Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Egg colour mimicry in the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus as revealed by modelling host retinal function

Some parasite cuckoo species lay eggs that, to the human eye, appear to mimic the appearance of the eggs of their favourite hosts, which hinders discrimination and removal of their eggs by host species. Hitherto, perception of cuckoo–host egg mimicry has been estimated based on human vision or spectrophotometry, which does not account for what the receivers' eye (i.e. hosts) actually discriminates. Using a discrimination model approach that reproduces host retinal functioning, and museum egg collections collected in the south of Finland, where at least six different races of the European cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) coexist, I first assess whether the colour design of cuckoo eggs of different races maximizes matching for two favourite avian hosts, viz. the redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) and the pied wagtail (Motacilla alba). Second, I assess the role of nest luminosity on host perception of mimicry by the same two hosts. Phoenicurus-cuckoo eggs showed a better chromatic matching with the redstart-host eggs than other cuckoo races, and in most cases can not be discriminated. Sylvia-cuckoo eggs, however, showed better achromatic matching with redstart-host eggs than Phoenicurus-cuckoo eggs. Also, Motacilla-cuckoo eggs showed poorer chromatic and achromatic matching with pied wagtail-host eggs than Sylvia-cuckoo eggs. Nest luminosity affected chromatic and achromatic differences between cuckoo and host eggs, although only minimally affected the proportion of cuckoo eggs discriminated by chromatic signals. These results reveal that cuckoo races as assessed by humans do not entirely match with host perception of matching and that achromatic mechanisms could play a main role in the discrimination of cuckoo eggs at low-light levels.
The role of adenosine receptors in regulating production of tumour necrosis factor‐α and chemokines by human lung macrophages

Background and purpose: Adenosine is a major endogenous regulator of macrophage function, and activates four specific adenosine receptors (A1, A2A, A2B and A3). Here, we have assessed in human lung macrophages the modulation of the expression of adenosine receptor mRNA by lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and the relative contributions of the different adenosine receptors to LPS‐induced production of tumour necrosis factor (TNF)‐α and chemokines.
Belief and Desire in Imagination and Immersion

I argue that any account of imagination should satisfy the following three desiderata. First, imaginations induce actions only in conjunction with beliefs about the environment of the imagining subject. Second, there is a continuum between imaginations and beliefs. Recognizing this continuum is crucial to explain the phenomenon of imaginative immersion. Third, the mental states that relate to imaginations in the way that desires relate to beliefs are a special kind of desire, namely desires to make true in fiction. These desires to make true in fiction do not differ from regular desires in kind, but only in content. I argue for these three desiderata in turn by critically discussing several recent accounts of imagination.
Random field solutions including boundary condition uncertainty for the steady-state generalized Burgers equation

Abstract : CFD results are subject to considerable uncertainty associated with the operating conditions. Even when the operational uncertainty is omitted under very controlled circumstances during wind tunnel experiments, substantial disagreement between experimental and CFD results persists. This discrepancy must be attributed to model uncertainty. This report discusses the various sources of uncertainty. The need for advanced uncertainty modeling is illustrated by means of a computationally inexpensive 1-D Burgers equation model. We specifically address the uncertainty due to missing variables (inexact or incomplete differential equations). To this extent a random field model is used for the viscosity and the fundamental differences between the solutions of the stochastic differential equations and a simple random variable model is highlighted. The Burgers equation theoretically needs to be integrated over an infinite domain. In a deterministic approach, the integration domain is cut off at some far field boundary. This truncation effectively ignores all variability outside this far field boundary. We present a practical treatment for the uncertainty on the boundary conditions. The results indicate that ignoring the boundary condition uncertainty dramatically underestimates the variance of the velocity u(x) in the interior of the domain.
Perception et comportement du consommateur face à la pression marketing direct : recherche empirique appliquée dans un contexte d'envoi d'emailings publicitaires

Nous postulons que pour attenuer la perception de la pression et ses effets nefastes pour l'annonceur, il convient de donner aux destinataires tous les moyens d'evaluer correctement et avec le minimum d'effort la pertinence d'un message des sa reception. Nous mettons en œuvre deux protocoles d'experimentation dans le cadre d'actions emailing d'une societe de credit. Grâce au protocole «Plackett-Burman »nous analysons les effets sur le comportement de differents facteurs creatifs. Nos resultats soutiennent notre postulat. Lors d'un deuxieme protocole nous manipulons le format creatif, le niveau de pression et mesurons la pression percue et le jugement de pertinence. Nous mesurons les effets de la pression commerciale sur le comportement et la pression percue ainsi que l'effet de la pression percue sur le desabonnement. Nous mettons en evidence les roles moderateurs de format et de pertinence dans ces relations. Nos resultats sont conformes a notre schema conceptuel.
Advanced Sampling in Stream Processing Systems

Stream Processing is the new paradigm in data processing. It provides an efficient approach to extract information from new data, as the data arrives. However, spikes in data throughput, can impact the accuracy and latency guarantees stream processing systems provide. This work proposes data sampling, a type of data reduction, as a solution to this problem. It provides a user-transparent implementation of two sampling methods in the Apache Spark Streaming framework [3]. Furthermore, a mini-framework is implemented for the development of additional sampling methods. The results show a reduced amount of input data, leading to decreased processing time, but retaining a good accuracy in the extracted information.
Automatic Recognition of Text Difficulty from Consumers Health Information

Internet is used as one of major sources of health information. However, some studies show that the readability of health information presented on health Web sites is difficult for many consumers. Readability formulas usually measure difficulty of writing style, instead of difficulty of content. In order to recommend health information with appropriate reading level to consumers, we investigate the feasibility of identifying text difficulty of health information using machine learning methods. Support vector machine is used to classify consumer health information into easy to read and reading level for the general public. Three feature sets: surface linguistic features, word difficulty features, unigrams and their combinations are compared in terms of classification accuracy. Unigram features alone reach an accuracy of 80.71%, and the combination of three feature sets is the most effective in classification with accuracy of 84.06%. They are significantly better than surface linguistic features, word difficulty features and their combination
HMM modelling of additive noise in the western languages context

This paper is concerned to the noisy speech HMM modelling when the noise is additive, speech independent and the spectral analysis is based on subbands. The internal distributions of the noisy speech HMM’s were derived when Gaussian mixture density distributions for clean speech HMM modelling are used, and the noise is normally distributed and additive in the time domain. In these circumstances it is showed that the HMM noisy speech distributions are not Gaussians, however, fitting these distributions as a Gaussian mixture, only a little bit of loss in performance was obtained at very low signal to noise ratios, when compared with the case where the real distributions were computed using Monte Carlo methods.
Visual perception of texture

What is visual texture, and how might a study of the visual perception of texture help us to better understand human vision? In this chapter we will attempt to give the reader a feel for how the study of texture perception is useful both in understanding the impact of texture itself, as well as in providing a better understanding of basic visual mechanisms that respond not only to texture but to all visual stimuli. This review will be relatively brief and, of necessity, incomplete. We hope to give an overview of the different research areas concerned with texture perception and of the current issues. For a longer early review, we refer the reader to Bergen (1991). Consider the scene in Fig. 1. The border between the sky and the trees/grass involves a difference in luminance, one that would easily be signaled by a linear mechanism such as a simple cell in primary visual cortex. The boundary between the zebras and the background also involves a change in chromaticity (although not visible in the black-and-white image in Fig. 1), which might be signaled by color-opponent mechanisms. But, the borders between pairs of zebras involve neither a difference in color nor in average luminance. These borders include stretches of boundary that are black on one side and white on the other, stretches where the colors are reversed, and stretches where there is no local visual information to signal the boundary (where black abuts black, or white abuts white). Nevertheless, we perceive a smooth, continuous occlusion boundary at the edge of each animal. It is as if the visual system possesses the capability of segmenting regions of the image based on a local textural property, such as separating " vertical stuff " from " horizontal stuff. " Thus, texture is a property that is statistically defined. A uniformly textured region might be described as " predominantly vertically oriented " , " predominantly small in scale " , " wavy " , " stubbly " , " like wood grain " or " like water. " As Adelson and Bergen (1991) put it, texture is a property of Landy/Graham 3 " stuff " in the image, in contradistinction to visual features such as lines and edges, the " things " in the image (analogous to the linguistic difference between mass nouns like " water " and count nouns like " mouse "). Another way …
Modulated Data Transmission Using Antenna Indices and Their Combinations

In this study, we propose a transmission scheme Space time block coding which is integrated with spatial modulation to improve the diversity of the system and also to reduce the interchannel interference. At the transmitter end, for the given number of antennas the data is modulated and antenna indices and combinations are considered for their transmission. At the receiver end a maximum likelihood(ML) decoder, which is a low complexity decoder is considered to recover the original information bits. The simulation results shows the bit error rate performance of the system for various modulation techniques.
On Decision-Theoretic Approach to Game Theory

In our work we adopted the decision-theoretic principle of expected utility ma~mieation as a paradigm for designing autonomous rational agents operating in multi-agent environments. Our approach diifers from techniques based on game theory; we are not looking for equilibria, and we do not have to assume that the agents have arrived at the state of common knowledge. Instead, we endow an agent with a representation that captures the agent’s knowledge about the environment and about the other agents, including its knowledge about their states of knowledge, which can include what they know about the other agents, and so on. This approach has been called the decision-theoretic approach to game theory. It avoids some of the drawbacks of game-theoretic equilibria that may be nonunique and do not capturo off-equilibrium behaviors, but it does so at the cost of having to represent, process and continually update the nested state of agent’s knowledge.
Investigating the Factors Affecting Business Intelligence Systems Adoption: A Case Study of Private Universities in Malaysia

This study explores the factors influencing the adoption of Business Intelligence Systems BIS in Higher Educational Institutions HEIs, and also evaluate the extent of adoption in the universities. A research framework was developed based on the Technology-Organization-Environment TOE framework and the Diffusion of Innovations DOI theory, comprising of ten factors which were hypothesized and tested for the adoption of BIS in HEIs. Data was collected through a paper survey questionnaire from a sample of 120 managers and academicians in twelve private universities in Selangor State, Malaysia which were analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling PLS-SEM. The findings revealed that Absorptive Capacity, Competitive Pressure, Complexity, IT Infrastructure, Presence of Champion, Top Management Support, and Vendor Selection, are the factors influencing BIS adoption in the universities. The results also indicate that most private universities in Malaysia are currently involved in level 2 of BIS adoption. Other implications are also discussed.
A Metabolomic Perspective on Coeliac Disease

Metabolomics is an “omic” science that is now emerging with the purpose of elaborating a comprehensive analysis of the metabolome, which is the complete set of metabolites (i.e., small molecules intermediates) in an organism, tissue, cell, or biofluid. In the past decade, metabolomics has already proved to be useful for the characterization of several pathological conditions and offers promises as a clinical tool. A metabolomics investigation of coeliac disease (CD) revealed that a metabolic fingerprint for CD can be defined, which accounts for three different but complementary components: malabsorption, energy metabolism, and alterations in gut microflora and/or intestinal permeability. In this review, we will discuss the major advancements in metabolomics of CD, in particular with respect to the role of gut microbiome and energy metabolism.
DRG-cache: a data retention gated-ground cache for low power

In this paper we propose a novel integrated circuit and architectural level technique to reduce leakage power consumption in high performance cache memories using a single Vt (transistor threshold voltage) process. We utilize the concept of gated-ground (an NMOS transistor inserted between the ground line and SRAM cell) to achieve a reduction in leakage energy without significantly affecting performance. Experimental results on gated-ground caches show that data are retained (DRG-cache) even in stand-by mode of operation. Data are restored when the gated-ground transistor is turned on. Turning off the gated-ground transistor in turn gives a large reduction in leakage power. This technique requires no extra circuitry; the row decoder itself can be used to control the gated-ground transistor. The technique is applicable to data and instruction caches as well as different levels of cache hierarchy such as the L1, L2, or L3 caches. We fabricated a test chip in TSMC 0.25 /spl mu/ technology to show the data retention capability and the cell stability of DRG-cache. Our simulation results on 100 nm and 70 nm processes (Berkeley Predictive Technology Model) show 16.5% and 27% reduction in consumed energy in L1 cache and 50% and 47% reduction in L2 cache with less than 5% impact on execution time and within 4% increase in area overhead.
Intermediates and Lipid Peroxidation Potential Role of Reactive Oxygen B, Activator Protein-1, and Apoptosis: k NF-Activation of Nuclear Transcription Factors Resveratrol Suppresses TNF-Induced

2 Resveratrol ( trans -3,4 * ,5-trihydroxystilbene), a polyphenolic phytoalexin found in grapes, fruits, and root extracts of the weed Polygonum cuspidatum, exhibits anti-inﬂammatory, cell growth-modulatory, and anticarcinogenic effects. How this chemical produces these effects is not known, but it may work by suppressing NF- k B, a nuclear transcription factor that regulates the expression of various genes involved in inﬂammation, cytoprotection, and carcinogenesis. In this study, we investigated the effect of resveratrol on NF- k B activation induced by various inﬂammatory agents. Resveratrol blocked TNF-induced activation of NF- k B in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Resveratrol also suppressed TNF-induced phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of the p65 subunit of NF- k B, and NF- k B-dependent reporter gene transcription. Suppression of TNF-induced NF- k B activation by resveratrol was not restricted to myeloid cells (U-937); it was also observed in lymphoid (Jurkat) and epithelial (HeLa and H4) cells. Resveratrol also blocked NF- k B activation induced by PMA, LPS, H 2 O 2 , okadaic acid, and ceramide. The suppression of NF- k B coincided with suppression of AP-1. Resveratrol also inhibited the TNF-induced activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase and c-Jun N-terminal kinase and abrogated TNF-induced cytotoxicity and caspase activation. Both reactive oxygen intermediate generation and lipid peroxidation induced by TNF were suppressed by resveratrol. Resveratrol’s
Meta-level control in multi-agent systems

Sophisticated agents operating in open environments must make complex real-time control decisions on scheduling and coordination of domain activities. These decisions are made in the context of limited resources and uncertainty about the outcomes of activities. Many efficient architectures and algorithms that support these computation-intensive activities have been developed and studied. However, none of these architectures explicitly reason about the consumption of time and other resources by these activities, which may degrade an agent's performance. The problem of sequencing execution and computational activities without consuming too many resources in the process, is the meta-level control problem for a resource-bounded rational agent. The focus of this research is to provide effective allocation of computation and unproved performance of individual agents in a cooperative multi-agent system. This is done by approximating the ideal solution to meta-level decisions made by these agents using reinforcement learning methods. A meta-level agent control architecture for meta-level reasoning with bounded computational overhead is described. This architecture supports decisions on when to accept, delay or reject a new task, when it is appropriate to negotiate with another agent, whether to renegotiate when a negotiation task fails, how much effort to put into scheduling when reasoning about a new task and whether to reschedule when actual execution performance deviates from expected performance. The major contributions of this work are: a resource-bounded framework that supports of the agent state which is used by hand-generated heuristic strategies to make meta-level control decisions; and a reinforcement learning based approach which automatically learns efficient meta-level control policies.
Piloting a physical activity centred education programme for adults with a brain injury

Abstract Primary objective: To pilot test a physical activity centred education (PACE) programme for adults with a brain injury. Research design: Purposive sampling was utilized from a convenience sample of nine adults with a brain injury (five female; four male). Methods and procedures: The sample completed an 8-week health promotion programme focused on improving physical activity behaviours. Participants completed measures of self-efficacy, stage of change and rehabilitation outcomes pre- and post-programme. Descriptive analysis, effect sizes (ES) and percentage change in variables were assessed. Main outcomes and results: Results indicated improved rehabilitation outcomes as participants decreased from moderate to mild limitation (ES = 1.67). Furthermore, participants reported increased self-efficacy (ES = 0.41) and intention to be active. Conclusions and implications: Specialists are challenged to find modes of rehabilitation that improve the health of individuals with a brain injury. Pilot results from the PACE programme indicate that education about physical activity may play an important role in the rehabilitation process and lead to improved health outcomes.
Generalized direction changing fall control of humanoid robots among multiple objects

Humanoid robots are expected to share human environments in the future and it is important to ensure safety of their operation. A serious threat to safety is the fall of a humanoid robot, which can seriously damage both the robot and objects in its surrounding. This paper proposes a strategy for planning and control of fall. The controller's objective is to prevent the robot from hitting surrounding objects during a fall by modifying its default fall direction. We have earlier presented such a direction-changing fall controller in [1]. However, the controller was applicable only when the robot's surrounding contained a single object. In this paper we introduce a generalized approach to humanoid fall-direction control among multiple objects. This new framework algorithmically establishes a desired fall direction through assigned scores, considers a number of control options, and selects and executes the best strategy. The fall planner is also able to select “No Action” as the best strategy, if appropriate. The controller is interactive and is applicable for fall occurring during upright standing or walking. The fall performance is continuously tracked and can be improved in real-time. The planning and control algorithms are demonstrated in simulation on an ASIMO-like humanoid robot.
An investigation into the prolonged effects of excessive acute alcohol consumption on motor vehicle driving skills

The purpose of the current thesis was twofold: 1) to review the literature while linking the prolonged effects of excessive acute alcohol consumption (hangover) to decrements in complex vigilance tasks and 2) to determine if the prolonged effects of excessive acute alcohol consumption have an affect on driving a motor vehicle. Driving involves great requirements for attention, vigilance, and motor control. It has been previously demonstrated that alcohol, while in the body, or recently removed does cause decrements in attention span, judgment, psychomotor vigilance, and memory. However, there has been little consistency between the testing; for example, some researchers did not wait until participants’ blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was 0.00 g% before conducting testing and therefore, the remaining alcohol in the participants’ bodies may have affected the results. In the present study it was indicated that hangovers do not have an effect on driving a motor vehicle, but with a BAC above the legal limit (0.08 g%) there is a significant decrement in driving ability. In conclusion, hangovers may not affect driving a motor vehicle, but future research should examine if more severe hangovers do have a detrimental effect.