Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Artificial Muscles: Actuators for Biorobotic Systems

Biorobotic research seeks to develop new robotic technologies modeled after the performance of human and animal neuromuscular systems. The development of one component of a biorobotic system, an artificial muscle and tendon, is reported here. The device is based on known static and dynamic properties of biological muscle and tendon that were extracted from the literature and used to mathematically describe their force, length, and velocity relationships. A flexible pneumatic actuator is proposed as the contractile element of the artificial muscle and experimental results are presented that show the force-length properties of the actuator are muscle-like, but the force-velocity properties are not. The addition of a hydraulic damper is put forward to improve the actuator's velocity-dependent properties. Further, an artificial tendon is set forth whose function is to serve as connective tissue between the artificial muscle and a skeletal structure. A complete model of the artificial muscle-tendon system is then presented which predicts the expected force-length-velocity performance of the artificial system. Experimental results of the constructed device indicate muscle-like performance in general: higher activation pressures yielded higher output forces, faster concentric contractions resulted in lower force outputs, faster eccentric contractions produced higher force outputs, and output forces were higher at longer muscle lengths than shorter lengths.
Inducing Neural Models of Script Knowledge

Induction of common sense knowledge about prototypical sequence of events has recently received much attention (e.g., Chambers and Jurafsky (2008); Regneri et al. (2010)). Instead of inducing this knowledge in the form of graphs, as in much of the previous work, in our method, distributed representations of event realizations are computed based on distributed representations of predicates and their arguments, and then these representations are used to predict prototypical event orderings. The parameters of the compositional process for computing the event representations and the ranking component of the model are jointly estimated. We show that this approach results in a substantial boost in performance on the event ordering task with respect to the previous approaches, both on natural and crowdsourced texts.
Instantaneous Performance Bug Detection in IDE

We propose an instantaneous technique to detect performance bugs in the IDE. It tracks program changes in the background, detects performance bugs, and displays and invalidates bug warnings and fixes, all happening in a blink. We develop a novel change-aware static race perf-bug detection algorithm that leverages a change-aware on-the-fly points-to analysis to compute only change-related information instead of the whole program, which is significantly more efficient than state-of-the-art techniques without change-aware points-to analysis for performance bug detection.
OPHI WORKING PAPER SERIES

Agency is inescapably plural in both concept and measurement. In Sen’s account of agency, i) agency is exercised with respect to goals the person values; ii) agency includes effective power as well as direct control; iii) agency may advance wellbeing or may address other-regarding goals; iv) to identify agency also entails an assessment of the value of the agent’s goals; v) the agent’s responsibility for a state of affairs should be incorporated into his or her evaluation of it. This chapter refracts the literature on agency measurement through the first four of these characteristics, showing how particular survey-based measures of individual agency elucidate or obscure each distinction. It also observes that existing measures used in development tend to focus on control but not effective freedom, on goals the agent has reason to value rather than goals she values, and on own rather than other-regarding agency. The literature on measurement also raises a number of very relevant issues for the conceptual approach.
Uncovering cis Regulatory Codes Using Synthetic Promoter Shuffling

Revealing the spectrum of combinatorial regulation of transcription at individual promoters is essential for understanding the complex structure of biological networks. However, the computations represented by the integration of various molecular signals at complex promoters are difficult to decipher in the absence of simple cis regulatory codes. Here we synthetically shuffle the regulatory architecture — operator sequences binding activators and repressors — of a canonical bacterial promoter. The resulting library of complex promoters allows for rapid exploration of promoter encoded logic regulation. Among all possible logic functions, NOR and ANDN promoter encoded logics predominate. A simple transcriptional cis regulatory code determines both logics, establishing a straightforward map between promoter structure and logic phenotype. The regulatory code is determined solely by the type of transcriptional regulation combinations: two repressors generate a NOR: NOT (a OR b) whereas a repressor and an activator generate an ANDN: a AND NOT b. Three-input versions of both logics, having an additional repressor as an input, are also present in the library. The resulting complex promoters cover a wide dynamic range of transcriptional strengths. Synthetic promoter shuffling represents a fast and efficient method for exploring the spectrum of complex regulatory functions that can be encoded by complex promoters. From an engineering point of view, synthetic promoter shuffling enables the experimental testing of the functional properties of complex promoters that cannot necessarily be inferred ab initio from the known properties of the individual genetic components. Synthetic promoter shuffling may provide a useful experimental tool for studying naturally occurring promoter shuffling.
SNPs, protein structure, and disease

Inherited disease susceptibility in humans is most commonly associated with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The mechanisms by which this occurs are still poorly understood. We have analyzed the effect of a set of disease‐causing missense mutations arising from SNPs, and a set of newly determined SNPs from the general population. Results of in vitro mutagenesis studies, together with the protein structural context of each mutation, are used to develop a model for assigning a mechanism of action of each mutation at the protein level. Ninety percent of the known disease‐causing missense mutations examined fit this model, with the vast majority affecting protein stability, through a variety of energy related factors. In sharp contrast, over 70% of the population set are found to be neutral. The remaining 30% are potentially involved in polygenic disease. Hum Mutat 17:263–270, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Tag-based Improved Search in Peer-to-Peer Overlays

based file sharing applications have gained immense popularity in recent years. Most content sharing applications search by matching the query with the file name. Some content sharing applications have gone a step further and used metadata assigned to it by the user who shared the content for searching the content. This might not be the best approach as the tags assigned by the user may be biased and inadequate in describing the content. In this paper, an improvised search is proposed in distributed P2P content sharing systems which make use of the external metadata assigned to the content by the public. The search is implemented on JXTA overlay for its interoperability and tested. Results of a comparative study that involves the improvised tag based search are included. In addition to this, a mathematical argument is provided in support of the approach.
Effects of frequency shifts o and gender inform

In natural speech, there is a moderate correlation between the fundamental frequency and formant frequencies across talkers. The present study used a high-quality vocoder to manipulate these properties and determine their contribution to perceived naturalness and voice gender. The stimuli were re-synthesized sentences spoken by two adult males and two adult females. Scale factors were chosen for each sentence and for each talker to produce frequency-shifted versions with a specified mean fundamental frequency (F0) ranging from 60 Hz to 450 Hz in 10 steps, paired with 10 steps in geometric mean formant frequencies ranging from 850 Hz to 2500 Hz. Listeners judged frequency-shifted sentences as more natural when F0 and formant frequencies followed the co-variation of F0 and formant frequencies in natural voices. Sentences with low F0s and low formant frequencies were perceived as masculine, while sentences with high F0 and high formant frequencies were assigned high ratings of femininity. Sentences with “mismatched” F0 and formant frequencies were assigned ratings near the midpoint of the range, indicating gender ambiguity. Frequency-shifted sentences derived from male talkers received consistently higher ratings of masculinity than those derived from females and vice versa, even when assigned scale factors appropriate for the opposite gender, indicating that factors other than F0 and mean formant frequencies contribute to perceived gender.
The chairman’s statement ‐ A content analysis of discretionary narrative disclosures

Explores whether the firm’s discretionary narrative disclosures measure its financial risk of bankruptcy. Specifically examines the existence of an association between the content of the chairman’s statement and firm failure. Show that these statements are closely associated with financial performance, reinforcing the argument that such unaudited disclosures contain important information. The results have implications both for the form and content of future narrative disclosures by management.
A Phase 2 Trial of Glufosfamide in Combination With Gemcitabine in Chemotherapy-Naive Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma

Objectives:A dose-escalation study of glufosfamide plus gemcitabine showed that the combination could be administered safely at full doses. The purpose of this phase II study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of this combination in chemotherapy-naive pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Methods:Eligible patients had metastatic and/or locally advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma, Karnofsky performance status ≥70, creatinine clearance (CrCL) ≥60 mL/min, and acceptable organ function. Patients received glufosfamide 4500 mg/m2 intravenous on day 1 and gemcitabine 1000 mg/m2 intravenous on Days 1, 8, and 15 of every 28-day cycle. The primary end point was response rate. Results:Twenty-nine patients were enrolled; 14 male, median age 58 years. Twenty-three (79%) patients had distant metastases. Median cycles on treatment was 4 (range: 1–18+). Of 28, 5 (18%; 95% CI: 6%–37%) patients had a confirmed partial response (median duration: 8.4 months) and 1 had an unconfirmed partial response. Eleven patients (39%) had stable disease. Median progression-free survival was 3.7 months, median overall survival was 6 months, and 1-year survival was 32%. Grade 3/4 neutropenia occurred in 23 (79%) patients and grade 3/4 thrombocytopenia in 10 (34%) patients. The CrCL fell below 60 mL/min in 10 of 27 (37%) patients. Renal failure occurred in 4 patients. Decrease in CrCL was correlated with glufosfamide and isophosphoramide mustard pharmacokinetic area under the curve. Conclusions:The combination of glufosfamide plus gemcitabine is active in pancreatic cancer; however, hematologic and renal toxicity were pronounced. Alternative dosing of glufosfamide plus gemcitabine should be explored.
Re:Gossip, a social network of truths and lies

We are entangled in a tightly woven social fabric of which many of the intersections and communication processes are hidden. The social structures made visible are those of governments, corporations and institutions. Other social structures that have no representation are trivialized as fiction or on a day-to-day-level, as gossip. Gossip is the most effective and compelling way of weaving the social reality. In Re:Gossip, the internet is both the representation and the communication process for the underlying and ad-hoc social network of gossip and social fiction.
Energy Dissipated in Tapping Mode Atomic Force Microscopes due to Humidity

Phase imaging is an important imaging model of atomic force microscopes (AFMs). It provides many sample properties that the height image does not. The phase information reflects the energy dissipation of the probe and sample interactions. Therefore, the energy dissipation between the tip and sample in the tapping mode is of great significance for understanding the mechanism of phase imaging experimentally and theoretically. In this paper, we propose a new method for measuring energy dissipation in tapping mode AFMs. The formation and rupture processes of liquid bridges are studied by this method. Finally, the experimental results are compared with the theoretical model. The comparison shows that the method of experimental measurement and the formation mechanism of liquid bridges in the tapping mode are reliable.
Temporal Frequency Tuning Reveals Interactions between the Dorsal and Ventral Visual Streams

Visual processing of complex objects is supported by the ventral visual pathway in the service of object identification and by the dorsal visual pathway in the service of object-directed reaching and grasping. Here, we address how these two streams interact during tool processing, by exploiting the known asymmetry in projections of subcortical magnocellular and parvocellular inputs to the dorsal and ventral streams. The ventral visual pathway receives both parvocellular and magnocellular input, whereas the dorsal visual pathway receives largely magnocellular input. We used fMRI to measure tool preferences in parietal cortex when the images were presented at either high or low temporal frequencies, exploiting the fact that parvocellular channels project principally to the ventral but not dorsal visual pathway. We reason that regions of parietal cortex that exhibit tool preferences for stimuli presented at frequencies characteristic of the parvocellular pathway receive their inputs from the ventral stream. We found that the left inferior parietal lobule, in the vicinity of the supramarginal gyrus, exhibited tool preferences for images presented at low temporal frequencies, whereas superior and posterior parietal regions exhibited tool preferences for images present at high temporal frequencies. These data indicate that object identity, processed within the ventral stream, is communicated to the left inferior parietal lobule and may there combine with inputs from the dorsal visual pathway to allow for functionally appropriate object manipulation.
Random Forests for Laughter Detection

In this study, we investigate several methods on the Interspeech 2013 Paralinguistic Challenge - Social Signals Sub-Challenge dataset. The task of this sub-challenge is to detect laughter and fillers per frame. We apply Random Forests with varying number of trees and randomly selected features. We then proceed with minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance (mRMR) ranking of features. We employ SVM with linear kernel to form a relative baseline for comparability to baseline provided in the challenge paper. The results indicate the relative superiority of Random Forests to SVMs in terms of subchallenge performance measure, namely UAAUC. We also observe that using mRMR based feature selection, it is possible to reduce the number of features to half with negligible loss of performance. Furthermore, the performance loss due to feature reduction is found to be less in Random Forests compared to SVMs. We also make use of neighboring frames to smooth the posteriors. On the overall, we attain an increase of 5.1% (absolute) in UAAUC in challenge test set.
Parametrization of static output feedback controllers for Markovian switching systems and related robust control problems

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a parametric description (parametrization) of all static output feedback stabilizing controllers for linear stochastic discrete‐time systems with Markovian switching, applications of this result to simultaneous and robust stabilization problems and obtaining of algorithms for computing stabilizing gains.Design/methodology/approach – The proposed approach presents parameterization in terms of coupled linear matrix equations and quadratic matrix inequalities which depend on parameter matrices similar to weight matrices in linear quadratic regulator (LQR) theory. To avoid implementation problems, a convex approximation technique is used and linear matrix inequalities (LMI)‐based algorithms are obtained for computing of stabilizing gain.Findings – The algorithms obtained in this paper are non‐iterative and used computationally efficient LMI technique. Moreover, it is possible to use well‐known LQR methodology in the process of controller design.Originality/val.
Compressing molecular dynamics trajectories: Breaking the one‐bit‐per‐sample barrier

Molecular dynamics simulations yield large amounts of trajectory data. For their durable storage and accessibility an efficient compression algorithm is paramount. State of the art domain‐specific algorithms combine quantization, Huffman encoding and occasionally domain knowledge. We propose the high resolution trajectory compression scheme (HRTC) that relies on piecewise linear functions to approximate quantized trajectories. By splitting the error budget between quantization and approximation, our approach beats the current state of the art by several orders of magnitude given the same error tolerance. It allows storing samples at far less than one bit per sample. It is simple and fast enough to be integrated into the inner simulation loop, store every time step, and become the primary representation of trajectory data. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation the Economic Impact of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome the Economic Impact of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

This Provisional PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance. The fully-formatted PDF version will become available shortly after the date of publication, from the URL listed below. This peer-reviewed article was published immediately upon acceptance. It can be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for any purposes (see copyright notice below). article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL. ABSTRACT Background
Using visual website similarity for phishing detection and reporting

Phishing is a severe threat to online users, especially since attackers improve in impersonating other websites [1]. With websites looking visually the same, users are fooled more easily. However, the close visual similarity can also be used to counteract phishing. We present a framework that uses visual website similarity: (1) to detect possible phishing websites and (2) to create better warnings for such attacks. We report first results together with the three step process planned for the project. We expect the detection results to be comparable to previously published work which would allow for new kinds of phishing warnings with better coverage, less false positives and explicit user recommendations how to avoid these critical situation.
Sonar-Based Mapping With Mobile Robots Using EM

This paper presents an algorithms for learning occupancy grid maps with mobile robots equipped with range ﬁnders, such as sonar sensors. Our approach employs the EM algorithm to solve the concurrent mapping and localization problem. To accommodate the spatial nature of range data, it relies on a two-layered representation of maps, where global maps are composed from a collection of small, local maps. To avoid local minima during likelihood maximization, a softmax version of the M step is proposed that is gradually annealed to the exact maximum. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach is well suited for constructing large maps of typical indoor environments using sensors as inaccurate as sonars.
Gradient-domain path tracing

We introduce gradient-domain rendering for Monte Carlo image synthesis. While previous gradient-domain Metropolis Light Transport sought to distribute more samples in areas of high gradients, we show, in contrast, that estimating image gradients is also possible using standard (non-Metropolis) Monte Carlo algorithms, and furthermore, that even without changing the sample distribution, this often leads to significant error reduction. This broadens the applicability of gradient rendering considerably. To gain insight into the conditions under which gradient-domain sampling is beneficial, we present a frequency analysis that compares Monte Carlo sampling of gradients followed by Poisson reconstruction to traditional Monte Carlo sampling. Finally, we describe Gradient-Domain Path Tracing (G-PT), a relatively simple modification of the standard path tracing algorithm that can yield far superior results.
Fabrication of diamond field-emitter-array cathodes for free-electron lasers

Field-emitter arrays (FEAs) have several advantages as cathodes for free-electron lasers (FELs): they are rugged, require no laser driver, and generate little heat. We have developed two methods to fabricate diamond FEAs for FEL applications. In the first method, pyramids are formed on a Si substrate and sharpened by microlithography and then coated with CVD nanodiamond [1]. The advantages of this approach are a rigid, planar Si substrate, and microelectronic type fabrication. Typically, tip radii on the order of hundreds of nanometers are formed on 20 μm pyramids. In the second method, all-diamond pyramids are formed by a mold-transfer process in which they are sharpened by an oxide layer in the mold process. The diamond array is then brazed to a Mo substrate and the Si mold removed. The advantage of this process is that the tips are sharper, with tip radii smaller than 10 nm formed on 10 μm pyramids. The fabrication techniques and the performance of these cathodes will be discussed and compared.
Modeling of the Temporal Patterns of Fluoxetine Prescriptions and Suicide Rates in the United States

Background To study the potential association of antidepressant use and suicide at a population level, we analyzed the associations between suicide rates and dispensing of the prototypic SSRI antidepressant fluoxetine in the United States during the period 1960–2002. Methods and Findings Sources of data included Centers of Disease Control and US Census Bureau age-adjusted suicide rates since 1960 and numbers of fluoxetine sales in the US, since its introduction in 1988. We conducted statistical analysis of age-adjusted population data and prescription numbers. Suicide rates fluctuated between 12.2 and 13.7 per 100,000 for the entire population from the early 1960s until 1988. Since then, suicide rates have gradually declined, with the lowest value of 10.4 per 100,000 in 2000. This steady decline is significantly associated with increased numbers of fluoxetine prescriptions dispensed from 2,469,000 in 1988 to 33,320,000 in 2002 (rs = −0.92; p < 0.001). Mathematical modeling of what suicide rates would have been during the 1988–2002 period based on pre-1988 data indicates that since the introduction of fluoxetine in 1988 through 2002 there has been a cumulative decrease in expected suicide mortality of 33,600 individuals (posterior median, 95% Bayesian credible interval 22,400–45,000). Conclusions The introduction of SSRIs in 1988 has been temporally associated with a substantial reduction in the number of suicides. This effect may have been more apparent in the female population, whom we postulate might have particularly benefited from SSRI treatment. While these types of data cannot lead to conclusions on causality, we suggest here that in the context of untreated depression being the major cause of suicide, antidepressant treatment could have had a contributory role in the reduction of suicide rates in the period 1988–2002.