Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of the Interactions between the 200 hPa Jet and Air Pollutants in the Near-Surface Layer over East Asia in Summer

The rapid economic development in East Asia has led to serious air pollution problems in the near-surface layer. Studies have shown that there is an interaction between air pollution and the East Asian upper-level jet, which is an important weather system controlling the climate in East Asia. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the relationship between the surface layer air pollutants and the upper-level jet stream in East Asia. Based on the daily wind and vertical velocity data provided by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research as well as the surface pollutant and meteorological variable data provided by the Science Data Bank, we use statistical analysis methods to study the relationship between the East Asian upper-level jet and the high-concentration area of near-surface air pollutants in summer. Meanwhile, the mechanisms of the interaction are preliminarily discussed. The results show that the North China Plain and the Tarim Basin are the high-value areas of the particulate matter (PM) in summer during 2013–2018, and the ozone (O3) concentration in the near-surface atmospheric layer in the North China Plain is also high. The average concentrations of the PM2.5, PM10 and O3 in the North China Plain are 45.09, 70.28 and 131.27 μg·m−3, respectively, and the days with the concentration exceeding the standard reach 401, 461 and 488, respectively. During this period, there is an increasing trend in the O3 concentration and a decreasing trend in the PM concentration. The average ratio of the PM2.5 to PM10 is approximately 0.65 with a decreasing trend. The air pollutant concentration in this region has a significant relationship with the location of the East Asian upper-level jet. The low wind speed at the surface level under the control of the upper-level jet is the main reason for the high pollutant concentration besides the pollutant emission. They relate to each other through the surface humidity and the meridional and zonal wind. Meanwhile, the concentrations of the PM2.5 and PM10 are high in the near-surface layer in the Tarim Basin, and the average concentrations are 45.19 and 49.08 μg·m−3, respectively. The days with the concentration exceeding the standard are 265 and 193, respectively. The interannual variation in the PM concentration shows an increasing trend first and then a decreasing trend. The average ratio of PM2.5 to PM10 in this region reaches approximately 0.9. The ratio reaches the highest in 2013 and 2014 and then decreases to and maintains at approximately 0.85. The concentration of air pollutants in the basin has a significant relationship with the intensity of the upper-level jet in East Asia. The weakening of the upper-level jet will lead to a decrease in the surface humidity in the northern part of the basin, an increase in the surface temperature in the western part of the basin and a decrease in the surface zonal wind in the eastern part of the basin, which will result in a higher PM concentration.
Ultrathin graphene nanosheets derived from rice husks for sustainable supercapacitor electrodes

Graphene nanosheets are synthesized via the carbonization of brown-rice husks followed by a one-stage KOH-activation process for the design of a sustainable electrochemical energy-storage electrode. The graphene nanosheets exhibit an ultra-thin crumpled-silk-veil-wave, sheet-like structure with a high surface area of ∼1225 m2 g−1 and a high porosity. The graphene-nanosheet electrode shows a specific capacitance of 115 F g−1 at 0.5 mA cm−2 and a high energy density of 36.8 W h kg−1 at a power density of 323 W kg−1, with an excellent cyclic stability of 88% over 2000 cycles. The observed good electrochemical energy-storage performance of the biomaterial-derived graphene-nanosheet electrode is due to the synergistic effect of the intrinsically large electrochemically active surface area, an enhanced ion diffusion, and an improved electrical conductivity.
EFFECTS OF IN VIVO PROTON IRRADIATION ON MOUSE T AND B LYMPHOCYTES

One of the major problems derived from the exposure to ionizing radiation is the impairment of the immune system. The consequent immune-depression increases the risk of infections and may lead to immunemediated disorders. The intensity and duration of the immune-compromised phase and its recovery depend on the dose, dose-rate and quality of radiation. In recent years, there has been a great interest in the effects induced by protons, both for a better assessment of the health risks in astronauts exposed to solar wind and cosmic radiations and for a better understanding of their effects in radiotherapy for oncologic patients. In the present study, we investigated the effects of the in vivo exposure to 2 Gy of integral dose absorbed by medium energy proton beams on mouse lymphoid spleen cells. The TOP-IMPLART accelerator was used as proton source. Irradiations were performed in air with pulsed (3.4 s, 10Hz) 27 MeV proton beams. During the exposure, mice were anesthetized in order to keep them in the right position. Sham-exposed anesthetized age/gender/strain-matched mice were used as controls. Twenty-four hours and 1 week after irradiation, each mouse was individually analyzed for several parameters (5 mice/group). Results showed that the number of nucleated cells in the spleen was not significantly affected. Flow cytometry analyses revealed that the percentages of helper T (CD4), cytotoxic T (CD8) and B (CD19) cells within the spleen lymphocytes were not altered 24 hours after the exposure. At variance, 1 week after the exposure the frequency of CD4 (14% vs. 9%) and CD19 (37% vs. 26%) cells reduced. Spleen cells were stimulated with an anti-CD3 antibody and LPS to induce T cell and B cell activation, respectively. Both T and B cells were functionally impaired by the exposure. Twenty-four hours after irradiation, T cell proliferation was indeed reduced by 50% in exposed mice compared with controls. B cells also displayed a reduced cell proliferation in response to the mitogenic stimulus (-33%). Interestingly, 1 week after irradiation proliferative responses of T and B cells were still compromised. This first study allowed the conclusion that, in vivo local exposure to protons induced small changes in total spleen cell number, the frequency of CD4 and B cells being reduced 1 week after the exposure. More interesting, functional responses, such as T and B cell proliferation were partially compromised. These effects, in spite of the limited area of exposure, were not recovered after 1 week.
Robust tensor train component analysis

Robust Principal Component Analysis plays a key role in various fields such as image and video processing, data mining, and hyperspectral data analysis. In this paper, we study the problem of robust tensor train (TT) principal component analysis from partial observations, which aims to decompose a given tensor into the low TT rank and sparse components. The decomposition of the proposed model is used to find the hidden factors and help alleviate the curse of dimensionality via a set of connected low‐rank tensors. A relaxation model is to minimize a weighted combination of the sum of nuclear norms of unfolding matrices of core tensors and the tensor ℓ1 norm. A proximal alternating direction method of multipliers is developed to solve the resulting model. Furthermore, we show that any cluster point of the convergent subsequence is a Karush‐Kuhn‐Tucker point of the proposed model under some conditions. Extensive numerical examples on both synthetic data and real‐world datasets are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
A rare presentation of KBG syndrome

KBG syndrome is a rare, genetic disorder characterizedby cognitive impairment, short stature, skeletal (mainly costovertebral) anomalies and a distinct craniofacial appearance. It is usually autosomal dominant in nature with a wide range of expressivity in its clinical features. We describe what appears to be the third case reported from India.The aim of this article is to review familiar clinical features and to highlight the endocrine management of KBG syndrome. We are hereby reporting a case of 17 year 10 months old adolescent who had neurocognitive impairment and a characteristic appearance, which led to the diagnosis of this genetic condition.
Optimal Distributed Leader-Following Consensus of Linear Multi-Agent Systems: A Dynamic Average Consensus-Based Approach

In this brief, a novel distributed leader-following consensus controller for linear multi-agent systems (MASs) with one leader and $N$ followers is designed for optimal leader-following consensus control. A user-friendly global objective function is well designed in a quadratic form. The proper choice of the weighting matrices and necessary and sufficient conditions for optimizing the objective function are given. The proposed controller can guarantee the optimization of the objective function and the achievement of the leader-following consensus of the MASs. To deal with the coupling in the controllers, we propose a dynamic average consensus-based algorithm to estimate the controller distributedly, and the estimate errors converge to zero in finite time. A simulation example is provided to demonstrate the results.
Antisparsity as a Prior in Blind Separation of Correlated Sources

This letter introduces the concept of antisparse Blind Source Separation (BSS), proposing a suitable criterion based on the $\ell_\infty$ norm to explore the antisparsity feature. The effectiveness of the criterion is theoretically demonstrated and it is also evaluated by computational simulations, which consider up to ten distinct sources with different correlation levels. Moreover, we simulated a scenario in wireless communication with binary sources, comparing our approach to the Constant Modulus algorithm. Both the theoretical and the simulation results highlight the potentiality of using antisparsity as a prior in BSS.
Student Affairs and Services during Covid‑19 in Africa: Mitigating the Pandemic’s Impact on Student Success

The Covid‑19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that present obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education in various parts of the world. African higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS) are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the resources within the institutions and in part due the sociocultural context into which the institutions are embedded. It is with this background that this study explores the impact of Covid‑19 on SAS in Africa, as part of a wider lens on SAS across the globe. The study was conducted with an online survey which generated 781 responses of Student Affairs practitioners from across the globe, of which 118 were from the African continent. The data show SAS’s critical role in mediating the various domains within and beyond the higher education institution that impact on student success. The domains that impact on student success include the students’ personal experiences, the public domain, the sociocultural community and familial milieu, and the institutional/ SAS domain. Thus, this article discusses SAS’s critical role in mediating the impact of these four domains on the student living and learning experience. The purpose of this article is to discuss the data and to use the data to gain insights into the way SAS has played a role in mitigating the impacts of Covid‑19 in four domains relevant for student success. Based on our findings, a systemic-contextual model is proposed that illustrates the relevance of four domains that need to synergise for students to be successful. Our data suggests that while SAS and universities do a great deal to support students in their learning, factors in the public domain, factors in the sociocultural community and familial milieu need to be conducive to learning to enable more student success in Africa.
Nobody cares for men anymore: Affective-discursive practices around men’s victimisation across online and offline contexts

Men’s victimisation is a central topic in online discussions, particularly in the manosphere, where its emphasis is often combined with a strong anti-feminist stance. This article examines the interplay of affects and discourse in meaning-making around men’s victimisation both in online discussions and among social and crisis workers asked to comment upon meanings circulating online. By using the concept of affective-discursive practice, the analysis shows how this meaning-making reiterates socially shared interpretative repertoires and positionings that mobilise affects based on sympathy, anger and hate. Furthermore, the article demonstrates how the practitioners respond to these affective meanings by adopting positions of responsibility, while also redirecting and neutralising online affect. The article contributes to knowledge on the interaction between online and offline meaning-making around men’s victimisation, and to building an understanding of affects and discourse in seemingly moderate meaning-making around this topic that however resonates and links with the more extreme anti-feminism of the manosphere.
Hybrid Verification Technique for Decision-Making of Self-Driving Vehicles

The evolution of driving technology has recently progressed from active safety features and ADAS systems to fully sensor-guided autonomous driving. Bringing such a vehicle to market requires not only simulation and testing but formal verification to account for all possible traffic scenarios. A new verification approach, which combines the use of two well-known model checkers: model checker for multi-agent systems (MCMAS) and probabilistic model checker (PRISM), is presented for this purpose. The overall structure of our autonomous vehicle (AV) system consists of: (1) A perception system of sensors that feeds data into (2) a rational agent (RA) based on a belief–desire–intention (BDI) architecture, which uses a model of the environment and is connected to the RA for verification of decision-making, and (3) a feedback control systems for following a self-planned path. MCMAS is used to check the consistency and stability of the BDI agent logic during design-time. PRISM is used to provide the RA with the probability of success while it decides to take action during run-time operation. This allows the RA to select movements of the highest probability of success from several generated alternatives. This framework has been tested on a new AV software platform built using the robot operating system (ROS) and virtual reality (VR) Gazebo Simulator. It also includes a parking lot scenario to test the feasibility of this approach in a realistic environment. A practical implementation of the AV system was also carried out on the experimental testbed.
Taste Beats Reputation in New Food Products Choice: The Case of Ready-to-Eat Pomegranate among Young Consumers in Veneto Region (Italy)

This study investigates the preferences for ready-to-eat pomegranate arils in Italy through a discrete choice experiment (DCE) on 264 young consumers in Italy. The aim is to estimate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the reputational attributes of the product (e.g., the product origin and sales channel) and to discriminate the elicited preferences between tasting and non-tasting situations. To this purpose, a random parameter logit model was employed to assess the heterogeneity in consumer preferences. The results suggest that non-tasters attach a relevant value to the reputational attributes (e.g., +75% WTP for Italian origin). Moreover, considering the sensory features of the products, we found that consumers in this group discriminate against the proposed samples only through their visual characteristics: they prefer the sample with the largest size and red colored arils. In addition, we found that the tasting experience reduced the value attached to the reputational attributes (e.g., −50% WTP for local origin) for consumers, compared to non-tasting situation, thus shifting their preference to the samples that they appreciated the most (high liking). Specifically, we found that consumers in the tasting group preferred the product sample with the highest level of sweetness and the lowest level of sourness and astringency, showing a higher preference for sweetness. The findings contribute to the literature on consumers’ behavior on new food products (NFPs), showing that reputational attributes lose value after the tasting experience. In contrast, the sensory features of the NFPs can help tasters to reduce the information asymmetry, which traditionally represents a hurdle in purchases for new consumers. However, this depends on the individuals’ subjective preferences, as demonstrated by the significant effect of liking levels in discriminating consumers’ choices. To conclude, although these results cannot be extended to the general population, they may give some interesting insights about future trends of NFP demand.
Urban-Induced Changes on Local Circulation in Complex Terrain: Central Mexico Basin

Land use land cover (LULC) significantly impacts local circulation in the Mexico Basin, particularly wind field circulations such as gap winds, convergence lines, and thermally induced upslope/downslope wind. A case study with a high-pressure system over the Mexico Basin isolates the influence of large-scale synoptic forcing. Numerical simulations reveal a wind system composed of meridional circulation and a zonal component. Thermal pressure gradients between the Mexico basin and its colder surroundings create near-surface convergence lines as part of the meridional circulation. Experiments show that the intensity and organization of meridional circulations and downslope winds increase when LULC changes from natural and cultivated land to urban. Zonal circulation exhibits a typical circulation pattern with the upslope flow and descending motion in the middle of the basin. Large values of moist static energy are near the surface where air parcels pick up energy from the surface either as fluxes of enthalpy or latent heat. Surface heat fluxes and stored energy in the ground are drivers of local circulation, which is more evident in zonal circulation patterns.
Aspect dependent-based ghost suppression for extended targets in through-the-wall radar imaging under compressive sensing framework

Several approaches have been proposed to suppress multipath ghost in through-the-wall radar imaging (TWRI). One classical approach, called Aspect Dependent (AD), exploits locations of ghosts in the images without demanding prior knowledge of the reflecting geometry. This operation strategy makes the method superior over multipath exploitation-based approaches. However, the AD method assumes a point target that emulates unreal environment. Therefore, reconstructing extended targets with this method leads to incorrect scene interpretation. This work proposes a ghost suppression method for extended targets based on the AD feature that exploits duo sub-apertures. Firstly, we evaluate the best suppression method using a performance metric called relative clutter peak. Next, the evaluated method is extended to encompass a target extent during sub-images reconstruction. Following this strategy, an effective image fusion method suitable for extended targets is proposed. The method considers pixel neighborhood to effectively recover the given extended target. Simulation results show that, when signal-to-noise ratio is 20dB, the proposed method significantly improves signal-to-clutter ratio and relative clutter peak by 8.8% and 23.8%, respectively, relative to the existing AD based methods under point target assumption.
Tracing “Auto(bio)graphy” in “Three Novels” by Samuel Beckett: A Review Essay

Review essay of Samuel Beckett, The Beckett Digital Manuscript Project. Instalments 2, 4, and 5 (digital modules and accompanying printed volumes). Directed by Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon. Technical Realisation by Vincent Neyt. Brussels: University Press Antwerp (ASP/UPA); London: Bloomsbury, 2013–17.
Pemberdayaan Siswa SD dalam Literasi Membaca melalui Media Bergambar di Magetan

Membaca merupakan proses yang dilakukan untuk memperoleh pesan kemudian disampaikan dengan menggunakan kata-kata secara tertulis. Gerakan literasi membaca pada peserta didik merupakan suatu kegiatan yang dirancang agar siswa saat membaca tidak hanya mahir membaca. Akan tetapi, siswa juga dapat memahami isi bacaan. Adapun tujuan dari penelitian ini yaitu untuk meningkatakan kemampuan membaca siswa kelas I dan II dengan menggunakan media bergambar. Metode pelaksanaan kegiatan KKN pengabdian masyarakat ini dila-kukan melalui beberapa tahap, antara lain sebagai berikut (1) Menghubungi mitra kerja sama kepada kepala Desa Sendangagung untuk meminta izin melakukan kegiatan KKN, (2) Mendiskusikan program kerja yang telah disusun kelompok kami dan di kaitkan dengan permasalahan yang terjadi pada anak-anak di lingkungan Dukuh Jiwir, (3) mengumpulkan anak-anak di lingkungan Dukuh Jiwir Khususnya kelas I dan II, (4) mengukur kemampuan membaca anak, (5) melatih anak-anak untuk meningkatkan kemampuan membaca dengan menggunakan metode bergambar. Hasil pengabdian ini yaitu kemampuan membaca anak dengan berlatih menggunakan media bergambar lebih meningkat dari pada sebelumnya. Sebelumnya kesulitan membaca, tetapi dengan adanya media bergambar lebih membantu anak dalam meningkatkan kemampuan membaca.
A Scheme of Sustainable Trajectory Optimization for Aircraft Cruise Based on Comprehensive Social Benefit

The increasing demand for environmentally friendly and passenger-favored flight operation requires a systematic scheme of sustainable trajectory optimization for the aircraft cruise. This paper achieves it by proposing an innovative performance framework based on the comprehensive benefit to the society considering both economic and noneconomic ones, following which the sustainable trajectory optimization problem is modeled by discretization. A method combining forward recurrence and memoization operation, called memoization dynamic programming, is developed to solve the model with computational efficiency. Working with real-world operational data of a typical flight route, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme at different levels and explore the difference in its performance due to meteorological conditions, aircraft type, and time horizon. The scheme is proved to perform robustly in comprehensive performance with a stable benefit rate of about 8% through sensitivity analysis, by which we find that it is relatively better for the flights cruising on business route with a load factor of 85%. Tradeoff results suggest that the systematic consideration of both the economic and noneconomic performance contributes to improved integrated sustainability. In particular, the optimal comprehensive performance at a monthly level can be obtained when accepting an additional $26,500 economic cost.