Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dust physics in the nucleus of NGC 4151

The unified model of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) presumes the existence of a so-called dusty torus around the outer edge of the broad-line region. Despite the solid observational evidence for the existence of dust around AGNs and our growing information on the characteristic scales of these obscuring tori, the origin of this dust and its morphology are not yet well understood. Using dust reverberation mapping, we monitor the effects of AGN continuum variability to determine the temperature and covering factor of the circumnuclear dust, in order to constrain the physical conditions for dust survival and formation in the radiation field of the AGN. Multi-band photometry observations in the z,Y, J,H, and K bands were carried out on the nucleus of the prototypical Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4151 over six epochs from 2010 January to June, supported by spectroscopic observations, in order to investigate the response of the hot dust to varying accretion disk emission. Our data confirm that most of the hot dust reacts to increased radiation from the central source with a delayed brightening of ∼50 days. In accretion disk brightening, we see no signatures of dust destruction in our data. The innermost dust appears to increase in temperature rather than sublimate, suggesting that it is cooler than sublimation temperature and located beyond the current sublimation radius. We characterize the dust geometry by interpreting the wavelength-dependent reverberation response with a simplified torus model, pointing to a static radially extended distribution of the central (∼0.1 pc) hot dust.
The impact of persistent shocks and concave objective functions on collusive behavior

The model proposed in this paper explains three stylized facts derived from case evidence: Cartel formation is more likely (i) when the industry has been hit by a negative profitability shock under the condition that (ii) this shock is rather persistent. (iii) This pattern is independent from the type of the shock, i.e. cost shocks, demand shocks etc. The paper analyzes the incentive for cartel formation when the industry switches between a good state with high profits and a bad state with low profits. The transition between states is modeled by a Markov-process that allows for transitory or persistent shocks. The decision maker incurs opportunity costs of collusion and chooses the conduct of a firm in order to maximize the present value of a concave objective function. The model shows that depending on the value of the opportunity costs and the discount factor collusion can be stable in no, one, or both states of the industry. When collusion is stable in only one state, this is the good state when industry conditions are transitory. When industry conditions are persistent, collusion is stable in the bad state.
Analysis of Individual and Environmental Factors for Road Traffic Accidents in Sirjan-Bandarabbas Road between 2010 and 2011, Iran

Sirjan -Bandarabbas road is one of the important commercial roads in Iran and for Sirjan’s area situation and relevance between Sirjan and other states in Iran so high percentage of goods that forwarded from Bandarabbas to other states transit from Sirjan . Therefore this road is as one important transition road and traffic road too . This study analyzed road traffic accidents were occurred between 2010 and 201in Sirjan- Bandarabbas road. Individual and demographic factors include Time of accidents, Drivers age, time of the days, seat belt and safety laws, Guilty vehicle, Mode of accident and education Level. Time of day analyses suggested that the highest percentage of road traffic injuries occurred in the time group between 12-18 hours. Drivers with the age group of 36-50 had more involvement in death accidents. The findings of this study also revealed that most of the collisions was front to back and front to side. Female drivers were found to be generally safer drivers than their male counterparts; male drivers had a higher involvement rate in road traffic accidents. This study indicated that Observe safety laws, Guilty vehicle and Mode of accidents have a meaningful relationship with Type of accidents in road traffic accidents in Sirjan Bandarabbas road.
Successful use of e‐procurement in supply chains

Purpose – Electronic support of internal supply chains for direct or production goods has been a major element during the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that has taken place since the late 1980s. However, supply chains to indirect material suppliers were not usually included due to low transaction volumes, low product values and low strategic importance of these goods. Dedicated information systems for streamlining indirect goods supply chains have emerged since the late 1990s and subsequently have faced a broad diffusion in practice. The concept of these e‐procurement solutions has also been described broadly in the literature. However, studies on how companies use these e‐procurement solutions and what factors are critical to their implementation are only emerging. This research aims to explore the introduction of e‐procurement systems and their contribution to the management of indirect goods supply chain.Design/methodology/approach – Chooses a two‐part qualitative approac.
Hybrid conversational recommender system using temporal difference

Recommender systems or recommendation systems are a subset of information filtering system that used to anticipate the 'evaluation' or 'preference' that user would feed to an item. In recent years E-commerce applications are widely using Recommender system. Generally the most popular E-commerce sites are probably music, news, books, research articles, and products. A conversational recommender system uses critiquing as a feedback to efficiently retrieve a product. Critiquing is common and powerful form of feedback, where a user can express their feature preferences. The expectation is that in each cycle the system retrieves the product that best satisfy the user's preferences from a minimal information input. The Reinforcement Learning (RL) approaches will be used to improve retrieval quality based on combination of compatibility and similarity scores. Reinforcement Learning (RL) reward function approach will be used with existing critiquing strategies to provide compatibility that will take into account for both, the moment at which the user makes a review and the number of satisfied review. This work focuses on new and existing strategies for conversational recommender system that will have potential to improve retrieval quality.
The Improvement of Quantum Genetic Algorithm and Its Application on Function Optimization

To accelerate the evolutionary process and increase the probability to find the optimal solution, the following methods are proposed to improve the conventional quantum genetic algorithm: an improved method to determine the rotating angle, the self-adaptive rotating angle strategy, adding the quantum mutation operation and quantum disaster operation. The efficiency and accuracy to search the optimal solution of the algorithm are greatly improved. Simulation test shows that the improved quantum genetic algorithm is more effective than the conventional quantum genetic algorithm to solve some optimization problems.
A verification study of the Patterns for Reducing Exceptions and Improving Business Process Flexibility

Exceptions are the events or situations that prevent business processes from completing normally. Authors proposed a conceptual level pattern for reducing exceptions in our previous studies. In this paper, authors try to validate our previously proposed patterns for reducing exceptions with a case study in Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) to show how DEMO could be used in analyzing exceptions. Furthermore, exception handling level is also clarified and compared. Through this research, authors discovered that exceptions generated by transformation, like business model change and strategy change, could not be solved only by improving implementation level of “how current work is done”, but also has to consider about “perform current work differently” and “perform different work”.
Energy recuperation in fully electric vehicles subject to stability and drivability requirements

This paper presents a combined control and estimation framework for energy recuperation in fully electric vehicles. We consider a fully electric powertrain, with a driven front axle operating on low friction road surfaces. Our objective is to find the blending of regenerative and friction braking that maximizes the amount of recovered energy (i.e., the regenerative braking), while (i) delivering the total braking force requested by the driver, (ii) preserving the yaw stability as well as driveability of the vehicle. The proposed framework, which consists of a predictive braking control algorithm and a vehicle state and parameters estimator, is appealing because it requires minimal re-design efforts in order to cope with different powertrain layouts (e.g., individual wheel motors) and/or control objective and design and physical constraints. We present simulation results, obtained in three sets of manoeuvres, showing promising results in terms of energy recuperation, vehicle stability and driveability.
The Future of Organic Fibres

Organic fibers which are produced without chemical fertilizer , pesticide and genetically modified seeds (GMO) under the certification for organic fibres processing and these are generally natural fibers. Organic fibers require much more time, labour, cost value, care and special agriculture areas than conventional fibers. Organic fibers are not enough to make the cloth safe since finishing treatments may entail some additional toxic effects. Therefore Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) which includes environmental and social aspects of whole production has been accepted recently. Organic textile production has environmental- ecological, economical, social positive impacts: Environmental- ecological impacts: Prevention of the pollution of natural sources by ceasing chemical fertilizer; chemical pesticide; contribution to prevention of global warming; decrease of consumption of the natural sources: soil, water, weather; decrease of energy requirement; standards for the protection of human health and biological diversity by textile standards; decrease of waste such as biological degradation, recycling; Economical impacts: Cost value of organic fibre production and selling; Social impacts: Promotion of organic fibres, management of organic fibres. The future of organic fibers in the world depends on some dimensions such as textile, agriculture, environment- ecology, social life, economy etc. It is as follows mainly that the amount of consumption of organic fibers in textile area instead of other fibers; the growing possibilities of organic fibers in agriculture; positive impacts of organic textiles to environment and ecology; people becoming conscious about their health and environment by wearing organic textile products; buying capability of consumers to wear these organic textiles which are more expensive than conventional ones etc. will determine the future of organic textile production in the world. A brief review will be done on environmental subjects above and the future of organic fibers will be revealed at above conditions.
RNA Interference Mediated Serine Protease Gene (Spbtry1) Knockdown Affects Growth and Mortality in the Soybean Pod Borer (Lepidoptera: Olethreutidae)

Abstract The soybean pod borer, Leguminivora glycinivorella Matsumura (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), is an economically significant soybean pest in northeastern Asia. Serine proteases are crucial enzymes responsible for protein digestion in herbivorous lepidopterans. In this study, a gene (Spbtry1) encoding a soybean pod borer serine protease was cloned from the organism's midgut. The Spbtry1 open reading frame encoded a 269 amino acid protein with a predicted molecular mass of approximately 29 kDa. Alignment of Spbtry1 with trypsins and chymotrypsins from other insects revealed a high degree of conservation in the putative catalytic domain region. Analysis by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction indicated that Spbtry1 was specifically expressed in the midgut, its transcript existed constitutively in the larval stage, and its expression was highest in the 3rd instar larval stage. RNA interference indicated that Spbtry1 expression levels decreased on diets containing Spbtry1 double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). Larvae had significantly lower body weight (18.7 ± 0.25 mg in the Spbtry1 dsRNA-fed group versus 30.1 ± 0.78 mg and 29.9 ± 0.88 mg in the phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and green fluorescent protein (GFP) dsRNA-fed groups, respectively (Student's t-test, P < 0.01) and higher mortality (43.8%) than the control groups (20.8% in PBS-treated and 19.5% in GFP dsRNA-treated) after 15 d, suggesting that Spbtry1 is important for soybean pod borer larval growth and development.
Identifying and Managing Risks Inherent in e-Government Project Implementation: Requirements for new Tools and Methodologies

e-Government implementation in developing countries is usually very different than it is in developed countries, with different strategy, different challenges, and different risks. One thing developed and developing countries have in common with regard to e-Government is that it involves very large, complex systems with numerous internal and external entities and interfaces resulting in very dynamic non-linear behavior. There are many tools and techniques for use in examining and understanding systems, even large, complex ones. More and more research on e-Government systems is completed every year. Even so, the majority of e-Government projects partially or totally fail. For developing countries, these failures are extremely costly. More is needed. This chapter explores the use of system dynamics modeling to drill down into an e-Government system’s behavior and illustrate its depth and non-linear nature, i.e. how foreign direct investment flows through finance, technology, and strategy to impact risk.
Clustering of environmental functional data

Often environmental scientists face the problem of clustering different sites, areas or stations in a monitoring network in order to identify some common features among data collected at different locations. In a functional data analysis approach, each location can be seen as a specific individual, on which noisy observations from a continuous random function are collected at discrete times. The definition of suitable models for samples of such functional observations, can provide useful insights about the dynamics of the variables of interest. In such a context, a cluster can be defined as a group of individuals (i.e. locations, stations, areas etc.) where the observed trajectories share common salient features. We present some classification results in a water quality network and focus on some open issues.
Mitochondrial D-loop sequence variation among Central Javanese Duck in Indonesia

This study was realized to determine the genetic variation of Central Javanese duck based on the D-Loop mtDNA gene. D-loop gene was amplified using PCR technique by specific primer and sequenced using dideoxy termination method with ABI automatic sequencer. ClustalW from MEGA-6.06 software program was employed for multiple alignments of nucleotide sequences. Nucleotide sequences of D-loop gene of mtDMA from the Central Javanese duck were aligned together with other Anas isolates from Genbank using ClustalW of MEGA-6.06 program. The estimation of genetic distance and phylogenetic tree construction were analyzed by Neighbor-Joining method, whereas the calculation of distance matrix was performed using Kimura 2-parameter. Multiple alignments obtained were 720 nucleotides at position 56 to 779 at the 5 'end. The results of the polymorphism analysis on D-loop sequences produced 23 haplotypes. However, this haplotype information does not represent the relationship among the geographical origins of duck with the certain duck species name. Moreover, a total number of 32 variable sites were identified. Insertions were detected in four sequences (126, 155, 771 and 779 nucleotide number). In the phylogenetic analysis, it is safe to conclude that the Central Javanese duck is closely related to Anas platyrhynchos and Anas zonorynchos .
BRCA 1 AND BRCA 2 GENES MUTATION ANALYSIS IN PATIENTS WITH A FAMILY HISTORY OF BREAST AND OVARIAN CANCER

Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndromes can be caused by loss-of-function germline mutations in one of the tumour suppressor genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 (1–3). The lifetime risk for carriers of germline mutations in these genes is estimated to be as high as 50 to 85 percent for breast cancer and 15 to 45 percent for ovarian cancer. Although BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations account for a substantial proportion of inherited breast and ovarian cancer (4), it seems likely that additional susceptibility genes will be discovered in the future (5). Approximately 10% of ovarian and 7% of breast cancer cases in the general population are estimated to be carriers of a breast/ovarian cancer susceptibility gene; these women are found primarily in families characterized by multiple cases of early onset of breast cancer (6).
The Progress of GHG Markets: Opportunities and Risks

The climate negotiations at the COP15 in December 2009 did not produce a new international treaty with binding emissions commitments but the Copenhagen Accord for dealing with post-2012 climate change. Given the current climate negotiation process it is unlikely that we will see a global climate agreement soon on a global cap between all Convention members participating in a single carbon market. We may be more likely to see a stepwise process moving towards this scenario, most likely involving linkages between different national policy programs when it comes to mitigation as well as offsetting emissions. In such a process countries will offer commitments based on their domestic abilities, preferences and policies, norms and institutions. National and sub-national policies are thus likely to be the de-facto building blocks of nations’ abilities to make and fulfill international commitments. However, also with multilateral mitigation programs without binding commitments, carbon markets will be needed as well as international authorities that support measurement, reporting and verification rules and the international registries. Such markets will necessarily be complicated and temporary in a world without an overarching binding agreement. There will be numerous tradeoffs between different kinds of second-best arrangements. The purpose of this report is to build knowledge about the effects of the development of regional and international carbon markets and the auxiliary technology agreements that might be needed. Among the topics we address are: the evolution and integration of carbon markets, the impacts of policy and technology cost uncertainty on the cost of meeting targets through a carbon market mechanism, the effect of banking, price floors and ceilings, institutional constraints and technological change in the further development of carbon markets and their links to other environmental policy instruments, and the potential of REDD-plus to encourage sustainable forest development and climate mitigation.
Three-dimensional modeling of 900-MHz and 2.44-GHz radio propagation in corridors

A three-dimensional (3-D) propagation model, combined with a patched-wall model, has been developed to predict radio loss in a corridor environment. The ray-tracing technique is used and combined with the ray-fixed coordinate system to simplify the computations of transmission, reflection, and diffraction coefficients in 3-D space. The computed path loss is compared with the measured value of 900-MHz and 2.44-GHz radio propagation along a hallway and gives a reasonable agreement. It is also found that the fields transmitted through the interior walls give the major contribution to the received field when the radio path lies around a corner.
Analysis of Long-Range Transport of Carbon Dioxide and Its High Concentration Events over East Asian Region Using GOSAT Data and GEOS-Chem Modeling

This study aims to evaluate the long-range transport of CO2 in East Asian region, using concentration data in a surface measurement site (Gosan Station), column averaged concentration data of satellite-borne instrument (GOSAT), and GEOS-Chem modeling results for the period of June 2009 to May 2011. We perform a validation of the data from GOSAT and GEOS-Chem with total column observations (TCCON). The analysis of the long-range transport and high concentration (HC) events using surface/satellite observations and modeling results is conducted. During the HC events, the concentrations in CO2 and other air pollutants such as SO2 and CO are higher than that of all episodes. It means that CO2, known as a globally well-mixed gas, may also act as a fingerprint of human activity with unique regional characteristics like other air pollutants. This comprehensive analysis, in particular with GOSAT CO2 observation data, shows that CO2 plume with high concentration can be long-range transported with 1-2 days’ duration with regional scale. We can find out with GEOS-Chem tagging simulation that more than 45% of the elevated CO2 concentration over central/eastern China, Korea, and Japan on high concentration days can be explained by emission sources of East Asia mainland.
Designing for Conversational Interaction with Interactive Dance Works

In this paper we describe ongoing work, which explores the physicality of human-computer interaction in dance works. The use of physical simulations in the interface to connect with the performer’s and audience’s lived experience of the physical world is discussed. Drawing on past work with musicians, we argue that this approach is effective in encouraging creative, ‘conversational’ interactions in live performance. Author
Variation in Flavonoid Composition and Radical-Scavenging Activity in Ginkgo biloba L. due to the Growth Location and Time of Harvest

The aim of our research is to investigate the qualitative and quantitative composition and antioxidant activity of flavonoids in leaf samples of Ginkgo biloba L. (G. biloba) growing in Lithuania and also to provide practical recommendations for the pharmaceutical industry to determine the optimum harvesting time and growth location of G. biloba leaves. The obtained results indicate that the growth location and time of sample collection have a significant influence () on the content of active compounds. July and August are the best months to harvest G. biloba leaves for industry. To ensure the rational collection of G. biloba raw material, the location of plantations is recommended in the western and southwestern phytoregions. The obtained results also indicate that the flavonoid content in G. biloba leaf has a significantly positive correlation (, ) with antioxidant activity. The aqueous acetonic extracts from green leaves scavenge radicals to a greater degree than those from yellow Ginkgo leaves. The results of this investigation provide information regarding the most suitable Lithuanian growing location to produce G. biloba with an optimized content of health-promoting compounds.