Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
False Vacuum Decay Catalyzed by Black Holes

False vacuum states are metastable in quantum field theories, and true vacuum bubbles can be nucleated due to the quantum tunneling effect. It was recently suggested that an evaporating black hole (BH) can be a catalyst of bubble nucleations and dramatically shortens the lifetime of the false vacuum. In particular, in the context of the Standard Model valid up to a certain energy scale, even a single evaporating BH may spoil the successful cosmology by inducing the decay of our electroweak vacuum. In this paper, we reinterpret catalyzed vacuum decay by BHs, using an effective action for a thin-wall bubble around a BH to clarify the meaning of bounce solutions. We calculate bounce solutions in the limit of a flat spacetime and in the limit of negligible backreaction to the metric, where it is much easier to understand the physical meaning, and compare these results with the full calculations done in the literature. As a result, we give a physical interpretation of the enhancement factor: it is nothing but the probability of producing states with a finite energy. This makes it clear that all the other states such as plasma should also be generated through the same mechanism, and calls for finite density corrections to the tunneling rate, which tend to stabilize the false vacuum. We also clarify that the dominant process is always consistent with the periodicity indicated by the BH Hawking temperature after summing over all possible remnant BH masses or bubble energies, although the periodicity of each bounce solution as a function of a remnant BH can be completely different from the inverse temperature of the system, as mentioned in the previous literature.
AKUNTANSI KARBON SEBAGAI PERSPECTIVE BARU DALAM AKUNTANSI LINGKUNGAN

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been identified as the main cause of global warming. The Kyoto Protocol set a target of collective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of industrialized countries by 5% each year, the provisions in the Kyoto Protocol will allow the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon Accounting comes as a complement for the Kyoto Protocol, Which is expected to take into account the effects of the gas produced by the company's production activities. Carbon accounting is a new form of science in accounting that is part of environmental accounting as a form of corporate responsibility towards the environment which in this case to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated by the company's production activities.
A COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE PERFORMANCE OF DIFFERENT NON-STANDARD WORD CLASSIFIER IN BENGALI AND ENGLISH NEWS CORPUS

In computational linguistic, Non-Standard word identification and interpretation is a major challenge for the researchers. Different researchers followed different techniques, namely, Decision Tree, Context Window and Context Identification Array based model, Maximum Entropy, naive Bayes model, Support Vector Machine, Variational Bayesian Inference, semi-supervised naive Bayes etc. to get a model with higher accuracy levels. Written-language is presented with variations in different domains (news paper, literature, poetry, research article, SMS text etc.) even with the same language. Therefore, the technique which is good for a particular text domain may be proved to be worst in other domains. Moreover, it has been found that some techniques give satisfactory results only on small sized database (Hidden Markov model, Independent component analysis, Latent semantic indexing, aka principal component analysis, etc.). With the increase in the size of the database, these techniques fail to give same accuracies. In this dynamic world, neither it is possible always to create database of labeled data, nor it is readily available in hand. Therefore, semi-supervised techniques really help the researchers to tackle such situations. In this paper, we have revisited different techniques presented by different researchers along with their merits and demerits in different scenarios.
Energy conversion efficiency improvement of a thermoacoustic cooling system ‐ The influence of a lamination mesh on cooling effect‐

It was generally considered that energy conversion efficiency of a thermoacoustic cooling system was improved by increasing proportion of a thermal boundary layer in the stack. Thinning down a channel radius of the stack is required to increase the thermal boundary layer per unit area. A ceramic stack is difficult to satisfy this requirement. To satisfy this requirement, we propose to use a lamination mesh which is formed by piled up a stainless mesh. Since the lamination mesh has complex channel, the effect of changing the mesh number on the cooling effect is obscure. The experiments were carried out by changing the mesh number and the insertion position of the stack using the straight acoustic tube to measure the cooling effect. From the experimental results, changing mesh number causes the distribution shift of the phase difference between pressure and particle velocity. The insertion position of the stack for which the maximum temperature decrease come close to center of the acoustic tube. This is corresponded to a result using the ceramic stack. It suggests that a same design method, which is used in case of applying the ceramic stack, can be adapted to the lamination mesh.
Assessing the conservation value of the spider fauna across the West Palearctic area

Abstract Making use of the recent publication of a catalogue of spider species from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, we built a computer database which indexes all specific and subspecific taxa reported from countries or islands in Platnick's world catalogue as well as in regional or national catalogues. We used this database to analyze the distribution of conservation values at the West Palearctic scale. Three indices of conservation value were calculated and compared between mainland and island territories: species richness, number of endemic species, and Ic, a “Conservation Value Index. ” Species richness increases with the size of the area being considered, either in islands or in mainland countries, and is highest in Southern Europe. The number of endemics also increases with area, but only for mainland countries, suggesting that different factors determine endemism on islands and in mainland areas. The conservation index shows that several island territories are of a high conservation interest: the Mediterranean and Atlantic islands clearly exhibit the highest conservation value and some islands (mainly Canary and Balearic islands) can be considered hotspots of biodiversity for the West Palearctic area; other hotspots are some small Mediterranean islands.
A new 3D shape descriptor based on depth complexity and thickness information

Geometric models play a vital role in several fields, from the entertainment industry to scientific applications. To reduce the high cost of model creation, reusing existing models is the solution of choice. Model reuse is supported by content-based shape retrieval (CBR) techniques that help finding the desired models in massive repositories, many publicly available on the Internet. Key to efficient and effective CBR techniques are shape descriptors that accurately capture the characteristics of a shape and are able to discriminate between different shapes. We present a descriptor based on the distribution of two global features measured on a 3D shape, depth complexity and thickness, which respectively capture aspects of the geometry and topology of 3D shapes. The final descriptor, called DCT (depth complexity and thickness histogram), is a 2D histogram that is invariant to the translation, rotation and scale of geometric shapes. We efficiently implement the DCT on the GPU, allowing its use in real-time queries of large model databases. We validate the DCT with the Princeton and Toyohashi Shape Benchmarks, containing 1815 and 10000 models respectively. Results show that DCT can discriminate meaningful classes of these benchmarks, and is fast to compute and robust against shape transformations and different levels of subdivision and smoothness.
Effects of Centella asiatica Ethanolic Extract Encapsulated in Chitosan Nanoparticles on Proliferation Activity of Skin Fibroblasts and Keratinocytes, Type I and III Collagen Synthesis and Aquaporin 3 Expression In vitro

Background The activity of skin cell proliferation, collagen synthesis and skin hydration decrease with the process of aging; therefore, the skin looks dull, dry and sagging. Aquaporin 3 (AQP3) is a key protein that plays a major role in skin cell proliferation and skin hydration. Retinoic acid (RA) is still considered for anti-aging treatment, but it frequently shows side effects, such as skin irritation. Centella asiatica (CA) formulation in chitosan nanoparticles has a promising potential as anti-aging cosmetic. Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of CA ethanolic extract encapsulated in chitosan nanoparticles (CAEE + CNP) on skin cell proliferation, collagen synthesis and AQP3 expression in vitro, when compared to RA. Methods Microculture tetrazolium assay was conducted to analyse the proliferation of normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF) and normal human epidermal keratinocytes (NHEK) at 24, 48 and 72 h. Type I and III collagen synthesis was evaluated at the same time points using ELISA. Aquaporin 3 expression at 24 h was evaluated using immunocytochemistry and measured quantitatively using ImageJ software. All treatments involved several concentrations of CAEE + CNP and RA through serial dilution. Results Collagen type I and III synthesis of NHDF and NHEK was neither significantly different from untreated controls nor from RA-treated cells. Nevertheless, CAEE + CNP stimulated the proliferation of both NHDF and NHEK. Additionally, AQP3 expression in both cell types was upregulated by CAEE + CNP. Conclusion CAEE + CNP is a promising formulation for anti-aging activity by inducing skin cell proliferation and AQP3 expression. The clinical trials are still needed to evaluate skin hydration in vivo
Physical barriers and corridors in urban habitats affect colonisation and parasitism rates of a specialist leaf miner

1. Urban environments are fragmented habitats characterised by the presence of physical barriers, which may negatively affect dispersal and colonisation by insect herbivores and their natural enemies. Conversely, plants growing along pavements may function as dispersal corridors, helping to moderate the harmful effects of resource patch isolation on organism movement and population persistence.
Incorporating contextual information in public sector efficiency analyses: a comparative study of NSW local government

Using the planning and regulatory function of 173 NSW local governments, several approaches for incorporating contextual or non-discretionary inputs in data envelopment analysis (DEA) are compared. Non-discretionary inputs (or factors beyond managerial control) in this context include the population growth rate and distribution, the level of development and non-residential building activity, and the proportion of the population from a non-English speaking background. The approaches selected to incorporate these variables include discretionary inputs only, non-discretionary and discretionary inputs treated alike and differently, categorical inputs, ‘adjusted’ DEA, and ‘endogenous’ DEA. The results indicate that the efficiency scores of the five approaches that incorporated non-discretionary factors were significantly positively correlated. However, it was also established that the distributions of the efficiency scores and the number of councils assessed as perfectly technically efficient in the six approaches also varied significantly across the sample.
Dynamic Evaluation on the Groundwater Flow Process in a River Basin Using the Ensemble Kalman Filter Method with Localization

Ordos Plateau is located in a semi-arid area in the northwest part of China, and groundwater water is the major water source to sustain the ecosystem. With the industrial construction and economic development, it is required to manage the groundwater usage reasonable. Several monitoring instruments have been installed to monitor the groundwater dynamics continuously. An ensemble Kalman filter based data assimilation method is developed to use the sequentially available monitoring data to characterize the groundwater system. To improve the algorithm stability and avoid the spurious correlation estimation, a localization function is introduced. The analysis results show the proposed EnKF method can reduce the estimation uncertainty and improve the predictability.
Foraging Mode and Its Flexibility in Lacertid Lizards From Europe

Abstract Apart from certain species of the African clade, the lizard family Lacertidae has generally been described as consisting of active foragers. We made quantitative field observations of 14 species of lacertid lizards, mainly belonging to the more basal Eurasian clade. Our data show that sit-and-wait foraging is much more widespread in Lacertidae than previously alleged. We also investigated the influence of weather and times of day on foraging activity levels and conclude that for comparative purposes observations should be restricted to circumstances that are optimal for activity. We did not find sex differences in foraging behavior.
Recommending activities for refugees in Norway

The influx of asylum seekers and refugees, especially in recent times, has caused a bottleneck in Utlendingsdirektoratet (UDI)’s application process, leading to long waiting periods for their work and residency permits. During this time refugees have difficulties finding pastime activities, and instead of having possibilities of integration and inclusion, they suffer from boredom, passivization and reduced quality of life. This paper researches possibilities for using techniques from recommender systems to aid in solving this problem of finding activities and integrating refugees into Norwegian society. After researching state of the art tools and techniques and current existing systems pertaining to similar areas, a definite trade-off between simplicity of the system, and the accuracy and effectiveness of its recommendations was observed in existing solutions. This resulted in a content-based recommender system, Refugenious, being developed and tested, where the idea is to recommend activities without requiring vast amounts of user data. The initial results of its evaluation are promising and show that such a recommender system can provide good recommendations with only a small amount of information. The recommender system also proves to aid with lowering the threshold for finding activities, increase participation and widen refugees’ specter of interests. Refugenious is planned to be deployed on the web portal InterConnect within the end of 2017.
Thermal modeling strategies for laser assisted tape winding (LATW) process

The laser assisted tape winding (LATW) is an automated process for manufacturing fibre-reinforced thermoplastic tubular products, such as pipes and pressure vessels. This process consists of several simultaneous physical phenomena including kinematic, optical and thermal behavior. Among these, the in-situ temperature-dependent consolidation of the tapes plays a vital role in the overall quality of the final product. Currently, a new model-based global approach is under development for industrialized production as a part of EU funded Horizon2020 ambliFibre project. There is a need for a highly efficient thermal model to capture the temperature distributions during the process. Therefore, in this study, the capabilities of the various thermal models are evaluated. The actual laser heat flux distribution is estimated from a comprehensive optical model and then subsequently coupled with the thermal model in order to obtain precise temperature distribution. The transient one-dimensional (1D) and 2D models are developed in a Lagrangian framework. The surface boundary conditions are moving with winding velocity and the mesh remains stationary. The transient approach is used by conventional finite volume (FV) method. The hoop winding process is quantified for various winding speeds using coupled optical-thermal models which have never been done up to now. Since the real LATW process includes many considerations that disturb the spatial temperature field, e.g., various winding angle and non-uniform laser heat influx, a 2D transient model is, therefore, convenient for the LATW process simulation. However, for hoop winding the 1D model is almost as accurate as the 2D model and less computationally expensive. The history of nip point temperature for 10 layers of the continues hoop winding is predicted. Also, the peak in the nip point temperature history which is a physical phenomenon taking place during the LATW process is explained.
Anatomy of a successful high street shopping centre

Abstract High street shopping centres are at the core of cities. The continuing design challenge is to adapt a built environment inheritance to meet the present commercial needs of retailers, maximize the potential of the physical environment and address the social amenities that are expected from a city/town centre public realm. This paper addresses the question of what makes a successful high street shopping centre and seeks to understand the relationship between property values, location, physical characteristics, diversity of retailing and use, and social vitality in two successful city centre retailing environments. The research also demonstrates the blurring between commercial and public space, and supports Carmona’s argument that successful social space also creates economic value.
Properties and Iterative Methods for the -Lasso

We introduce the -lasso which generalizes the well-known lasso of Tibshirani (1996) with a closed convex subset of a Euclidean m-space for some integer . This set can be interpreted as the set of errors within given tolerance level when linear measurements are taken to recover a signal/image via the lasso. Solutions of the -lasso depend on a tuning parameter . In this paper, we obtain basic properties of the solutions as a function of . Because of ill posedness, we also apply regularization to the -lasso. In addition, we discuss iterative methods for solving the -lasso which include the proximal-gradient algorithm and the projection-gradient algorithm.
PRODUCTION AND PERCEPTION OF WORD PROSODY IN THREE DIALECTS OF KOREAN

This paper examines the relationship between production and perception of prosodically marked lexical contrast, comparing 16 native speakers from three dialects of Korean known to exhibit variation in the use of prosodic features for lexical marking. A set of synthesized stimuli was constructed, where both F0 contour and syllable duration were manipulated. South Kyungsang speakers have F0 distinction in production and are sensitive to F0 variations in perception. Cholla speakers are sensitive to F0 in the opposite direction to Kyungsang speakers, suggesting that their 'interpretation' of the F0 is the critical factor of perceptual judgment. Some of the Seoul speakers show a duration contrast and are sensitive only to duration change. The results reveal general though incomplete correlation between production and perception of word prosody, suggestive of the different typological status of the three dialects.
Invoice Financing on a Multi-sided Platform An Action Design Research using Transaction Costs Economy

̶ Access to financing is a serious concern for many Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in need of cash. Invoice financing ̶ in which a business sells its accounts receivables ̶ has not been well adopted, seemingly due to the information intensive transactions that it requires. This paper describes the design of a digital Multi-sided Platform that provides invoice financing to SMEs to overcome this problem. It does this by deriving design guidelines from transaction cost literature and concurrently ‘action designing’ a live prototype. The results of the evaluation of the prototype show that the design is a promising solution for SMEs in need of liquidity, as it is being evaluated positively on the criteria aimed at lowering the transaction cost of invoice financing. More design research is suggested on the impact of a platform setup on transaction cost.
MALAY VERSION OF SPIRITUAL WELL-BEING SCALE: Is Malay Spiritual Well-being Scale a Psychometrically Sound Instrument?

The purpose of the present study was to develop adapted Malay version of Spiritual Well-Being Scale and examine its psychometric properties and prepare percentile norms. 278 undergraduate students in years 1 – 4 (80.60 % female) voluntarily filled out the scale during their regular class hours. They aged 21.59 years on the average (SD = 1.59). 96.8 % of the respondents were Malaysian . The internal consistency coefficients for full Spiritual Well-Being Scale, Religious Well-Being and Existential Well-Being Subscales were . 88, . 86, and . 81 respectively. Corrected item-total correlations were . 34 to . 64,. 43 to . 66, and . 29 to . 67 for SWB, RWB, and EWB respectively (p < .01). Items exhibited higher correlations with their own subscale than the other subscale showing convergent and discriminant validity. The Spiritual Well-Being Scale correlated significantly positively with Religious well-Being Scale ( r = .89, p < .0001) and existential well-Being scale ( r = .90, P < .0001). Principal component analysis resulted in four factors as indicated by eigenvalues (1.10 to 6.95) and screen plot. Even two factor solution did not result in simple structure. A few items loaded on both the factors. The overall results indicate that for assessing spiritual well-being of Malaysian university students the Malay version of Spiritual Well-being Scale is a reliable and valid instrument, but it is multidimensional. Percentile norms for university students have been provided. It is expected that locally standardized Malay version of Spiritual Well-being Scale is likely to serve better. Discussion includes implications of the present findings. Keywords : Spiritual Well-being, Malay version, University students
Neuroprotective effect of creatine against propionic acid toxicity in neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells in culture

This work aimed to verify propionic acid toxic effects, and to investigate the possible neuroprotective effects of creatine against it. Propionic acid (PA) toxicity together with the effect of creatine (CR) was studied on neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y brain cells in culture. In the first group, cells were divided and treated with different concentrations of PA, while the second group was pre-treated with creatine to test its neuroprotective effect in PA-intoxicated cells. Comet assay and DNA fragmentation studies were used to examine genotoxicity and apoptosis of cells. The results emphasized the neurotoxicity of propionate to neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y by DNA fragmentation that increased in a dose- and time-dependent manner. More importantly, our data confirms a possible neuroprotective effect of creatine against the neurotoxic effect of propionic acid. The obtained in vitro data supports and explains the in vivo neurotoxic effect of PA and proves its DNA damaging effect which could clarify its role in the etiology of autism, a phenomenon recently raised by many researchers. It also supported the accumulating literature which describes creatine as a potential bioactive agent against neurotoxicity. With sufficient research and clinical trials in future, this could prove to be successful in treatment or management of autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder recently related to PA neurotoxicity.
Kalman extension of the genetic algorithm

In typical GA application, the fitness assigned to a chromosome-represented individual in the context of a specified environment takes a deterministic calculable value. In many problems of interest, the fitness of an individual is stochastic, and the environment changes in unpredictable ways. These two factors contribute to an uncertainty that can be associated with the estimated fitness of the individual.