Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Control Architectures for Autonomous Mobile Robots

The level of autonomy of robotic systems is increasing due to intelligent algorithms, improving hardware capabilities and new scientific insights. This can yield increasing robustness against hardand software failures and may improve robot safety. However, when robots have to cooperate with each other, the level of autonomy of the individual robots (agents) may affect the efficiency of the complete robot system. The desired level of autonomy for cooperative mobile robots, operating in automated warehouses, is investigated in this thesis. Thereto, the coordination control of individual robots is studied first. This includes generation of the reference trajectories, collision avoidance and motion control. A novel Free Range Routing algorithm with collision avoidance is developed and investigated. Together with the trajectory tracking controller this composes the low-level control of the investigated system. To examine the effect of different levels of autonomy, the preferred communication topology is investigated and implemented. This enables robots to act based on information on the other robots. It is chosen to use a modular software framework with an accompanying inter-robot communication network. Various high-level aided collision avoidance methods are introduced, examined and compared. Furthermore, this information exchange enables robot consensus, facilitating formation control and other high-level features. Due to different allocations of robot tasks throughout the system, different levels of dependency on inter-robot communication are obtained. The performance of the algorithms with several hierarchical structures are validated and evaluated, in terms of various performance criteria, in simulations and experiments. Thereto, a simulation and experimental environment is created and tests are done in operational environments that are representative for Van den Akker Engineering. The different control structures are compared with respect to performance and requirements. It is concluded that the use of inter-robot communication and high-level control, is beneficial for the overall performance of a transportation system in environments of concern for Van den Akker Engineering. However, since the transportation system must remain operational even when the inter-agent communication is lost, this communication is used only to increase the efficiency of transportation, not for keeping the individual agents operational and safe from collisions.
Molecular Proxies for Climate Maladaptation in a Long-Lived Tree (Pinus pinaster Aiton, Pinaceae)

Understanding adaptive genetic responses to climate change is a main challenge for preserving biological diversity. Successful predictive models for climate-driven range shifts of species depend on the integration of information on adaptation, including that derived from genomic studies. Long-lived forest trees can experience substantial environmental change across generations, which results in a much more prominent adaptation lag than in annual species. Here, we show that candidate-gene SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) can be used as predictors of maladaptation to climate in maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton), an outcrossing long-lived keystone tree. A set of 18 SNPs potentially associated with climate, 5 of them involving amino acid-changing variants, were retained after performing logistic regression, latent factor mixed models, and Bayesian analyses of SNP–climate correlations. These relationships identified temperature as an important adaptive driver in maritime pine and highlighted that selective forces are operating differentially in geographically discrete gene pools. The frequency of the locally advantageous alleles at these selected loci was strongly correlated with survival in a common garden under extreme (hot and dry) climate conditions, which suggests that candidate-gene SNPs can be used to forecast the likely destiny of natural forest ecosystems under climate change scenarios. Differential levels of forest decline are anticipated for distinct maritime pine gene pools. Geographically defined molecular proxies for climate adaptation will thus critically enhance the predictive power of range-shift models and help establish mitigation measures for long-lived keystone forest trees in the face of impending climate change.
Europa si, Euro no? Le prospettive che abbiamo di fronte

The current debate on European economic policy is quite original and with uncertain outcomes. The economic crisis started in 2008 feeds a political and academic debate not so deeply developed since the great crisis of the â€˜30s. More Euro or less Euro? More market or less market? More State or less State? Did the expansionary austerity fail, or did it create the conditions for a more robust and balanced growth? Given the progressive crisis of the European monetary system and the risk of implosion of the Euro currency, isnâ€™t it better to manage an exit strategy from the Euro â€œon the leftâ€ , rather than wait and see a â€œright wingâ€ exit? These are all issues concerning the architecture of the European institutions, and of the underlining economic policies. On one side, some argue that it is impossible to reform the European fiscal and monetary policy; while, in opposition with this view, others sustain the necessity to pursue a more stringent and strongly reformed political and economic union integration. In Italy the debate seems to become even more polarized than in other European countries, not recognizing however that the country suffers from a domestic crisis within the general crisis, with very deep roots in the past and not easily affordable in the short run. The decline in productivity and wages, the industrial de-specialization, the lack of strategy to introduce structural reforms, these are all factors which condition the final outcome of each proposal. What it would be necessary is surely a macroeconomic policy up to the challenge of the deep global economic crisis, as well as fiscal and monetary policies adequate to the different regional specificities within the Eurozone. By now, the exit strategy from the Euro â€œon the leftâ€ , with respect to a Euro-exit â€œon the rightâ€ , is an outcome to be considered with more accuracy, but it remains an intellectual exercise. We think that the Euro-exit is a possible and traumatic outcome we should ward off, not only because it is a too risky outcome, but mainly because it does not bring with it the solutions to the domestic issues Italy should tackle. At the end, the power of ideas must prevail over vested class interests
Recognition of Artificial Nucleobases by E. coli Purine Nucleoside Phosphorylase versus its Ser90Ala Mutant in the Synthesis of Base-Modified Nucleosides.

A wide range of natural purine analogues was used as probe to assess the mechanism of recognition by the wild-type (WT) E. coli purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) versus its Ser90Ala mutant. The results were analyzed from viewpoint of the role of the Ser90 residue and the structural features of the bases. It was found that the Ser90 residue of the PNP 1) plays an important role in the binding and activation of 8-aza-7-deazapurines in the synthesis of their nucleosides, 2) participates in the binding of α-D-pentofuranose-1-phosphates at the catalytic site of the PNP, and 3) catalyzes the dephosphorylation of intermediary formed 2-deoxy-α-D-ribofuranose-1-phosphate in the trans-2-deoxyribosylation reaction. 5-Aza-7-deazaguanine manifested excellent substrate activity for both enzymes, 8-amino-7-thiaguanine and 2-aminobenzothiazole showed no substrate activity for both enzymes. On the contrary, the 2-amino derivatives of benzimidazole and benzoxazole are substrates and are converted into the N1- and unusual N2-glycosides, respectively. 9-Deaza-5-iodoxanthine showed moderate inhibitory activity of the WT E. coli PNP, whereas 9-deazaxanthine and its 2'-deoxyriboside are weak inhibitors.
Explaining Apparent Stock Market Anomalies

The article provides a discussion of the psychological and behavioral investor aspects responsible for the phenomenon of stock price momentum. Anchoring, herding, overconfidence, mental accounting, myopic loss aversion, regret aversion, prospect theory, over-reaction and under-reaction, representativeness, non-transitivity and question framing, hindsight bias and pride, barn-door closing, sensation seeking, and response to market consensus estimate are all examined to offer explanations for the abnormal superior performance of value stocks over growth stocks. The authors use empirical testing to demonstrate that enough overconfident investors and financial analysts anchor on past EPS growth rates and systematically over-extrapolate to over-estimate the EPS of growth stocks and under-estimate the EPS of value stocks. As stock value correction sets in over time, value stocks tend to outperform growth stocks. The firm size effect is also examined. Results indicate that large-cap investing works better with the growth style strategy and that small-cap investing works better with the value style strategy.
Bayesian network-based framework for the design of reconfigurable health management monitors

Modern small-size UAVs depend on highly complex architectures with many sensors and computer-controlled actuators. The size, weight and budget constraints leave little or no room for redundant systems. So all components must be reliable and any fault must be detected as early as possible. In this paper, we propose an adaptive, real-time, on-board system to continuously monitor sensors, software, and hardware components for the detection and diagnosis of failures by means of Bayesian networks. In particular, we propose an optimized hardware implementation of Bayesian Networks (BNs) for monitoring and exploiting the evidence. We consider FPGA for both performances and the ability to dynamically configure the hardware according to mission applications. Finally, we introduce an off-line framework that can generate FPGA implementations of the monitors for embedded systems under time and resource constraints.
Researching and critiquing World Englishes

This paper critiques research methods used in current studies of syntax in World Englishes. In order to do so, we draw from the literature on China English to exemplify these issues. By critically reviewing current literature that documents syntactic features of China English, we show that the features described as those of China English fail to index the variety itself. This is, we argue, partly a consequence of the limitations of the research methods that were adopted in these studies. The paper identifies six main issues with research methodology used in current studies of World Englishes: (1) uniqueness; (2) register variation; (3) using norms of writing for describing oral texts; (4) insufficient sociolinguistic information; (5) stability and extent of use; and (6) problematic sources of data. The results of the meta-analysis presented in this paper can help us in reconsidering the methodological requirements for work in this area. The paper ends with a discussion of alternative ways to carry out research in World Englishes.
Factors related to compliance with palivizumab prophylaxis for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection - data from Poland.

AIM To evaluate compliance and health outcomes in children receiving palivizumab prophylaxis and to identify factors that could impact parental compliance with the recommended regimen of palivizumab immunoprophylaxis. MATERIAL AND METHODS A retrospective, multicentre, non-interventional study of children enrolled in the Polish National Programme for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Immunoprophylaxis who received ≥1 dose of palivizumab during two consecutive RSV seasons (I: 2008-2009, II: 2009-2010). For each child qualified to receive palivizumab, the following data were collected: sociodemographic factors, clinical characteristics at enrolment, and in the course of palivizumab prophylaxis. RESULTS One thousand twenty-one infants were enrolled into the Registry at 29 sites across Poland and received a total of 3,241 palivizumab injections (average: 3.2 doses per child). The incidence of adverse reactions was 3.33%; nervousness was the most frequently reported event (1.23%). Overall, 771 (75.5%) children received all of their expected injections, whereas 635 (62.2%) children received their injections within the appropriate interdose interval. Compliance was lower in male infants. None of the other demographic, social, or clinical factors seemed to impact compliance. Non-compliant children had a higher rate of hospitalisation due to respiratory illness (22% vs 9.9%, p<0.0001, and 18.4% vs 9.5%, p<0.0001, for compliance defined by the number of expected injections received and by the interdose interval, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Palivizumab prophylaxis was conducted in accordance with recommendations and was well tolerated in at-risk infants. Non-compliance was higher among male infants and was related with a higher rate of hospitalisation due to respiratory illness.
Anti-EU Parties and the People: An Analysis of Populism in French Euromanifestos

Abstract The aim of this paper is to test the hypothesis that the opening of a European political space and the Europeanization of parties create a favourable arena for populist speech, themes and perhaps ideology, especially in the case of anti-EU parties. To do this, a quantitative study of populist speeches in French pro- and anti-EU party Euromanifestos has been conducted for the 1999 and 2004 European elections. It contributes to the scientific debate regarding the possible rise of a new political cleavage resulting from the European issue. Our comparative content analysis based on a coding system of populist discourse shows that there are no systematic links between the position of French parties towards the EU and their use of populist arguments, but a variety of relations, linked to the position of the parties within the party system as well as to the right/left cleavage. European issues are integrated in the ideologies and identities of the parties and only produce moderate effects on populist speeches. Therefore, party practices and speeches are stable. In some cases, what is evidenced is not a rise or a transformation of populist discourse, but national discourse patterns adapted to a European context and a phenomenon of Europeanization of certain populist themes.
AREA EFFICIENT MONTGOMERY MODULAR MULTIPLICATION ARCHITECTURE WITH LOW-MEMORY BANDWIDTH REQUIREMENT

Montgomery modular multiplication is widely used in public-key cryptosystems. This work shows how to relax the data dependency in conventional word-based algorithms to maximize the possibility of reusing the current words of variables. With the greatly relaxed data dependency, we then proposed a novel scheduling scheme to alleviate the number of memory access in the developed scalable architecture. Analytical results show that the memory bandwidth requirement of the proposed scalable architectureis almost 1/(w-1) times that of conventional scalable architectures, where w denotes word size. The proposed one also retains a latency of exactly one cycle between the operations of the same words in two consecutive iterations of the Montgomery modular multiplication algorithm when employing enough processing elements. Compared to the design in the related work, experimental results demonstrate that the proposed one achieves an almost 54 percent reduction in power consumption with no degradation inthroughput. The reduced number of memory access not only leads to lower power consumption, but also facilitates the design of scalable architectures for any precision of operands.
Nucleolar Segregation Lags Behind the Rest of the Genome and Requires Cdc14p Activation by the FEAR Network

In order to transmit a full genetic complement cells must ensure that all chromosomes are accurately split and distributed during anaphase. Chromosome XII in S. cerevisiae contains the site of nucleolar assembly, a 1-2Mb array of rDNA genes named RDN1. Cdc14p is a conserved phosphatase, essential for anaphase progression and mitotic exit, which is kept inactive at the nucleolus until mitosis. In early anaphase, the FEAR network (Cdc Fourteen Early Anaphase Release) promotes the transient and partial release of Cdc14p from the nucleolus. The putative role of Cdc14p released by the FEAR network is thought to be the stimulation of full Cdc14p release by activation of the GTPase-driven signalling cascade (the Mitotic Exit Network or MEN) that ensures mitotic exit. Here, we show that nucleolar segregation is spatially separated and temporally delayed from the rest of the genome. Nucleolar segregation occurs during mid-anaphase and coincides with the FEAR release of Cdc14p. Inactivation of FEAR delays nucleolar segregation until late anaphase, demonstrating that one function of the FEAR network is to promote segregation of repetitive nucleolar chromatin during mid-anaphase. Links to supplemental material: http://www.landesbioscience. com/supplement/aragonCC3-4-sup.pdf http://www.landesbioscience. com/supplement/aragonCC3-4-supmov.mov
Comment Letter Frequency and CFO Turnover

Earlier research on chief financial officer (CFO) turnover considered whether one of detailed regulatory findings, such as restatements, affected the likelihood of CFO turnover. However, since the passing of Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) has revised the regulatory approach it uses. It now investigates companies on a more frequent basis and using Comment Letters (CLs) regularly asks registrants to explain disclosure practice with a view to possibly requiring enhanced or revised disclosures. In this new proactive environment, some registrants may repeatedly receive CLs asking questions about multiple disclosure issues. This research uses a dynamic hazard model specification to investigate whether through time CFO turnover increases as the registrants accumulate more CLs. In addition to CL frequency, a measure of the severity of SEC CLs is introduced to see if it moderates the effect of frequency.
Correlates of electronic health record adoption in office practices: a statewide survey.

OBJECTIVE Despite emerging evidence that electronic health records (EHRs) can improve the efficiency and quality of medical care, most physicians in office practice in the United States do not currently use an EHR. We sought to measure the correlates of EHR adoption. DESIGN Mailed survey to a stratified random sample of all medical practices in Massachusetts in 2005, with one physician per practice randomly selected for survey. MEASUREMENTS EHR adoption rates. RESULTS The response rate was 71% (1345/1884). Overall, while 45% of physicians were using an EHR, EHRs were present in only 23% of practices. In multivariate analysis, practice size was strongly correlated with EHR adoption; 52% of practices with 7 or more physicians had an EHR, as compared with 14% of solo practices (adjusted odds ratio, 3.66; 95% confidence interval, 2.28-5.87). Hospital-based practices (adjusted odds ratio, 2.44; 95% confidence interval, 1.53-3.91) and practices that teach medical students or residents (adjusted odds ratio, 2.30; 95% confidence interval, 1.60-3.31) were more likely to have an EHR. The most frequently cited barriers to adoption were start-up financial costs (84%), ongoing financial costs (82%), and loss of productivity (81%). CONCLUSIONS While almost half of physicians in Massachusetts are using an EHR, fewer than one in four practices in Massachusetts have adopted EHRs. Adoption rates are lower in smaller practices, those not affiliated with hospitals, and those that do not teach medical students or residents. Interventions to expand EHR use must address both financial and non-financial barriers, especially among smaller practices.
Reengineering the lending procedure for small businesses: a case study

Lending to small businesses has not been perceived to be profitable for banks. This paper demonstrates, by means of a case study, how a Midwest bank in the USA took a proactive approach to turn things around. The proposed reengineering process should produce savings of at least 50 percent in direct underwriting cost. The proposed approach can be used by other banks to obtain similar benefits.
The Public as Thermostat: Dynamics of Preferences for Spending

Theory: Democratic accountability requires that the public be reasonably well-informed about what policymakers actually do. Such a public would adjust its preferences for "more" or "less" policy in response to policy outputs themselves. In effect, the public would behave like a thermostat; when the actual policy "temperature" differs from the preferred policy temperature, the public would send a signal to adjust policy accordingly, and once sufficiently adjusted, the signal would stop. Hypotheses: In domains where policy is clearly defined and salient to the public, changes in the public's preferences for more policy activity are negatively related to changes in policy. Methods: A thermostatic model of American public preferences for spending on defense and a set of five social programs is developed and then tested using time series regression analysis. Results: Changes in public preferences for more spending reflect changes in both the preferred levels of spending and spending decisions themselves. Most importantly, changes in preferences are negatively related to spending decisions, whereby the public adjusts its preferences for more spending downward (upward) when appropriations increase (decrease). Thus, consistent with the Eastonian model, policy outputs do "feed back" on public inputs, at least in the defense spending domain and across a set of social spending domains.
Involuntary Rural Resettlement

This article analyses the effects of resettlement on farming households in two villages within the area inundated by the Three Gorges Dam, China. The article also proposes a political-economic framework within which to understand the resettlement program and its implications for households. The households brought a variety of resources into the resettlement—land, savings, their labor, social ties, and communal resources—resources that became less during the resettlement process. Apart from extensive borrowing, largely to fund a major investment in new housing, the households’ responses tended to reflect constraints imposed on them by the resettlement rather than their ability to exploit new opportunities. As a consequence, farm incomes fell after resettlement, particularly in the village where more land was lost. The loss of farm income was not made up by increased off-farm income through paid work or self-employment. The households in the two villages have thus become more vulnerable to further external shocks than they were before the resettlement.
Intraday Stealth Trading: Which Trades Move Prices During Periods of High Volume?

Research documents a U-shaped intraday pattern of returns. We examine which trade sizes drive the U-shaped pattern and find that intraday price changes from larger trades exhibit a U-shaped pattern whereas price changes from smaller trades show a reverse U-shaped pattern. We argue that price changes from smaller trades are higher during the middle of the day because informed investors break up their trades to disguise their information when intraday volume is low. Price changes from larger trades are likely higher at the beginning and end of the day because high volume allows informed investors to increase their trade size without revealing their information to the market. (c) 2009 The Southern Finance Association and the Southwestern Finance Association.