Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ventilated oscillatory boundary layers

Boundary layers arising from flows which oscillate parallel to a permeable bed, and are subject to oscillating percolation of the same frequency as the bed parallel flow, referred to here as ‘ventilated oscillatory boundary layers’, are the subject of this laboratory study. These boundary layers are intended to approximate naturally occurring wave boundary layers over permeable beds. Measurements of boundary-layer velocities, bed stress and turbulent flow properties are presented. It is observed that suction (flow into the bed) enhances the near-bed velocities and bed stress while injection (flow out of the bed) leads to a reduction in these quantities. As the ventilated oscillatory boundary layer experiences both these phenomenon in one full cycle, the result is a net stress and a net boundary-layer velocity in an otherwise symmetric flow. While production of turbulence attributable to injection is enhanced, the finite time required for this to occur leads to a greater vertically averaged turbulence in the suction half-cycle. Turbulence generated in the suction half-cycle is maintained in a compact layer much closer to the bed. These effects appear to hold for $\widetilde{Re}$ ranging from 105 to 106 and for oscillations other than sinusoidal.
Providing rigour, differentiation, and sense of community using a three-pronged VoiceThread discussion strategy during the pandemic

ABSTRACT Grounded in the Community of Inquiry framework, a three-pronged response to text discussion strategy was implemented in an online graduate level course. The strategy is made up of digital powerups, a guided self-connection section, and expressing what they learned from their peers. A qualitative content analysis of student reflections of using this strategy supports these claims: (1) the digital powerup strategy provided an opportunity for rigour and differentiation; (2) the guided approach of the ‘connect to self’ section balanced and complemented the open-ended nature of the digital powerup section; (3) structured peer takeaways led to a sense of community; and (4) the graduate students preferred the three-pronged discussion strategy to other models they have used before. This article has implications for higher education course designers and instructors to have a tested and educator-approved response-to-text model to use with any reading.
Professional Development at Scale: The Causal Effect of Obtaining an SEI Endorsement Under Massachusetts’s RETELL Initiative

We apply a difference-in-difference design to measure the causal effect of a teacher obtaining an endorsement in Sheltered English Immersion under Massachusetts’s Rethinking Equity in the Teaching of English Language Learners initiative on student’s learning outcomes. More than 35,000 in-service public school teachers completed the semester-long course. We find no effect on English learners’ (ELs) average test scores, but modest positive spillovers for students with disabilities and other non-EL students. Training benefited teachers recently hired by their district but had no effect on longer serving teachers.
Single-Event Upset Cross-Section Trends for D-FFs at the 5- and 7-nm Bulk FinFET Technology Nodes

At each advanced technology node, it is crucial to characterize and understand the mechanisms affecting performance and reliability. Scaling for all nodes prior to the 5-nm bulk FinFET node had resulted in a decrease in single-event upset (SEU) cross section at each node. However, this trend unexpectedly reversed for scaling from the 7-nm bulk FinFET node to the 5-nm bulk FinFET node. Experimental results show that the SEU cross sections for D flip-flops (D-FFs) designs at the 5-nm node are greater than those at the 7-nm for the whole range of particle linear energy transfer (LET) values tested. The 3-D technology computer-aided design (TCAD) and circuit-level simulations show that the increase in single-event (SE) cross Section with scaling to the 5-nm node is due to interactions between changes in drive current and nodal capacitances. The relative changes in these parameters increased SE transient (SET) pulsewidths and decreased feedback-loop delays, resulting in an increase in SE cross sections for the 5-nm node. In addition, the effects of threshold voltage and supply voltage on SEU cross section for both the 5- and 7-nm nodes are investigated. The SEU cross section for the D-FF designs at the 5-nm node shows a stronger dependence on both threshold voltage and supply voltage than that for the 7-nm node. As critical charge decreases with scaling, small differences in critical charge become more significant and manifest as large changes in SEU cross section, as observed for the 5-nm node. Designers will need to be particularly careful in assessing the overall SE susceptibility of systems developed using the 5-nm bulk FinFET node, particularly when different threshold voltage options and supply voltages are used across the IC.
Understanding Healthcare Professionals’ Knowledge on Perinatal Depression among Women in a Tertiary Hospital in Ghana: A Qualitative Study

Health conditions affecting women in the perinatal period still account for a major contribution to disease burden in Sub-Saharan Africa, yet there is a dearth of empirical research to understanding health professionals’ perspective on their experiences and how they care for perinatal women in depression. We used a qualitative exploratory descriptive approach through a face- to face-interview to explore the knowledge of 11 health professionals of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi- Ghana. Interviews were taped recorded and transcribed verbatim. The study adopted Haase’s modification of Colaizzi’s method for the analysis. Four main themes emerged: ineffective communication (Referral lapses among care providers, long waiting time, lack of confidentiality), workload (Inefficient staff to meet perinatal women’s need, no screening tools and time constraints), Reaction to patients symptoms (Identifying patient’s symptoms, assessment through patient’s centeredness and Education and counselling). Our results emerged that time constraints, stigmatization and lack of awareness delayed the care and management of perinatal depression among healthcare professionals in the hospital setting. There is the need to improve healthcare professionals’ knowledge on perinatal depression and it is imperative for the hospital administrators to invest in continuous training and professional development for healthcare professionals.
A survey of interstellar Ca II absorption in the haloes of low-redshift galaxies

Medium-resolution observations of nine QSOs whose lines-of-sight pass within 45 h -1 kpc of low-redshift galaxies are presented. Ca II absorption is detected only for QSO 1543+489. With these data, supplemented by previously published results, the Ca II absorption cross-sections of present-day galaxies are analysed by defining an unbiased sample of QSO-galaxy pair for which all observations have been reported, regardless of the success or otherwise of the search for absorption.
Broadband Dispersion Compensating Octagonal Photonic Crystal Fiber for Optical Communication Applications

We numerically report the design of a modified octagonal photonic crystal fiber (M-OPCF) for broadband dispersion compensation covering the C and L communication bands, i.e., wavelengths ranging from 1530 to 1625 nm. It was shown that the proposed broadband compensating PCF can be designed to simultaneously exhibit a high negative dispersion coefficient and a relative dispersion slope (RDS) close to that of a conventional single-mode optical fiber (SMF). From our results, it was found that the M-OPCF has a large negative dispersion [-226 to -290 ps/(nm·km)] over the C- and L-bands, and an RDS close to that of an SMF of about 0.0034 nm-1. In addition to this, the effective dispersion, residual dispersion, confinement loss, and polarization properties of the proposed PCF are also reported and discussed.
Effect of surface-screening parameter of the Yukawa potential model on vapour–liquid phase coexistence and critical-point properties of confined Yukawa fluid

We report the effect of surface-screening parameter of Yukawa potential model on vapour–liquid phase coexistence and critical-point properties of slit–pore-confined Yukawa fluid, using grand canonical transition-matrix Monte Carlo along with the histogram reweighting method. The effect of surface-screening parameter on the vapour–phase coexistence density is insignificant for the studied system. On the other hand, significant effect of surface-screening parameter is observed on liquid phase coexistence density. With increasing surface-screening parameter, liquid phase coexistence density decreases. Critical-point properties have shown monotonic decreasing trends with increase in surface-screening parameter. Moreover, the effect of change of surface-screening parameter is least on critical temperature changes as compared to critical density and critical pressure changes for the studied Yukawa system in this work.
Psychology, Society & Education

puede influir en el desarrollo emocional durante la infancia. Los objetivos de esta investigación fueron describir el nivel de inteligencia emocional y el clima escolar de los escolares de Educación Primaria en tres países europeos, explorar la asociación entre el clima escolar y la inteligencia emocional y analizar el papel moderador del género y el país. Método: Participaron 1,104 escolares (528 de España, 252 de Polonia y 324 de Noruega) (50.6% niñas, M edad = 10.49 años; DT = 1.3). Resultados: El análisis descriptivo mostró mayores niveles de inteligencia emocional en los escolares españoles y mayor nivel de clima escolar. Las niñas mostraron mayores niveles de reparación emocional en comparación con los niños. Los modelos de regresión múltiple multivariante indicaron la asociación entre el clima escolar y la inteligencia emocional. El género y el país no moderaron la relación entre el clima escolar y las dimensiones de la inteligencia emocional. Conclusiones: Este estudio pone de manifiesto la importancia de la calidad del clima escolar en diferentes regiones europeas para promover el nivel de inteligencia emocional de los niños y niñas de Educación Primaria.
Lost in Translation: Evaluation of Subcutaneous Interferon-β Treatment for SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Real Life

Despite in vitro activity of interferon-β (IFN-β) against SARS-CoV-2 infection, its clinical efficacy remains controversial. We evaluated the impact of IFN-β treatment in a cohort of 3590 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 during March–April 2020. The primary endpoint was a composed variable of admission to intensive care unit (ICU)/death. Overall, 153 patients (4%) received IFN-β. They were significantly more severely ill, with a worse clinical and analytical situation, explaining a higher ICU admission (30% vs. 17%; p < 0.01), and a shorter time to the composed variable. In a Cox regression analysis, older age, lymphopenia, renal failure, or increased neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio were associated with a greater hazard ratio (HR) of admission at ICU/death. Notably, the HR of IFN-β for the outcome variable was no longer significant after adjustment (HR, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.82–1.30), and different sensitivity analysis (early IFN use, ICU admission) showed no changes in the estimates. A propensity score matching analysis showed no association of IFN-β therapy and outcome. In conclusion, in this large cohort of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, IFN-β was used mainly in patients with advanced disease, reflecting an important bias of selection. After adjusting by severity, IFN-β was not associated with a higher rate of ICU admission or mortality.
Design Optimization of an Efficient Bicolor LED Driving System

There are some challenges involved in the design of a multicolor LED driver, such as the precise control of color consistency, i.e., maintaining the correlated color temperature (CCT) and luminous intensity. CCT deviation causes a color shift of composite light. This paper approaches the method of nonlinear optimization of the LED currents of two LED sources to achieve the desired CCT. A bicolor blended-shade white LED system is formed by using a warm color LED source of 1000 K CCT and a cool color LED source of 6500 K CCT. By using a nonlinear optimization methodology, the reduced deviation of the blended CCT and optimum LED currents are obtained. The optimized currents in the two LED strings are maintained by the control circuit of the single-ended primary inductor converter (SEPIC). The obtained reduced deviation of the CCT is 43 K, and the precision is 99.15%. Again, harmonics in the input current hamper power quality, i.e., reduce the power factor and increase power loss. This paper proposes the harmonic reduction technique to achieve the lowest value of total harmonic distortion (THD) through the nonlinear parametric optimization of the SEPIC. Measured THD = 4.37%; PF = 0.96; and efficiency = 92.8%. The system stability was determined and found to be satisfactory.
Characterization and development of critically-thinker EFL readers’ reading ability: AWC vs. QAR approaches

Abstract Characterizing a critically-thinker second language learner as well as the way such characteristics can be developed and implemented in instructed second language have received momentum in applied linguistics. As a novel practice, this mixed-methods study was designed to feature a critically-thinker reader in developing both her critical thinking and reading abilities in the light of two novel instructional mechanisms (i.e., Asynchronous Web-based Collaborative (AWC) vs. Question-Answer-Relationship (QAR) instructional approaches). To this end, a sample of 89 Iranian EFL learners (Pilot group) were interviewed based on which first the features of a critically-thinker reader were extracted, analyzed and modeled via MaxQDA. Then, three groups of 154 language learners (i.e., Control, QAR & AWC) were exposed to its specific type of instruction. In addition to the extraction of “argumentation”, “judgment”, “dispositions”, “action”, “social cognition”, and “creativity” each with its sub-categories as the sub-traits of critically-thinker’s conceptual model, ANOVAs were run to analyze the quantitative data. It was observed that AWC group outperformed others both in critical reading and critical thinking features. So, it is theoretically and pedagogically implied that the developments of both cognitive traits (i.e. critical thinking) and the resultant language skills (i.e. reading skill) are subject to appropriate instructional approach/s.
Salicylic Acid Enhances Cadmium Tolerance and Reduces Its Shoot Accumulation in Fagopyrum tataricum Seedlings by Promoting Root Cadmium Retention and Mitigating Oxidative Stress

Soil cadmium (Cd) contamination seriously reduces the production and product quality of Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum), and strategies are urgently needed to mitigate these adverse influences. Herein, we investigated the effect of salicylic acid (SA) on Tartary buckwheat seedlings grown in Cd-contaminated soil in terms of Cd tolerance and accumulation. The results showed that 75–100 µmol L−1 SA treatment enhanced the Cd tolerance of Tartary buckwheat, as reflected by the significant increase in plant height and root and shoot biomass, as well as largely mitigated oxidative stress. Moreover, 100 µmol L−1 SA considerably reduced the stem and leaf Cd concentration by 60% and 47%, respectively, which is a consequence of increased root biomass and root Cd retention with promoted Cd partitioning into cell wall and immobile chemical forms. Transcriptome analysis also revealed the upregulation of the genes responsible for cell wall biosynthesis and antioxidative activities in roots, especially secondary cell wall synthesis. The present study determines that 100 µmol L−1 is the best SA concentration for reducing Cd accumulation and toxicity in Tartary buckwheat and indicates the important role of root in Cd stress in this species.
Mixture Normal Conditional Correlation Models

I propose a class of hybrid models to describe and predict the dynamics of a multivariate stationary random vector, e.g. a vector of stock returns. These models combine essential features of the multivariate mixture normal distribution and the conditional correlation models. I describe in detail the expectation-maximization algorithm, which makes the parameter estimation feasible and fast virtually for any random vector length. I fit the suggested models to five data sets, consisting of vectors of stock returns, with the maximal vector length of fifteen stocks. The predictive ability of this model class is compared to other widely used multivariate models, and it turns out that my models provide the best forecasts, both on average and for extreme negative returns. All necessary formulas to apply these models for important financial objectives are also provided.
On the Generalized Spectral Characterizations of Eulerian Graphs

A graph $G$ is said to be determined by its generalized spectra (DGS for short) if, for any graph $H$, graphs $H$ and $G$ are cospectral with cospectral complements imply that $H$ is isomorphic to $G$. In Wang (J. Combin. Theory, Ser. B, 122 (2017) 438-451), the author gave a simple method for a graph to be DGS. However, the method does not apply to Eulerian graphs. In this paper, we gave a simple method for a large family of Eulerian graphs to be DGS. Numerical experiments are also presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Inside Zambia's ‘new normal:’ COVID‐19 policy responses and implications for peri‐urban food security and livelihoods

Abstract This paper explores COVID‐19 policy responses and experiences of their impact on food systems and livelihoods, and other factors shaping vulnerability among peri‐urban small‐scale farmers in Zambia. We draw on household surveys and case studies, multi‐level interviews and group discussions to make sense of ‘new normal’ policy (in)action and its (in) effectiveness in shaping peri‐urban production, market linkages and livelihoods during the pandemic. Results show COVID‐19 policy responses affected peri‐urban production supply and demand for food and inputs. The ‘new normal’ policy responses aimed at striking a balance between health concerns and economic development as a pathway to recovery have not been followed by systematic peri‐urban agriculture support, leading to failure to stimulate production and drive urban market linkages, including supermarkets. Findings bring nuance to fragilities in national food systems and the need for long‐term and transformative interventions that can strengthen peri‐urban agriculture and livelihoods beyond the pandemic.
Size, shape and orientation matter: fast and semi-automatic measurement of grain geometries from 3D point clouds

Abstract. The grain-scale morphology and size distribution of sediments are important factors controlling the erosion efficiency, sediment transport and the aquatic ecosystem quality. In turn, characterizing the spatial evolution of grain size and shape can help understand the dynamics of erosion and sediment transport in coastal, hillslope and fluvial environments. However, the size distribution of sediments is generally assessed using insufficiently representative field measurements, and determining the grain-scale shape of sediments remains a real challenge in geomorphology. Here we determine the size distribution and grain-scale shape of sediments located in coastal and river environments with a new methodology based on the segmentation and geometric fitting of 3D point clouds. Point cloud segmentation of individual grains is performed using a watershed algorithm applied here to 3D point clouds. Once the grains are segmented into several sub-clouds, each grain-scale morphology is determined by fitting a 3D geometrical model applied to each sub-cloud. If different geometrical models can be tested, this study focuses mostly on ellipsoids to describe the geometry of grains. G3Point is a semi-automatic approach that requires a trial-and-error approach to determine the best combination of parameter values. Validation of the results is performed either by comparing the obtained size distribution to independent measurements (e.g., hand measurements) or by visually inspecting the quality of the segmented grains. The main benefits of this semi-automatic and non-destructive method are that it provides access to (1) an un-biased estimate of surface grain-size distribution on a large range of scales, from centimeters to meters; (2) a very large number of data, mostly limited by the number of grains in the point cloud data set; (3) the 3D morphology of grains, in turn allowing the development of new metrics that characterize the size and shape of grains; and (4) the in situ orientation and organization of grains. The main limit of this method is that it is only able to detect grains with a characteristic size significantly greater than the resolution of the point cloud.
Maximum Covariance Analysis of Typhoon Surface Wind and Rainfall Relationships in Taiwan

Abstract The multivariate relationships between hourly surface wind and rainfall observations during typhoons affecting Taiwan have been investigated with maximum covariance analysis (MCA). Historical surface observations from 1987 to 2004 are used when typhoon centers were located inside the domain of 19°–28°N, 117°–127°E. The three leading MCA modes explain 70%, 20.6%, and 7.6% of the squared covariance fraction, and the correlation coefficients are 0.59, 0.48, and 0.49, respectively. The wind directions of the three leading positive modes are 1) northwesterly flow perpendicular to the Snow Mountain Range (SMR), 2) southwesterly flow toward the river valleys of the southwestern Central Mountain Range (CMR) and the southern SMR, and 3) easterly flow toward the northeastern SMR and the northern CMR. The rainfall patterns of the three principal modes reveal the contrast between the windward and the leeward sides of the mountain ranges. Based on the MCA singular vectors, historical typhoon surface wind patt.
Expanding the Spectrum of KDM5C Neurodevelopmental Disorder: A Novel De Novo Stop Variant in a Young Woman and Emerging Genotype–Phenotype Correlations

As a consequence of the implementation of NGS technologies, the diagnostic yield of neurodevelopmental disorders has dramatically increased during the past two decades. Among neurodevelopmental genes, transcription-related genes and chromatin remodeling genes are the most represented category of disease-causing genes. Indeed, the term “chromatinopathies” is now widely used to describe epigenetic disorders caused by mutations in these genes. We hereby describe a twenty-seven-year-old female patient diagnosed with moderate intellectual disability comorbid with other neuropsychiatric and behavioral issues carrying a de novo heterozygous stop variant in the KDM5C gene (NM_004187.5: c. 3847G>T, p.Glu1283*), encoding a histone demethylase that specifically acts on the H3K4 lysines. The gene is located on the X chromosome and has been associated with Claes–Jensen-type intellectual disability, an X-linked syndromic disorder. We discuss our case in relation to previously reported affected females harboring pathogenic mutations in the KDM5C gene with the objective of delineating genotype–phenotype correlations and further defining a common recognizable phenotype. We also highlight the importance of reverse phenotyping in relation to whole-exome sequencing results.