Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Research on Unconstrained Compressive Strength and Microstructure of Calcareous Sand with Curing Agent

In the South China Sea, calcareous sand, as a natural foundation, has the features of low mechanical properties, including its compressive strength. With the development of South China Sea islands, the problems of calcareous sand foundation are encountered in the process. However, the experience of traditional pile foundation engineering could not be applied to calcareous sand. In this study, different proportions of curing agents were added to calcareous sand to improve the compressive strength. The quantitative analysis of the relationship between the unconfined compressive strength and microstructure of solidified calcareous sand is discussed. The unconfined compressive strength was gauged from unconfined compressive strength tests. Microscopic images, acquired using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), were processed using the Image-Pro Plus (IPP) image processing software. The microscopic parameters, obtained using IPP, include the average equivalent particle size (Dp), the average equivalent aperture size (Db), and the plane pore ratio (e). This research demonstrates that the curing agent could improve the compressive strength, which has a relation with the three microstructure parameters. The curing agent, through hydration reaction, generates hydration products, i.e., calcium silicate hydrate, calcium hydroxide, and calcite crystals. They adhere to the surface of the particles or fill the space between the particles, which helps increase the compressive strength. In addition, there is a good linear relationship between the macroscopic mechanics and the microscopic parameters. Using the mathematical relation between the macroscopic and microscopic parameters, the correlation can be built for macro-microscopic research.
Pollinator habitat: A cooperative project between the landfill industry and blueberry growers

Bee decline is a threat worldwide. An extension project was initiated to make the general public, industry, and municipalities aware of this problem. This study demonstrated pollinator habitat suitable for Maine farms by developing cooperation between the Maine wild blueberry industry and a regional commercial waste landfill. The reason for involving the landfill industry was to demonstrate and encourage non-farm enterprises to become involved in pollinator conservation. This project arose from previous research of ours on pollinator reservoirs in the Maine (USA) wild blueberry agro-ecosystem with the objectives of: (1) comparing three seed mixes, (2) providing demonstration areas where farmers and the general public can see such gardens, and (3) encouraging others to plant for pollinators. The methods involved planting two types of gardens in 2015, one that contained three different commercially available pollinator forage seed mixes, and one that contained shrubs and some perennials that are visited by pollinators early and late in the season, but that are not readily grown in a wildflower meadow. For all three seed mixes, at least some plant species produced flowers that were visited by bees, but there were also gaps in flowering and some species on which we saw few bees. We observed more bees coming to flowers of corn poppy, tall yellow clover, oxeye daisy, black-eyed Susan, anise hyssop, and bergamot. Ox-eye daisy and black-eyed Susan were not in any of the seed mixes but were allowed to grow among the sown plants. More than 600 people came through the booth or toured the gardens at four open houses in 2015 and 2016, and many people know of the project through presentations we have given. The stakeholders and public learned about bees and floral resources. Several municipalities and farmers have planted pollinator reservoirs since this project was initiated. Key words: Pollinator reservoirs, wildflower seed mix, demonstration, landfill, wild blueberry.
Chemistry Content in the Pharmacy Curriculum: Relevance to Develop Pharmacists Fit-to-work in Diverse Pharmacy Profession Sectors

Background: The high employability of pharmacy graduates across various sectors such as in the community pharmacies and hospital settings, the pharmaceutical industries and academia has lent credence to the versatility of their professional training. Therefore, the aim of this study was to gauge the perception of International Medical University (IMU) pharmacy graduates on the applicability and relevance of the chemistry knowledge and practical skills acquired from their professional education in their working place. Methods: The survey was designed based on the pharmacy curriculum of IMU. Qualitative and quantitative responses were collected and analysed by three independent investigators who were not the respondents, and not lecturing in any part of the Chemistry curriculum. The study was completed when the qualitative feedback from respondents reached saturation. Results: Almost equal numbers of pharmacists from the different pharmacy disciplines: (1) industrial and regulatory, (2) hospital and clinical, (3) community and (4) academia, participated in this study. Most of the chemistry topics were rated as essential by the graduates. Some topics were rated very relevant (more than 80%) whereas only up to 30% of the graduates agreed on the essentiality of some topics to their profession. Conclusion: The study concluded that most of the current chemistry content is still essential in nurturing competent pharmacists for their respective disciplines. The outcomes of this study will be used as evidence to support the need for conducting a curriculum review, to better prepare graduates for their future employment.
Thermal Energy Transport Across Combined Films: Thermal Characteristics

Abstract Thermal energy transfer in combined thin films consisting of silicon and diamond is considered. The combined films are thermally disturbed by a temperature oscillation at the silicon left edge and the influence of pulse length of temperature oscillation on energy transport characteristics is investigated. A nano-size gap with varying length is adopted at the films interface. The Boltzmann equation is adopted for the predictions of phonon intensity in the combined structure. The cut-off mismatch model is accommodated formulating interface conditions. The contribution of the near field radiation, due to evanescent waves, is also included at the interface. Equivalent equilibrium temperature is used quantifying phonon intensity distribution in the combined structure. It is found that the influence of the temperature oscillation on the phonon transport is significant at the silicon interface, i. e. , increasing pulse length reduces phonon intensity at the silicon interface. Temporal behavior of equivalent equilibrium temperature is similar to the temperature oscillation introduced at the left edge of the silicon. The rise in temperature in the combined film is faster in the beginning of the heating cycle.
The real-time acquisition and analysis software system for laser-induced plasma acoustic wave signal

In order to realize the online detection of laser shock processing and aim at the phenomenon of laser-induced plasma acoustic wave, the SIA-AEDAC-01 acoustic emission acquisition card is used to collect acoustic wave signals. The real-time acquisition and analysis software system for laser-induced plasma acoustic wave signal is studied and designed. The test experiment for feasibility and accuracy of the system is designed. Firstly, the laser-induced plasma acoustic wave signal propagating in air is collected by the online detection laser shock processing system, and then the system gets the laser-induced plasma acoustic wave signal energy. The residual stress of the test pieces after the treatment of laser shock processing was measured by an X-ray stress analyzer to verify the reliability. The experimental results show that the laser-induced plasma acoustic wave signal can be collected and analyzed in real-time by the real-time acquisition and analysis software system, which is designed and developed in this work, and the software system can accurately get the acoustic signal energy. At the same time, both the acoustic wave signal energy and the surface residual stress of the test pieces are increased with the laser energy, and their change curve is consistent. In conclusion, the real-time acquisition and analysis software system for laser-induced plasma acoustic wave signal can satisfy the requirements of online detection of laser shock processing with accurate and reliable performance, and meet the online monitoring requirements of laser shock processing.
Everywhere differentiable, nowhere monotone functions

In this thesis we give a Baire Category type proof of the existence of functions F : R -* R which are differentiable at every point but monotone on no interval having positive length and whose derivative are bounded (Theorem 3.2). We also deduce further properties that any such functions F must also have (Chapter 4) for example, F possesses both a local maximum and a local minimum on any given nonvoid open interval (Property 5). Also, the sets Z(F') = { x 6 R : F'(x) = 0 }, P(F') = { X e R : F'(x) > 0 } and N(F') = { x G R : F'(x) < 0 } are each dense in R and for any nonvoid open interval I of R the sets inP(F'), IPiN(F') both have positive Lebesgue Measure (Property 9). It follows from this that F ' cannot be Riemann integrable over any closed interval of positive length (Property 10). TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents 1 Dedication iv Acknowledgement v Introduction vi Chapter 1. The Space of Bounded Derivatives 1 1.1 Definition 1 1.2 Theorem 1 Proof 2 1.3 Theorem 2 Proof 2 1.4 Definition 3 1.5 Theorem 3 proof 3 1.6 Theorem 4 Proof 4 1.7 Theorem 5 Chapter 2. A Nontrivial Construction 6 2.1 Lemma 6 Proof 7 2.2 Theorem 10 proof 10 i Chapter 3. Closed Nowhere Dense Sets in D0 11 Proof of Theorem (1.7) 11 3.1 Theorem 12 Proof 12 3.2 Main Theorem 13 Proof 13 Chapter 4. Additional Properties of Everywhere Differentiable, Nowhere Monotone Functions 15 Property 1 15 Proof 15 Property 2 16 Proof 16 Property 3 16 Proof 16 Property 4 17 Proof 17 Property 5 17 Proof 17 Property 6 18 Proof 18 Property 7 18 Proof 18
A Proposed Ultra-Wideband Antenna for 5G Communications Using Frequency Band Expanding

In this paper, a new compact design of Ultra Wideband (UWB) fractal antenna is presented. The antenna geometry is described by means of a spline curve and a rectangular slot. The bandwidth of antenna has been designed in a way to cover frequencies from 3.1 GHz to 28.7 GHz which suits/compatible with the new generation of 5G communications. A simulation of the geometrical design of the proposed project has been achieved and tested through the use of Ansoft HFSS software to attain the UWB antenna application requirements. FR408 substrate characteristic of Isola Company is adopted in this work, and many C shapes with 90 degrees are conducted to deny the frequency band of 3.4 GHz – 3.7GHz that might be worked with WiMAX communications. The numerical results are reported to show the ability of frequency bandwidth expanding in terms of impedance matching and radiation characteristics. A model has been implemented and tested practically, and the results identified a great agreement between the simulated design and the manufactured one.
Modeling and Simulation of Robotic Finger Powered by Nylon Artificial Muscles

A robotic finger actuated by novel artificial muscles known as twisted and coiled polymer (TCP) muscles has been proposed as an inexpensive, yet high-performance component of a robotic hand in recent years. In this paper, the Euler–Lagrangian method coupled with an electro-thermo-mechanical model-based transfer function was used for the analysis of finger joints in the hand. Experiments were performed at three power magnitudes provided to the TCP muscles, and the output angular displacements of the index finger subtended corresponding to the power levels were measured. The measured input and output parameters were used for system identification. To elucidate how the new artificial muscle influences the finger motion, two types of numerical simulations were performed: force input simulation (FIS) using measured force as an input and power input simulation (PIS) using measured electrical power as an input. Results were quantified statistically, and the simulated data were compared with the experimental results. Sensitivity analysis was also presented to understand the effect of the mechanical properties on the system. This model will help in understanding the effect of the TCP muscles and other similar smart actuators on the dynamics of the robotic finger.
Construcción y evaluación del funcionamiento de un prototipo de incubadora para usos múltiples, Chachapoyas, 2018

La investigación tuvo como objetivo construir y evaluar el funcionamiento de una incubadora, para la evaluación se eligió incubar en 06 huevos fertilizados de gallina durante 21 días, en el transcurso de dicho tiempo la incubadora funcionó ininterrumpidamente manteniendo la temperatura en el interior de la incubadora entre 37,0 °C – 37,5 °C y la humedad constante de 47,0 a 56,5 % Hr, estos datos se mantuvieron durante 24 horas continuos durante 23 días. Para lograr estos promedios, se ajustó los focos generadores de calor; al inicio se utilizó un foco de 100 watts, esto incremento rápidamente la temperatura llegando a 37 °C en el interior de la incubadora y la humedad bajo notablemente entre 40 – 45 %Hr, para mejorar el diseño se utilizó focos de 50 watts y la humedad se elevó entre 48% - 55% Hr. Se colocó en el interior de la incubadora una bandeja de plástico con capacidad de 500 ml de agua común, para equilibrar la humedad en el interior de la incubadora, en estas condiciones la humedad llegó a mantener en promedio de 47,3 a 56,5 % Hr. Para homogenizar la temperatura y humedad en toda la incubadora se implementó un ventilador pequeño. Como resultado, a los 23 días se tuvo la eclosión de un ave desarrollada completamente, demostrándose que la incubadora funciono correctamente luego de los ajustes realizados.
Reduction of Bioaerosols Emitted from a Swine Confinement Building by a Percolating Biofilter During a 10-Month Period

The release of pathogens into the air from swine confinement buildings are mitigated through preventative measures, such as outgoing air filtration, to reduce the risk of spread to nearby barns and communities. The present study aims to characterize the effectiveness of a percolating biofilter developed by the Research and Development Institute for the Agri-environment (IRDA) to capture airborne contaminants, such as bacteria and viruses emitted from a swine finishing room. Over a 10-month period (summer, fall, and winter), air was sampled upwind and downwind of the biofilter using two wet walled cyclonic samplers. Culture-dependent and molecular biology analyses were used to track changes in microbial concentrations and populations both captured and emitted by the percolating biofilter. Results revealed a minor reduction (median reduction efficiency 14.4%) in culturable bacteria. There was a decrease in total bacteria (qPCR) (75.0%) and other qPCR targeted organisms: archaea (42.1%), coliphages (25.6%), Enterococcus (76.1%), and Escherichia coli (40.9%). The community analyses showed similar bacterial diversity in the air upwind and downwind of the biofilter although more Proteobacteria were present downwind of the unit, likely attributable to the Proteobacteria-rich nutritive solution. Evidence is provided for bioaerosols reduction by a percolating biofilter treating air from a swine fattening-finishing room.
PLS for Big Data: A unified parallel algorithm for regularised group PLS

Partial Least Squares (PLS) methods have been heavily exploited to analyse the association between two blocks of data. These powerful approaches can be applied to data sets where the number of variables is greater than the number of observations and in the presence of high collinearity between variables. Different sparse versions of PLS have been developed to integrate multiple data sets while simultaneously selecting the contributing variables. Sparse modeling is a key factor in obtaining better estimators and identifying associations between multiple data sets. The cornerstone of the sparse PLS methods is the link between the singular value decomposition (SVD) of a matrix (constructed from deflated versions of the original data) and least squares minimization in linear regression. We review four popular PLS methods for two blocks of data. A unified algorithm is proposed to perform all four types of PLS including their regularised versions. We present various approaches to decrease the computation time and show how the whole procedure can be scalable to big data sets. The bigsgPLS R package implements our unified algorithm and is available at https://github.com/matt-sutton/bigsgPLS. MSC 2010 subject classifications: Primary 6202, 62J99.
Speed adaptation and acceleration ripple suppression of treadmill user system using a virtual force moment balance model

To achieve treadmill speed adaption to the user’s walking speed and reduce treadmill acceleration ripples during walking for enhancing a non-intrusive walking sense, this paper presents a novel strategy to analytically design the acceleration of treadmill by introducing a virtual force and a virtual force moment balance kinetic model. To explicitly handle the treadmill velocity to adapt the user’s walking speed as well as treadmill acceleration ripples, the designed acceleration of treadmill and its derivative are specially selected as the input variables of treadmill controller. Since the user’s relative position and absolute walking speed are all taken into account, the resulting velocity and acceleration ripples of treadmill can be properly updated to improve the sense of reality during the user walking by only tuning the defined design parameters and control parameters. The experiments are conducted and the effective of the proposed strategy is verified by results.
Channel estimation for FDD multi-user massive MIMO systems: a greedy approach based on user clustering

Obtaining channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter side is essential to take advantage of spectral and energy efficiency in massive multiple-input multiple-output systems. In particular, due to a large number of antennas at the base station (BS) side, the required pilots for downlink channel estimation and the following CSI feedback in the uplink path would be prohibitively large when the system employs frequency-division duplex protocol for data transmission. In this study, the authors propose a novel compressed sensing algorithm which exploits the commonly shared sparsity among nearby users to reduce the estimation error and the number of assigned pilots accordingly. Moreover, to gather users’ channel with common sparsity, a clustering procedure is introduced, which groups active users located in the cell according to their mean angle of arrivals received by the uplink signals at the BS antenna array. After clustering users properly, the proposed algorithm can exploit shared support set existing in each cluster efficiently, thereby improving CSI estimation performance. Numerical results demonstrate that the clustering idea along with the proposed algorithm, outperforms other solutions, and is capable of approaching the performance bound when the transmit power is increased.
Work conditions and health problems of female traders in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Abstract This descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted among all the female traders in Sango market, Ibadan in, April 2003. The aim of the study was to identify the common health problems of women traders in Sango and their work conditions. The most commonly reported health problems were muscular and joint pains by 105 (37.4%), 95 (33.8%) had symptoms suggestive of malaria and 66 (23.5%) had chronic low back pain. The prevalence of muscular and joint pain was highest among respondents aged > 60yrs (p=0.023), and among those who spent eight to ten hours per day in the market (p=0.200). On examination 56 (19.9%) were hypertensive, 88 (31.3%) and 97 (16.7%) were overweight and obese respectively. The prevalence of hypertension was associated with increasing age and obesity (p=0.000). The common health problems among these female traders were muscular and joint pain, symptoms suggestive of malaria, chronic low back pain and hypertension. It is recommended that appropriate health interventions be instituted to address these problems.
Crouzeix–Raviart Finite Element Approximation for the Parabolic Obstacle Problem

Abstract We introduce and study a fully discrete nonconforming finite element approximation for a parabolic variational inequality associated with a general obstacle problem. The method comprises of the Crouzeix–Raviart finite element method for space discretization and implicit backward Euler scheme for time discretization. We derive an error estimate of optimal order 𝒪 ⁢ ( h + Δ ⁢ t ) {\mathcal{O}(h+\Delta t)} in a certain energy norm defined precisely in the article. We only assume the realistic regularity u t ∈ L 2 ⁢ ( 0 , T ; L 2 ⁢ ( Ω ) ) {u_{t}\in L^{2}(0,T;L^{2}(\Omega))} and moreover the analysis is performed without any assumptions on the speed of propagation of the free boundary. We present a numerical experiment to illustrate the theoretical order of convergence derived in the article.
On the Approximation of Electromagnetic Fields by Edge Finite Elements. Part 3: Sensitivity to Coefficients

In bounded domains, the regularity of the solutions to boundary value problems depends on the gometry, and on the coefficients that enter into the definition of the model. This is in particular the case for the time-harmonic Maxwell equations, whose solutions are the electromagnetic fields. In this paper, emphasis is put on the electric field. We study the regularity in terms of the fractional order Sobolev spaces $H^s$, $s\in[0,1]$. Precisely, our first goal is to determine the regularity of the electric field and of its curl, that is to find some regularity exponent $\tau\in(0,1)$, such that they both belong to $H^s$, for all $s\in[0,\tau)$. After that, one can derive error estimates. Here, the error is defined as the difference between the exact field and its approximation, where the latter is built with N\'ed\'elec's first family of finite elements. In addition to the regularity exponent, one needs to derive a stability constant that relates the norm of the error to the norm of the data: this is our second goal. We provide explicit expressions for both the regularity exponent and the stability constant with respect to the coefficients. We also discuss the accuracy of these expressions, and we provide some numerical illustrations.
Energy-Efficient Joint Design of Fronthaul and Edge Links for Cache-Aided C-RAN Systems with Wireless Fronthaul

This work addresses the joint design of fronthaul and edge links for a cache-aided cloud radio access network (C-RAN) system with a wireless fronthaul link. Motivated by the fact that existing techniques, such as C-RAN and edge caching, come at the cost of increased energy consumption, an energy efficiency (EE) metric is defined and adopted as the performance metric for optimization. As the fronthaul links can be used to transfer quantized and precoded baseband signals or hard information of uncached files, both soft- and hard-transfer fronthauling strategies are considered. Extensive numerical results validate the impact of edge caching, as well as the advantages of the energy-efficient design over the spectrally-efficient scheme. Additionally, the two fronthauling strategies—the soft- and hard-transfer schemes—are compared in terms of EE.