Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamical analyses of humanoid's walking by visual lifting stabilization based on event-driven state transition

Biped locomotion created by a controller based on Zero-Moment Point [ZMP] known as reliable control method looks different from human's walking on the view point that ZMP-based walking does not include falling state. However, the walking control that does not depend on ZMP is vulnerable to turnover. Therefore, keeping the event-driven walking of dynamical motion stable is important issue for realization of human-like natural walking. In this paper, walking model of humanoid including slipping, bumping, surface-contacting and point-contacting of foot is discussed, and its dynamical equation is derived by Newton-Euler method. Then, we propose walking stabilizer named “Visual Lifting Stabilization” strategy to enhance standing robustness and prevent the robot from falling down. Simulation results indicate that this strategy helps stabilize pose and bipedal walking even though ZMP is not kept inside convex hull of supporting area.
Genetic variation and prediction of additive and nonadditive genetic effects for six carcass traits in an Angus-Brahman multibreed herd.

Estimates of covariances and sire expected progeny differences of additive and nonadditive genetic effects for six carcass traits were obtained using records from 486 straightbred and crossbred steers from 121 sires born between 1989 and 1995 in the Angus-Brahman multibreed herd of the University of Florida. Steers were slaughtered at a similar carcass composition end point. Covariances were estimated by REML procedures, using a generalized expectation-maximization algorithm applied to multibreed populations. Straightbred and crossbred estimates of heritabilities and additive genetic correlations were within ranges found in the literature for steers slaughtered on an age- or weight-constant basis for hot carcass weight, longissimus muscle area, and shear force but equal to or less than the lower bound of these ranges for fat-related traits. Maximum values of interactibilities (i.e., ratios of nonadditive variances to phenotypic variances in the F1) and nonadditive genetic correlations were smaller than heritabilities and additive genetic correlations in straightbreds and crossbred groups. Sire additive and total direct genetic predictions for longissimus muscle area, marbling, and shear force tended to decrease with the fraction of Brahman alleles, whereas those for hot carcass weight and fat thickness over the longissimus were higher, and those for kidney fat were lower in straightbreds and F1 than in other crossbred groups. Nonadditive genetic predictions were similar across sire groups of all Angus and Brahman fractions. These results suggest that slaughtering steers on a similar carcass composition basis reduces variability of fat-related traits while retaining variability for non-fat-related traits comparable to slaughtering steers on a similar age or weight basis. Selection for carcass traits within desirable (narrow) ranges and slaughter of steers at similar compositional end point seems to be a good combination to help produce meat products of consistent quality.
Sensorimotor function and axonal integrity in adrenomyeloneuropathy.

BACKGROUND Gait abnormalities and sensorimotor disturbances are principal defects in adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN). However, to our knowledge, their association with overall impairment and neuroanatomical changes has not been defined. OBJECTIVES To understand how sensorimotor impairments create mobility deficits and to analyze how these impairments are related to specific metrics of axonal integrity. DESIGN Cross-sectional study assessing impairments, including vibration sensation, strength, spasticity, and global measures of walking and balance. Fractional anisotropy was measured to evaluate the integrity of the corresponding brainstem tracts. PARTICIPANTS Men with AMN and healthy control subjects. RESULTS Individuals with sensory loss only showed minimal walking deficits. Concomitant strength and sensory loss resulted in slower walking, with abnormal knee control; increased spasticity led to an exaggerated trunk motion and a knee-flexed (crouched) posture. Hip strength was an independent predictor of walking velocity in subjects with AMN. Subjects with sensory loss only had greater sway amplitudes during standing balance testing, which did not worsen with additional impairments. There were significant associations among sway amplitude, great toe vibration sense, and dorsal column fractional anisotropy. Brainstem fractional anisotropy in AMN was significantly negatively correlated with impairment, indicating that overall tract integrity is associated with sensorimotor abnormalities in AMN. CONCLUSIONS Impairment measures capture specific abnormalities in walking and balance that can be used to direct rehabilitation therapy in AMN. Tract-specific magnetic resonance imaging metrics, such as fractional anisotropy (used herein to evaluate structure-function relationships), significantly reflect disease severity in AMN.
Recognition of adult and pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia blasts by natural killer cells

In this study, we aimed to investigate the pathways of recognition of acute lymphoblastic leukemia blasts by natural killer cells and to verify whether differences in natural killer cell activating receptor ligand expression among groups defined by age of patients, or presence of cytogenetic/molecular aberrations correlate with the susceptibility to recognition and killing. We analyzed 103 newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients: 46 adults and 57 children. Pediatric blasts showed a significantly higher expression of Nec-2 (P=0.03), ULBP-1 (P=0.01) and ULBP-3 (P=0.04) compared to adult cells. The differential expression of these ligands between adults and children was confined to B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia with no known molecular alterations. Within molecularly defined subgroups of patients, a high surface expression of NKG2D and DNAM1 ligands was found on BCR-ABL+ blasts, regardless of patient age. Accordingly, BCR-ABL+ blasts proved to be significantly more susceptible to natural killer-dependent lysis than B-lineage blasts without molecular aberrations (P=0.03). Cytotoxic tests performed in the presence of neutralizing antibodies indicated a pathway of acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell recognition in the setting of the Nec-2/DNAM-1 interaction. These data provide a biological explanation of the different roles played by alloreactive natural killer cells in pediatric versus adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia and suggest that new natural killer-based strategies targeting specific subgroups of patients, particularly those BCR-ABL+, are worth pursuing further.
Social context, stress, and plasticity of aging

Positive social contact is an important factor in healthy aging, but our understanding of how social interactions influence senescence is incomplete. As life expectancy continues to increase because of reduced death rates among elderly, the beneficial role of social relationships is emerging as a cross‐cutting theme in research on aging and healthspan. There is a need to improve knowledge on how behavior shapes, and is shaped by, the social environment, as well as needs to identify and study biological mechanisms that can translate differences in the social aspects of behavioral efforts, relationships, and stress reactivity (the general physiological and behavioral response‐pattern to harmful, dangerous or unpleasant situations) into variation in aging. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) provide a genetic model in sociobiology, behavioral neuroscience, and gerontology that is uniquely sensitive to social exchange. Different behavioral contact between these social insects can shorten or extend lifespan more than 10‐fold, and some aspects of their senescence are reversed by social cues that trigger aged individuals to express youthful repertoires of behavior. Here, I summarize how variation in social interactions contributes to this plasticity of aging and explain how beneficial and detrimental roles of social relationships can be traced from environmental and biological effects on honey bee physiology and behavior, to the expression of recovery‐related plasticity, stress reactivity, and survival during old age. This system provides intriguing opportunities for research on aging.
Siamese Neural Networks for One-Shot Image Recognition

The process of learning good features for machine learning applications can be very computationally expensive and may prove difficult in cases where little data is available. A prototypical example of this is the one-shot learning setting, in which we must correctly make predictions given only a single example of each new class. In this paper, we explore a method for learning siamese neural networks which employ a unique structure to naturally rank similarity between inputs. Once a network has been tuned, we can then capitalize on powerful discriminative features to generalize the predictive power of the network not just to new data, but to entirely new classes from unknown distributions. Using a convolutional architecture, we are able to achieve strong results which exceed those of other deep learning models with near state-of-the-art performance on one-shot classification tasks.
Haptic identification of raised-line drawings when categorical information is given: A comparison between visually impaired and sighted children

Research into haptic picture perception has mostly concerned adult participants, and little is known about haptic picture perception in visually impaired and sighted children. In the present study, we compared 13 visually impaired children (early blind and low vision) aged 9-10 years and 13 agematched blindfolded sighted children on their ability to identify raised-line pictures of common objects when information about object category was provided prior to picture presentation (semantic cueing). The visually impaired children had moderate practice with tactile pictures, whereas the sighted controls had no prior practice with tactile pictures. We sought to determine whether the benefits of semantic cueing would add to those of practice, resulting in higher performance in the visually impaired children compared to the sighted controls (hypothesis 1), or whether semantic cueing would compensate for the lack of practice with tactile pictures in the sighted children, leading to a possible disappearance of the advantage of the visually impaired children over the sighted controls (hypothesis 2). In line with hypothesis 1, the results showed that the visually impaired children outperformed the sighted controls on both identification accuracy and response time to correct naming. We concluded that the visually impaired children outperformed the sighted controls because they benefited from both semantic cueing and superior exploration skills. By contrast, in the sighted children, semantic cueing was not sufficient to compensate for their encoding difficulties.
A Mouse With Two Optical Sensors That Eliminates Coordinate Disturbance During Skilled Strokes

The computer mouse is rarely used for drawing due to its body-fixed coordinate system, which creates a stroke that differs from the user’s original hand movement. In this study, we resolve this problem by implementing a new mouse called StereoMouse, which eliminates the rotational disturbance of the coordinate system in real-time. StereoMouse is a special mouse with two optical sensors, and its coordinate orientation at the beginning of a stroke is maintained throughout the movement by measuring and compensating for the angular deviation estimated from those sensors. The drawing performance of StereoMouse was measured by means of having users perform the task of repeatedly drawing a basic shape. The results of this experiment showed that StereoMouse eliminated the horizontal drift typically observed in a stroke drawn by a normal mouse. Consequently, StereoMouse allowed the users to draw shapes at a 10.6% faster mean speed with a 10.4% shorter travel time than a normal mouse would. Furthermore, StereoMouse showed 37.1% lower chance of making incorrect gesture input than the normal mouse.
The Dynamics of Managerial Ideology: Analyzing the Cuban Case

After the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe, management researchers devoted considerable energy to investigate ways to smooth transition to market economies. But one country of the former Soviet bloc, Cuba resisted transition and reaffirmed loyalty to communism. Little is known about management in Cuba on the managerial impacts of the combination of two major environmental forces: the American embargo and the Soviet Union collapse, both of which have challenged the sustainability of the communist regime. This study intends to approach one particular aspect of management in Cuba: the relationship between national ideology and management practice. To analyze these topics, direct qualitative data from focus groups with Cuban managers and management professors was obtained and complemented with documentary analysis. Results suggest that the dynamics of managerial ideology can be understood as the interplay of several processes operating at distinct levels: institutional, professional, organizational and individual. The study provides a nested, multi-level understanding of management and organization as parts of a wider institutional context, which is both a source of constraint and a non-tangible resource to be used by ideological bricoleurs. The interplay between the acceptance of ideology and its use as a practical resource is a potential source of change. As such, the same professional class (managers) may be both a source of continuity and a trigger of change - a finding that is line with institutional theorys claim that it is necessary to understand both institutionalization and de-institutionalization for understanding organizational change and continuity.
Impact of changes in weight, fat depth, and loin muscle depth on carcass yield and value and implications for selection and pricing of rams from terminal-sire sheep breeds.

Breeding objectives and selection indexes are necessary to support comprehensive genetic-improvement programs. This study used off-test body weights (OTBW) or chilled-carcass weights (CCW), ultrasonic measurements of fat depth (USFD, mm), and predicted-ultrasound, loin-muscle depths (USLMD, mm) from 456 wether lambs to predict carcass value and link predictions to estimated breeding values (EBV) of terminal sires. Carcasses were processed by closely trimming high-value cuts (rack, loin, leg, and sirloin), and carcass value (TrCVal) was determined for each carcass. Increasing OTBW had positive effects on carcass value but did not affect dressing percentage (DP). Increasing USFD increased CCW and DP but decreased TrCVal. Increasing USLMD had positive effects on CCW, DP, and TCVal. The EBV for postweaning weight (PWWT), USFD, and USLMD of average and elite Suffolk rams were compared to develop breeding objectives for lambs harvested at a constant time on feed, harvest weight, or harvest fatness, and for a scenario with larger-than-current-price premiums for leanness and muscling. At constant harvest weights, the breeding objective was I2 = 1.2 EBVPWWT – EBVUSFD + 0.8 EBVUSLMD, but changed to I4 = 0.3 EBVPWWT – EBVUSFD + 0.4 EBVUSLMD if carcass price was strongly influenced by leanness and muscling. Genetic correlations among indexes exceeded 0.85. Index I4 was strongly correlated with the Australian LAMBPLAN Carcass Plus index, indicating that selection on Carcass Plus would be effective under U.S. conditions. All indexes were dominated by PWWT EBV. Effects of increasing muscling were substantial, but changing USFD EBV had only modest effects.
The Phenomenology and Psychological Correlates of Verbal Prayer

In the process of Christian verbal prayer there are two basic categories: petitionary prayer and prayer of relationship. In contrast to the stereotype of most prayer as petitionary, in this study of 345 subjects, members of a non-denominational program called A Search For God, prayer of relationship made up a substantial part of the typical prayers of both those who identified themselves as members of traditional denominations and those who did not. The intensity of the prayer experience was correlated positively with purpose in life, negatively with external locus of control, and positively with absorption, a personality characteristic hypothesized to be related to the capacity for transcendent experience.
Adolescent Internet Abuse: A Study on the Role of Attachment to Parents and Peers in a Large Community Sample

Adolescents are the main users of new technologies and their main purpose of use is social interaction. Although new technologies are useful to teenagers, in addressing their developmental tasks, recent studies have shown that they may be an obstacle in their growth. Research shows that teenagers with Internet addiction experience lower quality in their relationships with parents and more individual difficulties. However, limited research is available on the role played by adolescents' attachment to parents and peers, considering their psychological profiles. We evaluated in a large community sample of adolescents (N = 1105) the Internet use/abuse, the adolescents' attachment to parents and peers, and their psychological profiles. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to verify the influence of parental and peer attachment on Internet use/abuse, considering the moderating effect of adolescents' psychopathological risk. Results showed that adolescents' attachment to parents had a significant effect on Internet use. Adolescents' psychopathological risk had a moderating effect on the relationship between attachment to mothers and Internet use. Our study shows that further research is needed, taking into account both individual and family variables.
A Note on n-ary Poisson Brackets

A class of n-ary Poisson structures of constant rank is indicated. Then, one proves that the ternary Poisson brackets are exactly those which are defined by a decomposable 3-vector field. The key point is the proof of a lemma which tells that an n-vector $(n\geq3)$ is decomposable iff all its contractions with up to n-2 covectors are decomposable.
Calibration of TRMM derived rainfall over Nepal during 1998-2007.

In this study rainfall is calculated from Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Version 6 (V6) 3B42 datasets and calibrated with reference to the observed daily rainfall by rain-gauge collected at 15 locations over Nepal during 1998-2007. In monthly, seasonal and annual scales TRMM estimated rainfalls follow the similar distribution of historical patterns obtained from the rain-gauge data. Rainfall is large in the Southern parts of the country, especially in the Central Nepal. Day-to-day rainfall comparison shows that TRMM derived trend is very similar to the observed data but TRMM usually underestimates rainfall on many days with some exceptions of overestimation on some days. The correlation coefficient of rainfalls between TRMM and rain-gauge data is obtained about 0.71. TRMM can measure about 65.39% of surface rainfall in Nepal. After using calibration factors obtained through regression expression the TRMM estimated rainfall over Nepal becomes about 99.91% of observed data. TRMM detection of rainy days is poor over Nepal; it can approximately detect, under-detect and over-detect by 19%, 72% and 9% of stations respectively. False alarm rate, probability of detection, threat score and skill score are calculated as 0.30, 0.68, 0.53 and 0.55 respectively. Finally, TRMM data can be utilized in measuring mountainous rainfall over Nepal but exact amount of rainfall has to be calculated with the help of adjustment factors obtained through calibration procedure. This preliminary work is the preparation of utilization of Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) data to be commencing in 2013.
Teachers' Pedagogical Design Capacity for Scientific Argumentation.

Despite being identified as an essential scientific practice, argumentation is rarely integrated into instruction. This could be influenced by teachers’ pedagogical design capacity (PDC), which considers teaching as a design activity influenced by both instructional resources (such as tools and professional development (PD)) and teacher resources (such as beliefs and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)). In this study, we investigated how the development of five upper elementary and middle school teachers’ beliefs and PCK impacted their design and integration of argumentation within their instruction. Data sources included pre- and postsurveys, videotaped lessons, and interviews. Our analyses resulted in two groups of teachers. While several teachers offloaded some of their lesson design by using PD resources, others adapted the PD resources and renamed an aspect of their current instruction as argumentation. Moreover, the teachers who offloaded some of their lesson design exhibited argumentation within their instruction and greater change in their beliefs or PCK for argumentation. This suggests the importance of future teacher education experiences supporting teachers’ PDC by providing multiple opportunities to offload, try out, and reflect on instruction. Future research should explore whether teachers understanding of the PDC framework supports their understanding of argumentation.
Review of studies on migration, happiness and well-being

Concepts and measures of migrant well-being and happiness can provide useful indicators of human development, as it has increasingly been recognized that development cannot be measured simply in terms of economic indicators such as economic growth and gross domestic product (GDP). Since migrants often leave their homes in search of a better life, measures of subjective well-being can provide an indication of whether migrants achieve their goal.
College Binge Drinking in the 1990s: A Continuing Problem Results of the Harvard School of Public Health 1999 College Alcohol Study

Abstract In 1999, the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study resurveyed colleges that participated in the 1993 and 1997 surveys. Responses to mail questionnaires from more than 14 000 students at 119 nationally representative 4-year colleges in 39 states were compared with responses received in 1997 and 1993. Two of 5 students (44%) were binge drinkers in 1999, the same rate as in 1993. However, both abstention and frequent binge-drinking rates increased significantly. In 1999, 19% were abstainers, and 23% were frequent binge drinkers. As before, binge drinkers, and particularly frequent binge drinkers, were more likely than other students to experience alcohol-related problems. At colleges with high binge-drinking rates, students who did not binge drink continued to be at higher risk of encountering the secondhand effects of others' heavy drinking. The continuing high level of binge drinking is discussed in the context of the heightened attention and increased actions at colleges. Although it may take more time for interventions to take effect, the actions college health providers have undertaken thus far may not be a sufficient response.