Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How previous experience shapes perception in different sensory modalities

What has transpired immediately before has a strong influence on how sensory stimuli are processed and perceived. In particular, temporal context can have contrastive effects, repelling perception away from the interpretation of the context stimulus, and attractive effects (TCEs), whereby perception repeats upon successive presentations of the same stimulus. For decades, scientists have documented contrastive and attractive temporal context effects mostly with simple visual stimuli. But both types of effects also occur in other modalities, e.g., audition and touch, and for stimuli of varying complexity, raising the possibility that context effects reflect general computational principles of sensory systems. Neuroimaging shows that contrastive and attractive context effects arise from neural processes in different areas of the cerebral cortex, suggesting two separate operations with distinct functional roles. Bayesian models can provide a functional account of both context effects, whereby prior experience adjusts sensory systems to optimize perception of future stimuli.
Extending hypertext streaming protocol to realize effective web page transmission via a caching proxy

To deliver web pages effectively and efficiently, many techniques has been developed. Among them, a web page transmission mechanism which can control the transmission order of inline objects has been proposed. It employs a new transfer protocol, HTSP (Hypertext Streaming Protocol), in which a client requests one or more inline objects by a single request along with a transmission order specification. However, the behavior of caching proxies has not been considered in the protocol design. In this paper, we consider how a caching proxy should behave in the transmission order control mechanism, and then extend the HTSP to realize that behavior. We analyze the potential benefit of the extended HTSP, and verify it by performance evaluation in an experimental environment.
Strömgren Photometry of Globular Clusters: The Distance and Age of M13, Evidence for Two Populations of Horizontal-Branch Stars

We present deep CCD photometry of the globular cluster M13 (NGC 6205) in the Strömgren uvbyβ system and determine a foreground reddening of E(b-y)=0.015±0.01 mag. From a fit to the main sequence of metal-poor subdwarfs with Hipparcos parallaxes, we derive (m-M)0=14.38±0.10, which implies an age near 12 Gyr assuming [Fe/H] = -1.61 and [α/Fe] = 0.3. The distance-independent [(b-y)0, c0] diagram indicates that M13 and metal-poor field subdwarfs of similar metallicity must be coeval to within ±1 Gyr. In addition, we find that, at any given (b-y)0 color, there is a large spread in the c0 index for M13 red giant branch (RGB) stars. We suspect that this scatter, which extends at least as faint as the base of the RGB, is most likely due to star-to-star variations in the atmospheric abundances of the CNO elements. We also note the existence of what appears to be two separate stellar populations on the horizontal branch of M13. Among other possibilities, it could arise as the result of differences in the extent to which deep mixing occurs in the precursor red giants.
Alcohol Use and Selected Health Conditions of 1991 Gulf War Veterans: Survey Results, 2003-2005

Introduction A sizable literature has analyzed the frequency of alcohol consumption and patterns of drinking among veterans. However, few studies have examined patterns of alcohol use in veterans of the first Gulf War or factors associated with problem drinking in this population. We examined the frequency and patterns of alcohol use in male and female veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War or during the same era and the relationships between alcohol use and selected health conditions. Methods We analyzed data from a follow-up survey of health information among population-based samples of 15,000 Gulf War and 15,000 Gulf Era veterans. Data had been collected from 9,970 respondents during 2003 through 2005 via a structured questionnaire or telephone survey. Results Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), unexplained multisymptom illness (MSI), and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)–like illness were more frequent among veterans with problem drinking than those without problem drinking. Approximately 28% of Gulf War veterans with problem drinking had PTSD compared with 13% of Gulf War veterans without problem drinking. In multivariate analysis, problem drinking was positively associated with PTSD, MDD, unexplained MSI, and CFS–like illness after adjustment for age, sex, race/ethnicity, branch of service, rank, and Gulf status. Veterans who were problem drinkers were 2.7 times as likely to have PTSD as veterans who were not problem drinkers. Conclusion These findings indicate that access to evidence-based treatment programs and systems of care should be provided for veterans who abuse alcohol and who have PTSD and other war-related health conditions and illnesses.
SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS MIGRATION IN ADAPTIVE DIFFERENTIAL EVOLUTION ALGORITHMS

The influence of synchronous and asynchronous migration on the per- formance of adaptive differential evolution algorithms is investigated. Six adaptive differential evolution variants are employed by the parallel migration model with a star topology. Synchronous and asynchronous migration models with various parameters settings were experimentally compared with non-parallel adaptive al- gorithms in six shifted benchmark problems of dimension D = 30. Three different ways of exchanging individuals are applied in a synchronous island model with a fixed number of islands. Three different numbers of sub-populations are set up in an asynchronous island model. The parallel synchronous and asynchronous migration models increase performance in most problems.
Novel-Word Learning in Children with Normal Hearing and Hearing Loss

Objective The goal of this study was to assess performance on a novel-word learning task by normal-hearing and hearing-impaired children for words varying in form (noun versus verb), stimulus level (50 versus 60 dB SPL), and number of repetitions (4 versus 6). It was hypothesized that novel-word learning would be significantly poorer in the subjects with hearing loss, would increase with both level and repetition, and would be better for nouns than verbs. Design Twenty normal-hearing and 11 hearing-impaired children (6 to 9 yr old) participated in this study. Each child viewed a 4-minute animated slide show containing 8 novel words. The effects of hearing status, word form, repetition, and stimulus level were examined systematically. The influence of audibility, word recognition, chronological age, and lexical development also were evaluated. After hearing the story twice, children were asked to identify each word from a set of four pictures. Results Overall performance was 60% for the normal-hearing children and 41% for the children with hearing loss. Significant predictors of performance were PPVT raw scores, hearing status, stimulus level, and repetitions. The variables age, audibility, word recognition scores, and word form were not significant predictors. Conclusions Results suggest that a child’s ability to learn new words can be predicted from vocabulary size, stimulus level, number of exposures, and hearing status. Further, the sensitivity to presentation level observed in this novel-word learning task suggests that this type of paradigm may be an effective tool for studying various forms of hearing aid signal processing algorithms.
Extension of SPIKE for Encrypted Protocol Fuzzing

A fuzzer is a program that attempts to find security vulnerabilities in an application by sending random or semi-random input. Fuzzers have been widely used to find vulnerabilities in protocol implementations. The implementations may conform to the design of the protocol, but most of the times some glitches might remain. As a result vulnerabilities might remain unnoticed. Consequently, different implementations of the same protocol may be vulnerable to different kind of attacks. Fuzzers help us discover such implementation flaws. Among the currently available and popular ones, SPIKE is one recognized open-source fuzzing framework. However, SPIKE has a limitation of fuzzing only non-encrypted protocols. This paper presents the extension of SPIKE, called ESPIKE, for fuzzing of encrypted protocols. ESPIKE will facilitate testing implementations of SSL encrypted protocols. As a proof of concept for efficiency of ESPIKE we demonstrate its usage on sftp and https protocol.
ENHANCED MERIT ORDER AND AUGMENTED LAGRANGE HOPFIELD NETWORK FOR UNIT COMMITMENT

This paper presents an enhanced merit or der (EMO) and augmented Lagrange Hopfield network (ALHN) for unit commitment (UC). The EMO method is a merit order based heuristic search for unit schedul ing and ALHN is a continuous Hopfield network based on augmented Lagrange relaxation for economic dispatch pr oblem. First, generating units are sorted in ascendin g average production cost and committed to fulfill load demand and spinning reserve requirements neglecting minimu m up and down time constraints. Then, a heuristic sea rch based algorithm is applied to satisfy minimum up an d down time constraints, and modify start up cost from cold to hot if necessary. Finally, the ALHN is used to s olve economic dispatch (ED). The proposed method is test d on systems ranging from 10 to 100 generating units and compared to augmented Hopfield network (AHN), conventional Lagrangian relaxation (LR), genetic algorithm (GA), evolutionary programming (EP), Lagrangian relaxation and genetic algorithm (LRGA), memetic algorithm (MA), Lagrangian relaxation and memetic algorithm (LRMA), genetic algorithm based on unit characteristic classification (GAUC), genetic algorithm base d on unit characteristic classification and unit integration technique (GAUCUI), and extended priority list (EPL). The total production costs from the proposed method are less expensive and the computational times are vastly fa ster than the others, especially for the large number of generating units. For large-scale implementation, it is al so tested on systems up to 1000 generating units with time ho rizon up to 168 hours. Test results indicate that the pro posed method is very attractive and favorable due to subs tantial production costs savings and fast computational times.
A Multi-Constrained Quality of Service Routing Algorithm Based on Vector Converting

Computing the multi-constrained quality of service (QoS) routing according to multi-dimensions vector will cause that actual transmission route is inconsistent with optimal theoretical route and that QoS cannot meet requirements. To solve this, a novel multi-constrained QoS routing algorithm based on vector converting is proposed. The multi-dimensions vector space, which is composed of multiple additive parameters of each link, is first converted into the single dimension vector space by using functional concept, and then the all routes from source to other node, which meet QoS requirements, can be searched by adopting greedy algorithm in which separates selection of optimal theoretical path and actual transmission path computation. The rationality of proposed algorithm is theoretically analyzed by combination of mathematical method and physical concept and the validity is furthermore confirmed by the simulation results.
Evidence for Gene-Specific Rather Than Transcription Rate–Dependent Histone H3 Exchange in Yeast Coding Regions

In eukaryotic organisms, histones are dynamically exchanged independently of DNA replication. Recent reports show that different coding regions differ in their amount of replication-independent histone H3 exchange. The current paradigm is that this histone exchange variability among coding regions is a consequence of transcription rate. Here we put forward the idea that this variability might be also modulated in a gene-specific manner independently of transcription rate. To that end, we study transcription rate–independent replication-independent coding region histone H3 exchange. We term such events relative exchange. Our genome-wide analysis shows conclusively that in yeast, relative exchange is a novel consistent feature of coding regions. Outside of replication, each coding region has a characteristic pattern of histone H3 exchange that is either higher or lower than what was expected by its RNAPII transcription rate alone. Histone H3 exchange in coding regions might be a way to add or remove certain histone modifications that are important for transcription elongation. Therefore, our results that gene-specific coding region histone H3 exchange is decoupled from transcription rate might hint at a new epigenetic mechanism of transcription regulation.
A large-scale performance study of cluster-based high-dimensional indexing

High-dimensional clustering is used by some content-based image retrieval systems to partition the data into groups; the groups (clusters) are then indexed to accelerate processing of queries. Recently, the Cluster Pruning approach was proposed as a simple way to produce such clusters. While the original evaluation of the algorithm was performed within a text indexing context at a rather small scale, its simplicity motivated us to study its behavior in an image indexing context at a much larger scale. This paper summarizes the results of this study and shows that while the basic algorithm works fairly well, three extensions dramatically improve its performance and scalability, accelerating both query processing and the construction of clusters, making Cluster Pruning a promising basis for building large-scale systems that require a clustering algorithm.
Research of autonomous vision-based absolute navigation for unmanned aerial vehicle

This paper makes research on two schemes of autonomous vision-based absolute navigation for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV): the Imaging Position of Landmark/Altimeter/IMU (IPLAI) based navigation, and the Imaging Position of Landmark/Optical Flow/Altimeter/IMU (IPLOFAI) based navigation. Firstly, the models of two autonomous vision-based absolute navigation systems are established. Secondly, the observability matrixes of two navigation systems are derived according to the differential geometric theory, and then the observability of the two navigation systems based on the condition number of the observability matrixes is carried on the quantitative analysis. Thirdly, the corresponding navigation EKFs (Extended Kalman Filters) are designed to get the absolute position and velocity estimations of the UAV. At last, the correctness of the observability analysis and the designed navigation filters of the two navigation systems are verified through simulation experiment.
A phenomenological theory of correlated multiple soft-breakdown events in ultra-thin gate dielectrics

A general theory of the statistics of multiple breakdown events in ultra-thin gate oxides is developed. The standard theory of multiple breakdown events, based on Poisson statistics, allows only qualitative determination of the influence of each breakdown event on the rate of subsequent trap generation. In this paper, we develop a more general theory of multiple breakdown events to quantitatively determine the degree of correlation. This work allows one to calculate, regardless of the degree of correlation among the successive breakdown events, the statistical failure distribution of ICs as well as the time-dependent increase in the total leakage current during their operation. The theoretical description of leakage current not only explains a the experimental data reported in the literature to date, but also suggests a simple, yet fast experimental technique to determine the Weibull slope, the voltage- and the temperature-acceleration factors.
Robotized assembly of a wire harness in car production line

This paper addresses an engineering attempt of utilizing multiple robot arms in assemblies of deformable parts. The developed robot system simulates a practically existing assembly process in an automobile plant where wrapped cables (wire harness) have to be fixed on the body of a car. This operation has been performed by skilled workers and is considered to be difficult for automatization. During the development of the system, solutions are proposed for various engineering problems confronted. The problems are all due to the deformable properties of a wire harness. Many of them are general for other operations involved with deformable objects. The proposed methods in the research are verified by a successful demonstration of wire harness assembly under a condition similar to a real plant.
Sharing the Data Center Network

While today's data centers are multiplexed across many non-cooperating applications, they lack effective means to share their network. Relying on TCP's congestion control, as we show from experiments in production data centers, opens up the network to denial of service attacks and performance interference. We present Seawall, a network bandwidth allocation scheme that divides network capacity based on an administrator-specified policy. Seawall computes and enforces allocations by tunneling traffic through congestion controlled, point to multipoint, edge to edge tunnels. The resulting allocations remain stable regardless of the number of flows, protocols, or destinations in the application's traffic mix. Unlike alternate proposals, Seawall easily supports dynamic policy changes and scales to the number of applications and churn of today's data centers. Through evaluation of a prototype, we show that Seawall adds little overhead and achieves strong performance isolation.
Cell Reports Resource The NFk B Genomic Landscape in Lymphoblastoid B Cells

Bo Zhao,1,2,9 Luis A. Barrera,3,4,5,6,7,9 Ina Ersing,1,2 Bradford Willox,1 Stefanie C.S. Schmidt,1,2 Hannah Greenfeld,1 Hufeng Zhou,1,2 Sarah B. Mollo,1,2 Tommy T. Shi,1 Kaoru Takasaki,1 Sizun Jiang,1,2 Ellen Cahir-McFarland,1 Manolis Kellis,7 Martha L. Bulyk,3,4,5,6,8,10,* Elliott Kieff,1,2,10 and Benjamin E. Gewurz1,2,10,* 1Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA 2Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA 3Division of Genetics, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA 4Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA 5Committee on Higher Degrees in Biophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 6Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA 7Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA 8Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA 9Co-first author 10Co-senior author *Correspondence: mbulyk@receptor.med.harvard.edu (M.L.B.), bgewurz@partners.org (B.E.G.) http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.celrep. 2014.07. 037 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Triple Gauge Boson Couplings

We present the results obtained by the "Triple Gauge Couplings" working group during the LEP2 Workshop (1994-1995). The report concentrates on the measurement of $WW\gamma$ and $WWZ$ couplings in $e^-e^+\to W^-W^+$ or, more generally, four-fermion production at LEP2. In addition the detection of new interactions in the bosonic sector via other production channels is discussed.
Image thresholding based on parzen window estimation and Renyi entropy

Image segmentation is an important problem of digital image processing and also a common difficult problem. In this paper, a new image thresholding method based on Parzen-window estimation and Renyi entropy is proposed. The method used Parzen-window technology to estimate the spatial probability distribution of image gray level values, then combined with the Renyi entropy to construct a new criterion function, and at last searched the optimal global threshold in the scope of gray level to maximum the criterion function. This new method has some advantages, such as high accuracy to image segmentation, fine stability comparing with the traditional Renyi entropy method.
A hardware acceleration method for volumetric ray tracing

We present an acceleration method for volumetric ray tracing which utilizes standard graphics hardware without compromising image accuracy. The graphics hardware is employed to identify those segments of each ray that could possibly contribute to the final image. A volumetric ray tracing algorithm is then used to compute the final image, traversing only the identified segments of the rays. This technique can be used to render volumetric isosurfaces as well as translucent volumes. In addition, this method can accelerate the traversal of shadow rays when performing recursive ray tracing.
Students’ Ability to Apply Their Knowledge in a Gaming Exercise: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a study exploring master students’ ability to apply their knowledge when solving an internal pricing problem in a supply chain. Analyses of 33 negotiation progress reports and 8 recordings of discussions demonstrate that most of the students were not able to apply relevant concepts and models to guide their handling of the task. The main reason for the variability in performance was the significant differences in the students’ general problem-solving abilities. Most students did not perform a thorough task analysis or develop a solution strategy before they met for negotiations, and they did not keep track of their task performance. The implications for teaching are highlighted, and directions for further research are proposed.
Adults’ self-reported attachment influences their savoring ability

Abstract Positive affect is important for well-being, yet little is known about individual differences in the ability to up-regulate (savor) positive emotions. In a sample of 120 adults (ages 18–94; 62.5% female), this study extends correlational work by examining how attachment relates to self-reported savoring and to an experimentally-induced behavioral savoring task where participants were randomly assigned to reflect on a positive event (or complete a control task). Avoidance was related to lower trait savoring, and the effects of attachment on experimentally-induced savoring differed by the type of event participants savored. Avoidance was related to poorer affective outcomes after savoring interpersonal events but was unrelated to affective outcomes for non-interpersonal events. Anxiety was related to better outcomes after savoring non-interpersonal events but was unrelated to savoring interpersonal events. Overall, effects suggest that more insecurely attached adults may not savor as often, and may have difficulty savoring interpersonal events but not non-interpersonal events.