Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plate tests for the measurement of modulus and bearing capacity of gravels

Because they are difficult to sample and test in the laboratory, gravels are best tested in situ. Plate bearing tests are widely used to measure the modulus of soils and weak rocks and are also suitable for gravels. Equipment and test procedures have been developed to allow the rapid testing of gravels. The widespread use of trialholes and test pits for foundation investigations in Southern Africa provides the opportunity to perform these tests on a routine basis. The results of 175 plate bearing tests in gravels are analysed in this paper. The soil modulus has been determined from each test using both a simplified elastic analysis and a rectangular hyperbola method. Relationships are presented between modulus and observed consistency and also plate bearing capacity and consistency. As gevolg van hulle aard is dit die beste om die ingenieurseienskappe van gruis deur middel van in situ toetse te bepaal. Plaatdruktoetse word algemeen gebruik om die modulus van grond en rots te bepaal en is ook geskik vir gebruik in gruis. Apparaat en toetsmetodes is ontwikkel vir die vinnige toets van gruise. Die algemene gebruik van toetsgate en putte vir fondamentondersoeke in Suid-Afrika maak dit moontlik om hierdie toetse op 'n roetine basis uit te voer. Resultate van 175 plaatdruktoetse is geanaliseer. Moduluswaardes vir elke toets is bepaal deur gebruik te maak van 'n vereenvoudigde elastiese metode en van die reghoekige hiperbool metode. Die verband tussen modulus en plaatdravermoe teenoor die digtheid van die gruis word aangetoon.
Listeria monocytogenes in Dairy Products of the Middle East Region: A Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Meta-Regression Study

Background: The contamination of food products by Listeria monocytogenes as a pathogen bacterium, threatening public health and raised a global concern for a long time. Dairy and meat products and ready-to-eat foods are recognized as the most common carriers for L. monocytogenes. Methods: The related reports of the prevalence of L. monocytogenes in dairy products in Middle East countries from 2009 to 2020 were screened through some of the international databases such as Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar. While a random effect model was applied to estimate pooled or overall prevalence, 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were used. Results: Results showed severe heterogeneity (84.2%) in studies and estimated the overall prevalence of L. monocytogenes dairy food products from the Middle East region of 3.5% (CI: 2.2–5). The highest and lowest prevalence was associated with Jordan (17.6% CI: 9.8–26.9) and Iraq (1.6% CI: 0.3–3.7), respectively. Based on the type of product, the highest and lowest prevalence of L. monocytogenes was recognized for raw cow milk (5.8% CI: 2.7–9.7) and pasteurized cow milk (1.1% CI: 0–8), respectively. Conclusion: There is no justification for severe heterogeneity (I2) of subgroups as prevalence is heterogenic innately, but Jordan and row cow milk subgroups were found to have a considerable effect on overall pooled prevalence. Thus, they were the reason for prevalence changes.
Springtime phytoplankton responses to light and iron availability along the western Antarctic Peninsula

Light and iron availability are intertwined in controlling Southern Ocean primary production because several photosynthetic proteins require iron. Changes in light and iron availability can also affect phytoplankton species composition, which impacts nutrient cycling, carbon drawdown, and food web structure. To investigate the interactive effects of light and iron on phytoplankton growth, photosynthesis, photoacclimation strategy, micronutrient stress‐induced protein expression, and species composition, we conducted five bioassay experiments during spring in waters along the western Antarctic Peninsula with four treatments: low light (LL) or high light (HL) combined with or without iron addition. This region has rarely been studied in spring. We found that light limits growth while iron does not, despite overall low iron concentrations. Our results demonstrate that phytoplankton were LL acclimated in situ but photosynthetically optimized for higher light than they were experiencing, likely due to a highly dynamic light regime. Expression patterns of micronutrient stress‐induced proteins were consistent with iron stress in off‐shelf regions, but remarkably this iron stress did not result in lower carbon fixation and growth rates. Notably, manganese drawdown was highest under elevated light, suggesting a possible role in managing HL, although high flavodoxin expression indicated that Phaeocystis antarctica may not have been manganese‐limited. Although light and iron treatments did not impact species composition, high methionine synthase indicated that diatoms could have experienced stress induced by low vitamin B12, potentially contributing to P. antarctica's general dominance throughout the experiments. Our results indicate that P. antarctica may be better adapted to spring conditions than diatoms.
Work Motivation: The Roles of Individual Needs and Social Conditions

Work motivation plays a vital role in the development of organizations, as it increases employee productivity and effectiveness. To expand insights into individuals’ work motivation, the authors investigated the influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on their work motivation. Additionally, the country-level moderating factors of those individual-level associations were examined. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to analyze data from 32,614 individuals from 25 countries, obtained from the World Values Survey (WVS). Findings showed that autonomy and social relatedness positively impacted work motivation, while competence negatively influenced work motivation. Moreover, the individual-level associations were moderated by the country-level religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism. Contributions, practical implications, and directions for further research were then discussed.
Fishery Status and Rebuilding of Major Economic Fishes in the Largest Freshwater Lake in China Based on Limited Data

Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, possesses abundant fishery resources, but its fish stock status is still unclear. In this work, the stock status of and fishing efforts of nine major economic fishes in the Poyang Lake were estimated from 2000 to 2019 with a catch-based maximum sustainable yield (CMSY) model based on catch and resilience data. It was further predicted whether the biomass of those fishes could be restored to support maximum sustainable yield (Bmsy) under the policy of “Ten years fishing moratorium in the Yangtze River”. The results showed that goldfish Carassius auratus, grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idella, and black carp Mylopharyngodon piceus suffered from higher fishing efforts and low biomass in the past 20 years; bighead carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis, yellow catfish Tachysurus fulvidraco, and common carp Cyprinus carpio responded differently to their fishing efforts; silver carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, Amur catfish Silurus asotus, and mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi were underexploited. Six species were overfished in 2019, and their biomass would be expected to recover for sustainable exploitation during the fishing moratorium, except for M. piceus. This study provided a case study of feasible freshwater fishery evaluation in limnetic ecosystems.
Adaptive Rejection Sampling for Gibbs Sampling

SUMMARY We propose a method for rejection sampling from any univariate log-concave probability density function. The method is adaptive: as sampling proceeds, the rejection envelope and the squeezing function converge to the density function. The rejection envelope and squeezing function are piecewise exponential functions, the rejection envelope touching the density at previously sampled points, and the squeezing function forming arcs between those points of contact. The technique is intended for situations where evaluation of the density is computationally expensive, in particular for applications of Gibbs sampling to Bayesian models with non-conjugacy. We apply the technique to a Gibbs sampling analysis of monoclonal antibody reactivity.
A Benchmarking System for the SAMBA/CIFS Protocol

This project focuses on how to benchmark a SMB/CIFS storage with trace and replay methodology. Traces are used primarily by file system researchers in an attempt to understand, categorize, and generalize file system workloads. However, because such traces provide a detailed information about how a specific system is actually used, they should also be of interest to system administrators. The goal of this thesis is to produce a trace-driven synthetic workload and show that it is similar with the original workload for all practical purposes. This has been achieved by examining properties of the original workload such as the inter-arrival time and request length. Upon examination of the original workload, it is shown that our system regenerate a synthetic workload with the same properties. The synthetic workload is also been used on several SAMBA/CIFS servers with different hardwares, the variety of the results show the system can be used to benchmark the performance of a system.
Waveform and Spectral Characteristics of Supraharmonic Unsymmetrical Conducted EMI of Switched-Mode Power Supplies

Switched-mode power supplies (SMPSs) are a relevant and widespread source of unsymmetrical conducted emissions, as they feed various electrical appliances and information technology equipment in office and residential contexts and, despite their low power rating, the limits are the same as those of larger equipment. Given the peculiar emission waveform (mixing impulsive components and switching components), assessment should be carried out with care to select parameters that guarantee both the detection of the maximum level of emissions and a high level of repeatability and reproducibility. A range of cases based on six different SMPS products was considered, exploring both time- and frequency-domain characteristics, and identifying the most relevant phenomena and advisable parameters choices. Typical behavior and suitable settings were exemplified with a range of measured emission records: the Fourier time window length and EMI receiver dwell time were considered, as well as the relevance of loading conditions to include in a comprehensive test program. Such records were made available in a linked dataset to allow for replication of the experiments and foster further findings and discussion.
Polarization Control of Quantum‐Dot Spin‐VCSELs

Quantum‐dot spin vertical‐cavity surface‐emitting lasers (VCSELs) are a relatively new addition to the spin‐VCSELs literature. The quantum‐dot active region, apart from the usual advantages carried by the quantum confinement in all three directions, offers additional degrees of freedom for the manipulation of the polarization of the emitted light. In, the present contribution, a detailed analysis on the key parameter optimization of optically pumped quantum‐dot spin‐VCSELs is presented. The influence of the spin polarization of the carriers on the polarization control is investigated over a large range of birefringence rate and spin‐relaxation rate values. Precise polarization control is shown in the results, as represented on maps in the plane of pump ellipticity versus birefringence rate. The trajectories on Poincaré sphere reveal a rich polarization behavior ranging from spin amplification to polarization chaos.
Identification of Carotenoids in Hairless Canary Seed and the Effect of Baking on Their Composition in Bread and Muffin Products

Carotenoids are essential components in the human diet due to their positive functions in ocular and cognitive health. This study investigated composition of carotenoids in hairless canary seed (HCS) as a novel food and the effect of baking on carotenoids in bread and muffin made from HCS, wheat and corn. Three bread formulations made from wheat and HCS blends were evaluated and compared with control wheat bread. In addition, three low-fat muffin recipes prepared from HCS alone or in blends with corn were assessed. The fate of carotenoid compounds in breads and muffins was monitored after dry mixing, dough/batter formation and oven baking. Carotenoids in products were quantified using UPLC and their identification was confirmed based on LC-MS/MS. Hairless canary seed and corn were fairly rich in carotenoids with a total content of 7.6 and 12.9 µg/g, respectively, compared with wheat (1.3 µg/g). Nineteen carotenoid compounds were identified, with all-trans lutein being the principal carotenoid in HCS followed by lutein 3-O-linoleate, lutein 3-O-oleate and lutein di-linoleate. There were significant reductions in carotenoids in muffin and bread products. It appears that batter or dough preparation causes more reductions in carotenoids than oven baking, probably due to enzymatic oxidation and degradation. Muffin-making resulted in lower lutein reductions compared with the bread-making process. The results suggest that muffins made from hairless canary seed alone or in blends with corn could boost the daily intake of lutein and/or zeaxanthin.
Transcatheter mitral valve repair in patient with atrial functional mitral regurgitation using novel DragonFly™ device

We report the first case of transcatheter mitral valve repair with the novel DragonFly™ device, a transcatheter edge‐to‐edge mitral regurgitation (MR) repair device, in a patient with severe, symptomatic MR due to annular dilation from atrial functional disease (Carpentier type I). The patient had experienced multiple heart failure events and was unsuitable for surgery due to pulmonary dysfunction and obesity.
Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment Program: Impact of program participation on re-offending by defendants with a drug use problem, The

This bulletin reports on the evaluation of re-offending outcomes for the Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment (MERIT) drug diversion program. MERIT provides defendants in NSW Local Courts with the option of undertaking formal drug treatment while on bail. Re-offending outcomes for a cohort of 2,396 defendants who participated in the MERIT program were compared with a comparison group of defendants who did not participate in the MERIT program but who broadly met the eligibility criteria. To estimate the impact of the program we used a treatment effects model with correction for selection bias. Acceptance into the MERIT program, regardless of completion, was found to significantly reduce the number of defendants committing any theft re-offence by an estimated four percentage points. Acceptance and completion of the MERIT program significantly reduced the number of defendants committing any type of offence by an estimated 12 percentage points, and any theft re-offence by four percentage points. This evaluation provides strong support that participation in the MERIT program reduces defendants' propensity to commit theft offences and, for those who complete the program, substantially reduces their propensity to commit any type of re-offence.
On Combining Domain Modeling and Organizational Modeling for Developing Adaptive Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-physical Systems (CPS) integrate physical and computational entities into coherent Systems of Systems. Since CPS are typically both socio-technical and embedded in a physical environment, these systems require adaptive properties, e.g. in order to respond to environmental changes. The integration of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) in industrial and CPS is an active research topic. In this paper, we outline our work in progress on utilizing, combining and supplementing established modeling approaches, i.e. domain specific (reference) architecture models and organizational MAS models for the development of decentralized, adaptive CPS.
Application of LSPR-based optical biosensors

Optical biosensors based on localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) have a wide range of applications. They can be used in chemical analysis, such as for quantitative analysis of environmentally hazardous substances. Moreover, the LSPRbased optical biosensing platform is of great significance for the elaboration of optical sensors. Because it is compared with the traditional SPR optical biosensor, on the one hand, the biosensor required by LSPR is faster, more convenient. It can save economic costs to a certain extent. On the other hand, it retains the advantages of traditional SPR biosensors. For example, it is still sensitive to the vibration of the particles, and no complex labeling is required. This paper will focus on applying the LSPR-based optical biosensors in environmental monitoring, biomolecular detection, and the biomedical field. Specifically, the acceptance of the biomedical field not only focuses on the kinds of disease in the body, but also includes the introduction of the accurate detection of the molecular concentration of disease marker.
Preparation of sulfided hydrodesulfurization catalysts usingsynthesized MoS42- solution as precursor

As the quality of crude oil deteriorates and environmental regulations become increasingly stringent, the production of clean oil with ultra-low sulfur content is becoming increasingly urgent. At present, HDS is the most extensive technology for producing clean fuel oil. In this paper, MoS42- solution was successfully synthesized and used as precursor to prepare new sulfided NiMo/Al2O3 hydrodesulfurization (HDS) catalysts. The catalyst was characterized by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and assessed using the typical refractory 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DMDBT) as the model reactant. Results show that, compared with the conventional oxidized catalysts, the sulfided catalyst not only exhibits much higher sulfidation degree of Mo species, but also holds shorter and more suitable MoS2 stacks, resulting in better HDS activity.
Building a Reusable Data Model to Support Systematic Layout Planning with Discrete Event Simulation of Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Manufacturing has undergone a greater change in recent years than it has over almost the entire past century. Due to the variety of products, shortening delivery times and changing customer habits, the COVID-19 pandemic has demanded greater flexibility from manufacturing companies than ever before. One of the fundamental parts of manufacturing flexibility is the design of manufacturing layouts, which has so far not followed automation and methodological developments with regard to technological areas of manufacturing. In this article, a new method for supporting traditional factory design methods with digital manufacturing tools is introduced.
Coordination Mechanisms with Misinformation

: We introduce a novel approach for coordination mechanisms in games, based on the idea of misinforming players about the game formulation in order to steer them towards a behaviour that leads to an improved outcome in terms of social welfare. As a use case, we study single-commodity non-atomic congestion games with parallel links and affine cost functions. We propose a simple mechanism that provides to the players the right incentives to adopt a socially optimal behaviour by misinforming them with regards to the latency functions of the links, under various assumptions. We use a metric called the Price of Misinformation to quantify the effect of misinformation on social welfare (compared to the optimum of the actual game), and show that our mechanism can minimise this metric, resulting in values that are better than the Price of Anarchy (i.e., the social outcome without any intervention from the designer).
Optimal 1-Request Insertion for the Pickup and Delivery Problem with Transfers and Time Horizon

In this paper, we deal with a subproblem of the Pickup and Delivery Problem with Transfers (PDPT) where a finite set of transportation requests has been assigned to a homogeneous fleet of limited capacity vehicles, while satisfying some constraints imposed by a set of pre-scheduled tours. Then, a new transportation request appears, and we also have to serve it. For that, we can modify the current tours by performing a finite sequence of changes allowing to pick up, transport, transfer or deliver this new request. The resulting tours must serve all the requests and satisfy the original constraints, but within a given time horizon. To solve this problem, we present an empirical Dijkstra algorithm that computes tentative solutions whose consistence is checked through constraint propagation, and an exact algorithm which is an adaptation of the well-known A* algorithm for robot planning, that performs an exhaustive search in a tree of partial solutions and reduces the combinatorial explosion by pruning some unfeasible/redundant tree nodes. We conclude by comparing the performance of both algorithms.
Psychological Distancing Usage Uniquely Predicts Reduced Perceived Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has presented millions of people with extraordinary challenges that are associated with significant amounts of stress. Emotion regulation is crucial during this crisis as people seek to mitigate the stress and uncertainty of the present moment. In this study, we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 297 adults from the United States on their levels of perceived stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as their level of engagement of different emotion regulation strategies during the pandemic. We performed multiple linear regression analyses to assess which regulation strategies were associated with individual differences in perceived stress. Among all emotion regulation strategies, psychological distancing, which involves thinking about stressful circumstances in an objective, impartial way, was uniquely associated with reductions in perceived stress due to COVID-19 across individuals. This effect was not moderated by age, gender, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, or trait-related difficulty in regulating emotion. Conversely, situation modification was associated with significantly greater perceived stress overall. These results suggest the broad applicability and utility of psychological distancing during pandemic-related social distancing as part of an adaptive emotion regulation toolkit and motivate the investigation of interventions involving psychological distancing in this context.
Distributed scatterer interferometry for forested and hilly areas using a topographical homogeneous filtering

ABSTRACT The application of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) has been challenged over hilly and vegetated regions due to significant phase decorrelation. The spatiotemporal filtering techniques can partially overcome this, whereas the so-called ‘homogeneous pixels’ are selected based on the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) datasets and the computation is not satisfactorily efficient. In this letter, we propose the idea of interferogram homogeneous filtering relying on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) derived topography features, instead of using amplitude or phase from the SAR images. The method exploits terrain slope and aspect to cluster topographically homogeneous pixels (THPs) and uses a coherence weighted phase-link (WPL) algorithm to reconstruct pixel phase histories. We compare the proposed method with two representative strategies, i.e., the amplitude statistically homogeneous pixels (SHPs) and the similar time-series interferometric phase pixels (STIPs). Results are given using L-band ALOS-1 data covering the forested Island of Lantau, Hong Kong. It is demonstrated that the LiDAR-derived THP has substantially decreased the computation load whereas the coherence of phase and the InSAR parameter estimation have been improved.