Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design of compensators for second order sliding modes

In this paper, compensators for the Twisting and Sub-Optimal algorithms are designed. The compensation is aimed at the increase of the open-loop gain of the system with respect to the averaged variables (at low frequencies) achieved through the mechanism of the increase of the equivalent gains kn of the controller nonlinearities. The describing function method is used for the development of the system model. An example of design and simulations are presented.
Semantic description of 3D environments: a proposal based on web standards

While the number of virtual environments available on the net is constantly increasing, most of them are composed by a wide number of low-level geometric objects that lack any semantic description. Such situation prevents advanced uses of the data contained inside the environments, such as selection and extraction of semantic objects or advanced queries that refer to high-level properties of the environment. Recently some attempts have been performed in order to annotate 3D environments using the descriptive capabilities of MPEG-7 standard. While the solutions proposed are interesting, there are still a number of issues to be solved, including the definition of scene-independent ontologies that can be useful in different situations (e.g., 3D world validation, semantic search through a set of worlds, etc.). This work proposes an alternate approach for associating semantic information to 3D worlds based on the integration of two web standards: the X3D language and the semantic web. The approach is characterized also by the definition of scene-independent ontologies and by the definition of semantic zones that complement the role of semantic objects for giving a complete description of the environment.In order to show the potentialities of such approach the paper will illustrate an application scenario characterized by the extraction of the semantic information from an X3D document and the associated ontology for generating a high-level and multilevel textual description of a tour through the 3D environment described by them.
A Ground Truth For Half A Million Musical Incipits

Musical incipits are short extracts of scores, taken from the beginning. The RISM A/II collection contains about half a million of them. This large collection size makes a ground truth very interesting for the development of music retrieval methods, but at the same time makes it very dicult to establish one. Human experts cannot be expected to sift through half a million melodies to find the best matches for a given query. For 11 queries, we filtered the collection so that about 50 candidates per query were left, which we then presented to 35 human experts for a final ranking. We present our filtering methods, the experiment design, and the resulting ground truth. To obtain ground truths, we ordered the incipits by the median ranks assigned to them by the human experts. For every incipit, we used the Wilcoxon rank sum test to compare the list of ranks assigned to it with the lists of ranks assigned to its predecessors. As a result, we know which rank dierences are statistically significant, which gives us groups of incipits whose correct ranking we know. This ground truth can be used for evaluating music information retrieval systems. A good retrieval system should order the incipits in a way that the order of the groups we identified is not violated, and it should include all high-ranking melodies that we found. It might, however, find additional good matches since our filtering process is not guaranteed to be perfect.
Antitumor effects of WNT2B silencing in GLUT1 overexpressing cisplatin resistant head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES The increased rate of glucose uptake necessary to support the growth of tumor cells is mediated by glucose transporters, and glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) is overexpressed in several types of cancer in correlation with poor prognosis. And WNT2B overexpression is thought to be involved in tumor progression. Here, we investigated the effects of WNT2B in GLUT1 overexpressing cisplatin resistant head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) in vitro and in vivo. MATERIALS AND METHODS We generated GLUT1 overexpressing cisplatin resistant CAL27 and SCC25 oral cancer cells. Lentiviral mediated knock-down of WNT2B was performed in CAL27 and SCC25. QRT-PCR and Western blot analysis were used to detect the mRNA and protein expression of GLUT1, WNT2B, Cyclin D1 and β-catenin. Cell viability was assessed by MTT analysis. Colony formation assay was performed by staining with 0.5% crystal violet. The role of WNT2B in HNSCC was examined in vivo through the generation of a CAL27 (or cisplatin resistant CAL27 or cisplatin resistant CAL27 with WNT2B knock-down) nude mice xenograft model of HNSCC. RESULTS Knock-down of WNT2B in decreased cell viability and colony formation in cisplatin resistant CAL27 and SCC25 in association with the downregulation of GLUT1, cyclin D1 and β-catenin. In a cisplatin resistant CAL27 mouse xenograft model, shRNA mediated silencing of WNT2B increased survival and decreased tumor growth in correlation with the downregulation of GLUT1, cyclin D1 and β-catenin. CONCLUSION WNT2B plays a role in tumorigenesis and chemotherapy resistance in oral cancer and provide a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of patients with HNSCC.
A Recommender System Model based on Commodity-Purchase-Cycle Classification

Recommender systems have been widely used in e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon and Taobao. Among the available recommendation algorithms, Item Collaborative Filtering (ItemCF) Algorithm and Content Filtering Algorithm have gained wide adoption because of various strengths. For example, hidden interests can be digged so as to get fresh recommendations, and highly individual recommendations can be made. Despite their strengths and wide adoption, there are still some weaknesses associated with them. One representative weakness is the existence of duplicated, and outdated recommendations due to the lack of purchasing cycles, e.g., weekly or seasonal, of goods. We name such cycles Commodity Purchase Cycle (CPC), and propose a new recommendation algorithm based on CPC in this paper. We leverage CPC attributes to modify the collaborative filtering output rating matrix acquired by the ItemCF Algorithm, and take into consideration both user behaviors and commodity characteristics to make timely recommendations. We utilize a realistic dataset from Taobao to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate good performance of CPC algorithm. Specifically, from the perspective of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), the CPC Algorithm promotes the recommendation accuracy by 15%-20%, compared with the state-of-the-art ItemCF Algorithm.
Lightweight YOLOv5 Gesture Recognition Optimization Algorithm

This paper proposes a lightweight LS-YOLOv5 network to address the drawbacks of existing gesture recognition algorithm models, such as complexity and large memory usage. The aim is to achieve real-time recognition on embedded devices. Firstly, a lightweight ShuffleNetV2 network and CBRM module are added to the YOLOv5 to achieve model lightweight. The ECA attention mechanism is also incorporated to boost feature representation and enhance detection precision. Finally, the SIoU loss function is used to enable more precise target localization and prediction. By conducting experiments on a gesture dataset with 10 categories, the performance and accuracy of a gesture recognition algorithm were tested. The results showed that the LS-YOLOv5 network model reduced parameter and floating-point computation by 45.7% and 48.7%, respectively, while achieving a certain degree of accuracy improvement. The model can be deployed on edge terminals.
A loopshaping approach to controller design in networks of linear systems

A method for designing a set of controllers to robustly stabilise a network of linear systems is presented. The method allows the design of each controller to be posed as a loopshaping problem. Critically each loopshaping problem requires only local knowledge of the overall system model to formulate, and may be solved separately. Furthermore the approach is inherently scalable, as any local changes to the network model can be accommodated through the design of the corresponding local controllers, leaving all the others untouched.
Allosteric Regulation of Yeast Phosphofructokinase

The regulation of yeast phosphofructokinase by fructose 6-phosphate and adenylates AMP and ATP has been investigated by means of equilibrium binding, initial velocity, spectrophotometric and spectrofluorimetric measurements. Binding of fructose-6-P shows positive cooperativity (Hill coefficient of 1.58). Distinct, noncomplementary difference spectra in the ultraviolet absorbance region of the enzyme were observed with ATP and fructose-6-P, respectively. The intrinsic fluorescence of phosphoiiuctokinase was increased significantly by activators fructose-6-P and AMP. On the other hand, ATP was found to decrease the enzyme fluorescence upon binding to high affinity regulatory sites. Fluorescence stopped flow measurements demonstrated the occurrence of a fructose-6-Por AMPmediated allosteric transition which occurs at a relatively slow rate (about 3 s-l). A slow decrease in fluorescence was also observed with ATP but its amplitude is much smaller than that estimated from static measurements. A nonlinear relationship relates the extent of conformational changes as estimated from fluorimetric titrations to the degree of fructose-6-P binding in agreement with a two states concerted transition model. The inhibitory effect of ATP, as estimated from the increase of the apparent allosteric constant, occurs, however, in a much larger range of ATP concentrations than predicted on the basis of a concerted transition. The activation of the reaction by AMP increased with the ATP concentration in the reaction mixture (activation up to a hundredfold). These data are discussed in terms of a model involving both sequential and concerted conformational changes of the enzyme oligomer.
An assessment of the impact of thimerosal on childhood neurodevelopmental disorders

The prevalence of autism in the US has risen from 1 in ~2500 in the mid-1980s to 1 in ~300 children in the mid-1990s. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether mercury from thimerosal in childhood vaccines contributed to neurodevelopmental disorders. Neurodevelopmental disorder dose-response curves for increasing mercury doses of thimerosal in childhood vaccines were determined based upon examination of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database and the 2001 US' Department of Education Report. The instantaneous dosage of mercury children received in comparison to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s maximum permissible dose for the oral ingestion of methylmercury was also determined. The dose-response curves showed increases in odds ratios of neurodevelopmental disorders from both the VAERS and US Department of Education data closely linearly correlated with increasing doses of mercury from thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines and that for overall odds ratios statistical significance was achieved. Similar slopes and linear regression coefficients for autism odds ratios in VAERS and the US Department of Education data help to mutually validate each other. Controls employed in the VAERS and US Department of Education data showed minimal biases. The evidence presented here shows that the occurrence of neurodevelopmental disorders following thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines does not appear to be coincidental.
The Caenorhabditis elegans intermediate-size transcriptome shows high degree of stage-specific expression

Earlier studies have revealed a substantial amount of transcriptional activity occurring outside annotated protein-coding genes of the Caenorhabditis elegans genome. One important fraction of this transcriptional activity relates to intermediate-size (70–500 nt) transcripts (is-ncRNAs) of mostly unknown function. Profiling the expression of this segment of the transcriptome on a tiling array through the C. elegans life cycle identified 5866 hitherto unannotated transcripts. The novel loci were distributed across intronic and intergenic space, with some enrichment toward protein-coding gene termini. The majority of the putative is-ncRNAs showed either stage-specific expression, or distinct developmental variation in their expression levels. More than 200 loci showed male-specific expression, and conserved loci were significantly enriched on the X chromosome, both observations strongly suggesting involvement of is-ncRNAs in sex-specific functions. Half of the novel loci were conserved in other nematodes, and numerous loci showed significant conservational correlations to nearby coding genes. Assuming functional roles for most of the novel loci, the data imply a nematode is-ncRNA tool kit of considerable size and variety.
Faceted Information Representation

This paper presents an abstract formalization of the notion of “facets”. Facets are relational structures of units, relations and other facets selected for a certain purpose. Facets can be used to structure large knowledge representation systems into a hierarchical arrangement of consistent and independent subsystems (facets) that facilitate flexibility and combinations of different viewpoints or aspects. This paper describes the basic notions, facet characteristics and construction mechanisms. It then explicates the theory in an example of a faceted information retrieval system (FaIR).
Engine Health Monitoring for engine fleets using fuzzy radviz

A new algorithm for assessment of Engine Health Monitoring (EHM) data in aircraft is proposed. The diagnostic tool quantifies step changes, shifts and trends in EHM data by means of a transformation that aggregates concurrent readings of EHM data into a single fuzzy state. A Genetic Fuzzy System is used to detect the occurance of a specific trend of interest in the sequence of states. The activation of the rules is represented in a 2D map by means of an extension of the Radviz visualization algorithm to fuzzy data.
A Similarity Measuring Method for Images Based on the Feature Extraction Algorithm using Reference Vectors

We propose a similarity measuring method for images based on our feature extraction algorithm. The method represents features of an image as a feature vector called reference vector which is a relative measure extracted indirectly from images while many of existing methods use an absolute similarity measure extracted directly from images. A reference vector is calculated from correlation matrices of an image and reference images. Considering reference images as axes of a coordination system, our method enabled users to extract their intended features by selecting appropriate images as reference images. This significant characteristic of the method is effective to measure similarity based on users' preference and to differentiate an image from others. In this paper, we illustrate our method in detail and demonstrate its effectiveness through experiments.
News and Views into the SNARE Complexity in Arabidopsis

Secretory organelles are engaged in a continuous flux of membranes, which is believed to occur mostly via transport vesicles. Being critical in maintaining several cellular functions, transport vesicles are membrane-enclosed sacs that temporarily store and then deliver membrane lipids, protein, and polysaccharides. SNAREs have a crucial role in vesicle traffic by driving membrane fusion and conferring fidelity through the formation of specific SNARE complexes. Additionally, specific roles of SNAREs in growth and development implicate that they are versatile components for the life of a plant. Here, we summarize the recent progress on the understanding of the role of SNAREs and highlight some of the questions that are still unsolved.
User-centric dynamic evolution

The domain in which we situate this research is that of the availability of critical applications while they are be ing updated. In this domain, the attempt is to make sure that critical applications remain active while they are updated . For doing that, only those system parts which are affected by the update, will be made temporarily unavailable. The problem is that current approaches are not user-centric, an d consequently, that they cannot provide feedback concernin g which features are deactivated while performing an update. Our approach targets a four step impact analysis that allows correct feedback to be given while a software system is dynamically updated. First, the different features a re identified. Second, the system entities that implement thos e features are identified. Third, an atomic change sequence is established for the actual update. Finally, we compare the atomic change sequence and the implementation of the features in order to establish a list of features that are affected by the update. This allows us to provide user-centric feedback in terms of features.
Towards the Semantic Interpretation of Arbitrary Traffic Signs: Semantic Parsing for Action-oriented Signs

The safe navigation of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is dependent on accurate and up-to-date information, typically assuming access to pre-generated, high-definition map data, which limits the utility of AVs in novel environments. To overcome this, traffic signs have been considered as a rich and reliable source of real-time data to aid AV operations, but existing research has focused primarily on the classification of standard traffic signs and sign text recognition. In this paper, we explore the problem of parsing the semantics of traffic signs in a manner which is useful for downstream control and navigation systems. In order to narrow our scope, we focus on action-oriented traffic signs. We start by introducing a flexible shallow parsing representation for action-oriented signs and subsequently outline a method for automated representation construction. This method combines rule-based parsing with neural-based parsing and incorporates domain-specific regularizing priors in order to handle semi-structured sign text and improve parsing accuracy. The proposed method is evaluated against a popular baseline and an ablation of our method. Our results demonstrate the potential of our approach to produce a rich intermediate representation of action-oriented sign text for AV systems to react appropriately to novel action-oriented signs.
The environment of dwarf spheroidal satellites; ram pressure, tides and external radiation fields

We discuss the role of environmental mechanisms in the evolution of dwarf galaxy satellites using high-resolution N-Body+SPH simulations that include simultaneously tidal forces, ram pressure and heating from ionizing radiation fields. Tidally induced bar-buckling instabilities can transform a rotating disky dwarf into pressure supported spheroidals. Efficient gas removal requires instead a combination of tidal mass loss and ram pressure stripping in a diffuse gaseous corona around the primary system. The efficiency of ram pressure depends strongly on how extended the gas remains during the evolution. Bar driven inflows that tend to drive the gas to the bottom of the potential well can be opposed by the heating from external radiation fields. We show that even fairly massive dwarfs ($V_{peak} >$ 30 km/s) would be stripped of their gas over a few Gyr if they enter the Milky Way halo at $z > 2$ thanks to the effect of the cosmic UV background. Gas mass loss can be much faster, occurring in less than 1 Gyr, if dwarf satellites have their first close approach to the primary at the epoch of bulge formation. Indeed at that time the primary galaxy should have a FUV luminosity comparable to that of major present-day starbursts, resulting in a local UV field even more intense than the cosmic background.
A conceptual framework for two phases of anticoagulant treatment of venous thromboembolism

Summary. Four observations support that anticoagulant therapy for venous thromboembolism (VTE) has an ‘active treatment’ phase that is limited to about 3 months. First, <3 months of treatment is associated with a higher risk of recurrent VTE than treatment for 3 months or longer, suggesting that <3 months is inadequate therapy. Second, treatment for 3 months is associated with the same risk of recurrent VTE as treatment for 6 months or longer, suggesting that 3 months is adequate therapy. Third, the increase in recurrent VTE with too short a course of treatment is predominantly at the site of the initial thrombosis, suggesting reactivation of initial thrombosis. Fourth, the increase in recurrent VTE with too short a course of treatment occurs immediately after treatment is stopped and is short lived, again suggesting reactivation of initial thrombosis. Once the initial thrombosis has been adequately treated (i.e. the first phase of treatment), further anticoagulation serves as ‘secondary prevention’ of new, unrelated, episodes of thrombosis (i.e. the second phase of treatment). For most patients, therefore, anticoagulant therapy for VTE should be stopped at 3 months when the acute episode has completed treatment, or should be continued indefinitely as ‘secondary prevention’ if the risk of recurrence remains unacceptably high having completed ‘active treatment’.
Differences Between Owners and Nonowners of Companion Animals

AbstractIn 1989, a survey was conducted to examine why people in the Netherlands keep companion animals and what functions companion animals serve. Initially, the aim was to develop a profile of companion-animal owners. A comparison was made between owners and nonowners of companion animals using a questionnaire sent to a random sample of 1,478 addresses drawn from telephone directories. The differences between owners of different species of companion animals were also studied.The results of the investigation showed that companion-animal owners differed significantly from non-animal owners in several respects such as marital status, type of dwelling, income, age, presence of children, and educational level. Factors that most influenced companion-animal ownership were the age of the owner and the size of the household. The differences between the different kinds of animal owners included the geographical location within the Netherlands, degree of urbanization, type of dwelling, age of owners, and size of h.
Intergroup Conflict May Inhibit Coalescing of Large Human Groups and Decrease Returns from Cooperation

Recent theoretical advances and quasi-experimental evidence from modern conflict areas suggest that intergroup conflict and ostracism play a pivotal role in the evolution of cooperation. However, relatively little is known about the role of intergroup conflict and ostracism on group formation and human migration. Here, we show that intergroup conflict may inhibit coalescing of large human groups and decrease net returns from cooperative behaviors. Moreover, we find that competitive pressure between groups decreases the likelihood of being punished through ostracism. Our results suggest the importance of stable group boundaries on the evolution of human cooperation through intergroup conflict and point to the dangers of implementing group contests to foster human cooperation.