Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wireless Stimulation of Antennal Muscles in Freely Flying Hawkmoths Leads to Flight Path Changes

Insect antennae are sensory organs involved in a variety of behaviors, sensing many different stimulus modalities. As mechanosensors, they are crucial for flight control in the hawkmoth Manduca sexta. One of their roles is to mediate compensatory reflexes of the abdomen in response to rotations of the body in the pitch axis. Abdominal motions, in turn, are a component of the steering mechanism for flying insects. Using a radio controlled, programmable, miniature stimulator, we show that ultra-low-current electrical stimulation of antennal muscles in freely-flying hawkmoths leads to repeatable, transient changes in the animals' pitch angle, as well as less predictable changes in flight speed and flight altitude. We postulate that by deflecting the antennae we indirectly stimulate mechanoreceptors at the base, which drive compensatory reflexes leading to changes in pitch attitude.
Design and implementation of QoS-driven dynamic slot assignment and piconet partitioning algorithms over Bluetooth WPANs

Bluetooth is a promising wireless technology aiming at supporting electronic devices to be instantly interconnected into short-range ad hoc networks. The Bluetooth medium access control protocol is based on the master/slave concept wherein any communication between slave devices has to go through the master. While this model is simple, it incurs longer delay between any two slave devices due to the use of non-optimal packet forwarding scheme and the use of double the bandwidth at the master. Moreover, if more than two devices want to communicate as a group, this can only be achieved by either multiple unicast transmissions or a piconet-wide broadcast from the master. To handle these issues efficiently, we propose a novel combination of dynamic slot assignment (DSA) and piconet partitioning. With DSA, the piconet master dynamically assigns slots to slaves so as to allow them to communicate directly with each other without any intervention from the master. Such proposed communication architecture provides for quality of service (QoS) requests, admission control, and multi-device conversation by which a multicast-like communication is feasible within a piconet. To widen the scope of DSA, we propose QoS-driven enhanced DSA (EDSA) where dynamic piconet partitioning and scatternet support comes into picture. Devices are grouped in piconets according to their connection endpoints in EDSA, enabling it to be employed over a scatternet. We have performed extensive simulations and observe that these schemes drastically enhance Bluetooth performance in terms of delay and throughput, while significantly reducing network power consumption.
Query Execution over Encrypted Database

Rapid changes in internet and network technologies facilitated easy to access online applications, services and database. Database as a service (DaaS) is a model that offer its users to perform data processing (store, modify and retrieve) as long as they are connect to internet. Providing security to database as service model became a challenging work due to malicious network administrator, they exploit software bugs and retrieve confidential data of enterprise and users. Two privacy issues are important in DaaS, First data stored in database is secure from outsiders i.e. It should be ensured that, stored data is secure from data thefts. Second, data is secure from the DaaS service provider i.e. Data is secure from curious or malicious database administrators. In this work, emphasis is on second challenge. We have proposed a system in which data stored at server site is in encrypted form and encrypted query is forwarded to server for processing. Encryption of queries and decryption of encrypted query result are done at client site. The system is secured through symmetric key encryption and authentication using digital signature. The proposed system provides confidentiality, integrity, availability, and authentication services to the data users.
Analysis of Trends in Authors Publication Activities

Publication activity of researchers is studied inmany papers. Most of them are focused on topics, authors and their cooperation, finding experts or so on. In our paper we are interested in trends in the authors publication activity. We would like to know when and how often authors use their topics, how they combine topics or use new topics. To achieve our goal we use formal concept analysis and polynomial approximation to realize how the authors use their topics and how they change their preferences over the time. Our dataset consists of several authors and their records extracted from DBLP. We use qualitative evaluation of our method on the selected twenty one authors.
Constrained model predictive control implementation in an industrial drying process

In this paper a dynamic model of a drying process, specifically established for model predictive control (MPC) strategy, is derived. An MPC controller is implemented at the real plant and the performance of classical PID feedback control and MPC is compared. This paper especially addresses the following issues: 1. Modelling of a continuous convective through-air-drying process for viscose staple fibres with nonlinear drying kinetics. Stationary and dynamical validation of the model in different operating points are shown. 2. MPC strategies with constraints in both manipulated and controlled variables are applied. Utilising the linearised model classical approaches of MPC in state space formulation are tested in simulation. 3. Results from the implementation at the real drying process are shown. The control algorithm includes constraints and successfully compensates a measurable disturbance with dead time.
Dynamics-based control of a one-legged hopping robot

Abstract This paper proposes a new model of a one-legged hopping robot. The one-legged hopping robot is useful in realizing rapid movement such as that of a running animal. Although it has a simple leg mechanism, the dynamics are not simple and require non-linear complex analysis. This means that it is not easy to derive a controller for stable hopping in a systematic way. Therefore, a dynamics-based approach was introduced where the controller is empirically derived based on characteristic dynamics. A prototype of the one-legged hopping robot was fabricated and a precise simulator of the robot, including actuator dynamics, was constructed to examine the usefulness of the proposed dynamics model. Applying the constructed simulator to the prototype, the robot succeeded in planar one-legged hopping.
Adaptive subspace incremental PCA based online learning for object classification and recognition

The learning method for visual object recognition that compute a space of eigenvectors by Principal Component Analysis(PCA) traditionally require a batch computation step, in which the only way to update the subspace is to rebuild the subspace by the scratch when it comes to new samples. In this paper, we introduce a new approach to object recognition based on online PCA algorithm with adaptive subspace, which allows for complete incremental learning. We propose to use different subspace updating strategy for new sample according to the degree of difference between new sample and learned sample, which can improve the adaptability in different situations, and also reduce the time of calculation and storage space. The experimental results show that the proposed method can recognize the unknown object, realizing online object knowledge accumulation and updating, and improving the recognition performance of system.
Persistence of contradicted claims in the literature.

CONTEXT Some research findings based on observational epidemiology are contradicted by randomized trials, but may nevertheless still be supported in some scientific circles. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the change over time in the content of citations for 2 highly cited epidemiological studies that proposed major cardiovascular benefits associated with vitamin E in 1993; and to understand how these benefits continued being defended in the literature, despite strong contradicting evidence from large randomized clinical trials (RCTs). To examine the generalizability of these findings, we also examined the extent of persistence of supporting citations for the highly cited and contradicted protective effects of beta-carotene on cancer and of estrogen on Alzheimer disease. DATA SOURCES For vitamin E, we sampled articles published in 1997, 2001, and 2005 (before, early, and late after publication of refuting evidence) that referenced the highly cited epidemiological studies and separately sampled articles published in 2005 and referencing the major contradicting RCT (HOPE trial). We also sampled articles published in 2006 that referenced highly cited articles proposing benefits associated with beta-carotene for cancer (published in 1981 and contradicted long ago by RCTs in 1994-1996) and estrogen for Alzheimer disease (published in 1996 and contradicted recently by RCTs in 2004). DATA EXTRACTION The stance of the citing articles was rated as favorable, equivocal, and unfavorable to the intervention. We also recorded the range of counterarguments raised to defend effectiveness against contradicting evidence. RESULTS For the 2 vitamin E epidemiological studies, even in 2005, 50% of citing articles remained favorable. A favorable stance was independently less likely in more recent articles, specifically in articles that also cited the HOPE trial (odds ratio for 2001, 0.05 [95% confidence interval, 0.01-0.19; P < .001] and the odds ratio for 2005, 0.06 [95% confidence interval, 0.02-0.24; P < .001], as compared with 1997), and in general/internal medicine vs specialty journals. Among articles citing the HOPE trial in 2005, 41.4% were unfavorable. In 2006, 62.5% of articles referencing the highly cited article that had proposed beta-carotene and 61.7% of those referencing the highly cited article on estrogen effectiveness were still favorable; 100% and 96%, respectively, of the citations appeared in specialty journals; and citations were significantly less favorable (P = .001 and P = .009, respectively) when the major contradicting trials were also mentioned. Counterarguments defending vitamin E or estrogen included diverse selection and information biases and genuine differences across studies in participants, interventions, cointerventions, and outcomes. Favorable citations to beta-carotene, long after evidence contradicted its effectiveness, did not consider the contradicting evidence. CONCLUSION Claims from highly cited observational studies persist and continue to be supported in the medical literature despite strong contradictory evidence from randomized trials.
Auctions for Public Construction with Corner-Cutting

This paper reports the theoretical and experimental results of auctions for public construction in which firms cut corners. We show that the winning bids and the winner's quality choices of the constructed buildings are both zero in equilibria if there are at least two firms whose initial cash balances are zero, and it is a common knowledge. The experimental results are close to the theoretical results and indicate that firms with zero-initial cash balance win and that the winning bids and the winner's quality choices of the constructed buildings are considerably low.
Invasive Process and Repeated Cross-Sectional Surveys of the Mosquito Aedes japonicus japonicus Establishment in Belgium

When accidentally introduced in a new location, a species does not necessarily readily become invasive, but it usually needs several years to adapt to its new environment. In 2009, a national mosquito survey (MODIRISK) reported the introduction and possible establishment of an invasive mosquito species, Aedes j. japonicus, in Belgium. First collected in 2002 in the village of Natoye from a second-hand tire company, then sampled in 2003 and 2004, the presence of adults and larvae was confirmed in 2007 and 2008. A repeated cross-sectional survey of Ae. j. japonicus was then conducted in 2009 in Natoye to study the phenology of the species on two different sites using three kinds of traps: Mosquito Magnet Liberty Plus traps, BG sentinel traps and CDC Gravid traps. An analysis of the blood meals was done on females to assess the epidemiological risks. Five species of mosquitos were caught using the different kind of traps: Culex pipiens, Cx torrentium, Anopheles claviger, Aedes geniculatus and Ae. j. japonicus, Cx pipiens being the most abundant. The CDC gravid traps gave the best results. Surprisingly Ae. j. japonicus was only found on one site although both sites seem similar and are only distant of 2.5 km. Its population peak was reached in July. Most of the engorged mosquitoes tested acquired blood meals from humans (60%). No avian blood meals were unambiguously identified. Larvae were also collected, mostly from tires but also from buckets and from one tree hole. Only one larva was found in a puddle at 100 m of the tire storage. A first local treatment of Ae. j. japonicus larvae population was done in May 2012 using Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis (Bti) and was followed by preventive actions and public information. A monitoring is also presently implemented.
Relationships of circulating carotenoid concentrations with several markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and endothelial dysfunction: the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA)/Young Adult Longitudinal Trends in Antioxidants (YALTA) study.

BACKGROUND Serum carotenoid concentrations relate inversely to cardiovascular disease incidence. To clarify the effect of carotenoids on atherosclerotic risk factors, we examined the association of circulating carotenoids with inflammation, oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, and smoking. METHODS Black and white men and women in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study, ages 18 to 30 years at recruitment (1985-1986) from 4 US cities, were investigated over 15 years. We included 2048 to 4580 participants in analyses of the sum of serum alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, zeaxanthin/lutein, and beta-cryptoxanthin concentrations and of lycopene at year 0 and at year 7. RESULTS The year 0 sum of 4 carotenoids was inversely associated (all P <0.05) with year 0 leukocyte count (slope per sum carotenoid SD, -0.17); year 7 fibrinogen (slope, -0.10); year 7 and year 15 C-reactive protein (slope, -0.12 and -0.09); and year 15 F(2)-isoprostanes (slope, -13.0), soluble P-selectin (slope, -0.48), and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM1; slope, -5.1). Leukocyte counts and sICAM1 and F(2)-isoprostane concentrations had stronger associations in smokers than in nonsmokers, and sICAM1 concentrations were higher in the highest carotenoid quartile in smokers than in the lowest carotenoid quartile in nonsmokers. Superoxide dismutase was positively associated with the sum of 4 carotenoids (slope, 0.12; P <0.01). Lycopene was inversely associated only with sICAM1. The year 7 carotenoid associations with these markers were mostly similar to those at year 0. CONCLUSIONS Circulating serum carotenoids were associated, some interactively with smoking, in apparently beneficial directions with markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and endothelial dysfunction.
Nonlinear synaptic Neural Network for Maximum Flow problems

In advance of network communication society by the Internet, the way how to send data fast with a little loss has become an important transportation problem. A generalized maximum flow algorithm provides the best solution to the transportation problem of determining which route is appropriated to exchange data. Therefore, the importance of the maximum flow algorithm continues to grow. In this paper, we propose a Maximum-Flow Neural Network (MF-NN) in which branch nonlinearity has a saturation characteristic and by which the maximum flow problem can be solved with analog high-speed parallel processing. Moreover, the stability of proposed network is discussed. The proposed neural network for the maximum flow problem can be achieved by using a nonlinear resistive circuit where each connection weight between nodal neurons has a sigmoidal function. The parallel hardware of the MF-NN will be easily implemented.
Development and Performance Analysis of a Temporal Persistent Object Store POST/C++

ODBMSs are used in advanced database applications to manage complex objects and objects that have associated inherent procedures. Some of the applications also require temporal and historical information management in the context of such object management. In this paper, we rst discuss a temporal persistent object model that treats past states of persistent objects as objects. This model supports uniform manipulation of current and past states of objects. Then, we describe design and implementation of a temporal persistent object management system, named POST/C++. POST/C++ persistently stores C++-based objects and manages their histories of updates by user transactions based on the temporal persistent object model. Implementation of the rst version of POST/C++ has been completed on Sun OS 4.1. 2. Finally, we show performance analysis of POST/C++ using the extended OO1 benchmark, and discuss basic performance issues on our design and implementation.
USING A PROGRAM TRANSFORMATION ENGINE TO INFER TYPES IN A METAMODEL RECOVERY SYSTEM

Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM) allows domain experts to concentrate on the essential characteristics of a problem space without being overwhelmed by the complexities that may occur in the solution space. DSM is focused on the creation of a metamodel for a specific domain, from which instances pertaining to specific configurations of that domain can be constructed. However, as the metamodel undergoes evolutionary changes, repositories of instance models (also called domain models) can become orphaned from their defining metamodel. Within the context of model-driven engineering (MDE), we have developed the Metamodel Recovery System (MARS) which addresses the problem of "metamodel drift" and recovers the design knowledge in a repository of legacy models. MARS is a semi-automatic system that uses grammar inference techniques to recover a metamodel by mining instance models. In addition to the instance models, there are other artifacts that can be investigated in the modeling repository. In this paper we describe an extension to MARS in the form of a type inference capability that is accomplished by the use of a program transformation engine that mines the model compiler code and recovers the type information of fields (or attributes) of metamodel entities.
Virtual mouse vision based interface

A vision-based virtual mouse interface is described that utilizes a robotic head, visual tracking of the users head and hand positions and recognition of user hand signs to control an intelligent kiosk. The user interface supports, among other things, smooth control of the mouse pointer and buttons using hand signs and movements. The algorithms and architecture of real-time vision and robot controller are described.
Resolution-Aware 3D Morphable Model

The 3D Morphable Model (3DMM) is currently receiving considerable attention for human face analysis. Most existing work focuses on fitting a 3DMM to high resolution images. However, in many applications, fitting a 3DMM to low-resolution images is also important. In this paper, we propose a Resolution-Aware 3DMM (RA- 3DMM), which consists of 3 different resolution 3DMMs: High-Resolution 3DMM (HR- 3DMM), Medium-Resolution 3DMM (MR-3DMM) and Low-Resolution 3DMM (LR-3DMM). RA-3DMM can automatically select the best model to fit the input images of different resolutions. The multi-resolution model was evaluated in experiments conducted on PIE and XM2VTS databases. The experimental results verified that HR- 3DMM achieves the best performance for input image of high resolution, and MR- 3DMM and LR-3DMM worked best for medium and low resolution input images, respectively. A model selection strategy incorporated in the RA-3DMM is proposed based on these results. The RA-3DMM model has been applied to pose correction of face images ranging from high to low resolution. The face verification results obtained with the pose-corrected images show considerable performance improvement over the result without pose correction in all resolutions
User Interface Design and Realization of a Design-by-Sketches System

This paper describes the user interface design techniques for a design-by-sketches system. The overall goal of the system is to support 3D object design through natural and interactive sketching processes. The system entails four unique features: (1) a tight coupling of direct and gestured sketching in both 2D and 3D domains; (2) a user invokable feedback system for supervised stroke interpretation, processing and 3D reconstruction; (3) harnessing both the hardware (pen device) and software (development toolkits) of the commodity Tablet PC; and finally (4) blending the new interface with limited amount of well accepted WIMP interface elements to ease a smooth adaptation to the new drawing conventions introduced in our system. We present issues and propose solutions to achieve these interface features and relevant sketching and construction operations. In addition to the interface design, we also discuss the reconstruction of sketched curved objects. Finally, we provide preliminary user evaluation and offer insights drawn from it.
Time‐series validation of MODIS land biophysical products in a Kalahari woodland, Africa

Monthly measurements of leaf area index (LAI) and the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (f APAR) taken at approximately monthly intervals were collected along three 750 m transects in a Kalahari woodland near Mongu in western Zambia. These data were compared with MODIS NDVI (MOD13, Collection 3) and MODIS LAI and f APAR products (MOD15, Collection 3) over a 2 year period (2000–2002). MODIS and ground‐measured LAI values corresponded well, while there was a significant bias between MODIS and ground‐measured f APAR even though both MODIS variables are produced from the same algorithm. Solar zenith angle effects, differences between intercepted and absorbed photosynthetically active radiation, and differences in measurement of f APAR (photon counts versus energy) were examined and rejected as explanations for the discrepancies between MODIS and ground‐measured f APAR. Canopy reflectance model simulations produced different values of f APAR with the same LAI when canopy cover was varied, indicating that errors in the estimation of canopy cover in the MODIS algorithm due to the land cover classification used are a possible cause of the f APAR discrepancy. This is one of the first studies of MODIS land product performance in a time‐series context. Despite a bias in f APAR, our results demonstrate that the woodland canopy phonology is captured in the MODIS product.