Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal relay selection and power control for energy-harvesting wireless relay networks

Ambient energy harvesting has emerged as a promising technique to improve the energy efficiency and reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions for green relay networks. In this paper, we study the joint relay selection and power control problem for the Decode-and-Forward energy-harvesting wireless relay network. In particular, the problem formulation is to maximize the end-to-end system throughput by a deadline under the limitations of data and energy storage. To solve the problem, we decompose such an optimization problem into two subproblems: the joint time scheduling and power control subproblem and the relay selection subproblem. Due to the convex nature of the joint time scheduling and power control subproblem, we derive the optimal solution via the primal decomposition. Based on the obtained system throughput, we can quickly select the best relay that achieves the maximum throughput. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can guarantee the maximum system throughput, in comparison with some existing algorithms.
Experimental comparison of various metrics on power de-rating prediction

Efficiency and linearity of radio-frequency power amplifier (RF PA) are two conflicting requirements in wireless communication systems. In order to ensure efficiency, the PA operating power needs to be accurately de-rated from its saturation region while meeting the linearity requirement of a system. In this paper, experiments are carried out to compare the accuracies of using peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), cubic metric (CM), and distortion component metric (DCM), to predict the necessary power de-rating of RF PA. Experimental results show that the prediction accuracy of DCM is superior to those of PAPR and CM under the error vector magnitude (EVM) and adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) requirements.
Recent Progress in Energy‐Driven Water Splitting

Hydrogen is readily obtained from renewable and non‐renewable resources via water splitting by using thermal, electrical, photonic and biochemical energy. The major hydrogen production is generated from thermal energy through steam reforming/gasification of fossil fuel. As the commonly used non‐renewable resources will be depleted in the long run, there is great demand to utilize renewable energy resources for hydrogen production. Most of the renewable resources may be used to produce electricity for driving water splitting while challenges remain to improve cost‐effectiveness. As the most abundant energy resource, the direct conversion of solar energy to hydrogen is considered the most sustainable energy production method without causing pollutions to the environment. In overall, this review briefly summarizes thermolytic, electrolytic, photolytic and biolytic water splitting. It highlights photonic and electrical driven water splitting together with photovoltaic‐integrated solar‐driven water electrolysis.
Scorpions from the primeval subgenus Archaeotityus produce putative homologs of Tityus serrulatus toxins active on voltage-gated sodium channels

It has been proposed that the subgenus Archaeotityus comprises the most ancient species group within the medically important scorpion genus Tityus. cDNA encoding sodium-channel active toxins from the type species of this subgenus, Tityus clathratus (central Venezuela), have been isolated and sequenced. Two cDNAs were retrieved that encoded 61 amino acid-long putative neurotoxins named Tcl1 and Tcl2. Sequence identity was highest (87%) when both were compared with β-toxin Ts1 from the Brazilian scorpion Tityus serrulatus and its homologs from T. bahiensis, T. stigmurus, and T. costatus. A Bayesian analysis indicated statistical support for the grouping of T. clathratus Tcl1 and Tcl2 with Brazilian gamma-like β-toxins, reinforcing previous phylogenetic studies which suggested an evolutionary relationship between the subgenus Archaeotityus and scorpion species inhabiting southeast South America belonging to the subgenus Tityus.
Behavioural responses to video and live presentations of females reveal a dissociation between performance and motivational aspects of birdsong

ABSTRACT Understanding the regulation of social behavioural expression requires insight into motivational and performance aspects. While a number of studies have independently assessed these aspects of social behaviours, few have examined how they relate to each other. By comparing behavioural variation in response to live or video presentations of conspecific females, we analysed how variation in the motivation to produce courtship song covaries with variation in performance aspects of courtship song in male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). In agreement with previous reports, we observed that male zebra finches were less motivated to produce courtship songs to videos of females than to live presentations of females. However, we found that acoustic features that reflect song performance were not significantly different between songs produced in response to videos of females, and those produced in response to live females. For example, songs directed at video presentations of females were just as fast and stereotyped as songs directed at live females. These experimental manipulations and correlational analyses reveal a dissociation between motivational and performance aspects of birdsong and suggest a refinement of neural models of song production and control. In addition, they support the efficacy of videos to study both motivational and performance aspects of social behaviours. Summary: Zebra finches are less motivated to court videos of females than live females, but courtship songs to these stimuli are similar in performance, suggesting a dissociation between motivation and performance.
CoLoSS: Cognitive Load Corpus with Speech and Performance Data from a Symbol-Digit Dual-Task

In this paper, a new corpus named CoLoSS (Cognitive Load by Speech and performance data in a Symbol-digit dual-task) is presented, which contains speech under cognitive load recorded in a learning task scenario. In order to obtain a reference for cognitive load, a dual-task approach was applied, including a visual-motor primary task that required subjects to learn abstract symbol combinations and an auditory-verbal secondary task to measure the load imposed by the primary task. We report the methodology of collecting the speech recordings, constructing the corpus and describe the properties of the data. Finally, effects of cognitive load on prosodic as well as voice quality features are investigated in conjunction with the corpus. In its current version, the corpus is available to the scientiﬁc community, e.g., for exploring the inﬂuence of cognitive load on speech or conducting experiments for speech-based cognitive load recognition.
SHORT-TERM DYNAMICSAND SPATIAL PATTERN OF NOCTURNAL BIRDS INHABITING

—Short-term dynamics and spatial pattern of nocturnal birds inhabiting a Mediterranean agricultural mosaic. Understanding the interaction between abundance fluctuation and spatial pattern of populations is crucial for designing conservation strategies, particularly in systems such as Mediterranean agricultural mosaics subjected to intensification and weather fluctuations. We investigated the effects of a severe drought on short-term population dynamics of nocturnal birds, a threatened and declining group of species that has been little studied. We addressed three levels (i.e. species, food guild and assemblage) for three consecutive years. The highest fluctuation in abundance occurred for species which feed on invertebrates, and the lowest abundance corresponded to the year after the severe drought. Species that feed on invertebrates occupied different sites in the different season sampling periods, whereas species that feed on vertebrates tended to occur at the same sites throughout the year. At the assemblage level, species composition did not change between years. Patterns of site occurrence and population abundance in different years were mostly spatially congruent; thus, habitat features that are strictly space-dependent are more critical for explaining these patterns than other factors that change over time such as weather. The spatial segregation of little owl Athene noctua and Eurasian scops owl Otus scops is partially attributed to the sedentary character of the former and the migratory character of the latter. The low population fluctuations observed for most species make their conservation more Ardeola 57(2), 2010, 303-320
Improving Hate Speech Detection with Deep Learning Ensembles

Hate speech has become a major issue that is currently a hot topic in the domain of social media. Simultaneously, current proposed methods to address the issue raise concerns about censorship. Broadly speaking, our research focus is the area human rights, including the development of new methods to identify and better address discrimination while protecting freedom of expression. As neural network approaches are becoming state of the art for text classiﬁcation problems, an ensemble method is adapted for usage with neural networks and is presented to better classify hate speech. Our method utilizes a publicly available embedding model, which is tested against a hate speech corpus from Twitter. To conﬁrm robustness of our results, we additionally test against a popular sentiment dataset. Given our goal, we are pleased that our method has a nearly 5 point improvement in F-measure when compared to original work on a publicly available hate speech evaluation dataset. We also note difﬁculties encountered with reproducibility of deep learning methods and comparison of ﬁndings from other work. Based on our experience, more details are needed in published work reliant on deep learning methods, with additional evaluation information a consideration too. This information is provided to foster discussion within the research community for future work.
Design, Manufacturing, and Performance Results of a 1.2-MW Peak, 704-MHz Multibeam Inductive Output Tube

Development overview and test results of a multibeam inductive output tube that produces over 1.2 MW peak power at 704 MHz with over 65% efficiency are presented. This is a collaborative effort between Thales Electron Devices and Communications & Power Industries to design and fabricate a new RF source for the European Spallation Source. The first prototype unit has been designed and built. Initial test at CERN demonstrated output power of 1.2 MW peak, efficiency of 69.8%, and gain of 21.4 dB at 1-ms operation. When the pulselength was increased to 4 ms, instability in the RF output pulse developed as the result of a mechanical contact issue in the output window. The prototype is in the process of being repaired and the unit will be returned to CERN for full characterization and final testing in early 2018.
Stated Preferences for Public Services: A Classification and Survey of Approaches

The wider range of stated preference approaches to value public goods has not been systematically reviewed in recent years. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of this literature and to evaluate the strengths and limitations of alternative approaches. Since the public referendum has served as a ‘blueprint’ for survey design, two key dimensions by which many surveys differ from the public referendum are used for a simple classification of approaches. This yields eleven approaches, including different variants of micro‐based demand surveys, referendum surveys, budget allocation surveys and contingent valuation surveys. Their evaluation in terms of the preference information they produce and the assumptions they require suggests there is no single preferred approach. Instead, each approach has its characteristic profile of strengths and limitations which follow from how it strikes the balance between the conflicting goals of measuring entire willingness‐to‐pay distributions and presenting manageable, credible and incentive compatible questions. Ultimately, judgments about the suitability of alternative approaches for specific objectives should rely on empirical evidence. Progress in the field could greatly benefit from a routine implementation of powerful experimental validity tests in applied work.
Quantifying thermal‐imager effectiveness for detecting bird nests on farms

We conducted a designed experiment to test whether having a thermal‐imaging camera available affected researchers’ nest detection rates when searching for bird nests in cropland and grassland habitat in an agricultural landscape of Iowa, USA, in 2016. With known active nests present, naïve observers searched for nests with and without a thermal imager available. We did not find a difference in detection probabilities, although only a large difference would have been detectable with our sample size. Extraneous heat signatures from reflected solar radiation and dense vegetation were key factors limiting the usefulness of thermal imagers for locating nests. Published 2019. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
Designing a Winning Arimaa Program

In 2015, twelve years after the creation of the Arimaa Challenge, the program SHARP won the Challenge, defeating three strong human opponents with a total of 7 wins and 2 losses. This paper describes the design of the winning agent and the improvements and innovations that led to its recent success. Among these are several innovations greatly increasing the quality and selectivity of the search and several major improvements to the positional evaluation.
Sensitivity of Rooftop PV Projections in the SunShot Vision Study to Market Assumptions

The SunShot Vision Study explored the potential growth of solar markets if solar prices decreased by about 75% from 2010 to 2020. The SolarDS model was used to simulate rooftop PV demand for this study, based on several PV market assumptions--future electricity rates, customer access to financing, and others--in addition to the SunShot PV price projections. This paper finds that modeled PV demand is highly sensitive to several non-price market assumptions, particularly PV financing parameters.
SolCyc: a database hub at the Sol Genomics Network (SGN) for the manual curation of metabolic networks in Solanum and Nicotiana specific databases

Abstract SolCyc is the entry portal to pathway/genome databases (PGDBs) for major species of the Solanaceae family hosted at the Sol Genomics Network. Currently, SolCyc comprises six organism-specific PGDBs for tomato, potato, pepper, petunia, tobacco and one Rubiaceae, coffee. The metabolic networks of those PGDBs have been computationally predicted by the pathologic component of the pathway tools software using the manually curated multi-domain database MetaCyc (http://www.metacyc.org/) as reference. SolCyc has been recently extended by taxon-specific databases, i.e. the family-specific SolanaCyc database, containing only curated data pertinent to species of the nightshade family, and NicotianaCyc, a genus-specific database that stores all relevant metabolic data of the Nicotiana genus. Through manual curation of the published literature, new metabolic pathways have been created in those databases, which are complemented by the continuously updated, relevant species-specific pathways from MetaCyc. At present, SolanaCyc comprises 199 pathways and 29 superpathways and NicotianaCyc accounts for 72 pathways and 13 superpathways. Curator-maintained, taxon-specific databases such as SolanaCyc and NicotianaCyc are characterized by an enrichment of data specific to these taxa and free of falsely predicted pathways. Both databases have been used to update recently created Nicotiana-specific databases for Nicotiana tabacum, Nicotiana benthamiana, Nicotiana sylvestris and Nicotiana tomentosiformis by propagating verifiable data into those PGDBs. In addition, in-depth curation of the pathways in N.tabacum has been carried out which resulted in the elimination of 156 pathways from the 569 pathways predicted by pathway tools. Together, in-depth curation of the predicted pathway network and the supplementation with curated data from taxon-specific databases has substantially improved the curation status of the species–specific N.tabacum PGDB. The implementation of this strategy will significantly advance the curation status of all organism-specific databases in SolCyc resulting in the improvement on database accuracy, data analysis and visualization of biochemical networks in those species. Database URL https://solgenomics.net/tools/solcyc/
Attitudes of Libyan retail consumers toward Islamic methods of finance

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the attitudes of Libyan retail customers to Islamic methods of finance. Design/methodology/approach – The study conducted a survey of 385 Libyan retail consumers. Descriptive, factor and discriminant analyses of responses were performed to identify principal factors affecting attitudes towards and the potential use of Islamic financial products and services. Findings – The results indicate that while most respondents have at least some knowledge about some Islamic products, especially Musharakah (full-equity business partnerships) and Quard Hassan (interest-free benevolent loans), they are generally unaware of many other products. Nonetheless, most respondents (85.9 per cent) are potential users of Islamic methods of finance at the retail level, though potential use varying markedly according to age, level of education, employment, income and nationality. Factor analysis reduces the large number of variables that determine retail consumers’ attitudes towards Islamic me.
Shelf–ocean exchange and hydrography west of the Antarctic Peninsula: a review

The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is a highly productive marine ecosystem where extended periods of change have been observed in the form of glacier retreat, reduction of sea-ice cover and shifts in marine populations, among others. The physical environment on the shelf is known to be strongly influenced by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing along the shelf slope and carrying warm, nutrient-rich water, by cold waters flooding into the northern Bransfield Strait from the Weddell Sea, by an extensive network of glaciers and ice shelves, and by strong seasonal to inter-annual variability in sea-ice formation and air–sea interactions, with significant modulation by climate modes like El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Southern Annular Mode. However, significant gaps have remained in understanding the exchange processes between the open ocean and the shelf, the pathways and fate of oceanic water intrusions, the shelf heat and salt budgets, and the long-term evolution of the shelf properties and circulation. Here, we review how recent advances in long-term monitoring programmes, process studies and newly developed numerical models have helped bridge these gaps and set future research challenges for the WAP system. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The marine system of the West Antarctic Peninsula: status and strategy for progress in a region of rapid change’.
Haemodilution and head-down tilting induce functional injury in the rat optic nerve: A model for peri-operative ischemic optic neuropathy

BACKGROUND Mechanisms of peri-operative ischaemic optic neuropathy remain poorly understood. Both specific pre-operative and intra-operative factors have been examined by retrospective studies, but no animal model currently exists. OBJECTIVES To develop a rodent model of peri-operative ischaemic optic neuropathy. In rats, we performed head-down tilt and/or haemodilution, theorising that the combination damages the optic nerve. DESIGN Animal study. SETTING Laboratory. ANIMALS A total of 36 rats, in four groups, completed the functional examination of retina and optic nerve after the interventions. INTERVENTIONS Anaesthetised groups (n>8) were supine (SUP) for 5 h, head-down tilted 70° for 5 h, head-down tilted/haemodiluted for 5 h or SUP/haemodiluted for 5 h. We measured blood pressure, heart rate, intra-ocular pressure and maintained constant temperature. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS Retinal function (electroretinography), scotopic threshold response (STR) (for retinal ganglion cells) and visual evoked potentials (VEP) (for transmission through the optic nerve). We imaged the optic nerve in vivo and evaluated retinal histology, apoptotic cells and glial activation in the optic nerve. Retinal and optic nerve function were followed to 14 and 28 days after experiments. RESULTS At 28 days in head down tilted/haemodiluted rats, negative STR decreased (about 50% amplitude reduction, P = 0.006), VEP wave N2-P3 decreased (70% amplitude reduction, P = 0.01) and P2 latency increased (35%, P = 0.003), optic discs were swollen and glial activation was present in the optic nerve. SUP/haemodiluted rats had decreases in negative STR and increased VEP latency, but no glial activation. CONCLUSION An injury partly resembling human ischaemic optic neuropathy can be produced in rats by combining haemodilution and head-down tilt. Significant functional changes were also present with haemodilution alone. Future studies with this partial optic nerve injury may enable understanding of mechanisms of peri-operative ischaemic optic neuropathy and could help discover preventive or treatment strategies.
Mining maximal frequent patterns from univariate uncertain data

In this paper, we propose mining maximal frequent patterns from univariate uncertain data. Univariate uncertain data refers to cases where each attribute in a transaction is associated with a quantitative interval and a probability density function that assigns a probability to each value in the interval. The number of frequent U2 patterns (i.e. frequent patterns of univariate uncertain data) is usually very large. To return a concise and informative mining result to users, we propose mining maximal frequent U2 patterns (MFU2Ps). A maximal frequent U2 pattern is a frequent U2 pattern without any frequent superset. The three proposed algorithms, MU2P-Miner, U2GenMax, and U2MAFIA, are different in terms of both the data formats used to store transactions and the structures used to store the MFU2Ps which are found during the mining process. The experiment results show that different algorithms excel when applied to different datasets and settings. We have applied the proposed algorithms to univariate uncertain data comprising measurements of the air quality and weather conditions in Taiwan; the derived MFU2Ps show that the air quality in Taiwan is usually good (unless a sand storm affects the island) and the weather is often wet.
Maximum norm error estimates for the finite element approximation of parabolic problems on smooth domains

In this paper, we consider the finite element approximation for a parabolic problem on a smooth domain $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N$ with the inhomogeneous Neumann boundary condition. We emphasize that the domain can be non-convex in general. We implement the finite element method for this problem by constructing a family of polygonal or polyhedral domains $\{ \Omega_h \}_h$ that approximate the original domain $\Omega$. The main result of this study is the $L^\infty$-error estimate for this approximation. We shall show that the convergence rate is not optimal for higher order elements since the symmetric difference $\Omega \bigtriangleup \Omega_h$ is not empty in general. In order to address the effect of the symmetric difference of domains, we introduce the tubular neighborhood of the original boundary $\partial\Omega$. We will also present a slightly new approach to establish the $L^\infty$-error estimate. Moreover, we present the smoothing property for the discrete parabolic semigroup and the spatially discretized maximal regularity as corollaries of the main result.