Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Situation of Local Government Units as a Determinant of the Standards of Living for the Polish Population

In this paper, the author intends to show the interaction between the living standards of the population and the financial situation of Polish local government units at the commune level. The first (theoretical) part of the paper provides a synthetic description of topics related to defining the economic terms and to the local government’s ability to impact the standards of living of the local population. In view of the multifaceted nature of terms covered by this analysis, the second part uses a canonical analysis (which means multiple linear regressions are generalized for two sets of variables) in order to identify the relationships between them. The analysis resulted in identifying a number of indicators, including canonical correlations, total redundancy and variances extracted, as well as six statistically significant canonical variates, which enabled the identification of multidimensional relationships between the categories considered. The greatest and the most statistically significant canonical correlation coefficient was over 0.93; for the last statistically significant canonical variate, it was over 0.57. The analysis provides grounds for concluding that when the values of variables representing the financial capacity of Polish rural communes are known, they can be used to explain over 32% of the variance in the set of variables relating to the population’s standards of living. The statistical data originated from the author’s own surveys carried out with presidents and vice-presidents of commune councils.
Comparison of Vibrational Spectroscopic Techniques for Quantification of Water in Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents

Vibrational spectroscopic techniques, i.e., attenuated total reflectance infrared (ATR-IR), near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and Raman spectroscopy (RS), coupled with Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR), were evaluated as cost-effective label-free and reagent-free tools to monitor water content in Levulinic Acid/L-Proline (LALP) (2:1, mol/mol) Natural Deep Eutectic Solvent (NADES). ATR-IR delivered the best outcome of Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of Cross-Validation (CV) = 0.27% added water concentration, RMSE of Prediction (P) = 0.27% added water concentration and mean % relative error = 2.59%. Two NIRS instruments (benchtop and handheld) were also compared during the study, respectively yielding RMSECV = 0.35% added water concentration, RMSEP = 0.56% added water concentration and mean % relative error = 5.13% added water concentration, and RMECV = 0.36% added water concentration, RMSEP = 0.68% added water concentration and mean % relative error = 6.23%. RS analysis performed in quartz cuvettes enabled accurate water quantification with RMECV = 0.43% added water concentration, RMSEP = 0.67% added water concentration and mean % relative error = 6.75%. While the vibrational spectroscopic techniques studied have shown high performance in relation to reliable determination of water concentration, their accuracy is most likely related to their sensitivity to detect the LALP compounds in the NADES. For instance, whereas ATR-IR spectra display strong features from water, Levulinic Acid and L-Proline that contribute to the PLSR predictive models constructed, NIRS and RS spectra are respectively dominated by either water or LALP compounds, representing partial molecular information and moderate accuracy compared to ATR-IR. However, while ATR-IR instruments are common in chemistry and physics laboratories, making the technique readily transferable to water quantification in NADES, Raman spectroscopy offers promising potential for future development for in situ, sample withdrawal-free analysis for high throughput and online monitoring.
Calabi-Yau manifolds from noncommutative Hermitian U(1) instantons

We show that Calabi-Yau manifolds are emergent from the commutative limit of six-dimensional noncommutative Hermitian $U(1)$ instantons. Therefore, we argue that the noncommutative Hermitian $U(1)$ instantons correspond to quantized Calabi-Yau manifolds.
Two Cases of Thymic Cancer in Patients with Lynch Syndrome

We herein report two cases of thymic cancer with Lynch syndrome showing a high frequency of microsatellite instability and loss of mismatch repair protein expression without MLH1 promoter hyper-methylation. In Case 1, a 71-year-old man had a pathogenic germline variant in MLH1 and underwent tumor resection. No relapse has been reported thus far. In Case 2, a 43-year-old man underwent genetic testing that also showed a pathogenic germline variant in MLH1. Since these two cases had MLH variants, we suspect a possible association between thymic cancer with Lynch syndrome and germline pathogenic variants in MLH1.
Additive Wax-Up and Diagnostic Mockup As Driving Tools for Minimally Invasive Veneer Preparations

This report describes the importance of and outlines steps for additive wax-up and diagnostic mockup for anterior teeth as diagnostic and driving tools for non-prep and minimally invasive veneer preparations. A 35-year-old male presented to the clinic with the chief complaint of spaces between his front teeth. Diagnostic additive wax-up provided the possibility of offering minimally invasive preparations, and the use of a diagnostic intraoral mockup fulfilled the patient’s esthetic demands for treatment approval. Veneer preparations over the diagnostic mockup were provided as they are minimally invasive. Ceramic veneers were hand-crafted following the previous diagnostic wax-up, and restorations were bonded under rubber dam isolation. Overall, additive wax-up provides information needed to know if minimally invasive veneer preparations are possible, and the diagnostic mockup displays a physical, tentative outcome for the patient’s evaluation before irreversible tooth preparations. These simple, but effective, techniques can drive the diagnosis and prognosis of minimally invasive veneer restorations.
Extrusion Printed Silk Fibroin Scaffolds with Post-mineralized Calcium Phosphate as a Bone Structural Material

Artificial bone materials are of high demand due to the frequent occurrence of bone damage from trauma, disease, and ageing. Three-dimensional (3D) printing can tailor-make structures and implants based on biomaterial inks, rendering personalized bone medicine possible. Herein, we extrusion-printed 3D silk fibroin (SF) scaffolds using mixed inks from SF and sodium alginate (SA), and post-mineralized various calcium phosphates to make hybrid SF scaffolds. The effects of printing conditions and mineralization conditions on the mechanical properties of SF scaffolds were investigated. The SF scaffolds from ~10 wt% SF ink exhibited a compressive modulus of 240 kPa, which was elevated to ~1600 kPa after mineralization, showing a significant reinforcement effect. Importantly, the mineralized SF 3D scaffolds exhibited excellent MC3T3-E1 cell viability and promoted osteogenesis. The work demonstrates a convenient strategy to fabricate SF-based hybrid 3D scaffolds with bone-mimetic components and desirable mechanical properties for bone tissue engineering.
Blind NCS-Based Autofocus for Airborne Wide-Beam SAR Imaging

The improvement in azimuth resolution and/or the increase in the instantaneous beam width can result in a wide-beam autofocus problem in airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Because of the assumption of central-beam approximation, the typical two-step motion compensation (MoCo) method and its extensions are unsuitable for the autofocus of wide-beam SAR imaging. In addition, existing MoCo algorithms for airborne wide-beam SAR imaging require high-precision inertial navigation data. To address these problems, we propose a wide-beam autofocus algorithm based on a blind nonlinear chirp scaling. First, based on the two-step MoCo method, the wide-beam autofocus in this study was modeled as a multiparameter optimization problem for an optimal overall imagery quality. Subsequently, we combine the well-known parametric and nonparametric methods in the SAR autofocus community to convert the multidimensional optimization problem into a two-dimensional optimization problem. Furthermore, we observe that this two-dimensional optimization problem can be further converted into two one-dimensional optimization problems, which can significantly increase the efficiency and robustness of autofocus processing. In addition, the proposed method is a full-aperture algorithm for wide-beam SAR autofocus, which can avoid the problems of image stitching and phase discontinuity compared with well-known subaperture autofocus algorithms (e.g., SATA, PTA, and FD). The processing results of the simulated and measured data verified the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Interdecadal Variability of Summer Extreme Rainfall Events over the Huaihe River Basin and Associated Atmospheric Circulation

The Huaihe River basin (HRB) is an important economically developed and grain production region in China, which is severely affected by rainfall anomalies, especially extreme rainfall events (EREs). It is crucial to the features of interdecadal change in EREs and the contribution of EREs to summer-mean total rainfall amount (TRA) over the HRB. Using the observational 24-h ac-cumulated rainfall and the reanalysis products from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), as well as the methods of composite analysis and Mann–Kendal and running t tests, we revealed that the EREs experienced a significant interdecadal increase from the period 1990–1999 to the period 2000–2009. The EREs, particularly long persistent extreme rainfall events (LPEREs), occurred more frequently over the HRB during the latter period and dominated the interdecadal increase in the summer mean TRA. An anomalous high-pressure ridge and associated anomalous anticyclone appeared around Lake Baikal during the latter period, which led to anomalous northeasterlies along the eastern flank of the anomalous anticyclone, inducing the southward intrusion of cold air flow from higher latitudes and associated anomalous ascent and more active convection over the HRB. As such, more EREs and LPEREs occurred during the latter period. The higher pseudo-equivalent temperatures also support more active convective ascent and relevant more EREs. The results may shed light on further understanding the effect of large-scale atmospheric circulation on the interdecadal variability of EREs over the HRB, helping mitigate the disastrous impacts of EREs on local ecosystems, agriculture, soil erosion, and societies.
Design of a silicon based track microcavity resonator using finite-difference time-domain method

This paper presents an algorithm for use in designing a racetrack microresonator on silicon substrate, whose structure is illustrated. The accurate numerical FDTD has been used to calculate the characteristics of the device in the range of optical communication wavelengths. The optimum size of the guide, as well as the curvature of the curved guide, is considered from the results. From the optimum size of the device, the spectral response is consequently calculated, which leads to two important relationships between half-power bandwidth, HPBW, against the coupling efficiency, K, and free spatial range, FSR, against the racetrack round trip, X/sub rt/. Having used these parameters of L and R, in conjunction with the optimum size of the guide, in FDTD simulation, the transfer characteristics can be obtained as following: X/sub rt/ = 17.94 /spl mu/m, K = 0.223, FSR = 29.45 nm, HPBW= 4.45 nm, Q = 346.07 and finesse of 6.62, which are close to the design values. Therefore, our design procedure could be used in design of the dimensions of racetrack microresonators on silicon substrates in the communication wavelengths.
Intracellular Habitation of Staphylococcus aureus: Molecular Mechanisms and Prospects for Antimicrobial Therapy

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections pose a global health threat, especially with the continuous development of antibiotic resistance. As an opportunistic pathogen, MRSA infections have a high mortality rate worldwide. Although classically described as an extracellular pathogen, many studies have shown over the past decades that MRSA also has an intracellular aspect to its infectious cycle, which has been observed in vitro in both non-professional as well as professional phagocytes. In vivo, MRSA has been shown to establish an intracellular niche in liver Kupffer cells upon bloodstream infection. The staphylococci have evolved various evasion strategies to survive the antimicrobial environment of phagolysosomes and use these compartments to hide from immune cells and antibiotics. Ultimately, the host cells get overwhelmed by replicating bacteria, leading to cell lysis and bacterial dissemination. In this review, we describe the different intracellular aspects of MRSA infection and briefly mention S. aureus evasion strategies. We discuss how this intracellular niche of bacteria may assist in antibiotic tolerance development, and lastly, we describe various new antibacterial strategies that target the intracellular bacterial niche.
Change of Academic Procrastination by Demographic Characteristics: A Research on University Students

Academic procrastination leads to the delay of a job and at the same time it creates anxiety and stress. As a result of this situation, academic performance is negatively affected. Many variables can lead to the emergence of academic procrastination behaviour. This study aimed to examine the change of academic procrastination in university students with various demographic characteristics. A total of 260 students studying at 7 different faculties of a state university participated in the study, which was conducted using the survey model, one of the quantitative research methods. Research data were collected using academic procrastination scale and personal information form. The findings obtained as a result of the analysis revealed that while some of the variables discussed in the study had significant effects on academic procrastination, some did not affect it. Consistent with the results of the relevant research, it was seen that gender and academic performance had significant effects on academic procrastination, and it was determined that the variables of willingness for the department and accommodation status caused statistically significant differences on academic procrastination in university students. The results obtained from the study reveal the necessity for considering demographic and social factors as well as cognitive and psychological characteristics in studies on academic procrastination.
Inverse Methods: Interdisciplinary Elements of Methodology, Computation, and Applications

The success story of the transfer and development of methods from geophysics to helioseismology. - Filtering in inversion for solar internal structure. - Averaging kernels, error correlation functions and linear methods in helioseismology. - Inversion for the velocity field in the solar interior. - On the choice of trade-off parameter in helioseismic SOLA inversion. - Prospects for binary star research using disentangling. - Estimating bidirectional transport parameters for the blood-retina barrier - a feasibility study. - Determination and variability of depth profiles from XPS backgrounds. - Uncertainties in seismic inverse calculations. - Constrained waveform inversion of seismic well data. - Geological information and the inversion of seismic data. - A study of model covariances in amplitude seismic inversion. - Resolution and error propagation analysis for tomographic data with correlated errors. - Estimating background velocity from reflection seismic data - A feasibility study. - Phase migration: An approach to inversion of wide-angle seismic data. - Location of seismic events - A quest for accuracy. - Inverse estimation of parameters in petroleum reaction networks. - Inversion of a simple petroleum expulsion model. - Inversion of transient hydraulic head variation caused by a controlled point source. - Deconvolution of geophysical multioffset resistivity profile data. - Imaging of transient electromagnetic soundings using a scaling approximate frechet derivative. - A case of processing design using inversion: Simple gating versus iterative reweighted least squares inversion. - Inverting magnetotelluric data using genetic algorithms and simulated annealing. - Ionospheric tomography. - Application of inversion to global ocean tide mapping. - Inversion of STEP-observation equation using banach's fixed-point principle. - Improving the planar isotropic covariance models. - Optimal linear estimation theory for continuous fields of observations. - Least squares adjustment of high degree spherical harmonics. - Piecewise polynomial solutions to linear inverse problems. - Regularization methods for almost rank-deficient nonlinear problems. - Constant thermodynamic speed simulated annealing. - Mean field reconstruction with snaky edge hints. - An object-oriented toolbox for studying optimization problems. - Maximum mixing method.
Homological reduction of constrained Poisson algebras

The ``classical BRST construction'' as developed by Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky is a homological construction for the reduction of the Poisson algebra $P = C^\infty (W)$ of smooth functions on a Poisson manifold $W$ by the ideal $I$ of functions which vanish on a constraint locus. This ideal is called first class if $I$ is closed under the Poisson bracket; geometers refer to the constraint locus as coisotropic. The physicists' model is crucially a differential Poisson algebra extension of a Poisson algebra $P$; its differential contains a piece which reinvented the Koszul complex for the ideal $I$ and a piece which looks like the Cartan-Chevalley-Eilenberg differential. The present paper is concerned purely with the homological (Poisson) algebraic structures, using the notion of ``model'' from rational homotopy theory and the techniques of homological perturbation theory to establish some of the basic results explaining the mathematical existence of the classical BRST-BFV construction. Although the usual treatment of BFV is basis dependent (individual constraints) and nominally finite dimensional, I take care to avoid assumptions of finite dimensionality and work more invariantly in terms of the ideal. In particular, the techniques are applied to the `irregular' case (the ideal is not generated by a regular sequence of constraints), although the geometric interpretation is less complete.
The Initial Abundance of 60Fe in the Solar System

60Fe, which decays to radiogenic 60Ni (60Ni*), is a now extinct radionuclide. 60Fe is produced only in stars and thus provides a constraint on the stellar contribution to solar system radionuclides. Its short half-life [t1/2 = 1.49 × 106 yr (1.49 Myr)] makes it a potential chronometer for the early solar system. We found clear evidence for 60Ni* in troilite (FeS) grains from the Bishunpur and Krymka chondrites, two of the least metamorphosed (LL3.1) ordinary chondrites. The weighted means of inferred initial 60Fe/56Fe ratios [(60Fe/56Fe)0] for the troilites are (1.08 ± 0.23) × 10-7 and (1.73 ± 0.53) × 10-7 for Bishunpur and Krymka, respectively. We compare our data with upper limits established previously on (60Fe/56Fe)0 for a chondrule in an unequilibrated ordinary chondrite, Semarkona, and for troilites in a relatively metamorphosed chondrite, Ste. Marguerite, taking into account their 26Al-26Mg ages. The 60Fe and 26Al chronometers can be combined to produce a consistent chronology for Ca-Al-rich inclusions, which are thought to be the earliest solar system solids, chondrules, troilites, and Ste. Marguerite. The initial 60Fe/56Fe for the solar system is inferred from this chronology to have been 2.8 × 10-7 to 4 × 10-7. This is at or below the low end of predictions for a supernova source.
Improved calculations of energy deposition from fast neutrons

Increased interest in fast neutrons for radiotherapy has led to a need for accurate measurements and calculations in the energy region up to 100 MeV. Experimental neutron cross sections on elements of biological interest in the region above 15 MeV are sparse. Moreover, until recently, no secondary particle production spectra had been measured in this energy range. New data from the University of California at Davis has allowed cross-sectional calculations to be more firmly based. This in turn results in improved calculations of dose and energy deposition in small sites from high-energy neutrons. Secondary particle production spectra due to neutrons incident on carbon and oxygen are calculated using an intranuclear cascade code which takes into account specific nuclear properties of carbon and oxygen (in particular, alpha-particle clustering). It also allows excited nuclei to deexcite by Fermi breakup rather than the more frequently used statistical evaporation mechanism, which is not applicable to low-mass nuclei. The code yields double-differential secondary particle spectra in energy and angle which show good agreement with the experimental data from the University of California at Davis at 27, 40, and 61 MeV.
Model acquisition using stochastic projective geometry

This thesis presents a methodology for scene reconstruction that is based on the principles of projective geometry, while dealing with uncertainty at a fundamental level. Uncertainty in geometric features is represented and manipulated using probability density functions on projective space, allowing geometric constructions to be carried out via statistical inference. The main contribution of this thesis is the development of stochastic projective geometry, a formalism for performing uncertain geometric reasoning during the scene reconstruction process. The homogeneous coordinates of points and lines in the projective plane are represented by antipodal pairs of points on the unit sphere, and geometric uncertainty in their location is represented using Bingham's distribution. Geometric reasoning about homogeneous coordinate vectors reduces to well-defined manipulations on probability density functions. For example, a Bayesian approach to evidence combination on the sphere is presented for fusing noisy homogeneous coordinate observations constrained by known projective incidence relations. The result is an uncertainty calculus in projective space analogous to the Gaussian uncertainty calculus in affine space. The main strength of the Gaussian calculus is maintained, namely its uniform treatment of uncertainty in stages of the geometric reasoning process. At the same time, the limitations of the Gaussian density function as a representation of uncertainty in projective space are removed. The effectiveness of stochastic projective geometry for dealing with noisy projective relationships is demonstrated on three geometric vision problems: deriving line and plane orientations using vanishing point analysis, partitioning scene features into planar patches using line correspondence stereo, and extending a partial model of planar surface structure using projective invariants.