Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Technical Note: Medium-term morphodynamics in an unprotected sandy beach of the Adriatic Sea

Abstract. In the recent years attention has been paid to the beach protection by means of soft and hard defenses. Along the Italian coasts of the Adriatic Sea, sandy beaches are the most common landscapes and around 70 % of the Marche-Region coasts (central Adriatic), is protected by defense structures. The longest free-from-obstacle nearshore area in the Region includes the beach of Senigallia, characterized by a multiple barred beach, frequently monitored during the last decades. The bathymetries surveyed in 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 show a good adaptation of the beach to the Dean-type equilibrium profile, though a strong short-/medium-term variability of the wave climate has been observed during the monitored periods. This suggests a slight influence of wave forcing on the long-term profiles, which seems to only depend on the sediment size. Further, the medium-term dynamics of the submerged bars and their geometric features have been related to the wave climate collected by a wave buoy located 40 km off Senigallia during the analyzed temporal windows. An overall interpretation of the complete dynamics, i.e. hydrodynamics (buoy data), sediment characteristics (equilibrium-profile A parameter) and morphodynamics (bathymetric surveys), suggests that the wave climate is fundamental for the morphodynamic changes of the beach in the medium term: waves coming from NNE/ESE are characterized by a larger/smaller steepness and induce seaward/shoreward bar migration, as well as bar smoothing/steepening. Moving southward, the bar dimension increases, while the equilibrium profile suggests a decrease of the sediment size in the submerged beach, this probably due to the presence of both harbor jetty and river mouth North of the investigated area.
A Reinvestigation of Managerial Ties and Firm Performance in China's Transition Economy

This paper explores the paths between manager's two types of ties (business ties and political ties) and firm's two kinds of related performance (financial performance and innovative performance) through the mediating roles of organizational learning. Results show that these two kinds of ties have positive direct ef- fects on financial performance. But the two kinds of ties have different effects on innovative performance. Manager's business ties have positive effect on innovative performance. But, it has positive indirect effect on innovative effect through mediating role of organizational learning. Manager's political ties reduce the level of organizational learning and finally restrain firm's innovation, indicating that political ties harm firm's growth finally. Based on the results, these two kinds of managerial ties should be treated differently.
Can Diagenetic Processes Influence the Short Term Hydraulic Behaviour Evolution of a Fault

The scope of this work is to quantify the impact of calcite cementation on the hydraulic behaviour of an active fault in carbonate rocks. In the studied context, the permeability mainly depends on the fracture network. Therefore the hydraulic regime depends on the way fractures become sealed by vein deposits. The work is based on the study of cores and groundwater recovered from an active normal fault in the Gulf of Corinth, the Aigion fault, in the framework of the Corinth Rift Laboratory Project. The data set includes cores, borehole images, pumping tests and in situ fluid samples. The cores show numerous recent fractures partially, or completely, sealed by recent carbonate crystals. We modelled the fluid-rock interaction to quantify the growth rate of calcite in the veins of this specific geological context. Modelling was carried out with Diaphore, a software designed to study the diagenetic evolution of porosity in hydrocarbon reservoirs. The required time to seal a 1 mm thick fracture in the case of the Aigion fault at 760 m depth was calculated to be within the range of a few hundred years, considering the composition of water sampled at this depth. As a conclusion, diagenetic processes are likely to have a key influence on the fault hydraulic behaviour over the time scale of seismic cycles. However, the possibility of calcite growth strongly depends on the composition of the fluid. Tests were made with seawater and slightly higher values of pCO2 , a fluid that could also be present around the Aigion fault. In this case dissolution, and therefore opening of the fractures, happens.
Regime shifts in marine ecosystems of the North Sea and Wadden Sea

Wide-scale and sudden shifts in several biological and environmental systems of NW Europe have been reported in recent years, and attributed to a range of factors, both climatic and anthropogenic. To examine whether there is any evidence of coinciding region-wide environmental shifts, we gathered existing long-term data series on a wide range of physical and biological para- meters from the 1960s to the present and, following the methods of a similar recent study on North Pacific regime shifts, we analysed the data using principal component analysis and regime shift analysis to identify the extent and timing of regime shifts in NW Europe. The end-point of a regime (i.e. the year) was determined using a sliding window in regime shift analysis. Additionally we applied chronological clustering to the (1) combined data, (2) biological data and (3) environmental data. In all 3 cases, the same regimes were identified. Our results indicate that substantial regime shifts occurred in the marine ecosystem in 1979 and 1988 and perhaps also in 1998, although results were less clear-cut in the latter case. These regime shifts were most evident among the biological data series, but they appeared to have been triggered by earlier shifts in a number of environmental factors. Salinity and weather conditions played an important role in the 1979 shift, while in the 1988 shift, temperature and weather conditions were the predominant factors. Our results confirm those of the North Pacific study, with concomitant changes in physical and biological indices. This indicates a shift in climate-ocean interactions throughout the entire temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere.
Consumer Behavioral Intentions towards Mobile Payment Services: An Empirical Analysis in Pakistan

Purpose – This research aims to investigate the behavior of consumers towards the implementation of mobile payment services, factors that can affect their attitudes towards this behavior, and how these attitudes transform into intentions. Methodology – A survey instrument was developed using items developed in similar studies. In total, 335 usable responses were used to do a series of statistical tests aimed at confirming the reliability and validity of the instrument. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.Findings and Implications – Our results showed that perceived compatibility, perceived usefulness, and subjective norm are significant predictors of consumer attitude towards the use of mobile payment services, whereas the impact of perceived security and perceived ease on attitude is insignificant. Finally, attitude towards mobile payment services have a significant impact on intention to use mobile payment services. This research contributes to the development of the technology acceptance model (TAM) in general, as well as in the context of mobile payment services. It tests TAM’s explanatory ability and suggests new variables as model extensions. Limitations – The fact that the sample includes respondents from only one country (Pakistan) could be considered the main limitation of this study. A cross-cultural study would likely lead to important knowledge since cultural context has proved to be important in previous research on intentions. Also, the sample used here comprises mostly young and educated people. Originality – The present research study empirically tests the significance of newly suggested TAM extensions (subjective norm and perceived security) and provides a complete and tested measurement instrument as a basis for future research.
Tribological investigations of the piston assembly and linerof a gasoline engine

The automotive industry is being forced towards greater efficiency, increased engine power from smaller engines and lower environmental impact by both governmental legislation and public opinion. Oil drain intervals are increasing whilst emissions legislation limit the use of current wear protection and antioxidant additives containing elements such as phosphorus and sulphur. To address these demands and challenges an increased understanding of the link between lubricant degradation, its transport and residence time, and the effect on piston assembly tribology is required. The aim of the work reported in this paper was to further develop the understanding of the effect degraded lubricants have on piston assembly tribology. The small oil volumes and environmental conditions in the piston assembly make the affective lubrication and protection of components in this region one of the most challenging areas of tribology. This was carried out through an extensive experimental programme using a research engine, tribometer testing and chemical and rheological analysis of lubricant samples.
Water mass conditions during the past 11,000 years in the innermost part of the Kagoshima Bay, South Kyushu, Japan : evidence from the fossil shell assemblages, oxygen and carbon isotopic compositions

Quantitative analysis of fossil shell assemblage was carried out in Shinjima Island located in the innermost part of the Kagoshima Bay, South Kyushu, to confirm the change of mollusks’ habitat conditions. In addition, stable carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios of carbonate fossil shells were also measured to clarify the water-mass conditions of the Kagoshima Bay during the past 11,000 years. Both the fossil shell community and carbon isotopic ratios clearly indicate that the water-masses in the innermost part of the Kagoshima Bay were influenced strongly by the pelagic water, which replaced the fresh water mass initially present in the paleo-caldera lake. Thus, the pelagic water mass increased progressively, and became the maximum during the period between 6,000-2,300 yrs BP when the shell bed (Moeshima Shell Bed) was formed. The analysis of fossil shell assemblage and shell size distribution, however, indicates that the Neopycnodonte cochlear, the dominant species in the Moeshima Shell Bed, did not reproduce in the bay, but supplied as the planktonic larvae from the pelagic water mass. After that, it started that the influence of pelagic water-mass became to be weak at 2,300 yrs BP, when the supply of the larvae was stopped. As a result, the dominant pelagic species disappeared from the innermost part of the Kagoshima Bay, and consequently the shell community was replaced by the assemblage comprised of the inner bay species. Such a change in mollusks community appears to be depended on the time-series variation of the Kuroshio Current influence.
Emotion Recognition by Heart Rate Variability

Background: Emotion plays an important role when people face difficult social problems in their daily activities. This study explores the application of sensors and mobile technologies to detect and recognize school bullying. Many databases offer data for emotion recognition research. One of these is the Mahnob-HCI-Tagging database, which yields a baseline accuracy for emotion recognition based on EEG, eye gaze, and a combination of EEG and eye gaze. Because EEG and eye gaze are not suitable for emotion recognition in the mobile gadget environment, it is interesting to investigate other physiological signals individually, such as ECG, galvanic skin conductance (GSR), body temperature and respiration rate. Objective: This paper focussed on the ECG signal and, more specifically, on heart rate variability (HRV), derived from ECG, to identify certain standard features used in emotion recognition. Instead of using discrete emotions as labels, we transferred emotions, such as fear, anger, happiness and anxiety, to an arousal-valence space. Results:For arousal and valence based on HRV, the baselines are 47.69 and 42.55, respectively, while those for arousal and valence in all physiological signals were 46.2 and 45.5, respectively. The most challenging label in this experiment turned out to be #65533neutral#65533 in the valence scale, as the SVM classified all results as either #65533unpleasant#65533 or #65533pleasant#65533. Conclusion: This work provided a baseline for emotion recognition research based on ECG signals. It also encourages experimental trials using GSR, body temperature and respiration rate individually.
Growth, maturity and mortality of Upeneus sulphureus from Andhra-Orissa coast

The length weight relationship, relative condition factor, growth, maturity, mortality and exploitation ratio of Upeneus sulphureus (cuv.) from Andhra-Orissa coast were studied. Growth parameters estimated from von Bertilanfly's growth function were: La, 20.22 cm; K, 0.65846/year; and to, —0.284 years. The fish attained maturity at 131 mm and had a longevity of 4.56 years. The total mortality Z and the fishing mortality F wore estimated as 2.318/year and 0.826/year respectively. The exploitation ratio E at 0.356 indicated under-exploited state of the stock.
Pinning Lur’e Complex Networks via Output Feedback Control

Without requiring the full-state information of network nodes, this paper studies the pinning synchronization in a network of Lur’e dynamical systems based on the output feedback control strategy. Some simple pinning conditions are established for both undirected and directed Lur’e networks by using -matrix theory and -procedure technique. With the derived stability criteria, the pinning synchronization problem of large-scale Lur’e networks can be transformed to the test of a low-dimensional linear matrix inequality. Some remarks are further given to address the selection of pinned nodes and the design of pinning feedback gains. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis.
An Operational Technique for Estimating Visible Spectrum Contrast Transmittance.

Abstract : Simultaneous optical and meteorological measurements between ground level and 6 km gathered by the Visibility Laboratory in recent years in the United States and Europe with an instrumented aircraft have provided the basis for the development of a technique for estimating atmospheric path radiance and directional contrast transmittance. The technique is relatively fast and easy to apply yet is designed to take full advantage of the present capability to observe and predict the relevant atmospheric variables. Various modelling approximations are introduced to simplify the calculations of radiative transfer and to help specify the vertical distribution of atmospheric attenuation coefficient and the single scattering phase function. Critical examinations of the assumptions and approximations were made through reference to the extensive series of airborne meteorological/optical measurements. Model input parameters are the number of atmospheric layers selected and the average optical scattering ratio and single scattering albedo for each layer, the solar zenith angle, the extra-terrestrial solar irradiance, a representative wavelength and the surface reflectance. The computer code calculates the path radiance corresponding to any selected point and direction and the contrast transmittance for any slant atmospheric path. The changes in image transmittance characteristics that are associated with the natural variations in environmental physical parameters are examined through systematic application of the modelling techniques.
Exploiting Query’s Temporal Patterns for Query Autocompletion

Query autocompletion (QAC) is a common interactive feature of web search engines. It aims at assisting users to formulate queries and avoiding spelling mistakes by presenting them with a list of query completions as soon as they start typing in the search box. Existing QAC models mostly rank the query completions by their past popularity collected in the query logs. For some queries, their popularity exhibits relatively stable or periodic behavior while others may experience a sudden rise in their query popularity. Current time-sensitive QAC models focus on either periodicity or recency and are unable to respond swiftly to such sudden rise, resulting in a less optimal QAC performance. In this paper, we propose a hybrid QAC model that considers two temporal patterns of query’s popularity, that is, periodicity and burst trend. In detail, we first employ the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) to identify the periodicity of a query’s popularity, by which we forecast its future popularity. Then the burst trend of query’s popularity is detected and incorporated into the hybrid model with its cyclic behavior. Extensive experiments on a large, real-world query log dataset infer that modeling the temporal patterns of query popularity in the form of its periodicity and its burst trend can significantly improve the effectiveness of ranking query completions.
Cardiovascular risk factors in women with primary Sjögren ' s syndrome

Citation for published version (Harvard): Juarez, M, Toms, TE, De Pablo, P, Mitchell, S, Bowman, S, Nightingale, P, Price, EJ, Griffiths, B, Hunter, J, Gupta, M, Bombardieri, M, Sutcliffe, N, Pitzalis, C, Pease, C, Andrews, J, Emery, P, Regan, M, Giles, I, Isenberg, D, Moots, R, Collins, KS, Ng, WF & Kitas, GD 2014, 'Cardiovascular risk factors in women with primary Sjögren's syndrome: United Kingdom primary Sjögren's syndrome registry results' Arthritis Care & Research, vol. 66, no. 5, pp. 757-764. DOI: 10.1002/acr.22227
An Exploration into the Effectiveness of Prefetching on Program Performance with the Help of an Autotuning Model

This thesis presents the effects of hardware prefetching on the performance of a collection of programs and how learning algorithms can be used to predict the optimal hardware prefetching algorithms to obtain improved performance. Modern processors are equipped with several hardware prefetchers, each of which implements a different prefetching algorithm. My goal was to select the best combination of these prefetchers, as there is no single combination that results in best performance across various programs. Effective program characterization is necessary when learning models are used to make predictions based on program behavior. This thesis uses hardware performance events in conjunction with a pruning algorithm to create a concise and expressive feature set. The feature set is used in three different learning models. These steps are tied together in the form of an autotuning framework that can, on average, achieve up to 96% of the possible speedup that can be attained by varying the combination of prefetchers in effect. The framework is built using open source tools and frameworks, thereby making the framework easy to use, extend and port to other architectures.
2D MoSe2 Transistor with Polymer‐Brush/Channel Interface

Toward any practical applications of 2D transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) transistors, two issues are often met. First, threshold voltage (Vth) of usual TMD 2D field effect transistors (FETs) is located quite away from 0 V, making the device already on and less practical. Second, a large hysteresis exists during transistor operation. Here, hysteresis‐minimized n‐TMD FETs are fabricated using polymer‐brush/channel interface, to extend the 2D FET study to a sensor application. Gated by piezoelectric P(VDF‐TrFE) touch pad that allows dipole switching and instantaneous voltages of +5 and ‐5 V, n‐MoSe2 FET operates well in its ON/OFF drain current behavior, due to its properly small Vth of −5 V. However, n‐MoS2 FET with a relatively high Vth of more than −8 V cannot be suitably switched off. To minimize the gate hysteresis, ultrathin polystyrene‐brush layer is applied between TMD channel and 50 nm thin Al2O3 dielectric. n‐Channel MoS2 and MoSe2 FETs exhibit a minimum voltage hysteresis of 1 and 0.5 V, respectively. It is regarded that Vth and hysteresis issues are uneasy to resolve but still possible to circumvent by using proper TMD channel and channel/dielectric interface materials.
IN VITRO PRODUCTION OF BOVINE EMBRYOS : WE NEED TO STOP OR PROCEED - A REVIEW

Production of embryos in vitro (in vitro Fertilization technology) provides an excellent and cheap source of embryos for carrying out basic research on developmental physiology, farm animal breeding and for commercial application of the emerging biotechniques like cloning and transgenic livestock production. Embryos of high genetic quality can be obtained from oocytes collected from slaughtered house ovaries or from donors of high genetic quality by ultrasound guided follicular aspiration. Despite technological progress in the last two decades, the practical application of in fertilization technology (IVF) is still less than anticipated because of low efficiency and high cost. Recent data indicate high rate of meiotic maturation (> 85% in cattle, >80% in buffalo), fertilization (> 80% in cattle, >70% in buffalo) and cleavage (> 70% in cattle, >50% in buffalo) but low rates of blastocyst formation (~ 30% in cattle, ~25% in buffalo) and calf production (~10%) and some with severe anomalies. The efficiency of in vitroembryo production (IVP) in buffalo is much lower than in cattle. Substantial improvements in culture systems are needed and many physical, biochemical, molecular, immunological factors affecting the development of oocytes and embryos remain to be investigated before in vitroembryo production can be acceptable. The optimization of IVP of embryos and the analysis of the related problems are the major challenges to be addressed.
Efficient Modelling and Simulation of Reconfigurable Machine Tools Using Predefined Structural Modules

3 Abstract: Modelling and simulation are crucial techniques for the success of recon- figurable machine tools as manufacturing devices. This paper treats the effi- cient modelling and analysis of different machine configurations using en- capsulated submodels, called predefined structural module models. The focus of the presented research lies on the automated generation of the simulation model and on the reliability of the obtained results. The paper gives an over- view of the underlying modelling methodology. It describes the procedure for obtaining a machine model using predefined modules and for analysing it. The development of physical prototype modules is discussed. These are meant to allow the validation of the proposed reconfiguration procedure.
Student and Parental Perceptions of School-Based Body Mass Index Screening and Notification

To address the childhood obesity epidemic, school-based body mass index (BMI) screening and surveillance is proposed or mandated in 30 states. We examined parent and student perceptions of school-based measuring and reporting in an ethnically diverse school district in Madras, Oregon, USA. Four broad themes emerged from focus groups held separately with parents and students. Students generally expressed a neutral opinion of BMI measurement. Parents felt that they held primary responsibility for their child’s weight. Parents and students perceived BMI notification as important; however, BMI reporting did not widely serve as an impetus for physician involvement or self-reported behavior change. Perceived barriers to behavior change included the lack of a supportive environment, poor access to healthcare, cultural issues, lack of concern over childhood overweight or a minimizing of health risks associated with overweight and poor understanding of the BMI graph and accompanied reporting of health information. Notification letters had limited effectiveness in this community.