Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optical state engineering, quantum communication, and robustness of entanglement promiscuity in three-mode Gaussian states

We present a novel, detailed study on the usefulness of three-mode Gaussian states for realistic processing of continuous variable (CV) quantum information, with a particular emphasis on the possibilities opened up by their genuine tripartite entanglement. We describe practical schemes to engineer several classes of pure and mixed three-mode states that stand out for their informational and/or entanglement properties. In particular, we introduce a simple procedure—based on passive optical elements—to produce pure three-mode Gaussian states with arbitrary entanglement structure (upon availability of an initial two-mode squeezed state). We analyse in depth the properties of distributed entanglement and the origin of its sharing structure, showing that the promiscuity of entanglement sharing is a feature peculiar to symmetric Gaussian states that survives even in the presence of significant degrees of mixedness and decoherence. Next, we discuss the suitability of the considered tripartite entangled states to the implementation of quantum information and communication protocols with CVs. This will lead to a feasible experimental proposal to test the promiscuous sharing of CV tripartite entanglement, in terms of the optimal fidelity of teleportation networks with Gaussian resources. We finally focus on the application of three-mode states to symmetric and asymmetric telecloning, and single out the structural properties of the optimal Gaussian resources for the latter protocol in different settings. Our analysis aims to lay the basis for a practical quantum communication with CVs beyond the bipartite scenario.
Inadvertent VFR-into-IMC Flights: A Qualitative Approach to Describing GA Pilots’ First-Hand Experiences

The phenomenon of encountering instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) on a visual flight rules (VFR) flight has been the focus of several previous studies. Most of these past studies, though, have involved examining various databases quantitatively or via a mixed-methods approach in search of possible causal factors such as pilot characteristics, weather conditions, aircraft type, and time of day. Missing from the literature are qualitative studies that tell the story of pilots who actually experienced such flights. To help fill this gap in the aviation literature, the purpose of the current study was to describe the first-hand experiences of GA pilots who inadvertently flew VFR-into-IMC. Participants consisted of 11 male pilots who previously had flown from VFR-into-IMC inadvertently at some point during their aviation career. The study used a phenomenological approach to describe participants’ shared experiences and then applied grounded theory to develop a set of conjectures derived inductively from participants’ responses. Using Spradley’s (1979) domain analysis to categorize common themes and patterns, the major domains of Weather Considerations and Expectations, Thoughts and Actions, and Postflight Experiences emerged. Major findings from the first domain revealed that as part of their preflight actions prior to departure, participants received a weather briefing, gave little consideration to overall weather conditions, neither expected nor anticipated IMC, and used a variety of communication resources to keep current with weather related issues. Major findings from the second domain revealed that participants recognized changes in the weather en route, used various communication resources to assess their current condition, reacted to IMC by trying to avoid and escape it, expressed feelings of trepidation about what they should do, were surprised over how the weather was not what they expected, and reverted to their training to get out of IMC. Major findings from the third domain revealed that participants’ postflight actions ranged from doing nothing to submitting a report to NASA’s ASRS, and that lessons learned included acquiring a heightened sense of situational awareness, a need to do a better job in alternative planning, and a greater appreciation for the weather. A comparison of these findings to past studies and theory are discussed, and implications and recommendations for practice and research are provided.
Partially ordered generalized patterns and their combinatorial interpretation

This paper is a continuation of the study of partially ordered generalized patterns (POGPs) considered in [6, 7, 8]. We provide two general approaches: one to obtain connections between restricted permutations and other combinatorial structures, and one to treat the avoidance problems for words in case of segmented patterns. The former approach is related to coding combinatorial objects in terms of restricted permutations. We provide several examples of relations of our objects to other combinatorial structures, such as labeled graphs, walks, binary vectors, and others. Also, we show how restricted permutations are related to Cartesian products of certain objects.
Autoimmune Disease Cells and Is Required for Organ-Specific Drak2 Regulates the Survival of Activated T

Drak2 is a serine/threonine kinase expressed in T and B cells. The absence of Drak2 renders T cells hypersensitive to suboptimal stimulation, yet Drak2 (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice are enigmatically resistant to experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, an animal model of multiple sclerosis. We show in this study that Drak2 (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice were also completely resistant to type 1 diabetes when bred to the NOD strain of mice that spontaneously develop autoimmune diabetes. However, there was not a generalized suppression of the immune system, because Drak2 (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice remained susceptible to other models of autoimmunity. Adoptive transfer experiments revealed that resistance to disease was intrinsic to the T cells and was due to a loss of T cell survival under conditions of chronic autoimmune stimulation. Importantly, the absence of Drak2 did not alter the survival of naive T cells, memory T cells, or T cells responding to an acute viral infection. These experiments reveal a distinction between the immune response to persistent self-encoded molecules and transiently present infectious agents. We present a model whereby T cell survival depends on a balance of TCR and costimulatory signals to explain how the absence of Drak2 affects autoimmune disease without generalized suppression of the immune system. The Journal of Immunology, 2008, 181: 7593–7605.
An Infrastructure-Free Traffic Information System for Vehicular Networks

Vehicular networks are the major ingredients of the envisioned Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) concept. An important component of ITS which is currently attracting wider research focus is road traffic information processing. This has widespread applications in the context of vehicular networks. The existing centralized approaches for traffic estimation are characterized by longer response times. They are also subject to higher processing requirements and possess high deployment costs. In this paper, we propose a completely distributed and infrastructure-free mechanism for road density estimation. The proposed solution is adaptive and scalable and targets city traffic environments. The approach is based on the distributed exchange and maintenance of traffic information between vehicles traversing the routes. The performance analysis of the proposed mechanism shows the accuracy of the algorithm for different traffic densities. It also gives insights into the promptness of information delivery in the mechanism based on delay analysis at road intersections. This promptness is a necessary condition to various applications requiring reliable decision making based on road traffic awareness.
Biomechatronic approach to a multi-fingered hand prosthesis

The development of a biomechatronic hand with multi-FSRs (Force Sensitive Resistor) interface is presented. The cambered palm is specially designed to enhance the stability while grasping. The opposite thumb could grasp along a cone surface, while maintaining its function. By taken the advantage of coupling linkage mechanism, each finger with three phalanges could fulfill flexion and extension independently. Besides, each finger is equipped with torque and position sensors. Thus, the cosmetics and dexterity are improved remarkably compared to commercial prosthesis. The hardware architecture is hierarchically organized as control system and human-machine interaction system. To evaluate the performances of the hand, the pattern reorganization experiment based on support vector machine (SVM) was conducted. The results show that FSR sensing technology is suitable for muscle activity detection; Compared to nearest neighborhood classifier, SVM method improves the predict success rate. Moreover, it also demonstrates that the hand is dexterous and manipulates like human.
EFFECTS OF AGING ON INTERLIMB COORDINATION-KINEMATICS AND KINETICS ANALYSIS OF ARM REACHING

Previous findings in elderly adults suggest that numerous aspects of motor control are affected by aging. There seem to be fundamental differences in motor control strategies between young and old adults. Prior research has demonstrated significant interlimb differences in the control of unilateral reaching movements, implying that movement trajectory and final position are specified and controlled differentially by the dominant and nondominant limb/hemisphere systems. Our goal in the present study was to determine whether interjoint coordination remains lateralized for older subjects. To test this hypothesis we analyzed and quantified the kinematics and kinetics of reaching movements. Joint torques were calculated for shoulder and elbow assuming that the upper extremity was two interconnected rigid links (upper arm and forearm) with frictionless joints at the shoulder and elbow. The shoulder was allowed to move freely, and the torques resulting from linear accelerations of the shoulder were included in the equations of motion for each joint. Three subject age groups were examined: young (19-24 years), older (65+ years), and oldest-old (80+ years). We used a virtual reality environment and presented two targets that required 15cm-long movements (target 1 oriented 135° relative to the horizontal axis and target 2 oriented at 45°). Each subject was given a practice session (40 trials) to familiarize themselves with the task, followed by another 40-trial experimental session. Consecutive planar reaching movements were alternated between the two targets. In addition, subjects were to match their hand velocity within a 0.4 to 0.7m/s range. Eight measures were computed to investigate group interlimb differences: shoulder and elbow torque impulses, distance error at final position, hand-path trajectory direction deviation, movement distance, movement duration, peak hand acceleration, and acceleration duration. Preliminary data analysis showed differences between left and right performance for the very old group. Our initial results indicate that interlimb (right/left difference) peak acceleration (3.62 ± 1.45m/s2) and acceleration duration (0.36 ± 0.08s) were equivalent as compared to the young and elderly groups. They also showed a trend in joint torques and trajectory deviations for the right arm advantage in movement trajectory performance. The mean hand velocity was 0.50m/s (± 0.08) for all groups. As expected elderly subjects (old: 0.82 ± 0.12s; and oldest-old: 0.85 ± 0.14s) required more time than young (0.67 ± 0.06s) subjects to reach the target. These results suggest that elderly subjects show a reduction in lateralization in interjoint coordination although aging differences could be manifested by greater dependency on slower feedback processes instead of rapid on-line feedforward sensory processes.
Information Waste on the World Wide Web : combating the clutter

The internet has become a critical part of the infrastructure supporting modern life. The internet’s key success factor, the vast amount of web-accessible information, hinges on a high degree of openness and autonomy of information providers. However, this makes the web vulnerable to inaccurate, misleading, or outdated information. Now there is more information than ever, this unnecessary and unusable content, which is referred to as “information waste,” takes up hardware resources and clutters the web. In this paper, the phenomenon of information waste will be examined in more detail by developing a definition and analyzing its causes and effects. A theoretical framework based on semiotics is developed. Possible solutions will be explored and a classification approach using objective metrics for information waste detection is proposed. Supervisors: Fons Wijnhoven and Chintan Amrit
Synthesis of power-managed sequential components based oncomputational kernel extraction

This paper introduces a power optimization paradigm for sequential components based on the concept of computational kernel, a highly simplified logic block whose behavior mimics the steady-state behavior of the original specification. We present a flexible framework that supports a number of algorithmic options for carrying out kernel extraction. We first describe an exact symbolic procedure that is applicable to components for which only a functional specification (i.e., the state transition graph) is available. Due to its computational complexity, this procedure is mainly of theoretical interest and it is not usable for large circuits. We then propose two approximate algorithms that can be adopted in practical situations. The first one is simulation-based and it is suitable to cases where input data streams representing typical operation of the component are available. The second approach performs kernel extraction by iteratively refining a structural representation of the component obtained through synthesis. The impact of the power optimization paradigm based on kernel extraction is demonstrated by the results of extensive experimentation carried out on a number of benchmarks of different characteristics and nature.
Fixed-Effects Methods for the Analysis of Nonrepeated Events

For repeated events, fixed-effects regression methods—which control for all stable covariates—can be implemented by doing Cox regression with stratification on individuals. For nonrepeated events, we consider the use of conditional logistic regression to estimate fixed-effects models with discrete-time data. Known in the epidemiological literature as the case-crossover design, this method fails when any covariate is a monotonic function of time. Hence, no control for time itself can be included, leading to potentially spurious estimates. As an alternative, we consider the case-time-control method for estimating the effect of a dichotomous predictor. This method allows for the introduction of a control for time by reversing the role of the dependent and independent variables. In contrast to earlier work, we show that the method can be applied to data that contain only uncensored cases, and that it is possible to control for additional covariates, both categorical and quantitative. Simulation studies indicate that the case-time-control method is substantially superior to the case-crossover method and to conventional logistic regression. The methods are illustrated by estimating the effect of a wife's death on the hazard of death for her husband.
Biometrics and classifier fusion to predict the fun-factor in video gaming

The key to the development of adaptive gameplay is the capability to monitor and predict in real time the players experience (or, herein, fun factor). To achieve this goal, we rely on biometrics and machine learning algorithms to capture a physiological signature that reflects the player's affective state during the game. In this paper, we report research and development effort into the real time monitoring of the player's level of fun during a commercially available video game session using physiological signals. The use of a triple-classifier system allows the transformation of players' physiological responses and their fluctuation into a single yet multifaceted measure of fun, using a non-linear gameplay. Our results suggest that cardiac and respiratory activities provide the best predictive power. Moreover, the level of performance reached when classifying the level of fun (70% accuracy) shows that the use of machine learning approaches with physiological measures can contribute to predicting players experience in an objective manner.
Bringing the C Libraries With Us into a Multi-Threaded Future

An enormous amount of UNIX (and UNIX-like) code has been written (by a likewise enormous amount of programmers) that uses the standard C libraries. Use is made throughout much of this code of the knowledge that traditional UNIX programs have exactly one thread of control. However, increasing numbers of UNIX-like systems are beginning to provide support for programs with multiple threads of control. To the extent possible, it is highly desirable to preserve the existing C library interfaces for multi-threaded programs; this will aid both in code and programmer portability between traditional UNIX environments and new multithreaded ones. A number of issues must be confronted in order to produce versions of the C libraries which can be used in multi-threaded programming environments. Among these are: functions with non-reentrant interfaces, functions which maintain state between invocations, use of macros in the library interfaces, interactions with signals, compatibility with single-threaded library data structures, performance issues, and of course, errno. Despite these and other problems, experience has shown that reasonable solutions are available. This paper presents both a detailed explanation of the problems inherent in producing multi-thread-safe C libraries and the different solutions which are available. Finally, the solutions to these problems adopted by a number of research and industry groups are presented.
Electronic Textiles for Motion Analysis

The union of electronics and textiles to form electronic textiles (e-textiles) provides a promising substrate upon which motion analysis applications can be developed and implemented. Familiarity with clothing allows sensors and computational elements to be naturally integrated into garments such that wearability and usability is preserved. The dynamics of the human body and the wide variety of sensor and processing choices render the typical prototype-based design methodology prohibitively difficult and expensive. Simulation of e-textile systems not only reduces these problems but allows for thorough exploration of the design space, faster design cycles, and more robust applications. Gait analysis, the measurement of various body motion parameters during walking for medical purposes, and context awareness, the recognition of user motions, are two immediate applications that e-textiles can impact and emphasize the feasibility of e-textiles as a medium for sensor deployment on the human body. This thesis presents the design of a simulation environment for wearable e-textile systems and demonstrates the use of the simulation via a prototype pair of e-textile pants. Acknowledgements The work presented in this thesis could not have been accomplished without the support and guidance from a variety of individuals. For those who are not mentioned specifically, thank you. I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Mark Jones for his support, confidence, and enlight-ment. His advice on academics, career choices, and general life issues has been indispensable. My thanks also go out to Dr. Tom Martin for his patience, guidance, and extensive knowledge of all things capacitive. Additionally, I would like to thank him for serving on my thesis committee. I would also like to thank Dr. Peter Athanas for serving on my thesis committee. I would like to thank Dana Reynolds for her tireless efforts in weaving an exceptional piece of fabric. I would like to thank Elouise Coupey for her fabulous construction of the pants and vest garments. Of course, my gratitude goes out all of the members of the Configurable Computing Lab and special thanks to the past and present members of the VT E-Textiles group: Zahi Nakad, Thanks goes to Gina for her love and support, putting up with my crazy schedule and listening when I needed it most. iii Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my parents, Jeff and Rhonda Edmison, and sister, Bridgette, for their endless support, love and interest throughout my academic career. I certainly would not …
Bernoulli factories and black-box reductions in mechanism design

We provide a polynomial-time reduction from Bayesian incentive-compatible mechanism design to Bayesian algorithm design for welfare maximization problems. Unlike prior results, our reduction achieves exact incentive compatibility for problems with multi-dimensional and continuous type spaces. The key technical barrier preventing exact incentive compatibility in prior black-box reductions is that repairing violations of incentive constraints requires understanding the distribution of the mechanism's output, which is typically #P-hard to compute. Reductions that instead estimate the output distribution by sampling inevitably suffer from sampling error, which typically precludes exact incentive compatibility. We overcome this barrier by employing and generalizing the computational model in the literature on "Bernoulli Factories". In a Bernoulli factory problem, one is given a function mapping the bias of an 'input coin' to that of an 'output coin', and the challenge is to efficiently simulate the output coin given only sample access to the input coin. Consider a generalization which we call the "expectations from samples" computational model, in which a problem instance is specified by a function mapping the expected values of a set of input distributions to a distribution over outcomes. The challenge is to give a polynomial time algorithm that exactly samples from the distribution over outcomes given only sample access to the input distributions. In this model we give a polynomial time algorithm for the function given by "exponential weights": expected values of the input distributions correspond to the weights of alternatives and we wish to select an alternative with probability proportional to its weight. This algorithm is the key ingredient in designing an incentive compatible mechanism for bipartite matching, which can be used to make the approximately incentive compatible reduction of Hartline-Malekian-Kleinberg [2015] exactly incentive compatible.
Compact Electro-thermal Modelling and Simulation of InP HBT Based on the Local Reference Concept

This paper presents a new large signal compact electro-thermal model of the OMMICtrade InP heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) based on the UCSD (University of California, San Diego) HBT model and the local reference concept for a multi-physics circuit simulator fREEDAtrade. Simulations using this HBT model coupled with other thermal elements show dynamically how electrical behaviour is influenced by temperature variation of the active device from iterative calculations, while other circuit simulators can only show the electrical performance at fixed temperature. Implementation of the HBT thermal model including both the intrinsic and extrinsic properties as a 6-port element in fREEDAtrade is described, and illustrative simulation results in both fREEDAtrade and ADStrade are presented