Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulation and Design of Nanocomposite for Application in Ballistic Protection

Abstract : The objective of this research is to develop a modeling, simulation, and design tool for nanocomposites in order to predict, with accepted fidelity, nano-composite behaviors; and to design optimum nanocomposites for specific Army applications such as ballistic protection. Based on a unit cell model created for nanoclay-epoxy composites, the effect of nanoparticle distribution on the maximum stress developed in epoxy resin was investigated using the Meshfree Particle Method based simulation tool developed at MKP. The ensemble average of mechanical property for nanoclay-epoxy composite was also studied. The increase in the mechanical properties for nanoclay-reinforced epoxy was evidenced from the simulations. It is found that statistical analysis is crucial to predict the performance of nanoparticle reinforced composite. Several armor samples reinforced with nanoclay-epoxy composites were fabricated and ballistic tests were conducted on the nanoclay-reinforced composite armors. It was found that higher mechanical properties, such as modulus and strength, will help to improve the performances of composite armor system. A numerical simulation was initiated to investigate the protection difference between armor with nanoclay reinforced epoxy and armor with pure epoxy resin. Efforts have been made to reproduce similar ballistic protection behavior using the simulation tool in comparing with the actual test results.
REE: Exploiting idempotent property of applications for fault detection and recovery

As semiconductor technologies scale down to deep sub-micron dimensions, transient faults will soon become a critical reliability concern. This paper presents the Reliability Enhancement Exploiting (REE) technique, a software-implemented fault tolerance solution which employs idempotent property of applications. An idempotent region of code is simply one that can be re-executed multiple times and still produces the same, correct result. By instrumenting extra instructions in an idempotent region to re-execute the region, REE can detect the transient faults occurring during the execution of the idempotent region. Once a fault is detected, REE can recover from the fault by executing the idempotent region again. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first to exploit idempotent property for fault detection. With similar fault coverage to a classic solution, the memory overhead and the performance overhead have been reduced by 71.8% and 31.3%, respectively.
Idiopathic Scoliosis: Identification of Candidate Regions on Chromosome 19p13

Study Design. We performed genomic screening, statistical linkage analysis, and fine mapping of 202 families with at least 2 individuals with idiopathic scoliosis. Objective. To identify regions on chromosome 19p13 statistically linked to the phenotypic expression of idiopathic scoliosis. Summary of Background Data. Idiopathic scoliosis is a common structural curvature of the spine affecting otherwise healthy children. Presently, no clear consensus exists regarding the underlying abnormality or genetic determinants of this disease. Methods. Model-independent linkage analysis of qualitative and quantitative traits related to scoliosis was used to screen genotyping data from 391 markers in 202 families (1198 individuals). Subsets of families with probands having a curve ≥30° were dichotomized based on the most likely mode of inheritance for each family (autosomal dominant or X-linked dominant). Fine mapping was performed to show linkage to candidate regions on chromosome 19. Results. When the threshold of disease was set at a curvature of ≥30°, qualitative linkage analysis revealed significant results at 2 successive markers on chromosome 19. Conclusion. The data confirm a previously reported genetic locus on chromosome 19 as potentially significant in the etiology of idiopathic scoliosis.
Prosodic Scoring of Recognition Outputs in the JUPITER Domain

JUPITER is a conversational system that allows users to access weather information over the telephone using natural speech [1]. This work examines the use of prosodic information to predict speech recognition errors more accurately for improved system robustness. Two approaches were explored here. The first approach is based on a probabilistic confidence scoring framework, which uses prosodic cues as additional features to improve both utterance-level and word-level confidence scoring. The second approach aims at scoring part of the prosodic space, focusing on phrases that bear important communicative functions. We explored the feasibility of characterizing directly the contours of some carefully selected English phrase patterns. We envision that these models can be applied to resort recognizer -best outputs or to support rejection.
Validation of a lower radiation computed tomography enterography imaging protocol to detect Crohn's disease in the small bowel

Background: The purpose was to validate a lower radiation dose computed tomography enterography (CTE) imaging protocol to detect the presence of Crohn's disease (CD) in the small bowel using two different reference standards and to identify a prediction model based on CTE signs for the presence of active CD. Methods: This retrospective study included patients with known or suspected CD who underwent CTE between January and October 2006 according to a lower radiation dose protocol. Two gastrointestinal radiologists blindly and independently classified each CTE as being active or inactive. Reference standards included ileocolonoscopy ± biopsy and a comprehensive clinical reference standard (retrospectively created by a gastroenterologist, also including history, physical, follow‐up course, and subsequent endoscopy, imaging, or surgery). Logistic regression was used to identify CTE findings that predicted the presence of active CD based on the combined clinical reference standard. Results: In all, 137 patients underwent CTE and ileocolonoscopy. Using an endoscopic reference standard, the sensitivity of CTE to detect active CD for the two readers was 81% and 89%, respectively. Using the clinical reference standard, the sensitivity of CTE to detect active CD was 89% and 98%, respectively. For both readers the sensitivity of CTE increased by 8%–9% when using the comprehensive reference standard. Multivariate analysis showed that a combination of mural thickness and hyperenhancement best predicted active CD (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.92–0.93, P < 0.0001). Conclusions: Lower radiation dose CTE exams are sensitive for the detection of active small bowel CD. The combination of mural thickness and hyperenhancement are the best radiologic predictors of active CD. (Inflamm Bowel Dis 2011;)
Software or Hardware: The Future of Green Enterprise Computing

Over the last few years, interest in “green computing” has motivated research into energy-saving techniques for enterprise systems, from network proxies and virtual machine migration to the return of thin clients. This paper tries to answer a possibly contentious question: would we be better served by the embarrassingly simple approach of replacing every desktop with a laptop? To answer this question, we use power and utilization data collected from more than 100 devices over durations up to 15 months. We ﬁnd that choosing the right computing systems – laptops – would save more energy than state-of-the-art power management software or thin clients. Furthermore, the marginal savings of applying software techniques on top of laptops is so small that it is probably not worth the trouble. When selecting computers, there are many other considerations than just energy, such as computational resources, and price. We ﬁnd that these factors generally do not reduce the attractiveness of a laptop-based enterprise. We discuss current trends in enterprises today, and how our conclusions might affect their directions, sketching a future of how a cost-efﬁcient enterprise might become a hybrid system entwining laptops and tablets with a computing cloud.
Engineering parallel applications with tunable architectures

Current multicore computers differ in many hardware characteristics. Software developers thus hand-tune their parallel programs for a specific platform to achieve the best performance; this is tedious and leads to non-portable code. Although the software architecture also requires adaptation to achieve best performance, it is rarely modified because of the additional implementation effort. The Tunable Architectures approach proposed in this paper automates the architecture adaptation of parallel programs and uses an auto-tuner to find the best-performing software architecture for a particular machine. We introduce a new architecture description language based on parallel patterns and a framework to express architecture variants in a generic way. Several case studies demonstrate significant performance improvements due to architecture tuning and show the applicability of our approach to industrial applications. Software developers are exposed to less parallel programming complexity, thus making the approach attractive for experts as well as inexperienced parallel programmers.
Accuracy evaluation of fixed-point APA algorithm [adaptive filter applications]

The implementation of adaptive filters with fixed-point arithmetic requires us to evaluate the computation quality. The accuracy can be determined by calculating the global quantization noise power in the system output. In this paper, a new model for evaluating analytically the global noise power in the APA (affine projection algorithm) is developed. The model is presented and applied to the NLMS-OCF. The accuracy of our model is analyzed by experimentation.
Children's Cue Utilization in a Memory-for-Location Task.

GEIS, MARY FULCHER, and LANGE, GARRErTT. Children's Cue Utilization in a Memory-for-Location Task. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1976, 47, 759-766. First, third, and fifth graders hid a series of people pictures in containers, half of which bore picture cues related to the people's societal roles and half of which bore cues unrelated to the people's roles. Younger children were as planful as the older children at storage, inasmuch as the proportion of people hidden with their appropriate related cues was similar across ages. At each grade level, children made more appropriate hidings and had better recall for the people's locations when instructed at hiding to put each person in the container "he went best with" than when instructed to remember where each person was hidden or when instructed that the experimenter would have to remember each person's location. All children successfully remembered the locations of people hidden with their apropriate cues, but the older children were better in remembering the locations of people hidden inappropriately or for whom there were no related cues. In a second study, preschoolers who did not show planful storage behavior received training in cue usage. An increase in appropriate hidings occurred after training and remained evident 3 weeks later.
Three-Phase 3D Reconstruction of a LiCoO2 Cathode via FIB-SEM Tomography

Abstract Three-phase three-dimensional (3D) microstructural reconstructions of lithium-ion battery electrodes are critical input for 3D simulations of electrode lithiation/delithiation, which provide a detailed understanding of battery operation. In this report, 3D images of a LiCoO2 electrode are achieved using focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM), with clear contrast among the three phases: LiCoO2 particles, carbonaceous phases (carbon and binder) and the electrolyte space. The good contrast was achieved by utilizing an improved FIB-SEM sample preparation method that combined infiltration of the electrolyte space with a low-viscosity silicone resin and triple ion-beam polishing. Morphological parameters quantified include phase volume fraction, surface area, feature size distribution, connectivity, and tortuosity. Electrolyte tortuosity was determined using two different geometric calculations that were in good agreement. The electrolyte tortuosity distribution versus position within the electrode was found to be highly inhomogeneous; this will lead to inhomogeneous electrode lithiation/delithiation at high C-rates that could potentially cause battery degradation.
An Automated System to Accelerate Image Reconstruction Using GPU

Whenever an image is distorted numbers of algorithms are used to reduce the distortions in the image. Couple of times algorithms are used to delete the distorted objects from the digital images. One of the algorithms used to do this ROI (Region-of-interest) approach. In this approach the salient object is reconstructed but background image remains blur also these approaches are more time consuming. To overcome this issue, we propose method called HEMS (Hierarchical Exemplar-Based Matching Synthesis) using GPU, in which once salient object regions are encoded only quantized color feature and local descriptor of background are kept achieving bit rate reduction. So to reconstruct the background image there are 3 steps: Firstly, search image from database, which have relevant images, limitating search to feasible number of patches. Secondly, patches are matched by color features to select appropriate candidates. Finally, distorted optimized image synthesis makes it possible to automatically choose most suitable texture sample and reconstruct the image. At last the algorithm is given to GPU which automatically reduces the time for reconstructing the images.
Probabilistic Histograms for Probabilistic Data

There is a growing realization that modern database management systems (DBMSs) must be able to manage data that contains uncertainties that are represented in the form of probabilistic relations. Consequently, the design of each core DBMS component must be revisited in the presence of uncertain and probabilistic information. In this paper, we study how to build histogram synopses for probabilistic relations, for the purposes of enabling both DBMS-internal decisions (such as indexing and query planning), and (possibly, user-facing) approximate query processing tools. In contrast to initial work in this area, our probabilistic histograms retain the key possible-worlds semantics of probabilistic data, allowing for more accurate, yet concise, representation of the uncertainty characteristics of data and query results. We present a variety of techniques for building optimal probabilistic histograms, each one tuned to a different choice of approximation-error metric. We show that these can be incorporated into a general Dynamic Programming (DP) framework, which generalizes that used for existing histogram constructions. The end result is a histogram where each "bucket" is approximately represented by a compact probability distribution function (PDF), which can be used as the basis for query planning and approximate query answering. We present novel, polynomial-time algorithms to find optimal probabilistic histograms for a variety of PDF-error metrics (including variation distance, sum squared error, max error and EMD1). Our experimental study shows that our probabilistic histogram synopses can accurately capture the key statistical properties of uncertain data, while being much more compact to store and work with than the original uncertain relations.
TweetTrader.net: Leveraging Crowd Wisdom in a Stock Microblogging Forum

TweetTrader.net is a stock microblogging forum that leverages the wisdom of crowds to aggregate the information contained in stock-related tweets. Based on insights from academic research on stock microblogs, the application integrates inputs from text classification, user voting and a proprietary Stock Game in order to extract the sentiment (i.e., the bullishness) of online investors with respect to all publicly traded companies of the S&P 500.
Model-Based Compensation of Thermal Disturbance in a Precision Linear Electromagnetic Actuator

Thermal disturbance is a major source of positioning error in precision-positioning systems. The conventional approach of using special materials for construction and sophisticated geometric design based on advanced computer simulation can be costly as well as time consuming to implement. Moreover, dynamic thermal disturbances cannot be effectively compensated for by such methods. The approach presented in this paper uses model estimated position error coupled with sensor measurement as a feedback compensator of the output shaft position. A state-space model is used in a modified Kalman Filter to reduce the total number of temperature sensors needed for estimation of the thermally induced position error. A maximum temperature estimation error of 1.8% of the measurement range is recorded. An online parameter estimation method is implemented to “fine tune” a transfer function model during a calibration stage before compensation. The model-based compensation method resulted in a mean unidirectional positioning deviation of -0.2 μm and repeatability of ± 0.7 μm during a 5-h continuous operation.
Coarse planning for landmark navigation in a neural-network reinforcement-learning robot

Is it possible to plan at a coarse level and act at a fine level with a neural-network (NN) reinforcement-learning (RL) planner? This work presents a NN planner, used to control a simulated robot in a stochastic landmark-navigation problem, which plans at an abstract level. The controller has both reactive components, based on actor-critic RL, and planning components inspired by the Dyna-PI architecture (this roughly corresponds to RL plus a model of the environment). Coarse planning is based on macro-actions defined as a sequence of identical primitive actions. It updates the evaluations and the action policy while generating simulated experience at the macro level with the model of the environment (a NN trained at the macro level). The simulations show how the controller works. They also show the advantages of using a discount coefficient tuned to the level of planning coarseness, and suggest that discounted RL has problems in dealing with long periods of time.
Exploring Mobility in Public Environments among People with Cognitive Functional Limitations—Challenges and Implications for Planning

Abstract Mobility in public environments is an important part of people’s everyday life. However, living with functional limitations often means limited mobility. To plan for public environments that enable mobility for everybody, knowledge about various user groups’ mobility is important. Up until now, knowledge concerning the mobility of people with cognitive functional limitations has been scarce. The aim of this paper is to explore, from experts’ perspectives, mobility in public environments among people with cognitive functional limitations (target group). The findings of focus group interviews with experts showed that the target group had to keep external and internal challenges at a manageable level in order to maintain mobility. The target group’s mobility is interpreted as depending on both the individuals’ cognitive capacity in relation to environmental demands as well as the motility of the members of the target group, i.e. how they form their opinions about their possibilities for mobility. Both those aspects are important for planners to consider in order keep the target group mobile.
Burkholderia pseudomallei Isocitrate Lyase Is a Persistence Factor in Pulmonary Melioidosis: Implications for the Development of Isocitrate Lyase Inhibitors as Novel Antimicrobials

ABSTRACT Burkholderia pseudomallei, the causative agent of melioidosis, has often been called the great “mimicker,” and clinical disease due to this organism may include acute, chronic, and latent pulmonary infections. Interestingly, chronic pulmonary melioidosis is often mistaken for tuberculosis, and this can have significant consequences, as the treatments for these two infections are radically different. The recurrent misdiagnosis of melioidosis for tuberculosis has caused many to speculate that these two bacterial pathogens use similar pathways to produce latent infections. Here we show that isocitrate lyase is a persistence factor for B. pseudomallei, and inhibiting the activity of this enzyme during experimental chronic B. pseudomallei lung infection forces the infection into an acute state, which can then be treated with antibiotics. We found that if antibiotics are not provided in combination with isocitrate lyase inhibitors, the resulting B. pseudomallei infection overwhelms the host, resulting in death. These results suggest that the inhibition of isocitrate lyase activity does not necessarily attenuate virulence as previously observed for Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections but does force the bacteria into a replicating state where antibiotics are effective. Therefore, isocitrate lyase inhibitors could be developed for chronic B. pseudomallei infections but only for use in combination with effective antibiotics.
Fall detection in multi-camera surveillance videos: experimentations and observations

This paper presents our study on fall detection for ageing care monitoring. We collected a choreographed multi-camera dataset that contains fall actions and other actions such as walking, standing up, sitting down and so forth. In our work, MoSIFT feature is extracted from the videos recorded by each camera. We conduct a series of experiments to show the performance variations of fall detection when different methods are used. We first compare the performance of the standard Bag-of-Words and spatial Bag-of-Words with different codebook sizes. Then, we test different fusion methods which combines the information from the videos recorded by two orthogonally deployed cameras, where a non-linear χ2 kernel Support Vector Machine (SVM) is trained to detect fall actions. In addition, we also use explicit feature maps along with linear kernel for fall detection and compare it to the standard bag of word representation with a non-linear χ2 kernel. Our experiment results show that late fusion of Bag-of-Words with a 1000 centers codebook obtains the best performance. The best result reaches 90.46% in average precision, which in turn may provide a more independent and safer living environment for the elderly.
Redefining Identity in the Turkish-Cypriot School History Textbooks: A Step Towards a United Federal Cyprus

Since coming to power in the ‘TRNC’ in late 2003, the CTP government has initiated novel attempts at the official level towards redefining collective identity and the boundaries of the nation. Revisions to school history textbooks manifest the inclination to stress the importance of the territorial rather than the ethnic dimension of identity. This paper compares the old and new mechanisms of cultural indoctrination through history teaching and concludes that the strategy of the CTP-led government to redefine nation and identity is consistent with the notion of a united federal Cyprus in the sense that it incorporates the territorial element into the collective identity, demilitarizes history teaching and reduces ‘self-other’ confrontation.