Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Strategies and Governance for Implementing Deep Decarbonization Plans at the Local Level

This study qualitatively explores eight cases of best practice cities that are leading the way towards deep decarbonization. Local governments and stakeholders are developing short-term strategies and long-term pathways towards deep decarbonization at the local level but are struggling to determine effective actions. In this article, we examine cities pursuing deep decarbonization to provide insights into the strategies and governance structures that eight leading local governments are using to develop and implement deep decarbonization plans. The cases are in Canada (Bridgewater, Guelph, Vancouver and Toronto), the USA (Park City and New York City), Finland (Lahti), and Norway (Oslo) and range from very small (8.4 thousand people) to very large (9.6 million people). For each city, their implementation strategies are detailed under four categories: engagement; green economy; policy tools; and financial tools. Governance mechanisms and modes are explained regarding coordination; oversight and reporting; communication; multi-level integration; cross-sector collaboration; funding, and mode. While a number of these approaches and tools have been identified in previous research and grey literature, the findings show that leading local government plans continue to develop innovative strategies on their own and also share their successes with other communities through transnational networks. The cases examined in this study are moving beyond the incremental approach to mitigating greenhouse gases and are innovating to find applied methods for achieving transformative change. The findings from this study are useful for practitioners and academics working on climate mitigation, strategy implementation, cross-sector partnerships, and sustainable cities.
An Energy Aware Offloading Scheme for Interdependent Applications in Software-Defined IoV With Fog Computing Architecture

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is one important application scenarios for the development of the Internet of things. The software-defined network (SDN) and fog computing could effectively improve the IoV network dynamics, which enables the application to achieve better performance by offloading some tasks to fog node or cloud center. Current computation offloading approaches for IoV and fog computing mostly focus on resource utilization. However, the energy-aware offloading has not been adequately addressed, especially for IoV systems with many battery-powered roadside units (RSU) and electric vehicles (EV). In this paper, we study the offloading problem in SDN and fog computing-based IoV systems. An energy-aware dynamic offloading scheme is proposed to prolong the running time of the IoV system by leveraging available battery power to execute more applications. The remaining battery power is defined as a dynamic weight factor in the execution cost model to adjust the optimization objective. Meanwhile, the dependence between applications is also taken into consideration in the cost model. A heuristic optimization algorithm is designed to solve the optimization problem. We conducted comprehensive experiments and results have shown that the offloading scheme could execute more applications with the available battery power under the constraints of application dependence.
Pathologies associated with impacted maxillary canine tooth in patients presenting at a tertiary care hospital

Background: The pathologies associated with impacted maxillary canine tooth presented as radiolucent, radiopaque and mixed radiolucent radiopaque lesions on radiographs and adenomatoid odontogenic tumor was the most common pathology associated with it followed by dentigerous cyst, odontoma and calcifying odontogenic cyst after histopathological confirmation. This study was planned to determine the frequency of pathologies associated with impacted maxillary canine tooth in patients presenting at a tertiary care hospital.Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted at Dental / Oral Surgery Department, Shaikh Zayed Medical College / Hospital, Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan from January to December 2017. A total of 60 patients with clinical and radiographic diagnosis of impacted maxillary canine tooth were enrolled. Orthopantomogram and/or para nasal sinus view were considered as the standard radiograph for assessment of pathologies associated with impacted maxillary canine tooth which were confirmed by histopathological examination. Demographics and radiographic findings and histopathological confirmation of pathologies were noted.Results: Out of a total of 60 patients, 38 (63.33%) pathologies associated with impacted maxillary canine presented as radiolucent lesion, 11 (18.33%) each presented as radiopaque and mixed radiolucent radiopaque lesion. Adenomatoid odontogenic tumor (30%) was the most common pathology associated with impacted maxillary canine tooth. The other pathologies associated were dentigerous cyst (26.67%), odontoma (18.33%), calcifying odontogenic cyst (11.66%), calcifying odontogenic cyst with an odonotoma (6.66%), Odontogenic keratocyst (3.33%) and Ameloblastoma (3.33%). Conclusions: The most common pathology occurring predominantly with impacted maxillary canine tooth was adenomatoid odontogenic tumor followed by dentigerous cyst, odontoma and calcifying odontogenic cyst.
The microbial electrochemical Peltier heat: an energetic burden and engineering chance for primary microbial electrochemical technologies

Bioelectrocalorimetry allows assessing the heat (enthalpy) balance and revealing the microbial electrochemical Peltier heat of biofilm electrodes. This effect accounts for a heat formation of 27 ± 6 kJ mol−1 of electrons transferred and represents a significant energy loss for primary microbial electrochemical technologies.
Influence of salinity soil on the sodium, potassium and calcium content of tomato Lycopersicum esculentum Mill. (Solanales Solanaceae) at 5-leaf stage

The effect of salinity (NaClCaCl2) on the evolution of mineral ions (Na , K and Ca) and the variation of (Na/K and Na/Ca ratios) in the roots of a Rio grande (Rg) tomato variety (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., Solanales Solanaceae) at the 5-leaf stage was investigated. After germination of the seeds, the seedlings obtained are transferred to their environment to receive the nutritive solution. At 5 leaf stage, salt stress was applied with four concentrations (0, 100, 200 and 300 meq L-1 NaClCaCl2) for 15 days. The results shows that salt stress increased Na + and decreased K+ content significantly in both cultivars. Increase of salinity resulted in an increase of ions Na and Ca in the tomato root cultivated on the two substrates but a decrease of K+. The Na/K and Na/Ca ratio in roots of both cultivars cultivated on the two substrates increased significantly when concentration of NaClCaCl2 increased in the medium. The presence of calcium in the medium (irrigation solution and bentonite) favored an increase in the average amount of calcium ions in the roots of tomato grown in sand substrate mixed with bentonite compared to those cultivated in the sand substrate alone.
Polymeric drift control adjuvants for agricultural spraying

The movement of a pesticide or herbicide to an off-target site during agricultural spraying can cause injury to wildlife, plants and contamination of surface water. This phenomenon is known as spray drift and can be controlled by spraying during favorable environmental conditions, and by using low drift nozzles and drift control adjuvants (DCAs). Polymeric DCAs are the most common type of DCA and function by increasing the droplet size produced during spraying. There are, however, two main drawbacks of polymeric DCAs; they are prone to mechanical degradation during spraying which reduces their performance and they can produce oversized drops which reduces the efficacy of the spray. In this trend article, existing DCA technology is reviewed including the mechanism through which they function. This then provides a platform for the discussion of novel polymeric architectures which have currently not been applied in DCA formulations.
3D Spatial Development of Historic Urban Landscape to Promote a Historical Spatial Data System

Spatial experience in historical street corridors is essential to encourage a continuously satisfying experience of a historical aesthetic leading to a better quality of the historic urban landscape, which is significant for making precious memory of the city's history. 3D spatial formation along the historic street corridor fosters the generation of historical memory of the urban space. Both tangible and intangible aspects attached to the historic street corridors' spatial configuration have significant meaning that forms the integrity of the valuable historical urban space. The research area is in Kayutangan street as one of the historical street corridors in Malang City, East Java, Indonesia. The study aims to develop the historical spatial data system of the Kayutangan corridor to construct an online digital spatial database and enforce it as a policy decision reference by the government in managing the urban development in historical areas, especially in the Kayutangan street corridors. The 3D spatial development of historic urban landscape performed the combination of 3D modeling software, 3D visualization software, and 3D spatial multimedia application authoring platforms. The collaboration of three systems generated three spatial data types, namely a 3D spatial-passive observation data, a 3D spatial-active observation data, and 3D spatial-interactive simulation data. As a result, this study produces 3D spatial multimedia contained the 3D spatial of historical data of Kayutangan streetscape, which performs as a historical spatial data system to reference the smart development of cultural tourism and heritage cities in Malang.
Does Energy Productivity and Technological Innovation Limit Trade-Adjusted Carbon Emissions?

Abstract The present study aims to examine the effect of energy productivity, international trade, especially by treating exports and imports distinctly with technological innovation and gross domestic product on Consumption-based Carbon emissions for G-7 countries over the period of 1996–2017. This study employed cross-section dependence and slope heterogeneity for evaluating the order of unit root. The cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lags model (CS-ARDL) is used for evaluating long and short-run relationships among variables; and an augmented mean group and a common correlated mean group test to check for robustness. The findings confirm cointegration relationships with structural breaks (e.g., the 2001 mild recession; the 2008 global financial crisis; the 2011 stock market decline; and the 2014 exports decline in Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Japan) among consumption based carbon emission, energy productivity, exports, imports, gross domestic product, and technological innovation. Further, energy productivity, exports and technological innovation are inversely related to consumption based carbon emission while imports and gross domestic product are positively associated with consumption-based carbon emissions for G-7 countries. The findings recommend the promotion of technological innovation and cleaner production for curbing consumption-based carbon emissions.
Non-random acts of kindness: Joint music making increases preschoolers’ helping and sharing with an adult

Research has shown that musical engagement promotes prosocial behavior in preschool-aged children under some conditions but not others. The current study tested whether an active musical interaction between a preschooler (Mage: 56 months), an experimenter, and a research assistant would result in more sharing and helping behavior than a matched, non-musical interaction, while examining the extent to which a naturalistic musical interaction actually produced interpersonal movement synchrony. Verbal content was also manipulated (didactic/neutral). The results showed that musical play was associated with more spontaneous helping and overall sharing than non-musical play. Analysis of synchrony and joint movement within the experimental interaction showed that musical play resulted in significantly more joint movement and interpersonal synchrony than non-musical play, but that even in musical conditions, joint movement was only synchronized for a fraction of the length of the interaction. There was no evidence of an effect of verbal content on children’s behavior, despite uniformly high retention for the content of the song or poem across conditions. These findings provide further evidence that music making can facilitate prosocial behavior in preschoolers, regardless of lyrical content, and that joint movement may play a more significant role than precise movement synchrony in preschoolers’ musical engagement.
Horizontal Skills Mismatch in Vocational Education in Turkey: The Reasons for Out-of-Field Employment

As a type of skills mismatch, horizontal skills mismatch (HM) is a particularly important problem for vocational education and training (VET) in Turkey because the majority of VET graduates work in a different field than the one in which they were educated. This study aims to determine the reasons why some VET graduates in Turkey work in fields other than their original field of study. For this purpose, we have employed a sequential mixed-model research design, first conducting face-to-face interviews with 20 VET graduates and then applying a questionnaire to VET graduates that elicited 4,863 responses. The study uses descriptive analysis for the qualitative data from the interviews and an open-ended item from the questionnaire. The qualitative results show the most common reasons for VET graduates’ employment out of their field of study to include being unable to find a job in their field of study, low wages, lack of necessary vocational skills, lack of experience, and working conditions. Quantitative results show VET graduates to want to be employed in their field of study and to make significant efforts in finding jobs that match their field. We have concluded HM to be a common problem and all the factors influencing VET graduates’ out-of-field employment to be related to a weak relationship between VET and the Turkish labor market.
Study on characteristics of vortex structures and irreversible losses in the centrifugal pump

The development of flow control methods in the centrifugal pump relies on further understanding of the characteristics of vortex structures and their irreversible losses. In this paper, the detached eddy simulation is conducted on a model centrifugal pump, which shows a good agreement with the experiment. Combining with three generations of vortex identification methods (vorticity, Q criterion, omega and Liutex methods) and entropy production analysis, the results show omega and Liutex methods are highly recommended to analyze the vortex structures. Vorticity is the key factor to promote the energy dissipation, and the irreversible losses of vortex areas can be lower than their surroundings when there exists smaller vorticity or higher rotation strength. Concerning the pressure pulsation induced by vortex shedding, it is unreasonable to analyze this unsteady process via vortex structures identified by iso-surface because of the restriction of the threshold. In comparison, the change of integral length is more related to the pressure pulsation.
Taxonomic revision of charon-, floridanum- and muscaeforme-groups of Gryon Haliday, 1833 (Hymenoptera, Scelionidae) from Japan, with descriptions of two new species and host information

Japanese species of the muscaeforme-group, charon-group, and floridanum-group of Gryon have been revised. Among the species of the muscaeforme-group, G. fulvicoxa sp. nov. is newly described. Gryon misha Kozlov & Kononova, syn. nov. is considered a junior synonym of G. japonicum (Ashmead). Gryon maruzzae Mineo, syn. nov. and G. sugonjaevi Kozlov & Kononova, syn. nov. are considered junior synonyms of G. yamagishii Mineo. Among the species of the charon-group, G. shisa sp. nov. is newly described. Gryon hakonense (Ashmead) syn. nov. is considered as a junior synonym of G. philippinense (Ashmead). Among the species of the floridanum-group, G. pennsylvanicum (Ashmead) is recognized. Host records of the three species groups are also revised.
Aisspommootsiio’pa – A collaboration to improve teaching and learning mathematics at the Kainai nation

The Kainai Board of Education, situated at the Kainai First Nations Reserve in Southern Alberta, Canada, initiated the Aisspommootsiio’pa project in 2017. The project intended to develop teacher leadership capacity aimed at improving mathematics teaching and learning at elementary and secondary levels. In this paper, we indicate the theoretical foundations for the project. We also report on its implementation during the first two years, which involved seventeen teachers, and offer suggestions for the extension of the project at a larger scale within the Kanai Nation.
An overview of the development of composites containing Mg and Zn for drug delivery

Drug delivery is known as the administration of drugs using suitable vehicle for achieving effective treatment with no unwanted effects. In recent years, various composite materials have been developed and evaluated for being used in different biomedical fields such as wound dressings, cardiac prosthesis, tissue engineering, and drug delivery. Zinc is the second most available element after Fe in our body. Nanoparticles based on metal oxides, such as zinc oxides and Zn-containing composites, can be considered as viable platforms for some biomedical uses, especially for drug delivery applications. Mg composite biomaterials are also suggested for diverse biomedical applications due to their good mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and bioactivity. This paper highlights applications of zinc and magnesium-based composites in development of drug delivery systems.
Precision and Digital Agriculture: Adoption of Technologies and Perception of Brazilian Farmers

The rapid population growth has driven the demand for more food, fiber, energy, and water, which is associated to an increase in the need to use natural resources in a more sustainable way. The use of precision agriculture machinery and equipment since the 1990s has provided important productive gains and maximized the use of agricultural inputs. The growing connectivity in the rural environment, in addition to its greater integration with data from sensor systems, remote sensors, equipment, and smartphones have paved the way for new concepts from the so-called Agriculture 4.0 or Digital Agriculture. This article presents the results of a survey carried out with 504 Brazilian farmers about the digital technologies in use, as well as current and future applications, perceived benefits, and challenges. The questionnaire was prepared, organized, and made available to the public through the online platform LimeSurvey and was available from 17 April to 2 June 2020. The primary data obtained for each question previously defined were consolidated and analyzed statistically. The results indicate that 84% of the interviewed farmers use at least one digital technology in their production system that differs according to technological complexity level. The main perceived benefit refers to the perception of increased productivity and the main challenges are the acquisition costs of machines, equipment, software, and connectivity. It is also noteworthy that 95% of farmers would like to learn more about new technologies to strengthen the agricultural development in their properties.
Exporting from China: The Determinants of Trade Status

This paper studies the exporting decision of Chinese manufacturing firms. The economic framework stresses the dynamic decision by both state controlled and private entities to export in a model with labor adjustment costs. In this complex environment, a simple decision rule whereby export status depends only on current productivity does not hold. Nor does this rule match data patterns. The estimated model is used to understand the factors that influence export status. The analysis highlights the economic significance of labor adjustment costs in shaping both employment and trade dynamics.
A Soft 3D-Printed Robotic Hand Actuated by Coiled SMA

Robotic hands with unique designs, capabilities and applications have been presented in the literature focusing on sensing, actuation, control, powering and manufacturing, most of which are created by manual assembly process. However, due to advancements in additive manufacturing, new capabilities have replaced traditional methods of manufacturing. In this paper, we present a soft 3D-printed robotic hand actuated by custom-made coiled shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators. The hand uses additive manufacturing of flexible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material, which allows flexing at the joint and hence eliminates the need for additional assembly. Here, we present the full characteristics of the robotic hand such as object grasping categorized by size and weight from the ARAT kit and others. The robotic hand is 425 mm in length, weighs 235 g and is able to operate at a frequency of 0.125 Hz without active cooling. It can grasp an object of 55–81 mm widths, weighing up to 133 g, while consuming an average power of 7.82 W. We also show the time domain response of our custom-made coiled SMA to different current inputs, and its corresponding force and displacement. The current design yields a lightweight and low cost artificial hand with significantly simplified manufacturing for applications in robotics and prosthetics.
Shape-Adaptive Universal Soft Parallel Gripper for Delicate Grasping Using a Stiffness-Variable Composite Structure

The robotic gripper is an essential component for handling, manipulating, and transporting objects. However, the parallel rigid gripper, which is one of the most widely used grippers in robotics, has limitations in handling fragile objects with a proper gripping force. We present a shape-adaptive universal soft gripper that can grip complex-shaped fragile objects with a high holding force. The shape-adaptive skin of the gripper has extremely low stiffness ($\sim$46 kPa), even lower than that of tofu ($\sim$57 kPa); hence, it can inherently prevent damage to the object. In addition, only the area pressed by the object is selectively deformed, so the contact surface of the gripper can be deformed to match the target object contour. A stiffness transition in the gripper from a soft to hard state follows to achieve effective holding of the object, not just weak object hanging as the previous soft gripper. These characteristics are enabled by a sheet-shaped shape retention layer, a honeycomb-shaped soft supporting layer, and a four-sided wall structure to increase shear modulus. We present applications to show the performance of the gripper, including gripping tofu, preparing a cocktail with a squeezed lemon, and whole chicken soup.
Does a company’s origin matter in moral judgment?

We blend the institutional and social identity theories to explain why foreign companies may endure a differentiated treatment compared to domestic ones. We extend the “liability of foreignness” (LOF) reasoning to the moral domain. Using a survey experiment in Algeria and France, we examine whether observers judge similarly or differently the same ethical and unethical practices by manipulating the doers’ origin. Each treatment corresponds to a specific combination of company behavior (ethical vs. unethical) and company origin (no origin mentioned vs. domestic origin vs. foreign origin). We found that company origin matters for the ethical and some unethical scenarios. However, the foreignness consequences in the moral domain are not always consistent with a simplistic application of LOF-based arguments, leading us to consider a more complex picture than initially expected. In the Algerian sample, we found that foreign companies can even benefit from an advantage compared to domestic ones. JEL CLASSIFICATION F23; C91