cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
title: Landfill site trees: Potential source or sink of greenhouse gases?
Creators: name: Fraser-Mcdonald, Alice
Publisher: name: The Open University
Year: 2023

description: Tree stems can transport greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced belowground to the atmosphere. Previous studies in natural wetland and upland ecosystems have quantified tree stem fluxes of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O). However, tree stem GHG fluxes have not previously been measured in the context of managed environments. The work presented in this thesis aimed to quantify GHG fluxes from tree stems on closed landfill sites.

 To investigate the potential for trees growing on closed landfill sites to act as conduits for GHGs produced belowground to the atmosphere, GHG fluxes were measured from tree stem and soil surfaces. In situ measurements from a closed landfill site in the UK were examined for spatial and temporal patterns and evaluated against data from a comparable non-landfill area. Measurements were also conducted from landfill sites in the UK with varying management practices and different tree species present. The resulting flux values were scaled up to estimate the magnitude of tree stem GHG fluxes from closed landfills at a national level.

 The findings presented here show evidence of tree mediated GHG transport on closed landfill sites and temporal variations in fluxes from tree stems were also observed, with generally higher fluxes in the summer months. Stem CH4 fluxes varied between trees growing on landfill sites with different management practices. Additionally, stem N2O fluxes displayed spatial patterns, with decreasing emissions at increased height from the forest floor, indicating an underground source. Evidence suggested that GHG fluxes from closed landfills are influenced by factors including the quantity of GHG produced in the waste (linked to the age of the site), the susceptibility of the area to waterlogging and landfill management techniques put in place upon closure (for example, clay caps, cover soils and gas extraction). Upscaled CH4 and N2O flux values from tree stems on closed landfill sites corresponded to less than 1% of the total CH4 and N2O emissions reported from UK landfills in 2020.

 Overall, results indicated that measuring soil fluxes alone from forested landfill sites would result in an underestimation of the total surface fluxes. However, the emission rates from tree stems on closed landfills observed in this thesis do not exceed those in natural ecosystems. Therefore, with careful planning and management, the recommendation is that trees can be planted on closed landfill sites in the UK without emitting atypical levels of GHGs. However, including gas fluxes from tree stems on closed landfills would increase the accuracy of GHG budgets at national and global levels.
Feature and Region Selection for Visual Learning
Creators: name: Zhao, Ji
name: Liantao  Wang
name: Cabral, Ricardo Da Silveira
name: Torre, Fernando De La
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: 80101 Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Visual learning problems, such as object classification and action recognition, are typically approached using extensions of the popular bag-of-words (BoWs) model. Despite its great success, it is unclear what visual features the BoW model is learning. Which regions in the image or video are used to discriminate among classes? Which are the most discriminative visual words? Answering these questions is fundamental for understanding existing BoW models and inspiring better models for visualrecognition. To answer these questions, this paper presents a method for feature selection and regionselection in the visual BoW model. This allows for an intermediate visualization of the features andregions that are important for visual learning. The main idea is to assign latent weights to the features orregions, and jointly optimize these latent variables with the parameters of a classifier (e.g., support vector machine). There are four main benefits of our approach: 1) our approach accommodates non-linear additive kernels, such as the popular χ2 and intersection kernel; 2) our approach is able to handle both regions in images and spatio-temporal regions in videos in a unified way; 3) the feature selectionproblem is convex, and both problems can be solved using a scalable reduced gradient method; and 4) we point out strong connections with multiple kernel learning and multiple instance learning approaches. Experimental results in the PASCAL VOC 2007, MSR Action Dataset II and YouTube illustrate the benefits of our approach.
Ab initio-driven nuclear energy density functional method. A proposal for safe/correlated/improvable parametrizations of the off-diagonal EDF kernels
Creators: name: Duguet, T.
name: Bender, M.
name: Ebran, J. -P.
name: Lesinski, T.
name: Somà, V.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: This programmatic paper lays down the possibility to reconcile the necessity to resum many-body correlations into the energy kernel with the fact that safe multi-reference energy density functional (EDF) calculations cannot be achieved whenever the Pauli principle is not strictly enforced, as is for example the case when many-body correlations are parametrized under the form of empirical density dependencies. Our proposal is to exploit a newly developed ab initio many-body formalism to guide the construction of safe, explicitly correlated and systematically improvable parametrizations of the {\it off-diagonal} energy and norm kernels that lie at the heart of the nuclear EDF method. The many-body formalism of interest relies on the concepts of symmetry breaking {\it and} restoration that have made the fortune of the nuclear EDF method and is, as such, amenable to this guidance. After elaborating on our proposal, we briefly outline the project we plan to execute in the years to come.
description: 14 pages, 5 figures
Non-minimally coupled tachyon field with Noether symmetry under the Palatini approach
Creators: name: Collodel, Lucas Gardai
name: Kremer, Gilberto Medeiros
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: A model for a homogeneous, isotropic, flat Universe composed by dark energy and matter is investigated. Dark energy is considered to behave as a tachyon field, which is non-minimally coupled to gravity. The connection is treated as metric independent when varying the action, providing an extra term to the Lagrangian density. The self-interaction potential and coupling are naturally found by imposing a Noether symmetry to the system. We analyze the evolution of the density parameters and we compare the results obtained for the deceleration parameter, luminosity distance and Hubble parameter with those found in literature from observational data.
description: 6 pages, 4 figures to be published in the AIP Conference Proceedings
Hydrodynamics with chiral anomaly and charge separation in relativistic heavy ion collisions
Creators: name: Yin, Yi
name: Liao, Jinfeng
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Matter with chiral fermions is microscopically described by theory with quantum anomaly and macroscopically described (at low energy) by anomalous hydrodynamics. For such systems in the presence of external magnetic field and chirality imbalance, a charge current is generated along the magnetic field direction --- a phenomenon known as the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME). The quark-gluon plasma created in relativistic heavy ion collisions provides an (approximate) example, for which the CME predicts a charge separation perpendicular to the collisional reaction plane. Charge correlation measurements designed for the search of such signal have been done at RHIC and the LHC for which the interpretations, however, remain unclear due to contamination by background effects that are collective flow driven, theoretically poorly constrained, and experimentally hard to separate. Using anomalous (and viscous) hydrodynamic simulations, we make a first attempt at quantifying contributions to observed charge correlations from both CME and background effects in one and same framework. The implications for the search of CME are discussed.
description: 5 pages, 3 figures, Published version in Phys. Lett. B
Additional file 1 of Trunk Biomechanics in Individuals with Knee Disorders: A Systematic Review with Evidence Gap Map and Meta-analysis
Creators: name: Waiteman, Marina C.
name: Chia, Lionel
name: Ducatti, Matheus H. M.
name: Bazett-Jones, David M.
name: Pappas, Evangelos
name: de Azevedo, Fábio M.
name: Briani, Ronaldo V.
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Physical Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: Medicine
subject: Physiology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Biotechnology
subject: Ecology
subject: Science Policy
subject: Sociology
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: Developmental Biology

description: Additional file 1. Supplementary material including: search strategy (A), reasons for exclusion of studies excluded after full-text screening (B), summary of included studies (C), methodological quality assessment of included studies (D), qualitative and quantitative syntheses of unpooled data (E and F), sensitivity analysis (G), and evidence gap maps (H and I).
Generalized Time Warping for Multi-modal Alignment of Human Motion
Creators: name: Zhou, Feng
name: Torre, Fernando De La
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: 80101 Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Temporal alignment of human motion has been a topic of recent interest due to its applications in animation, telerehabilitation and activity recognition among others. This paper presents generalized time warping (GTW), an extension of dynamic time warping (DTW) for temporally aligning multi-modal sequences from multiple subjects performing similar activities. GTW solves three major drawbacks of existing approaches based on DTW: (1) GTW provides a feature weighting layer to adapt different modalities (e.g., video and motion capture data), (2) GTW extends DTW by allowing a more flexible time warping as combination of monotonic functions, (3) unlike DTW that typically incurs in quadratic cost, GTW has linear complexity. Experimental results demonstrate that GTW can efficiently solve the multi-modal temporal alignment problem and outperforms state-of-the-art DTW methods for temporal alignment of time series within the same modality.
Convection and Mixing in Giant Planet Evolution
Creators: name: Vazan, Allona
name: Helled, Ravit
name: Kovetz, Attay
name: Podolak, Morris
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The primordial internal structures of gas giant planets are unknown. Often giant planets are modeled under the assumption that they are adiabatic, convective, and homogeneously mixed, but this is not necessarily correct. In this work, we present the first self-consistent calculation of convective transport of both heat and material as the planets evolve. We examine how planetary evolution depends on the initial composition and its distribution, whether the internal structure changes with time, and if so, how it affects the evolution. We consider various primordial distributions, different compositions, and different mixing efficiencies and follow the distribution of heavy elements in a Jupiter-mass planet as it evolves. We show that a heavy-element core cannot be eroded by convection if there is a sharp compositional change at the core-envelope boundary. If the heavy elements are initially distributed within the planet according to some compositional gradient, mixing occurs in the outer regions resulting in a compositionally homogeneous outer envelope. Mixing of heavy materials that are injected in a convective gaseous envelope are found to mix efficiently. Our work demonstrates that the primordial internal structure of a giant planet plays a substantial role in determining its long-term evolution and that giant planets can have non-adiabatic interiors. These results emphasize the importance of coupling formation, evolution, and internal structure models of giant planets self-consistently.
description: accepted to ApJ
Multiuser Wireless Power Transfer via Magnetic Resonant Coupling: Performance Analysis, Charging Control, and Power Region Characterization
Creators: name: Moghadam, Mohammad R. Vedady
name: Zhang, Rui
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Systems and Control (eess.SY)
subject: FOS: Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering

description: Magnetic resonant coupling (MRC) is an efficient method for realizing the near-field wireless power transfer (WPT). Although the MRC enabled WPT (MRC-WPT) with a single pair of transmitter and receiver has been thoroughly studied in the literature, there is limited work on the general setup with multiple transmitters and/or receivers. In this paper, we consider a point-to-multipoint MRC-WPT system with one transmitter delivering wireless power to a set of distributed receivers. We aim to introduce new applications of signal processing and optimization techniques to the performance characterization and optimization in multiuser WPT via MRC. We first derive closed-form expressions for the power drawn from the energy source at the transmitter and that delivered to the load at each receiver. We identify a "near-far" fairness issue in multiuser power transmission due to receivers' distance-dependent mutual inductance with the transmitter. To tackle this issue, we propose a centralized charging control algorithm to jointly optimize the receivers' load resistance to minimize the total transmitter power drawn while meeting the given power requirement of each individual load. For ease of practical implementation, we also devise a distributed algorithm for the receivers to adjust their load resistance independently in an iterative manner. Last, we characterize the power region that constitutes all the achievable power-tuples of the loads via controlling their adjustable resistance. In particular, we compare the power regions without versus with the time sharing of users' power transmission, where it is shown that time sharing yields a larger power region in general. Extensive simulation results are provided to validate our analysis and corroborate our study on the multiuser MRC-WPT system.
Il nuovo Museo Cambellotti a Latina. Recensione a: Museo Duilio Cambellotti, Latina, Piazza San Marco, Palazzo della Cultura
Creators: name: Dolari, Simona
Publisher: name: La Rivista di Engramma
Year: 2006
Subjects: Duilio Cambellotti
Museum

description: Review of “Duilio Cambellotti Museum“ in Latina, Piazza San Marco, Palazzo della Cultura.
The new museum, built inside the building designed by Oriolo Frezzotti in 1932 to house the Opera Nazionale Balilla, preserves some of Cambellotti's works inspired by and destined for Pontine places.
Call Admission Control based on Adaptive Bandwidth Allocation for Wireless Networks
Creators: name: Chowdhury, Mostafa Zaman
name: Jang, Yeong Min
name: Haas, Zygmunt J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Multimedia (cs.MM)
subject: Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Provisioning of Quality of Service (QoS) is a key issue in any multi-media system. However, in wireless systems, supporting QoS requirements of different traffic types is more challenging due to the need to minimize two performance metrics - the probability of dropping a handover call and the probability of blocking a new call. Since QoS requirements are not as stringent for non-real-time traffic types, as opposed to real-time traffic, more calls can be accommodated by releasing some bandwidth from the already admitted non-real-time traffic calls. If we require that such a released bandwidth to accept a handover call ought to be larger than the bandwidth to accept a new call, then the resulting probability of dropping a handover call will be smaller than the probability of blocking a new call. In this paper we propose an efficient Call Admission Control (CAC) that relies on adaptive multi-level bandwidth-allocation scheme for non-real-time calls. The scheme allows reduction of the call dropping probability along with increase of the bandwidth utilization. The numerical results show that the proposed scheme is capable of attaining negligible handover call dropping probability without sacrificing bandwidth utilization.
Electron Beam Manipulation in Terahertz Frequency Radiation-Driven Structures
Creators: name: Finlay, Oliver
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2022

description: Electron beam manipulation using THz frequency radiation has been considered in two regimes, fully relativistic and sub-relativistic. For the fully relativistic regime, experiments were undertaken at 35 MeV, while the sub-relativistic experiments were undertaken with 100 keV electron bunches. Acceleration of relativistic electron beams in a THz-driven rectangular dielectric-lined waveguide was demonstrated at the Compact Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications (CLARA) facility. To the author’s knowledge, this experiment was the first demonstration of THz-driven linear acceleration of a fully relativistic beam. Here, factors effecting efficiency of acceleration, including THz transport, mode-conversion, THz dispersion, and THz-beam velocity matching, are examined. Experimental verification of THz phase velocity to particle velocity matching is provided through the frequency response of the interaction strength and the observed modulation period. Velocity matching is key to achieving long interaction lengths between particle bunches and laser fields. This is the first conclusive demonstration of its achievement in a THz-driven linear accelerator. The sub-relativistic regime was explored by THz-driven deflection and compression of 100 keV electrons. Deflection has been performed experimentally to diagnose the electron bunch duration with two different structures: a dielectric-lined waveguide for extending the interaction length by velocity matching, and a sub-wavelength aperture in a metal foil for breaking the free-space propagation symmetry. The streaking speed achieved with the dielectric-lined waveguide compares favourably with previously reported experiments, which is indicative of a bunch duration diagnostic with high temporal resolution. Finite difference and semi-analytical calculations have been performed with these two structures to characterise the compression interaction. Simulation results show that the THz-driven dielectric waveguide is capable of achieving bunch compression within the interaction vacuum chamber using only a fraction of the available THz pulse energy. The results bode well for future experimentation where compression and deflection of subrelativistic electrons will be performed in conjunction.
Enterprise Management Network architecture : distributed knowledge base support
Creators: name: Roboam, Michel
name: Fox, Mark S.
name: Sycara-Cyranski, Katia
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: 80101 Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Abstract: "Achieving manufacturing efficiency requires that many groups that comprise a manufacturing enterprise, such as design, planning, production, distribution, field service, accounting, sales and marketing, cooperate in order to achieve their common goal. In this paper we introduce the concept of Enterprise Management Network (EMN) as the element to facilitate the integration of distributed heterogeneous functions of a manufacturing enterprise. The integration is supported by having the network first play a more active role in the accessing and communication of information, and second provide the appropriate protocols for the distribution, coordination, and negotiation of tasks and outcomes.The EMN is divided into six layers: Network Layer, Data Layer, Information Layer, Organization Layer, Coordination Layer, and Market Layer. Each of these layers provides a portion of the elements, functions and protocols to allow the integration of a manufacturing enterprise."
A comparative analysis of migration narratives in traditional and social media
Creators: name: Maneri, Marcello
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: migration
narratives
media
media frames
refugee arrivals
non-citizens' rights
terror attacks
France
Germany
Italy
Hungary
Spain
United Kingdom
comparative

description: Mass-mediated narratives are a crucial source to make sense of migration. Many scholars have studied the frames, themes and language of the media, especially in news about migrant and refugee arrivals. However, research comparing old and new media in different countries and journalistic sub-genres (refugee arrivals, debates on non-citizens’ rights, terror attacks) and engaging with both frames and narratives was missing. This study is based on six national reports, systematising and comparing their findings. In particular, the focus is on the distribution of narratives and frames on migration in the various sub-genres and on the ingredients, actors, circumstances, strategies, and infrastructure of narrative success. The analysis is based on 2792 news stories and 1768 social media messages with the highest engagement published during the peak coverage of 17 migration-related events and uses content, discourse, and frame analysis. In addition, we collected 53 semi-structured interviews among journalists and other people involved in the events. Frames and narratives were fairly similar across countries and their resemblance is even greater in the case of terror attacks. Nevertheless, each sub-genre is characterised by a specific structure of opportunities that allows or hinders the advancement of different narratives, in a hierarchical context where not all stories and storytellers enjoy the same chances. Differences between countries are more a question of degree than substance and may be traced back, with caution, to longer-term conversations about the nation’s identity and belonging.
Filtered Component Analysis to Increase Robustness to Locla Minima in Appearance Models
Creators: name: Torre, Fernando De La
name: Collet, Alvaro
name: Quero, Manuel
name: Cohn, Jeffery F.
name: Kanade, Takeo
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: 80101 Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Appearance Models (AM) are commonly used to model
appearance and shape variation of objects in images. In
particular, they have proven useful to detection, tracking,
and synthesis of people’s faces from video. While AM have
numerous advantages relative to alternative approaches,
they have at least two important drawbacks. First, they are
especially prone to local minima in fitting; this problem becomes
increasingly problematic as the number of parameters
to estimate grows. Second, often few if any of the local
minima correspond to the correct location of the model error.
To address these problems, we propose Filtered Component
Analysis (FCA), an extension of traditional Principal
Component Analysis (PCA). FCA learns an optimal set of
filters with which to build a multi-band representation of the
object. FCA representations were found to be more robust
than either grayscale or Gabor filters to problems of local
minima. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed
algorithm is demonstrated in both synthetic and real data.
PEMIKIRAN PENDIDIKAN ILMU IBNU JAMA'AH ANALISIS KRITIS KODE ETIK MURID DALAM BELAJAR
Creators: name: Salsabila, Adzania
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Ibnu Jama'ah, Guru dan Pelajar

description: Tulisan ini memaparkan tentang “Analisis Kritis Kode Etik Pelajar dalam Pemikiran Ibnu Jama’ah”. Konsep pendidikan Ibnu Jama’ah merupakan konsep pendidikan yang cenderung memposisikan pelajar sabagai objek dalam pendidikan, sehingga pelajar kurang mendapat kesempatam untuk”diberdayakan”. Pelajar hanya dipandang sebagai manusia yang menerima dan menyimoan segala pengetahuan yang diperolehnya dengan tanpa diberi kesempatan untuk bersikap aktif, kreatif dan inovatif. Oleh karena itu, konsep ini kurang relevan jika diterpakan pada konsep pendidikan sekarang yang membutuhkan paradigma baru dengan memposisikan pelajar sebagai subjek dalam kegiatan belajar-mengajar. Meski demikian, tidak semua pemikiran Ibnu Jama’ah yang berkaitan dengan konsep pendidikan tidak sesuai dengan kondisi saat ini, karena sebgaian konsep pendidikan yang ditawarkan masih relevan dan cocok jika diterapkan pada pelaksanaan pendidikan saat ini (misalnya, pemikiran verupa pelajaar harus selalu menghiasi dirinya dengan akhlak mulia ketika menunutut ikmu). Oleh karena etika merupaka media self-control (pengawasan melekat) terhadap diri pelajar yang dapat menghindarkannya dari hal-hal negatif, dimana hal ini berguna untuk mendukung kesuksesannya dalam belajar.
Additional file 4 of An overview of the trypanosomatid (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae) parasites infecting several mammal species in Colombia
Creators: name: Castillo-Castañeda, Adriana C.
name: Patiño, Luz H.
name: Zuñiga, Maria Fernanda
name: Cantillo-Barraza, Omar
name: Ayala, Martha S.
name: Segura, Maryi
name: Bautista, Jessica
name: Urbano, Plutarco
name: Jaimes-Dueñez, Jeiczon
name: Ramírez, Juan David
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Genetics
subject: FOS: Biological sciences

description: Additional file 4: Table S3. Shannon and Simpson index values from the different species found in the analyzed samples by amplicon-based NGS.
MEDICAL AND OBSTETRIC DETERMINANTS OF SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION AMONG POSTPARTUM WOMEN IN RIVERS STATE
Creators: name: Nkechi, Ugochi Okwara
Publisher: name: kEITH jOURNAL
Year: 2025
Subjects: Sexual Dysfunction, Postpartum Women, Mode of Delivery, Hypertension, Diabetes

description: This study aimed to investigate the medical and obstetric determinants of sexual dysfunction among postpartum women in Rivers State. Using a descriptive research design, the study targeted a population of 2,670,903 postpartum women, with a sample size of 1,200 selected through a multi-stage sampling procedure. Data were collected using the adapted Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) questionnaire, which demonstrated a reliability coefficient of 0.856. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS version 23.0, applying linear and multinomial logistic regression at a 0.05 alpha level. The results revealed a statistically significant relationship between sexual dysfunction and key determinants, including mode of delivery (p<0.05), history of hypertension (p<0.05), and history of diabetes (p<0.05). Notably, the study found that 98.9% of women who had undergone a Cesarean section reported sexual dysfunction, with similar high prevalence rates observed among hypertensive (100%) and diabetic women (98.0%). The findings suggest that the mode of delivery, and a history of hypertension and diabetes, are significant determinants of sexual dysfunction among postpartum women in Rivers State. The study concludes by recommending the establishment of specialized sexual health units within healthcare facilities to address these issues and improve the sexual health and well-being of postpartum women in the region
Germline variant analysis of family trios in children with cancer
Creators: name: Walter, Carolin
name: Wagener, Rabea
name: Yasin, Layal
name: Deya Alzoubi
name: Brozou, Triantafyllia
name: Fischer, Ute
name: Borkhardt, Arndt
name: Dugas, Martin
Publisher: name: F1000 Research Limited
Year: 2020

description: Childhood cancers are rare diseases, for which a pathogenic germline variant can be identified in about 10% of all patients. The analysis of trio sequencing data from families consisting of parents and a cancer-affected child can thus shed light onto cancer-associated germline variants, their inheritance patterns, and the role of digenic and multigenic interactions in tumorigenesis.
We use a pipeline approach based on a combination of three variant calling algorithms to identify transmitted and de novo germline variants in whole exome sequencing (WES) data from parents-child trio samples. After a standardized alignment and quality control step, both single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and insertions / deletions (indels) are identified for each family trio and algorithm, and integrated with a combination of 'union' and 'overlap' strategies. The resulting variant list per sample is subsequently annotated with a variety of prediction scores and state-of-the-art database information, and filtered to remove known polymorphisms. Comparison against an in-house cohort of 158 trios allows for rigorous filtering of technical artifacts. Output options include full overview tables for the complete trio variant results, filtered lists for specified gene sets, and an integrated report from the Cancer Predisposition Sequencing Reporter (CPSR), a published algorithm that performs automated variant interpretation in known cancer predisposition genes. The whole pipeline is embedded into a Docker container with a Conda environment, and configured to run semi-automatically for a specified set of WES trio data.
We called approximately 500.000 variants per trio, of which 600-900 filtered variants were included in the CPSR analysis. Hence, the trio pipeline facilitates concentration on the most relevant germline alterations in the context of cancer predisposition, as well as the analysis of the broader mutation landscape in childhood cancer.
Geometric Sensing of Known Planar Shapes
Creators: name: Jia, Yan-Bin
name: Erdmann, Michael
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: 80101 Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Industrial assembly involves sensing the pose (orientation and position) of a part.
Efficient and reliable sensing strategies can be developed for an assembly task if the
shape of the part is known in advance. In this article we investigate two problems of
determining the pose of a polygonal part of known shape for the cases of a continuum
and a finite number of possible poses respectively.
The first problem, named sensing by inscription, involves determining the pose of a
convex n-gon from a set of m supporting cones An algorithm with running time O(nm)
that almost always reduces to O(n+m log n) is presented to solve for all possible poses
of the polygon. We prove that the number of possible poses cannot exceed 6n, given
m  2 supporting cones with distinct vertices. Simulation experiments demonstrate
that two supporting cones are sufficient to determine the real pose of the n-gon in
most cases. Our results imply that sensing in practice can be carried out by obtaining
viewing angles of a planar part at multiple exterior sites in the plane.

On many occasions a parts feeder will have reduced the number of possible poses
of a part to a small finite set. Our second problem, named sensing by point sampling,
is concerned with a more general version. Finding the minimum number of sensing
points required to distinguish between n polygonal shapes with a total of m edges.
In practice this can be implemented by embedding a series of point light detectors
in a feeder tray or by using a set of mechanical probes that touch the feeder at a
finite number of predetermined points. We show that this problem is equivalent to
an NP-complete set theoretic problem introduced as Discriminating Set, and present
an O(n m) approximation algorithm to solve it with a ratio of 2ln n.  Furthermore,
we prove that one can use an algorithm for Discriminating Set with ratio c log n to
construct an algorithm for Set Covering with ratio c log n = O (log log n). Thus the
ratio 2 ln n is asymptotically optimal unless NP  DTIMEnpoly log n  a consequence
of known results on approximating Set Covering. The complexity of subproblems of
Discriminating Set is also analyzed, based on their relationship to a generalization
of Independent Set called 3-Independent Set. Finally, simulation results suggest that
sensing by point sampling is mostly applicable when poses are densely distributed in
the plane.
Grasp Synthesis in Cluttered Environments for Dexterous Hands
Creators: name: Berenson, Dmitry
name: Siddhartha Srinivasa
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: 80101 Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: We present an algorithm for efficiently generating collision-free force-closure grasps for dexterous hands in cluttered environments. Computing a grasp is complicated by the high dimensionality of the hand configuration space, and the high cost of validating a candidate grasp by collision-checking and testing for force-closure. When an object is placed in a new scene, we use a novel cost function to focus our search to good regions of hand pose space for a given preshape. The proposed cost function is fast to compute and encapsulates aspects of the object, the scene, and the force-closure of the ensuing grasp. The low cost candidate grasps produced by the search are then validated. We demonstrate the generality of our approach by testing on the 3-fingered 4DOF Barrett hand and the anthropomorphic 22DOF Shadow hand. Our results show that the candidate grasps generated by our algorithm consistently have high probability of being valid for various hands, objects and scenes. Finally, we describe an implementation on a WAM arm with a Barrett Hand.
Advances in mosquito dynamics modeling
Creators: name: Wijaya, Karunia Putra
name: Goetz, Thomas
name: Soewono, Edy
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Optimization and Control (math.OC)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 49J15, 49M05, 92D30, 37B55

description: It is preliminarily known that Aedes mosquitoes are very close to humans and their dwellings, also give rises to a broad spectrum of diseases: dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya. In this paper, we explore a multi-age-class model for mosquito population secondarily classified into indoor-outdoor dynamics. We accentuate a novel design for the model in which periodicity of the affecting time-varying environmental condition is taken into account. Application of the optimal control with collocated measure as apposed to the widely-used prototypic smooth time-continuous measure is also considered. Using two approaches: least-square and maximum likelihood, we estimate several involving undetermined parameters. We analyze the model enforceability to biological point of view such as existence, uniqueness, positivity and boundedness of solution trajectory, also existence and stability of (non)trivial periodic solution(s) by means of the basic mosquito offspring number. Some numerical tests are brought along at the rest of the paper as a compact realistic visualization of the model.
Iterative Flattening Search for Resource Constrained Scheduling
Creators: name: Oddi, Angelo
name: Cesta, Amedeo
name: Policella, Nicola
name: Smith, Stephen F.
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: 80101 Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Iterative flattening search (ifs) is a meta-heuristic strategy for solving multi-capacity scheduling problems. Given an initial solution, ifs iteratively applies: (1) a relaxation-step, in which a subset of scheduling decisions are randomly retracted from the current solution; and (2) a flattening-step, in which a new solution is incrementally recomputed from this partial schedule. Whenever a better solution is found, it is retained, and, upon termination, the best solution found during the search is returned. Prior research has shown ifs to be an effective and scalable heuristic procedure for minimizing schedule makespan in multi-capacity resource settings. In this paper we experimentally investigate the impact on ifs performance of algorithmic variants of the flattening step. The variants considered are distinguished by different computational requirements and correspondingly vary in the type and depth of search performed. The analysis is centered around the idea that given a time bound to the overall optimization procedure, the ifs optimization process is driven by two different and contrasting mechanisms: the random sampling performed by iteratively applying the “relaxation/flattening” cycle and the search conducted within the constituent flattening procedure. On one hand, one might expect that efficiency of the flattening process is key: the faster the flattening procedure, the greater the number of iterations (and number of sampled solutions) for a given time bound; and hence the greater the probability of finding better quality solutions. On the other hand, the use of more accurate (and more costly) flattening procedures can increase the probability of obtaining better quality solutions even if their greater computational cost reduces the number of ifs iterations. Comparative results on well-studied benchmark problems are presented that clarify this tradeoff with respect to previously proposed flattening strategies, identify qualitative guidelines for the design of effective ifs procedures, and suggest some new directions for future work in this area.
title: Strategic Autonomy: A New Identity for the EU as a Global Actor
Creators: name: Beaucillon, Charlotte
Publisher: name: European Papers (www.europeanpapers.eu)
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: External action
subject: Sovereignty
subject: Power
subject: Competences
subject: Common Foreign and Security Policy
subject: Common Commercial Policy

description: European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2023 8(2), 417-428
description: European Forum Insight of 27 July 2023
description: I. Introduction. - II. Strategic autonomy in EU external action discourse. - III. Strategic autonomy and the collective exercise of sovereignty at the EU level. - IV. Streamlining EU external action through strategic autonomy. - V. Conclusions.
description: Over the last decade, strategic autonomy has become a key tool for structuring the EU’s external action. This Insight examines the evolution of the concept in EU discourse and practice, explores its consequences on the emergence of the notion of "European sovereignty", and analyses how strategic autonomy is used to streamline both hard-power and soft-power contemporary EU external relations. The central role of strategic autonomy – in turn an ambition, an objective, a process or even a method – sheds new light on core issues surrounding EU external action law, such as power, sovereignty and the articulation of the EU-Member State relationship.
Photoluminescence transient study of surface defects in ZnO nanorods grown by chemical bath deposition
Creators: name: Barbagiovanni, E. G.
name: Strano, V.
name: Franzò, G.
name: Crupi, I.
name: Mirabella, S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Two deep level defects (2.25 and 2.03 eV) associated with oxygen vacancies (V$_o$) were identified in ZnO nanorods (NRs) grown by low cost chemical bath deposition. A transient behaviour in the photoluminescence (PL) intensity of the two V$_o$ states was found to be sensitive to the ambient environment and to NR post-growth treatment. The largest transient was found in samples dried on a hot plate with a PL intensity decay time, in air only, of 23 and 80 s for the 2.25 and 2.03 eV peaks, respectively. Resistance measurements under UV exposure exhibited a transient behaviour in full agreement with the PL transient indicating a clear role of atmospheric O$_2$ on the surface defect states. A model for surface defect transient behaviour due to band bending with respect to the Fermi level is proposed. The results have implications for a variety of sensing and photovoltaic applications of ZnO NRs.
Towards a possible solution for the coincidence problem: f(G) gravity as background
Creators: name: Rudra, Prabir
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In this article we address the well-known cosmic coincidence problem in the framework of the f(G) gravity. In order to achieve this, an interaction between dark energy and dark matter is considered. A set-up is designed and a constraint equation is obtained which generates the f(G) models that do not suffer from the coincidence problem. Due to the absence of a universally accepted interaction term introduced by a fundamental theory, the study is conducted over three different forms of logically chosen interaction terms. To illustrate the set-up three widely known models of f(G) gravity are taken into consideration and the problem is studied under the designed set-up. The study reveals that the popular f(G) gravity models does not approve of a satisfactory solution of the long standing coincidence problem, thus proving to be a major setback for them as successful models of universe. Finally, two non-conventional models of f(G) gravity have been proposed and studied in the framework of the designed set-up. It is seen that a complete solution of the coincidence problem is achieved for these models. The study also reveals that the b-interaction term is much more preferable compared to the other interactions, due to its greater compliance with the recent observational data.
description: 10 pages, 5 figures (Accepted for publication in Int. J. Mod. Phys. D.). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1410.6710
The Water Abundance of the Directly Imaged Substellar Companion κ And b Retrieved from a Near Infrared Spectrum
Creators: name: Todorov, Kamen O.
name: Line, Michael R.
name: Pineda, Jaime E.
name: Meyer, Michael R.
name: Quanz, Sascha P.
name: Hinkley, Sasha
name: Fortney, Jonathan J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Spectral retrieval has proven to be a powerful tool for constraining the physical properties and atmospheric compositions of extrasolar planet atmospheres from observed spectra, primarily for transiting objects but also for directly imaged planets and brown dwarfs. Despite its strengths, this approach has been applied to only about a dozen targets. Determining the abundances of the main carbon and oxygen-bearing compounds in a planetary atmosphere can lead to the C/O ratio of the object, which is crucial in understanding its formation and migration history. We present a retrieval analysis on the published near-infrared spectrum of κ And b, a directly imaged substellar companion to a young B9 star. We fit the emission spectrum model utilizing a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm. We estimate the abundance of water vapor, and its uncertainty, in the atmosphere of the object. In addition, we place an upper limit on the abundance of CH$_4$. We compare qualitatively our results to studies that have applied model retrieval on multiband photometry and emission spectroscopy of hot Jupiters (extrasolar giant planets with orbital periods of several days) and the directly imaged giant planet HR 8799b.
description: 12 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables. ApJ, accepted. Updated after a minor text revision for clarity
Gracefully Mitigating Breakdowns in Robotic Services
Creators: name: Lee, Min Kyung
name: Kiesler, Sara
name: Forlizzi, Jodi
name: Siddhartha Srinivasa
name: Rybski, Paul E.
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: 80101 Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Robots that operate in the real world will make mistakes. Thus, those who design and build systems will need to understand how best to provide ways for robots to mitigate those mistakes. Building on diverse research literatures, we consider how to mitigate breakdowns in services provided by robots. Expectancy-setting strategies forewarn people of a robot's limitations so people will expect mistakes. Recovery strategies, including apologies, compensation, and options for the user, aim to reduce the negative consequence of breakdowns. We tested these strategies in an online scenario study with 317 participants. A breakdown in robotic service had severe impact on evaluations of the service and the robot, but forewarning and recovery strategies reduced the negative impact of the breakdown. People's orientation toward services influenced which recovery strategy worked best. Those with a relational orientation responded best to an apology; those with a utilitarian orientation responded best to compensation. We discuss robotic service design to mitigate service problems.
An optimal control model of mosquito reduction management in a dengue endemic region
Creators: name: Wijaya, Karunia Putra
name: Goetz, Thomas
name: Soewono, Edy
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 49J15, 49M05, 92D30

description: Aedes aegypti is known as the responsible vector transmitting dengue flavivirus. Unavailability of medication to cure the transmission of the virus in the human blood becomes a global health issue in recent decades. World epidemiologists are encouraged to focus on the investigation over the effective and inexpensive way to prevent dengue transmission, i.e. mosquito control. In this paper, we present a model depicting the dynamics of mosquito population based on indoor-outdoor life cycle classification. The basic mosquito offspring number was obtained and analysis of equilibria was shown. We brought along a discussion on the application of optimal control to the model in which two simultaneous schemes were introduced. The first scheme is done by disseminating chemical like temephos in spots where eggs and larvae develop, meanwhile the second scheme is done by deploying fumigation through areas where adult mosquitoes prevalently nest, indoor as well as outdoor. A version of the gradient-based method was presented to set up a workflow in minimizing the objective functional with respect to some control variables. Numerical results from the analysis of the basic mosquito offspring number with constant control and from that with optimal control suggested that the application of fumigation is preferable over that of temephos. It was also suggested that applying both control schemes simultaneously gives the most significant reduction in the population.