Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Telling cause from effect based on high-dimensional observations

We describe a method for inferring linear causal relations among multi-dimensional variables. The idea is to use an asymmetry between the distributions of cause and effect that occurs if the covariance matrix of the cause and the structure matrix mapping the cause to the effect are independently chosen. The method applies to both stochastic and deterministic causal relations, provided that the dimensionality is sufficiently high (in some experiments, 5 was enough). It is applicable to Gaussian as well as non-Gaussian data.
Extraction of surface texture data from low quality photographs to aid the construction of virtual reality models of archaeological sites

A tool has been designed and implemented to use information extracted from photographs captured using uncalibrated cameras (so-called casual photographs) to fill the occlusions which occur in three-dimensional models of photogrammetrically captured sites. Capturing the geometry of archaeological sites by photogrammetric means is relatively expensive and, because of the layouts typical of such sites, usually results in a degree of occlusion. Occlusions are filled by extracting texture and calculating hidden geometry from casual photographs with the support of three-dimensional geometric data gleaned from the photogrammetric survey. The essential philosophy underlying the tool is to segment each occlusion into surfaces which may be approximated using curves and then use known geometry in the region of the occlusion to calculate the most probable locations of the junctions of such surface segments. The tool is primarily a combination of existing techniques for pre-filtering and calibrating the casual photograph, boundary detection and ultimately texture adjustment. The technique implemented for calculating the locations of occluded comers using minimisation of least square errors is new. The tool has been applied to occlusions of the various configurations that are expected to be typical of archaeological sites and has been found to deal well with such features and to provide accurate patches from typical data sets. It is also shown that the three-dimensional geometric model is clearly improved by the filling-in of the occlusion. 111 Un ive rsi ty of Ca p To wn
Accurate multi-DOF kinesthetic haptic display using instantaneous restriction space

This paper proposes an accurate kinesthetic haptic display method for a multi-DOF haptic interface. Position-position (p-p) architecture plays an important role in a haptic interface like four channel architecture since force reflection using only force sensor information induces a serious problem if a slave manipulator is constrained by unexpected obstacles the force sensor cannot detect. However, the conventional p-p architecture in literature has limitations to apply to a multi-DOF haptic interface. This paper indicates the limitation through an example and proposes a novel haptic display method using instantaneous restriction space (IRS). IRS can be calculated using Jacobian and joint angle error of a slave manipulator. Since the proposed method has the form of impedance two port architecture in the sense of data flow, it can be easily combined with the previous results of two-port haptic display framework in literature. The method is compared to the conventional p-p architecture through experiments.
Speaker Independent Speech Emotion Recognition by Ensemble Classification

Emotion recognition grows to an important factor in future media retrieval and man machine interfaces. However, even human deciders often experience problems realizing one's emotion, especially of strangers. In this work we strive to recognize emotion independent of the person concentrating on the speech channel. Single feature relevance of acoustic features is a critical point, which we address by filter-based gain ratio calculation starting at a basis of 276 features. As optimization of a minimum set as a whole in general saves more extraction effort, we furthermore apply an SVM-SFFS wrapper based search. For a more robust estimation we also integrate spoken content information by a Bayesian net analysis of ASR outputs. Overall classification is realized in an early feature fusion by stacked ensembles of diverse base classifiers. Tests ran on a 3,947 movie and automotive interaction dialog-turns database consisting of 35 speakers. Remarkable overall performance can be reported in the discrimination of the seven discrete emotions named in the MPEG-4 standard with added neutrality
Tumorigenic effect of fibrous dust in experimental animals

Fibrous dusts (chrysotile, glass fibers, nemalite, palygorscite, and gypsum) and granular dusts (actinolite, biotite, hematite, pectolite, sanidine, and talcum) were injected intraperitoneally into rats. The fibrous dusts (other than gypsum) resulted in a high incidence of mesothelioma (30 – 67%). Gypsum produced only 5% and granular dusts none at all. It is suggested that the fibrous shape leads to a high multiplication rate of cells and predisposes to tumor formation. Fibrosis, in the other hand, does not so predispose. Milled chrysotile with 99.8% fibers than 5 μm in length are carcinogenic in our experience. The carcinogenicity of glass fibers in our experiments may have significance for occupational situations.
Tbx5 specifies the left/right ventricles and ventricular septum position during cardiogenesis

Extensive misexpression studies were carried out to explore the roles played by Tbx5, the expression of which is excluded from the right ventricle (RV) during cardiogenesis. When Tbx5 was misexpressed ubiquitously, ventricular septum was not formed, resulting in a single ventricle. In such heart, left ventricle (LV)-specific ANF gene was induced. In search of the putative RV factor(s), we have found that chick Tbx20 is expressed in the RV, showing a complementary fashion to Tbx5. In the Tbx5-misexpressed heart, this gene was repressed. When misexpression was spatially partial, leaving small Tbx5-negative area in the right ventricle, ventricular septum was shifted rightwards, resulting in a small RV with an enlarged LV. Focal expression induced an ectopic boundary of Tbx5-positive and -negative regions in the right ventricle, at which an additional septum was formed. Similar results were obtained from the transient transgenic mice. In such hearts, expression patterns of dHAND and eHAND were changed with definitive cardiac abnormalities. Furthermore, we report that human ANF promoter is synergistically activated by Tbx5, Nkx2.5 and GATA4. This activation was abrogated by Tbx20, implicating the pivotal roles of interactions among these heart-specific factors. Taken together, our data indicate that Tbx5 specifies the identity of LV through tight interactions among several heart-specific factors, and highlight the essential roles of Tbx5 in cardiac development.
Rethinking transfer optimization in a datacenter: Integrating load balancing with multipath flow control

The various flows in production datacenters usually can be classified into two types: bandwidth-hungry and delay-sensitive. To improve their performance, datacenter networks require effective load balancing and flow control protocols, respectively. However, as the two techniques are typically employed separately in current datacenters, they are unable to optimize the network in a coordinated way. In this work, we argue that the adaptive routing, in load balancing sense, and the flow control, in congestion control sense, could be tightly coupled at the transport layer to handle the complex datacenter traffic. We design OmniFlow, a novel transfer protocol which aims to achieve a proper balance between throughput and latency in a datacenter. Firstly, it can simultaneously and precisely measure the queueing latencies on multiple paths between two hosts, which enables it to have more visibility of the path congestion and have better control of the transmission states. Secondly, OmniFlow adaptively integrates the load balancing and flow control modules and shares the same congestion metrics (i.e. queueing latencies) between them. Based on different network conditions, it either dynamically reroutes flows to utilize the bisection bandwidth or proactively adjusts flow rates to bound queueing occupancies. The results of extensive experiments show that OmniFlow can provide both low average and tail latency for small flows without sacrificing the throughput of elephant flows.
ECG Paper Records Digitization through Image Processing Techniques

Electrocardiogram (ECG) is one of the most practiced methods to detect any abnormalities in heart function. ECG results are available as paper records. This leads to Archival and retrieval of patient’s paper ECG records as a common practice for diagnosis of ailments. This process requires large storage space and extensive manual effort. This paper discusses method that involves processing of ECG paper records by an efficient and iterative set of digital image processing techniques for the conversion of ECG paper image data to time series digitized signal form, resulting in convenient storage and retrieval of ECG information. The method involves calculation of Heart rate, QRS Width and Stability (variation in R-R peaks) from the extracted signal. Comparison of the above calculated parameters with the manually calculated parameters shows an accuracy of 96.4%, hence proves the effectiveness of the process. This paper also proposes the development of fuzzy based ECG diagnosis system that assists the doctor in diagnosis. General Terms Biomedical Engineering, Electrocardiogram (ECG), Image Processing
Channel Training Design in Amplify-and-Forward MIMO Relay Networks

This paper is on the channel training design for distributed space-time coding (DSTC) in multi-antenna relay networks. DSTC is shown to achieve full diversity in relay networks. To use DSTC, the receiver has to know both the channels between the relays and the receiver (Relay-Rx channels), and the channels between the transmitter and the relays (Tx-Relay channels). For the Relay-Rx channels, by sending pilot signals from the relays, the training problem can be solved using multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) training schemes. Given the knowledge of the Relay-Rx channels, to obtain estimations of the Tx-Relay channels at the receiver, DSTC is used. The linear minimum-mean-square-error (LMMSE) estimation at the receiver and the optimal pilot design that minimizes the estimation error are derived. We also investigate the requirement on the training time that can lead to full diversity in data transmission. An upper bound and a lower bound on the training time are provided. A novel training design whose training time length is adaptive to the quality of the Relay-Rx channels is also proposed. Simulations are exhibited to justify our analytical results and to show advantages of the proposed scheme over others.
Towards Semantic Multimedia Indexing by Classification & Reasoning on Textual Metadata

The task of multimedia document categorization forms a well-known problem in information retrieval. The task is to assign a multimedia document to one or more categories, based on its contents. In this case, effective management and thematic categorization requires usually the extraction of the underlying semantics. The proposed approach utilizes as input, analyzes and exploits the textual annotation that accompanies a multimedia document, in order to extract its underlying semantics, construct a semantic index and finally classify the documents to thematic categories. This process is based on a unified knowledge and semantics representation model introduced, as well as basic principles of fuzzy relational algebra. On top of that the fuzzy extension of expressive description logic language SHIN , f-SHIN and its reasoning services are used to further refine and optimize the initial categorization results. The proposed approach was tested on a set of real-life multimedia documents, derived from the Internet, as well as personal databases and shows rather promising results.
Evaluation of water-mimicking solid phantom materials for use in HDR and LDR brachytherapy dosimetry

In modern HDR or LDR brachytherapy with photon emitters, fast checks of the dose profiles generated in water or a water-equivalent phantom have to be available in the interest of patient safety. However, the commercially available brachytherapy photon sources cover a wide range of photon emission spectra, and the range of the in-phantom photon spectrum is further widened by Compton scattering, so that the achievement of water-mimicking properties of such phantoms involves high requirements on their atomic composition. In order to classify the degree of water equivalence of the numerous commercially available solid water-mimicking phantom materials and the energy ranges of their applicability, the radial profiles of the absorbed dose to water, Dw, have been calculated using Monte Carlo simulations in these materials and in water phantoms of the same dimensions. This study includes the HDR therapy sources Nucletron Flexisource Co-60 HDR (60Co), Eckert und Ziegler BEBIG GmbH CSM-11 (137Cs), Implant Sciences Corporation HDR Yb-169 Source 4140 (169Yb) as well as the LDR therapy sources IsoRay Inc. Proxcelan CS-1 (131Cs), IsoAid Advantage I-125 IAI-125A (125I), and IsoAid Advantage Pd-103 IAPd-103A (103Pd). Thereby our previous comparison between phantom materials and water surrounding a Varian GammaMed Plus HDR therapy 192Ir source (Schoenfeld et al 2015) has been complemented. Simulations were performed in cylindrical phantoms consisting of either water or the materials RW1, RW3, Solid Water, HE Solid Water, Virtual Water, Plastic Water DT, Plastic Water LR, Original Plastic Water (2015), Plastic Water (1995), Blue Water, polyethylene, polystyrene and PMMA. While for 192Ir, 137Cs and 60Co most phantom materials can be regarded as water equivalent, for 169Yb the materials Plastic Water LR, Plastic Water DT and RW1 appear as water equivalent. For the low-energy sources 106Pd, 131Cs and 125I, only Plastic Water LR can be classified as water equivalent.
Exactness of belief propagation for some graphical models with loops

It is well known that an arbitrary graphical model of statistical inference defined on a tree, i.e. on a graph without loops, is solved exactly and efficiently by an iterative belief propagation (BP) algorithm convergent to the unique minimum of the so-called Bethe free energy functional. For a general graphical model on a loopy graph, the functional may show multiple minima, the iterative BP algorithm may converge to one of the minima or may not converge at all, and the global minimum of the Bethe free energy functional is not guaranteed to correspond to the optimal maximum likelihood (ML) solution in the zero-temperature limit. However, there are exceptions to this general rule, discussed by Kolmogorov and Wainwright (2005) and by Bayati et al (2006, 2008) in two different contexts, where the zero-temperature version of the BP algorithm finds the ML solution for special models on graphs with loops. These two models share a key feature: their ML solutions can be found by an efficient linear programming (LP) algorithm with a totally uni-modular (TUM) matrix of constraints. Generalizing the two models, we consider a class of graphical models reducible in the zero-temperature limit to LP with TUM constraints. Assuming that a gedanken algorithm, g-BP, for finding the global minimum of the Bethe free energy is available, we show that in the limit of zero temperature, g-BP outputs the ML solution. Our consideration is based on equivalence established between gapless linear programming (LP) relaxation of the graphical model in the T → 0 limit and the respective LP version of the Bethe free energy minimization.
Extending game participation with embodied reporting agents

We introduce a multi-agent framework to generate reports of players' activities within multi-player computer games so that other players who are currently unable to participate can keep track of the activities of their colleagues. We describe an initial implementation of our framework as an extension to the Capture the Flag game within Unreal Tournament. We report the results of a preliminary experiment that shows that embodied reporter agents give varying coverage depending on deployment strategies used, and, in particular, suggests that the dynamic assignment of reporter agents by an editor agent can provide more effective coverage than static assignment schemes. Finally, we explore future applications of this work including other genres of games, the emergence of games as spectator sports, implications for pervasive games as well as non-gaming applications.
On the Symbol Error Probability of Multihop Parallel Relay Networks

In this paper we analyze the symbol error probability (SEP) of a cooperative multihop parallel relay network in Rayleigh fading channels for M-ary Phase-shift keying (M-PSK) modulation. The general closed form expression of the SEP is derived. We present numerical results on the performance of the network.
Partitioning of image datasets using discriminative context information

We propose a new method to partition an unlabeled dataset, called Discriminative Context Partitioning (DCP). It is motivated by the idea of splitting the dataset based only on how well the resulting parts can be separated from a context class of disjoint data points. This is in contrast to typical clustering techniques like K-means that are based on a generative model by implicitly or explicitly searching for modes in the distribution of samples. The discriminative criterion in DCP avoids the problems that density based methods have when the a priori assumption of multimodality is violated, when the number of samples becomes small in relation to the dimensionality of the feature space, or if the cluster sizes are strongly unbalanced. We formulate DCPpsilas separation property as a large-margin criterion, and show how the resulting optimization problem can be solved efficiently. Experiments on the MNIST and USPS datasets of handwritten digits and on a subset of the Caltech256 dataset show that, given a suitable context, DCP can achieve good results even in situation where density-based clustering techniques fail.
Surface Winds and Dust Biases in Climate Models

An analysis of North African dust from models participating in the Fifth Climate Models Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) suggested that, when forced by observed sea surface temperatures, these models were unable to reproduce any aspects of the observed year‐to‐year variability in dust from North Africa. Consequently, there would be little reason to have confidence in the models' projections of changes in dust over the 21st century. However, no subsequent study has elucidated the root causes of the disagreement between CMIP5 and observed dust. Here I develop an idealized model of dust emission and then use this model to show that, over North Africa, such biases in CMIP5 models are due to errors in the surface wind fields and not due to the representation of dust emission processes. These results also suggest that because the surface wind field over North Africa is highly spatially autocorrelated, intermodel differences in the spatial structure of dust emission have little effect on the relative change in year‐to‐year dust emission over the continent. I use these results to show that similar biases in North African dust from the NASA Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) version 2 surface wind field biases but that these wind biases were not present in the first version of MERRA.
Tamper Event Detection on Distributed Devices in Critical Infrastructure

Utilities are currently installing a number of resource-constrained embedded devices at the remote endpoints of their SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) networks as part of their smart grid rollout. These devices present a security risk for utilities: They are deployed in many different places and environments; they have very little physical security; and they have direct access back to control centers and other infrastructure. Therefore, these devices present an easy opportunity for attackers to inﬁltrate and damage a utility’s SCADA network, and protecting these networks is critical. While a large body of work exists in both the physical tampering and SCADA protection spheres, current schemes cannot be applied here: They are either not designed to protect both a device and the network it lives on, not ﬂexible enough to handle the various tamper events that these remote devices face, or not lightweight enough to operate under the inherent constraints of a SCADA network. In this paper, we introduce T.E. D.D. I. (Tamper Event Detection on Distributed Infrastructure), a distributed, sensor-based tamper protection architecture that we are building to protect remotely-deployed devices. This architecture will allow for a ﬂexible, policy-centric response to tamper events, incorporate external context data into T.E. D.D. I. ’s decision-making process, and adhere to the many constraints imposed on SCADA systems. We also discuss the current state of T.E. D.D. I. , its various components, and our plans for constructing and validating the ﬁnal system.
Exploiting domain knowledge to improve norm synthesis

Social norms enable coordination in multiagent systems by constraining agent behaviour in order to achieve a social objective. Automating the design of social norms has been shown to be NP-complete, requiring a complete state enumeration. A planning-based solution has been proposed previously to improve performance. This approach leads to verbose, problem-specific norms due to the propositional representation of the domain. We present a first-order extension of this work that benefits from state and operator abstractions to synthesise more expressive, generally applicable norms. We propose optimisations that can be used to reduce the search performed during synthesis, and formally prove the correctness of these optimisations. Finally, we empirically illustrate the benefits of these optimisations in an example domain.
of Huddersfield , Huddersfield , HD 1 3 DH , United Kingdom

The Injector 2 at Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) is a 72 MeV separate sector cyclotron producing a high intensity proton beam up to 3 mA CW, which is subsequently injected to the 590 MeV Ring Cyclotron. The injection energy of the pre-bunched beam is 870 keV at an intensity of 10 to 11 mA. In this paper we describe initial conditions for the Injector 2 to obtain a matched beam with space charge that is coupled in the transverse-longitudinal plane. The precise beam dynamics model is based on the OPAL (Object Oriented Parallel Accelerator Library) simulation code, a tool for charged-particle optics calculations in large accelerator structures and beam lines including 3D space charge.