Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Effect of a Carbon-Containing Additive in the Structure of a Friction Material on Temperature of the Wet Clutch Disc

This paper consists of two parts. The first one contains a description and methodology of the composite material used as friction material in clutches. Four variants of such material, differing in the type of carbon additive (the elemental graphite, pencil graphite and foundry coke powder of various fractions) were considered. Thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity as well as the specific heat all materials were determined experimentally. On the inertial IM-58 stand, a simulation of the braking process of the friction pair consisting of a steel disc with friction material and a counterpart in the form of a homogeneous steel disc was carried out. On this basis, averaged coefficients of friction, unchanging in the entire sliding process, were found for the four friction pairs. The experimental data obtained in the first stage were used in the second stage to develop two (2D and 3D) numerical models of the friction heating process of the friction pairs under consideration. For four variants of the friction material, a comparative spatial-temporal temperature analysis was performed using both models. It was found that a simplified axisymmetric (2D) model can be used to estimate the maximum temperature with high accuracy. The lowest maximum temperature (115.6 °C) obtained for the same total friction work was achieved on the friction surface of the material with the addition of GP-1.
INVESTIGATION OF ATM PROPULSION FORCE-TIME PROFILES USING FUNCTIONAL DATA ANALYSIS ON FRONT CRAWL SPRINT SWIMMERS

The purpose of this investigation was to assess whether characteristics of the Assisted Towing Method (ATM) propulsive force-time profiles can discriminate between elite and sub-elite male sprint swimmers. Eleven elite and seven sub-elite sprint front crawl swimmers completed the ATM protocol to capture propulsion force-time profiles. The second full stroke cycle taken from the median propulsion trial on both the right and left arms were selected and functional data analysis was used to process the trials. Functional principal components analysis (fPCA) results revealed a statistical difference between the elite and sub-elite groups (p > 0.000). Further, within the elite group profiles, a distinctive double peak was found. The double peak profile could suggest a more efficient and effective stroking ratio of active drag and propulsion within the elite group.
Learning to Drive from Observations while Staying Safe

The simulation of real-world traffic is a challenging task that can be accelerated by imitation learning. Recent approaches based on neural network policies were able to present promising results in generating human-like driving behavior. However, one drawback is that certain behaviors, such as avoiding accidents, cannot be guaranteed with such policies. Therefore, we propose to combine recent imitation learning methods like GAIL with a rule-based safety framework to avoid collisions during training and testing. Our method is evaluated on highway driving scenes where all vehicles are controlled by our driving policies trained on the real-world driving dataset highD. In this setup, our method is compared to a standard neural network policy trained with GAIL. Agents using our method were able to match GAIL performance while additionally guaranteeing collision-free driving.
Probabilistic VRU Trajectory Forecasting for Model-Predictive Planning A Case Study: Overtaking Cyclists

This article examines probabilistic trajectory forecasting methods of vulnerable road users (VRU) for the motion planning of autonomous vehicles. The future trajectories of a cyclist are predicted by Quantile Surface Neural Networks (QSN) and Mixture Density Neural Networks (MDN), both modeling confidence regions around the cyclist’s expected locations. Confidence regions are approximated by different methods with varying degrees of complexity to bridge the gap between forecasting and planning. Model-Predictive Planning (MPP) based on these regions is used for the autonomous vehicle. The approach is evaluated using a case study regarding safe trajectory planning for overtaking cyclists. The experiments show the effectiveness of the approach. Different considerations on the use of combined probabilistic trajectory prediction and vehicle trajectory planning are included.
Evaluation of New Urbanization Development Level in Kunming City

In order to understand the development of new urbanization more thoroughly and comprehensively, this paper analyzes the level of urbanization, the level of basic public services, the level of ecological environment, the level of transportation, the level of information services and the level of economic development, and selects 29 indicators. Taking Kunming as an example, AHP and improved entropy method are used to evaluate the development level of new urbanization in Kunming from 2015 to 2019, and the evaluation results are observed and analyzed. The final results show that the comprehensive evaluation index of the new urbanization development level of Kunming is increasing year by year.
Photoacoustic imaging of 3D-printed vascular networks

Thrombosis in the circulation system can lead to major myocardial infarction and cardiovascular deaths. Understanding thrombosis formation is necessary for developing safe and effective treatments. In this work, using digital light processing (DLP)-based 3D printing, we fabricated sophisticated in vitro models of blood vessels with internal microchannels that can be used for thrombosis studies. In this regard, photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) offers a unique advantage for label-free visualization of the 3D-printed vessel models, with large penetration depth and functional sensitivity. We compared the imaging performances of two PAM implementations: optical-resolution PAM and acoustic-resolution PAM, and investigated 3D-printed vessel structures with different patterns of microchannels. Our results show that PAM can provide clear microchannel structures at depths up to 3.6 mm. We further quantified the blood oxygenation in the 3D-printed vascular models, showing that thrombi had lower oxygenation than the normal blood. We expect that PAM can find broad applications in 3D printing and bioprinting for in vitro studies of various vascular and other diseases.
Financial innovation and moral hazard: the case of time deposits with special guarantee

ABSTRACT The macroprudential policy mechanism of Time Deposits with Special Guarantee (TDSG) was introduced in Brazil after the 2008 global financial crisis to prevent a liquidity shock in the banking sector. The TDSG is a form of deposit insurance established to avoid bank runs and protect depositors in the event of bankruptcy of financial institutions. In this paper, we study the impact of the TDSG policy on the moral hazard of small and medium-sized Brazilian banks based on data from 101 banks in the period 2007 to 2015. The empirical evaluation relies on difference-in-differences estimators with fixed effects. The results provide evidence validating the hypothesis of moral hazard associated with the TDSG policy.
Study of Testing Methods for Absorption of RAM Used in Chamber with Large Incident Angle

A method of RAM absorption testing based on comparison principle is described. The difference between NRL-arc method and RCS method is given. It is difficult to perform test in large incident angle using NRL-arc method. While using RCS method in large chamber, it is easier. At last, a set of testing results with analysis are presented.
CMOS Low-Dropout Voltage Regulator Design Trends: An Overview

Systems-on-Chip’s (SoC) design complexity demands a high-performance linear regulator architecture to maintain a stable operation for the efficient power management of today’s devices. Over the decades, the low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator design has gained attention due to its design scalability with better performance in various application domains. Industry professionals as well as academia have put forward their innovations such as event-driven explicit time-coding, exponential-ratio array, switched RC bandgap reference circuit, etc., to make a trade-off between several performance parameters such as die area, ripple rejection, supply voltage range, and current efficiency. However, current LDO architectures in micro and nanometer complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology face some challenges, such as short channel effects, gate leakage, fabrication difficulty, and sensitivity to process variations at nanoscale. This review presents the LDO architectures, optimization techniques, and performance comparisons in different LDO design domains such as digital, analog, and hybrid. In this review, various state-of-the-art circuit topologies, deployed for the betterment of LDO performance and focusing on the specific parameter up-gradation to the overall improvement of the functionality, are framed, which will serve as a comparative study and reference for researchers.
Interfacial Peptides as Affinity Modulating Agents of Protein-Protein Interactions

The identification of disease-related protein-protein interactions (PPIs) creates objective conditions for their pharmacological modulation. The contact area (interfaces) of the vast majority of PPIs has some features, such as geometrical and biochemical complementarities, “hot spots”, as well as an extremely low mutation rate that give us key knowledge to influence these PPIs. Exogenous regulation of PPIs is aimed at both inhibiting the assembly and/or destabilization of protein complexes. Often, the design of such modulators is associated with some specific problems in targeted delivery, cell penetration and proteolytic stability, as well as selective binding to cellular targets. Recent progress in interfacial peptide design has been achieved in solving all these difficulties and has provided a good efficiency in preclinical models (in vitro and in vivo). The most promising peptide-containing therapeutic formulations are under investigation in clinical trials. In this review, we update the current state-of-the-art in the field of interfacial peptides as potent modulators of a number of disease-related PPIs. Over the past years, the scientific interest has been focused on following clinically significant heterodimeric PPIs MDM2/p53, PD-1/PD-L1, HIF/HIF, NRF2/KEAP1, RbAp48/MTA1, HSP90/CDC37, BIRC5/CRM1, BIRC5/XIAP, YAP/TAZ–TEAD, TWEAK/FN14, Bcl-2/Bax, YY1/AKT, CD40/CD40L and MINT2/APP.
Optimal Regional Voltage Thresholds for Identifying Ablation Targets in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation

Pulmonary vein isolation plus ablation of additional arrhythmic substrate is used to treat persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) patients. Atrial arrhythmogenic substrate contains increased myocardial fibrosis and displays low bipolar voltage < 0.5 mV during SR or < 0.3-0.5 mV during AF. However, discrepancies were reported in the extent and location oflow voltage areas (LVA) between SR and AF maps. This paper studies these differences and identifies if regional thresholds can improve the correlation. Twenty-eight patients with AF underwent high-density voltage mapping during both SR and AF. Each patient's voltage information was projected onto a mean geometry to analyse the spatial accordance of LVA identified during AF at various thresholds with those during SR at 0.5mV threshold. The model was split into six regions to identify which regions have the lowest agreement between SR and AF and if regional thresholds could improve this. Areas of high and low voltage were similar in both mapping modalities. However, differences of > 0.7mV occurred on the lateral and posterior wall. When using one threshold for the entire atria, agreement at the posterior wall was < 70%. This improved by 10% when using a regional AF threshold. Therefore, substrate targeted for ablation during AF mapping can be more accurately identified on the posterior wall using a lower threshold.
Supplementary material to "Observations of gas-phase products from the nitrate radical-initiated oxidation of four monoterpenes"

Abstract. Chemical ionization mass spectrometry with nitrate reagent ion (NO3− CIMS) was used to investigate the products of nitrate radical (NO3) initiated oxidation of four monoterpenes in laboratory chamber experiments. α-Pinene, β-pinene, Δ-3-carene, and α-thujene were studied. The major gas-phase species produced in each system were distinctly different, showing the effect of monoterpene structure on the oxidation mechanism and further elucidated the contributions of these species to particle formation and growth. By comparing groupings of products based on ratios of elements in the general formula CwHxNyOz, the relative importance of specific mechanistic pathways (fragmentation, termination, radical rearrangement) can be assessed for each system. Additionally, the measured time series of the highly oxidized reaction products provide insights into the ratio of relative production and loss rates of the high molecular weight products of the Δ-3-carene system. Measured effective O : C ratio of reaction products were anti-correlated to new particle formation intensity and number concentration for each system; however, monomer : dimer ratio of products was positively correlated. Gas phase yields of oxidation products measured by NO3− CIMS correlated with particle number concentrations for each monoterpene system, with the exception of α-thujene, which produced a considerable amount of low volatility products but no particles. Species-resolved wall loss was measured with NO3− CIMS and found to be highly variable among oxidized reaction products in our stainless steel chamber.
Scrutinizing Indonesia’s Agricultural Start-ups

Enormous agricultural resources and broad market coverage have not made agricultural startups develop more massively than non-agricultural startups. Agricultural startups play a vital role in helping to provide and improve food accessibility and stimulate the welfare of producers. This study aims to analyze the development strategy of Indonesian agricultural startups. The method used is a qualitative and quantitative approach carried out with discussions/interviews with agricultural startup stakeholders and analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT). The results show that the right strategy is an aggressive strategy by conducting business expansion in concentration on horizontal integration in each part, both on the upstream side, on-farm, downstream, and as supporting roles. For this reason, various efforts and policies are still needed to reduce the risk of agricultural startup businesses, namely (1) build and develop digital infrastructure, including the development of digital talent, (2) cooperation between the government and the private sector to introduce technology and innovation. In agriculture, (3) developing commodity futures markets and warehouse receipt systems, (4) increasing the role of incubation and or acceleration of agricultural startups, and (5) increasing the availability and accessibility of integrated data as a basis for decision making.
Bacterial recognition by PGRP-SA and downstream signalling by Toll/DIF sustain commensal gut bacteria in Drosophila

The gut sets the immune and metabolic parameters for the survival of commensal bacteria. We report that in Drosophila, deficiency in bacterial recognition upstream of Toll/NF-κB signalling resulted in reduced density and diversity of gut bacteria. Translational regulation factor 4E-BP, a transcriptional target of Toll/NF-κB, mediated this host-bacteriome interaction. In healthy flies, Toll activated 4E-BP, which enabled fat catabolism, which resulted in sustaining of the bacteriome. The presence of gut bacteria kept Toll signalling activity thus ensuring the feedback loop of their own preservation. When Toll activity was absent, TOR-mediated suppression of 4E-BP made fat resources inaccessible and this correlated with loss of intestinal bacterial density. This could be overcome by genetic or pharmacological inhibition of TOR, which restored bacterial density. Our results give insights into how an animal integrates immune sensing and metabolism to maintain indigenous bacteria in a healthy gut.
Neodeightonia arengae sp. nov., Botryosphaeriaceous taxa on Arenga tremula (Arecaceae) from Guangdong, China

Microfungi associated with palm are a significant fungal group with a unique ecological niche and a broad distribution in tropical regions. Even though many fungal species have been reported from palm hosts, studies on fungi from Arenga tremula are considerably few. In this study, we isolated a saprobic Botryosphaeriaceae species on A. tremula, collected from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China. Morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS), small subunit nuclear rRNA gene (SSU),part of the large subunit nuclear rRNA gene (LSU) and translation elongation factor 1−alpha gene (tef 1-α). Based on phylogenetic results and morphology we introduced Neodeightonia arengae sp. nov., with species description and illustrations. In addition, we provide a comparison of morphological characters of currently accepted Neodeightonia species. This is the first report of a Neodeightonia species associated with Arenga tremula and so represents an additional contribution to the knowledge of fungi associated with palm trees.
Positive Organizational Practices, Life Satisfaction, and Psychological Capital in the Public and Private Sectors

Public and private sector employees confronted stressful life circumstances that affected the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, new knowledge on possible psychological and organizational resources is needed. This study aimed to explore positive organizational practices, psychological capital, and life satisfaction of employees in the public and private sectors. The survey applied the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), the Psychological Capital Questionnaire—PCQ-24, validated in the Lithuanian population (the Lith-PCQ-21), and the Positive Organizational Practices Questionnaire. The sample consisted of 582 employees, including 443 public sector and 139 private sector employees. The respondents’ mean age was 42.0981 years (SD = 13.23083). The CFA results confirmed the six-factor structure of positive organizational practices, χ2 = 270,884.785; Df = 406; CFI = 0.996; TLI = 0.996; NFI = 0.995; RMSEA = 0.074 [0.070–0.078]; SRMR = 0.043, the four-factor structure of psychological capital, χ2 = 32,780.109; Df = 190; CFI = 0.983; TLI = 0.980; NFI = 0.978; RMSEA = 0.082 [0.076–0.088]; SRMR = 0.067, and one factor structure of life satisfaction, χ2 = 10,588.246; Df = 10; CFI = 0.999; TLI = 0.999; NFI = 0.999; RMSEA = 0.022 [0.000–0.066]; SRMR = 0.014. The findings revealed that private sector employees demonstrated higher scores of dignity, support, care, forgiveness, and overall positive organizational practices than public sector employees. Private sector employees demonstrated higher optimism scores than public sector employees, and public sector employees demonstrated higher self-efficacy scores than private sector employees. Male employees demonstrated significantly higher scores on dignity, meaning, and forgiveness than females. Significant positive correlations were found between age and resilience, care and age, care and number of working years, care and number of working years in the current organization. Psychological capital mediated the link between positive organizational practices and life satisfaction. Positive organizational practices were linked to life satisfaction and psychological capital in both employees’ groups, but the features of links were distinctive in the public and private sectors. These results signify the importance of positive organizational practices and psychological capital for the life satisfaction of employees.
Urbanization and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission nexus in the CEMAC countries

PurposeThis study investigates the relationship between urbanization and carbon dioxide emission in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community from 1990 to 2019. The literature reveals that the relationship between urbanization and carbon dioxide emissions is still debatable and the existing findings are inconclusive.Design/methodology/approachCarbon dioxide is the regressand; while, urbanization, gross domestic product (GDP) and financial development (FD), rule of law (ROL) and government effectiveness (GEF) are the regressors. Johansen Fisher and Kao residual co-integration tests alongside the fully modified and dynamic ordinary least squares.FindingsThe results show a significant positive relationship between urbanization and carbon dioxide emissions. The causality tests results show that carbon dioxide granger causes urbanization, GDP and FD unit directionally.Research limitations/implicationsThe countries' governments should effectively improve their legal systems to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Urbanization laws should be implemented to limit urbanization environmental deteriorating effects on carbon dioxide emissions. This occurs as the countries practiced unregulated urbanization which increases population's environmental impacts. The study recommends sustainable green urbanization policies for environmental conservation through tree planting and horticulture. Balance development in urban and rural areas is vital to decongest the urban cities' pressure in the states. The governments should motivate the private sector with rural investments captivating policies to limit rural urban migration.Originality/valueThe findings contribute value by supporting a positive link between urbanization and carbon dioxide emissions in the CEMAC zone. The causality tests findings confirm the view that carbon dioxide granger causes urbanization, GDP and FD unit directionally. This value addition is essential to the governments and policy makers to mitigate urbanization and carbon dioxide emissions in the CEMAC region.