Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of carbonate and alkali to eliminate Escherichia coli from dairy cattle manure

A procedure to eliminate Escherichia coli in dairy cattle manure was developed. E. coli persisted in fresh manure and farm storage tanks, and viable counts ranged from 105 to 108/g. If the feces to urine ratio of fresh manure was decreased from 2.2 to 1, E. coli did not persist for ≥10 days (<10 viable cells/g), and it appeared that the urine was killing E. coli. Fecal urease contamination produced CO2, and 16% was trapped as carbonate. When urine pH was decreased, antimicrobial effect was lost, even if the pH was readjusted to 8.5. When E. coli K-12 and O157:H7 were treated with Na2CO3 (100 mM, pH 8.5, 24 h), viable cells were not detected. The E. coli count of manure (feces to urine ratio of 2.2:1) was decreased by Na2CO3 addition (8 g/kg), but pH sometimes declined and carbonate was lost. When NaOH was included (2 g/kg), Na2CO3 additions could be decreased (4 g/kg), and treatment time was 5 days. Treatment cost could be <$10 year-1 (dairy cow)-1. Water dilution (3-fold) did not diminish the effectivene.
Synthesis and Thermoluminescence of New ZnO Phosphors

In this work, the synthesis and thermoluminescence properties of new ZnO phosphors obtained by a chemical method are reported. Some samples were exposed to beta particle irradiation for doses ranging from 10.0 up to 6,400 Gy, and it was found that the thermoluminescence response as a function of dose is linear for doses below 200 Gy, and sublinear with no saturation clouds for greater doses. A broad shape glow curve with maximum located above 230 °C, that shifts to lower temperatures as dose increases, indicating that second order kinetics thermoluminescence processes are involved. The lower detection limit was estimated to be 13 Gy. We conclude that the phosphors under study are promising to develop dosimeters for high dose radiation dosimetry.
Micelle templated NiO hollow nanospheres as anode materials in lithium ion batteries

Nano-sized nickel oxide (NiO) hollow spheres of size 28 ± 2 nm have been synthesized by a soft-template self-assembly process. ABC triblock copolymeric micelles of poly(styrene-b-acrylic acid-b-ethylene oxide) (PS–PAA–PEO) with core–shell–corona architecture serve as an efficient colloidal-template for fabrication of NiO hollow nanospheres. In the above polymeric template, the PS block (core) acts as a template of hollow void space, the PAA block (shell) with negative charges serves as the reaction site for metal ion interactions, and the corona domain stabilizes organic/inorganic composite particles. The PS–PAA–PEO template micelles as well as the NiO hollow nanospheres were thoroughly characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal analysis (TG/DTA), FTIR spectroscopy, and nitrogen adsorption/desorption analyses. The XRD and TEM techniques confirmed the hollow spherical morphology and phase purity of nickel oxide nanoparticles. The NiO hollow nanospheres were further investigated as anode materials for lithium ion rechargeable batteries for the first time. The nanostructured electrode delivers a high capacity of 393 mA h g−1 after 50 cycles of charge–discharge at a rate of 0.3 C. More importantly, the hollow spherical electrode maintains the structural integrity and excellent cycling stability even after subjecting to a high rate of 10 C (high current density). The high electrochemical performance is attributed to hollow void space coupled with a nanosized NiO shell domain that facilitates fast lithium diffusion kinetics.
Controlling the Growth and Assembly of Silver Nanoprisms

A novel water/polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)/n‐pentanol ternary system is successfully developed to realize the controlled growth and assembly of silver nanoprisms using a one‐step synthesis for the first time. The highly shape‐selective growth and assembly of nanoprisms is based on the unique water/PVP/n‐pentanol interface. It is seen that the cooperative assembly of nanoprisms with PVP greatly affects the size‐dependent nanoprism plasmon bands. The plasmon bands of the assemblies are closer to those of bulk silver than to those of nanoprisms. The method is simple and versatile, and is successfully extended to prepare Au and Pd nanoprisms, lamellar ZnO particles, and layered ZnO assemblies with high purity. The method may provide powerful technology for shape‐selective synthesis and assembly of lamellar nanoparticles with novel structures and functions in nanotechnology.
MEASUREMENT OF PARTICLE DEPOSITION VELOCITY TOWARD A HORIZONTAL SEMICONDUCTOR WAFER BY USING A WAFER SURFACE SCANNER

The average particle deposition velocity toward a horizontal semiconductor wafer in a vertical airflow was measured by a wafer surface scanner (PMS SAS-3600) to shorten the exposure time and hence to improve repeatability. Polystyrene latex (PSL) spheres with diameters between 0.2 and 1.0 μm were used. For the present experiment, convection, diffusion, and sedimentation comprise important agents of the deposition mechanism. The mean and standard deviation of average deposition velocities were obtained from more than 10 data sets for each PSL sphere size, and the deposition velocity distributions from the measurement data were compared to the theoretical distributions.
Melting and Freezing of Au Nanoparticles Confined in Armchair Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

The structure, phase transition, and nucleation of Au nanoparticles confined within armchair single-walled carbon nanotubes ((n,n)-SWNTs) are investigated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation technique. The Au−Au interactions are described by the TB-SMA potentials and the Au-SWNT interactions are represented by Lennard-Jones potential. SWNTs are approximately considered to be rigid. The total energies, structures, Lindemman indices, and radial density distributions are used to reveal the feature of phase transition for Au nanoparticles confined in (n,n)-SWNTs. The classical nucleation theory is applied to perform nucleation analysis. Results demonstrate that confined AuN exhibit multishell structures. The order−disorder transformation of atoms in each layer is an important structure feature of phase transition. Interestingly, the melting starts from the innermost layer and freezing starts from outermost layer for confined Au nanoparticles. SWNTs have a significant effect on the structures and stabilit.
Computing Local Multipoint Correlators Using the Numerical Renormalization Group

Local three- and four-point correlators yield important insight into strongly correlated systems and have many applications. However, the non-perturbative, accurate computation of multipoint correlators is challenging, particularly in the real-frequency domain for systems at low temperatures. In an accompanying paper, we introduce generalized spectral representations for multipoint correlators. Here, we develop a numerical renormalization group (NRG) approach, capable of efficiently evaluating these spectral representations, to compute local three- and four-point correlators of quantum impurity models. The key objects in our scheme are partial spectral functions, encoding the system's dynamical information. Their computation via NRG allows us to simultaneously resolve various multiparticle excitations down to the lowest energies. By subsequently convolving the partial spectral functions with appropriate kernels, we obtain multipoint correlators in the imaginary-frequency Matsubara, the real-frequency zero-temperature, and the real-frequency Keldysh formalisms. We present exemplary results for the connected four-point correlators of the Anderson impurity model, and for resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) spectra of related impurity models. Our method can treat temperatures and frequencies -- imaginary or real -- of all magnitudes, from large to arbitrarily small ones.
Field Test of Twin-Field Quantum Key Distribution through Sending-or-Not-Sending over 428 km.

Quantum key distribution endows people with information-theoretical security in communications. Twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) has attracted considerable attention because of its outstanding key rates over long distances. Recently, several demonstrations of TF-QKD have been realized. Nevertheless, those experiments are implemented in the laboratory, and therefore a critical question remains about whether the TF-QKD is feasible in real-world circumstances. Here, by adopting the sending-or-not-sending twin-field QKD (SNS-TF-QKD) with the method of actively odd parity pairing (AOPP), we demonstrate a field-test QKD over 428 km of deployed commercial fiber and two users are physically separated by about 300 km in a straight line. To this end, we explicitly measure the relevant properties of the deployed fiber and develop a carefully designed system with high stability. The secure key rate we achieved breaks the absolute key rate limit of repeaterless QKD. The result provides a new distance record for the field test of both TF-QKD and all types of fiber-based QKD systems. Our work bridges the gap of QKD between laboratory demonstrations and practical applications and paves the way for an intercity QKD network with measurement-device-independent security.
REACT: Distributed Mobile Microservice Execution Enabled by Efficient Inter-Process Communication

The increased mobile connectivity, the range and number of services available in various computing environments in the network, demand mobile applications to be highly dynamic to be able to efficiently incorporate those services into applications, along with other local capabilities on mobile devices. However, the monolithic structure and mostly static configuration of mobile application components today limit application's ability to dynamically manage internal components, to be able to adapt to the user and the environment, and utilize various services in the network for improving the application experience. In this paper, we present REACT, a new Android-based framework that enables apps to be developed as a collection of loosely coupled microservices (MS). It allows individual distribution, dynamic management and offloading of MS to be executed by services in the network, based on contextual changes. REACT aims to provide i) a framework as an Android Library for creating MS-based apps that adapt to contextual changes ii) a unified HTTP-based communication mechanism, using Android Inter-Process Communication (IPC) for transporting requests between locally running MS, while allowing flexible and transparent switching between network and IPC requests, when offloading. We evaluate REACT by implementing a video streaming app that dynamically offloads MS to web services in the network, adapting to contextual changes. The evaluation shows the adaptability to contextual changes and reductions in power consumption when offloading, while our communication mechanism overcomes performance limitations of Android IPC by enabling efficient transferring of large payloads between mobile MS.
Frequency Principle in Deep Learning Beyond Gradient-descent-based Training

Frequency perspective recently makes progress in understanding deep learning. It has been widely verified in both empirical and theoretical studies that deep neural networks (DNNs) often fit the target function from low to high frequency, namely Frequency Principle (F-Principle). F-Principle sheds light on the strength and the weakness of DNNs and inspires a series of subsequent works, including theoretical studies, empirical studies and the design of efficient DNN structures etc. Previous works examine the F-Principle in gradient-descent-based training. It remains unclear whether gradient-descent-based training is a necessary condition for the F-Principle. In this paper, we show that the F-Principle exists stably in the training process of DNNs with non-gradient-descent-based training, including optimization algorithms with gradient information, such as conjugate gradient and BFGS, and algorithms without gradient information, such as Powell's method and Particle Swarm Optimization. These empirical studies show the universality of the F-Principle and provide hints for further study of F-Principle.
diff-SAT - A Software for Sampling and Probabilistic Reasoning for SAT and Answer Set Programming

This paper describes diff-SAT, an Answer Set and SAT solver which combines regular solving with the capability to use probabilistic clauses, facts and rules, and to sample an optimal world-view (multiset of satisfying Boolean variable assignments or answer sets) subject to user-provided probabilistic constraints. The sampling process minimizes a user-defined differentiable objective function using a gradient descent based optimization method called Differentiable Satisfiability Solving ($\partial\mathrm{SAT}$) respectively Differentiable Answer Set Programming ($\partial\mathrm{ASP}$). Use cases are i.a. probabilistic logic programming (in form of Probabilistic Answer Set Programming), Probabilistic Boolean Satisfiability solving (PSAT), and distribution-aware sampling of model multisets (answer sets or Boolean interpretations).
Synthetic Embedding-based Data Generation Methods for Student Performance

Given the inherent class imbalance issue within student performance datasets, samples belonging to the edges of the target class distribution pose a challenge for predictive machine learning algorithms to learn. In this paper, we introduce a general framework for synthetic embedding-based data generation (SEDG), a search-based approach to generate new synthetic samples using embeddings to correct the detriment effects of class imbalances optimally. We compare the SEDG framework to past synthetic data generation methods, including deep generative models, and traditional sampling methods. In our results, we find SEDG to outperform the traditional re-sampling methods for deep neural networks and perform competitively for common machine learning classifiers on the student performance task in several standard performance metrics.
Central and convolution Herz-Schur multipliers

We obtain descriptions of central operator-valued Schur and Herz-Schur multipliers, akin to a classical characterisation due to Grothendieck, that reveals a close link between central (linear) multipliers and bilinear multipliers into the trace class. Restricting to dynamical systems where a locally compact group acts on itself by translation, we identify their convolution multipliers as the right completely bounded multipliers, in the sense of Junge-Neufang-Ruan, of a canonical quantum group associated with the underlying group. We provide characterisations of contractive idempotent operator-valued Schur and Herz-Schur multipliers. Exploiting the link between Herz-Schur multipliers and multipliers on transformation groupoids, we provide a combinatorial characterisation of groupoid multipliers that are contractive and idempotent.
Cup products on curves over finite fields

In this paper we compute cup products of elements of the first étale cohomology group of μl over a smooth projective geometrically irreducible curve C over a finite field k when l is a prime and #k ≡ 1 mod l. Over the algebraic closure of k, such products are values of the Weil pairing on the l-torsion of the Jacobian of C. Over k, such cup products are more subtle due to the fact that they naturally take values in Pic(C)⊗Z μ̃l rather than in the group μ̃l of l th roots of unity in k.
An Marching Cube Algorithm Based on Edge Growth

Marching Cube algorithm is currently one of the most popular 3D reconstruction surface rendering algorithms.It forms cube voxels through the input image, and then uses 15 basic topological configurations to extract the isosurfaces in the voxels.Since it processes each cube voxel in a traversal manner, it does not consider the relationship between isosurfaces in adjacent cubes.Due to ambiguity, the final reconstructed model may have holes.We propose a Marching Cube algorithm based on edge growth. The algorithm first extracts seed triangles, then grows the seed triangles and reconstructs the entire 3D model.According to the position of the growth edge, we propose 17 topological configurations with isosurfaces.From the reconstruction results, the algorithm can reconstruct the 3D model well. When only the main contour of the 3D model needs to be organized, the algorithm performs well.In addition, when there are multiple scattered parts in the data, the algorithm can extract only the three-dimensional contours of the parts connected to the seed by setting the region selected by the seed.
Topology-aware Tensor Decomposition for Meta-graph Learning

Heterogeneous graphs generally refers to graphs with different types of nodes and edges. A common approach for extracting useful information from heterogeneous graphs is to use meta-graphs, which can be seen as a special kind of directed acyclic graph (DAG) with same node and edge types as the heterogeneous graph. However, how to design proper meta-graphs is challenging. Recently, there have been many works on learning suitable meta-graphs from a heterogeneous graph. Existing methods generally introduce continuous weights for edges that are independent of each other, which ignores the topological stucture of meta-graphs and can be ineffective. To address this issue, we propose a new viewpoint from tensor on learning meta-graphs. Such a viewpoint not only helps interpret the limitation of existing works by CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) decomposition, but also inspires us to propose a topology-aware tensor decomposition, called TENSUS, that reflects the structure of DAGs. The proposed topology-aware tensor decomposition is easy to use and simple to implement, and it can be taken as a plug-in part to upgrade many existing works, including node classification and recommendation on heterogeneous graphs. Experimental results on different tasks demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly improve the state-of-the-arts for all these tasks.
Degradation of atrazine in mineral salts medium and soil using enrichment culture

Atrazine degrading enrichment culture was prepared by its repeated addition to an alluvial soil and its ability to degrade atrazine in mineral salts medium and soil was studied. Enrichment culture utilized atrazine as a sole source of carbon and nitrogen in mineral salts medium and degradation slowed down when sucrose and/or ammonium hydrogen phosphate were supplemented as additional source of carbon and nitrogen, respectively. Biuret was detected as the only metabolite of atrazine while deethylatrazine, deisopropyatrazine, hydroxyatrazine and cyanuric acid were never detected at any stage of degradation. Enrichment culture degraded atrazine in an alkaline alluvial soil while no degradation was observed in the acidic laterite soil. Enrichment culture was able to withstand high concentrations of atrazine (110 μg/g) in the alluvial soil as atrazine was completely degraded. Developed mixed culture has the ability to degrade atrazine and has potential application in decontamination of contaminated water and soil.
Electrostatic interactions in two-component membranes

The effect of electrostatic interactions on membrane undulations is examined. We consider a mixed membrane consisting of neutral and charged amphiphiles in an aqueous solution. In general, this system may exhibit a non-uniform surface charge density. Two limiting cases are distinguished: quenched surface-charge distribution; and annealed inplane distribution which is coupled to an undulation mode. For the former case the electrostatic free energy of an undulating membrane is calculated in the limit of strong ionic solution. Spatial modulations of the surface charge density are found to induce a local spontaneous curvature in a single mono layer. In addition, the electrostatic contribution to the elastic bending modulus is obtained for a general non-uniform surface-charge density. In the latter case of a self-adjusting (annealed) membrane, an electrostatic coupling between the inplane distribution and the membrane curvature produces an added effective interaction which stabilizes modulated phases
Regio- and Stereo-Chemistry of Addition of Molecular Bromine to S-Oxidized Derivatives of 3,4-Di-t-butylthiophene: Exclusive 1,4-Cis-Additions

Bromine added to the 1-oxide, 1,1-dioxide, and sulfoximide derivatives of 3,4-di-t-butylthiophene exclusively in a 1,4-cis-addition mode. Thus, bromine added to 3,4-di-t-butylthiophene 1-oxide at room temperature in CH2Cl2 to give the 1,4-cis-adducts exclusively. The adducts are composed of two compounds in the ratio 57 : 43, where the major one is the anti-adduct respective to the S=O bond and the minor one is the syn-adduct. Addition of bromine to 3,4-di-t-butylthiophene 1,1-dioxide gave the 1,4-cis-adduct as the sole product. Addition of bromine to the N-tosyl substituted sulfoximide derivative of 3,4-di-t-butylthiophene afforded the single 1,4-cis-adduct in which two bromine atoms are anti to the N-tosyl group. Bromine added to the N-unsubstituted sulfoximide derivative of 3,4-di-t-butylthiophene to produce the 1,4-cis-addition products exclusively, which are a 67 : 33 mixture of the anti- and syn-adducts to the S=O bond.
Electrochemical Synthesis and Characterization of Strechable Polypyrrole Films

Abstract Stretchable polypyrrole (Ppy) films with mixed dopants [di(2-ethyl hexyl)sulfosuccinate with malonic acid(MA), 4-sulfophtalic acid (SPA), dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid (DBSA) etc.] were electrochemically prepared at 0 °C and room temperature and their physical properties were examined. As the temperature employed in synthesis was lowered, the resulting films became more stretchable up to the draw ratio, L/Lo = 2.5 and showed improved thermal stability and electrical conductivity (σ : 255 S/cm). On the other hand, the films prepared at room temperature were elongated up to 1.5 times (σ : 45 S/cm). These phenomena were explained in terms of the molecular weight, structural change due to the temperature and mixed dopants used.
Physical conditions and redshift evolution of optically thin C iii absorbers: low-z sample

We present a detailed analysis of 99 optically thin C iii absorption systems at redshift 0.2 ≤ z ≤ 0.9 associated with neutral hydrogen column densities in the range 15 ≤ log $N({\rm{H\,{\small I}}})$ (cm−2) ≤ 16.2. Using photoionization models, we infer the number density (nH), C-abundance ([C/H]), and line-of-sight thickness (L) of these systems in the ranges −3.4 ≤ log nH (cm−3) ≤ −1.6, −1.6 ≤ [C/H] ≤ 0.4, and 1.3 pc ≤ L ≤ 10 kpc, respectively, with most of the systems having sub-kpc scale thickness. We combine the low-z and previously reported high-z (2.1 ≤ z ≤ 3.3) optically thin C iii systems to study the redshift evolution and various correlations between the derived physical parameters. We see a significant redshift evolution in nH, [C/H], and L. We compare the redshift evolution of metallicity in C iii systems with those of various types of absorption systems. We find that the slope of [C/H] versus z for C iii absorbers is steeper compared to the redshift evolution of cosmic metallicity of the damped Ly α sample (DLA) but consistent with that of sub-DLAs. We find the existence of strong anticorrelation between L and [C/H] for the combined sample with a significance level of 8. 39σ. We see evidence of two distinct [C/H] branch C iii populations (low-[C/H] branch, $[\mathrm{ C/H}]\, \le -1.2$, and high-[C/H] branch, $[\mathrm{ C/H}]\, \gt -1.2$) in the combined C iii sample when divided appropriately in the L versus $N({\rm{C\,{\small III}}})$ plane. Further studies of C iii absorbers in the redshift range 1.0 ≤ z ≤ 2.0 are important to map the redshift evolution of these absorbers and gain insights into the time evolution physical conditions of the circumgalactic medium.