Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mathematical modeling of industrial robots based on Hamiltonian mechanics

The paper deals with an advanced mathematical modeling for robot motion control. The explanation focuses on a composition of suitable mathematical models of robot dynamics intended for control design. Instead of usual Lagrangian formulation of dynamics, this paper presents robot dynamics by Hamiltonian formulation that leads to different physical descriptive quantities considered for control design. In the case of Hamiltonian formulation, a momentum is such physical quantity. In the paper, as representative control approaches, PD control with gravity compensation and model-oriented Lyapunov-based control are considered. The control approaches considering Hamiltonian formulation are demonstrated for simplicity on two-mass robot-arm system. However, the presented results are generally applicable e.g. to usual articulated multi-purpose industrial robots-manipulators.
Computing systems reliability - models and analysis

Computing systems are of growing importance because of their wide use in many areas including those in safety-critical systems. This book describes the basic models and approaches to the reliability analysis of such systems. An extensive review is provided and models are categorized into different types. Some Markov models are extended to the analysis of some specific computing systems such as combined software and hardware, imperfect debugging processes, failure correlation, multi-state systems, heterogeneous subsystems, etc. One of the aims of the presentation is that based on the sound analysis and simplicity of the approaches, the use of Markov models can be better implemented in the computing system reliability.
A Multiinstitutional, Path Analytic Validation of Tinto’s Model of College Withdrawal

This study investigated the validity of Tinto’s (1975) model of college withdrawal in different types of institutions: 4-year residential institutions, 4-year commuter institutions, and 2-year commuter institutions. Analyses were conducted on a sample of 2,326 freshmen from 11 postsecondary institutions. The results generally supported the predictive validity of the model but suggested that interesting differences in the patterns of influence existed when the data were disaggregated by institutional type. The basic differences across type concerned the concepts of social and academic integration. Social integration played a stronger role in influencing persistence at 4-year, primarily residential institutions, while academic integration was more important at 2- and 4-year, primarily commuter institutions.
Thermal-Aware Physical Design Flow for 3-D ICs

3-D IC technologies have recently drawn great interest due to their potential performance improvement, power consumption reduction and heterogeneous components integration. One of the largest challenges in 3-D IC design is heat dissipation. In this paper we propose a thermal-aware physical design process for 3-D ICs, including floorplanning ( 3DFP-T ), placement ( T3Place ) and routing ( TMARS ). Temperature optimization is considered during all three steps.
Promoting Inner Stillness: The Value of a Self-Discovery Programme for Children with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties.

Dr Lesley Cullen-Powell and Professor Julie Barlow are both chartered health psychologists and both work at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Health at Coventry University where Lesley Cullen-Powell is a research fellow and Julie Barlow is a director. In this article, they assess the benefits of a ‘self-discovery programme’ for children aged six to seven years attending one mainstream primary school. Staff at the school selected 18 pupils, many of them considered to be at risk of exclusion, to participate in the study. The children were allocated either to an ‘intervention’ or ‘non-intervention’ group. The children in the intervention group experienced the self-discovery programme over two terms. Results suggest that the programme was well received by the children. They became more confident, respectful and calm and they displayed less aggressive behaviours during the self-discovery programme. Lesley Cullen-Powell and Julie Barlow are cautious in the interpretation of their findings, but suggest that the self-discovery programme has the potential to help children to feel more positive about themselves and their peers and to re-engage with learning. The authors argue that a wider implementation of the programme, with a controlled study, is now required to evaluate the self-discovery programme in more depth and detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
No . 04 / 09 Determinants of Ill Health in Uganda – Is it just the Wealthy that are more Healthy ?

This paper adopts a reduced form demand approach to analyse the key determinants influencing the health status of individuals in Uganda. In particular, we examine the importance of wealth, relative to other key determinants, and by employing both self reported and anthropometric sickness measures, are able to provide direct insights into the robus tness of such results. After controlling for endogeneity we find that increased wealth is strongly associated with increased health status, especially for pre-school aged children, but other factors are potentially as important. In particular, and in line with growing empirical evidence, children born later than older brothers and sisters are more likely to be sick, as are those using unprotected water sources. We also find suggestions of serious reporting bias with the reported illness variables for children, raising questions regarding the reliability of such data and promoting a multiplicity based approach to representing health status for future empirical analysis.
Education and schooling: from modernity to postmodernity

The development of education and schooling in modern times emerged from the priorities of religion and politics in the sixteenth‐century transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and Reformation. Subsequently, liberal ideas about the maintenance and advancement of life on earth fostered a new dualism, between educational science and politics. The development of modern schooling was implicated in these changes; and different trajectories of ‘great’ (or systematic) and ‘small’ (or schoolroom) didactics, open and closed curricula, heavenly and temporal salvation became part of the modernist, nation‐related project. The advent of transnational, globalised regimes since the end of the nineteenth century, however, has gradually created a new political agenda for schooling. To understand this agenda, it may be useful to return to past circumstances and, in the process, clarify perceptions of the future.
Inspiration card workshops

In this paper we start from the position that sources of inspiration play an important role in the design process albeit in a frequently intangible way. We present the Inspiration Card Workshop as a collaborative method for combining findings from domain studies, represented in Domain Cards, with sources of inspiration from applications of technology, represented in Technology Cards, to create new concepts for design. We report our findings from three projects in which we have used the method and argue that the use of Inspiration Cards can successfully frame and guide workshops with disparate participants and bring various sources of inspiration into the design process. We furthermore compare the method to four related methods in the design process, namely Future Workshops, Metaphorical Design, Interaction Relabelling and Lateral Thinking.
A Cross-Laboratory Investigation of Timing Endophenotypes in Mouse Behavior

Phenotyping behavioral and cognitive processes is a critical practice in mouse research and reliable phenotypic assessment is an essential component of building well-defined links between genes and behavioral/cognitive functions.The success of behavioral screens in neurobehavioral mouse genetics depends on the identification of reliable, reproducible, and high-throughput behavioral/cognitive measures from individual animals irrespective of the differences in opinions regarding how to tackle phenotyping in different behavioral domains. Furthermore, reliable behavioral assays must be resistant to inevitable environmental differences across laboratories since protocols can be replicated but not all the environmental conditions.Here we present a cross-laboratory study of interval timing behaviors in mice. Two classically used mouse inbred substrains, C57BL/6J and C57BL/6N, were studied over several days in home-cages containing automated testing apparatus. Remarkably, all timing measures in mouse performance showed a robust reproducibility across centers and even small differences between the two substrains were comparable across laboratories. Moreover, we have observed a consistent increase in error rate during the light phase of the light–dark cycle, which suggests that mouse performance during this phase is compromised by a possible sleep inertia-like effect. Overall, our study demonstrates that analysis of mouse timing behavior can lead to robust and reliable endophenotypes in mouse behavioral genetic studies.
Autorange volume control for automobile audio system

The vehicle noise always covers audio signals while a car is driving on rough roads or at a high speed. The research core of algorithm is based on the acoustic theory, the digital signal processing, and the real-time control skills. A real-time autorange volume control systems are established by the real-time control algorithm programming from LabVIEW software and the integration of the measured, controlled hardware instruments. This system detects the Signal and Noise (S/N) ratio in the car, and then automatically compensates the output magnitude of the audio signal with the higher background noise. This system improves the audio quality for human hearing sensation under dynamic conditions.
Inference and Speci?cation Testing in DSGE Models with Possible Weak Identification

This paper considers inference and model diagnostics for log-linearized DSGE models allow- ing an unknown subset of parameters to be weakly (including un-) identified. The framework allows for latent state variables, measurement errors and also permits analysis using only part of the spectrum, say at the business cycle frequencies. The latter is important because DSGE mod- els are often designed to explain business cycle movements, not very long-run or very short-run ? uctuations. For inference, we first characterize weak identi? cation from a frequency domain perspective and propose a score test for the structural parameters based on the frequency domain maximum likelihood. The construction heavily exploits the structures of the DSGE solution, the score function and the information matrix. In particular, we show that the test statistic can be represented as the explained sum of squares from a complex-valued multivariate linear regression, where weak identification surfaces as (imperfectly) multicollinear regressors. Then, we prove that asymptotically valid inference can be carried out by inverting this test statistic and using Chi-square critical values. Next, we suggest procedures to construct uniform confidence bands for the impulse response function, the time path of the variance decomposition, the individual spectrum and the absolute coherency. For model diagnostics, we propose a family of frequency domain misspecification tests that are robust to weak identification. They can be used to test for misspecification in the mean, in the spectrum as well as misspecification within a band of frequencies. A simulation experiment using a calibrated model suggests that the tests have adequate size even in relatively small samples. It also suggests that it is possible to have informative confidence sets in DSGE models with unidentified parameters, particularly regard- ing the impulse responses functions. Although the paper focuses on DSGE models, the methods developed are potentially applicable to other dynamic models with well defined spectra, such as the stationary (factor-augmented) structural vector autoregression.
The Skorokhod embedding problem and its offspring

This is a survey about the Skorokhod embedding problem. It presents all known solutions together with their properties and some applications. Some of the solutions are just described, while others are studied in detail and their proofs are presented. A certain unification of proofs, thanks to real potential theory, is made. Some new facts which appeared in a natural way when different solutions were cross-examined, are reported. Azema and Yor's and Root's solutions are studied extensively. A possible use of the latter is suggested together with a conjecture.
Supervised Classification of Breast Cancer Malignancy Using Integrated Modified Marker Controlled Watershed Approach

Worldwide statistics inform that breast cancer occupies second position causing mortality among women. Symptomatic detection of the disease in its early stage is important for treatment to help the internists and radiologists in their diagnosis. In the proposed module, nuclei locations are obtained using Hough Transform. Nuclei Segmentation of the pre-processed Hematoxylin and Eosin stained breast cancer histopathological images is done using Proposed Modified - Marker Controlled Watershed Approach (MMCWA). Small fixed Structuring Element (SE) size removes respective bright and dark details during opening and closing morphology & large SE size removes huge contour details of the input image. So, in the proposed MMCWA, by using weighted variance method, the adaptive Structuring Element size of the SE map is obtained to protect all details in the image. A total of 20 features, including 5 shape based features and 15 texture features were extracted for classification using Decision Trees, SVM and KNN classifiers. Algorithmic performance evaluation is accomplished and proved that the proposed integrated MMCWA provides better results than the traditional marker controlled watershed. The proposed module was trained with 96 images and tested over 24 images taken from the digital database.
Building capability in small businesses: tales from the training front

Purpose – The UK Government policy for the training and development of its workforce reflects a desire to move towards a more flexible, “demand‐led” system. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the outcomes and impact of two, publicly funded initiatives, designed to stimulate and enhance “demand‐led” training within the UK's small business sector.Design/methodology/approach – The research in this paper is underpinned by an evaluation methodology. However, in respect of each initiative different approaches and methods of data collection were undertaken to reflect the design characteristics of the two initiatives. Qualitative case study analysis is common to both whilst the evaluation of initiative 2 also draws on the particular survey tool selected to help drive this intervention.Findings – The paper finds that initiative 1 led to a limited degree of enhanced training effort. Initiative 2 demonstrated the value of a depth and trusted relationship between trainer and SME owner‐manager. Both, however, hi.
Principles of protein folding — A perspective from simple exact models

General principles of protein structure, stability, and folding kinetics have recently been explored in computer simulations of simple exact lattice models. These models represent protein chains at a rudimentary level, but they involve few parameters, approximations, or implicit biases, and they allow complete explorations of conformational and sequence spaces. Such simulations have resulted in testable predictions that are sometimes unanticipated: The folding code is mainly binary and delocalized throughout the amino acid sequence. The secondary and tertiary structures of a protein are specified mainly by the sequence of polar and nonpolar monomers. More specific interactions may refine the structure, rather than dominate the folding code. Simple exact models can account for the properties that characterize protein folding: two‐state cooperativity, secondary and tertiary structures, and multistage folding kinetics —fast hydrophobic collapse followed by slower annealing. These studies suggest the possibility of creating “foldable” chain molecules other than proteins. The encoding of a unique compact chain conformation may not require amino acids; it may require only the ability to synthesize specific monomer sequences in which at least one monomer type is solvent‐averse.
Involvement of the Lamin Rod Domain in Heterotypic Lamin Interactions Important for Nuclear Organization

The nuclear lamina is a meshwork of intermediate-type filament proteins (lamins) that lines the inner nuclear membrane. The lamina is proposed to be an important determinant of nuclear structure, but there has been little direct testing of this idea. To investigate lamina functions, we have characterized a novel lamin B1 mutant lacking the middle ∼4/5 of its α-helical rod domain. Though retaining only 10 heptads of the rod, this mutant assembles into intermediate filament-like structures in vitro. When expressed in cultured cells, it concentrates in patches at the nuclear envelope. Concurrently, endogenous lamins shift from a uniform to a patchy distribution and lose their complete colocalization, and nuclei become highly lobulated. In vitro binding studies suggest that the internal rod region is important for heterotypic associations of lamin B1, which in turn are required for proper organization of the lamina. Accompanying the changes in lamina structure induced by expression of the mutant, nuclear pore complexes and integral membrane proteins of the inner membrane cluster, principally at the patches of endogenous lamins. Considered together, these data indicate that lamins play a major role in organizing other proteins in the nuclear envelope and in determining nuclear shape.
Learning Probability Measures with respect to Optimal Transport Metrics

We study the problem of estimating, in the sense of optimal transport metrics, a measure which is assumed supported on a manifold embedded in a Hilbert space. By establishing a precise connection between optimal transport metrics, optimal quantization, and learning theory, we derive new probabilistic bounds for the performance of a classic algorithm in unsupervised learning (k-means), when used to produce a probability measure derived from the data. In the course of the analysis, we arrive at new lower bounds, as well as probabilistic upper bounds on the convergence rate of the empirical law of large numbers, which, unlike existing bounds, are applicable to a wide class of measures.
Wilcoxon-type Generalized Bayesian Information Criterion

We develop a generalized Bayesian information criterion for regression model selection. The new criterion relaxes the usually strong distributional assumption associated with Schwarz’s bic by adopting a Wilcoxon-type dispersion function and appropriately adjusting the penalty term. We establish that the Wilcoxon-type generalized bic preserves the consistency property of Schwarz’s bic without the need to assume a parametric likelihood. We also show that it outperforms Schwarz’s bic with heavier-tailed data in the sense that asymptotically it can yield substantially smaller L2 risk. On the other hand, when the data are normally distributed, both criteria have similar L2 risk. The new criterion function is convex and can be conveniently computed via existing statistical software. Our proposal provides a flexible yet highly efficient alternative to Schwarz’s bic; at the same time, it broadens the scope of Wilcoxon inference, which has played a fundamental role in classical nonparametric analysis.
Integration of students with severe and multiple learning difficulties

Abstract Students with severe and multiple learning difficulties have traditionally been excluded from mainstream education. Three arguments are put forward for integrating these students: social and humanitarian motives; interpretations of the ‘least restrictive environment’ as one in which interactions with non‐disabled peers are least restricted; and a changing concept of education to include a range of functional skills which provide preparation for adult life. Ways of implementing integration are discussed, including location of special classes in regular schools, integration into regular classes, and partial integration through links between regular and special schools. Although many existing integration programmes appear promising, there has been little systematic research in the area and few attempts at independent evaluations. Fears about potential loss of support services in integration appear to have some justification. Fears about adverse behaviour by non‐disabled peers have proved to be large.
The American Occupational Structure

This book is the classic source of empirical information on the patterns of occupational achievement in American society. Based on an unusually comprehensive set of data, it is renowned for its pioneering methods of statistical analysis as well as for its far-reaching conclusions about social stratification and occupational mobility in the United States. The American Occupational Structure received the Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association in recognition of its significant contribution to the social sciences.
Supporting uncertainty in moving objects in network databases

The management of moving objects has been intensively studied in the recent years. A wide and increasing range of database applications has to deal with spatial objects whose position changes continuously over time, called moving objects. Due to the continuous and unpredictable nature of the movements, they cannot be precisely stored in a database, and therefore objects' positions are sampled, and between these sampled positions interpolation is used. This sampling/interpolation approach results in uncertainty in the objects' positions in the whole trajectory of the moving objects. In this paper, we try to analyze this problem about uncertainty when the movement is restricted to a network. Examples of such movements are cars in highways and trains in railroads. The uncertainty problem is simpler in such cases compared to the free movement in 2-dimensional space. We describe the geometry of the uncertain trajectories of the objects with movement constrained to networks, an extension to the framework in [18, 16] to support uncertainty, as well as some implementation considerations using Secondo, an extensible database system that supports non-standard applications.
The design of a practical system for fault-tolerant virtual machines

We have implemented a commercial enterprise-grade system for providing fault-tolerant virtual machines, based on the approach of replicating the execution of a primary virtual machine (VM) via a backup virtual machine on another server. We have designed a complete system in VMware vSphere 4.0 that is easy to use, runs on commodity servers, and typically reduces performance of real applications by less than 10%. In addition, the data bandwidth needed to keep the primary and secondary VM executing in lockstep is less than 20 Mbit/s for several real applications, which allows for the possibility of implementing fault tolerance over longer distances. An easy-to-use, commercial system that automatically restores redundancy after failure requires many additional components beyond replicated VM execution. We have designed and implemented these extra components and addressed many practical issues encountered in supporting VMs running enterprise applications. In this paper, we describe our basic design, discuss alternate design choices and a number of the implementation details, and provide performance results for both micro-benchmarks and real applications