Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics

The velocity of a Schlichting boundary flow generated by a focused acoustic field incident on a rigid boundary in a liquid is evaluated experimentally. The temperature increase in the acoustic boundary layer is also estimated using optical techniques. The velocity of the smallscale Schlichting flow is estimated indirectly based on the velocity of the concurrent Rayleigh flow using the particle image velocimetry (PIV) method. The velocity of the Schlichting flow achieved in the experiment is high enough to enhance significantly mass-transfer processes at a heterogeneous boundary. This is confirmed by the results of laboratory experiments on acoustic intensification of high-rate growth of salt monocrystals, which were carried out under strictly controlled conditions. The increase in the boundary-layer temperature is shown to be insufficient for a pronounced crystal-growth inhibition.
2D and 3D Face Recognition using Close-Range RGB-D Camera

— Having a depth information of object (Face) surface available along with RGB image, face recognition algorithm can be made more efficient and robust as compared to the conventional algorithms, where only RGB image is employed. Non-uniform illumination and pose deviation are major obstacles in making ideal face recognition system. In this paper, we used close-range (of depth) camera for developing face recognition system, which can provide high recognition rate even in low-resolution images. To best of our knowledge, there is no experimental study available for the face recognition system with close range RGB-D (Creative Labs 3D RealSense) in literature so far. We analysed different feature representations like PCA, LDA, SIFT, Gabor, LBP and HOG for RGB and depth images. Experiments were performed on the in-house RGB-D dataset, captured by Creative Labs 3D camera with 20 individuals. The experimental result shows that depth image can also be used for recognition. It is also found that the fusion of RGB and Depth images improve the recognition rate. HOG and LBP feature descriptors are superior to the other feature subspaces. With HOG as a feature descriptor, face recognition rate for frontal image dataset in proper illumination has reached to 96.21%, while for pose-deviated samples, it is 75.12 %.
Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Transferring Plant Classification Systems to New Field Environments, Crops, and Robots

Crops are an important source of food and other products. In conventional farming, tractors apply large amounts of agrochemicals uniformly across fields for weed control and plant protection. Autonomous farming robots have the potential to provide environment-friendly weed control on a per plant basis. A system that reliably distinguishes crops, weeds, and soil under varying environment conditions is the basis for plant-specific interventions such as spot applications. Such semantic segmentation systems, however, often show a performance decay when applied under new field conditions. In this paper, we therefore propose an effective approach to unsupervised domain adaptation for plant segmentation systems in agriculture and thus to adapt existing systems to new environments, different value crops, and other farm robots. Our system yields a high segmentation performance in the target domain by exploiting labels only from the source domain. It is based on CycleGANs and enforces a semantic consistency domain transfer by constraining the images to be pixel-wise classified in the same way before and after translation. We perform an extensive evaluation, which indicates that we can substantially improve the transfer of our semantic segmentation system to new field environments, different crops, and different sensors or robots.
Bifunctional supramolecular nanofiber inhibits atherosclerosis by enhancing plaque stability and anti-inflammation in apoE-/- mice

Background and Purpose: Atherosclerosis is vascular disease of chronic inflammation and lipid disorder, which is a major cause of coronary heart disease. Foam cell formation is key progress during the atherosclerosis development. Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 is a growth hormone that plays a crucial role in growth, metabolism, and homeostasis. Previous studies have demonstrated that increase in circulating IGF-1 can reduce atherosclerotic burden. However, active IGF-1 is characterized with poor tissue retention and is at a very low level in circulation system. Therefore, supplementation of exogenous IGF-1 to restore the physiological level is a promising approach to inhibit atherosclerosis. In this study, we develop a self-assembling, anti-inflammatory drug-modified peptide derived from IGF-1 to mimic IGF-1 bioactivity and simultaneously with an anti-inflammatory property for the treatment of atherosclerosis. Methods: ApoE-/- mice were subcutaneously (s.c.) injected with the different hydrogels or natural IGF-1 protein solution per week and simultaneously fed a high-fat diet for 16 weeks. Atherosclerotic lesion formation and stability were assessed after treatment. Moreover, peritoneal macrophage and serum samples were collected to determine lipid profile and inflammatory cytokines. Concurrently, we determined the effect of bifunctional supramolecular nanofibers/hydrogel on cholesterol efflux, foam cell formation, phenotypic transformation of VSMC to macrophage-like cells, and macrophage polarization in vitro or in vivo. Results: Bifunctional supramolecular nanofibers/hydrogel for the treatment of atherosclerosis was formed by a short peptide consisting of a tetrapeptide SSSR from C-region of growth factor IGF-1, an anti-inflammatory drug naproxen (Npx), and a powerful self-assembling D-peptide DFDF. The resulting hydrogel of Npx-DFDFGSSSR (Hydrogel 1, H1) possessed both the anti-inflammatory and IGF-1 mimicking properties, and it efficiently promoted the expression of ABCA1 and ABCG1, thereby significantly reducing cholesterol accumulation in macrophages and preventing foam cell formation. Moreover, H1 markedly inhibited the transformation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) into macrophage-like cells which also contributed to foam cell formation. In addition, H1 significantly reduced the inflammatory response in vitro and in vivo. Most importantly, the IGF-1 mimetic peptide showed comparable performance to IGF-1 in vivo and inhibited atherosclerosis by markedly reducing lesion area and enhancing plaque stability. Conclusions: Our study provides a novel supramolecular nanomaterial to inhibit pathological progress of atherosclerosis through regulating cholesterol efflux and inflammation, which may contribute to the development of a promising nanomedicine for the treatment of atherosclerosis in the clinic.
Algorithm for real-time estimation of absolute angular position

This paper presents a new algorithm for the absolute angular position estimation in rotary applications, with real-time correction included. The algorithm is intended to be used in combination with sensors whose output is a sine/cosine function of an angle of rotation, which is the case with majority of sensors in rotary applications: Hall-effect sensors, resolver-type sensors, rotary capacitive/inductive sensors etc. Demanded hardware resources are minimized. On the other hand, the algorithm successfully utilizes increase in available hardware resources: additional memory locations, hardware multipliers, parallelism. Thus, it can be purposefully implemented on a wide range of the platforms, from the simplest ASIC calculation blocks, through all commercial microcontrollers and microprocessors, up to the FPGA chips and DSPs.
JS-son - A Minimal JavaScript BDI Agent Library

There is a multitude of agent-oriented software engineering frameworks available, most of them produced by the academic multi-agent systems community. However, these frameworks often impose programming paradigms on their users that are hard to learn for engineers who are used to modern high-level programming languages such as JavaScript and Python. To show how the adoption of agent-oriented programming by the software engineering mainstream can be facilitated, we provide an early, simplistic JavaScript library prototype for implementing belief-desire-intention (BDI) agents. The library focuses on the core BDI concepts and refrains from imposing further restrictions on the programming approach. To illustrate its usefulness, we demonstrate how the library can be used for multi-agent systems simulations on the web, as well as embedded in Python-based data science tools.
Impact of use of big data in decision making in banking sector of Saudi Arabia

The revolution in the form of big data analytics enforced in several spheres of the banking industry has facilitated numerous banking operations. It not only saves cost and time of the institution but also helps in developing a deep understanding of the banks with customers, detection of frauds and risk management. In Saudi Arabia, growth in investment banking has facilitated development of the financial sector and has increased the number of business transactions. The growth in ubiquitous data in different forms developed the need to adopt big data analytics. In light of this aforementioned information, the current study aimed to understand the impact of big data analytics indecision making in the banking sector of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. For this, the researcher studied 5 commercial banks and included a survey method with ten management/ higher level authority per bank via a close ended questionnaire. It was found that big data techniques assists in targeted marketing which in turn helps in better decision making in the banking sector .
Study on Preparation and Preservation Method of Competent Cell of Agrobacterium Tumefaciens

The effects of different mediums,transformation solutions and preservation methods on transformation rate of competent cell of Agrobacterium tumefaciens were studied,and the preparation and preservation methods of competent cell of Agrobacterium tumefaciens with high conversion rate were determined.The results showed that when the single colony was amplified and cultured at a dilution of 1∶ 100 for 10.5 h after it was overnight cultured in YEB medium,and it was treated with the solution of 20 mmol/L CaCl2+80 mmol/L MgCl2,the transformation rate of the prepared fresh competent cell was 1.59×105 transformants/μg plasmid DNA.And the preservation effect of 7% DMSO on the fresh competent cell was good.
The Relationship between Business and the Audit Fee: Evidence from Indonesian Listed Companies

This research intends to obtain empirical evidence to determine the relationship between a business and the external audit service fee. Using the modified model from research of Simunic (1980), this research took balanced samples from 26 manufacturing firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) from the period 2014 to 2016 in order to represent the population of manufacturing firms listed in that time period. Using audit fees as dependent variable and firm size, audit complexity, audit risk, and Big-Four audit firms’ premium, this research tried to find out the relationship between those variables, using multiple linear regression as the method to achieve that goal. The result of this research shows that there is a correlative relationship between firm size, audit complexity, audit risk, and ‘Big-Four’ audit firms’ in regard to a premium positive and audit fee.
Education policy and R&D-based growth in an overlapping-generations model

ABSTRACT We employ a research and development (R&D) based growth overlapping-generations model with endogenous education decision-making and the government’s education policy to examine how education policy and human capital accumulation influence R&D activities. According to our study, an increase in the government’s public education expenditure has an inverted U-shaped effect on the steady-state growth rate. Moreover, a tax rate level that maximizes the steady-state growth rate exists. At this tax rate level, the steady-state welfare level is also maximized.
Using AI on IoT Sensor Data - for predicting health of man and machine

The Internet of Things (IoT) is pervading everyday life of both end-consumers and enterprises as the m ain technology for “Digitalization” [1]. With the cost of sensors comi ng down, cloud technology becoming more mature, cap a ity of internet becoming better and computing platforms on both clo ud and edge becoming faster / cheaper / more availa ble, the whole system is poised for a disruptive impact across ind ustries. Different Industry verticals are seeing di fferent business value of using IoT using the context-aware “Sense-Analyze-Re spond” cycle [2], where Sensing is via IoT, Analyze is via Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Respond is either via human-i n-loop visualization or via robotic actuation.
A Resource-Based Approach to Assessing Interseeding Success in Reconstructed Tallgrass Prairies

Interseeding is a common method used to increase species richness within established reconstructed grasslands. This process depends upon the ability of the practitioner to produce resource conditions that facilitate seedling emergence in systems where such emergence is often limited. We tested effects of a mowing disturbance on interseeding success by seeding a mix of 10 common tallgrass prairie species into 1-m2 plots within two warm-season grass dominated grasslands. We clipped the vegetation on a subset of the plots once or repeatedly and measured environmental variables including litter depth, soil surface light, soil moisture, and soil nitrate within the first growing season. While clipping consistently increased soil surface light, seeded species emergence varied in response to measured environmental resources between sites. In the lowland site, emergence over two growing seasons was primarily explained by microsite and early season light availability. In the more recently burned upland site, emergence was primarily limited by later season light conditions associated with clipping. Despite this variation, seed additions increased plot-scale species richness irrespective of clipping effects mainly as a result of high establishment of wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) in both sites. It appears that effects of season-long defoliation management on seedling emergence depend on microsite conditions at seeding and we conclude that soil surface and established vegetation management are necessary when interseeding to increase grassland species richness.
The earnings effects of occupational segregation in Europe: The role of gender and migration status

The concentration of different social groups in certain occupations creates and perpetuates inequalities inside and outside the labor market. This paper quantifies the economic and well-being consequences of occupational segregation by gender and migration status in 12 European countries. The effects are negative for most foreign workers, especially for women, who always derive larger welfare losses than men. In general, these losses are remarkably high in southeast Europe and smaller in the northwest, whereas immigrant men derive very small gains in Portugal and the UK. Female natives are also deprived in most countries. However, immigrants’ characteristics, particularly education, explain a significant part of these geographical disparities. In fact, while the UK is in a somewhat better position thanks to its immigrants' higher educational levels, the counterfactual analysis reinforces Portugal's good position, reflecting higher levels of labor market integration among its immigrant population.
Broaden sources and reduce expenditure: Tumor-specific transformable oxidative stress nanoamplifier enabling economized photodynamic therapy for reinforced oxidation therapy

Cancer cells immersed in inherent oxidative stress are more vulnerable to exogenous oxidative damages than normal cells. Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated oxidation therapy preferentially aggravating tumor oxidative stress to disrupt redox homeostasis, has emerged as an effective and specific anticancer treatment. Herein, following an ingenious strategy of “broaden sources and reduce expenditure”, we designed a versatile tumor-specific oxidative stress nanoamplifier enabling economized photodynamic therapy (PDT), to achieve synergistic oxidative stress explosion for superior oxidation therapy. Methods: Cinnamaldehyde (CA) as a therapeutic ROS generator was first conjugated to hyaluronic acid (HA) through acid-labile hydrazone bond to synthesize tailored amphiphilic HA@CA conjugates, which could surprisingly self-assemble into uniform nanofibers in aqueous media. Photosensitizer protoporphyrin (PpIX) was efficiently encapsulated into HA@CA nanofibers and transformed HA@CA nanofibers to final spherical HA@CAP. Results: With beneficial pH-responsiveness and morphology transformation, improved bioavailability and selective tumor accumulation, HA@CAP combining ROS-based dual chemo/photodynamic treatment modalities could induce cytotoxic ROS generation in a two-pronged approach to amplify tumor oxidative stress, termed “broaden sources”. Moreover, utilizing CA-induced H2O2 production and cascaded Fenton reaction in mitochondria to consume intracellular overloaded Fe(II), HA@CAP could skillfully block endogenic heme biosynthesis pathway on site to restrain undesired elimination of PpIX for economized PDT, termed “reduce expenditure”. Both in vitro and in vivo results demonstrated the superior antitumor performance of HA@CAP. Conclusion: This study offered an inspiring strategy of “broaden sources and reduce expenditure” to specifically boost tumor oxidative stress for reinforced oxidation therapy.
O ETNOCENTRISMO E O PROCESSO DE DECISÃO DE COMPRA: UM ESTUDO DO CONSUMO DE ALIMENTOS POR SOJOURNERS NA ESPANHA

Immigration is one of the phenomena which characterize an increasingly global world in where people interchanging and the adaptation to new cultures become as a daily reality, indeed emerging as a megatrend in recent Marketing studies. Using as a sample a specific collective of sojourners from Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, this work analyzed the influence of the ethnocentrism suffered by this group of consumers in their purchase decision process of food, product elected because of its relevance in the construction of their cultural identity. Particularly, a quantitative research was done by applying an on-line survey that was sent to 139 Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha sojourners. Further, data collected were analyzed by SPSS software, taking out various statistics and models which include frequencies, factorials and regressions. Results have shown how, depending on the considered stage study, influence from ethnocentrism in a food buying decision process is detected. Thereby, this study allows to corroborate the importance in deepen research lines that turn around the impact of the culture in the consumption, with a special attention to the immigration phenomenon that is suffered by the world nowadays.
Hydrodynamic characterization of shallow unbaffled and baffled maturation ponds using a saline tracer

Results of tests with saline tracers (sodium chloride) in two shallow maturation ponds treating anaerobic effluent in Brazil are presented. One of the ponds had no baffles and presented accumulated sludge after 12 years of operation, while the other had two longitudinal baffles, a shallower depth and the sludge had been previously removed. From the tests, a general tendency to complete mixing with high dispersion was observed in both ponds, even the baffled one. The values of the dispersion number d suggest a high dispersion in both ponds. Daily cycles of stratification and destratification could be seen from the tracer curves. The main results of this study and authors’ perceptions regarding the tests allowed practical considerations about the use of saline tracers in pond systems.
Institutional Robustness of Culture-based Fisheries in Perennial Reservoirs of Sri Lanka

The utilisation of irrigation reservoirs for culture-based fisheries (CBF) development is a recent development in Sri Lanka. The trends in CBF development in five reservoirs were investigated, to identify the robustness of institutional arrangements in the rural fisheries organisations (RFOs) for the sustainability of CBF. Basic socio-economic characteristics of five fisher communities showed enabling features for implementing CBF through community participation. After the introduction of CBF, fish species composition in the landings changed with the occurrence of stocked species in the landings, resulting remarkably elevated fishers’ income ranging from 194 % to 2187 % in Urusita and Ampara reservoirs respectively. The CBF management options of RFOs in two reservoirs, viz. Ampara and Jayanthi were at high compliance levels of Ostrom’s modified design principles, where fishers enjoyed increased mean annual income registering 2187 % in Ampara and 409 % in Jayanthi reservoirs after introduction of CBF. In Senanayake Samudra, where there was moderate compliance, there was 249 % increase in CBF income. However, the lowest increase of income (194 %) in Urusita reservoir was due to high annual fisheries income even during pre-CBF period. In Hambegamuwa reservoir, where levels of compliance of RFOs with design principles were relatively poor compared to other four fisher communities, increase of fishers’ CBF income, compared to that of pre-CBF period, was marginal (202 %). Economic gains of RFOs due to increased levels of compliance with design principles through improving leadership qualities and empowering fishers for management decision-making would, therefore, ensure sustainability of CBF.
Seed Coat Micromorphology Characteristics of Impatiens L. and Its Systematic Significance

The floral differences among Impatiens L. are so complicated that there are many difficulties in taxonomy of the genus. Seed coat micromorphology characteristics play an important role in providing critical information on systematics. In the present study,the seed coat micromorphology of 24 species of Impatiens from China were observed and compared by scanning electron microscopy(SEM). The results showed that seed coat ornamentation in this research could be ascribed into 2 types as reticulate (including fine reticulate,thick reticulate,areolate,carinate and striate subtype)and protrusive(including digitiform,clustered and squamalate subtype),in which thick reticulate subtype was described for the first time. And the variety appeared among the species such as the shape and depth of lumina,width of muri,shape of protrusions,and density of derivatives and so on,could be used to identify the species in Impatiens. The systematic and phylogenetic implications of seed coat micromorphology in Impatiens were discussed. And the possible evolutionary route of seed coat ornamentation was conjectured as well,which suggested that reticulate type was ancestral,others were derivative,and the micromorphological features of seeds could be crucial evidence to locate some species in Impatiens systematically in combine with pollen morphology,micromorphological characters of leaf epidermis and molecular data.
A Novel Clustering Algorithm Using K Harmonic Means and Improved Time Complexity

- Clustering algorithm is one of the most popular unsupervised learning algorithms in machine learning. K means clustering is one of the widely used clustering methods for various applications in data mining, image processing and computer vision. Many solutions have been offered to make the k-means clustering algorithm more efficient. This paper proposes an improved k-means clustering algorithm by initializing cluster seeds and improving the time complexity of the algorithm.