Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-stability polymer optical fiber with Rhodamine-doped cladding for fiber light systems

In this work, the photodegradation of a polymer optical fiber with Rhodamine doped cladding as a function of illumination time and excitation intensity is presented. To show the effect of photodegradation on different bulk geometries and environments, the photodegradation from a dye doped preform and a PMMA thick film is also evaluated. The reversible and the irreversible degradation of the florescent material were quantified under an established excitation scheme. To this purpose, a four-level system to model the photodegradation rates and its relation with the population of the states is presented and it is used to justify a possible underlying mechanism. The obtained results suggest an increase of one order of magnitude in the stability (lifetime) of the polymer optical fiber with respect to the preform or the thick film geometry stability.
Decreased Mineral Content in MMP-20 Null Mouse Enamel is Prominent During the Maturation Stage

During enamel development, matrix metalloproteinase-20 (MMP-20, enamelysin) is expressed early during the secretory stage as the enamel thickens, and kallikrein-4 (KLK-4, EMSP1) is expressed later during the maturation stage as the enamel hardens. Thus, we investigated whether the physical properties of the secretory-/maturation-stage MMP-20 null enamel were significantly different from those of controls. We demonstrated that although, in relative terms, the weight percent of mature mineral in the MMP-20 null mouse enamel was only 7–16% less than that in controls, overall the enamel mineral was reduced by about 50%, and its hardness was decreased by 37%. Percent mineral content by weight was assessed at 3 different developmental stages. Remarkably, the biggest difference in mineral content between MMP-20 null and controls occurred in the nearly mature enamel, when MMP-20 is normally no longer expressed. This suggests that MMP-20 acts either directly or indirectly to facilitate the removal of maturation-stage enamel proteins.
The role of the density profile in the ASDEX-Upgrade pedestal structure

Experimental evidence for the impact of a region of high density localised in the high-field side scrape-off layer (the HFSHD) on plasma confinement is shown in various dedicated experiments on ASDEX Upgrade (AUG). Increasing main ion fuelling is shown to increase the separatrix density and shift the density profile outwards. Predictive pedestal modelling of this shift indicates a 25% decrease in the attainable pedestal top pressure, which compares well with experimental observations in the gas scan. Since the HFSHD can be mitigated by applying nitrogen seeding, a combined scan in fuelling rate, heating power, and nitrogen seeding is presented. Significant increases in the achievable pedestal top pressure are observed with seeding, in particular at high heating powers, and are correlated with inward shifted density profiles and a reduction of the HFSHD and separatrix density. Interpretive linear stability analysis also confirms the impact of a radially shifted pressure profile on peeling-ballooning stability, with an inward shift allowing access to higher pressure gradients and pedestal widths.
Incipient sensor fault estimation and accommodation for inverter devices in electric railway traction systems

This paper proposes an incipient sensor fault estimation and accommodation method for three‐phase PWM inverter devices in electric railway traction systems. First, the dynamics of inverters and incipient voltage sensor faults are modeled. Then, for the augmented system formed by original inverter system and incipient sensor faults, an optimal adaptive unknown input observer is proposed to estimate the inverter voltages, currents and the incipient sensor faults. The designed observer guarantees that the estimation errors converge to the minimal invariant ellipsoid. Moreover, based on the output regulator via internal model principle, the fault accommodation controller is proposed to ensure that the vod and voq voltages track the desired reference voltages with the tracking error converging to the minimal invariant ellipsoid. Finally, simulations based on the traction system in CRH2 (China Railway High‐speed) are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Efficacy of Bendamustine, Pomalidomide, and Dexamethasone (BPD) Regimen in Relapsed/Refractory Extramedullary Myeloma: A Retrospective Single-Centre Study, Real-Life Experience

Background and Objectives: Relapsed/refractory extramedullary myeloma (RREMM) is an uncommon and aggressive subtype of multiple myeloma defined by plasma cell proliferation outside the bone marrow. Therapeutic options for RREMM are limited, and the prognosis is generally unfavorable. This research aimed to assess the effectiveness of the bendamustine, pomalidomide, and dexamethasone (BPD) regimen in patients with RREMM. Material and Methods: We carried out a retrospective investigation of 11 RREMM patients who underwent BPD treatment. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival. The secondary endpoints of the study were two-year survival and overall response rate (ORR). We analyzed the sociodemographic and clinical features of the patients. Results: The average age of the patients was 62 years. They had a median of four prior treatment lines, and eight patients had previously received autologous stem-cell transplantation. After eight BPD treatment cycles, the ORR stood at 54%, with one very good partial response (VGPR), five partial responses (PR), three progressive diseases (PD), and two stable diseases (SD). The median follow-up was 15 months, with a two-year PFS rate of 71.3% and a two-year survival rate of 81.8%. Conclusions: The BPD regimen demonstrated promising effectiveness in RREMM patients, yielding favorable ORR and survival rates. To corroborate these findings and explore additional treatment alternatives for this patient group, larger prospective studies are required.
Be a Rascal Among Rascal? The Vicarious Moral Self-Regulation Effect in College Students’ Pro-Environmental Behaviors

Purpose According to social interaction theory, the psychology and behavior of individuals are influenced by others, especially these significant or intimate others. This classical social phenomenon, “Be a rascal among rascal”, which explains the influence of others’ behavior on an individual’s behavior, has also been observed in pro-environmental behavior. In recent years, environmental psychologists have termed this interesting phenomenon as the “vicarious moral self-regulation effect”, in which the prior environmental behavior of significant or intimate others influences an individual’s subsequent environmental behavior. However, the stability and psychological mechanisms of the vicarious moral self-regulation effect are still not well understood. Therefore, this study aims to verify the vicarious moral self-regulation effect in pro-environmental behavior through four studies. Methods and Results In Study 1, 90 participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups (a stronger green credentials manipulation, a weaker green credentials manipulation, or a control group about a close friend), and results showed that participants in both stronger and less green credential groups made fewer carbon-neutral choices than those in the control group in the carbon emissions task. In Study 2 (120 participants), compared to the control group, participants in the group imagining both environmentally friendly and unfriendly behavior of close friends made fewer carbon-neutral choices. This finding also was observed in Study 3 (93 participants), where participants under the group of free recalling both environmentally friendly and unfriendly behavior of close friends made fewer green purchasing choices. In Study 4 (75 participants), compared to the control group, participants in the group of both imagining and free recalling the environmentally friendly behavior of a close friend made fewer carbon-neutral choices, and participants in the group of both imagining and free recalling the environmentally unfriendly behavior of close friend made fewer green purchasing choices. Conclusion Results suggest that the environmentally friendly behavior of a close friend induces the vicarious moral licensing effect (those who handle vermilion are not reddened), and the environmentally unfriendly behavior of a close friend induces the vicarious moral identity effect (those who touch ink are blackened). Environmental behaviors of intimate others induce the obvious fluctuating changes in college students’ subsequent pro-environmental behaviors. This vicarious moral self-regulation effect can be explained by the mechanism of self-other overlap and provide scientific references for promoting pro-environmental behaviors among college students.
Computation of Multivariate Barrier Crossing Probability, and Its Applications in Finance

In this thesis, we consider computational methods of finding exit probabilities for a class of multivariate stochastic processes. While there is an abundance of results for one-dimensional processes, for multivariate processes one has to rely on approximations or simulation methods. We adopt a Large Deviations approach in order to estimate barrier crossing probabilities of a multivariate Brownian Bridge. We use this approach in conjunction with numerical techniques to propose an efficient method of obtaining barrier crossing probabilities of a multivariate Brownian motion. Using numerical examples, we demonstrate that our method works better than other existing methods. We present applications of the proposed method in addressing problems in finance such as estimating default probabilities of several credit risky entities and pricing credit default swaps. We also extend our computational method to efficiently estimate a barrier crossing probability of a sum of Geometric Brownian motions. This allows us to perform a portfolio selection by maximizing a path-dependent utility function.
Pooling Revisited: Your Receptive Field is Suboptimal

For a fair comparison, we use the same model architecture and augmentation strategies as Shape Adaptor [3]. Following the prior work, only a single fully-connected layer is used at the end of CNNs for both the human-designed and DynOPoolequipped models to concentrate on the effect of feature shapes. For classification, we replace the resizing modules (the pooling and strided convolution layers) as described below.
Central limit theorem for quasi-local statistics of spin models on Cayley graphs

Central limit theorems for linear statistics of lattice random fields (including spin models) are usually proven under suitable mixing conditions or quasi-associativity. Many interesting examples of spin models do not satisfy mixing conditions, and on the other hand, it does not seem easy to show central limit theorem for local statistics via quasi-associativity. In this work, we prove general central limit theorems for local statistics and quasi-local statistics of spin models on discrete Cayley graphs with polynomial growth. Further, we contrast these results by proving similar central limit theorems for random fields defined on discrete Cayley graphs but under the stronger assumptions of \alpha-mixing (for local statistics) and exponential \alpha-mixing (for quasi-local statistics). All our central limit theorems assume a suitable variance lower bound like many others in the literature. We illustrate our general central limit theorem with specific examples of lattice spin models and statistics arising in computational topology, statistical physics and random networks. Examples of clustering spin models include quasi-associated spin models with fast decaying covariances like the off-critical Ising model, level sets of Gaussian random fields with fast decaying covariances like the massive Gaussian free field and determinantal point processes with fast decaying kernels. Examples of local statistics include intrinsic volumes, face counts, component counts of random cubical complexes while quasi-local statistics include nearest neighbour distances in spin models and Betti numbers of random cubical complexes.
Towards an understanding of hot carrier cooling mechanisms in multiple quantum wells

Multiple quantum wells have been shown significantly reduced hot carrier cooling rates compared to bulk material and are thus a promising candidate for hot carrier solar cell absorbers. However, the mechanism(s) by which hot carrier cooling is restricted is not clear. A systematic study of carrier cooling rates in GaAs/AlAs multiple quantum wells (MQWs) with either varying barrier thickness or varying well thickness is presented in this paper. These allow an investigation as to whether the mechanisms of either a modification in hot carrier diffusion or a localisation of phonons emitted by hot carriers are primarily responsible for reduced carrier cooling rates. With the conclusion that for the structures investigated the situation is rather more complex with both carrier mobility to modify hot carrier diffusion, different diffusion rates for electrons and holes and reflection and localisation of phonons to enhance phonon bottleneck all playing their parts in modulating phonon reabsorption and hot carrier behaviour.
Review of the safety and efficacy of imiglucerase treatment of Gaucher disease

Correspondence: Deborah Elstein Gaucher Clinic, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, PO Box 3235, Jerusalem 91031, israel Tel +972-2-655-5093 Fax +972-2-651-7979 Email elstein@szmc.org. il Abstract: Most patients who suffer from symptomatic Gaucher disease will benefit from enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) with imiglucerase. The safety profile is excellent, only a small percentage of those exposed developing antibodies; similarly, very few patients require pre-medication for allergic reactions. Within 3 to 5 years of imiglucerase therapy, best documented at doses of 30 to 60 units/kg/infusion, hepatosplenomegaly can be expected to be reduced so that the liver volume will be maintained at 1 to 1.5 times normal (30% to 40% reduction from advent of ERT) and spleen volume to 2 to 8 times normal (50% to 60% reduction from advent of ERT). For anemic and thrombocytopenic patients, with 2 to 5 years of imiglucerase, hemoglobin levels are expected to be 11 g/dL for women and children and 12 g/dL for men; and platelet counts in patients with an intact spleen, depending on the baseline value, should approximately be doubled. Bone crises and bone pain but not irreversible skeletal damage will improve in most patients. Nonetheless, some features and some symptomatic patients apparently do not respond equally well and/or perhaps inadequately. The benefit for patients with the neuronopathic forms is primarily in improved visceral and hematological signs and symptoms. There are still several unresolved issues, the high per-unit cost being an important one, which have spurred the development of biosimilar enzymes as well as chaperone therapies currently in clinical trials.
The smallest singular value of tensor matrices

In this thesis we investigate the smallest singular value of random square matrices whose entries are independent subgaussian random variables. Statements about the behaviour of the singular values of a random matrix are expressed in stochastic terms as singular values of a random matrix are random variables themselves. We estimate the order of the expectation of the smallest singular value of a Gaussian square matrix with disturbed last column, i.e. all entries of the random matrix are independent centered Gaussian random variables, but the variance of the entries of the last column is very small, whereas the other entries are standard normal distributed random variables. This example of a random square matrix with not necessarily identically distributed entries is crucial to understand the behaviour of the smallest singular value. In the more general case of tensor square matrices whose entries are independent subgaussian random variables, we estimate the probability that the smallest singular value is smaller/ greater than some bound. To do so we use a technique called decomposition of the sphere due to M. Rudelson and R. Vershynin, where the Euclidean sphere is decomposed in compressible vectors, i.e. unit vectors that carry most of their mass only in a few coordinates, and incompressible vectors, which are unit vectors that are not compressible. This represents a new approach in this context, as we use the properties of this decomposition to get in a position, where we can use Holder’s inequality and get rid of the factors. We also generalize a result of M. Rudelson and R. Vershynin to estimate the tail probability of the smallest singular value explicitly and we show that if we lower the assumptions one can generalize the tail estimate to almost square matrices.
Exclusion in a Heterogeneous System of Interacting Particles

Complex biological and physical transport processes are often described through systems of interacting particles. Excluded-volume effects on these transport processes are well studied, however the interplay between volume exclusion and reactions between heterogenous particles is less well known. In this paper we develop a novel framework for modeling reaction-diffusion processes which directly incorporates volume exclusion. From an off-lattice microscopic individual based model we use the Fokker–Planck equation and the method of matched asymptotic expansions to derive a lowdimensional macroscopic system of nonlinear partial differential equations describing the evolution of the particles. A biologically motivated, hybrid model of chemotaxis with volume exclusion is explored, where reactions occur at rates dependent upon the chemotactic environment. Further, we show that for reactions due to contact interactions the appropriate reaction term in the macroscopic model is of lower order in the asymptotic expansion than the nonlinear diffusion term. However, we find that the next reaction term in the expansion is needed to ensure good agreement with simulations of the microscopic model. Our macroscopic model allows for more direct parameterization to experimental data than the models available to date.
The p-Version of the Finite Element Method

In the p-version of the finite element method, the triangulation is fixed and the degree p, of the piecewise polynomial approximation, is progressively increased until some desired level of precision is reached.In this paper, we first establish the basic approximation properties of some spaces of piecewise polynomials defined on a finite element triangulation. These properties lead to an a priori estimate of the asymptotic rate of convergence of the p-version. The estimate shows that the p-version gives results which are not worse than those obtained by the conventional finite element method (called the h-version, in which h represents the maximum diameter of the elements), when quasi-uniform triangulations are employed and the basis for comparison is the number of degrees of freedom. Furthermore, in the case of a singularity problem, we show (under conditions which are usually satisfied in practice) that the rate of convergence of the p-version is twice that of the h-version with quasi-uniform mesh. Inve.
Whose impartiality? An experimental study of veiled stakeholders, impartial spectators and ideal observers

This article defines in a precise manner three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice and studies them experimentally. We consider a first-person procedure, the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, the impartial spectator and the ideal observer. As a result, we find striking differences in the chosen outcome distributions by the three methods. Ideal observers that do not have a stake in the allocation problem nor information about their position in society propose significantly more egalitarian distributions than veiled stakeholders or impartial spectators. Risk preferences seem to explain why participants that have a stake in the final allocation propose less egalitarian distributions. Impartial spectators that are informed about their position in society tend to favor stakeholders holding the same position.
Human capital and economic growth in OECD countries: some new insights

PurposeThe new growth literature in general is very optimistic about the positive impact that human capital has on the economic growth of countries. Based on this argument, the current paper focusses to investigate the impact of different types of human capital on economic growth.Design/methodology/approachThe paper utilizes data for the period 1998 to 2017 and employs suitable econometric techniques.FindingsIt is found that it is not the stock of human capital rather its utilization in terms of average working hours that matters for higher growth. Other than human capital, trade openness and investment are positively associated with growth. On the other hand, inflation has an insignificant impact while employment level has a negative impact on growth. Moreover, for developing countries, the study also revealed that stock of human capital has negatively and average working hours has positively impacted economic growth. Finally, domestic investment and employment level appeared to be the main growth determinants in developing countries.Research limitations/implicationsPolicymakers are suggested to ensure the maximum utilization of working hours, trade openness and domestic investment in improving economic growth in OECD countries.Originality/valueThis study has visualized the impact of human capital on economic growth from a new perspective and hence would be useful for policymakers.
COE-RES Discussion Paper Series Center of Excellence Project The Normative Evaluation and Social Choice of Contemporary Economic Systems

This paper reconsiders the problem of ordering infinite utility streams. As has been established in earlier contributions, if no representability condition is imposed, there do exist strongly Paretian and finitely anonymous orderings of intertemporal utility streams. We examine the possibility of adding suitably formulated versions of classical equity conditions to these two requirements. In particular, we provide a characterization of all strongly Paretian and finitely anonymous rankings satisfying the strict transfer principle. We also offer a characterization of an infinite-horizon extension of leximin obtained by adding an equity-preference axiom to strong Pareto and finite anonymity. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Nos.: D63, D71.
Surface plasmon polariton nanocavity with ultrasmall mode volume

We present a plasmonic nanocavity structure, consisting of a gallium phosphide (GaP) cylinder penetrating into a rectangular silver plate, and study its properties using a finite element method (FEM). An ultrasmall mode volume of 1.5×10−5[λ0/(2n)]3 is achieved, which is more than 200 times smaller than the previous ultrasmall mode volume plasmonic nanodisk resonators. Meanwhile, the quality factor of the plasmonic nanocavity is about 38.2 and is over two times greater than the ultrasmall mode volume plasmonic nanodisk resonators. Compared to the aforementioned plasmonic nanodisk resonators, a more than one-order of magnitude larger Purcell factor of 1.2×104 is achieved. We determined the resonant modes of our plasmonic nanocavity are dipolar plasmon modes by analyzing the electric field properties. In addition, we investigate the dependence of the optical properties on the refractive index of the cavity material and discuss the effect of including the silica (SiO2) substrate. Our work provides an alternative approach to achieve ultrasmall plasmonic nanocavity of interest in applications to many areas of research, including device physics, nonlinear optics and quantum optics.