Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-Time Closed-Loop Control of Cognitive Load in Neurological Patients During Robot-Assisted Gait Training

Cognitively challenging training sessions during robot-assisted gait training after stroke were shown to be key requirements for the success of rehabilitation. Despite a broad variability of cognitive impairments amongst the stroke population, current rehabilitation environments do not adapt to the cognitive capabilities of the patient, as cognitive load cannot be objectively assessed in real-time. We provided healthy subjects and stroke patients with a virtual task during robot-assisted gait training, which allowed modulating cognitive load by adapting the difficulty level of the task. We quantified the cognitive load of stroke patients by using psychophysiological measurements and performance data. In open-loop experiments with healthy subjects and stroke patients, we obtained training data for a linear, adaptive classifier that estimated the current cognitive load of patients in real-time. We verified our classification results via questionnaires and obtained 88% correct classification in healthy subjects and 75% in patients. Using the pre-trained, adaptive classifier, we closed the cognitive control loop around healthy subjects and stroke patients by automatically adapting the difficulty level of the virtual task in real-time such that patients were neither cognitively overloaded nor under-challenged.
Topic Modeling of NASA Space System Problem Reports: Research in Practice

Problem reports at NASA are similar to bug reports: they capture defects found during test, post-launch operational anomalies, and document the investigation and corrective action of the issue. These artifacts are a rich source of lessons learned for NASA, but are expensive to analyze since problem reports are comprised primarily of natural language text. We apply {topic modeling to a corpus of NASA problem reports to extract trends in testing and operational failures. We collected 16,669 problem reports from six NASA space flight missions and applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling to the document corpus. We analyze the most popular topics within and across missions, and how popular topics changed over the lifetime of a mission. We find that hardware material and flight software issues are common during the integration and testing phase, while ground station software and equipment issues are more common during the operations phase. We identify a number of challenges in topic modeling for trend analysis: 1) that the process of selecting the topic modeling parameters lacks definitive guidance, 2) defining semantically-meaningful topic labels requires non-trivial effort and domain expertise, 3) topic models derived from the combined corpus of the six missions were biased toward the larger missions, and 4) topics must be semantically distinct as well as cohesive to be useful. Nonetheless, topic modeling can identify problem themes within missions and across mission lifetimes, providing useful feedback to engineers and project managers.
REMARKS ON THE NUMBER OF LOGIC NETWORKS WITH SAME COMPLEXITY DERIVED FROM SPECTRAL TRANSFORM DECISION DIAGRAMS

Decision diagrams (DDs) for representation of discrete functions permit a direct technology mapping into multi-level logic networks. In these networks, the number of logic elements is equal to the number of non-terminal nodes in DDs. Complexity of interconnections is proportional to the number of paths from the root node to the constant nodes. Therefore, the complexity of the network can be estimated through the basic characteristics of DDs. For a given function f , different DDs may result into networks of different complexity. Complexity of a network derived from a DD is expressed through the number of non-terminal nodes, the width, and the number of paths from the root node to the constant nodes. When realizations for all functions for a given number of variables are considered, the problem relates to the classification of switching functions. In this settings, DDs defined with respect to different spectral transforms may result in a different number of networks required to realize the representative functions for classes of switching functions. This paper discusses the number of different multilevel logic networks of the same complexity derived from different word-level decision diagrams for functions of three and four variables. These networks can be used as basic building blocks in realization of functions of an larger arbitrary number of variables. For uniform realizations, it might be useful to have a small number of different basic modules. 1 MULTI-LEVEL LOGIC NETWORKS Multi-level logic networks permit realizations of switching functions with fewer circuits and reduced interconnections compared to two-level logic networks. However, designs of multi-level logic networks are far more complex that those of two-level logic networks. As is noted in [9], unlike two-level networks, where there are minimization algorithms, for multilevel networks there are no established automation design algorithms and the designs are done by using combinations of ad hoc methods. The optimization of multi-level networks may be directed towards reduction of the number of elements, the number of levels, i.e., timing optimization, reduction of interconnections, and the reduction of the complexity of the design procedure. Decision diagrams (DDs) for representation of discrete functions can be directly translated into n-level networks, n the number of variables. Therefore, DDs provide for simple design procedure, at the price that the number of levels is equal to the number of Table 1: Expansion rules and their realizations.
Modified Projection-Type Methods for Monotone Variational Inequalities

We propose new methods for solving the variational inequality problem where the underlying function $F$ is monotone. These methods may be viewed as projection-type methods in which the projection direction is modified by a strongly monotone mapping of the form $I - \alpha F$ or, if $F$ is affine with underlying matrix $M$, of the form $I+ \alpha M^T$, with $\alpha \in (0,\infty)$. We show that these methods are globally convergent, and if in addition a certain error bound based on the natural residual holds locally, the convergence is linear. Computational experience with the new methods is also reported.
Firm Ownership and Economic Efficiency

The objective in this paper is to improve the existing evidence regarding the role ownership plays in economic efficiency. It is pursued through enhancements in modeling, estimation techniques, and experimental design. With respect to modeling, state ownership is explicitly introduced into the simple model of the financially constrained firm in order to trace its implications. In turn, the interrelated, three-equation input demand model that emerges is estimated with consistent panel data techniques, using information gathered from state and private firms that operated in large-scale Greek manufacturing during the 1979-1988 period. The results show that, per unit of output, the amounts of labor, capital, and credits employed by state firms were 15.7, 12.2, and 49.1 percent larger than those employed by private firms in the same industries. Moreover, taking input prices into consideration, these findings indicated that state firms incurred 46.2 percent higher costs per unit of output and that liable for their relative inefficiency were technical, allocative and ownership reasons by contributing respectively 16.3, 25.5 and 4.4 percentage points. Last, but not least, state ownership was found to alter significantly the conventional patterns in which the employment of inputs responds to equity and input price changes. Thus, in contrast to claims made by some researchers, state ownership may influence economic efficiency as well as exercise several other important effects.
High-performance variable-length packet scheduling algorithm for IP traffic

A high-performance variable-length packet scheduling algorithm is proposed for efficiently accommodating IP traffic in input. queued crossbar switches. It uses a rotating priority(round-robin) arbitration and a masking operation for variable-length packets. This algorithm achieves 100% throughput with a single iteration for uniform IP traffic and performs better in terms of packet latency and similar cell latency, compared with the well-known iSLIP cell-level scheduling algorithm.
Provably optimal test cube generation using quantified boolean formula solving

Circuits that employ test pattern compression rely on test cubes to achieve high compression ratios. The less inputs of a test pattern are specified, the better it can be compacted and hence the lower the test application time. Although there exist previous approaches to generate such test cubes, none of them are optimal. We present for the first time a framework that yields provably optimal test cubes by using the theory of quantified Boolean formulas (QBF). Extensive comparisons with previous methods demonstrate the quality gain of the proposed method.
Cognitive development in children with cochlear implants: Relations to reading and communication

The purpose of the present article is to present an overview of a set of studies conducted in our own laboratory on cognitive and communicative development in children with cochlear implants (CI). The results demonstrate that children with CIs perform at significantly lower levels on the majority of the cognitive tasks. The exceptions to this trend are tasks with relatively lower demands on phonological processing. A fairly high proportion of the children can reach a level of reading comprehension that matches hearing children, despite the fact that they have relatively poor phonological skills. General working memory capacity is further correlated with the type of questions asked in a referential communication task. The results are discussed with respect to issues related to education and rehabilitation.
Another Leigh-Strassler deformation through the matrix model

In here the matrix model approach, by Dijkgraaf and Vafa, is used in order to obtain the effective superpotential for a certain deformation of N = 4 SYM discovered by Leigh and Strassler. An exact solution to the matrix model Lagrangian is found and is expressed in terms of elliptic functions.
Diabetes Risk by Length of Residence among Somali Women in Oslo Area

Type 2 diabetes represents a major health problem worldwide, with immigrants strongly contributing to the increase in diabetes in many countries. Norway is not immune to the process, and immigrants in the country are experiencing an increase in the prevalence of diabetes after arrival. However, the dynamics of these transitions in relation to the duration of residence in the new environment in Norway are not clearly understood. From this background, a cross-sectional quantitative study using a respondent-driven sampling method was conducted among 302 Somali women living in Oslo area. The results show that 41% of the study participants will be at risk for developing diabetes in the coming 10 years, which coincides with 85% of the study participants being abdominally obese. Significant associations were found between years of stay in Norway and the risk for diabetes with those who lived in Norway >10 years, having twofold higher odds of being at risk for developing diabetes compared to those who lived in Norway ≤5 years (OR: 2.16, CI: 1.08–4.32). Understanding the mechanisms through which exposure to the Norwegian environment leads to higher obesity and diabetes risk may aid in prevention efforts for the rapidly growing African immigrant population.
Optimizing synchronous systems

The complexity of integrated-circuit chips produced today makes it feasible to build inexpensive, special-purpose subsystems that rapidly solve sophisticated problems on behalf of a general-purpose host computer. This paper contributes to the design methodology of efficient VLSI algorithms. We present a transformation that converts synchronous systems into more time-efficient, systolic implementations by removing combinational rippling. The problem of determining the optimized system can be reduced to the graph-theoretic single-destination-shortest-paths problem. More importantly from an engineering standpoint, however, the kinds of rippling that can be removed from a circuit at essentially no cost can be easily characterized. For example, if the only global communication in a system is broadcasting from the host computer, the broadcast can always be replaced by local communication.
Irregular Cellular Spaces: Supporting Realistic Spatial Dynamic Modeling over Geographical Databases

This paper presents a new computational model for representing the Geographic Space concept, called Irregular Cellular Space, which main goal is supporting the development of multiscale spatially explicit dynamic models integrated to geographical databases. This model has been implemented in a modeling software platform named TerraME which has been used for the development of some interesting environmental dynamic models and form simulation of dynamic spatial patterns of change. Resumo. Este artigo apresenta um novo modelo computacao para representar o conceito de Espaco Geografico, chamado Espaco Celulares Irregulares, que tem como principal objetivo servir como suporte para o desenvolvimento de modelos dinâmicos espacialmente explicitos integrados a bancos de dados geograficos em multiplas escalas. Este modelo foi implementado em um ambiente de modelagem chamado TerraME que tem sido utilizado para o desenvolvimento de modelos ambientais dinâmicos e para a simulacao de padroes espaciais de mudanca.
Manganese-enhanced MRI of hypoxic-ischemic brain injuries using Mn-DPDP

In this study, Mn-dipyridoxaldiphosphate (MnDPDP), a clinically approved manganese contrast agent for hepatic and pancreatic imaging, was demonstrated for the first time for manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI) in brains of normal young rats (n = 3D4) and rats with hypoxic-ischemic (H-I) insult at postnatal day 7 (n = 3D8). After a single intraperitoneal injection of low dosage with 0. 1μmol/g in postnatal 14 days, 2D T1-weighted image (T1WIs), T1 maps, T2-weighted images (T2WIs) and T2 maps were acquired at 7 Tesla 1 day before, 1 day and 7 days after MnDPDP injection. The image contrast changes induced by MnDPDP appeared as the hyperintensity in T1WIs and the hypointensity in T2WIs. T1and T2 values decreased in the regions of Mn enhancement. Such enhancement presented as a delayed pattern that was more pronounced in 7 day after MnDPDP injection, suggesting the sustained Mn accumulation due to MnDPDP. Moreover, the MnDPDP enhancement in H-I brains was more pronounced in the lesion sites and was easily detectable in T1WI, T1 map, T2WI and T2 map. The results demonstrated here support the possibility of using MnDPDP as a ‘slow release’ Mn2+ for clinical diagnosis of various neuropathologies.
Correlating Physicochemical Properties of Boronic Acid-Chitosan Conjugates to Glucose Adsorption Sensitivity

Phenyl boronic acid (PBA), which is known to interact with glucose, was covalently bonded to chitosan by direct reductive N-alkylation of chitosan with 4-formylphenylboronic acid (4-FPBA). Evidence of PBA bonding on chitosan was assessed by FTIR, ToF-SIMS, SEM, DSC and glucose adsorption sensitivity measurements. FTIR spectra showed strong signals at 1560 and 630 cm−1 indicating the formation of p-substituted benzene. Similarly, ToF-SIMS analyses on the conjugates registered fragments of boron ion (B−) at 11.0 m/z whose intensity increased in proportion to 4-FPBA loading. The degree to which PBA was bonded to chitosan was related to the 4-FPBA load used in the reaction (termed F1 through to F6 with increasing 4-FPBA load). Glucose adsorption sensitivity to PBA-bonded chitosan was directly related to the amount of PBA functionality within the conjugates and the physical nature of the matrices (porous or crystalline). Topographic analysis by SEM revealed that PBA-chitosan conjugates F1, F2 and F3 have porous matrices and their sensitivity to glucose adsorption was directly proportional to the degree of PBA substitution onto chitosan. Conversely, conjugates F4, F5 and F6 appeared crystalline under SEM and glucose adsorption sensitivity decreased in proportion to amount of PBA bonded to chitosan. The crystalline nature of the conjugates was confirmed by DSC, where the exothermic event related to the melting of the bonded PBA moiety, occurred at 338 °C. Thus, decreased sensitivity to glucose adsorption by the conjugates can be ascribed to the crystallinity imparted by increased content of the bonded PBA moiety, providing an optimal loading of PBA in terms of maximizing response to glucose.
“Is it Our Job to Teach them to Read or to Act Appropriately?”: Teachers’ and Staff's Perceptions of an Alternative School

This study examines the strengths and weaknesses of an alternative school for at-risk youth in an urban area in the United States. The data are based on in-depth, semistructured interviews with the school's 23 full-time employees. The data reveal that according to the teachers and staff of the alternative school, there are three main strengths of the school: developing positive teacher–student relationships, providing powerful pedagogy, and establishing a supportive environment; and three main weaknesses: responding inconsistently to behavior problems, creating poor transitions to adulthood, and producing a physically dangerous school environment. The findings of this study suggest a “culture of care” exists at the expense of consistent discipline—resulting in a “culture of danger. ” The findings are presented and discussed, and subsequent program and policy recommendations are made in an effort to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of an alternative school and to contribute to the effectiveness schooling for at-risk youth.
Evaluation of Student Performance: An Outlier Detection Perspective

40 Abstract : Educational data mining is current growing research area and the main essence of data mining concepts are used in the educational field for extracting useful information of the students based on their behavior in the learning process. Prior approaches used decision tree classifications optimized with ID3 algorithms to obtain such patterns but discovering the implicative tendencies is valuable information for the decision-maker which is absent in tree based classifications. So we propose to use outlier detection for mining and evaluating educational data of students. In this paper, outlier detection mechanisms are used for identifying outliers which improve the quality of decision making. We used outlier analysis to detect outliers in the student data. In proposed system, clustering mechanism along with univariant analysis is implemented. Clustering is finding groups of objects such that the objects in one group will be similar to one another and different from the objects in another group. While clustering, the large data set is divide into clusters which consists of outliers. After Clustering, the data points which are present outside the clusters are identified and treated as outliers. Identification is done by using univariate analysis which is the simplest form of quantitative (statistical) analysis. A basic way of presenting univariate data is to create a frequency distribution of the individual cases Here, we analyze the performance of UG students of our college and present the results using outlier detection
Onlookers to Participants: Improving FSL Students’ Competence and Confidence

This research investigates how teachers can improve the confidence and competence of their FSL students. Through semi-structured interviews with two participants including a French Immersion teacher and the FSL systems principal in a southern Ontario school board an exploration of the issues present in FSL programs is done. Ultimately, four key themes emerged from the data: environment of FSL programs, healthy language identity building, obstacles to success and best practices for teachers. These themes allowed for an analysis of
TRP channels: sensors and transducers of gasotransmitter signals

The transient receptor potential (trp) gene superfamily encodes cation channels that act as multimodal sensors for a wide variety of stimuli from outside and inside the cell. Upon sensing, they transduce electrical and Ca2+ signals via their cation channel activities. These functional features of TRP channels allow the body to react and adapt to different forms of environmental changes. Indeed, members of one class of TRP channels have emerged as sensors of gaseous messenger molecules that control various cellular processes. Nitric oxide (NO), a vasoactive gaseous molecule, regulates TRP channels directly via cysteine (Cys) S-nitrosylation or indirectly via cyclic GMP (cGMP)/protein kinase G (PKG)-dependent phosphorylation. Recent studies have revealed that changes in the availability of molecular oxygen (O2) also control the activation of TRP channels. Anoxia induced by O2-glucose deprivation and severe hypoxia (1% O2) activates TRPM7 and TRPC6, respectively, whereas TRPA1 has recently been identified as a novel sensor of hyperoxia and mild hypoxia (15% O2) in vagal and sensory neurons. TRPA1 also detects other gaseous molecules such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2). In this review, we focus on how signaling by gaseous molecules is sensed and integrated by TRP channels.
Affective rendering: Visual effect animations for affecting user arousal

We propose affective rendering as a new affective computing technology which deals with user emotion in the field of image synthesis. Affective rendering is realized in 3 steps - affect sensing, affect analysis and affect adapted rendering. This paper reports several basic experiments carried out for studying how the typical visual parameters, such as color and shape, affect view's arousal, and also describes a prototyping of visual effect animations that can affect viewer's arousal by adapting the visual parameters to user's current arousal estimated from respiration and blood volume.
On the spectrum of curved quantum waveguides

The spectrum of the Laplace operator in a curved strip of constant width built along an infinite plane curve, subject to three different types of boundary conditions (Dirichlet, Neumann and a combination of these ones, respectively), is investigated. We prove that the essential spectrum as a set is stable under any curvature of the reference curve which vanishes at infinity and find various sufficient conditions which guarantee the existence of geometrically induced discrete spectrum. Furthermore, we derive a lower bound on the distance between the essential spectrum and the spectral threshold for locally curved strips. The paper is also intended as an overview of some new and old results on spectral properties of curved quantum waveguides.
Influence of reaction time on Cu(In,Ga)Se2 particles synthesis by thermal decomposition method

Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) particles were synthesised by thermal decomposition method using CuCl, InCl3, GaCl3 and elemental selenium in oleylamine under nitrogen atmosphere. In this work, influence of reaction time on CIGSe particle synthesis was investigated using XRD, Raman, FESEM and EDAX analysis. Structural analysis showed more Ga incorporation at reaction time of 4h. FESEM micrographs depicted that the morphology of particles were hexagonal as well as irregular plate like shapes with size ranging from 200 to 500 nm as the reaction time increases. EDAX analysis showed more Ga incorporation at 4h.