Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
European Ground Segment for High Resolution IKONOS Data

A new European receiving station for high resolution IKONOS data is operated at Oberpfaffenhofen since April 2003. The station is running under collaboration between European Space Imaging and the German Aerospace Center DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen. The paper gives an overview on the IKONOS ground station at DLR. The image reception, data processing, archiving, and product delivery are described. Moreover, the operational capacity of the ground station as well as the quality of the products are shown.
Shock initiation of explosives: High temperature hot spots explained

We investigated the shock initiation of energetic materials with a tabletop apparatus that uses km s−1 laser-driven flyer plates to initiate tiny explosive charges and obtains complete temperature histories with a high dynamic range. By comparing various microstructured formulations, including a pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) based plastic explosive (PBX) denoted XTX-8003, we determined that micron-scale pores were needed to create high hot spot temperatures. In charges where micropores (i.e., micron-sized pores) were present, a hot spot temperature of 6000 K was observed; when the micropores were pre-compressed to nm scale, however, the hot spot temperature dropped to ∼4000 K. By comparing XTX-8003 with an analog that replaced PETN by nonvolatile silica, we showed that the high temperatures require gas in the pores, that the high temperatures were created by adiabatic gas compression, and that the temperatures observed can be controlled by the choice of ambient gases. The hot spots persist in shock-.
Special representative actions, the insurance value of audits, and investor protection: an empirical study based on the ruling against Kangmei Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd

ABSTRACT The ruling against the Kangmei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd’s financial fraud was the first special representative action under China’s new Securities Law, serving as a milestone in investor protection in China. Exploiting the natural experiment provided by the ruling, we empirically test the insurance value of audits and find a negative market reaction of the client firms audited by the accounting firms that were still being sued as of the date of Kangmei ruling (i.e., the sued accounting firms). Further, this reaction is weakened when the solvency of the sued accounting firms or the client firms is high, and is intensified when the client firms have high litigation risk. The ruling also eroded investors’ trust in the financial statements for the year 2020 that were audited by the sued accounting firms. Overall, we provide important evidence on the effect of special representative actions from the perspective of audit insurance hypothesis.
Asymptotic tracking control of strict-feedback non-linear systems with output constraints in the presence of input saturation

In this study, the asymptotic tracking control problem is addressed for known and unknown non-linear systems in the strict-feedback form with time-varying output constraints, input saturation, and external disturbances. A barrier Lyapunov function is employed to prevent transgression of the output constraints. Neural networks are applied to approximate the unknown functions. To deal with the input saturation effects and/or neural networks reconstruction errors, the Nussbaum gain technique is suggested. The proposed approach guarantees the boundedness of all the closed-loop signals, and for the first time, the asymptotic tracking property is achieved for the strict-feedback non-linear systems, while the actual output remains in the output constraints, despite input saturation and external disturbances. Two simulation examples have validated the effectiveness of the proposed results.
Stochastic Sub-sampling of Environmental Saliency

To support pan-contextual access to complex scene images, a pattern sensitive re-sampling scheme is introduced. By restricting ‘what-to-be-observed’ in future scenes to really existing objects exhibiting connected distributions of visual saliency, in this scheme, chromatic diversity and brightness distribution are jointly identiﬁed with invariant measure to be associated with fractal attractors. Through inﬁnitely divisible representation of capturing probability, the image features are interpolated as mathematical expectation of inﬁnite resolution. The re-sampling scheme has been veriﬁed by using naturally complex scene images
Short-term effects of the “I Spy Feelings” program on emotion regulation in 5- to 6-year-old children

Introduction Mental health difficulties in early childhood can have a debilitating and ongoing impact throughout an individual’s life; emotion regulation can serve as a protective factor. Therefore, evidence-based prevention programs that teach children effective skills and strategies for emotion regulation are needed. Methods As part of the Aussie Optimism pilot study evaluating the “I Spy Feelings” program, this study aims to assess the short-term effects of the program on emotion regulation in pre-primary aged children after 2 months via a longitudinal cluster randomized controlled trial. Participants included parents (N = 73) of 5- to 6-year-old children attending four different Catholic primary schools. Children from two of the schools were allocated to the intervention group where they participated in the program (N = 33), while children from the other two schools were allocated to the control group where they did not (N = 40). At each time point, all parents completed abridged Children’s Emotional Management Scales measuring how well parents believe their child is able to cope with anger, sadness and worry. Results A significant intervention effect 2 months after intervention was found for the outcome of anger coping such that parents whose children were in the intervention group reported significantly greater improvement in their children’s ability to cope with anger compared to parents whose children were in the control group. No significant effect was found for the outcome of sadness, and results for the worry subscale were inconclusive due to unacceptable internal consistency. Discussion The present study provides insight into the benefit of programs designed to enhance the emotion regulation skills of very young children. Further follow-up is needed to assess whether the “I Spy Feelings” program has lasting effects.
Direct solar FTIR measurements of CO2 and HCl in the plume of Popocatépetl Volcano, Mexico

Volcanic CO2 emissions inventories have great importance in the understanding of the geological carbon cycle. Volcanoes provide the primary pathway for solid-earth volatiles to reach the Earth’s atmosphere and have the potential to significantly contribute to the carbon-climate feedback. Volcanic carbon emissions (both passive and eruptive degassing) included in inventories, largely stem from patchy surface measurements that suffer from difficulties in removing the atmospheric background. With a 27-year-long ongoing open-vent eruption, Popocatépetl ranks as one of the highest permanent volcanic CO2 emitters worldwide and provides an excellent natural laboratory to design and experiment with new remote sensing methods for volcanic gas emission measurements. Since October 2012, infrared spectra at different spectral regions have been recorded with a solar occultation FTIR spectrometer. The near-infrared spectra allow for high precision measurements of CO2 and HCl columns. Under favorable conditions, the continuous observations during sunrise allow the reconstruction of a plume cross-section of HCl and the estimation of the emission flux using wind data. Despite that the detection of CO2 is more challenging, on April 26th, 2015 we captured a volcanic plume under favourable wind conditions which allowed us to reconstruct from this particular event a CO2 emission rate of 116.10 ± 17.2 kg/s. The volcanic HCl emission on this event was the highest detected during the 2012-2016 period. An annual average CO2 emission estimate of (41.2 ± 16.7) kg/s ((1.30 ± 0.53) Tg/yr) could be determined from a statistical treatment of the detected CO2 and HCl columns in the IR spectra, and their corresponding molecular ratios, during this period. A total of 25 events were used to derive a mean CO2/HCl molecule ratio of 11.4 ± 4.4 and an average HCl emission rate of (3.0 ± 0.3) kg/s could be determined. The CO2 emissions of Popocatépetl were found to be around 0.32% of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions reported in the country and 3.6% of those corresponding to the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA). CO2 emissions from the Popocatépetl volcano can be considered to play a negligible role in the global CO2 budget, but should be taken into account.
The Efficacy of CB-103, a First-in-Class Transcriptional Notch Inhibitor, in Preclinical Models of Breast Cancer

Simple Summary Notch signaling has been shown to mediate treatment resistance and support cancer stem cells (CSC) in luminal endocrine-resistant and triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs). The clinical development of GSIs, first-generation Notch inhibitors, has been hindered by a lack of Notch specificity and dose-limiting toxicity. Here, we describe the safety and efficacy of a first-in-class, clinical-stage orally-available-small-molecule-pan-Notch inhibitor, CB-103. Due to its unique mode of action, CB-103 does not induce GI toxicities noted with GSIs. There is a critical need for effective, safe, and targeted therapies for patients with endocrine-refractory metastatic breast cancer. Recently approved targeted therapies for TNBC are only effective for a subset of patients. Moreover, GSI-resistant, constitutively activating Notch1 or Notch2 mutations are observed in ~10% of TNBC. Our study elucidates the synergy of CB-103 with fulvestrant and paclitaxel in preclinical models of hormone-refractory ER+ breast cancer and TNBC, respectively, providing a novel and unique opportunity to address major unmet therapeutic needs. Abstract Background: The efficacy of CB-103 was evaluated in preclinical models of both ER+ and TNBC. Furthermore, the therapeutic efficacy of combining CB-103 with fulvestrant in ER+ BC and paclitaxel in TNBC was determined. Methods: CB-103 was screened in combination with a panel of anti-neoplastic drugs. We evaluated the anti-tumor activity of CB-103 with fulvestrant in ESR1-mutant (Y537S), endocrine-resistant BC xenografts. In the same model, we examined anti-CSC activity in mammosphere formation assays for CB-103 alone or in combination with fulvestrant or palbociclib. We also evaluated the effect of CB-103 plus paclitaxel on primary tumors and CSC in a GSI-resistant TNBC model HCC1187. Comparisons between groups were performed with a two-sided unpaired Students’ t-test. A one-way or two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post-analysis was performed to analyze the in vivo efficacy study results. The results: CB-103 showed synergism with fulvestrant in ER+ cells and paclitaxel in TNBC cells. CB-103 combined with fulvestrant or paclitaxel potently inhibited mammosphere formation in both models. Combination of CB-103 and fulvestrant significantly reduced tumor volume in an ESR1-mutant, the endocrine-resistant BC model. In a GSI-resistant TNBC model, CB-103 plus paclitaxel significantly delayed tumor growth compared to paclitaxel alone. Conclusion: our data indicate that CB-103 is an attractive candidate for clinical investigation in endocrine-resistant, recurrent breast cancers with biomarker-confirmed Notch activity in combination with SERDs and/or CDKis and in TNBCs with biomarker-confirmed Notch activity in combination with taxane-containing chemotherapy regimens.
Existence of solution of a finite volume scheme preserving maximum principle for diffusion equations

In this article, a cell‐centered finite volume scheme preserving maximum principle for diffusion equations with scalar coefficients is developed. The construction of the scheme consists of three steps: at first the discrete normal flux is obtained by a linear combination of two single‐sided fluxes, then the tangential term of the normal flux is modified by using a nonlinear combination of two single‐sided tangential fluxes, finally the auxiliary unknowns in the tangential fluxes are calculated by the convex combinations of the cell‐centered unknowns. It is proved that this nonlinear scheme satisfies the discrete maximum principle (DMP). Moreover, the existence of a solution of the nonlinear scheme is proved by using the Brouwer's fixed point theorem and the bounded estimates. Numerical experiments are presented to show that the scheme not only satisfies DMP, but also obtains the second‐order accuracy and conservation. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 34: 80–96, 2018
The Mediation Effect of Customers’ Satisfaction and Trust among Food Quality and Intentions Product Purchasing Fast Food via Online in Osteria Restaurant and Burger King

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediation effect of customers’ satisfaction and trust on food quality and purchasing intention. It refers to food products online, fast food in Osteria restaurants, and Burger King. The participants of this study are in total of 310 samples and used questionnaire to collect the data. Also, this study used mediation analysis using Smart PLS 3.0 version tools. The result of this research revealed positive and significant relationships between food quality and customers’ satisfaction. On the other hand, there is significantly mediation effect of customer’s satisfaction and trust, on food quality and purchasing intentions online for fast food in Osteria restaurant and Burger King. Therefore, the restaurants referred are recommended to maintain food quality, guaranteeing customers’ satisfaction and trust to increase customer’s online purchasing intentions.
On Explainable and Adaptable Detection of Distributed Denial-of-Service Traffic

—Launched from numerous end-hosts throughout the Internet, a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack can exhaust the network bandwidth or other resources of a victim, cripple its service, and make it unavailable to legitimate clients. Recently many learning-based approaches attempt to detect DDoS attacks, but their results are often hardly explainable to users and their models are seldom adaptable to new environments. In this paper, we propose a new learning-based DDoS detection approach. It detects DDoS attacks via an enhanced k-nearest neighbors (KNN) algorithm, which utilizes a k-dimensional (KD) tree to speed up the detection process, and classifies DDoS sources at a fine granularity according to each IP’s risk level. Compared to previous DDoS detection approaches, this approach outputs explanatory information that enables network administrators to easily inspect detection results and make necessary interventions. Moreover, this approach is adaptable in that users do not need to retrain the detection model to have it fit with a new network environment. We evaluated this approach in both simulated environments and the real world, achieving more than 95.6% accuracy in detecting DDoS attacks at line speed. In addition, we carried out a human subject study on its explainability, demonstrating that the outputs can help people better understand the attack and make interventions precisely and promptly.
Performance Analysis of Embedded Multilayer Perceptron Artificial Neural Networks on Smart Cyber-Physical Systems for IoT Environments

At present, modern society is experiencing a significant transformation. Thanks to the digitization of society and manufacturing, mainly because of a combination of technologies, such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, machine learning, smart cyber-physical systems, etc., which are making the smart factory and Industry 4.0 a reality. Currently, most of the intelligence of smart cyber-physical systems is implemented in software. For this reason, in this work, we focused on the artificial intelligence software design of this technology, one of the most complex and critical. This research aimed to study and compare the performance of a multilayer perceptron artificial neural network designed for solving the problem of character recognition in three implementation technologies: personal computers, cloud computing environments, and smart cyber-physical systems. After training and testing the multilayer perceptron, training time and accuracy tests showed each technology has particular characteristics and performance. Nevertheless, the three technologies have a similar performance of 97% accuracy, despite a difference in the training time. The results show that the artificial intelligence embedded in fog technology is a promising alternative for developing smart cyber-physical systems.
Community involvement in planning and management for outdoor recreation in New Zealand protected areas

Managing New Zealand’s protected natural and historic heritage falls largely on the Department of Conservation (DOC), which manages close to a third of the country’s land area and increasing proportions of the coastal/marine setting. Providing public access to this shared heritage through a range of recreation opportunities is a key management outcome for DOC. This allows New Zealanders to derive beneficial outcomes from the protected lands and places, and become more connected to their conservation. Management of outdoor recreation includes significant roles for the public, based on a long tradition of community involvement and interest in providing outdoor recreation opportunities. This involvement includes participation in planning the recreation opportunities to be provided, and in maintaining the facilities that support those opportunities. This paper explores two recent examples of community consultation in park and protected-area management. First, the community role in a major national conservation policy review is explored, with particular reference to directions for outdoor recreation provision. Then a recent national process of public consultation on determining the balance of recreation opportunities across the country is explored.
Structural Properties of Anode Composites Precursor of A Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Prepared Via Combustion Synthesis Route

Solution combustion technique was used for the preparation of NiO-CGO (Ceria Gadolinia Oxide) composites – a precursor to SOFC anode by mixing cerium nitrate, gadolinium nitrate and nickel nitrate in stoichiometric ratio to form a precursor of composition Ce0.90Gd0. 10O1.95 – 0.40 NiO. The concentration of oxidant i.e. glycine, was varied between 0.5 to 1.6 mole% and its effect was studied on the crystallite size and agglomerate of resulting NiO-CGO composite. The products formed were characterized by X-Ray Diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscope and Particle Size Analyzer. The results showed that the composite precursor varied in combustion characteristics, crystallite size and agglomerated particle size depending on the concentration of the fuel.
Influence of endometritis, cow- and herd-levels factors on milk yield and reproductive performance of zero-grazed dairy cows on smallholder farms in Rwanda

Suboptimal milk production and reproductive performance manifest in postpartum dairy cows likely reflect associations with the characteristics of the dairy herd management conditions and endometritis infection. The hypothesis was that endometritis, cow-and herd-levels variables, and the combination of all these variables are associated with suboptimal milk yield and reproductive performance of postpartum zero-grazed dairy cows managed on smallholder farms. This research was conducted in Gasabo district, Rwanda, to the smallholder dairy farmers from September 2018 to August 2019. The survey was used to collect the data from 370 farms on 466 cows, sampled by snowball technique . Regression models and the general linear model were used in the analysis. The results showed that in a decreasing magnitude, the milk yield was predicted by cow breed [regression coefficient (β): −2.6, p< 0.001], endometritis infection (β = −1.1, p< 0.001), poor body condition (β = −1.0, p< 0.05), and mastitis positive case (β = −0.8, p< 0.05). For reproductive performance, an increase of one case of anoestrous postpartum and one endometritis positive case was associated with a delay of 64 and 21 days to days-not pregnant, respectively ( p< 0.001). Anoestrus postpartum case was more likely to increase by 1.3% if endometritis case increases by 1.0% ( p< 0.001). These results reveal the important predictor variables of endometritis, reduced milk yield, and suboptimal fertility performance in postpartum dairy cows. This should inform the basis of management interventions for improved milk production and reproductive performance towards smallholder dairy herd profitability and sustainability.
A Reverse-Transcription Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Technique to Detect Tomato Mottle Mosaic Virus, an Emerging Tobamovirus

Tomato mottle mosaic virus (ToMMV) is an emerging seed-transmissible tobamovirus that infects tomato and pepper. Since the first report in 2013 in Mexico, ToMMV has spread worldwide, posing a serious threat to the production of both crops. To prevent the spread of this virus, early and accurate detection of infection is required. In this study, we developed a detection method for ToMMV based on reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP). A LAMP primer set was designed to target the genomic region spanning the movement protein and coat protein genes, which is a highly conserved sequence unique to ToMMV. This RT-LAMP detection method achieved 10-fold higher sensitivity than conventional RT-polymerase chain reaction methods and obtained high specificity without false positives for closely related tobamoviruses or healthy tomato plants. This method can detect ToMMV within 30 min of direct sampling of an infected tomato leaf using a toothpick and therefore does not require RNA purification. Given its high sensitivity, specificity, simplicity, and rapidity, the RT-LAMP method developed in this study is expected to be valuable for point-of-care testing in field surveys and for large-scale testing.
A trajectory planning and tracking control approach for obstacle avoidance of wheeled inverted pendulum vehicles

ABSTRACT This paper investigates a trajectory planning and tracking control scheme to implement the autonomous obstacle avoidance for wheeled inverted pendulum (WIP) vehicles, which enable the mobile platform to avoid obstacles rapidly and stabilise the vehicle body simultaneously. In the first place, an obstacle avoidance trajectory planning method suitable for the WIP vehicle is proposed, which, in particular, is capable of planning an obstacle avoidance trajectory with the merits of continuous curvature and approximately zero longitudinal acceleration in vehicle body-fixed frame system. Then, aiming the feature of the each subsystem, a nonsingular terminal sliding mode control and a nested saturation approach are employed to construct the trajectory tracking algorithm for fully actuated steering subsystem and underactuated longitudinal subsystem of the WIP vehicle, respectively. Besides, the closed-loop system's stability and asymptotical convergence of tracking error are proven in the sense of Lyapunov stability theory. In the end, numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme for obstacle avoidance of WIP vehicles.