Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quick’n’Lean or Slow and Rich?

Andy Clark’s exciting work on predictive processing provides the umbrella under which his hugely influential previous work on embodied and extended cognition seeks a unified home. This chapter argues that in fact predictive processing harbours internalist, inferentialist and epistemic tenets that cannot leave embodied and extended cognition unchanged. Predictive processing cannot do the work Clark requires of it without relying on rich, preconstructive internal representations of the world, nor without engaging in paradigmatically rational integration of prior knowledge and new sensory input. Hence, next to Clark’s image of fluid “uncertainty surfing” is an equally valid image of more emaciated and plodding world-modelling. Rather than underpinning orthodox embodied and extended approches, predictive processing therefore presents an opportunity for a potentially fruitful new synthesis of cognitivist and embodied approaches to cognition.
Systematic evaluation of cryptic freshwater snails from central Chile, including the enigmatic Littoridina santiagensis (Gastropoda, Truncatelloidea)

Walter Biese described Littoridina santiagensis Biese, 1944 (Cochliopidae) from Estero Dehesa in 1944 based exclusively on external shell features and a second allopatric population in Yeso Spring three years later. Since 2011 different samplings have been carried out at the type locality and have only provided specimens of the morphologically similar invasive mudsnail Potamopyrgus antipodarum Gray, 1843 (Tateidae), raising doubts about the identity of the species. The recent finding of two snail morphotypes in Yeso Spring, a thick shelled form congruent with type specimens of L. santiagensis and a slender one morphologically associable to P. antipodarum, allowed comparative studies, including the taxonomic analysis of additional populations with similar shell morphology occurring in central Chile. A DNA barcoding (COI) approach identified the slender form from Yeso Spring in Maipo Basin and a second population from the contiguous Rapel Basin indeed as the invasive P. antipodarum; however, L. santiagensis was recovered among species of Potamolithus Pilsbry, 1896 (Tateidae), justifying the Potamolithus santiagensis (Biese, 1944) comb. nov. Besides recognition of three other populations as belonging to Potamolithus, the molecular analysis also suggests trans-Andean dispersal of this group of snails in the Southern Cone of South America.
Intravoxel incoherent motion perfusion in patients with Moyamoya disease: comparison with 15O-gas positron emission tomography

Background Intravoxel incoherent motion magnetic resonance imaging (IVIM) enables non-invasive measurement of brain perfusion. Purpose To investigate whether IVIM could be used to evaluate the hemodynamic disturbance of Moyamoya disease (MMD) by comparison with the gold-standard 15O-gas positron emission tomography (PET) method. Material and Methods Ten consecutive patients with MMD (six women; mean age = 42.8 years) and 10 age-matched healthy controls were evaluated by diffusion-weighted images with 12 different b values in the range of 0–900 s/mm2 and 15O-gas PET. Tomographic maps of IVIM parameters, perfusion fraction (f ), pseudo-diffusion coefficient (D*), and f・D*, as well as cerebral blood volume (CBV), cerebral blood flow (CBF), and mean transit time (MTT) maps obtained with PET, were normalized and hemispheric gray and white matter values were calculated. IVIM parametric values were compared with PET parameters and with clinically assessed disease severity. Results There was significant correlation between D* and MTT (r = –0.74, P < 0.001) and between f・D* and CBF (r = 0.52, P = 0.02) in the cortical areas. The f values in the white matter were significantly higher in symptomatic MMD patients than in healthy controls (P = 0.01). Conclusion IVIM may be used to non-invasively investigate cerebral hemodynamic impairment in patients with MMD. Further evaluation is needed to establish IVIM usage in clinical settings.
Evaluation of Subclinical Atherosclerosis with Carotid Intima-Media and Epicardial Fat Thickness in Patients with Sarcoidosis.

OBJECTIVES Since many similar mechanisms may play a role in the pathophysiology of sarcoidosis and atherosclerosis, the risk of subclinical atherosclerosis may be increased in patients with sarcoidosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate known markers of subclinical atherosclerosis, namely epicardial fat thickness (EFT) and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in patients with sarcoidosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS This cross-sectional study included a total of 183 subjects, including 94 patients with sarcoidosis (patient group) and a control group of 89 healthy individuals. Measurements of EFT and CIMT were taken from all subjects and recorded. The groups were compared, and differences were analyzed statistically. RESULTS EFT was higher in patients than in control subjects (6.42±1.12 mm vs 7.13±1.41 mm, p<0.001). CIMT was higher in patients than in control subjects (0.51±0.02 mm vs 0.52±0.02 mm, p=0.003). CONCLUSION EFT and CIMT were found to be higher in patients with sarcoidosis than in healthy people. These results indicate that the risk of subclinical atherosclerosis might be increased in these patients.
Characterization and mechanical response of novel Al-(Mg–TiFe–SiC) metal matrix composites developed by stir casting technique

This study was conducted to investigate the synthesis, characterization and mechanical properties of aluminium reinforced with ferrotitanium and silicon carbide via stir casting technique. Microstructures of as-cast samples were analysed using optical and scanning electron microscopes equipped with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The mechanical properties in terms of hardness, tensile, tribological behaviour and fracture were assessed. Results showed that the homogeneous dispersion of reinforcement was within the metal matrix composite. Tribological study revealed a decrease in frictional coefficient of the composites with lowest frictional coefficient observed in composite with addition of silicon carbide as reinforcement. Morphology of fractured surface displayed a reduction in the size of dimples formed in reinforced aluminium composites when compared with larger dimple sizes observed in as-cast aluminium alloy.
Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach

This month’s column is about a book that I personally have found to be extremely helpful. I recommend it to doctoral students because it helps them prepare for the difficult process of writing the doctoral dissertation. It is indeed project management, but from the perspective of a systems analyst. The book is Davis and Parker’s Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach (2nd ed., Barrons Educational Series, 1997, 154 pages). It is a short paperback and is available in many university bookstores as well as from online book vendors.
Development of one general and six country-specific algorithms to assess societal health utilities based on ASAS HI

Objective Health utilities represent preference values that persons attach to health states. This study aims to develop one general and six country-specific algorithms to calculate societal preference values for health of patients with spondyloarthritis (SpA), as assessed by the disease-specific Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society Health Index (ASAS HI). Methods A survey was performed in random population samples from six European countries. In a best-worst choice experiment, subjects were asked to indicate repeatedly which of 4 random aspects of the 17-item ASAS HI was were most and least important. Bayesian analysis provided the relative importance of each of the 17 items. To rescale the relative importance scores on the absolute utility scale between 0 and 1, participants additionally completed two lead time trade-off experiments, one for ‘severe SpA’ and one for ‘best health’ without SpA. Six country-specific algorithms and one general algorithm were derived. The general algorithm was tested in 199 patients with axial SpA (axSpA). Results 3039 subjects, mean age 47 years (SD 15) and 52% female completed the experiments. The population’s health utility value for SpA varied between − 0.24 for ‘worst’ SpA (country range −0.35 to 0.03), and 0.88 for ‘best’ health (country range 0.81 to 0.90). Among 199 patients with axSpA, the mean utility was 0.36 (SD 0.30, range −0.24 to 0.88) and discriminated well between patients having high (Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) ≥ 4) or low (BASDAI < 4) disease activity (0.18 (SD 0.24) vs 0.51(SD 0.27), p<0.01). Conclusion One general and six country-specific algorithms are available to convert scores from the ASAS HI into disease-specific societal utility values.
A SYLLABLE BASED CONTINUOUS SP

This paper presents a novel technique for building a syllable based continuous speech recognizer when unannotated transcribed train data is available. We present two different segmentation algorithms to segment the speech and the corresponding text into comparable syllable like units. A group delay based two level segmentation algorithm is proposed to extract accurate syllable units from the speech data. A rule based text segmentation algorithm is used to automatically annotate the text corresponding to the speech into syllable units. Isolated style syllable models are built using multiple frame size (MFS) and multiple frame rate (MFR) for all unique syllables by collecting examples from annotated speech. Experiments performed on Tamil language show that the recognition performance is comparable to recognizers built using manually segmented train data. These experiments suggest that system development cost can be reduced by using minimum manual effort if sentence level transcription of the speech data is available.
Construction of tandem duplication correcting codes

Tandem duplication (TD) errors occur when data is stored in the DNA of living organisms. The construction of codes to correct these errors was previously considered. A method was proposed to construct codes for TD errors of length at most k, k = 2 , 3 , based on the uniqueness of ⩽ k -roots. It was shown that there exist words which have more than one ⩽ k -root when k > 3 . As a consequence, the previous approach to correcting TD errors of length at most k cannot be extended to k > 3 . In this study, ⩽ k -hinge-free irreducible words are introduced and used to construct codes for TD errors of length at most k where 4 ⩽ k ⩽ 9 . Furthermore, it is conjectured that the proposed approach can be extended to k > 9 .
Learning sensorimotor control with neuromorphic sensors: Toward hyperdimensional active perception

The theory of hyperdimensional computation facilitates integration of action and perception by using a neuromorphic sensor. The hallmark of modern robotics is the ability to directly fuse the platform’s perception with its motoric ability—the concept often referred to as “active perception. ” Nevertheless, we find that action and perception are often kept in separated spaces, which is a consequence of traditional vision being frame based and only existing in the moment and motion being a continuous entity. This bridge is crossed by the dynamic vision sensor (DVS), a neuromorphic camera that can see the motion. We propose a method of encoding actions and perceptions together into a single space that is meaningful, semantically informed, and consistent by using hyperdimensional binary vectors (HBVs). We used DVS for visual perception and showed that the visual component can be bound with the system velocity to enable dynamic world perception, which creates an opportunity for real-time navigation and obstacle avoidance. Actions performed by an agent are directly bound to the perceptions experienced to form its own “memory. ” Furthermore, because HBVs can encode entire histories of actions and perceptions—from atomic to arbitrary sequences—as constant-sized vectors, autoassociative memory was combined with deep learning paradigms for controls. We demonstrate these properties on a quadcopter drone ego-motion inference task and the MVSEC (multivehicle stereo event camera) dataset.
HIGH TEMPERATURE MATERIAL PROCESSES

Local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE), frequently used as fir t approximation in modeling of thermal plasma processes, is s ometimes unable to explain experimental results. It is particularly true near a wall and a surface impacted by the plasma jet. In this work, a 2-D custom model usin g the CFD commercial code Fluent was developed for argon-oxygen indu ctively coupled plasma (ICP) at atmospheric pressure. The assumption of the rmal equilibrium was made but not that of chemical equilibrium. The transport roperties were calculated using higher-order approximation of Chapman-E nskog theory. Reaction kinetics rates of dissociation and ionization were als o considered. The model was applied to a process torch used for carving experiments o n graphite, and the distribution of reactive species brought to the surface was analyzed in terms of reaction rate distribution: the experimental effect of diffe rent injection geometries on the distribution of the reaction rate is qualitatively re produced by the model.
Antarctic Verification of the Australian Numerical Weather Prediction Model

The Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator-Global (ACCESS-G) features an atmosphere-only numerical weather prediction (NWP) suite used operationally by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to forecast weather conditions for the Antarctic. The current operational version of the forecast model, the Australian Parallel Suite v2 (APS2), has been used operationally since early 2016. To date, the performance of the model has been largely unverified for the Antarctic and anecdotal reports suggest challenges for model performance in the region. This study investigates the performance of ACCESS-G south of 50°S over 2017 and finds that model performance degrades toward the poles and in proportion to forecast horizon against a range of performance metrics. The model exhibits persistent negative surface and mean sea level pressure biases around the Adelie Land coast, which is linked to the underrepresentation of model winds to the west, and driven by positive screen temperature biases that inhibit modeled katabatic outflow. These results suggest that an improved representation of boundary layer parameterization could be implemented to improve model performance in the region.
Engineering design of composite military helmet shells reinforced by continuous 3D woven fabrics

16 Declaration . 17 Copyright . 18 Acknowledgements . 19 List of publications . 20 Introduction . 22 Background . 22 Description of problem . 22 Research aims and objectives. 24 Thesis layout . 25 Literature review . 27 Mechanics of composite against ballistic impact . 27 2.1. 1 Advanced composites. 27 2.1. 2 Responses of composite against ballistic impact . 28 2.1. 3 Damage mechanisms for energy absorption . 31 Factors influencing composite ballistic performance . 33 2.2.1 Mechanical properties of the constituents . 33 2.2.2 Fabrication of fibre reinforcements . 38 2.2. 3 Geometry of projectile . 46
Morphological and molecular identification of a new species of Eichleriella (Auriculariales, Basidiomycota) in China

A new wood-inhabiting fungal species, Eichleriella xinpingensis, is described based on a combination of morphological features and molecular evidence. The species is characterized by an annual, resupinate basidiocarps with soft leathery to ceraceous hymenial surface covered by blunt-pointed spines, a dimitic hyphal system with clamp generative hyphae, two-celled, narrowly ovoid to obconical basidia and broadly cylindrical, hyaline, thin-walled, smooth, basidiospores measuring as 6.5–10 ×3.5–4.5 µm. Sequences of ITS and LSU nrDNA regions of the studied samples were generated, and phylogenetic analyses were performed with maximum likelihood, maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference methods. The phylogenetic analyses showed that E. xinpingensis belonged to the Auriculariaceae and was closely related to E. tenuicula.
Regulation of protein metabolism in skeletal muscle of low-birth-weight neonatal pigs

The neonatal period in mammals is characterized by high rates of growth, attributed to rapid myonuclear accretion and protein deposition in muscle. Low-birth-weight (LBWT) neonates experience restricted muscle development, which leads to impaired postnatal growth and metabolic disorders later in life. The overall hypothesis of this dissertation was that dysfunction of myogenic satellite cells and aberrant regulation of protein synthesis and degradation signaling predispose LBWT neonatal pigs to slower postnatal growth. We sought to determine the proliferation and differentiation of satellite cells (SCs) derived from skeletal muscle of LBWT neonatal pigs and to elucidate the cellular mechanisms that regulate protein synthesis and degradation in LBWT pig muscles. Newborn pigs were considered as normalbirth-weight (NBWT) or LBWT when weight at birth was within 0.5 SD and below 2 SD of litter average respectively. SCs isolated from longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle of NBWT and LBWT neonatal pigs displayed similar proliferation rates. Fusion was modestly diminished in SCs from muscle of LBWT pigs compared with their NBWT siblings, suggesting SCs were not intrinsically different between the two groups and were unlikely a major contributor to the impaired muscle growth of LBWT pigs. Plasma and muscle insulin-like growth factor (IGF)I was diminished in LBWT compared with NBWT pigs. In addition, reduced activation of key components of IGF-I downstream signaling pathway in LBWT pigs muscle may lead to diminished translation initiation signaling and thus decreased protein synthesis in these animals. However, IGF-I receptor expression and myostatin signaling inversely correlated to LBWT, indicating they may participate in compensatory responses for the reduction in protein synthesis signaling. Expression of eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF) 4F complex subunits, eIF4E, eIF4G, and eIF4A was reduced in LBWT compared with NBWT pigs. This would suggest that diminished translation initiation signaling in skeletal muscle of LBWT pigs is the main factor that predisposes LBWT pigs to slower growth rates in the neonatal period. In contrast, changes in protein degradation signaling do not appear to affect protein turnover in LBWT neonatal pigs.
Single-Source Vapor Deposition of Quantum-Cutting Yb3+:CsPb(Cl1–xBrx)3 and Other Complex Metal-Halide Perovskites

Metal-halide semiconductors exhibit attractive properties for a host of applications including photovoltaics, solid-state lighting, and photodetection. Among the remarkable recent developments is the discovery of extraordinarily high photoluminescence quantum yields in Yb3+-doped inorganic lead-halide perovskites. Although all previous research and development of such quantum-cutting materials has involved solution-phase preparation, particularly as colloidal nanocrystals, such methods can introduce both processing and technical challenges that limit the scope of accessible compositions, morphologies, and scaled-up applications. Here, we demonstrate a scalable single-source vapor deposition (SSVD) method for depositing high-quality conformal thin films of complex metal-halide perovskites, including doped perovskites, over large areas at high deposition rates. Focusing on quantum-cutting Yb3+:CsPb(Cl1–xBrx)3, we demonstrate large-area deposition of films with photoluminescence quantum yields as high as 183.
A Novel Robust Gaussian–Student's t Mixture Distribution Based Kalman Filter

In this paper, a novel Gaussian–Student's t mixture (GSTM) distribution is proposed to model non-stationary heavy-tailed noises. The proposed GSTM distribution can be formulated as a hierarchical Gaussian form by introducing a Bernoulli random variable, based on which a new hierarchical linear Gaussian state-space model is constructed. A novel robust GSTM distribution based Kalman filter is proposed based on the constructed hierarchical linear Gaussian state-space model using the variational Bayesian approach. The Kalman filter and robust Student's t based Kalman filter (RSTKF) with fixed distribution parameters are two existing special cases of the proposed filter. The novel GSTM distributed Kalman filter has the important advantage over the RSTKF that the adaptation of the mixing parameter is much more straightforward than learning the degrees of freedom parameter. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed filter has better estimation accuracy than those of the Kalman filter and RSTKF for a linear state-space model with non-stationary heavy-tailed noises.
Size-based scheduling to improve fairness and performance in 802.11 networks

Using wireless technologies to access the Internet (e.g., public hotspots) and setting small ad hoc networks (e.g., during a meeting), are common experiences for end users. Those environments are challenging for TCP because of the variability of the available bandwidth and the competition among flows that span over paths of different lengths and different types (wired or wireless). In this paper, we advocate that part of the problem comes from the use of the FIFO scheduling policy. We propose to replace FIFO with a size-based scheduling policy called LAS (Least Attained Service). We demonstrate that LAS solves most of the fairness issues encountered in those environments and makes a better use of the scarce bandwidth resources.
The use of ITS region as a tool for wood identification in Brazil: A case study of a tree from the genus Hovenia sp.

The knowledge of botanical identity of wood allows its adequate application as raw material in the industry and has importance related to deterring the illegal trade in protected species. This paper reports the species identification of seized logs, based on anatomical characteristics and ITS (Internal Transcribed Spacer) region. Three wood samples came from an apprehension in deforestation in Paraná State, Brazil, by the Federal Police, resulting from actions to combat illegal logging. First anatomical identification was done based on the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of material. After, DNA extraction was done with the DNeasy Mericon Food Kit® with some adaptation. Wood presented growth rings distinct, semi-ring porous, vessels solitary predominant, in radial multiples of 2-3, occasionally clustered, without deposits in vessels, axial parenchyma unilateral and vasicentric, tending to lozenge-aliform, confluent and in marginal bands, heterogeneous rays, uniseriate and multiseriate, not storied, fibers thin to thick-walled, non-septate and was identified as from genus Hovenia . ITS1 region resulted in the same genus and allowed the identification of the seized sample, which is an exotic and invader species that can be explored. We recommend mapping the ITS region for a higher number of specimens from the Rhamnaceae family and Hovenia species, and the test of other markers sequences, from cpDNA and mDNA, in identification analysis.