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Producción Científica, In this paper, we propose two new estimators of the multivariate rank correlation coefficient Spearman's footrule which are based on two general estimators for Average Orthant Dependence measures. We compare the new proposals with a previous estimator existing in the literature and show that the three estimators are asymptotically equivalent, but, in small samples, one of the proposed estimators outperforms the others. We also analyse Pitman efficiency of these indices to test for multivariate independence as compared to multivariate versions of Kendall's tau and Spearman's rho., Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2020-113350GB-I00 y PID2021-122657OB-I00), Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (CEX2019-000904-S), FEDER-Andalucía 2014-2020 (UAL2020-AGR-B1783)

Iiboshi Y., Iwata A., Hayashi T., et al. Energy trapping of circumferential shear horizontal wave in a hollow cylinder. Ultrasonics 133, 107044 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultras.2023.107044., This paper describes energy trapping of circumferential shear horizontal wave (C-SH wave) at a circumferential inner groove of a hollow cylinder. We first derive exact solutions of resonant frequencies of the C-SH wave from the classical theory of guided waves propagating in a hollow cylinder and approximated solutions from the relationship between wavelength of the C-SH wave and length of circumferential path of the hollow cylinder. Next, we examined the energy trapping conditions using the dispersion curves of a guided wave propagating in the longitudinal direction of a hollow cylinder, and showed that C-SH waves trap energy when the hollow cylinder has a circumferential groove on the inner surface, rather than on the outer surface. The energy trapping at an inner groove was confirmed for the C-SH wave with the circumferential order of n = 6 using eigen frequency analysis of finite element method and experiments with electromagnetic transducers. Moreover, when the energy trap mode was used to determine the change in resonance frequency for glycerin solution of different concentrations, it was confirmed that the resonance frequency decreased monotonically as the concentration increased, indicating the possibility of using the energy trap mode as a QCM-like sensor.

This paper studies spill-over effects of parental labour market shocks at two time points in the Covid-19 crisis: right after its onset in April 2020, and in January 2021. We use rich data from the UK to look at the consequences of immediate and persistent shocks that hit parents’ economic livelihoods. These negative labour market shocks have substantially larger impacts when suffered by fathers than by mothers. Children of fathers that suffered the most severe shocks - earnings dropping to zero - are the ones that are consistently impacted. In April 2020, they were 10 percentage points less likely to have received additional paid learning resources, but their fathers were spending about 30 more minutes per day helping them with school work. However, by January 2021, this latter association switches sign, as the negative spill-over onto children’s education occurred for those fathers facing more persistent, negative labour market shocks as the crisis progressed. The paper discusses potential mechanisms driving these results, finding a sustained deterioration of household finances and a worsening of father’s mental health to be factors at play.

In this paper, reaction kinetics, degradation mechanisms and associated toxicity have been assessed in detail concerning the abatement of neonicotinoid insecticide clothianidin (CLO) by ozone-based oxidation in water. The second-order rate constants for the reaction of CLO with molecular ozone (O3) and hydroxyl radical ([rad]OH) were determined by the direct and competition kinetics (with UV/H2O2 system as the radical source) methods, respectively, and estimated to be 103 M−1 s−1 and 3.7·109 M−1 s−1. This suggested a (potential) higher contribution of the indirect mechanism rather than the direct degradative pathway in the CLO ozonation process. Additionally, CLO oxidation was studied through an O3 and O3/H2O2 system for three complex real water matrices with distinct characteristics. DOC content was found to be the main parameter responsible for making difficult the achievement of high CLO degradations, whereas carbonate alkalinity did not exert a great impact on the process efficiency. Results indicated that typical ozone doses (up to 1 mg O3/mg DOC) were not enough for the complete removal of this micropollutant, ranging only from 50 to 80%. The study concerning the transformation products (TPs), performed by means of high-resolution mass spectrometry, allowed to suggest potential degradation routes based on the five major CLO-TPs identified. It was inferred that [rad]OH was involved in the formation of all TPs, whereas O3 was only involved in the formation of two of them. A preliminary toxicity assessment concerning CLO and its TPs during ozonation was conducted at three different trophic levels via the ECOSAR software. Results showed that none of the compounds was classified as very toxic for aquatic organisms, and all TPs exhibited minor toxicity than the parent compound. Changes in molecular structure, such as chlorothiazole ring breakdown, could be the main reason for this considerable decrease in toxicity. Overall, the present study demonstrates that ozonation can be considered a suitable technology alternative for CLO (and associated toxicity) abatement from aqueous matrices., This work was financially supported by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, with the project PID2020-112674RB-I00, as well as by the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants of the Government of Catalonia (project 2017SGR131).

This paper analyzes how customers' heterogeneous search and switching habits affect the prices paid for telecommunication services in a context in which operators use price discrimination strategies to retain their customers and attract those of their rivals. Drawing on a representative sample of Spanish households (N=3,113), we show that engaged consumers pay 9.4% less than completely unengaged consumers for their telecommunication services, after controlling for the characteristics of the bundle of services contracted. We also find that highly engaged consumers (i.e. those that have called their operator to obtain a better deal and who have switched to a different operator at least once) pay 13.6% less for their services than unengaged consumers, that consumers who have switched operator at least once pay 8.4% less, and that consumers who call their operator to request better conditions for their contracts pay 5.8% less. Finally, we show that the excess price paid by unengaged consumers increases as they contract more sophisticated services, such as premium television content and additional mobile lines.

In searching for novel targets to design antidepressants, among the characterized imidazoline receptors (IR), I2 receptors are an innovative therapeutical approach since they are dysregulated in major depressive disorder and by classical antidepressant treatments. In fact, several I2 agonists have been characterized for their antidepressant-like potential, but the results in terms of efficacy were mixed and exclusively reported in male rodents. Since there are well-known sex differences in antidepressant-like efficacy, this study characterized the potential effects induced by two I2 drugs, CR4056 (i.e., most promising drug already in phase II clinical trial for its analgesic properties) and B06 (a compound from a new family of bicyclic α-iminophosphonates) under the stress of the forced-swim test in male and female rats exposed to early-life stress. Moreover, some hippocampal neuroplasticity markers related to the potential effects observed were also evaluated (i.e., FADD, p-ERK/ERK, mBDNF, cell proliferation: Ki-67 + cells). The main results replicated the only prior study reporting the efficacy of CR4056 in male rats, while providing new data on its efficacy in females, which was clearly dependent on prior early-life stress exposure. Moreover, B06 showed no antidepressant-like effects in male or female rats. Finally, CR4056 increased FADD content and decreased cell proliferation in hippocampus, without affecting p-ERK/t-ERK ratio and/or mBDNF content. Interestingly, these effects were exclusively observed in female rats, and independently of early-life conditions, suggesting some distinctive molecular underpinnings participating in the therapeutic response of CR4056 for both sexes. In conjunction, these results present CR4056 with an antidepressant-like potential, especially in female rats exposed to stress early in life, together with some neuronal correlates described in the context of these behavioral changes in females., This research was partly supported by several grants to MJG-F: PID2020-118582RB-I00 (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and PDR2020/14 (Comunitat Autonoma ` de les Illes Balears through the Direccio ´ General de Política Universitaria ` i Recerca with funds from the Tourist Stay Tax Law ITS 2017–006). Moreover, this study was also funded by PID2019-107991RB-I00 (MCIN/AEI) and PDC2022-133441- I00 (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR”) to CE. These entities had no further role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. The salaries of personnel were covered by several research programs: predoctoral scholarships to EH-H (FPI/2102/2018) from Consejería de Innovacion, ´ Investigacion ´ y Turismo del Gobierno de las Islas Baleares y del Fondo Social Europeo, who is currently funded by the Margarita Salas Program (Ministerio de Universidades; Plan de Recuperacion, ´ Transformacion ´ y Resilencia; NextGenerationEU) with the participation of the University of the Balearic Islands; JUNIOR Program to SL-C from “TALENT PLUS Construint Salut, Generant Valor” (IdISBa, GOIB); CG is funded by the María Zambrano Program (Ministerio de Universidades; Plan de Recuperacion, ´ Transformacion ´ y Resilencia; NextGenerationEU) at the University of the Balearic Islands; AB received financial support from Institute of Biomedicine UB_2018.

In this paper a group contribution model for predicting the viscosity values of n-alkanes and iso-alkanes in the liquid phase based on Free-Volume Theory was developed. A database with 2129 experimental data with a temperature range up to 573.15 K and a pressure range up to 4000 bar was used to develop the model. The total weighted average percentage error is 4.894%. The model was tested on the next 472 experimental data with a temperature range up to 564.15 K and a pressure range up to 2019 bar and a mean percentage error that was obtained is 5.155%.

The depletion of fossil fuel reserves and severe environmental damage, resulting in climate change and global warming lead to a necessary shift to alternative renewable resources. Lignocellulose is a valuable feedstock for biorefineries, but its conversion is hindered by the limitations of conventional pretreatments lacking selectivity. This step should also be cost-effective and sustainable. In this paper, combined advanced oxidation techniques were applied for the treatment of corn stalks as a pretreatment for enzymatic hydrolysis. Their effect on delignification and cellulose digestibility was monitored. The combined non-thermal plasma/Fenton treatment appears to be suitable for breaking the complex lignocellulose structure, with a lignin content decrease of 39%. This treatment enhanced carbohydrate hydrolysis, resulting in 2.25 times increase in hexose yield, compared to the untreated sample. Long-term plasma treatment positively affected the textural properties, total porosity, and pore size diameter, of lignocellulose biomass. It enables the creation of materials with a stable system of pores and channels, for the unhindered diffusion of large organic molecules such as enzymes. Additionally, a combination of plasma treatment with Fenton reaction increased selectivity towards lignin degradation in comparison to independently applied Fenton treatment. This could be a significant advantage for a bottleneck in the current valorization of biomass.

In this paper we prove that a finite group of order $r$ has at most $$ 7.3722\cdot r^{\frac{\log_2r}{4}+1.5315}$$ subgroups.

The field of medical research has been always full of innovation and huge leaps revolutionizing the scientific world. In the recent years, we have witnessed this firsthand by the evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with ChatGPT being the most recent example. ChatGPT is a language chat bot which generates human-like texts based on data from the internet. If viewed from a medical point view, ChatGPT has shown capabilities of composing medical texts similar to those depicted by experienced authors, to solve clinical cases, to provide medical solutions, among other fascinating performances. Nevertheless, the value of the results, limitations, and clinical implications still need to be carefully evaluated. In our current paper on the role of ChatGPT in clinical medicine, particularly in the field of autoimmunity, we aimed to illustrate the implication of this technology alongside the latest utilization and limitations. In addition, we included an expert opinion on the cyber-related aspects of the bot potentially contributing to the risks attributed to its use, alongside proposed defense mechanisms. All of that, while taking into consideration the rapidity of the continuous improvement AI experiences on a daily basis.

Computational pathology targets the automatic analysis of Whole Slide Images (WSI). WSIs are high-resolution digitized histopathology images, stained with chemical reagents to highlight specific tissue structures and scanned via whole slide scanners. The application of different parameters during WSI acquisition may lead to stain color heterogeneity, especially considering samples collected from several medical centers. Dealing with stain color heterogeneity often limits the robustness of methods developed to analyze WSIs, in particular Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), the state-of-the-art algorithm for most computational pathology tasks. Stain color heterogeneity is still an unsolved problem, although several methods have been developed to alleviate it, such as Hue-Saturation-Contrast (HSC) color augmentation and stain augmentation methods. The goal of this paper is to present Data-Driven Color Augmentation (DDCA), a method to improve the efficiency of color augmentation methods by increasing the reliability of the samples used for training computational pathology models. During CNN training, a database including over 2 million H&E color variations collected from private and public datasets is used as a reference to discard augmented data with color distributions that do not correspond to realistic data. DDCA is applied to HSC color augmentation, stain augmentation and H&E-adversarial networks in colon and prostate cancer classification tasks. DDCA is then compared with 11 state-of-the-art baseline methods to handle color heterogeneity, showing that it can substantially improve classification performance on unseen data including heterogeneous color variations. European Commission No. 825292

Background: The plant pathogens significantly affect quality and marketability of several cereal crops. Of these, seed-borne phytopathogens are responsible for quality and quantity losses in crops on commercial scale. The aim of this study was to isolate and detect the seed-borne mycoflora from seed lots of various bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes widely grown in Bahawalpur division of south Punjab, Pakistan. Methods: Eleven commercial wheat cultivars/genotypes were investigated through standard blotter paper method. The samples were randomly collected from farmer fields and grain markets. The collected samples were brought to the laboratory and analyzed with different methods to detect the mycoflora. Results: Twenty-one fungal species were recovered from seeds lots of diversified gene pool. The most frequently isolated fungi were Alternaria alternata, Fusarium monoliformae, Aspergillus flavus, Helminthosporium spp., Curvularia spp., Bipolaris sorokiniana, Phoma spp. and Penicillium spp. The one devasting fungal specie Alternaria alternata (88.8%) was the dominating species in all wheat genotypes included in the study. Conclusion: These results divulge the presence of fungal pathogens in all wheat cultivars and could exert adverse effect on their allometric traits. So, there is a potential need to control these seed borne pathogens to minimize the crop yield losses. © 2023 The Author(s) King Saud University, KSU This project was supported by Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2023R5) King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In this paper, we are concerned with the mathematical analysis of a host–pathogen model with diffusion, hyperinfectivity and nonlinear incidence. We define the basic reproduction number ℜ0 by the spectral radius of the next generation operator, and study the relation between ℜ0 and the principal eigenvalue of the problem linearized at the disease-free steady state (DFSS). Under some assumptions, we show the threshold property of ℜ0: if ℜ01, then the system is uniformly persistent and a positive steady state (PSS) exists. Moreover, for the special case where all parameters are constants, we show that the PSS is GAS for ℜ0>1. Numerical simulation suggests that the spatial heterogeneity could enhance the intensity of epidemic, whereas the diffusion effect could reduce it.

Xylanases are enzymes responsible for the hydrolysis of the heteropolymer xylan. They have wide applications ranging from the bakery, animal husbandry, and textile to pulp and paper industry and biofuel productions. Recombinant xylanase production has been previously reported from different hosts such as bacteria and yeast. Microalgae offer a safe and cost-effective photosynthetic platform for producing recombinant proteins, including therapeutics and industrial enzymes. In this study, we optimized the production of recombinant xylanase expressed and secreted from the green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The growth of the culture was optimized using response surface methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD), with two numeric (culture incubation time and agitation rate) and one categoric (light intensity) factors. The optimum biomass concentration was obtained as 0.71 mg/mL from the CCD values. In addition, bubble column photobioreactors were set and compared for the culture growth, the protein concentration, and the enzyme activity under different light intensities and air flows. Increasing the aeration rate from 1 vvm to 2 vvm resulted in improved enzyme activity from 5330.5 U/g to 6277.7 U/g under 3500 lux illumination on the 3rd day of the culture. This study may lead to the further large-scale production of xylanase with high enzyme activity and reveal the advantage of the microalgae as a sustainable platform. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Internal combustion engines can be used as chemical reactors exploiting the high temperature and pressure as well as short residence time for chemical conversion. For instance, methane and CO$_{2}$ can be efficiently converted to H$_{2}$ and CO (syngas). The process can be boosted by additives such as dimethyl ether (DME). In this paper, the focus is on optimizing the operating conditions for the use of ozone, O$_{3}$, as an alternative fuel additive for dry reforming of methane. Furthermore, methane can be converted to C$_{2}$ hydrocarbons, which is also studied numerically to find optimized operating conditions, again using O$_{3}$ as an additive. The engine is modelled as a single-zone batch reactor under ideal gas assumptions with a variable volume profile. An elementary-step reaction mechanism consisting of 749 reactions among 132 species and including O$_{3}$ chemistry was used for the simulations. CO$_{2}$ conversion of over 70% is possible using O$_{3}$ as an additive, whereas the maximum achievable using DME was around 50%. The optimized yield of C$_{2}$H$_{4}$ is higher with O$_{3}$ as an additive as compared to DME, at all the inlet gas temperatures, whereas it is lower for CH$_{2}$O and comparable for C$_{6}$H$_{6}$ and CH$_{3}$OH.

The use of the Fabric Reinforced Cementitious Mortars (FRCMs) is nowadays a promising solution for the strengthening of both reinforced concrete and masonry structural elements. The application consists of a bond-dependent face-to-face plastering of an open grid or mesh by means of an inorganic-based matrix, i.e. a cement-based mortar. The main advantage of such a strengthening technique is the good compatibility with different types of substrates since the most suitable matrix can be selected focusing on the most similar breathability and stiffness. On the other side, the strengthening efficiency could be over-estimated if the potential bond failure is neglected. The FRCM-bond behaviour depends on many parameters, e.g., mechanical properties of substrate and reinforcement, environmental conditions, etc. Due to the wide range of variability of these parameters, nowadays, formulations for a reliable prediction of the maximum strain which the FRCM is able to develop for avoiding bond failure are not available. At this scope, the present paper collects a large database of experimental results of bond tests available in literature in order to investigate the main parameters influencing the performance of this strengthening technique, to identify the aspects that have to be further studied, and to calibrate an empirically-based analytical model proposed by the authors to predict the maximum design strain in the FRCM reinforcement. The parameters assumed in the model are the following: type of substrate (i.e. masonry or concrete), type of fabric (i.e. carbon, glass, steel, basalt), type of matrix (i.e. cement, lime, alkali-activated based) and failure mode (detachment, slippage, rupture, etc.). The database was clustered depending on the failure mode in order to calibrate targeted and more accurate equations.

In this paper, we investigate the problem of whether a retailer should bargain over the wholesale price of a product with a manufacturer or accept the price unilaterally determined by the manufacturer. To investigate the problem, we develop a game-theoretic model describing a supply chain organized by one manufacturer and one retailer. Intuitively, if there is a bargaining opportunity, a retailer is better off bargaining over the wholesale price rather than simply accepting the price determined by the manufacturer. Consistent with this intuition, we first show the benchmark outcome that the retailer achieves a higher profit through bargaining over the price when the manufacturer uses only a single-channel supply chain, in which the manufacturer sells only through the retailer. Conversely, however, we demonstrate that this intuitive result can be completely reversed in a dual-channel supply chain environment, in which the manufacturer is able to sell products not only through the retailer but also directly to end-consumers. Specifically, we find that if a retailer's bargaining power is sufficiently strong and if consumers' substitutability between channels is substantially high, full acceptance of the wholesale price dictated by the manufacturer earns the retailer a higher profit than bargaining. This counterintuitive result is a warning to retailers in dual-channel environments because if a retailer does not accept the wholesale price dictated by a manufacturer, but heedlessly exploits its strong power and bargains with the manufacturer, it may ultimately harm itself and reduce its own profits.

Automated pavement distress detection systems have become increasingly sought after by road agencies to in crease the efficiency of field surveys and reduce the likelihood of insufficient road condition data. However, many modern approaches are developed without practical testing using real-world scenarios. This paper ad dresses this by practically analyzing Deep Learning models to detect pavement distresses using French Secondary road surface images, given the issues of limited available road condition data in those networks. The study specifically explores several experimental and sensitivity-testing strategies using augmentation and hyper- parameter case studies to bolster practical model instrumentation and implementation. The tests achieve adequate distress detection performance and provide an understanding of how changing aspects of the workflow influence the actual engineering application, thus taking another step towards low-cost automation of aspects of the pavement management system

Rills caused by runoff concentration on erodible hillslopes generally have very irregular longitudinal profiles and cross-section shapes. Rill erosion directly depends on the hydraulics of flow within the rills which may differ greatly from that in larger and regular channels like streams or rivers. At first, in this paper, a review of the two different approaches to estimate rill flow velocity, based on flow regime and flow resistance laws, is presented. Recent advances in measurements of rill geometry by the three-dimensional photo-reconstruction (3D-PR) technique, which allows one to obtain a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) by low-altitude aerial and terrestrial photogrammetry, are also discussed. Indeed, information on rill geometry is also necessary to estimate flow velocity and depth using flow resistance equations. Then, the results of related laboratory and field investigations carried out from 1984 to 2022 are reported. In particular, the review was developed considering the studies conducted investigating the different components of rill flow resistance due to grain resistance, morphological resistance (step-pool), and sediment transport. Moreover, a brief mention of the slope threshold, equal to 18%, determining differences in hydraulic and sediment transport variables, is done. Also, an analysis is developed to demonstrate that a theoretical rill flow resistance law has been erroneously presented as an example of spurious correlation. Finally, some research needs on rill flow hydraulics are highlighted.

The use of microplastics is a global issue that affects the environment, the economy and human health. Here we describe a superhydrophobic 304 stainless steel obtained by combining chemical etching and PDMS modification. Among other techniques, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HR-XPS) were used to identify the hierarchical structure as well as the chemical composition of the surface. The stainless-steel mesh was superhydrophobic (159°) and superoleophilic (0°). The coating presented high stability against abrasion of SiC abrasive paper as well as in the presence of different pH values in acidic or alkaline conditions. In addition, taking advantage of the coating's wetting properties, we show that the superhydrophobic surface can also be used to remove high-density polyethylene microplastics from water. A surface mechanism promoting the removal or microplastics is also proposed, considering the surface properties of the solid pollutants as well as the wetting properties of the superhydrophobic coating.

This paper presents work done by the CERN-RD50 collaboration to develop and study monolithic CMOS sensors for future hadron colliders, especially in terms of radiation tolerance, time resolution and granularity. Currently CERN-RD50 is completing the performance evaluation of RD50-MPW2 and has recently submitted RD50-MPW3, the second and third prototype sensor chips designed by the collaboration. The paper gives an overview of the main design aspects and performance evaluation results of the first two prototype chips RD50-MPW1 and RD50-MPW2, and details the design of the latest prototype RD50-MPW3. RD50-MPW2 is a small prototype with an 8 x 8 matrix of active pixels which implement analogue readout electronics only and solutions for low leakage currents. This prototype has been evaluated in the laboratory and also at proton and ion beam facilities, before and after irradiation with neutrons up to 2⋅1015 𝑛eq/cm2 . RD50-MPW3 is a more advanced prototype with a matrix of 64 x 64 pixels which integrate both analogue and digital readout electronics inside the sensing diodes. To alleviate routing congestion and minimise crosstalk noise, the pixels are serially configured and organised in a double column scheme. This prototype has optimised peripheral readout electronics for effective chip configuration, based on the I2C protocol, and fast data transmission.

Previous analysis suggested the opportunity to consider the preferences of different stakeholders (hospital, patients, doctors and nurses) through the adoption of both patient priority maximisation and workload balance as performance criteria. The aim of this paper is to develop an effective and efficient solution approach for the operating room planning and scheduling capable to take into account the patient priority maximisation and workload balance criteria at the same time. This work is inspired by the need of a deeper understanding of the quality of the solutions obtained when a combination of the two criteria leads the OR planning decisions. Starting from a hierarchical multi-objective optimisation model for the combined master surgical scheduling and surgical cases assignment problems, we develop a class of new multi-neighbourhood local search based matheuristic algorithms, whose main feature is to exploit an ad hoc neighbourhood to generate better solutions in a significant shorter running time. A broad quantitative analysis on new realistic instances proves the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed matheuristic algorithms as well as to evaluate the quality of the computed solution from an operating room management perspective.

The paper considers profit-maximizing (or private) firms and socially-concerned (or public) firms that compete against each other on both prices and quality. In this setting, we study how product market competition affects firms' decision to hire altruistic or selfish employees. We show that public firms will always hire altruistic employees, whereas private firms will hire selfish employees only if (i) products are sufficiently differentiated and (ii) they compete against public firms. Lastly, we determine which market configuration is associated with the highest quality and the overall customers' utility. We find that mixed duopoly is more likely to be preferred when product market competition is tougher.

Persistence is an important characteristic of many complex systems in nature, related to how long the system remains at a certain state before changing to a different one. The study of complex systems' persistence involves different definitions and uses different techniques, depending on whether short-term or long-term persistence is considered. In this paper we discuss the most important definitions, concepts, methods, literature and latest results on persistence in complex systems. Firstly, the most used definitions of persistence in short-term and long-term cases are presented. The most relevant methods to characterize persistence are then discussed in both cases. A complete literature review is also carried out. We also present and discuss some relevant results on persistence, and give empirical evidence of performance in different detailed case studies, for both short-term and long-term persistence. A perspective on the future of persistence concludes the work. This research has been partially supported by the project PID2020-115454GB-C21 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN). This research has also been partially supported by Comunidad de Madrid, PROMINT-CM project (grant ref: P2018/EMT-4366). J. Del Ser would like to thank the Basque Government for its funding support through the EMAITEK and ELKARTEK programs (3KIA project, KK-2020/00049), as well as the consolidated research group MATHMODE (ref. T1294-19). GCV work is supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the ERC-CoG-2014 SEDAL Consolidator grant (grant agreement 647423).

Sediments conveyed from interrill areas to rills are transported by a thin flow (overland flow) and the knowledge of overland flow resistance is useful to evaluate overland flow velocity and sediment transport capacity. The aim of this paper was to verify the applicability of a theoretical overland flow resistance law, based on a power-velocity distribution, using field measurements for four upland grassland types used in different management strategies (Hay Meadows, Low-density Grazing, Rushes and Rank Grassland). Particular attention was deserved to the effects of vegetation growth cycles on the surface roughness and the corresponding reduction of overland flow velocity. The relationship between the parameter Γ of the power velocity profile, the flow Froude number and the Reynolds number, obtained by dimensional analysis, was calibrated using the available data. A specific calibration for each upland grassland type and taking into account the temporal phases of the vegetation growth was also carried out. The theoretical approach, checked by the available field measurements, allowed to establish that a) the proposed theoretical flow resistance law, which considers also the effect of the flow Reynolds number, allows an accurate estimate of the Darcy–Weisbach friction factor, b) the theoretical overland flow resistance law considers the temporal variability of vegetation characteristics, c) this flow resistance law can be specifically calibrated for taking into account for each upland grassland type the effect of the vegetation temporal variability and d) a low effect of the seasonal variation of roughness in grassland environments is detected. The interrill soil erosion processes are strongly related to hillslope hydraulics and the proposed overland flow resistance law is useful to model soil erosion processes.

The occurrence of freeze–thaw cycles modifies water infiltration processes and surface runoff generation. Related processes are complex and are not yet fully investigated at field scale. While local weather conditions and soil management practices are the most important factors in both runoff generation and surface erosion processes, local terrain heterogeneities may significantly influence soil erosion processes in catchments with undulating terrain. This paper presents a field-based investigation of spatial and temporal heterogeneities in subsurface soil moisture and soil temperature associated with freezing, thawing, and snowmelt infiltration. The field setup consists of a combination of traditional point measurements performed with frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). The transect was approximately 70 m long and spanned an entire depression with a north-facing slope (average slope of 11.5%) and a south-facing slope (average slope of 9.7%). The whole depression was entirely covered with stubble. Observed resistivity patterns correspond well to the measured soil moisture patterns. During the observation period, the north facing slope froze earlier and deeper compared with the south facing slope. Freeze–thaw cycles were less pronounced in the north-facing slope than in the south-facing slope. There were also differences in soil temperature and soil moisture patterns between lower and upper parts of the monitored depression. These indicate that initiation and development of runoff related processes, and consequently soil erosion, in regions with freeze–thaw cycles may differ significantly depending on local terrain characteristics. Consequently, it indicates that spatial terrain heterogeneities, especially slope aspects, may be important when studying soil erosion processes, water flow and nutrient leaching in lowlands where patchy snowpacks and dynamic freeze–thaw cycles are predominating.

Physical Internet (PI) is an open global logistics system of which components are hyperconnected for increased efficiency and sustainability. Digital twin (DT), referring to the virtual representation of a physical object, is well-perceived as a key driver in the development of PI-based Supply Chain Management (SCM). Due to the capabilities of real-time monitoring and evaluation of large-scale complex systems, significant research efforts have been made to exploit values of PI/DT in SCM. Despite this, the current literature remained largely unstructured and scattered due to a lack of systematic literature reviews to synergise research findings, analyse the evolution of research fronts and extract emerging trends in the field. To address this issue, the paper deploys a bibliometric knowledge mapping approach to provide a bird’s eye view of the current research status in the PI/DT-SCM area. Using CiteSpace’s keyword co-occurrence network, 518 journal articles are clustered into 10 key research streams on PI/DT applications in: job shop scheduling, smart manufacturing design, PI-based SCM, manufacturing virtualisation, information management, sustainability development, data analytics, manufacturing operations management, simulation and optimisation, and assembly process planning. Based on citation burst rate, keywords representing research frontiers of the PI/DT are detected and their temporal evolutions are discussed. Likewise, some identified emerging research trends are production process and system, robotics, computer architecture, and cost. Finally, seven future research directions are suggested, which emphasise on several PI/DT-related issues, including business ecosystem, sustainability development, SC downstream management, cognitive thinking in Industry 5.0, citizen twin in digital society, and SC resilience.

Technological advancements in vehicular transportation systems have led to the growth of novel paradigms, in which vehicles and infrastructures collaborate to infer high-level knowledge about phenomena of interest. Vehicular Social Network (VSN) is one such paradigm in which vehicular network entities are considered as part of an Online Social Network (OSN), paving the way for new services derived from social context. Although vehicular crowdsourcing has tremendous benefits, its deployment in real systems requires to solve important challenges including defense against Sybil attacks. This paper proposes a novel fog-assisted system that uses SybilDriver to minimize the presence of Sybil entities in VSN-based crowdsourcing applications. The proposed system exploits the characteristics of Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs) and OSNs to effectively recognize Sybils, and the adoption of fog computing helps reduce the overall network overhead by processing data closer to the vehicles. We perform detailed experiments on real-world publicly available datasets primarily to assess the effectiveness of SybilDriver against different Sybil attack strategies. Our experimental results show that SybilDriver detects Sybils with higher performance than state-of-the-art techniques under different settings. Furthermore, an evaluation of the fog architecture in terms of message complexity demonstrates low impact on the network overhead.

This paper introduces a new characterization of Kenmotsu manifolds and analyzes curvature conditions of Kenmotsu manifolds admitting the Q tensor whose trace is the well-known Z tensor. New types of Kenmotsu manifold are defined which are named ϕ−Q symmetric Kenmotsu manifold and ϕ−Q recurrent Kenmotsu manifold. Various properties of such a 2m+1-dimensional Kenmotsu manifold are studied. A theorem is given which states that a three-dimensional locally ϕ−Q recurrent and locally ϕ−Q symmetric Kenmotsu manifold admitting Q tensor is a manifold of constant curvature. Some examples of locally ϕ−Q symmetric Kenmotsu manifolds and Kenmotsu manifolds admitting Q tensor are provided.

Water activity is an important phenomenon not yet explained in the terms of water molecular structure. This paper aims to find the relationship between the water activity and water molecular structure of the rice germ, based on its spectral pattern which can be measured using non-destructive technology. Aquaphotomics near-infrared spectroscopy was used to study rice germ stored at different levels of water activity and atmosphere. The findings show that state of the rice germ is governed by the water activity upon storage, which is defined by the structure of water within germ matrix. The structure of water can be described solely by the absorbance spectral pattern at the following absorbance bands: proton hydrates, hydration shells and water vapor (1364, 1375 and 1382 nm), trapped water (1392 nm), free water (1410 nm), hydration water (1425 nm), adsorbed water (1455 nm), non-bonded hydroxyl (1436 nm) and bound water (1520 nm).

Wine's high economic value requires the development of methods to assess its quality. Anyway, winemaking is often managed by operators that decode the physicochemical phenomena occurring during manufacture. Integrating their skills in a control framework would represent an enhancement of the quality control procedure. The anthocyanin amount in wine is influenced by the fermentation process parameters, is responsible for red wine colour and suitable for intensity and tonality classification. In this paper, an artificial neural network was implemented to predict the intensity and tonality of wine's colour as a function of different parameters, which occur during the fermentation process.

Federated Learning (FL) is a distributed learning methodology that allows multiple nodes to cooperatively train a deep learning model, without the need to share their local data. It is a promising solution for telemonitoring systems that demand intensive data collection, for detection, classification, and prediction of future events, from different locations while maintaining a strict privacy constraint. Due to privacy concerns and critical communication bottlenecks, it can become impractical to send the FL updated models to a centralized server. Thus, this paper studies the potential of hierarchical FL in Internet of Things (IoT) heterogeneous systems. In particular, we propose an optimized solution for user assignment and resource allocation over hierarchical FL architecture for IoT heterogeneous systems. This work focuses on a generic class of machine learning models that are trained using gradient-descent-based schemes while considering the practical constraints of non-uniformly distributed data across different users. We evaluate the proposed system using two real-world datasets, and we show that it outperforms state-of-the-art FL solutions. Specifically, our numerical results highlight the effectiveness of our approach and its ability to provide 4-6% increase in the classification accuracy, with respect to hierarchical FL schemes that consider distance-based user assignment. Furthermore, the proposed approach could significantly accelerate FL training and reduce communication overhead by providing 75-85% reduction in the communication rounds between edge nodes and the centralized server, for the same model accuracy. Qatar Foundation;Qatar National Research Fund;Politecnico di Torino Scopus

In this paper, we study the convergence in the rates of young people Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) across the 274 European regions from 2000 to 2019. First, we apply the club convergence methodology and identify the presence of four important clusters with different trends in NEET rates. The estimated clusters consist of sub-national regions in quite distinct parts of Europe. Then, a spatio-temporal econometric model is used to confirm the presence of a reduction in the disparities (β–convergence) of these rates across the European regions. We identify the main drivers in each cluster and calculate the long-run NEET rates. The unemployment rate and the percentage of early leavers from education and training are the main drivers of NEET rates in all clusters. We are grateful for the financial support received from the Spanish Ministry of Economics, Industry and Competitiveness grant PID2020-113452RB-I00 (Silva), from the Generalitat de Catalunya – 2017SGR558 (Silva) and 2017SGR656 (Maynou), and the University Jaume I research project UJI-B2020-16 (Ordóñez).

The paper presents a brief review of the rail defect coding systems, which were recommended by the International Union of Railways during the period from 1959 to today. The recommended classification and numbering of RCF rail defects, defined in the document IRS 70712 from 2018, were critically analysed. In addition, harmonisation of European standards and IRS 70712 was found necessary by the authors. The paper points out that appropriate attention was paid neither to the combination of several types of RCF rail defects nor to the occurrence of these defects in the sensitive track zones such as switches, crossings, expansion joints, and insulated rail joints. Authors propose that Infrastructure Managers should supplement the Handbook of rail defects with RCF defects that occur on the railway network under their control. Moreover, the authors present the experience regarding RCF defects on the Serbian railway network. Conference Proceedings

This paper studies the problem of programming a robotic panda gardener to keep a bamboo garden from obstructing the view of the lake by your house. The garden consists of $n$ bamboo stalks with known daily growth rates and the gardener can cut at most one bamboo per day. As a computer scientist, you found out that this problem has already been formalized in [G\k{a}sieniec et al., SOFSEM'17] as the Bamboo Garden Trimming (BGT) problem, where the goal is that of computing a perpetual schedule (i.e., the sequence of bamboos to cut) for the robotic gardener to follow in order to minimize the makespan, i.e., the maximum height ever reached by a bamboo. Two natural strategies are Reduce-Max and Reduce-Fastest(x). Reduce-Max trims the tallest bamboo of the day, while Reduce-Fastest(x) trims the fastest growing bamboo among the ones that are taller than $x$. It is known that Reduce-Max and Reduce-Fastest(x) achieve a makespan of $O(\log n)$ and $4$ for the best choice of $x=2$, respectively. We prove the first constant upper bound of $9$ for Reduce-Max and improve the one for Reduce-Fastest(x) to $\frac{3+\sqrt{5}}{2} < 2.62$ for $x=1+\frac{1}{\sqrt{5}}$. Another critical aspect stems from the fact that your robotic gardener has a limited amount of processing power and memory. It is then important for the algorithm to be able to quickly determine the next bamboo to cut while requiring at most linear space. We formalize this aspect as the problem of designing a Trimming Oracle data structure, and we provide three efficient Trimming Oracles implementing different perpetual schedules, including those produced by Reduce-Max and Reduce-Fastest(x)., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, FUN 2020

This paper focuses on the prediction of cryptocurrency volatility. The stock market volatility represents a very influential aspect that affects a wide range of decisions in business and finance. Recently, the volatility spillovers between the cryptocurrency market and other financial markets are detecting. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency volatility forecasts underperform the market dynamics. This paper develops a suitable model to capture the cryptocurrency volatility dynamics. We base on deep learning techniques, which produce more reliable results than standard methods in finance by capturing complex data interactions. Specifically, we refer to a Jordan Neural Network, which is a parsimonious recurrent neural network showing more predictability power compared to other models designed for time series, the Self Exciting Threshold Autoregressive model models and the Non-Linear Autoregressive Neural Networks. Empirical evidence is provided using data from three different cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ripple, and Ethereum.

The paper considers the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in modern Russia and China. The analysis of cargo turnover and the advantages of the NSR is carried out. The importance of the nuclear icebreaker fleet in the development of the NSR is determined and specified. The route is currently considered as transcontinental and it is planned to become part of the “Silk Road”. It belongs to the number of Russian national projects. As an international transit highway, the Northern Sea Route has a huge potential for international cooperation and development of the North and East of Russia. The cluster-modular approach in the organization of NSR is considered. © 2022 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.

Background: Late-life depression (LLD) is characterized by cognitive and social impairments. Determining neurobiological alterations in connectivity in LLD by means of fMRI may lead to a better understanding of the neural basis underlying this disorder and more precise diagnostic markers. The primary objective of this paper is to identify a structural model that best explains the dynamic effective connectivity (EC) of the default mode network (DMN) in LLD patients compared to controls. Methods: Twenty-seven patients and 29 healthy controls underwent resting-state fMRI during a period of eight minutes. In both groups, jackknife correlation matrices were generated with six ROIs of the DMN that constitute the posterior DMN (pDMN). The different correlation matrices were used as input to estimate each structural equation model (SEM) for each subject in both groups incorporating dynamic effects. Results: The results show that the proposed LLD diagnosis algorithm achieves perfect accuracy in classifying LLD patients and controls. This differentiation is based on three aspects: the importance of ROIs 4 and 6, which seem to be the most distinctive among the subnetworks; the shape that the specific connections adopt in their networks, or in other words, the directed connections that are established among the ROIs in the pDMN for each group; and the number of dynamic effects that seem to be greater throughout the six ROIs studied [t = 54.346; df = 54; p < .001; 95 % CI difference = 5.486-5.906]. Limitations: The sample size was moderate, and the participants continued their current medications. Conclusions: The network models that we developed describe a pattern of dynamic activation in the pDMN that may be considered a possible biomarker for LLD, which may allow early diagnosis of this disorder.

Novel concepts like digital twins and X-in-the-Loop (XIL) simulations are being adopted in many new application areas by all entities in supply chains, including enterprises of all sizes as well as research institutes. However, they are not sufficiently addressed during control education in standard bachelor and master courses. The main cause is the high price of required equipment and SW toolchains. In addition, clear vision and common understanding of the role of digital twins in individual XIL stages should be created. In this paper, cost effective tools are presented and their utilization is demonstrated with a simple gantry crane model with special focus on load swinging attenuation. The authors believe that the presented tools and ideas would bring wider competences to the students and thus bridge the gap between industrial needs and academic practice and shorten the way towards 4th generation universities.

Steel grade 14MoV6 3 is used for manufacturing of boilers and steam pipelines designed for steam temperatures up to 560°C. This paper presents the experimental analysis which included impact toughness test. The analysis resulted in impact energy values, and their respective components, crack initiation and crack propagation energy, and represents the initial stage of extensive research involving the behavior of 14MoV6 3 steel. The aim was to determine the effects of temperature (room vs. operated), as well as the effects of specimen orientation with regards to the rolling direction, on the impact toughness and the relation between its components.

Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) can help perceive, understand, and manage emotions and positively impact performance in any profession, including pharmacists, and consequently may have positive influence on patient-related outcomes. Although there is strong body of evidence suggesting that developing EI in health professionals (HPs) can increase their capacity to successfully communicate and build relationships with patients, thus increasing patient satisfaction, little is known about it in pharmaceutical care (PhC). Objectives: This review aimed to synthesize available data on the probable impact of EI on PhC. Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases were searched for papers in English dated between January 2000 and June 2021. Quantitative, qualitative, or mixed method studies on EI and PhC that involved practicing pharmacists were included. Results: The inclusion criteria were met by 4 papers only. One reported positive impact of EI in reducing the negative correlation between autistic-like traits and empathy among hospital pharmacists. One study demonstrated that EI levels can be significantly enhanced through pharmacy leadership programs. Another study established a positive correlation between EI and entrepreneurial orientation in practicing community pharmacists. Higher EI scores were predictors of increased work innovation, proactivity, and risk-taking levels. One study reported comparative EI data between different HPs and found pharmacists' superiority in the EI subdomains of self-awareness, self-motivation, and social skills. Conclusion: Additional research is required to provide evidence on how EI and EI development programs can add value to the provision of PhC. Processes and resources ought to be developed and secured to support the implementation and follow-up of such programs to bring long-term benefits to practicing pharmacists and consequently positively impacting patient-reported health outcomes.

Single-use baby diapers belongs to an important group of products used in the parenting journey because of their high performance and convenience. Single-use baby diapers are normally thrown away after one-time use, resulting in a waste management problem. The goal of this paper was to better understand main environmental concerns of different types of diapers and address how to reduce them, with a special consideration of waste management strategies and user behaviour practices. Furthermore, health and environmental hazards potentially associated with materials included in diapers, or substances formed from diapers during the waste treatment stage, are also analysed (e.g., phthalates, pesticides, dioxins, pesticides). Three main types of baby diapers have been analysed: single-use baby diapers, reusable baby diapers, and biodegradable single-use diapers. Each type of diaper comes with technical characteristics and environmental concerns and challenges, which are discussed in this paper to support the development of measures for the safe(r) and sustainable design, use and end of life management of baby diapers. Justyna Płotka-Wasylka is grateful for the finantial support by the National Science Centre, Poland within the grant project (No.: 2020/37/B/ST4/02886).

This paper focuses on the drivers of green technology adoption. We distinguish between end-of-pipe and cleaner production technologies aimed at either pollution mitigation or energy efficiency, respectively. We provide empirical evidence of the relations between existing policy instruments, organizational capabilities of firms and the adoption of different types of green technologies. We use a unique firm level panel dataset of 2562 Spanish manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2014 to carry out the empirical analysis. Our results show, first, that policy instruments drive adoption of green innovation more than organizational capabilities. Second, environmental taxation seems to be ineffective at stimulating the adoption of eco-innovation. Third, both investment subsidies and tax credits do imply higher levels of investments in green technologies. Tax incentives seem to mostly foster cleaner production technologies, while subsidies are used to finance all types of eco-innovations. Fourth, human resources as green employees are positively related with environmental investments. Finally, dynamic capabilities as the introduction of environmental management systems are correlated particularly with cleaner production investments oriented to reduce energy consumption.

In this paper we address, from a purely numerical point of view, the question, raised in [20, 21], and partly considered in [22, 9, 3], whether a certain function, referred to as "Euler Integral", is a quasi-integral along the trajectories of the three-body problem. Differently from our previous investigations, here we focus on the region of the "unperturbed separatrix", which turns to be complicated by a collision singularity. Concretely, we reduce the Hamiltonian to two degrees of freedom and, after fixing some energy level, we discuss in detail the resulting three-dimensional phase space around an elliptic and an hyperbolic periodic orbit. After measuring the strength of variation of the Euler Integral (which are in fact small), we detect the existence of chaos closely to the unperturbed separatrix. The latter result is obtained through a careful use of the machinery of covering relations, developed in [13, 24, 23]., This paper is supported by the the ERC project 677793 Stable and Chaotic Motions in the Planetary Problem (2016-2022)

© 2021In this paper, experimental investigation of the flight performance of the proposed universal Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in case of rotor failures is presented. In the experimental flight tests, proposed universal UAV that can be converted to many different configurations due to its non-standard multi-layer structure was used in two different configurations as a standard octorotor and a multi-layer dodecarotor. Multiple outdoor experiments are conducted to show flight safety and reliability of the proposed UAV in terms of rotor failure tolerance. In order to evaluate flight safety and reliability of the proposed UAV, take-off, hovering and landing flight performance analyzes were performed in cases where one or two motors/propellers were completely lost. As performance criteria, errors in the UAV's roll, pitch and yaw angles, altitude error and vibration in three axes were determined. The flight test results are presented both numerically and graphically. According to the results, multi-layer dodecarotor type has shown a more stable flight performance in terms of angular position errors. In addition, in both types of UAVs, in the case of failure of two rotors rotating in the opposite direction, it has been observed that the error in yaw angle is less than a rotor failure, as expected. Likewise, in the case of failure of two rotors rotating in the same direction, performance loss was observed in the control of yaw angle.

Radiopharmaceuticals are radioactive drugs, with a very short shelf life, in most of the cases. The number of proceedings using radiopharmaceuticals increases each day worldwide and for many countries the price of radiopharmaceuticals can represent a limitation in the offer of this drug for more patients. Nonetheless, the shortage of important radionuclides is a serious issue and may also affect the use and distribution of these drugs for more patients globally, especially in low and middle income countries. In this direction, the need to avoid waste of these drugs is crucial. In this study we have evaluated the stability of two radiopharmaceuticals (MDP and DTPA) under different conditions in order to propose the extension of shelf life. The results showed that is possible to have stable radiopharmaceuticals (both MDP and DTPA) even 24hs post labeling process when storage properly. The data may represent an advance in the field of Radiopharmacy, providing news perspectives for radiopharmaceuticals shelf life. © 2022 Elsevier B.V., E-26//211.207/2021, E-26/202.320/2021; E-26/010.002362/2019, E-26/211.269/2021; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, CNPq: 301069/2018-2; Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, FAPERJ: E-26/010.000981/2019, E-26/200.815/2021; Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear, CNEN: 01341.011064/2021-71, This study was funded by Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support of Rio de Janeiro State ( FAPERJ ) ( Cientista do Nosso Estado : E-26/200.815/2021 ; Rede NanoSáude : E-26/010.000981/2019 , Pesquisa na UEZO : E-26/010.002362/2019 ; Temáticos : E-26/211.269/2021 , Infraestrutura e Pesquisa na UEZO e UERJ : E-26//211.207/2021 , Bolsa de Pós Doutorado Senior (PDS): E-26/202.320/2021 ); CNPq (Bolsa de Produtividade 1B: 301069/2018-2 ) to Ralph Santos-Oliveira; National Nuclear Energy Commission (Bolsa de Pós-doutorado CNEN: 01341.011064/2021-71 ) to Martha Sahylí Ortega Pijeira.

International audience; A new shock-tracking technique that avoids re-meshing the computational grid around the moving shock-front was recently proposed by the authors. This paper describes further algorithmic improvements which make the extrapolated Discontinuity Tracking Technique (eDIT ) capable of dealing with complex shock-topologies featuring shock-shock and shock-wall interactions. Various testcases are included to describe the key features of the methodology and prove its order-of-convergence properties.

This study aims to conduct a functional analysis of the technological innovation system with the inclusion of sectoral and spatial perspectives. This involves the impact analysis of a variety of sectors’ integration into the biogas value chain and a more explicit review of spatial and institutional contexts of the transition process. By applying mixed methods research, this approach is illustrated by examining the development of the biogas industry in Russia. As a result, the adjusted framework enables us to understand how technological innovation develops, diffuses, and uses in specific segments and places. Such an advanced insight of the analyzed case also helps to give accurate recommendations for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners, who seek to initiate or expand the diffusion of biogas technologies in Russia. © 2022 The Author. Regarding bioenergy itself, the Russian government adopted the Comprehensive Program on Development of Biotechnology through 2020 (BIO 2020) in April 2012, which was supported by the Roadmap for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Development Tatiana Nevzorova acknowledges the financial support of the Global Education Program fellowship, the Russian Federation [grant number 450]. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the “5th Network of Early Career Researchers in Sustainability Transitions Conference 2020″ held online from May 6–8, 2020.

The condition of the rails affects the comfort and safety of railway transport. Managing the rail life cycle on modern railway networks has been playing an increasingly important role. Inspection, preventive and corrective maintenance of rails are significant activities in the integral maintenance of the railway superstructure and substructure. The competitiveness of railway transport on the traffic market requires the realization of maintenance activities in short periods of line closure. The paper presents guidelines for rail reprofiling based on the experiences of railway Infrastructure Managers and the recommendations of European technical regulations. The need for grinding new rails after laying the track was pointed out. The advantage of preventive over corrective reprofiling is emphasized. Different types of target profiles of the reprofiled railhead are presented. This paper aims to improve the knowledge of experts in the field of railway infrastructure maintenance. Conference Proceedings

COVID-19 has severely disrupted every aspect of society and left negative impact on our life. Resisting the temptation in engaging face-to-face social connection is not as easy as we imagine. Breaking ties within social circle makes us lonely and isolated, that in turns increase the likelihood of depression related disease and even can leads to death by increasing the chance of heart disease. Not only adults, children's are equally impacted where the contribution of emotional competence to social competence has long term implications. Early identification skill for facial behaviour emotions, deficits, and expression may help to prevent the low social functioning. Deficits in young children's ability to differentiate human emotions can leads to social functioning impairment. However, the existing work focus on adult emotions recognition mostly and ignores emotion recognition in children. By considering the working of pyramidal cells in the cerebral cortex, in this paper, we present progressive lightweight shallow learning for the classification by efficiently utilizing the skip-connection for spontaneous facial behaviour recognition in children. Unlike earlier deep neural networks, we limit the alternative path for the gradient at the earlier part of the network by increase gradually with the depth of the network. Progressive ShallowNet is not only able to explore more feature space but also resolve the over-fitting issue for smaller data, due to limiting the residual path locally, making the network vulnerable to perturbations. We have conducted extensive experiments on benchmark facial behaviour analysis in children that showed significant performance gain comparatively.