Automated testing of mobile devices

The aim was to study the automated testing of mobile devices to assess the challenges that have to be faced and to find solutions to those problems as well as to perform an automated testing and to evaluate its effectiveness. The theoretical part discusses testing in general and the testing types. The importance of quality assurance in every engineering process is highlighted. It is presented how the subsequent stages of the testing process had been done. Each chapter describes the tester’s tasks and what needs to be considered when performing them. Typical problems are discussed and some advices on how to avoid those problems are given. During the study many new automation scripts were created. Those were successfully used to perform an automated reliability testing of many products. Based on the knowledge that was gained, the assigner’s instructions on how to perform automated testing were updated. The testing environment was evaluated and the ideas for improvements proposed. The reporting process was improved by implementing several tools that help to handle the logs produced during the testing round

ToyArchitecture: Unsupervised Learning of Interpretable Models of the World

Research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has focused mostly on two extremes: either on small improvements in narrow AI domains, or on universal theoretical frameworks which are usually uncomputable, incompatible with theories of biological intelligence, or lack practical implementations. The goal of this work is to combine the main advantages of the two: to follow a big picture view, while providing a particular theory and its implementation. In contrast with purely theoretical approaches, the resulting architecture should be usable in realistic settings, but also form the core of a framework containing all the basic mechanisms, into which it should be easier to integrate additional required functionality. In this paper, we present a novel, purposely simple, and interpretable hierarchical architecture which combines multiple different mechanisms into one system: unsupervised learning of a model of the world, learning the influence of one's own actions on the world, model-based reinforcement learning, hierarchical planning and plan execution, and symbolic/sub-symbolic integration in general. The learned model is stored in the form of hierarchical representations with the following properties: 1) they are increasingly more abstract, but can retain details when needed, and 2) they are easy to manipulate in their local and symbolic-like form, thus also allowing one to observe the learning process at each level of abstraction. On all levels of the system, the representation of the data can be interpreted in both a symbolic and a sub-symbolic manner. This enables the architecture to learn efficiently using sub-symbolic methods and to employ symbolic inference.Comment: Revision: changed the pdftitl

Future challenges in cephalopod research

We thank Anto´nio M. de Frias Martins, past President of the Unitas Malacologica and Peter Marko, President of the American Malacological Society for organizing the 2013 World Congress of Malacology, and the Cephalopod International Advisory Committee for endorsing a symposium held in honour of Malcolm R. Clarke. In particular, we would like to thank the many professional staff from the University of the Azores for their hospitality, organization, troubleshooting and warm welcome to the Azores. We also thank Malcolm Clarke’s widow, Dorothy, his daughter Zoe¨, Jose´ N. Gomes-Pereira and numerous colleagues and friends of Malcolm’s from around the world for joining us at Ponta Delgada. We are grateful to Lyndsey Claro (Princeton University Press) for granting copyright permissions.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Synthesis and optical power limiting properties of heteroleptic Mo3S7 clusters

Substitution of the halide ligands in (Bu4N)2[Mo3S7X6] (X = Cl, Br) by diimine ligands, such as 4,4′-dimethyl-2,2′-bipyridine (dmbpy), 2,2′-bipyridine (bpy) and 1,10-phenanthroline (phen), affords the neutral heteroleptic clusters Mo3S7Cl4(dmbpy) (1), Mo3S7Br4(dmbpy) (2), Mo3S7Br4(bpy) (3), and Mo3S7Br4(phen) (4). Further substitution of the halide ligands in Mo3S7Br4(diimine) clusters by dmit (1,3-dithiole-2-thione-4,5-dithiolate) allows the preparation of the mixed diimine–dithiolene neutral cluster complexes Mo3S7(dnbpy)(dmit)2 (5, dnbpy = 4,4′-dinonyl-2,2′-bipyridine), Mo3S7(dcmbpy)(dmit)2 (6, dcmbpy = 4,4′-dimethoxycarbonyl-2,2′-bipyridine), and Mo3S7(dcbpy)(dmit)2 (7, dcbpy = 2,2′-bipyridine-4,4′-dicarboxylic acid). The optical limiting properties of complexes 1–7 have been assessed by the open-aperture Z-scan technique at 570 nm, employing a nanosecond optical parametric oscillator. In order to investigate the effect of increasing the π-system, complexes 1–4, with the general formula Mo3S7X4(diimine), (X = Cl, Br), were compared to clusters 5–7, containing the dmit ligand. The influence of the metal content on the optical power limiting properties was also investigated by comparing the trinuclear series of complexes prepared herein with the bis(dithiolene) dinuclear cluster (Et4N)2[Mo2O2S2(BPyDTS2)2], which has been recently prepared by our group. All trinuclear clusters 1–7 are efficient optical limiters (σeff > σ0) with the threshold limiting fluence F15% decreasing on proceeding from dinuclear to trinuclear clusters and, generally, on extending the π-system.Financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) (Grant CTQ2011-23157), UJI (research project P1.1B2013-19) and Generalitat Valenciana (Prometeo/2014/022 and ACOMP/2014/274) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank Serveis Centrals d ’ Instrumentació Cientifica (SCIC), within Universitat Jaume, I for providing them with materials characterization facilities. D. R. thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competividad for a predoctoral fellowship. M. G. H. thanks the Australian Research Council for support. M. S. acknowl- edges the NCN grant DEC-2013/10/A/ST4/0011

Optical properties of Eu(III) and Tb(III) complexes with pyridine- and quinoline- based ligands under high hydrostatic pressure

The spectroscopy of nitrate complexes of Eu(III) and Tb(III) with chiral and racemic imine-based [L1 = (N,N'-bis (2-pyridylmethylidene)-1,2-(R,R + S,S)-cyclohexanediamine) and L3 = N, N'-bis(2-quinolylmethylidene)-1,2-(R,R + S,S)-cyclohexanediamine] and amine-based [L2 = N,N'-bis(2-pyridylmethyl)-1,2-(R,R + S,S)-cyclohexanediamine) and L4 = N,N'-bis(2-quinolylmethyl)-1,2-(R,R + S,S)-cyclohexanediamine] ligands has been studied under high hydrostatic pressure (above 100 kbar). With the increasing pressure, a reduction of the Tb(III) and Eu(III) luminescence intensity is detected for all the complexes, whilst a significant reduction of the Tb(III) and Eu(III) excited state lifetimes has been observed for all Tb-based complexes [L1Tb(NO3)(3) -> L4Tb(NO3)(3)] and only for the Eu(III) complexes containing the imine-based ligands [L1Eu(NO3)(3) and L3Eu(NO3)(3)]. This behavior has been rationalized taking into account two main aspects: i) the relative position of the energy levels of the ligands and the metal ions and ii) the change of these position upon compression DFT calculations have been also performed to elucidate the nature of the orbitals involved in the UV electronic absorption transitions (NTO orbitals) upstream of the energy transfer process to the metal ion

Toward a Unified Description of Battery Data

Battery research initiatives and giga-scale production generate an abundance of diverse data spanning myriad fields of science and engineering. Modern battery development is driven by the confluence of traditional domains of natural science with emerging fields like artificial intelligence and the vast engineering and logistical knowledge needed to sustain the global reach of battery Gigafactories. Despite the unprecedented volume of dedicated research targeting affordable, high-performance, and sustainable battery designs, these endeavours are held back by the lack of common battery data and vocabulary standards, as well as, machine readable tools to support interoperability. An ontology is a data model that represents domain knowledge as a map of concepts and the relations between them. A battery ontology offers an effective means to unify battery-related activities across different fields, accelerate the flow of knowledge in both human- and machine-readable formats, and support the integration of artificial intelligence in battery development. Furthermore, a logically consistent and expansive ontology is essential to support battery digitalization and standardization efforts, such as, the battery passport. This review summarizes the current state of ontology development, the needs for an ontology in the battery field, and current activities to meet this need.publishedVersio

Childhoods and Time: A Collective Exploration

da Rosa Ribeiro, C., Millei, Z., Hohti, R., Kohan, W. O., Leite, C. D. P., Rudolph, N., ... & Tesar, M. (2023).This collective piece explores the philosophical, ontological, and epistemic potentials of analyzing the relations between childhood and time, proposing thought experiments and fieldwork analyses that release childhood from a linear temporality toward (modern) adulthood. Each experiment originating from the authors’ distinct scholarly positionings fractures “modern childhood” and its civilization project, built from the hegemony of linear, sequential, progressive, and principled time.Peer reviewe

Psychedelic Experiences During the Early COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings From an International Online Survey

Introduction: The current corona virus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a serious global health crisis that has affected large parts of the public and private life worldwide, including the use of psychoactive substances. In this study, we investigated the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of serotonergic psychedelics, i.e., the settings in which people use psychedelics, the motives of usage, and the subjective quality of psychedelic experiences. Methods: The study was part of an international, cross-sectional, internet-based survey (N = 5,049) available in five languages (English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Korean) carried out during the early phase of the pandemic from April to August 2020. Participants were asked to retrospectively rate settings and motives of psychedelic substance use before the pandemic and in the last 4 weeks during the pandemic, as well as changes in psychedelic experiences. Results: Of n = 1,375 participants that reported the use psychedelics in 2019 or 2020, n = 642 (46.6%) also took psychedelics during the pandemic. During the pandemic, participants used psychedelics significantly less often in settings that were outside their home. Top motives to use psychedelics were comparable before and during the pandemic, but participants consumed less out of curiosity, to celebrate, or because friends took it, and more out of boredom. An increase in positively connoted, often pro-social experiences was observed. Two thirds of participants who used psychedelics during the pandemic claimed that psychedelics had helped them to deal better with the corona pandemic at least slightly. Discussion: Changes in setting and motives were mostly in line with restrictions caused by control measures to contain the spread of the virus. The unexpected increase in positively connoted experiences possibly reflects a favorable interaction of environmental macro- and individual micro-contexts during the pandemic (e.g., by reducing the use in more uncontrolled recreational settings or by encouraging a strong self-selection of substance users due to the expectation of "bad trips"). Increased pro-social feelings under psychedelics might reflect a desire for social interactions in times of social distancing and pandemic-related stress and anxiety

The male germ cell gene regulator CTCFL is functionally different from CTCF and binds CTCF-like consensus sites in a nucleosome composition-dependent manner.

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.BACKGROUND: CTCF is a highly conserved and essential zinc finger protein expressed in virtually all cell types. In conjunction with cohesin, it organizes chromatin into loops, thereby regulating gene expression and epigenetic events. The function of CTCFL or BORIS, the testis-specific paralog of CTCF, is less clear. RESULTS: Using immunohistochemistry on testis sections and fluorescence-based microscopy on intact live seminiferous tubules, we show that CTCFL is only transiently present during spermatogenesis, prior to the onset of meiosis, when the protein co-localizes in nuclei with ubiquitously expressed CTCF. CTCFL distribution overlaps completely with that of Stra8, a retinoic acid-inducible protein essential for the propagation of meiosis. We find that absence of CTCFL in mice causes sub-fertility because of a partially penetrant testicular atrophy. CTCFL deficiency affects the expression of a number of testis-specific genes, including Gal3st1 and Prss50. Combined, these data indicate that CTCFL has a unique role in spermatogenesis. Genome-wide RNA expression studies in ES cells expressing a V5- and GFP-tagged form of CTCFL show that genes that are downregulated in CTCFL-deficient testis are upregulated in ES cells. These data indicate that CTCFL is a male germ cell gene regulator. Furthermore, genome-wide DNA-binding analysis shows that CTCFL binds a consensus sequence that is very similar to that of CTCF. However, only ~3,700 out of the ~5,700 CTCFL- and ~31,000 CTCF-binding sites overlap. CTCFL binds promoters with loosely assembled nucleosomes, whereas CTCF favors consensus sites surrounded by phased nucleosomes. Finally, an ES cell-based rescue assay shows that CTCFL is functionally different from CTCF. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that nucleosome composition specifies the genome-wide binding of CTCFL and CTCF. We propose that the transient expression of CTCFL in spermatogonia and preleptotene spermatocytes serves to occupy a subset of promoters and maintain the expression of male germ cell genes