Dark Features Research Articles

Relationship of Tetrad Dark Personality Traits and Delinquent Behavior among Adolescents: Moderating Role of Social Support

The current research studies the relationship between Dark Tetrad personality dimensions: Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, and delinquency in adolescence while considering the role of social support as the moderator. For this study the cross-sectional research design was used and the sample included 300 adolescents comprising 150 males and 150 females in the age group of 10 to 19 years randomly selected from twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The data were collected using the Short Dark Tetrad (SD4) self-reported delinquency – Problem Behavior Frequency Scale and Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS). The analyses conducted found positive and significant correlations between the dark personality traits and the delinquent behaviors with each of the dark personality traits being positively correlated with the manifests of delinquent behaviour. Furthermore, the study revealed that social support acted as a moderator that could help decrease the delinquency rate among the adolescents who possess a high level of dark personality traits. These imply that dark personality facets and insufficient social support should be targeted to reduce delinquency among adolescents. The results imply that any prevention or treatment programs targeted at decreasing delinquency must take into account the presence of dark personality features in adolescents, especially through modulating the perceived usefulness of social support. The insights from the research can be quite useful for schools, families, and community-oriented programs to design effective interventions not only to address behavior management but also to address the potentially detrimental effects associated with these personality traits.

Oriented growth of 5-inch optical polycrystalline diamond films by suppressing dark features

Optical diamond materials are essential for infrared optical windows, microwave windows, and laser windows due to their exceptional properties. However, dark features inside the diamond are significant factors limiting optical properties, particularly at high deposition rates. This work focuses on adjusting crystallographic parameters to prepare (110) oriented optical-grade polycrystalline diamond films, aiming to mitigate dark features. Diamond films deposited via microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) exhibit discernible quality stratification. Characterization analysis of diamond film samples with varying levels of black defects reveals a correlation: films with higher dark feature content tend to exhibit a preference for the (111) orientation, accompanied by a significant presence of penetration twins and interstitial voids. Conversely, transparent diamond films demonstrate a prominent (110) orientation, featuring numerous contact twins that alleviate competition from penetration twins and original grains during growth. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) results reveal that transparent diamond films cultivated with a pronounced preference for the (110) orientation manifest consistent and seamless contact twins, leading to fewer dark features and improved optical transmittance. In contrast, (111) oriented diamond film exhibits numerous penetration twins, and holes form between them. Based on the analysis, 5-inch optical polycrystalline diamond films with (110) orientation were achieved successfully by suppressing dark features.

Infrared and Visual Image Fusion Based on a Local-Extrema-Driven Image Filter.

The objective of infrared and visual image fusion is to amalgamate the salient and complementary features of the infrared and visual images into a singular informative image. To accomplish this, we introduce a novel local-extrema-driven image filter designed to effectively smooth images by reconstructing pixel intensities based on their local extrema. This filter is iteratively applied to the input infrared and visual images, extracting multiple scales of bright and dark feature maps from the differences between continuously filtered images. Subsequently, the bright and dark feature maps of the infrared and visual images at each scale are fused using elementwise-maximum and elementwise-minimum strategies, respectively. The two base images, representing the final-scale smoothed images of the infrared and visual images, are fused using a novel structural similarity- and intensity-based strategy. Finally, our fusion image can be straightforwardly produced by combining the fused bright feature map, dark feature map, and base image together. Rigorous experimentation conducted on the widely used TNO dataset underscores the superiority of our method in fusing infrared and visual images. Our approach consistently performs on par or surpasses eleven state-of-the-art image-fusion methods, showcasing compelling results in both qualitative and quantitative assessments.

Galactic disc heating by density granulation in fuzzy dark matter simulations

Abstract Fuzzy dark matter (FDM), an attractive dark matter candidate comprising ultralight bosons (axions) with a particle mass ma ∼ 10−22 eV, is motivated by the small-scale challenges of cold dark matter and features a kpc-size de Broglie wavelength. Quantum wave interference inside an FDM halo gives rise to stochastically fluctuating density granulation; the resulting gravitational perturbations could drive significant disc thickening, providing a natural explanation for galactic thick discs. Here we present the first self-consistent simulations of FDM haloes and stellar discs, exploring ma = 0.2–1.2 × 10−22 eV and halo masses Mh = 0.7–2.8 × 1011 M⊙. Disc thickening is observed in all simulated systems. The disc heating rates are approximately constant in time and increase substantially with decreasing ma, reaching dh/dt ≃ 0.04 (0.4) kpc Gyr−1 and $d\sigma _z^2/dt \simeq 4$ (150) km2s−2Gyr−1 for ma = 1.2 (0.2) × 10−22 eV and $M_{\rm h}=7\times 10^{10} \, \rm {M}_{\odot }$, where h is the disc scale height and σz is the vertical velocity dispersion. These simulated heating rates agree within a factor of two with the theoretical estimates of Chiang et al., confirming that the rough estimate of Church et al. overpredicts the granulation-driven disc heating rate by two orders of magnitude. However, the simulation-inferred heating rates scale less steeply than the theoretically predicted relation $d\sigma ^2_z/dt \propto m_a^{-3}$. Finally, we examine the applicability of the Fokker–Planck approximation in FDM granulation modelling and the robustness of the ma exclusion bound derived from the Galactic disc kinematics.

تأثير أعداد البقع الشمسية على الضغط الجوي، ودرجة الحرارة وإشعاعات الموجات القصيرة ومعدل سقوط الأمطار للفترة الزمنية من 2018-2022

The sun is responsible for the climate in a very dominant way, and it is the largest supplier of energy to the Earth. Sunspots are (dark features) on the surface of the Sun, and they appear and disappear regularly. Studying climate changes due to the number of these spots and the effects resulting from them in terms of climate and their effects on Life on planet Earth is considered one of the main interests of researchers in this field. This paper aims to study the relationship between changes in the number of sunspots and some climatic factors in the atmosphere through approved and highly reliable meteorological data. An analytical model was used to reach the result, and through... The results found that the average rainfall rate was in the range of 4 mm, the average pressure rates were 968 Pascals, the average temperature rates were 10 degrees Celsius, the average radiation rates ranged between 2999MHz and 2900MHz, and the sunspots were between 10 and 39 sunspots, and from this it can be said Rainfall rates are not directly related to the increase or decrease in the number of sunspots, as there is no clear effect of that. However, in the year 2019, it was found that the increase in the number of sunspots directly affects the rates of rainfall during the spring and fall seasons as an exception, and this was confirmed through models. Previously in the laboratory, while there was no relationship between pressure rates and the number of sunspots at all, a relative relationship was found between temperature rates and sunspots, which therefore has a direct impact on radiation rates.

Label-free microscopic cell images adaptive enhancement via weighted fusion of bright, dark, and weak structure features

Label-free microscopic imaging techniques have been essential for cell biology research and clinical diagnosis. However, due to low contrast, weak edges, and blurry details of label-free microscopic cell images, which bring challenges for cell analysis (detecting, segmenting, and counting, etc.). Therefore, this paper proposes an image enhancement method based on the weighted fusion of bright, dark, and weak structure features to improve the visual quality and the accuracy of cell analysis of label-free microscopic cell images. Firstly, a local sliding window analysis method is used to extract the bright and dark detail features containing background and structure features, which are weighted fusion with the input image to pre-enhance the contrast and overall brightness of images. Secondly, a feature extraction method based on guided filtering and multi-scale Gaussian filtering is proposed to extract the feature information, including the edge and structure of cells, while addressing the block artifacts. And a weighted fusion of feature information is used to obtain the weak structure feature image that has multi-scale features without a background. Finally, the weighted fusion is used to fuse the detail and edge features from the guided filtered image and the weak structure feature image to improve further details and edge features of label-free microscopic cell images and obtain the enhanced image with a uniform background while structure protecting. Experiments on PNT1A, EVICAN, and Urine datasets show that the proposed method performs superior to state-of-the-art image enhancement methods in brightness improvement, edge contrast enhancement, and detail feature preservation.

A novel detection method for ore-coke ratio of blast furnace based on structure-texture entropy of images

The ore-coke ratio is crucial for regulating gas flow distribution, enhancing permeability, and ensuring smooth operation of the blast furnace. Direct detection of the ore-coke ratio, leveraging the structure and texture differences in ore and coke images, is a widely accepted method. The harsh environment of the blast furnace results in unclear burden surface images, making it challenging to differentiate between ore and coke. This complicates image-based direct detection for ore-coke ratio, with few studies addressing this issue. This paper firstly introduces a structure-texture entropy, grounded in information entropy, to effectively differentiate between ore and coke. Then, a structure-texture enhancement algorithm based on image extreme dark features is proposed to optimize the accuracy of the structure-texture entropy. Finally, based on the high-accuracy structure-texture entropy, a novel algorithm for burden surface area extraction is presented. This method uses feature vector clustering and functional optimization for real-time ore-coke ratio detection. Industrial experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves high-accuracy ore-coke ratio detection, meeting the requirements for long-term stability of the blast furnace.

Effect of welding electrode variation on microstructure and mechanical properties of AISI 204 stainless steel plates joined using shielded metal arc welding

The current study investigates the effect of some welding electrodes and post-weld heat treatment on the micro-structure, tensile strength, and hardness of austenitic stainless steel (AISI 204) weldments using the shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) technique. Four different electrode specifications were used in this study, these include stainless steel electrodes (E308L and E308L-16) and mild steel electrodes (E6013 and E7018). Samples of the austenitic stainless steel plate of 5 mm thickness were first sectioned and welded across the width using the four electrodes. Following the welding operations, a post-weld heat treatment was carried out at 1100 oC, soaked for 60 minutes, and then allowed to cool naturally in the open air. Both the heat-treated and the as-welded samples were then subjected to tensile and hardness tests. The hardness and ultimate tensile strength of the weldments with mild steel electrodes are higher than those of stainless-steel electrodes. However, heat treatment after the welding results in even higher hardness and ultimate tensile strength values for all the weldments except for the E6013 electrode. It is, therefore, not advisable to use inappropriate electrodes to weld austenitic stainless steel. Also, the high difference in mechanical properties between the weldments and the base metal will introduce stresses to the material, resulting in solidification cracking. The microstructures of the weldments show distinct dark and bright features, which indicates the depletion of elements like Cr in the steel.

Denoised Non-Local Means with BDDU-Net Architecture for Robust Retinal Blood Vessel Segmentation

Retinal blood vessels can be obtained by image segmentation. This study proposes combining image enhancement and segmentation to obtain retinal blood vessels. The image enhancement stages use CLAHE and Denoised Non-Local Means to increase contrast and reduce noise on the original image, and Bottom-Hat (BTH) filtering is used to lighten dark features in the image so the features become lighter and darken the bright features in the image. Bottom Hat is applied to make the features of the blood vessels in the retinal image more visible. The segmentation architecture proposes BDDU-Net architecture which combines U-Net in the encoder part, DenseNet in the bridge part, and Bi-ConvLSTM in the decoder part. Image enhancement performance results are PSNR and SSIM. The PSNR is more than 40 dB on both the DRIVE and STARE datasets. The SSIM results are close to 1 on the DRIVE and STARE datasets. These results show that the image enhancement stages in the proposed method can enhance the quality of the original image. The segmentation performance results of BDDU-Net architecture are measured based on accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, IoU, and F1-Score. The DRIVE dataset obtained 95.578% for accuracy, 85.75% for sensitivity, 96.75% for specificity, 67.407% for IoU, and 80.53% for F1-Score. The STARE dataset obtained 97.63% for accuracy, 84.33% for sensitivity, 98.66% for specificity, 75.67% for IoU, and 86.15% for F1-Score. Based on the image enhancement and image segmentation results, these results show that the proposed method is great for enhancing image quality and excellent for blood vessel segmentation in retinal images, although IoU results on the DRIVE dataset need to be improved.

Analysis of full-disc Hαobservations: Carrington maps and filament properties in 1909–2022

Context.Full-disc observations of the Sun in the Hαline provide information about the solar chromosphere, and in particular, about the filaments, which are dark and elongated features that lie along magnetic field polarity-inversion lines. This makes them important for studies of solar magnetism. Because full-disc Hαobservations have been performed at various sites since the second half of the 19th century, with regular photographic data having started at the beginning of the 20th century, they are an invaluable source of information on past solar magnetism.Aims.We derive accurate information about filaments from historical and modern full-disc Hαobservations.Methods.We consistently processed observations from 15 Hαarchives spanning 1909–2022. The analysed datasets include long-running ones such as those from Meudon and Kodaikanal, but also previously unexplored datasets such as those from Arcetri, Boulder, Larissa, and Upice. Our data processing includes photometric calibration of the data stored on photographic plates, the compensation for limb-darkening, and the orientation of the data to align solar north at the top of the images. We also constructed Carrington maps from the calibrated Hαimages.Results.We find that filament areas, similar to plage areas in Ca IIK data, are affected by the bandwidth of the observation. Thus, a cross calibration of the filament areas derived from different archives is needed. We produced a composite of filament areas from individual archives by scaling all of them to the Meudon series. Our composite butterfly diagram very distinctly shows the common features of filament evolution, that is, the poleward migration as well as a decrease in the mean latitude of filaments as the cycle progresses. We also find that during activity maxima, filaments cover ∼1% of the solar surface on average. The change in the amplitude of cycles in filament areas is weaker than in sunspot and plage areas.Conclusions.Analysis of Hαdata for archives with contemporaneous Ca IIK observations allowed us to identify and verify archive inconsistencies, which also have implications for reconstructions of past solar magnetism and irradiance from Ca IIK data.

The Use of Thread and Fabric in Feminist Zines

The Use of Thread and Fabric in Feminist Zines

Spectroscopically dark phosphate features revealed by chemical exchange saturation transfer.

Phosphate is an essential anion in the human body, comprising approximately 1% of the total body weight, and playing a vital role in metabolism, cell membranes, and bone formation. We have recently provided spectroscopic, microscopic, and computational evidence indicating that phosphates can aggregate much more readily in solution than previously thought. This prior work provided indirect evidence through the observation of unusual P NMR relaxation and line-broadening effects with increasing temperature. Here, we show that, under conditions of slow exchange and selective RF saturation, additional features become visible in chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) experiments, which appear to be related to the previously reported phosphate clustering. In particular, CEST shows pronounced dips several ppm upfield of the main phosphate resonance at low temperatures, while direct P spectroscopy does not produce any signals in that range. We study the pH dependence of these new spectroscopic features and present exchange and spectroscopic parameters based on fitting the CEST data. These findings could be of importance in the investigation of phosphate dynamics, especially in the biological milieu.

Physically viable rotating mass solutions surrounding Kerr black holes

There exists in literature an increasing interest in the study of mass distributions surrounding black holes as describing dark matter halo in spiral galaxies. Motivated by this interest, we study a very recent new class of rotating solutions that are suitable to build anisotropic matter sources surrounding rotating black holes. Contrary to the mainstream approach, instead of use the so called regular black holes as central objects, we perform a smooth matching between the aforementioned anisotropic matter and a central vacuum Kerr black hole. In this framework, we study in full generality energy conditions near the matching surface. As a result, we found that, after imposing the vanishing of the energy density E at the matching surface, if weak and dominant energy conditions (WEC,DEC) are satisfied, then unavoidable strong energy conditions is violated, i.e. near the event horizon only matter with dark energy-like features is allowed. As an application, we present two solutions everywhere satisfying DEC. The first one is asymptotically flat and equipped with a non vanishing electric charge, while the second solution presented is equipped with a non-vanishing energy flow around the symmetry axis and it is not asymptotically flat.

Monitoring martian slope streaks in the northeast of Lycus sulci

Slope streaks are dark features found in low-latitude regions of Mars, formed from rapid-duration events in low thermal inertia terrain. The sudden appearance of low reflectance factor (I/F) patches followed by gradual whitening is a planet-relevant environmental indicator. The present work aims to quantify the variation in the fading of slope streaks using HiRISE/MRO images. We carried that out by analyzing I/F contrast of 31 streaks about their surroundings north of Olympus Mount, arranged in 16 images dated from 2007 to 2021, used as a dataset for measuring the formation and brightening of the streaks in the region. For the contrast calculations, we used I/F data points extracted from within the streaks and their brighter surroundings. We conducted a statistical analysis on the contrast distribution of each slope streak to test for normality and homogeneity of variances. Using Welch's t-Test, we found that the average albedo contrast values of the slope streaks were statistically different across all pairwise comparisons between dates. Our study provides some insight on the contrast variation (due to sediment deposition) of the streaks along time and seasonal correlation. The results point out to a possible dry formation process, such as dust avalanches, but are not sufficient to rule out wet mechanisms.

Crystal growth and phase formation of high‐entropy rare‐earth monoclinic aluminates

AbstractFor the first time, high‐entropy rare‐earth monoclinic aluminate crystals were grown via directional solidification using the micro‐pulling‐down method. Five high‐entropy compositions were formulated with a general formula RE4Al2O9, where RE is an equiatomic mixture of five rare‐earth elements. The rare‐earth elements included were Lu, Yb, Er, Y, Ho, Dy, Tb, Gd, Eu, Sm, Nd, and La. High‐temperature powder X‐ray diffraction and Rietveld structure refinement indicated that all crystals were a single monoclinic phase and that rare‐earth average ionic radius did not affect phase purity. At room temperature, the refined lattice parameters increased consistently with increasing average ionic radii of the five compositions. One of the crystals had a typical high‐temperature phase transition of single‐RE RE4Al2O9 in the range of 1100–1150°C, which consisted of a lattice contraction upon heating. Differential scanning calorimetry indicated a thermal event corresponding to that phase transition. Electron probe microanalysis revealed Al‐rich inclusions on the surface of the crystals. Crystals containing Tb had dark surface features that became lighter after annealing in a reducing atmosphere, which indicated that Tb4+ may be responsible for the dark features.

Relationship of Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy Personality Traits with Social Media Addiction among Adults: Gender and Marital Status are in Focus

Personality characteristics such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are considered dark triad features. These are linked with a range of negative outcomes. Social media usage is growing more and more popular every day. However, people's functionality declines with frequent usage of social media. The overall sample of the research was consisting of (N= 400) out of which (211 were female and 189 were male) ranging in age from 17 to 41 years recruited by consecutive sampling. Data was gathered by using the Social Media Addiction Scale developed by Tutgunl & Deniz (2015) and the Short Dark Triad Scale developed by Paulhus (2014). Results obtained by using bivariate correlation showed that all three traits of the Dark Personality Triad were positively correlated with social media addiction. Male respondents have a higher level of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy than female respondents, while female participants were a higher level of social media addiction than male participants. On the other hand, both genders scored equally on the narcissism dark personality triadThere was a slight difference in Machiavellianism and psychopathology scores among married and unmarried students. The unmarried students reported slightly higher scores on Machiavellianism and psychopathology traits. Lastly, the results also reported that use of social media addiction was higher among married students as compared with unmarried students.

A multi-scale two-branch fusion network for simultaneous segmentation in electronic laryngoscope images

Three issues reduced the performance of networks for handling the organs and lesions' simultaneous segmentation in electronic laryngoscopy images. Firstly, the moving endoscope will cause noticeable variations of the shape and angle in lesions and organs. Secondly, the lesions, mainly the polyps, and the major organs differ considerably in size. Moreover, the boundaries between the lesions or organs and their backgrounds are usually indistinguishable since their color and texture are very close to the mucosal tissues. To improve the simultaneous segmentation accuracy, we propose a multi-scale two-branch fusion network (MsFusionNet), which adopted an asymmetric two-branch structure to fuse the fine-grained feature maps extracted by the convolution neural network with the global context feature maps extracted by the Vision Transformer at different scales. In addition, a Multi-scale Dark Part Feature Enhancement module (MsDFE) was designed to enhance the non-salient details of organs before the feature fusion in the two-branch network. To evaluate the universality and effectiveness of the proposed method, we used a mixed dataset collected from three institutions, including 2425 electronic laryngoscope images with major organs in the pharynx and larynx. The results show the proposed method performs better than nine existing segmentation networks in dealing with the experiment dataset, which has good potential for clinical practice.

Accelerated Stress Testing of Perovskite Photovoltaic Modules: Differentiating Degradation Modes with Electroluminescence Imaging

Herein, electroluminescence (EL) and thermal imaging are used to examine p–i–n metal halide perovskite (MHP) photovoltaic (PV) mini‐modules (MA0.6FA0.4PbI3, 20 cells, 78 cm2) before and after indoor‐accelerated stress testing or outdoor deployment. Distinct spatial patterns in the EL images emerge, which depend on the external stress conditions experienced by the mini‐module. Imaging results highlight a distribution of dark speckle features that dominate after UV stress, attributed to widespread interfacial contact degradation. Lateral intensity gradients across cells dominate after thermal cycling (TC) stress, attributed to current crowding near scribe defects. While current–voltage analysis alone does not give full insight on the degradation process, this study shows that distinct degradation modes can be further defined by multimodal electro‐optical imaging (i.e., EL combined with photoluminescence and dark lock‐in thermography). Neither UV exposure nor TC‐accelerated stress testing alone replicates the same degradation signatures observed after outdoor deployment, suggesting that multiple degradation modes occur under concurrent stressors outdoors. Spatial characterization of degradation modes in MHP PV mini‐modules before and after accelerated stress testing lays the groundwork for developing targeted accelerated stress testing procedures through comparison with outdoor aging.

«Вечные образы» у И. С. Тургенева: на материале повести «Степной король Лир»

The main aim of the paper is to identify the peculiarities of I. S. Turgenev’s interpretation of the Shakespearean “eternal image” of King Lear using the material belonging to a different nation (the Russian material). The study is novel in that it is the first to examine the relationship between the noble and universal qualities of the hero through the myth of omnipotence, which is destined for deconstruction. In addition, attempts are made to link this relationship with the writer’s reflections on the formation of a new type of man in the post-reform transition period. The paper examines various approaches to the notion of eternal images, analyses the aspects that drew I. S. Turgenev’s attention to “eternal images”, reveals the correlation of culture-specific and universal, common human traits in the main character. As a result of the study, it has been found that drawing on the literary experience of W. Shakespeare, Turgenev created his own drama, the drama of “Russian King Lear”. The writer reveals both dark and light features in this national type, paying special attention to the personal psychology of his hero, the depiction of which is connected, on the one hand, with the reflection on the problems of Russian life and, on the other hand, with the situation in which Harlov finds himself, similar to that of King Lear.

Conformal freeze-in, composite dark photon, and asymmetric reheating

Large classes of dark sector models feature mass scales and couplings very different from the ones we observe in the Standard Model (SM). Moreover, in the freeze-in mechanism, often employed by the dark sector models, it is also required that the dark sector cannot be populated during the reheating process like the SM. This is the so called asymmetric reheating. Such disparities in sizes and scales often call for dynamical explanations. In this paper, we explore a scenario in which slow evolving conformal field theories (CFTs) offer such an explanation. Building on the recent work on conformal freeze-in (COFI), we focus on a coupling between the Standard Model Hypercharge gauge boson and an anti-symmetric tensor operator in the dark CFT. We present a scenario which dynamically realizes the asymmetric reheating and COFI production. With a detailed study of dark matter production, and taking into account limits on the dark matter (DM) self-interaction, warm DM bound, and constraints from the stellar evolution, we demonstrate that the correct relic abundance can be obtained with reasonable choices of parameters. The model predicts the existence of a dark photon as an emergent composite particle, with a small kinetic mixing also determined by the CFT dynamics, which correlates it with the generation of the mass scale of the dark sector. At the same time, COFI production of dark matter is very different from those freeze-in mediated by the dark photon. This is an example of the physics in which a realistic dark sector model can often be much richer and with unexpected features.