bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cross‐sectional associations between temporal patterns and composition of upright and stepping events with physical function in midlife: Insights from the 1970 British Cohort Study
Authors: Culverhouse Joshua , Hillsdon Melvyn , Pulsford Richard
Published: May 2024

Introduction

Age‐related decline in physical functioning has significant implications for health in later life but declines begin earlier in midlife. Physical activity (PA) volume is associated with physical function, but the importance of the pattern in which PA is accumulated is unclear. This study investigates associations between patterns of PA accumulation, including the composition, variation, and temporal distribution of upright and stepping events, with physical function in midlife.

Methods

Participants (n = 4378) from the 1970 British Cohort Study wore an activPAL3 accelerometer on the thigh for 7 consecutive days. Exposure measures included a suite of metrics describing the frequency, duration, and composition of upright events, as well as the duration and volume (total steps) of stepping events. In addition, patterns of accumulation of upright and sedentary events were examined including how fragmented/transient they were (upright‐to‐sedentary transition probability [USTP]) and their burstiness (the tendency for events to be clustered together followed by longer interevent times). Physical function outcomes included grip strength (GS), balance, and SF‐36 physical functioning subscale (SF‐36pf). Cross‐sectional analyses included multivariable linear regression models to assess associations, adjusting for covariates including overall PA volume (mean daily step count).

Results

Higher upright event burstiness was associated with higher GS, and higher USTP was associated with lower GS. Duration and step volume of stepping events were positively associated with SF‐36pf in females. Step‐weighted cadence was positively associated with SF‐36pf and balance. Contradictory findings were also present (e.g., more transient stepping events were associated with better GS) particularly for GS in males. Inconsistencies between sexes were observed across some associations.

Conclusion

Our study reveals that diverse patterns of PA accumulation exhibit distinct associations with various measures of physical function in midlife, irrespective of the overall volume. Contradictory findings and inconsistency between sexes warrant further investigation. Patterns of PA accumulation, in addition to volume, should be considered in future PA research. Longitudinal studies are required to determine whether a given volume of activity accumulated in different patterns, impacts associations between PA and health outcomes.
Ironic processes of concentration and suppression under pressure: A study on rifle shooting in Norwegian elite biathletes
Authors: Bartura Khelifa , Abrahamsen Frank Eirik , Gustafsson Henrik , Hatzigeorgiadis Antonis , Gorgulu Recep
Published: May 2024

In rifle shooting, suppressing unwanted thoughts can backfire in one's performance, causing athletes to behave contrary to their desired intention and further deteriorate their performance.

Purpose

This study examined how priming attentional and negative cues affected participants' shooting performances toward ironic error targets under cognitive load conditions in Stroop task across two experiments.

Methods

Semi‐elite biathletes (Experiment 1, n = 10; Experiment 2, n = 9) participated in the study. The study used a within‐subject quasi‐experimental design, particularly a one‐way repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance and a 2 × 2 fully repeated measures analysis of variance, to determine the participants' hit rates and shooting response times (RTs). In both experiments, the participants completed the reverse‐Stroop‐based target shooting performance under low‐ and high‐cognitive load conditions while receiving frequent priming attentional and negative cues.

Results

The findings from Experiment 1 suggest that regulating repetitive priming attentional thoughts is efficacious in mitigating the likelihood of ironic performance errors and interference effects. The results of Experiment 2 show that repetitive priming negative cues resulted in negligible ironic error hit rates and slower RTs in target hits under high‐cognitive load conditions. The Bayesian analyses provided evidence supporting the null hypotheses.

Conclusion

Trying to control repetitive priming attentional and negative thoughts reduces ironic performance errors to a similar degree under cognitive load conditions among biathletes, regardless of interference effects. Further research is needed to determine the effectiveness of suppressing task‐relevant negative instructions in reducing the likelihood of ironic performance errors under pressure.
Critique and expansion of conceptions of control
Authors: Wang Liansheng , Wang Maofu , Wu Jingyi
Published: May 2024

Neil Fligstein's Conceptions of control have multiple theoretical origins in the institutional, political, and cultural perspectives of the new economic sociology. However, conceptions of control as a key concept of market structure have not systematically been formulated in Fligstein's works, remaining insightfully but relatively fragmentally. This paper summarizes the normative, power, and cognitive dimensions of conceptions of control, respectively corresponding to market agreement, dominant relationship and common understanding. On this basis, this paper provides a clear definition of conceptions of control. Additionally, this paper summarizes the formation of the conceptions of control and its change, distinguishes the differences between conceptions of control and other related concepts, and presents the evolution of the concept that has taken place in subsequent studies, as well as the criticisms to which it has been subjected. This paper suggests that this concept needs to be expanded in terms of the connotation of market actors, the role of government, and the forms of existence. Conceptions of control provide a concise conceptual tool for analyzing market transformation. We believe that the market changes triggered by the new business formats in the digital economy era will be more frequent, and conception of control will have a broader application prospect.
The organic carbon‐to‐clay ratio as an indicator of soil structure vulnerability, a metric focused on the condition of soil structure
Authors: Sauzet Ophélie , Johannes Alice , Deluz Cédric , Dupla Xavier , Matter Adrien , Baveye Philippe C. , Boivin Pascal
Published: May 2024

The soil organic carbon to clay ratio (SOC:clay) is a metric used in soil quality management. In Switzerland and the United Kingdom, for example, threshold values for SOC:clay ratios have been determined to indicate very good (>1:8) to degraded (<1:13) soil structures. A recent article in Soil Use and Management by Poeplau and Don, however, suggested that this metric is ‘strongly biased and misleading’, based on their observation that German sandy soils and heavy clay soils tend to show very high and very low SOC:clay ratios, respectively. An alternative metric was proposed based on the ratio of actual SOC to expected SOC level for a considered area. We offer a commentary on the proposal, arguing that because soil structure quality is overlooked by the approach, it fails to provide appropriate SOC levels for soil health and could lead to soils with highly depleted SOC being classified ‘good’. The SOC:clay ratio, on the other hand, does address soil structure condition, providing a structure vulnerability index, a key function independent of local soil management conditions. When soils are found to have high structure vulnerability, as indicated by the SOC:clay ratio, the cropping practices at the site should be investigated and ways to increase the SOC content considered. Structure condition threshold values may only need to be reassessed if it is shown that the average structure quality observed is not in conformity with the present thresholds, which would be expected for some soils, such as Andosols.
COVID‐19 vaccination strategies in Africa: A scoping review of the use of mathematical models to inform policy
Authors: Ofori Sylvia K. , Dankwa Emmanuelle A. , Estrada Eve Hiyori , Hua Xinyi , Kimani Teresia N. , Wade Carrie G. , Buckee Caroline O. , Murray Megan B. , Hedt‐Gauthier Bethany L.
Published: May 2024

Objective

Mathematical models are vital tools to understand transmission dynamics and assess the impact of interventions to mitigate COVID‐19. However, historically, their use in Africa has been limited. In this scoping review, we assess how mathematical models were used to study COVID‐19 vaccination to potentially inform pandemic planning and response in Africa.

Methods

We searched six electronic databases: MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, Global Health, MathSciNet and Africa‐Wide NiPAD, using keywords to identify articles focused on the use of mathematical modelling studies of COVID‐19 vaccination in Africa that were published as of October 2022. We extracted the details on the country, author affiliation, characteristics of models, policy intent and heterogeneity factors. We assessed quality using 21‐point scale criteria on model characteristics and content of the studies.

Results

The literature search yielded 462 articles, of which 32 were included based on the eligibility criteria. Nineteen (59%) studies had a first author affiliated with an African country. Of the 32 included studies, 30 (94%) were compartmental models. By country, most studies were about or included South Africa (n = 12, 37%), followed by Morocco (n = 6, 19%) and Ethiopia (n = 5, 16%). Most studies (n = 19, 59%) assessed the impact of increasing vaccination coverage on COVID‐19 burden. Half (n = 16, 50%) had policy intent: prioritising or selecting interventions, pandemic planning and response, vaccine distribution and optimisation strategies and understanding transmission dynamics of COVID‐19. Fourteen studies (44%) were of medium quality and eight (25%) were of high quality.

Conclusions

While decision‐makers could draw vital insights from the evidence generated from mathematical modelling to inform policy, we found that there was limited use of such models exploring vaccination impacts for COVID‐19 in Africa. The disparity can be addressed by scaling up mathematical modelling training, increasing collaborative opportunities between modellers and policymakers, and increasing access to funding.
Enhancing barley yield potential and germination rate: gene editing of HvGA20ox2 and discovery of novel allele sdw1.ZU9
Authors: Xie Shanggeng , Wang Fengyue , Li Mengdi , Hu Zengjie , Wang Han , Zhang Zhizhong , Chen Xiang , Gu Zhiye , Zhang Guoping , Ye Lingzhen
Published: May 2024

Several dwarf and semi‐dwarf genes have been identified in barley. However, only a limited number have been effectively utilized in breeding programs to cultivate lodging resistant varieties. This is due to the common association of dwarf and semi‐dwarf traits with negative effects on malt quality. In this study, we employed gene editing to generate three new haplotypes of sdw1/denso candidate gene gibberellin (GA) 20‐oxidase2 (GA20ox2). These haplotypes induced a dwarfing phenotype and enhancing yield potential, and promoting seed dormancy, thereby reducing pre‐harvest sprouting. Moreover, β‐amylase activity in the grains of the mutant lines was significantly increased, which is beneficial for malt quality. The haplotype analysis revealed significant genetic divergence of this gene during barley domestication and selection. A novel allele (sdw1.ZU9), containing a 96‐bp fragment in the promoter region of HvGA20ox2, was discovered and primarily observed in East Asian and Russian barley varieties. The 96‐bp fragment was associated with lower gene expression, leading to lower plant height but higher germination rate. In conclusion, HvGA20ox2 can be potentially used to develop semi‐dwarf barley cultivars with high yield and improved malt quality.
Potential importance of vegetative spread and fragment regeneration for invasiveness of Clematis vitalba
Authors: Jarvis‐Lowry Brenda , Harrington Kerry C. , Ghanizadeh Hossein , Robertson Alastair W.
Published: May 2024

Identifying characteristics of invasive species or growth forms that facilitate their range expansion is critical for management. Clematis vitalba L. (old man's beard) is an invasive temperate liana in many areas of its introduction, yet its seedlings do not thrive in circumstances where resources are limited. Although some lianas in both tropical and temperate climates have been shown to spread by clonal stems along the ground, the bulk of previous research on C. vitalba reproduction has focused largely on aspects of seed ecology. The vegetative growth of the species is poorly understood. The first objective of our study was to evaluate the use of vegetative spread by C. vitalba as a means of local dispersal and population growth. We excavated ten 1‐m2 plots in infested riparian zones and found an extensive, branching network of creeping stems, both above and below ground. Our second objective was to test the ability of C. vitalba stem fragments to act as vegetative propagules. After 4 months, ~50% of two‐node fragments had regenerated, from both creeping and climbing stems. These studies help explain how a temperate liana forms populations and dominate ecological communities. The findings provide good evidence that C. vitalba may rely quite heavily on asexual reproduction. In addition, the results document liana stem phenotypic plasticity; fragmented climbing stems are just as likely as fragmented creeping stems to reprogram shoot tissue systems, generate roots and regrow as independent plants.
Deep genetic divergence among bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) of the Southwestern Atlantic
Authors: Villela Livia Bonetti , Carvalho Pedro Hollanda , de Vilasboa Anderson , Rodríguez‐Rey Ghennie Tatiana , Henning Frederico , Grothues Thomas , Solé‐Cava Antonio Mateo
Published: May 2024

Neglected cryptic diversity can lead to the permanent loss of locally adapted alleles, which can reduce resilience to rapid environmental change. It can also result in overestimation of fisheries stock sizes that can result from treating different species as if they belonged to one. Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) is considered a circumtropical and subtropical species and an important fishery resource all over the world. Differences in ecologically relevant traits are observed among isolated populations. Also, in the Southwestern Atlantic, molecular data suggest multiple populations, but these are treated as a single fish stock by regulatory agencies due to a lack of definitive information. We used whole mitogenome sequences, nuclear (rho) and mitochondrial (coxI and cytb) genes, as well as microsatellites to investigate historical and current genetic population structure and parameters of bluefish in the Western Atlantic. A total of 263 samples were collected along the Brazilian coast and in the USA (New Jersey, Northwest Atlantic). Data revealed the existence of two evolutionarily significant units (ESU) of bluefish along the South American coast, later confirmed by whole mitogenome sequencing of both haplogroups. These two ESUs have a mostly parapatric distribution, with some areas of overlap, which vary along the year. We also conducted seasonal sampling in Brazil to investigate migration patterns. ESUs occur mostly north and south of parallel 23° 40′ S, with an overlap area that varied seasonally. The level of differentiation between those two ESUs in the SW Atlantic, even in sympatry, is as high as that found between them and those from the NW Atlantic and Europe. Parapatric distribution and restricted gene flow suggest the existence of ecological barriers and local adaptation. The splitting of an ancient population from the Southwestern Atlantic into two putative species is important to understand bluefish evolutionary diversification and has implications for fishery regulatory measures in Brazil.
Modeling the effect of magnetoelectric nanoparticles on neuronal electrical activity: An analog circuit approach
Authors: Ramezani Zeinab , André Victoria , Khizroev Sakhrat
Published: May 2024

This paper introduces a physical neuron model that incorporates magnetoelectric nanoparticles (MENPs) as an essential electrical circuit component to wirelessly control local neural activity. Availability of such a model is important as MENPs, due to their magnetoelectric effect, can wirelessly and noninvasively modulate neural activity, which, in turn, has implications for both finding cures for neurological diseases and creating a wireless noninvasive high-resolution brain-machine interface. When placed on a neuronal membrane, MENPs act as magnetic-field-controlled finite-size electric dipoles that generate local electric fields across the membrane in response to magnetic fields, thus allowing to controllably activate local ion channels and locally initiate an action potential. Herein, the neuronal electrical characteristic description is based on ion channel activation and inhibition mechanisms. A MENP-based memristive Hodgkin–Huxley circuit model is extracted by combining the Hodgkin–Huxley model and an equivalent circuit model for a single MENP. In this model, each MENP becomes an integral part of the neuron, thus enabling wireless local control of the neuron’s electric circuit itself. Furthermore, the model is expanded to include multiple MENPs to describe collective effects in neural systems.
UnilateralToxoplasmaretinochoroiditis with frosted branch angiitis: a multimodal imaging study
Authors: Sanjay Srinivasan , Choudhary Ayushi , Kawali Ankush , Mahendradas Padmamalini
Published: May 2024

A woman in her late 30s presented with sudden diminution of vision, redness and pain in the right eye (OD) of 10 days’ duration. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 20/160 in OD and 20/20 in the left eye (OS). Anterior segment of OD showed keratic precipitates, flare 3+, cells 2+ and a festooned pupil. Vitreous haze and cells were seen in OD. Frosted branch angiitis (FBA) was seen in all quadrants in OD and oldToxoplasmascar was seen in both eyes. Serum toxoplasma immunoglobulin G (IgG) was positive and IgM negative, and PCR of an aqueous humour sample was negative forToxoplasma. She was diagnosed with toxoplasa retinochoroiditis in OD and treated with intravitreal clindamycin injections, oral anti-Toxoplasmaantibiotics and steroids. Three months later, her BCVA in OD was 20/40 with resolving inflammation. She presented 2 months later with a new focus of retinochoroiditis without FBA and an oldToxoplasmascar.
Primary tracheoesophageal puncture in stapler-assisted laryngeal closure: a surgical modification
Authors: Riju Jeyashanth , Michael Rajiv C , Chetan Sheth Meet , Paulose Antony
Published: May 2024

With the advancements in the medical field, many innovations in medical devices have happened. Using a surgical stapler to close the laryngectomy defect without opening the pharynx is particularly advantageous in a total laryngectomy (TL). However, performing the tracheoesophageal puncture (TEP) during stapler closure of the larynx has not been widely advocated, due to the fear of complications related to the procedure.

We treated two male patients with advanced glottic malignancy who underwent a TL. To restore their ability to speak, we performed a primary TEP and immediate voice prosthesis placement. After the TEP, we closed the larynx using a stapler. The surgical technique used in this procedure has been thoroughly explained.

The use of a surgical stapler for pharyngeal closure during a TL has several advantages, particularly with regard to the duration of surgery. The current techniques appear to be promising in reducing TEP-related complications during stapler-assisted laryngeal closure.
P077 What are the perspectives of key informants on the implementation hiv self-testing (HIVST) in england? a qualitative study of barriers, facilitators and anticipated impacts
Authors: Witzel TCharles , Burns Fiona M , Weatherburn Peter , Rodger Alison J
Published: May 2024

Introduction

HIVST is a new approach for individuals to test themselves for HIV in a location and at a time of their choosing using a rapid diagnostic test. This approach has the potential to increase testing uptake and frequency. Questions remain about where and how to situate HIVST in a landscape of diverse HIV testing provision. This study aims to understand the perspectives of key informants on the implementation of HIVST.

Methods

In order to inform development an intervention for use in a trial recruiting men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people, we conducted in-depth interviews with 17 key informants (KIs) including clinical staff in HIV and STI services, voluntary sector service providers and HIV testing commissioners. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using a thematic framework analysis.

Results

KIs valued HIVST for providing patients with additional choice. Careful attention to intervention design was important as local context and client group shaped anticipated patient response to HIVST. Interventions should deliver HIVST through integrated approaches that provide direct pathways into additional testing services and HIV care. Anticipated impacts were a loss of support from face-to-face testing services, the possibility of increased risk of self-harm, reduced STI detection, but conversely HIVST also increased potential for empowerment.

Discussion

HIVST interventions should be responsive to context, taking into account both local and national needs. Concerns centred on potential negative impacts indicating that innovative service delivery designs which address these may be key to KI buy-in for HIVST implementation and patient outcomes.
O17 Transforming sexual health systems through online services
Authors: Baraitser Paula , Turner Katherine , Brady Michael , Sa Joia de , Syred Jonathan , Howroyd Chris , Holdsworth Gillian
Published: May 2024

Introduction

Online sexual health services can transform sexual health systems through increased access and self-management. They are one element of the whole sexual health economy. Best practice facilitates appropriate movement of users between online and clinic services according to their sexual health need.

Methods

Using routinely collected, anonymised service activity data, SHHAPT codes, and interviews with users/providers we studied online options for system transformation in sexual health services in two London Boroughs with high rates of sexual ill health. We focused on: Total sexually transmitted infection testing capacity; Access for new populations; Testing and treatment choices; Online contraceptive pills provision

Results

Online services increase STI testing capacity, total testing in the area by 9.6% from 73,714 (01/04/14–31/3/15) to 80,757 (01/04/15–31/03/16). 90.8% of online users were asymptomatic with a positivity rate of 6.8%. Users move between online and clinic – 55% of online users had used a clinic within the last year and 6.8% of online users were referred to clinics. The online service engaged new populations – 19% of online users had never used a clinic before. 11,353 treatments for chlamydia were provided across the whole system (2015/16). A pilot of online treatment and partner notification shows 95% uptake demonstrating the potential impact of an online only chlamydia management pathway. Users engage with online medical histories, self reported blood pressure and SMS based clinical conversations for contraceptive prescribing.

Discussion

Online services can transform sexual health systems by increasing capacity, increasing access and by offering new treatment choices.
Comparative analysis of transposable elements dynamics in fish with different sex chromosome systems
Authors: Crepaldi Carolina , Cabral-de-Mello Diogo Cavalcanti , Parise-Maltempi Patricia Pasquali
Published: May 2024

Transposable elements (TEs) are widespread genomic components with substantial roles in genome evolution and sex chromosome differentiation. In this study, we compared the TE composition of three closely related fish with different sex chromosome systems: Megaleporinus elongatus (Z1Z1Z2Z2/Z1W1Z2W2), Megaleporinus macrocephalus (ZZ/ZW) (both with highly differentiated W sex chromosomes), and Leporinus friderici (without heteromorphic sex chromosomes). We created custom TE libraries for each species using clustering methods and manual annotation and prediction, and we predicted TE temporal dynamics through divergence-based analysis. The TE abundance ranged from 16% to 21% in the three mobilomes, with L. friderici having the lowest overall. Despite the recent amplification of TEs in all three species, we observed differing expansion activities, particularly between the two genera. Both Megaleporinus recently experienced high retrotransposon activity, with a reduction in DNA TEs, which could have implications in sex chromosome composition. In contrast, L. friderici showed the opposite pattern. Therefore, despite having similar TE compositions, Megaleporinus and Leporinus exhibit distinct TE histories that likely evolved after their separation, highlighting a rapid TE expansion over short evolutionary periods.
Thermodynamics of charged three-dimensional scalar-tensor black holes: the problem of mathematical inconsistency and its solution
Authors: Dehghani M.
Published: May 2024

By applying conformal transformations on the action of scalar–tensor-Euler–Heisenberg theory, we obtain the exact black hole (BH) solutions in its conformal related, the well-known Einstein frame. Through imposing the conditions of (a) vanishing the electric potential at large distance from the source and (b) validity of the first law of BH thermodynamics, we obtain a set of three requirements which are not consistent, mathematically. For solving this problem we assume that under conformal transformations the nonlinearity parameter of Euler–Heisenberg (EH) electrodynamics must transform as $$a\rightarrow ae^{4\alpha \phi }$$

a
→
a

e

4
α
ϕ

. Then, we obtain the exact solutions of this theory, in both of Einstein and Jordan frames, without any mathematical problems. After calculating thermodynamic quantities, we investigate validity of the thermodynamical first law (TFL) and thermal stability of the EH-BTZ BHs in both of Jordan and Einstein frames, separately.
Connectivity between Electronic Services, Taxpayers’ Support and Tax Administration Performance
Authors: Okoh Umale , Jehu Philip , Alkali Mohammed Yusuf
Published: May 2024

The purpose of this study is to examine the nexus between electronic services (e-services) and tax administration performance directly, and indirectly via taxpayers’ support. Furthermore, it investigates the relationship between taxpayers’ support and e-services effectiveness. Quantitative data were collected from 217 tax officers through questionnaires, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was performed with WarpPLS 7.0 software. This study found that tax administrator and taxpayer e-services can improve tax administration performance directly, and indirectly through the mediating role of taxpayers’ support. Furthermore, taxpayers’ support can enhance e-services’ effectiveness in tax administration. The study recommends the adoption of the proposed research model which integrated e-services and taxpayers’ support to improve tax compliance, revenue generation, and performance to stimulate economic growth and national development.
Reducing the Memory Footprint of 3D Gaussian Splatting
Authors: Papantonakis Panagiotis , Kopanas Georgios , Kerbl Bernhard , Lanvin Alexandre , Drettakis George
Published: May 2024

3D Gaussian splatting provides excellent visual quality for novel view synthesis, with fast training and realtime rendering; unfortunately, the memory requirements of this method for storing and transmission are unreasonably high. We first analyze the reasons for this, identifying three main areas where storage can be reduced: the number of 3D Gaussian primitives used to represent a scene, the number of coefficients for the spherical harmonics used to represent directional radiance, and the precision required to store Gaussian primitive attributes. We present a solution to each of these issues. First, we propose an efficient, resolution-aware primitive pruning approach, reducing the primitive count by half. Second, we introduce an adaptive adjustment method to choose the number of coefficients used to represent directional radiance for each Gaussian primitive, and finally a codebook-based quantization method, together with a half-float representation for further memory reduction. Taken together, these three components result in a x27 reduction in overall size on disk on the standard datasets we tested, along with a x1.7 speedup in rendering speed. We demonstrate our method on standard datasets and show how our solution results in significantly reduced download times when using the method on a mobile device (see Fig. 1).
Windblown sand around obstacles - simulation and validation of deposition patterns
Authors: Rosset Nicolas , Duvigneau Regis , Bousseau Adrien , Cordonnier Guillaume
Published: May 2024

Sand dunes are iconic landmarks of deserts, but can also put human infrastructures at risk, for instance by forming near buildings or roads. We present a simulator of sand erosion and deposition to predict how dunes form around and behind obstacles under wind. Inspired by both computer graphics and geo-sciences, our algorithm couples a fast wind flow simulation with physical laws of sand saltation and avalanching, which suffices to reproduce characteristic patterns of sand deposition. In particular, we validate our approach via a qualitative comparison of the erosion and deposition patterns produced by our simulator against real-world patterns measured by prior work under controlled conditions.
ProteusNeRF: Fast Lightweight NeRF Editing using 3D-Aware Image Context
Authors: Wang Binglun , Dutt Niladri Shekhar , Mitra Niloy J.
Published: May 2024

Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) have recently emerged as a popular option for photo-realistic object capture due to their ability to faithfully capture high-fidelity volumetric content even from handheld video input. Although much research has been devoted to efficient optimization leading to real-time training and rendering, options for interactive editing NeRFs remain limited. We present a very simple but effective neural network architecture that is fast and efficient while maintaining a low memory footprint. This architecture can be incrementally guided through user-friendly image-based edits. Our representation allows straightforward object selection via semantic feature distillation at the training stage. More importantly, we propose a local 3D-aware image context to facilitate view-consistent image editing that can then be distilled into fine-tuned NeRFs, via geometric and appearance adjustments. We evaluate our setup on a variety of examples to demonstrate appearance and geometric edits and report 10-30x speedup over concurrent work focusing on text-guided NeRF editing. Video results and code can be found on our project webpage at https://proteusnerf.github.io.
ZH3: Quadratic Zonal Harmonics
Authors: Roughton Thomas , Sloan Peter-Pike , Silvennoinen Ari , Iwanicki Michal , Shirley Peter
Published: May 2024

Spherical Harmonics (SH) have been used widely to represent lighting in games and film. While the quadratic (SH3) and higher order spherical harmonics represent irradiance well, they are expensive to store and evaluate, requiring 27 coefficients per sample. Linear SH (SH2), requiring only 12 coefficients, are sometimes used, but they do not represent irradiance signals accurately and can have challenges with negative reconstruction. We introduce a new representation (ZH3) that augments linear SH with just the zonal coefficient of quadratic SH, yielding significant visual improvement with just 15 coefficients, and discuss how solving for a luminance zonal axis can significantly improve reconstruction accuracy and reduce color artifacts. We also discuss how, rather than storing the ZH3 coefficients explicitly, we can hallucinate them from the linear SH, improving reconstruction accuracy over linear SH at minimal extra cost.
Recent Advances for Aerial Object Detection: A Survey
Authors: Leng Jiaxu , Ye Yongming , Mo Mengjingcheng , Gao Chenqiang , Gan Ji , Xiao Bin , Gao Xinbo
Published: May 2024

Aerial object detection, as object detection in aerial images captured from an overhead perspective, has been widely applied in urban management, industrial inspection, and other aspects. However, the performance of existing aerial object detection algorithms is hindered by variations in object scales and orientations attributed to the aerial perspective. This survey presents a comprehensive review of recent advances in aerial object detection. We start with some basic concepts of aerial object detection and then summarize the five imbalance problems of aerial object detection, including scale imbalance, spatial imbalance, objective imbalance, semantic imbalance, and class imbalance. Moreover, we classify and analyze relevant methods and especially introduce the applications of aerial object detection in practical scenarios. Finally, the performance evaluation is presented on two popular aerial object detection datasets VisDrone-DET and DOTA, and we discuss several future directions that could facilitate the development of aerial object detection.
On the Model Update Strategies for Supervised Learning in AIOps Solutions
Authors: Lyu Yingzhe , Li Heng , Jiang Zhen Ming (Jack) , Hassan Ahmed E.
Published: May 2024

AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations) solutions leverage the massive data produced during the operation of large-scale systems and machine learning models to assist software engineers in their system operations. As operation data produced in the field are constantly evolving due to factors such as the changing operational environment and user base, the models in AIOps solutions need to be constantly maintained after deployment. While prior works focus on innovative modeling techniques to improve the performance of AIOps models before releasing them into the field, when and how to update AIOps models remain an under-investigated topic. In this work, we performed a case study on three large-scale public operation data: two trace datasets from the cloud computing platforms of Google and Alibaba and one disk stats dataset from the BackBlaze cloud storage data center. We empirically assessed five different types of model update strategies for supervised learning regarding their performance, updating cost, and stability. We observed that active model update strategies (e.g., periodical retraining, concept drift guided retraining, time-based model ensembles, and online learning) achieve better and more stable performance than a stationary model. Particularly, applying sophisticated model update strategies (e.g., concept drift detection, time-based ensembles, and online learning) could provide better performance, efficiency, and stability than simply retraining AIOps models periodically. In addition, we observed that, although some update strategies (e.g., time-based ensemble and online learning) can save model training time, they significantly sacrifice model testing time, which could hinder their applications in AIOps solutions where the operation data arrive at high pace and volume and where immediate inferences are required. Our findings highlight that practitioners should consider the evolution of operation data and actively maintain AIOps models over time. Our observations can also guide researchers and practitioners in investigating more efficient and effective model update strategies that fit in the context of AIOps.
Testing Updated Apps by Adapting Learned Models
Authors: Ngo Chanh Duc , Pastore Fabrizio , Briand Lionel
Published: May 2024

Although App updates are frequent and software engineers would like to verify updated features only, automated testing techniques verify entire Apps and are thus wasting resources.

We present
Continuous Adaptation of Learned Models (CALM)
, an automated App testing approach that efficiently test App updates by adapting App models learned when automatically testing previous App versions. CALM focuses on functional testing. Since functional correctness can be mainly verified through the visual inspection of App screens, CALM minimizes the number of App screens to be visualized by software testers while maximizing the percentage of updated methods and instructions exercised.

Our empirical evaluation shows that CALM exercises a significantly higher proportion of updated methods and instructions than six state-of-the-art approaches, for the same maximum number of App screens to be visually inspected. Further, in common update scenarios, where only a small fraction of methods are updated, CALM is even quicker to outperform all competing approaches in a more significant way.
Focused Test Generation for Autonomous Driving Systems
Authors: Zohdinasab Tahereh , Riccio Vincenzo , Tonella Paolo
Published: May 2024

Testing Autonomous Driving Systems (ADSs) is crucial to ensure their reliability when navigating complex environments. ADSs may exhibit unexpected behaviours when presented, during operation, with driving scenarios containing features inadequately represented in the training dataset. To address this shift from development to operation, developers must acquire new data with the newly observed features. This data can be then utilised to fine tune the ADS, so as to reach the desired level of reliability in performing driving tasks. However, the resource-intensive nature of testing ADSs requires efficient methodologies for generating targeted and diverse tests.

In this work, we introduce a novel approach,
DeepAtash-LR
, that incorporates a surrogate model into the focused test generation process. This integration significantly improves focused testing effectiveness and applicability in resource-intensive scenarios. Experimental results show that the integration of the surrogate model is fundamental to the success of
DeepAtash-LR
. Our approach was able to generate an average of up to 60× more targeted, failure-inducing inputs compared to the baseline approach. Moreover, the inputs generated by
DeepAtash-LR
were useful to significantly improve the quality of the original ADS through fine tuning.
Designing a Digital Environment to Support the Co-production of Public Services: Balancing Multiple Requirements and Governance Concepts
Authors: Not Elena , Leonardi Chiara , López-De-Ipiña Diego , Silva Palacios Daniel , Sánchez-Corcuera Ruben , Kazhamiakin Raman , Gerosa Matteo
Published: May 2024

This paper investigates the challenges of designing a computer supported collaborative environment aimed at facilitating co-production processes, i.e., those collaborative processes between Public Administrations, private stakeholders and citizens that aim at the design of public services, their implementation, and their shared delivery to the community. We argue that, for such a digital platform, different types of socio-technical requirements should be considered, i.e., those related to governance models and associated collaboration dynamics; requirements that may emerge from the specific type of public service to design; as well as user and technical requirements common to all e-government platforms. This research informed the development and testing of a digital collaboration platform that offers guidance on how to organize a co-production initiative and a network of stakeholders, functionalities to support collaborative work, and enablers (in the form of reusable knowledge and digital resources) to perform the sequence of steps to produce a public service. The lessons learned from the iterative platform development process and a preliminary evaluation study conducted with three Public Administrations in different European countries pointed at specific functionalities that are perceived as most crucial and at different appropriation practices that depend on the organizational structure of the involved Public Administrations and related multi-stakeholder networks. The innovation that is brought about with respect to general-purpose platforms for computer supported cooperative work is represented by the operationalization of co-production processes, with step-by-step guidance and potential reuse (with adaptation) of ready to use resources and processes. Based on the results of our research, general guidelines are also proposed for the design of future digital platforms supporting co-production.
Meta-Learning for Multi-Family Android Malware Classification
Authors: Li Yao , Yuan Dawei , Zhang Tao , Cai Haipeng , Lo David , Gao Cuiyun , Luo Xiapu , Jiang He
Published: May 2024

With the emergence of smartphones, Android has become a widely used mobile operating system. However, it is vulnerable when encountering various types of attacks. Every day, new malware threatens the security of users’ devices and private data. Many methods have been proposed to classify malicious applications, utilizing static or dynamic analysis for classification. However, previous methods still suffer from unsatisfactory performance due to two challenges. First, they are unable to address the imbalanced data distribution problem, leading to poor performance for malware families with few members. Second, they are unable to address the zero-day malware (zero-day malware refers to malicious applications that exploit unknown vulnerabilities) classification problem. In this article, we introduce an innovative
meta
-learning approach for
m
ulti-family
A
ndroid
m
alware
c
lassification named
Meta-MAMC
, which uses meta-learning technology to learn meta-knowledge (i.e., the similarities and differences among different malware families) of few-family samples and combines new sampling algorithms to solve the above challenges.
Meta-MAMC
integrates (i) the meta-knowledge contained within the dataset to guide models in learning to identify unknown malware; and (ii) more accurate and diverse tasks based on novel sampling strategies, as well as directly adapting meta-learning to a new few-sample and zero-sample task to classify families. We have evaluated
Meta-MAMC
on two popular datasets and a corpus of real-world Android applications. The results demonstrate its efficacy in accurately classifying malicious applications belonging to certain malware families, even achieving 100% classification in some families.
What Makes a Good TODO Comment?
Authors: Wang Haoye , Gao Zhipeng , Bi Tingting , Grundy John , Wang Xinyu , Wu Minghui , Yang Xiaohu
Published: May 2024

Software development is a collaborative process that involves various interactions among individuals and teams. TODO comments in source code play a critical role in managing and coordinating diverse tasks during this process. However, this study finds that a large proportion of open-source project TODO comments are left unresolved or take a long time to be resolved. About 46.7% of TODO comments in open-source repositories are of low-quality (e.g., TODOs that are ambiguous, lack information, or are useless to developers). This highlights the need for better TODO practices. In this study, we investigate four aspects regarding the quality of TODO comments in open-source projects: (1) the prevalence of low-quality TODO comments; (2) the key characteristics of high-quality TODO comments; (3) how are TODO comments of different quality managed in practice; and (4) the feasibility of automatically assessing TODO comment quality. Examining 2,863 TODO comments from Top100 GitHub Java repositories, we propose criteria to identify high-quality TODO comments and provide insights into their optimal composition. We discuss the lifecycle of TODO comments with varying quality. To assist developers, we construct deep learning-based methods that show promising performance in identifying the quality of TODO comments, potentially enhancing development efficiency and code quality.
LLMEffiChecker
: Understanding and Testing Efficiency Degradation of Large Language Models
Authors: Feng Xiaoning , Han Xiaohong , Chen Simin , Yang Wei
Published: May 2024

Large Language Models (LLMs) have received much recent attention due to their human-level accuracy. While existing works mostly focus on either improving accuracy or testing accuracy robustness, the computation efficiency of LLMs, which is of paramount importance due to often vast generation demands and real-time requirements, has surprisingly received little attention. In this article, we make the first attempt to understand and test potential computation efficiency robustness in state-of-the-art LLMs. By analyzing the working mechanism and implementation of 20,543 public-accessible LLMs, we observe a fundamental property in LLMs that could be manipulated in an adversarial manner to reduce computation efficiency significantly. Our interesting observation is that the output length determines the computation efficiency of LLMs instead of the input, where the output length depends on two factors: an often sufficiently large yet pessimistic pre-configured threshold controlling the max number of iterations and a runtime-generated end of sentence (EOS) token. Our key motivation is to generate test inputs that could sufficiently delay the generation of EOS such that LLMs would have to go through enough iterations to satisfy the pre-configured threshold. We present
LLMEffiChecker
, which can work under both white-box setting and black-box setting. In the white-box scenario,
LLMEffiChecker
develops a gradient-guided technique that searches for a minimal and unnoticeable perturbation at character-level, token-level, and structure-level. In the black-box scenario,
LLMEffiChecker
employs a causal inference-based approach to find critical tokens and similarly applies three levels of imperceptible perturbation to them. Both the white-box and black-box settings effectively delay the appearance of EOS, compelling these inputs to reach the naturally unreachable threshold. To demonstrate the effectiveness of
LLMEffiChecker
, we conduct a systematic evaluation on nine publicly available LLMs: Google T5, AllenAI WMT14, Helsinki-NLP translator, Facebook FairSeq, UNICAMP-DL translator, MarianMT, Google FLAN-T5, MBZUAI LaMini-GPT, and Salesforce CodeGen. Experimental results show that
LLMEffiChecker
can increase on average LLMs’ response latency and energy consumption by 325% to 3,244% and 344% to 3,616%, respectively, by perturbing just one character or token in the input sentence. Our case study shows that inputs generated by
LLMEffiChecker
significantly affect the battery power in real-world mobile devices (i.e., drain more than 30 times battery power than normal inputs).