Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bacterial mobility and motility in porous media mimicked by microspheres

Bacterial motion in porous media are essential for their survival, proper functioning, and various applications. Here we investigated the motion of Escherichia coli bacteria in microsphere-mimicked porous media. We observed reduced bacterial velocity and enhanced directional changes of bacteria as the density of microspheres increased, while such changes happened mostly around the microspheres and due to the collisions with the microspheres. More importantly, we established and quantified the correlation between the bacterial trapping in porous media and the geometric confinement imposed by the microspheres. In addition, numerical simulations showed that the active Brownian motion model in the presence of microspheres resulted in bacterial motion that are consistent with the experimental observations. Our study suggested that it is important to distinguish the ability of bacteria to move easily – bacterial mobility – from the ability of bacteria to move independently – bacteria motility. Our results showed that bacterial motility remains similar in porous media, but bacterial mobility was significantly affected by the pore-scale confinement.
Competitive and synergistic effects between excimer VUV radiation and O radicals on the etching mechanisms of polyethylene and fluoropolymer surfaces treated by an atmospheric He–O2 post-discharge

Among various surface modification techniques, plasma can be used as a source for tailoring the surface properties of diverse materials. HDPE and fluoropolymer surfaces have been treated by the post-discharge of an atmospheric RF-plasma torch supplied with helium and oxygen gases. The plasma-treated surfaces were characterized by measurements of mass losses, water contact angles, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. This experimental approach correlated with an optical characterization of the plasma phase allowed us to propose etching mechanisms occurring at the post-discharge/polymer interface. We discuss how competitive and synergistic effects can result from the oxidation and/or the roughening of the surface but also from the excimer VUV radiation, the He metastable species and the O radicals reaching the plasma-polymer interface.
Structural and electrical characterization of hybrid metal-polypyrrole nanowires.

We present here the synthesis and structural characterization of hybrid Au-polypyrrole-Au and Pt-polypyrrole-Au nanowires together with a study of their electrical properties from room temperature down to very low temperature. A careful characterization of the metal-polymer interfaces by transmission electron microscopy revealed that the structure and mechanical strength of bottom and upper interfaces are very different. Variable temperature electrical transport measurements were performed on both multiple nanowires-contained within the polycarbonate template-and single nanowires. Our data show that the three-dimensional Mott variable-range-hopping model provides a complete framework for the understanding of transport in polypyrrole nanowires, including nonlinear current-voltage characteristics and magnetotransport at low temperatures.
On bulk viscosity at weak and strong ’t Hooft couplings

Bulk viscosity is an important transport coefficient that exists in the hydrodynamical limit only when the underlying theory is non-conformal. One example being thermal QCD with large number of colors. We study bulk viscosity in such a theory at low energies and at weak and strong ’t Hooft couplings when the temperature is above the deconfinement temperature. The weak coupling analysis is based on Boltzmann equation from kinetic theory whereas the strong coupling analysis uses non-conformal holographic techniques from string and M-theories. Using these, many properties associated with bulk viscosity may be explicitly derived.
DETECTION OF ELEMENTS AT ALL THREE r-PROCESS PEAKS IN THE METAL-POOR STAR HD 160617,,

We report the first detection of elements at all three r-process peaks in the metal-poor halo star HD 160617. These elements include arsenic and selenium, which have not been detected previously in halo stars, and the elements tellurium, osmium, iridium, and platinum, which have been detected previously. Absorption lines of these elements are found in archive observations made with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope. We present up-to-date absolute atomic transition probabilities and complete line component patterns for these elements. Additional archival spectra of this star from several ground-based instruments allow us to derive abundances or upper limits of 45 elements in HD 160617, including 27 elements produced by neutron-capture reactions. The average abundances of the elements at the three r-process peaks are similar to the predicted solar system r-process residuals when scaled to the abundances in the rare earth element domain. This result for arsenic and selenium may be surprising in light of predictions that the production of the lightest r-process elements generally should be decoupled from the heavier r-process elements.
Deep Chandra Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud. III. Formation Efficiency of High-mass X-Ray Binaries

We have compiled the most complete census of high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) in the Small Magellanic Cloud with the aim to investigate the formation efficiency of young accreting binaries in its low-metallicity environment. In total, we use 123 X-ray sources with detections in our Chandra X-ray Visionary Program (XVP), supplemented by 14 additional (likely and confirmed) HMXBs identified by Haberl & Sturm that fall within the XVP area, but are neither detected in our survey (nine sources) nor matched with any of the 127 sources identified in the XVP data (five sources). Specifically, we examine the number ratio of the HMXBs [N(HMXBs)] to (a) the number of OB stars, (b) the local star formation rate (SFR), and (c) the stellar mass produced during the specific star formation burst, all as a function of the age of their parent stellar populations. Each of these indicators serves a different role, but in all cases we find that the HMXB formation efficiency increases as a function of time (following a burst of star formation) up to ∼40–60 Myr, and then gradually decreases. The formation efficiency peaks at ∼30–40 Myr with average rates of , and N(HMXB)/M , in good agreement with previous estimates of the average formation efficiency in the broad ∼20–60 Myr age range.
Narrow-band noise due to the moving vortex lattice in superconducting niobium

We report measurements of voltage noise due to vortex motion in Niobium, a conventional low-${T}_{c}$ superconductor. A coherent oscillation leading to narrow-band noise (NBN) is evidenced. Its characteristic frequency is a linear function of the overcritical transport current in the flux-flow regime, and hence scales as the main velocity of the vortex flow. The associated length scale is not the intervortex distance but the width of the sample, indicating temporal coherence at a large scale. NBN is also observed in the nonlinear part of the $V(I)$ at the onset of depinning, in apparent disagreement with a stochastic creep motion of flux bundles. NBN exists in the peak effect region, showing that long-range temporal correlations are preserved in this regime.
A 'Glocal' Approach for Real-time Emergency Event Detection in Twitter

Social media like Twitter offer not only an unprecedented amount of user-generated content covering developing emergencies but also act as a collector of news produced by heterogeneous sources, including big and small media companies as well as public authorities. However, this volume, velocity, and variety of data constitute the main value and, at the same time, the key challenge to implement and automatic detection and tracking of independent emergency events from the real-time stream of tweets. Leveraging online clustering and considering both textual and geographical features, we propose, implement, and evaluate an algorithm to automatically detect emergency events applying a ‘glocal’ approach, i.e., offering a global coverage while detecting events at local (municipality level) scale.
Candidate exoplanet host HD131399A: a nascent Am star

Direct imaging suggests that there is a Jovian exoplanet around the primary A-star in the triple-star system HD131399. We investigate a high-quality spectrum of the primary component HD131399A obtained with FEROS on the ESO/MPG 2.2m telescope, aiming to characterise the star's atmospheric and fundamental parameters, and to determine elemental abundances at high precision and accuracy. The aim is to constrain the chemical composition of the birth cloud of the system and therefore the bulk composition of the putative planet. A hybrid non-local thermal equilibrium (non-LTE) model atmosphere technique is adopted for the quantitative spectral analysis. Comparison with the most recent stellar evolution models yields the fundamental parameters. The atmospheric and fundamental stellar parameters of HD131399A are constrained to Teff=9200+-100 K, log g=4.37+-0.10, M=1.95+0.08-0.06 Msun, R=1.51+0.13-0.10 Rsun, and log L/Lsun=1.17+-0.07, locating the star on the zero-age main sequence. Non-LTE effects on the derived metal abundances are often smaller than 0.1dex, but can reach up to ~0.8dex for individual lines. The observed lighter elements up to calcium are overall consistent with present-day cosmic abundances, with a C/O ratio of 0.45$\pm$0.07 by number, while the heavier elements show mild overabundances. We conclude that the birth cloud of the system had a standard chemical composition, but we witness the onset of the Am phenomenon in the slowly rotating star. We furthermore show that non-LTE analyses have the potential to solve the remaining discrepancies between observed abundances and predictions by diffusion models for Am stars. Moreover, the present case allows mass loss, not turbulent mixing, to be identified as the main transport process competing with diffusion in very young Am stars.
Lepton-flavour universality tests with semi-leptonic B decays at LHCb

In the Standard Model, the three charged lepton are identical copies of each other, apart from mass differences. Experimental tests of this feature in decays of semileptonic b hadrons, such as $B\rightarrow D^* \tau\ nu$, are highly sensitive to New Physics particles which preferentially couple to the 3rd generation.A measurement of $R(D^{*-})$ using 3-prong $\tau$ decays performed by LHCb is reported.
Authoring Virtual Simulations to Measure Situation Awareness and Understanding

Measuring situation awareness (SA) and situation understanding (SU) is an important topic for Command & Control research. Virtual simulations (VS) have been proposed as a suitable method for measuring SA/U, but, there is little research into how to build scenarios for VS so that SA/U can be measured reliably. In this study, we used two different VS scenarios and the Quantitative Analysis of Situation Awareness (QASA) method to measure, and provide feedback on, actual and perceived SA/U. Two VS scenarios were tested in Estonia with 36 trainees. The results of the different scenarios were compared to establish whether the scenario storylines and authoring process resulted in differences in SA or SU. We conclude that reliable assessment results were produced with both authoring processes, and further suggest that the Collaborative Authoring Process Model for Virtual Simulations (CAPM) be used for VS creation
A Step Toward Semantic Content Negotiation

Content negotiation aims at enabling a server to provide a client with a representation of a resource that meets its needs. However, client and server might desire to negotiate constraints that go beyond the media type or language of the alternative representation. This is especially true in the Semantic Web, as a resource can be described with a single media type, but with different vocabularies (FOAF, schema.org, etc.), and may match specific patterns. In this paper, we propose an approach to increase the flexibility when negotiating a representation between client and server. Our approach follows the goals of the World Wide Web and uses a set of existing technologies: SHACL and profile-based negotiation. We define the mechanism (in terms of protocol and algorithm) for clients to announce their expectations and for servers to react and respond to them. We then explain, through a use case, how the same approach could be used in Web-based Multi-Agent Systems to help autonomous agents achieve their goals on the Web.
Data Ecosystems and Disaster Risk Reduction in Cross-border Regions: Visioning from 2020 Roya Valley Flood Disaster

Knowledge on the practical support from data ecosystems to disaster risk reduction remains partial. More specifically, we misunderstand the drivers and challenges inherent to emergency data ecosystems development in cross-border regions. We also miss cases of data ecosystem building in those regions. This research addresses these gaps by abiding by the principles and guidelines of visioning, a prospective and collaborative research design. Based on qualitative interviewing and archive analysis of the case 2020 Roya Valley floods, this work provides a prospect of a segment of data ecosystem that involves an organizational field aiming at Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) at the French-Italian border. Still in progress, this work provides a comprehensive narration of a fictious data ecosystem. The narration hints at the major benefits and challenges inherent to this potential data ecosystem. This work enriches our understanding of data ecosystems’ features and benefits to cooperation between organizations involved in emergencies at borders (such as governments, civil protection agencies, volunteer-based organizations). In future development it will propose an agenda to support practitioners in the development good practices related to data ecosystems.
A “LIGHT,” CENTRALLY CONCENTRATED MILKY WAY HALO?

We discuss a novel approach to “weighing” the Milky Way (MW) dark matter halo, one that combines the latest samples of halo stars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with state of the art numerical simulations of MW analogs. The fully cosmological runs employed in the present study include “Eris,” one of the highest resolution hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of a Mvir = 8 × 1011 M☉ late-type spiral, and the dark-matter-only Mvir = 1.7 × 1012 M☉ “Via Lactea II” (VLII) simulation. Eris provides an excellent laboratory for creating mock SDSS samples of tracer halo stars, and we successfully compare their density, velocity anisotropy, and radial velocity dispersion profiles with the observational data. Most mock SDSS realizations show the same “cold veil” recently observed in the distant stellar halo of the MW, with tracers as cold as σlos ≈ 50 km s−1 between 100 and 150 kpc. Controlled experiments based on the integration of the spherical Jeans equation as well as a particle tagging technique applied to VLII show that a “heavy” Mvir ≈ 2 × 1012 M☉ realistic host produces a poor fit to the kinematic SDSS data. We argue that these results offer added evidence for a “light,” centrally concentrated MW halo.
Supplementary Materials of “Fast and High Quality Image Denoising via Malleable Convolution”

The proposed MalleNet-families include MalleNet-S, -M, -L, and -Xl. We start from constructing MalleNet-S. MalleNet-S consists of four levels, the top two levels use 16-channel intermediate features and bottom two levels use 32-channel intermediate features. We adopt Inverse Bottleneck Block [3] as the basic operator for each level, whose detailed structure is shown in Fig. 2 right and we use a fixed expansion ratio of 3 in the depth-wise convolution. We use two blocks for each of the top two levels and six blocks for each of the bottom two levels, the and inject one 3× 3 MalleConv layer in the middle of each level. To construct MalleNet-M, -L, -XL, we simply modify MalleNet-S by growing the number of channels of each stage from {16, 16, 32, 32} to {32, 32, 64, 64}, {64, 64, 128, 128}, {144, 144, 288, 288} respectively. For MalleNet-XL, we further increase the expansion ratio from 3 to 5 to increase its capability. For real-world noise benchmark SIDD dataset, we construct MalleNet-R by adjusting the base channel number to 64 and adopt ResNet Block as basic operator (as shown in Fig. 2 left). To better illustrate how to adopt MalleConv on existing popular backbones, we describe the detailed injecting position of MalleConv in the ablation study on Sec. 5.2 of our main manuscripts. Concretely speaking, we inject MalleConv in the middle layer of DnCNN [4] and UNet, and the last layer of Residual Dense Block (RDN). Furthermore, we present the details of the proposed efficient predictor network, as shown in Fig. 3. The predictor network is constructed with several stacked ResNet Blocks and MaxPooling layer. We apply the standard ResNet blocks for all variants of MalleNet-families. To mitigate training instability, we will optimize the static convolutional kernel only for the first 10 iterations on each backbone, and then include the Malleable Convolution (dynamic kernel) in the forward and backward process. This is observed to avoid NaN loss in most cases.
Fractional Chern insulator edges and layer-resolved lattice contacts

Fractional Chern insulators (FCIs) realized in fractional quantum Hall systems subject to a periodic potential are topological phases of matter for which space group symmetries play an important role. In particular, lattice dislocations in an FCI can host topology-altering non-Abelian topological defects, known as genons. Genons are of particular interest for their potential application to topological quantum computing. In this work, we study FCI edges and how they can be used to detect genons. We find that translation symmetry can impose a quantized momentum difference between the edge electrons of a partially-filled Chern band. We propose {\it layer-resolved lattice contacts}, which utilize this momentum difference to selectively contact a particular FCI edge electron. The relative current between FCI edge electrons can then be used to detect the presence of genons in the bulk FCI. Recent experiments have demonstrated graphene is a viable platform to study FCI physics. We describe how the lattice contacts proposed here could be implemented in graphene subject to an artificial lattice, thereby outlining a path forward for experimental dectection of non-Abelian topological defects.
Supplementary Material of “Delving into Details: Synopsis-to-Detail Networks for Video Recognition”

In the supplementary material, we will provide more technical background, technical details, training details and efficiency analysis of our method. Specifically, we discuss the differences between S2DNet and some related works in Sec. 1. Then, we present more details about the detail sampler in Sec. 2 and more details about the training in Sec. 3. At last, we compare the efficiency of S2DNet to efficient action recognition methods in Sec. 4.
Extended two-site Bose–Hubbard model with pair tunneling: spontaneous symmetry breaking, effective ground state and fragmentation

The extended Bose–Hubbard model for a double-well potential with pair tunneling is studied through both exact diagonalization and mean field theory (MFT). When pair tunneling is strong enough, the ground state wavefunction predicted by the MFT is complex and doubly degenerate while the quantum ground state wavefunction is always real and unique. The time reversal symmetry is spontaneously broken when the system transfers from the quantum ground state into one of the mean field ground states upon a small perturbation. As the gap between the lowest two levels decreases exponentially with particle number, the required perturbation inducing the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is infinitesimal for particle number of typical cold atom systems. The quantum ground state is further analyzed with the Penrose–Onsager criterion, and is found to be a fragmented condensate. The state also develops the pair correlation and has non-vanishing pair order parameter instead of the conventional single particle order parameter. When this model is generalized to optical lattice, a pair superfluid can be generated. The mean field ground state can be regarded as effective ground state in this simple model. The detailed computation for this model enables us to offer an in-depth discussion of the relation between SSB and effective ground state, giving a glimpse on how nonlinearity arises in the SSB of a quantum system.
Real-time Alert Framework for Fire Incidents Using Multimodal Event Detection on Social Media Streams

The frequency of wildfires is growing day by day due to vastly climate changes. Forest fires can have a severe impact on human lives and the environment, which can be minimised if the population has early and accurate warning mechanisms. To date, social media are able to contribute to early warning with the additional, crowd-sourced information they can provide to the emergency response workers during a crisis event. Nevertheless, the detection of real-world fire incidents using social media data, while filtering out the unavoidable noise, remains a challenging task. In this paper, we present an alert framework for the real-time detection of fire events and we propose a novel multimodal event detection model, which fuses both probabilistic and graph methodologies and is evaluated on the largest fires in Spain during 2019.
DETECTABILITY OF GLYCINE IN SOLAR-TYPE SYSTEM PRECURSORS

Glycine (NH2CH2COOH) is the simplest amino acid relevant to life. Its detection in the interstellar medium is key to understanding the formation mechanisms of pre-biotic molecules and their subsequent delivery onto planetary systems. Glycine has been extensively searched for toward hot molecular cores, although these studies did not yield any firm detection. In contrast to hot cores, low-mass star forming regions, in particular their earliest stages represented by cold pre-stellar cores, may be better suited for the detection of glycine as well as more relevant to the study of pre-biotic chemistry in young solar system analogs. We present one-dimensional spherically symmetric radiative transfer calculations of the glycine emission expected to arise from the low-mass pre-stellar core L1544. Water vapor has recently been reported toward this core, indicating that a small fraction of the grain mantles in L1544 (∼0.5%) has been injected into the gas phase. Assuming that glycine is photo-desorbed together with water in L1544, and considering a solid abundance of glycine on ices of ∼10−4 with respect to water, our calculations reveal that several glycine lines between 67 GHz and 80 GHz have peak intensities larger than 10 mK. These results show for the first time that glycine could reach detectable levels in cold objects such as L1544. This opens up the possibility of detecting glycine, and other pre-biotic species, at the coldest and earliest stages in the formation of solar-type systems with near-future instrumentation such as the Band 2 receivers of ALMA.
Models of AGN feedback

Abstract The physical processes responsible of sweeping up the surrounding gas in the host galaxy of an AGN, and able in some circumstances to expel it from the galaxy, are not yet well known. The various mechanisms are briefly reviewed: quasar or radio modes, either momentum-conserving outflows, energy-conserving outflows, or intermediate. They are confronted to observations, to know whether they can explain the M-sigma relation, quench the star formation or whether they can also provide some positive feedback and how the black hole accretion history is related to that of star formation.