Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient Deep Learning Models for Privacy-Preserving People Counting on Low-Resolution Infrared Arrays

Ultralow-resolution infrared (IR) array sensors offer a low cost, energy efficient, and privacy-preserving solution for people counting, with applications, such as occupancy monitoring and visitor flow analysis in private and public spaces. Previous work has shown that deep learning (DL) can yield superior performance on this task. However, the literature was missing an extensive comparative analysis of various efficient DL architectures for IR array-based people counting, that considers not only their accuracy but also the cost of deploying them on memory- and energy-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) edge nodes. Such analysis is key for system designers, since it helps them select the most appropriate DL model given the constraints of their target hardware. In this work, we address this need by comparing six different DL architectures on a novel data set composed of IR images collected from a commercial $8\times8$ array, which we made openly available. With a wide architectural exploration of each model type, we obtain a rich set of Pareto-optimal solutions, spanning cross-validated balanced accuracy scores in the 55.70%–82.70% range. When deployed on a commercial microcontroller (MCU) by STMicroelectronics, the STM32L4A6ZG, these models occupy 0.41–9.28kB of memory, and require 1.10–7.74 ms per inference, while consuming 17.18– $120.43 \mu \text{J}$ of energy. Our models are significantly more accurate than a previous deterministic method (up to +39.9%), while being up to $3.53\times $ faster and more energy efficient. So, our work serves also as a demonstration that DL can not only achieve higher accuracy but also higher efficiency compared to classic algorithms for this type of task. Further, our models’ accuracy is comparable to state-of-the-art DL solutions on similar resolution sensors, despite a much lower complexity. All our models enable continuous, real-time inference on an MCU-based IoT node, with years of autonomous operation without battery recharging.
Backward SDEs for control with partial information

This paper considers a non‐Markov control problem arising in a financial market where asset returns depend on hidden factors. The problem is non‐Markov because nonlinear filtering is required to make inference on these factors, and hence the associated dynamic program effectively takes the filtering distribution as one of its state variables. This is of significant difficulty because the filtering distribution is a stochastic probability measure of infinite dimension, and therefore the dynamic program has a state that cannot be differentiated in the traditional sense. This lack of differentiability means that the problem cannot be solved using a Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation. This paper will show how the problem can be analyzed and solved using backward stochastic differential equations, with a key tool being the problem's dual formulation.
Detection of Disk Accretion at the Substellar Limit

We have made the first definitive detection of disk accretion in an object near or below the substellar limit. We obtained an echelle-resolution spectrum of the very low mass T Tauri star V410 Anon 13; the emission-line profile of Hα clearly exhibits the large line width and asymmetry characteristic of a free-falling accretion flow. We use magnetospheric accretion models of the line profile to estimate the mass accretion rate in this object, which is the smallest yet determined. We further augment this with models of the accretion shock and disk to explain the absence of both optical veiling and an infrared excess, obtaining a firm upper limit to the accretion rate that is consistent with the Hα model. Our results indicate that disk accretion via magnetospheric infall occurs even in the lowest mass young objects.
COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Population-Based Study of Minnesota Residents

COVID-19 continues to be a public health concern in the United States. Although safe and effective vaccines have been developed, a significant proportion of the US population has not received a COVID-19 vaccine. This cross-sectional study aimed to describe the demographics and behaviors of Minnesota adults who have not received the primary series of the COVID-19 vaccine, or the booster shot using data from the Minnesota COVID-19 Antibody Study (MCAS) collected through a population-based sample between September and December 2021. Data were collected using a web-based survey sent to individuals that responded to a similar survey in 2020 and their adult household members. The sample was 51% female and 86% White/Non-Hispanic. A total of 9% of vaccine-eligible participants had not received the primary series and 23% of those eligible to receive a booster had not received it. Older age, higher education, better self-reported health, $75,000 to $100,000 annual household income, mask-wearing, and social distancing were associated with lower odds of hesitancy. Gender, race, and previous COVID-19 infection were not associated with hesitancy. The most frequently reported reason for not receiving a COVID-19 vaccination was safety concerns. Mask-wearing and being age 65 or older were the only strong predictors of lower odds of vaccine hesitancy for both the primary series and booster analyses.
Identification of a point source in a linear advection–dispersion–reaction equation: application to a pollution source problem

We consider the problem of identification of a pollution source in a river. The mathematical model is a one-dimensional linear advection–dispersion–reaction equation with the right-hand side spatially supported at a point (the source) and a time-dependent intensity, both unknown. Assuming that the source becomes inactive after the time T*, we prove that it can be identified by recording the evolution of the concentration at two points, one of which is strategic.
New Lidocaine-Based Pharmaceutical Cocrystals: Preparation, Characterization, and Influence of the Racemic vs. Enantiopure Coformer on the Physico-Chemical Properties

This study describes the preparation, characterization, and influence of the enantiopure vs. racemic coformer on the physico-chemical properties of a pharmaceutical cocrystal. For that purpose, two new 1:1 cocrystals, namely lidocaine:dl-menthol and lidocaine:d-menthol, were prepared. The menthol racemate-based cocrystal was evaluated by means of X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, Raman, thermal analysis, and solubility experiments. The results were exhaustively compared with the first menthol-based pharmaceutical cocrystal, i.e., lidocaine:l-menthol, discovered in our group 12 years ago. Furthermore, the stable lidocaine/dl-menthol phase diagram has been screened, thoroughly evaluated, and compared to the enantiopure phase diagram. Thus, it has been proven that the racemic vs. enantiopure coformer leads to increased solubility and improved dissolution of lidocaine due to the low stable form induced by menthol molecular disorder in the lidocaine:dl-menthol cocrystal. To date, the 1:1 lidocaine:dl-menthol cocrystal is the third menthol-based pharmaceutical cocrystal, after the 1:1 lidocaine:l-menthol and the 1:2 lopinavir:l-menthol cocrystals reported in 2010 and 2022, respectively. Overall, this study shows promising potential for designing new materials with both improved characteristics and functional properties in the fields of pharmaceutical sciences and crystal engineering.
Spatial variation in isotope values of Hector’s dolphins from the north coast of the South Island, New Zealand

: The north coast of the South Island, Aotearoa New Zealand, is a region with complex bathymetry and biogeochemistry, where oceanographic variability gives rise to very different local environments at fine scales. This variation also influences the region’s isoscape, providing the ability to assess the fine-scale foraging behaviour of top-level marine predators through isotope analyses. Hector’s dolphin Cephalorhynchus hectori hectori , an endemic coastal dolphin, is resident of the north coast of the South Island, but there is limited information describing its foraging ecology and population dynamics. We analysed carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of skin samples (n = 111) from Golden Bay in the west (n = 14), and Queen Charlotte Sound (n = 41) and Cloudy Bay (n = 56) in the east, to investigate spatial variation in isotope values and niche space, found significant differences between the 2 regions. This is likely driven by a combination of differing prey distributions, underlying oceanographic variability, and varying isotopic base-lines that may act as an ecological boundary preventing movement between the 2 regions. The isotopic niche space between the west and east differed, but within the east, Queen Charlotte Sound was a subset of Cloudy Bay. This suggests a common prey source and possible movement of individuals between Queen Charlotte Sound and Cloudy Bay. This research highlights the value of stable isotope analysis to investigate regional-scale variation of top-level marine predators and can provide insight into environmental factors that influence resource use.
Capital expenditure and economic growth: A disaggregated analysis for Nepal

Abstract This paper, using the most recent dataset, examines the government expenditure’s effects on the economic growth of Nepal. In doing so, a particular focus is made on disaggregated government expenditures to identify the importance of sector-specific public expenditure. The methodology adopted in this paper considers the scenario of government budget constraints while allocating resources in specific sectors and attempts to find the elasticity of those expenditures in the country’s economic growth. The results from the estimation employing Auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration for the data from 1981 to 2020 are threefold. First, both capital and current expenditures in aggregate forms are not the contributors to economic growth unlike our assumption that capital expenditure is more important than current expendtirue for economic grwoth. Second, spending more on education, either in the form of capital or current expenditure, would make a meaningful contribution to accelerating economic growth. Third, the public expenditure in the health sector should be very rational, focusing more on capital health expenditure rather than spending current health expenditure. Therefore, the primary policy recommendation from this study is that Nepal should invest more in education and health. Moreover, spending on education to expand the area with wider coverage and quality logistics and infrastructure are both important, while such expenditure in health is to be focused on solid health logistics and infrastructures.
The Growth and Triggering Mechanisms of the PNA : A MJO-PNA Coherence

A prominent mode of low-frequency variability in the northern extratropical winter known as the Pacific/North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern prevails not only on seasonal but also on intraseasonal timescales. In this study, processes governing the intraseasonal PNA are investigated using daily fields during 1957-2002. The results of the vorticity budget analysis illustrate that the positive phase of the PNA tends to grow by linear processes such as the barotropic energy conversion from the zonally asymmetric climatological flow. For the negative phase of the PNA, nonlinear low-frequency vorticity advection is as important as the linear processes. Composite life cycle of the PNA shows that at 9 days before the peak a pronounced wave train was observed along the Asian jet stream and it eventually developed to the PNA near the jet exit region. This wave train is found to be excited by divergent winds primarily associated with anomalous convection of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). Probability density functions of the MJO calculated separately following the polarity of the PNA reveal a phase locking between the PNA and the MJO. When the active (inactive) convection associated with the MJO reaches the Bay of Bengal to the western Pacific, occurrence frequency of the negative (positive) phase of the PNA is the highest. This MJO triggering explains roughly 30% of the total PNA events, suggesting that, even though the PNA may be inherent to the extratropical atmosphere, a specific tropical forcing is of importance to realize the PNA as dominant mode.
Effects of Teaching Sixth-Grade Students to Modify Format Variables of Math Word Problems.

THREE EXPERIMENTS INVESTIGATED structural format variables of math word problems that appear to interfere with average achieving sixth-grade students' abilities to read and solve those problems. The first experiment asked gifted students to rewrite word problems to make them easier to understand for peers who achieve less well in math. Content analysis uncovered three format variables identified as interfering with comprehension. A second experiment, a repeated measures design, presented identical word problems, one with the interfering structural format variable and one without, for each of the three variables. Large differences in successful problem solution rates were observed in favor of the easier formatted word problems. A third experiment, in which each experimental subject in one format variable treatment was also a control in two other format variable treatment groups, taught sixth-grade students to modify the three interfering structural format variables in word problems to increase their comprehensibility. Treatment effects were large enough to account for 60% and 70% of the total variance in two treatment conditions and 37% in a third condition.
GRASPED: A GRU-AE Network Based Multi-Perspective Business Process Anomaly Detection Model

In process-aware information systems (PAISs), anomalies are ubiquitous, having a number of different underlying causes, such as software malfunctions or operator errors. The presence of anomalies not only has an enormous impact on the economic well-being of the business, but also interferes with our ability to mine useful information from event logs. In this article, we propose GRASPED, a GRU-AE Network based multi-perSpective business ProcEss anomaly Detection model. GRASPED can detect anomalies not only from the control flow but also from the data perspective of a business process. GRASPED is based on an autoencoder (AE) with gated recurrent units (GRU) which is trained in an unsupervised fashion (i.e., does not require any labeling of the data). In addition, GRASPED introduces the teacher forcing method as well as the attention mechanism to improve its detection performance. GRASPED does not require training on a clean log (i.e., it can be trained and perform anomaly detection directly on logs containing anomalies). We conduct extensive experiments on synthetic logs as well as real-life logs. The experiment results show that GRASPED outperforms the state-of-the-art methods for both trace-level and attribute-level anomaly detection.
Yield and Composition of the Essential Oil of the Opopanax Genus in Turkey

The genus Opopanax W. Koch (Apiaceae) is represented by four species in Turkey. The composition of the essential oil of Opopanax genus members (Apiaceae) growing in Turkey was investigated in this study. GC-MS was used to analyze the composition of Opopanax essential oil samples that were taken from their natural environments. The Clevenger apparatus was used to hydrodistill the plant’s aerial parts, and the yields were determined to be between 0.2% v/w (for O. siifolius) and 0.4% (for O. hispidus, O. chironium, and O. persicus). The results and the chemical data provided some information and clues on the chemotaxonomy of the genus Opopanax. In this study, γ-elemene, butanoic acid octyl ester, and cylopropane were the main compounds identified in the essential oils of O. chironium, O. hispidus, and O. persicus. In particular, hexynyl n-valerate was most abundant in the essential oil of O. chironium, cyclopropane in that of O. hispidus, γ-elemene in that of O. persicus, and n-hexadecanoic acid/palmitic acid in that of O. siifolius. In a chemotaxonomic approach, the essential oil analysis of the Opopanax species revealed that these species conformed in a cluster analysis with their morphological classification. The constituents of the essential oils of all examined in the genus Opopanax were determined in this study, which is the most thorough one to date. This study provides new information about the composition of the essential oils of the investigated species.
Utility of Osteoarthritis as an Indicator of Age in Human Skeletal Remains: Validating the Winburn and Stock (2019) Method

In forensic anthropology, and biological anthropology more broadly, age estimation is a crucial element of the biological profile. The development of osteoarthritis (OA) is correlated with age and, in 2019, Winburn and Stock published a method of estimating age in a sample of 408 white American individuals using OA presence/absence. The current study expanded the original study by testing its accuracy on a more diverse sample, including black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). This served to test whether embodied inequity from lived experiences may preclude the ability of the OA presence/absence method to estimate age at death. This study’s results demonstrated both that the original methodology was validated, and that the approach was accurate at estimating the age of death of BIPOC individuals. Furthermore, this study revealed that the hip and shoulder were highly consistent and reliable and are recommended for use as the strongest indicators of age at death, while the TMJ and ankle performed poorly and should not be used for age estimation.
Plastic behaviour of clay materials for the manufacture of fast-drying red ceramics

Abstract Fast drying (~60 min) is useful for optimizing production processes by increasing productivity and reducing costs and environmental impacts, especially in red ceramic industries in Brazil. However, suitable clays are necessary and, currently, studies focused on the plastic behaviour of clays with compositions suitable for extrusion, especially for fast drying, are scarce. Therefore, in this study, three different clays from the same mineral deposit were studied for producing clay-based structural products via fast drying. The clays were characterized according to their chemical, mineralogical and thermal properties, particle size, cation-exchange capacity, specific surface area and open pore volume distribution. Ten formulations were developed using a simplex-centroid mixture design of experiments and their plasticity index (PI) values were determined. The response surfaces of the formulations were evaluated according to their PI, while the formation characteristics were determined according to their extrusion workability factor values. Formulations F5 (50.0 wt.% yellow clay and 50.0 wt.% green clay) and F8 (66.6 wt.% yellow clay, 16.7 wt.% grey clay and 16.7 wt.% green clay; PI = 15.5–16.6%) displayed optimal extrusion properties, followed by formulations F7 (33.3 wt.% yellow clay, 33.3 wt.% grey clay and 33.3 wt.% green clay) and F10 (16.7 wt.% yellow clay, 16.7 wt.% grey clay and 66.6 wt.% green clay; PI = 13.8–14.2%), which are within acceptable extrusion index values. Thus, the chosen formulations have significant potential for use in the manufacture of fast-drying red ceramics.
Axi-asymmetric character of turbulent swirling flow in a straight circular pipe

Swirling flow in a pipe usually has some axi-asymmetricity, detail of which has not been clarified. Here, detailed experimental investigations concerning axi-asymmetric characters of velocity distributions and especially eccentricity of swirl center were performed. Small deviation of velocity distribution from symmetry at inlet section causes non-negligible asymmetricity in downstream section. This increase of asymmetricity in downstream section occurs only in some swirl intensity range. In addition to the velocity distributions, axi-asymmetric character of momentum field and wall pressure were also given.
Vegetation modeled as a water cloud

Because the microwave dielectric constant of dry vegetative matter is much smaller (by an order of magnitude or more) than the dielectric constant of water, and because a vegetation canopy is usually composed of more than 99% air by volume, it is proposed that the canopy can be modeled as a water cloud whose droplets are held in place by the vegetative matter. Such a model was developed assuming that the canopy “cloud” contains identical water droplets randomly distributed within the canopy. By integrating the scattering and attenuation cross-section contributions of N droplets per unit volume over the signal pathlength through the canopy, an expression was derived for the backscattering coefficient as a function of three target parameters: volumetric moisture content of the soil, volumetric water content of the vegetation, and plant height. Regression analysis of the model predictions against scattering data acquired over a period of four months at several angles of incidence (0°–70°) and frequencies (8–18 GHz) for HH and VV polarizations yields correlation coefficients that range from . 7 to . 99 depending on frequency, polarization, and crop type. The corresponding standard errors of estimate range from 1.1 to 2.6 dB.
Properties of abundance gradient along the Galactic disk and the role of LAMOST

Abstract In this paper, we present our recent work on the evolution of abundance gradients along the Milky Way disk based on the Geneva Copenhagen Survey (GCS) and Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) data. We will also discuss the role of the LAMOST Milky Way disk survey in clarifying the properties of metallicity breaks observed through open clusters and young tracers along the Milky Way disk. It is believed that the Galactic disk forms inside-out, in which the stellar population at increasing radii is younger and more metal poor. This picture is consistent with most Galactic Chemical Evolution (GCE) models which also predict a tight correlation between the metallicity and age of stars at a given radius. However, it is only a result of “steady state" and no dynamical evolution effects were taken into account. We have selected two stellar samples from GCS and RAVE, each sample contains about 10,000 local thin-disk, main-sequence stars. We use the guiding radius which is determined by the conservation of z-direction angular momentum, to eliminate the blurring effects. And also use the effective temperature of the main sequence stars as a proxy of stellar age. It is shown that the metallicity gradient flattens as the age increases. This is not consistent with our previous GCE prediction, but can be explained by radial mixing effects. In order to further demonstrate the abundance breaks observed in the Galactic disk we have proposed, and have been carrying out, an open cluster survey project based on LAMOST. We plan to observe at least 400 open clusters in the northern Galactic sky. From the observations, we will get uniform parameters for those clusters with radial velocity and metallicities. We anticipate that this uniform open cluster sample could clarify the observed abundance break around the Milky Way disk corotation radius and also give a more robust result concerning the evolution of the abundance gradient.