Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design and Evaluation of the new Emotional Expression Head for the ADL assistive Full-body Emotion Expression Humanoid Robot KOBIAN

Personal robots and robot technology (RT)-based assistive devices are expected to play a major role in our elderly-dominated society, with an active participation to joint works and community life with humans, as partner and as friends for us. In particular, these robots are expected to be fundamental for helping and assisting elderly and disabled people during their activities of daily living (ADLs). To achieve this result, personal robots should be capable of human-like emotion expressions; in addition, human-like bipedal walking is the best solution for the robots which should be active in the human living environment. Although several bipedal robots and several emotional expression robots have been developed in the recent years, until now there was no robot which integrated all these functions. Therefore we developed a new bipedal walking robot, named KOBIAN, which is also capable to express human-like emotions. In this paper, we present the design and the preliminary evaluation of the new emotional expression head.
Elementary and simplified control of digital parallel buck converters

An elementary and simplified control of four digital parallel-connected buck converters was simulated in MATLAB/Simulink. These parallel converters, having the same values of inductances and capacitances but different parasitic resistances, were observed under various conditions of current sharing load and on the total number of active converters. The voltage and current errors of each converter were sampled and fed into a discrete controller to regulate its output voltage. An elementary and simplified control was used to determine which converters will turn ON/OFF during a given current load. Between active converters sharing the load, the average current method was used. In this paper we conclude that an elementary and simplified control of parallel digital converters is feasible and achievable leading to a possibility of a much more enhanced and improved control of digital parallel converters. Simulation-demonstrated results are presented including the static and dynamic loading responses, current sharing error of the parallel system under different conditions and the effective number of bits for each quantizer block.
An algebraic multigrid method for quadratic finite element equations of elliptic and saddle point systems in 3D

In this work, we propose a robust and easily implemented algebraic multigrid method as a stand-alone solver or a preconditioner in Krylov subspace methods for solving either symmetric and positive definite or saddle point linear systems of equations arising from the finite element discretization of the vector Laplacian problem, linear elasticity problem in pure displacement and mixed displacement-pressure form, and Stokes problem in mixed velocity-pressure form in 3D, respectively. We use hierarchical quadratic basis functions to construct the finite element spaces. A new heuristic algebraic coarsening strategy is introduced for construction of the hierarchical coarse system matrices. We focus on numerical study of the mesh-independence robustness of the algebraic multigrid and the algebraic multigrid preconditioned Krylov subspace methods.
Title Surface ecophysiological behavior across vegetation and moisture gradients in tropical South America Permalink

Surface ecophysiology at five sites in tropical South America across vegetation and moisture gradients is investigated. From the moist northwest (Manaus) to the relatively dry southeast (Pé de Gigante, state of São Paulo) simulated seasonal cycles of latent and sensible heat, and carbon flux produced with the Simple Biosphere Model (SiB3) are confronted with observational data. In the northwest, abundant moisture is available, suggesting that the ecosystem is light-limited. In these wettest regions, Bowen ratio is consistently low, with little or no annual cycle. Carbon flux shows little or no annual cycle as well; efflux and uptake are determined by high-frequency variability in light and moisture availability. Moving downgradient in annual precipitation amount, dry season length is more clearly defined. In these regions, a dry season sink of carbon is observed and simulated. This sink is the result of the combination of increased photosynthetic production due to higher light levels, and decreased respiratory efflux due to soil drying. The differential response time of photosynthetic and respiratory processes produce observed annual cycles of net carbon flux. In drier regions, moisture and carbon fluxes are in-phase; there is carbon uptake during seasonal rains and efflux during the dry season. At the driest site, there is also a large annual cycle t flux in latent and sensible hea
Portable CAVE using a mobile projector

Virtual environments have traditionally been accessed either with conventional 2D displays, or with complex equipment such as wearable displays or CAVEs. In this demo, we show how a projector phone can be utilized to create an ad-hoc, low-fidelity immersive environment. The user holding a projector phone stands in the middle of a virtual sphere, or cube, that is revealed by the projection which can be pointed in any direction.
The adaptive transactional memory test platform: a tool for experimenting with transactional code for rock (poster)

Sun has recently announced that its forthcoming multicore processor, code-named Rock, will support a form of hardware transactional memory (HTM). Our poster describes this feature, and presents the Adaptive Transactional Memory Test Platform (ATMTP)---a simulator we have developed that allows us and others to experiment with code that uses it, as well as the results of some preliminary experiments conducted using ATMTP.
The curvature condition for self-consistent scale-free galaxies

We modify the curvature condition for the existence of self-consistent scale-free discs, introduced by Zhao, Carollo and de Zeeuw. We survey the parameter space of the power-law discs, and show that the modified curvature condition is in harmony with the results of Schwarzschild's numerical orbit superposition method. We study the orbital structure of the power-law discs, and find a correlation between the population of centrophobic banana orbits and the non-self-consistency index. We apply the curvature condition to other families of scale-free elongated discs and find that it rules out a large range of power-law slopes and axis ratios. We generalize the condition and apply it to three-dimensional scale-free axisymmetric galaxy models.
Fostering Learner Autonomy in Foreign Language Classroom: A Digital Storytelling Project

This study explores the potential of a digital storytelling (DST) project to foster learner autonomy with the view that learner autonomy is not equivalent to independent learning and/or self-directed learning, but comprises both individual and collaborative elements, which can be exercised in a well-designed technological learning environment. The study incorporates both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The data were gathered from a class of university students learning English as a foreign language in Thailand (17 participants) via three instruments: questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and students’ reflections. The findings reveal that a DST project in a technological learning environment has great potential to afford students opportunities to exercise their capacity as autonomous language learners. The study concludes that any technological utilization, not necessarily just DST, aiming to promote learner autonomy needs to be carefully designed, using appropriate theoretical frameworks, and that the roles of cognitive and collaborative learning should be equally valued. Suggestions are made for further research, especially on the real contributions of DST to students’ language improvement and motivation.
Novel Glass Hosts for Integrated Planar Amplifiers in the Optical Communication Window (1200 - 1700 nm)

Developing new glass compositions suitable for broad band amplification in the 1200- 1700 nm wavelength region is important for the future optical communication systems. In this paper we review the results of our research on Bi ion doped glasses as well as rare earth ions Tm and Er-doped glasses. Of particular importance is the application of the glasses for short fibre devices and integrated waveguide devices fabrication using femtosecond laser writing. The host glass compositions reported are silicates and tellurites.
Part-of-speech tagging with antagonistic adversaries

Supervised NLP tools and on-line services are often used on data that is very different from the manually annotated data used during development. The performance loss observed in such cross-domain applications is often attributed to covariate shifts, with out-of-vocabulary effects as an important subclass. Many discriminative learning algorithms are sensitive to such shifts because highly indicative features may swamp other indicative features. Regularized and adversarial learning algorithms have been proposed to be more robust against covariate shifts. We present a new perceptron learning algorithm using antagonistic adversaries and compare it to previous proposals on 12 multilingual cross-domain part-of-speech tagging datasets. While previous approaches do not improve on our supervised baseline, our approach is better across the board with an average 4% error reduction.
JunctionBox for Android: An Interaction Toolkit for Android-based Mobile Devices

JunctionBox is an interaction toolkit specifically designed for building multi-touch sound control interfaces. The toolkit allows developers to build interfaces for Android mobile devices, including phones and tablets. Those devices can then be used to remotely control any sound engine via OSC messaging. While the toolkit makes many aspects of interface development easy, the toolkit is designed to offer considerable power to developers looking to build novel interfaces.
The pyroelectric sensor based system: Human tracking and self-calibration scheme

The paper presents a distributed human tracking system based on pyroelectric sensors. The developing process of the system mainly includes two aspects: distributed tracking algorithm and self-calibration scheme. In the tracking algorithm, a distributed information filter is constructed with joint probabilistic data association (JPDA) and consensus method. The self-calibration utilizes Kullback-Leibler divergences to construct objective function and information projection to realize calibration process. A distributed message passing scheme is developed among neighboring sensor nodes to get distributed calibration. The simulation and experimental results verified the validity of tracking algorithm and improved tracking performance after using the proposed distributed self-calibration.
Implementing Multi-MoC Extensions for SystemC : Adding CSP & FSM Kernels for Heterogeneous Modeling

As SystemC gains popularity as a modeling language of choice f r System-on-Chip designs, heterogeneous modeling in SystemC and efficient simulation bec om increasingly important. However, in the current reference implementation, all SystemC models a r simulated through a non-deterministic Discrete-Event simulation kernel, which schedules events at run-time. This sometimes results in too many delta cycles hindering the simulation performance of t he model. The SystemC language also uses this simulation kernel as the target simulation engine maki ng it difficult to express different Models of Computation (MoC) naturally in SystemC. In an SoC model, dif ferent components may need to be naturally expressible in different MoCs. Some of these compone nts may be amenable to static scheduling based simulation or other pre-simulation optimization tec hniques. Our goal is to create a simulation framework for heterogeneous SystemC models, to gain efficie ncy and ease of use within the framework of SystemC reference implementation. In this work, we focus on implementing separate kernels for Communicating Sequential Processes and Finite State Machi ne Models of Computation in SystemC for better modeling fidelity and efficiency.
Sustained mental workload does not affect subsequent sleep intensity

Mental activity is a neglected factor in sleep research. The few investigations on sleep that manipulate prior mental activity are inconclusive with respect to the possible effects of mental activity on recovery. In the present study, the effects of two levels of mental activity on subsequent sleep were studied. Thirteen male subjects (range 18–28 years) participated in one lightly and two heavily mentally strenuous conditions in a counterbalanced order. Light mental activity included 8 h of relaxed video watching. The second condition consisted of performing computer tasks involving sustained attention, memory, logical thinking and calculations for eight consecutive hours. In the third condition, the same heavy mental workload was interspersed with breaks. Subjectively, the subjects rated the condition with heavy mental activity (without breaks) as mentally more strenuous than the condition with light mental activity. Subjects were significantly less awake shortly after sleep onset in the heavy‐workload condition than in the light‐workload condition. There were no differences between the conditions in any of the other visually scored sleep variables. The total amount of slow wave activity (SWA) and its discharge during the night was not affected by the level of mental activity or by the presence of breaks. These findings fail to support the proposition that SWA reflects a need for sleep that accumulates at a rate depending on mental activity during prior wakefulness.
Expressions of Somatostatin Receptor Subtypes (SSTR-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) in Neuroblastic Tumors; Special Reference to Clinicopathological Correlations with International Neuroblastoma Pathology Classification and Outcomes

Somatostatin receptor (SSTR) expressions in neuroblastomas (NBs) have been confirmed employing various methods. High SSTR-2 expression was suggested to be a favorable prognostic marker, though little is known about the relationships between the expressions of SSTR subtypes, other than SSTR-2, and prognosis. We investigated the expressions of all five known SSTR subtypes in 63 neuroblastic tumors (NTs), employing immunohistochemistry, and also conducted quantitative real-time RT-PCR in 37 of these tumors. We evaluated correlations between the expressions of SSTR subtypes and prognosis, based on the International Neuroblastoma Pathology Classification and patient outcomes. More than 90% of cases expressed, at a minimum, SSTR-1 and/or 2. Ganglioneuromas and ganglioneuroblastomas expressed more than two SSTR subtypes. Among NBs, the favorable histology group showed higher SSTR subtype expressions than the unfavorable histology group. The same tendency was observed when surviving and deceased cases were compared, though SSTR-2 expression was well preserved in some of the deceased cases. In conclusion, NTs highly expressed SSTR-1 and/or 2, and expressions of SSTR generally indicate a good prognosis. However, even those in the unfavorable histology group with NBs expressing SSTR are good candidates for molecular targeting therapy using somatostatin analogues.
Last block logging mechanism for improving performance and lifetime on SCM-based file system

The emerging Storage Class Memory, which offers characteristics of byte-addressability, persistence, and low power consumption, will be expected to replace memory/storages. A new file system is required in this environment. In the design of file systems, data consistency is one of the most important issues that should be taken into account. To do this, most file systems exploit journaling or shadow paging for the consistency. Shadow paging employs copy-on-write for the consistency. However, it incurs many copy overheads. In order to relieve these problems, BPFS proposed a short-circuit shadow paging. But, in our experiments, we showed that it incurs many copy-on-write blocks as ever. In this paper, we propose a last block logging mechanism for improving the performance and the lifetime of SCM-based file system, by reducing copy-on-write blocks considerably. Our approach is to store the only changed contents to the available space of the last block, instead of performing copy-on-write on the entire block. Also, our approach updates the address of the last block and maintains the information on the logged data in order to ensure the data consistency. SQLite benchmark shows that the proposed mechanism reduces the overall elapsed time by 14% and the written data amount up to 72%, compared to the mechanism of BPFS.
Improvement of bit error rate performance of MC-CDMA system by using adaptive digital modulation schemes

In Wireless Communication, the transmission channel suffers due to multipath propagation and channel dispersion due to Inter Symbol Interference (ISI), thereby degrades the system performance greatly. Future communication requires high data rate and effective utilization of bandwidth. Hence, there is a need to improve the Bit Error Rate (BER). The proposed work is Adaptive Modulation (AM), combined with Multi Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA) based transmission system. It is a promising way to increase the data rate and it uses bandwidth in a efficient manner. The Adaptive Modulation based MC-CDMA systems applied to a wide-area environment, can achieve high data rate up to 100Mbps. In this paper M-ary PSK, M-ary QAM and M-ary CPM modulation techniques are used. The Adap-tive modulation based MC-CDMA systems perform well for around 10 number of users. As a whole, the adaptive MC-CDMA system is found to give the optimum BER performance of given digital modulation schemes for fourth generation environment.
Defining transcription modules using large-scale gene expression data

MOTIVATION Large-scale gene expression data comprising a variety of cellular conditions hold the promise of a global view on the transcription program. While conventional clustering algorithms have been successfully applied to smaller datasets, the utility of many algorithms for the analysis of large-scale data is limited by their inability to capture combinatorial and condition-specific co-regulation. In addition, there is an increasing need to integrate the rapidly accumulating body of other high-throughput biological data with the expression analysis. In a previous work, we introduced the signature algorithm, which overcomes the problems of conventional clustering and allows for intuitive integration of additional biological data. However, this approach is constrained by the comprehensiveness of relevant external data and its lacking ability to capture hierarchical modularity. METHODS We present a novel method for the analysis of large-scale expression data, which assigns genes into context-dependent and potentially overlapping regulatory units. We introduce the notion of a transcription module as a self-consistent regulatory unit consisting of a set of co-regulated genes as well as the experimental conditions that induce their co-regulation. Self-consistency is defined by a rigorous mathematical criterion. We propose an efficient algorithm to identify such modules, which is based on the iterative application of the signature algorithm. A threshold parameter that determines the resolution of the modular decomposition is introduced. RESULTS The method is applied systematically to over 1000 expression profiles of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and the results are presented using two complementary visualization schemes we developed. The average biological coherence, as measured by the conservation of putative cis-regulatory motifs between four related yeast species, is higher for transcription modules than for clusters identified by other methods applied to the same dataset. Our method is related to singular value decomposition (SVD) and to the pairwise average linkage clustering algorithm. It extends SVD by filtering out noise in the expression data and offering variable resolution to reveal hierarchical organization. It furthermore has the advantage over both methods of capturing overlapping modules in the presence of combinatorial regulation. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION http://www.weizmann. ac.il/~barkai/modules
Protecting Persistent Dynamic Oceanographic Features: Transboundary Conservation Efforts Are Needed for the Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater

The protection of key areas for biodiversity at sea is not as widespread as on land and research investment is necessary to identify biodiversity hotspots in the open ocean. Spatially explicit conservation measures such as the creation of representative networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) is a critical step towards the conservation and management of marine ecosystems, as well as to improve public awareness. Conservation efforts in ecologically rich and threatened ecosystems are specially needed. This is particularly urgent for the Mediterranean marine biodiversity, which includes highly mobile marine vertebrates. Here, we studied the at sea distribution of one of the most endangered Mediterranean seabird, the critically endangered Balearic shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus. Present knowledge, from vessel-based surveys, suggests that this species has a coastal distribution over the productive Iberian shelf in relation to the distribution of their main prey, small pelagic fish. We used miniaturised satellite transmitters to determine the key marine areas of the southern population of Balearic shearwaters breeding on Eivissa and spot the spatial connections between breeding and key marine areas. Our tracking study indicates that Balearic shearwaters do not only forage along the Iberian continental shelf but also in more distant marine areas along the North African coast, in particular W of Algeria, but also NE coast of Morocco. Birds recurrently visit these shelf areas at the end of the breeding season. Species distribution modelling identified chlorophyll a as the most important environmental variable in defining those oceanographic features characterizing their key habitats in the western Mediterranean. We identified persistent oceanographic features across time series available in the study area and discuss our results within the current conservation scenario in relation to the ecology of the species.
Title: Retention Interval Affects Visual Short-term Memory Encoding 1 2 Running Head: Retention Interval Effects on Short-term Memory 3 4

Title: Retention interval affects visual short-term memory encoding 1 2 Running head: Retention interval effects on short-term memory 3 4 Éva M. Bankó and Zoltán Vidnyánszky 5 6 Neurobionics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences – Pázmány Péter 7 Catholic University – Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary 8 Faculty of Information Technology, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, 9 Hungary 10 MR Research Center, Szentágothai J. Knowledge Center – Semmelweis University, 11 Budapest, Hungary 12 13 Corresponding author: Zoltán Vidnyánszky 14 Práter u. 50/a. , 1083, Budapest, Hungary 15 Phone/Fax: +36 1 217 6937 16 Email: vidnyanszky@digitus.itk. ppke.hu 17 18 Number of figures and tables: 3 figures 19 Number of pages: 22 20 Number of words: 189 (Abstract), 683 (Introduction) and 1311 (Discussion) 21 22 23 24 Articles in PresS. J Neurophysiol (January 13, 2010). doi:10.1152/jn.00868. 2009