Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High‐order methods for the numerical solution of the BiGlobal linear stability eigenvalue problem in complex geometries

A high‐order computational tool based on spectral and spectral/hp elements (J. Fluid. Mech. 2009; to appear) discretizations is employed for the analysis of BiGlobal fluid instability problems. Unlike other implementations of this type, which use a time‐stepping‐based formulation (J. Comput. Phys. 1994; 110(1):82–102; J. Fluid Mech. 1996; 322:215–241), a formulation is considered here in which the discretized matrix is constructed and stored prior to applying an iterative shift‐and‐invert Arnoldi algorithm for the solution of the generalized eigenvalue problem. In contrast to the time‐stepping‐based formulations, the matrix‐based approach permits searching anywhere in the eigenspace using shifting. Hybrid and fully unstructured meshes are used in conjunction with the spatial discretization. This permits analysis of flow instability on arbitrarily complex 2‐D geometries, homogeneous in the third spatial direction and allows both mesh (h)‐refinement as well as polynomial (p)‐refinement. A series of validation cases has been defined, using well‐known stability results in confined geometries. In addition new results are presented for ducts of curvilinear cross‐sections with rounded corners. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A rapid accurate technique to calculate the group delay, dispersion and dispersion slope of arbitrary radial refractive index profile weakly-guiding optical fibers

This paper introduces a new numerical method to calculate the group delay, chromatic dispersion and dispersion slope of weakly-guiding optical fibers with arbitrary radial refractive index profiles. It is based on the analytic differentiation of the propagation coefficient up to the third order. The simulation results are compared to experimental data, with those calculated by other approaches and exact data where possible. Due to the analytical differentiation of the matrix equation, the method is more accurate compared to other approaches, it is also much faster than numerical differentiation as allows avoiding repeated solution of the eigenvalue problem to calculate the derivatives of the propagation coefficient. The precision of the method is limited only by the approximation errors of the mode solver. The Galerkin method with Laguerre-Gauss basis functions is used to determine the propagation coefficients of weakly-guiding structures. The new method enables fiber manufacturers to rapidly design dispersion characteristics of graded index, step index, single- and multiple-clad fibers, as well as few-mode and bend insensitive fibers.
Pflichtbewusstsein : EUTR und Holzwerkstoffe - Prüfungen am Thünen-Kompetenzzentrum Holzherkünfte

Die Vorschriften der EUTR betreffen auch die Hersteller von MDF & Co. In diesem Zusammenhang hat der Erstautor auf dem 4. Grecon-Holzwerkstoffsymposium einen interessanten Vortrag unter dem Titel: Die Europaische Holzhandelsverordnung EUTR - Anforderungen an die Bestimmung von Holzwerkstoffen und Erfahrungen aus den Prufungen am Thunen-Kompetenzzentrum Holzherkunfte gehalten. Darauf basiert der nachfolgende Artikel masgeblich.
Aggregation with Cournot competition: an empirical investigation

This paper empirically investigates the existence of Cournot equilibrium and the validity of the Le Chatelier-Samuelson (LCS) principle in the aggregate. Whereas two well known existence conditions are statistically rejected, we cannot reject a third, original, condition. We also find some empirical evidence for the LCS principle, as well as both increasing and constant returns to scale for two-digit US manufacturing industries. The results highlight the importance of imperfect competition for understanding aggregate growth, investment and employment.
Identification of red high proper-motion objects in Tycho-2 and 2MASS catalogues using Virtual Observatory tools

Aims. With available Virtual Observatory tools, we looked for new M dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood and M giants with high tangential velocities. Methods. From an all-sky cross-match between the optical Tycho-2 and the near-infrared 2MASS catalogues, we selected objects with proper motions μ> 50 mas yr −1 and very red VT − Ks colours. For the most interesting targets, we collected multi-wavelength photometry, constructed spectral energy distributions, estimated effective temperatures and surface gravities from fits to atmospheric models, performed time-series analysis of ASAS V-band light curves, and assigned spectral types from low-resolution spectroscopy obtained with CAFOS at the 2.2 m Calar Alto telescope. Results. We got a sample of 59 bright red high proper-motion objects, including fifty red giants, four red dwarfs, and five objects reported in this work for the first time. The five new stars have magnitudes VT ≈ 10.8–11.3 mag, reduced proper motions midway between known dwarfs and giants, near-infrared colours typical of giants, and effective temperatures Teff ≈ 2900–3400 K. From our time-series analysis, we discovered a long secondary period in Ruber 4 and an extremely long primary period in Ruber 6. With the CAFOS spectra, we confirmed the red giant nature of Ruber 7 and 8, the last of which seems to be one of the brightest metal-poor M giants ever identified.
Effects of Experience and Advice on Process and Performance in Negotiations

This experiment (N = 68 dyads) tested the influence of experience and advice on behavior and joint outcomes in integrative two-party negotiations. Dyads in an advice condition received short tactical advice to question fixed-pie assumptions and to exchange information. Afterward, they negotiated once. Dyads in an experience condition negotiated twice in successive rounds. Finally, dyads in an experience-and-advice condition negotiated twice and received advice prior to the second negotiation. Dependent measures were negotiation behavior, negotiation duration, joint outcome, and judgmental accuracy. Results showed that the combination of advice and experience led dyads to apply more problem solving and fewer contentious strategies, which mediated the higher joint outcomes that these dyads reached in shorter times. Experience or advice alone was not sufficient to make negotiators use different strategies or to exploit the integrative potential of the negotiations better than they did before they received advice and/or gained experience.
Development of an Effective Double-Moment Cloud Microphysics Scheme with Prognostic Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) for Weather and Climate Models

A new double-moment bulk cloud microphysics scheme, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Double-Moment 6-class (WDM6) Microphysics scheme, which is based on the WRF Single-Moment 6-class (WSM6) Microphysics scheme, has been developed. In addition to the prediction for the mixing ratios of six water species (water vapor, cloud droplets, cloud ice, snow, rain, and graupel) in the WSM6 scheme, the number concentrations for cloud and rainwater are also predicted in the WDM6 scheme, together with a prognostic variable of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentration. The new scheme was evaluated on an idealized 2D thunderstorm test bed. Compared to the simulations from the WSM6 scheme, there are greater differences in the droplet concentration between the convective core and stratiform region in WDM6. The reduction of light precipitation and the increase of moderate precipitation accompanying a marked radar bright band near the freezing level from the WDM6 simulation tend to alleviate existing systematic biases in the case of the WSM6 scheme. The strength of this new microphysics scheme is its ability toallowflexibilityinvariableraindropsizedistributionbypredictingthenumberconcentrationsofcloudsand rain, coupled with the explicit CCN distribution, at a reasonable computational cost.
Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis of a Common Herb : Pergularia daemia

Pergularia daemia is a widely distributed plant in the tropical and sub tropical area. Traditionally the plant has been used for various ailments like antipyretic, expectorant, infantile diarrhoea and for various menstrual abnormalities. In the present study the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the plant has been done. The qualitative analysis of the methanolic leaf extract of Pergularia daemia showed the presence of various compounds like terpenoids, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, alkaloids, steroids, glycosides and coumarins. The quantification of the compounds like alkaloid, flavonoids, total phenols and tannins has also been done. From the results it is evident that the plant Pergularia daemia is found to have significant amount of phytocomponents.
Hurricane-induced destratification and restratification in a partially-mixed estuary

Hurricane Isabel made landfall at the Outer Banks of North Carolina and moved past Chesapeake Bay on 18 –19 September 2003. The baroclinic response of this partially-mixed estuary to the passage of Isabel is investigated using the output from a regional atmosphere-ocean model. The hurricane-forced winds caused gradual deepening of the surface mixed layer, followed by rapid destratification in the water-column. The mixed-layer deepening appears to be driven by velocity shear and can be interpreted by a gradient Richardson number. Although strong winds caused complete mixing locally, a large longitudinal salinity gradient of about 10 4 psu m 1 persisted between the estuary’s head and mouth. After passage of the storm, the horizontal baroclinic pressure gradient drove restratification and a two-layer circulation in the estuary. The averaged buoyancy frequency increased linearly with time during an initial stage, and reached about 0.03 s 1 one day after the destratification. The model results are in good agreement with the theoretical prediction based on gravitational adjustment. Subsequently, turbulent diffusion works against the longitudinal advection to produce quasi-steady salinity distribution.
Automatic Vertebrae Segmentation in Fluoroscopic Images for Electrophysiology

Worldwide, heart failure affected about 26 million people in 2014. The treatment is mostly done minimally invasively, in particular when pharmacotherapy fails. As fluoroscopic images provide little functional or anatomical information of the heart, most often pre-operative magnetic resonance imaging data is used, to provide additional information. The 3-D data needs to be fused with the fluoroscopic images. Therefore, an accurate 2-D/3-D registration is necessary. This can be achieved by registering the bones in fluoroscopic images with the bones in magnetic resonance imaging data. However, a special bone magnetic resonance scan is needed. In this paper, we propose a learning based approach in combination with an active contour for the segmentation of vertebrae in fluoroscopic images. After preprocessing the fluoroscopic images, a random forest classifier is trained to extract the vertebrae. The resulting probability map is used to initialize an active contour approach for the segmentation of the vertebrae. The proposed method was evaluated on 12 fluoroscopic data sets and compared to a gold standard annotation obtained from a clinical expert. This comparison yielded a mean Dice coefficient of 0.80±0.07 and a vertebrae detection rate of 86 %.
Coseismic and early postseismic slip for the 2003 Tokachi‐oki earthquake sequence inferred from GPS data

Early afterslip following the 2003 Tokachi‐oki earthquake is investigated using subdaily GPS time series. Afterslip results are compared with the coseismic slip for the M8 mainshock and the M7.4 aftershock. Afterslip between those two earthquakes is inferred at the southwestern adjacent region of the mainshock, between two epicentral regions, which possibly triggered the aftershock in the southwest. Subsequently, deeper slip occurs. The afterslip loci are distinct from the rupture regions. The non‐uniform propagation of afterslip may reflect the depth‐dependence of the effective normal stress and the distance between the closest unstable slip patches.
Break-up testing of waste-form materials

Abstract The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is developing a safety case for the long-term management of higher activity wastes. This includes safety assessments of transport to and operations at the repository. One of the main faults and hazards to be considered is waste package response to impact accidents. The criteria of impact performance for waste packages are based upon activity release of particulates generated from the break up of the waste form during impact. The NDA approach to impact performance is based upon waste package response from finite element modelling in combination with break-up tests. Previous break up research commissioned by the NDA has concentrated on commercial graphite and glass samples. These extended studies, undertaken by the National Nuclear Laboratory in collaboration with the Department of Aerosol Technology of the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology and Experimental Medicine, provide break-up data specific to nuclear facilities and waste materials. These include archived unirrradiated graphite used to construct Magnox reactor cores and reflectors, simulant high level waste glass, selected grout formulations and selected metal-in-grout formulations.
Spatial genetic structure of sunflower downy mildew at the field scale

 In this study, we have used a molecular epidemiology approach to identify population sources, investigate the mating system and track pathogen movement at the field scale. Using a hierarchical sampling design, we have collected 250 P. halstedii isolates from 20 geo-referenced sites in an infected sunflower field located in Southern France. These samples were genetically characterized using 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms markers (SNP) and one microsatellite locus (Giresse et al. 2007) and, for a subset of 60 samples, the virulence profile was determined.
Historical Meadow Dynamics in Southwest British Columbia: a Multidisciplinary Analysis

The recent encroachment of woody species threatening many western North American meadows has been attributed to diverse factors. We used a suite of methods in Chittenden Meadow, southwestern British Columbia, Canada, to identify the human, ecological, and physical factors responsible for its historical dynamics and current encroachment by woody vegetation. We evaluated three hypotheses about the origin and processes maintaining the meadow: the meadow is (1) of recent human origin; (2) of ancient human origin, maintained by aboriginal burning; and (3) of ancient non-human origin, not maintained by aboriginal burning. Our data supported the idea that the meadow had ancient non-human origins and its recent history and current status have resulted from complex interactions among landform, climate, and fire. Soil properties (both horizonation and charcoal content) indicate that the meadow is of ancient, non-human origin. Tree ages in the meadow and surrounding forest indicate that encroachment is recent, not related to a variety of recent human activities, and is probably a result of increasing spring temperature and decreasing spring snow depth. Although ethnographic surveys and historical documents revealed indigenous use of the general area over millennia, including the use of fire as a management tool, we found little direct evidence of indigenous use of the meadow. However, there was no proxy record of fire frequency in the meadow that we could have used to determine the role of fire in maintaining the meadow in the past, or the role of humans in igniting those fires. Thus, the historical role of humans in the maintenance of the meadow by prescribed fire remains indeterminate. Based on these conclusions, we combined hypotheses (2) and (3) into an a posteriori hypothesis that reflects changing interactions among people, fire, and climate over time. Without management intervention, we expect that tree encroachment will continue. Several general lessons emerge from our study of Chittenden Meadow. A single modern ecosystem condition may result from diverse antecedents, but ecosystems may not carry a memory of all the processes driving their historical dynamics. The historical role of indigenous reource management activities may be one such process: despite millennia of human occupation and resource use in the region, local First Nations left only a light footprint on Chittenden Meadow. Finally, there is value and challenge in integrating data and perspectives from different disciplines.
Characterization of 1.5-D ultrasound transducer arrays

The objective of this work was twofold. The first was to investigate theoretically and experimentally the acoustical and electrical characteristics of 1.5-D ultrasound transducer arrays for 3-D imaging applications. Modeling and simulations of arrays of various geometry, center frequencies, and materials were performed, analyzed and optimized. The optimization criteria was the best achievable lateral and elevation imaging resolution. The second objective was to fabricate several optimally designed prototypes of 1.5-D arrays and characterize their performance. Investigated were such vitally important performance issues such as spatial resolution, acoustical and electrical crosstalk, matching techniques, electrical impedance and element size, pulse-echo bandwidth and sensitivity.
For and Against Brexit: A Survey Experiment of the Impact of Campaign Effects on Public Attitudes toward EU Membership

What are the lessons of the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union (EU) regarding the effects of message framing? This article reports findings from an innovative online survey experiment based on a two-wave panel design. The findings show that, despite the expectation that campaign effects are generally small for high-salience issues – such as Brexit – the potential for campaign effects was high for the pro-EU frames. This suggests that within an asymmetrical information environment – in which the arguments for one side of an issue (anti-EU) are ‘priced in’, while arguments for the other side (pro-EU) have been understated – the potential for campaign effects in a single direction are substantial. To the extent that this environment is reflected in other referendum campaigns, the potential effect of pro-EU frames may be substantial.
The Latent-Dependent Deep Rendering Model

Generative models that can capture latent variations in data are difficult to design in complex domains such as natural images where there are large numbers of nuisance variables. Given the success of the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) on inference tasks in such domains, we aim to design generative models whose inference corresponds to the CNNs. One such class is the Deep Rendering Model (DRM). The DRM generates images via multiple levels of abstraction, from coarse to fine scale, and introduces a small set of latent variables at each level. However, a number of simplifying assumptions are made in the DRM to derive the CNNs as the bottomup inference algorithm which do not correspond to realistic variation in natural images. For instance, the latent variables at different scales of the DRM are assumed to be independent. We propose an extension to the DRM, termed the LatentDependent Deep Rendering Model (LD-DRM), that enforces dependencies among the latent variables via a parametrized joint prior distribution. This joint prior yields a new form of regularization for training the CNNs—the Rendering Path Normalization (RPN). Under the LD-DRM, we obtain consistent estimators for unsupervised/semisupervised learning tasks and derive generalization bounds. Our bound suggests that the RPN regularization helps improve generalization, an observation that is corroborated in practice. In our experiments, the LD-DRM either beats or matches the state of art on popular benchmarks including SVHN, CIFAR10, and CIFAR100 on both semi-supervised and supervised learning tasks. Equal contribution as first authors , Equal contribution as last authors University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, USA Rice University, Houston, USA Amazon AI, Palo Alto, USA Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA. Correspondence to: Nhat Ho <minhnhat@berkeley.edu>, Tan Nguyen <mn15@rice.edu>. Presented at the ICML 2018 workshop on Theoretical Foundations and Applications of Deep Generative Models
Design of a microstip fed step slot antenna for UWB communication

The design and performance of a stepped slot printed monopole antenna in the ultrawideband is presented in this article. Multiple resonances generated by the stepped slot geometry are matched in the ultrawideband using a modified microstrip feed. The impedance bandwidth (SWR < 2) of the antenna is from 3 to 11 GHz. Radiation patterns are stable and omnidirectional with appreciable gain throughout the band. Performance of the antenna is also analyzed in the time domain, which reveals good pulse handling capabilities. Compact geometry of the antenna allows easy commercial deployment. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 1126–1129, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24262
BANKWEST CURTIN ECONOMICS CENTRE WORKING

This study examines the e(cid:30)ciency of schools in Australia and its determinants using the gain in NAPLAN test scores of students in 6,774 schools in 2009-2011. The results show that, based on input-output combination, the growth of NAPLAN test scores in Australian schools could be improved by 64 per cent by learning from best practice, on average. The average target for schools in the sample is to improve the gain in NAPLAN test score by 90 points. At the primary level, Catholic and independent schools are less e(cid:30)cient than public schools. At the secondary school level, though, public schools are found to be less e(cid:30)cient than other (non-public) schools.
Microscopy and PCR-based detection of Leucocytozoon spp. in Iranian birds of prey

In recent years, population decline has been detected in several birds of prey. Although climate change and habitat destruction are likely responsible for this, but we cannot ignore the role of pathogens, especially parasites in raptor's population decline. In this study, we used both microscopic and molecular techniques to examine blood samples collected from raptors referred to the rehabilitation stations in Northeastern of Iran for blood parasites. A total of 36 raptors from members of the family Falconidae and Accipitridae were included. Samples were collected from June to end of November 2012. The prevalence of Leucocytozoon spp. in microscopic and molecular examination was 11% in both methods. Among the different species that were included in this study, the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), the common buzzards (Buteo buteo) and the eagle owl (Bubo bubo) were three species infected with Leucocytozoon spp. It is therefore, concluded that Leucocytozoon spp. were prevalent among raptors in Iran and both genotypical and phenotypical methods are applicable.