Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stabilization of nonlinear feedforward systems: a robust approach

We focus on the problem of globally asymptotically stabilizing a general class of nonlinear feedforward systems in the presence of uncertain parameters affecting the model of the system and un-modeled actuator dynamics. This work can be seen as a nontrivial extension of a previous result (L. Marconi and A. Isidori, 2000). To solve the problem we assume a controllability condition on the linear approximation of the system and that the unmodelled actuator dynamics are input-to-state stable for small inputs.
Energy efficient iterative waterfilling for the MIMO broadcasting channels

Optimizing energy efficiency (EE) for the MIMO broadcasting channels (BC) is considered in this paper, where a practical power model is taken into account. Although the EE of the MIMO BC is non-concave, we reformulate it as a quasiconcave function based on the uplink-downlink duality. After that, an energy efficient iterative waterfilling scheme is proposed based on the block-coordinate ascent algorithm to obtain the optimal transmission policy efficiently, and the solution is proved to be convergent. Through simulations, we validate the efficiency of the proposed scheme and discuss the system parameters' effect on the EE.
Milieu-induced, selective aggregation of regulated secretory proteins in the trans-Golgi network

Regulated secretory proteins are thought to be sorted in the trans- Golgi network (TGN) via selective aggregation. The factors responsible for this aggregation are unknown. We show here that two widespread regulated secretory proteins, chromogranin B and secretogranin II (granins), remain in an aggregated state when TGN vesicles from neuroendocrine cells (PC12) are permeabilized at pH 6.4 in 1-10 mM calcium, conditions believed to exist in this compartment. Permeabilization of immature secretory granules under these conditions allowed the recovery of electron dense cores. The granin aggregates in the TGN largely excluded glycosaminoglycan chains which served as constitutively secreted bulk flow markers. The low pH, high calcium milieu was sufficient to induce granin aggregation in the RER. In the TGN of pituitary GH4C1 cells, the proportion of granins conserved as aggregates was higher upon hormonal treatment known to increase secretory granule formation. Our data suggest that a decrease in pH and an increase in calcium are sufficient to trigger the selective aggregation of the granins in the TGN, segregating them from constitutive secretory proteins.
(1-3)-β-D-Glucan vs Galactomannan Antigen in Diagnosing Invasive Fungal Infections (IFIs)

Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) are serious and often life-threatening complications in patients with haematological malignancies. Early diagnosis and the initiation of efficacious antifungal treatments could affect the prognosis of these patients. The detection of (1-3)-β-D-Glucan (BDG) could be a promising non-culture-based, noninvasive tool for IFI analyses in haemato-oncological patients, allowing the diagnosis of the two major IFIs, invasive aspergillosis (IA) and invasive candidiasis (IC), with a single test. The aim of this work was to evaluate and compare the use of the BDG in combination with the galactomannan antigen (GAL) assay in order to exclude or confirm suspected IFIs. Sera from 46 haemato-oncological patients (24 with proven/probable IFI and 22 without IFI symptoms) were evaluated retrospectively for the detection of GAL and BDG. In 24 patients, the serum BDG levels facilitated IFI diagnosis: 18 probable IA, 3 proven IA and 3 IC. In the remaining 22 patients, the BDG level helped exclude IFIs. The BDG was positive earlier than GAL in 5/24 cases [three of probable invasive aspergillosis (IA), one of proven IA and one case of proven invasive candidiasis (IC)] and was positive at the same time as GAL in 19/24 cases; in no case was GAL positive before BDG was. The BDG detection is useful, however, the test has a great limitation because it is a completely manual procedure.
Large-Scale Computation Not at the Cost of Expressiveness

We present Celias, a new concurrent programming model for data-intensive scalable computing. Celias supports many virtues commonly found in existing distributed programming frameworks, such as elastic scaling and fault tolerance, without sacrificing expressiveness. The key design idea of Celias is the concept of a microtask, as a scalable, fault-tolerant, and completely data-driven unit of computation. By combining Tuplespace and microtasks, Celias provides an intuitive yet powerful programming abstraction for large and complex problems.
Cross-language negative priming remains intact, while positive priming disappears: evidence for two sources of selective inhibition

ABSTRACT In the current experiments, within- and between-language primed lexical decision tasks with Twi-English bilinguals were used. The aim was to explore the priming effects produced by attended and ignored words, in an effort to draw theoretical and empirical parallels and differences between the mechanisms of excitation and inhibition and to isolate the different circumstances in which these mechanisms operate in bilingual language processing. In the within-language (Twi) experiment, facilitatory (positive) priming resulted when a prime word and subsequent probe target word were identical, whereas delayed decisions to probe targets (negative priming) ensued when the ignored prime word was conceptually identical to the subsequent probe target word. In contrast, while the between-language (Twi-English) experiments replicated the ignored repetition negative priming effect, no evidence of positive priming was observed. These between-language findings undermine episodic retrieval models of selective attention that discount inhibitory processes in negative priming paradigms. Instead, our findings substantiate inhibition-based accounts by showing that there are two sources of inhibition operating at the local word and global language levels of abstraction. The findings also support bilingual language representations in which the words of the two languages are integrated.
Does physical exposure throughout working life influence chair-rise performance in midlife? A retrospective cohort study of associations between work and physical function in Denmark

Objectives Our aim was to study associations between physical exposures throughout working life and physical function measured as chair-rise performance in midlife. Methods The Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank (CAMB) provided data about employment and measures of physical function. Individual job histories were assigned exposures from a job exposure matrix. Exposures were standardised to ton-years (lifting 1000 kg each day in 1 year), stand-years (standing/walking for 6 h each day in 1 year) and kneel-years (kneeling for 1 h each day in 1 year). The associations between exposure-years and chair-rise performance (number of chair-rises in 30 s) were analysed in multivariate linear and non-linear regression models adjusted for covariates. Results Mean age among the 5095 participants was 59 years in both genders, and, on average, men achieved 21.58 (SD=5.60) and women 20.38 (SD=5.33) chair-rises in 30 s. Physical exposures were associated with poorer chair-rise performance in both men and women, however, only associations between lifting and standing/walking and chair-rise remained statistically significant among men in the final model. Spline regression analyses showed non-linear associations and confirmed the findings. Conclusions Higher physical exposure throughout working life is associated with slightly poorer chair-rise performance. The associations between exposure and outcome were non-linear.
XSS vulnerability assessment and prevention in web application

Cross site scripting (XSS) is a type of scripting attack on web pages and account as one of the unsafe vulnerability existed in web applications. Once the vulnerability is oppressed, an intruder advances intended access of the authenticate user's web-browser and may perform session-hijacking, cookie-stealing, malicious redirection and malware-spreading. As prevention against such attacks, it is essential to implement security measures that certainly block the third party intrusion. Recently the most dangerous attacks are reflected and DOM based cross-site scripting attacks because in both cases attacker attack using server side scripting and do forgery over the network, it is hard to detect and therefore it must be prevented. Vulnerabilities of websites are exploited over the network through web request using GET and POST method. In this paper, we are focusing on injection, detection, and prevention of stored based XSS reflected XSS and DOM based XSS.
An Exponential Entropy-based Hybrid Ant Colony Algorithm for Vehicle Routing Optimization

Vehicle routing problem(VRP) is important combinatorial optimization problems which have received considerable attention in the last decades. The optimization of vehicle routing problem is a we ll-known research problem in the logistics distribution. In order to overcome the prematurity of Ant Colony Algorithm (ACA) for logistics distribution routing optimization, a hybrid algorithm combining improved ACA with Iterated Local Search (ILS) is proposed. The proposed algorithm adjusts the pheromone trail to balance the convergence rate and diversification of solutions self-adaptively. The exponential entropy is used to control the path selection and pheromone updating strategy. Combining with ILS is to avoid local best solutions and accelerate the search. Computational results denote the efficiency of the proposed algorithm on some standard bench mark problems.
Hierarchical Gaussian Mixture Model

Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) are a convenient and essential tool for the estimation of probability density functions. Although GMMs are used in many research domains from image processing to machine learning, this statistical mixture modeling is usually com- plex and further needs to be simplified. In this paper, we present a GMM simplification method based on a hierarchical clustering algo- rithm. Our method allows one to first to quickly compute a compact version of the initial GMM, and second to automatically learn the optimal number of components of the simplified GMM. Using the framework of Bregman divergences, this simplification algorithm, although presented here for GMMs, is suitable for any mixture of exponential families.
Universal single-input-single-output (SISO) sliding-mode controllers with finite-time convergence

An universal controller is constructed, formulated in input-output terms only, which causes the output of any uncertain smooth single-input single-output (SISO) minimum-phase dynamic system with known relative degree to vanish in finite time. This allows exact tracking of arbitrary real-time smooth signals. Only one parameter is to be adjusted. Since the approach is based on higher order finite time-convergence sliding modes, the control can be made arbitrarily smooth, providing for the arbitrarily-high tracking-accuracy order with respect to the sampling step.
A string field theoretical description of (p,q) minimal superstrings

A string field theory of (p,q) minimal superstrings is constructed with the free-fermion realization of 2-component KP (2cKP) hierarchy, starting from 2-cut ansatz of two-matrix models. Differential operators of 2cKP hierarchy are identified with operators in super Liouville theory, and we obtain algebraic curves for the disk amplitudes of ? = ? 1 FZZT-branes and the partition functions of neutral/charged ? = ? 1 ZZ branes, which correctly reproduce those of type 0B (p,q) minimal superstrings in conformal backgrounds. In the course of study, some subtle points are clarified, including a difference of (p,q) even/odd models and quantization of flux, and we show that the Virasoro constraints naturally incorporate quantized fluxes without ambiguity. We also argue within this string field framework that type 0A minimal superstrings can be obtained by orbifolding the type 0B strings with a 2 symmetry existing when special backgrounds are taken.
A Bayesian framework for informed search using convolutions between observation likelihoods and spatial relation masks

In this work, a novel methodology for robots executing informed object search is proposed. The methodology is based mainly on a Bayesian framework that uses convolutions between observation likelihoods and spatial relation masks for estimating the probability map of the object being search for. By using spatial relation masks, complex spatial relations between objects can be defined as weighted sums of basic spatial relations using co-occurrence matrices as weights. The methodology is validated in an office environment in which four object classes (“monitor,” “keyboard,” “system unit,” and “router”) and four basic spatial relations (“very near,” “near,” “far,” and “very far”) are considered. Experiments combine statistics about object's coocurrence and about object detection in real environments, and search trials using a realistic simulation tool in which extensive tests comparing six object search algorithms are carried out. Results show that the use of the proposed methodology increases the object detection rate in a search task from 27.5% up to 53.2%.
Architectural Synthesis via VHDL

In this paper, we present results from our experiments integrating an architectural synthesis tool, SandS, into the Keystone VLSI design environment. The resulting Architectural VHDL Synthesis tool is called TinkerTool. It provides a means by which a designer can conceive and con gure complex designs in a high level behavioral language to automatically generate hierarchical VHDL. The tool allows designers to take a \black box" approach to design, so that they do not need to know the implementation details of components or sub-components below the current one. Consequently, both top down and bottom up design methodologies can be used. Similarly, any circuit design modeled in VHDL can be ported into the component library to be used in the next level of hierarchical design. A major impact of this hierarchical component approach is that representations, other than VHDL, can be attached to a component and one could construct the entire design along a particular implementation path. For example, mask layout of the entire design could be constructed by using layouts attached to each particular component. Such hierarchical layout generation would be much faster than current at transistor level layout generation. This technique coupled with \global re-optimization" of the components would remove one of the more serious drawbacks to library based design styles.
Self-Reported Impulsivity and its Relation to Executive Functions in Interned Youth

In adolescence, antisocial behaviors increase in prevalence, an occurrence that has been related to the parallel increase of impulsive behaviors. However, impulsivity is a conglomerate of unidimensional impulsigenic traits, divided into aspects of behavioral dyscontrol and sensation seeking. In the present study, we examine how these traits differ between interned youth and an aged-matched control group, and how they relate to executive functioning. Results indicate that impulsigenic traits related to behavioral dyscontrol, but not sensation seeking, are more pronounced in interned adolescents. Also, executive functioning was predictive of lack of premeditation, a trait specifically related to antisocial behavior. One implication of this is that interventions improving executive functioning could be beneficial in the rehabilitation of interned adolescents with impulsivity-related problems.
How to Do Things with Emotional Expressions: The Theory of Affective Pragmatics

ABSTRACT It is widely accepted that emotional expressions can be rich communicative devices. We can learn much from the tears of a grieving friend, the smiles of an affable stranger, or the slamming of a door by a disgruntled lover. So far, a systematic analysis of what can be communicated by emotional expressions of different kinds and of exactly how such communication takes place has been missing. The aim of this article is to introduce a new framework for the study of emotional expressions that I call the theory of affective pragmatics (TAP). As linguistic pragmatics focuses on what utterances mean in a context, affective pragmatics focuses on what emotional expressions mean in a context. TAP develops and connects two principal insights. The first is the insight that emotional expressions do much more than simply expressing emotions. As proponents of the Behavioral Ecology View of facial movements have long emphasized, bodily displays are sophisticated social tools that can communicate the signaler's intentions and requests. Proponents of the Basic Emotion View of emotional expressions have acknowledged this fact, but they have failed to emphasize its importance, in part because they have been in the grip of a mistaken theory of emotional expressions as involuntary readouts of emotions. The second insight that TAP aims to articulate and apply to emotional expressions is that it is possible to engage in analogs of speech acts without using language at all. I argue that there are important and so far largely unexplored similarities between what we can “do” with words and what we can “do” with emotional expressions. In particular, the core tenet of TAP is that emotional expressions are a means not only of expressing what's inside but also of directing other people's behavior, of representing what the world is like and of committing to future courses of action. Because these are some of the main things we can do with language, the take home message of my analysis is that, from a communicative point of view, much of what we can do with language we can also do with non-verbal emotional expressions. I conclude by exploring some reasons why, despite the analogies I have highlighted, emotional expressions are much less powerful communicative tools than speech acts.
The urban under erasure: Towards a postcolonial critique of planetary urbanization

In my engagement with the planetary urbanization thesis, I make three main interventions: (1) I emphasize the pioneering contributions that postcolonial and relational geographical approaches have made to planetary thought long before the recent planetary turn in urban studies; (2) I underscore the disconcerting ethico-political implications of planetary urbanization's will to map the “extended landscapes” of urbanization and its reduction of contemporary planetary condition to the imperatives of capitalist urbanization; and (3) I offer the deconstructive strategy of writing “under erasure” that puts both the city and urbanization under erasure to highlight the blind spots of planetary urbanization. Then to demonstrate the value of writing under erasure, I focus upon waste – as both material and semiotic artifact of capitalist urbanization – and offer a “supplementary reading” of Bangalore that sketches the multiple constitutive outsides of the city, which in turn make empirically evident the stakes of planetary urbanization's occlusions. I conclude by suggesting that proponents of planetary urbanization and urban studies more broadly embrace writing under erasure as a useful epistemological orientation to build better theories of the urban.
Latent SVMs for Semantic Role Labeling using LTAG Derivation Trees

A phrase structure parse tree for a sentence can be generated by many different Lexicalized Tree-Adjoining Grammar (LTAG) derivation trees. In this paper, we use multiple LTAG derivations as latent features for semantic role labeling (SRL). We hypothesize that positive and negative examples of individual semantic roles can be reliably distinguished by possibly different latent LTAG-based features. We use latent support vector machines (LSVM) for the SRL task using these latent LTAG features. Our experiments on the PropBankCoNLL’2005 dataset show that our method obtains 89.59% F1 score which is significantly better than the state of the art F1 score of 80.32% on this task.
Easing Parameter Sensitivity Analysis of Netlogo Simulations Using SPARTAN

In attempts to further understand complex systems at an individual level, the application of agent-based modeling is becoming prevalent across a range of academic disciplines. With the advantages of being multi-platform, requiring little programming experience, and supported by a large number of freely available case study examples, Netlogo has become a popular choice as the software tool to apply in the construction of agent-based models. To utilize the constructed model as an informative or predictive tool, statistical analyses can be performed to reveal the influence that a parameter has on simulation behavior, offering an insight into the system under study. Here we demonstrate the integration of Netlogo’s parameter sweep function, Behavior Space, with an extended version of SPARTAN, our previously published open source statistical package for performing local and global sensitivity analyses. With the addition of SPARTAN, the researcher can automatically create Netlogo experiment files for both local (individual parameter) and global (latin-hypercube and Fourier frequency) analyses, run these experiments in Netlogo, and receive detailed statistical information on the influence a parameter has on simulation response: vital information for translating a simulation result to a hypothesis grounded in the system being studied. To ensure our example work is reproducible, we demonstrate use of SPARTAN using the Virus transmission and perpetuation model available in the Netlogo model library.
Application of Sensitivity Analysis for an Improved Representation in Evolutionary Design Optimization

The choice of the representation in evolutionary design optimization defines the flexibility and constraints of the search process. Finding an adequate representation is a pre-requisite for the success of an optimization but requires extensive knowledge about the design at hand. Based on the results of an automotive part design optimization, the authors provide evidence that an adaptation of the representation based on sensitivity information leads to new outperforming designs. for retrieving reliable sensitivity estimates a robust variant of the mutual information has been introduced. the robust sensitivity measure provides valuable information for the setup of an improved representation.
Reducing Unauthorized Modification of Digital Objects

We consider the problem of malicious modification of digital objects. We present a protection mechanism designed to protect against unauthorized replacement or modification of digital objects while still allowing authorized updates transparently. We use digital signatures without requiring any centralized public key infrastructure. To explore the viability of our proposal, we apply the approach to file-system binaries, implementing a prototype in Linux which protects operating system and application binaries on disk. To test the prototype and related kernel modifications, we show that it protects against various rootkits currently available while incurring minimal overhead costs. The general approach can be used to restrict updates to general digital objects.
Improved radius selection in sphere decoder for MIMO System

The MLD (Maximum-likelihood decoding) of a particular random code over an AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) channel requires an exhaustive search over all the possible code-word, and so the computational complexity of the optimal decoding scheme is exponential in the length of the code-word. A new type of the detection technique called the sphere decoding algorithm is proposed to lower the computational complexity. The principle of the sphere decoding algorithm is to search the closest lattice point to the received signal within a sphere radius, where every codeword is represented by a lattice point in a lattice field.