Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PWLU: Learning Specialized Activation Functions With the Piecewise Linear Unit

The choice of activation functions is crucial to deep neural networks. ReLU is a popular hand-designed activation function. Swish, the automatically searched activation function, outperforms ReLU on many challenging datasets. However, the search method has two main drawbacks. First, the tree-based search space is highly discrete and restricted, which is difficult to search. Second, the sample-based search method is inefficient in finding specialized activation functions for each dataset or neural architecture. To overcome these drawbacks, we propose a new activation function called Piecewise Linear Unit (PWLU), incorporating a carefully designed formulation and learning method. PWLU can learn specialized activation functions for different models, layers, or channels. Besides, we propose a non-uniform version of PWLU, which maintains sufficient flexibility but requires fewer intervals and parameters. Additionally, we generalize PWLU to three-dimensional space to define a piecewise linear surface named 2D-PWLU, which can be treated as a non-linear binary operator. Experimental results show that PWLU achieves SOTA performance on various tasks and models, and 2D-PWLU is better than element-wise addition when aggregating features from different branches. The proposed PWLU and its variation are easy to implement and efficient for inference, which can be widely applied in real-world applications.
Unleashing the Power of Paying Multiplexing Only Once in Stochastic Network Calculus

The stochastic network calculus (SNC) holds promise as a versatile and uniform framework to calculate probabilistic performance bounds in networks of queues. A great challenge to accurate bounds and efficient calculations are stochastic dependencies between flows due to resource sharing inside the network. However, by carefully utilizing the basic SNC concepts in the network analysis the necessity of taking these dependencies into account can be minimized. To that end, we unleash the power of the pay multiplexing only once principle (PMOO, known from the deterministic network calculus) in the SNC analysis. We choose an analytic combinatorics presentation of the results in order to ease complex calculations. In tree-reducible networks, a subclass of general feedforward networks, we obtain an effective analysis in terms of avoiding the need to take internal flow dependencies into account. In a comprehensive numerical evaluation, we demonstrate how this unleashed PMOO analysis can reduce the known gap between simulations and SNC calculations significantly, and how it favourably compares to state-of-the art SNC calculations in terms of accuracy and computational effort. Motivated by these promising results, we also consider general feedforward networks, when some flow dependencies have to be taken into account. To that end, the unleashed PMOO analysis is extended to the partially dependent case and a case study of a canonical topology, known as the diamond network, is provided, again displaying favourable results over the state of the art.
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CLASSIFICATION ALGORITHM FOR TEXT BASED CATEGORIZATION

Text categorization is a process in data mining which assigns predefined categories to free-text documents using machine learning techniques. Any document in the form of text, image, music, etc. can be classified using some categorization techniques. It provides conceptual views of the collected documents and has important applications in the real world. Text based categorization is made use of for document classification with pattern recognition and machine learning. Advantages of a number of classification algorithms have been studied in this paper to classify documents. An example of these algorithms is: Naive Bayes' algorithm, K-Nearest Neighbor, Decision Tree etc. This paper presents a comparative study of advantages and disadvantages of the above mentioned classification algorithm.
Major depressive disorders in chronic hemodialysis patients in Nazareth: identification and assessment

Objective: Depression illnesses are commonly observed in hemodialysis (HD) patients, which can influence the quality of life of end-stage renal disease patients. We evaluate the prevalence and predictive risk factors of depression in the Arab population undergoing HD in Nazareth, Israel. Methods: We conducted a prospective study that included 71 patients in the HD unit with a mean age of 61.9 ± 14.13 years who had undergone HD and 26 healthy control subjects with a mean age of 59.3 ± 7.3. Beck’s Depression Inventory and Hamilton Depression Scale assess-ments were administered. Blood analysis for hematological and biochemical parameters was obtained. Diagnosis was made using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders scale to correlate psychological variables with clinical, hematological, and biochemical parameters. Statistical analysis was carried out using analysis of variance followed by Tukey post-hoc multiple comparison tests. Results: The prevalence of depression was 43.7% in HD patients. Between HD patients and controls, cortisol values were 16.96 ± 0.5476 and 11.96 ± 1.116, respectively ( P , 0.0001; 95% confidence intervals [CI]: 2.416–6.825). Between depressed HD patients versus control subjects, cortisol values were 16.48 ± 0.72 and 11.96 ± 1.116, respectively ( P = 0.0013; 95% CI: 1.878–7.184). Hematological and biochemical parameters were compared between depressed HD and nondepressed patients, but differences between the two groups were found to be insignificant ( P . 0.05). Conclusion: Our HD patients were severely depressed. Studies of glucocorticoid turnover activity such as cortisol, a potent chemical stress hormone, may be used as a model and marker for early diagnosis of depression among HD patients. The strong familial support system in Arabic traditions has failed to decrease depression among these patients.
Would the Dream of Political Equality Turn out to Be a Nightmare ? Would the Dream of Political Equality Turn out to Be a Nightmare ?

Studies of citizen participation often assume that widespread and equal participation is beneficial for democracy. This article examines the arguments for and against equal citizen participation: although it may lead to lower-quality participation—less informed, less supportive of democracy—it also leads to a distortion of the needs and preferences of citizens as they are communicated into the political process.
Realization of large-scale photonic crystal cavity-based devices

Abstract. This paper demonstrates an approach for fabricating large-scale photonic crystal (PhC)-based devices using a combination of optical and focused ion beam (FIB) lithography techniques. Optical lithography along with reactive ion etching parameters is optimized to realize the layout of device structure and thereafter FIB milling is optimized to realize the designed PhC structure at those identified locations. At first, with the help of a specially designed mask and using optical lithography along with reactive ion etching, a number of rectangular areas of dimension of 10 μm×20 μm along with input and output waveguides of width ∼700 nm and thickness of ∼250 nm have been fabricated. Subsequently, use of FIB milling, a periodic PhC structure of lattice constant of 600 nm, having a hole diameter of ∼480 nm along with a defect hole diameter of ∼250 nm have been realized successfully on the selected areas. This method shows a promising application in fabricating PhC structure with device size >1 cm2 at large scale, eliminating the problems of standard nanolithography techniques.
Transverse magnetic modes in planar slot waveguides

We analytically solve the guided transverse magnetic modes of symmetrical planar slot waveguides and show that multiple modes may exist in a slot waveguide. For all types of modes in waveguides with the index of the slot greater than that of the cladding and vice versa, field solutions and characteristic equations are derived and the cutoff conditions are provided and discussed.
Computation of masses and binding energies of some hadrons and bosons according to the rotating lepton model and the relativistic Newton equation

We compute analytically the masses, binding energies and hamiltonians of gravitationally bound Bohr-type states via the rotating relativistic lepton model which utilizes the de Broglie wavelength equation in conjunction with special relativity and Newton's relativistic gravitational law. The latter uses the inertial-gravitational masses, rather than the rest masses, of the rotating particles. The model also accounts for the electrostatic charge- induced dipole interactions between a central charged lepton, which is usually a positron, with the rotating relativistic lepton ring. We use three rotating relativistic neutrinos to model baryons, two rotating relativistic neutrinos to model mesons, and a rotating relativistic electron neutrino - positron (or electron) pair to model the W± bosons. It is found that gravitationally bound ground states comprising three relativistic neutrinos have masses in the baryon mass range (∼⃒ 0.9 to 1 GeV/c2), while ground states comprising two neutrinos have masses in the meson mass range (∼⃒ 0.4 to 0.8 GeV/c2). It is also found that the rest mass values of quarks are in good agreement with the heaviest neutrino mass value of 0.05 eV/c2 and that the mass of W± bosons (∼⃒ 81 GeV/c2) corresponds to the mass of a rotating gravitationally confined e± — ve pair. A generalized expression is also derived for the gravitational potential energy of such relativistic Bohr-type structures.
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Cross-disciplinary, authentic student research projects

In the Dutch secondary education system, students must carry out at the end of their school career a rather large research or design project to demonstrate their ability to apply acquired knowledge and skills while pursuing a research question or design goal in some depth. They are encouraged to choose the topic themselves and they are to some extent free in setting up their work. Ideally, the students do not only see it as a compulsory subject but also enjoy the stimulating aspects of doing their own research or design. Challenging and authentic projects, which are representative for actual research and design work done by professionals, seem effective in this respect. The focus of this paper is on how the use of ICT for data acquisition, video-analysis, modelling, and data analysis can contribute to the realisation of such projects in mathematics and science education and on how it can give students opportunities to take the nature and level of their work close to the characteristics of work of experts in the field. We present two examples of students’ inquiry work, in the context of bungee jumping and human gait, and we discuss the ICT usage, the authenticity and resemblance with an expert’s approach.
Dynamic Mechanism Design: Revenue Equivalence, Prot Maximization and Information Disclosure Preliminary and incomplete

This paper examines the problem of how to design incentive-compatible mechanisms in environments in which the agentsprivate information evolves stochastically over time and in which decisions have to be made in each period. The environments we consider are fairly general in that the agentstypes are allowed to evolve in a non-Markov way, decisions are allowed to a¤ect the type distributions and payo¤s are not restricted to be separable over time. Our rst result is the characterization of a dynamic formula for (the derivative of) the agentsequilibrium payo¤s in an incentive-compatible mechanism. The formula summarizes all local rst-order conditions taking into account how current types a¤ect the dynamics of expected payo¤s. The formula generalizes the familiar envelope condition from static mechanism design: the key di¤erence is that a variation in the current types now impacts payo¤s in all subsequent periods both directly and through the e¤ect on the distributions of future types. We rst identify assumptions on the primitive environment that guarantee that our dynamic payo¤ formula is a necessary condition for incentive compatibility. Next, we specialize this formula to quasi-linear environments and use it to establish a dynamic revenue-equivalence result. Lastly, we turn to the characterization of su¢ cient conditions for incentive compatibility. We then apply the results to study the properties of revenue-maximizing mechanisms in a variety of applications that include dynamic auctions with AR(k) values and the provision of experience goods. JEL Classi cation Numbers: D82, C73, L1. Keywords: dynamic mechanisms, asymmetric information, stochastic processes, long-term contracting, incentives This paper supercedes previous working papers Revenue Equivalence, Pro t Maximization, and Transparency in Dynamic Mechanismsby Segal and Toikka and Long-Term Contracting in a Changing Worldby Pavan. Acknowledgements to be added.
Isotope and fast ions turbulence suppression effects: Consequences for high-β ITER plasmas

The impact of isotope effects and fast ions on microturbulence is analyzed by means of non-linear gyrokinetic simulations for an ITER hybrid scenario at high beta obtained from previous integrated modelling simulations with simplified assumptions. Simulations show that ITER might work very close to threshold, and in these conditions, significant turbulence suppression is found from DD to DT plasmas. Electromagnetic effects are shown to play an important role in the onset of this isotope effect. Additionally, even external ExB flow shear, which is expected to be low in ITER, has a stronger impact on DT than on DD. The fast ions generated by fusion reactions can additionally reduce turbulence even more although the impact in ITER seems weaker than in present-day tokamaks.
Creative Solutions and their Evaluation : Comparing the Effects of Explanation and Argumentation Tasks on Student Reflections

Creative problem solving which results in novel and effective ideas or products is most advanced when learners can analyze, evaluate, and refine their ideas to improve creative solutions. The purpose of this investigation was to examine creative problem solving performance in undergraduate students and determine the tasks that support critical selfevaluations of creative solutions by comparing alternative types of reflective tasks. Participants (n = 103) first provided demographic information and responded to individual difference measures (i.e., divergent thinking, need for cognition, and beliefs about creative outcomes) and then read a problem scenario in which they assumed the role of a high school teacher who was asked to design a creative college preparatory course. Following, participants completed either an explanation reflective task or an argument based reflective task. Finally, participants evaluated their proposed course by rating it on characteristics that describe the originality and effectiveness of creative solutions. Findings confirmed the role of divergent thinking as a positive predictor of the originality of a creative solution, whereas, need for cognition, and academic major were positive predictors of the effectiveness of a creative solution. Participants rated their creative solutions differentially depending on their beliefs and the type of reflective task. Those whose beliefs aligned better with conceptualizations of creative outcomes assessed more positively the originality and effectiveness of their solution. The findings indicate that the argumentation task could potentially promote reflective and critical thinking about a creative solution as participants who completed the argumentation task evaluated their solution more conservatively.
Health Savings Accounts: Growth Concentrated Among High-Income Households And Large Employers.

Between 2005 and 2012, the share of employers whose employees had health savings accounts (HSAs) and the share of employees working at these employers grew more than tenfold. High-income and older tax filers both established HSAs and fully funded their HSAs at least four times as often as did low-income and younger filers.
Tetragonal vanadates YVO4 and GdVO4-new efficient X(3)-active crystals for Raman laser converters

High-order Stokes and anti-Stokes picosecond generation in tetragonal YVO 4 and GdVO 4 host crystals for lasing trivalent lanthanides (Ln 3+ ) has been observed for the first time. All measured stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) wavelengths in the visible and near infrared (NIR) are identified and attributed to the SRS-active vibration modes of these vanadates.
Inversion-free feedforward hysteresis control using Preisach operator

We introduce a new type of inversion-free feedforward hysteresis control with the Preisach operator. The feedforward control has a high-gain integral loop structure with the Preisach operator in negative feedback. This allows obtaining a dynamic quantity which corresponds to the inverse hysteresis output, since the loop error tends towards zero for a sufficiently high feedback gain. By analyzing the loop sensitivity function with hysteresis, which acts as a non-constant phase lag, we show the achievable bandwidth and accuracy of the proposed control. Remarkable fact is that the control bandwidth is theoretically infinite, provided the integral feedback loop with Preisach operator can be implemented with a smooth hysteresis output. Numerical control examples with the Preisach hysteresis model in differential form are shown and discussed in detail.
Performance Analysis of a Recycled Concrete Interfacial Transition Zone in a Rapid Carbonization Environment

Based on the characteristics of recycled concrete interface structures, a multi-interface reconstruction model was established. To study the microstructure evolution of the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) during the carbonization process of recycled concrete, the microstructure characteristics of the ITZ of C30, C40, and C50 grade recycled concrete and the mortar matrix before and after carbonization were studied through the microhardness tester and SEM. The results show that the microhardness values of the ITZ and the mortar matrix are obviously increased and that the width of the ITZ decreases, while the ITZ performance of the C50 grade recycled concrete is not significantly changed. The ITZ exhibits a large amount of granular CaCO3 after carbonization, the pores are refined, and microcracks are generated. Overall, there are significant differences in the microstructures between the ITZ and the mortar matrix before and after carbonization.
Influence of the measurement object's reflective properties on the accuracy of array projection-based 3D sensors

In order to increase the measurement speed of pattern projection-based three-dimensional (3-D) sensors, in 2014, we introduced the so-called array projector which allows pattern projection at several 1,000 fps. As the patterns are switched by switching on and off the light sources of multiple slide projectors, each pattern originates from a different projection center. This may lead to a 3-D point deviation when measuring glossy objects. In this contribution, we theoretically and experimentally investigate the dependence of this deviation on the measurement object's reflective properties. Furthermore, we propose a procedure for compensating for this deviation.
Spatial and kinematic structure of Monoceros star-forming region

We warmly thank to Richard Parker, paper's referee, by his kind and useful comments that helped to improve this paper. This work was funding by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, through grant AYA2016-75931. This research has made use of the SIMBAD data base, the VizieR catalogue access tool and the Aladin sky atlas, developed at CDS, Strasbourg, France. Also, this research has made use of the WEBDA data base, operated at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Vienna. This work makes use of EURO-VO software, tools, or services. The EURO-VO has been funded by the European Commission through contracts RI031675 (DCA) and 011892 (VO-TECH) under the 6th Framework Program and contracts 212104 (AIDA), 261541 (VO-ICE), 312559 (CoSADIE) under the 7th Framework Program. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The lattice of closure operators on a subgroup lattice

ABSTRACT We say a lattice L is a subgroup lattice if there exists a group G such that Sub(G)≅L, where Sub(G) is the lattice of subgroups of G, ordered by inclusion. We prove that the lattice of closure operators which act on the subgroup lattice of a finite group G is itself a subgroup lattice if and only if G is cyclic of prime power order.
A global view on star formation: The GLOSTAR Galactic plane survey. V. 6.7 GHz methanol maser catalogue

Class II methanol (CH$_{3}$OH) masers are amongst the clearest signposts of recent high-mass star formation (HMSF). A complete catalogue outlines the distribution of star formation in the Galaxy, the number of young star-forming cores, and the physical conditions of their environment. The Global View on Star Formation (GLOSTAR) survey, which is a blind survey in the radio regime of 4$-$8 GHz, maps the Galactic mid-plane in the radio continuum, 6.7 GHz methanol line, the 4.8 GHz formaldehyde line, and several radio recombination lines. We present the analysis of the observations of the 6.7 GHz CH$_{3}$OH maser transition using data from the D-configuration of the Very Large Array (VLA). We analyse the data covering Galactic longitudes from $-2^{\circ}<l<60^{\circ}$ and Galactic latitudes of $|\textit{b}|<1^{\circ}$. We detect a total of 554 methanol masers, out of which 84 are new, and catalogue their positions, velocity components, and integrated fluxes. With a typical noise level of $\sim$18 mJy beam$^{-1}$, this is the most sensitive unbiased methanol survey for methanol masers to date. We search for dust continuum and radio continuum associations, and find that 97% of the sources are associated with dust, and 12% are associated with radio continuum emission.
A global view on star formation: The GLOSTAR Galactic plane survey

Aims. Surveys of the Milky Way at various wavelengths have changed our view of star formation in our Galaxy considerably in recent years. In this paper we give an overview of the GLOSTAR survey, a new survey covering large parts (145 square degrees) of the northern Galactic plane using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in the frequency range 4−8 GHz and the Effelsberg 100-m telescope. This provides for the first time a radio survey covering all angular scales down to 1.5 arcsecond, similar to complementary near-IR and mid-IR galactic plane surveys. We outline the main goals of the survey and give a detailed description of the observations and the data reduction strategy. Methods. In our observations we covered the radio continuum in full polarization, as well as the 6.7 GHz methanol maser line, the 4.8 GHz formaldehyde line, and seven radio recombination lines. The observations were conducted in the most compact D configuration of the VLA and in the more extended B configuration. This yielded spatial resolutions of 18″ and 1.5″ for the two configurations, respectively. We also combined the D configuration images with the Effelsberg 100-m data to provide zero spacing information, and we jointly imaged the D- and B-configuration data for optimal sensitivity of the intermediate spatial ranges. Results. Here we show selected results for the first part of the survey, covering the range of 28° < l < 36° and |b|< 1°, including the full low-resolution continuum image, examples of high-resolution images of selected sources, and the first results from the spectral line data.