Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In situ XAS study of the local structure of the nano-Li2FeSiO4/C cathode

Despite the challenges in achieving its full theoretical capacity of reversible extraction of two Li ions, the Li2FeSiO4 (LFS) cathode shows a remarkable cycling stability once its low electronic conductivity is addressed. By studying the local structure around the iron during electrochemical cycling using in situ x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), it is possible to gain insight into the factors which determine the electrochemical properties of this material. In order to practically perform in situ XAS studies, the charge/discharge of LFS was maximized using two approaches: (a) reducing the particle size of LFS samples from micro-scale to nano-scale in order to reduce the diffusion path for intercalating ions; and (b) applying a conductive coating to each nanoparticle to facilitate electron transfer. A family of LFS materials was synthesized and characterized using x-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive analysis for structural and morphological analysis, as well as cyclic voltammetry and cycling tests for electrochemical performance diagnosis. This material was then characterized by in situ XAS. The results provide insight into the stable electrochemical performance of LFS and suggest new synthetic routes to reaching the theoretical capacity.
Equity via relations of equality: Bridging the classroom-society divide

Although music educators have asserted the importance of naming systemic inequities, the mechanisms through which practices within music classrooms, such as community formation, may directly challenge the systemic inequities beyond them remain undertheorized. The purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to investigate the nature of equity and to consider which music education practices might best support more equitable societal relations. Explaining the problems of paternalistically imposing one’s vision of equity on others, I offer that by functioning in “relations of equality,” members of society might collaboratively name and challenge contemporary inequities. In considering how music educators might best foster the skills and dispositions needed for lifelong relations of equality, I posit the possibilities of communicative cultural capital, which involves community members interacting effectively across cultural differences, and academic skills cultural capital. When music educators assume that students will develop academic skills through music making, rather than emphasize how to develop such skills, they may end up benefiting students who learn those dispositions in privileged home environments. I also consider how identifying as part of a musical community can motivate individuals to challenge inequities throughout their lives. Equity is not a stable end but a relational value.
Design of a Xenia Coral Robot Using a High-Stroke Compliant Linear Electromagnetic Actuator

Electromagnetic actuators provide fast speed, large forces, high strokes, and wide bandwidths. Most designs, however, are constructed from rigid components, making these benefits inaccessible for many soft robotics applications. In this work, we develop a new soft electromagnetic linear actuator using liquid gallium–indium for the conductor and neodymium–iron–boron and polymer composites for the permanent magnet. When combined in a solenoid configuration, high strokes can be generated using entirely soft components. To emulate the pulsing motion of Xenia coral arms, we develop an additional soft flexure system that converts the linear translation to rotary motion. The design and fabrication of the electromagnetic actuator and compliant flexure are first described. Models for the magnetic forces and the joint kinematics are then developed and compared with the experimental results. Finally, the robot dynamics are analyzed using stochastic system identification techniques. Results show that the compliant actuator is able to achieve an 18 mm stroke, allowing the soft arms to bend up to 120 deg. This further enables the tips of the arms to traverse an arc length of 42 mm. Bandwidths up to 30 Hz were also observed. While this article focuses on emulating a biological system, this highly deformable actuator design can also be utilized for fully soft grasping or wearables applications.
Genetic Differentiation of Wild Boar Populations in a Region Endangered by African Swine Fever

For areas at risk for African swine fever ( ASF ) introduction from neighboring regions, it is important for epidemic control to know how wild boar ( Sus scrofa ) dispersion dynamics could be used to combat the spread of ASF. In this regard, long ‐ term information based on population genetic data makes an important contribution. We selected our study area as Rhineland ‐ Palatinate, Germany, because it had a high density of wild boars and was threatened by ASF via infected wild boars from neighboring Belgium. On an area of around 20,000 km 2 , we collected almost 1,200 blood samples from 22 wild boar hunting grounds. The study area included a network of potential barriers to movement, including roads and rivers. We assessed genetic di ﬀ erentiation based on microsatellite data. We used 2 spatial ( Bayesian Analysis of Population Structure [BAPS] and TESS ) and 1 non ‐ spatial ( STRUCTURE ) Bayesian model ‐ based ap proaches to analyze the data. Each of the algorithms detected 4 clusters with di ﬀ erent cluster compositions in di ﬀ erent areas and identi ﬁ ed the highest degrees of di ﬀ erentiation between hunting grounds east and west of the Rhine River, between Pfalz and Eifel ‐ Hunsrück, and to a lesser degree between Westerwald and Taunus and between Eifel and Hunsrück. Thus, genetic evidence suggests barriers of di ﬀ erent strength that might be helpful in a setup of complex and expensive measures against the spread of animal diseases such as ASF. The described approach could also provide valuable information for other threatened regions to contain ASF. © 2021 The Authors. The Journal of Wildlife Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Wildlife Society.
Numerical Simulation of Convective Heat Transfer of Slug Flow in Micro Tube

In this paper, direct numerical simulation of incompressible two-phase (air-water) flow for simulation of bubble motion and convective heat transfer in micro tube is presented. Micro tube radius is 10 µm. The interface between two-phase is tracked with Volume of Fluid (VOF) method with Continuous Surface Force (CSF) model which is implemented in OpenFOAM CFD package. For simulation of convective heat transfer, energy equation and periodic thermal boundary condition is implemented in this package. Newtonian flows are solved using a finite volume scheme based on PISO algorithm. Numerical simulation is done on axisymmetric domain with periodic boundary condition for different values of pressure gradient, void fraction, and bubble period. Mean pressure gradient is fixed for each simulation. The superficial Reynolds numbers of gas and liquid phases studied are 0.3 – 7 and 5 – 210, respectively. Numerical results are coincident with Serizawa regime map. In presence of gas bubble in liquid, Numerical simulations show local Nusselt number increases than pure liquid which is in the penalty of pressure drop.
Random Networks with Quantum Boolean Functions

We propose quantum Boolean networks, which can be classified as deterministic reversible asynchronous Boolean networks. This model is based on the previously developed concept of quantum Boolean functions. A quantum Boolean network is a Boolean network where the functions associated with the nodes are quantum Boolean functions. We study some properties of this novel model and, using a quantum simulator, we study how the dynamics change in function of connectivity of the network and the set of operators we allow. For some configurations, this model resembles the behavior of reversible Boolean networks, while for other configurations a more complex dynamic can emerge. For example, cycles larger than 2N were observed. Additionally, using a scheme akin to one used previously with random Boolean networks, we computed the average entropy and complexity of the networks. As opposed to classic random Boolean networks, where “complex” dynamics are restricted mainly to a connectivity close to a phase transition, quantum Boolean networks can exhibit stable, complex, and unstable dynamics independently of their connectivity.
Model of dynamic clustering‐based energy‐efficient data filtering for mobile RFID networks

Data filtering is an essential task for improving the energy efficiency of radio‐frequency identification (RFID) networks. Among various energy‐efficient approaches, clustering‐based data filtering is considered to be the most effective solution because data from cluster members can be filtered at cluster heads before being sent to base stations. However, this approach quickly depletes the energy of cluster heads. Furthermore, most previous studies have assumed that readers are fixed and interrogate mobile tags in a workspace. However, there are several applications in which readers are mobile and interrogate fixed tags in a specific area. This article proposes a model for dynamic clustering‐based data filtering (DCDF) in mobile RFID networks, where mobile readers are re‐clustered periodically and the cluster head role is rotated among the members of each cluster. Simulation results show that DCDF is effective in terms of balancing energy consumption among readers and prolonging the lifetime of the mobile RFID networks.
Cationic coordination compound Cs2Hg3I8 for IR NLO material: Synthesis, crystal growth and characterizations

Single crystals Cs2Hg3I8 of dimensions 5 × 3 × 4 mm3 were grown by solution growth method at room temperature and structurally characterized by single crystal X – ray diffraction. Cs2Hg3I8 compound crystallizes in a noncentrosymmetric space group Cm with the crystal data of a = 7.4415 A, b = 21.6629 A, c = 7.6726 A, α, β = 90°, γ = 108.05° and Z = 2. The grown crystals were characterized by powder X – ray diffraction analysis and the various diffraction planes are indexed. The presence of functional groups was identified qualitatively by Fourier transform infrared and FT – Raman spectral analyses. Ultraviolet – visible spectral analyses shows that the crystal has low UV cut off at 388 nm combined with very good transparency of 98 % in a wide range. The optical band gap was estimated to be 3 eV. Mechanical hardness of the grown crystal Cs2Hg3I8 was determined. The dielectric response of the crystal with varying frequencies was studied. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis shows that the grown.
Effects of both the drive- and sense-mode circuit phase delay on MEMS gyroscope performance and real-time suppression of the residual fluctuation phase error

This work analyses circuit phase delay for carrier-modulation MEMS capacitive gyroscopes. The temperature-dependent circuit phase delay is a major source of gyroscope output drift, which deteriorates the gyroscope bias instability (BI) and angle random walk (ARW). Effects of both drive-mode and sense-mode circuit phase delay on gyroscope performance when using different signal extraction architectures are analyzed in detail. The online suppression method which combines the so-called modified double sideband (MDSB) extraction architecture in the gyroscope drive mode and closed-loop force-rebalance loop in the sense mode can eliminate the impact of residual fluctuation error of circuit phase delay in real time. When drive-mode circuit phase delay equivalently varies from −20° to 20°, using MDSB decreases the fluctuation of the open-loop zero-rate output (ZRO) by 70% compared to using double sideband (DSB) and by 99.7% with respect to using single sideband (SSB). Meanwhile, improvement for the closed-loop ZRO using MDSB is 92.48% and 94% compared to cases using DSB and SSB, respectively. Furthermore, when the equivalent circuit phase delay of the sense-mode alters from −20° to 20°, ZRO variation for the gyroscope with force rebalanced sense loop and quadrature stiffness nulling loop decreases by 80% in contrast to the case with open loop, which demonstrates the effectiveness of online suppression for circuit phase delay of both the drive-mode and sense-mode. Using the online suppression method, the gyroscope has achieved a BI of 0.16° h−1 and ARW of 0.011° (√h)−1. Furthermore, using the MDSB in the drive mode obtains the best stability compared to using the DSB and SSB as the temperature changes.
Securing fingerprint templates by enhanced minutiae-based encoding scheme in Fuzzy Commitment

Fingerprint authentication has gained attention in recent years due to its distinctiveness, low ‐ cost sensors, and user willingness to submit them. Its extensive deployment in our automated world raises major concerns regarding the secrecy of biometric templates and the privacy of rightful owners in biometric systems. Fuzzy Commitment (FC) focuses on securing the biometric templates by performing authentication based on the validity of secret keys from biometric features. However, the major challenge in designing Fingerprint ‐ based FC is the requirement of efficient binary representation for unordered and variable minutiae points in fingerprint images. Additionally, its leakage can compromise an intrinsic characteristic of the individual. The paper proposes Fingerprint ‐ based FC incorporating an encoding scheme dependent on the number and type of minutiae points present near the fingerprint's core point. The biometric templates are never identical thereby, this approach allows fuzziness in minutiae points by incorporating Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquenghem (BCH) codes for error ‐ correction and secures random codeword of the error ‐ correcting scheme as secret key by SHA ‐ 256 hash mapping. The proposed approach is evaluated on FVC2000 ‐ DB2, FVC2002 ‐ DB1, FVC2002 ‐ DB2, and FVC2004 ‐ DB1, and the results illustrate the efficiency of the proposed scheme. Furthermore, the security analysis of stored helper data and hash mapping demonstrates that the proposed approach is secure.
S3M 5.1: a distributed cryospheric model with dry and wet snow, data assimilation, glacier mass balance, and debris-driven melt

Abstract. By shifting winter precipitation into summer freshet, the cryosphere supports life across the world. The sensitivity of this shifting mechanism to climate, as well as the role played by the cryosphere in the Earth energy budget, has motivated the development of a broad spectrum of predictive models. Such models rarely combine a high degree of physical realism in both the seasonal snow and glaciers, and generally are not integrated with hydrologic models describing the fate of meltwater through the hydrologic budget. We present S3M v5.1, a spatially explicit and hydrology-oriented cryospheric model that successfully reconstructs seasonal snow and glacier evolution through time and that can be natively coupled with distributed hydrologic models. Model physics include precipitation-phase partitioning, snow and glacier energy and mass balances, snow rheology and hydraulics, and a data-assimilation protocol. Comparatively novel aspects of S3M with respect to the existing literature are an explicit representation of the spatial patterns of snow liquid-water content, an hybrid approach to snowmelt that decouples the radiation- and temperature-driven contributions, the implementation of the ∆h parametrization for distributed ice-thickness change, and the inclusion of a distributed debris-driven melt factor. Focusing on its operational implementation in the Italian north-western Alps, we show that S3M provides robust predictions of the snow and glacier mass balances at multiple scales, thus delivering the necessary information to support real-world hydrologic operations. S3M is well suited for both operational flood forecasting and basic research, including future scenarios of the fate of the cryosphere and water supply in a warming climate. The model is open source, and the paper comprises an user manual as well as resources to prepare input data and set up computational environments and libraries.
Effect of the HPDI and PPCI Combustion Modes of Direct-Injection Natural Gas Engine on Combustion and Emissions

Natural gas (NG) engines have very broad application prospects. The pilot-ignited NG diesel engine can be organized into two combustion modes according to the sequence of oil and gas injection: (1) High-pressure direct injection, where NG is mainly diffused combustion; and (2) partially premixed compression ignition, where NG is mainly premixed combustion. In this study, we used CONVERGE to explore the influence of the NG injection timing on the distribution of the mixture equivalence ratio, ignition characteristics, thermal efficiency, emission, and combustion reaction rate under the two combustion modes. We also used a multi-step soot model to analyze the particle mass and quantity. We showed herein that the NG injection timing significantly affects the mixture distribution in the cylinder, thereby consequently affecting the combustion process. Both very early and very late injection times were not conducive to NG combustion. In addition, the mass, quantity, and diameter of the soot produced by diffusion combustion were larger than those produced with premixed combustion.
Scale‐dependent patterns of metacommunity structuring in aquatic organisms across floodplain systems

Evaluating how groups of organisms vary in dispersal capability and how environmental, spatial and temporal signals vary across multiple scales is critical to elucidating metacommunity theory. We examined whether the relative contributions of environmental, spatial and hydrological factors have different effects on organismal groups with different dispersal abilities at three spatial scales, and how this knowledge contributes to our understanding of metacommunity dynamics.
EPTlib: An Open-Source Extensible Collection of Electric Properties Tomography Techniques

Electric properties tomography (EPT) is a novel magnetic resonance imaging–based method to estimate non-invasively the distribution of the electric properties in the human body. In this paper, EPTlib, an open-source extensible C++ library collecting ready-to-use algorithms for electric properties tomography, is presented. Currently, EPTlib implements three techniques, named Helmholtz-EPT, convection-reaction-EPT and gradient-EPT, whose derivation and implementation is deeply discussed. Moreover, the configuration files needed by the terminal application included in EPTlib to apply the implemented techniques are outlined. The three techniques are applied to a couple of model problems in order to highlight their main features and the effects of the tunable parameters.
Vibration Response-Based Intelligent Non-Contact Fault Diagnosis of Bearings

Accelerometers, used as vibration pickups in machine health monitoring systems, need physical connection to the machine tool through cables, complicating physical systems. A non-contact laser based vibration sensor has been developed and used for bearing health monitoring in this article. The vibration data have been acquired under speed and load variation. Hilbert transform (HT) has been applied for denoising the vibration signal. An extraction of condition monitoring indicators from both raw and envelope signals has been made, and the dimensionality of these extracted indicators was deducted with principal component analysis (PCA). Sequential floating forward selection (SFFS) method has been implemented for ranking the selected indicators in order of significance for reduction in the input vector size and for finalizing the most optimal indicator set. Finally, the selected indicators are passed to k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and weighted kNN (WkNN) for diagnosing the bearing defects. The comparative analysis of the effectiveness of kNN and WkNN has been executed. It is evident from the experimental results that the vibration signals obtained from developed non-contact sensor compare adequately with the accelerometer data obtained under similar conditions. The performance of WkNN has been found to be slower compared to kNN. The proposed fault detection methodology compares very well with the other reported methods in the literature. The non-contact fault detection methodology has an enormous potential for automatic recognition of defects in the machine, which can provide early signals to avoid catastrophic failure and unplanned equipment shutdowns.
Abdominal Cocoon Syndrome: An Extremely Rare Cause of Small Bowel Obstruction

Abdominal cocoon syndrome or encapsulating peritoneal sclerosis is a rare condition causing small bowel obstruction. It is called cocoon syndrome because of the existence of an abnormal membrane that contains part or the entire small intestine. We present a case of a 49-year-old male, presenting to our department with recurrent episodes of obstructive ileus that did not respond to conservative treatment. He underwent exploratory laparotomy and a thick membrane covering the small bowel loops was found. The membrane was excised and sent for pathological examination. Abdominal cocoon syndrome is an acquired condition caused by an inflammatory process that is not yet completely understood. There are many theories for the pathophysiology of the disease. In most cases, the diagnosis is established during surgery. Complete removal of the membrane is the indicated surgical treatment. In mild cases, when the diagnosis is made preoperatively, conservative treatment should be the first choice.
Deciphering the global phylogeography of a coastal shrub (Scaevola taccada) reveals the influence of multiple forces on contemporary population structure

The phylogeography of coastal plant species is heavily influenced by past sealevel fluctuations, dispersal barriers, and life‐history traits, such as long‐distance dispersal ability of the propagules. Unlike the widely studied mangroves, phylogeographic patterns have remained mostly obscure for other coastal plant species. In this study, we sampled 42 populations of Scaevola taccada (Gaertn.) Roxb. , a coastal shrub of the family Goodeniaceae, from 17 countries across its distribution range. We used five chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) and 14 nuclear microsatellite (simple sequence repeat [SSR]) markers to assess the influence of abiotic factors and population genetic processes on the phylogeographic pattern of the species. Geographical distribution of cpDNA haplotypes suggests that the species originated in Australia, followed by historical dispersal and expansion of its geographic range. Multiple abiotic factors, including the sealevel changes during the Pleistocene, the presence of landmasses like the Malay Peninsula, and contemporary oceanic circulation patterns, restricted gene flow between geographically distinct populations, thereby creating low haplotype diversity and a strong population structure. Population genetic processes acted on these isolated populations, leading to high nuclear genetic diversity and population differentiation, as revealed from analyzing the polymorphic SSR loci. Although genetic divergence was mostly concordant between cpDNA and SSR data, asymmetrical gene flow and ancestral polymorphism could explain the discordance in the detailed genetic structure. Overall, our findings indicate that abiotic factors and population genetic processes interactively influenced the evolutionary history and current phylogeographic pattern of S. taccada across its distribution range.