Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DETERMINING THE IMPACTS OF FREIGHT TRANSPORT MODE COMBINATIONS ON AIR POLLUTION USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

Transport is one of the largest emitters of harmful substances that affect air quality. Each combination of freight transport modes has a different volume and at the same time has a differentiated negative impact on air quality. That is why the European Union has been making special efforts for many years to create and implement strategies aimed at improving air quality. The main goal of this paper is to present a methodology that enables quantification and analysis of the impact of each freight transport mode combination on air quality using feed-forward neural networks. The developed model uses the parameters of the EU member states in the period from 2000 to 2014. In addition to the scientific and practical contribution, the development of the model provides a good basis for the universal platform formation in order to create and develop strategies, i.e. measures to improve air quality on a global level.
Spilanthes acmella Leaves Extract for Corrosion Inhibition in Acid Medium

In the present study, the corrosion inhibition effect of Spilanthes acmella aqueous leaves extract (SA-LE) on mild steel was investigated in 1.0 M HCl solution at different temperature using weight loss, Tafel polarization, linear polarization resistance (LPR), and electrochemical impedance (EIS) measurements. Adsorption of inhibitor on the surface of the mild steel obeyed both Langmuir and Temkin adsorption isotherms. The thermodynamic and kinetic parameters were also calculated to determine the mechanism of corrosion inhibition. The inhibition efficiency was found to increase with an increase in the inhibitor concentration i.e., Spilanthes acmella aqueous leaves extract, however, the inhibition efficiency decreased with an increase in the temperature. The phytochemical constituents with functional groups including electronegative hetero atoms such as N, O, and S in the extract adsorbed on the metal surface are found responsible for the effective performance of the inhibitor, which was confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopic (UV-Vis) studies. Protective film formation against corrosion was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and contact angle studies. The result shows that the leaves extract acts as corrosion inhibitor and is able to promote surface protection by blocking active sites on the metal.
Folate-producing rhizobacteria of Hippophae rhamnoides L. from Indian trans-Himalaya low atmospheric zone

Hippophae rhamnoides L. is a plant of immense ethnopharmacological importance and is a known source for various valuable biochemicals and nutraceuticals. The production of folate, a vitamin involved in several vital functions, in this plant is rather poorly understood. Herein, we investigate the hypothesis that rhizobial bacteria serve the plant in this essential vitamin’s biosynthesis. Bacterial strains of Bacillus, Azorhizobium, Frankia, Paenibacillus, Brevibacillus and Pseudomonas, were isolated from the rhizosphere of the plant. HPLC and LCMS were used to trace the production of intra and extra-cellular folate by representative rhizospheric bacterial strains in vitro. From the seventeen functionally characterized bacterial strains of the plant’s rhizosphere, thirteen produced significant amounts of folate. Azorhizobium BR5401 produced the maximum amount of folic acid (424 μg/mL), and Bacillus GY779 was the only strain capable of producing both intracellular and extra-cellular folic acid. The Open Reading Frame coding for dihydroneopterin aldolase, an enzyme involved in folate biosynthesis, was found in one of the representative isolates. Our experimental findings help us to suggest that the folate synthesized by rhizobial bacteria is transported to the plant, highlighting a significant benefit of coexistence.
Causality between global economic policy uncertainty and tourism in fragile five countries: a three-dimensional wavelet approach

ABSTRACT This work aims to examine the relationship between global economic policy uncertainty (GEPU) and tourism activities in the fragile five (F5) countries, namely, Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey using three-dimensional wavelet transforms context structures and the annual data during the period of 1997–2018. This innovative technique allows the decomposition of time-series at different time frequencies. In this work, the researchers used three-dimensional continuous wavelets based on Granger causality analysis to investigate the relationship between GEPU and tourism. The finding shows that the relationship generally changes over time, displaying low to high frequency cycles. Moreover, the timing and frequency change when GEPU co-moves with tourism. Accordingly, it can be recommended that the government increase and promote tourism demand and further provide and nurture the expansion of tourism supply.
Computer Simulation of TiAlN Coatings and Its Analogues on Iron Surface

The strength of various variants of the TiAlN coating and its analogues on the iron surface is studied by using quantum chemistry methods. As a computer model, we consider a system of 5.5 atomic layers, 3 of which imitate the base (metallic iron), and 2.5 layers imitate its coating. The dependence of the coating strength on its chemical composition and the mutual arrangement of atoms of various elements is studied. It follows from the calculations that the strength of the optimal TiAlN coating is almost equal to the strength of the surface of pure iron. The proposed model was used also to study the role of the coating in protecting the iron surface from oxidation. It is shown that the considered coating variants practically do not undergo oxygen corrosion, which is one of the reasons for their high efficiency.
Selective Inference for High-order Interaction Features Selected in a Stepwise Manner

: In this paper, we study a stepwise feature selection algorithm for a high-order interaction model and we propose a new statistical inference for selected high-order interaction features. Feature selection and statistical inference for high-order interaction features are challenging tasks because the possible number of those interactions is extremely large. Our main contribution is to extend recently developed selective inference framework to high-order interaction model by developing a pruning technique for searching over tree which represents high-order interaction features. We demonstrate the e ﬀ ectiveness of the proposed approach by applying it to several synthetic problems and an HIV drug resistance prediction problem.
Internet of Things for Agricultural Applications: The State of the Art

The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) inspired various new and enhanced sets of applications in multiple domains including agriculture. The recent drive in the adoption of IoT technologies offers a major enhancement for the agricultural sectors in terms of efficiency and scalability. In this article, we investigate the specific issues and challenges associated with IoT, and review various IoT architectures, communication, middleware, and information processing technologies. We, then, discuss few IoT applications for agriculture—presenting various case studies to thoroughly analyze the solutions along with their design and implementation related parameters. Consequently, we provide a comprehensive review of the available simulation tools, data sets, and testbeds which provisions experimentation with IoT in agriculture. We enumerate open issues and challenges present in enabling IoT for agriculture. Finally, this article concludes while giving directions for future research.
Pyrolysis-GC/MS Analysis of Fast Growing Wood Macaranga Species

Py-GC/MS analysis of six different species of fast growing Macaranga wood has been studied. Flash pyrolysis was conducted at different temperatures (250-850 C) under a flow of helium followed by GC/MS analysis of the products. The total pyrolysis yields of the six different species of Macaranga were mostly between 40 and 90% within the range of pyrolysis temperature applied. Pyrolysis of the woody biomass produced compounds which are mostly derived from thermal degradation or volatilization of lignin and cellulose/hemicellulose, the original major constituents of the biomass. The Py-GC/MS technique indicated that M. gigantea was the most potential species for biofuel production and the optimum pyrolysis temperature to produce high yields of bio-oil was 450 C. © 2021 Tim Pengembang Jurnal UPI Article History: Received 03 Jul 2020 Revised 29 Jan 2021 Accepted 31 Jan 2021 Available online 04 Feb 2021 ____________________ Keyword: Py-GC/MS, Macaranga, Wood Indonesian Journal of Science & Technology Journal homepage: http://ejournal.upi. edu/index.php/ijost/ Indonesian Journal of Science & Technology 6 (1) (2021) 141-158 Subagyono, et.al. Pyrolysis-GC/MS analysis of fast growing . | 142 DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.17509/ijost.v6i1 pISSN 2528-1410 eISSN 2527-8045
A meteorological‐based crop coefficient model for estimation of daily evapotranspiration

Estimation of daily evapotranspiration (ET) over cloudy regions highly desires models which rely on meteorological data only. Notwithstanding, the conventional crop coefficient (Kc) method requires detailed knowledge of geo/biophysical properties of the coupled land‐vegetation system, precipitation, and soil moisture. Six Eddy Covariance (EC) towers in Iowa, California and New Hampshire of the USA (covering corn, soybeans, prairie, and deciduous forest) were selected. Investigation on 6 years (2007–2012) 15‐min micrometeorological records of these sites revealed that there is an indubitable strong interaction between relative humidity (RH), reference ET (ETo), and actual ET at different timescales. This allowed to bypass the need for the non‐meteorological inputs and express Kc as a second‐order polynomial function of RH and ETo, the ambient regression evapotranspiration model (AREM). The coefficients of the empirical function are crop‐specific and may require calibration over different soil types. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the regression against daily EC observations was 17% during the growing season, and 32% throughout the year with root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.74 mm day−1 and coefficient of determination of 0.71. The model was fully operational (MAPE of 34% and RMSE of 0.82 mm day−1) over the four Iowan sites based on inputs from local weather stations and NLDAS‐2 forcing data of NASA. AREM was capable of capturing the dynamics of ET at 15‐min and daily timescales irrespective of varying complexities associated with biophysical, geophysical and climatological states.
Ocorrência de assimetrias de membros inferiores em atletas de base do futsal

O futsal é um esporte em ascensão em todo o mundo, atraindo cada vez mais novos praticantes e assim como no futebol de campo, vem sofrendo modificações nos últimos anos, exigindo cada vez mais dos atletas, se tornando um esporte de alto impacto, promovendo sobrecarga, a curto, médio e longo prazo, predispondo a lesão de diferentes graus do aparelho locomotor. O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar assimetrias de membros inferiores em atletas de base do futsal, bem como a relação destas à incidência de lesões. O estudo foi desenvolvido com 47 atletas da categoria, de base, de futsal, de uma cidade do interior do estado de São Paulo, onde foram realizados testes funcionais com auxilio do aplicativo PHAST. Foi identificado um padrão de similaridade entre os grupos musculares testados, com exceção do músculo glúteo médio, apresentando uma diferença significante. De acordo com os indicadores encontrados, os padrões de déficit de força dos glúteos médios podem desencadear, ou predispor a alguns tipos de lesões biomecânica sejam elas, proximais, na região do quadril, ou distais, como disfunções na articulação dos joelhos. Quando um atleta apresenta uma fraqueza deste músculo, ocorre a adução do fêmur ipsilateral, aumento da rotação medial e queda da pelve contra lateral, promovendo aumento do valgo dinâmico do joelho aumentando a sobrecarga nesta articulação. Com isso conclui-se que a avaliação em pré-temporada é importante para identificar possíveis assimetrias, implementando um trabalho preventivo, para corrigi-las, com o intuito de minimizar os riscos de lesões.
Sharp bounds for the number of regions of maxout networks and vertices of Minkowski sums

We present results on the number of linear regions of the functions that can be represented by artificial feedforward neural networks with maxout units. A rank-k maxout unit is a function computing the maximum of $k$ linear functions. For networks with a single layer of maxout units, the linear regions correspond to the upper vertices of a Minkowski sum of polytopes. We obtain face counting formulas in terms of the intersection posets of tropical hypersurfaces or the number of upper faces of partial Minkowski sums, along with explicit sharp upper bounds for the number of regions for any input dimension, any number of units, and any ranks, in the cases with and without biases. Based on these results we also obtain asymptotically sharp upper bounds for networks with multiple layers.
Exploring the Effectiveness of DDL in an L2 Context through a Non-control-group Asynchronous Experimental Design

This study aims at a rediscovery of the extent to which a DDL-based intervention could become instrumental in facilitating grammar instruction with a specific focus on EAP and learner autonomy and reducing the number of repeating learners in a preparatory program participated mostly by Turkish-L1 learners studying EAP. It also provides a context-restricted longitudinal depiction of the effectiveness of a DDL-based grammar instruction endorsed by teacher (also referred to as the researcher) mentorship across groups asynchronously, thus re-testing the limits of DDL-oriented corpus pedagogy in contexts where a control group is not available, unlike the traditional control-group study design. To this end, a corpus was compiled out of the existing reading and listening materials in use ad hoc by the name of the Alternative Corpus of Academic Texts (ACAT), and a total of 19 grammar lessons covering topics in the curriculum of the second level of the grammar course taught were developed using the ACAT. Blind pre and post-test procedures were administered with all four experimental groups independent of each other to gradually build up a local understanding of the governing pattern of learner achievement through DDL and corpus-based teacher-prepared materials at the end of each intervention period. The data analysis demonstrated a rise in student achievement across all groups despite the lack of a teacher disseminating knowledge to students in class in the traditional sense, thus showing that a sense of autonomy could be gained through DDL-enhanced teaching. With the design being unorthodox compared to most other DDL studies in the literature, this study shows that the triple powers of DDL, self-discovery, occasional teacher supervision, and corpus-based teaching materials, could help learners of English survive autonomously no matter how hectic the curriculum run at an institution is. All in all, further research is needed to deepen this insight so that this sort of DDL practices could be implemented at the institutional level.
CRISPR-CAS9: A GENOME EDITING TOOL FOR IMPROVEMENT OF BIOFUEL PRODUCTION IN DIATOMS: A REVIEW

Clusters of Regularly Interspersed Short Palindromic Repeats-Cas 9 (CRISPR-Cas 9) protein is a simple but powerful tool that has been introduced for site specific gene editing so far. Crispr technology is a natural phenomenon that occurs in bacteria and archaea as a self-defense mechanism against the attacks by virus and other foreign particles. This simple phenomenon comes into the picture and plays a remarkable role in the improvement of the genome of various organisms, including diatoms by site specific genome editing so as to harness various products of human needs. Due to the increasing human population and the limited availability of fossil fuels and not forgetting to mention the urge to reduce the environmental pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels, we are constantly looking for ecofriendly, cost friendly, renewable alternative sources of fuels. Diatoms as a great source of lipids play a major role as an alternative source of biofuels. Nuclease guided genome editing tools such as FOKI-I, TALENS, mega-nucleases, CRISPR associated Cas 9 make the improvement of the genome of diatoms to enhance the production of lipid content possible facilitating the production of biofuels. Among them CRISPR-Cas9 technologies are believed to have a great potential, inducing site specific genome editing more effectively and accurately than any other technique. Thus, this review, basically focuses on the importance of biofuels and how the diatoms can be utilized effectively manipulating their genome with the help of genome editing tools.
Study on simulation method of excavation of metro transfer station

In order to study the numerical simulation method of metro transfer station, a three-dimensional finite element model with and without considering fluid-solid coupling effect is established based on a metro transfer station of Jinan. The difference between the displacement of diaphragm wall, as well as the ground surface settlement, under the two conditions is compared. And a conversion equation of the retaining structure is deduced to convert the discontinuous pile wall into a continuous wall for numerical simulation modelling. The conclusions of this paper could serve as a reference for the numerical simulation of other metro transfer station projects.
Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound LI-RADS LR-5 in Hepatic Tuberculosis: Case Report and Literature Review of Imaging Features

Background: The liver is involved in disseminated tuberculosis in more than 80% of cases while primary liver involvement is rare, representing <1% of all cases. Hepatic tuberculosis (TB) can be treated by conventional anti-TB therapy; however, diagnosing this disease remains a challenge. The diagnosis might be particularly difficult in patients with a single liver lesion that could be misdiagnosed as a tumor or other focal liver lesions. Although computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings have been described, there is a paucity of literature on contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) features of hepatic TB. Case Summary: herein, we describe a case of a patient with tuberculous lymphadenopathy and chronic Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)-related liver disease who developed a single macronodular hepatic TB lesion. Due to the finding of a hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) highly suggestive CEUS pattern, specifically a LR5 category according to the Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS), and a good response to antitubercular therapy, a non-invasive diagnosis of HCC was made, and the patient underwent liver resection. We also review the published literature on imaging features of hepatic TB and discuss the diagnostic challenge represented by hepatic TB when occurs as a single focal liver lesion. Conclusions: this report shows for the first time that the CEUS pattern of hepatic TB might be misinterpreted as HCC and specific imaging features are lacking. Personal history and epidemiological data are mandatory in interpreting CEUS findings of a focal liver lesion even when the imaging pattern is highly suggestive of HCC.
Small Column Ion Exchange Testing of Superlig 644 for Removal of 137Cs from Hanford Tank Waste Envelope C (Tank 241-AN-107)

The current BNFL Inc. flowsheet for the pretreatment of the Hanford high-level tank wastes includes the use of Superlig{reg_sign} materials for removing {sup 137}Cs from the aqueous fraction of the waste. The Superlig materials applicable to cesium removal include the cesium-selective Superlig 632and Superlig 644. These materials have been developed and supplied by IBC Advanced Technologies, Inc., American Fork, Utah. This report describes the testing of the Superlig 644 ion exchange material in a small dual-column system. The bed volume of the lead column was 18.6 mL (L/D = 7), and the bed volume of the lag column was 15.9 mL (L/D = 6) during the loading phase. The sample processed was approximately 1.6 L of diluted waste ([Na{sup +}] = 4.84 M) from Tank 241-AN-107 (Envelope C). This sample had been previously treated for removal of Sr/transuranic (TRU) values and clarified in a single tube cross-flow filtration unit. All ion exchange process steps were tested, including resin-bed preparation, loading, feed displacement, water rinse, elution, eluant rinse, and resin regeneration. A summary of performance measures for both columns is shown in Table S1. The Cs {lambda} values represent a measure of the effective capacity of the SL-644 resin. The Cs {lambda} of 20 for the lead column is much lower than the estimated 150 obtained by the Savannah River Technology Center during Phase 1A testing. Equilibrium data obtained with batch contacts using the AN-107 Cs IX feed predicts a Cs {lambda} of 183. A Cs {lambda} for the lag column could not be determined due to insufficient breakthrough, but it appeared to work well and removed nearly all of the cesium not removed by the lead column. The low value for the lead column indicates that it did not perform as expected. This may have been due to air or gas in the bed that caused fluid channeling or blinding of the resin. The maximum decontamination factor (DF) for {sup 137}Cs listed in Table S1 is based on {sup 137}Cs concentration in the first samples collected from each column and the {sup 137}Cs concentration in the feed. The composite DF for {sup 137}Cs was 1,760, which provided an effluent with a {sup 137}Cs concentration of 8.7E-02 Ci/m{sup 3}. The {sup 137}Cs concentration is below the basis of design limit and is 7.2% of the contract limit for {sup 137}Cs.