Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The "Chaotic Ball" model,local realism and the Bell test loopholes

It has long been known that the "detection loophole", present when detector efficiencies are below a critical figure, could open the way for alternative "local realist" explanations for the violation of Bell tests. It has in recent years become common to assume the loophole can be ignored, regardless of which version of the Bell test is employed. A simple model is presented that illustrates that this may not be justified. Two of the versions -- the standard test of form -2 <= S <= 2 and the currently-popular "visibility" test -- are at grave risk of bias. Statements implying that experimental evidence "refutes local realism" or shows that the quantum world really is "weird" should be reviewed. The detection loophole is on its own unlikely to account for more than one or two test violations, but when taken in conjunction with other loopholes (briefly discussed) it is seen that the experiments refute only a narrow class of "local hidden variable" models, applicable to idealised situations, not to the real world. The full class of local realist models provides straightforward explanations not only for the publicised Bell-test violations but also for some lesser-known "anomalies".
Visions of Social Media: Surfacing Schemas from Firms' Informational Engagements

Prior research has noted the salience of informational engagements that culminate in an organizing vision to the diffusion of technology and the value firms garner from the technology. In contrast to sociological theories that view meaning as inherently pluralistic, information technology research has espoused a single community-level organizing vision. Drawing upon schema theory, we posit that different schemas or organizing visions underlie firms’ informational engagements. We consider the constitutive cognitive elements of these schemas in terms of six evaluative principles derived from six prototypical “orders of worth. ” We apply relational class analysis to surface the schemas reflected in informational engagements about 675 social media initiatives by 26 of the top 30 Fortune firms. Contrary to extant perspectives on organizing vision, we identified four disparate schemas or visions of social media and observed firms’ informational engagements typically to reflect multiple visions.
weedNet: Dense Semantic Weed Classification Using Multispectral Images and MAV for Smart Farming

Selective weed treatment is a critical step in autonomous crop management as related to crop health and yield. However, a key challenge is reliable and accurate weed detection to minimize damage to surrounding plants. In this letter, we present an approach for dense semantic weed classification with multispectral images collected by a micro aerial vehicle (MAV). We use the recently developed encoder–decoder cascaded convolutional neural network, SegNet, that infers dense semantic classes while allowing any number of input image channels and class balancing with our sugar beet and weed datasets. To obtain training datasets, we established an experimental field with varying herbicide levels resulting in field plots containing only either crop or weed, enabling us to use the normalized difference vegetation index as a distinguishable feature for automatic ground truth generation. We train six models with different numbers of input channels and condition (fine tune) it to achieve $\sim$0.8 F1-score and 0.78 area under the curve classification metrics. For the model deployment, an embedded Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) system (Jetson TX2) is tested for MAV integration. Dataset used in this letter is released to support the community and future work.
Simulation of scale-free networks

In this paper, we present a new simulation tool for scale-free networks composed of a high number of nodes. The tool, based on discrete-event simulation, enables the definition of scale-free networks composed of heterogeneous nodes and complex application-level protocols. To satisfy the performance and scalability requirements, the simulator supports both sequential (i.e. monolithic) and parallel/distributed (i.e. PADS) approaches. Furthermore, appropriate mechanisms for the communication overhead-reduction are implemented. To demonstrate the efficiency of the tool, we experiment with gossip protocols on top of scale-free networks generated by our simulator. Results of the simulations demonstrate the feasibility of our approach. The proposed tool is able to generate and manage large scale-free networks composed of thousands of nodes interacting following real-world dissemination protocols.
Neural Representation of Targets and Distractors during Object Individuation and Identification

In many everyday activities, we need to attend and encode multiple target objects among distractor objects. For example, when driving a car on a busy street, we need to simultaneously attend objects such as traffic signs, pedestrians, and other cars, while ignoring colorful and flashing objects in display windows. To explain how multiple visual objects are selected and encoded in visual STM and in perception in general, the neural object file theory argues that, whereas object selection and individuation is supported by inferior intraparietal sulcus (IPS), the encoding of detailed object features that enables object identification is mediated by superior IPS and higher visual areas such as the lateral occipital complex (LOC). Nevertheless, because task-irrelevant distractor objects were never present in previous studies, it is unclear how distractor objects would impact neural responses related to target object individuation and identification. To address this question, in two fMRI experiments, we asked participants to encode target object shapes among distractor object shapes, with targets and distractors shown in different spatial locations and in different colors. We found that distractor-related neural processing only occurred at low, but not at high, target encoding load and impacted both target individuation in inferior IPS and target identification in superior IPS and LOC. However, such distractor-related neural processing was short-lived, as it was only present during the visual STM encoding but not the delay period. Moreover, with spatial cuing of target locations in advance, distractor processing was attenuated during target encoding in superior IPS. These results are consistent with the load theory of visual information processing. They also show that, whereas inferior IPS and LOC were automatically engaged in distractor processing under low task load, with the help of precuing, superior IPS was able to only encode the task-relevant visual information.
Optimal Cooperative Content Caching and Delivery Policy for Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

To address the explosively growing demand for mobile data services in the 5th generation (5G) mobile communication system, it is important to develop efficient content caching and distribution techniques, aiming at significantly reducing redundant data transmissions and improving content delivery efficiency. In heterogeneous cellular network (HetNet), which has been deemed as a promising architectural technique for 5G, caching some popular content items at femto base-stations (FBSs) and even at user equipment (UE) can be exploited to alleviate the burden of backhaul and to reduce the costly transmissions from the macro base-stations to UEs. In this paper, we develop the optimal cooperative content caching and delivery policy, for which FBSs and UEs are all engaged in local content caching. We formulate the cooperative content caching problem as an integer-linear programming problem, and use hierarchical primal-dual decomposition method to decouple the problem into two level optimization problems, which are solved by using the subgradient method. Furthermore, we design the optimal content delivery policy, which is formulated as an unbalanced assignment problem and solved by using Hungarian algorithm. Numerical results have shown that the proposed cooperative content caching and delivery policy can significantly improve content delivery performance in comparison with existing caching strategies.
Risky decision-making: an FMRI study of youth at high risk for alcoholism.

BACKGROUND Adolescents with a family history of alcoholism (FHP) are at risk for developing an alcohol use disorder (AUD), and some studies indicate that FHP individuals show deficits in executive functioning. The ability to make adaptive decisions is one aspect of successful executive functioning that is often measured during risk-taking tasks; however, this behavior has not been examined in FHP youth. As impaired decision-making could predispose FHP youth to make poor choices related to alcohol use, the current study examined the neural substrates of risk-taking in FHP adolescents and their family history negative (FHN) peers. METHODS Thirty-one (18 FHP, 13 FHN) youth between 13 and 15 years old were included in this study. All youth had used little to no alcohol prior to study involvement. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine the neural substrates of risk-taking during the Wheel of Fortune (WOF) decision-making task (Ernst et al., 2004) in FHP and FHN youth. RESULTS FHP youth did not differ from FHN youth in risk-taking behavior, but showed less brain response during risky decision-making in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right cerebellar regions compared with FHN peers. CONCLUSIONS Despite no behavioral differences on the WOF decision-making task, FHP youth exhibited atypical neural response during risk-taking compared with FHN peers. Atypical brain activity, in regions implicated in executive functioning could lead to reduced cognitive control, which may result in risky choices regarding alcohol use. This could help explain the higher rates of AUDs seen in FHP adolescents. Further examination of risky behavior and associated brain response over the course of adolescence is necessary to characterize the vulnerabilities of FHP youth in the absence of alcohol abuse.
Anisotropic damage modelling of biaxial behaviour and rupture of concrete structures

This paper deals with damage induced anisotropy modeling for concrete-like materials. A thermodynamics based constitutive relationship is presented coupling anisotropic damage and elasticity, the main idea of the model being that damage anisotropy is responsible for the dissymmetry tension/compression. A strain written damage criterion is considered (Mazars criterion extended to anisotropy in the initial model). The biaxial behavior of a family of anisotropic damage model is analyzed through the effects of yield surface modifications by the introduction of new equivalent strains.
Nominal Exchange Rate Regimes and Relative Price Dispersion: On the Importance of Nominal Exchange Rate Volatility for the Width of the Border

Based on a broad set of regional aggregated and disaggregated consumer price index (CPI) data from major industrialized countries in Asia, North America and Europe we are examining the role that national borders play for goods market integration. In line with the existing literature we find that intra-national markets are better integrated than international market. Additionally, our results show that there is a large 'ocean' effect, i.e., intercontinental markets are significantly more segmented than intra-continental markets. To examine the impact of the establishment of the European Monetary Union (EMU) on integration, we split our sample into a pre-EMU and EMU sample. We find that border effects across EMU countries have declined by about 80% to 90% after 1999 whereas border estimates across non-EMU countries have remained basically unchanged. Since global factors have affected all countries in our sample similarly and major integration efforts across EMU countries were made before 1999, we suggest that most of the reduction in EMU border estimates has been 'nominal'. Panel unit root evidence shows that the observed large differences in integration across intra- and inter-continental markets remain valid in the longrun. This finding implies that real factors are responsible for the documented segmentations across our sample countries.
Inverse Relationship between Progesterone Receptor and Myc in Endometrial Cancer

Endometrial cancer, the most common gynecologic malignancy, is a hormonally-regulated disease. Response to progestin therapy positively correlates with hormone receptor expression, in particular progesterone receptor (PR). However, many advanced tumors lose PR expression. We recently reported that the efficacy of progestin therapy can be significantly enhanced by combining progestin with epigenetic modulators, which we term “molecularly enhanced progestin therapy. ” What remained unclear was the mechanism of action and if estrogen receptor α (ERα), the principle inducer of PR, is necessary to restore functional expression of PR via molecularly enhanced progestin therapy. Therefore, we modeled advanced endometrial tumors that have lost both ERα and PR expression by generating ERα-null endometrial cancer cell lines. CRISPR-Cas9 technology was used to delete ERα at the genomic level. Our data demonstrate that treatment with a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) was sufficient to restore functional PR expression, even in cells devoid of ERα. Our studies also revealed that HDACi treatment results in marked downregulation of the oncogene Myc. We established that PR is a negative transcriptional regulator of Myc in endometrial cancer in the presence or absence of ERα, which is in contrast to studies in breast cancer cells. First, estrogen stimulation augmented PR expression and decreased Myc in endometrial cancer cell lines. Second, progesterone increased PR activity yet blunted Myc mRNA and protein expression. Finally, overexpression of PR by adenoviral transduction in ERα-null endometrial cancer cells significantly decreased expression of Myc and Myc-regulated genes. Analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database of endometrial tumors identified an inverse correlation between PR and Myc mRNA levels, with a corresponding inverse correlation between PR and Myc downstream transcriptional targets SRD5A1, CDK2 and CCNB1. Together, these data reveal a previously unanticipated inverse relationship between the tumor suppressor PR and the oncogene Myc in endometrial cancer.
Reciprocal Benefits of Mass-Univariate and Multivariate Modeling in Brain Mapping: Applications to Event-Related Functional MRI, H2 15O-, and FDG-PET

In brain mapping studies of sensory, cognitive, and motor operations, specific waveforms of dynamic neural activity are predicted based on theoretical models of human information processing. For example in event-related functional MRI (fMRI), the general linear model (GLM) is employed in mass-univariate analyses to identify the regions whose dynamic activity closely matches the expected waveforms. By comparison multivariate analyses based on PCA or ICA provide greater flexibility in detecting spatiotemporal properties of experimental data that may strongly support alternative neuroscientific explanations. We investigated conjoint multivariate and mass-univariate analyses that combine the capabilities to (1) verify activation of neural machinery we already understand and (2) discover reliable signatures of new neural machinery. We examined combinations of GLM and PCA that recover latent neural signals (waveforms and footprints) with greater accuracy than either method alone. Comparative results are illustrated with analyses of real fMRI data, adding to Monte Carlo simulation support.
Metallurgical Quality of Feed Ingots and Castings Made from Nickel and Cobalt Superalloys

The paper presents the results of ATD thermal analysis of feed ingots (master heat) and castings made from IN-713C, MAR-247 and MAR-509 superalloys. Metallurgical quality assessment was made based on the analysis of dT/dt curve in rage from Teut to Tsol. Furthermore, impurities (oxides of Al, Zr, Hf, Cr etc.) have been identified inside the shrinkage cavities of feed ingots and castings. Significant similarities has been observed between impurities found in ingots, ATD test samples and finished castings. It has been demonstrated that ATD analysis of samples taken from different parts of feed ingot can be effective method of metallurgical quality assessment for these ingots.
Cosmic Mach Number as a Function of Overdensity and Galaxy Age

We carry out an extensive study of the cosmic Mach number (ℳ) on scales of R = 5, 10, and 20 h-1 Mpc using a Λ-dominated flat cold dark matter hydrodynamical simulation. We particularly put emphasis on the environmental dependence of ℳ on overdensity, galaxy mass, and galaxy age. We start by discussing the difference in the resulting ℳ according to different definitions of ℳ and different methods of calculation. The simulated Mach numbers are slightly lower than the linear theory predictions even when a nonlinear power spectrum was used in the calculation, reflecting the nonlinear evolution in the simulation. We find that the observed ℳ is higher than the simulated mean ⟨ℳ⟩ by more than 2 standard deviations, which suggests either that the Local Group is in a relatively low density region or that the true value of Ωm is ~0.2, significantly lower than the simulated value of 0.37. We show from our simulation that the Mach number is a weakly decreasing function of overdensity. We also investigate the correlations between galaxy age, overdensity, and ℳ for two different samples of galaxies—DWARFs and GIANTs. Older systems cluster in higher density regions with lower ℳ, while younger ones tend to reside in lower density regions with larger ℳ, as expected from the hierarchical structure formation scenario. However, for DWARFs, the correlation is weakened by the fact that some of the oldest DWARFs are left over in low-density regions during the structure formation history. For giant systems, one expects blue-selected samples to have higher ℳ than red-selected ones. We briefly comment on the effect of the warm dark matter on the expected Mach number.
Investigation on Buckling Behavior of Cylindrical Liquid Storage Tanks Under Seismic Excitation: 1st Report — Investigation on Elephant Foot Bulge

When a thin walled cylindrical liquid storage tank suffers a large seismic base excitation, buckling phenomena may be caused such as bending buckling at the bottom portion and shear buckling at the middle portion of the tank. However, the dynamic behaviors of the tanks is not fully clarified, especially those from the occurrence of buckling to some failures. In this study, bending buckling phenomena were focused which will be categorized as diamond buckling and elephant foot bulge. As ones of a series of studies, dynamic buckling tests were performed using large scale liquid storage tank models simulating thin walled cylindrical liquid storage tanks in nuclear power plants. The input seismic acceleration was increased until the elephant foot bulge occurred, and the vibrational behavior before and after buckling was investigated. In addition to the large scaled model tests, fundamental tests using small scaled tank models were also performed in order to clarify the effects of dynamic liquid pressure on the buckling threshold and deformation patterns.Copyright © 2003 by ASME
Tracking Ants Through Occlusions

The automated tracking of social insects, such as ants, could greatly increase the speed and reliability of gathering data used in studying their complex behaviors. Recently, data association based multiple-object tracking approaches have shown promise in improving tracking during occlusion. However, due to the high density and occlusion rate present in ant video, tracking is still prone to (1) identity switches with nearby ants coming in and out of long occlusions and (2) long periods of high occlusion where detection is diﬃcult. We propose extending a previous data association based tracking method to address these issues. First, we introduce occlusion tunnels to constrain the possible choices allowed during the association process. Second, we propose a optical ﬂow clustering method to detect and track ants during periods of known occlusion (or gaps) within the associated tracklets. Testing results on a 5,000 frame video of 50 ants shows that the inclusion of occlusion tunnels reduces tracking errors by 18% while our tracking with optical ﬂow clustering reduces the number of missing detections by 59%.
Multi‐scale Feature Extraction on Point‐Sampled Surfaces

We present a new technique for extracting line‐type features on point‐sampled geometry. Given an unstructuredpoint cloud as input, our method first applies principal component analysis on local neighborhoods toclassify points according to the likelihood that they belong to a feature. Using hysteresis thresholding, we thencompute a minimum spanning graph as an initial approximation of the feature lines. To smooth out the featureswhile maintaining a close connection to the underlying surface, we use an adaptation of active contour models.Central to our method is a multi‐scale classification operator that allows feature analysis at multiplescales, using the size of the local neighborhoods as a discrete scale parameter. This significantly improves thereliability of the detection phase and makes our method more robust in the presence of noise. To illustrate theusefulness of our method, we have implemented a non‐photorealistic point renderer to visualize point‐sampledsurfaces as line drawings of their extracted feature curves.
Plasmalemmal Ca2+ Signaling in Arterial Smooth Muscle: It's Elementary!

Uniquely among the major intracellular second messengers, calcium is an element; an obvious statement, but one with profound consequences for its signaling functions. Being an element, cells cannot synthesize or degrade calcium, they can only actively move it from one place to another, allow it to move passively down concentration gradients, and let it bind to things. The active moving is done by pumps and transporters that establish enormous (>10,000-fold) concentration gradients of Ca2+ ions between the very low basal free [Ca2+] in the cytosol (∼50–100 nM) and the much higher concentrations in the extracellular fluid and reservoirs sequestered in intracellular organelles, principally the ER or SR and mitochondria. Opening of Ca2+-permeable channels in the plasma or intracellular membranes can then evoke large and extremely rapid increases in local cytosolic [Ca2+] as Ca2+ ions flow passively down their electrochemical gradient (Hille, 2001). Moreover, Ca2+ signals may be spatially, as well as temporally, restricted (Marchant and Parker, 2000). This is because diffusion becomes a relatively slow process at distances greater than a few micrometers, and because diffusion of Ca2+ ions in the cytosol is further restricted by binding to immobile buffers; although an interesting wrinkle is that the signal carried by Ca2+ (“message”) actually travels faster then the ions themselves (the “messengers”) (Pando et al., 2006). Cells have thus evolved a diverse and complex repertoire of Ca2+ signals, which are more tightly localized in space and time than is possible with “molecular” messengers such as cyclic nucleotides that diffuse more readily and are kinetically limited by enzyme turnover rates of synthesis and degradation (Allbritton et al., 1992). Such local intracellular Ca2+ signals have been a subject of much interest over the last decade or more; not least because Ca2+ is the only second messenger we can presently image with micrometer and millisecond resolution.