Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of performance and microstructure of membrane-electrode-assembly in PEMFC

i Abstract In this study, a carbon-filled gas diffusion layer (CFGDL), and a novel selfhumidifying membrane electrode assembly (MEA) for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) were developed for improvement of the performance of PEMFC. The studies are included in detail as follows: 1. A new structural design of gas diffusion layer (GDL) CFGDL is made of electrical conductive macro-porous carbon paper filled with a mixture of conductive carbon powder and hydrophobic polymer (PTFE). The systematic study on the properties of CFGDLs and their electrodes with various physical analysis techniques and electrochemical characterizations were carried out in comparison with conventional one-layer GDL, dual-layer GDL, and gained an insight into the relationship between the electrode performance and GDL structure. 2. The effects of material composition in CFGDL on the microstructure and performance of CFGDL were studied. The experimental results showed that the carbon loading in the CFGDL plays a critical role in the electrode performance and Pt utilization, but the PTFE content in the CFGDL has lesser influence. 3. The effect of PTFE content on the mass transport in the CFGDL was studied. It was found that the PTFE content in CFGDL significantly affected the contact angle (hydrophobic property) and water uptake (immobile liquid saturation) of CFGDL. The analysis by a theoretical model developed for cathode flooding, in which the water saturation is incorporated, shows that the mass transport limitation of fuel cells at high current density is attributed to the water flooding when using CFGDL with a lower PTFE content. ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library
"In all areas, I cater to the majority": An Investigation of LGBT+ Provision in School Libraries from the Librarian's Perspective

This study looks at LGBT+ provision in school libraries from the perspectives of librarians, 15 years after Section 28 was abolished, a piece of legislation which limited promotion of homosexuality in local authorities in the UK. It aims to assess the awareness and knowledge of LGBT+ issues amongst school librarians, to explore LGBT+ provision in school libraries, librarian's self-perception of this provision and how proactive school librarians are on this topic. A thematic analysis of qualitative and quantitative data was implemented, collected using a survey. It found many factors impacting LGBT+ provision, from external sources and the librarians themselves. Sporadic improvement has been made in LGBT+ provision, but there is no consensus on what good practice looks like.
Thiol Reductases in Deinococcus Bacteria and Roles in Stress Tolerance

Deinococcus species possess remarkable tolerance to extreme environmental conditions that generate oxidative damage to macromolecules. Among enzymes fulfilling key functions in metabolism regulation and stress responses, thiol reductases (TRs) harbour catalytic cysteines modulating the redox status of Cys and Met in partner proteins. We present here a detailed description of Deinococcus TRs regarding gene occurrence, sequence features, and physiological functions that remain poorly characterised in this genus. Two NADPH-dependent thiol-based systems are present in Deinococcus. One involves thioredoxins, disulfide reductases providing electrons to protein partners involved notably in peroxide scavenging or in preserving protein redox status. The other is based on bacillithiol, a low-molecular-weight redox molecule, and bacilliredoxin, which together protect Cys residues against overoxidation. Deinococcus species possess various types of thiol peroxidases whose electron supply depends either on NADPH via thioredoxins or on NADH via lipoylated proteins. Recent data gained on deletion mutants confirmed the importance of TRs in Deinococcus tolerance to oxidative treatments, but additional investigations are needed to delineate the redox network in which they operate, and their precise physiological roles. The large palette of Deinococcus TR representatives very likely constitutes an asset for the maintenance of redox homeostasis in harsh stress conditions.
Divicine induces endothelial cells injury and its potential mechanism

Divicine is an active pyrimidine aglycone, generated from vicine by the enzyme β-glucosidase upon ingestion of fava beans. In this study, we investigated the effect of divicine on cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and explored the potential mechanisms. Incubation HUVECs with 18.5–85.1 μM divicine resulted in a concentration and time dependent decrease of cell viability, followed by decrease of cellular reduced glutathione, as well as increase of reactive oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde (MDA), and labile iron pool. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed that the divicine treated HUVECs’ mitochondria had shrunk. Importantly, the administration of desferrioxamine, an iron chelator, to the divicine treated HUVECs significantly reduced iron overload and cell death and decreased cellular ROS and MDA. These results demonstrated that divicine could cause damaging of endothelial cells, and ferroptosis might be involved in divicine induced HUVECs injury, reminding long term ingestion of fava beans might be harmful to vascular system, especially for those suffering from glucose 6phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency.
Experimental study on rotary triboelectric separation of low-rank coal macerals with surface modification

Abstract The enrichment of vitrinite can enhance the oil yield and conversion rate in low-rank coal liquefaction. The work evaluated the effects of surface modification on the rotary triboelectric separation of macerals. Permittivity and charge–mass ratio analysis of vitrinite and inertinite under various modified conditions demonstrated that kerosene and diesel were excellent modifiers since they keep the permittivity of macerals at a low level. The largest difference in triboelectric charge of vitrinite and inertinite was obtained when 3.0 kg/t kerosene was adopted as modifier. Rotary triboelectric separation of untreated low-rank coal indicated that the optimal separation, i.e., a vitrinite content of 65.45% and a recovery of 69.89%, was obtained at a feed rate of 1.5 g/s, a friction wheel speed of 3000 rpm, and a separation voltage of 30 kV. Under the optimum operating conditions, the optimal rotary triboelectric separation under surface modification, i.e., a vitrinite content of 69.78% and a recovery of 73.52%, was achieved when the coal was treated by 3.0 kg/t kerosene. The results demonstrated that surface modification significantly improved the rotary triboelectric separation by changing the surface electrical properties of macerals, while the excessive dosage of the modified reagent was unfavorable to achieving optimal separation.
Single pole switch leg based multi-port converter with an energy storage

This study presents a new multi-functional control system for a multi-port energy converter that interfaces one bi-directional battery port, one dc input port, and three output ports. Only one single-leg active switching element (a module type can be used) is employed in the system, and hence the single leg requires digital switching signals for a multi-functional operation to regulate output voltages and to simultaneously manage the battery port. The proposed system has buck-boost conversion capabilities to accommodate wide range, various input sources and output loads. In addition, the single leg requires no dead time due to an integrated impedance network, which will improve the system reliability and performance. Furthermore, the proposed structure can charge a battery even when the input and capacitor voltages are much lower than the battery voltage and hence it significantly improves charging behaviours. The proposed multi-functional control strategy and the converter structure are explained in detail. Then the feasibility and performance of the converter are verified both by computer simulations and experiments based on the Texas Instruments TMS320F28335 digital signal processor.
Voice Controlled Comparator Improvement Based on Resource Utilization in SoC Ecosystem for Parking Assist System

This paper introduces the voice controlled comparator improvement for maneuvering a miniature electric vehicle based on the resource utilization in the system-on-chip (SoC) ecosystem. An intelligent parking assist is to support the driver outside a car while parking in the crowded locations. Voice controlled improvement based on the resource utilization on the SoC ecosystem is modified to command for moving vehicle. The normalized cross correlation (NCC) technique is proposed for voice controlled system with low utilization on the SoC ecosystem. Hardware and software co-design by the Xilinx VIVADO and Vitis software are used to design on an ARM multicore processor and field programmable gate array (FPGA) system inside a ‘Zedboard’ development board. We perform the experiments for Thai command word recognition via Bluetooth using the proposed NCC method to identify the basic command stored on SD card in Zedboard. Empirical results show the voice controlled improvement based on the Pearson’s correlation coefficient (PCC), modified PCC and proposed NCC methods on a Zedboard. The resource utilization on Zedboard are less than as 17.57% in look-up table (LUT), 29.12% in look-up table random access memory (LUTRAM), 6.44% in flip-flop (FF) and 2.38% in input/output (I/O) as compared with a ZYBO system. An average execution time of Zedboard using proposed NCC method is less than PCC and modified PCC as 5.12%, 1%, respectively. Results of proposed NCC of Thai voice command controlled show the validate workability at average percentage accuracy at 90% in the outdoor environments.
Application of Box-Jenkins Method and Artificial Neural Network Procedure for Time Series Forecasting of Prices

Abstract Forecasting of prices of commodities, especially those of agricultural commodities, is very difficult because they are not only governed by demand and supply but also by so many other factors which are beyond control, such as weather vagaries, storage capacity, transportation, etc. In this paper time series models namely ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) methodology given by Box and Jenkins has been used for forecasting prices of Groundnut oil in Mumbai. This approach has been compared with ANN (Artificial Neural Network) methodology. The results showed that ANN performed better than the ARIMA models in forecasting the prices.
Notch Signaling and Cross-Talk in Hypoxia: A Candidate Pathway for High-Altitude Adaptation

Hypoxia triggers complex inter- and intracellular signals that regulate tissue oxygen (O2) homeostasis, adjusting convective O2 delivery and utilization (i.e., metabolism). Human populations have been exposed to high-altitude hypoxia for thousands of years and, in doing so, have undergone natural selection of multiple gene regions supporting adaptive traits. Some of the strongest selection signals identified in highland populations emanate from hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) pathway genes. The HIF pathway is a master regulator of the cellular hypoxic response, but it is not the only regulatory pathway under positive selection. For instance, regions linked to the highly conserved Notch signaling pathway are also top targets, and this pathway is likely to play essential roles that confer hypoxia tolerance. Here, we explored the importance of the Notch pathway in mediating the cellular hypoxic response. We assessed transcriptional regulation of the Notch pathway, including close cross-talk with HIF signaling, and its involvement in the mediation of angiogenesis, cellular metabolism, inflammation, and oxidative stress, relating these functions to generational hypoxia adaptation.
Single-hop vs. Multi-hop - Energy efficiency analysis in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks are networks of devices with restrained resources, used for environmental, military, automation and home applications. Radio transceiver is one of the biggest power consumer in sensor node, so it's usage need to be very efficient in order to maximize node's operational life. Node can route it's messages towards destination either by using small or large hops. Theoretical knowledge favours using of smaller hops, known as multi-hop, which is considered as more efficient then single-hop. This paper shows that single-hop transmission is more efficient, when power consumption of real wireless sensor node's transceivers are taken into account.
Generalized Point Set Registration With Fuzzy Correspondences Based on Variational Bayesian Inference

Point set registration (PSR) is an essential problem in surgical navigation and computer-assisted surgery (CAS). In CAS, PSR can be used to map the intraoperative surgical space with the preoperative volumetric image space. The performances of PSR in real-world surgical scenarios are sensitive to noise and outliers. This article proposes a novel point set registration approach where the additional features (i.e., the normal vectors) extracted from the point sets are utilized and the convergence of the algorithm is guaranteed from the theoretical perspective. More specifically, we formulate the PSR with normal vectors by generalizing the Bayesian coherent point drift (BCPD) into the 6-D scenario. The proposed algorithm is more accurate and robust to noise and outliers, and the theoretical convergence of the proposed approach is guaranteed. Our contributions of this article are summarized as follows. 1) The PSR problem with normal vectors is formally formulated through generalizing the BCPD approach. 2) The formulas for updating the parameters during the algorithm’s iterations are given in closed forms. 3) Extensive experiments have been done to verify the proposed approach and specifically its significant improvements over the BCPD has been validated.
Novel Damage Detection Techniques for Structural Health Monitoring Using a Hybrid Sensor

This study presents a technique for detecting fatigue cracks based on a hybrid sensor monitoring system consisting of a combination of intelligent coating monitoring (ICM) and piezoelectric transducer (PZT) sensors. An experimental procedure using this hybrid sensor system was designed to monitor the cracks generated by fatigue testing in plate structures. A probability of detection (POD) model that quantifies the reliability of damage detection for a specific sensor or the nondestructive testing (NDT) method was used to evaluate the weight factor for the ICM and PZT sensors. To estimate the uncertainty of model parameters in this study, the Bayesian method was employed. Realistic data from fatigue testing was used to validate the overall method, and the results show that the novel damage detection technique using a hybrid sensor can quantify fatigue cracks more accurately than results obtained by conventional sensor methods.
Determinants of economic efficiency: A case study of Rapa whelk (Rapana venosa) fisheries in the South Black Sea

The inevitable increase in the numerical and technological capacity of fishing fleets in developed and developing countries has major implications for the management and distribution of limited natural resource capacity, as well as the ecological and socio-economic sustainability of fisheries. It is important to determine these effects to make the right decisions in fisheries management. This study aims to assess the fishing capacity, technical efficiency, scale efficiency, and capacity use in a specific subset of Rapa whelk fishers, those in Turkey's Black Sea. Economically efficient and inefficient boats were also compared in the study. The data obtained through face-to-face interviews with 452 boat owners constitute the main data of the study. Data were collected about the economic efficiency of the boats for one year. While economic efficiency ranged between 0.27 and 1, the average value was found to be 0.60. It was concluded that the age of the owner, the education period, and the length of the fishing boat positively affected economic efficiency (p<0.05). In the boats studied, technical efficiency scores were greater than economic efficiency scores. This suggests that rather than technical information, fishers require information on selecting the optimum input combination at the data cost level.
On consistency of least squares algorithm for ARMAX time-delay models

Jointly identification of the sample delay and the parameters of time-delay discrete-time ARMAX models are addressed in this article. Like any identified problem, the proposed approach is based on the solution of an optimization problem. It consists then of two main steps: the first is the problem formulation and the second is the problem resolution. The problem formulation defines the criterion to be minimized according to an unknown parameter vector consisting of the sample delay and the parameters with their corresponding observation vector. Since the sample delay is of integer type, the obtained optimization problem cannot be efficiently solved using a real optimization algorithm. To overcome this difficulty, the rounding properties are used to transform the obtained problem into a real optimization problem. The solution is then done using the least square approach. Consistency of the estimates with their convergence rates is established under the persistent excitation condition. Finally, some numerical simulation and experimental results are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed method.
Challenges in tomato cultivation and marketing: a thematic analysis

This paper aims to identify the challenges in the cultivation and marketing of tomatoes and the marketing mechanisms for the surplus production of tomatoes. This paper uses in-depth interviews with twenty-eight farmers and nine agricultural officials in different parts of Jaffna district. Focus group discussion was conducted to explore themes; six sub-themes were identified under two broad themes. Climatic changes, Modern technology adaptation, price fluctuation, and institutionalized policy, product diversification, and systematic marketing mechanisms were the identified sub-themes in this research study. Different strategies to overcome the climatic changes should be developed. As observed, local level adaptation and farm management system should be adapted in tomato farming system. Creation of an economic center in the region is very useful in order to avoid price fluctuations and losses faced by the farmers. Government should make policies to put up a processing center which in turn will give many employment opportunities for the youths and tomato farmers in the region.
QPCTL regulates macrophage and monocyte abundance and inflammatory signatures in the tumor microenvironment

ABSTRACT The enzyme glutaminyl-peptide cyclotransferase-like protein (QPCTL) catalyzes the formation of pyroglutamate residues at the NH2-terminus of proteins, thereby influencing their biological properties. A number of studies have implicated QPCTL in the regulation of chemokine stability. Furthermore, QPCTL activity has recently been shown to be critical for the formation of the high-affinity SIRPα binding site of the CD47 “don’t-eat-me” protein. Based on the latter data, interference with QPCTL activity —and hence CD47 maturation—may be proposed as a means to promote anti-tumor immunity. However, the pleiotropic activity of QPCTL makes it difficult to predict the effects of QPCTL inhibition on the tumor microenvironment (TME). Using a syngeneic mouse melanoma model, we demonstrate that QPCTL deficiency alters the intra-tumoral monocyte-to-macrophage ratio, results in a profound increase in the presence of pro-inflammatory cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) relative to immunosuppressive TGF-β1-driven CAFs, and leads to an increased IFN and decreased TGF-β transcriptional response signature in tumor cells. Importantly, the functional relevance of the observed TME remodeling is demonstrated by the synergy between QPCTL deletion and anti PD-L1 therapy, sensitizing an otherwise refractory melanoma model to anti-checkpoint therapy. Collectively, these data provide support for the development of strategies to interfere with QPCTL activity as a means to promote tumor-specific immunity.
Visual SLAM algorithms and their application for AR, mapping, localization and wayfinding

Visual simultaneous localization and mapping (vSLAM) algorithms use device camera to estimate agent’s position and reconstruct structures in an unknown environment. As an essential part of augmented reality (AR) experience, vS-LAM enhances the real-world environment through the addition of virtual objects, based on localization (location) and environment structure (mapping). From both technical and historical perspectives, this paper categorizes and summarizes some of the most recent visual SLAM algorithms proposed in research communities, while also discussing their applications in augmented reality, mapping, navigation, and localization.
Learning Adaptive Node Embeddings Across Graphs

Recently, learning embeddings of nodes in graphs has attracted increasing research attention. There are two main kinds of graph embedding methods, i.e., transductive embedding methods and inductive embedding methods. The former focuses on directly optimizing the embedding vectors, and the latter tries to learn a mapping function for the given nodes and features. However, little work has focused on applying the learned model from one graph to another, which is a pervasive idea in Computer Vision or Natural Language Processing. Although some of the graph neural networks (GNNs) present a similar motivation, none of them considers both the structure bias and the feature bias between graphs. In this paper, we present a novel graph embedding problem called Adaptive Task (AT), and propose a unified framework for the adaptive task, which introduces two types of alignment to learn adaptive node embeddings across graphs. Then, based on the proposed framework, a novel Graph Adaptive Embedding network (GraphAE) is designed to address the adaptive task. Furthermore, we extend GraphAE to a multi-graph version to consider a more complex adaptive situation. The extensive experimental results demonstrate that our model significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art methods, and also show that our framework can make a great improvement over a number of existing GNNs.
Switching losses and harmonic investigations in multilevel inverters

Abstract Use of conventional two-level pulse width modulation (PWM) inverters provide less distorted current and voltage but at the cost of higher switching losses due to high switching frequencies. Multilevel inverters are emerging as a viable alternative for high power, medium voltage applications. This paper compares total harmonic distortion and switching losses in conventional two-level inverters with multilevel inverters (three-level and five-level) at different switching frequencies. An optimized switching frequency has been obtained for a lower level of total harmonic distortion and switching losses. Diode-clamped, three-phase topology is considered for study. A sinusoidal PWM technique is used to control the switches of the inverter. Simulation study confirms the reduction in harmonic distortion and switching losses as the number of the levels increases.