Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optical fiber Fabry-Perot acoustic sensor based on large PDMS diaphragm

An extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric fibre microphone based on polydimethylsiloxane, or PDMS, diaphragm was proposed. The large free-standing PDMS diaphragm, with a diameter of 4 mm, is prepared by a simple “spin-strip” process. The experimental result shows that the fabricated sensor has a high dynamic pressure sensitivity of about -136 dB re 1 rad/μPa in the range of 100~2000Hz. The noise equivalent acoustic signal level of the microphone, limited by the environmental noise, is about 1000 μPa/Hz1/2. And the dynamic range is tested to be more than 47.48 dB. The proposed microphone is expected to be used in the field of weak acoustic pressure testing.
Effects of Increasing Laser Power on Microstructure Formed During Selective Laser Melting of Co-29Cr-6Mo Alloy

I Acknowledgement . IV List of Publication . V Table of Content . VI List of Figures . VIII List of Tables . XVII Nomenclature . XVIII Attestation of Authorship . XX
Vessicular glutamate transporters 1 and 2 are differentially associated with auditory nerve and spinal trigeminal inputs to the cochlear nucleus

Projections of glutamatergic somatosensory and auditory fibers to the cochlear nucleus (CN) are mostly nonoverlapping: projections from the spinal trigeminal nucleus (Sp5) terminate primarily in the granule cell domains (GCD) of CN, whereas type I auditory nerve fibers (ANFs) project to the magnocellular areas of the VCN (VCNm) and deep layers of Dorsal CN (DCN). Vesicular glutamate transporters (VGLUTs), which selectively package glutamate into synaptic vesicles, have different isoforms associated with distinct subtypes of excitatory glutamatergic neurons. Here we examined the distributions of VGLUT1 and VGLU2 expression in the CN and their colocalization with Sp5 and ANF terminals following injections of anterograde tracers into Sp5 and the cochlea in the guinea pig. The CN regions that showed the most intense expression of VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 were largely nonoverlapping and were consistent with ANF and Sp5 projections, respectively: VGLUT1 was highly expressed in VCNm and the molecular layer of the DCN, whereas VGLUT2 was expressed predominantly in the GCD. Half (47% ± 3%) of the Sp5 mossy fiber endings colabeled with VGLUT2, but few (2.5% ± 1%) colabeled with VGLUT1. In contrast, ANFs colabeled predominantly with VGLUT1. The pathway‐specific expression of VGLUT isoforms in the CN may be associated with the intrinsic synaptic properties that are unique to each sensory pathway. J. Comp. Neurol. 500:777–787, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Neural Style Transfer Replication Project

There are three major advancements in the area of neural style transfer. In 2015, the paper, A neural algorithm of artistic style [2], proposes an iterative algorithm for neural style transfer. In 2016, the paper, Perceptual losses for real-time style transfer and super-resolution [3], proposes a real-time neural style transfer algorithm. However, for this algorithm, we have to train a seperate neural network for each style. In 2017, the paper, A learned representation for artistic style [1], proposes a real-time neural style transfer algorithm that can transfer a variety of styles with one neural network.
Three-dimensional eye position signals shape both peripersonal space and arm movement activity in the medial posterior parietal cortex

Research conducted over the last decades has established that the medial part of posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is crucial for controlling visually guided actions in human and non-human primates. Within this cortical sector there is area V6A, a crucial node of the parietofrontal network involved in arm movement control in both monkeys and humans. However, the encoding of action-in-depth by V6A cells had been not studied till recently. Recent neurophysiological studies show the existence in V6A neurons of signals related to the distance of targets from the eyes. These signals are integrated, often at the level of single cells, with information about the direction of gaze, thus encoding spatial location in 3D space. Moreover, 3D eye position signals seem to be further exploited at two additional levels of neural processing: (a) in determining whether targets are located in the peripersonal space or not, and (b) in shaping the spatial tuning of arm movement related activity toward reachable targets. These findings are in line with studies in putative homolog regions in humans and together point to a role of medial PPC in encoding both the vergence angle of the eyes and peripersonal space. Besides its role in spatial encoding also in depth, several findings demonstrate the involvement of this cortical sector in non-spatial processes.
Participatory Research Revealing the Work and Occupational Health Hazards of Cooperative Recyclers in Brazil

Although informal waste collectors are sometimes organized in cooperatives, their working conditions remain extremely precarious and unsafe. The paper discusses the findings of action oriented, participatory qualitative research with several recycling groups in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil. During workshops with the recyclers mapping, acting, and drawing methods helped reveal health hazards from collection, separation and transportation of recyclable materials. Major health problems relate to chemical and biological hazards, musculoskeletal damage, mechanical trauma and poor emotional wellbeing. The recent federal legislation on solid waste management opens new avenues for the inclusion of recycling cooperatives in selective waste collection. Nevertheless, we express the need to consider the distinctive characteristics and vulnerabilities of recycling groups, when developing safer work environments in these social businesses. We also suggest that the workspace be ergonomically organized and that public awareness campaigns about selective waste collection are conducted regularly to increase the quality of source separation. The introduction of electric hand pushed carts can further reduce health strains. This research has produced a better understanding of the work of the recyclers and related health risks. The interactive qualitative research methodology has allowed for the co-creation and mobilization of specific knowledge on health and safety in recycling cooperatives.
Has decentralisation affected child immunisation status in Indonesia?

Background The past two decades have seen many countries, including a number in Southeast Asia, decentralising their health system with the expectation that this reform will improve their citizens’ health. However, the consequences of this reform remain largely unknown. Objective This study analyses the effects of fiscal decentralisation on child immunisation status in Indonesia. Design We used multilevel logistic regression analysis to estimate these effects, and multilevel multiple imputation to manage missing data. The 2011 publication of Indonesia's national socio-economic survey (Susenas) is the source of household data, while the Podes village census survey from the same year provides village-level data. We supplement these with local government fiscal data from the Ministry of Finance. Results The findings show that decentralising the fiscal allocation of responsibilities to local governments has a lack of association with child immunisation status and the results are robust. The results also suggest that increasing the number of village health centres (posyandu) per 1,000 population improves probability of children to receive full immunisation significantly, while increasing that of hospitals and health centres (puskesmas) has no significant effect. Conclusion These findings suggest that merely decentralising the health system does not guarantee improvement in a country's immunisation coverage. Any successful decentralisation demands good capacity and capability of local governments.
Social force model for pedestrian dynamics.

It is suggested that the motion of pedestrians can be described as if they would be subject to ``social forces. '' These ``forces'' are not directly exerted by the pedestrians' personal environment, but they are a measure for the internal motivations of the individuals to perform certain actions (movements). The corresponding force concept is discussed in more detail and can also be applied to the description of other behaviors. In the presented model of pedestrian behavior several force terms are essential: first, a term describing the acceleration towards the desired velocity of motion; second, terms reflecting that a pedestrian keeps a certain distance from other pedestrians and borders; and third, a term modeling attractive effects. The resulting equations of motion of nonlinearly coupled Langevin equations. Computer simulations of crowds of interacting pedestrians show that the social force model is capable of describing the self-organization of several observed collective effects of pedestrian behavior very realistically.
Noise covariance estimation using dual estimation for disturbance storm time index application

The disturbance storm time (Dst) index is used for predicting the geomagnetic storm that can affect many systems on earth. The application of the dual unscented Kalman filter (DUKF) to improve the quality of the Dst index prediction by simultaneously estimating the process noise covariance is set forth in this paper. In DUKF, two unscented Kalman filters (UKFs) are run in parallel. The UKF applied to a model-based Dst index prediction is so called a state estimator; while the other, a parameter estimator, is for identifying and recursively updating the process noise covariance. The performance comparison between the traditional UKF with fixed constant values of the process noise covariance, and the DUKF are examined. The actual all Dst and the Dst data during the storm (below −80 nT) are used to assess the quality of the predictions. It is found that root mean square error (RMSE) of Dst index prediction using the DUKF is lower than that of the UKF with fixed constant process noise covariances. Specifically, RMSEs of the DUKF are 6.5816 for all Dst and 18.0615 for Dst below −80 nT, whereas, the prediction using a fixed constant process noise covariance yield RMSEs of at least 6.6678 and 19.3954 for all Dst and Dst below −80 nT, respectively. Hence, the DUKF outperforms the traditional UKF with fixed constant process noise covariances in this study.
Attention and Olfactory Consciousness

Understanding the relation between attention and consciousness is an important part of our understanding of consciousness. Attention, unlike consciousness, can be systematically manipulated in psychophysical experiments and a law-like relation between attention and consciousness is waiting to be discovered. Most attempts to discover the nature of this relation are focused on a special type of attention: spatial visual attention. In this review I want to introduce another type of attention to the discussion: attention to the olfactory modality. I will first clarify the position of attention to smells in a general taxonomy of attention. I will then review the mechanisms and neuroanatomy of attention and consciousness in the olfactory system before using the newly introduced system to provide evidence that attention is necessary for consciousness.
Optimal investments strategy for whole life insurance policies

Life insurances have become a necessity in our daily life. The United States government census data shows that insurance premiums totaled approximately 8.18% of the GDP. As for Taiwan, the government statistics data indicates that each person holds 2.23 life insurance policies on average and the money spent in life insurances measure up to 18.19% of the GDP, ranking first in the world. However, most people make investments in life insurances with a buy-and-forget strategy, not knowing how much this insurance is worth to them. In this paper, we focus on providing a valuation method for both annuity and non-annuity style life insurances, including fixed-term and whole life policies. Based of the FinancialCloud architecture, we designed a system to compute how much an insurance policy is worth. We reveal the knowledge on what did the insurer pay for the insurance, what does the insurer get from the insurance, and enable the comparison on different policies to provide suggestions for optimal investments.
Expanded Host Diversity and Geographic Distribution of Hantaviruses in Sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT The recent discovery of hantaviruses in shrews and bats in West Africa suggests that other genetically distinct hantaviruses exist in East Africa. Genetic and phylogenetic analyses of newfound hantaviruses, detected in archival tissues from the Geata mouse shrew (Myosorex geata) and Kilimanjaro mouse shrew ( Myosorex zinki) captured in Tanzania, expands the host diversity and geographic distribution of hantaviruses and suggests that ancestral shrews and/or bats may have served as the original mammalian hosts of primordial hantaviruses.
Machine Understanding of Human Implicit Intention

Abstract : The project aimed at understanding implicit (un-represented or hidden) human intention. The implicit intention domain consists of two axes: the sympathy for one's represented intention and the sympathy for one's counterpart. This project focuses on the latter. The subjects were asked to read Korean statements on the screen and reply Yes (Sympathy/Agreement to the statement) or No (Non-sympathy/Disagreement). Korean has subject-object-verb structure and negation comes at the end. Thus, whether the statement is affirmative or negative is only known at the very end of sentence. The basic assumption is that the subjects make decision before reading to the end of sentence, which corresponds to the implicit intention. EEG, fMRI and pupil dilation signals were measured during this experiment. Experimental results indicate that there is clear difference between the activation levels of the measured signals, and it is possible to predict the subject's response with the accuracy of about 80% by SVM.
Experiments with the two-beam funneling RFQ

High intensity accelerator concepts for Heavy Ion Inertial Fusion (HIIF) injectors require small emittance, high current and high energy beams. The improvement of brightness in such a driver linac is done by several funneling stages at low energies, in which two identically bunched ion beams are combined into a single beam with twice the frequency, current and brightness. For the Heavy-Ion Driven Ignition Facility (HIDIF) we have proposed the use of a two-beam accelerator structure which provides two beams within one cavity and a single RF deflector structure which bends the two beams to one common axis. The progress of the experiment and first beam-test results are presented.
PET Attenuation Correction without Transmission Scan

Attenuation correction (AC) for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) data improves the image quality and enhances quantitative accuracy of radioactivity distribution determination. In dedicated, high resolution breast cancer scanners, this correction would enhance the proper diagnosis in early disease stages. In whole-body PET scanners, AC is usually taken into account by means of transmission scans, either by external radioactive rod sources or by Computed Tomography (CT), considerably increasing the radiation dose to the patient and time needed for the exploration. In this work we propose a method for breast shape identification, by means of PET image segmentation. The breast shape identification will be used for the determination of the AC. For the case of a specific breast PET scanner the procedure we propose should provide AC quite similar to that obtained by transmission scans as we take advantage of the breast anatomical simplicity. Experimental validation of the proposed approach with a dedicated breast PET prototype is also presented. The main advantage of this approach is an important dose reduction since the transmission scan is not required.
Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration cytology and biopsy in the evaluation of lymphoma

Accurate diagnosis and subtyping of lymphoma have important prognostic implications and are generally required for treatment planning. Histological assessment, immunophenotyping, and genetic studies are usually necessary. Endoscopic ultrasound guided-fine needle aspiration cytology (EUS-FNAC) is a minimally invasive technique widely used for the evaluation of deep-seated benign and malignant lesions. However, the value of cytological samples in lymphoma diagnosis is still a matter of debate. Endoscopic ultrasound guided-fine needle biopsy (EUS-FNAB) can provide tissue core samples that may help overcome the limitations of cytology. The aim of this review is to summarize the available literature regarding EUS-FNAC and EUS-FNAB for the diagnosis and subtyping of lymphoma. In addition, we discuss its usefulness in the management of primary extra-nodal lymphomas, as well as technical issues that may influence sample quality.
Multiple Kernel Learning Based Multi-view Spectral Clustering

For a given data set, exploring their multi-view instances under a clustering framework is a practical way to boost the clustering performance. This is because that each view might reflect partial information for the existing data. Furthermore, due to the noise and other impact factors, exploring these instances from different views will enhance the mining of the real structure and feature information within the data set. In this paper, we propose a multiple kernel spectral clustering algorithm through the multi-view instances on the given data set. By combining the kernel matrix learning and the spectral clustering optimization into one process framework, the algorithm can determine the kernel weights and cluster the multi-view data simultaneously. We compare the proposed algorithm with some recent published methods on real-world datasets to show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Enumerating all the Irreducible Polynomials over Finite Field

In this paper we give a detailed analysis of deterministic and randomized algorithms that enumerate any number of irreducible polynomials of degree $n$ over a finite field and their roots in the extension field in quasilinear where $N=n^2$ is the size of the output. } time cost per element. Our algorithm is based on an improved algorithm for enumerating all the Lyndon words of length $n$ in linear delay time and the known reduction of Lyndon words to irreducible polynomials.
Edge-Fog cloud: A distributed cloud for Internet of Things computations

Internet of Things typically involves a significant number of smart sensors sensing information from the environment and sharing it to a cloud service for processing. Various architectural abstractions, such as Fog and Edge computing, have been proposed to localize some of the processing near the sensors and away from the central cloud servers. In this paper, we propose Edge-Fog Cloud which distributes task processing on the participating cloud resources in the network. We develop the Least Processing Cost First (LPCF) method for assigning the processing tasks to nodes which provide the optimal processing time and near optimal networking costs. We evaluate LPCF in a variety of scenarios and demonstrate its effectiveness in finding the processing task assignments.
Terminal Time: An Ideologically-biased History Machine

Terminal Time is a machine that constructs ideologically-biased documentary histories in response to audience feedback. The audience answers multiple-choice questions via an applause meter. The answers to these questions influence which historical events are chosen from a knowledge base, how these events will be slanted to embody the bias implied in the audience's answers, and how the events will be connected together to form a historical narrative. Once the narrative has been generated, video and sound clips are selected from a term-indexed multimedia database. The resulting documentary, consisting of the newly generated narrative spoken by a speech synthesizer, and the video and sound clips, is then presented to the audience.
Computer Vision and Image Understanding Part Level Transfer Regularization for Enhancing Exemplar Svms

Exemplar SVMs (E-SVMs, Malisiewicz et al., ICCV 2011), where an SVM is trained with only a single positive sample, have found applications in the areas of object detection and content-based image retrieval (CBIR), amongst others. In this paper we introduce a method of part based transfer regularization that boosts the performance of E-SVMs, with a negligible additional cost. This enhanced E-SVM (EE-SVM) improves the generalization ability of E-SVMs by softly forcing it to be constructed from existing classifier parts cropped from previously learned classifiers. In CBIR applications, where the aim is to retrieve instances of the same object class in a similar pose, the EE-SVM is able to tolerate increased levels of intra-class variation, including occlusions and truncations, over E-SVM, and thereby increases precision and recall. In addition to transferring parts, we introduce a method for transferring the statistics between the parts and also show that there is an equivalence between transfer regularization and feature augmentation for this problem and others, with the consequence that the new objective function can be optimized using standard libraries. EE-SVM is evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively on the PASCAL VOC 2007 and ImageNet datasets for pose specific object retrieval. It achieves a significant performance improvement over E-SVMs, with greater suppression of negative detections and increased recall, whilst maintaining the same ease of training and testing. Content based image retrieval (CBIR), the problem of searching digital images in large databases according to their visual content, is a well established research area in computer vision. In this work we are particularly interested in retrieving subwindows of images which are similar to the given query image, i.e. the goal is detection rather than image level classification. The notion of similarity is defined as being the same object class but also having similar viewpoint (e.g. frontal, left-facing, rear etc.). A query image can be a part of an object (e.g. head of a side facing horse), a complete object (e.g. frontal car image), or a composition of objects (e.g. person riding a horse). For instance, given a query of a horse facing left, the aim is to retrieve any left facing horse (intra-class variation) which might be walking or running with different feet formations (exemplar deformation). Recently exemplar SVMs (E-SVM) [33], where an SVM is trained with only a single positive sample, have found applications in the areas of CBIR [3,40] and object detection [33]. Since the E-SVM …
Calculation of lightning-induced voltages on complex low-voltage distribution networks

This paper presents an investigation of lightning overvoltages on low-voltage (LV) networks installed in urban areas. The combined effect of lightning-induced voltages and transferred lightning surges through distribution transformers is taken into account. It is shown that an accurate estimate of lightning-induced voltages on LV lines require the consideration of the medium voltage line and of its electrical connections with the LV line via the distribution transformer. It is also shown that if the stroke location is relatively close to the evaluated LV line it is possible to neglect the influence of other LV lines in the estimation of peak overvoltages on the connected loads.