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See detailIs There a Need for a Directive on Pillar Two? A Few Normative Comments.
Haslehner, Werner UL

in Intertax, International Tax Review (2022), 50(6/7), 527-530

Poland’s request to link the entry into force of the Pillar 2 Directive to an international agreement on Pillar 1 raises fundamental questions about the European constitutional structure. Beyond the mere ... [more ▼]

Poland’s request to link the entry into force of the Pillar 2 Directive to an international agreement on Pillar 1 raises fundamental questions about the European constitutional structure. Beyond the mere legality of such a link, this contribution seeks to respond to some normative concerns related to the creation of such secondary legislation. [less ▲]

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See detailLa représentation interculturelle du désastre nucléaire entre appropriation et écart : deux exemples luxembourgeois
Thiltges, Sébastian UL

in Relief: Revue Électronique de Littérature Française (2022), 16(1), 210226

In Luxembourg, nuclear power stations have been part of literary imaginary since the end of the 1970s. This imaginary is fueled by the opposition against two nuclear projects on the Moselle River, and by ... [more ▼]

In Luxembourg, nuclear power stations have been part of literary imaginary since the end of the 1970s. This imaginary is fueled by the opposition against two nuclear projects on the Moselle River, and by the major nuclear accidents which have marked recent human history over the last decades. From this context, this contribution seeks to bring to light the multiple links between ecology and nuclear power, and as a corollary between the two research fields, within the framework of literary and cultural studies, of ecocriticism and nuclear criticism. Based on the shared key problematics of the latter (temporality, geography, and subjectivity), the analysis of two francophone literary works published in Luxembourg then explores two seemingly diametrically opposed ways of describing the intercultural dimension of the nuclear disaster: one imagining cultural appropriation based on geographical relocalisation, the other highlighting the gap between the event and its perception. [less ▲]

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See detailOpinion Statement ECJ-TF 2/2022 on the Decision of 27 January 2022 in European Commission v. Kingdom of Spain (Form 720) (Case C-788/19)
Kofler, Georg; García Prats, Alfredo; Haslehner, Werner UL et al

in European Taxation (2022), 62(7), 304-310

In this CFE Opinion Statement, the CFE ECJ Task Force comments on the decision of 27 January 2022 in European Commission v. Kingdom of Spain (Form 720) (Case C-788/19) on the lack of proportionality of ... [more ▼]

In this CFE Opinion Statement, the CFE ECJ Task Force comments on the decision of 27 January 2022 in European Commission v. Kingdom of Spain (Form 720) (Case C-788/19) on the lack of proportionality of the consequences derived from the failure to provide information concerning assets or rights held in other Member States of the European Union or the European Economic Area. [less ▲]

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See detailLe corpus hagiographique de Trèves au début du XVIe siècle. Enquête stylométrique et premiers résultats
Dubuisson, Bastien UL

in Bulletin du Centre d'Études Médiévales d'Auxerre (2022)

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See detailBearing the cost of politics: Consumer prices and welfare in Russia
Hinz, Julian; Monastyrenko, Evgenii UL

in Journal of International Economics (2022), 137

In August 2014, the Russian Federation implemented an embargo on select food and agricultural imports from Western countries in response to previously imposed economic sanctions. In this paper we quantify ... [more ▼]

In August 2014, the Russian Federation implemented an embargo on select food and agricultural imports from Western countries in response to previously imposed economic sanctions. In this paper we quantify the effect of this embargo on consumer prices and welfare in Russia. We provide evidence for the direct effect on monthly consumer prices with a difference-in-differences approach. The embargo caused prices of embargoed goods to rise by up to 7.7% – 14.9% in the short run and by on average 2.6% – 8.1% until at least 2016. The results further suggest the shock was transmitted to non-embargoed sectors through domestic input-output linkages. We then construct a general equilibrium Ricardian model of trade with input-output linkages and goods that are tradable, non-tradable or embargoed. The model-based counterfactual analysis predicts the overall price index in Russia to have increased by 0.33% and welfare to have declined by 1.84% due to the embargo. [less ▲]

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See detailPréserve-moi ! Des journaux intimes à ceux de confinement dans les archives du Web
Schafer, Valerie UL

in Le Temps des Médias (2022)

Souvent éphémères, les pages personnelles, les blogs et aujourd’hui les écritures de soi et intimes sur les réseaux socio-numériques, jusqu’aux journaux de confinement nés lors de la crise COVID, sont ... [more ▼]

Souvent éphémères, les pages personnelles, les blogs et aujourd’hui les écritures de soi et intimes sur les réseaux socio-numériques, jusqu’aux journaux de confinement nés lors de la crise COVID, sont toutefois partiellement préservés dans les archives du Web. En explorant leur conservation, notamment au sein de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, et les limites et défis que posent ces sources nativement numériques, il s’agit de saisir les enjeux de préservation de ces contenus personnels, intimes, littéraires, vernaculaires, multimédias, mais aussi les possibilités de recherche qu’ils offrent pour l’histoire du numérique et de ses cultures. [less ▲]

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See detailFurther resource multiplication at more advanced ages? Interactions between education, parental socioeconomic status, and age in their impacts upon health
Settels, Jason UL

in Sociology Compass (2022)

While scholarship has shown that socioeconomic status creates fine-grained gradients in health, there is debate regarding whether having higher amounts of one socioeconomic resource amplifies (resource ... [more ▼]

While scholarship has shown that socioeconomic status creates fine-grained gradients in health, there is debate regarding whether having higher amounts of one socioeconomic resource amplifies (resource multiplication) or reduces (resource substitution) the health benefits of  one's other socioeconomic resources. A further question is whether these processes are accentuated or diminished at more advanced ages. Using the 2016 and 2018 waves of the United States General Social Survey (N = 2995) and logistic regression analyses, this study reveals processes of resource multiplication between respondents' education and both parental education and parental occupational prestige in their effects upon self-rated health. Furthermore, these processes are accentuated at more advanced ages. Additionally, these interactive effects remain significant after controlling for respondent-level total family income and occupational prestige, suggesting mechanisms beyond actualized socioeconomic circumstances. These findings raise concerns regarding less educated older persons coming from less advantaged backgrounds. Accordingly, policies and programs should help equalize social circumstances early in the life course, to produce more salubrious trajectories with advancing age. [less ▲]

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See detailOutage Performance of Satellite Terrestrial Full-DuplexRelaying Networks with Co-Channel Interference
Nguyen, Tan N.; Tu, Lam-Thanh; Tran, Dinh-Hieu et al

in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters (2022), 11(7), 1478-1482

This letter investigates the performance of thesatellite-terrestrial networks (STN), where a satellite tries totransmit information to a ground user through the help of mul-tiple decode-and-forward relays ... [more ▼]

This letter investigates the performance of thesatellite-terrestrial networks (STN), where a satellite tries totransmit information to a ground user through the help of mul-tiple decode-and-forward relays and the existence of co-channelinterference sources. In particular, the full-duplex technique andpartial relay selection are applied at the relay to increase the totalthroughput at the destination, enhance the system reliability, andreduce the complexity. In this context, the outage probability (OP)is computed in a closed-form expression. Numerical results areprovided to confirm the accuracy of the proposed mathematicalframework. Our findings illustrate that the outage performancecan be effectively enhanced by increasing either number of relaysor transmit power. [less ▲]

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See detailOncology and mechanics: landmark studies and promising clinical applications
Urcun, Stephane UL; Lorenzo, Guillermo; Baroli, Davide et al

in Advances in Applied Mechanics (2022), 55

Clinical management of cancer has continuously evolved for several decades. Biochemical, molecular and genomics approaches have brought and still bring numerous insights into cancerous diseases. It is now ... [more ▼]

Clinical management of cancer has continuously evolved for several decades. Biochemical, molecular and genomics approaches have brought and still bring numerous insights into cancerous diseases. It is now accepted that some phenomena, allowed by favorable biological conditions, emerge via mechanical signaling at the cellular scale and via mechanical forces at the macroscale. Mechanical phenomena in cancer have been studied in-depth over the last decades, and their clinical applications are starting to be understood. If numerous models and experimental setups have been proposed, only a few have led to clinical applications. The objective of this contribution is to propose to review a large scope of mechanical findings which have consequences on the clinical management of cancer. This review is mainly addressed to doctoral candidates in mechanics and applied mathematics who are faced with the challenge of the mechanics-based modeling of cancer with the aim of clinical applications. We show that the collaboration of the biological and mechanical approaches has led to promising advances in terms of modeling, experimental design and therapeutic targets. Additionally, a specific focus is brought on imaging-informed mechanics-based models, which we believe can further the development of new therapeutic targets and the advent of personalized medicine. We study in detail several successful workflows on patient-specific targeted therapies based on mechanistic modeling. [less ▲]

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See detailPerformance Evaluation of Spectral Efficiency for Uplink and Downlink Multi-Cell Massive MIMO Systems
Asif, Rao Muhammad; Shakir, Mustafa; Rehman, Ateeq Ur et al

in Journal of Sensors (2022)

Massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) systems have become the most persuasive technology for 5G as it increased the energy efficiency gigantically as compared to other wireless communication ... [more ▼]

Massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) systems have become the most persuasive technology for 5G as it increased the energy efficiency gigantically as compared to other wireless communication systems. Being the most vibrant research technology in the communication sector, this research work is based on the optimal model development of energy-efficient massive MIMO systems. The proposed model is a realistic model that augmented the spectral efficiency (SE) of massive MIMO systems where a multi-cell model scenario is considered. Channel estimation is carried out at the base stations (BSs) based on uplink (UL) transmission while the minimum mean-squared error (MMSE), Element-wise MMSE, and Least-square (LS) estimators are used for the estimation. We analyze the achievable SE of the UL based on the MMSE channel estimator with different receive combining schemes. Moreover, the downlink (DL) transmission model is also modelled with different precoding schemes by taking the same vectors used in combining schemes. The simulation results show a significant improvement in spectral efficiency by developing UL and DL transmission models and also realized that the average sum of SE per cell can be improved by optimized MMSE channel estimation, installing multiple BS antennas, and serving multiple UEs per cell. The findings of this work specify that the massive MIMO system can be developed by optimizing the channel estimation for the augmentation of SE in UL and DL transmissions. Conclusively, it can be summarized that some complex computations of MMSE channel estimators can enhance the average sum of SE per cell as per the results verified in this model. [less ▲]

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See detailRecent Developments and Overview of the Country and Practitioner’s Reports
Cole, Mark David UL

in European Data Protection Law Review (2022), 8(2), 250-254

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See detailCritical research and entrepreneurship: A cross‐disciplinary conceptual typology
Dey, pascal; Fletcher, Denise Elaine UL; Verduijn, karen

in International Journal of Management Reviews (2022)

Critical perspectives of entrepreneurship have gained increasing traction over the last two decades. The transformative potential of critical research resides in challenging some of entrepreneurship ... [more ▼]

Critical perspectives of entrepreneurship have gained increasing traction over the last two decades. The transformative potential of critical research resides in challenging some of entrepreneurship research’s epistemological, ontological and theoretical assumptions, with a view to offering a range of alternatives. Critical research in entrepreneurship has remained fragmented, however, due to its heterogeneous theoretical lineages and compartmentalized and niche interests. Addressing this situation, our objective is to intensify the space of critique in entrepreneurship research by offering a theoretically-informed typology that delineates different manifestations of ‘criticalness’. Our overarching contribution is to advance a typology distinguishing four ideal-types of critical entrepreneurship research based on its evaluative emphases (referred to as ‘valence’) and the meta-theoretical assumptions informing its critical operation (called ‘paradigmatic orientation’). By demonstrating the variegated political, ethical and ideological interests and preoccupations that critical studies serve within different management sub-disciplines, the typology provides a conceptual vocabulary for making sense of and synthesizing critical perspectives across scholarly boundaries. Also, it helps to reposition understandings of critique as gestures of negativity by stimulating a greater appreciation of the generative potential of critique and the theoretical and philosophical possibilities that this can bring to our scholarly community. [less ▲]

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See detailDigital Twin for Human–Robot Interactions by Means of Industry 4.0 Enabling Technologies
Gallala, Abir; Kumar, Atal Anil UL; Hichri, Bassem UL et al

in Sensors (2022), 22(13), 1-17

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See detailReview Fighters Across Frontiers - Transnational Resistance in Europe, 1936-48
Zaagsma, Gerben UL

in Francia-Recensio (2022), 2022(2),

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See detailBIGDML—Towards accurate quantum machine learning force fields for materials
Huziel E. Sauceda; Stefan Chmiela; Tkatchenko, Alexandre UL

in Nature Communications (2022)

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See detailA model-based design of an onboard stereo vision system: obstacle motion estimation for cooperative automated vehicles
Kemsaram, Narsimlu UL; Das, Anweshan; Dubbelman, Gijs

in SN Applied Sciences (2022), 4(7), 1-18

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See detail1 Energy-Efficient Hybrid Beamforming for Multi-Layer RIS-Assisted Secure Integrated Terrestrial-Aerial Network
Sun, Yifu; An, Kang; Zhu, Yonggang et al

in IEEE Transactions on Communications (2022), 70(6), 4189-4210

The integration of aerial platforms to provide ubiq- uitous coverage and connectivity for densely deployed terrestrial networks is expected to be a reality in emerging sixth-generation networks. Energy ... [more ▼]

The integration of aerial platforms to provide ubiq- uitous coverage and connectivity for densely deployed terrestrial networks is expected to be a reality in emerging sixth-generation networks. Energy-effificient design and secure transmission are two crucial issues for integrated terrestrial-aerial networks. With this focus, due to the potential of RIS in substantially saving power consumption and boosting the security of private information by enabling a smart radio environment, this paper investigates the energy-efficient hybrid beamforming for multi- layer reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted secure in- tegrated terrestrial-aerial network for defending against simul- taneous jamming and eavesdropping attacks. Specifically, with the available of angular information based imperfect channel state information (CSI), we propose a framework for the joint optimization of user’s received precoder, terrestrial BS’s and HAP’s digital precoder, and multi-layer RIS analog precoder to maximize the system energy efficiency (EE) performance. For the design of received precoder, a heuristic beamforming scheme is proposed to convert the worst-case problem into a min-max one such that a closed-form solution is derived. For the design of digital precoder, we propose an iterative sequential convex approximation approach via capitalizing the auxiliary variables and first-order Taylor series expansion. Finally, a monotonic vertex-update algorithm with penalty convex concave procedure is proposed to obtain analog precoder with low computational complexity. Numerical results show the superiority and effective- ness of proposed optimization framework and architecture [less ▲]

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See detailCoronavirus Conspiracy Theories in Southeast Europe: (Non-)Believers, Social Network Bubbles, and the Discourse of Blame
Glaurdic, Josip UL; Lesschaeve, Christophe UL; Mochtak, Michal UL

in Problems of Post-Communism (2022)

Using survey and social network evidence from Southeast Europe, we advance the understanding of conspiracy theories and politics related to the coronavirus pandemic in three ways: (1) we show that beliefs ... [more ▼]

Using survey and social network evidence from Southeast Europe, we advance the understanding of conspiracy theories and politics related to the coronavirus pandemic in three ways: (1) we show that beliefs in coronavirus conspiracy theories are related to ideological support for a nationalist vision of society and socialist vision of the economy; (2) we also show that both conspiracy believers and nonbelievers are living in bubbles of the like-minded; and (3) we use the tools of natural language processing to elucidate the unambiguous differences in the discourse related to the coronavirus used by conspiracy believers and nonbelievers. [less ▲]

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See detailCharacterization of unconventional sand-based substrates for adsorption of micropollutants in nature-based systems
Brunhoferova, Hana UL; Venditti, Silvia UL; Hansen, Joachim UL

in Journal of Environmental Management (2022)

The focus of this study is the characterization of unconventional sand-based substrates used in our previous project EmiSûre, (Interreg Greater Region (German federal states Rhineland-Palatinate and ... [more ▼]

The focus of this study is the characterization of unconventional sand-based substrates used in our previous project EmiSûre, (Interreg Greater Region (German federal states Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, regions Wallonia and Lorraine from Belgium and France, respectively), 2017–2021). The project aimed to develop and test alternative, nature-based technologies for the elimination of micropollutants (MPs) from municipal wastewater. For the characterization, two approaches were chosen. In the first approach, adsorption kinetics with a single compound allowed a perception of the adsorption capacity of the studied substrates compared to conventional substrates (granular activated carbons). This knowledge was completed by the second approach: an implementation of the studied substrates in packed-bed columns, which treated a mixture of 27 MPs in tap water for 10 months. Additionally, all three substrates (bentonite sand, sand with 15% activated biochar and sand with 15% zeolite) were characterized for physical and chemical properties, and the microbial potential of the activated and non-activated biochar was examined. From the studies, it is clear that the sand with an admixture of activated biochar is the most efficient sorbent in terms of single compound adsorption in batch (dye) and adsorption of 27 MPs on packed-bed columns. In contrast to the two other substrates, it shows long-term stable removal efficiencies. In the packed-bed columns, 18 out of 27 compounds were removed on average with high efficiency (80–99%), which is impressive, if we consider the variety of the compounds examined (pharmaceuticals, herbicides, pesticides, etc.) and their removal in conventional treatments. Addi- tionally, adsorption models were created for the experimental data of all compounds adsorbed on the substrate with an admixture of activated biochar resulting in the best fit with the combined Langmuir-Freundlich model. These satisfying results suggest the application of the sand-based substrate with an admixture of activated biochar for further research and possibly upscale installations with the aim to offer and prove a reasonable and efficient alternative for MPs elimination from municipal wastewater. [less ▲]

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See detailEsch ville verte - Une expo autour du plan Stübben
Scuto, Denis UL

in Tageblatt (2022)

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See detailEvaluating Technology-Enhanced, STEAM-Based Remote Teaching With Parental Support in Luxembourgish Early Childhood Education
Haas, Ben; Lavicza, Zsolt; Houghton, Tony et al

in Frontiers in Education (2022), 7(872479), 1-12

During COVID-19 confinement, we observed numerous challenges in using educational technology in early childhood Science–Technology–Engineering–Arts–Mathematics (STEAM) education in Luxembourg. Thus, we ... [more ▼]

During COVID-19 confinement, we observed numerous challenges in using educational technology in early childhood Science–Technology–Engineering–Arts–Mathematics (STEAM) education in Luxembourg. Thus, we designed a conceptual framework on parent-assisted remote teaching with active uses of educational technology supported by cycles of design-based research. After a previous study utilizing computer-aided design (CAD) software and three-dimensional (3D) printing in primary education, we used our initial findings to work with 12 early childhood students (ages 4–6), together with their teachers and parents in the second remote teaching period in Luxembourg. We created a STEAM modeling task with CAD software on robots and collected data through chat responses, messageboards, and online communication channels during a 3-week period. Here, we observed new roles in the parent–child relationship while learning STEAM in remote teaching with technology, and new opportunities in using educational technology overall in early childhood education. In this article, we have described findings that are likely to influence students’ learning and parent-assisted teaching, in particular parents and students’ perceptions and motivations, together with the way in which parents provide technical knowledge and support in remote early childhood STEAM education. [less ▲]

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See detailAnmerkung zur EuGH-Entscheidung in C-44/21 (Phoenix Contact v Harting)
Stierle, Martin UL

in Mitteilungen der deutschen Patentanwälte (2022), 2022(6), 277-279

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See detailTeachers misunderstanding of translanguaging in preschools
Aleksic, Gabrijela UL

in OASIS (2022)

Young multilingual children translanguage naturally. They use their linguistic and non-linguistic repertoire to express themselves, but also to make meaning of school environment and learn. When ... [more ▼]

Young multilingual children translanguage naturally. They use their linguistic and non-linguistic repertoire to express themselves, but also to make meaning of school environment and learn. When multilingual children come to a school where they do not understand the language of instruction, they are confronted with learning difficulties, which influences both their school progress and well-being. Translanguaging pedagogy helps teachers to create a space in which multilingual children can make meaning, feel well, and learn. By using this pedagogy, teachers support children’s multilingualism, which they see as a resource, and design inclusive activities accordingly. In this study, 40 Luxembourgian preschool teachers followed a professional development course in translanguaging pedagogy over six months. After the course, the researchers filmed teachers’ translanguaging activities with children. Three foci teachers designed an activity in which they invited three Portuguese and one Serbian child to choose the flag of their countries. However, all four children said that they speak Luxembourgish and thus wanted to choose the Luxembourgish flag. The teachers insisted that the children should choose Portuguese and Serbian flags, explaining that it is not possible for them to speak Luxembourgish. The children were confused and their body language showed their silencing, diminishing and shutting down. This scene showed not only that teachers misunderstood translanguaging, which they saw as multiple languages attached with nation states and flags, but they also, despite their good intentions, showed raciolinguistic ideologies, harmful for children in question. [less ▲]

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See detailThe geometric theory of phase transitions
di Cairano, Loris UL

in Journal of Physics. A, Mathematical and Theoretical (2022), 55

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See detailWe need a broader debate on the sustainability of blockchain
Rieger, Alexander UL; Roth, Tamara UL; Sedlmeir, Johannes UL et al

in Joule (2022), 6(6), 1137-1141

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See detailNeurotoxic amyloidogenic peptides in the proteome of SARS-COV2: potential implications for neurological symptoms in COVID-19
Charnley, Mirren; Islam, Saba; Bindra, Guneet et al

in Nature Communications (2022), 13

COVID-19 is primarily known as a respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. However, neurological symptoms such as memory loss, sensory confusion, severe headaches, and even stroke are reported in up to 30 ... [more ▼]

COVID-19 is primarily known as a respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. However, neurological symptoms such as memory loss, sensory confusion, severe headaches, and even stroke are reported in up to 30% of cases and can persist even after the infection is over (long COVID). These neurological symptoms are thought to be produced by the virus infecting the central nervous system, however we don’t understand the molecular mechanisms triggering them. The neurological effects of COVID-19 share similarities to neurodegenerative diseases in which the presence of cytotoxic aggregated amyloid protein or peptides is a common feature. Following the hypothesis that some neurological symptoms of COVID-19 may also follow an amyloid etiology we identified two peptides from the SARS-CoV-2 proteome that self-assemble into amyloid assemblies. Furthermore, these amyloids were shown to be highly toxic to neuronal cells. We suggest that cytotoxic aggregates of SARS-CoV-2 proteins may trigger neurological symptoms in COVID-19. [less ▲]

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See detailContext Stability in Habit Building Increases Automaticity and Goal Attainment
Stojanovic, Marco; Grund, Axel UL; Fries, Stefan

in Frontiers in Psychology (2022)

In this paper, we investigate the effects of context stability on automaticity and goal attainment in intentional habit building. We used hierarchical growth curve modeling and multilevel mediation to ... [more ▼]

In this paper, we investigate the effects of context stability on automaticity and goal attainment in intentional habit building. We used hierarchical growth curve modeling and multilevel mediation to test our hypotheses on two datasets. In Study 1, N = 95 university students (N = 2,482 habit repetitions) built new study habits over a period of 6 weeks with manipulated context stability. One group was instructed to constantly vary the context of their habit repetitions by changing rooms and times and the other group was instructed to keep the context of habit performance stable. In Study 2, N = 308 habits (N = 2,368 habit repetitions) from N = 218 users of a published habit building app were analyzed without manipulating but measuring context stability. We found the same pattern in both datasets: Context stability predicted more automaticity and higher habit repetition goal attainment. We also found that the effect of context stability on habit repetition goal attainment was partially mediated by automaticity in both datasets. These results show that context does not only act as a trigger for habit instigation but also has an ongoing effect on habit execution. [less ▲]

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See detailThe dynamics of achievement inequalities: the role of performance and choice in Chile
Ceron, Francisco UL; Bol, Thijs; van de Werfhorst, Herman

in International Journal of Educational Development (2022), 92(C),

Research on education inequalities has long established the relationship between the social composition of schools and achievement levels. However, the empirical study of the social processes in choosing ... [more ▼]

Research on education inequalities has long established the relationship between the social composition of schools and achievement levels. However, the empirical study of the social processes in choosing schools and their potential effects on achievement inequalities has often been neglected. This article investigates the extent to which such social processes, related to parents’ educational preferences and expectations, influence the development of students’ achievement throughout their schooling career, as a channel of transmission of social inequality. Using longitudinal census data from Chile, which allows us to observe students’ achievements between the 4th and 10th grades, we find support for the claim that the development of achievement inequalities operate partly through well-off parents’ educational preferences and expectations. Moreover, these preferences and beliefs explain most of the social composition effect of schools on achievement inequalities. We conclude that choice processes should be considered as an integral part of theories aimed to explain achievement inequalities as a dynamic process. [less ▲]

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See detailPhotoluminescence assessment of materials for solar cell absorbers
Siebentritt, Susanne UL; Rau, Uwe; Gharabeiki, Sevan UL et al

in Faraday Discussions (2022)

Absolute photoluminescence measurements present a tool to predict the quality of photovoltaic absorber materials before finishing the solar cells. Quasi Fermi level splitting predicts the maximal open ... [more ▼]

Absolute photoluminescence measurements present a tool to predict the quality of photovoltaic absorber materials before finishing the solar cells. Quasi Fermi level splitting predicts the maximal open circuit voltage. However, various methods to extract quasi Fermi level splitting are plagued by systematic errors in the range of 10–20 meV. It is important to differentiate between the radiative loss and the shift of the emission maximum. They are not the same and when using the emission maximum as the “radiative” band gap to extract the quasi Fermi level splitting from the radiative efficiency, the quasi Fermi level splitting is 10 to 40 meV too low for a typical broadening of the emission spectrum. However, radiative efficiency presents an ideal tool to compare different materials without determining the quasi Fermi level splitting. For comparison with the open circuit voltage, a fit of the high energy slope to generalised Planck’s law gives more reliable results if the fitted temperature, i.e. the slope of the high energy part, is close to the actual measurement temperature. Generalised Planck’s law also allows the extraction of a non-absolute absorptance spectrum, which enables a comparison between the emission maximum energy and the absorption edge. We discuss the errors and the indications when they are negligible and when not. [less ▲]

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See detailTussen New York en Genève: VN-Kroniek
Te Dorsthorst, Eva UL; Burger, Bram; Avramtcheva, Margarita

in Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Mensenrechten (2022), 47(2),

Deze kroniek informeert over ontwikkelingen met betrekking tot de mensenrechten in de diverse organen van de Verenigde Naties. Daarbij komen zowel de politieke mechanismen (onder meer de Algemene ... [more ▼]

Deze kroniek informeert over ontwikkelingen met betrekking tot de mensenrechten in de diverse organen van de Verenigde Naties. Daarbij komen zowel de politieke mechanismen (onder meer de Algemene Vergadering en de Mensenrechtenraad) aan de orde, als de diverse verdragscomités. [less ▲]

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See detailLanguage beyond flags: Teachers misunderstanding of translanguaging in preschools
Aleksic, Gabrijela UL; Garcia, Ofelia

in International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (2022)

Based on an analysis of the video recording and transcript of one lesson chosen by preschool teachers in Luxembourg as an example of translanguaging pedagogy, this article shows the teachers’ limited ... [more ▼]

Based on an analysis of the video recording and transcript of one lesson chosen by preschool teachers in Luxembourg as an example of translanguaging pedagogy, this article shows the teachers’ limited understandings of translanguaging. As a result of a new 2017 multilingual education policy for early childhood, the first author designed a professional development project in which the teachers in this preschool participated. During a lesson, the teachers insisted that these young children had a home language associated with a national affiliation depicted by a flag, despite the children themselves telling them repeatedly that their home language practices were complex and included Luxembourgish, which was part of their identity. The teachers’ actions and discourse reveal raciolinguistic ideologies and misappropriation of the term translanguaging to simply implement what could be better described as a multilingual awareness activity. On the surface, the teachers have shifted from monolingual instruction to one that recognizes the children’s multilingualism. Yet, teachers continue to associate the notion of language with flags and political states, instead of taking up an inside-view of the bilingual speaker, the kernel of translanguaging theory. [less ▲]

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See detailOutage and capacity analysis of NOMA systems over dual-hop mixed powerline-wireless channels
ElHalawany, Basem M.; Samir, Ahmed; Elsayed, Mohamed et al

in ICT Express (2022)

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has emerged as a promising technology for 5G networks and beyond. In order to fully reap the benefits of NOMA, it is essential to characterize its performance under ... [more ▼]

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has emerged as a promising technology for 5G networks and beyond. In order to fully reap the benefits of NOMA, it is essential to characterize its performance under different channel fading. In this paper, we carry out a performance analysis of the downlink NOMA-based dual-hop mixed powerline/wireless communication (PLC/WLC) system. Specifically, we investigate the system reliability and spectrum efficiency in terms of the outage probability and the ergodic capacity, respectively, where the PLC link undergoes lognormal fading while the WLC link undergoes block Rayleigh fading. The accuracy of the analytical results has been validated, the effect of different system controlling parameters is tested; and the optimal values of power allocation factors are obtained. Also, the system performance is compared to a benchmark system through representative extensive simulations. [less ▲]

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See detailLight Control over Chirality Selective Functionalization of Substrate Supported Carbon Nanotubes
Gordeev, Georgy UL; Rosenkranz, Thomas; Hennrich, Frank et al

in Journal of Physical Chemistry. C, Nanomaterials and interfaces (2022), 126(23), 9803-9812

Diazonium reactions with carbon nanotubes form optical sp3 defects that can be used in optical and electrical circuits. We investigate a direct on-device reaction supported by confined laser irradiation ... [more ▼]

Diazonium reactions with carbon nanotubes form optical sp3 defects that can be used in optical and electrical circuits. We investigate a direct on-device reaction supported by confined laser irradiation and present a technique where an arbitrary carbon nanotube can be preferentially functionalized within a device by matching the light frequency with its transition energy. An exemplary reaction was carried out between (9,7) nanotube and 4-bromobenzenediazonium tetrafluoroborate. The substrate supported nanotubes of multiple semiconducting chiralities were locally exposed to laser light while monitoring the reaction kinetics in situ via Raman spectroscopy. The chiral selectivity of the reaction was confirmed by resonant Raman spectroscopy, reporting a 10 meV E22 transition energy red-shift only of the targeted species. We further demonstrated this method on a single tube (9,7) electroluminescent device and show a 25 meV red-shifted emission of the ground state E11 compared to the emission from the pristine tubes. [less ▲]

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See detailUniaxial polarization analysis of bulk ferromagnets: theory and first experimental results
Malyeyev, Artem UL; Titov, Ivan UL; Dewhurst, Charles et al

in Journal of Applied Crystallography (2022), 55

Based on Brown’s static equations of micromagnetics, the uniaxial polarization of the scattered neutron beam of a bulk magnetic material is computed. The approach considers a Hamiltonian that takes into ... [more ▼]

Based on Brown’s static equations of micromagnetics, the uniaxial polarization of the scattered neutron beam of a bulk magnetic material is computed. The approach considers a Hamiltonian that takes into account the isotropic exchange interaction, the antisymmetric Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction, magnetic anisotropy, the dipole–dipole interaction, as well as the effect of an applied magnetic field. In the high-field limit, the solutions for the magnetization Fourier components are used to obtain closed-form results for the spinpolarized SANS (small-angle neutron scattering) cross sections and the ensuing polarization. The theoretical expressions are compared with experimental data on a soft magnetic nanocrystalline alloy. The micromagnetic SANS theory provides a general framework for polarized real-space neutron methods, and it may open up a new avenue for magnetic neutron data analysis on magnetic microstructures. [less ▲]

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See detailIntroduction
Steveker, Lena UL; Frenk, Joachim

in Critical Survey (2022), 34(2), 1-9

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See detailStrangeness in Early Stuart Drama
Steveker, Lena UL; Frenk, Joachim

in Critical Survey (2022), 34(2), 1-106

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See detailvßgift ... gedaen ... vander ſtede wege antreffen Artillerie. Kriegsaufwand und militärische Aufgaben in der Stadt Luxemburg im Mittelalter
Pauly, Michel UL

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2022), 74(2), 166-198

Since the so-called Letter of Liberty of 1244, the burghers of Luxembourg had the duty to defend their town and to go to war with their lord. This contribution examines, based predominantly on medieval ... [more ▼]

Since the so-called Letter of Liberty of 1244, the burghers of Luxembourg had the duty to defend their town and to go to war with their lord. This contribution examines, based predominantly on medieval account books, what concrete tasks this duty entailed. It distinguishes between the construction and maintenance of the city walls, the required services asked of the village dwellers, the sentry duty of the inhabitants, personal arms of the denizens and heavy weaponry of the municipality, concrete war preparations and actual military campaigns. The assessment of empirical historical evidence allows not only to calculate the costs of these military ventures but also to provide a rather detailed evaluation of the technological state of development of the artillery in the 14th to 15th century. [less ▲]

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See detailAssessing the impact of micropollutants mitigation measures using vertical flow constructed wetlands for municipal wastewater catchments in the greater region: a reference case for rural areas
Venditti, Silvia UL; Kiesch, Anne; Brunhoferova, Hana UL et al

in Water Science and Technology (2022)

The present research aims at giving an approach to the issue of surface water contamination due to micropollutants in rural areas. The catchment of the Sûre river was selected as a reference case for the ... [more ▼]

The present research aims at giving an approach to the issue of surface water contamination due to micropollutants in rural areas. The catchment of the Sûre river was selected as a reference case for the Greater Region, characterized mainly by settlements with low population density, small water bodies and small- to medium-sized wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). For these WWTPs, conventional technical solutions for micropollutants elimination are not suitable; therefore, an adapted mitigation strategy is needed to prevent the impact of micropollutants, especially during the dry season. As a suitable alternative to more intensive technologies, Constructed Wetlands (CW) in Vertical Flow (VF) configuration have been successfully tested over one-year period and the elimination rate of 27 micropollutants was quantified. Emission reduction by VF was then considered in a static mass balance model that calculates the longitudinal concentrations profile for the entire river catchment. The EmiSûre approach which focuses on river quality (concentrations of pollutants) instead of emitted loads, effectively allowed to simulate adopted measures a priori and resulted efficient to support decision-makers with WWTPs upgrade scenarios. [less ▲]

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See detailA Multidisciplinary Approach to Assess Smallholder Farmers’ Adoption of New Technologies in Development Interventions
Kapgen, Diane UL; Roudart, Laurence

in European Journal of Development Research (2022)

In spite of decades of research, the complexity of new technology uptake by smallholder farmers in the context of development interventions is still little understood. In order to unravel the motives for ... [more ▼]

In spite of decades of research, the complexity of new technology uptake by smallholder farmers in the context of development interventions is still little understood. In order to unravel the motives for, and barriers to, technology adoption, we propose a multidisciplinary qualitative framework that expands the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework with the agronomic Agrarian system approach and the Development anthropology-based ECRIS (Rapid Collective Inquiry for the Identification of Conflicts and Strategic Groups) approach. Such a framework allows to analyze smallholder farmers’ livelihoods, agricultural activities from an ecological cum technical cum economic point of view, and social learning processes involving power relationships. Its use is exemplified by studying the adoption of stone bunds in an agroecological development program in Burkina Faso. Many farmers cannot adopt this technology fully because of agricultural production system or livelihood shaped barriers, and because of power relationships bearing on the technology uptake process. [less ▲]

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See detailCan coupons counteract strategic consumer behavior?
Hermel, Dror; Aviv, Yossi; Mantin, Benny UL

in Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management (2022), 21(3), 262-273

In multi-period environments, the presence of strategic consumers induces monopolist retailers to inter-temporally compete with themselves. Targeting consumers with price-discount coupons is a proposed ... [more ▼]

In multi-period environments, the presence of strategic consumers induces monopolist retailers to inter-temporally compete with themselves. Targeting consumers with price-discount coupons is a proposed mechanism to overcome this inter-temporal competition. Targeting consumers with coupons can counteract strategic consumer behavior, but this mechanism cannot completely eradicate the negative implications imposed by the presence of such consumers. Additionally, the quality of information available (regarding the consumers’ valuations) may play an important role in the targeting decisions. Specifically, we illustrate how the retailer may absent completely from targeting efforts when the quality of information and the proportion of strategic consumers are sufficiently low. Lastly, we consider the optimal investment in information solicitation, demonstrating the trade-off between a low investment, which result in low quality of targeting capability, and a high investment which improves the effectiveness of the targeting efforts. [less ▲]

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See detailUnified, Labeled, and Semi-Structured Database of Pre-Processed Mexican Laws
Martinez-Seis, Bella; Pichardo-Lagunas, Obdulia; Koff, Harlan UL et al

in Data (2022), 7(91),

This paper presents a corpus of pre-processed Mexican laws for computational tasks. The main contributions are the proposed JSON structure and the methodology used to achieve the semi-structured corpus ... [more ▼]

This paper presents a corpus of pre-processed Mexican laws for computational tasks. The main contributions are the proposed JSON structure and the methodology used to achieve the semi-structured corpus with the selected algorithms. Law PDF documents were transformed into plain text, unified by a deconstruction of law–document structure, and labeled with natural language processing techniques considering part of speech (PoS); a process of entity extraction was also performed. The corpus includes the Mexican constitution and the Mexican laws that were collected from the official site in PDF format repealed before 14 October 2021. The collection has 305 documents, including: the Mexican constitution, 289 laws, 8 federal codes, 3 regulations, 2 statutes, 1 decree, and 1 ordinance. The semi-structured database includes the transformation of the set of laws from PDF format to a digital representation in order to facilitate its computational analysis. The documents were migrated to JSON type files to represent internal hierarchical relations. In addition, basic natural language processing techniques were implemented on laws for the identification of part of speech and named entities. The presented data set is mainly useful for text analysis and data science. It could be used for various legislative analysis tasks including: comprehension, interpretation, translation, classification, accessibility, coherence, and searches. Finally, we present some statistic of the identified entities and an example of the usefulness of the corpus for environmental laws. [less ▲]

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See detailAdaptive model to increase resilience for emerging supply chains within the circular economs - 'Zirkelmesser' an innovative case study
Mangers, Jeff UL; Wieck, Franz; Nicolas, Jana et al

in Procedia CIRP (2022)

Variations in quantities, qualities and time availability of input materials pose a major risk to circular supply chains (CSC) and require new models for creating and evaluating adaptive and resilient CSC ... [more ▼]

Variations in quantities, qualities and time availability of input materials pose a major risk to circular supply chains (CSC) and require new models for creating and evaluating adaptive and resilient CSC in the circular economy (CE). This can be achieved by consistently modelling the overarching relationship between resource input- and output streams, without neglecting the associated risks. The model proposed below consists of five components which are based on five resilience requirements for SCs and provides a data-based recommended course of action for managers at a low entry-barrier. It consists of a CSC visualization, a safety stock calculation, a risk monitoring for each SC node, a reporting logic, and a measurement catalogue. The inspiration for this model came from an innovative case study (“Zirkelmesser”) in the metal processing industry in which secondary products and materials are used to produce new products. Here, the problem of maintaining the resource supply arose and led to resilience issues. The mentioned case study is used as an application example for the model application and helps to make emerging circular supply chains predictable and better manageable, thus increasing their resilience. [less ▲]

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See detailA Family of Hybrid Federated and CentralizedLearning Architectures in Machine Learning
Elbir, Ahmet M.; Coleri, Sinem; Papazafeiropoulos, Anastasios K. et al

in IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking (2022)

Many of the machine learning tasks focus on cen-tralized learning (CL), which requires the transmission of localdatasets from the clients to a parameter server (PS) entailing hugecommunication overhead ... [more ▼]

Many of the machine learning tasks focus on cen-tralized learning (CL), which requires the transmission of localdatasets from the clients to a parameter server (PS) entailing hugecommunication overhead. To overcome this, federated learning(FL) has been a promising tool, wherein the clients send only themodel updates to the PS instead of the whole dataset. However,FL demands powerful computational resources from the clients.Therefore, not all the clients can participate in training if they donot have enough computational resources. To address this issue,we introduce a more practical approach called hybrid federatedand centralized learning (HFCL), wherein only the clients withsufficient resources employ FL, while the remaining ones sendtheir datasets to the PS, which computes the model on behalf ofthem. Then, the model parameters corresponding to all clientsare aggregated at the PS. To improve the efficiency of datasettransmission, we propose two different techniques: increasedcomputation-per-client and sequential data transmission. TheHFCL frameworks outperform FL with up to20%improvementin the learning accuracy when only half of the clients perform FLwhile having50%less communication overhead than CL since allthe clients collaborate on the learning process with their datasets. [less ▲]

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See detailAn uncertain future for EU-Level Collective Bargaining: the new rules of the game after EPSU
Garcia Munoz Alhambra, Manuel Antonio UL

in Industrial Law Journal (2022), 51(2), 318-345

The General Court of the European Union (GCEU) in EPSU and Goudriaan vs. Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the subsequent appeal judgment reached an identical conclusion ... [more ▼]

The General Court of the European Union (GCEU) in EPSU and Goudriaan vs. Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the subsequent appeal judgment reached an identical conclusion on a key aspect of the system of EU level collective bargaining. The Courts held that Article 155(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) does not impose any obligation on the European Commission to send a social partner agreement to the Council. This is in line with the Commission’s recent interpretation of Article 155(2) TFEU that subordinates the implementation of the European agreements to a positive assessment of their appropriateness. This article critically assesses the GCEU and CJEU rulings in EPSU and argues that they confirm a major break with the praxis of European collective bargaining that will have negative consequences for the social partners’ autonomy and role in the EU. In order to better understand this break, the article examines how and when the Commission changed its approach to European social dialogue, resulting in the new interpretation of Article 155(2) TFEU, and proposes a hypothesis to understand why. The article concludes by describing the consequences of the new reading of Article 155(2) TFEU for the idea of collective autonomy in EU law as well as for the practice of EU level social dialogue and collective bargaining. [less ▲]

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See detailTracing the Expansive Effect of the GDPR in the Third Countries. The Cases of Russia, Ukraine and China
Gubenko, Stanislav UL

in Peace Human Rights Governance (2022), 6(1), 79-96

This research aims at analyzing the “expansive effect” of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in three non-EU case countries, i.e. Russia, Ukraine and China, to understand how the GDPR ... [more ▼]

This research aims at analyzing the “expansive effect” of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in three non-EU case countries, i.e. Russia, Ukraine and China, to understand how the GDPR provisions affect, or are affected by, the interaction with three non-EU legal systems. The recently adopted GDPR, being a set of comprehensive data processing rules and penalties for violating data protection regulations, has set a very high standard for the other states in developing their own data protection regulations, but at the same time, the GDPR has brought about a wide range of compliance challenges. Due to the extraterritorial character of the General Data Protection Regulation, these challenges regard not only the EU member states but also any organisations around the world engaged in professional or commercial relations with the European Union. Therefore, there is a gap in understanding the interplay between the newly-built European data protection system and the legal systems outside the EU, which this research seeks to cover. [less ▲]

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See detailEstimating Probabilistic Safe WCET Ranges of Real-Time Systems at Design Stages
Lee, Jaekwon UL; Shin, Seung Yeob UL; Nejati, Shiva et al

in ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (2022)

Estimating worst-case execution times (WCET) is an important activity at early design stages of real-time systems. Based on WCET estimates, engineers make design and implementation decisions to ensure ... [more ▼]

Estimating worst-case execution times (WCET) is an important activity at early design stages of real-time systems. Based on WCET estimates, engineers make design and implementation decisions to ensure that task execution always complete before their specified deadlines. However, in practice, engineers often cannot provide precise point WCET estimates and prefer to provide plausible WCET ranges. Given a set of real-time tasks with such ranges, we provide an automated technique to determine for what WCET values the system is likely to meet its deadlines, and hence operate safely with a probabilistic guarantee. Our approach combines a search algorithm for generating worst-case scheduling scenarios with polynomial logistic regression for inferring probabilistic safe WCET ranges. We evaluated our approach by applying it to three industrial systems from different domains and several synthetic systems. Our approach efficiently and accurately estimates probabilistic safe WCET ranges within which deadlines are likely to be satisfied with a high degree of confidence. [less ▲]

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See detailAchievement motivation in students' everyday lives: Its relationship to momentary positive and negative activation and the moderating role of mindfulness
Grund, Axel UL; Galla, Brian; Fries, Stefan

in Learning and Individual Differences (2022), 97

In achievement motive theory, need for achievement is conceptualized as an explanatory variable that triggers certain experiences and behaviors spontaneously. Experience sampling should therefore be an ... [more ▼]

In achievement motive theory, need for achievement is conceptualized as an explanatory variable that triggers certain experiences and behaviors spontaneously. Experience sampling should therefore be an ideal approach for capturing such motive-specific affective contingencies. However, given that not all students seem to be aware of their underlying motives, the link between self-reported need for achievement and daily experiences may depend on their mindfulness level. In a sample of university students (N = 107), self-reported fear of failure predicted momentary negative activation across activity contexts in everyday life. In addition, hope of success predicted positive activation in more mindful students and in nonroutine situations (e.g., studying, working, or leisure time). Together, these findings are a first step toward illuminating the phenomenological and excitatory nature of need for achievement in students' everyday lives and illustrate the necessity of noticing motive-specific cues in order to integrate them into the explicit motivational self-concept. [less ▲]

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See detailGBA-associated PD: chances and obstacles for targeted treatment strategies.
Höglinger, Günter; Schulte, Claudia; Jost, Wolfgang H. et al

in Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) (2022), 129(9), 1219-1233

Given the clear role of GBA in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD) and its impact on phenotypical characteristics, this review provides an overview of the current knowledge of GBA-associated PD ... [more ▼]

Given the clear role of GBA in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD) and its impact on phenotypical characteristics, this review provides an overview of the current knowledge of GBA-associated PD with a special focus on clinical trajectories and the underlying pathological mechanisms. Importantly, differences and characteristics based on mutation severity are recognized, and current as well as potential future treatment options are discussed. These findings will inform future strategies for patient stratification and cohort enrichment as well as suitable outcome measures when designing clinical trials. [less ▲]

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See detailMechanisms of Participation in Vocational Education and Training in Europe
Milmeister, Paul UL; Rastoder, Merlin UL; Houssemand, Claude UL

in Frontiers in Psychology (2022)

This article aims to analyze vocational education and training in Europe and to model mechanisms of educational and vocational choice. First, we expose the differences between VET approaches in Europe ... [more ▼]

This article aims to analyze vocational education and training in Europe and to model mechanisms of educational and vocational choice. First, we expose the differences between VET approaches in Europe. Secondly, a sociological analysis is provided. When VET systems were first created, aspects such as work culture or diverging political concerns led to different responses in the various countries. Thirdly, we present a psychological approach of the educational and vocational choice which draws on a process where profession images are compared with one’s own self-image. Finally, we present an integrated explanatory model of the vocational choice, based on sociological and psychological dimensions. In conclusion, we propose several plans of action in order to support and inform students regarding educational choice and to improve valorization of the VET track. [less ▲]

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See detailOn the use of commit-relevant mutants
Ojdanic, Milos UL; Ma, Wei; Laurent, Thomas et al

in Empirical Software Engineering (2022), 27

Applying mutation testing to test subtle program changes, such as program patches or other small-scale code modifications, requires using mutants that capture the delta of the altered behaviours. To ... [more ▼]

Applying mutation testing to test subtle program changes, such as program patches or other small-scale code modifications, requires using mutants that capture the delta of the altered behaviours. To address this issue, we introduce the concept of commit-relevant mutants, which are the mutants that interact with the behaviours of the system affected by a particular commit. Therefore, commit-aware mutation testing, is a test assessment metric tailored to a specific commit. By analysing 83 commits from 25 projects involving 2,253,610 mutants in both C and Java, we identify the commit-relevant mutants and explore their relationship with other categories of mutants. Our results show that commit-relevant mutants represent a small subset of all mutants, which differs from the other classes of mutants (subsuming and hard-to-kill), and that the commit-relevant mutation score is weakly correlated with the traditional mutation score (Kendall/Pearson 0.15-0.4). Moreover, commit-aware mutation analysis provides insights about the testing of a commit, which can be more efficient than the classical mutation analysis; in our experiments, by analysing the same number of mutants, commit-aware mutants have better fault-revelation potential (30% higher chances of revealing commit-introducing faults) than traditional mutants. We also illustrate a possible application of commit-aware mutation testing as a metric to evaluate test case prioritisation. [less ▲]

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See detailJuristes internationalistes, juristes mixtes, Euro-Lawyers : l’apport de l’expérience semi-coloniale à l’émergence d’un droit supranational
Erpelding, Michel UL

in Clio @ Themis (2022), 22

This paper explores the partly colonial origins of European integration law. It first notes that internationally composed and treaty-based courts with jurisdiction over individual treaty-based rights ... [more ▼]

This paper explores the partly colonial origins of European integration law. It first notes that internationally composed and treaty-based courts with jurisdiction over individual treaty-based rights existed well before the end of WWII, notably in semi-colonial settings. It then addresses the individual careers of several jurists who circulated between Europe and countries subjected to semi-colonial domination. These careers confirm the existence of a range of continuities between international law, the mixed law applied in these countries, and post-WWII European law. [less ▲]

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See detailDisentangled Face Identity Representationsfor Joint 3D Face Recognition and Neutralisation
Kacem, Anis UL; cherenkova, kseniya; Aouada, Djamila UL

in 2022 8th International Conference on Virtual Reality (2022)

In this paper, we propose a new deep learning based approach for disentangling face identity representations from expressive 3D faces. Given a 3D face, our approach not only extracts a disentangled ... [more ▼]

In this paper, we propose a new deep learning based approach for disentangling face identity representations from expressive 3D faces. Given a 3D face, our approach not only extracts a disentangled identity representation, but also generates a realistic 3D face with a neutral expression while predicting its identity. The proposed network consists of three components; (1) a Graph Convolutional Autoencoder (GCA) to encode the 3D faces into latent representations, (2) a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) that translates the latent representations of expressive faces into those of neutral faces, (3) and an identity recognition sub-network taking advantage of the neutralized latent representations for 3D face recognition. The whole network is trained in an end-to-end manner. Experiments are conducted on three publicly available datasets showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [less ▲]

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See detailFace-GCN: A Graph Convolutional Network for 3D Dynamic Face Recognition
Papadopoulos, Konstantinos; Kacem, Anis UL; Shabayek, Abdelrahman et al

in 2022 8th International Conference on Virtual Reality (2022)

Face recognition has significantly advanced over the past years. However, most of the proposed approaches rely on static RGB frames and on neutral facial expressions. This has two disadvantages. First ... [more ▼]

Face recognition has significantly advanced over the past years. However, most of the proposed approaches rely on static RGB frames and on neutral facial expressions. This has two disadvantages. First, important facial shape cues are ignored. Second, facial deformations due to expressions can have an impact in the performance of such a method. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for dynamic 3D face recognition based on facial keypoints. Each dynamic sequence of facial expressions is represented as a spatio-temporal graph, which is constructed using 3D facial landmarks. Each graph node contains local shape and texture features that are extracted from its neighborhood. For the classification of face videos, a Spatio-temporal Graph Convolutional Network (ST-GCN) is used. Finally, we evaluate our approach on a challenging dynamic 3D facial expression dataset. [less ▲]

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See detailGenome-wide Association and Meta-analysis of Age-at-Onset in Parkinson Disease: Evidence From COURAGE-PD Consortium 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200699
Grover, Sandeep; Ashwin, Ashok Kumar Sreelatha; Pihlstrom, Lasse et al

in Neurology (2022)

Background and Objectives: Considerable heterogeneity exists in the literature concerning genetic determinants of the age of onset (AAO) of Parkinson\textquoterights disease (PD), which could be ... [more ▼]

Background and Objectives: Considerable heterogeneity exists in the literature concerning genetic determinants of the age of onset (AAO) of Parkinson\textquoterights disease (PD), which could be attributed to lack of well-powered replication cohorts. The previous largest GWAS identified SNCA and TMEM175 loci on chromosome (Chr) 4 with a significant influence on AAO of PD, these have not been independently replicated. The present study aims to conduct a meta-analysis of GWAS of PD AAO and validate previously observed findings in worldwide populations.Methods: A meta-analysis was performed on PD AAO GWAS of 30 populations of predominantly European ancestry from the Comprehensive Unbiased Risk Factor Assessment for Genetics and Environment in Parkinson\textquoterights Disease (COURAGE-PD) consortium. This was followed up by combining our study with the largest publicly available European ancestry dataset compiled by the International Parkinson disease Genomics Consortium (IPDGC).Results: The COURAGE-PD included a cohort of 8,535 patients with PD (91.9\%: Europeans, 9.1\%: East-Asians). The average AAO in the COURAGE-PD dataset was 58.9 years (SD=11.6), with an under-representation of females (40.2\%). The heritability estimate for AAO in COURAGE-PD was 0.083 (SE=0.057). None of the loci reached genome-wide significance (P\<5x10-8). Nevertheless, the COURAGE-PD dataset confirmed the role of the previously published TMEM175 variant as genetic determinant of AAO of PD with Bonferroni-corrected nominal levels of significance (P\<0.025): (rs34311866:β(SE)COURAGE=0.477(0.203), PCOURAGE=0.0185). The subsequent meta-analysis of COURAGE-PD and IPDGC datasets (Ntotal=25,950) led to the identification of two genome-wide significant association signals on Chr 4, including the previously reported SNCA locus (rs983361:β(SE)COURAGE+IPDGC=0.720(0.122), PCOURAGE+IPDGC=3.13x10-9) and a novel BST1 locus (rs4698412:β(SE)COURAGE+IPDGC=-0.526(0.096), PCOURAGE+IPDGC=4.41x10-8).Discussion: Our study further refines the genetic architecture of Chr 4 underlying the AAO of the PD phenotype through the identification of BST1 as a novel AAO PD locus. These findings open a new direction for the development of treatments to delay the onset of PD. [less ▲]

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See detailPARK7/DJ-1 promotes pyruvate dehydrogenase activity and maintains T(reg) homeostasis during ageing.
Danileviciute, Egle; Zeng, Ni; Capelle, Christophe M. et al

in Nature metabolism (2022), 4(5), 589-607

Pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) is the gatekeeper enzyme of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. Here we show that the deglycase DJ-1 (encoded by PARK7, a key familial Parkinson's disease gene) is a pacemaker ... [more ▼]

Pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) is the gatekeeper enzyme of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. Here we show that the deglycase DJ-1 (encoded by PARK7, a key familial Parkinson's disease gene) is a pacemaker regulating PDH activity in CD4(+) regulatory T cells (T(reg) cells). DJ-1 binds to PDHE1-β (PDHB), inhibiting phosphorylation of PDHE1-α (PDHA), thus promoting PDH activity and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). Park7 (Dj-1) deletion impairs T(reg) survival starting in young mice and reduces T(reg) homeostatic proliferation and cellularity only in aged mice. This leads to increased severity in aged mice during the remission of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Dj-1 deletion also compromises differentiation of inducible T(reg) cells especially in aged mice, and the impairment occurs via regulation of PDHB. These findings provide unforeseen insight into the complicated regulatory machinery of the PDH complex. As T(reg) homeostasis is dysregulated in many complex diseases, the DJ-1-PDHB axis represents a potential target to maintain or re-establish T(reg) homeostasis. [less ▲]

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See detailCommunicating Confidence of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Identification via High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry
Charbonnet, Joseph A.; McDonough, Carrie A.; Xiao, Feng et al

in Environmental Science Technology Letters (2022), 0(0),

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See detailStrategic Forecasting Toward Achieving Defensible Space Architecture by Year 2030
Patel, Harinkumar; Rana, Loveneesh UL; Maynard, Ian et al

in Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets (2022), 59(5),

Along with the increased demand for space access transportation, a rise in adversarial offensive capabilities, and increasing reliance upon space-based assets, U.S. space assets are now more vulnerable to ... [more ▼]

Along with the increased demand for space access transportation, a rise in adversarial offensive capabilities, and increasing reliance upon space-based assets, U.S. space assets are now more vulnerable to ground- and space-based threats than ever. The U.S. Air Force in its Fiscal Year Posture Statement 2018 recognized that meeting the space threat remains a U.S. Air Force priority for national security. This, along with the creation of a new Space Force, provides more interest in space defense and detailed space architecture development. This needs to be approached pragmatically and strategically. For this, there is a need for a cohesive plan that will support the continued integration and normalization of space in the joint war-fighting environment and places a high priority on space to ensure that U.S. space systems continue to operate in a contested environment. The goal of this study is to identify the national security transportation capabilities and supporting assets needed to establish a superior force in space by the year of 2030 and beyond. Additionally, the science and technology areas that are needed to develop these capabilities are identified, and a strategic space transportation roadmap is generated. [less ▲]

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See detailDesigning with Genius Loci: An Approach to Polyvocality in Interactive Heritage Interpretation
Tsenova, Violeta UL; Wood, Gavin; Kirk, David

in Multimodal Technologies and Interaction (2022), 6(6), 41

Co-design with communities interested in heritage has oriented itself towards designing for polyvocality to diversify the accepted knowledges, values and stories associated with heritage places. However ... [more ▼]

Co-design with communities interested in heritage has oriented itself towards designing for polyvocality to diversify the accepted knowledges, values and stories associated with heritage places. However, engagement with heritage theory has only recently been addressed in HCI design, resulting in some previous work reinforcing the same realities that designers set out to challenge. There is need for an approach that supports designers in heritage settings in working critically with polyvocality to capture values, knowledges, and authorised narratives and reflect on how these are negotiated and presented in the designs created. We contribute “Designing with Genius Loci” (DwGL)—our proposed approach to co-design for polyvocality. We conceptualised DwGL through long-term engagement with volunteers and staff at a UK heritage site. First, we used ongoing recruitment to incentivise participation. We held a series of making workshops to explore participants’ attitudes towards authorised narratives. We built participants’ commitments to collaboration by introducing the common goal of creating an interactive digital design. Finally, as we designed, we enacted our own commitments to the heritage research and to participants’ experiences. These four steps form the backbone of our proposed approach and serve as points of reflexivity. We applied DwGL to co-creating three designs: Un/Authorised View, SDH Palimpsest and Loci Stories, which we present in an annotated portfolio. Grounded in research through design, we reflect on working with the proposed approach and provide three lessons learned, guiding further research efforts in this design space: (1) creating a conversation between authorised and personal heritage stories; (2) designing using polyvocality negotiates voices; and (3) designs engender existing qualities and values. The proposed approach places polyvocality foremost in interactive heritage interpretation and facilitates valuable discussions between the designers and communities involved. [less ▲]

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See detailPolygenic Resilience Modulates the Penetrance of Parkinson Disease Genetic Risk Factors
Liu, Hui; Dehestani, Mohammad; Blauwendraat, Cornelis et al

in Annals of Neurology (2022)

Objective: The aim of the current study is to understand why some individuals avoid developing Parkinson disease (PD) despite being at relatively high genetic risk, using the largest datasets of ... [more ▼]

Objective: The aim of the current study is to understand why some individuals avoid developing Parkinson disease (PD) despite being at relatively high genetic risk, using the largest datasets of individual-level genetic data available. Methods: We calculated polygenic risk score to identify controls and matched PD cases with the highest burden of genetic risk for PD in the discovery cohort (International Parkinson's Disease Genomics Consortium, 7,204 PD cases and 9,412 controls) and validation cohorts (Comprehensive Unbiased Risk Factor Assessment for Genetics and Environment in Parkinson's Disease, 8,968 cases and 7,598 controls; UK Biobank, 2,639 PD cases and 14,301 controls; Accelerating Medicines Partnership–Parkinson's Disease Initiative, 2,248 cases and 2,817 controls). A genome-wide association study meta-analysis was performed on these individuals to understand genetic variation associated with resistance to disease. We further constructed a polygenic resilience score, and performed multimarker analysis of genomic annotation (MAGMA) gene-based analyses and functional enrichment analyses. Results: A higher polygenic resilience score was associated with a lower risk for PD (β = −0.054, standard error [SE] = 0.022, p = 0.013). Although no single locus reached genome-wide significance, MAGMA gene-based analyses nominated TBCA as a putative gene. Furthermore, we estimated the narrow-sense heritability associated with resilience to PD (h2 = 0.081, SE = 0.035, p = 0.0003). Subsequent functional enrichment analysis highlighted histone methylation as a potential pathway harboring resilience alleles that could mitigate the effects of PD risk loci. Interpretation: The present study represents a novel and comprehensive assessment of heritable genetic variation contributing to PD resistance. We show that a genetic resilience score can modify the penetrance of PD genetic risk factors and therefore protect individuals carrying a high-risk genetic burden from developing PD. ANN NEUROL 2022 [less ▲]

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See detailLast Man Standing: Battle Royale Games Through the Lens of Self-Determination Theory
Fernandez de Henestrosa, Martha UL; Billieux, Joël; Melzer, André UL

in Games and Culture (2022), 0(0), 1-22

The highly popular video game genre of Battle Royale (BR) games is characterized by survival and exploration elements that feature a last-man-standing gameplay, thus, motivating players to be the final ... [more ▼]

The highly popular video game genre of Battle Royale (BR) games is characterized by survival and exploration elements that feature a last-man-standing gameplay, thus, motivating players to be the final contestant in the game. Drawing on the Self-Determination Theory the present study investigated the role of personal values, psychological needs and well-being in a self-selected sample of 303 BR gamers recruited online. The association between players’ value orientation and well-being was found contingent on players’ BR gaming experience and their need for relatedness. Whereas frequent interaction with this game genre was associated with the basic psychological need satisfaction of autonomy and relatedness, player preference for BR games was related to their need of competence and autonomy. The present study supports the importance of exploring player motives and provides initial insights into the association between BR gaming and basic psychological needs. [less ▲]

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See detailBenchmarking Low-Frequency Variant Calling With Long-Read Data on Mitochondrial DNA
Lüth, Theresa; Schaake, Susen; Grünewald, Anne UL et al

in Frontiers in Genetics (2022), 13

Background: Sequencing quality has improved over the last decade for long-reads, allowing for more accurate detection of somatic low-frequency variants. In this study, we used mixtures of mitochondrial ... [more ▼]

Background: Sequencing quality has improved over the last decade for long-reads, allowing for more accurate detection of somatic low-frequency variants. In this study, we used mixtures of mitochondrial samples with different haplogroups (i.e., a specific set of mitochondrial variants) to investigate the applicability of nanopore sequencing for low-frequency single nucleotide variant detection.Methods: We investigated the impact of base-calling, alignment/mapping, quality control steps, and variant calling by comparing the results to a previously derived short-read gold standard generated on the Illumina NextSeq. For nanopore sequencing, six mixtures of four different haplotypes were prepared, allowing us to reliably check for expected variants at the predefined 5%, 2%, and 1% mixture levels. We used two different versions of Guppy for base-calling, two aligners (i.e., Minimap2 and Ngmlr), and three variant callers (i.e., Mutserve2, Freebayes, and Nanopanel2) to compare low-frequency variants. We used F<sub>1</sub> score measurements to assess the performance of variant calling.Results: We observed a mean read length of 11 kb and a mean overall read quality of 15. Ngmlr showed not only higher F<sub>1</sub> scores but also higher allele frequencies (AF) of false-positive calls across the mixtures (mean F<sub>1</sub> score = 0.83; false-positive allele frequencies < 0.17) compared to Minimap2 (mean F<sub>1</sub> score = 0.82; false-positive AF < 0.06). Mutserve2 had the highest F<sub>1</sub> scores (5% level: F<sub>1</sub> score >0.99, 2% level: F<sub>1</sub> score >0.54, and 1% level: F<sub>1</sub> score >0.70) across all callers and mixture levels.Conclusion: We here present the benchmarking for low-frequency variant calling with nanopore sequencing by identifying current limitations. [less ▲]

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See detailAging under the lens of culture - Universal and specific perspectives
Albert, Isabelle UL

in GeroPsych: Journal of Gerontopsychology and Geriatric Psychiatry (2022), 35(2), 51-53

Population aging is a phenomenon not restricted to Western societies but observed the world over. Currently, according to estimates by the United Nations, 727 million persons are aged 65 years or older ... [more ▼]

Population aging is a phenomenon not restricted to Western societies but observed the world over. Currently, according to estimates by the United Nations, 727 million persons are aged 65 years or older worldwide, and by 2050 these numbers will have increased to over 1.5 billion, so that by midcentury one in six persons will be 65 years or older (UN, 2020). Interestingly, while some European countries (such as Germany and Italy) and Japan were among the first to take note of their aging population, large increases in the share of older people in their populations are expected for many other countries around the globe in the coming years, especially in Eastern and Southeastern Asia (UN, 2020). Population aging is thus clearly a global trend, although high variability still exists regarding life expectancies and living conditions. What is not yet fully understood is how experiences of aging are similar or differ across cultures, as aging research draws still mostly on findings from North American and Western European cultures (Fung, 2013). Many societies are not only becoming older but also more culturally diverse, and at the same time, globalization is bringing people from different cultural contexts closer to formerly lesser-known realities. The need is therefore increasing to determine the universals of aging across cultures and societies and to explain culture-specific differences (Albert & Tesch-Römer, 2019). The focus on developmental tasks prevalent in most cultural contexts could shed light on the different ways people use to tackle specific challenges in older age according to the sociocultural contexts in their living environment (Fung & Jiang, 2016). Different developmental pathways could thus channel development over the whole lifespan, and culturally formed experiences could accumulate until later life (Greenfield et al., 2003; Valsiner, 1996). That is the starting point of the present special issue on the nexus of aging and culture. Central questions are: How is subjective well-being regulated within the context of cultural diversity? How are care and assistance negotiated in non-Western contexts and how can the notion of culture be conceptualized and applied empirically? [less ▲]

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See detailEnPlace: Energy-Aware Network Partitioning for Controller Placement in SDN
Maity, Ilora UL; Dhiman, Ravi; Misra, Sudip

in IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (2022)

This paper addresses the energy-aware controller placement problem (CPP) in Software-Defined Networking (SDN), considering the Internet of Things (IoT) flows. CPP involves partitioning the network into ... [more ▼]

This paper addresses the energy-aware controller placement problem (CPP) in Software-Defined Networking (SDN), considering the Internet of Things (IoT) flows. CPP involves partitioning the network into multiple subsets of switches with a single controller assigned to each subset. On the other hand, an energy-aware CPP reduces the energy consumption by link deactivation and ensures that each controller is reachable from the associated switches with a minimal set of active links. Existing literature considers static data traffic and out-of-band control plane having dedicated control links. However, the out-of-band control plane increases the infrastructure cost. Moreover, with IoT devices, SDN experiences uneven data traffic volume due to diverse activation models of the IoT devices. Hence, an energy-aware CPP should consider the effects of dynamic data traffic as improper controller placement and unplanned link deactivation cause link congestion and controller overload. In this work, we present an energy-aware controller placement scheme, named EnPlace, considering in-band control plane and IoT traffic. Additionally, we propose an energy-aware route selection scheme for existing flows. EnPlace increases energy savings significantly as compared to the existing works. In particular, for 200 IoT devices, the proposed scheme increases energy savings by 22.74% as compared to GreCo, an existing scheme. [less ▲]

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See detailThe impact of parental migration on psychological well-being of children in Ghana
Raturi, Radhika; Cebotari, Victor UL

in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2022)

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See detailVisual and biometric surveillance in the EU. Saying ‘no’ to mass surveillance practices?
De Hert, Paul; Bouchagiar, Georgios UL

in Information Polity (2022)

Earlier this year, the European Commission (EC) registered the ‘Civil society initiative for a ban on biometric mass surveillance practices’, a European Citizens’ Initiative. Citizens are thus given the ... [more ▼]

Earlier this year, the European Commission (EC) registered the ‘Civil society initiative for a ban on biometric mass surveillance practices’, a European Citizens’ Initiative. Citizens are thus given the opportunity to authorize the EC to suggest the adoption of legislative instruments to permanently ban biometric mass surveillance practices. This contribution finds the above initiative particularly promising, as part of a new development of bans in the European Union (EU). It analyses the EU’s approach to facial, visual and biometric surveillance, with the objective of submitting some ideas that the European legislator could consider when strictly regulating such practices. [less ▲]

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See detailiBiR: Bug Report driven Fault Injection
Khanfir, Ahmed UL; Koyuncu, Anil; Papadakis, Mike UL et al

in ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (2022)

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See detailGenetic Criticism and Analysis of Interface Design: A Case Study
Armaselu, Florentina UL

in Digital Studies (2022), 12(1), 137

The paper proposes a methodology that combines theoretical and practical aspects from human-computer interaction (HCI) and genetic criticism to trace and analyse prototype evolution. A case study ... [more ▼]

The paper proposes a methodology that combines theoretical and practical aspects from human-computer interaction (HCI) and genetic criticism to trace and analyse prototype evolution. A case study illustrates this type of enquiry by examining the iterations and the dynamics of change in the design and development of the Transviewer, an interface for digital editions. The initial assumption is that such an analysis can inform existing models in interface design and possibly provide new ground for discussion in humanistic HCI. For instance by fostering broader reflections on software production as a technological and cultural artefact and the gradual shaping of the principles and metaphors underlying the construction of a certain type of knowledge, argument, or interpretation through an interface. [less ▲]

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See detailMutation Testing in Evolving Systems: Studying the relevance of mutants to code evolution
Ojdanic, Milos UL; Soremekun, Ezekiel UL; Degiovanni, Renzo Gaston UL et al

in ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (2022)

Context: When software evolves, opportunities for introducing faults appear. Therefore, it is important to test the evolved program behaviors during each evolution cycle. However, while software evolves ... [more ▼]

Context: When software evolves, opportunities for introducing faults appear. Therefore, it is important to test the evolved program behaviors during each evolution cycle. However, while software evolves, its complexity is also evolving, introducing challenges to the testing process. To deal with this issue, testing techniques should be adapted to target the effect of the program changes instead of the entire program functionality. To this end, commit-aware mutation testing, a powerful testing technique, has been proposed. Unfortunately, commit-aware mutation testing is challenging due to the complex program semantics involved. Hence, it is pertinent to understand the characteristics, predictability, and potential of the technique. Objective: We conduct an exploratory study to investigate the properties of commit-relevant mutants, i.e., the test elements of commit-aware mutation testing, by proposing a general definition and an experimental approach to identify them. We thus, aim at investigating the prevalence, location, and comparative advantages of commit-aware mutation testing over time (i.e., the program evolution). We also investigate the predictive power of several commit-related features in identifying and selecting commit-relevant mutants to understand the essential properties for its best-effort application case. Method: Our commit-relevant definition relies on the notion of observational slicing, approximated by higher-order mutation. Specifically, our approach utilizes the impact of mutants, effects of one mutant on another in capturing and analyzing the implicit interactions between the changed and unchanged code parts. The study analyses millions of mutants (over 10 million), 288 commits, five (5) different open-source software projects involving over 68,213 CPU days of computation and sets a ground truth where we perform our analysis. Results: Our analysis shows that commit-relevant mutants are located mainly outside of program commit change (81%), suggesting a limitation in previous work. We also note that effective selection of commit-relevant mutants has the potential of reducing the number of mutants by up to 93%. In addition, we demonstrate that commit relevant mutation testing is significantly more effective and efficient than state-of-the-art baselines, i.e., random mutant selection and analysis of only mutants within the program change. In our analysis of the predictive power of mutants and commit-related features (e.g., number of mutants within a change, mutant type, and commit size) in predicting commit-relevant mutants, we found that most proxy features do not reliably predict commit-relevant mutants. Conclusion: This empirical study highlights the properties of commit-relevant mutants and demonstrates the importance of identifying and selecting commit-relevant mutants when testing evolving software systems. [less ▲]

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See detailmGlu3 Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors as a Target for the Treatment of Absence Epilepsy: Preclinical and Human Genetics Data
Celli, Roberta; Striano, Pasquale; Citraro, Rita et al

in Current Neuropharmacology (2022)

Abstract: Background: Previous studies suggest that different metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptor subtypes are potential drug targets for treating absence epilepsy. However, no information is available ... [more ▼]

Abstract: Background: Previous studies suggest that different metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptor subtypes are potential drug targets for treating absence epilepsy. However, no information is available on mGlu3 receptors. Objective: To examine whether (i) changes of mGlu3 receptor expression/signaling are found in the somatosensory cortex and thalamus of WAG/Rij rats developing spontaneous absence seizures; (ii) selective activation of mGlu3 receptors with LY2794193 affects the number and duration of spike- wave discharges (SWDs) in WAG/Rij rats; and (iii) a genetic variant of GRM3 (encoding the mGlu3 receptor) is associated with absence epilepsy. Methods: Animals: immunoblot analysis of mGlu3 receptors, GAT-1, GLAST, and GLT-1; real- time PCR analysis of mGlu3 mRNA levels; assessment of mGlu3 receptor signaling; EEG analysis of SWDs; assessment of depressive-like behavior. Humans: search for GRM3 and GRM5 missense variants in 196 patients with absence epilepsy or other Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsy (IGE)/ Genetic Generalized Epilepsy (GGE) and 125,748 controls. Results: mGlu3 protein levels and mGlu3-mediated inhibition of cAMP formation were reduced in the thalamus and somatosensory cortex of pre-symptomatic (25-27 days old) and symptomatic (6-7 months old) WAG/Rij rats compared to age-matched controls. Treatment with LY2794193 (1 or 10 mg/kg, i.p.) reduced absence seizures and depressive-like behavior in WAG/Rij rats. LY2794193 also enhanced GAT1, GLAST, and GLT-1 protein levels in the thalamus and somatosensory cortex. GRM3 and GRM5 gene variants did not differ between epileptic patients and controls. Conclusion: We suggest that mGlu3 receptors modulate the activity of the cortico-thalamo-cortical circuit underlying SWDs and that selective mGlu3 receptor agonists are promising candidate drugs for absence epilepsy treatment. [less ▲]

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See detailHow green are our laws? Presenting a normative coherence for sustainable development methodology
Koff, Harlan UL; Challenger, Antony; Ros Cuellar, Julia UL et al

in Environmental Policy and Governance (2022)

Policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD) has become a pillar of supranational sustainable development agendas, promoting “whole of government approaches.” The concept of normative coherence for ... [more ▼]

Policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD) has become a pillar of supranational sustainable development agendas, promoting “whole of government approaches.” The concept of normative coherence for sustainable development (NCSD) has emerged as a new stage of policy coherence for sustainable development analysis. NCSD is a policy approach that aims to promote transformative development by examining the relationship between policies and key sustainability norms, such as those expressed in the sustainable development goals. Normative coherence for sustainable development is recognized in recent scholarship but it remains generalized, lacking operationalization. This article proposes an NCSD methodology for analysis of legal frameworks. Qualitative empirical research tested this approach in Mexico by focusing on federal laws as well as those in two states: Aguascalientes and Veracruz. The analysis which examined four dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social, security, and environmental) showed that the environmental dimension of Mexico's legal framework is the least prioritized, suggesting that this framework is not very “green” even though environmental laws are the most transversal in content, which indicate significant levels of mainstreaming. Sustainable development experts were then contacted by the research team to validate the findings and interpret the results. This normative coherence for sustainable development methodology aims to situate normative considerations at the center of evaluation in order to promote domestic transformative sustainable development strategies and the “greening” of legal frameworks. [less ▲]

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See detailThe Next Frontier of Environmental Unknowns: Substances of Unknown or Variable Composition, Complex Reaction Products, or Biological Materials (UVCBs)
Lai, Adelene UL; Clark, Alex; Escher, Beate et al

in Environmental Science and Technology (2022)

Substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products, or biological materials (UVCBs) are over 70 000 “complex” chemical mixtures produced and used at significant levels worldwide. Due ... [more ▼]

Substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products, or biological materials (UVCBs) are over 70 000 “complex” chemical mixtures produced and used at significant levels worldwide. Due to their unknown or variable composition, applying chemical assessments originally developed for individual compounds to UVCBs is challenging, which impedes sound management of these substances. Across the analytical sciences, toxicology, cheminformatics, and regulatory practice, new approaches addressing specific aspects of UVCB assessment are being developed, albeit in a fragmented manner. This review attempts to convey the “big picture” of the state of the art in dealing with UVCBs by holistically examining UVCB characterization and chemical identity representation, as well as hazard, exposure, and risk assessment. Overall, information gaps on chemical identities underpin the fundamental challenges concerning UVCBs, and better reporting and substance characterization efforts are needed to support subsequent chemical assessments. To this end, an information level scheme for improved UVCB data collection and management within databases is proposed. The development of UVCB testing shows early progress, in line with three main methods: whole substance, known constituents, and fraction profiling. For toxicity assessment, one option is a whole-mixture testing approach. If the identities of (many) constituents are known, grouping, read across, and mixture toxicity modeling represent complementary approaches to overcome data gaps in toxicity assessment. This review highlights continued needs for concerted efforts from all stakeholders to ensure proper assessment and sound management of UVCBs. [less ▲]

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See detailHow sensitive are the evaluations of a school's effectiveness to the selection of covariates in the applied value‑added model?
Levy, Jessica UL; Brunner, Martin; Keller, Ulrich UL et al

in Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability (2022)

There is no final consensus regarding which covariates should be used (in addition to prior achievement) when estimating value-added (VA) scores to evaluate a school’s effectiveness. Therefore, we ... [more ▼]

There is no final consensus regarding which covariates should be used (in addition to prior achievement) when estimating value-added (VA) scores to evaluate a school’s effectiveness. Therefore, we examined the sensitivity of evaluations of schools’ effectiveness in math and language achievement to covariate selection in the applied VA model. Four covariate sets were systematically combined, including prior achievement from the same or different domain, sociodemographic and sociocultural background characteristics, and domain-specific achievement motivation. School VA scores were estimated using longitudinal data from the Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme with some 3600 students attending 153 primary schools in Grades 1 and 3. VA scores varied considerably, despite high correlations between VA scores based on the different sets of covariates (.66 < r < 1.00). The explained variance and consistency of school VA scores substantially improved when including prior math and prior language achievement in VA models for math and prior language achievement with sociodemographic and sociocultural background characteristics in VA models for language. These findings suggest that prior achievement in the same subject, the most commonly used covariate to date, may be insufficient to control for between-school differences in student intake when estimating school VA scores. We thus recommend using VA models with caution and applying VA scores for informative purposes rather than as a mean to base accountability decisions upon. [less ▲]

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See detailMachine learning of material properties: Predictive and interpretable multilinear models
Tkatchenko, Alexandre UL; Allen, Alice

in Science Advances (2022)

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See detailLL(O)D and NLP perspectives on semantic change for humanities research
Armaselu, Florentina UL; Elena-Simona, Elena-Simona; Khan, Anas Fahad et al

in Semantic Web (2022)

This paper presents an overview of the LL(O)D and NLP methods, tools and data for detecting and representing semantic change, with its main application in humanities research. The paper’s aim is to ... [more ▼]

This paper presents an overview of the LL(O)D and NLP methods, tools and data for detecting and representing semantic change, with its main application in humanities research. The paper’s aim is to provide the starting point for the construction of a workflow and set of multilingual diachronic ontologies within the humanities use case of the COST Action Nexus Linguarum, European network for Web-centred linguistic data science, CA18209. The survey focuses on the essential aspects needed to understand the current trends and to build applications in this area of study. [less ▲]

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See detailPower fluctuations in sheared amorphous materials: A minimal model
Ekeh, Timothy; Fodor, Etienne UL; Fielding, Suzanne M. et al

in Physical Review (2022)

The importance of mesoscale fluctuations in flowing amorphous materials is widely accepted, without a clear understanding of their role. We propose a mean-field elastoplastic model that admits both stress ... [more ▼]

The importance of mesoscale fluctuations in flowing amorphous materials is widely accepted, without a clear understanding of their role. We propose a mean-field elastoplastic model that admits both stress and strain-rate fluctuations, and investigate the character of its power distribution under steady shear flow. The model predicts the suppression of negative power fluctuations near the liquid-solid transition; the existence of a fluctuation relation in limiting regimes but its replacement in general by stretched-exponential power-distribution tails; and a crossover between two distinct mechanisms for negative power fluctuations in the liquid and the yielding solid phases. We connect these predictions with recent results from particle-based, numerical microrheological experiments. [less ▲]

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See detailDriver’s Face Pose Estimation Using Fine-Grained Wi-Fi Signals for Next-Generation Internet of Vehicles
Akhtar, Zain ul Abidin; Rassol, Hafiz Faiz; Asif, Muhammad et al

in Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (2022), 2022

Driver’s behavior and gesture recognition are most significant in the emerging next-generation vehicular technology. Driver’s face may provide important cues about his/her attention and fatigue behavior ... [more ▼]

Driver’s behavior and gesture recognition are most significant in the emerging next-generation vehicular technology. Driver’s face may provide important cues about his/her attention and fatigue behavior. Therefore, driver’s face pose is one of the key indicators to be considered for automatic driver monitoring system in next-generation Internet of Vehicles (IoV) technology. Driver behavior monitoring is most significant in order to reduce road accidents. This paper aims to address the problem of driver’s attentiveness monitoring using face pose estimation in a nonintrusive manner. The proposed system is based on wireless sensing, leveraging channel state information (CSI) of WiFi signals. In this paper, we present a novel classification algorithm that is based on the combination of support vector machine (SVM) and K nearest neighbor (KNN) to enhance the classification accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed device-free wireless implementation can localize a driver’s face very accurately with an average recognition rate of 91:8%. [less ▲]

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See detailJoint Optimization of Beam-Hopping Design and NOMA-Assisted Transmission for Flexible Satellite Systems
Wang, Anyue UL; Lei, Lei; Lagunas, Eva UL et al

in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2022)

Next-generation satellite systems require more flexibility in resource management such that available radio resources can be dynamically allocated to meet time-varying and non-uniform traffic demands ... [more ▼]

Next-generation satellite systems require more flexibility in resource management such that available radio resources can be dynamically allocated to meet time-varying and non-uniform traffic demands. Considering potential benefits of beam hopping (BH) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), we exploit the time-domain flexibility in multi-beam satellite systems by optimizing BH design, and enhance the power-domain flexibility via NOMA. In this paper, we investigate the synergy and mutual influence of beam hopping and NOMA. We jointly optimize power allocation, beam scheduling, and terminal-timeslot assignment to minimize the gap between requested traffic demand and offered capacity. In the solution development, we formally prove the NP-hardness of the optimization problem. Next, we develop a bounding scheme to tightly gauge the global optimum and propose a suboptimal algorithm to enable efficient resource assignment. Numerical results demonstrate the benefits of combining NOMA and BH, and validate the superiority of the proposed BH-NOMA schemes over benchmarks. [less ▲]

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See detailAiding Reflective Navigation in a Dynamic Information Landscape: A Challenge for Educational Psychology
Bobrowicz, Katarzyna UL; Han, Areum UL; Hausen, Jennifer UL et al

in Frontiers in Psychology (2022)

Open access to information is now a universal phenomenon thanks to rapid technological developments across the globe. This open and universal access to information is a key value of democratic societies ... [more ▼]

Open access to information is now a universal phenomenon thanks to rapid technological developments across the globe. This open and universal access to information is a key value of democratic societies because, in principle, it supports well-informed decision-making on individual, local, and global matters. In practice, however, without appropriate readiness for navigation in a dynamic information landscape, such access to information can become a threat to public health, safety, and economy, as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown. In the past, this readiness was often conceptualized in terms of adequate literacy levels, but the contemporarily observed highest-ever literacy levels have not immunized our societies against the risks of misinformation. Therefore, in this Perspective, we argue that democratisation of access to information endows citizens with new responsibilities, and second, these responsibilities demand readiness that cannot be reduced to mere literacy levels. In fact, this readiness builds on individual adequate literacy skills, but also requires rational thinking and awareness of own information processing. We gather evidence from developmental, educational, and cognitive psychology to show how these aspects of readiness could be improved through education interventions, and how they may be related to healthy work-home balance and self-efficacy. All these components of education are critical to responsible global citizenship and will determine the future direction of our societies. [less ▲]

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See detailUnderstanding Alpha Decay
Penasse, Julien UL

in Management Science (2022), 68(5), 3966-3973

I study the importance of alpha decay for the measurement of realized and conditional expected returns in asset pricing studies. Alpha decay refers to the reduction in abnormal expected returns (relative ... [more ▼]

I study the importance of alpha decay for the measurement of realized and conditional expected returns in asset pricing studies. Alpha decay refers to the reduction in abnormal expected returns (relative to an asset pricing model) in response to an anomaly becoming widely known among market participants. As decreases in alpha are associated (ceteris paribus) with positive realized returns, the econometrician may misinterpret these repricing returns as evidence that the anomaly will persist in the future. Because alpha decay is generally a nonstationary phenomenon, asset pricing tests that impose stationarity may lead to biased inference. I illustrate the importance of alpha decay using the most commonly studied anomalies in the asset pricing literature and find that the measured alpha differs from the true alpha by about 1.4% per year. I provide a simple formula to correct for this bias and show how to incorporate alpha decay tests into the standard asset pricing toolkit. [less ▲]

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See detailKontrola a soudní přezkum obecných pokynů a doporučení vydávaných Evropskými orgány dohledu
Hubkova, Pavlina UL

in Právní rozhledy (2022), (9), 305-342

The European Supervisory Authorities present an example of EU agencies that have been empowered to issue soft law acts in order to ensure uniform interpretation and uniform application of legally binding ... [more ▼]

The European Supervisory Authorities present an example of EU agencies that have been empowered to issue soft law acts in order to ensure uniform interpretation and uniform application of legally binding EU rules in the area of ​​financial regulation. Each of these bodies has a clearly defined set of rules to which it can issue soft law, and any deviation from this set of rules is a sign of exceeding powers. Therefore, it is necessary to control whether the European Supervisory Authorities do not exceed the limits of their powers when issuing soft law and whether the content of a particular soft law act is not contrary to binding rules. However, control mechanisms at the EU level appear to be insufficient. Administrative control is bound by somewhat unfortunate rules, which tend to hinder the actual assessment. Judicial review by the Court of Justice of the EU is possible, but only in preliminary ruling procedure, which is not a very effective alternative to direct actions, in which the case law of the CJEU does not allow for an assessment of the legality of EU soft law. [less ▲]

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See detailA Cost-Effective Identity-Based Signature Scheme for Vehicular Ad Hoc Network Using Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography
Iqbal, Asad; Ullah, Insaf; AlSanad, Abeer Abdulaziz et al

in Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (2022)

A Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) is a subset of the Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) that allows vehicles to communicate with each other and with roadside stations to offer efficient and safe ... [more ▼]

A Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) is a subset of the Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) that allows vehicles to communicate with each other and with roadside stations to offer efficient and safe transportation. Furthermore, when VANET is used in connection with the Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors, it can help with traffic management and road safety by allowing vehicles to interact with one another at any time and from any location. Since VANET’s event-driven communications are carried out via an open wireless channel, there are significant security concerns. In this paper, we use Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography (HECC) to offer a cost-effective identity-based signature for secure communication over VANET. The proposed scheme does not need certificate management, and we found that it is more secure against a variety of cryptographic threats after conducting a thorough security analysis. In addition, comparisons of communication and computational costs are made, demonstrating that the proposed scheme is more efficient in both respects than existing schemes. [less ▲]

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See detailA Deep Dive inside DREBIN: An Explorative Analysis beyond Android Malware Detection Scores
Daoudi, Nadia UL; Allix, Kevin UL; Bissyande, Tegawendé François D Assise UL et al

in ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (2022), 25(2),

Machine learning (ML) advances have been extensively explored for implementing large-scale malware detection. When reported in the literature, performance evaluation of ML-based detectors generally ... [more ▼]

Machine learning (ML) advances have been extensively explored for implementing large-scale malware detection. When reported in the literature, performance evaluation of ML-based detectors generally focuses on highlighting the ratio of samples that are correctly or incorrectly classified, overlooking essential questions on why/how the learned models can be demonstrated as reliable. In the Android ecosystem, several recent studies have highlighted how evaluation setups can carry biases related to datasets or evaluation methodologies. Nevertheless, there is little work attempting to dissect the produced model to provide some understanding of its intrinsic characteristics. In this work, we fill this gap by performing a comprehensive analysis of a state-of-the-art Android Malware detector, namely DREBIN, which constitutes today a key reference in the literature. Our study mainly targets an in-depth understanding of the classifier characteristics in terms of (1) which features actually matter among the hundreds of thousands that DREBIN extracts, (2) whether the high scores of the classifier are dependent on the dataset age, (3) whether DREBIN's explanations are consistent within malware families, etc. Overall, our tentative analysis provides insights into the discriminatory power of the feature set used by DREBIN to detect malware. We expect our findings to bring about a systematisation of knowledge for the community. [less ▲]

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See detailLa spécialisation linguistique de l 'emploi au Luxembourg étudiée à travers les offres d'emploi (1984-2019) Rapport de synthèse
Pigeron-Piroth, Isabelle UL; Fehlen, Fernand UL

in UniGR_CBS Working Paper (2022), 13

Based on a sample of job advertisements published in the main Luxembourgish daily newspaper (Luxem-burger Wort) covering the period 1984-2019, this study describes the development of language skills re ... [more ▼]

Based on a sample of job advertisements published in the main Luxembourgish daily newspaper (Luxem-burger Wort) covering the period 1984-2019, this study describes the development of language skills re-quired on the Luxembourg job market. After a brief presentation of the linguistic situation and the labor market in Luxembourg, the statistical analysis of a sample of some 8,340 job advertisements constitutes the main part of this publication. A qualitative study of a smaller body of job vacancies sheds additional light and a detailed understanding of linguistic needs in a multilingual and international labor market. Both approaches come to the same conclusion. The labor shortage and particularly the lack of people fluent in the "three languages of the country" has led to a segmentation of the labor market. [less ▲]

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See detailToward Optimally Efficient Search With Deep Learning for Large-Scale MIMO Systems
He, Le; He, Ke UL; Fan, Lisheng et al

in IEEE Transactions on Communications (2022), 70(5), 3157-3168

This paper investigates the optimal signal detection problem with a particular interest in large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The problem is NP-hard and can be solved optimally by ... [more ▼]

This paper investigates the optimal signal detection problem with a particular interest in large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The problem is NP-hard and can be solved optimally by searching the shortest path on the decision tree. Unfortunately, the existing optimal search algorithms often involve prohibitively high complexities, which indicates that they are infeasible in large-scale MIMO systems. To address this issue, we propose a general heuristic search algorithm, namely, hyper-accelerated tree search (HATS) algorithm. The proposed algorithm employs a deep neural network (DNN) to estimate the optimal heuristic, and then use the estimated heuristic to speed up the underlying memory-bounded search algorithm. This idea is inspired by the fact that the underlying heuristic search algorithm reaches the optimal efficiency with the optimal heuristic function. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm reaches almost the optimal bit error rate (BER) performance in large-scale systems, while the memory size can be bounded. In the meanwhile, it visits nearly the fewest tree nodes. This indicates that the proposed algorithm reaches almost the optimal efficiency in practical scenarios, and thereby it is applicable for large-scale systems. Besides, the code for this paper is available at https://github.com/skypitcher/hats. [less ▲]

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See detailReconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Assisted Massive MIMO: Favorable propagation, channel hardening, and rank deficiency
Trinh, van Chien UL; Ngo, Hien Quoc; Chatzinotas, Symeon UL et al

in IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2022), 39(3),

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) are two promising technologies for 5G-and-beyond wireless networks, capable of providing large array gain and ... [more ▼]

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) are two promising technologies for 5G-and-beyond wireless networks, capable of providing large array gain and multiuser spatial multiplexing. Without requiring additional frequency bands, those technologies offer significant improvements in both spectral and energy efficiency by simultaneously serving many users. The performance analysis of an RIS-assisted massive MIMO system as a function of channel statistics relies heavily on fundamental properties, including favorable propagation, channel hardening, and rank deficiency. The coexistence of both direct and indirect links results in aggregated channels, whose properties are the main concerns of this “Lecture Notes” article. For practical systems with a finite number of antennas and engineered scattering elements of the RIS, we evaluate the corresponding deterministic metrics, with Rayleigh fading channels as a typical example. [less ▲]

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See detailTHz-Empowered UAVs in 6G: Opportunities, Challenges, and Trade-Offs
Azari, Mohammad Mahdi UL; Solanki, Sourabh UL; Chatzinotas, Symeon UL et al

in IEEE Communications Magazine (2022), 60(5), 24-30

Envisioned use cases of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) impose new service requirements in terms of data rate, latency, and sensing accuracy, to name a few. If such requirements are satisfactorily met, it ... [more ▼]

Envisioned use cases of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) impose new service requirements in terms of data rate, latency, and sensing accuracy, to name a few. If such requirements are satisfactorily met, it can create novel applications and enable highly reliable and harmonized integration of UAVs in the 6G network ecosystem. Towards this, terahertz (THz) bands are perceived as a prospective technological enabler for various improved functionalities such as ultra-high throughput and enhanced sensing capabilities. This paper focuses on THz-empowered UAVs with the following capabilities: communication, sensing, localization, imaging, and control. We review the potential opportunities and use cases of THz-empowered UAVs, corresponding novel design challenges, and resulting trade-offs. Furthermore, we overview recent advances in UAV deployments regulations, THz standardization, and health aspects related to THz bands. Finally, we take UAV to UAV (U2U) communication as a case-study to provide numerical insights into the impact of various system design parameters and environment factors. [less ▲]

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See detailUser selection for massive MIMO under line-of-sight propagation
Chaves, Rafael da Silva; Cetin, Ediz; Lima, Markus V. S. et al

in IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society (2022)

This paper provides a review of user selection algorithms for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems under the line-of-sight (LoS) propagation model. Although the LoS propagation is ... [more ▼]

This paper provides a review of user selection algorithms for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems under the line-of-sight (LoS) propagation model. Although the LoS propagation is extremely important to some promising technologies, like in millimeter-wave communications, massive MIMO systems are rarely studied under this propagation model. This paper fills this gap by providing a comprehensive study encompassing several user selection algorithms, different linear precoders and simulation setups, and also considers the effect of partial channel state information (CSI). One important result is the existence of practical cases in which the LoS propagation model may lead to significant levels of interference among users within a cell; these cases are not satisfactorily addressed by the existing user selection algorithms. Motivated by this issue, a new user selection algorithm based on inter-channel interference (ICI) called ICI-based selection (ICIBS) is proposed. Unlike other techniques, the ICIBS accounts for the ICI in a global manner, thus yielding better results, especially in cases where there are many users interfering with each other. In such scenarios, simulation results show that when compared to the competing algorithms, the proposed approach provided an improvement of at least 10.9% in the maximum throughput and 7.7% in the 95%-probability throughput when half of the users were selected. [less ▲]

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