Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ΔΣAD modulator for low power application

This paper proposes a new architecture of the feedforward multibit DeltaSigmaAD modulator for low power application. The SQNDR (Signal to Quantization Noise and Distortion Ratio) of DeltaSigmaAD modulator is limited by the dynamic range of the input signal and non-idealities of circuit building blocks, particularly by the harmonic distortion in amplifier circuits. In a full feedforward DeltaSigmaAD modulator structure, the signal swings through the loop filter is smaller than a feedback DeltaSigmaAD modulator. Therefore, the harmonic distortion generated inside the loop filter of the feedforward structure can be significantly reduced because the effect of non-idealities in amplifiers can be suppressed when signal swing is small. However, in conventional feedforward DeltaSigmaAD modulator, an analog adder is needed before the quantizer, and especially in a multibit modulator, an additional amplifier is necessary to realize the summation of feedforward signals, which leads to extra chip area and power dissipation. In this paper, firstly, we propose a new architecture of a feedforward DeltaSigmaAD modulator which realizes the summation of feedforward signals without additional amplifier. The proposed architecture is functionally equivalent to the conventional one but with smaller chip area and lower power dissipation. Furthermore, we extend the architecture with noise-shaping enhancement, the modulator contains a second-order loop filter can deliver a third-order noise-shaping. We conducted MATLAB simulations to validate the proposed architecture.
Evidence of pili k88 and k99 as protecting antigens: immunization against enteric swine colibacillosis by sow vaccination.

M ise en évidence du rôle protecteur des pili K88 et K99 : immunisation contre l’entérite colibacillaire du port par vaccination des truies Des truies gestantes ont été vaccinées par voie sous-cutanée avec un vaccin préparé à partir de souches entérotoxinogènes d’Escherichia Co/i (ECET) qui produisaient les pili k88 ou k99. Les porcelets nés de ces truies ont été testés par voie orale avec des souches d’ECET, k88+ ou k99+, différentes de celles utilisées dans le vaccin. Chez les truies, après la mise bas, le titre moyen de sérum et de colostrum en anticorps anti-k88 était de 1 : 64 mais celui des anticorps anti-k99 dans le colostrum (1 : 128) était supérieur à celui du sérum (1 : 32). Les résultats démontrent que le vaccin est efficace pour le contrôle de la colibacillose du porc en réduisant la mortalité due aux diarrhées à colibacille entérotoxinogène et en augmentant le gain de poids moyen quotidien des porcelets. Mots clés : Porc Truie Porcelet Colibacillose Vaccin Diarrhée Escherichia coli. cillosis. The same author emphasizes that the presence of antibodies against surface antigens in the lumen of the intestinal tract reduces colonization.
A Thief among Us: The Use of Finite-State Machines to Dissect Insider Threat in Cloud Communications

Insider threats are both social and technological phenomena, and group dynamics can provide important indicators to help counter insider threats. This paper discusses an experimental study that simulates insider betrayal in an online collaborative environment. This study uses the framework of trustworthiness attribution, wherein the authors examine the trustworthiness of a focal individual whose role was in leadership with authority within a trusted team arrangement. Specifically, the authors adopted a finite-state machine (FSM) approach to analyzing patterns of a group's emotional states in order to understand how members collectively distinguish insider betrayal through computer-mediated interactions, social connectivity and coordination. Moreover, these conditions help us understand how human observations of betrayal can be leveraged to provide early warnings to betrayal. Of the four simulated case studies conducted, two provide baseline measures, and the other two provide treatment measures. Findings indicate that signs of potential betrayal can be collectively identified by team members through text and behavioral patterns – to uncover social intent that is not explicitly stated.
Direct interaction with Hoxd proteins reverses Gli3-repressor function to promote digit formation downstream of Shh

Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling regulates both digit number and identity, but how different distinct digit types (identities) are specified remains unclear. Shh regulates digit formation largely by preventing cleavage of the Gli3 transcription factor to a repressor form that shuts off expression of Shh target genes. The functionally redundant 5′Hoxd genes regulate digit pattern downstream of Shh and Gli3, through as yet unknown targets. Enforced expression of any of several 5′Hoxd genes causes polydactyly of different distinct digit types with posterior transformations in a Gli3(+) background, whereas, in Gli3 null limbs, polydactylous digits are all similar, short and dysmorphic, even though endogenous 5′Hoxd genes are broadly misexpressed. We show that Hoxd12 interacts genetically and physically with Gli3, and can convert the Gli3 repressor into an activator of Shh target genes. Several 5′Hoxd genes, expressed differentially across the limb bud, interact physically with Gli3. We propose that a varying [Gli3]:[total Hoxd] ratio across the limb bud leads to differential activation of Gli3 target genes and contributes to the regulation of digit pattern. The resulting altered balance between `effective' Gli3 activating and repressing functions may also serve to extend the Shh activity gradient spatially or temporally.
SPoT: A Trainable Sentence Planner

Sentence planning is a set of inter-related but distinct tasks, one of which is sentence scoping, i.e. the choice of syntactic structure for elementary speech acts and the decision of how to combine them into one or more sentences. In this paper, we present SPoT, a sentence planner, and a new methodology for automatically training SPoT on the basis of feedback provided by human judges. We reconceptualize the task into two distinct phases. First, a very simple, randomized sentence-plan-generator (SPG) generates a potentially large list of possible sentence plans for a given text-plan input. Second, the sentence-plan-ranker (SPR) ranks the list of output sentence plans, and then selects the top-ranked plan. The SPR uses ranking rules automatically learned from training data. We show that the trained SPR learns to select a sentence plan whose rating on average is only 5% worse than the top human-ranked sentence plan.
Real-Time Generation of Humanoid Motion with the Motion-Embedded COG Jacobian

For a legged robot such as a humanoid, balancing its body during a given motion is natural but the most important problem. Recently, a motion given to a humanoid is more and more complicated, and thus the balancing problem becomes much more critical. This paper suggests a real-time motion generation algorithm that guarantees a humanoid to be balanced during the motion. A desired motion of each arm and/or leg is planned by the conventional motion planning method without considering the balancing problem. In order to balance a humanoid, all the given motions are embedded into the COG Jacobian. The COG Jacobian is modifled to include the desired motions and, in consequence, dimension of the COG Jacobian is drastically reduced. With the motion-embedded COG Jacobian, balancing and performing a task is completed simultaneously, without changing any other parameters related to the control or planning. Validity and e-ciency of the proposed motion-embedded COG Jacobian is simulated in the paper.
Can You See Me Now? Sensor Positioning for Automated and Persistent Surveillance

Most existing camera placement algorithms focus on coverage and/or visibility analysis, which ensures that the object of interest is visible in the camera's field of view (FOV). However, visibility, which is a fundamental requirement of object tracking, is insufficient for automated persistent surveillance. In such applications, a continuous consistently labeled trajectory of the same object should be maintained across different camera views. Therefore, a sufficient uniform overlap between the cameras' FOVs should be secured so that camera handoff can successfully and automatically be executed before the object of interest becomes untraceable or unidentifiable. In this paper, we propose sensor-planning methods that improve existing algorithms by adding handoff rate analysis. Observation measures are designed for various types of cameras so that the proposed sensor-planning algorithm is general and applicable to scenarios with different types of cameras. The proposed sensor-planning algorithm preserves necessary uniform overlapped FOVs between adjacent cameras for an optimal balance between coverage and handoff success rate. In addition, special considerations such as resolution and frontal-view requirements are addressed using two approaches: 1) direct constraint and 2) adaptive weights. The resulting camera placement is compared with a reference algorithm published by Erdem and Sclaroff. Significantly improved handoff success rates and frontal-view percentages are illustrated via experiments using indoor and outdoor floor plans of various scales.
A multi‐compartmental SE‐BOLD interpretation for stimulus‐related signal changes in diffusion‐weighted functional MRI

A new interpretation is proposed for stimulus‐induced signal changes in diffusion‐weighted functional MRI. T2‐weighted spin‐echo echo‐planar images were acquired at different diffusion‐weightings while visual stimulation was presented to human volunteers. The amplitudes of the positive stimulus‐correlated response and post‐stimulus undershoot (PSU) in the functional time‐courses were found to follow different trends as a function of b‐value. Data were analysed using a three‐compartment signal model, with one compartment being purely vascular and the other two dominated by fast‐ and slow‐diffusing molecules in the brain tissue. The diffusion coefficients of the tissue were assumed to be constant throughout the experiments. It is shown that the stimulus‐induced signal changes can be decomposed into independent contributions originating from each of the three compartments. After decomposition, the fast‐diffusion phase displays a substantial PSU, while the slow‐diffusion phase demonstrates a highly reproducible and stimulus‐correlated time‐course with minimal undershoot. The decomposed responses are interpreted in terms of the spin‐echo blood oxygenation level dependent (SE‐BOLD) effect, and it is proposed that the signal produced by fast‐ and slow‐diffusing molecules reflect a sensitivity to susceptibility changes in arteriole/venule‐ and capillary‐sized vessels, respectively. This interpretation suggests that diffusion‐weighted SE‐BOLD imaging may provide subtle information about the haemodynamic and neuronal responses. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Treg/IL-17 Ratio and Treg Differentiation in Patients with COPD

Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by chronic pulmonary and systematic inflammation. An abnormal adaptive immune response leads to an imbalance between pro- and anti-inflammatory processes. T-helper (Th), T-cytotoxic (Tc) and T-regulatory (Treg) cells may play important roles in immune and inflammatory responses. This study was conducted to clarify the changes and imbalance of cytokines and T lymphocyte subsets in patients with COPD, especially during acute exacerbations (AECOPD). Methods Twenty-three patients with stable COPD (SCOPD) and 21 patients with AECOPD were enrolled in the present study. In addition, 20 age-, sex- and weight-matched non-smoking healthy volunteers were included as controls. The serum levels of selected cytokines (TGF-β, IL-10, TNF-α, IL-17 and IL-9) were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. Furthermore, the T lymphocyte subsets collected from peripheral blood samples were evaluated by flow cytometry after staining with anti-CD3-APC, anti-CD4-PerCP, anti-CD8- PerCP, anti-CD25-FITC and anti-FoxP3-PE monoclonal antibodies. Importantly, to remove the confounding effects of inflammatory factors, the authors introduced a concept of “inflammation adjustment” and corrected each measured value using representative inflammatory markers, such as TNF-α and IL-17. Results Unlike the other cytokines, serum TGF-β levels were considerably higher in patients with AECOPD relative to the control group regardless of adjustment. There were no significant differences in the percentages of either CD4+ or CD8+ T cells among the three groups. Although Tregs were relatively upregulated during acute exacerbations, their capacities of generation and differentiation were far from sufficient. Finally, the authors noted that the ratios of Treg/IL-17 were similar among groups. Conclusions These observations suggest that in patients with COPD, especially during acute exacerbations, both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory reactions are strengthened, with the pro-inflammatory reactions dominating. Although the Treg/IL-17 ratios were normal, the regulatory T cells were still insufficient to suppress the accompanying increases in inflammation. All of these changes suggest a complicated mechanism of pro- and anti-inflammatory imbalance which needs to be further investigated.
Perception and processing of self-motion cues

The capacity of animals to navigate through familiar or nove l environments depends crucially on the integration of a disparate set of self motion cues. The study begins with one of the most simple, planar visual motion, and investigates the cortical organisation of motion sensitive areas. It finds evidence of columnar organisation in hMT+ and a large scale map in V1. Cha pter 3 extends this by using stimuli designed to emulate visual and auditory forward motion. It fi nds that participants are able to determine their direction with a precision close to that predicted by B ayesian integration. Predictions were made regarding neural processing through a modified divisive nor malisation model, which was also used to fit the behavioural adaptation results. The integration of dif ferent modalities requires visual and auditory streams to combine at some stage within the sensory processi ng hierarchy. Previous research suggests the ventral intraparietal region (VIP) may be the seat of suc h integration. Chapter 4 tests whether VIP does combine these cues and whether the correlation between VIP and the unimodal regions changes depending on the coherence of unimodal stimuli. The presenc e of such modulation is predicted by some models, such as the divisive normalisation model. The proce ssing of such egocentric self motion cues leads to the updating of allocentric representations, thes e are believed to be encoded by head direction cells and place cells. The experiment in chapter 5 uses a virt ual reality stimulus during fMRI scanning to give participants the sense of moving and navigating. The ir location in the virtual environment was decoded above chance from voxels in the hippocampus. No head direction signal was classified above chance from any of the three cortical regions investigated. We tentatively conclude that head direction is considerably more difficult to classify from the BOLD sign al, possibly due to the homogeneous organisation of head direction cells.
The role of culture in empathy : the consequences and explanations of cultural differences in empathy at the affective and cognitive levels

Our empathic abilities are central in social interaction and accordingly, our ability to feel and infer others’ emotions is considered crucial for healthy functioning in interpersonal relationships (Blair, 2005; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). One possible moderator of empathy is cultural background and although there is a wealth of theoretical knowledge to link culture and empathy, there is however, very limited empirical research directly examining the association between the two constructs. In five studies using culture as the principle unit of analysis, the research contained within this thesis has investigated the extent to which culture influences empathy using a variety of methods. Chapter Two reports results from an experimental study which show cultural differences in negative affect in response to physical pain; British reported greater negative affect compared to East Asians. Chapter Three reports results from an experimental study that replicate findings in the preceding chapter to a different type of situation, one that depicts social pain. In addition, results demonstrate greater empathic concern but lower empathic accuracy in British compared to East Asians. Chapter Four reports results from an experimental study that follow a similar pattern to preceding chapters; British report greater empathic concern, but lower empathic accuracy compared to Chinese individuals. In addition, the analyses demonstrate that neither an in-group advantage nor comprehension of video targets can explain cultural differences in affective and cognitive empathy. Emotional expressivity predicts British but not Chinese empathic concern. Chapter Five reports a study that demonstrates that empathic concern explains cultural differences in donating, a measure of prosocial behaviour. Chapter Six reports a study that demonstrates that Americans would side and feel more affective empathy for one friend over the other when the two friends are engaged in an intense disagreement compared to Japanese. These findings are interpreted from a dialectical thinking and interpersonal harmony theoretical framework. The association between dispositional empathy and affective and cognitive empathic outcomes was assessed in all studies to understand the utility of dispositional empathy cross-culturally. Findings regarding dispositional empathy’s utility are mixed but suggest that dispositional empathy is more useful to predict empathy in a Western cultural context, but not as useful in an Eastern cultural context. Chapter Seven considers the implications of the findings reported in the set of studies and explores future directions.
Encoding Concept Prototypes for Video Event Detection and Summarization

This paper proposes a new semantic video representation for few and zero example event detection and unsupervised video event summarization. Different from existing works, which obtain a semantic representation by training concepts over images or entire video clips, we propose an algorithm that learns a set of relevant frames as the concept prototypes from web video examples, without the need for frame-level annotations, and use them for representing an event video. We formulate the problem of learning the concept prototypes as seeking the frames closest to the densest region in the feature space of video frames from both positive and negative training videos of a target concept. We study the behavior of our video event representation based on concept prototypes by performing three experiments on challenging web videos from the TRECVID 2013 multimedia event detection task and the MED-summaries dataset. Our experiments establish that i) Event detection accuracy increases when mapping each video into concept prototype space. ii) Zero-example event detection increases by analyzing each frame of a video individually in concept prototype space, rather than considering the holistic videos. iii) Unsupervised video event summarization using concept prototypes is more accurate than using video-level concept detectors.
Provenance Management for Data Quality Assessment

The ultimate goal of data quality management (DQM) is to improve the data quality (DQ) to facilitate enterprises decision-making, and the data quality assessment (DQA) is an important aspect in the process of DQM. Existing research in DQA focuses on the establishment of evaluation indicators and quantified methods in specific areas of application, but does not take into account the evolution of the data. For the current context of complex heterogeneous data environment, DQA framework based on provenance and SOA is designed, and provenance management process is focused to describe, finally the provenance model is defined and implemented. Overall, an example described in the paper demonstrates the necessity and feasibility of introducing provenance into DQA.
mSwitch: a highly-scalable, modular software switch

In recent years software network switches have regained eminence as a result of a number of growing trends, including the prominence of software-defined networks, as well as their use as back-ends to virtualization technologies, to name a few. Consequently, a number of high performance switches have been recently proposed in the literature, though none of these simultaneously provide (1) high packet rates, (2) high throughput, (3) low CPU usage, (4) high port density and (5) a flexible data plane. This is not by chance: these features conflict, and while achieving one or a few of them is (now) a solved problem, addressing the combination requires significant new design effort. In this paper we fill the gap by presenting mSwitch. To prove the flexibility and performance of our approach, we use mSwitch to build four distinct modules: a learning bridge consisting of 45 lines of code that outperforms FreeBSD's bridge by up to 8 times; an accelerated Open vSwitch module requiring small changes to the code and boosting performance by 2.6--3 times; a protocol demultiplexer for userspace protocol stacks; and a filtering module that can direct packets to virtualized middleboxes.
1 Learning Scene Semantics

Automated visual surveillance systems are required to emulate the cognitive abilities of surveillance personnel, who are able to detect, recognise and assess the severity of suspicious, unusual and threatening behaviours. We describe the architecture of our surveillance system, emphasising some of its high-level cognitive capabilities. In particular, we present a methodology for automatically learning semantic labels of scene features. We also describe a framework that supports learning of a wider range of semantics, using a motion attention mechanism and exploiting long-term consistencies in video data.
Does Severity of Physical Neglect Moderate the Impact of an Efficacious Preventive Intervention for Maltreated Children in Foster Care?

Physically neglected youth are at increased risk of mental health problems, but there are few interventions that have demonstrated efficacy in reducing mental health symptoms for this vulnerable population. The Fostering Healthy Futures (FHF) program, which consists of mentoring and skills groups, was developed for preadolescent youth in foster care. In a published randomized controlled trial with 156 youth, FHF demonstrated positive impacts on mental health functioning. The current study sought to determine whether FHF might be particularly effective in ameliorating the impact of neglectful family environments. Because it was not possible to isolate a neglected-only subgroup, as most children with physical neglect histories had experienced other types of maltreatment, we tested the hypothesis that intervention effects would be stronger among children with more severe physical neglect. Findings did not support this hypothesis, however, as severity of physical neglect did not significantly moderate the impact of the intervention on psychosocial outcomes.