Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structured sparse support vector machine with ordered features

ABSTRACT In the application of high-dimensional data classification, several attempts have been made to achieve variable selection by replacing the -penalty with other penalties for the support vector machine (SVM). However, these high-dimensional SVM methods usually do not take into account the special structure among covariates (features). In this article, we consider a classification problem, where the covariates are ordered in some meaningful way, and the number of covariates p can be much larger than the sample size n. We propose a structured sparse SVM to tackle this type of problems, which combines the non-convex penalty and cubic spline estimation procedure (i.e. penalizing second-order derivatives of the coefficients) to the SVM. From a theoretical point of view, the proposed method satisfies the local oracle property. Simulations show that the method works effectively both in feature selection and classification accuracy. A real application is conducted to illustrate the benefits of the method.
Mandarin vocabulary growth, teacher qualifications and teacher talk in child heritage language learners

ABSTRACT Teacher talk has been found to significantly affect children’s early language development during shared book reading; however, the mechanism of such influence remains unclear. The current study has zoomed in on vocabulary development in Mandarin as a heritage language (HL) in Singapore kindergartens, 1) exploring the linguistic features (i.e. lexical diversity and syntactic complexity) of these teachers; and 2) investigating the mediation effects of the significant linguistic feature(s) in teachers’ qualifications (i.e. degree, experience, and language proficiency) and children’s Mandarin vocabulary growth. 31 Mandarin teachers and 441 English-Mandarin bilingual children (4–5 years old) were investigated during their shared book reading sessions. Teacher talkwas transcribed with CHAT and two indicators of language complexity (D and Mean Length of Utterance in word) were calculated with CLAN. The mediation effects of teachers’ language complexity were explored using a path model. Results showed that after controlling for the children’s initial vocabulary, maternal education, nonverbal intelligence, and gender, teachers who used more complex syntax were found to be associated with children’s higher growth in Mandarin receptive vocabulary over a school year. Teachers’ qualifications (i.e. experience and Mandarin proficiency) had no direct influence on children’s language growth, but demonstrate their impact via teachers’ syntactic complexity.
Deep-Learning-Based Classification of Point Clouds for Bridge Inspection

Conventional bridge maintenance requires significant time and effort because it involves manual inspection and two-dimensional drawings are used to record any damage. For this reason, a process that identifies the location of the damage in three-dimensional space and classifies the bridge components involved is required. In this study, three deep-learning models—PointNet, PointCNN, and Dynamic Graph Convolutional Neural Network (DGCNN)—were compared to classify the components of bridges. Point cloud data were acquired from three types of bridge (Rahmen, girder, and gravity bridges) to determine the optimal model for use across all three types. Three-fold cross-validation was employed, with overall accuracy and intersection over unions used as the performance measures. The mean interval over unit value of DGCNN is 86.85%, which is higher than 84.29% of Pointnet, 74.68% of PointCNN. The accurate classification of a bridge component based on its relationship with the surrounding components may assist in identifying whether the damage to a bridge affects a structurally important main component.
Impacts of global NOx inversions on NO2 and ozone simulations

Abstract. Tropospheric NO2 and ozone simulations have large uncertainties, but their biases, seasonality, and trends can be improved with NO2 assimilations. We perform global top-down estimates of monthly NOx emissions using two Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) NO2 retrievals (NASAv3 and DOMINOv2) from 2005 to 2016 through a hybrid 4D-Var/mass balance inversion. Discrepancy in NO2 retrieval products is a major source of uncertainties in the top-down NOx emission estimates. The different vertical sensitivities in the two NO2 retrievals affect both magnitude and seasonal variations of top-down NOx emissions. The 12-year averages of regional NOx budgets from the NASA posterior emissions are 37 % to 53 % smaller than the DOMINO posterior emissions. Consequently, the DOMINO posterior surface NO2 simulations greatly reduced the negative biases in China (by 15 %) and the US (by 22 %) compared to surface NO2 measurements. Posterior NOx emissions show consistent trends over China, the US, India, and Mexico constrained by the two retrievals. Emission trends are less robust over South America, Australia, western Europe, and Africa, where the two retrievals show less consistency. NO2 trends have more consistent decreases (by 26 %) with the measurements (by 32 %) in the US from 2006 to 2016 when using the NASA posterior emissions. The performance of posterior ozone simulations has spatial heterogeneities from region to region. On a global scale, ozone simulations using NASA-based emissions alleviate the double peak in the prior simulation of global ozone seasonality. The higher abundances of NO2 from the DOMINO posterior simulations increase the global background ozone concentrations and therefore reduce the negative biases more than the NASA posterior simulations using GEOS-Chem v12 at remote sites. Compared to surface ozone measurements, posterior simulations have more consistent magnitude and interannual variations than the prior estimates, but the performance from the NASA-based and DOMINO-based emissions varies across ozone metrics. The limited availability of remote-sensing data and the use of prior NOx diurnal variations hinder improvement of ozone diurnal variations from the assimilation, and therefore have mixed performance on improving different ozone metrics. Additional improvements in posterior NO2 and ozone simulations require more precise and consistent NO2 retrieval products, more accurate diurnal variations of NOx and VOC emissions, and improved simulations of ozone chemistry and depositions.
Temperature dependence of dark current in quantum well infrared detectors

Abstract : The I-V characteristics of a bound-to-continuum QWIP device with Al(0.37)Ga(0.63)As barriers of 23 nm, In(0.1)Ga(0.9)As wells of 3.6 nm, and a doping three-dimensional density of carriers in the well of 10(exp 18) /cu cm were gathered and analyzed for various temperatures. The device was cooled with a closed cycle refrigerator, and the data were acquired using the Agilent 4155B Semiconductor Parameter Analyzer. Dark current in the device was qualitatively explained, then further examined with a thermionic emission model. Using this model and an iterative Matlab program we were able to establish the energy levels within the well. In addition, the dark current limited detectivity (D*) of the device was determined as a function of the temperature in the 10 - 170 K range. It was found that the D* degrades at temperatures above 80 K due to excess thermionic emission from the quantum well. The details of the laboratory setup and test system and process are included with the intent to provide future students with simple and comprehensive procedural insight.
Adaptive Backlash Compensation Method Based on Touch State Observation for a Solid Ducted Rocket

A hysteresis model was built to describe the backlash of the flow regulator in a solid ducted rocket, and its influence on the engine control was also analyzed in this study. An adaptive backlash compensation method was proposed under two challenges: limited information and backlash state variation caused by the harsh environment in the gas generator. The touch state is designed and its observation is used to get the state of backlash, and a compensation control method using the existing information was carried out combined with the motion intention. This method greatly shortened the time during the transition and reduced the hysteresis effect on the control system. Furthermore, the compensation method is improved and acquires a self-learning ability, the compensation parameter changes adaptively during the process of flow regulation, and it is able to meet the challenge of an unknown and variable state of backlash. Finally, the validation of the compensation method was carried out with two simulations.
Using Community Health Workers and a Smartphone Application to Improve Diabetes Control in Rural Guatemala

A smartphone application providing algorithmic clinical decision support enabled community health workers to improve diabetes control for a group of patients in rural Guatemala. This approach enables task sharing with physicians and other advanced practitioners for chronic disease care, which is particularly important in low-resource settings. Key Findings A smartphone application providing algorithmic clinical decision support enabled community health workers to improve diabetes control for a group of patients in rural Guatemala. Key Implications Program managers should consider equipping community health workers with clinical decision support applications to enable task sharing for chronic disease management. Researchers should examine the efficacy of this approach for chronic diseases other than diabetes and compared to traditional models of care. ABSTRACT Background: The global prevalence of diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980. Seventy-five percent of patients with diabetes live in low- and middle-income countries, such as Guatemala, where health care systems are often poorly equipped for chronic disease management. Community health workers (CHWs) and mobile health technology have increasingly been applied to the diabetes epidemic in these settings, although mostly in supportive rather than primary roles in diabetes management. We sought to improve diabetes care in rural Guatemala through the development of a CHW-led diabetes program and a smartphone application to provide CHWs with clinical decision support. Methods: We worked with our local partners to develop a program model and the smartphone application (using the CommCare platform) and to train CHWs. We recruited patients with type 2 diabetes living in rural communities. Program evaluation used a single-group, pre-post design. Primary outcomes were hemoglobin A1c and the percentage of patients meeting A1c goals compared with baseline. We also followed a variety of process metrics, including application reliability. Results: Eighty-nine patients enrolled during the study period. The hemoglobin A1c percentage decreased significantly at 3 months (-1.0; 95% CI=-1.7, -0.6), 6 months (-1.5; 95% CI=-2.2, -0.8), 9 months (-1.3; 95% CI=-2.0, -0.6), and 12 months (-1.0; 95% CI=-1.7, -0.4). The percentage of patients with A1c ≤ 8% increased significantly at 3 months (23.6% to 44.4%, P=.007), 6 months (22.0% to 44.0%, P=.015), and 9 months (23.9% to 45.7%, P=.03). CHWs and supervising physicians agreed with application medication recommendations >90% of the time. Conclusion: Our results suggest that CHWs can safely and effectively manage diabetes with the assistance of a smartphone application and remote physician supervision. This model should be evaluated versus other standards of care and could be adapted to other low-resource settings and chronic diseases.
Experimental investigation on the hysteretic behavior of precast concrete walls with energy‐dissipated dry connections

A new method of assembling precast concrete (PC) wall panels is proposed to establish a stable and reliable earthquake‐resistant system. The dry‐connection method is recommended by welding energy‐absorbing connectors with mild steel plates at the vertical joints between adjacent walls. The connectors replace cast‐in‐place (CIP) constructions to rapidly and efficiently connect wall panels and utilize the deformations occurring due to the vertical relative displacement of the wall panels to dissipate energy and mitigate an excessive seismic response. To evaluate the effectiveness of the new connection approach, CIP and connector‐wall assembly specimens with different aspect ratios were designed and tested under cyclic lateral force‐displacement controlled loading. Evaluation of the measured experimental results indicate that the proposed dry‐connection method can be adopted to achieve proper ductility and energy dissipation levels while maintaining a sufficient level of connection strength and stiffness of the PC wall system.
Principles of colloid and surface chemistry

Colloid and surface chemistry - scope and variables sedimentation and diffusion and their equilibrium solution thermodynamics - osmotic and Donnan equilibria the rheology of dispersions static and dynamic light scattering and other radiation scattering surface tension and contact angle - application to pure substances adsorption from solution and monolayer formation colloidal structures in surfactant solutions - association colloids adsorption at gas-solid interfaces van der Waals forces the electrical double layer and double-layer interactions electrophoresis and other electrokinetic phenomena electrostatic and polymer-induced colloid stability appendix A - examples of expansions encountered in this book appendix B - units - CGS-SI interconversions appendix C - statistics of discrete and continuous distributions of data appendix D - list of worked-out examples.
Taguchi optimization of various parameters for tribological performance of polyalphaolefins based nanolubricants

This research paper addresses the optimization of various control parameters by using the Taguchi method to assess the tribological properties of PAOs based nanolubricants. The concentration of COOH-functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), applied load, sliding velocity and kinematic viscosity of polyalphaolefins (PAOs) were selected as process parameters or control factor. The MWCNTs at a varying concentration (0.025-0.15 wt.%) were blended separately in PAOs to formulate the nanolubricants. The tribological experimentations were performed by Taguchi’ L18 mixed orthogonal array using “ball on disc” type tribometer. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was adopted to estimate the most prominent factors influencing the tribological performance of nanolubricants. The statistical results showed that the applied load, followed by a concentration of MWCNTs conferred the most significant impact on the frictional characteristic. In contrast, the kinematic viscosity of PAOs, followed by concentration of MWCNTs has been observed the most significant influencing factors on the antiwear properties of nanolubricants. The probabilistic rationale for the advancement in friction and wear properties were assessed through various analytical tools.
Mouth rinsing with branched‐chain amino acids and carbohydrates on steady‐state metabolism, exercise performance, and the endocrine responses to exercise (634.6)

Previous research suggests that mouth rinsing carbohydrates (CHO) improves exercise performance. The mechanisms for the improvement are not yet known, but may involve maintenance of insulin concentrations during exercise or attenuation of centrally‐mediated fatigue from putative, caloric‐responsive receptors in the oral cavity. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of mouth rinsing branched‐chain amino acids (BCAA) or CHO on cycle time trial performance, blood markers of central fatigue (prolactin), plasma insulin, glucose, and lactate concentrations, substrate oxidation during steady‐state exercise, and the subjective exercise experience. Ten healthy, endurance‐trained adult males (23.5 ± 3.8 y, 74.0 ± 9.0 kg, 180.5 ± 5.4 cm, 57.9 ± 6.9 ml/kg/min VO2 peak) volunteered for the study. Participants exercised at 65% Wattmax for 30 min then completed a time trial equivalent to 30 min cycling at 75% Wattmax. Participants rinsed the mouth with 6% glucose (CHO), 6% branched‐chain amino acids (BCAA), or water (PLA) for 10 s at the start and after every 10 min during the steady‐state exercise and cycle time trial. Treatment did not affect heart rate, ratings of perceived exertion, affect, arousal, plasma glucose and lactate concentrations, and substrate oxidation during steady‐state exercise and a cycle time trial. Furthermore, mouth rinsing BCAA or CHO did not affect plasma insulin or prolactin concentrations during steady‐state exercise or a cycle time trial. Finally, mouth rinsing BCAA or CHO did not affect cycle time trial performance after steady‐state exercise. In conclusion, mouth rinsing BCAA or CHO does not improve cycle time trial lasting approximately 30 min when performed after 30 min steady‐state exercise.
A novel numerical manner for two‐dimensional space fractional diffusion equation arising in transport phenomena

Fractional diffusion equations include a consistent and efficient explanation of transport phenomena that manifest abnormal diffusion, that cannot be often represented by second‐order diffusion equations. In this article, a two‐dimensional space fractional diffusion equation (SFDE‐2D) with nonhomogeneous and homogeneous boundary conditions is considered in Caputo derivative sense. An instant and nevertheless accurate scheme is obtained by the finite‐difference discretization to get the semidiscrete in temporal derivative with convergence order O(δτ2) . Moreover, space fractional derivative can be approximated based on the Chebyshev polynomials of second kind which are powerful methods for basing the operational matrix. The convergence and stability of the proposed scheme are discussed theoretically in detail. Finally, two numerical problems with an exact solution are given that numerical results show the effectiveness of the new techniques. These schemes can be simply extended to three spatial dimensions, which will be the subject of our subsequent research.
Lean-as-imagined differs from lean-as-done: the influence of complexity

Abstract Lean production has been more and more applied in systems with various levels of complexity, which tends to create a gap between Lean-as-Imagined (LAI) in design and Lean-as-Done (LAD) in practice. This paper presents a framework for investigating the influence of complexity on that gap. The framework was applied in a nine-month study in a large plant of a transnational auto-parts manufacturer in Brazil. Three main sources of data were used: 21 interviews, around 196 hours of observations, and documents. Twenty-two examples of the gap are presented; each example is analysed in terms of what LAI and LAD look like, lean principles involved, mechanisms by which complexity influences the gap, and practical implications. Findings suggest that resilience arising from the self-organization of employees, which is a manifestation of complexity, plays an important role for the implementation of lean production. In addition, the framework’s contribution to leanness assessment is discussed. Four research propositions to be tested in future studies are also presented.
Ligand Docking and Virtual Screening in Structure‐based Drug Discovery

As the number of high‐resolution three‐dimensional protein and nucleic acid structures continues to grow, ligand‐docking—based virtual screening of chemical libraries to a receptor are playing a critical role in the drug discovery process by identifying new ‘drug‐candidates’. The capability to correctly predict ligand‐protein interaction is fundamental to any accurate docking algorithm and the necessary starting point for any reliable virtual screening protocol. Furthermore, explicit consideration of receptor flexibility in computational ligand docking is emerging in many cases as crucial for an accurate prediction of the orientation and interactions of ligands within the binding pocket. The combination of ligand docking with a fast scoring algorithm that can account for the thermodynamics of binding, and discriminate between potential active/inactive compounds, can greatly reduced the number of compounds to be tested experimentally, while predicting a detailed structure of hits bound to the receptor usef.
UV‐Curing Science and Technology

A general overview is presented on UV-curing science and technology. After the description of the UV-initiated cross-linking reaction, the two main process, radical UV curing and cationic UV curing, are considered. Finally, the main applications of UV-curing technology are briefly described. Keywords: UV curing; radical UV curing; cationic UV curing
Well-being and student–faculty interactions in higher education

ABSTRACT The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) calls for going beyond the measure of market strength to assess societal progress through a consideration of well-being. Research on college and university student experiences and outcomes can consider students’ well-being as a means of obtaining a fuller understanding of the positive impact of student–faculty interactions. This study uses longitudinal data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education to examine the relationship between five measures of interactions with faculty and students’ end-of-fourth-year psychological well-being in the United States. Results reveal that several measures of student–faculty interaction are positively associated with fourth-year well-being, and that the frequency and perceived quality of those interactions are most salient in terms of students’ well-being gains over four years of college or university. These findings suggest that student–faculty interactions matter in terms of students’ well-being, in turn making it important for faculty and administrators to consider how to prioritize demands on faculty members’ time.
The mediating effect of customer satisfaction in relationship with service quality, corporate social responsibility, perceived quality and brand loyalty

This paper aims to examine empirically the mediation role of customer satisfaction between service quality, customer perceived value, corporate social responsibility, and brand loyalty at Lebanese private universities. A survey was administered with 378 respondents. A judgmental sample of university students were selected. The framework was tested through structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings indicate that service quality and perceived value influence customer satisfaction while satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between perceived value and brand loyalty. Additionally, corporate social responsibility showed insignificant relationship with customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. This study proposed that marketers should focus on service quality, customer perceived value and customer satisfaction for increasing brand loyalty in adopting their strategies at Lebanese private universities.
Second harmonic generation and orientational order in connective tissue: a mosaic model for fibril orientational ordering in rat-tail tendon

Orientational ordering of collagen fibrils in rat-tail tendon is studied by means of second harmonic generation (SHG). The polarization dependence of this nonlinear optical process is shown to provide information about the orientation distribution of the fibrils which is comparable to that obtainable from X-ray diffraction. It is also shown that SHG provides new information about the spatial dependence of this distribution which is not easily obtainable by other means. In rat-tail tendon the collagen fibrils are ordered in units whose dimensions are large compared to the wavelength of light, and within each such unit there exists a high degree of fibril parallelism. The major source of orientational disorder is due to the relative misalignment of these units. It is thus demonstrated for the first time that the correct description of orientational order in this widely studied model system requires the use of a mosaic model.