Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Empirical results from using a comfort level device in human-robot interaction studies

This paper describes an extensive analysis of the comfort level data of 7 subjects with respect to 12 robot behaviours as part of a human-robot interaction trial. This includes robot action, proximity and motion relative to the subjects. Two researchers coded the video material, identifying visible states of discomfort displayed by subjects in relation to the robot's behaviour. Agreement between the coders varied from moderate to high, except for more ambiguous situations involving robot approach directions. The detected visible states of discomfort were correlated with the situations where the comfort level device (CLD) indicated states of discomfort. Results show that the uncomfortable states identified by both coders, and by either of the coders corresponded with 31% and 64% of the uncomfortable states identified by the subjects' CLD data (N=58), respectively. Conversely there was 72% agreement between subjects' CLD data and the uncomfortable states identified by both coders (N=25). Results show that the majority of the subjects expressed discomfort when the robot blocked their path or was on a collision course towards them, especially when the robot was within 3 meters proximity. Other observations include that the majority of subjects experienced discomfort when the robot was closer than 3m, within the social zone reserved for human-human face to face conversation, while they were performing a task. The advantages and disadvantages of the CLD in comparison to other techniques for assessing subjects' internal states are discussed and future work concludes the paper.
Lung volume: a principle determinant of airway smooth muscle function

This study was supported by National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Grants R01 HL-62746, R01 HL-67273 and P01 HL-67004, and a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grant from the National Center for Research Resources P20 RR-15557. Asthma is a syndrome that is characterised by clinical features that centre on disorders of lung function; indeed, the diagnosis of asthma is best made by obtaining lung function tests 1–3. Asthma, unlike other lung diseases, shows a functional and temporal instability, where lung function can be both cyclic ( e.g. nocturnal asthma) and prone to sudden falls ( e.g. exposure to allergens) in the ability to move air, as assessed by peak flow variability. Yet the mechanisms that may link peak flow variability and airways hyperresponsiveness are largely unknown 4, 5. One possibility is that both of these common features of asthma are linked by lung volume or a lung volume-dependent mechanism. Lung volume is a pivotal determinant of airway smooth muscle (ASM) function and lung function. Animal studies most clearly demonstrate the importance of how acute alterations in lung volume significantly alter the response of lung mechanics to bronchoactive agents. For example, Nagase et al. 6, who elevated lung volume using positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP), showed a 12% reduction in the response of airway resistance ( R aw) to inhaled histamine for every cmH2O of PEEP increase. Bates et al. 7, using a rat system where small volume oscillations were used to nearly instantaneously measure airway responses to injected methacholine, showed that an increase in lung volume (2–6 cmH2O of PEEP) caused a reduction in the rate of rise in R aw by an order of magnitude. Collectively, these findings suggest that ASM contractility is profoundly influenced by lung volume, effects that are much larger …
Axonal α7 nicotinic ACh receptors modulate presynaptic NMDA receptor expression and structural plasticity of glutamatergic presynaptic boutons

In association with NMDA receptors (NMDARs), neuronal α7 nicotinic ACh receptors (nAChRs) have been implicated in neuronal plasticity as well as neurodevelopmental, neurological, and psychiatric disorders. However, the role of presynaptic NMDARs and their interaction with α7 nAChRs in these physiological and pathophysiological events remains unknown. Here we report that axonal α7 nAChRs modulate presynaptic NMDAR expression and structural plasticity of glutamatergic presynaptic boutons during early synaptic development. Chronic inactivation of α7 nAChRs markedly increased cell surface NMDAR expression as well as the number and size of glutamatergic axonal varicosities in cortical cultures. These boutons contained presynaptic NMDARs and α7 nAChRs, and recordings from outside-out pulled patches of enlarged presynaptic boutons identified functional NMDAR-mediated currents. Multiphoton imaging of presynaptic NMDAR-mediated calcium transients demonstrated significantly larger responses in these enlarged boutons, suggesting enhanced presynaptic NMDAR function that could lead to increased glutamate release. Moreover, whole-cell patch clamp showed a significant increase in synaptic charge mediated by NMDAR miniature EPSCs but no alteration in the frequency of AMPAR miniature EPSCs, suggesting the selective enhancement of postsynaptically silent synapses upon inactivation of α7 nAChRs. Taken together, these findings indicate that axonal α7 nAChRs modulate presynaptic NMDAR expression and presynaptic and postsynaptic maturation of glutamatergic synapses, and implicate presynaptic α7 nAChR/NMDAR interactions in synaptic development and plasticity.
Emergence of money as a medium of exchange: An experimental study

This paper reports findings from an experiment that implements a search-theoretic model of money as a medium of exchange. The question examined is whether subjects learn to adopt the same commodities as media of exchange that the model predicts will be used in equilibrium. We report that subjects have a strong tendency to play "fundamental" rather than "speculative" strategies even in environments where speculative strategies yield higher payoffs. We examine some possible motivations for subjects' behavior and conclude that subjects are mainly motivated by past payoff experience as opposed to the marketability considerations that the theory emphasizes.
Social organisation and breeding biology of the White-shouldered Fairywren (Malurus alboscapulatus)

ABSTRACT The White-shouldered Fairywren (Malurus alboscapulatus) is a tropical passerine bird distributed across much of New Guinea. White-shouldered Fairywrens are among few species of fairywren with exclusively tropical distributions and differ from better studied congeners in Australia because subspecies vary by female, but not male, coloration and morphology. As with many bird species in New Guinea, basic demographic, social, morphological, and breeding data are limited. From 2011 to 2018 we documented the basic biology of two subspecies representing extremes of the female ornamentation spectrum. Both subspecies form groups having an even operational sex ratio and appear to breed year-round. Extra-pair paternity occurs in the subspecies with female ornamentation; comparable data are lacking for the subspecies having unornamented females, but the greater scaled cloacal protuberance volume of males suggests similar or higher extra-pair paternity rates. Females of the ornamented subspecies are generally larger than those lacking ornamentation, but exhibit reduced tail lengths, which is thought to serve as a signal of social dominance in other fairywrens. After first achieving adult-like plumage, males and ornamented females retain ornamented plumage year-round; however, only males in the subspecies with unornamented females appear to exhibit delayed plumage maturation. Our discussion highlights similarities and differences between White-shouldered Fairywren life histories and those of better studied Australian Malurus species; we focus on tropical vs. temperate environments and variable female ornamentation, and we identify priorities for future research.
Motion Mode Recognition and Step Detection Algorithms for Mobile Phone Users

Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) technology is playing a key role in the design of the new generation of smartphones. Thanks to their reduced size, reduced power consumption, MEMS sensors can be embedded in above mobile devices for increasing their functionalities. However, MEMS cannot allow accurate autonomous location without external updates, e.g., from GPS signals, since their signals are degraded by various errors. When these sensors are fixed on the user's foot, the stance phases of the foot can easily be determined and periodic Zero velocity UPdaTes (ZUPTs) are performed to bound the position error. When the sensor is in the hand, the situation becomes much more complex. First of all, the hand motion can be decoupled from the general motion of the user. Second, the characteristics of the inertial signals can differ depending on the carrying modes. Therefore, algorithms for characterizing the gait cycle of a pedestrian using a handheld device have been developed. A classifier able to detect motion modes typical for mobile phone users has been designed and implemented. According to the detected motion mode, adaptive step detection algorithms are applied. Success of the step detection process is found to be higher than 97% in all motion modes.
Adaptive uncoupled matching network design for compact MIMO systems with MMSE receiver

In this paper we jointly consider the normally distinct worlds of communication system design and circuit theory. We introduce the - up to our knowledge - first algorithm to optimize the uncoupled matching network (UC-MN) at a receiver that uses a linear MMSE equalizer in a MU-MIMO system with compact antenna array at the receiver. We design our adaptive UC-MN in order to either maximize the minimum rate of all users or to maximize the total sum rate. We compare to the conventional matching, which ignores antenna coupling, and to the cases of choosing one of the MNs that either maximizes the achievable rate or maximizes the minimum user rate for joint decoding of all data streams. In all cases, we observe a considerable performance boost. We view our results as an example of the potential of jointly considering circuit theoretical aspects and communication theory, especially for systems adopting large antenna arrays in a confined space.
Quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy.

A new approach to detecting a weak photoacoustic signal in a gas medium is described. Instead of a gas-filled resonant acoustic cavity, the sound energy is accumulated in a high- Q crystal element. Feasibility experiments utilizing a quartz-watch tuning fork demonstrate a sensitivity of 1.2x10(-7) cm(-1) W/ radicalHz . Potential further developments and applications of this technique are discussed.
Seeking family health information: a test of the revised Theory of Motivated Information Management

This dissertation presents a revised version of the Theory of Motivated Information Management and tests it in the context of family health history. A survey of engaged individuals was undertaken to understand how factors such as uncertainty, expectations for information search, efficacy and emotion influence decisions and strategies for obtaining family health histories. This study provided support for a revised Theory of Motivated Information Management model. Results showed anxiety mediated the relationship between uncertainty discrepancies and direct information seeking. Communication efficacy was also shown to act as a moderator of the relationship between anxiety and direct information. The study found that lower anxiety levels facilitated intention to directly seek information when communication efficacy was high. Additionally, it was shown that family health problems, illness, and death most often prompted conversations about family health history and that mothers are approached first for family health information.
6 Yaş Çocuklarına Öyküleştirme Yöntemi İle Verilen Matematik Eğitiminin Çocukların Matematik Başarılarına Etkisinin İncelenmesi

Bu calismanin amaci; 6 yas cocuklarina oykulestirme yontemi ile verilen matematik egitiminin cocuklarin matematik basarilarina olan etkisini incelenmektir. Oykulestirme yontemi; cocuklarin yeni bilgilerini kullanarak eski bilgilerini ve tecrubelerini ise kostugu, bunlarin yani sira yeni bilgileri edinerek bunlarla birlikte surecte aktif olarak yer aldigi problemlere cozumler urettigi, deneyimler kazandigi bir ortam yaratmaktadir. Arastirma nitel ve nicel tekniklerin bir arada kullanildigi karma yontemdir. Okul oncesi egitim kurumlarina devam eden 48-66 ay arasi cocuklarin; sayilar, geometrik sekiller ve oruntu kavramlarini ogrenmede oykulestirme yonteminin etkisinin incelendigi on-test son-test yari deneysel yontem ve uygulamalar suresince deney grubunun gozlemlenmesiyle arastirmanin nitel bolumu yurutulmustur. Arastirmada cocuklarin sayilarla ilgili kavramlari ogrenme duzeylerini olcmek amaciyla; Piaget sayi korunum testi, geometrik sekil kavramlari ogrenme duzeylerini olcmek amaciyla; Aslan (2004) tarafindan gelistirilen geometrik sekilleri tanima testi ve oruntu kavramini ogrenme duzeylerini olcmek amaciyla arastirmaci tarafindan gelistirilen oruntu testi kullanilmistir. Ayrica arastirmaci tarafindan deney grubuyla her hafta uygulanan etkinlikler sirasinda yapilan gozlem arastirmacinin guncesine kaydedilmistir. Calisma toplam 27 ogrenciyle gerceklesmistir. Kontrol grubu ogrencileri mevcut programla egitim alirken deney grubu ogrencileri 8 hafta boyunca haftada bir gun oykulestirme yontemi ile hazirlanan matematik egitimini almistir. Arastirmada elde edilen nicel verilerin analizinde kontrol ve deney grubunun basarilarini karsilastirmak amaciyla Mann Whitney U testi kullanilmistir. Kontrol ve deney gruplarinin on test ve son test basarilarini kendi aralarinda karsilastirmak amaciyla Wilcoxon Isaretli Siralar Testi kullanilmistir. Arastirmada elde edilen nitel veriler betimsel analiz yoluyla analiz edilmistir. Elde edilen analiz sonuclarina gore deney grubu lehine anlamli bir fark bulunmustur. Sonuc olarak; oykulestirme yontemi ile verilen matematik egitiminin cocuklarin matematik basarisini arttirmada olumlu etkiye sahip oldugunu gostermistir.
Developing semi-empirical ab initio based potentials in materials modeling

Ab initio calculation based on density function theory (DFT) is an accurate and efficient method for modelling material properties. It is performed by solving the Shrödinger equations with a few assumptions to obtain the physical properties of the system. It is very computational demanding when dealing with large systems or longtime simulations. Developing empirical potentials on the basis of ab initio calculations on smaller systems is a possible way to solve this problem. The empirical potentials will benefit from the accuracy of ab initio simulations and can facilitate applications to large systems and long-time simulations. In this thesis, we have performed two studies regarding fitting empirical potentials: one is fitting an empirical Sutton-Chen potential based on ab initio simulations for iron under extreme conditions and the other one is fitting an improved Finnis-Sinclair potential for ternary V-Ti-Cr alloy. In the first part, we focus on fitting a Sutton-Chen potential for solid Fe under the Earth’s inner core condition. Based on ab initio molecular dynamics (MD) simulation results, the Sutton-Chen potential is fitted to energies of the configurations obtained from ab initio MD simulations at the pressure of 360 GPa and temperature of 6000 K. The method applied for the fitting is the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. The Sutton-Chen potential can reproduce the ab initio energies with an error of 6.2 meV/atom. Set as the same with ab initio MD simulations, classical MD using Sutton-Chen potential can obtain the consistent results with those from ab initio MD simulations at the pressure of 360 GPa and temperature of 6000 K. In order to explore the size effect on the results, we extend the classical MD to large-size systems (from 1024 atoms to 65536 atoms). We also extend the temperature range to see the temperature effect on the results. In the second part, we develop an improved Finnis-Sinclair (IFS) potential for ternary V-Ti-Cr alloys. The interaction parameters of V-V, Ti-Ti and Cr-Cr are fitted to the experimental lattice constants, cohesive energies and elastic constants. The binary alloy potential parameters are obtained by constructing 3 binary alloy models (V15Ti, V15Cr, V8Ti8) and fitting to their theoretical lattice constants, cohesive energies and elastic constants. Finally, the IFS potential is successfully used to calculate mechanical properties and the monovacancy formation energy in V-Ti-Cr alloy. It is also applied to investigate the composition effect on the mechanical properties of ternary V-Ti-Cr alloys.
Kar2p availability defines distinct forms of endoplasmic reticulum stress in living cells

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) unfolded protein response (UPR) is correlated with changes in unfolded secretory levels. A novel fluorescence biosensor now reports changes in the unfolded protein burden. This reporter reveals a form of ER stress—inositol withdrawal—that stimulates the UPR without changes in unfolded protein levels.
“I don’t know”: a usage-based approach to familiar collocations in non-fluent aphasia

ABSTRACT Background: Familiar collocations (e.g., “it’s alright”) are an important part of everyday conversation. Such word combinations are often retained in speakers with Broca’s aphasia. However, only few investigations have studied the forms and functions of familiar collocations available to speakers with Broca’s aphasia. Aims: We first apply a frequency-based perspective to word combinations produced by speakers with Broca’s aphasia and their conversation partners (CPs), and compare the frequency characteristics of word combinations in dyadic and non-dyadic speech. Second, we investigate the conversational functions of one prominent familiar collocation, “I don’t know” (IDK). Methods & Procedures: In the first analysis, speech samples from interactions of nine dyads (each a speaker with Broca’s aphasia and their CP) were examined. Non-dyadic samples were selected from 39 speakers with Broca’s aphasia from AphasiaBank (MacWhinney et al., 2011). The Frequency in Language Analysis Tool (FLAT; Zimmerer & Wibrow, 2015) was used to estimate collocation strength (the degree of association between words in a combination) of well-formed bigrams (two-word combinations) and trigrams (three-word combinations). The second analysis presents a qualitative investigation of uses of IDK in dyadic exchanges. Outcomes & Results: Analysis 1 revealed that residual trigrams in Broca’s aphasia were more strongly collocated in comparison to language produced by CPs. There was no difference in frequency-based profiles between dyadic and non-dyadic aphasic speech. Analysis 2 indicated that speakers with Broca’s aphasia and CPs used IDK to achieve a variety of communicative functions. However, patterns specific to each participant group were found. Conclusions: These findings highlight that frequency-based analysis is useful in explaining residual, grammatically well-formed word combinations in Broca’s aphasia. This study provides evidence that IDK can aid turn construction in aphasia.
Revisiting Forms of Representation by Critically Examining Men

Research on gender and politics has made use of Pitkin's (1967) distinction between descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation to conceptualize and understand the different facets of women's underrepresentation and misrepresentation. The corresponding overrepresentation of men has seldom been explicitly recognized in this literature. We explore what the critical study of men and masculinities could contribute to the study of different forms of representation. Researching the descriptive overrepresentation of men implies recognizing male dominance and turning our attention from the factors that constrain women from entering politics to the factors that enable and reproduce men's presence. Researching the substantive representation of men also implies investigating how men represent men and identifying whether hegemonic masculinities privilege the representation of some men while neglecting others. Finally, a study of the symbolic representation of men implies identifying and describing the masculine signals and symbols that permeate political life but remain largely invisible because they constitute the political norm. Naming them as “masculine” will facilitate a gendered analysis of political institutions, practices, and discourses that are seldom questioned. We also consider the symbolic representation of men who do not conform to hegemonic masculine ideals and are not represented descriptively.
Knowledge Semantic Representation: A Generative Model for Interpretable Knowledge Graph Embedding

Knowledge representation is an important, long-history topic in AI, and there have been a large amount of work for knowledge graph embedding which projects symbolic entities and relations into low-dimensional, real-valued vector space. However, most embedding methods merely concentrate on data fitting and ignore the explicit semantic expression, leading to uninterpretable representations. Thus, traditional embedding methods have limited potentials for many applications such as question answering, and entity classification. To this end, this paper proposes a semantic representation method for knowledge graph \textbf{(KSR)}, which imposes a two-level hierarchical generative process that globally extracts many aspects and then locally assigns a specific category in each aspect for every triple. Since both aspects and categories are semantics-relevant, the collection of categories in each aspect is treated as the semantic representation of this triple. Extensive experiments justify our model outperforms other state-of-the-art baselines substantially.
SYMMETRIZATION APPROACH TO CONCENTRATION INEQUALITIES FOR EMPIRICAL PROCESSES

We introduce a symmetrization technique that allows us to translate a problem of controlling the deviation of some functionals on a product space from their mean into a problem of controlling the deviation between two independent copies of the functional. As an application we give a new easy proof of Talagrand's concentration inequality for empirical processes, where besides symmetrization we use only Talagrand's concentration inequality on the discrete cube {0, 1} n . As another application of this technique we prove new Vapnik-Chervonenkis type inequalities. For example, for VC-classes of functions we prove a classical inequality of Vapnik and Chervonenkis only with normalization by the sum of variance and sample variance.