Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gauging DNA degradation among common insect trap preservatives

Genetic methods for species identification are becoming increasingly popular and can accelerate insect monitoring. However, obtaining good DNA quality and quantity from insect traps remains a challenge for field studies. Ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, and Renner solution have been previously suggested as suitable preservatives for the collection of genetic material, but a systematic overview of their performance under compromising field conditions is lacking. Here we experimentally test whether and how different preservatives affect DNA quality under different conditions and evaluate how choice of preservative may affect metabarcoding and more demanding downstream applications (e.g., RADseq). For this, we used the house cricket, Acheta domesticus (L.) (Orthoptera: Gryllidae), and tested propylene glycol, ethylene glycol, and Renner solution for their ability to preserve DNA over 27 days in various dilutions and temperatures. DNA quality was measured as DNA fragmentation and success rates in PCR amplifying a COI fragment of 658, 313, or 157 bp. Undiluted propylene glycol and ethylene glycol always retained high molecular weight DNA at room temperature. No high molecular weight DNA was preserved at 37 °C or in any dilution. Nevertheless, the COI sequence could be amplified from samples at every condition. Renner solution did not preserve high molecular weight DNA and fragmentation increased over time at 37 °C until amplification was impossible. The results suggest that propylene glycol and ethylene glycol are suitable preservatives for collecting both genetic and morphological material, but dilution or high temperatures compromise their ability to preserve high molecular weight DNA. For genomic approaches requiring high DNA quality, additional preservatives may need to be tested.
Does Information Infrastructure Promote Low-Carbon Development? Evidence from the “Broadband China” Pilot Policy

While information infrastructure has remarkably boosted global economic prosperity in the last several decades, how it propels low-carbon development has failed to draw enough attention. Based on panel data from 284 cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this study used the “Broadband China” pilot policy as an exogenous event to examine the impact of information infrastructure on carbon emission intensity. We found the following: (1) The “Broadband China” pilot policy significantly reduced carbon emission intensity, which held true in a series of robustness tests. (2) Promoting the development of the service sector, encouraging innovation activities, and fostering low-carbon lifestyles are the influential mechanisms by which information infrastructure reduced carbon emission intensity. (3) The population size, administration rank, marketization, industrialization, and informatization base significantly strengthened the reduction effect of information infrastructure on carbon emission intensity, while the disparity in human capital does not cause an evident difference. This paper’s findings reveal a counting path through which improving information infrastructure advances low-carbon and sustainable growth.
Flow of power-law fluids in fixed beds of cylinders or spheres

Abstract An ensemble average of the equations of motion for a Newtonian fluid over particle configurations in a dilute fixed bed of spheres or cylinders yields Brinkman’s equations of motion, where the disturbance velocity produced by a test particle is influenced by the Newtonian fluid stress and a body force representing the linear drag on the surrounding particles. We consider a similar analysis for a power-law fluid where the stress $\boldsymbol{\tau} $ is related to the rate of strain $ \mathbisf{e} $ by $\boldsymbol{\tau} = 2m \mathop{ \vert \mathbisf{e} \vert }\nolimits ^{n\ensuremath{-} 1} \mathbisf{e} $ , where $m$ and $n$ are constants. In this case, the ensemble-averaged momentum equation includes a body force resulting from the nonlinear drag exerted on the surrounding particles, a power-law stress associated with the disturbance velocity of the test particle, and a stress term that is linear with respect to the test particle’s disturbance velocity. The latter term results from the interaction of the test particle’s velocity disturbance with the random straining motions produced by the neighbouring particles and is important only in shear-thickening fluids where the velocity disturbances of the particles are long-ranged. The solutions to these equations using scaling analyses for dilute beds and numerical simulations using the finite element method are presented. We show that the drag force acting on a particle in a fixed bed can be written as a function of a particle-concentration-dependent length scale at which the fluid velocity disturbance produced by a particle is modified by hydrodynamic interactions with its neighbours. This is also true of the drag on a particle in a periodic array where the length scale is the lattice spacing. The effects of particle interactions on the drag in dilute arrays (periodic or random) of cylinders and spheres in shear-thickening fluids is dramatic, where it arrests the algebraic growth of the disturbance velocity with radial position when $n\geq 1$ for cylinders and $n\geq 2$ for spheres. For concentrated random arrays of particles, we adopt an effective medium theory in which the drag force per unit volume in the medium surrounding a test particle is assumed to be proportional to the local volume fraction of the neighbouring particles, which is derived from the hard-particle packing. The predictions of the averaged equations of motion are validated by comparison with simulations of randomly distributed hydrodynamically interacting cylinders.
Indirect methods of collocation: Trefftz‐Herrera collocation

A nonstandard collocation method (TH-collocation) is presented, where collocation is used to construct specialized weighting functions instead of the solution itself, as it is usual, so that in this sense it is an indirect method. TH-collocation is shown to be as accurate as standard collocation, but computationally far more efficient. The present article is the first of a series devoted to explore thoroughly collocation methods. The following classification of collocation methods is introduced: direct-nonoverlapping; indirectnonoverlapping; direct-overlapping; and indirect-overlapping. Most of the effort reported in the literature has gone to direct-nonoverlapping methods. The procedure presented in this article falls into the indirectnonoverlapping category and it is based on Trefftz{Herrera formulation. c 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 15: 709{738, 1999
Multi-Representation Domain Adaptation Network with Duplex Adversarial Learning for Hot-Rolling Mill Fault Diagnosis

The multi-process manufacturing of steel rolling products requires the cooperation of complicated and variable rolling conditions. Such conditions pose challenges to the fault diagnosis of the key equipment of the rolling mill. The development of transfer learning has alleviated the problem of fault diagnosis under variable working conditions to a certain extent. However, existing diagnosis methods based on transfer learning only consider the distribution alignment from a single representation, which may only transfer part of the state knowledge and generate fuzzy decision boundaries. Therefore, this paper proposes a multi-representation domain adaptation network with duplex adversarial learning for hot rolling mill fault diagnosis. First, a multi-representation network structure is designed to extract rolling mill equipment status information from multiple perspectives. Then, the domain adversarial strategy is adopted to match the source and target domains of each pair of representations for learning domain-invariant features from multiple representation networks. In addition, the maximum classifier discrepancy adversarial algorithm is adopted to generate target features that are close to the source support, thereby forming a robust decision boundary. Finally, the average value of the predicted probabilities of the two classifiers is used as the final diagnostic result. Extensive experiments are conducted on an experimental platform of a four-high hot rolling mill to collect the fault state data of the reduction gearbox and roll bearing. The experimental results reveal that the method can effectively realize the fault diagnosis of rolling mill equipment under variable working conditions and can achieve average diagnostic rates of up to 99.15% and 99.40% on the data sets of the rolling mill gearbox and bearing, which are respectively 2.19% and 1.93% higher than the rates achieved by the most competitive method.
A Survey on Understanding and Representing Privacy Requirements in the Internet-of-Things

People are interacting with online systems all the time. In order to use the services being provided, they give consent for their data to be collected. This approach requires too much human effort and is impractical for systems like Internet-of-Things (IoT) where human-device interactions can be large. Ideally, privacy assistants can help humans make privacy decisions while working in collaboration with them. In our work, we focus on the identification and representation of privacy requirements in IoT to help privacy assistants better understand their environment. In recent years, more focus has been on the technical aspects of privacy. However, the dynamic nature of privacy also requires a representation of social aspects (e.g., social trust). In this survey paper, we review the privacy requirements represented in existing IoT ontologies. We discuss how to extend these ontologies with new requirements to better capture privacy, and we introduce case studies to demonstrate the applicability of the novel requirements.
Analysis of photon recycling using metallic photonic crystal

We investigate a photon recycling scheme using two-dimensional metallic photonic crystals made of silver to improve the energy efficiency of an incandescent light source. A theoretical framework is presented to analyze the resultant photon-recycled lighting system. Calculation results show that the system can reach a maximum luminous efficiency of 125 lm/W, which is 8 times higher than that of a bare blackbody radiation at 2800 K. The color temperature of the system is calculated to be around 3500 K or below, while the color rendering index is between 68 and 90. These results suggest that a photon-recycled incandescent light source using metallic photonic crystals can be a viable alternative future lighting solution.
Spermatozoa motility traits of chub (Squalius cephalus L.) under the influence of various water factors

Abstract Spermatozoa of different species are characterised by specific traits of movement and sensitivity spectrum to individual environmental factors. The present study aimed to evaluate spermatozoa motility traits and the effect of some water factors such as osmolality, sodium, potassium concentration, and pH on chub spermatozoa movement characteristics. Motility parameters characterising spermatozoa motility were determined using computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA) and standardised conditions. Other features were also determined, such as the composition of seminal plasma and purine and pyridine nucleotide concentration in spermatozoa. The milt volume of chub from a natural watercourse ranged from 0.5 to 3.5 mL, and the mean spermatozoa concentration was 21.5 × 109 mL−1. Percentage of motile spermatozoa varied from 70% to 99%. Spermatozoa achieved VCL velocity of 53.7 µms−1, LIN of 75.0%, ALH of 0.85 µm, BCF of 15.4 Hz at 10 s post-activation and motility duration of 40 s in distilled water at 15°C and pH 8. The increasing osmolality of the external environment increased motility duration and slightly improved velocity. Motility duration was prolonged in sodium and potassium chloride solutions compared to non-ionic sugar solutions. In order to trigger the best chub’s spermatozoa motility trait, an ionic solution of osmolality of 150–200 mOsm kg−1 and pH 7–8 should be used. Osmolality close to the osmolality of seminal plasma 280 mOsm kg−1 immobilises spermatozoa. In seminal plasma, higher dispersion between the Na+ and K+ concentration was detected in chub compared to other representatives of Cypriniformes. The mean ATP concentration in immotile spermatozoa was 37.9 pmol 10−6 cells. Although some peculiarities in milt were detected, the spermatozoa motility traits of chub and its sensitivity to the environment are typical for Cypriniformes. Research in fish from different taxa according to their sensitivity to environmental components should continue as they differ from each other.
DYNAMIC FUZZY ADAPTIVE CONTROLLER FOR pH

Control of pH processes is very difficult due to nonlinear dynamics, high sensitivity at the neutral point, and changes in the concentrations of known or unknown chemical species. In this study, a dynamic fuzzy adaptive controller (DFAC) with a new inference mechanism is proposed and applied for the control of pH processes. The DFAC consists of a low-level basic control phase with a minimum rule base and a high-level dynamic learining phase with an updating mechanism to interact and modify the control rule base. The DFAC can self-adjust its fuzzy control rules using information from the process during on-line control and create new fuzzy control rules or modify the present control rules using its learning capability from past control trends. The controller is evaluated by applying it to a weak acid-strong base pH process with input disturbances and to another pH process that involve that has changes in acidic/buffering streams. The results of the DFAC with the new inference mechanism are compared with the known inference mechanisms, the fuzzy controller, the conventional PI controller, and also with an adaptive PID controller. The proposed DFAC provides better performance for set point tracking of the pH and rejection of load disturbances and buffering affects.
CGS, A Fast Lanczos-Type Solver for Nonsymmetric Linear systems

A Lanczos-type method is presented for nonsymmetric sparse linear systems as arising from discretisations of elliptic partial differential equations. The method is based on a polynomial variant of the conjugate gradients algorithm. Although related to the so-called bi-conjugate gradients (Bi-CG) algorithm, it does not involve adjoint matrix-vector multiplications, and the expected convergence rate is about twice that of the Bi-CG algorithm. Numerical comparison is made with other solvers, testing the method on a family of convection diffusion equations, on various grids, and with the use of two different preconditioning methods. Upwind as well as central differencing is used in the experiments.
Persistent excitation in adaptive systems

The importance of the concept of persistent excitation (PE) in adaptive identification and control has been recognized for some time. Recently it has become evident that it also plays a central role in many questions related to the robustness of adaptive systems. There is every reason to believe that arguments involving this concept will continue to feature prominently in the analysis of most of the important problems of adaptive control. Hence there is a real need for a deeper understanding of the concept. The paper is written with three objectives. The first, which is tutorial in nature, is to provide a general framework for the discussion of persistent excitation and to collect results in the area, which are scattered throughout the adaptive literature. The second objective is to present some new results related to the uniform asymptotic stability (u.a.s.) and robustness of adaptive systems and the relation of PE to the stability properties of a class of non-linear systems. The final objective is to di.
Observation of an impact-parameter window in low-velocity ionizing collisions of Ne{sup +} on Ne proceeding through quasimolecular states

Target ionization in collisions of singly charged Ne{sup +} ions with Ne has been investigated at projectile velocities from 0.25 to 0.55 a.u. using electron and recoil momentum imaging techniques. The momentum distributions of the ejected electrons were found to carry a distinct signature strongly suggesting that ionization is taking place by successive promotions through molecular orbitals. The observed recoil transverse momentum distributions are donut-shaped, indicating that single ionization is confined to a well-defined impact-parameter window. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society}
X-ray irradiation effects on fluorine-doped germanosilicate optical fibers

We report an experimental investigation on the effects of fluorine codoping on the radiation response of Ge-doped Optical Fibers (OFs) obtained by three different drawing conditions. The OFs were irradiated with 10 keV X-rays up to 300 Mrad and studied by online Radiation-Induced-Attenuation (RIA) measurements. Confocal Micro- Luminescence (CML) and Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) were also employed to investigate the permanent radiation-induced-defects. The variation of the Germanium-Lone-Pair-Center (GLPC) and Non-Bridging- Oxygen-Hole-Centers (NBOHC) concentration with the radiation dose is investigated by CML, whereas the ones of the induced Ge(1), Ge(2) and Eʹ centers by EPR. No relevant differences are found in the RIA of the three fibers, as well as in the induced concentrations of Ge(1) and Ge(2) and in the decrease of the GLPC, showing minor relevance of changing the drawing conditions. We found that fluorine codoping does not affect the RIA and that, unexpectedly, the fluorine co-doped zones of the OFs show an enhanced photoluminescence of the radiation induced NBOHC enabling to suggest the presence of both Si and Ge variants. Moreover, an overall increase of the radiation induced Eʹ(Ge) centers is registered in relation to the presence of fluorine showing that this codopant has relevant effects.
Using ECG Signals in Siamese Networks for Authentication in Digital Healthcare Systems

In digital healthcare systems, with digitalization, data can be easily accessed. Considering the sensitivity of confidential information, the need for security is accelerated during this time. One of the most important security aspects is authentication which should be utilized. The available authentication models that rely on Machine Learning (ML) have some shortcomings, such as difficulties in appending new users to the system or model training sensitivity to imbalanced data. To address these problems, we propose an application of the Siamese networks using ECG signals which are easily reachable in digital healthcare systems. Adding some preprocessing for feature extraction in such a model could lead us to prominent results. This model is performed on ECD-ID and PTB datasets and approaches 92% and 95% of accuracy, respectively. A combination of simplicity and high performance made it an exclusive choice for smart healthcare and telehealth.
Strange matter in a self-consistent quark mass-density-dependent model

An additional term should be added to the thermopotential if the quark masses are density dependent. The strange quark matter is discussed in this self-consistent method. In addition to the ordinary density function of quark masses, another one is also assumed. There exists a region in which strange quark matter is stable at zero temperature.
Energy-Efficient Joint Computation Offloading and Resource Allocation Strategy for ISAC-Aided 6G V2X Networks

Integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) is a pillar technology of 6G to enable intelligent environment awareness and hardware cost efficiencies. In ISAC-aided 6G vehicle-to-everything (V2X) networks, the perception data fusion from multiple sources can make a reliable and efficient data sharing to guarantee driving safety. However, the contradiction between task delay requirement and energy consumption becomes more and more prominent with the growth of computing task amount. Therefore, this paper proposes a joint computation offloading and resource allocation strategy to build greener V2X networks with mobile-edge computing (MEC) and ISAC technologies. A data fusion architecture for cooperative perception is first introduced to support fusing massive perception data from wireless infrastructures and vehicles. Then, a minimization problem of queuing latency is formulated with long-term latency and energy consumption constraints for data fusion computing tasks. The problem is further reformulated by the Lyapunov optimization method to transfer delay and energy constraints into queue stability problems. Finally, a joint computation offloading and resource allocation (JCORA) scheme is proposed to obtain the optimal computation offloading and resource allocation decision, achieving the balance between task delay and energy consumption. Extensive simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy compared with other baseline schemes.
XUV coherent Raman superradiance

We find that intense short pulses of XUV radiation can be produced by cooperative spontaneous emission from visible or IR laser pulses driving atoms or ions. The process depends on the generation and utilization of atomic coherence as is the case in lasing without inversion. However, the radiation process is not stimulated emission, but is rather cooperative spontaneous emission in the sense of Dicke. More precisely, the many atom mathematics of superradiance has much in common with coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering. †It is a pleasure to dedicate this article to Professor Lorenzo Narducci: scientist, scholar, savant. All who were touched by him were enriched. The generation of Raman coherence is considered from the perspectives of multi-photon excitation and breaking of adiabaticity. In particular, we find that the advent of an ultrashort (e.g. single cycle) pulse rewards rethinking of conventional (nanosecond) nonlinear optics with new insights.
Visual Acuity and Contrast Sensitivity in Preterm and Full-Term Children Using a Novel Digital Test

Visual assessment in preverbal children mostly relies on the preferential looking paradigm. It requires an experienced observer to interpret the child’s responses to a stimulus. DIVE (Device for an Integral Visual Examination) is a digital tool with an integrated eye tracker (ET) that lifts this requirement and automatizes this process. The aim of our study was to assess the development of two visual functions, visual acuity (VA) and contrast sensitivity (CS), with DIVE, in a large sample of children from 6 months to 14 years (y) of age, and to compare the results of preterm and full-term children. Participants were recruited in clinical settings from five countries. There were 2208 children tested, 609 of them were born preterm. Both VA and CS improved throughout childhood, with the maximum increase during the first 5 years of age. Gestational age, refractive error and age had an impact on VA results, while CS values were only influenced by age. With this study we report normative reference outcomes for VA and CS throughout childhood and validate the DIVE tests as a useful tool to measure basic visual functions in children.
A Frequency Domain Analysis of Learning Control

The convergence of learning control is traditionally analyzed in the time domain. This is because a finite planning horizon is often assumed and the analysis in time domain can be extended to time-varying and nonlinear systems. For linear time-invariant (TLI) systems with infinite planning horizon, however, we show that simple frequency domain techniques can be used to quickly derive several interesting results not amenable to time-domain analysis, such as predicting then rate of convergence or the design of optimum learning control law. We explain a paradox arising from applying the finite time convergence criterion to the infinite time learning control problem, and propose the use of current error feedback for controlling possibly unstable systems