Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrated assessment and ValuatIon of ecosystem goods and serVIces proVIded by coastal systems

The goods and services provided by coastal systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the earth’s life support systems. They also contribute significantly to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent a significant portion of the total economic value of the global environment. Coastal systems including estuaries, coastal wetlands, river deltas and coastal shelves are particularly rich in ecosystem goods and services. They provide a wide range of highly valued resources including fisheries, open spaces, wildlife habitat, nutrient cycling, and recreational opportunities. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for the assessment and valuation of goods and services provided by coastal systems. First, we elucidate a formal system based on functional diversity for classifying and valuing coastal ecosystem services, emphasizing that no single ecological or economic methodology can capture the total value of these complex systems. Second, we demonstrate the process of ecosystem service valuation using a series of economic case studies and examples drawn from peer-reviewed literature. We conclude with observations on the future of coastal ecosystem service valuation and its potential role in the science and management of coastal zone resources. In: James G. Wilson (ed.) The Intertidal Ecosystem: The Value of Ireland’s Shores, 1–24. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. 2 The Intertidal Ecosystem
EXPLORING THE PROFILE OF SMARTPHONE USERS AND DETERMINING THE FACTORS AFFECTING THE SMART INTENSE USE ( SMI ) THROUGH THE TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL : A GREEK CASE STUDY FRONIMAKI EVGENIA UNIVERSITY OF THE AEGEAN bad 14009

Smartphones have become an integral and necessary part of everyday life since they first launched in the mobile industry. The advanced functionalities of a smartphone have changed the “traditional phone” to a machine with multiple services, making rural life easier and users always reachable. Smartphones offer to their users, apart from traditional services, such as phone calling and messaging, a window to the “cloud world”. Every user can check emails in real time, connect to social media, exchange files and participate in network meetings. The objective of this paper is to identify factors that influence consumers’ behaviours in terms of smartphone acceptance; then, based on these factors and on consumers’ demographic characteristics, the paper will identify various groups of users. Six groups of users were defined, including “enthusiastic”, “insecure”, “alternative”, sceptic”, “workaholic” and “main” users. Finally, as the development of technology is rapid, digital use seems to differ from the traditional use of technological devices; thus, this paper suggests a new dimension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), called “SMart Intense Use” (SMI)”, to describe the intensity of the use of the smart features of a device.
An epidemiologic survey of alcoholic liver disease in some cities of Liaoning Province

Objective To investigate the prevalence of alcoholic liver disease(ALD)in residents of Liaoning Province.Methods The survey included 18020 persons,and physical examination,hepatic ultrasonic scan and the detection of ALT,GGT,HBsAg,HCV were carried out in 6598 persons out of them.Results One thousand seven hundred and eight people(26.98%)had long-term alcohol habits;The rate of drinking alcohol in males was higher than in females(54.55% vs.5.46%),and their average weekly alcohol consumption was higher(223.27±258.88g/Wvs.114.12±199.85g/w,P=0.042);the average age of men was older than women(41.14±9.56 vs.36.48±10.21 yr,P=0.002);We found 450 cases with ALD in this series.Conclusions More than 1/4 persons have drinking alcohol habits in Liaoning Province.The incidence of ALD is 6.1%,and the incidence of AFL or mild liver damage,AH,and ALC are 4.29%,2.18% and 0.35%.
Comparing lagged linear methods for uncovering associations in EHR data

Time series analysis methods have been shown to reveal clinical and biological associations in data collected in the electronic health record. We wish to develop reliable high-throughput methods for identifying adverse drug effects that are easy to implement and produce readily interpretable results. To move toward this goal, we used univariate and multivariate lagged regression models to investigate associations between twenty pairs of drug orders and laboratory measurements. Multivariate lagged regression models exhibited higher sensitivity and specificity than univariate lagged regression in the 20 examples, and incorporating autoregressive terms for labs and drugs produced more robust signals in cases of known associations. Moreover, including inpatient admission terms in the model attenuated the signals for some cases of unlikely associations, suggesting that multivariate lagged regression models’ explicit handling of context-based variables provides a simple way to probe for health-care processes that confound analyses of EHR data.
Energy Localization in Periodic Structures: Application to Centrifugal Pendulum Vibration Absorber

In this paper we study the non-linear dynamic of centrifugal pendulum vibration absorbers (CPVA), and we pay a special a ention to localized state solutions. e prediction of such states of vibration, and their stability, is of particular importance because they can lead to inefficient behavior for the CPVA and/or unforeseen stress levels. Using an approximated equation for the pendulums dynamics, we derive initial conditions to put the system in localized states. Following an analytic study of the non-linear normal mode of the system, the resolution of the approximated equation is carried out in the frequency domain using the Harmonic Balance Method and the Asymptotic Numeric Method. For sufficiently low inertia ratio, we show that the system can possess stable localized states.
Design for Additive Manufacturing: Mapping of product functions

In this paper, authors present a new approach for supporting design process for additive manufacturing. The purpose of the method is to support structured process for the conceptual design phase and help designers utilise the unique possibilities of additive manufacturing with mapping of product functions and design principles through additive manufacturing ontology. The method is still in early research phase and therefore lacks a necessary computational framework. The paper presents the preliminary validation of the method through a case study.
Query expansion method using answer candidates and the effect of combining their results on Web question-answering

In order to improve the accuracy of Web question-answering (QA) for factoid questions, in this study, we examine the effect of a combination of several QA processes. We introduce a pseudo relevance feedback method in order to obtain different document sets. This feedback method is based on a query expansion technique using answer candidates obtained by the initial QA process. The expanded queries are used in the second QA process for retrieving other document sets. The final answer candidates of QA can be refined by combining the results of the second QA process. The experimental results show that the combination of QA results obtained by using expanded queries improves the accuracy of answer candidates.
Integrating corpora and dictionaries: problems and perspectives, with particular respect to the treatment of sign language

In this paper, we will discuss different possibilities for integration of corpus data with dictionary data, mainly seen from a lexicographic point of view and in a sign language context. For about 25 years a text corpus has been considered a useful, if not necessary tool for editing dictionaries of written and spoken languages. Corpora are equally useful to sign language lexicographers, but sign language corpora have not become accessible until recent years. Nowadays corpora exist, or are being developed, for several sign languages, and we have the possibility of editing new, truly corpus-based sign language dictionaries, and of developing interfaces that integrate corpus and dictionary data. After a brief look at three existing integrated interfaces, one for German, one for Danish, and one for Danish Sign Language, we point out some of the problems that should be considered when making an integrated interface, and, finally, we briefly outline the future perspectives of integrated sign language corpus-dictionary interfaces.
Aalborg Universitet Harmonics mitigation of dead time effects in PWM converters using a repetitive

In order to prevent the power switching devices (e.g., the Insulated-Gate-Bipolar-Transistor, IGBT) from shootthrough in voltage source converter during a switching period, a dead time is added either in the hardware drivers of the IGBTs or implemented in the software Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) scheme. Both methods will lead to a degradation of the injected current power quality. Thus, the harmonics induced by the dead time have to be compensated in order to achieve a satisfactory current as required by the standards. In this paper, a repetitive controller has been introduced to eliminate the dead-time effect in grid-connected PWM converters. The repetitive controller has been plugged into a proportional resonant based fundamental controller. Compared with the traditional dead-time compensation solutions, the repetitive controller can effectively compensate the dead-time harmonics as well as other low-order distortions, and also it is a simple method without hardware modifications. Experimental results are demonstrating the advantages of the proposed dead-time effect mitigation method compared to the resonant based harmonic compensator.
Alternatives of Implementing a Cluster File Systems

With the emergence of Storage Networking, distributed file systems that allow data sharing through shared disks will become vital. We refer to Cluster File Systems as a distributed file systems optimized for environments of clustered servers. The requirements such file systems is that they guarantee file systems consistency while allowing shared access from multiple nodes in a shared-disk environment. In this paper we evaluate three approaches for designing a cluster file system – conventional client/server distributed file systems,symmetric shared file systems and asymmetric shared file systems. These alternatives are considered by using our prototype cluster file system, HAMFS (Highly Available Multi-server File System). HAMFS is classified as an asymmetric shared file system. Its technologies are incorporated into our commercial cluster file system product named SafeFILE. SafeFILE offers a disk pooling facility that supports off-the-shelf disks, and balances file load across these disks automatically and dynamically. From our measurements, we identify the required disk capabilities, such as multi-node tag queuing. We also identify the advantages of an asymmetric shared file system over other alternatives.
An Energy-Efficient Proactive Routing Scheme for MANET : Game Theoretical Approach of Forwarding with Selfish Nodes

In Mobile Ad-hoc Networks, nodes exchange packets with each other using intermediate nodes as relays. Since nodes in MANETs are battery powered, energy conservation is a crucial issue. Accepting relay all request may not be in the best interest of a node. But if many nodes prefer not to consume energy in relaying packets on behalf of others, the overall performance of routing in network will be influenced. In this paper we address the energy-efficient routing problem in MANETs with selfish nodes. We modeled this problem as a game-theoretic constraint optimization; we defined the utility of each node as a weighted difference between a performance metric and some transmission costs. A motivate mechanism is proposed in order to induce nodes to forwarding cooperation. Each node independently implements the optimal equilibrium strategy under the given constraints. Simulation results by NS3 simulator show that our proposed approach can improve system performance in network lifetime and packet delivery ratio.
Vision based behavior recognition of laboratory animals for drug analysis and testing

VISION BASED BEHAVIOR RECOGNITION OF LABORATORY ANIMALS FOR DRUG ANALYSIS AND TESTING Selçuk Sandıkcı M.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering Supervisors: Prof. Dr. A. Bülent Özgüler and Assist. Prof. Dr. Pınar Duygulu Şahin August 2009 In pharmacological experiments, a popular method to discover the effects of psychotherapeutic drugs is to monitor behaviors of laboratory mice subjected to drugs by vision sensors. Such surveillance operations are currently performed by human observers for practical reasons. Automating behavior analysis of laboratory mice by vision-based methods saves both time and human labor. In this study, we focus on automated action recognition of laboratory mice from short video clips in which only one action is performed. A two-stage hierarchical recognition method is designed to address the problem. In the first stage, still actions such as sleeping are separated from other action classes based on the amount of the motion area. Remaining action classes are discriminated by the second stage for which we propose four alternative methods. In the first method, we project 3D action volume onto 2D images by encoding temporal variations of each pixel using discrete wavelet transform (DWT). Resulting images are modeled and classified by hidden Markov models in maximum likelihood sense. The second method transforms action recognition problem into a sequence matching problem
Dynamic Landslide Warning from Rainfall and Soil Suction Measurement

Landslides due to heavy rainfall are remarkably increased during the last decade. Past recordshows that Thailand had lost in average 15 lives and 105 mbaht annually. The method of prediction and warning can be efficiently analyzed by geotechnical engineering method. The soil sampling and testing of unsaturated characteristics such as SWCC, permeability function, Fredlund’s strength model etc. had to be carefully done. Infiltration model during the rain can be predicted and verified by the field observation. Prediction of stability and probability of failure on the target area was applied the GIS and database to obtain the real-time result and presentation on the map. The merit of the model is that when the rainfall data was input continuously to the model the potential landslide area can be shown almost real time after quick calculation. Triggered rain fall chart of 24 hrs triggered and 3 days pre-wetted rainfall can also pre-analyzed in advance for manually warning for specific area without computer system. The case study at Pathong Bay area, Phuket is given as the example for the prediction.
COMPUTATIONAL STUDY OF LEADING EDGE JET IMPINGEMENT COOLING WITH A CONICAL CONVERGING HOLE FOR BLADE COOLING

Leading edge of the gas turbine blades is subjected to highest temperature. Jet impingement cooling is an efficient technique for leading edge blade cooling. In this present study, a single baseline cylindrical hole and the proposed converging conical hole is numerically investigated for convective heat transfer using CFD code, STAR CCM+. The converging angle of the conical hole is 20°and the ratio of diameter is equal to two. The hole diameter is 2.15 cm and the study is carried out at Reynolds number ranging from 11000 to 50000 for a jet impinging length of R/2. The target surface is maintained at constant heat flux of 10000 W/m 2 . Steady-state simulations are performed using Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equation along with kω-SST turbulence model for closure. Based on the Nusselt number and temperature distribution, converging conical hole is observed to give a better heat transfer thereby cooling the blades effectively. Around 186 % increase in Nu and 13% decrease in surface temperature of the concave surface is observed at jet impingement point for Re = 23000.
Potential for calibration of geostationary meteorological satellite imagers using the Moon

Solar-band imagery from geostationary meteorological satellites has been utilized in a number of important applications in Earth Science that require radiometric calibration. Because these satellite systems typically lack on-board calibrators, various techniques have been employed to establish “ground truth”, including observations of stable ground sites and oceans, and cross-calibrating with coincident observations made by instruments with on-board calibration systems. The Moon appears regularly in the margins and corners of full-disk operational images of the Earth acquired by meteorological instruments with a rectangular field of regard, typically several times each month, which provides an excellent opportunity for radiometric calibration. The USGS RObotic Lunar Observatory (ROLO) project has developed the capability for on-orbit calibration using the Moon via a model for lunar spectral irradiance that accommodates the geometries of illumination and viewing by a spacecraft. The ROLO model has been used to determine on-orbit response characteristics for several NASA EOS instruments in low Earth orbit. Relative response trending with precision approaching 0.1% per year has been achieved for SeaWiFS as a result of the long time-series of lunar observations collected by that instrument. The method has a demonstrated capability for cross-calibration of different instruments that have viewed the Moon. The Moon appears skewed in high-resolution meteorological images, primarily due to satellite orbital motion during acquisition; however, the geometric correction for this is straightforward. By integrating the lunar disk image to an equivalent irradiance, and using knowledge of the sensor’s spectral response, a calibration can be developed through comparison against the ROLO lunar model. The inherent stability of the lunar surface means that lunar calibration can be applied to observations made at any time, including retroactively. Archived geostationary imager data that contains the Moon can be used to develop response histories for these instruments, regardless of their current operational status.
Consensus for Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Systems with Directed Network Topologies

Abstract In this paper, the consensus problem for heterogeneous multi-agent systems composed of first-order and second-order agents is investigated with directed network topologies. Based on a system transformation method, this consensus problem is turned into a consensus problem for homogeneous multi-agent systems. With certain assumption on the control parameters, firstly, necessary and sufficient condition for consensus is proposed with fixed topology. Secondly, sufficient condition is proposed for heterogeneous multi-agent systems to achieve consensus with switching topologies. Finally, simulation examples are presented to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical results.
Tree Methods

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Tree methods Jérôme Lelong, Antonino Zanette
Blended Learning , Computer-based , and Conventional Reading Instruction Affecting EFL Learners ' Self-regulation and Critical Thinking

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of the effect of instructional techniques (blended learning, jigsaw, and scaffolding) on Iranian EFL learners' selfregulation and critical thinking. To this end, 171 male and female intermediate-level Iranian EFL learners were selected based on cluster sampling. Initially, the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP) was administered to the participants to make sure that there were no significant differences among the participants in terms of their language proficiency level. The participants were in five groups; each group was randomly assigned to a different treatment condition. Two questionnaires were used twice in this study, at the beginning of the course as a pretest and at the end of the course as a posttest. The ANCOVA (Analysis of Covariance) procedure was used to analyze the obtained data. The results indicated that these techniques have more or less the same effect on learners' self-regulation both in conventional and computer-based contexts. It was also found that the conventional scaffolding technique is significantly more effective on critical thinking than the conventional jigsaw and the blended learning groups. However, in the computer-based context, blended learning turned out to be more effective on critical thinking than computer-based jigsaw, which was, in turn, significantly more effective than computer-based scaffolding. These findings may have pedagogical and theoretical implications for language learners, teachers, educational systems and policy makers.
A 2D Model of a Plasma Torch

Plasma torches are used in processing of materials and in energy industry for producing plasma. In this work we use the Equilibrium Discharge interface of COMSOL Multiphysics® 5.1 to model a 2D DC nontransferred arc plasma torch, under hypothesis of local thermodynamic equilibrium. The steady state equations of conservation of fluid mechanics, heat transfer and electromagnetics are implemented by using the multiphysics couplings options available in the software. The plasma is considered optically thin and a net emission coefficient is used for the heat transferred by radiation mechanisms. A laminar flow, with a free vortex at the inlet, has been simulated for an axisymmetric plasma torch with argon as working gas. Furthermore, a parametric study of the heat source term of the energy equation has been carried out in order to improve the convergence of the computational model. The numerical results of temperature and velocity patterns in the plasma torch compare well with results of other works carried out under similar assumptions.
Phytochemical screening and antioxidant properties of methanolic extract and different fractions of Crataegus azarolus leaves and flowers from Algeria

The aim of the present study is to investigate the antioxidant activities of crude methanolic extract and its different fractions obtained from Algerian Crataegus azarolus leaves and flowers using different tests such as DPPH (1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical), reducing power and β-carotene assays. Furthermore, a preliminary phytochemical screening was performed using standard protocols. Total phenolics and total flavonoïds contents of the extracts were measured by Folin Ciocalteu and Aluminium chloride methods respectively. The obtained results indicated that ethyl acetate fraction (EAF) showed the highest DPPH radical scavenging activity with an IC50 value of 9.72±0.102 μg/ml, followed by crude methanolic extract (CME) and diethyl ether fraction (DEF) with an IC50 value of 20.96±0.340 and 68.69±2.490 μg/ ml, respectively. However, the ethyl acetate fraction showed a good reducing power (EC50= 30.96±0.563 μg/ml) as compared to other fractions. In β-carotene/linoleic acid assay, the best inhibition was found in chloroform fraction (CHF) with an IC50 of 65.45±1.027 μg/ml. The phytochemical screening showed the presence of alkaloids, tannin, anthraquinones, steroids and triterpenes. Total phenolics varied from 2.83 mg to 111.96 GAE/g in each fraction. The ethyl acetate fraction contained the highest amount of flavonoïds (5.87±0.255 mg QE/g of fraction) compared to other fractions. As a conclusion, the results of the present study indicate that the aerial part extracts of Crataegus azarolus is a good source of natural antioxidant constituents.