Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Visual simulation of deformable models

Computer animations are an essential part of today’s visual production pipeline, for feature animated films and video games. By moving from static to dynamic scenes, immersion in virtual environments is greatly enhanced. Most of these animations however are concerning rigid or articulated bodies, and are generated manually by an artist or off-line. The interactive animation of deformable objects still is a challenging task, requiring high computational resources. Moreover, interactive environments for dressing up with virtual clothing or training surgeons on unaccustomed procedures pose higher requirements on fidelity as simple plausibility, which we denote by visual simulation. This thesis presents a framework for the visual simulation of deformable objects, which is fast enough to be integrated into virtual environments. The modelling of these objects is based on continuum mechanics, yielding a better accuracy than the techniques commonly used in graphics. An important aspect of modelling are material laws. Measurements have shown viscoelasticity to be a distinctive characteristic of biological soft tissue, the hysteresis of cloth is a well known observation in standard Kawabata experiments. We introduce the modelling of viscoelasticity to graphics, which integrates smoothly into the continuum dynamical setting, and present the first interactive implementation of a viscoelastic model. Chapter 2 introduces the basic concepts of this approach, which results in a partial differential equation; the following chapter discusses the numerical methods we employ for its solution. We use the method of lines to solve this equation. Hence, as a first step the equation is discretised in space using finite elements on a tetrahedral mesh of the object. This reduces the problem to the solution of an ordinary differential equation. The efficient time integration of this equation is vital for the performance of the application. The implicit methods we introduce for this task are well suited for two-dimensional structures such as cloth as well as for three-dimensional soft objects. Implicit integration requires the solution of large systems of equations. Hence, the efficiency of these schemes again critically depends on the linear solver; we propose to use several methods new to the field. Two applications are presented in chapter 4 and 5 respectively, a core for cloth simulation using a simpler space discretization method, and a soft object simulator, assembling all the techniques we described in a set of flexible building blocks. The latter application allows the real-time simulation of soft objects composed of up to several thousand tetrahedral elements; the blocks can be configured to trade execution speed for approximation accuracy and hence to match the requirements of the actual area of usage.
Queue length distribution of network packet traffic: Tsallis entropy maximization with fractional moments

A framework based on maximization of Tsallis entropy constrained by fractional moments is proposed to model queue length distribution of number of packets in network traffic exhibiting long-range behavior. For appropriate range of the Tsallis entropy parameter q, it is found that the first moment of number of packets may not exist Based on Euler summation formula, explicit expressions for mean queue length and buffer overflow probability exhibiting power law behavior are obtained. It is shown that in the limiting case as q tends to 1, one recovers the asymptotic results for buffer overflow probability depicting Weibull-like tail.
Three-query PCPs with perfect completeness over non-Boolean domains

We study nonBoolean PCPs that have perfect completeness and read three positions from the proof. For the case when the proof consists of values from a domain of size d for some integer constant d/spl ges/2, we construct a nonadaptive PCP with perfect completeness and soundness d/sup -1/+d/sup -2/+/spl epsiv/, for any constant /spl epsiv/>0, and an adaptive PCP with perfect completeness and soundness d/sup -1/+/spl epsiv/, for any constant /spl epsiv/>0. The latter PCP can be converted into a nonadaptive PCP with perfect completeness and soundness d/sup -1/+/spl epsiv/, for any constant /spl epsiv/>0, where four positions are read from the proof. These results match the best known constructions for the case d=2 and our proofs also show that the particular predicates we use in our PCPs are nonapproximable beyond the random assignment threshold.
The Post‐Deployment Mental Health (PDMH) study and repository: A multi‐site study of US Afghanistan and Iraq era veterans

The United States (US) Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Mid‐Atlantic Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) Post‐Deployment Mental Health (PDMH) multi‐site study examines post‐deployment mental health in US military Afghanistan/Iraq‐era veterans. The study includes the comprehensive behavioral health characterization of over 3600 study participants and the genetic, metabolomic, neurocognitive, and neuroimaging data for many of the participants. The study design also incorporates an infrastructure for a data repository to re‐contact participants for follow‐up studies. The overwhelming majority (94%) of participants consented to be re‐contacted for future studies, and our recently completed feasibility study indicates that 73–83% of these participants could be reached successfully for enrollment into longitudinal follow‐up investigations. Longitudinal concurrent cohort follow‐up studies will be conducted (5–10+ years post‐baseline) to examine predictors of illness chronicity, resilience, recovery, functional outcome, and other variables, and will include neuroimaging, genetic/epigenetic, serum biomarker, and neurocognitive studies, among others. To date, the PDMH study has generated more than 35 publications from the baseline data and the repository has been leveraged in over 20 publications from follow‐up studies drawing from this cohort. Limitations that may affect data collection for a longitudinal follow‐up study are also presented.
INCOME INEQUALITY AND THE PROGRESSIVITY OF AN INCOME TAX

where x. is the pretax income share of the ith group, and y. is the after? tax share. Baum suggests to arrange the groups according to increasing affluence (e.g., successive deciles of the income distribution); then RSA. should decline from values larger than 1 to values smaller than 1. The decline will be steeper when the tax is more progressive. My amendment is to take the (natural) logarithm of (1), to multiply this log by the group's population share p., and finally to sum over i. This leads to a progressivity index of the simple form n y{ (2) 2 P. log i = i x. l
Responder anonymity and anonymous peer-to-peer file sharing

Data transfer over TCP/IP provides no privacy for network users. Previous research in anonymity has focused on the provision of initiator anonymity. We explore methods of adapting existing initiator-anonymous protocols to provide responder anonymity and mutual anonymity. We present anonymous peer-to-peer file sharing (APFS) protocols, which provide mutual anonymity for peer-to-peer file sharing. APFS addresses the problem of long-lived Internet services that may outlive the degradation present in current anonymous protocols. One variant of APFS makes use of unicast communication, but requires a central coordinator to bootstrap the protocol. A second variant takes advantage of multicast routing to remove the need for any central coordination point. We compare the TCP performance of the APFS protocol to existing overt file sharing systems such as Napster. In providing anonymity, APFS can double transfer times and requires that additional traffic be carried by peers, but this overhead is constant with the size of the session.
Multi-Infections of Feminizing Wolbachia Strains in Natural Populations of the Terrestrial Isopod Armadillidium Vulgare

Maternally inherited Wolbachia (α-Proteobacteria) are widespread parasitic reproductive manipulators. A growing number of studies have described the presence of different Wolbachia strains within a same host. To date, no naturally occurring multiple infections have been recorded in terrestrial isopods. This is true for Armadillidium vulgare which is known to harbor non simultaneously three Wolbachia strains. Traditionally, such Wolbachia are detected by PCR amplification of the wsp gene and strains are characterized by sequencing. The presence of nucleotide deletions or insertions within the wsp gene, among these three different strains, provides the opportunity to test a novel genotyping method. Herein, we designed a new primer pair able to amplify products whose lengths are specific to each Wolbachia strain so as to detect the presence of multi-infections in A. vulgare. Experimental injections of Wolbachia strains in Wolbachia-free females were used to validate the methodology. We re-investigated, using this novel method, the infection status of 40 females sampled in 2003 and previously described as mono-infected based on the classical sequencing method. Among these females, 29 were identified as bi-infected. It is the first time that naturally occuring multiple infections of Wolbachia are detected within an individual A. vulgare host. Additionally, we resampled 6 of these populations in 2010 to check the infection status of females.
SciEsp: Structural Analysis of Abstracts Written in Spanish

SciEsp is a tool for scientific writing in Spanish. Its objective is to help students when writing abstracts of scientific texts, such as a thesis or a dissertation. The tool identifies the different components of an abstract structure according to the guidelines of “good writing” proposed by the literature. Each sentence in the abstract is classified to one of six different rhetorical categories (background, gap, purpose, methodology, result, or conclusion), warning the writer of a possible missing component of the “optimal” structure. We manually annotated a corpus of abstracts from computer science theses and dissertations, and use it to train a Naive Bayes classifier that achieves an F1-measure of 0.65. We expect that SciEsp becomes a starting point for further projects in the area of supporting technologies for scientific writing in Spanish.
Enhancing Homework Compliance in Correctional Psychotherapy

This study investigated the effects of three homework compliance enhancement strategies (task option, task modeling, and public commitment) on a sample of probationers’ compliance with therapeutic homework tasks during the course of a multiphasic correctional treatment program. The study featured a within-subjects, counterbalanced, experimental design. Homework compliance was measured on the basis of therapists’ record of probationers’ homework completion (i.e., “yes/no” tally), as well as probationers’ scores on the Homework Rating Scale–II Client and Therapist rater versions. Results were mixed but suggested that public commitment and task modeling are potentially useful strategies in enhancing probationers’ beliefs about, expectations of, and compliance with therapeutic homework tasks. Furthermore, results provided preliminary support for the reliability of the Homework Rating Scale–II within correctional populations. Implications for correctional service delivery, treatment programming, and treatment outcome are discussed, as is the need for further research in this area.
TeV mu neutrinos from young neutron stars.

Neutron stars are efficient accelerators for bringing charges up to relativistic energies. We show that if positive ions are accelerated to approximately 1 PeV near the surface of a young neutron star (t(age) less than or nearly 10(5) yr), protons interacting with the star's radiation field produce beamed mu neutrinos with energies of approximately 50 TeV that could produce the brightest neutrino sources at these energies yet proposed. These neutrinos would be coincident with the radio beam, so that, if the star is detected as a radio pulsar, the neutrino beam will sweep the Earth; the star would be a "neutrino pulsar. " Looking for nu(mu) emission from young neutron stars will provide a valuable probe of the energetics of the neutron star magnetosphere.
INTERNET USES AND GRATIFICATIONS: A Structural Equation Model of Interactive Advertising

This study investigates the interactivity construct in terms of its antecedents (i.e., motivations for using the Internet) and consequences (i.e., attitude toward the site, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intention). A structural equation model was developed for an empirical test, based on uses and gratification theory applied to the interactivity context. A sample of 385 college students in the United States and Korea participated in the experiment. The findings suggest that consumers who have high information motivations are more likely to engage in human-message interaction on a Web site, whereas social interaction motivations are more strongly related to human-human interaction. Both human-message and human-human interactions had a positive effect on attitude toward the site, which leads to positive attitude toward the brand and purchase intention.
Data Gathering Model for Wireless Sensor Networks Based on the Hierarchical Aggregation Algorithms for IP Networks

Summary The paper deals with the data gathering in the sessions with the large number of end nodes. This situation can be represented by the networks with the IPTV service or by the monitoring process in the large-scale wireless sensor networks. The main aim of this paper is to propose and investigate the implementation of the Tree Transmission Protocol for IP networks into the restricted wireless sensor networks. With the emerging application feasibilities of the wireless sensor networks (WSNs), several efficient algorithms and protocols proposed for the IP networks could be applied with some modifications into these energy and bandwidth restricted micro sensor networks. With the growing number of Internet users, the recent research in IP networks is devoted to the effective communications in the large-scale IP networks. Suitable example could be the issue of the IPTV applications with the huge numbers of receivers taking advantage of the RTP/RTCP protocol. In accordance with the RTP/RTCP specification (6), the receivers send in the periodic interval report messages to inform the IPTV server about the quality of the multimedia content receiving. In this report, the information about the delay, jitter or packet loss is transferred. It is obvious, that sending side needs to receive this information with the shortest delay to react at the unexpectedly complaints in the network. In accordance with the specification (6), the feedback report interval is linearly dependent on the number of receivers. Therefore, with the growing number of receivers in the given session, the report interval reaches the unusable values. To settle this issue, several approaches optimizing time delay of the receiver's reports were proposed. The TTP protocol was recently proposed to outperform the mentioned issues and its performance is investigated further. In the WSNs, we battle with the similar issue. Since the WSNs are composed of the high number of narrow sensor nodes, the optimization of the energy-intensive data reporting process becomes the manner that need to be effectively solved. For the future, there is a considerable effort to merge the quite different networks such as the IP and WSN networks and that is why, the several protocols for IP networks could be successfully applied to the WSN environment. Hence, we consider applying the efficient TTP protocol for hierarchical data aggregation in IP networks to the WSN environment, where it can serve for the energy-efficient data gathering from the large-scale sensor networks. The rest of paper is organized in the following manner. Chapter 2 describes and evaluates the performance of the proposed TTP protocol. In the chapter 3, the most known routing protocols for the WSNs are summarized. In chapter 4, we define the limitations of the TTP for the implementation to the WSN and in chapter 4, the radio energy model of WSN is evaluated. The chapter 6 brings the conclusion and the future work.
Joint Feature Selection in Distributed Stochastic Learning for Large-Scale Discriminative Training in SMT

With a few exceptions, discriminative training in statistical machine translation (SMT) has been content with tuning weights for large feature sets on small development data. Evidence from machine learning indicates that increasing the training sample size results in better prediction. The goal of this paper is to show that this common wisdom can also be brought to bear upon SMT. We deploy local features for SCFG-based SMT that can be read off from rules at runtime, and present a learning algorithm that applies l1/l2 regularization for joint feature selection over distributed stochastic learning processes. We present experiments on learning on 1.5 million training sentences, and show significant improvements over tuning discriminative models on small development sets.
Community Networks in a Generational Perspective: The Change of an Electronic Medium Within Three Decades

Since the inception of electronic community networks in the USA in the 1970s, their goal has remained the provision of support to help the organization of communities at a local level. Despite major commonalities, the authors of this paper identify three generations that coincide roughly with the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. They are clearly differentiated in terms of technology, applications, organization and key actors. This analysis of the US experience of community networks draws on Karl Mannheim's sociological concept of generations to help understand change and adaptability in sociotechnical systems. It is the combined influence of the respective zeitgeist, the advent of a new technology, the influences of technical predecessors, and the appearance of new groups of actors that lead to a generational change. Options for the future of not-for-profit community networks and the possible emergence of a fourth generation are presented which, in the opinion of the authors, lie in a return to their roots. A brief overview of community networks in Europe is also provided.
Expanding the potential of standard flow cytometry by extracting fluorescence lifetimes from cytometric pulse shifts

Fluorescence lifetime measurements provide information about the fluorescence relaxation, or intensity decay, of organic fluorophores, fluorescent proteins, and other inorganic molecules that fluoresce. The fluorescence lifetime is emerging in flow cytometry and is helpful in a variety of multiparametric, single cell measurements because it is not impacted by nonlinearity that can occur with fluorescence intensity measurements. Yet time‐resolved cytometry systems rely on major hardware modifications making the methodology difficult to reproduce. The motivation of this work is, by taking advantage of the dynamic nature of flow cytometry sample detection and applying digital signal processing methods, to measure fluorescence lifetimes using an unmodified flow cytometer. We collect a new lifetime‐dependent parameter, referred to herein as the fluorescence‐pulse‐delay (FPD), and prove it is a valid representation of the average fluorescence lifetime. To verify we generated cytometric pulses in simulation, with light emitting diode (LED) pulsation, and with true fluorescence measurements of cells and microspheres. Each pulse is digitized and used in algorithms to extract an average fluorescence lifetime inherent in the signal. A range of fluorescence lifetimes is measurable with this approach including standard organic fluorophore lifetimes (∼1 to 22 ns) as well as small, simulated shifts (0.1 ns) under standard conditions (reported herein). This contribution demonstrates how digital data acquisition and signal processing can reveal time‐dependent information foreshadowing the exploitation of full waveform analysis for quantification of similar photo‐physical events within single cells. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Pathomechanics of Compression Injuries in the Cervical Spine: Nondestructive and Destructive Investigative Methods

Biomechanical analysis using nondestructive and destructive investigative methods was performed to evaluate the mechanisms of cervical compression injuries. These injuries produce two basic modes of failure: 1) anterior dislocation; and 2) rupture of the anterior ligamentous complex of the vertebral body. Distribution of these two failure patterns was determined by the initial cervical spine position; translational alignment did not have a significant effect. Different results were observed between spines positioned in flexion and extension, indicating that the most important factor determining the mode of failure was rotational alignment in the sagittal plane.
A topic modeling approach for research community mining

Mining community on the basis of hidden relationships present between the entities is important from academic recommendation point of view. Previous approaches mined research community by using network connectivity or by ignoring semantics-based intrinsic structure of the words and author's relationships present between the conferences. In this paper, we propose a novel Venue-Author-Topic (VAT) approach which can consider semantics-based intrinsic structure of words and authors correlations, simultaneously. We also show how topics and authors can be inferred for new conferences and authors correlations can be discovered by using proposed approach. Experimental results on the corpus downloaded from DBLP shows the effectiveness of proposed approach and the detailed interpretation of results reveals interesting information about the research community.
iAR: an exploratory augmented reality system for mobile devices

In this paper we propose an exploratory augmented reality(AR) system for mobile devices. A hybrid system of 3D object detection and 3D tracking is used to rapidly localize the object in the scene. Based on randomized tree classifier, object detection supports large viewpoint changes. While edge-based 3D tracking provides efficient computation and better accuracy for pose estimation of incremental motions. The result is an augmented reality system that works well with large viewpoint variance and has superior accuracy. Using a mobile device such as iPad or iPhone, our system further provides exploratory capability using their touch screen and wireless connectivity. The user is able to interact and explore the 3D object on the image or video, and collaborate with a remote user. Extensive experiments with different subjects demonstrate that the proposed system advances the state-of-the-art in augmented reality with novel and intuitive applications.