Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-temperature thermoelectric properties of In2O3-based mixed oxides and their applicability to thermoelectric power generation

Thethermoelectric properties of mixed oxides In2O3·MOx(MOx= Cr2O3, Mn2O3, NiO, ZnO, Y2O3, Nb2O5 SnO2) are investigated in terms of the thermoelectric materials at high temperature. The Seebeck coefficients,S, of all the samples have negative values, and those of In2O3·SnO2 and In2O3·ZnO increase linearly with temperature, attaining values of –90 and –210 µV K–1 at 1000 °C, respectively. The electrical conductivities, σ, of these oxides are significantly high. The power factor S2σ of the oxides has constantly positive temperature coefficients up to over 1000 °C. Rather low thermal conductivities, κ, of the sintered bodies of the oxides,ca. 1.7 W m–1 K–1 at room temperature, lead to the largest value of the thermoelectric figure of merit Z= 0.4 × 10–4 K–1 for M = Sn at 1000 °C, and the Z value increases toward higher temperatures.
Historia Natural de un Ecosistema de uso Múltiple

El contenido de este documento fue estructurado en gran medida sobre la base de la información recopilada y generada por nuestro grupo de trabajo, de la Unidad de Sistemas Acuáticos del Centro de Ciencias Ambientales EULA de la Universidad de Concepción, en los últimos 15 años. Parte de esta información fue obtenida a través del "Proyecto EULA", que fue un programa de cooperación internacional entre Italia y Chile llevado a cabo entre los años 1989 y 1993 y que fue el origen de nuestro centro de investigación.
Towards an articulatory-driven neural vocoder for speech synthesis

High-quality articulatory synthesis is increasingly required for both fundamental objectives, such as better understanding speech production and speech development, and applications that require to relate gestures and sounds, such as teaching, handicap remediation or augmented reality [1]. One possible approach to build such synthesizers is to exploit datasets containing “parallel” articulatory-acoustic data, i.e., speech sounds recorded simultaneously with the movements of the main speech articulators (tongue, lips, jaw, velum) using specific motion capture systems such as electro-magnetic articulography (EMA). The complex and non-linear relationship between the articulatory configuration and the spectral envelope of the corresponding speech sound is learned using supervised machine learning techniques such as Gaussian Mixture Models [2], Hidden Markov Models [3, 4], or Deep Neural Networks (DNN) [5]. The acoustic signal is finally synthetized by deriving an autoregressive filter (e.g., the MLSA vocoder) from the predicted spectral envelope, and exciting this filter with a source signal encoding the glottal activity. We claim that an articulatory synthesizer built following this approach has two main drawbacks. First, its input control parameters (i.e., 2D or 3D coordinates of EMA-coils) are not articulatory parameters per se in the sense that they do not control explicitly the degrees of freedom of the vocal apparatus (i.e., the limited set of movements that each articulator can execute independently from the other articulators). Second, the synthesized speech sounds muffled. This is likely due to the vocoding process and the quality of the excitation signal. This study aims at addressing these two issues. We propose a new approach for building a synthesizer driven by explicit articulatory parameters and able to produce high-quality speech sounds. This work relies on recent developments on so-called neural vocoders. A neural vocoder is a deep autoregressive neural network that synthesizes a sequence of time-domain signal samples. Neural vocoders such as WaveNet or LPCNet [6] have recently led to an impressive gain of performance in text-to-speech synthesis. Here, we propose to drive such a vocoder by a set of articulatory parameters. An overview of the proposed system is shown in Fig 1. The following paragraphs describe the different processing steps.
Safe Driving Using Model Predictive Control For Autonomous Vehicles

—Situations that require deviation from the desired path present a challenge for traditional path tracking controllers because they are not given sufﬁcient information about where it is safe to deviate from the path. The controller presented in this paper uses environmental information and a vehicle model to ensure that, should deviations from the path be necessary to avoid obstacles, the vehicle will deviate in a path that is safe. In this paper, we propose a strategy for path tracking and obstacle avoidance using Model Predictive Control.
Default negation in Normal Logic Programs considered as minimal abduction of positive hypotheses

Logic Programs (LPs) are a practical tool for declarative knowledge representation and consist of normal rules and Integrity Constraints (ICs). Reasoning with LPs is parameterized by the particular semantics chosen. But the declaratively of the knowledge represented by an LP is restricted if the semantics chosen for the normal rules allows them to play the role ICs already can have. Namely because odd loops over negation, such as in program { p ← not p } , are conducive to the absence of 2-valued semantics models. Here we propose a more ﬂexible reading of default negation, such that NLPs always have a 2-valued model before ICs are evaluated. To wit, we do so by allowing for minimally assuming (or abducing) positive hypotheses and hence still maximising the assumption of negative hypotheses that preserve consistency. We show how that translates into a semantics for Normal Logic Programs (NLPs) – the Minimal Hypotheses (MH) semantics – which safeguards declarativity in this sense and moreover enjoys useful semantic properties such as cumulativity and relevancy, besides existence. Moreover, we introduce a program transformation which allows to compute the MH models of a program as a selection of the Stable Models of the transform.
Duty-cycle Communication Protocol with Wi-Fi Direct for Wireless Sensor Networks

In order to enable environmental sensing in any place, wireless sensor networks that collect environmental sensing data through wireless multihop communication are coming into practical use. Since they may be installed without a power supply, sensor devices should be powered by batteries. For this purpose, IEEE802.15. 4 has been standardized and commercialized. However, services using these sensor devices are not widespread because the sensor devices are expensive relative to the value of the provided services and the power consumption is unexpectedly large. Therefore, in this study, we proposed a new communication protocol called Duty-cycle Data-collection over Wi-Fi Direct (DDWD) for wireless sensor networks that works on cheap microchips such as ESP8266EX, which are equipped with Wi-Fi functions and are available for under 10 USD. In order to use ESP8266EX in multihop wireless sensor networks, it is necessary to transmit the sensing data to the sink node efficiently while sleeping periodically to reduce power consumption. In addition, inexpensive hardware such as ESP8266EX has low accuracy in time counting, which causes a large error in the sleep time interval and time synchronization. Therefore, the protocol must be robust against time synchronization errors. The proposed protocol adopts Wi-Fi Direct, in which a node dynamically switches its operation mode between SoftAP and STA modes according to the time-divided slot, and exchanges messages with neighboring nodes through Wi-Fi Direct. The communication path is determined in an autonomous decentralized manner. All nodes operate only in the allocated slot to reduce power consumption. By limiting the operating slot interval to about several tens of seconds, low power consumption and reliable data collection are possible at a constant time interval, even if an inexpensive Wi-Fi chip with low accuracy in time counting is used. We implemented the proposed protocol in ESP8266EX and conducted an experiment to show the reliability and low power consumption of the protocol.
OP-TOXS200127 1..17

Environmental occurrence and biomonitoring data for perand polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) demonstrate that humans are exposed to mixtures of PFAS. This article presents a new and systematic analysis of available PFAS toxicity study data using a tiered mixtures risk assessment framework consistent with United States and international mixtures guidance. The lines of evidence presented herein include a critique of whole mixture toxicity studies and analysis of doseresponse models based on data from subchronic oral toxicity studies in rats. Based on available data to-date, concentration addition and relative potency factor methods are found to be inappropriate due to differences among sensitive effects and target organ potencies and noncongruent dose-response curves for the same effect endpoints from studies using the same species and protocols. Perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid lack a single mode of action or molecular initiating event and our evaluation herein shows they also have noncongruent dose-response curves. Dose-response curves for long-chain perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids (PFSAs) also significantly differ in shapes of the curves from short-chain PFSAs and perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids evaluated, and additional differences are apparent when curves are evaluated based on internal or administered dose. Following well-established guidance, the hazard index method applied to perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids and PFSAs grouped separately is the most appropriate approach for conducting a screening level risk assessment for nonpolymeric PFAS mixtures, given the current state-of-the science. A clear presentation of assumptions, uncertainties, and data gaps is needed before dose-additivity methods, including hazard index , are used to support risk management decisions. Adverse outcome pathway(s) and mode(s) of action information for perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid and for other nonpolymer PFAS are key data gaps precluding more robust mixtures methods. These findings can guide the prioritization of future studies on single chemical and whole mixture toxicity studies.
POSICIONADOR LINEAR DE PRECISÃO COM MECANISMO DE

A precision linear positioner was design ed based on an ink-jet printer mechanism. A dc moto r, a toothed belt, and a print head that can move along a linear guide, and a position sensor constitute the mechan ism. The position sensor is formed by a transparent plastic ribbon, t hat contains opaque vertical bars, an LED diode and a PIN photodiode mounted on a slotted arrangement through whic h t e plastic ribbon can pass, as the print head mo ves. In practice, the print head can mechanically support different w orking tools. A constant off-time chopper amplifier drives the dc motor with a programmable current, utilizing a full H-bridge and a current sensor. The amplifier rated current is 3 amperes, while it can support 55 volts. This driver allows the control of motor torque and rotation di rection. The control programs for position (and speed) run in a control board that contains an 8-bit microprocessor and dig ital input and output ports. Position sensor pulses are software d et cted. The positioner can move over 350 mm, where as its resolution is 125 μm. The maximum speed depends strongly on the power source used to feed the amplifier and it can reach 500 mm/s, for a 12 volts power supply. Designed mainly for teaching, where it has been drawing students’ a t ention, the V I C o n gr es s o N a c i o n a l d e E n g e n ha r i a M e c â n i c a , 18 a 2 1 de A g o s t o 2 0 10 , C am p i n a G r a n d e P a r a í b a positioner’s good results showed that it qualifies for a great range of applications in automation, co ntrol and instrumentation.
Socioeconomic Characteristics Associated With University Students’ Well-Being: A Survey Among Eight European Countries

Socioeconomic characteristics have some positive or negative impacts on individuals' well-being. However, few studies have been conducted to investigate the effect of socioeconomic characteristics on university students' well-being. This study addresses this gap and presents survey results among eight European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania, The Russian Federation and Turkey. It was utilized an online survey based on closed-ended questions, collected from a sample (N = 796). Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the data. This study indicated that being aware of personal strength positively affected well-being. Also, positive expectations for future financial security were positively associated with university students' well-being. Having a high social interaction in society has a little positive effect on well-being. Furthermore, the study indicated the importance of government-provided social supports as students from France and Germany had a higher level of well-being score. Social and financial support may be useful to improve the overall well-being of university students. Policymakers should reconsider the significance of social welfare for society.
Income-dependent impacts of financial development and human capital on economic growth. A non-stationary panel analysis

We investigate the interdependency of financial development and human capital on economic development in a cross-country setting. We show that the impacts exhibit interesting variations across different income levels. In fact, human capital is the most important element in fostering economic growth in high-income countries, but its importance falls with the country’s income level. Financial development, however, is relatively more important for mid-income countries but does not seem to have a significant impact on high-income nations. We find that lowincome countries do not benefit as much from either one of these factors.
“pH Swing” in Frozen Solutions—Consequence of Sequential Crystallization of Buffer Components

Succinate buffer solutions of different initial pH values and concentrations were cooled. The solution pH and the phases crystallizing from solution were monitored as a function of temperature. In a solution buffered to pH 4.0 (200 mM), the freeze-concentrate pH initially increased to 8.0 and then decreased to 2.2. On the basis of X-ray diffractometry (synchrotron source), the “pH swing” was attributed to the sequential crystallization of succinic acid, monosodium succinate, and disodium succinate. A similar swing, but in the opposite direction, was seen when a solution with an initial pH of 6.0 was cooled. In this case, crystallization of the basic buffer component occurred first. The direction and magnitude of the pH shift depended on both the initial pH and the buffer concentration. In light of the pH-sensitive nature of a significant fraction of pharmaceuticals (especially proteins), extreme care is needed, both in the buffer selection and in its concentration.
Biomolecular complexation affects microbial adhesion to iron (oxyhydr)oxides

Interfacial reactions in soil biogeochemical systems are often mediated by microorganisms that become directly attached or closely associated with mineral and organic surfaces. Elucidation of mechanisms of microbe-mineral interactions at the molecular-scale requires the use of in situ molecular spectroscopy. We have employed attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy to identify the types of molecules and the nature of bonds that mediate interaction between surficial biomolecules and mineral surface functional groups for a variety of systems of interest. This paper reviews our recent research on biomolecule-iron oxide interactions, with a particular emphasis on adhesion of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), bacterial cells ( Pseudomonas aeruginosa , Bacillus subtilis ), and pathogenic protozoa (Cryptosporidium parvum ). Evidence for direct, inner-sphere complexation of biomolecular functional groups is discussed, and linkages are made to macro-scale transport phenomena.
Aging and Decision-Making Processes: The Role of Emotion Regulation

This review aims to investigate the effect of emotion regulation on decision-making processes in older age in light of previous literature. Emotion regulation is defined as maintaining the positive mood and/or controlling the negative mood. Emotion regulation influence decision-making processes especially under ambiguity. Individuals might try to make optimal decisions as using their emotions. However, this ability does not always lead to optimal decisions. Alternatively, they might regulate their emotions to increase decision satisfaction or overcome their loss. In fact, these effects are more powerful in emotionally charged decisions compared to consciously monitored and effortful decisions as defined in dual-processing model. Later in life, the effect of emotion regulation on preand post-decision processes increases due to the decline in cognitive skills and the improvement of emotion regulation skills. However, older adults with severe chronic and fatal diseases cannot use emotion regulation as effective as their healthy peers. This leads to a decrease in the likelihood of optimal decision-making in these patients who already experience reduced cognitive skills. The present study addresses the systematic effects of emotion regulation on preand post-decision processes across aging. One of the main aims of the study is to provide a theoretical background for future research. Furthermore, in the clinical field, the information gained from this review can be used to improve the quality of life in late years of life by developing intervention programs.
The STC System for the CHiME-6 Challenge

This paper is a description of the Speech Technology Center (STC) systems for the CHiME-6 challenge aimed at multi-microphone multi-speaker speech recognition and diarization in a dinner party scenario. We participated in both Track 1 and Track 2 and submitted our results for Ranking A as well as Ranking B for each track. The soft-activity based Guided Source Separation (GSS) as a front-end and a combination of advanced acoustic modeling techniques such as GSS-based training data augmentation, multi-stride and multi-stream self-attention layers, statistics layer and SpecAugment, as well as the lattice-level fusion of acoustic models were applied in the 1st track system. Our system for Track 1 was in the top three systems, achieving 30% relative WER reduction over the baseline. Additionally, lattice rescoring with a neural language model was applied for Ranking B. Overall, this led to 34% relative WER reduction over the baseline in Track 1. For Track 2, we proposed a novel Target-Speaker Voice Activity Detection (TS-VAD) approach to solve the diarization problem. Good diarization results made it possible to perform GSS on the obtained segments. TS-VAD is based on i-vector speaker embeddings, which are initially estimated using a strong diarization system based on spectral clustering of x-vectors. The back-end from the Track 1 system was used in the second track. The system for Track 2 demonstrated state-of-the-art performance, outperforming the baseline by 39% DER, 45% JER, 43% WER (Ranking A) and 45% WER (Ranking B) relative.
Predatory Publishing: A Quantitative Assessment, the Predatory Score

Predatory publishing is a relatively new concept but for which few industry standards and regulations have been implemented, either due to regulatory limitations or due to difficulties in dealing with the political correctness and sensitivity of these issues, particularly among main-stream publishing houses and the wider scientific community. However, with a growing expansion of and reliance on the internet, with a deepening economic global crisis, those who seek to take the road of deceit is increasing, not only to secure power, but to also amalgamate wealth, through whatever means they feel fit. Within this volatile toxic climate of human survival, and the lack of transparency and of independent regulatory watchdogs, online publishing, specifically open access publishing, has taken a nasty turn. This paper does not examine what predatory publishing is, because the root causes are multiple, and complex, but attempts to create some concrete definitions and quantitative measurements that would allow the scientific community to better guide and protect itself from abuse. In this paper, I attempt to quantify those factors that are negative and those that are positive, and have assigned arbitrary values based on a relative weighting system, the Predatory Score (PS). With this first quantitative system – which in itself is in no way perfect – to assess predatory publishing, authors will be able to better assess a publisher before submission, publishers will be able to better assess themselves regarding their own practices (with the objective of lowering their PS and improving their service record, and any person or institute associated with a publisher would be able to assess the academic and structural qualities (weaknesses and strengths) of that publisher. Based on the PS, individuals within the academic community will be better able to – freely and independently – make more value-based decisions regarding publishing. A useful glossary of ecologically-based terms adapted to describe predatory publishing is also provided to assist in the future description of predatory publishers. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ANALYSIS OF ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM IN MINIMIZING PROFIT MANAGEMENT IN NON-BANKING STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES (SOEs) LISTED ON THE IDX

The financial report is a description of the current condition of the company in accordance with the financial reporting period which is useful for decision making. However, these financial reports are sometimes modified according to certain desires or goals through the earnings management process, as has happened in several SOEs, especially non-banking, during the last five years there have been cases of earnings management that are so significant and have caused enormous losses to the state, among others. One way to solve this case, according to some researchers, is the existence of effective accounting conservatism. Referring to this phenomenon, the aim of this research is to test whether it is true that conservatism can minimize the occurrence of earnings management. The method used is descriptive to analyze the development of conservatism and earnings management in non-banking State-Owned Enterprises companies for the period 2015 to 2019. And the verification method to examine the effect of accounting conservatism on earnings management uses simple regression analysis. The population in this study were 16 non-banking StateOwned Enterprises and the sample used was 11 non-banking State-Owned Enterprises. Based on the research conducted, it shows that conservatism can minimize earnings management in the State-Owned Enterprises studied, which is around 81%. This condition implies that the higher the conservatism (negative), the less management will be to carry out earnings management / lowest (positive).
Problems of planetology, cosmochemistry and meteoritica

The distributions of the gas retention and cosmic-ray exposure ages of ordinary chondrites are studied deppending on their porosity. A positive correlation with the porosity of contents both radiogenic and cosmogenic isotopes of noble gases in chondrites and the corresponding ages of meteorites is found. In all distributions, chondrites with small porosity have smaller ages.
Measurement of the twist elastic constant by phase retardation technique

We have extended the experimental approach, used by Yu. A. Nastyshyn et al. [J. Appl. Phys. 86 , 4199 (1999)] for measuring polar anchoring strength, to measure the twist elastic constant in nematic liquid crystal. The method implies measurements of phase retardation changes in liquid crystal under the action of magnetic field. The obtained experimental data were fitted with the predictions of elastic theory. We found that the value of the measured elastic constant, K_{22} , is in good agreement with those described in literature.