Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Orientation of spheroidal fullerenes inside carbon nanotubes with potential applications as memory devices in nano-computing

A spheroid is an ellipsoid for which two of the axes are equal, and here the interaction between spheroidal fullerenes and carbon nanotubes is modeled using the Lennard–Jones potential and the continuum approximation. The resulting surface integrals are evaluated analytically for a number of configurations, including lying and standing as well as spheroids with an arbitrary tilt angle, and centered on the nanotube axis. Analytical expressions for off-axis spheroids in all three orientations are also given, and the findings are shown to agree well with previously published work. However, the major contribution of this work is the derivation of new exact analytical formulae to calculate the van der Waals interaction energy for these configurations, and in particular the results for the tilting and off-axis configurations which are far more general than those which have appeared in the literature previously. From these exact expressions, five primary regimes are identified: lying on-axis, tilting on-axis, standing on-axis, standing off-axis and finally lying off-axis. Also identified in this study is a precisely prescribed radius, for the transition between regimes four and five, for which two equally energetically favorable orientations exist and for which these two configurations are separated by a known energy barrier. The notion arises that such configurations may be exploited for nano-scaled memory devices used in nano-computing.
Binary copper oxide semiconductors: From materials towards devices

Copper‐oxide compound semiconductors provide a unique possibility to tune the optical and electronic properties from insulating to metallic conduction, from bandgap energies of 2.1 eV to the infrared at 1.40 eV, i.e., right into the middle of the efficiency maximum for solar‐cell applications. Three distinctly different phases, Cu2O, Cu4O3, and CuO, of this binary semiconductor can be prepared by thin‐film deposition techniques, which differ in the oxidation state of copper. Their material properties as far as they are known by experiment or predicted by theory are reviewed. They are supplemented by new experimental results from thin‐film growth and characterization, both will be critically discussed and summarized. With respect to devices the focus is on solar‐cell performances based on Cu2O. It is demonstrated by photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) that the heterojunction system p‐Cu2O/n‐AlGaN is much more promising for the application as efficient solar cells than that of p‐Cu2O/n‐ZnO heterojunction devices that have been favored up to now.
Nodal Solutions for Neumann Problems with a Nonhomogeneous Differential Operator

We consider a nonlinear elliptic Neumann problem driven by a nonhomogeneous di¤erential operator, which is strictly monotone and incorporates as special cases the p-Laplacian, the ðp; qÞ-di¤erential operator and the generalized pmean curvature di¤erential operator. Using variational methods coupled with suitable truncation and comparison techniques and Morse theory (critical groups), we show that the problem has at least three nontrivial smooth solutions, one positive, the second negative and the third nodal. Also we show that the problem has extremal nontrivial constant sign solutions.
Time-domain near-field analysis of short-pulse antennas .II. Reactive energy and the antenna Q

For pt. I see ibid., vol.47, no.2, p.271-79 (1999). The time-domain (TD) multipole expansion, developed in the first part of this two-part sequence, is extended here to analyze the power-flow and energy balance in the vicinity of a pulsed antenna. Using the spherical transmission line formulation, we derive expressions for the pulsed power-flow and energy and identify the radiative and the reactive constituents. For time-harmonic fields, the reactive concepts are well understood in terms of the stored energy, but this interpretation is not applicable for short-pulse fields where there is no stored energy. By considering the TD energy balance, we clarify the transition of the near-zone pulsed reactive energy to the radiation power and show that the pulsed reactive energy discharges back to the source once the pulse has been radiated. We thus introduce a TD Q factor that quantifies the radiation efficiency. In particular, we show that super resolution using short-pulse fields involves large TD reactive energies and Q and is, therefore, not feasible. The general TD concepts discussed are demonstrated through a numerical example of radiation from a circular disk carrying a pulsed current distribution.
Modeling of Energy, Water, and CO2 Flux in a Temperate Grassland Ecosystem with SiB2: May–October 1987

Abstract The Simple Biosphere Model, version 2 (SiB2), was designed for use within atmospheric general circulation models as a soil–vegetation–atmosphere transfer scheme that includes CO2 flux prediction. A stand-alone version of SiB2 was used to simulate a grassland at Station 16 of the First ISLSCP Field Experiment (FIFE) located near Manhattan, Kansas, for a period of 142 days of the 1987 growing season. Modeled values of soil temperature and moisture were initialized, using field measurements from the soil profile, and thereafter updated solely by model calculations. The model was driven by half-hourly atmospheric observations and regular observations of canopy biophysics. This arrangement was intended to mimic model forcing in a GCM. Three model versions are compared: (i) a Control run using parameter values taken from look-up tables used for running the Colorado State University GCM; (ii) a Tuned run with many adjustments to optimize SiB2 to this ecosystem; and (iii) a Calibrated run, which calibrat.
A novel and simple technique for measuring low-loss materials using the two flanged waveguides measurement geometry

In this paper, a novel technique is developed to practically and accurately measure the permittivity and permeability of low-loss materials using the two flanged waveguides measurement geometry (originally designed to characterize strongly absorbing materials only). A review of the two flanged waveguides measurement technique (tFWMT) as well as the Green's function-based flange-design criterion is provided. This review is followed by the introduction of the novel method (called tFWMT time-domain gating). It is shown that tFWMT time-domain gating extends the range of applicability of the tFWMT to low-loss materials and provides a clear flange-size design requirement which, for low-loss materials, is approximately two orders of magnitude smaller than that stipulated by the existing Green's function-based criterion. Lastly, material-characterization measurement results of low-loss acrylic and ECCOSORB® FGM-125, using flanges of two different sizes, are presented to validate the new technique.
Versions of the Sign Test in the Presence of Ties

SUMMARY The question of how to treat tied observations is often a problem in nonparametric tests. In this article the many different procedures that have been suggested for dealing with ties in the sign test are reviewed and compared. We discuss a new version of the sign test that is especially well-suited for situations in which the probability of an observation equalling the hypothesized median is known to be very high. This test is based on the test statistic formed by adding the number of positive observations and two-thirds of the number of zeroes. Studies of the power and significance level of many tests that have been proposed for this problem indicate that the asymptotic uniformly most powerful (UMP) test performs very well for almost all settings considered, even when the sample size is small. This asymptotic UMP test, which has been little used to date, is recommended for use in practice. A particular application of the use of the sign test in the study of fluctuating asymmetry of meristic traits in ornamental goldfish is presented.
Factors Associated with Fatigued Driving among Australian Truck Drivers: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Fatigued driving is one of the leading factors contributing to road crashes in the trucking industry. The nature of trucking, prolonged working time, and irregular sleep patterns can negatively impact drivers’ health and wellbeing. However, there is limited research in Australia investigating the impact of demographic, occupational, or lifestyle factors on fatigue among truck drivers. Objective: This cross-sectional study examines the role of demographic, occupational, lifestyle, and other health risk factors associated with fatigue among Australian truck drivers. Method: This study was part of a larger study that used a short online survey with a follow-up telephone survey to capture in-depth information on a wide range of determinants related to truck drivers’ physical and mental health outcomes. Fatigue was measured by three questions, including the frequency of fatigue, fatigue management training, and strategies used to combat fatigue. Multivariate regression analysis was used to determine the specific impact of demographics, occupational factors, lifestyle factors, and other health risk factors on fatigue. Results: In total, 332 drivers completed both the online and telephone surveys; 97% were male, representing drivers from broad age groups and professional experience. The odds of being in the high-risk fatigue group were nearly three times higher in drivers who worked 40–60 h compared to those who worked < 40 h. Poor sleep increased the odds of high-risk fatigue by seventimes (95% CI: 2.26–21.67, p = 0.001). Drivers who reported experiencing loneliness also had double the odds of being at high risk of fatigued driving. Conclusions: The increased risk of fatigue in truck drivers is associated with prolonged working hours, poor sleep, and social aspects such as loneliness. Further interventions seeking to reduce driver fatigue should consider the impact of work schedules, the availability of quality sleeping spaces, and the level of social connections.
Regional governments in the rural space: the effectiveness of dual-tier regional councils

ABSTRACT The fiscal decentralization literature explores the efficient structure of local governments. However, little consideration has been given to the efficient structure of rural local governments. In this study we show that a dual-tier local government structure in rural areas is more efficient than the prevalent unitary structure. Specifically, we demonstrate that a regional council that incorporates many small villages is more efficient than when each village operates as an independent local government. We present a theoretical model and provide a simulation of the model using Israeli municipal data, which combines both unitary and dual-tier structures. The simulation uses the unitary small towns as the training set and the villages within regional councils as the test set. It thus calculates the cost structure of villages within regional councils based on the data of unitary small towns. The results indicate that most villages that are part of a regional council operate more efficiently than their simulated independent unitary counterparts. Based on the findings, we suggest an alternative lower level local government structure for rural communities that adds a mezzanine dual-tier structure.
High-efficiency visible photoluminescence from amorphous silicon nanoparticles embedded in silicon nitride

Confinement of silicon nanoparticles in silicon nitride instead of an oxide matrix might materially facilitate its potential applications as a light-emitting component in optoelectronics. We report in this letter the production of high-density (up to 4.0×1012/cm2 from micrographs) silicon nanoparticles in SiNx thin films by chemical vapor deposition on cold substrates. Strong room-temperature photoluminescence was observed in the whole visible light range from the deposits that were postannealed at 500 °C for 2 min. The Si-in-SiNx films provide a significantly more effective photoluminescence than Si-in-SiOx fabricated with similar processing parameters: for blue light, the external quantum efficiency is over three times as large. The present results demonstrate that the nanostructured Si-in-SiNx system can be a very competitive candidate for the development of tunable high-efficiency light-emitting devices.
Prediction of Surgical Approach in Mitral Valve Disease by XGBoost Algorithm Based on Echocardiographic Features

In this study, we aimed to develop a prediction model to assist surgeons in choosing an appropriate surgical approach for mitral valve disease patients. We retrospectively analyzed a total of 143 patients who underwent surgery for mitral valve disease. The XGBoost algorithm was used to establish a predictive model to decide a surgical approach (mitral valve repair or replacement) based on the echocardiographic features of the mitral valve apparatus, such as leaflets, the annulus, and sub-valvular structures. The results showed that the accuracy of the predictive model was 81.09% in predicting the appropriate surgical approach based on the patient’s preoperative echocardiography. The result of the predictive model was superior to the traditional complexity score (81.09% vs. 75%). Additionally, the predictive model showed that the three main factors affecting the choice of surgical approach were leaflet restriction, calcification of the leaflet, and perforation or cleft of the leaflet. We developed a novel predictive model using the XGBoost algorithm based on echocardiographic features to assist surgeons in choosing an appropriate surgical approach for patients with mitral valve disease.
Hawaiian Winter Rainfall Related to Pacific Sea Surface Temperature

Abstract An attempt was made to specify Hawaiian winter rainfall from simultaneous Pacific sea surface temperature (SST). Over the period 1949–69,December–February Oahu rainfall had a multiple correlation of 0.83 with the simultaneous values of two SST differences in the North Pacific. How-ever, use of this relationship for the years 1970–77 revealed that little success in specifying rainfall would have been achieved. A contributory reason is “artificial predictability. ” Further, a multiple-regression formula baud on the whole period gave significantly more large errors in 1967–77 than in 1949–66, suggesting that the dominant influences on the rainfall have changed.
The Impact of FinTech Merge Operation on Financial Performance: Evidence from a Banking International Sample

The FinTech phenomenon has recently had a significant impact on the financial sector, opening up new potential for cost-saving measures and providing increasingly sophisticated financial services. On the other hand, FinTech has helped new players—typically technology companies—enter the financial sector and financial intermediation. Financial institutions have started cooperative and merging operations. As a result, to incorporate the new technology created in the market into their business model. This study aims to determine whether banks engaged in a FinTech merger experience improved financial performance. The research hypothesis is tested using an international sample composed of 106 financial intermediaries that implemented FinTech mergers from 2010 to 2018. The methodology employed is the Propensity-Score-Matching (PSM) technique which provides empirical results using a control group of 8,886 financial firms, with a total of 79,974 observations. The results demonstrate how a FinTech merger enhances intermediaries' financial performance. This evidence highlights the strategic value of FinTech fusion in the modern financial system. This study offers important insights for future research on the topic, as it contributes to combining two distinct outfits of literature, FinTech and M&A, into one that has been little addressed in the financial sector.
TRPS1 Is Differentially Expressed in a Variety of Malignant and Benign Cutaneous Sweat Gland Neoplasms

Neoplasms of sweat glands and the breast may be morphologically and immunophenotypically similar. A recent study showed that TRPS1 staining is a highly sensitive and specific marker for breast carcinoma. In this study, we analyzed TRPS1 expression in a spectrum of cutaneous sweat gland tumors. We stained five microcystic adnexal carcinomas (MACs), three eccrine adenocarcinomas, two syringoid eccrine carcinomas, four hidradenocarcinomas, six porocarcinomas, one eccrine carcinoma-NOS, 11 hidradenomas, nine poromas, seven cylindromas, three spiradenomas, and 10 syringomas with TRPS1 antibodies. All of the MACs and syringomas were negative. Every cylindroma and two of the three spiradenomas demonstrated intense staining in cells lining the ductular spaces, with negative to relatively weak expression in surrounding cells. Of the 16 remaining malignant entities, 13 were intermediate to high positive, one was low positive, and two were negative. From the 20 hidradenomas and poromas, intermediate to high positivity was revealed in 14 cases, low positivity in three cases, and negative staining in three cases. Our study demonstrates a very high (86%) expression of TRPS1 in malignant and benign adnexal tumors that are mainly composed of islands or nodules with polygonal cells, e.g., hidradenomas. On the other hand, tumors with small ducts or strands of cells, such as MACs, appear to be completely negative. This differential staining among types of sweat gland tumors may represent either differential cells of origin or divergent differentiation and has the potential to be used as a diagnostic tool in the future.
Ageing-Induced Decline in Primary Myeloid Cell Phagocytosis Is Unaffected by Optineurin Insufficiency

Simple Summary Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating disease, which results in death as early as 2–5 years upon diagnosis. Finding a cure for ALS has proved to be extremely challenging due to its complex genetic background, and its still largely unknown environmental triggers. A recent study has pinpointed inefficient phagocytosis as a new common disease mechanism in patients of different genetic backgrounds. Here, we analysed if phagocytosis defects are directly linked to mutations in the OPTN gene, which encodes for optineurin protein that regulates inflammatory signalling. To this end, we used innate immune cells (macrophages and microglia) from an optineurin truncation mouse model that resembles some patient mutations. We analysed these cells at steady state and stressed by the common ALS risk factors—ageing and inflammation. We observed that ageing decreased phagocytosis, whereas inflammation decreased degradation of the phagocytosed material. However, none of these processes were affected by the OPTN mutation. This suggests that the disease mechanism in patients carrying OPTN mutations is distinct. Abstract Optineurin is a ubiquitin-binding adaptor protein involved in multiple cellular processes, including innate inflammatory signalling. Mutations in optineurin were found in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an adult-onset fatal neurodegenerative disease that targets motor neurons. Neurodegeneration results in generation of neuronal debris, which is primarily cleared by myeloid cells. To assess the role of optineurin in phagocytosis, we performed a flow cytometry-based phagocytic assay of apoptotic neuronal debris and E. coli bioparticles in bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs), and primary neonatal microglia from wild-type (WT) and optineurin-insufficient (Optn470T) mice. We found no difference in phagocytosis efficiency and the accompanying cytokine secretion in WT and Optn470T BMDMs and microglia. This was true at both steady state and upon proinflammatory polarization with lipopolysaccharide. When we analysed the effect of ageing as a major risk factor for neurodegeneration, we found a substantial decrease in the percentage of phagocytic cells and proinflammatory cytokine secretion in BMDMs from 2-year-old mice. However, this ageing-induced phagocytic decline was unaffected by optineurin insufficiency. All together, these results indicate that ageing is the factor that perturbs normal phagocytosis and proinflammatory cytokine secretion, but that optineurin is dispensable for these processes.
Accounting for inflation dynamic in a fully optimizing macroeconomic framework: evidence from the US states

ABSTRACT This article proposes a New Keynesian DSGE model that can capture the hump-shaped response of inflation to a monetary policy shock that does not depend upon backward-looking elements for the price and wage-setting, such as the indexation of wages or prices. The two additional elements required to achieve a hump-shaped response are roundabout production structure (input–output structure for production) and working capital. Depending on the model’s parameterization, this channel can provide a pronounced response of inflation. In addition, our article provides some reduced-form evidence about the hump-shaped response of inflation using a VAR with Cholesky ordering.
Cross-Scale KNN Image Transformer for Image Restoration

Numerous image restoration approaches have been proposed based on attention mechanism, achieving superior performance to convolutional neural networks (CNNs) based counterparts. However, they do not leverage the attention model in a form fully suited to the image restoration tasks. In this paper, we propose an image restoration network with a novel attention mechanism, called cross-scale <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-NN image Transformer (CS-KiT), that effectively considers several factors such as locality, non-locality, and cross-scale aggregation, which are essential to image restoration. To achieve locality and non-locality, the CS-KiT builds <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-nearest neighbor relation of local patches and aggregates similar patches through local attention. To induce cross-scale aggregation, we ensure that each local patch embraces different scale information with scale-aware patch embedding (SPE) which predicts an input patch scale through a combination of multi-scale convolution branches. We show the effectiveness of the CS-KiT with experimental results, outperforming state-of-the-art restoration approaches on image denoising, deblurring, and deraining benchmarks.