Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Launching New Products using Storytelling as a Powerful Entrepreneurial Tool

Most brands will introduce new products to the market. The brands need to keep up with the competition, keep up with evolving customer expectations, and preserve their attractiveness by updating and renewing their product lines. In light of the increasing usage of storytelling in the introduction of new goods by entrepreneurs, the topic of their relative efficacy is raised. Storytelling's impact on consumer attitudes and purchasing inclinations may be seen in this text's setting. Through conducting a survey, this study gets data with the experimental analysis to analyze the narratives with rational descriptions. This paper puts forward the basic strategy of storytelling, especially the content, and perspective should be included in storytelling to promote the construction of the corporate brand story.
Hydraulic Experiments on a Small-Scale Wave Energy Converter with an Unconventional Dummy Pto

This paper investigates on a Wave Energy Converter (WEC) named Energy & Protection, 4th generation (EP4). The WEC couples the energy harvesting function with the purpose of protecting the coast from erosion. It is formed by a flap rolling with a single degree of freedom around a lower hinge. Small-scale tests were carried out in the wave flume of the maritime group of Padua University, aiming at the evaluation of the device efficiency. The test peculiarity is represented by the system used to simulate the Power Take Off (PTO). Such dummy PTO permits a free rotation of two degrees before engaging the shaft, allowing the flap to gain some inertia, and then applying a constant resistive moment. The EP4 was observed to reach a 35% efficiency, under short regular waves. The effects, in terms of coastal protection, are small but not negligible, at least for the shortest waves.
Effect of Tecoma stans (L.) Juss. ex Kunth in a Murine Model of Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic syndrome is a constellation of abnormalities related to insulin resistance with an unfortunately high prevalence worldwide. Tecoma stans (L.) Juss. Ex Kunth. is a well-known medicinal plant that has been studied in several biological models related to diabetes mellitus. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of T. stans on a hypercaloric diet-induced metabolic syndrome model. An organic fraction obtained using liquid–liquid separation from the hydroalcoholic extract of T. stans and four subfractions of this organic fraction were administered for ten weeks to C57BL6J male mice previously fed with a hypercaloric diet. The hypercaloric diet caused changes in glucose levels (from 65.3 to 221.5 mg/dL), body weight (31.3 to 42.2 g), triglycerides (91.4 to 177.7 mg/dL), systolic (89.9 to 110.3 mmHg) and diastolic (61.6 to 73.7 mg/dL) blood pressure, and insulin resistance (4.47 to 5.16). Treatment with T. stans resulted in improvements in triglycerides (83.4–125.0 mg/dL), systolic blood pressure (75.1–91.8 mmHg), and insulin resistance (4.72–4.93). However, the organic fraction and hydroalcoholic extract produced a better response in diastolic blood pressure (52.8–56.4 mmHg). Luteolin, apigenin, and chrysoeriol were the major constituents in the most active subfractions. Treatment with T. stans, particularly a luteolin-rich organic fraction, achieved an improvement in metabolic syndrome alterations.
Effects of elevated pCO2 and temperature on the calcification rate, survival, extrapallial fluid chemistry, and respiration of the Atlantic Sea scallop Placopecten magellanicus

Anthropogenic CO2‐emission is causing ocean warming and acidification. Understanding how basic physiological processes of marine organisms respond to these stressors is important for predicting their responses to future global change. We examined the effects of elevated pCO2 and temperature (pCO2 = 344–2199 ppm; temperature = 6°C, 9°C, and 12°C) on the calcification rate, extrapallial fluid (EPF) carbonate chemistry, respiration, and survivorship of Atlantic sea scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) in a fully crossed 143‐d experiment. Rates of calcification and respiration were inhibited by elevated pCO2, and mortality occurred when elevated pCO2 was accompanied by high‐temperature stress. Declines in growth and survivorship were likely caused by external shell dissolution, thermal stress, and hypercapnic reduction of metabolism under elevated pCO2. Concentrations of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity in the EPF increased above seawater concentrations in response to elevated pCO2. EPF pH declined, but did not decline as much as seawater pH, indicating that scallops regulate EPF pH to support calcification. The combination of EPF pH regulation and DIC elevation yielded an increase in EPF [ CO32− ] under elevated pCO2 treatments. The combination of low respiration rates, high EPF [ CO32− ], and low calcification rates under elevated pCO2 suggests that the impaired calcification arises more from hypercapnic inhibition of metabolic activity and external shell dissolution than from chemically unfavorable conditions in the EPF. These results demonstrate the importance of EPF chemistry for bivalve biomineralization, but show that regulation efforts are insufficient to fully offset the deleterious effects of elevated pCO2 on scallop performance.
Difficulties in the Modeling of E. coli Spreading from Various Sources in a Coastal Marine Area

Coastal and transitional waters are often used as bathing waters. In many regions, such activities play an important economic role. According to the European Union Bathing Water Directive (2006/7/EC) (BWD) the concentration of Escherichia coli in bathing water exceeding 500 CFU·100 mL−1 poses a high risk for bathers’ health. In order to safeguard public health, microbiological environmental monitoring is carried out, which has recently been supported or replaced by mathematical models detailing the spread of sanitary contamination. This study focuses on the problems and limitations that can be encountered in the process of constructing a mathematical model describing the spread of biological contamination by E. coli bacteria in coastal seawater. This and other studies point to the following problems occurring during the process of building and validating a model: the lack of data on loads of sanitary contamination (often connected with multiple sources of biological contamination inflow) makes the model more complex; E. coli concentrations higher than 250 CFU·100 mL−1 (low hazard for health) are observed very rarely, and are associated with great uncertainty; the impossibility of predicting the time and intensity of precipitation as well as stronger winds and rougher sea, which may be a significant source of E. coli. However, there is universal agreement that such models will be useful in managing bathing water quality and protecting public health, especially during big failures of the wastewater network.
T-Cell Progenitors As A New Immunotherapy to Bypass Hurdles of Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is the treatment of preference for numerous malignant and non-malignant hemopathies. The outcome of this approach is significantly hampered by not only graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), but also infections and relapses that may occur because of persistent T-cell immunodeficiency following transplantation. Reconstitution of a functional T-cell repertoire can take more than 1 year. Thus, the major challenge in the management of allogeneic HSCT relies on the possibility of shortening the window of immune deficiency through the acceleration of T-cell recovery, with diverse, self-tolerant, and naïve T cells resulting from de novo thymopoiesis from the donor cells. In this context, adoptive transfer of cell populations that can give rise to mature T cells faster than HSCs while maintaining a safety profile compatible with clinical use is of major interest. In this review, we summarize current advances in the characterization of thymus seeding progenitors, and their ex vivo generated counterparts, T-cell progenitors. Transplantation of the latter has been identified as a worthwhile approach to shorten the period of immune deficiency in patients following allogeneic HSCT, and to fulfill the clinical objective of reducing morbimortality due to infections and relapses. We further discuss current opportunities for T-cell progenitor-based therapy manufacturing, including iPSC cell sources and off-the-shelf strategies. These opportunities will be analyzed in the light of results from ongoing clinical studies involving T-cell progenitors.
Cosmological evolution in f(R) gravity and a logarithmic model

In this paper, we revisit the conditions for cosmological viability of f(R) gravity and formulate them in terms of constraints on the potential of the scalaron field f'. When the scalaron is heavy, f(R) goes to general relativity, and the matter-domination epoch could last long enough to ensure the formation of the large scale structure. The idea of having the Newton's constant change its value depending on the scalar curvature leads to a class of f(R) models. In particular, one obtains an RlnR model when the running of a dimensionless coupling constant is described by a beta-function similar to the one in quantum chromodynamics. In this RlnR model, the effective cosmological constant is exponentially suppressed compared to a reference scale. We explore the phase space dynamics and the cosmological evolution of the model in details.
Learning-Based Optimal Large-Signal Stabilization for DC/DC Boost Converters Feeding CPLs via Deep Reinforcement Learning

For the dc/dc boost converter feeding constant power loads (CPLs), improving its dynamic characteristics and guaranteeing the output voltage stability have aroused much attention from the power electronics society in recent years. This article proposes an optimal output regulation strategy by fusing a robust stabilization strategy with deep reinforcement learning (DRL). First, by employing the higher-order sliding mode observer (HOSMO) to estimate the uncertainties of the system, then we are able to realize a fast performance recovery ability via feedforward compensation loops. Second, the deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) is trained to adaptively adjust the control coefficients. Third, the stability analysis is given to guarantee the large-signal stability of the control system. In order to evaluate the strength and effectiveness of the proposed adaptive method, experiments are conducted in this article on a dc microgrid platform.
Treatability of 18 taste and odor compounds using powdered activated carbon in drinking water utilities

Taste and odor (T&O) compounds in source waters can enter drinking water utilities causing customer concerns about the water quality if not removed during treatment. While there has been extensive research on two common T&O compounds, 2‐methylisoborneol (2‐MIB) and geosmin, research on non‐MIB/geosmin compounds has been limited. This study evaluated the treatability of 16 non‐MIB/geosmin compounds, 2‐MIB, and geosmin using powdered activated carbon (PAC). Four types of PAC were tested: two bituminous‐based, one lignite‐based, and one wood‐based PAC. Among the 18 compounds, PAC was effective for 15 compounds with at least 90% removal with typical PAC dosing, but was not suitable for dimethyl disulfide, ethyl methyl dioxolane, and cis‐3‐hexenol. The bituminous‐based PACs showed greater removal with higher adsorption rates compared to the lignite‐ and wood‐based PACs. The adsorption behavior of T&O compounds varied based on their physical and chemical characteristics, for example, hydrophobicity, and nature of functional groups.
Exploration of teachers’ teaching of civic engagement in Taiwan

This study utilizes the term “teacher as stranger–teacher as public citizen” from Greene’s Teacher as Stranger to explore how teachers develop students’ civic engagement in Taiwan. Using a case study design, this study documents how six social studies teachers make curricular decisions about whether to develop/advocate for students’ civic engagement or not, and how teachers develop the curriculum and pedagogy for civic engagement. Findings illuminate that teachers’ personal background and life experiences are influential factors in their teaching of civic engagement. In addition, the findings also indicate teachers who act as citizens involved in the public world develop students’ civic engagement, critical awareness, and political talk.
Single Photon Avalanche Diode

A SPAD(single photon avalanche diode) is a P-n junction diode in reverse biased condition. It works as a photon detector. I’m using an LED to understand the function of a SPAD. Background/purpose: My main research goal is to use the entangled photons coming from low energy light to find a new and less harmful way of medical imaging. In order to detect these entangled photons, a SPAD is used. What is a photon? And what is photon entanglement? A photon is a massless particle that carries energy and moves at speed of light. A photon entanglement is a phenomenon where two identical photons are produced at the same time from a light source. Why use an LED? An LED(Light-emitting diode) works as an insensitive SPAD when used in reverse biased condition i.e. LED’s are less prone to damage when exposed to high amount of light when compared to a normal SPAD. Experimental set up used: A counter (gives the number of photons detected over a time period or frequency), an oscilloscope (displays the varying signal), resistors, and high voltage power supplies 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 C O U N TS ( FR EQ U EN C Y H Z) CURRENT (MA) avalance count rate vs LED current Single photon avalanche diode By Kakathi Tummala, Department of Physics tummkk01@students. Ipfw.edu
SmartDrive: Traction Energy Optimization and Applications in Rail Systems

This paper presents the development of SmartDrive package to achieve the application of energy-efficient driving strategy. The results are from collaboration between Ricardo Rail and the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE). Advanced tram and train trajectory optimization techniques developed by BCRRE as part of the UKTRAM More Energy Efficiency Tram project have been now incorporated in Ricardo’s SmartDrive product offering. The train trajectory optimization method, associated driver training and awareness package (SmartDrive) has been developed for use on tram, metro, and some heavy rail systems. A simulator was designed that can simulate the movement of railway vehicles and calculate the detailed power system energy consumption with different train trajectories when implemented on a typical AC or DC powered route. The energy evaluation results from the simulator will provide several potential energy-saving solutions for the existing route. An enhanced Brute Force algorithm was developed to achieve the optimization quickly and efficiently. Analysis of the results showed that by implementing an optimal speed trajectory, the energy usage in the network can be significantly reduced. A driver practical training system and the optimized lineside driving control signage, based on the optimized trajectory were developed for testing. This system instructed drivers to maximize coasting in segregated sections of the network and to match optimal speed limits in busier street sections. The field trials and real daily operations in the Edinburgh Tram Line, U.K., have shown that energy savings of 10%–20% are achievable.
Local Model-Based Pareto Front Estimation for Multiobjective Optimization

The Pareto front (PF) estimation has become an emerging strategy for solving multiobjective optimization problems in recent studies. By approximating the geometrical structure of the PF during the evolutionary procedure, some PF estimation approaches have been suggested and shown effectiveness in guiding the search direction of evolutionary algorithms. However, these approaches encounter difficulties in handling irregular PFs, whose geometrical structures are too complex to be properly approximated. To address this issue, this article proposes a novel PF estimation approach based on local models. In contrast to existing approaches estimating the PF via a reference point set or a single model, the proposed approach automatically divides the population into several groups and builds a local model for each group of solutions. In spite of the simplicity of each local model, the combination of all the local models can approximate the PFs with complex geometrical structures. An evolutionary algorithm is then developed based on the local model-based PF estimation approach and a novel fitness function and is compared with four evolutionary algorithms on 39 problems. Statistical results indicate that the proposed algorithm exhibits better performance than the compared algorithms, especially on problems with highly irregular PFs.
Difusi Inovasi dalam Penerapan Komunikasi Bencana pada Masa Mitigasi oleh Forum Pengurangan Risiko Bencana (FPRB)

Penelitian ini berfokus pada kegiatan kebencanaan di masa mitigasi sebelum bencana banjir di Kabupaten Bantul pada Tahun 2019. Dari segi cakupan wilayah meliputi 14 kecamatan terdampak hingga menimbulkan dua orang korban jiwa. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis difusi inovasi dalam penerapan komunikasi bencana oleh Forum Pengurangan Risiko Bencana (FPRB) di Desa Imogiri Kabupaten Bantul. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah deskriptif kualitatif dengan pengumpulan data melalui wawancara mendalam, studi literatur, dan dokumentasi. Sementara itu, teknis analisis data yang digunakan adalah analisis data kualitatif dengan trianggulasi sumber data sebagai metode uji validitas data yang digunakan. Landasan teori yang digunakan adalah teori difusi inovasi yakni mengamati bagaimana teknologi baru melebur dalam sebuah kebudayaan di tengah masyarakat. Hasil temuan peneliti, difusi inovasi dalam penerapan komunikasi bencana pada masa mitigasi yang dilakukan oleh FPRB Desa Imogiri pada bencana banjir Bantul 2019 dilakukan dalam beragam kegiatan. Di masa mitigasi, FPRB melakukan berbagai pelatihan dan kegiatan yaitu pembentukan Desa Tangguh Bencana yang menghasilkan dokumen kontijensi sebagai standar prosedur masyarakat dalam menghadapi bencana. Dokumen Kontijensi memuat tatacara dan simulasi masyarakat dalam menghadapi banjir yang memadukan kearifan lokal (local wisdom) dan teknologi yang diterapkan. Selain itu, FPRB juga menyelenggarakan kegiatan lain yaitu Keluarga Siap Tanggap Tangguh (Si Tatang) yang dipadukan juga dengan program Desa Tangguh Bencana.
Multitask Siamese Network for Remote Photoplethysmography and Respiration Estimation

Heart and respiration rates represent important vital signs for the assessment of a person’s health condition. To estimate these vital signs accurately, we propose a multitask Siamese network model (MTS) that combines the advantages of the Siamese network and the multitask learning architecture. The MTS model was trained by the images of the cheek including nose and mouth and forehead areas while sharing the same parameters between the Siamese networks, in order to extract the features about the heart and respiratory information. The proposed model was constructed with a small number of parameters and was able to yield a high vital-sign-prediction accuracy, comparable to that obtained from the single-task learning model; furthermore, the proposed model outperformed the conventional multitask learning model. As a result, we can simultaneously predict the heart and respiratory signals with the MTS model, while the number of parameters was reduced by 16 times with the mean average errors of heart and respiration rates being 2.84 and 4.21. Owing to its light weight, it would be advantageous to implement the vital-sign-monitoring model in an edge device such as a mobile phone or small-sized portable devices.
Analysis of Fisher Effects between Nominal Interests and Inflation

The interest rate is the borrowing price in the capital market, while the real interest rate is the interest rate level after deducting the price factor from the nominal interest rate. The real interest rate not only affects the savings, consumption and investment decisions of micro subjects, but also has important reference value for asset pricing in the capital market and the formulation of fiscal and monetary policies in the macro economy. This study investigates correlation between nominal rate of interest and rate of inflation and tests the fisher effect in China based on data from 1978 to 2020 [9]. Because the equation of fisher effect is a simple linear equation, linear regression is used to fit data. After that, time series stationarity test is used to judge whether the regression is meaningful, followed by cointegration test and Granger causal relation test against each macroeconomic variable respectively. We consulted the research results of other people and found a large number of empirical studies failed to reach a consistent conclusion. In fact, the phenomenon is known as "Fisher Effect Paradox". Although it’s hard to reach consistent conclusion, fisher effect does explain the relationship between interest rate and inflation to some degree. It’s still a good theory to analyse macroeconomic. On the one hand, the rise of nominal interest rate is caused by the rise of inflation rate; on the other hand, it is the result of the central bank's loose monetary policy. Therefore, the rise and fall of nominal interest rate is not exactly the same as loose or tight monetary policy.
Decentralized federated meta‐learning framework for few‐shot multitask learning

Federated learning is increasingly attractive, however as the number of training samples on a single device is too small and the training tasks of the devices are different, it faces the few‐shot multitask learning problem. Moreover, federated learning frameworks are usually vulnerable to malicious attacks of the central server and diverse clients. To address these problems, we propose a decentralized federated meta‐learning framework (DFMLF) for few‐shot multitask learning. In DFMLF, the devices take the rapid adaptation as objective and learn the meta‐knowledge shared by tasks to deal with the few‐shot multitask problem. In addition, DFMLF conducts cross‐validation and secure aggregation mechanism by a small number of committee nodes, which not only eliminates the central server to avoid the security risks brought by the malicious central server, but also avoids the attack of malicious devices. Moreover, to address the extra communication cost brought by the committee strategy, we propose a communication‐efficient method to make the training and aggregation carried out in parallel. We conduct extensive experiments based on real‐world data sets, and the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness, robustness, and efficiency of our framework.
A Review of the Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): From A National to Global Perspective

This is a review paper that discussed the subject of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) drawing from scholarly opinions in extant literature. The paper examined the evolution of CSR. Its meaning, nature and perspectives as well. The paper concluded that though the practice of CSR by firms was initially of a philanthropic nature, it has however, transcended to being aligned with core business objectives. The initial focus of CSR was majorly on voluntary donations and contributions to communities in areas of identified need such as education, healthcare, poverty alleviation and community development. But today, CSR engagements are now increasingly aligned with the primary business objectives and societal imperatives, and explicitly driven by policies embedded in relevant legislation and standards. Therefore, organisations are encouraged to entrench CSR practices is its agenda and operational policies.