Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
“Hold Me Tight”: The Generalizability of an Attachment-Based Group Intervention to Chinese Canadian Couples

ABSTRACT “Hold Me Tight” (HMT) groups are an adaptation of emotionally focused therapy (EFT) for couples and have emerged out of 30 years of research into the efficacy and process of EFT. The goal of this study was to test the effects of a Chinese-language version of the HMT relationship enrichment program in a sample of Chinese Canadians. Twenty-three men and 23 women (N = 46) in committed couple relationships completed an HMT relationship education program with their partners in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Results indicated statistically significant improvements in participants' satisfaction with their attachment relationships, in their attachment security, and in their family functioning. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of relevant cross-cultural literature on attachment and couple relationships.
On the Efficiency of Embedding Information Within Scalar Quantizers

This correspondence explores the efficiency of embedding information within scalar quantizers. The aim being to efficiently include additional information within an existing coding scheme. Two different information embedding problems are considered: one using post-quantization embedding (PQE) and the other using joint quantization embedding. High-resolution bounds are derived for the achievable embedding rates in both these problems. Surprisingly these results show that it is possible to ldquosoak uprdquo the inefficiencies in scalar quantization through the embedding process. The correspondence concludes by considering some practical examples of low embedding rate coding strategies.
Hexahedral Mesh Generation for the Simulation of the Human Mandible

A combinatorial approach for the generation of hexahedral meshes by means of successive dual cycle elimination has been proposed by the second author in previous work. We provide a case study for the applicability of our hexahedral mesh generation approach to the simulation of physiological stress scenarios of the human mandible. Due to its complex and very detailed free-form geometry, the mandible model is very demanding. This test case is used as a running example to report on the progress and recent advances of the cycle elimination scheme. The given input data, a surface triangulation, requires a substantia l mesh reduction and a suitable conversion into a quadrilateral surface mesh as a first step, for which we use mesh clustering andb-matching techniques. Several strategies for improved cycle elimination orders are proposed. They lead to a significant reduction in the mesh size and a better structural quality. Based on the resulting combinatorial meshes, gradientbased optimized smoothing with the condition number of the Jacobian matrix as objective together with mesh untangling techniques yielded embeddings of a satisfactory quality. We tested our hexahedral meshes for the mandible model in an FEM simulation under the scenario of a bite on a “hard nut. ” Our simulation results are in good agreement with observations from biomechanical experiments.
Aperiodic model predictive control via perturbation analysis

In this paper, an enhanced event-based scheme for model predictive control (MPC) of constrained discrete-time systems with additive disturbances is investigated. The re/calculation of the MPC control law is triggered whenever an event depending on the error of the measured state with respect to the nominal state of the system occurs. Between the controller updates, the last computed control trajectory is applied to the system, in conjunction with a correction term. This term consists of a perturbation solution of the nominal system which itself depends on the aforementioned error. The overall framework yields less conservative results with respect to our previous work. The results are illustrated through a simulated example.
Compositionality via cut-elimination: Hennessy-Milner logic for an arbitrary GSOS

We present a sequent calculus for proving that processes in a process algebra satisfy assertions in Hennessy-Milner logic. The main novelty lies in the use of the operational semantics to derive introduction rules (on the left and right of sequents) for the different operators of the process calculus. This gives a generic proof system applicable to any process algebra with an operational semantics specified in the GSOS format. We identify the desirable property of compositionality with cut-elimination, and we prove that this holds for a class of sequents. Further, we show that the proof system enjoys good completeness and /spl omega/-completeness properties relative to its intended model.
The demand for reserves and interest rate volatility before and after EMU : an application to the Portuguese money market

We use Portuguese Money Market data to analyse the effect of the introduction of the Single Monetary Policy minimum reserve system on money market interest rate volatility. The spread between the overnight interest rate and the mid-point of the corridor of interest rate standing facilities is modelled trough GARCH models. The spread volatility shows a different behaviour before and after the EMU, consistent with increased flexibility under the new rules. JEL classification: E43; E52; G21
An Open Agent Architecture

The goal of this ongoing project is to develop an open agent architecture and accompanying user interface for networked desktop and handheld machines. The system we are building should support distributed execution of a user's requests, interop-erability of multiple application subsystems, addition of new agents, and incorporation of existing applications. It should also be transparent; users should not need to know where their requests are being executed, nor how. Finally, in order to facilitate the user's delegating tasks to agents, the architecture will be served by a multimodal interface , including pen, voice, and direct manipulation. Design considerations taken to support this func-tionality will be discussed below.
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IMPROVING EFFICIENCIES Case Study AUDITORY GESTURE FOR INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION ENVIRONMENTS

Auditory gestures are sound signals that represent spatially located information that can be stored or accessed by human gestural interaction in space. This document presents initial work to develop a model of auditory gesture for application in interactive installation environments, also applicable to spatial interaction with responsive spaces in buildings and public works. An interactive installation environment is a temporary digital spatial representation overlaid on an existing environment that is sensed through physical interaction inside, about or with it. This research develops a model of auditory gesture that will specify the implementation of interactive installation environments whereby users of a space can interactively create spatial tokens within the space using sound and gesture known as auditory gestures. These tokens are retrieved or activated by gestural interaction and represented using reactive sound. The model of auditory gesture will be built primarily through the interpretation and integration of results from i) controlled experiments in a simple interactive space and ii) testing in public environments (e.g. professional, cultural, social, or educational environments). A framework and system to measure and analyse gestural interaction in interactive installation environments is presented.
Automatic Detection of Buildings and Changes in Buildings for Updating of Maps

There is currently high interest in developing automated methods to assist the updating of map databases. This study presents methods for automatic detection of buildings and changes in buildings from airborne laser scanner and digital aerial image data and shows the potential usefulness of the methods with thorough experiments in a 5 km2 suburban study area. 96% of buildings larger than 60 m2 were correctly detected in the building detection. The completeness and correctness of the change detection for buildings larger than 60 m2 were about 85% (including five classes). Most of the errors occurred in small or otherwise problematic buildings.
How Complex are Complex Protein-protein Interactions ?

The extraction of protein-protein interactions (PPI) from text requires a formal PPI representation. We use the BioInfer and GENIA corpora to study two such representations: a “binary” interaction model consisting of pairs of proteins and a “complex” model where interactions are defined as a network of proteins and their relations. As both of these formats can be seen as graphs, we contrast them with syntactic dependency graphs, a common tool for PPI extraction. We find that unlike binary interactions, complex interactions closely resemble dependency parses, especially those in the Stanford scheme. We therefore argue that despite appearances, complex interactions might be easier to extract. We also notice the similarity between the independently developed BioInfer and GENIA interaction representations and the Stanford dependency scheme. This suggests an emerging consensus on the representation for complex PPI, supporting the value of these tools and resources for PPI extraction.
OE Matching Algorithm for Searching Biological Sequences

String matching algorithms play a key role in many computer science problems, and in the implementation of computer software. This problem has received, and continues to receive a great deal of attention due to various applications in text manipulation, information retrieval, speech recognition, image and signal processing and computational biology. In this study, we propose a new algorithm called the Odd and Even algorithm (OE). OE combines an enhanced preprocessing phase from the Berry Ravindran algorithm with our proposed new searching phase procedure. This variety of searching order allows our proposed algorithm to reduce the number of comparison characters and enhances the searching response time. Experimental results show that OE algorithm offers a smaller number of comparisons and offers improved elapsed searching time when compared to other well-known algorithms for searching any length of alphabets and patterns. The proposed algorithm is applicable to searching protein sequence databases as well as any other string searching applications.
Surgical Techniques for the Treatment of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common form of medically intractable epilepsy. Advances in electrophysiology and neuroimaging have led to a more precise localization of the epileptogenic zone within the temporal lobe. Resective surgery is the most effective treatment for TLE. Despite the variability in surgical techniques and in the extent of resection, the overall outcomes of different TLE surgeries are similar. Here, we review different surgical interventions for the management of TLE.
Feasibility and Acceptance of a Virtual Reality System for Gait Training of Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis

The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and participants' acceptance of a novel virtual realitybased gait training for multiple sclerosis individuals. Ten patients with multiple sclerosis participated in a six-week virtual reality-treadmill training program, which required participants to negotiate obstacles, while engaged in dual tasking. Outcome measures included system performances, training progression and participants’ acceptance. Results showed that the system was durable and highly adaptable to participants’ abilities.All participants enjoyed the intervention and improved their performance. Moreover, the technology was well accepted and the multisensory feedback was found to be very useful. This study demonstrated the feasibility of a virtual reality-based system for gait training in multiple sclerosis. It provided a basis for further development of the rehabilitation intervention and demonstrated that virtual reality treadmill intervention is feasible in such a cohort. European International Journal of Science and Technology ISSN: 2304-9693 www.cekinfo. org.uk/EIJST 172
Grammaticality and Ungrammaticality in Phonology

In this article, I make two theoretical claims. (i) For some form to be grammatical in language L, it is not necessary that the form satisfy all constraints that are active in L; that is, even grammatical forms can violate constraints. (ii) There are degrees of ungrammaticality; that is, not all ungrammatical forms are equally ungrammatical. I first show that these claims follow straightforwardly from the basic architecture of an optimality-theoretic grammar. I then show that the surface sound patterns used most widely in formal phonology cannot be used to test the truth of these two claims, but argue that results from speech processing experiments can. Finally, I discuss three experiments on the processing of nonwords of the form [stVt], [skVk], and [spVp] in English that were designed to test these claims, and show that both claims are confirmed by the results of the experiments.
Concept Mining using Conceptual Ontological Graph ( COG )

Concept mining (CM) is the area of exploring and finding links, associations, relationships, and patterns among huge collections of information. In this paper, we propose concept-based text representation, with an emphasis on using the proposed representation in different application s such as information retrieval, text summarization, and question answering. This work presents a new paradigm for concept mining by extracting the concept-based information from a raw text. At the text representation level, we introduce a sentence based conceptual ontological representation that builds concept-based representations for the whole document. A new concept-based similarity measure is proposed to measure the similarity of texts based on their meaning. The proposed approach is domain independent and it could be applied to general domain applications. The proposed approach has been applied to the domain of information retrieval and preliminary results are promising, and give an affirmation for proceeding in the right directions of this research.
Effects of Shiga Toxin Type 2 on Maternal and Fetal Status in Rats in the Early Stage of Pregnancy

Shiga toxin type 2 (Stx2), a toxin secreted by Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), could be one of the causes of maternal and fetal morbimortality not yet investigated. In this study, we examined the effects of Stx2 in rats in the early stage of pregnancy. Sprague-Dawley pregnant rats were intraperitoneally (i.p.) injected with sublethal doses of Stx2, 0.25 and 0.5 ng Stx2/g of body weight (bwt), at day 8 of gestation (early postimplantation period of gestation). Maternal weight loss and food and water intake were analyzed after Stx2 injection. Another group of rats were euthanized and uteri were collected at different times to evaluate fetal status. Immunolocalization of Stx2 in uterus and maternal kidneys was analyzed by immunohistochemistry. The presence of Stx2 receptor (globotriaosylceramide, Gb3) in the uteroplacental unit was observed by thin layer chromatography (TLC). Sublethal doses of Stx2 in rats caused maternal weight loss and pregnancy loss. Stx2 and Gb3 receptor were localized in decidual tissues. Stx2 was also immunolocalized in renal tissues. Our results demonstrate that Stx2 leads to pregnancy loss and maternal morbidity in rats in the early stage of pregnancy. This study highlights the possibility of human pregnancy loss and maternal morbidity mediated by Stx2.
Visualizing Patterns of Drug Prescriptions with EventFlow: A Pilot Study of Asthma Medications in the Military Health System

The Food and Drug Administration and Department of Defense were interested in detecting sub-optimal use of long-acting beta-agonists (LABAs) in asthmatics within the Military Health System (MHS). Visualizing the patterns of asthma medication use surrounding a LABA prescription is a quick way to detect possible sub-optimal use for further evaluation. Analysis of 100 asthma patients was conducted in EventFlow to display and summarize timepoint and interval data. Epidemiologists reported that EventFlow was a powerful tool for rapidly visualizing possible patterns of sub-optimal LABA use that can be targeted for intervention.
Fall 2005 EE 550 Course Project Analysis of ExOR: A Multi-Receiver Diversity based Routing Scheme for Wireless Networks

A maintenance platform is provided for gaining access to the upper area of the furnace (10) of a steam generator that can be quickly and easily assembled during a maintenance shutdown. The main beams (26) forming the framework of the platform are supported both from the furnace walls (42, 44) and also from the furnace roof (32, 34, 38). These beams, which are of considerable length, are stored outside of the furnace in a nearly vertical position when not in use, and are guided into the furnace by a plurality of rollers (40), so as to keep the beams in a single plane close to the outer furnace wall while they are being moved into the furnace.
Weighted heuristic ensemble of filters

Feature selection has become increasingly important in data mining in recent years due to the rapid increase in the dimensionality of big data. However, the reliability and consistency of feature selection methods (filters) vary considerably on different data and no single filter performs consistently well under various conditions. Therefore, feature selection ensemble has been investigated recently to provide more reliable and effective results than any individual one but all the existing feature selection ensemble treat the feature selection methods equally regardless of their performance. In this paper, we present a novel framework which applies weighted feature selection ensemble through proposing a systemic way of adding different weights to the feature selection methods-filters. Also, we investigate how to determine the appropriate weight for each filter in an ensemble. Experiments based on ten benchmark datasets show that theoretically and intuitively adding more weight to `good filters' should lead to better results but in reality it is very uncertain. This assumption was found to be correct for some examples in our experiment. However, for other situations, filters which had been assumed to perform well showed bad performance leading to even worse results. Therefore adding weight to filters might not achieve much in accuracy terms, in addition to increasing complexity, time consumption and clearly decreasing the stability.
A novel geometric center design method for genetic algorithm optimization

This paper presents a novel geometric center embedded genetic algorithm (GCEGA) in solving optimization problems. Due to the inherent characteristics of genetic operators, traditional genetic algorithm (GA) has weaknesses in exploiting a peak. Hence it is time-consuming to attain a high precision solution. To deal with this problem, the geometric center design (GCD) method is proposed. It utilizes the geometric knowledge to approach the geometric center (GC) in search of potential optimum values. In every generation, some high-quality individuals are chosen to compute the GC, which is then evaluated and conditionally put back into the population. Experiments have been implemented on twelve functions for comparison between the traditional GA and the proposed algorithm. The results reveal that the proposed algorithm can remarkably enhance the performance of the traditional GA with faster speed and higher accuracy.
Applications of Real First-Order Constraint Solving Bibliography

First-order constraints over the reals appear in numerous contexts. Usually existential quantification occurs when some parameter can be chosen by the user of a system, and univeral quantification when the exact value of a parameter is either unknown, or when it occurs in infinitely many, similar versions. The following is a list of application areas and publications that contain applications for real first-order constraint solving. The list is certainly not complete, but grows as the author encounters new items. Contributions are very welcome!
Microcontroller Based Speed Control of DC Geared Motor Through RS-232 Interface With PC

: The speed control of DC motor is very crucial in applications where precision and protection are of essence. Purpose of a motor speed controller is to take a signal representing the required speed and to drive a motor at that speed. In this paper PWM based speed control of DC motor through RS232 with PC goal of this as Role of electrical drives is a major concern in industrial automation. Industrial applications use dc motors because the speed-torque relationship can be varied to almost any useful form for both dc motor and regeneration applications in either direction of rotation. DC motors feature a speed, which can be controlled smoothly down to zero, immediately followed by acceleration in the opposite direction without power circuit switching. Having intelligence PC available to control operation of speed of motor which can increase productivity in broad range of industry. Personal computers or Laptops are working on Register Level while our controller is working on TTL so we have to use a level shifter that is MAX232 IC which can change the platform for serial communication. This software provide variable baud rate for operation, and connect PC to MAX232 using serial cable.
Vibration-Induced Friction Control for Walkway Locomotion Interface

Falls represent a major challenge to mobility for the elderly community, a point that has motivated various studies of balance failures. To support this work, we are interested in mechanisms for the synthesis of ground environments that can be controlled to exhibit dynamic friction characteristics. As a first step, we investigate the design and development of such a variable-friction device, a hybrid locomotion interface using a cable-driven vibrotactile mechanism. Measurements on our prototype, consisting of an aluminum tile covered with low-friction polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), demonstrate that it can effectively simulate a low coefficient of static friction. As part of the design, we also investigated the role that induced vibration plays in modifying the coefficient of friction. Measurements of sliding on a PTFE-covered tile in a tilted configuration showed a significant influence of normal low-frequency vibration, particularly for frequencies around 20 Hz, regardless of the user's weight.