bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Formal foundations of serverless computing
Authors: Jangda Abhinav , Pinckney Donald , Brun Yuriy , Guha Arjun
Published: October 2019

Serverless computing (also known as functions as a service) is a new cloud computing abstraction that makes it easier to write robust, large-scale web services. In serverless computing, programmers write what are called serverless functions, which are programs that respond to external events. When demand for the serverless function spikes, the platform automatically allocates additional hardware and manages load-balancing; when demand falls, the platform silently deallocates idle resources; and when the platform detects a failure, it transparently retries affected requests. In 2014, Amazon Web Services introduced the first serverless platform, AWS Lambda, and similar abstractions are now available on all major cloud computing platforms.

Unfortunately, the serverless computing abstraction exposes several low-level operational details that make it hard for programmers to write and reason about their code. This paper sheds light on this problem by presenting λ
λ
, an operational semantics of the essence of serverless computing. Despite being a small (half a page) core calculus, λ
λ
models all the low-level details that serverless functions can observe. To show that λ
λ
is useful, we present three applications. First, to ease reasoning about code, we present a simplified naive semantics of serverless execution and precisely characterize when the naive semantics and λ
λ
coincide. Second, we augment λ
λ
with a key-value store to allow reasoning about stateful serverless functions. Third, since a handful of serverless platforms support serverless function composition, we show how to extend λ
λ
with a composition language and show that our implementation can outperform prior work.
Optimal stateless model checking for reads-from equivalence under sequential consistency
Authors: Abdulla Parosh Aziz , Atig Mohamed Faouzi , Jonsson Bengt , Lång Magnus , Ngo Tuan Phong , Sagonas Konstantinos
Published: October 2019

We present a new approach for stateless model checking (SMC) of multithreaded programs under Sequential Consistency (SC) semantics. To combat state-space explosion, SMC is often equipped with a partial-order reduction technique, which defines an equivalence on executions, and only needs to explore one execution in each equivalence class. Recently, it has been observed that the commonly used equivalence of Mazurkiewicz traces can be coarsened but still cover all program crashes and assertion violations. However, for this coarser equivalence, which preserves only the reads-from relation from writes to reads, there is no SMC algorithm which is (i)
optimal
in the sense that it explores precisely one execution in each reads-from equivalence class, and (ii)
efficient
in the sense that it spends polynomial effort per class. We present the first SMC algorithm for SC that is both optimal and efficient
in practice
, meaning that it spends polynomial time per equivalence class on all programs that we have tried. This is achieved by a
novel test
that checks whether a given reads-from relation can arise in some execution. We have implemented the algorithm by extending Nidhugg, an SMC tool for C/C++ programs, with a new mode called rfsc. Our experimental results show that Nidhugg/rfsc, although slower than the fastest SMC tools in programs where tools happen to examine the same number of executions, always scales similarly or better than them, and outperforms them by an exponential factor in programs where the reads-from equivalence is coarser than the standard one. We also present two non-trivial use cases where the new equivalence is particularly effective, as well as the significant performance advantage that Nidhugg/rfsc offers compared to state-of-the-art SMC and systematic concurrency testing tools.
Modular verification of web page layout
Authors: Panchekha Pavel , Ernst Michael D. , Tatlock Zachary , Kamil Shoaib
Published: October 2019

Automated verification can ensure that a web page satisfies accessibility, usability, and design properties regardless of the end user's device, preferences, and assistive technologies. However, state-of-the-art verification tools for layout properties do not scale to large pages because they rely on whole-page analyses and must reason about the entire page using the complex semantics of the browser layout algorithm.

This paper introduces and formalizes modular layout proofs. A modular layout proof splits a monolithic verification problem into smaller verification problems, one for each component of a web page. Each component specification can use rely/guarantee-style preconditions to make it verifiable independently of the rest of the page and enabling reuse across multiple pages. Modular layout proofs scale verification to pages an order of magnitude larger than those supported by previous approaches.

We prototyped these techniques in a new proof assistant, Troika. In Troika, a proof author partitions a page into components and writes specifications for them. Troika then verifies the specifications, and uses those specifications to verify whole-page properties. Troika also enables the proof author to verify different component specifications with different verification tools, leveraging the strengths of each. In a case study, we use Troika to verify a large web page and demonstrate a speed-up of 13--1469x over existing tools, taking verification time from hours to seconds. We develop a systematic approach to writing Troika proofs and demonstrate it on 8 proofs of properties from prior work to show that modular layout proofs are short, easy to write, and provide benefits over existing tools.
Aroma: code recommendation via structural code search
Authors: Luan Sifei , Yang Di , Barnaby Celeste , Sen Koushik , Chandra Satish
Published: October 2019

Programmers often write code that has similarity to existing code written somewhere. A tool that could help programmers to search such similar code would be immensely useful. Such a tool could help programmers to extend partially written code snippets to completely implement necessary functionality, help to discover extensions to the partial code which are commonly included by other programmers, help to cross-check against similar code written by other programmers, or help to add extra code which would fix common mistakes and errors. We propose Aroma, a tool and technique for code recommendation via structural code search. Aroma indexes a huge code corpus including thousands of open-source projects, takes a partial code snippet as input, searches the corpus for method bodies containing the partial code snippet, and clusters and intersects the results of the search to recommend a small set of succinct code snippets which both contain the query snippet and appear as part of several methods in the corpus. We evaluated Aroma on 2000 randomly selected queries created from the corpus, as well as 64 queries derived from code snippets obtained from Stack Overflow, a popular website for discussing code. We implemented Aroma for 4 different languages, and developed an IDE plugin for Aroma. Furthermore, we conducted a study where we asked 12 programmers to complete programming tasks using Aroma, and collected their feedback. Our results indicate that Aroma is capable of retrieving and recommending relevant code snippets efficiently.
Precise reasoning with structured time, structured heaps, and collective operations
Authors: Essertel Grégory M. , Wei Guannan , Rompf Tiark
Published: October 2019

Despite decades of progress, static analysis tools still have great difficulty dealing with programs that combine arithmetic, loops, dynamic memory allocation, and linked data structures. In this paper we draw attention to two fundamental reasons for this difficulty: First, typical underlying program abstractions are low-level and inherently scalar, characterizing compound entities like data structures or results computed through iteration only indirectly. Second, to ensure termination, analyses typically project away the dimension of time, and merge information per program point, which incurs a loss in precision.

As a remedy, we propose to make collective operations first-class in program analysis – inspired by Σ-notation in mathematics, and also by the success of high-level intermediate languages based on @map/reduce@ operations in program generators and aggressive optimizing compilers for domain-specific languages (DSLs). We further propose a novel structured heap abstraction that preserves a symbolic dimension of time, reflecting the program’s loop structure and thus unambiguously correlating multiple temporal points in the dynamic execution with a single point in the program text.

This paper presents a formal model, based on a high-level intermediate analysis language, a practical realization in a prototype tool that analyzes C code, and an experimental evaluation that demonstrates competitive results on a series of benchmarks. Remarkably, our implementation achieves these results in a fully semantics-preserving strongest-postcondition model, which is a worst-case for analysis/verification. The underlying ideas, however, are not tied to this model and would equally apply in other settings, e.g., demand-driven invariant inference in a weakest-precondition model. Given its semantics-preserving nature, our implementation is not limited to analysis for verification, but can also check program equivalence, and translate legacy C code to high-performance DSLs.
Casting about in the dark: an empirical study of cast operations in Java programs
Authors: Mastrangelo Luis , Hauswirth Matthias , Nystrom Nathaniel
Published: October 2019

The main goal of a static type system is to prevent certain kinds of errors from happening at run time. A type system is formulated as a set of constraints that gives any expression or term in a program a well-defined type. Yet mainstream programming languages are endowed with type systems that provide the means to circumvent their constraints through casting.

We want to understand how and when developers escape the static type system to use dynamic typing. We empirically study how casting is used by developers in more than seven thousand Java projects. We find that casts are widely used (8.7% of methods contain at least one cast) and that 50% of casts we inspected are not guarded locally to ensure against potential run-time errors.

To help us better categorize use cases and thus understand how casts are used in practice, we identify 25 cast-usage patterns---recurrent programming idioms using casts to solve a specific issue. This knowledge can be: (a) a recommendation for current and future language designers to make informed decisions (b) a reference for tool builders, e.g., by providing more precise or new refactoring analyses, (c) a guide for researchers to test new language features, or to carry out controlled programming experiments, and (d) a guide for developers for better practices.
Design, implementation, and application of GPU-based Java bytecode interpreters
Authors: Celik Ahmet , Nie Pengyu , Rossbach Christopher J. , Gligoric Milos
Published: October 2019

We present the design and implementation of GVM, the first system for executing Java bytecode entirely on GPUs. GVM is ideal for applications that execute a large number of short-living tasks, which share a significant fraction of their codebase and have similar execution time. GVM uses novel algorithms, scheduling, and data layout techniques to adapt to the massively parallel programming and execution model of GPUs. We apply GVM to generate and execute tests for Java projects. First, we implement a sequence-based test generation on top of GVM and design novel algorithms to avoid redundant test sequences. Second, we use GVM to execute randomly generated test cases. We evaluate GVM by comparing it with two existing Java bytecode interpreters (Oracle JVM and Java Pathfinder), as well as with the Oracle JVM with just-in-time (JIT) compiler, which has been engineered and optimized for over twenty years. Our evaluation shows that sequence-based test generation on GVM outperforms both Java Pathfinder and Oracle JVM interpreter. Additionally, our results show that GVM performs as well as running our parallel sequence-based test generation algorithm using JVM with JIT with many CPU threads. Furthermore, our evaluation on several classes from open-source projects shows that executing randomly generated tests on GVM outperforms sequential execution on JVM interpreter and JVM with JIT.
Reflection-aware static regression test selection
Authors: Shi August , Hadzi-Tanovic Milica , Zhang Lingming , Marinov Darko , Legunsen Owolabi
Published: October 2019

Regression test selection (RTS) aims to speed up regression testing by rerunning only tests that are affected by code changes. RTS can be performed using static or dynamic analysis techniques. Our prior study showed that static and dynamic RTS perform similarly for medium-sized Java projects. However, the results of that prior study also showed that static RTS can be unsafe, missing to select tests that dynamic RTS selects, and that reflection was the only cause of unsafety observed among the evaluated projects.

In this paper, we investigate five techniques—three purely static techniques and two hybrid static-dynamic techniques—that aim to make static RTS safe with respect to reflection. We implement these reflection-aware (RA) techniques by extending the reflection-unaware (RU) class-level static RTS technique in a tool called STARTS. To evaluate these RA techniques, we compare their end-to-end times with RU, and with RetestAll, which reruns all tests after every code change. We also compare safety and precision of the RA techniques with Ekstazi, a state-of-the-art dynamic RTS technique; precision is a measure of unaffected tests selected.

Our evaluation on 1173 versions of 24 open-source Java projects shows negative results. The RA techniques improve the safety of RU but at very high costs. The purely static techniques are safe in our experiments but decrease the precision of RU, with end-to-end time at best 85.8% of RetestAll time, versus 69.1% for RU. One hybrid static-dynamic technique improves the safety of RU but at high cost, with end-to-end time that is 91.2% of RetestAll. The other hybrid static-dynamic technique provides better precision, is safer than RU, and incurs lower end-to-end time—75.8% of RetestAll, but it can still be unsafe in the presence of test-order dependencies. Our study highlights the challenges involved in making static RTS safe with respect to reflection.
#ECS236, Tuesday, 15 October 2019, 08:30 - 09:10, Room 209, Molecular Dynamics Analysis on the Behavior of Water and Alcohol Liquids on a OH-Terminated SiO2 Surface
Authors: Yamaguchi Yasutaka
Published: October 2019

In this study, we carried molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of water and various alcohol liquids on a flat SiO2 surface terminated by hydroxyl groups in order to examine the microscopic structures of these liquids near the solid surface and diffusion property for the fundamental understanding of the wet process during the semiconductor fabrication. As an equilibrium state, water as well as methanol, ethanol and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) molecules formed a multiple layered structure on the solid surface; however, the microscopic structures were remarkably different between water and IPA liquids because the IPA molecules in the first adsorption layer strongly adsorbed on the solid surface through the hydrogen bond with the surface hydroxyl groups with directing hydrophobic CH3 groups toward the second layer. Non-equilibrium MD simulations of the dilution of water/IPA adsorption layer by IPA/water solvent revealed that the strongly adsorbed IPA layer can easily be replaced by water molecules.
Persistent insulin signaling coupled with restricted PI3K activation causes insulin-induced vasoconstriction
Authors: Olver T. Dylan , Grunewald Zachary I. , Ghiarone Thaysa , Restaino Robert M. , Sales Allan R. K. , Park Lauren K. , Thorne Pamela K. , Ganga Rama Rao , Emter Craig A. , Lemon Peter W. R. , Shoemaker J. Kevin , Manrique-Acevedo Camila , Martinez-Lemus Luis A. , Padilla Jaume
Published: October 2019

Insulin modulates vasomotor tone through vasodilator and vasoconstrictor signaling pathways. The purpose of the present work was to determine whether insulin-stimulated vasoconstriction is a pathophysiological phenomenon that can result from a combination of persistent insulin signaling, suppressed phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) activation, and an ensuing relative increase in MAPK/endothelin-1 (ET-1) activity. First, we examined previously published work from our group where we assessed changes in lower-limb blood flow in response to an oral glucose tolerance test (endogenous insulin stimulation) in lean and obese subjects. The new analyses showed that the peak rise in vascular resistance during the postprandial state was greater in obese compared with lean subjects. We next extended on these findings by demonstrating that insulin-induced vasoconstriction in isolated resistance arteries from obese subjects was attenuated with ET-1 receptor antagonism, thus implicating ET-1 signaling in this constriction response. Last, we examined in isolated resistance arteries from pigs the dual roles of persistent insulin signaling and blunted PI3K activation in modulating vasomotor responses to insulin. We found that prolonged insulin stimulation did not alter vasomotor responses to insulin when insulin-signaling pathways remained unrestricted. However, prolonged insulinization along with pharmacological suppression of PI3K activity resulted in insulin-induced vasoconstriction, rather than vasodilation. Notably, such aberrant vascular response was rescued with either MAPK inhibition or ET-1 receptor antagonism. In summary, we demonstrate that insulin-induced vasoconstriction is a pathophysiological phenomenon that can be recapitulated when sustained insulin signaling is coupled with depressed PI3K activation and the concomitant relative increase in MAPK/ET-1 activity.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study reveals that insulin-induced vasoconstriction is a pathophysiological phenomenon. We also provide evidence that in the setting of persistent insulin signaling, impaired phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase activation appears to be a requisite feature precipitating MAPK/endothelin 1-dependent insulin-induced vasoconstriction.
Intellectual and social similarity among scholarly journals: An exploratory comparison of the networks of editors, authors and co-citations
Authors: Baccini Alberto , Barabesi Lucio , Khelfaoui Mahdi , Gingras Yves
Published: October 2019

This paper explores, by using suitable quantitative techniques, to what extent the intellectual proximity among scholarly journals is also proximity in terms of social communities gathered around the journals. Three fields are considered: statistics, economics and information and library sciences. Co-citation networks represent intellectual proximity among journals. The academic communities around the journals are represented by considering the networks of journals generated by authors writing in more than one journal (interlocking authorship: IA), and the networks generated by scholars sitting on the editorial board of more than one journal (interlocking editorship: IE). Dissimilarity matrices are considered to compare the whole structure of the networks. The CC, IE, and IA networks appear to be correlated for the three fields. The strongest correlation is between CC and IA for the three fields. Lower and similar correlations are obtained for CC and IE, and for IE and IA. The CC, IE, and IA networks are then partitioned in communities. Information and library sciences is the field in which communities are more easily detectable, whereas the most difficult field is economics. The degrees of association among the detected communities show that they are not independent. For all the fields, the strongest association is between CC and IA networks; the minimum level of association is between IE and CC. Overall, these results indicate that intellectual proximity is also proximity among authors and among editors of the journals. Thus, the three maps of editorial power, intellectual proximity, and authors communities tell similar stories.
Co-citations in context: Disciplinary heterogeneity is relevant
Authors: Bradley James , Devarakonda Sitaram , Davey Avon , Korobskiy Dmitriy , Liu Siyu , Lakhdar-Hamina Djamil , Warnow Tandy , Chacko George
Published: October 2019

Citation analysis of the scientific literature has been used to study and define disciplinary boundaries, to trace the dissemination of knowledge, and to estimate impact. Co-citation, the frequency with which pairs of publications are cited, provides insight into how documents relate to each other and across fields. Co-citation analysis has been used to characterize combinations of prior work as conventional or innovative and to derive features of highly cited publications. Given the organization of science into disciplines, a key question is the sensitivity of such analyses to frame of reference. Our study examines this question using semantically themed citation networks. We observe that trends reported to be true across the scientific literature do not hold for focused citation networks, and we conclude that inferring novelty using co-citation analysis and random graph models benefits from disciplinary context.
“The Muslim Question” and Muslim Women Talking Back
Authors: van den Brandt Nella
Published: October 2019

In this article, I draw on critical investigations of gendered, racialised and sexualised discourses on Islam and Muslim minorities in Western Europe to explore two recent instances of Muslim female intellectuals and artists responding to what has been dubbed “the Muslim question”. I shall show that Muslim women’s counter-voices are multilayered, conveyed through various means, and context-dependent, as well as dependent on intersectional marginalised positionalities. My goal is to theoretically rethink the feminist methodology of ‘talking back’ on the basis of the complex ways in which Muslim women establish modes of critique.
“Ma immobile la freccia ardiva a un cielo senza tempo né varco”: Avversative e sacralità in Utilità della memoria di Maria Luisa Spaziani
Authors: Guslandi Silvia
Published: October 2019

L’articolo si propone di rintracciare il dualismo individuato da diversi critici nella poesia della maturità di Maria Luisa Spaziani e nella raccolta giovanile Utilità della memoria. La presenza di una tensione irrisolta nella sua poesia è ancorata, nel caso specifico, a due espedienti su cui si concentra la maggior parte del saggio: l’uso della congiunzione avversativa “ma” e del lessico sacro. Il primo introduce nel testo un’alternativa tra positività e scetticismo, tra aspirazione e disillusione, dove la scelta spetta al soggetto stesso. Considerando la raccolta nel suo complesso, questi appare dunque costantemente sulla soglia tra due atteggiamenti contrastanti, dei quali nessuno riesce a vincere definitivamente sull’altro. Simile effetto è prodotto dall’utilizzo del lessico sacro. Questo apre l’esperienza individuale a un piano metafisico, che non è però accettato pacificamente, bensì costantemente ricercato e interrogato.
Beyond the spectacle of ‘refugee crisis’: Multi-directional memories of migration in contemporary essay film
Authors: Bayraktar Nilgun
Published: October 2019

This article examines contemporary essay films that concern refugee im/mobilities across the Mediterranean Sea. In the last few decades, the Mediterranean has been transformed into a fatal space for those attempting to cross the sea without documents. The dominant Eurocentric perspective reductively views these refugee and migrant crossings as violations of European borders. Such limited frameworks feed into the category of ‘crisis’, which demands immediate intervention and top-down governmental solutions, such as the militarization of borders. In this article, I explore essay films that counter and disrupt the ‘crisis’ framework and the sense of urgency and tragedy it evokes: Havarie (2016), a slow-form documentary by Philip Scheffner, and  The Leopard (2007), a dance film by Isaac Julien. Drawing on recent theories of multi-directional memory, I investigate the ways in which these films establish mnemonic connections across diverse experiences of displacement, including those produced by European colonialism, transatlantic slavery and postcolonial conflict.
‘It’s like the space shuttle blows up every day’: Digital television heritage as memory of European crises in the age of information overload
Authors: Hagedoorn Berber
Published: October 2019

Television is a public mediator of what constitutes ‘crises’ in Europe. Audio-visual archives and researchers are facing new complexities and ‘information bubbles’ when telling stories and reusing televised materials. I reflect on these practices, among others, via a comparative case analysis of the EUscreen portal offering access to thousands of items of European audio-visual heritage. I question how practices of selection and curation can support comparative interpretations of such representations. This approach aims to understand and support (1) interpretations of digitized/digital audio-visual sources in the era of information overload; (2) user interaction with digital search technologies – especially researchers as platform users; and (3) contextualization for reuse of audio-visual texts. Support for cultural memory research is crucial as television’s audio-visual heritage can help us to recognize which cultural practices result in the production of specific texts in European societies, representing conditions of the multiple crises that European citizens are experiencing today.
Old Urbanites as New Urbanists? Mixing at an Ancient Maya City
Authors: Hutson Scott R. , Welch Jacob
Published: October 2019

New Urbanists advocate for, among other things, spaces in cities where people of various backgrounds can interact. Yet not all interactions lead to the strong social bonds that make diverse communities more durable. The archaeological record provides rich examples of diverse communities that flourished. This article examines an ancient Maya city—Chunchucmil—where preservation of stone walls and pathways provides an unusual opportunity to reconstruct urban design in great detail. Analysis of neighborhood circulation patterns shows that people of very different wealth levels shared space on a daily basis. We present evidence that Chunchucmil’s diverse neighborhoods were also cohesive, and we identify a number of circumstances—worshipping together, working together, and maintaining local control over neighborhood affairs—that help interactions between different kinds of people develop into strong bonds. These circumstances are germane to contemporary contexts.
Self-Concept Clarity and the Bodily Self: Malleability Across Modalities
Authors: Krol Sonia A. , Thériault Rémi , Olson Jay A. , Raz Amir , Bartz Jennifer A.
Published: October 2019

The self has fascinated scholars for centuries. Although theory suggests that the self-concept (cognitive self-understanding) and bodily self (pre-reflective awareness of one’s body) are related, little work has examined this notion. To this end, in Study 1, participants reported on self-concept clarity (SCC) and completed the rubber hand illusion (RHI), a paradigm in which synchronous (vs. asynchronous) stimulation between a prosthetic hand and one’s own hand leads one to “embody” the prosthetic hand. Whereas participants were equally susceptible to the RHI during synchronous stroking, low-SCC individuals were more vulnerable to the illusion during asynchronous stroking, when the effect is unwarranted. Conceptually replicating and extending this finding, in Study 2, low-SCC individuals were more susceptible to the body-swap illusion—the impression that another person’s body is one’s own. These findings suggest that a clear sense of self implies clarity and stability of both the self-concept and the bodily self.
‘Too Many Children?’ Family Planning and Humanae Vitae in Dublin, 1960–72
Authors: Foley Deirdre
Published: October 2019

In July 1968, the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae reaffirmed the ban on artificial contraception for Catholics. Utilising Dublin as a case study, this article explores how the Irish medical and social work community, their patients and the Catholic hierarchy responded to Humanae Vitae. Drawing on a range of medical and diocesan sources, as well as diverse material from the news media, this article illuminates the change in private behaviour that took place with regard to birth control between 1960 and 1972, and contrasts this behaviour with the public rhetoric and actions of many Catholics in positions of power. Furthermore, it highlights class inequality regarding access to and education on birth control; the health and welfare of working-class women often suffered greatly as a result of multiple births. It is demonstrated that while many exhibited a more liberal shift in their views on the issue of artificial birth control, this was not a straightforward change. A strong, patriarchal network of authority, made up of the Irish Catholic hierarchy and an obeisant section of the medical profession, sought to reaffirm control over Catholic women’s bodies in the wake of Humanae Vitae.
Seasonal characterisation of municipal solid waste from Astana city, Kazakhstan: Composition and thermal properties of combustible fraction
Authors: Abylkhani Bexultan , Aiymbetov Berik , Yagofarova Almira , Tokmurzin Diyar , Venetis Christos , Poulopoulos Stavros , Sarbassov Yerbol , Inglezakis Vassilis J
Published: October 2019

This study presents the results of a seasonal municipal solid waste composition campaign, that took place over the period of September 2017 to June 2018 in the capital city of Kazakhstan, Astana. Four sampling campaigns were conducted in order to identify the seasonal variation of municipal solid waste composition, recyclables and energy potential materials, such as combustible fraction, useful for the evaluation of waste-to-energy potential. The combustible fraction was analysed for thermal fuel properties, such as proximate and elemental analyses and gross calorific value. The results over the four different seasons showed that the average recyclable fraction of municipal solid waste on a wet basis of 33.3 wt.% and combustibles fraction was 8.3 wt.%. The largest fraction was the organics (47.2 wt.%), followed by plastic (15.4 wt.%) and paper (12.5 wt.%). Small seasonal variations were observed for organics, paper, plastic and glass fractions. The highest values were found in summer for the organic waste, in spring for paper and plastic and autumn for glass. The recyclables fraction showed an absolute seasonal variation of 5.7% with a peak in the winter season (35.4%) and the combustibles fraction showed a seasonal variation between 8.3 wt.% to 9.4 wt.%. Finally, the average calorific value of the combustible fraction was estimated to be 21.6 MJ kg-1 on a dry basis.
Determination and detoxification of cyanide in gold mine tailings: A review
Authors: Anning Cosmos , Wang Junxiang , Chen Ping , Batmunkh Idermunkh , Lyu Xianjun
Published: October 2019

Cyanide is among the most toxic chemicals widely employed in the cyanidation process to leach precious minerals, such as gold and silver, by the minerals processing companies worldwide. This present article reviews the determination and detoxification of cyanide found in gold mine tailings. Most of the cyanide remains in the solution or the slurries after the cyanidation process. The cyanide species in the gold tailings are classified as free cyanide, weak acid dissociation, and metallocyanide complexes. Several methods, such as colorimetric, titrimetric, and electrochemical, have been developed to determine cyanide concentrations in gold mine effluents. Application of physical, natural, biological, and chemical methods to detoxify cyanide to a permissible limit (50 mg L−1) can be achieved when the chemical compositions of cyanide (type of species) present in the tailings are known. The levels of cyanide concentration determine the impact it will have on the environment.
Exploration of the Factors Influencing Attitudes to Breastfeeding in Public
Authors: Morris Cecile , Schofield Peter , Hirst Craig
Published: October 2019

Background

Negative attitudes toward breastfeeding in public have consistently been identified as a key barrier to breastfeeding continuation. In order to design effective social marketing campaigns to improve public attitude toward breastfeeding in public, it is critical to identify segments of the population who are less likely to support this activity, their underlying reasons, and the medium through which they can be reached.

Research aim

The aims were to (a) identify the underlying dimensions that drive acceptance or opposition to breastfeeding in public, (b) test whether specific population segments were more or less likely to support breastfeeding in public, and (c) identify suitable media outlets to reach them.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey testing agreement with 60 statements was administered online between May 2016 and May 2017 and was completed by 7190 respondents. Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify 12 dimensions driving acceptance or opposition to breastfeeding in public. The influence of demographics and media consumption on attitudes toward breastfeeding in public was tested using Welch’s t tests and one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs).

Results

Acceptance of breastfeeding in public was found to differ with gender, age, religion, and parental and breastfeeding status, but not household income. Support for breastfeeding in public also varied with media consumption habits.

Conclusions

This work lays the foundation to design effective social marketing campaigns aimed at increasing public support for breastfeeding in public.
Haptic control of steer-by-wire systems for tracking of target steering feedback torque
Authors: Lee Jaepoong , Yi Kyongsu , Lee Dongpil , Jang Bongchoon , Kim Minjun , Hwang Sangwoo
Published: October 2019

This study proposes a haptic control of steer-by-wire systems for tracking a target steering feedback torque to achieve the conventional steering feedback torque. The haptic feedback control with a steer-by-wire steering-wheel system model was used to provide drivers with a conventional steering feedback torque. The steer-by-wire steering-wheel system model was developed, and a haptic control algorithm was designed for a desired steering feedback torque with a three-dimensional target steering torque map. In order to track the target steering torque to let the drivers feel the conventional steering efforts, an adaptive sliding-mode control was used to ensure robustness against parameter uncertainty. The angular velocity and angular acceleration used in the control algorithm were estimated using an infinite impulse response filter. The performance of the proposed controller was evaluated by computer simulation and hardware-in-the-loop simulation tests under various steering conditions. The proposed haptic controller successfully tracked the steering feedback torque for steer-by-wire systems.
Stance, framing, and the construction of reality in Facebook comments about Taiwan’s same-sex marriage bills
Authors: Wang Ping-Hsuan
Published: October 2019

This study proposes an integrated framework to elucidate the process of socially constructing reality by examining how Facebook commenters argue over two same-sex marriage (SSM) bills in Taiwan. Through stance-taking, which involves evaluating, positioning and aligning with others, some commenters contest while others defend SSM by referencing the referendums and the laws. The analysis shows that (dis)alignments facilitate multiple ‘team performances’, that is, cooperative interactions that project competing definitions of the situation, or ‘frames’, within which events are interpreted differently: one bill is criticized as undemocratic while the other contradictory. This bottom-up approach emphasizes participants’ agentive role in shaping the public discourse. The discourse analysis of online comments illustrates reality as constituted by negotiation over taken-for-granted concepts in the digital age, while highlighting the intersubjectivity in large-scale platforms like Facebook and how online commenting is used to (re)frame issues.
Alternative Transportation Enterprises for Rural Australia: An Organizational Study of Greener Options and Use
Authors: Ragusa Angela T. , Crampton Andrea
Published: October 2019

Economic and social norms/behaviours challenge ‘greener’ transportation alternatives in rural Australia’s car-dependent society. Surveys ( n = 412) and interviews ( n = 44) conducted at a rural Australian organization reveal experiences with, and perceptions about, carpooling, public transportation, greener cars and walking/cycling campaigns. Infrastructure, cultural norms and life-stage demands competed against pro-environmental transportation actions, even if self-identifying as ‘pro-environment’. Discussed amid cognitive dissonance and impression management theory, findings support ‘attitude/action’ gaps in environmental psychology research. Interview participants knew vehicles degraded the environment and 81 per cent surveyed used environmental ratings in car purchasing decisions. Thus, deficit-based communication theory and public health campaigns are limiting approaches. Change management requires innovative solutions, not awareness-raising campaigns, to achieve organizational carbon neutrality goals beyond ‘offsetting’ and address the reasons—inconvenience and social/physical undesirability—interviewees shared about their ability/willingness to walk/cycle/share-drive.
Spatial Clusters of Diabetes and Physical Inactivity: Do Neighborhood Characteristics in High and Low Clusters Differ?
Authors: Valson Joanna Sara , Kutty V. Raman , Soman Biju , Jissa V. T.
Published: October 2019

This study aims to find spatial clusters of diabetes and physical inactivity among a sample population in Kerala, India, and evaluate built environment characteristics within the high and low spatial clusters. Spatial clusters with a higher and lower likelihood of diabetes and physical inactivity were identified using spatial scan statistic at various radii. Built environment characteristics were captured at panchayat level and 1600 m buffer around participant location using Geographical Information Systems. Comparison of sociodemographic and built environment factors was carried out for participants within high and low spatial clusters using t tests. Ten high and 8 low spatial clusters of diabetes and 17 high and 23 low spatial clusters of physical inactivity were identified in urban and rural areas of Kerala. Significant differences in built environment characteristics were consistent for low spatial clusters of diabetes and physical inactivity in the urban scenario. Built environment characteristics were found to be relevant in both urban and rural areas of Kerala. There is an urgent call to explore spatial clustering of non-communicable diseases in Kerala and undo the one-size-fits-all approach for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.
Impact of Pharmacist Involvement in Heart Failure Transition of Care
Authors: Neu Rachel , Leonard Melvin A. , Dehoorne Michelle L. , Scalia Samantha J. , Kale-Pradhan Pramodini B. , Giuliano Christopher A.
Published: October 2019

Background: Heart failure (HF) transition of care (TOC) programs may improve continuity of care and coordination and decrease hospital readmissions. Objective: This study evaluated the impact of pharmacy-led HF TOC on HF readmission rate. Methods: This was a single-center, pre-post quasi-experimental study. Pharmacy TOC comprised admission and discharge medication reconciliations and patient education. Patients were included if they had a primary HF diagnosis. Patients were excluded if they were admitted for a non-HF diagnosis, admitted for <24 hours, had a stage IV cancer or dementia diagnosis, or were transferred to hospice care. The primary outcome was HF 30-day readmission rate. Results: A total of 663 patients were included in the study: 330 in the control group and 333 in the intervention group. The average age for both groups was 67 ± 16 years; 48.1% were female; 56.9% were African American; and 51.4% of patients had an ejection fraction ≤40%. In the control group, 57 (17.3%) patients had a HF 30-day readmission compared with 35 (10.5%) patients in the intervention group. After adjusting for age, the intervention group continued to show a difference in readmission (odds ratio = 0.578; 95% CI = 0.367-0.911; P = 0.018). The most common interventions were medication addition (11%), dose titration (7.5%), medication discontinuation (6.6%), and duplication avoidance (2.7%). Conclusion and Relevance: Pharmacy-led HF TOC, as a component of a targeted hospital-based initiative, significantly decreased HF 30-day readmission rate. Results from this study warrant further research to explore which interventions in TOC are most effective.
Levator recession and minimal lateral tarsorrhaphy for the management of lagophthalmos and corneal exposure in facial palsy
Authors: Eshraghi Bahram , Ghadimi Hadi , Nikdel Mojgan
Published: October 2019

Purpose:

Recession of levator muscle can potentially decrease the severity of corneal exposure by reducing margin-reflex distance 1. The purpose of this study is evaluation of effects of levator recession on lagophthalmos in facial palsy.

Materials and methods:

In a non-comparative case series of consecutive patients with exposure keratopathy due to facial paralysis between 2012 and 2017, levator recession was performed through lid crease incision. Small-size (⩽3 mm) lateral tarsorrhaphy was performed on a case-by-case basis for those with moderate-to-severe keratopathy. Preoperative and postoperative measurements of margin-reflex distance 1 and lagophthalmos were compared using paired t-test.

Results:

Thirty-four patients (14 men and 20 women) were enrolled with an average age of 52.3 years. Mean follow-up was 13.3 months (range, 6–36 months). The most common etiology of facial paralysis was Bell’s palsy (22 cases), followed by motor vehicle accident (8), parotid surgery (3), and brain tumor surgery (1). No additional procedure was performed for eight patients, while lateral tarsorrhaphy was performed in 26 cases. Mean margin-reflex distance 1 decreased from 5.0 ± 0.4 mm to 4.0 ± 0.5 mm ( p < 0.001) and mean lagophthalmos decreased from 3.3 ± 0.9 mm to 1.8 ± 0.9 mm ( p < 0.001). Subgroups of patients with additional lateral tarsorrhaphy and without tarsorrhaphy experienced the same amount of reduction in margin-reflex distance 1 and lagophthalmos.

Conclusion:

Recession of levator muscle was effective in reduction of margin-reflex distance 1 and lagophthalmos in facial palsy patients. This procedure can be added to the surgical armamentarium for management of patients with facial palsy and lagophthalmos.
Forecasting tourist arrivals: Google Trends meets mixed-frequency data
Authors: Havranek Tomas , Zeynalov Ayaz
Published: October 2019

In this article, we examine the usefulness of Google Trends data in predicting monthly tourist arrivals and overnight stays in Prague during the period between January 2010 and December 2016. We offer two contributions. First, we analyze whether Google Trends provides significant forecasting improvements over models without search data. Second, we assess whether a high-frequency variable (weekly Google Trends) is more useful for accurate forecasting than a low-frequency variable (monthly tourist arrivals) using mixed-data sampling (MIDAS). Our results suggest the potential of Google Trends to offer more accurate predictions in the context of tourism: we find that Google Trends information, both 2 months and 1 week ahead of arrivals, is useful for predicting the actual number of tourist arrivals. The MIDAS forecasting model employing weekly Google Trends data outperforms models using monthly Google Trends data and models without Google Trends data.
In-cylinder pressure-based convolutional neural network for real-time estimation of low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation in turbocharged gasoline direct injection engines
Authors: Jung Donghyuk , Hwang Inyoung , Jo Yuhyeok , Jang Chulhoon , Han Manbae , Sunwoo Myoungho , Chang Joon-Hyuk
Published: October 2019

Low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation is one of the most promising technologies for improving fuel efficiency of turbocharged gasoline direct injection engines. To realize the beneficial effects of the low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation, the accurate estimation of the low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation rate is essential for precise low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation control. In this respect, previous studies have suggested in-cylinder pressure-based low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation models to obtain the low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation rate into the cylinders with fast response. However, these methods require considerable manual process of feature engineering to extract and analyze the combustion characteristics from the cylinder pressure traces. Furthermore, the performance of the entire model is limited solely to certain hand-crafted characteristics and their mathematical formulations. To resolve these limitations, we propose an in-cylinder pressure-based convolutional neural network for low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation estimation. Because the convolutional neural network model automatically learns the complex function between the raw input of the high-dimensional cylinder pressure traces and the low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation rate through an end-to-end deep learning framework, this convolutional neural network model provides a more effective and precise modeling process compared to the conventional combustion characteristics-based regression models. The proposed convolutional neural network model consists of the input layer with the previous consecutive cycles of the pressure traces to resolve the model uncertainty from cycle-to-cycle variations. This input layer is connected to one convolutional layer, two fully connected layers, and the final output layer that is the target low-pressure cooled exhaust gas recirculation rate. The proposed model was trained, validated, and tested using a total of 50,000 cycles of engine experimental data under various transient driving conditions. The remarkable accuracy of the proposed model was evaluated with R2 values over 0.99 and root mean square error values of less than 1.5% under the transient conditions. Moreover, the real-time performance and low memory requirement were also verified on the target embedded platform.