Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parameter-dependent lyapunov function method applied to satellite formation keeping control

In this paper, a parameter-dependent Lyapunov function method is applied to design robust controller for a satellite formation flying system around the Earth based on an uncertainty model derived from a nonlinear relative position equation. In this model, nonzero eccentricity and varying semi-major axis are included as parametric uncertainties. Exogenous perturbations including J2 perturbation, atmospheric drag and actuation are bounded by functional uncertainties. The model can be regarded as a polytopic type uncertain system with 8 vertices, then the parameter-dependent Lyapunov function is proposed to design H2 and Hinfin controllers respectively to maintain the relative position of the formation flying system. The simulation demonstrates that the proposed controller can realize the control the satellites formation-keeping.
Respiratory Protection for Health Care Workers

Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear incidents are rare, but the likelihood of any medical facility having to deal with contaminated or contagious casualties is not, Health Care Workers (HCW) often being exposed to infectious or toxic substances. Although medical staff routinely take measures to protect themselves against exposure to infection by wearing protective clothing, they rarely consider the inhalational route as a threat. This paper presents a series of cases where HCW’s have been exposed to toxic or infectious material through the respiratory route, discusses standards of respiratory protection and describes how this risk can be mitigated to protect medical personnel.
Comdb2: Bloomberg's Highly Available Relational Database System

Comdb2 is a distributed database system designed for geographical replication and high availability. In contrast with the latest trends in this field, Comdb2 offers full transactional support, a standard relational model, and the expressivity of SQL. Moreover, the system allows for rich stored procedures using a dialect of Lua. Comdb2 implements a serializable system in which reads from any node always return current values. Comdb2 provides transparent High Availability through built-in service discovery and sophisticated retry logic embedded in the standard API. In addition to the relational data model, Comdb2 implements queues for publisher-to-subscriber message delivery. Queues can be combined with table triggers for time-consistent log distribution, providing functionality commonly needed in modern OLTP. In this paper we give an overview of our last twelve years of work. We focus on the design choices that have made Comdb2 the primary database solution within our company, Bloomberg LP (BLP).
Controller synthesis for stabilizing oscillations in tapping-mode atomic force microscopes

The atomic force microscope operating in tapping-mode can be properly described by a sinusoidally forced second order mechanical oscillator, which is nonlinearly interacting with the sample. Due to interaction forces, which strongly depend on the separation between the AFM tip and the sample profile, the cantilever oscillations may present chaotic behaviors, rising when the separation decreases. The stabilization of such periodic solutions is critical for achieving the correct sample topography. In this work, an LMI-based synthesis technique is proposed for determining the controller which guarantees stability of the cantilever oscillation for a wider range of tip-sample separations, thus eliminating unwanted complex dynamics
A Cross-Validated Study of Modelling Strategies for Automatic Chord Recognition in Audio

Although automatic chord recognition has generated a number of recent papers in MIR, nobody to date has done a proper cross validation of their recognition results. Cross validation is the most common way to establish baseline standards and make comparisons, e.g., for MIREX competitions, but a lack of labelled aligned training data has rendered it impractical. In this paper, we present a comparison of several modelling strategies for chord recognition, hiddenMarkov models (HMMs) and conditional random fields (CRFs), on a new set of aligned ground truth for the Beatles data set of Sheh and Ellis (2003). Consistent with previous work, our models use pitch class profile (PCP) vectors for audio modelling. Our results show improvement over previous literature, provide precise estimates of the performance of both old and new approaches to the problem, and suggest several avenues for future work.
Position‐Based Skinning for Soft Articulated Characters

In this paper, we introduce a two‐layered approach addressing the problem of creating believable mesh‐based skin deformation. For each frame, the skin is first deformed with a classic linear blend skinning approach, which usually leads to unsightly artefacts such as the well‐known candy‐wrapper effect and volume loss. Then we enforce some geometric constraints which displace the positions of the vertices to mimic the behaviour of the skin and achieve effects like volume preservation and jiggling. We allow the artist to control the amount of jiggling and the area of the skin affected by it. The geometric constraints are solved using a position‐based dynamics (PBDs) schema. We employ a graph colouring algorithm for parallelizing the computation of the constraints. Being based on PBDs guarantees efficiency and real‐time performances while enduring robustness and unconditional stability. We demonstrate the visual quality and the performance of our approach with a variety of skeleton‐driven soft body characters.
Effect of Bifidobacterium longum and inulin on gut bacterial metabolism and carcinogen-induced aberrant crypt foci in rats.

The effect of Bifidobacterium longum (4 x 10(8) viable cells/g diet) and a derivative of inulin ('Raftiline HP'; 5% w/w in diet) on colonic aberrant crypt foci (ACF) induced by the colon carcinogen azoxymethane (AOM) has been studied. The concentration of ammonia, a putative tumour promoter produced by bacterial degradation of protein and urea, and the activities of certain bacterial enzymes thought to play a role in colon carcinogenesis, beta-glucuronidase and beta-glucosidase were also assayed. Consumption of either B. longum or inulin was associated with a decrease (26 and 41%, respectively) in AOM-induced small ACF (i.e. those comprising 1-3 aberrant crypts per focus). Combined administration of the bifidobacterium and inulin resulted in more potent inhibition of ACF than administration of the two separately, achieving 80% inhibition of small ACF. Furthermore, the combined administration significantly decreased the incidence (by 59%) of large ACF (>4 aberrant crypts per focus), which are considered to be predictive of eventual tumour incidence. Since the dietary treatments were started 1 week after the carcinogen dose, the results suggest that B. longum and inulin may be affecting the early promotion phase of the carcinogenic process. Consumption of diets containing B. longum, inulin or both were also associated with decreases in beta-glucuronidase activity and ammonia concentration in the caecal contents. Both these factors have been associated with carcinogenesis of the colon in experimental animal models. In rats given inulin-containing diets (with or without B. longum) an increase in caecal wt and beta-glucosidase activity and a decrease in caecal pH were observed. The results suggest that consumption of B. longum or inulin was associated with potentially beneficial changes in caecal physiology and bacterial metabolic activity in relation to tumour risk and in the incidence of putative preneoplastic lesions in the colon. The results also indicated that combined treatment with the two agents was more effective in reducing colonic lesions.
Cytosolic recognition of flagellin by mouse macrophages restricts Legionella pneumophila infection

To restrict infection by Legionella pneumophila, mouse macrophages require Naip5, a member of the nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain leucine-rich repeat family of pattern recognition receptors, which detect cytoplasmic microbial products. We report that mouse macrophages restricted L. pneumophila replication and initiated a proinflammatory program of cell death when flagellin contaminated their cytosol. Nuclear condensation, membrane permeability, and interleukin-1β secretion were triggered by type IV secretion-competent bacteria that encode flagellin. The macrophage response to L. pneumophila was independent of Toll-like receptor signaling but correlated with Naip5 function and required caspase 1 activity. The L. pneumophila type IV secretion system provided only pore-forming activity because listeriolysin O of Listeria monocytogenes could substitute for its contribution. Flagellin monomers appeared to trigger the macrophage response from perforated phagosomes: once heated to disassemble filaments, flagellin triggered cell death but native flagellar preparations did not. Flagellin made L. pneumophila vulnerable to innate immune mechanisms because Naip5+ macrophages restricted the growth of virulent microbes, but flagellin mutants replicated freely. Likewise, after intratracheal inoculation of Naip5+ mice, the yield of L. pneumophila in the lungs declined, whereas the burden of flagellin mutants increased. Accordingly, macrophages respond to cytosolic flagellin by a mechanism that requires Naip5 and caspase 1 to restrict bacterial replication and release proinflammatory cytokines that control L. pneumophila infection.
A receding horizon approach to multi-agent planning from local LTL specifications

We study the problem of control synthesis for multi-agent systems, to achieve complex, high-level, long-term goals that are assigned to each agent individually. As the agents might not be capable of satisfying their respective goals by themselves, requests for other agents' collaborations are a part of the task descriptions. Particularly, we consider that the task specification takes a form of a linear temporal logic formula, which may contain requirements and constraints on the other agent's behavior. A traditional automata-based approach to multi-agent strategy synthesis from such specifications builds on centralized planning for the whole team and thus suffers from extreme computational demands. In this work, we aim at reducing the computational complexity by decomposing the strategy synthesis problem into short horizon planning problems that are solved iteratively, upon the run of the agents. We discuss the correctness of the solution and find assumptions, under which the proposed iterative algorithm leads to provable eventual satisfaction of the desired specifications.
Development of reading vocabulary in children with and without hearing loss: A longitudinal perspective

The main point of our study was to examine the reading vocabulary knowledge of pupils in Grades 3-6, and in particular the relative reading vocabulary disadvantage of hearing-impaired pupils. The achievements of 394 pupils with normal hearing and 106 pupils with a hearing impairment were examined on two reading vocabulary assessment tasks: a lexical decision task and a use decision task. The target words in both tasks represent the reading vocabulary children should have at the end of primary school. The results showed that most hearing pupils reached this norm, whereas most hearing-impaired pupils did not In addition, results showed that hearing-impaired pupils not only knew fewer words, but that they also knew them less well. This lack of deeper knowledge remained even when matching hearing and hearingimpaired children on minimal word knowledge. Additionally, comparison of the two tasks demonstrated the efficacy of the lexical decision task as a measure of lexical semantic knowledge. * This chapter was published as: Coppens, K. M. , Tellings, Α. , Verhoeven, L, & Schreuder, R. (2011). Depth of Reading Vocabulary in Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Children. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 24(4), 463-477.
An integrated model of soil, hydrology, and vegetation for carbon dynamics in wetland ecosystems

Wetland ecosystems are an important component in global carbon (C) cycles and may exert a large influence on global climate change. Predictions of C dynamics require us to consider interactions among many critical factors of soil, hydrology, and vegetation. However, few such integrated C models exist for wetland ecosystems. In this paper, we report a simulation model, Wetland‐DNDC, for C dynamics and methane (CH4) emissions in wetland ecosystems. The general structure of Wetland‐DNDC was adopted from PnET‐N‐DNDC, a process‐oriented biogeochemical model that simulates C and N dynamics in upland forest ecosystems. Several new functions and algorithms were developed for Wetland‐DNDC to capture the unique features of wetland ecosystems, such as water table dynamics, growth of mosses and herbaceous plants, and soil biogeochemical processes under anaerobic conditions. The model has been validated against various observations from three wetland sites in Northern America. The validation results are in agreement with the measurements of water table dynamics, soil temperature, CH4 fluxes, net ecosystem productivity (NEP), and annual C budgets. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the most critical input factors for C dynamics in the wetland ecosystems are air temperature, water outflow parameters, initial soil C content, and plant photosynthesis capacity. NEP and CH4 emissions are sensitive to many of the tested input variables. By integrating the primary drivers of climate, hydrology, soil and vegetation, the Wetland‐DNDC model is capable of predicting C biogeochemical cycles in wetland ecosystems.
Isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from the limpet Cellana grata

This note describes the development of nine polymorphic microsatellite loci in the limpet Cellana grata to investigate population structure and cohort variation in this species. The number of alleles ranged from seven to 22 and observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.62 to 0.95. Deviation from the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium was detected in two loci, both as a result of heterozygote deficiency. Null alleles were detected in one of these loci. These genetic markers will be used to investigate the genetic structure of C. grata populations, as well as variation among cohorts of this common intertidal species.
Insights into the Mechanism of Memory Allocation Through the Trapping and Activating of Emotional Memories

While the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the acquisition, consolidation, reconsolidation and retrieval of memory have attracted a considerable amount of attention in neuroscience, very little is known about memory allocation, the process that determines which neurons in a network store a given memory. Computationally, it is highly advantageous to be able to correctly file and cross-reference memories in the brain, and memory allocation provides for this. Previous results from our laboratory have suggested that the transcription factor CREB (cAMP-response element binding protein) has a role in memory allocation; increasing the level of CREB in a subset of neurons increased the probability that these neurons stored a memory. Initially, I explored the functionality of these CREB-biased memory neurons by specifically activating them, utilizing a novel technique called optogenetics. I demonstrated that activation of only the CREB-biased memory neurons is sufficient to elicit recall. This confirms a widely held, yet hitherto largely unproven, belief in the neuroscience community that activating the specific neurons that store a memory will lead to the retrieval of that memory. Although mechanisms for CREB's role in memory allocation have been proposed, to date, none has been validated. Here, I have established that increasing neuronal excitability (the likelihood that a neuron responds to a given input) in a subset of neurons can allocate memories in a way analogous to increasing levels of CREB. These results are highly suggestive that increased neuronal excitability is the mechanism by which CREB allocates memory. This research will advance not only our understanding of CREB's role in memory allocation, it will also elucidate memory mechanisms that could ultimately aid in the development of treatments for disorders thought to be caused by abnormal memory allocation, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Mass-Spring Based Point-Sampled Surface Modelling

In this paper, a physically based modelling method for point-sampled surface is proposed based on mass-spring system. First, a Delaunay based simplification algorithm is applied to the original point-sampled surface to produce the simplified point-sampled surface. Then the mass-spring system for the simplified pointsampled surface is constructed by using tangent planes to address the lack of connectivity information. Finally, the deformed point-sampled surface is obtained by transferring the deformation of the simplified pointsampled surface. Experiments on both open and closed point-sampled surfaces illustrate the validity of the proposed method.
Understanding the religious behaviour of Muslims in Europe: a comparative study of the Netherlands and Britain

The position of Muslims in Western societies is the subject of intense study and debate. However, remarkably little attention has been paid to the practice of European Muslims and how Muslim religiosity relates to conventional measures of social and economic integration. In this paper we draw on theories of secularization, assimilation, revitalization and integration to explore the correlates of attendance at religious meetings for Muslims of different backgrounds in the Netherlands and the UK. We conclude that patterns of religiosity and secularisation cannot be generalised across national contexts.
Adapting Predicate Frames for Urdu PropBanking

Hindi and Urdu are two standardized registers of what has been called the Hindustani language, which belongs to the IndoAryan language family. Although, both the varieties share a common grammar, they differ significantly in their vocabulary to an extent where both become mutually incomprehensible (Masica, 1993). Hindi draws its vocabulary from Sanskrit while Urdu draws its vocabulary from Persian, Arabic and even Turkish. In this paper, we present our efforts to adopt frames of nominal and verbal predicates that Urdu shares with either Hindi or Arabic for Urdu PropBanking. We discuss the feasibility of porting such frames from either of the sources (Arabic or Hindi) and also present a simple and reasonably accurate method to automatically identify the origin of Urdu words which is a necessary step in the process of porting such frames.
Image Matching and Retrieval by Repetitive Patterns

Detection of repetitive patterns in images has been studied for a long time in computer vision. This paper discusses a method for representing a lattice or line pattern by shift-invariant descriptor of the repeating element. The descriptor overcomes shift ambiguity and can be matched between different a views. The pattern matching is then demonstrated in retrieval experiment, where different images of the same buildings are retrieved solely by repetitive patterns.
Geometric Convergence of Genetic Algorithms Under Tempered Random Restart

Geometric convergence to 0 of the probability that the goal has not been encountered by the nth generation is established for a class of genetic algorithms. These algorithms employ a quickly decreasing mutation rate and a crossover which restarts the algorithm in a controlled way depending on the current population and restricts execution of this crossover to occasions when progress of the algorithm is too slow. It is shown that without the crossover studied here, which amounts to a tempered restart of the algorithm, the asserted geometric convergence need not hold.
Static and dynamic analysis of the Internet's susceptibility to faults and attacks

The susceptibility of the Internet to random faults, malicious attacks, and mixtures of faults and attacks are analyzed. We analyze actual Internet data, as well as simulated data created with network models. The network models generalize previous research, and allow generation of graphs ranging from uniform to preferential, and from static to dynamic. We introduce new metrics for analyzing the connectivity and performance of networks which improve upon metrics used in earlier research. Previous research has shown that preferential networks like the Internet are more robust to random failures compared to uniform networks. We find that preferential networks, including the Internet, are more robust only when more than 95% of failures are random faults, and robustness is measured with average diameter. The advantage of preferential networks disappears with alternative metrics, and when a small fraction of faults are attacks. We also identify dynamic characteristics of the Internet which can be used to create improved network models. This model should allow more accurate analysis for the future Internet, for example facilitating the design of network protocols with optimal performance in the future, or predicting future attack and fault tolerance. We find that the Internet is becoming more preferential as it evolves. The average diameter has been stable or even decreasing as the number of nodes has been increasing. The Internet is becoming more robust to random failures over time, but has also become more vulnerable to attacks.
Sexual and reproductive health and rights in the post-2015 development agenda

Women's health is currently shaped by the confluence of two important policy trends – the evolution of health system reform policies and from the early 1990s onwards, a strong articulation of a human rights-based approach to health that has emphasised laws and policies to advance gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). The drive for sexual and reproductive rights represents an inclusive trend towards human rights to health that goes beyond the right to health services, directing attention to girls' and women's rights to bodily autonomy, integrity and choice in relation to sexuality and reproduction. Such an expanded concept of the right to health is essential if laws, policies and programmes are to respect, protect and fulfil the health of girls and women. However, this expanded understanding has been ghettoised from the more mainstream debates on the right to health and was only partially included in the Millennium Development Goals. The paper argues in favour of a twofold approach in placing SRHR effectively in the context of the post-2015 development agenda: first, firmly ground it in an inclusive approach to the right to health; and second, drawing on two decades of national-level implementation, propose a forward-looking agenda focusing on quality, equality and accountability in policies and in programmes. This can build on good practice while addressing critical challenges central to the development framework itself.