Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Making big gestures: effects of gesture size on observability and identification for co-located group awareness

Co-located work environments allow people to maintain awareness by observing others' actions (called consequen-tial communication), but the computerization of many tasks has dramatically reduced the observability of work actions. The recent interest in gestural interaction techniques offers the possibility of recreating some of the noticeability of previous work actions, but little is known about the observability and identifiability of command gestures. To investigate these basic issues, we carried out a study that asked people to observe and identify different sizes and morphologies of gestures from different locations, while carrying out an attention-demanding primary task. We studied small (tablet sized), medium (monitor-sized), and large (full-arm) gestures. Our study showed that although size did have significant effects, as expected, even small gestures were highly noticeable (rates above 75%) and identifiable (rates above 69%). Our results provide empirical guidance about the ways that gesture size, morphology, and location affect observation, and show that gestural interaction has potential for improving group awareness in co-located environments.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Cc by Simulink Model for Object Tracking Using Optical Flow

Object tracking and detection is first step in applications such as video surveillance. The main aim of object tracking has been developed to estimate location, velocity and distance parameters of moving objects with the help of static camera. Object tracking system require accurate segmentation of objects from the background for effective tracking. Motion segmentation or optical flow can be used to segment incoming images. Optical flow allows multiple moving targets to be separated based on their individual velocities ,optical flow techniques are prone to errors caused by changing lightning and occlusions, both common in surveillance environment. In this paper we propose a combined motion segmentation/optical flow algorithm for used in object tracking. Optical flow is calculated at pixel resolution and tracking of flow vectors is employed to improve performance and detect discontinuities, which can indicate the location of overlaps between objects.
Multichannel outage-aware MAC protocols for wireless networks

Channel outage represents channel fading and interference. Since each user may experience different fading and interference (i.e., channel outage) over distinct channels, throughput may vary depending on channel selection of users. In this paper, we propose two types of multichannel outage-aware medium access control (MAC) protocols to improve throughput: 1) frequency-domain backoff MAC protocols with outage-aware refined channel sets using distributed channel selection, and 2) time-domain backoff MAC protocols with a lowest-outage increasing heuristic using centralised channel allocation to find optimal user sets. Simulation results show the impacts of the proposed MAC protocols on throughput under multichannel outage environments with respect to various user numbers.
The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy Survey (SDGS) — I. Colour—magnitude diagrams, reddening and population gradients. First evidence of a very metal-poor population

We present the first results of a large photometric survey devoted to the study of the star formation history of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Sgr dSph). Three wide strips (size ∼ 9 × 35 arcmin 2) located at ∼ (l ° b °) = (6.5;-16), (6;-14), (5;-12) have been observed. Each strip is roughly east--west oriented, nearly along the major axis of the galaxy. A control field (size ∼ 9 × 24 arcmin 2), located outside the body of Sgr dSph [∼ (l ° b °) = (354;-14)] has also been observed for statistical decontamination purposes. Accurate and well-calibrated V, I photometry down to V ∼ 22 has been obtained for ∼ 90 000 stars towards the Sgr dSph and ∼ 8000 stars in the control field. This is the largest photometric sample (covering the widest spatial extension) ever observed in the Sgr dSph up to now. The main new results presented in this paper are: (1) the possible discovery of a strong asymmetry in the distribution of stars along the major axis, since the north-western arm of the Sgr galaxy (i.e. the region nearer to the Galactic bulge) apparently shows a significant deficiency of Sgr stars and (2) the first direct detection of a very metal-poor (and presumably old) population in the Sgr stellar content. Hints at a metallicity gradient towards the densest region of the galaxy are also reported.
Antagonistic Interactions between Yeast [PSI+] and [URE3] Prions and Curing of [URE3] by Hsp70 Protein Chaperone Ssa1p but Not by Ssa2p

ABSTRACT The yeast [PSI +], [URE3], and [PIN +] genetic elements are prion forms of Sup35p, Ure2p, and Rnq1p, respectively. Overexpression of Sup35p, Ure2p, or Rnq1p leads to increased de novo appearance of [PSI +], [URE3], and [PIN +], respectively. This inducible appearance of [PSI +] was shown to be dependent on the presence of [PIN +] or [URE3] or overexpression of other yeast proteins that have stretches of polar residues similar to the prion-determining domains of the known prion proteins. In a similar manner, [PSI +] and [URE3] facilitate the appearance of [PIN +]. In contrast to these positive interactions, here we find that in the presence of [PIN +], [PSI +] and [URE3] repressed each other's propagation and de novo appearance. Elevated expression of Hsp104 and Hsp70 (Ssa2p) had little effect on these interactions, ruling out competition between the two prions for limiting amounts of these protein chaperones. In contrast, we find that constitutive overexpression of SSA1 but not SSA2 cured cells of [URE3], uncovering a specific interaction between Ssa1p and [URE3] and a functional distinction between these nearly identical Hsp70 isoforms. We also find that Hsp104 abundance, which critically affects [PSI +] propagation, is elevated when [URE3] is present. Our results are consistent with the notion that proteins that have a propensity to form prions may interact with heterologous prions but, as we now show, in a negative manner. Our data also suggest that differences in how [PSI +] and [URE3] interact with Hsp104 and Hsp70 may contribute to their antagonistic interactions.
Comparing Opportunity Metrics and Locational Outcomes in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) has been criticized for concentrating units in poor minority neighborhoods. This study analyzes the distribution of LIHTC units in San Antonio and assesses the opportunity provision in Texas’s 2016 Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP). Results indicate that since the incorporation of the opportunity provision in 2009, more tax credits have been allocated to neighborhoods with lower poverty and higher racial diversity. Maximum scoring neighborhoods in the current QAP are located in low-poverty communities that perform above average in socioeconomic conditions, but below average in accessibility and sustainable healthy environments.
Depressive Symptomatology and Academic Achievement Among First-Year College Students: The Role of Effort Regulation

Abstract: We conducted 2 studies to determine whether the relationship between depressive symptomatology and college GPA is mediated by effort regulation and to understand how depressive symptomatology upon entry to college affects students’ adjustment and academic achievement later in the first year of college. In Study 1, we found that the relationship between depressive symptomatology experienced in the first semester of college and first-year GPA was mediated by effort regulation. In Study 2, depressive symptomatology upon entry to college in the fall predicted increased depressive symptomatology in the spring semester, which, in turn, had a negative indirect effect on first-year GPA through effort regulation.
Taking a New Contour: A Novel View on Unit Root Test

In this paper we introduce a new view on the distributions of unit root tests. Taking a contour given by the fixed sum of squares instead of the fixed sample size, we show that the null distributions of most commonly used unit root tests such as the ones by Dickey-Fuller (1979, 1981) and Phillips (1987) are normal in large samples. The normal asymptotics along the new contour continue to hold under the local-to-unity alternatives, in which case the tests have normal limit distributions with mean given by the product of the square root of the level of the contour and the locality parameter. Our results are derived for the general unit root models with innovations satisfying the functional central limit theory that is routinely employed to obtain the unit root asymptotics. Moreover, the new asymptotics are shown to be applicable also for the models with deterministic components, as long as they are removed recursively by using only the past information.
Invasive carcinoma derived from branch duct-type IPMN may be a more aggressive neoplasm than that derived from main duct-type IPMN

The present study aimed to evaluate the long-term follow-up results of patients with intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) and to estimate the degree of IPMN malignancy based on pathological and molecular features of resected specimens. The detection rate of IPMN has increased over the last decade; however, the management of this neoplasm remains controversial. This is particularly so for branch duct-type IPMN, which carries a high potential for malignancy and risk of recurrence. We retrospectively reviewed a single institution’s prospective pancreatic resection database to identify IPMN patients who underwent pancreatectomy with curative intent. The clinicopathological variables of 100 patients resected for IPMN were analyzed with a detailed review of histopathological results (borderline lesions, non-invasive carcinoma and invasive carcinoma) to determine the grade of IPMN malignancy based on transforming growth factor (TGF)-β/SMAD4 signaling. The incidence of malignant change was significantly higher in patients with main duct-type IPMN (69.7%) compared with branch duct-type IPMN cases (17.9%). However, patients with an invasive carcinoma had a significantly worse outcome if it was derived from branch duct-type IPMN compared with those derived from main duct-type IPMN, and TGF-β mRNA expression was significantly increased in the former patient group. Immunohistochemistry also showed higher numbers of SMAD4-positive cells in patients with carcinoma derived from branch duct-type IPMN. Our results demonstrated that invasive carcinoma derived from branch duct-type IPMN is more aggressive than that derived from main duct-type IPMN, once invasive morphological change takes place. Determining TGF-β and/or SMAD4 status at initial diagnosis may be useful for stratifying IPMN patients into treatment regimens.
A Finite Mixture Three-Parameter Weibull Model for the Analysis of Wind Speed Data

This article presents a mixture three-parameter Weibull distribution to model wind speed data. The parameters are estimated by using maximum likelihood (ML) method in which the maximization problem is regarded as a nonlinear programming with only inequality constraints and is solved numerically by the interior-point method. By applying this model to four lattice-point wind speed sequences extracted from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis data, it is observed that the mixture three-parameter Weibull distribution model proposed in this paper provides a better fit than the existing Weibull models for the analysis of wind speed data under study.
EEMD-LSSVR-Based Decomposition-and-Ensemble Methodology with Application to Nuclear Energy Consumption Forecasting

Based on the principle of "decomposition and ensemble" and strategy of "the divide and conquer" [1,2], a hybrid Methodology integrating ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and least squares support vector regression (LSSVR) is proposed for nuclear energy consumption forecasting. In the proposed EEMD-LSSVR-based Decomposition-and-Ensemble Methodology, the EEMD is first applied to decompose the original data of nuclear energy consumption into a number of independent intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). Then the LSSVR is implemented to predict all the extracted IMFs independently. Finally, the predicted IMFs are aggregated into an ensemble result as the final prediction using another LSSVR. The empirical results demonstrate that the novel methodology can strikingly outperform some other popular forecasting models both in level forecasting accuracy and in direction prediction accuracy.
An Exploratory Study of Capturing and Reusing Project Knowledge from a Stage-based Perspective

In the modern business environment, knowledge capture and reuse are regarded as the keys to successful knowledge management (KM), which in turn increases a company’s competitive advantage. For a professional project in a knowledge-intensive domain, improving the capability of knowledge supported functions in computer systems for decision-making is of the utmost importance. Through content analysis, the context of important clues can be utilized to improve the understanding of perceived information about a project/task-at-hand that involves computer systems. Because projects are often associated with long-term processes, each project normally requires unique decision points, i.e., milestones or project status check-points to monitor its performance. This study proposes a stage-based framework to facilitate the capture and reuse of project-specific information within and across organizational boundaries to reduce transaction costs and streamline knowledge flow by adopting XML technology. The framework adapts pilot research models proposed in the literature that are related to accumulating and disseminating task-related knowledge items at project check-points. Specifically, this research defines a project-in-context model based on task-stages and annotates the information according to XML standards in order to provide effective decision support in organisations.
Towards automated network management: network operations using dynamic views

We analyze data from a Tier-1 ISP that reflect the dynamic operational tasks performed in the ISP network to build a holistic view of configuration management operations. We observe that in addition to commands that lead to persistent configuration changes, virtually all management tasks also involve status-checking commands that do not change the configuration, but allow the operator to verify some router specific state. Based on this observation we model configuration modifications using automatically generated deterministic finite automata (DFA), where a state represents the configured behavior of an interface and an edge indicates the operations performed on the interface either to fulfill a specific task or to check the status of the router. The DFA model captures common configuration tasks derived by our analysis and their ordering and dependency. We argue that composing DFAs is a (small) step towards enabling operators to reason about the operational state of the network, as well as enabling tools for automated network management.
HaptoClone (Haptic-Optical Clone) for Mutual Tele-Environment by Real-time 3D Image Transfer with Midair Force Feedback

In this paper, we propose a novel interactive system that mutually copies adjacent 3D environments optically and physically. The system realizes mutual user interactions through haptics without wearing any devices. A realistic volumetric image is displayed using a pair of micro-mirror array plates (MMAPs). The MMAP transmissively reflects the rays from an object, and a pair of them reconstructs the floating aerial image of the object. Our system can optically copy adjacent environments based on this technology. Haptic feedback is also given by using an airborne ultrasound tactile display (AUTD). Converged ultrasound can give force feedback in midair. Based on the optical characteristics of the MMAPs, the cloned image and the user share an identical coordinate system. When a user touches the transferred clone image, the system gives force feedback so that the user can feel the mechanical contact and reality of the floating image.
Scale & Cap

As the number of cores per server node increases, designing multi-threaded applications has become essential to efficiently utilize the available hardware parallelism. Many application domains have started to adopt multi-threaded programming; thus, efficient management of multi-threaded applications has become a significant research problem. Efficient execution of multi-threaded workloads on cloud environments, where applications are often consolidated by means of virtualization, relies on understanding the multi-threaded specific characteristics of the applications. Furthermore, energy cost and power delivery limitations require data center server nodes to work under power caps, which bring additional challenges to runtime management of consolidated multi-threaded applications. This article proposes a dynamic resource allocation technique for consolidated multi-threaded applications for power-constrained environments. Our technique takes into account application characteristics specific to multi-threaded applications, such as power and performance scaling, to make resource distribution decisions at runtime to improve the overall performance, while accurately tracking dynamic power caps. We implement and evaluate our technique on state-of-the-art servers and show that the proposed technique improves the application performance by up to 21% under power caps compared to a default resource manager.
Antioxidant activity of Silene alba subsp. divaricata and Stellaria media subsp. media from Caryophyllaceae

SUMMARY AIM: The aim of this study is to evaluate for the first time the antioxidant activities of two wild edible plants ( Silene alba subsp. divaricata leaves and Stellaria media subsp. media aerial parts),which were collected in both fresh edible as vegetable and flowering (unedible) periods and to determine their relationship with the phenolic content. METHODS: The antioxidant capacities of the extracts were evaluated by different methods, DPPH radical-scavenging, ABTS radical cation scavenging and metal chelating activity assays, including total phenolic contents. RESULTS: Silene alba subsp. divaricata extract, which was collected in edible period contained the highest phenolic compounds. This plant, which was collected in both periods showed higher DPPH radical-scavenging and ABTS radical cation scavenging activity than Stellaria media subsp. media while Stellaria media subsp. media extract, which was collected in edible period had the highest metal chelating activity. The present study reports for the first time the antioxidant activity of Silene alba subsp. divaricata .
FOSTERING OPEN-SOURCE RESEARCH VIA A WORLD WIDE WEB SYSTEM

In recent years we have witnessed the incredibly productive power of "open-source" programming where independent software developers freely share their source code and collaborate globally over the Internet. While components of the Internet (e.g., email, FTP, etc.) have long been used as mechanisms for research collaboration, it has only been recently – since the development of the web – that the Internet as a system for research collaboration has been available to non-technical users. Even so, the free exchange of research data and products, similar to the open-source sharing of programs is still quite limited. This paper explores the question of how a web system might enhance and encourage open source modeling of land cover change and, in general, "open-source research. " We discuss the concept of open-source and the creative and productive potential of open-source collaboration. We describe the foundations of open-source programming, largely in the context of Linux, and summarize lessons learned from these open-source efforts. Finally, we examine how these lessons might be applied in an opensource research setting by describing our initial efforts to establish a web system to encourage and foster open-source research and modeling of complex humanenvironment systems.
The role of context in the formation of hejab ‘veiling’ metaphors in hejab billboards and posters in Iran

Proper hejab observance has long been an important issue to political-religious conservatives in Iran who, in recent years, have relied on metaphorical language to persuade Iranian women to dress modestly in public. The present paper, based on Kovecses’s (2015) account of metaphor in context, explores the role of contextual factors involved in the formation of hejab linguistic metaphors used in 56 pro-hejab billboards and posters. Data analysis indicates that the moral and social status of women are depicted as being determined by, or correlated with, their degree of veiling. On that basis, properly covered up women are shown to be the recipients of very positive metaphorical conceptualizations (as pearls, flowers, and angels), whereas immodestly dressed women are negatively pictured as being subject to sexual objectification (as unwrapped edibles). Moreover, the hejab is a protective cover is shown to be the metaphor instantiated in many of the billboards and posters. The protective function of hejab is highlighted by conceptualizing corrupt men as flies and devils. Finally, the metaphorical patterns represent the contextual role of political and religious ideology, key cultural concepts, and show entrenched conventional conceptual metaphors and metonymies in the production of novel metaphors.
Selection and execution of user level test cases for energy cost evaluation of smartphones

Smartphones are emerging as a preferred communication device of users. In this paper, we provide a methodology to select user level test cases for performing energy cost evaluation of smartphone applications. We define the concept of a user level test case for smartphones and show that, due to configuration settings, there exist millions of such test cases. Next, we discuss a test selection technique to reduce the number of test cases. We apply the technique to five different smartphones and evaluate their energy costs for running common network related applications. We have developed a test bench to execute those test cases for real applications on smartphones and measure their actual energy costs. This work provides a framework for researchers and developers to conduct experiments for measuring the energy cost of applications on smartphones.