Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating the Design and Operation of Irrigation Canals in Egypt

Evaluating the Design and Operation of Irrigation Canals in Egypt Amany El Kayal, Master of Science Utah State University, 1983 Major Professor: Dr. J. Paul Riley Department: Civil Engineering A computer simulation model for temperature data was developed in order to generate synthetic daily temperature. The model consists of two components: a deterministic component represented by a Fourier X series fit, and a stochastic component represented by an autoregressive model . The simulation model was proven to be able to preserve the main statistics of the historical series. The data generated by the above temperature model were used as an input to an irrigation water requirements simulation model. This model incorporates the probabilistic nature of these requirements. The irrigation system of Abo Raya area in Egypt was used to demonstrate the model application. The main components of the model are evapotranspiration, crop water requirements, stream size and its theoretical probability distribution. The evapotranspiration component of the model estimates ' the reference evapotranspiration for the irrigated area using Hargreaves method. By applying FAO crop coefficients, the crop water requirements -
Relationship between Chewing Status and Fatty Liver Diagnosed by Liver/Spleen Attenuation Ratio: A Cross-Sectional Study

This cross-sectional study investigated the relationship between chewing status and fatty liver among Japanese adults. Between April 2018 and March 2021, 450 individuals (352 males, 98 females; mean age 54.7 years) were recruited at the Asahi University Hospital Human Health Center. Chewing status was evaluated using a self-reported questionnaire. Liver/spleen (L/S) attenuation ratio < 0.9 on computed tomography was considered to indicate fatty liver, which was present in 69 participants (15%). Compared with participants without fatty liver, those with fatty liver had higher proportion of 25.0 (kg/m2) ≤ body mass index (BMI) (p < 0.001), higher serum hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) (p < 0.001), higher systolic blood pressure (p < 0.001), higher diastolic blood pressure (p < 0.001), and lower serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) (p = 0.011). Significant differences were also found in chewing status (p < 0.001) and eating speed (p = 0.011). Presence of fatty liver was positively associated with BMI (25.0 ≤; odds ratio [OR], 5.048; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.550–9.992), serum HbA1c (OR, 1.937; 95% CI, 1.280–2.930), and chewing status (poor; OR, 8.912; 95% CI, 4.421–17.966) after adjusting for sex, age, BMI, serum HbA1c, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, serum HDL cholesterol, chewing status, and eating speed. Poor chewing status was positively associated with L/S attenuation ratio. These results indicate a positive relationship between poor chewing status and fatty liver diagnosed by L/S attenuation ratio in Japanese adults.
Semi-Partial Canonical Correlation Biplot

Simple canonical correlation biplot is a graphical method to investigate two sets of variables and observations in simple canonical correlation analysis. If we consider the set of covariate variables that linearly affects two sets of variables, we can apply the partial canonical correlation biplot in partial canonical correlation analysis that removes the linear effect of the set of covariate variables on two sets of variables. On the other hand, we consider the set of covariate variables that linearly affect one set of variables but not the other. In this case, if we apply the simple or partial canonical correlation biplot, we cannot clearly interpret other two sets of variables. Therefore, in this study, we will apply the semi-partial canonical correlation analysis of Timm (2002) and remove the linear effect of the set of covariate variables on one set of variables but not the other. And we suggest the semi-partial canonical correlation biplot for interpreting the semi-partial canonical correlation analysis. In addition, we will compare shapes and shape the variabilities of the simple, partial and semi-partial canonical correlation biplots using a procrustes analysis.
Supercurrent decay in nano-superconducting quantum interference devices for intrinsic magnetic flux resolution

Supercurrent decay measurements of nano-superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) based on niobium constrictions (Dayem bridges) are reported. Such measurements provide useful information for applications that employ the SQUID as a trigger where the sensor works on the zero voltage state. The nanodevice consists of a niobium thin film (30 nm thick) ring with a hole side length of 200 nm including two Dayem bridges of 120×200 nm2. The measurements of the switching current distribution from the zero voltage state and the related escape rate, as function of the bias current, have been performed by a low noise fly time technique. The experimental data have shown an intrinsic current fluctuation less than 0.2% of the critical current at liquid helium temperature, corresponding to an intrinsic sensor magnetic flux resolution of a few mΦ0. The theoretical predictions based on the thermal escape process theory in the moderately damping limit are in a reasonable agreement with the experimental data.
Dextran Sulfate Nanocarriers: Design, Strategies and Biomedical Applications

Dextran sulfate (DXS) is a hydrophilic, non-toxic, biodegradable, biocompatible and safe biopolymer. These biomedically relevant characteristics make DXS a promising building block in the development of nanocarrier systems for several biomedical applications, including imaging and drug delivery. DXS polyanion can bind with metal oxide nanomaterials, biological receptors and therapeutic drug molecules. By taking advantage of these intriguing properties, DXS is used to functionalize or construct nanocarriers for specific applications. In particular, the diagnostic or therapeutic active agent-loaded DXS nanoparticles are prepared by simple coating, formation of polyelectrolyte complexes with other positively charged polymers or through self-assembly of amphiphilic DXS derivatives. These nanoparticles show a potential to localize the active agents at the pathological site and minimize undesired side effects. As DXS can recognize and be taken up by macrophage surface receptors, it is also used as a targeting ligand for drug delivery. Besides as a nanocarrier scaffold material, DXS has intrinsic therapeutic potential. DXS binds to thrombin, acts as an anticoagulant and exhibits an inhibitory effect against coagulation, retrovirus, scrapie virus and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Herein, biomedical applications involving the use of DXS as nanocarriers for drugs, biomolecules, and imaging agents have been reviewed. A special focus has been made on strategies used for loading and delivering of drugs and biomolecules meant for treating several diseases, including cancer, inflammatory diseases and ocular disease.
Noise performance analysis of MWIR InAs/GaSb superlattice pin photodiodes

We report the full electrooptical characterization of a MWIR InAs/GaSb superlattice (SL) pin photodiode, including dark current, noise, spectral response and quantum efficiency measurements. The SL structure was made of 8 InAs monolayers (MLs) and 8 GaSb MLs, with a total thickness of 3μm. It exhibits a cut-off wavelength of 4.55 μm at 77K. Dark current measurements reveal a diffusion-limited behavior for temperatures higher than 95K, and a R0A value of 1x106Ωcm2 at 77K. Noise measurements were performed under dark conditions and are interpreted in this paper. The results show that the SL detector remains Schottky noise-limited up to a bias voltage of -600mV and that 1/f noise is not present above 6Hz. Spectral response revealed that the cut-off wavelength increases from 4. 48μm to 4. 91μm when the temperature increases from 12K to 170K. The quantum efficiency in photovoltaic mode and at 77K is 25% (3μm-thick active zone device, single pass and without any antireflection coating). All these electrooptical performances confirm the high quality of the MWIR SL pin photodiode under test.
The Role of Inorganic Phosphate Transporters in Highly Proliferative Cells: From Protozoan Parasites to Cancer Cells

In addition to their standard inorganic phosphate (Pi) nutritional function, Pi transporters have additional roles in several cells, including Pi sensing (the so-called transceptor) and a crucial role in Pi metabolism, where they control several phenotypes, such as virulence in pathogens and tumour aggressiveness in cancer cells. Thus, intracellular Pi concentration should be tightly regulated by the fine control of intake and storage in organelles. Pi transporters are classified into two groups: the Pi transporter (PiT) family, also known as the Pi:Na+ symporter family; and the Pi:H+ symporter (PHS) family. Highly proliferative cells, such as protozoan parasites and cancer cells, rely on aerobic glycolysis to support the rapid generation of biomass, which is equated with the well-known Warburg effect in cancer cells. In protozoan parasite cells, Pi transporters are strongly associated with cell proliferation, possibly through their action as intracellular Pi suppliers for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) activity. Similarly, the growth rate hypothesis (GRH) proposes that the high Pi demands of tumours when achieving accelerated proliferation are mainly due to increased allocation to P-rich nucleic acids. The purpose of this review was to highlight recent advances in understanding the role of Pi transporters in unicellular eukaryotes and tumorigenic cells, correlating these roles with metabolism in these cells.
Bingo: Adaptively Secure Packed Asynchronous Verifiable Secret Sharing and Asynchronous Distributed Key Generation

In this work we present Bingo, an adaptively secure and optimally resilient packed asynchronous verifiable secret sharing (PAVSS) protocol that allows a dealer to share f + 1 secrets or one high threshold secret with a total communication complexity of just O(λn) words. Bingo requires a public key infrastructure and a powers-of-tau setup. Using Bingo’s packed secret sharing, we obtain an adaptively secure validated asynchronous Byzantine agreement (VABA) protocol that uses O(λn) expected words and constant expected time. Using this agreement protocol in combination with Bingo, we obtain an adaptively secure high threshold asynchronous distributed key generation (ADKG) of standard field element secrets that uses O(λn) expected words and constant expected time. To the best of our knowledge, Bingo is the first ADKG to have an adaptive security proof and have the same asymptotic complexity of the best known ADKG’s that only have non-adaptive security
Effectiveness of the development of critical thinking in the lessons of world literature in secondary school

The aim of the article is to determine the prospects of the World Literature as the subject for the development of students’ critical thinking. A set of methods was used: testing, conversation, observation, formative assessment, statistical methods. The independent variable of the formative assessment is a methodically modified system of World Literature lessons. The dependent variable is critical thinking. Samples were formed from among tenth-graders of the general and secondary educational institutions of Kyiv. The results of the study testify to the effectiveness of the developed method of developing critical thinking. Positive quantitative shifts were recorded for all studied criteria — cognitive, communicative, reflective. The results of the quantitative analysis are confirmed by observational data, which indicate qualitative transformations in the students’ educational activity and behaviour. The prevalence of medium indicators of critical thinking at the beginning of the experiment indicates the insufficient level of the studied phenomenon, which is explained by the predominance of reproductive methods of learning in the educational process. Research prospects involve studying the effectiveness of a developmental programme with students of other age groups.
Wi-Fi Security: Do We Still Have to Look Back?

—Wi-Fi is a wireless communication technology that has been around since the late nineties. Nowadays, it is the most adopted wireless short-range communication technology in various IoT (Internet of Things) applications and on many wireless AI (Artificial Intelligent) systems. Although Wi-Fi security has significantly improved throughout the past years, it is still having some limitations. Some vulnerabilities still exist allowing attackers to generate different types of attacks. These attacks can breach the authentication, confidentiality, and data integrity of Wi-Fi systems. At the same time, many vulnerabilities have been fixed or patched, and the attacks that were relying on those vulnerabilities would fail on modern Wi-Fi systems. Therefore, it is important for security engineers, in general, and for wireless intelligent system designers, in particular, to be aware of the existing vulnerabilities and feasible attacks on modern Wi-Fi systems and their respective countermeasures. That would help them to not have to look back and care about attacks that can no longer be generated on today’s Wi-Fi systems. In this light, we devote this paper to extensively review the attacks on Wi-Fi. We group the attacks into feasible and unfeasible. Also, for each attack, we discuss the possible countermeasures to mitigate it.
A Loss Reserving Model within the framework of Generalized Linear Models

Loss reserving is one of the most challenging tasks facing actuaries. Numerous approaches have been developed to give reasonable estimates. Generalized linear models (GLMs) are becoming quickly popular statistical analysis methods to estimate loss reserves. However, most of these models are aggregate reserving methods based on loss development triangles, without using information with regard to the actual claims processes. In this paper we establish a more so-phisticated structural reserving method incorporating more detailed information, such as the premium exposure emergence pattern, the loss emergence pattern and the loss development pattern, within the framework of GLMs.
Effective Network Parameter Reduction Schemes for Neural Distinguisher

In CRYPTO 2019, Gohr opens up a new direction for cryptanalysis. He successfully applied deep learning to diﬀerential cryptanalysis against the NSA block cipher SPECK32/64, achieving higher accuracy than traditional diﬀerential distinguishers. Until now, one of the mainstream research directions is increasing the training sample size and utilizing diﬀerent neural networks to improve the accuracy of neural distinguishers. This conversion mindset may lead to a huge number of parameters, heavy computing load, and a large number of memory in the distinguishers training process. However, in the practical application of cryptanalysis, the applicability of the attacks method in a resource-constrained environment is very important. Therefore, we focus on the cost optimization and aim to reduce network parameters for diﬀerential neural cryptanalysis. In this paper, we propose two cost-optimized neural distinguisher improvement methods from the aspect of data format and network structure, respectively. Firstly, we obtain a partial output diﬀerence neural distinguisher using only 4-bits training data format which is constructed with a new advantage bits search algorithm based on two key improvement conditions. In addition, we perform an interpretability analysis of the new neural distinguishers whose results are mainly reﬂected in the relationship between the neural distinguishers, truncated diﬀerential, and advantage bits. Secondly, we replace the traditional convolution with the depthwise separable convolution to reduce the training cost without aﬀecting the accuracy as much as possible. Overall, the number of training parameters can be reduced by less than 50% by using our new network structure for training neural distinguishers. Finally, we apply the network structure to the partial output diﬀerence neural distinguishers. The combinatorial approach have led to a further reduction in the number of parameters (approximately 30% of Gohr’s distinguishers for SPECK).
High resolution nonlinear microscopy: A review of sources and methods for achieving optimal imaging

This article reviews the latest instrumentation used in high resolution nonlinear microscopy and techniques for the temporal and spatial calibration of this instrumentation. This includes an overview of currently available ultrashort laser sources, the dispersion characteristics of microscopes, methods for pulse measurement at high numerical aperture, dispersion compensation techniques, and finally a brief overview of a number of nonlinear imaging methods presently used in these systems.
The Effect of Emotional Distraction on Declarative Memory and an Exploration of its Physiological Marker: An Affective Computing Perspective

This study aimed to investigate the effects of emotional distraction (ED) on declarative memory performance. The study was conducted using the within-subject experiment paradigm on 38 students aged 18–21 years (20 males). Declarative memory was measured using a word-pair association (WPA) task. Emotional distraction (ED) is induced using the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) and International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) grouped based on their valence (neutral, positive, or negative). Measurement of physiological responses was undertaken by measuring Galvanic Skin Responses (GSR) and Electroencephalography (EEG) with Frontal Alpha Asymmetry (FAA) index. The result show a signiﬁcant difference in the WPA score where the positive is lower than the neutral condition ( p = 0.011), but only in the group in which the positive block was presented ﬁrst. From the GSR data, the signiﬁcant main effect of the order of experimental block regardless of the ED valence was ( p < 0.001; F = 16.045), ﬁnding that the ﬁrst block elicits signiﬁcantly higher GSR amplitude compared to the second ( p < 0.001; t = 4.94) and the third ( p = 0.001; t = 3.90). Meanwhile, the FAA index showed no signiﬁcant difference ( p = 0.654; F = 0.433). In conclusion, we found an indication of the after-effect of positive emotional stimuli on declarative memory performance; however, looking at the habituation pattern of the GSR data, it could also be explained using the ED interference effect and the intertwined balance of cognitive and affective processes.
Correlation of Road Network Structure and Urban Mobility Intensity: An Exploratory Study Using Geo-Tagged Tweets

Urban planners have been long interested in understanding how urban structure and activities are mutually influenced. Human mobility and economic activities naturally drive the formation of road network structure and the accessibility of the latter shapes the patterns of movement flow across urban space. In this paper, we perform an exploratory study on the relationship between the street network structure and the intensity of human movement in urban areas. We focus on two cities and we utilize a dataset of geo-tagged tweets that can form a proxy to urban mobility and the corresponding street networks as obtained from OpenStreetMap. We apply three network centrality measures, including closeness, betweenness and straightness centrality, calculated at a global or local scale, as well as under mixed or individual transportation mode (e.g., driving, biking and walking) with its directional accessibility, to uncover the structural properties of urban street networks. We further design an urban area transition network and apply PageRank to capture the intensity of human mobility. Our correlation analysis indicates different centrality metrics have different levels of correlation with the intensity of human movement. The closeness centrality consistently shows the highest correlation (with a coefficient around 0.6) with human movement intensity when calculated at a global scale, while straightness centrality often shows no correlation at the global scale or weaker correlation ρ≈0.4 at the local scale. The correlation levels further depend on the type of directional accessibility and of various types of transportation modes. Hence, the directionality and transportation mode, largely ignored in the analysis of road networks, are crucial. Furthermore, the strength of the correlation varies in the two cities examined, indicating potential differences in urban spatial structure and human mobility patterns.
ISO Observations of Interstellar Ices and Implications for Comets

Abstract We report on first ISO observations of interstellar ices in the direction of the protostellar object RAFGL 7009S. Due to its extreme extinction this source represents a unique target for the detection of interstellar ices. Identified molecules include H2O, CO, and CO2together with13CO2, CH4, OCS, and H2CO. Other less firmly identified features are observed that appear in laboratory spectra of interstellar ice analogs. The evolution of interstellar dust grains plays an active role in interstellar chemistry and determines solid state and gas phase abundances. During their lifetime dust grains cycle between dense and diffuse clouds and undergo considerable metamorphism. Comets are likely the least evolved bodies in the Solar System and comet nuclei may be low density aggregates of interstellar dust. An important constraint for the origin and evolution of comets can be derived from the presence of pre-solar ices and organics. To study volatiles and grains in the cometary coma is one of the future goals of the ROSETTA comet rendezvous mission. In comparison with new ISO data we present laboratory studies on interstellar ice analogs which reveal the composition and structure of ices in dense molecular clouds. We discuss the ubiquitous presence and high abundances of interstellar CO2ice in the cometary context and estimate column densities of molecules such as CH4, H2CO, and OCS which provide important constraints on the origin of cometary ices and for cometary evolution.
Microscopic Modeling of Exciton-Polaritons in Two-Dimensional Materials

Integrating 2D materials into high-quality optical microcavities opens the door to fascinating many-particle phenomena including the formation of exciton-polaritons. These are hybrid quasi-particles inheriting properties of both the constituent photons and excitons. The corresponding change in the dispersion relation has a large impact on the optics, dynamics and transport behaviour of the materials. In this thesis, we aim to microscopically understand the optical response and propagation of exciton-polaritons in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). The theoretical method is based on the density matrix formalism combined with the Hopfield approach. In particular, we investigate how the diffusion of exciton changes in the strong coupling regime, i.e. when exciton-polaritons are formed. Furthermore, we study the impact of dark excitons on the optical response of upper and lower polariton branches in absorption spectra of molybdenumand tungsten-based TMDs, which are known to be direct and indirect semiconductors, respectively. Furthermore, we show how different experimentally accessible quantities, such as temperature or mirror reflectance, can be exploited to tune the optical response of polaritons. Our study contributes to an improved microscopic understanding of exciton-polaritons and their interaction with phonons, potentially suggesting experiments that could determine the energy of dark exciton states via momentum-resolved polariton absorption.