Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SoRoCAD: A Design Tool for the Building Blocks of Pneumatic Soft Robotics

Soft robotics uses soft, flexible materials and elastic actuation mechanisms to create systems that are more adaptable and tolerant to unknown environments, and safer for human-machine interaction, than rigid robots. Pneumatic soft robots can be fabricated using more affordable materials compared to traditional robots and make use of technologies such as 3D printing, making them an attractive choice for research and DIY projects. However, their design is still highly unintuitive, and at up to two days, design iterations can take prohibitively long: The behavior of, e.g., a pneumatic silicone gripper only becomes apparent after designing and 3D printing its mold, casting, curing, assembling, and testing it. We introduce SoRoCAD, a design tool supporting a Maker-friendly soft robotics design and fabrication pipeline that incorporates simulating the final actuation into the design process.
Understanding and Modeling Viewers’ First Impressions with Images in Online Medical Crowdfunding Campaigns

Online medical crowdfunding campaigns (OMCCs) help patients seek financial support. First impressions (FIs) of an OMCC, including perceived empathy, credibility, justice, impact, and attractiveness, could affect viewers’ donation decisions. Images play a crucial role in manifesting FIs, and it is beneficial for fundraisers to understand how viewers may judge their selected images for OMCCs beforehand. This work proposes a data-driven approach to assessing whether an OMCC image conveys appropriate FIs. We first crowdsource viewers’ perception of OMCC images. Statistical analysis confirms that agreement on all five dimensions of FIs exists, and these FIs positively correlate with donation intention. We compute image content, color, texture, and composition features, then analyze the correlation between these visual features and FIs. We further predict FIs based on these features, and the best model achieves an overall F1-score of 0.727. Finally, we discuss how our insights could benefit fundraisers and possible ethical concerns.
Understanding People’s Experience for Physical Activity Planning and Exploring the Impact of Historical Records on Plan Creation and Execution

Making and executing physical activity plans can help people improve their physical activity levels. However, little is known about how people make physical activity plans in everyday settings and how people can be assisted in creating more successful plans. In this paper, we developed and deployed a mobile app as a probe to investigate the in-the-wild physical activity planning experience for 28 days with 17 participants. Additionally, we explored the impact of presenting successful and unsuccessful planning records on participants’ planning behaviors. Based on interviews before, during, and after the deployment, we offer a description of what factors participants considered to fit their exercise plans into their existing routines, as well as factors leading to plan failures and dissatisfaction with planned physical activity. With access to historical records, participants derived insights to improve their plans, including trends in successes and failures. Based on those findings, we discuss the implications for better supporting people to make and execute physical activity plans, including suggestions for incorporating historical records into planning tools.
High‐entropy alloy stabilized and activated Pt clusters for highly efficient electrocatalysis

Although Pt and other noble metals are the state‐of‐the‐art catalysts for various energy conversion applications, their low reserve, high cost, and instability limit their large‐scale utilization. Herein, we report a hybrid catalysts design featuring noble metal clusters (e.g., Pt) uniformly dispersed and stabilized on high‐entropy alloy nanoparticles (HEA, e.g., FeCoNiCu), denoted as HEA@Pt, which is prepared via ultra‐fast shock synthesis (∼300 ms) for HEA alloying combined with Pt galvanic replacement for surface anchoring. In our design, the HEA core critically ensures high dispersity, stability, and tunability of the surface Pt clusters through high entropy stabilization and core‐shell interactions. As an example in the hydrogen evolution reaction, HEA@Pt achieved a significant mass activity of 235 A/gPt, which is 9.4, 3.6, and 1.9‐times higher compared to that of homogeneous FeCoNiCuPt (HEA‐Pt), Pt, and commercial Pt/C, respectively. We also demonstrated noble Ir stabilized on FeCoNiCrMn nanoparticles (HEA‐5@Ir), achieving excellent anodic oxygen evolution performance and highly efficient overall water splitting when combined with the cathodic HEA@Pt. Therefore, our work developed a general catalysts design strategies by using high entropy nanoparticles for effective dispersion, stabilization, and modulation of surface active sites, achieving a harmonious combination of high activity, stability, and low cost.
Effectiveness of Forensic Assertive Community Treatment on Forensic and Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Given the increasing literature on forensic assertive community treatment (FACT), we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the effectiveness of FACT among justice-involved individuals with severe mental illness. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed. Sixteen studies were included in the systematic review, six of which were included in the meta-analyses for a total of 1,246 participants. Mixed results regarding health-related outcomes were found. The pre-post FACT analysis and comparison with control groups did not yield significant results other than increased outpatient service use. Results on forensic outcomes were more compelling. Both the narrative review and the meta-analysis highlighted that FACT programs may improve justice outcomes such as the number of days spent in jail. More high quality and multisite randomized controlled trials are needed to consolidate findings. Further research is needed to examine other psychosocial factors related to FACT program success.
Intellectual Factors

In this chapter we limit our consideration to what is commonly known as the intellect. The intellect may be thought of in several ways: as the fundamental instrument responsible for understanding relationships; as the ability to abstract, judge, or reason; as the ability to respond well to new situations, to do 'originals'; and as the ability to learn. In many practical situations intellect may be considered to vary with the ability to learn more things or to learn the same things more quickly. We shall treat intellect mainly as the ability to understand directions or to use relations of likeness, part and whole, genus and species, or to use facts together.
The Development of Spoken Language

The amount of research on the development of spoken language is so great that it is impossible within a brief space to give an adequate or detailed summary of it. There are at least twenty-five major summaries or bibliographies, each of which integrates the results of a large number of specific studies. The most recent and complete of these is that by McCarthy in the Murchison Handbook (27). Although it does not pretend to cover all studies, it lists 236 in its bibliography. The following summary, then, is exceedingly compact and can make reference to only a few studies.
Adjusting Instruction to Individual Needs

That the problem of adjusting instruction to individual differences is now recognized as a major concern of every teacher is indicated by the fact that every preceding chapter has dealt with it, often at length. Chapter ii described the enormous range of differences in every trait among the pupils in a typical classroom, both in terms of levels of special abilities, such as word knowledge, and in terms of typical patterns or "stages" of interests and abilities. The importance of individual differences in other phases of child development, such as social interests and understandings and emotional behavior, was also emphasized. The fact that individual differenceu tend to increase with age and education was also pointed out. Chapter iii listed as one of the essential requirements of education the development of a program designed to provide maximum adjustment to individual needs. Section II of this yearbook, which was concerned with instruction at the successive grade levels, devoted much space to various methods of meeting the types of individual needs encountered at each grade level. Concrete descriptions of the most common individual problems, together with suggestions for meeting them, comprise a considerable portion of the three chapters in this section. The preceding chapters in Section III of this yearbook have dealt with the problem in relation to special areas of instruction, such as the provision of reading materials and other forms of equipment and facilities, the development of word knowledge and word-recognition skills, better
Effect of symbiotic associations with Frankia and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on antioxidant activity and cell ultrastructure in C. equisetifolia and C. obesa under salt stress

ABSTRACT Plants of the Casuarinaceae family are widely known for their ability to tolerate salt stress. Casuarinaceae are able to develop symbiotic association with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and with the soil bacteria Frankia. The aim of this study was to evaluate adaptation mechanisms of Casuarina to tolerate salt stress when interacting Rhizophagus fasciculatus and Frankia. Two species showing different salt tolerance levels, i.e. C. equisetifolia and C. obesa, were grown in sandy sterile soil, inoculated with R. fasciculatus and/or Frankia and then watered gradually with increased concentrations of saline solutions. Total antioxidant activity, antioxidant enzyme concentration, and salt effects on cellular ultrastructure of shoots were evaluated. C. obesa has a better salt stress tolerance compared to C. equisetifolia. Co-inoculation (R. fasciculatus and Frankia) improved the performance of both plant species in saline. Higher antioxidant activity was observed in C. obesa. At 400 mM of NaCl C. obesa revealed a maintenance of cellular integrity whereas cell membrane rupture and disintegration of cellular contents were observed in C. equisetifolia tissues. Our results suggest that a selection of appropriate plant species is important to improve plant performance in saline soils.
Investigating assessment in higher education: students’ perceptions

ABSTRACT Drawing upon a wider piece of research, this paper focuses on students’ views of assessment in higher education. It reports on data collected from a total of 5,549 students in five Portuguese public universities. The study aims to investigate the psychometric properties of two scales, one measuring the purposes and effects associated by students with assessment; and the other determining the most commonly used assessment methods. Both scales demonstrated adequate validity based on internal structure and acceptable reliability. Findings indicate that students reported more purposes and effects associated with a summative dimension of assessment than with a formative dimension. The most commonly used methods were written tests/exams and collective methods. Statistically significant differences were found in assessment methods, purposes and effects.
Designing and emergency information system : the Pittsburgh experience

J m. DESIGNING AND EMERGENCY INFORMATION SYSTEM; THE PITTSBURGH EXPERIENCE Louise K. Comfort, Theresa R. Woods and James E. Nesbltt IKSTFTUTE ( F mmMENUL STUD BUBmy MAI 19 1990 UMJVERSin OF ailFOSilA Working Paper 89-24 INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY hh 0
Public Opinion Polls and Public Schools

IN recent years, school public relations programs have been taking more and more into account the opinions of the layman, favorable and unfavorable, with regard to school aims and practices. In this they have followed the example set by business. An alert business firm is eager to know how people feel about its product or its service. Customers and patrons are asked to report instances of unusual service. Suggestions for improvement are welcomed. From this deliberate seeking of customer reaction, the opinion poll has developed as a major instrument for improvement of goods and services, and as a device to test potential customer reaction to new products and new services.
A combined experimental-computational approach uncovers a role for the Golgi matrix protein Giantin in breast cancer progression

Few studies so far have investigated the impact of different cell migration traits on tumor progression. To address this, we developed a mathematical model wherein cells migrate in two-dimensional space, divide, die or intravasate into the vasculature. Exploring a wide range of speed and persistence combinations, we find that tumor growth positively correlates with increasing speed and higher persistence. As a biologically relevant example, we focused on Golgi fragmentation induced by depletion of Giantin, a Golgi matrix protein, the downregulation of which correlates with poor patient survival. Applying the migration and invasion traits of Giantin depleted cells to our mathematical model, we predict that loss of Giantin increases the number of intravasating cells. This prediction was validated, by showing that circulating tumor cells express significantly less Giantin than primary tumor cells. Altogether, our computational model identifies cell migration traits that regulate tumor progression and uncovers a role of Giantin in breast cancer progression.
Gain-improved double-slot TSA with Y-shaped corrugated edges

A novel bandwidth-enhanced UWB tapered slot antenna with Y-shaped corrugated edges is proposed. In the double-slot structure, the two slots are separated by a V-shaped metal surface with straight edges, which is beneficial to improve the directivity of the antenna. Meanwhile, an exponential Y-shaped corrugated edge is designed. This novel corrugated edge not only enhances the impedance bandwidth, but also improves the gain by concentrating the energy near the tapered slot. The impedance bandwidth of the double-slot TSA is from 2.5 to 28 GHz. The gain of the antenna is >10 dB from 3.5 to 25 GHz, and >8 dB in the whole operating band.
A Review of Hopping Robots

In application, robots often need hopping instruments to overleap the obstacles or ditches. However, wheeled and crawled robots cannot do this. This paper synthetically introduces and analyzes the current research, and illustrates the working mechanism of a hopping machine which is worked out by the authors. In addition to reviewing some of the key aspects of the design of hopping systems, this paper gives prospect of the developing trend.
Predicting Readability

WHAT a person understands of the material he reads depends upon his general reading ability and the readability of the text he is reading. His reading ability, moreover, depends upon his intelligence, education, environment, and upon his interest and purpose in reading. The readability of a text depends upon the kind and number of ideas it expresses, the vocabulary and its style, and upon format and typography.
Confronting population models with experimental microcosm data: from trajectory matching to state-space models

Population and community ecology traditionally has a very strong theoretical foundation with well-known dynamical models, such as the logistic and its variations, and many modification of the classical Lotka-Volterra predator-prey and interspecific competition models. More and more, these classical models are being confronted with data via fitting to empirical time series for purposes of projections or for estimating model parameters of interest. However, using statistical models to fit theoretical models to data is far from trivial, especially for time series data where subsequent measurements are not independent. This raises the question of whether statistical inferences using pure observation error models, such as simple (non-)linear regressions, are biased, and whether more elaborate process error models or state-space models have to be used to address this complexity. In order to help empiricists, especially researchers working with experimental laboratory populations in micro- and mesocosms, make informed decisions about the statistical formalism to use, we here compare different error structures one could use when fitting classical deterministic ODE models to empirical data. We consider a large range of biological scenarios and theoretical models, from single species to community dynamics and trophic interactions. In order to compare the performance of different error structure models, we use both realistically simulated data and empirical data from microcosms in a Bayesian framework. We find that many model parameters can be estimated precisely with an appropriate choice of error structure using pure observation error or state-space models, if observation errors are not too high. However, Allee effect models are typically hard to identify and state-space models should be preferred when model complexity increases. Our work shows that, at least in the context of low environmental stochasticity and high quality observations, deterministic models can be used to describe stochastic population dynamics that include process variability and observation error. We discuss when more complex state-space model formulations may be required for obtaining accurate parameter estimates. Finally, we provide a comprehensive tutorial for fitting these models in R. Open research Code for stochastic individual-based simulations is available from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5500442. A tutorial for fitting ODE models to time series data in R is presented in the Supplementary Information and is also available online https://github.com/benjamin-rosenbaum/fitting deterministic population models. Data (Fronhofer et al., 2020) will be provided via GitHub and Zenodo.
The genomic basis and environmental correlates of local adaptation in the Atlantic horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus)

Understanding how populations adapt to their environment is increasingly important to prevent biodiversity loss due to overexploitation and climate change. Here we studied the population structure and genetic basis of local adaptation of Atlantic horse mackerel, a commercially and ecologically important marine fish that has one of the widest distributions in the eastern Atlantic. We analyzed whole‐genome sequencing and environmental data of samples collected from the North Sea to North Africa and the western Mediterranean Sea. Our genomic approach indicated low population structure with a major split between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean and between locations north and south of mid‐Portugal. Populations from the North Sea are the most genetically distinct in the Atlantic. We discovered that most population structure patterns are driven by a few highly differentiated putatively adaptive loci. Seven loci discriminate the North Sea, two the Mediterranean Sea, and a large putative inversion (9.9 Mb) on chromosome 21 underlines the north–south divide and distinguishes North Africa. A genome–environment association analysis indicates that mean seawater temperature and temperature range, or factors correlated to them, are likely the main environmental drivers of local adaptation. Our genomic data broadly support the current stock divisions, but highlight areas of potential mixing, which require further investigation. Moreover, we demonstrate that as few as 17 highly informative SNPs can genetically discriminate the North Sea and North African samples from neighboring populations. Our study highlights the importance of both, life history and climate‐related selective pressures in shaping population structure patterns in marine fish. It also supports that chromosomal rearrangements play a key role in local adaptation with gene flow. This study provides the basis for more accurate delineation of the horse mackerel stocks and paves the way for improving stock assessments.
EggVio: a user friendly and versatile pipeline for assembly and functional annotation of shallow depth sequenced samples

We introduce a homemade pipeline allowing to improve the quality of the metagenomic annotations carried out when using shallow depth metagenomic datasets. The main motivation being to be able to quantify more precisely, with greater certainty, the genes involved in bacterial interactions. The limitation in our experimental design is that we use a sequencing technique with a low throughput (miSeq) compared to the metagenomic standard (hiSeq) because we carry out a fairly large sampling (almost a hundred samples) in time series. This methodological constraint from our study means that the assembly of the sequences is not very exhaustive (less than 50% of the sequences manage to be assembled). In this chapter, we will therefore present a new pipeline designed to specifically deal with such kind of data. We used co-assembly and a sequence annotation strategy in order to recover the sequences that could not be mapped on the assembled contigs. In addition, in order to avoid adding too much noise, when rescuing reads, we have built an algorithm to define a threshold of e-value based on the noise of the sequence annotation learned from sequences mapped in the assembly. We have selected several recent tools known to be effective for assembling, mapping and annotating these data. In addition, this pipeline was also built in order to be very user-friendly in terms of installation. In this idea of reproducibility, accessibility and transparency, we have designed an installation script to allow each user to install each tool required for the pipeline in a simple and reproducible way. Regarding the performances of this pipeline, we were able to show that the expected error rate (False discovery rate) for the annotation was close to 5%. Finally, we also used an actual dataset from a bioremediation site and showed that the representability of the samples seemed much better when we used our pipeline than when we used a classic metagenome assembly strategy.
Application of Genetic Algorithms to Optimum Offshore Plant Design

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the requirements for reliability/availability studies during the design of oil and gas facilities, both onshore and offshore. It highlights some of the advantages of using Monte Carlo Simulation to make such assessments, and features the BG in-house package SWIFT, which enables modelling of such complex aspects as line pack and seasonal demands. It then discusses the difficulties of optimising Monte Carlo Simulation because of its stochastic nature and the consequent development of a new program, PARAGON, which overcomes these problems by combining Monte Carlo Simulation with a search mechanism based on genetic algorithms. This approach uses the principle of natural selection to automatically search for plant configurations and operational strategies that produce the best outcome, in this case the maximum life cycle return. Finally, one of the successful areas of application within BG E&P projects and Operations is highlighted, along with potential future enhancements.
Distance Learning: What are its Strengths and Pitfalls?

In today's Information Age, teaching and learning are no longer confined within the four walls of a classroom or the school day. There are many technologies that can offer a great deal of flexibility in when, where, and how education is distributed. The current paper examines the strengths and pitfalls of online distance learning in the formal education system.