Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
P300-based brain–computer interface for environmental control: an asynchronous approach

Brain–computer interface (BCI) systems allow people with severe motor disabilities to communicate and interact with the external world. The P300 potential is one of the most used control signals for EEG-based BCIs. Classic P300-based BCIs work in a synchronous mode; the synchronous control assumes that the user is constantly attending to the stimulation, and the number of stimulation sequences is fixed a priori. This issue is an obstacle for the use of these systems in everyday life; users will be engaged in a continuous control state, their distractions will cause misclassification and the speed of selection will not take into account users' current psychophysical condition. An efficient BCI system should be able to understand the user's intentions from the ongoing EEG instead. Also, it has to refrain from making a selection when the user is engaged in a different activity and it should increase or decrease its speed of selection depending on the current user's state. We addressed these issues by introducing an asynchronous BCI and tested its capabilities for effective environmental monitoring, involving 11 volunteers in three recording sessions. Results show that this BCI system can increase the bit rate during control periods while the system is proved to be very efficient in avoiding false negatives when the users are engaged in other tasks.
ASTOR: a program repair library for Java (demo)

During the last years, the software engineering research community has proposed approaches for automatically repairing software bugs. Unfortunately, many software artifacts born from this research are not available for repairing Java programs. To-reimplement those approaches from scratch is costly. To facilitate experimental replications and comparative evaluations, we present Astor, a publicly available program repair library that includes the implementation of three notable repair approaches (jGenProg, jKali and jMutRepair). We envision that the research community will use Astor for setting up comparative evaluations and explore the design space of automatic repair for Java. Astor offers researchers ways to implement new repair approaches or to modify existing ones. Astor repairs in total 33 real bugs from four large open source projects.
Dynamic expression of the polysialyltransferase in adult rat hippocampus performing an olfactory associative task

Neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) is associated with polysialic acid (PSA), and its function is highly dependent on the extent of polysialylation through the activity of two polysialyltransferases, sialyltransferase‐X (STX) and polysialyltransferase (PST). PSA‐NCAM plays an important role in synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus. The involvement of STX and PST during mnesic processes was assessed in the adult rat hippocampus. We investigated whether different levels in learning and memory using an olfactory associative task influenced STX and PST gene expression in the hippocampus using semiquantitative transcription‐polymerase chain reaction. Then, NCAM polysialylation and cell proliferation were quantified in the dentate gyrus of a “Learning and Memory” group using immunohistochemistry. We found that only the expression level of PST mRNA increased with learning performance and returned to an initial level when learned associations were consolidated in long‐term memory, while STX mRNA levels remained unchanged. This phenomenon was accompanied by an increase in PSA on NCAM but not by cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus. Our results suggest a different involvement for STX and PST in neural plasticity: while STX is probably involved in the proliferation of neural progenitor cells, PST could play a key role in synaptic plasticity of mature neural networks. The expression of the STX and PST genes could, therefore, be useful markers of neurobiological plasticity in the brain, allowing to follow chronological events in limbic and cortical structures related first to learning and memory processes (for PST) and, second, to adult neurogenesis processes (for STX). © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Analysis of Procedure Splitability

As software evolves there is a tendency for size to increase and structure to degrade, leading to problems for on going maintenance and reverse engineering. This paper introduces a greedy dependence-based procedure splitting algorithm that provides automated support for analysis and intervention where procedures show signs of poor structure and overlarge size. The paper reports on the algorithms, implementation and empirical evaluation of procedure splitability. The study reveals a surprising prevalence of splitable procedures and a strong correlation between procedure size and splitability.
Machine Learning-Based Configuration Parameter Tuning on Hadoop System

Apache Hadoop system is a software framework with the capability to process large-scale datasets across a cluster of distributed machines using MapReduce programming model. However, there are two main challenges for system administrators to manage the Hadoop system, (1) system administrators are difficult to tune the parameters appropriately since the behaviors and characteristics of large-scale distributed systems are too complicated, (2) there are dozens of configuration parameters affecting the system performance which makes the configuration parameters tuning task becomes troublesome. In this paper, we focus on optimizing the Hadoop MapReduce job performance by tuning configuration parameters, and then we propose an analytical method to help system administrators choose approximately optimal configuration parameters depending on the characteristics of each application. Our approach has two key phases: prediction and optimization phase. The prediction phase is to estimate the performance of a MapReduce job, whereas the optimization phase is to search the approximately optimal configuration parameters strategically by invoking the predictor repeatedly. In our evaluation results, our work can help system administrators to improve the performance about 2X to 8X better than traditional methods.
The Effect of the Squat Exercise on Anterior-posterior Knee Translation in Professional Football Players

Although the squat exercise is considered essential for optimal athletic performance, controversy exists re garding the effect on knee stability. The purpose of this prospective study was to determine the effect of squat exercises on in vivo knee joint stability of professional football players. Thirty-two subjects with normal knees participated in a 21-week off-season training program. Subjects performed power squat exercises with barbell loads of 130% to 200% body weight twice weekly. Both knees of each subject were tested by a single examiner with a knee ligament arthrometer before the training program and at 12 and 21 weeks. Passive displace ments were recorded at 67, 89, and 133 N with the knee at 30° and 90° of flexion. Active testing was performed with the knee in the same positions. Student's paired t-tests were used to compare pre- and postexercise measures. For all subjects, no significant differences were found between pre- and postexercise results for active and passive tests. Of the 2440 measurements taken, only 8 demonstrated increased excursions greater than 2 mm. This study demonstrates no significant increases in anterior-posterior tibiofemoral translation in athletes using the squat exercise as part of their off-season training program.
Sample size considerations for the evaluation of prognostic factors in survival analysis.

When the role of a new prognostic factor is investigated, careful planning of an appropriate study is required. This includes an assessment of the power of the study in terms of sample sizes. An adequate analysis of the independent prognostic effect of a new factor has to be adjusted for the existing standard factors. With survival time as endpoint this will usually be done with the Cox proportional hazards model. Sample size and power formulae in survival analysis have been developed by Schoenfeld for randomized treatment comparisons. In the analysis of prognostic factors the covariates included are expected to be correlated with the factor of primary interest. In this situation, the existing sample size and power formulae are not valid and may not be applied. In this paper, Schoenfeld's formula is first extended to the situation where a correlated factor is included in the analysis. The validity of the resulting approximate asymptotic formula is investigated for its asymptotic behaviour by numerical integration and for its finite behaviour by simulation. Second, an approximate formula for sample size and power is provided to detect an interaction between the interesting and a second correlated factor. This extends the formula for independent effects. Finally, the approach is illustrated by an example on the prognostic impact of DNA ploidy and other factors in advanced ovarian cancer.
Workshop Reflection Sheet: Peer Assessment of Essay

Whilst in the first semester of my undergraduate degree at Staffordshire University, students were required to engage in a writing assignment titled ‘Discuss the Benefits of Sport’. After submission of an initial draft of 500 words during our induction week, the question then formed the basis of one of four modules (Research and Professional Development I) which I studied during the first semester. In week 5, we were then required to submit an 800 word answer to the same question as before and, at the same time, begin engaging in peer assessment reviews over a three-week period on each others’ work. Peer assessment involves students partaking in an assessment, where their work is viewed and feedback is provided by other students (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998). It is used to help students recognise levels needed to achieve results (Brown, Race & Smith, 2002). Moreover, Cottrell (2008) suggests that one of the best ways to learn is through new experiences, as it triggers a need for understanding. As peer assessment was a new experience, I took the opportunity to use it to my advantage. Throughout this essay, I shall take into consideration how I felt during my first official experience of this innovative practice, and assess whether the benefits suggest reason for future implementation.
Local Search in Weighted and Directed Social Networks: The Case of Enron Email Networks

Although they have small-world and searchable characteristics, social networks always protect local structure which makes local search very hard. Social networks not only have power-law distribution, but also have higher connectivity or clustering characteristics. Meanwhile, several social networks are weighted and directed. Hence we should utilize these extra information. In this paper, we propose and theoretically analyze local search strategies such as SS, O1, O2, SPD and LPD which consider weights, single link characteristics and direction information. We finally demonstrate the results of these strategies on Enron Email networks. Experimental results show that weighted and directed information is able to enhance the efficiency of local search.
Effective dead time of APD cells of SiPM

The linear response of the silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) device depends on the number of APD cells, their effective dead time and is related to a width of the detected light pulses or a decay time of a scintillation crystal. The aim of this work was determination of the effective dead time of APD cells on the basis of the measured linear response of the SiPM for light pulses of different width. A closer analysis of the SiPM response to the light pulses shorter than the effective dead time of pixels, made possible evaluation of a number of fired pixels (or number of photoelectrons) in cases when a single photoelectron peak was not well defined. This analysis also allows determination of the position of the single photoelectron peak, necessary in case of measurements of the number of photoelectrons for light pulses with various widths. Measurements were done with SiPMs manufactured by three companies: Hamamatsu, Zecotek and SensL.
Clustering of Similar Malware Behavior via Structural Host-Sequence Comparison

Malware (malicious software) is used by attackers to gain access to end-users' computing devices with the aim of performing malicious actions, such as sending spam, downloading malicious files, and stealing private information. Furthermore, malicious actions result in the infection of many machines at considerable monetary expense to affected end-users. Although anti-malware companies can detect malware, they generally rely on signature-based methods. Because attackers use automated malware generation tools to generate new or modified malware that leads to increased instances and variants of malware, variants of the same malware class can often evade such methods. In this study, we propose a system based on structural sequence comparison and probabilistic similarity measures for detecting variants of a malware class. We believe that the structural sequence of malware behavior can detect variants of the same malware class by profiling the relationship between different behavior patterns. Furthermore, probabilistic similarity measures are used for discovering the behavior patterns of the sequential relation and finding very similar behavior models of malware classes. The proposed system, which incorporates a structural sequence mechanism and probabilistic similarity measurement, can be helpful for detecting and discovering variants of a malware class. The results of our experiment show that the proposed system detects variants of a malware class more effectively than a two-gram sequence does, and it lowers the effect and weight of behavior patterns, with higher precision and F-measure in variants of malware detection than the approach based on a two-gram sequence and normalized embedding function.
Informedia @ TRECVID2009: Analyzing Video Motions

The Informedia team participated in the tasks of high-level feature extraction and event detection in surveillance video. This year, we especially put our focus on analyzing motions in videos. We developed a robust new descriptor called MoSIFT, which explicitly encodes appearance features together with motion information. For the high-level feature detection, we trained multi-modality classifiers which include traditional static features and MoSIFT. The experimental result shows that MoSIFT has solid performance on motion related concepts and is complementary to static features. For event detection, we trained event classifiers in sliding windows using a bag-of-video-word approach. To reduce the number of false alarms, we aggregated short positive windows to favor long segmentation and applied a cascade classifier approach. The performance shows dramatic improvement over last year on the event detection task. 1 MoSIFT This section presents our MoSIFT[7] algorithm to detect and describe spatio-temporal interest points. In part-based methods, there are three major steps: detecting interest points, constructing a feature descriptor, and building a classifier. Detecting interest points reduces the whole video from a volume of pixels to compact but descriptive interest points. Therefore, we desire to develop a detection method, which detects a sufficient number of interest points containing the necessary information to recognize a human action. The MoSIFT algorithm detects spatially distinctive interest points with substantial motion. We first apply the well-known SIFT algorithm to find visually distinctive components in the spatial domain and detect spatiotemporal interest points with (temporal) motion constraints. The motion constraint consists of a 'sufficient' amount of optical flow around the distinctive points. Details of our algorithm are described in the following sections.
Looking for Alibrandi

looking for alibrandi was based on a novel for young people by melina marchetta which was a major best seller in australia marchetta also wrote the screenplay for this film adaptation mark, in the novel looking for alibrandi marchetta explores the advantages that change may have on an individual in the novel looking for alibrandi melina marchetta effectively explores the advantages that change does have on an individual, looking for alibrandi search this blog tuesday february 15 2011 chapter 1 josie is your average teen she has friends relatives enemies and an education but what is missing in her life who would of imagined she lived without a father her whole life, melina marchetta s stunning debut novel looking for alibrandi is one girl s story of her final year at school a year she sets herself free josephine alibrandi is seventeen and in her final year at a wealthy girls school this is the year she meets her father the year she falls in love the year she searches for alibrandi and finds the real truth about her family and the identity she, melina marchetta s stunning debut novel looking for alibrandi is one girl s story of her final year at school a year she sets herself free josephine alibrandi is seventeen and in her final year at a wealthy girls school this is the year she meets her father the year she falls in love the year she searches, looking for alibrandi was released in 1992 to much acclaim published in 14 countries including 11 translated editions looking for alibrandi swept the pool of literary awards for young adult fiction in 1993 including the cbca childrens book of the year award older readers known as the most stolen library book the novel has sold more than half a million copies worldwide, looking for alibrandi essay essay topic essay a good book leaves us thinking with things to say and looking for libidinal is a good example of one of those books it captures the exact thoughts of a seventeen year old girl stressed out from her upcoming has exams as well as the problems going on in her social life melinda merchant, her first novel looking for alibrandi was awarded the children s book council of australia award in 1993 and her second novel saving francesca won the same award in 2004 looking for alibrandi was made into a major film in 2000 and won the australian film institute award for best film and best adapted screen play also written by the author, looking for alibrandi search this blog wednesday february 16 2011 chapter 2 in chapter 2 josie describes her
Expressing Property Specification Patterns with OCL

The textual Object Constraint Language (OCL) is an official part of the Unified Modeling Language (UML). OCL is primarily used to formulate restrictions over UML models, in particular, invariants and operation preand postconditions in the context of class diagrams. However, OCL is missing means to specify constraints over the dynamic behavior of a UML model. We have therefore developed a temporal extension of OCL that enables modelers to specify behavioral state-oriented constraints. That work provides an alternative to the rather cryptic temporal logic formulae that are commonly used to specify behavioral system properties. This article now illustrates that our OCL extension allows for specifying all kinds of properties that are regarded as relevant in practice. We present according temporal OCL expressions for property specification patterns that have been identified in the area of formal specification.
Phase stability analysis of swept light source with KTa1−xNbxO3 electro-optic deflector toward Doppler optical coherence tomography

We estimated the jitter of optical coherence tomography using a swept light source (SS-OCT) with methods of phase locking and Fourier transform. Phase locking could not be applied to estimating the jitter in fringe waveforms when there was a large dependence of voltage noise on time, but the dependence of jitter on local position could be estimated. We found that the Fourier transform could precisely estimate jitter even if there was a large amount of voltage noise. Jitter obtained with the Fourier transform agreed with previous results obtained through cross correlation.
On the Complexity of Classification Functions

A classification function is a multiple-valued input function specified by a set of rules, where each rule is a conjunction of range functions. The function is useful for packet classification for internet, network intrusion detection system, etc. This paper considers the complexity of range functions and classification functions represented by sum-of-products expressions of binary variables. It gives tighter upper bounds on the number of products for range functions.
Fearful Temperament Moderates the Effect of Harsh Parenting on Early Childhood Problem Behaviors within Dangerous Neighborhoods: A Multilevel Analysis

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Thompson Sampling for Learning Parameterized Markov Decision Processes

We consider reinforcement learning in parameterized Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where the parameterization may induce correlation across transition probabilities or rewards. Consequently, observing a particular state transition might yield useful information about other, unobserved, parts of the MDP. We present a version of Thompson sampling for parameterized reinforcement learning problems, and derive a frequentist regret bound for priors over general parameter spaces. The result shows that the number of instants where suboptimal actions are chosen scales logarithmically with time, with high probability. It holds for prior distributions that put significant probability near the true model, without any additional, specific closed-form structure such as conjugate or product-form priors. The constant factor in the logarithmic scaling encodes the information complexity of learning the MDP in terms of the Kullback-Leibler geometry of the parameter space.
Effects of Temperature on the Immature Development of the Stone Leek Leafminer Liriomyza chinensis (Diptera: Agromyzidae)

Abstract The effect of nine constant temperatures (15, 17.5, 20, 22.5, 25, 27.5 30, 32.5, and 35°C) on the development of the stone leek leafminer, Liriomyza chinensis (Kato), on Japanese bunching onion, Allium fistulosum L. , was studied in the laboratory. Developmental times for immature stages were inversely proportional to temperature between 15 and 30°C but increased at 32.5°C. Total developmental times from egg to adult emergence decreased from 69.6 to 17.1 d for temperatures from 15 to 30°C, with pupae requiring more time for development than the combined egg and larva stages. Both linear and nonlinear (Logan equation VI) models provided a reliable fit of development rates versus temperature for all immature stages. The lower developmental thresholds that were estimated from linear regression equations for the egg, first, second, and third instars, total larva, egg-larval, pupa, and total combined immature stages were 12.1, 10.6, 13.6, 8, 9.6, 11.3, 11.2, and 11.4°C, respectively. The degree-day accumulation was calculated as 312.5 DD for development from egg to adult emergence. By fitting the nonlinear models to the data, the upper and optimal temperatures for egg, larva, pupa, and total immature stages were calculated as 37.8 and 31.7, 34.9 and 30.1, 35.8 and 30.6, and 35.0 and 30.9°C, respectively. These data are useful for predicting population dynamics of L. chinensis under field conditions and determining the maximum proportion of susceptible individuals for facilitating improved timing of application of control measures.