Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Introduction to Private Equity And Infrastructure Investing

Given the challenging investment return environment that we are living in, investors have turned to alternative assets in order to generate extra return, capture additional yield and diversify their portfolio. These assets include private equity and infrastructure. The risk and return profiles of these emerging asset classes matter to actuaries in various functions: asset-liability management, pension valuation, risk management and asset management. At the last Society of Actuaries Investment Symposium, held in Philadelphia on March 26-27, John Gray, a partner with Adams Street Partners, a private equity firm based in Chicago, and David Rogers, a founding partner with Caledon Capital Management, an advisory firm dedicated to the private equity and infrastructure market and located in Toronto, provided an overview of these asset classes. Following the positive reviews received from symposium attendees, they have agreed to write an article based on their presentation. The article will start with a review of private equity investing and will conclude with an overview of the infrastructure market.
Chromatic confocal microscopy by means of continuum light generated through a standard single-mode fibre

In this paper a confocal profilometer using longitudinal chromatic aberration is presented. The system uses a novel polychromatic illumination source generated by means of non-linear effects in a standard single-mode optical fibre. A wavelength–height codification is realized using the chromatic aberration of a Fresnel lens. The height decoding is obtained by the spectral analysis of the detected light, identifying the most intense spectral component coming from the sample. The height sensitivity of the profilometer is variable and it is related to the full width half maximal value (FWHM) of the system’s spectral response. From 700 to 938 nm the experimental value of the FWHM changes from 10.78 to 3.9 µm respectively.
Magnetism of zigzag edge phosphorene nanoribbons

We have investigated, by means of ab initio calculations, the electronic and magnetic structures of zigzag edge phosphorene nanoribbons (ZPNRs) with various widths. The stable magnetic state was found in pristine ZPNRs by allowing the systems to be spin-polarized. The ground state of pristine ZPNRs prefers ferromagnetic order in the same edge but antiferromagnetic order between two opposite edges. The magnetism arises from the dangling bond states as well as edge localized π-orbital states. The presence of a dangling bond is crucial to the formation of the magnetism of ZPNRs. The hydrogenated ZPNRs get nonmagnetic semiconductors with a direct band gap. While, the O-saturated ZPNRs show magnetic ground states due to the weak P-O bond in the ribbon plane between the pz-orbitals of the edge O and P atoms.
Adopting Open Government in Local Development Planning

This paper aims to assess the adoption of open government principles in local government development planning. The study used constructivist research design which emphasizes using theory as guidance for analyzing the problems. Interview and document study techniques were used to collect data, while NVIVO version 12 plus was used in data processing and analysis. Research results showed that there has been a decline in community participation in development planning due to the perception that there are stark differences between contents of programs during the planning and implementation phases. Transparency in development planning is implemented in all programs at the subdistrict level, while at the district prioritized programs are deliberated in closely sessions that involve local government executives and the local legislature. As regards collaboration in development planning, results showed that pursuing and projecting own respective interests rather those of the public. Increasing open government principles in the development planning process requires intensive and regular communication and coordination among stakeholders, which makes ICT a key ingredient that should be form an integral part of the design and deployment process. This research recommends further research related to open government that should delve deeper into participation and transparency concepts as components of open government principles.
High density experiments with gas puffing and ECRH in T-10

High density experiments were carried out in T-10 with gas puffing and electron cyclotron resonance heating (with absorbed power value up to 1.4 MW) with oblique and perpendicular power launch. Densities exceeding the Greenwald limit (nGw) by up to a factor of 1.8 were achieved in a regime with a high value of the edge safety factor at the current flat-top, q(a)8.2. The decrease of q(a) to a value of 3 led to the reduction of the ratio (e) lim /nGw to 1. Confinement degradation with density increase was not significant up to the density limit. However, the typical T-10 linear increase of energy confinement time with density saturates at e≥0.6nGw. This saturation is the result of the development of an additional transport in the electron heat channel. However, the saturated τE values exceeded the ITER L-mode scaling predictions by up to a factor of 1.2 and were close to the value predicted by the ITER H-mode scaling. Effect of the strong gas puffing on the plasma confinement and experiments with neon seeding are also discussed in this paper.
AN INVESTIGATION ON THE BREAKUP OF UNDERWATER BUOYANT OIL JETS: COMPUTATIONAL SIMULATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS

We present experimental and computational results on the breakup of underwater buoyant oil jets and plumes at a wide range of Reynolds, Weber and Richardson numbers and viscosity ratios. The results show three main jet breakup regimes: atomization, skirt-type and pinch-off. The threshold Weber number for the atomization regime is around 100, which varies slightly with the jet Eötvös number. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the correlation proposed by Masutani and Adams as the boundary for the atomization regime applies to our broader data set too. The experimental and computational results both suggest that in a buoyancy-driven jet breakup occurs only when the jet is accelerated to a point where the local Richardson number, defined based on properties at breakup, becomes less than 0.4, in which case the local Weber number is above 10. The computational results reveal the mechanisms leading to formation of small droplets around the perimeter of energetic jets and umbrella-shaped jet separations at less energetic cases. The time-averaged lateral expansion of the simulated jets, representing four different conditions, are presented as a function of the height along the jet. The computational results were obtained by using a GPU-accelerated MPI parallel two-phase flow solver, which provides acceleration factors between 3 to 6, compared to running on CPUs only.
Application of unsupervised machine learning techniques to assessment of quality habitat

As a result of human activities, river valleys have changed: river beds have been transformed as a result of their regulation and dam construction. This paper presents unsupervised machine learning techniques to distinguish arthropod communities and attempts to explain the ecological priorities of individual species based on them. Data on a group of 95 species of carabid beetles from 16 habitats on the floodplains of two rivers - Bytytsia and Strilka (Dnipro basin, Ukraine). Analyses were performed using the program R version 4.1. 1. Fuzzy clustering was performed using the fanny function from the R cluster package, and visualization of the results was performed using the t-SNE method from the Rtsne package. In our analysis, the following habitat type characteristics were chosen to distinguish communities: closed (forest) or open (grassland). According to the results of fuzzy clustering, out of 95 carabid species, 37 species were selected whose probability of belonging to their cluster was at least 0.95. These species form distinct three groups. The first group of carabid species is associated with forest sites in Bytytsia. The second group is connected with occurrence on meadow sites in Strilka. The third group of species is connected mainly with the meadow sites of the Bytytsia River. Established groups of species reflect the current ecological situation on floodplains and the influence of human activities on it.
Multi-objective optimization of various type finned heat sink with phase change materials (PCM)

The paper focuses on optimizing hybrid PCM filled heat sinks with a multi-objective approach. In the current study, the fins are oriented both horizontally at the sidewalls and vertically at the bottom side in the enclosure. Two heat sinks with different types of fin shapes are introduced in the enclosure. A rectangular shape finned heat sink, and a tapered shape finned heat sink is incorporated in both sidewalls and bottom walls. The study’s main goal is to optimize the PCM-based heat sink to prolong the charging cycle (melting) and shorten the discharging cycle (solidification). The PCM used in the study is n-eicosane, and the material for the heat sink is aluminum. A heat flux with constant supply of 2000 W/m2 is provided at the enclosure bottom, and the remaining walls are insulated. A 2-D numerical simulation is done using the commercial software ANSYS Fluent. The multi-objective optimization is carried out using the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) optimization technique. For a constant PCM volume for both the cases, fin spacing, fin positioning, and fin heights are varied. The output results determined the optimum configuration for the stretched melting period and minimized solidification period.
Approach to assessment of thermodestructive resistance of polymer-containing finishing building materials

The paper presents the review results of the conformity assessment existing system of finishing building materials with safety requirements. It is noted that the existing assessment methods do not take into account the change in the properties of finishing building materials in the temperature range from 40° C to the temperature of their ignition / combustion / smoldering. The aim of the study is to substantiate the approach and develop a method for assessing the thermal destructive resistance of finishing building materials. In this work, a study of the thermal destruction of finishing building materials was carried out, the dependences of the qualitative and quantitative composition of thermal destruction products on temperature were established, and the influence of temperature and time on the dynamics of thermal destruction was determined. On the basis of the data obtained, the criterion of the thermal destructive resistance of finishing building materials was substantiated, a method of assessing the thermal destructive resistance of finishing building materials was developed and their classification was proposed. The developed methodology and classification of finishing building materials can be applied when assessing the fire hazard of finishing building materials; when preparing proposals for regulatory documents and regulatory legal acts with the aim of safer use of finishing building materials; when modeling the development of hazardous fire factors, allowing to take into account the effect of thermal destruction products.
Design of welding parameters for laser welding of thick-walled structures made of aluminum alloy

The paper deals with the laser welding of thick-walled plates with a thickness of 20 mm made of EN AW5083-H111 aluminum alloy. A simulation model for the analysis of the laser welding process is developed and verify using temperature measurement during experimental laser welding of samples by a TruDisk 4002 laser device. Based on the numerical simulation of the laser welding process in the ANSYS program code, suitable parameters for production of high-quality weld joints were suggested. For welding at a speed of 10 mm.s−1, the laser power of 7 kW is recommended. A laser with the power of 10 kW is required for the higher welding speed of 20 mm.s−1.
Reduction of time series forecast variance by the case of ArDL(p, q) models

Combination of time series forecasts or time series models is often considered nowadays in various research papers and is usually a good technique in practice. Still it has got weak theoretical explanation and there’s a lot of work that is going to be done in this field. In the research optimal combination of forecasters in terms of minimal variance is investigated. These results don’t depend on nature of combined models but in the practical part ArDL models describing connections between pairs of time series are considered. Weighted sum of models’ predictions is used as a new prediction with variance that should be less than individual models’ predictions variance. Optimal weights for combination of two models are calculated theoretically. They are based on correlation of combined models and their forecasts’ variance. Optimal model combination variance (variance of the combined models with optimal weights) has been investigated and it has been shown that it doesn’t exceed variances of the combined models. Practical experiments and conditions under which combined time series model is expected to improve forecasts of original ones are in scope of this research. Forecasts of two ArDL models are combined in order to construct forecast with lower variety. This approach can be used in case of more models but theoretical expression of optimal weights is going to be a part of further research. Russian macroeconomical time series statistics and economic data of the USA are used as experimental time series. Combined models have got predictions close to the forecasts of the best models and better than the worst models used in combinations. It’s shown that optimal combination should make predictions of high quality if combined predictors describe different aspects of investigated time series and correlation of their forecasts isn’t very high. Otherwise, it turns into mean forecast of two models.
Synthesis technique for control of a CMG Stabilization of an inverted pendulum which does not require repeated code generation

The article presents a synthesis technique for controlling the stabilization of a reverse pendulum, which does not require repeated code generation when making changes to the parameters of the control object. The problem of developing a feedback control system for a reverse pendulum controlled by a gyrodine is considered. The main tool for developing a control system is a combination of a real-time control system based on STM32 and an external computer based on ROS.
The time characteristics’ analysis of deterministic information processing models in automated control systems

The article presents the formation of the approach for evaluating and analyzing the time characteristics of deterministic information processing models in automated control systems. The approach of operational routes formalization within the technological management cycle and its time characteristic assessment is proposed as an optimization procedure. The Floyd algorithm’s realization to determining the shortest time path of the technological control cycle’s graph is shown.
Simulation of gaseous fuel jet combustion process in the OpenFOAM package

The general mathematical formulation of describing flows with chemical reactions problem includes mass conservation, momentum, energy and concentrations equations for each chemical substance, supplemented by the state equation and other thermodynamic relations. Chemical kinetics, through the heat of reactions, relates the concentrations of various substances to the energy equation. In many combustion systems, it is the chemical kinetics that determines the characteristic spatial and temporal scales of the equations to be solved. In this paper, we consider the problem of spray combustion of gaseous simple hydrocarbon fuel in a cylindrical channel. Mathematical modeling was carried out within the framework of the open package OpenFOAMv7, and the visualization of numerical results was carried out using Paraview 5.6. Deep understanding and tuning of a simple gaseous reaction scheme in the OpenFOAM package when modeling reacting flows is the goal of this work. It is shown that the CFD package used makes it possible to successfully simulate this class of flows.
Glimpse: On-Demand, Cross-Chain Communication for Efficient DeFi Applications on Bitcoin-based Blockchains

—Cross-chain communication is instrumental in un-leashing the full potential of blockchain technologies, as it allows users and developers to exploit the unique design features and the profit opportunities of different existing blockchains. Solutions based on trusted third parties (TTPs) suffer from security and scalability drawbacks; hence, increasing attention has recently been given to decentralized solutions. Lock contracts (e.g., HTLCs and adaptor signatures) and chain relays emerged as the two most prominent attempts to achieve cross-chain communication without TTPs. Lock contracts enable efficient synchronization of single transactions over different chains but are limited in expressiveness as they only support the development of a restricted class of applications (e.g., atomic swaps). On the other hand, chain relays enable the development of arbitrary cross-chain applications but are extremely expensive to operate in practice because they need to synchronize every on-chain transaction, besides assuming a quasi Turing-complete scripting language, which makes them incompatible with Bitcoin-based and scriptless blockchains. We introduce Glimpse, a novel on-demand cross-chain synchronization primitive , which is both efficient in terms of on-chain costs and computational overhead, and expressive in terms of applications it supports. The key idea of Glimpse is to synchronize transactions on-demand, i.e., only those relevant to realize the cross-chain application of interest. We present a concrete instantiation which is compatible with blockchains featuring a limited scripting language (e.g., Bitcoin-based chains like Liquid), and, yet, can be used as a building block for the design of DeFi applications such as lending, pegs, wrapping/un-wrapping of tokens, Proof-of-Burn, and verification of multiple oracle attestations. We formally define and prove Glimpse security in the Universal Composability (UC) framework and conduct an economical security analysis to identify the secure parameter space in the rational setting. Finally, we evaluate the cost of Glimpse for Bitcoin-like chains, showing that verifying a simple transaction has at most 700 bytes of on-chain overhead, resulting in a one-time fee of 3$, only twice as much as a basic Bitcoin transaction.
When climate and human interactions threaten soil and water resources through hyper sedimentation: example of El Niño events (1978-2019 period), Poechos Reservoir, Northern Peru

Although Extreme El Niño Events (EENE) have always impacted hydrology in South America, their intensification by global warming and their association with changes in human activities and land cover may lead to the acceleration of sediment transfers in river systems and dam reservoirs. This situation may threaten soil and water resources in a region highly dependent on freshwater originating from large dams. In this study, we investigated the sediment sequence accumulated in the Poechos reservoir (Northern Peru) and provided a retrospective reconstruction of the interactions of El Niño-Southern 15 Oscillation (ENSO), agricultural practices and vegetation cover changes on sediment dynamics (1978-2019). To this end, a sediment core was dated and characterized by physical and chemical analyses (e.g. scanner tomography, X-ray fluorescence, particle size analysis) for estimating the evolution of sedimentation rates and changes in sediment sources during the last five decades. Sediment tracing results indicated the occurrence of changes in sediment sources associated with positive and negative phases 20 of the Central and East Pacific Index (C and E index), with a greater contribution of the lowland dry forest biome in comparison to that of the Andean source to sediment during the warm periods (El Niño events, ENE), (mean contribution of 76%, up to 90% during the Coastal El Niño Events (CENE) of 2016-2017). Overall, the development of agriculture within the fluvial plains of the dry forest biome upstream of the Poechos dam induced an acceleration of sedimentation rates by 140 % after 1997, with an accumulation of coarser sediment in the reservoir during ENE and EENE. 25 This study suggests that the expansion of agriculture (e.g. agriculture in floodplains, deforestation) associated with a higher frequency of extreme rainfall events amplified the consequences of ENE, EENE and CENE on the quantity and quality of sediment transported by this river system, which will significantly decrease the lifespan of the dam reservoir essential to meet freshwater demands of the farmers and the populations living in this region.
A wireless sensor tag platform for container security and integrity

Cargo containers onboard ships are widely used in the global supply chain. The need for container security is evidenced by the Container Security Initiative launched by the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). One method of monitoring cargo containers is using low power wireless sensor tags. The wireless sensor tags are used to set up a network that is comprised of tags internal to the container and a central device. The sensor network reports alarms and other anomalies to a central device, which then relays the message to an outside network upon arrival at the destination port. This allows the port authorities to have knowledge of potential security or integrity issues before physically examining the container. Challenges of using wireless sensor tag networks for container security include battery life, size, environmental conditions, information security, and cost among others. PNNL developed an active wireless sensor tag platform capable of reporting data wirelessly to a central node as well as logging data to nonvolatile memory. The tags, operate at 2.4 GHz over an IEEE 802.15. 4 protocol, and were designed to be distributed throughout the inside of a shipping container in the upper support frame. The tags are mounted in a housing that allows for simple and efficient installation or removal prior to, during, or after shipment. The distributed tags monitor the entire container volume. The sensor tag platform utilizes low power electronics and provides an extensible sensor interface for incorporating a wide range of sensors including chemical, biological, and environmental sensors.