Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Central Pattern Generators for Gait Generation in Bipedal Robots

An obvious problem confronting humanoid robotics is the generation of stable and efficient gaits. Whereas wheeled robots normally are statically balanced and remain upright regardless of the torques applied to the wheels, a bipedal robot must be actively balanced, particularly if it is to execute a human-like, dynamic gait. The success of gait generation methods based on classical control theory, such as the zero-moment point (ZMP) method (Takanishi et al., 1985), relies on the calculation of reference trajectories for the robot to follow. In the ZMP method, control torques are generated in order to keep the zero-moment point within the convex hull of the support area defined by the feet. When the robot is moving in a well-known environment, the ZMP method certainly works well. However, when the robot finds itself in a dynamically changing real-world environment, it will encounter unexpected situations that cannot be accounted for in advance. Hence, reference trajectories can rarely be specified under such circumstances. In order to address this problem, alternative, biologically inspired control methods have been proposed, which do not require the specification of reference trajectories. The aim of this chapter is to describe one such method, based on central pattern generators (CPGs), for control of bipedal robots. Clearly, walking is a rhythmic phenomenon, and many biological organisms are indeed equipped with CPGs, i.e. neural circuits capable of producing oscillatory output given tonic (non-oscillating) activation (Grillner, 1996). There exists biological evidence for the presence of central pattern generators in both lower and higher animals. The lamprey, which is one of the earliest and simplest vertebrate animals, swims by propagating an undulation along its body. The wave-like motion is produced by an alternating activation of motor neurons on the left and right sides of the segments along the body. The lamprey has a brain stem and spinal cord with all basic vertebrate features, but with orders of magnitude fewer nerve cells of each type than higher vertebrates. Therefore, it has served as a prototype organism for the detailed analysis of the nervous system, including CPGs, in neurophysiological studies (Grillner, 1991; Grillner, 1995). In some early experiments by Brown (Brown, 1911, Brown, 1912), it was shown that cats with transected spinal cord and with cut dorsal roots still showed rhythmic alternating contractions in ankle flexors and extensors. This was the basis of the concept of a spinal locomotor center, which Brown termed the half-center model (Brown, 1914). Further biological support for the existence of a spinal CPG structure in vertebrates is presented in (Duysens & Van de Crommert, 1998).
A Grammatico-Statistical Approach to Discourse Partitioning

The paper presents a new approach to text segmentation - which concerns dividing a text into coherent discourse units. The approach builds on the theory of discourse segment (Nomoto and Nitta, 1993), incorporating ideas from the research on information retrieval (Salton, 1988). A discourse segment has to do with a structure of Japanese discourse; it could be thought of as a linguistic unit demarcated by wa, a Japanese topic particle, which may extend over several sentences. The segmentation works with discourse segments and makes use of coherence measure based on tf-idf, a standard information retrieval measurement (Salton, 1988; Hearst, 1993). Experiments have been done with a Japanese newspaper corpus. It has been found that the present approach is quite successful in recovering articles from the unstructured corpus.
A sentence-matching method for automatic license identification of source code files

The reuse of free and open source software (FOSS) components is becoming more prevalent. One of the major challenges in finding the right component is finding one that has a license that is e for its intended use. The license of a FOSS component is determined by the licenses of its source code files. In this paper, we describe the challenges of identifying the license under which source code is made available, and propose a sentence-based matching algorithm to automatically do it. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by implementing a tool named Ninka. We performed an evaluation that shows that Ninka outperforms other methods of license identification in precision and speed. We also performed an empirical study on 0.8 million source code files of Debian that highlight interesting facts about the manner in which licenses are used by FOSS
Cytosolic DNA Triggers Mitochondrial Apoptosis via DNA Damage Signaling Proteins Independently of AIM2 and RNA Polymerase III

A key host response to limit microbial spread is the induction of cell death when foreign nucleic acids are sensed within infected cells. In mouse macrophages, transfected DNA or infection with modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) can trigger cell death via the absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2) inflammasome. In this article, we show that nonmyeloid human cell types lacking a functional AIM2 inflammasome still die in response to cytosolic delivery of different DNAs or infection with MVA. This cell death induced by foreign DNA is independent of caspase-8 and carries features of mitochondrial apoptosis: dependence on BAX, APAF-1, and caspase-9. Although it does not require the IFN pathway known to be triggered by infection with MVA or transfected DNA via polymerase III and retinoid acid-induced gene I-like helicases, it shows a strong dependence on components of the DNA damage signaling pathway: cytosolic delivery of DNA or infection with MVA leads to phosphorylation of p53 (serines 15 and 46) and autophosphorylation of ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM); depleting p53 or ATM with small interfering RNA or inhibiting the ATM/ATM-related kinase family by caffeine strongly reduces apoptosis. Taken together, our findings suggest that a pathway activating DNA damage signaling plays an important independent role in detecting intracellular foreign DNA, thereby complementing the induction of IFN and activation of the AIM2 inflammasome.
Word-level emphasis modelling in HMM-based speech synthesis

Expressive speech synthesis has recently attracted great interest. Word-level emphasis is an important form of expressiveness to distinguish between what is the focus of the utterance, and what the computer system expects to be known by the user. Previous work on emphasis synthesis requires emphatic data collected specifically for that task. In this paper, a statistical approach that models and extracts word-level emphasis patterns from natural speech is investigated within the HMM based speech synthesis framework. Compared to emphatic speech collected specifically for this task, the cues of emphasis in natural speech are weaker and heavily affected by various suprasegmental features. Two new decision tree clustering approaches, two-pass and factorized decision tree, are proposed to effectively address this problem. Experiments show that both approaches can convey emphasis significantly better than traditional decision tree clustering and HMM adaptation. While the two-pass decision tree approach outperformed the factorized decision tree approach in an emphasis synthesis test, the latter led to significantly better naturalness and hence achieved a better overall balance.
Generation and Utilization of Volatile Fatty Acids and Alcohols in Hydrothermally Altered Sediments in the Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California

Volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and alcohols are key intermediates of anaerobic carbon metabolism, yet their biogeochemical cycling remains poorly constrained in hydrothermal systems. We investigated the abundance, stable carbon isotopic composition, and metabolic cycling of VFAs and alcohols to elucidate their generation and utilization pathways in hydrothermally influenced sediments (4 °C to 90 °C) from the Guaymas Basin. Acetate (up to 229 μM) and methanol (up to 37 μM) were abundant in porewaters. The δ13C values of acetate varied between −35.6‰ and −18.1‰. Carbon isotopic signatures, thermodynamic predictions, and experimental incubations suggested biological sources such as fermentation and acetogenesis for acetate. Acetate and methanol were predominantly consumed by nonmethanogenic processes (e.g., sulfate reduction), as reflected in high oxidation rates versus low methanogenesis rates, and further evidenced through inhibition experiments with molybdate. These results reveal an important role for VFAs and alcohols as energy sources for diverse chemoheterotrophs in organic‐rich hydrothermally influenced sediments.
Local Similarity based Linear Graph Embedding: A Robust Face Recognition Framework for SSPP problem

As very popular methods for face recognition, subspace learning algorithms have attracted more and more attentions. However, they will suffer serious performance drop or fail to work when encountering SSPP problem. In this paper, we propose a robust framework called local similarity based linear graph embedding to solve this problem. Motivated by "divide and conquer" strategy, we first divide each face image into many local blocks and classify each block, and then integrate all the classification results by voting. To classify each block, we propose local similarity assumption, which not only makes LDA feasible to SSPP problem but also improves the performance of other subspace learning methods. Finally, we further summarize a general framework to unify these local similarity based subspace learning algorithms. Experimental results on two popular databases show that our methods not only generalize well to SSPP problem but also have strong robustness to expression, illumination, occlusion and time variation.
Genomic linkage of male song and female acoustic preference QTL underlying a rapid species radiation

The genetic coupling hypothesis of signal-preference evolution, whereby the same genes control male signal and female preference for that signal, was first inspired by the evolution of cricket acoustic communication nearly 50 years ago. To examine this hypothesis, we compared the genomic location of quantitative trait loci (QTL) underlying male song and female acoustic preference variation in the Hawaiian cricket genus Laupala. We document a QTL underlying female acoustic preference variation between 2 closely related species (Laupala kohalensis and Laupala paranigra). This preference QTL colocalizes with a song QTL identified previously, providing compelling evidence for a genomic linkage of the genes underlying these traits. We show that both song and preference QTL make small to moderate contributions to the behavioral difference between species, suggesting that divergence in mating behavior among Laupala species is due to the fixation of many genes of minor effect. The diversity of acoustic signaling systems in crickets exemplifies the evolution of elaborate male displays by sexual selection through female choice. Our data reveal genetic conditions that would enable functional coordination between song and acoustic preference divergence during speciation, resulting in a behaviorally coupled mode of signal-preference evolution. Interestingly, Laupala exhibits one of the fastest rates of speciation in animals, concomitant with equally rapid evolution in sexual signaling behaviors. Genomic linkage may facilitate rapid speciation by contributing to genetic correlations between sexual signaling behaviors that eventually cause sexual isolation between diverging populations.
Design of Multi-Mode Switch Strategy for Lean Burn Engine Using Driving Pattern Recognition Technique

A multi-mode switch strategy based on driving pattern recognition (DPR) technique used for lean burn engine is proposed in this paper. First, four representative driving patterns (RDP) are selected from nine Taiwan driving patterns. The single-mode switch strategy is then extracted and optimized for each RDP by analyzing the results of dynamic programming. The proposed strategy can select the appropriate single-mode switch strategy using the DPR technique, which is designed to classify the current driving scenario into one of the RDPs. Preliminary results show that the proposed strategy can significantly reduce the fuel consumption without excessive increment of NOx emission across all the test scenarios.
Evolution and biogeography of Alectryon (Sapindaceae).

Phylogenetic analysis of nucleotide sequences from four plastid loci (matK, partial trnK-matK introns, rps16 intron) and one nuclear locus (the internal transcribed spacer of rDNA; ITS-1) was conducted for 14 species of Alectryon and five related genera in Sapindaceae. Both matK and rps16 intron provide few informative characters within Alectryon, whereas ITS-1 provides the largest number of parsimony-informative characters and has the greatest sequence divergence between taxa. Support for branches in cladograms produced in PAUP increased markedly upon inclusion of ITS-1 data to matK and rps16 intron data. Analyses of each region alone or combined produced congruent results, suggesting that the regions are complementary. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that there are two main lineages within Alectryon, with A. subcinereus sister to the remaining sampled Alectryon taxa. Two morphological characters, presence/absence of petals and aril patterning, are congruent with the molecular phylogeny. One robustly supported clade is characterized by smooth arils and petals, in contrast to the taxa in the other major clade which have patterned arils and an absence of petals. These analyses also support a number of revised subgeneric groupings for Alectryon. The decision to submerge Heterodendrum in Alectryon is supported, although taxa belonging to Heterodendrum do not form a clade. The majority of the Australian Alectryon appear to belong to the tropical monsoonal/arid flora with species from both lineages being found in representative vine thickets across northern Australia. It appears that the seasonally dry rainforest communities comprise a number of elements that do not share common evolutionary histories within this genus.
A Handwritten Numeral Character Classification Using Tolerant Rough Set

Proposes a data classification method based on the tolerant rough set that extends the existing equivalent rough set. A similarity measure between two data is described by a distance function of all constituent attributes and they are defined to be tolerant when their similarity measure exceeds a similarity threshold value. The determination of optimal similarity threshold value is very important for accurate classification. So, we determine it optimally by using the genetic algorithm (GA), where the goal of evolution is to balance two requirements such that: 1) some tolerant objects are required to be included in the same class as many as possible; and 2) some objects in the same class are required to be tolerant as much as possible. After finding the optimal similarity threshold value, a tolerant set of each object is obtained and the data set is grouped into the lower and upper approximation set depending on the coincidence of their classes. We propose a two-stage classification method such that all data are classified by using the lower approximation at the first stage and then the nonclassified data at the first stage are classified again by using the rough membership functions obtained from the upper approximation set. We apply the proposed classification method to the handwritten numeral character classification problem and compare its classification performance and learning time with those of the feedforward neural network's backpropagation algorithm.
Information-theoretic analysis of interscale and intrascale dependencies between image wavelet coefficients

This paper presents an information-theoretic analysis of statistical dependencies between image wavelet coefficients. The dependencies are measured using mutual information, which has a fundamental relationship to data compression, estimation, and classification performance. Mutual information is computed analytically for several statistical image models, and depends strongly on the choice of wavelet filters. In the absence of an explicit statistical model, a method is studied for reliably estimating mutual information from image data. The validity of the model-based and data-driven approaches is assessed on representative real-world photographic images. Our results are consistent with empirical observations that coding schemes exploiting inter- and intrascale dependencies alone perform very well, whereas taking both into account does not significantly improve coding performance. A similar observation applies to other image processing applications.
Preliminary study on fabrication, characterization and synergistic anti-lung cancer effects of self-assembled micelles of covalently conjugated celastrol–polyethylene glycol–ginsenoside Rh2

Abstract The aim of this study was to develop an amphipathic polyethylene glycol (PEG) derivative that was bi-terminally modified with celastrol and ginsenoside Rh2 (Celastrol-PEG-G Rh2). Such derivative was capable of forming novel, celastrol-loaded polymeric micelles (CG-M) for endo/lysosomal delivery and thereby synergistic treatment of lung cancer. Celastrol-PEG-G Rh2 with a yield of 55.6% was first synthesized and characterized. Its critical micellar concentration was 1 × 10−5 M, determined by pyrene entrapment method. CG-M had a small particle size of 121.53 ± 2.35 nm, a narrow polydispersity index of 0.214 ± 0.001 and a moderately negative zeta potential of –23.14 ± 3.15 mV. Celastrol and G Rh2 were rapidly released from CG-M under acidic and enzymatic conditions, but slowly released in normal physiological environments. In cellular studies, the internalization of celastrol and G Rh2 by human non-small cell lung cancer (A549) cells treated with CG-M was 5.8-fold and 1.8-fold higher than that of non-micelle control. Combinational therapy of celastrol and G Rh2 using CG-M exhibited synergistic anticancer activities in cell apoptosis and proliferation assays via rapid drug release within endo/lysosomes. Most importantly, the celastrol in CG-M exhibited a long elimination half-life of 445.3 ± 43.5 min and an improved area under the curve of 645060.8 ± 63640.7 ng/mL/h, that were 1.03-fold and 2.44-fold greater than those of non-micelle control, respectively. These findings suggest that CG-M is a promising vector for precisely releasing anticancer drugs within the tumor cells, and thereby exerts an improved synergistic anti-lung cancer effect.
Learning from PlanetLab

PlanetLab has been an enormously successful testbed for networking and distributed systems research, and it is likely to have a significant influence on future systems. In this paper, we examine PlanetLab's success, and caution against an uncritical acceptance of the factors that led to it. We discuss nine design decisions that were essential to Planet-Lab's initial success and yet in our view should be revisited in order to better position PlanetLab for its future growth.
Fast central catadioptric line extraction, estimation, tracking and structure from motion

In this paper we present an analysis of 3D line projections for central catadioptric cameras from a projective perspective. Most algorithms consider the projection of lines as general conics in the image plane with five degrees of freedom. However, in the calibrated case, only two parameters are needed to represent lines. We describe methods to obtain fast extraction and estimation algorithms. We then explain how classical edge-tracking algorithms can be adapted to these sensors. To this avail, we introduce two parametric equations for lines in central catadioptric images. We then propose a minimal representation for the euclidean transformation in the structure from motion problem and introduce possible metrics between a point and a central catadioptric line. These metrics are evaluated on simulated data. The structure from motion algorithm, from the line extraction process to the tracking and the reconstruction is tested on a real sequence
Teleoperation of a multi-purpose robot over the internet using augmented reality

Bilateral teleoperation using augmented reality is proposed for a multi-purpose robot called SpiderBot-II that is an indoor-installed wire-driven parallel manipulator. It is intended to be used for various applications, including in-house rehabilitation training and daily life assistance such as walking assistance and health monitoring, especially for the elderly or the handicapped that spends most of time at home. Through the teleoperation over the Internet, a therapist or an attendant in a remote site can give help to the physically disabled by directly manipulating the robot. For easy recognition of the obstacle, predefined markers are attached to each obstacle in the workspace. For better teleoperation, moreover, reaction force between obstacles and the end-effector, which is calculated using force field, is given to a remote operator and this enables the operator to perform the teleoperation more effectively. Force field, which is proportional to proximity between obstacles and the end-effector, is generated to facilitate the obstacle avoidance and visually augmented on the operator's screen for better recognition of obstacles.
Identifying glacio–isostatic rebound processes using testate amoeba as palaeohydrological proxies; a case study from subarctic Québec, Canada

Glacio–isostatic rebound is one of the most important landscape processes affecting the northern and northeastern coast of Canada and, therefore, reconstruction of postglacial rebound rates is critical for a better understanding of landscape evolution in this region. Yet, studies reconstructing coastal palaeogeography in Northern Canadaare constrained by the limitation of shell–based radiocarbon chronologies used in dating shoreline displacementand palaeo–sea levels. This study proposes an alternative methodology for the reconstruction and dating of palaeo–sea levels, which uses testate amoeba microfossils from coastal sediments as palaeoecological markers of coastal water table shifts linked to sea level change. Our results indicate that testate amoeba–inferred water table reconstruction is a good indicator of water table drawdown due to isostatic uplift on affected coastlines. Furthermore, radiocarbon dating of distinct plant macrofossils within the transitional marine/freshwater stratigraphy avoids the inherent reservoir effect issues associated with dating of marine shells.
A counterexample to decomposing climate shifts and trends by weather types

The literature contains a sizable number of publications where weather types are used to decompose climate shifts or trends into contributions of frequency and mean of those types. They are all based on the product rule, that is, a transformation of a product of sums into a sum of products, the latter providing the decomposition. While there is nothing to argue about the transformation itself, its interpretation as a climate shift or trend decomposition is bound to fail. While the case of a climate shift may be viewed as an incomplete description of a more complex behaviour, trend decomposition indeed produces bogus trends, as demonstrated by a synthetic counterexample with well‐defined trends in type frequency and mean. Consequently, decompositions based on that transformation, be it for climate shifts or trends, must not be used.