Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Web and Social Media for the Promotion of the Tourist Destination. Bran Castle (Romania): Myth, Literature, Cinema and History.

The article aims to analyze the change that has taken place in the promotion of one of the most important and well-known cultural heritage in Romania, the Bran Castle, thanks to social networks. They are very important marketing tools for visibility and by power of positioning in the tourism market. Google Trends compares the interest shown by people in relation to the different destinations in Romania, and more specifically in relation to Bran Castle, the Transylvania region and the "Count Dracula". The results show that this tool can contribute to the knowledge of people's interest in relation to the tourist destinations. Nvivo's content analysis is also applied to investigate the cultural and tourist promotion that Bran Castle plans in its strategy. All this information is very useful for Destination Management Organization (DMO). The analysis of the data existing on social networks confirms the popularity of the myth of Dracula and its association with the image of the country, but we believe that Romania must wisely address this apparent negative stereotype and adopt a strategy of correct positioning of the Dracula symbol.
Invariance of the fine structure constant over the cosmic time scale

Our goal is to interpret the energy equation from Doubly Special Relativity (DSR) of Magueijo-Smolin with an invariant Planck energy scale in order to obtain the speed of light with an explicit dependence on the background temperature of the expanding universe. We also investigate how other universal constants, including the fine structure constant, have varied since the early universe and, thus, how they have evoluted over the cosmological time related to the temperature of the expanding universe. For instance, we show that both the Planck constant and the electron charge were also too large in the early universe. However, we finally conclude that the fine structure constant has remained invariant with the age and temperature of the universe, which is in agreement with laboratory tests and some observational data.
Smartphone Pedometer Sensor Application for Evaluating Disease Activity and Predicting Comorbidities in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Validation Study

Smartphone-based pedometer sensor telemedicine applications could be useful for measuring disease activity and predicting the risk of developing comorbidities, such as pulmonary or cardiovascular disease, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but the sensors have not been validated in this patient population. The aim of this study was to validate step counting with an activity-tracking application running the inbuilt Android smartphone pedometer virtual sensor in patients with RA. Two Android-based smartphones were tested in a treadmill test-bed setup at six walking speeds and compared to manual step counting as the gold standard. Guided by a facilitator, the participants walked 100 steps at each test speed, from 2.5 km/h to 5 km/h, wearing both devices simultaneously in a stomach pouch. A computer automatically recorded both the manually observed and the sensor step count. The overall difference in device step counts versus the observed was 5.9% mean absolute percentage error. Highest mean error was at the 2.5 km/h speed tests, where the mean error of the two devices was 18.5%. Both speed and cadence were negatively correlated to the absolute percentage error, which indicates that the greater the speed and cadence, the lower the resulting step counting error rate. There was no correlation between clinical parameters and absolute percentage error. In conclusion, the activity-tracking application using the inbuilt Android smartphone pedometer virtual sensor is valid for step counting in patients with RA. However, walking at very low speed and cadence may represent a challenge.
Tracing multiple scattering patterns in absolute (e,2e) cross sections for H2 and He over a 4π solid angle

Absolutely normalized (e,2e) measurements for H{sub 2} and He covering the full solid angle of one ejected electron are presented for 16 eV sum energy of both final state continuum electrons. For both targets rich cross-section structures in addition to the binary and recoil lobes are identified and studied as a function of the fixed electron's emission angle and the energy sharing among both electrons. For H{sub 2} their behavior is consistent with multiple scattering of the projectile as discussed before [Al-Hagan et al., Nature Phys. 5, 59 (2009)]. For He the binary and recoil lobes are significantly larger than for H{sub 2} and partly cover the multiple scattering structures. To highlight these patterns we propose a alternative representation of the triply differential cross section. Nonperturbative calculations are in good agreement with the He results and show discrepancies for H{sub 2} in the recoil peak region. For H{sub 2} a perturbative approach reasonably reproduces the cross-section shape but deviates in absolute magnitude.
Hyperplane area selection evolutionary algorithm for multi-objective optimization problems

In the multi-objective optimization problem, it is an arduous task to select sub-populations with good convergence and diversity under the environment selection of evolutionary algorithms. Especially as the number of objectives increases, the number of non-dominated solutions will also increase sharply, so it becomes more challenging to increase the selection pressure on Pareto. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a hyperplane area selection evolutionary algorithm (HASEA). The algorithm constructs hyperplane area by the boundary points of individuals in the population and then projects all individuals to the corresponding area along the direction of the hyperplane orthogonal vector, and finally, each area selects corresponding individuals to form sub-populations through some strategies. Experimental results show that the subpopulations selected by this strategy have both convergence and diversity.
Položaj nagrađivanja u dvodimenzionalnom prostoru faceta organizacijske klime

Organizacijska se klima odnosi na doživljaj različitih, zaposlenicima relevantnih aspekata organizacijskog okruženja. Jedan je od njih i sustav nagrađivanja. U ovom se radu, upotrebom višedimenzionalnog skaliranja, analizira relativno značenje i položaj koji nagrađivanje zauzima u odnosu na viđenje drugih važnih faceta organizacijske klime. Analizirani su podaci prikupljeni na velikom uzorku organizacija različitih djelatnosti, a korišteni je upitnik mjerio percepciju dvanaest sadržajno različitih aspekata organizacijskog okruženja. Rezultati upućuju na semantičku sličnost nagrađivanja i drugih zaposlenicima bitnih organizacijskih sustava - napredovanja i informiranja, dok su percepcije stavova zaposlenika prema radu i organizaciji - odnos prema kvaliteti rada, motivacija i zaokupljenost, inovativnost i inicijativa te pripadnost organizaciji - relativno najudaljenije ovoj faceti klime. Nastoje se ponuditi različita teorijska objašnjenja mogućih interpretacija ukupne kognitivne mape organizacijskog konteksta, a raspravlja se i o praktičnim implikacijama dobivenih rezultata u području upravljanja i razvoja ljudskih potencijala. Ključne riječi: nagrađivanje, organizacijska klima, višedimenzionalno skaliranje
Understanding Alcohol Use Discourse and Stigma Patterns in Perinatal Care on Twitter

(1) Background: perinatal alcohol use generates a variety of health risks. Social media platforms discuss fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and other widespread outcomes, providing personalized user-generated content about the perceptions and behaviors related to alcohol use during pregnancy. Data collected from Twitter underscores various narrative structures and sentiments in tweets that reflect large-scale discourses and foster societal stigmas; (2) Methods: We extracted alcohol-related tweets from May 2019 to October 2021 using an official Twitter search API based on a set of keywords provided by our clinical team. Our exploratory study utilized thematic content analysis and inductive qualitative coding methods to analyze user content. Iterative line-by-line coding categorized dynamic descriptive themes from a random sample of 500 tweets; (3) Results: qualitative methods from content analysis revealed underlying patterns among inter-user engagements, outlining individual, interpersonal and population-level stigmas about perinatal alcohol use and negative sentiment towards drinking mothers. As a result, the overall silence surrounding personal experiences with alcohol use during pregnancy suggests an unwillingness and sense of reluctancy from pregnant adults to leverage the platform for support and assistance due to societal stigmas; (4) Conclusions: identifying these discursive factors will facilitate more effective public health programs that take into account specific challenges related to social media networks and develop prevention strategies to help Twitter users struggling with perinatal alcohol use.
A global mapping technique for GPS‐derived ionospheric total electron content measurements

A worldwide network of receivers tracking the transmissions of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites represents a new source of ionospheric data that is globally distributed and continuously available. We describe a technique for retrieving the global distribution of vertical total electron content (TEC) from GPS‐based measurements. The approach is based on interpolating TEC within triangular tiles that tessellate the ionosphere modeled as a thin spherical shell. The high spatial resolution of pixel‐based methods, where widely separated regions can be retrieved independently of each other, is combined with the efficient retrieval of gradients characteristic of polynomial fitting. TEC predictions from climatological models are incorporated as simulated data to bridge significant gaps between measurements. Time sequences of global TEC maps are formed by incrementally updating the most recent retrieval with the newest data as it becomes available. This Kalman filtering approach smooths the maps in time, and provides time‐resolved covariance information, useful for mapping the formal error of each global TEC retrieval. Preliminary comparisons with independent vertical TEC data, available from the TOPEX dual‐frequency altimeter, suggest that the maps can accurately reproduce spatial and temporal ionospheric variations over latitudes ranging from equatorial to about ±65°.
Universal stress-defect correlation at (100)semiconductor/oxide interfaces

Interface models between various group IV and III-V (100)semiconductors and their oxides are generated from first-principles molecular dynamics simulations. The tensile strain at the interface (from the semiconductor side) is estimated, by comparing bond lengths at/near the interface and in the bulk semiconductor phase. A linear relationship between the calculated interface stress and the density of interface defects observed at such interfaces is revealed. These results suggest that the interface stress due to the volume mismatch between the semiconductor and its oxide likely plays an important role in the creation of interface defects. These findings can explain recent results pertaining to the passivation of various high-mobility channels for their integration in high-performance metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors.
Performance Limits of Spatially Distributed Molecular Communications With Receiver Saturation

Molecular via diffusion are affected by unreliability and inter symbol interference in case of single transmitter. A promising solution to these issues appears to be the adoption of a swarm of randomly distributed transmitting nano-devices and a single spherical receiver. However, such a perspective assumes the receiver as fully absorbing (i.e., able to absorb an unlimited number of molecules per second). In this letter, we show that, if this assumption is relaxed, increasing the number of point transmitters leads to a saturation effect which makes communication impossible when digital transmission is considered. By means of a first and second order spatio-temporal stochastic model, we analytically derive the maximum allowed point transmitters density before saturation arises, as a function of parameters such as the diffusion coefficient, the maximum number of absorbed molecules, and the number of previously transmitted symbols. The analysis is validated via Monte Carlo simulation.
Measuring the Quality of Life in Patients with Chronic Venous Disease before and Short Term after Surgical Treatment—A Comparison between Different Open Surgical Procedures

Chronic venous disease (CVD) is a common pathology that significantly affects the quality of life (QoL) of patients. Methods: QoL was assessed in 317 patients diagnosed with CVD who underwent surgeries, including cryostripping (n = 113), high ligation and stripping (HL&S, n = 96), and phlebectomies (n = 108). CVD symptoms and QoL were assessed before surgery and 2 weeks after surgery using the following questionnaires: CIVIQ-20, VAS, Eq-5D, PHQ-9 and GAD-9. Results. The results reveal a significant correlation (p < 0.05) between CEAP score and QoL questionnaires performed preoperatively and postoperatively in all three surgical technique groups, with a statistical improvement postoperatively. Phlebectomy had the best postoperative QoL score (r = 0.495) compared to the other two types of procedures. Conclusions: Analyzing patients’ subjective perception following conventional surgery for CVD treatment, an improved QoL is observed both in functional and psychosocial aspects, even early postoperatively. Classical surgical procedures remain an effective and feasible option in CVD treatment.
Monitoring of living cell attachment and spreading using reverse symmetry waveguide sensing

The effect of the attachment and spreading of living cells on the modes of a grating coupled reverse symmetry waveguide sensor is investigated in real time. The reverse symmetry design has an increased probing depth into the sample making it well suited for the monitoring of cell morphology. As a result, significant changes in the incoupling peak height and peak shape were observed during cell attachment and spreading. It is suggested that the area under the incoupling peaks reflects the initial cell attachment process, while the mean peak position is mostly governed by the spreading of the cells.
Anomalous exciton–radiation coupling in the nano-to-bulk crossover regime

Anomalous exciton–radiation coupling in the sample-size regime beyond the long-wavelength approximation (LWA) is discussed. In high-quality samples fabricated using the latest technologies, the long-range excitonic coherence and non-LWA effect cause a peculiar interplay between the spatial structures of the radiation and excitonic waves, which emerge as an anomalous level structure of the exciton–radiation coupled system including an extremely large radiative correction. We theoretically demonstrated such a situation for a thin film by a microscopic nonlocal theory in which a size-resonant enhancement of the radiative damping constant and successive interchanges of the confined polariton states can be observed. In order to verify the predicted level structure of confined polaritons, we present the results of non-degenerate two-photon scattering spectroscopy investigations and a corresponding analysis based on the nonlocal theory for the second-order nonlinear process. This scheme has successfully elucidated peculiar level structures of confined polaritons in the non-LWA regime. In the last half of the paper, a new type of resonant hyper-parametric scattering (RHPS) spectroscopy with a non-degenerate induced excitation is theoretically proposed as another method to study confined polaritons in the non-LWA regime. Some calculations for thin films are demonstrated to reveal the potentiality of this method that provides rich information on confined biexcitons and polaritons.
Load Balancing of Double Queues and Utility-Workload Tradeoff in Heterogeneous Mobile Edge Computing

Mobile edge computing (MEC) is a popular service paradigm by which mobile devices can offload their latency-sensitive and computation-intensive workloads to edge servers. The MEC service scheduling problem has been investigated in recent years. However, most MEC service scheduling mechanisms only consider workloads on homogeneous edge servers, causing servers’ queue backlogs to be too large when innumerable user requests arrive concurrently. In this paper, we are the first to propose a double-queue workloads scheduling model innovatively, and formulate a system (including user ends and edge server ends) utility into a scheduling optimization problem. To tackle such an NP scheduling problem, we present a Lyapunov-based decomposition strategy to convert the original problem into three equivalent subproblems. By aggregating three subproblem solving strategies, we propose the Lyapunov-based online matching algorithm for edge service scheduling, named LOMES, to obtain an optimal system utility while guaranteeing the load balancing of mobile devices and heterogeneous edge servers. Simulations further validate that LOMES realizes the load balancing of two queue lengths and a $[O(1/V); O(V)]$ tradeoff between the system’s utility and workloads with a utility-workload tradeoff parameter ${V}$ .
Precise pose estimation of the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover through a stereo‐vision‐based approach

Visual Odometry (VO) is a fundamental technique to enhance the navigation capabilities of planetary exploration rovers. By processing the images acquired during the motion, VO methods provide estimates of the relative position and attitude between navigation steps with the detection and tracking of two‐dimensional (2D) image keypoints. This method allows one to mitigate trajectory inconsistencies associated with slippage conditions resulting from dead‐reckoning techniques. We present here an independent analysis of the high‐resolution stereo images of the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover to retrieve its accurate localization on sols 65, 66, 72, and 120. The stereo pairs are processed by using a 3D‐to‐3D stereo‐VO approach that is based on consolidated techniques and accounts for the main nonlinear optical effects characterizing real cameras. The algorithm is first validated through the analysis of rectified stereo images acquired by the NASA Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, and then applied to the determination of Perseverance's path. The results suggest that our reconstructed path is consistent with the telemetered trajectory, which was directly retrieved onboard the rover's system. The estimated pose is in full agreement with the archived rover's position and attitude after short navigation steps. Significant differences (~10–30 cm) between our reconstructed and telemetered trajectories are observed when Perseverance traveled distances larger than 1 m between the acquisition of stereo pairs.
Performance of High-Order-Accurate, Low-Diffusion Numerical Schemes for Compressible Flow

High-order-accurate methods for the compressible flow equations in complex domains are evaluated. The first class of methods is appropriate for flows without discontinuities and uses high-order-accurate, centered space discretizations. The methods postprocess the computed solution with explicit spectral-type filters. The second class of methods uses centered schemes with characteristic-based filters and the artificial compression method, which makes it appropriate for discontinuous flows. The third class is the weighted essentially nonoscillatory finite difference schemes. Numerical solutions of model aeroacoustic problems and compressible flowfields are computed, and the accuracy of each method is evaluated.
Influence of high-refractive-index oxide cores on optical properties of metal nanoshells

We perform computationally a systematic study of the optical properties of nanoscale shell-core metal-oxide particles, where a dielectric core (vacuum, SiO2, ZrO2, or TiO2) is surrounded by a metal shell (Ag, Au, or Cu). We give a detailed discussion of the observed features in the optical spectra. The calculations are done using Mie theory and the four-flux method. The optical spectra are dominated by the localized surface plasmon resonance (SPR) excitations induced by the metal shell. We find that the symmetric dipole SPR modes can be redshifted up to 1500 nm by decreasing the shell thickness down to 1 nm with a high-refractive-index core. However, this shift comes with a severe loss in the sharpness of the SPR peak as both the decrease of the shell thickness and the high-refractive-index core dampen and broaden the peak. Thus, only shifts up to 500–1000 nm are practical if good selectivity and high extinction are required, as is the case for many near-infrared absorption applications. The choice of core material was found to cause shifts of a few hundred nanometers.
Designing a successful trading agent using fuzzy techniques

Software agents are increasingly being used to represent humans in on-line auctions. Such agents have the advantages of being able to systematically monitor a wide variety of auctions and then make rapid decisions about what bids to place in what auctions. They can do this continuously and repetitively without losing concentration. To provide a means of evaluating and comparing (benchmarking) research methods in this area the Trading Agent Competition (TAC) was established. This competition involves a number of agents bidding against one another in a number of related auctions (operating different protocols) to purchase travel packages for customers. Against this background, this paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of Southampton- TAC, one of the most successful participants in both the Second and the Third International Competitions. Our agent uses fuzzy techniques at the heart of its decision making: to make bidding decisions in the face of uncertainty, to make predictions about the likely outcomes of auctions, and to alter the agent’s bidding strategy in response to the prevailing market conditions. Keywords: intelligent agents, fuzzy set, fuzzy reasoning, on-line auctions, trading agent competition.
Finite-difference modeling of viscoelastic materials with quality factors of arbitrary magnitude

To minimize acoustic noise, designers of sonic logging tools often consider coatings of viscoelastic materials with very high attenuation properties. Efficient finite‐difference modeling of viscoelastic materials is a topic of current research.To model viscoelastic materials in the time domain through finite differences efficiently, one needs to replace the time convolution, which enters in the stress–strain relations, by a set of first‐order differential equations. This procedure is equivalent to computing a rational approximation of a certain form to the frequency‐dependent complex modulus of viscoelasticity. Known schemes for computing such approximations are designed to treat materials with low attenuation, such as underground formations, but fail to produce accurate or even physically meaningful results for highly attenuative materials.We propose a novel scheme that allows one to construct, for a given frequency range, a uniformly optimal rational approximation for the most widely used model of mater.