Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robot docking by reinforcement learning in a visual servoing framework

This paper presents an image-based visual servoing approach for a mobile manipulation task, in which a mobile robot has to move towards an object located on a table (docking) and then picks up that object with its gripper. The robot's vision system consists of a pan-tilt camera that is used to keep track of the object and the edge of the table. A minimal number of state variables are extracted from the vision system, and a reactive controller is used to implement the docking behaviour, without requiring any geometric model of the scene. The main aim of the work was to develop a practical reinforcement learning scheme to automatically acquire a high-performance controller in a short training time (less than 1 hour) on the real robot. We compare a number of control algorithms, including a hand-designed linear controller, a novel reinforcement learning algorithm for mobile robots, and a scheme using the linear controller as a bias to accelerate reinforcement learning. By experimental analysis of the controllability and docking time, we found that the biased learning system could improve on the performance of the linear controller, while requiring substantially lower training time than unbiased learning.
Synthesis of Phospholipid-Protein Conjugates as New Antigens for Autoimmune Antibodies

Copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition, or CuAAC click chemistry, is an efficient method for bioconjugation aiming at chemical and biological applications. Herein, we demonstrate how the CuAAC method can provide novel phospholipid-protein conjugates with a high potential for the diagnostics and therapy of autoimmune conditions. In doing this, we, for the first time, covalently bind via 1,2,3-triazole linker biologically complementary molecules, namely phosphoethanol amine with human β2-glycoprotein I and prothrombin. The resulting phospholipid-protein conjugates show high binding affinity and specificity for the autoimmune antibodies against autoimmune complexes. Thus, the development of this work might become a milestone in further diagnostics and therapy of autoimmune diseases that involve the production of autoantibodies against the aforementioned phospholipids and proteins, such as antiphospholipid syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosus.
Design that supports service quality: New Zealand’s model

The Education Review Office (ERO) is both nationally and internationally renowned for its unique design for school evaluation, which has a bearing on schools and childhood centres on key indicators like school governance and management, curriculum management and quality of teaching, school safety and hygiene, internal evaluation, discipline, and pupil‐teacher ratio. Applying items relating to red tape and technology, this paper examines the impact of ERO design, based primarily on the perceptions of 78 stakeholders. Document analysis and e´lite interviews were used to triangulate the findings. The design items were perceived to significantly account for the current appealing ERO performance. Though more research needs to be done in this area to establish the impact of other potential predictors of ERO performance, based on an array of existing theoretical propositions and empirical results on organisational effectiveness, the findings in this study support proponents of the view that this variable is an indispensable facet for organisational good practice.
The influence of experiences of discrimination on psychological stress: A comparison of seven immigrant groups.

The aim of this study was to compare experiences of discrimination and their influence on trust in authorities and psychological distress among immigrants in Finland. A sample of 1146 immigrants, aged between 20 and 36 and representing seven immigrant groups (Russians, Ingrian/Finnish returnees, Estonians, Somalis, Arabs, Vietnamese and Turks), answered a mailed questionnaire based on traditional acculturation research as well as victim research. In accordance with our expectations, discrimination experiences in various realms of life were highly predictive of the psychological well-being of all immigrants, as well as of lack of trust in the Finnish authorities. However, contrary to our hypotheses regarding the effects of visibility and cultural proximity, group differences in psychological distress did not correspond to the group differences observed in perceived discrimination. These results are discussed in the light of the opposing predictions concerning self-damage effects of discrimination, made by social identity theory on the one hand and the theory on self-protecting functions of external attributions (Crocker and Major, 1989) on the other. It is concluded that the low level of stress observed in the most visible and most culturally distant group, despite high levels of perceived discrimination, is better explained by the latter than the former. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
WASABI for affect simulation in human-computer interaction Architecture description and example applications

This paper describes the WASABI affect simulation architecture, which was developed and used to simulate dynamically changing emotions for virtual and robotic agents. It is argued that the unique feature of WASABI as compared to the many alternative computational models of emotion is its simple interface that makes it particularly easy to integrate into agent architectures. This is demonstrated by several applications that made use of WASABI as a core ingredient.
Distributed Multi-User Wireless Charging Power Allocation

Wireless power charging enables portable devices to be permanently unplugged. Due to its low transmission power and low transmission efficiency, it requires much longer time slot to charge users compared with that for data transmission in wireless communication networks. Besides, each user's demand urgency needs to be taken into consideration for power allocation. Therefore, new algorithms are essential for wireless power allocation in multi-user wireless charging networks. In this paper, this problem is formulated as a static noncooperative game. It is shown that there exists a unique Nash equilibrium, which is the static state of the wireless power charging network. A distributed power allocation algorithm is proposed to compute the Nash equilibrium of the game. The main result of the paper consists of rigorous analysis of the distributed algorithm for power allocation. The algorithm is shown to converge to Nash equilibrium of the game with exponentially convergence rate for arbitrary initial value with synchronous scheduling. Moreover, the distributed algorithm is also convergence guaranteed with asynchronous scheduling under communication delay and packet drops. Numerical simulations prove the correctness of the analysis and demonstrate the fast convergence of the algorithm and the robustness to synchronous scheduling.
Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry Imaging of Tissues, Cells, and Microbial Systems

Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is a technique capable of imaging tissues, single cells, and microbes revealing chemical species with sub-micrometer spatial resolution. The recently developed Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) SIMS instrument provides high mass resolving power and mass accuracy, ToF-SIMS can generate chemical maps with an order of magnitude better lateral resolution than the FTICR-SIMS, and the NanoSIMS instrument offers sub-100 nm spatial resolution in chemical imaging. Many commercial ToF-SIMS instruments are also capable of depth profiling that allows three-dimensional reconstructions of cell and tissue structure.
The Art and Power of Asking Questions

The assumption behind this article is that the process of asking questions in the classroom can be one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, tool available to an instructor or discussion leader. &dquo;What are the issues here? &dquo; &dquo;What options for action does X have? &dquo; &dquo;What should Y do in this situation? &dquo; &dquo;What business is this company in? &dquo; These and other questions, when asked at the appropriate moment and with the right intent, can set in motion a process of inquiry which can transform a student or an entire classroom into a state of aliveness and greater understanding, a feeling that something greater is being created in the classroom. What was simply case data or a set of dry theories becomes infused with new insight and experience. Why are questions powerful? How do questions transform experience and the process of understanding?
The Process of Adaptation to Perceiving New Action Capabilities

In this study, we investigated how observers adapt their perception to new action capabilities when their body scale has changed. Previous studies (Mark, 1987; Mark, Balliett, Craver, Douglas, & Fox, 1990) showed that perception of action capabilities is gradually retuned without practice of relevant actions. We examined the retuning of 2 different action capabilities and explored the effect of direction of presentation on retuning. Sixteen men students whose action capabilities were altered by wearing geta shoes (Japanese traditional clogs) were asked to estimate 2 action capabilities (stepping over a bar and sitting on a seat) in 2 presentation series (ascending and descending series). The results showed that retuning occurred regardless of action, but detection of retuning depended on the direction of presentation. Retuning was detected in the ascending series but not in the descending series. This difference between the 2 series is interpreted in terms of the regions that afford actions. Finally, the occurrence of retuning is discussed in reference to the process of embodiment.
Ieee Computer Graphics and Applications Haptic Rendering—touch-enabled Interfaces Dynamic Point Set Surface Local and Global Surface Distance Fields

O ver the past several years, point-sampled geometry has gained popularity in graphics and related visual computing areas. Point set surfaces, in particular, have enjoyed a major renaissance in both modeling and rendering. Points have clear advantages over traditional primitives such as triangle meshes—for example, points can be rendered and updated efficiently with no connectivity concerns, especially in large-scale, scanned models from laser range and image-based scanning devices. Many recent efforts have focused on direct rendering techniques and effective modeling mechanisms (see the " Related Work " sidebar) for point-sampled geometry without connec-tivity. However, such achievements are inadequate for interactive shape control of the point-based geometry when objects' dynamic behavior and user interactivity are of prime significance to graphical modelers and ani-mators. Among the remaining challenges, perhaps most important for point-based modeling techniques is the ability to perform fast, interactive modeling tasks, allowing users to manipulate and sculpt point clouds intuitively and efficiently. Unlike pure point-based modeling, implicit modeling can not only handle arbitrary topology and complicated geometry, but also affords powerful physics-based modeling. 1 Hence, integrating point-based geometry with implicit functions and introducing physics-based modeling and haptics into this under-explored field is both appealing and important. We propose a point-based geometry representation that we initially designed for dynamic physics-based sculpting, but can easily generalize to other relevant applications such as data modeling and human–com-puter interaction. By extending the idea of the local reference domain in the moving least square (MLS) surface model 2 to the construction of a local and global surface distance field, we naturally incorporate Hua and Qin's dynamic implicit volumetric model 1 into our deformation of the point-based geometry, which not only facilitates topology change but also affords dynamic sculpting and deformation. To exploit this unified scheme, we further integrate haptics-based dynamic sculpting and Boolean operations into our surface-modeling framework and use haptics painting to enhance the appearance of the point set surface. Our sculpting system offers virtual sculpting tools with various types of haptic interaction and supports real-time manipulation of the dynamic point set surface. Our long-term goal is to bring haptics, dynamics, and physics into the realm of point-based modeling and advance knowledge in this underdeveloped area. Our point-based geometry representation bears some similarity to Pauly et al.'s hybrid surface representation (see the " Related Work " sidebar on the next page), which combines explicit point samples with implicit surface functions. In our representation …
A New Watermarking Technique for Multimedia Protection

A robust watermarking scheme for hiding binary or gray scale watermarks in digital images is proposed in this chapter Motivated by the fact that a detector response a correlation value only provides a soft evidence for convincing jury in courtroom embedded watermarks are designed to be visually recognizable after retrieval To strengthen the existence con dence of a watermark visually signi cant transformed components are selected In addition a relocation technique is presented to tackle geometric distortion based attacks without using any registration scheme Finally a semi public watermark detector which does not require use of the original source is proposed for the purpose of authentication Experimental results demonstrate that our approach satis es the common requirements of image watermarking and that the performance is superb
A Steganalysis Algorithm Based on Denoising of Source Image Using ICA and SVM

In this paper we propose a new method for feature extraction in the context of still image steganalysis. At first, a denoising algorithm is employed to generate a new version of the observation form the original image. FastICA is employed to separate two sources from the two versions of the input image. Features are extracted from these two estimated sources. At the end Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used as classifiers. This supervised learning method classifies the input image into either stego-image or clean-image. The performance of this algorithm is verified using some test samples. The results of our empirical tests show that detection accuracy of our method reaches 72% for true positive and 79% for true negative when 100% capacity of image is used for steganography.
Structural Properties and Constant Factor-Approximation of Strong Distance-r Dominating Sets in Sparse Directed Graphs

Bounded expansion and nowhere dense graph classes, introduced by Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez, form a large variety of classes of uniformly sparse graphs which includes the class of planar graphs, actually all classes with excluded minors, and also bounded degree graphs. Since their initial definition it was shown that these graph classes can be defined in many equivalent ways: by generalised colouring numbers, neighbourhood complexity, sparse neighbourhood covers, a game known as the splitter game, and many more. We study the corresponding concepts for directed graphs. We show that the densities of bounded depth directed minors and bounded depth topological minors relate in a similar way as in the undirected case. We provide a characterisation of bounded expansion classes by a directed version of the generalised colouring numbers. As an application we show how to construct sparse directed neighbourhood covers and how to approximate directed distance-r dominating sets on classes of bounded expansion. On the other hand, we show that linear neighbourhood complexity does not characterise directed classes of bounded expansion.
Performance evaluation of technical institutions: an application of data envelopment analysis

Technical institutions (TIs) are playing an important role in making India a knowledge hub of this century. There is still great diversity in their relative performance, which is a matter of concern to the education planner. This article employs the method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to compare the relative efficiency of TIs in India. The identification of the strongest and the weakest parameters of various TIs could be very useful in improving their efficiency and performance. Mathematically, DEA determines the best weights for each input and output for a particular unit under study so as to maximize its relative efficiency. The results are insightful to the educational planner as it identifies priority areas for each technical institute, which can improve the performance. This article also identifies some generic insights from this study. This article is one of the few published studies that evaluate the performance of technical institutes in India.
The Georgia Cognitive Skills Experiment

Effects of the Georgia Cognitive Skills Program, a replication of Ross and Fabiano’s Reasoning and Rehabilitation, were examined for 468 parolees randomly assigned to treatment and comparison groups between May 1997 and July 1998. The evaluation tested the effects on arrests/revocations, technical violations, and employment at 9 months and returns to prison at 18 to 30 months. Survival analysis found slightly lower (statistically insignificant) recidivism rates for experimental participants than comparisons. No significant differences were found between experimental and comparison participants on technical violations and employment. Statistically controlling for offender risk factors, program completers had significantly fewer rearrests/revocations and returns to prison and more favorable employment outcomes than comparisons and dropouts. Results were similar for low-risk and medium/high-risk parolees.
Returning forests analyzed with the forest identity

Amid widespread reports of deforestation, some nations have nevertheless experienced transitions from deforestation to reforestation. In a causal relationship, the Forest Identity relates the carbon sequestered in forests to the changing variables of national or regional forest area, growing stock density per area, biomass per growing stock volume, and carbon concentration in the biomass. It quantifies the sources of change of a nation's forests. The Identity also logically relates the quantitative impact on forest expanse of shifting timber harvest to regions and plantations where density grows faster. Among 50 nations with extensive forests reported in the Food and Agriculture Organization's comprehensive Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005, no nation where annual per capita gross domestic product exceeded $4,600 had a negative rate of growing stock change. Using the Forest Identity and national data from the Assessment report, a single synoptic chart arrays the 50 nations with coordinates of the rates of change of basic variables, reveals both clusters of nations and outliers, and suggests trends in returning forests and their attributes. The Forest Identity also could serve as a tool for setting forest goals and illuminating how national policies accelerate or retard the forest transitions that are diffusing among nations.
Automatic Assessment of Speech Capability Loss in Disordered Speech

In this article, we report on the use of an automatic technique to assess pronunciation in the context of several types of speech disorders. Even if such tools already exist, they are more widely used in a different context, namely, Computer-Assisted Language Learning, in which the objective is to assess nonnative pronunciation by detecting learners’ mispronunciations at segmental and/or suprasegmental levels. In our work, we sought to determine if the Goodness of Pronunciation (GOP) algorithm, which aims to detect phone-level mispronunciations by means of automatic speech recognition, could also detect segmental deviances in disordered speech. Our main experiment is an analysis of speech from people with unilateral facial palsy. This pathology may impact the realization of certain phonemes such as bilabial plosives and sibilants. Speech read by 32 speakers at four different clinical severity grades was automatically aligned and GOP scores were computed for each phone realization. The highest scores, which indicate large dissimilarities with standard phone realizations, were obtained for the most severely impaired speakers. The corresponding speech subset was manually transcribed at phone level; 8.3% of the phones differed from standard pronunciations extracted from our lexicon. The GOP technique allowed the detection of 70.2% of mispronunciations with an equal rate of about 30% of false rejections and false acceptances. Finally, to broaden the scope of the study, we explored the correlation between GOP values and speech comprehensibility scores on a second corpus, composed of sentences recorded by six people with speech impairments due to cancer surgery or neurological disorders. Strong correlations were achieved between GOP scores and subjective comprehensibility scores (about 0.7 absolute). Results from both experiments tend to validate the use of GOP to measure speech capability loss, a dimension that could be used as a complement to physiological measures in pathologies causing speech disorders.
Improvement in ventilation-perfusion matching by almitrine in COPD.

Almitrine, a peripheral chemoreceptor stimulating drug, was given 100 mg orally to six patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and its effects on hemodynamics, blood gases, lung mechanics, and the distribution of ventilation/perfusion ratios (VA/Q), determined by the inert gas elimination technique, were investigated. Arterial Po2 increased from 52 +/- 4 to 59 +/- 3 mm Hg, mean +/- SEM, p less than 0.01, arterial Pco2 decreased from 46 +/- 3 to 43 +/- 3 mm Hg, p less than 0.05, and venous admixture from 30 +/- 6 to 19 +/- 3 percent, p less than 0.02. No change occurred in ventilation, variables of lung mechanics, systemic and pulmonary hemodynamics, except an increase in pulmonary vascular resistance (from 364 +/- 103 to 438 +/- 99 dyne.s.cm-5, p less than 0.05). A reduction in VA/Q inequality could be demonstrated with a redistribution of blood flow into the lungs by a diversion of 15 percent of total blood flow from units with low VA/Q (between 0.08 and 0.4) to units with normal VA/Q (between 0.5 and 1.8). These changes might be explained by an enhancement of hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction. Pharmacologic peripheral chemoreceptor stimulation, at an infra-ventilatory analeptic dosage, might be of therapeutic interest to patients with respiratory insufficiency due to VA/Q inequality.