Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MoGlow

Data-driven modelling and synthesis of motion is an active research area with applications that include animation, games, and social robotics. This paper introduces a new class of probabilistic, generative, and controllable motion-data models based on normalising flows. Models of this kind can describe highly complex distributions, yet can be trained efficiently using exact maximum likelihood, unlike GANs or VAEs. Our proposed model is autoregressive and uses LSTMs to enable arbitrarily long time-dependencies. Importantly, is is also causal, meaning that each pose in the output sequence is generated without access to poses or control inputs from future time steps; this absence of algorithmic latency is important for interactive applications with real-time motion control. The approach can in principle be applied to any type of motion since it does not make restrictive, task-specific assumptions regarding the motion or the character morphology. We evaluate the models on motion-capture datasets of human and quadruped locomotion. Objective and subjective results show that randomly-sampled motion from the proposed method outperforms task-agnostic baselines and attains a motion quality close to recorded motion capture.
Theta Functions and Adiabatic Curvature on a Torus

Let $M$ be a complex torus, $L_{\hat\mu}\to M$ be positive line bundles parametrized by $\hat \mu\in {\rm Pic}^0(M)$, and $E\to {\rm Pic}^0(M)$ be a vector bundle with $E|_{\hat\mu}\cong H^0(M, L_{\hat \mu})$. We endow the total family $\{L_{\hat\mu}\}_{\hat\mu}$ with a Hermitian metric that induces the $L^2$-metric on $H^0(M, L_{\hat \mu})$ hence on $E$. By using theta functions $\{\theta_m\}_{m}$ on $M\times M$ as a family of functions on the first factor $M$ with parameters in the second factor $M$, our computation of the full curvature tensor $\Theta_E$ of $E$ with respect to this $L^2$-metric shows that $\Theta_E$ is essentially an identity matrix multiplied by a constant $2$-form, which yields in particular the adiabatic curvature $c_1(E)$. After a natural base change $M\to \hat M$ so that $E\times_{\hat M} M:=E'$, we also obtain that $E'$ splits holomorphically into a direct sum of line bundles each of which is isomorphic to $L_{\hat\mu=0}^*$. Physically, the spaces $H^0(M, L_{\hat \mu})$ correspond to the lowest eigenvalue with respect to certain family of Hamiltonian operators on $M$ parametrized by $\hat\mu$ or in physical notation, by wave vectors $\bf k$.
A complex analysis approach to Atangana–Baleanu fractional calculus

The standard definition for the Atangana–Baleanu fractional derivative involves an integral transform with a Mittag‐Leffler function in the kernel. We show that this integral can be rewritten as a complex contour integral which can be used to provide an analytic continuation of the definition to complex orders of differentiation. We discuss the implications and consequences of this extension, including a more natural formula for the Atangana–Baleanu fractional integral and for iterated Atangana–Baleanu fractional differintegrals.
Monocular Plan View Networks for Autonomous Driving

Convolutions on monocular dash cam videos capture spatial invariances in the image plane but do not explicitly reason about distances and depth. We propose a simple transformation of observations into a bird’s eye view, also known as plan view, for end-to-end control. We detect vehicles and pedestrians in the first person view and project them into an overhead plan view. This representation provides an abstraction of the environment from which a deep network can easily deduce the positions and directions of entities. Additionally, the plan view enables us to leverage advances in 3D object detection in conjunction with deep policy learning. We evaluate our monocular plan view network on the photo-realistic Grand Theft Auto V simulator. A network using both a plan view and front view causes less than half as many collisions as previous detection-based methods and an order of magnitude fewer collisions than pure pixel-based policies.
The influence of transformed government on citizen trust: insights from Bahrain

ABSTRACT The trust and confidence of citizens in their governments has been declining in recent decades. Electronic government (e-government) is seen as a means to reverse this trend. Despite conflicting conclusions in the literature, there is a consensus that e-government-led transformation can improve citizen confidence and trust in government. This research investigates the influence of e-government-led transformation on citizen trust and confidence in the context of a developing country, the Kingdom of Bahrain. A conceptual model is developed, tested and validated using an online survey targeting ordinary citizens of the country. Based on 313 responses, the findings suggest that citizen trust and confidence is positively influenced by a government transformation, and this relationship is mediated by both government performance and citizen satisfaction. In addition, the results show that key factors must be met to achieve transformed government through the use of e-government systems: transparency, accountability, and meeting citizens’ expectations.
Wave interaction in rotary vibro-tactile displays for human communication

This project began with the aim of developing an efficient vibrotactile communication device. A review of existing devices, mainly designed for speech communication, suggested that although adding an extra stimulator can improve the performance in some situations, it can degrade the performance in another situation. To explain these varied results, the properties of the human vibrotactile system involved in the perception of mechanical stimuli were studied. This study suggested that there is a great deal of interaction vdthin the vibrotactile perceptual system, part of which is essential for a stimulus to be perceived. It also raised the question regarding the relative importance of the interaction which takes place prior to the tactile receptor as opposed to that occurring from the receptor onwards. Methods to reduce this interaction were introduced and on this basis a novel rotary vibrator was developed. A psychophysical method specifically aimed at measuring the interaction at the level between the stimulation site and the tactile receptors was developed. This method is based on the detection of “beats” arising from stimulation of two vibrators at slightly different frequencies. A system capable of driving a pair of similar vibrators at approximately 15dB SL over the frequency range of 25-500Hz was developed. The results of the psychophysical tests show that the introduced method of measuring interaction is indeed a practical method. In addition, the data from this study suggest that there is a difference between the perceived level of interaction from the two types of vibrators. The interaction is less in the case of the rotary vibrator compared to the conventional perpendicular vibrator at frequencies lower than about 50Hz. These findings offer a new way to look at the development of future vibrotactile devices. IN THE LOVING MEMORY OF MY LITTLE BROTHER.
A contextualized IT adoption and use model for telemedicine in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT Health care is a critical contributor to the socioeconomic development of a country. Telemedicine systems can improve health care within such countries. This study develops a telemedicine adoption and use model that embraces psychosocial, behavioral, work process, and organizational-related variables that impact a physician’s adoption and continuance of use of telemedicine. Two hundred and five questionnaires from medical professions at the Black Lion Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, were used in this study. The study found that “Facilitating conditions,” “Compatibility with medical practice” and “Compatibility with physicians preferred work style” are the most prominent constructs in the study context. These findings suggest that the external environment in which a telemedicine system is used will have a significant impact on its use. Therefore, when a telemedicine system is transferred from a developed country to a less-developed country, we will likely see different issues arise in the adoption and use of the system.
Organizational citizenship behavior of IT professionals: lessons from Poland and Germany*

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research is to investigate the similarities and differences in Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) of male and female information technology (IT) professionals in Poland and Germany, which represent a transition economy and a developed economy, respectively. We examined two dimensions of OCB: individually-oriented (OCBI) and organizationally-oriented (OCBO). We conducted an online survey among 282 Polish respondents and 80 German respondents, using a combination of random and snowball sampling. We observed both similarities and differences between Polish and German IT professionals. Overall, female subordinates evaluated their supervisors’ OCB more positively than did male subordinates. In contrast, female supervisors evaluated their subordinates’ OCB less positively than did male supervisors. Also, it was evident that in Germany employees value OCB more than those in Poland. In conclusion, our findings contribute to the stream of existing research on the relationship between gender, country and OCB in transition and developed economies in Europe.
An exploratory study of the determinants of information technology hardware production: a country-level analysis*

ABSTRACT This research examines empirically factors influencing IT hardware production by employing a country-level data set for 1985–2009. Our results show that IT hardware production is driven by various country-level factors, but the impacts of these factors differ for two types of IT hardware. Electronic data processing (EDP) production has shifted to low GDP countries where wage levels are low, and a large portion of EDP produced in these countries tend to be exported to high GDP countries where demand is high. While the gap has decreased, however, medical and industrial equipment (MIE) production is still largely done in advanced economies. These findings imply that losing the manufacturing base in the U.S. might not be an issue for certain types of products, such as EDP, but it could be a serious issue for MIE. Thus, policies must be industry specific; a ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy would not work for the global IT industry.
Bundling the Way to Bankruptcy: Economic Theory Should Inform the Design of Sugary-Drink Menus Used in Research

In previous work (Wilson, Stolarz-Fantino, & Fantino, 2013), we examined whether a legal regulation limiting the sizes of sugary drinks would be effective if largersized drinks were converted into bundles of smallersized drinks. Our study was conducted in anticipation of a sugary-drink limit being enacted in New York City. Our primary point was that new regulations may be ineffective if policymakers do not consider that businesses will always choose to offer only the most profitable menus, within the limits of those regulations. For many public-health regulations to be effective, policymakers must consider both consumption and business profit. It is therefore important for researchers to consider profit maximization in menu design, or studies are likely to suggest ill-informed implementations. In a recent study, John, Donnelly, and Roberto (2017) attempted to shed light on the policy implications of a sugary-drink portion limit. Their menu design, however, ignored economic theory and standard business practices that make menus profit maximizing. The menus used in these experiments were confusing and unappealing, and they did not represent menus businesses would actually offer in response to new regulation. In order for their research to have policy implications, John et al. would need to demonstrate that their menus are profit maximizing. Moreover, even if businesses were required to offer one of their menus, the experimental data did not show that this would effectively reduce caloric consumption.1 Rather than offering the unappealing menus used by John et al., businesses would almost certainly offer more attractive menus. Therefore, the absence of any significant change in consumption (i.e., a failure to achieve the policy goal, but with no harmful consequences) might have been a best-case scenario for the New York City regulation limiting the portion size for sugary drinks. Profit-Maximizing Menus
Exploring Processing In-Memory for Different Technologies

The recent emergence of IoT has led to a substantial increase in the amount of data processed. Today, a large number of applications are data intensive, involving massive data transfers between processing core and memory. These transfers act as a bottleneck mainly due to the limited data bandwidth between memory and the processing core. Processing in memory (PIM) avoids this latency problem by doing computations at the source of data. In this paper, we propose designs which enable PIM in the three major memory technologies, i.e. SRAM, DRAM, and the newly emerging non-volatile memories (NVMs). We exploit the analog properties of different memories to implement simple logic functions, namely OR, AND, and majority inside memory. We then extend them further to implement in-memory addition and multiplication. We compare the three memory technologies with GPU by running general applications on them. Our evaluations show that SRAM, NVM, and DRAM are 29.8x (36.3x), 17.6x (20.3x) and 1.7x (2.7x) better in performance (energy consumption) as compared to AMD GPU.
Deposit Volatility, Liquidity and Long-Term Investment: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Pakistan

Deposit volatility and costly bank liquidity increase the long-term lending rates offered by banks, which reduce loan maturities, long-term investment and output. We formalise this mechanism in a banking model and analyse exogenous variation in deposit volatility induced by a Sharia levy in Pakistan. Data from the credit registry and a firm-level survey show that deposit volatility and liquidity cost: 1) reduce loan maturities and lending rates; 2) leave loan amounts and total investment unchanged; 3) redirect investment from fixed assets towards working capital. A targeted liquidity program is quantified to generate yearly output gains between 0.042% and 0.205%. JEL: O12, G21, O16, E58 Keywords: Development, Banking, Investment, Central Banks
Nondepolarizing Neuromuscular Blockers Inhibit the Serotonin-Type 3A Receptor Expressed in Xenopus Oocytes

Molecular cloning and sequence comparison indicates a high degree of structural homology between muscle nicotinic acetylcholine (nACh) and serotonin-type 3 (5-HT3A) receptors, both members of the direct ligand-gated family of ion channels. Because of the structural similarities and common evolutionary origin of these receptors, neuromuscular blockers (competitive nACh antagonists) may demonstrate pharmacologic cross talk and exhibit attributes of 5-HT3A receptor antagonists. We examined six clinically-used neuromuscular blockers for their ability to antagonize currents flowing through the 5-HT3A receptors in voltage clamped Xenopus oocytes. The neuromuscular blockers reversibly inhibited the 5-HT3A receptor-gated current in the rank order potency of (IC50 mean ± SEM):d-tubocurarine (0.046 ± 0.003 &mgr;M), atracurium (0.40 ± 0.03 &mgr;M), mivacurium (15.1 ± 2.93 &mgr;M), vecuronium (16.3 ± 2.24 &mgr;M), and rocuronium (19.5 ± 2.31 &mgr;M). Gallamine was essentially inactive as a 5-HT3A receptor antagonist with an extrapolated IC50 of 1170 &mgr;M. We demonstrate that drugs classically known as competitive nACh receptor antagonists also block 5-HT3A receptors. It is likely that certain neuromuscular blockers share pharmacological properties with 5-HT3A receptor antagonists, such as a reduction in postoperative nausea and vomiting. With careful drug selection, pharmacological cross talk could potentially be used to minimize polypharmacy and optimize patient management. Implications Muscle nicotinic acetylcholine and serotonin-type 3A (5-HT3A) receptors are similar. Therefore neuromuscular relaxants may block 5-HT3A receptors. Our pharmacological study demonstrates that neuromuscular relaxants, as with ondansetron, are 5-HT3A receptor antagonists. It is likely that certain neuromuscular relaxants exhibit ondansetron-like clinical properties, such as reduction in postoperative nausea and vomiting.
Towards Optimizing Refresh Energy in embedded-DRAM Caches using Private Blocks

In recent years, the increased working set size of applications craves for more memory demand in terms of large size Last Level Caches (LLC). To fulfill this, embedded DRAM (eDRAM) caches have been considered as one of the best alternatives over conventional SRAM caches. eDRAM has a property of low leakage and provides more capacity in the same area footprint of SRAM. However, its retention period consumes significant refresh energy in the periodic refresh. In this paper, we present an approach to minimize the total energy spent on refreshes by considering the presence of private blocks in the LLC. Our approach restricts refreshing of those blocks that are loaded exclusively from the main memory on an LLC miss. Experimental result using full system simulation show 55% reduction in the total number of refreshes compared to baseline policy; and 62% reduction in total power consumption over SRAM.
Discovering the determinants and predicting the degree of e-business diffusion using the decision tree method: evidence from Montenegro*

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of technical, organizational and environmental factors on the level of diffusion of electronic business in a developing country. Unlike most previous studies, the intention of this study is to determine and predict the interactive impact of these factors using decision tree (DT) method. This method automatically detects the dependence between variables and does not require any pre-defined hypotheses in relation to these dependencies. In addition, differences are also examined in the degree of influence of these factors in the context of a range of economic sectors and types of e-business. The results of the study show that the level of significance of the individually observed factors varies across different industries and types of business. The results of this study may have theoretical and practical implications for developing countries in terms of the contribution of e-business diffusion to overall socio-economic development.
Profile of Released Guantánamo Detainees: The Government’s Story Then and Now

A review of the Department of Defense’s own data reveals that there is not a consistent practice of releasing Guantanamo Bay detainees based on their alleged association to al Qaeda and/or the Taliban. In addition, the number of charges against any given detainee does not seem to affect his release date. Instead, the only constant correlation to detainees who are released earlier than others is the nationality of those released. A finding that the only causal relation to release date is nationality shows that either the Department of Defense never believed their own allegations for the basis of detention, or that they knowingly released individuals they believed to be dangerous.
Molecular analysis of tetracycline resistance in Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovars Typhimurium, Enteritidis, Dublin, Choleraesuis, Hadar and Saintpaul: construction and application of specific gene probes

A total of 65 epidemiologically unrelated tetracycline‐resistant isolates of the six Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica (Salm.) serovars Dublin, Choleraesuis, Typhimurium, Enteritidis, Hadar and Saintpaul were investigated for the presence of tetracycline resistance genes. For this, specific gene probes of the tetracycline resistance genes (tet) of the hybridization classes A, B, C, D, E and G were constructed by cloning PCR‐amplified internal segments of the respective tet structural genes. These gene probes were sequenced and used in hybridization experiments with plasmid DNA or endonuclease digested whole cell DNA as targets. Only tet(A) genes were detected on plasmids in all Salm. Dublin isolates as well as in single isolates of Salm. Choleraesuis and Salm. Typhimurium. Genes of the hybridization classes B, C, D and G, but also in some cases those of class A, were located in the chromosomal DNA of the corresponding Salmonella isolates. Restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) of tet gene carrying fragments were detected in chromosomally tetracycline‐resistant isolates. These RFLPs might represent valuable additional tools for the identification and characterization of tetracycline‐resistant Salmonella isolates.
dajFS: A New File System with Per-directory Adaptive Journaling

A journaling file system is a file system that records information about pending updates to the file system before committing the updates. This mechanism raises the reliability of the system because it enables any inconsistencies to be repaired with minimal loss of data. Since there is a tradeoff between the overhead and reliability, ext3, a journaling file system commonly used by the Linux kernel, offers three journaling modes: speed-prioritized mode, reliability-prioritized mode, and intermediate mode. Unfortunately, in ext3, the journaling mode has to be set individually for each file system. Thus, the granularity of the journaling mode setting is very coarse. In addition, the journaling mode must be determined at the time of mounting the file system and cannot be changed without unmounting it. To resolve this problem, this paper proposes a new journaling file system named dajFS (per-directory adaptive journaling file system) that is able to set an appropriate journaling mode for each directory and to switch the journaling mode of a directory to another on the fly without unmounting the file system. Essentially, the journaling mode that is specified for a directory applies to all files that reside directly under that directory. By using dajFS, the user can determine and set a journaling mode for each directory on the basis of the importance of files under that directory. As a result, the user can enjoy moderate granularity with the journaling mode setting.
Elevated Urinary VCAM-1, P-Selectin, Soluble TNF Receptor-1, and CXC Chemokine Ligand 16 in Multiple Murine Lupus Strains and Human Lupus Nephritis1

In an effort to identify potential biomarkers in lupus nephritis, urine from mice with spontaneous lupus nephritis was screened for the presence of VCAM-1, P-selectin, TNFR-1, and CXCL16, four molecules that had previously been shown to be elevated in experimental immune nephritis, particularly at the peak of disease. Interestingly, all four molecules were elevated ∼2- to 4-fold in the urine of several strains of mice with spontaneous lupus nephritis, including the MRL/lpr, NZM2410, and B6.Sle1. lpr strains, correlating well with proteinuria. VCAM-1, P-selectin, TNFR-1, and CXCL16 were enriched in the urine compared with the serum particularly in active disease, and were shown to be expressed within the diseased kidneys. Finally, all four molecules were also elevated in the urine of patients with lupus nephritis, correlating well with urine protein levels and systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity index scores. In particular, urinary VCAM-1 and CXCL16 showed superior specificity and sensitivity in distinguishing subjects with active renal disease from the other systemic lupus erythematosus patients. These studies uncover VCAM-1, P-selectin, TNFR-1, and CXCL16 as a quartet of molecules that may have potential diagnostic significance in lupus nephritis. Longitudinal studies are warranted to establish the clinical use of these potential biomarkers.