Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blade-Vortex Interaction Noise Characteristics of a Full-Scale Active Flap Rotor

Abstract : Acoustic measurements of a full-scale active flap rotor obtained from the joint Boeing/DARPA /NASA/Army test in the Air Force National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Complex 40- by 80-foot anechoic wind tunnel demonstrated the potential of active flaps to reduce blade-vortex interaction (BVI) noise over a wide range of directivity angles underneath the advancing rotor disk. The active flap rotor is a full-scale MD 900 helicopter main rotor with all of its five blades modified to include an on-blade piezoelectric actuator-driven flap with a span of 18% radius, 25% chord and located at 83% radius. Results are shown for three simulated descent flight conditions where BVI noise radiation was expected to be dominant for the baseline rotor. The baseline rotor for each test condition was simulated with 0 deg flap deflections (achieved via closed loop flap position control) on all the blades. For each test condition, open-loop single harmonic flap excitations with varying frequencies (2- to 5-per-rev), input phase and amplitude were used to demonstrate BVI noise reductions. Active flap schedules were identified which showed BVI noise reductions varying from 2 to 7 dB depending on the flight speed. Predictions made with CAMRAD II/PSU-WOPWOP code did not correlate well with active flap test data although the BVI noise levels for baseline rotor were well predicted for the low speed test cases. Hub loads increased for active flap schedules used for BVI noise reduction.
PREDICTION OF MATERIAL REMOVAL RATE AND SURFACE ROUGHNESS IN ELECTRO-DISCHARGE MACHINING (EDM) PROCESS BASED ON NEURAL NETWORK MODELS

The complex and stochastic nature of the electro-discharge machining (EDM) process has frustrated numerous attempts of physical modeling. In this paper two supervised neural networks, namely back propagation (BP), and radial basis function (RBF) have been used for modeling the process. The networks have three inputs of current (I), voltage (V) and period of pulses (T) as the independent process variables, and two outputs of material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) as performance characteristics. Experimental data, employed for training the networks and capabilities of the models in predicting the machining behavior have been verified. For comparison, quadratic regression model is also applied to estimate the outputs. The outputs obtained from neural and regression models are compared with experimental results, and the amounts of relative errors have been calculated. Based on these verification errors, it is shown that the radial basis function of neural network is superior in this particular case, and has the average errors of 8.11% and 5.73% in predicting MRR and Ra, respectively. Further analysis of machining process under different input conditions has been investigated and comparison results of modeling with theoretical considerations shows a good agreement, which also proves the feasibility and effectiveness of the adopted approach.
The Oliver Twists Among Women Microcredit Borrowers, Intra-Household Decision Making and Power Play in Male Dominant Households in Ghana

The thrust of this study was to investigate the factors that motivate women microcredit borrowers in the Upper East Region of Ghana to take multiple loans from microfinance institutions. The study employed the double hurdle estimation method and the data was collected from 500 women engaged in agro-processing of whom 250 were beneficiaries of multiple loans and 250 non-beneficiaries. The results showed that the set of factors that impacted the decision to borrow are among the factors that impacted the decision to go for multiple loans from microfinance institutions though the directions of the impact were found to be different for the two decisions. Thus, the number of people in household and number of friends with loans have positive impact on the decision to borrow; however, these variables have negative impact on the decision to go for multiple loans. It was also found that women who relinquished their loans to their spouses and women who took permission from their spouses before they could borrow had less multiple loans. Again, respondents who were living below the poverty line (poor) had less multiple loans than their counterparts who were not poor. The conclusion drawn is that, intra-household decision making and power play in male dominant households prevent women from taking multiple loans no matter how beneficial these loans may be for the women and their households. In view of this, it is recommended that gender mainstreaming should be included in the services of microfinance institutions to encourage women participation in household decision making. Again microfinance institutions should devote a percentage of their loan portfolio to targeting the poor.
Effects of fragmentation and isolation on genetic variability of the Italian populations of wolf Canis lupus and brown bear Ursus arctos

Randi E. 1993. Effects of fragmentation and isolation on genetic variability of the Italian populations of wolf Canis lupus and brown bear Ursus arctos. [In: Ecological genetics in mammals. G. B. Hartl and J. Markowski, eds]. Acta theriol. 38, Suppl. 2: 113 - 120. During the last centuries many West European populations of wolf Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758 and brown bear Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758 have been extirpated from most of their former ranges. Isolated populations of wolves (about 300 - 400 animals) and brown bears (about 80 - 100 animals) actually survive in the Italian Apennines, while very few (5 - 10) brown bears remain in the Italian eastern Alps. We have investigated the consequences of isolation, demographic decline, and random drift on genetic variability of the Italian populations of wolf and brown bear using restriction site analysis and nucleotide sequencing of portions of the mitochondrial genome. The studied sequences were homogeneous within-populations of both species, but there was a fixed difference in mtDNA between brown bears form the Alps and from the Apennines. Random drift since the time of isolation is a plausible explanation for both results. These findings suggest that wolves and bears have small effective population sizes and, thus, they will continue to loose genetic variability by random drift in the near future. Conservation efforts should be directed towards an increase of the annual growth rates of these populations. The individualization of discrete phylogeographic units in the brown bear suggests to manage them separately in order to preserve the existing gene diversity among populations.
THE REOLE OF PERSONALITY AND EMOITON REGULATION ON PSYCHOLOGICA HEALTH AMONG TRAUMA SURVIVORS by

A growing body of literature is focusing on the influence of personality and emotion regulation on psychological health. Using archival data from an expressive writing project, the current study investigated the relationship between perfectionistic self-presentation and emotion regulation, and the influence of the interaction of these variables on psychological health among trauma survivors. The results indicate that both perfectionistic selfpresentation and more difficulties in emotion regulation contribute to symptoms of distress. As well, higher levels of perfectionistic self-presentation were associated with more difficulties in emotion regulation. Further, emotion regulation mediated the relationship between perfectionistic self-presentation and psychological distress but not common physical complaints. More specifically, the non-acceptance subscale of emotion regulation was found to be significant in a test of multiple mediator model.
DESIGN AND CHARACTERIZATION OF FLOATING TABLETS OF ANTI-DIABETIC DRUG

The objective of the study is to formulate and evaluate floating tablet of Pioglitazone employing guar gum, a natural gum in comparison to gellan gum which is also a natural polymer. Sodium bicarbonate was added as gas generating agent, produced carbon dioxide in the gastric acid environment which helps to maintain the buoyancy. Addition of bees wax has significantly enhanced the buoyancy of the tablets formulated with both the two polymers. Gelatin which is used as binder provides strength to the tablet. The floating tablets of Pioglitazone were prepared by direct compression method. The prepared tablets evaluated in terms of pre-compression parameters, physical characteristics, in vitro drug release, floating duration and floating lag time. The formulation optimized for different concentration of guar gum and gellan gum. The results of in vitro drug release studies showed that optimized formulation (F13) could release the drug (98%) for more than 12 hrs and remain buoyant for more than 12 hrs.
Examination of red-leg disease and its pathogen, Rana temporaria chensinensis

Examination of pathogenic bacteria, isolated from Rana temporaria chensinensis, was conducted including morphological characteristics, physiological and biochemical characteristics, as well as the detection of the 16S rRNA gene sequence of the isolates. Phylogenetic tree based on the two sequences (HQ070610A-1, HQ070610B-1) and homologous sequences from GenBank was constructed by neighbor-joining method. Meanwhile, the pathogenic effect of the representative strains to healthy R. temporaria chensinensis was determined, the susceptibility to antimicrobial agents was conducted with agar diffusion method (Kirby-Bauer, K-B) and the haemolysin A gene was detected by PCR amplification. The isolated strains were identified as Aeromonas hydrophila. The length of 16S rRNA gene of strain HQ070610A-1(GenBank accession No.GQ470995) was 1444 bp, and the length of 16S rRNA gene of strain HQ070610B-1(GenBank accession No.GQ470996) was 1445 bp. The high pathogenicity of the representative isolated strain to healthy R. temporaria chensinensis could be confirmed by challenge test. All strains were sensitive or highly sensitive to 28 agents including cefotaxime, cefotaxime etc., and they were slightly sensitive to cefazolin, resistant to 8 agents including penicillin G, vancomycin, etc. The eleven isolated strains all carried haemolysin A gene. Key words: Rana temporaria chensinensis, red-leg disease, Aeromonas hydrophila.
Learning a Genetic Measure for Kinship Verification Using Facial Images

Motivated by the key observation that children generally resemble their parents more than other persons with respect to facial appearance, distance metric (similarity) learning has been the dominant choice for state-of-the-art kinship verification via facial images in the wild. Most existing learning-based approaches to kinship verification, however, are focused on learning a genetic similarity measure in a batch learning manner, leading to less scalability for practical applications with ever-growing amount of data. To address this, we propose a new kinship verification approach by learning a sparse similarity measure in an online fashion. Experimental results on the kinship datasets show that our approach is highly competitive to the state-of-the-art alternatives in terms of verification accuracy, yet it is superior in terms of scalability for practical applications.
The Benefits and Measurement of Service Firms’ Performance Transparency: How and When Does Performance Transparency Pay Off?

Calls for increased transparency and reduced information asymmetry between service firms and their customers are getting louder in the marketplace. Yet, it remains unclear what exactly constitutes transparency in the eyes of customers and how, if at all, service firms benefit from it. This research contributes to extant knowledge by articulating the key properties of service firms’ performance transparency and by developing and validating a parsimonious scale to measure it. We show that through a reduction in customer uncertainty, the provision of accessible and objective information about a firm’s service offering is positively associated with customers’ intention to purchase and willingness to pay a price premium for its service. Furthermore, we find that the positive effect of performance transparency is influenced by customers’ perceptions of a firm’s ability to deliver on its service promise. An important managerial implication of the current research is that performance transparency benefits customers by lowering uncertainty, and hence service firms should proactively consider it as a critical measure that helps differentiate their services from competitive offerings, even when customer perceptions of a service firm’s ability are low.
An invasive‐native mammalian species replacement process captured by camera trap survey random encounter models

Camera traps are used to estimate densities or abundances using capture‐recapture and, more recently, random encounter models (REMs). We deploy REMs to describe an invasive‐native species replacement process, and to demonstrate their wider application beyond abundance estimation. The Irish hare Lepus timidus hibernicus is a high priority endemic of conservation concern. It is threatened by an expanding population of nonnative, European hares L. europaeus, an invasive species of global importance. Camera traps were deployed in thirteen 1 km squares, wherein the ratio of invader to native densities were corroborated by night‐driven line transect distance sampling throughout the study area of 1652 km2. Spatial patterns of invasive and native densities between the invader's core and peripheral ranges, and native allopatry, were comparable between methods. Native densities in the peripheral range were comparable to those in native allopatry using REM, or marginally depressed using Distance Sampling. Numbers of the invader were substantially higher than the native in the core range, irrespective of method, with a 5:1 invader‐to‐native ratio indicating species replacement. We also describe a post hoc optimization protocol for REM which will inform subsequent (re‐)surveys, allowing survey effort (camera hours) to be reduced by up to 57% without compromising the width of confidence intervals associated with density estimates. This approach will form the basis of a more cost‐effective means of surveillance and monitoring for both the endemic and invasive species. The European hare undoubtedly represents a significant threat to the endemic Irish hare.
Factors associated with spectacle-wear compliance among school children of 7-15 years in South India

Background: Easily correctable refractive errors are the commonest cause of visual impairment in school children in India. Children who need but cannot afford spectacle correction are high in our country. Important factor for the success of the corrective services is compliance to spectacle wear. Objective: To assess the spectacle wear compliance among school children who were provided spectacle free of cost. To study the determinants of spectacle acceptance and reasons for non compliance. Materials and Methods: All (1378) government school children of 7-15 years age group in both rural and urban field practice areas of a medical college in Bangalore were screened and students with refractive error were provided spectacles free of cost. An unannounced follow up was done after 3 months to assess compliance. Data was analyzed to determine the factors associated with spectacle wear compliance. Results: Among 36 boys and 47 girls who received spectacles free of cost, 31 were from rural and 52 from urban schools. 48(57.8%) children were actually wearing the spectacles at the time of follow up. 42(87.5%) compliant children reported improvement of performance in school related activities. Compliance was better in younger children and those from urban schools. Children of father with lower level of education and with power -0.5D were more likely to be non compliant. Conclusion: To achieve the goal of vision 2020 timely detection of refractive errors should be followed by cost effective intervention. The barriers to spectacle acceptance should be studied and addressed.
Methods for Determining Differences of Attribute Weight between Evidences in Bridge Assessment

The attribute weights determined is a key issue in the decision-making. Attribute weights given in the form of distribution of the attribute value to language assessment and rating their trust completely unknown or partially unknown circumstances, the proposed method of weight determination of the two based on objective evidence of differences between rights. Method one calculated based on the evidence of conflict between the coefficient weights; method to calculate the mean and variance of the research evidence weights. Finally, through the application of specific cases to verify the effectiveness of the method.
Modeling and Simulation of a Residential Neighborhood with Photovoltaic Systems Coupled to Energy Storage Systems

The diffusion of the photovoltaic installations is reaching significant levels in the low voltage electric grid, therefore the need of effective energy management strategies increases. Within the Swiss2Grid (S2G) pilot project we are designing and testing a tool that allows the decentralized management of the distributed generation and consumption by controlling local energy storage systems and shifting the activation of households loads. In order to assess the effects of higher levels of diffusion of photovoltaic and storage system into the low voltage grid, we modeled the pilot residential neighborhood in Modelica, a multi-domain, open-source modeling language. In this paper we describe the components and the selected penetration scenarios. We finally present the results of the simulations, analyzing the effects of the chosen scenarios on neighborhood overall power, voltage instabilities and self-consumption.
Mesoscale Variation in Snag and Hardwood Densities and Sizes in Old-Growth Forests in Western Oregon

Snags and hardwoods contribute to biological, structural, and functional diversity in old-growth forests. In the US Pacific Northwest, only general knowledge about regional patterns is available to determine target density of snags and hardwood trees. To investigate their variability at relevant scales for silviculture, we examined snag and hardwood densities and sizes in 20 old-growth units in northern and southern aspects in the Coast Range and the Willamette Valley foothills of Oregon. Snag densities varied largely between subregions and aspects, with aspect affecting densities more than subregion. In the Coast Range, snag density was 2.8 times greater on northern aspects than on southern aspects, whereas in the Willamette Valley foothills snag density was 1.4 times greater on northern aspects than on southern aspects. Density of snags larger than 101.6 cm in diameter was very low. Hardwood densities were also greater on northern aspects than on southern aspects. The negative exponential distribution of hardwood density frequency by size classes could be explained by cohort growth under a wide range of competitive pressures or repeated-recruitment events. Aspect and subregion should be taken into account when defining management targets. Allowing for flexibility at these smaller spatial scales would better reflect the variability in ecological conditions and land use history that led to the development of old-growth stands.
Pattern recognition in the automatic inspection of aluminium castings

∑ Image Formation: The images are obtained by X-ray irradiation of the test-piece. The X-rays are then converted to a visible image by means of an image amplifier or a flat-panel detector that are sensitive to X-rays. The sensor is bi-dimensional (or unidimensional in motion) in order to capture the two dimensions of the image. An A/D converter turns the electrical signal into binary code that can be interpreted by a computer to form a digital image of the study object. ∑ Pre-processing: This stage is devoted to improving the quality of the image in order to better recognise flaws. Some of the techniques used in this stage are elimination of noise by means of digital filters or integration, improvement of contrast, and restoration. ∑ Segmentation: The segmentation process divides the digital image into disjoint regions with the purpose of separating the parts of interest from the rest of the scene. Over the last few decades, diverse segmentation techniques have been developed. These can largely be divided into three groups: pixel, edge and region orientated techniques. The present investigation uses the segmentation process oriented towards the detection of edges by employing the LoG filter (Mery and Filbert, 2002b). As can be seen in Figure 2, this technique searches for changes in the grey values of the image (edges), thus identifying zones delimited by edges that indicate flaws. ∑ Feature extraction: In the inspection of cast pieces, segmentation detects regions that are denominated as ‘hypothetical defects’, which may be flaws or structural features of the object. Subsequently the feature extraction is centred principally around
In Silico Design & Development of Some Selected Flavonols Against Beta–Glucuronidase Inhibitory Activity

Drug discovery process develops faster due to more advances in computational techniques. The protein ligand interaction well predicted due to the in-silico approach study. The present investigation focused towards the development of lead structure for treatment of hepatic disorders. An increase in serum acid hydrolase, including I²-glucuronidase has been reported in numbers of pathological conditions such as arthritis, renal diseases and epilepsies. Enhancement of this enzyme I²â€“glucuronidase in blood has been found to correlate significantly with liver damage. I²-glucuronidase inhibitor is a novel approach which is different from the available hepatoprotective drug therapies. Method : The current study is based on in-silico ligand screening and in-vitro estimation of the three flavonols [Naringenin, Quercetin and 2-(3, 4-Dihydroxy Phenyl)-7-Hydroxy-3-(2-Hydroxy Ethoxy) 4-H-Chromen-4one] compounds with enzyme I²-glucuronidase. Molecular docking software Py Rex and Py Mol was used to dock the selected ligand in the binding site of the crystal structure of protein. Results : Docking results are based on the least binding energy of the selected flavonols compounds. Further attempt has been made towards in-vitro estimation of this enzyme with those selected compounds. The binding affinity with existence of hydrogen bonds leads to find out the mechanism which was well correlated with the findings of in-vitro inhibitory activity. Conclusion : The result outcome of the binding orientation of 2-(3, 4-Dihydroxy Phenyl)-7-Hydroxy-3-(2-Hydroxy Ethoxy) 4-H-Chromen-4one linked with the active amino acid residue of the protein and the binding affinity leads to find out the mechanism for its potential in-vitro inhibitory activity.
The Business Model: Recent Developments and Future Research

This article provides a broad and multifaceted review of the received literature on business models in which the authors examine the business model concept through multiple subject-matter lenses. The review reveals that scholars do not agree on what a business model is and that the literature is developing largely in silos, according to the phenomena of interest of the respective researchers. However, the authors also found emerging common themes among scholars of business models. Specifically, (1) the business model is emerging as a new unit of analysis; (2) business models emphasize a system-level, holistic approach to explaining how firms “do business”; (3) firm activities play an important role in the various conceptualizations of business models that have been proposed; and (4) business models seek to explain how value is created, not just how it is captured. These emerging themes could serve as catalysts for a more unified study of business models.