Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Sustainability Practices on the Going Concern of the Travel and Tourism Industry: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries

Sustainability refers to the evaluation and communication of quantitative and qualitative information of the sustainability performance of a business in a balanced way regarding the environment and the society in which it operates. Companies are responsible for stakeholders’ justification and disclosure expenses consisting of dedicated sustainability practices, thereby strengthening the company’s financial performance. However, due to the deficiency of consistent information and a lack of transparency in corporate reporting, tourism industries fail to realize the association between sustainability practices and financial performance. Moreover, there is a lack of literature that deals with the impact of macro-level sustainability factors on firms’ financial performances. Furthermore, linking the going concern concept and sustainable practices with financial performance through the Z-score model is not frequently done in the corporate world. Hence, this paper investigated the impact of macro-level sustainability practices on the going concern ability in developed and developing countries’ tourism industries for the 2016–2020 period, including a sample size of 138 listed companies, through panel data analysis. This study fills the empirical gap by adopting the Altman Z-score to analyze the financial performance related to sustainability practices in terms of environmental, economic, and social dimensions. The empirical results reveal that macro-level sustainability practices significantly impact the going concern from developed and developing countries’ perspectives.
Fabrication and characterization of suspended graphene membranes for miniature Golay cells

The development of miniaturized Golay cell arrays would enable the combination of the high sensitivity of a Golay cell with the imaging capability of focal plane arrays. The critical component of a miniaturized Golay cell is the deflecting membrane, which must simultaneously have a high breaking strength and a low flexural rigidity. Graphene suits this purpose ideally on account of its high strength and atomic thickness, in contrast with thicker polymeric membranes. Low flexural rigidity is critical to deflection sensitivity in response to temperature changes of the gas enclosed within a Golay cell scaled to the 10 μm to 100 μm scale. We report here a simple method for fabrication of suspended graphene membranes suitable for Golay cells. The technique is based on chemical vapour deposition of graphene on copper, followed by a sacrificial etch of the copper substrate. By this organic-free technique, graphene can be suspended over 10 - 20 μm apertures in copper thin films free of surface contamination and with high structural integrity. The cavities are sealed on the back-side with an indium film to produce proof-of-principle miniature cells with a flexible, suspended graphene membrane. Atomic force microscopy enables the force versus deflection curve of a graphene-enclosed cell to be characterized. We further report the temperature dependent equilibrium deflection (up to 60°C) of a graphene-enclosed cell by atomic force microscopy measurements taken with heat directly applied to the cell substrate.
Interaction with an Autonomous Team Member Determines the Relationship between Team Trust and Team Performance

This study examines the effects of individual team members’ trust on Human-Autonomy Team (HAT) and all-human team performance in a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System-Synthetic Task Environment (RPAS-STE). Twenty-one three-member teams consisting of two participants – in the roles of navigator and photographer – teaming with either an autonomous agent or a trained human experimenter – a pilot – flew an RPA with the goal of photographing targets. We regressed a measure of team performance, Target Processing Efficiency (TPE), on each team member’s trust in their team. We found that both team members’ (navigator and photographer) trust in the team predicted TPE, where increases in trust in team predicted increases in team performance. Importantly, we found that the relationship between trust in team and TPE was dependent on the role of the human operator, and team composition, where team composition mediated the relationship for the photographer and moderated the relationship for the navigator. We suggest that heterogeneous interactions with the agent may explain these role-specific differences, which is in line with interactive team cognition’s (ITC) proposition that interaction is a dominant factor in team performance. In sum, roles that have more interaction with an autonomous agent will have their team performance affected more so by the presence of an agent than their trust in the team. To alleviate these differing effects, agents should have communication and coordination capabilities comparable to human teammates. Alternatively, forms of interaction that do not depend on natural language could be pursued.
Assessment of the feasibility of applying payment for forest ecosystem services in Vietnamese mangrove forests

Mangroves can play a major role in efforts to mitigate climate change through two pathways. These are (1) carbon sequestration following reforestation of areas where mangroves previously existed, and (2) protection of existing carbon stores in intact mangrove forests. There is considerable international interest in carbon mitigation by governments and businesses as a way of meeting emissions reduction targets, and this could result in significant investment in mangrove restoration and protection. This is likely to have positive benefits in terms of coastal protection, biodiversity protection and new economic activity. This project examined three aspects of mangroves related to the emerging carbon economy. There has been considerable (0.2 million hectares) mangrove restoration in Vietnam and this activity provides insights into the causes of project success or failure. A review of this restoration concluded that the failure of several past restoration projects in Vietnam could be attributed to poor species and site selection and lack of incentives to engage residents in long-term management. The economic, environmental and social aspects of mangrove-shrimp farming or aquaculture (MAS) systems in Ca Mau Province, Vietnam, were examined, and it was concluded that this approach allows the achievement of these multiple objectives. Whereas, most of the discussion around mangroves and their role in carbon management is at the international and national levels, implementation occurs at the local level. It was found that whereas local stakeholders had a reasonable understanding of climate change, they were less clear about carbon markets and the role that mangroves can play. This points to the need for new educational programmes. The study concluded that monitoring and verification systems for both carbon and biodiversity are essential to allow the resultant multiple benefits of carbon mitigation projects to be realised.
Improved Subthreshold Swing of MoS₂ Negative-Capacitance Transistor by Using HfZrAlO as Ferroelectric Layer of Gate-Stack

In this work, a hafnium–zirconium–aluminum–oxide (HZAO) is proposed and atomic layer deposition (ALD), and its ferroelectricity is shown to be stronger than hafnium–zirconium–oxide (HZO) by measuring polarization versus electric field (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${P} - {E}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) loop. Also, a large sharp peak of capacitance–voltage (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${C} - {V}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) curve is observed in <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${C} - {V}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> measurement to confirm the strong negative-capacitance (NC) effect. The fabricated MoS2 NCFET using HZAO as a ferroelectric layer of gate-stack exhibits a significantly reduced subthreshold swing (SS) (17 mV/dec almost over four orders of drain current magnitude, with a minimal SS of 12.8 mV/dec) as compared to its counterpart with the HZO ferroelectric layer (a minimal SS of 38.5 mV/dec). The involved mechanisms lie in that incorporation of Al atoms into the HZO film can form the additional hafnium–aluminum–oxide (HAO) and zirconium–aluminum–oxide with ferroelectricity, and as a result, the formed composite HZAO film can convert more monoclinic phases to orthorhombic phase than the HZO film, leading to stronger ferroelectricity for the former than the latter and, thus, smaller SS for its relevant NCFET.
Shallow three-dimensional flows with variable surface tension

The three-dimensional steady flow of a shallow viscous liquid with non-uniform surface tension has been considered when the variation in surface tension results from the presence of an insoluble chemical contaminant on the surface. Similarly solutions for the particular problem of a channel flowing into a semi-infinite lake have been obtained, the depth and surface concentration at infinity being specified.
Morphological differences between normal and cancerous mammalian cells via multitechnique microscopic studies

Despite of the recent year's important advances in breast cancer biology, there is a continuous demand for new microscopic studies able to provide complementary information on cell shape that is an essential feature of the tumour cells affecting their proliferation and spreading. Understanding the relationship between cell shape and cellular function is important for regulation of cell phenotype modification in particular during cancerogenesis. Utilizing a multitechnique approach, we have investigated the morphological differences of normal human mammalian epithelial cells (HMEC) and cancerous breast epithelial cells (MCF7) cells, both mammalian epithelial cells, but from the same cell type, allowing us to compare them. The goal of our investigation was to combine information on morphological properties of these cells provided by imaging techniques like atomic force microscopy (AFM), brightfield microscopy with in-depth images of microtubules via the multiphoton microscopy (MPM). Cells morphology studies for both cells' types were first carried out using the contact mode AFM which has gained great potential for studying biological systems. Brightfield optical imaging was operated in correlation with the AFM measurements. Topography analyses were performed for living cells as well as fixed ones for both MCF7 and HMEC 184 A1 cells. Living cancerous cells are much softer than normal ones, smaller in shape, and more difficult to manipulate. Photonic responses of fixed cells have been then evaluated by the multiphoton microscopy. Due to light's good penetration depth (IR excitation) in biological samples, MPM has already proved to be a reliable and powerful tool in medical and biological deep tissue imaging. Moreover, MPM provides useful three-dimensional information on the structural and optical properties of the specimen due to its intrinsic optical sectioning resolution. Combination of these microscopic techniques allows us to correlate external cell morphology, with in-depth images provided by the non-linear optical response of microtubules. Understanding cytoskeletal perturbations and particularly, organization of the microtubules can help us to comprehend biological processes in cancer.
Station-Keeping With Underwater Gliders Based on Virtual Hinges of Multi-body System

Many of the critical scientific questions about the ocean require sustained spatial sampling to measure the mean state of the system and high-frequency changes. As a virtual mooring platform, the underwater glider (UG) can take full advantage of low energy consumption, low noise, low operating cost, and long-term observation. However, dynamic currents make it difficult to control the UGS, resulting in large station-keeping errors. To deal with the above problem, we first deduce the model of the UG undercurrents. On this basis, the multi-body system of the UG and the target location is established to control the course and horizontal trajectory of the UG. From June to October 2020, five Petrel-II UGs developed by Tianjin University of China were deployed at five different target locations in the South China Sea. The Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model was used for the current prediction. According to the experimental results, the method presented in this paper can improve the station-keeping ability of UGs in currents.
Non-Gaussian signatures from Gaussian initial fluctuations : evolution of skewness and kurtosis from cosmological simulations in the highly nonlinear regime

Following recent observational studies of counts-in-cells statistic, we consider the evolution of the third and fourth moments of distribution functions of the density contrast 6. We define a normalized skewness as S = [delta3]/[delta2]2 and a normalized kurtosis as K = ([delta4] - 3 [delta2]2)/[delta2]3, which are expected from previous theoretical and phenomenological arguments to be '' constants '' in the mildly nonlinear regime. We extended the study of S and K into the highly nonlinear regime 1 less than or similar to delta(rms) = [delta2]1/2 less than or similar to 30 using N-body simulations and taking into account the effect of Poisson shot noise. We find that the simple scaling relation which holds in the mildly nonlinear regime breaks down in the highly nonlinear regime. Both S and K exhibit variation which strongly depends on the primordial power spectrum of density fluctuations, but only weakly on the epoch. For a low-density (OMEGA = 0.2; lambda = 0.8) cold dark matter model at the ''present epoch,'' the normalized skewness and kurtosis in cubic cells are well approximated by S(F) almost-equal-to 3 delta(rms)0.4 and K(F) almost-equal-to 15 delta(rms)0.9 (after removing the shot-noise contribution), over the range 1 less than or similar to delta(rms) less than or similar to 27. For a simulation with initial white-noise spectrum the moments vary more slowly, S(F) almost-equal-to 2 delta(rms)0.2 and K(F) almost-equal-to 8 delta(rms)0.3. Our present findings are in conflict with simple hierarchical clustering models with a power-law correlation function which predict that S(F) and K(F) are independent of the scale. Furthermore, we find that in redshift space the moments, as well as S and K, are smaller than in real space for delta(rms) > 1. Consequently S and S(F) appear to be '' constants '' in redshift space analysis which might explain several observational indications in favor of hierarchical clustering models.We also discuss sparse sampling and the effect of filtering scale and shape. Counts-in-cells of IRAS and optical galaxies suggest S approximately 2 for delta(rms) less than or similar to 1, while from the correlation functions of optical galaxies S approximately 4 for delta(rms) greater than or similar to 1. These values are in accord with that expected from gravitational clustering from Gaussian initial conditions and may carry important information on the shape of the power spectrum.
Optimal Vibration Control of Thin-Walled Anisotropic Cantilevers Exposed to Blast Loadings

Astudyofoptimalfeedbackcontrolofthedynamicresponseofcantileversexposed to blastloadingsispresented. The structure to be controlled consists of a thin-walled beam of closed cross section contour that encompasses a number of nonclassical features such as transverse shear, primary and secondary warping, and anisotropy of the constitutent material. The control is achieved via the use of actuating and sensing capabilities provided by piezoelectric devices that are bonded or embedded into the host structure. In addition, the directionality property of advanced e ber-reinforced composite materials is also used to tailor the host structure to obtain an enhanced dynamic response. The cases of piezoactuators spread over the entire span of the structure or in the form of a patch are considered, and issues related with the ine uence of patch location and size on the control efe ciency are discussed. Other issues related to the minimization of the required input power and implications of the limitation of control input voltage and of those generated by the inclusion/discard in the quadratic performance index of time-dependent external excitations are also addressed. I. Introduction T HE increasing need for high-speed, highly e exible, and lightweight structural e ight vehicles, capable of operating in severe environmental conditions, has prompted the development of a new concept in the modeling, analysis, and control of structures. This concept is based on the extensive use of advanced composite material structures 1 and integration in their construction of smart materials technology. 2 Such structures are often called intelligent/smart composite material structures.
Direction of arrival estimation based on graph signal processing for a coprime array

The direction of arrival (DOA) estimation based on graph signal processing (GSP) has attracted a great deal of attention. Based on the results of the GSP approach to DOA estimation, the paper applies GSP to the coprime sensor array (CSA) for high precision estimating DOA of the narrowband signal. Simulation results show that the GSP-CSA performs well with lower root mean square error at low signal-to-noise ratio compared to classical DOA methods. The sea experimental data analysis has demonstrated the effectiveness of the GSP-CSA method with low computational cost.
Two-layer motion estimation algorithm for video coding

A novel two-layer motion estimation which searches motion vectors on two layers with partial distortion measures in order to reduce the overwhelming computational complexity of motion estimation (ME) in video coding is proposed. A layer is an image which is derived from the reference frame such that the summation of a block of pixels in the reference frame determines the point of a layer. It has been noted on different video sequences that many motion vectors on the layers are the same as those searched on the reference frame. Experimental results on a wide variety of video sequences show that the proposed algorithm achieves both fast speed and good motion prediction quality when compared with the state-of-the-art fast block matching algorithms.
Quadrature rules for triangular and tetrahedral elements with generalized functions

Quadrature rules are developed for exactly integrating products of polynomials and generalized functions over triangular and tetrahedral domains. These quadrature rules greatly simplify the implementation of finite element methods that involve integrals over volumes and interfaces that are not coincident with the element boundaries. Specifically, the integrands considered here consist of a quadratic polynomial multiplied by a Heaviside or Dirac delta function operating on a linear polynomial. This form allows for exact integration of expressions obtained from linear finite elements over domains and interfaces defined by a linear level set function. Exact quadrature rules are derived that involve fixed quadrature point locations with weights that depend continuously on the nodal level set values. Compared with methods involving explicit integration over subdomains, the quadrature rules developed here accommodate degenerate interface geometries without any need for special consideration and provide analytical Jacobian information describing the dependence of the integrals on the nodal level set values. The accuracy of the method is demonstrated for a simple conduction problem with the Neumann and Robin‐type boundary conditions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Fast Beam Alignment Via True Time Delay Frequency Dependent Beamforming Using Fixed and Variable Length Tests

In this work, we present a time efficient solution to the initial beam alignment/acquisition of a hybrid beamforming millimeter wave communication system. Our proposal is based on adding a frequency dependent beamforming device at the transmitter which is capable of simultaneously testing all spatial angles and, therefore, any set of possible beamformers from an analog codebook. Such a device employed outperforms any kind of consecutive beamformer testing, e.g., exhaustive search, in terms of testing overhead and receive power loss after beamforming. To further increase the time efficiency, a variable length testing technique in combination with the frequency dependent beamformer is described, which is adaptive to any signal to noise ratio or varying channel condition. Especially in the low signal to noise ratio regime, an overall speed-up can be achieved. The described radar-like solution to the initial beam alignment problem may act as an enabler for mmWave communication in fast-varying and challenging environments.
Non‐linear Fourier Time Series Analysis for Human Brain Mapping by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

A non‐linear parametric model for brain activation detection by functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) is proposed. The effects of a designed temporal stimulus on the FMRI signal at each brain location in a 36×60 spatial grid are estimated from discrete Fourier transforms of the observed time series at each location. The frequency domain regression model accommodates unobservable and spatially varying haemodynamic response functions through their estimated convolutions with the global stimulus. This approach generalizes an existing method for human brain mapping. An experiment to detect focal cortical activation during primary visual stimulation demonstrates the usefulness of the method.
A Fucosylated Lactose-Presenting Tetravalent Glycocluster Acting as a Mutual Ligand of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Lectins A (PA-IL) and B (PA-IIL)—Synthesis and Interaction Studies

The Gram-negative bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important opportunistic human pathogen associated with cystic fibrosis. P. aeruginosa produces two soluble lectins, the d-galactose-specific lectin PA-IL (LecA) and the l-fucose-specific lectin PA-IIL (LecB), among other virulence factors. These lectins play an important role in the adhesion to host cells and biofilm formation. Moreover, PA-IL is cytotoxic to respiratory cells in the primary culture. Therefore, these lectins are promising therapeutic targets. Specifically, carbohydrate-based compounds could inhibit their activity. In the present work, a 3-O-fucosyl lactose-containing tetravalent glycocluster was synthesized and utilized as a mutual ligand of galactophilic and fucophilic lectins. Pentaerythritol equipped with azido ethylene glycol-linkers was chosen as a multivalent scaffold and the glycocluster was constructed by coupling the scaffold with propargyl 3-O-fucosyl lactoside using an azide-alkyne 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction. The interactions between the glycocluster and PA-IL or PA-IIL were investigated by isothermal titration microcalorimetry and saturation transfer difference NMR spectroscopy. These results may assist in the development of efficient anti-adhesion therapy for the treatment of a P. aeruginosa infection.