Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive control of a spring-mass hopper

Practical realization of model-based dynamic legged behaviors is substantially more challenging than statically stable behaviors due to their heavy dependence on second-order system dynamics. This problem is further aggravated by the difficulty of accurately measuring or estimating dynamic parameters such as spring and damping constants for associated models and the fact that such parameters are prone to change in time due to heavy use and associated material fatigue. In this paper, we present an on-line, model-based adaptive control method for running with a planar spring-mass hopper based on a once-per-step parameter correction scheme. Our method can be used both as a system identification tool to determine possibly time-varying spring and damping constants of a miscalibrated system, or as an adaptive controller that can eliminate steady-state tracking errors through appropriate adjustments on dynamic system parameters. We present systematic simulation studies to show that our method can successfully accomplish both of these tasks.
Geometrically derived anisotropy in cubically nonlinear dielectric composites

We consider an anisotropic homogenized composite medium (HCM) arising from isotropic particulate component phases based on ellipsoidal geometries. For cubically nonlinear component phases, the corresponding zeroth-order strong-permittivity-fluctuation theory (SPFT) (which is equivalent to the Bruggeman homogenization formalism) and second-order SPFT are established and used to estimate the constitutive properties of the HCM. The relationship between the component phase particulate geometry and the HCM constitutive properties is explored. Significant differences are highlighted between the estimates of the Bruggeman homogenization formalism and the second-order SPFT estimates. The prospects for nonlinearity enhancement are investigated.
Machine learning for quality prediction in abrasion-resistant material manufacturing process

Quality monitoring and prediction plays a key role in improving product quality and achieving automated quality control in manufacturing processes such as the abrasion-resistant material manufacturing process. Traditional methods that rely on the use of first-principle models are difficult to formulate due to the increasing complexity and high dimensionality of manufacturing processes. Data-driven machine learning methods offer an efficient way to learn models for quality prediction, in which the meaningful process information can be learned directly from large amounts of measured process data at different stages. In this paper, based on data collected throughout an abrasion-resistant material manufacturing process, product quality prediction of burned balls is achieved with the use of the Support Vector Machine classification algorithm.
MAGNETIC-FIELDS IN MOLECULAR CLOUD CORES

Strong circular polarization of OH masers at 1665 and 1667 MHz lines has been observed towards the molecular cloud cores associated with HII regions. Magnetic field strengths of a few mG are derived from the Z e e-man splitting of OH lines. For instance, a magnetic field of about 4 mG in the masing region of W3(OH) has been estimated by OH-line Zeeman splitting (Davies, 1974). VLBI observations show that the OH maser spots project onto or very close to the surface of associated compact HII regions (Reid et al., 1986). The observational evidence demonstrates that the scales of OH maser components surrounding a compact HII region (R ~ 1 0 16 cm) are about 1 0 14 cm in diameter with an amplification pathlength of ~ 1 0 15 cm. Hence the magnetic fields determined by the Zeeman splitting of OH maser lines appear partly very close to the associated HII region. Elitzur (1979) has theoretically obtained similar results as above. The Stokes parameter V spectra of non-masing OH lines in emission and in absorption towards some molecular clouds have been observed by Kazès and Crutcher (1986). Magnetic field strengths given in Table 1
Broadband macroscopic cortical oscillations emerge from intrinsic neuronal response failures

Broadband spontaneous macroscopic neural oscillations are rhythmic cortical firing which were extensively examined during the last century, however, their possible origination is still controversial. In this work we show how macroscopic oscillations emerge in solely excitatory random networks and without topological constraints. We experimentally and theoretically show that these oscillations stem from the counterintuitive underlying mechanism—the intrinsic stochastic neuronal response failures (NRFs). These NRFs, which are characterized by short-term memory, lead to cooperation among neurons, resulting in sub- or several- Hertz macroscopic oscillations which coexist with high frequency gamma oscillations. A quantitative interplay between the statistical network properties and the emerging oscillations is supported by simulations of large networks based on single-neuron in-vitro experiments and a Langevin equation describing the network dynamics. Results call for the examination of these oscillations in the presence of inhibition and external drives.
Monitoring the News: a TDT demonstration system

We describe a demonstration system built upon Topic Detection and Tracking (TDT) technology. The demonstration system monitors a stream of news stories, organizes them into clusters that represent topics, presents the clusters to a user, and visually describes the changes that occur in those clusters over time. A user may also mark certain clusters as interesting, so that they can be "tracked" more easily.
Local-directed network coding in vehicular ad-hoc networks

In this paper, we proposed a novel network coding method called local-directed network coding to improve the throughput of the vehicular ad-hoc network. Different from other vehicular network coding methods, we consider the direction of packet transmission. In detail, the intermediate node selects one main packet and some sub-packets from forwards and backwards sending queues, and then encodes these packets into one packet to broadcast. Simulation results show that our approach can efficiently improve the throughput of application layer in vehicular networks.
Geometric Sensitivity of a Pinhole Collimator

Geometric sensitivity for single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) is given by a double integral over the detection plane. It would be useful to be able to explicitly evaluate this quantity. This paper shows that the inner integral can be evaluated in the situation where there is no gamma ray penetration of the material surrounding the pinhole aperature. This is done by converting the integral to an integral in the complex plane and using Cauchy's theorem to replace it by one which can be evaluated in terms of elliptic functions.
Variation and Evolution of Male Sex Combs in Drosophila: Nature of Selection Response and Theories of Genetic Variation for Sexual Traits

We investigated the genetic architecture of variation in male sex comb bristle number, a rapidly evolving secondary sexual character of Drosophila. Twenty-four generations of divergent artificial selection for sex comb bristle number in a heterogeneous population of Drosophila melanogaster resulted in a significant response that was more pronounced in the direction of low bristle numbers. We observed a strong positive correlated response to selection in the corresponding female transverse bristle row. The correlated response in male abdominal and sternopleural bristle numbers, on the other hand, did not follow the same pattern as sex comb bristle number differences between selection lines. Relaxation-of-selection experiments along with mate choice and fecundity assays using the selection lines developed demonstrated the action of stabilizing selection on sex comb bristle number. Our results show (1) substantial genetic variation underlying sex comb bristle number variation; (2) a weak relationship between the sex comb and developmentally related, non-sex bristle systems; and (3) that sexual selection may be a driving force in sex comb evolution, indicating the potential of sex combs to diversify rapidly during population differentiation and speciation. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of genetic variation in display and nondisplay male sex traits.
Survivable IP network design with OSPF routing

Internet protocol (IP) traffic follows rules established by routing protocols. Shortest path‐based protocols, such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), direct traffic based on arc weights assigned by the network operator. Each router computes shortest paths and creates destination tables used for routing flow on the shortest paths. If a router has multiple outgoing links on shortest paths to a given destination, it splits traffic evenly over these links. It is also the role of the routing protocol to specify how the network should react to changes in the network topology, such as arc or router failures. In such situations, IP traffic is rerouted through the shortest paths not traversing the affected part of the network. This article addresses the issue of assigning OSPF weights and multiplicities to each arc, aiming to design efficient OSPF‐routed networks with minimum total weighted multiplicity (multiplicity multiplied by the arc length) needed to route the required demand and handle any single arc or router failure. The multiplicities are limited to a discrete set of values, and we assume that the topology is given. We propose an evolutionary algorithm for this problem, and present results applying it to several real‐world problem instances. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 49(1), 51–64 2007
Relationship between Information Systems Development Paradigms and Methods

There are well established paradigms for information systems development but the methods used for Information Systems Development (ISD) have not been tied to most of these paradigms. Researchers have attempted to document the assumptions underlying different paradigms with the goal of making systems developers become aware of the assumptions and beliefs that they employ for a system development task. However, a number of Information Systems that have failed are as a result of lack of awareness by the information systems developers of some methods that should be used when dealing with an ISD problem. Information Systems researchers have not related ISD methods that can be used by practitioners to the identified ISD paradigms. In this paper, ISD methods have been classified under some of the major paradigms in form of a matrix. It is hoped that such classification will enable IS Developers easily identify methods they should use which in turn should lead to better quality of Information Systems, and a reduction in time and costs in Information Systems Development.
Sparse mixture conditional density estimation by superficial regularization

In this paper, the estimation of conditional densities of continuous random variables from noisy samples is considered. The conditional densities are modeled as heteroscedastic Gaussian mixture densities allowing for closed-form solution of Bayesian inference with full densities. The key idea is a regularization based on the curvature of the conditional density function's surface. The main contributions are the introduction of a superficial regularizer, the consideration of model uncertainty relative to the local data distribution by means of adaptive covariances, and an efficient distance-based estimation algorithm leading to an improved generalization quality of the estimates. The proposed algorithm is an iterative two-step optimization scheme for hyperparameters and the components' parameters. The obtained solutions are sparse, smooth, and generalize well as experiments, e.g., in nonlinear filtering, show.
The ‘physiologization’ of skiing: the lab as an obligatory passage point for elite athletes?

Abstract In The Pasteurization of France, Bruno Latour argued that the rise of hygiene was dependent on collaboration between Pasteur, the hygiene movement, scientists and others. He also pointed at the importance of obligatory passage points such as the Pasteurian laboratory, to ensure the scientization and rationalization of hygiene. This article argues that there has been a similar process in elite sports, a ‘physiologization’ where scientists, sport organizations and specialized coaches have transformed training from a deeply personal and experiential matter to something universal and scientific. Physiologists made the test lab an obligatory passage point for athletes who wanted to compete on the highest level. Through theories of sportification and science and technology studies this paper analyses the scientization of endurance sports.
Precision Measurement of the Lifetime of the 3d 2 D 5/2 state in 40 Ca +

We report a measurement of the lifetime of the 3d 2 D5/2 metastable level in 40 Ca + , using quantum jumps of a single cold calcium ion in a linear Paul trap. The 4s 2 S1/2– 3d 2 D5/2 transition is significant for single-ion optical frequency standards, astrophysical references, and tests of atomic structure calculations. We obtain � = 1.168 ± 0.007 s from observation of nearly 64,000 quantum jumps during ∼ 32 hours. Our result is more precise and significantly larger than previous measurements. Experiments carried out to quantity systematic effects included a study of a previously unremarked source of systematic error, namely excitation by the broad background of radiation emitted by a semiconductor diode laser. Combining our result with atomic structure calculations yields 1.20 ± 0.01 s for the lifetime of 3d 2 D3/2. We also use quantum jump observations to demonstrate photon antibunching, and to estimate background pressure and heating rates in the ion trap.
Hierarchical Classification of Web Search Results Using Personalized Ontologies

In this paper, we propose an approach to presenting web search results that supports personalization, taking into consideration users’ perspectives. We developed a post-retrieval algorithm which uses document classification techniques to organize search results into a meaningful hierarchy of topics, based on the perspective of the user performing the search, represented as a taxonomic ontology. A demonstration system called WEBCLUSTERS was implemented to interface with a number of existing search engines to retrieve search results for keyword queries and present them in user defined topic hierarchies. The classification of retrieved documents to a concept in an ontology is based on the multinomial variant of the naïve Bayes classifier. Experiments were performed to measure the accuracy of the system in organizing documents based on user-defined ontologies. Accuracy was measured by estimating the degree of correlation between two different ontologies which described the same information domain. Experiments show that where the retrieved documents are heterogeneous in nature, the WEBCLUSTERS system is capable of classifying search results into the user specified hierarchy with a reasonable level of accuracy.
Feather Animation Based on an Intelligence Algorithm

A new approach for the simulation of feather based on a statistical method is presented. The feather boundary can be firstly detected according to its configuration, and then its contour shape can also be simulated on the basis of a curve-fitting technique. The components within its boundary are divided into two parts, i.e. the heavier one and the softer one. The former region may be filled with the black and white patterns depending upon the necessary information detected before. And the latter region may be represented by the two parts, i.e. the softer rachis and down. Distribution probability of the rachis curve shape is derived from the detected information so that the simulation can be realized. The softer down may be represented by the statistical method after efficiently analysis its 2D gray image information.
Classification of Musical Audio Recordings

—In this paper, the automatic classification of musical audio recordings into a hierarchy of musical genres is explored. Three features sets for representing timbral texture, rhythmic content and pitch content of musical audio signals are reviewed. We give classification results using described features and a k-NN classifier. Accuracy of classification of 61% for ten musical genres is promising and this result is comparable to the results reported for human musical genre classification. We also analyzed the significance of individual features for classification and we show that timbral texture features yield the best results for this dataset.
POMDP-based long-term user intention prediction for wheelchair navigation

This paper presents an intelligent decision-making agent to assist wheelchair users in their daily navigation activities. Several navigational techniques have been successfully developed in the past to assist with specific behaviours such as "door passing" or "corridor following". These shared control strategies normally require the user to manually select the level of assistance required during use. Recent research has seen a move towards more intelligent systems that focus on forecasting users' intentions based on current and past actions. However, these predictions have been typically limited to locations immediately surrounding the wheelchair. The key contribution of the work presented here is the ability to predict the users' intended destination at a larger scale, that of a typical office arena. The systems relies on minimal user input - obtained from a standard wheelchair joystick - in conjunction with a learned Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP), to estimate and subsequently drive the user to his destination. The projection is constantly being updated, allowing for true user- platform integration. This shifts users' focus from fine motor- skilled control to coarse control broadly intended to convey intention. Successful simulation and experimental results on a real wheelchair robot demonstrate the validity of the approach.
POC: An Optimization Strategy of EV Efficient Travelling

The popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) provides great help to solve the increasingly serious energy issues and environmental problems, but it also has limitation such as short driving range and long charging time. This paper proposed an optimization strategy for EVs to travel more efficiently called planed ordered charging (POC for short), that is, spending more time on driving and necessary charging instead of waiting or overcharge. An energy reachable graph is built firstly to protect vehicles from breaking down in the midway. Travel time, including driving time, charging time and waiting time, is taken as the optimization goal. The modeling and solution of travel time is presented. One of the most important contributions of this paper is the proposal of charging station load and how it can be calculated, which well describes waiting time from a macro view. Besides, reservation mechanism for charging is also introduced to achieve the global optimization. Then the planning of efficient travel can be converted to a general graph theory problem by putting time cost onto edge weight of the graph. According to the simulation and experiment, the strategy proposed in this paper is superior to other compared strategies in many aspects.
Construction of extended geographical database based on photo shooting history

This study proposes an extended geographical database based on photo shooting history to enable the suggestion of candidate captions to newly shot photos. The extended geographical database consists of not only subject positions but also the likely shooting positions and directions estimated using the histories of the shooting positions and directions of the subjects. A user can add a caption to a photo by selecting an appropriate one from the candidate captions. The candidate captions are acquired using the shooting position and direction as a key to the extended geographical database. In this paper, we present the results of experiments for constructing the extended geographical database using a prototype system.
NCQ vs. I/O scheduler: Preventing unexpected misbehaviors

Native Command Queueing (NCQ) is an optimization technology to maximize throughput by reordering requests inside a disk drive. It has been so successful that NCQ has become the standard in SATA 2 protocol specification, and the great majority of disk vendors have adopted it for their recent disks. However, there is a possibility that the technology may lead to an information gap between the OS and a disk drive. A NCQ-enabled disk tries to optimize throughput without realizing the intention of an OS, whereas the OS does its best under the assumption that the disk will do as it is told without specific knowledge regarding the details of the disk mechanism. Let us call this expectation discord, which may cause serious problems such as request starvations or performance anomaly. In this article, we (1) confirm that expectation discord actually occurs in real systems; (2) propose software-level approaches to solve them; and (3) evaluate our mechanism. Experimental results show that our solution is simple, cheap (no special hardware required), portable, and effective.
An Rtf2 Domain-Containing Protein Influences Pre-mRNA Splicing and Is Essential for Embryonic Development in Arabidopsis thaliana

Alternative splicing is prevalent in plants, but little is known about its regulation in the context of developmental and signaling pathways. We describe here a new factor that influences pre-messengerRNA (mRNA) splicing and is essential for embryonic development in Arabidopsis thaliana. This factor was retrieved in a genetic screen that identified mutants impaired in expression of an alternatively spliced GFP reporter gene. In addition to the known spliceosomal component PRP8, the screen recovered Arabidopsis RTF2 (AtRTF2), a previously uncharacterized, evolutionarily conserved protein containing a replication termination factor 2 (Rtf2) domain. A homozygous null mutation in AtRTF2 is embryo lethal, indicating that AtRTF2 is an essential protein. Quantitative RT-PCR demonstrated that impaired expression of GFP in atrtf2 and prp8 mutants is due to inefficient splicing of the GFP pre-mRNA. A genome-wide analysis using RNA sequencing indicated that 13–16% of total introns are retained to a significant degree in atrtf2 mutants. Considering these results and previous suggestions that Rtf2 represents an ubiquitin-related domain, we discuss the possible role of AtRTF2 in ubiquitin-based regulation of pre-mRNA splicing.
Recursive Filtering for Zero Offset Correction of Diving Depth Time Series with GNU R Package diveMove

Zero offset correction of diving depth measured by time-depth recorders is required to remove artifacts arising from temporal changes in accuracy of pressure transducers. Currently used methods for this procedure are in the proprietary software domain, where researchers cannot study it in sufficient detail, so they have little or no control over how their data were changed. GNU R package diveMove implements a procedure in the Free Software domain that consists of recursively smoothing and filtering the input time series using moving quantiles. This paper describes, demonstrates, and evaluates the proposed method by using a “perfect” data set, which is subsequently corrupted to provide input for the proposed procedure. The method is evaluated by comparing the corrected time series to the original, uncorrupted, data set from an Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella Peters, 1875). The Root Mean Square Error of the corrected data set, relative to the “perfect” data set, was nearly identical to the magnitude of noise introduced into the latter. The method, thus, provides a flexible, reliable, and efficient mechanism to perform zero offset correction for analyses of diving behaviour. We illustrate applications of the method to data sets from four species with large differences in diving behaviour, measured using different sampling protocols and instrument characteristics.