Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Survey of Stimulation Methods Used in SSVEP-Based BCIs

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems based on the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) provide higher information throughput and require shorter training than BCI systems using other brain signals. To elicit an SSVEP, a repetitive visual stimulus (RVS) has to be presented to the user. The RVS can be rendered on a computer screen by alternating graphical patterns, or with external light sources able to emit modulated light. The properties of an RVS (e.g., frequency, color) depend on the rendering device and influence the SSVEP characteristics. This affects the BCI information throughput and the levels of user safety and comfort. Literature on SSVEP-based BCIs does not generally provide reasons for the selection of the used rendering devices or RVS properties. In this paper, we review the literature on SSVEP-based BCIs and comprehensively report on the different RVS choices in terms of rendering devices, properties, and their potential influence on BCI performance, user safety and comfort.
Efficient gene delivery targeted to the brain using a transferrin‐conjugated polyethyleneglycol‐modified polyamidoamine dendrimer

The blood‐brain barrier (BBB) poses great difficulties for gene delivery to the brain. To circumvent the BBB, we investigated a novel brain‐targeting gene vector based on the nanoscopic high‐branching den‐drimer, polyamidoamine (PAMAM), in vitro and in vivo. Transferrin (Tf) was selected as a brain‐targeting ligand conjugated to PAMAM via bifunctional polyethylenegly‐col (PEG), yielding PAMAM‐PEG‐Tf. UV and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy were used to evaluate the synthesis of vectors. The characteristics and biodistribution of gene vectors were evaluated by fluorescent microscopy, flow cytometry, and a radiolabeling method. The transfection efficiency of vector/DNA complexes in brain capillary endothelial cells (BCECs) was evaluated by fluorescent microscopy and determination of luciferase activity. The potency of vector/DNA complexes was evaluated by using frozen sections and measuring tissue luciferase activity in Balb/c mice after i.v. administration. UV and NMR results demonstrated the successful synthesis of PAMAM‐PEG‐Tf. This vector showed a concentration‐dependent manner in cellular uptake study and a 2.25‐fold brain uptake compared with PAMAM and PAMAM‐PEG in vivo. Transfection efficiency of PAMAM‐PEG‐Tf/DNA complex was much higher than PAMAM/DNA and PAMAM‐PEG/DNA complexes in BCECs. Results of tissue expression experiments indicated the widespread expression of an exogenous gene in mouse brain after i.v. administration. With a PAMAM/DNA weight ratio of 10:1, the brain gene expression of the PAMAM‐PEG‐Tf/DNA complex was ~2‐fold higher than that of the PAMAM/DNA and PAMAM‐PEG/ DNA complexes. These results suggested that PAMAM‐PEG‐Tf can be exploited as a potential nonviral gene vector targeting to brain via noninvasive administration. —Huang, R‐Q. , Qu, Y‐H. , Ke, W‐L. , Zhu, J‐H. , Pei, Y‐Y. , Jiang, C. Efficient gene delivery targeted to the brain using a transferrin‐conjugated polyethyleneglycol‐modified polyamidoamine dendrimer. FASEB J. 21, 1117–1125 (2007)
Are your sites down? Requirements-driven self-tuning for the survivability of Web systems

Running in a highly uncertain and greatly complex environment, Web systems cannot always provide full set of services with optimal quality, especially when work loads are high or subsystem failures are frequent. Hence, it is significant to continuously maintain a high satisfaction level of survivability, hereafter survivability assurance, while relaxing or sacrificing certain quality or functional requirements that are not crucial to the survival of the entire system. After giving a value-based interpretation to survivability assurance to facilitate a quantitative analysis, we propose a requirements-driven self-tuning method for the survivability assurance of Web systems. Maintaining an enriched and live goal model, our method adapts to runtime tradeoff decisions made by our PID (proportional-integral-derivative) controller and goal-oriented reasoner for both quality and functional requirements. The goal-based configuration plans produced by the reasoner is carried out on the live goal model, and then mapped into system architectural configurations. Experiments on an online shopping system are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Non-consistent dual register files to reduce register pressure

The continuous grow on instruction level parallelism offered by microprocessors requires a large register file and a large number of ports to access it. This paper presents the non-consistent dual register file, an alternative implementation and management of the register file. Non-consistent dual register files support the bandwidth demands and the high register requirements, penalizing neither access time nor implementation cost. The proposal is evaluated for software pipelined loops and compared against a unified register file. Empirical results show improvements on performance and a noticeable reduction of the density of memory traffic due to a reduction of the spill code. The spill code can in general increase the minimum initiation interval and decrease loop performance. Additional improvements can be obtained when the operations are scheduled having in mind the register file organization proposed. <<ETX>>
Measurements on vehicle to grid application in industrial power grid for peak load reduction: Robust bidirectional charger for series production electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles

The combination of “electric mobility” and “renewable energy production” heavily demands for energy storage systems. Investigations of technical possibilities to use the stored energy of electric vehicles (EV) and so called plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) for smoothing the grid load and reduce power peaks are inalienable. Within the limits given by the car's battery management system consumption-driven charge and discharge signals could be used for effective integration in V2G systems. This paper will give a detailed overview of a system for bidirectional charging in an industrial grid. First real measurements and test results are given to proof the concept and show the opportunities.
Using Horn Clauses for Analyzing Security Protocols

This chapter presents a method for verifying security protocols based on an abstract representation of protocols by Horn clauses. This method is the foundation of the protocol verifier ProVerif. It is fully automatic, efficient, and can handle an unbounded number of sessions and an unbounded message space. It supports various cryptographic primitives defined by rewrite rules or equations. Even if we focus on secrecy in this chapter, this method can also prove other security properties, including authentication and process equivalences.
Family context of low-income young children and their self-regulation in the United States and Turkey

ABSTRACT The current study examines the contributions of family context (e.g. life events, home environments) to low-income preschool children’s self-regulation (behaviour regulation and executive function) in the United States and Turkey. Participants were 1139 low-income children (486 from the U.S. and 653 from Turkey) and their parents. Children’s self-regulation was assessed via structured tasks and family related variables such as life events, home environments, and demographic information were assessed via parent-report. Results from regression analyses showed that child’s age-predicted behaviour regulation and executive function in children both from the U.S. and Turkey. Child gender, favouring girls predicted behaviour regulation and executive function and parent–child verbal interaction was associated with behaviour regulation only in the U.S. Family structure (favouring living in a two-parent household) predicted executive function and economic change predicted behaviour regulation in Turkey. Contributions and future directions were also discussed.
Spatial Databases 1.1 Introduction 1.1.1 Spatial Database

aim at the effective and efficient management of data related to • a space such as the physical world (geography, urban planning, astronomy, human anatomy, fluid flow or an electromagnetic field); • biometrics (fingerprints, palm measurements, facial patterns); • engineering design (very large scale integrated circuits, layout of a building, or the molecular structure of a pharmaceutical drug); and • conceptual information space (virtual reality environments, multidimensional decision support systems). A Spatial Database Management System (SDBMS) can be characterized as follows: • A SDBMS is a software module that can work with an underlying database management system, for example, an Object-Relational database management system, or Object-oriented database management system. • SDBMSs support multiple spatial data models, commensurate spatial abstract data types (ADTs), and a query language from which these ADTs are callable. • SDBMSs support spatial indexing, efficient algorithms for spatial operations, and domain-specific rules for query optimization. Spatial database research have been an active area for a couple of decades. The results of this research are being used in a number of areas. To cite a few examples, the filter-and-refine technique used in spatial query processing has been applied to subsequence mining; multidimensional-index structures such as R-tree and Quad-tree used in accessing spatial data are applied in the field of computer graphics and image processing; and space-filling curves used in spatial query processing and data storage are applied in dimension reduction problems. The field of spatial databases can be defined by its accomplishments; current research is aimed at improving its functionality, extensibility, and performance. The impetus for improving functionality comes from the needs of existing application such as Geographic Information Systems (
Teaching Note—Lessons Learned From Developing and Implementing a Dementia Caregiving Graduate-Level Service-Learning Course

ABSTRACT This teaching note delineates seven lessons learned when designing and implementing a graduate-level dementia caregiving service-learning course. The course was designed during a 1-year faculty service-learning fellowship and implemented during the summer of 2015. The course used a person-in-environment framework to explain social work practice with family systems affected by dementia. It aimed to increase students’ knowledge about dementia and improve students’ attitudes toward working with people with dementia through respite visits with families affected by dementia. Three recommendations for future course offerings are described.
Deep Region and Multi-label Learning for Facial Action Unit Detection

Region learning (RL) and multi-label learning (ML) have recently attracted increasing attentions in the field of facial Action Unit (AU) detection. Knowing that AUs are active on sparse facial regions, RL aims to identify these regions for a better specificity. On the other hand, a strong statistical evidence of AU correlations suggests that ML is a natural way to model the detection task. In this paper, we propose Deep Region and Multi-label Learning (DRML), a unified deep network that simultaneously addresses these two problems. One crucial aspect in DRML is a novel region layer that uses feed-forward functions to induce important facial regions, forcing the learned weights to capture structural information of the face. Our region layer serves as an alternative design between locally connected layers (i.e., confined kernels to individual pixels) and conventional convolution layers (i.e., shared kernels across an entire image). Unlike previous studies that solve RL and ML alternately, DRML by construction addresses both problems, allowing the two seemingly irrelevant problems to interact more directly. The complete network is end-to-end trainable, and automatically learns representations robust to variations inherent within a local region. Experiments on BP4D and DISFA benchmarks show that DRML performs the highest average F1-score and AUC within and across datasets in comparison with alternative methods.
Finding All the Elementary Circuits of a Directed Graph

An algorithm is presented which finds all the elementary circuits of a directed graph in time bounded by $O((n + e)(c + 1))$ and space bounded by $O(n + e)$, where there are n vertices, e edges and c elementary circuits in the graph. The algorithm resembles algorithms by Tiernan and Tarjan, but is faster because it considers each edge at most twice between any one circuit and the next in the output sequence.
Validation of Self-Reported Anthropometrics in Female College Freshmen

Most investigations concerning the validity of self-reported anthropometrics focus on weight, height, and body mass index. This study extends those investigations by exploring the impact of self-reporting bias on the disease risk indicators of waist circumference and body fat percentage. Female college freshmen (n=128) self-reported weight and height, then underwent measurements for weight, height, waist circumference, and body fat percentage. Self-reporting bias was defined as self-reported minus directly-assessed anthropometric value. Despite no differences in self-reported versus directly-assessed weight or height for the total group, students with high waist circumference and excess fat under-reported their weight by 2.3±4.4 lb (p<0.05). Self-reporting bias was negatively correlated with waist circumference (r=−0.362; p<0.001) and body fat percentage (r=−0.317; p<0.001). Although many female college freshmen accurately represent their weight, those with excess fat and waist circumference under-reported their weight. This may lead to missed opportunities for risk identification, prevention, and intervention.
Industry-Wide Information Systems Standardization as Collective Action: The Case of the U.S. Residential Mortgage Industry

Vertical information systems (VIS) standards are technical specifications designed to promote coordination among the organizations within (or across) vertical industry sectors. Examples include the bar code, electronic data interchange (EDI) standards, and RosettaNet business process standards in the electronics industry. This contribution examines VIS standardization through the lens of collective action theory, applied in the literature to information technology product standardization, but not yet to VIS standardization, which is led by heterogeneous groups of user organizations rather than by IT vendors. Through an intensive case analysis of VIS standardization in the U.S. residential mortgage industry, VIS standardization success is shown to be as problematic as IT product standardization success, but for different reasons. VIS standardization involves two linked collective action dilemmas-standards development and standards diffusion- with different characteristics, such that a solution to the first may fail to resolve the second. Whereas prior theoretical and empirical research shows that IT product standardization efforts tend to splinter into rival factions that compete through standards wars in the marketplace, successful VIS standards consortia must encompass heterogeneous groups of user organizations and IT vendors without fragmenting. Some tactics successfully used to solve the collective action dilemma of VIS standardization (e.g., governance mechanisms and policies about intellectual property protection) are also used by IT product standardization efforts, but some are different, and successful VIS standardization requires a package of solutions tailored to fit and jointly resolve the specific dilemmas of particular VIS standards initiatives.
IONIZING RADIATION FROM z = 4–10 GALAXIES

We compute the escape of ionizing radiation from galaxies in the redshift interval z = 4–10, i.e., during and after the epoch of reionization, using a high-resolution set of galaxies, formed in fully cosmological simulations. The simulations invoke early, energetic feedback, and the galaxies evolve into a realistic population at z = 0. Our galaxies cover nearly four orders of magnitude in masses (107.8–1011.5 M☉) and more than five orders in star formation rates (10−3.5–101.7 M☉ yr−1), and we include an approximate treatment of dust absorption. We show that the source-averaged Lyman limit escape fraction at z = 10.4 is close to 80% declining monotonically with time as more massive objects build up at lower redshifts. Although the amount of dust absorption is uncertain to 1–1.5 dex, it is tightly correlated with metallicity; we find that dust is unlikely to significantly impact the observed UV output. These results support reionization by stellar radiation from low-luminosity dwarf galaxies and are also compatible with Lyman continuum observations and theoretical predictions at z ∼ 3–4.
Quality of service control in soft real-time applications

In this paper we present results obtained in the context of Quality of Service (QoS) control for soft real-time applications. The discussion addresses the issue of dynamically adjusting the bandwidth for a set of periodic tasks, when a reservation-based (RB) CPU scheduling policy is used. RB techniques are particularly suitable for this kind of applications since they allow an accurate mathematical modelling of the dynamic evolution of the QoS experienced by tasks. Based on this model, a control policy guaranteeing specified QoS levels for different tasks is illustrated, along with necessary and sufficient conditions for its existence. Moreover, the problem of steering a task QoS back into its nominal level is tackled, in response to deviations due to temporary overload conditions. Simulation results are reported, for the purpose of validating the approach.
Fixed-point optimization utility for C and C++ based digital signal processing programs

Two fixed-point optimization utility programs, the range estimator and the fixed-point simulator, are developed for scaling and wordlength determination of digital signal processing algorithms written in C or C++ language. By exploiting the operator overloading characteristics of C++ language, range estimation and fixed-point simulation can be conducted just by modifying the variable declaration of the original floating-point digital signal processing program. Since this utility evaluates the range and the fixed-point performance by simulation, not by analytical methods, it is easily applicable to nearly all type of digital signal processing algorithms including non-linear and time-varying systems. In addition, this utility software can be used for comparing the fixed-point characteristics of different implementation architectures.
Gibbs motif sampling: Detection of bacterial outer membrane protein repeats

The detection and alignment of locally conserved regions (motifs) in multiple sequences can provide insight into protein structure, function, and evolution. A new Gibbs sampling algorithm is described that detects motif‐encoding regions in sequences and optimally partitions them into distinct motif models; this is illustrated using a set of immunoglobulin fold proteins. When applied to sequences sharing a single motif, the sampler can be used to classify motif regions into related submodels, as is illustrated using helix‐turn‐helix DNA‐binding proteins. Other statistically based procedures are described for searching a database for sequences matching motifs found by the sampler. When applied to a set of 32 very distantly related bacterial integral outer membrane proteins, the sampler revealed that they share a subtle, repetitive motif. Although BLAST (Altschul SF et al., 1990, J Mol Biol 215:403–410) fails to detect significant pairwise similarity between any of the sequences, the repeats present in these outer membrane proteins, taken as a whole, are highly significant (based on a generally applicable statistical test for motifs described here). Analysis of bacterial porins with known trimeric β‐barrel structure and related proteins reveals a similar repetitive motif corresponding to alternating membrane‐spanning β‐strands. These β‐strands occur on the membrane interface (as opposed to the trimeric interface) of the β‐barrel. The broad conservation and structural location of these repeats suggests that they play important functional roles.
Analyzing Malware Based on Volatile Memory

To explain the necessity of comprehensive and automatically analysis process for volatile memory, this paper summarized ordinarily analyzing methods and their common points especially for concerned data source. Then, a memory analysis framework Volatiltiy-2.2 and statistical output file size are recommended. In addition, to address the limitation of plug-ins classification in analyzing procedure, a user perspective classify is necessary and proposed. Furthermore, according to target data source differences on the base of result data set volume and employed relational method is introduced for comprehensive analysis guideline procedure. Finally, a test demo including DLLs loading order list analyzing is recommend, in which DLL load list is regard as different kind of characteristics typical data source with process and convert into process behavior fingerprint. The clustering for the fingerprint is employed string similar degree algorithm model in the demo, which has a wide range applications in traditional malware behavior analysis, and it is proposed that these methods also can be applied for volatile memory
Road-boundary detecting based on similarity image

This paper propose a road-boundary detecting algorithm by using similarity image which is formed by ladar points. The algorithm transforms 3D point cloud to 2D similarity image to compute the similarity among neighbor points and then uses iterative threshold to segment traversable area. Road-boundary is detected by Canny operator and Hough transform at last. Experiments testify this method can detect road-boundary in structured environment.
Desiccation Tolerance in Encysted Embryos of the Animal Extremophile, Artemia1

Abstract Encysted embryos (cysts) of the primitive crustacean, Artemia franciscana, are among the most resistant of all animal life history stages to extremes of environmental stress. These embryos, extremophiles of the animal kingdom, are the main focus of this paper. Previous work has revealed the importance of biochemical and biophysical adaptations that provide a significant part of the basis of their resistance, and I consider some of these here. In the present paper the critical role played by the outer layer of the shell in desiccation tolerance will be one focus. Another involves studies on the response of dried cysts to high temperatures that, among other things, implicate one or more volatile factors released from the cysts that determines the extent of thermotolerance under a given heating regime. A hypothetical scheme is given to account for these peculiar results. Based on western immunoblotting analysis, and data from the literature, the scheme also implicates the heat-induced translocation of the stress protein p26 to nuclei as a potential cause of the reduction in hatching level.