Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Hourly PWV Products Derived From ERA5 and MERRA‐2 Over the Tibetan Plateau Using Ground‐Based GNSS Observations by Two Enhanced Models

Precipitable water vapor (PWV), despite being the key factor for assessing climate change over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), is undersampled in this region due to the complex terrain and climate conditions therein. The fifth‐generation European Center for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis (ERA5) and Second Modern‐Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA‐2) data sets are the two newly released global reanalyzes that provide hourly PWV products with a high spatiotemporal resolution for water vapor research. The accuracies of these two PWV products on the TP require a comprehensive and cautious assessment. In this study, the hourly PWV values derived from ERA5 and MERRA‐2 are systematically assessed by a comparison with 33 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations from 2017 to 2018 over the TP. To improve the reliability of this evaluation, an enhanced Tm model and a PWV vertical correction model, namely, TP‐Tm and TP‐PWVC, respectively, are developed, and both models show better performance when compared against other widely used models. The accuracies of the ERA5‐ and MERRA‐2‐derived PWV at the 33 GNSS stations are very high; ERA5 has the smallest mean bias and root mean square (RMS) error of −0.08 and 1.77 mm, respectively, compared to those of 0.53 and 2.12 mm for MERRA‐2. In addition, the biases and RMS errors show significant regional and seasonal differences. The performance of ERA5 is slightly better than MERRA‐2, mainly due to its higher spatial resolution. The spatial distributions of the PWV derived from the two reanalyzes are consistent with the GNSS‐derived PWV distribution. The diurnal PWV variations derived from ERA5 are in good agreement with the diurnal variation of the GNSS‐derived PWV, whereas significant differences are observed for MERRA‐2 at several stations. These results indicate that ERA5 can provide more reliable hourly PWV estimates over the TP, which can help users further understand the strengths and weaknesses of these two PWV products and promote climate change research.
Cyclic behavior and deformation mechanism of superelastic SMA U-shaped dampers under in-plane and out-of-plane loadings

This study systematically investigates the cyclic behavior and deformation mechanism of superelastic shape memory alloy U-shaped dampers (SMA-UDs) that are intended for seismic resilient applications. The study first summarized the experimental investigations of a series of SMA-UD component tests under loadings in two directions (i.e. in-plane and out-of-plane directions). Test results demonstrated that SMA-UDs exhibit excellent self-centering (SC) capability and stable energy dissipation under both loadings. Subsequently, two detailed finite element models were validated through the comparisons with experimental results in terms of global hysteresis loops and deformation shapes. The insights into the SMA-UD behavior under different directional loadings were presented. The influences of different geometric parameters of the SMA-UDs on the deformation mechanism were further highlighted. Parametric studies were carried out to investigate the effects of the existence of adjacent plates and the perpendicular compression on the SMA-UD’s mechanical properties of practical interest in earthquake engineering. Results show that the adjacent plate has a positive role in the deformation mechanism of the SMA-UD under in-plane loading, whereas it has a slight effect on the SMA-UD under out-of-plane loading. The perpendicular compressive deformation undertaken by the SMA-UD itself can deteriorate its SC capability under in-plane loading. The results attained from this research are conducive to the design and applications of the SMA-UDs in engineering practice.
Miniaturized Wideband Four-Antenna Module Based on Dual-Mode PIFA for 5G 4 × 4 MIMO Applications

The huge proliferation of the antenna number brought by 5G greatly increases the pressure of the bezels of the 5G terminals. To release the pressure, planar four-antenna module with miniaturization and wideband performance that can be implemented on the back cover is proposed in this article. Four identical dual-mode PIFAs are arranged in a sequentially rotated style and the whole antenna appears in a circular shape. Each antenna element is a slotted quasi-quarter circle with one inner edge shorted and the other two edges left open, and it is coupled fed by an L-shaped microstrip line. A cross line that connects all the four elements together is used to improve the isolation of the neighboring elements. The four-antenna module covering N77 is with the diameter of 30.6 mm and height of 2 mm. The measured results show that for all the four antenna elements, the −6 dB impedance bandwidths cover 3.3–4.2 GHz, all the isolations are better than 9.7 dB, the average total efficiencies are between 36% and 40%, and envelope correlation coefficients (ECCs) are lower than 0.5. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the smallest four-antenna module covering 3.3–4.2 GHz.
Early postpartum treatment with carprofen in a dairy herd with high incidence of clinical metritis – a case study

ABSTRACT This study evaluated the early treatment with carprofen over the incidence of clinical metritis (CM) and subsequent reproductive parameters on a commercial dairy farm without health interventions for this disease. Late-gestation pluriparous cows (n = 62) were enrolled at the beginning of the close-up period and randomly assigned to treatments at parturition. Cows received either no treatment (control) or subcutaneous carprofen (1.4 mg/kg of BW) 12–48 h postpartum. Clinical metritis diagnoses were performed weekly starting on days 3–21 postpartum. Reproductive data included conception rate at first service (CRFS), pregnancy rate (PR), calving to first service interval (CFSI), calving to conception interval (CCI) and services per conception (SC). Cows with CM had the CCI increased by 32 days (P = 0.035), the SC by 0.92 (P = 0.048) and a higher risk of non-pregnancy (HR = 0.48, 95% CI = 0.25–0.93, P = 0.03) compared to healthy animals. Carprofen treatment decreased the incidence of CM by 29.5 percent points (P = 0.03), decreasing the risk of developing CM by 3.4 times (95% CI = 1.07 – 10.66, P = 0.04), and shorted the median time for 50% of cows to become pregnant at first service after day 60 by 9 days (P = 0.03), but did not affect any other reproductive performance parameter evaluated. Clinical metritis had a marked effect on reproductive performance. However, the use of carprofen during the early postpartum improved uterine health and the fertility to the first service.
An optimized design for a field-of-view splitting-based long-gauge-length optical extensometer using two rhombic prisms

Although the field-of-view (FOV) splitting strategy, based on the reflective image technique, can effectively enhance the gauge length of an optical extensometer, its elements, including a right-angled optical prism and two plane mirrors, require meticulous adjustment before a measurement. In this research, we propose an optimized FOV splitting scheme that uses two identical rhombic prisms. Each rhombic prism can displace a beam of light without changing its direction. Therefore, two symmetrically positioned rhombic prisms converge the light that traverse from two separate regions of an object, which realizes the FOV splitting and greatly simplifies the adjustment of the optical elements. Based on such a FOV splitting scheme, we develop an enhanced optical extensometer. Repeated tensile and cyclic loading-unloading tests are conducted to validate the feasibility and reliability of the proposed extensometer. The experimental results that are obtained using the proposed method are in excellent agreement with those using a strain gauge, which indicates that the optimized FOV splitting scheme is easy to implement and it has high assembly accuracy. Finally, a tensile failure test of a cast-iron specimen is conducted; the measured results indicate that the proposed method is appropriate for measuring the strain of brittle materials in practical applications.
Enhancement of Poly(Vinyl Alcohol)–Poly(Vinyl Pyrrolidone) Blend Properties using Modified Copper (II) Oxide and Ultrasonic Irradiation

ABSTRACT Copper (II) oxide nanoparticles supported within poly(vinyl alcohol)/poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) films have been successfully prepared through ultrasonication method. It is discernible that before the preparation of blends, the surface of copper (II) oxide nanoparticles was modified with citric acid and vitamin C as biosafe capping agents. X-ray diffraction scans illustrated the semicrystalline nature of the obtained pure blend and exhibited a good combination between the blend and the modified copper (II) oxide nanoparticles. Also, thermal stability of blends was improved in comparison to the pure polymer blend with increasing modified copper (II) oxide nanoparticles. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Assessment of precipitation from the CRA40 dataset and new generation reanalysis datasets in the global domain

The China Meteorological Administration recently released its first reanalysis product, the CRA40 dataset covering the time period 1979–2018. We evaluate the performance of the CRA40 dataset in reproducing the observed precipitation climatology and variations over the global domain and typical monsoon regions during the period 1980–2018. In this study, four additional reanalysis precipitation datasets—the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis v5 (ERA5), Japanese 55‐year reanalysis (JRA55), Modern‐Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA2) and Climate Forecast System Reanalysis—are compared against the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP). For the global climatology, there are considerable differences in the performance of the five reanalysis products over south‐central Asia (85–95°E, 20–40°N), where CRA40 exhibits the wettest bias across all months especially for the south of 30°N bands. JRA55 produces more intense precipitation with a larger bias over the Atlantic and Pacific intertropical convergence zones (ITCZs). Meanwhile, CRA40 tends to slightly underestimate low rainfall, but overestimates high rainfall. In terms of trend, except MERRA2, the average global/hemispheric precipitation increased by 0.02–0.11 mm/day/decade in all the reanalysis datasets, which is attributed to clearly increased trends along the ITCZ. In contrast, a non‐significant increasing trend is observed. JRA55 generally has the empirical orthogonal function pattern most consistent with the GPCP, with the highest spatial and temporal correlations. Moreover, CRA40 correlates better with the Niño 3.4 index, producing precipitation patterns similar to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. For six typical monsoon systems, CRA40 has a less consistent local precipitation average with a larger normalized standard deviation and centred root‐mean‐square error, and lower correlation coefficient than other reanalyses when compared with the GPCP.
Using a Human Interviewer or an Automatic Interviewer in the Evaluation of Patients with AD from Speech

Currently, there are more and more frequent studies focused on the evaluation of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from the automatic analysis of the speech of patients, in order to detect the presence of the disease in an individual or for the evolutionary control of the disease. However, studies focused on analyzing the effect of the methodology used to generate the spontaneous speech of the speaker who undergoes this type of analysis are rare. The objective of this work is to study two different strategies to facilitate the generation of the spontaneous speech of a speaker for further analysis: the use of a human interviewer that promotes the generation of speech through an interview and the use of an automatic system (an automatic interviewer) that invites the speaker to describe certain visual stimuli. In this study, a database called Cross-Sectional Alzheimer Prognosis R2019 has been created, consisting of speech samples from speakers recorded using both methodologies. The speech recordings have been studied through a feature extraction based on five basic temporal measurements. This study demonstrates the discriminatory capacity between the speakers with AD and the control subjects independent of the strategy used in the generation of spontaneous speech. These results are promising and can serve as a basis for knowing the effectiveness and extension of automated interview processes, especially in telemedicine and telecare scenarios.
An Empirical Study for Green Transportation Scheme of Municipal Solid Waste Based on Complex Data Model Analysis

Solid waste management and air pollution are two pressing issues in the functioning of large cities. This paper studies the optimization problem of the green transportation route of municipal solid waste and establishes a mathematical planning model based on real-time traffic conditions of the city and consideration of a time window and multiple transfer stations with the goal of minimizing energy consumption. In the optimal green transportation process in this paper, comprehensive consideration of vehicle speed, vehicle load, road gradient, and driving distance in different road sections based on real-time traffic conditions is incorporated, which has a better fuel-saving potential than the shortest path. A green transportation program can alleviate the air pollution problem in big cities and promote energy conservation and emission reduction in solid waste transportation.
An x-ray absorption study of doped sphalerites

Metal K-edge X-ray absorption spectra of Mn, Mn/(Fe), Cu/In, Cu/In/(Fe) and Cd doped zinc sulfides are reported. The Zn K-edge XANES shows that there is little change on the low-lying vacant electronic states of the Zn. Furthermore, the Zn EXAFS indicates that the coordination site of the Zn is almost unchanged by any of the dopants. Mn, Cu, In and Cd K-edge EXAFS show that the local S tetrahedra around the dopant are compressed for Cu and expanded for Mn, In and Cd. Moreover the second coordination sphere indicates that clustering occurs in the Cu/In- and Cd-doped materials. M-S bond distances of the dopants in sphalerite are: Cd-S, 2.48 Angstrom In-S, 2.43-2.45 Angstrom, Cu-S, 2.30-2.33 Angstrom and Mn-S, 2.41-2.43 Angstrom.
The role of boundary conditions in resonator-based mass identification in nanorods

Abstract The identification of distributed mass added to a nanosensor requires the adoption of suitable inverse techniques that must be sufficiently precise to identify the analyte. In previous research, we developed a method based on the first eigenfrequencies of the free axial vibration of a nanorod under a specific set of boundary conditions. Here, we extend and complete the previous analysis by considering a wider set of sensor’s end conditions and examining their influence on identification. Our results can guide the design of nanoresonators to have not only a higher sensitivity, but also to improve the implementation of reconstruction techniques.
Assessment of tolerance and resistance of inbred rice cultivars to combined infestations of rice water weevil and stemborers

Plants possess defense‐related traits that both reduce injury from herbivores (resistance) and the amount of yield loss per unit injury (tolerance). Plant resistance and tolerance can be utilized in pest management programs. The rice water weevil, Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus Kuschel (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is the most destructive early‐season pest of rice (Oryza sativa L., Poaceae) in the USA. Additionally, lepidopteran stemborers, particularly the invasive Mexican rice borer, Eoreuma loftini (Dyar) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), are increasing in economic importance as pests of rice in Louisiana, USA. This study was conducted to evaluate both the resistance and tolerance of commonly grown inbred rice cultivars in Louisiana to combined infestations of rice water weevils and stemborers. Field experiments were established at the Rice Research Station in Crowley, LA, USA from 2017 to 2019. Eight commonly grown inbred cultivars were selected and pest infestation levels were manipulated using insecticidal seed treatments. The rice cultivar ‘Jupiter’ supported the highest numbers of immature rice water weevils, whereas weevil densities on other cultivars were intermediate. Low levels of stemborer injury were observed in ‘Cheniere’ and ‘Jazzman‐2’, which suggests that these cultivars express some resistance to stemborers, whereas high stemborer injury was observed in ‘Cocodrie, ‘CL151’, and ‘Mermentau’. Together, rice water weevil and stemborer infestations negatively affected rice yields, with losses up to 18%. However, differences among cultivars in overall yield losses were minimal. Comparisons of slopes of yield × weevil density relationships among cultivars revealed a greater decline, that is, yield loss per weevil, for Cheniere relative to Cocodrie. Our data suggest that plant resistance can serve as a valuable component of an integrated pest management program, particularly for stemborers.
Comparative performance analysis of mixed halide perovskite solar cells with different transport layers and back metal contacts

In this study, SCAPS-1D software is used to model and analyze the performance of various perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with diverse back contact metals, electron transport layers and hole transport layers combined with different mixed halide perovskite absorber materials CH3NH3PbI3−X Cl X and CH3NH3PbI3−X Br X for X = 1, 2. With CH3NH3PbI3−X Cl X as the absorber layer, the best performance is obtained for the configuration glass/fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)/indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO)/CH3NH3PbI3−X Cl X /CuSbS2/Au for X = 1 with a fill factor (FF) of 61.83% and a power conversion efficiency of 13.31%. The device configuration glass/FTO/IGZO/CH3NH3PbI3−X Br X /CuO/Pd for X = 1 shows the best performance with a power conversion efficiency of 15.55% and FF of 71.19% for CH3NH3PbI3−X Cl X as the absorber layer. The study shows that the optimum total defect density values of the absorber layer, MAPbI3−X Cl X with X = 1 and X = 2 are 2.5 × 1013 cm−3 and 2.5 × 1014 cm−3, respectively. For the MAPbI3−X Br X absorber layer, with X = 1 and 2, the optimum defect density is found to be 1 × 1015 cm−3. The optimum dopant concentration is found to be 1.0 × 1018 cm−3and 1.0 × 1016 cm−3, respectively, for PSCs with MAPbI3−X ClX as the absorber layer, for X = 1 and 2. For PSCs with MAPbI3–X Br X as an absorber layer with X = 1 and 2, the optimum dopant density is found to be 1.0 × 1016 cm−3 each. The device is found to be stable at an operating temperature of 300 K.
Moral values and methods of moral education at Samin community

Carrying out of moral education is still dominant occur at a formal institution. Old people compete their children to school at formal institutions but should not control balance and moral education or character in family and social community. Asymmetry talked about being an able child have to deviate values in order to the social norm. For example less respectful, individualistic, and does not appreciate original cultural Indonesia. A non-formal institution such as a social community contributes to giving social control and conservation of cultural value. Appropriate by Laksono (2017, p. 111) said that “non-formal education has enormous potential to grow national democracy character”.
Fibras alimentares: uma prática interdisciplinar para alunos do ensino médio

In this article we present a proposal for an experimental procedure that allows discussing the chemical structure of the fibers and their mechanisms of action in the human digestive tract, relating them to physical and chemical processes of adsorption and absorption. The experiment was designed to be applied in high school, as an alternative to the work our contents, in an interdisciplinary way between chemistry and biology. The materials and reagents used are low cost, easy access and without risk to health of the student. The experiment results are obtained in a short time and can be discussed in the light of chemical and biological concepts customarily worked in high school.
Water-Soluble Ions in Atmospheric Aerosol Measured in a Semi-Arid and Chemical-Industrialized City, Northwest China

We investigated water-soluble ions (WSIs) of aerosol samples collected from 2016 to 2017 in Lanzhou, a typical semi-arid and chemical-industrialized city in Northwest China. WSIs concentration was higher in the heating period (35.68 ± 19.17 μg/m3) and lower in the non-heating period (12.45 ± 4.21 μg/m3). NO3−, SO42−, NH4+ and Ca2+ were dominant WSIs. The concentration of SO42− has decreased in recent years, while the NO3− level was increasing. WSIs concentration was affected by meteorological factors. The sulfur oxidation and nitrogen oxidation ratios (SOR and NOR) exceeded 0.1, inferring the vital contribution of secondary transformation. Meanwhile higher O3 concentration and temperature promoted the homogeneous reaction of SO2. Lower temperature and high relative humidity (RH) were more suitable for heterogeneous reactions of NO2. Three-phase cluster analysis illustrated that the anthropogenic source ions and natural source ions were dominant WSIs during the heating and non-heating periods, respectively. The backward trajectory analysis and the potential source contribution function model indicated that Lanzhou was strongly influenced by the Hexi Corridor, northeastern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, northern Qinghai province, Inner Mongolia Plateau and its surrounding cities. This research will improve our understanding of the air quality and pollutant sources in the industrial environment.
Optically-reconfigurable phase change material nanoantenna-embedded metamaterial waveguide

Heterogeneous integration of phase change materials (PCM) into photonic integrated circuits is of current interest for all-optical signal processing and photonic in-memory computing. The basic building block consists of waveguides or resonators embedded with state-switchable PCM cells evanescently coupled to the optical mode. Despite recent advances, further improvements are desired in performance metrics like switching speeds, switching energies, device footprint, and fan-out. We propose an architecture using resonant metamaterial waveguides loaded with Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) nanoantenna, and present a numerical study of its performance. Our proposed design is predicted to have a write energy of 16 pJ, an erase energy of 190 pJ (which is three to four times lower than previous reports), and, an order of magnitude improvement in the write-process figure-of-merit. Additional advantages include lowered ON state insertion loss and GST volume reduction.