Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The silicon stable isotope distribution along the GEOVIDE section (GEOTRACES GA-01) of the North Atlantic Ocean

Abstract. The stable isotope composition of dissolved silicon in seawater (δ30SiDSi) was examined at 10 stations along the GEOVIDE section (GEOTRACES GA-01), spanning the North Atlantic Ocean (40–60∘ N) and Labrador Sea. Variations in δ30SiDSi below 500 m were closely tied to the distribution of water masses. Higher δ30SiDSi values are associated with intermediate and deep water masses of northern Atlantic or Arctic Ocean origin, whilst lower δ30SiDSi values are associated with DSi-rich waters sourced ultimately from the Southern Ocean. Correspondingly, the lowest δ30SiDSi values were observed in the deep and abyssal eastern North Atlantic, where dense southern-sourced waters dominate. The extent to which the spreading of water masses influences the δ30SiDSi distribution is marked clearly by Labrador Sea Water (LSW), whose high δ30SiDSi signature is visible not only within its region of formation within the Labrador and Irminger seas, but also throughout the mid-depth western and eastern North Atlantic Ocean. Both δ30SiDSi and hydrographic parameters document the circulation of LSW into the eastern North Atlantic, where it overlies southern-sourced Lower Deep Water. The GEOVIDE δ30SiDSi distribution thus provides a clear view of the direct interaction between subpolar/polar water masses of northern and southern origin, and allow examination of the extent to which these far-field signals influence the local δ30SiDSi distribution.
Study of a Hybrid Magnet Array for an Electrodynamic Maglev Control

This paper introduces an innovative hybrid array consisting of both permanent and electro magnets. It will enable us to develop an active control mechanism for underdamped electro-dynamic suspension (EDS) Maglev systems. The proposed scheme is based on the Halbach array configuration which takes the major technical advantage from the original Halbach characteristics: a strongly concentrated magnetic field on one side of the array and a cancelled field on the opposite side. In addition, the unique feature of the proposed concept only differs from the Halbach array with permanent magnets. The total magnetic field of the array can be actively controlled through the current of the electro-magnet’s coils. As a result, the magnetic force produced by the proposed hybrid array can also be controlled actively. This study focuses on the magnetic characteristics and capability of the proposed array as compared to the basic Halbach concept. The results show that the proposed array is capable of producing not only an equivalent suspension force of the basic Halbach permanent magnet array but also a controlled mode. Consequently, the effectiveness of the proposed array confirms that this study can be used as a technical framework to develop an active control mechanism for an EDS Maglev system.
Behavioral Considerations in Developing Web Information Systems: User-centered Design Agenda

The current paper explores designing a web information retrieval system regarding the searching behavior of users in real and everyday life. Designing an information system that is closely linked to human behavior is equally important for providers and the end users. From an Information Science point of view, four approaches in designing information retrieval systems were identified as system-centered; user-centered; interactive and cognitive designs. However, there is a lack of research related to possible relationships between information behavior and information systems design to date. Traditionally, designers used human factors but not necessarily human behaviors while designing information systems. Therefore, there are few systems designed by information scientist aiming to regard or support the human information behavior. There are now new techniques and methodologies such as Contextual Design and Participatory Design to fill the gap. Implementing a behavioral approach to designing information systems are of interest and importance in terms of modern information technologies like social software, web 2.0, mobile phones and internet websites. New methodologies and research frameworks are proposed that place user location, attention and behavior as their main issues.
Improving the naturalness of concatenative Vietnamese speech synthesis under limited data conditions

Building a large speech corpus is a costly and time-consuming task. Therefore, how tobuild high-quality speech synthesis under limited data conditions is an important issue, specicallyfor under-resourced languages such as Vietnamese. As the most natural-sounding speech synthesisis currently concatenative speech synthesis (CSS), it was the target speech synthesis we studied inthis research. All possible units of a specic phonetic unit set are required for CSS. This requirementmay be easy for verbal languages, in which the number of all units of a specic phonetic unit set suchas phoneme is relatively small. However, the numbers of all tonal phonetic units are signicant intonal languages, and it is dicult to design a small corpus covering all possible tonal phonetic units.Additionally, as all context-dependent phonetic units are required to ensure the naturalness of corpusbasedCSS, it needs a large database with a size up to dozens of gigabytes for concatenation. Therefore,the motivation for this work is to improve the naturalness of CSS under limited data conditions, andwe solved both these two mentioned problems. First, we attempted to reduce the number of tonalunits required for the CSS of tonal languages by using a method of tone transformation. Second, weattempted to reduce mismatch-context errors in concatenation regions to make the CSS available ifmatching-context units could not be found from the database. Temporal Decomposition (TD), whichis an interpolation method decomposing a spectral or prosodic sequence into its sparse event targetsand corresponding temporal event functions, was used for both tasks. Previous studies have revealedthat TD can eciently be used for spectral transformation. Therefore, a TD-based transformationof fundamental frequency (F0) contours, which represents the lexical tones in tonal languages, isproposed. The concept of TD is also close to that of co-articulation of speech, which is related tothe contextual eect in CSS. Therefore, TD is also used to model, select, and modify co-articulatedtransition regions to reduce the mismatch-context errors. The experimental results obtained froma small Vietnamese corpus demonstrated that the proposed lexical tone transformation was able totransform lexical tones, and the proposed method of reducing the mismatch-context errors in the CSSof the general language was ecient. As a result, the two proposed methods are useful to improvethe naturalness of Vietnamese CSS under limited data conditions.
The Architecture for Optimizing Semantic Topical Coherence in Gujarati Text Topic Modeling

Information retrieval has gained a lot of attention from researcher community. There is a huge work being done in text summarization, document classification, document retrieval based on query term, text mining, web content analysis, web page classification and much more. In addition, there has ample of research already been taken for the English as it is a trade language across the world. However, progress in the Gujarati text information retrieval did not follow this tendency. There is an enormous amount of Gujarati text sources which are available under the various title. Moreover, terabytes of text are being made available in form of newspapers on the websites. In this paper, LDA has been applied to Gujarati text for modeling topics. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation model is used to uncover the concealed topics in a collection of documents. It gives a better view to look at the large collection of text, as what exactly it is composed of. This paper aims mainly at the two objectives: 1) It targets the Gujarati language News articles corpus for topic inference and 2) It optimizes topic coherence by incorporating the relevant words set. The document set consists of news articles of the Gujarati newspaper, which is published daily across the state Gujarat in India.
Inflation Inertia and Optimal Delegation of Monetary Policy

This paper analyzes the relationship between the optimal weight on output gap in the central bank's loss function and the degree of inertia in a hybrid version of New Keynesian model with a pure discretionary inflation targeting. I show that under endogenous persistence of inflation dynamics, even in discretionary monetary policy regime, a Rogoff's (1985) conservative central banker does not necessarily improve social welfare.
Earnings management as predictor of acquisition probability

There are many reasons why firms choose to manage earnings. Planning to acquire another company may be one of them. This paper tests the hypothesis that the probability of making an acquisition is positively related to a firm's level of earnings management, as proxied by current and total discretionary accruals. We also test the hypothesis that the level of discretionary accruals helps to predict the type of target to be acquired. We expect that firms planning to acquire a target in an emerging market would manage earnings more than a firm making an acquisition in a developed market. Firms financing their acquisitions with shares are also expected to have a high level of earnings management. The results support the hypothesis that the level of earnings management does indeed help predict the likelihood of making an acquisition, and that acquirers manage earnings to a higher degree than do nonacquirers. Acquirers paying with shares have highest discretionary accruals. In contrast to our second hypothesis, we find that acquirers of US firms have the highest discretionary accruals. Finally, firms acquiring targets from emerging economies earn highest abnormal returns around the time the acquisitions are announced
Flexible operation of combined cycle gas turbine power plants with supplementary firing

This article covers the use of supplementary firing in a gas-combined cycle power plant when high flexibility is required depending on the penetration of variable renewable energies and under different gas turbine loads. Process models were simulated under different operating conditions with the software EBSILONrProfessional. Five main conditions were studied for the designed combined cycle: gas turbine part-load without supplementary firing, gas turbine full load with supplementary firing, the use of supplementary firing to overcome the effect of changing ambient conditions, part-load gas turbine performance with supplementary firing technology and the use of supplementary firing in case of gas turbine shutdown.
Seasonal changes in the gonadossomatic index, allometric condition factor and sex ratio of an auchenipterid catfish from eastern Amazonia

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the seasonal pattern of the gonadosomatic index (GSI), condition factor (K), and sex ratio in the catfish Auchenipterichthys longimanus (Siluriformes: Auchenipteridae) as an approach to identify its reproductive period. A total of 589 A. longimanus specimens (251 males and 338 females) were captured in the rivers of the Caxiuana National Forest, in the Brazilian state of Para, between July, 2008 and July, 2009. Among the male specimens, 171 were classified as adults and 80 as juveniles, while there were 249 adults and 89 juvenile females. Using a sinusoidal equation, analysis of the GSI revealed a reproductive asynchrony between the genders, with males attaining their highest GSI values in January, while females peaked in March. For males, the sinusoidal regression for GSI values was significant only when used the complete data set (P=0.001), wears no trend was identified for bimonthly means (P=0.136). For females, by contrast, significant values were obtained for both the complete data set (P=0.012) and bimonthly GSI means (P=0.026). For the condition factor, the sinusoidal equation returned significant seasonal variation in both raw data (P=0.02) and with mean values (P=0.00) for males, but only with raw data for females (P=0.04), which appears to reflect variation in the energy budget between genders. With regard to the sex ratio, more reproductive females were captured than males in January and March, 2009, which suggests a pattern of segregation related to the reproductive process. These parameters are fundamental to the assessment, protection, and management of natural fish stocks, as well as providing guidelines for the development of conservation strategies.
Synthesis and characterization of chitosan-saponin nanoparticle for application in plasmid DNA delivery

Nonviral delivery system receives attention over the last decade. Chitosan (CS) is a cationic polymer whereas saponin (SP) is classified as glycoside. In this study, a spherically-shaped CS-SP nanoparticle was synthesized and characterized. The ability of the nanoparticle to protect DNA from enzymatic degradation, its thermostability and cytotoxicity were evaluated. The particle size was found below 100 nmas determined by Zetasizer, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and field scanning electron microscopy (FSEM) results. The surface charge ranges from 43.7 mV to 38.5 mV before and after encapsulation with DNA plasmid, respectively. In terms of thermostability, Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) revealed that CS-SP nanoparticle had a melting temperature of 110 °C, with rapid decomposition occurring at 120 °C. Encapsulation of DNA with the synthesized nanoparticle was evidenced by changes in the FTIR spectra including characteristic peaks at 3267.39 and 1635.58 cm-1, wave numbers. Additional peak was also observed at 1169.7 cm-1 following encapsulation. Electrophoretic mobility showed that CS-SP nanoparticle protected plasmid DNA from enzymatic degradation, while cell viability assays confirmed that the synthesized nanoparticle exhibited low cytotoxicity at different concentrations in avian cells. Taken together these, CS-SP nanoparticle showed potentials for applications as a DNA delivery system.
An Antenna Array for the Galileo System with Beamforming Capabilities

Future navigation services provided by the upcoming Galileo satellite system will require corresponding improvements on the navigation receiving systems. The first part of any navigation receiving system is the antenna or antenna terminal. In order to obtain the best possible navigation accuracy, exploiting the full capabilities offered by this new system, the design of state-of-the-art antenna systems must be pursuit. This contribution shows the beamforming capabilities of a broadband antenna array designed for the whole Galileo frequency band. In addition, a brief description on the front-end design is presented. The employed beamforming approach, performed by a software developed in DLR, considers a combination of an optimized Chebychev pattern with the Sample Matrix Inversion (SMI) algorithm. It allows the calculation of the excitation currents needed to steer the main beam of an antenna array at the same time it suppresses the side lobe levels to a desired value and generates nulls in the directions where interferers are incoming. The paper begins with a brief description of the antenna array and its antenna element. Then, the construction concepts are commented. Finally, a number of results concerning the beamforming capabilities of the antenna array are shown and discussed.
Changes in seasonal land precipitation during the latter twentieth‐century

Climate models predict substantial changes in seasonal precipitation in the future. Anthropogenic forcing has been found to contribute to the observed pattern of land precipitation change over the 2nd half of the 20th century when annual precipitation is averaged within latitude bands, the observed change was substantially larger than response simulated in climate models, based on a single observational dataset. Here we investigate the robustness of this finding using several land only observational datasets and look for an explanation for why observed changes are significantly larger. We show the discrepancy between model simulated and observed trends is reduced when changes are expressed as percent climatology, which reduces the difference in scale between observed point locations and model gridboxes. Focusing on seasonal rather than annual data reveals that there are seasonal differences in the pattern of zonal precipitation changes over the 20th century. We use fingerprint for zonal precipitation changes from 54 CMIP3 simulations and show that observed changes are detectable in all seasons but boreal summer (JJA), even when doubling the variance of the model simulation, and irrespective of the dataset used. The observed change is still larger than that simulated by the multi‐model mean in all datasets except in boreal summer but only in boreal spring is the observed change robustly and significantly larger than that simulated.
What Students Think About Game-Themed CS1

There has been rising academic interest in including computer game programming in CS1 curriculum during the past years, and many experience reports exist on the topic. Still, there is a need for knowledge on student reception, that is, how the students themselves view the game theme on a CS1 course. In this paper we review our CS1 course feedback from the years 2008–2013, of which three first years were carried out without games, while the latter three years part of our weekly assignments, plus a bigger course assignment, have been “game-themed”. We found that over 90 % found contextualization through games fun, motivating or rewarding in some other way. Less than 10 % of the respondents have somewhat a negative overtone about the course theme. At the same time, dropout rate has declined more than 12 percentage points. CR Categories: K.3. 2. [Computers and education]: Computers and Information Science Education—[Computer Science Education]
Homeownership schemes in Malaysia for first homebuyers

Home ownership is beneficial not only to households but also to communities as a whole. However, there is little evidence to inform discussion of meeting housing needs of first-time homebuyers in conditions of rapid urbanisation. One way to address their housing needs and preferences is to understand the housing attributes required by them to own a house. In order to achieve sustainability in housing delivery system, affordable housing schemes must be economically viable, socially acceptable and technically feasible.
Subsurface lateral flow from hillslope and its contribution to nitrate loading in streams through an agricultural catchment during subtropical rainstorm events

Subsurface lateral flow from agricultural hillslopes is often overlooked compared with overland flow and tile drain flow, partly due to the difficulties in monitoring and quantifying. The objectives of this study were to examine how subsurface lateral flow generated through soil pedons from cropped hillslopes and to quantify its contribution to nitrate loading in the streams through an agricultural catchment in the subtropical region of China. Profiles of soil water potential along hillslopes and stream hydro-chemographs in a trenched stream below a cropped hillslope and at the catchment outlet were simultaneously recorded during two rainstorm events. The dynamics of soil water potential showed positive matrix soil water potential over impermeable soil layer at 0.6 to 1.50m depths during and after the storms, indicating soil water saturation and drainage processes along the hillslopes irrespective of land uses. The hydro-chemographs in the streams, one trenched below a cropped hillslope and one at the catchment outlet, showed that the concentrations of particulate nitrogen and phosphorus corresponded well to stream flow during the storm, while the nitrate concentration increased on the recession limbs of the hydrographs after the end of the storm. All the synchronous data revealed that nitrate was delivered from the cropped hillslope through subsurface lateral flow to the streams during and after the end of the rainstorms. A chemical mixing model based on electricity conductivity (EC) and H+ concentration was successfully established, particularly for the trenched stream. The results showed that the subsurface lateral flow accounted for 29% to 45% of total stream flow in the trenched stream, responsible for 86% of total NO3--N loss ( or 26% of total N loss), and for 5.7% to 7.3% of total stream flow at the catchment outlet, responsible for about 69% of total NO3--N loss (or 28% of total N loss). The results suggest that subsurface lateral flow through hydraulically stratified soil pedons have to be paid more attention for controlling non-point source surface water pollution from intensive agricultural catchment particularly in the subtropical areas with great soil infiltration.
Vitamin D deficiency in healthy people and its relationship with gender and age

Introduction: Vitamin D is a fat-soluble steroid prohormone. Vitamin D is an important regulator of calcium absorption and bone growth. Objectives: There is considerable controversy and conflicting studies on relationship between serum vitamin D in healthy individuals and ageing. The aim of this study is to test the relationship between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin vitamin D with age groups and gender in a group of Iranian healthy individuals. Patients and Methods: In this current cross-sectional study, 102 healthy individuals were selected. Serum vitamin D levels were measured using ELISA kit. According to the history and laboratory tests, patients with the history of diabetes, any active or chronic infections, liver disease, diabetes or malignancy were excluded from the study. Any history of administration of vitamin D was also an exclusion criterion. All participants had normal renal function detected by normal serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen (BUN). To determine the relationship between gender (two categories) and age group (three categories) with vitamin D levels, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used respectively. Results: The average age of the participants was 42.97±15.54 years. The mean vitamin D level was 17.32±12.16 ng/mL. In this study, 73% of individuals had vitamin D deficiency, 18 % had marginal deficiency and 9% had a normal vitamin D levels. This study showed a significant relationship between vitamin D and age of subjects(r=0.23, P=0.02). Conclusion: High percentage of vitamin D deficiency in the participants of our study requires more attention to this public health entity. A direct relationship between serum vitamin D level and the age of healthy individuals requires further investigation.
SIRE-DP-2009-07 3-Regime symmetric STAR modeling and exchange rate reversion

The breakdown of the Bretton Woods system and the adoption of generalized oating exchange rates ushered in a new era of exchange rate volatility and uncertainty. This increased volatility lead economists to search for economic models able to describe observed exchange rate behavior. In the present paper we propose more general STAR transition functions which encompass both threshold nonlinearity and asymmetric e¤ects. Our framework allows for a gradual adjustment from one regime to another, and considers threshold e¤ects by encompassing other existing models, such as TAR models. We apply our methodology to three di¤erent exchange rate data-sets, one for developing countries, and o¢ cial nominal exchange rates, the second emerging market economies using black market exchange rates and the third for OECD economies. JEL Classi cation: C16, C22, F31