Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Slow evolution of quasi‐collisionless systems of stars induced by dynamical friction on a minority population of heavier objects

The main goal of our investigation is to set up a numerical laboratory for the study of the slow evolution of an otherwise collisionless stellar system, as a result of the interactions with a minority component of heavier objects. The effects that we would like to study are those attributed to slow collisional relaxation and generally called “dynamical friction”. We start by revisiting the problem of the sinking of a single satellite inside an initially isotropic, non‐rotating, spherical galaxy, which we follow by means of N‐body simulations using about one million particles. We then consider a quasi‐spherical problem, in which the satellite is fragmented into a set of many smaller masses with a spherically symmetric initial density distribution. In a wide set of experiments, designed in order to bring out effects genuinely associated with dynamical friction, we have been able to demonstrate the slow evolution of the density profile, the development of a tangentially biased pressure, and other significant.
Pathways to meeting climate goals with clean and affordable energy

ABSTRACT Successfully managing climate change will require a broad policy focus that encourages the adoption and implementation of all viable net-zero pathways. Solutions that focus on the elimination of hydrocarbon fuels, rather than on managing green-house gas emissions, could have enormous unintended economic, security, and social justice consequences. The Net-Zero Producers Forum, with Canada as a founding member, is intended to provide a platform to advance a set of pragmatic and effective solutions to global climate challenges by fostering international cooperation among major hydrocarbon producers. The aim is to help achieve the necessary reduction in emissions in a sustainable manner. The objectives of the forum include support for development of net-zero strategies, promoting and implementing best practices, advancing carbon management technologies, and fostering cooperation on abatement of methane and fossil fuel combustion emissions. Transparent measurement and benchmarking tools will play an important role in carbon management and are critical to ensuing that technology and policy solutions are working as intended.
An Observability Constrained UKF for Improving SLAM Consistency

This paper addresses two key limitations of the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) when applied to the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) problem: the cubic, in the number of states, computational complexity, and the inconsistency of the state estimates. In particular, we introduce a new sampling strategy that minimizes the linearization error and whose computational complexity is constant (i.e., independent of the size of the state vector). As a result, the overall computational complexity of UKF-based SLAM becomes of the same order as that of the extended Kalman filter (EKF) when applied to SLAM. Furthermore, we investigate the observability properties of the linear-regression-based model employed by the UKF, and propose a new algorithm, termed the Observability-Constrained (OC)-UKF, that improves the consistency of the state estimates. The superior performance of the OC-UKF compared to the standard UKF and its robustness to large linearization errors are validated by extensive simulations.
Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffraction of a laser Gaussian beam by fork-shaped gratings

Expressions describing the vortex beams, which are generated in a process of Fresnel diffraction of a Gaussian beam, incident out of waist on a fork-shaped gratings of arbitrary integer charge p, and vortex spots in the case of Fraunhofer diffraction by these gratings are deduced. The common general transmission function of the gratings is defined and specialized for the cases of amplitude holograms, binary amplitude gratings, and their phase versions. Optical vortex beams, or carriers of phase singularity with charges mp and -mp, are the higher negative and positive diffraction order beams. The radial part of their wave amplitudes is described by the product of mp-th order Gauss-doughnut function and a Kummer function, or by the first order Gauss-doughnut function and a difference of two modified Bessel functions, whose orders do not match the singularity charge value. The wave amplitude and the intensity distributions are discussed for the near and far field, in the focal plane of a convergent lens, as well as the specialization of the results when the grating charge p=0, i.e. the grating turns from forked into rectilinear. The analytical expressions for the vortex radii are also discussed.
Insight into the fabrication, characterization, and in vitro cytotoxicity studies approaches of halloysite-based functional anhydride containing polymer nanocomposites

Abstract This study aims to design, synthesize, and characterization of maleic anhydride-vinyl acetate and its halloysite nanotubes and to evaluate the cytotoxic effects of nanostructures on human gingival fibroblasts. Poly(maleic anhydride-alt-vinyl acetate) [Poly(MA-alt-VA)] was synthesized via charge transfer complex-radical polymerization as potential dental fillings, adhesives, or bone cement materials. ATR-FTIR, XPS, and XRD spectroscopic methods were used to enlighten the structure–property of nanomaterials. Determining surface area and pore volume BET was used. Morphological characterization was viewed by HRTEM. Cytotoxic effects of nanocomposites on cell viability were evaluated by MTT assay for different incubation periods and concentrations for human gingival fibroblasts. Graphical Abstract
ECG Signal Classification Based on Neural Network

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the world's leading cause of mortality. The current method of diagnosing the disease is the analysis of an electrocardiogram (ECG). The physicians find it difficult to accurately diagnose abnormal heart behavior. However, early and precise detection of cardiac abnormalities helps in providing appropriate treatment to patients. The development of automated ECG classification is an emerging tool in medical diagnosis for effective treatment. In this paper, an effective technique based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) is described to classify ECG data into two classes: normal and abnormal. In this context, ECG data are obtained from UCI Arrhythmia databases where the classification is conducted using MATLAB platform. The experimental findings demonstrate that the proposed technique achieves a high classification accuracy of 92.477%, allowing it to effectively detect ECG signal abnormalities and implement it to diagnose heart disease.
Attitude Control Method of Unmanned Helicopter Based on Asymmetric Tracking Differentiator and Fal-Extended State Observer

In order to meet the constraints of velocity and acceleration of displacement and attitude motion of an unmanned helicopter during an automatic carrier landing mission, an asymmetric tracking differentiator, which could set the speed and acceleration limits in two directions of tracked signal motion respectively, was derived based on the tracking differentiator in the active disturbance rejection control method. Based on the proposed asymmetric tracking differentiator, a fal-extended state observer based on the fal function was added to construct the attitude and angular velocity controller which is programmable during the transition process of unmanned helicopters. The mathematical simulation and result analysis show that the newly proposed attitude estimation algorithm effectively compensates for the deficiencies of the existing methods, improves the anti-jamming capability and the accuracy of attitude estimation in the maneuvering process, achieving the expected design purposes.
A Study on the COVID-19 Preventive Behaviors of Automobile Manufacturing Workers in South Korea

The present study used a cross-sectional, descriptive survey design to investigate the influencing factors of COVID-19-related infection prevention behaviors of workers in the automobile manufacturing sector. An online survey was conducted on 157 workers in the automobile manufacturing sector of a company in Korea. We analyzed the collected data using SPSS to test whether there were significant differences in COVID-19 risk perception, crisis communication, health literacy, and infection prevention behaviors according to the general characteristics of the participants. An independent sample t-test and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed. A Pearson’s correlation analysis was performed to identify the correlations among COVID-19 risk perception, crisis communication, health literacy, and infection prevention behaviors. Multiple regression analysis was performed to identify the influencing factors of COVID-19 infection prevention behaviors. The regression model was found to be significant, and the employment period at current job, COVID-19 prevention education, source of information, COVID-19 risk perception, crisis communication, and health literacy were also found to be significant. Among the demographic variables, employment period at current job of 5–10 years showed a higher level of infection prevention behaviors than that of <5 years. Moreover, the level of infection prevention behaviors was also significantly higher when COVID-19-related information was acquired through the KDCA/health center. Higher COVID-19 risk perception, crisis communication, and health literacy were associated with significantly higher levels of infection prevention behaviors. Therefore, based on the results, health managers need to develop programs and educate and improve information comprehension and crisis communication skills in order to promote workers’ infection prevention behaviors of emerging infectious diseases in an era of global change.
Ground truth: Finding a “place” for climate change

This review examines the interdisciplinary literature on the relationship between climate change and place. The concept of place is of interest to both humanistic geographers and environmental psychologists, who examine the ways in which individuals and groups interact with physical and cultural landscapes to form a sense of place and place attachments. As a multiscalar phenomenon that is global in its causes but local in its impacts, climate change presents several challenges to the concept of place. The relevant issues include 1) the extent to which climate-change impacts can be directly experienced, 2) the ways in which local place attachments can facilitate or impede adaptation to climate change, and 3) the grounding of climate-change mitigation in place. Drawing on literature from Earth science, human geography, and environmental psychology, the review explores how the global conceptualization of the environment prevalent in climate-change discourses can undermine notions of place, how deep connections to place can enhance the detection and attribution of climate change and contribute to climate resilience, and how climate activist movements reconcile the multiple spatial scales of climate change.
Composting from organic municipal solid waste: a sustainable tool for the environment and to improve grape quality

Abstract Composting from organic municipal solid waste (MSW), such as a separate waste collection, is a valid tool for eliminating a considerable amount of waste that would otherwise be destined for landfills and incinerators, thus representing an effective complement to traditional forms of recycling. It allows organic substance to be recovered and reintegrated into the soil, thus preventing erosion phenomena, increasing the biological fertility of the soil and contributing significantly to the restoration of impoverished sites. Modern winegrowing must address the issue of vineyard fertility in the sustainability context. The goal of this study was to assess the advantages of distributing a sustainable product to the vineyard that can achieve vine balance (vegetative and productive equilibrium). In a Vitis vinifera L. Sangiovese cv. , vineyard, four soil treatments were applied (three compost rates and a control): municipal solid waste compost (40 tons per hectare – MSW40, 15 tons per hectare – MSW15, 2.5 tons per hectare – MSW2.5), and no compost (CTRL). The vine physiology (leaf gas exchange and water potential) and berry compositions (phenolic and technological maturity) were studied during the 2018–2019 growing seasons in the Sieci area, Italy. The results of this experiment provide some general insights showing that MSW compost options can be expected to reduce water stress, balanced vine performance and provide sustainable recirculation of organic matter. MSW compost is a true agronomic and environmental resource.
Modeling DTA by Combining Multiple-Instance Learning with a Private-Public Mechanism

The prediction of the strengths of drug–target interactions, also called drug–target binding affinities (DTA), plays a fundamental role in facilitating drug discovery, where the goal is to find prospective drug candidates. With the increase in the number of drug–protein interactions, machine learning techniques, especially deep learning methods, have become applicable for drug–target interaction discovery because they significantly reduce the required experimental workload. In this paper, we present a spontaneous formulation of the DTA prediction problem as an instance of multi-instance learning. We address the problem in three stages, first organizing given drug and target sequences into instances via a private-public mechanism, then identifying the predicted scores of all instances in the same bag, and finally combining all the predicted scores as the output prediction. A comprehensive evaluation demonstrates that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods on three benchmark datasets.
Privacy-Preserving Multi-Range Queries for Secure Data Outsourcing Services

Encrypted range query schemes that enable range-based searches over encrypted data have become an effective solution for secure data outsourcing services. However, existing schemes are still inadequate on desired functionality and security. Specifically, supporting efficient multi-range queries while hiding the data ordering leakage remains a challenging research problem. Existing works on order-hiding query schemes only work for encrypted single-range search and incur significant computational overhead due to the protection of the ordering information. In this article, we present a privacy-preserving multi-range query scheme that can address the above problems simultaneously. It not only enables efficient multi-range queries over encrypted data but also guarantees the privacy of ordering information. To protect the ordering leakage, our design adopts an Order-hiding Encoding (OHE) scheme to support multi-range obfuscation. In addition, a novel order-hiding K-Dimensional tree (KD-tree) index structure is designed as the core technique underlying our scheme, which accelerates efficient multi-range queries and obfuscates ordering information of encrypted values. Finally, the formal security analysis confirms that our proposed multi-range query scheme is secure in the random oracle model. The extensive experimental results conducted on real-world datasets demonstrate the practicality of our design.
Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment Decreases Hospital Stay and Healthcare Cost in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) is used in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Evidence suggests that OMT can reduce both patients’ recovery time and the financial cost of their acute medical treatment and rehabilitation. Multiple studies from neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are presented in this article that demonstrate infants treated with OMT recover faster, are discharged earlier, and have lower healthcare costs than their non-OMT-treated counterparts. Data clearly show that adjunctive OMT facilitates feeding coordination in newborns, such as latching, suckling, swallowing, and breathing, and increases long-term weight gain and maintenance, which reduces hospital length of stay (LOS). Osteopathic techniques, such as soft tissue manipulation, balanced ligamentous tension, myofascial release, and osteopathic cranial manipulation (OCM), can reduce regurgitation, vomiting, milky bilious, or bloody discharge and decrease the need for constipation treatment. OMT can also be effective in reducing the complications of pneumonia in premature babies. Studies show the use of OCM and lymphatic pump technique (LPT) reduces the occurrence of both aspiration and environmentally acquired pneumonia, resulting in significantly lower morbidity and mortality in infants. Based on published findings, it is determined that OMT is clinically effective, cost efficient, a less invasive alternative to surgery, and a less toxic choice to pharmacologic drugs. Therefore, routine incorporation of OMT in the NICU can be of great benefit in infants with multiple disorders. Future OMT research should aim to initiate clinical trial designs that include randomized controlled trials with larger cohorts of infants admitted to the NICU. Furthermore, a streamlined and concerted effort to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms associated with the beneficial effects of OMT will aid in understanding the significant value of incorporating OMT into optimal patient care.
Natrum muriaticum modifica variables de respuesta productiva en Salicornia bigelovii (Torr.)

Salicornia bigelovii (Torr.) es una planta con un promisorio potencial agroindustrial y la homeopatía es una alternativa natural que no afecta la inocuidad del organismo tratado. El objetivo del estudio fue evaluar el efecto del medicamento homeopático Natrum muriaticum (NaM) sobre variables de respuesta productiva de S. bigelovii con diferentes niveles de salinidad (NS) en cultivo hidropónico, aplicando un diseño experimental completamente al azar, con arreglo factorial (3A x 3B) y tres repeticiones de 15 plantas c/u. Como factor A, se aplicaron dos niveles de salinidad (NS-50 y NS-100) y un control sin salinidad (NS-0), como factor B, dos dinamizaciones centesimales de NaM (NaM-7CH y NaM-31CH) y un control sin medicamento (NaM-0CH). Las variables respuesta evaluadas fueron longitud parte aérea (LPA), longitud parte radicular (LPR), grosor de tallo (GT), área foliar (AF), potencial hídrico (PH), contenido relativo de agua (CRA), clorofila ‘a’, clorofila ‘b’ y clorofila total. Con el tratamiento homeopático NaM-7CH, se registraron valores superiores en LPR y con NaM-31CH, mayores valores promedio en clorofila ‘a’, clorofila ‘b’ y clorofila total. Con el tratamiento salino NS-50 se obtuvieron valores mayores para LPA, LPR, GT, AF, CRA, clorofilas ‘a’, ‘b’ y totales. Los valores promedio mayores en la morfología de la planta correspondieron a las interacciones NS-50/NaM-7CH y NS-50/NaM-31CH. Esto sugiere un efecto positivo NaM sobre variables relevantes de respuesta productiva de S. bigelovii y su potencial aplicabilidad en el cultivo hidropónico de esta halófita costera.
Nonequilibrium Flows Revisited with a Generalized Chapman–Enskog Procedure

Chapman–Enskog methods used for the analysis of hypersonic flows in vibrational and chemical nonequilibrium are presented. Taking into account the nonuniqueness of these methods, a more general procedure is developed and is shown to be able to cover all practical situations, including vibration–chemistry interaction. Application to a dissociating diatomic gas flow is proposed and discussed, adopting a step-by-step description, to point out the hypotheses and eventual approximations made at each step. Exact and approximate solutions are tested and compared by computing corresponding flows generated by a strong shock wave.
Examples of smooth compact toric varieties that are not quasitoric manifolds

We construct toric manifolds of complex dimension $\geq 4$, whose orbit spaces by the action of the compact torus are not homeomorphic to simple polytopes (as manifolds with corners). These provide the first known examples of toric manifolds which are not quasitoric manifolds.
A rule-based exploratory analysis for discovery of multimodal biomarkers of ADHD using eye movement and EEG data

Abstract Developing biomarkers for a complex neurodevelopmental disorder such as the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a challenging task since it is a multifactorial and multi-faceted condition. Researchers have been employing different sensing modalities to acquire measurements of the condition, however, there has been a lack of approaches that can adequately combine the multimodal data and detect interactions among the modalities. To demonstrate the concept and benefit of multimodal biomarker discovery, we conducted a multimodal data collection targeting the ADHD condition and demonstrated how a rule-based exploratory analysis approach could be used to analyze the data. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first attempt to explore and identify interesting interactions among two modalities of data, eye movement data and the EEG signal, for multimodal biomarker discovery for ADHD. The detection of these interactions would help us better understand the condition and develop better prediction models and intervention strategies.
Accessing healthcare services as a precarious worker in Ireland

The growth and the nature of precarious work has become an important subject of research on contemporary employment. Equally, there has been an increased interest among researchers in understanding the social consequences of precarious employment. There is an increasing awareness of the negative affect on health posed by precarious work. However, a relatively unexplored issue is the extent to which access to healthcare depends on the form of both precarious work and of healthcare provision in a specific nation state. This article explores the social implications of precarious work, with a focus on access to healthcare services in Ireland. 40 qualitative interviews were conducted with precarious workers living in Ireland that took place between July and October 2017.These were part of a broader study called the Social Implications of Precarious Work Project. A thematic analysis was conducted, which revealed the following: precarious employment often makes access to basic healthcare problematic, so that many are often unable to access essential medical treatment. On the one hand they are unable to access means-tested public services, but on the other hand cannot afford the cost of private treatment and private health insurance. This has negative consequences for workers’ health. Many precarious workers are pushed into relationships of dependency, creating new forms of social inheritance, since only some can access better healthcare by using family resources. For precarious workers who do not have this, inequality is further exacerbated.