Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experimental Load Carrying Capacity of Fiber-Reinforced Concrete (FRC) TL-5 Concrete Barriers Subjected to Equivalent Vehicle Impact Loading at End Location

– As the repair and maintenance of concrete bridge barriers are becoming important issues in bridge engineering, a sustainable and cost-effective design of concrete bridge barriers is more significant. Recent investigations have recommended the use of fibers in structural concrete elements, while there have been limited experimental studies on the practicality and efficiency of implementing fibers in concrete bridge barriers to conclude a safe and economical design to be added to design specifications and standards. In this research, the design of Test Level 5 (TL-5) concrete bridge barriers, as identified in the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC), is modified by adding synthetic macro-fibers to the wall concrete and removing one mesh of conventional reinforcement at the back side to be cast and tested experimentally. The 5-m length Fiber-Reinforced Concrete (FRC) barrier was tested at the end location, and initially, two arrangements of conventional reinforcement were considered using stainless-steel rebars while back mesh reinforcement was removed; the first sample with no rebars at the back, and a second sample with two top horizontal rebars. However, the design of the second sample was adjusted based on the results of the first sample, as discussed in this research. The studies presented in this paper include details on the design, construction, test setup and results of the two FRC barriers cast and tested at the end location. While the results show an acceptable wall capacity with using FRC and removal of the back mesh of reinforcement, the effect of proper reinforcement at the barrier-deck junction was observed.
The impact of interactive features in music applications

The interface design and functionality of music applications have a considerable impact on the user experience; consequently, it is of practical significance to study the attention distribution and preference responses of users when using the applications in order to optimize the application design. However, research on the attention distribution and actual responses of music application users is still limited. In this paper, we propose to investigate the attention distribution and preferred responses of music application users using eye-tracking techniques. By analyzing this data, we will explore the effect of different application features and elements, such as interactive features and UGC (user-generated content), on user attention and preference responses in order to optimize the user experience in the future design of music applications.
As pharma is to healthcare, so infrastructure is to city well-being

— This paper claims that many useful analogies exist between the pharmaceutical and the infrastructure industry, not least their roles in creating health and well-being for their respective customers. Ultimately, pharma delivers medicines for the health of individuals whilst infrastructure delivers energy, potable water, etc for places where communities and businesses live and work (cities for short). Medicines are the life-blood of people, whilst infrastructure products and services are the life-blood of cities: both aim for public health and societal good. The challenges affecting the two industries, including population growth, globalisation, environmental sustainability, and climate change, are having similar impacts, as are the failures and disruptions to them. The structures of the two industries, their large organisations, and particularly the need for regulation has similarities. Both industries and organisations in each industry are complex systems: they co-evolve with their environments including technological innovations; they are dynamic with non-linear flows of goods and services; lock-in and path-dependency is evident as is the need for continuous adaptation. By using a complex systems ’ lens the analogies are examined and learning opportunities are identified.
Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Received Oct 27, 2022 Revised Mar 30, 2023 Accepted Apr 2, 2023 In today’s world most of the people use social networking sites such as Twitter. They share their opinions and their views. through these media. Grouping these users will help us in different ways such as product recommendation, opinion mining, characterization of users based on their way of expressing their feelings. In this work, we present a technique to group the users based on the textual contents of the tweets. This technique is based on an unsupervised approach of machine learning that is clustering. A method is presented for representing the users using vector space model and TF-IDF weight scheme. K-means algorithm is employed for grouping the users using cosine distance as a distance measure. For the evaluation of this method, we construct a Twitter user dataset by using the Twitter application programming interface (API). A new technique is also proposed for characterization of the clusters formed. The experimental results are promising and from the study, it is found that the users in the clusters formed could be well defined by using the proposed cluster characterization technique.
Creating Customers That Never Existed Synthesis of E-commerce Data Using CTGAN

Various e-commerce use cases that companies implement in applications rely on personal data of customers. Privacy and data protection play an important role when discussing the usage of personal customer data resulting in a conflicting demand between data collection and data protection. Researchers have found a promising solution to this problem: the generation of synthetic data which is not connected to real people. In this paper, we use the deep learning architecture Conditional Tabular Generative Adversial Network (CTGAN) to synthesize e-commerce data. Especially the categorical relationships between columns of e-commerce data include fixed dependencies, where e.g. an entry in the sub-category column is defining the entry in the category column as well. These specific characteristics result in the necessity to evaluate the suitability of the CTGAN architecture for synthesizing e-commerce data which is the focus of this paper. We present a new similarity measure for synthetic and original datasets that focuses on categorical correlations: the Cramer’s V deviation ( CV-deviation ). In our experiments, we create synthetic e-commerce data from a publicly available dataset us-ing CTGAN. We use an existing and our newly developed CV-deviation measure in hyperparameter selection and compare the outcomes. By incorporating CV-deviation into the performance metric, we manage to increase the ability of CTGAN to preserve correct categorical relations by 63%. Despite the enhancements the evaluation of the synthetic datasets shows that there is still room for improvement of the overall architecture because it seems difficult for the CTGAN model to efficiently learn all categorical constraints automatically.
Re-designing Internal Market Orientation and Its Impact on Employees’ Productivity

With the increasing challenges of employee management, internal market orientation (hereafter IMO) is proved to be able to satisfy employees’ needs and wants by collecting, disseminating and responding to internal market intelligence. This paper extends the previous IMO framework by including the employees’ needs and wants relating to their family situations as well. By collecting data from 417 domestic migrant workers in China, the results suggested that the extended IMO impact positively on employees’ happiness and morale in the manufacturing industry in China. Findings of this research re-emphasise the profound impact of IMO on organisational performance, in particular its contributions to enhancing employees’ positive attitudes and productivity. We argue that morale has a positive effect on both employee productivity and intention to stay. However, happiness does not affect intention to stay but does lead to higher productivity. This study extends existing theory and practice by employing work-family balance theory and developing an extended IMO construct. The results also show that the new IMO framework has its significant contributions for employees to achieve work and family balance as well as productivity, not only in the service sector but also in the manufacturing context.
A note on spectral analysis in automorphic representation theory for GL2: I

We establish the Fourier inversion for the smooth vectors in L2(GL2, ω) over a number field F, using minimal knowledge from automorphic representation theory. We point out a possible way to establish Fourier inversion for larger classes of functions. We also point out the incompleteness of some commonly believed “proof” of Fourier inversion in the literature. Moreover, the explicit computation of the intertwining operator has independent interests.
An SQP method for minimization of locally Lipschitz functions with nonlinear constraints

Abstract In this paper, we present a quadratic model for minimizing problems with nonconvex and nonsmooth objective and constraint functions. This method is based on sequential quadratic programming that uses an penalty function to equilibrate among the decrease of the objective function and the feasibility of the constraints. To construct a quadratic subproblem, we linearize the objective and constraint functions with their ε-subdifferential approximations. These approximations are iteratively improved until an effective descent direction is found. Also, we prove that our method is globally convergent in the sense that, every accumulation point of the generated sequence is a Clark-stationary point for the penalty function. Finally, the presented algorithm is implemented in Matlab environment and compared with some recent methods.
Bulletin of Electrical Engineering and Informatics

Received Sep 11, 2022 Revised Dec 5, 2022 Accepted Jan 11, 2023 In the data mining and machine learning (ML) discipline, feature selection problem is considered among many researchers in the recent times. Feature selection process targets to minimize feature set number and maximize performance accuracy by identifying optimal features. Multiple objectives are considered while identifying the optimal feature hence multi-objective metaheuristic optimization algorithms (MOMOAs) are applied. In this study, literature review is performed MOMOAs-for solving wrapper based feature selection problem (WFS). The literature review for solving WFS problem and discuss the challenges faced by the researchers in solving the feature selection problem. The literature review is performed on all relevant studies published in the last 12 years [2009-2022]. A detailed overview of the feature selection preliminaries, MOMOAs-WFS, role of the classifier in feature selection problem are presented. The outcome of this literature review is to highlight the existing works related to WFS problem using MOMOAs. Finally, the research areas for improvement are identified and emphasized for the scientists to survey in the field of MOMOAs.
On the Efficient Estimator of Exponential Parameter

Exponential distribution plays an important role in modeling real-life data relating to the continuous waiting time. In this article, a new estimator of the exponential parameter has been proposed. Some statistical properties of the proposed estimator have been studied. The performance of the new estimator has been compared theoretically, and empirically with the maximum likelihood estimator. Simulation and examples to real-life data reveal that the new estimator has higher relative efficiency as compared to the maximum likelihood estimator. The R program utilized in this study has also been provided. Keywords: Moment generating function; method of moments; exponential parameter; relative efficiency; simulation.
Gaze typed Rotating Flower Text entry In AR

As Augmented Reality (AR) devices become more popular and integrated into everyday life, it is important to explore new interfaces and interaction techniques that offer greater efficiency and advantages over traditional methods. This paper introduces the Rotating Flower Text Entry technique for gaze-based typing and explores its effectiveness in comparison to traditional controller-based inputs and other popular text entry layouts used in AR devices. The goal is to improve the text entry interface for AR applications, increasing typing speed, reducing error rates, and improving overall usability. Results of the study show that the Rotating Flower Text Entry technique offers greater efficiency and ease of use compared to traditional gaze-based layouts in AR devices. Advanced users could achieve a typing speed of 10 to 11 words per minute at a dwell time of 0.5 seconds. CCS
Performance of Force Myography and Surface Electromyography in Level of Muscle Activity Classification: A Preliminary Study

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Performance of Force Myography and surface Electromyography in Level of Muscle Activity Classification: A Preliminary Study Souha Baklouti, Taysir Rezgui, Abdelbadiaa Chaker, Safa Mefteh, Azza Tayari, Anis Sahbani, Khalil Ben Mansour, F. Marin, Samir Bennour
Solving Domain-Independent Dynamic Programming Problems with Anytime Heuristic Search

Domain-independent dynamic programming (DIDP) is a recently proposed model-based paradigm for combinatorial optimization where a problem is formulated as dynamic programming (DP) and solved by a generic solver. In this paper, we develop anytime heuristic search solvers for DIDP, which quickly find a feasible solution and continuously improve it to prove optimality. We implement six anytime heuristic search algorithms previously used as problem-specific methods and evaluate them on nine different problem classes. Our experimental results show that most of the anytime DIDP solvers outperform an existing A*-based solver, mixed-integer programming, and constraint programming in proving optimality, solution quality, and primal integral across multiple problem classes. In particular, complete anytime beam search (CABS) performs the best, improving on the best-known solution for one instance of traveling salesman problem with time windows and closing five instances of one-to-one multi-commodity pick-and-delivery traveling salesman problems.
Gyrokinetic Instabilities near an Evolving Tokamak H-mode Pedestal

: Plasma equilibria reconstructed from the spherical tokamak MAST capture plasma evolution during the short period between edge-localised-modes (ELMs). Immediately after the ELM steep gradients in pressure, P, and density, n e , form close to the separatrix, and then expand into the core. Local electromagnetic gyrokinetic analysis has revealed, as a function of time over the ELM-cycle, the dominant microinstabilities at perpendicular wavelengths of the order of the ion Larmor radius. Microtearing modes (MTMs) dominate in the shallow pressure gradient region of the plateau. During the pedestal ramp, MTMs become stabilised by increasing | dn e /dr | and | dP/dr | at the knee of the pressure proﬁle, until kinetic ballooning modes (KBMs) are driven unstable. This switch in the dominant instability from MTM to KBM occurs at the gradient transition zone between type-I ELMs in MAST plasmas with both low and high pedestal temperatures, and is likely to play an important role in the pedestal evolution. Further numerical studies reveal that the MAST edge MTMs have many features of MTMs found unstable in the core of STs and towards the edge of conventional aspect ratio devices. The edge MTM is driven by a trapped particle mechanism that is sensitive to magnetic drifts and does not require collisions. Similar mechanisms appear to drive MTMs in conventional aspect ratio devices, including at the edge of JET.
Bombarely et al. 2016. Insight into the evolution of the Solanaceae from the parental genomes of Petunia hybrida Nature Plants

Within the genome sequence assemblies of P. axillaris ( PaxiN ) and P. inflata ( PinfS6 ) and unassembled reads, we analysed the occurrence of endogenous Petunia vein clearing virus (PVCV) sequences, other endogenous pararetrovirus (EPRV) sequences, LTR-retroelements, and tandem repeats. Petunia genomes show substantial diversity in their pararetroviral sequences as revealed in searches using the polymerase motif. Homologies to two genera of Caulimoviridae , Petu - and Florendoviruses, with more than 60% amino acid identity, were present in both genomes. Almost complete PVCV copies, fragments, and degenerate copies, sometimes in tandem arrays, were found. PVCV motifs were more frequent in P. axillaris , with the results seen in the assemblies confirmed by in situ hybridization of PVCV fragments to metaphase chromosomes indicating that P. axillaris is likely a more permissive host for EPRVs. LTR-retroelements are localised near centromeres; about 6500 full length elements were found in the PinfS6 assembly while 4500 were in PaxiN . Apart from rDNA, microsatellites and telomeric sequences, no highly abundant tandem repeats were identified in the assembly or raw reads. Repeat cluster analysis indicates that LTR-retroelements are associated with simple sequence repeats and low complexity DNA families and that repeats within Petunia are very diverse, with none having amplified to form a major proportion of the genome. The repeat landscape of Petunia is different from other species of Solanaceae , in particular the x=12 crown group including Solanum and Nicotiana , with a relative low proportion (60-65%) of total repeats for a genome size of 1.4Gb, x=7, and a high degree of genome plasticity.
Removability of a Level Set for Solutions of Quasilinear Equations

ABSTRACT In this paper, we study the removability of a level set for the solutions of quasilinear elliptic and parabolic equations of the second order. We show, under rather general assumptions on the coefficients of the equation, that if a function u ∈ C 1(Ω) is a viscosity solution to the equation in the set then u is, in fact, a solution in the whole domain Ω. In addition to the linear equations in nondivergence form with Lipschitz coefficients, our results cover, for example, the p-Laplace equation, the minimal surface equation, the Burgers equation, and the heat equation.
Minimalist: Semi-automated Debloating of PHP Web Applications through Static Analysis

As web applications grow more complicated and rely on third-party libraries to deliver new features to their users, they become bloated with unnecessary code. This unnecessary code increases a web application’s attack surface, which can be exploited to steal user data and compromise the underlying web server. One approach to deal with bloated code is the process of selectively removing features that users do not require – debloating. In this paper, we identify the current challenges with debloating web applications and propose a semi-automated static debloating scheme. We implement a prototype of our proposed method,called Minimalist that generates a call-graph for a given PHP web application. Minimalist performs a reachability analysis for the features users require and removes unreachable functions in the analyzed web application. Compared to prior work, Minimalist debloats web applications without relying on heavy runtime instrumentation. Furthermore, the call-graph generated by Minimalist can be reused (in combination with web server logs) to debloat different installations of the same web application. Due to the inherent complexity and highly dynamic nature of the PHP language, Minimalist cannot guarantee the soundness of its call-graph analysis. However, Minimalist follows a best-effort approach to model the majority of PHP features used by popular web applications, such as WordPress, phpMyAdmin, and others. We evaluated Minimalist on 12 versions of four popular PHP web applications with 45 recent security vulnerabilities. We show that Minimalist reduces the size of web applications in our dataset on average by 18% and removes 38% of known vulnerabilities. Our results demonstrate that the principled debloating of web applications can lead to signiﬁcant security gains without relying on instrumentation mechanisms that degrade the performance of the server.
Testing homogeneity of difference of two proportions for stratified correlated paired binary data

ABSTRACT In ophthalmologic or otolaryngologic study, each subject may contribute paired organs measurements to the analysis. A number of statistical methods have been proposed on bilateral correlated data. In practice, it is important to detect confounding effect by treatment interaction, since ignoring confounding effect may lead to unreliable conclusion. Therefore, stratified data analysis can be considered to adjust the effect of confounder on statistical inference. In this article, we investigate and derive three test procedures for testing homogeneity of difference of two proportions for stratified correlated paired binary data in the basis of equal correlation model assumption. The performance of proposed test procedures is examined through Monte Carlo simulation. The simulation results show that the Score test is usually robust on type I error control with high power, and therefore is recommended among the three methods. One example from otolaryngologic study is given to illustrate the three test procedures.
Analysing Changes in Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) For C81 Catchment of the Free State, South Africa

- The purpose of the study is to analyse changes in land use and land cover (LULC) from 1990-2018 in the C81 catchment of the Free State, South Africa. It is important to understand the changes of LULC on the catchment and evaluate its impact on environmental aspects. Changes in LULC were examined using remote sensing, and aeronautical reconnaissance coverage geographic information system (ArcGIS). The LULC data was obtained from the South African National Land Cover (SANLC) project. The results of the net change from 1990-2018 with 35 classes of LULC show that the most reduced are forest plantations which decreased from 57.65% to 1.02%, and low shrublands which decreased from 17.08% to 0.16%. However, the most expanded are grasslands which increased from 17.74% to 54.30% and cultivated agriculture which increased from 1.11% to 37.32%. The transition shows that the majority of the LULC changes occurred in grassland with an annual rate of change of 1,31% and forest plantation with an annual rate of change of -2,02%. These changes in LULC may be attributed to population increase, the severity of drought and floods, water scarcity for irrigation, and climate change effects. Grasslands to forest plantations were recorded with the highest changes, which indicated that the area is dominated by agricultural activities. However, plantations or woodlots to wetlands recorded the lowest changes, which indicates low rainfall in the study area for the period under review. Integrated LULC management of this catchment is, therefore, a necessity for the mitigation of environmental degradation.
Plasma Simulation

The purpose of this project was to create a visual ﬂuid simulation of a plasma. A real time simulation of a simpliﬁed, fully ionized plasma was produced through a ﬁnite diﬀerence approximation of the linearized set of plasma equations. This simulation produced a ﬂuid that propagated entirely on electromagnetic ﬁeld eﬀects that even produced visible waves. When run with random initial velocity conditions, the simulation con-verged on a web-like pattern that closely resembles interstellar nebulae.