Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanical Properties Study of Composite Materials in Beech Beams Strengthening Case

This work reports on a study concerning the behaviour of the reinforced beech beams with CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastic) under a bending load. An experimental program was proposed to characterize the strength response of CFRP-wood beams. Mechanical tests on the reinforced wood showed that CFRP materials may produce flexural displacement and lifting increases of the beams. Observations of the experimental load–displacement relationships showed that bending strength increased for wood beams reinforced with CFRP composite plates (Megaplate), compared to those without CFRP reinforcement.
Forty years of Landscape Research

Abstract Papers of four decades published in Landscape Research are reviewed in order to chronicle the journal’s development and to assess the academic performance of the journal relative to its own aims. Landscape Research intends to reach a wide audience, to have a broad thematic coverage and to publish different types of papers with various methodological orientations. Cutting across these first aims are the interdisciplinary ambition of the journal, and its overall focus on landscape. These aims are evaluated based upon categorisation of article content, authorship and methodology, using data derived through interpretative inquiry and quantitative analyses. The results tell the story of how Landscape Research has developed from a newsletter of the Landscape Research Group, mainly aimed at practitioners, into an interdisciplinary, international journal with academic researchers as its primary community of interest. The final section discusses the current profile of the journal and identifies issues for its future direction and development.
State-contingent modelling of the Murray Darling Basin: implications for the design of property rights

Questions relating to the allocation and management of risk have played a central role in the development of the National Water Initiative, particularly as it has applied to the Murray-Darling Basin. The central issues of efficiency and equity in allocations are best understood by considering water licenses as bundles of state-contingent claims. The interaction of property rights and uncertainty regarding water flows, production and output prices is modelled using a state-contingent representation of production under uncertainty. The role of technology and investment in the determination of efficient adaptation strategies to manage risks is explored using an illustrative example.
Impact of Electronic Banking Innovations on Bank Deposit Market Share

Development and diversity of electronic banking services is one of the aspects of financial innovation of banks. In Iran’s banking system, the development of multiple channels representing electronic banking services such as SWIFT system, ATM, POS, PIN pads, internet banking, mobile banking and telephone banking are made for more facility in paying money, so today, the development of this channels is one of the most competitive areas between banks for attracting resources. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate this innovation, which needs a heavy cost in terms of money and time, on the share of each bank in attracting deposit as one of the most important goals and competitive tools of a bank. By using Panel Data Vector Autoregressive methods (Panel-VAR) and Granger causality test, data of 23 Iranian banks in the 7 years (2007-2013) has been studied. The results show that based on the Granger Causality Test, the number of ATM machines, POS, PIN pad, SWIFT system and amount of banking facilities provided by each bank, has causal relation in explaining the increase of the bank’s share in attracting deposits; but the Market Share was recognized as the cause of the innovation. Also, the causality direction of deposits’ share and the amount of facilities were noticed to be bilateral.
Development of molecular markers for eDNA detection of the invasive African jewelfish (Hemichromis letourneuxi): a new tool for monitoring aquatic invasive species in National Wildlife Refuges.

The genetic material (DNA fragments of cellular or extracellular origin) that organisms leave behind in nonliving components of the environment such as water, soil, or sediments is defined as environmental DNA (eDNA). Recently, the use of eDNA has been recognized as an effective method for aquatic invasive species early detection and surveillance. We developed molecular markers for eDNA detection of the African jewelfish (Hemichromis letourneuxi) in and around Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, Florida. The lower limit of detection using these markers was determined as well as the effect of fish density and time on detection using controlled experiments. Specificity and sensitivity of these markers was tested in aquarium trials and also in field samples. Results showed that developed markers (probe and primers) for Taqman assays were sensitive and specific for eDNA detection via traditional and quantitative PCR methods (qPCR). The observed theoretical minimal qPCR detection level, based on standard curve analysis for this species, was approximately 0.0002 ng/uL (R 2 = 0.90) at a PCR cycling threshold (CT) of 28.5–29. There was a positive and significant relationship between fish density and eDNA detection with detection probabilities ranging from 0.32–1.00 depending on fish density. A negative and significant relationship between average CT values and density further corroborated our findings that target eDNA increased with increasing fish density. Developed markers detected the presence of H. letourneuxi in the canal adjacent to but not in Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. The single positive found in the canal adjacent to Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge showed a similar CT value to the observed average for density of three fish per aquarium.
A fabrication of intelligent spiral reconfigurable beam forming antenna for 2.35-2.39 Ghz applications and path loss measurements

A reconflgurable beam forming antenna prototype using a spiral feed line is proposed in this paper. The presented antenna is integrated with PIN diode switches at a speciflc location of spiral feed line. It is discovered that the beam steering ability is greatly in∞uenced by the spiral arm feed network. Four PIN diode switches have been incorporated at four difierent arms of spiral feed line to realize a beam forming ability. The intelligence behaviour of this antenna is conferred when the switches are connected to programmable intelligent computer (PIC) microcontroller. Certain conflgurations of PIC allow the antenna's radiation patterns to be adaptively changed within 0.01ms. Therefore, the proposed antenna is capable of electronically forming the beam up to four difierent angles of +176 - , +10 - , i1 - and i12 - . This antenna is small in size with 100mm by 100mm of substrate dimension. In this research, the site fleld antenna performance relying on the received signal strength (RSS) testing is tested intensively in Universiti Malaysia Perlis with varied distant points of line-of- sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation. With good simulation and measurement results, this antenna could be a promising candidate to be installed in applications such as a smart antenna system, cognitive radio, WiMAX and long term evolution (LTE).
Text Analysis for Hate Speech Detection in Italian Messages on Twitter and Facebook

English. In this paper, we present a system able to classify hate speeches in Italian messages from Facebook and Twitter platforms. The system combines several typical techniques from Natural Language Processing with a classifier based on Artificial Neural Networks. It has been trained and tested on a corpus of 3000 messages from the Twitter platform and 3000 messages from the Facebook platform. The system has been submitted to the HaSpeeDe task within the EVALITA 2018 competition and the experimental results obtained in the evaluation phase of the competition are presented and discussed. Italiano. In questo documento presentiamo un sistema in grado di classificare messaggi di incitamento all’odio in lingua italiana presi dalle piattaforme Facebook e Twitter. Il sistema combina diverse tecniche tipiche del Natural Language Processing con un classificatore basato su una Rete Neurale Artificiale. Quest’ultimo stato allenato e testato con un corpus di 3000 messaggi presi dalla piattaforma Twitter e 3000 messaggi presi dalla piattaforma Facebook. Il sistema stato sottomesso al task HaSpeeDe relativo alla competizione EVALITA 2018, e sono presentati e discussi i risultati sperimentali ottenuti nella fase di valutazione
The supervision of r esearch p rojects entailing computer risks within an academic context : The case of ecole polytechnique de Montréal

— Information systems security aims to protect information assets, including data, computer systems and computing services, in terms of confidentiality, integrity and availability. The increasing use of information systems in society has led to growing concerns about the security of such systems in recent years. As a result, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal has encouraged continued research efforts in this field for many years. The institution nevertheless also recognized the risks that this type of research might entail, particularly those research projects pertaining to the study of malicious computer programs (e.g. viruses), the study of vulnerabilities and the study of tools and methods used by malicious actors targeting information assets, or the use of data collected to support research efforts related to the use of actual computer systems. In early 2009, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal implemented a procedure aimed at supervising the conduct of such research projects. This procedure, the first of its kind within a university context in Canada, aims to provide guidelines for the conduct of research projects which could either i) stop or damage the institution’s computer infrastructure, that of its partners or any other entity/individual; ii) damage the institution’s information assets, those of its partners or any other entity/individual; iii) incur financial losses to the institution, one its partners or any other entity/individual; iv) affect the availability, the integrity or the confidentiality of the institution’s data, that of its students, collaborators or any other entity/individual; v) be harmful to the reputation of the institution or that of one of its collaborators. This paper presents the objectives of this procedure, its underlying principles and the chosen approach to supervise the conduct of such research projects.
Germanic and Romance discourse devices in acquisition

"In a discourse fragment, say a story, we see a set of intended referents (for example: a girl, an attic, a bed, a little bear). The members of that set appear and reappear in changing configurations when the story unfolds. That is due to the fact that the head of each new predicate selects referents for a configuration according to its sub-categorization/theta frame"
Insights on genetic diversity and phylogenetic analysis of Hop stunt viroid (HSVd) population from symptomatic citrus tree in Tunisia

Hop stunt viroid (HSVd) variants from cachexia symptomatic citrus tree were subjected to retrotranscription and DNA amplification (RT-PCR), cloning and sequencing. Here we report genetic diversity and phylogenetic analysis of HSVd Tunisian isolate. Our study revealed obvious polymorphism within Tunisian isolates and high similarity with Japanese variants. Neighbor-joining analysis was carried out on the new HSVd-citrus sequences together with 44 previously described HSVd isolates from citrus and one from grapevine. The phylogenetic analysis showed that Tunisian isolates were clustered into 4 different groups (CVd-IIa, b, and c and grapevine group). Furthermore, the predicted secondary structure was scrutinized to be more understanding on how the nucleotide change affects variable (V) and pathogenicity domain (P).
Nutrient Removal by Corn Grain Harvest

Effective nutrient management requires an accurate accounting of nutrients removed from soils in the harvested portion of a crop. Because the typical crop nutrient values that have historically been used may be different under current production practices, a study was conducted to measure nutrient uptake in grain harvested in 1998 and 1999 from 23 site-years in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA. There were 10 hybrids included in the study, but each site grew only one hybrid each year. Corn (Zea mays L.) production practices followed local state extension recommendations. Minimum, maximum, and mean corn grain yields were 4.9, 16.7, and 10.3 Mg ha -1 . Nutrient concentrations were determined on grain samples oven-dried at 70°C for 24 h. Minimum, maximum, and median nutrient concentration values were as follows: 10.2, 15.0, and 12.9 g N kg -1 ; 2.2, 5.4, and 3.8 g P kg -1 ; 3.1, 6.2, and 4.8 g K kg -1 ; 0.13, 0.45, and 0.28 g Ca kg -1 ; 0.88, 2.18, and 1.45 g Mg kg - ; 0.9, 1.4, and 1.0 g S kg -1 ; 9.0, 89.5, and 33.6 mg Fe kg -1 ; 15.0, 34.5, and 26.8 mg Zn kg -1 ; 1.0, 9.8, and 5.3 mg Mn kg -1 ; 1.0, 5.8, and 3.0 mg Cu kg -1 ; and 2.3, 10.0, and 5.5 mg B kg -1 . Median nutrient uptake values found in this study are similar to commonly used book values, but there was considerable variation among samples of corn grain. Concentrations of P and K in grain were positively associated with yield level, and concentrations of grain P were positively correlated with Mehlich-3 soil test P. The variability in nutrient removal values seen in this study, even for the same hybrid, raises questions about the usefulness of average values for estimating crop nutrient removal across a range of cropping conditions. Research is needed to identify or develop a means to correct for the sources of variability.
Estimating Percentage Dry Weight in Diets Using a Microscopic Technique

Percent composition by dry weight was accurately estimated for 15 mixtures of plants that are found in the diets of some herbivores. The mixtures were sampled by recording the frequency of occurrence of each species in 100 microscope fields using 125power magnification, converting frequency to density, and calculating relative density as an estimate of percent composition by dry weight. Dry weight percentages were predicted directly from relative density. The microscopic technique reported in this paper would be an accurate means of determining the dry-weight composition of stomach samples, esophageal samples, rumen samples, and clipped herbage.
J-PLUS: Measuring Hα emission line fluxes in the nearby universe

In this paper we aim to validate a methodology designed to obtain Hα emission line fluxes from J-PLUS photometric data. J-PLUS is a multi narrow-band filter survey carried out with the 2 deg2 field of view T80Cam camera, mounted on the JAST/T80 telescope in the OAJ, Teruel, Spain. The information of the twelve J-PLUS bands, including the J0660 narrow-band filter located at rest-frame Hα, is used over the first 42 deg2 observed to retrieve de-reddened and [NII] decontaminated Hα emission line fluxes of 46 star-forming regions with previous SDSS and/or CALIFA spectroscopic information. The agreement between the J-PLUS Hα fluxes and those obtained with spectroscopic data is remarkable, finding a median comparison ratio with a scatter of $ \mathcal{R}\,{=}\,F^{\mathrm{J-PLUS}}_{\mathrm{H\alpha}}/F^{\mathrm{spec}}_{\mathrm{H\alpha}}\,{=}\,1.05\,{\pm}\,0.25 $. This demonstrates that it is possible to retrieve reliable Hα emission line fluxes from J-PLUS photometric data. With an expected area of thousands of square degrees upon completion, the J-PLUS dataset will allow the study of several star formation science cases in the nearby universe, as the spatially resolved star formation rate of nearby galaxies at z ≤ 0.015, and how it is influenced by the environment, morphology, stellar mass, and nuclear activity. As an illustrative example, the close pair of interacting galaxies NGC 3994 and NGC 3995 is analysed, finding an enhancement of the star formation rate not only in the centre, but also in outer parts of the disk of NGC 3994.
Closed form solution for dynamic fund protection under CEV

This paper studies the pricing of dynamic fund protection (DFP) in insurance contracts under the constant elasticity of variance (CEV) model. As empirical studies document that stock price volatility is not a constant but changes randomly, CEV model has been a propular alternative to model stock price movements in practice. We derive the first closed form solution to DFP under CEV in terms of Laplace transform.
An Approach for Brain-Controlled Prostheses Based on a Facial Expression Paradigm

One of the most exciting areas of rehabilitation research is brain-controlled prostheses, which translate electroencephalography (EEG) signals into control commands that operate prostheses. However, the existing brain-control methods have an obstacle between the selection of brain computer interface (BCI) and its performance. In this paper, a novel BCI system based on a facial expression paradigm is proposed to control prostheses that uses the characteristics of theta and alpha rhythms of the prefrontal and motor cortices. A portable brain-controlled prosthesis system was constructed to validate the feasibility of the facial-expression-based BCI (FE-BCI) system. Four types of facial expressions were used in this study. An effective filtering algorithm based on noise-assisted multivariate empirical mode decomposition (NA-MEMD) and sample entropy (SampEn) was used to remove electromyography (EMG) artifacts. A wavelet transform (WT) was applied to calculate the feature set, and a back propagation neural network (BPNN) was employed as a classifier. To prove the effectiveness of the FE-BCI system for prosthesis control, 18 subjects were involved in both offline and online experiments. The grand average accuracy over 18 subjects was 81.31 ± 5.82% during the online experiment. The experimental results indicated that the proposed FE-BCI system achieved good performance and can be efficiently applied for prosthesis control.
Multicodes for improved range resolution in radar

MULTICODES FOR IMPROVED RANGE RESOLUTION IN RADAR by Rhiya Vitto Third generation (3G) wireless systems are required to support a variety of communication services like voice, image, motion picture transmission, etc, each of which requires different transmission rates. Multi-code modulation has been introduced therefore as a means of supporting multi-rate services and operating in multi-cell environments [8, 9, 10]. This multi-rate multi-function capability may be used in Radar related applications, too. For example, a single transmitted waveform consisting of two orthogonal codes can be used to simultaneously track a target and obtain high range resolution. Tracking requires low bandwidth and high resolution needs a high bandwidth signal. Orthogonal codes like Walsh codes can be used to provide multiple rates if the codes are chosen from the same matrix, because certain Walsh codes of the same length have very different bandwidths. Therefore, as an extension to its use in communication, multi-codes can be used to enable multi-function operations in a Radar system. The first criterion for choosing a Radar waveform, whether single or multi-code, is its resolving capability in range and Doppler. A measure of range resolution or sensitivity to delay commonly used in Radar literature is the Peak to Sidelobe Level Ratio (PSLR) of the code's autocorrelation function. The multi-codes proposed in this work are found to have better (lower) PSLRs than existing radar codes when the number of simultaneously transmitted codes is large. In the special case of using an entire set of orthogonal codes of any length, the resulting multi-code consists of just a single pulse of thickness equal to the chip width of the code used. This pulse will have a 'perfect' autocorrelation function with only a single peak at the main lobe and zero sidelobes. This gives the ideal PSLR for radar purposes. An important aspect of using multi-codes in Radar is the need for multiple transmitters to avoid the high peak factor that would result if only a single antenna is used. This requires the Radar system to have multiple transmitters as in phased array radar. The best example is a multi-function digital array radar that transmits a unique orthogonal code from each of its antenna elements as described by Rabideau and Parker in [13]. The system described in this publication makes use of the array mode of operation of the Radar to transmit orthogonal codes from each antenna element which are then phased and combined at the receiver. The phase (or angle) of the signal at each receive antenna element can be used to better resolve targets that are spatially separated. This thesis introduces the concept of multicodes in Radar. Further, the advantages of using multiple coded waveforms over the known Radar polyphase codes are demonstrated by simulations. MULTICODES FOR IMPROVED RANGE RESOLUTION IN RADAR
AKARI OBSERVATION OF THE FLUCTUATION OF THE NEAR-INFRARED BACKGROUND

We report a search for fluctuations of the sky brightness toward the north ecliptic pole with the Japanese infrared astronomical satellite AKARI, at 2.4, 3.2, and 4.1 μm. We obtained circular maps with 10′ diameter fields of view, which clearly show a spatial structure on the scale of a few hundred arcseconds. A power spectrum analysis shows that there is a significant excess fluctuation at angular scales larger than 100″ that cannot be explained by zodiacal light, diffuse Galactic light, shot noise of faint galaxies, or clustering of low-redshift galaxies. These results are consistent with observations at 3.6 and 4.5 μm by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The fluctuating component observed at large angular scales has a blue stellar spectrum which is similar to that of the spectrum of the excess isotropic emission observed with the Infrared Telescope in Space. A significant spatial correlation between wavelength bands was found, and the slopes of the linear correlations are consistent with the spectrum of the excess fluctuation. These findings indicate that the detected fluctuation could be attributed to the first stars of the universe, i.e., Population III stars. The observed fluctuation provides an important constraint on the era of the first stars.
Are the log-growth rates of city sizes normally distributed? Empirical evidence for the US

We study the decennial log-growth population rate distributions of the US incorporated places (resp., all places) for the period 1990-2000 (resp. 2000-2010) and the recently constructed US City Clustering Algorithm (CCA) population data in the period 1991-2000. It is obtained an excellent parametric description of these log-growth rates by means of a newly introduced distribution called “double mixture exponential Generalized Beta 2”. The normal distribution is not the one empirically observed for the same datasets.
Testing of a Device for Positioning Measuring Microphones in Anechoic and Reverberation Chambers

This paper presents a mechanical positioning system for a measuring microphone designed for acoustic studies in anechoic and reverberation chambers at the Department of Mechanics and Vibroacoustics, AGH. The results are discussed in the context of mechanical positioning and its impact on the outcome of the execution of individual measurement procedures. Moreover, areas for research were identified and solution concepts shown for further development of the automation of acoustic measurements in different research rooms in order to reduce the human involvement in them.