Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beach Topography Surveying Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photogrammetry Technology

The mechanisms of in situ topography changes must be identified for spatial planning in coastal areas. In this study, the authors used in situ direct measurement methods and indirect remote-sensing technologies to develop a method for beach topography surveillance. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have advantages of high portability and mobility and low operating altitude. Therefore, a UAV was equipped with a lightweight camera and a positioning system that comprised a global positioning system and an inertial measurement unit. Aerial photogrammetry and aerial triangulation methods were adopted for matching image feature points to obtain the corresponding topographic points in the sand. A virtual base station with real-time kinematic positioning functionality was used to measure the coordinates of the ground control points for correcting the actual coordinates to obtain actual topographic points of the beach sand. The results obtained using image-matching point clouds and direct measurements were compared. The ground sample distance of a UAV at the operational altitude of 70 m was 3.26 cm. Moreover, the average elevation error was 3.20 cm, and the root mean square error was 0.169 m. The measurement error was ±25 cm, which was within the acceptance criteria of ±50 cm set by Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan. UAV imaging technology can increase the efficiency of conventional manual sampling and reduce the cost of indirect observations, thus minimizing the measurement errors and field measurement costs.
Ions conductance and external-stimulation dependent bifurcations

Abstract By analyzing the Hodgkin-Huxley model, it can be estimated how neurons communicate with each other. It is the most widely used model that describes why the action potentials happen and how action potentials are generated and propagated in neurons. In a nerve cell, an action potential is evoked when the membrane potential attains its threshold (bifurcation point of neuron activity) membrane potential. The substantive changes associated with membrane voltage and conductance driving the action potential. Sometimes, nerve cells show abnormal activity for different causes. In this paper, we analyze the bifurcation of the Hodgkin-Huxley model to show the relationship between the abnormal activity of the nerve cells and the ionic conductance and external stimulation into the nerve cells. We also illustrated the possible region where the nerve cells show undesirable hyperactivity by calculating the Hopf bifurcation curve.
Role of Electronic Excited State in Kinetics of the CH2OO + SO2 ! HCHO + SO3 Reaction

In this work, kinetics of the CH2OO + SO2 ! HCHO + SO3 reaction was studied by ring-polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD). To perform RPMD calculations, multi-reference configuration interaction (MRCI) was first carried out to compute data for constructing potential energy surface (PES) through a kernel regression method. On the basis of the present MRCI calculations, the statics multi-state mechanism involving the lowest-lying singlet excited state (denoted by S 1) was proposed, which is di? erent from the previously proposed mechanism with the lowest-lying triplet state (denoted by T1). Moreover, the present RPMD calculations predicted the rate coe? cient of 3:95? 10􀀀11cm3 molecule􀀀1s􀀀1 at the room temperature (namely 298 K), agreeing with the previously reported experimental values. Finally, based on the present calculations, a probable dynamics mechanism was discussed, where the produced HCHO molecule was proposed to be in a vibrationally excited state. This needs further experimental and theoretical observation in the future.
Three‐dimensional printing of high‐mass loading electrodes for energy storage applications

Nanostructured materials afford a promising potential for many energy storage applications because of their extraordinary electrochemical properties. How-ever, the remarkable electrochemical energy storage performance could only be harvested at a relatively low mass-loading via the traditional electrode fabrication process, and the scale of these materials into commercial-level mass-loading remains a daunting challenge because the ion diffusion kinetics deteriorates rapidly along with the increased thickness of the electrodes. Very recently, three-dimensional (3D) printing, a promising additive manufacturing technology, has been considered as an emerging method to address the aforementioned issues where the 3D printed electrodes could possess elaborately regulated architectures and rationally organized porosity. As a result, the outstanding electrochemical performance has been widely observed in energy storage devices made of 3D printed electrodes of high-mass loading. In this review, we systemically introduce the basic working principles of various 3D printing technologies and their practical applications to manufacture high-mass loading electrodes for energy storage devices. Challenges and perspectives in 3D printing technologies for the construction of electrodes at the current stage are also outlined, aiming to offer some useful opinions for further development for this prosperous field.
Designer Cranioplasty at Budget Prices: A Novel Use of 3D Printing Technology

Abstract Background Cranioplasty using synthetic materials for restoration of the exact shape of the skull has always remained a challenge until the development of 3D printing technology. However, the high-cost of available 3D printed implants limits their extensive use. Objectives To study the effectiveness of a low-cost, 3D-printed template for molding the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) (bone cement) in order to achieve exact contours of the skull specific to each patient. Materials and Methods 10 cranioplasties have been performed between July 2018 to December 2019 in a variety of craniotomy defects using bone cement flaps shaped using custom-made molds. The mold was 3D-printed and based on each patient’s CT images in digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM). Miniplates and screws were used to fix the flap. Postoperatively, clinical and radiological evaluation were done to assess patient satisfaction and accuracy of contour achieved. Results Patient satisfaction as well as accuracy of contouring, as seen on postoperative CT scans, were excellent. There were no notable complications on follow-up. Conclusion PMMA cranioplasty flap, contoured using a 3D-printed mold, is a very cost-effective alternative for restoration of skull contour for various craniotomy defects. Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) molded to form the exact shape of lost calvarium using 3D printed plastic templates is a smart and economical solution
Evaluation of Shell-Derived Calcium Oxide Catalysts for the Production of Biodiesel Esters from Cooking Oils

Due to the high cost of feedstock and catalyst in biodiesel production, the viability of the biodiesel industry has been dependent on government subsidies or tax incentives. In order to reduce the cost of production, food wastes including eggshells and oyster shells have been used to prepare calcium oxide (CaO) catalysts for the transesterification reaction of biodiesel synthesis. The shells were calcined at 1000 °C for 4 hours to obtain CaO powders which were investigated as catalysts for the transesterification of waste cooking oil. The catalysts were characterized by Fourier Transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy. Reaction parameters such as methanol-to-oil molar ratio, CaO catalyst concentration, and reaction time were evaluated and optimized for the percentage conversion of cooking oil to biodiesel esters. The oyster-based CaO showed better catalytic activity when compared to the eggshell-based CaO under the same set of reaction conditions.
Limited Influence of Localized Tropical Sea‐Surface Temperatures on Moisture Transport into the Arctic

Arctic moisture transport is dominated by planetary‐scale waves in reanalysis. Planetary waves are influenced by localized Sea‐Surface Temperature (SST) features such as the tropical warm pool. Here, an aquaplanet model is used to clarify the link between tropical SST anomalies and Arctic moisture transport. In a zonally uniform setup with no climatological east‐west gradients, Arctic moisture transport is dominated by transient planetary waves, as in reanalysis. Warming tropical SSTs by heating the ocean strengthens Arctic moisture transport, mediated mostly by changes in water vapor rather than eddies. This strengthening occurs whether the tropical warming is zonally uniform or localized. Cooling tropical SSTs weakens Arctic moisture transport; however, unlike warming, the pattern matters, with localized cooling producing stronger transport changes owing to nonlinear feedbacks in the surface energy budget. Thus, the simulations show that localized tropical SST anomalies influence Arctic moisture transport differently than uniform anomalies, but only in cooling scenarios.
Stakeholders conflict and private–public partnership chain (PPPC): supply chain of perishable product

PurposeThis paper aims to address procurement, logistics management, inventory control and distribution of perishable items, i.e. vegetables, fruits, flowers and fishes, during the social isolation period of the Covid-19 era to identify conflicting interests among the channel members; present inventory and information sharing scenario; and reveal organizational dispute and existence of redundant, nonessential and corrupted members in the supply chain.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses an exploratory investigation to evaluate the relations among the members of the supply chain of perishable food items. In this context, it is designed to investigate the field, observe the members of the existing supply chain from rural and remote places and capture their interviews to accomplish the objectives.FindingsThis study identified that although the supply chain of perishable food items is controlled truly by private parties, from a realistic view, the private–public partnership is essential where the government should play the coordinating role. In this context, continuous interaction, coordination and information sharing among the members to establish an optimum and scalable network and remove any redundant nodal points is a key success factor for managing an efficient supply chain.Research limitations/implicationsTheoretical and managerial implication of this research is enormous. The existence of functional and dysfunctional conflicts in the same supply network and how it can be detrimental to the performance of the members are exposed in this study, which can be an excellent source to be investigated. Practitioners and researchers can gain a greater understanding to identify the root causes of conflicts in the existing structural dynamics, shedding light on organizational interactions, power and group behavior during the Covid-19 era.Originality/valueFrom the light of management and inter-organizational conflicts, this is a pioneer study that has detected the redundant channel members, their source of power and how their removal can present an optimum channel with group coherence and synergistic interest.
The Importance of Annual Plants and Multi-Scalar Analysis for Understanding Coastal Dune Stabilization Process in the Mediterranean

Since ecological phenomena and patterns vary with scale, scalar analysis is a developing practice in ecology. Scalar analysis is most valuable in heterogeneous environments, since habitat heterogeneity is a key factor in determining biodiversity. One such case can be seen in the changes in annual vegetation in coastal sand dune systems. Most studies in these environments are carried out at the dune scale, comparing dunes at different stabilization states. However, a broader understanding of dune stabilization processes requires analyses at the finer scales of dune slope aspects (directions of exposure to wind) and patches (under and between woody perennial species). Here, we present the results of a study that combines the three scales (dune, slope, and patch) in the Mediterranean coastal dune systems in Israel. Through this multi-scalar analysis, we are able to describe processes at the finer patch and aspect scale and explain how they shape patterns at the dune scale. The results indicate that the dune scale exposes the differences in annual plant characteristics between mobile and fixed dunes, their slopes and patches and the reorganization and spatial distribution of annual plants within mobile and fixed dunes during the stabilization process.
The dynamics of musical participation

In this paper we argue that our comprehension of musical participation—the complex network of interactive dynamics involved in collaborative musical experience—can benefit from an analysis inspired by the existing frameworks of dynamical systems theory and coordination dynamics. These approaches can offer novel theoretical tools to help music researchers describe a number of central aspects of joint musical experience in greater detail, such as prediction, adaptivity, social cohesion, reciprocity, and reward. While most musicians involved in collective forms of musicking already have some familiarity with these terms and their associated experiences, we currently lack an analytical vocabulary to approach them in a more targeted way. To fill this gap, we adopt insights from these frameworks to suggest that musical participation may be advantageously characterized as an open, non-equilibrium, dynamical system. In particular, we suggest that research informed by dynamical systems theory might stimulate new interdisciplinary scholarship at the crossroads of musicology, psychology, philosophy, and cognitive (neuro)science, pointing toward new understandings of the core features of musical participation.
Prospects and limitations of genomic offset in conservation management

In nature conservation, there is keen interest in predicting how populations will respond to environmental changes such as climate change. These predictions can help determine whether a population can be self‐sustaining under future alterations of its habitat or whether it may require human intervention such as protection, restoration, or assisted migration. An increasingly popular approach in this respect is the concept of genomic offset, which combines genomic and environmental data from different time points and/or locations to assess the degree of possible maladaptation to new environmental conditions. Here, we argue that the concept of genomic offset holds great potential, but an exploration of its risks and limitations is needed to use it for recommendations in conservation or assisted migration. After briefly describing the concept, we list important issues to consider (e.g., statistical frameworks, population genetic structure, migration, independent evidence) when using genomic offset or developing these methods further. We conclude that genomic offset is an area of development that still lacks some important features and should be used in combination with other approaches to inform conservation measures.
Molecular biogeography of the Mediterranean Buthus species complex (Scorpiones: Buthidae) at its southern Palaearctic margin

Neogene orogenesis and climatic cycles strongly influenced inter- and intraspecific differentiation and variability of taxa. In this study, we focused on the southern margin of the western Palaearctic, known to be a geographically complex region. We performed mitochondrial DNA analyses of Buthus scorpions from the Moroccan Atlas Mountains, from the Hoggar Mountains in Algeria and from Tunisia, Iberia and Israel. Molecular species delimitation suggests the existence of ≥ 24 molecular operational taxonomic units. The data confirm complex differentiation patterns across the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, but structures in Iberia, Algeria and Tunisia have considerably lower complexity. This identifies the Atlas Mountain region as the most important differentiation centre of Buthus scorpions. Samples from the Hoggar Mountains (southern Algeria) cluster with those from the southernmost parts of Morocco in the middle and upper parts of the Draa Valley. This reinforces a recent connection of these regions. Samples from Israel are genetically similar to individuals from eastern Algeria and Tunisia. This suggests a widespread group across major parts of North Africa. Divergence time estimates indicate that differentiation in the genus began during the late Miocene, a period characterized by strong tectonic activities in this region. Further differentiation could be linked to subsequent climatic changes that have occurred since the end of the Miocene, with an increasing aridification of the Moroccan area. This also produced many microrefugia in the mountains of the area during the Pleistocene climatic fluctuations.
Gait planning of a quadruped robot integrating inverse kinematics and CPG

In this paper, we designed a quadruped, dog-like robot which has 3 degrees of freedom (DOFs) per leg, and combined two commonly used methods for robot’s gait control, to make better gait planning strategy in different environments. First, we chose the inverse kinematics control method, and established the quadruped robot simulation motion model in Webots to verify the validity of the motion modes such as forward, backward, turning, and height adjustment of the body. Then we utilized the CPG (Central Pattern Generator) control method, and an improved Hopf nonlinear harmonic oscillator, which requires less parameters, smaller computation complexity, and clearer physical meaning, to generate a faster trot gait. According to the timing diagram of different gaits, the coupling topology structure between CPG units was designed, with joint motion curve generated. The simulation and experiment show that compared to inverse kinematics, CPG is more suitable for producing simpler and faster periodic gait planning signals, while inverse kinematics method takes advantages in the body’s self-balance and foot’s adaptation on the ground. The two methods can be complementary to the motion control of the quadruped robot.
Structural Reliability Assessment of Offshore Wind Turbine Jacket Considering Corrosion Degradation

In this paper, an approach is proposed to conduct reliability analysis on an offshore jacket considering corrosion degradation under extreme load cases. Corrosion degradation is considered as thickness wastage of the jacket element, which is seen as time-dependent variables. One probabilistic corrosion in literature is adopted by using different distribution models. Also, three different inspection cases (environmental conditions) of the corrosion are studied. The reliability assessment is evaluated by Crude Monte Carlo simulation based on the trained surrogate model. Deep neural networks are used to train the surrogate model, because they are not limited by the distribution and dimension of variables. The results show that using different corrosion distribution model, the probabilities of failure of the jacket are different, even though they have the same mean and standard deviation values. In addition, with same assumption of the distribution model in corrosion, the reliability of the jacket changes a lot concerning different inspection cases. Furthermore, it is noted that the inspection cases have more inﬂuences on the reliability analysis of jacket than different corrosion distribution assumptions. At the end, two recommendations are derived from this work.
External validation of the Madrid Acute Kidney Injury Prediction Score

Abstract Background The Madrid Acute Kidney Injury Prediction Score (MAKIPS) is a recently described tool capable of performing automatic calculations of the risk of hospital-acquired acute kidney injury (HA-AKI) using data from from electronic clinical records that could be easily implemented in clinical practice. However, to date, it has not been externally validated. The aim of our study was to perform an external validation of the MAKIPS in a hospital with different characteristics and variable case mix. Methods This external validation cohort study of the MAKIPS was conducted in patients admitted to a single tertiary hospital between April 2018 and September 2019. Performance was assessed by discrimination using the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve and calibration plots. Results A total of 5.3% of the external validation cohort had HA-AKI. When compared with the MAKIPS cohort, the validation cohort showed a higher percentage of men as well as a higher prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, anaemia, congestive heart failure, chronic pulmonary disease, connective tissue diseases and renal disease, whereas the prevalence of peptic ulcer disease, liver disease, malignancy, metastatic solid tumours and acquired immune deficiency syndrome was significantly lower. In the validation cohort, the MAKIPS showed an area under the curve of 0.798 (95% confidence interval 0.788–0.809). Calibration plots showed that there was a tendency for the MAKIPS to overestimate the risk of HA-AKI at probability rates ˂0.19 and to underestimate at probability rates between 0.22 and 0.67. Conclusions The MAKIPS can be a useful tool, using data that are easily obtainable from electronic records, to predict the risk of HA-AKI in hospitals with different case mix characteristics.
Clean-prefetcher: look-ahead prefetching without cache pollution

In this letter, we propose a novel prefetching technique that is free from cache pollution and thus achieves high performance for multi-core processors. Unlike the conventional prefetchers that cause incorrect predictions, the proposed prefetcher reads instructions in advance only in determined paths and charges dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cellsstoringinstructionsinundeterminedpathsviarefreshingDRAMcells. TheDRAMcellshighlychargedwillbequicklyaccessed.Sincecachesservedbyourprefetcheralwaysstoreusefulinstructions,asaresult,they arefreefromcachepollutionthatresultsinlowercachehitrate.InthecasethatSPECCPU2006benchmarksrunonan8-coreprocessor,theproposed prefetcherconsumesmore3.2%DRAMpower,butachieves12%higherperformanceonaverage.
Validation of a social emotional wellness survey among Japanese elementary school students

ABSTRACT Objective: This study investigated the validity of the Social Emotional Health Survey–Primary (SEHS-P;Furlong et al., 2013), which assesses four wellness dispositions (gratitude, optimism, zest, and persistence) associated with positive youth development. Method: The sample included 995 Japanese elementary school students (Grades 4-6) attending one of four schools in and nearby Tokyo. A confirmatory factor analysis tested the fit of the hypothesized SEHS-P factor structure. Results: The model adequately fit the data. As hypothesized, items showed good factor loadings on the corresponding four factors. All parameter estimates were statistically significant (p < .01). Criterion validation examined associations between the SEHS-P and measures of psychological distress and satisfaction with classroom life. Validation coefficients were moderate to large size (.37 to .57). Reliability was good for each subscale (Alpha and Omega coefficients = .83 to .97). Conclusion: This preliminary validation of the Japanese version of SEHS-P provides a step towards introducing a much-needed, whole-school universal screening approach to support positive education in Japanese schools.