Ontology-based pathways generation for biomass to bioenergy conversion

Bio energy is a renewable energy and a solution to the depleting fossil fuels. Bio energy such as heat, power and bio fuel is generated by conversion technologies using biomass for example domestic waste, root crops, forest residue and animal slurry. Pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion and combined heat and power engine are some examples of the technologies. Depending on the nature of a biomass, it can be treated with various technologies giving out some products, which can be further treated with other technologies and eventually converted into the final products as bio energy. The pathway followed by the biomass, technologies, intermediate products and bio energy in the conversion process is referred to as bio energy pathway. Identification of appropriate pathways optimizes the conversion process. Although there are various approaches to create or generate the pathways, there is still a need for a semantic approach to generate the pathways, which allow checking the consistency of the knowledge, and to share and extend the knowledge efficiently. This paper presents an ontology-based approach to automatic generation of the pathways for biomass to bio energy conversion, which exploits the definition and hierarchical structure of the biomass and technologies, their relationship and associated properties, and infers appropriate pathways. A case study has been carried out in a real-life scenario, the bio energy project for the North West of Europe (Bioen NW), which showed promising results.

Improving the Quality of Education by Using a System for Development and Generation of Personalized Educational Materials

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2016

Application of automatic load transfer on feeder utilisation balance

This paper looks at how automatic load transfer may be used as a possible planning tool to help deliver faster connections for customers. A trial on an area of overhead line Network is presented to show how improvements in % feeder utilisation may be realised by changing the location of the open point. The reported Network data is compared to calculated data under two different configurations over a two week trial period. The results show that ALT open point determination in the presence of generation is different from a load only circuit and that the open points may not be fixed with time. Looking at improvements in Network headroom may not be conducive to other improvements in the network such as loss reduction or improving voltage profiles.

Automatic maintenance of category hierarchy

Category hierarchy is an abstraction mechanism for efficiently managing large-scale resources. In an open environment, a category hierarchy will inevitably become inappropriate for managing resources that constantly change with unpredictable pattern. An inappropriate category hierarchy will mislead the management of resources. The increasing dynamicity and scale of online resources increase the requirement of automatically maintaining category hierarchy. Previous studies about category hierarchy mainly focus on either the generation of category hierarchy or the classification of resources under a pre-defined category hierarchy. The automatic maintenance of category hierarchy has been neglected. Making abstraction among categories and measuring the similarity between categories are two basic behaviours to generate a category hierarchy. Humans are good at making abstraction but limited in ability to calculate the similarities between large-scale resources. Computing models are good at calculating the similarities between large-scale resources but limited in ability to make abstraction. To take both advantages of human view and computing ability, this paper proposes a two-phase approach to automatically maintaining category hierarchy within two scales by detecting the internal pattern change of categories. The global phase clusters resources to generate a reference category hierarchy and gets similarity between categories to detect inappropriate categories in the initial category hierarchy. The accuracy of the clustering approaches in generating category hierarchy determines the rationality of the global maintenance. The local phase detects topical changes and then adjusts inappropriate categories with three local operations. The global phase can quickly target inappropriate categories top-down and carry out cross-branch adjustment, which can also accelerate the local-phase adjustments. The local phase detects and adjusts the local-range inappropriate categories that are not adjusted in the global phase. By incorporating the two complementary phase adjustments, the approach can significantly improve the topical cohesion and accuracy of category hierarchy. A new measure is proposed for evaluating category hierarchy considering not only the balance of the hierarchical structure but also the accuracy of classification. Experiments show that the proposed approach is feasible and effective to adjust inappropriate category hierarchy. The proposed approach can be used to maintain the category hierarchy for managing various resources in dynamic application environment. It also provides an approach to specialize the current online category hierarchy to organize resources with more specific categories.

Wireless Network Analytics for Next Generation Spectrum Awareness

The importance of networks, in their broad sense, is rapidly and massively growing in modern-day society thanks to unprecedented communication capabilities offered by technology. In this context, the radio spectrum will be a primary resource to be preserved and not wasted. Therefore, the need for intelligent and automatic systems for in-depth spectrum analysis and monitoring will pave the way for a new set of opportunities and potential challenges. This thesis proposes a novel framework for automatic spectrum patrolling and the extraction of wireless network analytics. It aims to enhance the physical layer security of next generation wireless networks through the extraction and the analysis of dedicated analytical features. The framework consists of a spectrum sensing phase, carried out by a patrol composed of numerous radio-frequency (RF) sensing devices, followed by the extraction of a set of wireless network analytics. The methodology developed is blind, allowing spectrum sensing and analytics extraction of a network whose key features (i.e., number of nodes, physical layer signals, medium access protocol (MAC) and routing protocols) are unknown. Because of the wireless medium, over-the-air signals captured by the sensors are mixed; therefore, blind source separation (BSS) and measurement association are used to estimate the number of sources and separate the traffic patterns. After the separation, we put together a set of methodologies for extracting useful features of the wireless network, i.e., its logical topology, the application-level traffic patterns generated by the nodes, and their position. The whole framework is validated on an ad-hoc wireless network accounting for MAC protocol, packet collisions, nodes mobility, the spatial density of sensors, and channel impairments, such as path-loss, shadowing, and noise. The numerical results obtained by extensive and exhaustive simulations show that the proposed framework is consistent and can achieve the required performance.

Quality and Aspect based Argument Generation

Natural Language Processing has always been one of the most popular topics in Artificial Intelligence. Argument-related research in NLP, such as argument detection, argument mining and argument generation, has been popular, especially in recent years. In our daily lives, we use arguments to express ourselves. The quality of arguments heavily impacts the effectiveness of our communications with others. In professional fields, such as legislation and academic areas, arguments of good quality play an even more critical role. Therefore, argument generation with good quality is a challenging research task that is also of great importance in NLP. The aim of this work is to investigate the automatic generation of arguments with good quality, according to the given topic, stance and aspect (control codes). To achieve this goal, a module based on BERT [17] which could judge an argument's quality is constructed. This module is used to assess the quality of the generated arguments. Another module based on GPT-2 [19] is implemented to generate arguments. Stances and aspects are also used as guidance when generating arguments. After combining all these models and techniques, the ranks of the generated arguments could be acquired to evaluate the final performance. This dissertation describes the architecture and experimental setup, analyzes the results of our experimentation, and discusses future directions.

NLG-Metricverse: An End-to-End Library for Evaluating Natural Language Generation

Driven by recent deep learning breakthroughs, natural language generation (NLG) models have been at the center of steady progress in the last few years. However, since our ability to generate human-indistinguishable artificial text lags behind our capacity to assess it, it is paramount to develop and apply even better automatic evaluation metrics. To facilitate researchers to judge the effectiveness of their models broadly, we suggest NLG-Metricverse—an end-to-end open-source library for NLG evaluation based on Python. This framework provides a living collection of NLG metrics in a unified and easy- to-use environment, supplying tools to efficiently apply, analyze, compare, and visualize them. This includes (i) the extensive support of heterogeneous automatic metrics with n-arity management, (ii) the meta-evaluation upon individual performance, metric-metric and metric-human correlations, (iii) graphical interpretations for helping humans better gain score intuitions, (iv) formal categorization and convenient documentation to accelerate metrics understanding. NLG-Metricverse aims to increase the comparability and replicability of NLG research, hopefully stimulating new contributions in the area.

Miglioramento della qualità di algoritmi di face morphing generation

L'obiettivo principale di questo lavoro di tesi è quello di migliorare gli algoritmi di morphing generation in termini di qualità visiva e di potenzialità di attacco dei sistemi automatici di riconoscimento facciale.

An Efficient Protocol For The Generation Of Monocyte Derived Dendritic Cells Using Serum-free Media For Clinical Applications In Post Remission Aml Patients.

Protocols for the generation of dendritic cells (DCs) using serum as a supplementation of culture media leads to reactions due to animal proteins and disease transmissions. Several types of serum-free media (SFM), based on good manufacture practices (GMP), have recently been used and seem to be a viable option. The aim of this study was to evaluate the results of the differentiation, maturation, and function of DCs from Acute Myeloid Leukemia patients (AML), generated in SFM and medium supplemented with autologous serum (AS). DCs were analyzed by phenotype characteristics, viability, and functionality. The results showed the possibility of generating viable DCs in all the conditions tested. In patients, the X-VIVO 15 medium was more efficient than the other media tested in the generation of DCs producing IL-12p70 (p=0.05). Moreover, the presence of AS led to a significant increase of IL-10 by DCs as compared with CellGro (p=0.05) and X-Vivo15 (p=0.05) media, both in patients and donors. We concluded that SFM was efficient in the production of DCs for immunotherapy in AML patients. However, the use of AS appears to interfere with the functional capacity of the generated DCs.

Extreme Harmonic Generation In Electrically Driven Spin Resonance.

We report the observation of multiple harmonic generation in electric dipole spin resonance in an InAs nanowire double quantum dot. The harmonics display a remarkable detuning dependence: near the interdot charge transition as many as eight harmonics are observed, while at large detunings we only observe the fundamental spin resonance condition. The detuning dependence indicates that the observed harmonics may be due to Landau-Zener transition dynamics at anticrossings in the energy level spectrum.

The Basic Reproduction Number Obtained From Jacobian And Next Generation Matrices - A Case Study Of Dengue Transmission Modelling.

The basic reproduction number is a key parameter in mathematical modelling of transmissible diseases. From the stability analysis of the disease free equilibrium, by applying Routh-Hurwitz criteria, a threshold is obtained, which is called the basic reproduction number. However, the application of spectral radius theory on the next generation matrix provides a different expression for the basic reproduction number, that is, the square root of the previously found formula. If the spectral radius of the next generation matrix is defined as the geometric mean of partial reproduction numbers, however the product of these partial numbers is the basic reproduction number, then both methods provide the same expression. In order to show this statement, dengue transmission modelling incorporating or not the transovarian transmission is considered as a case study. Also tuberculosis transmission and sexually transmitted infection modellings are taken as further examples.

Direct And Non-destructive Proof Of Authenticity For The 2nd Generation Of Brazilian Real Banknotes Via Easy Ambient Sonic Spray Ionization Mass Spectrometry.

Using a desorption/ionization technique, easy ambient sonic-spray ionization coupled to mass spectrometry (EASI-MS), documents related to the 2nd generation of Brazilian Real currency (R$) were screened in the positive ion mode for authenticity based on chemical profiles obtained directly from the banknote surface. Characteristic profiles were observed for authentic, seized suspect counterfeit and counterfeited homemade banknotes from inkjet and laserjet printers. The chemicals in the authentic banknotes' surface were detected via a few minor sets of ions, namely from the plasticizers bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP), most likely related to the official offset printing process, and other common quaternary ammonium cations, presenting a similar chemical profile to 1st-generation R$. The seized suspect counterfeit banknotes, however, displayed abundant diagnostic ions in the m/z 400-800 range due to the presence of oligomers. High-accuracy FT-ICR MS analysis enabled molecular formula assignment for each ion. The ions were separated by 44 m/z, which enabled their characterization as Surfynol® 4XX (S4XX, XX=40, 65, and 85), wherein increasing XX values indicate increasing amounts of ethoxylation on a backbone of 2,4,7,9-tetramethyl-5-decyne-4,7-diol (Surfynol® 104). Sodiated triethylene glycol monobutyl ether (TBG) of m/z 229 (C10H22O4Na) was also identified in the seized counterfeit banknotes via EASI(+) FT-ICR MS. Surfynol® and TBG are constituents of inks used for inkjet printing.

Proposição de um método de análise de movimentos de jogadores de tênis de campo a partir de vídeos televisivos = : Proposition of a method for tennis players motion analysis on broadcast videos

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Evidence for divided automatic attention

A long-standing debate in the literature is whether attention can form two or more independent spatial foci in addition to the well-known unique spatial focus. There is evidence that voluntary visual attention divides in space. The possibility that this also occurs for automatic visual attention was investigated here. Thirty-six female volunteers were tested. In each trial, a prime stimulus was presented in the left or right visual hemifield. This stimulus was characterized by the blinking of a superior, middle or inferior ring, the blinking of all these rings, or the blinking of the superior and inferior rings. A target stimulus to which the volunteer should respond with the same side hand or a target stimulus to which she should not respond was presented 100 ms later in a primed location, a location between two primed locations or a location in the contralateral hemifield. Reaction time to the positive target stimulus in a primed location was consistently shorter than reaction time in the horizontally corresponding contralateral location. This attentional effect was significantly smaller or absent when the positive target stimulus appeared in the middle location after the double prime stimulus. These results suggest that automatic visual attention can focus on two separate locations simultaneously, to some extent sparing the region in between.

ScriptLattes: an open-source knowledge extraction system from the Lattes platform

The Lattes platform is the major scientific information system maintained by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). This platform allows to manage the curricular information of researchers and institutions working in Brazil based on the so called Lattes Curriculum. However, the public information is individually available for each researcher, not providing the automatic creation of reports of several scientific productions for research groups. It is thus difficult to extract and to summarize useful knowledge for medium to large size groups of researchers. This paper describes the design, implementation and experiences with scriptLattes: an open-source system to create academic reports of groups based on curricula of the Lattes Database. The scriptLattes system is composed by the following modules: (a) data selection, (b) data preprocessing, (c) redundancy treatment, (d) collaboration graph generation among group members, (e) research map generation based on geographical information, and (f) automatic report creation of bibliographical, technical and artistic production, and academic supervisions. The system has been extensively tested for a large variety of research groups of Brazilian institutions, and the generated reports have shown an alternative to easily extract knowledge from data in the context of Lattes platform. The source code, usage instructions and examples are available at http://scriptlattes.sourceforge.net/.