Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulation-Based Design of an Electrostatically Driven Micro-Actuator for Fluid Transport in Mobile Applications

The emerging lab-on-chip technology for in-situ medical use and environmental surveillance brought with it the demand for new, micro-scale actuator designs specialized in energy-efficient fluid transport, supporting the development of lightweight and mobile systems. In this work, we present the simulation-based design of a novel, integrated micro-fluidic actuator intended for mobile applications. The design is laid-out to be compatible with standard semiconductor manufacturing processes in order to enable mass-production at low cost per unit. The development of the device is supported and accelerated by a dedicated fully energy-coupled finite element model (FEM). The FE model takes into account the fluid-solid interaction in addition to the electro-mechanical interrelations, therefore reproducing the full device behavior in reaction to electrical input signals. In the end, we discuss several design parameters exhibiting space for improvement compared to the chosen standard values, as identified by the FEM simulations.
Qualitative Approach of Plankton Communities Behaviour in a Mediterranean Bay : a Contribution to Some Biological and Mathematical Aspects

Seasonal variations of the plankton community (phytoplankton and zooplankton) in the Toulon Bay (Var, France) have been studied since 1995 [1, 2]. Plankton samplings have been carried out regularly in two sites (little bay and large bay) differently affected by anthropogenic inputs of Toulon area. The abundance and the diversity of plankton community during annual cycles have provided some data which exhibit inherent features as the pattern shape of limit cycles as well as the apparent period of intrinsic evolution of phytoplankton and zooplankton separately considered. We have also some data of average concentrations of nitrates and orthophosphates in the bays.
From Reacting to Predicting Technologies: A Novel Performance Monitoring Technique Based on Detailed Dynamic Models

Performance monitoring has the main aim to analyze operating process unit efficiencies especially to lower variable costs, increase profitability, and improve the supply chain optimization in terms of enterprise resource planning (ERP), production accounting, and optimal scheduling of maintenances. Nevertheless, the industrial state of the art is based on approximated techniques for data reconciliation and performance monitoring, which make use of the plant historical database and adopt regressive methods to predict trends of future efficiencies, whereas more reliable performance monitoring techniques are needed to obtain an effective ERP. On this subject, the paper shows how the process performance monitoring is fast moving from reacting towards predicting methodologies and proposes a novel promising technique based on unsteady detailed models to tackle this issue.
Chemical characterisation of humic-like substances from urban, rural and tropical biomass burning environments using liquid chromatography with UV/vis photodiode array detection and electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry

Environmental context One of the most important classes of water-soluble organic compounds in continental fine and tropical biomass burning aerosol is humic-like substances (HULIS), which contain components with strong polar, acidic and chromophoric properties. We focus on the chemical characterisation of HULIS and provide evidence that nitro-aromatic catecholic compounds are among the major species of HULIS. This indicates that volatile aromatic hydrocarbons emitted during biomass burning are important gas-phase precursors for HULIS. Abstract Humic-like substances (HULIS) are ubiquitously present in the troposphere and make up a major fraction of continental fine-sized water-soluble organic compounds. They are regarded as material with strong polar, acidic and chromophoric properties; however, structural information at the individual component level is rather limited. In the present study, we have characterised HULIS from different locations using liquid chromatography coupled to photodiode array detection and negative ion electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry. Aerosol samples with particles less than 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5) were collected in Budapest and K-puszta, Hungary, during 2007 and 2008 spring and summer periods, and in Rondonia, Brazil, during a 2002 biomass burning experiment. Major components of the Budapest 2007 and Brazil 2002 HULIS corresponded to chromophoric substances, of which 4-nitrocatechol (molecular weight (MW) 155) was identified as the most abundant organic species and less abundant ones were attributed to mono- and dimethyl nitrocatechols (MWs 169 and 183). The mass concentrations of 4-nitrocatechol in the water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) of the Budapest 2007 and day- and night-time Brazil 2002 HULIS were 0.46, 0.50 and 1.80 %. Abundant components of K-puszta 2008 HULIS were assigned to α-pinene secondary organic aerosol (SOA) tracers, i.e. 3-methyl-1,2,3-butanetricarboxylic acid and terpenylic acid; their mass concentrations in the HULIS WSOC were 0.75 and 0.40 %. Tere- and ortho-phthalic acids (MW 166) were major components of the Budapest and K-puszta HULIS, but only minor ones of the Brazil 2002 biomass burning HULIS, consistent with a source that is different from biomass burning and likely related to open waste burning of phthalate ester-containing material such as plastic.
Joint Optimization of Resource Allocation and Service Performance in vEPC Using Reinforcement Learning

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is the transition from proprietary hardware functions to virtualized counterparts of them within the telecommunication industry. With the aim of quality of service guarantee and energy saving, telco operates need to decided when and how to scale the virtual resource with the traffic processing demand. In this paper, we proposed an auto-scaling mechanism based on reinforcement learning. First, we establish a system model for vEPC (virtualized Evolved Packed Core) to gather the state information. Second, auto-scaling mechanism based on reinforcement learning can treat procedure of scaling decision as Markov Decision Process. By simulation, our mechanism outperforms threshold based policy, and realizes the joint optimization of resource allocation and service performance in vEPC.
An Enactivist Theory of Emotional Content

Most of the prominent theories of emotion identify them with some kind of representational state: judgments, perceptions, desires, sui generis mental attitudes, or compounds of these states. These models emphasize the idea that emotions have meaning or content; they present the world as being a certain way. Embodied theories of emotion complicate this model. Facial expressions and accelerated heart rates do not, at least on first inspection, resemble judgments or perceptions. We believe embodied theories are right, though we won’t review the evidence here (see Prinz, 2004). Instead, we want to consider how embodied theories should cope with the question of content. We will review some of the dominant strategies that defenders of embodiment have taken, and we will argue that each faces problems. We will then consider two more recent approaches: one that emphasizes affordances, and another that defines emotions as “enactive. ” Building on the former approach, we will develop a version of the latter: an enactivist theory of emotional content. Our theory makes a strong claim about the ontology of emotions: that emotions do not represent pre-given features of the world, but rather bring new properties into existence. Thus, emotions do not represent objective features of the world, nor do they represent response-dependent features. Indeed, we don’t think it is accurate to say emotions represent at all. Rather, they bring a special class of properties into existence.
L 2-STABILITY OF A FINITE ELEMENT – FINITE VOLUME DISCRETIZATION OF CONVECTION-DIFFUSION-REACTION EQUATIONS WITH NONHOMOGENEOUS MIXED BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

We consider a time-dependent and a steady linear convection-diffusion-reaction equation whose coefficients are nonconstant. Boundary conditions are mixed (Dirichlet and Robin−Neumann) and nonhomogeneous. Both the unsteady and the steady problem are approximately solved by a combined finite element – finite volume method: the diffusion term is discretized by Crouzeix−Raviart piecewise linear finite elements on a triangular grid, and the convection term by upwind barycentric finite volumes. In the unsteady case, the implicit Euler method is used as time discretization. This scheme is shown to be unconditionally L-stable, uniformly with respect to diffusion, except if the Robin−Neumann boundary condition is inhomogeneous and the convective velocity is tangential at some points of the Robin−Neumann boundary. In that case, a negative power of the diffusion coefficient arises. As is shown by a counterexample, this exception cannot be avoided. Mathematics Subject Classification. 65M12, 65M60. Received September 9, 2015. Revised March 18, 2016. Accepted May 30, 2016.
Influences of a Bar Breakage Evaluated through the Finite Element 3D Model of the Squirrel-cage Induction Motor Start-up

The finite element analysis in time domain of a squirrel-cage induction motor is considered in order to evaluate the influence of a rotor bar breakage fault on the stator current, on the electromagnetic torque, on the rotor unbalanced force and on the magnetic flux density in a point of the motor airgap.Results for healthy and faulty operation states of the motor, based on the 3D model of the no-load motor start-up, for an initial short period of time are obtained and studied.The presence of the bar breakage faults is very well reflected by the rotor unbalanced force and by the magnetic field in the particular point specially chosen for the investigations related the rotor bar breakages.
Requirement Volatility, Standardization and Knowledge Integration in Software Projects: An Empirical Analysis on Outsourced IS Development Projects

Information systems development (ISD) projects are highly complex, with different groups of people having to collaborate and exchange their knowledge. Considering the intensity of knowledge exchange that takes place in outsourced ISD projects, in this study a conceptual model was developed, aiming to examine the influence of four antecedents, i.e. standardization, requirement volatility, internal integration, and external integration, on two dependent variables, i.e. process performance and product performance. Data were collected from 46 software companies in four big cities in Indonesia. The collected data were examined to verify the proposed theoretical model using the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. The results show that process performance is significantly influenced by internal integration and standardization, while product performance is significantly influenced by external integration and requirement volatility. This study contributes to a better understanding of how knowledge integration can be managed in outsourced ISD projects in view of increasing their success.
Analysing aphid behaviour with time-to-event techniques to discriminate between susceptible and resistant plants

Many studies address aphid feeding behaviour to learn more about resistance mechanisms in plants. Time-to-event techniques can be used to exploit the datasets more profoundly by looking at changes in aphid behaviour over time. Our present dataset was acquired by automated video-tracking of probing behaviour of Nasonovia ribisnigri, the lettuce aphid, on leaf discs of two different lettuce cultivars, one susceptible to aphids and one resistant to aphids. The behaviour of individual aphids was recorded in a no-choice situation during 8 h. All experiments were performed on three different days. We first addressed the structure of the alternating non-probing and probing behaviours. To investigate whether the duration of these two behavioural components is affected by plant resistance, we performed a time-to-event analysis for the events ‘start of a probe’ and ‘end of a probe’. These analyses showed that the tendency to stop a probe was lower for aphids on the susceptible cultivar and the tendency to start a probe was higher on that cultivar. This can be seen in the durations of the probes – these were longer on the susceptible cultivar – and the non-probes – these were shorter on the susceptible cultivar. For the current dataset we analyse the behaviour in more detail by including some covariates. In the future, we will use the time-to-event analysis to assess the level of resistance of varieties of a plant species by considering the distributions of both probe and non-probe durations.
Inflation Inequality in Europe 1 Introduction 1

We analyze cross-household inflation dispersion in Europe using “fictitious” monthly inflation rates for several household categories (grouped according to income levels, household size, socio-economic status, age) for the period from 1997 to 2008. Our analysis is carried out on a panel of 23 up to 27 household-specific inflation rates per country for 15 countries. In the first part of the paper, we employ time series and related non-stationary panel approaches to shed light on cross-country differences in inflation inequality with respect to the number of driving forces in the panel. In particular, we focus on the degree of persistence of the household-specific inflation rates and their the adjustment behaviour towards the inflation rate of a “representative household”. In the second part of the paper, we pool over the full sample of all countries and test if and by how much certain household categories across Europe are more prone to significant inflation differentials and significant differences in the volatility of inflation. Furthermore we search for the presence of clusters with respect to inflation susceptibility. On the national level, we find evidence for the existence of one main driving factor driving the non-stationarity of the panel and evidence for a single co-integration vector. Persistence of deviations, however, is high, and the adjustment speed towards the “representative household” is low. Even if there is no concern about a long-run stable distribution, at least in the shortto medium run deviations tend to last. On the European level, we find small but significant differences (mainly along income levels), we can separate 5 clusters and two main driving forces for the differences in the overall panel. All in all, even if differences are relatively small, they are not negligible and persistent enough to represent a serious matter of debate for economic and social policy.
Images revealing useful clues on Romanian vowels spectrograms

Image of complex spectrograms on vocal signals gives interesting clues on important characteristics not to be ignored in voice processing. On-line high quality speaker-recognition continues to be a challenging attempt for the speech-processing domain, researches continuing to be developed for finding the optimal paths. Finding a certain voice in a party-environment or detecting the possible nationality of a speaker based on voiceanalysis has tremendous importance in forensic research. Compulsory pre-processing stages are implied in order to obtain the best feature vector, retaining the most important characteristics of the recorded utterance. The quality of the recording and the required noise treatment, the structure of the feature vector, the type of the classifier used in the recognition stage must take into consideration detailed aspects resulting when vowels spectrogram images are analyzed.
PREDICTING THE UNPREDICTABLE THROUGH KNOWLEDGE: ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE IN PREDICTING INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR:

Predicting human behaviors and regulating those behaviors through positive or negative reinforcement are essential for maintaining successful inter-personal relationships. Keeping in view this notion, this paper aims to provide an understanding of the role of tacit and explicit knowledge of behavioral sciences in enhancing the predictive capability of students of the University of Central Punjab (UCP) with respect to classmates’ academic potential and instructors’ attitudes toward student evaluation. Factor analysis was applied to test the construct validity of the questionnaire. Five new factors have been extracted such as socializing, cognitive-behavioral trainings, teaching effectiveness, cognitive biases, and predictive capability. The results indicate that socializing in form of social events, class group assignments, cognitive-behavioral trainings, and efforts to minimize students’ cognitive biases enhance the students’ predictive capability of classmates’ academic potential and instructors’ attitudes toward student evaluation.
Adaptive surface-related multiple elimination

The major amount of multiple energy in seismic data is related to the large reflectivity of the surface. A method is proposed for the elimination of all surface‐related multiples by means of a process that removes the influence of the surface reflectivity from the data. An important property of the proposed multiple elimination process is that no knowledge of the subsurface is required. On the other hand, the source signature and the surface reflectivity do need to be provided. As a consequence, the proposed process has been implemented adaptively, meaning that multiple elimination is designed as an inversion process where the source and surface reflectivity properties are estimated and where the multiple‐free data equals the inversion residue. Results on simulated data and field data show that the proposed multiple elimination process should be considered as one of the key inversion steps in stepwise seismic inversion.
Improving Soybean Variety Trial Analysis with Augmented Models

Plant breeders intend to evaluate a large number of new varieties in order to select genotypes with great yield potential through various variety trials. Thus, a large experimental field may be needed. A prerequisite in most experimental designs is homogeneity among experimental plots within each block. However, it is sometimes difficult to ensure that experimental plots are uniform within each field block regarding soil fertility and soil conditions that may significantly impact yield and other important traits. In this study, a classical randomized complete block (RCB) with three field replications (row-blocking) was “augmented” based on the field plot layout in a one-year soybean variety trial. Data for yield and yield components of 12 soybean varieties were collected and analyzed with several augmented models. Results showed that variety had highly significant impacts on grain yield, 100-pod weight, and seed 100-pod weight. Soil heterogeneity existed in the row direction for yield. Further analyses showed that, soil conditions contributed to the significance impact of cultivar on grain yield but number of seeds, 100-pod weight, or 100-pod seed weight was not significantly affected.
Optical microsphere resonators: optimal coupling to high-Q whispering-gallery modes

A general model is presented for coupling of high-Q whispering-gallery modes in optical microsphere resonators with coupler devices that possess a discrete and continuous spectrum of propagating modes. By contrast to conventional high-Q optical cavities, in microspheres the independence of high intrinsic quality-factor and controllable parameters of coupling via an evanescent field offer a variety of regimes similar to those that are already available in rf devices. The theory is applied to data reported earlier on different types of couplers to microsphere resonators and is complemented by the experimental demonstration of enhanced coupling efficiency (∼80%) and variable loading regimes with Q>108 fused-silica microspheres.
Copper Coin loaded Miniaturized Slot Antenna

This article presents a new technique of slot antenna miniaturization using a copper coin loading at a location close to the center position of the slot. The resonant frequency for reference antenna and loaded antenna are 2.86GHz and 1.45GHz respectively. As a result, the frequency of loaded antenna reduces by a factor of 49.30% compared to the reference antenna topology with good radiation characteristics. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated on an FR4 microwave substrate with ground plane size 100×100 mm2, and its reflection coefficient, E-plane, H-plane and efficiency are compared with the simulation results.
An optimized way for a better accuracy of gas consumption profiles

Forecasting gas flows at points of interface between the transport and distribution systems represents an important issue in the case of transport and distribution networks. Preparing transport programs is based on nominations received from gas distributors. These are based on consumer needs profiles. Any difference between the consumption and the nomination is penalized. Therefore, consumption forecasting accuracy is essential. The paper presents a method for improving the forecasts that are made on the basis of consumer profiles by using the dynamic consumption factor which includes the consumer behavior during the forecast
Environmental monitoring in the Kaklik Cave (Denizli, Turkey)

The formation of caves is the special environment of our earth. Caves with dim natural light and lighted hypogean environments, have been found various organism. The Kaklik Cave located tectonic lines and has a very different way of formation when compare with many other same karstic formation caves. The Kaklik Cave is located in the area of Kaklik town in Honaz area and in Denizli province. The cave is one of the 54 cave opened to tourism in Turkey and endanger. In this study the cave climate, hydrol? ogy and biology were studied. The cave has specific species due to this formation, the entrance is wide and open to the sky, that makes the sunlight could go through a very wide area and cause of it is very rich about hydrology, these effects; provide a very high biodiversity to the cave. The cave has very important touristic potential because of the continuously growing travertine, geographical position, availability of access and natural beauties. The wrong artificial lightning badly changes the natural structure of the cave. This artificial lightning causes the biofilm layer and changing on the color of the travertine.