Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
COLLABORATIVE MANIPULATORS HANDLING FLEXIBLE OBJECT IN JOINT SPACE- MODELING, CONTROL AND ANALYSIS

This paper focus on the dynamic modeling and nonlinear robust control of two planar rigid manipulators moving a flexible object from any initial position and orientation (pose) to the desired pose while suppressing the vibration of the flexible object. Dynamic equations of the flexible object are derived using Hamiltonian principle, which is expressed as a partial differential equation (PDE) with appropriate boundary conditions. Then, a combined dynamics is formulated by combining the manipulators and object dynamics without any approximation in joint space. The resulting dynamics are thus described by the PDE’s, having rigid as well as flexible parameters coupled together. This paper attempts to develop a robust control scheme without approximating the PDE in order to avoid measurements of flexible coordinates and their time derivatives. For this purpose, the two subsystems, namely, slow and fast subsystems, are identified by using singular perturbation technique. Specific robust controllers for both the subsystems are developed. In general, usage of the singular perturbation technique necessitates exponential stability of both subsystems, which is evaluated by satisfying the Tikhnov’s theorem. Hence, the exponential stability analysis is performed for both subsystems. Focusing on two three link manipulators holding a flexible beam, simulations are performed and simulation results demonstrate the versatility of the proposed robust composite control scheme.
Forecasting Issues: Ideas of Decomposition and Combination

Combination techniques and decomposition procedures have been applied to time series forecasting to enhance prediction accuracy and to facilitate the analysis of data respectively. However, the restrictive complexity of some combination techniques and the difficulties associated with the application of the decomposition results to the extrapolation of data, mainly due to the large variability involved in economic and financial time series, have limited their application and compromised their development. This paper is a re-examination of the benefits and limitations of decomposition and combination techniques in the area of forecasting, and a contribution to the field with a new forecasting methodology. The new methodology is based on the disaggregation of time series components through the STL decomposition procedure, the extrapolation of linear combinations of the disaggregated sub-series, and the reaggregation of the extrapolations to obtain estimation for the global series. With the application of the methodology to the data from the NN3 and M1 Competition series, the results suggest that it can outperform other competing statistical techniques. The power of the method lies in its ability to perform consistently well, irrespective of the characteristics, underlying structure and level of noise of the data.
Remembering in Cultural Context -

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the necessity of understanding the cultural context of remembering. We begin with accounts provided by two 9-year-old children from different cultural communities when they were asked to retell a justso story that they had heard 5 minutes before to a local adult. The story was based on a legend from the Mayan community which was no longer being told to children; some details in the story were adjusted for the U.S. children to make them more culturally appropriate in that setting.
1 / 18 Valuation of Financial Instruments : Theoretical Overview with Applications in Bloomberg

In practice, company valuation deals with the valuation of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments issued by the company of interest. In this chapter, we take an overview of valuation techniques in accordance with different types of securities. The understanding of differences between financial instruments is crucial for the valuation process, where valuation methods differ for types of securities.
Open-source resources and standards for Arabic word structure analysis : fine grained morphological analysis of Arabic text corpora

Morphological analyzers are preprocessors for text analysis. Many Text Analytics applications need them to perform their tasks. The aim of this thesis is to develop standards, tools and resources that widen the scope of Arabic word structure analysis - particularly morphological analysis, to process Arabic text corpora of different domains, formats and genres, of both vowelized and non-vowelized text. We want to morphologically tag our Arabic Corpus, but evaluation of existing morphological analyzers has highlighted shortcomings and shown that more research is required. Tag-assignment is significantly more complex for Arabic than for many languages. The morphological analyzer should add the appropriate linguistic information to each part or morpheme of the word (proclitic, prefix, stem, suffix and enclitic); in effect, instead of a tag for a word, we need a subtag for each part. Very fine-grained distinctions may cause problems for automatic morphosyntactic analysis – particularly probabilistic taggers which require training data, if some words can change grammatical tag depending on function and context; on the other hand, finegrained distinctions may actually help to disambiguate other words in the local context. The SALMA – Tagger is a fine grained morphological analyzer which is mainly depends on linguistic information extracted from traditional Arabic grammar books and prior knowledge broad-coverage lexical resources; the SALMA – ABCLexicon. More fine-grained tag sets may be more appropriate for some tasks. The SALMA –Tag Set is a theory standard for encoding, which captures long-established traditional fine-grained morphological features of Arabic, in a notation format intended to be compact yet transparent. The SALMA – Tagger has been used to lemmatize the 176-million words Arabic Internet Corpus. It has been proposed as a language-engineering toolkit for Arabic lexicography and for phonetically annotating the Qur’an by syllable and primary stress information, as well as, fine-grained morphological tagging.
STUDIES ON BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF QDS IN VERSATILE MICROFLUIDIC SYSTEM

QDs (quantum dots) offer many important benefits as fluorescent probes for biomedical imaging, but they may also pose risk to human health. Therefore, it is extremely important to carry out a systematic study of this relatively new and diverse group of materials. For evaluation of biological activity of QDs we propose a microfluidic system. With the usage of proposed device it is possible to observe morphological changes of cells, and simultaneously investigate their viability and proliferation as a result of cell culture incubation with nanomaterial solutions of various concentrations. Results of cytotoxicity studies of CdSeS/ZnS-MPA confirm usefulness of developed microsystem.
Visual Servoing Frequency Response of Eye-vergence System in Lateral Motion with Evolutionary Pose Tracking of 3 D-Object

Visual servoing towards moving target with hand-eye cameras fixed at the hand is inevitably affected by hand dynamical oscillations, therefore it’s difficult to make target position always at the center of camera’s view, because nonlinear dynamical effects of whole manipulator stand against tracking ability. To overcome the defects of the fixed-hand-eye system, in hand-eye-vergence system left and right cameras’ directions could be rotated to observe and keep the target object to be seen at the center of camera images, reducing the influences of aberration of cameras lens. The dynamical superiorities of eye-vergence system are verified through frequency response experiments. In theory compared with fixed-hand-eye system the proposed eyevergence system can track objects more promptly and stably. However there is a lack of understanding of the practical application status of the proposed system. Previous research has been stuck in research and improving about position tracking performance of the system. This paper, for the first time, analyzes the performance of 3D-object orientation tracking. The utilized orientation recognition method using quaternion is introduced and the orientation tracking results are shown for a more comprehensive analysis of system performance.
ABO-Incompatible Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation in the Era of Rituximab: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Aim The primary aim of this study is to compare the short- and long-term outcomes between ABO-incompatible (ABOi) adult living donor liver transplantation (ALDLT) with rituximab prophylaxis and ABO-compatible (ABOc) ALDLT. Background The strategy of ABOi liver transplantation (LT) was originated initially to increase the donor pool and to enable liver transplantation in emergency conditions. However, ABOi ALDLT remains a controversial approach in comparison to ABOc ALDLT. Methods PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library study search were accomplished to recognize studies comparing ABOi and ABOc ALDLT. Meta-analyses were conducted based on the evaluation of heterogeneity using a fixed-effect model and a random-effect model to assess the short- and long-term outcomes following ABOi ALDLT with rituximab prophylaxis. Results Nine studies comprising a total of 3,922 patients (ABOi = 671 and ABOc = 3,251) were identified. There was no significant difference between ABOi and ABOc groups for 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year OS and graft survival, respectively. Moreover, 1-year and 3-year OS and DFS were similar between both groups for HCC patients. However, ABOi ALDLT had higher incidences of CMV infection, AMR, overall biliary complications, and biliary stricture than ABOc ALDLT and had other comparable postoperative complications. Conclusion Our meta-analysis included studies comparing ABOi and ABOc ALDLT after the introduction of rituximab in a desensitization protocol for ABOi ALDLT. The results of ABOi ALDLT were comparable with those of ABOc ALDLT. However, biliary complications, CMV infection, and AMR remain a concern in the era of rituximab.
Aalborg Universitet Two-Stage Part-Based Pedestrian Detection

This paper introduces a part-based two-stage pedestrian detector. The system finds pedestrian candidates with an AdaBoost cascade on Haar-like features. It then verifies each candidate using a part-based HOG-SVM doing first a regression and then a classification based on the estimated function output from the regression. It uses the Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) computed on both the full, upper and lower body of the candidates, and uses these in the final verification. The system has been trained and tested on the INRIA dataset and performs better than similar previous work, which uses full-body verification.
Experiences of clinical staff during the introduction of mobile technology systems in acute care wards

1 Experiences of clinical staff during the introduction of mobile technology systems in acute care wards Alexandra Lang, James Pinchin, Sarah Sharples, Dominick Shaw Human Factors Research Group, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK; Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK; Nottingham Respiratory Research Unit, University of Nottingham, Nottingham City Hospital, Nottingham, UK This paper presents an evaluation of staff experiences before, during and after a large scale deployment of mobile technologies within an acute hospital. Qualitative data from thirteen clinical participants were analysed. We report on the impact on clinical working practices, staff experiences and acceptance of the mobile technologies, and the understanding how the technology is used immediately after deployment. This process provides thematic insight into the deployment process, what has been achieved and how future technology implementations in large hospitals can be improved.
Predictive role of heart rate turbulence in ischemic cardiomyopathy patients with frequent implantable cardioverter defibrillator ( ICD ) shock therapy

Recent studies have revealed that patients with left ventricular (LV) dysfunction are associated with increased risk of mortality and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) shock therapy. We assessed holter parameters including presence of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT), heart rate variability (HRV), heart rate turbulence (HRT) parameters named Turbulence onset (TO) and Turbulence slope (TS) in ischemic cardiomyopathy (IC) patients with frequent ICD shocks. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 60 IC patients with ICD shock therapy. Both NSVT, HRV, HRT were evaluated by using ambulatory Holter monitoring. HRT was considered positive when both TO and TS were abnormal (TO ≥ 0% and TS ≤ 2.5 ms/RR interval. Results: 6 patients were not utilized because of frequent ventricular premature beats (VPB) unable to be computed, 4 were lost to follow-up. Of 50, 25 (50%) had ≥ 3 ICD shock therapy. Frequent ICD shocks were not related to gender, hypertension, diabetes, renal dysfunction, hypercholesterolemia, and medical therapy (P > 0.05). Age > 65 years, NSVT, number of VPB, ≥ 2 Lown grade VBP, TS and a TO outcome were significantly associated with frequent ICD therapy (P=0.023, P=0.021, P=0.007, P=0.011, P=0.015, respectively). In multivariate analysis presence of NSVT and turbulence slope ≤ 2.5 ms/RR interval were independent predictors of frequent ICD shocks (OR 4, 19 [95% CI 1.164-15.105] P=0.028 and 3.98 [95% CI 1.137-13.970] P=0.031), respectively. Conclusion: Our study reveals that presence of NSVT and abnormal TS can predict frequent ICD shocks in IC patients. However, further investigations with larger populations are needed to get more accurate results.
An Optical-driven Method for PolSAR Feature Extraction

Fig. 3. Entropy parameter derived from filtered covriance in Fig.2. using different estimators: (a)-(c) boxcar estimator, (d) optical-driven estimator Tab. 1. Quantitative evaluation of four filters over three study cites Yi Zhao1, Mi Jiang1,2,*, Zhangfeng Ma1 1 School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China; 2 State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China; * Corresponding author: mijiang@hhu.edu. cn An Optical-driven Method for PolSAR Feature Extraction
List of publications cited in the 2018 FDEPS Course

1.3 Earth’s interior The global stacks of seismograms yielding travel-time curves can be found at: https://ds.iris. edu/ds/products/globalstacks/. The hum of the Earth as reviewed by Nishida (2013). Travel times and ray paths in the AK135 model of the Earth’s interior by Kennett (2005). A must :the Preliminary Reference Earth Model of Dziewonski and Anderson (1981). The spheroidal free oscillations of the Earth after the great Tohoku earthquake as seen in water wells by Yan et al. (2016). The toroidal free oscillations of the Earth after the great Tohoku earthquake captured by rotation sensors from Nader et al. (2012). A chapter of the Treatise on Geophysics: ’Temperatures, heat and energy in the mantle of the Earth’ by Jaupart et al. (2015). Geoneutrinos observations by the KamLAND collaboration (Gando et al., 2011).
Spatio-Temporal Array ( STAR ) Channel Estimation in DS-CDMA Systems

In this paper a novel blind DS-CDMA array channel estimator is presented which is capable of handling severe frequency-selective channels, where the multipath delay spread can be comparable to the data symbol period. By employing the concept of the S PATIOTEMPORAL ARRAY (STAR) manifold, a subspace-type estimation algorithm is proposed , in conjunction with an one-dimensional temporal smoothing procedure, to jointly estimate the spatio-temporal multipath channel parameters associated with the desired user. Close examination of the proposed STAR channel estimator reveals that it is ’near-far’ resistant and the total number of signal paths can be more than the number of antenna elements. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is supported by computer simulation results. NOTATION a Scalar a Column Vector A Matrix exp(a) Element by element exponential a Element by element power ⊗ Kronecker product 0N Zero vector ofN elements
WORKING PAPER SERIES BORDERS , GEOGRAPHY , AND OLIGOPOLY : EVIDENCE FROM THE WIND TURBINE INDUSTRY A . Kerem Cosar

Using a micro-level dataset of wind turbine installations in Denmark and Germany, we estimate a structural oligopoly model with cross-border trade and heterogeneous firms. Our approach separately identifies border-related from distance-related variable costs and bounds the fixed cost of exporting for each firm. Variable border costs are large: equivalent to roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles) in distance costs, which represents 40 to 50 percent of the average exporter’s total delivery costs. Fixed costs are also important; removing them would increase German firms’ market share in Denmark by 10 percentage points. Counterfactual analysis indicates that completely eliminating border frictions would increase total welfare in the wind turbine industry by 5 percent in Denmark and 10 percent in Germany. JEL Codes: F14, L11, L20, L60, R12
Euroscepticism and the prospects of future enlargement of the EU

There has been increasing bulk of research on Euroscepticism in recent years. Majority of new literature focus on innovative conceptualization of Euroscepticism, its role in major events as the Eurozone crisis or deal with its position within EU decision making system. There, however, are still areas that have not been studied sufficiently– typically, preferences of Eurosceptics in specific policy areas. EU enlargement policy represents such case which is quite striking since enlargement is not just “another” EU policy but above all the tool affecting the very nature of integration. This paper wants to fill this gap and analyses how soft and hard Eurosceptics treat the enlargement process It focuses on a) parties ́ manifestos and b) voting behaviour of these parties in the European parliament. The main findings of the study can be summarized as follows. First, Eurosceptics of any nature pay very little attention to the enlargement issue. Regarding their voting on the issue, there is clear distinction between soft and hard Eurosceptics when the former support further enlargement and the later oppose it. Additionally, left wing Eurosceptics seem to be strongest opponents of the enlargement.
Study of Land Cover Changes of Baghdad Using Multi-Temporal Landsat Satellite Images

The main goal of this work is study the land cover changes for "Baghdad city" over a period of (30) years using multi-temporal Landsat satellite images (TM, ETM+ and OLI) acquired in 1984, 2000, and 2015 respectively. In this work, The principal components analysis transform has been utilized as multi operators, (i.e. enhancement, compressor, and temporal change detector). Since most of the image band's information are presented in the first PCs image. Then, the PC1 image for all three years is partitioned into variable sized blocks using quad tree technique. Several different methods of classification have been used to classify Landsat satellite images; these are, proposed method singular value decomposition (SVD) using Visual Basic software and supervised method (Maximum likelihood Classifier) using ENVI 5.1 software are utilized in order to get the most accurate results and then compare the results of each method and calculate the land cover changes that have been taken place in years 2000 and 2015; comparing with 1984. The image classification of the study area resulted into five land cover types: Water body, vegetation, open land (Barren land), urban area "Residential I" and urban area "Residential II". The results from classification process indicated that water body, vegetation, open land and the urban area "Residential I" are increased, while the second type from urban area "Residential II" in decrease to year 2015 comparable with 1984. Despite use of many methods of classification, results of the proposed method proved its efficiency, where the classification accuracies for the (SVD) method are 81%, 78% and 80% for years 1984, 2000 and 2015 respectively.
Radio Resource Control for 3 G Cellular Networks Based On Fuzzy Logic Control

Mobile communication has increasingly become popular and in addition there has been an accelerated penetration of smart phones which has led to a significant increase in the use of mobile data services. Network congestion control remains important and of high priority, especially given the growing size, demand, and speed of cellular networks. Recent research in this area has come up with Capacity and Coverage Optimization techniques based on Self Organizing Networks (SONs). A major issue tackled by SONs is the irregular and frequently changing distribution of cellular subscribers both in time and area. In order to cope with such a trend in a cost-effective manner, operators of mature networks, such as the second generation (2G), Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), use traffic management techniques instead of adding new resources while new technologies such as the fourth generation(4G), long term evolution (LTE), use parameter tuning which is done automatically based on measurements . For third generation (3G) technologies on the other hand using the universal terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) the issue of congestion is tackled using physical or soft parameter optimization. As existing network technologies continue to evolve, more and more tunable parameters and various customizations are being introduced. This has resulted in a rise in complexity that is making traditional manual optimization challenging. On the other hand, even though current Self-Organizing Networks (SON) focus is on Long Term Evolution (LTE) and beyond, legacy networks such as 3G are adopting different SON based solutions to address the above mentioned challenges in other radio access network (RAN) types. In this paper the problem of capacity optimization in 3G Cellular Networks is addressed using Rule-Based Fuzzy Logic to control the CPICH power and as a result improve the cell capacity. One of the reasons for choosing Fuzzy Logic Controllers (FLC) is its logical resemblance to a human operator. It operates on the foundations of a knowledge base derived from an expert operator’s knowledge. The autonomous operation is aimed at reducing the frequent attention and effort required by a radio optimization engineer to carry out capacity optimization tasks which are currently done mostly manually. The FLC will be involved in the detection of high load 3G cells that do not have enough cell resources available and could benefit from CPICH power adjustment as a radio optimization engineer would normally do manually. Simulation results show that the CPICH power control system based on fuzzy achieves a significant improvement in the Downlink cell utilization which in turn improves the cell performance compared to a constant CPICH power system.
MHD BOUNDARY LAYER FLOW OF NANOFLUID OVER A MOVING SURFACE IN PRESENCE OF THERMAL RADIATION BY HOMOTOPY ANALYSIS METHOD

In this paper the effect of Brownian motion and Thermophoresis on boundary layer flow of MHD nanofluid flow over a moving surface with the influence of thermal radiation are studied The governing partial differential equations are transformed into ordinary differential equations, by using a similarity transformation. The resulting ordinary differential equations are solved by homotopy analysis method. We observed physical insight and interesting aspects of the problem in presence of thermal radiation. The effect of different non-dimensional parameters are studied namely Prandtle number Pr, Brownian motion parameter Nb Thermophoresis parameter Nt, Lewis number Le, Hartman number Ha and Radiation parameter R are depicted graphically for velocity, temperature and nanoparticle concentration profile.