Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive Inverse Optimal Control for Rehabilitation Robot Systems Using Actor-Critic Algorithm

The higher goal of rehabilitation robot is to aid a person to achieve a desired functional task (e.g., tracking trajectory) based on assisted-as-needed principle. To this goal, a new adaptive inverse optimal hybrid control (AHC) combining inverse optimal control and actor-critic learning is proposed. Specifically, an uncertain nonlinear rehabilitation robot model is firstly developed that includes human motor behavior dynamics. Then, based on this model, an open-loop error system is formed; thereafter, an inverse optimal control input is designed to minimize the cost functional and a NN-based actor-critic feedforward signal is responsible for the nonlinear dynamic part contaminated by uncertainties. Finally, the AHC controller is proven (through a Lyapunov-based stability analysis) to yield a global uniformly ultimately bounded stability result, and the resulting cost functional is meaningful. Simulation and experiment on rehabilitation robot demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.
Is social inequality perpetuated through media discourse? A critical discourse analysis of representations of ethnicity in the Manchester Evening News

The mass medias play an important role in constructing the audience’s notions of selfhood, concepts of gender and class, beliefs regarding ethnicity and race, ideas about nationality, and what creates ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Kellner, 1995). Opinions of ethnic minority groups can be created, influenced, and destroyed by the way these groups are portrayed in the media. Literature suggests ideologically dominant groups which control the media (white, middle class, males; Foster, 2004) ensure minority groups are portrayed as ‘others’ to protect their own economic interests. This study examines the way ethnic minority groups are represented in three articles taken from the Manchester Evening News (MEN). These articles are analysed using the first three stages of Fairclough’s (2001) framework of critical discourse analysis. The discussion is integrated with the analysis. The results suggest that the text producers used semiotic practices to simultaneously portray minority groups as ‘others’, and the reader as belonging to (or associating with) the ideologically dominant group. Other practices are also identified which the text producers employ to misrepresent ethnic minority groups. Reflexive considerations, critical evaluations of the study, and suggestions for further research are also discussed.
Measuring the value of transport time for inter-regional trade

This paper presents an approach to measuring the values of time cost for freight transportation, and examines its applicability through empirical analysis. We develop the method based on the hedonic approach by explicitly formulating how transport time is determined as market outcome. In the model, the freight charge, the price of transportation services, is determined through interaction in the transport market, where shippers demand and carriers supply transport services. We assume that shippers are willing to pay higher price for faster delivery, which requires additional cost for carriers. Consequently equilibrium freight charge tends to be higher for shorter transport time, such as express delivery fee in postal service. Output of transport service is a bundle of multiple attributes such as quantity, distance, and transport time, thereby freight charge is also a function of multiple attributes. Our model distinguish between the transport technology and firm's effort for reducing transport time: the former is exogenous for firms, and for the market. This formulation has a merit that the effects of technological change (including infrastructure improvement) are more rigorously evaluated: equilibrium transport time under new technology is determined in the market where transport firms choose the level of effort in response to technological change. We estimate the parameters of freight charge function, using microdata from the 2005 Net Freight Flow Census (NFFC), in which information on freight charge, weight, origin and destination, and transport time for individual shipment are obtained. Based on the estimated freight charge function, we obtain the values of transport time for shippers (VTTS) as implicit price in the hedonic theory. We further present a method to evaluate the welfare effect of time-saving technological change based on the hedonic approach. We obtain the estimates of value of time for various combinations of distance (d) and shipment size (weight, q). The value of time is larger as transport distance is shorter, or as shipment size is smaller. Around the sample mean (d = 200, q = 4), the value is 1,232Yen/hour (for time designated delivery) and 1,966 Yen/hour (without time designation). These values are smaller than those estimated by the willingness to pay method (2,606Yen and 1,972Yen) based on discrete choice model of expressway use. We apply the method to evaluate the benefit of time-reducing technological change (including infrastructure improvement) based on hedonic approach to evaluation of expressway construction. Then we compare the results with those obtained by the existing methods. The results suggest that the benefits calculated by our method tend to be larger than those based on the other methods.
Effect of Glow-Discharge Air Plasma Treatment on Wettability of Synthetic Polymers

Main aim of this study was focused on characterization of the effect of microwave air plasma treatment on wettability of synthetic polymer surfaces. Wettability of solid polymer surfaces polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene (PE, PP, PS) was followed as a function of plasma treatment time. For evaluation the equilibrium contact angles of wetting as well as dynamic contact angles of wetting were determined by means of sessile drop and Wilhelmy plate methods. Free surface energy (SFE) of studied samples were calculated from the experimentally determined contact angles using Fowkes and van Oss, Chaudhury and Good (vOCG) approaches. It was found that with prolonged treatment time the total surface free energy of PE was two times increased from 23 mJ/m2 to 45 mJ/m2 after 360 s plasma treatment time (calculated for W and EG as wetting liquids). Similar effect was found for all studied polymers. With respect to the dispersive and polar components of the total surface free energy the vigorous effect was found for polar component, for which it was increased from 7 mJ/m2 to 20 mJ/m2.
Towards the development of a virtual organic solar cell: An experimental and dynamic Monte Carlo study of the role of charge blocking layers and active layer thickness

Monte Carlo (MC) simulations have been used to fully model organic solar cells. The quantum efficiency and short-circuit current of these virtual devices are in excellent agreement with experimental measurements. Simulations show that, contrary to expectation, indium tin oxide/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate)/poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methylester (PCBM)/aluminium devices lack effective charge blocking layers at the electrode interfaces. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy depth profiling shows that despite a PCBM-rich region near the cathode, interface intermixing at the electrodes combined with incomplete PCBM coverage leads to significant interface recombination. This work highlights the effectiveness of MC simulations as a predictive tool and emphasizes the need to control electrode interface processes.
Bit-Reduced Automaton Inspection for Cloud Security

With the development of the cloud computing, its security issues have got more and more attention. There is a great demand for the examining the content of data or packets in order to improve cloud security. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm about pattern matching for cloud security named Bit-Reduced au- tomaton, First it performs inexact matching to filter out the part of nonattack information and then do exact matching to get the final attack information. Finally, Bit-Reduced automaton is feasible through a prelimi- nary evaluation.
Ethical Decision-Making: The Role of Self-Monitoring, Future Orientation, and Social Networks

Abstract This study examines the influence of individual factors (self-monitoring, temporal orientation) on social networking, and their relationship with unethical decision-making. The study used surveys to measure the unethical intentions and social network data of 129 professionals. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The findings provided evidence that individual factors influence the development of social networks and, along with self-monitoring, the likelihood of unethical decision-making. In particular, being in positions of lower network centrality increased individuals’ risk of unethical intention. One explanation stems from the need for high situation control to reduce risk and ensure the success of an event, which only a closed network can provide. However, ethical low self-monitor women were also found to have low centrality, so social networks alone do not explain ethical decision-making. This research represents a step forward in our understanding of ethical decision-making through the adoption of multiple and simultaneous factors, proposing an integrated theory of individual and situational factors influencing unethical options.
Catching Up to the Technological Frontier

Kenyas economy has undergone a significant process of structural transformation over the last decade. Since 2002, the economy has shown an accelerating trend with GDP growth increasing steadily from below 1 percent in 2002 to 7 percent in 2007. After a slowdown in GDP growth to 1.5 percent and 2.7 percent in 2008 and 2009 respectively, economic growth started to rebound in 2010. Amidst this positive growth context, in October 2013, the Kenyan Government launched the Second Medium-Term Plan (MTP-2) of the Vision 2030. The aim of Kenyas Vision 2030 is to create a globally competitive and prosperous country with a high quality of life by 2030 and to shift the countrys status to upper-middle income level.
PSYCHOSOCIAL RISKS AND WORK-RELATED ACCIDENTS: RESEARCH STUDIES AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

the National Institute of Safety and Health at Work (2011) indicates that 69% of respondents replied that their work presents some risk of accident and the number of accidents in the period between October 2009 and September 2010 was 560,105. Thus, accidents are the main health risk, especially in sectors such as construction and agriculture. Regarding the costs, official figures are hard to find, but if the direct costs are high, the indirect ones are even higher, in a ratio of 1:4 (for a review see Sun, Paez, Lee, Salem & Daraiseh, 2006). Also, at this moment, the economic crisis exacerbates this problem because it represents one more stressor with negative consequences on working conditions in general and on risk prevention in particular (Bettio, Corsi, Lyberaki, Samek & Verashchagina, 2013). These data justify the importance of studying the work-related accident rates, despite the complexity of the issue (the multiple variables involved, difficulty in accessing the samples and the data, experimental mortality, etc.) This article has two objectives. First, it aims to review the literature on this subject, and second it will present the main results of two research projects, from the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology at the UNED, on accidents in professional soldiers and in two particularly dangerous industries: construction and agriculture.
An investigation into the bacterial communities present at two estuarine beaches in the South Hams, Devon, UK: the effects of oil pollution

Aims: To determine if there are any differences between oil-degrading:heterotroph ratios and bacterial communities from a polluted and non-polluted site. Methods and Results: Composite samples for both water and sediment were collected from Mothecombe (polluted) and Wembury (control). Cultural enumeration and molecular analysis was performed to determine any differences between bacterial communities. No differences were observed between the bacterial communities of the two sites. Sediment samples were an order of magnitude higher in abundance compared to water samples. Conclusion: Mothecombe appears to have recovered from oil pollution. Culture-independent studies are needed to clarify the validity of these findings. Significance and Impact of study: This paper stresses the importance of avoiding culture-dependent methods to analyse bacterial communities. The application of ODB as indicators of oil-pollution is important, but careful consideration should be applied when selecting a control site. Previous oil pollution could increase a sites tolerance and ability to biodegrade oil due to an increase in bacterial community diversity. Direct analysis of the community, via molecular methods, is required to verify is this hypothesis is correct. Keywords: Oil-degrading bacteria, 16S rRNA gene, bacterial community, beaches.
Separation and Identification of Two Fungal Strains in Stored Maize

The microbiological spoilage of stored grain is important for human health and economic loss. Two major predominant grain spoilage fungi (M15 and M16) were isolated from maize from a granary in China. Morphological observation of the fungal isolates, analysis of their ITS sequences and construction of their phylogenetic trees were conducted on these two strains, which were identified as Fusarium solani (M15) and Aspergillus sclerotiorum (M16). This method was shown to be a feasible, accurate and convenient way to identify fungi in stored grain.
Feature Selection and Function Approximation Using Adaptive Algorithms

Multiobjective heterogeneous flexible neural tree (HFNT) and multiobjective hierarchical fuzzy inference tree (HFIT) are two novel adaptive algorithms, which were proposed for the feature selection and function approximation after comprehensive literature reviews of the neural network and fuzzy inference system paradigms, respectively. The proposed algorithms were designed as a tree-like model, and the best tree-structure was selected from a topological space by applying a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm that simultaneously minimized both approximation error and tree complexity. Further, the parameter vector of the selected tree, from the Pareto front, was tuned by using a metaheuristic algorithm. For HFNT, the dynamics of natural selection was exploited to introduce functional heterogeneity in the HFNT nodes, and a diversity index was introduced for creating diverse HFNTs during its tree optimization phase. Subsequently, an evolutionary ensemble of HFNTs was proposed for making use of the final population. On the other hand, the HFIT nodes were low-dimensional type-1 or type-2 fuzzy inference systems, and the tree-like model was a hierarchical arrangement of such nodes. The performance of both HFNT and HFIT on benchmark datasets was better than the performance of the algorithms in the literature. Additionally, both HFNT and HFIT was used for the predictive modeling of the industrial problems, in which the feature selection was a crucial challenge in addition to the prediction. High approximation ability with the simple model generation is the vital contribution of the proposed algorithms for predictive modeling of complex problems.
Power Consumption Reduction for Wireless Sensor Networks Using A Fuzzy Approach

The increasing complexity of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is leading towards the deployment of complex networked systems and the optimal design of WSNs can be a very difficult task because several constraints and requirements must be considered, among all the power consumption. This paper proposes a novel fuzzy logic based mechanism that according to the battery level and to the ratio of Throughput to Workload determines the sleeping time of sensor devices in a Wireless Sensor Network for environmental monitoring based on the IEEE 802.15. 4 protocol. The main aim here is to find an effective solution that achieves the target while avoiding complex and computationally expensive solutions, which would not be appropriate for the problem at hand and would impair the practical applicability of the approach in real scenarios. The results of several real test-bed scenarios show that the proposed system outperforms other solutions, significantly reducing the whole power consumption while maintaining good performance in terms of the ratio of throughput to workload. An implementation on off-the-shelf devices proves that the proposed controller does not require powerful hardware and can be easily implemented on a low-cost device, thus paving the way for extensive usage in practice.
A multi-sensor monitoring system for objective mental health management in resource constrained environments

Neuropsychiatric conditions account for one third of years lost to disability among adults worldwide and in the United Kingdom account for almost half of all health issues for people under the age of 65. At the same time, mental health budgets (especially in low- and middle-income countries) are increasingly stretched denying care to those that need it. The WHO predicts that unipolar depressive disorders will become the leading cause of disabilities worldwide by 2030. This paper describes a smartphone-based system that allows remote realtime monitoring of psychiatric patient symptoms, behaviour and physiology to enable allocation of psychiatric resources most efficiently. We present preliminary results from an ongoing study of over 100 participants showing qualitative differences between healthy controls and pathological subjects.
Sargassum sp. Attenuates Oxidative Stress and Suppresses Lipid Accumulation in vitro

Oxidative stress causes tissue damage and facilitates the progression of metabolic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular heart diseases, and obesity. Lipid accumulation and obesity-related complications have been observed in the presence of extensive oxidative stress. As part of an ongoing study to develop therapeutic supplements, Sargassum sp. were tested for their ability to scavenge free radicals and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), as well as to suppress lipid accumulation. Three species, S. hemiphyllum, S. thunbergii, and Sargassum horneri, were shown to scavenge free radicals in a di(phenyl)-(2,4,6-trinitrophenyl)iminoazanium (DPPH) assay. In addition, Sargassum sp. was shown to scavenge intracellular ROS and to decrease nitric oxide (NO) production in H₂O₂ and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced in RAW264.7 mouse macrophages, respectively. Taken together, the results suggest that Sargassum sp. possess huge potential to relieve oxidative stress and related complications, as well as lipid-induced oxidation. They indicate that S. hemiphyllum, S. thunbergii, and S. horneri are potent functional supplements that can produce beneficial health effects through antioxidant and antiobesity activities, with S. hemiphyllum being the most potent among the Sargassum sp. tested. A potential mechanism for the effect of Sargassum sp. on the suppression of lipid accumulation in differentiating 3T3-L1 mouse preadipocytes through deactivation of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR γ) is presented.
A Web-Forum Free of Disguised Profanity by Means of Sequence Alignment

Profanity is the use of offensive, obscene or abusive vocables or expressions in public conversations. A big source of conversations in text format nowadays are digital media such as forums, blogs or social networks where malicious users are taking advantage of their ample worldwide coverage to disseminate undesired profanity aimed at insulting or denigrating opinions, names or trademarks. Lexicon-based exact comparisons are the most common filter technique within these media; however, ingenious users are disguising profanity using transliteration or masking of the original vocable while still conveying its intended semantic (e.g. by writing piss as P! 55 or p.i.s.s ), hence defeating the filter. Recent approaches to this problem inspired in the sequence alignment methods from comparative genomics in bioinformatics, have shown promise in preventing overlooking such guises. Building upon those results we have developed an experimental Web forum where user comments are screened against disguised profanity. In this paper we introduce the software ( Forum Forte) and describe briefly the technique and engineering behind it, as well as some empirical evidence of its filtering performance. Our software is open-source under the New BSD License and is available at: http://tinyurl.com/ForumForte .
Variation of amphipod assemblage along the Sargassum stenophyllum (Phaeophyta, Fucales) thallus

The spatial distribution of fauna associated to marine macroalgae has mostly been investigated considering a horizontal plane. However, the macroalgal substrates can present a three-dimensional structure. In this sense, investigating how the associated fauna varies throughout a vertical plane can contribute to understanding the distribution of these organisms. The brown macroalga Sargassumpresents a vertical stratification along its thallus and harbors an amphipod fauna with a variety of feeding habits. In this work, we tested if the amphipod assemblage varies along different portions of the Sargassum thallus. We collected whole Sargassum stenophyllum thalli, as well as isolated basal and distal portions, from a rocky shore located on the north coast of Sao Paulo, in southeastern Brazil. The composition of amphipod families varied according to the Sargassum portion and the families Corophiidae, Caprellidae and Hyalidae accounted for most of the differences. Moreover, the basal portion of Sargassum had a higher diversity of amphipod families than the distal one, which may be related to differences regarding habitat complexity (herein, measured as algal biomass) between these portions. Detritivores (such as Corophiidae) were more associated to the basal portion and herbivores to the distal portion (Hyalidae) or along the whole Sargassum thallus (Ampithoidae). The variation of amphipod assemblage along Sargassum thallus seems to result from the interaction between the fauna natural history and the differences in conditions and physical structure along the algal thallus. In this sense, the vertical stratification of Sargassum can add another source of variation to the spatial distribution of associated fauna.
Education in focus: impacts of school feeding program on school participation : a case study in Dara Woreda of Sidama Zone, Southern Ethiopia

v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS . xi Chapter One: Introduction . 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Statement of the Problem . 3 1.3 Objectives and Research Questions . 3 1.4 Scope of the Study . 4 1.5 Limitations of the study . 4 1.6 Thesis Outline . 5 Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework and Review of Literature . 7 2.1 Methods of Targeting School Feeding Program . 7 2.1.1 Geographical Targeting . 7 2.1.2 Individual Targeting . 8 2.2 The Theoretical Interactions of School Feeding Program and School Participation . 8 2.2.1 The Economic Function of School Feeding Program . 9 2.2.2 The Nutritional Function of School Feeding Program . 10 2.3 School Feeding Program and School Participation . 12 2.3.1 School Feeding Program and School Enrollment . 13 2.3. 2 School Feeding Program and Class Attendance . 15 2.3. 3 School Feeding Program and Student Drop-out . 16 2.4 Other determinants of School Participation. 17 2.5 Critiques of School Feeding Program . 19 Chapter Three: Research Methodology . 21 3.1 Description of the study area . 21