Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reliable Self-localization, Multirobot Sensor Integration, Accurate Path-planning and Basic Soccer Skills: Playing an Eeective Game of Robotic Soccer

Robotic soccer is a challenging research domain because problems in robotics, artiicial intelligence, multi-agent systems and real-time reasoning have to be solved in order to create a successful team of robotic soccer players. In this paper, we describe the key components of the CS Freiburg team. We focus on the self-localization and object recognition method based on using laser range nders and the integration of all this information into a global world model. Using the explicit model of the environment built by these components , we have implemented path planning, simple ball handling skills and basic multi-agent cooperation. The resulting system is a very successful robotic soccer team, which has not lost any oocial game yet.
Molecular Characterization of Genetic Loci Required for Secretion of Exoproducts in Burkholderia pseudomallei

ABSTRACT Previous studies have demonstrated that Burkholderia pseudomallei secretes protease, lipase, and phospholipase C (PLC) into the extracellular milieu, but their mechanisms of secretion and roles in pathogenesis have not been elucidated. In this study, we isolated and characterized 29 transposon mutants unable to secrete protease, lipase, and PLC.
Web Usage Mining for Ontology Management

This chapter proposes an original approach for ontology management in the context of Web-based information systems. Our approach relies on the usage analysis of the chosen Web site, in complement of the existing approaches based on content analysis of Web pages. Our methodology is based on the knowledge discovery techniques mainly from HTTP Web logs and aims at confronting the discovered knowledge in terms of usage with the existing ontology in order to propose new relations between concepts. We illustrate our approach on a Web site provided by French local tourism authorities (related to Metz city) with the use of clustering and sequential patterns discovery methods. One major contribution of this chapter is thus the application of usage analysis to support ontology evolution and/or web site reorganization.
Passive Sensor Imaging Using Cross Correlations of Noisy Signals in a Scattering Medium

It is well known that the travel time or even the full Green's function between two passive sensors can be estimated from the cross correlation of recorded signal amplitudes generated by ambient noise sources. It is also known that the direction of the energy flux from the noise sources affects the estimation of the travel time. Using the stationary phase method, we show here that the travel time can be effectively estimated when the ray joining the two sensors continues into the noise source region. We extend this analysis to passive sensor imaging of reflectors with different ambient noise source configurations by suitably migrating the cross correlations. If in addition there is multiple scattering in the medium, then reflectors can be imaged with passive sensor networks or arrays by migrating suitable fourth-order cross correlations. Fourth-order cross correlations can also be used with auxiliary passive sensors in order to enhance travel time estimation in a scattering medium.
Balanced Supervised Non-Negative Matrix Factorization for Childhood Leukaemia Patients

Supervised feature extraction methods have received considerable attention in the data mining community due to their capability to improve the classification performance of the unsupervised dimensionality reduction methods. With increasing dimensionality, several methods based on supervised feature extraction are proposed to achieve a feature ranking especially on microarray gene expression data. This paper proposes a method with twofold objectives: it implements a balanced supervised non-negative matrix factorization (BSNMF) to handle the class imbalance problem in supervised non-negative matrix factorization techniques. Furthermore, it proposes an accurate gene ranking method based on our proposed BSNMF for microarray gene expression datasets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to handle the class imbalance problem in supervised feature extraction methods. This work is part of a Human Genome project at The Children's Hospital at Westmead (TB-CHW), Australia. Our experiments indicate that the factorized components using supervised feature extraction approach have more classification capability than the unsupervised one, but it drastically fails at the presence of class imbalance problem. Our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods and shows promise in overcoming this concern.
On Numerical Solution of Integral Equation of the First Kind

Many problems of computational electromagnetics [1,2], stationary heat transfer [3,4] and elasticity theory [5] can be naturally reduced to integral equations of the first kind (IEFK) with a weak singularity. So we shall name the equations with a logarithmic peculiarity in one-dimensional case and equation with a peculiarity of an aspect 1 0 rMM in two-dimensional case, where rMM 0 is distance between points M and M0 over surface of integration. In particular, Dirichlet problem for the one-dimensional equation of Laplace or Helmholtz [2] can be reduced to the solution of IEFK. Many work (see [1,2,5]) are devoted to properties of IEFKs with a logarithmic percularity in non-periodic and periodic cases. These equations are incorrect in the uniform metrics. If we applying quadrature formulas for their numerical solution, the system of the linear algebraic equations (SLAE) will be received. All elements of this matrix uniformly tend to zero at magnification of number of the equations to infinity. Therefore in the given situation round-off errors begin to influence on numerical solution. If we differentiate this equation, we shall receive (together with some additional conditions) a singular integral equation (SIE) of the first kind, equivalent to the initial equation. This SIE is also incorrect in the uniform metrics, but for it the method of a numerical solution such as method of discrete percularities (MDP) has been developed [3]. MDP is self-regularizating method in the uniform metrics. The determinant of a MDP matrix does not tend to zero if we increase a number of equations. In [3] was considered the influence of number of equations in this SLAE and magnitude of round-off errors on accuracy of numerical solution. In present work the similar method is offered for a IEFK with a percularity 1 0 rMM on a rectangle.
MEG evidence that the central auditory system simultaneously encodes multiple temporal cues

Speech contains complex amplitude modulations that have envelopes with multiple temporal cues. The processing of these complex envelopes is not well explained by the classical models of amplitude modulation processing. This may be because the evidence for the models typically comes from the use of simple sinusoidal amplitude modulations. In this study we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to generate source space current estimates of the steady‐state responses to simple one‐component amplitude modulations and to a two‐component amplitude modulation. A two‐component modulation introduces the simplest form of modulation complexity into the waveform; the summation of the two‐modulation rates introduces a beat‐like modulation at the difference frequency between the two modulation rates. We compared the cortical representations of responses to the one‐component and two‐component modulations. In particular, we show that the temporal complexity in the two‐component amplitude modulation stimuli was preserved at the cortical level. The method of stimulus normalization that we used also allows us to interpret these results as evidence that the important feature in sound modulations is the relative depth of one modulation rate with respect to another, rather than the absolute carrier‐to‐sideband modulation depth. More generally, this may be interpreted as evidence that modulation detection accurately preserves a representation of the modulation envelope. This is an important observation with respect to models of modulation processing, as it suggests that models may need a dynamic processing step to effectively model non‐stationary stimuli. We suggest that the classic modulation filterbank model needs to be modified to take these findings into account.
UIDs as internal names in a distributed file system

The use of UIDs as internal names in an operating system for a local network is discussed. The use of internal names in other distributed systems is briefly surveyed. For this system, UIDs were chosen because of their intrinsic location independence and because they seemed to lend themselves to a clean structure for the operating system nucleus. The problems created by UIDs were: generating UIDs; locating objects; supporting multiple versions of objects; replicating objects; and losing objects. Some solutions to these problems are presented; for others, no satisfactory solution has yet been implemented.
Crowd vs. crowd: large-scale cooperative design through open team competition

Following the recent remarkable successes of crowdsourcing, there have been attempts to apply it to design. However a design problem is often too complex and difficult to break down into simpler, distributable tasks as required by the conventional crowdsourcing model. In this paper, we present Crowd vs. Crowd (CvC), a novel design crowdsourcing method, where several design teams made up of designers and crowd compete with each other. In each team, a designer coordinates effective communication between the crowd members and takes responsibility for the final design output, and the crowd contributes at different stages of design. We conducted an initial evaluation of CvC in comparison with other collaborative design methods, and found that: CvC can attract more people to participate; the crowd can make useful contribution in CvC; CvC can produce competent design outputs. We then applied CvC to two real-life design problems: first, designing a new logo for a university department; second, for a small tech company. With quantitative and qualitative analyses on these applications, we observed that the elements of competition and collaboration helped to sustain the crowd's motivation to participate, and to produce quality design outcomes with higher level of satisfaction for the stakeholders.
Lattice‐Boltzmann simulation of two‐phase flow in porous media

We simulate two‐fluid‐phase flow at the pore scale using a lattice Boltzmann (LB) approach. Using a parallel processing version of the Shan‐Chen model that we developed, we simulate a set of ideal two‐fluid systems and a model two‐fluid‐phase porous medium system comprised of a synthetic packing with a relatively uniform distribution of spheres. We use the set of ideal two‐phase systems to validate the approach and provide parameter information, which we then use to simulate a sphere‐pack system. The sphere‐pack system is designed to mimic laboratory experiments conducted to evaluate the hysteretic capillary pressure saturation relation for a system consisting of water, tetrachloroethylene, and a glass bead porous medium. Good agreement is achieved between the measured hysteretic capillary pressure saturation relations and the LB simulations when comparing entry pressure, displacement slopes, irreducible saturation, and residual entrapment. Our results further show that while qualitatively similar results are obtained when comparing systems consisting of 1200 spheres and 150 spheres, there is a significant difference between these two levels, suggesting a lower bound on the size of a representative elementary volume.
An alternative scenario for the formation of specialized protein nano-domains (cluster phases) in biomembranes

We discuss a realistic scenario, accounting for the existence of sub-micrometric protein domains in cell membranes. At the biological level, such membrane domains have been shown to be specialized, in order to perform a determined biological task, in the sense that they gather one or a few protein species out of the hundreds of different ones that a cell membrane may contain. By analyzing the balance between mixing entropy and protein affinities, we propose that such protein sorting in distinct domains can be explained without appealing to pre-existing lipidic micro-phase separations, as in the lipid raft scenario. We show that the proposed scenario is compatible with known physical interactions between membrane proteins, even if thousands of different species coexist.
Backward scattering of low-energy antiprotons by highly charged and neutral uranium: Coulomb glory

Collisions of antiprotons with He-, Ne-, Ni-like, bare, and neutral uranium are studied theoretically for scattering angles close to 180 deg. and antiproton energies in the interval from 100 eV to 10 keV. We investigate the Coulomb glory effect which is caused by a screening of the Coulomb potential of the nucleus and results in a prominent maximum of the differential cross section in the backward direction at some energies of the incident particle. We found that for larger numbers of electrons in the ion the effect becomes more pronounced and shifts to higher energies of the antiproton. On the other hand, a maximum of the differential cross section in the backward direction can also be found in the scattering of antiprotons on a bare uranium nucleus. The latter case can be regarded as a manifestation of the screening property of the vacuum-polarization potential in nonrelativistic collisions of heavy particles.
Host range mutant of human immunodeficiency virus type 1: modification of cell tropism by a single point mutation at the neutralization epitope in the env gene

We have isolated a variant of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) which is highly infectious to fibroblastlike cells (BT cells) derived from human brain as well as CD4-positive T cells. This variant HIV-1, named HIV[GUN-1V], was obtained by infecting BT cells with a prototype HIV-1 isolate, named HIV[GUN-1WT], which is highly infectious to T cells but barely infectious to BT cells. HIV[GUN-1V] infects BT cells productively and this infection appeared to be mediated by CD4. To elucidate the viral gene responsible for the host range difference between the variant and prototype HIV-1s, we cloned and analyzed the provirus genomes of the two viruses. Examination of the infectivities of BT cells by various recombinant viruses and analyses of the nucleotide sequences of HIV[GUN-1V] and HIV[GUN-1WT] showed that a single nucleotide exchange was responsible for their difference in infectivity of BT cells: HIV[GUN-1V] contains a thymine residue instead of the cytosine residue in HIV[GUN-1WT] at position 931 of the env coding sequence. Replacement of cytosine by thymine at this position of the env coding sequence of the HIV[GUN-1WT] genome induced the ability to infect BT cells. The base exchange at this position was expected to change amino acid 311 of the envelope glycoprotein, gp120, from proline to serine, which is located in a variable region containing type-specific immunodominant epitopes. Thus, HIV[GUN-1V] acquired a wider host range than HIV[GUN-1WT] by a single point mutation in the env gene.
Confronting for the Greater Good: Are Confrontations that Address the Broad Benefits of Prejudice Reduction Taken Seriously?

Confronting for the Greater Good: Are Confrontations that Address the Broad Benefits of Prejudice Reduction Taken Seriously? Benjamin James Drury Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Cheryl R. Kaiser Department of Psychology This dissertation examines whether confronting prejudice for the greater good – confronting in a way that conveys the benefits of prejudice reduction to groups and institutions other than the targets of prejudice – can help targets of prejudice be taken more seriously by members of the perpetrating group. This dissertation first tested whether targets of prejudice are taken less seriously when they confront than members of the perpetrating group (i.e. allies). Two studies demonstrate that members of the perpetrating group (i.e., men, Whites) take confrontations by targets of prejudice (i.e., women, Blacks) less seriously than confrontations by allies and that these reactions may be explained by a tendency to attribute targets’ confrontations to internal causes (i.e., tendencies to overreact). This dissertation next tested whether confronting for the greater good helps targets of prejudice to be taken more seriously when confronting. Four follow-up studies suggested that targets of prejudice were taken just as seriously as allies when confronting for the greater good. However, these latter experiments failed to replicate the effect that targets of prejudice who confront without using the greater good strategy are taken less seriously than allies who engage in the same confrontation. However, a meta-analysis of all studies demonstrated, across studies, confrontations by targets of prejudice were taken less seriously than confrontations by allies, while confrontations for the greater good were taken equally seriously for targets of prejudice and allies. As such, the individual studies in this dissertation may have failed to demonstrate the predicted effects due to a lack of power. This dissertation thus suggests that confronting for the greater good is one strategy that might help targets of prejudice to be taken seriously when they confront, although further research is needed to better understand the boundary conditions of this effect and should explore other strategies prejudice confronters might also use to be taken more seriously.
Proactive: Comprehensive Access to Job Information

The Internet has become an increasingly important source for finding the right employees, so more and more companies post their job openings on the Web. The large amount and dynamic nature of career recruiting information causes information overload problems for job seekers. To assist Internet users in searching for the right job, a range of research and commercial systems were developed over the past 10 years. Surprisingly, the majority of existing job search systems support just one, rarely two ways of information access. In contrast, our work focused on exploring a value of comprehensive access to job information in a single system (i.e., a system which supports multiple ways). We designed Proactive, a recommendation system providing comprehensive and personalized information access. To assist the varied needs of users, Proactive has four information retrieval methods - a navigable list of jobs, keyword-based search, implicit preference-based recommendations, and explicit preference-based recommendations. This paper introduces the Proactive and reports the results of a study focusing on the experimental evaluation of these methods. The goal of the study was to assess whether all of the methods are necessary for users to find relevant jobs and to what extent different methods can meet different users' information requirements. Keywords—Job recommendation, explicit preference, implicit preference, personalized information retrieval
Diversity and PAH growth abilities of bacterial strains isolated from a contaminated soil in Slovakia

Different abandoned industrial areas contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are present in Slovakia. These environmental burdens are very dangerous to the health of human and environment. The bioremediation, based on the use of hydrocarbons degrading microorganisms, is a promising strategy to sanitize these polluted sites. The aim of this investigation was to assess the bacterial diversity of a PAHs-contaminated soil and to select the potential hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria which can be used for different bioremediation approaches. The bacterial strains were isolated on minimal medium agar supplemented with a mixture of PAHs. Seventy-three isolated strains were grouped by ribosomal interspacer analysis in 15 different clusters and representatives of each cluster were identified by 16S rRNA sequencing. The PAHs degradation abilities of all bacterial isolates were estimated by the 2,6-dichlorophenol indophenol assay and by their growth on minimal broth amended with a mixture of PAHs. Different kinds of strains, members of the genus Pseudomonas, Enterobacter, Bacillus, Arthrobacter, Acinetobacter and Sphingomonas, were isolated from the contaminated soil. Four isolates (Pseudomonas putida, Arthrobacter oxydans, Sphingomonas sp. and S. paucimobilis) showed promising PAHs-degrading abilities and therefore their possible employing in bioremediation strategies.
- 1-Level of Detail Techniques for Accelerating Crowd Simulations

In this work we apply level of detail techniques to scale up the number of agents in realtime crowd simulations. Level of detail techniques are most studied with respect to geometric simplifications for rendering, but similar ideas are used here for computational simplification for simulations. In particular, we studied methods for computing the paths of agents in a crowd. The main approach for simplification is to cluster nearby agents in a similar state into one larger virtual agent, then simulate that virtual agent with an existing crowd simulation. We may then apply the changes in the virtual agent to the real agents in the corresponding cluster. We measure how much speed this technique gains in three different simulators and highlight cases where this approach is significantly faster than previously accepted methods.
Optimizing Without Derivatives: What Does the No Free Lunch Theorem Actually Say?

One of the most important stages in many areas of engineering and applied sciences is modeling and the use of optimization techniques to increase the quality and performance of products or processes. Financial market operations, radiation therapy technologies, protein folding determination, material sciences, and power system facilities design: developments in these disparate scientific and technological areas, as well as many others, rely also on the help of some quiet, hidden workers called optimization methods. Beyond what seems to be just a machine-like application of some algorithm, there exists a world of challenges and developments. Generally in literature the term optimization is related to (the output of) a mathematical technique or algorithm used to identify the extreme value of an arbitrary objective function through the manipulation of a known set of variables and subject to a set of constraints. More technically, a maximization problem with an explicit objective can in general be expressed in the following mathematical form: Finding the value arg max x∈H f (x),