Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of the slow-light effect in silicon wire waveguides with metamaterials

Slow-light devices have been attracting a great amount of attention owing to their potential applications in future optical networks and information-processing systems. In this paper we propose two types of silicon wire waveguides with metamaterials, which are potentially applicable to the deceleration of light speed, and we analyze the slow-light effect by using the homogenization-based mode analysis method. The derived dispersion relation indicates that a group index larger than 70 can be obtained with a propagation loss of ∼0.7 dB/μm near the resonant frequency of the metamaterial.
Ricci semisymmetric almost Kenmotsu manifolds with nullity distributions

The object of the present paper is to characterize Ricci semisymmetric almost Kenmotsu manifolds with its characteristic vector field \xi belonging to the (k,\mu )^{`}-nullity distribution and (k,\mu )-nullity distribution respectively. Finally, an illustrative example is given.
A pore scale analysis for determination of interfacial convective heat transfer coefficient for thin periodic porous media under mixed convection

Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine interfacial convective heat transfer coefficient numerically, for a porous media consisting of square blocks in inline arrangement under mixed convection heat transfer. Design/methodology/approach The continuity, momentum and energy equations are solved in dimensionless form for a representative elementary volume of porous media, numerically. The velocity and temperature fields for different values of porosity, Ri and Re numbers are obtained. The study is performed for the range of Ri number from 0.01 to 10, Re number from 100 to 500 and porosity value from 0.51 to 0.96. Based on the obtained results, the value of the interfacial convective heat transfer coefficient is calculated by using volume average method. Findings It was found that at low porosities (such as 0.51), the interfacial Nusselt number does not considerably change with Ri and Re numbers. However, for porous media with high Ri number and porosity (such as 10 and 0.51, respectively), secondary flows occur in the middle of the channel between rods improving heat transfer between solid and fluid, considerably. It is shown that the available correlations of interfacial heat transfer coefficient suggested for forced convection can be used for mixed convection for the porous media with low porosity (such as 0.51) or for the flow with low Ri number (such as 0.01). Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no study on determination of interfacial convective heat transfer coefficient for mixed convection in porous media in literature. The present study might be the first study providing an accurate idea on the range of this important parameter, which will be useful particularly for researchers who study on mixed convection heat transfer in porous media, macroscopically.
Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Basic Life Support among Nurses: A Cross-Sectional Study in Malakand Division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

OBJECTIVES To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding basic life support among nurses of three selected District Headquarter Hospitals of Malakand Division Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. METHODOLOGY A cross-sectional study was conducted using 210 nursing staff working in these three hospitals. Data were collected using questionnaire, adopted from American Heart Association guidelines 2015. Permission granted by the concerned university and hospital. Consent was taken from the study participants before collecting the data. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 24 for descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS More than half (52.9%) of the participants had moderately adequate knowledge regarding basic life support (BLS). Majority (60%) of the participants were not performing BLS voluntarily, 30% participants performed BLS but not voluntarily. Majority (82.4%) nursing staff had poor practices regarding basic life support. No significant association was found between the level of knowledge regarding basic life support, socio-demographic variables and participant’s practices regarding basic life support. CONCLUSION Overall, nurses had moderately adequate knowledge and poor practices regarding basic life support. Very less number of nursing staff performed basic life support throughout their working career. Majority of the nursing staff were not basic life support certified. Majority of the nursing staff were not able to handle any emergency situation due to their lack of knowledge related to proper skills of basic life support. Nurses’ needs to be properly trained and certified BLS.
Dark Matter Substructure in High Redshift Clusters of Galaxies

of “Dark Matter Substructure in High Redshift Clusters of Galaxies” by Paul M. Huwe, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2013. For my graduate research, I have focused on the creation of high resolution weak lensing mass maps in order to study dark matter substructure in clusters of galaxies at high redshift (z>0.5). Galaxy clusters are the largest virialized structures in the universe, and are meaningful environments for tests of cosmology. Mass substructure in clusters of galaxies is important for several reasons: as a test of hierarchical Cold Dark Matter, as a way of reducing the scatter in the mass calibration of clusters for dark energy studies, and as environments for galaxy and active galactic nuclei evolution. Gravitational lensing is a powerful tool for measuring mass in astronomical objects. According to General Relativity, very massive objects bend the light of more distant objects around them, thus distorting the shape of these background objects. In the weak lensing regime, these shape distortions are small (few percent level), and thus only detected as a systematic alignment about the lensing cluster. Therefore, rigorous shape detection, extraction, and statistical analysis are required to generate mass maps. Starting with Hubble Space Telescope data, I carefully correct for the HST’s Point Spread Function ellipticity pattern and stack the images for each cluster. After extracting the stack data, I perform a weak lensing analysis of the cluster. To characterize the level of substructure, I apply a cluster finding variable aperture filter. Finally, I fit an ensemble of NFW profiles to the detected matter peaks. Dark Matter Substructure in High Redshift Clusters of Galaxies a dissertation presented by Paul M. Huwe to The Physics Department in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Physics Brown University Providence, State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations May 2013 © 2013 Paul M. Huwe All rights reserved. This dissertation by Paul M. Huwe is accepted in its present form by the Department of Physics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date: Ian Dell’Antonio, Ph.D., Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date: Ian Dell’Antonio, Ph.D., Reader Date: Richard Gaitskell, D.Phil., Reader Date: Savvas Koushiappas, Ph.D., Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date: Peter Weber, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate School
Determinant of Tax Avoidance: Empirical Study on Indonesia Stock Exchange

This study aims to examine the determinant of tax avoidance. The independent variables used in this study are financial distress, profitability, and audit quality. The dependent variable used in this study is tax avoidance. While the moderating variable in this study is firm size. The companies studied are manufacturing companies in the consumer goods industry sector listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) for the 2015-2019 period. The sampling technique is purposive sampling. The number of research samples used were 124 data. Data analysis used multiple linear regression, and Moderated Regression Analysis (MRA). The results of this study show that financial distress has no effect on tax avoidance. Profitability and audit quality affect tax avoidance. Firm size is not proven as an independent or moderating variable. The type of moderation in this study is homologizer moderator. Suggestions for companies to take every tax decision by taking into account the applicable tax laws and regulations. So that every tax planning decision made by the company does not harm the state.
Blind estimation of blur in hyperspectral images

Hyperspectral images acquired by remote sensing systems are generally degraded by noise and can be sometimes more severely degraded by blur. When no knowledge is available about the degradations present on the original image, blind restoration methods can only be considered. By blind, we mean absolutely no knowledge neither of the blur point spread function (PSF) nor the original latent channel and the noise level. In this study, we address the blind restoration of the degraded channels component-wise, according to a sequential scheme. For each degraded channel, the sequential scheme estimates the blur point spread function (PSF) in a first stage and deconvolves the degraded channel in a second and final stage by means of using the PSF previously estimated. We propose a new component-wise blind method for estimating effectively and accurately the blur point spread function. This method follows recent approaches suggesting the detection, selection and use of sufficiently salient edges in the current processed channel for supporting the regularized blur PSF estimation. Several modifications are beneficially introduced in our work. A new selection of salient edges through thresholding adequately the cumulative distribution of their corresponding gradient magnitudes is introduced. Besides, quasi-automatic and spatially adaptive tuning of the involved regularization parameters is considered. To prove applicability and higher efficiency of the proposed method, we compare it against the method it originates from and four representative edge-sparsifying regularized methods of the literature already assessed in a previous work. Our attention is mainly paid to the objective analysis (via ݈l1-norm) of the blur PSF error estimation accuracy. The tests are performed on a synthetic hyperspectral image. This synthetic hyperspectral image has been built from various samples from classified areas of a real-life hyperspectral image, in order to benefit from realistic spatial distribution of reference spectral signatures to recover after synthetic degradation. The synthetic hyperspectral image has been successively degraded with eight real blurs taken from the literature, each of a different support size. Conclusions, practical recommendations and perspectives are drawn from the results experimentally obtained.
The middle classes and socio-spatial transformations in the metropolises of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo: 2000-2010

The first decade of the twenty-first century in Brazil was marked by significant economic, social and political changes: a substantial reduction in income inequalities; a considerable decline in unemployment and rise in formal employment; social policies lifted a sizable portion of the population out of poverty; and increased investments in education, health, housing, urban infrastructure, and culture, among others, all of which resulted in reducing inequalities on multiple levels. Against this background, and bearing in mind the historical dual character of the Brazilian city, the question that this article sets out to answer is: has the multidimensional reduction of inequalities resulted in a decline in urban segregation and inequalities? In view of the aforementioned changes, our hypothesis is that the answer to this question is positive. To demonstrate this, the article uses data from the 2000 and 2010 demographic censuses, and compares the metropolitan regions of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, based on significant methodological innovations in the way the categories of analysis are constructed, vis-à-vis the existing studies on the subject.
Developing an Equity-Centered Practice: Teacher Study Groups in the Preservice Context

Equity-centered preparation builds novice teachers’ capacity to make meaningful instruction accessible to all students, particularly those historically excluded from high-quality learning experiences. Drawing on social learning theory, we examined Teacher Study Groups as a model for supporting preservice special educators’ development of equity-centered practices. We examined 60 preservice teachers’ instruction prior to and following study group participation, embedded in a fieldwork support course, alongside related artifacts shared during weekly sessions. Using a convergent mixed-methods approach, we analyzed quantitative and qualitative data separately and then integrated findings using joint display analysis; in doing so, we generated meta-inferences regarding how teachers’ attitudes mediated growth in practice. We uncovered salient participatory experiences that influenced—and hindered—professional growth. Our findings have implications for programs interested in structuring professional learning in a manner that builds foundations for an equity-centered practice.
Random Number Generators Basedon EEG Non-linear and ChaoticCharacteristics

Current electroencephalogram (EEG)-based methods in security have been mainly used for person authentication and identiﬁcation purposes only. The non-linear and chaotic characteristics of EEG signal have not been taken into account. In this paper, we propose a new method that explores the use of these EEG characteristics in generating random numbers. EEG signal and its wavebands are transformed into bit sequences that are used as random number sequences or as seeds for pseudo-random number generators. EEG signal has the following advantages: 1) it is noisy, complex, chaotic and non-linear in nature, 2) it is very difﬁcult to mimic because similar mental tasks are person dependent, and 3) it is almost impossible to steal because the brain activity is sensitive to the stress and the mood of the person and an aggressor cannot force the person to reproduce his/her mental pass-phrase. Our experiments were conducted on the four EEG datasets: AEEG, Alcoholism, DEAP and GrazA 2008. The randomness of the generated bit sequences was tested at a high level of signiﬁcance by comprehensive battery of tests recommended by the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) to verify the quality of random number generators, especially in cryptography application. Our experimental results showed high average success rates for all wavebands and the highest rate is 99.17% for the gamma band.
Same Words, Different Meanings: Semantic Polarization in Broadcast Media Language Forecasts Polarization on Social Media Discourse

With the growth of online news over the past decade, empirical studies on political discourse and news consumption have focused on the phenomenon of filter bubbles and echo chambers. Yet recently, scholars have revealed limited evidence around the impact of such phenomenon, leading some to argue that partisan segregation across news audiences can- not be fully explained by online news consumption alone and that the role of traditional legacy media may be as salient in polarizing public discourse around current events. In this work, we expand the scope of analysis to include both online and more traditional media by investigating the relationship between broadcast news media language and social media discourse. By analyzing a decade’s worth of closed captions (2.1 million speaker turns) from CNN and Fox News along with topically corresponding discourse from Twitter, we pro- vide a novel framework for measuring semantic polarization between America’s two major broadcast networks to demonstrate how semantic polarization between these outlets has evolved (Study 1), peaked (Study 2) and influenced partisan discussions on Twitter (Study 3) across the last decade. Our results demonstrate a sharp increase in polarization in how topically important keywords are discussed between the two channels, especially after 2016, with overall highest peaks occurring in 2020. The two stations discuss identical topics in drastically distinct contexts in 2020, to the extent that there is barely any linguistic overlap in how identical keywords are contextually discussed. Further, we demonstrate at-scale, how such partisan division in broadcast media language significantly shapes semantic polarity trends on Twitter (and vice-versa), empirically linking for the first time, how online discussions are influenced by televised media. We show how the language characterizing opposing media narratives about similar news events on TV can increase levels of partisan dis- course online. To this end, our work has implications for how media polarization on TV plays a significant role in impeding rather than supporting online democratic discourse.
Irreversible degradation of Nb3Sn Rutherford cables due to transverse compressive stress at room temperature

In the framework of the Future Circular Collider design study for a 100 TeV circular collider, 16 T superconducting bending magnets based on Nb3Sn technology are being developed. A pre-stress on the conductor during magnet assembly at room temperature (RT) is needed to counteract the Lorentz forces during operation. The superconducting properties of the brittle Nb3Sn superconductor are strain sensitive and excessive pre-stress leads to an irreversible degradation of the superconductor. In order to determine the level of acceptable pre-stress during the magnet assembly process, reacted and impregnated Nb3Sn cables were exposed to increasing transverse compressive stress up to a maximum stress level of 200 MPa at RT. After each stress cycle, the critical current of the cable specimens were characterized at 4.3 K in the FRESCA cable test station. No significant critical current degradation was observed up to 150 MPa, followed by degradation less than 4% after a nominal stress of 175 MPa. A dramatic permanent critical current degradation occurred after applying a nominal stress of 200 MPa. A comprehensive post analysis consisting of non-destructive micro-tomography followed by microscopic characterization of metallographic cable cross sections was carried out after the critical current test to reveal cracks in the Nb3Sn sub-elements of the loaded specimen.
Coordination of VMI supply chain with a loss-averse manufacturer under quality-dependency and marketing-dependency

This paper addresses a vendor-managed inventory (VMI) supply chain with a loss-averse manufacturer and a risk-neutral retailer. Market demand faced by the retailer is stochastic and dependent on product quality level and marketing effort level. We propose a combined contract composed of option and cost-sharing to investigate coordination and profit allocation issues of the supply chain. To model loss aversion of the manufacturer, we employ multiple mental accounts and apply the utility function to upside and downside potentials of manufacturer's production decision separately. We derive the optimal strategy for each member with a Stackelberg game in which the retailer acts as the leader. It is proved that both coordination of the supply chain and Pareto-improvement can be achieved synchronously by the combined contract. In the premise of coordination, the system-wide profit can be allocated arbitrarily only by option price. Through negotiation, the retailer and the manufacturer just need to confirm an appropriate option price to obtain that neither of them becomes worse off. We also find that the manufacturer's loss aversion is a significant element for contract design and profit allocation, and the manufacturer could benefit from its own loss aversion behavior under certain condition.
Campus Recreation Amenity Use Differences by Sexual Orientation Among US College Students

College years are a formative life stage; however, students who identify as a sexual minority participate in insufficient physical activity. This study examined differences in level of comfort 1) with/in campus recreation facilities overall, and 2) using specific amenities, by sexual orientation. Students at four public universities completed online surveys assessing perceived comfort using their campus recreation facility. Among participants (n = 160), Kruskal-Wallis analyses showed comfort using campus recreation facilities, free weights, non-intramural sports,and intramural sports was significantly higher among heterosexual students compared to sexual minority students (all p < 0.005). These findings highlight inequities in comfort using campus recreation facilities and provide evidence of the need for inclusive recreation spaces for all students regardless of sexual orientation. Future research is needed to assess LBGTQ+ student's health disparities related to campus recreation facility use and how to increase perceived comfort for all students.
Muon-Induced Backgrounds in the DM-Ice17 NaI(Tl) Dark Matter Detector

i LIST OF TABLES . ix LIST OF FIGURES . xi 1 Cosmological Composition . 1 1.1 ⇤CDM . 1 1.1.1 Cosmological Evolution . 2 1.1.2 Current Universe . 3 1.2 Observational Cosmology . 4 1.2.1 Cosmic Microwave Background . 4 1.2.2 Baryon Acoustic Oscillations . 5 1.2.3 Big Bang Nucleosynthesis . 7 1.2.4 Rotation Curves . 7 1.2. 5 Large Scale Structure . 9 1.2. 6 Gravitational Lensing . 9 1.2. 7 The Bullet Cluster . 10 2 Dark Matter Candidates . 12 2.1 The Standard Model of Particle Physics . 12 2.2 Dark Matter Characteristics . 13 2.2.1 Baryonic Matter . 13 2.2.2 Cold Dark Matter . 13 2.3 Preferred Candidates . 14 2.3.1 WIMPs . 14 2.3.2 SUSY Dark Matter . 15 2.3.3 Warm Dark Matter . 17 2.3.4 Axions . 17 2.4 MOND . 17 3 Dark Matter Detection . 19 3.1 Collider Production . 19 3.2 Indirect Detection . 19 3.3 Direct Detection . 21 3.3.1 Annual Modulation . 22 3.3.2 Diurnal Modulation . 22 3.3.3 Spin Dependence of Interaction . 24 3.3.4 Techniques: Shielding Backgrounds . 24 3.4 Status of the Direct Detection Field . 25 3.4. 1 Low Mass WIMPs . 29
Parent-Adolescent Communication About Contraceptives And Its Associated Factors in Bahir Dar City, North West, Ethiopia, 2022

: Adolescent pregnancy is a serious and complex problem. An overwhelming majority of teens feel that avoiding teen pregnancy would be easier if they were able to have open discussions about contraceptives with their parents. This study aimed to assess parent-adolescent communication about contraceptives and its associated factors in Bahir Dar city, North West Ethiopia, 2022 GC. Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted. A total of 821 adolescents was included in the study from June 10 to 30/2022GC. Multi stage - simple random sampling technique was used. The data was collected by using a pretested and structured interviewer administered questionnaire via Epicollect5. Then it was exported in to Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25 for analysis. Both bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis were done. Variables with a p-value of <0.05 were considered statistically significant. Result : Overall (22.3%) (95% CI: 19%-25%) of the adolescent had communicated about contraceptives with their parents in the past six months. Favorable attitude toward parent-adolescent communication [AOR= 4.014; 95%CI: 2.618-6.155], being sexually active [AOR= 2.236, 95%CI: 1.341-3.731], female sex [AOR =2.675, 95%CI: 1.761-4.065], age (15-19) [AOR=1.641, 95%CI: 1.042,2.586], knowledgeable toward contraceptives [AOR =1.661, 95%CI: 1.016-2.717], private school student [AOR=0.451; 95%CI: 0.245-0.831] and family size of ≥5 [AOR=2.764, 95%CI: 1.791-4.267] were significantly associated with parent-adolescentcommunication about contraceptives. Conclusion and Recommendation : Communication about contraceptives between the adolescent and their parents was low. Parents shall give especial emphasis to male adolescents, but not mean that neglecting the female adolescent. It is important to encourage and empower parents to start to communicate with their adolescents while the adolescents are still in the early adolescent years, before they become sexually active.