Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring, modeling and verification of light-matter interaction phenomena

Das Erzeugen von Szenen mit naturlichen Phanomenen in fotorealistischer Qualitat ist aufwandig, weil nicht nur ein realistisches Bild erstellt werden soll, sondern auch physikalische Plausibilitat in Bezug auf das modellierte Phanomen verlangt wird. Besonders in der Industrie, z.B. in der Automobilindustrie, sollte die modellierte Szene, in der ein Produkt eingesetzt wird, der tatsachlichen Einsatzumgebung so naturgetreu wie moglich ahneln. In dieser Dissertation werden neue Ansatze zum Messen von naturlichen Phanomenen prasentiert, die es ermoglichen, fur bestimmte Phanomene neue Modelle zu erstellen oder bestehende Modelle erschopfender zu verifizieren, um damit physikalische Plausibilitat fur Szenen, die am Computer ereugt werden, zu gewahrleisten. Im Unterschied zu anderen Verfahren, werden unkonventionelle Methoden zur Messung umgesetzt: Mit Hilfe eines Ellipsometers wird die Oberflachenreflektanz von Metallen so vermessen, dass auch Anderungen im Polarisationszustand des Lichtes erfasst werden. Unterwasserreflektanzen von Materialien werden mit Hilfe eines lichtdurchlassigen Diffusers abgebildet, der an einen Glasbecher angebracht wird, und der Bewegungssensor Kinect von Microsoft wird verwendet, um Gasstromungen um Objekte zu detektieren. Die Ergebnisse sind die Verifikation von bestehenden Modellen fur handelsubliche Metallflachen, ein erweitertes Reflektanzmodell fur Oberflachen, die in refraktive Medien eingetaucht werden und die Rekonstruktion von Gasstromungen um Objekte.
Energy optimization of multi-robot systems

This paper presents an optimization algorithm that has been able to save up to 45% of the energy consumption of an industrial multi-robot system. The tool Sequence Planner now includes these algorithms, focusing on minimizing energy consumption. The goal has been to reduce the energy consumption of individual robots and robots interacting in a work station, without changing the original paths or the total cycle time. The presented algorithms are based on an efficient and rapid nonlinear model for optimizing the sequences of operations and the motion trajectories. Smart simplification of the optimization problem together with innovative tools for logging data and executing the optimized trajectories on real robots has resulted in 18% to 45% saving of the energy consumption in the presented test scenarios.
Effect of turmeric rhizome powder on the activity of some blood enzymes in broiler chickens

In order to study the effect of turmeric rhizome powder (TRP) on the activity of some blood enzymes in broiler chicken, a 49 days experiment using corn-soybean meal based diet containing four levels of TRP (0.0, 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75%) as treatments with five replicates in a completely randomized design was conducted. 200 Ross male broiler chicken from 0-49 days were housed in 20 pens and received feed and water adlibitum. At 21 and 42 days of age, one blood serum sample from each replicate of treatment was collected. Inclusion of TRP significantly increased LDH and AST enzymes (P<0.05). TRP in the diets also significantly decreased ALT and ALP enzymes (P<0.05). Under the conditions of this study, it was concluded that TRP might have some positive effects on liver enzymes that directly or indirectly reflects a healthier liver status in broiler chickens.
Vocal Melody Extraction via DNN-based Pitch Estimation and Salience-based Pitch Refinement

Data-driven methods for melody extraction from polyphonic music generally require large amounts of labeled data for model training. However, musical data with annotations of melody fundamental frequency (F0) are rare and hard to obtain. To overcome this limitation, in this paper we propose to use melody MIDI files, which are more massively available, as the sources of labels to train a deep neural network (DNN) model for melody extraction. For each testing audio, the pitch sequence estimated by DNN is comprised of note numbers quantized at semitone level, and their resolution is relatively low. Therefore, we further propose a salience-based method to refine the pitch estimate of DNN to a higher resolution of 10 cents. Experimental results on three public datasets indicate that our method outperforms four state-of-the-art melody extraction methods in most cases.
The Emergence of Semantic Topography in a Neurally-Inspired Computational Model

Representations in sensory cortices are organized topographically: auditory cortex is organized tonotopically, somatosensory cortex is organized somatotopically, and visual cortex is organized retinotopically. Substantial progress has been made in understanding how topography develops at a neurocomputational level, particularly in the early and middle stages of processing in the visual system. We extend this work to investigate how higher-level semantic representations could develop based on topographic input from sensory maps in the ventral visual pathway. The receptive fields of cells in these maps correspond to the loci of activity within a cortical topography rather than explicitly coded sensory features. Using this model, we show that meaningful semantic representations at increasing levels of
Regulation of Cholinesterase Gene Expression Affects Neuronal Differentiation as Revealed by Transfection Studies on Reaggregating Embryonic Chicken Retinal Cells

In the embryonic chicken neuroepithelium, butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) as a proliferation marker and then acetylcholinesterase (AChE) as a differentiation marker are expressed in a mutually exclusive manner. These and other data indicate a coregulation of cholinesterase expression, and also possible roles of cholinesterases during neurogenesis. Here, both aspects are investigated by two independent transfection protocols of dissociated retina cells of the 6‐day‐old chick embryo in reaggregation culture, both protocols leading to efficient overexpression of AChE protein. The effect of the overexpressed AChE protein on the re‐establishment of retina‐like three‐dimensional networks (so‐called retinospheroids) was studied. In a first approach, we transfected retinospheroids with a pSVK3 expression vector into which a cDNA construct encoding the entire rabbit AChE gene had been inserted in sense orientation. As detected at the mRNA level, rabbit AChE was heterologously overexpressed in chicken retinospheroids. Remarkably, this was accompanied by a strong increase in endogenous chicken AChE protein, while the total AChE activity was only slightly increased. This increase was due to chicken enzyme, as shown by species‐specific inhibition studies using fasciculin. Clearly, total AChE activity is regulated post‐translationally. As an alternative method of AChE overexpression, transfection of spheroids was performed with an antisense‐5′‐BChE vector, which not only resulted in the down‐regulation of BChE expression, but also strongly increased chicken AChE transcripts, protein and enzyme activity. Histologically, a higher concentration of AChE protein (as a consequence of either AChE overexpression or BChE suppression) was associated with an advanced degree of tissue differentiation, as detected by immunostaining for the cytoskeletal protein vimentin.
Determining Fixturing Points for Complex Objects

Abstract This paper presents a method to design fixtures for complex objects in robotized environments. The object is described with a set of points on its surface. First, an initial form-closure fixture is found with an iterative algorithm. The initial fixture is then improved with an iterative approach relying on a geometrical reasoning that efficiently looks for a locally optimum fixture; the quality of the fixture is measured considering the largest perturbation wrench that the fixture can resist, with independence of its direction. Once a locally optimum fixture has been reached, independent contact regions are computed to provide robustness in front of the locator positioning errors or to allow variations in the locators position. The proposed approach can also be applied to compute fixtures when one or several locators are fixed beforehand. The procedure has been implemented and application examples are included in the paper.
Variable neighborhood search based approach for solving multilevel lot-sizing problems

In this paper, we present an effective approach based on the variable neighborhood search (VNS) for solving multilevel lot-sizing (MLLS) problems. Two kinds of neighborhood search strategies, i.e., move at first improvement (MAFI) and move at best improvement (MABI), are adopted to improve the performance of proposed algorithm. Computational experiments are carried out on 96 benchmark problems to test the optimality against genetic algorithm on identical problems, and also to analyze the mechanism of VNS while it solving MLLS problem. Experimental outcomes show that the VNS algorithm equipped with MABI and emendation by inner corner property enjoys good optimality and high computation effectiveness as well, which is quite competitive to the existing algorithms that have been studied on the MLLS problems.
Vision-based retinal membrane peeling with a handheld robot

Peeling delicate retinal membranes, which are often less than five microns thick, is one of the most challenging retinal surgeries. Preventing rips and tears caused by tremor and excessive force can decrease injury and reduce the need for follow up surgeries. We propose the use of a fully handheld microsurgical robot and vision-based virtual fixtures to enforce helpful constraints on the motion of the tool. Our key contribution is using only visual information to reduce and limit forces during vitreoretinal surgery: no force feedback is used in the control system. Utilizing stereo vision and tracking algorithms, the robot activates motion-scaled behavior as the tip nears the surface, providing finer control during the critical step of engaging the membrane edge. A hard virtual fixture just below the surface bounds the total downward force that can be applied. Furthermore, velocity limiting during the peeling helps the surgeon maintain a smooth, constant force while lifting and delaminating the membrane. On a retinal phantom consisting of plastic wrap stretched on top a rubber slide, we demonstrate a reduction of maximum force by 40-70%.
Effectiveness of clozapine in neuroleptic-resistant schizophrenia: clinical response and plasma concentrations.

OBJECTIVE To assess the relation between plasma concentrations of clozapine and its 2 main metabolites desmethyl clozapine and clozapine N-oxide, and clinical change in a sample of inpatients with schizophrenia who were resistant to conventional neuroleptics. METHOD Thirty-seven patients (27 men and 10 women, mean age 34.8 yr) with treatment-resistant schizophrenia were treated with clozapine for 18 weeks; dosage was adjusted according to clinical response, and plasma concentrations of clozapine and of its metabolites were measured weekly by high-performance liquid chromatography. Clinical status was also assessed weekly with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Patients were considered "responsive" if they showed at least a 20% improvement over their baseline PANSS ratings. RESULTS The mean endpoint clozapine dosage was 486.5 mg/day. There was a significant correlation between the daily dosage of clozapine and the plasma levels of clozapine and of its metabolites (p < 0.05). There was no correlation between the clozapine plasma level and the percent improvement on the PANSS. Clozapine plasma levels were not significantly different between those who responded to clozapine (n = 19) and those who did not (n = 18) and were not significantly different between patients who smoked (n = 28) and those who did not (n = 9). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis determined the plasma level threshold (above which a better clinical response was obtained) to be 550 ng/mL. Using the total of plasma levels of clozapine and its metabolites did not lead to a better sensitivity and specificity. CONCLUSIONS Our calculated plasma clozapine threshold was higher than that reported by others, but this may be related to the severity of symptoms of our patient sample. Monitoring plasma rates remains a useful tool, together with clinical evaluation, to establish the clozapine dosage for an optimum benefit-risk ratio.
An Electromagnetically Coupled Package Feed-Through Structure for Multilayer Carrier Substrates

Theoretical and first scaled experimental results are presented for an electromagnetically coupled feed-through structure for multilayer carrier substrates. This structure combines an inherent DC isolation with an improved hermetic sealing, as no conductor - at least for the RF - needs to penetrate the top layer of the substrate. The design of this interconnect is done using a FDTD software.
An information hiding scheme by applying the dynamic programming strategy to LSB matching revisited

In 2006, Mielikainen proposed LSB matching revisited to achieve image hiding. This method is able to embed two secret bits into a pair of cover pixels by adding or subtracting one from either of the pixel values of the cover pixels. In this paper we apply a dynamic programming strategy to LSB matching revisited, so as to further reduce the number of modified pixels. First, our method produces an optimal substitution table for LSB matching revisited by using the dynamic programming strategy. The secret data are then transformed according to the substitution table. Finally, the transformed secret data are embedded into a cover image by using LSB matching revisited. As shown in our experimental results, the number of modified pixels in our method is fewer than that in LSB matching revisited.
In Vivo Identification of Nuclear Factors Interacting with the Conserved Elements of Box C/D Small Nucleolar RNAs

ABSTRACT The U16 small nucleolar RNA (snoRNA) is encoded by the third intron of the L1 (L4, according to the novel nomenclature) ribosomal protein gene of Xenopus laevis and originates from processing of the pre-mRNA in which it resides. The U16 snoRNA belongs to the box C/D snoRNA family, whose members are known to assemble in ribonucleoprotein particles (snoRNPs) containing the protein fibrillarin. We have utilized U16 snoRNA in order to characterize the factors that interact with the conserved elements common to the other members of the box C/D class. In this study, we have analyzed the in vivo assembly of U16 snoRNP particles in X. laevis oocytes and identified the proteins which interact with the RNA by label transfer after UV cross-linking. This analysis revealed two proteins, of 40- and 68-kDa apparent molecular size, which require intact boxes C and D together with the conserved 5′,3′-terminal stem for binding. Immunoprecipitation experiments showed that the p40 protein corresponds to fibrillarin, indicating that this protein is intimately associated with the RNA. We propose that fibrillarin and p68 represent the RNA-binding factors common to box C/D snoRNPs and that both proteins are essential for the assembly of snoRNP particles and the stabilization of the snoRNA.
Comparison of Traffic Conflict Indicators for Crash Estimation using Peak Over Threshold Approach

Traffic conflict techniques have drawn considerable research interest and a number of conflict indicators have been developed. Previous studies have qualitatively analyzed indicator differences from their definitions and empirically investigated their similarities based on identified traffic conflicts. This study compares conflict indicators from a validity perspective by comparing crashes estimated from conflict indicators with observed crashes. The peak over threshold (POT) approach was employed for crash estimation. Four commonly used indicators are compared: time to collision (TTC), modified time to collision (MTTC), post encroachment time (PET), and deceleration to avoid a crash (DRAC). Based on the conflict and crash data collected from three signalized intersections, POT models are developed for different thresholds in the appropriate ranges, and crash estimation methods were proposed for individual conflict indicators. The identified conflicts and estimated crashes associated with different indicators are then compared. The results show that traffic conflicts identified by the four indicators vary, with MTTC generating the most accurate crash estimates. The crash estimates from TTC and PET are also reasonable but there is a tendency of overestimation for TTC and underestimation for PET. The crash estimates of DRAC are all outside the confidence intervals of observed crashes, which is likely related to the uncertainty of vehicle braking capacity.
Quantification of PET and CT Misalignment Errors Due to Bulk Motion in Cardiac PET/CT Imaging: Phantom and Clinical Studies

Purpose : Non simultaneous acquisition between CT and PET module can introduce misalignment artefact in cardiac PET/CT imaging due to patient motion. We assessed the clinical impact of patient motion and the resulting mismatch between CT and corresponding CT-based attenuation corrected (CTAC) PET images on apparent myocardial uptake values in cardiac PET/CT imaging. Methods : The evaluation of patient motion was performed using clinical and experimental phantom studies acquired on the Biograph TP 64 PET/CT scanner. In order to simulate patient motion, CT images were manually shifted from 0 to 20 mm in steps of 5-mm in six different directions. The reconstructed PET images using shifted CT were compared with the original PET images. The assessment of PET images was performed through qualitative interpretation by an experienced nuclear medicine physician and through quantitative analysis using volume of interest based analysis. Moreover, Box and Whisker plots were calculated and bull’s eye view analysis performed. PET images were also reoriented along the short, horizontal and vertical long axis views for a better qualitative interpretation. Results : A 20-mm shift in the right direction between attenuation and PET emission scans produced mean absolute percentage difference in uptake values in the lateroanterior (33.42±9.07) and lateroinferior (27.39±10.43) segments of the myocardium. Conclusion : Misalignment could introduce artifactual nonuniformities in apparent myocardial uptake value and the variations were more significant for the misalignment toward the right, feet and head directions, in such a way that even with a 5-mm shift in the CT image, errors in interpretation of PET images could occur. Furthermore, errors in PET uptake estimates were observed for movements as large as 10-mm in the left, posterior and anterior directions.
A Product-Based Faculty Professional Development Model for Infusing Technology Into Teacher Education

Technology and its challenges are becoming more dynamic and global in nature, and one obvious problem militating against effectively training preservice teachers to use existing and emerging technologies is the inability of university faculty members to model advanced knowledge and skills in integrating technology into instruction and across the curriculum (Bielefeldt, 2000; Moursund & Bielefeldt, 1999; National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 1997, 2003).
Using Mobile Devices for Topological Inference of Indoor Environments

Nowadays location systems are used within a large variety of applications. The application of these systems within indoor environments is already provided by several solutions. However, the need for high accuracy within these environments to pursue such purpose implies the use of specific infrastructures designed towards it. Our project tries to meet the requirements for a simple, low-cost, and scalable location system through different approaches. The main idea of it is to re-construct topological maps of indoor spaces through location estimation, i.e. using off-the-shelf technologies. We try to perform location estimations and then re-create the indoor maps as topological maps as a means of reducing the precision requirements other systems have, and develop a scalable and highly applicable system using sensors featuring mobile devices.
AN EFFICIENT SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS METHOD FOR NETWORK SIMULATION MODELS | NIST

Simulation models for data communications networks encompass numerous parameters that can each take on millions of values, presenting experimenters with a vast space of potential parameter combinations. To apply such simulation models experimenters face a difficult challenge: selecting the most effective parameter combinations to explore, given available resources. This paper describes an efficient method for sensitivity analysis, which can be used to identify significant parameters influencing model response. Subsequently, experimenters can vary combinations of these significant factors in order to exercise a wide range of model behaviors. The paper applies the sensitivity analysis method to identify the most significant parameters influencing the behavior of MesoNet, a 20-parameter network simulator. The method and principles explained in this paper have been used to investigate parameter spaces for simulated networks under a variety of congestion control algorithms.
Martín Farach-colton ‡

Traditional INSERTION SORT runs in O(n) time because each insertion takes O(n) time. When people run INSERTION SORT in the physical world, they leave gaps between items to accelerate insertions. Gaps help in computers as well. This paper shows that GAPPED INSERTION SORT has insertion times of O(logn) with high probability, yielding a total running time of O(n logn) with high probability.
A Multistage Representation of the Wiener Filter Based on Orthogonal Projections

The Wiener filter is analyzed for stationary complex Gaussian signals from an information theoretic point of view. A dual-port analysis of the Wiener filter leads to a decomposition based on orthogonal projections and results in a new multistage method for implementing the Wiener filter using a nested chain of scalar Wiener filters. This new representation of the Wiener filter provides the capability to perform an information-theoretic analysis of previous, basis-dependent, reduced-rank Wiener filters. This analysis demonstrates that the cross-spectral metric is optimal in the sense that it maximizes mutual information between the observed and desired processes. A new reduced-rank Wiener filter is developed based on this new structure which evolves a basis using successive projections of the desired signal onto orthogonal, lower dimensional subspaces. The performance is evaluated using a comparative computer analysis model and it is demonstrated that the low-complexity multistage reduced-rank Wiener filter is capable of outperforming the more complex eigendecomposition-based methods.