Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HEW simulations and quantification of the microroughness requirements for x-ray telescopes by means of numerical and analytical methods

Future X-ray telescopes like SIMBOL-X will operate in a wide band of the X-ray spectrum (from 0.1 to 80 keV); these telescopes will extend the optical performances of the existing soft X-ray telescopes to the hard X-ray band, and in particular they will be characterized by a angular resolution (conveniently expressed in terms of HEW, Half-Energy- Width) less than 20 arcsec. However, it is well known that the microroughness of the reflecting surfaces of the optics causes the scattering of X-rays. As a consequence, the imaging quality can be severely degraded. Moreover, the X-ray scattering can be the dominant problem in hard X-rays because its relevance is an increasing function of the photon energy. In this work we consistently apply a numerical method and an analytical one to evaluate the X-ray scattering impact on the HEW of an X-ray optic, as a function of the photon energy: both methods can also include the effects of figure errors in determining the final HEW. A comparison of the results obtained with the two methods for the particular case of the SIMBOL-X X-ray telescope will be presented.
Femtosecond pump–probe spectroscopy of graphene oxide in water

Transient absorption properties of aqueous graphene oxide (GO) have been studied by use of femtosecond pump–probe spectroscopy. Excited state absorption and photobleaching are observed in the wide spectral range. The observed fast three lifetime components are attributed to the absorption of upper excited states and localized states, which is confirmed by both laser induced absorption and transmission kinetics. The longest time component is assigned to the lowest excited state of GO, which mainly originates from the sp2 domains. With the increase of the excitation power, two-quantum absorption occurs, which results in an additional rise-time component of the observed transients.
DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A NUMERICAL MODEL FOR CONTROLLED INTRAVAGINAL DRUG RELEASING DEVICES

Controlled Intravaginal Drug Releasing (CIDR) devices are often used in veterinary science to synchronize cattle estrus. Design process of such devices is strongly based on laboratory and field experimentation. In this scenario, model development is an attractive work since it reduces experimental research time and allows discard preliminary designs and material properties in an easy way. In this line, device re-engineering is an active field of work, looking for lower residual loads, better drug releasing control and lower costs. Based on a novel mathematical model early proposed, a numerical model is developed using a Finite Volume discretization in order to give an effective tool in CIDR re-engineering and design. The model requires coupling between Partial Differential Equations and Ordinary Differential Equations with nonlinear sources which represents a big challenge. Moreover, proper discretization leads to highly refined unstructured meshes being necessary the use of parallel solvers. Taking into account this requirements, implementation via OpenFOAM R © libraries is carried out and a parallel solver is obtained. Mathematical model is presented with its physical, mathematical and numerical assumptions. On the other hand software implementation details are also discussed. Finally, numerical and experimental results are compared showing good agreement. Mecánica Computacional Vol XXX, págs. 3439-3448 (artículo completo) Oscar Möller, Javier W. Signorelli, Mario A. Storti (Eds.) Rosario, Argentina, 1-4 Noviembre 2011 Copyright © 2011 Asociación Argentina de Mecánica Computacional http://www.amcaonline. org.ar
Swift guanxi data analysis and its application to e-commerce retail strategies improvement

E-commerce has changed retail, offering an opportunity to sell products online. Before retailers can take advantage from e-commerce however, they need to understand the factors driving consumers' intentions to purchase online as well as the factors motivating product re-purchase. To date, a number of studies have been commissioned with an aim to support e-retailers in those efforts. These studies show the key role of trust in consumers' initial and continuous use of e-commerce sites. E-retailers however find online trust difficult to establish due to buyer-seller social and temporal separation online. Recent studies argue that this limitation of online channels can be overcome by computer-mediated communication technologies, which enable 'swift guanxi' that facilitates online trust. This study extends this stream of research by analyzing data generated through swift guanxi in order to help retailers establish online trust and improve their online strategies.
STOCHASTIC CONGESTION MANAGEMENT CONSIDERING POWER SYSTEM UNCERTAINTIES

Congestion management in electricity markets is traditionally done using deterministic values of power system parameters considering a fixed network configuration. In this paper, a stochastic programming framework is proposed for congestion management considering the power system uncertainties. The uncertainty sources that are modeled in the proposed stochastic framework consist of contingencies of generating units and branches as well as load forecast errors. The Forced Outage Rate of equipment and the normal distribution function to model load forecast errors are employed in the stochastic programming. Using the roulette wheel mechanism and Monte-Carlo analysis, possible scenarios of power system operating states are generated and a probability is assigned to each scenario. Scenario reduction is adopted as a tradeoff between computation time and solution accuracy. After scenario reduction, stochastic congestion management solution is extracted by aggregation of solutions obtained from feasible scenarios. Congestion management using the proposed stochastic framework provides a more realistic solution compared with the deterministic solution by a reasonable uncertainty cost. Results of testing the proposed stochastic congestion management on the 24-bus reliability test system indicate the efficiency of the proposed framework.
The Black Market Exchange Rate and Demand for Money in Algeria

The aim of this paper is to examine empirically the effects of black market exchange rate on the demand for money in Algeria where due to government restrictions and controls on foreign exchange, two exchange rates (official and black) coexist and operate simultaneously. The discrepancy between the two rates has intensified since the adoption of the (S.A.P) in 1994.Using quarterly data for the 1974-2005 and an ARDL approach combined with CUSUM and CUSUMSQ,our results provide further evidence in favor to the inclusion of black market exchange rate rather than official rate issue.
Towards a Middleware to Infer the Risk Level of an Activity in Context-Aware Environments Using the SRK Model

It is inherent that every activity (human or nonhuman) has an associated risk level to the actors involved. This risk level may vary from no-damage risk to a very high risk level. Based on the regular actor’s behavior, the risk level of an activity can be changed to a higher or lower level (i.e., how apt the actor is related to an activity). This paper proposes a novel approach to analyze the risk level of activities considering the behavior of the actors using the Skill, Rule and Knowledge (SRK) cognitive architecture proposed by Rasmussen in 1983. Taking advantage of the Internet of Things paradigm we developed a context-aware middleware that analyzes the actors’ behavior based on the SRK model to infer the risk level associated with their activities. Keywords—Activity Recognition; Activity Risk Level; ContextAwareness; SRK Model.
Macroeconomic Effects of Government Spending in Japan

It is often recognized that government spending shocks are well anticipated before they actually materialize. This paper uses a new approach that is possible to identify a government spending shock as both an unanticipated and an anticipated (i.e. news) shock to study the macroeconomic effects of government spending in Japan. We find that, in the whole sample 1968Q1-2010Q1, there is a clear difference between an unanticipated government spending shock and an anticipated one: the former significantly increases both GDP and consumption while the latter does not. We also find that government spending is effective in terms of simulating the economy in the pre-bubble period, but in the post-bubble period it is not and even aggravates the business cycle fluctuations at some horizons.
HALO AND TAIL GENERATION STUDIES FOR LINEAR COLLIDERS

Halo particles in linear colliders can result in significant losses and serious background which may reduce the overall performances. We present a study of various halo generation processes with numerical estimates. The aim is to allow to predict and minimize the halo throughout the accelerator chain including the final focus up to the experimental detectors. We include estimates for the planned CLIC beam line.
Numerical Simulation of Baroclinic Tidal Currensts in Suruga Bay and Uchiura Bay Using a High Resolution Level Model

Numerical simulation of baroclinic tidal currents in Suruga Bay and Uchiura Bay has been carried out using a 3-D, high resolution numerical model. It is shown that internal tides in Suruga Bay originate from the localized area in the northern part of Izu Ridge where strong tidal advection effects play crucial roles. The amplitude of calculated baroclinic tidal currents in Suruga Bay becomes more than double the value previously estimated from the numerical model, in which nonlinear effects were not taken into account. The internal tides thus generated have low-vertical-mode structures where the interface can be found at a depth of 200‐300 m. The amplification of baroclinic tidal currents below a depth of about 800 m toward the bottom of Suruga Trough observed by Matsuyama et al. (1993) can be interpreted in terms of the low-vertical-mode structure of the propagating internal tides. The low-vertical-mode internal tides propagate into Uchiura Bay, located at the head of Suruga Bay, exciting significant isopycnal oscillations. Although the semidiurnal internal tide of the first vertical mode in Uchiura Bay is shown to be amplified through the resonant coupling to the internal seiche in the bay, the interface is found at a depth of 50‐70 m, which is much shallower than the depth of the interface outside Uchiura Bay. The occurrence of a strong vertical velocity on the bottom at the mouth of Uchiura Bay implies that internal tides observed in Uchiura Bay are generated near the bay mouth through the interaction between the shelf slope and strong baroclinic tidal currents associated with low-vertical-mode internal tides propagating from the northern part of Izu Ridge. In order to reproduce the generation and propagation features of internal tides in Suruga Bay, including the excitation processes of internal tides in Uchiura Bay, we need at least a three-layer numerical model that takes account of nonlinear tidal advection effects.
Development of Microsatellite Markers for investigation of relationships among closely related Carthamus species.

Carthamus is a diverse group of plants that are of economic interest due to the commercial growth of one member, C. tinctorius (safflower). Recent attention in using safflower as a crop for pharmaceutical production necessitates a better understanding of the relationships between this species and its wild relatives. To this end, molecular markers need to be developed that have appropriate variation and that can be utilized across a range of species. The goal of this research was to isolate microsatellite makers that were able to reliably amplify across the genus. Initial screens of safflower resulted in 48 promising markers, of which eight were selected to study in eight Carthamus species. Phylogenetic analyses of this subset of markers reveal potential introgression and hybridization among species. In conclusion, microsatellite data, combined with sequence data, has the potential to resolve species relationships within Carthamus.
The influence of basic motor abilities and anthropometric measures on the specific motor skills of talented water polo players

The purpose of this research is to determine the influence of basic motor abilities and anthropometric measures on the specific motor skills of water polo players in latent space. The subject sample consisted of a total of 89 water polo players aged 12 years ± 6 months who have been training water polo for at least 2 years and who partook in at least 1 federal tournament of the Water Polo Association of Serbia and Montenegro. The ascertainment of the morphological characteristics (14 tests), of the basic (12 tests) and specific (6 tests) motor skills level was performed by applying standardized tests. Factor analysis has been calculated to determine the space structure of the morphological, basic and specific characteristics of motor skills. A regression analysis was performed in order to determine the correlation between the influences of manifest basic motor skills as well as the morphological ones on the latent space of specific motor skills. A statistically relevant correlation between the whole predictor and the criterion has been confirmed.
Thermal stability of nanometric TiC-carbon composites : e ff ects of carbon allotropes and Zr milling impurities

In the ISOL (Isotope Separator OnLine) method a target at high temperatures (up to 2300 °C), is bombarded with high energy protons in order to produce isotopes through nuclear reactions which are simultaneously extracted from the target, ionized and delivered to physics experiments. Due to the enhanced isotope release properties of nanosized porous materials, titanium carbide-carbon porous nanocomposites have been developed at CERN and tested up to 1500 °C. In the interest of the ISOL application, in this study we extended the range of temperatures up to 1800 °C, to test the sintering hindering capabilities of different carbon allotropes. Carbon black was the most effective with the smallest TiC crystallite size:< 80 nm at 1800 °C. Additionally, using thermodynamic modelling, ex-situ X-ray powder diffraction and in-situ gas phase analysis, we show that there are interesting additional phase and lattice parameter changes due to the ZrO2 impurities from the attrition milling.
Study on Wholesomeness of Beef Sausage Processed by Butcheries in Khartoum State and Conformity to Sudanese Standards and Metrology.

May2014 This study was conducted in the College of Animal Production Science and Technology during the year 2012 to investigate the chemical composition, wholesomeness and the conformity of beef sausage in Khartoum state (Khartoum, Khartoum North, Omdurman) with the Sudanese Standard Metrology Organization Specifications. The results of the chemical composition revealed that the moisture percent was 68%, 62%, and 60% in Khartoum, Khartoum north and Omdurman samples respectively. The results revealed also that fat percent was 4.5%, 7.4% 11.9%, whereas the crude protein percent was 15%, 17.4% ,19.9 % . The ash percent was(1.08%,0.98%,0.87% respectively .The statistical analysis showed that there was significant difference p˂(0.01) in moisture percent. Regarding fat, crude protein and there was significant difference p˂(0.05) between the three markets. The bacterial assessment of the beef sausage samples in the three markets showed that the total bacterial count was 16×10,2.67×10 and 4 ×10 in Khartoum, Khartoum North, and Omdurman respectively. The statistical analysis of T.B. C revealed that there was significant difference (p˂0.05) in the samples of the three markets . The bacteriological analysis showed higher contamination with salmonella and E. coli in Khartoum samples compared with those of Khartoum north and Omdurman. The percentages of contamination of samples in three markets with salmonella and E. coli were 66.6% and 77.7% of the total samples respectively. The statistical analysis revealed that there was no significant difference at (p<0.05) between samples collected from the three markets in contamination with Salmonella in and E. coli. The study concluded that the chemical composition and wholesomeness of the beef sausage produced in the three markets were not matching with Sudanese standards metrology and organization specifications (2010).  2013 Sudan University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved
Combinatorial and probabilistic methods in biodiversity theory

Phylogenetic diversity (PD) is a measure of species biodiversity quantified by how much of an evolutionary tree is spanned by a subset of species. In this thesis, we study optimization problems that aim to find species sets with maximum PD in different scenarios, and examine random extinction models under various assumptions to predict the PD of species that will still be present in the future. Optimizing PD with Dependencies is a combinatorial optimization problem in which species form an ecological network. Here, we are interested in selecting species sets of a given size that are ecologically viable and that maximize PD. The NP-hardness of this problem is proved and it is established which special cases of the problem are computationally easy and which are computationally hard. It is also shown that it is NP-complete to decide whether the feasible solution obtained by the greedy algorithm is optimal. We formulate the optimization problem as an integer linear program and find exact solutions to the largest food web currently in the empirical literature. In addition, we give a generalization of PD that can be used for example when we do not know the true evolutionary history. Based on this measure, an optimization problem is formulated. We discuss the complexity and the approximability properties of this problem. In the generalized field of bullets model (g-FOB), species are assumed to become extinct with possibly different probabilities, and extinction events are independent. We show that under this model the distribution of future phylogenetic diversity converges to a normal distribution as the number of species grows. When extinction probabilities are influenced by some binary character on the tree, the state-based field of bullets model (s-FOB) represents a more realistic picture. We compare the expected loss of PD under this model to that under the associated g-FOB model and find that the former is always greater than or equal to the latter. It is natural to further generalize the s-FOB model to allow more than one binary character to affect the extinction probabilities. The expected future PD obtained for the resulting trait-dependent field of bullets model (t-FOB) is compared to that for the associated g-FOB model and our previous result is generalized.
Nursing team communication with regard pain in newborns: a descriptive study

Aim: To analyze the verbal and nonverbal communication of nursing professionals with newborns during arterial punctures and calcaneus, from the perspective of health promotion. Method: A descriptive study, conducted in March 2012, which considered 27 interactions involving nurses and newborns. Results: data were organized into two themes: verbal communication of nursing professionals before, during and after the painful procedure, and nonverbal communication during the painful procedure according to the Proxemics Theory. Newborns showed professionals expressions of tranquility and crying through nonverbal communication. However, the nurses continued using verbal communication prior to the pain of such procedures. Conclusion: The nurses investigated established effective verbal or nonverbal communication to newborns. Such an attitude promotes holistic and humane care in the hospital setting, with a focus on health promotion
MORPHOLOGICAL, BIOCHEMICAL AND MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF CULTURABLE EPILITHIC AND ENDOLITHIC BACTERIA FROM ROCKS OF AYUBIA (MURREE), LOWER HIMALAYA, PAKISTAN

Murree and Ayubia hills are parts of the lower Himalaya Mountain range in Pakistan. The rocks of these hills are younger and mostly limestone in nature. In this study, geomicrobiological investigation of the selected samples collected from Murree and Ayubia hills was carried out. The rock samples were spread on nutrient agar plates and endolithic and epilithic bacteria were isolated on the basis of colony morphology and studied further. All the isolates were screened for different industrially important hydrolytic enzymes. Study isolates were identified through 16S rRNA gene sequencing. These endoliths and epiliths were assayed for antimicrobial activities against clinical isolates S. aureus, P. aeuroginosa and E. coli. Total 31 bacterial isolates were recovered of which 15 were endolithic and 16 were epilithic. 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed major culturable groups colonizing these rocks were clustered in four major groups, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes which inlcude Alcaligenes, Lysinibacillus, Actinobacteria, Pseudomonas, Pusillimonas, Streptomyces, Fluviicola, Serratia, Flavobacterium, Stenotrophomonas and Brevindomonas species. The sequences were deposited in NCBI for acquisition of accession numbers. The bacterial isolates were efficient producers of oxidase, catalase, protease, amylase and gelatinase. The endolithic isolates N4 (Pseudomonas sp. KT223616) and N28 (Streptomyces sp. KT004386) exhibited good activity against all the three clinically isolated target strains. The study revealed the rocks of Murree and Ayubia hills have a rich microbial ecology that besides having an important role in weathering and mineralization processes may also be potential source of biotechnological applications.
Biosurfactant Production by Cunninghamella phaeosphora UCP 1303 Using Controlled Temperature Through of Arduino

1 Enviromental Process Development, Catholic University of Pernambuco, 50.050-900 Recife, PE, Brazil 2 Chemical Engineering, Catholic University of Pernambuco, 50.050-900 Recife, PE, Brazil 3 Chemical Engineering, São Paulo University (USP), 05508-900 São Paulo, SP, Brazil 4 National Postdoctoral Program (PNPD-CAPES) Postgraduate Programm in Development of Environmental Processes, Catholic University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil 5 Nucleus of Research in Environmental Sciences and Biotechnology, Catholic University of Pernambuco, 50.050-590 Recife, PE, Brazil
Cointegration Vector Estimation by DOLS for a Three-Dimensional Panel

This paper extends the results of the dynamic ordinary least squares cointegration vector estimator available in the literature to a three-dimensional panel. We use a balanced panel of N and M lengths observed over T periods. The cointegration vector is homogeneous across individuals but we allow for individual heterogeneity using different short-run dynamics, individual-specific fixed effects and individual-specific time trends. We also model cross-sectional dependence using time-specific effects. The estimator has a Gaussian sequential limit distribution that is obtained by first letting T →∞ and then letting N →∞, M →∞. The Monte Carlo simulations show evidence that the finite sample properties of the estimator are closely related to the asymptotic ones.