Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the Expressiveness of CCS-like Calculi

In the literature there are several CCS-like process calculi, or CCS variants, differing in the constructs for the specification of infinite behavior and in the scoping rules w.r. t. channel names. In this paper we study various representatives of these calculi based upon both their relative expressiveness and the decidability of divergence (i.e., the existence of a divergent computation). We regard any two calculi as being equally expressive iff for every process in each calculus, there exists a weakly bisimilar process in the other. By providing weak bisimilarity preserving mappings among the various variants, we show that in the context of relabeling-free and finite summation calculi: (1) CCS with parameterless (or constant) definitions is equally expressive to the variant with parametric definitions. (2) The CCS variant with replication is equally expressive to that with recursive expressions and static scope. We also state that the divergence problem is undecidable for the calculi in (1) but decidable for those in (2). We obtain this from previous (un)decidability results and by showing the relevant mappings to be computable and to preserve divergence and its negation. From (1) and the well-known fact that parametric definitions can replace injective relabelings, we show that injective relabelings are redundant (i.e., derived) in CCS (which has constant definitions only).
User Authentication for Rotary Knob Controlled In-car Applications

In recent years, the automobile has become more connected and has started offering drivers a variety of services and applications for in-car use, such as Facebook, Twitter, and mobile payment. Many such services require user authentication. We have investigated the requirements and potential of authenticating users with a rotary control knob, which constitutes the central control entity (CCE) in many modern cars. In a user-centered design approach we adapted three established authentication schemes for in-car usage with consideration to driver distraction. We performed extensive user experiments in a driving simulator focusing on usability, security and driver distraction. The results of our experiments provide relevant insights for integrating user authentication methods into the automotive context solely based on present hardware components.
RESOLUTION OF THE DISTANCE AMBIGUITY FOR GALACTIC H ii REGIONS

We resolve the kinematic distance ambiguity for 266 inner Galaxy H ii regions out of a sample of 291 using existing H i and 13CO sky surveys. Our sample contains all H ii regions with measured radio recombination line emission over the extent of the 13CO Boston University-Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory Galactic Ring Survey (18° < l < 55° and |b| < 1) and contains ultra compact (UC), compact, and diffuse H ii regions. We use two methods for resolving the distance ambiguity for each H ii region: H i emission/absorption (H i E/A) and H i self-absorption (H i SA). We find that the H i E/A and H i SA methods can resolve the distance ambiguity for 72% and 87% of our sample, respectively. When projected onto the Galactic plane, this large sample appears to reveal aspects of Galactic structure, with spiral arm-like features at Galactocentric radii of 4.5 and 6 kpc, and a lack of H ii regions within 3.5 kpc of the Galactic center. Our H ii regions are approximately in the ratio of 2 to 1 for far versus near distances. The ratio of far-to-near distances for UC H ii regions is 2.2 to 1. Compact H ii regions are preferentially at the near distance; their ratio of far-to-near distances is 1.6 to 1. Diffuse H ii regions are preferentially at the far distance; their ratio of far-to-near distances is 3.8 to 1. This implies that the distinction between UC and compact H ii regions is largely due to distance, and that the large angular size of diffuse H ii regions is not solely due to proximity to the Sun.
Preliminary testing of the fully-integrated cognitive controlled walking rehabilitation system

Several studies have examined whether robotic devices can exceed conventional gait training in terms of long term rehabilitation outcomes. Most of the research reported on promising results and pointed out the advantages of rehabilitation robots over strenuous manual physiotherapy. We present a novel cognitive system for gait training that assessed human behavior with body sensors, electromyography, joint kinematics and utilizes smart algorithms to control the level of joint support in the gait orthosis. The powered orthosis was tested in a single healthy person and several gait cycles were compared with free treadmill walking. The analysis was carried out with an optical measurement system and electromyography. Very similar gait patterns confirmed that the orthosis does not hinder the natural movement of the person. Additionally the functionality of the automated assistance level was tested with a healthy person emulating the bilateral crouch gait on the treadmill. The outcomes suggested that the powered gait orthosis does not hinder natural treadmill base movement and the control sufficiently enables the voluntary contribution of the person. However, additional tests will be carried out in neuromuscularly impaired persons before the system will be ready for a proof of concept study.
The Symbolic Wolf: A Construal Level Theory Analysis of the Perceptions of Wolves in the United States

Abstract Charismatic wildlife can be difficult to manage due to the controversies they generate among stakeholders, which may be rooted in their symbolic meaning. Using construal-level theory, we coded the images of gray wolves mentioned by respondents to a national survey (n = 621) and an issue public survey (n = 447) as symbolic (abstract) or corporeal (concrete). We analyzed the relationship between these representations of wolves and several perceptions that may perpetuate social conflict. Most people thought of wolves abstractly, and abstract thoughts were associated with positive feelings toward wolves and agreement with existence beliefs regarding wolves. Concrete representations were associated with identifying as a gun or property rights advocate, hunter, or farmer/rancher. Given these disparate views of wolves, engaging stakeholders through collaborative processes designed to foster a shared understanding of this species, while addressing the concerns of those groups, could be useful in reducing conflict concerning wolf management.
Evaluation of Stop Word Lists in Chinese Language

In modern information retrieval systems, effective indexing can be achieved by removal of stop words. Till now many stop word lists have been developed for English language. However, no standard stop word list has been constructed for Chinese language yet. With the fast development of information retrieval in Chinese language, exploring the evaluation of Chinese stop word lists becomes critical. In this paper, to save the time and release the burden of manual comparison, we propose a novel stop word list evaluation method with a mutual information-based Chinese segmentation methodology. Experiments have been conducted on training texts taken from a recent international Chinese segmentation competition. Results show that effective stop word lists can improve the accuracy of Chinese segmentation significantly.
Reelin Does Not Directly Influence Axonal Growth

Reelin is a large extracellular glycoprotein involved in the development of architectonic patterns, particularly in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus, where it is synthesized primarily by Cajal-Retzius cells. In the hippocampus, Reelin also regulates the growth and/or distribution of afferent entorhinal and commissural axons. To assess further the possible action of Reelin on axonal growth, we used the three-dimensional collagen gel assay to measure axonal elongation from reeler cortical explants in the presence of Reelin. Because Reelin is proteolytically processed in vivo, normal explants and Reelin-transfected human embryonic kidney 293T cells were used, respectively, as sources of processed and full-length protein. The reliability of the assay was tested by demonstrating a clear repulsive action of semaphorin 3F (p < 0.0001). However, neither full-length nor processed Reelin exhibited any significant attraction or repulsion on cortical axons. Our results suggest that the reported effects of Reelin on axonal pathways are indirect, secondary to the architectonic disturbances that result from Reelin deficiency, and that the effects of Cajal-Retzius cells on connectivity are primarily independent of Reelin.
Inter dataset variability compensation for robust speaker recognition

Recent advances in speaker recognition, namely the introduction of i-vectors and Probabilistic Linear Discriminant Analysis (PLDA) resulted in low error rates in the recent NIST speaker recognition evaluations (SREs). However, the success of i-vector based PLDA is dependent on the availability of a large development set. Moreover, the development data must match the evaluation data. For domains that differ from the standard NIST SREs, the use of i-vector based PLDA is not so successful. For instance, for textdependent speaker recognition it has been shown that the NAP framework was more successful, unless an unrealistically large text-dependent development dataset is available. In the summer of 2013, a speaker recognition workshops was held at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU). The cross domain speaker recognition task was addressed in the workshop and was named the domain adaptation challenge. The challenge was motivated by preliminary experiments that showed that a PLDA system built on the Switchboard corpus gave a 3 times larger equal error rate (EER) on the NIST 2010 SRE (condition 5), compared to a system built on a subset of the MIXER corpus (NIST 20042008 SREs). In this work reported we address the domain adaptation challenge. We introduce a novel method named IDVC (inter dataset variability compensation) which explicitly learns inter dataset variability from heterogonous training data. The learnt variability is used to improve the robustness of the i-vectors with respect to domain mismatch. The proposed approach obtains an error reduction of 62% for the domain adaptation challenge.
New LMS Algorithms Based on the Error Normalization Procedure

− This paper introduces several new least mean-square (LMS) algorithms based on error normalization procedure. Different minimization approaches and techniques were used in developing the proposed algorithms. Some of these algorithms are selected and applied to an adaptive noise canceller setup with different stationary noise power levels. Simulation results, carried out using a real speech, clearly demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithms over other standard LMS algorithms. Smaller values of steady-state excess mean-square error and better tracking capabilities are obtained using these new algorithms. Key-Words: Adaptive filters, Adaptive noise cancellers, Error nonlinearity, Error normalization LMS, LMS algorithms.
Retrieving Regions of Interest for User Exploration

We consider an application scenario where points of interest (PoIs) each have a web presence and where a web user wants to identify a region that contains relevant PoIs that are relevant to a set of keywords, e.g., in preparation for deciding where to go to conveniently explore the PoIs. Motivated by this, we propose the length-constrained maximum-sum region (LCMSR) query that returns a spatial-network region that is located within a general region of interest, that does not exceed a given size constraint, and that best matches query keywords. Such a query maximizes the total weight of the PoIs in it w.r. t. the query keywords. We show that it is NP-hard to answer this query. We develop an approximation algorithm with a (5 + e) approximation ratio utilizing a technique that scales node weights into integers. We also propose a more efficient heuristic algorithm and a greedy algorithm. Empirical studies on real data offer detailed insight into the accuracy of the proposed algorithms and show that the proposed algorithms are capable of computing results efficiently and effectively.
Development of Mosaic Algorithm for Mosaic-video Creation using Modified Strip Search Algorithm

Creating Mosaic-video is still a relatively new pursuit. It is also useful inside virtual reality environments, computer game settings, movie special effects and region of interest tracking. Immersive teleconferencing is another application that is being developed using mosaic-video. Many mosaic-video creation techniques are proposed by the researchers but most of them are based on the multiple cameras. We developed it with the use of single moving camera by incorporating simple and efficient steps. Initially a strip search algorithm is modified for mosaic creation with high sensitivity and linearity followed by video background extraction and then mosaic-video frames are created with merging the required dynamic motions from all the frames to mosaic backgrounds. This method handles major problem of non-redundant information retrieval and visualization along large view with respective to the video of tracking camera.
PCA sensitivity: The role of representative and outlier strides in gait sequence

Principal component analysis (PCA) is a useful statistical technique for the reduction of data dimensionality. When applied to the accelerometer data in gait analysis PCA assigns common gait patterns among subjects or provides gait classification. In this paper, we study the results of PCA applied to datasets recorded with three-axial accelerometers placed on thigh, shank, and foot in subjects with hemiplegia. In particular, we analyze the impact of both representative stride (the most similar to all other strides in the sequence) and outlier stride (the most different from all other strides in the sequence) on PCA results. PCA sensitivity to data preparation was tested on three datasets: complete gait sequence, gait sequence without the outlier stride, and on representative stride.
Developing the range operator in the segmentation methods depending on dermatology infection

— Medical image segmentation is a frequent processing step in image understanding and computer aided diagnosis. In this paper, we propose developing on the range operator in image segmentation using depending on dermatology infection. Three different block size are utilized on the range operator and the developing ones to enhance the behavior of the segmentation process of medical images. We propose to exploit the concept of range filtering to extract the texture content of medical image. Experiment is conducted on different medical images and textures. Results show the efficacy of our proposed medical image texture segmentation.
American Journal of Epidemiology Original Contribution Use of Supplements of Multivitamins, Vitamin C, and Vitamin E in Relation to Mortality

In this cohort study, the authors evaluated how supplemental use of multivitamins, vitamin C, and vitamin E over a 10-year period was related to 5-year total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. Participants (n ¼ 77,719) were Washington State residents aged 50–76 years who completed a mailed self-administered questionnaire in 2000–2002. Adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were computed using Cox regression. Multivitamin use was not related to total mortality. However, vitamin C and vitamin E use were associated with small decreases in risk. In cause-specific analyses, use of multivitamins and use of vitamin E were associated with decreased risks of CVD mortality. The hazard ratio comparing persons who had a 10-year average frequency of multivitamin use of 6–7 days per week with nonusers was 0.84 (95% confidence interval: 0.70, 0.99); and the hazard ratio comparing persons who had a 10-year average daily dose of vitamin E greater than 215 mg with nonusers was 0.72 (95% confidence interval: 0.59, 0.88). In contrast, vitamin C use was not associated with CVD mortality. Multivitamin and vitamin E use were not associated with cancer mortality. Some of the associations we observed were small and may have been due to unmeasured healthy behaviors that were more common in supplement users. Free radicals are present in human cells both as a normal consequence of energy metabolism (1, 2) and as a consequence of exposure to exogenous factors such as cigarette smoke (1, 2). Laboratory studies have documented damage by free radicals, known as oxidative damage, to DNA (3, 4), proteins (5), and lipids (1). Because this type of damage is also associated with disease—for example, DNA damage (3, 4) and the occurrence of cancer (6) and lipid peroxidation (1) and the development of atheroscle-rosis (7)—attention has focused on the respective roles of free radicals and antioxidants in disease causation and prevention. Antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, may be capable of preventing oxidative damage in human cells because they are strong electron donors and therefore are relatively quick to react with a free radical (1, 2). Multivitamin and vitamin C and E supplements are commonly used in the United States (8). Whether or not use of these supplements is related to mortality is an important consideration in an evaluation of whether to initiate or continue their use. Currently, there is no clear evidence that taking multivitamins or vitamin C or E …
A compact low-profile circularly-polarized antenna for ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) reader applications

We have successfully demonstrated a novel design of compact and low-profile circularlypolarized antenna for UHF RFID reader applications. The proposed antenna features very good impedance bandwidth from 845 MHz to 964 MHz and a very good AR bandwidth from 860 MHz to 935 MHz. A peak gain of 7.8 dBic was also achieved. These superior performances have made the proposed antenna configuration well suitable for passive RFID applications at UHF band.
A note on post-Riemannian structures of spacetime

A four-dimensional differentiable manifold is given with an arbitrary linear connection $\Gamma_\alpha^\beta=\Gamma_{i\alpha}^\beta dx^i$. Megged has claimed that he can define a metric $G_{\alpha\beta}$ by means of a certain integral equation such that the connection is compatible with the metric. We point out that Megged's implicite definition of his metric $G_{\alpha\beta}$ is equivalent to the assumption of a vanishing nonmetricity. Thus his result turns out to be trivial.
Recommendations on Queue Management and Congestion Avoidance in the Internet

This memo presents two recommendations to the Internet community concerning measures to improve and preserve Internet performance. It presents a strong recommendation for testing, standardization, and widespread deployment of active queue management in routers, to improve the performance of today's Internet. It also urges a concerted effort of research, measurement, and ultimate deployment of router mechanisms to protect the Internet from flows that are not sufficiently responsive to congestion notification.
Automatic isolation and classification of vehicles in a traffic video

Among the diverse applications of computer and communication technologies, Intelligent Transport System aids in simplifying transport problems. Its aim is to gather data and provide timely feedback to traffic managers (traffic policemen) and road users. The various problems involved in processing real-time traffic data has been addressed in several areas of research that includes vehicle detection, tracking and classification. This paper proposes a technique for isolation and classification of vehicles at an abstract level. The isolation technique aims at locating regions of interest (vehicles) within the image to be classified. Classification is performed in two categories. The first category is to identify the predominant color and the second is to classify the vehicle as light or heavy. The experimental results show an accuracy of 82% even for traffic video sequences involving complicated scenes.
Rapid and scalable isp service delivery through a programmable middlebox

With only access billing no longer ensuring profits, an ISP's growth now relies on rolling out new and differentiated services. However, ISPs currently do not have a well-defined architecture for rapid, cost-effective, and scalable dissemination of new services. We present iSDF, a new SDN-enabled framework that can meet an ISP's service delivery constraints concerning cost, scalability, deployment flexibility, and operational ease. We show that meeting these constraints necessitates an SDN philosophy for a centralized management plane, a decoupled (from data) control plane, and a programmable data plane at customer premises. We present an ISP service delivery framework (iSDF) that provides ISPs a domain-specific API for network function virtualization by leveraging a programmable middlebox built from commodity home-routers. It also includes an application server to disseminate, configure, and update ISP services. We develop and report results for three diverse ISP applications that demonstrate the practicality and flexibility of iSDF, namely distributed VPN (control plane decisions), pay-per-site (rapid deployment), and BitTorrent blocking (data plane processing).
Comparison and integration of current computational methods Regulatory element identification in subsets of transcripts : Material Supplemental

Regulatory elements in mRNA play an often pivotal role in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. However, a systematic approach to efficiently identify putative regulatory elements from sets of post-transcriptionally coregulated genes is lacking, hampering studies of coregulation mechanisms. Although there are several analytical methods that can be used to detect conserved mRNA regulatory elements in a set of transcripts, there has been no systematic study of how well any of these methods perform individually or as a group. We therefore compared how well three algorithms, each based on a different principle (enumeration, optimization, or structure/sequence profiles), can identify elements in unaligned untranslated sequence regions. Two algorithms were originally designed to detect transcription factor binding sites, Weeder and BioProspector; and one was designed to detect RNA elements conserved in structure, RNAProfile. Three types of elements were examined: (1) elements conserved in both primary sequence and secondary structure; (2) elements conserved only in primary sequence; and (3) microRNA targets. Our results indicate that all methods can uniquely identify certain known RNA elements, and therefore, integrating the output from all algorithms leads to the most complete identification of elements. We therefore developed an approach to integrate results and guide selection of candidate elements from several algorithms presented as a web service (https://dbw.msi.umn.edu:8443/recit). These findings together with the approach for integration can be used to identify candidate elements from genome-wide post-transcriptional profiling data sets.
Isolation of an ftsZ homolog from the archaebacterium Halobacterium salinarium: implications for the evolution of FtsZ and tubulin

We have isolated a homolog of the cell division gene ftsZ from the extremely halophilic archaebacterium Halobacterium salinarium. The predicted protein of 39 kDa is divergent relative to eubacterial homologs, with 32% identity to Escherichia coli FtsZ. No other eubacterial cell division gene homologs were found adjacent to H. salinarium ftsZ. Expression of the ftsZ gene region in H. salinarium induced significant morphological changes leading to the loss of rod shape. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the H. salinarium FtsZ protein is more related to tubulins than are the FtsZ proteins of eubacteria, supporting the hypothesis that FtsZ may have evolved into eukaryotic tubulin.