Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic timing errors in laser-based transit-time velocimetry

Laser diagnostics for measuring velocity or acceleration are based either on transit-time or Doppler effect. Transit-time techniques rely on the displacement of tracers during a given amount of time. Tracers can be either particles (Particle Image Velocimetry, Particle Tracking Velocimetry) or molecules (Molecular Tagging Velocimetry). In these diagnostics, the velocity or acceleration is controlled by the timing of lasers that are used in dual, triple, or quadruple pulse mode. Of all the sources of uncertainties associated with these techniques, timing has been considered negligible except for occasional misfires or very high-speed flows (? 10 km/s). However, in Q-switched lasers, such as Nd:YAG or Nd:YLF, a systematic bias was measured between the triggered pulse separation (? t) and actual pulse separation values. Several different lasers from various manufacturers were characterized and it was found that the timing uncertainty has a complex relation to the laser power, frequency, and in some cases the triggered ? t. When such lasers are used in a dual cavity configuration, errors vary up to 0.5 ? s and up to 1 ? s for single cavity lasers with dual pulse capabilities. Such large discrepancy can lead to very significant systematic errors in measurements. The various reasons for these discrepancies are discussed and several different approaches are proposed to measure and correct this source of uncertainty.
Evaluating Information Retrieval Systems With Multiple Non-Expert Assessors

Many current test collections require the use of expert judgments during construction. The true label of each document is given by an expert assessor. However, the cost and effort associated with expert training and judging are typically quite high in the event where we have a high number of documents to judge. One way to address this issue is to have each document judged by multiple non-expert assessors at a lower expense. However, there are two key factors that can make this method difficult: the variability across assessors’ judging abilities, and the aggregation of the noisy labels into one single consensus label. Much previous work has shown how to utilize this method to replace expert labels in the relevance evaluation. However, the effects of relevance judgment errors on the ranking system evaluation have been less explored. This thesis mainly investigates how to best evaluate information retrieval systems with noisy labels, where no ground-truth labels are provided, and where each document may receive multiple noisy labels. Based on our simulation results on two datasets, we find that conservative assessors that tend to label incoming documents as non-relevant are preferable. And there are two important factors affect the overall conservativeness of the consensus labels: the assessor’s conservativeness and the relevance standard. This important observation essentially provides a guideline on what kind of consensus algorithms or assessors are needed in order to preserve the high correlation with expert labels in ranking system evaluation. Also, we systematically investigate how to find the consensus labels for those documents with equal confidence to be either relevant or non-relevant. We investigate a content-based consensus algorithm which links the noisy labels with document content. We compare it against the state-of-art consensus algorithms, and find that, depending on the document collection, this content-based approach may help or hurt the performance.
INCENTIVE COOPERATION IN PEER TO PEER VIDEO STREAMING USING COOPERATIVE GAME

En la actualidad, con la intencion de expandir los sistemas de transmision de video en redes peer to peer y aprovechar los recursos de la asociacion, se proporciona una plataforma barata para la computacion distribuida, el almacenamiento y el intercambio de datos que es escalable, accesible, tolerante a fallos y robusto. Mientras tanto, la investigacion sobre las redes sociales multimedia esta emergiendo y se han analizado los comportamientos de los usuarios, asi como sus impactos dinamicos en los sistemas multimedia. Dado que la participacion en sistemas de igual a igual es voluntaria y tambien los recursos son muy variables e impredecibles en los sistemas, la mayoria de estos sistemas son simplemente un consumidor. Por lo tanto, estos companeros o bien tienen muy poca cooperacion o no tienen cooperacion con los sistemas que son generalmente llamados "jinetes libres". En este articulo se ha presentado un enfoque propuesto para motivar una cooperacion en el streaming de video en redes peer to peer utilizando un modelo cooperativo de juegos en el que se otorga un privilegio basado en el valor de Shapley segun el mecanismo de Incentivo Resultante de la cooperacion entre los pares mutuos para proporcionar una oportunidad unica para una mayor participacion entre los pares. Las funciones de beneficios en un juego cooperativo para intercambios de recursos compartidos estan de acuerdo con el principio de agregacion de juegos cooperativos y proporcionan mayor fama a los jugadores al cooperar en mayores integraciones. Por lo tanto, una mayor eficiencia en el sistema puede lograrse mediante una integracion general resultante de la cooperacion entre todos los pares.
Reed-Muller Codes Polarize

Reed-Muller (RM) codes were introduced in 1954 and have long been conjectured to achieve Shannon's capacity on symmetric channels. The activity on this conjecture has recently been revived with the emergence of polar codes. RM codes and polar codes are generated by the same matrix G_m= [1/1 0/1] ^⊗m but using different subset of rows. RM codes select simply rows having largest weights. Polar codes select instead rows having the largest conditional mutual information proceeding top to down in G_m; while this is a more elaborate and channel-dependent rule, the top-to-down ordering allows Arikan to show that the conditional mutual information polarizes, and this gives directly a capacity-achieving code on any symmetric channel. RM codes are yet to be proved to have such a property, despite the recent success for the erasure channel. In this paper, we connect RM codes to polarization theory. We show that proceeding in the RM code ordering, i.e., not top-to-down but from the lightest to the heaviest rows in G_m, the conditional mutual information again polarizes. We further demonstrate that it does so faster than for polar codes. This implies that G_m contains another code, different than the polar code and called here the twin-RM code, that is provably capacity-achieving on any symmetric channel. This gives in particular a necessary condition for RM codes to achieve capacity on symmetric channels. It further gives a sufficient condition if the rows with largest conditional mutual information correspond to the heaviest rows, i.e., if the twin-RM code is the RM code. We demonstrate here that the two codes are at least similar and give further evidence that they are indeed the same.
Maximally Dense Disc Packings on the Plan

Suppose one has a collection of disks of various sizes with disjoint interiors, a packing, in the plane, and suppose the ratio of the smallest radius divided by the largest radius lies between $1$ and $q$. In his 1964 book \textit{Regular Figures} \cite{MR0165423}, Laszlo Fejes Toth found a series of packings that were his best guess for the maximum density for any $1> q > 0.2$. Meanwhile Gerd Blind in \cite{MR0275291,MR0377702} proved that for $1\ge q > 0.72$, the most dense packing possible is $\pi/\sqrt{12}$, which is when all the disks are the same size. In \cite{MR0165423}, the upper bound of the ratio $q$ such that the density of his packings greater than $\pi/\sqrt{12}$ that Fejes Toth found was $0.6457072159. $. Here we improve that upper bound to $0.6585340820. $. Both bounds were obtained by perturbing a packing that has the property that the graph of the packing is a triangulation, which L. Fejes Toth called a \emph{compact} packing, and we call a \emph{triangulated} packing. Previously all of L. Fejes Toth's packings that had a density greater than $\pi/\sqrt{12}$ and $q > 0.35$ were based on perturbations of packings with just two sizes of disks, where the graphs of the packings were triangulations. Our new packings are based on a triangulated packing that have three distinct sizes of disks, found by Fernique, Hashemi, and Sizova, \cite{1808.10677}, which is something of a surprise. We also point out how the symmetries of a triangulated doubly periodic packing can by used to create the actual packing that is guaranteed by a famous result of Thurston, Andreev, and Andreeson \cite{MR2131318}.
Improving Relational Search Performance using Relational Symmetries and Predictors

Relational similarity can be defined as the similarity between two semantic relations R and R' that exist respectively in two word pairs (A,B) and (C,D). Relational search, a novel search paradigm that is based on the relational similarity between word pairs, attempts to find a word D for the slot ? in the query {(A,B), (C,? )} such that the relational similarity between the two word pairs (A, B) and (C, D) is a maximum. However, one problem frequently encountered by a Web-based relational search engine is that the inherent noise in Web text leads to incorrect measurement of relational similarity. To overcome this problem, we propose a method for verifying a relational search result that exploits the symmetric properties in proportional analogies. To verify a candidate result D for a query {(A, B), (C, ? )}, we replace the original question mark by D to create a new query {(A,B),(? ,D)} and verify that we can retrieve C as a candidate for the new query. The score of C in the new query can be seen as a complementary score of D because it reflects the reliability of D in the original query. Moreover, transformations of words in proportional analogies lead to relational symmetries that can be utilized to accurately measure the relational similarity between two semantic relations. For example, if the two word pairs (A,B) and (C, D) show a high degree of relational similarity then the two word pairs (B,A) and (D,C) also have a high degree of relational similarity. We apply this idea in relational search by using symmetric queries such as {(B, A), (D, ? )} to create six queries for verifying a candidate answer D to improve the reliability of the verification process. Our experimental results on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) analogy benchmark show that the proposed method improves the accuracy of a relational search engine by a wide margin.
Verifying worst-case execution time of timed automata models with cyclic behaviour

The thesis presents novel zone-based algorithms for computing worst case execution time (WCET) or maximum termination time of real-time systems using the timed automata (TA) model checking technology. The algorithms can work on any arbitrary diagonal-free TA 1 and can handle more cases than previously existing algorithms for WCET computations, as it can handle cycles in TA and decide whether they lead to an infinite WCET. We show soundness of the proposed algorithms and study their complexity. The solutions provided here are conceptually a marked improvement over some earlier work on the problem, in which repeated guesses (guided by binary search) and multiple model checking queries were effectively but inelegantly and less efficiently used; here only one run of the zone construction is sufficient to yield the answers. The thesis also proposes a set of acceleration techniques that improve the efficiency of WCET verification of TA with cyclic behaviour. We prove that the proposed accelerations are exact with respect to the WCET problem and demonstrate that model checking WCET with the proposed acceleration techniques can significantly speed-up the verification of WCET of real-time systems. We also compare our algorithm with the one implemented in the model checker UPPAAL which shows that the proposed algorithms can handle cases that UPPAAL fails to verify, where we show that in certain circumstances, when infinite cycles exist, UPPAAL’s algorithm may not terminate, and when largely repetitive finite cycles exist, UPPAAL’s algorithm suffers from the state space explosion, thus leading to a low efficiency or resource exhaustion. The thesis presents also a set of new operations for improving the reachability analysis and the WCET analysis of Timed Automata (TA) using the Difference Bound The diagonal-free TA is a class of TA in which the test of the form x − y ∼ c is disallowed, where x, y are clocks, c is a constant, and ∼∈ {<,≤,=, >,≥}.
Direct N-arylation of purines with aryl halides†

Purine is a ubiquitous heterocyclic scaffold of fundamental importance, and is considered to be a privileged structure in medicinal chemistry. Purine-based compounds, including N-aryl purines, exhibit a wide range of biological and pharmaceutical activities, such as antiviral, antibacterial and anticancer effects. In light of their importance, there is a surprising paucity of efficient methods for N-arylation of purines. Despite the many methods for metal-catalysed C–N bond formation, only few examples involving purines are reported. Arylboronic acids and diaryliodonium salts have been used to achieve a Cu-mediated regioselective N-arylation or N-arylation of various purine derivatives in moderate to very good yields under relatively mild conditions, but these reactions often have a narrow substrate scope and N-arylguanines have only been prepared by the arylation of protected or masked nucleobases. Aryl halides are abundantly available and are generally more stable than boronic acids and diaryliodonium salts; however, only three publications describe the N-arylation of purines with aryl halides, all in moderate yields. Based on the hypothesis that electron-rich 1,10-phenanthroline ligands improve the performance by better stabilisation of the proposed Cu(III)-intermediate in the catalytic cycle, we recently found that 4,7-dipyrrolidinyl-1,10-phenanthroline (L1, DPPhen) catalyse N-arylation of various N-heterocycles with aryl halides in water. This system was also able to N-arylate adenine, 2,6-diaminopurine and theophylline, albeit only in moderate yields. Herein, we report a more general method for the direct synthesis of N-arylated purines with high and predictable selectivity for the Nor N-position over other potential coupling positions and complete selectivity over other nucleophilic sites including aromatic amines. The method is exemplified with various purines and a broad selection of aryl halides.
Linear spectropolarimetry of 35 Type Ia supernovae with VLT/FORS: an analysis of the Si ii line polarization

Spectropolarimetry enables us to measure the geometry and chemical structure of the ejecta in supernova explosions, which is fundamental for the understanding of their explosion mechanism(s) and progenitor systems. We collected archival data of 35 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), observed with Focal Reducer and Low-Dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) on the Very Large Telescope at 127 epochs in total. We examined the polarization of the Si ii λ6355 Å line ($p_{\rm Si\, \small {II}}$) as a function of time, which is seen to peak at a range of various polarization degrees and epochs relative to maximum brightness. We reproduced the $\Delta m_{15}\! -\! p_{\rm Si\, \small {II}}$ relationship identified in a previous study, and show that subluminous and transitional objects display polarization values below the $\Delta m_{15}\! -\! p_{\rm Si\, \small {II}}$ relationship for normal SNe Ia. We found a statistically significant linear relationship between the polarization of the Si ii λ6355 Å line before maximum brightness and the Si ii line velocity and suggest that this, along with the $\Delta m_{15}\! -\! p_{\rm Si\, \small {II}}$ relationship, may be explained in the context of a delayed-detonation model. In contrast, we compared our observations to numerical predictions in the $\Delta m_{15}\! -\! v_{\rm Si\, \small {II}}$ plane and found a dichotomy in the polarization properties between Chandrasekhar and sub-Chandrasekhar mass explosions, which supports the possibility of two distinct explosion mechanisms. A subsample of SNe displays evolution of loops in the q–u plane that suggests a more complex Si structure with depth. This insight, which could not be gleaned from total flux spectra, presents a new constraint on explosion models. Finally, we compared our statistical sample of the Si ii polarization to quantitative predictions of the polarization levels for the double-detonation, delayed-detonation, and violent-merger models.
General Anesthesia and Human Brain Connectivity

General anesthesia consists of amnesia, hypnosis, analgesia, and areflexia. Of these, the mechanism of hypnosis, or loss of consciousness, has been the most elusive, yet a fascinating problem. How anesthetic agents suppress human consciousness has been investigated with neuroimaging for two decades. Anesthetics substantially reduce the global cerebral metabolic rate and blood flow with a degree of regional heterogeneity characteristic to the anesthetic agent. The thalamus appears to be a common site of modulation by several anesthetics, but this may be secondary to cortical effects. Stimulus-dependent brain activation is preserved in primary sensory areas, suggesting that unconsciousness cannot be explained by cortical deafferentation or a diminution of cortical sensory reactivity. The effect of general anesthetics in functional and effective connectivity is varied depending on the agent, dose, and network studied. At an anesthetic depth characterized by the subjects' unresponsiveness, a partial, but not complete, reduction in connectivity is generally observed. Functional connectivity of the frontoparietal association cortex is often reduced, but a causal role of this change for the loss of consciousness remains uncertain. Functional connectivity of the nonspecific (intralaminar) thalamic nuclei is preferentially reduced by propofol. Higher-order thalamocortical connectivity is also reduced with certain anesthetics. The changes in functional connectivity during anesthesia induction and emergence do not mirror each other; the recovery from anesthesia may involve increases in functional connectivity above the normal wakeful baseline. Anesthetic loss of consciousness is not a block of corticofugal information transfer, but a disruption of higher-order cortical information integration. The prime candidates for functional networks of the forebrain that play a critical role in maintaining the state of consciousness are those based on the posterior parietal-cingulate-precuneus region and the nonspecific thalamus.
Muscle alterations in the development and progression of cancer-induced muscle atrophy: A Review.

Cancer associated body weight and muscle loss, cancer cachexia, is a significant predictor of mortality and morbidity in cancer patients across a variety of cancer types. However, despite the negative prognosis associated with cachexia onset, there are no clinical therapies approved to treat or prevent cachexia. This lack of treatment may be partially due to the relative dearth of literature on mechanisms occurring within the muscle before the onset of muscle wasting. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to compile the current scientific literature on mechanisms contributing to the development and progression of cancer cachexia including protein turnover, inflammatory signaling, and mitochondrial dysfunction. We define "development" as changes in cell function occurring before the onset of cachexia, and "progression" as alterations to cell function that coincide with the exacerbation of muscle wasting. Overall, the current literature suggests multiple aspects of cellular function, such as protein turnover, inflammatory signaling, and mitochondrial quality, are altered before the onset of muscle loss during cancer cachexia, and clearly highlights the need to more thoroughly study the developmental stages of cachexia. Studying these early aberrations will allow for the development of effective therapeutics to prevent the onset of cachexia and improve health outcomes in cancer patients.
Energy Management by High Speed Remote Monitoring of Energy Meters

How Can We Manage What We Do Not Measure? The primary working of high speed remote monitoring of energy meters includes fetching of data from energy meters i.e. voltages, currents, power, power factor etc. and send that data to controller or server. The interface between server & meters will be based on MODBUS RTU protocol over TCP/IP via Ethernet. Reducing energy consumption as well as waste is now widely seen as being good for economy, as well as good for environment. However, the top management of organization typically does not have the information about their energy consumptions, so they make informed to take proactive decisions about their facility's energy use. Energy initiatives too often are one time improvements if that are not monitored & measured properly over time the benefits of these improvements are soon lost to avoid this we have to observe the energy consumption continuously. Energy Remote Monitoring is a perfect solution that delivers a visible impact to the base line. Using Web-based technology, Communication protocols & GSM technology, energy remote monitoring delivers real time information, analysis, and guidance that allow executives to understand their energy use, take appropriate action, and continually improve energy efficiency and performance. Keywords— Remote monitoring, Serial to Ethernet converter, MODBUS RTU, TCP/IP, GUI (Graphical User Interface), GSM.
Détection des Ochratoxines A dans la production alimentaire par l’utilisation d’aptacapteur capacitif

La contamination par les mycotoxines est une menace pour la sante et la vie des humains et des animaux. L’Ochratoxine A (OTA) est une mycotoxine des plus courantes qui contaminent les aliments. L'OTA a un effet toxique chronique et s'est revelee mutagene, nephrotoxique, teratogene, immunosuppresseur et cancerogene. Il est donc important de pouvoir detecter la presence de cette mycotoxine. Certains aptameres ont une affinite specifique pour l’OTA et peuvent etre utilises pour creer une technique analytique. Plusieurs methodes ont ete decrites pour la determination de l'OTA dans les aliments. Cependant, la plupart de ces methodes ne pouvaient pas etre appliquees a un aliment complexe tel que le cafe vert car les produits fluorescents interferents natifs du grain de cafe rendaient la quantification tres difficile. Dans ce travail, nous avons melange deux techniques basees sur la separation pour identifier et quantifier l'OTA dans le cafe vert. L'ultrafiltration assistee par aptamere comme technique de separation basee sur la taille des molecules a ete appliquee pour separer l'OTA libre. La quantification de l'OTA a ete realisee par chromatographie en phase liquide a haute performance (HPLC-FLD) avec une limite de detection (LOD) de 0,05 ng/mL pour l'OTA. La recuperation de l’OTA dans le cafe vert artificiellement contamine presentait une bonne gamme de recuperation jusqu’a 97,7%. L’aptamere selectionne a ensuite ete utilise pour fonctionnaliser un support flexible d’alumine poreuse afin de former un aptacapteur capacitif, facilement manipulable, et specifique envers l’OTA. Une preuve de concept a ete developpe pour la quantification de l’OTA et les premiers resultats ont montres une limite de detection (LOD) de 10-4 ng/mL. Cette methode a pu etre appliquee a la determination quantitative de l'OTA dans le cafe vert a des niveaux inferieurs aux niveaux maximaux proposes par la Commission europeenne pour le cafe vert (0.25 ng/mL). Cette etude confirme egalement que les aptameres peuvent etre utilises comme element de bioreconnaissance dans les tests de diagnostic ayant une application commerciale pour l'analyse des mycotoxines. A notre connaissance, il s'agit du premier aptacapteur capacitif electrique sans marquage utilise pour detecter l'OTA.