Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
3 D augmented reality applied to the treatment of neuropathic pain

Neuropathic pain is characterized by a permanent or recurrent background pain including stinging, tingling, allodynia, burning, shock or stabbing sensations. It significantly alters the patient quality of life. Such painful conditions are observed in the case of phantom limb pain (PLP) and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), and are difficult to treat effectively. Recent studies show the crucial role of the central nervous system in these pathologies and suggest a link to the plasticity of the latter. Mirror visual feedback (MVF) is often used in case of amputation, CRPS or stroke to restore normal cortical organization and to lower pain intensity. We have conceived an augmented reality (AR) system that applies the principle of MVF without requiring the use of a physical mirror. The system strengthens the patient’s immersion and concentration by using realistic, natural looking 3D images that are acquired, processed and displayed in 3D, in real time. Our system is based on standard inexpensive hardware and is easy to install and to use. This makes it perfectly suitable for use in a therapist's practice or at home. The preliminary results of clinical tests show that the system can significantly reduce the pain, after only a few training sessions.
Black hole in thermal equilibrium with a scalar field: The back-reaction.

The accurate approximation found by Page for the expectation value of the renormalized thermal equilibrium stress-energy tensor of a free conformal scalar field in a Schwarzschild black-hole background is used as the source in the semiclassical Einstein equation. The back-reaction and new equilibrium metric are found perturbatively in order h. The new metric is not asymptotically flat unless the system is enclosed by a reflecting wall. Solutions are obtained for systems of finite radius using microcanonical (fixed energy) and canonical (fixed temperature) boundary conditions. Explicit effects of the back-reaction on the equilibrium temperature distribution inside the cavity are given. With microcanonical boundary conditions there is an asymptotically flat region where the temperature at infinity is defined. It is shown that this temperature does not have the Schwarzschild value h(8.pi.M)/sup -1/ for a black hole of mass M. Curvature invariants are computed and the order-h/sup 2/ correction to the conformal scalar-field trace anomaly originating from the back-reaction that this field produces is found. The principal qualitative features of the results should be valid for any quantum field at one loop in the Schwarzschild geometry.
Design of a nano-power fully autonomous multi-source energy harvesting circuit

This paper presents a nano-power fully autonomous multi-source energy harvesting circuit for solar, thermal, and vibration energy. A low-power active rectifier is employed to improve vibration energy extraction efficiency. A maximum power point tracking circuit based on a fractional open-circuit voltage technique is applied to solar and thermal channels. A passive self-starting technique makes the harvester autonomous and performs a battery-less start-up from a fully discharged state. An asynchronous logic is adopted for the control unit to reduce intrinsic power consumption. Simulation results show that, as low as 100nA quiescent current in all is drawn by the converter and a peak conversion efficiency of 83.6% is achieved. There are only four external components: two capacitors for DC sources, a single inductor and an external capacitor for energy storage.
CCD‐Camera Based Optical Beacon Tracking for Virtual and Augmented Reality

We introduce a scheme for optical beacon tracking using two CCD‐cameras and LED beacons. Due to the sub‐pixel accuracy of the beacon detection algorithm a very high precision can be achieved so that the tracking method is suitable for augmented reality applications. We describe the assembly of the equipment needed for the whole tracking system, the behavior of LED‐beacons, and how three beacons can be combined to form a 6‐DOF tracker. A report on our accuracy evaluation and its results are given. Furthermore we describe two application prototypes in which the tracker was incorporated and tested.
High-level cryIVD and cytA gene expression in Bacillus thuringiensis does not require the 20-kilodalton protein, and the coexpressed gene products are synergistic in their toxicity to mosquitoes

Interactions among the 20-kDa protein gene and the cytA and cryIVD genes located in a 9.4-kb HindIII fragment were studied. A series of plasmids containing a combination of these different genes was constructed by using the Escherichia coli/Bacillus thuringiensis shuttle vector pHT3101. The plasmids were then used to transform an acrystalliferous strain, cryB, derived from B. thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki. The results from sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblot analyses suggest that although the 20-kDa protein is required for the efficient CytA protein production in E. coli, it is not required in B. thuringiensis. With or without the truncated 20-kDa protein gene, the CtyA and/or CryIVD proteins are produced and form parasporal inclusions in B. thuringiensis cells. However, more-efficient expression is obtained when a second protein, probably acting as a chaperonin, is present. In addition, the time course studies show that the CytA and CryIVD proteins are coordinately produced. Both the crude B. thuringiensis culture and purified inclusions from each recombinant B. thuringiensis strain are toxic to Culex quinquefasciatus larvae. The parasporal inclusions formed in B. thuringiensis cells are mosquitocidal, with CytA synergizing CryIVD toxicity.
Consideration on Some Problems of Area Logistics Capability Plan and Area Economic Development

On the basis of the theory of capability, the paper defines the meaning of the concept of logistics capability; as some literatures before discusses logistics capability only on the point of enterprise and supply chain management, this paper takes the point of area to study logistics capability, describes the relation between area logistics capability plan the area economic development; especially the paper figures out that when we plan the area logistics capability, we should take the uncertainty of the logistics requirement into account.
Cost Efficiency Measurement of Leasing Companies with SFA and DEA Approach

Nowadays the leasing industry is a successful industry in economic conditions, but there are few studies that deal with the assessment of leasing companies’ efficiency in Bangladesh. Previous research for leasing company’s’ efficiency measurement usually adopts either DEA or SFA method, but not both of them. Therefore, this paper is aimed to measure the cost efficiencies of 15 leasing companies from 2002 to 2008 by applying both SFA and DEA models with four inputs and two outputs. The results suggest that leasing companies have generally less experience in the allocation of resources and in the improvement of cost efficiency. The coefficients of Interest revenue and Non Interest revenue are found significant and positive effects on the cost efficiency of the leasing company in case of stochastic cost frontier model. The results of technical efficiency and allocative efficiency are combined to provide a measure of total cost efficiency in case of cost data envelopment analysis. The lowest cost efficiency (39.6%) for Union Capital Limited, and highest cost efficiency (89.7%) for International Leasing & Financial S.Ltd., is observed in case of cost data envelopment analysis.
News or Noise? The Stock Market Reaction to Different Types of Company-Specific News Events

It is generally accepted that news, often defined as news stories in a professionally edited newspaper, moves stock prices. By exploring data from an online stock forum our study presents a novel approach to identify stock-related news events from an investor perspective as an alternative to traditional media sources. We investigate the market impact of different types of company-specific news events (e.g., news related to corporate governance, operations, or legal issues) on S&P 500 stock prices in order to discern genuine news that moves the market from insignificant noise without market reaction. We leverage computational linguistics methods to distinguish between good and bad news by controlling for the sentiment (i.e. the positive vs. negative tone) of different news stories. Our results show that the absolute value of cumulative returns prior to a news event are more pronounced for positive news than they are for negative news, suggesting more widespread information leakage before good news. We find that the market reaction differs substantially across various types of news events. In addition, a cross-industry comparison indicates that industry classification may partially explain the market reaction to the same event type.
Detecting mentions of pain and acute confusion in Finnish clinical text

We study and compare two different approaches to the task of automatic assignment of predefined classes to clinical free-text narratives. In the first approach this is treated as a traditional mention-level named-entity recognition task, while the second approach treats it as a sentence-level multi-label classification task. Performance comparison across these two approaches is conducted in the form of sentence-level evaluation and state-of-the-art methods for both approaches are evaluated. The experiments are done on two data sets consisting of Finnish clinical text, manually annotated with respect to the topics pain and acute confusion. Our results suggest that the mention-level named-entity recognition approach outperforms sentence-level classification overall, but the latter approach still manages to achieve the best prediction scores on several annotation classes.
Relevance Score of Triplets Using Knowledge Graph Embedding - The Pigweed Triple Scorer at WSDM Cup 2017

Collaborative Knowledge Bases such as Freebase and Wikidata mention multiple professions and nationalities for a particular entity. The goal of the WSDM Cup 2017 Triplet Scoring Challenge was to calculate relevance scores between an entity and its professions/nationalities. Such scores are a fundamental ingredient when ranking results in entity search. This paper proposes a novel approach to ensemble an advanced Knowledge Graph Embedding Model with a simple bag-of-words model. The former deals with hidden pragmatics and deep semantics whereas the latter handles text-based retrieval and low-level semantics.
“Ruzzle” arm: A low cost educational application in Real-Time Control course

This paper describes a project-based learning demonstrator developed for a Real-Time Control course addressed to CS and EE students. The goal of this project is to immerse the students in a realistic design environment, where they can strengthen the theoretical principles while improving their abilities to think, analyse, and solve problems learning-by-doing. The student-developed educational application, consisting of a robotic arm which plays the online Ruzzle game in a fully automatic way, has been realized in a short time with limited budget. This was a practical combination of knowledges from robotics, image acquisition and processing, tree search algorithms, systems integration and hardware configuration. The educational results of this experience have shown that the development of a practical-learning case based on the combination of different fields increased the student motivation and improved the assimilation of the theoretical concepts.
Pricing, purchasing and product performance factors associated with the relational exchanges of different sized customers

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to understand what pricing, purchasing, product defect and late deliveries factors are associated with the decisions of small, medium and large size customers to enter into closer customer‐supplier relationships with their suppliers.Dessign/methodology/approach – The study involves a survey of 372 professionals in the paper industry to investigate the linkage between pricing, purchasing efficiencies and reductions in product defects and later deliveries and relational exchanges across customers of different sizes and resources.Findings – The results indicate that the pricing, purchasing, product defect and late delivery factors associated with relational supply chain exchanges are different for small, medium and large size customers.Research limitations/implications – Data were collected from individuals’ perspectives of the customer‐supplier relationships within customer organization only and involved the exchange of one type of product. Similar studies need to b.
Improving Worst-Case Latency Analysis for Rate-Constrained Traffic in the Time-Triggered Ethernet Network

Traditional performance analysis models based on the network calculus approach are not fit for the time-triggered Ethernet (TTEthernet) network due to the porosity characteristic of timed-triggered (TT) traffic in the TT-schedule. This paper introduces the porosity concept into the arrival curve model of TT traffic and gives a general method for the worst-case end-to-end latency analysis of rate-constrained (RC) traffic. Experiments show that our models give tighter latency bounds than results from other already known models and may be used to guide the design of the TT-schedule.
Ultracentrifugation systematically overestimates vesicular cholesterol levels in bile

To accurately determine the cholesterol (Ch) distribution between mixed micelles and vesicles in lithogenic bile, both ultracentrifugation and gel chromatography with the correct intermixed micellar/vesicular bile salt concentration (IMC) have been proposed. We have systematically compared both separation techniques with physiological model biles to ascertain their quantitative separation ability. After determination of optimal ultra‐centrifugation conditions in systems containing only micelles or vesicles, Ch‐supersaturated model biles [3‐10 g/dL, 10 mol percent Ch, taurocholate (TC)]/([TC + egg yolk phosphatidylcholine (EYPC)] = 0.6 and 0.7) were adjusted to a density of 1.03 g/mL, and ultracentrifuged at 42,000 rpm and 37 degrees C for 13 hours. Identical model biles were subjected to gel chromatography with the correct IMC, either directly or after remixing and incubation at 37 degrees C after ultracentrifugation. By ultracentrifugation, 31 percent +/‐ 2 percent (TC/(TC + EYPC) = 0.6) and 40 percent +/‐ 5 percent (TC/(TC + EYPC) = 0.7) of total Ch were found in vesicles (Ch/EYPC molar ratios = 1.0 and 1.3, respectively). However, by gel chromatography, only 19 percent +/‐ 2 percent (Ch/EYPC = 1.0) and 22 percent +/‐ 2 percent (Ch/EYPC = 1.5) of total Ch were found in the corresponding biles. Gel chromatography of biles (TC/(TC + EYPC) = 0.7) ultracentrifuged for various durations showed a progressive increase in vesicular Ch to 41 percent after 13 hours. On incubation for 11.5 hours after ultracentrifugation, vesicular Ch decreased to 31 percent, thus approaching the initial (gel chromatography) value. Quasielastic light scattering also demonstrated formation of vesicles in ultracentrifuged Ch‐unsaturated model bile (cholesterol saturation index (CSI) approximately 0.97). As compared with gel chromatography, ultracentrifugation systematically elevates vesicular Ch, possibly because of induced shifts in lipids between lipid aggregates caused by variation in local bile salt concentration. Because ultracentrifugation can alter the phases present in bile, gel chromatography with the correct IMC more accurately represents the distribution of Ch in biliary lipid aggregates.
Cluster Analysis for Market Segmentation

Examines the processes of cluster analysis and describes them using an example of benefit segmentation, and also discusses other applications suggesting new directions of research in related fields. Bases an example study with 200 early respondents to a survey into sixth formers' choice of degree course, in which students were given 23 criteria which related to their course choice. Comparisons of likeness using Euclidean distance measures were employed. Uses also importance ratings given by three drivers to characteristics of new cars. Proposes that hierarchical clustering can be criticised when used to cluster data that is not naturally hierarchical, but other procedures have similar failings. Posits that clumping and optimisation in conjunction with hierarchical clustering offer the greater potential. Concludes that cluster analysis is a flexible tool, which provides a number of opportunities for marketing, and it is an appealing and simple idea ‐ but there are many technical questions that a researcher.
Bridging the gap between suppliers and customers through relationship promoters: theoretical considerations and empirical results

Despite the pivotal importance of marketing‐oriented boundary spanners for successful relationship development, only a few studies have investigated the influence of these boundary spanners on relationship outcomes. Findings of this study show that relationship advancement through a relationship promoter in the supplier or customer firm have a positive significant impact on the growth of sales within the relationship and the supplier’s share of a customer’s business. Relationship promoters are persons who identify appropriate partners of different organizations, bring them together, and facilitate the dialogue and the exchange processes between them. Relationship promoters support interactive learning processes and solve inter‐organizational conflicts. Furthermore, they fulfil an important social task. Relationship promoters overcome existing distances between partner firms and develop an understanding for the situation and objectives of the respective partner.
Verb sense disambiguation based on dual distributional similarity

This paper presents a system for automatic verb sense disambiguation using a small corpus and a Machine-Readable Dictionary (MRD) in Korean. The system learns a set of typical uses listed in the MRD usage examples for each of the senses of a polysemous verb in the MRD definitions using verb-object co-occurrences acquired from the corpus. This paper concentrates on the problem of data sparseness in two ways. First, by extending word similarity measures from direct co-occurrences to co-occurrences of co-occurring words, we compute the word similarities using non co-occurring words but co-occurring clusters. Secondly, we acquire IS-A relations of nouns from the MRD definitions. It is possible to roughly cluster the nouns by the identification of the IS-A relationship. Using these methods, two words may be considered similar even if they do not share any word elements. Experiments show that this method can learn from a very small training corpus, achieving over an 86% correct disambiguation performance without any restriction on a word's senses.
Semaphorin3A Signaling Mediated by Fyn-dependent Tyrosine Phosphorylation of Collapsin Response Mediator Protein 2 at Tyrosine 32*

Collapsin response mediator protein 2 (CRMP2) is an intracellular protein that mediates signaling of Semaphorin3A (Sema3A), a repulsive axon guidance molecule. Fyn, a Src-type tyrosine kinase, is involved in the Sema3A signaling. However, the relationship between CRMP2 and Fyn in this signaling pathway is still unknown. In our research, we demonstrated that Fyn phosphorylated CRMP2 at Tyr32 residues in HEK293T cells. Immunohistochemical analysis using a phospho-specific antibody at Tyr32 of CRMP showed that Tyr32-phosphorylated CRMP was abundant in the nervous system, including dorsal root ganglion neurons, the molecular and Purkinje cell layer of adult cerebellum, and hippocampal fimbria. Overexpression of a nonphosphorylated mutant (Tyr32 to Phe32) of CRMP2 in dorsal root ganglion neurons interfered with Sema3A-induced growth cone collapse response. These results suggest that Fyn-dependent phosphorylation of CRMP2 at Tyr32 is involved in Sema3A signaling.
Spatial Arrangement as a part of Geospatial Feature Ontologies

SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT AS A PART OF GEOSPATIAL FEATURE ONTOLOGIES Jonathan R. Clark, Ph.D George Mason University, 2012 Dissertation Director: Dr. Anthony Stefanidis The geospatial sciences have always employed ontologies to describe spatial data, conduct analysis, and to design the systems and methods for conducting geospatial operations. While research on geospatial ontologies has addressed non-spatial aspects of features on the terrain, space and spatial relationships are usually treated as separate from the nature of geospatial objects. This work presents an approach for making spatial context an integral part of geospatial feature ontologies. Specifically, the spatial arrangement of the components of a complex feature class (features composed of several simple features) was examined as a potential “spatial signature” of that feature class. This work suggests an approach for including spatial relationships and metrics in a prototypical feature ontology, and then using these metrics to judge the similarity of metrics from other feature classes to that prototype. Container terminals, a type of commercial maritime terminal, were used as a test case with a machine-readable ontology developed using spatial metrics from sample terminals world-wide. Like metrics were also collected for test cases representing several types of facilities, and compared to the prototype ontology. Using a simple similarity model, comparison of the test cases to the prototype resulted in partial success in judging similarity of the test cases to that prototype. Variations in facilities layouts and the simple logic of the similarity model were the likely causes of reduced success in similarity judgments.
Random execution of a set of contacts to solve the grasping and contact uncertainties in robotic tasks

This paper addresses the problem of identifying the uncertainties present in a robotic contact situation. These uncertainties are errors and misalignments of an object with respect to its ideal position. The paper describes how to solve for the errors caused during grasping and errors present when coming into contact with the environment. A force sensor is used together with Kalman Filters to solve for all the uncertainties. The straightforward use of a force sensor and the Kalman Filters is found to be effective in finding only some of the uncertainties in robotic contact. The other uncertainties form dependencies that cannot be estimated in this manner. This dependency brings about the problem of observability. To make the unobservable uncertainties observable a sequence of contacts are used. The error covariance matrix of the Kalman Filter (KF) is used to obtain new contacts that are required to solve for all the uncertainties completely. There is complete freedom in choosing which unobservable quantity to be excited in forming the next contact. The paper describes how these new contacts can be randomly executed. A two dimensional contact situation will be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. Experimental data are also presented to prove the validity of the procedure. Due to the non-linear relationship between the uncertainties and the forces, an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) has been used.
Revisiting The Certifying Role Of Financial Intermediaries On IPOs

This paper re-examines the role of commercial banks, investment banks, and venture capitalists in monitoring and certifying the value of the firms that went public in the 2000s . We find that investment banks that have better reputations are associated with larger underpricing for venture - capital - backed IPOs, but not for non - venture - capital - backed IPOs. The partial adjustment phenomenon observed in Carter et al. (2001) exists only for venture - capital - backed IPOs. The presence of venture capital is inversely related to IPO underpricing only when venture capitalists certify small firms. We do not find that the presence of bank debt reduces IPO underpricing. In addition, we do not find any substitutive or complementary role between commercial banks and venture capitalists in certifying IPOs.