Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the Behavior of β‐Cristobalite‐like Boron Arsenate when Subjected to Uniaxial Loading in Its [001] Direction and the Implications on Its “Negative” Characteristics

Boron arsenate (BAsO4) is a β‐cristobalite‐like material, which crystallizes in the I4¯ space group. However, unlike β‐cristobalite itself, BAsO4 is well characterized and known to be stable and at ambient conditions. This work presents the results of extensive density functional theory (DFT)‐based simulations aimed at elucidating the nanoscale deformations that such crystals undergo when subjected to uniaxial tensile and compressive loads along their crystallographic [001] c‐direction. It is shown that such uniaxial loading results primarily in intra‐tetrahedral deformations rather than their tilting/rotations (which causes the auxeticity in the (001) plane). Through their analysis in isolation from other modes of deformation, this study gives a much better insight into such intra‐tetrahedral deformations and helps explain better the cause of the measured negative linear compressibility in the c‐direction at elevated pressures, which recently has been attributed to a “demi wine‐rack” mechanism caused by the same intra‐tetrahedral deformations.
Transition from Microstrip Line to Ridge Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide Based on the Equations of the Superellipse

In recent years, multiple technologies have been proposed with the aim of combining the characteristics of traditional planar and non-planar transmission lines. The first and most popular of these technologies is the Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW), where rows of metallic vias are mechanized in a printed circuit board (PCB). These vias, together with the top and bottom metal layers of the PCB, form a channel for the propagation of the electromagnetic fields, similar to that of a rectangular waveguide, but through a dielectric body, which increases the losses. To reduce these losses, the empty substrate integrated waveguide (ESIW) was recently proposed. In the ESIW, the dielectric is removed from the substrate, and this results in better performance (low profile and easy manufacturing as in SIW, but lower losses and better quality factor for resonators). Recently, to increase the operational bandwidth (monomode propagation) of the ESIW, the ridge ESIW (RESIW) and a transition from RESIW to microstrip line was proposed. In this work, a new and improved wideband transition from microstrip line (MS) to RESIW, with a dielectric taper based on the equations of the superellipse, is proposed. The new wideband transition presents simulated return losses in a back-to-back transition greater than 20 dB in an 87% fractional bandwidth, while in the previous transition the fractional bandwidth was 82%. This is an increment of 5%. In addition, the transition presents simulated return losses greater than 26 dB in an 84% fractional bandwidth. For validation purposes, a back-to-back configuration of the new transition was successfully manufactured and measured. The measured return loss is better than 14 dB with an insertion loss lower than 1 dB over the whole band.
Bee venom attenuates neurodegeneration and motor impairment and modulates the response to L-dopa or rasagiline in a mice model of Parkinson’s disease

Objective(s): This study aimed to investigate the effect of bee venom, a form of alternative therapy, on rotenone-induced Parkinson’s disease (PD) in mice. Moreover, the possible modulation by bee venom of the effect of L-dopa/carbidopa or rasagiline was examined. Materials and Methods: Rotenone (1.5 mg/kg, subcutaneously; SC) was administered every other day for two weeks and at the same time mice received the vehicle (DMSO, SC), bee venom (0.065, 0.13, and 0.26 mg/kg; intradermal; ID), L-dopa/carbidopa (25 mg/kg, intraperitoneal; IP), L-dopa/carbidopa+bee venom (0.13 mg/kg, ID), rasagiline (1 mg/kg, IP) or rasagiline+bee venom (0.13 mg/kg, ID). Then, wire hanging and staircase tests were performed and mice were euthanized and brains’ striata separated. Oxidative stress biomarkers namely, malondialdehyde (MDA), nitric oxide (NO), reduced glutathione (GSH), paraoxonase-1 (PON-1), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) were measured. Additionally, butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and dopamine (DA) were evaluated. Brain histopathological changes and caspase-3- expression were done. Results: Bee venom significantly enhanced motor performance and inhibited rotenone-induced oxidative/nitrosative stress, observed as a reduction in both MDA and NO along with increasing GSH, PON-1, and TAC. Besides, bee venom decreased MCP-1, TNF-α, and caspase-3 expression together with an increase in BuChE activity and DA content. Conclusion: Bee venom alone or in combination with L-dopa/carbidopa or rasagiline alleviated neuronal degeneration compared with L-dopa/carbidopa or rasagiline treatment only. Bee venom via its antioxidant and cytokine reducing potentials might be of value either alone or as adjunctive therapy in the management of PD.
Are intense negative emotions a risk for complex divorces? An examination of the role of emotions in divorced parents and co-parenting concerns

In this study, we examined whether regular divorces can be distinguished from complex divorces by measuring the intensity of negative emotions that divorced parents report when thinking about their ex-partner. We recruited two groups of parents: n = 136 in a regular divorce, and n = 191 in a complex divorce. Based on the existing literature, we predicted that parents in complex divorces experience more intense negative emotions than parents in regular divorces; especially emotions that motivate emotional distancing (contempt, disgust, anger, hatred, and rage) and emotions that impair self-regulation (fear, shame, guilt, and sadness). We also predicted that these emotions would hamper co-parenting, particularly in complex divorces. The results provided support for our predictions, except for fear and sadness. We found that parents in a complex divorce reported more co-parenting concerns than parents in a regular divorce. In contrast to our expectations, the relation between negative emotions and coparenting concerns was stronger among parents in a regular divorce than in a complex divorce. These findings underline the importance of emotions in the divorce trajectory and suggest that especially the intensity of emotional distancing emotions may serve as a screening tool to identify parents at risk for a complex divorce.
Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Developing Smart Cities Solutions

Traditional Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies used in developing smart cities solutions, Machine Learning (ML) and recently Deep Learning (DL), rely more on utilising best representative training datasets and features engineering and less on the available domain expertise. We argue that such an approach to solution development makes the outcome of solutions less explainable, i.e., it is often not possible to explain the results of the model. There is a growing concern among policymakers in cities with this lack of explainability of AI solutions, and this is considered a major hindrance in the wider acceptability and trust in such AI-based solutions. In this work, we survey the concept of ‘explainable deep learning’ as a subset of the ‘explainable AI’ problem and propose a new solution using Semantic Web technologies, demonstrated with a smart cities flood monitoring application in the context of a European Commission-funded project. Monitoring of gullies and drainage in crucial geographical areas susceptible to flooding issues is an important aspect of any flood monitoring solution. Typical solutions for this problem involve the use of cameras to capture images showing the affected areas in real-time with different objects such as leaves, plastic bottles etc., and building a DL-based classifier to detect such objects and classify blockages based on the presence and coverage of these objects in the images. In this work, we uniquely propose an Explainable AI solution using DL and Semantic Web technologies to build a hybrid classifier. In this hybrid classifier, the DL component detects object presence and coverage level and semantic rules designed with close consultation with experts carry out the classification. By using the expert knowledge in the flooding context, our hybrid classifier provides the flexibility on categorising the image using objects and their coverage relationships. The experimental results demonstrated with a real-world use case showed that this hybrid approach of image classification has on average 11% improvement (F-Measure) in image classification performance compared to DL-only classifier. It also has the distinct advantage of integrating experts’ knowledge on defining the decision-making rules to represent the complex circumstances and using such knowledge to explain the results.
Close-to-practice research: The need for student voice and the strange case of Academy x

The idea that teaching and school leadership should be informed by research and other evidence has developed traction recently in England and other jurisdictions. Yet, such research has too seldomly involved the student perspective in leadership decision-making. This article presents a case study of an ‘all through’ academy in the south of England (Academy x) that attempted to address this issue through research that was close to practice in nature. Here, school leaders, teachers, parents and, specifically, disadvantaged male students’ perspectives of barriers and enablers to their attainment were explored with a view to working collaboratively with these stakeholders to respond to the findings. However, we had not taken into account that the credibility of the students’ perspectives and the nature of the messages emerging from the findings would be questioned, and would influence a decision by school leaders not to act upon them. We consider how these issues might be addressed if student voice as a form of close-to-practice research is to become a reality.
Magnetic amphiphilic nanocomposites based on silica–carbon for sulphur contaminant oxidation

Silica and carbon based magnetic amphiphilic nanocomposites (MANCs) were synthesized and applied for desulfurization in this work. The structure, composition, and magnetic and amphiphilic properties of the resulting MANCs were characterized in detail by physicochemical means such as XRD, elemental analysis, Raman spectroscopy, electron microscopies, thermal analysis, TPR, Mossbauer spectroscopy, magnetization measurements, and contact angle measurements. Different concentrations of Fe and Mo were supported on the surface of silica in order to catalyse the controlled growth of carbon nanotubes and nanofibers by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The partial coating of hydrophilic silica with hydrophobic carbon nanostructures imparts amphiphilicity, which makes the composites strategic catalysts to promote emulsion formation and to act on the interface. Moreover, during the CVD process magnetic species were produced conferring magnetic properties which can facilitate the emulsion breakage by a simple magnetic process. Studies on desulfurization reactions catalysed by these nanocomposites were promising and showed that Mo plays an important role in the catalyst efficiency.
Determination of antioxidant capacity in blackberry (Rubus glaucus) jam processed by hydrotermodynamic cavitation compared with traditional technology

The objective of this study was to determine the antioxidant capacity of blackberry (Rubus glaucus) jam processed by hydrothermodynamic cavitation (HTD) at different temperatures (25, 45, 60, and 75 °C) compared with traditional technology (TDE). HTD is a food processing technology based on the cavitation phenomenon for the simultaneous crushing, homogenisation, and pasteurisation of whole foods. Blackberries without any treatment were used as a reference. The results indicated that the content of phenolic compounds and their antioxidant capacity were directly correlated to the type of process and temperature. However, compounds with antioxidant capacity should be further assessed in order to determine the actual effect of this technology. In addition to this, during the development of this study, savings were achieved in production processes (factory and labor expenses) due to the use of this technology, such as a 50% cost reduction
Measured and computed point spread functions for an indirect water immersion objective used in three-dimensional fluorescence microscopy

Living cells and other non-embedded biological specimens present a challenge in high- resolution microscopy because of their relatively low refractive index. It is well known that when oil-immersion objectives are used to look into these specimens, spherical aberration resulting from the index mismatch causes axial as well as transverse broadening of the 3D point spread function. Both effects reduce 3D resolution significantly, and cause the microscope to be axially shift-variant, thus complicating 3D deconvolution-based computational refinement. Axial shift variance should be much less a problem when water immersion objectives are used. With the aim of improving image data and our ability to refine it computationally, we have evaluated an apochromatic 40X/1.2 NA indirect water- immersion objective having an adjustable corrector for coverslip thickness. This work involves comparison of measured and computed 3D point spread functions, and comparison to the data acquired with an oil-immersion lens system. We show that focus-dependent spherical aberration is greatly reduced in the water-immersion system.
Thermodynamics of micellar systems: activity and entropy of sodium decanoate and n-alkylamine hydrobromides in water

The freezing-point depressions of aqueous solutions of the homologous series RNH3Br, where R varies from ethyl to n-octyl, and of sodium decanoate were determined and used to calculate osmotic and mean activity coefficients. In the case of the surfactants octylamine hydrobromide and sodium decanoate, the pre- and post-micellar regions were covered. Activity data at higher temperatures were calculated using previously published thermochemical data. Some difficulties arise in the critical micellar region of sodium decanoate at high temperatures as a result of the large concentration and temperature dependence of the heat capacity data. The activities from freezing point data are compared with those obtained from specific electrodes.
Effect of Sugarcane Bagasse Ash and Ceramic Waste Dust as Partial Replacements of Portland Cement on Corrosion Behavior of HRB400 Low Carbon Steel Reinforcement in 3.5 % NaCl

Nowadays corrosion protection of reinforced concrete can be increased by improving the concrete structure, particularly the replacement of cement by mineral additives. In this study, the influence of a partial replacement of Portland cement (PC) on the corrosion behavior of HRB400 carbon steel rebar in 3.5% NaCl solution was considered. The PC was replaced by a mixture of bagasse ash (BA) and ceramic waste dust (CWD) admixtures. The mechanical results indicated an increase in compressive strength for BCWD concrete samples containing both BA and CWD additives. The electrochemical findings indicated that the BCWD sample has considerably improved the structure of concrete as well as decreased corrosion resistance due to the decrease of water permeability and chloride ion. Scanning electron microscopy of the steel surface exhibited that the concrete structure including BA and CWD additives was more uniform and denser compared to the PC sample which was in agreement with electrochemical results.
Dynamic adsorption of dimethyl methyl Phosphonate and 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide on zeolite-MOR and its nanocomposites monitored by gas chromatography flame ionized detector (GC-FID)

Abstract Present paper highlights the adsorption performances of mordenite (MOR), polyaniline-mordenite (PANI/MOR), copper oxide-mordenite (CuO/MOR) and silver oxide-mordenite (AgO/MOR) nanocomposites toward decontamination of toxic chemical warfare agent’s (CWA)simulant 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide (CEES, blistering agent simulant) and dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP, nerve agent simulant) at normal condition of temperature (30 ± 2 °C) and pressure. Composite of MOR zeolite with polyaniline (PANI) was prepared by oxidative polymerization using ammonium per sulfate as an initiator. The composites of MOR zeolite and metal oxide (CuO/MOR) and (AgO/MOR) were prepared by taking aqueous solution of corresponding metal nitrates using ion exchange technique. Adsorption experiments were monitored by gas chromatography – flame ionize detector (GC-FID) to detect ions concentration. Nanocomposites were characterized by techniques such as XRD, FTIR, FESEM-EDX, TGA, UV-Vis and BET. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern shows the crystalline nature of parent zeolite and its nanocomposites. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) analysis reveals that mordenite, PANI/MOR and AgO/MOR have polyhedron, agglomerated rough and fibrous elongated surfaces, respectively. From SEM analysis, obtained particle size was in the range of 2 to 14.5 μm. Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis depicts that the surface area of MOR, PANI/MOR, AgO/MOR and CuO/MOR were 93.07, 166.49, 120.31and 93.51 m2/g, respectively. AgO/MOR and PANI/MOR nanocomposites were found good adsorbent candidate. The nanocomposite of AgO/MOR was able to decontaminate ∼ 100% in 6 h. We are also able to remove DMMP by PANI/MOR up to ∼ 100%. Graphical Abstract
Elektronik Sigara Kullanımına Yönelik Tutum ve Kullanım Özellikleri: İzmir Örneklemi

Amac: Calismamizda toplumun e-sigara kullanim ozelliklerinin ve e-sigaraya yonelik tutumunun degerlendirilmesi amaclanmistir. Yontem: Izmir’in 7 farkli ilcesinde yuzyuze yapilan kesitsel bir alan arastirmasidir. Sahada, cinsiyet, yas ve egitim duzeyi dagilimina gore bir planlama yapilmistir. Tesadufi orneklem metoduna gore 353 kisiye ulasilmistir. Bulgular: Katilimcilarin %19’u yasami boyunca en az bir kere e-sigara kullandigini beyan etmistir. E-sigaraya yonelik tutumda sigara kullanim ozellikleri, bilgi kaynagi, sosyal cevre ve bakis acisi belirleyici gorulmektedir. E-sigaraya yonelik tutumda cinsiyete ozgu ozellikler farklilik yaratmamistir. Sadece, kadinlar, e-sigaranin pasif icicilige yol actigini erkeklere gore daha fazla dusunmektedir. E-sigara kullanan kisiler, e-sigaranin geleneksel sigaraya gore daha az zararli oldugunu dusunmektedir. E-sigara, geleneksel sigarayi kullanan kisilerce daha sik tercih edilmekte, ozellikle ikili kullanim on plana cikmaktadir. Bir diger durum ise, sigarayi birakanlarin e-sigarayi tercih etmesidir. Cunku e-sigara, sigara bagimliligindan kurtulmada bir alternatif olarak gorulmektedir. Sonuc: Bulgularimizin, e-sigara konusunda toplumun tutumunun sekillenmesine, topluma yonelik planlanacak koruyucu faaliyetlere ve tedavi hizmetlerine rehberlik etmesi beklenmektedir.
Membranverfahren in der industriellen Abwasserbehandlung

This report presents the possibilities of utilising membrane methods for the treatment of industrial wastewater, covering following different systems: substance separation with porous membranes; substance separation with non-porous membranes, and membrane activation methods. The last is an aerobic biological wastewater treatment method where the unit for secondary treatment is replaced by a membrane filtration unit. This latter method is the focus of the article. The positive effects of these methods are described, such as high influent concentrations, small plant volumes, high demands on effluent quality, re-use of purified wastewater, evenly distributed hydraulic load, and low area availability. The report presents examples of how these methods have been successfully used in both pilot plants and on an industrial scale. It can be concluded that membrane methods can successfully be utilised in industrial wastewater treatment, with new applications being found on an almost daily basis.
A practical methodology for enhancement and detection of transient faults in a gearbox without prior fault feature information

Gear fault diagnosis has been the focus of research in both academia and industry in the past. Due to the complicated structures of gearboxes, the vibration signals collected from the gearbox casings are comprised of multiple sources, in which the fault-related components may be easily masked by the Gaussian and non-Gaussian noises (e.g. random external shocks and gear meshing harmonics). Moreover, fault feature frequencies of interest cannot always be obtained in advance in practical applications. Therefore, it is necessary to choose an appropriate signal processing method for gear fault diagnosis. In this study, a new practical methodology is proposed to extract the transient fault features from a gearbox vibration signal corrupted by complicated interference without prior fault feature information. In the proposed method, a modified self-adaptive noise cancellation (MSANC) algorithm is first developed for removing the interferences of gear meshing harmonics adaptively, which can overcome the shortcomings of the traditional SANC in parameter selection and convergence performance. Based on the de-noised signal, a cyclic spectral analysis tool called the fast spectral correlation and assisted by the multipoint optimal minimum entropy deconvolution adjusted algorithm is then applied to enhance and detect the certain and potential gear faults. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by a numerical simulation and two experimental scenarios that are compared to an advanced blind optimal demodulation band selection technique. The results reveal that the proposed methodology has good capability to detect mono- and multiple gear faults under complicated interferences, and can be regarded as an efficient method for practical gear fault diagnosis, especially for applications where the fault feature frequencies are unknown in advance.
The Cross-Cultural Relevance of Indigenous Measures: The South African Personality Inventory (SAPI), Family Orientation, and Well-Being in New Zealand

Indigenous personality research often remains limited to its cultural context of origin. Previous cross-cultural examinations of indigenous models have typically focused on East–West comparisons and have paid scant attention to the predictive validity of indigenous models in new contexts. The present study addresses the replicability of the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI) and its predictive validity for family orientation and well-being in New Zealand European (n = 428) and Māori students (n = 226). The structure of the SAPI in New Zealand was equivalent to the structure identified in South Africa and had metric invariance between the two New Zealand groups. The SAPI social-relational scales explained additional variance above neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness in family orientation, but not in well-being. Mediation path analyses suggested that personality played a similar role for family orientation and well-being in the two groups when assessed by the SAPI, although group differences were suggested when using the Big Five Inventory. Our findings indicate that indigenously derived models, developed with the aim to represent culturally salient concepts, can be relevant well beyond their culture of origin and offer an enriched understanding of personality’s role for important outcomes across cultures.