Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Model-based traffic control for balanced reduction of fuel consumption, emissions, and travel time

Abstract In this paper we integrate the macroscopic traffic flow model METANET with the microscopic dynamic emission and fuel consumption model VT-Micro. We use the integrated models in the model predictive control (MPC) framework to reduce exhaust emissions, fuel consumption, and travel time using dynamic speed limit control. With simulation experiments we demonstrate the countereffects and conflicting nature of the different traffic control objectives. Our simulation results indicate that a model-based traffic control approach, particularly MPC, can be used to obtain a balanced trade-off between the conflicting traffic control objectives.
Second-Order Synchrosqueezing Transform or Invertible Reassignment? Towards Ideal Time-Frequency Representations

This paper considers the analysis of multicomponent signals, defined as superpositions of real or complex modulated waves. It introduces two new post-transformations for the short-time Fourier transform that achieve a compact time-frequency representation while allowing for the separation and the reconstruction of the modes. These two new transformations thus benefit from both the synchrosqueezing transform (which allows for reconstruction) and the reassignment method (which achieves a compact time-frequency representation). Numerical experiments on real and synthetic signals demonstrate the efficiency of these new transformations, and illustrate their differences.
Disease Comorbidity Network Guides the Detection of Molecular Evidence for the Link Between Colorectal Cancer and Obesity

Epidemiological studies suggested that obesity increases the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). The genetic connection between CRC and obesity is multifactorial and inconclusive. In this study, we hypothesize that the study of shared comorbid diseases between CRC and obesity can offer unique insights into common genetic basis of these two diseases. We constructed a comorbidity network based on mining health data for millions of patients. We developed a novel approach and extracted the diseases that play critical roles in connecting obesity and CRC in the comorbidity network. Our approach was able to prioritize metabolic syndrome and diabetes, which are known to be associated with obesity and CRC through insulin resistance pathways. Interestingly, we found that osteoporosis was highly associated with the connection between obesity and CRC. Through gene expression meta-analysis, we identified novel genes shared among CRC, obesity and osteoporosis. Literature evidences support that these genes may contribute in explaining the genetic overlaps between obesity and CRC.
Independent effects of imageability and grammatical class in synonym judgement in aphasia.

BACKGROUND The grammatical class effect in aphasia, i.e. dissociated processing of words according to their respective grammatical class, has been attributed to either grammatical, lexical or semantic (i.e., imageability) deficits. This study explores the hypotheses of impaired semantic treatment as the source of the grammatical class effect in aphasia. METHOD A synonym judgement task that includes nouns and verbs of high and low imageability has been administered to 30 Spanish-speaking patients suffering from receptive or productive aphasia and 30 controls. RESULTS Normal controls performed significantly better than aphasic patients. Although globally the productive aphasics performed significantly better than the receptive aphasics, grammatical class (nouns better than verbs) and imageability (high imageability better than low imageability) affected performance in both subgroups. No significant interaction emerged between these two factors. CONCLUSION The results suggest that the grammatical class effect may emerge from semantic impairment and that it is -at least partially- independent of the imageability of words.
A Knowledge Request-Broker Architecture for Development of Artificial Social Intelligence

Artificial social intelligence is about making better intelligent systems out of a group of cooperating less intelligent problem solver agents. Better intelligence can be achieved by having expert agent with diverse expertise cooperating and working on the same problem. For that purpose a platform is required, which, in one hand, provides the freedom for developers to implement any form of solution in their agents, and in the other hand, facilitates mutual understanding between heterogeneous agents by standardizing the way they represent and inquire knowledge. While must published works are concerned with one or the other, the Knowledge Request Broker (KRB) system reported in this paper supports both requirements, and is made specifically for intelligent agents. This paper proposes an architecture for KRB, and provides a practical example for its usage in solving curve-fitting problems.
The design and implementation of wireless intelligent light control system base on Zigbee light link

Intelligent light control system is one of major application of smart home. In this paper, a way to construct intelligent light control system is introduced, advancing a new and practical design of intelligent system base on the latest Zigbee Light Link standard which is set by Zigbee alliance. The system is composed of three main components: (i) gateway module; (ii) LED bulbs; (iii) client application based on Android OS. In this paper, firstly, explain concepts of Zigbee Light Link standard and architecture of intelligent light control system and then introduce some important hardware design and the key software design in detail. Finally, in order to prove that the control system has good robustness, some tests were conducted. The result has shown that this system can achieve good performance.
A dual-band monopole antenna for mobile communications

In this paper, a dual-band, compact, lightweight and low-cost surface-mount monopole antenna is proposed. This antenna can generate two separate resonant modes and operate in two frequency bands. The antenna has a monopole configuration, obtained by folding a metallic strip onto a low profile rectangular foam base, and is mounted on a substrate. It is fed by a 50 /spl Omega/ microstrip line. A prototype of the proposed antenna has been fabricated and tested. The lower band covers the GSM900 band, and the upper band covers both DCS 1800 and PCS 1900 bands.
Africa's changing agricultural development strategies: past and present paradigms as a guide to the future

In this paper, Christopher L. Delgado, of IFPRI's senior research staff, takes a critical look at the changing paradigms of agricultural development that have influenced agricultural policy in Africa since the colonial era. The review shows how current approaches to meeting Africa's agricultural challenges to the year 2020 developed. It concludes that Africans have had relatively little input into the intellectual bases of strategies affecting their rural areas, a situation that must be changed if future strategies are to be effective in dealing with Africa's problems of development.
Loop exploration for SLAM with fusion of advanced sonar features and laser polar scan matching

SLAM is a well studied technique for robots to build a map of environments while at the same time keeping track of their pose (position and orientation). However SLAM does not provide control approaches for how the robot moves around the environment. This paper presents an integrated approach to create a fully autonomous exploring and mapping robot. An EKF-SLAM approach is used to fuse Advanced Sonar and Laser Scan-Matching. This also tackles the problem of map-drifts in some types of environment where lasers do not supply sufficient information in some directions such as along a corridor. In addition, the proposed exploration algorithm takes advantage of the characteristic of the Voronoi Graph to enable the robot to strategically explore the environments in a loop-closing fashion and safe manner. By revisiting areas to close loops as early as possible, the robot can build a more stable map incrementally while still reliably tracking its pose. Experimental results of the integrated approach are shown to demonstrate the algorithm provides real-time exploration of a mobile robot in an initially unknown real environment. Experimental comparisons of exploration strategies with and without early local loop closing demonstrate the benefits of the approach in the map quality.
The Shaping of Two Distinct Dendritic Spikes by A-Type Voltage-Gated K+ Channels

Dendritic ion channels have been a subject of intense research in neuroscience because active ion channels in dendrites shape input signals. Ca2+-permeable channels including NMDA receptors (NMDARs) have been implicated in supralinear dendritic integration, and the IA conductance in sublinear integration. Despite their essential roles in dendritic integration, it has remained uncertain whether these conductance coordinate with, or counteract, each other in the process of dendritic integration. To address this question, experiments were designed in hippocampal CA1 neurons with a recent 3D digital holography system that has shown excellent performance for spatial photoactivation. The results demonstrated a role of IA as a key modulator for two distinct dendritic spikes, low- and high-threshold Ca2+ spikes, through a preferential action of IA on Ca2+-permeable channel-mediated currents, over fast AMPAR-mediated currents. It is likely that the rapid kinetics of IA provides feed-forward inhibition to counteract the regenerative Ca2+ channel-mediated dendritic excitability. This research reveals one dynamic ionic mechanism of dendritic integration, and may contribute to a new understanding of neuronal hyperexcitability embedded in several neural diseases such as epilepsy, fragile X syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease.
The transcriptionally active regions in the genome of Bacillus subtilis

The majority of all genes have so far been identified and annotated systematically through in silico gene finding. Here we report the finding of 3662 strand‐specific transcriptionally active regions (TARs) in the genome of Bacillus subtilis by the use of tiling arrays. We have measured the genome‐wide expression during mid‐exponential growth on rich (LB) and minimal (M9) medium. The identified TARs account for 77.3% of the genes as they are currently annotated and additionally we find 84 putative non‐coding RNAs (ncRNAs) and 127 antisense transcripts. One ncRNA, ncr22, is predicted to act as a translational control on cstA and an antisense transcript was observed opposite the housekeeping sigma factor sigA. Through this work we have discovered a long conserved 3′ untranslated region (UTR) in a group of membrane‐associated genes that is predicted to fold into a large and highly stable secondary structure. One of the genes having this tail is efeN, which encodes a target of the twin‐arginine translocase (Tat) protein translocation system.
Experiments on formation switching for mobile robots

In this paper, we address the problem of distributed role assignment for multiple mobile robots. This problem arises when a mobile robot in the team must decide what role to take on in a desired formation configuration. In some applications, in which the center and the orientation of a desired formation are not predetermined, the rotation and translation of the formation can be computed by using average consensus protocols. However, a conflict arises when the same role is assigned to more than one robot. This problem is resolved by using a negotiation strategy, while each assigned robot is traveling to the target position. We evaluate our proposed framework through two experiments on a team of physical nonholonomic mobile robots, i.e., (i) robots reconfigure themselves from one formation to another, and (ii) formation switching happens, while each robot is following a reference path.
Neural Networks and the Classification of Active Galactic Nucleus Spectra

Abstract The use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) as a classifier of digital spectra is investigated. Using both simulated and real data, it is shown that neural networks can be trained to discriminate between the spectra of different classes of active galactic nucleus (AGN) with realistic sample sizes and signal-to-noise ratios. By working in the Fourier domain, neural nets can classify objects without knowledge of their redshifts.
Overexpression of the rhamnose catabolism regulatory protein, RhaR: a novel mechanism for metronidazole resistance in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron

Objectives The aim of the investigation was to use in vitro transposon mutagenesis to generate metronidazole resistance in the obligately anaerobic pathogenic bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, and to identify the genes involved to enable investigation of potential mechanisms for the generation of metronidazole resistance. Methods The genes affected by the transposon insertion were identified by plasmid rescue and sequencing. Expression levels of the relevant genes were determined by semi-quantitative RNA hybridization and catabolic activity by lactate dehydrogenase/pyruvate oxidoreductase assays. Results A metronidazole-resistant mutant was isolated and the transposon insertion site was identified in an intergenic region between the rhaO and rhaR genes of the gene cluster involved in the uptake and catabolism of rhamnose. Metronidazole resistance was observed during growth in defined medium containing either rhamnose or glucose. The metronidazole-resistant mutant showed improved growth in the presence of rhamnose as compared with the wild-type parent. There was increased transcription of all genes of the rhamnose gene cluster in the presence of rhamnose and glucose, likely due to the transposon providing an additional promoter for the rhaR gene, encoding the positive transcriptional regulator of the rhamnose operon. The B. thetaiotaomicron metronidazole resistance phenotype was recreated by overexpressing the rhaR gene in the B. thetaiotaomicron wild-type parent. Both the metronidazole-resistant transposon mutant and RhaR overexpression strains displayed a phenotype of higher lactate dehydrogenase and lower pyruvate oxidoreductase activity in comparison with the parent strain during growth in rhamnose. Conclusions These data indicate that overexpression of the rhaR gene generates metronidazole resistance in B. thetaiotaomicron
Query folding

Query folding refers to the activity of determining if and how a query can be answered using a given set of resources, which might be materialized views, cached results of previous queries, or queries answerable by other databases. We investigate query folding in the context where queries and resources are conjunctive queries. We develop an exponential time algorithm that finds all complete or partial foldings, and a polynomial time algorithm for the subclass of acyclic conjunctive queries. Our results can be applied to query optimization in centralized databases, to query processing in distributed databases, and to query answering in federated databases.
New Symmetrically Esterified m-Bromobenzyl Non-Aminobisphosphonates Inhibited Breast Cancer Growth and Metastases

Background Although there was growing evidence in the potential use of Bisphosphonates (BPs) in cancer therapy, their strong osseous affinities that contrast their poor soft tissue uptake limited their use. Here, we developed a new strategy to overcome BPs hydrophilicity by masking the phosphonic acid through organic protecting groups and introducing hydrophobic functions in the side chain. Methodology/Principal Findings We synthesized non-nitrogen BPs (non N-BPs) containing bromobenzyl group (BP7033Br) in their side chain that were symmetrically esterified with hydrophobic 4-methoxphenyl (BP7033BrALK) and assessed their effects on breast cancer estrogen-responsive cells (T47D, MCF-7) as well as on non responsive ones (SKBR3, MDA-MB-231 and its highly metastatic derived D3H2LN subclone). BP7033Br ALK was more efficient in inhibiting tumor cell proliferation, migration and survival when compared to BP7033Br. Although both compounds inhibited tumor growth without side effects, only BP7033Br ALK abrogated tumor angiogenesis and D3H2LN cells-induced metastases formation. Conclusion/Significance Taken together these data suggest the potential therapeutic use of this new class of esterified Bisphosphonates (BPs) in the treatment of tumor progression and metastasis without toxic adverse effects.
Exact and geometrical optics energy trajectories in twisted beams

Energy trajectories, that is, integral curves of the Poynting (current) vector, are calculated for scalar Bessel and Laguerre–Gauss beams carrying orbital angular momentum. The trajectories for the exact waves are helices, winding on cylinders for Bessel beams and hyperboloidal surfaces for Laguerre–Gauss beams. In the geometrical optics approximations, the trajectories for both types of beam are overlapping families of straight skew rays lying on hyperboloidal surfaces; the envelopes of the hyperboloids are the caustics: a cylinder for Bessel beams and two hyperboloids for Laguerre–Gauss beams.
Exploiting CPU SIMD Extensions to Speed-up Document Scoring with Tree Ensembles

Scoring documents with learning-to-rank (LtR) models based on large ensembles of regression trees is currently deemed one of the best solutions to effectively rank query results to be returned by large scale Information Retrieval systems. This paper investigates the opportunities given by SIMD capabilities of modern CPUs to the end of efficiently evaluating regression trees ensembles. We propose V-QuickScorer (vQS), which exploits SIMD extensions to vectorize the document scoring, i.e., to perform the ensemble traversal by evaluating multiple documents simultaneously. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of vQS against the state of the art on three publicly available datasets. Experiments show that vQS provides speed-ups up to a factor of 3.2x.
The illness perceptions associated with health and behavioural outcomes in people with musculoskeletal hand problems: findings from the North Staffordshire Osteoarthritis Project (NorStOP).

OBJECTIVE Illness perceptions may influence health outcomes, including pain. The objective of the study was to investigate the illness perceptions associated with health and behaviour in a population of older adults with musculoskeletal hand problems. METHODS A two-stage cross-sectional postal survey was sent to individuals aged 50 yrs and over, registered with three general practices in North Staffordshire. Stage 1, a Health Survey questionnaire, was sent to 11,230 individuals and enquired about general health status, including anxiety and depression. Individuals reporting hand problems at Stage 1 were sent Stage 2, a detailed hand questionnaire. The hand questionnaire included: the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales 2 (AIMS2) (hand and finger function, pain and medication scales), and questions on self-reported diagnoses and general practitioner (GP) consultation. Perceptions were measured by the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R), and an item on perceived frustration with their hand problems. Of the 7878 responders to the Health Survey questionnaire 3749 (47.6%) reported 'hand problems' and 2695 (71.9%) gave permission to be re-contacted. The hand questionnaire was completed by 2113 (adjusted response rate 78.6%). RESULTS A belief that their hand problem had a profound impact on life, caused a range of symptoms and made them frustrated were the perceptions most strongly and consistently associated with health and behaviour. There was little difference between individuals who did and those who did not report their hand problem to be osteoarthritis with respect to perceptions or between perceptions associated with health and behaviour. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that older people who consider their musculoskeletal hand problem to have negative effects on their life will be more likely to encounter difficulties that may lead them to consult, take medication or both. Understanding the illness perceptions of these individuals may identify opportunities for intervention.
Quali-quantitative analysis in the spectrophotometric diagnosis of cutaneous melanoma

This article presents a set of software tools which are used in conjunction with spectrophotometric technology to support the quali-quantitative analysis of pigmented lesions and their classification as either benign or malignant on the basis of their dominant spectral features. The software components interact with their hardware counterparts to acquire, reduce and analyse spectral images of the lesion directly from the patient’s skin. While the system is not intended to replace the specialist’s judgment in the diagnosis of melanoma, there is an indication that clearly negative cases can be discriminated against unclear cases requiring further investigation.
On the complexity of deriving schema mappings from database instances

We introduce a theoretical framework for discovering relationships between two database instances over distinct and unknown schemata. This framework is grounded in the context of data exchange. We formalize the problem of understanding the relationship between two instances as that of obtaining a schema mapping so that a minimum repair of this mapping provides a perfect description of the target instance given the source instance. We show that this definition yields "intuitive" results when applied on database instances derived from each other by basic operations. We study the complexity of decision problems related to this optimality notion in the context of different logical languages and show that, even in very restricted cases, the problem is of high complexity.
Detecting sound‐wave‐like surface brightness ripples in cluster cores

We investigate the observational requirements for the detection of sound-wave-like features in galaxy cluster cores. We calculate the effect of projection on the observed wave amplitude, and find that the projection factor depends only weakly on the underlying cluster properties but strongly on the wavelength of the sound waves, with the observed amplitude being reduced by a factor of ∼5 for 5 kpc waves but only by a factor of ∼2 for 25 kpc waves. We go on to estimate the time needed to detect ripples similar to those previously detected in the Perseus cluster in other clusters. We find that the detection time-scales most strongly with the flux of the cluster and the amplitude of the ripples. By connecting the ripple amplitude to the heating power in the system, we estimate detection times for a selection of local clusters and find that several may have ripples detected with ∼1-Ms Chandra time.
French Reportive Comme Clauses: a case of parenthetical adjunction

The French system of reported speech exhibits a particular construction introduced by the adverb comme—often translated by as in English. We call it Reportive Comme Clause (henceforth RCC). This construction has not received much attention in the French literature, mostly because the range of uses of comme is wide and fairly complex. But RCCs combine a large number of interesting syntactic, lexical and semantic features that justify considering them as a distinct construction. Among works on the English counterpart of RCCs, we can mention Ross (1967), Partee (1973), and more recently Lapointe (1991) which presents a null operator analysis.
Bayesian Compressive Sensing in Radar Systems

Compressive Sensing (CS) is presented in a Bayesian framework for realistic radar cases whose likelihood or priors are usually non-Gaussian. Its sparse-signal processing is modelbased and detection-driven, and also done numerically using Monte-Carlo methods. This approach aims for the stochastic description of sparse solutions, and the flexibility to use any prior information on signals or on data acquisition, as well as any distribution of noise or clutter, without the need for a closed analytic form of the Bayesian solution. This flexible Bayesian CS is shown by comparison with its closed-form predecessors.