Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soft‐Matter Engineering for Soft Robotics

Since its inception, the field of robotics has aimed to create machines that mimic the extraordinary capabilities of the human body. From as early as the 1940s, this has included efforts to engineer actuators and electronics out of elastomers, textiles, and other soft materials in order to mimic the compliance and deformability of natural biological tissue. In the decades since, there is extraordinary progress in the subdomain of soft robotics, with recent efforts focused on novel methods of actuation, sensing, and manufacturing. In this progress report, recent advancements within this field from the perspective of materials and mechanics are highlighted. Wherever possible, efforts in soft robotics are connected to progress in the broader field of soft‐matter engineering, which relates to the application of principles and practices in the soft‐matter sciences to create machines, electronics, and robotic systems out of fluids, elastomers, gels, and other soft materials. To close, the current challenges and future opportunities within the field of robotics are briefly discussed, with special attention toward the eventual goal of autonomous soft robots that are capable of operating without dependency on external hardware, tethers, or manual intervention.
An Industrial Strength Audio Search Algorithm

We have developed and commercially deployed a flexible audio search engine. The algorithm is noise and distortion resistant, computationally efficient, and massively scalable, capable of quickly identifying a short segment of music captured through a cellphone microphone in the presence of foreground voices and other dominant noise, and through voice codec compression, out of a database of over a million tracks. The algorithm uses a combinatorially hashed time-frequency constellation analysis of the audio, yielding unusual properties such as transparency, in which multiple tracks mixed together may each be identified. Furthermore, for applications such as radio monitoring, search times on the order of a few milliseconds per query are attained, even on a massive music database.
Controllable Synthesis of h-WO3 Nanoflakes by L-lysine Assisted Hydrothermal Route and Electrochemical Characterization of Nanoflakes Modified Glassy Carbon Electrode

Hexagonal tungsten trioxide (h-WO3) nanoflakes have been synthesized by a hydrothermal approach using L-lysine as the shape directing agent. The influence of hydrothermal reaction time and L-lysine content on the morphology of h-WO3 was investigated. The experimental results showed that the nanoflake morphology could be achieved at higher concentration of L-lysine. Based on the evolution of nanoflake morphology as a function of hydro-thermal duration, a “dissolution-crystallization-Ostwald ripening” growth mechanism has been proposed. The electro-chemical performance of h-WO3 nanoflakes has also been investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). It is found that h-WO3 modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) showed lower charge transfer resistance and enhancement in peak current attributed to the enrichment in electroactive surface area and faster electron transfer kinetics at h-WO3 modified GCE.
Submillisecond-Response Sheared Polymer Network Liquid Crystals for Display Applications

A 4π phase modulator with an average gray-to-gray response time of ~ 400 μs is demonstrated based on sheared polymer network liquid crystal (SPNLC). This device exhibits a low scattering at 532 nm due to our new material set and shearing technique. We also discuss the application of SPNLCs for 3D display, such as lenticular lens.
Enhanced tribological properties of SiC reinforced copper metal matrix composites

Copper based metal matrix composite (CMMC) attracts the multiple applications due to their good electrical, thermal and mechanical properties. In the present study, new composite of Cu–SiC for different compositions were fabricated at sintering temperature of 950°C by using powder metallurgy technique followed by characterization of physical, mechanical and metallurgical properties of the fabricated composites. Tribological study was carried out using a pin-on-disc tribometer to determine wear and coefficient of friction. The composite samples ‘(1-x) Cu - xSiC’ were prepared by powder metallurgy technique with x = 10, 15 and 20% volume fraction of SiC. Anti-wear properties were tested under the varying loads of 10-30N and sliding speed of 0.5 m s−1-1.5 m s−1. The hardness and tensile strength of the samples was found to increase by 48% and 24% respectively by adding 20% of SiC. The experimental results revealed some interesting facts on the tribological behavior of fabricated composite against steel disk including oxidative wear, abrasive wear and presence of mechanically mixed layer. Wear is reduced from 45% to 77%, whereas friction reduced to 25% to 44%, due to the addition of SiC from 10% to 20% respectively. Therefore the results indicate that the SiC reinforcement enhances the wear resistance capacity and reduces the coefficient of friction in Cu–SiC composite.
"In vivo" spam filtering: A challenge problem for data mining

Spam, also known as Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE), is the bane of email communication. Many data mining researchers have addressed the problem of detecting spam, generally by treating it as a static text classification problem. True in vivo spam filtering has characteristics that make it a rich and challenging domain for data mining. Indeed, real-world datasets with these characteristics are typically difficult to acquire and to share. This paper demonstrates some of these characteristics and argues that researchers should pursue in vivo spam filtering as an accessible domain for investigating them.
Application of High-Velocity Oxygen-Fuel (HVOF) Spraying to the Fabrication of Yb-Silicate Environmental Barrier Coatings

From the literature, it is known that due to their glass formation tendency, it is not possible to deposit fully-crystalline silicate coatings when the conventional atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) process is employed. In APS, rapid quenching of the sprayed material on the substrate facilitates the amorphous deposit formation, which shrinks when exposed to heat and forms pores and/or cracks. This paper explores the feasibility of using a high-velocity oxygen-fuel (HVOF) process for the cost-effective fabrication of dense, stoichiometric, and crystalline Yb2Si2O7 environmental barrier coatings. We report our findings on the HVOF process optimization and its resultant influence on the microstructure development and crystallinity of the Yb2Si2O7 coatings. The results reveal that partially crystalline, dense, and vertical crack-free EBCs can be produced by the HVOF technique. However, the furnace thermal cycling results revealed that the bonding of the Yb2Si2O7 layer to the Silicon bond coat needs to be improved.
Multifactorial Dimensionality Reduction for Disordered Trait

We develop our recent works concerning the identification of the factors associated with a certain complex disease. The case of disordered discrete trait is studied. We build two models (3D and 2D) for the range of response variable indicating the state of the health of a patient. In this work we consider the problem of optimal forecast for response variable depending on a finite collection of factors with values in arbitrary finite set. The quality of prediction is described by the error function involving a penalty function. The estimation of the error requires some cross-validation procedure. The developed approach provides the basis to identify the set of significant factors. Such problem arises naturally, e.g., in the genome-wide association study. Using simulated data we illustrate the efficiency of our method.
Calcium-dependent folding of single calmodulin molecules

Calmodulin is the primary calcium binding protein in living cells. Its function and structure depend strongly on calcium concentration. We used single molecule force spectroscopy by optical tweezers to study the folding of calmodulin in the physiologically relevant range. We find that full-length calmodulin switches from a rich and complex folding behavior at high calcium to a simple folding pathway at apo conditions. Using truncation mutants, we studied the individual domains separately. Folding and stability of the individual domains differ significantly at low calcium concentrations. With increasing calcium, the folding rate constants increase while unfolding rate constants decrease. The complete kinetic as well as energetic behavior of both domains could be modeled using a calcium-dependent three-pathway model. We find that the dominant folding pathway at high calcium concentrations proceeds via a transition state capable of binding one calcium ion. The folding of calmodulin seems to be designed to occur fast robustly over a large range of calcium concentrations and hence energetic stabilities.
Online Clustering for Topic Detection in Social Data Streams

Microblogs have become an important origin of information regarding events happening in a location during a time period. Analyzing and clustering these streams of short textual messages is an important research activity which is attracting the interest of both public and private organizations, since the extracted knowledge can be exploited to enhance the comprehension of people behavior and the onset of emergency situations. Clustering these streams requires efficient algorithms capable of analyzing this continuos deluge of data. The paper proposes an online algorithm that incrementally groups tweet streams into clusters. The approach summarizes the examined tweets into the cluster centroids generated so far. The assignment of a tweet to a centroid uses a similarity measure that takes into account both the cluster age and the terms occurring in the tweet. Experiments on messages posted by users in the Manhattan area show that the method is able to extract events effectively taking place in the examined period.
Liquid Metal Gated Tribotronic Transistors as an Electronic Gradienter for Angle Measurement

Liquid metals (LMs) have attracted great attentions in electronics for great interface contact and flowability. Here, an LM‐gated tribotronic transistor (LMTT) is demonstrated, in which an electrostatic potential is created through the triboelectrification of LM and dielectric layer, and the carrier transport between drain and source can be tuned by the swing‐induced electrostatic potential instead of the traditional gate voltage. Based on the fabricated LMTTs, an electronic gradienter is developed, which can be used for angle measurement and exhibits a great sensitivity, large sensing range, and excellent stability. This work has first introduced the LM into the tribotronic device, which may have potential applications in mechanical calibration, civil engineering, and geologic exploration.
Liquid-Based Cytology in Fine-Needle Aspiration of Breast Lesions: A Review

Objective: Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) is a safe and cost-effective technique for the diagnosis of breast lesions, especially when correlated with clinical and imaging studies. However, the success of breast FNA is highly dependent on the adequate preparation of cytological conventional smears (CS). The liquid-based cytology (LBC) technique consists of an automated method for preparing thin-layer cytological samples from cell suspensions collected in alcohol-based preservative. LBC is designed to improve CS by avoiding limiting factors such as obscuring material, air-drying and smearing artifacts. Study Design: We performed a review of the published literature about LBC applied to breast FNA. Results: LBC preparations of breast aspirates demonstrated better cellular preservation, less cell overlapping and elimination of blood and excessive inflammation compared to CS. Conversely, alterations in architecture and cell morphology as well as loss of myoepithelial cells and stromal elements have been described in LBC specimens, requiring training before applying this technique for diagnosis. Studies have shown a similar accuracy between LBC and CS for the diagnosis of breast lesions. LBC also permits the use of residual material for ancillary tests, which is an important advantage compared to CS. Conclusions: LBC can be safely applied to breast FNA, showing a similar diagnostic accuracy to CS.
Adaptive Resource Provisioning for the Cloud Using Online Bin Packing

Data center applications present significant opportunities for multiplexing server resources. Virtualization technology makes it easy to move running application across physical machines. In this paper, we present an approach that uses virtualization technology to allocate data center resources dynamically based on application demands and support green computing by optimizing the number of servers actively used. We abstract this as a variant of the relaxed on-line bin packing problem and develop a practical, efficient algorithm that works well in a real system. We adjust the resources available to each VM both within and across physical servers. Extensive simulation and experiment results demonstrate that our system achieves good performance compared to the existing work.
Functionalization of Surfaces Using Polymer Brushes: An Overview of Techniques, Strategies, and Approaches

From an historical perspective, much of the interest in chemical modification of surfaces originated from their importance to different technologies, namely wetting, adhesion, catalysis, lubrication, detergency, biocompatibility, corrosion, or colloidal stabilization, among other examples.1–3 During the early years, when sophisticated spectroscopies working under ultrahigh vacuum conditions were developed, the central interest of surface science was especially focused on unraveling the atomic and electronic structures of metals, metal oxides, and semiconducting surfaces (usually as single crystals). However, by the end of past century, with the advent of new chemical techniques to integrate functions on solid substrates, surface science started to look at organic surfaces as ideal partners to address emerging and challenging issues on the technological agenda, for example, in relation to the development of antifouling biocompatible coatings for biomedical devices or the rational design of antifogging coatings with frost-resisting capabilities for the automotive industry. The controlled transfer of organized monolayers of amphiphilic molecules from the air–water interface to a solid substrate was the first molecular-scale technology for the rational design of organic surfaces, this being a technology designed by Langmuir and Blodgett in the 1930s.4,5 Later on, Levine and Zisman studied the physical properties of monolayers adsorbed at the solid– air interface and their effects on friction and wettability.6 However, a new element came into play in the early 1980s with the discovery of self-assembled
Applying lean in product development - enabler or inhibitor of creativity?

Lean has become increasingly popular as a process management approach outside its original application in manufacturing, and it is frequently used as a means to increase efficiency in research and development (R&D) processes. Previous research suggests that lean can be used to increase R&D efficiency, but there is disagreement on whether or not this comes at the expense of creativity. In this article, the effects of lean product development on creativity are studied by means of case studies in the R&D departments of five companies. The empirical observations highlighted a number of important aspects when applying lean in product development. The data suggested that a primary focus of lean in product development was flow, rather than waste reduction, and that significant focus was given to the reduction of disturbances. Another finding was the need for a long–term perspective in R&D to safeguard creativity and that the reduction of slack time following the implementation of lean clearly limited the opportunities to undertake unsanctioned innovation projects, often referred to as 'skunk work'. Finally, the importance of management support and employee training to aid the implementation of lean was emphasised.
Image Classification using Latent Patch Concepts

There have been many approaches to tackle the problem of image classification. Some sacrifice speed for a very complex model whereas other approaches try to limit the features for speed. In our approach, we try to maintain spatial information similar to the spatial pyramid approach and use the pyramid match kernel for efficiency. We split the images into overlapping patches at multiple scales and train a latent concept model on these patches. For testing, we find the most likely category using a naive latent topic model. Patches of different scales have different classifiers, which can be utilized for parallelizing the process.
Human walking and higher‐level gait disorders, particularly in the elderly

The ability to walk securely without thought is a remarkable human skill. Inability to walk is a major cause of handicap and distress; it is particularly common in the elderly. Although many gait abnormalities in this age group are due to musculoskeletal abnormalities, more frequently they are the result of neurologic disease. Sudarsky and Ronthall analyzed 50 elderly patients with gait disorders presenting to neurologists. Many of the causes of impaired walking that they identified are easily recognized: for example, a spastic paraparesis due to cervical myelopathy, Parkinson’s disease, and ataxia due to cerebellar degeneration or proprioceptive sensory loss. However, the category of gait disorder they termed “frontal gait disorder” or “gait apraxia,” which accounted for 20% of their cases, has caused confusion and debate. Historically, many other terms have been applied to these conditions, including “frontal ataxia,” “march6 a petit pas,” “senile gait,” “lower-half parkinsonism,” and “arteriosclerotic parkinsonism. ” Our purpose here is to attempt to clarify this murky area and to suggest a nosologic classification of gait disorders that may be of value to clinicians. We will consider (1) the requirements for walking, (2) their neuroanatomic and neurophysiologic bases, (3) a clinical classification of gait disorders, and (4) the voluminous, but confusing, clinical literature and how it relates to our classification of gait disorders.
Extended omega ratio optimization for risk-averse investors

The omega ratio, a performance measure, is the ratio of the expected upside deviation of return to the expected downside deviation of return from a predetermined threshold described by an investor. It has been exhibited that the omega ratio optimization is equivalent to a linear program under a mild condition and thus easily tractable. But the omega ratio optimization fails to hedge against many other risks involved in portfolio return that may adversely affect the interests of a risk-averse investor. On the other hand, there are widely accepted mean-risk models for portfolio selection that seek to maximize mean return and minimize the associated risk but in general fail to maximize the relative performance ratio around the threshold return. In this paper, we aim to propose a model called ‘extended omega ratio optimization’ that combines the features of the omega ratio optimization model and mean-risk models. The proposed model introduces constraint on a general risk function in the omega ratio optimization model in such a way that the resultant model remains linear and thus tractable. Our empirical experience with real data from S&P BSE sensex index shows that the optimal portfolios from the extended omega ratio optimization model(s) improved over the optimal portfolios from the omega ratio optimization in having less associated risk and over the optimal portfolios from the corresponding mean-risk model(s) in having a high value omega ratio.
Object Detection and Pose Estimation from Natural Features Using Consumer RGB-D Sensors: Applications in Augmented Reality

The work proposed in this document aims to investigate the use of consumer RGB-D sensors for object detection and pose estimation from natural features, with the purpose of using such techniques for developing augmented reality applications. Two methods based on depth-assisted rectification are proposed, which transform features extracted from the color image to a canonical view using depth data in order to obtain a representation invariant to rotation, scale and perspective distortions. While one method is suitable for textured objects, either planar or non-planar, the other method focuses on texture-less planar objects. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the proposed methods are performed, comparing it to existing methods for object detection and pose estimation.
Deep level transient spectroscopy measurements of silicon heterojunction cells

Excellent open circuit voltage $(V_{oc})$ reported by Si Heterojunction (Si-HJ) solar cells has been a topic of considerable interest among the PV community. One of the reasons attributed to this large $V_{oc}$ is the reduction of interface recombination due to the presence of an inversion layer at a-Si:H/cSi interface. Here, we employ deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) measurements of silicon heterojunction cells (Si-HJ) to probe process induced interface traps at the a-Si:H/cSi interface. Interestingly, contrary to literature reports, we find both majority and minority peaks in differently processed Si-HJ solar cells - a result which could have interesting implications towards performance optimization.
Adhesion of Candida to Vanillin-Coated PMMA Resin

Denture stomatitis is a common clinical disorder seen among denture wearers. Candida albicans is considered to be the major cause which can adhere to and colonize the surface of denture base material made of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) resin. This study aims to investigate the effect of vanillin-coated PMMA resin on the adhesion of C. albicans. Heat-polymerized PMMA resin (Vertex RS, Dentimex, Netherlands) samples were prepared and coated with vanillin at various concentrations of 7, 11, and 15 mM. Sterile distilled water and 0.2% chlorhexidine gluconate solution were used to coat the surfaces in negative and positive controls, respectively. The adhesion assay was performed with 3 strains of C. albicans based on the method described by Samaranayake and MacFarlane. The numbers of adherent yeast cells on PMMA resin surfaces were counted under microscope by random selection of 20 fields at 400x magnification. It was found that all vanillin-coated PMMA resin samples had significant decrease of candida adhesion (50-90% reduction) compared to the negative control. The effect was observed to be in a dose dependent manner (p<0.05). Chlorhexidine exhibited strong reduction effect (96-98% reduction). In conclusion, coating PMMA resin with 7-15 mM vanillin can inhibit candida adhesion to the surface. With further testing and development, vanillin may be used as coating agent for denture to prevent candida adhesion and reduce risk of denture stomatitis.