Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Solving Interoperability within the Smart Building: A Real Test-Bed

Internet of Things (IoT) is a key pillar in various smart-* domains, including smart home, smart building, intelligent transportation systems, industrial Internet, to name a few. Its potential in terms of value creation is extraordinary, according to economic estimates from many market sectors. At the same time, there are some technical challenges to face, which could refrain IoT adoption. In this study, the attention is focused on interoperability and data quality issues from a pragmatic standpoint. In particular, a real smart building testbed has been set-up by integrating two different IoT platforms: TLSensing and NetwOrked Smart Object (NOS). The former has been developed to enable the quick deployment of a IPv6 over the TSCH mode of IEEE 802.15. 4e (6tisch) IoT network and to expose the data gathered from sensors through a web interface. The latter is a middleware that handles heterogeneous data sources and offers a unifying view to users. The resulting IoT system is able to: (i) gather data from multiple sources, including multimedia ones; (ii) expose network resources to user through a common interface; (iii) enforce security and data quality checks. The performance of this system has been experimentally analyzed to demonstrate a satisfactory responsiveness and ability to meet the aforementioned requirements.
Estimating the Implicit Inflation Target: An Application to U.S. Monetary Policy

This paper proposes a new method of estimating the Taylor rule with a time-varying implicit inflation target and a time-varying natural rate of interest. The inflation target and the natural rate are modeled as random walks and are estimated using maximum likelihood and the Kalman filter. I apply this method to U.S. monetary policy over the past 25 years and find considerable time variation in the implicit target, confirming hypotheses about "opportunistic disinflation" and the recent "deflation scare. "
Theoretical Analysis of Circuit Non-Idealities in a Passive Spectrum Scanner Based on Periodically Time-Varying Circuit Components

Spectrum scanners based on passive, linear periodically time-varying <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$RC$ </tex-math></inline-formula> circuits have been shown to be highly linear and consume low power. They rely on the Filtering by Aliasing technique to achieve sharp filtering from a continuous-time input to a discrete-time output. The presence of circuit parasitics can adversely affect scanner performance. Hence, this paper presents a theoretical analysis of the main circuit non-idealities affecting them. In addition, circuit and signal processing techniques to mitigate the effect of these non-idealities is presented and verified through both simulation and chip measurement results.
A quarter-mode SIW based antenna for ISM band application

In this paper, a planar substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity-backed antenna is proposed for the Industrial scientific and medical radio band (5.725-5.875 GHz) at 5.8 GHz. The miniaturization is achieved by 3/4th of the conventional circular SIW cavities by using the quarter-mode SIW technique. Later on, to enhance bandwidth, a tilted rectangular-slot is etched to realize coupling of two higher order modes TM210 and TM020. The simulated impedance bandwidth and the peak gain of the proposed antenna are obtained of 350 MHz and 7.5 dBi in free space. In order to see the influence of human body on the antenna performance, it is simulated over pork muscle equivalent phantom. The impedance bandwidth and peak gain for on-phantom are obtained of 352 MHz and 7.76 dBi, respectively. The performance of the antenna does not vary from free space to on-phantom, which confirms the proposed antenna is robust and fit for off-body communication.
On the Inflammation Theory of Cancer

Atherosclerosis; Basal Cell Carcinoma; Bypass Surgery; Cardiovascular Diseases; Cancer; Chronic Bronchitis; Chronic Fibrosis; Coronary Artery Disease; Cryopirin-Associated Periodic Syndrome; Gout; HIV; Hyperglyceridemia; Infection; Inflammation; Lung Adenocarcinoma; Lung Cancer; Melanoma; Myocardial Infarction; Osteoarthritis; Rheumatoid Arthritis; Sepsis; Squamous Cell Carcinoma; Stroke; Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis; Thrombosis; Tuberculosis Drugs Listed
OFFLINE TEXT-INDEPENDENT WRITER IDENTIFICATION

Handwriting identification technique is the basic need for criminological examination, record approval, calligraphic relics identification. It works in online and offline categories. The proposed automatic offline text-independent writer identification method works in three stages such as training, enrollment, and identifications. In all the stages firstly, the handwriting image is segmented into word regions (WRs) using an isotropic Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) filter. Then the features extracted from the each word regions by using important feature extraction techniques such as Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) and Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM). Comparing to GLCM, the SIFT method is more suitable and efficient to identify the writer because it extract the structural features of handwritten text. The proposed method is tested on real time data collected of 42 samples (6 writers, 7 samples from each writer). By the experimental result, the proposed method strongly suggest that SIFT features are efficient in handwritten text
Gist Perception of Image Composition in Abstract Artworks

Most recent studies in experimental aesthetics have focused on the cognitive processing of visual artworks. In contrast, the perception of formal compositional features of artworks has been studied less extensively. Here, we investigated whether fast and automatic processing of artistic image composition can lead to a stable and consistent aesthetic evaluation when cognitive processing is minimized or absent. To this aim, we compared aesthetic ratings on abstract artworks and their shuffled counterparts in a gist experiment. Results show that exposure times as short as 50 ms suffice for the participants to reach a stable and consistent rating on how ordered and harmonious the abstract stimuli were. Moreover, the rating scores for the 50 ms exposure time exhibited similar dependencies on image type and self-similarity and a similar pattern of correlations between different rating terms, as the rating scores for the long exposure time (3,000 ms). Ratings were less consistent for the term interesting and inconsistent for the term pleasing. Our results are compatible with a model of aesthetic experience, in which the early perceptual processing of the formal aspects of visual artworks can lead to a consistent aesthetic judgment, even if there is no cognitive contribution to this judgment.
Social Media Tools as a Learning Resource

Social media tools have become ubiquitous. You can see our students use them all the time. Among them most popular tools are Facebook, Wiki, YouTube, bulletin board, LinkedIn, blogging, and twittering. The advancement of modern technologies tries its best to accommodate the needs from people, especially the younger generation. As educators, how can we take advantage of this momentum? This paper will share a research study that was conducted in fall of 2009 at the central campus of the University of Houston. The study investigated student's use of different social media tools, their perceptions and attitudes towards these tools, and their preference of social networking groups. The results show that the three top-used social media tools are Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube; the top four reasons for using social media tools are for social engagement, direction communication, speed of feedback, and relationship building. Regarding social networking group, they preferred a group of civically engaged and no membership required as well as a group based on contemporary topic that may not last long. Based on their input, the author suggested some educational implications of some of these tools as a valuable resource for teaching and learning.
General Ecology and Habitat Selectivity of Fresh Water Fishes of the Rawan Oya, Kandy, Sri Lanka

This study was conducted over a five-month period at Rawan Oya, a 13.5km long left bank tributary of the River Mahaweli. Data on species composition and mircohabitat conditions were collected from 30 random sampling sites, representing 10 pools, 10 riffles and 10 runs. A single observation was made at each site, where a 10m-length of the stream was blocked with drag nets to get the values for abundance. Fishes were captured using the cast nets and scoop nets, identified and released back at the site of capture. The species richness, relative abundance and the microhabitat conditions were recorded for each habitat type. Physico-chemical parameters of water such as the stream velocity, temperature, pH, water depth, conductivity, Hardness, DO and BOD5 were determined monthly at pre-selected sampling sites. A questionnaire survey was done among people in adjacent villagers, who are selected randomly. A total of 15 fish species belonging to 8 families were recorded of which 2 are endemic and 4 are exotic. The subsequent data analysis revealed that the Shannon Wiener diversity index and the Magalef Index are significantly high in pools. ANOVA test showed significant variation among the 3 habitat types in terms of the microhabitat features measured. Further, the Pearson Correlation test demonstrated that the different fish species have different microhabitat preferences and different habitat associations. Runs seemed to be the most suitable habitats for most of the fish species lotic habitat with the highest species richness compared with the other two habitat types (12 species). Riffles harbored the poorest in species composition (2 species). Pools had an intermediate number of species (9). Puntius bimaculatus, Hypostomus sp and Tor khudree only occurred in pools while Devario malabaricus, Glossogobius giuris, Lepidocephalichthys thermalis, Mystus vittatus, Rasbora daniconius and Xiphophorus maculatus are confined to runs of the stream with no species confined to riffles. Garra ceylonensis and Schistura notostigma occupy all three kinds of habitat types but with higher abundances in riffles. Among the fish found only in pools and runs, Puntius filamentosus were recorded in significantly higher numbers in pools than that in runs in contrast to the alien species such as Poecilia reticulata and Oreochromis mossambicus that showed a higher preference for runs. Key words: Stream Ecosystems; Freshwater Fish; Water Quality; Conservation; Montane Forests DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.4038/suslj.v9i1. 3732 Sabaramuwa University Journal , Volume 9 Number 1; December 2010, pp 11-43
Molecular characterization of basidiomycetous endophytes isolated from leaves , rachis and petioles of the oil palm , Elaeis guineensis , in Thailand

Most endophytes isolated from plants and algae are members of the Ascomycota or their anamorphs, with only a few reports of basidiomycetous endophytes, these often being orchid mycorrhizas. Fungal endophyets were isolated from healthy leaves, rachis and petioles of the oil palm Elaeis guineensis in a Thai plantation. In two experiments 892 and 917 endophytes were isolated yielding 162 and 178 morphotypes, respectively. Non-sporulating isolates were grouped into 162 morphotypes according to their colony morphology. Many of these morphotypes were shown to be basidiomycetes as clamp connections were present and some produced basidia and basidiospores in culture. Thirteen basidiomycetous morphotypes were therefore further characterized by molecular analysis using ribosomal DNA sequences. The LSU region was used to clarify the ordinal taxonomic level status of these isolates. The phylogenetic position of the basidiomycetous endophytes was separated into two major lineages, two and eleven in the Agaricales and Polyporales, respectively. Based on ITS sequence analysis the two Agaricales strains grouped with Schizophyllum species and showed a close relationship with S. commune. Within the Polyporales two and nine strains had an affinity with the Polyporaceae and Fomitopsidaceae, respectively. One of the endophytic Polyporaceae strains was monophyletic with seven sequences of Pycnoporus sanguineus, while another isolate grouped with a fungal endophyte DQ979682 and Trametes elegans. The largest fungal assemblage was within the Fomitopsidaceae, four endophytic isolates clustered with Fomitopsis species (F. ostreiformis, F. palustris), two and three isolates grouped with Fomitopsis pinicola and Fomitopsis meliae, respectively. Numerous genera of the Basidiomycota are reported herein as endophytes and are the first report of basidiomycete endophytes from oil palm. Our analysis demonstrated that LSU and ITS data are powerful tools to resolve the taxonomy of basidiomycetous endophytes. The biological role of these endophytes is discussed.
The current state of knowledge about the dipping and non-dipping hypertension

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring provides information about the day-night blood pressure profile, which can be divided into dipping and non-dipping pattern. Non-dipping hypertension is recently thought to have increased cardiovascular risk and outcomes than dipping hypertension. The dipping pattern is explained by physiological changes in circadian rhythm, while the pathomechanism of non-dipping hypertension is not fully understood. Is it considered to be a result of many factors, such as: sympathetic nervous system overactivation, which can be accompanied by impaired parasympathetic nervous system response, obesity, concurrent diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome. Moreover abnormalities of hormones levels such as melatonin, catecholamines, thyroid and parathyroid hormones are connected to occurrence of non-dipping hypertension. Other widely discussed problem is obstructive sleep apnoea and its influence on circadian rhythm changes. Also dysfunction in activity of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone axis is thought to cause non-dipping pattern. There are some studies that indicate on role of inappropriate sodium intake in mentioned pathology. The chronic kidney disease and relationship with non-dipping hypertension will be also described. The last considered factor is influence of age on the development of non-dipping hypertension.
Goal-oriented Trajectories for Efficient Exploration

Exploration is a difficult challenge in reinforcement learning and even recent state-of-the art curiosity-based methods rely on the simple epsilon-greedy strategy to generate novelty. We argue that pure random walks do not succeed to properly expand the exploration area in most environments and propose to replace single random action choices by random goals selection followed by several steps in their direction. This approach is compatible with any curiosity-based exploration and off-policy reinforcement learning agents and generates longer and safer trajectories than individual random actions. To illustrate this, we present a task-independent agent that learns to reach coordinates in screen frames and demonstrate its ability to explore with the game Super Mario Bros. improving significantly the score of a baseline DQN agent.
The Hamburg/ESO R-process enhanced star survey (HERES) IV. Detailed abundance analysis and age dating of the strongly r-process enhanced stars CS 29491-069 and HE 1219-0312

We report on a detailed abundance analysis of two strongly r-process enhanced, very metal-poor stars newly discovered in the HERES project, CS 29491−069 ([Fe/H] = −2.51, [r/Fe] =+ 1.1) and HE 1219−0312 ([Fe/H] = −2.96, [r/Fe] =+ 1.5). The analysis is based on high-quality VLT/UVES spectra and MARCS model atmospheres. We detect lines of 15 heavy elements in the spectrum of CS 29491−069, and 18 in HE 1219−0312; in both cases including the Th II 4019 A line. The heavy-element abundance patterns of these two stars are mostly well-matched to scaled solar residual abundances not formed by the s-process. We also compare the observed pattern with recent high-entropy wind (HEW) calculations, which assume core-collapse supernovae of massive stars as the astrophysical environment for the r-process, and find good agreement for most lanthanides. The abundance ratios of the lighter elements strontium, yttrium, and zirconium, which are presumably not formed by the main r-process, are reproduced well by the model. Radioactive dating for CS 29491−069 with the observed thorium and rare-earth element abundance pairs results in an average age of 9.5 Gyr, when based on solar r-process residuals, and 17.6 Gyr, when using HEW model predictions. Chronometry seems to fail in the case of HE 1219−0312, resulting in a negative age due to its high thorium abundance. HE 1219−0312 could therefore exhibit an overabundance of the heaviest elements, which is sometimes called an “actinide boost”.
Stochastic Control of Predictive Power Management for Battery/Supercapacitor Hybrid Energy Storage Systems of Electric Vehicles

This paper presents a neural network (NN) based methodology for power demand prediction and a power distribution strategy for battery/supercapacitor hybrid energy storage systems of pure electric vehicles. To develop an efficient prediction model, driving cycles are first grouped and distinguished as three different driving patterns. For each driving pattern, characteristic parameter data that could better featured driving cycles are extracted effectively and used to train NN. The predictive information combined with its error is subsequently used for power distribution. Then, to deal with different dynamics of battery and supercapacitor systems, a frequency splitter is used and its frequency is further optimized by a particle swarm optimization algorithm to minimize the total cost including battery degradation and system energy for each driving pattern. Based on these efforts, a real-time predictive power management control strategy is finally proposed. To verify its effectiveness, simulation has been conducted to compare with the state-of-the-art control strategy under a speed profile composing of five standard driving cycles. Results show that obviously enhanced performance can be achieved by the proposed control strategy.
Could bacteria have formed the Precambrian banded iron formations

Banded iron formations (BIFs) are prominent sedimentary deposits of the Precambrian, but despite a century of endeavor, the mechanisms of their deposition are still unresolved. Interactions between microorganisms and dissolved ferrous iron in the ancient oceans offer one plausible means of mineral precipitation, in which bacteria directly generate ferric iron either by chemolithoautotrophic iron oxidation or by photoferrotrophy. On the basis of chemical analyses from BIF units of the 2.5 Ga Hamersley Group, Western Australia, we show here that even during periods of maximum iron precipitation, most, if not all, of the iron in BIFs could be precipitated by iron-oxidizing bacteria in cell densities considerably less than those found in modern Fe-rich aqueous environments. Those ancient microorganisms would also have been easily supported by the concentrations of nutrients (P) and trace metals (V, Mn, Co, Zn, and Mo) found within the same iron-rich bands. These calculations highlight the potential importance of early microbial activity on ancient metal cycling.
Design and analysis of a flexible multifractal cantor antenna

In this article multifractal cantor structure based multiband antenna is designed and analyzed. It operates at the frequencies 1.4 GHz, 5.35 GHz and 9.65 GHz. These frequencies are widely utilized in remote sensing applications. Here monopole structure is utilized to achieve wide bandwidth. Approximate relation between operating frequencies and geometrical dimensions of cantor structure is analyzed and an approximate design method is suggested.
Modeling and Performance Analysis in UAV Assisted Ultra Dense Networks

Ultra dense network (UDN) is a promising technique to meet the requirements of explosive data traffic in the fifth generation wireless system, which however often challenged by the base station offloading in extremely crowded areas. Using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to assisted terrestrial base stations is an attractive approach to solve this problem. In this paper, we research the coverage probability and area spectral efficiency in the UAV assisted ultra dense network, where stochastic geometry tool is used to model the three-dimensional locations of UAVs and derive the closed-form expressions by taking into account different channel propagation. Two subchannel access schemes, namely distributed randomly access scheme and centralized conditional access scheme are proposed to reduce the interference from adjacent UAVs. Simulation results validate the accuracy of the proposed analysis and obtain interesting tradeoffs depending on the channel propagation parameter, transmitters density and spectrum occupation ratio.
Design of multiband planar antenna

In this paper, a low profile planar antenna for most of the used bands between 800MHz to 9GHz (10 bands) is designed. The antenna structure comprises L-type, C-type and inverted F-type. All of the bands showed the gain of over 2dBi and significant S11 parameters of below −10dBm. Additionally, all of them have significant 3-dB bandwidth. The technique used in this study ensured that by using a coupled-fed mechanism and a slotted ground structure, a multiband operation with wideband characteristic can be achieved. The influences of the modifications introduced into the ground plane as well as structure of all types of antenna, improved significantly the bandwidths of the designed antenna. We have presented the simulated results of radiation pattern, the gains, S11 parameters and discussed the results. The results observed can meet the requirements of practical mobile phones.
Evolution of Traumatic Parenchymal Intracranial Hematomas (ICHs): Comparison of Hematoma and Edema Components

This study seeks to quantitatively assess evolution of traumatic ICHs over the first 24 h and investigate its relationship with functional outcome. Early expansion of traumatic intracranial hematoma (ICH) is common, but previous studies have focused on the high density (blood) component. Hemostatic therapies may increase the risk of peri-hematoma infarction and associated increased cytotoxic edema. Assessing the magnitude and evolution of ICH and edema represented by high and low density components on computerized tomography (CT) may be informative for designing therapies targeted at traumatic ICH. CT scans from participants in the COBRIT (Citicoline Brain Injury Trial) study were analyzed using MIPAV software. CT scans from patients with non-surgical intraparenchymal ICHs at presentation and approximately 24 h later (±12 h) were selected. Regions of high density and low density were quantitatively measured. The relationship between volumes of high and low density were compared to several outcome measures, including Glasgow Outcome Score—Extended (GOSE) and Disability Rating Score (DRS). Paired scans from 84 patients were analyzed. The median time between the first and second scan was 22.79 h (25%ile 20.11 h; 75%ile 27.49 h). Over this time frame, hematoma and edema volumes increased >50% in 34 (40%) and 46 (55%) respectively. The correlation between the two components was low (r = 0.39, p = 0.002). There was a weak correlation between change in edema volume and GOSE at 6 months (r = 0.268, p = 0.037), change in edema volume and DRS at 3 and 6 months (r = −0.248, p = 0.037 and r = 0.358, p = 0.005, respectively), change in edema volume and COWA at 6 months (r = 0.272, p = 0.049), and between final edema volume and COWA at 6 months (r = 0.302, p = 0.028). To conclude, both high density and low density components of traumatic ICHs expand significantly in the first 2 days after TBI. In our study, there does not appear to be a relationship between hematoma volume or hematoma expansion and functional outcome, while there is a weak relationship between edema expansion and functional outcome.