Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of a 5 kW class Hall-effect thruster operating with different xenon-krypton mixtures IEPC-2015-126 / ISTS-2015-b-126

The HT5k thruster, a 5 kW class Hall effect thruster developed by Sitael, has been extensively tested over a power range that spans between 2 and 7 kW, with an applied discharge voltage between 300 V (high thrust mode) and 700V (high specific impulse mode). The thruster is typically operated with xenon but, since the development of high power electric propulsion systems can be critically affected by the propellant cost, investigations on alternative propellants, funded by the European Space Agency under the ARTES 5.1 programme element, have been carried out. Due to the relatively low cost and its affinity with xenon (in terms of both performance and handling), krypton has been identified as the alternative propellant choice. Then, the HT5k thruster performance for operations with different krypton-xenon mixtures have been assessed in a test campaign carried out in Sitael’s IV-10 large vacuum facility. The full operating envelope of the thruster has been tested. In the present paper, experimental investigations of the thruster performance and plume characteristics with pure xenon, pure krypton and krypton-xenon mixtures are presented. As expected, increasing the fraction of krypton leads to a reduction of the thruster efficiency and an increase of the specific impulse.
Study on the Formation Law of the Freezing Temperature Field of Freezing Shaft Sinking under the Action of Large-Flow-Rate Groundwater

Taking into account moisture migration and heat change during the soil freezing process, as well as the influence of absolute porosity reduction on seepage during the freezing process, we construct a numerical model of hydrothermal coupling using laws of conservation of energy and mass. The model is verified by the results of large-scale laboratory tests. By applying the numerical calculation model to the formation of artificial shaft freezing temperature fields under the action of large-flow groundwater, we conclude that groundwater with flow rates of less than 5 m/d will not have a significant impact on the artificial freezing temperature field. The maximum flow rates that can be handled by single-row freezing pipes and double-row freezing pipes are 10 m/d and 20 m/d, respectively, during the process of freezing shaft sinking. By analyzing the variation of groundwater flow rate during freezing process, we find that the groundwater flow velocity can reach 5–7 times the initial flow velocity near the closure moment of the frozen wall. Finally, in light of the action characteristics of groundwater on the freezing temperature field, we make suggestions for optimal pipe and row spacing in freezing pipe arrangement.
ARSENIC ADSORPTION INTO THE FIXED BED COLUMN FROM DRINKING GROUNDWATER

One of the main goals of the World Health Organization (WHO) and its Member States is that “all people, regardless of their stage of development and their social-economic condition, have the right to have access to adequate drinking water”. The problem of remediation of waters contaminated with toxic substances, using natural resources, is a special concern at a high level. Researchers’ efforts have sought to find effective and cheap ways to reduce the impact on the environment. As(III) gets into the environment from a variety of natural and anthropogenic sources. As As(III) is commonly found in rocks, soil or sediments, these sources are particularly important determinants of the As(III) zonal level in groundwater and surface water. As(III) contamination is currently one of the major problems with serious consequences on the biosphere. The main objective of this paper is the establishment of a method for the removal of As(III) from real waters by adsorption in a fixed bed column, using ecological materials, friendly to the environment. For this reason, the content of As(III) in groundwaters in the Romania–Hungary border area was determined, knowing the fact that the Pannonian Basin was given special attention, being an area heavily affected by As(III) contamination of natural water sources. The paper studies the adsorption of As(III) from a natural water taken from the monitored area. At the same time, it has followed the behaviour of microorganisms naturally existing in the soil of Timisoara city and in the Bega river in the presence of different amounts of As(III) in order to establish the relative toxicity of As(III) in them.
Entropy-based Similarity Measures for Memory-based Collaborative Filtering

We proposed a novel similarity measure using weighted difference entropy (WDE) to improve the performance of the CF system. The proposed similarity metric evaluates the entropy with a preference score difference between the common rated items of two users, and normalizes it based on the Gaussian, tanh and sigmoid function. We showed significant improvement of experimental results and environments. These experiments involved changing the number of nearest neighborhoods, and we presented experimental results for two data sets with different characteristics, and results for the quality of recommendation
A Solution of Permutation Problem Inherent in Fr equency Domain

Under a multi-source and multi-microphone configuration, a new method is proposed for solving the permutation problem inherent in frequency domain independent component analysis (1CA) by utilizing pr町 informatin about the relative position of sound sources The proposed method can also solve the channel selection problem for selecting the only channel for the target sound estimate, which is critical to a practical application of 1CA.
Jigsaw: Robust Live 4K Video Streaming

The popularity of 4K videos has grown significantly in the past few years. Yet coding and streaming live 4K videos incurs prohibitive cost to the network and end system. Motivated by this observation, we explore the feasibility of supporting live 4K video streaming over wireless networks using commodity devices. Given the high data rate requirement of 4K videos, 60 GHz is appealing, but its large and unpredictable throughput fluctuation makes it hard to provide desirable user experience. In particular, to support live 4K video streaming, we should (i) adapt to highly variable and unpredictable wireless throughput, (ii) support efficient 4K video coding on commodity devices. To this end, we propose a novel system, Jigsaw. It consists of (i) easy-to-compute layered video coding to seamlessly adapt to unpredictable wireless link fluctuations, (ii) efficient GPU implementation of video coding on commodity devices, and (iii) effectively leveraging both WiFi and WiGig through delayed video adaptation and smart scheduling. Using real experiments and emulation, we demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our system. Our results show that it improves PSNR by 6-15dB and improves SSIM by 0.011-0.217 over state-of-the-art approaches. Moreover, even when throughput fluctuates widely between 0.2Gbps-2Gbps, it can achieve an average PSNR of 33dB.
Segmentation of the Blood Vessels and Optic Disk in Retinal Images using SVM Classifier

The retinal image diagnosis is an important methodology for diabetic retinopathy detection and analysis. In this Concept the morphological operations and SVM classifier are used to detect and segment the blood vessels from the retinal image. The proposed system consists of three stages-first is preprocessing of retinal image to separate the green channel and second stage is retinal image enhancement and third stage is blood vessel segmentation using morphological operations and SVM classifier. The performance of the proposed system is analyzed using publicly available dataset.
The International Diffusion of Policies for Climate Change Mitigation

IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management. ABSTRACT: In this paper, we study the international diffusion of carbon pricing policies. In the first part, we empirically examine to what extent the adoption of carbon pricing in a given country can explain the subsequent adoption of the same policy in other countries. In the second part, we quantify the global benefits of policy diffusion in terms of greenhouse gas emission reductions elsewhere. To do so, we combine a large international dataset on carbon pricing with several other datasets. For causal identification, we estimate semi-parametric Cox proportional hazard models. We find robust and statistically significant evidence for policy diffusion. Abstract In this paper, we study the international diﬀusion of carbon pricing policies. In the ﬁrst part, we empirically examine to what extent the adoption of carbon pricing in a given country can explain the subsequent adoption of the same policy in other countries. In the second part, we quantify the global beneﬁts of policy diﬀusion in terms of greenhouse gas emission reductions elsewhere. To do so, we combine a large international dataset on carbon pricing with several other datasets. For causal identiﬁcation, we estimate semi-parametric Cox proportional hazard models. We ﬁnd robust and statistically signiﬁcant evidence for policy diﬀusion. The magnitude of the estimated eﬀects is substantial. For two neighbouring countries, policy adoption in one country increases the probability of subsequent adoption in the other country on average by several percentage points. Motivated by this result, we use Monte Carlo simulations based on our empirical estimates to quantify both direct domestic and indirect foreign emission reductions of policy adoption and subsequent diﬀusion. The results based on our central empirical estimates suggest that for most countries indirect emission reductions of carbon pricing can exceed direct emission reductions. Overall, our results provide additional support for the adoption of stringent climate policies, especially in countries where climate change mitigation policies might so far have been considered as being of relatively little importance because of a relatively small domestic economy.
Modern Technologies of Geodetic Support of Planning Works in High-Rise Construction

The work shows the shortcomings of traditional geodetic technologies in the limited space of a modern construction site on the basis of research and analysis of literature sources, regulatory and production base of geodetic support in the construction of multi-storey buildings. Today, electronic tacheometers are used to perform planning works, which allowed to perform planning of building structures without bringing the building axes of the building to the ground, which, in its turn, had an extremely positive effect on compliance with deadlines of construction. When creating a support base on prefabricated horizons during the construction of buildings up to 150 m, it is suggested to use satellite technology with subsequent planning of building structures directly using electronic tacheometers.
Beneficial Effects of the Ketogenic Diet in Metabolic Syndrome: A Systematic Review

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a major societal concern due to its increasing prevalence and its high risk of cardiovascular complications. The ketogenic diet (KD), a high fat, low carbohydrate, and non-caloric restrictive diet, is a new popular weight loss intervention but its beneficial effects are controversial. This study aims to gather all of the relevant studies using KD for metabolic disease treatment to determine its beneficial effects and evaluate its safety and efficacy for patients. Following the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, we included 20 articles in the final review. Overall, most of the studies showed a significant effect of KD on weight loss (17/19 articles), BMI (7/7), glucose levels (9/13), insulin levels (7/9), HOMA-IR (4/5), HbA1c (7/7), total cholesterol (6/9), TG (13/15), AST (3/4), and ALT (3/5), and no major side effects. The results heterogeneity seems to be explained by a difference of diet composition and duration. In conclusion, KD is a safety diet which seems to be a promising approach for obesity and MetS treatment, even if the optimal carbohydrate proportion and diet duration must be explored to enhance the beneficial effects of KD.
-Oxidising Microorganisms Under Simulated Early Martian Conditions

Oligotrophic Growth of Nitrate-Dependent Fe 2+ -Oxidising Microorganisms Under Simulated Early Martian Conditions Journal Item How to cite: Price, Alex; Macey, Michael C. ; Pearson, Victoria K. ; Schwenzer, Susanne P.; Ramkissoon, Nisha K. and Olsson-Francis, Karen (2022). Oligotrophic Growth of Nitrate-Dependent Fe 2+ -Oxidising Microorganisms Under Simulated Early Martian Conditions. Frontiers in Microbiology, 13, article no. 800219.
An Integrative Analysis of the Immune Features of Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine (CoronaVac)

Currently, an inactivated vaccine has been widely used with encouraging results as a prophylactic agent against COVID-19 infection, which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its variants. However, in vitro SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-specific immune features remain elusive, hindering the promotion of a third dose of the vaccine. Here, we present a detailed in vitro immune cellular response and large-scale multi-omics analysis for peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from participants vaccinated with CoronaVac (Sinovac Life Sciences, Beijing, China) and recovered participants from COVID-19. The mean titers of SARS-CoV-2 serum-neutralizing antibodies were significantly increased after the boosting immunization (Day 45) compared to the unimmunized state. We observed that type-1 helper T cells (Th1) tended to dominate after the first dose of vaccine, while humoral immune responses became dominant after the second dose due to the activation of type-2 helper T cell (Th2), memory B cells, and plasmablasts. T follicular helper cells (Tfh) involved in antibody production were activated after the first dose and were maintained for the observed time points. Single-cell RNA sequencing of PBMCs revealed specific changes in cell compositions and gene expression in immunized participants. Multi-omics analysis also demonstrated that CoronaVac-specific serum proteins, plasma metabolites, and plasma lipid changes were skewed to those changes in convalescent patients. Collectively, we provide a comprehensive understanding of CoronaVac-specific in vitro immune features.
Reliability and measurement error of the proximal, medial and distal portions of the vastus
lateralis muscle thickness measured with extended field of view ultrasonography

The image obtained by static ultrasonography (US), despite being a validated measure to identify muscle thickness (MT), has a visualization capacity limited by the size of the transducer. The extended field of view (EFOV) is a more recent technique of obtaining muscle images by the US, which allows observing MT over the entire length of the muscle. The purpose of the study was to determine the reliability and the intra- and inter-rater error of the MT measurement in the proximal, medial and distal portions of the vastus lateralis using the EFOV US. Twenty-five men (age = 24 ± 4 years) paid a visit to the laboratory. Two independent US technicians identified the anatomical landmarks and collected the images using EFOV US, with a 4 cm linear transducer, 10 MHz frequency and 6 cm image depth. After all collections, a third researcher codified the images, which were sent to two independent image raters. After a week, the images were shuffled, recoded and sent back to the same evaluators. The values ​​of the typical error of the measurement, coefficient of variation and intraclass correlation coefficient intra and inter-rater ranged between 0.01 and 0.03 cm, 0.47 and 2.32%, 0.990 and 0.998, respectively, for the two evaluators. The Bland-Altman analysis indicated high agreement and homoscedastic error of all comparisons. The high reliability and low errors observed, less than the increments typically found in training studies, reveal the great potential for EFOV US to determine MT in different portions of the vastus lateralis muscle.
The Evaluation of the Impact of a Saharan Event on Particulate Matter Using Compositional Data Analysis

: The proposed approach based on compositional data analysis was applied on simultaneous measurements of the mineral element concentrations of PM 10 and PM 2.5 from a typical suburban site with and without a Saharan event. The suburban site is located in the city of Rome. The selected mineral elements were Al, Si, Ca, Fe, Ti, Mg, and Sr. The data relating to these elements are reported in a previous study. The considered elements are mainly related to mineral matter. The proposed approach allows statistically validating that the mineral element concentrations of PM during days with a Saharan event differ from those without a Saharan event in terms of mineral element composition and size distribution. In particular, the results showed that the compositional data analysis applied to simultaneous measurements of mineral element concentrations of PM 10 and PM 2.5 is a helpful technique that can be used to study environmental sites affected by natural sources such as Saharan events. Moreover, the presented technique can be handy in all those conditions where it is important to discriminate whether the occurrence of an exceedance or a violation of the daily limit value established for PM could also be due to natural sources.
Mycobacterium bovis Tuberculosis in Two Goat Farms in Multi-Host Ecosystems in Sicily (Italy): Epidemiological, Diagnostic, and Regulatory Considerations

Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) is the causative agent of animal tuberculosis (bTB), infecting and causing disease in several animal species. In areas where there are complex interactions between reservoir hosts and susceptible species, the control of this pathogen is a challenge. The authors report two outbreaks of goat tuberculosis caused by M. bovis in multi-host ecosystems within two protected natural areas of Sicily, where TB is historically endemic. The first outbreak (Farm A) was identified after the incidental detection at the slaughterhouse of TB-like lesions in goat viscera ready to be disposed. Single intradermal cervical tuberculin test (SICT) was performed in Farm A on 205 goats, resulting positive in 10 (4.9%). After slaughtering, six out of ten animals showed TB-like lesions, from which M. bovis spoligotype SB0841 was isolated. The typing did not reveal any epidemiological connection with the neighboring cattle, suggesting that free-ranging type of management exposed the affected goat livestock or wildlife infected with other strains. The second outbreak (Farm B) was detected in a mixed farm (bovine, caprine, and ovine), where relapsing outbreaks of TB in cattle were registered in the previous years after performing the SICT in cohabiting goats. SICT resulted positive in 6/153 (3.9%), and two animals showed bTB-like lesions. No mycobacteria were cultured, and the final diagnosis of TB was achieved by histopathology and immunohistochemistry. The reported outbreaks highlight the importance of assessing the epidemiological, diagnostic, and regulatory critical issue, which is fundamental to optimizing the strategies of eradicating TB in the endemic multi-host ecosystem described.
PDFindexer: Distributed PDF Indexing system using MapReduce

Indexing allows converting raw document collection into easily searchable representation. Web searching by Google or Yahoo provides subsecond response time which is made possible by efficient indexing of web-pages over the entire Web. Indexing process gets challenging when the scale gets bigger. Parallel techniques, such as MapReduce framework can assist in efficient large-scale indexing process. In this paper we propose PDFindexer, system for indexing scientific papers in PDF using MapReduce programming model. Unlike Web search engines, our target domain is scientific papers, which has pre-defined structure, such as title, abstract, sections, references. Our proposed system enables parsing scientific papers in PDF recreating their structure and performing efficient distributed indexing with MapReduce framework in a cluster of nodes. We provide the overview of the system, their components and interactions among them. We discuss some issues related with the design of the system and usage of MapReduce in parsing and indexing of large document collection.
Vertical profiles of cloud condensation nuclei number concentration and its empirical estimate from aerosol optical properties over the North China Plain

Abstract. To better understand the characteristics of aerosol activation ability and optical properties, a comprehensive airborne campaign was conducted over the North China Plain (NCP) from 8 May to 11 June 2016. Vertical profiles of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentration (NCCN) and aerosol optical properties were measured simultaneously. Seventy-two-hour air mass back trajectories show that during the campaign, the measurement region was mainly influenced by air masses from the northwest and southeast. Air mass sources, temperature structure, anthropogenic emissions, and terrain distribution are factors influencing NCCN profiles. Cloud condensation nuclei spectra suggest that the ability of aerosol to activate into CCN is stronger in southeasterly air masses than in northwesterly air masses and stronger in the free atmosphere than near the surface. Vertical distributions of the aerosol scattering Ångström exponent (SAE) indicate that aerosols near the surface mainly originate from primary emissions consisting of more fine particles. The long-distance transport decreases SAE and makes it vary more in the free troposphere than near the surface. To parameterize NCCN, the equation NCCN=10β⋅σγ is used to fit the relationship between NCCN and the aerosol scattering coefficient (σ) at 450 nm. The fitting parameters β and γ have linear relationships with the SAE. Empirical estimates of NCCN at 0.7 % water vapor supersaturation (SS) from aerosol optical properties are thus retrieved for the two air masses: NCCN=10-0.22⋅SAE+2.39⋅σ0. 30⋅SAE+0.29 for northwesterly air masses and NCCN=10-0.07⋅SAE+2.29⋅σ0. 14⋅SAE+0.28 for southeasterly air masses. The estimated NCCN at 0.7 % SS agrees with that measured, although the performance differs between low and high concentrations in the two air masses. The results highlight the important impact of aerosol sources on the empirical estimate of NCCN from aerosol optical properties.
DEVELOPMENT & TEST STATUS OF THE THALES HIGH EFFICIENCY MULTISTAGE PLASMA (HEMP) THRUSTER FAMILY

New, magnetically confined plasma thrusters have been developed with unique performance results: a cylindrical HEMP3050 thruster with a nominal specific impulse thrust and input power of 3000s, 50mN and 1.5kW has demonstrated to operate over wide power and thrust range from 5W to 6kW and from 200μN to 150mN, respectively. Aside throttle-ability, low thrusters mass, minimal thermal dissipation and stable and erosion free operation are unique features promising long life and high reliability. A 250h test allowed worst case life time projection >18000h at a thrust level of 57mN. A coaxial HEMP30250 thruster (nominal thrust and specific impulse 3000s and 250mN) operated in March 2005 confirmed the cylindrical to coaxial scaling of the HEMP thruster concept.