Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of angular dependence of observed and simulated distributions of radiances over stratocumulus clouds

In this study, we use multiangular radiance distributions measured by the AirMISR – the airborne version of Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) – to evaluate the structure of continental stratocumulus simulated by a high-resolution cloud resolving model. While the CRM cannot be expected to reproduce any particular cloud scene exactly, the observed and simulated cloud fields should have the same statistical properties. By comparing the statistics of the simulated radiance fields with the statistics of the actual AirMISR measurements we aim to ascertain the fidelity of the high-resolution cloud model. Establishing realism of the simulated cloud and radiance fields is necessary in justifying using such simulations as surrogates for developing and testing conceptual models, retrieval algorithms, and parameterizations.
Commutative geometry for non-commutative D-branes by tachyon condensation

There is a difficulty in defining the positions of the D-branes when the scalar fields on them are non-abelian. We show that we can use tachyon condensation to determine the position or the shape of D0-branes uniquely as a commutative region in spacetime together with non-trivial gauge flux on it, even if the scalar fields are non-abelian. We use the idea of the so-called coherent state method developed in the field of matrix models in the context of the tachyon condensation. We investigate configurations of noncommutative D2-brane made out of D0-branes as examples. In particular, we examine a Moyal plane and a fuzzy sphere in detail, and show that whose shapes are commutative $\mathbb{R}^2$ and $S^2$, respectively, equipped with uniform magnetic flux on them. We study the physical meaning of this commutative geometry made out of matrices, and propose an interpretation in terms of K-homology.
B-Format Acoustic Impulse Response Measurement and Analysis In the Forest at Koli National Park, Finland

Acoustic impulse responses are used for convolution based auralisation and reverberation techniques for a range of applications, such as music production, sound design and virtual reality systems. These impulse responses can be measured in real world environments to provide realistic and natural sounding reverberation effects. Analysis of this data can also provide useful information about the acoustic characteristics of a particular space. Currently, impulse responses recorded in outdoor conditions are not widely available for surround sound auralisation and research purposes. This work presents results from a recent acoustic survey of measurements at three locations in the snow covered forest of Koli National Park in Finland during early spring. Acoustic impulse responses were measured using a B-format Soundfield microphone and a single loudspeaker. The results are analysed in terms of reverberation and spatial characteristics. The work is part of a larger study to collect and investigate acoustic impulse responses from a variety of outdoor locations under different climatic conditions.
Fauna of Macroinvertebrates and Composition of Functional Feeding Groups about the Aquatic Insects to Microhabitats from the Geum River, Korea

The main objective of this study is to find out the fauna of macroinvertebrate and composition of functional feeding groups about the aquatic insects to microhabitat from the Geum River, Korea. This study is based on investigations of the main channel of Geum River, Korea which is upstream of Daecheong Dam, and carried out in the spring and autumn of 2004. Collections from all the sites were 39,532 individuals, 130 species, 54 families, 16 orders, 7 classes, and 4 phyla of macroinvertebrates. Aquatic insects were composed of 90.76% (118 species) and 98.88% (39,088 individuals) of all the identified species. Among the microhabitats, the riffles were collected 26,293 individuals and 92 species, and the runs were collected 12,329 individuals and 89 species. Finally, the pools were collected 494 individuals and 41 species. In this survey, the proportions of functional feeding groups of aquatic insects were as follows (percent of identified): predators 37.65%, gathering-collectors 23.53%, scrapers 16.47%, filtering-collectors 11.76%, shredders 9.41% and plant-piercers 1.18%. Also, the functional feeding groups were sorted according to microhabitat, in the riffles 30.65% were predators and 29.03% were gathering-collectors; in the run 30.3% were predators, and 28.79% were gathering-collectors; while in the pools 36.67% were predators, and 30.0% were gathering-collectors. In all microhabitats, gathering collectors and predators were predominant, because most of the survey sites are in the midstream. Also, the scrapers were shown more frequently in the riffle (17.74%) and run (18.18%) than pool (13.13%), the filtering-collectors were shown more frequently in the riffle (14.52%) and the run (12.12%) than the pool (6.67%), and the plant-piercers (3.33%) were found only in pools. But the shredders weren`t a difference in the run (10.61%), the pool (10.0%) and the riffle (8.06%), because of the characteristic. Microhabitats (riffle and run) are much alike in composition ratio of functional feeding groups and pool was very lower out of composition ratio in microhabitats. But riffle is very important than run, because most of individual occur in streams. Besides, pool was diverse to composition ratios, considering the number of individuals.
Ultrastructural and antioxidative changes in lupine embryo axes in response to salt stress

Embryo axes of lupine (Lupinus luteus L. ‘Mister’) were subjected to 0.1 M NaCl salt stress for 24 and 48 h. The ultrastructure modification and adjustment of antioxidant enzymes activities and izoenzymes profiles were observed. In cells of lupine embryo axes grown for 48 hours in medium with 0.1 M NaCl mitochondria took the forked shape and bulges of the outer mitochondrial membranes appeared. Moreover, the inflating and swelling of rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) lumen and fragmentation of RER were noticed. The level of H 2 O 2 was higher in salt treated embryo axes after 24 hours and increase of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances was observed after both 24 and 48 h of salt treatment. Native gel electrophoresis showed increased intensities of bands for catalase isozymes in response to salt stress, whereas activity of catalase was higher only in embryo axes grown for 48 h in control conditions. Appearance of two new isoforms of ascorbate peroxidase was observed after 48 h only under control condition, however increased activities were stated for both control and salt-stress condition after 48 h. No changes in isozymes pattern for superoxide dismutase were observed, but significant decrease in superoxide dismutase activity was noticed in relation to time and salt stress. Possible role of these enzymes in salt stress tolerance is discussed. The 0.1 M salt stress is regarded as a middle stress for lupine embryo axes and the efficiency of stress prevention mechanisms is proposed.
Unpacking the Placebo Response: Insights from Ethnographic Studies of Healing

This paper selectively reviews cross-cultural studies of healing to identify parallels with the process of responding to placebos in biomedical contexts. Placebo responses involve positive therapeutic effects of symbolic stimuli that may be mediated by changes in cognition and attention as well as psychophysiological mechanisms. Ethnographic studies of healing point to additional social and cultural processes that may mediate and modulate placebo responding, including: (i) the cognitive and social grounding of believed-in-efficacy and expectations; (ii) interpersonal processes of narrating and re-negotiating symptom and illness experience; and (iii) the embedding of healing in cultural ontologies, values and social institutions that define positive health outcomes and that govern the esthetics and rhetorical power of healing interventions. Research on the social-contextual basis of placebo responding can contribute to an integrative theory of healing. Because placebo responding is part of any therapeutic intervention, there is no theoretical or practical justification for the deceptive use of placebos. Strengthening the components of placebo responding inherent in clinical effectiveness will insure maximum benefit for patients and maintain the credibility and fidelity of medical practitioners and institutions.
Design of PI Controller in Pitch Control of Wind Turbine: A Comparison of PSO and PS Algorithm

In wind energy conversion system (WECS) at wind speed above rated, the pitch angle is controlled to keep the generated output fixed so also the speed and the frequency. The model is built as a discrete model of WECS connected to Grid including a Line to Ground (LG) fault in Grid. A Proportional-Integral (PI) controller with gain K p and K i is used in pitch angle control loop. The proportional gain K p and integral gain K i are tuned through Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Pattern Search (PS) algorithms. A comparison of two different objective functions with its weight adjustment is presented. The performances of the algorithms in designing the optimal controller are compared. The analysis indicates the superiority of PSO over PS and takes less time to achieve the minimum error criteria. The controller designed using PSO minimizing the proposed objective function has better settling time as regards wind turbine speed response, compared to the other. The control action is validated in real time using OPAL-RT taking different cases of random wind speed, gust and gust with random wind speed and Line to Ground fault.
Modelling and Parameters Identification of Through-Hole Type Wind Turbine Contactless Sliprings

This paper presents a modelling and parameter identification of through-hole type contactless slipring systems for transferring electrical power for wind turbine pitch control. An equivalent circuit model has been developed from the physical structure and dimensions of the contactless slipring using the duality rules, which is very different form traditional transformer. The circuit inductances are determined by the derived expressions from the system reluctances. In particular, the equivalent resistance representing the core loss of the slipring has been determined using phasor diagram of exciting current. FEM (Finite Element Method) models and practical prototypes are developed for testing and verifycations. Both simulation and experimental results have shown that the developed model gives truthful values for numerical calculations in order to obtain the equivalent electric circuit. The effect of fringing flux around the air gap on mutual inductance and the ways of correcting its effects are analysed. The obtained values have shown that the developed models and derived equations are with high accuracy as compared to the FEM simulation and experimental results.
Foreign Aid Linked to Infrastructure and/or Pollution Abatement

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of a permanent increase in foreign aid in a model that takes into account environmental quality. We develop a dynamic equilibrium model in which both public investment in infrastructure and environmental protection can be financed using domestic resources and international aid programs. The framework considers four scenarios for international aid: untied aid,aid fully tied to infrastructure, aid fully tied to abatement, and aid equally tied to both types of expenditures. We find that the effects of the transfers may depend on (i) the structural characteristics of the recipient country (the elasticity of substitution in production and its dependence on environment and natural resources) and on (ii) how recipient countries distribute their public expenditure. These results underscore the importance of these factors when deciding how and to what extent to tie aid to infrastructure and/or pollution abatement.
"INNOVATION SHIFT" TO THE EMERGING ECONOMIES: CASES FROM IT AND HEAVY INDUSTRIES

The current shift of technology development work by multinationals to the emerging economies is distinctive, as many are now observing, though less understood are the implications for innovative capacity and location. It is now high-end (rather than adaptive) development that is being carried out in countries like India, China, Brazil and Mexico. And, increasingly, multinationals from the U.S., Japan and Europe are finding themselves competing against, or working with, new technology-based companies from the emerging economies. Our study focuses on the processes and outcomes of globally distributed engineering. Field work was carried out at 67 engineering headquarters or development sites in eight countries. The firms in our study were in IT and a range of other industries, though in this paper we concentrate on the IT and heavy industries sectors. Based on our fieldwork we conclude that this new shift in the location of technology work at the top of the value chain is not only distinctive, but it is also disjunctive, not following past trajectories of offshoring. We also find that it is occurring as a matter of incremental value chain creep, rather than being guided by “strategy. ” We believe current trends are inconsistent with some widely accepted postulates and prescriptions of organization and innovation theory. We find that the consequences of these trends have not been well conceptualized by managers and policy-makers. The research described here was supported by the National Science Foundation (Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science & Technology, SES-0431755, and the Human and Social Dynamics Programs, SES0527584), and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.
Disjunct eddy covariance technique for trace gas flux measurements

A new approach for eddy covariance flux measurements is developed and applied for trace gas fluxes in the atmospheric surface layer. In disjunct eddy covariance technique, quick samples with a relatively long time interval between them are taken instead of continuously sampling air. This subset of the time series together with vertical wind velocity data at corresponding sampling times can be correlated to give a flux. The disjunct eddy sampling gives more time to analyze the trace gas concentrations and thus makes eddy covariance measurements possible using slower sensors. In this study a proton‐transfer‐reaction mass spectrometer with response time of about 1 second was used with a disjunct eddy sampler to measure fluxes of volatile organic compounds from an alfalfa field. The measured day‐time maximum methanol fluxes ranged from 1 mg m−2 h−1 from uncut alfalfa to 8 mg m−2 h−1 from freshly cut alfalfa. Night‐time fluxes were around zero.
HIGH-PRECISION RADIO AND INFRARED ASTROMETRY OF LSPM J1314+1320AB. I. PARALLAX, PROPER MOTIONS, AND LIMITS ON PLANETS

We present multi-epoch astrometric radio observations with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) of the young ultracool-dwarf binary LSPM J1314+1320AB. The radio emission comes from the secondary star. Combining the VLBA data with Keck near-infrared adaptive-optics observations of both components, a full astrometric fit of parallax (πabs = 57.975 ± 0.045 mas, corresponding to a distance of d = 17.249 ± 0.013 pc), proper motion (μαcos δ = −247.99 ± 0.10 mas yr−1, μδ = −183.58 ± 0.22 mas yr−1), and orbital motion is obtained. Despite the fact that the two components have nearly identical masses to within ±2%, the secondary’s radio emission exceeds that of the primary by a factor of ≳30, suggesting a difference in stellar rotation history, which could result in different magnetic field configurations. Alternatively, the emission could be anisotropic and beamed toward us for the secondary but not for the primary. Using only reflex motion, we exclude planets of mass 0.7–10 Mjup with orbital periods of 600–10 days, respectively. Additionally, we use the full orbital solution of the binary to derive an upper limit for the semimajor axis of 0.23 au for stable planetary orbits within this system. These limits cover a parameter space that is inaccessible with, and complementary to, near-infrared radial velocity surveys of ultracool dwarfs. Our absolute astrometry will constitute an important test for the astrometric calibration of Gaia.
Bronchopulmonary dysplasia: an old and new disease

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is one of the most common and significant medical complications associated with prematurity. It is made more serious by its morbidity and mortality rates. Although recent advances in clinical practice (prenatal steroids, surfactants, new ventilatory strategies, nutritional support) have contributed to improving the clinical course and outcomes of neonates with BPD, its overall incidence has not changed in the last decade owing to a concomitant increase in survival of prematures. The incidence of BPD is in fact inversely proportional to birth weight: 30% for neonates weighing less than 1,000 g, with different percentages in the single centres depending on clinical management and the ventilation criteria applied. However, to date, BPD represents not only a chronic pulmonary pathology in infancy that prevalently affects premature neonates who undergo mechanical ventilation and oxygen therapy for respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), but also prematures with minor signs of initial pulmonary pathology or term neonates requiring aggressive ventilatory support due to an acute and severe lung pathology. Proceedings of the International Course on Perinatal Pathology (part of the 10 th International Workshop on Neonatology · October 22 nd -25 th , 2014) · Cagliari (Italy) · October 25 th , 2014 · The role of the clinical pathological dialogue in problem solving Guest Editors: Gavino Faa, Vassilios Fanos, Peter Van Eyken
The effect of annealing on nanothick indium tin oxide transparent conductive films for touch sensors

This study aims to discuss the sheet resistance of ultrathin indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent conductive films during the postannealing treatment. The thickness of the ultrathin ITO films is 20 nm. They are prepared on B270 glass substrates at room temperature by a direct-current pulsed magnetron sputtering system. Ultrathin ITO films with high sheet resistance are commonly used for touch panel applications. As the annealing temperature is increased, the structure of the ultrathin ITO film changes from amorphous to polycrystalline. The crystalline of ultrathin ITO films becomes stronger with an increase of annealing temperature, which further leads to the effect of enhanced Hall mobility. A postannealing treatment in an atmosphere can enhance the optical transmittance owing to the filling of oxygen vacancies, but the sheet resistance rises sharply. However, a higher annealing temperature, above 250°C, results in a decrease in the sheet resistance of ultrathin ITO films, because more Sn ions become an effective dopant. An optimum sheet resistance of 336Ω/sqr was obtained for ultrathin ITO films at 400°C with an average optical transmittance of 86.8% for touch sensor applications.
[Survey paper] A Review of Video Retrieval Based on Image and Video Semantic Understanding

Research trends in new video retrieval based on image and video semantic understanding are presented in this paper. First, recent studies related to image and video semantic analysis are introduced to understand leading-edge multimedia retrieval technologies. Several works related to visualization interfaces for multimedia retrieval are also presented. Finally, trends in state-of-the-art studies and the future outlook are described.
Enhanced Cross Domain Recommender System using Contextual parameters in Temporal Domain

: Cross-domain collaborative filtering (CDCF) is an evolving research topic in the modern recommender systems. Its main objective is to alleviate the data sparsity problem in individual domains by mixing and transferring the knowledge among the related domains. But there is also an issue of user interest drift over time because user’s taste keeps on changing over time. We should consider various temporal domains to overcome user interest drift over time problem to predict more accurately as per the user’s current interest. This paper discusses how to achieve effective ratings recommendations using contextual parameters in temporal domain in this research line. It calculates the contextual parameters as per user’s current timestamp. This will enhance the recommendations more in line with the current temporal domain. It also deals with cross domain recommendations for both movies and novels based on their categories and similarities.
Privacy Preserving Heuristic Approach for Intermediate Data Sets in Cloud

— Cloud computing is the sharing of computing resources which lessen the upfront investment cost of IT infrastructure. So many organizations are moving their business into cloud. In data intensive applications, while processing original data set many intermediate data sets will be generated. The intermediate data sets are often stored in cloud in order to reduce the cost of recomputing them. Intermediate data sets may contain sensitive information. Preserving the privacy of the intermediate data sets is a challenging problem because adversaries may recover sensitive information by analyzing multiple intermediate data sets. Encrypting all intermediate data sets is neither efficient nor cost effective. It may be very time consuming to encrypt and decrypt all the intermediate data sets. Privacy preserving heuristic approach identifies which intermediate data set needs to be encrypted and which do not based on the privacy requirements of the data holders. In this, encryption is integrated with data anonymization for cost-effective privacy preserving.
FACTORS EFFECTING THE DECOMPENSATION OF CHRONIC HEART FAILURE IN THE ELDERLY

Aim. To identify risk factors of decompensation of chronic heart failure (CHF) and related hospitalization in elderly outpatients. Material and methods. The total of 248 patients aged 60–85 years with CHF NYHA class II-IV were enrolled into the study. The first group consisted of 87 (35.1%) patients who required hospitalization due to CHF decompensation during the follow-up, the second group of 161 patients without need for hospital admission. All the patients had undergone clinical and laboratory examination, estimation of CHF severity by the Scale of clinical state, assessment of quality of life and 6-minute walk test (6MWT), echocardiography. Results. Patients were matched for age, gender, disability occurrence, education level, body mass index, quality of life, hemodynamic parameters, incidence rates of anemia, diabetes mellitus and atrial fibrillation. CHF was more severe in patients who had required hospitalization (p<0.001), they were more often diagnosed with left ventricular aneurysm (p=0.001), chronic kidney disease (p=0.001), left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF)<35% (p<0.001), history of stroke (p<0.001), III-IV degree mitral regurgitation (p=0.007), hyperuricemia (p<0.001), lower exercise tolerance (p=0.007) compared with patients without hospitalization. Higher functional class of CHF (OR=0.29; 95% CI 0.13–0.69; p=0.003), LVEF<35% (OR 0.37; 95% CI 0.18–0.76; p=0.007), chronic kidney disease (OR=0.29; 95% CI 0.13–0.68; p=0.004) and hyperuricemia (OR=0.23; 95%CI 0.10–0.50; p<0.001) were shown to be independent risk factors of CHF decompensation that required hospital admission in elderly patients. Conclusuion. High FC of CHF, low LVEF, hyperuricemia and renal dysfunction play a key role in CHF decompensation and related hospitalization in elderly patients.