Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Australian English listeners' perception of Japanese vowel length reveals underlying phonological knowledge

Speech perception patterns are strongly influenced by one's native phonology. It is generally accepted that native English listeners rely primarily on spectral cues when perceiving vowels, making limited use of duration cues because English lacks phonemic vowel length. However, the literature on vowel perception by English listeners shows a marked bias toward American English, with the phonological diversity among different varieties of English largely overlooked. The current study investigates the perception of Japanese vowel length contrasts by native listeners of Australian English, which is reported to use length to distinguish vowels unlike most other varieties of English. Twenty monolingual Australian English listeners participated in a forced-choice experiment, where they categorized Japanese long and short vowels as most similar to their native vowel categories. The results showed a general tendency for Japanese long and short vowels (e.g., /ii, i/) to be categorized as Australian English long and short vowels (e.g., /i:, ɪ/ as in “heed,” “hid”), respectively, which contrasts with American English listeners' categorization of all Japanese vowels as tense regardless of length (e.g., /ii, i/ as both “heed”) as reported previously. Moreover, this duration-based categorization was found not only for Australian English categories that contrast in duration alone (e.g., /ɐ:, ɐ/ as in “hard,” “hud”) but also for those that contrast in both duration and spectra (e.g., /o:, ɔ/ as in “hoard,” “hod”), despite their spectral mismatch from the corresponding Japanese vowels (e.g., /aa, a/ and /oo, o/). The results, therefore, suggest that duration cues play a prominent role across all vowel categories—even nonnative—for Australian English listeners. The finding supports a feature-based framework of speech perception, where phonological features like length are shared across multiple categories, rather than the segment-based framework that is currently dominant, which regards acoustic cues like duration as being tied to a specific native segmental category. Implications for second and foreign language learning are discussed.
Assessing the Efficacy of Anterior Repositioning Splints in the Management of Temporomandibular Disc Displacement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Disc displacement (DD) occurs when the cushioning disc of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), situated between the jawbone and the skull, is out of position. The condition can be of two kinds: disc displacement with reduction (ddwr) and disc displacement without reduction (ddwor). The present systematic review was undertaken to assess the efficacy of anterior repositioning splints (ARS) for ddwr and ddwor. Three online databases were searched for relevant studies using MeSH keywords and Boolean operators. Initial searches of the databases extracted 552 records. Twelve studies equally representing ARS with ddwr and ddwor were selected. No clear difference could be assessed regarding ARS usage in both conditions. The outcome assessed was the improvement in TMJ symptoms. The results suggested that both ddwr and ddwor were effective in improving temporomandibular joint (TMJ) symptoms in patients who received ARS therapy. Efficacy levels ranged from 71-83% and 50-95% for ARS in ddwr and ddwor, respectively; odds ratio (OR) values ranging from 0.30 and 0.36 were obtained for ARS in both therapies, respectively, indicating similar performance levels. Both ddwr and ddwor respond well to the use of ARS; however, more clinical trials are needed to ascertain and validate the role of ARS as a treatment modality in this regard.
Spurious Regressions and Panel IV Estimation: Revisiting the Causes of Conflict

Development and humanitarian agencies have rapidly embraced the concept of resilience since the 2008 global financial and food price crises. We report the results of a formal scoping review of the literature on development resilience over the ensuing period. The review identifies the theoretical and methodological underpinnings and empirical applications of resilience as the concept has been applied to individual or household well-being in low-and middle-income countries. From 9,558 search records spanning 2008-20, 301 studies met our pre-registered inclusion criteria. Among these, we identify three broad conceptualizations employed – resilience as capacity, as a normative condition, or as return to equilibrium – and explain how the resulting variation in framing leads to marked differences in empirical methods and findings. We study in greater depth a set of 45 studies that met five key criteria for empirical studies of resilience. The larger, more established, qualitative empirical literature yields insights suggestive that the concept of resilience can add value. The quantitative literature is thinner and divided among methods that limit cross-study comparability of findings. Overall, we find that development resilience remains inconsistently theorized and reliant on methods that have not been adequately reconciled to identify which tools are best suited to which questions. Despite much published evidence, most findings concentrate on just a few countries and natural shocks, and rely on cross-sectional data at just one scale of analysis. The result is a dearth of generalizable evidence, especially of rigorous impact evaluations, to guide whether or how agencies might build resilience among target populations.
Driving customer engagement and citizenship behaviour in omnichannel retailing: evidence from the fashion sector

Purpose This study, grounded in the SOR theory, aims to enrich the understanding of customer citizenship behaviour in omnichannel fashion retail by examining how different customer experiences enhance customer engagement and how that engagement leads to customer citizenship behaviour. The influence of return policies on the relationship between customer engagement and customer citizenship behaviour was also examined. Design/methodology/approach Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is used to examine the framework of the proposed study with data collected through a survey (n = 251) to examine the opinions of the respondents about the variables mentioned. The authors also assessed the proposed framework using predictive power assessment using PLS predict. Findings The study results reveal that customers’ experiences of integration and flexibility in omnichannel retail are positively associated with their engagement. However, customer experiences of connectivity, consistency and personalization do not appear to affect customer engagement significantly in omnichannel retail. The return policy positively moderates the relationship between customer engagement and customer citizenship behaviour in the omnichannel fashion retail context. Predictive power assessment shows that the proposed model has high prediction accuracy. Originality/value This study contributes to the marketing literature by investigating different dimensions of consumer experience collectively and its impact on customer engagement and citizenship behaviour. Furthermore, the study contributes to omnichannel retail in fashion industry by testing the return policy as a moderator variable on the relationship between customer engagement and citizenship behaviour.
Artificial neural networks applied to time series for flood prediction

Extreme hydrological events and lack of urban planning can generate climate-related disasters. Several fields of study, including artificial intelligence, contribute to mitigate this problem and develop preventive solutions. This study focuses on flood forecasting the Xingu River using time series data. The main approach is to standardize the pure data from different stations using quantiles, and thus generate recurrence plots for the time series and then transform them into two-dimensional representations to be applied in the convolutional neural network model. The combination of recurrence plot with CNN provided data metrics in the prediction test with superior performance compared to the algorithms models implemented as LSTM, RNN.
Robust Sliding Mode Control for Two-Wheel Robot Without Kinematic Equations

This article proposes solutions to control the balance of a two-wheel robotic system in the presence of uncertainties in the dynamic equations and without the need for kinematic equations. To do this, the dynamic equations of this system are first transferred to the error area and then these equations are divided into two completely independent subsystems, under excitation, and full excitation. In the following, two completely different sliding mode controllers are presented to control the under-excitation subsystem, which can make this subsystem asymptotically stable in the presence of structural and non-structural uncertainties. After that, a sliding mode control is proposed to control the entire excitation subsystem, making this subsystem asymptotically stable in the presence of existing uncertainties. Since these two subsystems are completely independent of each other, proving their global asymptotic stability provides proof of the global asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. The isolation of two-wheel balancing robot subsystems eliminates the need to use kinematic equations, resulting in structural uncertainties not affecting the tracking accuracy of closed-loop system state variables. Finally, to verify the performance of the proposed controllers and compare their performance results, three-stage simulations are implemented on the two-wheel Balance robotic system. Mathematical proofs and simulation results show the optimal performance of the proposed solutions.
Maximize the potential of seismic data in shale exploration and production - Examples from the Barnett shale and the Eagle Ford shale

Summary To improve the success rate in shale plays we must drill with knowledge and a correct understanding of targeted shale formation. Seismic data provides valuable information related to geology, rock mechanical properties and in-situ stress. Properly processed, imaged and analyzed the seismic data becomes an important source of information facilitating the decision making processes such as sweet spot identification, fracturing stimulation and completion design. A full azimuth depth domain imaging technique has been implemented that recovers the true subsurface azimuth, thereby providing a foundation for accurate estimation of in-situ stress and its orientation through anisotropic velocity analysis and azimuthal AVO technique. Geomechanical property generation requires input of reflection angle data to initially invert for P and S wave impedances. Poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus (*Rho) are calculated and analyzed to yield a 3D distribution of shale brittleness. Varieties of seismic attributes such as structural attributes, trace shape (facies) attribute and frequency dependent attribute contribute to the understanding of the shale formation in term of structural style and features (faults and Karst), changes in rock properties and thickness.
FIDELITY OF MOLLUSCAN ASSEMBLAGES FROM THE TOURO PASSO FORMATION (PLEISTOCENE–HOLOCENE), SOUTHERN BRAZIL: TAPHONOMY AS A TOOL FOR DISCOVERING NATURAL BASELINES FOR FRESHWATER COMMUNITIES

Abstract This study is the first assessment of mollusk fossil assemblages relative to the compositional fidelity of modern mollusk living and death assemblages. It also shows that the sedimentary record can provide information on the original, non-human-impacted, freshwater malacofauna biodiversity, based on Late Pleistocene shells. The fossil mollusk assemblage from the Touro Passo Formation (Pleistocene–Holocene) was compared to living and death assemblages of the Touro Passo River, southern Brazil, revealing little resemblance between fossil and live-dead species composition. Although the living and death assemblages agree closely in richness, species composition, and species relative abundances (both proportional and rank), the fossil assemblage differs significantly from both modern assemblages in most of these measures. The fossil assemblage is dominated by the native endemic corbiculid bivalve Cyanocyclas limosa and the gastropod Heleobia aff. bertoniana. These are absent in the living assemblages, and both living and death assemblages are dominated by the alien Asiatic corbiculid C. fluminea, which is absent in the fossil assemblage. The fossil assemblage also contains, overall, a higher proportional abundance of relatively thick-shelled species, suggesting a genuine bias against the thinner- and smaller-shelled species. Our results suggest that contemporary environmental changes, such as the introduction of some alien freshwater mollusk species, together with post-burial taphonomic processes, are the main factors leading to the poor fidelity of the fossil assemblage studied. Hence, the taxonomic composition of the Late Pleistocene mollusks from the Touro Passo Formation probably would show greater similarity to present-day assemblages wherever the mollusk biodiversity is not disturbed by human activities.
Flow Over Gravel Dunes.

Aims: Flow over gravel dunes is investigated. Measured velocity and Reynolds stress distributions over gravel dunes are compared to those for sand bedforms under similar geometric and hydraulic conditions. Place and Duration of Study: Experiments were carried out at the hydraulics laboratory at Isfahan University of Technology, Iran, during the summer of 2012. Results: Results show that the dune surface roughness plays a significant role in the stream wise velocity near-bed region (z/H <0.3), but it has no influence on the velocity distribution in outer flow region (z/H>0.3). While flow separation is clear in the troughs of sand bedforms, it is not evident over gravel bedforms and this has important implications when considering drag and flow resistance. The convex shapes of the Reynolds shear stress distribution over the trough and stoss regions of gravel bedforms are comparable to those of sand bedforms for z/H>0.5, but significant differences are found for z/H<0.5. The greater surface roughness of gravel dunes increases peak values of Reynolds shear stresses over the trough, crest and stoss regions.
A Cascaded Multilevel Modular Energy Router Hybrid Photovoltaic and Energy Storage With Improved Power Balance Capability

Cascaded H-bridge (CHB) converter has become an attractive topology for future large-scale photovoltaic (PV) plants in medium-voltage microgrids. However, the unequal irradiation and aging degree of PV arrays will lead to imbalanced and inconsistent output power between the three phases. This article presents a novel approach to integrating PV and energy storage (ES) systems inherent in microgrids, utilizing a hybrid CHB-based energy router (HCHB-ER), which is configured with a limited number of submodules to connect with the centralized ES. The proposed topology can handle serious interphase power imbalance and respond to grid-side power scheduling, without the appearance of overmodulation and common-mode voltage rise caused by traditional zero-sequence voltage injection methods. Under the three major constraints from the modulation level, the centralized energy storage maximum intrapower regulation boundary and submodule configuration ratio are analyzed in detail. Additionally, the power imbalance regulation capability of the proposed HCHB-ER across various configuration ratios is thoroughly evaluated and compared with the zero-sequence injection methods. Finally, the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed strategy are verified by simulations and experiments.
Expression of Acetyl Coa Carboxylase Gene from Cleome Viscosa L. and Its Seed Oil

Asian spider flower (Cleome viscosa L.) is annual herbaceous weed plant. Its seed oil has similar properties to the seed oil from Jatropha curcas L. which is the biodiesel plant. This research focused on the expression of acetyl CoA carboxylase gene in 4 stages of seeds (1-4 weeks after fruit set (WAF)) by Reverse transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). Acetyl CoA carboxylase (ACCase) is the essential enzyme for the first step in the biosynthesis of long-chain fatty and glycerol. The heteromeric ACCase consists of 4 subunits. accA, accB and accC gene were located in nuclear, while the accD gene was in chloroplast. The result showed that the expression of accA gene showed the most highly expressed in 3 WAF, while the expression of accC and accD showed the most highly expression in 2-3 WAF. These results indicated that co-expression of accA, accC and accD were highest in 3 WAF and down regulated in 4 WAF. In contrast, accB gene showed the high expression level in 4 weeks after fruit set. The total oil was obtained by petroleum ether soxhlet extraction. The high oil content was 3-4 WAF. These findings suggested that comparatively high expression of the Accase gene related to the persistence of oil accumulation during the late stage of seed oil formation for C. viscosa L.
Adaptive output feedback reinforcement learning control for continuous time switched stochastic nonlinear systems with unknown control coefficients and full-state constraints

In this paper, the problem of adaptive neural network (NN) reinforcement learning (RL) tracking control is investigated for the continuous time (CT) switched stochastic nonlinear systems with unknown control coefficients and full-state constraints. First, a set of reconstructed states are defined to handle the unknown control coefficients, and switched state observers are developed to estimate unmeasurable reconstructed states. Then, to improve the tracking performance, based on the minimal learning parameter (MLP) method and the RL control design technique, the adaptive RL controller is developed by the backstepping method. Finally, the boundedness of the tracking error and all signals is demonstrated via the average dwell time (ADT) method and tangent type time-varying barrier multiple Lyapunov functions. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is verified by two examples.
Measuring and Modeling Shallow Groundwater Flow between a Semi-Karst Border Stream and Ozark Forested Riparian Zone in the Central USA

Aims: Quantitative information is limited pertaining to riparian forest and stream shallow groundwater interactions particularly in karst hydro-ecosystems. Study Design, Place and Duration: Spatiotemporal variability of shallow groundwater flow was monitored along two stream reaches in a riparian Ozark border forest of central Missouri, United States. Each reach was equipped with twelve piezometers and two stream-gauging stations during the 2011 water year (WY). Methodology: High-resolution (i.e. 15 minute) time-series data were analyzed indicating average groundwater flow per unit stream length was -3 x 10
Antrodia cinnamomea May Interfere with the Interaction Between ACE2 and SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein in vitro and Reduces Lung Inflammation in a Hamster Model of COVID-19

Purpose Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a global health challenge with widespread transmission. Growing concerns about vaccine side effects, diminishing efficacy, and religious-based hesitancy highlight the need for alternative pharmacological approaches. Our study investigates the impact of the ethanol extract of Antrodia cinnamomea (AC), a native medicinal fungus from Taiwan, on COVID-19 in both in vitro and in vivo contexts. Methods We measured the mRNA and protein levels of angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) in human lung cells using real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting, respectively. Additionally, we determined the enzymatic activity of ACE2 using the fluorogenic peptide substrate Mca-YVADAPK(Dnp)-OH. To assess the impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, we used SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus infections in human embryonic kidney 293T cells expressing ACE2 to measure infection rates. Furthermore, we evaluated the in vivo efficacy of AC in mitigating COVID-19 by conducting experiments on hamsters infected with the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. Results AC effectively decreased ACE2 mRNA and protein levels, a critical host receptor for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, in human lung cells. It also prevented the spike protein from binding to human lung cells. Dehydrosulphurenic acid, an isolate from AC, directly inhibited ACE2 protease activity with an inhibitory constant of 1.53 µM. In vitro experiments showed that both AC and dehydrosulphurenic acid significantly reduced the infection rate of SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus. In hamsters infected with the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, oral administration of AC reduced body weight loss and improved lung injury. Notably, AC also inhibited IL-1β expression in both macrophages and the lung tissues of SARS-CoV-2-infected hamsters. Conclusion AC shows potential as a nutraceutical for reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection by disrupting the interaction between ACE2 and the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and for preventing COVID-19-associated lung inflammation.
A new view for the geodynamics of Ecuador: Implication in seismogenic source definition and seismic hazard assessment

A new view of Ecuador's complex geodynamics has been developed in the course of modeling seismic source zones for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. This study focuses on two aspects of the plates' interaction at a continental scale: (a) age‐related differences in rheology between Farallon and Nazca plates—marked by the Grijalva rifted margin and its inland projection—as they subduct underneath central Ecuador, and (b) the rapidly changing convergence obliquity resulting from the convex shape of the South American northwestern continental margin. Both conditions satisfactorily explain several characteristics of the observed seismicity and of the interseismic coupling. Intermediate‐depth seismicity reveals a severe flexure in the Farallon slab as it dips and contorts at depth, originating the El Puyo seismic cluster. The two slabs position and geometry below continental Ecuador also correlate with surface expressions observable in the local and regional geology and tectonics. The interseismic coupling is weak and shallow south of the Grijalva rifted margin and increases northward, with a heterogeneous pattern locally associated to the Carnegie ridge subduction. High convergence obliquity is responsible for the North Andean Block northeastward movement along localized fault systems. The Cosanga and Pallatanga fault segments of the North Andean Block‐South American boundary concentrate most of the seismic moment release in continental Ecuador. Other inner block faults located along the western border of the inter‐Andean Depression also show a high rate of moderate‐size earthquake production. Finally, a total of 19 seismic source zones were modeled in accordance with the proposed geodynamic and neotectonic scheme.
Efficient AlGaN-Based Deep-Ultraviolet LED With N-Side Located Tunnel Junction

In this work, we investigated a 279 nm AlGaN-based DUV LED incorporating a n-side located tunnel junction (namely n-side-TJ LED). Compared with the conventional AlGaN-based DUV LED with p-side located tunnel junction (namely p-side-TJ LED), the light output power (LOP) of the n-side-TJ LED can be boosted by 19.4% at an injection current density of 667 A/cm2. This is attributed to the improvement of the effective barrier height in the electron blocking layer (EBL) for efficient electron blocking. In addition, we further studied the effect of the thickness of n-side located tunnel junction (n-side-TJ) layers on the performance of the LED. The n-side-TJ LED can maintain a superior and stable performance when the TJ thickness is altered. On the contrary, the p-side-TJ LED exhibits performance fluctuations as the TJ thickness changes. These results highlight the effectiveness of structural design with a tunnel junction for highly efficient AlGaN-based DUV LEDs.