Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of sustainability living labs in understanding food-water-energy nexus challenges and solutions in India and Jordan

There are a multitude of challenges confronting resource-limited, rapidly growing cities that revolve around food-water-energy (FWE) resource issues, and there are a multitude of potential solutions. But such solutions often address one or just a few challenges without regard to their impacts on the entire FWE system. We report on an innovative stakeholder engagement concept that links a living lab approach with the development of an integrated multi-agent urban-FWE systems model for two study regions: Pune, India and Amman Jordan. The model captures connections and feedbacks among the FWE sectors and aims to support long-term policy planning for a more sustainable and equitable provision of food, water and energy. In this context, knowledge of local stakeholders with regard to the FWE nexus is key. Moreover, stakeholder participation increases the chance that the model results are useful for and therefore used by policy makers and other relevant stakeholders, and consequently that the model supports efforts for achieving greater equity and sustainability in the FWE-nexus sectors. We have implemented a two-stage sustainability living lab process (2SLL), embedding several characteristics of existing living lab approaches, and adapting it to the requirements of our effort in Jordan and India. This paper presents the objectives of stakeholder engagement within FUSE, differentiating between model-related and process-related objectives, and discusses requirements for reaching those objectives: First, workshop preparation was key. For one to two months, members of our team were in the study regions, and were able to select a representative cross section of workshop participants. Second, professional facilitation of the workshops was essential in bringing together stakeholders from many different sectors with scientists from different disciplines, and for creating an environment in which the stakeholders were able to formulate their food-water-energy challenges and to propose solutions. Third, an interdisciplinary research team was essential to be able to translate workshops results into inputs for different parts of the systems model. We conclude that the 2SLL process shares many of the characteristics of the classical living labs, such as collaboration between scientific and societal actors, embeddedness in real-world contexts and use of experimentation and learning. However, the 2SLL process adds to these approaches by engaging stakeholders to co-formulate the model and ultimately evaluate the viability of solutions aimed at meeting the multitude of present and future food-water-energy challenges.
Simulating complex crystal structures using the phase-field crystal model

We introduce a phase-field crystal model that creates an array of complex three- and two-dimensional crystal structures via a numerically tractable three-point correlation function. The three-point correlation function is designed in order to energetically favor the principal interplanar angles of a target crystal structure. This is achieved via an analysis performed by examining the crystal's structure factor. This approach successfully yields energetically stable simple cubic, diamond cubic, simple hexagonal, graphene layers, and CaF$_2$ crystals. To illustrate the ability of the method to yield a particularly complex and technologically important crystal structure, we show how this three-point correlation function method can be used to generate perovskite crystals.
Influence de la topologie moléculaire et de la microstructure sur les propriétés mécaniques des Polyéthylènes

Les polymeres semi-cristallins sont tres largement utilises dans des domaines aussi divers que l'emballage, l'automobile, l'aeronautique… en raison de leur proprietes specifiques. Le besoin de predire leurs proprietes d'usage dans le domaine viscoelastique et plastique en fonction des parametres microstructuraux est donc tout a fait evident. De part sa structure relativement simple qui fait de lui un materiau modele pour les polymeres semi-cristallins, le Polyethylene a ete et reste encore le plus etudie. Toutefois, il reste de nombreux points non resolus, notamment le couplage mecanique entre les phases amorphe et cristalline. Notre travail a ete entrepris dans l’optique de faire progresser les connaissances sur les micro-mecanismes de deformation. Pour ce faire, nous avons choisi cinq polyethylenes d’architectures moleculaires variees. Puis differents traitements thermiques ont ete realises afin de modifier leur microstructure initiale. Nous avons ainsi pu decorreler la microstructure et la topologie moleculaire. Une large campagne de caracterisation microstructurale et mecanique (Traction, DMA, AFM, RX…) nous a permis de montrer les roles respectifs de deux echelles sur le comportement mecanique : l’echelle de la lamelle et l’echelle de la spherolite. Une attention particuliere a ete portee sur les transmetteurs de contraintes (molecules liens, enchevetrements, interphase) presents entre la phase amorphe et la phase cristalline. Nous avons ainsi demontre leur influence significative sur les micro-mecanismes de deformation. Ils jouent alors un role sur les proprietes elastiques et plastiques bien superieur a celui generalement annonce dans la litterature.
Building Efficiency and Sustainability in the Tropics ( SinBerBEST ) Title Solution chemistry of cubic and orthorhombic tricalcium aluminate hydration

This paper presents a solution chemistry-focused analysis of orthorhombic and cubic tricalcium aluminate (orthC3A and cub-C3A, respectively) hydration. It is shown that the different solubilities of cuband orth-C3A influence the bulk aqueous Ca to Al concentration ratio and the C3A/solution interface chemistry. The results are consistent with the bulk solution chemistry controlling orth-C3A dissolution, and with cub-C3A dissolution controlled by the formation of an Al-rich leached layer and adsorption of Ca‐sulfur ion pair complexes onto this layer. The polynaphthalene sulfonate-based admixture used here is identified to modify the solution chemistry and retard cub-C3A dissolution. Strategies to inhibit C3A dissolution in Portland cement are discussed.
FUCOIDAN FROM BROWN ALGAE FUCUS EVANESCENS: NEW PERSPECTIVES IN THE TREATMENT OF ATHEROSCLEROSIS

Objective. The purpose of the research is the experimental study of the possibility of correction of disorders of lipid metabolism, lipid peroxidation and antioxidant protection (POL-AOP), liver structure on the model of alimentary hyperlipidemia in mice. Materials and methods. Fucoidan, a sulfated polysaccharide with a molecular weight of 160 kDa, derived from brown algae Fucus evanescens. The alimentary hyperlipidemia model was reproduced in mice. The biochemical parameters of lipid metabolism, state of POL-AOP system and the liver structure by MRT were studied. Results. We revealed the ability of fucoidan at per os administration to animals to normalize the key parameters of lipid metabolism, indicators of POL-AOP system, liver anatomic-topographic structure. Conclusion. The ability of fucoidan to correct these parameters allows us to consider it as a basis for the development of new biological medicines for the treatment of atherosclerotic disorders.
TCRβ rearrangements without D-segment are common, abundant and public

T cells play an important role in adaptive immunity. An enormous clonal diversity of T-cells with a different specificity, encoded by the T-cell receptor (TCR), protect the body against infection. Most TCR{beta} chains are generated from a V-, D-, and J-segment during recombination in the thymus. Although complete absence of the D-segment is not easily detectable from sequencing data, we find convincing evidence for a substantial proportion of TCR{beta} rearrangements lacking a D-segment. Additionally, sequences without a D-segment are more likely to be abundant within individuals and/or shared between individuals. We find that such sequences are preferentially generated during fetal development and persist within the elderly. Summarizing, TCR{beta} rearrangements without a D-segment are not uncommon, and tend to allow for TCR{beta} chains with a high abundance in the naive repertoire.
Novel High Resolution Photon Detectors for PET Imaging

High resolution PET involves diverse technical factors related to the properties of the implemented detectors. This thesis addresses these topics from two angles. The first one is a thorough experimental characterization focused on the PET-oriented performance of newly developed digital silicon photomultipliers. The second one is a definition of a novel Cherenkov-only PET detector. The proposed principle and its limitations are studied through theoretical calculations and Monte Carlo simulations.
Obiteljski odnosi i ovisnost adolescenata o video igrama

The inducement of this graduate study was to examin the role of the family in the way of dealing with the process of second separation-individuation their adolescents and the phenomenon of video games dependency. Our goal was to examine (1) the difference between groups of adolescents in style of dealing with the experience of separation in consideration of playing video games. The expectation was that adolescents who are addicted playing games will appear most likely greater difficulties to control experience of separation than the other groups of adolescent in the way of greater separation anxiety and negation as mechanism of defence. Also,they will most likely have greater levels of sybiotic needs, regresion and lower levels of mature independency. Our second goal was to examine the difference between the groups of adolescents in the quality of emotional relationships between them and both parent considering their addiction of playing video games. Expectation was that the group of adolescents defined as addicts will most likely show worse emotional relations between them and their parents. Concidering the quality of emotional relations we examined relevance between the differences on variables of fathers care and controle and mothers care and controle in relation with adolescence daily time playing video games. In order to examine assumptions and proved the hypothesis,we used: (1) Questionnaire of separation-individuation and (2) Questionnaire of emotional connections with both parents. The results confirm the difference between groups of adolescents in the field of negation, the level of symbiotic needs and infield of developing optimal independence. We've got the results wich shows us that the adolescents who are defined as adicts in relation with other two groups of adolescents are most likely to negate the experience of separation considering the difference in way of showing more symbiotic needs and had a significantly lower level of mature independency. Furthermore, the results also shows the difference in the emotional relations between both parents and adolescents defined as addicts.According to the tested degree of parental care (in these case fathers care) we got marginal level of fathers care in group of addict adolescents and for the degree of fathers control we got below-average levels of control. The results showed characteristically low value in area of maternal care and controle from wich we can conclude that the adolescents defined as addictive compare with the other two groups of adolescents are neglected in area of parental care and control.
Energy Restoration of Sensor Networks by Mobile Robots

In this thesis, a variety of different approaches are proposed to study the energy restoration problem in wireless sensor networks by one or more robots. First, we introduce an on-demand decentralized strategy performed by a robot that visits the sensors in a predefined circular order. We study it both analytically and experimentally analyzing the impact of various network parameters on network coverage, disconnection time, and time sensors have to wait to be served. We then introduce an optimal centralized approach as a benchmark to assess how close to optimal our on-demand strategy is, and we discover that, for sufficiently large networks, the on-demand strategy is indeed optimal. We then propose an even simpler mechanism where the robot simply moves blindly along the circular order, which is experimentally shown to be as efficient as the other two. The results above apply to arbitrary sensor network; we then consider a common special topology: a linear arrangement of sensors, were we propose three restoring mechanisms. We compare them experimentally discovering, once again, that the simplest approach is also the best, in most cases. We finally consider the case of multiple robots. We propose two strategies where the network is portioned among the robots and each robot takes care of a portion, and we compare those with a collaborative strategy where all robots work on the global network. The main general result of this study is that simple solutions are often as good as more sophisticated ones. In fact, a totally blind strategy where a robot simply moves around restoring energy on its way turns out to be as efficient as the best possible centralized solution for most networks.
Do they know the normal language

This article presents a theoretical discussion of the relationship between language ideologies and language attitudes and builds on previous work by providing an organized framework connecting these notions. This framework is evaluated with reference to online and offline ethnographic work surrounding attitudes and ideologies about anglicisms, or English loanwords, among German hip hop fans and artists. Language attitudes are theorized as individual thoughts and expressions about language, and are often, but not always, informed by individual reproductions of language ideologies, which are conceived of as systematic, shared over groups of individuals, enduring, and mediated. Language ideologies can then be organized into interacting language ideology complexes, and I identify here a Standard Language Ideology Complex constituted of standard language ideology, Herderian ideology, and language purism working in concert. This Standard Language Ideology Complex frames metalinguistic discourse in the German-speaking sphere, and interviews with hip hop fans and artists in this study demonstrate the extent to which this ideological complex fundamentally frames and underlies conversations about language, even, somewhat surprisingly, in a space and subculture which has been conceived of as creative and counterhegemonic.
Green synthesis and characterisation of antioxidant-tagged gold nanoparticle (X-GNP) and studies on its potent antimicrobial activity

ABSTRACT Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.), a weed, mainly from tropical origin and easily available worldwide. People used to eat it as a food mainly in South Africa. In our previous report we have thoroughly characterise several important phenolics, monoterpene and phenylpropane from methanol soluble fraction of Alternenthera leaves (fraction X) and also reported their α-glucosidase inhibitory, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. All these isolated natural compounds are well characterised and widely studied. In our present study we try to use this beneficial fraction (named fraction X) in green synthesis of gold nanoparticles (X-GNP). We also try to explore the beneficial aspects of green synthesis in comparison with commonly used chemical synthesis method (GNP) in context with their antimicrobial activity. UV/Vis spectroscopy, DLS, Zeta potential, FT-IR, EDAX and other microscopic techniques namely: SEM, AFM were used to characterise the synthesised nanoparticles. Different important microbial strains were used to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of prepared nanoparticles. Overall the studies suggest successful synthesis of green nanoparticles (X-GNP) and also showed the improvement in antimicrobial activity of X-GNP nanoparticles.
Utilizing Mask R-CNN for automated segmentation of condensed water vapor plumes from multi-view imagery

The process of automatically masking objects from complex backgrounds is extremely beneficial when trying to utilize those objects for computer vision research, such as object detection, autonomous driving, pedestrian tracking, etc. Therefore, a robust method of segmentation is imperative towards ongoing research between the Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Laboratory at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Savannah River National Laboratory directed at the volume estimation of condense water vapor plumes emanating from mechanical draft cooling towers. Instance segmentation was performed on a custom data set consisting of RGB imagery with the Matterport Mask R-CNN implementation,1 where condensed water vapor plumes were masked out from mixed backgrounds for the purpose of 3D reconstruction and volume estimation. This multi-class Mask R-CNN was trained to detect cooling tower structure and plumes with and without data augmentation to study the effects on a preliminary data set, in addition to a model trained with a single plume class. The average precision and intersection over union metrics across all models were shown to not be statistically different. While each model is capable of detecting and segmenting plumes in the preliminary data set, all models essentially perform the task with the same efficacy. This indicates some level of bias in the preliminary data set, demonstrating the need for more variance in the form of additional annotated imagery. The single plume class model tested within 7% for mAP, AP, and IoU when compared to the other two models, demonstrating the ability of Mask R-CNN to detect and segment these dynamically-changing plumes without any spatial dependence on the stationary cooling tower structure. This ongoing research includes a long-term data collection campaign where imagery of condensed water vapor plumes will be continuously gathered over an 18-month period so as to include imagery examples under many different meteorological and environmental conditions, seasonal variations, and illumination changes that will occur over an annual cycle. Including this data in future training of the Mask R-CNN implementation is expected to reduce any bias that may exist in the current data set.
Process Mining Techniques for Detecting Fraud in Banks: A Study

Banks play an important role in a nation's economy, benefiting both residents and governments. In the recent past, many fraudulent happenings in banks have been identified as a result of vested interests. This paper examines the most common forms of insider fraud that occur in banks and attempts to categorise them. We include a description, factors associated to certain categories of fraud, and challenges in detecting frauds in this article. It is critical to identify such fraudulent events automatically until it is too late and get the individuals or groups of individuals into agreement. The process mining techniques is useful because it aids in the detection of irregular data.
Influence of surface chemistry on the aggregation of beta amyloid peptide

xix Chapter 1 Goals, Research Synopsis, and Background.1 1.1 Research Goals and Aims . 1 1.2 Research Synopsis.2 1.3 Background . 3 1.3. 1 History of Alzheimer’s Disease.3 1.3. 2 Beta Amyloid Precursor Protein.4 1.3. 3 Beta Amyloid Peptide in the Body . 4 1.3. 4 Effects of Beta Amyloid Plaques.5 1.3. 5 Surface Induced Aggregation of Beta Amyloid Peptide . 5 1.3. 6 Self-Assembled Monolayers as Model Surfaces . 6 1.3. 7 Properties of Self-Assembled Monolayers . 6 1.3. 8 Relationship of Self-Assembled Monolayers to Biological Surfaces.7 1.3. 9 Patterned Self-Assembled Monolayers.8 1.3. 10 Ethylene Glycol-Terminated Alkanethiols . 9 1.3. 11 Lipid Bilayers as Model Surfaces.10 1.3. 12 Interaction of Beta Amyloid Protein with Lipid Membranes . 11 1.3. 13 Techniques Used to Verify Protein Deposition and Aggregation . 13 1.4 References . 15 Chapter 2 Materials and Methods.21 2.1 Chemicals and Products . 21 2.2 Methodologies.21 2.2.1 Gold Substrate Formation.21 2.2.2 Monolayer Formation . 22 2.2. 3 Patterned Monolayer Formation . 22 2.2. 4 Lipid Bilayer Formation . 23 2.2. 5 Beta Amyloid Solution Preparation.24 2.2. 6 Amino Acid Analysis . 24 2.2. 7 Sample Incubation of Beta Amyloid Protein on
NOVOS INDICADORES CARDIOVASCULARES: PROTEÍNA C-REATIVA E HOMOCISTEÍNA PODEM PREDIZER O RISCO DE DOENÇAS CORONARIANAS?

O processo de industrializacao, o crescimento das cidades, a urbanizacao cada vez menos planejada e suas consequencias, a diminuicao da mortalidade por doencas infecciosas e carenciais, o envelhecimento progressivo da populacao, bem como a mudanca no perfil de morbi-mortalidade, levaram o campo de aplicacao da Saude Publica a se ampliar, dirigindo-se para o estudo das condicoes presentes em fases anteriores ao aparecimento de algumas alteracoes clinicas e anatomopatologicas, especialmente os fatores de risco. No Brasil, a analise da mortalidade por grandes grupos de causas, por sexo e por faixa etaria, de 1979 ate 1997, apontou as doencas cardiovasculares, das quais se destacam a doenca coronariana, a doenca cerebrovascular e a hipertensao arterial sistemica, como sendo as maiores causas de obito. Os fatores de risco para seu aparecimento sao numerosos, podendo-se citar os inalteraveis, como hereditariedade, sexo ou idade, e os que sao suscetiveis aos tratamentos clinicos ou intervencoes no estilo de vida, como os ja bastante conhecidos hipertensao arterial, tabagismo, hipercolesterolemia, inatividade fisica, obesidade e diabetes. Alguns indicadores vem despertando a atencao de pesquisadores e sendo alvo de novas pesquisas para seu melhor conhecimento, como os niveis sericos de proteina C-reativa e homocisteina, analisados neste artigo sob a otica da adequabilidade de sua utilizacao como marcadores bioquimicos de risco coronariano, por meio de revisao da literatura cientifica nacional e internacional. Apos esta revisao, pode-se sugerir que a homocisteina e a proteina C-reativa sao marcadores biologicos capazes de predizer o aumento de risco cardiovascular. Pode-se, ainda, indicar que sejam desenvolvidos estudos buscando analisar o papel da atividade fisica no controle destes indicadores de risco, sendo esta uma das maneiras mais acessiveis e de custo mais baixo de promocao da saude e de diminuicao da incidencia de ocorrencias cardiovasculares, causa de grande parte do percentual de morbidade e mortalidade encontrada no Brasil e no mundo.