Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal Operational Scheduling of Reconfigurable Microgrids in Presence of Renewable Energy Sources

Passive distribution networks are being converted into active ones by incorporating distributed means of energy generation, consumption, and storage, and the formation of so-called microgrids (MGs). As the next generation of MGs, reconfigurable microgrids (RMGs) are still in early phase studies, and require further research. RMGs facilitate the integration of distributed generators (DGs) into distribution systems and enable a reconfigurable network topology by the help of remote-controlled switches (RCSs). This paper proposes a day-ahead operational scheduling framework for RMGs by simultaneously making an optimal reconfiguration plan and dispatching controllable distributed generation units (DGUs) considering power loss minimization as an objective. A hybrid approach combining conventional particle swarm optimization (PSO) and selective PSO (SPSO) methods (PSO&SPSO) is suggested for solving this combinatorial, non-linear, and NP-hard complex optimization problem. PSO-based methods are primarily considered here for our optimization problem, since they are efficient for power system optimization problems, easy to code, have a faster convergence rate, and have a substructure that is suitable for parallel calculation rather than other optimization methods. In order to evaluate the suggested method’s performance, it is applied to an IEEE 33-bus radial distribution system that is considered as an RMG. One-hour resolution of the simultaneous network reconfiguration (NR) and the optimal dispatch (OD) of distributed DGs are carried out prior to this main study in order to validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach by comparing relevant recent studies in the literature.
Use of Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing and Information Management System in a Survey among HIV High-Risk Groups in India: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis

Objectives: In India, integrated biological and behavioral surveillance was carried out in 2014–2015 among high-risk key population as a part of second-generation HIV surveillance system. Computer-assisted personal interviewing and integrated information management system were used for the first time in this large national field based survey. We evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of technology use in this survey. Methods: Mixed methods comprising of the key informant's interviews and structured data collected from field interviewers were used to do the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis with defined attributes. Results: Despite the challenges, the technology use in this survey was a huge success with respect to data coverage, response rates, real-time data, and acceptance by respondents. However, such techniques require more focus on the competency of human resource, training, and concurrent evaluation systems to get better data quality, time adherence, and effective use of technology. Conclusion: The recommendations resulted from this analysis will help for strategic management while designing such systems in field-based community surveys.
The Press and Suicides in the 19th Century: Investigating Possible Imitative Effects in Five Territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

During the 19th century, suicide rates increased in many countries. The press may have contributed to this increase, even though empirical evidence is lacking in this regard. We assessed suicide statistics within five territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1871 and 1910 and combined these data with a content analysis of suicide reporting in five newspapers, each appearing in one of the five territories. The analysis revealed a covariation between the quantity of reporting and the number of suicides within all five regions. Furthermore, the quantity of reporting significantly predicted the following year’s suicides. Although the causal order of suicides and the quantity of reporting should be assessed with caution, evidence is consistent with the idea that the press may have contributed to the establishment of suicide as a mass phenomenon. The findings also support contemporary guidelines for journalists, especially the notion of avoiding undue repetition of suicide stories.
Phase transitions in spiked matrix estimation: information-theoretic analysis

We study here the so-called spiked Wigner and Wishart models, where one observes a low-rank matrix perturbed by some Gaussian noise. These models encompass many classical statistical tasks such as sparse PCA, submatrix localization, community detection or Gaussian mixture clustering. The goal of these notes is to present in a unified manner recent results (as well as new developments) on the information-theoretic limits of these spiked matrix/tensor models. We compute the minimal mean squared error for the estimation of the low-rank signal and compare it to the performance of spectral estimators and message passing algorithms. Phase transition phenomena are observed: depending on the noise level it is either impossible, easy (i.e. using polynomial-time estimators) or hard (information-theoretically possible, but no efficient algorithm is known to succeed) to recover the signal.
Square-Root Nyquist Filter Design for QAM-Based Filter Bank Multicarrier Systems

Filter bank multicarrier systems with quadrature amplitude modulation (FBMC/QAM) have drawn attentions to get the advantage of complex symbol transmission, as well as very low out of band radiation and relaxed synchronization requirements for asynchronous scenarios. In order to make this system viable for practical deployment, the biggest challenge is designing appropriate filters to minimize the interference between adjacent subcarriers, while maintaining the Nyquist property of the filter. We show that the deviation from the Nyquist property can be compensated through the fractional shift of the filtered symbols, which provides flexibility to optimize the stopband of the filter. The proposed design method shows advantages over the state of the art designs, and provides guidance for the filter design in practical FBMC/QAM systems.
Exact numeric solutions of non-linear PDEs: an application of machine efficient Chebyshev methods

We extend the work of Brisebarre, Muller, Tisserand, and Chevillard [2, 3] on machineefficient Chebyshev approximation, so that it is applicable to non-linear PDEs, and in particular we explore the application of this method to the Korteweg-de Vries equation [4, 6]. Current numerical algorithms to solve this differential equation for high accuracy are computationally expensive; and methods that use polynomial approximation such as spectral methods are more efficient in this case. This is because high accuracy addition, subtraction, and multiplication are efficiently implemented in general-purpose processors [2, 5, 7, 9, 11]. The proposed approach adopts the usual Chebyshev method except that coefficients are chosen so that they are efficiently handled by current computer hardware. We implement the machine-efficient Chebyshev approximation as shown in Equation 1.
Evidence for mutual allocation of social attention through interactive signaling in a mormyrid weakly electric fish

Significance Interactive electric signaling between mormyrid weakly electric fish by means of echoing a conspecific’s signals has been discussed both in the context of jamming avoidance during active electrolocation and as a strategy for electrocommunication. By confronting individuals of the weakly electric fish Mormyrus rume proboscirostris with a mobile robot that responds dynamically to the signaling activity of the fish, we show that interactive signaling, in turn, leads to increased synchronization of communication signals by the receiving animals. Synchronization of electric signaling occurred most frequently in approach configurations, suggesting that echoing may be employed specifically to address conspecific individuals and to initiate mutual allocation of social attention during electrocommunication. Mormyrid weakly electric fish produce electric organ discharges (EODs) for active electrolocation and electrocommunication. These pulses are emitted with variable interdischarge intervals (IDIs) resulting in temporal discharge patterns and interactive signaling episodes with nearby conspecifics. However, unequivocal assignment of interactive signaling to a specific behavioral context has proven to be challenging. Using an ethorobotical approach, we confronted single individuals of weakly electric Mormyrus rume proboscirostris with a mobile fish robot capable of interacting both physically, on arbitrary trajectories, as well as electrically, by generating echo responses through playback of species-specific EODs, thus synchronizing signals with the fish. Interactive signaling by the fish was more pronounced in response to a dynamic echo playback generated by the robot than in response to playback of static random IDI sequences. Such synchronizations were particularly strong at a distance corresponding to the outer limit of active electrolocation, and when fish oriented toward the fish replica. We therefore argue that interactive signaling through echoing of a conspecific’s EODs provides a simple mechanism by which weakly electric fish can specifically address nearby individuals during electrocommunication. Echoing may thus enable mormyrids to mutually allocate social attention and constitute a foundation for complex social behavior and relatively advanced cognitive abilities in a basal vertebrate lineage.
Chemical Characterization, Analgesic, Antioxidant, and Anticholinesterase Potentials of Essential Oils From Isodon rugosus Wall. ex. Benth

Isodon rugosus Wall. ex. Benth is an important species and is used in folk medicine for different types of pains such as abdominal pain, earache, toothache, gastric, and generalized body pain. Recently, we also have reported the antinociceptive potential of chloroform fraction of I. rugosus. In this research, we have investigated the antinociceptive, antioxidant and anti-cholinesterase potentials of essential oils from I. rugosus (Ir.EO), and have determined a possible mechanism of anti-nociception. The Ir.EO was subjected to gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy analysis to find out its chemical constituents. The Ir.EO was assayed for analgesic potential following acetic acid induced writhing, formalin test and hot plate method in animal models. The antioxidant activity was conducted against DPPH and ABTS free radicals following spectroscopic analysis. The cholinesterase inhibitory assays were performed using Ellman's assay. The GC-MS analysis of Ir.EO revealed the identification of 141 compounds. Ir.EO demonstrated strong antinociceptive potential in all three in-vivo models. With the use of nalaxone, it was confirmed that the essential oil was acting on the central pathway of nociception. The Ir.EO also exhibited strong free radicals scavenging potential, exhibiting IC50 values of 338 and 118 μg/ml for DPPH and ABTS free radicals respectively. In AChE and BChE inhibitory assays, the observed IC50 values were 93.56 and 284.19 μg/ml respectively. The encouraging antinociceptive, antioxidant and anticholinesterase results revealed that Ir.EO is a rich source of bioactive compounds as obvious from the GC-MS results.
Multi-Task Neural Models for Translating Between Styles Within and Across Languages

Generating natural language requires conveying content in an appropriate style. We explore two related tasks on generating text of varying formality: monolingual formality transfer and formality-sensitive machine translation. We propose to solve these tasks jointly using multi-task learning, and show that our models achieve state-of-the-art performance for formality transfer and are able to perform formality-sensitive translation without being explicitly trained on style-annotated translation examples.
Designing Protected Areas for Social–Ecological Sustainability: Effectiveness of Management Guidelines for Preserving Cultural Landscapes

Rural cultural landscapes are social–ecological systems that have been shaped by traditional human land uses in a co-evolution process between nature and culture. Protected areas should be an effective way to protect cultural landscapes and support the way of life and the economy of the local population. However, nature conservation policymaking processes and management guidelines frequently do not take culturalness into account. Through a new quantitative approach, this paper analyzes the regulatory framework of two protected areas under different management categories, located in an ancient cultural landscape of the Madrid Region (Central Spain), to identify the similarities in their conservation commitments and the effectiveness of their zoning schemes. The results show some arbitrariness in the design and management of these parks, highlighting the importance of prohibited measures in their zoning schemes that encourage uses and activities more related to naturalness than to culturalness. The recognition of protected areas as cultural landscapes and their management considering both naturalness and culturalness issues are important methods of better achieving sustainable management objectives from a social–ecological approach. This methodological approach has proven useful to unravel various legislative content, and its application on a larger scale could reveal important information for the sound management of protected areas (PAs) in cultural landscapes.
Optimization and purification of glucansucrase produced by Leuconostoc mesenteroides DRP2-19 isolated from Chinese Sauerkraut

Abstract Strain DRP2-19 was detected to produce high yield of glucansucrase in MRS broth, which was identified to be Leuconostoc mesenteroides. In order for industrial glucansucrase production of L. mesenteroides DRP2-19, a one-factor test was conducted, then response surface method was applied to optimize its yield and discover the best production condition. Based on Plackett–Burman (PB) experiment, sucrose, Ca2+, and initial pH were found to be the most significant factors for glucansucrase production. Afterwards, effects of the three main factors on glucansucrase activity were further investigated by central composite design and the optimum composition was sucrose 35.87 g/L, Ca2+ 0.21 mmol/L, and initial pH 5.56. Optimum results showed that glucansucrase activity was increased to 3.94 ± 0.43 U/mL in 24 hr fermentation, 2.66-fold higher than before. In addition, the crude enzyme was purified using ammonium sulfate precipitation, ion-exchange chromatography, and gel filtration. The molecular weight of glucansucrase was determined as approximately 170 kDa by Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). The enzyme was purified 15.77-fold and showed a final specific activity of 338.56 U/mg protein.
Physical Performance in Elite Male and Female Team Handball Players.

PURPOSE Biological differences between men and women are well known; however, literature-addressing knowledge about the influence of sex to specific and general performance in team handball is almost nonexistent. Consequently, the aim of the study was to assess and compare specific and general physical performance in male and female elite team handball players, to determine if the differences are consequential for general compared to specific physical performance characteristics and the relationship between general and specific physical performance. METHODS Twelve male and ten female elite team handball players performed a game based performance test, upper- und lower-body strength and power tests, a sprinting test, and an incremental treadmill-running test. RESULTS Significant differences (P<.05) between male and female players were found for peak oxygen uptake and total running time during the treadmill test, 30m sprinting time, leg extension strength, trunk and shoulder rotation torque, counter movement jump height as well as offense and defense time, ball velocity and jump height in the game based performance test. An interaction (sex × test) was found for time and oxygen uptake and except shoulder rotation torque and ball velocity in females, we found only a low relationship between specific and general physical performance. CONCLUSION The results of the study revealed that male players are heavier, taller, faster, stronger, jump higher and have a better aerobic performance. However, female players performed relatively better in the team handball specific tests compared to the general tests. Our findings also suggest that female players should focus more on strength training.
Educating Australia’s Jewish Communities about Child Sexual Abuse

ABSTRACT It has been claimed that effective responses to child sexual abuse (CSA) must engage with the specific cultural, social, and religious contexts of the target communities. For Jewish communities in Australia, the program J-Safe was established to raise awareness, create cultural change, and empower the Jewish community to be able to prevent, recognize, and address child sexual assault within the school setting. This paper reports on the experiences of teachers in two Jewish-day schools who had participated in the J-Safe Project’s protective behaviors teacher training program. Participants’ accounts of the training indicate the Project builds teachers’ knowledge and supports teachers’ skill development in the areas of incidence, behavioral indicators and responding to disclosure suggest the training has relevance for the Jewish teaching context. However, the extent to which the training was successful at engaging with culturally specific norms within the Jewish community seems to have been limited, although it may be that the participants were not atypical from the wider group who participated in the J-Safe Project training.
Automatic Railway Traffic Object Detection System Using Feature Fusion Refine Neural Network under Shunting Mode

Many accidents happen under shunting mode when the speed of a train is below 45 km/h. In this mode, train attendants observe the railway condition ahead using the traditional manual method and tell the observation results to the driver in order to avoid danger. To address this problem, an automatic object detection system based on convolutional neural network (CNN) is proposed to detect objects ahead in shunting mode, which is called Feature Fusion Refine neural network (FR-Net). It consists of three connected modules, i.e., the depthwise-pointwise convolution, the coarse detection module, and the object detection module. Depth-wise-pointwise convolutions are used to improve the detection in real time. The coarse detection module coarsely refine the locations and sizes of prior anchors to provide better initialization for the subsequent module and also reduces search space for the classification, whereas the object detection module aims to regress accurate object locations and predict the class labels for the prior anchors. The experimental results on the railway traffic dataset show that FR-Net achieves 0.8953 mAP with 72.3 FPS performance on a machine with a GeForce GTX1080Ti with the input size of 320 × 320 pixels. The results imply that FR-Net takes a good tradeoff both on effectiveness and real time performance. The proposed method can meet the needs of practical application in shunting mode.
A perceptual metric for evaluating quality of synthesized sequences in 3DV system

3D Video system based on Depth-Image-Based Rendering relies on high quality depth data. Errors distributed randomly in depth map sequences induce annoying temporal noise, such as flickering and object shifting. Prior studies on video quality assessment focused mainly on spatial quality of the tested sequence and often ignored its temporal performance. In synthesized sequences, a large number of tiny geometric distortions and illumination differences are temporally constant and perceptually invisible. The dynamic noise impairs subjective quality of the sequences more greatly than the static spatial noise. Temporal quality plays a dominant role in overall quality assessment on the synthesized sequences with temporal instability problem. We propose a simple full-reference metric, Peak Signal to Perceptible Temporal Noise Ratio, to evaluate quality of synthesized sequences by measuring the perceptible temporal noise in them.
Weighted Abstract Dialectical Frameworks: Extended and Revised Report

Abstract Dialectical Frameworks (ADFs) generalize Dung's argumentation frameworks allowing various relationships among arguments to be expressed in a systematic way. We further generalize ADFs so as to accommodate arbitrary acceptance degrees for the arguments. This makes ADFs applicable in domains where both the initial status of arguments and their relationship are only insufficiently specified by Boolean functions. We define all standard ADF semantics for the weighted case, including grounded, preferred and stable semantics. We illustrate our approach using acceptance degrees from the unit interval and show how other valuation structures can be integrated. In each case it is sufficient to specify how the generalized acceptance conditions are represented by formulas, and to specify the information ordering underlying the characteristic ADF operator. We also present complexity results for problems related to weighted ADFs.
Magnetite accelerates syntrophic acetate oxidation in methanogenic systems with high ammonia concentrations

Ammonia accumulation is a major inhibitory substance causing anaerobic digestion upset and failure in CH4 production. At high ammonia levels, CH4 production through syntrophic acetate oxidization (SAO) pathways is more tolerant to ammonia toxicity than the acetoclastic methanogenesis pathway, but the low CH4 production rate through SAO constitutes the main reason for the low efficiency of energy recovery in anaerobic digesters treating ammonia‐rich substrates. In this study, we showed that acetate fermentation to CH4 and CO2 occurred through SAO pathway in the anaerobic reactors containing a high ammonia concentration (5.0 g l−1 NH4+–N), and the magnetite nanoparticles supplementation increased the CH4 production rates from acetate by 36–58%, compared with the anaerobic reactors without magnetite under the same ammonia level. The mechanism of facilitated methanogenesis was proposed to be the establishment of direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET) for SAO, in which magnetite facilitated DIET between syntrophic acetate oxidizing bacteria and methanogens. High‐throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis revealed that the bacterial Geobacteraceae and the archaeal Methanosarcinaceae and Methanobacteriaceae might be involved in magnetite‐mediated DIET for SAO and CH4 production. This study demonstrated that magnetite supplementation might provide an effective approach to accelerate CH4 production rates in the anaerobic reactors treating wastewater containing high ammonia.