Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Empirical Analysis of Provincial Energy Efficiency in China

This paper proposes an energy efficiency index based on the data envelopment analysis approach. The index is used to examine energy efficiency in China. Using 1997–2006 panel data for 29 provinces, we find that energy efficiency is negatively associated with the secondary industry share in GDP, the state-owned economic share in GDP and the government expenditure share in GDP, and is positively associated with the technical level and non-coal share in energy consumption. In addition, we find that there exists a large gap in energy efficiency among eastern, central and western regions. The eastern region has a significantly higher energy efficiency level than the central and western regions. We conclude that the different levels of industry structure, government intervention, energy structure, and the technology content in the three regions lead to the differences in energy efficiency.
Retrieval of Sea Surface Wind Speeds from Gaofen-3 Full Polarimetric Data

In this paper, the sea surface wind speed (SSWS) retrieval from Gaofen-3 (GF-3) quad-polarization stripmap (QPS) data in vertical-vertical (VV), horizontal-horizontal (HH), and vertical-horizontal (VH) polarizations is investigated in detail based on 3170 scenes acquired from October 2016 to May 2018. The radiometric calibration factor of the VV polarization data is examined first. This calibration factor generally meets the requirement of SSWS retrieval accuracy with an absolute bias of less than 0.5 m/s but shows highly dispersed characteristics. These results lead to SSWS retrievals with a small bias of 0.18 m/s, but a rather high root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.36 m/s when compared with the ERA-Interim reanalysis model data. Two refitted polarization ratio (PR) models for the QPS HH polarization data are presented. Based on a combination of the incidence angle-dependent and azimuth angle-dependent PR model and CMOD5.N, the SSWS derived from the QPS HH data shows a bias of 0.07 m/s and an RMSE of 2.26 m/s relative to the ERA-Interim reanalysis model wind speed. A linear function relating SSWS and the normalized radar cross section (NRCS) of QPS VH data is derived. The SSWS data retrieved from the QPS VH data show good agreement with the WindSat SSWS data, with a bias of 0.1 m/s and an RMSE of 2.02 m/s. We also apply the linear function to the GF-3 Wide ScanSAR data acquired for the typhoon SOULIK, which yields very good agreement with the model results. A comparison of SSWS retrievals among three different polarization datasets is also presented. The current study and our previous work demonstrate that the general accuracy of the SSWS retrieval based on GF-3 QPS data has an absolute bias of less than 0.3 m/s and an RMSE of 2.0 ± 0.2 m/s relative to various datasets. Further improvement will depend on dedicated radiometric calibration efforts.
eural correlates of the impact of prior outcomes on subsequent onetary decision-making in frequent poker players

Individuals have a tendency to be more risky in their choices after having experienced a monetary loss, than after a reward. Here, we examined whether prior outcomes influence differently the patterns of neural activity of individuals who are used to taking monetary risk, namely poker players. High-frequency poker players and non-gamblers were scanned while performing a controlled task that allowed measuring the effect of prior outcomes on subsequent decisions. Both non-gamblers and poker players took more risks after losing a gamble than after winning one. Neuroimaging data revealed that non-gamblers
New constraints on sediment-flux-dependent river incision: implications for extracting tectonic signals from river profiles

We present new field data from rivers draining across active normal faults that incise across the same lithology at the fault, have been subjected to similar climatic regimes and tectonic settings, and were perturbed by a well-documented increase in fault slip rate ca. 1 Ma. In spite of these similarities, the rivers exhibit markedly different long profiles and patterns of catchment incision. We use channel slope and hydraulic geometry data for each river to calculate bed shear stresses (τb), and show that there is no simple relationship between peak τb and the relative uplift rates across the faults, U , which differ by a factor of four. The long-term average sediment supply to each channel ( Q s), estimated from time-averaged catchment erosion rates, can explain the τb versus U data if bedload modulates bedrock incision rate, E , in a strongly nonlinear way. Together these field data allow us, for the first time, to evaluate theoretical predictions of the role of sediment on river profile evolution and to quantify the magnitude of the effect in natural systems.
Technical Efficiency of Battery Cage and Deep Litter Systems in Poultry Production

Background and Objective: The importance of the poultry industry to the national economy cannot be overemphasized. Approximately 10% of the Nigerian population is engaged in poultry production, mostly on subsistence and small or medium-sized farms. However, the output level still remains low compared to the input. The aim of this study was to examine the technical efficiency of the battery cage and deep litter systems of poultry production in Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 120 battery cage farmers and 120 deep litter farmers. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect information on the farmers and the farm characteristics. The data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The budgetary analysis showed that the net profit for one bird for the battery cage farmer stood at x587, whereas that of the deep litter farmer was x635. Stochastic frontier modelling showed a higher inefficiency in the deep litter system of poultry production compared with the battery cage system. The efficiencies were 79 and 60% for the battery cage and deep litter farms, respectively. Additionally, labour and flock size contributed to the inefficiencies of both the battery and deep systems of poultry production. The Chow test (Fcal = 0.45 and Ftab = 2.3) showed that there was no structural difference in the production of the battery cage and deep litter systems in the study area. Conclusion: The results show that even though the two systems are profitable but the battery cage system is more profitable than the deep litter system. Key word: Battery cage, chow test, deep litter, economic analysis, poultry production, stochastic production frontier
Nighttime Sensitivity of Ionospheric Techniques for Detecting Explosions

The detectionof explosions using ionospheric techniques relies on measuring perturbations induced in radio propagation by acoustic waves which disturb the electron density of the ionosphere. We have proposed such techniques as a supplement to seismic for discrimination of underground nuclear explosions from commercial mining explosions. The nighttime ionosphere presents a difficulty for the detection of explosions because in the absence of solar ionizing radiation the electron density in the altitude range of 90 to 200 km decays after sunset and perturbation effects are correspondingly reduced. On the other hand, acoustic waves produced by weak explosions reach a maximum amplitude in the altitude range of 100 to 150 km and are highly attenuated at altitudes above 200 km. For safety reasons, most planned explosions are conducted during daylight which has limited our experimental measurements during nighttime. However a recent opportunity for a nighttime measurement occurred in connection with the Non-Proliferation Experiment which consisted of the detonation of a large chemical charge underground at the Nevada Test Site near midnight local time. Our results, based on a new technique of using medium frequency radio transmissions provided by commercial broadcasts to detect explosion effects, were negative. Although discouraging, this result need not defeat our goal of developing an ionospheric technique for discrimination of mining explosions because the majority of such events are conducted during daylight.
Structural Applications Of 100 Percent Fly Ash Concrete Structural Applications Of . 100 Percent Fly Ash Concrete

Over the past four years, significant research has been done at Montana State University (MSU) on fly ash concrete for structural applications. The material being investigated is a conventional concrete mixture in which the Portland cement has been replaced by Class C fly ash for the binder. Work on this material was originally pursued at MSU based on an interest in minimizing the myriad of environmental impacts associated with traditional concrete by using a locally available recycled by-product for the binder (Class C fly ash from the Corette power plant in Billings, MT) rather than Portland cement. In working with this new material, it was quickly discovered that it offered exceptional performance with respect to short term strength gain, long term ultimate strength, and workability relative to traditional Portland cement concrete. Mixtures similar to conventional concrete mixes in which the binder was fly ash have routinely produced 2 day strengths in excess of 20 MPa (2900 psi) and 28 day strengths in excess of 33 MPa (4800 psi) (without extraordinary curing measures). Subsequent long term strengths have reached as high as 55 MPa (8000 psi) at one year of age. These results have been achieved with very workable mixtures (slump of 152 mm (6 in)) without the use of sophisticated admixtures common in the concrete industry.
Antioxidant and Free Radical Scavenging Activity of Certain Dietary and Medicinal Plant Extracts

The antioxidant and free radical scavenging activity of the ethanol extracts of Melia dubia Hiern. , Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth. , Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis (broccoli) and Glycyrrhiza glabra L. were evaluated. The total phenolic content of the extracts was found to be higher in A. lebbeck (33.6%) and lower in broccoli (16.9%). The antioxidant activity of the extract was evaluated through different chemical assays and in vitro methods such as reducing power, DPPH , ABTS + and OH radical scavenging activities, peroxidation inhibition in linoleic acid emulsion system and antihemolytic activity. The increasing concentrations of the extract exhibited nonlinear increases in the reducing power. Extract of A. lebbeck was found to have more hydrogen donating ability. Similar line of dose dependant activity has been observed in DPPH and OH radical scavenging systems. Further, A. lebbeck extracts exhibited strong antioxidant activity equivalent to trolox (6423.04 μmol g) in ABTS radical cation scavenging system. All the extracts exhibited notable activity against linoleic acid emulsion system (35.5 to 40.2%) and antihemolytic activity (29.8 to 46.6%). _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Residents’ Support for Sustainable Tourism Development

The tourism industry has been gravely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, the purpose of this study was to explore residents’ support for sustainable tourism development in an integrative model that considered well-established factors and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing various research gaps caused by the pandemic, this study aimed to examine a model based on eight hypotheses. Using the premises of a cross-sectional study, data was gathered from residents from Sibiu. Data analysis implied various steps to provide an accurate understanding of the hypotheses and the model was developed based on structural equation modeling. Considering the results of hypothesis testing, our study reconfirmed the applicability of social exchange theory in describing residents’ attitudes toward tourism development and positioned quality of life as an important predictor for this construct. Also, the outcomes highlighted a negative relationship between the host community’s perceptions of the coronavirus pandemic and their subsequent support for sustainable tourism development. Overall, the results focused on offering contributions for a better understanding of residents’ behavior and the influence of the COVID-19 outbreak on their support for sustainable tourism development. The conceptual and practical ramifications of the study were addressed in the article’s conclusion.
Periodic points of surface homeomorphisms with zero entropy

Abstract This paper deals with the question of which periods can occur as periods of periodic points of zero entropy surface homeomorphisms in a given isotopy class. We give new examples of isotopy classes for which there are non-trivial restrictions and describe how the possible periods can be computed. Certain phenomena occur only for surfaces of large genus. These results have applications to the periodic data question for Morse–Smale maps.
Three-Dimensional Simulation Study of the Interactions of Three Successive CMEs during 4–5 November 1998

In this paper, using a 3D magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) numerical simulation, we investigate the propagation and interaction of the three halo CMEs originating from the same active region during 4–5 November 1998 from the Sun to Earth. Firstly, we try to reproduce the observed basic features near Earth by a simple spherical plasmoid model. We find that the first component of the compound stream at 1 AU is associated to the first CME of the three halo CMEs. During the propagation in the interplanetary space, the third CME overtakes the second one. The two CMEs merge to a new, larger entity with complex internal structure. The magnetic field of the first CME in the three successive CMEs event is compressed by the following complex ejecta. The interaction between the second and third CME results in the deceleration of the third CME and the enhancement of the density, total magnetic field and south component of the magnetic field. In addition we study the contribution of a single CME to the final simulation results, as well as the effect of the CME–CME interactions on the propagation of an isolated CME and multiple CMEs. This is achieved by analysing a single CME with or without the presence of the preceding CMEs. Our results show that the CME moves faster in a less dense, faster medium generated by the interaction of the preceding CME with the ambient medium. In addition, we show that the CME–CME interactions can greatly alter the kinematics and magnetic structures of the individual events.
Exploring the Role of Service Delivery in Remarkable Tourism Experiences

The purpose of the article is to analyze through a service-experience framework the consequences and contingency factors of Service Delivery (SD) in Remarkable Tourism Experiences (RTE) and explore to what extent these factors interact to evoke delight behaviors in customers. The proposal was validated with empirical data from 284 tourists collected through survey method on remarkable experiences in hotels and restaurants. Both an exploratory and a confirmatory analysis were developed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The result highlights to what extent SD components identified (service staff, service availability, and customer service interaction) affect RTE and aid to evoke CD in tourists with high-quality memories. The service-experience model goes beyond the frontline employees with a service-oriented perspective to better understand the emerging factors that provide happiness in customers. The organizational staff is the most important component influencing a customer’s happiness and love feelings. The empirical findings support a model and measurement scale that allows analysis of the impact of SD component statements about customer delight (CD). The study shows the antecedents and interactions among SD emergent factors in RTE, specifically regarding CD behavior. The model proposed in this study links SD components and basic emotions and has important practical implications.
Intercomparisons of Long-Term Atmospheric Temperature and Humidity Profile Retrievals

This study builds upon a framework to develop a climate data record of temperature and humidity profiles from high-resolution infrared radiation sounder (HIRS) clear-sky measurements. The resultant time series is a unique, long-term dataset (1978–2017). To validate this long-term dataset, evaluation of the stability of the intersatellite time series is coupled with intercomparisons with independent observation platforms as available in more recent years. Eleven pairs of satellites carrying the HIRS instrument with time periods that overlap are examined. Correlation coefficients were calculated for the retrieval of each atmospheric pressure level and for each satellite pair. More than 90% of the cases examining both temperature and humidity have correlation coefficients greater than 0.7. Very high correlation is demonstrated at the surface and two meter levels for both temperature (>0.99) and specific humidity (>0.93). For the period of 2006–2017, intercomparisons are performed with four independent observations platforms: radiosonde (RS92), constellation observing system for meteorology ionosphere and climate (COSMIC), global climate observing system (GCOS) reference upper-air network (GRUAN), and infrared atmospheric sounding interferometer (IASI). Very close matching of surface and two meter temperatures over a wide domain of values is depicted in all presented intercomparisons: intersatellite matches of HIRS retrievals, HIRS vs. GRUAN, and HIRS vs. IASI.
Cyberbullying across the Lifespan of Education: Issues and Interventions from School to University

Research on cyberbullying amongst students has tended to be conducted separately within specific education institutional contexts, schools, further education (FE) and higher education (HE), neglecting a view that takes account of the entire educational lifespan. The present article addresses this gap in the literature, providing a novel take on examining its nature, social environments, legal consequences and potentially helpful interventions. To facilitate this, the article conceptualises cyberbullying in broad terms, recognising that it can take multiple forms of online and digital practice including: spreading rumours, ridiculing and/or demeaning another person, casting aspirations on the grounds of race, disability, gender, religion or sexual orientation; seeking revenge or deliberately embarrassing a person by posting intimate photos or videos about them without their consent; accessing another’s social networking profiles with malicious intent and socially excluding a person from a social network or gaming site. This article demonstrates that harm from cyberbullying is a cause for concern for students at each developmental stage and that there are continuities in its appearance that need to be challenged at each point in the educational lifespan. And inaccurately, by university, the idea that ‘nothing can be done’ still is one of the main concerns for the victims. The article concludes with five key recommendations for future research and practice across the educational lifespan.
CNN Skeleton Dilated Skeleton Context Flux F Supervision Image Learned Flux F ^ Closed Skeleton Ending Points Masked F ^ Skeleton Recovery Visualization of C ontext Flux Magnitude

Computing object skeletons in natural images is challenging, owing to large variations in object appearance and scale, and the complexity of handling background clutter. Many recent methods frame object skeleton detection as a binary pixel classification problem, which is similar in spirit to learning-based edge detection, as well as to semantic segmentation methods. In the present article, we depart from this strategy by training a CNN to predict a twodimensional vector field, which maps each scene point to a candidate skeleton pixel, in the spirit of flux-based skeletonization algorithms. This “image context flux” representation has two major advantages over previous approaches. First, it explicitly encodes the relative position of skeletal pixels to semantically meaningful entities, such as the image points in their spatial context, and hence also the implied object boundaries. Second, since the skeleton detection context is a region-based vector field, it is better able to cope with object parts of large width. We evaluate the proposed method on three benchmark datasets for skeleton detection and two for symmetry detection, achieving consistently superior performance over state-of-the-art methods. The code is available at https://github.com/ YukangWang/DeepFlux.
Mediating effect of customers' trust between the association of corporate social responsibility and customers' loyalty

Corporate social responsibility plays a significant role in getting sustainable edge over competitors, gaining profits and enhancing business affairs with customers. The purpose of the study is to analyze the perception of consumers regarding the CSR and its impact on customers’ loyalty while trust mediates the link in the telecom context of Pakistan. The adopted questionnaire circulated among customers’ of different telecom companies through non probability sampling technique. The model was validated by confirmatory factor analysis through AMOS and hypotheses were investigated via path analysis. Findings revealed that CSR has a positive impact on customers’ loyalty and confirmed the mediating impact of trust between the association of CSR and customers’ loyalty. The current study provides literature regarding CSR, customer’s loyalty and trust that would be very useful for the marketing personnel of telecom companies in enhancing customers’ loyalty and trust by improving CSR practices. Additionally, the findings confirm the role of customers’ trust as a mediator between the link of CSR and customers’ loyalty. This study has also interesting implications for management of telecom companies in suggesting ways to enhance loyalty through corporate social responsibility.
On traces of Sobolev functions on the boundary of extension domains

Assume that Ω ⊂ ℝ N is a bounded W 1,p -extension domain and that μ is an upper d-Ahlfors measure on ∂Ω with p ∈ (1, N) and d ∈ (N-p, N). Then there exist continuous trace operators from W 1,p (Ω) into L q (∂Ω, dμ) and into B p β (dμ) for every q ∈ [1, dp/(N - p)] and every β ∈ (0,1 - (N - d)/p].
N 94-30544 AIAA-94-1193-CP Technology for Robotic Surface Inspection in Space

This paper presents on-going research in robotic inspection of space platforms. Three main areas of investigation are discussed: machine-vision inspection techniques, an integrated sensor end-effector, and an orbital environment laboratory simulation. Machine-vision inspection utilizes automatic comparison of new and reference images to detect on-orbit induced damage such as micro-meteorite impacts. The cameras and lighting used for this inspection are housed in a multisensor end-effector, which also contains a suite of sensors for detection of temperature, gas leaks, proximity, and forces. To fully test all of these sensors, a realistic space platform mock-up has been created, complete with visual, temperature, and gas anomalies. Further, changing orbital lighting conditions are effectively mimicked by a robotic solar simulator. In the paper, each of these technology components will be discussed, and experimental results are provided.