Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synthesizing Traffic Scenarios from Formal Specifications for Testing Automated Vehicles

Virtual testing plays an important role in the validation and verification of automated vehicles. State-of-the-art approaches first generate a huge amount of test scenarios through simulations or test drives, which are later filtered to obtain relevant scenarios for a given set of specifications. However, only few works exist on synthesizing scenarios directly from specifications. In this work, we present an optimization-based approach to synthesize scenarios only from formal specifications and a given map. To concretize the specifications, we formulate predicates, which are subsequently converted to a mixed-integer quadratic optimization problem. We demonstrate how our method can generate scenarios for maps featuring merging lanes and intersections given a variety of specifications.
Influence of Initial Colloid Content on Yeast Macromolecule Production and on the Metabolism of Wine Microorganisms

The influence of initial colloid content on macromolecule production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae during alcoholic fermentation in synthetic media was investigated. The effect of yeast macromolecules on growth and malolactic fermentation of Leuconostoc oenos was also studied. Higher colloid concentrations had a diminishing effect on yeast extracellular macromolecule production during alcoholic fermentation. Two phases were observed in macromolecule release: ( 1 ) production of macromolecules by living cells in direct relationship with the initial concentration of colloids in the medium; and ( 2 ) production due primarily to dead cells in proportion to yeast autolysis. Media fermented with must colloids showed the lowest level of yeast macromolecules (4 mg/ L) and the highest level of fatty acids (13.2 µ M ), as well as delayed malolactic fermentation. The concentrations of fatty acids in the two media fermented without must colloids were different: 8.2 µ M in the control and 10.4 µ M in the medium initially containing cellulose. However, malolactic fermentation occurred rapidly in these two media with no significant difference. The yeast macromolecule releases were quite similar in these two media: 48 mg/L and 46 mg/L, respectively. These results suggest that yeast macromolecules present in the medium result in better bacterial growth.
Good projective witnesses

We develop a new forcing notion for adjoining self-coding coﬁnitary permutations and use it to show that consistently, the minimal cardinality a g of a maximal coﬁnitary group (MCG) is strictly between ℵ 1 and c , and there is a Π 12 -deﬁnable MCG of this cardinality. Here Π 12 is optimal, making this result a natural counterpart to the Borel MCG of Horowitz and Shelah. Our theorem has its analogue in the realm of maximal almost disjoint (MAD) families, extending a line of results regarding the deﬁnability properties of MAD families in models with large continuum.
CONVERGENCE AMONG THE SPANISH REGIONS: AN INFERENCE-BASED STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE APPROACH

The traditional analysis of economic convergence between countries or regions is usually performed by comparing distribution means, such as per capita income. However, this kind of analysis, which is intimately related to the economic welfare of a society, presents only a partial approach to the economic convergence phenomena, given that the disparities within regions or countries are not considered. The empirical methodology used in this paper complements the traditional convergence approach, adding the aspects of efficiency and inequality in income distribution. Using first and second stochastic dominance, together with Lorenz dominance, the convergence between Spanish Regions from 1990 to 2003 is studied by means of per capita income data taken from the Spanish Household Budget Survey (EPF) of 1990-1991 and the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) of 2003.
Mediating Conflict in the Lab

Mechanism design teaches us that a mediator can strictly improve the chances of peace between two opponents even when the mediator has no independent resources, is less informed than the two parties, and has no enforcement power. We test the theory in a lab experiment where two subjects negotiate how to share a resource; in case of conflict, the subjects' privately known strength determines their payoffs. The subjects send cheap talk messages about their strength to one another (in the treatment with direct communication) or to the mediator (in the mediation treatment), before making their demands or receiving the mediator's recommendations. We find that, in line with the theory, messages are significantly more sincere when sent to the mediator. However, contrary to the theory, peaceful resolution is not more frequent, even when the mediator is a computer implementing the optimal mediation program. While the theoretical result refers to the best (i.e. most peaceful) equilibrium under mediation, multiple equilibria exist, and the best equilibrium is particularly vulnerable to small deviations from full truthfulness. Subjects are not erratic and their deviations induce only small losses in payoffs, and yet they translate into significant increases in conflict.
Rhizospheric actinomycetes from organic crops of native potato (Solanum tuberosum): isolation, phenotypic characterization, molecular identification, and impact on biocontrol of Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the fourth most consumed food crop in the world, whose production in Peru is diminished due to phytosanitary problems and high costs of chemical fertilizers. In the present work, 32 actinomycetes isolated from the rhizosphere of organic native potato crops collected in the town of Cabana, Lucanas, Ayacucho, were characterized phenotypically and evaluated for their in vitro antagonistic capacity against Oomycete phytopathogen Phytophthora infestans. The characterization tests showed that 97% of the actinomycetes were able to assimilate glucose, sucrose, and mannitol; as well as producing extracellular enzymes like amylases (100%) and cellulases (50%). Furthermore, the growth in laboratory culture was better in the range of pH 5.5-8.5 and temperature 28-30 °C. From the tests of antagonism in oat agar (71.9%) and rye agar (31.2%), three strains were selected according to the native potato variety were selected as CAB10-J2 (Ccompis), CAB9-CA4 (Cuchipa-akan) and CAB5F5 (Futis) with pathogen inhibition rates of 80.05, 77.47 and 37.5% respectively. The strains were identified by molecular tests as members of the genus Streptomyces and owners of polyketide synthase (PKS) genes. It is concluded that the rhizospheric actinomycetes of potato are producers of bioactive compounds capable of remarkably inhibiting the pathogen Phytophthora infestans, being able to be considered candidates in biological control programs of the "potato blight".
Intermediate Training of BERT for Product Matching

Transformer-based models like BERT have pushed the state-of the-art for a wide range of tasks in natural language processing. General-purpose pre-training on large corpora allows Transformers to yield good performance even with small amounts of training data for task-specific fine-tuning. In this work, we apply BERT to the task of product matching in e-commerce and show that BERT is much more training data efficient than other state-of-the-art methods. Moreover, we show that we can further boost its effectiveness through an intermediate training step, exploiting large collections of product offers. Our intermediate training leads to strong performance (>90% F1) on new, unseen products without any product-specific fine-tuning. Further fine-tuning yields additional gains, resulting in improvements of up to 12% F1 for small training sets. Adding the masked language modeling objective in the intermediate training step in order to further adapt the language model to the application domain leads to an additional increase of up to 3% F1.
THE ROLE OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN IMPROVING VALUE CHAINS: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM AND OTHER DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Global value chains (GVCs) has become much more prevalent and concerned problems on over the world since the past 2 decades. As the fast rising of globalization, internationalization and integration has put countries in tight connections of supply chains through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The emerging from firms in developing countries have changed the orchestra in international production, their progressively active global participation put more spotlights on their growth and their subsequent GVCs. Encouraged by OCED (2016) , TiVA is considered as an indicator that helps a more empirical and sophisticated understanding of GVCs; we therefore use TiVA to measure GVCs throughout this research. Furthermore, this paper applies econometric regression analysis to measure the impacts of determinants, specially, FDI inflows, on global value chains of Asian developing countries by collecting data TiVA, FDIinflow, Trade_GDP and Mobile_sub during the period 1995-2014. Then, we also compare those results within groups of developing countries in order to figure out the dynamic role of FDI in different contexts as well as different periods. As the results, it is not surprising that there is a significant effect of the above factors on Trade in value added of a country where an FDIinflowGDPi(t-1) and GDPcapitait have negative effects on TiVA, which are conflicting with TiVA outcome of DtradeGDPit and Mobile_subit. Yet, when it comes to grouping by level of GDP, GDPcapita, Trade, TiVA, before and after the economic crisis in 2008, the results are interestingly different.
An Inter-Species Comparative Study on the Distribution of Nutrients in Selected Edible Mushrooms in Ekiti State, Nigeria

DOI: 10.21276/haya.2018. 3.6. 4 Abstract: The present investigation was carried out to determine and compare the nutritional values of some selected edible mushrooms collected in Ekiti State, Nigeria such as Pleurotus sajor-caju, Termitomyces robustus, Lentinus squarosullus, Termitomyces microcarpous, Termitomyces clypeatus, Lentinus tuber-regium and Polyporus sp. Proximate composition, mineral composition as well as vitamins A and C contents of the mushrooms were determined using standard methods. Results revealed significant differences in the nutritional composition of the mushrooms though some had similar compositions. The overall nutritional composition of the mushrooms was quite good suggesting that they have potentials to address the nutrient deficiency prevalent in the state, particularly among the low income earners. The values (%) ranged from 6.61-9.75 for moisture content, 1.07-3.89 for fat, 1.61-10.60 for total ash content, 1.61-10.81 for crude fibre, 8.67-37.31 for protein and 49.9075. 35 for carbohydrates. The mineral composition (mg/100g) ranged between 24.96126. 66 (Na), 478.30-789.64 (K), 33.06-153.43 (Mg), 38.17-440.20 (Ca), 1.2314.03 (Mn), 12.84-151.14 (Fe), 3.58-14.55 (Zn) and 0.92-4.03 (Cu). Vitamin A content (mg/g) was very low ranging from 0.01-0.12 while vitamin C content ranged from 94.22-326.51. The present study contributes to the elaboration of the nutritional database of commonly consumed mushrooms in Ekiti State, Nigeria.
Normal Values of Hemoglobin A1c in Sudanese healthy pregnant ladies in Khartoum state 2017: A pilot Study

DOI: 10.21276/sjm.2018. 3.2. 2 Abstract: The research aimed to measure HbA1C in normal Sudanese non-diabetic pregnant women attending antenatal care at Ribat University Hospital, Khartoum state during the period from Sep 2017 to Nov 2017, and to explore the effect of pregnancy on HbA1C. A Cross sectional facility based study was conducted in The National Ribat University hospital during the period from Sep 2017 to Nov 2017 among the Normal Sudanese pregnant, non-diabetic females of ages between 18-40 years. Twenty women were included as a pilot, ten of them at first trimester and ten at third trimester. Correlations between the variables were estimated and P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant and used to determine the relationship between the Multiple factors of pregnancy and HbA1c level. The mean value of HbA1c at first trimester of pregnancy was found to be 4.7% with a range of (3.5% 5.5 %) and the mean value of HbA1c at third trimester of pregnancy was found to be 3.98% with a range of (2.8% 5.4%). The mean value of HbA1c in normal pregnancy was found to be 4.37% with a range of (2.8% 5.5 %). There was no correlation between normal FBG, Hb level, daily caloric intake, age, PH. of DM, PH. of GDM, family history of DM and the level of HbA1c. According to this study the mean value of HbA1c in Sudanese healthy pregnant women is 4.37 found within the normal Sudanese values of HbA1c. HbA1c is lower in the third trimester compared to first trimester.
Moral preferences in helping dilemmas expressed by matching and forced choice

This paper asks whether moral preferences in eight medical dilemmas change as a function of how preferences are expressed, and how people choose when they are faced with two equally attractive help projects. In two large-scale studies, participants first read dilemmas where they “matched” two suggested helping projects (which varied on a single attribute) so that they became equally attractive. They did this by filling in a missing number (e.g., how many male patients must Project M save in order to be equally attractive as Project F which can save 100 female patients). Later, the same participants were asked to choose between the two equally attractive projects. We found robust evidence that people do not choose randomly, but instead tend to choose projects that help female (vs. male), children (vs. adult), innocent (vs. non-innocent), ingroup (vs. outgroup) and existing (vs. future) patients, and imply no (vs. some) risk of a harmful side-effect, even when these projects have been matched as equally attractive as, and save fewer patients than the contrasting project. We also found that some moral preferences are hidden when expressed with matching but apparent when expressed with forced choice. For example, 88–95% of the participants expressed that female and male patients are equally valuable when doing the matching task, but over 80% of them helped female patients in the choice task.
Partial and Total Orderings on Contingency Tables in the Fréchet Class

Riassunto: Lo studio della dipendenza fra due caratteri può essere condotto ipotizzando differenti provenienze dei dati. Nel presente lavoro si è fatto riferimento alla classe di Fréchet, ovvero l’insieme delle distribuzioni congiunte di frequenza di n individui classificati secondo due o più caratteri con distribuzioni marginali prefissate. Inoltre si sono considerati caratteri con scala nominale. Con l’intento di ordinare le tabelle di contingenza della suddetta classe secondo il grado di connessione, sono stati illustrati ordinamenti parziali di dipendenza basati sul concetto di maggiorazione e di trasferimenti che aumentano/diminuiscono la connessione. In particolare, fissando l’attenzione su un ordinamento parziale definito in base al comportamento delle contingenze, si è indagato sulla coerenza di alcune misure sintetiche di dipendenza rispetto a tale ordinamento parziale.
Prevalence Rate and Antibiotic Susceptibility Pattern of Salmonella Spp. Isolated From Broiler Chicken Collected from Different Market Areas of Sylhet Region Bangladesh

DOI: 10.21276/haya.2017. 2.7. 1 Abstract: Salmonellosis still remains as one of the major threat for poultry industry as well as public health in Bangladesh. Poultry is regarded as one of the most common reservoirs of Salmonella and contamination of poultry products can occur during any stage of poultry production. The current study was designed to identify Salmonella prevalence rate in broiler chickens and the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of Salmonella spp. isolated from broiler chicken guts. A total of 320 bacterial colonies were isolated from broiler guts collected from 5 different markets of Sylhet city, Bangladesh, during January and February of the year 2017. The samples were subjected for isolation and identification of Salmonella spp.and through a series of morphological and biochemical observations, 14.37% of the isolates were identified as Salmonella. Antimicrobial sensitivity test was done against 8 commonly found antibiotics in chicken carcasses. Salmonella strains were found to be completely resistant against Ampicillin (100%). The frequency of antibiotic resistance ranked in the following order: Erythromycin (97.82%), Tetracycline (84.78%), Polymyxin B (73.91%), Co-trimoxazole (58.7%), Neomycin (13.04%) and Ciprofloxacin (6.52%). However, Salmonella isolates showed considerably greater sensitivity against Gentamycin (95.64%) and Ciprofloxacin (80.43%). Multidrug resistance was found to be present in all the isolates which is alarming for poultry business and consumer as well.
COMPUTATIONAL STUDIES ON AERO-THERMODYNAMIC DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF CENTRIFUGAL TURBO-MACHINERY

Compressor design of a gas driven turbo-machinery component, involves extensive iterative process with enormous complex three-dimensional flow phenomena embedded within a dynamic state-of-the-art multi flow physics posing many challenges to its aero-thermodynamic design and performance. The present work attempts to address above cited technical issues connecting both design and performance of a centrifugal compressor with backward swept blade profile producing total pressure ratio of 5.4 with an ingested mass flow rate of 5.73 kg/s. A Mean-line design methodology was implemented to configure sizing of the compressor. An optimum grid size was well validated by carrying out computational analysis with three different mesh sizes within the same framework. Finally, a detailed three dimensional numerical simulation was performed to validate polytropic efficiency, total-to-total efficiency, stagnation pressure ratio at a fixed rotational speed and the overall design aero-thermodynamic performance.
Pharmacognostic, Chemical and Anti-inflammatory Activity Study of Two Varieties of Tropaeolum tuberosum (Ruiz & Pav.) Kuntze (Tropaeolaceae)

Ecuador has among its foods a series of potatoes and tubers that are not only nutritious, but also contain properties such as adjuvants which aid in the treatment of diseases caused by an inflammatory state. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence to support these hypotheses. The objective of this study was to carry out a comparative study of two varieties of the mashua tuber (Tropaeolum tuberosum spp tuberosum (Ruiz & Pavon, Kuntze)), by analyzing the pharmacognostic, chemical and anti-inflammatory characteristics. Since there are no previous reports regarding the macro- and micromorphological characteristics of the tubers, the following analyses were conducted; the establishment of physical-chemical parameters, the qualitative determination of the secondary metabolites, the quantification of phenols as well as flavonoids and the characterization of the extracts of ethyl acetate, ethyl alcohol and the coupling of the system through gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Significant differences were found in the macro- and micromorphology, as well as in the secondary metabolite between the two varieties studied. The black mashua showed a higher concentration quantification of phenols and flavonoids. Some phytosterols and triterpenoids were reported for the first time in these species and the anti-inflammatory activity of the tubers was demonstrated. These findings can lead to further research for a future use in a clinical trial.
The spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories on social me-dia and the effect of content moderation

We investigate the diffusion of conspiracy theories related to the origin of COVID-19 on social media. By analyzing third-party content on four social media platforms, we show that: (a) In contrast to conventional wisdom, mainstream sources contribute overall more to conspiracy theories diffusion than alternative and other sources; and (b) Platforms’ content moderation practices are able to mitigate the spread of conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, we locate issues regarding the timeliness and magnitude of content moderation, as well as that platforms filter significantly fewer conspiracy theories coming from mainstream sources. Given this, we discuss policy steps that can contribute to the containment of conspiracy theories by media sources, platform owners, and users.
New Normal: Cooperative Paradigm for Covid-19 Timely Detection and Containment using Internet of Things and Deep Learning

The spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused trillions of dollars in damages to the governments and health authorities by affecting the global economies. The purpose of this study is to introduce a connected smart paradigm that not only detects the possible spread of viruses but also helps to restart businesses/economies, and resume social life. We are proposing a connected Internet of Things ( IoT) based paradigm that makes use of object detection based on convolution neural networks (CNN), smart wearable and connected e-health to avoid current and future outbreaks. First, connected surveillance cameras feed continuous video stream to the server where we detect the inter-object distance to identify any social distancing violations. A violation activates area-based monitoring of active smartphone users and their current state of illness. In case a confirmed patient or a person with high symptoms is present, the system tracks exposed and infected people and appropriate measures are put into actions. We evaluated the proposed scheme for social distancing violation detection using YOLO (you only look once) v2 and v3, and for infection spread tracing using Python simulation.
Short-term Variability of Evolved Massive Stars with TESS. II. A New Class of Cool, Pulsating Supergiants

Massive stars briefly pass through the yellow supergiant (YSG) phase as they evolve redward across the H-R diagram and expand into red supergiants (RSGs). Higher-mass stars pass through the YSG phase again as they evolve blueward after experiencing significant RSG mass loss. These post-RSG objects offer us a tantalizing glimpse into which stars end their lives as RSGs and why. One telltale sign of a post-RSG object may be an instability to pulsations, depending on the star’s interior structure. Here we report the discovery of five YSGs with pulsation periods faster than 1 day, found in a sample of 76 cool supergiants observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite at a two-minute cadence. These pulsating YSGs are concentrated in an H-R diagram region not previously associated with pulsations; we conclude that this is a genuine new class of pulsating star, fast yellow pulsating supergiants (FYPSs). For each FYPS, we extract frequencies via iterative prewhitening and conduct a time-frequency analysis. One FYPS has an extracted frequency that is split into a triplet, and the amplitude of that peak is modulated on the same timescale as the frequency spacing of the triplet; neither rotation nor binary effects are likely culprits. We discuss the evolutionary status of FYPS and conclude that they are candidate post-RSGs. All stars in our sample also show the same stochastic low-frequency variability found in hot OB stars and attributed to internal gravity waves. Finally, we find four α Cygni variables in our sample, of which three are newly discovered.