bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Event Model Learning from Complex Videos using ILP
Authors: Dubba Krishna S.R.  , Cohn Anthony G.  , Hogg David C.
Published: February 2025

Learning event models from videos has applications ranging from abnormal event detection to content based video retrieval. Relational learning techniques such as Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) hold promise for building such models, but have not been successfully applied to the very large datasets which result from video data. In this paper we present a novel supervised learning framework to learn event models from large video datasets (~2.5 million frames) using ILP. Efficiency is achieved via the learning from interpretations setting and using a typing system. This allows learning to take place in a reasonable time frame with reduced false positives. The experimental results on video data from an airport apron where events such as Loading, Unloading, Jet-Bridge Parking etc are learned suggests that the techniques are suitable to real world scenarios.
Probabilistic Semantics for the Carneades Argument Model Using Bayesian Networks
Authors: Grabmair Matthias  , Gordon Thomas F.  , Walton Douglas
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a technique with which instances of argument structures in the Carneades model can be given a probabilistic semantics by translating them into Bayesian networks. The propagation of argument applicability and statement acceptability can be expressed through conditional probability tables. This translation suggests a way to extend Carneades to improve its utility for decision support in the presence of uncertainty.
Formal Specification of Substitutability Property for Fault-Tolerance in Reactive Autonomic Systems
Authors: Kuang Heng  , Bentahar Jamal  , Ormandjieva Olga  , Shafieidizaji Nassir  , Klasa Stan
Published: February 2025

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have been widely proposed and applied to various application domains, such as space exploration missions. MAS can offer greater redundancy, efficiency, and scalability; however, they also raise new challenges, for instance, complex and often unexpected emergent group behavior, which require a formal specification as well as verification. Therefore, we have proposed a formal approach, named Reactive Autonomic Systems Framework (RASF), based on category theory to tackle those challenges. In this paper, we focus on the formal specification of substitutability property for the fault-tolerance and illustrate our approach through a Mars-world case study implemented as MAS using JADEX.
iTutorials for the Support of Elderly Population with Cognitive Impairment
Authors: Rubio Carolina  , Annicchiarico Roberta  , Barrué Cristian  , Cortés Ulises  , Caltagirone Carlos
Published: February 2025

This paper surveys the exploration of the shared autonomy concept on the context of assistive technologies, in particular using an Intelligent Tutoring Ser vice to support the performance of activities of daily living while reinforcing a person's intrinsic abilities and relieving caregivers from full time assistance. The key feature of this tutoring system is its capability to adapt the service to the user's medical profile and his/her environmental context. We present the obtained outcomes while designing and testing the service on diverse scenarios with real elder volunteers having different disability profiles.
Classifying Objects at Different Sizes with Multi-Scale Stacked Sequential Learning
Authors: Puertas Eloi  , Escalera Sergio  , Pujol Oriol
Published: February 2025

Sequential learning is that discipline of machine learning that deals with dependent data. In this paper, we use the Multi-scale Stacked Sequential Learning approach (MSSL) to solve the task of pixel-wise classification based on contextual information. The main contribution of this work is a shifting technique applied during the testing phase that makes possible, thanks to template images, to classify objects at different sizes. The results show that the proposed method robustly classifies such objects capturing their spatial relationships.
Specification of Games
Authors: Henno Jaak
Published: February 2025

Game programming is part of many IT study programs. In these courses and in game-programming texts games are not considered on abstract, implementation-independent level, but discussion is based on some specific implementation environment: a programming language (C, C++), a software package, preprogrammed libraries etc. Thus instead of discussing games on general, implementation-independent level only specific features of these programming environments are considered.
Dynamics and storage capacity of neural networks with small-world topology
Authors: Scarpetta Silvia  , De Candia Antonio  , Giacco Ferdinando
Published: February 2025

We study the storage of phase-coded patterns as stable dynamical attractors in recurrent spin neural networks with small-world topology. The synaptic strength of existent connections is determined by a learning rule based on spike-time-dependent plasticity (STDP), with an asymmetric time window depending on the relative timing between pre- and post-synaptic activity. We store multiple patterns and study the network capacity in sparse networks with different topologies. We study networks where each neuron is connected only to a small number z « N of other neurons. Connections can be short range, between neighboring neurons placed on a regular lattice, or long range, between randomly chosen pairs of neurons. We find that a small fraction of long range connections is able to amplify the capacity of the network. This imply that a small-world-network topology maybe optimal, as a compromise between the cost of long range connections and the capacity increase.
Iterative Algorithms for detecting mortality trends in the family of Lee Carter Models
Authors: D'Amato Valeria  , Piscopo Gabriella  , Russolillo Maria
Published: February 2025

In the current literature, there are several papers which have considered the modelling and forecasting of population mortality using the Lee-Carter framework. According to Booth (2006), the Lee-Carter-based approach is widely considered because it produces fairly realistic life expectancy forecasts, which are used as reference values for other modelling methods. In recent years, there have been several extensions of the standard LC method, retaining some of its basic properties, but adding additional statistical features too. In 2006, Renshaw and Haberman developed a special adaptation of the LC method. They transformed the basic LC model into a more general framework in order to analyse the relationship between age and time and their joint impact on the mortality rates. This transformation gave birth to the so-called age-period-cohort (APC) log-bilinear generalized linear models (GLM) with Poisson error structures. In this paper, we take into consideration a family of generalised log-linear models of the LC type structure with Poisson errors that includes the basic LC model too. In this framework, we implement a specialised iterative regression methodology based on Poisson likelihood maximization process. In particular, we make use of the approach proposed and illustrated in Renshaw and Haberman (2006), which generalises the basic LC modelling framework to develop a tailored iterative process for updating the parameter estimates. In order to assess the goodness of fit of the regression, we provide a range of residual analyses with corresponding target fitted values. Diagnostic plots are provided to show the results.
National Strategies for Health Data Interoperability
Authors: Kuo Mu-Hsing  , Kushniruk Andre W.  , Borycki Elizabeth M.  , Hsu Chien-Yeh  , Lai Chung-Liang
Published: February 2025

This paper compares the interoperability approaches of three countries: Taiwan, Denmark and Canada. The work maps out how various countries have addressed the interoperability problems as well as what factors affect decisions and the result, and in what manner. The key findings are as follows: (1) The federal government's ability to mandate standards affects choice of interoperability strategy; (2) E-Health status influences choice of interoperability strategy; (3) Differences in geography, population, and demographics affect the selection of national strategies towards interoperability.
A Fine-Grained Authentication Method for Inter-Domain EPCglobal Network
Authors: Liu Bing  , Chu Chao-Hsien
Published: February 2025

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been studied for several years. Supply chain management is one of the most significant fields that employ this novel technology. RFID-based EPCglobal network is a distributed inter-domain system, which enables every partner within the supply chain to share information with each other. However, no detailed security specification has been developed in EPCglobal standard, therefore a security mechanism is needed to solve the inter-domain information sharing issues between entities that have business relationship. In this paper, we examine the security threats, requirements and solutions for EPCglobal network from the information security perspective, with a focus on the authentication mechanism. We propose a security platform and a X.509 public key infrastructure (PKI) based EPCglobal certificate hierarchical model. The model enables a fine-grained authentication framework to secure the inter-domain EPCglobal supply network.
Attacks and Improvements to a New RFID Authentication Protocol
Authors: Habibi Mohammad Hassan  , Gardeshi Mahmud  , Alagheband Mahdi R.
Published: February 2025

The application of RFID technology has gently incorporated into our daily life, e.g. supply chain management, credit cards, barcodes and ticketing. Hence privacy and security in RFID have a particular emphasis inasmuch as RFID tags suffer from some inherent weaknesses. Authentication as a crucial element for all security mechanisms has been an interesting subject in recent years. In this work, we analyze a recently proposed RFID authentication protocol by Kulseng et al. [1] and highlight its security and privacy vulnerabilities. We show that Kulseng protocol (KWYG protocol) being vulnerable to several significant attacks like desynchronization, tag and reader impersonation and traceability attacks. Finally, we propose our protocol to eliminate the vulnerabilities with reasonable storage and computational requirements.
Three Faces of E-Government: Innovation, Interaction, and Governance
Authors: Bekkers Victor
Published: February 2025

Why does e-government look as it looks? Many e-government studies lack explanatory power, because they are under-theorized. In this chapter a theoretical framework is provided which focus on the interactions between actors that shape the content of e-government. This framework is based on open systems innovation theory, the co-evolutionary social and political shaping of technology and the governance capacities that ICT provides in terms of the intelligent state and the intelligent society.
Towards Soft Authoritarianism: Governance Innovations in China
Authors: Chou Bill K.P.
Published: February 2025

This chapter argues that the innovations in the governance of China are divergent from the conventional understanding of authoritarian regime about the centrality of political elites in policy initiation. Local governments in China often played a leading role whilst central government took a back seat as long as its political supremacy was not challenged. Contradicting the conventional wisdoms about the organizational inertia and change resistance of bureaucracies, local bureaucrats in China may be innovative in structural reform that entailed changing their work habit, restricting their authority, and undermining their sources of revenue as long as the reform was compatible with local agendas and incentives. The ambiguities of central policies provided room for local authorities to experiment their innovations. This paper concludes that the changing political, economic and social dimensions of China offer incentives to both central leaders and local officials for further innovations in the practices of governance.
PSIP: An Overview of the Results and Clinical Implications
Authors: Beuscart Régis
Published: February 2025

Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) are injuries due to medication management rather than the underlying condition of the patient. They endanger the patients and most of them could be avoided and prevented. The detection of ADEs usually relies on spontaneous reporting or medical chart reviews. The first objective of the PSIP Project is to automatically detect cases of ADEs by means of Data Mining, and to provide these cases to healthcare professionals. The second objective is to prevent ADEs by means of contextualised Clinical Decision Support Systems (Cx-CDSS) connected with Computerised Physician Order Entry (CPOE) or Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems. The detection of ADEs has been made possible through a set of rules able to identify relevant cases is a set of 92,000 medical cases. The results of this detection are provided through “ADE Scorecards”. Contextualized Decision Support Systems have been developed by using the same set of rules and implemented in different software environments. The initial objectives of the PSIP project have been reached. The evaluation of the clinical impact has to be completed.
On magnetic field of ring current
Authors: Mestechkin M.M.
Published: February 2025

The explicit expression for magnetic induction vector of a ring current at arbitrary point in toroidal coordinates is presented in terms of the full elliptic integral of the first kind and its derivative over integral modulus. There is a conjugated point for any observation point: it is an image of the latter in a sphere with the ring current as its equator. The conjugated point lies on the same vector and has the same integral modulus as the initial point.
An Analysis of Programmer Productivity versus Performance for High Level Data Parallel Programming
Authors: Cole Alex  , McEwan Alistair  , Singh Satnam
Published: February 2025

Data parallel programming provides an accessible model for exploiting the power of parallel computing elements without resorting to the explicit use of low level programming techniques based on locks, threads and monitors. The emergence of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) with hundreds or thousands of processing cores has made data parallel computing available to a wider class of programmers. GPUs can be used not only for accelerating the processing of computer graphics but also for general purpose data-parallel programming. Low level data-parallel programming languages based on the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) provide an approach for developing programs for GPUs but these languages require explicit creation and coordination of threads and careful data layout and movement. This has created a demand for higher level programming languages and libraries which raise the abstraction level of data-parallel programming and increase programmer productivity. The Accelerator system was developed by Microsoft for writing data parallel code in a high level manner which can execute on GPUs, multicore processors using SSE3 vector instructions and FPGA chips. This paper compares the performance and development effort of the high level Accelerator system against lower level systems which are more difficult to use but may yield better results. Specifically, we compare against the NVIDIA CUDA compiler and sequential C++ code considering both the level of abstraction in the implementation code and the execution models. We compare the performance of these systems using several case studies. For some classes of problems, Accelerator has a performance comparable to CUDA, but for others its performance is significantly reduced; however in all cases it provides a model which is easier to use and enables greater programmer productivity.
Concurrent Event-driven Programming in occam-π for the Arduino
Authors: Jacobsen Christian L.  , Jadud Matthew C.  , Kilic Omer  , Sampson Adam T.
Published: February 2025

The success of the Arduino platform has made embedded programming widely accessible. The Arduino has seen many uses, for example in rapid prototyping, hobby projects, and in art installations. Arduino users are often not experienced embedded programmers however, and writing correct software for embedded devices can be challenging. This is especially true if the software needs to use interrupts in order to interface with attached devices. Insight and careful discipline are required to avoid introducing race hazards when using interrupt routines. Instead of programming the Arduino in C or C++ as is the custom, we propose using occam-π as a language as that can help the user manage the concurrency introduced when using interrupts and help in the creation of modular, well-designed programs. This paper will introduce the Arduino, the software that enables us to run occam-π on it, and a case study of an environmental sensor used in an Environmental Science course.
Observed axial loads in soil nails
Authors: Jacobsz S.W.  , Phalanndwa T.S.
Published: February 2025

Three instrumented soil nails were installed along a 10m high soil nail and sprayed concrete supported vertical face in a residual andesite profile. The axial load was monitored at several positions along the nails' lengths as the height of the retained face increased. The mobilised loads were compared with average tensile loads calculated using a simple wedge analysis commonly used in soil nail design. As the excavation deepened, the mobilised loads were initially less than the calculated load, but soon corresponded well with the predicted values. After the soil nail wall had reached about 60% of its final height, the loads in the top row of soil nails stabilised and did not increase further. The ingress of water after rainfall significantly affected the observed loads, illustrating the need of effective drainage. Temperature effects from daily temperature fluctuations were found to be negligible. This paper does not focus on the friction on the nail shaft but only on the axial loads.
The Strength of Compacted Sand in a Modified Shear Box Apparatus
Authors: Okonta F.  , Schreiner D.
Published: February 2025

Samples of compacted Berea sands were tested in a modified shear box apparatus that was modeled after the Cambridge type simple shear device to impose two dimensional simple shear strain on soil sample. Identical samples were also tested in the conventional direct shear box apparatus. The result indicates no significant difference in drained strength mobilized by the test samples in the two devices for the range of applied normal stress. Samples tested in the modified device indicated larger vertical strain at large normal stress range.This may be due to the different mode of deformation imposed on the sample in the two devices, for unlike in the mod device, the conventional shear box subject a limited band of the test sample to shear deformation.
Using a Modified Plate Load Test to Eliminate the Effect of Bedding Errors
Authors: Barnard Hennie  , Heymann Gerhard
Published: February 2025

Plate load tests have been used extensively in the past to determine the bearing capacity and the stiffness of soil. Two of the main advantages of plate load tests are the cost-effectiveness of the test and the relative straight forward test procedure. The plate test can either be performed vertically or horizontally. The test consists of a plate that typically varies in diameter between 150 mm and 600 mm, which are loaded using a hydraulic pump and jack. The displacement of the plate is typically measured with two or more calibrated displacement measuring devices attached to the plate. This paper reports the results of a vertical plate load test designed to eliminate the effect of bedding errors that occurs during plate tests by using telescopic probes to measure the displacement below the centre of the plate. A series of plate tests were performed to determine the effectiveness of installing telescopic probes to eliminate the bedding errors. The measured vertical displacement of the plate was compared with the relative displacement of the telescopic probes and the stiffnesses were compared. The test apparatus, methods and results are discussed in this paper.
Piezocone Investigation of Paleo River Channels at Changane River, Mozambique, for a Railway Embankment
Authors: Meintjes H.A.C.  , Jones G.A.
Published: February 2025

Development of a heavy minerals mine at Chibuto, Mozambique, required the construction of a railway embankment across the Changane River, a tributary of the Limpopo. The embankment will be about 5.5 kms long and between 4m and 6m high. The investigation, at the bankable feasibility stage, comprised boreholes at three bridge crossings and piezocone testing across the flood plain. These revealed four distinct paleo channels with depth of up to 30m infilled with recent alluvial deposits. Analysis of the piezocone data, from which compressibility and consolidation parameters were derived, showed that an average embankment settlement of about 1.5m will take place with a maximum of 3m. Time for consolidation will vary from a couple of years up to many decades. The proposed solution is a combination of preloading, surcharging and in the worst cases and at bridges, the addition of vertical sand drains. These together will reduce the post-construction settlements to less than 250mm over a decade; differential settlements over short distances will be negligible hence the situation will be manageable despite the extremely poor subsoil conditions.
A simplified pseudo-dynamic method of reinforced retaining-wall subjected to seismic loads
Authors: Moghaddas Tafreshi S.N.  , Rahimi M.
Published: February 2025

Reinforced soil wall designed and constructed based on numerous methods for the stability of retaining walls, slops, and embankments have been performed. This paper describes a new simplified pseudo-dynamic method for evaluating the behaviour of reinforced retaining wall under horizontal and vertical seismic accelerations. Stability analyses are conducted to be obtained the required strength of reinforcements, the critical inclination of the failure angle and safety factor of reinforced soil wall. Parametric studies quantify the effect of different factors such as angle of internal friction and magnitude of seismic accelerations on the resistance mobilized in reinforcements and the factor of safety due to axial pullout of reinforcement layers of a reinforced soil wall. Comparison of the present results with previously studies shows a very close agreement.
Design for upgrading of tailing dam Toranica – Kriva Palanka in complex geotechnical and hydrological conditions
Authors: Dimitrievski Lj.  , Ilievski D.  , Dimitrievski D.  , Bogoevski B.
Published: February 2025

This paper deals with stress-strain and stability analysis of tailing dam Toranica – Kriva Palanka for specific stages of construction. In the technological concept of the mine for lead and zinc Toranica - Kriva Palanka (north-east of Republic of Macedonia), a tailing dam for disposal of flotation barren soil which remains after the processing of the mine material had been constructed. This tailing dam exists in the past 20 years. On the upstream side there is an earthfill retention dam for diversion of river Kriva Reka into drainage tunnel. The tailing dam is on the down stream side made by fine sand and silt as products of flotation process. The works in the mine Toranica had been stopped for some years. Stress-strain and stability analysis has been made for the existing conditions of the tailing dam and for the design conditions with upgrading of the tailing dam. The crucial parameter was defining of the need of the drainage blanket to the toe of the down stream slope of tailing dam. The calculations have been carried out by finite element method using geotechnical software package PLAXIS and by limit equilibrium method using software package GGU Stability.
Impact of geosynthetics on reducing permanent deformations on soil embankments
Authors: Zania V.  , Tsompanakis Y.  , Psarropoulos P.N.  , Bouckovalas G.
Published: February 2025

In the current study the ability of geosynthetics to reduce the permanent deformations developed due to a fault rupture propagation in a soil embankment is investigated. Since one of the main applications of geosynthetics is reinforcement, their contributionin the prevention of excessive ground deformations is valuable. For this purpose, parametric finite element analyses have been performed and the effect of the height of the embankment, the number of the reinforcement layers, the fault displacement, and the mechanical properties of the geosynthetic has been examined. It is shown that the proposed configurations of reinforced soil are capable of reducing the permanent ground deformations. Results justify the use of geosynthetics as mitigation measures against the impact of an abrupt displacement at the foundation of soil embankments.
Engineering properties of marls from small to large strains
Authors: Tika Th.  , Kallioglou P.  , Elpekos St.
Published: February 2025

The paper presents results from laboratory investigations into the behaviour of marls from small to large strains. In particular, results are presented concerning the following engineering properties: (a) shear modulus and damping ratio, as determined by means of resonant column tests, (b) undrained shear strength, as determined by means of triaxial and uniaxial compression tests, and its correlation with the preconsolidation pressure of the soils, determined by means of oedometer tests, and (c) residual strength, as determined by means of ring shear tests and its correlation with the critical strength. The implications of the test results on the engineering behaviour of marls from small to large strains are discussed.
Determination of the physical parameters of soil from pressuremeter tests
Authors: Mecsi J.
Published: February 2025

The paper deals with the application of the cavity expansion theory for the determination of soil strengths and non linear deformation parameters using pressuremeter tests. The developed cavity expansion theory takes into consideration the facts that even the initial soil stress-strain state itself is anisotropic, and that due to expansion soil density increases. The deformation modulus is not in a linear correlation with the soil pressure. By having introduced the deformation modulus, we have introduced two soil constants; (EO) that is the basic deformation modulus, and (a): an exponent. The basic value of the deformation modulus depends first of all on the initial density of the soil, and the exponent value “a” is in very close correlation with the angle of friction of the soil. The soil strength parameters, namely cohesion (c) and angle of friction (φ), as well as the deformation parameters represent the soil properties. We can determine the combination of the interrelated and suitable soil parameters from the pressuremeter test. The paper presents an example, and proves that the measured diagram very well approximates the theoretically calculated diagrams with different cohesion - basic deformation modulus combinations.
Model piles behaviour in a compacted fine-grained unsaturated soil
Authors: Vanapalli S.K.  , Nil Taylan Z.
Published: February 2025

A series of single model pile tests were performed in a laboratory environment to study the influence of matric suction on the pile shaft resistance in a compacted fine-grained soil. The model piles were loaded in the soil compacted with constant water content condition to assure uniform suction value over the entire depth. The model piles were loaded to failure under both saturated and unsaturated conditions under different drainage conditions. The test results show that there is a significant contribution from suction towards the shaft resistance of model piles. The conventional α method by Skempton (1959) and β method by Burland (1973) that are used for interpreting the piles in saturated conditions were modified to interpret the total shaft resistance of piles under unsaturated conditions.
Back-analysis of a basement with a raft foundationin overconsolidated stiff clay
Authors: Pillai A.  , Fuentes R.  , Ferreira P.  , Swain A.
Published: February 2025

This paper presents details on the construction of a deep basement where a raft foundation was used. A detailed three dimensional back-analysis has been carried out using the BRICK updated soil parameters. The results show that the ‘ost probable'parameters match reality reasonably well, providing confidence in their description of the actual soil-structure interaction. The field measurements show that the control movements were excellent during construction and fall within the low bound values of historical data presented in the literature for similar conditions.
Foundations under seismic loads
Authors: Prakash S.  , Puri V.K.
Published: February 2025

Shallow foundations may experience a reduction in bearing capacity and increase in settlement and tilt due to seismic loading as has been observed during several earthquakes. Shallow foundations for seismic loads have generally been designed by the equivalent static approach. Foundations are considered eccentrically loaded and the ultimate bearing capacity is estimated accordingly. Building Codes generally allow an increase of 33% in bearing capacity when earthquake loads, in addition to static loads are used in the design of the foundation. Considerable research effort has been devoted to the determination of the dynamic bearing capacity in recent years. Significant developments in determination of dynamic bearing capacity are presented in the paper.
Optimum loading specifications for O-cell bi-directional static load testing
Authors: England M.G.  , Cheesman P.F.
Published: February 2025

The O-cell bi-directional load testing technique is, in effect, two static load tests performed simultaneously. One test is performed upwards against skin friction and the other concurrent in the downwards direction against combined lower section skin friction and end-bearing. Many hundred of tests of this type are now being carried out each year around the world, often on the most prestigious and signature structures. Similarities between traditional top down load testing and the bi-directional testing method are many, both being full scale static load testing techniques. However, due to the unique nature of the bi-directional testing method, the standard testing procedures and specifications generally prescribed for traditional top down static load testing can be improved to take into consideration the positioning of the loading jacks and the unique nature of the testing technique. The authors have been involved in the preparation of some of the specifications for traditional top-down static loading tests and also in the formulation of project specific testing programmes to maximise the geotechnical information which can be retrieved from O-cell bi-directional tests. Some of the well accepted specifications such as ICE SPERW 2007, ASTM D1143D 2007 and the European pile testing specification and guidelines may be applied directly to bi-directional loading tests. Their appropriateness is reviewed in relation to O-cell bi-directional static load testing to indicate how the maximum geotechnical information may be obtained by minor modification/improvement to the specifications and how they can be optimised with respect to hard soils and weak rocks. Loading increments, creep measurements and load cycling are discussed and recommendations for adaption of the conventional standards and specifications are made.
TreC – a REST-based Regional PHR
Authors: Eccher Claudio  , Piras Enrico Maria  , Stenico Marco
Published: February 2025

The Personal Health Record (PHR) is progressively becoming a fundamental tool to allow people to control their health. User needs, however, impose to design a PHR solution that must offer a great flexibility in terms of managing heterogeneous health data, composing data in higher level concepts and interfacing the PHR with different devices to collect and visualize data. We propose to adopt REST as core of a regional PHR architecture and present a PHR based on this architecture implemented and tested in our Province.
Cross-Frontier Information Provision in the ALIAS European Project
Authors: Laforest Frédérique  , Garin-Michaud Atisha  , Durand Thierry  , Eyraud Emmanuel  , Barthuet Edouard
Published: February 2025

The ALIAS project addresses medical services and information inadequacy to ensure healthcare provisions in Alpine space where telemedicine services are not widely exploited and linguistic barriers represent an obstacle. Alpine space touristic vocation makes its healthcare structures periodically inadequate to face a widened request of services supply. On the other hand, a major receptivity of those structures during the rest of the year is unnecessary due to the low density of local residents. ALIAS is aimed at linking together a number of hospitals enabling the creation of a network shaping the ALIAS Virtual Hospital Network for sharing medical information and adopting telemedicine services to improve the efficiency of hospitals in Alpine Space areas. This article focuses on the clinical information provision service provided in ALIAS and on the translation service that has been associated to it.
Automatic Definition of the Oncologic EHR Data Elements from NCIT in OWL
Authors: Cuggia Marc  , Bourdé Annabel  , Turlin Bruno  , Vincendeau Sebastien  , Bertaud Valerie  , Bohec Catherine  , Duvauferrier Régis
Published: February 2025

Semantic interoperability based on ontologies allows systems to combine their information and process them automatically. The ability to extract meaningful fragments from ontology is a key for the ontology re-use and the construction of a subset will help to structure clinical data entries. The aim of this work is to provide a method for extracting a set of concepts for a specific domain, in order to help to define data elements of an oncologic EHR. Method: a generic extraction algorithm was developed to extract, from the NCIT and for a specific disease (i.e. prostate neoplasm), all the concepts of interest into a sub-ontology. We compared all the concepts extracted to the concepts encoded manually contained into the multi-disciplinary meeting report form (MDMRF). Results: We extracted two sub-ontologies: sub-ontology 1 by using a single key concept and sub-ontology 2 by using 5 additional keywords. The coverage of sub-ontology 2 to the MDMRF concepts was 51%. The low rate of coverage is due to the lack of definition or mis-classification of the NCIT concepts. By providing a subset of concepts focused on a particular domain, this extraction method helps at optimizing the binding process of data elements and at maintaining and enriching a domain ontology.
Effects of rarely analyzed soil parameters for FEM analysis of embedded retaining structures
Authors: Józsa V.
Published: February 2025

Finite element modeling (FEM) is highly dependent on the reliability and the accuracy of the input data. The assigned Poisson's ratio is very dominant for the shear strength parameters in the case of the elastic and Mohr-Coulomb (MC) soil model. This value may vary between 0.25 and 0.45 (from gravel to clay). Using FEM analysis with MC soil model, the calculated deformations obtained from the model are not realistic, meanwhile it is perfectly suitable for stability calculations. More accurate displacement results can be obtained with the same software applying Hardening Soil (HS) model. In this case, additional factors are required for the model, such as unloading-reloading modulus of elasticity (Eur), and Over-Consolidated Ratio (OCR). The HS model is useable with dense and hard soils. The soil will behave 3–5 times “stiffer” in unloading-reloading, which defines the choice of the value of the Eur. The above-mentioned factors are important in determining the behavior of soils, especially at the reactions of retaining structures and deformations. The influence of factors is illustrated by a trusted, embedded retaining structure. This study draws attention to the importance of parameter analysis.
Probability of failure calculation of dikes based on Monte Carlo simulation
Authors: Danka J.
Published: February 2025

The floods of the first half of the year of 2010 in our country have revealed to us again the importance of probability of failure calculations of soil dikes. In this case we have to find an effective routine like the Monte Carlo analysis, which was developed for modeling multiple problems using random variables. In the situation of soil dikes the random variables are the soil parameters, geometrical parameters and loads. Each variable can be defined by its statistical parameters and distribution, so first we must determine the factors that we would like to build into our calculation, and next we have to define them with the aid of statistical analysis. The practice of probability of failure calculation in areas of geotechnology is not wide-spread so it is hard to find any commercial software, which could solve the global problem. The article shows an example of the probability of failure calculation for a homogenous dike section.
Reuleaux plasticity: improving Mohr-Coulomb and Drucker-Prager
Authors: Coombs W.M.  , Crouch R.S.
Published: February 2025

The yielding of soil exhibits both a Lode angle dependency and a dependency on the intermediate principal stress. Ignoring these leads to a loss of realism in geotechnical analysis, yet neither of the widely used Mohr-Coulomb (M-C) or Drucker-Prager (D-P) models include both. This paper presents a simple pressure-dependent plasticity model based on a modified Reuleaux (mR) triangle which overcomes these limitations and yet (like the M-C and D-P formulations) allows for an analytical backward-Euler stress integration solution scheme. This latter feature is not found in more sophisticated (and computationally expensive) models. The mR deviatoric function is shown to provide a significantly improved fit to experimental data when compared with the M-C and D-P functions. Finite deformation finite-element analysis of the expansion of a cylindrical cavity is presented, verifying the use of the mR constitutive model for practical analyses.
The Quest for Unmanned Aerial Transportation and Role of Governments
Authors: Özen Yaşar Gürbüz  , Akça Barbaros  , Gözütok Tanzer
Published: February 2025

At the beginning of 21st century there has been an exponential increase in the production of the UAV systems. Today more than 700 different types of UAVs are being used for reconnaissance, intelligence and recently for combat. Bulk of these efforts primarily focuses on national security and war-fighting purposes. Almost nothing has been done for transportation which can serve for purposes ranging from military to life-saving humanitarian purposes. It is predicted that a paradigm shift for unmanned transportation will take place and the whole transportation system including cargo handling will switch to unmanned systems in the near or far future. However, there are challenges on this quest and they cannot be overcome by technology alone. This study explores the prejudgment of unmanned aerial vehicle systems being unsafe and aims to address constraints and concerns on technology, flight safety, and legal responsibilities. The potential bumpy areas that need governments' action through the unmanned aerial transportation road will be presented by analyzing the general problems faced in manned and unmanned flight.
7. Zinc Modulation of Ion Channels
Authors: Beharier Ofer  , Kahn Joy  , Levy Shiri  , Moran Arie
Published: February 2025

Divalent ions like zinc, in its chelatable form, are found ubiquitously in all tissues in the mammalian body. Its amount varies and in some tissues, such as certain areas of the brain and the gastrointestinal tract, it may reach hundreds of micromolar in a specific compartment. Physiological as well as pathological conditions can lead to large changes in both the extra- and intracellular concentration of this ion. Zinc modulates, enhances or inhibits many channels in the course of physiological activity as in the hippocampus or during pathological incidents such as during ischemic episodes. In this chapter we have tried to outline the effect on some of the channels modulated by zinc. Channel modulation is achieved by the slow permeation of zinc through the channel or, like in most cases, due to binding of zinc to specific sites on the channel proteins. We concentrated on major mono and divalent ligand or voltage gated cationic channels since space was not allowed to discuss all the channels, including anionic and non ionic channels modulated by zinc.
22. Zinc and Stroke
Authors: Weiss John H.
Published: February 2025

Over the past three decades, we have learned much about the pathophysiology of brain ischemic injury. Much of this work focused on effects initiated by rapid release of the excitatory neurotransmitter, glutamate, and downstream Ca2+overload. Yet therapeutic interventions based upon these mechanisms have had limited success. More recently, a second divalent cation, Zn2+, has garnered considerable attention as a signal ion and mediator of damage in brain ischemia. Zn2+accumulates in damaged neurons after ischemia in many areas of the mammalian forebrain and contributes in diverse ways to the injury process. The past decade has seen rapid advances in our understanding of ways in which Zn2+may contribute to distinct stages of the ischemic neurodegneration cascade. It is hoped that this emerging understanding will suggest new and more effective treatments to decrease morbidity after cerebral ischemia.
4. Human Zinc Biochemistry
Authors: Maret Wolfgang
Published: February 2025

Zinc is nutritionally essential and indispensable to growth, development, and maintenance of human functions. There is hardly any cellular process that does not depend on zinc in some way. As a constituent of at least 2800 human proteins and with cellular concentrations of a few hundred micromolar, zinc has unparalleled significance in protein structure, enzymatic catalysis, and cellular regulation. The largest group of zinc metalloenzymes are proteinases. Zinc has a major role in the structural organization of protein domains that interact with DNA/RNA, other proteins, and lipids. Several dozen proteins control cellular and subcellular zinc homeostasis and re-distribution. The control is a prerequisite for regulatory functions of free zinc (II) ions. Fluctuations of cellular free zinc ion concentrations modulate the biological activity of a yet unknown number of additional proteins, suggesting roles of zinc in information transfer.
24. Zinc and the Liver
Authors: Grüngreiff Kurt  , Reinhold Dirk
Published: February 2025

Zinc is an essential trace element exerting important antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and apoptotic effects. It is critical to a large number of structural proteins, enzymatic processes, and transcription factors. Zinc affects growth and development, and participates in processes such as aging and cancer induction. Zinc deficiency can result in a spectrum of clinical manifestations. The liver is the main organ responsible for the zinc metabolism. On one hand, zinc deficiency affects several liver functions and on the other hand various liver diseases influence the zinc metabolism. Symptoms, such as poor appetite, loss of body hair, altered taste and smell, delayed wound healing, testicular atrophy, immune dysfunction and diminished drug elimination capacity are common in patients with chronic liver diseases, especially cirrhosis. In the present review, data on zinc homeostasis, its implication in the pathogenesis of various liver diseases, and its therapeutic effects are summarized.
A study of vertical bearing mechanism of pile foundation in volcanic ash soil
Authors: Tomisawa Koichi  , Egawa Takuya
Published: February 2025

Pile foundations for bridge piers and abutments constructed in volcanic ash ground are mainly designed based on specifications for sandy soil ground due to the similar density and internal fiction angle of volcanic ash as those of normal sandy soil. However, mechanical characteristics of volcanic ash, such as friability against confining pressure, differ strongly from those of normal sandy soil. To confirm the vertical bearing capacity and deformation characteristics of piles in volcanic ash ground, vertical loading tests using actual piles for bridge foundations and static cone penetration tests were conducted at 14 construction sites. As the results, it was found that the skin friction f of piles in pyroclastic fall deposits (fa) of volcanic ash soil developed in a manner similar to that of normal sandy soil, but that in pyroclastic flow deposits (fl) of volcanic ash soil tended to be less compared with that of normal sandy soil, and also a correlation was confirmed between the cone tip resistance qtand skin friction f of piles.
A Study on the Improvement of Strength and Durability of Alkali Silicasol-Cement Grout Material for Ground Reinforcement
Authors: Kim Young-hun  , Kim Hye-yang  , Chun Byung-sik
Published: February 2025

This study was made on the fact that the compressive strength characteristics and durability of the recently developed alkali silica-sol cement grout material was examined, whose grout material used for this study was designed to understand its strength property and ecology through the uniaxial compressive strength test(homo-gel, sand-gel), SEM, permeability test, chemical resistance test, leaching test, Flexural strength test, etc. in order to compare with the engineering characteristics regarding alkali silica-sol grout material and sodium silicate(No.3) grout material. The uniaxial compressive strength of silica-sol grout material was identified to be increased more than 3~5 times than sodium silicate(No.3) grout material at the early stage(within 72 hours), and as a result of SEM, the surface and internal tissues of alkali silica-sol grout material could be identified to be denser than those of sodium silicate(No.3). As a result of leaching test the adaptability was identified as grout material as it had proved to be an ecological material owing to the total amount of the element to be leached being extremely little.
Numerical study of crushable granular materials
Authors: Hu W.  , Yin Z.Y.  , Dano C.  , Hicher P.Y.
Published: February 2025

The paper aims to develop an elasto-plastic model considering particle crushing. For this purpose, the relationship between the grain size distributions, the position of the critical state line and the plastic work is investigated using experimental results on Cambria sand. The constitutive equations describe two yield mechanisms (isotropic and deviatoric) accounting for particle crushing, which in return affects the position of the critical state line in the e – log(p') diagram. The model is then used to simulate triaxial tests under different loading conditions (drained compression and extension) with high stress levels. All comparisons between experimental results and simulations demonstrate that the model can reproduce with good accuracy the mechanical behavior of granular materials with particle crushing.
Time Dependent Stress-Strain Behavior of Bentonite Slurries
Authors: Alejandro Rinaldi Victor  , José Claria Juan
Published: February 2025

Thixotropy phenomenon in soils is usually defined as the gain of shear strength with time developed by some fine grained soils after remolding. This work reports the fundamental results of a study related to the tixotropic phenomenon developed in sodium bentonite slurries saturated with sodium chloride solutions at different electrolyte concentrations. Changes in fabric and structure of the soil during the thixotropic process were monitored indirectly by measuring wave velocity, matric suction, sedimentation velocity, plasticity index and shear strength. The results allow evaluate fabric changes during the process which reveals the influence of unbalanced electrical forces at double layer levels. Increase in salt concentration makes double layer shrinks and particles tend to accommodate closer in a more parallel structure. The effect of salt concentration, and so that soil structure, becomes relevant in the shear strength value of the pastes but it has negligible effect on stiffness.