Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Squircular-CPP: A Smooth Coverage Path Planning Algorithm based on Squircular Fitting and Spiral Path

Coverage path planning (CPP) is essential for applications such as robotic floor cleaning and high-pressure cleaning of surfaces. Smooth CPP algorithms have several benefits including smoother motion of the robot and the reduction of aggressive accelerations and decelerations resulting from sharp turns. In this paper, a novel smooth CPP algorithm is presented which is named Squircular-CPP. This algorithm proposes a squircular shape, which is an intermediate shape between the circle and the square, to fit a target area. Squircular-CPP can also fit a shape between the ellipse and the rectangle. The shape fitting is simple, fast, and analytical and doesn’t require a preselection of the shape (i.e., square, circle, ellipse or rectangle). It enables and complements the creation of a smooth spiral path within the fitted shape. Several case studies are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm and to compare it against the popular boustrophedon-based coverage approach and the Deformable Spiral CPP (DSCPP) algorithm.
Monolithic InP Quantum Dot Mode-Locked Lasers Emitting at 730 nm

This letter reports on InP/GaInP quantum dot mode-locked lasers emitting in the 730 nm wavelength region, extending the spectral range of previously reported monolithic mode-locked edge-emitting lasers. Modal gain and absorption measurements were used to identify a relatively broad spectrum which is utilised to support passive mode-locking in a monolithically integrated two-section ridge laser. The conditions for mode-locking were explored by varying the current to the gain section and reverse bias to the absorber section. For a total cavity length of 3 mm, the shortest pulse train observed was 6 ps in duration with a repetition rate of 12.55 GHz.
Challenges Implementing the SimProgramming Approach in Online Software Engineering Education for Promoting Self and Co-regulation of Learning

High academic failure rates in computer programming are significant transitioning from initial to advanced stages. In online higher education, challenges are greater since students’ autonomy requires greater skills for self-regulation and co-regulation of learning. The SimProgramming approach develops these skills and is being adapted to e-learning for this transitioning phase. In this paper, we describe the dynamics and outcomes of student participation and task development in a first iteration of the adapted e-SimProgramming approach, which took place during a 2nd year-2nd semester course for the Informatics Engineering program at Universidade Aberta in the 2018/2019 academic year. We identified pedagogical and technical challenges, requiring changes for subsequent attempts of adopting SimProgramming for online education contexts: target audience and teaching context aspects; self and co-regulation of learning dimensions of e-learning courses; pedagogical design recommendations; and requirements for software tools for learning management.
Electric field tailoring in HVDC cable joints utilizing electro-thermal simulation: effect of field grading materials

In this study, electric field distribution of cable joints under steady state voltage and transient conditions, i.e. lightning impulse and polarity reversal, was investigated using electrothermal simulation. Field grading techniques including geometric grading and geometric grading with field grading materials were considered as the methods to tailor local electric field distribution based on an electro-thermal model of 80kV joint in COMSOL Multiphysics. The results show 6.5 kV/mm and 6.9 kV/mm decrease in amplitude of electric field at the critical point of the interface in presence of FGM under steady state and polarity reversal transient condition, respectively.
Effects of training on firefighters' physical readiness, fitness and BMI levels

Firefighting is arduous work and it requires a high level of physical fitness and readiness. The purpose of this study is to assess the physical fitness and readiness levels of the Turkish firefighters and investigate the effects of 12-week exercise on firefighters’ fitness levels. The study was an experimental study in which 41 firefighters were participated voluntarily. Ethics committee approval and written consents were obtained prior to the study. The experiment group attended to a 12-week planned exercise sessions for two times per week for 90 min. The control group did not participate into a planned exercise during that period. Any caloric restrictions were not recommended nor were calorie intakes controlled in either group. As the Shapiro-Wilk and Q-Q plot tests revealed that the data were normally distributed, independent samples ttest, paired-samples t-test, and Pearson’s r to analyse data. The results indicated that body mass index levels of the firefighters in both groups were over the critical level suggested by the World Health Organization and their VO2max levels did not meet the minimum requirements. It was also found that BMI had disruptive effects on physical performance. The experimental group had significant improvement after attendance to 12-week training but the control group’s performances were worsened. It was concluded that the firefighters’ physical performances were low and they were highly prone to be obese. Instant measures, including promoting exercise and regularly testing the physical performance levels of the personnel, should be taken to reverse the current undesirable situation.
Do GANs always have Nash equilibria?

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) represent a zero-sum game between two machine players, a generator and a discriminator, designed to learn the distribution of data. While GANs have achieved state-of-the-art performance in several benchmark learning tasks, GAN minimax optimization still poses great theoretical and empirical challenges. GANs trained using ﬁrst-order optimization methods commonly fail to converge to a stable solution where the players cannot improve their objective, i.e., the Nash equilibrium of the underlying game. Such issues raise the question of the existence of Nash equilibria in GAN zero-sum games. In this work, we show through theoretical and numerical results that indeed GAN zero-sum games may have no Nash equilibria. To characterize an equilibrium notion applicable to GANs, we consider the equilibrium of a new zero-sum game with an objective function given by a proximal operator applied to the original objec-tive, a solution we call the proximal equilibrium . Unlike the Nash equilibrium, the proximal equilibrium captures the sequential nature of GANs, in which the generator moves ﬁrst followed by the discriminator. We prove that the optimal generative model in Wasserstein GAN problems provides a proximal equilibrium. Inspired by these results, we propose a new approach, which we call proximal training , for solving GAN problems. We perform several numerical experiments indicating the existence of proximal equilibria in GANs.
Testing the implicature approach to sequence of tense*

In English, past tense stative clauses embedded under a past-marked attitude verb, like Eric thought that Kalina was sick, can receive two possible interpretations, differing on whether the state of the complement is understood to hold before, i.e. Kalina’s sickness precedes the time of Eric’s thinking, or at the matrix evaluation time, Kalina is sick at the time of Eric’s thinking. As is well known, the availability of the simultaneous reading – also called ‘Sequence of Tense’ (SOT) – is subject to cross-linguistic variation. Non-SOT-languages, like for instance Japanese or Polish, only allow for the other, backward-shifted interpretation. This cross-linguistic variation has been analysed in two main ways in the literature: A structural approach, connecting the availability of the simultaneous reading in a language to a syntactic mechanism that allows the embedded past morphology not to be interpreted, and an implicature approach, which links the absence of such reading to the presence of a ‘cessation’ implicature associated with past tense. We report an experimental study testing the predictions of the two approaches by investigating Polish past-under-past sentences in positive and negative contexts, comparing their potential cessation implicature to the exclusive implicature of disjunction. In our results, we found that the latter was endorsed more often in positive than in negative contexts, as expected, while the cessation implicature was endorsed overall very little, with no difference across contexts. The disanalogy between the disjunction and the temporal cases, and the insensitivity of the latter to monotonicity, is a challenge for the implicature approach, and casts doubts on associating SOT phenomena with implicatures. The results are instead in line with the structural approach, which expects no effect of monotonicity on the (un)availability of simultaneous readings, and no similarity between SOT phenomena and implicatures.
Sparse Shrunk Additive Models

Most existing feature selection methods in literature are linear models, so that the nonlinear relations between features and response variables are not considered. Meanwhile, in these feature selection models, the interactions between features are often ignored or just discussed under prior structure information. To address these challenging issues, we consider the problem of sparse additive models for high-dimensional nonparametric regression with the allowance of the ﬂexible interactions between features. A new method, called as sparse shrunk additive models (SSAM), is proposed to explore the structure information among features. This method bridges sparse kernel regression and sparse feature selection. Theoretical results on the convergence rate and sparsity characteristics of SSAM are established by the novel analysis techniques with integral operator and concentration estimate. In particular, our algorithm and theoretical analysis only require the component functions to be continuous and bounded, which are not necessary to be in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Dynamic model of photovoltaic module temperature as a function of atmospheric conditions

Abstract. The temperature of photovoltaic modules is modelled as a dynamic function of ambient temperature, shortwave and longwave irradiance and wind speed, in order to allow for a more accurate characterisation of their efficiency. A simple dynamic thermal model is developed by extending an existing parametric steady-state model using an exponential smoothing kernel to include the effect of the heat capacity of the system. The four parameters of the model are fitted to measured data from three photovoltaic systems in the Allgau region in Germany using non-linear optimisation. The dynamic model reduces the root-mean-square error between measured and modelled module temperature to 1.58 K on average, compared to 3.03 K for the steady-state model, whereas the maximum instantaneous error is reduced from 20.02 to 6.58 K.
OPtions as REsponses: Grounding behavioural hierarchies in multi-agent reinforcement learning

This paper investigates generalisation in multi-agent games, where the generality of the agent can be evaluated by playing against opponents it hasn’t seen during training. We propose two new games with concealed information and complex, non-transitive reward structure (think rock/paper/scissors). It turns out that most current deep reinforcement learning methods fail to efﬁ-ciently explore the strategy space, thus learning policies that generalise poorly to unseen opponents. We then propose a novel hierarchical agent architecture, where the hierarchy is grounded in the game-theoretic structure of the game – the top level chooses strategic responses to opponents, while the low level implements them into policy over primitive actions. This grounding facilitates credit assignment across the levels of hierarchy. Our experiments show that the proposed hierarchical agent is capable of generalisation to unseen opponents, while conventional baselines fail to generalise whatsoever.
Efficient Robustness Certificates for Discrete Data: Sparsity-Aware Randomized Smoothing for Graphs, Images and More

Existing techniques for certifying the robustness of models for discrete data either work only for a small class of models or are general at the expense of efficiency or tightness. Moreover, they do not account for sparsity in the input which, as our findings show, is often essential for obtaining non-trivial guarantees. We propose a model-agnostic certificate based on the randomized smoothing framework which subsumes earlier work and is tight, efficient, and sparsity-aware. Its computational complexity does not depend on the number of discrete categories or the dimension of the input (e.g. the graph size), making it highly scalable. We show the effectiveness of our approach on a wide variety of models, datasets, and tasks -- specifically highlighting its use for Graph Neural Networks. So far, obtaining provable guarantees for GNNs has been difficult due to the discrete and non-i.i. d. nature of graph data. Our method can certify any GNN and handles perturbations to both the graph structure and the node attributes.
The impact of sex education on the sexual behaviour of young people

Description: This paper focuses on a review of studies assessing the effectiveness of sex education programmes in reducing risky sexual behaviour among adolescents and young people. The paper concludes that sex education programmes that are based on a comprehensive curriculum can delay the onset of sexual activity among adolescents and young people, reduce the frequency of intercourse, reduce the frequency of unprotected sex, reduce the number of sexual partners, and increase condom and contraceptive use. Furthermore, sex education programmes do not increase sexual activity among adolescents and young people and generally result in increased knowledge about human sexuality. To be effective, sex education programmes need to provide unbiased and scientifically based information; explain the various practices and methods that can reduce the risks of pregnancy and of acquiring a sexually transmitted infection during intercourse; discuss values, perceptions and norms; and use methods validated by pedagogy and behavioural-change science to build the skills that adolescents and young people need in order to make responsible decisions about their sexual behaviour and follow through with those decisions.
River Bed Degradation and Morphological Development before and after River Restoration Measures at the Danube River East of Vienna

Since the end of the 19th century the Austrian Danube River is facing several anthropogenic influences causing hydromorphological changes that represent a major impact to the former untamed and wild river system. To challenge the resulting bed level degradation which is of substantial importance for the ecological status of the linked National Park “Donau-Auen” and improve at the same time navigational conditions in this international waterway, an integrated river engineering project was launched. In order to accomplish these goals innovative measures were elaborated and implemented in several pilot projects. This study quantifies the impact of the restoration measures on the morphological development based on bathymetric data analysis. Besides high seasonal dynamics of the bed level, especially in connection with extreme flood events, a reduction of erosional processes within areas related to pilot projects could be detected.
Tetrahydropyrimidines, ZL-5015 Alleviated Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-Induced Acute Pneumonia in Rats by Activating the NRF-2/HO-1 Pathway

Background Acute pneumonia is a severe inflammatory disease of the respiratory system. Drugs used to treat acute pneumonia often have strong side effects. Recent studies have shown that tetrahydropyrimidines, ZL-5015 has anti-inflammatory and antitumor effects. However, whether ZL-5015 can relieve symptoms of acute pneumonia is unclear. Material/Methods In this study, we used lipo-polysaccharide (LPS) to stimulate SD rats to simulate conditions of acute pneumonia. Diverse doses of ZL-5015 were used for treatment of these rats. After the rates were sacrificed, serum, lung tissue, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were collected for the next study. Hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining then was used to detect pathologic changes in lung tissues. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was performed to assess levels of inflammatory factors in serum. Commercial kits were used to assess levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Results Treatment of ZL-5015 relieved stenosis of the alveolar space and pulmonary edema. Furthermore, levels of inflammatory factors (TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-18) in the lung tissues and serum were downregulated after treatment with ZL-5015. Production of ROS also was suppressed after application of ZL-5015. Moreover, inhibition of expression of NRF-2 and HO-1 was relieved after treatment with ZL-5015. The therapeutic effect of ZL-5015 showed a dose-response relationship. Conclusions ZL-5015 alleviated LPS-induced inflammatory injury and oxidative damage by activating the NRF-2/HO-1 pathway.
REVISIT OF ENDODONTIC PRESSURE SYRINGE OBTURATION TECHNIQUE PROCEDURES IN NECROTIC PRIMARY MOLARS

Aim: endodontic pressure syringe techniques in primary molar radiographically using endoflas obturating material. Background: the root canal system. Many investigations have been carried out to evaluate and compare the success rate of obturating techniques for primary teeth obturating techniques is ongoing. The literature regarding the comparison of comparative efficiency of hand held lentulospiral and endodontic pressure syringe is relatively sparse. Therefore the present clinical study is undertaken to radiographically compare, the primary teeth obturation with hand held lentulospiral and endodontic pressure syringe. Study design: in the age group II). Group I (control group) obturated with hand obturated with endodontic pressure syringe respectively. Post quality of canal obturation, (under fill, optimally fill, or overfill) and b) presence of voids in each third of the root canal. The obtained data were analyzed using Chi Results: overfilled and 10% were under filled in control group. In test group were filled using endodontic pressure syringe showed, 70% of canals were optimally filled, 30% of canals were ov was no underfilled canals. The present study also showed higher number of vo of the both the techniques. Conclusion: pressure syringe though showed presence of voids in both the groups did not significantly affect the quality of root canal fillings.
University of Birmingham Development of a slurry injection technique for continuous fibre ultra-high temperature ceramic matrix composites

A simple and effective slurry injection method for producing dense and uniform UHTCMCs from preforms of high fibre density was developed. As this method is based on slurry injection the homogeneity is not constrained to small preform sizes; dense components of high fibre volume can be produced in theoretically any size and shape. Samples produced by this method demonstrated high and consistent densities, with the injection method obtaining densities an average 27% higher and 87% lower in variability when compared to conventional vacuum impregnation. Tomography demonstrated no bias in the ceramic powder distribution for samples produced by injection, whereas samples produced by vacuum impregnation alone displayed poor powder penetration to the centre of large samples. The new approach yielded composites that were as strong and/or more consistent in strength compared to vacuum impregnation. Thermo-ablative testing demonstrated significant improvements with regards to protective capability for materials produced by this route.
A Tale of Two Price Adjustments: Does Calvo Meet Rotemberg at the ZLB?

This paper examines the difference between the most popular models of price adjustments, the Calvo model and the Rotemberg model, in a fully nonlinear dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) framework with an occasionally binding zero lower bound (ZLB) on the nominal interest rate. Although the two models are equivalent at the first-order approximation under a specific set of parameters, they are very different in the fully nonlinear framework. Specifically, we find that (i) under an adverse shock driving the economy close to the liquidity trap, the interest rate cut is greater in the Calvo model than in the Rotemberg model, and, as a result, the ZLB is more likely to bind in the Calvo model than in the Rotemberg model; (ii) the government spending multiplier is smaller than one on impact in the Rotemberg model even when the ZLB binds; (iii) while the government spending multiplier is also smaller than one on impact in the Calvo model when the ZLB does not bind, it can be greater than one when the ZLB binds; (iv) the cumulative government spending multiplier can be larger than one in the Calvo model, but it is always less than one in the Rotemberg model; and (v) the relative price dispersion plays a key role in explaining the difference between the two models. JEL classification: C61, E31, E52, E62.
Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberance in a black African cohort—a clinicopathologic study

Background Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberance (DFSP) is the commonest, yet rare, dermal sarcoma globally. There are few reports in the literature of this neoplasm in Nigerians and indeed in sub-Saharan Africa. This study documents our institutional practice observation and compares it with those from other regions of the world. Methods and materials This study was a retrospective review of all cases of histologically diagnosed DFSP at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria, spanning a period of 27 years (January 1989–December 2016). Data on patient age, gender, tumour location, size, tumour recurrence and metastasis status were obtained from clinical and surgical pathology archival files and records. Results Sixty-nine cases of DFSP were recorded over the period reviewed with a male–female ratio of 1.6:1. The mean age of the study population was 39.6 years. The youngest patient was 5-year old, while the oldest was 86 years and the modal age group was the 4th decade. The trunk was the commonest anatomic tumour location. Recurrences were seen in seven cases with recurrence interval ranging from 6 to 240 months. The correlation between tumour size and age was non-significant (r = −0.183; p = 0.182). There was fibrosarcoma-like transformation in three cases (4.3%) studied. Conclusion Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberance is rare in our population and occurs more commonly in males and on the trunk. Recurrence can occur beyond the recommended follow-up period of 10 years.