Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brine Volume Fraction as a Habitability Metric for Europa's Ice Shell

Brine systems in Europa's ice shell have been hypothesized as potential habitats that could be more accessible than the sub‐ice ocean. We model the distribution of sub‐millimeter‐scale brine pockets in Europa's ice shell. Through examination of three habitability metrics (water activity, ionic strength, and salinity), we determine that brine pockets are likely not geochemically prohibitive to life as we know it for the chloride and sulfate‐dominated ocean compositions considered here. Brine volume fraction is introduced as a novel habitability metric to serve as a proxy for nutrient transport and recycling—because of its role in governing permeability—and used to define regions where nutrient‐open, nutrient‐closed, and relict habitats are stable. Whereas nutrient‐closed habitats could exist wherever brine is stable, nutrient‐open habitats are confined to meter‐scale regions near the ice‐ocean interface where freezing is occurring. This classification scheme can help guide future life‐detection missions to ocean worlds.
High-fidelity continuous-variable quantum teleportation toward multistep quantum operations

The progress in quantum operations of continuous-variable (CV) schemes can be reduced to that in CV quantum teleportation. The fidelity of quantum teleportation of an optical setup is limited by the finite degree of quantum correlation that can be prepared with a pair of finitely squeezed states. Reports of improvement of squeezing level have appeared recently, and we adopted the improved methods in our experimental system of quantum teleportation. As a result, we teleported a coherent state with a fidelity F=0.83{+-}0.01, which is better than any other figures reported to date, to our knowledge. In this paper, we introduce a measure n{sub s}, the number of teleportations expected to be carried out sequentially. Our result corresponds to n{sub s}=5.0{+-}0.4. It suggests that our improvement would enable us to proceed toward more advanced quantum operations involving multiple steps.
HOT WATER IN THE INNER 100 AU OF THE CLASS 0 PROTOSTAR NGC 1333 IRAS2A

Evaporation of water ice above 100 K in the inner few 100 AU of low-mass embedded protostars (the so-called hot core) should produce quiescent water vapor abundances of ∼10−4 relative to H2. Observational evidence so far points at abundances of only a few 10−6. However, these values are based on spherical models, which are known from interferometric studies to be inaccurate on the relevant spatial scales. Are hot cores really that much drier than expected, or are the low abundances an artifact of the inaccurate physical models? We present deep velocity-resolved Herschel-HIFI spectra of the 312–303 lines of HO and HO (1097 GHz, Eu/k = 249 K) in the low-mass Class 0 protostar NGC 1333 IRAS2A. A spherical radiative transfer model with a power-law density profile is unable to reproduce both the HIFI data and existing interferometric data on the HO 313–220 line (203 GHz, Eu/k = 204 K). Instead, the HIFI spectra likely show optically thick emission from a hot core with a radius of about 100 AU. The mass of the hot core is estimated from the C18O J = 9–8 and 10–9 lines. We derive a lower limit to the hot water abundance of 2 × 10−5, consistent with the theoretical predictions of ∼10−4. The revised HDO/H2O abundance ratio is 1 × 10−3, an order of magnitude lower than previously estimated.
Fast and Interactive Positioning of Proteins within Membranes

(1) Background: We developed an algorithm to perform interactive molecular simulations (IMS) of protein alignment in membranes, allowing on-the-fly monitoring and manipulation of such molecular systems at various scales. (2) Methods: UnityMol, an advanced molecular visualization software; MDDriver, a socket for data communication; and BioSpring, a Spring network simulation engine, were extended to perform IMS. These components are designed to easily communicate with each other, adapt to other molecular simulation software, and provide a development framework for adding new interaction models to simulate biological phenomena such as protein alignment in the membrane at a fast enough rate for real-time experiments. (3) Results: We describe in detail the integration of an implicit membrane model for Integral Membrane Protein And Lipid Association (IMPALA) into our IMS framework. Our implementation can cover multiple levels of representation, and the degrees of freedom can be tuned to optimize the experience. We explain the validation of this model in an interactive and exhaustive search mode. (4) Conclusions: Protein positioning in model membranes can now be performed interactively in real time.
Strain localization and shear banding in ductile materials

A model of a shear band as a zero-thickness nonlinear interface is proposed and tested using finite element simulations. An imperfection approach is used in this model where a shear band, that is assumed to lie in a ductile matrix material (obeying von Mises plasticity with linear hardening), is present from the beginning of loading and is considered to be a zone in which yielding occurs before the rest of the matrix. This approach is contrasted with a perturbative approach, developed for a J$_2$-deformation theory material, in which the shear band is modelled to emerge at a certain stage of a uniform deformation. Both approaches concur in showing that the shear bands (differently from cracks) propagate rectilinearly under shear loading and that a strong stress concentration should be expected to be present at the tip of the shear band, two key features in the understanding of failure mechanisms of ductile materials.
Polymeric membranes as sustainable material for water desalination: a review

Affordable potable water is the most demanded issue of whole humanity. As almost 33% of the earth is covered with seawater, which can be used with the help of various desalination techniques in sustainable commercial processes. In many commercial processes affordable and eco- nomic membranes are used which contain different types of blends that are used for desalination. The commercial or traditional membranes are synthesized and fabricated with fillers like cellu- lose, thin-film composite, chitosan (CS) and chitin, along with mixed oxides for filtering the sea water. To overcome the limitations of the traditional methods, pure membranes are modified pre- cisely, which also improves their performance. Further, many researchers confirmed the mixing of 2 or 3 types of membranes to prepare a composite polymer membrane which has better per- formance due to higher adsorption capacity (AC). The mixed matrix membranes and metal oxide membranes generally have tunable physical properties, which influences the AC. The enhanced AC is due to high porosity, greater surface area, high permeability, high hydrophobicity, high salt rejection, and high stability (mechanical, chemical, and thermal). This chapter lists the various types of polymeric composite membranes and their performances for the desalination process.
Approaching the Sonic Shimmer of Popular Music

In the film adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Annihilation , the zone that has been infested by some kind of alien force is renamed “The Shimmer”. This helps to draw attention to the ways in which all life processes in this space undergo a kind of genetic refraction as bushes grow into human forms, deers’ antlers become branches, root networks explode from people’s intestines and a carnivore’s roar has the screams of its victims imprinted upon it. In my book, Pop Music and Hip Ennui: A Sonic Fiction of Capitalist Realism (2019), I used this image to conceptualize popular music as a “sonic shimmer”. This is to say, as an acoustic space of desiring-production through which power, aesthetics, history, sexuality, capital, technology and intention are refracted. In this paper, I explore the concept of the sonic shimmer more fully. Drawing on cultural studies, musicology, sonic anthropology, black studies, libidinal economics and rhizomatics, I articulate how the sonic shimmer can help us to understand the intersections at play in popular music and provide epistemic tools to problematize the neoliberal construction of subjectivity.
Evolutionary Game Analysis of Government and Residents’ Participation in Waste Separation Based on Cumulative Prospect Theory

Government and residents’ participation in waste separation is a complex non-cooperative game process, and the evolutionary game can explain the behavior of participating subjects well. Considering that the traditional evolutionary game cannot satisfactorily explain the irrational psychology and risk preference factors of the participating issues, this study combines the prospect theory and evolutionary game, uses the prospect value function to supplement and improve the parameters of the evolutionary game payment matrix, and analyzes the evolutionary stabilization strategy. To verify the theoretical results, simulation experiments and impact analysis were conducted, and meaningful results were obtained: There are two stable evolutionary strategies in the system, namely higher participation benefits for residents and lower participation costs and opportunity costs, and reasonable direct benefit distribution coefficients all help to increase the participation rate of waste separation. This study can provide some scientific suggestions for the government to design and build a waste-separation system.
Seismic Sounding of Convection in the Sun

Our Sun, primarily composed of ionized hydrogen and helium, has a surface temperature of 5777~K and a radius $R_\odot \approx 696,000$ km. In the outer $R_\odot/3$, energy transport is accomplished primarily by convection. Using typical convective velocities $u\sim100\,\rm{m\,s^{-1}}$ and kinematic viscosities of order $10^{-4}$ m$^{2}$s$^{-1}$, we obtain a Reynolds number $Re \sim 10^{14}$. Convection is thus turbulent, causing a vast range of scales to be excited. The Prandtl number, $Pr$, of the convecting fluid is very low, of order $10^{-7}$\,--\,$10^{-4}$, so that the Rayleigh number ($\sim Re^2 Pr$) is on the order of $10^{21}\,-\,10^{24}$. Solar convection thus lies in extraordinary regime of dynamical parameters, highly untypical of fluid flows on Earth. Convective processes in the Sun drive global fluid circulations and magnetic fields, which in turn affect its visible outer layers ("solar activity") and, more broadly, the heliosphere ("space weather"). The precise determination of the depth of solar convection zone, departures from adiabaticity of the temperature gradient, and the internal rotation rate as a function of latitude and depth are among the seminal contributions of helioseismology towards understanding convection in the Sun. Contemporary helioseismology, which is focused on inferring the properties of three-dimensional convective features, suggests that transport velocities are substantially smaller than theoretical predictions. Furthermore, helioseismology provides important constraints on the anisotropic Reynolds stresses that control the global dynamics of the solar convection zone. This review discusses the state of our understanding of convection in the Sun, with a focus on helioseismic diagnostics. We present our considerations with the interests of fluid dynamicists in mind.
A critique of recent theories of spin half quantum plasmas

In this Letter certain fundamental physics issues relating to recent theories of so-called “spin quantum plasmas” are examined. It is shown that the derivations and some of the results obtained in these theories contradict well-established principles of quantum mechanics, especially in their treatment of fermions and spin. The analysis presented suggests that the aforementioned theories do not apply for any range of temperatures at the stated densities and furthermore fail to make any experimentally accessible and testable predictions.
QPO-jet relation in X-ray binaries

Abstract In the past years, a clear picture of the evolution of outbursts of black-hole X-ray binaries has emerged. While the X-ray properties can be classified into our distinct states, based on spectral and timing properties, the observations in the radio band have shown strong links between accretion and ejection properties. Here I briefly outline the association between X-ray timing and jet properties.
Pulsation Analysis And Its Impact On Primary Transit Modeling In WASP-33

Aims. To date, WASP-33 is the only δ Scuti star known to be orbited by a hot Jupiter. The pronounced stellar pulsations, showing periods comparable to the primary transit duration, interfere with the transit modeling. Therefore our main goal is to study the pulsation spectrum of the host star to redetermine the orbital parameters of the system by means of pulsation-cleaned primary transit light curves. Methods. Between August 2010 and October 2012 we obtained 457 h of photometry of WASP-33 using small and middle-class telescopes located mostly in Spain and in Germany. Our observations comprise the wavelength range between the blue and the red, and provide full phase coverage of the planetary orbit. After a careful detrend, we focus our pulsation studies in the high frequency regime, where the pulsations that mostly deform the primary transit exist. Results. The data allow us to identify, for the first time in the system, eight significant pulsation frequencies. The pulsations are likely associated with low-order p-modes. Furthermore, we find that pulsation phases evolve in time. We use our knowledge of the pulsations to clean the primary transit light curves and carry out an improved transit modeling. Surprisingly, taking into account the pulsations in the modeling has little influence on the derived orbital parameters. However, the uncertainties in the best-fit parameters decrease. Additionally, we find indications for a possible dependence between wavelength and transit depth, but only with marginal significance. A clear pulsation solution, in combination with an accurate orbital period, allows us to extend our studies and search for star-planet interactions (SPI). Although we find no conclusive evidence of SPI, we believe that the pulsation nature of the host star and the proximity between members make WASP-33 a promising system for further SPI studies.
"Hybrid" Black Holes

We discuss a solution of the Einstein equations, obtained by gluing the external Kerr metric and the internal Weyl metric, describing an axisymmetric static vacuum distorted black hole. These metrics are glued at the null surfaces representing their horizons. For this purpose we use the formalism of thin null shells. The corresponding solution is called a ``hybrid'' black hole. The null shell has an angular momentum which is the origin of the rotation of the external Kerr spacetime. At the same time, the shell distorts the geometry inside the horizon. The inner geometry of the hybrid black hole coincides with the geometry of the interior of a nonrotating Weyl-distorted black hole. Properties of the hybrid black holes are briefly discussed.
A likely runaway star cluster in the outer disc of the Large Magellanic Cloud

We present results from photometric and spectroscopic data obtained with SOAR and Gemini observatory facilities in the field of a recently discovered star cluster. The cluster, projected towards the Eastern side of the outer disc of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), was originally placed nearly 10 kpc behind the LMC with an age and metallicity typical of the innermost LMC star cluster population. We assigned radial velocity (RV) memberships to stars observed spectroscopically, and derived the cluster age and distance from theoretical isochrone fitting to the cluster colour-magnitude diagram. The new object turned out to be a 0.9 Gyr old outer LMC disc cluster, which possibly reached the present position after being scattered from the innermost LMC regions where it might have been born. We arrived at this conclusion by examining the spatial distribution of LMC star clusters of similar age, by comparing the derived spectroscopic metallicity with that expected for an outside-in galaxy formation scenario, by considering the cluster internal dynamical stage as inferred from its derived structural parameters and by estimating the circular velocity of a disc that rotates with the corresponding star cluster radial velocity at the cluster's deprojected distance, which resulted to be nearly 60 per cent higher than that of most of the outer LMC disc clusters.
DEMNUni: ISW, Rees-Sciama, and weak-lensing in the presence of massive neutrinos

We present, for the first time in the literature, a full reconstruction of the total (linear and non-linear) ISW/Rees-Sciama effect in the presence of massive neutrinos, together with its cross-correlations with CMB-lensing and weak-lensing signals. The present analyses make use of all-sky maps extracted via ray-tracing across the gravitational potential distribution provided by the ``Dark Energy and Massive Neutrino Universe'' (DEMNUni) project, a set of large-volume, high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations, where neutrinos are treated as separate collisionless particles. We correctly recover, at 1–2% accuracy, the linear predictions from CAMB. Concerning the CMB-lensing and weak-lensing signals, we also recover, with similar accuracy, the signal predicted by Boltzmann codes, once non-linear neutrino corrections to HALOFIT are accounted for. Interestingly, in the ISW/Rees-Sciama signal, and its cross correlation with lensing, we find an excess of power with respect to the massless case, due to free streaming neutrinos, roughly at the transition scale between the linear and non-linear regimes. The excess is ∼ 5 – 10% at l ∼ 100 for the ISW/Rees-Sciama auto power spectrum, depending on the total neutrino mass Mν, and becomes a factor of ∼ 4 for Mν = 0.3 eV, at l ∼ 600, for the ISW/Rees-Sciama cross power with CMB-lensing. This effect should be taken into account for the correct estimation of the CMB temperature bispectrum in the presence of massive neutrinos.
Calibrating Interstellar Abundances Using Supernova Remnant Radiative Shocks

Using integral field data we extract the optical spectra of shocked interstellar clouds in Kepler’s supernova remnant located in the inner regions of our Galaxy, as well as in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud, NGC 6822, and IC 1613. Using self-consistent shock modeling, we make a new determination of the chemical composition of the interstellar medium in N, O, Ne, S, Cl, and Ar in these galaxies and obtain accurate estimates of the fraction of refractory grains destroyed in the shock. By comparing our derived abundances with those obtained in recent works using observations of B-stars, F supergiant stars, and H ii regions, we provide a new calibration for abundance scaling in the range of .
Deep learning-enabled anomaly detection for IoT systems

Internet of Things (IoT) systems have become an intrinsic technology in various industries and government services. Unfortunately, IoT devices and networks are known to be highly vulnerable to security attacks that target data integrity and service availability. Moreover, the heterogeneity of the data collected from various IoT devices, together with the disturbances incurred within the IoT system, render the detection of anomalous behavior and compromised nodes more challenging compared to traditional Information Technology (IT) networks. As a result, there is a pressing need for effective and reliable anomaly detection to identify malicious data to guarantee that they will not be used in IoT-driven decision support systems. In this paper, we propose a deep learning-powered anomaly detection for IoT that can learn and capture robust and useful features, which cannot be significantly affected by unstable environments. These features are then used by the classifier to enhance the accuracy of detecting malicious IoT data. More specifically, the proposed deep learning model is designed based on a denoising autoencoder, which is adopted to obtain features that are robust against the heterogeneous environment of IoT. Experimental results based on real-life IoT datasets show the effectiveness of the proposed framework in terms of enhancing the accuracy
The Number and Structure of Muscle Synergies Depend on the Number of Recorded Muscles: A Pilot Simulation Study with OpenSim

The muscle synergy approach is used to evaluate motor control and to quantitatively determine the number and structure of the modules underlying movement. In experimental studies regarding the upper limb, typically 8 to 16 EMG probes are used depending on the application, although the number of muscles involved in motor generation is higher. Therefore, the number of motor modules may be underestimated and the structure altered with the standard spatial synergy model based on the non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). In this study, we compared the number and structure of muscle synergies when considering 12 muscles (an “average” condition that represents previous studies) and 32 muscles of the upper limb, also including multiple muscle heads and deep muscles. First, we estimated the muscle activations with an upper-limb model in OpenSim using data from multi-directional reaching movements acquired in experimental sessions; then, spatial synergies were extracted from EMG activations from 12 muscles and from 32 muscles and their structures were compared. Finally, we compared muscle synergies obtained from OpenSim and from real experimental EMG signals to assess the reliability of the results. Interestingly, we found that on average, an additional synergy is needed to reconstruct the same R2 level with 32 muscles with respect to 12 muscles; synergies have a very similar structure, although muscles with comparable physiological functions were added to the synergies extracted with 12 muscles. The additional synergies, instead, captured patterns that could not be identified with only 12 muscles. We concluded that current studies may slightly underestimate the number of controlled synergies, even though the main structure of synergies is not modified when adding more muscles. We also show that EMG activations estimated with OpenSim are in partial (but not complete) agreement with experimental recordings. These findings may have significative implications for motor control and clinical studies.
Electrochemistry of Tetrathiafulvalene Ligands Assembled on the Surface of Gold Nanoparticles

The synthesis of a tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) derivative, S-[4-({4-[(2,2′-bi-1,3-dithiol-4-ylmethoxy)methyl] phenyl}ethynyl)phenyl] ethanethioate, suitable for the modification of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), is described in this article. The TTF ligand was self-assembled on the AuNP surface through ligand exchange, starting from dodecanethiol-stabilized AuNPs. The resulting modified AuNPs were characterized by TEM, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and electrochemistry. The most suitable electrochemical method was the phase-sensitive AC voltammetry at very low frequencies of the sine-wave perturbation. The results indicate a diminishing electronic communication between the two equivalent redox centers of TTF and also intermolecular donor–acceptor interactions manifested by an additional oxidation wave upon attachment of the ligand to AuNPs.