Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Power dependence of HTS disk-resonator quality factor

The simple closed-form model of nonlinear response of a high-temperature superconducting disk resonator on microwave power is proposed. The model is based on superconducting film nonlinearity and describes the dependence of unloaded quality factor on the incident power. The specified normalizing power is used as the only fitting parameter. Good quantitative agreement of modeled and measured data has been obtained. The results observed exhibit the kinetic nature of the nonlinearity of the disk resonator on an LaAlO/sub 3/ substrate at T=60 K and more complicated, presumably thermal, heating nature of the nonlinearity at lower temperature.
Research Progress of Photo-/Electro-Driven Thermochromic Smart Windows

Thermochromic smart windows can automatically control solar radiation according to the ambient temperature. Compared with photochromic and electrochromic smart windows, they have a stronger applicability and lower energy consumption, and have a wide range of application prospects in the field of building energy efficiency. At present, aiming at the challenge of the high transition temperature of thermochromic smart windows, a large amount of innovative research has been carried out via the principle that thermochromic materials can be driven to change their optical performance by photothermal or electrothermal effects at room temperature. Based on this, the research progress of photo- and electro-driven thermochromic smart windows is summarized from VO2-based composites, hydrogels and liquid crystals, and it is pointed out that there are two main development trends of photo-/electro-driven thermochromic smart windows. One is exploring the diversified combination methods of photothermal materials and thermochromic materials, and the other is developing low-cost large-area heating electrodes.
Integrating Laser Scanning and Rapid Prototyping to Enhance Construction Modeling

This paper describes an innovative approach to building modeling by integrating three-dimensional (3D) digital laser scanning and rapid prototyping (RP) technology. The process involves capturing a 3D scan of a building exterior and using the RP process to create a 3D physical model. Traditional methods used for feasibility studies, safety analysis, and planning of the building process can be slow, costly, and often impractical. This technique proved to be advantageous in terms of cost, speed, and reduction of human error. The Construction Systems Department at the Peter Kiewit Institute, University of Nebraska, in Omaha, Neb. teamed with Lamp Rynearson and Associates, a consulting engineering firm from Omaha, Neb. , to verify that data collected by the laser scanner could be converted to the proper format to create a physical model using RP technology. Results obtained from this project indicate that the technique was less expensive, quicker, and far more accurate than traditional methods.
An Analysis of Social Media Usage by Public Relations Departments in Select Private Universities in Kenya.

This paper investigates the use of Social Media by Public Relations departments in two large private universities in Kenya. Social media are web-based applications where the creation of profiles and connections of people takes place. Social media use is constantly growing amongst organizations, as technology and globalization evolve, so do the role of Public Relations hence becoming inevitable in everyday practice. Despite the availability of social media platforms, little is known on how they are used to communicate. Contrariwise, the extant literature discloses that at present, there is moderately negligible research with focus on the use of social media in public relations in private organizations. This study is grounded on the outcomes of a research submitted in lieu of a Doctoral degree in Mass Communication at the St Augustine University of Tanzania involving 270 survey participants and 2 in-depth interviews. Data was generated using questionnaires and analysed using SPSS version 23 whereas interviews were analysed thematically. Findings reveal that University K and St Paul University use social media to: publicize activities; send information to the public; change public opinion; enhance information value; lobby public support as well as to provide the public with a question-and-answer platform. This paper highlights need to pay more attention to the content and public’s need besides embracing other available social media tools and technologies to promote trust amongst the public and the organization. And also, need to devise means of adjusting to the inevitable changes regularly besides diverse approaches in strengthening PR practice and regulation.
Silica-based 8/spl times/8 optical matrix switch module with hybrid integrated driving circuits and its system application

A compact, low-crosstalk 8/spl times/8 optical matrix switch module has been developed. A thermooptic switch chip and driving circuits with TTL interfaces are integrated on a 100-mm/sup 2/ ceramic substrate. It achieved a low insertion loss of 10.0 dB, a low crosstalk level of -25.9 dB, and had excellent stability in practical operation. A photonic intermodule connector for electronic switching systems in the near future is also demonstrated through the use of these optical switch modules. >
Low-cost and low-power unidirectional torus network-on-chip with corner buffer power-gating

ABSTRACT Network-on-chip (NoC) is one of critical communication architectures for the scaling of future many-core processors. The challenge for on-chip network is reducing design complexity to save both area and power while providing high performance such as low latency and high throughput. Especially, with increase of network size, both design complexity and power consumption have become the bottlenecks preventing proper network scaling. Moreover, as technology continuously scales down, leakage power takes up a larger fraction of total NoC power. It is increasingly important for a power-efficient NoC design to reduce the increasing leakage power. Power-gating, as a representative low-power technique, can be applied to an on-chip network for mitigating leakage power. In this paper, we propose a low-cost and low-power router architecture for the unidirectional torus network, and adopt an improved corner buffer structure for the inoffensive power-gating, which has minimal impact on network performance. Besides, an explicit starvation avoidance mechanism is introduced to guarantee injection fairness while decreasing its negative impact on network throughput. Simulation results with synthetic traffic show that our design can improve network throughput by 11.3% on average and achieve significant power-saving in low- and medium-load regions. In the SPLASH-2 workload simulation, our design can save on average 27.2% of total power compared to the baseline, and decrease 42.8% average latency compared to the baseline with power-gating.
Validation of Somno-Art Software, a novel approach of sleep staging, compared with polysomnography in disturbed sleep profiles

Abstract Study Objectives Integrated analysis of heart rate (electrocardiogram [ECG]) and body movements (actimetry) during sleep in healthy subjects have previously been shown to generate similar evaluation of sleep architecture and continuity with Somno-Art Software compared to polysomnography (PSG), the gold standard. However, the performance of this new approach of sleep staging has not yet been evaluated on patients with disturbed sleep. Methods Sleep staging from 458 sleep recordings from multiple studies comprising healthy and patient population (obstructive sleep apnea [OSA], insomnia, major depressive disorder [MDD]) was obtained from PSG visual scoring using the American Academy of Sleep Medicine rules and from Somno-Art Software analysis on synchronized ECG and actimetry. Results Inter-rater reliability (IRR), evaluated with 95% absolute agreement intra-class correlation coefficient, was rated as “excellent” (ICCAAAvg95% ≥ 0.75) or “good” (ICCAAAvg95% ≥ 0.60) for all sleep parameters assessed, except non-REM (NREM) and N3 sleep in healthy participants (ICCAAAvg95% = 0.43, ICCAAAvg95% = 0.56) and N3 sleep in OSA patients (ICCAAAvg95% = 0.59) rated as “fair” IRR. Overall sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and Cohen’s kappa coefficient of agreement (κ) on the entire sample were respectively of 93.3%, 69.5%, 87.8%, and 0.65 for wake/sleep classification and accuracy and κ were of 68.5% and 0.55 for W/N1+N2/N3/rapid eye movement (REM) classification. These performances were similar in healthy and patient population. Conclusions The present results suggest that Somno-Art can be a valid sleep-staging tool in both healthy subjects and patients with OSA, insomnia, or MDD. It could complement existing non-attended techniques measuring sleep-related breathing patterns or be a useful alternative to laboratory-based PSG when this latter is not available.
Evaluation of stress distribution of porous tantalum and solid titanium implant-assisted overdenture in the mandible: A finite element study

Aims: The present study aimed to evaluate the stress distribution of porous tantalum implant and titanium solid implant assisted overdenture (IAO) in mandibular bone by utilizing three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) analysis. Materials and Methods: In this FE study, an existing cone-beam volumetric tomography scan of a patient without any maxillofacial anomaly with an available acceptable IAO for mandible was used to attain the compartments of a completely edentulous mandible. Zimmer trabecular implants and locator attachment systems were selected as the case group (Model B), and Zimmer Screw-Vent implants and locator attachment system were chosen for the control (Model A), as overdenture attachments in the present study. The mandibular overdenture was scanned and digitized as a FE model. Two 3D FE models were designed as edentulous lower jaws, each with four implants in the anterior section of the mandible. Three forms of loads were directed to the IAO in each model: Vertical loads on the left first molar vertical molar (VM). Vertical loads on the lower incisors (VI). Inclined force buccolingually applied at left first molar (IM). Results: Under all loading conditions, the maximum strain values in peri-implant bone in Model A were less than Model B. Under VI, the greatest stress value around abutments in both models was about 2–3 times higher than the other loads. Under VM and IM loads, no significant difference was observed between models. Conclusion: Using trabecular metal implants instead of solid implants reduces strain values around both cortical and trabecular bone.
Sports Augmented Cognitive Benefits: An fMRI Study of Executive Function with Go/NoGo Task

Exercise is believed to have significant cognitive benefits. Although an array of experimental paradigms have been employed to test the cognitive effects on exercising individuals, the mechanism as to how exercise induces cognitive benefits in the brain remains unclear. This study explores the effect of dynamic neural network processing with the classic Go/NoGo task with regular exercisers. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to analyze the brain activation of areas involved in executive function, especially inhibitory control. Nineteen regular joggers and twenty-one subjects as a control group performed the task, and their brain imaging data were analyzed. The results showed that at the attentive visual period, the frontal and parietal areas, including the prefrontal cortex, putamen, thalamus, lingual, fusiform, and caudate, were significantly enhanced in positive activities than the control group. On the other hand, in the following inhibitory control processing period, almost the same areas of the brains of the exercise group have shown stronger negative activation in comparison to the control group. Such dynamic temporal response patterns indicate that sports augment cognitive benefits; i.e., regular jogging increases the brain's visual attention and inhibitory control capacities.
Foliar Application of Boron Improves the Growth and Yield in Barley (Hordeum Vulgare L.)

Crop productivity is limited by several environmental constraints. Among these, micronutrients availability to plants plays a key role in agricultural crops production. Boron is an important micronutrient for crops and it significantly aids in a grain setting. Soil applied boron become unavailable to plant due to fixation in soil sites and cause nutrients deficiency in plants, immature grain settings, and yield reduction. Thus, the aim of this work was to quantify the impact of the foliar application of boron gradients on the yield and growth of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Five treatments were studied, which included; T1= Control (0% B), T2 = 0.5% B, T3 = 1% B, T4 =1.5% B, and T5 =2% B. The results indicated that foliar application of B significantly increased the yield and growth traits in barley. However, 2% foliar application of B showed the highest value for all studied traits including; plant height (5.6%), number of tillers per plant (2.4%), spike length (32%), weight gain per spike (6.2%), seed index (6%), grain yield (10%), and biological yield (4%). Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the foliar application of B at 2% can be used to improve the growth and yield in barley.
Utility‐pole Detection Based on Interwoven Column Generation from Terrestrial Mobile Laser Scanner Data

Mobile lidar scanning is one of the recent technologies that is used to map street scenes rapidly. Among street objects, utility‐poles are more critical to energy companies to monitor regularly through time. This paper presents a novel approach to detect utility‐poles from mobile lidar data in complex city scenes. After removing ground points, the scene is gridded into blocks based on a shared‐partitioning algorithm. Next, an interwoven column generation algorithm is used to create columns. Finally, each of these columns is considered to be a utility‐pole or not. The proposed algorithm is tested on two test areas. The algorithm achieved Completeness, Correctness and Quality of 92.8%, 97.5% and 90.6% in Area 1, and 92.8%, 92.2% and 86.1% in Area 2. The total number of utility‐poles in both areas was 265. The algorithm shows promising results in utility‐pole detection in complex city scenes with attached walls.
Perceived Social Support and Psychological Well-Being of International Students: The Mediating Effects of Resiliency and Spirituality

Abstract: International students are a significant resource for many host countries because they increase cultural diversity within the community, offer talent and innovation to universities, and make notable economic contributions. Many studies, however, have shown that international students have lower psychological well-being. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the associations between psychological well-being as a dependent variable and perceived social support as an independent variable, and test the mediating roles of resiliency and spirituality in the link between perceived social support and psychological well-being. This is a cross-sectional study with a random sampling method. A total of 300 Chinese international students in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) participated in this study and completed four questionnaires, namely the Perceived Social Support scale, Psychological Well-being scale, the Spiritual Values scale, and Connor-Davidson Resilience scale. The results from PLS-SEM showed that greater levels of social support are associated with greater levels of psychological well-being. Resiliency and spirituality partially mediated the relationship between social support and psychological well-being. The findings of this study not only revealed an association between perceived social support and psychological well-being among Chinese international students in Malaysia but also expanded our knowledge of the mediating roles of resilience and spirituality in the relationship. Keywords: International students, Perceived social support, Psychological well-being, Resiliency, Spirituality.
MicroRNA-6498-5p Inhibits Nosema bombycis Proliferation by Downregulating BmPLPP2 in Bombyx mori

As microRNAs (miRNAs) are important expression regulators of coding RNA, it is important to characterize their role in the interaction between hosts and pathogens. To obtain a comprehensive understanding of the miRNA alternation in Bombyx mori (B. mori) infected with Nosema bombycis (N. bombycis), RNA sequencing and stem-loop qPCR were conducted to screen and identify the significantly differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRNAs). A total of 17 such miRNAs were identified in response to N. bombycis infection, among which miR6498-5p efficiently inhibited the proliferation of N. bombycis in BmE-SWU1 (BmE) cells by downregulating pyridoxal phosphate phosphatase 2 (BmPLPP2). In addition, a fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assay showed that miR6498-5p was located in the cytoplasm of BmE cells, while it was not found in the schizonts of N. bombycis. Further investigation of the effect of BmPLPP2 on the proliferation of schizonts found that the positive factor BmPLPP2 could facilitate N. bombycis completing its life cycle in cells by overexpression and RNAi of BmPLPP2. Our findings offer multiple new insights into the role of miRNAs in the interaction between hosts and microsporidia.
Multilevel Deep Feature Generation Framework for Automated Detection of Retinal Abnormalities Using OCT Images

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images coupled with many learning techniques have been developed to diagnose retinal disorders. This work aims to develop a novel framework for extracting deep features from 18 pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNN) and to attain high performance using OCT images. In this work, we have developed a new framework for automated detection of retinal disorders using transfer learning. This model consists of three phases: deep fused and multilevel feature extraction, using 18 pre-trained networks and tent maximal pooling, feature selection with ReliefF, and classification using the optimized classifier. The novelty of this proposed framework is the feature generation using widely used CNNs and to select the most suitable features for classification. The extracted features using our proposed intelligent feature extractor are fed to iterative ReliefF (IRF) to automatically select the best feature vector. The quadratic support vector machine (QSVM) is utilized as a classifier in this work. We have developed our model using two public OCT image datasets, and they are named database 1 (DB1) and database 2 (DB2). The proposed framework can attain 97.40% and 100% classification accuracies using the two OCT datasets, DB1 and DB2, respectively. These results illustrate the success of our model.
Relationship between Structure and Rheology of Hydrogels for Various Applications

Hydrogels have gained a lot of attention with their widespread use in different industrial applications. The versatility in the synthesis and the nature of the precursor reactants allow for a varying range of hydrogels with different mechanical and rheological properties. Understanding of the rheological behavior and the relationship between the chemical structure and the resulting properties is crucial, and is the focus of this review. Specifically, we include detailed discussion on the correlation between the rheological characteristics of hydrogels and their possible applications. Different rheological tests such as time, temperature and frequency sweep, among others, are described and the results of those tests are reported. The most prevalent applications of hydrogels are also discussed.
Low turbidity in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) reduces feeding behavior and increases stress-related physiological parameters in pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) during grow-out

Abstract There is a tendency to farm fish in low turbidity water when production takes place in the land-based recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS). However, the effect of water turbidity on stress and performance is unknown for many species cultured in RAS. The effect of different turbidity treatments as Formazine Attenuation Units (0 FAU, 15 FAU, and 38 FAU) on feed intake performance (latency, total feeding time, and total feed intake) and physiological blood stress parameters (cortisol, lactate, and glucose) in medium-sized pikeperch ((Sander lucioperca) n = 27, undetermined sex and age) of initial body weights of 508.13 g ± 83 g (at FAU 0, 15, and 38, respectively) was investigated. The rearing system consisted of 9 rectangular tanks (200 L per tank). Fish were housed individually (n = 1, per tank, n replicates per treatment = 9). All tanks were connected to a recirculation system equipped with a moving bed biofilter. Feed intake in pikeperch kept at low turbidity (0 FAU) was 25% lower than pikeperch kept at high turbidity (38 FAU) (P < 0.01) and also significantly (10.5%) lower compared to feed intake in pikeperch kept at intermediate turbidity (15 FAU) (P < 0.01 for 0 FAU vs. 15 FAU, feed intake sign. Value as the main effect is P < 0.01). Pikeperch kept at low turbidity showed significantly slower feeding response (latency time) towards pellets entering the tank, shorter feeding times (both P < 0.05), and higher glucose blood concentration (73%) in contrast to pikeperch kept at highest turbidity. A reduction of 25% feed intake has obvious economic consequences for any fish farm and present data strongly emphasize the importance of considering the species-specific biology in future RAS farming.
Phase response design of a polarization-maintaining fiber loop mirror for dispersion compensation

We propose a simple dispersion-compensation filter using a polarization-maintaining fiber loop mirror. Due to the fact that the proposed filter is spectrally periodic and has a relatively large dispersion, it can be used as a multichannel dispersion compensator. The measured delay characteristic agrees with the theory. The delay characteristic can be tuned by changing the power-coupling coefficient of the variable coupler in the loop mirror.
Participation and dialogue in strategic manufacturing development

Increased competition and the dynamics of technological and market developments have made operations in industrial enterprises very complex, with many stakeholders in and around the enterprise. At the same time, it has become important to address strategic issues of manufacturing. To plan and manage an appropriate degree of participation in strategy development has become a key issue, especially to ensure ideas and ownership from those who will be involved in the implementation of a manufacturing strategy. We have developed and implemented a five-phased process for developing a manufacturing vision adopting a participatory approach. It revolves around a series of one-day workshops, typically with 15–20 participants. The paper will focus on the importance of participation and dialogue in the process of developing a manufacturing vision. We will present a model for monitoring and managing dialogues during a workshop, part of which is a dialogue-monitoring instrument. Empirical studies will draw out process elements of participation and dialogue and demonstrate the applicability of the model. Finally, implications are spelled out for planning and managing workshops in different phases of the process of manufacturing vision development.