Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quintic G2-splines for the iterative steering ofvision-based autonomous vehicles

This paper presents a new motion planning primitive to be used for the iterative steering of vision-based autonomous vehicles. This primitive is a parameterized quintic spline, denoted as /spl eta/-spline, that allows interpolating an arbitrary sequence of points with overall second-order geometric (G/sup 2/-) continuity. Issues such as completeness, minimality, regularity, symmetry, and flexibility of these G/sup 2/-splines are addressed in the exposition. The development of the new primitive is tightly connected to the inversion control of nonholonomic car-like vehicles. The paper also exposes a supervisory strategy for iterative steering that integrates feedback vision data processing with the feedforward inversion control.
Developing Collaborative Applications with Mobile Cloud - A Case Study of Speech Recognition

While the combination of cloud computing and mobile computing, termed mobile cloud computing, started to show its effects recently with many seemingly innovative smartphone applications and cloud services surfacing to the market today, we believe that the real potentials of mobile cloud computing is far from been fully explored due to several practical issues. The quality of the mobile networks is not adequate for delivering satisfactory user experiences via close collaboration over mobile networks. A dynamic workload partitioning scheme would help solve this problem, but the distribution of computation and data storage geographically can lead to serious security and privacy concerns, which makes user to take the risk of exposing the data to eavesdroppers in the middle of the network. Since we have yet to see collaborative mobile cloud applications which could dynamically migrate the workload to efficiently take advantage of the resources in the cloud, in this paper, we present a paradigm to guide the design of the following: the system architecture, the principle for partitioning applications, the method for offloading computation, and the control policy for data access. We argue that the proposed paradigm provides a unified solution to the performance and privacy issues, with a case study, a cloud-assisted speech recognition application, to illustrate our experimental results.
Hierarchical Multivarite CAR Models for Spatio-Temporally Correlated Survival Data

Survival models have a long history in the biomedical and biostatistical literature, and are enormously popular in the analysis of time-to-event data. Very often these data will be grouped into strata, such as clinical sites, geographic regions, and so on. Such data will often be available over multiple time periods, and for multiple diseases. In this paper, we consider hierarchical spatial process models for multivariate survival data sets which are spatio-temporally arranged. Such models must account for correlations between survival rates in neighboring spatial regions, adjacent time periods, and similar diseases (say, diierent forms of cancer). We investigate Cox semiparametric survival modeling approaches, adding spatial and temporal eeects in a hierarchical structure. Due to data limitations and computational complexity issues, we avoid geostatistical (kriging) models, and instead handle spatial correlation by placing a particular multivariate generalization of the conditionally autoregressive (CAR) distribution on the region-speciic frailties. Exempliication is provided using time-to-event data for various cancers from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database.
Use of generation process model for synthesizing fundamental frequency contours in HMM-based speech synthesis

Generation process model of fundamental frequency contours is ideal to represent global features of prosody. It is a command response model, where the commands have clear relations with linguistic and para/non linguistic information conveyed by the utterance. Therefore, by handling fundamental frequency contours in the framework of the generation process model, prosody control with increased flexibility comes possible in speech synthesis. Also, the model can be used to solve problems of HMM-based speech synthesis, which arise from frame-by-frame treatment of fundamental frequencies. Two ways are possible; before training and after generation processes. The former is to suppress unnatural fundamental frequency movements of speech for HMM training, and the latter is to reshape the fundamental frequency contours, generated by HMM-based speech synthesis. A method of prosody conversion is also developed, which views the model command differences between original and target styles. The method enables flexible control of fundamental frequency contours in speech synthesis.
Acoustic Sensing for Touch Recognition in a Social Robot

Perceiving when, where and how a robot is touched is an important aspect towards a natural Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). To date, several technologies are used in Social Robotics to determine the area where a touch is performed, in some cases using many sensors. Moreover, most approaches do not tackle the kind of touch performed. In this paper, we introduce a novel technique based on audio analysis, and machine learning techniques. This presents a proof of concept aimed to provide some advantages regarding the state-of-the-art touch technologies for HRI: cost-efficiency since only a few microphones can cover the robot shell completely; robustness as microphones are not affected by electromagnetic interference or by external sounds; and accuracy taking into account the preliminary results.
Sage or guide? Student perceptions of the role of the instructor in a flipped classroom

Higher education has begun to shift from a teacher-centred instructional approach to a student-centred learning approach; many instructors have embraced this change by developing flipped classrooms. In the flipped classroom, students complete pre-work prior to attending class; this pre-work is often in the form of a video recording, lecture recording or reading. Class time is then repurposed to focus on knowledge application and synthesis rather than delivery. As such, it is suggested that instructors become less sage- and more guide-like in their teaching approach. The impact of the flipped classroom has been mostly positive in research; however, it is unclear whether students actually note and/or value the change in the role of the instructor in the flipped classroom. This study sought to evaluate the perception of the ideal instructor according to students following their experience in a flipped classroom course. Data were collected on students’ perceptions of the instructor prior to, during, and following a flipped classroom experience. Overall, students valued the instructor’s role as a moderator rather than information-deliverer; however, the most important aspect of the flipped classroom, according to the students in this study, was the ability of the flipped classroom to foster greater interaction and learning between students.
GC-Profile: a web-based tool for visualizing and analyzing the variation of GC content in genomic sequences

In order to understand the evolution, structure and function of genomes, it is important to know the general compositional features of DNA sequences. Based on the quadratic divergence, a new segmentation algorithm to partition a given genome or DNA sequence into compositionally distinct domains has been put forward. With the aid of the technique of cumulative GC profile, the distribution of segmentation points can be displayed intuitively. We have therefore developed them into GC-Profile, an interactive web-based software system, which can be used to segment prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes. GC-Profile provides a quantitative and qualitative view of genome organization. Based on the obtained results, the relationships between the G+C content and other genomic features, such as distributions of genes and CpG islands, can be analyzed in a perceivable manner. It shows that GC-Profile would be an appropriate starting point for analyzing the isochore structure of higher eukaryotic genomes, and an intuitive tool for identifying genomic islands in prokaryotic genomes. GC-Profile is freely available at the website . In addition, precompiled binaries, together with examples and documentation, can also be freely downloaded for a local execution.
Power efficiency for software algorithms running on graphics processors

Power efficiency has become the most important consideration for many modern computing devices. In this paper, we examine power efficiency of a range of graphics algorithms on different GPUs. To measure power consumption, we have built a power measuring device that samples currents at a high frequency. Comparing power efficiency of different graphics algorithms is done by measuring power and performance of three different primary rendering algorithms and three different shadow algorithms. We measure these algorithms' power signatures on a mobile phone, on an integrated CPU and graphics processor, and on high-end discrete GPUs, and then compare power efficiency across both algorithms and GPUs. Our results show that power efficiency is not always proportional to rendering performance and that, for some algorithms, power efficiency varies across different platforms. We also show that for some algorithms, energy efficiency is similar on all platforms.
On lifetime-oriented device provisioning in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks: approaches and challenges

With the promise of being a revolutionary innovation for ubiquitous surveillance and monitoring, wireless sensor networks have attracted increasing interest from both academia and industry. One of the critical challenges facing successful WSN implementation is limited lifetime, which is imposed by the limited power supply of non-replenishable batteries on devices. In this article we concentrate on the impact of device provisioning on the usable system lifetime. We introduce a device provisioning framework based on hierarchical communication architecture. The device provisioning strategies are classified into two groups based on the application scenarios: deterministic and random. We investigate and compare the latest approaches for deterministic and random device provisioning. We also discuss open issues in each category.
Galaxy morphology, kinematics and clustering in a hydrodynamic simulation of a Λ cold dark matter universe

We explore galaxy properties and their link with environment and clustering using a population of ∼1000 galaxies formed in a high-resolution hydrodynamic simulation of the A cold dark matter cosmology. At the redshift we concentrate on, z = 1, the spatial resolution is 1.4 proper h ―1 kpc and the mass resolution is such that Milky Way sized disc galaxies contain ∼10 5 particles within their virial radii. The simulations include supermassive black hole accretion and feedback as well as a multiphase model for star formation. Overall, we find that a number of familiar qualitative relationships hold approximately between galaxy properties, for example we observe galaxies as lying between two broad extremes of type, where 'late' types tend to be smaller in size, have lower circular velocities, younger stars, higher star formation rates, larger disc to bulge ratios and lower Sersic indices than 'early types'. We find that as in previous studies of small numbers of resimulated galaxies the stellar component of disc galaxies is not as rotationally supported as in observations. Bulges contain too much of the stellar mass, although exponential discs do have scalelengths compatible with observations, and the stellar mass Tully-Fisher relation at z = 1 is reproduced. The addition of black hole physics to the simulations does not appear to have made a large impact on the angular momentum results compared to these other studies, nor do we find that running an identical simulation with significantly lower mass resolution affects this aspect (although we are unable to test higher mass resolution, which other authors have shown can alleviate the problem). Despite this, we can profitably use the rank order of either disc-to-total ratio, Sersic index, or galaxy age to separate galaxies into morphological classes and examine the density-morphology relation and morphology dependence of clustering. We find that while at redshift z = 0 the well-known preponderance of early types in dense environments is seen, at z = 1 the density-morphology relation becomes flatter and late-type galaxies are even seen to have a higher clustering amplitude than early types.
Using Oriented Graph to Discover Time-Interval Sequential Patterns

Sequential pattern mining is of great importance in many applications including computational biology study, consumer behavior analysis, system performance analysis, etc. Recently, an extension of sequential patterns, called time-interval patterns, is proposed by Chen, Jiang, and Ko, which not only reveals the order of items but also the time intervals between successive items. Based on the time-interval patterns proposed by Chen, in this paper, we present a more efficient algorithm which uses the oriented graph to discover the time-interval patterns. The experimental results show that our algorithm is faster than I-Apriori.
A cooperative approach for malicious node detection in impromptu wireless networks

Security is at stake once communication takes place between mobile nodes in very hostile surroundings. Contrary to the wired networks, the exclusive individuality of mobile impromptu networks produce variety of major challenges to security style, like mutual wireless medium, open peer-to-peer specification, stern resource constraints and extremely dynamic topology. These unfavorable conditions clearly need a case for making dimensional security remedies that get not solely wide selection protection however additionally acceptable network performance. Popularly used existing routing protocols designed to include the wants of such endemic networks don't address doable threats aiming at the disruption of the protocol itself. The most important challenge in impromptu wireless networks is energy inefficiency; beneath bound circumstances, it's virtually not possible to interchange or recharge the batteries. Thence it's fascinating to stay dissipation of energy at lower purpose. a number of the issues area unit restricted energy reserve and lack of centralized coordination. During this paper, we tend to establish the safety problems, discuss the challenges and propose the cooperative approach for malicious node detection.
What’s the state of the evidence on pre-K programmes in the United States? A systematic review

ABSTRACT We systematically examine the existing evidence and compute meta-analytic averages for the effects of scaled-up, publicly funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programmes in the United States on student mathematics and reading achievement. The analysis is restricted to experimental and quasi-experimental research designs with the highest internal validity. We synthesise the short-term cognitive effects of pre-K and find large positive effects of scaled-up public pre-K programmes on student pre-kindergarten test scores from seven studies. In particular, we find that the overall effect on mathematics scores is over a third of a standard deviation and the overall effect on reading scores is three-fifths of a standard deviation. More research is needed on the sustained effects of pre-K as policymakers debate whether to expand or adopt such programmes.
Migrating Complex Business Process to Cloud Based on Mspoa and CBPM

Eliciting and describing complex business process consistently and unambiguously is important and critical for migrating complex business processes to cloud platform. Mspoa (Subject Predicate Object Adverbial complex business process description Meta-model) is proposed in this paper, which can represent the static relationship in business process description problem space. Based on Mspoa, clewed and cored by form business process, CBPM (Complex Business Process Model is presented to describe dynamic behavior relationship. By the means of the migration steps described in this paper, incoherence and bounce in the course of business processes analysis can be overcome, assuring the correctness of the artifacts.
Architecture and Mechanisms for Implementing an FPGA-based Stateful Intrusion Detection System

†† Summary This paper proposes Gigabit IDS to detect and respond against various attacks on high-speed links. Our proposed system has hardware-based stateful intrusion detection architecture that can provide the high-performance detection mechanism. It is possible through the pattern matching and heuristic analysis functions that are processed in FPGA Logic. In this paper, we propose architecture designed to perform intrusion detection on high-speed links with reduced false positive rates. We then present the efficient detection mechanisms for the FPGAbased Reconfiguring Hardware. It is revealed that the prototype has a consistent performance with varying traffic level.
Strain Engineering of the CeNi 5 System

The effect of strain on the CeNi5 system has been investigated using density functional theory (DFT). The studies have shown that localised Ce 4f and Ni 3d states carry the magnetic moment of the material. The Ce 4f moment remains relatively unchanged during strain whereas the Ni 3d moment increases as the strain becomes increasingly tensile in both the basal and non-basal directions. A significant strain-dependent interaction exists between delocalised, non-magnetic Ce 6s–Ni 4s states. A weaker group of Ni 3d–Ce 6s/Ni 4s and Ni 3d–Ni 3d interactions exist, indicating that competing localised and delocalised mechanisms act on the Ni 3d states during strain.
Epigenetic Modification, Dehydration, and Molecular Crowding Effects on the Thermodynamics of i-Motif Structure Formation from C-Rich DNA

DNA sequences with the potential to form secondary structures such as i-motifs (iMs) and G-quadruplexes (G4s) are abundant in the promoters of several oncogenes and, in some instances, are known to regulate gene expression. Recently, iM-forming DNA strands have also been employed as functional units in nanodevices, ranging from drug delivery systems to nanocircuitry. To understand both the mechanism of gene regulation by iMs and how to use them more efficiently in nanotechnological applications, it is essential to have a thorough knowledge of factors that govern their conformational states and stabilities. Most of the prior work to characterize the conformational dynamics of iMs have been done with iM-forming synthetic constructs like tandem (CCT)n repeats and in standard dilute buffer systems. Here, we present a systematic study on the consequences of epigenetic modifications, molecular crowding, and degree of hydration on the stabilities of an iM-forming sequence from the promoter of the c-myc gene. Our results indicate that 5-hydroxymethylation of cytosines destabilized the iMs against thermal and pH-dependent melting; contrarily, 5-methylcytosine modification stabilized the iMs. Under molecular crowding conditions (PEG-300, 40% w/v), the thermal stability of iMs increased by ∼10 °C, and the pKa was raised from 6.1 ± 0.1 to 7.0 ± 0.1. Lastly, the iM’s stability at varying degrees of hydration in 1,2-dimethoxyethane, 2-methoxyethanol, ethylene glycol, 1,3-propanediol, and glycerol cosolvents indicated that the iMs are stabilized by dehydration because of the release of water molecules when folded. Our results highlight the importance of considering the effects of epigenetic modifications, molecular crowding, and the degree of hydration on iM structural dynamics. For example, the incorporation of 5-methylycytosines and 5-hydroxymethlycytosines in iMs could be useful for fine-tuning the pH- or temperature-dependent folding/unfolding of an iM. Variations in the degree of hydration of iMs may also provide an additional control of the folded/unfolded state of iMs without having to change the pH of the surrounding matrix.
Antisense RNA polymerase II divergent transcripts are P-TEFb dependent and substrates for the RNA exosome

Divergent transcription occurs at the majority of RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) promoters in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs), and this activity correlates with CpG islands. Here we report the characterization of upstream antisense transcription in regions encoding transcription start site associated RNAs (TSSa-RNAs) at four divergent CpG island promoters: Isg20l1, Tcea1, Txn1, and Sf3b1. We find that upstream antisense RNAs (uaRNAs) have distinct capped 5′ termini and heterogeneous nonpolyadenylated 3′ ends. uaRNAs are short-lived with average half-lives of 18 minutes and are present at 1–4 copies per cell, approximately one RNA per DNA template. Exosome depletion stabilizes uaRNAs. These uaRNAs are probably initiation products because their capped termini correlate with peaks of paused RNAPII. The pausing factors NELF and DSIF are associated with these antisense polymerases and their sense partners. Knockdown of either NELF or DSIF results in an increase in the levels of uaRNAs. Consistent with P-TEFb controlling release from pausing, treatment with its inhibitor, flavopiridol, decreases uaRNA and nascent mRNA transcripts with similar kinetics. Finally, Isg20l1 induction reveals equivalent increases in transcriptional activity in sense and antisense directions. Together these data show divergent polymerases are regulated after P-TEFb recruitment with uaRNA levels controlled by the exosome.
Resolving the memory bottleneck for single supply near-threshold computing

This paper focuses on a review of state-of-the-art memory designs and new design methods for near-threshold computing (NTC). In particular, it presents new ways to design reliable low-voltage NTC memories cost-effectively by reusing available cell libraries, or by adding a digital wrapper around existing commercially available memories. The approach is based on modeling at system level supported by silicon measurement on a test chip in a 40nm low-power processing technology. Advanced monitoring, control and run-time error mitigation schemes enable the operation of these memories at the same optimal near-Vt voltage level as the digital logic. Reliability degradation is thus overcome and this opens the way to solve the memory bottleneck in NTC systems. Starting from the available 40 nm silicon measurements, the analysis is extended to future 14 and 10 nm technology nodes.