Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ripples : Utilizing Improve User Interaction with Touch Displays

We present Ripples, a system which enables around each contact point on a touch display these visualizations, provides feedback to the user successes and errors of their touch interactions. Our vis alization system is engineered to be overlaid on top of e isting applications without requiring the applications to be modified in any way, and functions independently of the application’s responses to user input. Ripples fundamental problem of ambiguity of feedback action results in an unexpected behaviour. can be caused by a wide variety of sources. We des ambiguity problem, and identify those sources. We then define a set of visual states and transitions needed to r solve this ambiguity, of use to anyone designing touch a plications or systems. We then present the Ripples impl mentation of visualizations for those states, and the results of a user study demonstrating user preference for the sy tem, and demonstrating its utility in reducing errors. Author
Reframing the expectations of financial literacy education : Bringing back the reality

There is no agreed framework for financial literacy education (FLE) and considerable debate in the academic literature about whether it can improve financial literacy and decision making, thereby enhancing the overall financial well-being of individuals. Based on a review of the literature and reflections on the outcomes of various FLE programs, this paper develops a framework which incorporates enabling factors, levels of content and desired outcomes for these levels. Our model seeks to achieve alignment between the expectations of FLE and its actual delivery and content.
Computer Vision-based Reconstructive Plastic Surgery Computer Vision-based Reconstructive Plastic Surgery Computer Vision-based Reconstructive Plastic Surgery by Yarong Tang

by YARONG TANG (Under the Direction of SUCHENDRA M. BHANDARKAR) ABSTRACT High energy traumatic impact of the craniofacial skeleton is an inevitable consequence of today’s fast paced society. The work in the thesis leverages recent advances in computer vision, computer visualization and computer aided design/manufacturing to reduce the fractures and reconstruct the craniofacial skeleton in silico. A graphical user interface is designed to help the surgeon to perform the surgery in a virtual environment. Surface matching algorithms such as the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) and the Data-Aligned Rigidity-Constrained Exhaustive Search (DARCES) are applied separately to the problem of craniofacial reconstruction by matching the fragment surfaces. A synergetic combination of the DARCES and ICP algorithms where the output of the DARCES algorithm is fed as input to the ICP algorithm results in an improved performance in terms of both reconstruction accuracy and execution time.
Simulated Annealing for Maximizing the Lifetime of Sensor Networks under Opportunistic Routing

A key challenge in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is to design protocols maximizing the lifetime of a set of devices based on small and non-rechargeable batteries. This work focus on maximizing the lifetime of a WSN in which opportunistic routing is used together with random linear network coding. The idea of such technique is double: improving wireless performances by exploiting transmission opportunities and avoiding coordination between nodes of the network. It has been shown that this problem is non-convex. So, our contribution consists in exploiting the simulated annealing (SA) as a simple metaheuristic in order to find the optimal solution for the reception probabilities. The convergence of the SA is shown and the performance in term of energy consumption is illustrated.
Outsourcing Search Services on Private Spatial Data

Social networking and content sharing service providers, e.g., Facebook and Google Maps, enable their users to upload and share a variety of user-generated content, including location data such as points of interest. Users wish to share location data through an (untrusted) service provider such that trusted friends can perform spatial queries on the data. We solve the problem by transforming the location data before uploading them. We contribute spatial transformations that re-distribute locations in space and a transformation that employs cryptographic techniques. The data owner selects transformation keys and shares them with the trusted friends. Without the keys, it is infeasible for an attacker to reconstruct the exact original data points from the transformed points. These transformations achieve different tradeoffs between query efficiency and data security. In addition, we describe an attack model for studying the security properties of the transformations. Empirical studies suggest that the proposed methods are secure and efficient.
Making Home More Affordable: Community Land Trusts Adopting Cooperative Ownership Models to Expand Affordable Housing

ABSTRACT Many question conventional homeownership, particularly for low-income households. Shared equity models offer an alternative, including community land trusts (CLTs) and limited equity cooperatives (LECs); yet, they too have limitations. CLTs offer ongoing support, but require bankable households. LECs can provide autonomy and security, but often require organizational reinforcement to succeed. This article explores an adaptation of these models. It examines the organizational characteristics of five CLTs partnered with LECs. The study considers CLT motivations for pursuing LECs and appraises the characteristics of CLT-managed coops. The discussion highlights an emergent practice and speaks to the organizational adaptability of shared equity models.
Multilevel Graph Cuts Based Image Segmentation

This work deals with the graph cuts based image segmentation of gray scale, color and texture images. Multilevel graph partitioning approach is used along with the normalized cuts framework. From the input image, an optimized graph is constructed using intensity, color and texture profiles of the image simultaneously. Based on nature of the image, a fuzzy rule based system is designed for weighted average of image features during graph development. Multilevel graph cuts algorithm is then applied to this graph in which graph is first coarsened to multiple levels in order to reduce the size of graph, coarsened graph is iteratively bi-partitioned through normalized cuts framework to get optimum partitions and then these partitions are projected back towards the original graph during uncoarsening phase to get the segmented image. Berkeley segmentation database is used to test our algorithm and segmentation results are evaluated through probabilistic rand index and global consistency error methods. It is shown that the presented segmentation method provides effective results for most type of images in terms of both accuracy and computational efficiency.
Beginnings: The Art and Science of Planning Psychotherapy

Both primer and sourcebook, Beginnings: The Art and Science of Planning Psychotherapy fills a niche in the literature so admirably that clinicians will find it indispensible in planning humanely responsive treatment in an increasingly complex therapeutic world. Nitroflare.com http://nitroflare.com/view/83773A7BCEBF4AA/Sanet. me_0415883083. pdf. Varying Form of Title: Art and science of planning psychotherapy. Publication, Distribution, etc.: Hillsdale, NJ . Analytic Press, (c)2002. Physical Description: ix, 334 p. : ill. ;, 24 cm. Bibliography, etc. Note: Includes bibliographical references (p. 290-319) and indexes. [pdf, txt, ebook] Download book Beginnings : the art and science of planning psychotherapy / Mary Jo Peebles-Kleiger. online for free. Terms of Use Privacy Policy © 2019 American Psychiatric Association     American Psychiatric Association Publishing Powered by Atypon Literatum
A splog filtering method based on string copy detection

Recently many people publicize their blogs and the blogosphere becomes an important information source. It is used for various purposes such as analyzing trends and reputations, marketing, etc. One problem of blogosphere is spam like e-mails and web links. There are many spam blogs (splogs) that are generated to make users to access specific sites. This paper proposes a splog filtering method. Splog is usually generated automatically by copying words and phrases from other documents. Therefore, the proposed method detects strings appearing in multiple blogs and uses a copy rate of strings as a key feature for splog filtering. To evaluate the proposed method, we constructed an evaluation corpus by gathering blogs randomly during a certain period of time and manually judged whether each blog is splog or not. The experiment using this corpus reveals several features of splog filtering by copy string detection. The proposed method uses the suffix array for copied substring detection and it can judge each blog with time complexity of (m2 log n) where n and m denote total length of documents used for copy detection and the lengths of the blog to be judged, respectively.
Decomposition of Big Tensors With Low Multilinear Rank

Tensor decompositions are promising tools for big data analytics as they bring multiple modes and aspects of data to a unified framework, which allows us to discover complex internal structures and correlations of data. Unfortunately most existing approaches are not designed to meet the major challenges posed by big data analytics. This paper attempts to improve the scalability of tensor decompositions and provides two contributions: A flexible and fast algorithm for the CP decomposition (FFCP) of tensors based on their Tucker compression; A distributed randomized Tucker decomposition approach for arbitrarily big tensors but with relatively low multilinear rank. These two algorithms can deal with huge tensors, even if they are dense. Extensive simulations provide empirical evidence of the validity and efficiency of the proposed algorithms.
Observer-based iterative learning control with evolutionary programming algorithm for MIMO nonlinear systems

In this paper, the observer-based iterative learning control with/without evolutionary programming algorithm is proposed for MIMO nonlinear systems. While the learning gain involves some unmeasurable states, this paper proposes the observer-based iterative learning control (ILC) for nonlinear systems and guarantees the tracking error convergences to zero via continual learning. Moreover, a sufficient condition has been presented to alleviate the traditional constraint, i.e., identical initial state, in the convergence analysis. Then, an idea of feasible reference based on polynomial approximation is proposed to overcome the limitation of ILC – initial state error. To speed up the convergence of the iterative learning control, evolutionary programming is applied to search for the optimal and feasible learning gain to reduce the training time. In addition, two improved issues of ILC, an appropriate selection of the initial control input and the improved learning rule for the system whose product matrix of output matrix C and input matrix B is not full rank, are presented in this paper. Three multi-input multi-output (MIMO) illustrative examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.
Characterizing Organizational Use of Web-Based Services: Methodology, Challenges, Observations, and Insights

Today’s Web provides many different functionalities, including communication, entertainment, social networking, and information retrieval. In this article, we analyze traces of HTTP activity from a large enterprise and from a large university to identify and characterize Web-based service usage. Our work provides an initial methodology for the analysis of Web-based services. While it is nontrivial to identify the classes, instances, and providers for each transaction, our results show that most of the traffic comes from a small subset of providers, which can be classified manually. Furthermore, we assess both qualitatively and quantitatively how the Web has evolved over the past decade, and discuss the implications of these changes.
An under-actuated robotic hand for multiple grasps

In this paper, an under-actuated robotic hand is designed for realizing several different grasps. Three special transmissions are developed to realize the compact joint connected motion, connected motion among fingers and adduction/abduction. These transmissions reduce the volume and weight of the hand while maintain functions necessary for realizing desired grasps. The developed robotic hand can choose three different opposed positions of the thumb to realize four different grasps. Experiments are conducted to confirm that the robotic hand moves fast and stably grasp objects.
Interactive contour deformation of moving object using graph cut

This paper deals with tracking of object with assistance by interactive deformation contour using Graph cut method. The method is used for the segmentation of tracked object on individual video frames. At the beginning of this method, user interactively defines object destined for tracking by defining its contour. The initialization of Graph cut method by determining of terminals of the object and background are determined automatically from initialization contour specified by the user at the first frame. This method can using as the initialization contours on the next frames the cuts from Graph cut method at previous frame. This paper presents experimental validation of the method for interactive deformation of contour for segmentation and tracking of moving objects.
A low-cost video frame-rate up conversion using compressed-domain information

A new low-cost video frame-rate up conversion (FRC) technique that exploits compressed-domain information is proposed in this paper. Recent worldwide growth of digital video applications such as home AV network or mobile multimedia have been demanding higher video compression ratio in order to meet system requirements due to limited bandwidth or storage capacity. Enhancement of temporal resolution using FRC at decoder side is attractive in a sense that the R-D performance can be maintained even at low bitrates by dropping frames during encoding process and recovering them at the decoder. The proposed FRC aims to provide accurate estimates of motion vectors for recovered frames based on compressed-domain information. The goal of our study is to realize a decoder design with robust FRC over a variety of implementation platforms from mobile to consumer set-top.
Defective Ribosomal Protein Gene Expression Alters Transcription, Translation, Apoptosis, and Oncogenic Pathways in Diamond‐Blackfan Anemia

Diamond‐Blackfan anemia (DBA) is a broad developmental disease characterized by anemia, bone marrow (BM) erythroblastopenia, and an increased incidence of malignancy. Mutations in ribosomal protein gene S19 (RPS19) are found in ∼25% of DBA patients; however, the role of RPS19 in the pathogenesis of DBA remains unknown. Using global gene expression analysis, we compared highly purified multipotential, erythroid, and myeloid BM progenitors from RPS19 mutated and control individuals. We found several ribosomal protein genes downregulated in all DBA progenitors. Apoptosis genes, such as TNFRSF10B and FAS, transcriptional control genes, including the erythropoietic transcription factor MYB (encoding c‐myb), and translational genes were greatly dysregulated, mostly in diseased erythroid cells. Cancer‐related genes, including RAS family oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, were significantly dysregulated in all diseased progenitors. In addition, our results provide evidence that RPS19 mutations lead to codownregulation of multiple ribosomal protein genes, as well as downregulation of genes involved in translation in DBA cells. In conclusion, the altered expression of cancer‐related genes suggests a molecular basis for malignancy in DBA. Downregulation of c‐myb expression, which causes complete failure of fetal liver erythropoiesis in knockout mice, suggests a link between RPS19 mutations and reduced erythropoiesis in DBA.
Serotonin Increases Susceptibility to Pulmonary Hypertension in BMPR2-Deficient Mice

Heterozygous germline mutations in the gene encoding the bone morphogenetic protein type II (BMPR-II) receptor underlie the majority (>70%) of cases of familial pulmonary arterial hypertension (FPAH), and dysfunction of BMP signaling has been implicated in other forms of PAH. The reduced disease gene penetrance in FPAH indicates that other genetic and/or environmental factors may also be required for the clinical manifestation of disease. Of these, the serotonin pathway has been implicated as a major factor in PAH pathogenesis. We investigated the pulmonary circulation of mice deficient in BMPR-II (BMPR2+/− mice) and show that pulmonary hemodynamics and vascular morphometry of BMPR2+/− mice were similar to wild-type littermate controls under normoxic or chronic hypoxic (2- to 3-week) conditions. However, chronic infusion of serotonin caused increased pulmonary artery systolic pressure, right ventricular hypertrophy, and pulmonary artery remodeling in BMPR2+/− mice compared with wild-type littermates, an effect that was exaggerated under hypoxic conditions. In addition, pulmonary, but not systemic, resistance arteries from BMPR2+/− mice exhibited increased contractile responses to serotonin mediated by both 5-HT2 and 5-HT1 receptors. Furthermore, pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells from BMPR2+/− mice exhibited a heightened DNA synthesis and activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 in response to serotonin compared with wild-type cells. In vitro and in vivo experiments suggested that serotonin inhibits BMP signaling via Smad proteins and the expression of BMP responsive genes. These findings provide the first evidence for an interaction between BMPR-II-mediated signaling and the serotonin pathway, perturbation of which may be critical to the pathogenesis of PAH.
Comparative simulation of silicon, PDMS, PGA and PMMA actuator for piezoelectric micropump

Microelectromechanical system (MEMS), a technology of miniature devices comprises micropumps that are also crucial components in microfluidic analysis systems. This article provides comparative study that focused on numerical simulation of silicon, Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and Polyglycolic acid (PGA) actuator for piezoelectric micropump in order to determine which one is better. The aim and objectives of this study is to exhibit the usefulness of finite element analysis (FEA) and simulation techniques for selecting a better material for membrane attached on an actuator in a piezoelectric micropump. The piezoelectric micropump consists of actuator having piezoelectric disk coupled on membrane that can be made of different materials like silicon, PDMS, PMMA and PGA. The behavior of actuator like deflection and stress for different materials has been analyzed by applying voltage from 50 V to 150 V for varying frequency 50 Hz to 150 Hz. The maximum deflection at 150 V has been found for PGA that is 67 μm and minimum deflection comes out for silicon that is 16 μm while others PDMS has deflection of 25.2 μm and PMMA has deflection of 25.8 μm. This research work offers helpful information for piezoelectric micropump design.
Simultaneous imaging of neural activity in three dimensions

We introduce a scanless optical method to image neuronal activity in three dimensions simultaneously. Using a spatial light modulator and a custom-designed phase mask, we illuminate and collect light simultaneously from different focal planes and perform calcium imaging of neuronal activity in vitro and in vivo. This method, combining structured illumination with volume projection imaging, could be used as a technological platform for brain activity mapping.
The Case for Cost-Sensitive and Easy-To-Interpret Models in Industrial Record Linkage

Record Linkage (RL) is the task of identifying two or more records referring to the same entity (e.g., a person, a company, etc.). RL systems have traditionally handled all input record types in the same way. In an industrial setting, however, business imperatives (such as privacy constraints, government regulation, etc.) often force RL systems to operate with extremely high levels of false positive/negative error rates. For instance, false positive errors can be life threatening when identifying medical records, while false negative errors on criminal records can lead to serious legal issues. In this paper we introduce RL models based on Cost Sensitive Alternating Decision Trees (ADTree), an algorithm that uniquely combines boosting and decision trees algorithms to create shorter and easier-to-interpret linking rules. These models present a two-fold advantage when compared to traditional RL approaches. First, they can be naturally trained to operate at industrial precision/recall operating points. Second, the shorter output rules are so clear that it can effectively explain its decisions to non-technical users via score aggregation or visualization. Experiments show that the proposed models significantly outperformed other baselines on the desired industrial operating points, and the improved understanding of the model’s decisions led to faster debugging and feature development cycles. We then describe how we deployed the model to a commercial RL system with several billion personal records covering nearly the entire U.S. population as input, and obtained a 6:1 ratio of input records to output profiles, with an estimated 99.6%/86.2% precision/recall trade-o↵. This system was then deployed in a commercial e-commerce website, as well as to the subdomain of linking criminal records, obtaining an impressive 99.7%/82.9% precision/recall overall trade-o↵.
A model-based approach to demodulation of co-channel MSK signals

In this paper, we present model-based techniques for joint detection of two near equal power co-channel MSK signals. It is shown that an MSK signal is piecewise linear in the parameters of interest and therefore can be represented in the standard linear form. The problem of joint detection is then reduced to one of parameter estimation and this allows us to develop receiver architectures based on the minimum variance and minimum mean square error criterion. Simulation results have shown that model-based techniques provide a performance gain of about 12 dB for equal power signals and about 8-10 dB when the signals are near equal power (SIR/spl sim/1dB) over the conventional correlation receiver.
Paradigmatic Uniformity and Contrast

This paper reviews several cases where either the grammar strives to maintain the same output shape for pairs of inflected words that the regular phonology should otherwise drive apart (paradigmatic uniformity) or where the grammar strives to keep apart pairs of inflected words that the regular phonology threatens to merge (paradigmatic contrast).