Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of silver interdiffusion into (Zn,Mg)TiO3+x : Bi : Sb multilayer ceramic capacitor

In this study, (Zn,Mg)TiO3+x+Bi2O3+Sb2O5 multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) with different proportions of a silver (Ag)–palladium (Pd) mixture acting as the inner electrode were sintered at 925°C for 2 h to evaluate the effect of the inner electrode on reliability. The main results reveal that the lifetime is inversely proportional to the Ag content in the Ag/Pd inner electrode. Ag diffusion into the (Zn,Mg)TiO3+x+Bi2O3+Sb2O5 MLCC during cofiring at 925°C for 2 h and Ag migration at 140°C against 200 V are both responsible for the short lifetime of the (Zn,Mg)TiO3+x+Bi2O3+Sb2O5 MLCC, particularly the latter factor. A Bi,Sb-rich secondary phase was present at the triple junction and a small amount of Ag was detected from the second phase for a (Zn,Mg)TiO3+x+Bi2O3+Sb2O5 MLCC with a high Ag content in the inner electrode of Ag/Pd=99/01. However, this was not the case with a low Ag content in the inner electrode of Ag/Pd=90/10. This means that the Bi,Sb-rich second phase plays an important role in determining the degradation of insulation resistance due to the excessive formation of oxygen vacancies from the reaction of Ag+ for Bi3+ or Sb5+ substitution to lower the activation energy of the (Zn,Mg)TiO3+Bi2O3+Sb2O5 dielectrics and to enhance markedly the effect of Ag migration.
Pharmaceutical Applications of Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS)

Abstract High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) is an extremely powerful and indispensable methodology practiced in virtually every stage of pharmaceutical discovery and development processes, including biological target discovery, biological assay for high throughput screening, characterization of physicochemical properties of drug candidates, and drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. With continued advances and innovations in the areas of column technologies, LC/MS interfaces, and instrumentation, the field of LC/MS is strengthening and expanding to new disciplines constantly. In this report, the recent developments in the LC/MS interface ionization techniques, such as ESI, APCI, APPI, and MALDI, and novel hardware and software of mass spectrometry devices, are compared and reviewed in the light of drug discovery and development effort. The diverse qualitative and quantitative applications of LC/MS in the pharmaceutical industry are reported in four key fields; synthetic organic chemistry, combinatorial library parallel synthesis, bioanalysis in support of ADME, and proteomics. Other analytical techniques used in conjunction with LC/MS to augment analytical information content are also discussed. As the use of LC/MS is exceedingly widespread and ever increasing, this paper primarily focuses on recent progresses reported in the literature with selected publications.
Excited-State Proton Transfer Reactions in Subcritical and Supercritical Water

The isobaric rates of excited-state deprotonations of 2-naphthol by acetate and borate anions exhibit only modest deviations from Arrhenius-like behavior from ambient temperature to nearly the critical temperature of water (Tc = 374 °C). In contrast, the rates of deprotonation by ammonia and water exhibit marked deviations from Arrhenius-like behavior and go through a maximum at high temperatures. These observations establish a fundamental difference in how the rates of charge-generating reactions, such as proton transfers to neutral molecules like ammonia and water, and those in which ionicity is unchanged, such as proton transfers to acetate and borate anions, depend on temperature. The loss of local water structure and changes in dielectric constant with temperature have a much more profound influence on the charge-generating reactions. These results are interpreted using transition state theory and compared with several molecular dynamics−free energy perturbation simulations. At temperatures above 250.
Supercritical Fluid Drying of Aqueous 2-Propanol Suspension

Abstract To prepare fine powders of oxides, supercritical fluid drying was applied. As the case of point, Y–Ba–Cu complex oxide was taken up. A suspension of Y–Ba–Cu complex oxide was synthesized by simultaneous hydrolyzation of 2-propanol solution of yttrium triisopropoxide–barium diisopropoxide–copper diisopropoxide. The supercritical fluid drying by carbon dioxide was confirmed to dry the suspensions, expecting no aggregation of particles throughout the drying procedure. First of all, solubilities of 2-propanol, water, and aqueous 2-propanol solution in high pressure carbon dioxide were measured. Judging from the observed solubilities, temperatures, and pressures in drying conditions were determined. The drying rates were measured and the dried powders were characterized by DTA, TGA, and SEM. The results of these experiments suggested that the supercritical fluid drying process is useful for drying of the suspensions of superconducting compound prepared by hydrolyzation of alkoxides.
Crack nucleation in brittle and quasi-brittle materials: A peridynamic analysis

(A final version is published in Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics) Peridynamic (PD) models of bodies without pre-cracks, based on a single fracture parameter (associated with the critical fracture energy), produce different strengths when different horizon sizes are used to simulate crack nucleation under quasi-static conditions. To maintain the same strength and fracture energy under different horizon sizes, extra parameters have to be introduced in the failure model. Bilinear and trilinear bond force-strain relationships have been proposed in the literature for crack propagation in quasi-brittle materials. In this paper we study crack nucleation in a plate with a hole under quasi-static loading using bilinear and trilinear PD models. We provide analytical formulas to calibrate the models to measurable material properties. We show convergence for both strength and fracture toughness. The bilinear PD constitutive model works well for both brittle (e.g. ceramics) and quasi-brittle (e.g. concrete) systems, while the trilinear version is more suited for quasi-brittle fracture behavior. We also find that for quasi-brittle fracture, a model that accounts, stochastically, for the presence of small-scale pores/defects performs better than a homogenized model. A wedge-splitting test in concrete and crack nucleation in a quasi-isotropic composite plate with a circular hole are used to demonstrate the model’s performance. In contrast with other models, the current formulation does not depend on the sample geometry.
Non-local variant of the optimised Schwarz method for arbitrary non-overlapping subdomain partitions

We consider a scalar wave propagation in harmonic regime modelled by Helmholtz equation with heterogeneous coefficients. Using the Multi-Trace Formalism (MTF), we propose a new variant of the Optimized Schwarz Method (OSM) that remains valid in the presence of cross-points in the subdomain partition. This leads to the derivation of a strongly coercive formulation of our Helmholtz problem posed on the union of all interfaces. The corresponding operator takes the form “identity + non-expansive”.
How to normalize reflexive evaluation? Navigating between legitimacy and integrity

While hybrid evaluation practices are increasingly common, many Western countries continue to favor modernist evaluation logics focused on performance management—hampering the normalization of reflexive logics revolving around system change. We use Normalization Process Theory to analyze the work evaluators from a policy assessment agency undertook to accomplish the alignment between the prevailing and proposed logics guiding evaluation practice, while implementing a reflexive evaluation approach. Ad hoc alignment strategies and insufficient investment in mutual sense-making regarding reflexive evaluation hindered normalization. We conclude that alignment requires developing reflexive evaluation legitimacy in the context of application and guarding reflexive evaluation integrity, while contextual structures and cultures and reflexive evaluation components are being negotiated. Elasticity (of contextual structures and cultures) and plasticity (of reflexive evaluation components) are introduced as helpful concepts to further understand how reflexive evaluation practices can become normalized. We reflect on the use of Normalization Process Theory for studying the normalization of reflexive evaluation.
Traffic Status Dynamic Evaluation of an Eight-Lane Highway Based on the Lane Level

Traffic status analysis is the basis for highway management and control. Most of the previous research studies were carried out from the perspective of road segments. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the difference in traffic operation characteristics of an eight-lane highway from the perspective of lanes. Lane saturation, average lane speed, and lane density were selected as traffic state evaluation indicators, and the concept of state space division was introduced to classify the traffic operation status of each lane. Then, a single-system multi-index dynamic comprehensive evaluation method was adopted to reflect the time-varying characteristics and the development trend of the operation status of each lane. The research results can provide the theoretical support for more refined highway management and improve the service level of the eight-lane highway.
Active learning in the time of the pandemic: Report from the eye of the storm

This study investigated second- and third-year science students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their learning practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focused on the concept of active learning, with special attention paid to self-regulation and self-direction. The data collected through mixed research methods provided evidence of students’ flexible adjustment to the exceptional circumstances. However, the data also revealed a relatively limited range of learning strategies reported by respondents. Thus, this paper identifies an important need for further investigation of students’ practices to enhance their awareness of learning strategies, as a way of becoming active learners. Finally, the study also made salient the need for teacher training in effective teaching strategies, as a complementary strategy to promote students’ active learning. The conclusions from the study reach beyond the current circumstances, as they suggest implications for learning design in terms of educators’ training and designing for active learning.
Modelling the economics of controlling Avena fatua in winter wheat

A simple mathematical model of the life-cycle of Avena fatua L. is described and used to consider the financial consequences to the farmer of controlling A. fatua infestations in winter wheat. The likely economic benefits of applying herbicides in different cultivation regimes are investigated. The sensitivity of the model to variations in herbicide performance, straw burning, initial weed infestation and the value of the wheat crop is tested. The model predicts that the highest long-term benefits will be obtained when a herbicide is applied every time wild oats exceed a density of between 2 and 3 seedlings m−2. Whether or not this results in a significant financial saving over spraying every year depends on the initial level of infestation and on the cultivation method. Whether straw is burnt or not is likely to be of little economic significance.
Dual-Band Maritime Imagery Ship Classification Based on Multilayer Convolutional Feature Fusion

Addressing to the problems of few annotated samples and low-quality fused feature in visible and infrared dual-band maritime ship classification, this paper leverages hierarchical features of deep convolutional neural network to propose a dual-band maritime ship classification method based on multilayer convolutional feature fusion. Firstly, the VGGNet model pretrained on the ImageNet dataset is fine-tuned to capture semantic information of the specific dual-band ship dataset. Secondly, the pretrained and fine-tuned VGGNet models are used to extract low-level, middle-level, and high-level convolutional features of each band image, and a number of improved recursive neural networks with random weights are exploited to reduce feature dimension and learn feature representation. Thirdly, to improve the quality of feature fusion, multilevel and multilayer convolutional features of dual-band images are concatenated to fuse hierarchical information and spectral information. Finally, the fused feature vector is fed into a linear support vector machine for dual-band maritime ship category recognition. Experimental results on the public dual-band maritime ship dataset show that multilayer convolution feature fusion outperforms single-layer convolution feature by about 2% mean per-class classification accuracy for single-band image, dual-band images perform better than single-band image by about 2.3%, and the proposed method achieves the best accuracy of 89.4%, which is higher than the state-of-the-art method by 1.2%.
Firm Performance and Corporate Social Environmental Initiatives in the Wake of a Health Pandemic

The study re-examines the relationship between firm share price performance and Corporate Social Environmental Reporting (CSER) initiatives in the wake of a global health pandemic. A comparative analysis was done between the contributions made by listed and non-listed firms in Nigeria towards the pandemic. A comparative analysis of the share price (SP) of listed companies was carried out before the announcement of the pandemic, after the announcement of the pandemic and COVID -19 contributions. A panel regression analysis was conducted. It involved a sample of 70 listed firms in the Nigerian Stock Exchange over a five-year period (2013-2017). The comparative analysis of contributions revealed that listed firms though fewer in number made significantly more contributions than unlisted firms. The study found significant drop in SP after the announcement of a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The study also found that SP performance and firm size has a positive and significant relationship with CSER initiatives. The analysis of contributors from listed and nonlisted firms in Nigeria towards COVID-19 reveal that only corporate organizations with adequate resource slack can make significant contributions to curtail the spread of the epidemic. The study recommends that corporate organizations should pursue financial capacity in other to make significant CSER investments and expect a change in societal demands and stakeholder expectations in the no distant future.
The effect of rainfall on spatio‐temporal variability in cropping systems and duration of crop cover in the Northern Ethiopian Highlands

In the Northern Ethiopian Highlands, ca. 33% of the land is cropland, which is mainly cultivated by smallholders who based on indigenous knowledge plan their cropping system on the basis of spatio‐temporal variability in rainfall. To understand the relationships between rainfall variability and cropping systems, a field campaign was undertaken in the rainy season of 2009 when 118 farmers were interviewed at different locations with different environmental characteristics. Five cropping systems were identified, each having a distinct cropping season length and crop association. Cropping systems with shorter cropping seasons were generally on the valleysides, whereas longer cycles occurred in the valley bottoms. The length of cropping season also increased from north–northeast to south–southwest. Crop associations within cropping systems also varied with altitude. Cropping systems changed in response to variation in annual rainfall. This resulted in shifts of cropping systems at catchment and regional scales, with cropping systems having longer cropping seasons where there was greater annual precipitation. The results were scaled up to the whole region by modelling the spatial distribution of cropping systems at a 8 × 8 km² resolution over the period 1996–2009. The results indicate that indigenous knowledge is important when assessing the impact of climatic variability on agricultural production and that large inter‐annual variability in the duration of crop cover in Northern Ethiopia might be an important, although generally overlooked, explanatory factor for explaining previous land degradation cycles.
Electron trap generation in thermally grown SiO2 under Fowler-Nordheim stress

Electron trap generation in thermally grown silicon dioxide (SiO2) during Fowler–Nordheim (FN) stress is investigated by using an aluminium‐gated capacitor structure. The generated electron traps are characterized by the avalanche electron injection technique. The experimental results support the model that electron trapping in oxide follows the first‐order kinetics and may have multiple‐capture cross sections. It is found that both donorlike (positive charge related) and acceptorlike (neutral before capturing electron) traps are generated and they behave differently. The donorlike trap is not stable at or above room temperature and its effective density saturates as the stressing time increases, while the opposite is true for the acceptorlike trap. The electron‐capture cross section of donorlike trap spreads from 10−18 to over 10−14 cm2, but the capture cross section of the generated acceptorlike trap is limited in the range of (4.5–9)× 10−17 cm2. The acceptorlike trap is generated by the interaction bet.
Characterization of Urban Wastes According To Fertility and Phytotoxicity Parameters

Several urban wastes of different nature and level of organic matter stability (municipal solid wastes, sewage sludges and composts) have been characterized analysing fertility and phytotoxicity parameters. Sewage sludges showed the highest N and P values of all the wastes. The total K content of the wastes was low but almost all was available to plants. Mature composts had the lowest organic carbon and humic substances values as a consequence of organic matter mineralization during the composting process. The soluble C at pH 2/precipitated C ratio decreased as the stability of the organic matter increased. In spite of the heterogeneity of the wastes analysed, the organic matter/total organic C ratio was largely constant with a mean value of 2.05. In no case did the heavy metal levels exceed the maximum allowed by the EU disposition for sewage sludges use in agriculture. The highest levels of phytotoxic substances occurred in the fresh wastes. The germination rates and root length were highest with mature composts. Germination index and root length were negatively correlated with water soluble carbon (WSC) and WSC/N ratio. The principal component analysis showed that extractable C, soluble C at pH 2 and water soluble C were the C fractions which most contributed to the total variability. © 1997 ISWA
An efficient deep convolutional neural network model for visual localization and automatic diagnosis of thyroid nodules on ultrasound images.

Background The aim of this study was to construct a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) model for localization and diagnosis of thyroid nodules on ultrasound and evaluate its diagnostic performance. Methods We developed and trained a deep CNN model called the Brief Efficient Thyroid Network (BETNET) using 16,401 ultrasound images. According to the parameters of the model, we developed a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system to localize and differentiate thyroid nodules. The validation dataset (1,000 images) was used to compare the diagnostic performance of the model using three state-of-the-art algorithms. We used an internal test set (300 images) to evaluate the BETNET model by comparing it with diagnoses from five radiologists with varying degrees of experience in thyroid nodule diagnosis. Lastly, we demonstrated the general applicability of our artificial intelligence (AI) system for diagnosing thyroid cancer in an external test set (1,032 images). Results The BETNET model accurately detected thyroid nodules in visualization experiments. The model demonstrated higher values for area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUC-ROC) curve [0.983, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.973-0.990], sensitivity (99.19%), accuracy (98.30%), and Youden index (0.9663) than the three state-of-the-art algorithms (P<0.05). In the internal test dataset, the diagnostic accuracy of the BETNET model was 91.33%, which was markedly higher than the accuracy of one experienced (85.67%) and two less experienced radiologists (77.67% and 69.33%). The area under the ROC curve of the BETNET model (0.951) was similar to that of the two highly skilled radiologists (0.940 and 0.953) and significantly higher than that of one experienced and two less experienced radiologists (P<0.01). The kappa coefficient of the BETNET model and the pathology results showed good agreement (0.769). In addition, the BETNET model achieved an excellent diagnostic performance (AUC =0.970, 95% CI: 0.958-0.980) when applied to ultrasound images from another independent hospital. Conclusions We developed a deep learning model which could accurately locate and automatically diagnose thyroid nodules on ultrasound images. The BETNET model exhibited better diagnostic performance than three state-of-the-art algorithms, which in turn performed similarly in diagnosis as the experienced radiologists. The BETNET model has the potential to be applied to ultrasound images from other hospitals.
Study of a new water jet thruster for robotic returnable jumping

A novel water jet thruster which is capable of conducting two sequential jumps is proposed for the amphibious jumping robot. The proposed water jet thruster adopted a unique structural design with a double-layered tank. Liquid nitrogen was injected to the tank to pressure the propellant water and generate propulsive force, which is safe and effective for both aquatic and terrestrial environment. Then a theoretical jumping model was built to evaluate the performances of two jumping actions. According to the tethered thrust measurement and free jumping experiments, the estimation from the model met well with their experimental verifications. Moreover, CFD simulation was conducted to compare the emission process of inner and outer chambers in detail. We believe the demonstration of the novel thruster would drive the innovation of future amphibious robots that capable of leaping from both aquatic and terrestrial environments.
Protonation of hypoxanthine, guanine, xanthine, and caffeine

The protonation equilibria of three hydroxypurines, hypoxanthine, guanine, and xanthine, and of related caffeine have been studied by 1H and 13C nmr and uv spectroscopies in aqueous sulfuric or perchloric acids. The results have been interpreted on the basis of the excess acidity method. The values and the protonation sites are discussed and comparisons are made with results of recent theoretical calculations.
On the analogy between lateral capillary interactions and electrostatic interactions in colloid systems

A formal analogy between the linear theories of the lateral capillary interaction between solid bodies at a liquid−fluid interface and the electrostatic interaction between charged surfaces in electrolyte solution (linear DLVO theory) has been recognized. Thanks to that analogy, the well-developed methods for calculation of electrostatic interactions in DLVO theory can be utilized to explore the less well-studied lateral capillary interactions between particles adsorbed at a liquid−fluid interface. A few examples of the usefulness of such approach to capillary interactions in different geometries are given. A complete electrostatic analogy is found for the lateral capillary interaction between plates or rods, but not in the case of spherical particles. It is demonstrated how the approximations used in the nonlinear theory of electrostatic interaction work for the case of lateral capillary forces in colloid systems. The analogy between electrostatic image forces and capillary image forces is also discussed.