Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Software Architectures for Real-time Systems

The solution to the complex nature of developing software is software engineering. Software engineering provides techniques for structured design, formaland informal analysis, and software metrics. The part of software engineering concerned with highlevel design and analysis is called software architectures. The objective of architectural analysis is to verify quality requirements on software. It can be applied on any level in the design but it focuses on the structure of the software. While the architecture provides a high-level abstraction of the software, divergences between the designed system and the requirements can be detected early in the design phase. However, the structure of the software alone does not always provide enough information in order to analyze all requirements put upon a software system. Additional information about the software construction is provided by different architectural views. The number of views, and their contents varies depending on the system domain and the required quality properties to analyze. In this report, the state of the art in the field of software architectures is described. The survey is focused on software architectures for real-time systems but many of the described techniques can be applied to general software systems.
Adaptive Model Predictive Control of the Hybrid Dynamics of a Fuel Cell System

In this paper, an adaptive control scheme for the safe operation of a fuel cell system is presented. The aim of the control design is to guarantee that the oxygen ratio do not reach dangerous values. A first level of control is given by a feedforward control. An improved behavior is obtained using an adaptive predictive controller to determine the voltage to be applied to the air compressor. An admissible robust control invariant set for the PWA model of the system is computed. The control action of the predictive controller is obtained in such a way that the state is always included in the safe region characterized by the admissible robust control invariant set. This guarantees that the proposed controller always provides safe evolutions of the system.
A Water-Filling Based Scheduling Algorithm for the Smart Grid

The processing and communication capabilities of the smart grid provide a solid foundation for enhancing its efficiency and reliability. These capabilities allow utility companies to adjust their offerings in a way that encourages consumers to reduce their peak hour consumption, resulting in a more efficient system. In this paper, we propose a method for scheduling a community's power consumption such that it becomes almost flat. Our methodology utilizes distributed schedulers that allocate time slots to soft loads probabilistically based on precalculated and predistributed demand forecast information. This approach requires no communication or coordination between scheduling nodes. Furthermore, the computation performed at each scheduling node is minimal. Obtaining a relatively constant consumption makes it possible to have a relatively constant billing rate and eliminates operational inefficiencies. We also analyze the fairness of our proposed approach, the effect of the possible errors in the demand forecast, and the participation incentives for consumers.
Modelling of Non‐Periodic Aggregates Having a Pile Structure

This paper presents a procedure for modelling aggregates such as piles that consist of arbitrary components. The method generates an aggregate of components that need to be accumulated, and an aggregate shape represents the surface of the target aggregate. The number of components and their positions and orientations are controlled by five parameters. The components, the aggregate shape and the parameters are the inputs for the method which involves placement and refinement steps. In the placement step, the orientation and initial position of a component are determined by a non‐periodic placement such that each component overlaps its neighbours. In the refinement step, to construct a pile structure, the position of each component is adjusted by reducing the overlap.
Higher education and self-governance: the effects of higher education and field of study on voice and agency in Sweden

There is extensive research pointing to the positive effects of education in the form of labour market outcomes. These outcomes are vital when evaluating education; there are however additional outcomes of education that might also be important for quality of life. From this point of view, education could affect non-market areas such as democracy, gender equality and civic engagement. This article investigates the effects of level of education and field of study on two vital non-market capabilities: agency and voice. The study uses an eight-year longitudinal national survey of 1058 Swedish youth, controlling for baseline values of voice and agency. The empirical analysis shows that university education increases young people’s capabilities of voice and agency. Field of study was also found to have a relationship with agency, where social science and business education was found to be connected with the highest probability of agency, whereas there were only small effects of field of education on voice.
Compensation for effects of linear motion in MR imaging

Various compensation methods for different types of motion during MR image acquisition have been proposed. Presented here is a postprocessing scheme for eliminating artifacts due to linear, intra‐slice motion of known velocity. The data for each phase encoding or “view” acquired from a moving object are shown to differ from those which would be measured from the stationary object by a phase factor which depends on the object's displacement from a reference point. This derivation is then used to propose a correction scheme for linear motion in which all phase encodings measured at different positions of the moving object are collapsed onto the same reference position. After subsequent reconstruction, the object appears perfectly “focused. ” By selection of different reference positions, the method permits positioning of the compensated object as desired within the field of view of the image. This property allows the method to be extended to create sequences of corrected images with smooth object motion between frames of the sequence. The basic correction scheme and its variations were tested experimentally in phantom studies with velocities as large as 8 cm/s. © 1989 Academic Press, Inc.
Karl Fischer titration and coulometry for measurement of water content in small cartilage specimens / Bestimmung des Wassergehalts in kleinen Knorpelproben durch Karl-Fischer-Titration und Coulometrie

Abstract This study evaluated the efficiency of Karl Fischer titration and coulometry for measurement of water content in small intact and defective cartilage specimens. Cartilage from the main weight-bearing zone of the medial condyle of 38 fresh sheep knees was used. Of these, 20 condyles had an intact cartilage, while defects (14 grade I and 4 grade II) were found in the rest. The mechanical hardness was determined as Shore A. Cartilage specimens of approximately 5 mg were analyzed in special devices for moisture measurement and then continuously heated up to 105°C. The actual measurement was performed in an electric cell (coulometry). An electrode was laminated with hygroscopic phosphorus pentoxide. In the electrochemical reaction, H and O are liberated from the electrode. The requirement for electric energy correlates with the amount of water in the specimen. The water content in intact cartilage was 66.9%. Grade I (72.6%) and grade II (77.8%) defects had significantly higher water content. Significantly higher and faster spontaneous evaporation was observed in cartilage defects at room temperature. The water content and spontaneous water evaporation correlated with significantly lower mechanical hardness. The experimental design (combined method of thermogravimetry, Karl Fischer titration, and coulometry) was sufficient for evaluating the water content in small cartilage specimens. It is also possible to measure the temperature-dependent water liberation from cartilage specimens.
Fish tank virtual reality

The defining characteristics of what we call “Fish Tank Virtual Reality” are a stereo image of a three dimensional (3D) scene viewed on a monitor using a perspective projection coupled to the head position of the observer. We discuss some of the relative merits of this mode of viewing as compared to head mounted stereo displays. In addition, we report the experimental investigation of the following variables: 1) whether or not the perspective view is coupled to the actual viewpoint of the observer, 2) whether stereopsis is employed. Experiment 1 involved the subjective comparison of pairs of viewing conditions and the results suggest that head coupling may be more important than stereo in yielding a strong impression of three dimensionality. Experiment 2 involved subjects tracing a path from a leaf of a 3D tree to the correct root (there were two trees intermeshed). The error rates ranged from 22% in the pictorial display, to 1.3% in the head coupled stereo display. The error rates for stereo alone and head coupling alone were 14.7% and 3.2% respectively. We conclude that head coupling is probably more important than stereo in 3D visualization and that head coupling and stereo combined provide an important enhancement to monitor based computer graphics.
A collagen-based multicellular tumor spheroid model for evaluation of the efficiency of nanoparticle drug delivery

Targeted drug delivery systems, especially those that use nanoparticles, have been the focus of research into cancer therapy during the last decade, to improve the bioavailability and delivery of anticancer drugs to specific tumor sites, thereby reducing the toxicity and side effects to normal tissues. However, the positive antitumor effects of these nanocarriers observed in conventional monolayer cultures frequently fail in vivo, due to the lack of physical and biological barriers resembling those seen in the actual body. Therefore, the collagen-based 3-D multicellular culture system, to screen new nanocarriers for drug delivery and to obtain more adequate and better prediction of therapeutic outcomes in preclinical experiments, was developed. This 3-D culture model was successfully established using optimized density of cells. Our result showed that 3-D cell colonies were successfully developed from 95-D, U87 and HCT116 cell lines respectively, after a seven-day culture in the collagen matrix. The coumarin-conjugated nanoparticles were able to penetrate the matrix gel to reach the tumor cells. The model is supposedly more accurate in reflecting/predicting the dynamics and therapeutic outcomes of candidates for drug transport in vivo, and/or investigation of tumor biology, thus speeding up the pace of discovery of novel drug delivery systems for cancer therapy.
Design and Fabrication of Materials with Desired Deformation Behavior

This paper introduces a data-driven process for designing and fabricating materials with desired deformation behavior. Our process starts with measuring deformation properties of base materials. For each base material we acquire a set of example deformations, and we represent the material as a non-linear stress-strain relationship in a finite-element model. We have validated our material measurement process by comparing simulations of arbitrary stacks of base materials with measured deformations of fabricated material stacks. After material measurement, our process continues with designing stacked layers of base materials. We introduce an optimization process that finds the best combination of stacked layers that meets a user's criteria specified by example deformations. Our algorithm employs a number of strategies to prune poor solutions from the combinatorial search space. We demonstrate the complete process by designing and fabricating objects with complex heterogeneous materials using modern multi-material 3D printers.
Bandwidth enhancement of stacked rectangular microstrip patch antenna

A rectangular microstrip patch antenna has been investigated and its performance has been analyzed with the aid of Microwave Office Package (MW-Office 2000). An additional rectangular conductive plate of comparable dimensions was placed above the patch in order to enhance the bandwidth. The package was used to analyze the effect of the top patch, in particular the variation of VSWR with two parameters, namely the distance between the two patches and the size of the upper patch. A bandwidth of 11% for VSWR les 2 has been achieved for stacked rectangular patch designed to operate in the S-band when a dielectric of thickness one centimeter and relative permittivity epsivr = 2.6 has been taken into consideration.
Faster Parsing by Supertagger Adaptation

We propose a novel self-training method for a parser which uses a lexicalised grammar and supertagger, focusing on increasing the speed of the parser rather than its accuracy. The idea is to train the supertagger on large amounts of parser output, so that the supertagger can learn to supply the supertags that the parser will eventually choose as part of the highest-scoring derivation. Since the supertagger supplies fewer supertags overall, the parsing speed is increased. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method using a CCG supertagger and parser, obtaining significant speed increases on newspaper text with no loss in accuracy. We also show that the method can be used to adapt the CCG parser to new domains, obtaining accuracy and speed improvements for Wikipedia and biomedical text.
Robust on-line model-based object detection from range images

A mobile robot that accomplishes high level tasks needs to be able to classify the objects in the environment and to determine their location. In this paper, we address the problem of online object detection in 3D laser range data. The object classes are represented by 3D point-clouds that can be obtained from a set of range scans. Our method relies on the extraction of point features from range images that are computed from the point-clouds. Compared to techniques that directly operate on a full 3D representation of the environment, our approach requires less computation time while retaining the robustness of full 3D matching. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach is even able to deal with partially occluded scenes and to fulfill the runtime requirements of online applications.
Effective Admittivity of Biological Tissues as a Coefficient of Elliptic PDE

The electrical properties of biological tissues can be described by a complex tensor comprising a simple expression of the effective admittivity. The effective admittivities of biological tissues depend on scale, applied frequency, proportions of extra- and intracellular fluids, and membrane structures. The effective admittivity spectra of biological tissue can be used as a means of characterizing tissue structural information relating to the biological cell suspensions, and therefore measuring the frequency-dependent effective conductivity is important for understanding tissue's physiological conditions and structure. Although the concept of effective admittivity has been used widely, it seems that its precise definition has been overlooked. We consider how we can determine the effective admittivity for a cube-shaped object with several different biologically relevant compositions. These precise definitions of effective admittivity may suggest the ways of measuring it from boundary current and voltage data. As in the homogenization theory, the effective admittivity can be computed from pointwise admittivity by solving Maxwell equations. We compute the effective admittivity of simple models as a function of frequency to obtain Maxwell-Wagner interface effects and Debye relaxation starting from mathematical formulations. Finally, layer potentials are used to obtain the Maxwell-Wagner-Fricke expression for a dilute suspension of ellipses and membrane-covered spheres.
High-throughput quantification of circulating metabolites improves prediction of subclinical atherosclerosis.

AIMS High-throughput metabolite quantification holds promise for cardiovascular risk assessment. Here, we evaluated whether metabolite quantification by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) improves prediction of subclinical atherosclerosis in comparison to conventional lipid testing. METHODS AND RESULTS Circulating lipids, lipoprotein subclasses, and small molecules were assayed by NMR for 1595 individuals aged 24-39 years from the population-based Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), a marker of subclinical atherosclerosis, was measured in 2001 and 2007. Baseline conventional risk factors and systemic metabolites were used to predict 6-year incidence of high IMT (≥ 90 th percentile) or plaque. The best prediction of high intima-media thickness was achieved when total and HDL cholesterol were replaced by NMR-determined LDL cholesterol and medium HDL, docosahexaenoic acid, and tyrosine in prediction models with risk factors from the Framingham risk score. The extended prediction model improved risk stratification beyond established risk factors alone; area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.764 vs. 0.737, P =0.02, and net reclassification index 17.6%, P =0.0008. Higher docosahexaenoic acid levels were associated with decreased risk for incident high IMT (odds ratio: 0.74; 95% confidence interval: 0.67-0.98; P = 0.007). Tyrosine (1.33; 1.10-1.60; P = 0.003) and glutamine (1.38; 1.13-1.68; P = 0.001) levels were associated with 6-year incident high IMT independent of lipid measures. Furthermore, these amino acids were cross-sectionally associated with carotid IMT and the presence of angiographically ascertained coronary artery disease in independent populations. CONCLUSION High-throughput metabolite quantification, with new systemic biomarkers, improved risk stratification for subclinical atherosclerosis in comparison to conventional lipids and could potentially be useful for early cardiovascular risk assessment.
On-demand Developer Documentation

We advocate for a paradigm shift in supporting the information needs of developers, centered around the concept of automated on-demand developer documentation. Currently, developer information needs are fulfilled by asking experts or consulting documentation. Unfortunately, traditional documentation practices are inefficient because of, among others, the manual nature of its creation and the gap between the creators and consumers. We discuss the major challenges we face in realizing such a paradigm shift, highlight existing research that can be leveraged to this end, and promote opportunities for increased convergence in research on software documentation.
Modeling Regulation of Zinc Uptake via ZIP Transporters in Yeast and Plant Roots

In yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and plant roots (Arabidopsis thaliana) zinc enters the cells via influx transporters of the ZIP family. Since zinc is both essential for cell function and toxic at high concentrations, tight regulation is essential for cell viability. We provide new insight into the underlying mechanisms, starting from a general model based on ordinary differential equations and adapting it to the specific cases of yeast and plant root cells. In yeast, zinc is transported by the transporters ZRT1 and ZRT2, which are both regulated by the zinc-responsive transcription factor ZAP1. Using biological data, parameters were estimated and analyzed, confirming the different affinities of ZRT1 and ZRT2 reported in the literature. Furthermore, our model suggests that the positive feedback in ZAP1 production has a stabilizing function at high influx rates. In plant roots, various ZIP transporters play a role in zinc uptake. Their regulation is largely unknown, but bZIP transcription factors are thought to be involved. We set up three putative models based on: an activator only, an activator with dimerization and an activator-inhibitor pair. These were fitted to measurements and analyzed. Simulations show that the activator-inhibitor model outperforms the other two in providing robust and stable homeostasis at reasonable parameter ranges.
Reconciling the Notions of Restorative Justice and Imprisonment

Restorative justice (RJ) in the secure estate is widespread internationally, although piecemeal and inconsistent in its application. It exists in the form of many practices such as mediation, conferencing, circles, and panels. As the interest in RJ continues to grow, this research takes a step back to ask how reconcilable RJ is with incapacitation. Through a combination of normative thinking, literature review, and primary research that applied qualitative methodologies over a 3-year period, the article examines where the two notions meet in their intentions and expected outcomes. A new classification of restorative practices in prisons is proposed, placed in the context of case studies of existing programs from around the world.
Understanding affective design in a late-modernity perspective

This poster discusses the advent of emotional/affective interfaces and key areas of late modernity, and it proposes that there could be said to exist some parallels between the development of computer interface design and the development of society as a whole. The poster suggests that research into social and cultural aspects of design may be conducive to understanding the user in a contemporary societal setting. Consequently, the poster explores why and how theories of modernity matter in understanding the practice of designing affective interfaces.
If more than Analytical Modeling is Needed to Predict Real Agents' Strategic Interaction

This paper presents the research on the interdisciplinary research infrastructure for understanding human reasoning in game-theoretic terms. Strategic reasoning is considered to impact human decision making in social, economical and competitive interactions. The provided introduction explains and connects concepts from AI, game theory and psychology. First result is a concept of interdisciplinary game description language as a part of the focused interdisciplinary research infrastructure. The need of this domain-specific language is motivated and is aimed to accelerate the current developments. As second result, the paper provides a summary of ongoing research and its significance.