Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Posture evaluation for mobile manipulators using manipulation ability, tolerance on grasping, and pose error of end-effector

This paper presents a method for determining the posture of a mobile manipulator aiming to reach a target end-effector pose. A posture is composed of two parameters: the pose of the mobile platform and joint angles of the manipulator. To determine the platform pose rationally, we propose a novel posture evaluation method focusing on the pose error associated with the end-effector and caused by the accumulated positioning error of the platform. The proposed method implies not only using the pose error of the mobile platform but also considering the manipulation ability of the end-effector, as well as the tolerance region for grasping an object by the end-effector. The evaluation results can be used to analyze the stability of postures in terms of grasping a target object. In addition, we introduce a search-based method to identify appropriate poses of the mobile platform. We also consider an application example of a two-link three-joint mobile manipulator. Using such a robot, we explain a concrete calculation method used to estimate the tolerance region, and then, show the simulation results corresponding to posture evaluation and pose determination. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
RULE OF THUMB FOR GAS PERMEATION SYSTEMS' CALCULATIONS

In gas purification using polymeric membrane systems, different parameters affect on product specification. In these systems, pressure ratio, stage-cut, membrane selectivity and feed purity are important parameters which changing in these parameters results in a different product specification. Existence of a mathematical correlation between these parameters can be helpful and it gives a view that shows how can approach to products with desired specification. In present study, a correlation between effective parameters has been developed. This dimensionless mathematical model shows how product purity and recovery are influenced by membrane selectivity (DR; from 2 to 125) and feed purity in different stage-cut and a pressure ratio between 1/20 and 1/10.
Heat flux in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection: Predictions derived from a boundary layer theory

Using recently developed boundary-layer equations for turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection that take into account fluctuations and buoyancy, we derive analytical results for heat flux scaling dependencies in low- and high-Prandtl-number limits. Our theoretical results are supported by direct numerical simulation data, and further reveal a surprising close resemblance of the heat flux scaling dependencies in turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard and steady forced convection. This finding resolves the paradox of the apparent applicability of the scaling results in steady forced convection even though the boundary layer theory in that case is not applicable to turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection.
Effect of different fibres on the performance properties of cold recycled mixture with asphalt emulsion

ABSTRACT Fibre is one of the most popular additives in hot mix asphalt (HMA). However, there are few research studies about the application of fibres in cold recycled mixture with asphalt emulsion. In this study, five popular fibres are introduced to the emulsion recycled mixture, including polyester fibre, polypropylene (PP) fibre, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibre, lignin fibre, and basalt fibre. The optimum pre-mixing water (OPW) content, optimum emulsion content (OEC) and optimum fibre content of recycled mixtures reinforced by fibres are determined. The indirect tensile strength (ITS), moisture susceptibility, bending cracking at low temperature, rutting and fatigue life of mixtures with these fibres are investigated. The test results indicate that the OPW and OEC of recycled mixture are influenced by types and contents of fibres. Although different fibres lead to obviously different ITS values, the optimum content for each fibre is near 0.3% by weight of RAP. All five fibres improve the performance properties of the emulsion recycled mixture. The improved percentages depend on the type of fibres. Polyester fibre has higher improvement on fatigue life than the other fibres. Therefore, polyester fibre is recommended as the most effective fibre to improve the emulsion recycled mixture.
COVID-19 Information Consumption and Stock Market Return

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 information attention on stock market return. We use Google search volume index to proxy investor information attention in respect to case, death, lockdown and vaccine. We uncover that information attention towards lockdown and vaccine positively affects investor sentiment, reflected through increase in stock market return. By contrast, we do not find significant impact of case information attention on stock market return. However, we uncover that COVID-19 death information attention is negatively associated with stork market return for only initial 90 days trading period. Our results are consistent to a battery of robustness tests. Our study contributes to the understanding of the relationship between investor information attention and asset pricing during economic uncertainty and particularly, during pandemic state.
Bayes’ Theorem as a Tool for Better Administration of Employee Discretion

The power to choose is not only possible in legal frameworks but also outside of them. So far, informal power has been viewed as the illegal one in the law, although there are many informal, especially personal elements involved in the legal decision-making that are never brought to light. This paper presents a new type of discretion, named employee discretion, and shows a promising approach towards the idea that officials or judges can decide similarly in similar matters, despite their differences in personal backgrounds, cognitive capabilities or emotional variances, commonly known as pre-existing preferences. This can be done if Bayes’ theorem is used. This way, subjective preferences could be known to others, while the principles of equality and equity could be put on a higher level.
Convalescent Plasma Therapy for COVID-19: A Graphical Mosaic of the Worldwide Evidence

Convalescent plasma has been used worldwide to treat patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and prevent disease progression. Despite global usage, uncertainty remains regarding plasma efficacy, as randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have provided divergent evidence regarding the survival benefit of convalescent plasma. Here, we argue that during a global health emergency, the mosaic of evidence originating from multiple levels of the epistemic hierarchy should inform contemporary policy and healthcare decisions. Indeed, worldwide matched-control studies have generally found convalescent plasma to improve COVID-19 patient survival, and RCTs have demonstrated a survival benefit when transfused early in the disease course but limited or no benefit later in the disease course when patients required greater supportive therapies. RCTs have also revealed that convalescent plasma transfusion contributes to improved symptomatology and viral clearance. To further investigate the effect of convalescent plasma on patient mortality, we performed a meta-analytical approach to pool daily survival data from all controlled studies that reported Kaplan–Meier survival plots. Qualitative inspection of all available Kaplan–Meier survival data and an aggregate Kaplan–Meier survival plot revealed a directionally consistent pattern among studies arising from multiple levels of the epistemic hierarchy, whereby convalescent plasma transfusion was generally associated with greater patient survival. Given that convalescent plasma has a similar safety profile as standard plasma, convalescent plasma should be implemented within weeks of the onset of future infectious disease outbreaks.
Platinum group elements in terrestrial oil shale from the Lunpola Basin, northern Tibet, China

ABSTRACT The Lunpola oil shale is the largest oil shale resource in Tibet. Twenty-four samples were collected from this deposition to determine the platinum group element (PGE) characteristics. The total PGE contents in terrestrial oil shale are low (average 2.386 ng/g). The PGEs are enriched in the oil shale samples near the boundary between the oil shale and its underlying strata. The PGE enrichment may be the result of a change of oxic–anoxic conditions. The individual PGEs of oil shale samples from the Lunpola oil shale exhibit similar modes of occurrence, and their distributions are controlled mainly by Fe-bearing minerals (pyrite). The source of PGEs in the Lunpola oil shale is probably related to water chemistry and terrigenous supply.
Teaching Materials and Islamic Value Based Need Analysis the Teachig Material at Anthropology Subject:The Case on Universitas Islam Negeri Imam Bonjol Padang

Anthropology provides understanding, experience, mental attitude and cultural behavior and prepare students to qualified in multicultural society and be able to apply both individually and in groups within the campus, community and nation. This paper aomed atto analyzing the needs on teaching materials at Anthropology class which is based on Islamic values. It used is descriptive qualitative, with a descriptive approach. The teaching materials development is based on Islamic Values beside being trated with blended learningand the students must pay attention to the learning otcome both practical and theories of teaching materials which is based on Islamic values. A wide range of material which integrated with Islamic values enable students in attitudes and skills and knowledge, and presents learning activities as formulated in scientific approach (Observing, Asking, Trying, Analyzing, and Concluding). The analysis is to make Anthrophopology teaching materials underpined by Islamic Valuesthe teaching valid, interesting practical and effective blended learning in higher education.
Processes of legitimization in contemporary Art: the young British Artists phenomenon

ABSTRACT The Young British Artists (YBAs) was a generation that incorporated elements from media, advertising and cultural industry into the art world in the late 20th century. Based on a case study of the group and the distinctive phases of its meteoric trajectory, we analyse the circumstances and agents involved in the processes of legitimisation in contemporary art. As an instrumental tool, we use the model presented by Alan Bowness in his publication, which outlines the process that allows artists to access certain social recognition. This outline provides us with a model of reference upon which to reconstruct the pattern of the YBAs trajectory to determine the sociocultural circumstances surrounding the media phenomenon. These results also correct and modify certain aspects of Bowness’ model to adapt it to the current socioeconomic context that sustains the processes of legitimisation of art today.
Binding energies and sticking coefficients of H2 on crystalline and amorphous CO ice

Context. Molecular hydrogen (H2) is the most abundant interstellar molecule and plays an important role in the chemistry and physics of the interstellar medium. The interaction of H2 with interstellar ices is relevant for several processes (e.g., nuclear spin conversion and chemical reactions on the surface of the ice). To model surface processes, quantities such as binding energies and sticking coefficients are required. Aims. We provide sticking coefficients and binding energies for the H2/CO system. These data are absent in the literature so far and could help modelers and experimentalists to draw conclusions on the H2/CO interaction in cold molecular clouds. Methods. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, in combination with neural network potentials, were employed in our simulations. Atomistic neural networks were trained against density functional theory calculations on model systems. We sampled a wide range of H2 internal energies and three surface temperatures. Results. Our results show that the binding energy for the H2/CO system is low on average, − 157 K for amorphous CO and −266 K for crystalline CO. This carries several implications for the rest of the work. H2 binding to crystalline CO is stronger by 109 K than to amorphous CO, while amorphous CO shows a wider H2 binding energy distribution. Sticking coefficients are never unity and vary strongly with surface temperature, but less so with ice phase, with values between 0.95 and 0.17. With the values of this study, between 17 and 25% of a beam of H2 molecules at room temperature would stick to the surface, depending on the temperature of the surface and the ice phase. Residence times vary by several orders of magnitude between crystalline and amorphous CO, with the latter showing residence times on the order of seconds at 5 K. H2 may diffuse before desorption in amorphous ices, which might help to accommodate it in deeper binding sites. Conclusions. Based on our results, a significant fraction of H2 molecules will stick on CO ice under experimental conditions, even more so under the harsh conditions of prestellar cores. However, with the low H2–CO binding energies, residence times of H2 on CO ice before desorption are too short to consider a significant population of H2 molecules on pure CO ices. Diffusion is possible in a time window before desorption, which might help accommodate H2 on deeper binding sites, which would increase residence times on the surface.
Journalism Civic Self-Efficacy: Predicting Political Participation Among Secondary-School Journalism Students

ABSTRACT This study builds on the communication mediation model of political socialization and self-efficacy research, and focuses on journalism civic self-efficacy, an individual’s confidence in using journalistic skills to promote the awareness of a community issue. The study tests the premise that journalism civic self-efficacy explains, in part, how journalism education supports individuals’ political participation, by examining links between political interest, journalism civic self-efficacy, school and classroom contexts, and future political participation with data from U.S. high school journalists (n = 769) and their teachers (n = 42). The study’s key results are: (1) journalism civic self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between political interest and prospective political participation, and (2) journalism civic self-efficacy increases when students feel a supportive school climate and when their instructors exert little control over students’ journalistic output. These results can inform the design of journalism education and outreach initiatives, prioritizing activities and settings that cultivate journalism civic self-efficacy among participants. The findings also highlight the value of such initiatives regardless of whether or not participants pursue newsroom careers. The study contributes empirical evidence to civic development literature of a pathway between journalism education and political participation, distinct from other school-sponsored activities (i.e., debate, student government).
Transmission Range Extension of PT-Symmetry-Based Wireless Power Transfer System

The wireless power transfer (WPT) system based on the parity-time (PT) symmetry has been proved to be a promising WPT system due to its characteristics of constant efficiency and output power. However, the PT-symmetric range is limited, and it is necessary to widen the PT-symmetric region to extend the distance of constant and efficient transmission. The novel PT-symmetry-based WPT system with an inductor added on the receiving circuit is proposed in this article. First, the model of the proposed system is established by utilizing the coupled-mode theory, and the performance differences between the proposed system and the original PT-symmetric system are studied, and it is found that the critical coupling coefficient of the proposed system is smaller than that of the original PT-symmetric system. Second, to improve the efficiency of the proposed structure, the method of increasing the inductance of the transmitting coil is also put forward. Finally, the experimental results are basically consistent with the theoretical results, and the validity of the proposed approach is verified.
Resemblance and Discrimination in Elections

Discrimination affects hiring, mating and voting decisions. Whilst discrimination in elections mainly relates to gender or race, we introduce a novel source of discrimination: candidate resemblance. When candidates' partisanship is not known, voters select those that resemble most elected co-partisans. Using a machine learning algorithm for face comparison, we find a stronger resemblance effect for Republicans compared to Democrats in the US. This happens because Republicans have a higher within-party facial resemblance than Democrats, even when accounting for gender and race. We find a similar pattern in the UK, where Conservative MPs are more similar looking to each other than Labour. Using a survey experiment, we find that Tory voters reward resemblance, while there is no similar effect for Labour. We estimate that facial dissimilarity decreases the candidate's re-election probability by 5-14 percentage points. The results are consistent with an interpretation of this behaviour as a form of statistical discrimination.
A Theory of ‘Why and How’ Audit Firms Choose to Specialize

ABSTRACT We examine analytically the strategic path auditors take towards becoming industry specialists in terms of their investments in the acquisition of industry specific knowledge and their pricing behavior. We identify characteristics of the competitive environment that provide incentives to improve audit quality as accounting firms strive to achieve industry specialization. These characteristics include the extent of uniqueness of the accounting knowledge relevant to the industry and the extent to which it is difficult for auditors to differentiate themselves from competitors by using mechanisms other than industry specialization. We argue that both the initial investments in improving quality and the experience gained by attracting a bigger group of clients play a role in achieving specialization. Serving more clients fosters learning and cultivates enhanced industry expertise. In order to cultivate such learning, our model predicts that the auditor lowers his fees in early stages of his journey to achieving specialization in order to attract a larger group of new clients. In contrast to prior studies, our analysis examines factors influencing the supply of rather than the demand for industry specialization.
Subtle Increments in Socioeconomic Status and Bilingualism Jointly Affect Children’s Verbal and Nonverbal Performance

ABSTRACT In contrast to research that examines the effects of socioeconomic status (SES) and bilingualism on development by comparing clearly disparate groups, the present study investigated the role of subtle differences in these experiences for their joint impact on performance on a verbal fluency task and an executive function (EF) task. The study involved 234 6-year-old children who were assessed for nonverbal intelligence and English vocabulary; parents completed a questionnaire providing demographic information and details about children’s language experiences. Children were assigned continuous scores for SES based on parents’ education and for bilingualism based on experience with non-English languages. Both continuous scores were normally distributed, so median split calculations created binary groups indicating relative levels of SES (high vs. middle) and bilingualism (more monolingual vs. more bilingual). For verbal fluency, there were no group differences in semantic fluency but phonological fluency was performed better by children from higher SES backgrounds, both in between-group and continuous analyses. For EF, the between-group analysis revealed an interaction in which bilingual children in the higher SES group outperformed all other children; nonetheless, a positive relation between degree of bilingualism and EF was significant across the whole sample. Thus, both SES and bilingualism affected language and cognitive development with limiting conditions for each experience. The discussion considers the effect of these subtle differences in SES and bilingual experience on development of essential cognitive abilities, the relation between these results and previous research, and the importance of how groups are defined in research addressing individual differences.
Machine Learning-Based Node Characterization for Smart Grid Demand Response Flexibility Assessment

As energy distribution systems evolve from a traditional hierarchical load structure towards distributed smart grids, flexibility is increasingly investigated as both a key measure and core challenge of grid balancing. This paper contributes to the theoretical framework for quantifying network flexibility potential by introducing a machine learning based node characterization. In particular, artificial neural networks are considered for classification of historic demand data from several network substations. Performance of the resulting classifiers is evaluated with respect to clustering analysis and parameter space of the models considered, while the bootstrapping based statistical evaluation is reported in terms of mean confusion matrices. The resulting meta-models of individual nodes can be further utilized on a network level to mitigate the difficulties associated with identifying, implementing and actuating many small sources of energy flexibility, compared to the few large ones traditionally acknowledged.
Coupling Coordination and Prediction Research of Tourism Industry Development and Ecological Environment in China

Based on the data relevant to China’s tourism industry and ecological environment from 2005 to 2018, the entropy method and the coupling coordination degree model were used to analyze the coupling degree and coupling coordination degree of the tourism industry’s development and the ecological environment, and the GM (1.1) gray model was used to predict these values in the future. The model provided predictions and illustrated the trend in the changes in the degree of coordination between the development of China’s tourism industry and the ecological environment for the next five years. The results show the following. (1) The coupling degree between China’s tourism industry and the ecological environment was between 0.3 and 0.5. It was in the low-level coupling stage in 2005 and 2006 and generally low in 2005–2009, lower than the average level of 0.4204. In 2018, the coupling degree between the development of China’s tourism industry and the ecological environment was mainly in a stage of antagonism, reaching a peak of 0.4998 in 2013. The coupling degree declined slightly from 2013 to 2015 and then began to show an upward trend again in 2016. (2) The average coupling coordination level of China’s tourism industry development and ecological environment was 0.4266, which is in the medium coupling coordination stage. From 2007 to 2013, it was mainly in the phase of moderate coupling and coordination and high coupling and coordination from 2014 to 2018. (3) From the prediction results, the coupling degree will enter the coupling degree running-in stage in 2021 and the extreme coordination stage in 2023, but the coupling growth level during the running-in period will be significantly lower than the coupling coordination degree. Coordinated development of the two systems will take a long time, and active economic policies need to be adopted to promote their coordinated development.