Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dissipative Dynamics of Granular Materials Dissipative Dynamics of Granular Materials

Granules are inelastic particles, undergoing dissipative and repulsive forces on contact. A granular state consists of a conglomeration of discrete, non-Brownian particles in a combined state of solid, liquid, and gas. Modern theoretical physics lacks general theo- ries for the granular states. Simulation methods for particle dynamics include molecular dynamics (MD), Brownian dynamics (BD), Stokesian dynamics (SD), dissipative particle dynamics (DPD), and dissipative hydrodynamics (DHD). These conventional methods were originally designed to mimic the small-particle motion being less influenced by the gravitational force. There are three reasons that a conventional method cannot be directly applied to investigate granular dynamics. First, volume exclusion forces between colliding particles are often disregarded due to strong repulsive forces between negatively charged colloids and nanoparticles. Second, the gravitational force is not significant as applied to small, light particles, and therefore it is often discarded in force/torque calculations. Third, energy conservation in an equilibrium state is not guaranteed for the granular system due to the inelastic and frictional nature of the granular materials. In this light, this chapter discusses the fundamentals of particle dynamics methods, formulates a robust theoretical framework for granular dynamics, and discusses the current applications and future directions of computational granular dynamics.
Self-synchronizing One-way Delay Measurement in the Internet

—End-to-end packet delay is the network parameter with maximum impact on performance of distributed applications. This is especially true for soft real-time applications, which are delay-sensitive by definition, but also for applications relying on the TCP protocol whose sliding window mechanism performs badly in case of high packet delays. Therefore, measuring packet delay is an important task for both network operators and application developers. This paper presents a tool set for measuring and evaluating one-way end-to-end delay and packet loss that can be operated on standard PCs without additional external timing sources. We chose a script-based approach that can even be executed on virtualized platforms. The self-synchronization mechanism embodied in the trace evaluation is a distinctive feature that omits the need for expensive external clocks (as e.g., GPS receivers). We also show a wide-ranging set of measured traces and their most prominent statistical properties.
Subpopulations in Human Obesity Profiling of the Three Circulating Monocyte

Three subpopulations of circulating monocytes have been described: CD14 2+ CD16 2 (classical monocytes [CM]), CD14 2+ CD16 + (intermediate monocytes [IM]), and CD14 + CD16 2+ (nonclassical monocytes [NCM]). We previously showed that obesity is associated with an increased proportion of IM and NCM. Our objective is to decipher the migratory and inﬂammatory functions of each monocyte subset in obesity-related low-grade inﬂammation. Twenty-six healthy, normal-weight and nondiabetic volunteers (C) and 40 obese nondiabetic (Ob) individuals were included in this study. We explored the gene expression proﬁle of 18 inﬂammatory genes in each subset of C and Ob subjects and measured protein expression of the upregulated genes. We then tested their functional response to TLR signaling in both groups. We showed an increased expression of CX3CR1 in all monocyte subpopulations and of CCR2 and CCR5 in CM and IM in the Ob group. We found negative correlation between CCR2 and CX3CR1 expressions and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, whereas CCR5 expression was positively linked to obesity-related metabolic traits. Production of inﬂammatory proteins upon bacterial LPS and viral ssRNA stimulation was higher in CM and NCM of the Ob group compared with the C group. Our work highlights an enhanced inﬂammatory phenotype of monocytes with a higher response to TLR4 and TLR8 stimulations in obesity. Moreover, it suggests an increased migration capacity of CM and IM subpopulations. The Journal
Research Online Research Online Supporting Self-Regulated Learning in Online Learning Supporting Self-Regulated Learning in Online Learning Environments and MOOCs: A Systematic Review Environments and MOOCs: A Systematic Review

Abstract Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow learning to take place anytime and anywhere with little external monitoring by teachers. Characteristically, highly diverse groups of learners enrolled in MOOCs are required to make decisions related to their own learning activities to achieve academic success. Therefore, it is considered important to support self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies and adapt to relevant human factors (e.g., gender, cognitive abilities, prior knowledge). SRL supports have been widely investigated in traditional classroom settings, but little is known about how SRL can be supported in MOOCs. Very few experimental studies have been conducted in MOOCs at present. To fill this gap, this paper presents a systematic review of studies on approaches to support SRL in multiple types of online learning environments and how they address human factors. The 35 studies reviewed show that human factors play an important role in the efficacy of SRL supports. Future studies can use learning analytics to understand learners at a fine-grained level to provide support that best fits individual learners. The objective of the paper is twofold: (a) to inform researchers, designers and teachers about the state of the art of SRL support in online learning environments and MOOCs; (b) to provide suggestions for adaptive self-regulated learning support. ABSTRACT Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow learning to take place anytime and anywhere with little external monitoring by teachers. Characteristically, highly diverse groups of learners enrolled in MOOCs are required to make decisions related to their own learning activities to achieve academic success. Therefore, it is considered important to support self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies and adapt to relevant human factors (e.g., gender, cognitive abilities, prior knowledge). SRL supports have been widely investigated in traditional classroom settings, but little is known about how SRL can be supported in MOOCs. Very few experimental studies have been conducted in MOOCs at present. To fill this gap, this paper presents a systematic review of studies on approaches to support SRL in multiple types of online learning environments and how they address human factors. The 35 studies reviewed show that human factors play an important role in the efficacy of SRL supports. Future studies can use learning analytics to understand learners at a fine-grained level to provide support that best fits individual learners. The objective of the paper is twofold: (a) to inform researchers, designers and teachers about the state of the art of SRL support in online learning environments and MOOCs; (b) to provide suggestions for adaptive self-regulated learning support.
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HYPABYSSAL KIMBERLITE FROM FOUR LOCATIONS WITHIN THE SLAVE CRATON

Kimberlites occurring within the Archean Slave craton appear to differ from the classic southern African model in a number of aspects. The Cretaceous and early Tertiary kimberlites of the Lac de Gras area (Fig. 1), are generally small steep-sided pipes infilled with volcaniclastic kimberlite (VK), however a few are composed of mainly hypabyssal kimberlite (HK). Both HK and VK have been found exposed at surface. The most notable feature of these pipes is the lack of tuffisitic kimberlite (TK) and/or tuffisitic kimberlite breccia (TKB), which shows that they are different from the majority of pipes in southern Africa (Field and Scott Smith, 1998). The pre-Cretaceous kimberlites occurring both north and south of the Lac de Gras area (Fig. 1), contain common TK and/or TKB, as well as HK (Field and Scott Smith, 1998). The lack of TK and/or TKB, as well as, the disparity in pipe size, indicate that the welltested southern African kimberlite model and postulates concerning near-surface emplacement, which are applicable in many parts of the world, do not adequately explain the contrasting types of kimberlites present within the Slave craton. This study, which represents one of the first detailed comparative investigations of hypabyssal kimberlites from the Slave craton, presents petrographic, mineral chemical and whole rock geochemical data from hypabyssal kimberlite from the Finlay, Muskox, Rich and Jean bodies (Fig. 1). The four bodies are compared and contrasted with each other to illustrate some of the prominent characteristics of the different kimberlite fields present within the Slave craton. The results are then compared with data from other world-wide hypabyssal kimberlites, most notably those from the Kimberley, South Africa area. The results of this comparison provide additional lines of evidence to further evaluate the applicability of the Southern African kimberlite emplacement model to the Slave.
Original Emotional Context and Color Perception and Recognition by 12- and 16-years-old Children

Will the emotional context in which a painting is placed impact how well adolescents remember the colors in it? Will there be differences in color perception and recognition based on age and gender? Specific materials had to be designed to answer this question: (a) an abstract, themeless painting composed of twelve colors, each covering the same area with the same number of pixels, and (b) four texts with different emotional connotations (fear, anger, happiness, and sadness) describing the lives of fictitious painters. After being pretested, the material was proposed to 142 seventh-grade students and 71 tenth-grade students. Each subject studied a painting and heard one of the four texts. Next, the painting was taken away; after this, the subjects ordered the twelve colors based on how much area they thought each one covered the painting. It was hypothesized that the subjects would give greater importance to specific colors depending on the emotional context induced by the associated text. The results confirmed this hypothesis, although the tenth graders were less affected by the emotional context than the seventh graders. There was no statistically significant effect of gender in either population.
Systematic Review of Rigorous Research in Teaching Introductory Circuits

Systematic review is a meta-analytical framework for quantitatively searching, sorting, and synthesizing scholarly research on a particular topic. Systematic review techniques have recently gained traction in the field of engineering education. A systematic review performed over a specific area of practice can consolidate results from many studies into a synthesis of best practices. This paper presents the best practices for teaching introductory circuits which were identified through a systematic review of prior research. Relevant publications were identified and appraised with a set of coding criteria generated by the researchers. The coding results were examined and used to write a mixed-methods synthesis of consensus, disagreement, quality, and limitations amongst studies identified by the systematic literature review. The results of the review may inform educational techniques employed in post-secondary introductory circuits courses.
Perturbation of analytic operators and temporal regularity of discrete heat kernels

In analogy to the analyticity condition ‖Ae‖ ≤ Ct, t > 0, for a continuous time semigroup (etA)t≥0, a bounded operator T is called analytic if the discrete time semigroup (Tn)n∈N0 satisfies ‖(T − I)T ‖ ≤ Cn, n ∈ N. We generalize O. Nevanlinna’s characterization of powerbounded and analytic operators T to the following perturbation result: if S is a perturbation of T such that ‖R(λ0, T )−R(λ0, S)‖ is small enough for some λ0 ∈ ̺(T )∩ ̺(S), then the type ω of the semigroup (e ) also controls the analyticity of S in the sense that ‖(S − I)S‖ ≤ C(ω + n)e, n ∈ N. As an application we generalize and give a simple proof of a result by M. Christ on the temporal regularity of random walks T on graphs of polynomial volume growth. On arbitrary spaces Ω of at most exponential volume growth we obtain this regularity for any powerbounded and analytic operator T on L2(Ω) with a heat kernel satisfying Gaussian upper bounds.
LARGE SCALE PLANNING FOR CONNECTIVITY

Wildlife Society’s annual meeting in 2007, the majority of wildlife biologists have been involved in projects focused on maintaining or restoring habitat connectivity in order to enhance species persistence in fragmented landscapes. Corridors, routes that allow movement of organisms between habitat fragments, are increasingly being adopted as a tool to maintain and restore biodiversity. However, we know relatively little about whether presumptive corridors actually serve as conduits for movement of organisms. Yet, we do know that relying entirely on protected areas for biodiversity conservation is not going to be suffi cient, and that suitable habitat needs to be maintained for many species outside of reserves, and that linkages may be required among habitat patches to prevent local extinctions. Scientifi c principles and theories that scientists and conservationists draw on to design and implement landscape linkages include island biogeography and metapopulation theory. These theories point to the fact that patch size and relative isolation can infl uence the total number of species found in any given area and the need for migration among subpopulations of animals and plants. Many people working on corridor design struggle with defi ning the properties of the corridor itself. Whether man-made or natural, structural defi nitions for corridors are popular. Generally corridors are linear in shape and provide a connection between habitat patches of the same community type and provide a more natural pathway distinct from the adjacent matrix. Rules of thumb do exist, such as longer corridors usually need to be wider to provide suffi cient habitat for species to pass through the full length of the corridor. Corridors may be continuous or not as is the case for steppingstone corridors that can work for some fl ying species or those willing to pass through the modifi ed landscape in between (Fig. 1). However, for small mammals, gaps of more than 4 m can present a barrier to movement. What is really important is whether the solution is fostering connectivity better than business as usual, which depends on the species of interest and landscape context. For example, insights from landscape ecology reveal that what surrounds a potential corridor must be considered, as some modifi ed landscapes are more permeable than others. The landscapes surrounding core habitat and corridors, also referred to as the matrix, may directly infl uence connectivity, and it may affect the utility of corridors that pass through it. Unfortunately, there is LARGE SCALE PLANNING FOR CONNECTIVITY
GeSCo: Introducing an Edge Layer Between Cloud MES and Shop-Floor in Decentralized Manufacturing

—Decentralized manufacturing is an active research topic in current smart and open integrated factories, and is probably also the future state of practice in both the process and manufacturing industries. The Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is a comprehensive automation software solution that coordinates all the responsibilities of modern production systems. However, the MES solution is essentially designed as a centralized manufacturing control unit, which goes against the principle of the decentralized manufacturing paradigm. When operated as a cloud based solution, the MES faces another big challenge: connectivity and network latency. This paper addresses the problem of network latency experienced when the Cloud MES (CMES) is in charge of production control by introducing an edge layer near the shop-ﬂoor. In other words, the CMES delegates the responsibility of manufacturing control to this edge layer which consequently facilitates decentralization in manufacturing.
Pre-harvest Microbial Contamination of Tomato and Pepper Plants: Understanding the Pre-harvest Contamination Pathways of Mature Tomato

Tomatoes and bell peppers have been previously incriminated in outbreaks of foodborne illnesses due to contamination by human pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes in the field. The objectives of the present study were to investigate (i) the potential entry of E. coli (EC) and L. innocua (LI) from soil to various non-edible and edible parts of the tomato and pepper plants, and (ii) the ability of EC and LI to survive in the plant environment (soil, rhizosphere and phyllosphere). Mature tomato and bell pepper plants cultivated in a greenhouse were soil-inoculated with a bacterial suspension (ca. 108 cfu/ml) of EC or LI. Tomatoes and peppers were also artificially contaminated on the surface with 1 ml of an overnight culture of EC and LI (ca. 109 cfu/ml). Samples of vegetables as well as non-edible parts (soil, roots, stem, foliage) were subjected to microbiological analyses by plating on Eosin Methylene Blue Agar and Listeria Identification Agar to recover EC and LI respectively. Although these bacteria were recovered at population densities of 3.0-3.6, 1.8-2.2 and <0.7 log cfu/g in the bulk soil, roots and foliage respectively, we were unable to recover these bacteria from the edible tomato and pepper fruits. When tomatoes and peppers were spot-inoculated on the surface with EC or LI, the vegetables analyzed were shown to harbor viable bacterial cells for up to 48 h after inoculation. Overall, the potential for systemic uptake and translocation of human pathogens from soil to the edible plant parts was found to be negligible in tomato and pepper plants. However, overhead (spray or sprinkler) irrigation with contaminated water could create opportunities for the deposition and subsequent persistence of human pathogens on the edible surface of vegetables even after harvest. These findings therefore underscore the need for adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) by growers and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) by post-harvest handlers of fresh produce. Pre-harvest Microbial Contamination of Tomato and Pepper Plants: Understanding the Pre-harvest Contamination Pathways of Mature Tomato and Bell Pepper Plants Using Bacterial Pathogen Surrogates
Statistics of Correlated Radioactive Contaminations

The statistical approach to the assessment of radiation doses for members of the public was developed. It considers the fallout correlation for diﬀerent radionuclides in case of emergency situations at nuclear fuel cycle facilities. A computational procedure based on covariance matrix was formulated for the purpose to calculate the multidimensional function of the distribution of partial radiation doses from contaminating radionuclides. Test calculations have shown that the consideration of the correlation between the contamination components allows avoiding signiﬁcant mistakes in the statistical evaluation of the total radiation dose.
Lung Cancer Screening–A Paradigm Shift

Proteomic signature is an assay of an individual or a set of proteins that can help distinguish lung cancer from controls and may be tested in bronchial epithelium as well as blood. The rationale for testing VOCs in exhaled breath is that presence of tumor cells result in peroxidation of cell membrane and release of somewhat different organic compounds than normal individuals, which can be detected by various techniques, most commonly by gas chromatography – mass spectrometry. Autofluorescence bronchoscopy is able to detect pre-invasive lesions (dysplasia and metaplasia) with much higher sensitivity than conventional white light bronchoscopy.
Stability Change of Periodic Orbits and the Phase Space Structure of Buckled Beam and H(cid:19)enon-Heiles System

This paper concerns the stability change of periodic orbits and the phase space structure of the system with Hamiltonian H = 12 ( p 21 + p 22 )+ 12 ( (cid:0) q 21 + ! 21 q 22 )+ 14 q 41 + j 22 2 q 21 q 22 , particularly for case j 2 = 2 and 6 . We study numerically this problem by two-dimensional Poincar(cid:19)e maps. Moreover, we analyse the results as the energy increases and calculate the Lyapunov exponents. We do a comparison to H(cid:19)enon-Heiles system with Hamiltonian of the form H = 12 ( p 21 + p 22 ) + 12 ( q 21 + q 22 ) + q 21 q 2 (cid:0) 13 q 32 and investigate the diﬀerence.
The Rise of Opaque Products as an Efficient Revenue Management Technique in the Travel Industry

This paper discusses and reviews in detail about opaque products which is also known as probabilistic goods, right from its inception and beginnings in early 2000’s. Opaque products are virtual goods and can be considered as a relatively new revenue management technique that has aided mainly the travel industry, specifically the airlines and hotels to increase their revenues and profits by intentionally withholding certain key information for some of the products to the customers. For Example, in airline industry the information may be product attributes like carrier, transfers, departure time etc. These products primarily trades consumption value for price savings with the buyers. Several models of opaque products which segment the market, thereby enhancing price discrimination and providing revenue enhancement, specifically in the airline industry have been described in this paper. A specific type of opaque product known as variable opaque product has also been described. Such variable opaque products allow the customer to pick and choose the attributes thereby varying the opaqueness. Thus, they have been found extremely advantageous and provide financial benefits to the airlines while providing welfare to the customers. The advantages of opaque selling models both to the customer as well as the airlines under certain types of environment has also been discussed along with its extensive applications in seat inventory control and inter-temporal pricing. Finally, the paper comes up with a few useful propositions that can be either tested empirically or modelled appropriately along with probable future work that should provide a vivid reader with the necessary spark that would aid him or her to contribute to further useful work in this area.
Semi-Automated Task Planning in Metric Propositional Interval Neighborhood Logic

—Planning is the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve a desired goal. It involves the creation and maintenance of a plan. As such, planning is a fundamental property of intelligent behaviour. This process is essential to the creation and reﬁnement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans. In logistics planning, which is a fundamental part of every engineering projects, planning is a usually hand-crafted activity, often supported by high-level commercially available software. These techniques are error-prone as they relay on the expertise of the responsible engineer, and suffer of limited reasoning capabilities, being usually based on temporal constraint networks in Allen’s style. Recently, interval temporal logics have been studied that allow one to describe temporal situations at a higher level, and yet with a decidable satisﬁability problem. We propose here the use of Metric Interval Temporal Neighbourhood Logic, a decidable fragment of Halpern and Shoham’s Modal Logic for Time Intervals (HS), as a tool for task planning. The main characteristics of this proposal is that the language, whose syntax heavily restricts HS, and whose proposed applications so far have been limited to theoretical and abstract situations, is still expressive enough to cope with the complexity of a realistic case study.