Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Content-Based Retrieval of Mp3 Songs For One Singer Using Quantization Tree Indexing and Melody-Line Tracking Method

In this paper, the content-based retrieval with audio examples based on MP3 digital music archive for one singer is considered. In our proposed method, the sub-band coefficients (SBC) in a MP3 frame is used for feature extraction. Both quantization-tree indexing (QT) approach and the melody-line tracking (MLT) approach are proposed for indexing MP3 objects. Finally, a two-stage comparison method is used to measure the similarity between MP3 objects. We also employ the measurement of the similarity between query sample and database items for a singer. Evaluations on a content-based MP3 retrieval system are performed. Experimental results show that our proposed approach can achieve good performance and high accuracy
Texture analyse based on coefficients' relationship co-occurrence histogram

We propose a novel texture feature extraction technique based on coefficients' co-occurrence histogram of discrete wavelet frame transformed image, which capture the information about relationship between each high frequency subband and the low frequency subband of the decomposed image at the corresponding level. It is not independently utilizing the information of each subband coefficient. The classification performance is analyzed using the k-NN classifier. And the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed texture feature in achieving the improved classification performance. Comparisons with the Gabor filter and a recently proposed approach are also provided.
An Experimental Study of Hybridizing Cultural Algorithms and Local Search

In this paper the performance of the Cultural Algorithms-Iterated Local Search (CA-ILS), a new continuous optimization algorithm, is empirically studied on multimodal test functions proposed in the Special Session on Real-Parameter Optimization of the 2005 Congress on Evolutionary Computation. It is compared with state-of-the-art methods attending the Session to find out whether the algorithm is effective in solving difficult problems. The test results show that CA-ILS may be a competitive method, at least in the tested problems. The results also reveal the classes of problems where CA-ILS can work well and/or not well.
A Provably Correct Sampler for Probabilistic Programs

We consider the problem of inferring the implicit distribution specified by a probabilistic program. A popular inference technique for probabilistic programs called Markov Chain Monte Carlo or MCMC sampling involves running the program repeatedly and generating sample values by perturbing values produced in "previous runs". This simulates a Markov chain whose stationary distribution is the distribution specified by the probabilistic program. However, it is non-trivial to implement MCMC sampling for probabilistic programs since each variable could be updated at multiple program points. In such cases, it is unclear which values from the "previous run" should be used to generate samples for the "current run". We present an algorithm to solve this problem for the general case and formally prove that the algorithm is correct. Our algorithm handles variables that are updated multiple times along the same path, updated along different paths in a conditional statement, or repeatedly updated inside loops, We have implemented our algorithm in a tool called InferX. We empirically demonstrate that InferX produces the correct result for various benchmarks, whereas existing tools such as R2 and Stan produce incorrect results on several of these benchmarks.
RECK-Mediated β1-Integrin Regulation by TGF-β1 Is Critical for Wound Contraction in Mice

Fibroblasts are critical for wound contraction; a pivotal step in wound healing. They produce and modify the extracellular matrix (ECM) required for the proper tissue remodeling. Reversion-inducing cysteine-rich protein with Kazal motifs (RECK) is a key regulator of ECM homeostasis and turnover. However, its role in wound contraction is presently unknown. Here we describe that Transforming growth factor type β1 (TGF-β1), one of the main pro-fibrotic wound-healing promoting factors, decreases RECK expression in fibroblasts through the Smad and JNK dependent pathways. This TGF-β1 dependent downregulation of RECK occurs with the concomitant increase of β1-integrin, which is required for fibroblasts adhesion and wound contraction through the activation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK). Loss and gain RECK expression experiments performed in different types of fibroblasts indicate that RECK downregulation mediates TGF-β1 dependent β1-integrin expression. Also, reduced levels of RECK potentiate TGF-β1 effects over fibroblasts FAK-dependent contraction, without affecting its cognate signaling. The above results were confirmed on fibroblasts derived from the Reck +/- mice compared to wild type-derived fibroblasts. We observed that Reck +/- mice heal dermal wounds more efficiently than wild type mice. Our results reveal a critical role for RECK in skin wound contraction as a key mediator in the axis: TGF-β1—RECK- β1-integrin.
Mirror my emotions! Combining facial expression analysis and synthesis on a robot

Everyday human communication relies on a large number of different communication mechanisms like spoken language, facial expressions, body pose or gestures. Facial expressions are one of the main communication mechanisms and pass large amounts of information between human dialogue partners [22]. Therefore, the analysis and the synthesis of facial expressions are important steps towards an intuitive human-machine interaction and form valuable research targets. We present a system that tackles both challenges. It relies on a fully automated, model-based, real-time capable approach to distinguish universal facial expressions and their intensities from camera images. Facial expression synthesis is conducted via the robot head EDDIE, a flexible low-cost emotion-display with 23 degrees of freedom. Static facial expressions at continuous intensities are included, as well as smooth transitions based on the circumplex model of affect. Miniature off-the-shelf mechatronic components are used to provide high functionality at low cost. Evaluations conducted in a user-study show that emotions displayed by EDDIE are recognizable by humans very well. By combining facial expression recognition and display on the robot, a first demonstration is presented in which the robot mirrors the human’s emotions, as a basis for further research in the field of emotional closed loop systems.
Learning Motion Dynamics to Catch a Flying Object

In this abstract, we consider a novel approach to control the timing of motions when these are encoded with autonomous dynamical systems. Accurate motion timing is highly important if a robot has to synchronize its movements with the dynamics of a moving object. In previous work of ours [1], we developed an approach to learning motion dynamics from demonstrations performed by a human user. Encoding motions as autonomous dynamical systems(DS) provides an efficient way to generate and adapt motions to external perturbations, while ensuring high accuracy at the target. Catching an object on the fly requires very accurate estimate of the dynamics of motion of the object. This depends on accurate sensing which cannot always be ensured in robotics. One thus needs to quickly-adapt the planned trajectory so as to catch the object on time when receiving a novel (more accurate) estimate of the object’s motion. DS encoding offers a very powerful way to recompute on-the-fly trajectories, while ensuring that both the dynamics is correctly regenerated. Here, you investigate the ours of DS to encode control of the motion’s duration so as to speed up or slow down a motion during reproduction and therefore to adhere to temporal constraints. We validate the proposed method in an experiment where the i-Cub robot learns to catch a ball on the fly.
Performance difference in verbal fluency in bilingual and monolingual speakers

Research has shown that bilinguals can perform similarly, better or poorly on verbal fluency task compared to monolinguals. Verbal fluency data for semantic (animals, fruits and vegetables, and clothing) and letter fluency (F, A, S) were collected from 25 Bengali–English bilinguals and 25 English monolinguals in English. The groups were matched for receptive vocabulary, age, education and non-verbal intelligence. We used a wide range of measures to characterize fluency performance: number of correct, fluency difference score, time-course analysis (1st RT, Sub-RT, initiation, slope), clustering, and switching. Participants completed three executive control measures tapping into inhibitory control, mental-set shifting and working memory. Differences between the groups were significant when executive control demands were higher such as number of correct responses in letter fluency, fluency difference score, Sub-RT, slope and cluster size for letter fluency, such that bilinguals outperform the monolinguals. Stroop performance correlated positively with the slope only for the bilinguals.
Tidal stream energy assessment with and without a shock capture scheme - Incorporating a non-constant thrust force coefficient

Tidal currents provide a significant energy source in many locations worldwide, particularly at coastal areas where bathymetric conditions intensify their magnitudes. Potential sites for tidal-stream energy resource harvesting require realistic assessments and reliable simulations of effects of turbine arrays on tidal dynamics. Accuracy of the analysis has direct implications on economic and technical aspects of tidal energy project developments. An alternative approach for simulating turbine array energy capture, momentum sink-TOC, was developed to improve conventional methodologies for assessing tidalstream energy resource. The method uses a non-constant thrust force coefficient calculated based on turbines operating-conditions, and relates turbine near-field changes produced by power extraction to turbine thrust forces. Sink-TOC combines linear momentum actuator disc in open channel flows theory with the momentum sink method. Momentum sink-TOC was implemented in two depth-average complex hydrodynamic models to simulate different marine turbine configurations and to perform tidalstream energy resource assessments. The first model solves smooth and slow flows (SSF) with an alternating direction implicit scheme. The second model solves rapidly varying flows (RVF) combining MacCormack and total variation diminishing schemes. The RVF solver incorporates a computational less expensive approach for simulating sharp gradients produced by power extraction than existing techniques. Benchmarking of numerical results against analytical solutions indicates that both models correctly
Pointwise Best Approximation Results for Galerkin Finite Element Solutions of Parabolic Problems

In this paper we establish a best approximation property of fully discrete Galerkin finite element solutions of second order parabolic problems on convex polygonal and polyhedral domains in the $L^\infty$ norm. The discretization method uses continuous Lagrange finite elements in space and discontinuous Galerkin methods in time of an arbitrary order. The method of proof differs from the established fully discrete error estimate techniques and for the first time allows one to obtain such results in three space dimensions. It uses elliptic results, discrete resolvent estimates in weighted norms, and the discrete maximal parabolic regularity for discontinuous Galerkin methods established by the authors in [Numer. Math., submitted; available online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.04808/]. In addition, the proof does not require any relationship between spatial mesh sizes and time steps. We also establish an interior best approximation property that shows a more local behavior of the error at a given point.
Particle Swarm Optimization-Based Hyperspectral Dimensionality Reduction for Urban Land Cover Classification

A particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based dimensionality reduction approach is proposed to use a simple searching criterion function, called minimum estimated abundance covariance (MEAC), requiring class signatures only. It has low computational cost, and the selected bands are independent of the detector or classifiers used in the following data analysis step. With such an efficient criterion, PSO can find a global optimal solution much more efficiently, compared with other frequently used searching strategies. Its performance is evaluated by support vector machine (SVM)-based classification for urban land cover mapping. In our experiments, SVM classification accuracy using PSO-selected bands is greatly higher than using all of the original bands or dimensionality-reduced data from principal component analysis (PCA) or linear discriminant analysis (LDA). In addition, the improvement on SVM accuracy can bring out even more significant improvement in classifier fusion.
Cripping sex education: lessons learned from a programme aimed at young people with mobility impairments

Abstract This paper analyses sexuality and relationship education (SRE) in a Swedish college programme aimed at young people with mobility impairments. Interviews and focus groups were conducted to explore students’ experiences of the structure, content and usefulness of SRE, and college personnel’s SRE practices. Results show that, although many of the issues covered are pertinent for all young people, being disabled raises additional concerns: for example how to handle de-sexualising attitudes, possible sexual practices, and how reliance on assistance impacts upon privacy. Crip theory is used as an analytical framework to identify, challenge and politicise sexual norms and practices. Students’ experiences of living in a disablist, heteronormative society can be used as resources for developing cripistemologies, which challenge the private/public binary that often de-legitimises learners’ experiences and separates them from teachers’ ‘proper’ knowledge production. Crip SRE would likely hold benefits for non-disabled pupils as well, through its use of more inclusive pedagogy and in work to expand sexual possibilities. Crip SRE has the potential to disrupt taken-for-granted dis/ability and sexuality divides as well as to politicise issues that many young people presently experience as ‘personal shortcomings’.
A heuristiclab evolutionary algorithm for FINCH

We present a HeuristicLab plugin for FINCH. FINCH (Fertile Darwinian Bytecode Harvester) is a system designed to evolutionarily improve actual, extant software, which was not intentionally written for the purpose of serving as a GP representation in particular, nor for evolution in general. This is in contrast to existing work that uses restricted subsets of the Java bytecode instruction set as a representation language for individuals in genetic programming. The ability to evolve Java programs will hopefully lead to a valuable new tool in the software engineer's toolkit.
Low-Energy Absorption Cross Section for massive scalar and Dirac fermion by $(4+n)$-dimensional Schwarzschild Black Hole

Motivated by the brane-world scenarios, we study the absorption problem when the spacetime background is $(4+n)$-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole. We compute the low-energy absorption cross sections for the brane-localized massive scalar, brane-localized massive Dirac fermion, and massive bulk scalar. For the case of brane-localized massive Dirac fermion we introduce the particle's spin in the traditional Dirac form without invoking the Newman-Penrose method. Our direct introduction of spin enables us to compute contributions to the $j$th-level partial absorption cross section from orbital angular momenta $\ell = j \pm 1/2$. It is shown that the contribution from the low $\ell$-level is larger than that from the high $\ell$-level in the massive case. In the massless case these two contributions are exactly same with each other. The ratio of low-energy absorption cross sections for Dirac fermion and for scalar is dependent on the number of extra dimensions as $2^{(n-3)/ (n+1)}$. Thus the ratio factor 1/8 is recovered when $n=0$, which Unruh found. The physical importance of this ratio factor is discussed in the context of the brane-world scenario. For the case of bulk scalar our low-energy absorption cross section for S-wave is exactly same with area of the horizon hypersurface in the massless limt, which is an higher-dimensional generaliztion of universality. Our results for all cases turn out to have correct massless and 4d limits.
Who Has the Force?: Solving Conflicts for Multi User Mid-Air Gestures for TVs

In recent years, mid-air gestures have become a feasible input modality for controlling and manipulating digital content. In case of controlling TVs, mid-air gestures eliminate the need to hold remote controls, which quite often are not at hand or even need to be searched before use. Thus, mid-air gestures quicken interactions. However, the absence of a single controller and the nature of mid-air gesture detection also poses a disadvantage: gestures preformed by multiple watchers may result in conflicts. In this paper, we propose an interaction technique solving the conflicts arising in such multi viewer scenarios. We conducted a survey with 64 participants, asking them about their TV viewing habits, experienced conflicts and opinions on conflict solving strategies. Based on the survey's results, we present a prototype for multi viewer gestural controls for TVs which solves possible conflicts.
Social and Spiritual Dimensions as Protective Factors in the Relationship between Acculturative Stress and Subjective Well-Being among International Students in Taiwan

The purpose of this study was to use the resilience model in investigating the selected factors that reduce acculturative stress and promote well-being among international students in Taiwan. Research has indicated that acculturative stress has been identified as a major issue experienced by many international students in various host countries, resulting in an increase in mental illness and decrease in well-being. A few international studies suggested that factors such as social support and coping strategies mitigated the effects of acculturative stress on negative emotions. In the absence of such studies and as the international student population continues to increase in Taiwan, this project examined the role of social connectedness, social assurance, and spiritual well-being as potential mediators or protective factors in the relationship between acculturative stress and subjective well-being (positive affect and satisfaction with life) in a sample of international students. Data from 214 participants were subjected to regression analyses to analyze for mediation effects. The results indicated significant effects of social connectedness and spiritual well-being on subjective well-being. Of the two significant mediators, social connectedness emerged as a stronger mediator, accounting for 53% and 55% of the mediation effect on positive affect and satisfaction with life, respectively. Spiritual well-being accounted for 7% and 4% of the variance, respectively. These results validate the resilient and positive psychology model, in which the resilience part evades pathological signs when individuals are exposed to stressors, while the positive aspect promotes subjective well-being. These results are discussed in detail and the implication of such results for building appropriate social and spiritual resources and designing interventions are elucidated.
From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics

and the events surrounding the December uprising cannot be recounted without reference to the work of Grigoris Farakos. Finally, while the effort to incorporate the experience of ordinary individuals is laudable, even just spicing up the text requires substantially more than the five interviews included. Soviet Union's perennial poet of permitted dissent, Yevgenii Yevtushenko, published a minor piece of verse in the newspaper Truth (Pravda) under the title " The Naysayers. " Railing against those who had crushed the spirit of freedom and innovation during the preceding two decades, Yevtushenko's poem rattled off case after case of contemporary Soviet backwardness—all by way of lending support to Mikhail Gorbachev's nascent campaign of socialist renewal. " Shielding their fellow citizens from every harmful venture, " wrote Yevtushenko bitterly, " the naysayers / Saw in the entire field of cybernetics only dark mysticism / And deprived our future children of computers. " Soviet readers could be forgiven for scratching their heads over this effort at high-tech pathos. As Slava Gerovitch's pioneering monograph demonstrates, the history of cybernetics in the USSR was neither uniformly dark nor predictable. Instead, his study of the most ambitious interdisciplinary movement of the cold war period suggests that cybernetics was itself partly responsible for the stunted development of Soviet computer technology. More important, Gerovitch shows how the strange career of the " science of control " (kibernetik is Greek for " steersman ") sheds new light on post-Stalinist intellectual life, relations between the academic intelligentsia and the Soviet state, and the fate of utopian ambitions in the twentieth century's most aggressively utopian society. As an object of historical study, cybernetics presents a diffuse target. Neither a discipline nor a technique nor a doctrine, it consists of an array of analogies between human beings and machines. As part of the global postwar cult of science and technology, cybernetics claimed to offer a universal method of solving problems by translating a variety of issues— from fields as diverse as biology, linguistics, and economics—into the precise language of mathematical formulas and computer simulation. Concepts such as " feedback loop, " " entropy, " and " signal-to-noise ratio " were taken from their original inorganic contexts and applied to living organisms, societies, and cultures. One of the many offshoots of the cybernetic approach, for example, is the use of computer software and hardware to model the functions of mind and brain. Gerovitch briefly …