Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Selective Morphing through Distributed Compliance with Variable Stiffness Based on Embedded Bi-Stable Structures

Morphing systems able to efficiently adjust their characteristics to resolve the conflicting demands of changing operating conditions offer great potential for enhanced performance and functionality. The main practical challenge consists in combining the desired compliance to accomplish radical reversible geometry modifications at reduced actuation effort with high stiffness necessary for operational reasons. The present thesis addresses these contradictory requirements through a novel approach combining the proven conformal shape adaptation benefits of distributed compliance with purely elastic stiffness variability provided by monolithically embedded bi-stable laminates. Switching between the stable states of the internal elements allows the global stiffness to be modified on demand at reduced actuation effort, activating deformation modes not attainable with uniform distributed topologies. First, a numerical design methodology is developed for thermally-induced bi-stable laminates to fulfil the envisaged function of variable stiffness components integrated in a larger substructure. Bi-stability assessment relies on two independent criteria: a controlled displacement cool-down test, and the characteristic strain energy profile featuring minima corresponding to the equilibrium shapes. Tailoring the spatial stacking sequence distribution permits controlling the resulting stiffness characteristics, while satisfying the embeddability objective of clamping two opposite edges without bi-stability loss. Second, the feasibility of the proposed strategy is proved numerically and experimentally by means of a NACA 0012 aerofoil with two bi-stable elements as part of a straightforward topology. A simple mechanical test demonstrates
OARSI ) recommendations for the management of knee and hip osteoarthritis

Yves Henrotin a,∗, Marc Marty b, Thierry Appelboom c, Bernard Avouac b, Francis Berenbaum d, Valérie Briole e, Patrick Djian e, Maxim Dougados f, Romain Forestier g, Stéphane Genevay h, Michel Lequesne i, Emmanuel Maheu d, Serge Poiraudeau j, François Rannou j, Pascal Richette k, Tim Spector l, Jean-Emile Dubuc m, Xavier Chevalier b, au nom de la section Arthrose de la Société française de rhumatologie a Unité de recherche sur l’os et la cartilage, institut de pathologie, étage 5, CHU Sart-Tilman, université de Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgique b Service de rhumatologie, hôpital Henri-Mondor, université Paris-XII, Créteil, France c Service de rhumatologie, hôpital Erasme, université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgique d Service de rhumatologie, hôpital Saint-Antoine, université Paris-VI, France e Institut de l’appareil locomoteur Nollet, 23, rue Brochant, 75017 Paris, France f Service de rhumatologie A, hôpital Cochin, université Paris-V, Paris, France g Centre de recherche rhumatologique et thermal, 73100 Aix-les-Bains, France h Service de rhumatologie, hôpitaux universitaires de Genève, Suisse i Service de rhumatologie, hôpital Léopold-Bellan, 75014 Paris, France j Service de médecine physique et réadaptation, hôpital Cochin, université Paris-V, Inserm IFR 25 Handicap, France k Fédération de rhumatologie, hôpital Lariboisière, université Paris-VII, 75475 Paris cedex 10, France l Twin Research Unit, St Thomas Hospital, Londres, Royaume-Uni m Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc, 10, avenue d’Hippocrate, 1200 Bruxelles, Belgique
The investigation of suprasegmental transfer by American learners of Japanese

This research examines second language acquisition (SLA) of English speakers learning Japanese by investigating how acoustic features of the first language influence the learners’ pronunciation. Acoustic features concerned here are phonetic elements of word prominence. Beckman (1984) claims English is considered a stress-accent language in which prominence is indicated by the combination of pitch and loudness, whereas Japanese is a pitchaccent language in which prominence is solely indicated by pitch. Based on these studies, both pitch and loudness seem to appear in prominence of the learners’ pronunciation, whereas only pitch is involved in that of Japanese speakers’, which indicates phonetic transfer. The data consisted of recordings of ten Japanese words pronounced by six American learners and three native Japanese speakers. Pitch and loudness of all vowels in each word were measured using Praat. Correlation between the highest pitch and loudness within the words was examined to compare pronunciations between English and Japanese. The result showed that correlation between pitch and loudness in the learners’ pronunciation was higher than that in Japanese speakers’. This research contributes to the study of sound acquisition which is less common in SLA and helps learners of a pitchaccent language to become more proficient in pronunciation.
Helgeland: An Atlanticarchipelago (Norway)

The Helgeland archipelago stretches across 200 km, extending from Trondelag in the south to Salten in the north. This iconic part oftheNorwegian coast comprises a myriad of islands and islets (more than 12,000) and large shallow sea areas (fig. 61 and 62). All along the coast there are white beaches, sheltered coves, fjords and steep towering mountain walls rising straight from the open sea. A wealth of marine life thrives in the area, spanning from the smallest microalgae to the largest mammals. Harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica), white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) and greylag goose (Anser anser) are among typical species encountered.
Nano-scale simulation for advanced gate dielectrics

As a result of aggressive scaling of CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) transistors, the thickness of the gate insulator is approaching atomic dimensions. In advanced CMOS with such ultrathin dielectric films,atomic-scale phenomena play an important role in performance and reliability. Simulation is a powerful tool for investigating and understanding atomic scale phenomena. We investigated the electronic properties of the Si(100)/SiO 2 interface with the first-principles molecular dynamics method. The behavior and the electronic properties of the defect, hydrogen, and nitrogen atoms at the interface, which have a serious influence on the electronic properties of the insulating film, were also investigated. We also simulated the annealing behavior of aluminates and silicates of Hf and Zr, which are candidates for the high-dielectric-constant gate dielectric materials of future CMOS, by employing the classical molecular dynamics method. From the results of our simulation, we can obtain a guideline to control the gate dielectric materials and the interfaces with the Si substrate.
Effect of seasonal variation in trophic conditions and the gametogenic cycle on δ13C and δ15N levels of diploid and triploid Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas

Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes were investigated in separate organs of diploid and sterile triploid Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas for 13 mo, together with changes in chemical and isotope composition of suspended matter sampled from an intertidal mudflat within Marennes-Oleron Bay, France. Particulate organic matter (POM) was a mixture of pelagic and benthic material with a predominance of neritic phytoplankton in spring, and resuspended microphytobenthos in summer and autumn. A remarkable shift of +30/00 in d13C was reflected in both diploids and triploids from spring to summer, and further temporal differences were observed amongst their tissues. Seasonal changes in POM d15N were also reflected in oyster tissues, with digestive gland and muscle tissues showing the largest and the least variability, respectively. Use of d13C and C:N ratio relationships in separate tissues allowed for an assessment of the influences of trophic condition, seasonal changes, and gametogenic cycle on tissue d13C. Diploid digestive gland d13C matched those of gonads, and differences between diploids and triploids in digestive gland and mantle d13C were less than 10/00 during gametogenesis. The reproductive and rest periods were easily distinguished in these tissues and were characterised by enriched d13C values in summerautumn compared with spring, which is consistent with POM d13C seasonal changes. A similar trend was observed in muscle, with a preferential incorporation of 13C-enriched carbon during the summerautumn growing season. However, despite the similar roles of mantle and digestive gland in lipid synthesis in both diploids and triploids, the correlation of d13C with the C:N ratio highlighted the transfer of lipids to gonads in diploids and their differential allocation to growing tissues in sterile triploids.
Landscape Disturbance and Lake Response: Temporal and Spatial Perspectives

Abstract Lake sediments are natural archives that record the response of a lake to both in-lake processes and catchment disturbance (over a range of timescales). The response (or lack of) of a lake to external forcing is a function of the severity of the disturbance (and its areal extent) but is also strongly mediated by catchment characteristics, such as slope and hydrological connectivity. Many studies of recent lake disturbance have focussed on anthropogenic disruption of geochemical cycles, e.g. acidification and eutrophication, which because of their “ecological” power appear to over-ride catchment filters. Lake sediments also record the variability of natural disturbance regimes themselves (fire, volcanic ash falls, species invasions, and climate) and the consequent lake response but this aspect has received much less attention. The possibility of using lake sediments to address long-term (102 – 103 yr) interactions between e.g., climate, catchment ontogeny and disturbance events (and their synergies) has not been fully explored, largely because of an over-riding emphasis on climate as a direct driver of ecological change. Traditionally, limnology has also focussed on a few key sites (sentinels) but in response to the development of landscape ecology has progressively embraced a regional approach to understanding how lakes respond to external forcing (climate) and disturbance (“lakes in the landscape”). Although the interaction of a lake with its catchment is implicit, i.e. via hydrological and nutrient loading, palaeolimnologists rarely take an explicitly spatial view of this interaction nor have they considered spatial location (i.e. response of a number of lakes within a lake district). Arguably, the inherent spatial variability of terrestrial disturbance has been ignored by palaeolimnologists, largely as a result of focussing on one core from a single lake. This paper reviews the impact of terrestrial disturbance on lakes but also argues for explicit consideration of space and location in determining the resultant temporal variability of the ecological response. The importance of within-lake spatial heterogeneity is also high-lighted (i.e. the major contribution of the littoral zone to both diversity and production). However, any attempt to determine spatially replicated (i.e. at a regional scale), holistic (i.e. whole lake) responses to disturbance will encounter considerable problems associated with dating, loss of temporal resolution and among site comparison. Despite this, it is clear that recent methodological developments in the area of biomarkers, compound specific stable isotopes coupled with progress in dating (age-models), ecological modelling and statistical analysis offer the possibility of undertaking regionally-replicated studies of lake response to natural disturbance, thereby contributing and expanding our understanding of ecosystem dynamics at a range of spatial and temporal scales.
Dynamics of bacterial metabolic profile and community structure during the mineralization of organic carbon in intensive swine farm wastewater

Land application of intensive swine farm wastewater has raised serious environmental concerns due to the accumulation and microbially mediated transformation of large amounts of swine wastewater organic C (SWOC). Therefore, the study of SWOC mineralization and dynamics of wastewater microorganisms is essential to understand the environmental impacts of swine wastewater application. We measured the C mineralization of incubated swine wastewaters with high (wastewater H) and low (wastewater L) organic C concentrations. The dynamics of bacteria metabolic profile and community structure were also investigated. The results showed that SWOC mineralization was properly fitted by the two-simultaneous reactions model. The initial potential rate of labile C mineralization of wastewater H was 46% higher than that of wastewater L, whereas the initial potential rates of recalcitrant C mineralization of wastewaters H and L were both around 23 mg L -1 d -1 . The bacterial functional and structural diversities significantly decreased for both the wastewaters during SWOC mineralization, and were all negatively correlated to specific UV absorbance (SUVA 254; P < 0.01). The bacteria in the raw wastewaters exhibited functional similarity, and both metabolic profile and community structure changed with the mineralization of SWOC, mainly under the influence of SUVA 254 (P < 0.001). These results suggested that SWOC mineralization was characterized by rapid mineralization of labile C and subsequent slow decomposition of recalcitrant C pool, and the quality of SWOC varied between the wastewaters with different amounts of organic C. The decreased bio-availability of dissolved organic matter affected the dynamics of wastewater bacteria during SWOC mineralization.
Pile-up on X-ray CCD instruments

This paper presents a statistical and analytical analysis of the pile-up phenomenon on X-ray CCD detectors, whereby two incoming X-rays are counted as one. The probability of measuring configurations involving 1, 2, 3 or 4 pixels is written down for a uniform incoming flux, thus allowing the computation of the flux loss (fraction of photons rejected because of pile-up) and of the pile-up fraction (fraction of events with wrong energy). For detectors with pixels which are small compared to the point spread function (PSF) of the telescope (such as XMM/EPIC-MOS or ASCA/SIS ) the formulae can be readily integrated over space to predict and account for pile-up on the total flux of point sources. It is shown that if only single events are selected the total pile-up fraction can never get very high for usual PSF shapes. The main effect is a loss of efficiency which is perfectly quantifiable. It is concluded that taking extreme care to avoid pile-up by adapting the instrument setting (for example restricting the useful area of the CCD) may not be so important after all, although it remains necessary if it is important to collect as many photons as possible from the source. An extension to the theory is proposed for detectors with pixels comparable to the PSF width (such as AXAF/ACIS ), and for extended sources.
Maintenance optimization in stochastic multicomponent systems: A dynamic programming approach

The main purpose of the thesis is to investigate the possibilities of utilizing dynamic programming as a solution method for the stochastic opportunistic replacement problem (SORP). The objective in the SORP is to choose a maintenance policy that will minimize the expected total maintenance cost over a planning period for a system with stochastic component lives. Each component failure includes a maintenance occasion cost and a cost for replacing the failed component. A maintenance policy is a rule which determines whether it is beneficial to replace more than the necessary components given the system state. A dynamic programming model is developed and some theoretical properties of the problem are presented. Three main methods are analyzed; an exact dynamic programming model, an infinite horizon simplification, and an approximate dynamic programming (ADP) model. The size of the dynamic programming model becomes computationally intractable even for medium size problems, so the main results of the thesis is based on smaller test problems. For the problems where the exact dynamic programming model is applicable, the model gives superior results compared to other maintenance policies. That is, the total maintenance cost obtained by the dynamic programming model is lower than the other policies maintenance costs. The infinite horizon method gives suprisingly good results even though the simplification is substantional. The ADP model does not perform as well, but can on the other hand be used on larger problem instances.
Emerging through Technological Capability - An Overview of IndiaÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Technological Trajectory

Indias emergence in the world economy over the last decade, has often, in popular discourse, been attributed, at least to a large extent, to its sustained efforts towards technological learning and capacity building. In this paper we present an overview of Indias technological trajectory with a view to understanding the nuances of Indias technological capability and the role it has played in the process of Indias economic progress. Our conclusion is that while India has successfully nurtured its high-end human capital for technological learning and is poised for a smooth transition to a knowledge economy, there has been a tragic neglect of low end human capital investment for productivity gains in mass manufacturing. This can not be ignored while carving out an appropriate technological strategy for India for a sustainable and inclusive growth process.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MCR METHOD FOR ESTIMATION OF PARAMETERS IN CONTINUOUS TIME MARKOV CHAIN MODELS

Parameter estimation techniques have been successfully and extensively applied to deterministic models but are in early development for stochastic models. In this paper, we introduce a new method, the minimum cost realization method or MCR method, for approximating parameters for a continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) model. This method is an adaption of well-established techniques used in parameter estimation for deterministic systems to account for the variability inherent in stochastic systems. Comparing this method to an established method, the MCR method provides significantly better estimates for parameter values on the two example models considered. AMS Subject Classification: 60H35, 60J22, 60J27, 65C20, 45Q05, 49N45
The effects of Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) on students' perceptions of classroom community at a Hispanic postsecondary serving institution

First year students enrolled in college have faced many challenges and difficulties throughout the years that continue to spark inventive measures to address them within higher education. As institutions of higher education approach student success and retention rates with innovative programs, there is still an issue of concern sparking the assumption that these initiatives are not working. The main concentration for this research was to identify if the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program affected students’ perceptions of classroom community, connectedness, and learning within the first year of their postsecondary education. Results suggest that female students appear to have a stronger perception of classroom community, connectedness, and learning with the AVID method of instruction whereas males only have a stronger perception of learning with the AVID method.
Lessons learned for affective data and intelligent tutoring systems

Human-to-human tutoring is the most effective manner for learning. Human tutors, however, pay attention to the cognitive and affective states of the learners and use the knowledge to adjust instructional strategies. According to theory, data about the learner informs data about instruction informs instructional designs and impacts student learning. The crux of these type of operations is the ability to recognize affect in the learner, but deployed systems to do this have not had significant success with the “one size fits all” type of generalized models. An alternative to this approach is individualized models, which have shown limited success to date in other domains. This paper furthers the investigation of individualized models and validates the approach, showing that it can produce models of acceptable quality, but that doing so does not obviate the experimenter from creating quality generalized models prior to individualizing.
Everywhere meagre and everywhere null sets

We introduce new classes of small subsets of the reals (connected with Mycielski ideals), having natural combinatorial definitions, namely everywhere meagre and everywhere null sets. We investigate properties of these sets, in particular we show that these classes are closed under taking products and projections. We also prove several relations between these classes and other well-known classes of small subsets of the reals (e.g. universally meagre sets or strongly meagre sets).
Thirteen years of observations on primary sugars and sugar alcohols over remote Chichijima Island in the western North Pacific

Abstract. In order to understand the atmospheric transport of bioaerosols, we conducted long-term observations of primary sugars and sugar alcohols over remote Chichijima Island in the western North Pacific from 2001 to 2013. Our results showed that concentrations of total sugar compounds for 13 years ranged from 1.2 to 310 ng m−3 (average of 46 ± 49 ng m−3). We found that atmospheric circulations significantly affect the seasonal variations of bioaerosol distributions over the western North Pacific. The primary sugars (glucose and fructose) maximized in summer, possibly due to an increased emission of the vegetation products from local vascular plants in Chichijima. We also found higher concentrations of sugar components (arabitol, mannitol, and trehalose) in more recent years during summer and autumn, suggesting an enhanced emission of fungal and microbial species over the island. Sucrose peaked in late winter to early spring, indicating a springtime pollen contribution by long-range atmospheric transport, while elevated concentrations of sucrose in early summer could be explained by long-range transport of soil dust from Southeast Asia to Chichijima. Sucrose and trehalose were found to present increasing trends from 2001 to 2013, while total sugar components did not show any clear trends during the 13-year period. Positive matrix factorization analyses suggested the locally emitted sugar compounds as well as long-range-transported airborne pollen grains, microbes, and fungal spores are the major contributors to total sugar compounds in the Chichijima aerosols. Backward air mass trajectories support the atmospheric transport of continental aerosols from the Asian continent during winter and spring over Chichijima.
EEG Analysis to Decode Tactile Sensory Perception Using Neural Techniques

This chapter introduces a novel approach to examine the scope of tactile sensory perception as a possible modality of treatment of patients suffering from certain mental disorder using a Support Vector Machines with kernelized neural network. Experiments are designed to understand the perceptual difference of schizophrenic patients from normal and healthy subjects with respect to three different touch classes, including soft touch, rubbing, massaging and embracing and their three typical subjective responses. Experiments undertaken indicate that for normal subjects and schizophrenic patients, the average percentage accuracy in classification of all the three classes: pleasant/acceptable/unpleasant is comparable with their respective oral responses. In addition, for schizophrenic patients, the percentage accuracy for acceptable class is very poor of the order of below 12%, which for normal subjects is quite high (42%). Performance analysis reveals that the proposed classifier outperforms its competitors with respect to classification accuracy in all the above three classes.