Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanical Characterization of APA Microcapsules by Parallel-Plate Compression

We produced microcapsules of alginate-poly(L)lysine-alginate (APA)with diameters on the order of 10 Âµm. To characterize their mechanical properties, we conducted an experiment on the parallel-plate compression of a microcapsule and modeled its deformation. In the modeling task, the microcapsule was assumed to be a spherical liquid-filled elastic membrane with negligible bending stiffness and permeability. The membrane thickness was estimated by applying Reissnerâ€™s linear elastic theory to the experimental force-displacement relationship during loading in the small displacement region. The initial stretch of the membrane was taken into account; it was mainly caused by the osmotic pressure difference across the membrane. The initial stretch of the microcapsule was determined by fitting the calculated and experimental force-displacement relationships during loading at small to medium displacements. At large displacements, the calculated force was smaller than the experimentally measured force because of fluid permeation across the APA membrane. The calculated and experimentally imaged shapes of the deformed microcapsule were compared. The effects of varying the membrane thickness on the force-displacement and transmural pressure-displacement curves were shown, and the limitations of applying the present deformation model were examined.
Distributing law of advanced abutment pressure in working face

In order to disclose the law of abutment pressure in the working face,this article,with the methods of theoretical analysis,numerical simulation and spot test,analyzes the laws of abutment pressure in the working face in Yanzhou mining area and gains the variational law of abutment pressure in front of the fully-mechanized sub-level and slice mining working face.The conclusion of this article provides the theoretical basis for advanced timbering length and supporting intensity in the roadway.
Interactive comment on “ High-resolution air quality monitoring from space : a fast retrieval scheme for CO from hyperspectral infrared measurements ” by N

related to your field of study, with plenty of references. It should also explain in detail exactly why you have carried out your research, as well as outlining the structure of the remainder of the paper. Your introduction makes far too many sweeping statements, with no viable references, e.g. pg 3789 line 16 ‘Most of the reported success has been achieved for retrievals spatially averaged to a resolution lower than what is measured by the instrument. ’ on what are you basing this piece of information?
Similarity Measure Based on the Earth Mover ’ s Distance Utilizing Latent Dirichlet Allocation

Document similarity is used to search for such documents similar to a query document given. Text-based document similarity is computed by comparing the words in documents. The cosine similarity is the most popular text-based document similarity measure and computes the similarity of two documents based on their common word frequencies. It counts the exactly same words only, so cannot reflect semantic similarity between similar words having the same meaning. We propose a new document similarity measure to solve this problem by using the Earth Mover’s Distance (EMD). The EMD enables to compute the semantic similarity of documents. To apply the EMD to the similarity measure, we need to solve the high computational complexity and to define the distance between attributes. The high computational complexity comes from the large number of words in documents. Thus, we extract the topics from documents by using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a document generating model. Since the number of topics is much smaller than that of words, the LDA helps reduce the computational complexity. We define the distance between topics using the cosine similarity. The experimental results on real-world document databases show that the proposed measure finds similar documents more accurately than the cosine similarity owing to reflecting semantic similarity
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Recent Work Title The HEP . TrkX Project : Deep neural networks for HL-LHC online and offline tracking Permalink

Particle track reconstruction in dense environments such as the detectors of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) is a challenging pattern recognition problem. Traditional tracking algorithms such as the combinatorial Kalman Filter have been used with great success in LHC experiments for years. However, these state-of-theart techniques are inherently sequential and scale poorly with the expected increases in detector occupancy in the HL-LHC conditions. The HEP.TrkX project is a pilot project with the aim to identify and develop cross-experiment solutions based on machine learning algorithms for track reconstruction. Machine learning algorithms bring a lot of potential to this problem thanks to their capability to model complex non-linear data dependencies, to learn effective representations of high-dimensional data through training, and to parallelize easily on high-throughput architectures such as GPUs. This contribution will describe our initial explorations into this relatively unexplored idea space. We will discuss the use of recurrent (LSTM) and convolutional neural networks to find and fit tracks in toy detector data.
The Effect of Homeopathic Arnica on Macrophage Gene Expression

* Corresponding Author: Department of Neurological and Movement Sciences, University of Verona Strada Le Grazie 9, 37134 Verona, Italy. Tel: +390458027645, Fax: +390458027403, Email: salvatore.chirumbolo@univr.it The Effect of Homeopathic Arnica on Macrophage Gene Expression Salvatore Chirumbolo Ph.D. 1 Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (e-CAM Journal)-Editor 2 Department of Neurological and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Italy
On critical points of quadratic low-rank matrix optimization problems

The absence of spurious local minima in certain nonconvex low-rank matrix recovery problems has been of recent interest in computer science, machine learning and compressed sensing since it explains the convergence of some low-rank optimization methods to global optima. One such example is low-rank matrix sensing under restricted isometry properties (RIPs). It can be formulated as a minimization problem for a quadratic function on the Riemannian manifold of low-rank matrices, with a positive semidefinite Riemannian Hessian that acts almost like an identity on low-rank matrices. In this work new estimates for singular values of local minima for such problems are given, which lead to improved bounds on RIP constants to ensure absence of nonoptimal local minima and sufficiently negative curvature at all other critical points. A geometric viewpoint is taken, which is inspired by the fact that the Euclidean distance function to a rank-$k$ matrix possesses no critical points on the corresponding embedded submanifold of rank-$k$ matrices except for the single global minimum.
Development of a measure for perceived employment relationship quality (PERQ)

Studies have shown that employees react negatively towards negative supervisory behaviour. Therefore, a questionnaire that could measure the quality of various aspects of the employment relationship could be a useful tool for managing and promoting healthy employment relationships. In the light of this, the aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire that measured the perceived quality of the employment relationship from the employeeâ€™s perspective. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted on a non-probability convenience sample of 248 employees from various organisations and sectors in South Africa. Although a 39-item questionnaire was developed across four theoretical dimensions, namely trust, fairness, good faith and justice, the analysis revealed that only two dimensions, labelled social factors and compliance factors and measured by 20 items, were sufficient to measure the desired construct. This questionnaire, which measures the perceived employment relationship quality, could be used as a diagnostic tool by management and HR professionals to determine the state of supervisory relationships in an organisation, and to address any problems brought to the fore, thereby avoiding turnover costs related to negative workplace relationships.
The influence of candidate cognitive ability and personality on assessment center ratings

The Influence of Candidate Cognitive Ability and Personality on Assessment Center Ratings By Nadia A. Worthington Abstract: The purpose of this study was to advance our understanding of assessment center (AC) functioning. This research examined (a) AC construct validity, (b) the moderating role of cognitive ability on the relationship between personality and performance, and (c) the existence of potential adverse impact. Over a period of 12 years, performance data were collected on 299 AC candidates who attended a four-day military AC. Ten dimensions were assessed across eight exercises. Multitrait-multimethod analyses examined convergent and discriminant validity and revealed an exercise effect. Results obtained by comparing exercises that varied in trait activation potential provided partial support for application of the trait activation theory framework for understanding construct validity. Comparisons of AC candidates across groups demonstrated significant group differences for the selection decision and assessment ratings based on first official language, and not sex. Results shows that Francophone candidates achieved higher overall assessment ratings and were more frequently found suitable. The purpose of this study was to advance our understanding of assessment center (AC) functioning. This research examined (a) AC construct validity, (b) the moderating role of cognitive ability on the relationship between personality and performance, and (c) the existence of potential adverse impact. Over a period of 12 years, performance data were collected on 299 AC candidates who attended a four-day military AC. Ten dimensions were assessed across eight exercises. Multitrait-multimethod analyses examined convergent and discriminant validity and revealed an exercise effect. Results obtained by comparing exercises that varied in trait activation potential provided partial support for application of the trait activation theory framework for understanding construct validity. Comparisons of AC candidates across groups demonstrated significant group differences for the selection decision and assessment ratings based on first official language, and not sex. Results shows that Francophone candidates achieved higher overall assessment ratings and were more frequently found suitable.
Applications of solid dispersions

The Solubility is an inherent property of any solid, liquid or gas. The solubility behaviour of drugs rema ins one of the most ambitious task in the formulation developm ent. The solubility of drug dictates the ease with which pharmaceutical formulations can be obtained. Solid dispersion is an efficient mean of improving the dr ug solubility and from last many years it withstands with the obj ectives of producing improved dissolution rate and bioavailability of hydrophobic drugs. This review d escribes an overview of solid dispersions technolog y as a method of improving drug solubility which includes definit ions of the various systems, preparation methods, v arious carriers and characterization methods of solid disp ersions.
Computational Formulation , Modeling and Evaluation of Human-Robot Team Training ARCaW Techniques

This thesis is focused on designing mechanisms for programming robots and training people to perform human-robot collaborative tasks, drawing upon insights from practices widely used in human teams. First, we design and evaluate human-robot cross-training, a strategy used and validated for effective human team training. Cross-training is an interactive planning method in which a human and a robot iteratively switch roles to learn a shared plan for a collaborative task. We present a computational formulation of the robot mental model, which encodes the sequence of robot actions towards task completion and the robot expectation over the preferred human actions, and show that it is quantitatively comparable to the human mental model that captures the interrole knowledge held by the human. Additionally, we propose a quantitative measure of human-robot mental model convergence, and an objective metric of mental model similarity. Based on this encoding, we formulate human-robot cross-training and evaluate it in human subject experiments (n = 36). We compare human-robot cross-training to standard reinforcement learning techniques, and show that cross-training provides statistically significant improvements in quantitative team performance measures. Additionally, significant differences emerge in the perceived robot performance and human trust. Finally, we discuss the objective measure of human-robot mental model convergence as a method to dynamically assess errors in human actions. This study supports the hypothesis that effective and fluent human-robot teaming may be best achieved by modeling effective practices for human teamwork. We also investigate the robustness of the learned policies to randomness in human behavior. We show that the learned policies are not robust to changes in the human behavior after the training phase. For this reason, we introduce a new framework that enables a robot to learn a robust policy to perform a collaborative task with a human.The human preference is modeled as a hidden variable in a Mixed Observability Markov Decision Process, which is inferred from joint-action demonstrations of a collaborative task. The framework automatically learns a user model from training data, and uses this model to plan an execution policy that is robust to changes in the
Post Marketing Surveillance of Anti-malarial Medicines in Tanzania

Background: Presence of substandard and falsified anti-malarial medicines is a major concern in countries with high prevalence of malaria. Systematic assessment and monitoring of anti-malarial medicines circulating on the market is critical to National Medicines Regulatory Authorities (NMRAs) in ensuring quality of these products in the fight against the burden of malaria disease. Objectives: This survey was conducted by Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) with the aim of monitoring the quality of registered anti-malarial medicines circulating on the market in Tanzania Mainland. Methodology: Purposive sampling method was used in obtaining the samples of anti-malarial medicines from 21 out of 26 regions of Tanzania Mainland between 2012 and 2015. These medicines were collected from ports of entry, domestic manufacturers, Medical Stores Department (MSD), wholesalers, hospitals, health centres, dispensaries and retail pharmacy outlets. Samples were subjected to product information review and quality screening using Global Pharma Health Fund® (GPHF) Mini-Lab kits. Samples failing or yielding doubtful results and ten percent (10%) of passed samples were subjected to tier two confirmatory testing using full pharmacopeial monographs at TFDA-WHO prequalified quality control laboratory. Results: A total of 1,444 samples of oral solid formulations from different types of anti-malarials were sampled. Out of these, 132 (9.1%) failed labelling product information requirements. A high percentage of samples passed identification test by TLC (97.9%) and disintegration test (99.8%). A 4.8% (7/145) failure rate was observed in confirmatory testing of which one of the failed samples namely quinine sulphate 300 mg tablets was confirmed to be falsified. Conclusion: These results indicate the importance of post marketing surveillance as an additional measure of assuring the quality of medicines by Regulators following marketing authorization and as a way of detecting falsified medicines circulating on the market.
"Household Responses for Pricing Garbage by the Bag,"

This paper estimates household reaction to the implementation of unit-pricing for the collection of residential garbage. We gather original data on weight and volume of weekly garbage and recycling of 75 households in Charlottesville, Virginia, both before and after the start of a program that requires an eighty-cent sticker on each bag of garbage. This data set is the first of its kind. We estimate household demands for the collection of garbage and recyclable material, the effect on density of household garbage, and the amount of illegal dumping by households. We also estimate the probability that a household chooses each method available to reduce its garbage. In response to the implementation of this unit-pricing program, we find that households (1) reduced the weight of their garbage by 14%, (2) reduced the volume of garbage by 37% and (3) increased the weight of their recyclable materials by 16%. We estimate that additional illegal -- or at least suspicious -- disposal accounts for 0.42 pounds per person per week, or 28% of the reduction in garbage observed at the curb.
Regional Food Price Inflation Transmission

Understanding to what extent and speed agricultural commodity price changes on international markets are transmitted to consumers is key in assessing the vulnerability of households to price shocks. The importance of these transmission indicators is compounded, in developing countries, by the fact that consumers tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on food items. Regional estimates of food inflation transmission can also be used to predict consumer-level impacts of international price shocks, contributing to improve the information basis on which to base policy mitigation actions and to focus on the areas likely to suffer the most. The aim of this paper is to provide estimates of the transmission of price changes from international commodity markets to consumers in different regions of the world, using monthly data from FAO's Food Price Indices and Regional Food Consumer Price Indices. This econometric analysis, which uses impulse response functions from error-correction models, is useful in establishing typologies of regions with respect to the extent and speed of price transmission processes.
Sex Determination in African Love Birds (Agapornis Sp.) Using P2/P8 set of Primers by PCR

Most of the bird species are not sexually dimorphic. In such cases, molecular methods are more ef cient for their sex determination. The objective of this study was to test the feasibility and ef cacy of feathers as a molecular method of sex determination in African love birds. From the freshly plucked down feathers, DNA was isolated and the ampli cation of the CHD gene was performed using P2/P8 set of primers. Sexing was successfully determined in 24 African love birds. P2/P8 primers proved to work well for sexing in African love birds. The males showed single bands and the females showed double bands.
Electrohydrodynamic Modeling of Droplet Vibrations under the Influence of Electric Fields

This work focuses on numerical simulations of water droplet deformations under the influence of transient high-voltage electric fields. In the stationary case, the droplet elongates parallel to the electrostatic field. In the transient case, water droplets undergo a complicated oscillatory motion as the electric field and the droplet shape change simultaneously. This multiphysics phenomenon has been the subject of experimental studies but has never been simulated before in the case of a transient electric field. Practical applications of this work include the numerical study of the premature aging of polymer insulators used in power transmission lines and due to water droplets as well as the simulation of industrial processes such as electrowetting and dielectrophoresis. In this thesis, the motion of a single water droplet located on the hydrophobic surface of a silicone rubber insulator is simulated numerically. This is achieved by solving the transient, three-dimensional system composed of the full sets of electro-quasistatics and Navier-Stokes equations. The solution of the coupled system is obtained by using a computational approach based on the finite element method on a moving mesh for the electrical part of the problem and on the finite volume method on a fixed mesh for the fluid mechanical part. The electro-quasistatics finite element solver calculates on a moving curvilinear tetrahedral mesh the electric field, Maxwell stress tensor and electric force density with higher and mixed-element orders. The multiphase flow finite volume solver computes on a fixed Cartesian hexahedral grid the droplet deformation by tracking the evolution of the water-air interface with the volume of fluid method. Both solvers use an independent time integration scheme but are leapfrogged in a synchronized manner to provide a time accurate calculation of the droplet deformations. Several experimental investigations are performed to verify simulation results using a high speed camera. The comparison between simulation and experiment shows good agreement between the numerically computed droplet motion and the recorded video images for both horizontal and vertical applied AC electric fields. The simulation results are analyzed by applying a one-dimensional mechanical model of water droplet deformation based on the linear harmonic oscillator. The standard model which is limited to the steady-state regime is extended to include the transient regime. It is shown that the droplet vibrations occuring at frequencies below the driving frequency are not necessarily due to the accidental charging of the water droplet as it is sometimes suggested in the literature. Rather, they may be caused by underdamped droplet oscillations which originate in the transient regime. This finding is further supported by the fact that their frequencies correspond to the resonance frequencies of the sessile water droplets oscillating freely.
EVALUATION OF SATELLITE-GAUGE MERGING PRECIPITATION METHODS FOR RAINFALL RUNOFF SIMULATIONS

This research investigated the effectiveness of merging the remote sensing satellite precipitation, GSMaP-MVK (Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation moving vector with Kalman filter), a very high spatial distribution product, with the local rainfall measurements for analysis of quantitative rainfall estimates and run-off prediction capability at basin scale. Three satellite-gauge merging methods stem from the idea of geo-statistical merging techniques were utilized to provide the precipitation input for conceptual hydrological model HBV for run-off simulation in two medium size river basins in different climate regions. The performance trends of three investigated merging approaches were similar in both two different climatic watersheds. The Bias reduction satellite-gauge merging method with good rainfall estimations and excellent stream-flow simulation skills is appropriate satellite-gauge blending method. It depicted the best performances, following by the monthly constant multiple factor and annual constant multiple factor respectively.