Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Direct visual servoing with respect to rigid objects

Existing visual servoing techniques which do not need metric information require, on the other hand, prior knowledge about the object's shape and/or the camera's motion. In this paper, we propose a new visual servoing technique which does not require any of them. The method is direct in the sense that: the intensity value of all pixels is used (i.e. we avoid the feature extraction step which introduces errors); and that the proposed control error as well as the control law are fully based on image data (i.e. metric measures are neither required nor estimated). Besides not relying on prior information, the scheme is robust to large errors in the camera's internal parameters. We provide the theoretical proofs that the proposed task function is locally isomorphic to the camera pose, that the approach is motion- and shape-independent, and also that the derived control law ensures local asymptotic stability. Furthermore, the proposed control error allows for simple, smooth, physically valid, singularity-free path planning, which leads to a large domain of convergence for the servoing. The approach is validated through various results using objects of different shapes, large initial displacements as well as large errors in the camera's internal parameters.
Estimating structural exchange rate models by artificial neural networks

No theory of structural exchange rate determination has yet been found that performs well in prediction experiments. Only very seldom has the simple random walk model been significantly outperformed. Referring to three, sometimes highly nonlinear, monetary and nonmonetary structural exchange rate models, a feedforward artificial neural network specification is investigated to determine whether it improves the prediction performance of structural and random walk exchange rate models. A new test for univariate nonlinear cointegration is also derived. Important nonlinearities are not detected for monthly data of US dollar rates in Deutsche marks, Dutch guilders, British pounds and Japanese yens.
Dorsomorphin, a Selective Small Molecule Inhibitor of BMP Signaling, Promotes Cardiomyogenesis in Embryonic Stem Cells

Background Pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells, which have the capacity to give rise to all tissue types in the body, show great promise as a versatile source of cells for regenerative therapy. However, the basic mechanisms of lineage specification of pluripotent stem cells are largely unknown, and generating sufficient quantities of desired cell types remains a formidable challenge. Small molecules, particularly those that modulate key developmental pathways like the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling cascade, hold promise as tools to study in vitro lineage specification and to direct differentiation of stem cells toward particular cell types. Methodology/ Principal Findings We describe the use of dorsomorphin, a selective small molecule inhibitor of BMP signaling, to induce myocardial differentiation in mouse ES cells. Cardiac induction is very robust, increasing the yield of spontaneously beating cardiomyocytes by at least 20 fold. Dorsomorphin, unlike the endogenous BMP antagonist Noggin, robustly induces cardiomyogenesis when treatment is limited to the initial 24-hours of ES cell differentiation. Quantitative-PCR analyses of differentiating ES cells indicate that pharmacological inhibition of BMP signaling during the early critical stage promotes the development of the cardiomyocyte lineage, but reduces the differentiation of endothelial, smooth muscle, and hematopoietic cells. Conclusions/ Significance Administration of a selective small molecule BMP inhibitor during the initial stages of ES cell differentiation substantially promotes the differentiation of primitive pluripotent cells toward the cardiomyocytic lineage, apparently at the expense of other mesodermal lineages. Small molecule modulators of developmental pathways like dorsomorphin could become versatile pharmacological tools for stem cell research and regenerative medicine.
Learning to Identify Unexpected Instances in the Test Set

Traditional classification involves building a classifier using labeled training examples from a set of predefined classes and then applying the classifier to classify test instances into the same set of classes. In practice, this paradigm can be problematic because the test data may contain instances that do not belong to any of the previously defined classes. Detecting such unexpected instances in the test set is an important issue in practice. The problem can be formulated as learning from positive and unlabeled examples (PU learning). However, current PU learning algorithms require a large proportion of negative instances in the unlabeled set to be effective. This paper proposes a novel technique to solve this problem in the text classification domain. The technique first generates a single artificial negative document AN. The sets P and {AN} are then used to build a naive Bayesian classifier. Our experiment results show that this method is significantly better than existing techniques.
Automatic systems for assistance in improving pronunciations

Improving the pronunciations of non-native language learners is an important task in a multilingual society. We focus on segmental aspects of pronunciation, and investigate the design of automated assistants that can be used to improve (1) the articulation of phones and (2) the production of tone. Initial experiments investigated phone productions in English by speakers of Nguni languages, and the tone of English speakers when producing speech in an Nguni language. Our initial results are promising, and point to the improvements that are required to develop a practical system.
H∞ static output feedback control for constrained uncertain linear systems via moving horizon strategy

By searching the condition that guarantees the given performance index based on S-procedure technique, an H∞ static output feedback control method is proposed for constrained system. Moreover, the dissipative constrained conditions and the elliptical set that contains output trajectory are cast as LMIs, and introduced into the optimization problem, then a moving horizon H∞ control using static output feedback is presented. The robust closed-loop properties, inclusive of stability, H∞ performance and the satisfaction of the time-domain constraints are discussed.
Optimizing Machine Learning Approach Based on Fuzzy Logic in Text Summarization

With the proliferation of the Internet and the huge amount of data it transfers, automatic text summarization is becoming more important. In this paper we first analyze some state of the art methods to text summarization. , We also try to analyze one of the previous text summarization methods, "Machine learning Approach", and eliminate its shortcomings . Finally we present an approach to the design of an automatic text summarizer that generates a summary using fuzzy logic to obtain better results compared to previous methods.
Hourglass: An Infrastructure for Connecting Sensor Networks and Applications

The emergence of computationally-enabled sensors and the applications that use sensor data introduces the need for a software infrastructure designed specifically to enable the rapid development and deployment of applications that draw upon data from multiple, heterogeneous sensor networks. We present the Hourglass infrastructure, which addresses this need. Hourglass is an Internet-based infrastructure for connecting a wide range of sensors, services, and applications in a robust fashion. In Hourglass, a stream of data elements is routed to one or more applications. These data elements are generated from sensors inside of sensor networks whose internals can be entirely hidden from participants in the Hourglass system. The Hourglass infrastructure consists of an overlay network of well-connected dedicated machines that provides service registration, discovery, and routing of data streams from sensors to client applications. In addition, Hourglass supports a set of in-network services such as filtering, aggregation, compression, and buffering stream data between source and destination. Hourglass also allows third party services to be deployed and used in the network. In this paper, we present the Hourglass architecture and describe our test-bed and implementation. We demonstrate how our design maintains streaming data flows in the face of disconnection, allows discovery of and access to data from sensors, supports participants of widely varying capabilities (servers to PDAs), takes advantage of wellprovisioned, well-connected machines, and provides separate efficient communication paths for short-lived control messages and long-lived stream-oriented data.
Foreign Production: The Weak Link in Tests of the Internationalization Process Model

This paper reviews empirical tests of two of the main implications of the internationalization model: that firms, as they gain international experience, enter markets of increasing psychic distance and that they enter a given market with successive entry modes that reflect increasing commitment. One problem with much of this literature is that it fails to control for economic variables that affect the choice of target market and that of entry mode. Another is the overemphasis on exports, and the relative neglect of foreign production. Yet, because it is more risky and less reversible, foreign production would seem to provide a better test of the model.
Extracting Consistent Watersheds From Digital River And Elevation Data

The Terrain Resources Inventory Mapping (TRIM) data standard in BC, Canada, includes speci cations for river data and elevation data that are typically met by interpretation of stereo orthophotos. It does not specify that breaklines for watersheds be interpreted from the photos, thus we must extract them from the data. We seek a system of watersheds that, while not exact due to errors in the data, is at least self-consistent { having no overlapping watersheds and no unclassi ed points. We build a TIN terrain model using a Delaunay triangulation that combines both river and elevation data. Based on the standard de nition of water ow along steepest-descent paths, we create an algorithm that identi es ridges and channels in the TIN, and extracts watersheds. Several unexpected geometric con gurations, which we have not seen in the literature, follow from the standard de nitions. These must be correctly computed to obtain a consistent system of watersheds.
LALP: A Novel Language to Program Custom FPGA-Based Architectures

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are becoming increasingly important in embedded and high-performance computing systems. They allow performance levels close to the ones obtained from Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), while still keeping design and implementation flexibility. However, to efficiently program FPGAs, one needs the expertise of hardware developers and to master hardware description languages (HDLs) such as VHDL or Verilog. The attempts to furnish a high-level compilation flow (e.g., from C programs) still have open issues before efficient and consistent results can be obtained. Bearing in mind the FPGA resources, we have developed LALP, a novel language to program FPGAs. A compilation framework including mapping capabilities supports the language. The main ideas behind LALP is to provide a higher abstraction level than HDLs, to exploit the intrinsic parallelism of hardware resources, and to permit the programmer to control execution stages whenever the compiler techniques are unable to generate efficient implementations. In this paper we describe LALP, and show how it can be used to achieve high-performance computing solutions.
The optimized scheme of WSN with low power consumption based on program analysis

Wireless sensors need to be designed saving power consumption to extend working time. This paper mainly focuses on power optimization based on the function level in the wireless communication block. We use program analysis tools to extract the most frequent-called functions and reframe these functions to pursue less energy consumed. Following the function change, most of the scenarios installed with different protocols achieve a relatively obvious power saving and make the WSN alive for a longer time.
Tailoring Integrated Software Engineering Environments using Tool Integration Frameworks

A recent trend in improved support for software engineering activities is the increasing use of integrated software engineering environments (ISEEs), in which various specific software engineering tools cooperate to facilitate the software development process. A number of integration frameworks which purport to support cooperation between tools have been proposed and marketed. This paper describes and compares, in an informal manner, some of the available ISEE frameworks, namely Hewlett-Packard's SoftBench and Digital Equipment Corporation's Cohesion strategy, and a relevant standardisation effort, PCTE. It also outlines a formal, object-oriented model for the description of tool interaction within
The Matching Problem Has No Fully Polynomial Size Linear Programming Relaxation Schemes

Recently, Rothvoß established that every linear program (LP) expressing the matching polytope has an exponential number of inequalities (formally, the matching polytope has exponential extension complexity). We generalize this result by deriving strong bounds on the LP inapproximability of the matching problem: for fixed 0 <; ε <; 1, every (1 - ε/n)-approximating LP requires an exponential number of inequalities, where n is the number of vertices. This is sharp, given the well-known ρ-approximation of size O(1/(1-ρn)) provided by the odd-sets of size up to 1/(1-ρ). Thus, matching is the first problem in F, which does not admit a fully polynomial-size LP relaxation scheme (the LP equivalent of an Fully Polynomial-Time Approximation Scheme), which provides a sharp separation from the polynomial-size LP relaxation scheme obtained, e.g., through constant-sized odd-sets mentioned above. Analyzing the size of LP formulations is equivalent to examining the nonnegative rank of matrices. We study the nonnegative rank through an information-theoretic approach; while it reuses key ideas from Rothvoß, the main lower bounding technique is different: we employ the information-theoretic notion of Wyner's common information used for studying LP formulations. This allows us to analyze the nonnegative rank of perturbations of slack matrices, e.g., the approximations of the matching polytope. It turns out that the high extension complexity for the matching problem stems from the same source of hardness as in the case of the correlation polytope: a direct sum structure.
An Approach to Building Extraction from Digital Surface Models

Motivated by the test data sets of ISPRS WG III on image understanding we investigate the feasibility of building extraction using high resolutionDigital Surface Models DSM as input data which do not only contain information about the topographic surface like Digital Elevation Models DEM but also information about the buildings The steps of the proposed procedure increasingly use explicit domain knowledge speci cally geometric constraints in the form of parametric and prismatic building models The reconstruction of the prismatic models and the selection of the models are based on the principle of Minimum Description Length MDL In addition we also discuss the possible use of information from GIS or maps in our approach KURZFASSUNG Unsere Arbeiten bez uglich der Geb audeerfassung aus hochau osenden DigitalenOber achenmodellen die nicht nur Information uber die topographische Ober ache wie Digitale H ohenmodelle sondern auch uber Geb aude enthalten sind durch die von der ISPRS WG III herausgegebenen Testdatens atze angeregt worden Die Schritte des hier aufgezeigten Verfahrens nutzen Wissen uber Geb aude welches durch die verwendeten parametrischen und prismatischen Geb audemodelle repr asentiert wird Die Rekonstruktion der prismatischen Modelle und die Auswahl des f ur die Rekonstruktion anzuwendenden Modells basieren auf dem Prinzip der Minimalen Beschreibungl ange Desweiteren wird der Einsatz von GIS und Karten als zus atzliche Datenquelle im Zusammenhang mit der Geb audeerfassung aus Digitalen Ober achenmodellen diskutiert
Fast Recovery in Software-Defined Networks

Although Software-Defined Networking and its implementation OpenFlow facilitate managing networks and enable dynamic network configuration, recovering from network failures in a timely manner remains non-trivial. The process of (a) detecting the failure, (b) communicating it to the controller and (c) recomputing the new shortest paths may result in an unacceptably long recovery time. In this paper, we demonstrate that current solutions, employing both reactive restoration or proactive protection, indeed suffer long delays. We introduce a failover scheme with per-link Bidirectional Forwarding Detection sessions and preconfigured primary and secondary paths computed by an OpenFlow controller. Our implementation reduces the recovery time by an order of magnitude compared to related work, which is confirmed by experimental evaluation in a variety of topologies. Furthermore, the recovery time is shown to be constant irrespective of path length and network size.
PROMOTING FEMALE STUDENTS ' INTERESTS IN STUDYING WITH EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Numerous studies have discussed gender differences in technology education, and have demonstrated that male students have more confidence in using technology than do female students. Female students’ lack of interest is due to the pedagogical approaches favoring male values. By contrast, no previous research on the integration of technology in English as a foreign language has investigated gender differences and the level of confidence of students in using technology in the classroom. This study aims to investigate the perceptions of students’ use of technology in the field of English applied foreign languages and check their perceptions about the use of computer technology. For this purpose, students enrolled in a conventional class of second year license degree in Applied Foreign Languages were interviewed and answered a questionnaire. The results of this study show that female students are highly likely to gain more confidence when given activities that match their learning interests.
Coherent Shift Estimation for Stacks of SAR Images

Speckle tracking is used with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images to estimate displacements, in ways that support or integrate interferometric measurements. This letter derives Fisher information expressions for the displacement estimation using coherent speckle tracking, for the multi-image scenario with an arbitrary coherence structure. Previous results were limited to image pairs. An estimator that approaches the theoretical bound is also proposed, establishing a link with phase estimation for multi-image SAR interferometry. The derivation of the Fisher information is given in the general case when the coherence is a function of the frequency.
Direction-of-arrival estimation for closely coupled arrays with impedance matching

Conventionally, the spacing between adjacent elements in an antenna array are set at half-a-wavelength in order to obtain maximum spatial resolution while avoiding spurious sidelobes. However, for antenna arrays that are implemented in a compact manner, the spacing between the adjacent elements can be significantly less than half-a- wavelength. The small spacing between the antennas results in strong mutual coupling between the antennas, which has been shown to affect the performance of array algorithms, through modifying the antenna pattern and reducing the antenna efficiency. Recently, impedance matching techniques have been proposed for multiple antenna systems for diversity and MIMO applications, in order to counteract the aforesaid coupling effects. In this paper, we study the impact of different impedance matching conditions on the Cramer-Rao bound performance of direction-of-arrival estimation using closely coupled arrays. We demonstrate that an appropriate matching network can drastically improve the CRB performance with respect to 50 ohm termination or self impedance termination with coupling, and the case of ideal antenna arrays with no coupling. For example, a tenfold reduction in RMSE over the simple matching terminations was obtained with the multiport conjugate match for a two signal scenario and an antenna separation of 0.1 wavelength.
Phylogenetic Analysis of the Thylakoid ATP/ADP Carrier Reveals New Insights into Its Function Restricted to Green Plants

ATP is the common energy currency of cellular metabolism in all living organisms. Most of them synthesize ATP in the cytosol or on the mitochondrial inner membrane, whereas land plants, algae, and cyanobacteria also produce it on the thylakoid membrane during the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis. From the site of synthesis, ATP is transported to the site of utilization via intracellular membrane transporters. One major type of ATP transporters is represented by the mitochondrial ADP/ATP carrier family. Here we review a recently characterized member, namely the thylakoid ATP/ADP carrier from Arabidopsis thaliana (AtTAAC). Thus far, no orthologs of this carrier have been characterized in other organisms, although similar sequences can be recognized in many sequenced genomes. Protein Sequence database searches and phylogenetic analyses indicate the absence of TAAC in cyanobacteria and its appearance early in the evolution of photosynthetic eukaryotes. The TAAC clade is composed of carriers found in land plants and some green algae, but no proteins from other photosynthetic taxa, such as red algae, brown algae, and diatoms. This implies that TAAC-like sequences arose only once before the divergence of green algae and land plants. Based on these findings, it is proposed that TAAC may have evolved in response to the need of a new activity in higher photosynthetic eukaryotes. This activity may provide the energy to drive reactions during biogenesis and turnover of photosynthetic complexes, which are heterogeneously distributed in a thylakoid membrane system composed of appressed and non-appressed regions.
A Fast Software Implementation for Arithmetic Operations in Gf(2 N ) (preprint)

We present a software implementation of arithmetic operations in a nite eld GF(2 n), based on an alternative representation of the eld elements. An important application is in elliptic curve crypto-systems. Whereas previously reported implementations of elliptic curve cryptosystems use a standard basis or an optimal normal basis to perform eld operations, we represent the eld elements as polynomials with coeecients in the smaller eld GF(2 16). Calculations in this smaller eld are carried out using pre-calculated lookup tables. This results in rather simple routines matching the structure of computer memory very well. The use of an irreducible trinomial as the eld polynomial, as was proposed at Crypto'95 by R. Schroeppel et al., can be extended to this representation. In our implementation, the resulting routines are slightly faster than standard basis routines.