maintain the required Quality of Sensing Data (QoSD), while keeping participation profitable. We tackle this challenge by designing an incentive mechanism that encourages the collection of high QoSD, while improve participant utilities. The proposed mechanism includes a platform which post a set of sensing tasks and the associated rewards, and a set of participant vehicles equipped with sensors, who compete for these rewards. We model this competition as a non-cooperative game in which the set of vehicles are the players, and their trajectories are their strategies. Using open-street maps, SUMO vehicular traffic simulator, and extensive simulations, we show that our algorithm significantly outperforms a greedy approach in terms of QoSD, average vehicle utility, spatial coverage, and road utilization.
mROMA - An expert-based approach for the multidisciplinary rating of mHealth applications

In Germany, mHealth applications can be pre-scribed to patients since December 19, 2019. A meaningful taxonomy for the selection of a suitable mHealth application is not available in current mobile application stores. Additionally, the stores lack reliable content and quality controls. An adequate approach to determine the quality of mHealth applications has been missing since then. Presently, these facts prevent physicians from determining which mHealth applications are suitable for prescribing them to their patients. Following that, the question raises how existing technical approaches and regulations can be conjoined to provide a quality assured approach for the evaluation of mHealth applications.In this paper, we present mROMA, an expert-based approach for the multidisciplinary rating of mHealth applications. The mROMA system addresses the problems of undifferentiated mHealth taxonomies and proposes a solution for the differentiated classification of mHealth applications. In our research we start with an analysis of existing evaluation methods. Then a multidisciplinary calculated score based on content, usability, security, and law (denoted CUSL score) is presented, which can be used as a basis for the certification of mHealth applications with the mROMA certificate. The taxonomies and scores presented are then evaluated and a conclusion on the potential benefits of mROMA is drawn.
Water sorption in wood and modified wood at high values of relative humidity. Part I: Results for untreated, acetylated, and furfurylated Norway spruce

Abstract Desorption isotherms at 20°C for untreated, acetylated, and furfurylated Norway spruce [Picea abies (L.) Karst. ] sapwood were established in the 91.9–99.9% relative humidity (RH) range. Three methods were employed to secure various constant RH levels: saturated salt solutions, climate chambers, and the pressure plate technique. The curve form for the untreated samples did not show an upward bend, except perhaps above 99.5% RH, indicating that – contrary to what has hitherto been assumed – capillary condensation does not play a significant role for water sorption in wood below fiber saturation. Three additional results corroborate this conclusion: (1) calculation of the theoretical contribution of capillary condensation to the moisture content (MC) in wood based on idealized microstructural geometries by means of the Kelvin and Laplace equations resulted in very small contributions to the equilibrium moisture content (EMC), i.e., below 0.35% moisture at 99.9% RH. (2) The ratio between the EMC of acetylated and untreated samples did not show an increasing trend for increasing RH, as would have been the case if capillary condensation had taken place in both untreated and acetylated wood. (3) Low field time domain nuclear magnetic resonance results showed that only the relaxation curves from the furfurylated samples were affected systematically by freezing, indicating that neither untreated nor acetylated wood contained significant amounts of capillary condensed water.
Dynamics of HfZrO2 Ferroelectric Structures: Experiments and Models

We have carried out a detailed experimental study of the switching dynamics of HfZrO2 Metal-Ferroelectric-Metal (MFM) and Metal-Ferroelectric-Insulator-Metal (MFIM) structures. In order to extract the intrinsic dynamic response, our experimental methodology has paid close attention to minimizing and calibrating all circuit and sample parasitics. In MFM structures, we have found no evidence of negative capacitance (NC) effect. A new dynamic model based on the multi-domain Preisach model describes well all observed behavior including major and minor charge-voltage loops. Our study also reveals the crucial role that parasitics play in the observed device dynamics and can explain claims of NC effects in MFM structures in the literature. In our MFIM structures, we observe clear NC behavior. We not only confirm the transient quasi-static S-like ferroelectric (FE) charge-field behavior described in the literature, but for the first time, we report a dynamic response that displays a hysteretic behavior in the NC region. A model based on the Landau-Khalatnikov (L-K) equation that incorporates FE dynamics via a phenomenological frictional resistance adequately describes the observed results when that resistance is made dependent on the direction of the voltage drive vs. time. Mitigation of this hysteretic NC behavior will be crucial for the harnessing of NC in practical MOSFETs.
Surface tension of polymer mixtures and copolymers

Contact angles θ of liquids of different polarity were measured on a series of mixtures of solid high polymers and a series of copolymers. The mixtures were composed of an alternating poly(ethylene-co-maleic anhydride) (EMA), and its addition product with n-octadecylamine, poly(ethylene-co-N-n-octadecylmaleamic acid) (EOM). The co-polymers were composed of the same monomeric units as the mixtures. The surface tension γs of EOM, calculated from θ by the Good-Fowkes-Owens-Wendt treatment, decreased slightly with increasing molecular weights and then reached a limiting value. Plots of γs against EOM concentration indicated large negative excess surface tension of the units with lower surface tension, EOM, in both series studied. For the mixture series, γa first sharply decreased with the EOM concentration; then it reached a limiting value, the γs of pure EOM, at a very low EOM concentration. This indicates phase separation of the two polymers, and the thickness of a monomolecular surface layer was calculated from these data. For the copolymers, γs varied logarithmically with the EOM concentration. Throughout the whole concentration range, the data fitted the equation developed by Belton and Evans for ideal mixtures.
Random and frozen states in complex triangulations

Triangulations of complex surfaces with different genera are studied within a statistical mechanics framework where an energy is associated to deviations from an ideal, ordered ground state. We observe that the complexity of the embedding surface strongly affects the properties of the triangulations. At high temperatures the ‘random states’ have degree distributions that broaden with the surface genus. At low temperatures the ‘frozen states’ can reach a higher degree of order with increasing genus. The dynamics between disordered and ordered states is also affected by the surface genus. High genus triangulations start from more disordered states at high temperatures but they quench faster into more ordered states than the low genus counterparts. However, the ground state is never reached because at low temperatures the relaxation dynamics slows down into a glassy kind of behavior. Topological frustration can also play a very important role when the surface genus forces the average degree to be a fractional number.
Studies of Terahertz Radiation from Optically excited Indium Tin Oxide / Semi Insulating Gallium Arsenide Interface

In this work, we observed enhanced terahertz emission from the interface between indium tin oxide (ITO) and semi-insulating gallium arsenide (SI-GaAs) substrate. Further, we investigated the dependence of THz emission on pump power and angle of incident excitation beam. We found more than 3 times of THz emission power enhancement for incident angle below 70°. Besides, we found enhancement of THz radiation at low pump intensity and saturation with increasing peak excitation intensity beyond 20 TW/m2. The experimental results are well explained by plasmonic effects at the metal-semiconductor interface.
An Unequally Clustered Multi-hop Routing Protocol Based on Fuzzy Logic for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is associated with a new exemplification of a real-time embedded system used for various applications that make the traditional infrastructure-based network seem infeasible. Due to imbalanced energy consumption among nodes, WSN has challenges with better utilization of energy and system enhancement. Clustering has been a better approach in this sequence. Therefore, this paper will utilize a fuzzy logic-based clustering protocol (unequal clustering) with multi-hop transmission for load balancing, energy consumption minimization, and network lifetime prolongation. The protocol forms unequal clusters with cluster head (CH) being selected by fuzzy logic with competition radius. Node distance to the base station, concentration, and residual energy are input variables. The simulation and results section displays the outperformance of the proposed protocol, where the low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH), energy-aware multi-hop multi-path hierarchical (EAMMH), energy-aware unequal clustering fuzzy (EAUCF), and two-tier distributed fuzzy logic-based protocol (TTDFP) for efficient data aggregation in multi-hop wireless sensor networks algorithms.
Development and evaluation of a system that executes an interventional cardiology risk model based on patient phenotypes automatically extracted from the EMR

Lack of electronic medical record (EMR) integration hampers effective clinical operationalization of clinical decision support. Accordingly, this study sought to develop and evaluate a system that automatically executes an interventional cardiology risk model based on EMR content accessed through a web service. Phenotyping rules were developed to automatically determine the models risk factors, advanced age, anemia, congestive heart failure, diabetes, reduced eGFR and hypotension. Performance of the rules was determined using a ground truth based on chart review of 76 patients. Except for one instance, PPV and NPV of the phenotyping rules exceeded 0.93. The predictions produced by the risk model were accurate in 82% of patients. Performance of the phenotyping rules was determined by the ability to model the rules after the risk model’s definition and the availability and accuracy of the accessed data sources. Data retrieved by the rules can be presented for efficient physician review and confirmation.
Automatic Music Playlist Generation Based on Music-Programming of FM Radios

Streaming music services are flooding their platforms with thousands of different playlists and this huge catalog is backfiring users who struggle to find the playlist that best suits their needs. In this paper, we aim to facilitate the music listening by designing a novel approach to automatically generate a playlist suited to the user's musical taste. Our approach is based on the FM radio music programming: starting from the user's favorite radio, we analyze seven days of music programming, we transform songs into vectors of audio features, we generate a music programming for a virtual day, and we transform this virtual day music programming into a real playlist when the user begins the music playout.
Onset-Time Control of THz Transients Generated by Spintronic Emitters

We have generated intense electromagnetic transients by femtosecond laser pulse illumination of ferromagnet/metal (F/M) nanobilayers, in the presence of an external magnetic field. Fourier analysis revealed that the frequency content of these transients extended up to ~5 THz. We have also observed that upon the increase of the magnetic field, the entire THz transient shifts towards earlier times by up to 110 fs. We ascribe this magnetically tunable onset-time shift to extra acceleration of photoelectrons induced due to the Lorenz force.
Crystal chemistry of birefringent spessartine

The crystal structure of one isotropic [(1) Brazil] and three birefringent spessartine samples [(2) California, (3) Tanzania, and (4) Colorado] were refined using the Rietveld method, cubic space group $Ia\overline 3 d$ , and monochromatic synchrotron high-resolution powder X-ray diffraction (HRPXRD) data. The results of electron-microprobe analysis (EMPA) indicate homogeneous compositions, in terms of end-members, as follows: (1) Sps54Alm43, (2) Sps90Alm8, (3) Sps64Prp27Grs3, and (4) Sps73Alm19. Their crystal structures were modeled well as indicated by the Rietveld refinement statistics where the reduced χ 2 and overall R (F 2) values for each sample are: (1) 1.395 and 0.0329, (2) 1.082 and 0.0354, (3) 1.025 and 0.0347, and (4) 1.016 and 0.0413. Two cubic phases occur in samples 2–4, and a single cubic phase occurs in sample-1. The dominant cubic phase-1 with locality, weight fraction (%), unit-cell parameter (Å), distances (Å), and site occupancy factors (sofs) are as follows: (1) Brazil: 100%, a = 11.581 54 (1), average = 2.3156, Al–O = 1.8949 (3), Si–O = 1.6376 (3) Å, Mn(sof) = 0.961(1), Al(sof) = 0.945(1), and Si(sof) = 0.936(1); (2) California: 96.67(7)%, a = 11.613 32(1), average = 2.3249, Al–O = 1.8956 (4), Si–O = 1.6416 (4) Å, Mn(sof) = 0.951(1), Al(sof) = 0.946(1), and Si(sof) = 0.927(1); (3) Tanzania: 69.46(6)%, a = 11.598 45(1), average = 2.3199, Al–O = 1.8964 (5), Si–O = 1.6398 (5) Å, Mn(sof) = 0.808(1), Al(sof) = 0.942(1), and Si(sof) = 0.922(1); and (4) Colorado: 98.58(6)%, a = 11.606 89(1), average = 2.3204, Al-O = 1.8948 (6), Si–O = 1.6450 (6) Å, Mn(sof) = 0.949(1), Al(sof) = 0.967(2), and Si(sof) = 0.913(2). The two-phase intergrowth causes strain that arises from mismatch of the structural parameters and gives rise to strain-induced birefringence.