Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of biogeochemical processes on oceanic conductivity/salinity/ density relationships and the characterization of real seawater

Abstract. As seawater circulates through the global ocean, its relative composition undergoes small variations. This results in changes to the conductivity/salinity/density relationship, which is currently well-defined only for Standard Seawater obtained from a particular area in the North Atlantic. These changes are investigated here by analysis of laboratory experiments in which salts are added to seawater, by analysis of oceanic observations of density and composition anomalies, and by mathematical investigation using a model relating composition, conductivity, and density of arbitrary seawaters. Mathematical analysis shows that understanding and describing the effect of changes in relative composition on operational estimates of salinity using the Practical Salinity Scale 1978 and on density using an equation of state for Standard Seawater require the use of a number of different salinity variables and a family of haline contraction coefficients. These salinity variables include an absolute Salinity SAsoln, a density salinity SAdens, the reference salinity SR, and an added-mass salinity SAadd. In addition, a new salinity variable S∗ is defined, which represents the preformed salinity of a Standard Seawater component of real seawater to which biogeochemical processes add material. In spite of this complexity, observed correlations between different ocean biogeochemical processes allow the creation of simple formulas that can be used to convert between the different salinity and density measures, allowing for the operational reduction of routine oceanographic observations.
Battery Management Maximum Power Point Tracking & Model Predictive Control and Voltage Regulation

As the demand of Electricity is increasing day by day and is already more than the production of Electricity whereas reserves of fossil-fuel are depleting, there is a strong need to shift for other sources which are renewable energy sources. Regarding this, DC micro grids and their energy management of these renewable energy sources have gained more importance which is discussed in this paper. The main objective of the proposed system is to provide uninterrupted power supply to the load systems which are located at isolated sites of remote and rural areas. The proposed system mainly deals with implementation of Energy Management System (EMS) to DC microgrid using maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm. A coordinated and multivariable EMS is proposed that employs a wind turbine and a photovoltaic array as controllable generators by adjusting the pitch angle and the switching duty cycles and a storage system consisting of batteries. In order to realize constant current, constant voltage (IU) charging regime and increase the life span of batteries, the proposed EMS require being more flexible with the power curtailment feature. The proposed strategy is developed as an online nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) algorithm based on individual MPPTs of the system. The entire designed system is modeled and simulated using MATLAB/Simulink Environment.
Successful management of severe acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by H1N1 viral pneumonia using early institution of extra corporeal membrane oxygenation therapy

Swine flu is H1N1 influenza A virus infection that has serious consequences in susceptible individuals leading to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Sometimes ARDS can be refractory to conventional management and ventilator strategies. In such patients Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) improves respiratory functions wherein the gas exchange is done via a membrane oxygenator and a pump. We report a case of 50 years old female presented in February 2016 with complaints of fever, headache, dry cough, rhinorrhea and difficulty in breathing for four days. Her throat swab showed positive report for H1N1 infection. She developed severe ARDS due to pneumonia caused by H1N1 influenza infection. Her paO 2 /FiO 2 was less than 100. The patient did not respond to initial management with anti- influenza therapy and mechanical ventilation. Murray score was calculated to institute ECMO therapy. Murray score of our patient was 2.75. Since there was no co- morbid illness or irreversible lung disease, ECMO therapy was started. After 14 days of ECMO therapy, ARDS resolved and the patient was successfully weaned from the ventilator. Patient was monitored intensively for coagulopathies and other complications related to ECMO therapy. She developed hemothorax and critical illness neuropathy during ECMO therapy. ECMO is a salvage therapy that has the potential to save lives when conventional treatment fails in H1N1 associated ARDS. It not only ensures much needed lung protection to the inflamed lung but also provides better hemodynamic stability. Early institution of ECMO along with ultra-protective ventilation of lung and timed weaning is the key to successful management of severe ARDS due to swine flu. There are very few case reports of successful ECMO therapy in H1N1 associated ARDS available from Delhi.
Interface Crack Problems in Anisotropic Solids Analyzed by the MLPG

A meshless method based on the local Petrov-Galerkin approach is proposed, to solve the interface crack problem between two dissimilar anisotropic elastic solids. Both stationary and transient mechanical and thermal loads are considered for two-dimensional (2-D) problems in this paper. A Heaviside step function as the test functions is applied in the weak-form to derive local integral equations. Nodal points are spread on the analyzed domain, and each node is surrounded by a small circle for simplicity. The spatial variations of the displacements and temperature are approximated by the Moving Least-Squares (MLS) scheme. After performing the spatial integrations, one obtains a system of ordinary differential equations for certain nodal unknowns. The backward finite difference method is applied for the approximation of the diffusive term in the heat conduction equation. Then, the system of the ordinary differential equations of the second order resulting from the equations of motion is solved by the Houbolt finite-difference scheme as a time-stepping method.
MUSCLE BULK, STRENGTH AND PROPRIOCEPTIVE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT DEFICIENT AND NORMAL KNEE

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) deficient knee has been subjected to various research and many conclusionshave been drawn to the loss of function in relation to it. ACL reconstruction is also very commonly done asthis ligament damage is the most common injury in sports. Muscle strength and proprioception have beenpostulated to be affected alongside this injury. We conducted a cross sectional study in 19 patients who haveruptured their ACL. We measured their muscle strength, thigh muscle bulk and proprioception in comparisonto their contralateral normal knee. The Biodex Isokinetic machine was used to measure the muscle strengthand proprioception. The thigh circumference was measured manually using a measuring tape. There wassignificant reduction of muscle strength and thigh circumference in the ACL deficient limb as compared to thenormal side, p <0.05. The affected knee also showed reduction in proprioceptive ability at 70 degree angle (zscore -2.17, p <0.05), but there was no significant reduction at the other angles. These findings are importantas the data show that there is reduction in muscle strength and proprioceptive ability in an ACL deficient knee;hence, rehabilitation addressing these two areas should be emphasized pre-surgery.
Effects of suspended food availability on the feeding mode and burial depth of the Baltic clam, Macoma balthica

Previous studies showed that siphon cropping by epibenthic predators reduces the size of inhalant siphon of the Baltic clam Macoma balthica (L.), causing the clams to reside at shallower burial depths in the sediment and making them more vulnerable to lethal predation. This indirect interaction is further complicated because M. balthica facultatively switches between suspension- and deposit-feeding in response to the availability of suspended food particles. Laboratory experiments showed that the proportion of clams deposit feeding with exposed siphons increased with decreasing food concentrations in the water column and this resulted in shallower burial depths in the sediment
Organic compositional analysis of propellant powders using monolithic material sorption extraction ( MSSE) - a feasibility study

The application of monolithic material sorption extraction, specifi cally MonoTrapTM, to the extraction of organic gunshot residue (OGSR) compounds from unburnt propellant powders is described. Four different MonoTraps were assessed for their capability to extract OGSR compounds from two different ammunition types. Extracts were analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Results indicated that the carbon disc was suitable for the extraction of OGSR compounds from unburnt propellant powders. Quantities for major compounds were comparable to methanol extractions. The method was successfully used to detect a wide range of OGSR compounds, including nitrotoluenes, nitroglycerin, diphenylamines and centralites and is expected to be applicable to a wide range of ammunition types.
Tunable Multilayers of Self-Organized Silica Nanospheres by Spin Coating

The coating of fused silica by an organized layer of silica nanospheres (NS) is an important issue for the design of optical and topographic properties especially for lithography techniques such as nanosphere lithography (NSL) or nanosphere photolithography (NSPL). Here, the spin coating of NS dispersed in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) is studied. The role of the NS diameter, the spin-coating acceleration, and the volume fraction are the parameters to take into account for the formation and organization of NS in single or double closely packed layers. We propose an explanation for this behavior based on the transition between sedimentation and a viscous regime on the basis of the silica NS organization.
Using Genetics to Identify Intraspecific Conservation Units: a Critique of Current Methods

Genetic criteria have recently been proposed for identifying evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) and management units (MUs; Moritz 1994). Although this proposal has proved useful for focusing discussion about the intraspecific groupings of relevance to conservation, I am concerned that the criteria put forward have been accepted and applied without sufficient debate about their merit or limitations. My aim is to stimulate renewed debate on this subject by identifying some weaknesses in the proposed criteria. Although Moritz (1994) distinguished between the biological definitions of ESUs and MUs and the genetic criteria he proposed for recognizing such groups, many papers that cite his work erroneously refer to the recognition criteria as the definitions. An ESU is a group of organisms that has been isolated from other conspecific groups for a sufficient period of time to have undergone meaningful genetic divergence from those other groups (Ryder 1986). Moritz (1994) suggested that ESUs could be identified genetically as groups whose mtDNA lineages were reciprocally monophyletic, meaning that all lineages within each group share more-recent common ancestors than any lineage from one group shares with any lineage from the other group. In contrast, an MU is a group in which local population dynamics are determined primarily by birth and death rather than immigration and emigration (Moritz et al. 1995). Moritz (1994) suggested that MUs could be identified as populations with significant differences in allele distributions. An important point regarding both of these concepts is that they apply only when the populations under study are naturally divided into groups (Moritz et al. 1995). Of course, genetic study may also be of value in situations where populations are continuously distributed, but such populations cannot be subdivided into ESUs and MUs.
An energy-efficient dynamic branch predictor with a two-clock-cycle naïve Bayes classifier for pipelined RISC microprocessors

In this paper, we propose a Bayesian branch-prediction circuit, consisting of an instruction-feature extractor and a näıve Bayes classifier (NBC), as a machine learning approach for branch prediction. A branch predictor predicts the outcome of a branch instruction by analyzing the pattern of the previous branch outcome. In other words, branch prediction can be viewed as a type of pattern recognition problem, and such problems are often solved using neural networks. A perceptron branch predictor has already been proposed as one example of a neural branch prediction architecture, which predicts the next branch outcome by using past branch history to form feature vectors. The proposed circuit is constructed by replacing the arithmetic unit (neurons) in conventional neural branch predictors with an NBC. By introducing an approximate Bayesian computation and its parallel architectures, the NBC circuit completes branch prediction within two clock cycles per instruction. This constitutes a suitable replacement for conventional branch predictors in modern pipelined reduced instruction set computing microprocessors.
Siren : Secure Data Sharing Over P 2 P and F 2 F Networks

In this paper we propose a decentralized privacy-preserving system which is able to share sensible data in a way, that only predefined subsets of authorized entities can recover the data; either after getting an alarm message or timing out. The protocol has two main communication channels: a P2P network where the encrypted information is stored, and a smaller private P2P network, which consists of the authorized parties and is called a friendto-friend network. We describe the communication protocols fulfilling the desired security requirements and present some results on the implementation of the system. The main cryptographic building blocks of the protocol include symmetric cryptographic primitives and a t-threshold secret sharing scheme.
Selective flotation of siderite and quartz from a carbonate-containing refractory iron ore using a novel amino-acid-based collector

A novel and highly-efficient amino-acid-based collector, α-ethylenediamine lauric acid (αEDA-LA), was studied to selectively beneficiate carbonate-containing refractory hematite ores. Single mineral and synthetic mixture flotation tests were carried out to investigate its floating performance. Zeta potential, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Density Functional Theory-based molecular simulation were used to identify the adsorption mechanism. The flotation results showed that quartz could be collected effectively at pH 11.0-12.0 in the reverse flotation. For siderite, the recovery peaked at 83.4% at pH 8.0, where siderite presented different floatability from magnetite and hematite. Exploiting such difference, the separation of siderite could be achieved. Zeta-potential measurements showed that α-EDA-LA adsorption on the surfaces of siderite and quartz decreased the corresponding zeta potentials at pH of 8.0-10.0 and 8.0-12.0, respectively. This means the adsorption overcome the electrostatic repulsion between α-EDA-LA and the mineral surfaces. The molecular simulation indicated that no chemisorption took place between α-EDA-LA and quartz. FTIR analysis suggested that α-EDA-LA was adsorbed on quartz via hydrogen bonding. The adsorption of α-EDALA on siderite surface was dominated by chemisorption, while further enhanced by hydrogen bonding. This study filled the gap in the research on siderite flotation reagents and its adsorption mechanism.
Impact of Consumers’ Preference for Cultural and Creative Parks on the Attitude Behavior Model

In recent years, Taiwan has actively developed cultural and creative industries, expanded the scale of the national consumer market, and launched international tourism; therefore, diverse Cultural and Creative Parks have appeared. However, what are the characteristics of Cultural and Creative Parks that attract consumers and change their attitude and behavior? The answers to such questions rely on further study. This study focuses on Cultural and Creative Parks to determine whether the various characteristics of Cultural and Creative Parks in Taiwan lead to attraction to the parks and influence the consumers’ attitude model, in order to propose useful decision-making information for Cultural and Creative Parks. By investigating 788 valid questionnaires according to preference degree for Cultural and Creative Parks, this study divides consumers into two groups and compares the group models. According to the findings: (1) in comparison to consumers that do not prefer Cultural and Creative Parks, those who enjoy Cultural and Creative Parks show more significant impact of cultural creative products, creative markets, and performance activities on attraction to Cultural and Creative Parks; (2) in comparison to consumers that do not prefer Cultural and Creative Parks, those who enjoy Cultural and Creative Parks show more significant intensity on path of attraction of Cultural and Creative Parks to behavior to visit; (3) consumers that do not prefer Cultural and Creative Parks have more significant impact on the relationship between cognition, behavior, and affection regarding attitude in the CBA model.
Motivation of Emirati males and females to study at higher education in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract This article reports on a study into the motivation of young Emirati undergraduate students for studying in a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The participants were male and female undergraduate students in their first or second year of studying. The aim of the study was to examine their motivation using a framework that recognised the unique sociocultural context of the UAE. Data were analysed according to an adapted framework encompassing both Self-Determination Theory and Personal Investment theory. Self-Determination Theory was chosen due to its focus on different types of extrinsic motivation, and Personal Investment theory was chosen for its non-culture specific applicability. A major finding of the research is that an examination of motivation according to dichotomous relationships of intrinsic versus extrinsic, collectivist versus individualistic, self as individual versus self as part of society are over-simplistic in this specific context. A more useful paradigm is one in which the individual is influenced by personal and professional goals, as well as social and familial expectations. Unexpectedly, use of language (Arabic or English) did not influence the results. These findings will provide teachers and university administration with a better understanding of their students, and will replace certain stereotypes that teachers may have about their students and their motivation for studying.
On the security of virtual machine migration and related topics

The extension of trusted computing to virtual environments in order to provide secure storage and ensure system integrity presents several challenges. In particular, techniques to share a hardware TPM between several virtual machines (VM) on the same host and to appropriately secure these VMs during migration need to be devised. In this work, we provide a comprehensive overview of trusted computing and its extension to virtualization by means of virtual TPMs (vTPM). We analyze existing vTPM designs and related VM-vTPM migration protocols and derive a set of requirements for the secure VM-vTPM migration. We then propose a secure migration protocol using a novel vTPM key hierarchy that satisfies these requirements. We implement our protocol and evaluate its performance using different ciphers and VM RAM sizes. Our results show that both RC4 and 128-bit AES are efficient as underlying ciphers as opposed to 3DES which introduces a significant overhead on the migration process. Moreover, the end-to-end migration time experienced by the end user (using RC4 or 128-bit AES as the underlying cipher) increases only by approximately 10% compared to the insecure migration when VM RAM size is larger than 512 MB. This overhead may be tolerable in certain applications depending on the used hardware. Thus, secure VM-vTPM migration can be practical.
Observations on the Ecology of Weaver Ants (Oecophylla smaragdina Fabricius) in a Thai Mangrove Ecosystem and Their Effect on Herbivory of Rhizophora mucronata Lam.

ABSTRACT Ants of the genus Oecophylla are predators of other insects and are able to protect a variety of terrestrial plants against pest insects; however, observations on the ecology of these ants in mangrove forests are lacking. General observations on the ecology of Oecophylla smaragdina were carried out in a Thai mangrove forest to determine if these ants can protect their host plants in less favorable mangrove habitats. Leaf herbivory and the density of O. smaragdina ants were measured on Rhizophora mucronata trees at two sites. The results showed a negative correlation between ant density and herbivory. At both sites, the mean percent damaged leaf area was more than four times higher on trees without ants compared to “ant-trees. ” A significant negative correlation was found between tree mean percent leaf damage and the density of ants on the tree. Furthermore, on trees with ants, there was less herbivory on leaves close to ant nests compared to other leaves on the tree. Most damage was caused by chrysomelid beetles (62%) and sesarmid crabs (25%) and both types of herbivory were significantly reduced on ant-trees.
Generation and Storage of Electricity from Power Harvesting Devices

The concept of capturing the normally lost energy surrounding a system and converting it into electrical energy that can be used to extend the lifetime of that system’s power supply or possibly provide an endless supply of energy to an electronic device has captivated many researchers and has brought forth a growing amount of attention to power harvesting. One of the most common methods of obtaining the energy surrounding a system is to use piezoelectric materials. Piezoelectric materials have a crystalline structure that provides a unique ability to convert an applied electrical potential into a mechanical strain or vice versa, or convert an applied strain into an electrical current. The latter of these two properties allows the material to function as a power harvesting medium. In most cases the piezoelectric material is strained through the ambient vibration around the structure, thus allowing a frequently unused energy source to be utilized for the purpose of powering small electronic systems. However, the amount of energy generated by these piezoelectric materials is far smaller than that needed by most electronic devices. For this reason, the methods of accumulating and storing the energy generated, until sufficient power has been captured, is the key to developing completely self-powered systems. This article quantifies the amount of energy generated by a piezoelectric plate and investigates two methods of accumulating the energy thus produced. The first method uses a capacitor, which in early research has been the most common method of storing the energy generated and the second utilizes rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries. The advantages of each method are discussed and the rechargeable battery is found to have more desirable qualities for power harvesting than the capacitor. Additionally, this manuscript represents, for the first time, the fact that the power output by a piezoelectric material is capable of recharging a discharged battery. Through the excitation of a piezoelectric plate, it is demonstrated that a 40 mAh battery can be charged in less than half an hour at resonance and in only a few hours with a random signal similar to that of a typical vibrating piece of machinery.