Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantifying Rates of Landscape Unzipping

Measuring rates of valley head migration and determining the timing of canyon‐opening are insightful for the evolution of planetary surfaces. Spatial gradients of in situ‐produced cosmogenic nuclide concentrations along horizontal transects provide a framework for assessing the migration of valley networks and similar topographic features. We developed a new derivation for valley head retreat rates from the concentrations of in situ‐produced cosmogenic radionuclides in valley walls. The retreat rate is inversely proportional to the magnitude of the spatial concentration gradient and proportional to local nuclide production rates. By solving for a spatial gradient in concentration along a valley parallel transect, we created an expression for the explicit determination of valley head retreat, which we refer to herein as unzipping. We applied this expression to a seepage‐derived drainage network developing along the Apalachicola River, Florida, USA. Sample concentrations along a valley margin transect varied systematically from 2.9 × 105 to 3.5 × 105 atoms/g resulting in a gradient of 160 atoms/g/m, and from this value a valley head retreat rate of 0.025 m/y was found. The discrepancy between overall network age and current rates of valley head migration suggests intermittent network growth which is consistent with glacial‐interglacial precipitation variations during the Pleistocene. This method can be applied to a wide range of Earth‐surface environments. For the 10Be system, this method should be sensitive to unzipping rates bounded between 10−6 and 100 m/y.
Skew-Circulant-Matrix-Based Harmonic-Canceling Synthesizer for BIST Applications

Testing is an important part of the design flow in the semiconductor industry. Unfortunately, it also consumes up to half of the production cost. On-silicon stimulus generators and response analyzers can be integrated with the Device-Under-Test (DUT) to reduce production costs with a minimum increment in power and area consumption. This practice is known as the Built-In Self-Test (BIST). This work presents a single-tone generator for BIST applications that is based on the Harmonic-Canceling (HC) technique. The main idea is to cancel or filter out the harmonics of a square-wave signal in order to obtain a highly pure sine wave. The design challenges of this technique are the precise implementation of irrational coefficients in silicon and the strong dependence of the output’s linearity on the coefficients’ precision. In order to reduce this dependence, this work introduces an irrational coefficient generator that is based on the recursive use of special matrices called skew-circulant matrices (SCMs). A complete study of the SCM-based HC synthesizer, its properties, and the proposed implementation in 180 nm CMOS technology are presented. The measured results show that the proposed HC synthesizer is able to filter out up to the 47th harmonic of a given square wave and to generate signals from 0.8 to 100 MHz with a maximum Spurious-Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) of 66 dB.
Natural Frequency Changes of Euler-Bernoulli Continuous Beams with Two Spans due to Crack Occurrence

In this paper the authors extend their previous researches on Euler-Bernoulli continuous beams with one span to Euler-Bernoulli continuous beams with two spans. By taking into consideration the four possible supports types, i.e. clamped, hinged, sliding and free, one obtain 16 cases. Herein the case with clamped-hinged ends is taken into consideration, the intermediate support being the hinge. For this case the characteristic equation which permits the calculus of the dimensionless wave numbers is derived. Based on this mathematical relation the dimensionless wave numbers of the first four transversal vibration modes for 100 hinge locations along the beam were derived. It makes possible to find the healthy beam frequencies for any hinge location. Afterwards, the relationship which permits the calculation of the natural frequencies of the beam in the presence of a crack, anywhere on the beam, is presented. For a given intermediate support location, the changes of natural frequencies due the existence of a crack are derived and compared with the natural frequencies of healthy beam.
Global Changes in Terrestrial Vegetation and Continental Climate During the Paleocene‐Eocene Thermal Maximum

Most studies of the response of terrestrial vegetation to climate change during the Paleocene‐Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) have focused on individual sites and sections. To get a broader perspective we compiled published records of terrestrial pollen and spores across the Paleocene‐Eocene transition at 38 sites around the globe. For the 10 sites with quantitative data PETM palynofloras were largely distinct in composition from those in the latest Paleocene or post‐PETM early Eocene. We also inferred paleoclimatic conditions at each site from the distributions of nearest living relatives (NLRs) of fossil pollen taxa among present‐day Köppen climate types. The NLRs of Paleocene high‐paleolatitude palynotaxa are most diverse in cooler climates, whereas the NLRs of PETM taxa are more diverse in warmer, wetter climates. At middle‐paleolatitudes NLRs of Paleocene palynotaxa are most diverse in warm, wet climates, whereas NLRs of PETM palynotaxa are most diverse in warm, seasonally dry climates. In the tropics there is little change from Paleocene to PETM in the climate distributions of NLRs. We compared changes in paleoclimate reconstructed from the Köppen distributions of the NLRs with those simulated from the Community Earth System Model (version CESM1.2). Paleoclimatic changes during the PETM inferred from palynological proxies are mostly consistent with modeled climate changes, including the expansion of temperate climates at the expense of cold climate types at high‐paleolatitudes and the expansion of temperate and tropical climates in middle‐paleolatitudes. Despite this concordance, modeled winter temperatures in continental interiors and high‐paleolatitudes remain colder than those reconstructed from NLR distributions.
Product promotion effectiveness : root causes of stock-outs

The unpredictable demand pattern during promotions leads to lost sales incurred due to frequent stock-outs, affecting the revenue and the brand of both the manufacturer and the retailer. The research focuses on finding out the root-causes of stock-outs in retail stores. It uses the audit response data that informs us of various states for zero on-shelf availability. These responses are used to create a fault-tree diagram that shows how different states could be reached. The root-causes mentioned in the fault-tree diagram are classified as either qualitative or quantitative root-causes. The credibility of quantitative root causes was established through regression analysis while store visits and interviews of different players of the supply chain helped to reason out the qualitative root-causes. Quantitative factors such as replenishment frequency, store sales volume and forecast accuracy seem to indicate a good correlation with stock-outs during promotions. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Daniel Steeneck Title: Postdoctoral Associate, Center for Transportation and Logistics
Task performance and job satisfaction under the effect of remote working: Call center evidence

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the entire world and caused radical changes in conducting business. During the pandemic, some companies adopted hybrid working, and some requested their employees to work entirely from their homes or workplace. This study is performed to determine the differences in the perceived task performance of employees working from home compared to those operating from their workplace and the possible mediating effect of job satisfaction due to such distinction. The study sample is limited to one call center to prevent the interference of other organizational variables such as management style, human resources practices, organizational culture, and to only call center agents to prevent any interference of the position-related factors. All the call center agents (n=421) participated in this study. The data obtained was examined by a path analysis with the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results show that the employees who work from home full-time or on certain days of the week have better general task performance perception compared to those who work only from the workplace. The work location has not been found to affect job satisfaction significantly.
Forecasting venue popularity on location‐based services using interpretable machine learning

Customers are increasingly utilizing location‐based services via mobile devices to engage with retail establishments. The focus of this paper is to identify factors that help to drive venue popularity revealed by location‐based services, which then better facilitate companies’ operational decisions, such as procurement and staff scheduling. Using data collected from Foursquare and Yelp, we build, evaluate, and compare a wide variety of machine learning methods including deep learning models with varying characteristics and degrees of sophistication. First, we find that support vector regression is the best performing model compared to other complex predictive algorithms. Second, we apply SHAP (Shapley Additive exPlanations) to quantify the contribution from each business feature at both the global and local levels. The global interpretability results show that customer loyalty, the agglomeration effect, and the word‐of‐mouth effect are the top three drivers of venue popularity. Furthermore, the local interpretability analysis reveals that the contributions of business features vary, both quantitatively and directionally. Our findings are robust with respect to different popularity measures, training and testing periods, and prediction horizons. These findings extend our knowledge of location‐based services by demonstrating their potential to play a prominent role in attracting consumer engagement and boosting venue popularity. Managers can make better operational decisions such as procurement and staff scheduling based on these more accurate venue popularity prediction methods. Furthermore, this study also highlights the importance of model interpretability which enhances the ability of managers to more effectively utilize machine learning models for effective decision‐making.
Lower Blood Vitamin D Levels Are Associated with Depressive Symptoms in a Population of Older Adults in Kuwait: A Cross-Sectional Study

Low serum vitamin D has been associated with an increased risk of neuropsychiatry disorders. This study aimed to examine the association between vitamin D deficiency and depression in adults aged 65 years and older. This cross-sectional study was conducted in seven primary healthcare centers across Kuwait (November 2020 to June 2021). The participants (n = 237) had their serum vitamin D 25-(OH)-D concentrations (analyzed by LC-MS) classified as sufficient, ≥75 nmol/L (30 ng/mL); insufficient, 50–75 nmol/L (20–30 ng/mL); or deficient, <50 nmol/L (20 ng/mL). Depressive symptoms were evaluated using the 15-Item Geriatric Depression Scale (15-item GDS). The mean serum 25-OH-D levels (nmol/L) in volunteers with normal, mild, moderate, and severe depression were 100.0 ± 31.7, 71.2 ± 38.6, 58.6 ± 30.1 and 49.0 ± 6.93, respectively (p < 0.001). The participants in the vitamin D sufficiency group were significantly less likely to exhibit depressive symptoms (88.2%) than patients with mild (36%) and moderate (21%) depression (p < 0.001). Ordinal logistic regression showed that vitamin D deficiency (OR = 19.7, 95% CI 5.60, 74.86, p < 0.001) and insufficiency (OR = 6.40, 95% CI 2.20, 19.91, p < 0.001) were associated with higher odds of having depressive symptoms. A low serum vitamin D level is a significant predictor of symptoms of depression among older individuals.
FOXO4 interacts with p53 TAD and CRD and inhibits its binding to DNA

Transcription factor p53 protects cells against tumorigenesis when subjected to various cellular stresses. Under these conditions, p53 interacts with transcription factor Forkhead box O (FOXO) 4, thereby inducing cellular senescence by upregulating the transcription of senescence‐associated protein p21. However, the structural details of this interaction remain unclear. Here, we characterize the interaction between p53 and FOXO4 by NMR, chemical cross‐linking, and analytical ultracentrifugation. Our results reveal that the interaction between p53 TAD and the FOXO4 Forkhead domain is essential for the overall stability of the p53:FOXO4 complex. Furthermore, contacts involving the N‐terminal segment of FOXO4, the C‐terminal negative regulatory domain of p53 and the DNA‐binding domains of both proteins stabilize the complex, whose formation blocks p53 binding to DNA but without affecting the DNA‐binding properties of FOXO4. Therefore, our structural findings may help to understand the intertwined functions of p53 and FOXO4 in cellular homeostasis, longevity, and stress response.
Design and Implementation of an LED Switching Regulator Using Inverse Buck Topology

This paper proposes an LED switching regulator using inverse buck topology to achieve dimming improvement, eliminating spike from diode reverse recovery time and LED string short and dimming short operation and protection. The used pulse width modulation technique is flxed ofi time adjustment by easily setting the additional elements comprised of a resistor and a capacitor to achieve variable-frequency control under continuous current mode (CCM) or discontinuous current conduction mode (DCM). Recently, LED is largely used in lighting system to save energy and space in human life instead of cold-cathode ∞uorescent lamps. In order to solve the problem of voltage deviation in each LED string, this paper provides an LED switching regulator to achieve the acceptable current-equalization function, and also solve the problem of voltage deviation in the multi-string panel construction. In this paper, the inverse buck topology is used with constant ofi time control IC to implement a LED string panel control to verify the proposed analysis. Finally, the experimental results show good conflrm and meet the required speciflcation.
Compendium of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

The present book “COMPENDIUM OF MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC PLANTS” is a well digitized documented record in the scientific manner showing its utility in multifold directions as Diversity and uses etc on varied Medicinal and Aromatic Plants.The book is aimed for exploring the diversity of one hundred and ninety-one Indian Medicinal and Aromatic plants collected from different parts of the Chhattisgarh state in central India and introduced in Herbal Garden aimed for their propagation as well as for Ex-situ conservation purpose. The Author is a Commission member of IUCN (Int. Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) – SSC (Species Survival Commission) - Medicinal Plants Specialist Group (MPSG). The current Book will perform its significant applicability among the plant conservation biologists, gardeners, students, researchers and all the peoples interested in the field of Medicinal and Aromatic plants. Present book includes MAPs of varied sources and will be significantly beneficial among the peoples to creating interest on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants.I am sure that present book will be a source of Botanical and Ethno-medicinal information of the documented MAPs.
Transparent Conductors Based on Microscale/Nanoscale Materials for High Performance Devices

Transparent conductors are important as the top electrode for a variety of optoelectronic devices, including solar cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), flat panel displays, and touch screens. Doped indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films are the predominant transparent conductor material. However, ITO thin films are brittle, making them unsuitable for the emerging flexible devices, and suffer from high material and processing cost. In my thesis, we developed a variety of transparent conductors toward a performance comparable with or superior to ITO thin films, with lower cost and potential for scalable manufacturing. Metal nanomesh (NM), hierarchical graphene/metal microgrid (MG), and hierarchical metal NM/MG materials were investigated. Simulation methods were used as a powerful tool to predict the transparency and sheet resistance of the transparent conductors by solving Maxwell’s equations and Poisson’s equation. Affordable and scalable fabrication processes were developed thereafter. Transparent conductors with over 90% transparency and less than 10 Ω/square sheet resistance were successfully fabricated on both rigid and flexible substrates. Durability tests, such as bending, heating and tape tests, were carried out to evaluate the robustness of the samples. Haze factor, which characterizes how blurry a transparent conductor appears, was also studied in-depth using analytical calculation and numerical simulation. We demonstrated a tunable haze factor for metal NM transparent conductors and analyzed the principle for tuning the haze factor. Plasmonic effects, excited by some transparent conductors, can lead to enhanced performance in photovoltaic devices. We systematically studied the effect of incorporating metal NM into ultrathin film silicon solar cells using numerical simulation, with the aid of optimization algorithms to reduce the optimization time. Mechanisms contributing to the enhanced performance were then identified and analyzed. Over 72% enhancement in short-circuit current-density was demonstrated by the optimal solar cell compared with 300-nm-thick Si solar cell with antireflection coating and silver back reflector.
Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion Flight Control: Stability and Robustness Analysis and Improvements

Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) is a variation on Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (NDI) retaining the high-performance advantages of NDI, while increasing controller robustness to model uncertainties and decreasing the dependency on the vehicle model. After a successful flight test with a multirotor Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV), the question arises whether this technique can be used to successfully design a Flight Control System (FCS) for aircraft in general. This requires additional research on aircraft characteristics that could cause issues related to the stability and performance of the INDI controller. Typical characteristics are additional time delays due to data buses and measurement systems, slower actuator and sensor dynamics, and a lower control frequency. The main contributions of this article are 1) an analytical stability analysis showing that implementing discrete-time INDI with a sampling time smaller than 0.02s results in large stability margins regarding system characteristics and controller gains; 2) a simulation study showing significant performance degradation requiring controller adaptation due to actuator measurement bias, angular rate measurement noise, angular rate measurement delay and actuator measurement delay; 3) the use of a real-time time delay identification algorithm based on latency to successfully synchronize the angular rate and actuator measurement delay together with pseudo control hedging (PCH) to prevent oscillatory behavior; and 4) recommendations regarding control modes, assessment criteria and PH-LAB Cessna Citation specific issues to be used by future contributors to a flight test with INDI on the PH-LAB aircraft.
Phytoplankton, with emphasis on potentially toxic cyanobacteria, from Amor Island, Alter do Chão (Santarém, Pará, Brazil)

Amor Island (Alter do Chão, Santarém, Pará, Brazil) is considered a region of great natural beauty and a national and international tourist attraction. The aim of this study was to determine the composition and density of the phytoplankton of the Amor Island, with emphasis on heterocytous cyanobacteria. Water samples for phytoplankton were collected and analyzed at seven points in October 2021. Filaments of heterocytous cyanobacteria were cultured and analyzed, measuring the cells of the first 30 trichomes. The abundance, diversity and evenness of phytoplankton species were calculated and balneability of beach in relation to algal blooms was evaluated. 106 generic and infrageneric taxa were identified, highlighting the Chlorophyta. Phytoplankton density was higher at Verde Lake (145.6 ± 22.0 org.L-1), diversity and evenness were higher at point 03 (Lake Verde) with 3.0 bits.cell-1 and 0.47, respectively. The most abundant species were: Aphanothece minutissima, Ankistrodesmus sp. , Aphanothece sp. , Aphanizomenon sp. , Mougeotia sp. , Merismopedia sp. and Quadrigula sp. The average density of cyanobacteria was higher in the Tapajós River (517.0 cell.mL-1). No algal and cyanobacterial blooms were identified, indicating water appropriate for bathing. Through morphological and morphometric description, the cultivated species were identified as Aphanizomenon gracile and Cylindrospermopsis/Raphidiopsis raciborskii, cited among the cyanobacteria with the highest occurrence of toxic blooms in the world. The region deserves phytoplankton monitoring studies, due to reports of cyanobacterial blooms, and greater knowledge of its planktonic biodiversity, since it is a threatened region.
A Semi-Analytical Method for Channel and Pipe Flows for the Linear Phan-Thien-Tanner Fluid Model with a Solvent Contribution

This work presents a semi-analytical method for laminar steady-state channel and pipe flows of viscoelastic fluids using the Linear Phan-Thien-Tanner (LPTT) constitutive equation, with solvent viscosity contribution. For the semi-analytical method validation, it compares its results and two analytical solutions: the Oldroyd-B model and the simplified LPTT model (without solvent viscosity contribution). The results adopted different values of the dimensionless parameters, showing their influence on the viscoelastic fluid flow. The results include the distribution of the streamwise velocity component and the extra-stress tensor components in the wall-normal direction. In order to investigate the proposed semi-analytical method, different solutions were obtained, both for channel and pipe flows, considering different values of Reynolds number, solvent viscosity contribution in the homogeneous mixture, elongational parameter, shear parameter, and Weissenberg number. The results show that the proposed semi-analytical method can find a laminar solution using the non-Newtonian LPTT model with solvent viscosity contribution and verify the effect of the parameters in the resulting flow field.