Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Reactive Agent Based Approach to Facility Location : Application to Transport

Facility location problem concerns the positioning of facilities such as train stations, bus-stops, fire stations and schools, so as to optimize one or several objectives. The review of different facets of this problem shows a real interest for transportation systems. Since the location model decisions are an influencing factor for the relevance and the attractiveness of transportation services. This paper contributes to research on location problem by proposing a reactive multiagent model to deal with a classical variation: the p-median problem, where the objective is to minimize the weighted distance between the demand points and the facilities. The proposed approach has a physical inspiration. It is based on potential fields technique, especially using attractive and repulsive forces between agents and their environment. The optimization of the system is then obtained from a global self-organization of the agents (the facilities). The efficiency of the proposed approach is confirmed by computational results based on a set of comparisons with the K-means clustering technique. Particularly, the approach is evaluated on the problem of bus-stops positioning in a real bus-network.
Multiple-Scattering-Free Optical Glucose Monitoring Based on Femtosecond Pulse Interferometry

We have designed a novel multiple-scattering-free optical glucose monitoring system based on femtosecond pulse interferometry. The glucose concentration is determined by a time-of-flight method, while multiple-scattering light is rejected by a coherence gate. The resultant accuracy and precision were 94.7 and 24.5 mg/dl, respectively, for physiological-equivalent glucose concentrations in a scattering medium of 1.0% intralipid solution, while the accuracy and precision for a reference sample containing no scattering medium were 65.3 and 23.8 mg/dl, respectively. Comparing these results, we conclude that the proposed method is effective for glucose measurement in a scattering medium.
Reference Solutions for Benchmark Turbulent Flows in Three Dimensions

A grid convergence study is performed to establish benchmark solutions for turbulent flows in three dimensions (3D) in support of turbulence-model verification campaign at the Turbulence Modeling Resource (TMR) website. The three benchmark cases are subsonic flows around a 3D bump and a hemisphere-cylinder configuration and a supersonic internal flow through a square duct. Reference solutions are computed for Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equations with the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model using a linear eddy-viscosity model for the external flows and a nonlinear eddy-viscosity model based on a quadratic constitutive relation for the internal flow. The study involves three widely-used practical computational fluid dynamics codes developed and supported at NASA Langley Research Center: FUN3D, USM3D, and CFL3D. Reference steady-state solutions computed with these three codes on families of consistently refined grids are presented. Grid-to-grid and code-to-code variations are described in detail.
DISTRIBUTION OF TEPHRA FROM THE 1650 AD SUBMARINE ERUPTION OF KOLUMBO VOLCANO, GREECE

Kolumbo submarine volcano, located 7 km northeast of Santorini in the Aegean Sea, last erupted in 1650 AD resulting in significant coastal destruction from tsunamis and about 70 fatalities on nearby Thera from gas discharge. Pyroclastic materials were reported as far south as Crete and as far northeast as Turkey. Tephra from the 1650 AD submarine eruption has been correlated in sediment box cores using a combination of mineralogy and major element composition of glass shards. The biotite-bearing rhyolite of Kolumbo can be readily discriminated from other silicic pyroclastics derived from the main Santorini complex. In general, the tephra deposits are very fine-grained (silt to fine sand), medium gray in color, and covered by ~10 cm of brown hemipelagic sediment. This corresponds to an average background sedimentation rate of 29 cm/kyr in the area. The distribution of the 1650 AD Kolumbo tephra covers at least 446 km2 around the crater, nearly 5 times the approximated 97 km2 previously inferred from seismic profiles on the volcano’s slopes and in adjacent basins. Despite the expansion of the inferred deposition area, the estimated eruption volume is not enlarged significantly, and therefore remains a minimum estimate, because the box cores did not penetrate the bases of the tephra units. SEM images reveal particle morphologies attributed to multiple fragmentation mechanisms, including primary volatile degassing and phreatomagmatic activity. It is likely that phreatomagmatic activity became more important in the latter stages of the eruptive sequence when eruptions column broke the surface and a small ephemeral island was formed. We suggest that after the generation of a significant fine ash fraction during submarine and subaerial stages of explosive volcanism, the fines are efficiently removed from the vent area and transported by several mechanisms: (1) dominant local winds; (2) surges over the sea surface from subaerial eruption column collapse; (3) vertical gravity currents driven by Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities; and, (4) sediment gravity flows driven by submarine eruption column collapse. The fine-grained marine tephra deposits surrounding Kolumbo represent the complement to the very fines-poor proximal pumice sequence exposed in the crater walls.
Physiological reactivity and aggression -1- Running head: Physiological reactivity and aggression Physiological reactivity and different forms of aggression in girls: Moderating roles of peer rejection and rejection sensitivity

Associations between physiological reactivity to exclusion (i.e., heart rate [HRR], respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSAR], and skin conductance level [SCR]) and relational and physical aggression were assessed. It was hypothesized that blunted ―fight or flight‖ responses to stress (i.e., blunted HRR, SCR, and RSA withdrawal) would be associated with relational aggression, whereas heightened ―fight or flight‖ responses (i.e., heightened HRR, SCR, and RSA withdrawal) would be associated with physical aggression. In addition, it was hypothesized that heightened ―fight or flight‖ responses would interact with social and cognitive risk factors in the prediction of physical aggression. Data were collected at an all-girls residential summer camp (mean age = 12.47 years; N = 119). Overall, findings indicated that blunted ―fight or flight‖ was associated with relational aggression whereas heightened ―fight or flight‖ was associated with physical aggression, particularly in the context of high social and cognitive risk. These findings contribute to our understanding of the relationship between physiological reactivity and different forms of aggression in girls.
PaSTRI: Error-Bounded Lossy Compression for Two-Electron Integrals in Quantum Chemistry

Computation of two-electron repulsion integrals is the critical and the most time-consuming step in a typical parallel quantum chemistry simulation. Such calculations have massive computing and storage requirements, which scale as O(N^4) with the size of a chemical system. Compressing the integral's data and storing it on disk can avoid costly recalculation, significantly speeding the overall quantum chemistry calculations; but it requires a fast compression algorithm. To this end, we developed PaSTRI (Pattern Scaling for Two-electron Repulsion Integrals) and implemented the algorithm in the data compression package SZ. PaSTRI leverages the latent pattern features in the integral dataset and optimizes the calculation of the appropriate number of bits required for the storage of the integral. We have evaluated PaSTRI using integral datasets generated by the quantum chemistry program GAMESS. The results show an excellent 16.8 compression ratio with low overhead, while maintaining 10^-10 absolute precision based on user's requirement.
EXOGENOUS APPLICATION OF SALICYLIC ACID ENHANCES ANTIOXIDATIVE CAPACITY IN SALT STRESSED SUNFLOWER (HELIANTHUS ANNUUS L.) PLANTS

Salicylic acid (SA) is a growth regulator that promotes growth of plants under stress and nonstress conditions. The present study was conducted to assess alteration in antioxidative capacity of salt stressed sunflower plants due to foliar applied SA. Two hybrid lines of sunflower (Hisun-33 and SF-187) were grown under non-saline (control) or saline (120 mM NaCl) conditions. Varying levels of salicylic acid (0, 100, 200, 300 mg L -1 ) were applied foliarly. Activities of antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, catalase and peroxidase) of both cultivars increased due to salt stress. Foliar applied SA caused a significant increase in leaf SOD and POD activity. However, leaf CAT activity remained almost unchanged due to SA application under both control and saline conditions, particularly in SF-187. Furthermore, increase in growth and photosynthetic capacity of both cultivars due to exogenously applied SA may have been due to SA-induced increase in activity of peroxidase.
Drought impacts on Canadian prairie wetland snow hydrology

Droughts affect the Canadian prairies on a regular basis. The drought of 1999–2005 was the most recent one and was the most severe on record for part of the region. It was characterized by lack of precipitation, desiccation of agricultural soils, decline in groundwater tables and depletion of surface water supplies. The effects on wetlands were particularly severe, with many wetlands completely drying out. The physically based cold regions hydrological modelling (CRHM) platform was used to analyse the impacts of this recent drought on water flow to and storage within a small Canadian prairie wetland. Model simulations were conducted for a small closed basin for the drought period of 1999–2005 and the relatively wet period of 2005–2006. The basin consists of a cultivated upland, draining into a glacially formed pothole depression with no outlet. The wetland fills the depression in wet years and is underlain by a heavy glacial till that impedes groundwater exchange. Results from the observations and model outputs showed that much lower precipitation and snow accumulation, shorter snow‐covered duration, enhanced winter evaporation, and much lower discharge to the wetland from basin snowmelt runoff developed in the severe drought years of 1999–2002. As a result, there were only 14·9, 3·7, and 14·4 mm of snowmelt runoff for the springs of 2000, 2001, and 2002, respectively. Compared to the 68·2 mm of melt‐water discharge in the spring of 2006, discharge to the wetland was 78, 95, and 79% less for these years. This is consistent with the observed water level in the wetland, which shows dramatic decline over this period. CRHM was used to investigate the potential impact of snow management as a tool to enhance runoff to the wetland during droughts. Model runs parameterized with suppressed vegetation in the cultivated land surrounding the wetland showed increased blowing snow transport to the wetland from an area exceeding the basin area that resulted in greater snow accumulation in and melt‐water supply to the wetland. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Benefits of breakfast in adolescents

Purpose: To examine the effect of a protein-rich breakfast on appetite, food cravings, and subsequent food intake in breakfast-skipping adolescents. Methods: 15 healthy, “breakfast skipping” adolescents (age 14 ± 1 y; BMI 79 ± 4 %ile; breakfast 2 ± 1 occasions/wk) randomly consumed, on 3 separate days, a breakfast meal of 24% estimated daily energy needs containing the RDA for protein (18 ± 1 g protein) (PN), a higher amount of dietary protein (48 ± 2 g protein) (PR), or no breakfast (breakfast skipping, BS). Post-meal appetite and food craving responses were collected over a 4-h period followed by an ad libitum lunch buffet. Results: Following both breakfast meals, hunger was lower vs. BS (-4305 ± 1131 vs. 501 ± 1263 mm•240 min; P<0.01) while fullness was greater vs. BS (4143 ± 1152 vs. 1066 ± 528 mm•240 min; P<0.001). No differences were observed between meals. Both breakfast meals also led to a decrease in prospective food consumption vs. BS (-4100 ± 758 vs. 1304 ± 868 mm•240 min; P<0.001). PR led to a greater reduction vs. PN (trend, P=0.06). No differences in sweet cravings were observed between breakfast meals and BS. PR and PN tended to lead to a greater reduction in salty (P=0.062) and meaty cravings (P=0.055) vs. BS; no differences were observed between meals. The PR and PN breakfast meals led to fewer calories consumed at lunch (434 ± 56 kcal) vs. BS (490 ± 63 kcal; P<0.05). PR led to 127 ± 40 fewer calories compared to 14 ± 23 more calories in PN (P<0.005). Conclusions: These findings indicate that the addition of a protein-rich breakfast beneficially impacts appetite control and food intake over the short-term and may potentially be an effective dietary strategy to re-establish energy balance and improve body weight management in overweight and obese young people.
The Creative Process in Design Science Research : Identifying Patterns of Creativity

Design science research (DSR) generates new knowledge in the processes of design, build, evaluation, and implementation for innovative IS artifacts. Recent literature describes the processes to be followed to conduct rigorous and relevant research in DSR projects. In this research in progress paper we posit that underlying all DSR processes there exists a fundamental creative process that is required for the IS artifact to be truly innovative. We argue that this process and the creative activities involved can and should be made explicit in the DSR process. We use example cases from two creative individuals from the fields of architecture and art who prospectively documented their creative process in the creation of innovative artifacts to understand how DSR researchers might more effectively identify and document their creative process and activities.
Context-Aware Learning from Demonstration: Using Camera Data to Support the Synergistic Control of a Multi-Joint Prosthetic Arm

Ahstract- Muscle synergies in humans are context-dependent-they are based on the integration of vision, sensorimotor information and proprioception. In particular, visual information plays a significant role in the execution of goal-directed grasping movements. Based on a desired motor task, a limb is directed to the correct spatial location and the posture of the hand reflects the size, shape and orientation of the grasped object. Such contextual synergies are largely absent from modern prosthetic robots. In this work, we therefore introduce a new algorithmic contribution to support the context-aware, synergistic control of multiple degrees-of-freedom of an upper-limb prosthesis. In our previous work, we showcased an actor-critic reinforcement learning method that allowed someone with an amputation to use their non-amputated arm to teach their prosthetic arm how to move through a range of coordinated motions and grasp patterns. We here extend this approach to include visual information that could potentially help achieve context-dependent movement. To study the integration of visual context into coordinated grasping, we recorded computer vision information, myoelectic signals, inertial measurements, and positional information during a subject's training a robotic arm. Our approach was evaluated via prediction learning, wherein our algorithm was tasked with accurately distinguishing between three different muscle synergies involving similar myoelectric signals based on visual context from a robot-mounted camera. These preliminary results suggest that even simple visual data can help a learning system disentangle synergies that would be indistinguishable based solely on motor and myoelectric signals recorded from the human user and their robotic arm. We therefore suggest that integrating learned, vision-contingent predictions about movement synergies into a prosthetic control system could potentially allow systems to better adapt to diverse situations of daily-life prosthesis use.
Drinking water treatment by iron anode-based electrocoagulation: humic acids and arsenic removal

Electrocoagulation (EC) represents an alternative to the conventional coagulation process in water treatment in low-capacity plants. Besides the electrode materials, the performance of electrocoagulation is strongly dependent on the raw water matrix. A systematic study has been conducted in this paper in order to optimize the electrocoagulation process operation using iron anode for groundwater with high organic loading and arsenic. The optimization of electrocoagulation parameters was performed, focusing on initial concentration of arsenic and humic acid, current density, the presence of major ions dissolved in water (SO4 2- , Cl - ). Humic substances were quantified in terms of absorbance at 254 nm and total organic carbon (TOC) and the arsenic concentration has been assessed in water samples by atomic absorption spectrometry. To elucidate some mechanistic aspect, SEM/EDAX analysis was performed. A systematic study based on various raw water characteristics has been performed for EC process based on iron electrodes to determine the best operating conditions and also, to identify the limits of this process. The specific energy consumption was calculated in order to demonstrate also the process viability from economical point of view. Various treatment scenarios in relation to raw water characteristics and operation conditions were applied in order to determine the optimal conditions regarding process parameters correlated to the range of water characteristics for the drinking water treatment.
Water scarcity and oil palm expansion: social views and environmental

Conversions of natural ecosystems, e.g., from rain forests to managed plantations, result in significant changes in the hydrological cycle including periodic water scarcity. In Indonesia, large areas of forest were lost and extensive oil palm plantations were established over the last decades. We conducted a combined social and environmental study in a region of recent land-use change, the Jambi Province on Sumatra. The objective was to derive complementary lines of arguments to provide balanced insights into environmental perceptions and eco-hydrological processes accompanying land-use change. Interviews with villagers highlighted concerns regarding decreasing water levels in wells during dry periods and increasing fluctuations in stream flow between rainy and dry periods. Periodic water scarcity was found to severely impact livelihoods, which increased social polarization. Sap flux measurements on forest trees and oil palms indicate that oil palm plantations use as much water as forests for transpiration. Eddy covariance analyses of evapotranspiration over oil palm point to substantial additional sources of evaporation in oil palm plantations such as the soil and epiphytes. Stream base flow from a catchment dominated by oil palms was lower than from a catchment dominated by rubber plantations; both showed high peaks after rainfall. An estimate of erosion indicated approximately 30 cm of topsoil loss after forest conversion to both oil palm and rubber plantations. Analyses of climatic variables over the last 20 years and of a standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index for the last century suggested that droughts are recurrent in the area, but have not increased in frequency or intensity. Consequently, we assume that conversions of rain forest ecosystems to oil palm plantations lead to a redistribution of precipitated water by runoff, which leads to the reported periodic water scarcity. Our combined social and environmental approach points to significant and thus far neglected eco-hydrological consequences of oil palm expansion.
Solar‐Induced Fluorescence Detects Interannual Variation in Gross Primary Production of Coniferous Forests in the Western United States

Quantifying gross primary production (GPP), the largest flux of the terrestrial carbon cycle, remains difficult at the landscape scale. Evergreen needleleaf (coniferous) forests in the western United States constitute an important carbon reservoir whose annual GPP varies from year‐to‐year due to drought, mortality, and other ecosystem disturbances. Evergreen forest productivity is challenging to determine via traditional remote sensing indices (i.e., NDVI and EVI), because detecting environmental stress conditions is difficult. We investigated the utility of solar‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) to detect year‐to‐year variation in GPP in four coniferous forests varying in species composition in the western United States (Sierra Nevada, Cascade, and Rocky Mountains). We show that annually averaged, satellite‐based observations of SIF (retrieved from GOME‐2) were significantly correlated with annual GPP observed at eddy covariance towers over several years. Further, SIF responded quantitatively to drought‐induced mortality, suggesting that SIF may be capable of detecting ecosystem disturbance in coniferous forests.
Effect of Local Administration of Laminin and Fibronectin with Chitosan Conduit on Peripheral Nerve Regeneration: A Rat Sciatic Nerve Transection Model

Objective-Effect of local administration of laminin and fibronectin on nerve regeneration was assessed. Design- Experimental study. Animal- Sixty male Wistar rats. Procedures- The animals were divided into four experimental groups (n=15), randomly: In transected group left sciatic nerve was transected and stumps were fixed in adjacent muscle. In treatment group (CHIT/LF) the defect was bridged using a chitosan conduit filled with 10 µL mixture at a concentration of 1 mg/ml laminin and 1 mg/ml fibronectin in a 1:1 volumetric addition. In CHIT group the conduit was filled with phosphate-buffered saline. In normal control group sciatic nerve was exposed and manipulated. Each group was subdivided into three subgroups of five animals each and nerve fibers were studied in a 12-week period. Results- Behavioral, functional, gastrocnemius muscle mass findings and morphometric indices confirmed faster recovery of regenerated axons in CHIT/LF than in CHIT group (p<0.05). Immunohistochemical reactions to S-100 in CHIT/LF were more positive than that in CHIT group. Conclusion and Clinical Relevance- Laminin-fibronectin improved functional recovery and morphometric indices of sciatic nerve. They could be considered as an effective treatment for peripheral nerve repair in practice.
Feedback Guidance in Uncertain Spatiotemporal Wind Using a Vector Backstepping Algorithm

This work deals with the problem of guiding a controlled object to a given target set in a three-dimensional configuration space in the presence of wind with an uncertain spatiotemporal velocity field. The proposed guidance law uses (imperfect) measurements of the velocity of the local wind along the ensuing path of the controlled object to a given target set. No information about the velocity gradients (temporal and spatial) of the wind is assumed to be available. The development of the proposed guidance feedback law is based on the use of a backstepping algorithm that forces the controlled object to follow closely the motion of a lower-order kinematic model that is driven by a pure pursuit navigation law. In this way, the controlled object converges to its target set in finite time. Two kinematic models that describe the motion of the controlled object are considered. In the first model, the rate of change of the air velocity of the controlled object is unconstrained, whereas in the second one, it has t.