Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preintegrated Velocity Bias Estimation to Overcome Contact Nonlinearities in Legged Robot Odometry

In this paper, we present a novel factor graph formulation to estimate the pose and velocity of a quadruped robot on slippery and deformable terrain. The factor graph introduces a preintegrated velocity factor that incorporates velocity inputs from leg odometry and also estimates related biases. From our experimentation we have seen that it is difficult to model uncertainties at the contact point such as slip or deforming terrain, as well as leg flexibility. To accommodate for these effects and to minimize leg odometry drift, we extend the robot’s state vector with a bias term for this preintegrated velocity factor. The bias term can be accurately estimated thanks to the tight fusion of the preintegrated velocity factor with stereo vision and IMU factors, without which it would be unobservable. The system has been validated on several scenarios that involve dynamic motions of the ANYmal robot on loose rocks, slopes and muddy ground. We demonstrate a 26% improvement of relative pose error compared to our previous work and 52% compared to a state-of-the-art proprioceptive state estimator.
Hydrodynamic stress maps on the surface of a flexible fin-like foil

We determine the time dependence of pressure and shear stress distributions on the surface of a pitching and deforming hydrofoil from measurements of the three dimensional flow field. Period-averaged stress maps are obtained both in the presence and absence of steady flow around the foil. The velocity vector field is determined via volumetric three-component particle tracking velocimetry and subsequently inserted into the Navier-Stokes equation to calculate the total hydrodynamic stress tensor. In addition, we also present a careful error analysis of such measurements, showing that local evaluations of stress distributions are possible. The consistency of the force time-dependence is verified using a control volume analysis. The flapping foil used in the experiments is designed to allow comparison with a small trapezoidal fish fin, in terms of the scaling laws that govern the oscillatory flow regime. As a complementary approach, unsteady Euler-Bernoulli beam theory is employed to derive instantaneous transversal force distributions on the flexible hydrofoil from its deflection and the results are compared to the spatial distributions of hydrodynamic stresses obtained from the fluid velocity field.
Edge Dithering for Robust Adaptive Graph Convolutional Networks

Graph convolutional networks (GCNs) are vulnerable to perturbations of the graph structure that are either random, or, adversarially designed. The perturbed links modify the graph neighborhoods, which critically affects the performance of GCNs in semi-supervised learning (SSL) tasks. Aiming at robustifying GCNs conditioned on the perturbed graph, the present paper generates multiple auxiliary graphs, each having its binary 0-1 edge weights flip values with probabilities designed to enhance robustness. The resultant edge-dithered auxiliary graphs are leveraged by an adaptive (A)GCN that performs SSL. Robustness is enabled through learnable graph-combining weights along with suitable regularizers. Relative to GCN, the novel AGCN achieves markedly improved performance in tests with noisy inputs, graph perturbations, and state-of-the-art adversarial attacks. Further experiments with protein interaction networks showcase the competitive performance of AGCN for SSL over multiple graphs.
Learning to Make Generalizable and Diverse Predictions for Retrosynthesis

We propose a new model for making generalizable and diverse retrosynthetic reaction predictions. Given a target compound, the task is to predict the likely chemical reactants to produce the target. This generative task can be framed as a sequence-to-sequence problem by using the SMILES representations of the molecules. Building on top of the popular Transformer architecture, we propose two novel pre-training methods that construct relevant auxiliary tasks (plausible reactions) for our problem. Furthermore, we incorporate a discrete latent variable model into the architecture to encourage the model to produce a diverse set of alternative predictions. On the 50k subset of reaction examples from the United States patent literature (USPTO-50k) benchmark dataset, our model greatly improves performance over the baseline, while also generating predictions that are more diverse.
The Practicality of Stochastic Optimization in Imaging Inverse Problems

In this work we investigate the practicality of stochastic gradient descent and its variants with variance-reduction techniques in imaging inverse problems. Such algorithms have been shown in the large-scale optimization and machine learning literature to have optimal complexity in theory, and to provide great improvement empirically over the deterministic gradient methods. However, in some tasks such as image deblurring, many of such methods fail to converge faster than the deterministic gradient methods, even in terms of epoch counts. We investigate this phenomenon and propose a theory-inspired mechanism for the practitioners to efficiently characterize whether it is beneficial for an inverse problem to be solved by stochastic optimization techniques or not. Using standard tools in numerical linear algebra, we derive conditions on the spectral structure of the inverse problem for being a suitable application of stochastic gradient methods. Particularly, if the Hessian matrix of an imaging inverse problem has a fast-decaying eigenspectrum, then our theory suggests that the stochastic gradient methods can be more advantageous than deterministic methods for solving such a problem. Our results also provide guidance on choosing appropriately the partition minibatch schemes, showing that a good minibatch scheme typically has relatively low correlation within each of the minibatches. Finally, we present numerical studies which validate our results.
Cross-Representation Transferability of Adversarial Perturbations: From Spectrograms to Audio Waveforms

This paper shows the susceptibility of spectrogram-based audio classifiers to adversarial attacks and the transferability of such attacks to audio waveforms. Some commonly adversarial attacks to images have been applied to Mel-frequency and short-time Fourier transform spectrograms and such perturbed spectrograms are able to fool a 2D convolutional neural network (CNN) for music genre classification with a high fooling rate and high confidence. Such attacks produce perturbed spectrograms that are visually imperceptible by humans. Experimental results on a dataset of western music have shown that the 2D CNN achieves up to 81.87% of mean accuracy on legitimate examples and such a performance drops to 12.09% on adversarial examples. Furthermore, the audio signals reconstructed from the adversarial spectrograms produce audio waveforms that perceptually resemble the legitimate audio.
Simulation of Automatic Control of the Experimental Power Plant

The paper deals with the simulation of automatic control circuits of the experimental power plant. The experimental power plant is developed by Vitkovice Power Engineering joint-stock company. At experimental power plant, the heating medium is flue gas of very high temperature. The heated medium is the gas mixture of air and steam. The highly superheated mixture of air and steam is lead to two gas turbines in series. The first turbine drives a compressor that supplies atmospheric air into system. The second turbine drives a generator of power energy. Supporting the design of the system the mathematical model of this experimental unit was constructed. The model serves as a base for simulation of both the power plant technological dynamics and control principles. The paper describes the scheme of the experimental power plant, structure of its mathematical model, and its selected control responses. Key-Words: simulation of power plant, model implementation, dynamics of system, control dynamics, system with distributed parameters
Instruction Set Extensions for Cyclic Redundancy Check on a Multithreaded Processor

Cyclic redundancy check (CRC) algorithms are widely used for error detection in wireless communication systems. CRC is a simple algorithm, but implementations on conventional processors are inefficient as the CRC algorithm is serial and based on bit-wise operations. In this paper, we explore several instruction set extensions to the Sandbridge multithreaded processor for CRC. The performance speedup of each extension is evaluated using the Sandbridge software tools, and the area and delay of the corresponding hardware is presented. The instruction set extensions produce performance gains of up to 23.0x for the CRC kernel.
Compressive least-squares migration with source estimation

Least-squares reverse-time migration is a powerful approach for true-amplitude seismic imaging of complex geological structures. The successful application of this method is hindered by its exceedingly large computational cost and required prior knowledge of the generally unknown source wavelet. We address these problems by introducing an algorithm for low-cost sparsity-promoting least-squares migration with source estimation. We adapt a recent algorithm from sparse optimization, which allows to work with randomized subsets of shots during each iteration of least-squares migration, while still converging to an artifact-free solution. We modify the algorithm to incorporate on-the-fly source estimation through variable projection, which lets us estimate the wavelet without additional PDE solves. The resulting algorithm is easy to implement and allows imaging at a fraction of the cost of conventional least-squares reverse-time migration, requiring only around two passes trough the data, making the method feasible for large-scale imaging problems with unknown source Released to public domain under Creative Commons license type BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Copyright (c) 2017 SLIM group @ The University of British Columbia.
Older Mexican Americans : perceptions of mental distress and pathways to mental health service utilization

The literature has documented the contention that economic, cultural, and structural barriers have led to lower utilization of mental health services by Latinos when compared to other ethnic groups. With the growth of older Hispanics, the number of people affected by the barriers to health care will grow. Despite barriers, a small number of older Latinos access mental health services. A gap exists in the literature to explain how some older Latinos access mental health treatment. Using qualitative exploration, this dissertation answers the central question what factors influence help-seeking behavior and mental health service utilization of older Mexican Americans. The researcher used a purposive sample and interviewed 20 older Mexican Americans, who completed outpatient mental health services located in Texas. Green’s (1999) Adapted helpseeking behavior model guided the ethnographic content analysis. Respondents vii experienced a multiplicity of stressors and behavioral signs of mental distress. Among labels used for the problem were depression or depresion, anxiety, nervios or ansiosa, also soledad, tristeza and coraje. The meaning of the language respondents used was important; often times had multiple meanings. Factors that influenced respondents’ help-seeking behavior and mental health service use included family with the daughter being most instrumental. Community factors doctors, nurses, social workers, support groups, and housing authority. An overarching theme was the significant relationships with the interaction of these factors. The relationships were characterized as close, family like. The physician was central to the respondents. Agency staff and the group members helped with utilizing services, resolving their problem, and continuing treatment. Other themes included challenges such as lack of education of mental illness and mental health services, language preference, costs of medication, and stigma of mental illness. Recommendations include expanding the workforce of bilingual/bicultural providers and Spanish-speaking providers; community education of mental illness and reduce the cultural distance between older Hispanics and health care providers. Future research should focus on exploring the relationship with the primary care physician, and the language that research and treatment programs use, attitudinal barriers to the treatment of depression among ethnic minorities, effective culturally competent interventions and improving treatment adherence with older Latinos.
A Comparison of Mammography and Ultrasonography in the
Evaluation of Breast Masses in Early Stage

Breasts are one of the secondary sexual characteristics in females. They are the rout for of nutrition & growing of infant till 4-6 months of age. Breast diseases are one of the most common diseases in the females of any society. Multiple types of benign breast lesions like fibroadenomas, simple cyst, breast abscess, lymph nodes enlargement and different malignancies are common pathologies of the breast. Up to 30% of women suffer from benign breast disease at any time of their life and this compels them to take the treatment. The prospective clinical study was achieved for 283 women ( age was ranged between 20 60 years) had palpable breast lesion referred by their managing surgeons to the radiological department at Azadi Teaching Hospital, for a period of 8 months (from January 2018 to August of the same year). The study depended firstly in all women on clinical examination/self-breast examination. Results:- 283 patients were included in this study with age between 20 _ 60 ys, most of the patients were diagnosed as fibroadenoma which is most common around 54.9% of the total cases studied, Fibrocystic diseases (Duct ectasia, cysts, and galactocele ) 19.3 %. Followed by infection as mastitis 15.4%, and phyllodes tumor less than 1% approximately and finally carcinoma 9.5%.
Study on the Effect of Turbine Inlet Temperature and Backpressure Conditions on Reduced Turbine Flow Rate Performance Characteristics and Correction Method for Automotive Turbocharger

In actual vehicle operation, the turbocharger turbine operates at various temperatures, inlet, and backpressure conditions, unlike compressors. The flow rate characteristics of the turbine are generally evaluated under certain conditions using an assembled turbocharger with a compressor and a turbine and a hot gas bench from the turbocharger manufacturer. Flow rate characteristics are also presented as the reduced mass flow rate to correct the flow rate characteristics according to the turbine inlet temperature and pressure. Therefore, the turbine mass flow rate seen in many engine development cases and studies—including the analysis of the turbine performance and characteristics, engine model configuration, and matching of the engine and turbocharger—is calculated according to the reduced turbine mass flow rate performance and turbine inlet temperature and pressure obtained through hot gas bench experiments under certain conditions. However, the performance of the reduced turbine mass flow rate is influenced by the compressor power conditions, and additional correction of the reduced turbine mass flow rate is required when the turbine inlet temperature and turbine backpressure differ from the reference test conditions, such as the hot gas bench test conditions. In this study, the effect of the turbine inlet temperature and turbine backpressure on the performance of the reduced turbine mass flow rate were examined based on the power balance relationship between the compressor and turbine of an automotive turbocharger. The principle of its correction is also presented.
Small Size and Wide-Band Band Pass Filter with DGS / CRLH Structures

─ A small size and wide-band band pass filter with high performance for WiMAX applications is introduced. The filter is designed by utilizing one composite right left handed transmission line (CRLHTL) metamaterial cell and two gap lumped capacitors. The filter has a center frequency of 5.3 GHz and a 3dB bandwidth from 4.2 GHz to 6.4 GHz. A lower than 0.5 dB insertion loss within pass-band is achieved. A single transmission zero at 6.52 GHz is achieved to increase the selectivity of the proposed filter. The rejection band is extended to be up to 10 GHz. A comparison between circuit simulation, EM simulation and measured results is introduced with good consistency between them. The filter has a small size (26.8 × 16.5 mm) which is smaller than recently reported wide band filters. Index Terms ─ Band pass filter, CPW, CRLH-TL, DGS, gap capacitors.
Job Embeddedness: The Differences Between Registered Nurses and Healthcare Assistants

Retention of registered nurses (RNs) and health care assistants continue to be a challenge in acute care settings. This descriptive, comparative study examined differences of job embeddedness (JE) scores between RNs and health care assistants (HCAs) in acute care facilities. Generational differences for JE scores were also compared. A convenience sample of RNs and HCAs from medical and surgical units at two Texas hospitals completed the surveys. RNs valued community sacrifices significantly higher than HCAs. Total JE scores between baby boomers and millennials were significantly different, while organizational links scores among all three generations showed statistical significantly differences. Organizational fit, organizational sacrifice, and level of education added statistical significance to the prediction of job satisfaction.
Interactive comment on “Effect of ions on the measurement of sulphuric acid in the CLOUD experiment at CERN” by L. Rondo et al

The manuscript “Effect of ions on the measurement of sulphuric acid in the CLOUD experiment at CERN” explores the role that weakly-bound clusters of sulfuric acid and oxidized organic compounds (OxOrg), which are formed and ionized within in the chamber, may play in biasing the measurement of sulfuric acid monomer in a selected ion chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS). In this manuscript, the authors present evidence that shows an increase in sulfuric acid signal as detected by CIMS could be the result of increased transmission of the OxOrg·HSO4clusters in the CIMS inlet, and the breakup of those clusters in the collisional dissociation chamber. Additionally the
Real-Time Integrated Airport Surface Operations Management

This paper describes a real-time integrated airport surface operations management (RTI-ASOM) that provides optimal 4-D trajectories for each aircraft between the gate and runway with the objective of minimizing taxi delay and maximizing runway throughput. The use of Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MIP) formulation, Dynamic Programming for runway sequencing, and Visual Basic scripted interface allows an efficient solution algorithm that can solve the large-scale optimization problem instantly, with examples based on one-day track data at LaGuardia Airport (LGA). The results show that average taxi-out time of departure flight can be reduced by 83% and average taxi-in time of arrival flight can be reduced by 61%.
Resilience and Fertility Problems

There is some evidence that individuals with fertility problems report lower levels of resilience. However, with only one other empirical study examining the relationship between resilience and fertility problems, the investigators of this study were interested in whether a similar relationship would be found when a nonclinical population was surveyed. A total of 322 participants (208 with a history of fertility problems and 114 with no history of fertility problems) completed a brief online questionnaire comprised of demographic items, a resilience measure (Brief Resilience Scale), a coping strategies measure (Brief COPE), and a measure of general distress (General Health Questionnaire). The investigators found that individuals in the history of fertility problems group had significantly lower levels of resilience (t(320) = -5.863, p = . 000) and higher levels of general distress (t(314) = 5.001, p = . 000) compared with the no history of fertility problems group. These findings emphasize the need for health professionals to consider whether individuals with fertility problems are sufficiently supported through the process. Suggestions for future research are included.
Low genetic differentiation among sardine populations , Sardinella aurita , from eastern Venezuela

In view of the great importance of Sardinella aurita as a fisheries resource in the Caribbean region, we studied the genetic differentiation among the populations from Mochima, Gulf of Cariaco and Morro de Puerto Santo, eastern Venezuela, and compared the levels of variation and population subdivision with populations from the Mediterranean and Atlantic coast of Africa (previously reported). For this, we extracted DNA from 15 muscle samples for each population. A fragment containing the control region of the mitochondrial DNA was amplified and the restriction patterns were determined using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis with the enzymes Taq I, Eco RI, Hae III and Alu I. The amplification of this region produced a fragment approximately 1000 bp long or, rarely, one of approximately 1100 bp long. No further difference was found through the RFLP analysis. The comparison of the Venezuelan populations produced FST values under 0.06 and the analysis of molecular variance showed no significant differences between them. This is an indication of very low genetic differentiation among these populations, so it is not possible to discard the presence of a panmictic population in this region. The comparison of the Venezuelan and Mediterranean populations produced very low FST values, while the comparison of the former with African populations from Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Ghana produced FST values ten times larger.
Market imperfections and total factor productivity ∗

This paper revisits the relationship between competition and total factor productivity (TFP) by examining the importance of the type and degree of product and labor market imperfections in shaping TFP distributions. Using panel data for Belgian and Dutch firms, we find that TFP distributional characteristics vary across regimes characterizing the type of competition prevailing in product and labor markets in both countries. This variation is largely driven by the type of labor market competition, and is most pronounced for the Netherlands. Differences in composition of regimes in terms of manufacturing/service industries are also important in driving variation in moments of TFP distributions. JEL classification : C23, D24, J50, L13.
EPC and IPv 6-based discovery services

The concept of ”Internet of Things” means extending internet to include objects of the real world. The first step towards this goal is to uniquely identify real world objects in order to have virtual representations of them. a unique identifier called Electronic Product Code (EPC) has been developed for identifying unique objects. EPC numbers are used for uniquely identifying objects. Routing information needed for addressing objects over the internet is achieved by mapping EPC numbers to IPv6 addresses.