Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparative Educational Study of Statistical Inference

In his “Comparative Statistical Inference”, Barnett (1982) investigates the various approaches towards statistical inference from a mathematical and philosophical perspective. There have been a few isolated endeavours to develop varied teaching approaches of statistical inference. ‘Comparative statistical inference from an educational perspective’ is long overdue. After discussing Barnett, we give an overview on various attempts to simplify the concepts for teaching. Informal inference is a major endeavour among such projects; resampling and Bootstrap is a newer development in statistical inference, which has also some appeal for teaching. In the light of Barnett’s comparative evaluation we develop some essential alternatives for teaching like Bayes or non Bayes. References to Barnett will illustrate that simple solutions might bias the concepts. Rather than optimizing isolated approaches towards teaching statistical inference, a comparative educational study is suggested. The aim of such an investigation is to highlight and compare relative merits and disadvantages of various approaches as a consolidation piece to guide further research on teaching inferential statistics.
Biogeography Based Optimal State Feedback Controller for Frequency Regulation of a Smart Microgrid

Development of “Q” and “R” matrices for designing a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) is still a research challenge. The theory says they should belong to the group of positive definite matrices, so we need to find out the most suitable amongst them in order to obtain the desired response. In this paper biogeography based optimization (BBO) technique has been applied to come up with the best “Q” and “R” matrices such that the frequency excursion following a disturbance in a microgrid is minimized. As all the states in a practical system may not be measurable hence, we have used Kalman estimator to estimate them. These estimated states along with other measured states are used by the LQR to produce the desired control signal. The microgrid is made smarter by using the agent based scheme integrated with a master controller and a proper communication protocol. The simulation results show that the proposed approach improves the microgrid frequency response and also gives a new alternative method for frequency control of a smart microgrid.
Deciphering the molecular basis of venous thromboembolism: where are we and where should we go?

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a frequent disease that has a major genetic component of risk. However, known identified genetic risk factors account for <30% of idiopathic (without any environmental origin) VTE cases. This article aims to review the lessons learnt during recent decades in the field of the genetics of VTE, describe the present state‐of‐art methods and discuss promising themes for finding new susceptibility loci.
Individual differences in reading skill and language lateralisation: A cluster analysis

Individual differences in reading and cerebral lateralisation were investigated in 200 college students who completed reading assessments and divided visual field word recognition tasks, and received a structural MRI scan. Prior studies on this data set indicated that little variance in brain–behaviour correlations could be attributed to the effects of sex and handedness variables (Chiarello, Welcome, Halderman, & Leonard, 2009; Chiarello, Welcome, Halderman, Towler, et al., 2009; Welcome et al., 2009). Here a more bottom-up approach to behavioural classification (cluster analysis) was used to explore individual differences that need not depend on a priori decisions about relevant subgroups. The cluster solution identified four subgroups of college age readers with differing reading skill and visual field lateralisation profiles. These findings generalised to measures that were not included in the cluster analysis. Poorer reading skill was associated with somewhat reduced VF asymmetry, while average readers demonstrated exaggerated RVF/left hemisphere advantages. Skilled readers had either reduced asymmetries, or asymmetries that varied by task. The clusters did not differ by sex or handedness, suggesting that there are identifiable sources of variance among individuals that are not captured by these standard participant variables. All clusters had typical leftward asymmetry of the planum temporale. However, the size of areas in the posterior corpus callosum distinguished the two subgroups with high reading skill. A total of 17 participants, identified as multivariate outliers, had unusual behavioural profiles and differed from the remainder of the sample in not having significant leftward asymmetry of the planum temporale. A less buffered type of neurodevelopment that is more open to the effects of random genetic and environmental influences may characterise such individuals.
Interlaminar reinforcement for enhancing low-velocity impact response of woven composites

This paper proposes a novel technique for improving the low-velocity impact response of woven composites, which involves synthesizing ZnO nanowires on dry woven carbon fabric layers. ZnO nanowire reinforcements were added to the interlaminar regions that are most susceptible to damage within layered composites, which were determined using finite element method analysis. Upon fabricating the laminates with and without ZnO nanowire interlaminar reinforcements, low-velocity impact responses were investigated next and the degree of damage was experimentally determined. The physical tests reveal that the samples with ZnO nanowires experience a lower degree of damage, up to a maximum of 25% for different impact energies, in comparison to the samples without ZnO nanowires. Therefore, the study presented in this paper shows the potential of using ZnO nanowires as interlaminar reinforcements for woven composites to improve their impact damage resistance.
Balance Improvement Effects of Biofeedback Systems with State-of-the-Art Wearable Sensors: A Systematic Review

Falls and fall-induced injuries are major global public health problems. Balance and gait disorders have been the second leading cause of falls. Inertial motion sensors and force sensors have been widely used to monitor both static and dynamic balance performance. Based on the detected performance, instant visual, auditory, electrotactile and vibrotactile biofeedback could be provided to augment the somatosensory input and enhance balance control. This review aims to synthesize the research examining the effect of biofeedback systems, with wearable inertial motion sensors and force sensors, on balance performance. Randomized and non-randomized clinical trials were included in this review. All studies were evaluated based on the methodological quality. Sample characteristics, device design and study characteristics were summarized. Most previous studies suggested that biofeedback devices were effective in enhancing static and dynamic balance in healthy young and older adults, and patients with balance and gait disorders. Attention should be paid to the choice of appropriate types of sensors and biofeedback for different intended purposes. Maximizing the computing capacity of the micro-processer, while minimizing the size of the electronic components, appears to be the future direction of optimizing the devices. Wearable balance-improving devices have their potential of serving as balance aids in daily life, which can be used indoors and outdoors.
Detecting ROIs in the thermal image of electrical installations

This paper presents a method of detecting and segmenting regions of interest (ROIs) of the thermal image of electrical installations. These regions are very important in diagnosing the thermal condition of electrical equipment. Due to the nature of thermal imaging, segmentation with the conventional approach will make inaccurate ROI detection, especially when qualitative approach is considered in evaluating the equipment's condition. Therefore, we take the advantage of extracting local features to identify, locate, and match multiple repeated objects and grouping a look-like similar objects in the images. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves better performance for detecting the target ROIs with various irregular intensity variations, dim target equipments and cluttered background. The performance of the proposed method is qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated.
An information-theoretic approach for design and analysis of rooted-tree-based multicast key management schemes

Previous literature presents several seemingly different approaches to rooted-tree-based multicast key distribution schemes that try to minimize the user key storage while providing efficient member deletion. In this paper, we show that the user key storage on rooted trees can be systematically studied using basic concepts from information theory. We show that the rooted-tree-based multicast key distribution problem can be posed as an optimization problem that is abstractly identical to the optimal codeword length selection problem in information theory. In particular, we show that the entropy of member deletion statistics quantifies the optimal value of the average number of keys to be assigned to a member. We relate the sustainable key length to statistics of member deletion event and the hardware bit generation rate. We then demonstrate the difference between the key distribution on rooted trees and the optimal codeword length selection problem with an example of a key distribution scheme that attains optimality but fails to prevent user collusion.
Zebrafish models flex their muscles to shed light on muscular dystrophies

Muscular dystrophies are a group of genetic disorders that specifically affect skeletal muscle and are characterized by progressive muscle degeneration and weakening. To develop therapies and treatments for these diseases, a better understanding of the molecular basis of muscular dystrophies is required. Thus, identification of causative genes mutated in specific disorders and the study of relevant animal models are imperative. Zebrafish genetic models of human muscle disorders often closely resemble disease pathogenesis, and the optical clarity of zebrafish embryos and larvae enables visualization of dynamic molecular processes in vivo. As an adjunct tool, morpholino studies provide insight into the molecular function of genes and allow rapid assessment of candidate genes for human muscular dystrophies. This unique set of attributes makes the zebrafish model system particularly valuable for the study of muscle diseases. This review discusses how recent research using zebrafish has shed light on the pathological basis of muscular dystrophies, with particular focus on the muscle cell membrane and the linkage between the myofibre cytoskeleton and the extracellular matrix.
Monolithic Red/Green/Blue Micro-LEDs With HBR and DBR Structures

In this letter, monolithic red, green, and blue (RGB) micro light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were fabricated using gallium nitride based blue micro LEDs and quantum dots (QDs). Red and green QDs were sprayed onto individual region surrounded by patterned black matrix photoresist on the blue micro LEDs to form color conversion layers. Owing to its light-blocking capability, the patterned black matrix photoresist improved the contrast ratio of the micro LEDs from 11 to 22. To enhance the color conversion efficiency and the light output intensity, a hybrid Bragg reflector (HBR) was deposited on the bottom side of the monolithic RGB micro LEDs, thus reflecting the RGB light emitted to the substrate. To further improve the color purity of the red and green light, a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) with high reflection for the blue light was deposited on the top side of the QDs/micro LEDs. The red and green light output intensities of the micro LEDs with HBR and DBR were enhanced by about 27%.
The importance of Joule heating on the voltage-triggered insulator-to-metal transition in VO₂

The large change in resistivity in the material VO2 has attracted considerable attention since it was first discovered in 1959. Recently, the ability to trigger the insulator-to-metal transition (IMT) with a strong electric field has been observed, but there has been debate about whether the transition is due to field-effects. We apply a voltage bias across a VO2 thin film via a conductive atomic force microscope (CAFM) tip and measure the resultant current. We observe the IMT as a jump in the measured current in the IV curves. We fit the IV curves to the Poole-Frenkel (PF) conduction mechanism in the insulating state, immediately preceding the IMT. The PF conduction mechanism describes the thermal excitation of electrons into the conduction band in insulators, facilitated by strong electric fields. The PF mechanism is temperature dependent, and we use the temperature dependence to calculate the local temperature of the film before the transition. We directly compare the local electric field and local temperature of the film immediately preceding the IMT. We determine that the transition is not solely due to the applied electric field, but rather that the tip has locally warmed the film close to its IMT temperature through Joule heating.
Image Denoising Using Very Deep Fully Convolutional Encoder-Decoder Networks with Symmetric Skip Connections

Image denoising is a long-standing problem in computer vision and image processing, as well as a test bed for low-level image modeling algorithms. In this paper, we propose a very deep encoding-decoding framework for image denoising. Instead of using image priors, the proposed framework learns end-to-end fully convolutional mappings from noisy images to the clean ones. The network is composed of multiple layers of convolution and de-convolution operators. With the observation that deeper networks improve denoising performance, we propose to use significantly deeper networks than those employed previously for low-level image processing tasks such as denoising. We propose to symmetrically link convolutional and de-convolutional layers with skip-layer connections, with which the training converges much faster and attains a higher-quality local optimum. From the image processing point of view, those symmetric connections help preserve image details.
Interpolated Backoff for Factored Translation Models

We propose interpolated backoff methods to strike the balance between traditional surface form translation models and factored models that decompose translation into lemma and morphological feature mapping steps. We show that this approach improves translation quality by 0.5 BLEU (German–English) over phrase-based models, due to the better translation of rare nouns and adjectives.
Change Detection in a 3-d World

This paper examines the problem of detecting changes in a 3-d scene from a sequence of images, taken by cameras with arbitrary but known pose. No prior knowledge of the state of normal appearance and geometry of object surfaces is assumed, and abnormal changes can occur in any image of the sequence. To the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first to address the change detection problem in such a general framework. Existing change detection algorithms that exploit multiple image viewpoints typically can detect only motion changes or assume a planar world geometry which cannot cope effectively with appearance changes due to occlusion and un-modeled 3-d scene geometry (ego-motion parallax). The approach presented here can manage the complications of unknown and sometimes changing world surfaces by maintaining a 3-d voxel-based model, where probability distributions for surface occupancy and image appearance are stored in each voxel. The probability distributions at each voxel are continuously updated as new images are received. The key question of convergence of this joint estimation problem is answered by a formal proof based on realistic assumptions about the nature of real world scenes. A series of experiments are presented that evaluate change detection accuracy under laboratory-controlled conditions as well as aerial reconnaissance scenarios. -
CaWRKY 40 , a WRKY protein of pepper , plays an important role in the regulation of tolerance to heat stress and resistance to Ralstonia solanacearum infectionpce

WRKY proteins form a large family of plant transcription factors implicated in the modulation of numerous biological processes, such as growth, development and responses to various environmental stresses. However, the roles of the majority WRKY family members, especially in non-model plants, remain poorly understood. We identified CaWRKY40 from pepper. Transient expression in onion epidermal cells showed that CaWRKY40 can be targeted to nuclei and activates expression of a W-box-containing reporter gene. CaWRKY40 transcripts are induced in pepper by Ralstonia solanacearum and heat shock. To assess roles of CaWRKY40 in plant stress responses we performed gainand loss-of-function experiments. Overexpression of CaWRKY40 enhanced resistance to R. solanacearum and tolerance to heat shock in tobacco. In contrast, silencing of CaWRKY40 enhanced susceptibility to R. solanacearum and impaired thermotolerance in pepper. Consistent with its role in multiple stress responses, we found CaWRKY40 transcripts to be induced by signalling mechanisms mediated by the stress hormones salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA) and ethylene (ET). Overexpression of CaWRKY40 in tobacco modified the expression of hypersensitive response (HR)-associated and pathogenesis-related genes. Collectively, our results suggest that CaWRKY40 orthologs are regulated by SA, JA and ET signalling and coordinate responses to R. solanacearum attacks and heat stress in pepper and tobacco. Key-words: Capsicum annuum; Nicotiana tabacum; defense signaling; thermotolerance; transcription factor.
A Selective Pharmacophore Model for β2-Adrenoceptor Agonists

β2-Adrenoceptor selectivity is an important consideration in drug design in order to minimize the possibility of side effects. A selective pharmacophore model was developed based on a series of selective β2-adrenoceptor agonists. The best pharmacophore hypothesis consisted of five chemical features (one hydrogen-bond acceptor, one hydrogen-bond donor, two ring aromatic and one positive ionizable feature). The result was nearly in accordance with the reported interactions between the β2-adrenoceptor and agonists, and it shared enough similar features with the result of field point patterns by FieldTemplater, which mainly validated the pharmacophore model. Moreover, the pharmacophore could predict the selectivity over the β1-adrenoceptor. These results might provide guidance for the rational design of novel potent and selective β2-adrenoceptor agonists.
A Survey on Vehicular Ad hoc Networks

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs), a subclass of mobile ad hoc network (MANET), is a promising approach for the intelligent transport system (ITS). VANET allows vehicles to form a self-organized network without the need for a permanent infrastructure. As the VANET has a potential in improving road safety, real time traffic update and other travel comforts, it turns attention of the researcher. Though VANET and MANET shares some common characteristics like self-organized network, dynamic topology, ad hoc nature etc, VANET differs from MANET by challenges, application, architecture, power constraint and mobility patterns, so routing protocols used in MANET are not applicable with VANET. New routing strategy for VANET has been proposed by many researchers in recent year. This paper provides focus on the various aspects of VANET like architecture, characteristic, challenges, glimpse of routing protocols, and simulation models used for VANET.
Using kinematic clones to control the dynamic simulation of articulated figures

A new paradigm is presented for the control of dynamic simulations involving articulated figures. A clone of a figure is manipulated by an animator using traditional kinematic control techniques. The realized dynamic simulation is influenced by this animation through dampened spring forces that connect each link to its corresponding link in the clone. Varying tensions dictate the tightness of the correlation between the animated actions and the computed movements of the simulation. This paradigm strikes a compromise between the absolute control of kinematics and the realistic automation of dynamics. Such a compromise is often sought by animators who want realistic motion but do not want to lose the ability to impart feeling and emotion in a character.
Effects of Inhalation of Emissions from Cedar Timber on Psychological and Physiological Factors in an Indoor Environment

Components extracted from cedar timber have been reported to have stress-reducing effects in humans. If the positive effects of cedar timber in indoor environments are scientifically proven, an indoor environment that utilizes cedar timber may contribute to the improvement or promotion of well-being in humans. In this study, we evaluated the effects of inhaling emissions of volatile constituents from cedar timber (Cryptomeria japonica) on the psychological and physiological factors in indoor environments. A case-control study with a crossover design was conducted with 10 subjects occupying two rooms that were controlled for interior materials, indoor climate, and room size. Cedrol and β-eudesmol were specifically detected in the case room. However, no significant differences were observed in psychological and physiological factors. There was a significant loss in vigor in the control group from the time before entering the room to the time after leaving the room; however, this loss in vigor was not seen in the case group. Temperature conditions were higher than the indoor environmental standard in Japan but similar in the two groups. Our results showed a minor positive change in vigor among participants exposed to cedar timber for a short term. Inhalation of emissions of volatile constituents from cedar timber may have positive effects in humans; however, further research on their efficacy is needed.
Key agreement based on homomorphisms of algebraic structures

We give a generalization of the Diffie-Hellman key agreement scheme that is based on the hardness of computing homomorphic images from an algebra to another. We formulate computational and decision versions of the homomorphic image problem and devise a key agreement protocol that is secure in the Canetti-Krawczyk model under the decision homomorphic image assumption. We also give an instantiation of the protocol using an additively homomorphic symmetric encryption scheme of Armknecht and Sadeghi. We prove that the instantiation is secure under the assumption that the encryption scheme is IND-CPA secure.
Improving Physical Activity and Dietary Behaviours with Single or Multiple Health Behaviour Interventions? A Synthesis of Meta-Analyses and Reviews

Since multiple health behaviour interventions have gained popularity, it is important to investigate their effectiveness compared to single health behaviour interventions. This synthesis aims to determine whether single intervention (physical activity or dietary) or multiple interventions (physical activity and dietary) are more effective at increasing these behaviours by synthesizing reviews and meta-analyses. A sub-purpose also explored their impact on weight. Overall, reviews/meta-analyses showed that single health behaviour interventions were more effective at increasing the targeted behaviours, while multiple health behaviour interventions resulted in greater weight loss. This review may assist policies aiming at improving physical activity and nutrition and reversing the obesity epidemic.