Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three-Suffix Margules Model for Liquid-liquid Phase Equilibrium in Phenolic Compound Extraction from Coal Tar

The focus of this research is to study the liquid-liquid extraction process of the major components of coal tar and to generalize the results of experiments by correlating the data of liquid-liquid equilibrium with thermodynamic model and to obtain the values of the parameters of the model. Variables of the research are composition of the solvent (the mole fraction of water and solvent), the type of solvent, and solvent-feed mass ratio. This research includes one stage experiment, that is the the liquid-liquid extraction of phenol, o-cresol, and pcresol using a aqueous acetone and aqueous methanol. The experiment used artificial coal tar containing phenol, o-cresol, p-cresol in kerosene, which was prepared in the laboratory with the phenol, o-cresol, pcresol content similar to the real coal tar. The extraction process aims to obtain the equilibrium data and parameters of thermodynamic model for this system. By using visual inspection, it can be concluded that Three-Suffix Margules’s model produces the best results for predict the liquid-liquid equilibrium of phenol, o-cresol, p-cresol system studied.
Investigating the Effect of Ultrasonication on the Molecular Structure of Potato Starch Using Synchrotron-based Infrared Spectroscopy

For the first time, in this paper, synchrotron-based Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy characterized the changes in the short-order range of potato starch after ultrasonication. Ultrasonic treatment caused cracks and fissures on potato starch granules. Simultaneously, size exclusion chromatography revealed that the ultrasonic treatment having 53 kHz did not induce scissoring of the glycosidic bond of starch. Differential scanning calorimetry showed decreased thermal parameters (To, Tp and ΔH) of potato starch, indicating a disorder in the starch molecule. Furthermore, synchrotron-based FTIR gives insights on the loosening of short-range order of potato starch as reported by the disruption of the crystalline region of potato starch.
A high-throughput 3D bioprinted cancer cell migration and invasion model with versatile and broad biological applicability

Understanding the underlying mechanisms of migration and metastasis is a key focus of cancer research. There is an urgent need to develop in vitro 3D tumor models that can mimic physiological cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions, with high reproducibility and that are suitable for high throughput (HTP) drug screening. Here, we developed a HTP 3D bioprinted migration model using a bespoke drop-on-demand bioprinting platform. This HTP platform coupled with tunable hydrogel systems enables (i) the rapid encapsulation of cancer cells within in vivo tumor mimicking matrices, (ii) in situ and real-time measurement of cell movement, (iii) detailed molecular analysis for the study of mechanisms underlying cell migration and invasion, and (iv) the identification of novel therapeutic options. This work demonstrates that this HTP 3D bioprinted cell migration platform has broad applications across quantitative cell and cancer biology as well as drug screening.
How to Make a 29% Increase Look Bigger: Numerosity Effects in Option Comparisons

Consumers prefer quantitative to qualitative information, yet the same quantitative information can appear as different numbers (e.g., 7-year warranty = 84-month warranty). The current paper demonstrates that consumers focus more on the number of units (7 versus 84) than on the type of units (year versus month), which implies a unit effect. The same attribute difference expressed as a higher number of units induces a perception of being larger (Study 1). When consumers receive the same information on different scales, the unit effect disappears (Study 2). Because differences in quality for the various options appear inflated due to the use of a scale with more units, consumers may switch away from a lower quality option when the quality ratings employ many units (Study 3). Finally, the unit effect implies that consumers are more sensitive to proportional differences and ratios of attribute levels when the attribute expression relies on many units rather than a few units (Study 4).
Visual Therapy in Open Space Rehabilitation of AcquiredVisual Field Defect

Purpose Visual field defect (VFD) is one of the most common impairments that can occur after the brain damage. Different approaches: optical aids, compensatory training and restorative training were extensively evaluated, however each of these therapies still leave much to be desired, since they did not always accomplish the expected result. The aim of the presented case is to demonstrate that optometric vision therapy (OVT) in open space, commonly used in patients with binocular vision disorders, may be an alternative and efficient treatment of VFD, since it focuses on the integration of sensory and motor functions with the strong engagement of visual attention. Case Report This report describes the case of young patient diagnosed with a bilateral tunnel vision defect and central sparing. This was caused by a cyst in the occipital area. OVT was implemented to improve the visual field, accommodation and vergence skills. After 8 months of the therapy (25 in-office sessions with home enhancement) all visual parameters and visual field were in normal range. Conclusions OVT appears to be a promising rehabilitation method especially in young patients with acquired brain injury. Further investigation however, of the effect of OVT on the visual field enlargement is needed.
Bacterial Succession during Vermicomposting of Silver Wattle (Acacia dealbata Link)

Vermicomposting is the process of organic waste degradation through interactions between earthworms and microbes. A variety of organic wastes can be vermicomposted, producing a nutrient-rich final product that can be used as a soil biofertilizer. Giving the prolific invasive nature of the Australian silver wattle Acacia dealbata Link in Europe, it is important to find alternatives for its sustainable use. However, optimization of vermicomposting needs further comprehension of the fundamental microbial processes. Here, we characterized bacterial succession during the vermicomposting of silver wattle during 56 days using the earthworm species Eisenia andrei. We observed significant differences in α- and β-diversity between fresh silver wattle (day 0) and days 14 and 28, while the bacterial community seemed more stable between days 28 and 56. Accordingly, during the first 28 days, a higher number of taxa experienced significant changes in relative abundance. A microbiome core composed of 10 amplicon sequence variants was identified during the vermicomposting of silver wattle (days 14 to 56). Finally, predicted functional profiles of genes involved in cellulose metabolism, nitrification, and salicylic acid also changed significantly during vermicomposting. This study, hence, provides detailed insights of the bacterial succession occurring during vermicomposting of the silver wattle and the characteristics of its final product as a sustainable plant biofertilizer.
Attitudes of Voluntary Simplifier University Students in Hungary

The Lifestyle of Voluntary Simplicity (LOVOS) segment is composed of consumers who attempt to achieve sustainable consumption. The segment has been examined by only a few research studies so far, and none of them were conducted among Hungarian consumers. Therefore, the aim of our exploratory research is to examine the occurrence of the LOVOS consumer group among university students from Debrecen, Hungary. To achieve our aim, we first identified the five main value groups of the LOVOS lifestyle with an expert focus group interview. Based on the interview, a questionnaire survey was conducted among university students from Debrecen (N = 500). Based on the results, four value-based segments were identified, of which the Voluntary simplifiers’ cluster (39.6% of respondents) reflected the characteristics of the LOVOS lifestyle to the greatest extent. Based on the literature, it seemed necessary to segment this group further in terms of their commitment to individual values. As a result, three further clusters were created, of which, the Holistic simplifiers’ group (9.8% of respondents) showed the greatest commitment to the values of the LOVOS lifestyle. We concluded that the characteristics of voluntary simplifiers have already appeared among university students from Debrecen, but further research is needed to reveal the value orientation of the whole of Hungarian society.
Implementation of safety based incentives in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs): an empirical analysis for the case of Spain

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are mostly implemented to circumvent budgetary constraints, and to encourage efficiency and quality in the provision of public infrastructure in order to reach social welfare. One of the ways of reaching the latter objective is by the introduction of performance based standards tied to bonuses and penalties to reward or punish the performance of the contractor. This paper focuses on the implementation of safety based incentives in PPPs in such a way that the better the safety outcome the greater larger will be the economic reward to the contractor. The main aim of this paper is to identify whether the incentives to improve road safety in PPPs are ultimately effective in improving safety ratios in Spain. To that end, Poisson and negative binomial regression models have been applied using information of motorways of the Spanish network of 2006. The findings indicate that even though road safety is highly influenced by variables that are not much controllable by the contractor such as the Average Annual Daily Traffic and the percentage of heavy vehicles, the implementation of safety incentives in PPPs has a positive influence in the reduction of fatalities, injuries and accidents.
Chemical Diversity in Three Massive Young Stellar Objects Associated with 6.7 GHz CH3OH Masers

We have carried out observations in the 42–46 and 82–103 GHz bands with the Nobeyama 45 m radio telescope, and in the 338.2–339.2 and 348.45–349.45 GHz bands with the ASTE 10 m telescope, toward three high-mass star-forming regions containing massive young stellar objects (MYSOs), G12.89+0.49, G16.86−2.16, and G28.28−0.36. We have detected HC3N including its 13C and D isotopologues, CH3OH, CH3CCH, and several complex organic molecules. Using our previous results for HC5N in these sources, we compare their N(HC5N)/N(CH3OH) ratios. The ratio in G28.28−0.36 is derived to be , which is higher than that in G12.89+0.49 by one order of magnitude, and higher than in G16.86−2.16 by a factor of ∼5. We investigate the relationship between the N(HC5N)/N(CH3OH) and the N(CH3CCH)/N(CH3OH) ratios. The relationships of the two column density ratios in G28.28−0.36 and G16.86−2.16 are similar to each other, while HC5N is less abundant compared to CH3CCH in G12.89+0.49. These results imply a chemical diversity in the lukewarm (T ∼ 20–30 K) envelope around MYSOs. In addition, several spectral lines from complex organic molecules, including very-high-excitation energy lines, have been detected toward G12.89+0.49, while the line density is significantly low in G28.28−0.36. These results suggest that organic-poor MYSOs are surrounded by a carbon-chain-rich lukewarm envelope (G28.28−0.36), while organic-rich MYSOs, namely hot cores, are surrounded by a CH3OH-rich lukewarm envelope (G12.89+0.49 and G16.86−2.16).
DSTC 7-AVSD : Scene-Aware Video-Dialogue Systems with Dual Attention

Scene-aware dialogue systems are designed to have conversations about surrounding objects and events. We approach this challenge by building an end-to-end multimodal dialogue system with video (non-audio) and chat history as the context with novel ways of grounding through effective alignment and cross-attention approaches. For this, we use the Audio Visual Scene-Aware Dialog (AVSD) dataset to evaluate the performance of our models and also study the importance of each of the modality and component to the overall performance of our multimodal dialogue models. This achieves the third-rank system in the competition. Further, we also discuss the various other approaches that we tried to improve the performance of our models, e.g., reinforcement learning, contextual embeddings, pointer-generator copy models, and external data.
The photochemical production and loss rates for carbon monoxide ( CO ) in the stratosphere and mesosphere are evaluated using measurements from the Aura Microwave Limb

[1] The photochemical production and loss rates for carbon monoxide (CO) in the stratosphere and mesosphere are evaluated using measurements from the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment‐Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE‐FTS). The distributions of reactive trace gases involved in the photochemistry of CO, including OH, CH4, O( D), Cl, as well as temperatures for calculating reaction rates, are either directly observed or constrained from observations. We map the CO net production and loss as a function of pressure (10–0.02 hPa, about 30–75 km altitude), latitude (approximately ±70°), and season. The results indicate that photochemical loss dominates over production for nearly all conditions considered here. A minimum photochemical loss lifetime of about 10 days occurs near the 2 hPa pressure level, and it follows the region of maximum sunlight exposure. At high latitudes during winter, the CO lifetime is generally longer than 30 days. Time scales become much shorter in spring, however, when CO lifetimes can be 15–20 days poleward of 60° latitude in the upper stratosphere. On the basis of these results, CO is a suitable tracer during autumn to spring above the 0.1 hPa pressure level but not in the upper stratosphere near 1 hPa.
EH3 matrix mineralogy with major and trace element composition compared to chondrules

We investigated the matrix mineralogy in primitive EH3 chondrites Sahara 97072, ALH 84170, and LAR 06252 with transmission electron microscopy; measured the trace and major element compositions of Sahara 97072 matrix and ferromagnesian chondrules with laser‐ablation, inductively coupled, plasma mass spectrometry (LA‐ICPMS); and analyzed the bulk composition of Sahara 97072 with LA‐ICPMS, solution ICPMS, and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. The fine‐grained matrix of EH3 chondrites is unlike that in other chondrite groups, consisting primarily of enstatite, cristobalite, troilite, and kamacite with a notable absence of olivine. Matrix and pyroxene‐rich chondrule compositions differ from one another and are distinct from the bulk meteorite. Refractory lithophile elements are enriched by a factor of 1.5–3 in chondrules relative to matrix, whereas the matrix is enriched in moderately volatile elements. The compositional relation between the chondrules and matrix is reminiscent of the difference between EH3 pyroxene‐rich chondrules and EH3 Si‐rich, highly sulfidized chondrules. Similar refractory element ratios between the matrix and the pyroxene‐rich chondrules suggest the fine‐grained material primarily consists of the shattered, sulfidized remains of the formerly pyroxene‐rich chondrules with the minor addition of metal clasts. The matrix, chondrule, and metal‐sulfide nodule compositions are probably complementary, suggesting all the components of the EH3 chondrites came from the same nebular reservoir.
CONSERVATIVE, NONPARAMETRIC ESTIMATION OF MEAN CONCENTRATION OF CONTAMINANTS

Statistical estimates and procedures that err on the side of caution are often desirable when dealing with public health issues. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under the Superfund program, takes this approach in its de- termination of human exposure to soil contaminants at toxic waste sites. Due to uncertainties in estimating the true average contaminant concentration based on site sampling and the need to be conservative in assessing health risk, the EPA advocates the use of the 95% upper confidence limit (UCL) on the mean to pro- vide "reasonable confidence that the true site average will not be underestimated". Skewness of the underlying distribution of the contaminant contributes to the per- sistent underestimation of the population mean when sample size is small and the need for a conservative procedure as attempted by the EPA. In this article, we propose an estimator for the mean of positively skewed distributions based on a penalized least squares criterion. When sample size is small or moderate, the new estimator has smaller mean square error and greater probability of falling within two standard deviations of the sample mean above the true mean than the UCL estimator currently being used by EPA.
Generalized Tikhonov Regularization: Topological Aspects and Necessary Conditions

Ein zentraler Punkt in der Theorie inverser Probleme ist die Beschreibung von Nahe im Datenraum. Ausgehend von der These, dass eine Beschreibung von Nahe und Konvergenz durch reellwertige Funktionale wunschenswert ist, werden Prametriken als Ahnlichkeitsmas diskutiert und Eigenschaften daraus konstruierter sequentieller Konvergenzstrukturen und Topologien untersucht. Insbesondere wird der Frage nachgegangen, wann die von einer Prametrik induzierte sequentielle Konvergenzstruktur topologisch ist. In diesem Fall ist die prametrische Topologie eine maximale induzierende Topologie. Weiter zielt die Arbeit auf notwendige Bedingungen an Diskrepanz- und Regularisierungsfunktional, sowie topologische Strukturen auf Urbild- und Datenraum ab, um daraus ein Regularisierungsverfahren vom Tikhonov-Typ realisieren zu konnen. Als Vorarbeit dazu werden hierfur zentrale Begriffe an ein gemischtes Setting aus Topologien und sequentiellen Konvergenzraumen adaptiert. Des Weiteren wird ein Satz von hinreichenden Standardbedingungen fur von Prametriken induzierte sequentielle Konvergenzstrukturen im Datenraum erweitert und dessen Erfullbarkeit in einem rein topologische Rahmen untersucht. Dafur werden sogenannte Bottom-Slice-Topologien konstruiert, die auch fur sich selbst als Kandidaten Topologien auf dem Datenraum interessant sind. Abschliesend werden auf verallgemeinerten Bregmanabstanden basierende Bregmanprametriken naher untersucht.
P52 TORNADOES in HURRICANE HARVEY: DOCUMENTATION and ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

Tropical cyclones (TCs) offer a variety of hazards during their landfall phases, including their own damaging gradient winds and gusts, storm surge, inland flooding from heavy rainfall, and tornadoes. The risks from flooding and tornadoes, in particular, often shift inland great distances during the days after landfall, their duration depending both on translation of the TC and favorable atmospheric conditions within the remnants. The threat of tornadoes from TCs has been documented and analyzed in climatological and statistical terms for almost a century (e.g., Barbour 1924; Hill et al. 1966; Novlan and Gray 1974; McCaul 1991; Verbout et al. 2007; Edwards 2012, hereafter E12; Moore et al. 2017; among numerous others).
Working Paper No . 31 Measuring creativity : Learning from innovation measurement

Abstract: There is a growing interest in broadening the measurement scope of innovation and considering “creative” activities, meaning that the usual indicators of innovation satisfy neither scholars nor policy makers. Conceptually, there is not much difference between innovative and creative activity: but to what extent are current measures that capture innovation relevant for creativity? Can the new measures for creativity benefit from the experience accumulated through R&D and innovation? Our article provides insights and lessons learned from using measures of innovative activities for scholars who are interested in capturing creative activities. We underscore the difficulties faced when measuring innovation and draw some parallels of these difficulties with the efforts undertaken to measure creativity. There is a growing interest in broadening the measurement scope of innovation and considering “creative” activities, meaning that the usual indicators of innovation satisfy neither scholars nor policy makers. Conceptually, there is not much difference between innovative and creative activity: but to what extent are current measures that capture innovation relevant for creativity? Can the new measures for creativity benefit from the experience accumulated through R&D and innovation? Our article provides insights and lessons learned from using measures of innovative activities for scholars who are interested in capturing creative activities. We underscore the difficulties faced when measuring innovation and draw some parallels of these difficulties with the efforts undertaken to measure creativity.
A Hybrid Neural Network Model for Power Demand Forecasting

The problem of power demand forecasting for the effective planning and operation of smart grid, renewable energy and electricity market bidding systems is an open challenge. Numerous research efforts have been proposed for improving prediction performance in practical environments through statistical and artificial neural network approaches. Despite these efforts, power demand forecasting problems remain to be a grand challenge since existing methods are not sufficiently practical to be widely deployed due to their limited accuracy. To address this problem, we propose a hybrid power demand forecasting model, called (c, l)-Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) + Convolution Neural Network (CNN). We consider the power demand as a key value, while we incorporate c different types of contextual information such as temperature, humidity and season as context values in order to preprocess datasets into bivariate sequences consisting of pairs. These c bivariate sequences are then input into c LSTM networks with l layers to extract feature sets. Using these feature sets, a CNN layer outputs a predicted profile of power demand. To assess the applicability of the proposed hybrid method, we conduct extensive experiments using real-world datasets. The results of the experiments indicate that the proposed (c, l)-LSTM+CNN hybrid model performs with higher accuracy than previous approaches.