Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design of an Optical Position Sensor for Microfiber Actuators

This thesis introduces a new type of sensor that detects the position information of a paramagnetic microfiber and transforms it to computational electrical signal. The original purpose of the sensor is to solve the problem of feedback signal detection of the microfiber control system, which is the problem of detecting the position information for the microfiber. The microfiber will be presented as the experimental object of this sensor to test its capability. A novel optical based approach is used to transfer the position signal to a computer scrutable signal for further analysis. The purpose of the sensor design comes from the question of how to detect the position information in the feedback section of the microfiber control system. It is crucial since it provides the feedback for the whole control system. The information can be difficult to detect since our microfiber is designed to achieve high frequency (up to 100 ∼ 1000Hz) low range reciprocating motion and low frequency high range movement in future. Thus, a sensing system is required to be able to input high speed movement and output analytical electrical signal. A high-speed camera can be used with an approach of image processing techniques, but considering the high-end and high-cost camera be applied in a simple purpose as in our system is inefficient, and another disadvantage relates to the image processing speed will be a limitation which will affect speed of signal detection. A general idea of the design of the sensing system is presented in this thesis. The sensor relies on optical based sensing method. This method with related electronic components is able to sense fast speed movement and high frequency reciprocating motion. A modulation and demodulation approach is also included to eliminate the possible noise from the environment. Results are presented in the thesis to show the effectiveness of the sensing system and to indicate in general the sensor is providing a robust result for the microfiber’s position analysis.
The role of the environment time scale in light-harvesting efficiency and coherent oscillations

We study the efficiency of exciton transport as a function of the typical reorganization time scale of the environment using the hierarchy of equations of motion. As a model system, we choose the Fenna–Matthews–Olson (FMO) complex. An environment in which the dynamics is not much faster than the system leads to prolonged quantum coherent transport, even at room temperature. We find that this does not make the transport process more efficient for standard FMO parameters, but does increase the efficiency in the case when exciton decay competes with trapping at the reaction center. We furthermore find that initial correlations do not influence population oscillations.
Immersive virtual custom-made model house

Putting a high value on individual preferences is a modern trend that more and more companies are considering for their product design and development and the apartment design is not an exception. Most apartments today are built using similar design with no room for customization. People in general want their tastes to be reflected in the design of their apartment. However, delivering what customers like to the construction company may not be an easy task in practice. For this reason, an intuitive and effective medium between the company and customers for effective communication is needed to ameliorate such a difficulty and in response to this necessity, we developed a test platform for the virtual model house which provides a user with the customization of the apartment using haptic interactions. In our virtual environment, a user can explore an apartment and change the interior based on their taste and feel through intuitive haptic interactions.
A Review of Recent Results on Quarkonium Production at LHCb

A selection of LHCb results is presented on the production of heavy quarko- nium states in pp collisions, including results on J/ψ and Y production at √ s = 8 TeV, the measurement of prompt J/ψ polarisation, the production of χc mesons from converted photons, exclusive charmonium production, double J/ψ production, as well as recent re- sults on J/ψ production in proton-lead collisions at √ sNN = 5 TeV.
Accumulation of exogenous sensitizers in rat brain

Background. Nowadays fluorescence diagnostics can be applied for tumour boundary delineation. One of the most important sensitizer’s characteristics in fluorescence diagnostics is accumulation and distribution in biological tissue. However, the blood-brain barrier protects the brain, and, as a consequence, the accumulation of sensitizers in the brain should be restricted. Unfortunately, there are not enough comparative studies about the possible accumulation of different contrasting agents – sensitizers – suitable for brain tumours identification. Therefore, the accumulation and distribution of two sensitizers in the healthy rat brain were investigated by means of the fluorescence spectroscopy. Materials and methods. Sensitizers – Photogem® and aluminum phthalocyanine tetrasulfonate (AlPcS 4 ) – were administered intravenously (by equal doses – 5 mg/kg) to Wistar rats, and after the appropriate incubation time the animals were sacrificed. Fluorescence spectra of the brain white and grey matter, cerebellum and other tissues were measured. Accumulation of sensitizers was evaluated according to the fluorescence intensity at the sensitizers’ main fluorescence peak. Results. Fluorescence of Photogem® was not observed in the brain tissues but was registered in other rat organs. AlPcS 4 fluorescence intensity was higher in all the organs in comparison with Photogem®. Fluorescence intensity of AlPcS 4 in the brain structures, which is about 7 times lower than that in other tissues, seems to be sufficient for tumour delineation. The forma tion of endogenous porphyrins in the healthy rat brain white matter was observed. Fluorescence of endogenous porphyrins could disturb the identification of Photogem® in both healthy and tumour tissue. Conclusion. Photogem® poorly accumulates in rat brain, and its fluorescence is masked by the formation of the endogenous porphyrins. AlPcS 4 accumulates in rat brain much better and, therefore, AlPcS 4 would be a more effective sensitizer for the brain tumour margins delineation.
Coupled Subspaces Analysis

Subspace learning is a fundamental approach for face recognition and facial expression analysis. In this paper, we propose a novel subspace analysis scheme for the two applications. Unlike the traditional subspace algorithms, such as PCA and LDA, in which an image is treated as a vector; in our scheme, an image is directly treated as a 2D matrix, and a new criterion is proposed to infer two low dimensional coupled subspaces that optimally reconstruct the original matrices from row and column directions collaboratively. An efficient approach, namely Coupled Subspace Analysis (CSA), is applied to learn these two subspaces in an iterative manner. Then we reveal the essence of each step in CSA and propose an approach to select the dimension numbers for these two subspaces with the given rate of information lost. Moreover, we prove that PCA and the recently proposed 2DPCA are just simplified special cases of CSA and answer the unsolved theoretical problems in 2DPCA. The main contributions of this paper include: 1) for both face recognition and facial expression analysis, we propose a novel image matrix based scheme, and obtain a much lower dimensional face representation for subsequent discriminant analysis; 2) CSA effectively alleviates the curse of dimensionality dilemma and small sample size problem existed in face recognition problem; and 3) CSA clarifies the essence of 2DPCA and explains the superiority of 2DPCA compared with PCA. The extensive experiments on both face recognition and facial expression analysis demonstrate that CSA is superior to the classical algorithms.
Longitudinal neuropsychological outcomes in treatment-resistant depression following bed nucleus of the stria terminalis-area deep brain stimulation: a case review

ABSTRACT Studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a treatment modality for psychiatric conditions. We present a case reviewing the longitudinal neuropsychological performance outcomes following bed nucleus of the stria terminalis-area (BNST) DBS in a patient with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The cognitive safety of DBS is well documented for various targets, however cognitive outcomes of BNST-area DBS have not been extensively reported for patients with TRD. Neuropsychological assessment was conducted pre- and post-DBS. Twelve months following DBS, augmented general cognitive performance was observed with significant changes in specific domains.
Deriving a dataset for agriculturally relevant soils from the Soil Landscapes of Canada (SLC) database for use in Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) simulations

Abstract. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model has been commonly used in Canada for hydrological and water quality simulations. However, preprocessing of critical data such as soils information can be laborious and time-consuming. The objective of this work was to preprocess the Soil Landscapes of Canada (SLC) database to offer a country-level soils dataset in a format ready to be used in SWAT simulations. A two-level screening process was used to identify critical information required by SWAT and to remove records with information that could not be calculated or estimated. Out of the 14 063 unique soil records in the SLC, 11 838 records with complete information were included in the dataset presented here. Important variables for SWAT simulations that are not reported in the SLC database (e.g., hydrologic soils groups (HSGs) and erodibility factor (K)) were calculated from information contained within the SLC database. These calculations, in fact, represent a major contribution to enabling the present dataset to be used for hydrological simulations in Canada using SWAT and other comparable models. Analysis of those variables indicated that 21.3 %, 24.6 %, 39.0 %, and 15.1 % of the soil records in Canada belong to HSGs 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. This suggests that almost two-thirds of the soil records have a high (i.e., HSG 4) or relatively high (i.e., HSG 3) runoff generation potential. A spatial analysis indicated that 20.0 %, 26.8 %, 36.7 %, and 16.5 % of soil records belonged to HSG 1, HSG 2, HSG 3, and HSG 4, respectively. Erosion potential, which is inherently linked to the erodibility factor (K), was associated with runoff potential in important agricultural areas such as southern Ontario and Nova Scotia. However, contrary to initial expectations, low or moderate erosion potential was found in areas with high runoff potential, such as regions in southern Manitoba (e.g., Red River Valley) and British Columbia (e.g., Peace River watershed). This dataset will be a unique resource to a variety of research communities including hydrological, agricultural, and water quality modelers and is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.877298.
Antioxidant and antiviral properties of Pseudopiptadenia contorta (Leguminosae) and of quebracho (Schinopsis sp.) extracts

Proanthocyanidins from P. contorta leaves and from a commercial quebracho extract were isolated and characterized. Flavonoids, catechins and gallic acid were also identified in the extracts of P. contorta. Compounds were evaluated for their antioxidant properties and for their antiviral activity against an acyclovir-resistant herpes simplex virus type 1 strain. The low molecular weight phenolic derivatives and the proanthocyanidins from P. contorta showed the highest antioxidant activity. Purified proanthocyanidins from both P. contorta and quebracho showed the same maximum non toxic concentrations (25 µg/mL), with 82.2% and 100% of virus inhibition, respectively.
THE VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY STUDY OF TURKISH VERSION OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENTS MINDFULNESS MEASURE (CAMM)

The current paper investigated the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of Child and Adolescents Mindfulness Measure (CAMM) designed to assess mindfulness among children and adolescents over the age of 9 years. Participants were 660 children and adolescents aged between 10 and 17 years. Results from CFA confirmed the single factor model with excellent fit indices. The internal consistency coefficient provided evidence for good internal reliability. Overall, psychometric properties have shown that the Turkish version of CAMM has been a valid tool for measuring mindfulness among children and adolescents.
Perceptions of Cybersecurity in Government Organizations: Case Study of Bhutan

 Abstract — Bhutan is becoming increasingly dependent on Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), especially the Internet for performing the daily activities of governments, businesses, and individuals. Consequently, information systems and networks are becoming more exposed and vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. This paper highlights the findings of the survey study carried out to understand the perceptions of cybersecurity implementation among government organizations in Bhutan. About 280 ICT personnel were surveyed about the effectiveness of cybersecurity implementation in their organizations. A questionnaire based on a 5 point Likert scale was used to assess the perceptions of respondents. The questions were asked on cybersecurity practices such as cybersecurity policies, awareness and training, and risk management. The survey results show that less than 50% of respondents believe that the cybersecurity implementation is effective: cybersecurity policy (40%), risk management (23%), training and awareness (28%), system development life cycle (34%); incident management (26%), and communications and operational management (40%). The findings suggest that many of the cybersecurity practices are inadequately implemented and therefore, there exist a gap in achieving a required cybersecurity posture. This study recommends government organizations to establish a comprehensive cybersecurity program with emphasis on cybersecurity policy, risk management, and awareness and training. In addition, the research study has practical implications to both government and private organizations for implementing and managing cybersecurity.
Investigation on Mechanical Properties of Hybrid Polymer Composite Reinforced by Rice Husks and Date Palm Fibers as a Construction Material

In this study the boards were fabricated from unsaturated polyester resin reinforced by rice husk and date palm fibers, with the total volume fraction of reinforcement materials was(30%) using different value of filler loading including the ratios (0/30, 5/25, 10/20 15/15, 20/10, 25/5 and 30/0) for volume fraction of date palm fibers/ rice husk, two groups of the hybrid composite were prepared depending on the length of palm fibers, the first group have palm fibers its length 2-3 mm and second group have short fibers its length less than 1mm. The fabricated boards were evaluated for the mechanical properties (tension, compression, flexural, and impact tests) for all the prepared samples were studied. The results from this work show that all of these properties increase with increased the volume fraction of palm fiber at the expense of the proportion of rice husks in hybrid composite. Decreasing the length of fibers from (2-3mm) to micro-sized length (less than 1mm) increased the mechanical properties of flexural strength, maximum shear stress, flexural modulus, and fracture toughness of the prepare composites. Moreover the mechanical properties of the polyester composite reinforced with date palm fibers gave better mechanical properties than the polyester composite reinforced with rice husk.
Construction of strict Lyapunov function for nonlinear parameterised perturbed systems

In this paper, global uniform exponential stability of perturbed dynamical systems is studied by using Lyapunov techniques. The system presents a perturbation term which is bounded by an integrable function with the assumption that the nominal system is globally uniformly exponentially stable. Some examples in dimensional two are given to illustrate the applicability of the main results. c ⃝ 2016 IAUCTB. All rights reserved.
Marital Status and HIV Prevalence in Nigeria: Implications for Effective Prevention Programmes for Women *

Objective: Until recently, HIV prevalence has been based on estimates from antenatal sentinel surveys which have been found to overestimate HIV prevalence among the general population. Multiple studies have shown women to be disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS epidemic. Design: Data for this study were based on the first Nigerian population household-based HIV biomarker survey of 2007, which used a multi-stage probability sampling technique. Methods: Respondents were selected through probability sampling (male age 15 - 64 years and female 15 - 49 years). This paper, therefore, examined the correlates of marital status and HIV prevalence among women in Nigeria. Results: A descriptive analysis of the data showed that HIV prevalence of women that were formerly married: divorced, separated or widowed were more than double that of those who were currently married/cohabiting with a sexual partner; and more than three times those that were never married. Bivariate and multivariate levels of analysis were explored in this paper. At bivariate level, findings showed a significant difference in HIV prevalence among women according to their marital status (p < 0.0001), educational attainment (p = 0.004) and geo-political zones (p = 0.003). Respondents that were formerly married were 5.6 times as likely to be infected with HIV compared with those who had never married (OR = 5.6, p < 0.0001) while HIV prevalence increased with higher educational attainment. Conclusion: In view of these findings, HIV programmers should design interventions that will improve economic empowerment as well as social security for women that were formerly married. In addition, gender mainstreaming in the ongoing HIV and AIDS preventive efforts should be strengthened and scaled-up.
THE TIMING OF INVESTMENT EPISODES

We investigate the timing of large investment episodes at the micro level. On examination of a large sample of Dutch firms we find considerable lumpiness in the accumulation of fixed capital. We therefore define investment spikes and estimate the probability of these spikes, conditional on time since the last spike. We also control for unobserved heterogeneity. Our first result is that the probability of a spike is very high the year following an investment spike. We also find some evidence the hazard rate does increase as time since the previous spike passes by. Therefore, our results indicate the presence of convex adjustment costs or time to build lags. In addition, a tentative conclusion is that fixed adjustment costs are relevant.
Wealth, labour income, stock returns and government bond yields, and financial stress in the euro area

I show that when the ratio of asset wealth to human wealth falls, investors become more exposed to idiosyncratic shocks and demand higher stock and government bond risk premia. I find that the residuals from the cointegrating vector among asset wealth and labour income, wy, predict both future stock and bond returns in the Euro Area. Consequently, it can be used to track time-variation in risk premium. The results are robust to the inclusion of control variables and vis-a-vis other benchmark models. Finally, I show that, conditioning the predictive ability of wy on the financial stress conditions allows one to track better future time-variation in risk premium. Moreover, when financial stress increases, investors perceive a larger risk for both stocks and government bonds.
Perceptions and experiences of patients following treatment with single‐implant mandibular overdentures: A qualitative study

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to explore the perceptions and long-term experiences of edentulous patients rehabilitated with single-implant mandibular overdentures (SIMO). METHODS Thirteen participants, mean age 65.7 years, 69.2% women, who had had their treatment completed for at least 1 year, were invited and included in the study. Focus groups including four to five participants each were conducted, audio and video recorded and transcribed verbatim. Subsequently, the transcripts were analysed according to the principles of thematic analysis. RESULTS Four major themes emerged as follows: before decision to undergo treatment with SIMO, implant surgery experience, perception of treatment outcomes and impressions about the care received. Lack of information, cost, comorbidities, older age and fear were initial barriers to the decision for treatment. Dissatisfaction with previous treatment and a sense of opportunity motivated the decision. There were ambivalent reports of absence of pain during surgery and discomfort during anaesthesia. Post-surgical recovery exceeded the pre-surgical negative expectations in most cases. There was a tendency for a positive impact of SIMO on the patients' quality of life, comprising improved ability to chew and communicate, dietary diversification, greater comfort and safety, increased self-confidence and social interaction. Few minor inconveniences were reported such as the feeling of insecurity after an episode of denture fracture and the need to use adhesive paste. Satisfaction with the care received and the trust in the dentist and dental team were evident. CONCLUSION In general, participants presented positive perceptions and rewarding experiences after rehabilitation with SIMO.
A Bienaymé-Chebyshev inequality for scale mixtures of the multivariate normal distribution

In this short note a Chebyshev type sharp upper bound is presented for the tail probability of scale mixtures of the zero mean multivariate normal distribution, only in terms of the variance. Similar estimation is proved for the probability content of an arbitrary ellipsoid containing the origin. Mathematics subject classification (2000): 60E15.
Web Scale Entity Resolution using Relational Evidence

Entity resolution has been extensively studied. Many approaches have been proposed, including using machine learning techniques to derive domain-specific lexical similarity measures, or rank entities’ attributes by their discriminative power, etc. In this paper, we study the problem in the setting of matching two web scale taxonomies. Besides the scale, we address the challenge that the taxonomies may not contain enough context (such as attributes) for entity resolution, and traditional lexical similarity measures result in many false positive matches. To tackle this new task, we explore negative evidence in the structure of the taxonomy, as well as in external data sources such as the web. To integrate positive and negative evidence, we formulate the entity resolution problem as a problem of finding optimal multi-way cuts in a graph. We analyze the complexity of the problem, and propose a Monte Carlo algorithm for finding greedy cuts. We conduct extensive experiments that demonstrate the advantage of our approach.