Sleep Deprivation in the Forward-Forward Algorithm

This paper aims to explore the separation of the two forward passes in the Forward-Forward algorithm from a biological perspective in the context of sleep. We show the size of the gap between the sleep and awake phase influences the learning capabilities of the algorithm and highlight the importance of negative data in diminishing the devastating effects of sleep deprivation.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, published in ICLR 2023 TinyPaper

Los efectos de la movilidad oriente-occidental en la UE sobre el desarrollo económico

The main objective of this research is to analyse the effects of the emigrants on the economies of the EU developed countries focusing on the effects on the economic growth, the employment rate, and the workforce but also on the productivity of the factors. The results obtained from this analysis indicate a positive and significant influence from a statistical point of view of the immigrants coming from the EU countries in 2004 on the economic growth, workforce, and productivity for the countries from EU 15. In case of the immigrants coming from Romania and Bulgaria we identified a positive and significant impact on the economic growth of the states from EU15 while for the other variables included in the analysis, we obtained contradictory results.El principal objetivo de esta investigación es analizar los efectos de los emigrantes en las economías de los países desarrollados de la UE centrándose en los efectos sobre el crecimiento económico, la tasa de empleo y la mano de obra, pero también sobre la productividad de los factores. Los resultados obtenidos de este análisis indican una influencia positiva y significativa desde un punto de vista estadístico de los inmigrantes procedentes de los países de la UE en 2004 sobre el crecimiento económico, la mano de obra y la productividad de los países de la UE 15. En el caso de los inmigrantes procedentes de Rumania y Bulgaria identificamos un impacto positivo y significativo en el crecimiento económico de los estados de la UE15 mientras que para las otras variables incluidas en el análisis obtuvimos resultados contradictorios

CathSim: An Open-source Simulator for Autonomous Cannulation

Autonomous robots in endovascular operations have the potential to navigate circulatory systems safely and reliably while decreasing the susceptibility to human errors. However, there are numerous challenges involved with the process of training such robots such as long training duration due to sample inefficiency of machine learning algorithms and safety issues arising from the interaction between the catheter and the endovascular phantom. Physics simulators have been used in the context of endovascular procedures, but they are typically employed for staff training and generally do not conform to the autonomous cannulation goal. Furthermore, most current simulators are closed-source which hinders the collaborative development of safe and reliable autonomous systems. In this work, we introduce CathSim, an open-source simulation environment that accelerates the development of machine learning algorithms for autonomous endovascular navigation. We first simulate the high-fidelity catheter and aorta with the state-of-the-art endovascular robot. We then provide the capability of real-time force sensing between the catheter and the aorta in the simulation environment. We validate our simulator by conducting two different catheterisation tasks within two primary arteries using two popular reinforcement learning algorithms, Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and Soft Actor-Critic (SAC). The experimental results show that using our open-source simulator, we can successfully train the reinforcement learning agents to perform different autonomous cannulation tasks

The Relationship between Development of Tourism, Quality of Life and Sustainable Performance in EU Countries

Relationships between tourism development, quality of life and sustainable performance are very important topics and benchmarks in long-term policies and strategies at global, regional and local levels. Starting from the concerns expressed by researchers and international organizations, as well as the characteristics of the European region, our research aims to identify these relationships in the context of increasing pressure from stakeholders on the adoption of decisive measures in order to limit the negative effects manifested globally in the context of climate change. Using cluster analysis, we managed to identify relevant groups of countries, based on the selected variables. The results of the study highlight the existence of a positive relationship between the development of tourism and the increase of the quality of life, as between the level of sustainable performance and tourism intensity, opening the possibility of future research on the causal relationships between the selected variables and the promotion of coherent public policies that support the sustainable development

On a Surface Associated to the Catalan Triangle

We define a surface that interpolates the ballot numbers in the Catalan triangle corresponding to every pair of nonnegative integers (except for the origin). We study the geometric properties of this surface and prove that it contains exactly five half-lines. The mean curvature and the Gauss curvature of the surface are also calculated

Digital Performance in EU Member States in the Context of the Transition to a Climate Neutral Economy

The climate-neutral economy is today, more than ever, the priority issue for all governmental and non-governmental bodies, directly and indirectly involved in the ambitious and responsible process of society’s transition to the green economy. To be or not to be sustainable today is no longer an option, but an urgent necessity. Based on these considerations, our research aims to add to the knowledge on the digital performance of the Member States in the context of the transition to a climate neutral economy, by analyzing the mutations that have occurred in the digital performance of the EU countries in the period 2015–2020, as well as forecasting developments for the year 2025. In order to obtain a relevant result, we used the components of the DESI index, published by the European Commission, and the variables were processed through hierarchical cluster analysis. The results demonstrate that, around the core formed in 2015 by four high digitally performing countries from the North of Europe in 2015, other countries have gradually clustered, so that in 2025 we estimate that a number of eight Member States will be part of the group of the most digitally performing countries. These countries are decisively committed to the transition towards a climate-neutral economy, their initiatives and examples of good practice can be taken up by all European and non-European countries pursuing the same objectives of sustainable development

Characterization of Rectifying Curves by Their Involutes and Evolutes

A rectifying curve is a twisted curve with the property that all of its rectifying planes pass through a fixed point. If this point is the origin of the Cartesian coordinate system, then the position vector of the rectifying curve always lies in the rectifying plane. A remarkable property of these curves is that the ratio between torsion and curvature is a nonconstant linear function of the arc-length parameter. In this paper, we give a new characterization of rectifying curves, namely, we prove that a curve is a rectifying curve if and only if it has a spherical involute. Consequently, rectifying curves can be constructed as evolutes of spherical twisted curves; we present an illustrative example of a rectifying curve obtained as the evolute of a spherical helix. We also express the curvature and the torsion of a rectifying spherical curve and give necessary and sufficient conditions for a curve and its involute to be both rectifying curves

Digital Performance in EU Member States in the Context of the Transition to a Climate Neutral Economy

The climate-neutral economy is today, more than ever, the priority issue for all governmental and non-governmental bodies, directly and indirectly involved in the ambitious and responsible process of society’s transition to the green economy. To be or not to be sustainable today is no longer an option, but an urgent necessity. Based on these considerations, our research aims to add to the knowledge on the digital performance of the Member States in the context of the transition to a climate neutral economy, by analyzing the mutations that have occurred in the digital performance of the EU countries in the period 2015–2020, as well as forecasting developments for the year 2025. In order to obtain a relevant result, we used the components of the DESI index, published by the European Commission, and the variables were processed through hierarchical cluster analysis. The results demonstrate that, around the core formed in 2015 by four high digitally performing countries from the North of Europe in 2015, other countries have gradually clustered, so that in 2025 we estimate that a number of eight Member States will be part of the group of the most digitally performing countries. These countries are decisively committed to the transition towards a climate-neutral economy, their initiatives and examples of good practice can be taken up by all European and non-European countries pursuing the same objectives of sustainable development

Identification of Histopathological Biomarkers in Fatal Cases of Coronavirus Disease: A Study on Lung Tissue

We aimed to evaluate the primary lung postmortem macro- and microscopic biomarkers and factors associated with diffuse alveolar damage in patients with fatal coronavirus (COVID-19). We retrospectively analyzed lung tissue collected from autopsies performed in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, between April 2020 and April 2021 on patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We examined 79 patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, ages 34 to 96 years, split into two groups using the cut-off value of 70 years. Arterial hypertension (38%) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (19%) were the most common comorbidities with similar distribution between groups (p-values > 0.14). Macroscopically, bloody exudate was more frequently observed among patients p-value = 0.0091). Diffuse alveolar damage (53.1%) was similarly observed among the evaluated groups (p-value = 0.1354). Histopathological biomarkers of alveolar edema in 83.5% of patients, interstitial pneumonia in 74.7%, and microthrombi in 39.2% of cases were most frequently observed. Half of the evaluated lungs had an Ashcroft score of up to 2 and an alveolar air capacity of up to 12.5%. Bronchopneumonia (11/43 vs. 3/36, p-value = 0.0456) and interstitial edema (9/43 vs. 2/36, p-value = 0.0493) were significantly more frequent in older patients. Age (median: 67.5 vs. 77 years, p-value = 0.023) and infection with the beta variant of the virus (p-value = 0.0071) proved to be significant factors associated with diffuse alveolar damage