Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Innovation in Fuel Cells and Related Hydrogen Technology in Norway : vation processes and 2002 / 2003

This thesis is an investigation of innovation in fuel cells and related hydrogen technology in Norway from 1990-2002. The main focus is an analysis of the innovation activities that took place in Norway within the area of fuel cells and related hydrogen technology. Were they a result of cooperation among different actors in sharing and developing knowledge, or rather a result of in-house R&D efforts, conducted independently by the firms? The point of departure for the thesis was an analysis of patents undertaken by at least one Norwegian inventor in the field of fuel cells and related hydrogen technology in the period 1990-2002 in Norway, EU or USA. This patent analysis resulted in 83 patents and involved by 14 assignees (firms). The firms were specialised in semi-fuel cells for use in unmanned submarines, fuel cells for heat and energy production, in production of hydrogen, storage of hydrogen in carbon material, and in membranes that can be used in fuel cells. This analysis was supplemented by 14 interviews of key actors identified by the patent analysis. The analytical framework used in this thesis comes from the Systems of Innovation approaches and we make use of the National innovation systems approach and the technological systems approach as these are complimentary and together provide a good theoretical fundament for the thesis. The results showed that the patents were a result of cooperation between firms, but inhouse R&D was also seen as an important source of knowledge for innovation. The actors were internationally oriented, especially towards EU and the frameworks programmes. Even so, there was still a strong commitment towards building a Norwegian environment through cooperation and national competence building.
Unravelling abiotic and biotic controls on the seasonal water balance using data-driven dimensionless diagnostics

Abstract. The baffling diversity of runoff generation processes, alongside our sketchy understanding of how physiographic characteristics control fundamental hydrological functions of water collection, storage, and release, continue to pose major research challenges in catchment hydrology. Here, we propose innovative data-driven diagnostic signatures for overcoming the prevailing status quo in catchment inter-comparison. More specifically, we present dimensionless double mass curves (dDMC) which allow inference of information on runoff generation and the water balance at the seasonal and annual timescales. By separating the vegetation and winter periods, dDMC furthermore provide information on the role of biotic and abiotic controls in seasonal runoff formation. A key aspect we address in this paper is the derivation of dimensionless expressions of fluxes which ensure the comparability of the signatures in space and time. We achieve this by using the limiting factors of a hydrological process as a scaling reference. We show that different references result in different diagnostics. As such we define two kinds of dDMC which allow us to derive seasonal runoff coefficients and to characterize dimensionless streamflow release as a function of the potential renewal rate of the soil storage. We expect these signatures for storage controlled seasonal runoff formation to remain invariant, as long as the ratios of release over supply and supply over storage capacity develop similarly in different catchments. We test the proposed methods by applying them to an operational data set comprising 22 catchments (12–166 km2) from different environments in southern Germany and hydrometeorological data from 4 hydrological years. The diagnostics are used to compare the sites and to reveal the dominant controls on runoff formation. The key findings are that dDMC are meaningful signatures for catchment runoff formation at the seasonal to annual scale and that the type of scaling strongly influences the diagnostic potential of the dDMC. Adding discrimination between growing season and winter period was of fundamental importance and easy to implement by means of a temperature-index model. More specifically, temperature aggregates explain over 70 % of the variability of the seasonal summer runoff coefficients. The results also show that the soil topographic index, i.e. the product of topographic gradient and saturated hydraulic conductivity, is significantly correlated with winter runoff coefficients, whereas the topographic gradient and the hydraulic conductivity alone are not. We conclude that proxies for gradients and resistances should be interpreted as a pair. Lastly, the dDMC concept reveals memory effects between summer and winter runoff regimes that are not relevant in spring between the transition from winter to summer.
Forecasting global solar irradiance for various resolutions using time series models - case study: Algeria

ABSTRACT The objective of this research is to build models for various time resolutions to predict global solar irradiation using data mining and statistical techniques. The time resolutions analyzed are 5 min, 1 hour and one-day horizon ahead. The models tested herein are three supervised machine learning (ML) techniques: nonlinear autoregressive neural network (NAR), support vector regression (SVR) and random forest (RF). A linear autoregressive (AR) model and the naive persistence (PER) model have also been included. The datasets come from two sites situated in Algeria: Algiers and Ghardaia that have different climatic conditions during the year corresponding to two types of climate, Mediterranean and Arid. One important contribution of this research to global irradiance forecasting is the benchmarking of the ML used, taking into account the lack of practical results and the needs detected in the literature, especially for the case of RF model; according to our best knowledge, the random forest method has never been tested as it has been done in our study: it is just based on past values of the same variable without exogenous data to forecast the future ones. The results of this research show that RF is the best technique with a slight difference in performance, specially for hourly forecasts ahead. The proposed models appear to be less outstanding both in the case of unstable sky conditions (Algiers) and when the resolution is 1 day, due to the fact that time series become significantly less correlated by including more randomness characteristic.
Affiliate marketing: An overview and analysis of emerging literature

Affiliate marketing is a prominent, contemporary type of performance-based Internet marketing whereby a firm reimburses affiliates for each customer referred through the affiliate’s marketing effort. This paper aims to review all existing studies on affiliate marketing (i.e., web-based affiliate marketing) to understand the overall development in this area of research. The search results on affiliate marketing and related terminologies found a total of seventeen studies on this topic. The review clearly indicates the lack of research effort in this area. In addition to explore the key findings of eighteen studies on affiliate marketing, this research reviewed these studies to analyse their keywords, benefits, methodologies, limitations and future research directions, critical success factors, and recommendations. The findings clearly indicate that there has not been any literature review undertaken on this topic. The study also provides its research contribution and limitations and future research directions based on this review.
Methodological challenges of register‐based research

Administrative data have become more and more important for both official statistics and academic research. However, the, more administrative registers are used, the more methodological issues arise (Bakker, 2009; Daas, Kuijvenhoven and Zeelenberg, 2010a). This was apparent at the 2011 congress of the International Statistical Institute, when more than ten sessions focused explicitly on the quality, linking and analyses of administrative data and many others discussed studies based on administrative data. Moreover, the increasing use of administrative data is one of the core transitions in research projects funded in Europe. In both the European Statistical System networks (ESSnets), launched by Eurostat, and the Framework Programmes, funded by the European Commission, the primary focus is no longer solely on data collected by questionnaires. Both Eurostat and the European Commission promote the development of new theory and applications in the area of the use of administrative data. Examples of recent initiatives are the ESSnet on ‘Data Integration’, the ESSnet ‘On the Use of Administrative and Accountants Data’ and the seventh framework Programme BLUE Enterprise and Trade Statistics. Each of these projects has a strong component that focuses on key methodological issues in the use of administrative data and registers for research purposes. However, the theory of register-based research is scarcely out of the egg. After the first mention of this problem in the mid-1990s (Hoffmann, 1995; Statistics Denmark, 1995), the rudiments of such a theory were merely sketched in the first decade of this century (UNECE, 2007; Wallgren and Wallgren, 2007). It will take a serious period of time to develop it further and take it to an acceptable level; just as it took time to develop and accept the use of probabilistic ideas in to the
Heating of the intergalactic medium by the cosmic microwave background during cosmic dawn

The intergalactic medium is expected to be at its coldest point before the formation of the first stars in the universe. Motivated by recent results from the EDGES experiment, we revisit the standard calculation of the kinetic temperature of the neutral gas through this period. When the first ultraviolet (UV) sources turn on, photons redshift into the Lyman lines of neutral hydrogen and repeatedly scatter within the Lyman-$\alpha$ line. They heat the gas via atomic recoils, and, through the Wouthuysen-Field effect, set the spin temperature of the 21-cm hyperfine (spin-flip) line of atomic hydrogen in competition with the resonant cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. We show that the Lyman-$\alpha$ photons also mediate energy transfer between the CMB photons and the thermal motions of the hydrogen atoms. In the absence of X-ray heating, this new mechanism is the major correction to the temperature of the adiabatically cooling gas ($\sim 10 \%$ at $z=17$), and is several times the size of the heating rate found in previous calculations. We also find that the effect is more dramatic in non-standard scenarios that either enhance the radio background above the CMB or invoke new physics to cool the gas in order to explain the EDGES results. The coupling with the radio background can reduce the depth of the 21-cm absorption feature by almost a factor of two relative to the case with no sources of heating, and prevent the feature from developing a flattened bottom. As an inevitable consequence of the UV background that generates the absorption feature, this heating should be accounted for in any theoretical prediction.
Improved Sensor for Agricultural Ventilation Fan Monitoring

A new sensor for monitoring the continuous operation of exhaust fans in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) was developed and tested. The sensor relies on integrated Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (iMEMS) technology to accurately and reliably detect vibration on the external hood of agricultural fans, caused by the rotation of the fan blade. When coupled with a sensor to measure pressure drop across the fan and an appropriate fan curve, the vibration sensor can enable real-time fan specific collection of emission data from animal housing structures. The sensor integrated an iMEMS accelerometer along with various signal conditioning components to convert the cyclic acceleration signal into a filtered TTL signal appropriate for a wide variety of digital input data acquisition equipment. The overall current draw of the sensor was only 0.9 milliamps, which allowed multiple devices to operate from a single power bus. Laboratory and field testing have shown that the sensor is very accurate in determining the on/off state of exhaust fans. Sensor installation takes only a few minutes and requires only a single hole placed in the existing fan hood. Furthermore, by encapsulating the sensor in a potting compound, all critical electronic components were sealed from the corrosive effects of moisture and gasses common to CAFOs.
Comparison Of Antibiotic Resistance In Bacterial Flora Of Shrimp Farming Systems

The antibiotic resistances among the bacterial flora of extensive, modified extensive and semi-intensive shrimp farming systems of West Bengal, India, which follow varied management practices were compared. The populations of bacteria isolated from semi-intensive shrimp farming system were comparatively more sensitive to antibiotics followed by modified extensive and extensive culture systems. About 38%, 20% and 22% of the bacterial isolates respectively from semi-intensive (n=141), modified extensive (n=186) and extensive (n=154) systems were sensitive to all the six antibiotics. There existed significant differences in multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) of the isolates from extensive (54.55) and semi-intensive (33.33%) systems, and modified extensive (52.69%) and semi-intensive systems. The variation in the bacterial resistance to different antibiotics observed among various shrimp culture systems of West Bengal was the reflection of varied management practices adopted. The observations on the antibiotic resistance did not indicate that the shrimp farm bacterial flora of certain culture systems in West Bengal is developing resistance to broad-spectrum antibiotics.
Simultaneous high-pressure and high-temperature volume measurements of ice VII and its thermal equation of state

We conducted simultaneous high-pressure (cid:1) P (cid:2) and high-temperature (cid:1) T (cid:2) unit-cell volume (cid:1) V (cid:2) measurements of H 2 O ice VII in an externally heated diamond anvil cell using in situ synchrotron x-ray diffraction technique with an angle-dispersive system. Isothermal unit-cell volume of ice VII was collected at P =33–50 GPa with T =873 K. Nonisothermal experiments at T =430–740 K and P =19–37 GPa were also conducted to further constrain P - V - T properties of ice VII. Using the existing 300 K compression data for an equation of state (cid:1) EoS (cid:2) at the reference temperature, a thermal EoS of ice VII was constructed from the collected high-P - T data. The melting temperature of ice VII was computed up to P =40 GPa by thermodynamic calculations with the newly constructed EoS of ice VII. The resulting melting temperatures are higher than that of previous calculations since the new EoS gives a smaller molar volume of ice VII. In contrast, the calculated melting curves are consistent with recent experimental estimates.
Assessing the Farm Level Impacts of Yield and Revenue Insurance: an Expected Value-Variance Approach

This paper investigates the farm level impacts of multiple peril yield and revenue insurance in an expected value-variance framework. The analysis is conducted using stochastic simulation jointly with numerical optimisation. Simulation is used to compute the means and variances of revenues as affected by the insurance schemes under consideration. In a second step these results are incorporated in a whole-farm programming approach, which optimises a portfolio that consists of crop production and insurance activities. The results of a case study indicate that from the farmer's point of view there is an incentive to buy multiple peril crop insurance, because it significantly reduces the variability of income. The risk reduction through insurance in turn leads to a specialisation of the production program. The farm level benefit of crop insurance strongly depends on the decision maker's degree of risk aversion. Furthermore, risk free parts of the total income reduce the economic attractiveness of insurance schemes. This applies e.g. to the area payments under the European agricultural policy, which therefore limit the potential demand for crop insurance.
Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation of Corn Husk by Co-Culture Strategy

Lignocellulosic biofuel production mainly carried out by two ways: simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) and separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF). In the present study, simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) was carried out using microwave assisted thermochemically pretreated (0.5 M NaOH for 20 minutes at 120°C in preheated oven) corn husk. Using co-cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Fusarium oxysporum, SSF process was optimized. Maximum ethanol production (6.24%, v/v) was observed after 24 h of incubation. Further for enhanced ethanol production, effect of different surfactant was carried out on SSF using co-culture strategy. It was found that addition of Tween 60 enhanced the ethanol production upto 6.38% (v/v). Further for addition enhancement of ethanol production, different co-culture strategy was adopted. It was found that maximum ethanol production (6.58% v/v) was obtained when ethanol fermentation was carried out by Fusarium oxysporum followed by Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Fitness Profile of Malaysian Adolescent Squash Players

Squash is an indoor game that is the second fastest racket sports if compared to badminton and tennis. Squash game puts a high demand on physical fitness of elite players which requires a quick development of high force, rapid changes of direction and fast reaction. The objective of this study was to develop the physical fitness profile of Malaysian junior state squash players. Sixty five 10 to 18 years old male Kelantan state squash players were tested with seven skill-related fitness tests. SPSS version 20.0 was used to analyze the data collected from the tests. A one-way ANOVA was used to detect statistical differences between groups. A posthoc test (LSD) was performed to determine differences in in the variables between groups. The data was collected for flexibility, speed, muscular endurance, power of upper and lower extremities, agility and cardiovascular endurance. There were significant differences in the mean speed, muscular endurance, agility, power of lower extremities, power of upper extremities, flexibility and predicted VO 2 max between 13-15 and 16-18 years of age groups when compared to 10-12 years old players (p<0.05). Similarly, there were significant differences in speed, muscular endurance, agility, power of lower extremities, power of upper extremities, flexibility and VO 2 max between 16-18 and 13-15 year old players (p<0.05).
Formation of the three-dimensional geometry of the red blood cell membrane

Red blood cells (RBCs) are nonnucleated liquid capsules, enclosed in deformable viscoelastic membranes with complex three dimensional geometrical structures. Generally, RBC membranes are highly incompressible and resistant to areal changes. However, RBC membranes show a planar shear deformation and out of plane bending deformation. The behaviour of RBCs in blood vessels is investigated using numerical models. All the characteristics of RBC membranes should be addressed to develop a more accurate and stable model. This article presents an effective methodology to model the three dimensional geometry of the RBC membrane with the aid of commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics 4.2a and Fortran programming. Initially, a mesh is generated for a sphere using the COMSOL Multiphysics software to represent the RBC membrane. The elastic energy of the membrane is considered to determine a stable membrane shape. Then, the actual biconcave shape of the membrane is obtained based on the principle of virtual work, when the total energy is minimised. The geometry of the RBC membrane could be used with meshfree particle methods to simulate motion and deformation of RBCs in micro-capillaries
Synthesis of Soluble Polythiophene Partially Containing 3,4-Ethylenedioxythiophene and 3-Hexylthiophene by Polycondensation

A novel poly(quinquethiophene) partially containing 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) and 3-hexylthiophene, poly(3,3 ''''-dihexyl-3',4',3''',4'''-diethylenedioxy-2,2':5',2'':5'',2''':5''',2''''-quinquethiophene), was synthesized by three types of polycondensations. Among them, direct C-H coupling reaction gave the polymer with the highest molecular weight. The resulting polymer was soluble in common organic solvents. Absorption and fluorescence spectra of the polymer showed a remarkable red-shift compared with the corresponding monomer due to the expansion of effective π-conjugation length.
The green–blue swing: plasticity of plankton food-webs in response to coastal oceanographic dynamics

The internal organization of plankton communities plays a key role in biogeochemical cycles and in the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. In this study, the structure of a marine plankton community (including both unicellular and multicellular organisms) was inferred by applying an ecological network approach to species abundances observed weekly at the long-term ecological research station MareChiara (LTER-MC) in the Gulf of Naples (Tyrrhenian Sea, Mediterranean Sea) in the summers of 2002–2009. Two distinct conditions, characterized by different combination of salinity and chlorophyll values, alternated at the site: one influenced by coastal waters, herein named ‘green’, and the other reflecting more offshore conditions, named ‘blue’. The green and blue ‘phases’ showed different keystone biological elements: namely, large diatoms and small-sized flagellates, respectively. Several correlations amongst species belonging to different trophic groups were found in both phases (connectance ~0.30). In the green phase, several links between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton and within the latter were detected, suggesting matter flow from microbes up to carnivorous zooplankton. A microbial-loop-like sub-web, including mixo- and heterotrophic dinoflagellates and ciliates, was present in the green phase, but it was relatively more important in the blue phase. The latter observation suggests a more intense cycling of matter at the microbial trophic level in the blue phase. These results show that different modes of ecological organization can emerge from relatively small changes in the composition of aquatic communities coping with environmental variability. This highlights a significant plasticity in the internal structure of plankton webs, which should be taken into account in predictions of the potential effects of climatic oscillations on aquatic ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles therein.