Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compact packaging of optical and electronic components for on-board optical interconnects

An optical interconnection plate was developed in order to achieve a compact and cost-effective interconnection module for an optical data link between chips on printed circuit boards. On the silica substrate, transmission lines and solder bumps are formed on the top surface of the substrate, and polymer waveguide array with 45/spl deg/ mirror planes is formed on the back side. This optical interconnection plate technique makes the alignment procedure quite simple and economical, because all the alignment steps between the optical components can be achieved in wafer processes and a high accuracy flip-chip bonding technique. We confirmed the sufficiently high coupling efficiency and low optical crosstalk using the simplified experimental setup. Flip-chip bonding of the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser and photodiode arrays on the top surface of the optical interconnection plate was performed using indium bumps in order to avoid thermal damage of the polymer waveguide. The fully packaged optical interconnection plate showed an optical data link at rates of 455 Mb/s. Improvement of the mirror surface roughness and the mirror angle accuracy could lead to an optical link at higher rates. In addition, the interconnection system can be easily constructed by inserting the optical interconnection plate between the processing chips or data lines requiring optical links.
Dynamics of DNA Replication Factories in Living Cells

DNA replication occurs in microscopically visible complexes at discrete sites (replication foci) in the nucleus. These foci consist of DNA associated with replication machineries, i.e., large protein complexes involved in DNA replication. To study the dynamics of these nuclear replication foci in living cells, we fused proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), a central component of the replication machinery, with the green fluorescent protein (GFP). Imaging of stable cell lines expressing low levels of GFP-PCNA showed that replication foci are heterogeneous in size and lifetime. Time-lapse studies revealed that replication foci clearly differ from nuclear speckles and coiled bodies as they neither show directional movements, nor do they seem to merge or divide. These four dimensional analyses suggested that replication factories are stably anchored in the nucleus and that changes in the pattern occur through gradual, coordinated, but asynchronous, assembly and disassembly throughout S phase.
Finding Alternative Clusterings Using Constraints

The aim of data mining is to find novel and actionable insights. However, most algorithms typically just find a single explanation of the data even though alternatives could exist. In this work, we explore a general purpose approach to find an alternative clustering of the data with the aid of must-link and cannot-link constraints. This problem has received little attention in the literature and since our approach can be incorporated into the many clustering algorithms that use a distance function, compares favorably with existing work.
Scheduling Irrigation Using Automatic Tensiometers for Pea Crop

Recent technological advances have made soil water sensors available for efficient and automatic operation of irrigation systems. Automatic soil water sensor-based irrigation seeks to maintain a desired soil water range in the root zone that is optimal for plant growth. Automatic tensiometers were buried at 30 cm depth under the sandy soil surface of Nubaria experimental station of NRC, subjected to drip irrigation system to automatically schedule irrigation for pea crop. Soil moisture potentials 70, 75 and 85 kPa, represented 3 irrigation treatments and 3 Potassium treatments 50, 75 and 100% of 100 kg fed. -1 , the officially recommended amount of Potassium fertilization for a pea crop by the ministry of agriculture in Egypt for sandy soils, were scheduled and added with the drip irrigation portions. The obtained results revealed that using soil moisture potentials 70, 75 and 85 kPa were equivalent to 85, 75 and 60% of the field capacity of the soil, respectively. The average crop factor (Kc) was calculated for each growth stage and the water applied according to the depletion percentage for each water treatment. All the applications were adjusted on control panel which was connected to an electric valve for each treatment. Water use efficiency, productivity, growth parameters, K use efficiency were calculated for each treatment. Automatic scheduling of drip irrigation at 85% F.C. using irrometer tensioner and 75% K fertilizers led to saving 16% to 35% of supplied irrigation water compared to uncontrolled drip irrigation method, with an increase in the yield of the crop estimated by 20%. Keywords: automatic irrigation, scheduling irrigation, automatic tensiometer, potassium fertigation, drip irrigation.
Rhizosphere Inhibition of Cucumber Fusarium Wilt by Different Surfactin- excreting Strains of Bacillus subtilis

Bacillus subtilis B006 strain effectively suppresses the cucumber fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum (Foc). The population dynamics of Foc, strain B006 and its surfactin over-producing mutant B841 and surfactin-deficient mutant B1020, in the rhizosphere were determined under greenhouse conditions to elucidate the importance of the lipopeptides excreted by these strains in suppressing Foc. Results showed that B. subtilis strain B006 effectively suppressed the disease in natural soil by 42.9%, five weeks after transplanting, whereas B841 and B1020 suppressed the disease by only 22.6% and 7.1%, respectively. Quantitative PCR assays showed that effective colonization of strain B006 in the rhizosphere suppressed Foc propagation by more than 10 times both in nursery substrate and in field-infected soil. Reduction of Foc population at the cucumber stems in a range of 0.96 log10 ng/g to 2.39 log10 ng/g was attained at the third and the fifth weeks of B006 treatment in nursery substrate. In field-infected soil, all three treatments with B. subtilis suppressed Foc infection, indicated by the reduction of Foc population at a range of 2.91 log10 ng/g to 3.36 log10 ng/g at the stem base, one week after transplanting. This study reveals that the suppression of fusarium wilt disease is affected by the effective colonization of the surfactin-producing B. subtilis strain in the rhizosphere. These results improved our understanding of the biocontrol mechanism of the B. subtilis strain B006 in the natural soil and facilitate its application as biocontrol agent in the field.
Education for All? Measuring inequality of educational outcomes among 15-year-olds across 39 industrialized nations

Measuring inequality of learning outcomes in a way that provides meaningful benchmarks for national policy while retaining a focus on those students who are ‘hard to reach’ and ‘hard to teach’ is a challenging but vital task in the light of the global post-2015 education agenda. Drawing on PISA 2012 data and its earlier rounds, this paper explores alternative approaches to measuring educational inequality at the ‘bottom-end’ of educational distribution within the cross-national context. Its main aim is to understand how far behind children are allowed to fall in their academic achievement compared to what is considered a standard performance in their country. Under the framework of relative (measured as achievement gap between the median and 10th percentile) and absolute (measured by the percentage of students achieving at a given benchmark) educational disadvantage it examines cross-country rankings as well as national trajectories with reference to overall academic progress. We find that on average across OECD countries around 11% of 15- year-olds lacked skills in solving basic reading, mathematical, as well as science, tasks in 2012, but variation across countries was large.
On the sufficiency of transitive preferences

The assumption that preferences are transitive, or, roughly equivalently, that choice behavior satisfies the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference, is at the core of much classical normative decision theory. This paper asks to what degree this restricts the possible outcomes of choice behavior: are there objectives that could not be attained by an agent adhering to WARP that could be attained by choices that would be said to be "intransitive"? It is argued that the answer to this question is "no" in one setting of choice under random budget sets any outcome obtained by intransitive choice methods can also be obtained by transitive ones.
Millimeter wave rectangular waveguide to grounded CPW transition on multi-layer substrate

A rectangular waveguide (WR) to grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) is presented for operation in the U-band from 40 to 60 GHz. The WR-to-GCPW is designated for the U-band integrated down-converter system where it connects U-band horn antenna to an integrated system. The proposed transition based on the probe coupling technique is implemented on a single layer Rogers RO4003C RF laminate, and then is extended for the multi-layer substrate in the desired system.
Extending the range of validity of Fourier's law into the kinetic transport regime via asymptotic solution of the phonon Boltzmann transport equation

We derive the continuum equations and boundary conditions governing phonon-mediated heat transfer in the limit of small but finite mean free path from asymptotic solution of the linearized Boltzmann equation in the relaxation time approximation. Our approach uses the ratio of the mean free path to the characteristic system lengthscale, also known as the Knudsen number, as the expansion parameter to study the effects of boundaries on the breakdown of the Fourier descrition. We show that, in the bulk, the traditional heat conduction equation using Fourier's law as a constitutive relation is valid at least up to second order in the Knudsen number for steady problems and first order for time-dependent problems. However, this description does not hold within distances on the order of a few mean free paths from the boundary; this breakdown is a result of kinetic effects that are always present in the boundary vicinity and require solution of a Boltzmann boundary-layer problem to be determined. Matching the inner, boundary layer, solution to the outer, bulk, solution yields boundary conditions for the Fourier description as well as additive corrections in the form of universal kinetic boundary layers; both are found to be proportional to the bulk-solution gradients at the boundary and parametrized by the material model and the phonon-boundary interaction model (Boltzmann boundary condition). Our derivation shows that the traditional no-jump boundary condition for prescribed temperature boundaries and no-flux boundary condition for diffusely reflecting boundaries are appropriate only to zeroth order in the Knudsen number; at higher order, boundary conditions are of the jump type. We illustrate the utility of the asymptotic solution procedure by demonstrating that it can be used to predict the Kapitza resistance (and temperature jump) associated with an interface between two materials.
ENSO‐Like Modulated Tropical Pacific Climate Changes Since 2.36 Myr and Its Implication for the Middle Pleistocene Transition

El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) activity and the Pacific Walker Circulation are controlled by the zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradient between the western and Eastern Equatorial Pacific (EEP) and the corresponding barometric difference. Variations in the zonal SST gradient since the early Pleistocene have primarily been triggered by changes in the SST in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific. However, the response of the ENSO‐like long‐term state to the cooling of the EEP and its coupling role with tropical Pacific climate changes are still not well established. Here we present a high‐resolution grain‐size record spanning the last 2.36 Myr, obtained from marine core sediment located in the West Philippine Sea in order to decipher the tropical pacific climate changes and reveal its controlling mechanism. By combining our data with other long‐term climatic records from the Equatorial Pacific, we demonstrate that the cooling of SST and enhanced upwelling in the EEP resulted in the development of the Walker Circulation and increased monsoon precipitation in Luzon from 2.2 to 1.6 Myr, from 1.2 to 0.8 Myr, and since 0.2 Myr ago. The progressive cooling of the high‐latitudes in the Quaternary may be responsible for our observation here. A newly identified 100 kyr dominant period between 2.2 and 1.6 Myr in the ENSO‐like modulated Pacific climate records indicates that the ENSO‐like system may play a key role in facilitating or responding to the global climate changes.
Improving the quality of empirical Green's functions, obtained by cross-correlation of high-frequency ambient seismic noise

Abstract. Studying the uppermost structure of the subsurface is a necessary part of solving many practical problems (exploration of minerals, groundwater studies, geoengineering, etc.). The practical application of active seismic methods for these purposes is not always possible for different reasons, such as logistical difficulties, high cost of work, and a high level of seismic and acoustic noise. That is why developing and improving passive seismic methods is one of the important problems in applied geophysics. In our study, we describe a way of improving the quality of empirical Green's functions (EGFs), evaluated from high-frequency ambient seismic noise, by using the advanced technique of cross-correlation function stacking in the time domain (in this paper we use term “high-frequency” for frequencies higher than 1 Hz). The technique is based on the global optimization algorithm, in which the optimized objective function is a signal-to-noise ratio of an EGF, retrieved at each iteration. In comparison to existing techniques, based, for example, on weight stacking of cross-correlation functions, our technique makes it possible to significantly increase the signal-to-noise ratio and, therefore, the quality of the EGFs. The technique has been tested with the field data acquired in an area with a high level of industrial noise (Pyhäsalmi Mine, Finland) and in an area with a low level of anthropogenic noise (Kuusamo Greenstone Belt, Finland). The results show that the proposed technique can be used for the extraction of EGFs from high-frequency seismic noise in practical problems of mapping of the shallow subsurface, both in areas with high and low levels of high-frequency seismic noise.
Dijkstra-WSA: A Graph-Based Approach to Word Sense Alignment

In this paper, we present Dijkstra-WSA, a novel graph-based algorithm for word sense alignment. We evaluate it on four different pairs of lexical-semantic resources with different characteristics (WordNet-OmegaWiki, WordNet-Wiktionary, GermaNet-Wiktionary and WordNet-Wikipedia) and show that it achieves competitive performance on 3 out of 4 datasets. Dijkstra-WSA outperforms the state of the art on every dataset if it is combined with a back-off based on gloss similarity. We also demonstrate that Dijkstra-WSA is not only flexibly applicable to different resources but also highly parameterizable to optimize for precision or recall.
On the Optimality of Shape and Data Representation in the Spectral Domain

A proof of the optimality of the eigenfunctions of the Laplace-Beltrami operator (LBO) in repre- senting smooth functions on surfaces is provided and adapted to the field of applied shape and data analysis. It is based on the Courant-Fischer min-max principle adapted to our case. The theorem we present supports the new trend in geometry processing of treating geometric structures by using their projection onto the leading eigenfunctions of the decomposition of the LBO. Utilization of this result can be used for constructing numerically efficient algorithms to process shapes in their spec- trum. We review a couple of applications as possible practical usage cases of the proposed optimality criteria. We refer to a scale invariant metric, which is also invariant to bending of the manifold. This novel pseudometric allows constructing an LBO by which a scale invariant eigenspace on the surface is defined. We demonstrate the efficiency of an intermediate metric, defined as an interpolation be- tween the scale invariant and the regular one, in representing geometric structures while capturing both coarse and fine details. Next, we review a numerical acceleration technique for classical scaling, a member of a family of flattening methods known as multidimensional scaling (MDS). There, the optimality is exploited to efficiently approximate all geodesic distances between pairs of points on a given surface and thereby match and compare between almost isometric surfaces. Finally, we revisit the classical principal component analysis (PCA) definition by coupling its variational form with a Dirichlet energy on the data manifold. By pairing the PCA with the LBO we can efficiently handle cases that go beyond the scope defined by the observation set that is handled by regular PCA.
Projections and retractions

The main result of this paper is a generalization of a theorem of R. S. Phillips [6] on the nonexistence of projections of l, onto c0. If S is a locally compact Hausdorff space then let C(S) denote the space of bounded continuous real (or complex) valued functions on S; also, let Co(S) be those functions in C(S) which vanish at infinity. If N is the space of positive integers with the discrete topology then l=0C(N) and co=Co(N). Thus, Phillips' theorem says that in the case where S= N there is no bounded projection of C(S) onto Co(S); that is, the space N does not have the projection property. It is natural to ask for a characterization of spaces with the projection property in terms of their topology. Unfortunately, we cannot achieve this but we do show in Theorem 2 that pseudocompactness is a necessary condition for this property (S is pseudocompact if and only if every real valued continuous function on S is bounded). However, as Example 3 demonstrates, pseudocompactness is not sufficient. As a corollary to Theorem 2 we obtain a result of W. W. Comfort [1 ]. Namely, if S is completely regular and there is a retraction of its Stone-Cech compactification O3S onto j3S\S then S is a locally compact peudocompact space. To establish his result Comfort appealed to a result of W. Rudin which depends on the continuum hypothesis. Hence, not only do we give a relatively simple proof of Comfort's theorem, but furthermore, we do so without using the continuum hypothesis. Before proceeding to the main theorem we will need the following theorem of I. Glicksberg [3]. The proof is not difficult and we shall not repeat it here.
Comparison between three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging for quantification of left ventricular volumes and function.

AIMS We evaluated the accuracy of three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (3DSTE) to evaluate left ventricular (LV) volumes, ejection fraction (EF), and global circumferential strain (CS) in comparison with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a healthy population. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 45 out of 50 consecutive healthy subjects (38 males, age 45 ± 15 years) successfully underwent both 3DSTE and MRI on the same day. Three-dimensional echocardiography data sets were analysed using speckle tracking to measure LV end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes, EF, and global CS. With MRI, the method of discs approximation was used to obtain volumes and the EF, whereas CS was acquired using myocardial tissue tagging. Inter-technique comparisons included regression and the Bland-Altman analysis. For quantification of LV volumes, 3DSTE correlated well with MRI (r: 0.75-0.81), but volumes were significantly underestimated with relatively large biases (13-34 mL) and wide limits of agreement (SD: 11-25 mL). However, excellent accuracy was revealed for measurement of EF by 3DSTE with a good correlation (r: 0.91), minimal bias, and narrow limits of agreement (0.6 ± 1.7%) compared with MRI. For measurement of CS, a large mean bias was found between techniques (10.0%), despite narrow limits of agreement (SD: 1.7%) and a good correlation between techniques (r: 0.80). CONCLUSION Although 3DSTE-derived LV volumes are underestimated in most patients compared with MRI, measurement of the LVEF revealed excellent accuracy. Measurements of CS were systematically greater (i.e. more negative) with 3DSTE than MRI, which likely reflects various inter-technique differences that preclude direct comparability of their measurements.
Strategic Guidance in the Development of New Aircraft Programs: A Practical Real Options Approach

Investment decisions in new aircraft development programs are difficult because of large capital expenditures, long lead times, and many technical and market uncertainties. A flexible strategy, that takes advantage of the ability of managers to incorporate information as uncertainties are resolved, is suggested as a means to manage risk. In this paper, the use of real options analysis to evaluate and guide new aircraft development programs is illustrated through a case study of a real-world aircraft program. The analysis provides clear evidence that investors can use the numerical results of the real options analysis to determine how much they should spend on an aircraft program, that managers can use the same results to restructure the program to improve the financial feasibility of the project, and that both investors and managers can use the output of derivative analyses to define minimum requirements (in terms of aircraft orders) to ensure program success.
A Generalised Hybrid Architecture for NLP

Many tasks in natural language processing require that sentences be classified from a set of discrete interpretations. In these cases, there appear to be great benefits in using hybrid systems which apply multiple analyses to the test cases. In this paper, we examine a general principle for building hybrid systems, based on combining the results of several, high precision heuristics. By generalising the results of systems for sentiment analysis and ambiguity recognition, we argue that if correctly combined, multiple techniques classify better than single techniques. More importantly, the combined techniques can be used in tasks where no single classification is appropriate.
Slowness‐domain kinematical characteristics for horizontally layered orthorhombic media. Part I: Critical slowness match

Kinematical characteristics of reflected waves in anisotropic elastic media play an important role in the seismic imaging workflow. Considering compressional and converted waves, we derive new, azimuthally dependent, slowness‐domain approximations for the kinematical characteristics of reflected waves (radial and transverse offsets, intercept time and traveltime) for layered orthorhombic media with varying azimuth of the vertical symmetry planes. The proposed method can be considered an extension of the well‐known ‘generalized moveout approximation’ in the slowness domain, from azimuthally isotropic to azimuthally anisotropic models. For each slowness azimuth, the approximations hold for a wide angle range, combining power series coefficients in the vicinity of both the normal‐incidence ray and an additional wide‐angle ray. We consider two cases for the wide‐angle ray: a ‘critical slowness match’ and a ‘pre‐critical slowness match’ studied in Parts I and II of this work, respectively. For the critical slowness match, the approximations are valid within the entire slowness range, up to the critical slowness. For the ‘pre‐critical slowness match’, the approximations are valid only within the bounded slowness range; however, the accuracy within the defined range is higher. The critical slowness match is particularly effective when the subsurface model includes a dominant high‐velocity layer where, for nearly critical slowness values, the propagation in this layer is almost horizontal. Comparing the approximated kinematical characteristics with those computed by numerical ray tracing, we demonstrate high accuracy.