Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Size distribution, mass concentration, chemical and mineralogical composition and derived optical parameters of the boundary layer aerosol at Tinfou, Morocco, during SAMUM 2006

During the SAMUM 2006 field campaign in southern Morocco, physical and chemical properties of desert aerosols were measured. Mass concentrations ranging from 30μgm−3 for PM2.5 under desert background conditions up to 300 000μgm−3 for total suspended particles (TSP) during moderate dust storms were measured. TSP dust concentrations are correlated with the local wind speed, whereasPM10 andPM2.5 concentrations are determined by advection from distant sources. Size distributions were measured for particles with diameter between 20 nm and 500μm (parametrizations are given). Two major regimes of the size spectrum can be distinguished. For particles smaller than 500 nm diameter, the distributions show maxima around 80 nm, widely unaffected of varying meteorological and dust emission conditions. For particles larger than 500 nm, the range of variation may be up to one order of magnitude and up to three orders of magnitude for particles larger than 10μm. The mineralogical composition of aerosol bulk samples was measured by X-ray powder diffraction. Major constituents of the aerosol are quartz, potassium feldspar, plagioclase, calcite, hematite and the clay minerals illite, kaolinite and chlorite. A small temporal variability of the bulk mineralogical composition was encountered. The chemical composition of approximately 74 000 particles was determined by electron microscopic single particle analysis. Three size regimes are identified: for smaller than 500 nm in diameter, the aerosol consists of sulphates and mineral dust. For larger than 500 nm up to 50μm, mineral dust dominates, consisting mainly of silicates, and—to a lesser extent—carbonates and quartz. For diameters larger than 50μm, approximately half of the particles consist of quartz. Time series of the elemental composition show a moderate temporal variability of the major compounds. Calcium-dominated particles are enhanced during advection from a prominent dust source in Northern Africa (Chott El Djerid and surroundings). The particle aspect ratio was measured for all analysed particles. Its size dependence reflects that of the chemical composition. For larger than 500 nm particle diameter, a median aspect ratio of 1.6 is measured. Towards smaller particles, it decreases to about 1.3 (parametrizations are given). From the chemical/mineralogical composition, the aerosol complex refractive index was determined for several wavelengths from ultraviolet to near-infrared. Both real and imaginary parts show lower values for particles smaller than 500 nm in diameter (1.55–2.8 × 10−3i at 530 nm) and slightly higher values for larger particles (1.57–3.7 × 10−3i at 530 nm).
Exploring the Structural Stability and Electronic Properties of VS2 Nanostructures – a DFT Study

The structural stability and electronic properties of pristine, hydrogenated and chlorinated VS 2 nanostructures were investigated using density functional theory. The optimization of VS2 nanostructures were carried out successfully with the help of B3LYP/ LanL2DZ basis set. Initially the structural stability was confirmed using formation energy. The electronic properties were discussed in terms of HOMO-LUMO gap, density of state (DOS) spectrum, electron affinity (EA), and ionization potential (IP). The chemical hardness (CH) and chemical potential (CP) of VS2 nanostructures are also reported. The results will give the insights on structural stability and electronic properties of hydrogenated and chlorinated VS2 nanostructures.
EVALUATING THE STATIC AND DYNAMIC MODULUS OF ELASTICITY OF ROLLER COMPACTED RUBBERCRETE USING RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY

In this study, response surface methodology (RSM) was used to evaluate the effect of partial replacement of fine aggregate with crumb rubber (CR), and the addition of nano silica (NS) by weight of cement in roller compacted concrete (RCC) pavement. Roller compacted rubbercrete (RCR) is used as the terminology for RCC where fine aggregate is partially replaced with crumb rubber. The experiments were designed and analysis executed using the historical data model type. After executing the experimental works, regression analysis was used to develop models for predicting the static and dynamic modulus of elasticity (MOE) of RCR. The RSM regression analysis showed that both static and dynamic MOE decreases with increase in CR replacement level, and increases with increment in addition of NS up to 2%. Therefore CR increases the flexibility of RCR while NS increases its stiffness. The analysis of variance for the developed models showed that the static MOE of RCR can be predicted using cubic model type while the dynamic MOE can be predicted using quadratic model type, with all the models having high degree of correlation and was in agreement with the experimental data.
Occupational Risk Assessment of Benzene in Rubber Tire Manufacturing Workers

Tire manufacturing industry has a history of more than half a century in Iran, where 14 thousand workers are employed. The old and semi-automated processes equipment, backward technology, and raw materials impurity lead to significant exposures to occupational carcinogens such as benzene. This study was to assessment of benzene exposures and evaluation the resulting cancer risk in two tire-manufacturing factories. One hundred workers in two target tire-manufacturing factories selected as ―exposed group‖. Personal monitoring was conducted in all process units according to NIOSH 1501 method. Inhalation health risk of benzene exposure was estimated via two assessment models. Data were analyzed using SPSS and quantitative values were reported as Mean ± Standard Error. Occupational exposure to benzene in 68 percent of workers has exceeded the current exposure limit. The highest level of benzene (5.06 ppm) found in cement making unit. The odds ratio of leukemia was 2.06 times the working population without benzene exposure, as well; the cancer incidence was 16.14 cases per 1000 workers. This study as screening approach is first on addressing the risk assessment of Iranian tire manufacturing workers. The levels of personal exposures and cancer risk were unacceptable and this may provide a basis for developing the control measures in future.
La Generalización entre Contextos como Función del Entrenamiento en una Tarea Instrumental con Humanos

Leon, Abad and Rosas (2010b) shown that as the training increased attention to the context decreased. Thus, increasing the training might produce a greater generalization between different contexts. The main goal of the present experiments was to test this idea modifying different values of the context (i. e., colors) using an instrumental task with humans. The task was a videogame in which participants performed under an IV2s schedule in presence of different discriminative stimuli to obtain reinforces. In Experiment 1 two groups were trained with 3 or 8 trials, then a test trial was conducted in the training context (i. e., yellow) or in a different context (i. e., red). Results shown that changed the context produced a loss of performance. In Experiment 2 two groups were trained with similar parameters used in Experiment 1 but using an orange context. Test was conducted with different values of the orange (i. e., training context) toward yellow and red. The pattern of the data suggests that experience with the task modulates in different ways attention to contextual cues.
Quasi-special Osserman manifolds

In this paper we deal with a pseudo-Riemannian Osserman curvature tensor whose reduced Jacobi operator is diagonalizable with exactly two distinct eigenvalues. The main result gives new insight into the theory of the duality principle for pseudo-Riemannian Osserman manifolds. We concern with special Osserman curvature tensor and propose new ways to exclude some additional duality principle conditions from its definition. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 174012]
Strategy and supply chain management: the website as a distinctive competence

In this paper we present a preliminary study of a business that is operating within a high velocity supply chain, and has applied web based technologies to survive and prosper through the last seven years. We discussed aspects of success. and some determinants of strategy that can contribute to success. In our discussion of ComputerShop we have outlined parts of its history. how it services the needs of customer, manages it supplier relationships. and how it has incorporated web based technology at the heart of its transaction and order fu! fi! ment processes. We have discussed our findings and note that the business appears to have developed a distinctive competence, but we reflect on the possibility that the distinctive competence has some risk attached to it, and it may be so well adapted to a particular supply chain configuration that it may have sacrificed flexibility for efficiency.
Social Sustainability in the Apparel Supply Chain: An Institutional Theory perspective

Social sustainability has become an issue of paramount importance to Western firms who source globally, but there is a dearth of empirical and theoretical research in this field. Most prior studies have been in the context of developed country buying firms. This study attempts to fill this gap by looking at the implementation of social sustainability in the apparel industry of Bangladesh through the institutional theory lens. A broad range of stakeholders are investigated, including Western buyers, developing country suppliers, NGOs, trade bodies, workers and trade unions. This paper identifies barriers, enablers and institutional forces of social sustainability implementation.
On the Relationship of Energy and CO2: The Effect of Financial Deep on Oil Producing Countries

The relationship between energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the financial depth was appraised within a panel of thirteen oil producing countries. The role of CO2 is analysed as economic growth driver and as explained variable. An Autoregressive Distributed Lag model with annual frequency data for the period from 1970 to 2012 was used. The paper showed that CO2 promotes economic growth in the short-run. The CO2 causes growth in longand short-run. The ratio between oil production and primary energy consumption impacts economic growth and the reduction of CO2 in longand short-run. The financial depth increases CO2 in short-run and depresses economic growth both in longand short-run. The results for oil producing countries reveal bidirectional causality between CO2 and economic growth. Therefore, policymakers of oil producing countries should be aware that economic growth may lead to an increase of CO2.
Un exemple d'ambiguïté du geste co-verbal en situation de communication homme-machine et ses conséquences sur les analyses sémantiques et pragmatiques

Dans le but de mieux cibler la realisation de systemes de dialogue homme-machine, une des etapes consiste a mettre des sujets en situation simulee de communication et a enregistrer leur comportement, a l'aide d'une camera video et/ou en s'interessant aux traces captees par les dispositifs d'interaction (microphone, ecran tactile, souris). Lorsque le dialogue met en jeu une scene visuelle et autorise les gestes 2D effectues sur ecran tactile, on observe essentiellement des gestes co-verbaux deictiques, c'est-a-dire que l'utilisateur pointe les objets et les lieux qu'il mentionne verbalement, suivant en cela le classique paradigme du « mets ca ici ». Nous analysons dans cette communication les etapes du processus de comprehension automatique de l'enonce oral et du geste deictique, en particulier quand celui-ci prend une forme qui va au-dela du simple pointage. Nous illustrons ainsi la complexite des traitements informatiques meme pour un exemple aussi simple que « mets ca ici ».
Factors Influencing the Frames and Approaches of Host Organizations for Collaborative Catchment Management in England

The frames and approaches adopted for collaborative catchment management (CCM) by 22 host organizations in England were examined. Hosts framed and approached CCM according to their particular funding arrangements, management priorities, actor networks, attitudes toward knowledge and uncertainty, and willingness to share power and take risks. The findings support the theory of path dependency, and indicate that the majority of hosts created CCM groups that were much narrower in scope, direction, and structure than had been envisaged by government policymakers. To address this, a new national policy framework for catchment management in England is recommended that defines guiding principles for collaboration and balances the needs for clear direction and discretion in policy implementation.
METHOD OF STATE AND ALIGNMENT MONITORING FOR CRYSTAL DEFLECTORS OF RELATIVISTIC IONS

The calculations of the parametric X-ray radiation (PXR) characteristics produced by 158 GeV/u Pb nuclei in silicon crystal deflectors were carried out. The PXR intensity at the maximum angular distribution was about 4 ph/Pb/sr, which should allow to monitor the state and the orientation of the deflector by means of the observation of the PXR spectrum characteristics.
Identification of the Capsid Protein-binding Region of the SL1(+) RNA Located at the 5' Region of the Potato virus X Genome

Potato virus X (PVX) contains cis-acting elements including stem-loop 1 (SL1) RNA at the 5` region; SL1 is conserved among all potexviruses. The SL1 at the positive-sense RNA, SL1(+), is required for PVX RNA replication, cell-to-cell movement, and translation. Previous research demonstrated that SL1(+) RNA also serves as the origin of assembly for encapsidation of PVX RNA. To identify the essential sequences and/or regions for capsid protein (CP) subunit recognition within SL1(+) RNA, we used electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA), UV cross-linking, and yeast threehybrid analyses. The EMSA and UV cross-linking analyses with PVX CP subunits and RNA transcripts corresponding to the SL1(+) RNA showed that the SL1(+) RNA formed complexes with CP subunits. We also conducted EMSA and yeast three-hybrid analyses with RNAs containing various mutations of SL1(+) RNA elements. These analyses indicated that SL1(+) RNA is required for the interaction with PVX CP and that the RNA sequences located at the loop C and tetra loop of the SL1(+) are crucial for CP binding. These results indicate that, in addition to being important for RNA accumulation, the SL1(+) RNA from the 5` region of the PVX genome is also required for specific binding of PVX CP.
EFFECT OF MOISTURE CONTENT IN COAL DUST ON FILTRATION AND CLEANING PERFORMANCE OF FILTERS

A large amount of fugitive coal dust is generated during the mining, transportation, and processing of coal. The moisture content of the coal dust has a significant influence on the dust collection performance of filters, although relatively few studies on this phenomenon exist. This study prepared six groups of coal dust samples with moisture contents ranging from 0 to 12 wt. % and tested the pressure drop as the coal dust was deposited onto three different types of filters. The specific resistance, compression coefficient, and porosity of the coal dust cake were analyzed, and the cake/filter adhesive force was tested using the reverse flow cleaning method. This research demonstrates that the influence of the moisture content on the specific resistance, compression coefficient, and porosity of the coal dust cake can be divided into two phases (according to the critical moisture content of 4 wt.%): first, as the moisture content increased from 0 to 4 wt. %, the cake resistance and compression coefficient increased and the cake porosity decreased; and second, as the moisture content increased from 4 to 12 wt. %, the cake resistance and compression coefficient decreased and the porosity increased. The coated and repellent filters possessed a lower adhesive force on the coal dust cake than the conventional filter. The comparison of all three of the filters revealed that the adhesive force between the repellent filter and the dust cake was the least sensitive to the moisture content.
Two-stage fourth-order gas-kinetic scheme for three-dimensional Euler and Navier-Stokes solutions

ABSTRACT For the one-stage third-order gas-kinetic scheme (GKS), successful applications have been achieved for the three-dimensional compressible flows [Pan, L. , K. Xu, Q. Li, and J. Li. 2016. “An Efficient and Accurate Two-stage Fourth-order Gas-kinetic Scheme for the Navier-Stokes Equations. ” Journal of Computational Physics 326: 197–221]. The high-order accuracy of the scheme is obtained by integrating a multidimensional time-accurate gas distribution function over the cell interface within a time step without using Gaussian quadrature points and Runge-Kutta time-stepping technique. However, to the further increase of the order of the scheme, such as the fourth-order one, the one step formulation becomes very complicated for the multidimensional flow. Recently, a two-stage fourth-order GKS with high efficiency has been constructed for two-dimensional inviscid and viscous flow computations ([Li, J., and Z. Du. 2016. “A Two-stage Fourth Order Time-accurate Discretization for Lax-Wendroff Type Flow Solvers I. Hyperbolic Conservation Laws.” SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing 38: 3046–3069]; Pan et al. 2016), and the scheme uses the time accurate flux function and its time derivatives. In this paper, a fourth-order GKS is developed for the three-dimensional flows under the two-stage framework. Based on the three-dimensional WENO reconstruction and flux evaluation at Gaussian quadrature points on a cell interface, the high-order accuracy in space is achieved first. Then, the two-stage time stepping method provides the high accuracy in time. In comparison with the formal third-order GKS [Pan, L. , and K. Xu. 2015. “A Third-order Gas-kinetic Scheme for Three-dimensional Inviscid and Viscous Flow Computations. ” Computers & Fluids 119: 250–260], the current fourth-order method not only improves the accuracy of the scheme, but also reduces the complexity of the gas-kinetic flux solver greatly. More importantly, the fourth-order GKS has the same robustness as the second-order shock capturing scheme [Xu, K. 2001. “A Gas-kinetic BGK Scheme for the Navier-Stokes Equations and its Connection with Artificial Dissipation and Godunov Method. ” Journal of Computational Physics 171: 289–335]. Numerical results validate the outstanding reliability and applicability of the scheme for three-dimensional flows, such as the cases related to turbulent simulations.
Sensory Conflict Influence on Functional Reach Performance and Dynamic Standing Balance

Adequate integration of sensory information from different modalities is essential for standing balance. Inadequate and/or incongruent information inputs cause sensory conflict which endangers equilibrium. That is even more expressed during dynamic suprapostural tasks, such as functional reach (FR). Our aim was to study the influence of sensory conflict on FR performance and dynamic standing balance steadiness. Ten healthy right-handed adults performed FR standing on a pedobarographic platform in four sensory conditions: eyes-open (EO), eyes-closed (EC), head in maximal extension and eyes open or closed (EO-HE/EC-HE), adding conflict of vestibular origin. Data were analyzed by Two-Way RM Anova and paired t-test. Factor vision was significant, while only a tendency for head position was found for FR, which shortens in EC, EO-HE and especially EC-HE. For center of pressure (COP) sway path both vision and head position were significant factors. Sway path increased in both EC conditions compared to EO, respectively. Head extension also increased sway path, differences were found between EC and EC-HE. The longest sway path was in EC-HE. Only vision was significant for medio-lateral (M-L) COP sway, which increased in EC compared to EO, respectively. Again, the greatest sway was in EC-HE. The increased COP sway path and M-L sway correspond with decreased FR performance. All these results suggest that absence of vision and/or inadequate vestibular information input, deteriorate dynamic standing balance and task performance, which is expressed the most when both sensory modalities are affected. Factor head position was significant for forward and backward COP velocities (when subjects reach forward and return to initial position). For forward velocity there was significant diminution only between ECHE and EO, for backward velocity – between EO and both HE conditions. These results suggest that altered vestibular information probably causes velocity decrease. Accuracy of return from FR to initial COP position was greater in EC than in EO. This may be explained by increased weight of proprioception in absence of visual information and/or increased confidence in its presence. Our study suggests a correlation between balance steadiness and suprapostural task performance during sensory conflict. Absence of vision has more impact than altered vestibular information in all cases but for the decrease in FR task dynamics.
Effects of nanostructures on the fracture strength of the interfaces in nacre

A strengthening mechanism arising from the mineral bridges in the organic matrix layers of nacre (mother of pearl) is presented by studying the structural and mechanical properties of the interfaces in nacre. This mechanism not only increases the average fracture strength of the organic matrix interfaces by about five times, but also effectively arrests the cracks in the organic matrix layers and causes the crack deflection in this biomaterial. The present investigation shows that the main mechanism governing the strength of the organic matrix layers of nacre relies on the mineral bridges rather than the organic matrix. This study provides a guide to the interfacial design of synthetic materials.
An Analysis of the Value Chain for Indigenous Chickens in Zambia’s Lusaka and Central Provinces

Despite the enormous potential that indigenous chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) have for sustaining livelihoods, their production and marketing has been mostly neglected resulting in the sub-sector being highly underdeveloped with poor linkages between producers and consumers. The main objective of this study was to map and analyze the value chain for indigenous chickens in Lusaka and Central Provinces of Zambia. The study also analyzes the value added and the associated costs in the chain. Findings show that although almost all (99 percent) of smallholder households keep indigenous poultry, productivity and production is very low leading to low and unplanned sales. Low production is due to high mortality of indigenous chickens mainly as a result of limited producer knowledge of methods of disease prevention and breeding practices. The absence of processing along the value chain means that chickens are sold live (in open markets) and consequently cannot be retailed through formal channels like supermarkets leading to exclusion of potential middle and high income consumers. Although the value chain for indigenous chicken shows positive gross margins for all the players along the chain, there is need to address the various constraints affecting the value chain in order to improve the operation of the chain and hence lead to increased