Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design of a Momentum-Based Control Framework and Application to the Humanoid Robot Atlas

This paper presents a momentum-based control framework for floating-base robots and its application to the humanoid robot “Atlas”. At the heart of the control framework lies a quadratic program that reconciles motion tasks expressed as constraints on the joint acceleration vector with the limitations due to unilateral ground contact and force-limited grasping. We elaborate on necessary adaptations required to move from simulation to real hardware and present results for walking across rough terrain, basic manipulation, and multi-contact balancing on sloped surfaces (the latter in simulation only). The presented control framework was used to secure second place in both the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials in December 2013 and the Finals in June 2015.
Partly Conditional Survival Models for Longitudinal Data

Summary It is common in longitudinal studies to collect information on the time until a key clinical event, such as death, and to measure markers of patient health at multiple follow‐up times. One approach to the joint analysis of survival and repeated measures data adopts a time‐varying covariate regression model for the event time hazard. Using this standard approach, the instantaneous risk of death at time t is specified as a possibly semiparametric function of covariate information that has accrued through time t. In this manuscript, we decouple the time scale for modeling the hazard from the time scale for accrual of available longitudinal covariate information. Specifically, we propose a class of models that condition on the covariate information through time s and then specifies the conditional hazard for times t, where t > s. Our approach parallels the “partly conditional” models proposed by Pepe and Couper (1997, Journal of the American Statistical Association92, 991–998) for pure repeated measures applications. Estimation is based on the use of estimating equations applied to clusters of data formed through the creation of derived survival times that measure the time from measurement of covariates to the end of follow‐up. Patient follow‐up may be terminated either by the occurrence of the event or by censoring. The proposed methods allow a flexible characterization of the association between a longitudinal covariate process and a survival time, and facilitate the direct prediction of survival probabilities in the time‐varying covariate setting.
Modeling Annual Extreme Precipitation in China Using the Generalized Extreme Value Distribution

Extreme precipitation events are the major causes of severe floods in China. In this study, four time series of daily, 2-day, 5-day, and 10-day annual maximum precipitation from 1951 to 2000 at 651 weather stations in China were analyzed. The generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution was used, to model the annual extreme precipitation events at each station. The GEV distribution was also modified to explore the linear temporal trends in the extreme events. The results showed that more than 12% of the stations have significant ( p-value < 0:10) linear trends. Decreasing trends are mainly observed in northern China, and increasing trends are observed in the Yangtze River basin and northwestern China. The return periods of extreme precipitation have changed for stations with significant temporal trends. The 50-year event observed in parts of the Yangtze River basin, and northwestern China during 1951‐ 60, has become a more frequent 25-year event in the 1990s. The spatial distribution of the return levels of the 651 stations are closely related to the climatic mean precipitation, and are influenced by the East Asian summer monsoon system (return levels are measures of extremity—for example, a 10 year return level is the value that can be expected to be exceeded on average once in every 10 years). The return period of extreme precipitation, that caused the 1998 severe floods in the Yangtze River basin, was also evaluated from a probabilistic perspective.
The effect of robot-assisted therapy and rehabilitative training on motor recovery following stroke.

BACKGROUND We used MIT-Manus, a robot designed to provide interactive, goal-directed motor activity for clinical neurologic applications. OBJECTIVE To test whether this robotic manipulation of the impaired limb influenced motor recovery in patients with hemiplegia. METHODS Sequential patients with a history of a single stroke and hemiplegia (N = 20) hospitalized on the same acute care rehabilitation floor were enrolled in a standard rehabilitation program supplemented by either robot-aided therapy or sham robot-aided therapy. These 2 groups were comparable in age, initial physical impairment, and time between onset of the stroke and enrollment in the trial. Patients, clinical team members, and the clinical evaluator were blinded to the treatment group assignments. Standardized assessment tools measured outcomes. RESULTS Impairment and disability declined in both groups between hospital admission and discharge. The robot-treated group showed a greater degree of improvement in all 3 measures of motor recovery, and the change in motor status measured in the proximal upper limb musculature was significant (P = .002). No adverse events resulted from robot-assisted therapy. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that robotic manipulation of the impaired limb may favorably add to recovery following stroke and that robotics may provide new strategies for neurologic rehabilitation.
A Proposed Flow Specification

A flow specification (or "flow spec") is a data structure used by internetwork hosts to request special services of the internetwork, often guarantees about how the internetwork will handle some of the hosts' traffic. In the future, hosts are expected to have to request such services on behalf of distributed applications such as multimedia conferencing.
Personalized synthetic voices for speaking impaired: website and app

This paper describes the current state of the work that is being carried out in the framework of the ZureTTS project to give a personalized voice to people who cannot speak in their own. Despite the availability of tools and algorithms to synthesize speech and adapt it to new speakers, this process is affordable only for experts. To overcome this problem, we recently developed a web interface that assists users in doing so. At this point only healthy users can fully personalize the synthetic voice via adaptation, while impaired users can just manually tune a few dimensions of it. As a complement, we have launched an Android application that connects to the ZureTTS server and makes use of its functionalities in an intuitive way. Although many parts of the system need to be improved, its current version is publicly accessible and ready to be used.
Integration of a Piezoelectric Layer on Si FinFETs for Tunable Strained Device Applications

Earlier theoretical reports predicted that the usage of a piezoelectric stressor layer around the FinFET, i.e., the PiezoFET, offers a great potential for steep subthreshold slope devices. For the first time, we analyzed the practical realization of such PiezoFETs comprising a piezoelectric stressor layer, lead-zirconate-titanate (PZT), and aluminum-nitride (AlN) deposited on n-type silicon FinFETs. A high-piezoelectric response in the range of 100 pm/V has been obtained for the PZT PiezoFET evidencing the converse piezoelectric effect in the device. The piezoelectric response for the AlN device was much less (13 pm/V) as expected. Underlying device properties, such as subthreshold swing (SS) and low-field electron mobility have been significantly affected by the presence of the PZT stressor. A 20%-50% change in the mobility and a change in the SS (about 5 mV/decade) have been observed. The change can be attributed to the strain induced reduction of the interface trap density at the Si/SiO2 interface. This strain is partly formed by the bias over the piezoelectric layer, which indicates the converse piezoelectric effect related tunable strain in both the silicon channel and gate oxide.
Central Control of Fluid and Electrolyte Homeostasis Angiotensin II induces membrane trafficking of natively expressed transient receptor potential vanilloid type 4 channels in hypothalamic 4 B cells

Ashwini Saxena, Martha Bachelor, Yong H. Park, Flavia R. Carreno, T. Prashant Nedungadi, and J. Thomas Cunningham Department of Integrative Physiology and Anatomy and Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas; Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience & North Texas Eye Research Institute, University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas; and Department of Pharmacology & Center for Biomedical Neuroscience, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
A METHODOLOGY FOR DISCOVERING STRUCTURE IN DESIGN DATABASES

Design by analogy, in which designers draw inspiration from cross-domain design solutions, is a promising methodology for product development. This work attempts to leverage the existing design solutions within a repository, combined with an exploration of inherent structural forms that can be discovered based on the content and similarity of that data, in order to gain useful insights into the nature of the design space. In this work, the approach will be applied to uncover structure in the U.S. patent database. Methodology for generating and analyzing these structures is presented here, in addition to insights from some initial results. These insights could generate fodder for stimulating design inspiration and innovation for engineering designers.
Comparing stigmatising attitudes towards people with substance use disorders between the general public, GPs, mental health and addiction specialists and clients

Background: Substance use disorders (SUDs) are among the most severely stigmatised conditions; however, little is known about the nature of these stigmatising attitudes. Aims: To assess and compare stigmatising attitudes towards persons with SUDs among different stakeholders: general public, general practitioners (GPs), mental health and addiction specialists, and clients in treatment for substance abuse. Methods: Cross-sectional study (N = 3,326) in which stereotypical beliefs, attribution beliefs (e.g. perceptions about controllability and responsibility for having an addiction), social distance and expectations about rehabilitation opportunities for individuals with substance use disorders were assessed and compared between stakeholders. Results: Individuals with substance use disorders elicited great social distance across all stakeholders. Stereotypical beliefs were not different between stakeholders, whereas attribution beliefs were more diverse. Considering social distance and expectations about rehabilitation opportunities, the general public was most pessimistic, followed by GPs, mental health and addiction specialists, and clients. Stereotypical and attribution beliefs, as well as age, gender and socially desirable answering, were not associated with social distance across all stakeholders. Conclusion: The general public and GPs expressed more social distance and were more negative in their expectations about rehabilitation opportunities, compared to mental health and addiction specialists and clients. Although stigmatising attitudes were prevalent across all groups, no striking differences were found between stakeholders.
Minimizing Bandwidth for Remote Access to Cryptographically Protected Audit Logs

Tamperproof audit logs are an essential tool for computer forensics. Building on the work in [SK98,SK99], we show how to build a tamperproof audit log where the amount of information exchange required to verify the entries in the audit log is greatly reduced. By making audit-log verification more efficient, this system is more suitable for implementation in low-bandwidth environments.
Limitations of ultrasonography in surveillance of small abdominal aortic aneurysms

The repeatability, observer bias and instrument bias of aortic diameter measurement by ultrasonography, were investigated in ten patients with small (3–6 cm by computed tomography) infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm. The repeatability of maximum aortic diameter measurement by ultrasonography was much better for anterior—posterior than transverse diameter, with coefficients of repeatability 3·0–7·5 mm and 10–15 mm respectively. The repeatability of suprarenal aortic diameter measurement was poor. Surprisingly, maximum diameter using ultrasonography was larger than that using computed tomography, the difference being least for anterior—posterior measurements. At best a single, experienced observer, using the same instrument may provide aortic diameters using ultrasonography accurate to within 5 mm, but more commonly such aortic diameter is only accurate to within 8 mm.
Computer analysis of ultrasonic plaque echolucency in identifying high risk carotid bifurcation lesions.

OBJECTIVES to confirm that plaque echogenicity evaluated by computer analysis, as suggested by preliminary studies, can identify plaques associated with a high incidence of strokes. MATERIALS AND METHODS a series of 96 patients with carotid stenosis in the range of 50-99% were studied retrospectively (41 with TIAs and 55 asymptomatic). Carotid plaque echogenicity was evaluated using a computerised measurement of the median grey scale value (GSM). All patients had a CT brain scan to determine the presence of infarction in the carotid territory. RESULTS the incidence of ipsilateral brain CT infarctions was 16% in the asymptomatic and 32% in the symptomatic plaques (p =0.076). It was 20% for <70% stenosis and 25% for >70% stenosis (p =0.52). It was 9% for plaques which had a GSM >50 and 40% in those with GSM <50 (p <0.001) with a relative risk of 4.6 (95% CI 1.8 to 11.6). CONCLUSIONS the results confirm that computer analysis of plaque echogenicity is better than the degree of stenosis in identifying plaques associated with an increased incidence of CT brain-scan infarction and consequently useful for identifying individuals at high risk of stroke. What is required is a form of image standardisation in order to apply this method to natural history studies with stroke as the endpoint.
Proteomics analyses reveal the evolutionary conservation and divergence of N-terminal acetyltransferases from yeast and humans

Nα-terminal acetylation is one of the most common protein modifications in eukaryotes. The COmbined FRActional DIagonal Chromatography (COFRADIC) proteomics technology that can be specifically used to isolate N-terminal peptides was used to determine the N-terminal acetylation status of 742 human and 379 yeast protein N termini, representing the largest eukaryotic dataset of N-terminal acetylation. The major N-terminal acetyltransferase (NAT), NatA, acts on subclasses of proteins with Ser-, Ala-, Thr-, Gly-, Cys- and Val- N termini. NatA is composed of subunits encoded by yARD1 and yNAT1 in yeast and hARD1 and hNAT1 in humans. A yeast ard1-Δ nat1-Δ strain was phenotypically complemented by hARD1 hNAT1, suggesting that yNatA and hNatA are similar. However, heterologous combinations, hARD1 yNAT1 and yARD1 hNAT1, were not functional in yeast, suggesting significant structural subunit differences between the species. Proteomics of a yeast ard1-Δ nat1-Δ strain expressing hNatA demonstrated that hNatA acts on nearly the same set of yeast proteins as yNatA, further revealing that NatA from humans and yeast have identical or nearly identical specificities. Nevertheless, all NatA substrates in yeast were only partially N-acetylated, whereas the corresponding NatA substrates in HeLa cells were mainly completely N-acetylated. Overall, we observed a higher proportion of N-terminally acetylated proteins in humans (84%) as compared with yeast (57%). N-acetylation occurred on approximately one-half of the human proteins with Met-Lys- termini, but did not occur on yeast proteins with such termini. Thus, although we revealed different N-acetylation patterns in yeast and humans, the major NAT, NatA, acetylates the same substrates in both species.
Line-of-sight-based ToF camera's range image filtering for precise 3D scene reconstruction

A new method to filter jump edges in the range images produced from Time-of-Flight (ToF) camera is described, implemented and evaluated. SwissRanger camera like any other ToF camera have systematic and non-systematic errors. Systematic errors are predictable and can often be removed by calibration, whereas non-systematic are unpredictable and removed by applying filters. Jump edges are non-systematic errors which are seen as smooth often irregular sigmoid shape or curved transition between two surfaces. A new method which removes the jump edges has been proposed and compared with another method which is most cited and used. The comparison is based on the quality of filtered image, computation time for filtering and also its impact on registration of successive scans and reconstruction of the whole scene.
Preoperative Saphenous Vein Mapping for Coronary Artery Bypass

Saphenous vein mapping by real‐time duplex ultrasound scanning allows for the confirmation of the presence of patent vein and determination of the anatomical course of the vein prior to aortocoronary bypass procedures. This technique has proven to be of value in patients whose veins are not evident by physical examination and in those whose length of conduit may be limited by previous vein stripping or thrombophlebitis.
Report of NEWS 2011 Machine Transliteration Shared Task

This report documents the Machine Transliteration Shared Task conducted as a part of the Named Entities Workshop (NEWS 2011), an IJCNLP 2011 workshop. The shared task features machine transliteration of proper names from English to 11 languages and from 3 languages to English. In total, 14 tasks are provided. 10 teams from 7 different countries participated in the evaluations. Finally, 73 standard and 4 non-standard runs are submitted, where diverse transliteration methodologies are explored and reported on the evaluation data. We report the results with 4 performance metrics. We believe that the shared task has successfully achieved its objective by providing a common benchmarking platform for the research community to evaluate the state-of-the-art technologies that benefit the future research and development.
Does the Internet Displace Health Professionals?

Scholars have paid close attention to the effects of the rapidly changing health information environment. The issue of how Internet use for health information affects the frequency of contact with health professionals, however, has not been examined. Directly addressing this issue, a two wave panel dataset is used with a U.S. national representative sample gathered in 2005 and 2006. Overall, the results show that Internet use at Wave 1 positively predicts health professional contact at Wave 2, controlling for Wave 1 health professional contact and other potential confounders. The implications that these findings can have for future research in this area are discussed.
Simulations of the rf heating rates in a linear quadrupole ion trap

Molecular dynamics simulations of the ion clouds stored in a linear quadrupole rf ion trap are performed at low temperatures (0.1 mK-15 K). The introduction of periodic boundary conditions allowed us to study the translationally uniform ion cloud geometry. The time evolution of the kinetic energy of the ion cloud is monitored during the simulation and the increase in the kinetic energy of the cloud (rf heating) is determined; its dependence on temperature, trapping voltage, and the number of ions is studied. The dependence of rf heating rate on temperature shows that rf heating is undetectable until the temperature reaches approximately 0.5 K; it then increases rapidly until it reaches a maximum at around 2 K. It starts to decrease slowly at higher temperatures. The rf heating rate is shown to increase very sharply with the amplitude of the trapping voltage. The dependence of the rf heating rate on the number of ions shows the influence of the ion crystal shell structure at low temperatures, and has a simple linear dependence at higher temperatures.
A Novel Immune Clonal Algorithm for MO Problems

Research on multiobjective optimization (MO) becomes one of the hot points of intelligent computation. Compared with evolutionary algorithm, the artificial immune system used for solving MO problems (MOPs) has shown many good performances in improving the convergence speed and maintaining the diversity of the antibody population. However, the simple clonal selection computation has some difficulties in handling some more complex MOPs. In this paper, the simple clonal selection strategy is improved and a novel immune clonal algorithm (NICA) is proposed. The improvements in NICA are mainly focus on four aspects. 1) Antibodies in the antibody population are divided into dominated ones and nondominated ones, which is suitable for the characteristic of one multiobjective optimization problem has a series Pareto-optimal solutions. 2) The entire cloning is adopted instead of different antibodies having different clonal rate. 3) The clonal selection is based on the Pareto-dominance and one antibody is selected or not depending on whether it is a nondominated one, which is different from the traditional clonal selection manner. 4) The antibody population updating operation after the clonal selection is adopted, which makes antibody population under a certain size and guarantees the convergence of the algorithm. The influences of the main parameters are analyzed empirically. Compared with the existed algorithms, simulation results on MOPs and constrained MOPs show that NICA in most problems is able to And much better spread of solutions and better convergence near the true Pareto-optimal front.
Guided Game-Based Learning Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps

Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) can be used to design game-based learning systems for their excellent ability of concept representation and reasoning. However, they cannot 1) acquire new knowledge from data and 2) correct false prior knowledge, thus reducing the game-based learning ability. This paper utilizes Hebbian Learning Rule to solve the first problem and uses Unbalance Degree to solve the second problem. As a result, an improved FCM gains the ability of self-learning from both data and prior knowledge. The improved FCM, therefore, is intelligent enough to work as a teacher to guide the study process. Based on the improved FCM, a novel game-based learning model is proposed, including a teacher submodel, a learner submodel, and a set of game-based learning mechanisms. The teacher submodel has enough knowledge and intelligence to deduce the answers by the improved FCM. The learner submodel records students' study processes. The game-based learning mechanism realizes the guided game-based learning process with the support of the teacher submodel. A driving training prototype system is presented as a case study to present a way to realize a real system based on the proposed models. Extensive experimental results justify the model in terms of the controlling and guiding the study process of the student.