Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application of Recent Developments in Deep Learning to ANN-based Automatic Berthing Systems

Previous studies on Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based automatic berthing showed considerable increases in performance by training ANNs with a set of berthing datasets. However, the berthing performance deteriorated when an extrapolated initial position was given. To overcome the extrapolation problem and improve the training performance, recent developments in Deep Learning (DL) are adopted in this paper. Recent activation functions, weight initialization methods, input data-scaling methods, a higher number of hidden layers, and Batch Normalization (BN) are considered, and their effectiveness has been analyzed based on loss functions, berthing performance histories, and berthing trajectories. Finally, it is shown that the use of recent activation and weight initialization method results in faster training convergence and a higher number of hidden layers. This leads to a better berthing performance over the training dataset. It is found that application of the BN can overcome the extrapolated initial position problem.
A Novel Face Recognition System Based on Subclass Kernel Nonparametric Discriminant Analysis

This paper presents a Novel Face Recognition System Based on Subclass Kernel Nonparametric Discriminant Analysis (SKNDA), which incorporates subclass information in the KNDA optimization process. It jointly minimizes the data dispersion within and between subclasses to improve classification accuracy. Moreover, SKNDA has the advantage of reducing data dimension in a discriminative way and performing a discriminant eigenspace representation, where some near-global variations of the data are incorporated in the kernel space, to handle heteroscedastic, non-normal and non-linearly separable face classes. In order to make adequate face recognition, we integrate the Gabor features and the ordinal measures to derive the facial features, which are encoded in local regions, as visual primitives. The different ordinal measures are extracted from Gabor filtering responses. Then, the statistical distributions of these primitives in diverse face image blocks are concatenated, which generates a feature vector whose dimension is reduced using PCA. Finally, the latter is employed as a feature input for the proposed SKNDA. An extensive comparison of the SKNDA model to relevant existing kernel classifiers is performed on real world datasets to show the advantages of our proposed method. In particular, the experiments on face recognition have clearly shown the superiority of the SKNDA over other methods.
SIMULATION OF 10 NM DOUBLE GATE MOSFET USING VISUAL TCAD TOOL

- Evolution of Silicon technology has revolutionized the semiconductor industry. The characteristics of MOSFET has been subsequently degraded by continuous scaling. A Double gate MOSFET is proposed to overcome the limitations of conventional MOSFETs. Due to continuous scaling MOSFET’s performance are highly effected by short channel effects. These short channel effects (SCE) are responsible for reduction of gate coupling to the channel. In order to improve gate coupling, a double gate MOSFET is being proposed in this work and its comparative analysis is done using Cogenda TCAD genius simulator. In this work our main focus is to perform simulation of 10 nm Double gate MOSFET on Visual TCAD software and to extract the transconductance, DIBL, Ion –Ioff ratio and other important parameters of the device.
Amelioration of ulcerative colitis via inflammatory regulation by macrophage-biomimetic nanomedicine

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is featured with relapsing inflammation in the colon, where macrophages are recruited and polarized locally into M1 type to drive further inflammation. Pharmacotherapy of UC has exhibited limited efficacy, mostly due to the poor specificity. Methods: A macrophage-biomimetic nanomedicine was developed for targeted treatment of UC, which was derived from reactive oxygen species (ROS)-sensitive β-cyclodextrin, loaded with rosiglitazone, and coated with macrophage membrane. The ability of the nanomedicine in regulating macrophage polarization was examined at cellular level, and the macrophage-tropism driven targeted delivery into the inflammatory colon was investigated by ex vivo bio-imaging distribution assay. Furthermore, the nanomedicine's therapeutic efficacy was systemically examined in dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis model in mice. Results: The nanomedicine effectively polarized macrophages to M2 and protected epithelial cells from oxidative stress in vitro. In addition, macrophage-membrane led the nanomedicine to the inflammatory colon with a high targeting efficiency. In response to the elevated ROS in the inflammatory tissue, the nanomedicine released rosiglitazone specifically and regulated macrophage polarization in vivo. Macrophage membrane also assisted inflammation suppression by sequestering proinflammatory cytokines. Working in such a synergy, the nanomedicine exhibited significant therapeutic effects against UC in mice. Conclusions: This macrophage-biomimetic nanomedicine leverages the inflammatory tropism and inflammatory cytokine sequestration effects of macrophage membrane for targeted delivery and local inflammation suppression, the ROS-responsiveness of β-cyclodextrin-based matrix for specific payload release, and the macrophage-polarizing effect of rosiglitazone for inflammatory regulation, thereby exhibiting considerable therapeutic efficacy against UC in mice. This study offers important new insights on the design and development of biomimetic nanomaterials for inflammation regulations.
Write-Once Disc with BiFeO Thin Films for Multilevel Optical Recording

We optimized BiFeO thin film for use in multilevel optical recording. Due to minimal intersymbol interference (ISI), we obtained a 2.57% sigma-to-dynamic range (SDR) at a recording capacity of 25 GB. We confirmed that our write-once disc achieved a recording capacity of 25 GB using a laser diode with a 405-nm wavelength and a 0.65-numerical aperture objective lens.
Antibacterial activity of the essential oil of Mountain Savory (Satureja montana) against Arcanobacterium pyogenes

The pharmaceutical properties of aromatic plants are partially attributed to essential oils (EOs) which are widely used to prevent and treat human diseases [1]. However, little is known about the control of infective animal diseases with EOs. Arcanobacterium pyogenes (AP) is one of the important opportunistic pathogens of the upper respiratory and genital tracts of cattle, sheep, swine, and many other species [2]. Most frequently, this bacteria is isolated from inflamed lung lesions of pigs and cattle, in the samples of uterine mucos of sows and cows with endometritis and the milk from cows with clinical mastitis. Antimicrobial activity of Mountain Savory (Satureja montana) L. (SM) was detected in vitro conditions against Clostridium perfringens type A [3] and Staphylococcus aureus [4]. Therefore, it is assumed that SM can react against AP and therapeutic potential against bacterial infection in animals. The EO of the cultivated SM (Serbia), was extracted by hydrodistillation and analyzed by gas chromatography. According to compositional analysis of the SM EO, 27 chemical compounds were identified, and carvacrol (42.12%), linalool (24.57%) and p-cymene (19.85%) were found as predominant compounds in oil. Antibacterial sensitivity of AP (ATCC 19411) and other 18 isolates (field strain originating from swine-uterus and cattle-uterus and milk) were tested in vitro using an Agar Dilution Test to determine the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC). The results obtained have shown that EO applied at a concentration of 0. 78µl ml-1, which was defined as the MIC, exhibited antimicrobial activity against all AP in the in vitro assays. Keywords: essential oil, Satureja montana, Arcanobacterium pyogenes, antibacterial MIC Acknowledgement: This work was supported by a grant from scientific project TR 031071 of Ministry of Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia References: 1. Edris AE (2007) Phytother Res 21: 308–323 2. Liu M-C et al. (2009)J Dairy Sci 92: 3659–3666 3. de Olivera TLC et al. (2011) Intern J Food Microbiol 144(3): 546–555 4. Donaldson J R et al. (2005) Pharmaceutical Biology 43: 687–695
The Normal Deviate Test of Phylogenetic Value of a Data Matrix

It is a common experience of workers in numerical taxonomy that some data matrices lead to a reasonably confident assessment of the relationship between organisms whereas others (unfortunately a large proportion) leave considerable doubts. Moreover, when two or more matrices are available for the same set of organisms (e.g., Mickevich, 1978; Harris and Bisby, 1980), considerable differences are most often obtained in attempts to derive phylogenies. One therefore wishes to ask whether there is some objective test for the degree of confidence that one can put into the trees obtained from any particular data matrix. In earlier papers Le Quesne (1972, 1982) has suggested use of the coefficient of character-state randomness for this purpose. However, this figure may have little significance when only a few characters are used. This became particularly apparent when studying the character sets used by Harris and Bisby (1980), when the normal deviate test described by Le Quesne (1972) proved more appropriate. Both the above tests, applied to binary characters, depend on the number of incompatibilities found (Nx) and the expected number based on the random distribution of character-states (Ps ), the calculation formula used for the latter being detailed by Le Quesne (1972). The normal deviate test also involves the number of valid comparisons (nv). Between n characters there are a total of n(n 1)/2 comparisons, but the value of nv may be less, since some comparisons may not be valid for the following reasons:
Tiques (Acariens, Ixodoidea) des Mascareignes (Océan Indien) et maladies transmises.

Les animaux domestiques et sauvages des Mascareignes sont parasites par six especes de tiques : Amblyomma loculosum sur Anous sto/idus a La Reunion ; A. variegatum sur les ruminants entretenus dans les regions les plus seches et chaudes de La Reunion et de Maurice ; Boophilus microplus largement repandu sur ces memes hotes dans ces deux iles et a Rodrigues ; Rhipicephalus sanguineus sur les chiens de l'ile Maurice et de La Reunion ; R. evertsi et R. appendiculatus, ce dernier decouvert au cours de la presente prospection, respectivement dans un et deux elevages bovins a Maurice. B. microplus et A. variegatum transmettent la ou ils sont implantes : Babesia bovis, B. bigemina, Theileria mutans, Borrelia theileri, Cowdria ruminantium. La theileriose a T. parva ne semble pas exister mais pourrait s'installer si des bovins porteurs du protozoaire etaient introduits a Maurice ou existe son vecteur R. appendiculatus. (Resume d'auteur)
Analysis of Parental Relationship for Soybean Cultivars Released from 1983 to 2010 in Beijing

To explore the relationship and genetic diversity of soybean cultivars in Beijing and provide theoretical guidance for soybean breeding,we traced the pedigree information of 90 soybean cultivars released from 1983 to 2010 and calculated the coefficients of parentage(COP) between the parents and between cross combinations.The results showed that 19 of 90 cultivars had relationships in their parents.A total of 4005 cross combinations were made among 90 cultivars,and 63.62% of the combinations shared parental relationship,but their average COP value was only 0.031,showing that there existed abundant genetic diversity because there were not close relationship among most cultivars;COP value between cultivars reduced in the process of time,but increased from 2005 to 2010.Cluster analysis suggested that 78 cultivars could be divided into 10 groups,reflecting breeding characteristics in different times and evolution of cultivars.Nine accessions were found to be core parents which contributed more than the other parents.Therefore,the genetic basis of soybean cultivars in Beijing was abundant but genetic diversity became narrower in the process of time.
Interoperability as a Catalyst and Challenge for the Development of Internet of Things

Interoperability is the capability of two different devices and networks to communicate with each other for the exchange of important information. Today, smart things and objects are driven by the Internet in which individuals, businesses and government rely on technology and devices to improve daily life, efficiency and increase security. In this context, the Internet-of-Things (IoT) is a communication paradigm which aims to bring forth an invisible and innovative framework to connect a plethora of digital devices with the Internet. Thus, it intends at making the Internet more immersive and pervasive but interoperability between devices from different domains is a major barrier in IoT success. In this paper, we devise a taxonomy to best bring forth interoperability perspective in IoT, highlighted synergies to promote IoT in the context of smart cities and identified that interoperability among different standards and communication technologies is still a significant challenge. The paper also proffers solution to unlock the barrier of interoperability issues for the development of IoT in other to give future research direction.
Antibiotic resistance mechanisms of lactic acid bacteria.

Antibiotics, approximately eighty years in our lives since discovery of penicillin, have become indispensable defense mechanism against many diseases. Antibiotics have some effects to inhibit target bacteria such as; blocking the synthesis of the cell wall, disruption of cell membrane function or prevention of the protein synthesis. Rapidly increasing of unconscious and excessive use of antibiotics has led to the development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Acquired resistance genes that can be moved between bacteria. Study of lactic acid bacteria with the resistance profiles and gene transfer are discussed in this review.
Computational Framework for the Assessment of New Forms of Political Organization in Social Media

Social media has become a key mechanism for the organization of grassroots movements. In the 2015 Barcelona City Council election, Barcelona en Comú, an emerging grassroots party, was the most voted one. This candidacy was devised by activists involved in the Spanish 15M movement in order to turn citizen outrage into political change. On the one hand, the 15M movement is based on a decentralized structure. On the other hand, political science literature postulates that parties historically develop oligarchical leadership structures. This tension motivates to examine whether Barcelona en Comú preserved a decentralized structure or adopted a conventional centralized organization. This thesis proposes a computational framework to (1) better identify the Twitter networks of political parties by setting a confidence parameter in a popular community detection algorithm of the state of the art, and (2) analyze each party network by measuring the hierarchical structure, small-world phenomenon and coreness. The evaluation of the framework on the Twitter networks of the parties that ran for this election shows that the extended community detection algorithm effectively set boundaries between party networks. Although most parties consist of one single cluster, in Barcelona en Comú two well-defined groups co-exist: a cluster dominated by the party leader and the collective accounts, and another cluster formed by the movement activists. While the former group is highly centralized like traditional parties, the latter one stands out for its decentralized, cohesive and resilient structure.
Charitable Giving and the Taxation of Estates Testimony Submitted to United States Senate Committee on Finance Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy

First, the estate tax encourages charitable giving at death by providing a deduction for charitable bequests. Less obviously, it also encourages giving during life. Charitable contributions made during life gain a double tax advantage: They reduce income taxes and they remove the assets from the estate and so avoid estate taxes as well. Aggregate giving from living individuals far exceeds aggregate charitable bequests. As a result, even if the estate tax is only a relatively minor determinant of charitable giving while alive, the impact of repeal on giving while alive could be a large component of the overall impact.
CONTRIBUTION OF CHEMICAL INTERFACE DAMPING TO THE SHIFT OF SURFACE PLASMON RESONANCE ENERGY OF GOLD NANOPARTICLES

The effects that determine the shift and damping of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) band of colloidal gold nanoparticles due to the chemisorption of tetrahydroxyborate (B(OH)4) anions are analyzed experimentally and theoretically. The contribution of chemical interface damping, change in refractive index and charge density variations to the experimentally observed shift of the SPR band are evaluated qualitatively by simulating the optical response of gold nanoparticles upon the chemisorption of B(OH)4 anions. The results show that changing the refractive index of the medium and the charge density cannot account entirely for the shift of the SPR band. Thus, chemical interface damping should be considered when analyzing surface effects in the presence of strongly chemisorbed adsorbates.
Role of PP2A in cell death induced by the adenoviral protein E4orf4

The E4orf4 protein of adenovirus induces cell death in human cancer cells and not normal primary cells when expressed alone. E4orf4 is also lethal to the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which we use as a model system. E4orf4-induced toxicity in both mammalian and yeast cells is largely dependent on its ability to associate with protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A), a highly conserved Ser/Thr phosphatase, more specifically, with the B class of regulatory subunits, of which Bα is best characterized in mammalian cells, as well as the yeast equivalent Cdc55. Binding to the B subunit appears to inhibit PP2A activity with some substrates. Consequently, E4orf4 is a useful agent in delineating specific functions of Bα/Cdc55-containing PP2A holoenzymes in vivo. E4orf4 induces mitotic arrest, suggesting that PP2ACdc55 plays a role in regulating mitotic exit. The Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome (APC/C) is a multi-subunit complex involved in the timely degradation of cell cycle proteins to allow the mitotic exit of cells. Two forms of the APC, APCCdc20 and APCCdh1, control mitotic transitions and we demonstrate that E4orf4, through its interaction with Cdc55, induces unscheduled APCCdc20 activity in S-phase arrested cells, and results in the untimely degradation of both Pds1/securin and the cohesin Scc1. In contrast, E4orf4 prevents induction of APCCdh1. Thus, E4orf4 may uncouple PP2ACdc55 regulation of mitotic events. While the specific mechanism by which E4orf4 mediates cell death is unclear, its interaction with the B regulatory PP2A subunit plays a significant role. Cdc55 and Bα contain seven WD40 repeats organized into a seven-bladed propeller structure. In an attempt to functionally map the Cdc55 subunit, we identified regions in Cdc55 required for E4orf4 binding. A polypeptide composed only of blades 1 and 2 bound to E4orf4, and overexpression of this fragment blocked E4orf4 toxicity in yeast. Later on, with the knowledge of the Bα crystal structure, we delineated the precise regions of Bα/Cdc55 involved in E4orf4 binding. Mutational studies in both yeast Cdc55 and mammalian Bα suggest that E4orf4 binds across the substrate-binding groove of the B regulatory subunits, and binding interferes with the interaction of certain substrates, such as p107, with the PP2A holoenzyme. This deregulation of PP2A activity by E4orf4 may affect the functions of certain critical substrates, ultimately leading to cell death. %%%% La proteine adenovirale E4orf4 induit la mort cellulaire dans les cellules cancereuses humaines et non dans les cellules normales primaires lorsqu'elle est exprimee seule. E4orf4 est egalement letale dans la levure Saccharomyces cerevisiae, que nous utilisons comme modele. La toxicite induite par E4orf4 dans les cellules de mammiferes et dans la levure depend largement de son association avec la phosphatase proteique 2A (PP2A), une Ser/Thr phosphatase hautement conservee. Plus specifiquement, E4orf4 s'associe avec les sous-unites regulatrices de classe B, parmi lesquelles Bα, la mieux caracterisee dans les…
Plant size and pollinator visitation in Cynoglossum officinale

The number of bumblebee approaches to hound's tongue (Cynoglossum officinale) plants increased with increasing number of flowers per plant. The proportion of flowers visited after arrival of a bee decreased with increasing number of flowers. The net result of these two processes in shaded populations was that individual flowers on large plants received significantly more visits than those on small plants. This trend was repeated in open, unshaded populations but was not as pronounced. Plants in unshaded populations were approached more often than those in shade. In isolated plants, with no neighbours within 10 m, the number of approaches also increased with increasing number of flowers per plant. Compared with plants in populations, isolated plants received fewer approaches, but the proportion of flowers visited per approach was higher.
Harmful Proton Radiation Damage and Induced Bit Error Effects on the Performance of Avalanche Photodiode Devices

This paper has been tested the radiation dependent characteristics of the avalanche photodiodes. Raising the current density however, is not really indicative of lifetime since it is more likely a situation to be avoided than one that simulates normal lifetime degradation. The reliability of semiconductor detectors is very dependent on the degradation modes. This paper has presented the main irradiation effects, i.e., the multiplication gain, minority carrier life time, impact ionization, illumination and radiation damage coefficient. By comparing neutrons, protons and gamma radiation effects, we will apply the model on the two different Silicon avalanche photodiode structures. The results demonstrate that the model can accurately calculate the internal parameters of the APDs and produce data that can be directly compared with measurements. The fluence effects of 51 MeV proton irradiation on the photosensitivity and signal to noise ratio (SNR) are also investigated. The objective was to analyze the effect depletion region volume, carrier concentration of the iregion of APDs on radiation hardness. Moreover we have investigated deeply some of the degradation performance and capabilities of typical APDs currently used in many communication and sensing systems over wide range of the affecting parameters. APDs are used in systems that require coherent and often single mode light such as high data rate communications and sensing applications. APDs are an attractive receiver choice for low signal applications, because their internal gain mechanism can improve signal to noise ratio. An optical receiver must also be appropriate for the laser wavelength being used. As well as we have taken into account the effects of excess noise on the device performance, and upgrading signal to noise ratio and then to decrease the bit error rated that has a bad effect on the device performance and operating efficiency. Keywords— Optoelectronic Devices, Radiation Damage, Signal to Noise Ratio, Bit Error Rate and Excess Noise