Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation into the Detection of a Quiet Vehicle by the Blind Community and the Application of an External Noise Emitting System

The blind community is concerned that vehicles are becoming too quiet and unsafe for pedestrians 1 . With vehicle manufacturers successfully working to develop quieter vehicles and the emergence of a new class of quiet hybrid and electric vehicles, this concern from the blind community will continue to increase. The basis of this concern is that a blind person uses acoustic cues to determine the location and speed of vehicles to avoid dangerous situations. To begin understanding this concern a jury study at the National Federation of the Blind California conference was performed. A combustion engine vehicle was converted to an electric vehicle and speakers were attached at each corner. Blind volunteers from the conference participated in the study where the vehicle was driven past them three times under different conditions. The subject raised their hand when they heard the vehicle and the distances from the subject were noted. The results of this study indicate that the loss of normal combustion engine noises may significantly affect the ability of blind individuals to distinguish approaching vehicles and that a substitute engine noise appears to be viable option for reversing this risk. An investigation was then performed to begin to address two of the basic implementation issues with an external noise emitting system for electric vehicles. The first investigation is of the speed range where a system would be most applicable and the second is of the placement and orientation of the speakers on the vehicle. This is done by evaluating an internal combustion engine vehicle as a benchmark for what is currently acceptable.
On the KZ Reduction

The Korkine–Zolotareff (KZ) reduction is one of the often used reduction strategies for lattice decoding. In this paper, we first investigate some important properties of KZ reduced matrices. Specifically, we present a linear upper bound on the Hermit constant which is around 7/8 times of the existing sharpest linear upper bound, and an upper bound on the KZ constant which is polynomially smaller than the existing sharpest one. We also propose upper bounds on the lengths of the columns of KZ reduced matrices, and an upper bound on the orthogonality defect of KZ reduced matrices which are even polynomially and exponentially smaller than those of boosted KZ reduced matrices, respectively. Then, we derive upper bounds on the magnitudes of the entries of any solution of a shortest vector problem (SVP) when its basis matrix is LLL reduced. These upper bounds are useful for analyzing the complexity and understanding numerical stability of the basis expansion in a KZ reduction algorithm. Finally, we propose a new KZ reduction algorithm by modifying the commonly used Schnorr–Euchner search strategy for solving SVPs and the basis expansion method proposed by Zhang et al. Simulation results show that the new KZ reduction algorithm is much faster and more numerically reliable than the KZ reduction algorithm proposed by Zhang et al., especially when the basis matrix is ill conditioned.
Automatic Selection and Analysis of Synonyms in Japanese Sentences Using Machine Learning

In this study, we conducted automatic selection of an appropriate synonym among multiple candidate synonyms for a certain sentence using machine learning. We experimentally confirmed that the accuracy rate of the proposed method using machine learning (0.86) was higher than that of the baseline method (0.70), which always outputs the synonym that appears most frequently in the training data set. Based on the performance of machine learning, we classified synonym pairs into pairs that tend to require proper synonym selection for a certain sentence and pairs that do not tend to require proper synonym selection, i.e., either synonym from the pair can be used for a certain sentence. We also examined the features used in machine learning for some synonym pairs and clarified the information that is useful for selection and usage of synonyms.
Wind To Select the Recreation Flying Site

Soaring is a recreational activity and competitive sport where individuals fly unpowered aircraft known as paragliders. Also soaring Pilots need to understand the sky to fly successfully and safely. Wind can be re-evaluated in the growth of soaring. This paper provides wind as an integral part of paragliding for: Beginner pilots, Regular pilots, Good pilots. In this research Surfer and GIS software (IDW Method) used in evaluation of prevailing Wind speed and direction to create maps to select recreation flying site in Esfahan, Iran. The results revealed that, the most area and prevailing wind speed frequent is appropriate to the Regular pilot class.
Processing and Characterization of Pultruded Polyurethane Composites

During the past five years, several new resin systems and process methods have been commercialized in the pultrusion industry including hybrid unsaturated polyester-urethane (UPEPU) and two-component polyurethane (PU) resins. The push for new resins and process technology has been driven by pultruders seeking improved performance over traditional resins such as unsaturated polyesters (UPE) and vinyl esters (VE) and opportunities to develop new applications. Two-component polyurethanes are now widely known to exhibit superior strength and toughness and may allow manufacturers to cost-effectively produce lighter, stronger and more damage tolerant profiles. However, translating this improvement in performance into component design and process parameters is less well understood in the industry. This paper will provide a practical discussion of injection box design, material handling, component metering equipment, die design, and process conditions, aiding component manufacturers in producing polyurethane profiles in a robust pultrusion process. In addition, physical properties of PU profiles will be compared to UPE, VE and hybrid UPE-PU resin profiles with identical reinforcements. Mechanical and impact properties, resistance to environmental exposure and performance in secondary operations such as attachment strength will be described for each resin system.
The Coupling Coefficient Impact on the DC Voltage Gain of the Passive Clamp Coupled Inductor Boost Converter

In this paper, the impact of the coupling coefficient K on the operation of the passive clamp coupled inductor Boost converter is investigated and an accurate dc voltage gain VN for Continues Conduction Mode (CCM) is deduced. It appears the dc voltage gain of the coupled inductor Boost converter is negatively affected, not only by the coupling coefficient, but also from the output current Io of the converter. The steady state analysis and the appropriate procedure for the dc voltage gain derivation are described. In order to examine the operation of the converter and the impact of the coupling coefficient K as well as the output current Io in CCM on the dc voltage gain VN of the converter, various curves are presented. Furthermore, experimental results based on a 250W laboratory prototype with two magnetic elements of different coupling coefficient are also presented for the evaluation of the theoretical analysis.
A Smoother Way to Train Structured Prediction Models

We present a framework to train a structured prediction model by performing smoothing on the inference algorithm it builds upon. Smoothing overcomes the non-smoothness inherent to the maximum margin structured prediction objective, and paves the way for the use of fast primal gradient-based optimization algorithms. We illustrate the proposed framework by developing a novel primal incremental optimization algorithm for the structural support vector machine. The proposed algorithm blends an extrapolation scheme for acceleration and an adaptive smoothing scheme and builds upon the stochastic variance-reduced gradient algorithm. We establish its worst-case global complexity bound and study several practical variants. We present experimental results on two real-world problems, namely named entity recognition and visual object localization. The experimental results show that the proposed framework allows us to build upon efficient inference algorithms to develop large-scale optimization algorithms for structured prediction which can achieve competitive performance on the two real-world problems.
Serologic Evidence of Brucella Spp. Exposure in Atlantic Walruses ( Odobenus Rosmarus Rosmarus ) and Ringed Seals ( Phoca Hispida ) of Arctic Canada

The first presumptive evidence of Brucella infection in marine mammals of Arctic Canada is reported. Blood samples were collected from 248 ringed seals ( Phoca hispida ) and 59 Atlantic walrus ( Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus ) from eight locations in the Canadian Arctic between 1987 and 1994. A competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (C-ELISA), using a specific monoclonal antibody to Brucella spp. cell wall components, was used to detect anti-Brucella spp. antibodies in the samples. Sera from ten seals and seven walruses exceeded the C-ELISA threshold that indicates that cattle have been exposed to Brucella spp. Five of the positive walrus sera were suitable for the tube agglutination test. All five were confirmed positive using this test. Although the bacterium has not yet been identified, it appears that a Brucella sp. or a Brucella -like bacterium may be enzootic in these species in the Canadian Arctic. It is also possible that the very low prevalence of antibodies in ringed seals and the seemingly random distribution of seropositive animals may indicate a sporadic infection from another enzootically infected phocid or predator (e.g., Arctic fox Alopex lagopus ). Or perhaps, limited epizootics may have occurred in the areas where seropositive seals were found. A similar situation could also exist in the walrus of Foxe Basin. Key words: walrus, Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus , ringed seal, Phoca hispida , Brucella , brucellosis, competitive ELISA, tube agglutination test.
Harmonic Resonance Stability of Aeronautical Ground Lighting Systems

Aeronautical ground lighting (AGL) systems assist aircraft pilots in airport operations. These systems are single-phase series circuits where constant current regulators (CCRs) feed luminaires with an adjustable rms current. CCRs are voltage-source converters (VSCs) which may cause harmonic resonance instabilities when their control interacts with poorly damped resonances in the 0.75–2.5 kHz range. This paper studies these instabilities from the impedance-based representation of AGL systems which are grid-connected VSC systems much simpler than that of the usual systems analyzed in the literature. This offers the possibility of contributing with a comprehensive stability assessment. Approximate expressions of the CCR and AGL circuit equivalent admittances are given to assess system stability. A comprehensive overview of the influence of AGL system parameters on harmonic resonance instabilities is presented, and several recommendations on the AGL system components and CCR parameters are proposed to improve stability. In addition, an active damping solution based on virtual conductances is analyzed. The expressions of the CCR admittance and some of the recommendations on CCR and AGL system parameters contribute to stability studies of grid-connected VSC systems. MATLAB/Simulink and PSCAD/EMTDC simulations of a 68-luminaire AGL system illustrate the contributions of this paper. Field measurements support the stability study.
Mammalian ribosomal protein S3a genes and intron-encoded small nucleolar RNAs U73 and U82

The mouse ribosomal protein S3a-encoding gene (mRPS3a) was cloned and sequenced in this study. mRPS3a shares identical exon/intron structure with its human counterpart. Both genes are split to six exons and exhibit remarkable conservation of the promoter region (68.8% identity in the 250 bp upstream of cap site) and coding region (the proteins differ in two amino acids). mRPS3a displays many features common to other r-protein genes, including the CpG-island at 5'-end of the gene, cap site within an oligopyrimidine tract and no consensus TATA or CAAT boxes. However, mRPS3a represents a rare subclass of r-protein genes that possess a long coding sequence in the first exon. Comparison of human and mouse S3a genes revealed sequence fragments with striking similarity within introns 3 and 4. Here we demonstrate that these sequences encode for a novel small nucleolar RNA (snoRNA) designated U73. U73 contains C, D and D' boxes and a 12-nucleotide antisense complementarity to the 28S ribosomal RNA. These features place U73 into the family of intron-encoded antisense snoRNAs that guide site-specific 2'-0-ribose methylation of pre-rRNA. We propose that U73 is involved in methylation of the G1739 residue of the human 28S rRNA. In addition, we present the mapping of human ribosomal protein S3a gene (hRPS3a) and internally nested U73 gene to the human chromosome 4q31.2-3. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.
Enhancement of the properties of biodegradable rice starch films by using chemical crosslinking agents.

The effect of chemical crosslinking on the mechanical, thermal properties and water vapor permeability of rice starch-based films were investigated. Epichlorohydrin (EPI), Sodium trimetaphosphate (STMP) and the mixing of STMP/STPP (Sodium tripolyphosphate) were used as crosslinking agents. The viscosity of crosslinked rice starch decreased when the content of the crosslinking agent increased concomitant with the increasing of the pasting temperature. The results showed that the degree of crosslinking increased when the content of the crosslinking agents increased. The tensile strength of rice starch films increased concomitantly with decreases in elongation at break and water vapor permeability when chemical-crosslinking was applied. In addition, the crosslinking reaction decreased the crystalline peak structure and percentage of crystallinity of rice starch films. The rice starch films were characterized by Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and this confirmed that crosslinking between starches molecules had occurred. The behavior of thermal properties of crosslinked rice starch films were investigated by means of dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) and using a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). It was found that the glass temperature (Tg) of crosslinked rice starch films shifted to a higher temperature than that of untreated rice starch films. In addition, the storage modulus (E’) of crosslinked rice starch films decreased twice as much as untreated rice starch films, while the tan d curve of crosslinked rice starch film was higher than that of untreated rice starch films.
Affective Robots: Evaluation of Automatic Emotion Recognition Approaches on a Humanoid Robot towards Emotionally Intelligent Machines

—One of the main aims of current social robotic research is to improve the robots’ abilities to interact with humans. In order to achieve an interaction similar to that among humans, robots should be able to communicate in an intuitive and natural way and appropriately interpret human affects during social interactions. Similarly to how humans are able to recognize emotions in other humans, machines are capable of extracting information from the various ways humans convey emotions—including facial expression, speech, gesture or text—and using this information for improved human computer interaction. This can be described as Affective Computing , an interdisciplinary ﬁeld that expands into otherwise unrelated ﬁelds like psychology and cognitive science and involves the research and development of systems that can recognize and interpret human affects. To leverage these emotional capabilities by embedding them in humanoid robots is the foundation of the concept Affective Robots , which has the objective of making robots capable of sensing the user’s current mood and personality traits and adapt their behavior in the most appropriate manner based on that. In this paper, the emotion recognition capabilities of the humanoid robot Pepper are experimentally explored, based on the facial expressions for the so-called basic emotions, as well as how it performs in contrast to other state-of-the-art approaches with both expression databases compiled in academic environments and real subjects showing posed expressions as well as spontaneous emotional reactions. The experiments’ results show that the detection accuracy amongst the evaluated approaches differs substantially. The introduced experiments offer a general structure and approach for conducting such experimental evaluations. The paper further suggests that the most meaningful results are obtained by conducting experiments with real subjects expressing the emotions as spontaneous reactions.
Study on Metabolic Compounds of Gracilaria salicornia against Anti-Inflammatory Activity

Inflammation is the normal physiological and immune response to tissue injury and occurs when the human body attempt to counteract potentially injurious agents, such as invading microbes. This biological process involve the innate and immune systems, and is often initiated by migration of immune cells from blood vessels and release of mediator, followed by recruitment of inflammatory cells and proinflammatory cytokines to eliminate foreign pathogens, all of which function to eliminate infection and repair injured tissues. Among the different types of immune cells, play an important role in triggering inflammation during pathological conditions by overproducing inflammatory mediators through upregulation of inducible genes that contribute to inflammatory responses, including endotoxin mediated septic shock, International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 5 Number 4 (2016) pp. 202-211 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
Experimental and model constraints on degassing of magma during ascent and eruption.

Surface volcanic gases may reflect volatile budgets of magma and forecast impending eruptions, and their release to the atmosphere may affect climate. The dynamics of magma degassing is complicated, however, by differences in the solubility, partitioning, and diffusion of the various volatiles, all of which can vary with pressure, temperature, and melt composition. To constrain possible gas outputs, we carried out experiments to determine how Cl partitions between water bubbles and silicate melt, and decompression experiments to examine how Cl behaves during closed- and open-system degassing. We incorporate our findings and those from the literature for CO2 and S into a steady, isothermal, and homogeneous flow model to estimate fluxes of gases at the vent from ascending water-rich magma, assuming different scenarios for the onset and development of permeability in bubbly magma. We find that, for given permeability scenarios, total gas fluxes vary with magma flux, but ratios of gas species do not change. The S/Cl and SO2/CO2 ratios do change, however, depending on whether the magma is oxidized or reduced. After magma fragments into a Plinian eruption column gases continue to escape from cooling pumice in the plume, but here the rate of gas release is controlled by diffusion, which varies with temperature. Degassing of pumice and ash was modeled by linking a steady-state plume model, which gives the vertical variation of mean temperature and velocity of particles inside the plume, to a conductive cooling model of pumices, which controls diffusion of Cl, CO2, and S in pumice. We find that gas loss increases with column height (mass flux) and initial temperature, because in both cases pumices cool over a longer time period, allowing more gas to diffuse out of the matrix glass. The amount of gas released also depends on the size distribution of particles in the erupting mixture, with less being released for a finely skewed distribution.
Characteristics of Magnetohydrodynamic Oscillations Observed with the Michelson Doppler Imager

We report on the spatial distribution of the magnetogram oscillatory power and the phase angles between velocity and magnetogram signals as observed with the Michelson Doppler Imager. The data set is 151. ″25 × 151. ″25, containing the sunspot from 1997 December 2 with a temporal sampling interval of 60 s and spatial sampling of 0. ″605. The simultaneously observed continuum intensity and surface velocity accompany the magnetic information. We focus on three frequency regimes: 0.5-1.0, 3.0-3.5, and 5.5-6.0 mHz, corresponding roughly to timescales of magnetic evolution, p-modes, and the 3 minute resonant sunspot oscillation. Significant low-frequency magnetogram power is found in lower flux pixels, 100-300 G, in a striking ring with filamentary structure surrounding the sunspot. The 5 minute magnetogram power peaks in extended regions of flux that measure 600-800 G. The 3 minute oscillation is observed in the sunspot umbra in pixels whose flux measures 1300-1500 G. Phase angles of approximately -90° between velocity and magnetic flux in the 3.0-3.5 and 5.5-6.0 mHz regimes are found in regions of significant cross amplitude.
Errorless and errorful therapy for verb and noun naming in aphasia

Background: The aphasiological literature has provided an extensive body of research on verb impairments but many fewer verb therapy studies. Verbs display particular complexity at various levels of linguistic analysis: phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic. Verb impairments can arise at any of these processing levels as well as from cognitive sources. Verb-naming therapies may therefore be relatively more vulnerable to errors, which could reduce their effectiveness. Errorless learning has been used with positive results for noun therapies. Aims: Given the high linguistic and cognitive demands of verb processing, this study investigated whether errorless therapy would be more effective for verb naming than more traditional hierarchical cueing (relatively errorful) therapy. Methods & Procedures: Nine participants with word-finding difficulties as a part of their chronic aphasia took part in the study. Outcomes & Results: For the dependent variable of naming accuracy, as in previous studies, we found that errorless therapy was as effective as errorful therapy for both verb and noun naming. Three participants with most severe aphasia showed significantly greater gains in noun as opposed to verb naming. The remaining participants exhibited comparable gains in both nouns and verb naming. There was no lasting generalisation from treated to untreated therapy items. The prediction that errorless therapy would be more effective for verb naming was not upheld; errorless and errorful approaches were as effective as one another. Conclusions: An errorless-learning approach to verb and noun naming was a time-efficient therapy, and one that was as effective as an errorful/hierarchical cueing method in improving naming accuracy, for a range of participants with varying naming skills and types of aphasia.
Simulating radio emission from air showers with CoREAS

CoREAS is a Monte Carlo code for the simulation of radio emission from extensive air showers. It implements the endpoint formalism for the calculation of electromagnetic radiation directly in CORSIKA. As such, it is parameter-free, makes no assumptions on the emission mechanism for the radio signals, and takes into account the complete complexity of the electron and positron distributions as simulated by CORSIKA. In this article, we illustrate the capabilities of CoREAS with simulations carried out in different frequency ranges from tens of MHz up to GHz frequencies, and describe in particular the emission characteristics at high frequencies due to Cherenkov effects arising from the varying refractive index of the atmosphere.