Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-Robot Cooperative Object Localization Decentralized Bayesian Approach

When operating in a complex unstructured environment, a tea m of cooperative robots becomes a team of sensors, each making obse rvations to build a perception of reality that can be improved by others. A sens or model describes the uncertainty associated with each observation allowing to extract relevant information, rather then simple raw data from a physical devic e. The sensor models are often nonlinear resulting in non-Gaussian posterior di stributions. However, a parametric (e.g. Gaussian) approximation of sensors info rmation is usually a better choice given the low computational power and low comm unications bandwidth it requires. This is achieved at the cost of a limited re presentation of the sensors belief. Non parametric discrete approximations, s uch as Particle Filters, are able to capture arbitrarily complex uncertainty, but ar e intractable when it comes to communicating the state distribution due to the nec ssity of transmitting a large sample-based representation. We aim at developing a cooperative sensor fusion model for mobile robots acting in dynamic environmen ts. Our case study is the RoboCup MSL, where we will first implement a shape-base d 3D tracker for the target at hand: the ball. Furthermore, we aim at conce iving a more accurate probabilistic representation of the information shar ed between sensors, that copes with nonlinear sensor models. We will then take the dec ntralized Bayesian approach to propose a cooperative sensor model that improve s ball tracking and self-localization.
Delegation logic: A logic-based approach to distributed authorization

We address the problem of authorization in large-scale, open, distributed systems. Authorization decisions are needed in electronic commerce, mobile-code execution, remote resource sharing, privacy protection, and many other applications. We adopt the trust-management approach, in which "authorization" is viewed as a "proof-of-compliance" problem: Does a set of credentials prove that a request complies with a policy? We develop a logic-based language, called Delegation Logic (DL), to represent policies, credentials, and requests in distributed authorization. In this paper, we describe D1LP, the monotonic version of DL. D1LP extends the logic-programming (LP) language Datalog with expressive delegation constructs that feature delegation depth and a wide variety of complex principals (including, but not limited to, k-out-of-n thresholds). Our approach to defining and implementing D1LP is based on tractably compiling D1LP programs into ordinary logic programs (OLPs). This compilation approach enables D1LP to be implemented modularly on top of existing technologies for OLP, for example, Prolog.As a trust-management language, D1LP provides a concept of proof-of-compliance that is founded on well-understood principles of logic programming and knowledge representation. D1LP also provides a logical framework for studying delegation.
Crystallization around solid-like nanosized docks can explain the specificity, diversity, and stability of membrane microdomains

To date, it is widely accepted that microdomains do form in the biological membranes of all eukaryotic cells, and quite possibly also in prokaryotes. Those sub-micrometric domains play crucial roles in signaling, in intracellular transport, and even in inter-cellular communications. Despite their ubiquitous distribution, and the broad and lasting interest invested in those microdomains, their actual nature and composition, and even the physical rules that regiment their assembly still remain elusive and hotly debated. One of the most often considered models is the raft hypothesis, i.e., the partition of lipids between liquid disordered and ordered phases (Ld and Lo, respectively), the latter being enriched in sphingolipids and cholesterol. Although it is experimentally possible to obtain the formation of microdomains in synthetic membranes through Ld/Lo phase separation, there is an ever increasing amount of evidence, obtained with a wide array of experimental approaches, that a partition between domains in Ld and Lo phases cannot account for many of the observations collected in real cells. In particular, it is now commonly perceived that the plasma membrane of cells is mostly in Lo phase and recent data support the existence of gel or solid ordered domains in a whole variety of live cells under physiological conditions. Here, we present a model whereby seeds comprised of oligomerised proteins and/or lipids would serve as crystal nucleation centers for the formation of diverse gel/crystalline nanodomains. This could confer the selectivity necessary for the formation of multiple types of membrane domains, as well as the stability required to match the time frames of cellular events, such as intra- or inter-cellular transport or assembly of signaling platforms. Testing of this model will, however, require the development of new methods allowing the clear-cut discrimination between Lo and solid nanoscopic phases in live cells.
Data-thirsty business analysts need SODA: search over data warehouse

Querying large data warehouses is very hard for non-tech savvy business users. Deep technical knowledge of both SQL as well as the schema of the database is required in order to build correct queries and to come up with new business insights. In this paper we introduce a novel system called SODA (Search Over DAta Warehouse) that bridges the gap between the business world and the IT world by enabling extended keyword search in a data warehouse. SODA uses metadata information, DBpedia entries as well as base data to generate SQL to allow intuitive exploration of the data. The process of query classification, query graph generation and SQL generation is visualized to provide the analysts with information on how the query results are produced. Experiments with real data of a global financial institution comprising around 300 tables showed promising results.
Lidar‐observed long‐term variations in urban aerosol characteristics and their connection with meteorological parameters

More than 200, weekly spaced, lidar-derived vertical profiles of aerosol concentration in the lower atmosphere (up to 1380 m above ground level) obtained during night-time between October 1986 and August 1990 at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune (18°32'N, 73°51'E, 559 m above mean sea-level), India, have been used to study the long-term variations in aerosol concentration in different air layers. Selected meteorological parameters for the above period at Pune have also been examined to investigate their association with the aerosol concentration. The spectral analysis of the data revealed significant periodicities in four different characteristic ranges, namely 2.5–13.5, ca. 27, ca. 33 and 40–48 weeks in both lidar-derived aerosol content and meteorological parameters; the fourth range being more predominant in all the parameters. These results, together with those of cross-correlation analysis of the data, indicate an association between the long-term trends present in both aerosol and meteorological parameters at the station.
Reply distribution in online discussions: A comparative network analysis of political and health newsgroups

IntroductionA major promise of the vast expansion of the Internet throughout the last decade isits potential to become a revolutionary platform for public discourse and informa-tion exchange. When connecting to the Internet, individuals are free to becomeactive participants in conversations and information seeking regarding a wide spec-trum of issues, including their social and civil lives.Joseph Nye (2002) discusses power in the information age and elaborates onSimon’s (1998) idea of the paradox of plenty.He argues that when information isaccessible through such a wide range of channels, attention - not information -becomes the scarce source. ‘‘A plenitude of information’’ Nye concludes, ‘‘leads toa poverty of attention’’ (p. 68). Network literature supports this assertion. Manylarge networks follow a power-law distribution, where links are distributeddisproportionally. The potential of the Internet to beneﬁt individuals andsociety at large by encouraging civil discussion and exchange of informationshould, therefore, be examined neither by the mere ability of individuals toparticipate, nor simply by their actual contribution – volume or quality. Thepremise of this study is that the potential democratic contribution of the Internetshould be examined via the networks created by patterns of replies individualsevoke.The goal of this study is twofold. First, to explore the structure of Usenet news-groups as it is expressed by the distribution of replies among participants. Second, toidentify what affects this structure. Two independent variables are suggested topredict reply distributions in discussion groups: size and topic of discussions. Thesewill be discussed each in turn below.
Persistent Handwriting Difficulties in Children With ADHD After Treatment With Stimulant Medication

Objective: Children with ADHD often present with handwriting difficulties. However, the extent to which motor and attention skills influence performance in this group has not yet been explored. The objective of this study was to examine the factors associated with change in handwriting performance. Method: This study examines the factors associated with change in handwriting performance of 49 children newly diagnosed with ADHD (mean age = 8.4 [SD=1.3] years) prior to and 3 months following use of a stimulant medication. Results: Handwriting legibility and speed improved significantly at follow-up evaluation. However, most of the children with legibility difficulties at baseline continued to demonstrate difficulties when evaluated 3 months after initiation of medication. Change in handwriting legibility was best determined by improvements in visual-motor integration skills (β = 0.07-0.10; p < .001), while the change in speed did not appear to be consistently related to a single factor. Conclusion: Handwriting difficulties are common in children with ADHD, and medication alone is not sufficient to resolve these challenges.
Patient-Level and Hospital-Level Determinants of the Quality of Acute Stroke Care: A Multilevel Modeling Approach

Background and Purpose— Quality of care may be influenced by patient and hospital factors. Our goal was to use multilevel modeling to identify patient-level and hospital-level determinants of the quality of acute stroke care in a stroke registry. Methods— During 2001 to 2002, data were collected for 4897 ischemic stroke and TIA admissions at 96 hospitals from 4 prototypes of the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry. Duration of data collection varied between prototypes (range, 2-6 months). Compliance with 8 performance measures (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator treatment, antithrombotics <24 hours, deep venous thrombosis prophylaxis, lipid testing, dysphagia screening, discharge antithrombotics, discharge anticoagulants, smoking cessation) was summarized in a composite opportunity score defined as the proportion of all needed care given. Multilevel linear regression analyses with hospital specified as a random effect were conducted. Results— The average hospital composite score was 0.627. Hospitals accounted for a significant amount of variability (intraclass correlation=0.18). Bed size was the only significant hospital-level variable; the mean composite score was 11% lower in small hospitals (≤145 beds) compared with large hospitals (≥500 beds). Significant patient-level variables included age, race, ambulatory status documentation, and neurologist involvement. However, these factors explained <2.0% of the variability in care at the patient level. Conclusions— Multilevel modeling of registry data can help identify the relative importance of hospital-level and patient-level factors. Hospital-level factors accounted for 18% of total variation in the quality of care. Although the majority of variability in care occurred at the patient level, the model was able to explain only a small proportion.
Constraint-Based Geolocation of Internet Hosts

Geolocation of Internet hosts enables a new class of location-aware applications. Previous measurement-based approaches use reference hosts, called landmarks, with a well-known geographic location to provide the location estimation of a target host. This leads to a discrete space of answers, limiting the number of possible location estimates to the number of adopted landmarks. In contrast, we propose Constraint-Based Geolocation (CBG), which infers the geographic location of Internet hosts using multilateration with distance constraints to establish a continuous space of answers instead of a discrete one. However, to use multilateration in the Internet, the geographic distances from the landmarks to the target host have to be estimated based on delay measurements between these hosts. This is a challenging problem because the relationship between network delay and geographic distance in the Internet is perturbed by many factors, including queueing delays and the absence of great-circle paths between hosts. CBG accurately transforms delay measurements to geographic distance constraints, and then uses multilateration to infer the geolocation of the target host. Our experimental results show that CBG outperforms previous geolocation techniques. Moreover, in contrast to previous approaches, our method is able to assign a confidence region to each given location estimate. This allows a location-aware application to assess whether the location estimate is sufficiently accurate for its needs
Flow and stretch metrics for scheduling continuous job streams

Many servers, such as web and database servers, receive a continual stream of requests. These requests may require an amount of processing time that varies over several orders of magnitude. The servers should schedule these requests to provide the “best” and ‘fairest” po5 sible service to users. However, it is difficult to quantify this objective. In this paper, we isolate and study the problem of scheduling a continuous stream of requests of varying sizes. More precisely, assume a request or job j has arrival time oj and requires processing time tj. We aim to schedule these jobs with a guaranteed quality of service (QoS). QoS is interpreted in many ways (e.g., throughput, avoiding jitter or delay, etc.). Here we adopt the widely-accepted requirement that the schedule be responsive to each job and avoid starvation of any job [ 11. In this paper, we propose two novel scheduling metrics, namely, maz-stretch and mar-flow. These metrics gauge the responsiveness of the scheduler to each job. Surprisingly, despite the extensive research on scheduling algorithms in the past few decades, these metrics seem to be new. We initiate the study of optimizing these metrics under varying circumstances (offline/online, preemptive/nonpreemptive, etc.). We prove positive and negative theoretical results. We also report experiments with several scheduling heuristics on real data sets (HTTP server log requests at U.C. Berkeley). We present our observations on the overall “fairness” of various metrics and scheduling strategies. In what follows, we describe our metrics and results in detail.
YARBUS : Yet Another Rule Based belief Update System

We introduce a new rule based system for belief tracking in dialog systems. Despite the simplicity of the rules being considered, the proposed belief tracker ranks favourably compared to the previous submissions on the second and third Dialog State Tracking challenges. The results of this simple tracker allows to reconsider the performances of previous submissions using more elaborate techniques.
BioImplantable Bone Stress Sensor

The clinical management of skeletal trauma and disease relies on radiographic imaging to infer bone quality. However, bone strength does not necessarily correlate well with image intensity. There is a need for a safe and convenient way to measure bone strength in situ. This paper presents a new technique to directly measure bone strength in situ at a microlevel scale through a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) sensor. The proposed MEMS stress sensor comprises an array of piezoresistive sensor "pixels" to detect stress across the interfacial area between the MEMS chip and bone with resolution to 100 Pa, in 1 sec averaging. The sensors are located within a textured surface to accommodate sensor integration into bone. From initial research, surface topography with 30-60 /mum features was found to be conducive to guiding new cell growth. Finite element analysis has led to a sensor design for normal and shear stress detection
An inertial‐dissipation method for estimating turbulent flux in buoyancy‐driven, convective boundary layers

A method is developed for using wavenumber spectra of scalar contaminants in a boundary layer dominated by buoyancy-driven convection to estimate the magnitude of vertical turbulent fluxes. The technique is analogous to the conventional inertial-dissipation method (IDM) for obtaining fluxes from variance spectral density levels in the inertial subrange but differs in the way that turbulence scales are combined to provide an “eddy density diffusivity” for relating flux magnitude to variance dissipation rate. The method is illustrated using spectra and direct flux covariance data from the oceanic boundary layer at the edge of a freezing lead during the 1992 Lead Experiment in the Arctic Ocean. There, density was controlled almost exclusively by salinity, and it is argued that the turbulent length and velocity scales governing vertical exchange were the inverse of the wavenumber at the peak in the weighted salinity spectrum (considerably less than the mixed layer depth) and the cube root of the product of turbulent length scale and the buoyancy flux magnitude, respectively. The sign of the skewness of temperature or salinity time series is shown to be a robust indicator of the (negative) direction of vertical flux. The “free convection” approach is valid (i.e., should be used instead of the conventional IDM) only if the convective turbulent scale velocity is appreciably larger than friction velocity (square root of the Reynolds stress), so that turbulent kinetic energy dissipation is approximately equal to buoyancy production.
Characterization of a novel ATR-dependent, Chk1-independent, intra-S-phase checkpoint that suppresses initiation of replication in Xenopus

In most eukaryotes, replication origins fire asynchronously throughout S-phase according to a precise timing programme. When replication fork progression is inhibited, an intra-S-phase checkpoint is activated that blocks further origin firing and stabilizes existing replication forks to prevent them undergoing irreversible collapse. We show that chromatin incubated in Xenopus egg extracts displays a replication-timing programme in which firing of new replication origins during S phase depends on the continued activity of S-phase-inducing cyclin-dependent kinases. We also show that low concentrations of the DNA-polymerase inhibitor aphidicolin, which only slightly slows replication-fork progression, strongly suppress further initiation events. This intra-S-phase checkpoint can be overcome by caffeine, an inhibitor of the ATM/ATR checkpoint kinases, or by neutralizing antibodies to ATR. However, depletion or inhibition of Chk1 did not abolish the checkpoint. We could detect no significant effect on fork stability when this intra-S-phase checkpoint was inhibited. Interestingly, although caffeine could prevent the checkpoint from being activated, it could not rescue replication if added after the timing programme would normally have been executed. This suggests that special mechanisms might be necessary to reverse the effects of the intra-S-phase checkpoint once it has acted on particular origins.
Taxonomy of Ganoderma lucidum from Korea Based on rDNA and Partial β-Tubulin Gene Sequence Analysis

In the present study, a phylogenetic analysis was undertaken based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA and partial β -tubulin gene sequence of the Ganoderma species. The size of the ITS rDNA regions from different Ganoderma species varied from 625 to 673 bp, and those of the partial β-tubulin gene sequence were 419 bp. Based on the results, a phylogenetic tree was prepared which revealed that Korean Ganoderma lucidum strains belong in a single group along with a G. lucidum strain from Bangladesh.
Visual Working Memory Capacity for Color Is Independent of Representation Resolution

Background The relationship between visual working memory (VWM) capacity and resolution of representation have been extensively investigated. Several recent ERP studies using orientation (or arrow) stimuli suggest that there is an inverse relationship between VWM capacity and representation resolution. However, different results have been obtained in studies using color stimuli. This could be due to important differences in the experimental paradigms used in previous studies. Methodology/Principal Findings We examined whether the same relationship between capacity and resolution holds for color information. Participants performed a color change detection task while their electroencephalography was recorded. We manipulated representation resolution by asking participants to detect either a salient change (low-resolution) or a subtle change (high-resolution) in color. We used an ERP component known as contralateral delay activity (CDA) to index the amount of information maintained in VWM. The result demonstrated the same pattern for both low- and high-resolution conditions, with no difference between conditions. Conclusions/Significance This result suggests that VWM always represents a fixed number of approximately 3–4 colors regardless of the resolution of representation.
Ground-penetrating radar reflection profiling of groundwater and bedrock in an area of discontinuous permafrost

We have used ground‐penetrating radar to profile the depth of permafrost, to groundwater beneath permafrost, and to bedrock within permafrost in alluvial sediments of interior Alaska. We used well log data to aid the interpretations and to calculate dielectric permittivities for frozen and unfrozen materials. Interfaces between unfrozen and frozen sediments above permafrost were best resolved with wavelet bandwidths centered at and above 100 MHz. The resolution also required consideration of antenna configuration, season, and surface conditions. Depths to subpermafrost groundwater were profiled where it was in continuous contact with the bottom of the permafrost, except near transitions to unfrozen zones, where the contact appeared to dip steeply. The complexity of the responses to intrapermafrost bedrock, detected at a maximum depth of 47 m, appears to distinguish these events from those of subpermafrost saturated sediments. The relative dielectric permittivity ranged between 4.4 and 8.3 for the permafro.
libNetVirt: The network virtualization library

Network virtualization has been an important research topic for many years but still suffers from the lack of an abstraction level like the one present in virtualization of computing and storage. Our work in progress presented here proposes an architecture for such a network virtualization abstraction. It is deployed as a library, similar to libvirt in computer virtualization, with a unified interface towards the underlying network specific drivers. The architecture will allow management tools to be independent of the underlying technologies. In addition, it will enable programmatic and on-demand creation of virtual networks. A common set of calls is defined to instantiate different virtual networks, using a single node view to provide the user with a suitable abstraction of the network. We describe a prototype of our proposed architecture on top of an OpenFlow-enabled network. We demonstrate its feasibility for creating isolated virtual networks in a programmatic and on demand fashion.