Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation framework for infant 3 D pose extraction from RGB images using RGB-D cameras and motion capture system

Infant motion analysis is important in diagnosing motor and cognitive developmental disorders such as cerebral palsy. Automated extraction of infant movement from only RGB videos could facilitate early and remote diagnostics of such disorders prior to an in-person assessment by a trained professional. Human pose estimation techniques from images and videos with outputs in 2D and even 3D are available. Fewer methods are available for infants. However, the accuracy of these methods is not known and datasets with corresponding ground truth data from motion capture systems are missing. This work bridges this gap by providing recordings of infants that were taken simultaneously with motion capture, RGB, and RGB-D cameras. Different methods of marker placement, synchronization, and alignment of different data streams, and comparison with pose estimation from RGB only are presented. Two infants (3 and 8 months old) were recorded. After completing the analysis, anonymizing the data, and adding more recordings, we plan to release this as a public dataset for the community.
Audit Quality and Short-Side Mispricing

Auditors may affect short-side mispricing—where price-based information and corporate monitoring is limited due to market frictions—because under a risk-based audit, auditors seek to limit overstated performance and help enforce timely recognition of losses. We find that Big 4 (specialist) auditors are associated with a reduction in annual short-side accounting anomaly returns of 1.5 (0.9) percentage points. Inferences are robust to using a difference-in-differences design that exploits shocks to audit quality and to using entropy balancing. Consistent with auditors influencing anomaly returns specifically through the audit of annual financial statements, we do not find an association between high-quality auditors and finance anomaly returns. In cross-sectional analyses, we find that high-quality auditors are (are not) associated with a reduction in short-side accounting anomaly returns in subsamples where market frictions are high (low). Finally, evidence suggests that high-quality auditing helps analysts incorporate accounting anomaly information. Overall, our evidence suggests that highquality auditors reduce short-side mispricing by improving the timeliness and credibility of financial reporting.
“Which Came First: The Chicken or the Egg?” Ditransitive and Passive Constructions in the English Production of Simultaneous Bilingual English Children

This article aims to shed light on the syntactic status attributed to ditransitive constructions— double object construction (DOC) and to/for-dative—with respect to which type of structure is syntactically transformed through a process analogous to that of passives. We will do so by providing an analysis of the ditransitives and passives that appear in the English production of a set of English/Spanish simultaneous bilingual twins. Our results show that DOCs start being produced earlier than to/for-datives. However, the age of onset of passives differs in the children though it is consistently produced later than ditransitives. Likewise, adult input goes hand in hand with the children’s production of ditransitives and passives since the high frequency of DOCs in this input, as opposed to the low frequency of to/for-datives and passives, is refected in child output. These fndings thus suggest that to/for-datives could be said to be derived from DOCs although, given the later acquisition of passives, no frm conclusions can be drawn as to whether this is done via a passive-like process. Keywords: ditransitives; double object constructions; to/for-dative structures; passives; bilingual acquisition; input .
Assessment of automatic exposure control performance in digital mammography using a no-reference anisotropic quality index

Automatic exposure control (AEC) is used in mammography to obtain acceptable radiation dose and adequate image quality regardless of breast thickness and composition. Although there are physics methods for assessing the AEC, it is not clear whether mammography systems operate with optimal dose and image quality in clinical practice. In this work, we propose the use of a normalized anisotropic quality index (NAQI), validated in previous studies, to evaluate the quality of mammograms acquired using AEC. The authors used a clinical dataset that consists of 561 patients and 1,046 mammograms (craniocaudal breast views). The results show that image quality is often maintained, even at various radiation levels (mean NAQI = 0.14 ± 0.02). However, a more careful analysis of NAQI reveals that the average image quality decreases as breast thickness increases. The NAQI is reduced by 32% on average, when the breast thickness increases from 31 to 71 mm. NAQI also decreases with lower breast density. The variation in breast parenchyma alone cannot fully account for the decrease of NAQI with thickness. Examination of images shows that images of large, fatty breasts are often inadequately processed. This work shows that NAQI can be applied in clinical mammograms to assess mammographic image quality, and highlights the limitations of the automatic exposure control for some images.
Latest advances in the semiclassical theory of the Stark broadening of spectral lines in plasmas

Spectral lines continue to be used as an important practical tool for diagnosing various laboratory and astrophysical plasmas. As experiments move to very high electron densities of plasmas or to strongly magnetized plasmas, new physical phenomena have to be taken into account while calculating Stark broadening of hydrogen spectral lines. As for spectral lines having dipole-forbidden components (such as, He-, He-like-, Li-, Li-like-lines), it is shown that they provide the best way for diagnosing Langmuir solitons in plasmas.
Optical and thermal performance of bladed receivers

Bladed receivers use conventional receiver tube-banks rearranged into bladed/finned structures, and offer better light trapping, reduced radiative and convective losses, and reduced tube mass, based on the presented optical and thermal analysis. Optimising for optical performance, deep blades emerge. Considering thermal losses leads to shallower blades. Horizontal blades perform better, in both windy and no-wind conditions, than vertical blades, at the scales considered so far. Air curtains offer options to further reduce convective losses; high flux on blade-tips is still a concern.
Convergence Studies For An Adaptive Meshless Least-squares Collocation Method

In this paper, we apply the recently proposed fast block-greedy algorithm to a convergent kernel-based collocation method. In particular, we discretize three-dimensional second-order elliptic differential equations by the meshless asymmetric collocation method with over-sampling. Approximated solutions are obtained by solving the resulting weighted least squares problem. Such formulation has been proven to have optimal convergence in H2. Our aim is to investigate the convergence behaviour of some three dimensional test problems. We also study the low-rank solution by restricting the approximation in some smaller trial subspaces. A block-greedy algorithm, which costs at most O(NK2) to select K columns (or trial centers) out of an M × N overdetermined matrix, is employed for such an adaptivity. Numerical simulations are provided to justify these reductions.
A Natural Proof System for Natural Language

We humans easily understand semantics of natural language text and make inferences based on it. But how can we make machines reason and carry out inferences on the text? The question represents a crucial problem for several research fields and is at the heart of the current thesis. One of the most intuitive approaches to model reasoning in natural language is to translate semantics of linguistic expressions into some formal logic that comes with an automated inference procedure. Unfortunately, designing such automatized translation turns out to be almost as hard as the initial problem of reasoning. In this thesis, following Muskens (2010), we develop a model for natural reasoning that takes a proof theoretic stand. Instead of a heavy translation procedure, we opt for a light-weight one. Logical forms obtained after the translation are natural in the sense that they come close to the original linguistic expressions. But at the same time, they represent terms of higher-order logic. In order to reason over such logical forms, we extend a tableau proof system for type theory by Muskens. An obtained natural tableau system employs inference rules specially tailored for various linguistic constructions. Since we employ the logical forms close to linguistic expressions, our approach contributes to the project of natural logic. Put differently, we employ the higher-order logic disguised as natural logic. Due to this hybrid nature, the proof system can carry out both shallow and deep reasoning over multiple-premised arguments. While doing so, a main vehicle for shallow reasoning is monotonicity calculus. In order to evaluate the natural proof system, we automatize it as a theorem prover for wide-coverage natural language text. In particular, first the logical forms are obtained from syntactic trees of linguistic expressions, and then they are processed by the prover. Despite its simple architecture, on certain textual entailment benchmarks the prover obtains high competitive results for both shallow and deep reasoning. Notice that this is done while it employs only WordNet as a knowledge base. The theorem prover also represents the first wide-coverage system for natural logic which can reason over multiple propositions at the same time. The thesis makes three major contributions. First, it significantly extends the natural tableau system for wide-coverage natural reasoning. After extending the type system and the format of tableau entries (Chapter 2), we collect a plethora of inference rules for a wide range of constructions (Chapter 4). Second, the thesis proposes a procedure to obtain the logical forms from syntactic derivations of linguistic expressions (Chapter 3). The procedure is anticipated as a useful tool for wide-coverage compositional semantic analysis. Last, based on the natural tableau system, the theorem prover for natural language is implemented (Chapter 5,6). The prover represents a state-of-the-art system of natural logic.
Explicit integration of a generic Hénon-Heiles system with quartic potential

There are seven time independent, integrable, Hénon-Heiles systems: three with cubic and four with quartic potential. The cubic and one of the quartic cases have been separated in the last decades. The other three cases 1:6:1, 1:6:8 and 1:12:16 have resisted several attempts in the last years. In this paper we focus our attention on the 1:12:16 case whose equations of motion have been separated only in the degenerate case ab = 0. We give here the separation coordinates for the generic case using a method introduced by Franco Magri in 2005 under the name of Kowalevski’s Conditions.
Numerical simulation of full-aperture-pair ion optics in a miniature ion thruster

The 211-aperture-pair two-grid ion optics of a miniature ion thruster is numerically simulated. Since the plasma in the miniature ion thruster is too inhomogeneous to introduce mirror or translational boundary conditions between apertures, all the apertures of the grid system are considered. The simulation is self-consistent, the ion current profile in the discharge chamber plasma is given by the particle-in-cell with Monte Carlo collision algorithm calculations, and all the ion beams extracted from the full-aperture-pair array were tracked including charge-exchange ions. A scheme for the construction of the full-aperture-pair simulation domain is proposed based on the array of a six-fold hexagonal single-aperture-pair simulation domain, which can be extended to other numbers of aperture pairs. Numerical results on accel impingement current and ion-beam profile are compared to experimental data and shown to be in reasonable agreement. Furthermore, the full-aperture-pair ion-optics model is compared with t.
Prepositional and Indirect Objects in the Grammatical Description of English

In this paper we show how two clausal syntax functions - the indirect and the prepositional objects - are explained in some grammatical descriptions of the English language, viz (Biber 1999), (Givon 1993), (Quirk 2010), (Alexander 1989), (COBUILD 2011), and (Huddleston 1984). In the first part we show the problematic points and the variety in defining the two functions and offer some of our ideas concerning their definition and analysis, while in the second part of the paper we study the criteria that the selected grammars use in describing the indirect and the prepositional objects, focusing on the following three grammars: (Alexander 1989), (COBUILD 2011), and (Huddleston 1984). We also present possible arguments in favor of the ‘prepositional verb + direct object’ analysis as opposed to the ‘verb phrase + prepositional object’ analysis.
ACOUSTICS OF A BUBBLE RISING IN A GRAVITATIONAL FIELD

The rising motion of a pulsating spherical bubble of gas and vapour in an isochoric, inviscid liquid is investigated. The motion is driven by a uniform and constant force field, as the gravitational one. The liquid is assumed at rest at the initial time, so that the flow is irrotational and is described in terms of a velocity potential, which is represented by means of a series of Legendre polynomials. After relating the bubble motion to the liquid flow, a nonlinear ODE system of two equations for the radius and the position of the center of mass of the bubble is written. The acoustic signal produced in the liquid by the bubble motion is evaluated by means of elliptic integrals. Moreover, an efficient approximation of it free from these special functions is proposed. The numerical integration of the ODE system allows to evaluate the acoustic signal and to compare it with the proposed approximation, in several sample flows.
Analytical Solution for Fin with Temperature Dependent Heat Transfer Coefficient

In this study, the differential transformation method (DTM) has been used for thermal characteristics of straight rectangular fin for all type of heat transfer and numerical comparison between DTM and adomain decomposition method (ADM) and exact analytical solution method as well as problem is solved numerically with fourth order Rang- Kutta method using shooting method because one of the boundary conditions is boundary value. Local heat transfer coefficient is assumed to vary power-law function of temperature. The obtained differential transform approximate analytic solution is in the form of an infinite power series, so that with obtained explicit form of temperature profile, the fin tip temperature, fin base heat transfer rate, and fin efficiency can be calculated directly from temperature profile easily, but in the exact analytical method obtained implicit form of temperature profile. Results showed that present results have excellent agreement with ADM results and exact analytical method results
Symmetry in monotone Lagrangian Floer theory

In this thesis we study the self-Floer theory of a monotone Lagrangian submanifold $L$ of a closed symplectic manifold $X$ in the presence of various kinds of symmetry. First we consider the group $\mathrm{Symp}(X, L)$ of symplectomorphisms of $X$ preserving $L$ setwise, and extend its action on the Oh spectral sequence to coefficients of arbitrary characteristic, working over an enriched Novikov ring. This imposes constraints on the differentials in the spectral sequence which force them to vanish in certain situations. We then specialise to the case where $L$ is $K$-homogeneous for a compact Lie group $K$, meaning roughly that $X$ is Kaehler, $K$ acts on $X$ by holomorphic automorphisms, and $L$ is a Lagrangian orbit. By studying holomorphic discs with boundary on $L$ we compute the image of low codimension $K$-invariant subvarieties of $X$ under the length zero closed-open string map. This places restrictions on the self-Floer cohomology of $L$ which generalise and refine the Auroux-Kontsevich-Seidel criterion. These often result in the need to work over fields of specific positive characteristics in order to obtain non-zero cohomology. The disc analysis is then developed further, with the introduction of the notion of poles and a reflection mechanism for completing holomorphic discs into spheres. This theory is applied to two main families of examples. The first is the collection of four Platonic Lagrangians in quasihomogeneous threefolds of $\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb{C})$, starting with the Chiang Lagrangian in $\mathbb{CP}^3$. These were previously studied by Evans and Lekili, who computed the self-Floer cohomology of the latter. We simplify their argument, which is based on an explicit construction of the Biran-Cornea pearl complex, and deal with the remaining three cases. The second is a family of $\mathrm{PSU}(n)$-homogeneous Lagrangians in products of projective spaces. Here the presence of both discrete and continuous symmetries leads to some unusual properties: in particular we obtain non-displaceable monotone Lagrangians which are narrow in a strong sense. We also discuss related examples including applications of Perutz's symplectic Gysin sequence and quilt functors. The thesis concludes with a discussion of directions for further research and a collection of technical appendices.
RIT Scholar Works RIT

Communication serves key roles in building relationships through sharing feelings, passing information, and connecting with others. Communication among the hearing impaired remains a significant stumbling block in today’s society since their communication means demands for an interpreter each moment. Various researchers agree that successful communication calls for the involvement of all individuals in a conversation and thus, deaf and hearing-impaired people require precise and welcoming communication to promote their working and learning relationships. Sign Language Recognition (SLR) is a critical and auspicious approach to promoting communication among hearing-impaired people. Sign languages greatly benefit from Machine Learning based translation techniques since they are authentic natural languages characterized by several grammatical requirements and wordbooks. Similarly, sign language may benefit from the computer vision approaches of encoding because it is a visual-spatial language. In the recent past, the advent of machine learning techniques has greatly contributed to significant advances in computer vision approaches and natural language processing. Such advances have motivated the researchers to make efforts on extending the learning techniques to promote understanding of sign language. However, sign language interpretation remains a significant challenge since it entails an unending visual-spatial modality where context helps in deriving the meaning. The proposed project seeks to leverage the benefits of emerging technologies to find an effective and reliable system for recognizing gestures. The project aims at designing a machine learning-based model for recognizing sign language to automatically transcribe sign language videos into text. The work suggests a novel model that utilizes video sequences comprising spatial and temporal features. The study will use different Machine Learning algorithms to train the extracted features from the given
Remarks on Minimal Sets for Cyclic Mappings in Uniformly Convex Banach Spaces

ABSTRACT In this article, we prove that every nonempty and convex pair of subsets of uniformly convex in every direction Banach spaces has the proximal normal structure and then we present a best proximity point theorem for cyclic relatively nonexpansive mappings in such spaces. We also study the structure of minimal sets of cyclic relatively nonexpansive mappings and obtain the existence results of best proximity points for cyclic mappings using some new geometric notions on minimal sets. Finally, we prove a best proximity point theorem for a new class of cyclic contraction-type mappings in the setting of uniformly convex Banach spaces and so, we improve the main conclusions of Eldred and Veeramani.
A Method to Assess Granger Causality, Isolation and Autonomy in the Time and Frequency Domains: Theory and Application to Cerebrovascular Variability.

OBJECTIVE Concepts of Granger causality (GC) and Granger autonomy (GA) are central to assess the dynamics of coupled physiologic processes. While causality measures have been already proposed and largely applied in time and frequency domains, measures quantifying self-dependencies are still limited to the time-domain formulation and lack of a clear spectral representation. METHODS We embed into the classical linear parametric framework for computing GC from a driver random process X to a target process Y a measure of Granger Isolation (GI) quantifying the part of the dynamics of Y not originating from X, and a new spectral measure of GA assessing frequency-specific patterns of self-dependencies in Y. The framework is formulated in a way such that the full-frequency integration of the spectral GC, GI and GA measures returns the corresponding time-domain measures. The measures are illustrated in theoretical simulations and applied to time series of mean arterial pressure and cerebral blood flow velocity obtained in subjects prone to develop postural syncope and healthy controls. RESULTS simulations show that GI is complementary to GC but not trivially related to it, while GA reflects the regularity of the internal dynamics of the analyzed target process. In the application to cerebrovascular interactions, spectral GA quantified the physiological response to postural stress of slow cerebral blood flow oscillations, while spectral GC and GI detected an altered response to postural stress in subjects prone to syncope, likely related to impaired cerebral autoregulation. CONCLUSION AND SIGNIFICANCE The new spectral measures of GI and GA are useful complements to GC for the analysis of interacting oscillatory processes, and detect physiological and pathological responses to postural stress which cannot be traced in the time domain. The thorough assessment of causality, isolation and autonomy opens new perspectives for the analysis of coupled biological processes in both physiological and clinical investigations.
LLMs as Workers in Human-Computational Algorithms? Replicating Crowdsourcing Pipelines with LLMs

LLMs have shown promise in replicating human-like behavior in crowdsourcing tasks that were previously thought to be exclusive to human abilities. However, current efforts focus mainly on simple atomic tasks. We explore whether LLMs can replicate more complex crowdsourcing pipelines. We find that modern LLMs can simulate some of crowdworkers' abilities in these"human computation algorithms,"but the level of success is variable and influenced by requesters' understanding of LLM capabilities, the specific skills required for sub-tasks, and the optimal interaction modality for performing these sub-tasks. We reflect on human and LLMs' different sensitivities to instructions, stress the importance of enabling human-facing safeguards for LLMs, and discuss the potential of training humans and LLMs with complementary skill sets. Crucially, we show that replicating crowdsourcing pipelines offers a valuable platform to investigate (1) the relative strengths of LLMs on different tasks (by cross-comparing their performances on sub-tasks) and (2) LLMs' potential in complex tasks, where they can complete part of the tasks while leaving others to humans.