Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of M&A on R&D of Electric Utilities based on Heckman Two-stage Model

: Electricity industry in China and abroad is undergoing profound changes, which affect the behaviours of electric utilities in many different ways. This research empirically investigates how mergers and acquisitions (M&As) between electric utilities affect their incentives to undertake research and development (R&D) investment. The paper explores an unbalanced panel data set consisting of 125 electric utilities in the United States during 20 years sample period from 1994 to 2013. The decision to undertake R&D investment is modelled as a two-stage process. In the first stage, the electric utilities decide whether to invest in R&D at all; in the second step, the utilities will decide the amount of R&D investment. Heckman two-stage method is used for estimation. The results show that M&As have some impact on R&D investment by the electric distribution utilities.
A Node Placement Optimization Algorithm in Heterogeneous WSN Based on Neighbor Nodes

Wireless sensor network (WSN) is an important part of the Internet of Things. With the application and development of the Internet of Things, the heterogeneity of WSN is put forward a higher demand. Node placement is a critical step in the heterogeneous wireless sensor network (HEWSN). It is very important to optimize the node placement to fundamentally prolong the lifetime, improve the performance, and decrease the cost of the HEWSN. In this paper, the node placement optimization problem of HEWSN with different sensing types’ nodes is studied. An improved algorithm named neighbor nodes directed evolved nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NN-DENSGA) is proposed to solve the multiobjective optimization problem. Homogeneous neighbor nodes are considered to promote directional evolution, and heterogeneous neighbor nodes are considered to repair the coverage holes. In addition, a forced update strategy is designed to increase diversity of population. Experiments have shown that the proposed algorithm not only has improvements in optimization performance but also in convergence speed and stability.
Loneliness Status and Related Factors among the Hakka Elderly in Fujian, China: Based on the Health Ecological Model

There are few studies estimating the loneliness of the Hakka elderly in China. This study aims to examine the loneliness status and related factors among the Hakka elderly in Fujian, China. The short-form UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-8) was used to assess the loneliness of the Hakka elderly. Factors associated with loneliness were classified as individual indicators, behavioral indicators, interpersonal indicators, and social indicators according to the health ecological model (HEM). Hierarchical linear regression models were established to identify the main factors that were most predictive of loneliness. A sample of 1,262 Hakka elderly people was included in this study. Females (β = 0.631, P=0.012), those with ≥2 chronic diseases (β = 1.340, P < 0.001), those who were currently living in rural areas (β = 4.863, P < 0.001) or suburban areas (β = 2.027, P < 0.001), those with parents both died (β = 0.886, P=0.001), and those with the Urban Employees Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI; β = 0.852, P=0.030) obtained a higher score of ULS-8. Those exercised regularly (β = −2.494, P < 0.001), those had leisure activities (β = −1.937, P < 0.001), those ate healthy (β = −1.270, P < 0.001), and those with better self-rated financial status and higher education level received a lower score of ULS-8. There are differences in loneliness among different Hakka elderly population subgroups, and healthy behaviors and lifestyles may reduce the loneliness of the Hakka elderly. Relevant interventions should be implemented in a targeted manner, focusing on susceptible populations. This is most evident among those who were female, living in rural areas, with parents both died, with lower education, and with multiple chronic diseases.
Differences between Two Groups of Burmese Vipers (Viperidae: Azemiops) in the Proteomic Profiles, Immunoreactivity and Biochemical Functions of Their Venoms

Two recently revised Azemiops snakes with apparent differences in their external appearances and skeletal morphologies but unclear genetic boundaries have been proposed. Some researchers have refrained from using the newly proposed taxonomy because these two “species” might be two clades corresponding to different geographical populations of Azemiops feae. To improve the understanding of the kinship of these two Burmese viper groups, more of their characteristics should be explored in depth. We performed a comparative analysis of the proteomic profiles and biochemical activities of snake venoms from these two groups (Sichuan A. feae and Zhejiang A. feae) and evaluated the immunorecognition capacity of commercial antivenoms toward them. Eight protein families were identified in venoms from these two groups, while phospholipase B was only detected in venom from Sichuan A. feae. These protein families displayed varying degrees of differences in relative abundance between venoms, and phospholipase A2 (Sichuan A. feae: 57.15%; Zhejiang A. feae: 65.94%) was the predominated component. Gloydius brevicaudus antivenom exhibited the strongest capacity to immunologically recognize these two venoms, but this was mainly limited to components with high molecular masses, some of which differed between venoms. Additionally, Zhejiang A. feae venom was more toxic than Sichuan A. feae venom, and the venoms expressed remarkable differences in enzymatic activities, probably resulting from the variation in the relative abundance of specific protein families. Our findings unveil differences between the two Burmese viper groups in terms of proteomic profiles, immunoreactivity, and the biochemical functions of their venoms. This information will facilitate the management of snakebites caused by these snakes.
Water-Tree Characteristics and Its Mechanical Mechanism of Crosslinked Polyethylene Grafted with Polar-Group Molecules

In order to restrain electric-stress impacts of water micro-droplets in insulation defects under alternating current (AC) electric fields in crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) material, the present study represents chemical graft modifications of introducing chloroacetic acid allyl ester (CAAE) and maleic anhydride (MAH) individually as two specific polar-group molecules into XLPE material with peroxide melting approach. The accelerated water-tree aging experiments are implemented by means of a water-blade electrode to measure the improved water resistance and the affording mechanism of the graft-modified XLPE material in reference to benchmark XLPE. Melting–crystallization process, dynamic viscoelasticity and stress-strain characteristics are tested utilizing differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), dynamic thermomechanical analyzer (DMA) and electronic tension machine, respectively. Water-tree morphology is observed for various aging times to evaluate dimension characteristics in water-tree developing processes. Monte Carlo molecular simulations are performed to calculate free-energy, thermodynamic phase diagram, interaction parameter and mixing energy of binary mixing systems consisting of CAAE or MAH and water molecules to evaluate their thermodynamic miscibility. Water-tree experiments indicate that water-tree resistance to XLPE can be significantly improved by grafting CAAE or MAH, as indicated by reducing the characteristic length of water-trees from 120 to 80 μm. Heterogeneous nucleation centers of polyethylene crystallization are rendered by the grafted polar-group molecules to ameliorate crystalline microstructures, as manifested by crystallinity increment from 33.5 to 36.2, which favors improving water-tree resistance and mechanical performances. The highly hydrophilic nature of CAAE can evidently inhibit water molecules from aggregating into water micro-droplets in amorphous regions between crystal lamellae, thus acquiring a significant promotion in water-tree resistance of CAAE-modified XLPE. In contrast, the grafted MAH molecules can enhance van der Waals forces between polyethylene molecular chains in amorphous regions much greater than the grafted CAAE and simultaneously act as more efficient crystallization nucleation centers to ameliorate crystalline microstructures of XLPE, resulting in a greater improvement (relaxation peak magnitude increases by >10%) of mechanical toughness in amorphous phase, which primarily accounts for water-tree resistance promotion.
Design and Development of a Novel Haptic Device with Gravity Compensation for Teleoperation

In the local portion of teleoperation system, haptic devices determine the reliability of the motion capture and the authenticity of virtual force feedback, which undertake the cooperation between the operator and remote environment. In order to perform large workspace of the local teleoperation robot, a novel haptic device with 6DOF force feedback is proposed in this paper. In addition, a synthetical gravity compensation system is applied for counterbalancing the gravity torques. Static balancing at arbitrary position is achieved observably which reinforces transparency in the teleoperation. Subsequently, idiographic performance including maximum exertable force and translational resolution are analyzed based on Jacobian matrix. For teleoperation application, the workspace of the master-slave based on kinematics is mapped and verified in the virtual environment. The demonstration is stably visualized to the operator and the result indicates that developed haptic device works and presents good performance.
FNE-PCT: An Efficient Transformer Network for 3D Classification

Detection or classification directly from 3D point clouds has received increasing attention in recent years. Transformer is more suitable for processing point cloud data than convolutional neural networks because of its inherent permutation invariance in processing sequences. However, common sampling strategies increase the training time of the model based on Transformer, such as Point Cloud Transformer (PCT). Aiming at the problem of slow inference speed of PCT, we propose a network structure named Fast Neighbor Embedding Point Cloud Transformer (FNE-PCT) in this paper. Instead of farthest point sample (FPS) and nearest neighbor search in PCT, FNE-PCT uses a fast neighbor embedding module to improve the inference speed and a residual self-attention encoding module to enhance the expression ability. Extensive experiments based on 3D object classification show that our FNE-PCT outperforms other excellent algorithms such as PointNet, PointNet++ and PointCNN. Our FNE-PCT achieves 92.6% accuracy on ModelNet40, which is on the same level as PCT. Meanwhile the speed is boosted up 29.2%, 43.6% and 52.9% than PCT respectively on ModelNet10, ModelNet40 and ShapeNetParts datasets.
Intelligent federated learning on lattice‐based efficient heterogeneous signcryption

Signcryption technology combines signature and encryption operations in a single step to achieve message authentication and confidentiality. The ordinary signcryption technology cannot realize communication between two different cryptographic systems. Therefore, to implement efficient communication between different cryptosystems and resist quantum attacks, this paper proposes a lattice‐based efficient heterogeneous signcryption scheme. The heterogeneous signcryption scheme is proved to be secure assuming the hardness of small integer solution and learning with errors problems. Then this paper applies the lattice‐based efficient heterogeneous signcryption scheme to the federated learning system to achieve the transmission of confidential information, and designs an intelligent federated learning system on lattice‐based efficient heterogeneous signcryption. This system realizes federated learning and the quantum security of data transmission while preserving private data.
A Comparison Study between the Recently Developed Methods of Transportation Problem:A Study on the Lower-Dimensional Problems

Resource allocation is one of the crucial challenges to the decision-makers. It has a significant impact on the profitability of any company. Freight transport is one type of resource allocation; here the decision-maker has to choose the quantity of products for delivering at a minimum cost from the several plants/factories/sources to the several destinations/ warehouses. We have conducted a comparative study based on secondary data to figure out the best technique for solving the freight transportation problems. Here we have selected 40 balanced and unbalanced problems randomly with dimensions 3×3 to 7×7. We have selected 23 existing methods, some of them are popular and some are recently developed. We compare these 23 methods regarding firstly the optimal solution criterion, and secondly which one can give us the solution in the least step or short time. We have checked the solution at first manually, then by GNU Octave to figure out if there is any inconsistency. Here, the GNU octave is chosen for its easy acceptance and easy input procedure. On our selected problems, the findings show us that the Faster STrongly Polynomial method (FSTP) is best if we consider the least step but concerning the short time MOdifiedDIstribution method worked on Vogel's Approximation Method, well known as VAM-MODI is performing the best. GANIT J. Bangladesh Math. Soc. 42.1 (2022) 035- 049
Dynamics of the Reproductive Changes and Acquisition of Oocyte Competence in Nelore (Bos taurus indicus) Calves during the Early and Intermediate Prepubertal Periods

Simple Summary Brazil has the largest cattle commercial herd in the world, mostly of the Nelore breed (Bos taurus indicus), and it is one of the largest in vitro bovine embryo producers. However, Nelore cows experience puberty later than taurine breeds (Bos taurus taurus), which can lead to a delay in genetic improvement. Therefore, including calves as oocyte donors for in vitro embryo production programs could be an attractive step for reducing the interval between generations, accelerating the herd’s genetic gains, and contributing to the sustainability of milk and meat production systems. Nevertheless, calves’ oocytes are reported as less competent in generating embryos and establishing pregnancies than those collected from adult females. In addition, most studies have been carried out on taurines. Thus, this study’s goal was to search for a better understanding of prepubertal Nelore females’ reproductive development, related to the performance of their oocytes in terms of in vitro production of embryos. This can provide support for making decisions on the use of this animal category as an oocyte donor and prospects for hormonal protocols or changes in the culture media for in vitro embryo production. Abstract The purpose of this study was to characterize the reproductive physiology, oocyte competence, and chromatin compaction in Nelore calves in the early-prepubertal period (EPP) and the intermediate-prepubertal period (IPP). Calves aged 2–5 (EPP) and 8–11 months old (IPP) were assigned to Trial 1 (morpho-physiological–endocrine evaluations, n = 8) or Trial 2 (oocyte donors, n = 8) vs. the respective control groups of cows (n = 8, each). All morphological endpoints, except the antral follicle count, increased from the EPP to the IPP. The EPP LH-FSH plasma concentrations were similar to cows, whereas LH was lower and FSH was higher in the IPP than in cows. Cows produced more Grade I (12.9% vs. 4.1% and 1.7%) and fewer Grade III COC (30.1% vs. 44.5% and 49.0%) than the EPP and IPP calves, respectively. The IPP calves’ oocyte diameter was similar to those from cows but greater than those from EPP females (124.8 ± 8.5 and 126.0 ± 7.5 μm vs. 121.3 ± 7.5 μm, respectively). The expression of the chromatin compaction-related gene HDAC3 was downregulated in calves. The proportion of the blastocyst rate to the controls was lower in EPP than in IPP calves (43.7% vs. 78.7%, respectively). Progressive oocyte competence was found during the prepubertal period, which can help to decide whether to recover oocytes from calves.
A survey of semiconductor supply chain models part III: master planning, production planning, and demand fulfilment

Part I of this three-part series described semiconductor supply chains from the decision-making and functional perspectives, using this as a framework to review the industrial engineering (IE) and operations research (OR) literature on the problems arising in these supply chains. Part I then reviewed the literature on Strategic Network Design, Supply Chain Coordination, Sustainability and Semiconductor Supply Chain Simulation, while Part II reviewed Demand Planning, Inventory Management, and Capacity Planning. This paper concludes the series, discussing Master Planning, Production Planning, Demand Fulfilment, and Available to Promise (ATP) in semiconductor supply chains.
Quantitative Analysis of Adhesion Characteristics between Crumb Rubber Modified Asphalt and Aggregate Using Surface Free Energy Theory

The utilization of waste rubber tires is of great value for environment protection and resource recovery, which can also improve the properties of matrix asphalt. The adhesion characteristics were evaluated for crumb rubber modified asphalt and limestone aggregate using the surface free energy (SFE) approach. Four types of matrix asphalt and four rubber contents were used to prepare the crumb rubber modified asphalt. The contact angle of matrix and crumb rubber modified asphalt was obtained, and the SFE indicators (dispersion, polar component, and compatibility rate—CR) were calculated. Moreover, the water stability tests were conducted using one matrix and rubber modified asphalt in order to investigate the relationship between SFE and water stability indicators. Results showed that the total SFE, dispersion component, adhesion work, and CR increased with the addition of crumb rubber, while the polar component and spalling work decreased. The types of asphalt had different influences on SFE indicators. The results from analysis of variation (ANOVA) indicated asphalt type and rubber content had significant influence on the adhesion work, spalling work and CR, and the influence of asphalt type was greater than that of rubber content. Additionally, the retained Marshall Stability and tensile strength ratio had better correlation with adhesion work and CR, but less with spalling work. The presented results demonstrated that the type of matrix asphalt played an important role in the adhesion characteristics for the crumb rubber modified asphalt.
Building Hardware Security Primitives Using Scan-based Design-for-Testability

Scan chain is typically used to provide test engineers with complete controllability and observability to the circuit under test to reduce the complexity of VLSI testing. However, it should not be dismissed as just a one-hit-wonder that merely facilitates the test of digital circuits. This study presents a comprehensive review of the recent proposals on how scan chain design can present its versatility as security primitives in different areas of hardware security. More specifically, we elaborate its usage in hardware intellectual property watermarking, fingerprinting, and metering, as well as in the design of physical unclonable functions and counterfeit detection. We analyze the challenges and opportunities in building hardware security primitives using modern scan-based design-for-testability (DfT).
The Detection of Early Reading Performance and Its Relationship with Biopsychosocial Risk Factors in the Study of Learning Difficulties

The study of the multiple processes involved in learning how to read can contribute towards the early detection of good and bad readers. However, it is necessary to take into consideration different biopsychosocial risk factors (pre- and perigestational, neonatal, medical, developmental and family-related) that may have a significant impact on neurodevelopment, producing atypical cognitive development that could lead to the presence of reading difficulties. The objective of this study was to identify the main psycholinguistic abilities involved in the early reading performance and analyse their relationship to biopsychosocial risk factors. A total of 110 subjects between the ages of 4 and 7 years old and enrolled in state-run schools in Spain participated in the study. Significant correlations were found between different psycholinguistic abilities and certain biopsychosocial risk factors (having had hyperbilirubinemia, having obtained a score lower than 9 on the Apgar test, having had language problems or a sibling with dyslexia). This relationship should be taken into account in the study of learning difficulties as a potential indicator to predict later reading development and even the presence of developmental dyslexia.
A Comparative Study of Heart Rate Variability Methods for Stress Detection

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a widely accepted technique used to measure the stress level of individuals. The state of the art HRV features namely Hilbert spectral and Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) estimates have opened ways to measure mental state of the individual. The HRV spectral estimates Instantaneous Amplitude of Low Frequency band (LFiA) & Instantaneous Amplitude of High Frequency band (H FiA) derived from Hilbert Transform provides better categorization of mental stress states than conventional frequency parameters due to joint 2-D representation of the low and High frequency HRV bands. Another HRV based approach DFA, which is robust against non-linearity and non-stationarity of cardiac time series caused by complex interactions, helps in providing reliable HRV interpretation. Based on the research evidences for both Hilbert and DFA estimates, it was observed that the use of Hilbert spectral estimates in stress assessment was not validated under free living condition and the application of DFA for mental stress assessment of individuals was not studied. In this work the utility of Hilbert Transform and DFA in HRV based stress assessment was studied under two different settings (confined and free living). The first objective was to determine whether DFA can be used to delineate between two mental states (baseline and stress), under both confined and free living conditions, and to quantify its discriminatory power in the context of mental stress detection. The second objective was to examine the utility of Hilbert estimates in determining mental state under free living conditions. The third objective was to compare the discriminatory power of DFA and Hilbert Transform in stress state detection. From this study, it was observed that both Hilbert and DFA methods can be used to delineate between two mental states under both confined and free living conditions. From the comparative analysis, it was observed that Hilbert estimates showed better discriminatory power than DFA under both the settings.