Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discovery of an ~7 Hz Quasi-periodic Oscillation in the Low-Luminosity Low-Mass X-Ray Binary 4U 1820–30

We have discovered a 7.06 ± 0.08 Hz quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) in the X-ray flux of the low-luminosity low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) and atoll source 4U 1820-30. This QPO was only observable at the highest observed mass accretion rate, when the source was in the uppermost part of the banana branch, at a 2-25 keV luminosity of 5.4×1037 ergs s-1 (for a distance of 6.4 kpc). The QPO had an FWHM of only 0.5 ± 0.2 Hz during small time intervals (32 s of data) and showed erratic shifts in the centroid frequency between 5.5 and 8 Hz. The rms amplitude over the energy range 2-60 keV was 5.6% ± 0.2%. The amplitude increased with photon energy from 3.7% ± 0.5% between 2.8 and 5.3 keV to 7.3% ± 0.6% between 6.8 and 9.3 keV, above which it remained approximately constant at ~7%. The time lag of the QPO between 2.8-6.8 and 6.8-18.2 keV was consistent with being zero (-1.2 ± 3.4 ms). The properties of the QPO (i.e., its frequency and its presence only at the highest observed mass accretion rate) are similar to those of the 5-20 Hz QPO observed in the highest luminosity LMXBs (the Z sources) when they are accreting near the Eddington mass accretion limit. If this is indeed the same phenomenon, then models explaining the 5-20 Hz QPO in the Z sources, which require the near-Eddington accretion rates, will not hold. Assuming isotropic emission, the 2-25 keV luminosity of 4U 1820-30 at the time of the 7 Hz QPOs is at maximum at only 40% (for a companion star with cosmic abundances), but most likely at ~20% (for a helium companion star), of the Eddington accretion limit.
Digital Recognition using Neural Network

Problem statement: Handwriting number recognition is a challenging problem researchers had been research into this area for so long especially in the recent years. In our study there are many fields concern with numbers, for example, checks in banks or recognizing numbers in car plates, the subject of digit recognition appears. A system for recognizing isolated digits may be as an approach for dealing with such application. In other words, to let the computer understand the Arabic numbers that is written manually by users and views them according to the computer process. Scientists and engineers with interests in image processing and pattern recognition have developed various approaches to deal with handwriting number recognition problems such as, minimum distance, decision tree and statistics. Approach: The main objective for our system was to recognize isolated Arabic digits exist in different applications. For example, different users had their own handwriting styles where here the main challenge falls to let computer system understand these different handwriting styles and recognize them as standard writing. Result: We presented a system for dealing with such problem. The system started by acquiring an image containing digits, this image was digitized using some optical devices and after applying some enhancements and modifications to the digits within the image it can be recognized using feed forward back propagation algorithm. The studies were conducted on the Arabic handwriting digits of 10 independent writers who contributed a total of 1300 isolated Arabic digits these digits divided into two data sets: Training 1000 digits, testing 300 digits. An overall accuracy meet using this system was 95% on the test data set used. Conclusion: We developed a system for Arabic handwritten recognition. And we efficiently choose a segmentation method to fit our demands. Our system successfully designs and implement a neural network which efficiently go without demands, after that the system are able to understand the Arabic numbers that was written manually by users.
Efficient training methods for maximum entropy language modeling

Maximum entropy language modeling techniques combine di(cid:11)erent sources of statistical dependence, such as syntactic relationships, topic cohesiveness and collocation frequency, in a uni(cid:12)ed and e(cid:11)ective language model. These techniques however are also computationally very intensive, particularly during model estimation, compared to the more prevalent alternative of interpolating several simple models, each capturing one type of dependency. In this paper we present ways which signi(cid:12)cantly reduce this complexity by reorganizing the required computations. We show that in case of a model with N-gram constraints, each iteration of the parameter estimation algorithm requires the same amount of computation as estimating a comparable back-o(cid:11) N-gram model. In general, the computational cost of each iteration in model estimation is linear in the number of distinct \histories" seen in the training corpus, times a model-class dependent factor. The reorganization focuses mainly on reducing this multiplicative factor from the size of the vocabulary to the average number of words seen following a history. A 15-fold speed-up has been observed by using this methodin estimating a language model that incorporates syntactic head-word constraints, nonter-minal-label constraints and topic-unigram constraints with N-grams for the Switchboard corpus. This model achieves a perplexity reduction of 13% and a word error rate reduction of 1.5% absolute compared to a trigram model.
Intercontinental cooperative telemanipulation between Germany and Japan

The video shows an intercontinental cooperative telemanipulation task, whereby the operator site is located in Munich, Germany and the teleoperator site in Tsukuba, Japan. The human operator controls a remotely located teleoperator, which performs a task in the remote environment. Hereby the human operator is assisted by another person located at the remote site. The task consists in jointly grasping an object, moving it to a new position and finally releasing it.
Fault Diagnosis Solutions: Storage, Reuse and Parallelism

Fault diagnosis techniques for digital integrated circuits can been classified into three categories: static, dynamic and integrated. Static techniques use pre-computed output information that is repeatedly reused for comparision with real faulty chip responses. Dynamic techniques rely on analysis or simulation performed at diagnosis time, along with the faulty chip responses, to provide the candidate fault list. Integrated techniques use pre-computed information and couple this with analysis or simulation at diagnosis time for the diagnosis solution. Traditionally, the pre-computed information has been limited to primary output information, but recent research has extended it to include internal node information. This paper presents a brief overview of fault diagnosis research and shows that effective solutions to the diagnosis problem are possible by exploiting the available parallelism. Two parallel diagnostic techniques are presented. The first method exploits a single fault simulation run on a single processor to simultaneously diagnose multiple faulty chips. Next, state storage based diagnosis [1] is shown to provide parallelism for the diagnosis of a single faulty chip on multiple processors, for sequential circuits.
Metadata goes where Metadata is : contextual networks in the photographic domain

Realizing the potential of digital media within the Semantic Web, relies on the existence of detailed, semantically unambiguous metadata. However, in the domain of personal photography within family centered communities, the generation of such metadata remains an unsolved issue. This paper introduces a solution to this problem based on exploiting the existence of strong semantic connections among photographs and entities specific to the user's context. In particular, three scenarios where this approach would be useful are discussed such as: (1) the reuse of existing metadata in order to generate more semantic metadata for unannotated photographs, (2) taking advantage of the connections among photographs to enhance search over a user's collection and (3) the support for communities by an external framework allows the use of image-based communications (e.g. sharing) to aid in metadata generation by reinforcing the connections across multiple graphs.
Imaging and Treatment of Patients with Acute Stroke: An Evidence-Based Review

SUMMARY: Evidence-based medicine has emerged as a valuable tool to guide clinical decision-making, by summarizing the best possible evidence for both diagnostic and treatment strategies. Imaging plays a critical role in the evaluation and treatment of patients with acute ischemic stroke, especially those who are being considered for thrombolytic or endovascular therapy. Time from stroke-symptom onset to treatment is a strong predictor of long-term functional outcome after stroke. Therefore, imaging and treatment decisions must occur rapidly in this setting, while minimizing unnecessary delays in treatment. The aim of this review was to summarize the best available evidence for the diagnostic and therapeutic management of patients with acute ischemic stroke.
A Brief Overview of Population Diversity Measures in Genetic Programming

In the field of Genetic Programming (GP), there has been a growing interest in the effects of loss of genetic diversity, which causes the whole population prematurely converge to local optima. Improving diversity of the population is always an implicit goal of almost any basic genetic programming system. Most research in this area suggests a diversity measurement and controls this quantitative metric to maintain genetically diverse populations. This paper brief overviews of the measures used in Genetic Programming for diversity maintenance and promotion.
Expanding Spectrum of Human RYR2-Related Disease: New Electrocardiographic, Structural, and Genetic Features

Background— Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia is a disease characterized by ventricular arrhythmias elicited exclusively under adrenergic stress. Additional features include baseline bradycardia and, in some patients, right ventricular fatty displacement. The clinical spectrum is expanded by the 2 families described here. Methods and Results— Sixteen members from 2 separate families have been clinically evaluated and followed over the last 15 years. In addition to exercise-related ventricular arrhythmias, they showed abnormalities in sinoatrial node function, as well as atrioventricular nodal function, atrial fibrillation, and atrial standstill. Left ventricular dysfunction and dilatation was present in several affected individuals. Linkage analysis mapped the disease phenotype to a 4-cM region on chromosome 1q42-q43. Conventional polymerase chain reaction–based screening did not reveal a mutation in either the Ryanodine receptor 2 gene (RYR2) or ACTN2, the most plausible candidate genes in the region of interest. Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification and long-range polymerase chain reaction identified a genomic deletion that involved RYR2 exon-3, segregated in all the affected family members (n=16) in these 2 unlinked families. Further investigation revealed that the genomic deletion occurred in both families as a result of Alu repeat–mediated polymerase slippage. Conclusions— This is the first report on a large genomic deletion in RYR2, which leads to extended clinical phenotypes (eg, sinoatrial node and atrioventricular node dysfunction, atrial fibrillation, atrial standstill, and dilated cardiomyopathy). These features have not previously been linked to RYR2.
Pathway clusters of aging genes using data mining techniques

Exploring and identifying novel aging genes has been the current area of interest in Gerontology. A variety of techniques have been proposed to identify the genes that affect the centenarians and the focus is on the study of genes of interest affecting older population. However the study of aging related pathways using computational methods has not been discussed explicitly so far. In this paper, an attempt is made to cluster the aging genes into different biological pathways using data mining techniques. Text mining is used to identify the most relevant keywords from different pathway databases, which is used as one of the feature describing a gene. K-means clustering is done on the aging pathway dataset. The clusters formed are in good agreement with the background knowledge about the aging genes and their pathways. The quality of the K-means clustering is quite promising as it well separates the different aging genes into their respective pathways.
Subdivision surfaces: a new paradigm for thin‐shell finite‐element analysis

We develop a new paradigm for thin-shell finite-element analysis based on the use of subdivision surfaces for (i) describing the geometry of the shell in its undeformed configuration, and (ii) generating smooth interpolated displacement fields possessing bounded energy within the strict framework of the Kirchhoff–Love theory of thin shells. The particular subdivision strategy adopted here is Loop's scheme, with extensions such as required to account for creases and displacement boundary conditions. The displacement fields obtained by subdivision are H2 and, consequently, have a finite Kirchhoff–Love energy. The resulting finite elements contain three nodes and element integrals are computed by a one-point quadrature. The displacement field of the shell is interpolated from nodal displacements only. In particular, no nodal rotations are used in the interpolation. The interpolation scheme induced by subdivision is non-local, i.e. the displacement field over one element depend on the nodal displacements of the element nodes and all nodes of immediately neighbouring elements. However, the use of subdivision surfaces ensures that all the local displacement fields thus constructed combine conformingly to define one single limit surface. Numerical tests, including the Belytschko et al. [10] obstacle course of benchmark problems, demonstrate the high accuracy and optimal convergence of the method.
Modulation of Cortical Activity by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Patients with Affective Disorder

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to have antidepressant efficacy in patients experiencing a major depressive episode, but little is known about the underlying neurophysiology. The purpose of our study was to investigate the acute effects of tDCS on cortical activity using electroencephalography (EEG) in patients with an affective disorder. Eighteen patients diagnosed with an affective disorder and experiencing a depressive episode participated in a sham-controlled study of tDCS, each receiving a session of active (2 mA for 20 minutes) and sham tDCS to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The effects of tDCS on EEG activity were assessed after each session using event-related potentials (ERP) and measurement of spectral activity during a visual working memory (VWM) task. We observed task and intervention dependent effects on both ERPs and task-related alpha and theta activity, where active compared to sham stimulation resulted in a significant reduction in the N2 amplitude and reduced theta activity over frontal areas during memory retrieval. In summary a single session of anodal tDCS stimulation to the left DLPFC during a major depressive episode resulted in modulated brain activity evident in task-related EEG. Effects on the N2 and frontal theta activity likely reflect modulated activity in the medial frontal cortex and hence indicate that the after-effects of tDCS extend beyond the direct focal effects to the left DLPFC.
Architecture-scale human-assisted additive manufacturing

Recent digital fabrication tools have opened up accessibility to personalized rapid prototyping; however, such tools are limited to product-scale objects. The materials currently available for use in 3D printing are too fine for large-scale objects, and CNC gantry sizes limit the scope of printable objects. In this paper, we propose a new method for printing architecture-scale objects. Our proposal includes three developments: (i) a construction material consisting of chopsticks and glue, (ii) a handheld chopstick dispenser, and (iii) a printing guidance system that uses projection mapping. The proposed chopstickglue material is cost effective, environmentally sustainable, and can be printed more quickly than conventional materials. The developed handheld dispenser enables consistent feeding of the chopstickglue material composite. The printing guidance system --- consisting of a depth camera and a projector --- evaluates a given shape in real time and indicates where humans should deposit chopsticks by projecting a simple color code onto the form under construction. Given the mechanical specifications of the stickglue composite, an experimental pavilion was designed as a case study of the proposed method and built without scaffoldings and formworks. The case study also revealed several fundamental limitations, such as the projector does not work in daylight, which requires future investigations.
Physics-based smoke simulation with dynamic obstacles

In computer graphics field, smoke with the obstacles in the scene is very commonplace. In this paper, a new technique for the physics-based smoke simulation with dynamic complex obstacles is presented. In difference from other methods, our innovation firstly generates an obstacle texture which stores the positions of obstacles; then properties of the smoke in the boundary are modified according to the obstacle texture. The positions of obstacles can be acquired at any time through the obstacle texture and a transformation matrix; meanwhile, we don't need to update the obstacle texture per frame. Our scheme is independent on the complexity of the scene. Therefore, it can be applied in 3D battlefield environment and other 3D games to solve the problem of the interaction between smoke and dynamic complex obstacles.
Improving scenario testing process by adding value-based prioritization: an industrial case study

Most of the current testing strategies treat all aspects of software equally important in a value-neutral way; this becomes more risky when the testing resources are limited. Our goal in this case study aims at improving the testing cost-effectiveness of an industrial scenario testing process under time constraints. We proposed a value-based testing prioritization strategy which allows tests to be ranked by how well the tests can reduce risk exposure. Combining this with the tests’ relative costs enables them to be prioritized in terms of return on investment (ROI) or risk reduction leverage (RRL). Besides, a new metric Average Percentage of Business Importance Earned (APBIE) is proposed to measure how quickly the testing can reduce the quality uncertainty and earn the relative business importance of the system under test (SUT). The results from one case study to prioritize operational testing scenarios in Galorath Inc. show that our method can improve the testing cost-effectiveness in terms of APBIE.
AniSAM & AniAvatar: Animated Visualizations of Affective States

Tools that provide visual feedback about emotions to the user in the form of an avatar or an emoticon have become increasingly important. While a great deal of effort has already been put into the reliable and accurate automatic detection of emotions, only very little is known about how this information about affective states should be displayed in a comprehensible way to the user. In the present study, three newly developed feedback tools were evaluated. The tools were developed on the basis of an existing non-verbal questionnaire to represent two dimensions of emotion (i.e. valence and arousal) based on the circumplex model of affect. A total number of 826 participants were tested, using different vignettes that describe situations with specific affective content. Employing three newly developed affective feedback tools (AniSAM, AniAvatar and MergedSAM), the ratings obtained were compared to ratings using the original SAM instrument, a well-established questionnaire to measure affect. Results indicated that the animated feedback increased the accuracy of the arousal representation. Furthermore, valence feedback was more accurate when provided with an animated manikin-based tool rather than an avatar-based tool. This provided first evidence for the usefulness of animated tools offering visual feedback on user emotion. All instruments need to undergo further development. AniSAM and AniAvatar can be downloaded for purposes of practical applications and further research.
About the Best Reasoning Method for Fuzzy Control

In the paper many possible reasoning methods are compared from point of view of the best control. The author proposes also new methods for fuzzy control, often better than Mamdani and Larsen methods. Fuzzy systems are described by a set of rules using connectives "and", "or", "also". Different aggregation operators, as triangular norms and mean operations, are used for interpretation of these connectives. In the paper are discussed possible interpretations for if-then rules, as different implications and other operations, in combination with defuzzification methods. Comparison of the systems with PID fuzzy controllers is presented using many different reasoning methods, and linear and nonlinear plants. Some best methods are proposed
Denitrifier Community Composition along a Nitrate and Salinity Gradient in a Coastal Aquifer

ABSTRACT Nitrogen flux into the coastal environment via submarine groundwater discharge may be modulated by microbial processes such as denitrification, but the spatial scales at which microbial communities act and vary are not well understood. In this study, we examined the denitrifying community within the beach aquifer at Huntington Beach, California, where high-nitrate groundwater is a persistent feature. Nitrite reductase-encoding gene fragments (nirK and nirS), responsible for the key step in the denitrification pathway, were PCR amplified, cloned, and sequenced from DNAs extracted from aquifer sediments collected along a cross-shore transect, where groundwater ranged in salinity from 8 to 34 practical salinity units and in nitrate concentration from 0.5 to 330 μM. We found taxonomically rich and novel communities, with all nirK clones exhibiting <85% identity and nirS clones exhibiting <92% identity at the amino acid level to those of cultivated denitrifiers and other environmental clones in the database. Unique communities were found at each site, despite being located within 40 m of each other, suggesting that the spatial scale at which denitrifier diversity and community composition vary is small. Statistical analyses of nir sequences using the Monte Carlo-based program ∫-Libshuff confirmed that some populations were indeed distinct, although further sequencing would be required to fully characterize the highly diverse denitrifying communities at this site.
Investigation of electrostatic potential barrier near an electron-emitting body

Electrons emitted on spacecraft surfaces can generate negative potential barriers. This may affect the equilibrium potential of the spacecraft, which can be driven more negative and jeopardise plasma measurements by repelling low energy particles. This phenomenon is investigated with the help of a numerical method based on the turning point formalism to classify orbits and which is validated with a PIC code. Comparison with spacecraft data in the magnetosphere is performed.