Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A direct measurement of space charge injection in strongly inhomogeneous fields

Dielectric ageing always starts at points of strong local field enhancement, such as sharp metallic points, inclusions and the like. In a separate contribution to these proceedings it is argued that the formation and growth of an electrical tree is governed by a balance between the electrostatic forces on the charges at points of local field enhancement and the local mechanical strength of the material. Space charge formation plays a crucial role in this ageing process. A conceivable mechanism of space charge formation is the creation of hot charge carriers by a local intrinsic breakdown mechanism, whenever the field exceeds a critical value. Eventually a thermalized cloud of trapped charges results in such a way that the limiting field is nowhere exceeded. (Field Limited Space Charge.) Space charge injection has two important consequences for dielectric ageing. First, the local fieldstrength is limited to an upper value, thus suppressing the tendency of tree formation and growth. On the other hand the hot charge carriers involved may cause local chemical degradation of the dielectric. In addition, local heating of the dielectric by periodic injection and extraction of electrons may lead to a local reduction of the mechanical strength of the dielectric, favouring the formation and propagation of electrical trees.
Understanding system characteristics of online erasure coding on scalable, distributed and large-scale SSD array systems

Large-scale systems with arrays of solid state disks (SSDs) have become increasingly common in many computing segments. To make such systems resilient, we can adopt erasure coding such as Reed-Solomon (RS) code as an alternative to replication because erasure coding can offer a significantly lower storage cost than replication. To understand the impact of using erasure coding on system performance and other system aspects such as CPU utilization and network traffic, we build a storage cluster consisting of approximately one hundred processor cores with more than fifty high-performance SSDs, and evaluate the cluster with a popular open-source distributed parallel file system, Ceph. Then we analyze behaviors of systems adopting erasure coding from the following five viewpoints, compared with those of systems using replication: (1) storage system I/O performance; (2) computing and software overheads; (3) I/O amplification; (4) network traffic among storage nodes; (5) the impact of physical data layout on performance of RS-coded SSD arrays. For all these analyses, we examine two representative RS configurations, which are used by Google and Facebook file systems, and compare them with triple replication that a typical parallel file system employs as a default fault tolerance mechanism. Lastly, we collect 54 block-level traces from the cluster and make them available for other researchers.
Dynamic behaviour of DC motor-based photovoltaic pumping systems under searching MPPT algorithms

The behaviour of searching maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms utilizing direct duty ratio perturbation control is shown to exhibit nonlinear phenomena, including slow scale bifurcations and chaos like behaviour, when applied to a dc photovoltaic (PV) system. The performance characteristics of a dc photovoltaic water pumping system, in which the searching MPPT algorithm is applied at the frequency of the PWM signal of the converter, are examined. The nonlinear behaviour of the system is analyzed and the effects of different parameters on system performance are discussed.
Tool geometry study in micromachining

With the trend towards miniaturization, micromachining becomes more and more important in fabricating micro parts. Investigations have shown that unpredictable tool life and premature tool failure present a serious concern in micromachining. To further develop the process, a systematic study of various types of tool geometry has been carried out. The tool failure modes and the ways in which tool life can be improved were also studied. Experimental results show that the tool tip rigidity of the semi circle-based (D-type) end-mills is much higher than that of the two-flute (commercial type) end-mills, and the machining quality with the D-type tools is better than that of the triangle-based (Δ-type) end-mills. The tool breakage of end-milling operations simulated using real tool geometry is in good agreement with experimental data. Both the experimental study and FEM analysis have shown that the D-type end-mills are more suitable for micromachining.
Exploration of Event-Evoked Oscillatory Activities during a Cognitive Task

Event related potential (ERP) is a kind of cognitive electroencephalogram (EEG) signal, which are directly related with cognitive task and average across EEG. However, the plentiful oscillatory activities evoked by various stimuli as well modulated by different cognitive tasks or behavioral events will be attenuated in the course of average. With respect to every EEG trials caused by the same stimulus, the computation of all trails will be very enormous. In order to explore more significant information about even- evoked oscillatory activities, we introduced the approach of statistical parametric mapping for power-concentrated brain regions and interactivations among them, and applied them to the study of bimodal audio-visual speech cognitive task. The results gave explanations to the power and connectivity change of event-evoked oscillatory activities which matched ERP component in cognitive process. This study may provide a basis for future studies to reveal the underlying neural processes and neural networks associated with specialized cognitive state.
The impact of intensity variations in T1-hypointense lesions on clinical correlations in multiple sclerosis

Background: The correlations between T1-hypointense lesion (‘black hole’) volume and clinical measures have varied widely across previous studies. The degree of hypointensity in black holes is associated with the severity of tissue damage, but the impact on the correlation with disability is unknown. Objectives: To determine how variations in the intensity level used for lesion classification can impact clinical correlation, specifically with the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), and whether using a restricted range can improve correlation. Methods: A highly automated image analysis procedure was applied to the scans of 24 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with well-distributed EDSS scores to compute their black hole volumes at nine different levels of intensity relative to the reference intensities sampled in normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Two methods of volume computation were used. Results: The black hole volume–EDSS Spearman correlations ranged between 0.49–0.73 (first method) and 0.54–0.74 (second method). The strongest correlations were observed by only including the voxels with maximum intensities at 30–40% of the CSF to NAWM range. Conclusions: Intensity variations can have a large impact on black hole–EDSS correlation. Restricting the measurement to a subset of the darkest voxels may yield stronger correlations.
Flow cytometric comparison of RNA content in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of down syndrome patients and control individuals

Trisomy 21 or Down syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic cause of mental retardation associated with the immunologic and other known defects. Extra chromosome 21 of DS patients contains an average of 40 extra copies of rRNA genes and the in vivo regulation of these genes' activity is not known. Because over 80% of total cellular RNA is rRNA, the measurement of total cellular RNA provides information on rRNA content. The aim of this work was to determine whether or not the additional chromosome 21 causes any increase in total cellular RNA content in mononuclear cells from peripheral blood (PBMNCs) of these patients and whether or not this content is modified with age.
Synthesis and Field Test of Three Candidates for Soybean Pod Borer's Sex Pheromone

Three candidates for the soybean pod borer's sex pheromone, dodec-10-en-1-yl acetate (E:Z = 95:5) (9a), (E, E)-dodeca-8, 10-dien-1-yl acetate (9b) and (E)-dodec-8-en-1-yl acetate (9c), were synthesized through the coupling reaction between Grignard reagents and acetates catalyzed by Li2CuCl4. Furthermore, the compounds 9a, 9b, and 9c, when tested in the field, showed that dodec-10-en-1-yl acetate (E:Z = 95:5) (9a) has promise as a lure for male soybean pod borer.
What Affects Efficiency in Labour Market Matching at Different Territorial Aggregation Levels in Poland?

We analyse efficiency of a labour market matching process at different levels of territorial aggregation and in different time horizons. We apply a stochastic matching frontier to random, job queuing and stock‐flow models. We use data for Poland, a country with highly regionally diversified unemployment. We find that search and matching mechanisms significantly differ with territorial aggregation. Higher efficiency in small regions results from lower frictions. Larger regions enjoy better structural matching if only labour market participants have time to search. Different policy measures should be designed to improve labour market matching efficiency at different regional levels.
Multi-wavelength reflection spectra from an acousto-optic modulated fiber Bragg grating in a highly birefringent suspended core fiber

The interaction of a fiber Bragg grating and longitudinal acoustic waves in a highly birefringent suspended-core fiber is investigated for the realization of a multi-wavelength reflection property. The modulated grating couples power from the fast and slow polarization modes to shifted superposed modes supported by the grating. The grating reflectivity of the superposed modes are tuned by the voltage of an electrical signal. Up to five different wavelength reflection peaks have been generated indicating new possibilities for compact and fast fiber-integrated multi-wavelength dynamic filters.
Forecasting on the long-term sustainability of the employees provident fund in Malaysia via the Box-Jenkins’ ARIMA model

This study employs the use of Box-Jenkins’ ARIMA (1,1,0) model for the estimation and forecasts based on the annual data of EPF balances, which serve as a proxy to EPF sustainability, together with the yearly data of possible determinants namely investment earnings, nominal income, elderly population, life expectancy and mortality rate in Malaysia for the 1960 – 2010 and 2010 - 2014 periods, respectively. Amid a negative sentiment and conceivably bleak outlook on the long term EPF inadequacy to provide adequate incomes to elderly persons, the prognosis of this study instead reveals otherwise and is found to be in support for the long term prospect and sustainability of the EPF. With necessary improvements are underway to strengthen the performance of the administered EPF system, it is likely to believe that the EPF organization is committed to promoting its product as a more inclusive and equitable scheme in Malaysia.
Load-nGo : Fast Approximate Join Visualizations That Improve Over Time

Visual exploratory analysis of large-scale databases often relies on precomputed query results in order to guarantee interactivity with the visualization system. This is especially true when the query requires joining tables across the database since join is one of the most computationally expensive operations and in the worst case requires joining every row of one table to every row of the other table. Advances in approximate query processing enable quick look summary statistics, but with limitations to the types and complexities of the queries. A recent advancement in approximate query processing is a technique called Wander Join, that performs random walks across these joins, resulting in faster convergence on aggregation values. However, this online aggregation technique is not tailored for visualization tasks that often involve filtering on one or more conditions or viewing aggregation values across multiple groups such as in bar charts. In both cases, the convergence rate is slowed since more samples are needed in order to find records that pass the filters, resulting in the user waiting longer for a confident result. To address this issue, we propose a generalization of the Wander Join algorithm that improves the convergence rate for visualization queries involving filtering and viewing aggregation. We implemented this improved version of Wander Join that we call Load-n-Go and compared it to the original, specifically in the context of visual analysis tasks. Our evaluation finds that our algorithm outperforms Wander Join by reducing the sample complexity. Load-n-Go requires up to 50% fewer samples for group by queries, and up to 85% fewer samples for filtering queries. Such reduced sampling complexity can represent up to 2x and 6x speedups respectively for visual exploratory systems using the Load-n-Go algorithm.
International Evidence on the Determinants of Organizational Ethical Vulnerability

This paper proposes a model to explain what makes organizations ethically vulnerable. Drawing upon legitimacy, institutional, agency and individual moral reasoning theories we consider three sets of explanatory factors and examine their association with organizational ethical vulnerability. The three sets comprise external institutional context, internal corporate governance mechanisms and organizational ethical infrastructure. We combine these three sets of factors and develop an analytical framework for classifying ethical issues and propose a new model of organizational ethical vulnerability. We test our model on a sample of 253 firms that were involved in ethical misconduct and compare them with a matched sample of the same number of firms from 28 different countries. The results suggest that weak regulatory environment and internal corporate governance, combined with profitability warnings or losses in the preceding year, increase organizational ethical vulnerability. We find counterintuitive evidence suggesting that firms’ involvement in bribery and corruption prevention training programmes is positively associated with the likelihood of ethical vulnerability. By synthesizing insights about individual and corporate behaviour from multiple theories, this study extends existing analytical literature on business ethics. Our findings have implications for firms’ external regulatory settings, corporate governance mechanisms and organizational ethical infrastructure.
Dynamic Analysis of Ecological Environment Quality Combined with Water Conservation Changes in National Key Ecological Function Areas in China

The shortage of water resources is a key factor limiting the sustainability of the economy and society. Most of the 25 National Key Ecological Function Areas (NKEFAs) in China serve as a source and supplementation for numerous rivers and playing an important role in water resource conservation. Based on the analysis of eco-environmental quality changes in NKEFAs, this study analyzed the spatial pattern of water conservation services in 2000 and 2010 by using a water balance equation. The results indicate that the land cover type of NKEFAs was dominated by grassland, and the proportion of ecological land conversion to non-ecological land (0.3%) was higher than that of non-ecological land conversion to ecological land (0.21%). The fractional vegetation coverage (FVC) and biomass density of NKEFAs gradually decreased from southeast to northwest. The FVC of the Changbai Mountain Forest Function Area (CBS) was the highest, while the biomass density and total biomass were highest in mountain areas in the Middle of Hai’nan Island (HND) and in the Great Khingan and Lesser Khingan Mountains (XAL) respectively. The FVC and biomass of NKEFAs mostly increased in 2000–2010. Water conservation amounts of NKEFAs decreased from southeast to northwest. The average water conservation and total water conservation amount of Nanling Mountain (NL), Guangxi-Guizhou-Yunnan (GQD), and the Wuling Mountain Function Area (WLS) were the highest, while the Yinshan Mountain (YS), Alkin Grassland (AEJ), and the Qilian Mountain Function Area (QLS) had the lowest values. In 2000–2010, the water conservation service of 60% of NKEFAs decreased. Spatial and temporal differences in water conservation services are the result of a combination of ecological environment quality and meteorological conditions. Protection of the ecological environment and vegetation coverage improvement should be strengthened to enhance the function of water conservation.
The design of six-way S band power divider

A S-band planar six-way power divider which uses three compact, symmetric Wilkinson [1] dividers connected to a Luzzato [2] divider is proposed in this paper. Microstrips are used in the design of the six-way power divider over a frequency range of 3.1-3.4 GHz. The substrate of the six-way power divider has been manufactured in a hexagon structure. Good agreement has been obtained between the measured and simulated results.
Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022

African Americans are only 13% of the American population but a majority of innocent defendants wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated. They constitute 47% of the 1,900 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations (as of October 2016), and the great majority of more than 1,800 additional innocent defendants who were framed and convicted of crimes in 15 large-scale police scandals and later cleared in " group exonerations. " We see this racial disparity for all major crime categories, but we examine it in this report in the context of the three types of crime that produce the largest numbers of exonerations in the Registry: murder, sexual assault, and drug crimes. I. Murder • Judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about seven times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people. A major cause of the high number of black murder exonerations is the high homicide rate in the black community—a tragedy that kills many African Americans and sends many others to prison. Innocent defendants who are falsely convicted and exonerated do not contribute to this high homicide rate. They— like the families of victims who are killed—are deeply harmed by murders committed by others. • African-American prisoners who are convicted of murder are about 50% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers. Part of that disparity is tied to the race of the victim. African Americans imprisoned for murder are more likely to be innocent if they were convicted of killing white victims. Only about 15% of murders by African Americans have white victims, but 31% of innocent African-American murder exonerees were convicted of killing white people. • The convictions that led to murder exonerations with black defendants were 22% more likely to include misconduct by police officers than those with white defendants. In addition, on average black murder exonerees spent three years longer in prison before release than white murder exonerees, and those sentenced to death spent four years longer. • Many of the convictions of African-American murder exonerees were affected by a wide range of types of racial discrimination, from unconscious bias and institutional discrimination to explicit racism. • Most wrongful convictions are never discovered. We have no direct measure of the number of all convictions of innocent murder defendants, but our best estimate suggests that they outnumber those we know about many times over. Judging from exonerations, half …
L’innovation des entreprises : entre volonté et obstacles

1 ERUDITE-TEPP, Université Paris-Est Créteil, 61 av. du Gal de Gaulle 94010 Créteil Cedex France 2 INRA, UR 1303 ALISS, 65 Bd de Brandebourg, 94205 Ivry Cedex France, et ERUDITE-TEPP, Université Paris-Est Créteil, 61 av. du Gal de Gaulle 94010 Créteil Cedex France 3 INRA, UMR 1041CESAER, 26 Bd Dr Petitjean, 21079 Dijon Cedex France Cet article propose d’estimer les déterminants de la propension à innover des firmes, en mettant l’accent sur l’impact d’obstacles éventuels. L’hypothèse centrale est qu’il convient d’abord de distinguer entre, d’une part, les firmes qui souhaitent innover, qu’elles y arrivent ou non, et, d’autre part, celles qui ne le souhaitent pas. À partir de l’utilisation des données issues de l’enquête CIS4, nous construisons alors une classification effective des firmes selon ce critère. En ne conservant que l’ensemble des firmes qui souhaitent innover, on met en lumière l’impact positif des inputs de l’innovation (comme la R & D), mais également le rôle négatif des obstacles rencontrés. La taille de la firme et son éventuelle appartenance à un groupe exercent également une influence positive sur la propension à innover.
Renewable Energy Consumption and Economic Growth Nexus in the Central African Sub-Region: Application of Panel Cointegration Approach

The study examined the causal relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth patterns in six countries in the Central African Sub-region using a panel data collected for a period of 1990-2015. The Central African Sub-region constitutes the part of Africa where there is abundance of renewable energy resources. The study employed the panel fixed and Random effect models, the Dynamic Ordinary Least squares (DOLS), Fully Modified Ordinary Least squares (FMOLS) and Pairwise Dumitrescu-Hurlin Panel Causality techniques to examine the short and long run impacts of renewable energy on Economic growth. The study found that, economic growth and renewable natural resources have both short run and long run relationships. Again, unidirectional causality was found between renewable energy consumption and economic growth and an inverse relationship was also identified. The study recommends that, government policies should be directed to utilize cost effective renewable technologies to expanding the abundance renewable energy resources to boost productivity, support agriculture and rural industries. This would spur the potentials to propel sustainable economic growth, future energy security while the environment is also protected. Keywords: Renewable Energy, Economic growth, Central Africa
An optimized eye locating and tracking system for driver fatigue monitoring

The eye locating and tracking are the most difficult and crucial tasks of real-time driver fatigue monitoring system based on computer vision. An optimized eye locating and tracking system, with a new eye tracking algorithm for monitoring driver's vigilance, is presented in this paper, which is based on a hardware system using active IR (Infrared) illuminator. The system can work with subjects of different genders, ages, with or without glasses, and work well under different illumination conditions.