Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assembly time minimization for an electronic component placement machine

In this study, a new algorithm for a particular component placement machine is proposed. Also, a pairwise exchange procedure is designed and applied after the proposed algorithm. In the analyzed machine, previously proposed algorithms were mounting the components from lightest to heaviest where we propose to mount the components from heaviest to lightest. This method brings new opportunities in terms of performance gain on typical Printed Circuit Boards produced in the industry. The new algorithm is compared with former approaches on synthetically generated instances. It outperforms the former approaches by 1.54 percent on printed circuit boards with 100 components to be placed. It gives better results in 96 out of 100 instances. Applying the designed pairwise exchange procedure after the proposed algorithm further improves the total assembly time. Moreover, by taking advantage of inherent design of the analyzed PCBs, other promising improvement procedures are also suggested for minimizing total assembly time. By applying all the suggested techniques to the problem instances, performance improvement rate reaches up to 4.5 percent when compared with previous studies. Since the architecture and working principles of widely used new technology placement machines are very similar to the one analyzed here, the improvement techniques developed here can easily be generalized to them.
Coding Schemes Applied to Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) Reduction in OFDM Systems

High PAPR of the transmitted signal is a major drawback in the OFDM systems. In this paper, coding schemes are proposed to reduce high PAPR One is using parity check coding scheme, and the other is using selected mapping (SLM) applied scheme. With parity check coding scheme, the parity information is used to expand the signal space. Mapping from original source information to the corresponding message sequence with a low PAPR the PAPR of transmitted signal can be reduced. In the SLM applied scheme, a coding scheme with data position permutation and phase rotation is used. For the practical application to IEEE 802.11g, the performance of PAPR reduction is given. The simulation results show PAPR definitely can be greatly reduced with applying the SLM applied coding scheme in the OFDM system.
Bridging the gap between real printouts and digital whiteboard

In this paper, we describe a paper-based interface, which combines the physical (real) with the digital world: while interacting with real paper printouts, users can seamlessly work with a digital whiteboard at the same time. Users are able to send data from a real paper to the digital world by picking up the content (e.g. images) from real printouts and drop it on the digital surface. The reverse direction for transferring data from the whiteboard to the real paper is supported through printouts of the whiteboard page that are enhanced with integrated Anoto patterns. We present four different interaction techniques that show the potential of this paper and digital world combination. Moreover, we describe the workflow of our system that bridges the gap between the two worlds in detail.
Self-Imitation and Environmental Scaffolding for Robot Teaching

Imitative learning and learning by observation are social mechanisms that allow a robot to acquire knowledge from a human or another robot. However to be able to obtain skills in this way the robot faces many complex issues, one of which is that of finding solutions to the correspondence problem. Evolutionary predecessors to observational imitation may have been self-imitation where an agent avoids the complexities of the correspondence problem by learning and replicating actions it has experienced through the manipulation of its body. We investigate how a robotic control and teaching system using self-imitation can be constructed with reference to psychological models of motor control and ideas from social scaffolding seen in animals. Within these scaffolded environments sets of competencies can be built by constructing hierarchical state/action memory maps of the robot's interaction within that environment. The scaffolding process provides a mechanism to enable learning to be scaled up. The resulting system allows a human trainer to teach a robot new skills and modify skills that the robot may possess. Additionally the system allows the robot to notify the trainer when it is being taught skills it already has in its repertoire and to direct and focus its attention and sensor resources to relevant parts of the skill being executed. We argue that these mechanisms may be a first step towards the transformation from self-imitation to observational imitation. The system is validated on a physical pioneer robot that is taught using self-imitation to track, follow and point to a patterned object.
Gravimetric Viral Diagnostics: QCM Based Biosensors for Early Detection of Viruses

Viruses are pathogenic microorganisms that can inhabit and replicate in human bodies causing a number of widespread infectious diseases such as influenza, gastroenteritis, hepatitis, meningitis, pneumonia, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) etc. A majority of these viral diseases are contagious and can spread from infected to healthy human beings. The most important step in the treatment of these contagious diseases and to prevent their unwanted spread is to timely detect the disease-causing viruses. Gravimetric viral diagnostics based on quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) transducers and natural or synthetic receptors are miniaturized sensing platforms that can selectively recognize and quantify harmful virus species. Herein, a review of the label-free QCM virus sensors for clinical diagnostics and point of care (POC) applications is presented with major emphasis on the nature and performance of different receptors ranging from the natural or synthetic antibodies to selective macromolecular materials such as DNA and aptamers. A performance comparison of different receptors is provided and their limitations are discussed.
Correlation Effects in Stock Market Volatility

Understanding the correlation between stocks may give us new insight into modeling the behavior of financial markets. Multivariate stochastic volatility models can be used to describe the time-varying correlation between asset returns. We propose a new multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) model which incorporates correlation effects between stocks. We model each stock series as a linear combination of underlying GARCH Processes, and correlate them using principal component analysis of the Cholesky decomposition of their covariance matrix. Additionally, we investigate the performance in option pricing of the double Heston model in comparison to the Heston model. We propose a possible generalization for the double Heston into a multivariate Heston model for future exploration. GARCH models proved to be effective predictors of option prices, but little improvement was gained by the introduction of correlation effects in the multivariate model.
Printed in Great Britain

Little has been published regarding the nature and origin of the telogen hair club in the hair growth cycle. Most authors (e.g. Roth, 1965; Parakkal, 1970) describe the club as being formed by the hair matrix, while others consider the possibility that inner root sheath material takes part in the formation of the club. This possibility was excluded by Pinkus (1969) who used a very specific stain for keratinised inner root sheath material, and who regards the club as being derived from outer root sheath cells, which he calls 'trichilemma'. This trichilemmal keratinisation process, first described by Maurer (1895), converts stratified squamous epithelium into an anuclear layer of keratin, resulting not only in the formation of the telogen club, but also giving rise to a small keratin layer in Straile's (1962) zone of sloughing higher up in the anagen follicle: both are areas in which inner root sheath material has disappeared. Among several other histochemical staining procedures, Pinkus (1969) reports that the Barmett-Seligman method for thiol and disulphide groups is positive in the telogen club, thus indicating that trichilemmal keratin is truly keratinised material. While some attention has been paid to structural features of the catagen phase of the hair growth cycle (Straile, 1962; Parakkal, 1969,1970; Sugiyama, Takahashi & Kamimura, 1976; Pinkus, 1980), little interest has been shown as towhat causes the club hair to fall out. Dry (1926) and Kligman (1961) are the only two investigators who mention the problem, whereas the majority of other workers regard the telogen hair as being an 'inactive embryonal state' (Parakkal, 1970) in which no activity takes place. The present study has been designed to investigate the distribution of proteinbound thiol and disulphide groups in different developmental stages of the murine telogen follicle, by means of a new histochemical method devised by Sippel (1973). In this technique, a new bifunctional reagent, N-(4-aminophenyl) maleimide is used for demonstrating thiol groups in tissue sections. The bound maleimide component is subsequently diazotised and coupled to a disazolabel. The Sippel technique is attractive because it gives the possibility of visualising free thiols and disulphide cross linkages together or alone within the same tissue slice (Sippel, 1978 a, b). Using such preparations, a quantitative absorption cytophotometric assay of the reactive groups was carried out to detect a thiol-disulphide conversion, which was
Bond Market Exposures to Macroeconomic and Monetary Policy Risks

The paper estimates a model that allows for shifts in the aggressiveness of monetary policy and time variation in the distribution of macroeconomic shocks. These model features induce variations in the cyclical properties of inflation and the riskiness of bonds. The estimation identifies inflation as procyclical from the late 1990s, when the economy shifted toward aggressive monetary policy and experienced procyclical macroeconomics shocks. Since bonds hedge stock market risks when inflation is procylical, the stock-bond return correlation turned negative in the late 1990s. The risks of encountering countercyclical inflation in the future could lead to an upward-sloping yield curve, like in the data.
Encoding and decoding for turbo-like codes

Generally, the major part of communication systems use Turbo Codes (TC) and/or Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes to protect the data to transmit (e.g. 3GPP-LTE, IEEE 802.11p, IEEE 802.16, etc). Given that these coding strategies share similarities (e.g. two stage iterative decoding, Log-Likelihood Ratio based, etc.) in their respective encoding and decoding parts it is possible to express one code in terms of the other one. However, this conversion has some constraints, which have been formulated in this paper for different structures of convolutional codes. If these constraints are fulfilled the Bit Error Rate (BER) of Turbo Code using Believe Propagation (BP) decoding is quite similar to that offers the Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv (BCJR) decoding.
Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells TRAIL-Mediated Cytotoxic Activity of Virus or TLR Agonists Induce

Among dendritic cells, plasmacytoid dendritic cells (PDC) represent a functionally distinct lineage. Regarding innate immunity, PDC secrete large amounts of type I IFN upon viral exposure or stimulation by microbial products such as unmethylated CpG-motif containing oligo-DNA due to their selective expression of TLR7 and TLR9. We asked whether they could acquire cytotoxic functions during the early phases of infection or after activation with TLR7 or TLR9 agonists. In the present study, we describe a human PDC cell line called GEN2.2, derived from leukemic PDC, that shares most of the phenotypic and functional features of normal PDC. We show that after contact with the inﬂuenza virus, GEN2.2, as well as normal PDC, acquires TRAIL and killer activity against TRAIL-sensitive target cells. Moreover, we show that activation of GEN2.2 cells by CpG-motif containing oligo-DNA or R848 also induces TRAIL and endows them with the ability to kill melanoma cells. Therefore, PDC may represent a major component of innate immunity that could participate to the clearance of infected cells and tumor cells. This phenomenon could be relevant for the efﬁcacy of TLR7 or TLR9 agonists in the therapy of infectious disease and cancer. The Journal of Immunology, 2006, 176: 248–255.
COMBINING VOCAL TRACT LENGTH NORMALIZATION WITH LINEAR TRANSFORMATIONS IN A BAYESIAN FRAMEWORK

Recent research has demonstrated the effectiveness of vocal tract length normalization (VTLN) as a rapid adaptation technique for statistical parametric speech synthesis. VTLN produces speech with naturalness preferable to that of MLLR- based adaptation techniques, being much closer in quality to that generated by the original average voice model. By contrast, with just a single parameter, VTLN captures very few speaker specific characteristics when compared to the available linear transform based adaptation techniques. This paper proposes that the merits of VTLN can be combined with those of linear transform based adaptation technique in a Bayesian framework, where VTLN is used as the prior information. A novel technique of propa- gating the gender information from the VTLN prior through constrained structural maximum a posteriori linear regression (CSMAPLR) adaptation is presented. Experiments show that the resulting transformation has improved speech quality with better naturalness, intelligibility and improved speaker similarity.
Dynamic response of maximum power point tracking using particle swarm optimization for wind energy conversion system

During this time, the main source of electrical energy derived from fossil energy sources, which is at present the number continues to decrease and become more limited. Therefore, it is necessary to find alternative sources of energy produced by natural processes so it will not run out or quickly reversed if managed properly. In other words, alternative energy sources must be a renewable energy. Some renewable energy sources are now being developed, among others, wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, and others. Among the renewable energy sources, in Indonesia, wind energy is the energy source with smallest utilization rate, which only amounted to 3.07 MW or approximately 0.03% potential. This study uses maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm with particle swarm optimization (PSO) to optimize the power output of the wind turbine system at a varying wind speed. The simulation results showed that PSO-based MPPT can increase the efficiency of wind turbine system and give a good response to the wind speed changes.
A new model of information behaviour based on the Search Situation Transition schema

This paper presents a conceptual model of information behaviour. The model is part of the Search Situation Transition method schema. The method schema is developed to discover and analyse interplay between phenomena traditionally analysed as factors influencing either information retrieval or information seeking. In this paper the focus is on the model's five main categories: the work task, the searcher, the social/organisational environment, the search task, and the search process. In particular, the search process and its sub-categories search situation and transition and the relationship between these are discussed. To justify the method schema an empirical study was designed according to the schema's specifications. In the paper a subset of the study is presented analysing the effects of work tasks on Web information searching. Findings from this small-scale study indicate a strong relationship between the work task goal and the level of relevance used for judging resources during search processes.
Essays on Issues in New Product Introduction: Product Rollovers, Information Provision, and Return Policies

Title of dissertation: ESSAYS ON ISSUES IN NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTION: PRODUCT ROLLOVERS, INFORMATION PROVISION, AND RETURN POLICIES Eylem Koca, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Dissertation directed by: Prof. Gilvan C. Souza Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington Prof. Yi Xu R. H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park In this dissertation we study several key issues faced by firms while introducing new products to market. The first essay looks at product rollovers: introduction of a new product generation while phasing out the old one. We study the strategic decision of dual vs. single roll jointly with operational decisions of inventory and pricing during this transitional period. Our results confirm previous findings and uncover the role and interaction of several parameters that were not examined before. In the second essay, we investigate the role of information provision and return policies in the consumer purchasing behavior and on the overall market outcome. We build a novel model of consumer learning, and we attain significant analytical findings without making any distributional assumptions. We then fully study the joint optimization problem analytically under uniform valuations. In the third essay, we study competition in the framework described in the second essay and we identify the potential Nash equilibria and associated conditions. Our findings demonstrate the effect of competition on return policy and information provision decisions and provide insight on some real-life observations. ESSAYS ON ISSUES IN NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTION: PRODUCT ROLLOVERS, INFORMATION PROVISION, AND RETURN POLICIES
Association between GIS-Based Exposure to Urban Air Pollution during Pregnancy and Birth Weight in the INMA Sabadell Cohort

Background There is growing evidence that traffic-related air pollution reduces birth weight. Improving exposure assessment is a key issue to advance in this research area. Objective We investigated the effect of prenatal exposure to traffic-related air pollution via geographic information system (GIS) models on birth weight in 570 newborns from the INMA (Environment and Childhood) Sabadell cohort. Methods We estimated pregnancy and trimester-specific exposures to nitrogen dioxide and aromatic hydrocarbons [benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, m/p-xylene, and o-xylene (BTEX)] by using temporally adjusted land-use regression (LUR) models. We built models for NO2 and BTEX using four and three 1-week measurement campaigns, respectively, at 57 locations. We assessed the relationship between prenatal air pollution exposure and birth weight with linear regression models. We performed sensitivity analyses considering time spent at home and time spent in nonresidential outdoor environments during pregnancy. Results In the overall cohort, neither NO2 nor BTEX exposure was significantly associated with birth weight in any of the exposure periods. When considering only women who spent < 2 hr/day in nonresidential outdoor environments, the estimated reductions in birth weight associated with an interquartile range increase in BTEX exposure levels were 77 g [95% confidence interval (CI), 7–146 g] and 102 g (95% CI, 28–176 g) for exposures during the whole pregnancy and the second trimester, respectively. The effects of NO2 exposure were less clear in this subset. Conclusions The association of BTEX with reduced birth weight underscores the negative role of vehicle exhaust pollutants in reproductive health. Time–activity patterns during pregnancy complement GIS-based models in exposure assessment.
ZSTK474, a specific class I phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitor, induces G1 arrest and autophagy in human breast cancer MCF-7 cells

Multifaceted activities of class I phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor ZSTK474 were investigated on human breast cancer cell MCF-7. ZSTK474 inhibited proliferation of MCF-7 cells potently. Flow cytometric analysis indicated that ZSTK474 induced cell cycle arrest at G1 phase, but no obvious apoptosis occurred. Western blot analysis suggested that blockade of PI3K/Akt/GSK-3β/cyclin D1/p-Rb pathway might contribute to the G1 arrest induced. Moreover, we demonstrated that ZSTK474 induced autophagy in MCF-7 cells by use of various assays including monodansylcadaverine (MDC) staining, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), tandem mRFP-GFP-LC3 fluorescence microscopy, and western blot detection of the autophagy protein markers of LC3B II, p62 and Atg 5. Inhibition of class I PI3K and the downstream mTOR might be involved in the autophagy-inducing effect. Combinational use of ZSTK474 and autophagy inhibitors enhanced cell viability, suggesting ZSTK474-induced autophagy might contribute to the antitumor activity. Our report supports the application of ZSTK474, which is being evaluated in clinical trials, for breast cancer therapy.
Planar-Based Multispectral Stereo by

This paper presents a framework for extracting dense disparity maps from a multispectral stereo head. It is based on the assumption of a piecewise planar scene modeling. This assumption implies that the surfaces of the given scene can be fitted through a set of predominant planes. The multispectral stereo head is constructed with a thermal infrared and a color camera. It is intended to explore novel stereo matching approaches that will allow the fusion of information from different sensors. The proposed framework consists of three stages. Firstly, an initial sparse disparity map is extracted by using an adapted multimodal cost function. Then, a set of plane hypotheses that describe the surfaces of the scene is obtained. Finally, the information collected in pervious stages is combined through a Markov Random Field, which is solved by the graph-cuts algorithm. Experimental results in outdoor scenarios are provided showing the validity of the proposed framework.
Non-cognitive Ability, College Learning, and Student Retention

Abstract:There has been a steady increase in college enrollment rates in recent decades, which has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in graduation rates. If this discrepancy is partly due to insufficient effort exerted by students, policies that aim at rewarding effort explicitly may succeed in increasing graduation rates. A unique and rich administrative dataset was used to analyze the impact of a new grading policy at Benedict College, a private historically Black college, on the college’s performance and retention rates. The introduction of this policy was followed by an increase in students’ cumulative grade point averages, but also by decreases in retention rates and predictive power of cognitive ability measures.
Efficient Homotopy Method for Total Variation Image Registration

The so-called image registration is to find an optimal spatial transformation such that the transformed template image becomes similar to the reference image as much as possible. Several partial differential equations (PDEs) based variational methods can be used for deformable image registration, mainly differing in how regularization for deformation fields[1]. Regularization techniques based on total variation (TV) preserving discontinuities of the deformation field are useful to a class of problems where smoothness is less a concern. A previous study by C. Frohn-Schauf, S. Henn [2, 3] considered multigrid method and the sequential quadratic approximation on total variation based image registration. On one hand, although the approximation solutions obtained from C. Frohn-Schauf, S. Henn [2, 3] are visually pleasing, they may not fulfill the necessary condition for being a minimiser of the variational problem (4), we can refer to [12, P660]. On the other hand, when the smoothing parameter β is very small, the corresponding Euler-Lagrange equation (EL)is very difficult to solve. In this paper, we propose a homotopy method to solve the resulting TV based EL equation and consider using curve tracking to select smoothing parameter β adaptively. Numerical experiments confirms that our proposed method can effectively find a highly accurate solution and produce excellent image registration results in terms of image quality.