nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Effect of air jet impingement parameters on the removing of sunflower seeds from the heads in static conditions

Due to the success of air jet in food and agricultural sciences, in order to eliminate a number of problems in mechanical methods of removing sunflower seeds from the head, a new method was invented based on impingement jets. In fact, the aim of presenting the air jet impingement method was not to design this simple machine. But when we started designing the final machine, we realized that we need to take a step back and study the jet parameters in simple and static state. The effect of the seeds' location on sunflower head, reservoir pressure, the angle of impingement, nozzle diameter and the distance between the nozzle outlet and the surface of the sunflower head on the removed area of sunflower head in static conditions were examined. The regions removed by the impingement of the air jet were photographed and the area of the removed regions was calculated. Response surface methodology was used for designing experiments for all three regions of sunflower head of "Dorsefid" variety. Based on the obtained results of two varieties, on side, middle and central regions, removing seeds using 30deg, 60deg and 90deg angle of impingement is advised respectively. The results indicated that the area of the removed regions was increased with the increase of the nozzle diameter and reservoir pressure. Also the removed area increased with the increase of the distance between the nozzle outlet and the surface of the SH at first, but then decreased. The optimal distance between the nozzle outlet and the surface of the SH ranges between 24 to 28 mm. Normal 0 false false false EN US X NONE AR SA Style Definitions table.MsoNormalTable {mso style name:"Table Normal" mso tstyle rowband size:0; mso tstyle colband size:0; mso style noshow:yes; mso style priority:99; mso style parent:" mso padding alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso para margin top:0in; mso para margin right:0in; mso para margin bottom:10.0pt; mso para margin left:0in; line height:115% mso pagination:widow orphan; font size:11.0pt; font family:"Calibri""sans serif" mso ascii font family:Calibri; mso ascii theme font:minor latin; mso hansi font family:Calibri; mso hansi theme font:minor latin;
The relationships between foreign direct investment, domestic savings, domestic investment, and economic growth: The case of Sub Saharan Africa

Despite the large body of research on foreign direct investment, domestic savings, domestic investment and economic growth, little has been done to investigate the relationships among them. This paper examines the relationships among foreign direct investment, domestic savings, domestic investment, and economic growth in 16 Sub Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1981 to 2011, using various techniques. The results of VAR estimation and Granger causality tests demonstrate that there is a unidirectional causality from foreign investment to growth and domestic investment, savings to growth, and a bidirectional causality between growth and domestic investment as well as savings and domestic investment. The results of the variance decomposition analysis reveal that foreign investment exerts more influence on growth. Savings are more important in explaining domestic investment, growth is more important in explaining foreign investment, and domestic investment is more important in explaining savings. Based on the results of the impulse response analysis, there is a positive unidirectional causality from foreign investment to growth and domestic investment, savings to growth, and a positive bidirectional causality between savings and domestic investment, both in the short and long run. Although there is feedback causality between domestic investment and growth, the impact from investment is negative in the short run and positive in the long run. Thus, policies that encourage foreign investment and savings are required to boost domestic investment and promote growth, and policies that raise domestic investment will lead to higher savings and growth in SSA.
Spatiotemporal Behavior of Small World Neuronal Networks Using a Map Based Model
Venue: Neural Processing Letters

In this paper, the dynamics of a map based model is proposed firstly. It is a simple model which can not only reproduce rich behaviors of biological neurons but also compute efficiently. Then, the dynamics of two coupled maps that model the behavior of two electrically coupled neurons is discussed. By tuning the coupling strength, synchronization of two spiking or bursting neurons are simulated. Furthermore, the spatiotemporal behavior of a small world neuronal network using map based model is studied. Detailed investigations reveal that the collective dynamics of neuronal activity will be affected by varying some key parameters, such as the coupling strength of neurons, connection probability and the number of nearest neighbor in small world topology. Our study suggests that the map based model will give us a new opportunity to reproduce the real biological network containing a large number of neurons.
Biologically Induced Hydrogen Production Drives High Rate/High Efficiency Microbial Electrosynthesis of Acetate from Carbon Dioxide

Electron transfer pathways occurring in biocathodes are still unknown. We demonstrate here that high rates of acetate production by microbial electrosynthesis are mainly driven by an electron flux from the electrode to carbon dioxide, occurring via biologically induced hydrogen, with (99 1) electron recovery into acetate. Nevertheless, acetate production is shown to occur exclusively within the biofilm. The acetate producers, putatively Acetoanaerobium, showed the remarkable ability to consume a high H 2 flux before it could escape from the biofilm. At zero wastage of H 2 gas, it allows superior production rates and lesser technical bottlenecks over technologies that rely on mass transfer of H 2 to microorganisms suspended in aqueous solution. This study suggests that bacterial modification of the electrode surface (possibly via synthesis of Cu nanoparticles) is directly involved in the significant enhancement of the hydrogen production.
Endosome ER Contacts Control Actin Nucleation and Retromer Function through VAP Dependent Regulation of PI4P
Venue: Cell

VAP (VAPA and VAPB) is an evolutionarily conserved endoplasmic reticulum (ER) anchored protein that helps generate tethers between the ER and other membranes through which lipids are exchanged across adjacent bilayers. Here, we report that by regulating PI4P levels on endosomes, VAP affects WASH dependent actin nucleation on these organelles and the function of the retromer, a protein coat responsible for endosome to Golgi traffic. VAP is recruited to retromer budding sites on endosomes via an interaction with the retromer SNX2 subunit. Cells lacking VAP accumulate high levels of PI4P, actin comets, and trans Golgi proteins on endosomes. Such defects are mimicked by downregulation of OSBP, a VAP interactor and PI4P transporter that participates in VAP dependent ER endosomes tethers. These results reveal a role of PI4P in retromer /WASH dependent budding from endosomes. Collectively, our data show how the ER can control budding dynamics and association with the cytoskeleton of another membrane by direct contacts leading to bilayer lipid modifications.
Annexin A1 Tethers Membrane Contact Sites that Mediate ER to Endosome Cholesterol Transport
Venue: Developmental cell

Membrane contact sites between the ER and multivesicular endosomes/bodies (MVBs) play important roles in endosome positioning and fission and in neurite outgrowth. ER MVB contacts additionally function in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase downregulation by providing sites where the ER localized phosphatase, PTP1B, interacts with endocytosed EGFR before the receptor is sorted onto intraluminal vesicles (ILVs) Here we show that these contacts are tethered by annexin A1 and its Ca2+ dependent ligand, S100A11, and form a subpopulation of differentially regulated contact sites between the ER and endocytic organelles. Annexin A1 regulated contacts function in the transfer of ER derived cholesterol to the MVB when low density lipoprotein cholesterol in endosomes is low. This sterol traffic depends on interaction between ER localized VAP and endosomal oxysterol binding protein ORP1L, and is required for the formation of ILVs within the MVB and thus for the spatial regulation of EGFR signaling.
3DMatch: Learning the Matching of Local 3D Geometry in Range Scans
Venue: ArXiv

Establishing correspondences between 3D geometries is essential to a large variety of graphics and vision applications, including 3D reconstruction, localization, and shape matching. Despite significant progress, geometric matching on real world 3D data is still a challenging task due to the noisy, low resolution, and incomplete nature of scanning data. These difficulties limit the performance of current state of art methods which are typically based on histograms over geometric properties. In this paper, we introduce 3DMatch, a data driven local feature learner that jointly learns a geometric feature representation and an associated metric function from a large collection of real world scanning data. We represent 3D geometry using accumulated distance fields around key point locations. This representation is suited to handle noisy and partial scanning data, and concurrently supports deep learning with convolutional neural networks directly in 3D. To train the networks, we propose a way to automatically generate correspondence labels for deep learning by leveraging existing RGB D reconstruction algorithms. In our results, we demonstrate that we are able to outperform state of the art approaches by a significant margin. In addition, we show the robustness of our descriptor in a purely geometric sparse bundle adjustment pipeline for 3D reconstruction.
The Role of Public Relations on Company Image: Social Media as a Moderating Variable: A Case Study at the Applied Science Private University at Jordan

The aim of this study is to clarify the role of Public Relations on Company Image and to find out the moderating role of Social Media between Public Relations and Company Image, where the study was applied to the employees of the Applied Science Private University especially on middle management, the research had destitute (100) questioner. The results showed that there was an impact of the Public Relations on Company Image, and an impact of the Social Media as a moderating variable among Public Relations and Company Image.
Privacy in the Internet of Things

Privacy protection is gaining public attention, and even more so with the advances of the Internet of Things (IoT) But there is still no consensus on how privacy can be engineered, even for traditional Information Technology (IT) systems. This chapter, after discussing the main challenges, proposes a general methodology to manage the privacy engineering in the context of IoT and some technical building blocks and solutions. More concretely, this chapter explains why IoT both increases the likelihood and aggravates the impact of data breaches in IT systems. Then, after presenting existing privacy protection principles and frameworks and mapping them to privacy protection mechanisms, a privacy development life cycle (PDLC) is proposed. Finally, privacy enhancing technologies specific for the IoT are presented, as the application of a PDLC in IoT would require new and adapted technologies due to IoT's constraints.
The onion router: Understanding a privacy enhancing technology community
Venue: ASIST

Internet technologies have made mass surveillance prevalent and much easier to carry out, while at the same time making personal privacy more difficult to protect. The ubiquity of personal data processing has raised public awareness about the infringement of information privacy. To protect users' information privacy, several initiatives have been developed to provide Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) One of the most well known PETs is the Onion Router (Tor) network, which provides users with online anonymity. The Tor network is supported by a group of volunteers who contribute their resources to sustain the availability and quality of the service. However, Tor Volunteers may find themselves in a tough spot at times because Tor network is often monitored by law enforcement, which makes this PET community different from any other open source initiatives. To explore this volunteer community's motivation for providing their services despite the risks, we conducted an online survey. Our study results reveal that one of the main motivations for these volunteers is to advocate and provide privacy for online users. In addition, Tor relay operators report on their views about anonymous networks, the challenges they face, and how their belief in providing an opportunity for everyone to access information without interference or censorship is a key component of their volunteer participation.
Big Data Analytics readiness: A South African public sector perspective
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Innovative Business Practices for the Transformation of Societies (EmergiTech)

Organizations are now in an era of scale, where the volumes of data gathered, processed and stored is breaking down every architectural construct in the storage industry. This have seen organizations improve their analytics processes such as acquiring and using big data analytics tools as well as increasing their bandwidth and storage devices in order to boost their operational efficiency with little complexity. However, apart from the fact that there are different analytics applications there other issues that need to be paid attention to while addressing the Big Data boom. This paper reports on Big Data Analytics readiness in a public sector. The study was informed by data collected from South African Revenue Services (SARS) by using a close ended questionnaires. The collected data was analysed quantitatively and the findings indicated that technological infrastructure, security, reliability, finances, competitors, customers and vendors are core antecedents for Big Data analytic readiness. Much as the techniques for big data analytics aren't all that new, fewer studies have been conducted hence this study contributes to information systems literature of Big Data analytics.
Multi criteria IoT Resource Discovery: A Comparative Analysis

The growth of real world objects with embedded and globally n etworked sensors allows to consolidate the Internet of Things paradigm and increase the number of ap plic tions in the domains of ubiquitous and context aware computing. The merging between Cloud Comput ing and Internet of Things named Cloud of Things will be the key to handle thousands of sensors and thei r data. One of the main challenges in the Cloud of Things is context aware sensor search and selection. Typ ically, sensors require to be searched using two or more conflicting context properties. Most of the existing work uses some kind of multi criteria decision analysis to perform the sensor search and selection, but doe s not show any concern for the quality of the selection presented by these methods. In this paper, we anal yse the behaviour of the SAW, TOPSIS and VIKOR multi objective decision methods and their quality o f selection comparing them with the Paretooptimality solutions. The gathered results allow to analys e and compare these algorithms regarding their behaviour, the number of optimal solutions and redundancy.
A Comparative Analysis of Multi criteria Decision Models for ERP Package Selection for Improving Supply Chain Performance

Advancement in information and communication technology (ICT) has turned information as one of the key organisational resources for managing business operations. In this information age, one of the key strategic considerations for achieving competitive advantage involves an information intensive supply chain management (SCM) integrating all the activities and partners beyond the enterprise boundaries. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) forms the backbone of such extended enterprises. There has been a growing interest of the organisations to invest in the ERP solutions. However, selection of an appropriate ERP package plays a critical role in achieving the business objectives. In this article, we have identified the criteria for selecting an appropriate ERP package. Further, we have used different multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods for ranking of the alternative ERP packages to select a suitable one. A comparative analysis has been carried out. Some future scopes of work have also been highlighted.
Using sunflower (Helianthus annuus L. topinambour (Helianthus tuberosus L. and cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum L. stalks as alternative raw materials for particleboards

In this research the feasibility of agricultural crop residues used as alternative raw materials for particleboards was investigated. Germany grown cup plant Silphium perfoliatum L. sunflower (Helianthus annuus L. and topinambour (Helianthus tuberosus L. were used as raw materials for particleboards produced at a conventional density of 600 kg/m 3 Particleboards were glued with two different adhesives, with methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) as well and urea formaldehyde (UF) resins. The physical and mechanical properties of prepared panels were measured according to standards. The raw materials were analyzed for their chemical composition; particle geometry was carefully monitored. It is shown that the obtained particleboards have acceptable performances, though properties were below those obtained from conventional spruce particleboards. Modulus of rupture of the alternative material particleboards were found to be lower than the spruce particleboards. Likewise, thickness swelling and water absorption of the agricultural residues made particleboards were higher than the compared spruce made particleboards. The finding relevant for industrial applications was that the agricultural residue produced particleboards bonded with MDI resins fully comply with the European standard EN 312 class P1 (use in dry conditions) This means that non wood particleboards are suitable to be used in furniture production.
Biologically active antimicrobial and antioxidant substances in the Helianthus annuus L. bee pollen
Venue: Journal of environmental science and health. Part. B, Pesticides, food contaminants, and agricultural wastes

The objective of this study was to measure the content of flavonoids, polyphenols, and carotenoids in the Helianthus annuus L. bee pollen. It was also to evaluate the ability of the dried, frozen, and freeze dried extracts of sunflower (H. annuus) pollen, its scavenged free radicals and reducing action. Another aim of this study was to investigate the antimicrobial in vitro action of the H. annuus pollen extracts against the Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria and fungi. All pollen extracts showed medium antiradical activity and reductive ability. The most effective was the freeze dried extract in both evaluation systems. The evaluation of the protective effects of DNA using a biosensor showed an opposite trending frozen dried freeze dried pollen. For the evaluation of antiradical activity, the DPPH method was used, and reductive ability was assessed by means of phosphomolybdic complex formation. The comparison of the polyphenols content shows higher values in freeze dried bee pollen than in the dried and frozen pollen. The highest content of flavonoids was found in the frozen samples and the most carotenoids were present in the dried samples. In our study, the best antibacterial effects of the dried sunflower bee pollen extracts were found against Paenibacillus larvae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterococcus raffinosus. The best inhibitory properties of the frozen sunflower bee pollen extracts were found against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Paenibacillus larvae. Very good inhibitory effects of freeze dried sunflower bee pollen were found against Paenibacillus larvae, Brochotrix thermosphacta, and Enterococcus raffinosus. The best antifungal activity of the sunflower bee pollen was found in the frozen bee pollen extracts against Aspergillus ochraceus and freeze dried bee pollen extracts against Aspergillus niger.
Stable Organic Inorganic Perovskite Solar Cells without Hole Conductor Layer Achieved via Cell Structure Design and Contact Engineering

Within the past few years, the record efficiency of inorganic organic perovskite solar cell (PSC) has improved rapidly up to over 20% However, the viability of commercialization of the PSC technology has been seriously questioned due to the moisture and thermal induced instabilities. Here, it is demonstrated that these issues may be mitigated via cell structure design and contact engineering. By employing the hole conductor layer free cell structure and a bi layer back contact consisting of a carbon/CH3NH3I composite layer and a compact hydrophobic carbon layer, the PSCs have shown excellent stability, inhibiting moisture ingression and heat induced perovskite degradation. It is found that, the unique bi layer contact enables the optimization of perovskite absorbers during thermal stress. As a result, instead of degradation, the devices present enhanced performance under heating at 100 degC for 30 min. The best performing cell shows a final efficiency of 13.6% from an initial efficiency of 11.3% after thermal stress. Upon encapsulation, these cells can even retain 90% of the initial efficiencies after water exposure and over 100% initial efficiency under thermal stress at 150 degC for half an hour. This approach provides a facile way for stabilizing the PSCs and opens a door for viable commercialization of the emerging PSC technology.