Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Microservice-Based Framework for Developing Internet of Things and People Applications

The Internet of things (IoT) is characterized by billions of heterogeneous, distributed, and intelligent objects—both from the digital and the physical worlds—running applications and services. Objects are connected through heterogeneous platforms providing support for the collection and management of data that need to be understood. Since IoT systems are composed by a variety of objects and services, a key aspect for engineering them is their architecture. The new paradigm called Internet of people (IoP) is not unaware of this need. In IoP, humans play an important role so that design considering aspects as context becomes critical for making the most of these applications. This work presents a context-aware, serverless, microservice-based, and cloud-centric framework for the Internet of things and people (IoT-P) applications that extends the three-layer classic IoT reference architecture. It integrates most of the aspects considered by the architecture of IoT solutions emerging from different perspectives, being also domain independent. This work focuses on the application paradigm of IoT neglected by most proposals. This framework, combined with a previous work, offers a higher separation of concerns (SoC) degree than other proposals, by splitting the application layer into different sublayers or subsystems based on their responsibilities and tracing atomic components to serverless microservices, to facilitate the design, development, and deployment of IoT-P applications. An IoT-P application in the healthcare domain is presented to illustrate how this framework can be put into practice.
Lazy Release Persistency

Fast non-volatile memory (NVM) has sparked interest in log-free data structures (LFDs) that enable crash recovery without the overhead of logging. However, recovery hinges on primitives that provide guarantees on what remains in NVM upon a crash. While ordering and atomicity are two well-understood primitives, we focus on ordering and its efficacy in enabling recovery of LFDs. We identify that one-sided persist barriers of acquire-release persistency (ARP)--the state-of-the-art ordering primitive and its microarchitectural implementation--are not strong enough to enable recovery of an LFD. Therefore, correct recovery necessitates the inclusion of the more expensive full barriers. In this paper, we propose strengthening the one-sided barrier semantics of ARP. The resulting persistency model, release persistency (RP), guarantees that NVM will hold a consistent-cut of the execution upon a crash, thereby satisfying the criterion for correct recovery of an LFD. We then propose lazy release persistency (LRP), a microarchitectural mechanism for efficiently enforcing RP's one-sided barriers. Our evaluation on 5 commonly used LFDs suggests that LRP provides a 14%-44% performance improvement over the state-of-the-art full barrier.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KINANTROPOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AND THE LEVEL OF THE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY OF THEIR PARENTS

The aim of this research was to determine the relationship between the kinanthropometric characteristics of preschool children with the level of physical activity of their parents. The research was conducted on a sample of 83 preschool children in the fourth, fifth, and sixth year of life enrolled in four educational groups in the kindergarten “Čavlić. ” The children were measured in the area of morphological characteristics according to two values (ATV – body height, ATT –weight) and one derived measure (BMI – body mass index), in the area of motor abilities through six tests (SJED – sit down with right angle between legs, PK – load run, TRB – abdominal exercise 15 and 30 sec, HOD –walk backwards on all fours, VIS – pull up endurance, SKOK – standing long jump), and in the area of functional capabilities through a single test (POLIGON3 – polygon 3 min). The children’s parents filled out the Baeck questionnaire about the level of their physical activity with four defined indices: work index, exercise intensity index, sports index, and free time index. Regarding the mothers’ and fathers’ indices, the kinanthropometric analysis of children’s characteristics provided a statistically significant correlation only in the criteria of the mothers’ free time index, and for this reason we can partially confirm the hypothesis which states that the children of physically more active mothers have better kinanthropometric characteristics, or that they will show better results in morphological characteristics, as well as motor and functional abilities.
Studying with the Help of Digital Tutors: Design Aspects of Conversational Agents that Influence the Learning Process

Conversational agents such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa are becoming more and more prevalent. Almost every smart device comes equipped with such an agent. While on the one hand they can make menial everyday tasks a lot easier for people, there are also more sophisticated use cases in which conversational agents can be helpful. One of these use cases is tutoring in higher education. Several systems to support both formal and informal learning have been developed. There have been many studies about single characteristics of pedagogical conversational agents and how these influence learning outcomes. But what is still missing, is an overview and guideline for atomic design decisions that need to be taken into account when creating such a system. Based on a review of articles on pedagogical conversational agents, this paper provides an extension of existing classifications of characteristics as to include more fine-grained design aspects.
Preparation and properties of cellulose nanofibril-graphene nanosheets/polyaniline composite conductive aerogels

Polyaniline (PANI) is a conductive polymer that allows cellulose aerogels to achieve high electrical conductivity. However, aerogels containing PANI alone display a low mechanical stability. Graphene nanosheets (GNS) display high conductivity and mechanical strength but are prone to agglomeration, hindering their electroactive sites. To avoid shortcomings of the individual components, a composite aerogel was prepared via addition of graphene nanosheets (GNS) and PANI to a suspension of cellulose nanofibril (CNF). Transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used to analyze the structural morphology of the CNF/GNS/PANI aerogel. The electrochemical properties were analyzed using a four-probe conductivity meter, cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge-discharge tests, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. A 2:2:1 ratio of CNF/GNS/PANI provided optimal structural and electrochemical results. Incorporation of PANI through in-situ polymerization for 6 h resulted in uniform mixing of the three components. The CNF/GNS/PANI composite aerogel displayed a high electrical conductivity with a specific capacitance of 375 Fg-1 at a current density of 0.2 Ag-1. As a base binder and dispersant, CNF made use of PANI as a conductive medium and of GNS as a conductive reinforcing medium to form a flexible nanocellulose composite conductive material with increased stability and improved performance.
Effective Parameters in the Green Synthesis of Zero-valent Iron Nanoparticles as a Fenton-like Catalyst

Nowadays, utilization of new and sustainable techniques for the synthesis of INPs are increasing significantly. Common nettle (Urtica dioica) or stinging nettle is an herbaceous perennial flowering plant with a significant reduction potential. Leaf extract of this plant can reduce iron ions to zero-valent INPs. Like all chemical and biochemical reactions, reaction conditions have an immense effect on the process. In this experiment, impacts of different process parameters such as FeCl3 concentration, leaf extract quantity, reaction temperature, and reaction time on the biosynthesis of INPs were evaluated. FeCl3 concentration, quantity of the leaf extract, and reaction temperature were identified as effective factors. But, reaction time has not any significant impact. INPs were characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM) Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and X-ray diffractometer. Particles were spherical and oval in shape and were measured to be 21–71 nm with mean particle size of 46 nm. TEM illustrated that the zero-valent iron (ZVI) nanoparticles had mostly a spherical shape with 46 nm of mean diameter. The particles tend to form irregular clusters with phytochemicals from leaf extract and form macrostructures in the range of 117–605 nm. Prepared nanostructures are a promising catalyst in Fenton reactions and can degrade Methyl orange dye with about 70 percent
Is thiamine deficiency a significant cause of declining bird populations in the Baltic Sea area? Pilot study

The Baltic Sea area is a highly disturbed ecosystem strongly affected by anthropogenic activities, which in turn impact more or less resident bird populations. Eutrophication of the Baltic Sea is often considered as the main factor behind the observed increase of eider populations in the Baltic until 1990. A surplus of nitrogen and phosphorous led to increased biomass of phytoplankton, which in turn benefited filtrating blue mussels that is the main food of eiders. In contrast, the eider has shown a dramatic population decrease between 1992-93 and 2007-09 (– 51%, Ottvall 2012). It should be noted that there are large regional differences in population trends within the Baltic Sea area: the population trend is similar in Sweden and Finland whereas the Danish eider population size has been constant since 1988 (Christensen and Bregnballe 2011).
Mother Schooling, Fertility and Children’s Education: Evidence from Arabs in Israel

We study in this paper the causal relationship between women’s education and fertility and the transmission of human capital from mothers to children. We base our evidence on a natural experiment that increased sharply the education of affected cohorts of children as a result of the de facto revocation in October 1963 of the Military Government of Arabs in Israel which immediately enabled a large part of the Arab population to regain access to schooling institutions. The Military Government which was in effect from 1948 imposed severe restrictions on movement and travel and therefore disrupted sharply access to schooling of residents in localities that lacked education institutions. Regaining access to schooling increased female years of schooling by 1.02 for women age 4-8 in 1964 and by 0.58 for women age 9-13 at that time. The gain for the young affected cohorts reflects an increase of 8 percent in the probability of completing primary school and of 6 percent of completing at least two years of secondary schooling. These very large effects on schooling levels led to a sharp decline in completed fertility, 0.61 children for the younger affected cohorts and of 0.47 children for the older cohorts. The implied 2SLS estimates show that an increase in one year of maternal schooling caused a decline in fertility of 0.6 children for the younger cohorts. Additional evidence that we present suggests that labor force participation, age when married, marriage and divorce rates as well as spouse's labor force participation and earnings did not play any role in this fertility decline. However, spouse's education increased sharply as well through assortative matching, therefore playing as well a major role in the declining fertility. In the second part of the paper we show that the increase in mother's schooling led also to an increase in the education of children in face of a decline in their number. The increase in schooling of children amounted to just over a third of the increase in schooling of their mothers.  We benefited from comments from Esther Duflo, Melanie Luhrmann, Daniele Paserman, Natalia Weisshaar and of seminar participants at Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University and Royal Holloway University of London.
LJMU Research Online Categorical Colormap Optimization with Visualization Case Studies

Mapping a set of categorical values to different colors is an elementary technique in data visualization. Users of visualization software routinely rely on the default colormaps provided by a system, or colormaps suggested by software such as ColorBrewer. In practice, users often have to select a set of colors in a semantically meaningful way (e.g., based on conventions, color metaphors, and logological associations), and consequently would like to ensure their perceptual differentiation is optimized. In this paper, we present an algorithmic approach for maximizing the perceptual distances among a set of given colors. We address two technical problems in optimization, i.e., (i) the phenomena of local maxima that halt the optimization too soon, and (ii) the arbitrary reassignment of colors that leads to the loss of the original semantic association. We paid particular attention to different types of constraints that users may wish to impose during the optimization process. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this work, we tested this technique in two case studies. To reach out to a wider range of users, we also developed a web application called Colourmap Hospital.
2.7: Diffusion in Membranes

Eukaryotic cells are surrounded by a flexible and dynamic barrier known as a membrane. These biological membranes are composed of lipids, which aggregate to form a bilayer with particular biochemical properties. The amphipathic nature of the lipid bilayer, whose tails are hydrophobic and associate with each other and whose head groups are hydrophilic and interact with the aqueous environment, are critical to its structure. The composition of the lipid bilayer is also important for the diffusion both across and within the membrane. This membrane diffusion is important for a variety of functions, some of which include regulating the fluidity of the membrane, the uptake of metabolites into the cell from the outside, and the removal of waste products from the inside of the cell.
The Pioneering Hypotheses of Exercise Effects on Tumor Growth-Systematic Review

Introduction: Over the past seventy years, the relationship between physical exercise (PE) and cancer has been researched extensively, but the biological changes associated with PE and its probable influence on the tumor growth and patient survival are still uncertain. Aim: The objective of this study was to identify and analyze pioneering hypotheses in relation to the effect of PE and tumor growth in experimental animal models. Methods: We conducted a descriptive historic review of the literature through PRISMA protocol by Virtual Health Library on electronic databases MEDLINE, LILACS, IBECS and SciELO. The inclusion criterion was experimental studies that submitted animals to exercise and sought to explicate the relationship between exercise and tumor growth through biological mechanisms. Results: The pioneering hypotheses indicated that PE effects on tumor growth were due to energy-related metabolic factors which inhibit tumor growth. PE inhibits tumor growth through (a) alternative consumption of energy otherwise available in the development of tumor cells or (b) secretion of substances produced by muscle contraction in fatigue. However, there are other determining factors related to life experiences. Conclusion: There is preliminary evidence of PE being beneficial in tumor inhibition, but acknowledge that the mechanisms involved in the effects of exercise on tumor growth remain uncertain, possibly due to the wide variety of tumor types and biological intra-individual variation.
Left hemisphere abnormalities in developmental prosopagnosia when looking at faces but not words

Abstract Developmental prosopagnosia is a disorder characterized by profound and lifelong difficulties with face recognition in the absence of sensory or intellectual deficits or known brain injury. While there has been a surge in research on developmental prosopagnosia over the last decade and a half, the cognitive mechanisms behind the disorder and its neural underpinnings remain elusive. Most recently it has been proposed that developmental prosopagnosia may be a manifestation of widespread disturbance in neural migration which affects both face responsive brain regions as well as other category-sensitive visual areas. We present a combined behavioural and functional MRI study of face, object and word processing in a group of developmental prosopagnosics (N = 15). We show that developmental prosopagnosia is associated with reduced activation of core ventral face areas during perception of faces. The reductions were bilateral but tended to be more pronounced in the left hemisphere. As the first study to address category selectivity for word processing in developmental prosopagnosia, we do not, however, find evidence for reduced activation of the visual word form area during perception of orthographic material. We also find no evidence for reduced activation of the lateral occipital complex during perception of objects. These imaging findings correspond well with the behavioural performance of the developmental prosopagnosics, who show severe impairment for faces but normal reading and recognition of line drawings. Our findings suggest that a general deficit in neural migration across ventral occipito-temporal cortex is not a viable explanation for developmental prosopagnosia. The finding of left hemisphere involvement in our group of developmental prosopagnosics was at first surprising. However, a closer look at existing studies shows similar, but hitherto undiscussed, findings. These left hemisphere abnormalities seen in developmental prosopagnosia contrasts with lesion and imaging studies suggesting primarily right hemisphere involvement in acquired prosopagnosia, and this may reflect that the left hemisphere is important for the development of a normal face recognition network.
Reliable Trajectories for Dynamic Quadrupeds using Analytical Costs and Learned Initializations

Dynamic traversal of uneven terrain is a major objective in the field of legged robotics. The most recent model predictive control approaches for these systems can generate robust dynamic motion of short duration; however, planning over a longer time horizon may be necessary when navigating complex terrain. A recently-developed framework, Trajectory Optimization for Walking Robots (TOWR), computes such plans but does not guarantee their reliability on real platforms, under uncertainty and perturbations. We extend TOWR with analytical costs to generate trajectories that a state-of-the-art whole-body tracking controller can successfully execute. To reduce online computation time, we implement a learning-based scheme for initialization of the nonlinear program based on offline experience. The execution of trajectories as long as 16 footsteps and 5.5 s over different terrains by a real quadruped demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach on hardware. This work builds toward an online system which can efficiently and robustly replan dynamic trajectories.
Venture Capital and Industrial Structure Upgrading from the Perspective of Spatial Spillover

As an emerging financial entity, venture capital has a significant impact on regional development and local production systems. Previous research results pay more attention to the spatial distribution and agglomeration of venture capital but pay less attention to its spatial externality. This paper used the panel data of 31 provincial-level regions in China from 2003 to 2017 to measure the industrial structure upgrading level from the two dimensions of rationalization of industrial structure and upgrading of industrial structure. Based on regional heterogeneity that determines industrial structure upgrading, local effects and externalities of venture capital, and omission factors, this paper constructs spatial econometrics models of venture capital and industrial structure upgrading. Firstly, venture capital and industrial structure upgrading all have obvious spatial autocorrelation and form different agglomeration areas in local areas. Therefore, regional venture capital and industrial structure upgrading are closely related to regional location factors. China’s venture capital has unique spatial attributes. Secondly, venture capital has a significant role in promoting the industrial structure upgrading, although its simulative effect is weak. In addition, in order to further explore the influence mechanism of regional industrial structure upgrading, this paper found the local fixed asset investment level and R&D intensity promoted the upgrading process of local industrial structure at a significant level. The study of this paper has important implications for the formulation of appropriate regional venture investment policies to promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structures and sustainable development during the transition period of economic development.
Helping Users Develop Accurate Mental Models of Robots’ Perceptual Capabilities: A First Approach

Understanding a robot’s perceptual capabilities is important for users to make informed decisions about their privacy. Privacy, in turn, is tied to trust and is also important for user acceptance of robots. We are beginning a research program that is exploring (1) how a user forms a mental model about a robot’s perceptual capabilities, (2) how the robot can estimate such models via observation, and (3) how the robot can take actions to correct an inaccurate model, i.e., teach the user about its capabilities. We introduce the research topic, discuss recent relevant work, and then describe our initial approach toward enabling robots to model and influence user beliefs.
Investigating Word Meta-Embeddings by Disentangling Common and Individual Information

In the field of natural language processing, combining multiple pre-trained word embeddings has become a viable approach to improve word representations. However, there is still a lack of understanding of why such improvements can be achieved. In this paper, we investigate this issue by firstly proposing a novel word meta-embedding method. The proposed method tends to disentangle common and individual information from different word embeddings and learns representations for both. Based on the proposed method, we then carry out a systematic evaluation to provide a perspective on how common and individual information contributes to different tasks. Our intrinsic evaluation results suggest that common information is critical for word-level representations in terms of word similarity and relatedness. While, based on natural language inference, our extrinsic evaluation results show that common and individual information plays different roles and can complement each other. Further, both intrinsic and extrinsic evaluations reveal that explicitly separating common and individual information is beneficial for learning word meta-embeddings.
Nonlinearity-Induced Spurs in Fractional-$N$ Frequency Synthesizers: State of the Art

Fractional-$N$ frequency synthesizers are notorious for exhibiting spurious tones (spurs). Spurs can be introduced inadvertently by the divider controller or may result from interaction between a spur-free divider control signal and nonlinearities in the loop. This paper discusses the underlying problem, a variety of deterministic mechanisms that produce spurs, and techniques for mitigating and/or eliminating them.