Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integral Approach for Reproduction of Virtual Sound Source Surrounded by Loudspeaker Array

A method for reproducing a desired sound field by using an array of loudspeakers is proposed. A virtual sound source that generates the desired sound field can be located at either the outside or inside a loudspeaker array; however, a complete reproduction of the virtual source located inside the array is physically not possible because the sound field from the internal virtual source should satisfy the inhomogeneous wave equation. When time reversal is used for removing such inhomogeneity, convergent waves toward the location of the virtual source always exist. The removal of these artifacts is an objective of our study. Most of the theoretical forms for the suppression of artifacts have been derived from the approximated Kirchhoff-Helmholtz integral incorporating a curved or line array. In this paper, we aim to develop a method based on a complete three-dimensional integral formula, which does not require an inversion of sound fields. Using the formula, we can directly predict the behavior of artifacts and design the excitation of the loudspeakers that effectively suppresses the artifacts. This paper also highlights a single-layer formula that only incorporates monopole arrays for the reproduction of the virtual source inside them.
Sliding mode boundary control of unstable parabolic PDE systems with parameter variations and matched disturbances

This paper considers the stabilization problem of a one-dimensional unstable heat conduction system subject to parametric variations and boundary uncertainties. This system is modeled as a parabolic partial differential equation (PDE) and is only powered from one boundary with a Dirichlet type of actuator. By taking the Volterra integral transformation, we obtain a nominal PDE with asymptotic stability characteristics in the new coordinates when an appropriate boundary control input is applied. The associated Lyapunov function can then be used for designing an infinite-dimensional sliding surface, on which the system exhibits exponential stability, invariant of the bounded matched disturbance, and is robust against certain types of parameter variations. A continuous variable structure boundary control law is employed to attain the sliding mode on the sliding surface. The proposed method can be extended to other parabolic PDE systems such as diffusion-advection system. Simulation results are demonstrated and compared with the other outstanding back-stepping control schemes.
Entity linking based on the co-occurrence graph and entity probability

This paper describes our system for the Entity Recognition and Disambiguation Challenge 2014. There are two tasks: one to find entities in queries (Short Track), the other to find entities in texts from web pages (Long Track). We have participated in both tracks with the same system tuned to each of the tasks. On the final test set, we reached the f-measure of 71.9% on the Long Track and of 66.9% on the Short Track. We describe our system and its components in depth, together with their influence on performance. The specifics of each of the tasks are also discussed.
Stochastic Simulations of Pattern Formation in Excitable Media

We present a method for mesoscopic, dynamic Monte Carlo simulations of pattern formation in excitable reaction–diffusion systems. Using a two-level parallelization approach, our simulations cover the whole range of the parameter space, from the noise-dominated low-particle number regime to the quasi-deterministic high-particle number limit. Three qualitatively different case studies are performed that stand exemplary for the wide variety of excitable systems. We present mesoscopic stochastic simulations of the Gray-Scott model, of a simplified model for intracellular Ca oscillations and, for the first time, of the Oregonator model. We achieve simulations with up to particles. The software and the model files are freely available and researchers can use the models to reproduce our results or adapt and refine them for further exploration.
The tissue microarray data exchange specification: Extending TMA DES to provide flexible scoring and incorporate virtual slides

Background: Tissue MicroArrays (TMAs) are a high throughput technology for rapid analysis of protein expression across hundreds of patient samples. Often, data relating to TMAs is specific to the clinical trial or experiment it is being used for, and not interoperable. The Tissue Microarray Data Exchange Specification (TMA DES) is a set of eXtensible Markup Language (XML)-based protocols for storing and sharing digitized Tissue Microarray data. XML data are enclosed by named tags which serve as identifiers. These tag names can be Common Data Elements (CDEs), which have a predefined meaning or semantics. By using this specification in a laboratory setting with increasing demands for digital pathology integration, we found that the data structure lacked the ability to cope with digital slide imaging in respect to web-enabled digital pathology systems and advanced scoring techniques. Materials and Methods: By employing user centric design, and observing behavior in relation to TMA scoring and associated data, the TMA DES format was extended to accommodate the current limitations. This was done with specific focus on developing a generic tool for handling any given scoring system, and utilizing data for multiple observations and observers. Results: DTDs were created to validate the extensions of the TMA DES protocol, and a test set of data containing scores for 6,708 TMA core images was generated. The XML was then read into an image processing algorithm to utilize the digital pathology data extensions, and scoring results were easily stored alongside the existing multiple pathologist scores. Conclusions: By extending the TMA DES format to include digital pathology data and customizable scoring systems for TMAs, the new system facilitates the collaboration between pathologists and organizations, and can be used in automatic or manual data analysis. This allows complying systems to effectively communicate complex and varied scoring data.
Increasing influence of heat stress on French maize yields from the 1960s to the 2030s

Improved crop yield forecasts could enable more effective adaptation to climate variability and change. Here, we explore how to combine historical observations of crop yields and weather with climate model simulations to produce crop yield projections for decision relevant timescales. Firstly, the effects on historical crop yields of improved technology, precipitation and daily maximum temperatures are modelled empirically, accounting for a nonlinear technology trend and interactions between temperature and precipitation, and applied specifically for a case study of maize in France. The relative importance of precipitation variability for maize yields in France has decreased significantly since the 1960s, likely due to increased irrigation. In addition, heat stress is found to be as important for yield as precipitation since around 2000. A significant reduction in maize yield is found for each day with a maximum temperature above 32 °C, in broad agreement with previous estimates. The recent increase in such hot days has likely contributed to the observed yield stagnation. Furthermore, a general method for producing near‐term crop yield projections, based on climate model simulations, is developed and utilized. We use projections of future daily maximum temperatures to assess the likely change in yields due to variations in climate. Importantly, we calibrate the climate model projections using observed data to ensure both reliable temperature mean and daily variability characteristics, and demonstrate that these methods work using retrospective predictions. We conclude that, to offset the projected increased daily maximum temperatures over France, improved technology will need to increase base level yields by 12% to be confident about maintaining current levels of yield for the period 2016–2035; the current rate of yield technology increase is not sufficient to meet this target.
Arm Motion Gesture Recognition using Dynamic Movement Primitives and Gaussian Mixture Models

—In collaborative interaction scenarios between a human and a robot, The robot’s ability to recognize the movement gestures of a human is crucial to understanding the underlying intent. Gestures are particularly useful if there is some mapping (constant, time-varying, or task-dependent) between the gesture and the desired intention. As an effort towards recognizing movement gestures better, this work focuses on modeling human static, discrete, and rhythmic gestures as the forcing function of a discrete Dynamic Movement Primitive (DMP). In particular, the gestures are the gaussian basis weights that approximate the forcing function. It was found that a supervised Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) classifer can recognize static and discrete gestures with high accuracy. Additionally, accuracy classiﬁcation is still possible even when two discrete gestures are linear, a condition often avoided by other movement primitive recognition studies. Results also show that the GMM can also classify rhythmic gestures with only the discrete DMP formulation, while still performing much better than randomized guessing. For all types of classiﬁcation recognition, it was also found that the classiﬁer’s bias-variance trade-off performance is sensitive to the number of basis weights used. The sensitivity ﬁnding is important as other movement primitive gesture recognition studies ignore tuning the number of basis weights, which can signiﬁcantly improve or reduce performance.
Special Education for Language Minority Students.

Dunn's article focused attention on the criteria used for classifying children as handicapped and on the services provided as a result of such classification. The merits of his arguments have been discussed elsewhere (MacMillan, 1971, 1982). It is not surprising that soon thereafter parents of Spanish-speaking students in California were able to obtain a consent decree requiring bilingual children to be tested in their native language. 1 Besides the language issue, the content of the intelligence tests themselves was challenged as being culturally biased. 2 The consent decree issued as part of the original Larry P. case required reevaluation and, if appropriate, decertification of EMR students who did not meet new state guidelines. In practice, decertification was effected if a student's IQ was higher than 70 (Meyers, MacMillan, & Yoshida, 1978). Although the numbers of EMR students declined over 50%, the proportions of minority studentsblacks and Hispanics-did not. Similar enrollment trends have been noted for minority students in learning disabled (LD) classes (Ortiz & Yates, 1981; Tucker, 1980).
TopDraw: a sketchpad for protein structure topology cartoons

SUMMARY Protein topology cartoons are a representation of structural data commonly used by structural biologists to illustrate the relationship between one-dimensional sequence and three-dimensional structural data in a convenient two-dimensional format. TopDraw is a simple, freely available TCL/Tk based drawing program designed specifically for the production of publication quality topology cartoons in a style commonly presented by structural biologists. AVAILABILITY TopDraw is freely available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It can be downloaded from http://stein.bioch. dundee.ac. uk/~charlie/scripts/topdraw.html.
D-brane - Anti-D-brane Forces in Plane Wave Backgrounds: A Fall From Grace

We study the nature of the force between a D–brane and an anti-D–brane in the maximally supersymmetric plane wave background of type IIB superstring theory, which is equipped with a mass parameter μ. An early such study in flat spacetime (μ = 0) served to sharpen intuition about D–brane interactions, showing in particular the key role of the “stringy halo” that surrounds a D–brane. The halo marks the edge of the region within which tachyon condensation occurs, opening a gateway to new non–trivial vacua of the theory. It seems pertinent to study the fate of the halo for non–zero μ. Focusing on the simplest cases of p = ±1, we find here that for branes located at the origin, the radius of the halo shrinks for increasing μ. For branes away from the origin, this shrinking persists, and is accompanied by a shift of the centre of the halo away from the D–brane. In fact, we observe that for large enough μ, or beyond a critical distance from the origin, D– branes can lose their halo entirely! We suspect that the consequences of this physics for key notions about the dynamics, stability and classification of D–branes (such as tachyon condensation, K–theory, etc.,) may well be quite significant.
Self-Determination Theory and Education : an Overview

This paper surveys the theory of motivation known as Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and its application to education. The first half of the paper gives a general overview of the theory itself, starting with its basic assumptions about human development, and then proceeding to explain the four sub-theories which together comprise it. The remainder of the paper then describes how the theory has been applied to education. First it presents some general implications of SDT for learning and education. This is followed by an overview of the main methods and results of SDT research and how this research has supported and further elaborated the theory. In this regard, some educational strategies to foster student motivation that have been proposed by SDT proponents are also described. The paper concludes with a few implications of SDT for the educational goals and practices of the Konan University Institute for Languages and Culture.
Digital Forensic Analysis of E-Mails: A Trusted E-Mail Protocol

E-mail has revolutionized business, academic, and personal communication The advantages of e-mail include speedy delivery, ease of communication, cost effectiveness, geographical independence, and the portability of mailboxes. The last two are the biggest advantages over snail mail. However, with e-mail comes the threat of a genuine user being compromised through key loggers, social engineering, shoulder surfing, password guessing and other similar, though less technical, methods. This passive espionage can have a direct impact on the genuine user in terms of denial of information, loss of money, loss of time, mental harassment and an attack of personal privacy. To enable digital forensic analysis of e-mails, we propose behavioral biometric based authentication, which is analogous to a signature in paper documents. In the proposed system, if someone other than a genuine user tries to authenticate himself, then detection and fixing is possible.
Pilot Study of the Efficacy of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy for Infants and Toddlers with Cerebral Palsy

ABSTRACT The evidence for Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) effectiveness for infants and toddlers with unilateral cerebral palsy is minimal. We performed a pilot study of CIMT using one-month usual care, one-month intervention, and one-month maintenance (return to usual care) phases on five infants (7- to 18-month old). For the CIMT phase, the infants received 2 hr of occupational therapy and 1 hr of parent-implemented home program for five days/week. The infants were casted for the first 23 days, and bimanual therapy was provided for the last three days. Fine motor skills for the more affected arm and gross motor skills improved significantly during the CIMT; these gains were maintained at one-month follow-up. Individual infant data show mixed effects. This pilot study provides initial evidence that CIMT is feasible for infants with unilateral cerebral palsy, and presents preliminary data for CIMT on fine and gross motor performance.
Theta-Burst Stimulation of Hippocampal Slices Induces Network-Level Calcium Oscillations and Activates Analogous Gene Transcription to Spatial Learning

Over four decades ago, it was discovered that high-frequency stimulation of the dentate gyrus induces long-term potentiation (LTP) of synaptic transmission. LTP is believed to underlie how we process and code external stimuli before converting it to salient information that we store as 'memories'. It has been shown that rats performing spatial learning tasks display theta-frequency (3–12 Hz) hippocampal neural activity. Moreover, administering theta-burst stimulation (TBS) to hippocampal slices can induce LTP. TBS triggers a sustained rise in intracellular calcium [Ca2+]i in neurons leading to new protein synthesis important for LTP maintenance. In this study, we measured TBS-induced [Ca2+]i oscillations in thousands of cells at increasing distances from the source of stimulation. Following TBS, a calcium wave propagates radially with an average speed of 5.2 µm/s and triggers multiple and regular [Ca2+]i oscillations in the hippocampus. Interestingly, the number and frequency of [Ca2+]i fluctuations post-TBS increased with respect to distance from the electrode. During the post-tetanic phase, 18% of cells exhibited 3 peaks in [Ca2+]i with a frequency of 17 mHz, whereas 2.3% of cells distributed further from the electrode displayed 8 [Ca2+]i oscillations at 33 mHz. We suggest that these observed [Ca2+]i oscillations could lead to activation of transcription factors involved in synaptic plasticity. In particular, the transcription factor, NF-κB, has been implicated in memory formation and is up-regulated after LTP induction. We measured increased activation of NF-κB 30 min post-TBS in CA1 pyramidal cells and also observed similar temporal up-regulation of NF-κB levels in CA1 neurons following water maze training in rats. Therefore, TBS of hippocampal slice cultures in vitro can mimic the cell type-specific up-regulations in activated NF-κB following spatial learning in vivo. This indicates that TBS may induce similar transcriptional changes to spatial learning and that TBS-triggered [Ca2+]i oscillations could activate memory-associated gene expression.
Requirement for the heart‐type fatty acid binding protein in cardiac fatty acid utilization

Nonenzymatic cytosolic fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs) are abundantly expressed in many animal tissues with high rates of fatty acid metabolism. No physiological role has been demonstrated for any FABP, although these proteins have been implicated in transport of free long‐chain fatty acids (LCFAs) and protection against LCFA toxicity. We report here that mice lacking heart‐type FABP (H‐FABP) exhibit a severe defect of peripheral (non‐hepatic, non‐fat) LCFA utilization. In these mice, the heart is unable to efficiently take up plasma LCFAs, which are normally its main fuel, and switches to glucose usage. Altered plasma levels of LCFAs, glucose, lactate and β‐hydroxybutyrate are consistent with depressed peripheral LCFA utilization, intensified carbohydrate usage, and increased hepatic LCFA oxidation; these changes are most pronounced under conditions favoring LCFA oxidation. H‐FABP deficiency is only incompletely compensated, however, causing acute exercise intolerance and, at old age, a localized cardiac hypertrophy. These data establish a requirement for H‐FABP in cardiac intracellular lipid transport and fuel selection and a major role in metabolic homeostasis. This new animal model should be particularly useful for investigating the significance of peripheral LCFA utilization for heart function, insulin sensitivity, and blood pressure. —Binas, B. , Danneberg, H. , McWhir, J., Mullins, L. , Clark, A. J. Requirement for the heart‐type fatty acid binding protein in cardiac fatty acid utilization. FASEB J. 13, 805–812 (1999)
Finite temperature effective action, AdS 5 black holes, and 1 / N expansion

We propose a phenomenological matrix model to study string theory in AdS5 × S5 in the canonical ensemble. The model reproduces all the known qualitative features of the theory. In particular, it gives a simple effective potential description of Euclidean black hole nucleation and the tunnelling between thermal AdS and the big black hole. It also has some interesting predictions. We find that there exists a critical temperature at which the Euclidean small black hole undergoes a Gross-Witten phase transition. We identify the phase transition with the Horowitz-Polchinski point where the black hole horizon size becomes comparable to the string scale. The appearance of the Hagedorn divergence of thermal AdS is due to the merger of saddle points corresponding to the Euclidean small black hole and thermal AdS. The merger can be described in terms of a cusp (A3) catastrophe and divergences at the perturbative string level are smoothed out at finite string coupling using standard techniques of catastrophe theory.
(K)information : gamete donation and kinship knowledge in Germany and Britain

Openness about sperm and egg donation and the regulation of donor anonymity or non-anonymity are new phenomena. How do affected families, clinics, and regulators deal with information about gamete donors and the donation itself? And how does this knowledge management contribute to the creation and enactment of kinship? Addressing these questions in Germany and Britain, this ethnography makes a comparative contribution to the empirical and theoretical analysis of kin-formation and social change. In (K)information, Maren Klotz presents a contemporary renegotiation of the values of privacy, information-sharing, and connectedness as they relate to the social, clinical, and regulatory management of kinship information.
Using Modeling to Explore the Degree to Which a Microbicide's Sexually Transmitted Infection Efficacy May Contribute to the HIV Effectiveness Measured in Phase 3 Microbicide Trials

Background:Several microbicide candidates show activity against pathogens that cause sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This may increase a microbicide's impact on HIV in phase 3 trials. Modeling is used to estimate the degree to which a microbicide's STI efficacy contributes to the HIV effectiveness of a phase 3 microbicide trial. Methods:An expression is derived and coupled with an STI model to estimate how much a microbicide's STI efficacy contributes to a trial's HIV effectiveness. The STI model estimates the decrease in STI prevalence that may occur in the trial's active gel arm for microbicides of different STI efficacy. Projections are produced for different STI cofactors and epidemiological settings. Results:The model projects that if a microbicide is active against curable STIs with a combined prevalence of ≥10% among trial participants and the reduction in HIV incidence is <50%, then the STI activity could have substantially contributed to the trial's HIV effectiveness (>50% in some cases) if the per exposure multiplicative STI cofactor is 2.5 or greater. However, if the STI prevalence is <10% or the STI cofactor is <2.5 or if the reduction in HIV incidence is >50%, then the trial's HIV effectiveness will be mainly due to its direct HIV efficacy. Conclusions:In high STI settings, phase 3 trials documenting a moderate impact on HIV incidence may partially result from a gel's activity against curable STI. Care should be taken generalizing these trial results to other settings. This is less important for trials documenting large reductions in HIV incidence.