Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep Reinforcement Learning based Handover Management for Millimeter Wave Communication

The Millimeter Wave (mm-wave) band has a broadspectrum capable of transmitting multi-gigabit per-second daterate. However, the band suffers seriously from obstruction and high path loss, resulting in line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-ofsight (NLOS) transmissions. All these lead to significant fluctuation in the signal received at the user end. Signal fluctuations present an unprecedented challenge in implementing the fifth generation (5G) use-cases of the mm-wave spectrum. It also increases the user’s chances of changing the serving Base Station (BS) in the process, commonly known as Handover (HO). HO events become frequent for an ultra-dense dense network scenario, and HO management becomes increasingly challenging as the number of BS increases. HOs reduce network throughput, and hence the significance of mm-wave to 5G wireless system is diminished without adequate HO control. In this study, we propose a model for HO control based on the offline reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that autonomously and smartly optimizes HO decisions taking into account prolonged user connectivity and throughput. We conclude by presenting the proposed model’s performance and comparing it with the state-of-art model, rate based HO scheme. The results reveal that the proposed model decreases excess HO by 70%, thus achieving a higher throughput relative to the rates based HO scheme. Keywords—Handover management; 5G; machine learning; reinforcement learning; mm-wave communication
Catena linking of landscape-geochemical processes and reconstruction of pedosedimentogenesis_ A case study of defensive constructions of the mid-17th century, South Russia

The ‘catena concept’, along with previously proposed meanings of this term, has recently acquired a soil evolutionary content. The prospects of wider special and chronological study of dated pedotopocatenas include the possibility of a more detailed analysis of the mutual dependence of soil-geomorphological relationships through distinguishing relatively homogeneous climatic stages of pedogenesis and denudation. With this purpose, the present study comprised earthen defensive constructions, which, within the ‘rampart/ditch’ system, combine erosive, trans-accumulative catenas and accumulators of pedolithosediments. The goal was to develop a system of the most information-rich pedogenetic indicators to reconstruct the dynamics of erosion-accumulative processes on the basis of dated earthen defensive constructions of a historical period (using the example of a frontier rampart within a ditch from the mid-17th century). Soil samples were collected within the limits of the erosion and trans-accumulative catenas, as well as in the closing alignment of the ditch (over the vertical profile in eight strata of pedosediments of up to 1m high). The granulometric composition, concentration of macroelements and trace elements (25 metals and oxides) in soils and in particles with sizes< 1mm, and the fractional composition of the humus were analysed in soil samples taken from different points in the catena and along the profile of the pedosediments. For the reconstruction of the humidity conditions over 3.5 centuries based on dendrochronological data, the cross-relation approach was applied. This allowed us to represent the chronostratigraphy of pedosediments as stages differing in the rate of accumulation processes. The system of soil indicators in pedosediments including the percentage of particles 0.001–0.005mm and>0.01mm in size, the content of organic carbon and its qualitative composition, the sum of the elements accumulated in the soil (P, Ca, K, Mg, Mn, Cu), as well as the geochemical ratios which reflect the processes of leaching, can serve as palaeogeographic tracers of the climatic variability at the level of intra-secular changes under forest-steppe conditions. The history of the formation of pedosediments over 3.5 centuries in the forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe comprises two wet periods (1890–1935, 1976–2013) when the average annual rates of pedosedimentogenesis were similar (2.80–2.85mm yr) and two periods of geomorphological ‘lull’ and a xeromorphic climatic condition span (1821–1890 and 1666–1741). These periods correspond to diminution of the average rate of accumulation of sediments down to 2.47mm yr−1. The results of the present study suggest the need for purposeful research and wide inclusion of dated sites of the anthropogenic relief formation with flow-geochemical series over the topographic gradient into studies of soil–geomorphologic interrelations and calibration of mathematic models of natural processes using on-site data.
Comparing Finite-Time Lyapunov Exponents and Lagrangian Descriptors for identifying phase space structures in a simple two-dimensional, time-periodic double-gyre model

This paper compares the advantages, limitations, and computational considerations of using Finite-Time Lyapunov Exponents (FTLEs) and Lagrangian Descriptors (LDs) as tools for identifying barriers and mechanisms of fluid transport in two-dimensional time-periodic flows. These barriers and mechanisms of transport are often referred to as "Lagrangian Coherent Structures," though this term often changes meaning depending on the author or context. This paper will specifically focus on using FTLEs and LDs to identify stable and unstable manifolds of hyperbolic stagnation points, and the Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) tori associated with elliptic stagnation points. The background and theory behind both methods and their associated phase space structures will be presented, and then examples of FTLEs and LDs will be shown based on a simple, periodic, time-dependent double-gyre toy model with varying parameters.
Constraints faced by farmers in availing agricultural and banking services through mobile phone

Nowadays use of ICT tools especially mobile phones are gaining importance among farmers. The emergence of various developments in mobile applications has allowed the farmers to work in a more efficient manner. Even though the very basic purpose of mobile phones is to communicate with family and friends, nowadays it is also used by farmers for availing agriculture and banking services. It enables farmers to access information from a host of information providers such as scientists, input dealers, government, agriculture extension officers, market commission agents/ traders, banks and so on. The present paper attempts to examine the constraints faced by farmers in availing agricultural and banking services through mobile phone in four selected panchayats namely Adat, Tholur, Kaiparambu and Avanoor of Puzhakkal block of Thrissur district. The study is entirely based on primary data collected through pre-structured interview schedule. Simple percentages and Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance are used for data analysis. Constraints faced by farmers in availing agricultural and banking services is analysed separately. The study found that in case of availing agriculture related services, lack of training in using various apps related to agriculture through mobile phone is the major constraint faced by majority of the farmers and in case of banking services fear of security issues while using mobile banking services is stated as the major constraint. Government and other stakeholders need to work together to build awareness regarding various agricultural and banking services available through mobile phone and also provide them with practical trainings on how to use mobile phone for availing these services. In addition to this, for enhancing trust in mobile banking services, stakeholders need to make sure that farmers are aware of and protected as much as possible against cyber security vulnerabilities and threats
Evidence from rural Pakistan

Using a gain model with three different levels of fixed effects, this paper empirically estimates the impacts of teachers on students’ achievement in three districts in the rural province of Punjab in Pakistan. The model-based results suggest that teachers’ factors do explain students’ achievement. Increasing teachers’ wages could improve schooling quality along with recruiting local teachers with non-permanent contracts. Recruiting local teachers has an important positive impact on students’ achievement especially for girls. It could therefore reduce gender based inequalities of academic achievement. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that policy reforms concerning training programs and re-thinking wage policies should be on the agenda of future research.
Fine-Tuning Pre-Trained Convolutional Neural Networks for Women Common Cancer Classification using RNA-Seq Gene Expression

Most of the recent cancer classification methods use gene expression profile as features because it can provide very important information regarding tumor characteristics. Motivated by their success in the computer vision area now deep learning has been successfully applied to medical data because it can read non-linear patterns in a complex feature and can allow the leverage of information from unlabeled data of problems that do not belong to the problem being handled. In this paper, we implement transfer learning, which refers to the use of a model trained on one task to perform classification on another task to classify five cancer types that most commonly affect women. We used VGG16, Xception, DenseNet, and ResNet50 as base models and then added a dense layer to reflect our five-class classification problem. To avoid training over-fitting that can result in a very high training accuracy and a low cross-validation accuracy we used L2-regularization. We retrained (fine-tuned) these models using a five-fold cross-validation approach on RNA-Seq gene expression data after transforming it into 2D-image like data. We used the softmax activation function with the prediction dense layer and adam as optimizer in the model fit for all four architectures. The highest performance is obtained when fine-tuning Xception architecture, which achieved classification accuracy = 98.6%, precision = 98.6%, recall = 97.8%, and F1-score = 98% on five-fold cross-validation training and testing approach.
INTEGRATION OF REMOTE SENSING DATA AND GROUND-BASED INFORMATION TO SOLVE NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

We consider the rationale for the integration of remote sensing data and ground information using a statistical criterion to solve natural resources and environmental problems. The method is proposed to be implemented as the module of the “computer assistant”. The algorithm that describes a set of the sequence of operations for automation of the decision-making procedure is presented. This algorithm should free the operator from a significant amount of subjective and labor-intensive work, which is performed using visual methods. Based on the proposed methodology, we perform the object recognition in aerospace images of the territory with different geological and landscape conditions and, respectively, with standard objects of different classes with different sets of values of informative features (of different nature and dimension). For the recognition and classification of images of studied objects, the probabilities of the ratios of informative features of the studied areas to ones of each standard object present in the aerospace image were determined. The results of testing the proposed methodology are presented on the examples of assessing oil and gas prospects in the areas of the Dnieper-Donetsk cavity and the problem of classifying crops of different varieties in different periods of vegetation in the agricultural fields in the Kyiv region.
Networking the Yield Curve: Implications for Monetary Policy

Quelle influence differentes mesures de politique monetaire exercent-elles sur la courbe de rendement et comment interagissent-elles entre elles? Pour repondre a ces questions, nous elaborons un nouveau modele de reseau pour determiner les variations inattendues des taux d’interet a differentes echeances. Nous etablissons les proprietes et l’identification du modele a l’aide de simulations. Differents scenarios de politique monetaire sont analyses au moyen du modele. Nous modelisons des interventions simultanees visant differents segments du marche obligataire tout en faisant varier la communication a propos de la trajectoire du taux directeur. Nos resultats montrent que l’incidence globale des mesures sur la courbe de rendement depend de l’ampleur des chocs de politique monetaire, des echeances ciblees et du contenu des indications prospectives. Par consequent, l’echeance que la banque centrale devrait cibler et l’ampleur de la variation des taux dependront des objectifs poursuivis. Ainsi, il est sans doute preferable de cibler les taux de rendement obligataires a moyen terme pour faire evoluer dans la meme direction les taux a toutes les echeances. Si la banque centrale cherche plutot a rendre la courbe de rendement plus ou moins plate ou a la modifier dans un segment plus que dans d’autres, un jeu de combinaisons de mesures monetaires pourrait lui permettre d’obtenir le resultat souhaite. Notre etude met en lumiere le role de la hierarchie des retombees dans la formulation de la politique monetaire. Elle souligne aussi l’importance, pour les autorites monetaires, d’un examen attentif des complementarites des outils d’intervention et de leurs effets amplificateurs possibles.
How does the situation before a tackle influence a tackler’s head placement in rugby union?: application of the decision tree analysis

Objectives Tacklers need to decide where to place their head based on the evasive manoeuvres of the ball-carrier and positional relationship with the ball-carrier before tackle. Therefore, it is difficult for tacklers to improve incorrect head placement at the moment of contact. Moreover, the characteristics prior to tackle have a relationship with the tackler’s head placement. However, how situations lead to incorrect head placement remains unknown. The aim of this study was to identify pre-contact situations that lead to incorrect head placement by using decision tree analysis. Methods Tackles leading to concussions were used to identify events that provoked injury using the video recordings of matches. Injury-free tackle was used as a control. All tackles were classified according to head placements and coded from seven pre-contact factors configured aspect of both tacklers and ball-carriers. Results Three situations that led to incorrect head placement were identified. Evasive manoeuvres implemented by the ball-carrier significantly contributed to the head placement at the time of contact. Conclusion Our findings suggest that tacklers should keep their heads up to identify the movements of the ball-carrier, which might lead to tackling the head on the correct side at the moment of tackling and decrease the risk of tackler-related concussions.
Spiking the Volatility Punch

ABSTRACT An alternative volatility index called SPIKES has been recently introduced. Like VIX, SPIKES aims to forecast S&P 500 volatility over a 30-day horizon and both indexes are based on the same theoretical formula; yet, they differ in several ways. While some differences are introduced in response to the controversy surrounding possible VIX manipulation, others are due to the choice of the S&P500 exchange-traded fund (ETF), named SPY, as a substitute for the S&P500 (SPX) Index itself. Indeed, options on the SPX, used for VIX computation, are European-style, whereas options on the SPY ETF, used for SPIKES computation, are American-style. Overall, the difference is mainly due to the early exercise premium of the component options and the dividend timing of the underlying SPY versus SPX and we assess the magnitude of these separate contributions under the benchmark Black, Merton and Scholes setting. By applying both the finite difference method and newly-derived approximation formulas we show that the new SPIKES index will track the VIX index as long as 30-day US interest rates and annualized dividend yields continue to be range-bound between 0 and 10% per year. Hence, after more that 20 years of supremacy, VIX may have found its first competitor.
CIRUSS Platform: Surgery Patient Empowerment by Stress and Anxiety Monitoring

In this paper, we present the CIRUSS software platform that has been developed within the framework of the Phase 2 of the pre-commercial procurement (PCP) for the Horizon 2020 STARS project. STARS-PCP aims at developing novel personalised solutions for reducing stress related to surgical procedures. CIRUSS is an integrated, scalable, sustainable and technologically adapted solution that aims to response to present and future needs of the European healthcare systems in relation to stress and anxiety management for surgery patients. Among the different functionalities included in CIRUSS, the solution integrates a tool for detecting the stress and anxiety by joint processing of voice, face and heart-rate of the patient. As a side product, a dataset of patient video interviews has been designed and acquired. This dataset has been used to assess the performance of monomodal stress detection systems as well the multimodal approach.
A HINT LEFT BY MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLE ON ANATOMICAL DEFENSES OF LODGEPOLE PINE TREES: LARGER RESIN DUCTS ENHANCE TREE RESISTANCE

Mountain pine beetle (MPB) [Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)] populations have increased in Alberta since they have crossed the Rocky Mountains and colonized pine forests in western Alberta in 2006. Millions of mature lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) trees have been killed, leaving only a low number of residual overstory mature lodgepole pine trees and non-host tree species, such as spruce and Populus, remaining in beetle-killed stands (Taylor et al. 2006, Dhar et al. 2016). The reason behind the survival of residual trees remains unknown. The change in nutrient cycling, underground soil communities, forest structure, and other factors in post-MPB stands can certainly affect the health condition of residual pine trees and potentially change their suitability to other insects and tree pathogens (McIntosh and Macdonald 2013b, Cigan et al. 2015, Karst et al. 2015, Pec et al. 2015). Considering the low pine recruitment and regeneration in MPB-affected stands (Astrup et al. 2008, McIntosh and Macdonald 2013a), the residual overstory pine trees might be the only seed source for the future pine regeneration in Alberta. Thus, studies on the future health conditions of residual pine trees in these disturbed landscapes are urgently needed. While concentration of chemical compounds in tree phloem can vary between resistant and susceptible lodgepole pine trees (Erbilgin et al. 2017), anatomical defense represents tree defense capacities over a longer time. Here we analyzed patterns in anatomical defenses and tree increment growth to understand (1) how residual trees survived the MPB outbreak, (2) whether the outbreak altered growth/defense relationships, and (3) identify relationships with current health conditions of residual trees. We selected 31 sites in post-MPB stands in western Alberta, Canada. At most of the selected sites we established 2 plots (n = 61 plots in total). In plots, we sampled the wood from 140 beetlekilled trees using wedges and 210 residual trees using increment cores at breast height (1.4 m). Samples were collected in 2016. All trees had a diameter at breast height (DBH) over 15 cm and had a crown class of intermediate, codominant, or dominant. We confirmed MPB-killed tree by the presence of MPB attack signs such as beetle entrance holes (pitch tubes) and extensive beetle galleries under bark. The sampled residual trees were classified into three groups based on tree health conditions and included 76 healthy, 62 declining due to biotic agents other than MPB, and 72 trees that survived MPB with signs of attack but appeared vigorous.
Anomalous fine structures of the 00 0 band of tetracene in large He droplets and their dependence on droplet size

The spectrum of the band of the S1 ← S0 transition of tetracene molecules embedded in superfluid helium droplets is studied via laser induced fluorescence spectroscopy. Measurements are reported for droplets of different average sizes from about 103 to 107 helium atoms. In agreement with previous observations in small droplets the band shows two components designated as α and β peaks split by about 1 cm−1. In addition the higher energy β-peak shows some sharp superimposed peaks separated by about 0.05 cm−1. A very similar fine structure of the band is found in the tetracene–argon complex and in pentacene which challenges a simple explanation in terms of a free molecule Hamiltonian. Presumably the rotational-translational coupling of very anisotropic molecules, such as tetracene in superfluid helium has a noticeable affect on the spectra. In droplets larger than about = 106, obtained in supercritical expansions, the β peak has a broad feature shifted by 0.1 cm−1 towards higher energies from the maximum found at smaller sizes which dominates the spectrum at = 107. Several mechanisms including the interaction with the phonons in the interior of the droplets and trapping by quantum vortices are discussed as possible explanations for the unexpected spectral behaviour in the large droplets.
Mutational landscape and potential therapeutic targets for sporadic pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors based on target next-generation sequencing

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (PNET), a heterogenous type of neoplasm with limited treatment options, is relatively rare and to date, the genetic background has remained to be fully elucidated. The present study aimed to determine the mutational landscape of PNET with and without liver metastasis, as well as its clinical application value for treatment. Fresh tumor tissues were collected from 14 patients with PNET following surgery, 4 of whom had developed liver metastasis. Subsequently, targeted next-generation sequencing of 612 cancer-associated genes and comprehensive analysis were performed on the tumor tissues. The results identified 63 somatic mutations in 53 genes in the 14 patients with PNET, amongst which menin 1 was identified as the most recurrently mutated gene. The analysis also identified several novel recurrently mutated genes, including adrenoceptor alpha 2B, ARVCF delta catenin family member, carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 2, aspartate transcarbamylase, and dihydroorotase and neuregulin 1. Among the 53 mutated genes, 11 were enriched in the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway (adjusted P=7.12x10-5). In addition, 4 patients with PNET with liver metastasis had distinctly different mutational profiles compared with those without liver metastasis; 13 genes were discovered to be exclusively mutated in the liver metastasis group of the patients with PNET, including ATRX chromatin remodeler, thioredoxin reductase 2, anus kinase 3, ARVCF delta catenin family member, integrin subunit alpha V and RAD50 double strand break repair protein. In addition, two potentially actionable alterations in BRCA2 DNA repair-associated (p.Q548Q) and neurofibromin 1 (p.Q1188X) were identified using the OncoKB database. In conclusion, the present study generated a comprehensive mutational profile of 14 patients with PNET and further described the features of patients with liver metastasis, which highlights potential targets for drug development of PNET.