Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A human-inspired object handover controller

In this paper, we present a novel controller for safe, efficient, and intuitive robot-to-human object handovers and a set of experiments to evaluate user responses to the robot’s handover behavior. The controller enables a robot to mimic human behavior by actively regulating the applied grip force according to the measured load force during a handover. We provide an implementation of the controller on a Willow Garage PR2 robot, demonstrating the feasibility of realizing our design on robots with basic sensor/actuator capabilities. A user study comparing four variations of our controller shows that our design yields both human-like and human-preferred object handovers.
A dynamically tuned double‐stranded RNA binding mechanism for the activation of antiviral kinase PKR

A key step in the activation of interferon‐inducible antiviral kinase PKR involves differential binding of viral double‐stranded RNA (dsRNA) to its two structurally similar N‐terminal dsRNA binding motifs, dsRBM1 and dsRBM2. We show here, using NMR spectroscopy, that dsRBM1 with higher RNA binding activity exhibits significant motional flexibility on a millisecond timescale as compared with dsRBM2 with lower RNA binding activity. We further show that dsRBM2, but not dsRBM1, specifically interacts with the C‐terminal kinase domain. These results suggest a dynamically tuned dsRNA binding mechanism for PKR activation, where motionally more flexible dsRBM1 anchors to dsRNA, thereby inducing a cooperative RNA binding for dsRBM2 to expose the kinase domain.
Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions Factors in Joining the European Union Countries

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are increasingly being used in the business world, and this process plays an important role in economic theory and lays the foundations for sustainable business development. The global recovery in foreign direct investment (FDI) was strong in 2015, with global FDI flows jumping by 38%, their highest level since the global economic and financial crisis of 2008–2009. A surge in cross-border M&As to $721 billion, from $432 billion in 2014, was the principal factor behind the global rebound. These M&As were partly driven by very large corporate reconfigurations by multinational enterprises (MNEs), i.e. changes in legal or ownership structures, including shifting their headquarters for strategic reasons and tax inversions. This paper examines the key M&As stimulating strategic objectives and causes, and ways of this process, as well as the cross-border M&As market activity. The objective of this paper is to identify ways, purposes and reasons of M&As transactions, and to present the factors influencing this process and market activity. The object of the research is the M&As transactions market. Research methodology is based on scientific literature and statistical information systematic, comparative, logical and econometric analysis. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/cbme.2017. 076
Multi-temporal and multi-view based remote sensing image registration for ground surface objects change monitoring

Remote sensing image registration is a key technology in the field of remote sensing image processing. However, the change of time and the change of view angle will cause the non-rigid distortion and low degree of overlap between the images, and further increase the difficulty of image registration. In order to solve the above problems, a registration algorithm of remote sensing image based on image geometric structural and gray information is presented. By comparing the multi-temporal and multi-angle remote sensing images with four similar algorithms (SIFT, CPD, RSOC, GLMDTPS), our algorithm is superior to other algorithms in the comparison experiment, and shows the optimal registration performance.
The institutionalization of benchmarking in the Danish construction industry

3 1 INTRODUCTION . 5 1.1 BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATIONS FOR THE THESIS . 6 1.2 OBJECTIVES . 10 1.3 EXCLUSIONS . 11 1.4 UNFOLDING OF THE TITLE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS . 11 2 THEORY . 14 2.1 INSTITUTIONAL THEORY . 15 2.2 INSTITUTIONALIZATION . 16 2.3 INSTITUTIONALISM – RATIONALISM, ISOMORPHISM, AND ROLE OF ACTORS. 17 2.4 ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE . 21 2.5 INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS – COPING WITH INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE . 23 2.6 ACTORS BECOMING SUBJECTS IN INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE . 27 2.6. 1 The social construction of actors and institutional entrepreneurship . 28 2.6. 2 The paradox of embedded agency . 29 2.6. 3 Institutional contradictions as impetus that drives, enables, and constrains institutional change . 30 2.6. 4 Institutional entrepreneurship . 32 2.6. 5 Practice, mutual negotiation, and power . 33 3 METHODOLOGY . 35 3.1 RESEARCH STRATEGY FOR STUDYING INSTITUTIONALIZATION . 36 3.1.1 The three pillars of institutions – a model for understanding the prerequisites for institutions . 39 3.1.2 Institutional contradictions as an analytical approach to understanding political struggles . 41 3.1.3 Framings – actors’ social construction of new structures . 42 3.1.4 Methodological considerations . 44 3.2 DATA COLLECTION METHODS . 45 3.2.1 Case Studies . 46 3.2.2 Texts . 48 3.2.3 Interviews . 50 3.3 ANALYTICAL STRUCTURE . 53 4 ANALYSIS . 55
Exploring Item Position as a Source for the Measured Temporal Improvement on the CES-D

In instruments that have demonstrable test–retest reliability, several studies have found that participants reported lower levels of depression at Time 2 compared to Time 1 (Arrindell, 2001; Ormel, Koeter, & van den Brink, 1989; Wallis & Fouladi, 2014). Given these findings, our research program has explored potential sources of error at the item level. Previous exploration suggested that item features such as clarity or cultural loading lead to less change, whereas complexity and reading level lead to greater change across repeated assessment. The current study explores the effect of sequencing (item position) on responses to determine whether there were detectable trends across a single completion of the questionnaire and whether these trends were consistent across multiple timepoints. Undergraduate participants completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), a 20-item measure of depressive symptomology, three times in succession (Radloff, 1977). The response scale options included number of days in the previous week the participant experienced symptoms, with higher responses indicating greater reported depressive symptomology. Item responses were entered as continuous outcome variables in linear mixed-effects models. Each individual had a vector of 60 responses in total. Individuals were entered as random effects, and each sequence coding was entered as a fixed effect. Sequence or position of items was coded in several ways: the index (1–20), quarters of five items (e.g., items 1–5, 6–10, etc.), halves consisting of ten items, completion (first, second, or third), and absolute sequence (1–60). An autoregressive covariance structure demonstrated optimal fit indices. In broad terms, results indicated a statistically significant decrease in responses across items, quarters, halves, and the
Two‐module organization of the mandible in the yellow‐necked mouse: a comparison between two different morphometric approaches

Mandibles of yellow‐necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis) were used to explore modularity. We tested a biological hypothesis that two separate modules (alveolar region and ascending ramus) can be recognized within the mandible. As a second research goal, we compared two different morphometric procedures under the assumption that methodological approaches that use either geometric or traditional morphometric techniques should give similar results. Besides confirmation of the predicted hypothesis of modularity, the application of both approaches revealed that: (i) modularity was somewhat more evident when it was analysed on the asymmetric (fluctuating asymmetry, FA) than on the symmetric (individual variation) component of variation; (ii) there is correspondence in the patterns of individual variation and FA, which indicates that integration of mandibular traits among individuals is primarily due to direct developmental interactions; and (iii) allometry does not obscure the hypothesized modularity for individual variation or for FA. In addition, traditional morphometric method allowed us to check whether allometry influenced each module to the same extent and to conclude that the ascending ramus is more heavily influenced by general size than the alveolar region. In studies of modularity, differences in methods can lead to discrepancies in the results, and therefore, some caution is required when comparing findings from different investigations. The substantial agreement between our results provides evidence that, when considering two‐module organization of the mouse mandible, direct comparison among studies that use the methods applied herein is, in great part, reliable.
Treatment of fludarabine‐refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia

The development of resistance to purine analogs defines a poor‐risk subset of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Although in recent years chemoimmunotherapeutic combinations such as fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab have induced response rates of 95% in previously untreated patients and increased the rates of failure‐free survival, CLL remains incurable for many patients because of a lack of disease response or the development of refractoriness to fludarabine. Fludarabine‐refractory disease is defined as CLL that does not respond to fludarabine or that recurs within 6 months of treatment with a fludarabine‐containing regimen. The natural course of the disease is associated with poor survival. Salvage therapeutic strategies include alemtuzumab‐containing regimens, targeted agents, and allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Single‐agent alemtuzumab induces response in up to 40% of patients with fludarabine‐refractory CLL, but responses are not durable, and the median survival is approximately 1 to 2 years. Alemtuzumab is also combined with fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and/or rituximab, and other agents such as lenalidomide and flavopiridol, as well as targeted agents, and used in fludarabine‐refractory CLL. Cumulative evidence suggests that allogeneic stem cell transplantation is an efficacious therapeutic strategy for patients who do not respond to fludarabine or who develop disease recurrence within 12 months after purine analog treatment. In conclusion, chemoimmunotherapy regimens that include alemtuzumab and/or rituximab and allogeneic stem cell transplantation improve the prognosis of this disease, but there is a continued need for novel, more effective therapies. Cancer 2009. © 2009 American Cancer Society.
Detection of valuable left-behind items in vehicle cabins

We propose a method for detecting valuable left-behind items in vehicle cabins which uses a single overhead camera. An additional sub-network is incorporated into the Faster R-CNN framework in order to allow it to estimate item value based on visual properties, as well as to perform detection. A loss function which contains a user-specified minimum-value threshold is introduced, which enables warnings to be given if a detected item is above this threshold. As a significant amount of real data is time consuming to collect on the scale necessary for (deep) learning-based methods, an ImageNet model is first retrained on synthetic data to adapt it to our environment, before training on some real data. The effectiveness of this detection and validation approach is demonstrated by integrating additional valuation subnetworks into two convolutional neural network detection architectures.
Deal Initiation in Mergers and Acquisitions

We investigate the effects of target initiation in M&As. We find target-initiated deals are common and that important motives for these deals are target economic weakness, financial constraints, and negative economy-wide shocks. We determine that average takeover premia, target abnormal returns around merger announcements, and deal value to EBITDA multiples are significantly lower in target-initiated deals. This gap is not explained by weak target financial conditions. Adjusting for self-selection, we conclude that target managers’ private information is a major driver of lower premia in target-initiated deals. This gap widens as information asymmetry between merger partners rises.
Text line extraction of curved document images using hybrid metric

This paper proposes a novel approach to extracting text lines from curved document images that are captured from an opened thick and bounded book or a curled document sheet. We first extract the connected components (CCs) in a binary image and then remove the non-textual CCs. Additionally, we estimate the orientation of each CC through local projections and a feature vector is accordingly defined to describe each CC. Furthermore, a hybrid metric is designed based on the distances between CCs and the corresponding minimum spanning tree which can well exploit the overall structure of the curved text lines is constructed. A tree pruning strategy is finally proposed to cluster the CCs into separated text lines. Experimental results on a wide variety of curved document images demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.
Piano pedaller: a measurement system for classification and visualisation of piano pedalling techniques

This paper presents the results of a study of piano pedalling techniques on the sustain pedal using a newly designed measurement system named Piano Pedaller. The system is comprised of an optical sensor mounted in the piano pedal bearing block and an embedded platform for recording audio and sensor data. This enables recording the pedalling gesture of real players and the piano sound under normal playing conditions. Using the gesture data collected from the system, the task of classifying these data by pedalling technique was undertaken using a Support Vector Machine (SVM). Results can be visualised in an audio based score following application to show pedalling together with the player’s position in the score.
The use of accounting information system as guidance for the decision-making in Cucuta SMES

The accounting information system is considered today as a factor that offers competitiveness to organizations, the present investigation had as purpose to analyze the degree of influence of the use of the accounting information system in the decision-making of Cúcuta SME ́s. The empirical study was carried out in the SMEs of the city of Cúcuta in the supermarket sector. By means of the regression analysis in the SSPS software. The results show the high influence of the use of the information of the accounting information system in the decision-making in these companies
Utility of the Conners’ Adult ADHD Rating Scale Validity Scales in Identifying Simulated Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Random Responding

Recent concern about malingered self-report of symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in college students has resulted in an urgent need for scales that can detect feigning of this disorder. The present study provided further validation data for a recently developed validity scale for the Conners’ Adult ADHD Rating Scale (CAARS), the CAARS Infrequency Index (CII), as well as for the Inconsistency Index (INC). The sample included 139 undergraduate students: 21 individuals with diagnoses of ADHD, 29 individuals responding honestly, 54 individuals responding randomly (full or half), and 35 individuals instructed to feign. Overall, the INC showed moderate sensitivity to random responding (.44–.63) and fairly high specificity to ADHD (.86–.91). The CII demonstrated modest sensitivity to feigning (.31–.46) and excellent specificity to ADHD (.91–.95). Sequential application of validity scales had correct classification rates of honest (93.1%), ADHD (81.0%), feigning (57.1%), half random (42.3%), and full random (92.9%). The present study suggests that the CII is modestly sensitive (true positive rate) to feigned ADHD symptoms, and highly specific (true negative rate) to ADHD. Additionally, this study highlights the utility of applying the CAARS validity scales in a sequential manner for identifying feigning.
Increased sensitivity of surface plasmon resonance of gold nanoshells compared to that of gold solid colloids in response to environmental changes.

Gold nanoshells have been synthesized by reacting aqueous HAuCl4 solutions with solid templates such as silver nanoparticles. The morphology, void space, and wall thickness of these hollow nanostructures were all determined by the templates, which were completely converted into soluble species during the replacement reaction. The surface plasmon peaks of these gold nanoshells were considerably red-shifted as compared to gold solid colloids having approximately the same dimensions. In addition, the surface plasmon resonance of gold nanoshells exhibited a much more sensitive response toward environmental changes even when compared with solid colloids with a mean size much smaller than that of gold nanoshells. For example, the sensitivity factor (i.e., the shift in peak position per unit change in the refractive index of the surrounding medium) was 408.8, 60.0, and 70.9 nm per refractive index unit for gold nanoshells with a mean diameter of 50 nm and wall thickness of 4.5 nm, gold solid colloids of 50 nm in diameter, and gold solid colloids of 30 nm in diameter, respectively. The formation of alkanethiolate self-assembled monolayers on their surfaces caused the plasmon peaks to red-shift by 3.0 nm per methylene unit for gold nanoshells and 0.2 nm per methylene unit for solid colloids with a mean size of 50 nm. Such enhanced sensitivities should make gold nanoshells particularly useful as optical probes for chemical or biological binding events at solid-liquid interfaces.
Highly-miniaturized 2-channel mm-wave radar sensor with on-chip folded dipole antennas

This paper describes a miniaturized 2-channel system-on-chip radar sensor in a SiGe BiCMOS technology. It includes on-chip folded dipole antennas that utilize a localized backside etching technique with a novel selective etching approach that is able to improve the radiation efficiency and the mechanical stability of the chip. The transceiver is equipped with a 30-GHz VCO that is complemented with a frequency quadrupler to generate a 120-GHz carrier signal. The 2 transmit channels can be combined to increase the effective isotropic radiated power by 6 dB and to implement a SIMO radar. The transceiver also includes BPSK modulators as well as I/Q receivers and can be utilized to build a flexible MIMO radar using frequency-modulated continuous-wave with time and delta-sigma modulator-based frequency division multiplexing as well as pseudo-random noise radar techniques. Radar measurement using digital-beamforming method with 10-GHz modulation bandwidth was performed to show the applicabilty of the proposed system.
Investigation of the Component Processes Involved in Verbal Declarative Memory Function in Bipolar Disorder: Utility of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised

Abstract Evidence suggests that standard learning and recall indexes are sensitive markers of verbal declarative memory ability in bipolar disorder (BD), but no study has examined performance across the full range of component process measures on the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT-R) in a BD cohort. As the HVLT-R is part of a widely used battery of cognitive functioning backed by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration as the accepted battery for use in pro-cognitive trials assessing cognitive-enhancing drugs in the related disorder schizophrenia, estimating the utility of its measures in BD is important. Forty-nine BD patients and 51 healthy controls completed the HVLT-R, which was scored for 13 variables of interest, across 4 indices: recall and learning, recognition, strategic organization, and errors. BD patients had greater difficulty in learning the HVLT-R word list compared to controls. They also demonstrated impairment in delayed recall/recognition. There were no differences between the groups in terms of their slope of learning, retrieval index, retention percentage, semantic or serial clustering, errors, or level of retrieval. This pattern was consistent across symptomatic and euthymic patients. The HVLT-R has some utility in characterizing the component processes involved in memory function in BD, such that memory impairments appear to be attributable to deficient encoding processes during the acquisition phase of learning. In the case of planning pro-cognitive clinical trials, the encoding deficits in BD observed here may be sensitive enough to potentially respond to medications designed to enhance the verbal memory performance. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–9)
Physician intention to recommend complete diagnostic evaluation in colorectal cancer screening.

Primary care physicians (PCPs) often do not recommend complete diagnostic evaluation (CDE; i.e., diagnostic colonoscopy or the combination of flexible sigmoidoscopy and barium enema X-ray procedures) for patients with an abnormal screening fecal occult blood test (FOBT+) result. Information is needed to understand why PCPs do not recommend CDE. In the spring of 1994, a telephone survey was carried out using a random sample of 520 PCPs in Pennsylvania or New Jersey who had patients that were targeted for an FOBT screening program. Survey data were obtained from 363 (70%) PCPs on physician practice characteristics; personal background; perceptions concerning FOBT screening, CDE performance, and patient behavior; social influence related to CDE; and intention to recommend CDE for FOBT+ patients. Physician CDE intention scores were distributed as follows: low (22%), moderate (51%), and high (27%). Multivariate analyses demonstrate that physician board certification status, time in practice, belief in CDE efficacy, and belief that CDE is standard practice were positively associated with CDE intention, whereas concern about CDE-related costs was negatively associated with CDE intention. Among physicians in larger practices, perceived FOBT screening efficacy was negatively associated with CDE intention, and belief in the benefit of CDE was positively associated with outcome. There is substantial variability in CDE intention among PCPs. Physician perceptions about FOBT screening and follow-up are associated with CDE intention, are likely to influence CDE performance, and may be amenable to educational intervention. Additional research is needed to evaluate the impact of educational interventions on CDE intention and performance.
Draft Genome Sequences of Two Streptococcus pyogenes Strains Involved in Abnormal Sharp Raised Scarlet Fever in China, 2011

ABSTRACT A scarlet fever outbreak caused by Streptococcus pyogenes occurred in China in 2011. To determine the genomic features of the outbreak strains, we deciphered genomes of two strains isolated from the regions with the highest incidence rates. The sequences will provide valuable information for comprehensive study of mechanisms related to this outbreak.