Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asymmetric Move Selection Strategies in Monte-Carlo Tree Search: Minimizing the Simple Regret at Max Nodes

The combination of multi-armed bandit (MAB) algorithms with Monte-Carlo tree search (MCTS) has made a significant impact in various research fields. The UCT algorithm, which combines the UCB bandit algorithm with MCTS, is a good example of the success of this combination. The recent breakthrough made by AlphaGo, which incorporates convolutional neural networks with bandit algorithms in MCTS, also highlights the necessity of bandit algorithms in MCTS. However, despite the various investigations carried out on MCTS, nearly all of them still follow the paradigm of treating every node as an independent instance of the MAB problem, and applying the same bandit algorithm and heuristics on every node. As a result, this paradigm may leave some properties of the game tree unexploited. In this work, we propose that max nodes and min nodes have different concerns regarding their value estimation, and different bandit algorithms should be applied accordingly. We develop the Asymmetric-MCTS algorithm, which is an MCTS variant that applies a simple regret algorithm on max nodes, and the UCB algorithm on min nodes. We will demonstrate the performance of the Asymmetric-MCTS algorithm on the game of $9\times 9$ Go, $9\times 9$ NoGo, and Othello.
Experimental thermo-stress analysis for a bending shape control of composite beams embedded with SMA wires

An experimental study has been conducted to design and fabricate smart composite beams embedded with prestrained nitinol wire actuators. The fabrication process developed allowed both quasi-isotropic E-glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy hosts to be eccentrically embedded with 10 parallel prestrained wires with a purpose-made alignment device and cured successfully in an autoclave. Smart composite beams of three different lengths were made for each type of host. Both single-cycle and multi-cycle thermomechanical bending actuations of these beams in the cantilever set-up were characterised experimentally by applying various levels of electric current to the nitinol wires. The performance characteristics showed that the present fabrication process was repeatable and reliable. While the end deflections of up to 41 mm were easily achieved from smart E-glass/epoxy beams, the limited end deflections were observed from the smart carbon/epoxy beams due primarily to our inability to insulate the nitinol wires. Moreover, it seemed necessary to overheat the prestrained wires to much higher temperatures beyond the complete reverse transformation in order to generate recovery stress.
A Logical Framework for Behaviour Reasoning and Assistance in a Smart Home

Smart Homes (SH) have emerged as a realistic intelligent assistive environment capable of providing assistive living for the elderly and the disabled. Nevertheless, it still remains a challenge to assist the inhabitants of a SH in performing the “right” action(s) at the “right” time in the “right” place. To address this challenge, this paper introduces a novel logical framework for cognitive behavioural modelling, reasoning and assistance based on a highly developed logical theory of actions - the Event Calculus. Cognitive models go beyond data-centric behavioural models in that they govern an inhabitant’s behaviour by reasoning about its knowledge, actions and environmental events. In our work we outline the theoretical foundation of such an approach and describe cognitive modelling of SH. We discuss the reasoning capabilities and algorithms of the cognitive SH model and present the details of the various tasks it can support. A system architecture is proposed to illustrate the use of the framework in facilitating assistive living. We demonstrate the perceived effectiveness of the approach through presentation of its operation in the context of a real world daily activity scenario.
Novel Two-Stage Detection for MIMO OFDM Systems with Reduced Complexity

Two new fixed effort two-stage detection algorithms for Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are proposed, reaching near maximum likelihood (ML) performance with a significantly reduced complexity. For enhancing the data rates in wireless communication systems a higher bandwidth is needed, resulting in a frequency selective channel with multiple reflecting transmission paths. The resulting higher complexity at the receiver side can be reduced by performing the equalization in the frequency domain, where each subchannel can be considered as a flat MIMO channel. The implementation of an efficient MIMO detector with low effort based on an analytic criterion is strongly needed to achieve the optimum hardware exploitation in concrete practical systems. Therefore our reduced search algorithms (RSML and IRS-ML), performing the search over a reduced set of candidates based on pre-computed search set missing probabilities and distance ratios for flat MIMO channels, are adapted to the OFDM system model. Furthermore our new OFDM-RS-ML and OFDM-IRS-ML algorithms are proposed reaching ML performance with only 1/8 of the needed computational effort compared to the RS-ML and IRS-ML algorithms by additionally considering the conditions of the different subchannel matrices during the selection of the candidates. Therefore the OFDM- (I)RS-ML algorithms offer a higher flexibility reaching near ML performance with significantly reduced computational effort.
On the Complexity of MMSNP

Monotone monadic strict NP (MMSNP) is a class of computational problems that is closely related to the class of constraint satisfaction problems for constraint languages over finite domains. It is known that one of those classes has a complexity dichotomy if and only if the other class has. Whereas the dichotomy conjecture has been verified for several subclasses of constraint satisfaction problems, little is known about the the computational complexity for subclasses of MMSNP. In this paper we completely classify the complexity of MMSNP for the case where the obstructions are monochromatic and where loops in the input are forbidden. That is, we determine the computational complexity of natural partition problems of the following type. For fixed sets of finite structures ${\cal S}_1, \dots, {\cal S}_k$, decide whether a given loopless structure can be vertex-partitioned into $k$ parts such that for each $i \leq k$ none of the structures in ${\cal S}_i$ is homomorphic to the $i$th part.
Using watershed segmentation in robot motion planning

The probabilistic roadmap (PRM) planner is a popular method for robot motion planning problems with many degrees of freedom. However, it has been shown that the metho d performs less well in situations where the robot has to pass through a narrow passage in the scene. This is mainly due to th e uniformity of the sampling used in the planner; it places many samples in large open regions and too few in tight passages. In this paper, a technique based on a robot independent cell decomposition of the free workspace is proposed to guide the probabilistic sampling, such that the distribution of samples tends more toward the interesting regions in the scene. Thes interesting regions are identifyed using a watershed segme ntation on the cell decomposition. It is shown that this leads to impr oved performance on difficult planning problems in 2D and 3D workspaces.
Treatment of Neuropathic Pain: Opioids, Cannabinoids, and Topical Agents - Printer-friendly version

1. To review the mechanisms and eff ects of opioids, cannabinoids, and topical agents in neuropathic pain. 2. To review clinically relevant pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of opioids, cannabinoids, and topical agents in patients with neuropathic pain. 3. To review the clinical evidence for the use of opi-oids, cannabinoids, and topical agents in neuro-pathic pain.
Liquid scintillator-based neutron detector development

The IAEA, in collaboration with the Joint Research Center (Ispra, IT) and Hybrid Instruments (UK), is developing a liquid scintillator-based neutron coincidence counting system to address a number of safeguards applications. Interest in this technology is increasing with the advent of high-flash point, nonhazardous scintillating fluids coupled with significant advances in signal processing electronics. Together, these developments have provided the enabling technologies to allow liquid scintillators to be implemented outside of a laboratory environment. Another important aspect of this detector technology is that it can be used with the current installed infrastructure of safeguards assay instruments and data acquisition electronics. It is also an excellent candidate for the replacement of 3He-based systems in many applications. As such, a comparison to an existing 3He-based system will be presented to contrast the differences and benefits for several applications. This paper will describe the experiments and associated modeling activities engaged to carefully characterize the detection system and refine the models. The latest version of MCNPX-PoliMi Monte Carlo modeling code was used to address the specific requirements of liquid scintillators. Additionally, this development activity has driven the collaborative development with Hybrid Instruments of a high-performance pulse shape discriminator (PSD) unit. Specific applications will be described with particular emphasis on those in which liquid scintillators provide immediate benefit over traditional detection methods.
Role of the mammalian ATG8/LC3 family in autophagy: differential and compensatory roles in the spatiotemporal regulation of autophagy

Autophagy, an evolutionarily conserved cellular degradation pathway of the lysosome, is associated with many physiological and pathological processes. The hallmark of autophagy is the formation of the autophagosome that engulfs and degrades cytosolic components via its fusion with the lysosome, in either a selective or a non-selective manner. Autophagy is tightly regulated by proteins encoded by autophagy-related (atg) genes. Among these proteins, ATG8/LC3 is essential for autophagosome biogenesis/maturation and it also functions as an adaptor protein for selective autophagy. In mammalian cells, several homologs of yeast Atg8 such as MAP1LC3, GABARAP, and GABARAPL 1/2 have been identified. However, the biological relevance of this gene diversity in higher eukaryotes, and their specific roles, are largely unknown. In this review, we describe the mammalian ATG8/LC3 family and discuss recent advancements in understanding their roles in the autophagic process. [BMB Reports 2016; 49(8): 424-430]
Enabling Fine-Grained Permissions for Augmented Reality Applications with Recognizers

Augmented reality (AR) applications sense the environment, then render virtual objects on human senses. Examples include smartphone applications that annotate storefronts with reviews and XBox Kinect games that show "avatars" mimicking human movements. No current OS has special support for such applications. As a result, permissions for AR applications are necessarily coarse-grained: applications must ask for access to raw sensor feeds, such as video and audio. These raw feeds expose significant additional information beyond what applications need, including sensitive information such as the user's location, face, or surroundings. Instead of exposing raw sensor data to applications directly, we introduce a new OS abstraction: the recognizer. A recognizer takes raw sensor data as input and exposes higher-level objects, such as a skeleton or a face, to applications. We propose a fine-grained permission system where applications request permissions at the granularity of recognizer objects. We analyze 87 shipping AR applications and find that a set of four core recognizers covers almost all current apps. We also introduce privacy goggles, a visualization of sensitive data exposed to an application. Surveys of 962 people establish a clear "privacy ordering" over recognizers and demonstrate that privacy goggles are effective at communicating application capabilities. We build a prototype on Windows that exposes nine recognizers to applications, including the Kinect skeleton tracker. Our prototype incurs negligible overhead for single applications, while improving performance of concurrent applications and enabling secure offloading of heavyweight recognizer computation.
Effects of strength training on muscle cellular outcomes in prostate cancer patients on androgen deprivation therapy

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) improves life expectancy in prostate cancer (PCa) patients, but is associated with adverse effects on muscle mass. Here, we investigated the effects of strength training during ADT on muscle fiber cross‐sectional area (CSA) and regulators of muscle mass. PCa patients on ADT were randomized to 16 weeks of strength training (STG) (n = 12) or a control group (CG; n = 11). Muscle biopsies were obtained from m. vastus lateralis and analyzed by immunohistochemistry and western blot. Muscle fiber CSA increased with strength training (898 μm2, P = 0.04), with the only significant increase observed in type II fibers (1076 μm2, P = 0.03). There was a trend toward a difference in mean change between groups myonuclei number (0.33 nuclei/fiber, P = 0.06), with the only significant increase observed in type I fibers, which decreased the myonuclear domain size of type I fibers (P = 0.05). Satellite cell numbers and the content of androgen receptor and myostatin remained unchanged. Sixteen weeks of strength training during ADT increased type II fiber CSA and reduced myonuclear domain in type I fibers in PCa patients. The increased number of satellite cells normally seen following strength training was not observed.
Impact of Short-term Training in Social Cognition in Preschoolers with Externalizing Behavior

In two experimental and exploratory studies, we wanted to test the differentiated effects on preschoolers with externalizing behavior (EB) of two short-term social information processing (SIP) and Theory of Mind (ToM) training sessions, in comparison with typically developing (TD) preschoolers or with preschoolers with EB whom didn’t receive training. Firstly, nineteen preschoolers presenting a high level of EB problems took part in a pre-test session involving direct cognitive and socio-cognitive measures (assessing the understanding of emotions, beliefs and social problem-solving). They were then allocated at random to two experimental groups (ToM or SIP training) and compared to nineteen TD preschoolers who followed the same procedure. Four experimental groups, EB-ToM group ( n =9), TD-ToM group ( n =9), EB-SIP group ( n =10), TD SIP-group ( n =10), received short training sessions, which were given by group of three children. All children took part in a post-test session. Secondly, EB-ToM group ( n =9) and EB-SIP group ( n =10) was compared to a control group of preschoolers with EB problems ( n =9). These preschoolers took part in pre-test and post-test sessions. Firstly, we tested whether the effectiveness of the training was specific to children with EB compared to TD children. Although improvement was obtained in typically developing children, larger improvements were found in the population with EB. Secondly, we compared the potential transfer of learning between the two types of experimental training in children with EB problems. Results showed some improvement in ToM and in SIP for both experimental groups. These studies provide some guidelines for training in social cognition aimed at preschoolers who are at risk of or have developed EB disorders.
Increased Coupling in the Saliency Network is the main cause/effect of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

To uncover the underlying mechanisms of mental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for improving both early diagnosis and therapy, it is increasingly recognized that we need a better understanding of how the brain's functional connections are altered. A new brain wide association study (BWAS) has been developed and used to investigate functional connectivity changes in the brains of patients suffering from ADHD using resting state fMRI data. To reliably find out the most significantly altered functional connectivity links and associate them with ADHD, a meta-analysis on a cohort of ever reported largest population comprising 249 patients and 253 healthy controls is carried out. The greatest change in ADHD patients was the increased coupling of the saliency network involving the anterior cingulate gyrus and anterior insula. A voxel-based morphometry analysis was also carried out but this revealed no evidence in the ADHD patients for altered grey matter volumes in the regions showing altered functional connectivity. This is the first evidence for the involvement of the saliency network in ADHD and it suggests that this may reflect increased sensitivity over the integration of the incoming sensory information and his/her own thoughts and the network as a switch is bias towards to the central executive network.
Phosphotransferase System-Independent Glucose Utilization in Corynebacterium glutamicum by Inositol Permeases and Glucokinases

ABSTRACT Phosphoenolpyruvate-dependent glucose phosphorylation via the phosphotransferase system (PTS) is the major path of glucose uptake in Corynebacterium glutamicum, but some growth from glucose is retained in the absence of the PTS. The growth defect of a deletion mutant lacking the general PTS component HPr in glucose medium could be overcome by suppressor mutations leading to the high expression of inositol utilization genes or by the addition of inositol to the growth medium if a glucokinase is overproduced simultaneously. PTS-independent glucose uptake was shown to require at least one of the inositol transporters IolT1 and IolT2 as a mutant lacking IolT1, IolT2, and the PTS component HPr could not grow with glucose as the sole carbon source. Efficient glucose utilization in the absence of the PTS necessitated the overexpression of a glucokinase gene in addition to either iolT1 or iolT2. IolT1 and IolT2 are low-affinity glucose permeases with Ks values of 2.8 and 1.9 mM, respectively. As glucose uptake and phosphorylation via the PTS differs from glucose uptake via IolT1 or IolT2 and phosphorylation via glucokinase by the requirement for phosphoenolpyruvate, the roles of the two pathways for l-lysine production were tested. The l-lysine yield by C. glutamicum DM1729, a rationally engineered l-lysine-producing strain, was lower than that by its PTS-deficient derivate DM1729Δhpr, which, however, showed low production rates. The combined overexpression of iolT1 or iolT2 with ppgK, the gene for PolyP/ATP-dependent glucokinase, in DM1729Δhpr enabled l-lysine production as fast as that by the parent strain DM1729 but with 10 to 20% higher l-lysine yield.
A material point method for viscoelastic fluids, foams and sponges

We present a new Material Point Method (MPM) for simulating viscoelastic fluids, foams and sponges. We design our discretization from the upper convected derivative terms in the evolution of the left Cauchy-Green elastic strain tensor. We combine this with an Oldroyd-B model for plastic flow in a complex viscoelastic fluid. While the Oldroyd-B model is traditionally used for viscoelastic fluids, we show that its interpretation as a plastic flow naturally allows us to simulate a wide range of complex material behaviors. In order to do this, we provide a modification to the traditional Oldroyd-B model that guarantees volume preserving plastic flows. Our plasticity model is remarkably simple (foregoing the need for the singular value decomposition (SVD) of stresses or strains). Lastly, we show that implicit time stepping can be achieved in a manner similar to [Stomakhin et al. 2013] and that this allows for high resolution simulations at practical simulation times.
Software repository mining with Marmoset

Most computer science educators hold strong opinions about the "right" approach to teaching introductory level programming. Unfortunately, we have comparatively little hard evidence about the effectiveness of these various approaches because we generally lack the infrastructure to obtain sufficiently detailed data about novices' programming habits.To gain insight into students' programming habits, we developed Marmoset, a project snapshot and submission system. Like existing project submission systems, Marmoset allows students to submit versions of their projects to a central server, which automatically tests them and records the results. Unlike existing systems, Marmoset also collects finegrained code snapshots as students work on projects: each time a student saves her work, it is automatically committed to a CVS repository.We believe the data collected by Marmoset will be a rich source of insight about learning to program and software evolution in general. To validate the effectiveness of our tool, we performed an experiment which found a statistically significant correlation between warnings reported by a static analysis tool and failed unit tests.To make fine-grained code evolution data more useful, we present a data schema which allows a variety of useful queries to be more easily formulated and answered.
Research Process Management

Though the value of a process-centred view for the understanding and (re-)design of corporations has been widely accepted, our understanding of the research process in Information Systems (IS) remains superficial. A process-centred view on IS research considers the conduct of a research project as a sequence of activities involving resources, data and research artifacts. As such, it helps to reflect on more effective ways to conduct IS research, to consolidate and compare diverse practices and to complement the focus on research methodologies with research project practices. This paper takes a first step towards the discipline of ‘Research Process Management’ by exploring the features of research processes and by presenting a preliminary approach for research process design that can facilitate modelling IS research. The case study method and the design science research method are used as examples to demonstrate the potential of such reference research process models.
Recent topics of micro -and nano mechatronics

This paper focuses on the recent topics of micro and nano mechatronics. A nano laboratory-a prototype nano manufacturing system based on nanorobotlic manipulation-is presented for enabling nanotube-based micro- and nanomechatronics, such as microhano sensors and actuators, bioapplications and nano-robotics applications. Deflection of cantilevered individual nanotubes based mass flow sensors, field emission of a cantilevered nanotube based approaching sensor, dual cantilevered nanotubes based thermal probes, and telescoping motion based nanotube linear bearings and our preliminary works on actuators are reviewed.
Throughput Maximization in Linear Multiuser MIMO–OFDM Downlink Systems

In this paper, we study the problem of maximizing the throughput of a multiuser multiple-input-multiple-output orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system in the downlink with a total power constraint using a beamforming approach. An iterative algorithm that takes turns to optimize, jointly among users, the power allocation in the downlink, the transmit and the receive beamforming antenna vectors, and the power allocation in the virtual uplink is proposed. The algorithm is proved to converge, and the throughput increases from one iteration to the next. In addition to the total power constraint, the proposed algorithm is also capable of handling individual users' rate constraints. To reduce complexity, a geometric-programming-based power control in the high signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) region and an orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access scheme in the low SINR region are proposed. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the generalized zero-forcing (GZF) approach.