Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hamiltonian formalism for Bose excitations in a plasma with a non-Abelian interaction I: plasmon -- hard particle scattering

The Hamiltonian theory for the collective longitudinally polarized gluon excitations (plasmons) coupling with classical high-energy test color-charged particle propagating through a high-temperature gluon plasma is developed. A generalization of the Lie-Poisson bracket to the case of a continuous medium involving bosonic normal field variable $a^{\phantom{\ast}\! \! a}_{\hspace{0.03cm}{\bf k}}$ and a non-Abelian color charge $Q^{\hspace{0.03cm}a}$ is performed and the corresponding Hamilton equations are presented. The canonical transformations including simultaneously both bosonic degrees of freedom of the soft collective excitations and degree of freedom of hard test particle connecting with its color charge in the hot gluon plasma are written out. A complete system of the canonicity conditions for these transformations is derived. The notion of the plasmon number density ${\mathcal N}^{a\hspace{0.03cm}a^{\prime}_{\phantom{1}}\! }_{{\bf k}}$, which is a nontrivial matrix in the color space, is introduced. An explicit form of the effective fourth-order Hamiltonian describing elastic scattering of plasmon off a hard color particle is found and the self-consistent system of Boltzmann type kinetic equations taking into account the time evolution of the mean value of the color charge of the hard particle is obtained. On the basis of these equations, a model problem of interaction of two infinitly narrow wave packets is considered. A system of nonlinear first-order ordinary differential equations defining the dynamics of the interaction of the colorless $N^{l}_{\bf k}$ and color $W^{l}_{\bf k}$ components of the plasmon number density is derived. The problem of determining the third- and fourth-order coefficient functions entering into the canonical transformations of the original bosonic variable $a^{\phantom{\ast}\! \! a}_{{\bf k}}$ and color charge $Q^{\hspace{0.03cm}a}$ is discussed.
Acoustic cues to vowel‐schwa sequences for high front vowels

In a landmark‐based model of lexical access [K. N. Stevens, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 111, 1872–1891 (2002)], the presence of a vowel is marked by a peak in energy in the first formant region. However, when a vowel is followed by a schwa, the schwa frequently appears as a shoulder on the peak associated with the first vowel [W. Howitt, MIT (2000)]; two landmarks are not present. The purpose of this study is to examine duration and F2 movement as possible cues to the presence of a vowel‐schwa sequence for [+high, +front] vowels. This subset of vowels presents at least two challenges to the detection of a vowel‐schwa sequence: (1) duration is expected to contribute to the difference between /i/ and /I/, and (2) an F2 off‐glide toward schwa is expected for /I/ in American English. For 613 tokens from the phonetically labeled TIMIT database, equally distributed between /i■/, /i/, and /I/, a measure of F2 curvature is a stronger cue than duration in classifying the tokens. Using F2 curvature, over 93% of the tokens .
Tag-based annotation creates better avatars

Avatar creation from human images allows users to customize their digital figures in different styles. Existing rendering systems like Bitmoji, MetaHuman, and Google Cartoonset provide expressive rendering systems that serve as excellent design tools for users. However, twenty-plus parameters, some including hundreds of options, must be tuned to achieve ideal results. Thus it is challenging for users to create the perfect avatar. A machine learning model could be trained to predict avatars from images, however the annotators who label pairwise training data have the same difficulty as users, causing high label noise. In addition, each new rendering system or version update requires thousands of new training pairs. In this paper, we propose a Tag-based annotation method for avatar creation. Compared to direct annotation of labels, the proposed method: produces higher annotator agreements, causes machine learning to generates more consistent predictions, and only requires a marginal cost to add new rendering systems.
Strongly secure group signature scheme

Group signature schemes are fundamental cryptographic tools, in which messages are allowed to be signed anonymously. Full-traceability and full anonymity are two important security requirements for group signatures. Response to the misapplication, the group manager is able to revoke the full anonymity. The group joining protocol is a crucial ingredient of a group signature scheme, if devised carefully, group manager's forgery would be prevented. This paper presents a new efficient group signature scheme with a simple joining protocol which possesses the properties of full-traceability and full anonymity. The security of our new construction is based on the DCR assumption, strong RSA assumption, and collision resistant hash functions, which is proved in the random oracle model. Moreover, the signature length of our scheme is very short. Hence it is an efficient short group signature scheme with efficient concurrent join.
Recombinant Origin of the Retrovirus XMRV

(2010). 16. K. Fukuda et al., Ann. Intern. Med. 121, 953 (1994). 17. Materials and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online. 18. G. Simmons et al., Transfusion 51, 643 (2011). 19. O. E. Varnier, A. D. Hoffman, B. A. Nexø, J. A. Levy, Virology 132, 79 (1984). 20. O. E. Varnier, C. M. Repetto, S. P. Raffanti, A. Alama, J. A. Levy, J. Gen. Virol. 64, 425 (1983). 21. A. D. Hoffman, B. Banapour, J. A. Levy, Virology 147, 326 (1985). 22. X. Qiu et al., Retrovirology 7, 68 (2010). 23. B. Banapour, J. Sernatinger, J. A. Levy, Virology 152, 268 (1986). 24. Y. Takeuchi et al., J. Virol. 68, 8001 (1994). 25. R. P. Rother et al., J. Exp. Med. 182, 1345 (1995). 26. D. M. Takefman, G. T. Spear, M. Saifuddin, C. A. Wilson, J. Virol. 76, 1999 (2002). 27. T. Paprotka et al., J. Virol. 84, 5719 (2010). 28. H. C. Groom, M. W. Yap, R. P. Galão, S. J. Neil, K. N. Bishop, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107, 5166 (2010). 29. R. A. Weiss, BMC Biol. 8, 124 (2010). 30. S. Hué et al., Retrovirology 7, 111 (2010). 31. A. L. Landay, E. T. Lennette, C. Jessop, J. A. Levy, Lancet 338, 707 (1991). Acknowledgments: We thank D. Peterson for the referrals of all the subjects evaluated, J. Weismann for coordinating subject participation, I. Livinti for assistance with data management, E. Delwart and J. Fiddes for comments on the manuscript, and K. Peter for help in preparation of the manuscript. These studies were conducted with support of private funds to the investigators. Patent applications have been filed by Abbott Laboratories relating to detection of XMRV using immunoassays and molecular-based assays.
Tax treatment of hybrid financial instruments in cross-border transactions = Traitement fiscal des instruments financiers hybrides dans les opérations transfrontalières = Besteuerung hybrider Finanzierung in grenzüberschreitenden Situationen = Tratamiento fiscal de los instrumentos financieros mixto

I. General Report / Rapport General / Generalbericht / Ponencia General J.A. Duncan, dr. H. Torrione. II. National Reports / Rapports Nationaux / Landesberichte / Ponencias Nacionales. Argentina / Argentine / Argentinien G. Gotlib. Australia / Australie / Australien L. Burns, P. O'Donnell. Austria / Autriche / Osterreich J. Heinrich. Belgium / Belgique / Belgien / Belgica B. Colmant, F. -X. Jeanmart. Brazil / Bresil / Brasilien / Brasil R.Q. Mosquera. Canada / Kanada L.F. Chapman, J.M. Ulmer. Colombia / Colombie / Kolumbien M. Reyes. Czech Republic / Republique Tcheque / Tschechische Republik / Repuplica Checa M. Moudry. Denmark / Danemark / Danemark / Dinamarca H.S. Hansen, C. Baxter. Finland / Finlande / Finnland / Finlandia O. Haapaniemi. France / Frankreich / Francia F. Barrier. Germany / Allemagne / Deutschland / Alemania F. Jacob. Hong Kong V. Lee. Hungary / Hongrie / Ungarn / Hungria P. Jalsovsky. India / Inde S.M. Kapila, P. Dinodia. Italy / Italie / Italien / Italia G. Cali. Japan / Japon / Japon K. Fujita. Republic of Korea / Republique de Coree / Republik Korea / Republica de la Corea G.S. Park, Y.M. Yoon. Luxembourg / Luxemburgo P. Hoss, K. O'Donnell. Mexico / Mexique / Mexiko / Mexico J.J. Goyeneche P., F. Moreno. Netherlands / Pays-Bas / Niederlande / Holanda C.J.F. Warner. New Zealand / Nouvelle-Zelande / Neaseeland / Nueva Zelanda C. Elliffe, et al. Norway / Norvege / Norwegen / Noruega F. -O. Almvik. South Africa / Afrique du Sud / Sudafrika / Sudafrica M. Honiball. Spain / Espagne / Spanien / Espana M.B. Castineyra M.C. Amoros. Sweden / Suede / Schweden / Suecia A. Hultqvist. Switzerland / Suisse / Schweiz / Suiza T. Meister. United Kingdom / Royaume-Unie / Vereinigtes Konigreich / Reina Unido M. Penney. Uruguay L.C. Franco. United States / Etats-Unis / Vereinigte Staaten / Estados Unidos de Norte America D.M. Berman, D.O. Strain. III. Annex / Annexe / Anhang / Anexo.
Tango: Harmonious Management and Scheduling for Mixed Services Co-located among Distributed Edge-Clouds

Co-locating Latency-Critical (LC) and Best-Effort (BE) services in edge-clouds is expected to enhance resource utilization. However, this mixed deployment encounters unique challenges. Edge-clouds are heterogeneous, distributed, and resource-constrained, leading to intense competition for edge resources, making it challenging to balance fluctuating co-located workloads. Previous works in cloud datacenters are no longer applicable since they do not consider the unique nature of edges. Although very few works explicitly provide specific schemes for edge workload co-location, these solutions fail to address the major challenges simultaneously. In this paper, we propose Tango, a harmonious management and scheduling framework for Kubernetes-based edge-cloud systems with mixed services, to address these challenges. Tango incorporates novel components and mechanisms for elastic resource allocation and two traffic scheduling algorithms that effectively manage distributed edge resources. Tango demonstrates harmony not only in the compatible mixed services it supports, but also in the collaborative solutions that complement each other. Based on a backwards compatible design for Kubernetes, Tango enhances Kubernetes with automatic scaling and traffic scheduling capabilities. Experiments on large-scale hybrid edge-clouds, driven by real workload traces, show that Tango improves the system resource utilization by 36.9%, QoS-guarantee satisfaction rate by 11.3%, and throughput by 47.6%, compared to state-of-the-art approaches.
Quality Analysis of Vilnius City Suburban Spatial Development

Qualifying European regional policy and treating structural functional remote urban parts as a functional urban region, attention is drawn to the increasing regional integration and the necessity to reduce the barriers for even development between cities and its surrounding rural areas is emphasized. Tendency of city and district municipalities to take positions of independent actors and a big benevolence for a private initiative has created opportunities over 20 years of independent Lithuania for everyone to shape their own living space. Urban development occurs in newly emerging suburban areas and continues to spread to rural areas. Result of this process – the emptying central parts of the cities. Application of sustainable urban planning theory in Lithuanian spatial planning practice has gained official status, but that status often ends where the planned city limits end. Meanwhile, the needs of the population show increase of the city limits borders permeability. The objective of the quality analysis of Vilnius city suburban areas development is associated with most intensively growing Vilnius district settlements, falling in to dominant influence of Vilnius city area. The authors examine the lack of integrity in urban and rural systems. The analysis includes identification of the real problems in urbanized areas and quality assessment of objective / subjective systematic connections, considering not usual political, historical, functional and morphological criteria, but in accordance to the fundamental principles of sustainability identification. Trying to assess urban and rural areas integration in practice, four fastest growing rural settlements in the district of Vilnius has been selected, located at the main roads leading into the city (Avižieniai, Skaidiskės, Pagiriai, Didžioji Riesė). Considering selected parameters characterising consistency, there has been connections between rural and urban areas identified, its numerical values calculated, and using multipurpose decisions support system, assessment findings are presented. The conclusions present evaluation of the impact of the identified connections to the urban system.
Near-infrared spectroscopy:principles,instruments,applications

Foreword. List of Contributors. 1. Introduction (H. Siesler). 2. Origin of Near--Infrared Absorption Bands (L. Bokobza). 3. Instrumentation for Near--Spectroscopy (S. Kawata). 4. New Techniques in Near--Infrared Spectroscopy (S. Kawata). 5. Near--Infrared FT--Raman Spectroscopy (Y. Furukawa) 6. Sampling and Sample Preparation (S. Kawano). 7. Fundamental Chemometric Methods (H. Heise and R. Winzen) 8. Two--Dimensional ear--Infrared Correlation Spectroscopy (Y. Ozaki). 9. Applications in Chemistry (Y. Ozaki) 10. Applications to Polymers and Textiles (H. Siesler) 11. Applications to Industrial Process Control (H. Siesler) 12. Applications to Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs (S. Kawano). 13. Applications to Near--Infrared Spectroscopy in Medical Sciences (H. Heise). Appendix. References. Subject Index.
Clinical practice guideline: penetrating zone II neck trauma.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Penetrating wounds of the neck are common in the civilian trauma population. Risk of significant injury to vital structures in the neck is dependent on the penetrating object. For gunshot wounds, approximately 50% (higher with high velocity weapons) of victims have significant injuries, whereas this risk may be only 10% to 20% with stab wounds. The management of injuries to the neck that penetrate the platysma is dependent on the anatomic level of injury. The neck has been divided into threes zones. Zone I, including the thoracic inlet, up to the level of the cricothyroid membrane, is treated as an upper thoracic injury. Zone III, above the angle of the mandible, is treated as a head injury. Zone II, between zones I and III, is the area of controversy. Because of the density of vital structures in this zone, multiple injuries are common and can affect length of stay. Mortality, particularly for major vascular injuries may reach 50%. Delayed complications such as pseudoaneurysms or arteriovenous fistulae can affect long-term outcomes. Appropriate and timely management of these injuries is critical. For the patients with hard signs of significant injury, including active hemorrhage, expanding hematoma, bruit, pulse deficit, subcutaneous emphysema, hoarseness, stridor, respiratory distress, or hemiparesis, immediate operative management may be indicated. Controversy arises over management of the patient without significant symptoms. The management of these patients has been evolving from an era of mandatory exploration to an era of more selective management. Mandatory exploration, while seemingly safe and conservative, led to many nontherapeutic operations. This fact, along with advances in technology, such as high resolution computed tomography (CT), may eliminate the need to explore the neck to determine whether there are injuries. Also during the time that technology had been advancing, many reports have documented the safety of selective management of neck injuries that penetrate the platysma. This experience has demonstrated that physical examination may be reliable and that not all injuries to vital structures in the neck need surgical intervention for repair. This guideline was therefore initiated to examine the specific roles of mandatory exploration versus selective management based on physical examination and current imaging technologies for penetrating neck trauma.
Serviceability of concrete members reinforced with FRP bars

The deterioration of Canadian infrastructure due to corrosion of steel reinforcement is one of the major challenges facing the construction industry. Recent advances in polymer technology have led to the development of new generations of fiber-reinforced-polymer (FRP) reinforcing bars. These corrosion resistant bars have shown promise way to further protect bridges and public infrastructure from the devastating effects of corrosion. The recently published [CAN/CSA-S807, 2010] “Specification fo r fibre-reinforced Polymers" along with the FRP bars being produced of the highest quality strongly supported the FRP reinforcement as a realistic and cost-effective alternative to traditional steel reinforcement for concrete structures under severe environmental conditions. The design of concrete members reinforced with FRP bars is typically governed by serviceability state rather than ultimate state. Thus, there is a need to investigate the flexural performance and the deflection and crack width behaviour, the two terms of serviceability criteria. In addition, recent developments in the FRP industry led to introducing FRP bars with different surface configurations and mechanical properties as well. These developments are expected to affect their bond performance and, consequently, the crack width in FRPreinforced concrete members. The design codes and guidelines, however, provide a unique value for the bond-dependent coefficient (kb) considering the surface configurations and neglecting FRP bar type, bar diameter, and concrete type and strength. This research program aims at investigating the flexural behaviour and serviceability performance of concrete members reinforced with different types and ratios of carbon and glass FRP bars and fabricated using normal-and high-strength concretes. In addition, it evaluates the bond-dependent coefficient (kb) of glass and carbon FRP bars in normaland
Statistical test for consistent estimation of causal effects in linear non-Gaussian models

In many fields of science researchers are faced with the problem of estimating causal eects from non-experimental data. A key issue is to avoid inconsistent estimators due to confounding by measured or unmeasured covariates, a problem commonly solved by ‘adjusting for’ a subset of the observed variables. When the data generating process can be represented by a directed acyclic graph, and this graph structure is known, there exist simple graphical procedures for determining which subset of covariates should be adjusted for to obtain consistent estimators of the causal effects. However, when the graph is not known no general and complete procedures for this task are available. In this paper we introduce such a method for linear non-Gaussian models, requiring only partial knowledge about the temporal ordering of the variables: We provide a simple statistical test for inferring whether an estimator of a causal eect is consistent when controlling for a subset of measured covariates, and we present heuristics to search for such a set. We show empirically that this statistical test identifies consistent vs inconsistent estimates, and that the search =
Foreign languages: a guide for the inhibited

Much has been made, both in the press and in this journal, of the recommendations in the Languages Review (Dearing and King 2007), which aim to stem the tide of school pupils in the UK rejecting the study of foreign languages after the age of 14. The metaphor is deliberate: the courageous stance of the Languages Review and of its precursor, the National Languages Strategy, calls to mind the unfortunate King Canute, but in this case with the tsunami of the English language threatening to engulf him at any moment. The predominance of English as a second or foreign language or as the lingua franca between non-native speakers cannot be denied (Graddol 1997), whatever one’s view of its desirability. This fact was brought home to me recently when I attended a public masterclass given at a music festival in France. The Dutch facilitator gave the class in English in front of a predominantly French audience, who not only did not protest but laughed in the right places. I used to joke that the French were resistant to learning English because they were waiting for French to be reinstated as a world language, but even they seem to have accepted the status quo. Given the huge increase in the number of secondlanguage speakers of English, it is hard to persuade pupils in the UK – or their parents, or for that matter the British government – that there is transactional value in the study of foreign languages. As Evans (1988) comments in his study of modern languages students and lecturers at a British university, ‘no-one in Britain would choose to study languages for purely instrumental reasons’ (1988, 64). This view is echoed by Broady (2005) in a review of a number of articles about motivation in language learning when she notes that a knowledge of a foreign language is not seen as necessary for ‘professional success’ in an anglophone society such as the UK. However, Broady hints at a different role for foreign languages in her title, ‘Who do you want to be? ’. This simple question points to the possibilities that using a foreign language can open up in terms of self-discovery – and even self-evasion. I would like to suggest that individuals can be emboldened and liberated by operating in a foreign language and that foreign language learning has a key role to play in personal development. The notion that foreign languages allow individuals to access new aspects of themselves is not new. It dates back to the sixteenth century (and doubtless beyond) to the phrase attributed to Charles V, ‘to possess another language is to possess a second soul’. This feeling is confirmed in the comments from participants in the study by Evans when talking about their experiences in using French.