Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preparing Wi-Fi Networks for Novel Services in Smart Infrastructure

Wi-Fi will be the preferred access network in smart infrastructure, which is a considerably cheaper alternative of mobile broadband. Emerging services such as Internet of things (IoT), virtual reality (VR) and ehealth, which require carrier-grade quality have shifted data traffic. Therefore, smart infrastructures need an extensive analysis of application requirements and user expectations. This paper presents the concept of cumulative network parameter monitoring and analysis in order to improve overall Wi-Fi quality in smart infrastructure. The proposed concept incorporates security and privacy in addition to generic performance parameters. The cumulative network parameters monitoring and analysis investigates various parameters in order to assess overall quality rather than individual performance parameter monitoring for a particular service. Hence, cumulative network parameter monitoring and analysis concept can establish a baseline to estimate user acceptability objectively rather than costly subjective assessments.
Successive Artificial Noise Cancellation for Security Enhancing Spatial Modulation

Spatial modulation (SM) as a new transmission technique has a wide application prospect in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communications. In this paper, a novel physical layer security enhancing scheme using artificial noise (AN)is proposed for SM systems. In the proposed scheme, the transmitted signals contain the useful information symbols and the AN that is designed by exploiting the knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) over the legitimate channel. A new detection scheme is also proposed, which detects the information symbols by using signals received across two successive time slots such that the AN can only be perfectly cancelled at the legitimate receiver while confusing the passive eavesdropper. Furthermore, the simulation results on secrecy rate verify that the proposed security enhancing scheme can achieve a satisfactory performance.
Real-Time Leader-Follower Formation Control of Nano Quadcopters in the Framework of Ratio Control

In this paper, it is shown that a formation control problem can be handled in the framework of ratio control theory for the first time in literature. We define a ratio control problem from the formation control task that aims to maintain the relative positions of the agents during formation motion. It is shown that the basic objective of a ratio control, which is to keep the ratio between the outputs of two processes equal to a desired value, is similar to the one of Formation Control Structures (FCSs). Motivated with this resemblance, we firstly analyze widely employed Ratio Stations (RSs) and show that the presented RSs naturally define directional or bi-directional communication topologies. Thus, the RSs are symmetric or asymmetric FCSs. In the light of these findings, we propose a novel RS-FCS to solve a real-time formation problem of two nano quadcopter agents during formation motion. Various comparative results are presented to show that the proposed RS- FCSs result with satisfactory formation performances.
Constrained PSK: Energy-Efficient Modulation for Sub-THz Systems

Deploying sub-THz frequencies for mobile communications is one timely research area, due to the availability of very wide and contiguous chunks of the radio spectrum. However, at such extremely high frequencies, there are large challenges related to, e.g., phase noise, propagation losses as well as to energy-efficiency, since generating and radiating power with reasonable efficiency is known to be far more difficult than at lower frequencies. To address the energy-efficiency and power amplifier (PA) nonlinear distortion related challenges, modulation methods and waveforms with low peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR) are needed. To this end, a new modulation approach is formulated and proposed in this paper, referred to as constrained phase-shift keying (CPSK). The CPSK concept builds on the traditional PSK constellations, while additional constraints are applied to the time domain symbol transitions in order to control and reduce the PAPR of the resulting waveform. This new modulation is then compared with pulse-shaped π/2-BPSK and ordinary QPSK, in the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-s-OFDM) context, in terms of the resulting PAPR distributions and the achievable maximum PA output power, subject to constraints in the passband waveform quality and out-of-band emissions. The obtained results show that the proposed CPSK approach allows for reducing the PAPR and thereon for achieving higher PA output powers, compared to QPSK, while still offering the same spectral efficiency. Overall, the CPSK concept offers a flexible modulation solution with controlled PAPR for the future sub-THz networks.
Managed Pressure Drilling System State Estimation Using The Multiple Model Adaptive Estimation Approach

This paper studies state estimation in the presence of parametric uncertainties, with flow estimation in Managed Pressure Drilling as a case study. Downhole measurements in most MPD systems have low frequency due to communication with mud-pulse telemetry. Also, the drilling process has parametric uncertainties due to unknown friction and fluid density and unmodeled actuator dynamics and noise add to the system complexity. This paper proposes a bank of estimators for simultaneous estimation of the model states. A Multiple-Model Adaptive Estimation (MMAE) algorithm is presented that encompasses a bank of Kalman Filters (KFs). Each KF is designed to handle a specific segment of the parametric uncertainty. In this algorithm, a probabilistically weighted combination of the local state estimations is used. Simulation results reveal that the proposed method can satisfactory estimate the unmeasured states in the presence of a wide range of uncertainties. Finally, the MMAE method is compared with a supervisory estimation algorithm to further clarify technical issues in the MPD system state estimation problem.
SpaceYNet: A Novel Approach to Pose and Depth-Scene Regression Simultaneously

One of the fundamental dilemmas of mobile robotics is the use of sensory information to locate an agent in geographic space. In this paper, we developed a global relocation system to predict the robot's position and avoid unforeseen actions from a monocular image, which we named SpaceYNet. We incorporated Inception layers to symmetric layers of down-sampling and up-sampling to solve depth-scene and 6-DoF estimation simultaneously. Also, we compared SpaceYNet to PoseNet - a state of the art in robot pose regression using CNN - in order to evaluate it. The comparison comprised one public dataset and one created in a broad indoor environment. SpaceYNet showed higher accuracy in global percentages when compared to PoseNet.
Security Against Rank Attack in RPL Protocol

The Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is experiencing a wave of security threats, due to the need of its utility in the Internet of Things (IoT). RPL is so far considered as one of the most utilized routing protocols in new IoT applications, which is one of the reasons the latter may lead to confronting challenges later on. In other words, security is thus the primary interest in RPL, regarding the nature of objects and their different constraints that are regularly regarded as security vulnerabilities for cyber-attacks. To continue, it is evident to claim that it is mandatory to determine and analyze all the kinds of attacks that target this protocol, such as the rank attack which is best known for its strongest threats that lead to degraded topology performance and energy consumption of nodes in the network. This study presents an overview of RPL, a proposed taxonomy of all the recent published works about rank attacks as well as the different mitigation methods, and the damage caused on network parameters. To conclude, a comparison between several attacks has been adopted using the Friedman test, and a discussion has been presented with some other recent research concerning security against rank attack.
Near-Optimal Design for Hybrid Beamforming in mmWave Massive Multi-User MIMO Systems

Millimeter wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems can obtain sufficient beamforming gains to combat severe path loss in signal propagation. The hybrid (analog/digital) beamforming with multiple data streams can be utilized to further improve mmWave spectral efficiency. In this paper, we focus on the hybrid beamforming design of a downlink mmWave massive multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) system based on full-connected structure, and aim to maximize the sum rate of the overall system as an objective function. In the analog beamforming stage, a piecewise successive iterative approximation (PSIA) algorithm is proposed to design the analog beamformer and combiner. This algorithm not only has a linear property, but also can obtain closed-form solutions. In the digital beamforming stage, the piecewise successive approximation method is utilized to design the digital beamforming based on the criterion to avoid the loss of information, which can help reduce the computational complexity and is also implemented simply. The results show that the proposed scheme achieves good sum-rate performance in the mmWave massive MU-MIMO system, and outperforms the state-of-the art MIMO hybrid beamforming design schemes, even when the number of base station antennas is not very large.
Do food bioactives play a role in attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder?

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common diagnosis in children, which may persist into adulthood. Short-term benefits of pharmacological treatment have been shown, but concerns regarding long-term efficacy and safety have led to a search for alternative treatments. Nutrition may be an important factor in psychiatric disorders. At group level, food bioactives do not appear to play a significant pathogenetic or therapeutic role in ADHD. Benefits of treatment with omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and minerals may be confined to individuals deficient in these micronutrients. Dietary patterns may be of greater importance than individual nutrients. However, both diet and consumption of certain nutrients may be precursors or consequences of ADHD. The controversy surrounding the clinical and pathogenetic heterogeneity of ADHD complicates the assessment of food bioactives. The identification of a potential role of food bioactives in ADHD is hindered by the ill-defined nature of the disorder and the lack of biological markers underpinning its validity. The therapeutic efficacy of food bioactives cannot be tested by evaluating their effect on the pathophysiology of ADHD but only by observing their effects on symptom severity.
A glimpse of the mechanisms of ion homeostasis during salt stress

Cells respond to salt stress by osmolyte synthesis and by increase of K + uptake and Na + efflux at the plasma membrane and of Na + accumulation at the vacuole. This cellular level of response has been approached by the molecular genetics of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Two plasma membrane proteins, Sln1 and Shol, operate as sensors for turgor loss under mild osmotic stress. They activate the Hog1 MAP kinase which induces several defence genes, including the ENA1 Na + -efflux pump. Hog1-mediated induction occurs by inactivation of the Skol repressor. High concentrations of Na + activate the calcium-dependent protein phosphatase calcineurin, which induces the ENA1 gene via the positive transcription factor Hal8/ Crz1/Tcn1. Vacuoles could operate as Na + sensors through a Na + -Ca 2+ exchange mechanism. The electrical potential of the plasma membrane is a major determinant of the uptake of toxic cations, including Na + , by non-specific leakage pathways. This biophysical parameter is modulated by the concerted activities of the proton pumping Pma1 ATPase and the Trk1,2 K + uptake system. Both calcineurin and the protein kinase Hal4,5 modulate Trk1,2 and, indirectly, the membrane potential and salt tolerance. The limiting role of vacuolar cation accumulation in salt tolerance has been demonstrated by expression in yeast vacuoles of the bacterial antiporter NhaA.
A quest for web search optimisation: an evidence-based approach to trainee translators’ behaviour

ABSTRACT Many translation textbooks consist of chapters dedicated to web resources and web search in general. However, surprisingly little is known about how (trainee) translators actually conduct web search. The present study, therefore, adopts an evidence-based approach to empirically examine how the web is used by trainee translators, particularly for terminology purposes. Unlike previous studies that focus on translators’ idiosyncrasies and styles, this study taps into the idea of web search optimisation. In other words, it aims to depict what characterises a more optimal web search for translation and asks about what (strategic) web search process trainee translators could engage in order to optimise their search results. Eighteen postgraduate translation students were asked to translate three texts on three separate occasions. Their translation and web search processes were screen-recorded and partially verbalised. Data suggest that more optimal web search is characterised by an ‘explorer's approach’ and more profound engagement with ‘secondary actions’ rather than ‘primary actions’.
Peer Group Composition and Aggregation for RPE Purposes in Presence of Exposure Risk

Agency theory suggests the use relative performance evaluation (RPE) to filter out systematic risks from a noisy performance measure. The presence of exposure risk, i.e. if the exposure to the systematic risks moves over time, however precludes complete filtering. In the present study I first estimate the exposure of a firm's performance to the performance of potential peer firms in order to construct a firm-specific peer group. Second, I investigate how the presence of exposure risk can affect the composition and aggregation of a peer group over time. Third, I show how these movements in the peer group composition and aggregation can reduce the effectiveness of the filtering purpose in RPE settings. I find that the firm-specific peer groups provide good filtering abilities ex post, but that simple indices, such as industry peer groups, are more stable and thus perform better out-of-sample.
Understanding Ethics and Human Rights in Smart Information Systems

Abstract Smart information systems (SIS), systems based in machine learning approaches to artificial intelligence using big data analytics are high profile examples of emerging technologies that have the potential to significantly affect most aspects of personal and societal life in industrialised societies. They are the subject of much scientific research but also of large amount of philosophical and sociological studies. A key question they raise relates to ethical questions they may raise which can involve questions of human rights. The majority of these reflective approaches to SIS are based on anecdotal evidence or conceptual considerations. There is little research investigating the actual ethical issues these technologies raise in their real-world environments. Rigorous empirical research tends to focus on particular technologies or application examples. While such research can produce interesting insights, it is not sufficient to give a broader overview of these technologies. One reason is that the technologies and components involved as well as the applications of such SIS vary greatly. One way of overcoming this limited view of ethics and human rights of SIS that is based on rigorous empirical research while providing a broad overview of technologies is to undertake a set of parallel case studies that provides simultaneous insights into a range of technologies. This paper outlines the rational and principles according to which such a multiple case study can be undertaken. It describes the process of selection of cases and development of the methodology as represented by a case study protocol. It provides the rationale and methodological underpinning for the set of 10 case studies that are published in the same special section of the ORBIT journal.
A Flash-Based SSD Cache Management Scheme for High Performance Home Cloud Storage

In the home cloud environment, storage performance is the most important factors affecting the user experience. In order to improve storage performance, we introduce a technique for managing flash-based storage devices as a cache. Although there are various studies on the use of flash caches, we focus on managing read requests that take into account flash memory characteristics and destaging methods from solid state drive cache to hard disk drives (HDDs) to improve performance. In this paper, we propose a scheme for managing flash-based solid state cache (SSC) called hybrid unit 2level-least recently used to improve input/output performance of HDD-based storage. Through the proposed scheme, cache hit ratio is increased and the number of disk access is reduced by keeping frequently accessed pages in SSC. In addition, the disk head movement is reduced when pages are destaged to disk by grouping write requested pages with adjacent pages. The number of cached pages is dynamically adjusted according to the ratio of read and write requests to improve performance on various workloads. For performance evaluation, we implemented the proposed scheme in a trace-based simulator. Performance evaluation shows up to 51% reduction in execution time compared to existing representative schemes.
Effect of local and regional processes on plant species richness in tallgrass prairie

Historically, diversity in a community was often believed to result primarily from local processes, but recent evidence suggests that regional diversity may strongly influence local diversity as well. We used experimental and observational vegetation data from Konza Prairie, Kansas, USA, to determine if: (1) there is a relationship between local and regional richness in tallgrass prairie vegetation; (2) local dominance reduces local species richness; and (3) reducing local dominance increases local and regional species richness. We found a positive relationship between regional and local richness: however, this relationship varied with grazing, topography and fire frequency. The decline in variance explained in the grazed vegetation, in particular, suggested that local processes associated with grazing pressure on the dominant grasses strongly influenced local species richness. Experimental removal of one of the dominant grasses, Andropogon scoparius, from replicate plots resulted in a significant increase in local species richness compared to adjacent reference plots. Overall all sites, species richness was higher in grazed (192 spp.) compared to ungrazed (158 spp.) areas. Across the Konza Prairie landscape, however, there were no significant differences in the frequency distribution of species occurrences, or in the relationship between the number of sites occupied and average abundance in grazed compared to ungrazed areas. Thus, local processes strongly influenced local richness in this tallgrass prairie, but local processes did not produce different landscape-scale patterns in species distribution and abundance. Because richness was enhanced at all spatial scales by reducing the abundance of dominant species, we suggest that species richness in tallgrass prairie results from feedbacks between, and interactions among, processes operating at multiple scales in space and time.
Diurnal variation in the numbers of rumen ciliate protozoa in cattle

The total numbers of ciliate protozoa in the contents of the rumen and reticulum were calculated from counts made on representative samples. The samples were obtained when the entire contents were removed through the rumen fistula, weighed, mixed, sampled, and returned to the animal. Diurnal variation was found in the populations of both oligotrichs and holotrichs. The fluctuations in total numbers of Isotricha appeared to be related to the diet and dietary regime of the host. When the host was fed chaffed red clover hay for two hours daily a marked rise in isotrich numbers occurred during feeding. When the host was fed fresh red clover for two two-hours periods each day a fall in isotrich numbers occurred. Destruction of the organisms by bursting may have caused this decrease. It is suggested that, since the cell contents thus liberated can have strong foam-stabilising properties, bursting of isotrichs could contribute to the occurrence of bloat.
Human Disturbance and Long-Term Changes on a Rocky Intertidal Community

The effects of human recreational activities on a rocky intertidal habitat on the coast of San Diego, California, USA were investigated. Organisms susceptible to collection for food, bait, or aquaria were identified and served as key species for the study of biota disturbance. This study examined three major aspects: (1) Distribution and activities of people along the shoreline were documented. (2) Distribution and density of echinoderms and molluscs inhabiting the cryptic underrock surface were sampled along an identified gradient of disturbance. (3) Densities of conspicuous organisms inhabiting the underrock surface at the most disturbed location detected in the spring of 1971 were compared with those detected in the spring of 1991. Surveys of human activity made during weekends with low tides exposing most of the intertidal zone (below O MLLW) during the daylight hours between December 1990 and August 1991 showed a definite pattern. People concentrated in an area with a 200 m radius centered on the primary accesses; areas farther from these points were less visited. The study site stood along a gradient of human disturbance, and the sampling of organisms along this indicated a gradient of biota disturbance as well. The density of all species was reduced in the more heavily visited intertidal area. The underrock community at the most heavily visited location changed substantially from spring 1971 to spring 1991. The density of most of the macroorganisms decreased between the two dates, with the exception of the density of small gastropods, which increased. Even if more long—term studies are needed for determining the actual status of communities under the influence of human disturbance, the combination of spatial and long—term studies shows the importance of setting better policy and more establishing more effective reserved in order to enhance and maintain species diversity and density.
Assessing P status and trophic level of two lakes by speciation of particulate phosphorus forms

Seasonal variability of dissolved and particulate P forms was investigated in two lakes in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (North-East Germany): the polymictic Lake Butzow and the dimictic Lake Dudinghausen. Both lakes had a different trophic status according to the classic parameter total phosphorus, chlorophyll-a as well as phytoplankton biomass and composition. The aim of the study was to test P compounds and P fractions for characterization of the nutrient status of the phytoplankton, especially Polyphosphates and Phospholipids. The field study shows, that these intracellular reserve compounds in algae can not reflect the different nutrient status of the phytoplankton in the two lakes and is therefore not a more sensitive scale to indicate phosphorus limitation of plankton communities.