Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electro-hydrostatic actuators with Series Dissipative property and their application to power assist devices

The actuators used in wearable robots must behave compliant. This, however, is not easy mainly due to two reasons: lack of force measurement capability and lack of backdrivability. Both of above needs to be realized, but the latter issue lies in the actuation principle of conventional robot actuators. We have been investigating in the electro-hydrostatic actuators to realize backdrivability by minimizing friction due to the reduction. Still, the way to design actuator, considering backdrivability, including the one due to the internal leakage, was an open problem. We introduced the actuator model “Series Dissipative Actuator” to explain the actuator behavior. This model enables us to understand the roll of internal leakage in the hydraulic system and it shows the design guideline considering the backdrivability. In this paper, we show the method to apply SDA (Series Dissipative Actuator)concept on EHAs (Electro-Hydrostatic Actuators). Development of the actuator prototype targeted for use in lower limb is also presented and preliminary results in backdrivability evaluation is performed.
Autonomous link spam detection in purely collaborative environments

Collaborative models (e.g., wikis) are an increasingly prevalent Web technology. However, the open-access that defines such systems can also be utilized for nefarious purposes. In particular, this paper examines the use of collaborative functionality to add inappropriate hyperlinks to destinations outside the host environment (i.e., link spam). The collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is the basis for our analysis. Recent research has exposed vulnerabilities in Wikipedia's link spam mitigation, finding that human editors are latent and dwindling in quantity. To this end, we propose and develop an autonomous classifier for link additions. Such a system presents unique challenges. For example, low barriers-to-entry invite a diversity of spam types, not just those with economic motivations. Moreover, issues can arise with how a link is presented (regardless of the destination). In this work, a spam corpus is extracted from over 235,000 link additions to English Wikipedia. From this, 40+ features are codified and analyzed. These indicators are computed using wiki metadata, landing site analysis, and external data sources. The resulting classifier attains 64% recall at 0.5% false-positives (ROC-AUC= 0.97). Such performance could enable egregious link additions to be blocked automatically with low false-positive rates, while prioritizing the remainder for human inspection. Finally, a live Wikipedia implementation of the technique has been developed.
Fast Algorithms for Proximity Search on Large Graphs Purnamrita

The main focus of this proposal is on understanding and analyzing entity relationships in large social networks. The broad range of applications of graph based learning problems includes collaborative filtering in recommender networks, link prediction in social networks (e.g. predicting future links from the current snapshot of a graph), fraud detection and personalized graph search. In all these real world problems the main question is: given a node, which other nodes are similar to it? We use proximity measures based on short term random walks, namely truncated hitting and commute times, to compute approximate nearest neighbors in large graphs. We show that these measures are local in nature, and we design algorithms which adaptively find the right neighborhood containing the potential nearest neighbors of a query node and prune away the rest of the graph. In order to achieve this we combine sampling with deterministic branch and bound techniques to retrieve top k neighbors of a query. This enables one to do local search without caching information about all nodes in the graph. Our algorithms can answer nearest neighbor queries on keyword-author-citation graphs from Citeseer of size 600, 000 nodes in 3 seconds on average on a single CPU machine. We have shown that on several link prediction tasks on real world datasets these measures outperform other popular proximity measures (e.g. personalized pagerank) in terms of predictive power. In this thesis we propose to analyze the short-term behavior of random walks to improve upon our algorithm, investigate other graph-based proximity measures, and apply these algorithms on real-world tasks such as semi-supervised learning, information retrieval, recommender networks, and a meta-learning approach for link prediction.
Eye-Tracking Experiments in Social and Environmental Accounting Research

ABSTRACT In this article, we demonstrate the relevance of eye-tracking experiments in social and environmental accounting (SEA) research. Up to now, this type of design has been used in some areas within accounting research, but SEA has been neglected. If one is to adopt a user perspective [Merkl-Davies, D. M. , and N. M. Brennan. 2007. “Discretionary Disclosure Strategies in Corporate Narratives: Incremental Information or Impression Management? ” Journal of Accounting Literature 27: 116–196; 2011. “A Conceptual Framework of Impression Management: New Insights from Psychology, Sociology and Critical Perspectives. ” Accounting and Business Research 41 (5): 415–437], the investigation and the understanding of the way social and environmental information affects user perceptions and decisions requires, among other tools, the use of eye-tracking setups. We discuss the need for eye-tracking experiments in SEA research and provide some preliminary evidence on their usefulness by conducting an illustrative experiment.
Simulation of Auxiliary Boiler Subsystem in Marine Engine Room Simulator Based on VC++6.0

Firstly, we adopt PROSIMS, the simulative sustainable system, to set up mathematical models of the drum system, fuel system, feed water system and steam system. Secondly, the operation interface is available by using VC++6.0. Then,the data communication between the simulating model and operation interface is established by means of the internet technology, which contributes much to the success of the simulation of auxiliary boiler subsystem in marine engine room simulator with the feature of human computer interface and friendly interface. Finally, the comparison between the results from the simulating model and the practical parameters proves that the precision of simulation meets the demands. This research offers the chance to study structure and working principle of auxiliary boiler. Additionally, it can simulate every practical function of boiler and set simulative troubles and then analyze and resolve them.
Thermal image fusion

The goal of the project is to compile a single picture from a series of shots made by a thermal camera. The reason for that is on the assembled picture it is much easier to examine the workspace important for the user. Because the initial series is shot by the same kind of camera, the traditional four phases can be used for the fusion: detection of feature points; matching of feature points; transformation model determination and creation; and finally the transformed sensed image inserted into the reference image using averaging. However, during the matching and the creation of the transformation model we need to take into account that these pictures are shot by non-traditional cameras, so their attributes would be somewhat different from the usual. The system is semiautomatic, and its efficiency is tested both indoors and outdoors.
Fitness workout for fat interfaces: Be slim, clean, and flexible

A class that provides a fat interface violates the interface segregation principle, which states that the clients of the class should not be coupled with methods that they do not need. Coping with this problem involves extracting interfaces that satisfy the needs of the clients. In this paper, we envision an interface extraction method that serves a combination of four principles: (1) fitness, as the extracted interfaces have to fit the needs of the clients, (2) clarity, as the interfaces should not be cluttered with duplicated methods declarations due to the clients' similar needs, (3) flexibility, as it should be easy to maintain the extracted interfaces to cope with client changes, without affecting parts of the software that are not concerned by the changes, and (4) practicality, as the interface extraction should account for practical issues like the number of extracted interfaces, domain/developer specific constraints on what to include in the interfaces, etc. Our preliminary results show that it is feasible to extract interfaces by respecting the aforementioned principles. Moreover, our results reveal a number of open issues around the trading between fitness, clarity, flexibility and practicality.
Avicin D, a Plant Triterpenoid, Induces Cell Apoptosis by Recruitment of Fas and Downstream Signaling Molecules into Lipid Rafts

Avicins, a family of triterpene electrophiles originally identified as potent inhibitors of tumor cell growth, have been shown to be pleiotropic compounds that also possess antioxidant, anti-mutagenic, and anti-inflammatory activities. We previously showed that Jurkat cells, which express a high level of Fas, are very sensitive to treatment with avicins. Thus, we hypothesized that avicins may induce cell apoptosis by activation of the Fas pathway. By using a series of cell lines deficient in cell death receptors, we demonstrated that upon avicin D treatment, Fas translocates to the cholesterol- and sphingolipid-enriched membrane microdomains known as lipid rafts. In the lipid rafts, Fas interacts with Fas-associated death domain (FADD) and Caspase-8 to form death-inducing signaling complex (DISC) and thus mediates cell apoptosis. Interfering with lipid raft organization by using a cholesterol-depleting compound, methyl-β-cyclodextrin, not only prevents the clustering of Fas and its DISC complex but also reduces the sensitivity of the cells to avicin D. Avicin D activates Fas pathways independent of the association between extracellular Fas ligands and Fas receptors. A deficiency in Fas and its downstream signaling molecules leads to the resistance of the cells to avicin D treatment. Taken together, our results demonstrate that avicin D triggers the redistribution of Fas in the membrane lipid rafts, where Fas activates receptor-mediated cell death.
Evaluation of Parallel Coordinates for Interactive Alarm Filtering

Alarm management is a crucial part of many industrial systems used in generation, transmission and distribution of electric power as well as in production processes, for example in steel mills and oil refineries. Filtering of important alarms from unessential alarms is a critical task for operators of such systems, since failures may result in severe abnormal situations such as plant shutdowns. Currently, alarm filtering tasks are performed with alarm lists that offer limited interactivity. We evaluated an application of Parallel Coordinates for interactive filtering of alarm data by comparing its user performance against typical alarm lists. Statistical results demonstrate marginally significant evidence (p
A Generic Anaphora Resolution Engine for Indian Languages

In this paper, we present a generic anaphora engine for Indian languages, wh ich are mostly resource poor languages. We have analysed the similarit ies and variations between pronouns and their agreement with antecedents in Indian languages. The generic algorithm developed uses the morphological richness of Indian languages. The machine learn ing approach uses the features which c an handle major Indian languages. We have tested the system with Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages namely Bengali, Hindi and Tamil. The results are encouraging.
Cross sectional efficient estimation of stochastic volatility short rate models

We consider the problem of estimation of term structure of interest rates. Filtering theory approach is very natural here with the underlying setup being non-linear and non-Gaussian. Earlier works make use of Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). However, the EKF in this situation leads to inconsistent estimation of parameters, though without high bias. One way to avoid this is to use methods like Efficient Method of Moments or Indirect Inference Method. These methods, however, are numerically very demanding. We use Kitagawa type scheme for nonlinear filtering problem, which solves the inconsistency problem without being numerically so demanding.
Bounds and Constructions of Locally Repairable Codes: Parity-Check Matrix Approach

A locally repairable code (LRC) is a linear code such that every code symbol can be recovered by accessing a small number of other code symbols. In this paper, we study bounds and constructions of LRCs from the viewpoint of parity-check matrices. Firstly, a simple and unified framework based on parity-check matrix to analyze the bounds of LRCs is proposed, and several new explicit bounds on the minimum distance of LRCs in terms of the field size are presented. In particular, we give an alternate proof of the Singleton-like bound for LRCs first proved by Gopalan et al. Some structural properties on optimal LRCs that achieve the Singleton-like bound are given. Then, we focus on constructions of optimal LRCs over the binary field. It is proved that there are only five classes of possible parameters with which optimal binary LRCs exist. Moreover, by employing the proposed parity-check matrix approach, we completely enumerate all these five classes of optimal binary LRCs attaining the Singleton-like bound in the sense of equivalence of linear codes.
Automatic Visualization Pipeline Formation for Medical Datasets on Grid Computing Environment

Distance visualization of large datasets often takes the direction of remote viewing and zooming techniques of stored static images. However, the continuous increase in the size of datasets and visualization operation causes insufficient performance with traditional desktop computers. Additionally, the visualization techniques such as Isosurface depend on the available resources of the running machine and the size of datasets. Moreover, the continuous demand for powerful computing powers and continuous increase in the size of datasets results an urgent need for a grid computing infrastructure. However, some issues arise in current grid such as resources availability at the client machines which are not sufficient enough to process large datasets. On top of that, different output devices and different network bandwidth between the visualization pipeline components often result output suitable for one machine and not suitable for another. In this paper we investigate how the grid services could be used to support remote visualization of large datasets and to break the constraint of physical co-location of the resources by applying the grid computing technologies. We show our grid enabled architecture to visualize large medical datasets (circa 5 million polygons) for remote interactive visualization on modest resources clients.
Multiprocessor Checking Using Watchdog Processors

A new control flow checking scheme is presented, based on assigned-signature checking using a watchdog processor. This scheme is suitable for a multitasking, multiprocessor environment. The hardware overhead is comparatively low because of three reasons: first, hierarchically structured, the scheme uses only a single watchdog processor to monitor multiple processes on multiple processors. Second, as an assigned-signature scheme, it does not require monitoring the instruction bus of the processors. Third, the run-time and reference signatures are embedded into the checked program; thus, in the watchdog processor neither a reference database nor a time-consuming search and compare engine is required.
The interface between young adults' religious values and their sexual experiences before age 16

The interface between religious upbringing and sexuality has been examined extensively in previous research, demonstrating that religious doctrine affects sexual behaviour and identity in a multitude of ways (Dahl & Galliher, 2012; Rostosky, Wilcox, Wright, & Randall, 2004). However, because most of the evidence comes from quantitative survey research, it has been difficult to understand how individuals perceive the links between religious influences and their sexual experiences and identities. The current study used semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 50 Canadian university students who had reported engaging in sexual experiences before the age of 16 to broadly assess these early experiences. A prominent theme emerged in 13 participants' interviews regarding how religious values were perceived to play a role in their understanding of their sexual experiences before age 16. These participants generally reported experiencing emotions, such as guilt and fear, as a result of discrepancies between religious values and their own sexual experiences. Our findings also illustrate how participants dealt with such discrepancies, namely by disengaging from their identified religions, incorporating certain teachings and rejecting others, or pursuing religion for support. Implications for how individuals should manage the interplay between religion and sexuality as well as for how professionals and caregivers should help address such discrepancies are discussed.
Geographical information retrieval system using semantic relationships between multiple layers

Current geographical information retrieval systems provide users with keyword-based searching capabilities. Users select a layer, input keywords which they want to search, then the retrieval system returns the matching features to users through a map interface. In such a system, each layer only serves as an independent representation for a group of geographical features, manages them physically, and no semantics are counted. Therefore, the problems of semantic heterogeneity caused by localized language and the ambiguity of natural language make that approach insufficient to satisfy the high quality retrieval requirement. In this research, we propose a method to add semantic capabilities to these systems by defining the semantic relationships between multiple layers on the map. Ontologies are utilized for describing the terms in the domain; each layer is set to belong to one or more terms in the Ontology, and their semantic relationships such as synonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, and sibling are defined through the relationships between the terms. The architecture for Ontology-based Geographical Information Retrieval System (OGIRS) is provided, then an Ontology-based City Map Guide (OntoCMG) prototype system based on our architecture is introduced. The experimental result shows the system supporting semantic geographical information retrieval, it can retrieval the maps that match the retrieval terms on semantic, and improve the retrieval quality.
Similarity quantization: Compressed sensing application

In this paper, a similarity vector, which can be used to estimate the level of the background clutter, between the target image and the background image is obtained by taking advantage of the theories of the compressed sensing. And the similarity vector, in the future, can be applied to develop a clutter metric based on target features, so that we can predict the target acquisition performance without a great deal of priori knowledge about the target image to be detected. Moreover, the experiment results demonstrate its feasibility on the search_2 database.
Comparison of Methods for Quantification of Global DNA Methylation in Human Cells and Tissues

DNA methylation is a key epigenetic modification which, in mammals, occurs mainly at CpG dinucleotides. Most of the CpG methylation in the genome is found in repetitive regions, rich in dormant transposons and endogenous retroviruses. Global DNA hypomethylation, which is a common feature of several conditions such as ageing and cancer, can cause the undesirable activation of dormant repeat elements and lead to altered expression of associated genes. DNA hypomethylation can cause genomic instability and may contribute to mutations and chromosomal recombinations. Various approaches for quantification of global DNA methylation are widely used. Several of these approaches measure a surrogate for total genomic methyl cytosine and there is uncertainty about the comparability of these methods. Here we have applied 3 different approaches (luminometric methylation assay, pyrosequencing of the methylation status of the Alu repeat element and of the LINE1 repeat element) for estimating global DNA methylation in the same human cell and tissue samples and have compared these estimates with the “gold standard” of methyl cytosine quantification by HPLC. Next to HPLC, the LINE1 approach shows the smallest variation between samples, followed by Alu. Pearson correlations and Bland-Altman analyses confirmed that global DNA methylation estimates obtained via the LINE1 approach corresponded best with HPLC-based measurements. Although, we did not find compelling evidence that the gold standard measurement by HPLC could be substituted with confidence by any of the surrogate assays for detecting global DNA methylation investigated here, the LINE1 assay seems likely to be an acceptable surrogate in many cases.
Logic-based reasoning support for SBVR

Automated support to enterprise modeling has increasingly become a subject of interest for organizations seeking solutions for storage, distribution and analysis of knowledge about business processes. This interest has recently resulted in approving the standard for specifying Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules SBVR. Despite the existence of formally grounded notations, up to now SBVR still lacks a sound and consistent logical formalization which would allow developing automated solutions able to check the consistency of a set of business rules. This work reports on the attempt to provide logical foundations for SBVR by the means of defining a specific first-order deontic-alethic logic FODAL. The connections of FODAL with the modal logic QK and the description logic ALCQI have been investigated and, on top of the obtained theoretical results, a special tool providing automated support for consistency checks of a set of ALCQI-expressible deontic and alethic business rules has been implemented.
The branching nerve of HDA and the Kan condition

One can associate to any strict globular ω-category three augmented sim- plicial nerves called the globular nerve, the branching and the merging semi-cubical nerves. If this strict globular ω-category is freely generated by a precubical set, then the corresponding homology theories contain different informations about the geometry of the higher dimensional automaton modeled by the precubical set. Adding inverses in this ω-category to any morphism of dimension greater than 2 and with respect to any composition laws of dimension greater than 1 does not change these homology theories. In such a framework, the globular nerve always satisfies the Kan condition. On the other hand, both branching and merging nerves never satisfy it, except in some very particular and uninteresting situations. In this paper, we introduce two new nerves (the branching and merging semi-globular nerves) satisfying the Kan condition and having conjecturally the same simplicial homology as the branching and merging semi-cubical nerves respec- tively in such framework. The latter conjecture is related to the thin elements conjecture already introduced in our previous papers.