Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Meteorological Influences on Anthropogenic PM2.5 in Future Climates: Species Level Analysis in the Community Earth System Model v2

Biomass and fossil fuel burning impact air quality by injecting fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and its precursors into the atmosphere, which poses serious threats to human health. However, the surface concentration of PM2.5 depends not only on the magnitude of emissions, but also secondary production, transport, and removal. For example, in response to greenhouse gas driven warming, meteorological conditions that govern aerosol removal, primarily through rainfall and wet deposition, could shift in pattern, frequency, and intensity. This climate change driven process can impact air quality even without changes in aerosol emissions. In this experiment, we conduct new simulations by fixing aerosol emissions at present‐day levels in the Community Earth System Model Version 2, but increasing greenhouse gases through the 21st century. In our results, the changes in patterns and intensity of PM2.5 are found to be associated with precipitation (via aerosol removal), temperature (via secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation), and moisture and clouds (via sulfate production). A decrease in wet day frequency (∼1.2% global mean) contributes to increases in the surface concentrations of black carbon, primary organic matter, and sulfate in many regions. This is offset in some regions by an upward vertical shift in the level where SOA forms, which contributes to higher column burden but lower surface concentration. These results highlight a need, using a variety of modeling tools, to continually reassess aerosol emissions regulations in response to anticipated climate changes.
Editorial

Many of the frequency domain fundamentals were established by Hendrik.W. Bode in his original book Network Analysis and Feedback Amplifier Design [1], published in 1945. It strongly influenced the understanding of automatic control theory for many years, especially where system sensitivity and feedback constraints are concerned. But we had to wait until 1963 for the book Synthesis of feedback systems [2], written by Isaac Horowitz, to see a formal combination of that frequency methodology with plant ignorance considerations under quantitative analysis. It addresses an extensive set of sensitivity problems in feedback control, and was the first work in which a control problem was treated quantitatively in a systematic way. Since then, and during the last decades of the twentieth century, there has been a tremendous advance in robust frequency domain methods. One of the main techniques, also introduced by Horowitz [3], which characterizes closed loop performance specifications against parametric plant uncertainty, mapped into open loop design constraints, became known as Quantitative Feedback Theory (QFT) in the early seventies. This special issue contains a selection of papers presented at the 5th International Symposium on Quantitative Feedback Theory and Robust Frequency Domain Methods [4], held in the Public University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, on 23–24 August 2001. Its purpose was to bring together practitioners and researchers in the field of robust frequency domain and to promote the development of their practical application. The Symposium, the fifth of a series of international events started by C.H. Houpis in 1992 [4–8], involved about 70 researchers from 12 different countries and covered new developments in Quantitative Feedback Theory and Robust Frequency Domain methods, algorithms, software and applications. In the first QFT Symposium [5] Prof. Horowitz said: ‘there is room in QFT for highly diverse talents: the nonmathematical practical engineer with physical insight and inventive talent, the skilled mathematician interested in existence theorems and abstract generalizations, up to the stubborn, even plodding researcher who by hard dedicated work acquires deep understanding of this subject’. He added: ‘QFT is as yet in its infancy, pointing to vast, available problem areas’. Now, in the fifth Symposium, he continued telling us that achieving desired systems tolerances from uncertain systems, at minimum cost of feedback, will remain an important, enduring problem for many future generations. In the first paper (‘Some ideas for QFT research’ by Isaac Horowitz) he suggests some significant QFT research problems, on the very boundary of the unknown, that remain still unsolved.
Recent advances in conditional cell immortalization technology

Gene-modified cell therapies are transforming medicine. Over the last 18 months, notable clinical successes using antigen-targeting cellular immunotherapies have been achieved. However, another kind of gene modification has significant potential for the cell therapy industry. The development of fully controllable transgenes has enabled the creation of conditionally immortalized cells that can be expanded to clinical quantities in a stable and consistent fashion, yet can be returned to a normal, non-dividing state for therapeutic delivery to the patient. In this article, we discuss some of the key technologies that have been used to create conditionally immortalized cells for clinical development.
NEW METHODS FOR ROTOR TRACKING AND BALANCE TUNING AND DEFECT DETECTION APPLIED TO EUROCOPTER PRODUCTS

The purpose of helicopter rotor "track and balance" adjustment is to provide a low vibratory level in 1 per rev along the 3 aircraft axes, to ensure optimized crew and passenger comfort. This adjustment is performed systematically after manufacturing, that is to say before the first flight as well as after any rotor maintenance intervention. It can also be carried out at any time at the customer's request. This document introduces a new rotor adjustment methodology based on a learning and adjustment technique by neural networks, ensuring minimized fuselage vibration (on first harmonics of the rotor frequency) in as many points as desirable, along the three axes, and in one or two adjustment flights only.
Headwater captures and the phylogenetic structure of freshwater fish assemblages: a case study in central Brazil

The astonishing diversity of Neotropical fishes results from historical and ecological processes intrinsically related to the geomorphological evolution of this region. Headwater captures are important biogeographical processes that promote dispersal or isolation of fish populations between watersheds. We investigate the effects of headwater captures on the phylogenetic structure of stream fish assemblages among watersheds in the Brazilian Shield highlands.
Energy Efficient Approach in RFID Network

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is among the key technology of Internet of Things (IOT). It is a sensor device that can monitor, identify, locate and tracking physical objects via its tag. The energy in RFID is commonly being used unwisely because they do repeated readings on the same tag as long it resides in the reader vicinity. Repeated readings are unnecessary because it only generate duplicate data that does not contain new information. The reading process need to be schedule accordingly to minimize the chances of repeated readings to save the energy. This will reduce operational cost and can prolong the tag's battery lifetime that cannot be replaced. In this paper, we propose an approach named SELECT to minimize energy spent during reading processes. Experiments conducted shows that proposed algorithm contribute towards significant energy savings in RFID compared to other approaches.
Verifying Human Identities Using Major and Minor Finger Knuckle Pattern

2 Abstract: This paper investigates a new approach for personal authentication using fingerback surface imaging. The texture pattern produced by the finger knuckle bending is highly unique and makes the surface a distinctive biometric identifier. The finger geometry features can be simultaneously acquired from the same image at the same time and integrated to further improve the user-identification accuracy of such a system. The fingerback surface images from each user are normalized to minimize the scale, translation, and rotational variations in the knuckle images. This paper details the development of such an approach using peg-free imaging. The experimental results from the proposed approach are promising and confirm the usefulness of such an approach for personal authentication.
Use of laser shock waves to test piezochromic coatings for impact detection

Abstract. The design of piezochromic pigments is a promising way to adjust smart painting and therefore to develop a “visual” impact detection coating. This paper deals with the possibility to use laser shock waves to test piezochromic coatings for impact detection. For that purpose, an experimental setup was developed in order to obtain compressive load in the coating thanks to the impedance mismatch between selected materials. An analytical modeling was used to validate the proposed method. The experimental investigation coupled with finite-element modeling on four smart coatings showed that these coatings can reveal impact location by a significant change of color if a relevant pressure threshold is reached. The results presented in this work are promising and demonstrate the ability of the proposed laser shock method for characterizing the pressure thresholds of piezochromic smart paintings. It opens the door for studying future smart paintings with different critical pressure levels, depending on the targeted application.
Health Effects Associated with Wastewater Treatment, Disposal, and Reuse

This review summarizes the literature published during 2006 related to the health effects associated with wastewater treatment, disposal, and reuse. The following topics are covered: wastewater treatment and public health; wastewater treatment in developing countries; biological contaminants in wastewater; chemical contaminants in wastewater; wastewater reuse for agricultural and landscape irrigation; and wastewater and sludge disposal.
Prediction of bird community composition based on point‐occurrence data and inferential algorithms: a valuable tool in biodiversity assessments

Local biological communities are made up of species, each of which has its own particular relationship with the environment. To the extent that these autecological niches limit species’ distributions, and by extension community composition, models of species’ ecological niches can predict species composition at particular sites, or at least provide a null hypothesis of potential species composition in the absence of effects of species interactions. We developed distributional predictions (ecological niche models) for 89 species occurring in dry tropical forest in the Balsas Basin of south‐western Mexico using an interpolation technique, and predicted the species likely to occur at 8 sites across the region. Onsite field inventory data were then used to test the community predictions, all of which were statistically significant. These results suggest that inventory efforts can be made more efficient by development beforehand of hypotheses that focus onsite collecting and inventory.
ASSESSMENT OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL MONTE CARLO BURNUP FOR GAS COOLED REACTORS USING THE REACTIVITY EQUIVALENT PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION METHOD

This paper presents a discussion of methods and features that have been developed in order to improve the calculation of fuel depletion for HTGRs and to further refine the use of Monte Carlo fuel depletion reactor calculations. A method is developed and employed that enables one to homogenize the TRISO fuel inside of an HTGR prismatic block by taking the heterogeneity into account, in order to perform whole core fuel depletion. By employing the 3-D RPT method in Monte Carlo transport codes that cannot handle double-heterogeneity, one can greatly reduce the size of the problem, so that full core analysis can be performed. The authors also realize that currently it is not feasible to perform full core depletion on HTGR configurations that have not been homogenization, due to the random nature of the distribution of TRISO fuel particles with the prismatic fuel blocks themselves. In addition to the homogenization of the TRISO fuel particles in order to burn a 3-D HTGR core an investigation into some of the issues associated with fuel depletion libraries when coupled with MONTEBURNS.
Computationally Efficient Sub-module Selection Scheme for Voltage Balancing Controller of Modular Multilevel Converter

SUMMARY Modular multilevel converter (MMC) type topology is considered an enabling technology for expanding the voltage sourced converter (VSC) applications and thus providing its operational benefits with low switching power loss comparable to that of the conventional thyristor-based line commutated converters. However, due to its inherent topological and consequently control complexity, computational efficiency of the algorithms for fully simulating and then implementing the features of MMC are always pursued. MMC uses a stack of identical converter sub-modules, providing a step in the multilevel waveform, and the number of sub-modules may increase to more than 200 for the high power applications. Selection of the sub-modules set to be switched in or out, thus controlling and balancing the capacitor voltage for realizing the best performance at each control instant, may be the most crucial but time-consuming functions as well. Implementation steps of these functions are briefly discussed below: Generate reference signals for determining how many sub-modules in total are to be in the on-state condition at each control instant. This is called modulation process. Next select the sub-modules to be in. Note again that this process is for controlling the capacitor voltage of individual sub-modules. By balancing the capacitor voltage of each sub-module, it is possible to optimally utilize the stored energy and evenly distribute power losses to the installed electrical devices while avoiding concentration of thermal stress on specific sub-modules, which harmfully affects the life span of each submodule and the reliability of the MMC. Prior research efforts for designing voltage balancing controller have relied on sorting algorithm: individual capacitor voltages are first measured and are then sorted by their magnitudes. In case of positive arm current, the sub-module with the lowest voltage level is selected to charge its capacitor. In case of negative arm current, the sub-module with the highest voltage is selected to supply the output voltage level. This may be a straightforward way for selecting the sub-modules. However, as the number of sub-module increases for high voltage applications, the computational intensity to sort the capacitors increases: Note that it may require more than 200 sub-modules for the HVDC system and heavy computation should be a great challenge. Two representative sorting algorithms are considered in this study, i.e., bubble and quick sorting algorithms. Bubble sorting method takes computational time in the order of O(n 2 ) theoretically. Quick sort requires computational time of O(nlogn) on average.
Police Searches of Black and White Motorists

Based on over 250,000 traffic stops over 13 years in Durham, NC, we compare the rate at which White and Black Drivers are searched. Race, gender, and age are shown to have powerful effects in determining the likelihood of a search, and searches in turn are highly correlated with negative outcomes such as being arrested. These strong race effects persist when we institute statistical controls for the type of search, the purpose of the traffic stop, whether the individual officer had a pattern of racially disparate searching behaviors, and other factors. Our comprehensive review of official police statistics shows clearly that police behaviors differ dramatically based on race, gender, and age group, giving credence to fears of “driving while Black” but focusing particularly on the increased danger for young Black males. We conclude with suggestions of how police departments could use the data many are already collecting in order to monitor and assess the behaviors of individual police officers. Both system-level factors, such as agency decisions of where to assign officers to patrol, and individual-level factors related to particular officers contribute to the racial disparities we observe.
Vision-based quantitative assessment of microcracks on reactor internal components of nuclear power plants

Abstract Ageing power facilities are increasingly susceptible to the onset of damage related to long exposure to stress, radiation, elevated temperatures and environmental conditions. One failure mechanism of particular concern is the onset of stress corrosion cracking. Currently, a technician manually measures the crack thicknesses at few points along a microcrack in a microscopic image, and the results are quantified by the Root Mean Square (RMS) of these measurements. This approach is time-consuming and subjective. In addition, the crack thickness is an important but difficult characteristic to accurately describe in a single numerical value, since it can vary considerably along the length of a crack. In this paper, a vision-based methodology is proposed for accurate quantification of microcracks that provides the thickness measurements for each pixel along the crack centreline. The proposed approach provides the minimum, maximum, mean, standard deviation, RMS and the histogram of crack thicknesses, which in most cases yields thousands of measurements. This approach provides more comprehensive insight regarding the condition of a microcrack. A region-growing method is used for segmenting microcracks from complex backgrounds. The microcrack thicknesses are then automatically computed along the lines orthogonal to the crack centreline. The fast marching method is used to accurately estimate the centreline of microcracks. Several real microcracks are examined to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology.
Malleable Delphi: Delphi Research Technique, its Evolution, and Business Applications

The objective of this article is to characterize the evolution of Delphi Technique from it’s origin at the Rand Corporation in the 1950’s to its use today. The implementation of Delphi methodology has evolved and has been continuously “reborn” to meet new research challenges. Twenty-five Delphi studies were examined. I focused on twelve studies that I could learn the most from in terms of methodology changes. Changes included moving from paper surveys to the use of computers, use of the Internet, Web site based surveys, and computer databases for analyzing data with statistical software tools. This article brings focus to a powerful research tool that can be used very cost effectively in business and business education research by an individual researcher.
Formability analysis and optimization of the braking cylinder block for one drawing step

The braking cylinder block is a representative part produced by drawing process. In current production, however, two drawing steps are employed, leading to high cost. In this paper, the product structure of the braking cylinder block and its production process are improved based on formability simulation result with the finite element method (FEM). According to the simulation results, the modified design shows better formability although with only one drawing step, while the internal strain is still less than forming limit and the minimum thickness also meets requirement. (5 pages)
A Survey of Various Hybrid based Recommendation Method

Recommender systems play an important role in filtering and customizing the desired information. Recommender system are divided into 3 categories i.e collaborative filtering , content-based filtering, and hybrid filtering and they are the most adopted techniques being utilized in recommender systems. In this paper describes about various limitations of current recommendation methods such as cold-start problem ,Gray-sheep problem and discuss possible extensions that can improve recommendation capabilities in range of applications extensions such as, improvement of understanding of users and items incorporation of the contextual information into the recommendation process, support for multi-criteria ratings. The paper consist the survey of various hybrid filtering to overcome the drawbacks and extensions of a forementioned techniques .
Optimization of the shell compliance by the thickness changing using PSO

The paper is devoted to an application of the particle swarm methods and the finite element method to the optimization of 2-D structures (plane stress/strain, bending plates and shells). The shape, topology and material or thickness of the structures are optimised for the stress, strain and volume criteria. The numerical examples demonstrate that the method based on particle swarm computation is an effective technique for solving computer aided optimal design.
On the improvement of inelastic displacement demands for near-fault ground motions considering various faulting mechanisms

This paper investigates inelastic seismic demands of the normal component of near-fault pulse-like ground motions, which differ considerably from those of far-fault ground motions and also parallel component of near-fault ones. The results are utilized to improve the nonlinear static procedure (NSP) called Displacement Coefficient Method (DCM). 96 near-fault and 20 far-fault ground motions and the responses of various single degree of freedom (SDOF) systems constitute the dataset. Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis (NDA) is utilized as the benchmark for comparison with nonlinear static analysis results. Considerable influences of different faulting mechanisms are observed on inelastic seismic demands. The demands are functions of the strength ratio and also the pulse period to structural period ratio. Simple mathematical expressions are developed to consider the effects of near-fault motion and fault type on nonlinear responses. Modifications are presented for the DCM by introducing a near-fault modification factor, . In locations, where the fault type is known, the modifications proposed in this paper help to obtain a more precise estimate of seismic demands in structures.
Highly Accurate Photorealistic Modeling of Cultural Heritage Assets

Digital applications become more and more relevant in cultural heritage related management. Digital models of individual assets or of complete sites or excavations are commonly used to support documentation and visualization tasks. However, the requirements for those two applications differ significantly. While for documentation purposes special focus is drawn on proper and accurate geometric modeling, especially in visualization applications, the geometrical model is commonly generalized as far as possible in order to enable high performance rendering. This divergence in the requirements causes high costs if both applications are to be fulfilled as data and models captured for one are generally not applicable for the other purpose. To overcome this, we propose an automated processing chain for the generation of highly accurate, photorealistic models of cultural heritage assets. This method is based on processing point clouds acquired by laser scanning. It is not restricted to a certain instrument type or a certain scale. It has been approved for various documentation applications at different scales ranging from small pieces like a chalice or vases over man high sculptures up to objects of some dozens of meters in size like fountains or a staircase. It could be demonstrated, that the achieved geometric models are applicable for documentation purposes at millimeter scale. Within this contribution, we demonstrate its applicability for the generation of high resolution, photorealistic models. In comparison to models determined from images only, the results of the proposed processing approach are more accurate (from a geometrical point of view) and the interactive processing effort is reduced by approximately forty percent.