Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measurement of volatile concentrations in volcanic glasses using thermogravimetric analysis: comparison with micro-analytical methods

Thermogravimetric analysis-mass spectrometry (TGA-MS) is potentially a powerful tool for measurement of multi-species volatile concentrations in volcanic rock samples and characterisation of degassing patterns that relate to volatile speciation. Simultaneous differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) provides information on thermal transformations such as crystallisation or melting. However no study has addressed whether the TGA technique can be used to quantify water speciation or separate water from other volatile species such as halogens. We have carried out TGA-DSC-MS experiments on a suite of compositionally homogeneous, variably-degassed rhyolitic obsidian samples from Blahnukur, Torfajokull, Iceland[1]. Sample water contents, as measured by infra-red spectroscopy, range from 0.19-0.81 wt %; F and Cl concentrations, measured using electron microprobe, range from 0.26-0.35 and 0.18-0.22 wt % respectively. Other volatile species concentrations (e.g. CO2, S) were beneath detection limits. The TGA results show an excellent correlation between the total volatile content measured using TGA (TVCTGA) and the total volatile content (H2OT + F + Cl) measured by other techniques (TVCTGA = 0.992TVCFTIR,EPMA, with R2 = 0.94). This shows that both water and halogen species are degassed during TGA measurements, even though halogen species are not detected through MS analyses. Patterns of volatile release indicate a link between water speciation, as measured using FTIR, and the temperature of degassing, and allow identification of hydrated samples. There are strong correlations between TGA weight loss over the 250-550 ° C interval and [H2Om] concentration, and between weight loss >550 ° C and the -OH content. The total volatile loss above 550 ° C far exceeds -OH concentrations alone (TGA>550 = 1.9126 [-OH] + 0.1693), but closely matches the sum of -OH, F and Cl in glasses, with TGA>550= 1.02 [-OH+F+Cl]. This indicates that halogen release occurs at high temperatures and accompanies -OH degassing. Simple models of diffusive degassing of powdered TGA samples corroborate the measured dTG profiles and illustrate that high-T temperature degassing (>1000 ° C) cannot be dominated by water species. The temperature of maximum degassing rate (dTGA peak) consistently occurs ~10 ° C higher than the onset of an endotherm attributed to melting. This indicates that melting and the onset of volatile advection play an important role in controlling the rate of volatile release, together with temperature-dependent diffusivity. The results show that TGA indeed provides useful quantitative and qualitative information about the concentration and speciation of volatiles in volcanic glasses. However independent measurement of halogen concentrations is essential, especially for degassed samples, where the concentration of halogen species may greatly exceed that of water. [1] Owen, J. et al, Bull. Volcanol. , in revision.
Characterisation of copper binding ligands from marine cyanobacterial cultures using voltammetry and mass spectrometry

Strong copper binding ligands have been produced by Synechococcus DC2 grown exponentially under copper stressed conditions. Using pseudo-polarography, all cultures were found to produce a strong copper binding ligand with a log K' of 24.7, assuming that copper is in the +1 oxidation state. Weaker ligands were also present but their binding constants were variable. These strong copper binding ligands were extracted into water-methanol solvents from a hydrophobic resin (XAD-16). Pseudo-polarography was used to track the fractions where the strong ligands were recovered, MALDI and ESI were chosen as soft ionisation sources to access the whole molecule. Both ionisation techniques revealed only one complex that had an isotopic signature characteristic of copper (at m/z 697/699) and this complex was present in two of five culture experiments. Further investigation of the 697/699 complex showed that it was present in all eluent fractions containing the electrochemically determined strong copper binding ligand. Tandem mass spectrometry using MALDI revealed several fragments where copper was still bound, with the smallest copper containing ion at m/z 281/283. A loss of 64/66 mass units from two different fragments suggests the loss of CuH which also implies that the complex binds copper in the +1 oxidation state. Aspects of the MS/MS spectra suggest that this could be a peptide bound to copper by thiol containing cysteine groups. However, further work is needed to ascertain the true chemical nature of this compound. This work represents the first investigation to combine electrochemistry with mass spectrometry to reveal the much anticipated chemical nature of strong copper binding ligands, present in the surface ocean.
Brain Drain in Maryland: Exploring Student Movement from High School to Postsecondary Education and the Workforce

Brain drain—the movement of high school and college graduates out of state for employment—is a concern for state policymakers. This study focuses on brain drain of students who graduate from high school in Maryland. Using data from the Maryland Longitudinal Data System and applying propensity score matching to control for differences between the groups, we evaluated the degree to which brain drain exists in Maryland, and which students are likely to contribute to brain drain. Findings indicate that brain drain does exist in this state: students who graduated from a Maryland high school and who attended college out of state were less likely to return to Maryland to join the workforce compared to students who remained in state for college. Additionally, higher-achieving students were more likely to be lost to brain drain.
Organization of water accounting and water saving of irrigation water based on world experience in the conditions of changing climate

Researh allowed to determine that value of water resources and competition for access to them would increase due to climate change. That is why role of fair and accurate water distribution to consumers both between different sectors of the economy and within them will increase (for example agricultural industry). Modern examples of water metering automation in irrigation systems demonstrate that partial automation is most often used, which uses SCADA technologies. It is still important to create a system for accounting for water consumption and distribution, consisting of several levels with the use of modern technological solutions, including SCADA technology, in the region or at the level of the water supply reclamation organization. No less important is the question of correlation of modern irrigation technology with the possibilities of irrigation systems.
Cholera in the Time of MINUSTAH: Experiences of Community Members Affected by Cholera in Haiti

In 2010, Haiti experienced one of the deadliest cholera outbreaks of the 21st century. United Nations (UN) peacekeepers are widely believed to have introduced cholera, and the UN has formally apologized to Haitians and accepted responsibility. The current analysis examines how Haitian community members experienced the epidemic and documents their attitudes around accountability. Using SenseMaker, Haitian research assistants collected micronarratives surrounding 10 UN bases in Haiti. Seventy-seven cholera-focused micronarratives were selected for a qualitative thematic analysis. The five following major themes were identified: (1) Cholera cases and deaths; (2) Accessing care and services; (3) Protests and riots against the UN; (4) Compensation; and (5) Anti-colonialism. Findings highlight fear, frustration, anger, and the devastating impact that cholera had on families and communities, which was sometimes compounded by an inability to access life-saving medical care. Most participants believed that the UN should compensate cholera victims through direct financial assistance but there was significant misinformation about the UN’s response. In conclusion, Haiti’s cholera victims and their families deserve transparent communication and appropriate remedies from the UN. To rebuild trust in the UN and foreign aid, adequate remedies must be provided in consultation with victims.
Optimal Design of Revenue‐Maximizing Position Auctions with Consumer Search

We examine the impact of consumer search from the perspective of revenue‐maximizing optimal auction design. In this two‐sided market, advertisers are endowed with privately known qualities, and consumers incur heterogeneous search costs when clicking on advertisements displayed by the search engine. Our general approach eliminates ad hoc restrictions and therefore allows us to uncover the salient economic trade‐offs. We adopt the optimal mechanism design approach to examine this two‐sided private information problem. The optimal mechanism design approach gives rise to the truly revenue‐maximizing scheme, and yields managerial implications that are substantially different from the literature. We show that from the revenue maximization perspective, the search engine necessarily displays the advertisers in the descending order of their qualities. The search engine shall insert unnecessary hassles to induce the revenue‐maximizing search behaviors. Thus, each consumer stops searching pre‐maturely compared to the socially optimal search behavior. In addition, the search engine shall implement probabilistic forced termination upon consumers’ clicking on advertisements, and this probability is higher for advertisers with poorer qualities. When each advertiser has a two‐dimensional type on consumer learning and matching, even if consumers’ search costs become negligible, the allocative inefficiency does not vanish. Moreover, no strategic obfuscation is imposed. When allowing for non‐independent qualities, we show that product variety does not constitute a rationale for advertisers’ favoritism.
Policy over- and underreaction: from unintentional error to deliberate policy response

In mid-June 2018, amid a severe refugee crisis, President Donald Trump suggested that he was using his administration’s separation of children from their parents at the US border as a deterrent against other potential immigrants and as a negotiating tool in efforts to force Democrats to cave on his immigration demands. Do we have at our disposal theories or approaches that can explain such an intentional “zero tolerance” border enforcement policy? And, more generally, do we possess theories or approaches that can explain policies which are deliberately blind (or highly sensitive) to the heterogeneity of the target populations? My view on understanding the aforementioned policy reality is derived from the idea that, at times, political executives implement deliberate policy overor underreaction because of the damage it inflicts on political rivals and/or its success in shaping voters’ perceptions favorably. This chapter takes stock of recent studies that present a revolutionary idea: that under certain circumstances, disproportionate policy response may be intentionally designed, implemented as planned, and at times, successful in achieving policy and political goals (Maor, 2017a; 2017b; 2018; 2019a; 2019b; 2019c; Maor et al., 2017). Policy overand underreaction (Maor, 2012; 2014a) are both concepts anchored within the umbrella term of disproportionate policy response, which is typically understood to be “a lack of ‘fit’ or balance between the costs of a public policy and the benefits that are derived from this policy, and/or between a policy’s ends and means” (Maor, 2017a, p. 384). This term should not be confused with disproportionate policy outcomes which are policy results that are not equally distributed. A policy
Evaluation of hip joint laxity in crab-eating foxes (Cerdocyon thous)

‘RESUMO. [Avaliação da lassitude da articulação coxofemoral em cachorro-do-mato (Cerdocyon thous). ] Como canídeos, os cachorros-do-mato podem estar predispostos a doenças ortopédicas semelhantes aquelas de cães domésticos, tais como a displasia coxofemoral. No entanto, para o diagnóstico adequado da displasia coxofemoral em animais selvagens, os padrões de normalidade de cada espécie precisam ser determinados. Sendo assim, o presente estudo teve como objetivo estimar os valores radiográficos e tomográficos (TC) da lassitude da articulação coxofemoral em cachorros-domato hígidos. Foram utilizados quinze cachorros-do-mato não castrados, oito machos e sete fêmeas, com idades entre 1 e 5 anos e massa corporal média de 6,66kg. O ângulo de Norberg (NA) foi calculado a partir de radiografias na projeção ventrodorsal com os membros estendidos. Para calcular o escore de subluxação dorsolateral (DLS), o índice de distância central (CD), o ângulo da margem central lateral (LCEA) e o ângulo da borda dorsal acetabular (DARA), foram utilizadas as mensurações obtidas a partir de imagens transversais da TC. Não foram observadas diferenças estatísticas entre os lados direito e esquerdo nos parâmetros radiográficos e tomográficos. A média do NA foi de 107,57°. As médias do escore do DLS, do índice de CD, e dos ângulos LCEA e DARA foram, respectivamente, 60,79%, 0,16, 98,25° e 13,47°. Os dados obtidos são úteis para a caracterização dos valores médios referentes à articulação coxofemoral de cachorrosdo-mato e podem contribuir para o conhecimento da espécie.
A Full State-Variable Direct Predictive Control for Islanded Microgrids With Parallel Converters

In this work, we propose a high-quality control solution for islanded microgrids with multiparallel power converters; it uses a full state-variable direct model predictive control (FSV-DMPC) and has a simple structure. Unlike the conventional cascaded control loops, the proposed FSV-DMPC solution tracks the optimal reference generated by a robust droop loop using a unified cost function. This proposal enables the FSV-DMPC to be inserted into the entire control framework with plug-and-play capability; it is robust to parameter variations while also guaranteeing dynamics and stability. We conduct a deep analysis of the proposed approach, taking into account both the characteristics of the solution and the bounded stability of the system. Through comprehensive comparative studies with a classical double-loop linear controller, we validate that our solution achieves superior output voltage regulation during the load transients in terms of voltage error and settling time. Meanwhile, similar steady-state performances are accomplished for both methods. Finally, we verify our approach experimentally in different scenarios through a lab-constructed microgrid test bench. Experimental data confirm that the proposed approach achieves excellent steady-state and transient performances and obtains accurate load sharing.
A Pseudo-TOF Image Reconstruction Approach for Three-Gamma Small Animal Imaging

In this article, we propose a novel image reconstruction technique for three-gamma (3-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {\gamma }$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) imaging systems that aims at reaching high image quality with a low statistics. The proposed approach is based on the utilization of a (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ {\beta +}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\gamma }$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) emitter and a liquid xenon (LXe) camera, the Xenon Medical Imaging System 2 (XEMIS2), that is currently being manufactured. The third gamma emitted is more energetic than the two 511-keV photons and interacts mostly through Compton scattering in LXE; therefore, we utilize the interactions’ position and the deposited energy to define a Compton cone that gives the direction from where the third gamma was emitted. The intersection point between the cone and the two coincidence photons’ lines of response (LOR) is the center of the probability distribution function (PDF), a resolution model similar to that of time-of-flight (TOF)-positron emission tomography (PET). The third gamma’s information is used to narrow the LOR portion employed during reconstruction. In this article, we show reconstruction results from simulation using highly realistic Geant4 Application for Emission Tomography (GATE) Monte Carlo simulation of the imaging device and a NEMA-like phantom.
Screening of natural products and alkylating agents for antineoplastic activity

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------DECLARATION----------------------------------------------------------------------------------ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS----------------------------------------------------------------------DEDICATION-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES-----------------------------------------------------------ABBREVIATIONS-------------------------------------------------------------------------------CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Natural Products--------------------------------------------------------------------------------1.1.1 Definition--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1.1. 2 Primary Metabolites-------------------------------------------------------------------------1.1. 3 The boundary between Primary and Secondary Metabolism---------------------------1.1. 4 Roles of Secondary Metabolites (SMs) -------------------------------------------------1.1. 5 Uses of Secondary Metabolites to man----------------------------------------------------1.1. 6 Metabolism of Secondary Metabolites----------------------------------------------------1.1. 7 The Shikimic Acid Pathway----------------------------------------------------------------1.1. 8 The four major classes of Secondary Metabolites ---------------------------------------1.1. 8.1 Alkaloids--------------------------------------------------------------------------------1.1. 8.2 Flavonoids------------------------------------------------------------------------------1.1. 8.2. 1 Functions of flavonoids-------------------------------------------------------------1.1. 8.3 Terpenoids------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 2 2
Research Trends in Career Success: A Bibliometric Review

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of academic research on professional success, using the bibliometric analysis to understand the evolution of this field between the years 1990 and 2020. The information was obtained from the publications indexed in the Scopus database, under a rigorous bibliometric process that comprises five parts: (i) criteria search of the field, (ii) selection of database and documents, (iii) inclusion and selection criteria, (iv) software and data selection, and (v) analysis and results. The results show professional success as a scientific discipline in full exponential growth, which allows us to consider the main contributions of authors, institutions, and international contributions, as well as to consider the main themes that have shaped the intellectual structure of the subject through their visualization using bibliometric maps of co-citation and co-occurrence, which combined showed eight main lines of research. The results obtained allowed us to identify patterns of convergence and divergence in various topics, which allows obtaining current and diverse information on the state of the research field’s art.
Association between periodontal bacteria and degenerative aortic stenosis: a pilot study

Purpose Although several reports have described the relationship between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease, information about the association between periodontal disease and the progression of degenerative aortic stenosis (AS) is lacking. Therefore, we performed a retrospective, single-center, pilot study to provide insight into this potential association. Methods Data from 45 consecutive patients (19 men; median age, 83 years) with mild or moderate degenerative aortic stenosis were analyzed for a mean observation period of 3.3±1.9 years. The total amount of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans and Porphyromonas gingivalis and titers of serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) against periodontal bacteria and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) were evaluated. Aortic valve area (AVA), maximal velocity (Vmax), mean pressure gradient (mean PG), and the Doppler velocity index (DVI) were evaluated. The change in each parameter per year ([ParameterLATEST–ParameterBASELINE]/Follow-up Years) was calculated from the retrospective follow-up echocardiographic data (baseline vs. the most recently collected data [latest]). Results No correlation was found between the concentration of periodontopathic bacteria in the saliva and AS status/progression. The anti-P. gingivalis antibody titer in the serum showed a significant positive correlation with AVA and DVI. Additionally, there was a negative correlation between the anti-P. gingivalis IgG antibody titer and mean PG. The hs-CRP concentration showed positive correlations with Vmax and mean PG. Meanwhile, a negative correlation was observed between the anti-P. gingivalis IgG antibody titer and ΔAVA/year and Δmean PG/year. The hs-CRP concentration showed positive correlations with Vmax and mean PG, and it was significantly higher in patients with rapid aortic stenosis progression (ΔAVA/year <−0.1) than in their counterparts. Conclusions Our results suggest that periodontopathic bacteria such as A. actinomycetemcomitans and P. gingivalis are not directly related to the status/progression of degenerative AS. However, inflammation and a lower immune response may be associated with disease progression.
Flat-Rate Pricing and Truthful Offloading Mechanism in Multi-Layer Edge Computing

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is a promising paradigm to ease the computation burden of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices by leveraging computing capabilities at the network edge. With the yearning needs for resource provision from IoT devices, the queueing delay at the edge nodes not only poses a colossal impediment to achieving satisfactory quality of experience (QoE) for the IoT devices but also to the benefits of the edge nodes owing to escalating energy expenditure. Moreover, since the service providers may differ, computationally competent entities’ computing services should entail economic compensation for the incurred energy expenditure and the capital investment. Therefore, the workload allocation mechanism, where we consider flat-rate and dynamic pricing schemes in the multi-layer edge computing structure, is much-needed. We use Stackelberg game to capture the inherent hierarchy and interdependence between the second-layer edge node (SLEN) and first-layer edge nodes (FLENs). A truthful admission control mechanism grounded on the optimal workload allocation is designed for FLENs without violating end-to-end (E2E) latency requirements. We prove that a Stackelberg equilibrium with the E2E latency guarantee and truthfulness exists and can be reached through proposed algorithm. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of our scheme and illustrate several insights.