Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Des jeux numériques comme EIAH pour les ainés canadiens : quels usages et quels bénéfices ?

Le vieillissement de la population represente un defi important du XXIe siecle. Le nombre de personnes âgees de plus de 60 ans devrait atteindre deux milliards dans le monde en 2050. Face a cela, il convient d’ameliorer la qualite de vie de ce public qui fait face a plusieurs defis en lien avec la diminution des capacites cognitives et en lien avec l’isolement et la solitude. Cette recherche fait partie d’un projet plus vaste qui vise a ameliorer la condition de vie des aines grâce aux jeux numeriques. Nous avons effectue un sondage aupres de 1208 aines canadiens de la Colombie Britannique et du Quebec afin de connaitre leurs pratiques en termes de jeux numeriques et les benefices qu’ils percoivent a jouer. Les resultats montrent que le contexte social et le niveau d’education sont les variables cles pour la pratique des jeux numeriques.
Regenerating historic neighbourhoods:Everyday life, participation and resistance in shaping urban governance networks. A case study of Nanjing, China

There has been a growing political, policy and popular interest towards urban regeneration of historic places in China over the past decade. The recent urban regeneration practices generally mean historic places are either destroyed altogether, to be replaced by high-rise living buildings, or turned into tourist attractions or high-class shopping centres thus did not respond to the needs of local residents, maintain or sustain their everyday social and cultural practices. In light of these circumstances, protests emerged from local residents in resisting gentrification and claiming their benefits are normal to observe within these years’ urban regeneration in China. The overall aim of this thesis is to address this phenomenon in seeking to diversify the contemporary body of research from the Global South. In doing so, this thesis works at the intersection of theoretical engagement with urban governance, public participation, gentrification and critical thinking of everyday life in cities. The main arguments of this thesis are as follows. First, the way how the local government regenerated the historic neighbourhood in Nanjing shows evident local government entrepreneurialism features. More than inter-urban competition, intra-urban competition is simultaneously happening at smaller scales. Secondly, grassroots’ mobilisation illustrates non-government actors can affect the governing processes. Thirdly, existing limitations of the current public participation system explained why it failed to empower local residents and reduce tensions. Fourthly, the strong sense of place attachment was used by local residents as the powerful weapon to resist gentrification. This thesis firmly situates the role of non-government actors in shaping and influencing governing networks. It adds new ideas in engaging with research of social relations, public participation and resistance to gentrification to the contemporary body of urban studies.
A primer on relational frame theory (RFT)

Both relational frame theory (RFT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) are based on the assumption that the evolution of human language (as derived relational responding) creates the potential for a form of psychological suffering unique to the human species. Furthermore, it has often been argued that RFT provides the basic science foundation for ACT. The current chapter will not dwell on these features of RFT but will focus instead on providing an up-to-date summary of the theory itself. Specifically, an historical and contemporary overview of RFT is presented, along with the details of recent ongoing efforts to advance the theory as a general behaviour-analytic account of human language and cognition. In doing so, the chapter endeavours to provide a modern vision of how RFT may continue to connect with ACT in the years to come.
Recognizing Bengali Word Images - A Zero-Shot Learning Perspective

Zero-Shot Learning(ZSL) techniques could classify a completely unseen class, which it has never seen before during training. Thus, making it more apt for any real-life classification problem, where it is not possible to train a system with annotated data for all possible class types. This work investigates recognition of word images written in Bengali Script in a ZSL framework. The proposed approach performs Zero-Shot word recognition by coupling deep learned features procured from various CNN architectures along with 13 basic shapes/stroke primitives commonly observed in Bengali script characters. As per the notion of ZSL framework those 13 basic shapes are termed as “Signature/Semantic Attributes”. The obtained results are promising while evaluation was carried out in a Five-Fold cross-validation setup dealing with samples from 250 word classes.
The Impacts of Liberalization and Privatization in Taiwanese Electric Industry

Taiwanese electric industry with liberalization has been a rapid change in the management style and the working environment. The change of the working environment has made a notable impact on the working conditions and the job security of the employees. This paper presents a brief literature review of the influences of liberalization and privatization on workers attitudes and proposes six overarching factors of importance to workers. These factors are: (1) the safeguarding of workers’ rights and interests (2) compensation of potential loss (3) communication (4) leadership trusts and employee consultation (5) participation of employees and the labor union (6) encouragement to learn and to cultivate a second specialty. These factors are developed as a framework which could serve to help decision-makers and leaders with useful strategies in the privatization process.
All‐carbon hybrids for high performance supercapacitors

A hybrid nanostructure with partially reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and carbon nanofibers (CNFs) was fabricated and used as supercapacitor electrodes. A straightforward, environmentally friendly, and low‐cost microwave‐assisted reduction process was developed for the synthesis of rGO/CNF hybrid structures. The fabricated supercapacitor devices showed a specific capacitance of 95.3 F g−1 and a superior long‐term cycling stability. A capacitance retention of more than 97% after 11 000 galvanostatic charge discharge cycles was obtained. These and other results reported in this paper indicate that high‐rate, all‐carbon, rGO/CNF hybrid nanostructures are highly promising supercapacitor electrode materials.
[Identification of immunological effector cells after autologous cytokine-induced killer cells treatment and its clinical implication in hepatocellular carcinoma patients].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the alteration of the cellular profiles of T lymphocyte subsets and dendritic cell subsets in peripheral blood of primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients after being transfused with autologous cytokine-induced killer cells (CIK) in patients, then to evaluate the clinical efficacy of the immune therapeutic strategy. METHODS Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 13 patients with primary were collected using blood cell separator, and expanded in the fresh AIM-V medium in the presence of cytokine cocktail including interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), monoclonal antibody (mAb) against CD3 and interleukin-2 (IL-2). The phenotypic patterns of CIK cells were longitudinally characterized by flow cytometry on day 0, 4, 7, 10,13 and 15 during the incubation period. PBMCs obtained from HCC patients before or after CIK cells transfusion into bodies to assay the changes of proportion of DC1 or DC2 in peripheral blood. RESULTS After in vitro incubation for 14 or 15 days, a large of CD3(+)CD56(+) cells were produced from their progenitors and the percentages of CD3(+)CD8(+), CD3(+)CD56(+), CD25(+) cells significantly increased from 33.5% +/- 10.1%, 7.7% +/- 2.8%, and 12.3% +/- 4.5% at the beginning to 36.6% +/- 9.0% (P < 0.05), 18.9% +/- 6.9% (P < 0.01), and 16.4% +/- 5.9% (P < 0.05) at the day 15, respectively. In contrast, the percentages of CD3(+)CD4(+) and NK cells displayed no significant difference. The percentages of CD3(+), CD3(+)CD8(+) cells was held at a higher level during the whole incubation period, however those of the CD25(+), and CD3(+)CD56(+) cells began decreasing on day 7 and day 13, respectively. The proportion of type I of dendritic cells (DC1) and type II of dendritic cells (DC2) subsets increased from 0.59% +/- 0.23% and 0.26% +/- 0.12% before CIK cell transfusion to 0.85% +/- 0.27% and 0.43% +/- 0.20% (all P < 0.01) after CIK cell transfusion. The symptom of HCC patients receiving the CIK cell therapy was markedly ameliorated, and not side effect was seen in the treatment. CONCLUSION Our results indicated that autologous CIK cells is able to boost the cellular immunological function in HCC patients, which probably provide a potent immune therapeutic strategy for HCC patients.
Prediction of Soluble Al2O3 in Calcined Kaolin Using Infrared Spectroscopy and Multivariate Calibration

In the production of calcined kaolin, the soluble Al2O3 content is used as a quality control criterion for some speciality applications. The increasing need for automated quality control systems in the industry has brought the necessity of developing techniques that provide (near) real-time data. Based on the understanding that the presence of water in the calcined kaolin detected using infrared spectroscopy can be used as a proxy for the soluble Al2O3 measurement, in this study, a hand-held infrared spectrometer was used to analyse a set of calcined kaolin samples obtained from a production plant. The spectra were used to predict the amount of soluble Al2O3 in the samples by implementing partial least squares regression (PLS-R) and support vector regression (SVR) as multivariate calibration methods. The presence of non-linearities in the dataset and the different types of association between water and the calcined kaolin represented the main challenges for developing a good calibration. In general, SVR showed a better performance than PLS-R, with root mean squared error of the cross-validation (RMSECV) = 0.046 wt % and R 2 = 0.87 for the best-achieved prediction. This accuracy level is adequate for detecting variation trends in the production of calcined kaolin which could be used not only as a quality control strategy, but also for the optimisation of the calcination process.
Stomata character and chlorophyll content of tomato in response to Zn application under drought condition

This experiment was performed in order to evaluate the effects of Zn application under drought condition on tomato, especially its chlorophyll content and stomata character. This experiment was arranged in factorial using randomized complete block design with three replications. The treatment consisted of the Zn application method, namely: soil and foliar, the Zn dosage, namely: 0, 40 and 60 mg ZnSO4 kg-1 soil and two cultivars of tomato, namely: ‘Tyrana’ F1 and ‘Permata’ F1. The stress condition was induced by watering every 12 days of 3 weeks after transplanting until harvesting. The results showed that the soil with a Zn application under drought conditions increased the aperture stomata, chlorophyll b and chlorophyll a/b ratio. The response of stomata character, chlorophyll a and total chlorophyll in both cultivars was similar.
Structural analysis of LaVO3 thin films under epitaxial strain

Rare earth vanadate perovskites exhibit a phase diagram in which two different types of structural distortions coexist: the strongest, the rotation of the oxygen octahedra, comes from the small tolerance factor of the perovskite cell (t = 0.88 for LaVO3) and the smaller one comes from inter-site d-orbital interactions manifesting as a cooperative Jahn-Teller effect. Epitaxial strain acts on octahedral rotations and crystal field symmetry to alter this complex lattice-orbit coupling. In this study, LaVO3 thin film structures have been investigated by X-ray diffraction and scanning transmission electron microscopy. The analysis shows two different orientations of octahedral tilt patterns, as well as two distinct temperature behaviors, for compressive and tensile film strain states. Ab initio calculations capture the strain effect on the tilt pattern orientation in agreement with experimental data.
Gross morphological and scanning electron microscopic study of rumen of sheep (Ovis aries) during pre-natal life

A study was designed to elucidate the gross morphological development of rumen of sheep during pre-natal life. For this study 12 foeti were divided into three groups i.e. Group I (0-50 days of pregnancy), Group II (51-100 days of pregnancy) and Group III (101-150 days of pregnancy) with 04 foeti in each group. The developing rumen appeared to have a left and a right ruminal bud together assuming the quadrilateral shape at the age between 32 and 44 days of gestation. The whole rumen appeared as a sac like structure with a slight caudo-ventral projection at 63 days of gestation. Between 63 and 94 days of gestation, the rumen was seen to be attached with septum transversarium dorsally. During this period the parietal surface was related to the developing pancreas and left adrenal gland. The visceral surface was related to the coils of the intestine. At 150 days of gestation, the visceral surface of dorsal sac was adjacent to the developing abomasum. The developing rumen was noted to extend from 8th rib to 1st lumbar at 150 days of gestation. The cranial and caudal transverse grooves appeared at 32 and 48 days of gestation respectively. The right and left longitudinal grooves appeared at 48 and 94 days of gestation respectively. The internal surface of rumen revealed cranial and caudal pillars at 32 and 63 days of gestation respectively. By 116 days of gestation, small conical papillae were grossly seen to project into the lumen giving the internal surface a rough appearance. The scanning electron microscopic observations revealed appearance of ruminal papillae of very small size at 44 days of gestation. These papillae gradually became tall and appeared as distinct projections from 63 days of gestation and onwards.
Accelerating Kohn‐Sham response theory using density fitting and the auxiliary‐density‐matrix method

An extension of the formulation of the atomic‐orbital‐based response theory of Larsen et al., JCP 113, 8909 (2000) is presented. This new framework has been implemented in LSDalton and allows for the use of Kohn‐Sham density‐functional theory with approximate treatment of the Coulomb and Exchange contributions to the response equations via the popular resolution‐of‐the‐identity approximation as well as the auxiliary‐density matrix method (ADMM). We present benchmark calculations of ground‐state energies as well as the linear and quadratic response properties: vertical excitation energies, polarizabilities, and hyperpolarizabilities. The quality of these approximations in a range of basis sets is assessed against reference calculations in a large aug‐pcseg‐4 basis. Our results confirm that density fitting of the Coulomb contribution can be used without hesitation for all the studied properties. The ADMM treatment of exchange is shown to yield high accuracy for ground‐state and excitation energies, whereas for polarizabilities and hyperpolarizabilities the performance gain comes at a cost of accuracy. Excitation energies of a tetrameric model consisting of units of the P700 special pigment of photosystem I have been studied to demonstrate the applicability of the code for a large system.
Estimation of the tensile modulus of polymer carbon nanotube nanocomposites containing filler networks and interphase regions by development of the Kolarik model

In this paper, the Kolarik model for the tensile modulus of co-continuous blends based on cross-orthogonal skeleton structures is simplified and developed for polymer/carbon nanotube (CNT) nanocomposites assuming continuous CNT networks in the polymer matrix and the reinforcing and percolating efficiencies of the interphase. For this purpose, the Ouali model for the modulus of nanocomposites above the percolation threshold is linked with the Kolarik model and the interphase percolation is considered with the excluded volume of the nanoparticles. In addition, the simplified Kolarik model is developed with the interphase as a new phase surrounding the nanofiller. A good agreement between the experimental data and the predictions is observed in the samples containing interphases and filler networks, while the developed model cannot estimate the modulus in the absence of interphases and network structures. The developed model demonstrates the effects of all the parameters on the modulus. The interphase parameters more significantly affect the modulus compared to the concentration and modulus of the filler, demonstrating the importance of the interphase properties.
Characterisation of CD3-enhanced gene-modified CD4+ T cells for cancer immunotherapy

TCR gene transfer is used to redirect the antigen specificity of T lymphocytes towards known tumour antigens. TCR gene therapies in murine studies have shown promising results. However, in the clinic they have often generated sub-optimal responses, when compared to treatments with tumour infiltrating lymphocytes. Previous work to improve TCR gene therapy has demonstrated that transferring additional CD3 genes increases TCR expression of both endogenous and introduced TCR, in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. In vivo experiments demonstrated that CD8+ T cells, transduced with TCR and additional CD3 were more effective in tumour protection than T cells transduced with the TCR alone. In this thesis the effects of CD3 (and as a consequence TCR) overexpression were studied in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, that had been transduced with a retroviral vector containing the CD3 chains genes (CD3-GFP). In vitro analysis showed that CD4+ T cell expressed higher levels of TCR compared to CD8+ T cells, both before and after transduction with the CD3-GFP vector. This associated with higher Ca2+ and CD107a concentration, but no difference in T cell activation or proliferation. Unexpectedly, we found that increased TCR expression did not improve T cell functional avidity following polyclonal or peptide-specific stimulation. In vivo CD3-enhanced CD4+ T cells survived for longer and were recovered in higher percentages, compared to CD3-enhanced CD8+ T cells and mock transduced CD4+ T cells, both in non-competition and competition experiments. Interestingly, this was observed despite a down-regulation of TCR levels in the CD3-enhanced CD4+ T cells, compared to their pre-transfer TCR levels, which was not observed in the control-transduced CD4+ T cells. The mechanism that drives TCR down-regulation and its biological meaning are unknown and require further investigation.
Unraveling the Intrinsic Structures that Influence the Transport of Charges in TiO2 Electrodes

TiO2 is by far the most widely used semiconducting materials for electrodes in (photo)‐electrochemical applications owing to its unique electrical and optical properties combined with the chemical and thermal stability as well as nontoxicity. The electronic processes, especially the transport of charges within the electrodes and interfacial charge transfer, are among the most concerned issues to achieve better solar energy utilization. Towards this end, many approaches, including the development of novel electrode configurations and tuning electronic structures have been devoted to facilitate these electronic processes. Despite the intensive studies, some intrinsic structural features in TiO2 nanostructures, which are usually hidden from the tangible materials characterization techniques, are far from being consciously concerned. In this review, in addition to briefly summarizing the recent progress in TiO2 nanostructures for (photo)‐electrochemical applications, the intrinsic structural features in TiO2 nanostructures, together with the challenges and perspectives involving these features, are emphatically discussed. These intrinsic structural features are shown to have a profound influence on the transport of charges within the TiO2 electrodes and interfacial charge transfer, and thus it is proposed that the charge transport in TiO2 electrodes can be efficiently promoted by cognizing and making good use of the intrinsic structural features.
Time Series Analysis

Preface The course Time series analysis is based on the book [7] and replaces our previous course Stationary stochastic processes which was based on [6]. The books, and by that the courses, differ in many respects, the most obvious is that [7] is more applied that [6]. The word " applied " is partly a fine word for " elementary ". A very important part of the course consists in looking at and thinking through the examples in [7] and to play around with the enclosed computer package ITSM or with Matlab. Jan Enger has constructed a number of M-files in order to facilitate use of Matlab within this course. Those who want to use Matlab later in connection with time series can use the toolbox System Identification by Lennart Ljung, which contains an extensive library of stochastic models related to time series and control theory. The main reason for the change in the courses is that half of our intermediate course Probability theory treats stationary processes from a theoretical point of view. A second reason is that a course in time series analysis is useful also for students more interested in applications than in the underlying theory. There are many references to [6] in [7] and the best recommendation to give a student interested in the subject also from a more theoretical point of view is to buy both books. However, due to the price of books, this recommendation might be unrealistic. A " cheaper " recommendation to those students is to read this lecture notes, where many parts from our previous course, i.e. in reality from [6], are included. These parts are given in the Appendix and in inserted paragraphs. The inserted paragraphs are written in this style. I am most grateful for all kind of criticism, from serious mathematical mistakes to trivial misprints and language errors.
High-performance P (VDF-TrFE) copolymer for pyroelectric conversion

Purification of the P (VDF-TrFE) copolymer, a process for manufacturing an improved high-performance copolymer for pyroelectric conversion. P (VDF-TrFE) copolymer pellet was dissolved in a solvent to form a solution. Then, the solution was added to absolute ethanol, to initiate precipitation of the copolymer in the gel, after which the solution was separated to obtain a gel precipitate, then washed it is dried. The resulting copolymers hardly contains impurities, the resistance ratio is higher, therefore, it is suitable for use in applications such as pyroelectric transducer. Purified copolymer also shows the phase transition characteristics capable of increasing the output power.