Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Personalized Treatment Planning Automation in Prostate Cancer Radiation Oncology: A Comprehensive Dosimetric Study

Background In radiation oncology, automation of treatment planning has reported the potential to improve plan quality and increase planning efficiency. We performed a comprehensive dosimetric evaluation of the new Personalized algorithm implemented in Pinnacle3 for full planning automation of VMAT prostate cancer treatments. Material and Methods Thirteen low-risk prostate (without lymph-nodes irradiation) and 13 high-risk prostate (with lymph-nodes irradiation) treatments were retrospectively taken from our clinical database and re-optimized using two different automated engines implemented in the Pinnacle treatment system. These two automated engines, the currently used Autoplanning and the new Personalized are both template-based algorithms that use a wish-list to formulate the planning goals and an iterative approach able to mimic the planning procedure usually adopted by experienced planners. In addition, the new Personalized module integrates a new engine, the Feasibility module, able to generate an “a priori” DVH prediction of the achievability of planning goals. Comparison between clinically accepted manually generated (MP) and automated plans generated with both Autoplanning (AP) and Personalized engines (Pers) were performed using dose-volume histogram metrics and conformity indexes. Three different normal tissue complication probabilities (NTCPs) models were used for rectal toxicity evaluation. The planning efficiency and the accuracy of dose delivery were assessed for all plans. Results For similar targets coverage, Pers plans reported a significant increase of dose conformity and less irradiation of healthy tissue, with significant dose reduction for rectum, bladder, and femurs. On average, Pers plans decreased rectal mean dose by 11.3 and 8.3 Gy for low-risk and high-risk cohorts, respectively. Similarly, the Pers plans decreased the bladder mean doses by 7.3 and 7.6 Gy for low-risk and high-risk cohorts, respectively. The integral dose was reduced by 11–16% with respect to MP plans. Overall planning times were dramatically reduced to about 7 and 15 min for Pers plans. Despite the increased complexity, all plans passed the 3%/2 mm γ-analysis for dose verification. Conclusions The Personalized engine provided an overall increase of plan quality, in terms of dose conformity and sparing of normal tissues for prostate cancer patients. The Feasibility “a priori” DVH prediction module provided OARs dose sparing well beyond the clinical objectives. The new Pinnacle Personalized algorithms outperformed the currently used Autoplanning ones as solution for treatment planning automation.
Threatened Mangroves in the Anthropocene: Habitat Fragmentation in Urban Coastalscapes of Pelliciera spp. (Tetrameristaceae) in Northern South America

Mangroves are fragmented habitats thriving in human-dominated coastalscapes worldwide. They provide refuge to threatened plant species, such as the Neotropical Piñuelo Mangrove (formerly the monotypic Pelliciera genus, recently split into two species: P. rhizophorae and P. benthamii). However, little is known about the relationship between urbanization and the spatial configuration of mangrove habitat and how it would drive ecological and evolutionary changes in the small populations of Pelliciera spp. We used open data (e.g., land cover, mangrove cover) for 107 locations of Pelliciera spp. in Colombia (extant populations) to assess coastalscape structure and urbanization. We described coastalscape composition dynamics (for 2000 and 2010) and mangrove habitat configuration along a human-domination gradient, using landscape metrics. We computed an urban index to compare urbanization intensity among the study areas along the Caribbean coast and compared coastalscape structure and mangrove spatial metrics between basins (Caribbean and Pacific). The proportion of artificial surfaces was greater in the Caribbean than in the Pacific, but no temporal difference was found. The Caribbean basin exhibited a greater Urban Index, particularly in Cartagena and Urabá. Mangrove fragmentation was also greater in the Caribbean and it was influenced by the degree of urbanization. Mangrove area and core area were smaller in the Caribbean than in the Pacific, while cohesion was significantly lower in Cartagena than in other urban areas of the Caribbean. We propose a conceptual eco-evolutionary framework for linking mangrove patch reduction and isolation to demographic variables of Pelliciera spp. Edge effects are expected to affect birth and mortality rates in small patches. Small patches and small effective populations are expected to be more sensitive to novel biotic interactions, extreme weather, and gradual climate change. Isolation will also influence both emigration and immigration rates of propagules. We propose: (1) Assessing the conservation status of the two species, (2) setting monitoring programs of their populations of Pelliciera spp. and their surrounding coastalscapes (particularly in the Caribbean, (3) declaring protected areas, in wild and urban settings, to reduce mangrove fragmentation and urbanization.
Discovery of a Highly Conserved Peptide in the Iron Transporter Melanotransferrin that Traverses an Intact Blood Brain Barrier and Localizes in Neural Cells

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) hinders the distribution of therapeutics intended for treatment of diseases of the brain. Our previous studies demonstrated that that a soluble form of melanotransferrin (MTf; Uniprot P08582; also known as p97, MFI2, and CD228), a mammalian iron-transport protein, is an effective carrier for delivery of drug conjugates across the BBB into the brain and was the first BBB targeting delivery system to demonstrate therapeutic efficacy within the brain. Here, we performed a screen to identify peptides from MTf capable of traversing the BBB. We identified a highly conserved 12-amino acid peptide, termed MTfp, that retains the ability to cross the intact BBB intact, distributes throughout the parenchyma, and enter endosomes and lysosomes within neurons, astrocytes and microglia in the brain. This peptide may provide a platform for the transport of therapeutics to the CNS, and thereby offers new avenues for potential treatments of neuropathologies that are currently refractory to existing therapies.
A New Measurement Instrument for Music-Related Argumentative Competence: The MARKO Competency Test and Competency Model

In this paper, we introduce the MARKO competency test and competency model, a new measurement instrument for music-related argumentative competence (MARKO: Musikbezogene ARgumentationsKOmpetenz; German for music-related argumentative competence). This competence, which plays an essential role in school curricula, refers to the ability to justify, and defend judgments about music. The two main goals of this study were 1) to design an assessment test for music-related argumentation that fulfills psychometric criteria and 2) to derive competency levels based on empirical data to describe the cognitive dispositions that are necessary when engaging in argumentation about music. Based on a theoretical framework, we developed a competency test to assess music-related argumentative competence. After two pretests (n = 391), we collected data from 440 students from grade nine to the university level. The final test consisted exclusively of open-ended items, which were rated with coding schemes that had been designed for each item. After ensuring inter-rater reliability, we composed an item pool that met psychometric criteria (e.g., local stochastic independence and item homogeneity) and represented content-related aspects in a meaningful way. Based on this item pool, we estimated a one-dimensional partial credit model. Following a standard-setting approach, four competency levels were derived from the empirical data. While individuals on the lowest competency level expressed their own opinions about the music by referring to salient musical attributes, participants on the highest level discussed different opinions on the music, and considered the social and cultural context of the music. The proficiency scores significantly varied between grades. Our findings empirically support some theoretical assumptions about music-related argumentation and challenge others.
Applying Recurrence Plots to Classify Time Series

The article describes a new approach to the classification of time series based on the construction of their recurrence plots. After transforming the time series into recurrence plots, two approaches are applied for classification. On the first approach, numerical recurrence characteristics are used for classification as features. In the second case, the time series is interpreted as image of its recurrence plot. A convolutional neural network is chosen for image classification. The data for the classification are the electrocardiograms realizations of 100 values, which contained records of healthy people and patients with a diagnosis of ischemia. Research results showed the advantages of classifying images of recurrence plots, indicate a good classification accuracy in comparison with other methods and the potential capabilities of this approach.
Mechanical and thermal behaviours of graphite flake-reinforced acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene composites and their correlation with entanglement density, adhesion, reinforcement and C factor

Polymer composites are prepared by melt compounding of acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS) and graphite flakes (GFs). The fabrication of ABS/GF composites involves two steps: melt compounding of the ABS matrix and GFs in a vertical twin screw micro-compounder for a period of 3 minutes, and then sample preparation using a micro-injection moulding machine. The GF content is varied from 0 to 40 vol% with respect to the ABS matrix. The composites are characterized through tensile, flexural, impact, hardness and thermal conductivity. The thermo-mechanical behaviour is analysed by dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA). The ABS/GF composites are found to have a gradual variation in the flexural modulus, with about 6, 25 and 92% increments in the flexural modulus on addition of 1, 9 and 40 vol% of GFs in the polymer matrix, respectively. But this addition of GFs exhibits a small decrement in the tensile strength and elongation at break. The impact strength is also sharply decreased (40% reduction with only 1% GF) with the increasing GF content in the ABS matrix. The DMTA results show an improvement in the storage modulus of ∼ 250% at room temperature, and the loss modulus also increases while the damping factor decreases as the GF content increases in the composite. The degree of entanglement increases whereas the reinforcement efficiency and C factor decrease for higher GF content. These are calculated from the data obtained by DMTA. The thermal conductivity of the composites shows an increasing behaviour with an increasing amount of GFs, as a ∼250% increment is observed at the 40 vol% loading of GFs. The addition of GFs also increases the melt viscosity, and the same trend is shown by the complex viscosity. Thermogravimetric analysis shows an improvement in the thermal decomposition temperature, and the char yield shows a 35% improvement at 40 vol% loading of GFs. Therefore the GF-reinforced ABS composite with improved thermal conductivity, heat stability, viscoelastic behaviour and flexural modulus can be a promising as well as a suitable composite material for making various electronic and electrical accessories including bipolar plates for fuel cell applications.
Implementing Semantic Annotation in a Ukrainian Corpus

The paper describes the first phase of semantic annotation implemented in the General Regionally Annotated Corpus of Ukrainian (GRAC) using the Ukrainian Semantic Lexicon (USL) and the TagText tagger for Ukrainian. Over 1,000 most frequent lemmas were supplied with semantic tags, creating the foundation for the lexicon. In the process of developing the USL, the original semantic tagset underwent changes and was expanded. The revised tagset is presented, and the linguistic aspects of practical semantic annotation are analyzed. The TagText tagger was updated to enable both morphological and semantic annotation of Ukrainian texts. The current versions of the USL and TagText are released and available for download. Text coverage by semantic tags in GRAC is discussed, and examples of semantic and complex searches in the GRAC corpus are provided. Plans for future work on the USL are outlined.
Filtering Link Outliers in Vehicle Trajectories by Spatial Reasoning

Vehicle trajectories derived from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are used in various traffic applications based on trajectory quality analysis for the development of successful traffic models. A trajectory consists of points and links that are connected, where both the points and links are subject to positioning errors in the GNSS. Existing trajectory filters focus on point outliers, but neglect link outliers on tracks caused by a long sampling interval. In this study, four categories of link outliers are defined, i.e., radial, drift, clustered, and shortcut; current available algorithms are applied to filter apparent point outliers for the first three categories, and a novel filtering approach is proposed for link outliers of the fourth category in urban areas using spatial reasoning rules without ancillary data. The proposed approach first measures specific geometric properties of links from trajectory databases and then evaluates the similarities of geometric measures among the links, following a set of spatial reasoning rules to determine link outliers. We tested this approach using taxi trajectory datasets for Beijing with a built-in sampling interval of 50 to 65 s. The results show that clustered links (27.14%) account for the majority of link outliers, followed by shortcut (6.53%), radial (3.91%), and drift (0.62%) outliers.
Meiosis and litotes in The Catcher in the Rye by Jerome David Salinger: Text Mining

This paper deals with the different methods, particularly statistical analysis and text mining, which help in stylistic research. The examination of the lexical and semantic features of meiosis and litotes in the novel The Catcher in the Rye by Jerome David Salinger is presented as an example. The examination in question has been carried out with the help of the programming language R. To have a good-quality research, the specific features of litotes and meiosis have been explored thoughtfully. Therefore, the broad range of possible scientific views has been described, and, subsequently, we have made a general assumption of typical linguistic patterns of meiosis and litotes. Using the obtained insights, it is possible to apply different tools of text mining in stylistic research. The present paper outlines in detail the creation of concordances, word frequencies and sentiment analysis. To reach our goal, we have used the programming language R and the R packages which are distributed by members of the community. In the scope of concordances, the concept of Key Word in Context has been discussed as well, and the advantages of using concordances in stylistic research have been introduced. The possible implementation of statistical analysis in the research of litotes has been proposed and discussed. Within the framework of sentiment analysis, we have focused on the negation, and how it affects the opinion orientation. Thus, the present paper also aims to validate the importance of litotes in sentiment analysis, as litotes are directly linked to the effects of negation. The results of each stage of the research have been provided and meticulously discussed.
A Survey of Architecture, Framework and Algorithms for Resource Management in Edge Computing

Internet-based applications predominantly use the existing method of acquiring the computing resources remotely from the cloud data centers. This method of computation is not applicable in future since it is expected that the latencies in communication tend to expand largely due to the internet connectivity among billions of devices. This enormous expansion in latencies induces an adverse impact in the Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) parameters. Edge computing is an imminent computing methodology that deploys the decentralized resources present at the edge of the network to make data processing within the proximity of user devices like smartphones, sensors or wearables. This approach is contrary to the conventional methods of utilizing centralized and distant cloud data centers. Managing the resources becomes a major challenge to be approached due to the diverse and rapidly evolving resources in comparison with the cloud. The lucrative role of Internet of Things (IoT) and Edge, and the challenges posed by the dynamic technologies are presented. This paper presents a survey of the research publications from edge computing from 2013 to 2020, covering the various architectures, frameworks, and the fundamental algorithms involved in resource management in edge computing.
A GIS-Based Methodology for Evaluating the Increase in Multimodal Transport between Bicycle and Rail Transport Systems. A Case Study in Palermo

Background: In a world where every municipality is pursuing the goals of more sustainable mobility, bicycles play a fundamental role in getting rid of private cars and travelling by an eco-friendly mode of transport. Additionally, private and shared bikes can be used as a feeder transit system, solving the problem of the first- and last-mile trips. Thanks to GIS (Geographic Information System) software, it is possible to evaluate the effectiveness of such a sustainable means of transport in future users’ modal choice. Methods: Running an accessibility analysis of cycling and rail transport services, the potential mobility demand attracted by these services and the possible multimodality between bicycle and rail transport systems can be assessed. Moreover, thanks to a modal choice model calibrated for high school students, it could be verified if students will be really motivated to adopt this solution for their home-to-school trips. Results: The GIS-based analysis showed that almost half of the active population in the study area might potentially abandon the use of their private car in favour of a bike and its combination with public transport systems; furthermore, the percentage of the students of one high school of Palermo, the Einstein High School, sharply increases from 1.5% up to 10.1%, thanks also to the combination with the rail transport service. Conclusions: The GIS-based methodology shows that multimodal transport can be an effective way to pursue a more sustainable mobility in cities and efficiently connect suburbs with low-frequent public transport services to the main public transport nodes.
Strategy and Tactics of International Digitalization and Intellectualization of Economic Relations

The article studies the strategy and tactics and examines the relationship between concepts based on such properties as priority, time period of action, essential affiliation, etc. Given the nature of the established relationships, a number of tactical approaches can be formed and implemented within the chosen strategy. In order to select them, the elements of the suffix tree method are used in the following order: definition of attributes (features) of the selected strategy and formation on their basis of the array T; detection of suffixes (Т[i.,n]) of an array of data of length n, the essence of which determines the strategy, namely the array T; construction of a suffix tree; selection of tactical approaches, moving from the root of the suffix tree to any of its letters ending in $. The practical implementation of the formed method made it possible to identify tactical approaches to digitalization of the economy.
CRM System and Consolidated Information Resource: Ways of Creation and Interaction

This work defines general concepts of the system of customer relationship management (CRM), the relevance of the researched question in the analysis of functionality of CRM-systems and the main objectives to be achieved in the process of the work. While performing it we achieved our goal and developed a mobile interface with an access to CRM-resource. The article describes the algorithms, which are implemented in the process of developing a mobile application, especially the algorithm of the authorization/authentication and the algorithm of performing any query to the back-end of the CRM-system. The scheme of data streams exchange is presented in details. It also concentrates on the ways of high-level architecture of iOS-application and the results of the completed work.
The Influence of Educational Competencies of the Staff on the Efficiency of Hotel Companies in the Tourism Sector

This paper investigates how the level of hotel efficiency is influenced by the educational competencies. A рrobit regression model approach is proposed in which efficiency is specified as a dependence of the internal factors in a hotel company. Calculations were carried out in STATISTICA. The probit model is of huge value because it allows a manager to understand the link between qualitative and quantitative variables. Hotel efficiency is a variable that taking a 0 and 1 value. The model is estimated on a panel of hotel business of the tourism sector. Approximately 42 hotels were made up the survey sample. Factors such as capital productivity and product productivity were also involved to assess the hotel efficiency. The results confirm that increasing the educational competencies in the hotel business lead to enhancing the hotel efficiency. On the basis of the developed model it is possible to select the potential business projects of new hotels.
Methods of Eliminating Features from Linguistic Equations

In this paper approaches to modelling relations between discrete linguistic features are considered. Linguistic equations as a tool for describing complicated logic dependencies between semantic and syntactic features have been investigated. Finite predicate equations have been considered from the viewpoint of quick finding hidden dependencies in data. A way to defining the tightness of links between discrete features has been suggested. For this purpose, different types of substitution operators have been investigated. A class of finite predicates that allows eliminating non-salient features without an increase in the size of the original formula has been considered in relation with some linguistic examples. The results obtained can be used not only in applied linguistic, but also in other fields where deductive inferences in knowledge bases are important.
Inferring Urban Land Use from Multi-Source Urban Mobility Data Using Latent Multi-View Subspace Clustering

In the era of big data, vast urban mobility data introduce new opportunities to infer urban land use from the perspective of social function. Most existing works only derive land use information from a single type of urban mobility dataset, which is typically biased and results in difficulty obtaining a comprehensive view of urban land use. It remains challenging to fuse high-dimensional and noisy multi-source urban mobility data to infer urban land use. This study aimed to infer urban land use from multi-source urban mobility data using latent multi-view subspace clustering. The variation in the number of origin/destination points over time was initially used to characterize land use types. Then, a latent multi-view representation was applied to construct the common underlying structure shared by multi-source urban mobility data and effectively deal with noise. Finally, based on the latent multi-view representation, the subspace clustering method was used to infer the land use types. Experiments on taxi trajectory data and bus smart card data in Beijing reveal that, compared with the method using a single type of urban mobility dataset and the weighted fusion method, the approach presented in this study obtains the highest detection rate of land use. The urban land use inferred in this study provides calibration and reference for urban planning.