Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brain-controlled assistive wrist rehabilitation using a low-cost EEG Sensor

Robotically assisted rehabilitation therapy is effective in recovering motor function following impairment. It is essential to make sure patients be actively involved in the motor training process using robot-assisted rehabilitation to achieve better rehabilitation outcomes. This paper introduces a brain-controlled wrist rehabilitation method using a low-cost EEG sensor. Active rehabilitation training is realized using a threshold of the attention level measured by the low-cost EEG sensor as a brain-controlled switch for a flexible wrist exoskeleton assisting wrist flexion/extension and radial/ulnar deviation. We present a prototype implementation of this active training method and provide a preliminary evaluation. The feasibility of the attention-based control is proven with the overall actuation success rate of 95% and the subjective score of 7.5 out of 10 given by the participants to assess whether the attention-based control for the wrist exoskeleton feels natural. Although the general threshold performed slightly better in the system evaluation experiment regarding the success rates, the time used before the robot actuation and the subjective scores showed no significant difference on the performance using a general threshold and using customized threshold.
An indicator for statistical literacy based on national newspaper archives

This paper develops and reports on a composite indicator for statistical literacy as part of the Busan Action Plan for Statistics (BAPS) logical framework as agreed in the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. The Plan’s first objective is to “fully integrate statistics into decision-making”. Statistical literacy is a prerequisite to effectively use statistics to inform decisions for planning, analysis, monitoring, and evaluation, thus increasing transparency and accountability. The statistical literacy indicator measures the use of and critical engagement with statistics in national newspapers. The target population are journalists and newspaper readers. This excludes the illiterate population and those without access to print or online media. Articles are from RSS feeds of national newspapers, primarily based on -- but not limited to -- the global news aggregator Google News.
Author ' s personal copy

The rise of molecular techniques in the study of evolutionary histories has resulted in a gradual abandonment of morphological characters as the only sources of phylogenetic inference. However, morphological characters may be valuable for phylogenetic reconstruction, especially for tracking adaptive changes across phylogeographic groups defined by genetic markers. We examined the discriminative power of morphological characters between four mitochondrial clades covering almost the entire distribution area of the smooth snake Coronella girondica in the Western Mediterranean. We detected three characters showing sexual dimorphism (relative tail length, number of ventral and of subcaudal scale counts) and, more interestingly, two characters (number of subcaudal and of dorsal rows) displaying interclade differences. Almost all C. girondica examined had 21 dorsal rows except those from a narrow coastal belt in the south-eastern Iberian Peninsula, which had 19 dorsal rows. The distribution of these specimens matches a mitochondrial clade that originated approximately 1.4–2.0 million years ago. Both of these morphological characters support a Betic lineage with a rather well-defined contact zone with the other Iberian lineage, which has been maintained even without the existence of current geographic barriers. The long-term survival of the Betic lineage throughout the Pleistocene climatic oscillations suggests a systematic revision within C. girondica. © 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
Detection of Spiked Fasciola hepatica Eggs in Stool Specimens Using LAMP Technique

Background: Fascioliasis is one of the most important food-borne worm disease caused by Fasciola sp. Parasitological diagnosis is more difficult due to the low parasite burden and a few eggs shedding of helminths. Therefore, it will be valuable to development of simple, fast and reliable diagnostic tests for detection of human and animal fascioliasis. Methods: Infected liver collected from abattoir in Tehran, Iran in 2017. F. hepatica eggs were detached from the uterus of worms under a stereo microscope. Various numbers of eggs were spiked to 200 mgr. of negative feces samples. DNA was extracted and then target regions (nuclear IGS) were amplified by LAMP assay using six primers. Fecal specimens without egg and DNA of other helminths were used as negative controls. F. hepatica sample which confirmed by morphologic criteria and PCR-RFLP was used as positive control. Results: LAMP products by using SYBR Green I could detect even a single egg in fecal samples which was visible by change of color from orange to green. There was no cross amplification by other helminths including; Taenia saginata, Dicrosolium dendriticum and F. gigantica. Conclusion: LAMP seems a rapid, sensitive, cost-effective technique for detection of human fascioliasis.
Mixing Volume Model for Molecular Di usion and Thermal Conduction in Compressible Turbulence

Abstract: We study performance of mixing volume model (MVM), which is a model for molecular di usion and thermal conduction based on interactions among spatially distributed computational particles, in compressible turbulence. A-priori test is performed with direct numerical simulation (DNS) database of compressible turbulent planar jets with passive scalar transfer. The results show that the MVM well predicts molecular di usion and thermal conductive terms, which appear in passive scalar and internal energy transport equations, respectively. It is also shown that the MVM works better when the particle density is high while a higher particle density is required for higher jet Mach number.
Computer Model for Evaluating Multi-Target Tracking Algorithms

Public benchmark datasets have been widely used to evaluate multi-target tracking algorithms. Ideally, the benchmark datasets should include the video scenes of all scenarios that need to be tested. However, a limited amount of the currently available benchmark datasets does not comprehensively cover all necessary test scenarios. This limits the evaluation of multitarget tracking algorithms with various test scenarios. This paper introduced a computer simulation model that generates benchmark datasets for evaluating multi-target tracking algorithms with the complexity of multitarget tracking scenarios directly controlled by simulation inputs such as target birth and death rates, target movement, the rates of target merges and splits, target appearances, and image noise types and levels. The simulation model generated a simulated video and also provides the ground-truth target tracking for the simulated video, so the evaluation of multitarget tracking algorithms can be easily performed without any manual video annotation process. We demonstrated the use of the proposed simulation model for evaluating tracking-by-detection algorithms and filtering-based tracking algorithms.
On Force Synergies in Human Grasping Behavior

The human hand is a versatile and complex system with dexterous manipulation capabilities. For the transfer of human grasping capabilities to humanoid robotic and prosthetic hands, an understanding of the dynamic characteristics of grasp motions is fundamental. Although the analysis of grasp synergies, especially for kinematic hand postures, is a very active field of research, the description and transfer of grasp forces is still a challenging task. In this work, we introduce a novel representation of grasp synergies in the force space, socalled force synergies, which describe forces applied at contact locations in a low dimensional space and are inspired by the correlations between grasp forces in fingers and palm. To evaluate this novel representation, we conduct a human grasping study with eight subjects performing handover and tool use tasks on 14 objects with varying content and weight using 16 different grasp types. We capture contact forces at 18 locations within the hand together with the joint angle values of a data glove with 22 degrees of freedom. We identify correlations between contact forces and derive force synergies using dimensionality reduction techniques, which allow to represent grasp forces applied during grasping with only eight parameters.
Weighted clustering and ROC analysis in assessment of the quality of life in patients with chronic heart failure

Chronic heart failure is increasingly prevalent in population and has a significant impact on the length as well as the quality of patients’ life. In Polish population there are no norms for the SF-36 test to assess the health related quality of life (HRQoL). Weighted k-means algorithm has been used to divide the population into 2 groups with better and worse quality of life and then cut-off points have been calculated based on the ROC curves analysis. Vitality has been the best discriminating factor. Poor quality of life was related with higher risk of depression development, MACE (major adverse cardiac event) occurrence and worse clinical parameters.
Tail-Augmented Self-Righting and Turning of a Dynamic Legged Millirobot

Author(s): Casarez, Carlos Sebastian | Advisor(s): Fearing, Ronald S; O'Reilly, Oliver M | Abstract: Small-scale folded legged robots have demonstrated exceptional mobility in laboratory environments. However, in real-world applications, these robots require added robustness. This thesis introduces LoadRoACH, a 54.8 g palm-sized folded legged robot that carries a protective shell and an active tail (totaling 27.2 g). These added components enable LoadRoACH to survive high drops, rapidly self-right, and turn with enhanced maneuverability. First, a thermoforming manufacturing process is developed for integrated shells that protect folded legged robots from impacts and water/granular media. Next, design details are presented for LoadRoACH that enable dynamic running while carrying significantly larger payloads than previous folded legged robots. Then, dynamic self-righting with tail/terrain pushing is analyzed and tested using a modified VelociRoACH robot, which is a precursor to LoadRoACH. VelociRoACH can dynamically self-right on low-friction, high-friction, and granular terrain in as little time as 256 ms. In an autonomous self-righting experiment, VelociRoACH detects inversion and rapidly self-rights while walking over an obstacle with multiple step drops. Finally, two novel turning strategies that leverage tail/terrain contact during forward running are analyzed and implemented using LoadRoACH. The first strategy drags the tail against high-friction terrain to produce sustained turns with comparable maneuverability to differential drive turns. The second strategy impacts the tail against low-friction, high-friction, and granular terrain to produce rapid point turns with a heading change of up to 90 deg in 0.8 s. In an aggressive corner steering maneuver, a combination of tail drag and tail impact turning on a carpet surface enable the robot to advance further along the desired heading when compared to differential drive turning.
Exposure of Black Carrot ( Daucus carota ssp . sativus var . atrorubens ) Plants Promotes Growth , Accumulation of Anthocyanin , and Phenolic Compounds

Black carrot (Daucus carota L. ssp. sativus var. atroburens) is a root vegetable with anthocyanins as major phenolic compounds. The accumulation of phenolic compounds is a common response to UV-B exposure, acting as protective compounds and as antioxidants. In the present study, black carrot plants grown under a 12-h photoperiod were supplemented with UV-B radiation (21.6 kj m−2 day−1) during the last two weeks of growth. Carrot taproots and tops were harvested separately, and the effect of the UV-B irradiance was evaluated in terms of size (biomass and length), total monomeric anthocyanin content (TMC), total phenolic content (TPC), and phytohormones levels. The results showed that UV-B irradiance promoted plant growth, as shown by the elevated root (30%) and top (24%) biomass, the increased TMC and TPC in the root (over 10%), and the increased TPC of the top (9%). A hormone analysis revealed that, in response to UV-B irradiance, the levels of abscisic acid (ABA), jasmonic acid (JA), and salicylic acid (SA) decreased in tops while the level of the cytokinins cis-zeatin (cZ) and trans-zeatinriboside (tZR) increased in roots, which correlated with an amplified growth and the accumulation of anthocyanins and phenolic compounds. Beyond the practical implications that this work may have, it contributes to the understanding of UV-B responses in black carrot.
Ego-Noise Reduction for Hose-Shaped Rescue Robot Using Basis-Shared Semi-Supervised Independent Low-Rank Matrix Analysis

It is an important task to develop robots for coping with largescale disasters. Robots working in a disaster site are required in emergency response and in the restoration of the disaster site, which are difficult or dangerous tasks for humans. There are tasks for modern-day robots in disaster response, but their functions are insufficient outdoors and their ability to respond to unexpected situations is unsatisfactory. For example, a typical robot cannot smoothly move in a disaster site and evaluate the situation, as well as act in an environment that does not fit its working condition. To support the development of robots in a disaster site, which can overcome some of the problems of conventional robots, the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation promoted the ImPACT Tough Robotics Challenge [1]. In this research and development program, we aim to realize remote-controlled and autonomous robots that are effective in extreme situations, and develop technologies that will become the basis for the development of outdoor robots. The hose-shaped rescue robot (Fig. 1) [2] was developed for entering narrow and dark places covered with rubble in a disaster site and finding survivors inside it. This robot vibrates its body by the motors attached at each node to move forward without any control devices or operators. The purpose of the robot is to detect voice of survivors buried in rubbles using the microphones, which are also attached around the body of the robot. However, since the vibration causes loud noise (ego-noise), the observed voice and ego-noise must be separated for robustly detecting the survivors. In [3], a novel multichannel source separation technique called independent low-rank matrix analysis (ILRMA) [4, 5, 6] was applied to reduce ego-noise of the robot, where ILRMA does not require any prior information, e.g., array geometry of microphones, direction of sources, or sample sounds of sources. To improve its performance, the utilization of a sample sound of ego-noise for learning its timbers (spectral patterns) can be considered because the sample sound of ego-noise can easily be obtained by operating the robot in advance. For this reason, in this paper, we propose a new effective semi-supervised algorithm based on ILRMA. The experimental analysis shows that the proposed method can outperform the conventional methods of ego-noise reduction.
Development of rotational rheometers by introducing UVP

Most of commercial rheometers have thin measuring section to ignore spatial distribution of shear rate. The objective of this research is obtaining more information about rheological properties in shorter time by taking into account the spatial distribution of the shear rate. Velocity fields of Newtonian and nonNewtonian fluids in a rotating cylinder are measured by a UVP-Duo. The velocity fields are converted to two velocity components on the two-dimensional plane (2D2C) by a method we established. Effects of measurement errors of the UVP on the 2D2C velocity field through the conversion method are assessed quantitatively by introducing numerical simulation. The result shows that measurement errors are amplified near the wall of the cylinder. Applications of the velocity fields for rheometry are suggested. In the suggested rheometry, a strain range of linear viscoelasticity can be detected without changing the oscillation amplitude. Shear rate dependent viscosity can also be measured without changing the rotation speed.
The Relationship between Psychology and Spirituality: An Initial Taxonomy for Spiritually Oriented Counseling and Psychotherapy

The authors present a theoretical and visual taxonomy of the possible relationships that can exist between the domains of psychology and spirituality. These focus on the context of spiritually oriented counseling and psychotherapy with the aim of further developing this field as an academic discipline and clinical specialty. Attention is paid to how Individual Psychology fits the taxonomy. For spiritually oriented counseling and psychotherapy to develop and become a respected academic discipline and clinical specialty, theorists will, of necessity, need to specify its basic philosophical premises and to validate empirically its premises, constructs, and methods. For such theoretical and clinical developments to occur, the basic relationship between the psychological domain and the spiritual domain needs to be articulated and validated. This article is an initial attempt to specify the nature of the relationship between these two domains coupled with conjecture about where Individual Psychology contributes to such an endeavor. We provide an initial taxonomy consisting of five relationships between the psychological and the spiritual domains. We describe these relationships and some representative spiritually oriented counseling and psychotherapy approaches that reflect these relationships. Before presenting this taxonomy, we briefly discuss the role and necessity of theory development in the evolving specialty of spiritually oriented counseling and psychotherapy. Theory Development in Spiritually Oriented CounselinR and
onstitutive differences in water use efficiency between two durum wheat ultivars

This work was focused on the physiological analysis of the response to water availability in two durum wheat (Triticum turgidum var. durum) parents of a mapping population, Cappelli and Ofanto, representing an old and a modern cultivar, respectively. We investigated if the two parents are constitutively different for traits related to water use efficiency (WUE), a key step to prepare further studies on the large segregating population. Integrated WUE, as recorded by grain ı13C, was studied in a 3-year field experiment conducted at Foggia (southern Italy) under irrigated and non-irrigated conditions. A growth chamber experiment was carried out to analyse the cultivars, at leaf and whole plant level in the vegetative growth phase under well watered and drought conditions. All measures consistently showed a higher WUE of the variety Cappelli than Ofanto. This trait was associated with lower stomatal conductance over a range of relative soil water contents tested in the growth chamber experiment. Carbon isotope discrimonstitutive traits ination (CID) was confirmed as useful indicator of WUE when measured in grains harvested in the field trials. In addition, the consistent results obtained by CID analysis in the vegetative organs harvested in the growth chamber experiment, can facilitate the development of opportune phenotying approaches that, in perspective, can be employed for high sample numbers, as required for studies of the segregating population. Traits related to growth and biomass allocation in the map parents, indicative of different adaptive strategies for resource use of Cappelli and Ofanto, were also analysed.
Finite Element Method Applied to Solid Analysis Design and Implementation

This work presents the necessary and sufficient information to develop, from the three-dimensional theory of elasticity expressed as a boundary value problem (BVP), a complete software application that, through an implementation of the finite element method, is of practical use in the field of structural analysis. The finite element method, as covered in this work, is presented as the Bubnov-Galerkin method applied to the three dimensional linear elasticity BVP. The isoparametric element concept is also presented, which is used as a basis for the definition of eight finite element types used in the analysis of three-dimensional problems and the discussion of the problems associated with their integration. The method is implemented as a numerical analysis software program, with support for preand post-processing. The software is written in the C++ programming language, having been designed based on the use of software design patterns and following the object-oriented programming paradigm. The user interface is developed with Qt, and the three-dimensional visualisation of the models and analysis results with OpenGL 2.1. A set of examples is also shown, used to validate the implementation’s results and to demonstrate intrinsic properties of this method, as well as to compare the results obtained from the application of the three-dimensional theory of elasticity with those obtained from other theories.
A Japanese Information Retrieval Method Using Syntactic and Statistical Information Tsunenori Mine

This paper presents a Japanese information retrieval method using the dependency relationship between words and semantic and statistical information about them. Our method gives a score to each document to be retrieved, based on a probabilistic model, giving an additional score based on the dependency relationship between words, and ranks the documents according to their score. In order to make use of semantic information, our method performs query expansion with a thesaurus, and zero pronoun resolution. Experimental results show that our method is more effective than a method using linguistic and statistical information independently.
Parallel Implementation of the Label Propagation Method for Community Detection on the GPU

Community detection in social and other networks is one of the important problems for many applications. Label propagation has proven to be one of the most scalable methods for detecting communities in large complex networks. Rapid development of modern graphics processing units (GPUs) has allowed a significant increase in computing power. In this paper, we present a GPU implementation of synchronous label propagation method. We observed speedups over sequential implementation in the range of 3-50 times for small networks to 50-300 times for larger networks with thousands of nodes. The results of the analysis are briefly discussed with an emphasis on benefits and drawbacks of using GPUs for community detection.