Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surfaces moléculaires hétérogènes : un outil vers le control [i.e. contrôle] du mouillage et des morphologies d'auto-assemblage de nano objets

La connaissance des interactions interfaciales et l'energie de surface est necessaire pour etudier et modeliser les processus qui se deroulent dans le mouillage, l'adhesion ou la diffusion. Tels phenomenes sont rencontres dans la preparation des suspensions, des emulsions et les peintures. Dans ce contexte, l'energie de surface represente un parametre important dans l'etude des proprietes interfaciales solide/liquide ou plusieurs applications sont impliquees. Nous avons etudie l'effet de la modification chimique sur l'energie de surface de deux silices choisies selon deux differentes echelles: l'OX qui presente un substrat nanometrique et les wafers de silicium qui est un substrat millimetrique. Pour la silice OX 50, La modification chimique de la surface a ete realisee avec l'hexadecyltrichlosilane (HTS) a caractere hydrophobe. L'infrarouge en transmission et la quantification de carbone organique ont ete efficaces pour estimer les quantites croissantes d'HTS greffees a la surface de la silice. Deux isothermes d'adsorption ont ete tracees. Ensuite, la volumetrie d'adsorption continue d'argon et d'azote a ete utilisee pour etudier l'evolution de l'heterogeneite energetique. Ceci a ete acheve en faisant recours a une strategie d'analyse de volume adsorbee a la monocouche (Vm) d'azote et d'argon. Les resultats obtenus ont servi pour tracer une troisieme isotherme d'adsorption. La quantification de l'energie de surface a ete realisee avec la montee capillaire (technique macroscopique) et la chromatographie gazeuse en phase inverse (CGI) (technique moleculaire). Pour les wafers de silicium, deux types de surfaces ont ete elaborees durant cette etude. Le premier hydrophile (traitement Piranha, formations des groupements OH). Cette surface a ete obtenue par oxydation de ces wafers (traitement Piranha). La deuxieme a ete obtenue par le greffage d'HTS (greffons CH3). La quantification de l'energie de surface a ete realisee avec la mouillabilite (technique macroscopique) et la microscopie a force atomique (AFM) (technique nanoscopique). Enfin, les differentes valeurs d? energie de surface de la silice vierge OX 50 ont ete comparees avec celles de la surface plane hydrophile (OH). Pour les surfaces hydrophobes, on a compare les valeurs d? energie de surface de la silice OX 50 modifiee d'une quantite maximale d? HTS avec le wafer de silicium a greffons CH3
A Catalog of Best Practices about Supplier Agreement Management and Agile Practices

—With the growth of the market related to the software development industry, it is necessary to adopt practices that can assist this area in an agile way. This can enable the management of activities related to software acquisition to be defined more effectively, both for those who provide the system, and for those who acquire it. This paper proposes a catalog of best practices using the agile principles that are included in some methodologies. These are designed to manage the software acquisition process in the organizational context of software development, based on the SAM (Supplier Agreement Management) process area of the CMMI-DEV (Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development). The purpose of this catalog is to support the software organizations in the definition and implementation of their processes that are based on quality improvement programs.
Deep Learning Approaches for Detecting COVID-19 From Chest X-Ray Images: A Survey

Chest X-ray (CXR) imaging is a standard and crucial examination method used for suspected cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In profoundly affected or limited resource areas, CXR imaging is preferable owing to its availability, low cost, and rapid results. However, given the rapidly spreading nature of COVID-19, such tests could limit the efficiency of pandemic control and prevention. In response to this issue, artificial intelligence methods such as deep learning are promising options for automatic diagnosis because they have achieved state-of-the-art performance in the analysis of visual information and a wide range of medical images. This paper reviews and critically assesses the preprint and published reports between March and May 2020 for the diagnosis of COVID-19 via CXR images using convolutional neural networks and other deep learning architectures. Despite the encouraging results, there is an urgent need for public, comprehensive, and diverse datasets. Further investigations in terms of explainable and justifiable decisions are also required for more robust, transparent, and accurate predictions.
GROUND-BASED REMOTE SENSING FOR ESTIMATING THE CUMULATIVE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT IRRIGATION WATER QUALITIES ON THE PRODUCTIVITY AND GROWTH OF POTATO

The growing competition of water available from Nile fresh water, coupled with laws limiting ground water pumping, has led to utilization of different water qualities in irrigation proposals. In this study, the effect of mixed water on yield, biomass and relative chlorophyll meter was estimated. The performance of ground-based remote sensing of hyperspectral passive reflectance sensor and digital image analysis as precision agriculture tools was tested at tubers bulking growth stage to assess their relationship to detractively measured parameters via simple linear regression and three models based on partial least square regression (PLSR) analysis. The results showed that the newly developed indices (R970 - R730)/(R970 + R730) and (R990 - R730)/(R990 + R730) showed close and highly significant associations with yield, biomass and relative chlorophyll meter, with R2 values reach to 0.87, 0.80, and 0.86, respectively, while the green cover (%) was highly significantly related the same parameters, with R2 values reach to of 0.82, 0.73 and 0.70, respectively. Three models of PLSR based on (i) the spectral reflectance from 302 to 1148 nm, (ii) selected nine spectral indices and (iii) selected eight red–blue–green (RBG) indices of the images analysis for the measured parameters were apparently useful for estimating the yield, aerial biomass and relative chlorophyll meter of potato cultivar under fresh and mixed water treatments. In conclusion, the assessment of measured parameters was improved and more robust when using the multivariate analysis of PLSR models than with previously assayed normalized difference spectral indices and RGB indices from digital image analysis.
Neutrons in soft matter

Preface. Contributors. I Neutron Scattering. I.1 Basic Concepts (Ferenc Mezei). II Instrumentation. II.1 Small-Angle Neutron Scattering. II.1. 1 Small-Angle Neutron Scattering at Reactor Sources (Kell Mortensen). II.1. 2 SANS Instruments at Pulsed Neutron Sources (Toshiya Otomo). II.1. 3 Ultra-Small-Angle Neutron Scattering. II.1. 3.1 Bonse Hart USANS Instrument (Michael Agamalian). II.1. 3.2 Focusing USANS Instrument (Satoshi Koizumi). II.2 Neutron Reflectometry (Naoya Torikai). II.3 Quasielastic and Inelastic Neutron Scattering. II.3.1 Neutron Spin Echo Spectroscopy (Michael Monkenbusch and Dieter Richter). II.3.2 Neutron Backscattering (Bernhard Frick and Dan Neumann). II.3. 3 Time-of-Flight Spectrometry (Ruep E. Lechner). II.4 Neutron Imaging (Nobuyuki Takenaka). III Data Treatment and Sample Environment. III.1 Practical Aspects of SANS Experiments (George D. Wignall). III.2 Structure Analysis (Hideki Seto). III.3 Calculation of Real Space Parameters and Ab Initio Models from Isotropic Elastic SANS Patterns (Peter V. Konarev and Dmitri I. Svergun). III.4 Contrast Variation (Mitsuhiro Hirai). III.5 Sample Environment: Soft Matter Sample Environment for Small-Angle Neutron Scattering and Neutron Reflectometry (Peter Lindner, Ralf Schweins, and Richard A. Campbell). IV Applications. IV.1 Hierarchical Structure of Small Molecules (Tsang-Lang Lin). IV.2 Structure of Dendritic Polymers and Their Films (Koji Mitamura and Toyoko Imae). IV.3 Dynamics of Polymers (Toshiji Kanaya and Barbara J.Gabrys). IV.4 Inhomogeneous Structure and Dynamics of Condensed Soft Matter (Mitsuhiro Shibayama). IV.5 Protein Dynamics Studied by Neutron Incoherent Scattering (Mikio Kataoka and Hiroshi Nakagawa). IV.6 Polymer Interfaces and Thin Films (David G. Bucknall). IV.7 Neutron Diffraction from Polymers and Other Soft Matter (Geoffrey R. Mitchell). V Current Facilities. V.1 Pulsed Neutron Sources and Facilities (Masatoshi Arai). V.2 Reactor Overview (Colin J. Carlile). Index.
Robust Trajectory Generation for Robotic Control on the Neuromorphic Research Chip Loihi

Neuromorphic hardware has several promising advantages compared to von Neumann architectures and is highly interesting for robot control. However, despite the high speed and energy efficiency of neuromorphic computing, algorithms utilizing this hardware in control scenarios are still rare. One problem is the transition from fast spiking activity on the hardware, which acts on a timescale of a few milliseconds, to a control-relevant timescale on the order of hundreds of milliseconds. Another problem is the execution of complex trajectories, which requires spiking activity to contain sufficient variability, while at the same time, for reliable performance, network dynamics must be adequately robust against noise. In this study we exploit a recently developed biologically-inspired spiking neural network model, the so-called anisotropic network. We identified and transferred the core principles of the anisotropic network to neuromorphic hardware using Intel's neuromorphic research chip Loihi and validated the system on trajectories from a motor-control task performed by a robot arm. We developed a network architecture including the anisotropic network and a pooling layer which allows fast spike read-out from the chip and performs an inherent regularization. With this, we show that the anisotropic network on Loihi reliably encodes sequential patterns of neural activity, each representing a robotic action, and that the patterns allow the generation of multidimensional trajectories on control-relevant timescales. Taken together, our study presents a new algorithm that allows the generation of complex robotic movements as a building block for robotic control using state of the art neuromorphic hardware.
All-Optical Tunable Whispering Gallery Modes in a Polymer Bottle Micro-Resonator

We propose and demonstrate an all-optical tunable polymer bottle micro-resonator fabricated by droplet dispensing method. A microfiber is used to excite whispering gallery mode (WGM) of the micro-resonator. Continuous wave (CW) laser is employed as pump light to tune the WGM. To illustrate tuning performance of the fabricated device, external and internal pump light methods are both employed. For external pump light method, the tuning efficiency is about 5.23 pm/mW. For internal pump light, tuning efficiency of 68.3 pm/mW is obtained. The experimental results reveal that the bottle micro-resonator (BMR) can achieve wavelength tuning more than one free spectral range (FSR), which indicates the WGM can be tuned within a transparent window covered the full wavelength range. In addition, the fabricated device has advantages of high tuning efficiency, small size, easy fabrication, and extremely low cost.
Irish-Dutch Sandwiches, Corporate Inversions, and Arm’s Length Transactions: International Tax for IB Courses

Looking for a good reason to introduce international tax into your IB course? Let me give you five. First, every IB course includes a unit whose purpose is to have students appreciate how doing business differs when traversing borders—tax is certainly a practical example of this. Second, all MNEs must submit tax returns, and therefore managers must understand, at least at a high level, the general classes of tax systems and principles that countries employ. Third, international tax is a provocative, controversial topic which will engage students academically and often emotionally. Students read in the practitioner press about large MNEs that pay little or no tax, and students want to know: How do they do it? Why are they getting away with it? Fourth, tax is a relevant example by which to discuss MNE–government bargaining and relations. A discussion of tax includes the ability of MNEs to play countries against each other. Fifth, tax is an issue area that can be used as a context when teaching global governance. Actions to assure that each MNE pays its “fair share” of tax require broad international support and exchange of information among countries, MNEs, and supranational organizations. Given this premise, it is not surprising that international tax reforms are complex and slow in developing.
VirAAL: Virtual Adversarial Active Learning for NLU

This paper presents VirAAL, an Active Learning framework based on Adversarial Training. VirAAL aims to reduce the effort of annotation in Natural Language Understanding (NLU). VirAAL is based on Virtual Adversarial Training (VAT), a semi-supervised approach that regularizes the model through Local Distributional Smoothness. With that, adversarial perturbations are added to the inputs making the posterior distribution more consistent. Therefore, entropy-based Active Learning becomes robust by querying more informative samples without requiring additional components. The first set of experiments studies the impact of an adapted VAT for joint-NLU tasks within low labeled data regimes. The second set shows the effect of VirAAL in an Active Learning (AL) process. Results demonstrate that VAT is robust even on multi-task training, where the adversarial noise is computed from multiple loss functions. Substantial improvements are observed with entropy-based AL with VirAAL for querying data to annotate. VirAAL is an inexpensive method in terms of AL computation with a positive impact on data sampling. Furthermore, VirAAL decreases annotations in AL up to 80% and shows improvements over existing data augmentation methods. The code is publicly available.
Comparison of intrarenal pelvic pressure during F24 channel and F16 channel for percutaneous nephrolithotomy

Objective To explore the size of access channel that may influence the intrarenal pelvic pressure during percutaneous nephrolithotomy. Methods From April 2014 to July 2015, 83 patiens with unilateral renal calculus, ranged from 20 to 40mm were divided into 2 group randomly. 40 cases underwent F24 channel PCNL and 43 cases underwent F16 channel PCNL. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in preoperative variables, such as age, gender, preoperative status of infection, status of hydrpnephrosis, size and location of stone (P>0.05). We used a 6Fr ureteral catheter positioned into the renal pelvic, and the intrarenal pelvic pressure was measured by anesthesia monitor IBP channel during PCNL in different stages (entrance into the collecting system, calculi fragmentation, and termination) for all patients. Removing calculus time, postoperative hemoglobin changing, fever rate, procalcitonin abnormal rate, white blood cell counts and calculi clearance rate were recorded and compared. Results The intrarenal pelvic pressure in different stages on F24 channel and F16 channel were (7.5±1.3)、(22.5±4.3)、(14.0±2.7) mmHg and (10.3±1.1)、(34.6±4.1)、(23.0±3.6) mmHg, respectively. There was statistically significant difference between 2 groups (P 0.05). Conclusions Compared with F16 channel, the F24 channel PCNL maintains lower renal pelvic pressure, which is less than reflux limit, during calculi fragmentation, It might be contributed to reduce the postoperative fever rate.It can short time for removing calculi and achieve the better effect. Key words: Percutaneous nephrolithotomy; Channel; Intrarenal pelvic pressure; Prospective studies
Intestinal Helminth Infections Among Primary School Pupils In Nimo Community, Njikoka Local Government Area, Anambra State, Southeastern Nigeria

A study to determine the prevalence of intestinal helminth infections among primary school children in Nimo Community, Njikoka Local Government Area, Anambra State, Nigeria was undertaken. Four Primary Schools, namely Ugwu-Oye Primary School, Unity Primary School, St. Joseph’s Primary School and Egbengwu Primary School were involved in the study. 120 pupils were selected from the schools and enlisted into the study. Direct smear and zinc sulphate solution (Flotation method) were used for the isolation of the helminth eggs. Of the 120 stool samples examined, 26(21.7%) harboured intestinal helminths, Egbengwu Primary School had the highest number of infection 10(33.3%) and St. Joseph’s Primary School had the lowest 3(10.0%). Intestinal helminth infections observed were hookworms 13(10.8%), Ascaris lumbricoides 7(5.83%), Trichuris trichiura 2(1.66%), Schistosoma mansoni 2 (1.66%), Strongyloides stercoralis 1(0.83%) and Taenia spp 1(0.83%). More females 14(23.3%) than the males 12(20.0%) were infected. The age specific prevalence in the four schools was highest in 13-16 years age group 3(60.0%) and least in 5-8 years age group 8(16.0%). Government schools had higher prevalence of infection 18(30.0%) than private schools 8(13.3%). Generally poor sanitation, socio-economic status and ignorance of the epidemiology of infection were related to the prevalence of infection.
THE EFFECT OF IRRIGATION FREQUENCY AND RATE UNDER TRICKLE IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT ON YIELD GREEN BEAN GROWN IN CLAY LOAM SOIL

This study was conducted over 2 years (2013 and 2014) to establish the optimal combinations between irrigation frequency and rate for trickle-irrigated green bean using water production functions and water use– yield relationships. A field experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design with three irrigation frequencies (F1, F2 and F3, irrigation events once every 1, 2and 3 days, respectively) and three trickle irrigation rates (I1: 1.00, I2: 0.80, and I3: 0.60 of the estimated evapotranspiration, ET). Our results show that yield variables and water use efficiencies (WUEs) increased with increasing irrigation frequency and rate, with non-significant differences between F1 and F2 in yield variables and between I1 and I2 in WUEs. Moreover, the combination between various irrigation frequencies and rates had an important effect on yield variables and WUEs, with the highest values being found with F1I2 and F2 I1 and the lowest for F2I3 and F3I3. The F1I3 treatment had grain yield and yield components values similar to those obtained for the F2I3 treatments and WUEs values similar to those obtained for the F2I3 and F3I1 treatments. Production functions of yield versus seasonal crop ET were linear for all combinations of irrigation frequency and rate and for all irrigation frequency treatments with the exception of the F1 treatment, which instead showed a second order relationship. In conclusion, we identified the optimal coupling combinations between irrigation frequency and water application rate to achieve the maximum yield and WUEs.
Impacts of Spectral Nudging Parameters on Dynamical Downscaling in Summer over Mainland China

Spectral nudging is an important method of improving the effectiveness of dynamical downscaling in the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). However, spectral nudging is sensitive to nudging parameters, and most related research has typically adopted the default nudging schemes. Summer is the rainy season in China. Both typhoons and heavy rains occur in summer. It is therefore significant to discuss the optimal nudging parameter settings to achieve better summer climate simulations over mainland China. In this study, we analyzed the impacts of various nudged variables and their cutoff wavelengths on the downscaling ability by simulating the summer climate over mainland China in 2009 and 2010. The results showed that nudging the horizontal wind or potential temperature had a significant effect on the simulation of nearly all conventional meteorological fields and that nudging the geopotential height affected mainly precipitation. The suitable cutoff wavelengths were 500 or 1,000 km for wind, 1,000–2,000 km for potential temperature, and 1,000 km for geopotential height. Nudging all variables had obvious advantages over nudging the wind, potential temperature, or geopotential height individually in nearly all subregions. The appropriate cutoff wavelength was 500–1,500 km when all variables were nudged. Overall, nudging all three variables with 1,000 km cutoff wavelength is recommended for dynamical downscaling in summer over mainland China.
Late Summer Peak and Scavenging-Dominant Metal Fluxes in Particulate Export Near a Seamount in the Western North Pacific Subtropical Gyre

We measured sedimentation fluxes around JA06 Seamount (Xufu Guyot; 19°30′N, 158°00′E) as part of an environmental baseline survey in Japan’s exploration area for cobalt-rich crusts in the subtropical northwest Pacific. Sinking particles were collected at the flat top (sediment trap depths: 900 and 1,000 m) and northeastern base (sediment trap depths: 1,000 and 4,720 m) of the seamount from June 2016 to April 2017. Total mass fluxes were very low, with average values of 4.3–4.9 and 9.3 mg m−2 d−1 in the shallow traps at the flat top and base, respectively, which is consistent with an oligotrophic system. The lower fluxes at the flat top probably reflect lower productivity of siliceous microplankton, such as diatoms. However, we were unable to substantiate any potential mechanisms for this difference in productivity and cannot evaluate whether this is representative of typical conditions. When combined with previous observations at two adjacent seamounts, our results indicate widespread seasonality in sediment fluxes with a peak in late summer (August–September). However, satellite data indicate that summer is the season with the lowest primary production. This discrepancy could be explained either by phytoplankton blooms fueled by symbiotic nitrogen fixation that only cause minor increases in surface-ocean chlorophyll or short-lived blooms induced by passing typhoons under thick cloud cover. At the base site, we also analyzed material and element transport rates from shallow to deep waters. Half of the organic matter and >80% of the carbonate in sinking particles was not degraded in the water column, suggesting that most of the regeneration of these materials occurs near or on the sediment surface. Furthermore, four major processes appeared to control elemental fluxes in the area: lithogenic (Al, Ti, Fe), carbonate (Mg, Ca, Sr), biogenic (+scavenging) (Ni, Zn, Cd, Pb), and scavenging (V, Mn, Co, Cu, rare earth elements) processes. The estimation of excess flux based on the composition of upper continental crust demonstrated that >85% of total Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb fluxes were attributable to scavenging (+biogenic uptake). Scavenging-dominant metal fluxes are likely ubiquitous in the oligotrophic open ocean.
Live Imaging by Time-Lapse Microscopy Can More Clearly Evaluate the Anti-Apoptotic State of Primary Hepatocytes Isolated from the drs Knockout Mouse

To investigate the anti-apoptotic state of primary hepatocytes isolated from the drs knockout(KO)mice,Fas-mediated apoptosis was observed by flow cytometry and time-lapse microscopy.Treatment with anti-Fas antibody plus actinomycin D or cycloheximide induced over 50% apoptosis for primary hepatocytes based on annexin V staining.At 24 hr later under these apoptotic stimuli,the sub G1 fraction of hepatocytes isolated from the drs KO mice was significantly decreased in comparison to wild C57BL/ 6 mice.In contrast,sequential time-lapse microscopic analysis revealed clearer and larger differences in the apoptotic responses of primary hepatocytes from the drs KO and wild-type mice from 4 hr to 24 hr after apoptotic induction.The time-lapse microscopic analysis clearly indicated the hepatocytes isolated from the drs KO mouse to be more resistant to the apoptotic stimuli than other methods.The time-lapse microscopy is very useful for the sequential observation of viable primary hepatocytes.