Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploiting Natural Dynamics to Reduce Energy Consumption by Controlling the Compliance of Soft Actuators

Exploiting natural dynamics for bipedal locomotion, or passive walking, is gaining interest because of its energy efficiency. However, the natural trajectories of a passive walker are fixed during the design, thus limiting its mobility. A possible solution to this problem is creating a “semi-passive walker” equipped with actuators with adaptable compliance, which allows the natural dynamics to be changed according to the situation. This paper proposes a compliance controller, a strategy for continuously changing the compliance in such a way as to adapt the natural motion of the system to a desired trajectory. This opens up the possibility of following a range of different trajectories with a relatively low energy consumption. The idea is to fit the controllable actuator compliance to the “natural” compliance of the desired trajectory, and combine that with trajectory tracking control. This strategy was implemented and tested on a 1-DOF pendulum setup actuated by an antagonistic pair of pleated pneumatic artificial muscles. Both simulations and measurements show that the proposed strategy for choosing actuator compliance can significantly reduce the amount of control activity and energy consumption without harming tracking precision.
OVVV: Using Virtual Worlds to Design and Evaluate Surveillance Systems

Object video virtual video (OVVV) is a publicly available visual surveillance simulation test bed based on a commercial game engine. The tool simulates multiple synchronized video streams from a variety of camera configurations, including static, PTZ and omni-directional cameras, in a virtual environment populated with computer or player controlled humans and vehicles. To support performance evaluation, OVVV generates detailed automatic ground truth for each frame including target centroids, bounding boxes and pixel-wise foreground segmentation. We describe several realistic, controllable noise effects including pixel noise, video ghosting and radial distortion to improve the realism of synthetic video and provide additional dimensions for performance testing. Several indoor and outdoor virtual environments developed by the authors are described to illustrate the range of testing scenarios possible using OVVV. Finally, we provide a practical demonstration of using OVVV to develop and evaluate surveillance algorithms.
Image upsampling via texture hallucination

Image upsampling is a common yet challenging task, since it is severely underconstrained. While considerable progress was made in preserving the sharpness of salient edges, current methods fail to reproduce the fine detail typically present in the textured regions bounded by these edges, resulting in unrealistic appearance. In this paper we address this fundamental shortcoming by integrating higher-level image analysis and custom low-level image synthesis. Our approach extends and refines the patch-based image model of Freeman et al. [10] and interprets the image as a tiling of distinct textures, each of which is matched to an example in a database of relevant textures. The matching is not done at the patch level, but rather collectively, over entire segments. Following this model fitting stage, which requires some user guidance, a higher-resolution image is synthesized using a hybrid approach that incorporates principles from example-based texture synthesis. We show that for images that comply with our model, our method is able to reintroduce consistent fine-scale detail, resulting in enhanced appearance textured regions.
The Effects of Video Modeling With Voiceover Instruction and On-Screen Text on Parent Implementation of Guided Compliance

ABSTRACT Noncompliance with requests is a problem for some children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Wilder, 2011). Video modeling is effective for teaching a variety of skills, but has not received much attention in the parent training literature. The purpose of the current study was to extend the parent training literature by (a) evaluating the effects of video modeling with voiceover instruction and on-screen text (VMVOT) as a parent-training training tool; (b) incorporating multiple exemplar training to enhance generalization of parent behavior to novel locations, novel tasks, and across a variety of child responses; and (c) assessing social validity of the training materials and outcomes. Results showed that parents successfully implemented guided compliance procedures with a confederate following VMVOT and that parent behavior generalized to their children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and a novel environment. In addition, results of the social validity assessment showed that parent-trainees rated VMVOT highly as a training tool and that they were pleased with the results.
A TOBIT analysis of financial crisis impact on capital structure

Integration of India into the global economy and the contagious spread of financial crisis across countries has resulted in the financial restructuring of many industries. Textile industry, one of the major contributors of India's GDP and exports, changed their capital structure post financial crisis. Capital structure theories in the literature explain that the firm characteristics like size, profitability, tangibility, NDTS and growth affect the financing decision of the firm. In this study, t test was performed to prove that there is a significant change in the borrowing pattern before and after global financial crisis 2007-08 with the major influence on bank and financial institution borrowing. Further, TOBIT analysis was performed to find the influence of global financial crisis on firm's capital structure along with firm characteristics and industry groups as control variables. As a result, financial crisis impacts capital structure and the impact vary across different industry groups.
Expression of unusually large keratins during terminal differentiation: balance of type I and type II keratins is not disrupted

When a basal epidermal cell undergoes a commitment to terminally differentiate, it ceases to divide and begins to migrate outward towards the surface of the skin. Dramatic changes in its cytoskeletal architecture take place, accompanied by numerous changes in the expression of keratins, a family of related polypeptides that form 8-nm filaments in these cells. We show here that a shift to the synthesis of unusually large keratins occurs that does not seem to disrupt the ratio of two distinct subfamilies of keratins. Preliminary studies indicate that this differentiation-specific shift may be at the level of transcriptional rather than post-transcriptional regulation. The striking similarities between these large keratins and the type I and type II keratins of basal epidermal cells suggests the important role that both classes of large keratin sequences must play in the assembly of the intermediate filaments within the differentiating keratinocyte.
A methodology to derive sustainability indicators for software development projects

The ever-increasing pervasiveness of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) not only is determining radical changes in everyone’s life-style, in the social organizations, and in the economic dynamics, but it is causing relevant direct and indirect effects on the environment as well. One of the aspects not yet sufficiently addressed in literature is the sustainability of the software lifecycle. In this paper, we focus on the sustainability management of software development projects. In the practice, software development projects are managed by considering principally parameters as time, costs and quality of work products. We propose a methodological approach aimed at identifying sustainability indicators to be used in project management to set up sustainability objectives for a software development project, to control their achievement during the project itself and, possibly, to adopt corrective actions to maintain the project aligned with them. The availability of such sustainability indicators may contribute to reduce the carbon footprint of the activities performed in software development projects as well as to speed-up the development of a green culture in organizations developing software.
Measurement Invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale Across 26 Countries

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a commonly used life satisfaction scale. Cross-cultural researchers use SWLS to compare mean scores of life satisfaction across countries. Despite the wide use of SWLS in cross-cultural studies, measurement invariance of SWLS has rarely been investigated, and previous studies showed inconsistent findings. Therefore, we examined the measurement invariance of SWLS with samples collected from 26 countries. To test measurement invariance, we utilized three measurement invariance techniques: (a) multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA), (b) multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (ML-CFA), and (c) alignment optimization methods. The three methods demonstrated that configural and metric invariances of life satisfaction held across 26 countries, whereas scalar invariance did not. With partial invariance testing, we identified that the intercepts of Items 2, 4, and 5 were noninvariant. Based on two invariant intercepts, factor means of countries were compared. Chile showed the highest factor mean; Spain and Bulgaria showed the lowest. The findings enhance our understanding of life satisfaction across countries, and they provide researchers and practitioners with practical guidance on how to conduct measurement invariance testing across countries.
Courant Algebroids and Strongly Homotopy Lie Algebras

Courant algebroids are structures which include as examples the doubles of Lie bialgebras and the direct sum of tangent and cotangent bundles with the bracket introduced by T. Courant for the study of Dirac structures. Within the category of Courant algebroids one can construct the doubles of Lie bialgebroids, the infinitesimal objects for Poisson groupoids. We show that Courant algebroids can be considered as strongly homotopy Lie algebras.
Creating organizational structures to facilitate collegial interaction among teachers

Emerging from concerns about “contrived collegiality” in schools is also the recognition that breaking existing patterns of collegial interaction (or lack thereof) might necessitate some level of leader-initiated (or otherwise organizational) intervention. This paper presents the case of Middleville, a high-performing Midwestern US district, and changes in patterns of collegial interaction which occurred during their first seven years of implementation of the Success for All program—a program which employs a cohesive set of formal organizational controls. Utilizing qualitative data from interviews and focus groups with over 60 elementary school and district staff, we endeavored to better understand the ways in which the Success for All program and its various components have spurred collegial interaction and collegiality in Middleville. Findings reveal the utility of formal controls in pushing teachers to interact in ways which represent a break from past practice. Program facilitators, a unique teacher leader role within each school, played a key role in this process by mitigating the conflict and tension that invariably arises as a result of increased interaction. Findings also emphasize the importance of critically examining the purposes behind the cultivation of collaborative practice and the norms of collegiality to go along with it.
NONVERBAL SIGHS OF EMOTION: DO PROTOTYPICAL EXPRESSIONS OF BASIC EMOTIONS OCCUR WHEN EXPECTED?

Perceptual studies strongly support the hypothesis that prototypical expressions of emotion are widely recognized in the faces of other people. However, the question remains: Do people actually produce prototypical expressions when they experience the corresponding emotion? This study investigated the hypothesis that people produce prototypical facial expressions of joy, sadness, fear, and disgust when experiencing these emotions. Emotions were elicited in a variety of emotion inductions. Self-report measures of emotion confirmed that the target emotions were elicited. Prototypical expressions were defined in terms of specific action unit combinations as proposed by Ekman and colleagues. Modest evidence was found for the correspondence between prototypical expressions and emotion. Prototypical expressions of joy and disgust occurred with high frequency and lasted longer in the corresponding emotion induction, but occurred with high frequency at other times as well. Prototypical expressions of sadness occurred with high frequency when unexpected (e.g., joy condition). Prototypical expressions of fear failed to occur even when participants reported that emotion. Discussion is focused on considerations in studying emotion expression in laboratory settings and directions for future work in facial expression of emotion.
Araucaria: Software for Puzzles in Argument Diagramming and XML

Argumentation theory involves the analysis of naturally occurring argument, and one key tool employed to this end both in the academic community and in teaching critical thinking skills to undergraduates is argument diagramming. By identifying the structure of an argument in terms of its constituents and the relationships between them, it becomes easier to critically evaluate each part of an argument in turn. The task of analysis and diagramming, however, is labor intensive and often idiosyncratic, which can make academic exchange difficult. The Araucaria system provides an interface which supports the diagramming process, and then saves the result using AML, an open standard, designed in XML, for describing argument structure. Araucaria aims to be of use not only in pedagogical situations, but also in support of research activity. As a result, it has been designed from the outset to handle more advanced argumentation theoretic concepts such as schemes, which capture stereotypical patterns of reasoning. The software is also designed to be compatible with a number of applications under development, including dialogic interaction and online corpus provision. Together, these features, combined with its platform independence and ease of use, have the potential to make Araucaria a valuable resource to the academic community.
Keefektifan pembelajaran matematika berbasis masalah dan penemuan terbimbing ditinjau dari hasil belajar kognitif kemampuan berpikir kreatif

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk membandingkan keefektifan pembelajaran matematika berbasis masalah dan pembelajaran penemuan terbimbing ditinjau dari hasil belajar kognitif dan kemampuan berpikir kreatif siswa kelas VIII SMP. Penelitian ini adalah eksperimen semu. Populasi penelitian mencakup seluruh siswa kelas VIII SMP Negeri 5 Yogyakarta tahun pelajaran 2014/2015 yang terdiri atas sembilan kelas. Sampel penelitianmenggunakan kelas VIII.8 dan VIII. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: (1) pembelajaran berbasis masalah efektif ditinjau dari hasil belajar kognitif dan kemampuan berpikir kreatif siswa kelas VIII SMP, (2) pembelajaran penemuan terbimbing efektif ditinjau dari hasil belajar kognitif dan kemampuan berpikir kreatif siswa kelas VIII SMP, dan (3) pembelajaran berbasis masalah lebih efektif daripada pembelajaran penemuan terbimbing ditinjau dari hasil belajar kognitif dan kemampuan berpikir kreatif siswa kelas VIII SMP. Kata Kunci : pembelajaran berbasis masalah, pembelajaran penemuan terbimbing, hasil belajar kognitif, dan kemampuan berpikir kreatif The effectiveness of mathematics problem-based learning and guided discovery learning viewed from the cognitive learning achievement and creative thinking skill Abstract This research aimed to describe the comparison of the effectiveness of mathematics problem-based learning and guided discovery learning in term of the cognitive learning achievement and creative thinking skill of grade VIII students of junior high school. This research was a quasi-experimental design. The research population included all of grade VIII students of SMP Negeri 5 Yogyakarta in the academic year of 2014/2015 which consisted of nine classes, The sample was classess VIII.8 and VIII.9 randomly selected. The result shows that: (1) mathematics problem-based learning was effective in terms of the cognitive learning achievement and creative thinking skill of grade VIII students of junior high school, (2) mathematics guided discovery learning was effective in terms of the cognitive learning achievement and creative thinking skill of grade VIII students of junior high school, and (3) mathematics problem-based learning was more effective than guided discovery learning in terms of the cognitive learning achievement and creative thinking skill of grade VIII students of junior high school. Keywords : problem-based learning, guided discovery learning, cognitive learning achievement and creative thinking skill
Inverse kinematics of modular Cable-driven Snake-like Robots with flexible backbones

A Cable-driven Snake-like Robot (CSR) with a flexible backbone possesses a number of promising advantages over the conventional rigid-link manipulators, such as lightweight mechanical structure, large reachable workspace, high dexterity, and high maneuverability. In general, a CSR is a hyper-redundant manipulator that consists of a large number of identical or similar segments. A modular design approach is employed in this paper in order to simplify the CSR design, analysis, and control to a manageable level. As the basic building block of CSRs, a 2-DOF cable-driven joint module with a flexible backbone is proposed. Based on the motion characteristics of the 2-DOF joint module, the concept of instantaneous rotation axis in conjunction with the Product-Of-Exponentials (POE) formula is proposed to formulate its kinematic model. However, as the instantaneous rotation axis is unfixed, the Lie Bracket method from the Group theory is employed to derive the instantaneous kinematic model of the joint module. With the joint's kinematics model, a configuration-independent numerical inverse kinematics (NIK) algorithm is formulated for the modular CSRs. The effectiveness of the proposed NIK algorithm is validated through simulation examples.
Levels of soluble human leukocyte antigen-G are increased in asthmatic airways

To the Editors: Human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) is a non-classical, class Ib, major histocompatibility complex antigen, encoded by a gene on chromosome 6p21 within the HLA complex 1. HLA-G is constitutively expressed during pregnancy where it has a critical role in maintaining immune tolerance toward the allogenic fetus and placenta 2, 3, but has also been associated with inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, and ulcerative colitis, and with solid-organ transplantation 3, 4. We recently reported associations between variation in HLA-G and risk for asthma in Chicago-area asthma families, in multigenerational Dutch asthma families and in a birth cohort at high risk for developing asthma 1, 5. A role for HLA-G in asthma pathogenesis was further suggested by the demonstration of expression of a soluble isoform of HLA-G, sHLA-G5, in airway epithelial cells 1 and of increased circulating plasma levels of sHLA-G in children with atopic asthma 6. Because airway inflammation in asthma involves a T-helper cell (Th) type 2-skewing of lymphocytes similar to pregnancy, HLA-G is an attractive candidate molecule for promoting the immune profile characteristic of asthma. Localisation of HLA-G to airway epithelium suggests that its dysregulation could contribute to airway inflammation in chronic asthma. To evaluate this further, we hypothesised that HLA-G abundance would be increased in asthmatic airways. To test this hypothesis, we measured concentrations of sHLA-G in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid obtained from 12 non-asthmatic control subjects and 15 subjects with mild persistent asthma. The use of human subjects was approved by the University of Chicago Institutional Review Board (Chicago, IL, USA). Asthma was diagnosed using National Asthma Education and Prevention Program guidelines. …
A New Approach to the Study of Consciousness from the Theory of Integrated Information Point of View (Review)

L.A. Legostaeva, PhD Student, Neurologist, Neurocritical Care; E.A. Zmeykina, Research-Engineer, Neuro-Rehabilitation Department; A.G. Poydasheva, Junior Researcher, Neurologist, Neurophysiologist, Neuro-Rehabilitation Department; D.V. Sergeev, MD, PhD, Neurologist, Department of Neurocritical Care; D.O. Sinitsyn, PhD, Engineer-Researcher, Neuro-Rehabilitation Department; E.I. Kremneva, MD, PhD, Senior Researcher, Radiologist, Department of Neuroimaging; A.V. Chervyakov, MD, PhD, Senior Researcher, Neurologist, Neurophysiologist, Neuro-Rehabilitation Department; Yu.V. Ryabinkina, MD, DSc, Leading Researcher, Department of Neurocritical Care; N.A. Suponeva, MD, PhD, Neurologist, Neurophysiologist, Head of the Neuro-Rehabilitation Department; M.A. Piradov, MD, DSc, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director
The Role of the Hippocampus Declarative Memory: A Reply

In Nadel’s comment on our study (Zola-Morgan et al., 1994), he reiterates the view that the hippocampus has a selective role in spatial memory, i.e., the hippocampus stores information about nonegocentric space (viewpoint-independent space; O’Keefe and Nadel, 1978; Nadel, 199 1). In the context of our report, he points out that four monkeys with lesions limited to the hippocampal region (the H lesion, which includes the cell fields of the hippocampus proper, the dentate gyrus, and the subiculum) were impaired on the delayed nonmatching to sample task only at a delay of 10 min’, and not at shorter delays of 15 s and 60 s. The monkeys were removed from the testing apparatus during the 10-min delay and returned to their home cages. Because task performance under this condition could conceivably require re-identifying the spatial context in which the sample was originally presented, Nadel suggests that this version of the nonmatching task, with long delays, could be construed as a spatial memory task and that our results could therefore be interpreted as supporting the spatial mapping theory of hippocampal function. To our mind, Nadel’s commentary simply identifies that our study (which was designed to determine the severity of impairment following H lesions and other lesions, not to distinguish between theories of hippocampal function) may be consistent with more than one view of hippocampal function. In the sections that follow, we make two specific points about our findings, one about removing animals from the testing apparatus and one about the nature of the lesions. We then make a more general point about the spatial memory hypothesis of hippocampal function.