Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New Insights Gained from the Faunal Material Recovered During the Latest Excavations at Vogelherd Cave

Vogelherd Cave, which was discovered and excavated in 1931, is one of the most important Aurignacian sites in Europe. Although the excavator Gustav Riek performed the excavation under high standards for the time, he did not recover all material. They removed all sediments in 1931. This sediment was re-excavated and analyzed by an international team under the lead of Nicholas Conard starting in 2005. These new excavations revealed exceptional artwork in form of flutes, beads, and figurines carved from mammoth ivory, bone and stone tools, and faunal material. Here we present the first analysis of the faunal material. Results are compared to the 1931 material analyzed by Laura Niven in the early 2000s. Due to the higher methodological standard during the recent excavations, the excavators recovered a large number of small game remains. This work shows the importance of re-excavations and detailed recovery
Research Methods to Study and Empower Crowd Workers

The artificial intelligence (AI) industry has created new jobs that are essential to the real world deployment of intelligent systems. Part of the job focuses on labelling data for machine learning models or having workers complete tasks that AI alone cannot do. These workers are usually known as ‘crowd workers’—they are part of a large distributed crowd that is jointly (but separately) working on the tasks although they are often invisible to end-users, leading to workers often being paid below minimum wage and having limited career growth. In this chapter, we draw upon the field of human–computer interaction to provide research methods for studying and empowering crowd workers. We present our Computational Worker Leagues which enable workers to work towards their desired professional goals and also supply quantitative information about crowdsourcing markets. This chapter demonstrates the benefits of this approach and highlights important factors to consider when researching the experiences of crowd workers.
Monitoring of composite structures using a network of integrated PVDF film transducers

Aiming to reduce costs, polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) film patches are an emerging alternative to more classic piezoelectric technologies, like ceramic patches, as transducers to measure local deformation in many structural applications. This choice is supported by advantages such as the low weight and mechanical flexibility of PVDF, making this polymer suitable for embedding inside full scale polymer based composite structures. Piezoelectric transducer patches can be used as actuators to dynamically excite full-scale composite structures, and as sensors to measure the strain. The main objective of this paper is to verify that the PVDF transducers can provide exploitable signals in the context of structural health monitoring. In order to do so, two aspects of the design of transducer network are investigated: the optimization of the sensor network, for which the effective independence method is proposed, and the use of operational modal analysis (OMA), since it is a simple method to extract the natural frequencies of a structure from a time series. The results of the analysis are compared to a reference set issued from experimental modal analysis (EMA), a simple, well-known, classic method, which is carried out using accelerometers and an impact hammer. By statistical means, it is shown that there is no significant difference between the two methods, and an optimized PVDF transducer network combined with OMA can perform the dynamic analysis of a structure as well as a classic EMA setup would do. This leads the way to the use of low-cost PVDF embedded transducer networks for robust composite material characterization.
Real Wages, Working Time, and the Great Depression: What Does Micro Evidence Tell Us?

Based largely on industry-level aggregate statistics, the prevailing view, and one that has strongly influenced macroeconomic thought, is that real wages during the cycle containing the Great Depression are either acyclical or countercyclical. Does this finding hold-up when more micro data are employed? We examine this question based on detailed blue-collar workers’ company payroll data for a large section of the British engineering and metal working industries. We distinguish between pieceworkers and timeworkers, with pieceworkers accounting for over half the workforce. For the period 1927 to 1937, the two pay groups are broken down into 14 occupations, and 48 travel-to-work geographical districts. We estimate wage and hours cyclicality in respect of the national unemployment rate as well as the district rates. Weekly hours and real weekly earnings are found to be strongly procyclical. Real hourly earnings of pieceworkers are also significantly procyclical. The roles of standard and overtime hours are crucial to these findings.
Climate Change and Urban Grass Land Soil Moisture Conditions in South-Western Ontario, Canada

Using the past 45 years of climate data in south-western Ontario, Canada and a deterministic continuous simulation model, this study investigates the long-term variability in rain-fed soil moisture in urban areas as influenced by climate change. Statistical analyses of four variables, i.e., soil moisture, precipitation, temperature and evapotranspiration were carried out. As found from other studies for other locations, these analyses confirm in creasing temperatures and average growing season precipitation in south-western Ontario. Results show that both overall soil moisture and evapotranspiration have increased throughout the 45-year period. The probability/frequency distributions of soil moisture were obtained and the analysis shows an increasing average growing season soil moisture availability from the 1960's to the 1990's. The direct influence of precipitation and temperature on soil moisture and evapotranspiration were examined, revealing a stronger relationship of soil moisture and evapotranspiration with precipitation rather than temperature. Overall increasing average growing season soil moistures have very likely resulted from overall increasing rainfall during the growing seasons in south-western Ontario.
Flexibility at Different Stages in the Life Cycle of Projects: An Empirical Illustration of the “Freedom to Maneuver”

Many textbooks on project management present illustrations concerning the relative size of project attributes during different project phases. The derived models all have attributes in common, such as uncertainty, significance of decisions, and degree of freedom to maneuver, that are typically high in the beginning of the project and low in the end. At the same time, variables such as the accumulated cost and available information begin at low levels and end up at a high level at the end of the project. Based on empirical data from projects, this paper illustrates and quantifies one of these attributes, the freedom to maneuver, in different project phases.
Plasma Assisted Milling of Heat-Resistant Superalloys

The term Thermal Enhanced Machining refers to a conventional cutting process in which an external energy source is used to enhance the chip-generation mechanism. The work presented here analyzes the basic aspects and the experimental results obtained when applying an assisting plasma jet to the milling process. This process, known as PAM (Plasma Assisted Milling) has been applied to the machining of three very low machinability materials: a Ni-base alloy (Inconel 718), a Co-base alloy (Haynes 25), (both belonging to the group of the heat-resistant alloys) and the Ti-base alloy Ti6Al4V. The study focuses on two major topics. First, the efficiency of the milling operation in terms of cutting speed, feed, axial and radial depths of cut and the plasma operating parameters has been addressed. Second, a study on the alterations of the metallurgical structure and the properties of materials after the PAM has also been performed. The process conditions for the above-mentioned Ni-base and Co-base alloys are detailed. The study under these conditions has shown an excellent performance of the whisker reinforced ceramic tools. In fact, cutting speeds as high as 970 m/min and large radial and axial depths of cuts are possible, driving to a cost-effective machining process. The absence of changes in the metallurgical structure of the alloys after applying the PAM process is also addressed. Therefore, it can be stated that this is a feasible approach to the optimization of the machining process of heat-resistant alloys. Finally, the results obtained in the PAM of Ti6Al4V are detailed. In this experimentation, a certain level of degradation was observed in the microstructure of the alloy when undergoing the PAM process, therefore the use of this technique is not recommended for this material.
Solid Waste Management by Composting: State of the Art

One of the most versatile and remunerative techniques for handling biodegradable solid wastes is composting. A large variety of such wastes of plant, animal, and synthetic origins can be gainfully composted, at scales varying from a household bin to a large industry. Compost also has an inexhaustible market as a soil conditioner and fertilizer. Apart from being a source of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients for plants, compost is also believed to suppress soil-borne diseases in plants. These virtues make composting an ideal option for processing the enormous quantities of biodegradable solid wastes that are generated in the world. In this article, a review of the state of the art of compost science is presented, encompassing the history, the mechanism, the production, the characteristics, and the effects of composting. It is hoped that this effort would stimulate further interest in composting and in the appreciation of its benefits.
Real vs. Virtual City: Planning Issues in a Discontinuous Urban Area in Budapest’s Inner City

The 21st century has brought fundamental changes in the development of cities, with the spread of ICT and the rise of digitalization. The new technologies are increasingly making their mark on urban planning and policy as well. The question of how contemporary urban planning is adapting to new challenges is particularly relevant as neighborhoods built in previous centuries and decades by traditional planning methods are now increasingly confronted with new public and environmental demands. Despite the bad reputation of Budapest’s 8th district, Józsefváros, based on the socio-economic and urban problems it has continuously faced in the past, the neighborhood has become one of the most dynamically developing urban areas in the last decade. From a planning point of view, an exciting area of the district is Szigony Street and its wider surroundings due to the strongly fragmented, heterogeneous urban fabric. Nevertheless, the only high-rise mass housing estate built in Budapest’s historic inner city in the 1960s and 1970s is located there. Our research used a complex methodology (document, content and database analysis, fieldwork, surveys with professionals, and interviews) to explore the planning history of the area’s development. Ultimately, the aim was to identify the most important outcomes and consequences of traditional and contemporary planning and design and whether modern digital planning can make a meaningful contribution to the development of the neighborhood. Our results show that urban planning and development in Budapest are still essentially based on traditional top-down approaches. Digitalization has a role to play primarily in visualization and contextualization but digitalizing of planning alone will not solve problems and past planning mistakes that affect the urban fabric of a neighborhood.
Effect of Kind, Amount, and Placement of Residue on Wind Erosion Control

S INCE depletion of vegetation almost invariably leads to accelerated wind erosion, present-day wind-erosion control practices use vegetation in one manner or another to reduce the incidence of wind erosion. Examples are field windbreaks, cover crops, strip crops, permanent revegetation of submarginal cultivated areas, and the management of postharvest r e s i d u e s to maintain maximum ground cover. The latter example includes stubble mulching of small grains and sorghums, which is perhaps the most universally applied erosion control practice in the Great Plains. Early work on the use of crop residues for wind-erosion control dealt mainly with the mechanics of accomplishing the stubble-mulch condition, and in comparing productivity of the stubble-mulch system with conventional systems of farming. Quantitative relations between soil losses by wind and vegetative properties were first published (10)" in 1943 and reported more completely in 1944 (2 ) . Among other conclusions, it stated that total soil loss varied exponentially with residue quantity. This relation appeared valid for all soil, vegetative, and windvelocity variables studied. Subsequent studies measured soil losses from field surfaces with a portable wind tunnel ( 1 , 2 4 6 and related erodibility to surface roughness, soil cloddiness, and wind drag parameters, as well as to residue quantity. From these and additional studies, empirical equations were developed to estimate the erodibility of field surfaces (6, 7 ) . Two studies, in which vegetative and nonvegetative mulches were applied to the surface, established quantities of cover needed to control wind erosion under extremely high winds (8, 9 ) . Because of the complexity of the vegetative cover-soil loss relationship, which is largely due to the variable vege-
The career challenges and success factors for professional Asian women career development in New Zealand construction industry

Though construction is the fifth largest sector in New Zealand(MBIE, 2021) and the number of professional Asian women entering construction industry in New Zealand has been increasing significantly in the past ten years, evidence has indicated that that women are struggling to succeed for their career development in such a traditionally male dominant industry. Since 2003, there are over 30,000 female specialists working in construction industry accounting for approximately 13% of the total workforce, however, there have been limited studies on women’s career development in New Zealand construction industry. Questionnaire survey was conducted with Asian women practitioners in New Zealand construction industry. The quantitative data collected from questionnaire will be ranked with Likert scale to evaluate the relative importance of challenges and critical success factors for improving women’s career success in New Zealand construction industry. This study aims to fill the research gap by investigating the challenges and success factors for Asian women in construction industry in New Zealand. Findings are useful for universities and polytechnics when developing or reviewing their curriculum of their construction-related programmes and for four-parties partnership – tertiary institutes, government, companies and professional institutes to put into action the strategies to support women’s career development in the future.
Multistakeholder Agency: Stakeholder Benefit Alignment and National Institutional Contexts

The alignment among multiple stakeholder benefits is a valuable performance indicator for the benefits generated by a firm for various stakeholders. Our research seeks to augment stakeholder-agency theory with an institutional perspective to analyze how national institutions affect stakeholder benefit alignment. We suggest that the current development of stakeholder-agency theory has overlooked the alignment of different stakeholders’ benefits and the external institutional contexts as critical determinants in ensuring such alignment. We conceptualize stakeholder benefit alignment as a positive relationship between different stakeholder groups’ benefits, and propose an institutional framework grounded in relative stakeholder salience. Using this framework, we argue that stakeholder benefits are better aligned when national institutions enhance the ease of withdrawal, legal protection, and private enforcement for intrinsically less salient stakeholders, and when a long-term oriented culture characterizes a society. We found supportive evidence by employing a meta-analytic approach based on 530 correlations from 94 primary studies representing 23 economies. Our study adds new insights to the stakeholder-agency literature by conceptualizing and quantitatively examining the degree of alignment across different stakeholder benefit dimensions, focusing on national formal and informal institutions as boundary conditions.
Dynamics of Tubular Cantilevers Conveying Fluid

In Part 1 a general theory is presented to account for the small, free, lateral motions of a vertical, uniform, tubular cantilever conveying fluid, with the free end being either below the clamped one (‘hanging’ cantilever) or above it (‘standing’ cantilever). Gravity forces are not considered to be negligible.It is shown that, when the velocity of the fluid exceeds a certain value, the cantilever in all cases becomes subject to oscillatory instability. In the case of hanging cantilevers buckling instability does not occur. Standing cantilevers, on the other hand, may buckle under their own weight; it is shown that in some cases flow (within a certain range of flow velocities) may render stable a system which would buckle in the absence of flow.Extensive complex frequency calculations were conducted to illuminate the dynamical behaviour of the system with increasing flow. The conditions of stability have also been extensively calculated and stability maps constructed. It is shown that dissipative forces m.
Impact of employee age and work experience on safety culture at workplace

Occupational accidents can be caused by different factors and can have many consequences, such as minor or fatal injury, equipment damage, permanent disability, or, in some cases, fatality. Therefore, it is essential to identify the causes of accidents to prevent them from recurring in the future and minimize injury, ill-health, and business costs. It is crucial, by determining the causes of the incident in the workplace, to analyse those that happened and take practical preventive steps to minimize the likelihood of them occurring again. A safe and accident-free working environment can allow the company to function efficiently and effectively. This study examined whether the age and experience of the employees, as determined by the demographics, have significant differences in the mean scores of the compliance towards safety culture within the company.
MECHANISM OF PHONATION FOR HUMAN-LIKE ROBOT (RESONANT PART OF RECTANGULAR AIR CHANNEL)

On a view point of a human-machine interface, the vocal sound is an effective medium of communication between human beings and machines both sides. Mechanism of phonation for living being is much complicated. Human phonetic organs consist of the lungs, the vocal cords, and the vocal tract. The phonemic characteristics of the vowels are determined by the frequency of the vocal cords producing fundamental sound and by the resonant behavior of the vocal tract modifying the sound to a voice. The purpose of this study is to make a human-like robot that utters sounds by a mechanical phonetic organ instead of an ordinary electrical approach. Vocal cords and a vocal tract model for mechanism of human-like phonation has been developed and Japanese five articulated vowels have been experimentally investigated by the developed resonant part.
In Situ Determination of Dry and Wet Snow Permittivity: Improving Equations for Low Frequency Radar Applications

Extensive efforts have been made to observe the accumulation and melting of seasonal snow. However, making accurate observations of snow water equivalent (SWE) at global scales is challenging. Active radar systems show promise, provided the dielectric properties of the snowpack are accurately constrained. The dielectric constant (k) determines the velocity of a radar wave through snow, which is a critical component of time-of-flight radar techniques such as ground penetrating radar and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR). However, equations used to estimate k have been validated only for specific conditions with limited in situ validation for seasonal snow applications. The goal of this work was to further understand the dielectric permittivity of seasonal snow under both dry and wet conditions. We utilized extensive direct field observations of k, along with corresponding snow density and liquid water content (LWC) measurements. Data were collected in the Jemez Mountains, NM; Sandia Mountains, NM; Grand Mesa, CO; and Cameron Pass, CO from February 2020 to May 2021. We present empirical relationships based on 146 snow pits for dry snow conditions and 92 independent LWC observations in naturally melting snowpacks. Regression results had r2 values of 0.57 and 0.37 for dry and wet snow conditions, respectively. Our results in dry snow showed large differences between our in situ observations and commonly applied equations. We attribute these differences to assumptions in the shape of the snow grains that may not hold true for seasonal snow applications. Different assumptions, and thus different equations, may be necessary for varying snowpack conditions in different climates, suggesting that further testing is necessary. When considering wet snow, large differences were found between commonly applied equations and our in situ measurements. Many previous equations assume a background (dry snow) k that we found to be inaccurate, as previously stated, and is the primary driver of resulting uncertainty. Our results suggest large errors in SWE (10–15%) or LWC (0.05–0.07 volumetric LWC) estimates based on current equations. The work presented here could prove useful for making accurate observations of changes in SWE using future InSAR opportunities such as NISAR and ROSE-L.
Speed Synchronization Process of Merging Vehicles from the Entrance Ramp

This paper explores the “lane-changing preparation process,” defined as the synchronization process, from a new, integrated perspective. A comprehensive study was conducted to analyze the behavioral characteristics of the speed synchronization process of merging vehicles from entrance ramps by tracking their trajectories in the merge lanes. On the basis of gap selection, merging vehicles were classified as either original gap type or overtaking type, and the existence of speed synchronization was proved by comparing the speed differences of merging vehicles in relation to the putative leader (PL) and the putative follower (PF) vehicles. Several rules of merging vehicles during speed synchronization were established in the behavioral study. The merging vehicles tended to maintain a speed 5 to 7 m/s higher than the speed of the PL so as to overtake unsatisfied gaps in the adjacent through lane. When those vehicles intended to accept a gap, they first adjusted their speeds to be within a 2-m/s difference from their PL and PF vehicles and then merged into the targeted gap within 2 to 3 s. Factors affecting drivers' tolerance of their speed with PL and PF vehicles were modeled with the multiregression method. Significant effects in speed synchronization include the number of rejected gaps, acceleration or deceleration, the speed difference between the PL and the PF, the time headway, the remaining distance in the auxiliary lane, and whether the PL is a merged vehicle. Results from this study may contribute to the understanding of the complex lane-changing behavior in microscopic traffic flow modeling.