Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT IN DEVELOPING LNG AS A SHIP FUEL IN THE BALTIC SEA REGION

New environmental regulations require the shipping industry to reduce its sulphur emissions. The currently most environmentally friendly alternative for ship owners to comply with the regulations is the switch to LNG fuelled vessels which however also requires port developers to invest in the supply of LNG. In order to successfully implement the creation of an LNG infrastructure, various challenges have to be overcome. This study looks at the challenges of LNG as a ship fuel from a stakeholder perspective by conducting a port screening with the aim to assess the current development status of LNG projects and the drivers and impediments behind it. Furthermore, a qualitative research with expert interviews of the most important stakeholder groups gives insight on how stakeholders are involved in the various aspects of LNG development. While several challenges have impeded the introduction of LNG as ship fuel in the past years, by far the biggest issue in the soon future is the development of the oil price that lowers the feasibility of LNG ship fuel compared to oil-depending alternatives. The study also revealed that the potential of local industries and cargo owners to influence the implementation of LNG as ship fuel has been neglected so far. The successful creation of an LNG infrastructure relies on public funding programs. Therefore, policy makers need to have well-elaborated strategies and increase the general perception of LNG among local industries and legal authorities by pointing out the potential of LNG for the whole economy. The results can support policy makers on EU level in their decision of composing an LNG strategy and give interesting insight to involved actors about the stakeholder network. The study was limited to the Baltic Sea region, specifically Finnish and Swedish stakeholders. These might vary from other geographical contexts.
The Role of Haptics in Games

Today, playing a video game is a different story than what it was twenty years ago in many senses. Game consoles have steadily gained popularity not only among kids but also among other age groups. For example, today, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft comes with Kinect technology which is based on webcam built in system for users to control and interact with the console without the need for conventional game controller to bring entertainment and playing games to people of all ages. On the other hand electronic gadgets including smart phones have changed the way game controllers, pads, buttons, joy sticks can be used with the incorporation of haptic and sensing technologies. Additionally, impressive graphics and 3D rendering displays are creating virtual environments more realistic which have the potential to capture the gamer’s attention all throughout the gaming process. As stated by Jurgelionis and others: “The increasing number of broadband users, and a demand for quality and diversity in entertainment services drives the development of new pervasive entertainment systems” (Jurgelionis et al., 2007). Indeed, they also stated that such entertainment systems should be accessible without any limits on time and location.
Predicting TUrnover Intentions of Hotel Employees: The Influence of Employee Development Human Resource Management Practices and Trust in Organization

This study investigates the variables that may be predictive of hotel employees’ turnover intentions. The influence of trust in organization as a mediator in the proposed relationship is also examined. A total of 380 operational employees from 5-star rated hotels completed the questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the relationships hypothesized in the model. Most of the hypotheses were supported. It is suggested that to enhance employees’ trust in organization and subsequently to reduce turnover intentions, hotels need to continue to provide training and development programs to their employees, conduct fair and formal appraisal system, and provide ample and clear career advancement to their employees. Limitations and suggestions for future studies are forwarded.
Estimating the Existence of the Bank Lending Channel in the Russian Federation

A panel of annual balance sheet data on 323 Russian banks is used to test for the first time whether lending responses to a change in monetary policy differs, depending on the balance sheet strength of a bank. Only weak signs of that are found for Russian banks. This result implies that the bank lending channel has some, albeit limited, degree of effectiveness in Russia, which may increase in time, with the continued development of the Russian banking system.
Thermoelectric Properties of A-site Deficient Lanthanum Substituted Strontium Titanate

The n-type thermoelectric material (La0.12Sr0.88)0.95TiO3-delta was sintered with the spark plasma sintering method at different temperatures and pressures. This was done to reduce the thermal conductivity of the material and increase its thermoelectric figure of merit. The samples sintered at the lowest temperatures had less grain growth, and hence a lower thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity of these samples were significantly lower than measurements reported by Sele on the same stoichiometry. The thermal conductivity reduction in the samples are mostly attributed to small grain size reducing the phonon mean free path, and hence lattice conduction in the samples. Some phase segregation was observed in the samples sintered at highest temperature. The secondary phase did not display any significant impact on the thermal conductivity of the samples. The thermal transport by electrons is close to zero in most of the samples because of a low charge carrier concentration. Since the carrier concentration inflict all the important parameters of a thermoelectric material, an optimum concentration exist. This concentration is well above what was observed in this work. The electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient are both heavily reliant on the charge carrier concentration in the material. For this reason, some strategies for increasing the amount of charge carriers in future experiments have been presented. The presented work has further advanced the understanding of the investigated material. This is an important step toward being able to manufacture a n-type thermoelectric material, that is oxide-based and market viable.
Modelling middle pliocene warm climates of the USA

The middle Pliocene warm period represents a unique time slice in which to model and understand climatic processes operating under a warm climatic regime. Palaeoclimatic model simulations, focussed on the United States of America (USA), for the middle Pliocene (ca 3 Ma) were generated using the USGS PRISM2 2° x 2° data set of boundary conditions and the UK Meteorological Office’s HadAM3 general circulation model (GCM). Model results suggest that conditions in the USA during the middle Pliocene can be characterised as annually warmer (by 2° to 4° C), less seasonal, wetter (by a maximum of 4 to 8 mm/day) and with an absence of freezing winters over the central and southern Great Plains. A sensitivity experiment suggests that the main forcing mechanisms for surface temperature changes in near coastal areas are the imposed Pliocene sea surface temperatures (SST’s). In interior regions, reduced Northern Hemisphere terrestrial ice, combined with less snow cover and a reduction in the elevation of the western cordillera of North America, generate atmospheric circulation changes and positive albedo feedbacks that raise surface temperatures. A complex set of climatic feedback mechanisms cause an enhancement of the hydrological cycle magnifying the moisture bearing westerly wind belt during the winter season (Dec., Jan., Feb.). Predictions produced by the model are in broad agreement with available geological evidence. However, the GCM appears to underestimate precipitation levels in the interior and central regions of the southern USA.
Betul Districts Primary School Performance Prediction Model Using Data Mining

As this academic performance is influenced by many factors, it is essential to develop predictive data mining model for students’ performance so as to identify the slow learners and study the influence of the dominant factors on their academic performance. In the present investigation, a survey cum experimental methodology was adopted to generate a database and it was constructed from a primary. While the primary data was collected from the regular students and irregular student the secondary data was gathered from the school in class 3, 4 and 5 a total of 1000 datasets of the 2014 year from five different schools in three different districts of BETUL state Madhya Pradesh were collected. The raw data was preprocessed in terms of filling up missing values, transforming values in one form into another and relevant attribute/ variable selection. As a result, we had 700 student records, which were used for primary school prediction model construction . A set of prediction rules were extracted from primary school prediction model and the efficiency of the generated student prediction model was found. The accuracy of the present model was compared with other model and it has been found to be satisfactory.
Projects in Chaotic Dynamics: Spring 2011 ; CU-CS-1081-11

Before the advent of modern computers, mathematicians used analog circuits to model non-integrable differential equations. This paper investigates the feasibility, functionality, and accuracy of several systems including the solar system, three-body system, and Lorenz attractor. Due to their highly nonlinear nature and circuit limitations, the solar system and three-body systems are not practical to build, with component costs as high as $50,000 and $4,300 respectively. However, the Lorenz attractor can be built and analyzed; even using “economy” components, its output covers the correct attractor. An error analysis concludes that while the Lorenz circuit’s output may have the correct shape, high accuracy components are required for the system to follow the correct trajectory for even just a short period of time. Given these challenges, only a few practical applications of chaotic circuits exist, mainly those that leverage error such as random number generators. Unfortunately, in most other functions, digital computing drastically outperforms analog circuits.
Uncertainty from the choice of microphysics scheme in convection-permitting models significantly exceeds aerosol effects

Abstract. This study investigates the hydrometeor development and response to cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) perturbations in convection-permitting model configurations. We present results from a real-data simulation of deep convection in the Congo basin, an idealised supercell case, and a warm-rain large-eddy simulation (LES). In each case we compare two frequently used double-moment bulk microphysics schemes and investigate the response to CDNC perturbations. We find that the variability among the two schemes, including the response to aerosol, differs widely between these cases. In all cases, differences in the simulated cloud morphology and precipitation are found to be significantly greater between the microphysics schemes than due to CDNC perturbations within each scheme. Further, we show that the response of the hydrometeors to CDNC perturbations differs strongly not only between microphysics schemes, but the inter-scheme variability also differs between cases of convection. Sensitivity tests show that the representation of autoconversion is the dominant factor that drives differences in rain production between the microphysics schemes in the idealised precipitating shallow cumulus case and in a subregion of the Congo basin simulations dominated by liquid-phase processes. In this region, rain mass is also shown to be relatively insensitive to the radiative effects of an overlying layer of ice-phase cloud. The conversion of cloud ice to snow is the process responsible for differences in cold cloud bias between the schemes in the Congo. In the idealised supercell case, thermodynamic impacts on the storm system using different microphysics parameterisations can equal those due to aerosol effects. These results highlight the large uncertainty in cloud and precipitation responses to aerosol in convection-permitting simulations and have important implications not only for process studies of aerosol–convection interaction, but also for global modelling studies of aerosol indirect effects. These results indicate the continuing need for tighter observational constraints of cloud processes and response to aerosol in a range of meteorological regimes.
Effect of arginine pre-treatment on nickel accumulation and alleviation of the oxidative stress in Hyoscyamus niger

Nickel is essential for many plant species to complete their life cycle but higher concentrations of this metal are toxic and may severely interfere with many physiological and biochemical processes of plants. In recent researches, either sodium nitroprusside (as nitric oxide donor) or exogenous polyamines were used to counteract the effect of heavy metal stress. In this research hyoscyamus plants were pre-treated with 10 and 20 µM Arg (as a precursor of NO or polyamines) and then plants were treated with 50 and 100 µM Ni. Elevated hydrogen peroxide content and lipoxygenase (LOX) activity showed that Ni induced oxidative damages. Antioxidant enzyme activity also increased in those plants which were under Ni stress. In plants, which were pretreated with Arg, the concentration of Ni increased in shoot, while the H2O2 content and the activity of LOX, catalase (CAT), guiacol peroxidase (GPX) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) enzymes decreased. It is shown for the first time that pre-treatment of hyoscyamus plant with Arg increased plant capability to accumulate Ni in its aboveground organs by 1.5-2 times and reduced its toxic effects indicated by measurement of oxidative parameters. It might be true because Arginine induced alleviation of Ni toxicity and accelerated transport by chelating of Ni in plants directly or through production of polyamines.
Comparative Numerical Study on Focusing Wave Interaction with FPSO-like Structure

Evaluating the interactions between offshore structures and extreme waves plays an essential role for securing the surviv-ability of the structures. For this purpose, various numerical tools—for example, the fully nonlinear potential theory (FNPT),the Navier–Stokes (NS) models, and hybrid approaches combining different numerical models—have been developed andemployed. However, there is still great uncertainty over the required level of model fidelity when being applied to a widerange of wave-structure interaction problems. This paper aims to shed some light on this issue with a specific focus on theoverall error sourced from wave generation/absorbing techniques and resolving the viscous and turbulent effects, by com-paring the performances of three different models, including the quasi-arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian finite element method(QALE-FEM) based on the FNPT, an in-house two-phase NS model with large-eddy simulation and a hybrid model couplingthe QALE-FEM with the OpenFOAM/InterDymFoam, in the cases with a fixed FPSO-like structure under extreme focus-ing waves. The relative errors of numerical models are defined against the experimental data, which are released after thenumerical works have been completed (i.e., a blind test), in terms of the pressure and wave elevations. This paper providesa practical reference for not only choosing an appropriate model in practices but also on developing/optimizing numericaltools for more reliable and robust predications.
Axionic Antiferromagnetic Insulator Phase in a Correlated and Spin–Orbit Coupled System

We study theoretically a three-dimensional correlated and spin–orbit coupled system, the half-filled extended Fu–Kane–Mele–Hubbard model on a diamond lattice, focusing on the topological magnetoelectric response of the antiferromagnetic insulator phase. In the antiferromagnetic insulator phase, the Dirac-like low-energy effective Hamiltonian is obtained. Then the theta term, which results in the magnetoelectric response, is derived as a consequence of the chiral anomaly. The realization of the dynamical axion field in our model is discussed. The relation with a symmetry broken phase induced by interactions in lattice quantum chromodynamics is also discussed.
PLANE-BASED REGISTRATION OF SEVERAL THOUSAND LASER SCANS ON STANDARD HARDWARE

Abstract. The automatic registration of terrestrial laser scans appears to be a solved problem in science as well as in practice. However, this assumption is questionable especially in the context of large projects where an object of interest is described by several thousand scans. A critical issue inherently linked to this task is memory management especially if cloud-based registration approaches such as the ICP are being deployed. In order to process even thousands of scans on standard hardware a plane-based registration approach is applied. As a first step planar features are detected within the unregistered scans. This step drastically reduces the amount of data that has to be handled by the hardware. After determination of corresponding planar features a pairwise registration procedure is initiated based on a graph that represents topological relations among all scans. For every feature individual stochastic characteristics are computed that are consequently carried through the algorithm. Finally, a block adjustment is carried out that minimises the residuals between redundantly captured areas. The algorithm is demonstrated on a practical survey campaign featuring a historic town hall. In total, 4853 scans were registered on a standard PC with four processors (3.07 GHz) and 12 GB of RAM.
Inference for the Population Total from Probability-Proportional-to-Size Samples Based on Predictions from a Penalized Spline Nonparametric Model

Inference about the finite population total from probability-proportional-to-size (PPS) samples is considered. In previous work (Zheng and Little, 2003), penalized spline (p-spline) nonparametric model-based estimators were shown to generally outperform the Horvitz-Thompson (HT) and generalized regression (GR) estimators in terms of the root mean squared error. In this article we develop modelbased, jackknife and balanced repeated replicate variance estimation methods for the p-spline based estimators. Asymptotic properties of the jackknife method are discussed. Simulations show that p-spline point estimators and their jackknife standard errors lead to inferences that are superior to HT or GR based inferences. This suggests that nonparametric model-based prediction approaches can be successfully applied in the finite population setting by avoiding strong parametric assumptions. Inference for the Population Total from Probability-Proportional-to-Size Samples Based on Predictions from a Penalized Spline Nonparametric Model Hui Zheng Post-doctoral Fellow, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School 180 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Email: huizheng@umich.edu Roderick J. A. Little Professor, Department of Biostatistics, University of Michigan 1420 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. Email: rlittle@umich.edu Hosted by The Berkeley Electronic Press 1 Summary. Inference about the finite population total from probability-proportional-tosize (PPS) samples is considered. In previous work (Zheng and Little, 2002), penalized spline (p-spline) nonparametric model-based estimators were shown to generally outperform the Horvitz-Thompson (HT) and generalized regression (GR) estimators in terms of the root mean squared error. In this article we develop model-based, jackknife and balanced repeated replicate variance estimation methods for the p-spline based estimators. Asymptotic properties of the jackknife method are discussed. Simulations show that p-spline point estimators and their jackknife standard errors lead to inferences that are superior to HT or GR based inferences. This suggests that nonparametric model-based prediction approaches can be successfully applied in the finite population setting by avoiding strong parametric assumptions.
Conceptualization of theory in English language teaching by student teachers and practicing teachers

Generally in teaching, particularly in teacher education, harsh criticism is directed towards theory by teachers with respect to its (lack of) relevance and benefits to practice. With the purpose of having a deeper understanding of this criticism, this study aims to explore conceptualization of theory by both English as a Foreign Language (EFL) student teachers and practicing teachers. The data were collected from a group of 18 student teachers and a group of 16 practicing teachers. An open-ended questionnaire was administered to the first group while the second group was asked to complete a questionnaire with likert-scale items. The findings revealed that both student teachers and practicing teachers regard theory from a more objective and scientific point of view. Both groups assigned various roles to theory like guiding practice; explaining ideas, concepts, issues; and generating opinions. The results indicated that both groups are able to utilize theories in their practices. In contrast to what literature suggests, not only student teachers but also practicing teachers appreciate theory in their practices. In this regard, the study offers promising results and provides suggestions for the betterment of teacher education programs.
MODELING AND SIMULATION BEST PRACTICES FOR WIRELESS AD HOC NETWORKS

This paper calls attention to important practices in the modeling and the simulation of wireless ad hoc networks. We present three case studies to highlight the importance of following well-established simulation techniques, of carefully describing experimental study scenarios, and, finally, of understanding assumptions sometimes unstated in the framework of a simulator. The first case addresses the initial transient problem inherent to mobility and traffic generation sub-models. We quantitatively demonstrate bow these transients can affect the simulation. Our second case illustrates the fact that strong scientific contributions can only be made via simulation studies when the models used are unambiguously specified. The example we use are simulations with and without a model for the ARF' protocol. Finally, our third case discusses the importance of understanding the simulation tool and any default values used for model parameters. The example used relates to the use of the limited interference model.