Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relationship between image fidelity and image quality

Image fidelity (inferred by the ability to discriminate between two images) and image quality (inferred by the preference for one image over another) are often assumed to be directly related. We investigated the relationship between the perceived image fidelity and image quality of halftone textures. Subjects were asked to rank order a set of printed halftone swatches on the basis of smoothness. They were then asked to reduce the contrast of each pattern until it was at threshold, thus providing an estimate of the pattern's perceptual strength and its discriminability from a non-textured swatch. We found only a moderate correlation between image fidelity and image quality.
Effects of Different Normalisation and Analysis Procedures on Illumina Gene Expression Microarray Data

The investigation of microarray expression data for large numbers of genes poses a number of challenges. Firstly, there is the challenge of transforming raw data to make it comparable across arrays and reduce technical variation while conserving true biological effects. Technical variation (eg cRNA loading, scanning and hybridisation inconsistency) can impact substantially on raw signal intensity. Normalisation has been examined for some platforms but little information is available for Illumina users. Background correction has been examined by Dunning et al. [1] but there is little literature on subsequent normalization. Secondly, statistical analysis of the normalised data poses a challenge due to the large number of simultaneous comparisons. The challenge lies in reducing false positive results while avoiding false negative results. Conservative multiple testing corrections (eg Bonferroni) can miss real changes. Here we investigate the effects of applying different normalisation and analysis techniques to a microarray dataset obtained from a study of the effects of high dietary iron on heart gene expression in mice. We also compare our results to a similar study in the literature to illustrate variation due to experimental design.
Robust Named Entity Recognition in Idiosyncratic Domains

Named entity recognition often fails in idiosyncratic domains. That causes a problem for depending tasks, such as entity linking and relation extraction. We propose a generic and robust approach for high-recall named entity recognition. Our approach is easy to train and offers strong generalization over diverse domain-specific language, such as news documents (e.g. Reuters) or biomedical text (e.g. Medline). Our approach is based on deep contextual sequence learning and utilizes stacked bidirectional LSTM networks. Our model is trained with only few hundred labeled sentences and does not rely on further external knowledge. We report from our results F1 scores in the range of 84-94% on standard datasets.
The Intention to Download Music Files in a P2P Environment: Rational Choice, Fashion, and Ethical Decision Perspectives

Downloading unauthorized music file is deemed illegal and immoral, but the peer-to-peer systems have boosted its popularity. Many authors attributed this phenomenon to the low morality of Internet users, but inconclusive evidence to this argument was found. Extant literature seldom noticed that downloading music files is a new mean of music consumption. People, especially young generation, might rationally choose between downloading music files and buying CDs for greater utility for enjoying and pursuing after the fashion of music. This paper presents a conceptual model of file downloading by looking at and integrating these perspectives. An analysis of 834 samples drew from a questionnaire survey of P2P users in Taiwan generally supports the above assertion.
Análise de sintaxe espacial sobre o sistema de espaços livres urbanos do bairro de Águas Claras no Distrito Federal

O sistema de espacos livres publicos (SELP)tem importância na valorizacao do ambiente urbano,pois a interacao social e o convivio com a natureza fazem parte das necessidades dos habitantes urbanos.O que faz imperativo a articulacao entre espacos cheios e vazios, nomeadamente o estudo das areas a serem destinadas a parques e pracas.Para tanto este artigo tem como objetivo, utilizando o conceito de sintaxe espacial, verificar integracao e segregacao do espaco urbano e sua relacao com a apropriacao do sistema de espacos livres.O objeto de estudo foi o SELP do bairro Aguas Claras no Distrito Federal onde, atraves de software especifico,fez-se a representacao linear do bairro obtendo as variaveis de analise dos espacos. Resultando na localizacao e caracteristicas da s areas mais integradas do SELP,concluiu-se que as areas caracterizadas como segregadas apresentaram melhor relacao com os espacos livres publicosecom maior potencial de interacoes sociais.
Research Paper: The Employment of an Iterative Design Process to Develop a Pulmonary Graphical Display

OBJECTIVE Data representations on today's medical monitors need to be improved to advance clinical awareness and prevent data vigilance errors. Simply building graphical displays does not ensure an improvement in clinical performance because displays have to be consistent with the user's clinical processes and mental models. In this report, the development of an original pulmonary graphical display for anesthesia is used as an example to show an iterative design process with built-in usability testing. DESIGN The process reported here is rapid, inexpensive, and requires a minimal number of subjects per development cycle. Three paper-based tests evaluated the anatomic, variable mapping, and graphical diagnostic meaning of the pulmonary display. MEASUREMENTS A confusion matrix compared the designer's intended answer with the subject's chosen answer. Considering deviations off the diagonal of the confusion matrix as design weaknesses, the pulmonary display was modified and retested. The iterative cycle continued until the anatomic and variable mapping cumulative test scores for a chosen design scored above 90% and the graphical diagnostic meaning test scored above 75%. RESULTS The iterative development test resulted in five design iterations. The final graphical pulmonary display improved the overall intuitiveness by 18%. The display was tested in three categories: anatomic features, variable mapping, and diagnostic accuracy. The anatomic intuitiveness increased by 25%, variable mapping intuitiveness increased by 34%, and diagnostic accuracy decreased slightly by 4%. CONCLUSION With this rapid iterative development process, an intuitive graphical display can be developed inexpensively prior to formal testing in an experimental setting.
job market paper Household Portfolio Choice with Illiquid Assets

The majority of household wealth is held in illiquid forms such as home equity and retirement accounts. This paper presents a theoretical model which derives the optimal portfolio allocation between liquid and illiquid assets. The effect of income uncertainty on portfolio choice behavior is examined in detail. I show that the bulk of household savings can be optimally held in the illiquid form rather than in the liquid form. I also find that the marginal propensity to consume out of liquid resources is larger than the MPC out of illiquid resources especially in the short run. ∗Contact information: Department of Economics, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Email: motsuka@jhu.edu. I thank Christopher Carroll, Thomas Lubik, and seminar participants at Johns Hopkins Macro lunch seminars for many helpful comments.
TCP-friendly rate control for non-TCP multipath flows

In this paper we study the design of a rate controller for TCP-friendly non-TCP flows using multiple end-to-end paths simultaneously. Previous work has shown that it is possible to design a rate controller for multipath TCP that is friendly to standard TCP traffic while improving throughput over single path connections. We argue that this rate controller is not optimal for every type of non-TCP traffic. We propose a new rate controller that adjusts the subflow rates dynamically according to the solution of an optimisation problem. We show that it improves goodput over currently known single-path and multi-path controllers while being fair to standard TCP traffic even in the case of not observable shared bottleneck links in the network.
Muscle-model-oriented EMG-based control of an upper-limb power-assist exoskeleton with a neuro-fuzzy modifier

Many studies on power-assist exoskeleton robots have been carried out in order to assist daily activities and/or rehabilitation of physically weak persons. EMG-based control is one of the most effective control methods to realize the power-assist with the exoskeleton based on userpsilas motion intention. In this paper, a muscle-model, which is adjusted by a neuro-fuzzy modifier according to the userpsilas upper-limb posture, is introduced to realize an effective EMG-based controller of the power-assist exoskeleton. Force/torque generated between the userpsilas wrist part and the tip of the exoskeleton is used to train the neuro-fuzzy modifier. The effectiveness of the proposed control method was evaluated by performing experiment.
PKCδ-dependent signaling mediates ethambutol-induced toxic effects on human retinal pigment cells

Purpose Our previous report demonstrated that ethambutol (EMB) might induce cytoplasmic vacuolization and reduce the uptake of photoreceptor rod outer segments (ROS) in retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, which are mediated via a protein kinase C (PKC)-dependent pathway. In the present study, we sought to identify the PKC isozyme(s) involved. Methods EMB-induced cytoplasmic vacuolization and uptake of ROS were observed under a phase contrast microscope. Western blots were performed to observe the membrane translocation of PKC isozymes and cytoplasmic release of cathepsin D. Quantitative PCR were performed to analyze gene expression of PKCδ. Human RPE cell line RPE50 and ARPE19 cells were pretreated with specific inhibitors or transfected with shRNAs of various PKC isozymes, including PKCα, β, ε, γ, and δ, to examine whether EMB-induced toxic effects were prevented. Results In RPE50 cells, gene expression of PKCδ on both mRNA and protein levels was induced by EMB within 30 min to 3 h. EMB-induced cytoplasmic vacuolization in both RPE50 and ARPE19 cells was prevented by pretreating the cells with a specific inhibitor of PKCδ, Rottlerin, or depletion of PKCδ by shRNA. EMB-triggered reduction of ROS uptake was also significantly suppressed by pretreatment with Rottlerin, or depletion of PKCδ by shRNA technology. In contrast, pretreatment of the cells with specific inhibitors of PKCα, β, ε, or γ, or depletion of PKCα or β didn’t influence the aforementioned EMB-triggered toxic effects. In addition, in RPE50, EMB induced the release of lysosomal enzyme cathepsin D into cytosol within 30 min to 6 h, which was also prevented by Rottlerin. Conclusions EMB-induced vacuole formation, cytoplasmic release of cathepsin D, and reduction of phagocytosis in RPE are intimately correlated and regulated by the PKCδ signal pathway.
Multi-Armed Bandit Problem and Its Applications in Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

Master of Complex System Multi-Armed Bandit Problem and Its Applications in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. by Minh-Quan Nguyen In this project, we propose solutions to exploration vs exploitation problems in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) using multi-armed bandit (MAB) algorithms. ITSs on one side want to select the best learning objects available to recommends to learners in the systems but they simultaneously want to recommend learners to try new objects so that it can learn the characteristics of new objects for better recommendation in the future. This is the exploration vs exploitation problem in ITSs. We model these problems as MAB problems. We consider the optimal strategy: the Gittins Index strategy and two other MAB strategies: Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) and Thompson Sampling. We apply these strategies in two problems: recommender courses to learners and exercises scheduling. We evaluate these strategies using simulation.
CHIMAERA The Poly-Magneto-Phonic Theremin An Expressive Touch-Less Hall-Effect Sensor Array

The Chimaera is a touch-less, expressive, polyphonic and electronic music controller based on magnetic field sensing. An array of linear hall-effect sensors and their vicinity make up a continuous 2D interaction space. The sensors are excited with Neodymium magnets worn on fingers. The device continuously tracks position and vicinity of multiple present magnets along the sensor array to produce event signals accordingly. Apart from the two positional signals, an event also carries the magnetic field polarization, a unique identifier and group association. We like to think of it as a mixed analog/digital offspring of theremin and trautonium. These general-purpose event signals are transmitted and eventually translated to musical events according to custom mappings on a host system. With its touch-less control (no friction), high update rates (2-4kHz), its quasi-continuous spatial resolution and its lowlatency (<1 ms), the Chimaera can react to most subtle motions instantaneously and allows for a highly dynamic and expressive play. Its open source design additionally gives the user all possibilities to further tune hardware and firmware to his or her needs. The Chimaera is networkoriented and configured with and communicated by Open Sound Control, which makes it straight-forward to integrate into any setup.
Large-Signal Oscillator Design Procedure Utilizing Analytical $X$-Parameters Closed-Form Expressions

New analytical behavioral model formulations based on the polyharmonic distortion (PHD) model have been successfully used to describe the nonlinear behavior of transistors and circuits. In this paper, the PHD model and its associated analytical X -parameters formulation will be utilized to provide an analytical design procedure for use in nonlinear microwave circuit design. For RF oscillator design, the negative-resistance method based on the analytical manipulation of scattering parameters is very popular due to its high rate of success in oscillation frequency prediction. However, it cannot be used to accurately predict the oscillator performance because it is based on linear parameters. To overcome this limitation, new analytical expressions based on large-signal X-parameters have been developed for use in transistor-based oscillator circuit design. The robustness of this new approach has been validated by designing and manufacturing a 5-GHz microwave oscillator.
An 8Gb/s Transceiver with 3×-Oversampling 2-Threshold Eye-Tracking CDR Circuit for -36.8dB-loss Backplane

IT systems such as servers and routers need high-speed lower- power area-efficient chip-to-chip interconnections through backplane boards. These interconnections must overcome signal degradation due to the large insertion loss of low-cost boards. In this work, a 90nm CMOS 8Gb/s transceiver is developed. A TX 5- tap FFE, an RX analog equalizer, and a 2-tap DFE combined with a 2-threshold eye-tracking CDR achieve a BER of less than 10-12 through a 160cm backplane board with -36.8dB loss at 4GHz and a transceiver power consumption of 232mW (transmission efficiency of 1.2Gb/sxdB/mW).
N-point functions in rolling tachyon background

We study n-point boundary correlation functions in timelike boundary Liouville theory, relevant for open string multiproduction by a decaying unstable D brane. We give an exact result for the one-point function of the tachyon vertex operator and show that it is consistent with a previously proposed relation to a conserved charge in string theory. We also discuss when the one-point amplitude vanishes. Using a straightforward perturbative expansion, we find an explicit expression for a tachyon n-point amplitude for all n, however the result is still a toy model. The calculation uses a new asymptotic approximation for Toeplitz determinants, derived by relating the system to a Dyson gas at finite temperature.
Gender-dependent spectrum differential models for perceived age control based on direct waveform modification in singing voice conversion

The perceived age of a singing voice, which is the age of the singer as perceived by the listener, is one of the intuitively understandable measures to describe voice characteristics of the singing voice. Singers can sing expressively by controlling voice timbre to some extent but the varieties of voice timbre that singers can produce are limited by physical constraints. To overcome this limitation, previous work has proposed statistical voice timbre control technique based on the perceived age. This technique makes it possible to control the perceived age of singing voice while retaining singer individuality by the use of statistical voice conversion (SVC) with a multiple-regression Gaussian mixture model (MR-GMM). However, the range of controllable perceived age is limited and speech quality of the converted singing voice is significantly degraded compared to that of a natural singing voice. In this paper, we propose a method for perceived age control using direct waveform modification based on spectrum differential and gender-dependent modeling. The experimental results show that the proposed method makes the range of controllable perceived age wider and quality of converted singing voice higher compared to the conventional method.
An Improved Criterion for Clustering Based on the Posterior Similarity Matrix

In this paper we address the problem of choosing a single clustering estimate ĉ based on an MCMC sample of clusterings c, c . , c from the posterior distribution of a Bayesian cluster model. Methods to derive ĉ based on the posterior similarity matrix, a matrix with entries P (ci = cj |y), the posterior probabilities that the observations i and j are in the same cluster, are reviewed and discussed. Minimization of a commonly used loss function for this purpose by Binder (1978) is shown to be equivalent to maximizing the Rand index between estimated and true clustering. We propose a new criterion for choosing an estimated clustering, the posterior expected adjusted Rand index with the true clustering, which outperforms Binder’s loss, MAP and an ad hoc criterion in a simulation study. An application to Fisher’s Iris data is also provided.
Volume 30, Issue 1

The long-run optimal degree of indexation in new Keynesian models with price staggering à la Calvo Abstract This note shows that full price indexation is not optimal in the long-run, in the New Keynesian model under trend inflation and price staggering à la Calvo. Moreover, we show that more price stickiness may increase steady state welfare, if price indexation is partial. ''The long-run optimal degree of indexation in new Keynesian models with price staggering à la Calvo'', Economics Bulletin, Vol. 30 no.1 pp. 482-493.
Restorable Update Write by SSD Controller to Improve Destage Throughput in Enterprise Storage System

RAID5/6 is widely adopted in enterprise storage systems, despite having a write-penalty problem and consuming the cache memory bandwidth. One of the existing ways for reducing data transfer overhead using XDWRITE/XPWRITE determined in SCSI specification. However, this method still consumes bandwidth because of duplicating the XOR data into cache memories for failure recovery. In this paper, we propose a new destaging method that transfers the XOR data through the buffer memory. In addition, we propose new commands that provide a roll back function exploiting the FTL in SSDs. It simplifies the failure recovery in the case of a buffer memory failure while destasing. We evaluated the throughput improvement using an analytical model. Our proposal improved the Random Write throughput by 33% and SPC Benchmark-1™ throughput by 29%, from the conventional method.
A robust wireless proximity detection technique based on RSS and ToF measurements

Proximity sensors are increasingly used in distributed monitoring applications, e.g. for surveillance purposes. However, most of existing solutions have two different, usually contrasting requirements, i.e. either they have strong directional features, or they just cover very short distances. In order to tackle such issues, in this paper a new, almost omnidirectional proximity detection technique is described. The proposed approach is explicitly conceived for wearable wireless sensor networks (WSN) nodes and it relies on the fusion of time-of-flight (ToF) and received signal strength (RSS) values. Even though it is not accurate enough for fine-grained indoor localization, the proposed solution is robust in detecting when a given threshold is crossed by a moving object. Also, it is flexible, light from the computational point of view and easy to implement using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components.
Quantum simulation and phase diagram of the transverse-field Ising model with three atomic spins

Abstract : We perform a quantum simulation of the Ising model with a transverse field using a collection of three trapped atomic ion spins. By adiabatically manipulating the Hamiltonian, we directly probe the ground state for a wide range of fields and form of the Ising couplings, leading to a phase diagram of magnetic order in this microscopic system. The technique is scalable to much larger numbers of trapped ion spins, where phase transitions approaching the thermodynamic limit can be studied in cases where theory becomes intractable.
Primary Teachers’ Confidence in Religious and Moral Education in Scottish Non-Denominational Schools

800x600 This paper reports on the findings of a small qualitative study that investigated Scottish primary teachers’ confidence in Religious and Moral Education (RME) within the new curriculum known as ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ (CfE). The study was carried through face to face interviews with five primary teachers based in two Scottish local authorities. The study has identified that while teachers are confident with their pedagogical knowledge of the subject, they are less confident regarding the level of subject knowledge they have in the subject and about their professional engagement with CfE particularly citing the vagueness of the curriculum and difficulties they face in drawing out learning outcomes and expectations in their teaching of RME. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:. 0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif";}
Reduced Complexity Replica Detection Systems using Binary Classifiers and R-trees

Replica detection is an important prerequisite for the discovery of copyright infringement and detection of illicit content. For this purpose, content-based image protection can be an efficient alternative to watermarking. Rather than imperceptibly embedding a signal, content-based systems rely on image similarity. Certain content-based systems use binary classifiers to detect replicas, each classifier being fine-tuned to a particular original. However, since a suspect image has to be tested against every original, such a comparison becomes computationally prohibitive as the number of original images grows. In this paper, we propose an indexing method to efficiently prune the number of comparisons with the originals in the database. For this purpose, a multidimensional indexing structure, namely R-trees, is incorporated to rapidly select the most likely originals. Experimental results showed that up to 97% of the database can be discarded before applying the binary classifiers.