Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Crosslinked poly(glycidyl methacrylate)‐based resin for removal of mercury from aqueous solutions

Glycidyl methacrylate–based resin crosslinked beads with acetamide functions were demonstrated to be efficient in the removal of mercury. Beaded polymer supports were prepared by suspension polymerization of glycidyl methacrylate (0.9 mol) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (0.1 mol). The resulting copolymer beads were modified through epoxy functions in two steps: (1) by treatment with excess dibutyl amine and (2) by subsequent reaction with chloroacetamide. The resulting polymer resin, which had a chloroacetamide content of 2.5 mmol/g, was effective in extracting mercury from aqueous solutions. The mercury sorption capacity was around 2.2 mmol/g in nonbuffered conditions. Experiments performed in identical conditions with several metal ions revealed that Cd(II), Pb(II), Zn(II), and Fe(III) ions also were extractable in low quantities (0.2–0.8 mmol/g). The sorbed mercury could be eluted by repeated treatment with hot acetic acid without hydrolysis of the amide groups. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 348–352, 2006
A manipulation of pyrolysis reaction pathways for selective bio-oil composition

Fast pyrolysis is a promising biomass conversion technology to convert solid biomass to liquid bio-oil that has a potential to be upgraded into chemicals or fuels. However, high acidity and reactivity of a raw bio-oil creates utilization problems such as instability and corrosivity during storage, making the oil less attractive as renewable sources. Thus, knowledge of how to manipulate bio-oil composition by reducing acidity or reactivity during pyrolysis is important in commercializing pyrolysis process. Research in this dissertation focuses on a manipulation of the bio-oil species with different approaches. While significant effort has been spent to understand the pyrolysis chemistry of cellulose with key success, a complex structure of lignin has been a bottleneck in understanding lignin pyrolysis. Thus, pyrolysis reaction pathways of lignin model compounds have been investigated in attempt to understand native lignin pyrolysis. This study suggests that not only free radical reaction which has been predominantly proposed in literatures but also pericyclic reaction is significantly involved in pyrolysis. Secondly, catalytic manipulation of bio-oil composition was quantitatively studied by performing a full mass balance on all of the products generated from in situ CFP. This study demonstrates that the high consumptions of C and H of bio-oil during CFP led to lower energy recovery with CFP than thermal pyrolysis. Due to the low energy recovery from in situ CFP, a third study aimed to study a vapor manipulation using ex situ adsorbent. CaCO3, adsorbent, showed a high activity for acetic acid removal by forming calcium acetate. It was also found that selectivity toward acid
Simulation of Three-Dimensional Particle Deposition Patterns in Human Lungs and Comparison with Experimental SPECT Data

To further validate a stochastic particle deposition model, three-dimensional deposition patterns predicted by that model were compared with corresponding spatial particle deposition data obtained from SPECT measurements. In the in vivo inhalation experiments, two different polydisperse aerosols with mass median aerodynamic diameters of 1.6 μ m and 6.8 μ m were inhaled by 12 test subjects, using different nebulizers. Predicted and measured deposition data were compared on three different levels: (1) total lung deposition, (2) deposition per hemispherical shell, and (3) deposition per airway generation. First, experimental and theoretical total lung deposition data showed good agreement for both the fine (65 ± 9% vs. 55 ± 21%) and the coarse aerosols (55 ± 8% vs. 46 ± 4%). Second, predicted deposition per hemispherical shell also corresponded well with the experimental data, both exhibiting small deposition fractions in the inner shells and a roughly quadratic increase in the outer shells. Third, fair agreement was observed for the deposition fractions per airway generation, both experimental data and modelling predictions exhibiting relatively small deposition fractions in central bronchial airway generations, followed by a steep increase in the peripheral respiratory airways. While the overall agreement between measured SPECT data and computed deposition fractions demonstrates that SPECT data can indeed be used for model validation, the current spatial resolution of the SPECT method allows only a limited validation of model predictions at the single airway generation level.
The Far-Infrared Properties of (TMTSF)2Pfg and (TMTSF)2ClO4 at 6K

Abstract The far-infrared reflectivities of (TMTSF)2PF6 and (TMTSF)2ClO4, as well as Ttf-Tcnq, has been obtained by a “composite-bolometer” technique, in which a small doped-germanium bolometer is attached to the rear face of a single organic crystal. The temperature rise of the crystal, upon irradiation, is proportional to 1-R, which leads to accurate values of R when it is very close to unity. The conductivity for (TMTSF)2PF6 at 6K for a has an asymmetric response with a peak at 45 ± 5 cm−1, in fair agreement with the thermal gap of 33 cm−1, and a sharp feature at 18 ± 1 cm−1. For the response follows the inverse square-root dependence very well, and the peak is at 35 ± 5 cm−1. The TTF-TCNQ response also shows a one-dimensional type behaviour with a peak at 300 cm−1. The (TMTSF)2ClO4 results are compared with other data.
Genetic structure in the endosymbiont Breviolum ‘muscatinei’ is correlated with geographical location, environment and host species

Corals and cnidarians form symbioses with dinoflagellates across a wide range of habitats from the tropics to temperate zones. Notably, these partnerships create the foundation of coral reef ecosystems and are at risk of breaking down due to climate change. This symbiosis couples the fitness of the partners, where adaptations in one species can benefit the holobiont. However, the scales over which each partner can match their current—and future—environment are largely unknown. We investigated population genetic patterns of temperate anemones (Anthopleura spp.) and their endosymbiont Breviolum ‘muscatinei’, across an extensive geographical range to identify the spatial scales over which local adaptation is possible. Similar to previously published results, two solitary host species exhibited isolation by distance across hundreds of kilometres. However, symbionts exhibited genetic structure across multiple spatial scales, from geographical location to depth in the intertidal zone, and host species, suggesting that symbiont populations are more likely than their hosts to adaptively mitigate the impact of increasing temperatures.
Peer Influence in Initiation to Heroin Use

Much research on heroin initiation shows that most people use heroin initially with friends or family. However, there is little research examining why those who use heroin would initiate others to its use, and conversely, whether and why one might try to prevent initial heroin use in others. Following recent work on peer influence on crime and delinquency, we test the hypothesis that those with higher levels of self-control are less likely to initiate others to heroin use and are more likely to try to prevent others from using for the first time. The sample included 370 persons entering an opioid withdrawal program. We find that those with low self-control are more likely to initiate others, but there is no relationship between self-control and trying to prevent initiation. We further investigate self-reported motives for initiating others, and find a mix of self-interested and more altruistic motives for initiating others.
Community Detection Algorithm based on Node Similarity in Signed Networks

Hierarchical clustering algorithms based on node similarity have been widely used in community detection, but it is not suitable for signed networks. The typical signed network community detection algorithm has the problem of low community division rate from different nodes. Based on the similarity of nodes, this paper proposes the CDNS algorithm (Community Detection Algorithm based on Node Similarity in Signed Networks). Firstly, the algorithm proposes a node influence measure suitable for signed networks as the basis for selecting the initial node of the community. Secondly, it proposes the calculation of the node similarity based on the eigenvector centrality, and selects the node with the highest similarity from the initial node from the neighbour nodes to form the initial community. Finally, according to the community contribution of neighbour nodes, algorithm determines whether the neighbour nodes are joined in the community and in which order the neighbour nodes are joined in the community. The experiments of real signed network and simulated signed network prove that the CDNS algorithm has good accuracy and efficiency.
Few-Shot Legal Knowledge Question Answering System for COVID-19 Epidemic

Recently, the pandemic caused by COVID-19 is severe in the entire world. The prevention and control of crimes associated with COVID-19 are critical for controlling the pandemic. Therefore, to provide efficient and convenient intelligent legal knowledge services during the pandemic, in this paper, we develop an intelligent system for answering legal questions on the WeChat platform. The data source we used for training our system is “The typical cases of national procuratorial authorities handling crimes against the prevention and control of the new coronary pneumonia pandemic following the law”, which is published online by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of the People’s Republic of China. We base our system on BERT (a well-known pre-trained language model) and use the shared attention mechanism to capture the text information further. Then we train a model to minimise the contrastive loss. Finally, the system uses the trained model to identify the information entered by a user, and accordingly responds to the user with a reference case similar to the query case and give the reference legal gist applicable to the query case.
Dynamical Alignment and Estimation for Horizontal Attitude of UAV Based on Vision and IMU.

Exact attitude estimation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is the critical requirement for an autonomous and stable flight. Under dynamic conditions, the autopilot of a UAV cannot complete self-alignment and calculate its accurate attitude only by relying on an inertial measurement unit (IMU). This paper presents a dynamical alignment and estimation method for the horizontal attitude (the pitch and roll Euler angle) based on vision and inertial measurement units (IMU). Firstly, the horizontal attitude is estimated through image information of a visible light camera (hereinafter referred to as visual pose), and is used as the initial alignment input for IMU. Then the visual pose is corrected according to the normalized accelerometer output when UAV is stationary. Finally, Sage-Husa Adaptive Kalman Filter (SHAKF) is used for the fusion of the visual pose and the inertial attitude (the attitude calculated by the IMU). The simulation results show that the maximum estimation error of the UAV's horizontal attitude is within 3°, and the average estimation absolute error is less than 1°, which verifies the effectiveness of this method.
Lane Detection Combining Details and Integrity: an Advanced Method for Lane Detection

Lane detection methods based on convolutional neural network have achieved excellent performance in recent years. Most of them treat lane detection as a semantic segmentation task which judges whether each pixel belongs to a lane. To make full use of the characteristics of lane shape, some researchers proposed to predict the whole lane. In this paper, we propose Lane Detection Combining Details and Integrity (LDCDI) which can explicitly leverage the advantages of both the segmentation-based methods and the regression-based methods. Specifically, we exploit an extra branch with regression-based methods as the auxiliary module after the main module. It not only maintains the advantages of the segmentation-based methods in lane detail segmentation, but also enables the model to have a sufficient understanding of the lane shape. Besides, the auxiliary module only takes part in the training, and there is no extra cost in the prediction. To further improve the quality of lane detection, we introduce a novel direction-sensitive block (DSB) based on ERFNet as the main module, which is more sensitive to the direction information of the image, so as to obtain better performance. Extensive experiments on the CULane dataset can demonstrate that our method outperforms other methods and achieves the state-of-the-art.
The Gravitation-based Algorithm for Community Detecting in Large-scale Social Networks

Communities are clusters of closely connected nodes in a social network. Detecting community structure can help us understand their network characteristics. Most popular algorithms are based on modularity optimization, such as the SLM algorithm. The SLM algorithm can detect non-overlapping communities. However, communities in real-world networks also overlap as nodes maybe belong to multiple clusters. Some models such as the BIGCLAM algorithm can be used to discover the overlapping community structure, but it has some problems in running community detection algorithms on large-scale networks. In this paper, we present a novel gravitation-based algorithm (GBA) which is inspired by the theory of galaxy evolution. The GBA algorithm is based on Newton's law of universal gravitation to simulate the process of community evolution. It includes the AGB algorithm and the AFMG algorithm. The AGB algorithm is used to detect community structure and find the center community. The AFMG algorithm is used to find the max gravity of the community. The experimental results show that our algorithm can detect overlapping communities in large-scale networks of tens millions of nodes, uncover good partitions of networks and are faster than compared methods by two to three orders of magnitude.
The impact of quarantine on Covid-19 infections

Abstract Objectives: Coronavirushas had profound effects on people’s lives and the economy of many countries, generating controversy between the need to establish quarantines and other social distancing measures to protect people’s health and the need to reactivate the economy. This study proposes and applies a modification of the SIR infection model to describe the evolution of coronavirus infections and to measure the effect of quarantine on the number of people infected. Methods: Two hypotheses, not necessarily mutually exclusive, are proposed for the impact of quarantines. According to the first hypothesis, quarantine reduces the infection rate, delaying new infections over time without modifying the total number of people infected at the end of the wave. The second hypothesis establishes that quarantine reduces the population infected in the wave. The two hypotheses are tested with data for a sample of 10 districts in Santiago, Chile. Results: The results of applying the methodology show that the proposed model describes well the evolution of infections at the district level. The data shows evidence in favor of the first hypothesis, quarantine reduces the infection rate; and not in favor of the second hypothesis, that quarantine reduces the population infected. Districts of higher socio-economic levels have a lower infection rate, and quarantine is more effective. Conclusions: Quarantine, in most districts, does not reduce the total number of people infected in the wave; it only reduces the rate at which they are infected. The reduction in the infection rate avoids peaks that may collapse the health system.
Creative leadership and employee work wellness: Supervisor support as a mediator

This study aimed to investigate creative leadership, perceived supervisor support, and flourishing and burnout amongst agricultural employees. Participants were employees of a South African agricultural organisation (n = 253; male = 51.8%; 40–49 years old = 33.0%; white = 80%). They completed measures for creative leadership, supervisor support, flourishing, and burnout. Results from simple mediation modelling indicated employee perceptions of creative leadership to reduce employee burnout through positive perceptions of supervisor support. However, perceptions of creative leadership and supervisor support did not have a discernible effect on employee flourishing. We conclude that creative leadership and perceived supervisor support are essential to employee well-being, but not necessarily employee growth.
Laboratory experiments on drought and runoff in blanket peat

Global warming might change the hydrology of upland blanket peats in Britain. We have therefore studied in laboratory experiments the impact of drought on peat from the North Pennines of the UK. Runoff was dominated by surface and near‐surface flow; flow decreased rapidly with depth and differed from one type of cover to another. Infiltration depended on the intensity of rain, and runoff responded rapidly to rain, with around 50% of rainwater emerging as overland flow. Drought changed the structure of the peat and the subsequent behaviour of the peat in response to rain. Surface runoff was reduced, infiltration increased and flow increased within the deeper peat layers. Old and new water produced from the peat during simulated storms was identified by bromide tracing; the amount of old mobile water flushed out of the top few centimetres was small and there was less from deeper peat layers. No significant difference in the old and new water mixing processes could be identified between the control plots and the drought treatment plots. Lissamine staining showed preferential bypass flow through macropores in the peat, though only in the top 5 cm. Following drought, however, macroporosity increased within the upper peat layers, and preferential flow extended deeper than in controls. Peat structure recovered somewhat after drought, but the effects of the drought were long‐lasting. If these effects extend to the field during drier summers then we can expect changes to the hydrology and associated chemistry of blanket peat catchments in the British uplands.
Child learners of parents in employment sojourn: Their lived experiences in separation

This study explored the lived experiences of adolescent learners of work sojourn parents. We interviewed six left-behind Zimbabwean learners (three boys and three girls; age range = 15 to 18 years) about their lived experiences with parental absence due to work migration. We also hosted a focus group discussion with seven education and community personnel (3 teachers and 4 four community personnel) acquainted with the children to gather their perceptions of the learner’s wellness. This added to the trustworthiness of the evidence. Thematic analysis of interview data revealed the children to be at elevated risk for sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional abuse. Our findings suggest a need for wellness support programs for children whose parents are on extended work sojourn. Such programs would need to address priority areas of support identified by the children themselves and their community allies.
Spiral coil beneath fingertip enhances tactile sensation while tracing surface with small undulations

ABSTRACT We found that a spiral coil placed beneath a fingertip enhances tactile sensation while tracing small undulated surfaces. Hence, we investigated the mechanism underlying the enhanced tactile sensation. We evaluated the amplification effect quantitatively to demonstrate that the coil increases the tactile sensation in the finger pad. Specifically, we installed a strain gauge between the spiral coil and the fingertip to measure the strain corresponding to the curvature of a skin surface that undergoes deformation when tracing the surface. Then, to determine the enhancing mechanism of tactile sensation by the coil, we modeled the coil while moving on a surface with irregularities. The corresponding simulation results show that the inclination of the coil elements changes while moving on uneven shapes. Furthermore, as the distance between the tips of adjacent coil elements increases (reduces), the shape (or curvature) of the skin varies, and the skin on the fingertip attached to the coil expands (contracts) along the lateral direction. Therefore, the lateral strain on the fingertip is amplified by the coil moving on an undulated surface, thus enhancing tactile sensation. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Land subsidence induced by underground coal mining at Quang Ninh, Vietnam: persistent scatterer interferometric synthetic aperture radar observation using Sentinel-1 data

ABSTRACT Land subsidence occurs in Ha Long and Cam Pha cities due to human activities in which the underground coal mining exploitation plays a crucial responsibility. For mapping the spatial distribution of this phenomenon and monitoring its evolution over the time, the Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PSInSAR) approach was applied to 56 Sentinel-1A images, captured from June 2015 to June 2019. This approach allows monitoring ground displacement by continuously measuring the position of objects that persistently scatter radar beams. This interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique extracts deformation signals and it can be applied to areas where the discontinuous land subsidence is occurring. The mean land subsidence velocity map shows that two principal areas in Ha Long city including Ha Lam, Ha Trung, Ha Khanh, and Ha Tu wards, and Cam Pha city, specifically Mong Duong ward have been subsided in recent years with the maximum velocity of 14.5 mm year−1 and a cumulative displacement ranging from 30 to 50 mm in the Line Of Sight (LOS) direction over 4 years. Field investigation recognized the direct impact of this phenomenon on houses, infrastructures, and natural features located above the underground coal mining utilities. This hazard has a close relationship with the exploiting process of coal seams, which alternately lay inside the sedimentary layers of the Hon Gai formation.
Investigation into surface acoustic wave sensor for DCM gas detection using COMSOL multiphysics

Abstract Surface acoustic wave (SAW) gas sensors are simulated and discussed for the detection of the Dichloromethane (DCM) volatile organic gases (VOC) gas. The simulation was performed using Comsol Multiphysics software which is a finite element tool employed for the model analysis. The gas sensor response is investigated employing five different piezoelectric substrates. Among the simulated piezoelectric substrates, LiNbO3 reports the highest resonance frequency of 855.467 MHz, corresponding to a total displacement of 5.08 × 10−4 µm. The effect of sensitive polyisobutylene (PIB) thin sensing layer has been discussed along with optimization of the layer thickness. The ZnO substrate shows the least dependence on the thickness of the PIB sensing layer. Finally, the device is further simulated with the DCM gas concentration which gives corresponding frequency shift under various concentrations in the range from 10 ppm to 250 ppm. The obtained resonance frequency shift showed a linear proportionately to the DCM concentration.