Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Feature selection study of P300 speller using support vector machine

P300 speller is a traditional brain computer interface paradigm and focused by lots of current BCI researches. In this paper a support vector machine based recursive feature elimination method was adapted to select the optimal channels for character recognition. The margin distance between target and nontarget stimulus in feature space was evaluated by training SVM classifier and then the features from single channel were eliminated one by one, eventually, channel set provided best recognition performance was left as the optimal set. The results showed that using optimal channel set would achieve a higher recognition correct ratio compared with no channel eliminating. Furthermore the optimal features localized on parietal and occipital areas, on which not only P300 components but VEP components also present a high amplitude waveform. It may suggest that row/column intensification in speller matrix arouses a visual evoked potential and contributes a lot to character identification as well as P300.
Diagnosis of nonlinear systems using an unknown-input observer: an algebraic and differential approach

The authors address the diagnosis problem in nonlinear systems by using the concept of the differential transcendence degree of a differential field extension. The authors also consider the algebraic observability concept of the variable which models the failure presence for the solvability of the diagnosis problem. The construction of a reduced-order uncertainty observer (unknown-input observer) to estimate the fault variable is the key step in the proposed approach. A simulation example that deals with a bioreactor process is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the suggested approach.
Discrete Sum Rate Maximization for MISO Interference Broadcast Channels: Convex Approximations and Efficient Algorithms

This paper considers the discrete sum rate maximization (DSRM) problem for beamformer optimization in multi-input single-output interference broadcast channels. In this problem, the achievable rates of the receivers are restricted to be taken from a set of finite discrete rate values, and such constraints arise from practical limitations with the modulation and coding schemes. Many existing studies consider sum rate maximization without the discrete rate constraints, and that may result in performance loss. In this paper, the DSRM problem is tackled via a convex approximation approach. Due to the discrete rate constraints, DSRM is a mixed-integer program. The idea of the proposed approach is to reformulate DSRM as a continuous, but still nonconvex, optimization problem. Then, appropriate convex approximations are applied. The advantage of the proposed approach is that the resulting approximate problems can be easily decomposed from a first-order optimization viewpoint. Utilizing this special feature, low-complexity and decentralized algorithms based on projected gradient are derived. Numerical results are used to show the efficiencies of the proposed algorithms in a multicell coordinated beamforming scenario. Also, this paper provides a proof for the convergence guarantee of one decentralized optimization strategy, namely, inexact maximum block improvement.
ReAct: A System for Recommending Actions for Rapid Resolution of IT Service Incidents

In this paper, we present a system called ReAct which, given a problem/incident description, helps the service agents to easily identify set of actions and the possible action sequence to resolve the issue mentioned in the ticket. Th eframework uses unstructured text analysis on historical ticket data to find the next best action steps and uses visualization to help user choose the most suitable option.
Measuring the Value of Children by Sex and Age using a Life Cycle Model of Fertility

One of the important determinants of fertility is the value of children as perceived by parents. This paper estimates gender and age specific value of children using a dynamic programming model. The underlying hypothesis is that the observed fertility outcomes for any couple are the solutions to their life cycle optimization problem. Findings from Korean data indicate that, compared to daughters, sons impose higher costs at young ages but yields greater benefits at mature ages. Both the early costs and later benefits increase with parental education. Also, using the estimated parameters, simulations are performed to show the effect of the screening test of fetal gender on fertility, gender-specific abortion and the sex ratio.
Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccines and Otitis Media

In a recent review published in International Journal of Otolaryngology, Fletcher and Fritzell provide a comprehensive and useful summary of the clinical trials assessing efficacy of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) against otitis media (OM) [1]. Although the Results section of the review is limited to clinical trial data, the Discussion section also includes interpretation of PCV “real-life impact” data derived from post-implementation database studies. We have some reservations about how these data are often interpreted that may affect Fletcher and Fritzell's overall conclusions. These points are stated more fully in our systematic review of PCV efficacy and effectiveness data published [2] around the same time as those authors' contribution.
Statistical Blockade Method for Fast Robustness Estimation and Compensation of Nano-CMOS Arithmetic Circuits

The challenges for nano-CMOS based design engineers have been aggravated due to the introduction of variability into the design phase. One of the ways to understand the circuit behaviors under process variation is to analyze the rare events that may be originated due to such process variation. A method named Statistical Blockade (SB) has been proposed to estimate the rare events statistics especially for high-replication circuits. It has shown much faster speed than traditional exhaustive Monte Carlo simulation. The full Monte Carlo simulation may estimate the tolerant ability for the designs of different CMOS logic styles by estimating the statistics (e.g. mean, variance, and standard deviation) of the circuit specification. However, it is immensely computationally expensive, can be infeasible for large circuits, and may consume significant man hours in the ever shortening time-to-market. Therefore, the fast robustness comparison for different designs are performed with Intelligent Statistical Blockade (ISB) method. In the ISB method, the tail part of the whole distribution is used in estimation, thereby saving time. In this paper, the ISB method is proposed to compare arithmetic circuits designs. An adder with different logic styles is considered as an example of arithmetic circuit. The novel method with ISB shows much faster than standard Monte Carlo simulation. Furthermore, for the chosen design which is proved to be robust even in worst-case, the optimal body bias voltage is applied to improve the performance and power while reducing the variability with Adaptive Body Bias (ABB) technique.
Targeting the poor: a macroeconomic analysis of cash transfer programs

This paper introduces cash transfers targeting the poor in an incomplete markets model with heterogeneous agents facing idiosyncratic risk. These transfers change the degree of insurance in the economy and aect precautionary motives asymmetrically, leading the poorest households to decrease savings proportionally more than their richer counterparts. In a model economy calibrated to Brazil, once the cash transfer program is adopted, wealth inequality and social welfare increase, poverty decreases, while employment and income inequality remain about the same. Imperfect access to nancial markets is important for these results, whereas whether the program is funded with lump sum or distortive taxes is not.
Empty confidence sets for epidemics, branching processes and Brownian motion

This paper treats some examples where likelihood-based inference for certain model parameters may produce empty confidence sets. The first example concerns epidemics, and the parameter of interest is the basic reproduction number R-sub-0, which is to be estimated from the final size of an epidemic in a finite population. The second example treats estimation of the mean of the offspring distribution in a branching process, based on observing the total progeny, i.e. the total number of individuals ever born in the branching process. The final example considers estimation of the linear drift in a Brownian motion, based on observing the first hitting time of some horizontal barrier. Copyright Biometrika Trust 2002, Oxford University Press.
Miniature five-fingered robot hand driven by shape memory alloy actuators

Miniature five fingered robot hand is developed for dexterous manipulation of small tissues and parts in medical and industrial fields. The size of the robot hand is about one third of human hands. It has 4 DOF (degrees of freedom) per a finger that is almost the same as humans. The entire DOF of the hand is 20. The hand is driven by SMA (shape memory actuator) wire actuator with diameter of 0.05 mm. The maximum strain of the SMA wire is about 0.04. Time constant of the finger movement is about 0.2s. It means that the frequency response of the developed hand is almost in the same range as human fingers. The developed robot hand can be used in dexterous remote manipulations of small things.
The Slothful Claw: Osteology and Taphonomy of Nothronychus mckinleyi and N. graffami (Dinosauria: Theropoda) and Anatomical Considerations for Derived Therizinosaurids

Nothronychus was the first definitive therizinosaurian discovered in North America and currently represents the most specialized North American therizinosaurian genus. It is known from two species, No. mckinleyi from the Moreno Hill Formation (middle Turonian) in west-central New Mexico, and No. graffami from the Tropic Shale (early Turonian) in south-central Utah. Both species are represented by partial to nearly complete skeletons that have helped elucidate evolutionary trends in Therizinosauria. In spite of the biogeographical and evolutionary importance of these two taxa, neither has received a detailed description. Here, we present comprehensive descriptions of No. mckinleyi and No. graffami, the latter of which represents the most complete therizinosaurid skeleton known to date. We amend previous preliminary descriptions of No. mckinleyi and No. graffami based on these new data and modify previous character states based on an in-depth morphological analysis. Additionally, we review the depositional history of both specimens of Nothronychus and compare their taphonomic modes. We demonstrate that the species were not only separated geographically, but also temporally. Based on ammonoid biozones, the species appear to have been separated by at least 1.5 million years and up to 3 million years. We then discuss the impacts of diagenetic deformation on morphology and reevaluate potentially diagnostic characters in light of these new data. For example, the ulna of No. mckinleyi is curved whereas the ulna of No. graffami was considered straight, a character originally separating the two species. However, here we present the difference as much more likely related to diagenetic compression in No. graffami rather than as a true biologic difference. Finally, we include copies of three-dimensional surface scans of all major bones for both taxa for reference.
Heavy tails and electricity prices

In the first years after the emergence of deregulated power markets it became apparent that for the valuation of electricity derivatives we cannot simply rely on models developed for financial or other commodity markets. However, before adequate models can be put forward the unique characteristics of electricity (spot) prices have to be thoroughly analyzed. In particular, the extreme volatility and price spikes which lead to heavy-tailed distributions of returns. In this paper we first analyze the stylized facts of electricity prices, then present two modeling approaches: jump-diffusion and regime-switching, which to some extent address the pertinent issues.
Linear Matrix Inequalities for RobustStrictly Positive Real

A necessary and suucient condition is proposed for the existence of a xed polynomial p(s) such that the rational function p(s)=q(s) is robustly strictly positive real when q(s) is a given Hurwitz polynomial with polytopic uncertainty. It turns out that the whole set of candidates p(s) is a convex subset of the cone of positive semideenite matrices, resulting in a straightforward strictly positive real design algorithm based on linear matrix inequalities.
Towards Educating Boundary Spanning Professionals across BPM and BI Domains

In today’s business environments organizations deal with complex problems that require holistic solutions originating from both business and technical domains. Such initiatives require business professionals that have a deeper understanding of the holistic nature of the problems, and can offer integrated solutions that leverage practices from various domains. In order to equip professionals with a cross-disciplinary skill set, we turn our attention to their education. In this paper we aim to open a conversation between both Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Intelligence (BI) communities of educators and contribute towards: 1) setting up a foundation for integration of domain-specific practices, and 2) suggesting learning approaches that facilitate cross-disciplinary education. Specifically, we discuss how boundary objects can facilitate the integration of BPM and BI domain-specific knowledge, and assist in educating the future boundary-spanning professionals. We highlight opportunities for learning at a deeper level achieved by cross-disciplinary education and illustrate the approach with an example of an integrated learning activity.
A rebinning technique for 3D reconstruction of Compton camera data

A newly developed 3D image reconstruction technique for Compton cameras is described. For Compton cameras, the energies and positions of gamma-ray interactions in two detector systems from a single incident photon are recorded using coincidence techniques. Based on this information, the Compton scattering formula establishes a cone surface from which the incident photon must have originated. Instead of projecting the entire cone surface into the image space as is typically done, a number of lines on the cone surface are sampled. All the lines start from the apex of the cone and are evenly distributed over the cone surface. The number of lines on each cone is determined by the desired spatial resolution. A series of imaginary planes are then constructed such that all solid angles (4/spl pi/) that the Compton camera system holds. Each line is then projected to one plane that is mostly perpendicular to this line. The imaginary planes are predefined and grouped into a number of groups with each group having all its planes rotating along one axis. Each group of planes can be treated as the standard SPECT projection data set and one image can be reconstructed using filtered backprojection algorithm. Each group of planes can reconstruct one low statistical image with its specific orientation. Rotating and summing all the images together give the final image.
Energy Demand Management Through Uncertain Data Forecasting: An Hybrid Approach

Although Smart Grids may represent the solution to the limits of nowa- days Power Grid, the turnover may not occur in the next future yet due the complex nature of energy distribution. Thus, as a more short term effort, to improve the responsiveness of the energy demand to the power grid load, more and more energy providers apply dynamic pricing schemes for grid users. Believing that dynamic pricing policies may be an effective asset even at a micro-grid level, an hybrid en- ergy management scheme is proposed in this contribution. While the nonlinear nature of a micro grid, involving the task allocation and the thermal constraint satisfaction, can be modeled as a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem, neural-network forecasting abilities can provide a sustainable support under real- istic operating conditions. Based on the forecast of solar energy production and grid energy prices and outdoor temperature, the optimization of tasks allocation is aimed to lower both the user costs and the grid burden while accounting the ther- mal comfort of the user. Through computer simulations, whose degree of realism is enhanced by the adoption of forecast data, the shift of the grid load towards low energy price hours is confirmed.
Derivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 from Its O55:H7 Precursor

There are 29 E. coli genome sequences available, mostly related to studies of species diversity or mode of pathogenicity, including two genomes of the well-known O157:H7 clone. However, there have been no genome studies of closely related clones aimed at exposing the details of evolutionary change. Here we sequenced the genome of an O55:H7 strain, closely related to the major pathogenic O157:H7 clone, with published genome sequences, and undertook comparative genomic and proteomic analysis. We were able to allocate most differences between the genomes to individual mutations, recombination events, or lateral gene transfer events, in specific lineages. Major differences include a type II secretion system present only in the O55:H7 chromosome, fewer type III secretion system effectors in O55:H7, and 19 phage genomes or phagelike elements in O55:H7 compared to 23 in O157:H7, with only three common to both. Many other changes were found in both O55:H7 and O157:H7 lineages, but in general there has been more change in the O157:H7 lineages. For example, we found 50% more synonymous mutational substitutions in O157:H7 compared to O55:H7. The two strains also diverged at the proteomic level. Mutational synonymous SNPs were used to estimate a divergence time of 400 years using a new clock rate, in contrast to 14,000 to 70,000 years using the traditional clock rates. The same approaches were applied to three closely related extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli genomes, and similar levels of mutation and recombination were found. This study revealed for the first time the full range of events involved in the evolution of the O157:H7 clone from its O55:H7 ancestor, and suggested that O157:H7 arose quite recently. Our findings also suggest that E. coli has a much lower frequency of recombination relative to mutation than was observed in a comparable study of a Vibrio cholerae lineage.
Adaptation of expansion rate for real-coded crossovers

Premature convergence is one of the most notable obstacles that GAs face with. Once it happens, GAs cannot generate candidate solutions globally and the solutions are finally captured by local minima. To overcome it, we propose a mechanism that indirectly controls the variety of the population. It is realized by adapting the expansion rate parameter of crossovers, which determines the variance of the crossover distribution. The resulting algorithm is called adaptation of expansion rate (AER). The performance of the proposed methods is compared to an existing GA on several benchmark functions including functions whose landscape have ridge or multimodal structure. On these functions, existing GAs are likely to lead to premature convergence. The experimental result shows our approach outperforms the existing one on deceptive functions without disturbing the performance on comparatively easy problems.
Blind Image Tampering Identification Based on Histogram Features

Nowadays, digital forensics has emerged as an important research field with applications of authenticity/integrality verification for digital data. In this paper, we focus on image forensic techniques and propose a blind scheme for image tampering identification which is capable to determine the tampering type. Since tampering operations bring in changes to neighboring pixels, we suggest employing the difference image (the image composed of differences of adjacent pixels) for forensic analysis. More specifically, we take the histogram of difference image to construct a feature set, and then use these histogram features to train a Support Vector Machine(SVM) classifier. In this way, the novel scheme can efficiently identify usual image operations such as scaling, JPEG compression, linear and nonlinear filtering. Besides, its superiority over other state-of-the-art work is also demonstrated experimentally.
When are two hands better than one? : a study of bimanual interaction.

In everyday life people skillfully use both hands in complex tasks such as driving a car or drawing a picture. However, when attempting tasks on a computer, we are normally restricted to using our dominant hand for direct manipulation. Bimanual interaction is the study of how systems can be developed to allow users to take advantage of their capacity for skilled bimanual interaction. Four design principles for developing bimanual interaction systems are distilled from a review of the current research. Principle One discusses the importance of understanding how people perform bimanual actions. Principle Two discusses what type of devices and actions should be used. Principle Three describes how bimanual interaction techniques can be used to eliminate modes. Principle Four discusses how bimanual interaction techniques can be used to increase usable screen space and reduce time to target and attention switching. The principles are used to develop two systems (Bi-DM and Bi-Draw). These systems are evaluated with their equivalent traditional unimanual systems (Uni-DM and Uni-Draw). Bi-DM was slightly faster than Uni-DM though the difference was just outside the 95% significance level. Bi-Draw was significantly slower than Uni-Draw. The users were required to complete the tasks approximately. An experiment with an expert user of Bi-Draw showed that similar times to Uni-Draw can be achieved. These results disagreed with prior work that showed bimanual interaction systems are more efficient than their equivalent unimanual versions. A third experiment based on earlier work was conducted. The users were required to complete tasks with a high accuracy level. Comparing the results from this experiment to the one on which it was based indicates that the low quality of the non-preferred mouse was probably responsible for the poor performance of our bimanual systems. Other likely factors detrimentally affecting the bimanual results include the low accuracy required for completing the tasks and the short training periods. The thesis reveals that designing and implementing bimanual interfaces is susceptible to many subtle flaws. Without long training periods and well designed interfaces, bimanual systems are unlikely to reveal efficiency enhancements.
Lectures on Optimal Mechanism Design

These lecture notes cover the second third of the class CS364B, Topics in Algorithmic Game Theory, offered at Stanford University in the Fall 2005 term. They cover the topic of optimal mechanism design. As this is a traditional economic objective, we will review the Economics treatment of optimal mechanism design first before moving on to cover recent work on the problem from the theoretical computer science community. Prerequisites for reading these lecture notes are basic understanding of algorithms and complexity as well as elementary calculus and probability theory. I will also assume that the reader has access to the notes on the first third of this course which covers combinatorial auctions. Thanks to the students of CS364B, Ning Chen, and co-instructor Tim Roughgarden. Comments are welcome.