Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Curvature vs. Slope Inference for Features in Nonparametric Curve Estimates

First derivative based tools have been very popular for detecting features in nonparametric curve estimators. However, in many applications second derivative information is quite important for identifying statistically significant features. This paper illustrates several different ways in which second derivative based inference significantly improves upon methods based on first derivatives. The scale space viewpoint provides the foundation for effective use of second derivative information in our inference.
Scale space localization, blur, and contour-based image coding

We have recently proposed a scale-adaptive algorithm for reliable edge detection and blur estimation. The algorithm produces a contour code which consists of estimates of position, brightness, contrast and blur for each edge point in the image. Here we address two questions: 1. Can scale adaptation be used to achieve precise localization of blurred edges? 2. How much of the perceptual content of an image is carried by the 1-D contour code? We report an efficient algorithm for subpixel localization, and show that local scale control allows excellent precision even for highly blurred edges. We further show how local scale control can quantitatively account for human visual acuity of blurred edge stimuli. To address the question of perceptual content, we report an algorithm for inverting the contour code to reconstruct an estimate of the original image. While reconstruction based on edge brightness and contrast alone introduces significant artifact, restitution of the local blur signal is shown to produce perceptually accurate reconstructions.
Micromachined Fourier transform spectrometer on silicon optical bench platform

We present a miniaturized Fourier transform spectrometer implemented on a silicon optical bench platform. The optical and opto-mechanical components of a Michelson interferometer, such as a beam splitter, micromirrors, MEMS actuators, and fiber U-grooves, are simultaneously fabricated by micromachining of the device layer of a silicon-on-insulator wafer. Our bulk micromachining process combines the flexible definition capability of deep reactive ion etching with the good surface quality provided by anisotropic KOH wet-etching. A spectral resolution of 45 nm near 1550 nm wavelength is demonstrated.
Challenges in biocooperative rehabilitation robotics

Psychological states such as mood, motivation and engagement are known to be critical for the success of rehabilitation, and encouraging unmotivated stroke patients improves the likelihood of their eventual recovery. Psychological factors can be incorporated into the closed-loop control of biocooperative rehabilitation systems, augmenting the device with critical information about the patient state. However, in rehabilitation robotics, interpretation of psychophysiological measurements is made complex by the multi-task environment, the presence of strenuous physical activity and patient's damage to the central and autonomic nervous systems. The study examines these challenges and proposes possible solutions for implementation in biocooperative control of rehabilitation robots.
Reassessing guidelines for heart failure

Significant progress has been made in the last few years in the management of heart failure. In particular, several trials have given significant results. It has become apparent that heart failure may be prevented in some patients by treatment of risk factors such as coronary artery disease. Experience with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors has shown that the survival and symptomatic benefits do last in the long term, and confirm that they are the first-line treatment in heart failure. The results of a number of trials using the angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) candesartan, valsartan and losartan are presented and discussed. There is also some experience now in the use of candesartan for patients with heart failure and preserved left ventricular systolic function. The COMET trial compared the β-blockers carvedilol and metoprolol tartrate, and suggests that there may be differences in clinical effect between β-blockers. The selective aldosterone receptor blocker eplerenone was evaluated in the EPHESUS trial in post-MI patients with signs of heart failure. Based on these clinical trials, heart failure guidelines are now being updated.
Multi-frequency polarimetric analysis of sea ice

This paper explores the frequency dependency of polarimetric properties of SAR backscatter from Arctic sea ice. The study focus on L and C-band full polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) data from the Beaufort Sea, collected by the NASA/JPL AIRSAR system in December 2004. An area showing various types of first year ice, plus regions of multi-year ice, is selected for a polarimetric analysis, which included a non-negative eigenvalue Freeman-Durden decomposition of the two PolSAR images. The analysis shows clear evidence of differences in the scattering mechanisms associated with L and C band frequencies.
Information flow inference for ML

This paper presents a type-based information flow analysis for a call-by-value λ-calculus equipped with references, exceptions and let-polymorphism, which we refer to as Core ML. The type system is constraint-based and has decidable type inference. Its non-interference proof is reasonably lightweight, thanks to the use of a number of orthogonal techniques. First, a syntactic segregation between values and expressions allows a lighter formulation of the type system. Second, non-interference is reduced to subject reduction for a non-standard language extension. Lastly, a semi-syntactic approach to type soundness allows dealing with constraint-based polymorphism separately.
Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer in Alcohol Dependence: A Pilot Study

Background: Pavlovian processes are thought to play an important role in the development, maintenance and relapse of alcohol dependence, possibly by influencing and usurping ongoing thought and behavior. The influence of pavlovian stimuli on ongoing behavior is paradigmatically measured by pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) tasks. These involve multiple stages and are complex. Whether increased PIT is involved in human alcohol dependence is uncertain. We therefore aimed to establish and validate a modified PIT paradigm that would be robust, consistent and tolerated by healthy controls as well as by patients suffering from alcohol dependence, and to explore whether alcohol dependence is associated with enhanced PIT. Methods: Thirty-two recently detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and 32 age- and gender-matched healthy controls performed a PIT task with instrumental go/no-go approach behaviors. The task involved both pavlovian stimuli associated with monetary rewards and losses, and images of drinks. Results: Both patients and healthy controls showed a robust and temporally stable PIT effect. Strengths of PIT effects to drug-related and monetary conditioned stimuli were highly correlated. Patients more frequently showed a PIT effect, and the effect was stronger in response to aversively conditioned CSs (conditioned suppression), but there was no group difference in response to appetitive CSs. Conclusion: The implementation of PIT has favorably robust properties in chronic alcohol-dependent patients and in healthy controls. It shows internal consistency between monetary and drug-related cues. The findings support an association of alcohol dependence with an increased propensity towards PIT. 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel
Behavioral Modeling of Human Choices Reveals Dissociable Effects of Physical Effort and Temporal Delay on Reward Devaluation

There has been considerable interest from the fields of biology, economics, psychology, and ecology about how decision costs decrease the value of rewarding outcomes. For example, formal descriptions of how reward value changes with increasing temporal delays allow for quantifying individual decision preferences, as in animal species populating different habitats, or normal and clinical human populations. Strikingly, it remains largely unclear how humans evaluate rewards when these are tied to energetic costs, despite the surge of interest in the neural basis of effort-guided decision-making and the prevalence of disorders showing a diminished willingness to exert effort (e.g., depression). One common assumption is that effort discounts reward in a similar way to delay. Here we challenge this assumption by formally comparing competing hypotheses about effort and delay discounting. We used a design specifically optimized to compare discounting behavior for both effort and delay over a wide range of decision costs (Experiment 1). We then additionally characterized the profile of effort discounting free of model assumptions (Experiment 2). Contrary to previous reports, in both experiments effort costs devalued reward in a manner opposite to delay, with small devaluations for lower efforts, and progressively larger devaluations for higher effort-levels (concave shape). Bayesian model comparison confirmed that delay-choices were best predicted by a hyperbolic model, with the largest reward devaluations occurring at shorter delays. In contrast, an altogether different relationship was observed for effort-choices, which were best described by a model of inverse sigmoidal shape that is initially concave. Our results provide a novel characterization of human effort discounting behavior and its first dissociation from delay discounting. This enables accurate modelling of cost-benefit decisions, a prerequisite for the investigation of the neural underpinnings of effort-guided choice and for understanding the deficits in clinical disorders characterized by behavioral inactivity.
Controlling articulated robots in task-space with spiking silicon neurons

Emulating how humans coordinate articulated limbs within the brain's power budget promises to accelerate progress in building autonomous biomimetic robots. Here, we used a neuromorphic approach - low-power analog silicon spiking neurons - to control an articulated robot in real-time. We obtained a closed-form control function that computes robot motor torques given the robot's joint angles (state) and desired end-effector forces; factorized the function into a set of sub-functions over five unique three-dimensional domains; and regressed each sub-function on to the steady-state spiking responses of one out of five silicon spiking-neuron pools. The spiking pools controlled a three degree-of-freedom robot's motor torques in real-time and performed reaches to arbitrary locations in space with less than 2 cm root-mean-square trajectory tracking error (of an analytical controller). The controller is compliant and can draw shapes with a pen on a dynamically perturbed surface while remaining stable. Using force control resulted in linear responses to perturbations in end-effector coordinates (task-space), which effectively filtered noise due to neuron spikes. Factorizing the controller reduced the neural regression's complexity to cubic in the dynamic range of the robot's state and desired forces. Doing so made acquiring spiking responses for regression tractable in time (~2-3 min), and enabled reliable trajectory tracking with only 1280 neurons. This is the first time a neuromorphic system has achieved realtime manipulation for an articulated robot with three or more degrees-of-freedom.
Multilingual and Content Based Access to Flickr Images

This paper outlines the MLFlickr system, which is a multilingual query platform over Flickr. In section I, we introduce the argument that deals with multilingual, conceptual driven image research. In section II, we present some related work; in Section III, we detail the problem targeted in this work, to focus, in Section IV, on a description of the image search architecture we developed. Before concluding, Section V presents some experiments and some results aiming at validating the approach we suggest.
Test requirement analysis for low cost hierarchical test path construction

We propose a methodology that examines design modules and identifies appropriate vector justification and response propagation requirements for reducing the cost of hierarchical test path construction. Test requirements are defined as a set of fine-grained input and output bit clusters and pertinent symbolic values. They are independent of actual test sets and are adjusted to the inherent module connectivity and regularity. As a result, they combine the generality required for fast hierarchical test path construction with the precision necessary for minimizing the incurred cost, thus fostering cost-effective hierarchical test.
Influence of ZnCl2 on the structure and mechanical properties of polyacrylonitrile fibers

Abstract: The structure and mechanical properties of polyacrylonitrile fibers containing small amounts of Zn2+ were investigated. It is possible to interpret the influence of ZnC1, on the fibers by diffusion. Fibers spun from spinning dope containing ZnC1, may have a denser and finer structure because ZnC1, in the spinning dope retards the coagulation rate. The tensile strength and modulus of the fibers are much improved because of the retardation of coagulation. It is probable that the complexation between Zn2+ and CN groups does not contrib- ute to the improvement of the mechanical properties because the amount of ZnC1, added in a spinning dope is extremely small. Key words: polyacrylonitrile fibers, spinning, zinc chloride, morphology, mecha- nical properties, diffusion. INTRO D UCTl ON Paul' studied diffusion during the coagulation with In dry-jet wet spinning or wet spinning, the structure of polyacrylonitrile fibers is strongly affected by the coagu- lation conditions. Many authors'-4 have studied the influence of the coagulation bath conditions on the structure of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers. They report- ed that a denser and finer structure resulted from the slow coagulation condition-low temperature and high solvent concentration in the coagulation bath and high polymer concentration in the spinning dope. They showed that the denser and finer structure improved the mechanical properties such as tensile strength and modulus. When the filament of spinning dope is brought into contact with the coagulant, a diffusional interchange occurs between the inner and outer phases of the fila- ment. Non-solvent diffuses into the filament, while solvent diffuses out of it. which a very distinct moving boundary was associated. One side of the boundary became coagulated and hard whereas the other4de remained as a soft and elastic gel. The cross-section of a rod was examined under a micro- scope. The boundary moved inward with the square root of time. The rate of the boundary movement decreased as the dimethylacetamide (DMAc) concentra- tion in the coagulation bath increased. Terada6 studied the influence of solvents on the boundary growth rate. The boundary growth rate was found to be higher in the order dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), dimethylformamide (DMF), DMAc and sodium thiocyanate (NaSCN). Stami Carbon
A Framework for Scene-Flow Driven Creation of Time-Consistent Dynamic 3D Objects using Mesh Parametrizations

In this paper we propose a novel method to create dynamic mesh sequences with fixed connectivity from multiple camera video streams. Fixed connectivity is useful for dynamic mesh coding as mesh connectivity has to be transmitted only once and not frame-wise. The proposed method runs automatically. It deploys mesh parametrizations and Voronoi diagrams from the computer graphics realm as well as 2D optical and 3D scene flow from computer vision. Assuming that a given dynamic mesh sequence does not necessarily have constant connectivity, motion estimation is performed by applying a 3D motion field to a static reconstruction in one frame. Afterwards, mesh connectivity is transferred patch-wise from one frame to the next one using remeshing techniques. The entire method is independent of static mesh resolution, hence supplying a basis for dynamic mesh coding and simplification.
Online training of Support Vector Regression

Bach implementations of Support Vector Regression (SVR) are inefficient when used in an online setting, because they must be retrained from scratch every time the training set is modified. This paper presents an online support vector regression (OSVR) for regression problems that have input data supplied in sequence rather than in batch. The OSVR has been applied to two benchmark problems shows that the OSVR algorithm has a much faster convergence and results in a smaller number of support vectors and a better generalization performance in comparison with the existing algorithms.
Stem Cell Therapy in Heart Diseases: A Review of Selected New Perspectives, Practical Considerations and Clinical Applications

Degeneration of cardiac tissues is considered a major cause of mortality in the western world and is expected to be a greater problem in the forthcoming decades. Cardiac damage is associated with dysfunction and irreversible loss of cardiomyocytes. Stem cell therapy for ischemic heart failure is very promising approach in cardiovascular medicine. Initial trials have indicated the ability of cardiomyocytes to regenerate after myocardial injury. These preliminary trials aim to translate cardiac regeneration strategies into clinical practice. In spite of advances, current therapeutic strategies to ischemic heart failure remain very limited. Moreover, major obstacles still need to be solved before stem cell therapy can be fully applied. This review addresses the current state of research and experimental data regarding embryonic stem cells (ESCs), myoblast transplantation, histological and functional analysis of transplantation of co-cultured myoblasts and mesenchymal stem cells, as well as comparison between mononuclear and mesenchymal stem cells in a model of myocardium infarction. We also discuss how research with stem cell transplantation could translate to improvement of cardiac function.
Immediate Cytotoxicity But Not Degranulation Distinguishes Effector and Memory Subsets of CD8+ T Cells

CD8+ T cells play a central role in the resolution and containment of viral infections. A key effector function of CD8+ T cells is their cytolytic activity toward infected cells. Here, we studied the regulation of cytolytic activity in naive, effector, and central versus effector memory CD8+ T cells specific for the same glycoprotein-derived epitope of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus. Our results show that the kinetics of degranulation, assessed by a novel flow cytometric based assay, were identical in effector and both subsets of memory CD8+ T cells, but absent in naive CD8+ T cells. However, immediate cytolytic activity was most pronounced in effector T cells, low in effector memory T cells, and absent in central memory T cells, correlating with the respective levels of cytolytic effector molecules present in lytic granules. These results indicate that an inherent program of degranulation is a feature of antigen-experienced cells as opposed to naive CD8+ T cells and that the ability of CD8+ T cells to induce target cell apoptosis/death is dependent on granule protein content rather than on the act of degranulation itself. Furthermore, these results provide a potential mechanism by which central memory CD8+ T cell–mediated death of antigen-presenting cells within the lymph node is avoided.
Rax Is a Selector Gene for Mediobasal Hypothalamic Cell Types

The brain plays a central role in controlling energy, glucose, and lipid homeostasis, with specialized neurons within nuclei of the mediobasal hypothalamus, namely the arcuate (ARC) and ventromedial (VMH), tasked with proper signal integration. Exactly how the exquisite cytoarchitecture and underlying circuitry becomes established within these nuclei remains largely unknown, in part because hypothalamic developmental programs are just beginning to be elucidated. Here, we demonstrate that the Retina and anterior neural fold homeobox (Rax) gene plays a key role in establishing ARC and VMH nuclei in mice. First, we show that Rax is expressed in ARC and VMH progenitors throughout development, consistent with genetic fate mapping studies demonstrating that Rax+ lineages give rise to VMH neurons. Second, the conditional ablation of Rax in a subset of VMH progenitors using a Shh::Cre driver leads to a fate switch from a VMH neuronal phenotype to a hypothalamic but non-VMH identity, suggesting that Rax is a selector gene for VMH cellular fates. Finally, the broader elimination of Rax throughout ARC/VMH progenitors using Six3::Cre leads to a severe loss of both VMH and ARC cellular phenotypes, demonstrating a role for Rax in both VMH and ARC fate specification. Combined, our study illustrates that Rax is required in ARC/VMH progenitors to specify neuronal phenotypes within this hypothalamic brain region. Rax thus provides a molecular entry point for further study of the ontology and establishment of hypothalamic feeding circuits.
Wiretap Channel in the Presence of Action-Dependent States and Noiseless Feedback

We investigate the wiretap channel in the presence of action-dependent states and noiseless feedback. Given the message to be communicated, the transmitter chooses an action sequence that affects the formation of the channel states and then generates the channel input sequence based on the state sequence, the message, and the noiseless feedback, where the noiseless feedback is from the output of the main channel to the channel encoder. The main channel and the wiretap channel are two discrete memoryless channels (DMCs), and they are connected with the legitimate receiver and the wiretapper, respectively. The transition probability distribution of the main channel depends on the channel state. Measuring wiretapper’s uncertainty about the message by equivocation, the capacity equivocation regions are provided both for the case where the channel inputs are allowed to depend noncausally on the state sequence and the case where they are restricted to causal dependence. Furthermore, the secrecy capacities for both cases are formulated, which provide the best transmission rate with perfect secrecy. The result is further explained via a binary example.
Using a Task Modeling Formalism in the Design of Serious Games for Emergency Medical Procedures

Lack of standard methodologies to guide and organize game design can result in longer and less predictable game production processes. Moreover, the need for interaction among domain experts (providing the instructional content) and game developers is a peculiar aspect of serious games that makes their development more difficult. This paper focuses on the design of games for procedural training, and proposes to adopt a task modeling technique (ConcurTaskTrees, CTT [15]) in the modeling of training scenarios. In particular, we show how CTT can be used to (i) analyze and structure pedagogical content about the procedures, (ii) support and monitor procedure execution in the game. We also describe how we employed CTT in the design of a serious game for training nurses in emergency medical procedures on disabled patients.