Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-label tactile property analysis

In this paper, we exploit the intrinsic relation between different adjective labels and develop a novel multilabel dictionary learning and sparse coding method which is improved by introducing the structured output association information. Such a method makes use of the label correlation information and is more suitable for the multi-label tactile understanding task. In addition, we develop a globally-convergent iterative algorithms to solve the dictionary learning problem. Finally, we perform extensive experimental validations on the public available tactile sequence dataset PHAC-2 and show the advantages of the proposed method.
Visualizing software release histories: the use of color and third dimension

The data regarding the components of a software system consists of a large amount of information such as version history, number of lines, defect density, and complexity measures. The ability to quickly grasp a comprehensive view of the evolution and dependencies of such information is the key to making informed decisions about future developments of the system. Managers usually make such decision based only on expert judgement. For help in making such decisions, we can turn to the evolution history of large software systems, which contain a wealth of hidden information. Traditionally, this information is passed on through anecdotes without any supporting analytical data. This paper reports on our attempts to make such information more concrete through information visualization techniques. We present a three-dimensional visual representation for examining a system's software release history. The structure of the system is displayed by 2D or 3D graphs. The historical information is displayed by using time as the third dimension. Colors are used for displaying module properties and their historical changes in the system. A supporting software tool enables not only visualization but also navigation in the 3D space to change the viewpoint, to browse system information, to find interesting patterns and to discover previously unknown relationships among system components.
An EPG therapy protocol for remediation and assessment of articulation disorders

This paper describes technical and methodological advances in the development of a procedure for measuring changes in accuracy and stability of linguapalatal (tongue-palate) contact patterns during a course of visual feedback therapy using electropalatography (EPG). The procedure is exemplified by a case in which therapy was aimed at resolving a pattern of velar fronting whereby phonetic targets /k, g,
Online social networking, an Australian perspective

This paper reports the findings of a survey conducted in Australia in 2007/08 that investigated the experiences of online social network users aged between 15-65 years. This research is underpinned by two socio-cultural theories of learning: Situated Cognition and Activity Theory, and has a particular emphasis on online identity creation. Both quantitative and qualitative data are reported on issues of privacy, relationship between online and offline friends, time spent engaged in online social networking activities, use of photographs and status features and positive and negative experiences associated with online social networking. The findings are then interpreted from a socio-cultural perspective of learning.
Professional knowledge formation and organisational capacity-building in ACE: lessons from the Victorian Research Circles

The national reform agenda of the Council of Australian Governments challenges community education agencies to contribute to its goals and raises questions about their capacity to do so. It is crucial to define the conditions that are necessary to develop the capability of adult and community education (ACE) organisations to play a broader social and economic role. These include not only policy frameworks underwritten by strategic research, but the engagement of practitioners and organisations. The recent development in Victoria of Circles of Professional Research Practice, a form of participatory action research designed to promote such an engagement by ACE organisations, is analysed ,drawing on material from an evaluation of the Circles intended to capture the experience, document its outcomes and recommend on its future applications. The article reviews the rationale of the Research Circles, describes aspects of their operation and analyses the factors creating conditions favourable to professional knowledge formation and organisational capacity-building. In doing so, the Research Circles are theorised as a 'negotiable space' constructed at the intersection of policy, research and practice, drawing out implications for capacity-building in Australian community education and training organisations.
Dolphin skin as a natural anisotropic compliant wall

Although the success of compliant walls in mimicking dolphin skin is well known, the drag-reducing properties of a dolphin's skin are still unclear. Moreover, little is known about the relation between the 3D structure of the skin and the local flow conditions. To study the role of a dolphin's skin in reducing the drag the skin morphology parameters were compared with the parameters of an anisotropic compliant wall and a possible flow–skin interface was considered. The 3D structure of skin from different locations was modelled using serial histological sections of the skin. The hydrodynamics of the dorsal fin of the harbour porpoise was studied by means of computer simulation of the flow around virtual models of the fin. It was found that the distribution of the skin morphology parameters is correlated with the local flow parameters on the fin surface. The skin structure appears to allow the flow–skin interface to behave similar to an anisotropic compliant wall in the regions of favourable and adverse pressure gradients on the fin. The relation founded between the skin morphology and the local flow parameters could be useful in the design of multipanel anisotropic compliant walls.
Capturing a convex object with three discs

This paper addresses the problem of capturing an arbitrary convex object P in the plane with three congruent disc-shaped robots. Given two stationary robots in contact with P, we characterize the set of positions of a third robot that prevent P from escaping to infinity and show that the computation of this so-called capture region reduces to the resolution of a visibility problem. We present two algorithms for solving this problem and computing the capture region when P is a polygon and the robots are points (zero-radius discs). The first algorithm is exact and has polynomial-time complexity. The second one uses simple hidden-surface removal techniques from computer graphics to output an arbitrarily accurate approximation of the capture region; it has been implemented and examples are presented.
Macromodeling of digital libraries for substrate noise analysis

The demand for low cost, low power, and small area electronic device calls for system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs. Integration of complex digital blocks and high performance analog functions onto single SoCs induces signal integrity between noisy digital circuits and sensitive analog sections. Such signal integrity degrades the performance of analog circuits and even causes functional failures of victim circuits. In order to account for this interference in circuit design phases, substrate noise analysis becomes particularly important, especially in deep submicron digital and mixed-signal circuits. To this end, it is critical to estimate efficiently and accurately the noise injection from the digital circuits with tens of millions of transistors. In this work, we develop techniques that automatically extract low-complexity time-varying macromodels for digital blocks, at the cell library building phase. Tailored for substrate noise analysis, the extracted macromodel includes three major noise injection mechanisms. The efficacy and accuracy of our macromodel are confirmed in the simulation results. Thanks to the linear time-varying (LTV) model reduction based on the time-varying Pade (TVP) method, our macromodel extraction features high accuracy with affordable complexity. Equally attractive is the accurate-by-construction substrate noise model generation by merging the macromodel extraction into cell library building phase.
Accuracy and Reproducibility of Phase-Contrast MR Imaging Measurements for CSF Flow

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: PCMR, widely used for the evaluation of blood flow, has been adopted for the assessment of cerebrospinal fluid flow in a variety of disorders. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility of 2 fast PCMR techniques for measuring CSF flow. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Velocities were calculated from RPC and CPC images of fluid flowing in a tube at a constant velocity. Error and the COV were computed for average and peak velocities. Additionally, measurements of sinusoidally fluctuating flow and of CSF flow in 5 healthy volunteers were acquired with the RPC and CPC acquisitions. RESULTS: For constant velocity experiments, error for the RPC and CPC acquisitions averaged +1.15% and +8.91% and COVs averaged 1.29% and 3.01%, respectively. For peak velocities of ≥12.6 cm/s, error with RPC or CPC ranged from −33.3% to −36.9% and COVs were 0%–4% for RPC and 1%–7% for CPC. For peak velocities of ≤6.4 cm/s, RPC and CPC overestimated velocity by >250%. For fluctuating flow, both acquisitions showed similar flow patterns. In volunteer studies, peak systolic and diastolic velocities were not significantly different. CONCLUSIONS: The RPC and CPC sequences measure velocities on the order of CSF flow with an average error of ≥9%. The 2 techniques significantly overestimate peak velocities <6.4 cm/s, with maximum errors of 209% and 276% and maximum COVs of 100% and 73% for the RPC and CPC sequences, respectively. Measurements of CSF velocities in human volunteers and of sinusoidally fluctuating phantom velocities did not differ significantly between the 2 techniques.
Uncertainty about long term climate targets: A real option approach to investment appraisal

This article analyses how investors cope with carbon price uncertainty on the long run. More precisely, we assume that climate targets are not well established, so decision makers do not know if climate policy will be highly or moderately restrictive. It means that the long run carbon price drift is uncertain. However, there is a progressive resolution of this uncertainty. A real option analysis is conducted, in the case of a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project appraisal. We show that this additional uncertainty decreases investment probability, but does not lead to a lag of investment, as generally assumed in real option literature.
Text Categorization in an Intelligent Agent for Filtering Information on the Web

This paper presents a text categorization system, capable of analyzing HTML/text documents collected from the Web. The system is a component of a more extensive intelligent agent for adaptive information filtering on the Web. It is based on a hybrid case-based architecture, where two multilayer perceptrons are integrated into a case-based reasoner. An empirical evaluation of the system was performed by means of a confidence interval technique. The experimental results obtained are encouraging and support the choice of a hybrid case-based approach to text categorization.
Explorer A Simple Nominal Type Theory

Nominal logic is an extension of first-order logic with features useful for reasoning about abstract syntax with bound names. For computational applications such as programming and formal reasoning, it is desirable to develop constructive type theories for nominal logic that extend standard type theories for propositional, firstor higher-order logic. This has proven difficult, largely because of complex interactions between nominal logic’s name-abstraction operation and ordinary functional abstraction. This difficulty already arises in the case of propositional logic and simple type theory. In this paper we show how this difficulty can be overcome, and present a simple nominal type theory that enjoys properties such as type soundness and strong normalization, and that can be soundly interpreted using existing nominal set models of nominal logic. We also sketch how recursion combinators for languages with binding structure can be provided. This is a first step towards understanding the constructive content of nominal logic and incorporating it into existing constructive logics and type theories.
Two-way collaborative filtering on semantically enhanced movie ratings

A key step in recommendation systems is to estimate if a user would likely enjoy an item who has not considered yet. In this study, a new framework is defined to predict user ratings on new items from previously given ratings by other users. The systems has two major steps: (1) Enhancing available data based on semantic content to get a full item-user matrix, and (2) Predicting the unknown rating using an integrated feature set of “other ratings given by the same user” and “other ratings given to the same item”. This allows the classifier to consider both user similarities and item similarities simultaneously. The system is shown to outperform existing methods in terms of prediction accuracy on a benchmark movie dataset.
Adding Biotic Interactions into Paleodistribution Models: A Host-Cleptoparasite Complex of Neotropical Orchid Bees

Orchid bees compose an exclusive Neotropical pollinators group, with bright body coloration. Several of those species build their own nests, while others are reported as nest cleptoparasites. Here, the objective was to evaluate whether the inclusion of a strong biotic interaction, such as the presence of a host species, improved the ability of species distribution models (SDMs) to predict the geographic range of the cleptoparasite species. The target species were Aglae caerulea and its host species Eulaema nigrita. Additionally, since A. caerulea is more frequently found in the Amazon rather than the Cerrado areas, a secondary objective was to evaluate whether this species is increasing or decreasing its distribution given South American past and current climatic conditions. SDMs methods (Maxent and Bioclim), in addition with current and past South American climatic conditions, as well as the occurrences for A. caerulea and E. nigrita were used to generate the distribution models. The distribution of A. caerulea was generated with and without the inclusion of the distribution of E. nigrita as a predictor variable. The results indicate A. caerulea was barely affected by past climatic conditions and the populations from the Cerrado savanna could be at least 21,000 years old (the last glacial maximum), as well as the Amazonian ones. On the other hand, in this study, the inclusion of the host-cleptoparasite interaction complex did not statistically improve the quality of the produced models, which means that the geographic range of this cleptoparasite species is mainly constrained by climate and not by the presence of the host species. Nonetheless, this could also be caused by unknown complexes of other Euglossini hosts with A. caerulea, which still are still needed to be described by science.
Glen, Glenda or Glendale: Unsupervised and Semi-supervised Learning of English Noun Gender

English pronouns like he and they reliably reflect the gender and number of the entities to which they refer. Pronoun resolution systems can use this fact to filter noun candidates that do not agree with the pronoun gender. Indeed, broad-coverage models of noun gender have proved to be the most important source of world knowledge in automatic pronoun resolution systems. Previous approaches predict gender by counting the co-occurrence of nouns with pronouns of each gender class. While this provides useful statistics for frequent nouns, many infrequent nouns cannot be classified using this method. Rather than using co-occurrence information directly, we use it to automatically annotate training examples for a large-scale discriminative gender model. Our model collectively classifies all occurrences of a noun in a document using a wide variety of contextual, morphological, and categorical gender features. By leveraging large volumes of un-labeled data, our full semi-supervised system reduces error by 50% over the existing state-of-the-art in gender classification.
Inhibition of endothelial cell proliferation by Notch1 signaling is mediated by repressing MAPK and PI3K/Akt pathways and requires MAML1

The requirement for Notch signaling in vasculogenesis and angiogenesis is well documented. In a previous study, we showed that activation of the Notch pathway in endothelial cells induces differentiation‐associated growth arrest; however, the underlying mechanism remains to be elucidated. Here, we show that activation of the Notch pathway by either stimulation of cell surface Notch receptors with crosslinked soluble Delta‐like 4 (sDll4)/Jagged1 (sJag1) or constitutive expression of the Notch1 intracellular domain (NIC) suppresses endothelial cell proliferation. This suppression is mediated by the mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathways. Following Notch1 activation, both pathways were suppressed in endothelial cells, and alterations in MAPK or PI3K/Akt pathway activity reversed Notch1‐induced growth inhibition. Furthermore, we found the effect of Notch1 on endothelial cells to require Mastermind‐like (MAML). Overexpression of a dominant‐negative mutant of MAML1 antagonized the effects of activated Notch1 on the MAPK and PI3K/Akt pathways. Ectopic expression of Hairy/Enhancer of Split 1 (HES1) consistently reproduced the inhibitory effect of NIC on endothelial cell proliferation. Together, our data demonstrate that the Notch/MAML‐HES signaling cascade can regulate both MAPK and PI3K/Akt pathways, which suggests a molecular mechanism for the inhibitory effect of Notch signaling on endothelial cell proliferation. —Liu Z. ‐J., Xiao M. , Balint K. , Soma A. , Pinnix C. C. , Capobianco A. J., Velazquez O. C. , Herlyn M. Inhibition of endothelial cell proliferation by Notch1 signaling is medicated by repressing MAPK and PI3K/Akt pathways and rquires MAML1. FASEB J. 20, E201–E210 (2006)
Protein Neighbors and Proximity Proteomics*

Within cells, proteins can co-assemble into functionally integrated and spatially restricted multicomponent complexes. Often, the affinities between individual proteins are relatively weak, and proteins within such clusters may interact only indirectly with many of their other protein neighbors. This makes proteomic characterization difficult using methods such as immunoprecipitation or cross-linking. Recently, several groups have described the use of enzyme-catalyzed proximity labeling reagents that covalently tag the neighbors of a targeted protein with a small molecule such as fluorescein or biotin. The modified proteins can then be isolated by standard pulldown methods and identified by mass spectrometry. Here we will describe the techniques as well as their similarities and differences. We discuss their applications both to study protein assemblies and to provide a new way for characterizing organelle proteomes. We stress the importance of proteomic quantitation and independent target validation in such experiments. Furthermore, we suggest that there are biophysical and cell-biological principles that dictate the appropriateness of enzyme-catalyzed proximity labeling methods to address particular biological questions of interest.
The Feasibility of the Speech Intelligibility Index in the Clinical Hearing Care

Hearing-impaired individuals that use hearing aids often experience problemswhen exposed to daily situations in life. The dierent environments include forexample classrooms, oces and public areas. For the hearing impaired, the correctadjustments of the hearing aids are of great importance. For these settings to beproper, a measurement called the Speech Intelligibility Index (SII), is questionedto be implemented in the clinical hearing care. To answer this question of issuewhether feasibility lay in the implementation of SII in the clinical hearing carewith the interface of hearing aids, a literature study ordered by the Hearing- &Balance Clinic (H&B) at Karolinska University Hospital situated at RosenlundHospital, was initiated. The focus of the study was primarily held in concern ofSII as a hearing aid validation measurement and later extended to SII as a roomacoustic measurement disregarding the eect of hearing aids. The result of thestudy showed that the use of SII in the clinical hearing care is troubled and furtherthat the implementation as a room acoustic measurement is probable but has tobe additionally investigated.
A Graphical Model Framework for Decoding in the Visual ERP-Based BCI Speller

We present a graphical model framework for decoding in the visual ERP-based speller system. The proposed framework allows researchers to build generative models from which the decoding rules are obtained in a straightforward manner. We suggest two models for generating brain signals conditioned on the stimulus events. Both models incorporate letter frequency information but assume different dependencies between brain signals and stimulus events. For both models, we derive decoding rules and perform a discriminative training. We show on real visual speller data how decoding performance improves by incorporating letter frequency information and using a more realistic graphical model for the dependencies between the brain signals and the stimulus events. Furthermore, we discuss how the standard approach to decoding can be seen as a special case of the graphical model framework. The letter also gives more insight into the discriminative approach for decoding in the visual speller system.
The dopaminergic system dynamic in the time perception: a review of the evidence

ABSTRACT Dopaminergic system plays a key role in perception, which is an important executive function of the brain. Modulation in dopaminergic system forms an important biochemical underpinning of neural mechanisms of time perception in a very wide range, from milliseconds to seconds to longer daily rhythms. Distinct types of temporal experience are poorly understood, and the relationship between processing of different intervals by the brain has received little attention. A comprehensive understanding of interval timing functions should be sought within a wider context of temporal processing, involving genetic aspects, pharmacological models, cognitive aspects, motor control and the neurological diseases with impaired dopaminergic system. Particularly, an unexplored question is whether the role of dopamine in interval timing can be integrated with the role of dopamine in non-interval timing temporal components. In this review, we explore a wider perspective of dopaminergic system, involving genetic polymorphisms, pharmacological models, executive functions and neurological diseases on the time perception. We conclude that the dopaminergic system has great participation in impact on time perception and neurobiological basis of the executive functions and neurological diseases.
Draft Genome Sequence of Bacillus licheniformis CG-B52, a Highly Virulent Bacterium of Pacific White Shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei), Isolated from a Colombian Caribbean Aquaculture Outbreak

ABSTRACT Bacillus licheniformis strain CG-B52 was isolated as the etiological agent producing a self-limited outbreak of high mortalities in commercial Litopenaeus vannamei culture ponds on the Colombian Caribbean coast in 2005. Here, we report its draft genome and three novel extrachromosomal elements that it harbors.