Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Railway Induced Groundborne Noise And Vibration From Lines In Tunnel, Paris Rer E “Eole” Project

Construction of the RER E “EOLE” tunnel line in Paris (France) between St-Lazare station and Paris West has started in 2018. Ground-borne noise and vibration levels generated by operational trains have been carefully considered to prevent nearby buildings’ occupants from being exposed to noise annoyance. This paper describes the steps taken to predict ground-borne noise from train operation in a tunnel. The tunnel is located under 1870’s era buildings, on Boulevard Haussmann, Paris. A model for predicting ground-borne noise and vibration from the operational railway was used, including a numerical FEM/BEM model of the soil and foundations and an empirical transfer function for this Haussmann-style building type.
Can You Translate that into Man? Commercial Machine Translation Systems Include Stylistic Biases

The main goal of machine translation has been to convey the correct content. Stylistic considerations have been at best secondary. We show that as a consequence, the output of three commercial machine translation systems (Bing, DeepL, Google) make demographically diverse samples from ﬁve languages “sound” older and more male than the original. Our ﬁndings suggest that translation models reﬂect demographic bias in the training data. This opens up interesting new research avenues in machine translation to take stylistic considerations into account.
Stomatal-scale modelling of the competition between ozone sinks at the air-leaf interface

This paper analyses the existence and relative strength of ozone (O3) sinks at the leaf level, in particular the implications for the partition of the O3 flux amongst the several physically, chemically and physiologically differing inner and outer surfaces of a leaf.We used a single-stomatal scale theoretical model to simulate the O3 transfer into leaves and estimate the flux partition. The theoretical scenarios were compared with experimental values from shoot-scale measurements of O3 flux onto Scots pine. The conditions where external sinks would prevent the stomatal diffusion involved the existence of very strong sinks at the external surfaces but yielded unrealistically high flux values. Only the possibility of a strong sink localized in the antechamber and/or pore could be of significance. Results also showed that in most instances a significant proportion of the total flux was generated by the external surfaces. For scenarios that consider strong scavenging in the mesophyll and weaker removal in the exterior, the proportion was about 60–80% for small stomatal apertures (∼0.5 μm), and 10–40% for larger apertures (∼1.5 μm). In these cases, however big the proportion of total flux is due to the external surfaces, the existence of sinks at the external surfaces does not prevent the diffusion through open and unoccluded stomata.
Network Generation with Differential Privacy

We consider the problem of generating private synthetic versions of real-world graphs containing private information while maintaining the utility of generated graphs. Differential privacy is a gold standard for data privacy, and the introduction of the differentially private stochastic gradient descent (DP-SGD) algorithm has facilitated the training of private neural models in a number of domains. Recent advances in graph generation via deep generative networks have produced several high performing models. We evaluate and compare state-of-the-art models including adjacency matrix based models and edge based models, and show a practical implementation that favours the edge-list approach utilizing the Gaussian noise mechanism when evaluated on commonly used graph datasets. Based on our findings, we propose a generative model that can reproduce the properties of real-world networks while maintaining edge-differential privacy. The proposed model is based on a stochastic neural network that generates discrete edge-list samples and is trained using the Wasserstein GAN objective with the DP-SGD optimizer. Being the first approach to combine these beneficial properties, our model contributes to further research on graph data privacy.
CrypTen: Secure Multi-Party Computation Meets Machine Learning

Secure multi-party computation (MPC) allows parties to perform computations on data while keeping that data private. This capability has great potential for machine-learning applications: it facilitates training of machine-learning models on private data sets owned by different parties, evaluation of one party's private model using another party's private data, etc. Although a range of studies implement machine-learning models via secure MPC, such implementations are not yet mainstream. Adoption of secure MPC is hampered by the absence of flexible software frameworks that"speak the language"of machine-learning researchers and engineers. To foster adoption of secure MPC in machine learning, we present CrypTen: a software framework that exposes popular secure MPC primitives via abstractions that are common in modern machine-learning frameworks, such as tensor computations, automatic differentiation, and modular neural networks. This paper describes the design of CrypTen and measure its performance on state-of-the-art models for text classification, speech recognition, and image classification. Our benchmarks show that CrypTen's GPU support and high-performance communication between (an arbitrary number of) parties allows it to perform efficient private evaluation of modern machine-learning models under a semi-honest threat model. For example, two parties using CrypTen can securely predict phonemes in speech recordings using Wav2Letter faster than real-time. We hope that CrypTen will spur adoption of secure MPC in the machine-learning community.
The Effect of Textual Enhancement on Collocation Learning: The Case of Arab EFL Learners

Interest in second language (L2) collocation instruction studies is increasing because collocations constitute a major difficulty for L2 learners. The current study investigates the effect of textual enhancement on L2 collocation learning in a foreign language learning environment. To this end, a total of 137 Arab learners of English were divided into three groups; a textual enhancement group, a textual non-enhancement group and a control group. The treatment period lasted for 4 weeks during which the participants were repeatedly exposed to unfamiliar verb + noun and adjective + noun collocations (n=16) embedded in stories in four 45-minute sessions. Using a pre-test/post-test design, the results surprisingly showed a clear advantage for the textual non-enhancement group across different comparisons although to varying degrees. The results also revealed minimal and inconsistent differences in learning gains for different word types. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are proposed.
Supramolecular Interactions of Cryptates in Concentrated Solutions: The Effect of Solvent and Counterions Investigated by MD Simulations

Abstract We present a molecular dynamics study of concentrated solutions of K+⊂222 cryptates, comparing two counterions X− (Chloride Cl− versus Picrate Pic−) and three solvents (water, acetonitrile, and chloroform), with the main aim to investigate the distribution of the ions in the different solutions. The simulations reveal marked differences from one system to the other. In acetonitrile, with either Cl− or Pic− counterions, the cryptates and the X− anions are well diluted in the solvent box, without revealing specific ion pairing. In the less polar chloroform solutions, the complexes aggregate, and aggregation is more pronounced with Cl− than with Pic− counterions. In water, hydrophobic forces lead to still different anion dependent arrangements. The hydrophilic Cl− anions are diluted in water, without pairing with the cryptates which tend to “attract each other,” in spite of their coulombic repulsions. The Pic− anions are more hydrophobic than Cl− and display π−stacking attractions, forming negatively charged oligomers surrounded by cryptates that are therefore close to each other. The role of counterion is further demonstrated with aqueous solutions of the more charged Ba2+⊂222 cryptates, comparing the Cl− to the Pic− counterions. Beyond the case of the studied model solutions, the results have a bearing on the aggregation phenomena of other big ions (e.g. cation complexes, or bulky anions like polyoxometallates, or carborane derivatives) in solution.
A Blockchain-Based Approach towards Overcoming Fraud in Issuing Letter of Credit

The best method for any organization to protect themselves against a possible fraud is to ensure that they have adequate fraud prevention and detection methods in place. Organizations need to realize the growing importance of addressing/controlling the risk of fraud in a comprehensive and integrated manner, which would in turn benefit them in a number of ways. Evaluating anti-fraud programs, controls, ethical conduct and compliance with policies and procedures in the business process by assessing its vulnerability to fraud is the foundation on which effective anti-fraud processes and tools are built. A fraud detection proprietary tool, can profile and analyze financial and non-financial data across various areas and disparate systems to find anomalous relationships, transactions or unusual patterns, such as, duplicate supplier invoicing, ghost employees, altered payees, etc. This rigorous analysis can help organizations identify fraudulent activity; prioritize case management and investigation; and improve the false positive rate of a detection and prevention strategies. Blockchain technology can and will help organizations to tackle fraud in this regard. Therefore, by the five years, we will see transaction volumes and the associated profit pools shifting from intermediaries toward the owners of new highly efficient blockchain platforms. These transactions could include transferring digital or physical assets, protecting intellectual property, and verifying the chain of custody. In an era of cyber-crime and stringent regulatory requirements, a highly fraud-resistant system for protecting and authenticating almost any kind of transaction could have a revolutionary impact on the financial services industry. Therefore, in this paper, we consider the design of a mix of private blockchain/public blockchain technology which can create various metadata components, used to create a unique series number. This number will be added to a precious asset as well as the blockchain. Once the database contains sufficient data, if one cannot provide encrypted proof that he/she owns the right to that precious asset, the asset will lose its substantial value. Such blockchain-based prototype system is aimed at eliminating this type of fraud in letters of Credit (LoC) and increasing transparency regarding their flow in the banking systems. While the prototype is based on the specific context of issuing letter of credit, we discuss how it can be generalized for tracking other banking transactions.
Optimal Support Design for Galleries Located in Poor Quality Rock Mass and Under the Influence of Mining Works

In this work, the sup port of two general galleries located in poor quality rock mass and subjected to the influence of high thickness coal layer exploitations is designed and optimized. The process is carried out in four phases: A first preliminary support is defined employing different geomechanical classifications and applying the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM) using bolts and shotcrete. An instrumentation campaign is carried out with the goal of analysing the behaviour of the support. The study noticed the failure of the support due to the time of placement of the different elements. A back-analysis using the Flac and Phases software has allowed the evaluation of the properties of the rock mass and the support, the study of the influence of the time of placement on the component elements (bolts and shotcrete), and the redefinition of that support. Subsequently, a new support is designed and optimized through numerical modeling after the start of mining without experience in these sizes of sublevel caving that caused the failure of the previously designed support. The new support is formed by yieldable steel arches that are more suitable to withstand the stresses generated by nearby mining work.
Towards Micro Robot Hydrobatics: Vision-based Guidance, Navigation, and Control for Agile Underwater Vehicles in Confined Environments

Despite the recent progress, guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) are largely unsolved for agile micro autonomous underwater vehicles (µAUVs). Hereby, robust and accurate self-localization systems which fit µAUVs play a key role and their absence constitutes a severe bottleneck in micro underwater robotics research. In this work we present, first, a small-size low-cost high performance vision-based self-localization module which solves this bottleneck even for the requirements of highly agile robot platforms. Second, we present its integration into a powerful GNC-framework which allows the deployment of µAUVs in fully autonomous mission. Finally, we critically evaluate the performance of the localization system and the GNC-framework in two experimental scenarios.
Radiographic assessment of bone tunnels after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: A comparison of hamstring tendon and bone-patellar tendon-bone autografting technique

Objectives This study aims to compare the postoperative change of femoral and tibial tunnel widths after hamstring tendon (HT) and bone-patellar tendon-bone (BPTB) autografting in primary anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgery with the anteromedial portal technique. Patients and methods This case-control and retrospective study included 39 patients (36 males, 3 females; mean age 30.1±7.9; range, 17 to 44 years) who underwent primary ACL reconstruction surgery with either BPTB autografting method (BPTB group, n=18) or HT autografting method (HT group, n=21) between March 2014 and December 2016. Femoral fixation was achieved with bioabsorbable screw in BPTB group and endobutton in HT group. Tibial fixation was achieved with bioabsorbable interference screw in both groups. Femoral and tibial tunnel widths of groups were compared on digital radiographs. Results When we compared the baseline values with the second-year results, the mean of femoral tunnel widths were significantly lower on radiographs at the second-year evaluation in both groups (p<0.001 for all). However, the means of tibial tunnel widths were significantly lower only in the BPTB group (p<0.001 for BPTB group and p=0.616 for HT group). Change levels of anteroposterior and lateral widths were more prominent in BPTB group than HT group (p<0.001 for all). Conclusion Changes in tunnel widths show us superior ossification in BPTB grafting. This can be explained by superior bone-to-bone healing. As a result of radiological evaluation, we think that BPTB grafting can be more strong and durable.
Attention is All You Sign: Sign Language Translation with Transformers

This paper improves the translation system in Sign Language Translation (SLT) by using Transformers. We report a wide range of experimental results for various Transformer setups and introduce a novel end-to-end SLT system combining Spatial-Temporal Multi-Cue (STMC) and Transformer networks. Our methodology improves on the current state-of-the-art by over 5 and 7 BLEU respectively on ground truth (GT) glosses and predicted glosses of the PHOENIX-Weather 2014T dataset. On the ASLG-PC12 corpus, we report an improvement of over 16 BLEU. Our ﬁndings also reveal that end-to-end translation with predicted glosses outperforms translation on GT glosses. This shows the potential for further improvement in SLT by either jointly training the SLR and translation systems or by revising the gloss annotation scheme.
TWO CLINICAL VALIDATION STUDIES ON THE STATE FORM AND TYPES OF RELIABILITY OF THE TRAIT FORM OF THE STATE-TRAIT ANXIETY INVENTORY

To determine the "real life" validity of the State form (experimental B-1 and final X-1) of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, two P-technique analysis studies were carried out. · The first utilized two therapists and two of their respective clients. The second involved two patients on an alcoholic treatment unit and their therapists. Expected relations in the first study between clients' responses to the STAI B-1, a separate Daily Diary, and therapists' judgments were not entirely forthcoming. However, the second study showed expected correlations between measures of psychophysiological functions, psychological tests, and the clinicians' judgments. Several reliability indices applied to the Trait form (B-2 and X-2) showed considerable relation between two administrations two months and one month apart respectively.
AUTOMATIC HUMAN DETECTION AND TARGETING SYSTEM IN DEFENCE

: : High altitude borders of India pose a great challenge to our soldiers. Apart from their duty to defend the enemy, they have to struggle a lot to resist the extreme cold weather in those regions. Our project aims at providing an aid to this problem by replacing soldiers with this system. It is a fully automatic system, thus no manual assistance is needed. Our defence system s of features like automatic human recognition, automatic motion sensing, automatic firing, video recording system etc; Apart from this techniques, efficient human detection and targeting system identifies the presence of human and automatically target that person by tracking the location. Human detection is accomplished by skin detection technique. This system is outfitted with video camera, processing unit and embedded system, which cannot only detect intrusion attempts but also provide a video coverage of suspicious area for remote vigilance. As it is equipped with mechanisms for automatic firing only to the assailant, there is no harm for Indian soldiers as well as others, since we provide mechanism for differentiating friendly personnel from enemies. Also our device can withstand extreme climatic conditions, thus the device needed less maintenance.
Historical Approach to Physics according to Kant, Einstein, and Hegel

It is known that Einstein’s conceptual base for his theory of relativity was the philosophy formulated by Immanuel Kant. Things appear differently to observers in different frames. However, Kant’s Ding-an-Sich leads to the existence of the absolute reference frame which is not acceptable in Einstein’s theory. It is possible to avoid this conflict using the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism where two different views can co-exist in harmony. This is not enough to explain Einstein’s discovery of the mass-energy relation. The energy-momentum relations for slow and ultra-fast particles take different forms. Einstein was able to synthesize these two formulas to create his energy-mass relation. Indeed, this is what Hegelianism is about in physics. Isaac Newton synthesized open orbits for comets and closed orbits for planets to create his second law of motion. Maxwell combined electricity and magnetism to create his four equations to the present-day wireless world. In order to synthesize wave and particle views of matter, Heisenberg formulated his uncertainty principle. Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two greatest theories formulated in the 20th Century. Efforts to synthesize these two theories are discussed in detail. presented at the 32nd Congress of the Italian Society of Historians of Physics and Astronomy (Rome, Italy, September 2012), publshed in the ”Physics, Astronomy, and Engineering. Critical Problems in the History of Science and Society”, edited by Raphael Pisano, Danilo Cappechi, and Anna Lukesova (Scientia Socialis Press, Scientia Socialis, Siauliai, Lithuania, 2013), pages 113 122.
Dimensions of Mobile-banking in Greece During Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic reveal the need for structural reforms in various economic sectors including the banking sector. In Greece the banking sector needs to promote structural reforms promoting new products and services or improve existing ones to improve contactless transactions. The purpose of the paper is to explore the determinants (in terms of demographic, personal and behavioral factors) that are affecting the use of mobile banking during the Covid-19 pandemic in Greece. A multiple logistic regression and a structural equation model analysis are employed, in conjunction with confirmatory factor analysis, based on a proposed extended technological acceptance model (TAM). The data derived from a field survey on 617 users and non-users of mobile banking, using an appropriately-constructed questionnaire. The results showed that the demographics as well as the personal and technology acceptance factors contributed significantly to the adoption of this form of online banking in Greece. From the extended TAM model, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, hedonic motivation and social influence were found to have a significant impact on the use of mobile banking. Furthermore, perceived awareness combined with subconscious factors such as personal characteristics of Greek consumers play an important role. This is the first study for Greece, to the best of our knowledge, which examines the determinants affecting the use of mobile banking both in terms of consumers' perceptions and attitudes during a period where contactless transactions became necessary in the everyday life of consumers worldwide.
Rate Coefficients for Reactions of NO3 with a Few Olefins and Oxygenated Olefins

The rate coefficients for the reactions of NO3 with 2-methyl-3-butene-2-ol (methyl butenol, MBO, k1), 1-butene (k2), trans-2-butene (k3), methacrolein (MACR, k4), and methyl vinyl ketone (MVK, k5) were measured directly using a flow tube coupled to a diode laser absorption system where NO3 was measured. The measured values of the rate coefficients are k1 = 4.6 × 10-14 exp(−400/T) cm3 molecule-1 s-1, k2 = 5.2 × 10-13 exp(−1070/T) cm3 molecule-1 s-1, k3(298 K) = (4.06 ± 0.36) × 10-13 cm3 molecule-1 s-1, k4(298 K) ≤ 8 × 10-15 cm3 molecule-1 s-1, and k5(298 K) ≤ 1.2 × 10-16 cm3 molecule-1 s-1. The observed reactivity trends are correlated in terms of the presence of electron-withdrawing substituents, which reduces the reactivity of alkenes toward NO3 addition to the double bond. The contribution of NO3 reactions to determining the tropospheric lifetimes of these compounds are also calculated.