Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
InSAR Detection and Field Evidence for Thermokarst after a Tundra Wildfire, Using ALOS-PALSAR

Thermokarst is the process of ground subsidence caused by either the thawing of ice-rich permafrost or the melting of massive ground ice. The consequences of permafrost degradation associated with thermokarst for surface ecology, landscape evolution, and hydrological processes have been of great scientific interest and social concern. Part of a tundra patch affected by wildfire in northern Alaska (27.5 km2) was investigated here, using remote sensing and in situ surveys to quantify and understand permafrost thaw dynamics after surface disturbances. A two-pass differential InSAR technique using L-band ALOS-PALSAR has been shown capable of capturing thermokarst subsidence triggered by a tundra fire at a spatial resolution of tens of meters, with supporting evidence from field data and optical satellite images. We have introduced a calibration procedure, comparing burned and unburned areas for InSAR subsidence signals, to remove the noise due to seasonal surface movement. In the first year after the fire, an average subsidence rate of 6.2 cm/year (vertical) was measured. Subsidence in the burned area continued over the following two years, with decreased rates. The mean rate of subsidence observed in our interferograms (from 24 July 2008 to 14 September 2010) was 3.3 cm/year, a value comparable to that estimated from field surveys at two plots on average (2.2 cm/year) for the six years after the fire. These results suggest that this InSAR-measured ground subsidence is caused by the development of thermokarst, a thawing process supported by surface change observations from high-resolution optical images and in situ ground level surveys.
Humanoid robot's omnidirectional walking

The development of humanoid robots has great advantages[1] including economically efficient, appreciation-worthy, and etc. This paper proposes an omnidirectional gait generation mode based on linear centroid motion and the cubic spline interpolation. And then, based on the ZMP stability criterion, online feedback regulation is conducted on the robots' centroid according to the positional relationship of the centroid and ZMP. The result of the simulation verifies that the method can effectively implement a fast and stable omnidirectional walk for the humanoid robots.
The effect of light sources and CAD/CAM monolithic blocks on degree of conversion of cement

PURPOSE To assess the degree of conversion (DC) and light irradiance delivered to light-cured and dual-cured cements by application of different light sources through various types of monolithic computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) materials. MATERIALS AND METHODS RelyX Ultimate Clicker light-cured and dual-cured resin cement specimens with 1.5-mm thicknesses (n=300, 10/group), were placed under four types of crystalline core structure (Vita Enamic, Vita Suprinity, GC Ceresmart, Degudent Prettau Anterior). The specimens were irradiated for 40 seconds with an LED Soft-Start or pulse-delay unit or 20 seconds with a QTH unit. DC ratios were determined by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) after curing the specimen at 1 day and 1 month. The data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test (for paired comparison) and the Kruskal-Wallis H test (for multiple comparison), with a significance level of P<. 05. RESULTS DC values were the highest for RelyX Ultimate Clicker light-cure specimens polymerized with the LED Soft-Start unit. The combination of the Vita Suprinity disc and RelyX Ultimate Clicker dual-cure resin cement yielded significantly higher values at both timepoints with all light units (all, P<.05). CONCLUSION Within the limitations of this study, we conclude that the DC of RelyX Ultimate Clicker dual-cure resin cement was improved significantly by the use of Vita Suprinity and the LED Soft-Start light unit. We strongly recommend the combined use of an LED light unit and dual-cure luting cement for monolithic ceramic restorations.
Decentralized Control and Synchronization of Time-Varying Complex Dynamical Network

A new class of controlled time-varying complex dynamical networks with similarity is investigated and a decentralized holographic-structure controller is designed to stabilize the network asymptotically at its equilibrium states. The control design is based on the similarity assumption for isolated node dynamics and the topological structure of the overall network. Network synchronization problems, both locally and globally, are considered on the ground of decentralized control approach. Each sub-controller makes use of the information on the corresponding node's dynamics and the resulting overall controller is composed of those sub-controllers. The overall controller can be obtained by means of a combination of typical control designs and appropriate parametric tuning for each isolated node. Several numerical simulation examples are given to illustrate the feasibility and the efficiency of the proposed control design.
3D medical image segmentation based on active contour model

Contour initialization is a big problem of the active contours. Using the continuous features of the three-dimensional medical image, this paper proposes an initial contour prediction model. There are some changes in the boundary contours in the adjacent images of the same object and we attribute these changes to continuous translation and similar deformation, and quantify into the displacement of the centroid and displacement of the point in the direction of Normal. The curve fitting method is used to predict the centroid displacement and the displacement of the points of the contours, which can provide more accurate prediction of changes in the contour. By predicting the initial contour, we have solved the contour initialization problem of the parametric active contour with external force using vector field convolution.
Heuristic Evaluation for Novice Programming Systems

The past few years has seen a proliferation of novice programming tools. The availability of a large number of systems has made it difficult for many users to choose among them. Even for education researchers, comparing the relative quality of these tools, or judging their respective suitability for a given context, is hard in many instances. For designers of such systems, assessing the respective quality of competing design decisions can be equally difficult. Heuristic evaluation provides a practical method of assessing the quality of alternatives in these situations and of identifying potential problems with existing systems for a given target group or context. Existing sets of heuristics, however, are not specific to the domain of novice programming and thus do not evaluate all aspects of interest to us in this specialised application domain. In this article, we propose a set of heuristics to be used in heuristic evaluations of novice programming systems. These heuristics have the potential to allow a useful assessment of the quality of a given system with lower cost than full formal user studies and greater precision than the use of existing sets of heuristics. The heuristics are described and discussed in detail. We present an evaluation of the effectiveness of the heuristics that suggests that the new set of heuristics provides additional useful information to designers not obtained with existing heuristics sets.
EE391 Special Report (Spring 2005) Automatic Chord Recognition Using A Summary Autocorrelation Function

In this paper, a novel approach based on human perception for automatic chord recognition from the raw audio data is proposed. To this end, templates of summary autocorrelation function (SACF) for 24 major/minor chords are first generated from the synthetic tones. The SACF of the input audio is then obtained over time and correlated with the 24 template SACFs to give the ratings for each chord. A chord with the maximum correlation is recognized as the chord of input audio. The results show the proposed method outperforms the traditional methods which use as feature set Chromagram or Pitch Class Profile (PCP).
Accurate 3D Modeling of Breast Deformation for Temporal Mammogram Registration

Abstract : In this research project, we have developed mathematical model of breast deformation to simulate breast compression during mammographic imaging. We have developed two types of mammogram registration methods: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided registration and generic registration. Datasets have been constructed to validate the developed registrations methods. Mammogram registrations have been performed on concurrent mammograms using MRI guided and generic registration method, respectively. Also both registration methods have been applied onto temporal mammograms. Promising evaluation results demonstrate feasibility of the developed mammogram registration methods. The results also demonstrate that the developed registration methods would be very helpful in mammogram interpretation for improving accuracy of detection and diagnosis of breast cancer.
From one base form to multiple output styles - predicting stylistic dynamics of discourse prosody

We hypothesize that various prosody output styles can be predicted and simulated from one default base form by accounting for contributions from higher level information to cross-phrase prosodic relationship. Speech materials of four prosody styles were selected: (1.) Han and Tang poetry, (2.) Tang Ballads and Song poetry, (3.) Qin, Tang and Song classic prose and (4.) contemporary TV weather forecast. F0 contours were analyzed using the Fujisaki model, while quantitative analyses of predictions from layered-andcumulative contribution specified by the HPG (Hierarchical Prosodic phrase Grouping) framework [Tseng et al, 2004; 2005; 2006] were performed across styles and speakers. Results confirmed that higher level contribution is significant across style; contribution distribution patterns and style specific; more regular prosodic formats require more contribution from higher level; stylistic dynamics are predictable; and the HPG base form is indeed default.
A New Hybrid Network Traffic Prediction Method

How to predict the self-similar network traffic with high burstiness is a great challenge for network management. The covariation orthogonal prediction could effectively capture the burstiness in the network traffic, and the artificial neural network prediction could adapt the network traffic change by self-learning. To improve the prediction accuracy, we propose a new hybrid network traffic prediction method based on the combination of the covariation orthogonal prediction and the artificial neural network prediction. Through empirical study, the accuracy of the new prediction method can be effectively improved seen from the mean and the prediction error.
Research on the Safety of Evaporation and Diffusion of UDMH

In this paper, software Fluent is used to simulate evaporation and diffusion of Unsymmetrical Dimethyl Hydrazine (UDMH) in a propellant storehouse, and to analyze its safety. The results indicate that, in a closed space, if the concentration of poisonous vapor generated by the leaked UDMH in the region (about 1.5 meters from the ground) above the liquid pool reaches or exceeds the limit (100ppm), it will seriously harm to human body in about tens of seconds. The concentration near the floor will easily reach the explosive limit (2.5%~78.5%) , and a reasonable ventilation mode is beneficial to drain the poisonous vapor out.
Word sense implantation by orthographical conversion

We present a word sense disambiguation (WSD) tool of Japanese Hiragana words. Unlike other WSD tasks which output something like “sense #3” as result, our WSD task rewrites the target word into a Kanji word, which is a different orthography. This means that the task is also a kind of orthographical normalization as well as WSD. In this paper we present the task, our method, and the performance.
Lightweight Elicitation and Analysis of Software Product Quality Goals: A Multiple Industrial Case Study

We developed and used a method that gathers relevant stakeholders to elicit, prioritize, and elaborate the quality goals of a software product. It is designed to be lightweight and easy to learn compared to methods for a more comprehensive analysis of non-functional requirements. The method and the resulting quality goals are meant especially for improving the software product management process. We used it in four software product companies, and report lessons learned and evaluation of the method based on practitioners' comments. We found it better to set the goals first for the product in general before discussing a specific release project. In addition to identifying goals that needed improvement, the practitioners considered identifying already achieved goals relevant, but they were neg- lected unless explicitly considered. Using ISO 9126 as a checklist after brainstorming did not add many goals. Prioritization was challenging due to numerous relevant perspectives. Conceiving measures for impor- tant goals seemed to concretize them.
Cultural conceptions of a bereavement-related illness in a South African indigenous community

This study explored cultural conceptions of a bereavement-related illness among elderly (aged 34–85yrs) Northern Sotho-speaking people in Limpopo province. The participants (n = 14, females = 50%, mean age = 59 years, SD: 13.7 years) were purposively selected and interviewed using in-depth interviews. Data were analysed using Hycner’s adapted phenomenological method. Three themes emerged from the analysis: debilitating and life-threatening symptoms of the illness; aetiology explained by ritual taboo violations; and management of the illness through ritual cleansing. The cleansing process incorporates the administration of traditional herbs. The findings suggest bereavement-related illness in an African cultural community to be explained by their cultural concept of distress understandings.
Efficient determinization of tagged word lattices using categorial and lexicographic semirings

Speech and language processing systems routinely face the need to apply finite state operations (e.g., POS tagging) on results from intermediate stages (e.g., ASR output) that are naturally represented in a compact lattice form. Currently, such needs are met by converting the lattices into linear sequences (n-best scoring sequences) before and after applying the finite state operations. In this paper, we eliminate the need for this unnecessary conversion by addressing the problem of picking only the single-best scoring output labels for every input sequence. For this purpose, we define a categorial semiring that allows determinzation over strings and incorporate it into a 〈Tropical, Categorial〉 lexicographic semiring. Through examples and empirical evaluations we show how determinization in this lexicographic semiring produces the desired output. The proposed solution is general in nature and can be applied to multi-tape weighted transducers that arise in many applications.
Enhanced PKCδ and ERK Signaling Mediate Cell Migration of Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells Synergistically Induced by HGF and EGF

Proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) are characterized by the development of epi-retinal membranes which may exert a tractional force on retina. A lot of inflammatory growth factors may disturb the local ocular cells such as retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells, causing them to migrate and proliferate in the vitreous cavity and ultimately forming the PVR membrane. In this study, the signal pathways mediating cell migration of RPE induced by growth factors were investigated. Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF) or heparin-binding epidermal growth factor (HB-EGF) induced a greater extent of migration of RPE50 and ARPE19 cells, compared with other growth factors. According to inhibitor studies, migration of RPE cells induced by each growth factor was mediated by protein kinase C (PKC) and ERK (MAPK). Moreover, HGF coupled with EGF or HB-EGF had synergistic effects on cell migration and enhanced activation of PKC and ERK, which were attributed to cross activation of growth factor receptors by heterogeneous ligands. Furthermore, using the shRNA technique, PKCδ was found to be the most important PKC isozyme involved. Finally, vitreous fluids from PVR and PDR patients with high concentration of HGF may induce RPE cell migration in PKCδ- and ERK- dependent manner. In conclusion, migration of RPE cells can be synergistically induced by HGF coupled with HB-EGF or EGF, which were mediated by enhanced PKCδ activation and ERK phosphorylation.
Concurrent Program Design in the Extended Theory of Owicki and Gries

Feijen and van Gasteren have shown how to use the theory of Owicki and Gries to design concurrent programs, however, the lack of a formal theory of progress has meant that these designs are driven entirely by safety requirements. Proof of progress requirements are made post-hoc to the derivation and are operational in nature. In this paper, we describe the use of an extended theory of Owicki and Gries in concurrent program design. The extended theory incorporates a logic of progress, which provides opportunity to develop a program in a manner that gives proper consideration to progress requirements. Dekker's algorithm for two process mutual exclusion is chosen to illustrate the use of the extended theory.
PYRAMIDAL IMAGE BLENDING USING CUDA FRAMEWORK

We propose and implement a pyramidal image blending algorithm using modern programmable graphic processing units. This algorithm is an essential part of an image stitching process for a seamless panoramic mosaic. The CUDA framework is a novel GPU programming framework from NVIDIA. We realize significant acceleration in computations of the pyramidal image blending algorithm by utilizing the CUDA as a computational resource. Specifically we demonstrate the efficiency of our system by parallelization of the algorithm and optimization of the memory resources of the GPU. We compare the execution time of the CPU as well as various CUDA based implementations. Just parallelization of the algorithm by the CUDA framework provides 20 times speedup, whereas optimizing the GPU memory IO gives more than 30 times speedup.
On finiteness of endomorphism rings of abelian varieties

The endomorphism ring End(A) of an abelian variety A is an order in a semi-simple algebra over Q. The co-index of End(A) is the index to a maximal order containing it. We show that for abelian varieties of fixed dimension over any algebraically closed field of characteristic p>0, the p-exponents of the co-indices of their endomorphism rings are bounded. We also give a few applications to this finiteness result.
RDT+: A parameter-free algorithm for exact motion planning

In this paper parameter-free concepts for exact motion planning are investigated. With the proposed RDT+ approach the collision detection parameters of a Rapidly-exploring Dense Tree (RDT) are automatically adjusted until an exact solution can be found. For efficient planning discrete collision detection routines are used within the RDT planner and by verifying the results with exact collision detection methods, the RDT+ concept allows to compute motions that are guaranteed collision-free. We show the probabilistic completeness of the proposed planner and present an extension for handling narrow passages. The algorithms are evaluated in different experiments, including narrow passages and high-dimensional planning problems, that are solved in simulation and on the humanoid robot ARMAR-III.
A metric to increase throughput in untrustworthy multi-hop wireless mesh networks

Node selfishness refers to nodes that use the resources of a multi-hop wireless mesh network but do not perform their basic network responsibilities of route management and packet forwarding. A security concern in mesh networks is that nodes may become selfish users of the network in order to conserve their processing power and limit other's use of their network bandwidth. This results in poor network performance and unreliable network paths. In this paper, a distributed trust mechanism is proposed to identify selfish nodes and exclude them from the network. A novel path metric is also proposed that rates network routes according to the trustworthiness of the intermediate nodes. Through experimentation on a practical evaluation framework, it is shown that the proposed mechanisms can increase the overall traffic throughput of mesh networks in which selfish nodes are present
Comparative Performance Analysis of Intel Xeon Phi, GPU, and CPU

We investigate and characterize the performance of an important class of operations on GPUs and Many Integrated Core (MIC) architectures. Our work is motivated by applications that analyze low-dimensional spatial datasets captured by high resolution sensors, such as image datasets obtained from whole slide tissue specimens using microscopy image scanners. We identify the data access and computation patterns of operations in object segmentation and feature computation categories. We systematically implement and evaluate the performance of these core operations on modern CPUs, GPUs, and MIC systems for a microscopy image analysis application. Our results show that (1) the data access pattern and parallelization strategy employed by the operations strongly affect their performance. While the performance on a MIC of operations that perform regular data access is comparable or sometimes better than that on a GPU; (2) GPUs are significantly more efficient than MICs for operations and algorithms that irregularly access data. This is a result of the low performance of the latter when it comes to random data access; (3) adequate coordinated execution on MICs and CPUs using a performance aware task scheduling strategy improves about 1.29x over a first-come-first-served strategy. The example application attained an efficiency of 84% in an execution with of 192 nodes (3072 CPU cores and 192 MICs).
Cosmic Rays above the Knee

An overview on the present observational status and phenomenological understanding of cosmic rays above 10^16 eV is given. Above these energies the cosmic ray flux is expected to be gradually dominated by an extra-galactic component. In order to investigate the nature of this transition, current experimental activities focus on the measurement of the cosmic ray flux and composition at the 'ankle' or 'dip' feature at several EeV. At the ultra high energy end of the spectrum, the flux suppression above 50 EeV is now well established by the measurements of HiRes and the Pierre Auger Observatory and we may enter the era of charged particle astronomy.
Magnetic field turbulence, electron heating, magnetic holes, proton cyclotron waves, and the onsets of bipolar pulse (electron hole) events: a possible unifying scenario

Abstract. Two electron heating events have been identified on 20 May 1996 when Polar was in the polar cap/polar cusp boundary layer. The electron heating events were located within magnetic holes/cavities/bubbles and were accompanied by nonlinear ± 14 nT peak-to-peak (f ~ 0.6 to 0.7 f cp ) obliquely propagating proton cyclotron waves. The electrons appear to be heated isotropically. Electric bipolar pulse (electron hole) onset events were also detected within the heating events. We propose a scenario which can link the above phenomena. Nonlinear Alfven waves, generated through cusp magnetic reconnection, propagate down magnetic field lines and locally heat electrons through the ponderomotive force. The magnetic cavity is created through the diamagnetic effect of the heated electrons. Ion heating also occurs through ponderomotive acceleration (but much less than the electrons) and the protons generate the electromagnetic proton cyclotron waves through the loss cone instability. The obliquely propagating electromagnetic proton cyclotron waves accelerate bi-streaming electrons, which are the source of free energy for the electron holes.