Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Novel hollow optical fibers and their applications in photonic devices for optical communications

Novel photonic devices based on a new type of waveguide, hollow optical fibers (HOF), are described. Utilizing unique three layered structure of HOF, the central air hole, germanosilicate ring core, and silica cladding along with its adiabatic mode transformation capability we demonstrated versatile applications in short-haul, long-haul optical communications, and tunable wavelength selective devices. Detailed design parameters, fabrication arts of the fibers, and operation principles of the devices are discussed.
Using neural network front-ends on far field multiple microphones based speech recognition

This paper presents an investigation of far field speech recognition using beamforming and channel concatenation in the context of Deep Neural Network (DNN) based feature extraction. While speech enhancement with beamforming is attractive, the algorithms are typically signal-based with no information about the special properties of speech. A simple alternative to beamforming is concatenating multiple channel features. Results presented in this paper indicate that channel concatenation gives similar or better results. On average the DNN front-end yields a 25% relative reduction in Word Error Rate (WER). Further experiments aim at including relevant information in training adapted DNN features. Augmenting the standard DNN input with the bottleneck feature from a Speaker Aware Deep Neural Network (SADNN) shows a general advantage over the standard DNN based recognition system, and yields additional improvements for far field speech recognition.
Group treatment of auditory hallucinations

Background Cognitive–behavioural therapy has been shown to be effective in reducing psychotic symptoms, but few patients have access to these services. Group cognitive treatment may provide a less costly service with similar benefits. Aims To explore the effectiveness of group cognitive–behavioural therapy on insight and symptoms, particularly auditory hallucinations. Method Twenty-one DSM–IV diagnosed patients with schizophrenia with treatment-resistant, distressing auditory hallucinations were referred to a group programme consisting of six sessions of cognitive treatment following a strict protocol which emphasised individual power and control as well as coping strategies. Results There were significant changes in all three main outcome measures following treatment; those changes were maintained at follow-up and were greater than changes over the waiting-list period. Specifically, there were changes in perceived power and distress as well as increases in the number and effectiveness of the coping strategies. Conclusions Group treatment for auditory hallucinations needs further investigation but does look promising and may provide a less costly alternative to individual cognitive treatment.
Beat the MTurkers: Automatic Image Labeling from Weak 3D Supervision

Labeling large-scale datasets with very accurate object segmentations is an elaborate task that requires a high degree of quality control and a budget of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thus, developing solutions that can automatically perform the labeling given only weak supervision is key to reduce this cost. In this paper, we show how to exploit 3D information to automatically generate very accurate object segmentations given annotated 3D bounding boxes. We formulate the problem as the one of inference in a binary Markov random field which exploits appearance models, stereo and/or noisy point clouds, a repository of 3D CAD models as well as topological constraints. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in the context of autonomous driving, and show that we can segment cars with the accuracy of 86% intersection-over-union, performing as well as highly recommended MTurkers!
Knowledge transfer activities in Humanities and Social Sciences: which determinants explain research group interactions with non-academic agents?

In the current society, universities and research centers have acquired an important role as agents responsible for knowledge transfer (KT) to the non-academic environment (OCDE 1996). The different ways in which these collaborations take place have been the subject of many conceptual (Molas-Gallart et al. 2002) and empirical studies (D'Este and Patel 2007; Landry et al. 2007) in recent years. The aim of this exploratory study paper is to contribute to KT literature from an area of study generally neglected, humanities and social sciences (HSS), and from a unit analysis perspective that have received less attention: the research group. Thus, the questions addressed in this study are: what are the main activities of KT used by HSS research groups to collaborate with non-academic agents? Do group characteristics or group' leader profile influence the group' engagement in a specific knowledge transfer activity? Data for this study has been gathered through questionnaires, interviews and databases for a sample made up of 79 research groups (80% of the population) belonging to the HSS area of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). Descriptive and multivariate analyses have been conducted. Results indicate that HSS research groups are very active in some KT activities such as technical advice, consultancy and contract research, whereas their involvement in personal mobility activities is low. Logistic regression analysis shows that the likelihood that research groups engage in any KT activities is not explained by the same factors. However, we obtain evidence showing that there is a common variable positively related with the engagement of HSS research groups for almost all the different activities analyzed: the focus on the social utility of the research.
Teoria ugruntowana i jej wybrane zastosowania w badaniach z zakresu informacji naukowej i bibliotekoznawstwa

Teza/cel artykułu – Celem artykułu jest przybliżenie założeń teorii ugruntowanej oraz pokazanie jej zastosowania w badaniach z dziedziny bibliotekoznawstwa i in- formatologii (informacji naukowej). Metody badań – Analizę podstawowych założeń teorii ugruntowanej oraz ich interpretacji przeprowadzono na podstawie najważniejszych publikacji A. Straussa i B. Glasera – autorów tej metody oraz K. Charmez – autorki najbardziej znanej jej modyfikacji. Zastosowania teorii ugruntowanej w badaniach z zakresu informacji naukowej i bibliotekoznawstwa śledzono na podstawie piśmiennictwa polsko-, anglo- i francuskojęzycznego zarejestrowanego w bibliograficznych i pełnotekstowych bazach czasopism, katalogach centralnych oraz cyfrowych repozytoriach. Punktem wyjścia było wyszukiwanie publikacji z lat 2000-2011, a następnie, na podstawie przeglądu ich bibliografii, wyszukiwanie wydawnictw wcześniejszych, odpowiadających celowi niniejszego artykułu. Wyniki i wnioski – Przegląd międzynarodowego piśmiennictwa, opisującego wiele przykładów zastosowania teorii ugruntowanej w INiB pokazał, że ta jakościowa metoda badawcza może być z po- wodzeniem wykorzystywana także na gruncie polskim do badania różnorodnych aspektów informacyjnych zachowań użytkowników, źródeł i usług informacyjnych.
Raising Our Voices: Transformative Discourse in a Teacher Research Group

have criticized traditional, top-down models of professional development for many years now (Bruner, 1997; Darling-Hammond, 1998; Rhine, 1998; Sarason, 1996; Sirotnik, 1989; Wells, 2001; Westheimer, 1998). You know the kind I meanthe kind Fleischer and Fox (2003) recently described as "professional development that doesn't seem to work: one-shot, fix-'em-up experiences, often with talking heads in front of the room who have no deep contextual understanding of the teachers and the place they call school" (p. 259). My recent work with teachers, however, has convinced me that such models are alive and well.
A Miniature Feeding Network for Aperture-Coupled Wearable Antennas

A miniature feeding network for aperture-coupled wearable antennas is proposed. In wearable systems, it allows to minimize the dimensions of the rigid printed circuit board (PCB) carrying the electronics and feeding the textile antenna. This optimizes the comfort of the user. Simultaneously, it avoids traditional probe feeding that has the disadvantage of requiring a single soldering point, which has a high risk of being broken with time due to movements of the user or washing. On top, since the aperture is implemented on the PCB, it can be fabricated with excellent dimensional tolerances that do not change during use. The proposed feeding topology is prototyped for applications in the industrial, scientific, and medical band (2.4–2.4835 GHz), resulting in dimensions of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.073 \times 0.061~\lambda _{0}^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at 2.45 GHz, realized on a PCB substrate of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10 \times 10$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm<sup>2</sup> (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.0817 \times 0.0817~\lambda _{0}^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at 2.45 GHz). The demonstration antenna incorporating the new feeding network has a realized gain of 5.6 dBi, a total efficiency of 47%, a low cross-polarization, and a high front-to-back ratio. Simulations and experiments agree well, proving the validity of the new concept.
Host plant choice in the comma butterfly–larval choosiness may ameliorate effects of indiscriminate oviposition

In most phytophagous insects, the larval diet strongly affects future fitness and in species that do not feed on plant parts as adults, larval diet is the main source of nitrogen. In many of these insect–host plant systems, the immature larvae are considered to be fully dependent on the choice of the mothers, who, in turn, possess a highly developed host recognition system. This circumstance allows for a potential mother–offspring conflict, resulting in the female maximizing her fecundity at the expense of larval performance on suboptimal hosts. In two experiments, we aimed to investigate this relationship in the polyphagous comma butterfly, Polygonia c‐album, by comparing the relative acceptance of low‐ and medium‐ranked hosts between females and neonate larvae both within individuals between life stages, and between mothers and their offspring. The study shows a variation between females in oviposition acceptance of low‐ranked hosts, and that the degree of acceptance in the mothers correlates with the probability of acceptance of the same host in the larvae. We also found a negative relationship between stages within individuals as there was a higher acceptance of lower ranked hosts in females who had abandoned said host as a larva. Notably, however, neonate larvae of the comma butterfly did not unconditionally accept to feed from the least favorable host species even when it was the only food source. Our results suggest the possibility that the disadvantages associated with a generalist oviposition strategy can be decreased by larval participation in host plant choice.
Combining Worst-Case Timing Models, Loop Unrolling, and Static Loop Analysis for WCET Minimization

Program loops are notorious for their optimization potential on modern high-performance architectures. Compilers aim at their aggressive transformation to achieve large improvements of the program performance. In particular, the optimization loop unrolling has shown in the past decades to be highly effective achieving significant increases of the average-case performance.In this paper, we present loop unrolling that is tailored towards real-time systems. Our novel optimization is driven by worst-case execution time (WCET) information to effectively minimize the program's worst-case behavior. To exploit maximal optimization potential, the determination of a suitable unrolling factor is based on precise loop iteration counts provided by a static loop analysis. In addition,our heuristics avoid adverse effects of unrolling which result from instruction cache overflows and the generation of additional spill code. Results on 45 real-life benchmarks demonstrate that aggressive loop unrolling can yield WCET reductions of up to 13.7% over simple, naive approaches employed by many production compilers.
Abrogation of E-Cadherin-Mediated Cellular Aggregation Allows Proliferation of Pluripotent Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells in Shake Flask Bioreactors

Background A fundamental requirement for the exploitation of embryonic stem (ES) cells in regenerative medicine is the ability to reproducibly derive sufficient numbers of cells of a consistent quality in a cost-effective manner. However, undifferentiated ES cells are not ideally suited to suspension culture due to the formation of cellular aggregates, ultimately limiting scalability. Significant advances have been made in recent years in the culture of ES cells, including automated adherent culture and suspension microcarrier or embryoid body bioreactor culture. However, each of these methods exhibits specific disadvantages, such as high cost, additional downstream processes or reduced cell doubling times. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we show that abrogation of the cell surface protein E-cadherin, using either gene knockout (Ecad-/-) or the neutralising antibody DECMA-1 (EcadAb), allows culture of mouse ES cells as a near-single cell suspension in scalable shake flask culture over prolonged periods without additional media supplements. Both Ecad-/- and EcadAb ES cells exhibited adaptation phases in suspension culture, with optimal doubling times of 7.3 h±0.9 and 15.6 h±4.7 respectively and mean-fold increase in viable cell number of 95.1±2.0 and 16±0.9-fold over 48 h. EcadAb ES cells propagated as a dispersed cell suspension for 15 d maintained expression of pluripotent markers, exhibited a normal karyotype and high viability. Subsequent differentiation of EcadAb ES cells resulted in expression of transcripts and proteins associated with the three primary germ layers. Conclusions/Significance This is the first demonstration of the culture of pluripotent ES cells as a near-single cell suspension in a manual fed-batch shake flask bioreactor and represents a significant improvement on current ES cell culture techniques. Whilst this proof-of-principle method would be useful for the culture of human ES and iPS cells, further steps are necessary to increase cell viability of hES cells in suspension.
A Model of Link Capacities in ISP's Router-Level Topology

Modeling the Internet is vital for network researches. Recent measurement studies on the Internet topology show that the degree distribution obeys the power-law distribution. However, only the degree distribution does not determine the performance of network control methods. As previous studies have shown, one of important factors to characterize the performance of network control methods in the Internet is a structure of topologies. However, other characteristics, which are even more important, are link capacities and node processing capacities of the network because these characteristics are particular to communication networks. In this paper, we investigate how to model the link capacity in the router-level topologies. We first reveal that the link capacity distribution of ISP's backbone network in Japanobeys a power-law with exponent -1.1. To clarify the reason for the link capacity distribution, we evaluate throughput of networks having various kinds of link capacity distributions. Our numerical results show that the network with power-law link capacity distribution can accommodate much more traffic than the network with exponential distributions of link capacities.
Model Transformation with a Visual Control Flow Language

— Graph rewriting-based visual model processing is a widely used technique for model transformation. Visual model transformations often need to follow an algorithm that requires a strict control over the execution sequence of the transformation steps. Therefore, in Visual Model Processors (VMPs) the execution order of the transformation steps is crucial. This paper presents the visual control flow support of Visual Modeling and Transformation System (VMTS), which facilitates composing complex model transformations of simple transformation steps and executing them. The VMTS Visual Control Flow Language (VCFL) uses stereotyped activity diagrams to specify control flow structures and OCL constraints to choose between different control flow branches. This paper introduces VCFL, discusses its termination properties and provides an algorithm to support the termination analysis of VCFL transformations.
Formalizing Human Ignorance: Collision-Resistant Hashing without the Keys

There is a rarely mentioned foundational problem involving collision-resistant hash-functions: common constructions are keyless, but formal definitions are keyed. The discrepancy stems from the fact that a function H: {0, 1} ∗ →{ 0, 1} n always admits an efficient collision-finding algorithm, it's just that us human beings might be unable to write the program down. We explain a simple way to sidestep this difficulty that avoids having to key our hash functions. The idea is to state theorems in a way that prescribes an explicitly-given reduction, normally a black-box one. We illustrate this approach using well-known examples involving digital signatures, pseudorandom functions, and the Merkle-Damgard construction.
Secondary Structure of Bovine Albumin as Studied by Polarization-Sensitive Multiplex CARS Spectroscopy

The first application of polarization-sensitive multiplex coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (MCARS) in the absence of resonance enhancement to the resolution of the secondary structure of a protein in solution is reported. Polarization MCARS spectra of bovine albumin in D2O were obtained in the range 1370 to 1730 cm−1 with the aid of the background suppression technique. The spectra were fitted simultaneously with a single set of parameters (band positions, bandwidths, amplitudes, and depolarization ratios). Polarized Raman spectra simulated with these parameters revealed a good correspondence with the spontaneous Raman spectra measured. The broad amide I′ band was decomposed assuming the three major secondary conformations of protein, of which the contribution of β-sheet structure was found to be negligible. Relative weights of α-helix and random coil conformations agree well with the estimates obtained with Raman and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopies.
Genome-Wide Association Analysis with Gray Matter Volume as a Quantitative Phenotype in First-Episode Treatment-Naïve Patients with Schizophrenia

Reduced Gray matter (GM) volume is a core feature of schizophrenia. Mapping genes that is associated with the heritable disease-related phenotypes may be conducive to elucidate the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. This study aims to identify the common genetic variants that underlie the deficits of GM volume in schizophrenia. High-resolution T1 images and whole genome genotyping data were obtained from 74 first-episode treatment-naïve patients with schizophrenia and 51 healthy controls in the Mental Health Centre of the West China Hospital, Sichuan University. All participants were scanned using a 3T MR imaging system and were genotyped using the HumanHap660 Bead Array. Reduced GM volumes in three brain areas including left hOC3v in the collateral sulcus of visual cortex (hOC3vL), left cerebellar vermis lobule 10 (vermisL10) and right cerebellar vermis lobule 10 (vermisR10) were found in patients with schizophrenia. There was a group by genotype interaction when genotypes from genome-wide scan were subsequently considered in the case-control analyses. SNPs from three genes or chromosomal regions (TBXAS1, PIK3C2G and HS3ST5) were identified to predict the changes of GM volume in hOC3vL, vermisL10 and vermisR10. These results also highlighted the usefulness of endophenotype in exploring the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia although further independent replication studies are needed in the future.
TREE-PUZZLE: maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis using quartets and parallel computing

SUMMARY TREE-PUZZLE is a program package for quartet-based maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analysis (formerly PUZZLE, Strimmer and von Haeseler, Mol. Biol. Evol., 13, 964-969, 1996) that provides methods for reconstruction, comparison, and testing of trees and models on DNA as well as protein sequences. To reduce waiting time for larger datasets the tree reconstruction part of the software has been parallelized using message passing that runs on clusters of workstations as well as parallel computers. AVAILABILITY http://www.tree-puzzle.de. The program is written in ANSI C. TREE-PUZZLE can be run on UNIX, Windows and Mac systems, including Mac OS X. To run the parallel version of PUZZLE, a Message Passing Interface (MPI) library has to be installed on the system. Free MPI implementations are available on the Web (cf. http://www.lam-mpi.org/mpi/implementations/).
Depth Map Estimation and Colorization of Anaglyph Images Using Local Color Prior and Reverse Intensity Distribution

In this paper, we present a joint iterative anaglyph stereo matching and colorization framework for obtaining a set of disparity maps and colorized images. Conventional stereo matching algorithms fail when addressing anaglyph images that do not have similar intensities on their two respective view images. To resolve this problem, we propose two novel data costs using local color prior and reverse intensity distribution factor for obtaining accurate depth maps. To colorize an anaglyph image, each pixel in one view is warped to another view using the obtained disparity values of non-occluded regions. A colorization algorithm using optimization is then employed with additional constraint to colorize the remaining occluded regions. Experimental results confirm that the proposed unified framework is robust and produces accurate depth maps and colorized stereo images.
The trends and constructive ambiguity in international agreements on intellectual property and pharmaceutical affairs: Implications for domestic legislations in low- and middle-income countries

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to analyse the trends in international agreements including Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Korea-United States Free Trade Agreements, and Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreements on intellectual property and pharmaceutical affairs with the updated framework. The study also assesses constructive ambiguity in international agreements, which might affect the implementation process through interpretation and domestic legislations. Five flexibility clauses and three TRIPS-plus provisions were selected, and presence of constructive ambiguity in the agreements was analysed to draw actual trends in international agreements. Flexibility provisions excluding compulsory licensing were not noticeably changed, and TRIPS-plus provisions including data exclusivity and patent linkage were expanded in scope or newly appeared, respectively. The clause regarding compulsory licensing, extension of the patent term, data exclusivity, and patent linkage showed unclear definitions or the lack of adequate explanations. With constructive ambiguity in those clauses, a country who wants to join international agreements in the near future could amend domestic legislations to minimise the detrimental effect of international agreements on access to medicines.
A Wide-Beam Circularly Polarized Asymmetric-Microstrip Antenna

A wide-beam circularly polarized (CP) asymmetric microstrip antenna with four unequal circular-patches is proposed for global navigation satellite systems. Four unequal circular-patches are integrated symmetrically onto corners of a square microstrip radiator for CP radiation with wide-beamwidth. The measured 3-dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 24.0 MHz (1.568-1.592 GHz) with a 3-dB AR beamwidth of around 180° across the bandwidth and a 10-dB return loss bandwidth is 56.0 MHz (1.556-1.612 GHz) with a gain of more than 5.0 dBic. The overall size of the antenna is 0. 373λ<sub>o</sub>×0. 373λ<sub>o</sub>×0. 016λ<sub>o</sub> at 1.6 GHz.