Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nuclear quantum effects induce metallization of dense solid molecular hydrogen

We present an accurate computational study of the electronic structure and lattice dynamics of solid molecular hydrogen at high pressure. The band‐gap energies of the C2/c , Pc, and P63/m structures at pressures of 250, 300, and 350 GPa are calculated using the diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (DMC) method. The atomic configurations are obtained from ab initio path‐integral molecular dynamics (PIMD) simulations at 300 K and 300 GPa to investigate the impact of zero‐point energy and temperature‐induced motion of the protons including anharmonic effects. We find that finite temperature and nuclear quantum effects reduce the band‐gaps substantially, leading to metallization of the C2/c and Pc phases via band overlap; the effect on the band‐gap of the P63/m structure is less pronounced. Our combined DMC‐PIMD simulations predict that there are no excitonic or quasiparticle energy gaps for the C2/c and Pc phases at 300 GPa and 300 K. Our results also indicate a strong correlation between the band‐gap energy and vibron modes. This strong coupling induces a band‐gap reduction of more than 2.46 eV in high‐pressure solid molecular hydrogen. Comparing our DMC‐PIMD with experimental results available, we conclude that none of the structures proposed is a good candidate for phases III and IV of solid hydrogen. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Development of a New Diversity Scheme in 5G Network at 28 GHz Millimter-wave Frequency for Digital Mobile System

: This paper presents an improved hybrid Equal Gain Combiner-Maximal Ratio Combiner (EGC-MRC) diversity scheme in 5G millimeter wave (mm-wave) frequency. The term 5G mm-wave refers to the radio frequency spectrum between 24 𝐺𝐻𝑧 and 100 𝐺𝐻𝑧 . The signal interference is a challenging task in 5G mm-wave frequency, and radio network suffer from co-channel and adjacent channel interference. 5G network deployment depends on large number of antennas, which resulted in signal interference. The conventional receiver’s diversity techniques have high hardware complexity and are characterized by low performance. A new hybrid EGC-MRC diversity scheme was proposed as an improvement on the performance of existing MRC scheme. In achieving this, Probability Density Function (PDF) of the hybrid model was derived using the instantaneous Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) obtained from the output of MRC and EGC diversity schemes. The performance of the developed model was evaluated using Outage Probability (𝑃 𝑜𝑢𝑡 ) and Processing time (𝑃 𝑡 ) at different SNR with 𝐿 number of paths. Simulation of the MRC, EGC and hybrid EGC-MRC models were carried out using MATLAB 2018a and the results compared. The output results showed that hybrid EGC-MRC performed better than EGC and MRC by having a lower 𝑃 𝑜𝑢𝑡 and 𝑃 𝑡 . This new model has the potential to mitigate network interference, multipath propagation, and hardware complexity in 5G mm-wave frequency. Therefore, the developed model can be deployed by network operators to solve signal interference in 5G network.
Self-polarization of protons in storage rings

It is shown that stored proton or heavy ion beams can be polarized by spatially separating particles with opposite spin directions. The separation is done by the alternating quadrupole fields with the help of the bending magnets in between. Although the separation in one quadrupole is very weak, it is shown that under certain curcumstances the effect adds up over many quadrupoles and revolutions, and slowly leads to a macroscopic vertical separation of the beam into two halves having opposite polarizations rotating in the horizontal plane. Provided that suitable strong quadrupole insertions could be added to normal synchrotrons, this method might advantageously replace the existing technique for obtained polarized proton or heavy ion beams, where low energy polarized beams are first generated by a source and then accelerated through numerous depolarizing resonances up to the final energy. The method would work best with rings having large diameter, low vertical emittance, low vertical betatron tune, and strong superconducting quadrupoles.
Characterization and microbial reduction of bacteriogenic iron oxides

The main objectives of the present study were to first determine the chemical and mineralogical composition of bacteriogenic iron oxides (BIOS) collected from various locations (i.e., wetlands near Deep River, Ontario, hydrothermal sea vents along the Kermadec Arc between New-Zealand and Fiji, and from the Aspo tunnel in Sweden), to assess their sorptive capacity for Sr and to measure their rates of reduction in the presence of a well known iron-reducing bacterium. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and selected area electron diffraction indicated that both marine and freshwater BIOS were composed of the iron mineral, 2-line ferrihydrite, in combination with cellular structures of known iron-oxidizing microbes such as Gallionella spp. , Leptothrix spp. , and Mariprofundus spp. Mossbauer spectroscopy of marine BIOS confirmed 2-line ferrihydrite as the dominant mineral phase, but a small fraction of more crystalline oxides may also have been present (as detected by XRD). Using electron microscopy, the mineral phases were typically observed as 100-200 n m thick crusts of poorly structured material, attached to the surfaces of the associated microbial debris. Some well-defined crystal habits were observed in one marine sample.
Impacts of Ozone Changes in the Tropopause Layer on Stratospheric Water Vapor

Stratospheric water vapor (SWV) changes play an important role in regulating global climate change, and its variations are controlled by tropopause temperature. This study estimates the impacts of tropopause layer ozone changes on tropopause temperature by radiative process and further influences on lower stratospheric water vapor (LSWV) using the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM4). It is found that a 10% depletion in global (mid-low and polar latitudes) tropopause layer ozone causes a significant cooling of the tropical cold-point tropopause with a maximum cooling of 0.3 K, and a corresponding reduction in LSWV with a maximum value of 0.06 ppmv. The depletion of tropopause layer ozone at mid-low latitudes results in cooling of the tropical cold-point tropopause by radiative processes and a corresponding LSWV reduction. However, the effect of polar tropopause layer ozone depletion on tropical cold-point tropopause temperature and LSWV is opposite to and weaker than the effect of tropopause layer ozone depletion at mid-low latitudes. Finally, the joint effect of tropopause layer ozone depletion (at mid-low and polar latitudes) causes a negative cold-point tropopause temperature and a decreased tropical LSWV. Conversely, the impact of a 10% increase in global tropopause layer ozone on LSWV is exactly the opposite of the impact of ozone depletion. After 2000, tropopause layer ozone decreased at mid-low latitudes and increased at high latitudes. These tropopause layer ozone changes at different latitudes cause joint cooling in the tropical cold-point tropopause and a reduction in LSWV. Clarifying the impacts of tropopause layer ozone changes on LSWV clearly is important for understanding and predicting SWV changes in the context of future global ozone recovery.
Economic trends for temperature of sugarcane bagasse pyrolysis

This work examines some aspects of sugarcane bagasse pyrolysis. Fixed bed pyrolysis was performed varying the final process temperature. Product yields and the variation of quality properties (calorific values) of bio-oil, biochar, and non-condensable gas were investigated. A mathematical model to simulate the trend of temperature that maximizes a marginal gain was developed consideringthe regression equations for yields and prices of products (related to market prices and calorific value of conventional fuels) and for the amount of biomass used to supply energy to the process. Two methodologies were adopted to calculate the optimum process temperature. The results showed very close temperatures (600 and 602 °C) for the best performing simulations of endogenous and fixed prices methods,with little difference between the yields of products, but with good variation between the marginal gains($124.9/tonne and $129.8/tonne). Finally, the results of endogenous prices method for the fixed bed reactor were compared to the vacuum and fast pyrolysis reactors. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
AVALIAÇÃO, IN VIVO, DA TOXICIDADE GENÉTICA DE NANOPARTÍCULAS DE ÓXIDO DE ZINCO

Com o aumento da utilizacao da nanotecnologia na industria e a dispersao das nanoparticulas no ambiente, e essencial que o potencial toxicologico destes materiais seja avaliado. Nanoparticulas de oxido de zinco (ZnO) sao utilizadas em produtos de uso diario e aplicacoes industriais. Este estudo avaliou a toxicidade genetica de nanoparticulas de ZnO no teste para deteccao de recombinacao e mutacao somatica (SMART) em Drosophila melanogaster . Os resultados demonstraram um aumento significativo na frequencia de clones mutantes das moscas expostas a concentracao de 1,2 mg/mL. A genotoxicidade observada esta associada a eventos mutacionais e/ou recombinacionais, ja que sao os parâmetros geneticos detectados no teste SMART. Os resultados deste estudo contribuiram para a caracterizacao do perfil genotoxico de nanoparticulas de ZnO.
The synergistic effect of H2O and DMF towards stable and 20% efficiency inverted perovskite solar cells

A high quality thick (500 nm) CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite absorber with a horizontal grain size up to 3 μm and a lateral size equal to the film thickness was prepared by the synergistic effect of a H2O additive and DMF vapor treatment via a two-step spin coating method. The inverted (p–i–n) cell based on this high-quality thick perovskite film achieves a high power conversion efficiency of 20.1%. The cell shows no current hysteresis and is stable in inert and ambient atmospheres with appropriate encapsulation. H2O helps MAI to penetrate into the thick PbI2 to form a thick film with a pure MAPbI3 phase and produces bigger gains by slowing down the perovskite crystallization rate. It can also cooperate with DMF to control the dissolution of perovskite grains during DMF vapor post treatment. As a result, large multi-crystalline perovskite grains without observable holes and creases are formed when DMF and H2O were removed during the following heating process. The synergistic effect of H2O and DMF was evidenced by SEM images and GIWXRD patterns taken simultaneously. This synergistic strategy for preparing a high-quality, thick perovskite film was extended to fabricate a large-area MAPbI3 film (1.3 cm2 and 11.25 cm2 for the cell and mini-module, respectively) to realize an efficiency of 16.7 and 15.4%.
Der PAH-Metabolit 1-Hydroxypyren in der Galle von Klieschen (Limanda limanda) aus Nord- und Ostsee

Due to their carcinogenic properties, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are important environmental contaminants which may lead to increased levels of neoplastic aberrations in fish liver. To measure the PAH contamination of fish, concentrations of PAH metabolites were determined in the bile. The main metabolite 1-hydroxypyrene was determined in concentrations from < 0.8 to 189 ng/ml in bile of dab caught in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea re-spectively. The concentrations are comparable to levels of 1-hydroxypyrene measured in cod and herring from the Baltic Sea. The highest concentrations in dab bile were measured in fish from the inner German Bight and the Kiel Bight.
Resolution of Respect Joseph Hurd Connell (1923–2020)

April 2021 1 Resolutions Of Respect RESOLUTIONS OF RESPECT © 2021 The Authors. The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of the Ecological Society of America. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Electrochemical Determination of the p53 Tumor Suppressor Gene Using a Gold Nanoparticle-Graphene Nanocomposite Modified Glassy Carbon Electrode

ABSTRACT A novel sensitive and simple electrochemical DNA sensor is reported for the determination of p53 tumor suppressor gene. A gold nanoparticle/graphene nanocomposite-modified glassy carbon electrode was prepared and methylene blue was used as the hybridization redox indicator. Scanning electron microscopic and electrochemical characterization demonstrated that the gold nanoparticles and graphene were present on the electrode. The resulting sensor provided suitable electrochemical response to the p53 tumor suppressor gene with a linear dynamic range from 0.1 to 1000 nM. The limit of detection was 0.012 nM. The sensor was able to differentiate a complete complementary DNA sequence, single-base mismatched DNA sequence, and a three-base mismatched DNA sequence. The precision of the device was satisfactory, with a relative standard deviation of 4.1% for 11 measurements. The combination of gold nanoparticles and a graphene nanocomposite provided enhanced capabilities for the determination of DNA for clinical applications.
Oral Valproate Sodium as an Alternative to Benzodiazepine in the Treatment of Catatonia- A Case Report

Alternative therapies are necessary to treat catatonia in patients with comorbidities that are not amenable to therapy with benzodiazepines or ECT. This is a patient with schizophrenia with catatonic features and a history of polysubstance abuse. Consequently, he was not a candidate for treatment with benzodiazepines, so an alternative needed to be found. GABAergic medications have been used previously as alternatives to benzodiazepines and ECT. In this case we chose sodium valproate, due to its cross-reaction with GABAergic systems. There are five reported cases using sodium valproate. Three of which were treated with intravenous valproate, while the remaining two do not specify the route of administration. We present a case where oral sodium valproate was used successfully for both acute and long-term catatonic treatment. To our knowledge, no other report has looked at both acute and long-term treatment with sodium valproate. Oral sodium valproate can be considered for patients with substance use disorders like COPD, sleep apnea or myasthenia gravis in which benzodiazepines are contraindicated and where ECT is not an option for treatment.
Partial-Beam Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (PB-NOMA) With Fuzzy Clustering

This letter proposes a partial-beam non-orthogonal multiple access (PB-NOMA) system for millimeter wave (mmWave) channels. In the proposed system, the user terminals (UT)s partially belong to different user groups and power-domain partial NOMA (P-NOMA) technique is exploited in their allocated spectrum. While an individual beam serves the UTs in one group, the UTs in the same group, including the overlapped beam UTs, employ the P-NOMA scheme. Overlapped beam UTs are present when two near UTs are closely correlated and when they are equally belonging to two user groups. Fuzzy C-means (FCM) clustering method, which considers the channel correlation coefficient as a similarity measure, is proposed to group the users. Then, user pairing is performed based on the channel gain differences and fuzzy membership values. Simulation results reveal that the sum-rate performance of the proposed PB-NOMA scheme with fuzzy clustering is shown to be better than that of the conventional P-NOMA systems by adjusting overlapped beam ratio (OBR) and lower near UT overlap ratio (NOR) in a preferable group.
Self-Driving Vehicles and Pedestrian Interaction: Does an External Human-Machine Interface Mitigate the Threat of a Tinted Windshield or a Distracted Driver?

ABSTRACT With self-driving vehicles (SDVs), pedestrians lose the possibility of making eye contact with an attentive driver. This study investigated whether an external human-machine interface (eHMI) displaying the automated driving mode (a. without eHMI vs. b. with eHMI) affects how pedestrians respond to different driver’s states: (1) attentive driver, (2) tinted windshield, (3) distracted driver (within-subject design). At a test site, N = 65 pedestrians crossed a pedestrian crossing while a Wizard-of-Oz SDV approached. We assessed perceived safety and crossing onset times after each trial. Findings reveal that without an eHMI, pedestrians felt significantly less safe if the windshield was tinted or the driver was distracted as compared to an attentive driver. With an eHMI, pedestrians did not differ in perceived safety with regard to the driver’s state. We observed no significant differences in pedestrians’ crossing onset times. We conclude that an eHMI helps pedestrians to not consider the driver’s state.
Assessing acoustic competition between sibling frog species using rhythm analysis

Abstract Male frog advertisement calls are species‐specific vocalizations used to attract females for breeding. However, it is possible for environmental or biological sounds to overlap these calls in both frequency and duration resulting in signal confusion, influencing female decision and/or location abilities. It is therefore important for vocal species competing for the same acoustic space to partition their calls either spatially or temporally (via call alternation or suppression). However, frog species previously isolated from each other may not have developed appropriate adaptive behaviors, resulting in acoustic competition. This study applied rhythm analysis to track changes in calling behavior, namely changes in calling frequency (as in beats per second), of the wallum sedgefrog and the eastern sedgefrog when vocalizing alone versus in the presence of each other to assess potential acoustic competition. Our main findings demonstrated that both species significantly altered their calling behavior when exposed to each other. While we expected the increased calling activity of one species to inhibit the activity of the other to avoid signal confusion, we instead found that both species greatly increased the beat frequency of their calls when calling in the presence of each other. We also found evidence of beat frequency development in the wallum sedgefrog whereby there was always a strong initial increase in call frequency in reaction to the first vocal interruption by the eastern sedgefrog. These results support the hypothesis that the eastern sedgefrog and the wallum sedgefrog are in competition for the acoustic space in habitats where they occur together. This highlights a new threat to the vulnerable wallum sedgefrog species and may serve to inform future management practices. Using rhythm analyses to track changes in acoustic behavior can help inform on important population dynamics such as health, trajectory, and response to management, and therefore be of great benefit to the conservation of vocal species.
Chemical composition and antibacterial activity of Dracocephalum kotschyi essential oil obtained by microwave extraction and hydrodistillation

ABSTRACT Dracocephalum kotschyi essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation (HD), microwave-assisted hydrodistillation (MAHD), and solvent-free microwave extraction (SFME) were investigated by GC-FID (Gas Chromatography-Flame Ionization Detector) and GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry). The percentage of oxygenated compounds was significantly increased from 62.52% in HD to 76.47% in MAHD, and 84.52% in SFME. Conversely, the monoterpene hydrocarbons were decreased from 30.84% in HD to 13.71% in MAHD, and 5.85% in SFME. The main compound in the essential oil obtained by HD is limonene, which accounted for more than 30% of the oil, while the percentage of this compound was reduced to 9.52% in MAHD, and 5.60% in SFME. The percents of other oxygenated compounds such as neral, geranial, geraniol, geranyl acetate, α-terpineol, trans-verbenol, carvon, and trans-carveol were noticeably higher in microwave methods than those present in HD method. In aqueous medium, linear oxygenated monoterpenes may be converted to a monocyclic terpinyl cation, which it could lose a proton to give limonene. The main biosynthetic pathway of these compounds, as well as a possible route of their conversion into limonene, due to prolonged heating in the HD method, was proposed. The antimicrobial activity of D. kotschyi essential oils against Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) bacteria was evaluated by broth micro-dilution susceptibility manner. The most sensitive bacteria to these oils was found to be S. aureus with the lowest minimum inhibitory concentration value of 2 mg mL−1 for MAHD and SFME specimens. The results indicated that oils obtained by microwave methods were more active against S. aureus.
Nonlinear analysis of compliant robotic fish locomotion

Compliant robotic fish can achieve a better swimming performance than rigid-bodied robotic fish. Therefore, this article investigates the swimming behavior of the compliant robotic fish based on a new swimming model that combines the large-amplitude elongated-body theory with decoupled natural orthogonal complement matrices. The simulation reveals that the multi-order resonances are generated in tail-beat amplitude, forward speed, stride length, and transport efficiency when the compliant robotic fish is driven at the corresponding frequency. Moreover, the resonant effects demonstrate the nonlinear behaviors as the driving torque increases. A control strategy for resonance utilization is presented to improve the performance capabilities. The potential influence factors for resonant effects are also discussed, showing that the tail-generated hydrodynamic force significantly impacts the resonant effect. These nonlinear characteristics can provide important guidelines for the motion control of the compliant robotic fish.
Approach to Emergent Neurotrauma-related Neurosurgical Procedures in Patients with Hepatic Disease

Abstract Liver diseases constitute a group of pathologies of extraordinary importance, because of the large number of patients who suffer from these as well as the consequences that they can have on these individuals if they undergo any surgical procedure. Therefore, these patients have greater risk of suffering unfavorable outcomes than a healthy person undergoing emergency neurosurgical procedures (ENP) for neurotrauma. For this reason, there is a need to classify these patients according to their surgical risk based on risk factors secondary to the concurrent hepatic derangements. Among the possible tools that allow us to stage patients with liver disease are the Child–Turcotte–Pugh (CTP) and model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) scales, which have proven utility in effectively predicting the outcomes, including morbidity and mortality in hepatic disease patients who are undergoing surgery. They also help to predict the risk of complications such as intracranial hemorrhage secondary to coagulopathy due to hepatic derangement.
Assessing the Effect of Ozonated Water on Microbial Load and Quality of Nocellara Etnea Table Olives

ABSTRACT The effect of ozonated water on quality and peel microbial load reduction of Nocellara Etnea (NE) olives was evaluated. Different ozone concentrations in water and different time of contact were tested. Moreover, two different ozonated water washing methods, dipping, and continuous shower, were compared. Color, texture, chemical, and microbiological analyses were performed before and after treatments and after 20 days of fermentation in brine with and without Lactiplantibacillus plantarum starter culture at 108 CFU/mL. The continuous shower with 6.5 ppm ozonated water for 10 min led to a reduction of 1 logarithmic unit for mesophilic aerobic bacteria and 1.47 log unit for yeasts and mold population compared to water washing. Olive firmness and color were affected differently.