Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual Environment Interaction Techniques

Virtual environments have shown considerable promise as a natural (and thus it is hoped more effective) form of human-computer interaction. In a virtual world you can use your eyes, ears, and hands much as you do in the real world: move your head to set your viewpoint, listen to sounds that have direction, reach out your hands to grab and manipulate virtual objects. Virtual worlds technologies (such as head-tracking and stereo, head-mounted displays) provide a better understanding of three-dimensional shapes and spaces through perceptual phenomena such as head-motion parallax, the kinetic depth effect, and stereopsis. Precise interaction, however, is difficult in a virtual world. Virtual environments suffer from a lack of haptic feedback (which helps us to control our interaction in the real world) and current alphanumeric input techniques for the virtual world (which we use for precise interaction in the computer world) are ineffective. We are unfamiliar with this new medium we work in; we do not fully understand how to immerse a user within an application. Before we can create virtual world solutions to real world problems we must learn how to interact with information and controls distributed about a user instead of concentrated in a window in front of him. We must identify natural forms of interaction and extend them in ways not possible in the real world.
Reliable Management Services for COTS-based Space Systems and Applications

Hybrid spacecraft processing platforms that combine radiation-hardened components with commercialgrade COTS components have the potential to dramatically improve performance while reducing overall project cost and risk. However, the susceptibility of COTS components to single-event upsets and other radiation effects can diminish their benefits without adequate mitigation techniques. As a major step towards a prototype system, a management service has been investigated and developed to improve the performance and reliability of a COTS-based, processing platform for space under development at Honeywell Inc. and the University of Florida for an upcoming NASA New Millennium Program mission. The emphasis of this paper is to present our design approach then analyze and quantify the performance characteristics of this management software and system through various experiments with case studies using typical space imaging kernels. In addition, several design constraints are analyzed to determine the scalability of the system.
Signal-Based Performance Evaluation of Dereverberation Algorithms

We address the measurement of reverberation in terms of the (DRR) in the context of the assessment of dereverberation algorithms for which we wish to quantify the level of reverberation before and after processing. The DRR is normally calculated from the impulse response of the reverberating system. However, several important dereverberation algorithms involve nonlinear and/or time-varying processing and therefore their effect cannot conveniently be represented in terms of modifications to the impulse response of the reverberating system. In such cases, we show that a good estimate of DRR can be obtained from the input/output signals alone using the Signal-to-Reverberant Ratio (SRR) only if the source signal is spectrally white and correctly normalized. We study alternative normalization schemes and conclude by showing a least squares optimal normalization procedure for estimating DRR using signal-based SRR measurement. Simulation results illustrate the accuracy of DRR estimation using SRR.
Use of tree structures for processing files

In data processing problems, files are frequently used which must both be searched and altered. Binary search techniques are efficient for searching large files, but the associated file organization is not readily adapted to the file alterations. Conversely, a chained file allocation permits e 1 cient alteration but cannot be searched efficiently. A file organized into a tree-like structure is discussed, and it is shown that such a file may both be searched and altered with times proportional to <italic>s</italic> log<subscrpt><italic>s</italic></subscrpt> <italic>N</italic>, where <italic>N</italic> is the number of file items and <italic>s</italic> is a parameter of the tree. It is also shown that optimizing the value of <italic>s</italic> leads to a search time which is only 25 per cent slower than the binary search. The tree organization employs two data chains and may be considered to be a compromise between the organizations for the binary search and the chained file. The relation of the tree organization to multidimensional indexing and to the trie structure is also discussed.
Tau Protects Microtubules in the Axon from Severing by Katanin

Microtubules in the axon are more resistant to severing by katanin than microtubules elsewhere in the neuron. We have hypothesized that this is because of the presence of tau on axonal microtubules. When katanin is overexpressed in fibroblasts, the microtubules are severed into short pieces, but this phenomenon is suppressed by the coexpression of tau. Protection against severing is also afforded by microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2), which has a tau-like microtubule-binding domain, but not by MAP1b, which has a different microtubule-binding domain. The microtubule-binding domain of tau is required for the protection, but within itself, provides less protection than the entire molecule. When tau (but not MAP2 or MAP1b) is experimentally depleted from neurons, the microtubules in the axon lose their characteristic resistance to katanin. These results, which validate our hypothesis, also suggest a potential explanation for why axonal microtubules deteriorate in neuropathies involving the dissociation of tau from the microtubules.
Androgen-specific critical periods for the organization of the major pelvic ganglion

Previous studies indicate that the major pelvic ganglion (PG) is dependent on testosterone for normal development. Tyrosine hydroxylase (T-OH), DOPA decarboxylase, and choline acetyltransferase (CAT) activities are significantly reduced by postnatal castration on day 10- 11, while testosterone replacement therapy reversed all developmental enzyme activity deficits (Melvin and Hamill, 1987). In the present studies castration on the day of birth combined with various testosterone-replacement paradigms produced effects demonstrating that the PG is sensitive to testosterone dosage and time of administration during early postnatal development. Gonadal hormone replacement experiments show that the androgens testosterone and dihydrotestosterone were effective in restoring T-OH and CAT activity deficits produced by neonatal castration. Estrogen therapy reversed the deficits in CAT activity, but was ineffective in reversing the alterations in T-OH activity. Treatment of pregnant dams with the anti- androgen flutamide altered the ontogeny of T-OH and CAT activities in pups despite replacement therapy on the day of birth. Thus, androgen- critical periods exist prenatally as well as postnatally. These studies suggest that the organization of PG development is critically dependent on both the time of exposure and dose of testosterone. Prenatal and postnatal critical periods appear to exist. In addition, the lack of an effect of estradiol on tyrosine hydroxylase activity suggests that androgens are specifically responsible for organizing the noradrenergic development of the PG.
The LECTRA Corpus - Classroom Lecture Transcriptions in European Portuguese

This paper describes the corpus of university lectures that has been recorded in European Portuguese, and some of the recognition experiments we have done with it. The highly specific topic domain and the spontaneous speech nature of the lectures are two of the most challenging problems. Lexical and language model adaptation proved difficult given the scarcity of domain material in Portuguese, but improvements can be achieved with unsupervised acoustic model adaptation. From the point of view of the study of spontaneous speech characteristics, namely disflluencies, the LECTRA corpus has also proved a very valuable resource.
Entropy-Based Service Selection with Uncertain QoS for Mobile Cloud Computing

With the prevalence of mobile computing and its convergence with cloud computing, there is an increasing trend of composing existing cloud services for rapid development of cloud-based mobile applications. It is vital for developers to find services not only satisfying their functionality requirements, but also meeting the requirements on non-functional quality of services (QoS). These QoS requirements, such as throughput, delay, reliability and security, are critical for the success of cloud-based mobile applications. In this paper, a QoS-based service ranking and selection approach is proposed to help developers select the service that best satisfies developers' QoS requirements from a set of services having already satisfied developers' functionality requirements in mobile cloud computing. Compared with state-of-the-art service ranking and selection techniques, our approach has the following advantages: 1) it uses intervals instead of fixed values to represent QoS of services, which are more flexible and practical in mobile cloud computing, 2) it enables developers to specify their QoS requirements in a more simple way, and 3) it employs the hybrid weights that incorporate the Entropy-based weighting technique to overcome the weakness caused by subjective weights, which ignore the knowledge of different services' performance in different QoS aspects. Experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Techniques and Approaches in Static Visualization of Motion Capture Data

In this paper we present a state of the art of the current approaches to visualization of motion capture data. We discuss the data representation, pre-processing techniques, and the design of existing tools and systems. Next we outline the advantages and disadvantages of the systems, some of which are explicitly noted by the original authors. Lastly we conclude with an overall summary and future directions.
Measuring Time-inconsistency: Evidence from Work-Welfare Decisions in NLSY

This paper applies a model of potentially time-inconsistent preferences to the problem of dynamic labor supply and welfare program participation. From panel data on the choices of single women with children, we provide estimates of the degree of time-inconsistency. With these estimates we can quantify the utility loss stemming from the inability to commit to future decisions, and the potential value of commitment mechanisms such as welfare time limits. ∗This paper is preliminary and incomplete. All comments are welcome. We thank Steve Berry, Stephano Della Vigna, Donghoon Lee, Daniele Passerman, Andrew Postlewaite, Matthew Rabin, John Rust, Kent Smetters, Ken Wolpin and seminar participants at Yale for many helpful discussions. We also thank Ken Wolpin for supplying data on U.S. state welfare benefits. Silverman gratefully acknowledges support from the SSRC Fellowship in Applied Economics. †Department of Economics, Yale University, 37 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511. Email: hanming.fang@yale.edu. ‡Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Email: silvermd@econ.sas. upenn.edu.
Fast clock synchronization in wireless sensor networks via ADMM-based consensus

In this paper, a consensus-based clock synchronization algorithm is presented and its resilience to frequency displacement estimation errors as well as communication noise is analyzed. The synchronization-enforcing control that is to be applied to clock periods is derived upon re-casting the consensus problem into a convex optimization problem and solving it in a distributed fashion via alternating direction method of multipliers. Conversely, plain consensus is used for reaching agreement on clock values. The proposed algorithm achieves higher convergence rates and equivalent noise resilience with respect to algorithmic solutions based on the only plain average consensus. The superior clock synchronization performance is corroborated via numerical tests.
Seroprevalence of Toxoplasmosis in the Residents of Cheorwon-gun, Gangwon-do, Korea

The seroepidemiological status of toxoplasmosis was surveyed among the residents of Cheorwon-gun, Gangwon-do by means of ELISA using a crude extract antigen of Toxoplasma gondii. The sera of 1,661 adult residents (866 males and 795 females) were collected and checked for IgG antibody titers, which showed 17.0% positive rate (282 sera). The positive rate was significantly different between the sex; 20.6% for males and 13.1% for females (P<0.05). The positive rates were higher in fifties of males (28.7%) and forties of females (20.0%). This positive rate of toxoplasmosis in Cheorwon-gun residents is regarded as the highest among the surveys of different geographical regions of Korea. This high positive rate may due in part to peculiar geographical locality of the surveyed area near the naturally well preserved demilitarized zone (DMZ) or presumably consumption of the pork imported from high endemic nations. Therefore, it is necessary to study further the epidemiology of toxoplasmosis in Cheorwon-gun.
A ultrawideband 3–10 GHz low-noise amplifier MMIC using inductive-series peaking technique

The objective of this paper was to investigate that the ultrawideband (UWB) low noise amplifier (LNA) was carried out by utilizing a two-stage cascade circuit schematic associated with inductive-series peaking technique, which could improve the bandwidth in the 3–10 GHz microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC). The proposed UWB LNA amplifier was implemented with both co-planer waveguide (CPW) layout and 0.15-µm GaAs D-mode pHEMT technology. Based on those technologies, this proposed UWB LNA which the chip size was shown of 1.5 mm × 1.4 mm, obtained a flatness gain 3-dB bandwidth of 4–8 GHz, the constant gain of 4 dB, noise figure lower than 5 dB, and the return loss better than −8.5 dB of input matching. Based on our experimental results, the low noise amplifier using the inductive-series peaking technique could obtain the wider band-width, low power consumption and high flatness of gain in the 3–10 GHz. Finally, the overall LNA characterization exhibited ultra-wide band-width and low noise characterization, which illustrated that the proposed UWB LNA had the circuit compact size and exhibited favorable RF characteristics. This UWB LNA circuit demonstrated the high RF characterization and could provide for the low noise microwave circuit applications.
Computerized Simulation of Automotive Air-Conditioning System: Development of Mathematical Model and Its Validation

A semi-empirical model for simulating thermal and energy performance of an automotive air-conditioning (AAC) system in passenger vehicles has been developed. The model consists of two sections, namely empirical evaporator correlations and dynamic load simulation. The correlations used consider sensible and latent heat transfer performance of the evaporator coil. The correlations were obtained from the experimental data of actual air conditioning system for a compact size passenger car. The sensible heat transfer correlation relates the evaporator air off drybulb temperature to inlet air dry-bulb temperature, humidity ratio, evaporator air velocity, condenser inlet air dry-bulb temperature, condenser air velocity and compressor speed. The latent heat transfer correlation relates the coil air-off humidity ratio to the same six independent variables. The dynamic load simulation model was developed based on the z-transfer function method with a one-minute time step. The cooling load calculations were performed using heat gain weighting factors. Heat extraction rate and cabin air dry-bulb temperature calculations were carried out using air temperature weighting factors. The empirical evaporator sensible and latent heat transfer correlations were embedded in the loads calculation program to enable the determination of evaporator inlet and outlet air conditions, the cabin air temperature and relative humidity. Comparisons with road test data indicated that the program was capable of predicting the performance of the automotive air-conditioning system with reasonable accuracy.
Upper Limb Load as a Function of Repetitive Task Parameters: Part 2—An Experimental Study

The aim of the study was to compare the theoretical indicator of upper limb load with the physiological indicator of musculoskeletal load, which is present while performing a repetitive task (a normalized electromyography [EMG] amplitude recorded from the muscles of the upper limb involved in the performed task). In an experimental study of a repetitive task, the EMG signal from 5 main muscles of the shoulder girdle, arm and forearm was registered: extensor carpi radialis longus, flexor carpi ulnaris, deltoideus anterior, biceps brachii caput breve and trapezius descendent. The results of the study showed a strong correlation between the theoretical indicator (Integrated Cycle Load) and the physiological indicator (root mean square of a normalized EMG amplitude from the 5 muscles). This proves that the developed theoretical indicator can be accepted as an indicator of upper limb musculoskeletal load during a work task.
Antecedents of customer satisfaction in mobile commerce: A systematic literature review

These days, issues such as customer satisfaction, attentiveness to customers' requirements and the ability to reply to them in near real-time have become serious competitive driving factors. While customer satisfaction regarding most goods and services has been well explored in academic literature, there exists little research on this factor with respect to mobile commerce applications and services. This paper provides a systematic literature review of the available research into antecedents of satisfaction in mobile commerce from 2005 to 2012. The outcomes are far from unanimous and the differences suggest that the satisfaction antecedents in mobile services are dependent on the nature of their services, their target clients and their operations. Based on the 15 extracted studies, we found a total of 12 antecedent factors existing for customer satisfaction in mobile commerce. We classified them into 3 main categories of American customer satisfaction index model antecedent factors and then 4 sub categories of Content Quality, Customer Service, Content Reliability and Distributive Justice respectively. This paper calls for more systematic attention to be directed towards customer satisfaction in mobile commerce and suggests to IT practitioners, as well as the research community, a summary of feasibly relevant factors that may affect customer satisfaction in mobile commerce services.
Making Large-Scale Nyström Approximation Possible

The Nystrom method is an efficient technique for the eigenvalue decomposition of large kernel matrices. However, in order to ensure an accurate approximation, a sufficiently large number of columns have to be sampled. On very large data sets, the SVD step on the resultant data submatrix will soon dominate the computations and become prohibitive. In this paper, we propose an accurate and scalable Nystrom scheme that first samples a large column subset from the input matrix, but then only performs an approximate SVD on the inner submatrix by using the recent randomized low-rank matrix approximation algorithms. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed algorithm is as accurate as the standard Nystrom method that directly performs a large SVD on the inner submatrix. On the other hand, its time complexity is only as low as performing a small SVD. Experiments are performed on a number of large-scale data sets for low-rank approximation and spectral embedding. In particular, spectral embedding of a MNIST data set with 3.3 million examples takes less than an hour on a standard PC with 4G memory.
LAND COVER AND LAND USE CHANGE DETECTION OF BEIJING WITH TEXTURAL INFORMATION FROM SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING DATA

Information about urban land cover and land use changes concerns many groups of people, such as the local governors, urban planners, environmentalists and decision makers. They need up-to-date change information to manage the land effectively and revise development plans. A case study was conducted over Beijing, China. Two multispectral satellite images (ASTER and SPOT PAN) collected in 2001 and a hyperspectral satellite image (CHRIS-PROBA) collected in 2005 were acquired over Beijing for the research. Both spectral and spatial information were considered in change detection. The result of the change detection indicates that the local government returned some of the lands back to forests and improved the environment in four years from 2001 to 2005. It also shows the increasing ability of Beijing in solving conflicts between urban growth and environment.
Swinging Since the 60'S: Fluctuations in UK Saving and Lessons for Latin America

In the last three decades, gross national saving in the UK has fluctuated widely. Swings in components of national savings have of course been even more marked, since there are sound economic reasons to expect changes in one component (e. g. , private saving) to be at least partially offset by changes in another (e. g. , public saving). Moreover, since the start of the 1980s, national savings behaviour is characterised not merely by fluctuations but by trend decline, the recent upturn notwithstanding. In this paper we explore changes in UK saving and its components, examine theoretical and empirical explanations, discuss implications for policy design, and draw lessons for Latin America.
Prenatal Influences on Sexual Orientation: Digit Ratio (2D:4D) and Number of Older Siblings

Prenatal androgen levels are suggested to influence sexual orientation in both sexes. The 2D:4D digit ratio has been found to associate with sexual orientation, but published findings have often been contradictory, which may partly be due to the large ethnic diversity between and within studied populations. In men, number of older brothers has been found to correlate positively with homosexuality. This phenomenon has been explained with a maternal immune reaction, which is provoked only by male fetuses and which gets stronger after each pregnancy. Here we assessed the relationship of sexual orientation to 2D:4D ratios and number of older siblings in Finland, where the population is found to be genetically relatively homogeneous. As in many previous studies, heterosexual men had lower 2D:4D than non-heterosexual men, which supports the notion that non-heterosexual men experience higher androgen levels in utero than population norms. Contrary to previous reports, non-heterosexual women had higher 2D:4D than heterosexual women. Non-heterosexual men had more older brothers and older sisters than heterosexual men. The greater number of older sisters in non-heterosexual men indicates that there are other factors that contribute to the higher birth order of homosexual men than the maternal immunization.