Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) and initial rate of water absorption (IRA) of foam concrete containing blended cement

Abstract. The adverse environmental effects caused by cement production activities could be minimized by reducing the use of cement in the concrete mix, replacement with eco-friendly materials, and making low-unit weight cement-derived products. During the cement production activities, fly ash can also be used by mixing it in form of Portland Composite Cement (PCC)/blended cement products or directly in the concrete mixing process. Furthermore, in low-unit weight concrete, foam concrete is usually obtained using an agent that forms random air bubbles in the cement paste and is applied in construction according to its structural function. Therefore, this research aims to study and analyze the correlation between unit weight and non-destructive tests (NDTs) value on foam concrete with variations in the use of cement, namely OPC, PCC-1, PCC-2, and OPC+FA. The quality of the foam concrete was evaluated by non-destructive tests, there are Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV) and Initial Rate of Water Absorption (IRA). The results show that UPV value of all specimens is directly proportional to its unit weight and varied inversely to the IRA value.
Optical sectioning using compressive Fresnel holography with dictionary learning

Abstract. Optical sectioning through the numerical reconstruction of digital holographic data with low diffraction noise is the key process for understanding the structure of a recorded three-dimensional object. Recently, this has been enabled by compressive holography, by virtue of sparse signal processing. However, interpretation of the object signal domain has been limited to predefined domains, such as spatial, discrete cosine transform, and wavelet transform domains. We propose a reconstruction technique of compressive Fresnel holographic data using an overcomplete dictionary learned from natural images to enhance the axial resolution of the sectional images. The redundant (overcomplete) dictionary gives sparser and more flexible solutions for representing the two-dimensional images compared to predefined transforms. We provide simulation results to verify the feasibility of our proposed method.
The effects of attention in auditory–visual integration revealed by time-varying networks

Attention and audiovisual integration are crucial subjects in the field of brain information processing. A large number of previous studies have sought to determine the relationship between them through specific experiments, but failed to reach a unified conclusion. The reported studies explored the relationship through the frameworks of early, late, and parallel integration, though network analysis has been employed sparingly. In this study, we employed time-varying network analysis, which offers a comprehensive and dynamic insight into cognitive processing, to explore the relationship between attention and auditory-visual integration. The combination of high spatial resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and high temporal resolution electroencephalography (EEG) was used. Firstly, a generalized linear model (GLM) was employed to find the task-related fMRI activations, which was selected as regions of interesting (ROIs) for nodes of time-varying network. Then the electrical activity of the auditory-visual cortex was estimated via the normalized minimum norm estimation (MNE) source localization method. Finally, the time-varying network was constructed using the adaptive directed transfer function (ADTF) technology. Notably, Task-related fMRI activations were mainly observed in the bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), superior temporal gyrus (STG), primary visual and auditory areas. And the time-varying network analysis revealed that V1/A1↔STG occurred before TPJ↔STG. Therefore, the results supported the theory that auditory-visual integration occurred before attention, aligning with the early integration framework.
Evaluation of Biocompatibility of PLA/PHB/TPS Polymer Scaffolds with Different Additives of ATBC and OLA Plasticizers

One of the blends that is usable for 3D printing while not being toxic to cell cultures is the lactic acid (PLA)/polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)/thermoplastic starch (TPS) blend. The addition of plasticizers can change the rate of biodegradation and the biological behavior of the material. In order to evaluate the potential of the PLA/PHB/TPS material in combination with additives (plasticizers: acetyl tributyl citrate (ATBC) and oligomeric lactic acid (OLA)), for use in the field of biomedical tissue engineering, we performed a comprehensive in vitro characterization of selected mixture materials. Three types of materials were tested: I: PLA/PHB/TPS + 25% OLA, II: PLA/PHB/TPS + 30% ATBC, and III: PLA/PHB/TPS + 30% OLA. The assessment of the biocompatibility of the materials included cytotoxicity tests, such as monitoring the viability, proliferation and morphology of cells and their deposition on the surface of the materials. The cell line 7F2 osteoblasts (Mus musculus) was used in the experiments. Based on the test results, the significant influence of plasticizers on the material was confirmed, with their specific proportions in the mixtures. PLA/PHB/TPS + 25% OLA was evaluated as the optimal material for biocompatibility with 7F2 osteoblasts. The tested biomaterials have the potential for further investigation with a possible change in the proportion of plasticizers, which can have a fundamental impact on their biological properties.
Pressure‐based unified solver for gas‐liquid two‐phase flows where compressible and incompressible flows coexist

We propose a pressure‐based unified solver for gas‐liquid two‐phase flows where compressible and incompressible flows coexist. Unlike the original thermo–Cubic Interpolated Propagation Combined Unified Procedure (CIP‐CUP) method proposed by Himeno et al (Transactions of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Series B, 2003), we split the advection term of the governing equations into a conservation part and into the rest. The splitting of advection term has two advantages. One is the high degree of freedom in choosing discretization schemes such as central‐difference schemes, upwind schemes, and Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) schemes. The other is the ease of implementation on unstructured grids. The advantages enable the analyses of various flows such as turbulent and supersonic ones in actual complicated boundaries. Therefore, the solver is useful for practical analyses. The solver was validated on the following test cases: subsonic single‐phase flows, incompressible single‐phase turbulent flows, and incompressible gas‐liquid two‐phase flows. With unstructured grids, we obtained the equivalent results as the ones with structured grids. After the validations, subsonic jet impinging on a water pool was calculated and compared with experimental results. It was confirmed that the calculated results were consistent with the experimental ones.
Asymptotic Theory of a Non-Marginal Multiple Testing Procedure and Comparison With Existing Methods

Recently, Chandra and Bhattacharya (2016) proposed a novel and general Bayesian multiple comparison method such that the decision on any hypothesis depends upon the joint posterior probability of the hypotheses on which the current hypothesis is strongly dependent. Here we investigate the asymptotic properties of their methodology, establishing in particular rates of convergence to zero of several versions of Bayesian false discovery rate and Bayesian false non-discovery rate associated with the non-marginal approach, as the sample size tends to infinity. We also establish convergence properties of several other established multiple testing methods, each representing a class of methodologies, and show that the non-marginal method is as good as the existing ones in that the associated versions of Bayesian false non-discovery rate converge to zero at the same rate, compared to the other methods, when versions of Bayesian false discovery rate are asymptotically controlled. Moreover, we also propose a novel method to retrospectively compare the decision configurations obtained by the non-marginal method and the other methods in small samples, by conceptually extending the available finite sample to a sufficiently large sample. In this regard, we show that the decision configuration obtained from the non-marginal method minimizes the Kullback-Leibler divergence from the true decision configuration, and hence, is optimal in this sense, compared to all existing methods. In fact, we are able to prove that the non-marginal method retrospectively yields the Bayes oracle with respect to a loss function based on the Kullback-Leibler divergence measure.
A practical guideline for T1 reconstruction from various flip angles in MRI

A fast and robust method for T1 estimation in MRI is the so-called variable flip angle technique. We introduce a novel family of T1 reconstruction methods from data acquired with various flip angles and propose a family member which combines the robustness of a nonlinear- with the computational advantages of a linear reconstruction. The constructed family contains the most common approaches for T1 estimation, namely a linear and a nonlinear approach. A general sensitivity analysis for arbitrary members of the family is established. Advantages of the optimized reconstruction are demonstrated on phantom- as well as real data, showing improvements of up to 24% as compared with the linear method. As a further means to stabilize T1 estimation, spatial stabilization methods are compared. We demonstrate on phantom and on real data that improved results can be obtained if not only T1 but also a second unknown M0 in the reconstruction is stabilized.
Corporate governance and employee confidence in the Ghanaian banking sector: Mediating role of corporate reporting disclosures

Abstract The study explored the relationship between corporate governance and the confidence of bank employees in the Ghanaian banking sector and further investigate the mediating role of corporate reporting disclosures. The data for the study was gathered through the administration of questionnaires to selected employees from the 23 banks operating in Ghana after the sector’s crisis from the year 2018 to 2022. Using the stratified and purposive sampling technique, 276 bank employees constituted the study sample. The study employed the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data using the SMART-PLS software. The findings of the study revealed that, corporate governance significantly relates with employees’ confidence; corporate reporting disclosures significantly relates with employees’ confidence; corporate governance significantly relates to corporate reporting disclosures; and finally, corporate reporting disclosures mediate the relationship between corporate governance and bank employees’ confidence. The study contributes new perspectives to literature; provides model for government, regulators and policy makers to review existing policies and initiate new policies on governance of banks; and a guide to managerial decisions and strategies. The study has critical implications for theory, policy and practice. Theoretically, the study explored the stakeholder theory and contributed to literature. From the perspective policy, the government, regulating agencies such as Bank of Ghana (BoG) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will be guided by the findings to review existing reforms and initiate new and sustainable policies. Finally, the empirical findings have significant practical implications for practitioners and management especially in the post crisis era.
The spatial distribution of insect communities of a mountaintop forest archipelago is not correlated with landscape structure: A multitaxa approach

Understanding community assembly in habitat patches requires an integrative approach, considering the potential role of local and regional factors and organisms' dispersal abilities among patches. For this, assessing the degree of species overlap between patches (nestedness) can be particularly informative, especially regarding different taxa and distinct patch properties. We assessed the potential role of landscape‐patch structure in shaping the nestedness patterns of five taxonomic groups with distinct dispersal abilities (ants, bees, dung beetles, fruit‐feeding butterflies and aculeate wasps). We collected insects from 11 forest patches in the Espinhaço mountain range in southeast Brazil. We assessed the potential contribution of three forest island attributes (size, distance and shape) to the nestedness of insect communities and then tested if metacommunities were significantly nested with respect to habitat (forest islands). Finally, we evaluated how species of each taxonomic group contribute to metacommunity nestedness. While there was a substantial variation in the contribution to the nested pattern within each taxon, all taxa studied exhibited a significantly nested pattern of species distribution. The landscape‐patch structure and the vagility of the different taxa did not influence the contribution of sites to the metacommunity nested pattern. Our integrative approach provides critical data on the role of different factors in shaping species distribution in natural patches. Species with different dispersal abilities and patches with distinct landscape properties contributed similarly to nestedness, indicating the potential role of the vegetation matrix permeability in shaping the distribution of organisms in the studied forest archipelago.
On the Role of ROS and Glutathione in the Mode of Action Underlying Nrf2 Activation by the Hydroxyanthraquinone Purpurin

Purpurin is a major anthraquinone present in the roots of Rubia cordifolia (madder). Purpurin is known to activate Nrf2 (Nuclear transcription factor erythroid 2-related factor 2) EpRE (electrophile responsive element) mediated gene expression as a potential beneficial effect. This study aimed to elucidate the balance between the electrophilicity or pro-oxidant activity of purpurin underlying the Nrf2 induction. For this, Nrf2 activation with modified intracellular glutathione (GSH) levels was measured in an Nrf2 CALUX reporter gene assay. In addition, both cell-free and intracellular ROS formation of purpurin with modified (intracellular) GSH levels at different pH were quantified using the DCF-DA assay. GSH adduct formation was evaluated by UPLC and LC-TOF-MS analysis. GSH and GSSG levels following purpurin incubations were quantified by LC-MS/MS. We show that Nrf2 induction by purpurin was significantly increased in cells with buthionine sulfoximine depleted GSH levels, while Nrf2 induction was decreased upon incubation of the cells with N-acetylcysteine being a precursor of GSH. In cell-free incubations, ROS formation increased with increasing pH pointing at a role for the deprotonated form of purpurin. Upon incubations of purpurin with GSH at physiological pH, GSH adduct formation appeared negligible (<1.5% of the added purpurin). The addition of GSH resulted in conversion of GSH to GSSG and significantly reduced the ROS formation. Together these results demonstrate that Nrf2 induction by purpurin originates from intracellular ROS formation and not from its electrophilicity, which becomes especially relevant when intracellular GSH levels can no longer scavenge the ROS. The present study demonstrated that the efficiency of intracellular Nrf2 activation by purpurin and related anthraquinones will depend on (i) their pKa and level of deprotonation at the intracellular pH, (ii) the oxidation potential of their deprotonated form and (iii) the intracellular GSH levels. Thus, the Nrf2 induction by purpurin depends on its pro-oxidant activity and not on its electrophilicity.
Combining Moderate and High Resolution of Satellite Images for Characterizing Suitable Habitat for Vegetation and Wildlife

Combining different resolution of remote sensing satellites becomes a unique approach for vegetation and wildlife habitat assessment study. Remote sensing technology can reach land and water on the Earth's surface, and it can interpret signals from spectral responses. When these techniques are combined with Geographical Information Systems (GIS), land can be monitored in a variety of ways. Meanwhile, changes in land use led to changes in vegetation on the ground, with natural vegetation being removed from natural forests, leaving a degraded forest. This issue was not investigated for assessing habitat suitability for important plantations such as Eucalyptus plantation. Therefore, the study employed remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) to model suitability of habitat to live and to survive in the Eucalyptus plantation. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) derived from a mathematical equation can demonstrate intensity of greenness of green vegetation in particular area and time, and availability of soil moisture, respectively, is very suitable to model the greenness of the area. WorldView-2 satellite image was pre-proceed, proceed, and classified to produce land use indicator in Sabah Softwoods Berhad plantation majoring Eucalyptus spp. tree planted in Tawau, Sabah. Sentinel and Landsat 8 image were used for vegetation and water stress indicator were downloaded from Land Viewer application. Net Primary Productivity (NPP) at monthly scale was also calculated and ranked the productivity for the suitability mapping. Climatic condition based on monthly precipitation and seasonality derived from ASEAN Specialized Meteorological Centre (ASMC) was employed for ranking its suitability value. In this study, natural forest and oil palm plantation is tested to developed suitability map for vegetation and wildlife habitat to live with. All indicators were ranked 10 to 40 presenting benefit and usefulness of the indicator to vegetation and wildlife in the study area. Then, final classification was made from accumulation of those indicators into 0 to 200 (Not suitable to Highly suitable). The results showed 59.9% of the area classified as moderately suitable, 36.9% highly suitable, 3.2% least suitable and no area was classified as not suitable. This type of study assisted forest managers and policymakers for better managing of their forests for better life of trees and wildlife under their management. The methodology adapted in the study is ecologically sounded and economically viable to be modified and complied in Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) in Malaysia and other tropical forest regions.
Toward an improved wall treatment for multiple-correction k-exact schemes

Improved wall boundary treatments are investigated for a family of high-order Godunovtype finite volume schemes based on k-exact polynomial reconstructions in each cell of the primitive variables, via a successive corrections procedure. We focus more particularly on the 1-exact and 2-exact schemes which offer a good trade-off between accuracy and computational efficiency. In both cases, the reconstruction stencil needs to be extended to the boundaries. Additionally, information about wall curvature has to be taken into account, which is done by using a surface model based on bicubic Bezier patches for the walls. The performance of the proposed models is presented for two compressible cases, namely the inviscid flow past a Gaussian bump and the viscous axisymmetric Couette flow.
Pedestrian detection under weather conditions using conditional generative adversarial network

Nowadays, many pedestrians are injured or killed in traffic accidents. As a result, several artificial vision solutions based on pedestrian detection have been developed to assist drivers and reduce the number of accidents. Most pedestrian detection techniques work well on sunny days and provide accurate traffic data. However, detection decreases dramatically in rainy conditions. In this paper, a new pedestrian detection system (PDS) based on generative adversarial network (GAN) module and the real-time object detector you only look once (YOLO) v3 is proposed to mitigate adversarial weather attacks. Experimental evaluations performed on the VOC2014 dataset show that our proposed system performs better than models based on existing noise reduction methods in terms of accuracy for weather situations.
The Road Ahead is Uphill: Female Entrepreneurs and Digitalization in Small and Medium Enterprise Sector in Sri Lanka

Digitalization is the key to growth for entrepreneurial firms. In particular, the contemporary economy emphasizes the importance of digitalization as a crucialhandler towards business success, especially for both female-led and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Unfortunately, in the context of developing countries, little is known about female entrepreneurship and digitalization. Therefore, this study aimstoexplorethe Sri Lankan female entreprenurs’ intentions, practices, and constraints towards digitalization.This study applies a qualitative research design, and semi-structured interviews with seven respondents were the techniques used for data collection.Data were analysed and interpreted using thematic analysis.The study's findings reveal that these female entrepreneurs acquire digitalization-based knowledge and skills through formal and informal learning. Moreover, they are practising digital platforms to develop their businesses, like social media and websites, while facing technical and non-technical issues. Finally, the results reveal significant implications for policies and digitalization strategies for female SME owners.
The new approach to the investigation of the roughness changes of the non-uniform materials irradiated with UV light and imaged by means of atomic force microscopy supported with precise repetitive scanning area positioning

In this paper, a new approach to the observation of the roughness changes due to the UV light exposition is presented. The advantages of the shown method is based on the utilization of repeatable precise positioning of the sample in order to perform the imaging using atomic force microscopy, which enables continuous observation of the surface’s deterioration at specific areas during every inspection step. As the degradation of the material due to a radiation is a process, the measurements are performed repeatedly after a specific dose of the energy is applied to the surface. In the presented research, three samples: two polyethylene and one polycarbonate, revealing various levels of the homogeneity were used. For each sample seven spots have been chosen and then at each ageing step they are imaged in order to provide reliable information about the roughness changes. It is shown that using this novel approach one can obtain superior degradation detection sensitivity. Additionally, it is possible to verify the impact of the morphological and material non-homogeneities on the investigation results, due to the dispersion of the roughness determination at various areas of a certain sample.
Optimal cutoffs for continuous biomarkers for survival data under competing risks

ABSTRACT Identifying an optimal cutoff value for a continuous biomarker is often useful for medical applications. For binary outcome, commonly used cutoff finding criteria include Youden's index, classification accuracy, and the Euclidean distance to the upper left corner on the ROC curve. We extend these three criteria to accommodate censored survival time that subjected to competing risks. We provide various definitions of time-dependent true positive rate and false positive rate and estimate those quantities using nonparametric methods. In simulation studies, the Euclidean distance to the upper left corner on the ROC curve shows the best overall performance.