Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Control of multiscale systems with constraints. 2. Fractal nuclear isomers and clusters

We consider the influence of the Fermi statistics of nucleons on the binding energy of a new type of nuclear structures such as fractal nuclear clusters (fractal isomers of nuclei). It is shown that the fractal nuclear isomers possess a wide spectrum of binding energies that exceed, in many cases, the values known at the present time. The transition of the nuclear matter in the form of ordinary nuclei (drops of the nuclear fluid) in the state with the fractal structure or in the form of bubble nuclei opens new sources of energy and has huge perspectives. This transition is based on a new state of matter - collective coherently correlated state. It manifests itself, first of all, in the property of nonlocality of nuclear multiparticle processes. We develop a phenomenological theory of the binding energy of nuclear fractal structures and modify the Bethe - Weizs\"acker formula for nuclear clusters with the mass number A, charge Z, and fractal dimension D_f. The consideration of fractal nuclear isomers allows one to interpret the experimental results on a new level of the comprehension of processes of the nuclear dynamics. The possibility to determine the fractal dimension of nuclear systems with the help of the method of nuclear dipole resonance for fractal isomers is discussed. The basic relations for fractal electroneutral structures such as the electron-nucleus plasma of fractal isomers are presented.
Co(OH)_2 hollow nanoflowers as highly efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction

Electrocatalytic water splitting for the production of H_2 is increasingly becoming a significant method to mitigate the current energy crisis and environmental pollution. However, oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a slow four-electron progress, is the bottle neck of water splitting. Thus, developing new, low cost, and effective catalysts for OER is a research hotspot in material and energy resource fields. Therefore, the research of nonprecious, metal-based OER catalysts has been popular. In this work, it is validated that 3D hollow Co(OH)_2 nanoflowers synthesized by a facile template-based strategy at room temperature are effective electrocatalysts for OER. The catalysts display high activity with a current density of 10 mA/cm^2 at an overpotential of 310 mV and a small Tafel slope of 68.9 mV/dec in alkaline condition. It’s noteworthy that this material is stable for over 20 h of chronopotentiometry. This work offers a simple and promising way to prepare efficient and durable electrocatalysts.
Cetaceans of Venezuela: Their Distribution and Conservation Status

Sighting, stranding, and capture records of whales and dolphins for Venezuela were assembled and analyzed to document the Venezuelan cetacean fauna and its distribution in the eastern Caribbean. An attempt was made to confirm species identification for each of the records, yielding 443 that encompass 21 species of cetaceans now confirmed to occur in Venezuelan marine, estuarine, and freshwater habitats. For each species, we report its global and local distribution, conservation status and threats, and the common names used, along with our proposal for a Spanish common name. Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni) is the most commonly reported mysticete. The long-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus capensis) is the most frequent of the odontocetes in marine waters. The boto or tonina (Inia geoffrensis) was found to be ubiquitous in the Orinoco watershed. The distribution of marine records is consistent with the pattern of productivity of Venezuelan marine waters, i.e., a concentration at 63°07′W through 65°26′W with records declining to the east and to the west. An examination of the records for all cetaceans in the Caribbean leads us to conclude that seven additional species may be present in Venezuelan waters. (PDF file contains 61 pages.)
Uncovering a New Current: The Southwest MAdagascar Coastal Current

Cruise data sets, satellite remote sensing observations, and model data analyses are combined to highlight the existence of a coastal surface poleward flow in the southwest of Madagascar: the Southwest MAdagascar Coastal Current (SMACC). The SMACC is a relatively shallow (<300 m) and narrow (<100 km wide) warm and salty coastal surface current, which flows along the south western coast of Madagascar toward the south, opposite to the dominant winds. The warm water surface signature of the SMACC extends from 22°S (upstream) to 26.4°S (downstream). The SMACC exhibits a seasonal variability: more intense in summer and reduced in winter. The average volume transport of its core is about 1.3 Sv with a mean summer maximum of 2.1 Sv. It is forced by a strong cyclonic wind stress curl associated with the bending of the trade winds along the southern tip of Madagascar. The SMACC directly influences the coastal upwelling regions south of Madagascar. Its existence is likely to influence local fisheries and larval transport patterns, as well as the connectivity with the Agulhas Current, affecting the returning branch of the global overturning circulation.
Simultaneous Optimisation of Cooler and Pump Networks for Industrial Cooling-water Systems

For a cooling water system (CWS), the cooling water (CW) from a cooling tower is supplied to the cooler network that usually has a parallel configuration. Re-use of CW between different coolers has been proved to be an effective way to reduce CW flow-rate and increase the capacity of cooling tower for a new design and retrofit. However, coolers with series configurations require a higher pressure head of the corresponding branch pipe. In order to minimise the power consumption, a novel methodology is proposed to simultaneously consider CW reuse exploration in the cooler network and pump arrangement in the pump network. The total annualised cost of cooling water systems (CWSs) is taken as its objective function, including CW cost, pumping cost and capital cost of coolers and pumps. A superstructure of CWSs is developed to consider the interactions between the design of cooler network and the performance of pumps. The proposed model is tested by a case study based on the simplified CWS of a refinery.
Implementing the Spiritual Leadership Model in the Healthcare Industry in Iran

The purpose of the present research is to test the spiritual leadership model in the Iranian healthcare industry. Theresearch takes a quantitative approach involving the distribution of 143 questionnaires to different professionals inhealthcare centers in Tehran, Iran. Spiritual leadership creates an intrinsic motivation to achieve organizationaloutcomes. It is a function of seven dimensions: vision, hope/faith, altruistic love, meaning/calling, membership,commitment, and productivity. The authors conduct simple bivariate correlation tests, as well as linear standardand stepwise regression analyses. The findings support the notion that each dimension of spiritual leadership has apositive relationship with spiritual leadership. Among the dimensions, membership (beta coefficient = .890) is themost remarkable. This paper is useful for managers and academics. It can be used by managers of Iranianhealthcare centers to motivate their employees through spiritual leadership and its various components.Furthermore, the model of this study can be implemented in the Iranian healthcare industry and hopefully in otherindustries.
Exhumation history of the Higher Himalayan Crystalline along Dhauliganga‐Goriganga river valleys, NW India: New constraints from fission track analysis

New apatite and zircon fission track data collected from two transects along the Dhauliganga and Goriganga rivers in the NW Himalaya document exhumation of the Higher Himalayan Crystalline units. Despite sharing the same structural configuration and rock types and being separated by only 60 km, the two study areas show very different patterns of exhumation. Fission track (FT) data from the Dhauliganga section show systematic changes in age (individual apatite FT ages range from 0.9 ± 0.3 to 3.6 ± 0.5 Ma, r2 = 0.82) that record faster exhumation across a zone that extends from the Main Central Thrust to north of the Vaikrita thrust. By contrast, FT results from the Goriganga Valley show a stepwise change in ages across the Vaikrita thrust that suggests Quaternary thrust sense displacement. Footwall samples yield a weighted mean apatite age of 1.6 ± 0.1 Ma compared to 0.7 ± 0.04 Ma in the hanging wall. A constant zircon fission track age of 1.8 ± 0.4 Ma across both the footwall and hanging wall shows the 0.9 Ma difference in apatite ages is due to movement on the Vaikrita thrust that initiated soon after ∼1.8 Ma. The Goriganga section provides clear evidence for >1 Ma of tectonic deformation in the brittle crust that contrasts with previous exhumation studies in other areas of the high Himalaya ranges; these studies have been unable to decouple the role of climate erosion from tectonics. One possibility why there is a clear tectonic signal in the Goriganga Valley is that climate erosion has not yet fully adjusted to the tectonic perturbation.
Effects of the Retraining in Endurance on Anthropometric and Metabolic Profiles' Evolution of the Tunisian Obese Pubescent Boys

Fifty-three Tunisian obese pubescent boys (15.4 ± 1.7 years, 96.4 ± 13.2 kg, 1.71 ± 0.1 cm) were submitted to a retraining program in endurance for two months which includes three sessions of 45 minutes per week of pedalling on an ergometer cycle and this to assess the effects on anthropometric and metabolic profiles. Our results showed that the retraining in endurance beneficially affects the above parameters such as reflected by the reduction of BMI, and abdominal and hip perimeters decrease. These changes were also accompanied, firstly by the reduction of the levels of glucoses, total cholesterol, LDLc and triglycerides, and secondly by the increase of HDLc amount which has reduced the LDLc/HDLc ratio. A reduction in levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines namely the IL-6 and TNF-α was also observed. We conclude that the retraining in endurance reduces the weight load of the Tunisian obese pubescent boys and improves their metabolic profiles.
PREDICTORS OF SUICIDE-RELATED IDEATION AMONG OLDER ADULTS: EXPLORING THE ROLE OF IMPULSIVITY

Research has demonstrated that impulsivity is strongly associated with suicide-related ideation and behaviour among young adults. To date, however, the potential importance of impulsivity as a predictor of suicide-related ideation in later life has yet to be determined. The current study set out to examine impulsivity, hopelessness, depressive symptomatology and socio-demographic factors vis-a-vis suicide-related ideation among a sample of older adults using both hierarchical regression and canonical correlation. A national sample was recruited from multiple sources for this study over a I-year period (N = 117). Canonical correlation analysis showed that the impulse to self-harm may be more pronounced among older adults less likely to present as typically depressed. The findings of this study further suggest that impulsivity is more broadly associated with suicide-related ideation than hopelessness, and that screening for impulsivity as well as hopelessness may increase clinicians' ability to identify older adults at greatest risk for self-harm.
The performance of unadjusted and adjusted medical cost estimators { an application in colorectal cancer

Owing to aging, how to sufficiently use the limited resources becomes controversial. Knowing how to estimate medical cost accurately and efficiently becomes an important issue. However, it is common to have dropouts when analyzing medical cost. The naive estimators ignoring the unobservable data may be biased. Lin et al. (1997) suggested partitioning the study duration and estimating the cost of each interval and then constructing the estimate by summing up the cost from each interval. Furthermore, to take into account of the unobservable data, Lin et al. (1997) and Band and Tsiatis (2000) proposed weighted estimators that used the survival probability and uncensored probability as the weight, respectively. Furthermore, the medical cost may be related to many covariates. Baser et al. (2006) suggested using the general linear model for the longitudinal data to model the partitioned cost, where a random intercept is included. This paper extends the model to a more general parametric model. Furthermore, similar to the weighting concept in Lin et al. (1997), we suggest using the survival probability as the weight adjustment which is estimated by the Cox proportional hazards model. Simulations are used to evaluate the performance of the unadjusted and adjusted cost estimators under various scenarios. Finally, the proposed model is implemented on the data extracted from Health Insurance database for patients with the colorectal cancer. ∗Corresponding author. Email: hwangyt@gm.ntpu. edu.tw 1 Int. Statistical Inst. : Proc. 58th World Statistical Congress, 2011, Dublin (Session CPS044) p.4935
High-Speed 64-Bit CMOS Binary Comparator

High-speed 64-bit CMOS binary comparator is proposed in this brief. Comparison is most basic arithmetic operation that determines if one number is greater than, equal to, or less than the other number. Comparator is most fundamental component that performs comparison operation. This brief presents comparison of modified and existing 64-bit binary comparator designs concentrating on delay. Means some modifications are done in existing 64-bit binary comparator design to improve the speed of the circuit. Comparison between modified and existing 64-bit binary comparator designs is calculated by simulation that is performed at 90nm technology in Tanner EDA Tool. Keywords: Binary comparator, digital arithmetic, high-speed.
Economic Efficiency of Bull Fattening Operations in the Czech Republic

SYRŮČEK JAN, KVAPILÍK JINDŘICH, BARTOŇ LUDĚK, VACEK MOJMÍR, STÁDNÍK LUDĚK. 2017. Economic Efficiency of Bull Fattening Operations in the Czech Republic. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 65(2): 527–536. Fattened bulls are the main source of beef in the Czech Republic (CR) and in most other EU countries. Profitability of fattening operations is a fundamental prerequisite for increasing domestic beef production. The objective of this study was to assess the economic efficiency of bull fattening operations in CR during 2013 and 2014. Data from 17 operations were collected using a questionnaire. Major cost items were determined and the return on costs was calculated while either including or excluding support payments. In 2013, average total costs reached 24,038 CZK per bull and a 1,152 CZK loss was incurred. In 2014, total costs were similar as in 2013 but the loss was 3,238 CZK per bull as a result of a higher initial purchase price of bulls at the beginning of the fattening period. Break‐even points, defined as those points at which the operation reaches zero profitability, were estimated for daily live weight gains (1,189 and 1,290 g/day in 2013 and 2014, respectively) and for selling prices of bulls (91.19 and 96.05 CZK/kg of carcass in 2013 and 2014, respectively). A sensitivity analysis revealed that the most influential parameters were purchase and selling prices and live weight gains of bulls.
Explore the Intention of Medical Personnel to Participate in the Home-Based Reablement Services

This study applies the theory of planned behavior to investigate the intention of medical personnel to participate in the home-based reablement services. Altogether101 valid data was collected in this study. Empirical results revealed that the corporate social responsibility, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control have respectively positive effect on their intention. Perceived behavioral control has the most significant impact on intention. Attitude has a partial mediation effect on the corporate social responsibility to the intention and subjective norm to the intention. Perceived behavioral control has a partial mediation effect on subjective norm to the intention. Through the optimal home-based reablement services plans, pre-employment training, reduce the barriers of participate and affirming the contribution of medical personnel to residents reported by the mass media can help to increase the professional ability, positive attitude, perception of corporate social responsibility and intention of the medical personnel to participate in the services.
A Pilot Study of Body-Oriented Group Psychotherapy: Adapting Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for the Group Treatment of Trauma

Research suggests that trauma has a profound effect on the body by disrupting normal physiologic responses leading to a broad range of trauma-related symptoms. In this paper, we describe a stage-one trauma group based on the clinical rationale and techniques of Pat Ogden’s (2006) sensorimotor psychotherapy (SP). To date, there has been no empirical research to support the efficacy of this treatment approach. Ten women with a history of childhood abuse participated in 20 weekly sessions of SPinformed group therapy and were assessed at pretreatment, posttreatment, and at 6-month follow-up. Participants demonstrated significant improvement in body awareness, dissociation, and receptivity to soothing. This study of an SP-informed group therapy for women provides preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of SP in reducing trauma-related symptoms.
Overtopping breaching of river levees constructed with cohesive sediments

Abstract. Experiments were conducted in a bend flume to study the overtopping breaching process and the corresponding overflow rates of river levees constructed with cohesive sediments. The river and land regions were separated by the constructed levee in the bend flume. Results showed that the levee breaching process can be subdivided into a slope erosion stage, a headcut retreat stage and a breach widening stage. Mechanisms such as flow shear erosion, impinging jet erosion, side slope erosion and cantilever collapse were discovered in the breaching process. The erosion characteristics were determined by both flow and soil properties. Finally, a depth-averaged 2-D flow model was used to simulate the levee breaching flow rates, which is well expressed by the broad-crested weir flow formula. The deduced discharge coefficient was smaller than that of common broad-crested rectangular weirs because of the shape and roughness of the breach.
The effect of Lactobacillus paracasei on the rabbit ’ s cholesterolemia Dilmi-Bouras

Two Lactobacillus paracasei (Lbp6 and Lbp9) were examined for their capacity to decrease the level of the total cholesterol, of HDL cholesterol and of LDL cholesterol in hypercholesterolemia rabbit. The obtained results indicate no modification neither of the level of total cholesterol nor of its fractions for the standard diet (T) nor of standard diet where fermented milk (FM) is added. On the other hand, they reveal significative augmentations of total cholesterol level, of HDL cholesterol and of LDL cholesterol of rabbits consuming a standard diet of cholesterol (Ch) and cholesterol with fermented milk (Ch + FM). However, the level of total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol is weaker in rabbits that received fermented milk in addition to standard diet and cholesterol. HDL/LDL ratio, an important atherogenicity’s indicator favourably. The results also show that when we stop the supplements total cholesterol level, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels return to the initial values after 14 days. The addition of the fermented milk to rabbits’ standard diet has no effect on the level of the total cholesterol and on its fractions, when these are initially normal.
Screening score to identify people prone to respiratory tract infections in the community.

Background: Respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are a major cause of morbidity in society. A proportion of the general population suffers more often from recurrent and severe RTI compared to the vast majority. We aim to identify those in the population at risk for recurrent RTI with the help of a questionnaire-derived score. Method: A population-based study, termed the Airway Infection Susceptibility (AWIS) study, was conducted between December 2011 and March 2013 in South Baden, Germany. From a total of 69, 695 individuals approached via mail 12, 839 individuals in the age range of 18 to 70 years completed the screening questionnaire. A predefined RTI-score was calculated as a weighted sum of relevant questionnaire items. Regression models were used to assess the association of potential risk factors and co-morbidities with the score. The score was prospectively validated among 1459 individuals who reported their monthly RTI prevalence in three consecutive winterspring seasons using a summary measure. Results: Repeated severe or long lasting RTIs during adulthood were reported by 12% and 18% of the study participants. The RTI-score correlated positively with female sex, younger age, and frequent contact to children, smoking status, and obesity as well as a number of co-morbidities, most strongly asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The monthly prevalence of most RTI symptom categories in the subsequent infection seasons approximately doubled between the low to medium and quintupled between the low to high baseline score category. Bronchitis was reported by 2.3%, 11.6%, and 19.4% of individuals in the low, medium, and high baseline category, respectively. Furthermore, 33.7% of the high baseline score group compared to only 6.4% of the low score group reported significant infection related impairments of their daily activities. Conclusion: The RTI-score applied in this study helps to identify adults in the community prone to RTI who might benefit from preventive measures.
Assessment of genetic variation of selected spiderplant (Cleome gynandra L.) morphotypes from western Kenya

In the genetic variation study of the 4 spiderplant morphotypes, 10 out of the 12 primers screened generated 31 polymorphic bands. Nei’s coefficient of gene differentiation showed that the morphotypes were differentiated. Nei’s genetic identity value calculated from the RAPD data ranged from 0.3 to 0.6 indicating the degree of genetic identity between the morphotypes. Dendrograms constructed from a matrix calculated on the basis of UPGMA clustering algorithm revealed that the 4 morphotypes formed 3 groups.
Validating a convoloution based radiotherapy treatment planning dose calculation

University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.