Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of efficient permeation barriers based on hot-wire cvd grown silicon-nitride multilayers for organic devices deposited on flexible substrates

Les dispositifs optoelectroniques a base de materiaux organiques necessitent la realisation de couches barriere de permeation car l'oxygene et l'humidite degradent fortement ces dispositifs. Afin d'augmenter leur duree de vie et ainsi les rendre commercialement attractifs, des couches d'encapsulation sont necessaires, ceci represente un defi majeur surtout dans le cadre des substrats flexibles comme les plastiques. Des faibles valeurs du taux de permeation sont exigees, typiquement de l'ordre de 10-5 g/m2. Jour dans le cadre de l'eau. Deux voies ont ete etudiees, dans le cadre de cette these, pour atteindre cet objectif: d'une part en fabriquant des barrieres multicouches a base de nitrure de silicium amorphe, chaque couche etant separee de la suivante par un traitement plasma d'argon, d'autre part en fabriquant des barrieres hybrides alternant des couches inorganiques avec des couches organiques. Nous avons choisi la technique de depot chimique en phase vapeur par filament chaud (HW-CVD) pour le depot des couches inorganiques et nos efforts ont porte sur l'etude approfondie des parametres controlant le plasma. Il ressort que l'energie des ions impactant la surface a ete le parametre determinant. Diverses techniques d'analyse ont ete necessaires pour evaluer precisement la qualite des couches constituant les barrieres de permeation. Une interpretation physique du procede plasma a ete proposee, basee sur le rearrangement atomique induit a chaque interface par les ions de faible energie (< 40 eV). Pour chacune des voies choisies, des tres faibles taux de permeation (4 a 7 × 10-5 g/m2. Jour) ont ete atteints. Avec la combinaison de ces deux methodes d'encapsulation, nous avons atteint une valeur de WVTR extremement faible (6 × 10-6 g/m2. Jour), ce qui semble suffisant pour l'utilisation dans des dispositifs organiques.
Unintended Consequences of Policy Interventions: Evidence from Home Affordable Refinance Program

This paper studies the unintended consequences arising from program design, and how it augments the market power of incumbent lenders, in the context of a federal program called Home Affordable Refinance Program. We build a dynamic discrete choice model of refinance decision where the payoff is generated from a search and negotiation process. We estimate the model using data on program participation and pricing decision. The estimation exploits a significant change to the program design that gives variation in the competitive advantage of incumbent lenders under the program. In a counterfactual where the advantage granted by program design is shut down, we find that it leads to an average welfare improvement of $4,977, or 3.6% relative to the baseline. The insight from this study could apply to other policies whose implementation depends on intermediaries with incumbent advantage with respect to targeted agents.
The Effects of 180 years of Aging on the Physical and Seismic Properties of Partially Saturated Sands

Constraining how the physical properties and seismic responses of recently deposited sands change with time is important for understanding earthquake site response, subsurface fluid flow, and early stages of lithification. Currently, however, there is no detailed (cm‐scale) assessment of how sand's physical properties and associated seismic velocities evolve over the first two centuries after deposition. Here, we integrate sedimentation rates with seismic velocity and sediment physical properties data to assess how the vadose zone sands at Port Royal Beach, Jamaica, change within 180 years after deposition. We show that compressional and shear wave velocities increase with sediment age, whereas porosity, grain size, sorting, mineralogy, and cementation fraction remain relatively unchanged during the same period. Rock physics models (constrained by the measured physical properties) predict constant seismic velocities at all sites regardless of sediment age, though misfits between modeled and observed velocities increase with sediment age. We explain these misfits by proposing that shallow sands undergo microstructural grain reorganization that leads to a more uniform distribution of grain contact forces with time. Our results imply that beach sands undergo a previously undocumented lithification process that occurs before compaction.
Noisy Neural Network Compression for Analog Storage Devices

Efﬁcient compression and storage of neural network (NN) parameters is critical for resource-constrained, downstream machine learning applications. Although several methods for NN compression have been developed, there has been considerably less work in the efﬁcient storage of NN weights. While analog storage devices are promising alternatives to digital systems, the fact that they are noisy presents challenges for model compression as slight perturbations of the weights may signiﬁcantly compromise the network’s overall performance. In this work, we study an analog NVM array fabricated in hardware (Phase Change Memory (PCM)) and develop a variety of robust coding strategies for NN weights that work well in practice. We demonstrate the efﬁcacy of our approach on MNIST and CIFAR-10 datasets for pruning and knowledge distillation.
Influence of Different Nutrient Management Practices on the Performance of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Variety CAU R1 under Different Moisture Regimes

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most important crops in the world, growing in over 156 million hectares of land having overall worldwide production (paddy rice) of 650 million tons per annum. Now, rice is being grown in 117 countries and is a staple food for many countries. India is considered as one of the centre of origin of rice (Oryza sativa spp. indica) and an important centre of its diversity (Ramaiah, 1953) and it alone produces nearly one fourth (21%) of the rice in the world, next only to China (FAO, 2009). Rice is the staple food for its large population and this crop is cultivated in almost all the Indian states under a remarkably wide range of agro-climatic conditions and ecological International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 9 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
Reinventing Evaluations with Competency Based Assessments: a Practical Experiment with Future Computer Science Engineers

This innovative practice work-in-progress paper presents a pedagogical device, supported by a tool, moving evaluations at the heart of the learning process. The device gives back to students the control over their own learning and provides them with real-time feedback about their progress. Instructors can also monitor the progress of their classrooms.Designing a proper evaluation is not an easy task for instructors. It must make sense to students and should be adapted to the way they learn. Students are often quite afraid, stressed and not motivated by evaluations whose main perceived role is to achieve a decent grade to succeed the course. The method presented in this paper follows a competency based assessment approach. Each course’s objectives are described with a list of competencies to get. Students have to prove they master them by passing evaluations ranging from simple quizzes to projects, including missions, codings and oral interviews. Students can choose the assessments to work on, that best suit their own way of learning. They can present them at their own pace.The proposed pedagogical device and associated developed tool are being tested for the first time during this 2019–2020 academic year. It has been proposed to second-year bachelor to master computer science engineering students, on classrooms with between 17 and 34 people. First feedback collected from students is globally positive and engaging, and the system will undergo a more formal and thorough evaluation.
An agent-based model for estimating emissions reduction equivalence among leak detection and repair programs

Abstract Alternative leak detection and repair (alt-LDAR) programs are being introduced by regulators to provide flexibility in how oil and gas producers manage fugitive methane emissions. However, emissions reduction equivalence must be established between a proposed program and a regulatory standard. We present LDAR-Sim, an open-source, agent-based numerical model for evaluating LDAR program performance. Novel functionality includes the ability to: (1) set facility-specific LDAR requirements, (2) simultaneously deploy multiple technologies, (3) integrate screening and close-range methods, (4) include environmental constraints, and (5) explore the impact of design emissions on screening technologies. We demonstrate LDAR-Sim in two case studies with diverse LDAR programs deployed on real assets. We find that equivalence determinations depend on explicit definition of reference standards, including weather and labour availability. Screening program performance is sensitive to the confounding presence of design emissions and to decision-making strategies that guide follow-up inspections. When comparing programs, differences in simulated performance are sensitive to leak production and null repair rates, two elusive parameters used in previous studies. Future work should better constrain empirical inputs and validate specific LDAR programs as alt-LDAR deployment increases. Regulators and producers can use LDAR-Sim to facilitate the adoption of emerging technologies but should be aware of its limitations.
Significant additional Antarctic warming in atmospheric
bias-corrected ARPEGE projections

Abstract. In this study, we use run-time bias-correction to correct for ARPEGE atmospheric model systematic errors on large-scale atmospheric circulation. The bias correction terms are built using the climatological mean of the adjustment terms on tendency errors in an ARPEGE simulation relaxed towards ERA-Interim reanalyses. The improvements with respect to the AMIP-style uncorrected control run for the general atmospheric circulation in the Southern Hemisphere are significant for mean state and daily variability. Comparisons for the Antarctic Ice Sheet with the polar-oriented regional atmospheric models MAR and RACMO2 and in-situ observations also suggest substantial bias reduction for near-surface temperature and precipitation in coastal areas. Applying the method to climate projections for the late 21st century (2071–2100) leads to large differences in the projected changes of the atmospheric circulation in the Southern high latitudes and of the Antarctic surface climate. The projected poleward shift and strengthening of the southern westerly winds are greatly reduced. These changes result in a significant 0.7 to 0.9 K additional warming and a 6 to 9 % additional increase in precipitation over the grounded ice sheet. The sensitivity of precipitation increase to temperature (+7.7 and +9 %.K−1) found is also higher than previous estimates. Highest additional warming rates are found over East Antarctica in summer. In winter, there is a dipole of weaker warming and weaker precipitation increase over West Antarctica, contrasted by a stronger warming and a concomitant stronger precipitation increase from Victoria to Adelie Land, associated with a weaker intensification of the Amundsen Sea Low.
Upgrading the Smartness of Retrofitting Packages towards Energy-Efficient Residential Buildings in Cold Climate Countries: Two Case Studies

Improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings by implementing building automation control strategies (BACS) besides building envelope and energy system retrofitting has been recommended by the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) 2018. This paper investigated this recommendation by conducting a simulation-based optimization to explore cost-effective retrofitting combinations of building envelope, energy systems and BACS measures in-line with automation standard EN 15232. Two cases (i.e., a typical single-family house and apartment block) were modeled and simulated using IDA Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA-ICE). The built-in optimization tool, GenOpt, was used to minimize energy consumption as the single objective function. The associated difference in life cycle cost, compared to the reference design, was calculated for each optimization iteration. Thermal comfort of the optimized solutions was assessed to verify the thermal comfort acceptability. Installing an air source heat pump had a greater energy-saving potential than reducing heat losses through the building envelope. Implementing BACS achieved cost-effective energy savings up to 24%. Energy savings up to 57% were estimated when BACS was combined with the other retrofitting measures. Particularly for compact buildings, where the potential of reducing heat losses through the envelope is limited, the impact of BACS increased. BACS also improved the thermal comfort.
Correlates of Hallucinatory Experiences in the General Population: An International Multisite Replication Study

Hallucinatory experiences can occur in both clinical and nonclinical groups. However, in previous studies of the general population, investigations of the cognitive mechanisms underlying hallucinatory experiences have yielded inconsistent results. We ran a large-scale preregistered multisite study, in which general-population participants (N = 1,394 across 11 data-collection sites and online) completed assessments of hallucinatory experiences, a measure of adverse childhood experiences, and four tasks: source memory, dichotic listening, backward digit span, and auditory signal detection. We found that hallucinatory experiences were associated with a higher false-alarm rate on the signal detection task and a greater number of reported adverse childhood experiences but not with any of the other cognitive measures employed. These findings are an important step in improving reproducibility in hallucinations research and suggest that the replicability of some findings regarding cognition in clinical samples needs to be investigated.
Negligible ameliorative effect of aluminium sulphate on oxidative stress parameters in goats during subacute fluoride intoxication.

Four healthy goats were administered 20 mg NaF/kg bw/day for 30 days. Oxidative stress occurring in the blood was indicated by a significant increase in catalase activity (p<0.01) and a decrease in superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity (p<0.05) along with a significant increase in lipid peroxidation (p<0.01). Concurrent administration of 150 mg Al2(SO4)3•16H2O/kg bw/day in another group of four health goats failed to reverse the F-induced oxidative stress.
Lossless CNN Channel Pruning via Decoupling Remembering and Forgetting

We propose ResRep, a novel method for lossless channel pruning (a.k.a. filter pruning), which aims to slim down a convolutional neural network (CNN) by reducing the width (number of output channels) of convolutional layers. Inspired by the neurobiology research about the independence of remembering and forgetting, we propose to re-parameterize a CNN into the remembering parts and forgetting parts, where the former learn to maintain the performance and the latter learn for efficiency. By training the re-parameterized model using regular SGD on the former but a novel update rule with penalty gradients on the latter, we realize structured sparsity, enabling us to equivalently convert the re-parameterized model into the original architecture with narrower layers. Such a methodology distinguishes ResRep from the traditional learning-based pruning paradigm that applies a penalty on parameters to produce structured sparsity, which may suppress the parameters essential for the remembering. Our method slims down a standard ResNet-50 with 76.15% accuracy on ImageNet to a narrower one with only 45% FLOPs and no accuracy drop, which is the first to achieve lossless pruning with such a high compression ratio, to the best of our knowledge.
Phase Transitions in Solids Under High Pressure

Phase equilibria and kinetics of phase transformations under high pressure Equipment and methods for the study of phase transformations in solids at high pressures Phase transformations of carbon and boron nitride at high pressure and deformation under pressure Phase transitions in Si and Ge at high pressure and deformation under pressure Polymorphic alpha-omega transformation in titanium, zirconium and zirconium-titanium alloys Phase transformations in iron and its alloys at high pressure Phase transformations in gallium and cerium On the possible polymorphic transformations in transition metals under pressure Pressure-induced polymorphic transformations in AIBVII compounds Phase transformations in AIIBVI and AIIIBV semiconductor compounds Effect of pressure on the kinetics of phase transformations in iron alloys Transformations during deformation at high pressure Effects due to phase transformations at high pressure Kinetics and hysteresis in high-temperature polymorphic transformations under pressure Hysteresis and kinetics of low-temperature polymorphic transformations under pressure Kinetics of phase transformations under pressure and the synthesis of high-pressure phases
Enrichment of Iron and Copper by the Use of Two Liquid Phases Separation

The equilibrium relation of the phase separation in the FeCu-B system is investigated more in detail at the lower boron content at 1873K. By combining the Taylor series equation proposed by Wagner and that of the quadratic formalism proposed by Darken, the thermodynamic interaction parameters of copper and boron in molten iron are derived. As a result, it is confirmed that two liquid phases separation occurs even at the lower boron content in iron, [mass%B] (in Fe) =0.006. The interaction parameters of copper and boron in molten iron at 1873K are derived.
The Briefest of Glances: The Time Course of Natural Scene Understanding

What information is available from a brief glance at a novel scene? Although previous efforts to answer this question have focused on scene categorization or object detection, real-world scenes contain a wealth of information whose perceptual availability has yet to be explored. We compared image exposure thresholds in several tasks involving basic-level categorization or global-property classification. All thresholds were remarkably short: Observers achieved 75%-correct performance with presentations ranging from 19 to 67 ms, reaching maximum performance at about 100 ms. Global-property categorization was performed with significantly less presentation time than basic-level categorization, which suggests that there exists a time during early visual processing when a scene may be classified as, for example, a large space or navigable, but not yet as a mountain or lake. Comparing the relative availability of visual information reveals bottlenecks in the accumulation of meaning. Understanding these bottlenecks provides critical insight into the computations underlying rapid visual understanding. Catching meaning at a glance is a survival instinct, and a uniquely human talent that movie producers manipulate to their advantage when making trailers: By mixing snapshots of meaningful scenes in a rapid sequence, they can convey in a few seconds an evocative story from unrelated pictures of people, events, and places. In the laboratory, now-classic studies have shown that novel pictures can be identified in a 10-Hz sequence, although they are quickly forgotten when new images come into view (Intraub, 1981; Potter, 1975; Potter & Levy, 1969). Although several studies have investigated the availability of visual features over the course of a glance, in the study reported here we investigated the early perceptual availability of a number of semantic features used in scene classification. What types of meaningful information can human observers perceive from the briefest glances at images of novel scenes?
Controlling turbulence and pattern formation in chemical reactions

Spontaneous pattern formation and spatiotemporal chaos (turbulence) are common features of spatially extended nonlinear systems maintained far from equilibrium. The aim of this work is to control and engineer such phenomena. As an example, the catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide on a platinum (110) single crystal surface is considered. In order to control turbulence and to manipulate pattern formation in this reaction, two different control methods, global delayed feedback and periodic forcing, are employed. The effects of a global delayed feedback on the self-organized behavior of the system are first studied numerically in a reaction-diffusion model of CO oxidation on Pt(110). By applying a global control force generated by the spatially averaged state of one of the system variables, turbulence can be suppressed and uniform oscillations can be stabilized. Moreover, global delayed feedback can be used as a tool to produce a variety of complex spatiotemporal patterns, including phase flips, asynchronous oscillations, intermittent turbulence represented by irregular cascades of ring-shaped objects on a uniformly oscillating background, cellular structures, and different types of cluster patterns. The simulated structures are analyzed using a newly developed transformation to phase and amplitude variables designed for non-harmonic oscillations. The obtained patterns resemble the structures exhibited by a general model, the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with global feedback. The simulated phenomena of pattern formation are then tested in laboratory experiments with CO oxidation on Pt(110). Global delayed feedback is introduced into the system via a controlled state-dependent variation of the CO partial pressure in the reaction chamber. The spatiotemporal patterns developing on the catalytic surface are imaged by means of photoemission electron microscopy. In such experiments, it is shown that chemical turbulence can be suppressed and a large part of the predicted patterns, including intermittent turbulence, clusters, and cellular structures, can be indeed observed. The experimentally obtained patterns are also transformed into the corresponding spatial distributions of oscillation phase and amplitude. In a further set of experimental investigations, the effects of periodic external forcing on chemical turbulence in CO oxidation on Pt(110) are studied. Using this method, turbulence can be also suppressed and several complex patterns can be induced. The observed frequency