Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
City Eye: Accessibility for All

In today's world, making a good travel plan is not an easy task for most people. However, the situation is even more complicated for people with disabilities. For them, even simple trips, such as travelling to visit a museum or an exposition, have become extremely difficult. A wide variety of travel planning needs to be made days or months in advance, such as where, when, and how to travel, as well as how to get around and how to choose a suitable means of transportation. As a response in this ongoing project, our intention is to apply our proposed solution of linked data technologies in the domains of tourism services and e-governance to build a smart city. In particular, we want to provide useful travel information to people with disabilities and to make their travelling easier.
Volume Ranking and Sequential Selection in Programmatic Display Advertising

Programmatic display advertising, which enables advertisers to make real-time decisions on individual ad display opportunities so as to achieve a precise audience marketing, has become a key technique for online advertising. However, the constrained budget setting still restricts unlimited ad impressions. As a result, a smart strategy for ad impression selection is necessary for the advertisers to maximize positive user responses such as clicks or conversions, under the constraints of both ad volume and campaign budget. In this paper, we borrow in the idea of top-N ranking and filtering techniques from information retrieval and propose an effective ad impression volume ranking method for each ad campaign, followed by a sequential selection strategy considering the remaining ad volume and budget, to smoothly deliver the volume filtering while maximizing campaign efficiency. The extensive experiments on two benchmarking datasets and a commercial ad platform demonstrate large performance superiority of our proposed solution over traditional methods, especially under tight budgets.
Why Do Good Girls Have to Be Bad? The Cultural Industry's Production of the Other and the Complexities of Agency

The political economy of popular culture often overlooks the ideologies that determine how identities are commodified. The commodification of what is reductively known as black music is unique because the commodification routinely intersects with historical constructions of blackness and black gender identities. Therefore, any analysis of the relationships between black musical artists and the cultural industries and the subsequent production of performative identities must take into account America's exploitation of black music genres and black sexuality. This article examines the tension between record labels' construction of young black female performing artists, focusing on Atlantic Records' unwillingness to market teenage singer Keke Palmer over her refusal to be “urban. ” Drawing from Ryan and Hesmondhalgh's definition of the cultural industries, Negus's idea that culture produces industry, and Toynbee's explanation of artistic agency within cultural production, the article shows the conflicts that emerge in the commodification process while arguing that the cultural production of black womanhood in popular music continues to be predicated upon historical constructions of Otherness.
Linear precoding for Multi-cell Processing multiuser MIMO systems

In this paper, we consider the problem of cell edge users inter-cell interference cancelation by means of precoding transmission when both end users and Base stations are equipped with multiple antennas. Simple precoding algorithm for downlink multi-user multi-cell multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) systems is introduced. The proposed algorithm maximizes what is called per-antenna signal to leakage plus noise ratio (PA-SLNR) performance criteria and make use of multi-cell spatial diversity to enhance the performance of the cell edge user in the Multi-cell Processing(MCP) scenario. Bit error rate (BER) and output SINR outage performance metrics were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Simulations result shows that the proposed PA - SLNR precoding for MCP outperforms the conversional liner precoding methods.
Novel line-side inverter with active filter option: Two paralleled inverters with high speed direct current control algorithms

This paper presents a novel direct current control algorithm for Voltage Source Inverters (VSI) which combines the advantages of common space vector pulse-width modulation (SVPWM) techniques with the outstanding dynamic performance of direct current control methods. An implementation on a grid-connected line-side inverter is introduced followed by corresponding measurement results. In this connection an active filter option for improved power quality is discussed.
Exploiting Comparable Corpora and Bilingual Dictionaries for Cross-Language Text Categorization

Cross-language Text Categorization is the task of assigning semantic classes to documents written in a target language (e.g. English) while the system is trained using labeled documents in a source language (e.g. Italian). In this work we present many solutions according to the availability of bilingual resources, and we show that it is possible to deal with the problem even when no such resources are accessible. The core technique relies on the automatic acquisition of Multilingual Domain Models from comparable corpora.Experiments show the effectiveness of our approach, providing a low cost solution for the Cross Language Text Categorization task. In particular, when bilingual dictionaries are available the performance of the categorization gets close to that of monolingual text categorization.
Compressive Suture of the Lower Uterine Segment for the Treatment of Postpartum Hemorrhage due to Complete Placenta Previa: A Preliminary Study

Aim: To assess the efficacy of a uterine compression suture technique in controlling hemorrhage after removal of complete placenta previa during cesarean section. Methods: This prospective study was performed in a tertiary referral hospital and included 18 patients with postpartum hemorrhage following removal of complete placenta previa during elective cesarean section. All 18 patients underwent bilateral anteroposterior compression suture of the lower uterine segment. All patients were followed postpartum for evaluation of uterine cavity and menstrual cycles. Results: Anteroposterior compressive suture of the lower uterine segment achieved immediate complete hemostasis in all 18 patients. No surgical complication was observed. All patients recovered normal menstrual cycles. Normal patency of the uterine cavity was documented with sonohysterography in all patients at the 6-month follow-up visit. Conclusions: This quick and simple suture technique seems to be effective in stopping hemorrhage following complete placenta previa removal during cesarean section. Normal patency of the uterine cavity seems not to be impaired at medium-term follow-up.
p53 abnormalities in CLL are associated with excess of prolymphocytes and poor prognosis

To determine the role of the p53 gene in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) and its possible involvement in the pathogenesis of a progressive form of CLL characterized by > 10% prolymphocytes (CLL/PL), we selected 32 cases, 17 with typical morphology and 15 CLL/PL. The extent of inactivation of p53 was examined by assessing loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at 17p13.3, by sequencing the highly conserved region (exons 5–9) of the p53 gene and by analysing p53 protein expression. LOH was detected in 8/28 (29%) cases, p53 mutations in 5/32 (16%) cases and p53 expression in 5/27 (19%) cases. Overall 11 cases (30%) had p53 abnormalities of which eight cases had CLL/PL. There was a significant association between CLL/PL and p53 abnormalities (P = 0.05); 75% of cases with LOH, 80% of p53 mutations and 80% of cases positive for p53 protein had CLL/PL. Thus, p53 inactivation is the first gene abnormality identified so far to be involved in the development of CLL/PL. All the cases with typical CLL and p53 abnormalities had only one allele affected whereas 4/6 CLL/PL had both alleles inactivated. This difference in the extent of p53 inactivation suggests that accumulation of p53 abnormalities may be associated with progression of CLL to CLL/PL.
Local and global localization for mobile robots using visual landmarks

Our mobile robot system uses scale-invariant visual landmarks to localize itself and build a 3D map of the environment simultaneously. As image features are not noise-free, we carry out error analysis and use Kalman filters to track the 3D landmarks, resulting in a database map with landmark positional uncertainty. By matching a set of landmarks as a whole, our robot can localize itself globally based on the database containing landmarks of sufficient distinctiveness. Experiments show that recognition of position within a map without any prior estimate can be achieved using the scale-invariant landmarks.
Arcobacter haliotis sp. nov., isolated from abalone species Haliotis gigantea.

A Gram-negative, aerobic, polar-flagellated and rod-shaped, sometimes slightly curved bacterium, designated MA5T, was isolated from the gut of an abalone of the species Haliotis gigantea collected in Japan. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA, gyrB, hsp60 and rpoB gene sequences placed strain MA5T in the genus Arcobacter in an independent phylogenetic line. Comparison of the 16S rRNA gene sequence of this strain with those of the type strains of the established Arcobacter species revealed A. nitrofigilis (95.1 %) as nearest neighbour. Strain MA5T grew optimally at 25 °C, pH 6.0 to 9.0 and in the presence of 2 to 5 % (w/v) NaCl under both aerobic and microaerobic conditions. The predominant fatty acids found were summed feature 3 (iso-C15 : 0 2-OH and/or C16 : 1 ω7c), C12 : 0 3-OH and C18 : 1 ω7c. Menaquinone-6 (MK-6) and menaquinone-7 (MK-7) were found as the major respiratory quinones. The major polar lipids detected were phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylglycerol. Strain MA5T could be differentiated phenotypically from the phylogenetic closest Arcobacter species by its ability to grow on 0.05 % safranin and 0.01 % 2,3,5-triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC), but not on 0.5 % NaCl. The obtained DNA G+C content of strain MA5T was 27.9 mol%. Based on the phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic distinctiveness of MA5T, this strain is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Arcobacter, for which the name Arcobacter haliotis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MA5T (=LMG 28652T=JCM 31147T).
Perturbation of Auxin Homeostasis and Signaling by PINOID Overexpression Induces Stress Responses in Arabidopsis

Under normal and stress conditions plant growth require a complex interplay between phytohormones and reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, details of the nature of this crosstalk remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate that PINOID (PID), a serine threonine kinase of the AGC kinase family, perturbs auxin homeostasis, which in turn modulates rosette growth and induces stress responses in Arabidopsis plants. Arabidopsis mutants and transgenic plants with altered PID expression were used to study the effect on auxin levels and stress-related responses. In the leaves of plants with ectopic PID expression an accumulation of auxin, oxidative burst and disruption of hormonal balance was apparent. Furthermore, PID overexpression led to the accumulation of antioxidant metabolites, while pid knockout mutants showed only moderate changes in stress-related metabolites. These physiological changes in the plants overexpressing PID modulated their response toward external drought and osmotic stress treatments when compared to the wild type. Based on the morphological, transcriptome, and metabolite results, we propose that perturbations in the auxin hormone levels caused by PID overexpression, along with other hormones and ROS downstream, cause antioxidant accumulation and modify growth and stress responses in Arabidopsis. Our data provide further proof for a strong correlation between auxin and stress biology.
Retroactive aspects: programming in the past

We present a novel approach to the problem of dynamic program analysis: writing analysis code directly into the program source, but evaluating it against a recording of the original program's execution. This approach allows developers to reason about their program in the familiar context of its actual source, and take full advantage of program semantics, data structures, and library functionality for understanding execution. It also gives them the advantage of hindsight, letting them easily analyze unexpected behavior after it has occurred. Our position is that writing offline analysis as retroactive aspects provides a unifying approach that developers will find natural and powerful.
gemV: A validated toolset for the early exploration of system reliability

Decades of technology scaling has brought the threat of soft errors to modern embedded processors. Though several methods have been proposed to protect systems from soft errors, their effectiveness in ensuring error-free computing cannot be guaranteed; without accurate and quantitative estimation of system reliability. The metric vulnerability - which defines the likelihood of device failure by accurately evaluating the time it is exposed to soft errors - provides the most effective means to perform early design space explorations to estimate system reliability in the presence of transient soft errors. In this paper, we present gemV - the first accurate and comprehensive vulnerability estimation toolset, which is configurable and extendible to analyse future/novel architecture and microarchitecture designs. Some of the key features of gemV are: (1) all possible microarchitecture components that store bits, even temporarily, are modeled for their vulnerability in the gem5 cycle-accurate simulation platform, (2) its models have been validated (<;3% correlation error with 90% statistical confidence) through exhaustive bit-level fault injection experiments, (3) the analytical models have incorporated microarchitecture-level masking effects like speculative executions, flushes, and etc. (4) the modular design of the vulnerability models make it easy to be extended and integrated when novel microarchitecture designs are explored. In addition to microarchitecture-level evaluation of system reliability, gemV provides a means to perform software-level design space explorations - that explore performance-vulnerability trade-offs of algorithm choices, compilers used, compiler optimization levels, etc. A system designer can further use gemV to explore the performance-vulnerability trade-offs of choosing different ISAs.
A Middle Jurassic abelisaurid from Patagonia and the early diversification of theropod dinosaurs

Abelisaurids are a clade of large, bizarre predatory dinosaurs, most notable for their high, short skulls and extremely reduced forelimbs. They were common in Gondwana during the Cretaceous, but exceedingly rare in the Northern Hemisphere. The oldest definitive abelisaurids so far come from the late Early Cretaceous of South America and Africa, and the early evolutionary history of the clade is still poorly known. Here, we report a new abelisaurid from the Middle Jurassic of Patagonia, Eoabelisaurus mefi gen. et sp. nov., which predates the so far oldest known secure member of this lineage by more than 40 Myr. The almost complete skeleton reveals the earliest evolutionary stages of the distinctive features of abelisaurids, such as the modification of the forelimb, which started with a reduction of the distal elements. The find underlines the explosive radiation of theropod dinosaurs in the Middle Jurassic and indicates an unexpected diversity of ceratosaurs at that time. The apparent endemism of abelisauroids to southern Gondwana during Pangean times might be due to the presence of a large, central Gondwanan desert. This indicates that, apart from continent-scale geography, aspects such as regional geography and climate are important to reconstruct the biogeographical history of Mesozoic vertebrates.
Going on a journey: a case study of nature therapy with children with a learning difficulty

Therapy is usually described as an indoor activity, centring on verbal dialogue between therapist and client(s). Based on a qualitative study conducted with a group of children with learning difficulties, this article presents a way in which therapy can take place creatively in nature, which serves not only as a therapeutic setting but also as a non‐verbal medium and partner in the process. Using participants' voices to highlight the programme's protocol and impacts, the article presents elements from the innovative framework of nature therapy, offering practitioners concepts and methods that can be incorporated into their practice.
Words in the World: How and Why Meanings Can Matter

Why do people care about the meaning(s)/significance associated with a word? Does it make sense to advocate or to criticize a certain form-meaning association? This article argues that words do real cognitive and social work as they are deployed in social practice and that it is primarily through words and their histories of use that culture links to language. It is not semantic representations as such that matter but the (mostly extralinguistic) reference and conceptual baggage words acquire in their discursive world travels. Lexical significance shifts and is contested as part of shifting and contested customs, institutions, and ideologies.
A fast method for the determination of fractional contributions to solvation in proteins

A fast method for the calculation of residue contributions to protein solvation is presented. The approach uses the exposed polar and apolar surface of protein residues and has been parametrized from the fractional contributions to solvation determined from linear response theory coupled to molecular dynamics simulations. Application of the method to a large subset of proteins taken from the Protein Data Bank allowed us to compute the expected fractional solvation of residues. This information is used to discuss when a residue or a group of residues presents an uncommon solvation profile.
Believe It or Not: Adding Belief Annotations to Databases

We propose a database model that allows users to annotate data with belief statements. Our motivation comes from scientific database applications where a community of users is working together to assemble, revise, and curate a shared data repository. As the community accumulates knowledge and the database content evolves over time, it may contain conflicting information and members can disagree on the information it should store. For example, Alice may believe that a tuple should be in the database, whereas Bob disagrees. He may also insert the reason why he thinks Alice believes the tuple should be in the database, and explain what he thinks the correct tuple should be instead. We propose a formal model for Belief Databases that interprets users' annotations as belief statements. These annotations can refer both to the base data and to other annotations. We give a formal semantics based on a fragment of multi-agent epistemic logic and define a query language over belief databases. We then prove a key technical result, stating that every belief database can be encoded as a canonical Kripke structure. We use this structure to describe a relational representation of belief databases, and give an algorithm for translating queries over the belief database into standard relational queries. Finally, we report early experimental results with our prototype implementation on synthetic data.
Genotype Delimitation in the Nod-Independent Model Legume Aeschynomene evenia

Research on the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis has been so far focused on two model legumes, Medicago truncatula and Lotus japonicus, which use a sophisticated infection process involving infection thread formation. However, in 25% of the legumes, the bacterial entry occurs more simply in an intercellular fashion. Among them, some semi-aquatic Aeschynomene species present the distinctive feature to form nitrogen-fixing nodules on both roots and stems following elicitation by photosynthetic bradyrhizobia that do not produce Nod factors. This interaction is believed to represent a living testimony of the ancestral state of the rhizobium-legume symbiosis. To decipher the molecular mechanisms of this unique Nod-independent nitrogen-fixing symbiosis, we previously identified A. evenia C. Wright as an appropriate model legume, because it displays all the requisites for molecular and genetic approaches. To advance the use of this new model legume species, here we characterized the intraspecific diversity found in A. evenia. For this, the accessions available in germplasm banks were collected and subjected to morphological investigations, genotyping with RAPD and SSR markers, molecular phylogenies using ITS and single nuclear gene sequences, and cross-compatibility tests. These combined analyses revealed an important intraspecific differentiation that led us to propose a new taxonomic classification for A. evenia comprising two subspecies and four varieties. The A. evenia ssp. evenia contains var. evenia and var. pauciciliata whereas A. evenia ssp. serrulata comprises var. serrulata and var. major. This study provides information to exploit efficiently the diversity encountered in A. evenia and proposes subsp. evenia as the most appropriate subspecies for future projects aimed at identifying plant determinants of the Nod-independent symbiotic process.
A nanowatt successive approximation ADC with a calibrated capacitor array for biomedical applications

An 8-bit successive approximation analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with offset correction circuitry and a tunable capacitor is presented for biomedical applications. The ADC is designed in a standard 0.13 mum CMOS process technology and operates with voltage supplies down to 0.30 V using MOSFETs operating in their sub-threshold region of operation to achieve ultra low power dissipation. Post layout simulations were used to determine that the ADC achieves 8.5 pJ/cycle energy dissipation operating at 20 kS/s with a 0.4 V supply. An offset correction circuit is included for the comparator which significantly reduces the offset voltage as a result of process and mismatch variation. The attenuation capacitor is digitally tuned and post layout simulation results show the advantage of tuning to adjust linearity and dynamic performance for the ADC.
Discovery of a significant, nontopological preference for antiparallel alignment of helices with parallel regions in sheets

To help elucidate the role of secondary structure packing preferences in protein folding, here we present an analysis of the packing geometry observed between α‐helices and between α‐helices and β‐sheets in 1316 diverse, nonredundant protein structures. Finite‐length vectors were fit to the α‐carbon atoms in each of the helices and strands, and the packing angle between the vectors, Ω, was determined at the closest point of approach within each helix–helix or helix–sheet pair. Helix–sheet interactions were found in 391 of the proteins, and the distributions of Ω values were calculated for all the helix–sheet and helix–helix interactions. The packing angle preferences for helix–helix interactions are similar to those previously observed. However, analysis of helix–strand packing preferences uncovered a remarkable tendency for helices to align antiparallel to parallel regions of β‐sheets, independent of the topological constraints or prevalence of β‐α‐β motifs in the proteins. This packing angle preference is significantly diminished in helix interactions involving mixed and antiparallel β‐sheets, suggesting a role for helix–sheet dipole alignment in guiding supersecondary structure formation in protein folding. This knowledge of preferred packing angles can be used to guide the engineering of stable protein modules.