Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generation of adaptive splitbelt treadmill walking by a biped robot using nonlinear oscillators with phase resetting

In this paper, we investigate the locomotor behaviors of a biped robot on a splitbelt treadmill using a locomotion-control system composed of nonlinear oscillators with phase resetting. Our results show that the robot establishes stable walking on the treadmill at various speeds of the belts due to modulation of the rhythm and phase by phase resetting. In addition, the phase differences between the leg movements shifted from out of phase, and duty factors were autonomously modulated depending on the speed discrepancy between the belts occurring through dynamic interactions among the robot's mechanical system, the oscillator control system, and the environment. Such shifts of phase differences between the leg movements and modulations of duty factors are observed during human splitbelt treadmill walking, and our results suggest that our dynamic model using the robot and oscillator control system reflects a certain essence of the ability to produce adaptive locomotor behaviors.
Hub Arc Location Problems: Part I - Introduction and Results

Hub networks play an important role in many transportation and telecommunications systems. This paper introduces a new model called the hub arc location model. Rather than locate discrete hub facilities, this model locates hub arcs, which have reduced unit flow costs. Four special cases of the general hub arc location model are examined in detail. We provide motivation for the new models, and present examples and optimal solutions, using data for U.S. air passenger traffic. Results are used to compare optimal costs, hub locations, and hub arc locations with corresponding hub median optimal solutions. The results reveal interesting spatial patterns and help identify promising cities and regions for hubs. A companion paper (Campbell et al. 2005) presents integer programming formulations and solution algorithms for the new hub arc problems. It also provides details and computation times for these solution algorithms.
Distinguishability of Locally Finite Trees

The distinguishing number $\Delta(X)$ of a graph $X$ is the least positive integer $n$ for which there exists a function $f:V(X)\to\{0,1,2,\cdots,n-1\}$ such that no nonidentity element of $\hbox{Aut}(X)$ fixes (setwise) every inverse image $f^{-1}(k)$, $k\in\{0,1,2,\cdots,n-1\}$. All infinite, locally finite trees without pendant vertices are shown to be 2-distinguishable. A proof is indicated that extends 2-distinguishability to locally countable trees without pendant vertices. It is shown that every infinite, locally finite tree $T$ with finite distinguishing number contains a finite subtree $J$ such that $\Delta(J)=\Delta(T)$. Analogous results are obtained for the distinguishing chromatic number , namely the least positive integer $n$ such that the function $f$ is also a proper vertex-coloring.
The impact of stereotyping errors on a robot's social development

Psychologists note that social cognition often involves the creation, refinement, and use of models of one's interactive partners. The influence of categorical thinking on interpersonal expectations is commonly referred to as a stereotype. Using an algorithm that we created for stereotype learning, we investigate problems that can occur when the robot acquires its first models of people and learns its first stereotypes-the robot's early social development. We examine if the errors related to the creation of these initial models have a disproportionate impact on the robot's developing social skills, perhaps even reflecting some of the same challenges faced by humans [1]. We hypothesized that errors in which the robot interacted with someone that did not represent the true nature of a category, an outlier, would impact the robot's performance on a social coordination task more if the error occurred earlier in the robot's social development rather than later. Results from simulation confirmed our hypothesis. The results of this work have potential implications for social robotics, autonomous agents, and possibly psychology.
Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of a Course Taught via Classroom and Internet Chatroom

Human services distance education research has traditionally focused on pre-post testing of students to discover if distance education methods are comparable to traditional classroom methods in terms of student learning and satisfaction. This focus on comparability using quantitative research techniques ignores the substantial amount of information automatically captured when using some distance education (DE) methods. By combining quantitative, qualitative, and graphic techniques, educators can not only address comparability issues, but can also identify what classroom or DE methods result in higher or lower student learning and satisfaction. This research uses NUD*IST, SPSS, and Excel to illustrate the type of analysis needed for a masters social work course on administration taught via classroom and chat-room. Findings from the analysis support previous research on the comparability of DE methods to classroom methods and the qualitative and graphic analysis of chatroom text helps explain why this is so. We discuss the potential of this multi-technique DE approach for course improvement and for achieving student-defined quality.
Experiences using a dual wireless technology infrastructure to support ad-hoc multiplayer games

Multiplayer games for mobile wireless devices are becoming increasingly popular. Many modern devices such as PDAs or mobile telephones are equipped with Bluetooth interfaces. Bluetooth facilitates the formation of ad-hoc networks thus enabling users to set up multiplayer games spontaneously. On the other hand, Bluetooth has strong restrictions in terms of transmission range and the number of users per piconet. We deploy additional infrastructure in order to overcome these shortcomings. This infrastructure uses a second wireless technology that sets up and maintains a consistent view of a distributed game by exchanging information about the status and location of players. We set up an experimental testbed consisting of single-board communication devices developed in our lab and Bluetooth-equipped PDAs.Our experiments show that the proposed infrastructure is able to extend the range of games beyond the coverage of a Bluetooth piconet. Furthermore, we are able to track players. Smooth handovers between piconets are also possible. However, due to the current limitations of Bluetooth, handovers are not fast enough to enable highly interactive gaming across different piconets. We present a game that uses this and discuss future application scenarios.
Degradation of the Proapoptotic Proteins Bik, Puma, and Bim with Bcl-2 Domain 3 Homology in Chlamydia trachomatis-Infected Cells

ABSTRACT We have previously correlated Chlamydia trachomatis antiapoptotic activity with the blockade of mitochondrial cytochrome c release and the inhibition of Bax and Bak activation. We now report that C. trachomatis infection leads to degradation of Bik, Puma, and Bim, three upstream proapoptotic BH3-only proteins of the Bcl-2 family that can transmit death signals to mitochondria by inhibiting the Bcl-2 antiapoptotic proteins and/or activating the Bcl-2 proapoptotic members, such as Bax and Bak. This observation has provided new information on the chlamydial antiapoptosis mechanisms.
Finding Skylines for Incomplete Data

In the last decade, skyline queries have been extensively studied for different domains because of their wide applications in multi-criteria decision making and search space pruning. A skyline query returns all the interesting points in a multi-dimensional data set that are not dominated by any other point with respect to all dimensions. However, real world data sets are seldom complete, i.e. data points often have missing values in one or more dimensions. Traditional skyline query processing algorithms developed for complete data can not be easily adapted for such situations because of the non-transitive and potentially cyclic nature of dominance relation that arises in the case of incomplete data. Unfortunately, skyline query processing for such incomplete data has not received enough attention. We propose an efficient Sort-based Incomplete Data Skyline (SIDS) algorithm to compute the skyline points over incomplete data. Extensive experiments on both real world and synthetic data sets demonstrate the efficiency and scalability of our approach over current state of the art approach.
A family intervention to delay nursing home placement of patients with Alzheimer disease. A randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE To determine the long-term effectiveness of comprehensive support and counseling for spouse-caregivers and families in postponing or preventing nursing home placement of patients with Alzheimer disease (AD). DESIGN Randomized controlled intervention study. SETTING Outpatient research clinic in the New York City metropolitan area. PARTICIPANTS Referred, volunteer sample of 206 spouse-caregivers of AD patients who enrolled in the study during a 3 1/2-year period. All patients were living at home at baseline and had at least 1 relative living in the area. INTERVENTION Caregivers in the treatment group were provided with 6 sessions of individual and family counseling within 4 months of enrollment in the study and were required to join support groups. In addition, counselors were available for further counseling at any time. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Time from enrollment of caregivers in the study to placement of the AD patients in a nursing home. RESULTS Using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, we estimated that the median time (weighted average of estimates for male and female caregivers) from baseline to nursing home placement of AD patients was 329 days longer in the treatment group than in the control group (z=2.29; P=.02). The relative risk (RR) from a Cox proportional hazard model of nursing home placement (intent-to-treat estimate) after adjusting for caregiver sex, patient age, and patient income was 0.65 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.45 to 0.94; P=.02), indicating that caregivers were approximately two thirds as likely to place their spouses in nursing homes at any point in time if they were in the treatment group than if they were in the control group. Treatment had the greatest effect on risk of placement for patients who were mildly demented (RR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.04 to 0.77) or moderately demented (RR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.17 to 0.82). CONCLUSIONS A program of counseling and support can substantially increase the time spouse-caregivers are able to care for AD patients at home, particularly during the early to middle stages of dementia when nursing home placement is generally least appropriate.
A Summary of Grid Computing Environments

Geoffrey Fox, Dennis Gannon, Mary Thomas Community Grid Computing Laboratory, Indiana University 501 N Morton Suite 224, Bloomington IN 47404 Computer Science Department, Indiana University School of Informatics and Physics Department, Indiana University Texas Advanced Computing Center, The University of Texas at Austin, 10100 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas 78758 gcf@indiana.edu, ,mthomas@tacc.utexas. edu gannon@cs.indiana.edu
The use of traditional and novel techniques to determine the hardness and indentation properties of immature radicular dentin treated with antibiotic medicaments followed by ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid

Objective: The objective was to investigate the effect of intracanal antibiotic medicaments followed by ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) on the indentation properties and hardness of radicular dentin using a BioDent reference point indenter and a traditional microhardness technique, respectively. Materials and Methods: Specimens with intact root canal dentin surfaces and polished radicular dentin specimens were obtained from immature human premolars. Each type of specimen was randomly assigned (n = 10 per group) and treated with either double antibiotic paste (DAP) for 4-week followed by EDTA for 5 min, triple antibiotic paste (TAP) for 4-week followed by EDTA for 5 min, EDTA for 5 min or Hank′s balanced salt solution (control). The BioDent reference point indentor and Vickers microhardness tester were used to measure the indentation properties of root canal surfaces and the hardness of polished dentin specimens, respectively. One-way ANOVA followed by Fisher′s protected least significant differences were used for statistical analyses. Results: Both types of radicular dentin treated with antibiotic pastes and/or EDTA had a significant increase in the majority of indentation properties and a significant reduction in hardness compared to the untreated dentin. Furthermore, treatment of dentin with antibiotic pastes and EDTA caused significant increases in indentation properties and a significant reduction in hardness compared to EDTA-treated dentin. However, the RPI technique was not able to significantly differentiate between DAP + EDTA and TAP + EDTA-treated dentin. Conclusion: Dentin treated with antibiotic medicaments followed by EDTA had a significant increase the indentation properties and significantly reduction in hardness of radicular dentin.
How much groundwater can we pump and protect environmental flows through time? Presumptive standards for conjunctive management of aquifers and rivers

Groundwater is a critically important source of water for river, wetland, lake, and terrestrial ecosystems, yet most frameworks for assessing environmental flows have ignored or not explicitly included the potential impacts of groundwater pumping on environmental flows. After assessing the processes and existing policies for protecting streamflow depletion from groundwater pumping, we argue that a new groundwater presumptive standard is critical as a placeholder to protect environmental flows in rivers lacking detailed assessments. We thus extend the previous presumptive standard to groundwater pumping, a different and important driver of changes to streamflow. We suggest that “high levels of ecological protection will be provided if groundwater pumping decreases monthly natural baseflow by less than 10% through time. ” The presumptive standard is intended to be a critical placeholder only where detailed scientific assessments of environmental flow needs cannot be undertaken in the near term. We also suggest a new metric, the environmental flow response time, that allows water managers to quantify the timescales of the impacts of groundwater pumping on the loss or gain of environmental flows.
JARTA — A Java library to model and fit Autoregressive-To-Anything processes

JARTA is a Java library to model and fit Autoregressive-To-Anything (ARTA) processes. These processes are able to capture the dependency structure of a system, in contrast to commonly used models, that assume independently distributed random values. This study uses a simulation model of a warehouse to demonstrate the importance of capturing dependencies when modeling stochastic processes. Consequently there is a need for a suitable modeling approach. With JARTA we provide a modern software package to model processes with an appropriate dependency structure. Its two main goals are providing a clean code base for integration in other projects and high transparency for educational purposes. To support these goals JARTA is published under an open source license at http://sourceforge.net/projects/jarta/.
On non-scale-invariant infinitely divisible cascades

Multiplicative processes, multifractals, and more recently also infinitely divisible cascades have seen increased popularity in a host of applications requiring versatile multiscale models, ranging from hydrodynamic turbulence to computer network traffic, from image processing to economics. The methodologies prevalent as of today rely to a large extent on iterative schemes used to produce infinite detail and repetitive structure across scales. While appealing, due to their simplicity, these constructions have limited applicability as they lead by default to power-law progression of moments through scales, to nonstationary increments and often to inherent log-periodic scaling which favors an exponential set of scales. This paper studies and develops a wide class of infinitely divisible cascades (IDC), thereby establishing the first reported cases of controllable scaling of moments in non-power-law form. Embedded in the framework of IDC, these processes exhibit stationary increments and scaling over a continuous range of scales. Criteria for convergence, further statistical properties, as well as MATLAB routines are provided.
Learning Acts on Distinct Processes for Visual Form Perception in the Human Brain

Learning is known to facilitate our ability to detect targets in clutter and optimize brain processes for successful visual recognition. Previous brain-imaging studies have focused on identifying spatial patterns (i.e., brain areas) that change with learning, implicating occipitotemporal and frontoparietal areas. However, little is known about the interactions within this network that mediate learning-dependent improvement in complex perceptual tasks (i.e., discrimination of visual forms in clutter). Here we take advantage of the complementary high spatial and temporal resolution of simultaneous EEG-fMRI to identify the learning-dependent changes in spatiotemporal brain patterns that mediate enhanced behavioral sensitivity in the discrimination of global forms after training. We measured the observers' choices when discriminating between concentric and radial patterns presented in noise before and after training. Similarly, we measured the choices of a pattern classifier when predicting each stimulus from EEG-fMRI signals. By comparing the performance of human observers and classifiers, we demonstrated that learning alters sensitivity to visual forms and EEG-fMRI activation patterns related to distinct visual recognition processes. In particular, behavioral improvement after training was associated with changes in (1) early processes involved in the integration of global forms in higher occipitotemporal and parietal areas, and (2) later processes related to categorical judgments in frontal circuits. Thus, our findings provide evidence that learning acts on distinct visual recognition processes and shapes feedforward interactions across brain areas to support performance in complex perceptual tasks.
Contingency Variable Interaction Model : Implementation on Credit Risk Management System of the Commercial Banks In Indonesia

Research on credit risk management systems in Indonesia commercial banks beyond moderating contingency variables such as competitive strategy, corporate culture, external environment and organizational structure has never been done. The research objectives are: (1) to analyze the influence of contingency variables (competitive strategy, corporate culture, external environment and organizational structure) on the bank's credit risk management system in Indonesia, (2) to analyzed the effect of the credit risk management system on the performance of banks in Indonesia, (3) to analyze between contingency moderating variables (competitive strategy, corporate culture, external environment and organizational structure) and credit risk management system on organizational performance of commercial banks in Indonesia and (4) to analyze consistency of commercial banks performance between primary and secondary data years 2004 2008 in Indonesia. Secondary and primary data collection is done through a survey of 97 commercial banks in Indonesia as a unit of study samples. A set of questionnaires as primary data collection instruments were distributed to the directors, managers and heads of commercial banks on credit division as research respondent and secondary data analysis of the financial statements of Commercial Banks operations in the period 2004 to 2008 was obtained from Bank Indonesia. Furthermore, statistically processed data, whether a descriptive analysis and verification analysis were conducted. Multiple regression analysis and T test are used to test hypotheses. The research results prove that: (1) competitive strategy, corporate culture and organizational structure affect the bank's credit risk management system, (2) credit risk management systems affect the performance of commercial banks, (3) competitive strategy, corporate culture and organizational structure to strengthen moderation credit risk management system on the performance of commercial banks and the most powerful moderation is the corporate culture and (4) The performance of commercial banks in Indonesia as a whole is good enough and the line with financial performance from Annual Report, Bank of Indonesia, while the best is State of Commercial Bank (Persero). In other words, the performance of state commercial banks (Persero) is better relative than the performance of other competitors of commercial banks.
Antibodies against annexin A5: Detection pitfalls and clinical associations

Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) has been defined as a clinical and laboratory entity. Laboratory criteria include the presence of anticardiolipin antibodies (aCL) and/or lupus anticoagulant (LA), collectively termed as antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL). However, there has been a rising interest in antibodies against so-called protein cofactors, particularly in β2-glycoprotein I. In the early 90s, annexins were considered as target antigens for aPL, but at present the exact role of antibodies against annexins (aANX) remains puzzling. This review is concerned with annexin V or annexin A5 (ANXA5), a widespread member of the annexin family, and antibodies directed towards it. We have endeavoured to summarise essential information about the detection of anti-annexin V antibodies (aANXA5) and their clinical relevance. This review has also brought together some relevant published data concerning the structure, physiological role and therapeutic potential of ANXA5.
Nucleotide flipping by restriction enzymes analyzed by 2-aminopurine steady-state fluorescence

Many DNA modification and repair enzymes require access to DNA bases and therefore flip nucleotides. Restriction endonucleases (REases) hydrolyze the phosphodiester backbone within or in the vicinity of the target recognition site and do not require base extrusion for the sequence readout and catalysis. Therefore, the observation of extrahelical nucleotides in a co-crystal of REase Ecl18kI with the cognate sequence, CCNGG, was unexpected. It turned out that Ecl18kI reads directly only the CCGG sequence and skips the unspecified N nucleotides, flipping them out from the helix. Sequence and structure conservation predict nucleotide flipping also for the complexes of PspGI and EcoRII with their target DNAs (/CCWGG), but data in solution are limited and indirect. Here, we demonstrate that Ecl18kI, the C-terminal domain of EcoRII (EcoRII-C) and PspGI enhance the fluorescence of 2-aminopurines (2-AP) placed at the centers of their recognition sequences. The fluorescence increase is largest for PspGI, intermediate for EcoRII-C and smallest for Ecl18kI, probably reflecting the differences in the hydrophobicity of the binding pockets within the protein. Omitting divalent metal cations and mutation of the binding pocket tryptophan to alanine strongly increase the 2-AP signal in the Ecl18kI–DNA complex. Together, our data provide the first direct evidence that Ecl18kI, EcoRII-C and PspGI flip nucleotides in solution.