Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Infiltrated Cu 8 AlTi alumina composites

The e↵ect of titanium additions on the interface and mechanical properties of infiltrated Cu8wt%Al-Al2O3 composites containing 57±2 vol% ceramic are investigated, exploring two di↵erent Al2O3 particle types and four di↵erent Ti concentrations (0, 0.2 ,1, 2 wt%Ti). Addition of 0.2wt%Ti leads to the development of a thin (5-10 nm) layer enriched in Ti at the interface between Cu alloy and Al2O3 particles; this Ti concentration produces the best mechanical properties. With higher Ti-contents Ti3(Cu,Al)3O appears; this decreases both the interface and composite strength. Composites reinforced with vapour-grown polygonal alumina particles show superior mechanical properties compared to those reinforced by angular comminuted alumina particles, as has been previously documented for aluminium-based matrices. Micromechanical analysis shows that damage accumulation is more extensive, as is matrix hardening by dislocation emission during composite cooldown, in the present Cu8wt%Al matrix composites compared with similarly reinforced and processed Al-matrix composites.
Physical and Compaction Properties of Granular Materials with Artificial Grading behind the Particle Size Distributions

Granular materials in geotechnical engineering is generally considered to be mixtures of clay, sand, and gravel that commonly appear in slopes, valleys, or river beds, and they are especially used for the construction of earth-rock-filled dams. The complexity of the constitution of granular materials leads to the complexity of their properties. Particle size distribution (PSD) has a great influence on the strength, permeability, and compaction behavior of granular materials, and some implicit correlation may exist between the PSD and the compaction properties of granular materials. Field testing and statistical analysis are used to study the physical and compaction properties of granular materials with artificial grading behind the particle size distributions. The statistical properties in PSD of dam granular materials and how the variation of PSD renders statistical constant are revealed. The statistical constants of three types of dam granular materials are 2.459, 2.475, and 2.499, respectively, on average. These statistical constants have a positive correlation with dry density and a negative correlation with moisture content. According to this characteristic and little deviation between two different calculation methods (from grading analysis and based on the Weibull distribution), the presentation of the statistical analysis ensures the validity of the Weibull function’s description of the granular materials with artificial grading. After fitting the Weibull function to the PSD curve, the relationship between the Weibull parameters and the compaction degree in different soil samples is consistent with that in different types, providing guiding significance for evaluating and selecting dam granular materials.
Exploration of Ticket/Label Based Representation by Social Re-Grading

Social media sharing websites like flickr shares images using their respective tags. According to this tag, images can be retrieved and this process is known as tag-based image retrieval. However, making the tagged images as top ranked result relevant is challenging. In this paper, we propose a social re-grading system for tag-based image search with the consideration of image retrieval and diversity. Images are re-graded according to their visual information, semantic information, and social clues. The initial results include images contributed by different social users. Usually each user contributes multiple images by their views. First, we sort these images by inter-user re-grading and intra-user re-grading. Each user’s contributed image come higher position and thus images are stored in social image dataset in the database to sort images and it is also re-graded by tag-based image search. Experimental results on a flickr dataset show that our social re-grading method is effective and efficient.
High‐resolution seismic and ground penetrating radar–geophysical profiling of a thermokarst lake in the western Lena Delta, Northern Siberia

High‐resolution seismic and ground‐penetrating‐radar (GPR) data have been acquired over Lake Nikolay in the western Lena Delta in order to study the uppermost basin fill and the bordering frozen margins. GPR (100 MHz antenna pair) measurements were completed on the frozen lake and its permafrost margins, while high‐resolution seismic data were acquired from the lake during open‐water conditions in summer using a 1.5–11.5 kHz Chirp profiler. The combined use of the two profiling systems allows stratigraphic profiling in both frozen and unfrozen parts of the lake. Shallow seismic reflection images of the uppermost 4 to 5 m of sediments are compared to GPR sections, which have approximately the same horizontal and vertical resolution. Short sediment cores aid calibrate the geophysical data. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Questionnaire translation in the European Company Survey: Conditions conducive to the effective implementation of a TRAPD-based approach

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) carries out three recurring Europe-wide surveys. Up until 2013, the quality control of the questionnaire translation for these surveys was performed using back-translation. In the 2013 edition of the European Company Survey (ECS) – an establishment-level telephone survey – Eurofound for the first time followed a modified version of the Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretesting, and Documentation (TRAPD) approach to questionnaire translation. This paper outlines why the TRAPD approach was adopted and how it was operationalised – resulting in a modified TRAPD implementation – for the purposes of the ECS 2013. It provides a reflection on the conditions that proved particularly conducive or obstructive for its efficient and effective implementation and the lessons that can be drawn for future surveys.
Human capital: the history, measurement and impact on nations from an economic perspective

This paper reviews human capital with special reference to its definition, measurement methods, and its contribution to economic growth and development. Vast amount of effort has been spent on the acquisition of knowledge and its application to enhancing living standards. A formal approach to this topic, however, was developed only during the past 300 years. The increasing importance placed on knowledge, accelerated by the rapid development of information technologies, has necessitated the development of new approaches to assess the role of HC. The increasing role of HC on development is evidenced by the high growth rates achieved by certain resource-poor countries. Sound theoretical framework and measures are required in order to articulate effective policies and assess their impact on growth and development.
Elucidate the origin of CYP flexible structural variation using molecular dynamics calculation

Human cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2) plays a critical role in the mechanism of drug metabolism the understanding of which constitutes a cornerstone in drug design processes. Its relevance has furthered in view of recent trends in tailor made medicine, since the enzyme's activity differs according to the mutations orsingle nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP's) in the respective genetic coding region. Here we investigate the structural variation induced by selected single mutations that have been reported on the CYP1A2 enzyme. Weapplied our graph theory approach and mainly focus on the differences in 3D structure between the "wild-type" and the mutant structures in terms of the structural flexibility changes that may arise as consequence of the mutations. Based on this information we have additionally inferred internal collective motions that may affect the function of the enzyme using molecular dynamics simulations. Our results show that most of the studied mutations are located in loops and regions of high flexibility and the simulation of their dynamic behavior sheds light on probable consequences of these mutations on the function of the enzyme. Key words: Cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2), single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), molecular flexibility, molecular dynamics simulation, graph theory.
Recent advances in probabilistic species pool delineations

A species pool is the set of species that could potentially colonize and establish within a community. It has been a commonly used concept in biogeography since the early days of MacArthur and Wilson’s work on Island Biogeography. Despite their simple and appealing definition, an operational application of species pools is bundled with a multitude of problems, which have often resulted in arbitrary decisions and workarounds when defining species pools. Two recently published papers address the operational problems of species pool delineations, and show ways of delineating them in a probabilistic fashion. In both papers, species pools were delineated using a process-based, mechanistical approach, which opens the door for a multitude of new applications in biogeography. Such applications include detecting the hidden signature of biotic interactions, disentangling the geographical structure of community assembly processes, and incorporating a temporal extent into species pools. Although similar in their conclusions, both ‘probabilistic approaches’ differ in their implementation and definitions. Here I give a brief overview of the differences and similarities of both approaches, and identify the challenges and advantages in their application.
International Market Integration for Natural Gas ?

We examine the degree of natural gas market integration in Europe, North America and Japan, between the mid 1990’s and 2002. The relationship between the international gas marker prices, and their relation to the oil price, are investigated through principal component analysis and Johansen likelihood-based procedures. Both of them show a high level of integration within the European/Japanese and North American markets; but they also show that the European resp. Japanese and the North American markets were not integrated.
Species at the edge of their range: The significance of the thermal environment for the distribution of congeneric Craspedolepta species (Sternorrhyncha: Psylloidea) living on Chamerion angustifolium (Onagraceae)

There is much current discussion about the factors that control the distribution and abundance of animal species, particularly at the edges of their range. The significance of temperature for survival and development is compared in two closely related psyllid species (Craspedolepta nebulosa and C. subpunctata) living on the same host plant (Chamerion angustifolium) (Onagraceae) but displaying different distributions along latitudinal and altitudinal gradients. The following measurements were made at critical periods during the life cycle (a) winter supercooling points (SCPs), (b) tolerance of short (1 min) and long term (1-25) days exposure to sub-zero temperatures above the SCP, (c) tolerance of short term exposure to high spring/summer temperatures and (d) comparative field development rates among species and sites during the early critical part of the growing season. Successful completion of the life cycle is related to heat availability during the growing season. This appears to limit the distribution of the Craspedolepta species, rather than their survival response to thermal extremes. No significant differences were found between the two species in the supercooling point or in their long and short term survival responses at low or high temperatures.
Towards a competency-based economics of differentiation

The motivation for this paper is to investigate the policy implications of recent work focusing on the relative potential for economic growth as evidenced by the relative performance of one nation in comparison with another. As such, this investigation sets to one side consideration of the contribution that effective demand might make to growth in productivity and income. Instead, emphasis will be placed on growth in both the specialisation and diversification of industrial capabilities. To this end, the paper attempts to weave together Veblen's (1898) conception of cumulative causation with Herbert Simon's (1991) notions of generalized liquidity preference, Erik Reinert's arguments about the importance of diversified artisanal skills, and Cesar Hidalgo's competency-based network analysis of international trade. The latter provides the vehicle for integrating theoretical insights with empirical analysis by treating competencies as a kind of latent variable, whose effects can be inferred but not directly measured.
The effects of chemical preservatives on the microbial population and shelf-life of chilli slurry

The effects of sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, sodium lactate and calcium propionate on the shelf-life of chilli slurry stored at room temperature were investigated. The results indicated that the use of sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate with the addition of acetic acid was able to preserve the chilli slurry up to 10 weeks at room temperature, while sodium lactate and calcium propionate gave a storage life of 4 weeks and 2 days respectively. The changes in microbiological population during the storage period were also monitored for the samples treated with benzoate + acetic acid and sorbate + acetic acid. There were no marked changes in the total plate counts for both treatments.
Persuading South Africans at risk of HIV / AIDS to voluntarily present themselves for counseling , testing and referral ( VCT ) : Using theory and empirical evidence in formative research for VCT message design

Despite the severity of the HIV/AIDS-epidemic in South Africa, VCT programmes have not been used effectively to support prevention and care and support programmes. The efficacy of these VCT programmes are currently impeded by a variety of factors at the level of policies, infrastructure and provisions (the PIP-level), but also by the inefficacy of communication interventions (CI s) to persuade those at risk of HIV/AIDS to present themselves for VCT. In this article it is hypothesized that the limited impact of communication interventions on the uptake of VCT is an outcome of, amongst others, the fact that the design of these interventions are not informed by theory-driven empirical research on the determinants of VCT uptake behaviour in the South African context. This article provides a theoretical and empirical exploration of the contextual and personal determinants of VCT uptake behaviour that could serve as basis for the determination of the critical determinants which will have to be addressed in proVCT communication interventions. KEY TERMS: VOLUNTARY COUNSELING AND TESTING (VCT), DETERMINANTS OF VCT UPTAKE BEHAVIOUR, VCT CAMPAIGN MESSAGING, THEORYAND EVIDENCE-BASED MESSAGES DESIGN, INTERVENTION MAPPING *Research for this article was done as part of the EPIDASA project (cf. <http://www.epidasa.org>, which is partially funded by the South African-Netherlands Programme for Alternatives in Development (SANPAD). I would also like to thank my MA-students from universities in Belgium and the Netherlands that have collaborated on the project.
Stress concentration around perforations produced by corrosion in steel storage tanks

This paper presents numerical results of stress concentration factors for plates perforated by corrosion. Evidence from 25 plates with corrosion perforation considered show that typical shapes may be characterized as a deviation from an ellipse or from a circle. In order to model typical perforations created by this type of corrosion, holes with non-circular boundaries have been considered in the form of cosine shape and variations from it. Two load cases are investigated: uniaxial and shear stress fields in an elastic plane stress problem. The influence of the amplitude of deviation with respect to an ellipse or circle and the local curvature of the internal boundary of the hole are studied. A simplified model of an equivalent ellipse originally proposed by Nishida is shown to provide good estimates for stress concentration factors for a range of shapes induced by corrosion.
Gravity for Health: an Application to State Mental Hospital Admissions in Texas

This paper discusses competing-destinations formulation of the gravity model for the flows of patients from their residential areas to health supplier regions. This approach explicitly acknowledges the interdependence of the patient flows between a set of alternative health supplier regions. This competing-destinations based approach may be implemented as a probabilistic demand function or conditional logit model, with a Poisson outcome. A Texas based case study of residential areas and State Mental Hospitals (SMHs) is presented. The results of the estimation do not lend support to the presence of scale effects in SMHs due to the size of population. This result, combined with the negative effect of ALOS and with the positive effect of the provision of forensic services on patient flows, highlights the problem of caseload growth in SMHs.
Pilot workload assessment under different levels of autopilot failure

One of the most interesting topics in the field of human machine interaction is workload. In this paper, using information theory concepts, baud rates generated in all subsystems of a generic simulator of piloting tasks were calculated and then, a unique numerical index presenting an estimation of overall workload was extracted. To examine the effectiveness of offered criteria, three tests with different levels of autopilot failure were designed in which existing workload were labeled based on involving baud rates. A group of subjects performed these tests as the pilots while recording their own idea about perceived workload. Results confirmed that there were statistically significant differences between the averages of scores assigned by subjects to the overall workload for three levels of difficulty. Consequently, the proposed quantitative index is effective enough for determination of workload levels in the simulator environment and facilitates creation of needed scenario noticeably.
Interactive comment on “ Inundation risk for embanked rivers ” by W . G . Strupczewski

The authors would like to thank very much the anonymous reviewers for careful reading and criticism. We found the remarks and questions thought provoking and inspiring. We believe that the alterations to the manuscript induced by the Reviewers’ remarks will positively influence the quality of the paper and satisfy the Referees. Below we present the detailed answers to the remarks of both Reviewers. We also attached a
A LUMINOUS YELLOW POST-AGB STAR IN THE GALACTIC GLOBULAR CLUSTER M79

We report the discovery of a luminous F-type post-asymptotic-giant-branch (PAGB) star in the Galactic globular cluster (GC) M79 (NGC 1904). At visual apparent and absolute magnitudes of V = 12.20 ? > and M V = − 3.46 ? > , this “yellow” PAGB star is by a small margin the visually brightest star known in any GC. It was identified using CCD observations in the uBVI photometric system, which is optimized to detect stars with large Balmer discontinuities, indicative of very low surface gravities. Follow-up observations with the SMARTS 1.3 and 1.5 m telescopes show that the star is not variable in light or radial velocity, and that its velocity is consistent with cluster membership. Near- and mid-infrared observations with 2MASS and WISE show no evidence for circumstellar dust. We argue that a sharp upper limit to the luminosity function exists for yellow PAGB stars in old populations, making them excellent candidates for Population II standard candles, which are four magnitudes brighter than RR Lyrae variables. Their luminosities are consistent with the stars being in a PAGB evolutionary phase, with core masses of ∼ 0.53 M ⊙ ? > . We also detected four very hot stars lying above the horizontal branch (“AGB-manqué” stars); along with the PAGB star, they are the brightest objects in M79 in the near-ultraviolet. In the , we give periods and light curves for five variables in M79: three RR Lyrae stars, a Type II Cepheid, and a semiregular variable.
Modeling of operation processes of a motor grader engine during work under unsteady load

We proposed a model of operation processes of a motor grader engine under unsteady load during technological processes of road construction works. Theoretic dependences of operation processes of a diesel motor grader engine, described by third order differential equations, were determined. The developed mathematical model of operation processes of a motor grader engine under unsteady mode makes it possible to employ known theoretical provisions to improve the system of air regulation in the commercially available motor grader engines. The model is a description of patterns of influence of differential equations coefficients and the load character on a change in the rotation rate of crankshaft of engine, cyclic fuel supply and hourly fuel consumption. Numerical modeling was carried out of load throw off and load gain of a motor grader engine using third-order differential equations in relative magnitudes. It was established that at a decrease in the values of coefficients of differential equation the transition process proceeds more intensively. In this case, time of delay in the response to disturbance and the duration of damping the oscillation process decrease. The proposed model would ultimately optimize engine performance under unsteady modes.
Portfolio Strategy of Financial Market with Regime Switching Driven by Geometric Lévy Process

The problem of a portfolio strategy for financial market with regime switching driven by geometric Levy process is investigated in this paper. The considered financial market includes one bond and multiple stocks which has few researches up to now. A new and general Black-Scholes (B-S) model is set up, in which the interest rate of the bond, the rate of return, and the volatility of the stocks vary as the market states switching and the stock prices are driven by geometric Levy process. For the general B-S model of the financial market, a portfolio strategy which is determined by a partial differential equation (PDE) of parabolic type is given by using Ito formula. The PDE is an extension of existing result. The solvability of the PDE is researched by making use of variables transformation. An application of the solvability of the PDE on the European options with the final data is given finally.
Preparation of Diblock and Triblock Copolymers of Styrene, 2,5-Norbornadiene, Ethylmethacrylate and PEG by Nitroxide-controlled Free Radical Polymerization

Norbomadiene has been polymerized in bulk at 125 'C in presence of a low molar mass of polystyrene-TEMPO as macroinitiator . The structure and poly- dispersity of theobtained diblock copolymer (PSt-PNB-TEMPO) were determin- ed by IR, 'H NMR spectroscopy and GPC measurement,respectively, where TEMPO is 2,2,6,6tetramethylpiperidinyl-l-oxyand PNB is polynorbomadiene. The triblock copolymer of styrene-2,5-norbomadiene-ethylmethacrylate (PSt- PNB-PEMA) using a PSt-PNB-TEMPO as the macroinitiator in the presence of camphorsulphonic acid (CSA) was prepared . Also the triblock copolymer containing polyethylmethacrylate and poly(ethylene glycol) designated as PEMA-PEG-PEMA was synthesized by a novel method . The 'H NMR and FTIR studies of triblock copolymers confirmed their structures and the absence of TEMPO end groups for PEMA.