Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extensions of Real Atomic Gauges for Complex Signal Recovery

Solving discrete linear inverse problems is one of the cornerstones of modern science and engineering. In abstract terms, these problems seek to recover an unknown vector from an incomplete set of linear measurements. When the object is a sparse convex combination of a known collection of atoms, the gauge associated to the convex hull of this collection, i.e., the atomic gauge, can be minimized subject to data consistency constraints to attempt to recover the original vector. In some practical applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging, the vector is complex-valued and it is the magnitude vector, i.e., the vector containing the magnitude of the components, that is a sparse convex combination of known real-valued atoms. To apply the atomic gauge to this setting, we propose extending the collection of real-valued atoms by considering their modulations by a collection of suitable phases. Furthermore, under minor assumptions, we provide computationally tractable expressions to evaluate both the gauge associated to the modulated set of atoms and its proximal map. Our results show the complexity of using the gauge associated to a collection of modulated atoms is comparable to that of using a collection of real-valued atoms.
Accurate Line Reconstruction for Point and Line-Based Stereo Visual Odometry

The point feature is widely used in feature-based visual simultaneous localization and mapping (V-SLAM) or visual odometry (VO) systems, whereas the line feature is rarely explored even though it is more robust and contains more structural information than the point featue. In this paper, we propose a method of 3-D line reconstruction for stereo visual odometry with point and line features. By modeling the uncertainty of a line feature with its structural properties, the proposed line reconstruction method could refine the spatial positions of highly-uncertain lines from different stereo camera frames. The novel refinement process makes it possible to leverage a coarser but faster line detecting algorithm without loss of accuracy for the system. In the back-end optimization, the proposed method parameterizes a spatial line in a compact and decoupled way and applys a unified cost function for both point and line measurements. Extensive experiments have been conducted on different datasets and the results demonstrate that the proposed method can reconstruct a more accurate map of environments and achieve a higher speed as well as an accurate camera trajectory.
Intrinsic Capabilities for Digital Switching of Silicene Nanoribbons With Edge Defects

Statistical atomistic quantum transport simulations are used to study the prospects of digital switching in silicene nanoribbons (SiNRs) with edge defects. For various nanoribbon widths and defect levels, we study the averaged parameters (such as bandgap and conductance in the ON- and OFF-state) and their defect-induced variability. We report that moderately defective SiNRs exhibit up to 30% larger bandgaps than their ideal counterparts, bringing it to about 0.5 eV, and the ON–OFF conductance ratios in the range from ~103 to ~106. In terms of resilience to edge defects, we demonstrate that SiNRs are less immune to defects than phosphorene nanoribbons, while they are considerably more resistant than graphene nanoribbons.
Selective Electron or Hole Conduction in Tungsten Diselenide (WSe2) Field-Effect Transistors by Sulfur-Assisted Metal-Induced Gap State Engineering

For semiconductor industry to replace silicon CMOS integrated circuits by 2-D semiconductors or transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), TMD-based n-FETs as well as p-FETs having performance better than Si FETs are a must. While a lot of literature demonstrates n-channel characteristics, the major roadblocks in the realization of TMD-based CMOS integrated circuit are the lack of approach to realize p-channel transistors having performance comparable to n-channel transistors, all realized over the same TMD substrate. To address this, we propose a new technique by engineering WSe2/metal interface to realize WSe2-based high-performance p- and n-channel transistors and therefore unveil its potential toward CMOS-integrated technology. The technique involves a dry process, based on the chemistry between the sulfur atom and WSe2 surface, that induces unique metal-induced gap states in the source/drain (S/D) contact area, which causes improved hole (electron) injection when Cr (Ni) as S/D metal was used. This has enabled the controlled realization of high-performance WSe2 FETs with desired polarity (N, P, or ambipolar), which solely depends on the contact metal used and contact engineering (CE)/surface engineering. Fundamental investigations on the effect of the proposed CE on metal–WSe2 interface revealed interesting and counter-intuitive facts, which very well corroborate with experimental observations.
Finite Feedback Interference Alignment Algorithm Based on Upper Triangular Decomposition

In the receiving system with multi-cell edge users, the traditional limited feedback precoding method has quantization error and the system performance is not ideal. Therefore, a limited feedback precoding algorithm based on upper triangular decomposition is proposed. First, Adjust the system channel matrix by considering the channel quality of the cell user; Secondly, The joint channel is triangulated to obtain an equivalent model, and all users’ data streams are integrated for water injection method power allocation; Finally, the precoding matrix and the interference suppression matrix are designed by minimizing the interference leakage and the minimum mean square error criterion. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the quantization error and improve the performance of the system.
Recognizing Spontaneous Micro-Expression Using a Three-Stream Convolutional Neural Network

Micro-expression recognition (MER) has attracted much attention with various practical applications, particularly in clinical diagnosis and interrogations. In this paper, we propose a three-stream convolutional neural network (TSCNN) to recognize MEs by learning ME-discriminative features in three key frames of ME videos. We design a dynamic-temporal stream, static-spatial stream, and local-spatial stream module for the TSCNN that respectively attempt to learn and integrate temporal, entire facial region, and facial local region cues in ME videos with the goal of recognizing MEs. In addition, to allow the TSCNN to recognize MEs without using the index values of apex frames, we design a reliable apex frame detection algorithm. Extensive experiments are conducted with five public ME databases: CASME II, SMIC-HS, SAMM, CAS(ME)2, and CASME. Our proposed TSCNN is shown to achieve more promising recognition results when compared with many other methods.
Analyzing Physical Layer Security of Antenna Subset Modulation as Block Encryption Ciphers

In this paper, a novel framework for analyzing Physical Layer Security (PLS) of Directional Modulation (DM) techniques has been introduced. The proposed framework maps the concepts of PLS techniques to cryptographic techniques, enabling the analysis of DM techniques as block encryption ciphers. The relevance of the proposed framework has been shown by applying it on Antenna Subset Modulation (ASM). After appropriate physical layer mappings, the encryption strength of ASM is analyzed using National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Statistical Test Suite (NIST’s STS). The performance of ASM is benchmarked against strong block encryption cipher of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) using data types of image, text, and audio. A new metric, namely Physical Layer Randomness (PLR), has been introduced for direct comparison of encryption strength of PLS techniques to that of cryptographic techniques. The analysis shows that Optimized Antenna Subset Selection (OASS) that reduced average Side-Lobe Levels (SLLs) and improved Symbol Error Rate (SER), has rather adverse effects on encryption strength of ASM. Furthermore, it has been found that scrambling the selection of antenna subsets imparts negligible improvement in PLR.
The Demonstration of 3-D Bi2.0Te2.7Se0.3/Bi0.4Te3.0Sb1.6 Thermoelectric Devices by Ionized Sputter System

In this brief, we propose and demonstrate the Bi<sub>2.0</sub>Te<sub>2.7</sub>Se<sub>0.3</sub>/Bi<sub>0.4</sub>Te<sub>3.0</sub>Sb<sub>1.6</sub> thermoelectric (TE) device with the 3-D structure through the manufacturing process by the ionized sputter system. With the same top-point-of-view area, the proposed 3-D TE device in this brief has approximately twice the number of n-/p-junctions than that in our previously demonstrated 2-D TE device. In order to extract the Seebeck coefficient (S) and the electrical conductivity (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma $ </tex-math></inline-formula>) to evaluate the total efficiency in our TE device, we also build up the accurate measurement systems. It can be found that the S value is improved ~25% successfully in our proposed 3-D TE device with the same TE material thickness (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${t}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of 100 nm. On the other hand, the power factor is also found to be enhanced to ~50% accordingly. In summary, the figure of merit (ZT)—i.e., the ability of a TE device to efficiently produce electricity—is increased to ~50% and achieves a value of 0.9, which is the highly competitive number at the low operating temperature (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${T}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of 130 °C in our proposed 3-D TE devices in this brief.
A Low Latency Hardware Implementation Architecture for Polar Code

Polar codes are the only constructive codes that are able to reach the Shannon limit. Due to excellent decoding performance and low implementation complexity, polar codes have been adopted in the control channel coding standard of 5G mobile communication. With the development of mobile communication technology, performance indicators such as end-to-end delay, user experience rate and mobility have become the focus of 5G technology, which requires more efficient coding and decoding rates for channel coding. However, the existing SCL decoding algorithm of the polar code, due to the expansion of the search path, causes a large amount of delay in decoding, which limits the improvement of the decoding rate. In this paper, a low latency polar code decoder is proposed for the above scenario. When code length is 1024 bits, and search path width is four, the proposed decoder can achieve the effect of improving the throughput by 46% only at the expense of 2% resources compared with the traditional decoders.
Multiple Program Analysis Techniques Enable Precise Check for SEI CERT C Coding Standard

Static analysis tools have demonstrated their ability to find non-compliant code of coding standards. However, for industrial-sized systems, static analysis tools frequently report a large number of warnings, which contain both true positives and false positives. In this research, to enable precise check for SEI CERT C Coding Standard, we combine static analysis with three different techniques. Firstly, a static analysis tool is used to detect non-compliant code, which are positions that may violate a SEI CERT C rule or recommendation. Each detected position is called a warning. Secondly, deductive verification, model checking, and pattern matching are used to verify whether each warning is a true positive or a false positive. Our experiments with two automotive applications show that this approach can help to improve the accuracy to check for SEI CERT C Coding Standard. We verify nearly 60% warnings of Rosecheckers, a static analysis tool. In these verified warnings, 97% of them are automatically detected to be true positives or false positives by our approach.
Getting There: Mapping the Gendered Geography of Caregiving to Elderly Relatives

RÉSUMÉ Cet article poursuit une analyse déjà effectuée sur les soins aux membres âgés de la famille (Joseph & Hallman, 1996), en examinant de plus près les incidences de temps et de distance entre ceux qui soignent et les personnes âgées qui reçoivent les soins. Nous posons l'hypothèse qu'une étude plus approfondie d'un comportement social fortement axé sur le sexe (soins aux personnes âgées) et d'un fonctionnement distinct sur le plan du temps et de l'espace fera ressortir des comportements éminemment différents entre les hommes et les femmes. L'analyse des données provenant de deux enquêtes connexes du Réseau canadien de recherche sur le vieillissement laisse entendre que les soignants, hommes ou femmes, fournissent une assistance dans des contextes d'espace-temps différents. Les femmes font preuve d'un engagement plus grand lorsqu'elles dispensent des soins et voyagent afin de fournir une assistance. Elles adoptent un comportement défiant la distance qui se traduit par le recours au déménagement pour modifier l'espace-temps et améliorer les soins. À l'opposé, les hommes qui dispensent des soins sont plus sensibles aux limites imposées par l'espace-temps et auront moins souvent recours au déplacement des aîné(e)s soigné(e)s. Cet article se termine par une discussion, inspirée de commentaires de soignants, et portant sur les effets négatifs de l'engagement auprès de personnes âgées, surtout sur les effets perçus du temps pour les autres relations familiales. ABSTRACT This paper extends an earlier analysis of the geography of caregiving to elderly relatives (Joseph & Hallman, 1996), by closely examining the implications of time-distance between family caregivers and their older relatives. We hypothesize that overlaying a highly gendered social behaviour (eldercare) onto the distinctive time-space geographies of men and women will translate into demonstrably different “eldercare geographies”. Analysis of data from two interrelated CARNET surveys suggests that female and male caregivers provide assistance within very different time-space contexts. Women demonstrate greater engagement with caregiving and more extensive commitments to travel in order to provide assistance. This “distance-defying” behaviour translates into the use of residential relocation as a means of modifying time-space in order to improve caregiving provision. In contrast, male caregivers are more sensitive to the limiting effects of time-distance, including the manipulation of their eldercare geographies. The paper concludes with a discussion, based on comments made by caregivers, of the negative impacts of eldercare involvement, focussing on perceived effects on personal time for other family relationships.
A Dynamic Taint Analysis Framework Based on Entity Equipment

With the development of the Internet of Things, the security of embedded device has received extensive attention. Taint analysis technology can improve the understanding of the firmware program operating mechanism and improve the effectiveness of security analysis. It is an important method in security analysis. Traditional taint analysis of embedded device firmware requires complex pre-preparation work, setting up a virtual operating environment. Those security analysts have to invest a lot of time and effort in this work, and the results are usually unsatisfactory. In this paper, we propose a dynamic taint analysis method based on entity equipment. The core idea of our approach is to divide the taint analysis into two parts: the simulation analysis on the host and the real execution on the entity equipment. Since one of the features of our method is based on entity equipment, there is no need to build a dedicated virtual environment. Another feature is that the tested firmware program runs on entity equipment and can ensure the accuracy of the analysis by comparing the results of the taint analysis with the device firmware run-time information. We implement a prototype system and verified the effectiveness of the method, which can perform taint analysis on multiple architecture embedded firmware programs and detect vulnerabilities such as stack overflow, heap overflow and so on. Finally, we verify our prototype with a test case to effectively detect vulnerabilities in the firmware program. And we evaluate the performance of the prototype, compared with PANDA, the time overhead of our prototype is reduced by 5.9%.
Quantitative Scanning Microwave Microscopy of the Evolution of a Live Biological Cell in a Physiological Buffer

This article reports the first quantitative characterization by scanning microwave microscopy (SMM) of a live cell in its physiological buffer. The challenges for quantitative SMM of soft matter in liquid were overcome mainly by characterizing the probe–sample interaction through multiscale finite-element full-wave electromagnetic simulation of not only the probe tip but also the probe body and holder. Using quantitative SMM, the relative permittivity of the center of a live L6 cell on the top of its nucleus was determined to be ( $32\pm 6)-j(20 \pm 4)$ , which was in general agreement with the literature and simple estimation. Moreover, taking advantage of the noninvasiveness and subsurface sensitivity of SMM, it was used to monitor the physiological condition of the cell for hours. The results showed that the gradual shrinking of the cell footprint did not impact cell vitality significantly. These results implied that SMM could be a valuable technique for label-free noninvasive characterization of subcellular structures in a live cell, as well as its physio-pathological conditions.
Ball Detection Using Yolo and Mask R-CNN

Many computer vision applications rely on accurate and fast object detection, and in our case, ball detection serves as a prerequisite for action recognition in handball scenes. We compare the performance of two of the state-of-the-art convolutional neural network-based object detectors for the task of ball detection in non-staged, real-world conditions. The comparison is performed in terms of speed and accuracy measures on a dataset comprising custom handball footage and a sample of images obtained from the Internet. The performance of the models is compared with and without additional training with examples from our dataset.
Operation of Stand-Alone Microgrids Considering the Load Following of Biomass Power Plants and the Power Curtailment Control Optimization of Wind Turbines

Various stand-alone hybrid power systems are widely used to fulfil the electric loads for remote, rural villages. Although there are many investigations based on various aspects of renewable hybrids energy microgrids, the discussions about the application of biomass combustion power plants are rare. Also, detailed investigations of the system steady and transient stability analysis, and the power curtailment control optimization of wind turbines in these stand-alone hybrid systems are seldom found. This paper focuses on wind/biomass/diesel/battery stand-alone microgrids and discusses the system operation, energy management and dispatch issues detailed. The renewable and controllable biomass power is localized to follow the load fluctuations over a long timescale to decrease the power production from diesel and the peak-load shifting demands of the battery banks. An optimization strategy of the wind power curtailment control is also proposed to effectively decrease the frequency and amplitude of the pitch actor and, to some extent, improve the power generation through the combination of the active turbine speed control and pitch regulation. Then a parallel double-mode optimal operation strategy with a “fault detector” is presented to realize economic optimization dispatch under the normal mode and emergency power control for large disturbance scenarios. Finally, case studies of a microgrid on a remote Canadian aboriginal community are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed methods.
Analytical Model for the Change of Travel Time Savings With Waiting Time and Service Level

An extended classical time allocation model with travel time reliability constraint is proposed in this study. The valuation function of travel time savings is deduced, and the relationship between the value of travel time savings and other social environment variables, especially the waiting time and service level, is revealed. Meanwhile, the change of the value of travel time savings with the waiting time and the service level is investigated through a comparative static analysis method. Analytical results show that the change of the value of travel time savings with the service level is dependent on the inverse of the cumulative distribution function. By contrast, the value of travel time savings tends to decrease with the increase in waiting time. The findings further imply that adopting the optimal head start can relieve the waiting time of urban commuters, thereby minimizing their generalized travel cost. Moreover, the values of service headway and reliability are analyzed, which can improve the quality of service toward either frequency or reliability improvements to reduce the cost for the society.
Deep Learning-Based Point Cloud Coding: A Behavior and Performance Study

Point clouds are an emerging 3D visual representation model for immersive and interactive multimedia applications, in particular for virtual and augmented reality. The huge amount of data associated to point clouds critically asks for efficient point cloud coding technology. While there are already some point cloud coding paradigms in the literature, notably octree, patch and graph-based for geometry data, very recently deep learning emerged in this research domain, offering very promising performances for image coding. While deep learning-based methods often provide interesting results, the understanding of this type of coding solutions is essential to improve their design in order to be used effectively. In this context, this paper presents a study and analysis on the behavior and performance of a deep learning-based point cloud coding solution based on an autoencoder network using only convolutional layers. Beside a promising RD performance, other findings should allow making solid steps in understanding this emerging coding paradigm.
Augmented Reality Game in Geography: An Orientation Activity to Elementary Education

This article aims to present an orientation activity to assist in the teaching-learning process of Geography using of augmented reality. Therefore, a research was conducted with students of the 6th year of elementary school in a public educational institution. The results showed that the participants considered the approach to be positive and that the strategy used with the orientation activity, combined with the use of technological accessories, not only contributed to the visualization of the content but also allowed to establish the relationship between theory and practice.
The thermal zones of the Earth according to the duration of hot, moderate and cold periods and to the impact of heat on the organic world

This is the translated and edited version of the paper "Die Warmezonen der Erde, nach der Dauer der heissen, gemassigten und kalten Zeit und nach der Wirkung der Warme auf die organische Welt betrachtet" by W. Koppen, which originally appeared in 1884 in the Meteorologische Zeitschrift. Superscript numbers indicate original footnotes (translated at the bottom of the page), E. numbers indicate editorial endnotes (at the end of the article), square brackets [] indicate editorial comments in the text.