Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bypassing the Bottleneck: The Advantage of Fingertip Shear Feedback for Navigational Cues

Multiple resource models suggest that there will be less interference between tasks that do not share the same processing resources or modalities. Most in-vehicle navigational systems rely on some type of auditory modality, which can be problematic in situations with high levels of background noise or when one is engaged in a secondary auditory task, such as talking on a cell phone. The haptic or tactile sensory modality may be an effective alternative for presenting important navigational information in a vehicle. The current study compared the effectiveness of auditory vs. tactile navigational instructions to the operator of a moving vehicle. Tactile shear cues were provided to the participants' index fingers as they gripped the steering wheel. These tactile cues provided directional information that coincide with the direction of the applied skin displacement. In single task driving, participants made accurate lane changes in response to both auditory and tactile instructions. In dual-task driving, where participants conversed on a cell phone, participants were less accurate with auditory instructions than for tactile instructions. This suggests that in some instances, presenting information via the tactile modality may bypass the bottleneck described by multiple resource theories when there is competition for the same resources.
Constrained Signals: A General Theory of Information Content and Detection

In this paper, a general theory of signals characterized by probabilistic constraints is developed. As in previous work (10), the theoretical development employs Lagrange multipliers to implement the constraints and the maximum en- tropy principle to generate the most likely probability distribution function consistent with the constraints. The method of computing the probability distribution functions is similar to that used in computing partition functions in statistical me- chanics. Simple cases in which exact analytic solutions for the maximum entropy distribution functions and entropy exist are studied and their implications discussed. The application of this technique to the problem of signal detection is ex- plored both theoretically and with simulations. It is demonstrated that the method can readily classify signals governed by different constraint distributions as long as the mean value of the constraints for the two distributions is different. Classi- fying signals governed by the constraint distributions that differ in shape but not in mean value is much more difficult. Some solutions to this problem and extensions of the method are discussed.
Standardization in Enterprise Inter- and Intraorganizational Integration

The worldwide collaboration and cooperation of enterprises of all sizes have increased the need for interoperability standards, especially for businesses in global environments. Such standards are concerned with the communication aspects of information and communication technology (ICT), such as protocols, safety, and security, as well as the syntax and semantics of the communication content. Sender and receiver must be able to trust both the communication and the validity of its content. Both parties have to have the same understanding of the meaning of the exchanged information. Unfortunately, the standards are developed independently by different standards organizations using incompatible and inconsistent terminology, thereby hampering significantly the deployment of existing standards and the development of still missing ones. The paper presents existing standards in the area of enterprise inter- and intraorganizational integration and identifies shortcomings in the current standards, especially problems in the area of terminology.
Relating Structure to Function: Heschl's Gyrus and Acoustic Processing

The way in which normal variations in human neuroanatomy relate to brain function remains largely uninvestigated. This study addresses the question by relating anatomical measurements of Heschl's gyrus (HG), the structure containing human primary auditory cortex, to how this region processes temporal and spectral acoustic information. In this study, subjects' right and left HG were identified and manually indicated on anatomical magnetic resonance imaging scans. Volumes of gray matter, white matter, and total gyrus were recorded, and asymmetry indices were calculated. Additionally, cortical auditory activity in response to noise stimuli varying orthogonally in temporal and spectral dimensions was assessed and related to the volumetric measurements. A high degree of anatomical variability was seen, consistent with other reports in the literature. The auditory cortical responses showed the expected leftward lateralization to varying rates of stimulus change and rightward lateralization of increasing spectral information. An explicit link between auditory structure and function is then established, in which anatomical variability of auditory cortex is shown to relate to individual differences in the way that cortex processes acoustic information. Specifically, larger volumes of left HG were associated with larger extents of rate-related cortex on the left, and larger volumes of right HG related to larger extents of spectral-related cortex on the right. This finding is discussed in relation to known microanatomical asymmetries of HG, including increased myelination of its fibers, and implications for language learning are considered.
A reliable speaker verification system based on LPCC and DTW

Human voice can serve as a password/key for access to various services. This voice is used for verifying speaker in speaker verification system based on the features extracted from the voice signal. In automated speaker verification the speaker's voice signal is processed to extract speaker-specific information which is used to generate voiceprint also known as a template that cannot be replicated by any source except the original speaker. An automatic speaker verification system based on LPCC (Linear Predictive Cepstral Coefficient) and DTW (Dynamic Time Warping) has been proposed in this paper which is based on the assumption that the shape of the vocal tract governs the nature of the sound being produced.
Troubling ' Games for Girls ' : Notes from the Edge of Game Design

This paper presents notes from the field focused on a large project to design an activist, multi-user game aimed at middle school girls. A thorny issue in developing games for girls is the categorization of female players and universalizing their preferences. In the paper I provide diverse feedback on current gamebased research project, RAPUNSEL, hoping to provide a multiplicity in the category of "girl" so that new game designs may challenge the many stereotypes inherent in computer culture. I then discuss the game design in RAPUNSEL and how a designer may provide for multiple play styles.
Improved calculation of core loss with nonsinusoidal waveforms

An extension to the Steinmetz equation is proposed, to enable estimation of hysteresis losses in magnetic core materials with nonsinusoidal flux waveforms. The new formulation is shown to avoid anomalies present in previous modified-Steinmetz-equation calculations of loss with nonsinusoidal waveforms. Comparison with experimental measurements in MnZn ferrite shows improved accuracy. The result may be optionally formulated in terms of an effective frequency and an effective amplitude, and options for defining these are discussed.
Single-Sample Face Recognition Based on Intra-Class Differences in a Variation Model

In this paper, a novel random facial variation modeling system for sparse representation face recognition is presented. Although recently Sparse Representation-Based Classification (SRC) has represented a breakthrough in the field of face recognition due to its good performance and robustness, there is the critical problem that SRC needs sufficiently large training samples to achieve good performance. To address these issues, we challenge the single-sample face recognition problem with intra-class differences of variation in a facial image model based on random projection and sparse representation. In this paper, we present a developed facial variation modeling systems composed only of various facial variations. We further propose a novel facial random noise dictionary learning method that is invariant to different faces. The experiment results on the AR, Yale B, Extended Yale B, MIT and FEI databases validate that our method leads to substantial improvements, particularly in single-sample face recognition problems.
From the IPO to the First Trade : Is Underpricing Related to the Opening Mechanism ?

As documented by a vast empirical literature, IPOs are characterized by underpricing. Most of the theoretical literature has linked the size of underpricing to the IPO procedure used in the primary market. In this paper, by using a matched sample of NYSE and NASDAQ IPOs, we show that the size of underpricing also depends on the method used to open trading in the IPO aftermarket. We propose a new proxy for ex ante uncertainty of firm value and test it. Our results show that there is a larger level of uncertainty at the beginning of trading on NASDAQ than on the NYSE. This in turn is associated with larger levels of underpricing for NASDAQ IPOs. We suggest that this may be due to the different informational efficiency of the two methods of opening trading in IPOs.
The value of more accurate customer profitability reports: does cost complexity matter?

This paper reports experimental evidence on the potential benefits of reporting different levels of customer-related information in a pricing decision context. The paper mainly focuses on the influence of the complexity of the environment on the value of more accurate customer profitability systems. Contrary to the findings of Gupta & King (1997) our results indicate that more accurate reports have more value in complex cost environments. In addition we find that, compared to a situation where decision makers receive only general profit feedback, reports based on traditional costing systems improve the quality of the pricing decision in complex environments.
Immunocytological and mineralogical study of bronchoalveolar lavage in a group of subjects exposed to asbestos.

Twenty-five subjects (24 males and 1 female, mean age 57.4 years) who have been exposed to asbestos underwent chest radiography, high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) of the chest, lung function tests and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) for evaluation of cell components (total cell count, percentages of macrophages, lymphocytes, neutrophil and eosinophil granulocytes and the lymphocyte subpopulations CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD19+ and HLADR+), soluble factors (IL-8, IL-10, IL-12 and MCP-1 in the supernatant) and concentration of asbestos fibre. The subjects were subdivided according to the degree of their exposure, to the concentration of asbestos fibres in the BAL and to chest X-ray findings using the I.L. O. classification (0/0pl, 0/1 and 1/0 and above). According to the exposure index, we showed statistically significant (p < 0.05) higher lymphocytes percentage in the BAL of subjects with moderate exposure and significantly higher levels of IL-10 (p < 0.05) in the supernatant of subjects showing an absence of asbestos fibres in their BAL. In the group of subjects with a 0/0 and 0/1 radiological profile, the cellular component of the BAL was characterised by a higher percentage of lymphocytes (p < 0.02), whereas a trend toward an increase in the number of neutrophils was noted in subjects with obvious pulmonary fibrosis. The percentage of neutrophils was inversely correlated with some parameters of respiratory function such as vital capacity (p = 0.03) and the partial pressure of oxygen (p = 0.05) in the blood. Investigating the cytokines in the supernatant of the BAL, we found a trend toward lower concentration of IL-10 in the group showing the worst radiological picture (I.L.O. > or = 1/0), and a statistically significant negative correlation between this cytokine and pO2 (p = 0.048). Concerning the other cytokines and chemokines studied (MCP-1, IL-8 and IL-12), no significant differences were found to be associated with the radiological profiles. There were, however, positive correlations between the concentration of IL-8 and the percentage of neutrophils (p = 0.038) and between the concentration of MCP-1 and the percentage of lymphocytes (p = 0.006). A negative relationship between the concentrations of IL-12 and IL-10 has been also observed (p = 0.028). This research allows us to hypothesise that IL-10 may have a pathogenetic role in the evolution of asbestosis.
Localization in indoor environments by querying omnidirectional visual maps using perspective images

This article addresses the problem of imagebased localization in indoor environments. The localization is achieved by querying a database of omnidirectional images that constitutes a detailed visual map of the building where the robot operates. Omnidirectional cameras have the advantage, when compared to standard perspectives, of capturing in a single frame the entire visual content of a room. This, not only speeds up the process of acquiring data for creating the map, but also favors scalability by significantly decreasing the size of the database. The problem is that omnidirectional images have strong non-linear distortion, which leads to poor retrieval results when the query images are standard perspectives. This paper reports for the first time thorough experiments in using perspectives to index a database of para-catadioptric images for the purpose of robot localization. We propose modifications to the SIFT algorithm that significantly improve point matching between the two types of images with positive impact in the recognition based in visual words. We also compare the classical bags-of-words against the recent framework of visual-phrases, showing that the latter outperforms the former.
Finding Arguing Expressions of Divergent Viewpoints in Online Debates

This work suggests a fine-grained mining of contentious documents, specifically online debates, towards a summarization of contention issues. We propose a Joint Topic Viewpoint model (JTV) for the unsupervised identification and the clustering of arguing expressions according to the latent topics they discuss and the implicit viewpoints they voice. A set of experiments is conducted on online debates documents. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the model’s output are performed in context of different contention issues. Analysis of experimental results shows the effectiveness of the proposed model to automatically and accurately detect recurrent patterns of arguing expressions in online debate texts.
Outsourced symmetric private information retrieval

In the setting of searchable symmetric encryption (SSE), a data owner D outsources a database (or document/file collection) to a remote server E in encrypted form such that D can later search the collection at E while hiding information about the database and queries from E. Leakage to E is to be confined to well-defined forms of data-access and query patterns while preventing disclosure of explicit data and query plaintext values. Recently, Cash et al. presented a protocol, OXT, which can run arbitrary boolean queries in the SSE setting and which is remarkably efficient even for very large databases. In this paper we investigate a richer setting in which the data owner D outsources its data to a server E but D is now interested to allow clients (third parties) to search the database such that clients learn the information D authorizes them to learn but nothing else while E still does not learn about the data or queried values as in the basic SSE setting. Furthermore, motivated by a wide range of applications, we extend this model and requirements to a setting where, similarly to private information retrieval, the client's queried values need to be hidden also from the data owner D even though the latter still needs to authorize the query. Finally, we consider the scenario in which authorization can be enforced by the data owner D without D learning the policy, a setting that arises in court-issued search warrants. We extend the OXT protocol of Cash et al. to support arbitrary boolean queries in all of the above models while withstanding adversarial non-colluding servers (D and E) and arbitrarily malicious clients, and while preserving the remarkable performance of the protocol.
Correlates of memory function in community-dwelling elderly: The importance of white matter hyperintensities

We sought to identify magnetic resonance- (MR)-imaged structures associated with declarative memory in a community-dwelling sample of elderly Mexican–American individuals with a spectrum of cognitive decline. Measured structures were the hemispheric volumes of the hippocampus (HC), parahippocampal gyrus, and remaining temporal lobes, as well as severity of white matter signal hyperintensities (WMH). Participants were an imaged subsample from the Sacramento Area Latino Study of Aging (SALSA), N = 122. Individuals were categorized as normal, memory impaired (MI), cognitively impaired non-demented (CIND), or demented. We show that WMH was the strongest structural predictor for performance on a delayed free-recall task (episodic memory) in the entire sample. The association of WMH with delayed recall was most prominent in elderly normals and mildly cognitively impaired individuals with no dementia or impairment of daily function. However, the left HC was associated with verbal delayed recall only in people with dementia. The right HC volume predicted nonverbal semantic-memory performance. We conclude that WMH are an important pathological substrate that affects certain memory functions in normal individuals and those with mild memory loss and discuss how tasks associated with WMH may rely upon frontal lobe function. (JINS, 2004, 10, 371–381.)
A multilayer topic-group based P2P network

Considering that large and various contents are shared over thousands of peers across a P2P network, one challenging problem is to locate the target content in such a large and unorganized environment. Hence, a P2P system designed with the content classification and managed distribution is more efficient and reliable than the mass and unclassified ones. We propose a MLTG (multilayer topic-group) based P2P network. Two core concepts are integrated into the system structure: topic-group and hierarchic layer. Peers act as local peers, delegate peers and super-peers. These peers spread on different hierarchic layers and the system distributes the correlative resources among the same groups. Compared with the traditional P2P schemes, the MLTG is out-performed significantly. From the experiments, it saves up to 90% of query cost for the case of a single keyword query. When the query consists of topic and keywords, it saves up to 93% of cost. MLTG guarantees the enhancement of successful search and lower consumption of bandwidth. It also makes the system more available, reliable and efficient.
Quantitative Assessments of USARSim Accuracy

Effective robotic simulation depends on accurate modeling of physics and the environment as well as the robot, itself. This paper describes validation studies examining feature extraction, WaveLan radio performance, and human interaction for the USARSim robotic simulation. All four feature extraction algorithms showed strong correspondences between data collected in simulation and from real robots. In each case data extracted from a well lit scene produced a closer match to data extracted from a simulated image than to camera data from a poorly lit scene. The radio simulation also performed well in validation showing levels of attenuation due to intervening walls that were similar to signal strengths measured in the modeled environment. The human-robot interaction experiments showed close correspondence between simulator and robots in performance affected by robot model, control mode and task difficulty.
Adaptive Particle Swarm Optimization (APSO) for multimodal function optimization

This research paper presents a new evolutionary optimization model based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm that incorporates the flocking behavior of a spider. The search space is divided into several segments like the net of a spider. The social information sharing among the swarms are made strong and adaptive. The main focus is on the fitness of the swarms adjusting to the learning factors of the PSO. The traditional Particle Swarm Optimization algorithms converges rapidly during the initial stage of a search, but in course of time becomes steady considerably and can get trapped in a local optima. On the other hand in the proposed model the swarms are provided with the intelligence of a spider which enables them to avoid premature convergence and also help them to escape from local optima. The proposed approaches have been validated using a series of benchmark test functions with high dimensions. Comparative analysis with the traditional PSO algorithm suggests that the new algorithm significantly improves the performance when dealing with multimodal functions.
Design and Evaluation of Emotion-Display EDDIE

This paper focuses on the development of EDDIE, a flexible low-cost emotion-display with 23 degrees of freedom. Actuators are assigned to particular action units of the facial action coding system (FACS). Emotion states represented by the circumplex model of affect are mapped to individual action units. Thereby, continuous, dynamic, and realistic emotion state transitions are achieved. EDDIE is largely developed and manufactured in a rapid-prototyping process. Miniature off-the-shelf mechatronics components are used providing high functionality at low-cost. Evaluations conducted in a user-study show that emotions can be recognized very well. Further experiments show that additional features adapted from animals have significant but small influence on the display of the human emotion 'disgust'
Low-power data forwarding for VLIW embedded architectures

Proposes a low-power approach to the design of embedded very long instruction word (VLIW) processor architectures based on the forwarding (or bypassing) hardware, which provides operands from interstage pipeline registers directly to the inputs of the function units. The power optimization technique exploits the forwarding paths to avoid the power cost of writing/reading short-lived variables to/from the register file (RF). Such optimization is justified by the fact that, in application-specific embedded systems, a significant number of variables are short-lived, that is, their liveness (from first definition to last use) spans only few instructions. Values of short-lived variables can thus be accessed directly through the forwarding registers, avoiding writeback to the RF by the producer instruction and successive read from the RF by the consumer instruction. The decision concerning the enabling of the RF writeback phase is taken at compile time by the compiler static scheduling algorithm. This approach implies a minimal overhead on the complexity of the processor control logic and, thus, no critical path increase. The application of the proposed solution to a VLIW embedded core has shown an average RF power saving of 7.8% with respect to the unoptimized approach on the given set of target benchmarks.