Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Removal of Congo Red and Naphthol Blue Black dyes from aqueous solution by adsorption on activated carbon. Characterization, kinetic and equilibrium in nonlinear models studies

The objective of our study is to test the performance of the commercial powdered activated carbon (PAC) in the elimination by adsorption of two di-azo dyes, Congo red (CR) and Naphthol blue black (NBB), were used directly without any treatment. The PAC was characterized using X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, and the pH point of zero charges (pHPZC). The adsorption studies were conducted on a batch process and under the effect of various operational parameters such as contact time, pH, and initial concentration of the tested dyes. The adsorption mechanism with nonlinear equations, such as pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, intraparticle diffusion, Elovich kinetics, Langmuir, Freundlich, and Dubinin– Radushkevich isotherm was also studied. The adsorption process occurred rapidly for NBB than CR. However, the maximum adsorption capacity was obtained with CR (53.17 mg/g). The findings showed that CR and NBB’s adsorption processes favor the pattern of pseudo-first-order. The maximum removal of two dyes was achieved under acidic condition. The adsorption efficiency also decreased with the initial increase in the contents of the CR and NBB. The Langmuir isotherm offered the best fit to experimental data suggesting homogeneous dispersion of adsorption sites.
An Investigation for Enhancing the Shortest Path Problem in Real Time Information

: It is necessary to provide a dependable, realistic, and scalable network for Adhoc communication between cars in order to enable intelligent traffic communication. This paper takes everything into consideration while creating our modified model for the quickest route. In this case, our approach offers the user more than one route/path to take in order to reach the goal. The purpose of a position tracking system is to identify the shortest route possible in order to save time. whereas the earlier model only considered the shortest distance and did not consider the time factor. Earlier models only considered the shortest distance and did not consider the time factor. In this case, artificial intelligence is being used to monitor the location of the item and then determine the shortest route between the source and the destination. The shortest path is the most direct route from point A to point B, and it will make use of artificial intelligence to aid in decision-making power. In order This addition provides us with a This improvement gets the realities of world. In this way, the real-world implications of this model provide us with additional real-world parameters and a real-time situation for route traveling. Travelers will save time as a result of this. In addition, we put the findings of the experiments into practice by communicating with moving cars through wireless sensor networks (WSNs) radios of various types and configurations. Our goal is to offer measurable background knowledge on various types of automotive networking methods in order to identify the most effective solution for a variety of distinct use scenarios. The suggested method, which makes use of real-time information, provides us with a more dynamic model for determining the quickest route. Its ability to offer real-time information makes it the ideal model for the future, and its improvement gets us closer to real-time circumstances while saving passengers' time.
Simulating a state feedback model of speaking

An important part of understanding the neural control of speaking is determining how sensory feedback is processed. The role of sensory feedback in speaking suggests a paradox: it need not be present for intelligible speech production, but if it is present, it needs to be correct or speech output will be affected. For this reason, current models of speech motor control relegate sensory feedback to a more indirect role, with an inner feedback loop within the CNS that directly controls speech output, and a slower outer feedback loop where the possibly delayed and intermittent sensory feedback updates the internal feedback loop. Such models can be described as variations on a more general theory of state feedback control (SFC). Here we show, via numerical simulations, how the SFC model can account not only for what is known about the behavioral role of sensory feedback in speaking, but also many of our recent findings about neural responses to auditory feedback.
Who Is Being Heard? Response Bias in Open-ended Responses in a Large Government Employee Survey

A great deal of research has been conducted in order to describe and measure both unit and item non-response bias on quantitative surveys. Relatively less work, however, has been done to adapt this work to open ended responses. This lack of attention is unfortunate because the topic is relevant for a number of reasons. First, while some purists treat verbatim comments as purely qualitative data, most researchers go through great lengths to code and tabulate responses for analysis. If a large bias is detected, this method of quantifying qualitative data will be brought to question. Second, this topic is important because there are reasons to believe that item nonresponse bias is greater for open ended comments. Open ended comments have traditionally low response rates. Furthermore, there are also obvious education, language, or other demographic issues that may have an effect on the likelihood and quality of response. Finally, open ended responses have an added dimension—response quality. Item nonresponse, therefore, is not the only source of bias in verbatim comments. This paper will examine the issue of item nonresponse bias and response quality bias in a large (13000+ respondents) government employee survey. This survey provides a substantial quantity of demographic data including income, race/ethnicity, gender, age, education, and whether the employee is in a supervisory position. To measure item non-response bias, we develop a logistic regression model to predict response likelihood to the one open ended question in the survey. For the second stage, we will use length of response as a proxy for response quality. Again we will compare means and develop a regression model to predict response length using available demographics.
Effective removal of lead ions from wastewater using multi-walled carbon nanotubes functionalized by organophosphonic acid

Lead is one of the most common toxic pollutants found in industrial effluents, which can do harm to ecosystem and human health. In the present study, organodiphosphonic acid functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (DPA-MWCNTs) have developed and efficiently been utilized to remove lead ions from wastewater. The relevant adsorption behaviors of DPA-MWCNTs for lead ions, such as the effect of pH, adsorption kinetics, adsorption isotherm, and thermodynamics as well, have also been investigated. The results indicate that the adsorption kinetics of DPA-MWCNTs for lead ions at different temperatures can be modeled by the pseudo second-order rate equation, the experimental data fit well with the Langmuir isotherm model, which indicates the monolayered way of the adsorption and the maximum adsorption capacities of DPA-MWCNTs for lead ions could reach 757.58 mg/g, which is much higher than that of other adsorbents reported in the literatures, and the excellent features of DPA-MWCNTs for lead ions removal can ensure their applicability and feasibility in the industrial scale. The evaluation of adsorption thermodynamic parameters ( D G ° , D H ° , and D S °) suggests the spontaneous and endothermic nature of the adsorption process with the increase of the randomness. Moreover, the adsorption process optimization is performed using response surface methodology (RSM), and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the quadratic model demonstrated that the model is highly significant. From the obtained results, it has been found that DPA-MWCNTs can be used as a kind of adsorbent with high efficiency in wastewater treatment and water purification, which would provide a facile processing for lead removal.
Identification and Analysis of the Evolution of Local Productive Arrangements

This study sought to identify and analyze the evolution of Local Productive Arrangements (LPAs) in the sectors of extractive and manufacturing industry in the state of Paraná, from 2006 to 2016. In the methodology, the normalized Concentration Index (nCI) and the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), which consisted of the application of two statistical tests, the Global Moran’sI and the Local Moran’s I. With this methodological procedure it was possible to identify 57 industrial LPAs in the state of Paraná in 23 economic sectors, with its greatest incidence in the Metropolitan Region of Curitiba and North Central. We conclude that there is a consolidation process with positive evolution of LPAs in the analyzed period, where the regions of Londrina and Curitiba and its surroundings stand out, as well as the activities of food and beverage production; textiles and clothing; wood and furniture; and the production of machinery, equipment, rubber, and plastics.
Preexisting and post-COVID-19 immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 in cancer patients.

Cancer patients, in particular patients with hematological malignancies, are at increased risk for critical illness upon COVID-19. We here assessed antibody as well as CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses in unexposed and SARS-CoV-2-infected cancer patients to characterize SARS-CoV 2 immunity and to identify immunological parameters contributing to COVID-19 outcome. Unexposed patients with hematological malignancies presented with reduced prevalence of pre-existing SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive CD4+ T cell responses and signs of T cell exhaustion when compared to solid tumor patients and healthy volunteers. Whereas SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses did not differ between COVID-19 cancer patients and healthy volunteers, intensity, expandability, and diversity of SARS-CoV-2 T cell responses were profoundly reduced in cancer patients, and the latter associated with a severe course of COVID-19. This identifies impaired SARS-CoV-2 T cell immunity as potential determinant for dismal outcome of COVID-19 in cancer patients.
End-to-end Stereo Layout Estimation

Accurate layout estimation is crucial for planning and navigation in robotics applications, such as self-driving. In this thesis, we introduce the Stereo Bird’s Eye View Network (SBEVNet), a novel supervised end-toend framework for estimation of bird’s eye view layout from a pair of stereo images. Although our network reuses some of the building blocks from the state-of-the-art deep learning networks for disparity estimation, we show that explicit depth estimation is neither sufficient nor necessary. Instead, the learning of a good internal bird’s eye view feature representation is effective for layout estimation. Specifically, we first generate a disparity feature volume using the features of the stereo images and then project it to the bird’s eye view coordinates. This gives us coarse-grained information about the scene structure. We also apply inverse perspective mapping (IPM) to map the input images and their features to the bird’s eye view. This gives us fine-grained texture information. Concatenating IPM features with the projected feature volume creates a rich bird’s eye view representation which is useful for spatial reasoning. We use this representation to estimate the BEV semantic map. Additionally, we show that using the IPM features as a supervisory signal for stereo features can give an improvement in performance. We demonstrate our approach on three datasets: the KITTI [5] dataset, a synthetically generated dataset from the CARLA [4] simulator and a dataset collected in a forest environment. For all of these datasets, we establish state-of-the-art performance compared to baseline techniques.
Adoption of Electronic CRM in Service Sector: Using an 1 Integrated Model 2

The main objective of this research is to develop an integrated model of significant success 8 factors of the adoption e-CRM system by determining the intention behavior the user in the 9 service sector. The proposed research model was constructed based on the innovation diffusion 10 theory (Rogers 2003), the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and 11 the Task Technology Fit model (TTF). A quantitative study carried out with 340 respondents 12 belonging to Tunisian companies with customer databases ? A priori judgment? sample 13 method was chosen. We used structural equation modeling that is an adequate solution to the 14 design of theoretical models and to test the research hypothesis Keywords: integrated model, 15 adoption of e-CRM, the innovation diffusion theory (Rogers 2003), the Unified theory of 16 acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), and the task technology fit model (TTF).
Study on the performance of an open-loop passive containment cooling system

ABSTRACT The containment is an ultimate and important barrier to keep the radioactivity from release. The integrity of the containment is crucial to control the consequences of either loss of coolant accident or main steam line break accident. A passive containment cooling system concept designed to remove the heat by natural circulation means is proposed, which is composed of a series of heat exchangers, long connecting pipes with relative large diameter, valves, and a water tank. The performance of the system is numerically simulated and the self-developed codes are validated by the experimental data. The influences of several key parameters are investigated on the performance of the system from different aspects. The results confirm that four distinct operating stages could be experienced as follows: startup stage, single-phase quasi-steady stage, flashing speed up transient stage, and flashing dominated quasi-steady operating stage. Furthermore, the mechanisms of the ways through which the parameters influence the behaviors of the proposed system are thus analyzed. Moreover, the feasibility of the system is also commented on the basis of the numerical results.
Hydrodynamic interactions among multiple circular cylinders in an inviscid flow

Hydrodynamic interactions among multiple circular cylinders translating in an otherwise undisturbed inviscid fluid are theoretically investigated. A constructive method for solving a Neumann boundary-value problem in a domain outside N circles (one kind of Hilbert boundary-value problem in the complex plane) is presented in the study to derive the velocity potential of the liquid. The method employs successive offset functions combined with a ‘generalized cyclic permutation’ in turn to satisfy the impenetrable boundary condition on each circle. The complex potential is therefore expressed as N isolated singularities in power series form and used to get instantaneous added masses of N submerged circular cylinders. Then, based on the Hamilton variational principle, a dynamical equation of motion in vector form is derived to predict nonlinear translations of the submerged bodies under fully hydrodynamic interactions. Also, the equivalence of the energy-based Lagrangian framework and a momentum-type one in the two-dimensional body–liquid system is proved. It implies that the pressure integration around a submerged body is holographic, which provides information about velocities and accelerations of all bodies. The numerical solutions indicate some typical dynamical behaviours of more than two circular cylinders which reveal that interesting nonlinear phenomena would appear in such a system with simple physical assumptions.
CpGV-M Replication in Type I Resistant Insects: Helper Virus and Order of Ingestion Are Important

The genetic diversity of baculoviruses provides a sustainable agronomic solution when resistance to biopesticides seems to be on the rise. This genetic diversity promotes insect infection by several genotypes (i.e., multiple infections) that are more likely to kill the host. However, the mechanism and regulation of these virus interactions are still poorly understood. In this article, we focused on baculoviruses infecting the codling moth, Cydia pomonella: two Cydia pomonella granulovirus genotypes, CpGV-M and CpGV-R5, and Cryptophlebia peltastica nucleopolyhedrovirus (CrpeNPV). The influence of the order of ingestion of the virus genotypes, the existence of an ingestion delay between the genotypes and the specificity of each genotype involved in the success of multiple infection were studied in the case of Cydia pomonella resistance. To obtain a multiple infection in resistant insects, the order of ingestion is a key factor, but the delay for ingestion of the second virus is not. CrpeNPV cannot substitute CpGV-R5 to allow replication of CpGV-M.
Improving food safety on the farm: Experimental evidence from Kenya on agricultural incentives and subsidies for public health

Evidence is emerging that foodborne illness accounts for a staggering health burden in developing countries. However, standard approaches used by developed country governments to ensure food safety are not appropriate in settings where regulatory enforcement capacity is weak and most firms are small and informal. Using a randomized field experiment, we test the impacts on farmer adoption of subsidies for technologies that improve food safety and a price premium for safer produce. We find that the food safety practices of farmers who produce maize for sale are inferior to those of farmers who produce maize only for household consumption, but that both a price incentive and technology subsidies can partially close this gap. We combine our experimental adoption results with prior evidence on the efficacy of the technologies studied to simulate the public health impacts of alternative policies. Our simulations show that interventions to reduce aflatoxin exposure are likely to be cost-effective based on averted poisoning deaths and cancer cases alone. Potential impacts on stunting, which are not as well established and more difficult to value, would imply additional health benefits. Of the policy options considered, providing training and plastic drying sheets to farmers free of charge is the most cost-effective. JEL Codes: I12 Health behavior; I15 Health and economic development; I18 Public Health; Q12 Micro analysis of farm firms; Q16 Agricultural technology *Research Fellow, International Food Policy Resesarch Institute (v.hoffmann@cgiar.org) †Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, American University; Senior Research Economist, Institute for Women’s Policy Research (kmjones@american.edu)
Complete phenol decomposition from aqueous solutions by electrocoagulation technique using bipolar aluminum configuration

Phenol removal was studied with electrocoagulation (EC) technique using bipolar aluminum electrodes. The parameters investigated during the experiment were initial pH, phenol concentration, energy consumption, type of supporting electrolytes, electrodes’ number and distance, and current density. The results indicated that phenol molecules were adsorbed on the aluminum hydroxide flocs formed by the anodes, and completely degraded to carbon dioxide and water molecules within just 10 min of different initial concentrations (25–125 mg L–1). The complete decomposition of phenol was confirmed by gas chromatography (GC), scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy techniques. The mechanism of phenol adsorption was described by some adsorption isotherms. Among the adsorption isotherms; Langmuir is the most applicable model, indicating that a monolayer of phenol molecules was formed on the aluminum hydroxide formed on the anode before decomposition. Also, its adsorption mechanism was estimated by kinetic models (pseudo-first-order model, pseudo-second-order model, and intraparticle diffusion). The pseudo-second-order model reflected the dependence of the adsorption process on phenol and aluminum hydroxide concentrations. The computed energy consumption and operating cost confirmed the economic phenol decomposition by EC. A hypothetical equation concerning the complete phenol decomposition was evaluated. Accordingly, it is advisable to use the EC in the removal of phenol for its fast, low energy consumption and total operating cost.
MULTI-RESONATOR VARIATIONS OF CIRCULAR MICROSTRIP ANTENNA WITH NARROW ANNULAR SECTORAL PATCHES FOR WIDEBAND RESPONSE

Broadband variations of a proximity fed circular microstrip antenna gap-coupled with narrow annular sectoral patches are proposed. The gap-coupling of pairs of parasitic annular sectors along the xand y-axes of the fed patch tunes the spacing in between the fundamental modes on the respective patches that yields wider bandwidth. A maximum bandwidth of 728 MHz (55%) offering peak gain of nearly 9 dBi is obtained in the circular patch gap-coupled with four pairs of annular sectors along the x-axis. This bandwidth is around 13% larger than the bandwidth offered by a single circular microstrip antenna. Instead of using multiple sectoral patches, a gap-coupled design of circular patch with a stub loaded annular sectoral patch is presented. The stub tunes its TM02 mode frequency with reference to the fundamental modes on the circular and sectoral patches that yields bandwidth of 660 MHz (51%). Resonant length formulation and subsequent design methodology for all the proposed gap-coupled configurations are presented, which helps in the re-designing of similar antennas at the given fundamental mode frequency. All the optimum and redesigned antennas are fabricated, and the measured results shows a close agreement with the simulations.
Diversity and genetic structure of Spondias tuberosa (Anacardiaceae) accessions based on microsatellite loci

Introduction: Spondias tuberosa is a tree endemic to the semiarid region of Brazil with fruticulture potential. Objective: To estimate the diversity and genetic structure of S. tuberosa accessions from four areas of the semiarid region of Brazil, in order to facilitate conservation genetic resources studies in this species. Methods: DNA was extracted, using the CTAB 2x method, from leaf samples of 24 accessions of S. tuberosa available in the germplasm bank at Embrapa Semiárido, Brazil. Ten microsatellite loci were used in this study. Results: The UPGMA dendrogram, generated with a Jaccard coefficient similarity matrix, contains four groups at a 0.44 cutoff point. The similarity coefficient ranged from 0.30 to 0.84, indicating great divergence among the accessions. A Bayesian analysis conducted with the software Structure suggests there are two subpopulations, one formed by accessions from the Januária region and another by accessions from the Juazeiro, Uauá and Petrolina regions. The ΦST value of 0.12 for the analysis of molecular variance indicates moderate genetic differentiation among the four populations, suggesting that the genetic variability is moderately structured in function of region. Conclusions: Together, the analyses indicate that the genetic diversity of S. tuberosa is not uniformly distributed in the studied regions. Thus, germplasm from a greater number of populations should be collected to increase the germplasm bank genetic diversity of the species.
National Excess Mortality from Sub-National data: Method and Application for Argentina

Currently, many countries have not yet reported 2020 or 2021 mortality data to allow an estimate of excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, some countries have sub-national mortality data, at the state, province or city level. I present a simple method to allow estimation of national level mortality and excess mortality from sub-national data, using the case of Argentina and projecting excess mortality up to July 2021.