Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Finite-time coordination control for formation flying spacecraft without unwinding

This paper investigates three distributed coordination control laws by using sliding mode control for formation flying spacecraft based on the rotation matrix. The first and second robust finite-time controllers can compensate external disturbances with known and unknown bounds, respectively, while the third one could compensate both external disturbances with unknown bounds and the uncertainty of the model parameters by using an adaptive control method. Through introducing two novel sliding modes, exchange of control signals between neighboring spacecraft becomes unnecessary in all three controllers, and it is able to reduce the communication burden. Because the controllers are designed based on the rotation matrix which represents the set of attitudes both globally and uniquely, the system can overcome the drawback of unwinding which results in extra fuel consumption. Theoretical analysis shows that the coordinated controllers can guarantee the finite-time stability of the overall closed-loop system through local information exchange and numerical simulations also demonstrate their effectiveness.
On discrete distributions arising out of methods of ascertainment

Non-observability of events. Certain types of events, although they occur may be unascertainable and the observed distribution would therefore be truncated. An example is the frequency of families with both parents heterozygous for albinism and having no albino children. There is no evidence that the parents are both hetero zygous unless at least one albino is born and the families with such parents and having no albino children get confounded with normal families. The actual frequency of the event ? zero albino children' is, thus, not ascertainable. Another example is the distribution of eggs laid by insects, where the frequency of zero eggs cannot be known.
Human Performance in Highly Automated, Cyber Vulnerable Unmanned Aerial Systems: Effects of Operators’ Background and Task Load

This article evaluated the effects of operator background and task load on operator ability to detect and respond to cyber events while controlling multiple unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Cyber physical systems (CPS) are susceptible to cyber threats and associated events via connections critical to their operations. The effects of cyber intrusions on UAS operator performance as a function of background and task load have been understudied. Fifty-one operators with different backgrounds (Aviators, Gamers and Non-Gamers; n = 17 per group) were evaluated across two levels of task load (in-the-loop (ITL) and out-of-the-loop (OTL)) while controlling a simulation of multiple UAS involving cyber events. Cyber events represented spoofed information that could not be corroborated with available secondary information/displays. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze the effect of background and task load on operator performance, subjective perception of workload (assessed using the NASA Task Load Index), and trust. Nongamers responded to cyber events 62.8% and 67.7% slower than aviators and gamers, respectively. Mean response times across task load conditions were substantially longer for cyber events (128.9 s) than for noncyber, “real” events (42.8 s). Scenario type (ITL/OTL) was statistically significant for workload, cyber classification, and cyber action response. The findings may inform recruitment criteria for future UAS operators. Individuals with gaming experience may be as adept at responding to cyber events while operating multiple UAS as aviators. Cyber events are likely to affect the performance of the overall CPS due to their impact on the human operator.
The Influence of Service Quality, Store Atmosphere,and Application of Health Protocols on Repurchace Intention

This study aims to determine how much the quality of service, store atmosphere, and application of health protocols influence repurchase intentions at bookstore Gramedia Surabaya Tunjungan Plaza, either partially or simultaneously. The research uses a quantitative research approach and the data are collected by using questionnaire that involved 100 respondents who had done in-store shopping transactions (transactions directly at the store) at bookstore Gramedia Surabaya Tunjungan Plaza in 2022, with a minimum age of 17 years. The sampling technique used is non-probability sampling (purposive sampling). Data analysis using multiple linear regression analysis and hypothesis testing using IBM SPSS 25 Research Results: 1) Service quality shows a significant effect, at least partially, on the variable of repurchase intention. Supported by the t-test results which shows the value of Sig. of 0.004 < 0.05. ; 2) Store atmosphere shows a partially significant effect on the variable of repurchasing intention. This can be proven through the results of the t-test which shows the value of Sig. 0.007 < 0.05. ; 3) The application of health protocols shows a partially significant effect on the variable of repurchase intention. This can be proven through the results of the t-test which shows the value of Sig. 0.014 < 0.05. ; and 4) Service quality
Resistant Tuberculosis in HIV-Positive Patients: A Growing Public Health Threat

: Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) is a pathology considered one of the main causes of death by single infectious agent, ranking just after HIV / AIDS. Indeed, its emergence and the difficulty of its treatment, especially in the resistant form, in patients with co-infection with other diseases immundéprimante as HIV. Observation 1: 31 years old presented with febrile headaches complicated by epileptic seizures. The MRI scan showed 3 cockeyed and multilocular lesions suggesting neuromeningeal tuberculosis. HIV serology came back positive and during the first line treatment he relapsed and the resistance test was positive. Observation 2: 45 progressive alteration of the state associated with signs of tuberculosis impregnation and a meningeal syndrome. BK in the CSF and in the sputum was positive and brain imaging allowed us to retain the diagnosis of a neuromeningeal tuberculosis. The patient was put on anti-bacillary ERIP k4 and a corticotherapy. The workup for co-infection was able to establish an HIV infection. After 3 weeks of anti-bacillary treatment, the patient had a bad evolution and the search for resistance came back positive. Observation 3: 25 years old, pulmonary tuberculosis manifested by a hemoptysis of small abundance associated with a deep alteration of the general state, 3 BK positive sputum, as well as the image of a tuberculous cavern on the thoracic CT. Bad evolution after 2 months of treatment of first worsening of symptoms neuro and systemic involvement the search for resistance came back positive. Discussion: Drug-resistant tuberculosis is a major global public health challenge. In this article, we present three cases of drug-resistant TB in HIV-coinfected patients, highlighting the emergence and increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) strains worldwide. In order to control the spread of this dreaded disease, it is essential to improve treatment regimens, promote vaccination, educate affected patients, and promote adherence to treatment. conclusion: Diagnosis of drug-resistant tuberculosis should be prompt and considered if there is a delay or lack of improvement with conventional tuberculosis treatment.
Graphical model selection with latent variables

: Gaussian graphical models are commonly used to characterize the conditional dependence among variables. However, ignorance of the eﬀect of latent variables may blur the structure of a graph and corrupt statistical inference. In this paper, we propose a method for learning Latent Variables graphical models via (cid:2) 1 and trace penalized D-trace loss (LVD), which achieves parameter estimation and model selection consistency under certain identiﬁability conditions. We also present an eﬃcient ADMM algorithm to obtain the penalized estimation of the sparse precision matrix. Using simulation studies, we validate the theoretical properties of our estimator and show its superior performance over other methods. The usefulness of the proposed method is also demonstrated through its application to a yeast genetical genomic data.
Free Gait Generation of Quadruped Robots via Impulse-Based Feasibility Analysis

Online gait adaptation is crucial for improving the dynamic performance of quadruped locomotion systems, while current approaches often adopt the predefined periodic gait pattern. This article proposes a free gait generation algorithm that only takes the robot state as input. Specifically, we introduce the feasible impulse polytope, which takes into account both linear and angular momentum impulses acting on the body in a prediction horizon. This naturally leads us to formulate a leg capability metric related to the effect of take-off and touch-down on the body motion. Then, gait sequence, take-off timing, and touch-down location can be automatically adjusted online as long as a metric threshold is given. To cope with rough terrain, a series of quadratic programming problems are established for online pose optimization under mild assumptions. Furthermore, we fully integrate the proposed algorithms with the robot control and estimation framework for real-time implementation. We first validate our approach with the quadruped robot SCIT-Dog through locomotion with speed changes, on stairs and slopes, and under lateral disturbances. Besides, a push-recovery experiment is established to show the superiority of the proposed approach over the baseline method with prespecified gait patterns. Experiment results verify the ability of the proposed algorithms to achieve autonomous gait transitions in response to various emergencies.
Unlocking the flow of finance for climate adaptation: estimates of ‘Fiscal Space’ in climate-vulnerable developing countries

ABSTRACT We study the availability of fiscal space in climate-vulnerable developing countries. These countries require urgent climate adaptation and transition investments. However, their governments describe being bypassed for international financial support due to ‘limited fiscal space. ’ We suspect that many governments are not close to a point of long-term insolvency but are unable to maneuver fiscally because of what has been called a ‘financial death trap. ’ We apply a measure of fiscal space based on an endogenous debt limit reflective of a country’s record of fiscal adjustment consistent with long-term solvency. We find that for many countries, the distance between the endogenous debt limit and forecast public debt ratios – i.e. fiscal space – is fairly ample. Our findings imply that climate-vulnerable countries should be afforded a second look by international financial institutions using a long-term lens, of which this measure of fiscal space is an example. By illuminating the difference between long-term insolvency and short-term liquidity crises, the endogenous debt limit measure could be part of a multi-pronged strategy to unlock greater flows of adaptation finance. It could lower the cost of capital or be useful in the efficient allocation of adaptation financing among countries given current shortfalls. Actions to obviate the financial death trap are also warranted. Climate ambitions will be derailed if otherwise solvent and able governments are unable to access finance for urgent climate adaptation investments. Key Policy Insights Fiscal space, the distance from projected debt ratios to country-specific debt limits beyond which long-term solvency fails, is estimated to be fairly ample in many climate-vulnerable developing countries. A clear understanding of fiscal space in climate-vulnerable developing countries could help unlock greater flows of adaptation finance. Debt thresholds in IMF debt sustainability frameworks should not be confused with limits to fiscal space per se. Doing so could cause otherwise solvent and able governments to be caught in a financial death trap. Delayed or foregone climate adaptation and transition investments, and delay of their mitigation co-benefits, due to a financial death trap warrant action to overhaul the global financial system.
One-Stage Parking Slot Detection Using Component Linkage and Progressive Assembly

Even though one-stage detectors have advantages for resource-constrained and real-time applications, they face the disadvantage of mediocre performance. Thus, this article proposes a novel one-stage parking slot detection method that achieves comparable performance to two (or multi-)stage detectors. The proposed method extracts the components and properties of the parking slots from input images. As the extracted components and properties are unorganized, it is significantly important to combine them correctly. To this end, this article introduces the component linkages that provide sufficient information for connecting the extracted components and properties. By the guide of the component linkages, the components and properties of the parking slots are progressively assembled to produce precise detection results. In experiments, the proposed method was evaluated using two large-scale parking slot detection datasets and showed state-of-the-art performances. Specifically, in the Seoul National University (SNU) dataset, the proposed method achieved 96.73% recall and 96.75% precision while maintaining a fast processing speed of 134 frames per second. In addition, this article provides a new set of labels for the SNU dataset, which covers more than 60,000 parking slots with high-quality annotations.
A New Combination Model for Air Pollutant Concentration Prediction: A Case Study of Xi’an, China

As energy demand continues to increase, the environmental pollution problem is becoming more severe. Governments and researchers have made great efforts to avoid and reduce air pollution. The prediction of PM2.5, as an important index affecting air quality, has great significance. However, PM2.5 concentration has a complex change process that makes its prediction challenging. By calculating both PM2.5 concentration and that of other pollutants in the atmosphere and meteorological factors, it is evident that the variation in PM2.5 concentration is influenced by multiple factors, and that relevant features also influence each other. To reduce the calculated loss, with full consideration given to the influencing factors, we used the maximum correlation and minimum redundancy (MRMR) algorithm to calculate the correlation and redundancy between features. In addition, it is known from the Brock–Dechert–Scheinman (BDS) statistical results that the change in PM2.5 is nonlinear. Due to the outstanding performance of bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) neural networks in nonlinear prediction, we constructed an encoder–decoder model based on BiLSTM, named ED-BiLSTM, to predict the PM2.5 concentration at monitoring stations. For areas without monitoring sites, due to the lack of historical data, the application of neural networks is limited. To obtain the pollutant concentration distribution in the study area, we divided the study area into a 1 km × 1 km grid and combined the ED-BiLSTM model via the use of the inverse distance weighting (IDW) algorithm to obtain the PM2.5 concentration values in a region without monitoring stations. Finally, ArcGIS was used to visualize the results. The data for the case study were obtained from Xi’an. The results show that, compared with the standard long short-term memory (LSTM) model, the RMSE, MAE, and MAPE of our proposed model were reduced by 24.06%, 24.93%, and 22.9%, respectively. The proposed model has a low error for PM2.5 prediction and can provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of environmental protection policies.
Analysis of a piezoelectric energy harvester system from footsteps of passersby

Piezoelectric materials can be used in applications designed to handle a wide range of input frequencies and forces to enable energy harvesting. Although several studies have been carried out on piezoelectric energy harvesting systems, this application is still under development. The purpose of this work is to analyze the behavior and the ability to generate electrical energy through the elements in piezoelectric tiles or platforms, specifically, piezoelectric disc elements with a diameter of 27 mm. To do this, a platform of about 130 x 75 cm was designed to capture the footsteps of people and transmit the impact force to sensors to determine the power generation capacity of the piezoelectric elements. Tests were carried out with people weighing between 75 kg and 85 kg and the measurements obtained made possible to identify the behavior of the system and to develop a mathematical model to estimate the energy generated through the platform. The piezoelectric elements used here proved to be fragile despite the different types of shock absorbers used to avoid their rupture. Therefore, it is recommended to delve into the design of protection mechanisms to extend the life of piezoelectric elements in energy collection systems.
Spatial Coverage of Monitoring Networks: A Climate Observing System Simulation Experiment

AbstractObserving systems consisting of a finite number of in situ monitoring stations can provide high-quality measurements with the ability to quality assure both the instruments and the data but offer limited information over larger geographic areas. This paper quantifies the spatial coverage represented by a finite set of monitoring stations by using global data—data that are possibly of lower resolution and quality. For illustration purposes, merged satellite temperature data from Microwave Sounding Units are used to estimate the representativeness of the Global Climate Observing System Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN). While many metrics exist for evaluating the representativeness of a site, the ability to have highly accurate monthly averaged data is essential for both trend detection and climatology evaluation. The calculated correlations of the monthly averaged upper-troposphere satellite-derived temperatures over the GRUAN stations with all other pixels around the globe show that the current .
Changes in divergence-free grid turbulence interacting with a weak spherical shock wave

The characteristics of divergence-free grid turbulence interacting with a weak spherical shock wave with a Mach number of 1.05 are experimentally investigated. Turbulence-generating grids are used to generate nearly isotropic, divergence-free turbulence. The turbulent Reynolds number based on the Taylor microscale Reλ and the turbulent Mach number Mt are 49≤Reλ≤159 and 0.709 × 10−3≤Mt≤2.803×10−3, respectively. A spherical shock wave is generated by a diaphragmless shock tube. The instantaneous streamwise velocity before and after the interaction is measured by a hot wire probe. The results show that the root-mean-square value of streamwise velocity fluctuations (r.m.s velocity) increases and the streamwise integral length scale decreases after the interaction. The changes in the r.m. s velocity become small with the increase in Reλ and Mt for the same strength of the shock wave. This tendency is similar to that of the streamwise integral length scale. The continuous wavelet analysis shows that high intens.
Comparative Effect between Antidepressants and D-phenylalanine, a Phenethylamine Precursor, in an Animal Model of Depression

A relevant role has been attributed to phenethylamine in depressive disorders. It has been measured in human urine and rat brain in pathological conditions and after drug administration. Furthermore, a clinical correlation has been proposed between urinary elimination and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, its metabolic predecessor, D-phenylalanine, has been used as an antidepressant drug in the treatment of depressive disorders. The use of this amino acid has been realized alone, or in combination with classical antidepressants. In the present study, we tried to characterize its behavioural profile comparing it with imipramine and fluoxetine. Antidepressant drugs have been studied using diverse animal models. We used here the Porsolt test, or Forced Swimming Test (FST), measuring times of climbing, swimming and resting. When a comparison was performed between groups in climbing behaviour, significant differences were observed between imipramine treated group and saline controls (p < 0.05), and imipramine versus fluoxetine and D-phenylalanine (p < 0.01). When swimming was evaluated, clear differences between D-phenylalanine and the other groups were observed (p < 0.001). Additionally, a significant difference was also observed between imipramine and fluoxetine (p < 0.01). When resting was evaluated, high differences between D-phenylalanine versus all other groups were shown (p < 0.001). Observed behavioural profile was according to serotonergic antidepressant drugs effects. It is supported by the fact that swimming behaviours were increased, and a correlative decrease in resting was also present. We conclude that D-phenylalanine showed higher antidepressant potency than other classical antidepressants, at least at the doses used.
Atopy and Food Allergies among Children Attending Outpatient Department of a Selected Tertiary Care Hospital in Dhaka City

Background: Atopic dermatitis (AD), also called atopic eczema, is a common chronic or recurrent inflammatory skin disease and affects 15-20% of children. Objective: The aim of the study was to determine the proportion of atopy and food allergies among children attending outpatient department of a selected tertiary care hospital in Dhaka city. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study. It was carried out on 384 children from June 2022 to December 2022 at pediatric outpatient department in Institute of child and mother health (ICMH), Dhaka, Bangladesh. The statistical evaluation of the results by using a window-based computer software program devised with Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS-24). Result: Total 384 children were enrolled among them Mean age was (1.15±0.43) years, 52% were female and 92.18% had a family history of atopy. Regarding symptoms 4.3% had lip or tongue swelling, 8.5% had difficulty in swallowing, 39.30% had urticaria, 13.7% had dyspnea and 5.1% had anaphylaxis. 82.8% of the respondents had mild illness, 11.98% had moderate illness and 5.21% had severe illness. 48.6% had Cow's Milk allergy, 19.5% to beef, 3.3% to egg ,2.6%to hilsa fish and prawn respectively and 22.3% to others. Mean Eosinophil count was (11.62±2.14), IgE was (747.40±314.2) IU and the skin prick test was positive 90.0%. Conclusion : The predominant sign of food allergy in young children was atopic dermatitis. Allergic conjunctivitis, oral allergy syndrome and respiratory distress appeared later in the progression of symptoms. Additionally, anaphylaxis is usually used to affect older children.
Parallel algorithm for generalized vertex-colorings of partial K-trees

In this thesis we present an efficient parallel algorithm for solving the generalized vertex-coloring (l-vertex-coloring) problem on partial k-trees. Let l be a positive integer, and let G be a graph with nonnegative integer weights on edges. Theil the optimal l-vertex-coloring problem on G is an assignment of colors to the vertices of G in such a way that any two vertices u and v in G get different colors if the distance between u and v is at most l and the number of colors used is as small as possible. The l-vertex-coloring problem has applications in various scheduling problems. In this paper we give a parallel algorithm to find an l-vertex-coloring of a partial k-tree G with the minimum number of colors. Our algorithm takes O(logz n) parallel time using O(a x (t + 2)6a('+1) X n + n') operations on the common CRCW PRAM model, where n is the number of vertices in G and a is the number of colors in the color-set. The previously known best algorithm takes O(log2n) parallel time using O(n(a + 1)""Hx"" + n') operations on the common CRCW PRAM.