Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compton coincidence in silicon photon-counting CT detectors

Abstract. Purpose: Compton interactions amount to a significant fraction of the registered counts in a silicon detector. In a Compton interaction, only a part of the photon energy is deposited and a single incident photon can result in multiple counts unless tungsten shielding is used. Deep silicon has proved to be a competitive material for photon-counting CT detectors, but to improve the performance further, one possibility is to use coincidence techniques to identify Compton-scattered photons and reconstruct their incident energies. Approach: In a detector with no tungsten shielding, incident photons can interact through a series of interactions. Based on the position and energy of each interaction, probability-based methods can be used to estimate the incident photon energy. Here, we present a maximum likelihood estimation framework along with an alternative method to estimate the incident photon energy and position in a silicon detector. Results: Assuming one incident photon per time frame, we show that the incident photon energy can be estimated with a mean error of −0.07 ± 0.03 keV and an RMS error of 3.36 ± 0.02 keV for a realistic case in which we assume a detector with limited energy and spatial resolution. The interaction position was estimated with a mean error of −2 ± 11 μm in x direction and 7 ± 11 μm in y direction. Corresponding RMS errors of 1.09 ± 0.01 and 1.10 ± 0.01 mm were achieved in x and y, respectively. Conclusions: The presented results show the potential of using probability-based methods to improve the performance of silicon detectors for CT.
Effect of Career Adaptability on Subjective Well-Being of Middle-Aged and Older Employees

This study aimed to elucidate how career adaptability (CA) affects subjective well-being by focusing on the psychological adjustment of middle-aged and older workers. Two web-based surveys were conducted at 1-year and 3-month intervals with 3540 workers aged 40 to 64 years, including those eligible for both position-retirement and reemployment. Factor analysis of CA in the first wave extracted two factors “control and confidence” and “concern and curiosity”. Multiple regression analysis, adjusted for important covariates, was conducted with the overall CA and the two factors of CA as the independent variables, and scores of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) as the dependent variable. For satisfaction with life, only concern and curiosity had a significant positive association, while control and confidence had no significant association. Analysis by employment stage indicated that only concern and curiosity had a significant positive association with satisfaction with life, while control and confidence had no significant association with any employment stage. The results suggest that the effect of CA on satisfaction with life remains the same, even among those who are position-retired or reemployed at the end of their vocational lives, which is a transition period in their lives.
Mechanical failure of high-burnup fuel rods with stress-relieved annealed and recrystallized M-MDA cladding under reactivity-initiated accident conditions

ABSTRACT To evaluate the effects of the hydride morphology and initial temperature of fuel cladding on the pellet-cladding mechanical interaction failure under reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) conditions, RIA-simulated experiments were performed on high-burnup fuels with stress-relieved annealed (SR) and recrystallized (RX) M-MDATM cladding at room and high (~280°C) temperatures. The results demonstrated that the failure-limit trend of RX-cladded fuels being lower than that of SR-cladded fuels for a similar hydrogen content holds up to at least about 700 wtppm. The observation of the fracture surfaces of failed RX cladding suggests a contribution of radially oriented hydrides to the crack formation and/or penetration, which coincides with the aforementioned failure-limit trend. The temperature effect, namely the failure-limit rise at a high temperature, is evident irrespective of the hydride morphology, while the degree of the temperature effect decreases as the hydrogen content increases.
Upgrade the Socio-Economic System

The work is devoted to the study of the dynamics of functioning of socio-economic systems (organizations, local communities and States) from the positions of open systems theory and behavioral Sciences. In the framework of a relatively independent research for the economic system proposed methodology for the analysis of the implementation of its socio-economic nature as a non-linear process in which to investigate the mechanism of the transition objective to the subjective, as well as the reverse influence of subjective activities of economic entities on the essential foundations of the economic system to its multilevel social genomes. The processes of loss of their ability to function effectively in an increasingly complex environment are revealed. The prerequisites for accumulating evolutionary changes and implementing a rapid revolutionary transition through Creative destruction to a new basic model of survival are described. It describes the termination of organizations, the collapse of socio-economic systems that did not make timely changes to the basis of the survival model, as well as the processes of self-preservation for some time of systems with an unchanged organizational basis, despite the actions associated with the change of power. There are marked trends in blurring the boundaries between cognitive and value orientations, indicating interdisciplinary intentions and problem-oriented forms of research activity. The leading directions of scientific progress that change traditional ideas about innovative management, expressed in the search for new ways to form and activate the internal forces of interaction of the economic system, objective laws of management, are highlighted. A fundamental approach to the management and deepening of ideas about the transformational processes that arise under the influence of creative work in the modern economy; about the impact of institutional structures on the implementation of new technical and economic and socio-economic relations. On this basis, we can understand the subordination of relations between the plan and the market, in the process of saving human relations, in the phenomenon of the concept of "human capital", in the implementation of digitalization, in the norms and forms that correspond to the prevailing economic interests.
A 4-GS/s 10-ENOB 75-mW Ringamp ADC in 16-nm CMOS With Background Monitoring of Distortion

A $4\times $ interleaved pipelined ADC for direct-RF sampling applications is presented. It leverages the performance advantages of ring amplifiers to unlock greater architectural freedom. The first pipeline stage MDAC with a “passive-hold” mode eliminates the sub-ADC sampling path and associated problems. A high-speed ringamp topology employs digital bias control, robust common-mode feedback (CMFB), and an elegant self-resetting behavior. An asynchronous, event-driven timing control system improves several aspects of performance and enables fully dynamic power consumption and modular design re-use. A general technique is presented whereby the signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR) of any amplifier in the system can be measured in the background with an analog hardware overhead of only one comparator. In this amplifier-intensive architecture utilizing 36 ringamps, the 4-GS/s ADC fabricated in 16-nm CMOS achieves 62-dB SNDR and 75-dB SFDR at Nyquist, consumes 75 mW (including input buffer), and has a Walden figure of merit (FoM) of 18 fJ/conversion-step and a Schreier FoM of 166 dB, advancing the state of the art in direct-RF sampling ADCs by roughly an order of magnitude.
Fatigue damage evaluation of steel bridges considering thermal effect

Abstract With the change of external environmental factors, thermal loads are changing and causing fluctuating thermal stresses in critical fatigue details of steel bridges, which contribute to fatigue damage cumulation significantly. This paper proposed two fatigue evaluation methods considering the coupling effects of traffic load and thermal load: (1) Evaluation based on vehicular fatigue load model (VFLM) and thermal fatigue load model (TFLM). (2) Evaluation based on measurements of thermal load and traffic load. The analytical approach for obtaining the thermal fatigue load model was introduced, and the concept of the coupling stress model of ‘wave-surfer model’ was set up according to the mechanism of fatigue damage cumulation. Taking a steel box girder bridge as a case study, the collections of temperature data and traffic information were carried out. The two evaluation methods based on different load information were applied to two typical fatigue details, and the corresponding fatigue damage was calculated, which demonstrates that thermal effects should be taken into account for fatigue evaluation.
Influence of Silver and Copper Nanoparticles on Physiological Characteristics of Phaseolus vulgaris L. in vitro and in vivo

Medicinal plants are used for screening and development of natural products for the quality evaluation of crude therapeutic compounds found in the plants; so to understanding their mechanism of action (Corpa and Pendrya, 2013). The studying of drugs and food supplements obtained from natural sources like plant extracts have been increased (Frankic et al., 2009). Among many plant species, common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) is a warm season annual legume crop, grown primarily for it is protein and energy-rich dry seeds. Common bean grains are a good source of iron, zinc and other minerals (Buruchara et al., 2011). P. vulgaris has an increasing attention, because to it is rich with a variety of active compounds for health benefits such as proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, oligosaccharides, phenols, saponins, flavonoids, alkaloids and tannins (Mishra et al., 2010). Ability of secondary metabolites production in different plant species in vitro minimize environmental variations due to the using of defined nutrient media, controlled conditions and homogeneity of stress applications. In addition, the simplicity of such manipulations enables the studying of a large plant population and stress treatments in a limited space and a short International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 1 (2017) pp. 834-843 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
Analysis of chicken and turkey meat consumption by segmentation of Spanish consumers using food-related lifestyle

Aim of study: Commercially, chicken meat has a similar positioning to turkey meat, as both are healthy and low-fat meats. For this reason, we proposed analysing consumer behaviour with respect to each of these meats based on market segmentation.Area of study: Spain.Material and methods: We carried out a telephone survey with an error of ± 4.0% at a confidence level of 95.5%, using the food-related lifestyle (FRL) instrument as part of the questionnaire. The statistical analysis techniques employed were different depending on the objective pursued: univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis.Main results: Five segments were obtained: “Manager cook” (24.5%), “Healthy cook” (20.8%), “Concerned with food, but not cooks” (22%), “Total detachment” (11.9%) and “Rational shopper with little interest in cuisine” (20.8%). Notwithstanding the similar positioning of chicken and turkey meats, there are significant differences in purchasing and consumption habits between FRL segments. Specifically, there were significant differences in the frequency of purchase, the usual shopping location, purchasing criteria and preparation methods.Research highlights: Knowing the profile of these segments allows us to adapt the marketing mix (product, place, price and promotion) to each one. This is very useful for the companies due to the wide demand they face. First, they can choose the FRL segments to target and, second, they can define an appropriate marketing strategy according to these segments. In this way, market segmentation strategy based on food-related lifestyles may ensure companies a greater likelihood of success in the market.
Early coagulopathy in trauma and major bleeding: Is it time to challenge the dogma?

The detectable coagulation spectrum is covered by conventional coagulation assays (CCA), point-of-care/ viscoelastic methods (POC/VEM), and platelets counts. Classical CCA can detect common abnormal values like partial thromboplastin time/INR ratio >1.5, platelet count <50 10/l, fibrinogen level <1.5 to 2.0 g/l or an APTT> 2.5 times normal values. However, these routine tests cannot detect early trauma-induced coagulopathy in the majority of cases as it takes 45–60min to be complete, and are less reliable in the hypothermic and acidotic trauma patient. New POC testing with portable coagulometers and VEM such as TEGR and ROTEMR take only 10–15min to yield results, and can detect abnormalities not detectable with standard coagulation testing such as prolonged clot formation time, dysfunctional platelets and fibrinogen, hyper-fibrinolysis, abnormal INR >1.2, excesses of pro-coagulant activity, excess of Vit K dependant oral anticoagulants (VKAs) or antiplatelets agents (APA) levels. However, even these two recent modalities do not cover the whole spectrum of fibrinolysis or platelet dysfunction. Fibrinolysis is difficult to detect in all its forms and in a timely manner, and the original enthusiasm for VEM in detecting the earliest signs of fibrinolysis has faded. Platelet dysfunction is a serious problem, probably accounting for most of the anecdotal cases of inexplicable coagulopathy. No CCA or standard VEM can identify platelet dysfunction in an acute setting, and at present, there are no completely reliable, rapidly useful methods to detect all cases of platelet dysfunction at the earliest useful stage. Furthermore, whilst VKAs and APA can be assessed by INR and platelet function assays, there is no standard method to reliably identify direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC) activity in the early acute setting. To complicate matters, discrepancies have been noted on the same variables’ abnormalities between CCT and VEM and between the different VEMs. Notwithstanding these issues, consensus on a clinical diagnosis or definition of coagulopathy is missing but a personal definition would be “Coagulopathy is generally understood to be a clinically evident, generalized, trend towards bleeding, which persists after named and visible vessels have been controlled and is not amenable to packing, manifesting as microvascular bleeding, mainly as mucosal, anastomotic and parenchymal oozing. ” At the root of the view that trauma-associated coagulopathy increases bleeding, there may well be an error of misinterpreted visual perception, a subjective criterion. The amount visually perceived and appraised as excessive is effectively the same amount of blood loss that would have occurred in absence of coagulopathy but in a liquid form, because a clot cannot form due to coagulopathy.
Sequencing of Organellar Genomes of Nowellia curvifolia (Cephaloziaceae Jungermanniales) Revealed the Smallest Plastome with Complete Gene Set and High Intraspecific Variation Suggesting Cryptic Speciation

The leafy liverwort Nowellia curvifolia is a widespread Holarctic species belonging to the family Cephaloziaceae. It is made up of a newly sequenced, assembled and annotated organellar genomes of two European specimens, which revealed the structure typical for liverworts, but also provided new insights into its microevolution. The plastome of N. curvifolia is the second smallest among photosynthetic liverworts, with the shortest known inverted repeats. Moreover, it is the smallest liverwort genome with a complete gene set, since two smaller genomes of Aneura mirabilis and Cololejeunea lanciloba are missing six and four protein-coding genes respectively. The reduction of plastome size in leafy liverworts seems to be mainly impacted by deletion within specific region between psbA and psbD genes. The comparative intraspecific analysis revealed single SNPs difference among European individuals and a low number of 35 mutations differentiating European and North American specimens. However, the genetic resources of Asian specimen enabled to identify 1335 SNPs in plastic protein-coding genes suggesting an advanced cryptic speciation within N. curvifolia or the presence of undescribed morphospecies in Asia. Newly sequenced mitogenomes from European specimens revealed identical gene content and structure to previously published and low intercontinental differentiation limited to one substitution and three indels. The RNA-seq based RNA editing analysis revealed 17 and 127 edited sites in plastome and mitogenome respectively including one non-canonical editing event in plastid chiL gene. The U to C editing is common in non-seed plants, but in liverwort plastome is reported for the first time.
High molecular weight bio furan-based co-polyesters for food packaging applications: synthesis, characterization and solid-state polymerization

The goal of this study was to develop ecofriendly bioplastics, which could be applicable in beverage packaging, by synthesizing furan-based co-polyesters and incorporating them into bottles. The furan-based co-polyesters were synthesized by a two-step melt polycondensation reaction using ethylene glycol (EG), 1,4-cyclohexanedimethanol (CHDM), and dimethyl furan dicarboxylate (DM-FDCA). The incorporation of CHDM into the main chain of polymers has been found to increase the chain mobility due to its ring-conformational transition, and it also affects the co-polyesters. The co-polyesters show not only high elongations at break, but also improved Izod impact strengths compared to that of pure poly(ethylene furanoate) (PEF). Despite these characteristics, however, the molecular weights of the co-polyesters were not sufficient for manufacturing purposes. Thus, some samples were further reacted in the solid state by solid state polymerization (SSP) to generate higher-molecular-weight polymers. The crystallization kinetics of the co-polyesters prepared were analyzed to determine the reaction parameters, and the sample whose intrinsic viscosity was greater than 1.0 dL g−1 was successfully processed into bottles. The bottles prepared had higher O2-barrier properties and lower acetaldehyde contents than those of commercially available PET bottles. The results obtained so far show that furan-based co-polyesters can be used for food-packaging applications.
Sanare: Pluggable Intrusion Recovery for Web Applications

Web applications are exposed to many threats and, despite the best defensive efforts, are often successfully attacked. Reverting the effects of an attack on the state of such an application requires a profound knowledge about the application, to understand what data did the attack corrupt. Furthermore, it requires knowing what steps are needed to revert the effects without modifying legitimate data created by legitimate users. Existing intrusion recovery systems are capable of reverting the effects of the attack but they require modifications to the source code of the application, which may be unpractical. We present Sanare, a pluggable intrusion recovery system designed for web applications that use different data storage systems to keep their state. Sanare does not require any modification to the source code of the application or the web server. Instead, it uses a new deep learning scheme that we also introduce in the article, Matchare, that learns the matches between the HTTP requests and the database statements, file system operations, and web service requests that the HTTP requests caused. We evaluated Sanare with three open source web applications: WordPress, GitLab and ownCloud. In our experiments, Matchare achieved precision and recall higher than 97.5% with a performance overhead of less than 18% to the application.
The creation of a confidence scale: the confidence in managing challenging situations scale

Background Self-confidence and self-efficacy are vital psychological constructs that can affect a student’s performance. Aims To measure the level of confidence in nursing students in managing challenging situations in clinical practice settings. Methods In order to develop the scale three focus groups were conducted: with registered nurses, third year student nurses and service users. Focus group frameworks included: challenging behaviours, managing challenging situations and preparing students to manage challenging situations. Themes in relation to challenging situations that emerged from the focus groups, in conjunction with Nursing and Midwifery Council standards and expert discussions were used to create the confidence scale. The Confidence in Managing Challenging Situations Scale consists of two parts with 21 items in total. Both parts were measured by way of a five-point Likert scale. The scale was utilised to determine the level of confidence of students both pre and post a teaching intervention. Results The confidence in managing challenging situations scale had good internal consistency, with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient reported of 0.86. Exploratory factor analysis was used to support the scale validation process. Conclusions The Confidence in Managing Challenging Situations Scale is a successful measure of confidence for nursing students in healthcare settings. It can be applied in alternative healthcare settings for the identification of confidence levels in those student nurses learning in care settings.
Catabolic response and phospholipid fatty acid profiles as microbial tools to assess soil functioning

Microbial properties may help to provide an integrated view of changes in soil functioning associated with soil management or soil status. The fatty acid profiles of membrane phospholipids (PLFA) can give the composition of ecophysiological groups of soil microbial communities, while catabolic response profiles (CRP) estimate the heterotrophic functional diversity in soils, both relevant to the understanding of the role of micro‐organisms in the functioning of the soil. The objectives of this study were (i) to evaluate the CRP and PLFA as microbial tools to characterize changes in soil functioning and (ii) clarify the relation among these microbial measurements, with other physical, chemical and biochemical soil properties. We compare the same soil subjected to different managements and degrees of erosion. An undisturbed soil (UN), an old pasture soil (OP) and soils under continuous cultivation (NT) with four different depth of A horizon: 25 cm (NT 25), 23 cm (NT 23), 19 cm (NT 19) and 14 cm (NT 14) were tested. Substrate‐induced respiration of most substrates diminished when cropping pressure increased (UN > OP > NT), and soil catabolic evenness, as a diversity index, decreased by increasing production pressure and soil erosion. The correlation found among most of the measured physical, chemical and biochemical soil properties with the catabolic evenness showed the potential of this measurement to provide an integrated view of soil functioning. The PLFA analysis showed that the composition of microbial community denoting a partial recovery after 10 yr under grazed grassland. The stress indicators showed that farming practices increased microbial stress with the highest values found in the most eroded soils.