Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implications of a Class of Grand Unified Theories for Large Scale Structure in the Universe

A class of grand unified theories in which cosmologicaly significant axion and neutrino energy densities arise naturally is discussed. To obtain large scale structure three scenarios are considered: (1) an inflationary scenario; (2) inflation followed by string production; and (3) a non-inflationary scenario with density fluctuations caused solely by strings. Inflation may be compatible with the recent observational indications that mega 1 on the scale of superclusters, particularly if strings are present.
A study of the latitudinal dependence of the quasi-biennial oscillation in Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer total ozone

A wavelet multiresolution analysis of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) latitudinal structure in total ozone is performed for the period 1979–1992 (Nimbus-7 TOMS data). It has been found that ozone is nearly in phase with the QBO signal in the equatorial region (0°—5° and 5°—10°), and it is out of phase (lag ~ +15 and —15 months in north and south) in the 10°—15° to 55°—60° latitudinal bands. The cross-correlation coefficient between total ozone and zonal wind index is high (>0.7) at latitudes lower than 10°, decreases in the transition region 10°—15° (r ~ 0.4) and it has a non-linear profile at high latitudes, with a maximum near the 25°—30° band. The correlation is observed to be higher in the Southern Hemisphere latitudinal bands. Spectral analysis was performed for each latitudinal range, and QBO period and amplitude profiles were obtained. A detailed latitudinal profile of the QBO signal in total ozone is obtained from the present analysis.
The dolphin echolocation system

The sonar of dolphins may be the most sophisticated of all sonar systems, biological or man‐made, in shallow waters and for short ranges. The Atlantic bottlenose dolphin emit short‐duration (50–70 μs), high‐frequency (120–140 kHz), broadband (40–50 kHz) echolocation signals with peak‐to‐peak amplitudes up to 228 dB re: 1 μPa. The type of signals used by dolphins play a significant role in their sonar discrimination capabilities. They have been observed detecting, classifying, and retrieving prey that is buried in sandy bottom up to a depth of about 0.3 m. In addition, controlled echolocation experiments have shown that dolphins can discriminate wall thickness, material composition, shape, and size of targets. The echolocation system of dolphins will be discussed in three parts. The first part will consider the properties of the receiving system (auditory capabilities). The second part will deal with the characteristics of echolocation signals, and the third part will consider several sonar capabilities.
Estimating Attractor Dimension on the Nonlinear Pendulum Time Series

Chaotic dynamical systems exhibit trajectories in their phase space that converges to a strange attractor. The strangeness of the chaotic attractor is associated with its dimension in which instance it is described by a noninteger dimension. This contribution presents an overview of the main definitions of dimension discussing their evaluation from time series employing the correlation and the generalized dimension. The investigation is applied to the nonlinear pendulum where signals are generated by numerical integration of the mathematical model, selecting a single variable of the system as a time series. In order to simulate experimental data sets, a random noise is introduced in the time series. State space reconstruction and the determination of attractor dimensions are carried out regarding periodic and chaotic signals. Results obtained from time series analyses are compared with a reference value obtained from the analysis of mathematical model, estimating noise sensitivity. This procedure allows one to identify the best techniques to be applied in the analysis of experimental data.
Active Road User Interactions With Autonomous Vehicles: Proactive Safety Assessment

This study aims to conduct a thorough assessment of pedestrian and cyclist safety in autonomous vehicle (AV) environments. To that end, the study utilized AV sensor data of over 1,500 driving hours from five sources in Canada, the United States, and Singapore. The sensor data were used to extract conflicts between AVs and active road users. The conflicts were then processed to develop accurate estimates of AV collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists based on the extreme value theory. Further in-depth assessments were conducted on the identified conflicts, by type and location, to highlight potential issues leading to risky conflicts. The results showed that the total number of predicted AV collisions involving active road users was 2.17 collisions per million AV kilometers travelled. Collisions involving pedestrians were slightly higher than those involving cyclists. Also, collisions in clear weather conditions slightly exceeded collisions in adverse weather conditions, although the difference was not statistically significant. The relative risk of collisions was developed for both pedestrian and cyclist conflicts per AV movement type. The results showed that for pedestrians, interactions with right-turning AVs are the riskiest, while interactions with left-turning AVs are the riskiest for cyclists. A thorough analysis of conflicts revealed many issues, including a higher tendency for pedestrian violations when interacting with AVs, aggressive AV behavior (particularly when interacting with pedestrians while making a right turn), AVs struggling to predict the path of cyclists (mainly because of cyclist violations), and AVs failing to interpret pedestrian intentions in some cases.
Polydioxanone Membrane Compared with Collagen Membrane for Bone Regeneration

Guided bone regeneration (GBR) is an approach that induces osteopromotion through the regenerative membranes. These barriers exhibit bioactive behavior and mechanical function. Polydioxanone is a synthetic option, already used in medicine and dentistry, with good results in bone regeneration. This study aimed to evaluate bone repair in critical defects in rat calvaria using a polydioxanone membrane (Plenum® Guide) compared with a commercially available collagen-based membrane (Bio-Gide®). The bone defects were filled with Plenum® Osshp, a synthetic bone graft, hydroxyapatite:β-tricalcium phosphate, 70:30%, Group PG (Plenum® Guide + Plenum® Osshp), and Group BG (Geistlich Bio-Gide® + Plenum® Osshp). The specimens were submitted to immunohistochemical (RUNX2 and OPN), gene expression (RUNX2, IBSP, and VEGF), histometric, and microtomography analyses after 07, 15, 30, and 60 days postoperative. PG group showed greater immunolabeling area for RUNX2 and OPN, higher gene expression of VEGF (3.15 ± 0.85), and IBSP (24.9 ± 0.59). However, there was no statistical difference between groups in the histometric analysis regarding the percentage of connective tissue PG (0.83 ± 0.45), BG (0.70 ± 0.34), neoformed bone PG (0.60 ± 0.4), BG (0.65 ± 0.51), and remaining biomaterial PG (0.84 ± 0.31), BG (0.91 ± 0.33). In addition, there was no statistical difference between groups by micro-CT analysis. The absorbable-synthetic membrane, Plenum® Guide, is an effective membrane for guided bone regeneration.
Channel Selectivity of Satellite Transponders with the Antenna Combined with a Size-Reduced Metallic Waveguide Bandpass Filter Having Thin Metamaterial Resonators

Global and intercontinental networking relies on satellite communication. Its wireless communication system always has antennas and their feed assembly comprising waveguides. This makes the satellite payload heavy and costly. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to effectively reduce the size of a waveguide bandpass filter (BPF). Because the metallic cavities make the conventional waveguide end up with a large geometry, especially for high-order BPFs, very compact waveguide-type resonators having metamaterial zeroth-order resonance (WG-ZOR) are designed on the cross-section of the waveguide and substituted for the cavities. While the cavities are half-wavelength resonators, the WG-ZOR is shorter than one eighth of a wavelength. A substantial reduction in size and weight of the waveguide filter is observed as the resonators are cascaded in series through coupling elements in the X-band much longer than K- or Ka-band. An X-band of 7.25~7.75 GHz is chosen to verify the method as the passband with attenuation of 40 dB at 7.00 GHz and 8.00 GHz as the roll-off in the stopband. The BPF is manufactured using the CNC milling technique. The design is carried out with geometrical parameters, not of the level of 10 μm, but the level of 100 μm, which is good for manufacturers but a big challenge for component designers. The measurement of the manufactured metal waveguide filter reveals that the passband has about ≤1 dB and ≤−15 dB as insertion loss and reflection coefficient and the stopband has ≤−40 dB as attenuation, which are in good agreement with the results of the circuit and simulation. The proposed filter has a length of 3.5 λg as the eighth-order BPF, but the conventional waveguide is 5 λg as the seventh-order BPF for the same area of the cross-section. This metamaterial BPF is combined with a horn antenna. The filter enables the wide-band antenna to distinguish the band of transmission from that of noise suppression. This channel selectivity is obviously observed by the filter integrated antenna test.
Tomato responses to salinity stress: From morphological traits to genetic changes

Tomato is an essential annual crop providing human food worldwide. It is estimated that by the year 2050 more than 50% of the arable land will become saline and, in this respect, in recent years, researchers have focused their attention on studying how tomato plants behave under various saline conditions. Plenty of research papers are available regarding the effects of salinity on tomato plant growth and development, that provide information on the behavior of different cultivars under various salt concentrations, or experimental protocols analyzing various parameters. This review gives a synthetic insight of the recent scientific advances relevant into the effects of salinity on the morphological, physiological, biochemical, yield, fruit quality parameters, and on gene expression of tomato plants. Notably, the works that assessed the salinity effects on tomatoes were firstly identified in Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science databases, followed by their sifter according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline and with an emphasis on their results. The assessment of the selected studies pointed out that salinity is one of the factors significantly affecting tomato growth in all stages of plant development. Therefore, more research to find solutions to increase the tolerance of tomato plants to salinity stress is needed. Furthermore, the findings reported in this review are helpful to select, and apply appropriate cropping practices to sustain tomato market demand in a scenario of increasing salinity in arable lands due to soil water deficit, use of low-quality water in farming and intensive agronomic practices.
Band alignment and thermal stability of HfO2 gate dielectric on SiC

The band alignment and thermal stability for HfO2 films on SiC with and without nitridation have been studied by using photoemission spectroscopy. The valence- and conduction-band offsets at HfO2/4H-SiC interfaces were measured to be 1.02 and 1.53 eV, respectively. The atomic source nitridation improves interface thermal stability with nitrogen passivation for the oxygen vacancies in dielectric films and for the defects on SiC surface, but induces band gap reduction for the HfO2 dielectric layer and band alignment shift at the interface. Postnitridation annealing helps to improve the band offsets of dielectric film to have sufficient injection barrier.
Comments on An Ensemble Cumulus Convection Parameterization with Explicit Cloud Treatment

AbstractIn a recent paper, Wagner and Graf derived a population evolution equation for an ensemble of convective plumes, an analog with the Lotka–Volterra equation, from the energy equations for convective plumes provided by Arakawa and Schubert. Although their proposal is interesting, as the present note shows, there are some problems with their derivation.
Identification of endothelial-related molecular subtypes for bladder cancer patients

Background Bladder cancer (BC) is a disease with significant heterogeneity and poor prognosis. The prognosis and therapeutic response of BC patients are significantly influenced by endothelial cells in the tumor microenvironment. In order to understand BC from the perspective of endothelial cells, we orchestrated molecular subtypes and identified key genes. Methods Single-cell and bulk RNA sequencing data were extracted from online databases. R and its relative packages were used to analyze these data. Cluster analysis, prognostic value analysis, function analysis, immune checkpoints, tumor immune environment and immune prediction were conducted. Results Five endothelial-related genes (CYTL1, FAM43A, HSPG2, RBP7, and TCF4) divided BC patients in the TCGA, GSE13507, and GSE32894 datasets into two clusters, respectively. In prognostic value analysis, patients in the cluster 2 were substantially associated with worse overall survival than those in the cluster 1 according to the results of TCGA, GSE13507 and GSE32894 datasets. In the results of functional analysis, the endothelial-related clusters was enriched in immune-related, endothelial-related and metabolism-related pathways. Samples in the cluster 1 had a statistically significant increase in CD4+ T cells and NK-cell infiltration. Cluster 1 was positively correlated with the cancer stem score and tumor mutational burden score. The results of immune prediction analysis indicated that 50.6% (119/235) of patients in the cluster 1 responded to immunotherapy, while the response rate in the cluster 2 decreased to 16.7% (26/155). Conclusion In this study, we categorized and discovered distinctive prognosis-related molecular subtypes and key genes from the perspective of endothelial cells at the genetic level by integrating single-cell and bulk RNA sequencing data, primarily to provide a roadmap for precision medicine.
Research on Collision Avoidance Algorithm of Unmanned Surface Vehicle Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning

To solve the problem of active collision avoidance for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) in a complex maritime environment, a method of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based on proximal policy optimization (PPO) is proposed. To master the collision avoidance policy by self-learning, the mathematical model of USV, dynamic obstacle generation model, and reward mechanism were established. Using the relative position between the obstacle and USV and the information of the closest point of approach (CPA), high-dimensional state features including the collision track layer and collision threat layer were constructed. On this basis, combined with low-dimensional states such as navigation state and path error, a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) structure fused in multifeature and multiscale was designed. The proposed DRL network was trained through repeated collision avoidance simulations in random environments. Simulation results reveal that the proposed algorithm can output effective decisions in complex scenarios and avoid dynamic obstacles quickly and safely.
Efficiency of a Carnot engine at maximum power output

The efficiency of a Carnot engine is treated for the case where the power output is limited by the rates of heat transfer to and from the working substance. It is shown that the efficiency, η, at maximum power output is given by the expression η = 1 − (T2/T1)1/2 where T1 and T2 are the respective temperatures of the heat source and heat sink. It is also shown that the efficiency of existing engines is well described by the above result.
Ballistic trajectories of optical wave packets within microcavities

We present time-resolved measurements of the ballistic trajectory of ultrashort optical wave packets circulating near the surface of a dielectric microcavity. The wave-packet dynamics are determined by using twocolor two-photon induced fluorescence of Coumarin 510 within the microcavity as a correlator. Ballistic motion of the wave packets in whispering gallery modes and rainbow trajectories has been deduced from the time delay between collisions of the two wave packets. The cavity ringdown time is measured for each of the wave packets, which retain their integrity even after several round trips.
Mark Fisher and reimagining postcapitalist geographies

In this paper, I outline the spatial imaginaries of the late radical thinker Mark Fisher (1968–2017). I begin by explaining Fisher's focus on culture and desire as forces that must be addressed if an effective postcapitalist politics is to be formed and underscoring that so far in postcapitalist geographies, the roles of culture and desire have been relatively overlooked. I then delineate three spatial imaginaries threaded through Fisher's work, which I call 3D hauntology, grotesque stratigraphy, and acid topology, demonstrating how they offer fresh ideas at the nexus of postcapitalist geography and political strategy. To conclude, I argue that postcapitalist geographers must urgently foster cultural and political experiments that wager on latent popular desire for a future characterised by a reimagined communism.
STABLE STATES AND IMPOSSIBLE CHANGES: THE LIMITS OF TELEOLOGICAL EXPLANATION IN DIACHRONIC LINGUISTICS

The paper concentrates on the problem of cross-linguistic word-order regularities, known as Natural Serialisation Principle. It is argued that the teleological nature of this principle is due to a too broad understanding of the notion of state for a linguistic system. If the notion of state is applied to smaller subsystems of the whole word- order system, the apparent teleological tendencies within this whole can be modelled without referring to the future. Using the theory of self-organisation, the possible stable and unstable states for the system of word order are defined, and possible paths of word- order change specified. The model is tested against an unsuccessful language planning attempt in Estonian, undertaken by Johannes Aavik. It is concluded that the causes for Natural Serialisation Principle derived from the psycholinguistic constraints on language production and understanding.
Head-to-head comparison of three stool calprotectin tests for home use

Objective Treatment decisions in inflammatory bowel diseases are increasingly based on longitudinal tracking of calprotectin results. Many hospital laboratories measure calprotectin levels in sent-in stool samples with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Several manufacturers introduced a lateral flow–based test with software application that turns a smartphone camera into a reader for quantitative measurements. We compared three home tests (IBDoc, QuantonCal and CalproSmart) and companion ELISA tests (fCAL, IDK-Calprotectin and Calprotectin-ALP) to see if measurement pairs agreed sufficiently. Design A method comparison study was conducted with stool samples from patients with active or quiescent inflammatory bowel disease. Medical students without any specific laboratory training carried out the home tests with two iOS (iPhone 6 and 7) and two Android devices (Samsung Galaxy S6 and Motorola Moto G5 Plus). Two experienced laboratory technicians measured the calprotectin concentration with the ELISA method. Primary outcome was test agreement (defined as percentage of paired measurements within predefined limits of difference). Secondary outcome included reading error rate (RER) per smartphone type. Results We performed 1440 smartphone readings and 120 ELISA tests. In the low calprotectin range (≤500 μg/g) IBDoc, QuantOnCal and CalproSmart showed 87%, 82% and 76% agreement with their companion ELISAs. In the high range (>500 μg/g) the agreement was 37%, 19% and 37%, respectively. CalproSmart and QuantOnCal had significantly higher RERs than IBDoc (respectively 5.8% and 4.8%, versus 1.9%). Forty-three percent of reading errors was on the Motorola device, in particular with the QuantOnCal application. Conclusions All three calprotectin home tests and companion ELISAs agreed sufficiently when concentrations are ≤500 μg/g. To minimize wrongful interpretation of calprotectin changes over time it is essential to always use the home test and companion ELISA of one and the same manufacturer. Manufacturers should explicitly evaluate and report the suitability of commonly used smartphones for quantitative calprotectin readings.
Tunnel probes for measurements of the electron and ion temperature in fusion plasmas

We have developed tunnel probes for localized measurements of the electron and ion temperature in the edge plasma region of smaller tokamaks and stellarators. A normal tunnel probe for Te measurements consists of a metallic tunnel of 5 mm diameter and 5 mm length, with the axis parallel to the magnetic field. One side is open, the other side is closed by a metallic backplate, isolated from the tunnel. If both electrodes are biased negatively, ions flow into the office, and their current is distributed between the tunnel and the backplate. The ratio of the two ion currents is a function of Te. With an additional diaphragm in front of the orifice, the probe becomes ion sensitive, since the electrons are prevented from the tunnel because of their smaller gyroradius, but ions can still reach it. In this way, the perpendicular ion temperature can be derived. By segmenting the tunnel axially into two parts, also an approximate measure for the parallel ion temperature can be found.
A statistical study of ion energization mechanisms in the auroral region

More than one mechanism is causing ion energization perpendicular to the geomagnetic field in the auroral region. Observations by the Freja satellite obtained during 20 months at altitudes around 1700 km are used to study the most common O+ energization mechanisms. Ion energization can be due to broadband low-frequency waves, causing resonant energization by interaction at frequencies around the ion gyrofrequency. Energization can also be caused by resonant energization by electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves at about half the proton gyrofrequency, or by emissions near the lower hybrid frequency. About 90% of all O+ heating events and about 95% of the total O+ upflow are caused by ion energization associated with broadband low-frequency waves. The dependence of the different energization types on magnetic local time, magnetic latitude, magnetic activity, and season is studied. We find that the prenoon auroral region is a major source of O+ ions energized by broadband low-frequency waves.
An unstructured CVFEM and moving interface algorithm for non‐Newtonian Hele‐Shaw flows in injection molding

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel unstructured simulation approach for injection molding processes described by the Hele‐Shaw model.Design/methodology/approach – The scheme involves dual dynamic meshes with active and inactive cells determined from an initial background pointset. The quasi‐static pressure solution in each timestep for this evolving unstructured mesh system is approximated using a control volume finite element method formulation coupled to a corresponding modified volume of fluid method. The flow is considered to be isothermal and non‐Newtonian.Findings – Supporting numerical tests and performance studies for polystyrene described by Carreau, Cross, Ellis and Power‐law fluid models are conducted. Results for the present method are shown to be comparable to those from other methods for both Newtonian fluid and polystyrene fluid injected in different mold geometries.Research limitations/implications – With respect to the methodology, the background pointset infers a m.