Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hiding in plain view: Lesions of the medial temporal lobe impair online representation

The hippocampus is necessary for the normal formation of enduring declarative memories, but its role in cognitive processes spanning short intervals is less well understood. Within the last decade, several reports have described modest behavioral deficits in medial temporal lobe (MTL)‐lesion patients when they perform tasks that do not seem likely to rely on enduring memory. An intriguing but sparsely‐tested implication of such results is that the MTL is involved in the online representation of information, possibly of an associative/relational nature, irrespective of delay. We administered several tests that simultaneously presented all information necessary for accurate responses to a group of MTL‐lesion patients with severe declarative memory deficits but otherwise normal cognition, and to matched brain‐damaged and healthy comparison participants. MTL‐lesion patients performed less well than either comparison group in the Hooper Visual Organization Test, and several patients performed outside the normal range on the Overlapping Figures Test. A novel follow‐up borrowing characteristics of the Overlapping Figures Test revealed impaired identification of novel items by MTL‐lesion patients when target items were obscured by distracters, and two additional novel tests of fragmented object identification further implicated the hippocampus/MTL in the integration of information across very brief intervals. These findings suggest that MTL structures including the hippocampus contribute similarly to cognition irrespective of timescale. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
NewsComm : A Hand-Held Device for Interactive Access to Structured Audio

The NewsComm system delivers personally selected audio information to mobile users through a hand-held audio playback device. The system provides a one-toone connection from individual users to information providers so that users can access information on demand with breadth and depth unattainable through traditional media. Filtering mechanisms help the user efficiently find information of interest. The hand-held device receives audio through intermittent high band-width wired connections to a central audio server. The server collects and stores audio from various sources including radio broadcasts, books on tape, and internet multicasts. Each recording in the server is preprocessed by a set of audio processing algorithms which automatically extracts a structural description of the audio. The hand-held interface uses these structural descriptions to enable efficient skimming and searching. The device is ideal for use while commuting or exercising. This thesis describes the design, usability testing, and implementation of the handheld device, the audio server, and the speech processing algorithms. Thesis Supervisor: Christopher M. Schmandt Title: Principal Research Scientist
Interference Management with Relay Cooperation in Two-Hop Interference Channels

Relaying has been proposed as an efficient technique to extend coverage and improve throughput in future wireless networks. However, its performance gain is degraded in the presence of co-channel interference, which is intensified as the network density keeps increasing. In this letter, we investigate interference management in a two-hop interference channel with decode-and-forward relaying. To efficiently suppress interference, we propose different relay cooperation strategies with different information exchanged between relay nodes. A high SNR analysis is used to evaluate the performance and determine the achievable degrees of freedom while demonstrating the importance of time sharing between two hops. Through performance comparison and based on the implementation complexity of each cooperation strategy, we show that a zero-forcing based approach is attractive for interference management in two-hop interference channels.
Better brain interfacing for the masses: progress in event-related potential detection using commercial brain computer interfaces

Event-Related Potential (ERP) techniques are commonly used by researchers from a range of disciplines including psychology and medicine to stimulate meaningful ERP signals from the brain and interpret them through Electroencephalography (EEG). ERP signals are in most cases able to reliably reflect cognitive processes, and are widely used in Brain Computer Interface (BCI) research. We present work in progress towards the application of these techniques to emerging consumer-grade BCI technology. Our approach has an impact on the reliability and usability of consumer Brain Computer Interfaces in commercial contexts, and is already being adopted by our industry partners in the games and entertainment sector. It could also significantly reduce the cost and complexity of certain types of large scale ERP research. This work is being undertaken by the Embodied AudioVisual Interaction (EAVI) group at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
A comparative account of the suprasegmental and rhythmic features of British English dialects

This research seeks to establish an inventory of the suprasegmental acoustic cues that are relevant to the automatic typology and identification of the dialects of British English. Using evidence from traditional dialectology suggesting that the dialects of the British Isles exhibit differences at the suprasegmental level – and, in particular, in terms of rhythm – we apply procedures that have been successful for inter-language purposes. This preliminary report focuses on durational features and vowel reduction (centralization). We show that the dialects of the Celtic countries (especially Ireland) are singled out on the basis of their durational features. The overall pattern for vowel reduction reveals a difference across genders, not dialects.
N-type inactivation and the S4-S5 region of the Shaker K+ channel

The intracellular segment of the Shaker K+ channel between transmembrane domains S4 and S5 has been proposed to form at least part of the receptor for the tethered N-type inactivation "ball. " We used the approach of cysteine substitution mutagenesis and chemical modification to test the importance of this region in N-type inactivation. We studied N-type inactivation or the block by a soluble inactivation peptide ("ball peptide") before and after chemical modification by methanethiosulfonate reagents. Particularly at position 391, chemical modification altered specifically the kinetics of ball peptide binding without altering other biophysical properties of the channel. Results with reagents that attach different charged groups at 391 C suggested that there are both electrostatic and steric interactions between this site and the ball peptide. These findings identify this site to be in or near the receptor site for the inactivation ball. At many of the other positions studied, modification noticeably inhibited channel current. The accessible cysteines varied in the state-dependence of their modification, with five- to tenfold changes in reactions rate depending on the gating state of the channel.
Father Involvement As A Predictor Of Preschool Children's Academic Readiness And Socioemotional Competence

FATHER INVOLVEMENT AS A PREDICTOR OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S ACADEMIC READINESS AND SOCIOEMOTIONAL COMPETENCE by TRAVIS A. GOLDWIRE December 2012 Advisor: Dr. Christopher Trentacosta Major: Psychology (Clinical) Degree: Master of Arts Predictors of father involvement (FI) were examined. Associations between learning encouragement (LE) and socioemotional support (SS) in relation to later school readiness outcomes were examined. A subsample of residential fathers (n = 6150) from the ECLS-B was used. Hierarchical linear regressions and conceptual path analysis were used to conduct statistical analyses. Child sex, paternal employment, and the mother-father relationship were significant predictors of LE at 9 months. The mother-father relationship predicted LE at 2 years and SS at 9 months. LE at 9 months was a significant predictor of academic readiness indicators at preschool. LE at 2 years significantly predicted all school readiness indicators except expressive language, after controlling for LE at 9 months. Father SS at 9 months was a significant predictor of socioemotional competence ratings at preschool. Path analyses and associated indirect effects confirmed results from regression analyses of main predictors’ association with school readiness outcomes as mediated by LE and SS. Significant indirect pathways leading to each school readiness outcome was found for the main predictors, except for Math scores as predicted by child sex. This study showed support for a theoretical framework for FI, as well as mechanisms that both lead to FI and that are affected by it.
HAaaS: Towards Highly Available Distributed Systems

High availability is a valuable property in distributed systems. The master-slave model is used wildly in data management systems for high performance. However, many master-slave systems still have SPOF (Single Point of Failure) for the single master node. We exploit a generalized solution to meet several common use cases for different master-slave systems. The solution makes the high availability as a service (HAaaS), which uses a shared storage infrastructure to make the master stateless and provides an automatic fail over of high-availability service. We deploy the HAaaS in many master-slave subsystems in our unstructured data management system (UDMS) to make the UDMS highly available. The experiments demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of our solution.
A Self-Learning Algebraic Multigrid Method for Extremal Singular Triplets and Eigenpairs

A self-learning algebraic multigrid method for dominant and minimal singular triplets and eigenpairs is described. The method consists of two multilevel phases. In the first, multiplicative phase (setup phase), tentative singular triplets are calculated along with a multigrid hierarchy of interpolation operators that approximately fit the tentative singular vectors in a collective and self-learning manner, using multiplicative update formulas. In the second, additive phase (solve phase), the tentative singular triplets are improved up to the desired accuracy by using an additive correction scheme with fixed interpolation operators, combined with a Ritz update. A suitable generalization of the singular value decomposition is formulated that applies to the coarse levels of the multilevel cycles. The proposed algorithm combines and extends two existing multigrid approaches for symmetric positive definite eigenvalue problems to the case of dominant and minimal singular triplets. Numerical tests on model probl.
Advances in pediatric dehydration therapy

Purpose of review To review the advances in the assessment, treatment, and evaluation of care for pediatric dehydration. Recent findings Recent studies have added new information across the spectrum of care for dehydration. Advances in the assessment of dehydration allow more accurate clinical evaluation, but do not help predict the treatment outcomes. Antiemetics as an adjunct to oral rehydration therapy have been proven well tolerated, efficacious, and cost-effective. Rapid, large-volume intravenous rehydration for outpatients with dehydration did not show any benefit over more standard regimens. Clinical guidelines incorporate all these aspects of care; however, physicians show poor adherence to the guidelines despite the evidence that guidelines improve outcomes and reduce cost. Summary Dehydration burdens the healthcare system worldwide. Through advances in its assessment, treatment with antiemetics and intravenous fluids, and standardization of practice with clinical guidelines, this burden could be reduced.
9 Design Solutions for Modular Satellite Architectures

The cost-effective access to space envisaged by ESA would open a wide range of new opportunities and markets, but is still many years ahead. There is still a lack of devices, circuits, systems which make possible to develop satellites, ground stations and related services at costs compatible with the budget of academic institutions and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). As soon as the development time and cost of small satellites will fall below a certain threshold (e.g. 100,000 to 500,000 €), appropriate business models will likely develop to ensure a cost-effective and pervasive access to space, and related infrastructures and services. These considerations spurred the activity described in this paper, which is aimed at: 1. proving the feasibility of low-cost satellites using COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) devices. This is a new trend in the space industry, which is not yet fully exploited due to the belief that COTS devices are not reliable enough for this kind of applications; 2. developing a flight model of a flexible and reliable nano-satellite with less than 25,000€; 3. training students in the field of avionics space systems: the design here described is developed by a team including undergraduate students working towards their graduation work. The educational aspects include the development of specific new university courses; 4. developing expertise in the field of low-cost avionic systems, both internally (university staff) and externally (graduated students will bring their expertise in their future work activity); 5. gather and cluster expertise and resources available inside the university around a common high-tech project; 6. creating a working group composed of both University and SMEs devoted to the application of commercially available technology to space environment. The first step in this direction was the development of a small low cost nano-satellite, started in the year 2004: the name of this project was PiCPoT (Piccolo Cubo del Politecnico di Torino, Small Cube of Politecnico di Torino). The project was carried out by some departments of the Politecnico, in particular Electronics and Aerospace. The main goal of the project was to evaluate the feasibility of using COTS components in a space project in order to greatly reduce costs; the design exploited internal subsystems modularity to allow reuse and further cost reduction for future missions.
Fast stereo matching using reliability-based dynamic programming and consistency constraints

A method for solving binocular and multiview stereo matching problems is presented here. A weak consistency constraint is proposed, which expresses the visibility constraint in the image space. It can be proved that the weak consistency constraint holds for scenes that can be represented by a set of 3D points. As well, also proposed is a new reliability measure for dynamic programming techniques, which evaluates the reliability of a given match. A novel reliability-based dynamic programming algorithm is derived accordingly, which can selectively assign disparity values to pixels when the reliabilities of the corresponding matches exceed a given threshold. Consistency constraints and the new reliability-based dynamic programming algorithm can be combined in an iterative approach. The experimental results show that the iterative approach can produce dense (60-90%) and reliable (total error rate of 0.1-1.1%) matching for binocular stereo datasets. It can also generate promising disparity maps for trinocular and multiview stereo datasets.
Subject-Specific Wrist Model Calibration and Application to Ergonomic Design of Exoskeletons

This paper analyzes the accuracy of non-invasive methods to determine subject-specific kinematics of wrist axes based on unrestricted measurements. Adapting methods from the literature, joint parameters are fitted from measurements derived through an in-vivo, non-invasive procedure. This paper analyzes the accuracy of these fitting methods using a mechanical mock-up, with known geometry and kinematic structure similar to the human wrist, which provides a ground truth for assessment of accuracy. Numerical simulations show that while the range of motion affects the accuracy of parameter estimation, the relative error in the parameters is below 4% for range of motions above 20%. The method was used to fit measurements performed on a human subject and resulting parameters were applied in the design of a subject-specific, ergonomic exoskeleton, which did not significantly alter the natural motor strategies of the subject during a pointing task.
Greedy Sparse Signal Recovery with Tree Pruning

Recently, greedy algorithm has received much attention as a cost-effective means to reconstruct the sparse signals from compressed measurements. Much of previous work has focused on the investigation of a single candidate to identify the support (index set of nonzero elements) of the sparse signals. Well-known drawback of the greedy approach is that the chosen candidate is often not the optimal solution due to the myopic decision in each iteration. In this paper, we propose a greedy sparse recovery algorithm investigating multiple promising candidates via the tree search. Two key ingredients of the proposed algorithm, referred to as the matching pursuit with a tree pruning (TMP), to achieve efficiency in the tree search are the {\it pre-selection} to put a restriction on columns of the sensing matrix to be investigated and the {\it tree pruning} to eliminate unpromising paths from the search tree. In our performance guarantee analysis and empirical simulations, we show that TMP is effective in recovering sparse signals in both noiseless and noisy scenarios.
Identification of echocardiographic "smoke" in a bench model with transcranial Doppler ultrasound.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Spontaneous echo contrast in cardiac chamber has been indicated as a source of cerebral embolism. The nature of the echocardiographic smokelike signal is still not fully understood. This study was designed to regenerate spontaneous echo contrast and verify its thromboembolic characters in an in vitro model. METHODS Spontaneous echo contrast was reproduced in an expansion chamber under low flow conditions in a close circulation system. The spontaneous echo contrast was monitored and recorded with a 2-dimensional cardiosonography system and a transcranial Doppler device. Meanwhile, clinically commonly encountered embolic materials such as whole-blood clots, platelet aggregate-rich plasma, air bubbles, and 100-mL normal saline were injected into this monitored circuit. The differentiation of spontaneous echo contrast from emboli was performed by both visual observations of the echo images and offline Doppler signal intensity analysis. Average signal intensities produced by spontaneous contrast and injection of embolic materials and saline were compared. Furthermore, the effect of Doppler-detected flow velocity on generation of spontaneous contrast was also evaluated. RESULTS Spontaneous echo contrast was reproduced at low flow settings (90 to 120 mL/min) in this model. There was no significant difference in average signal intensity between the flow with spontaneous echo contrast and that without the echo (P=0.71). However, injection of embolic materials or normal saline did not generate smokelike image but caused much higher average signal intensity than the flow with spontaneous contrast (P<0.001). Injection of normal saline also increased average signal intensity. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that smokelike echo is a special echo phenomenon occurring at low flow situations and does not itself produce material capable of embolizing into the systemic circulation.
Effectiveness of search result classification based on relevance feedback

Relevance feedback (RF) has been studied under laboratory conditions using test collections and either test persons or simple simulation. These studies have given mixed results. Automatic (or pseudo) RF and intellectual RF, both leading to query reformulation, are the main approaches to explicit RF. In the present study we perform RF with the help of classification of search results. We conduct our experiments in a comprehensive collection, namely various TREC ad-hoc collections with 250 topics. We also studied various term space reduction techniques for the classification process. The research questions are: given RF on top results of pseudo RF (PRF) query results, is it possible to learn effective classifiers for the following results? What is the effectiveness of various classification methods? Our findings indicate that this approach of applying RF is significantly more effective than PRF with short (title) queries and long (title and description) queries.
Bacilysin from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens FZB42 Has Specific Bactericidal Activity against Harmful Algal Bloom Species

ABSTRACT Harmful algal blooms, caused by massive and exceptional overgrowth of microalgae and cyanobacteria, are a serious environmental problem worldwide. In the present study, we looked for Bacillus strains with sufficiently strong anticyanobacterial activity to be used as biocontrol agents. Among 24 strains, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens FZB42 showed the strongest bactericidal activity against Microcystis aeruginosa, with a kill rate of 98.78%. The synthesis of the anticyanobacterial substance did not depend on Sfp, an enzyme that catalyzes a necessary processing step in the nonribosomal synthesis of lipopeptides and polyketides, but was associated with the aro gene cluster that is involved in the synthesis of the sfp-independent antibiotic bacilysin. Disruption of bacB, the gene in the cluster responsible for synthesizing bacilysin, or supplementation with the antagonist N-acetylglucosamine abolished the inhibitory effect, but this was restored when bacilysin synthesis was complemented. Bacilysin caused apparent changes in the algal cell wall and cell organelle membranes, and this resulted in cell lysis. Meanwhile, there was downregulated expression of glmS, psbA1, mcyB, and ftsZ—genes involved in peptidoglycan synthesis, photosynthesis, microcystin synthesis, and cell division, respectively. In addition, bacilysin suppressed the growth of other harmful algal species. In summary, bacilysin produced by B. amyloliquefaciens FZB42 has anticyanobacterial activity and thus could be developed as a biocontrol agent to mitigate the effects of harmful algal blooms.
Combining outputs of multiple LVCSR models by machine learning

This paper proposes to apply machine learning techniques to the task of combining outputs of multiple LVCSR models, where, as features of machine learning, information such as the models which output the hypothesized word, its part-of-speech, and its syllable length are useful for improving the word recognition rate. Experimental results show that the combination result outperforms several baselines including model combination by voting such as ROVER in the word recognition rate. Furthermore, unlike model combination by voting, word recognition rate of model combination by machine learning is not damaged even in the case where only the minority of the participating models perform well in the word recognition task. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 36(10): 9–15, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience. wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.20340