Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intelligent system for intercepting moving objects

This paper presents an intelligent system for intercepting moving objects. Air hockey is an interesting table game for two players competing to score the opponent's goal. A movement interceptor that consists of vision system, prediction-decision system and Servo pneumatics system has been developed and tested to intercept a moving puck in a prototype of air hockey game. The movement of the object is tracked with a vision system which uses a low cost USB web camera. Statistical background modeling is used to identify the objects position. Object centroid from vision system is used to predict the movement trajectory. Straight line movement estimation method is used to estimate the position where the object will arrive on the other end to be intercepted. Output of prediction i.e. target position is used to drive double acting cylinder in the pneumatics system to intercept the moving object. In order to reach the target position accurately with shortest time possible, embedded PID controller was developed. Simulation and experimental results shows that the prototype built is capable of intercepting objects moving at slow to medium speeds.
The Future of Corporate Globalization: From the Extended Order to the Global Village

Introduction The Challenges of Globalization Pointing the Way: 1900 to 2100 The Market Model Falters The Challenge of Justice: "We Want What's Fair" The Way of Order: "We Want Stability" The Return to Virtue: "We Want What's Right and Good" The Challenge of Sovereignty and Identity: "We Want What's Ours" Work and Workers in the 20th Century Work and Workers in the 21st Century The Internet: Global Village or Mass Society The Internet and E-Commerce From Markets to Marketoids The Multinationals: Facing Up to the Challenges Globalization in the 21st Century
Transition Economies and Foreign Trade

Introduction 1. The Legacy of the Communist Past and its Impact on Foreign Trade in Transition 2. Foreign Trade Adjustment in Early Transition 3. Successes of Trade Reorientation and Trade Expansion: An Enterprise-Level Approach 4. Institutions and Foreign Trade Reorientation: How Much Impact upon Performance? 5. Post-Transition Foreign Trade Problems and Prospects: The Economics and Political Economy of Accession
Fatigue-Sensitive Afferents Inhibit Extensor but Not Flexor Motoneurons in Humans

The role of group III and IV muscle afferents in controlling the output from human muscles is poorly understood. We investigated the effects of these afferents from homonymous or antagonist muscles on motoneuron pools innervating extensor and flexor muscles of the elbow. In study 1, subjects (n = 8) performed brief maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) of elbow extensors before and after a 2 min MVC of the extensors. During MVCs, electromyographic responses from triceps were evoked by stimulation of the corticospinal tracts [cervicomedullary motor evoked potentials (CMEPs)]. The same subjects repeated the protocol, but input from fatigue-sensitive afferents was prolonged after the fatiguing contraction by maintained muscle ischemia. In study 2, CMEPs were evoked in triceps during brief extensor MVCs before and after a 2 min sustained flexor MVC (n = 7) or in biceps during brief flexor MVCs before and after a sustained extensor MVC (n = 7). Again, ischemia was maintained after the sustained contractions. During sustained MVCs of the extensors, CMEPs in triceps decreased by ∼35%. Without muscle ischemia, CMEPs recovered within 15 s, but with maintained ischemia, they remained depressed (by ∼28%; p < 0.001). CMEPs in triceps were also depressed (by ∼20%; p < 0.001) after fatiguing flexor contractions, whereas CMEPs in biceps were facilitated (by ∼25%; p < 0.001) after fatiguing extensor contractions. During fatigue, inputs from group III and IV muscle afferents from homonymous or antagonist muscles depress extensor motoneurons but facilitate flexor motoneurons. The more pronounced inhibitory influence of these afferents on extensors suggests that these muscles may require greater cortical drive to generate force during fatigue.
Comparison of Innovative Capabilities among the Anglo‐American Countries:

Culture heavily influences a society′s innovative capacity. Most studies place that proportion influenced by culture at between 30 and 50 per cent. What causes the remainder? Discusses differences in innovative capacity between culturally similar countries – the Anglo‐American Cluster – and proposes that much of the remaining variance can be traced to structural differences between those countries.
Improved NL-means Algorithm for Two-dimensional Gel Electrophoresis Images Denoising

Denoising is a fundamental stage of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DGE) images analysis, which strongly influences spot detection, spot matching and other pixel-based methods. It is critical to effective noise suppression. This paper proposed a new method based on the Non-Local-means (NLmeans) algorithm, which is simple and can protect the structure well. Compared with the Translation Invariant Wavelet Transform (TIWT), the Total Variation (TV) and the NL-means, the performance of the improved NL-means algorithm outperforms them in PSNR values and the visual quality of the image. Experiments also verified that the improved NL-means algorithm is a more suitable method for 2DGE images denoising.
Exploring the effect of semantic similarity for Phrase-based Machine Translation

The paper investigates the use of semantic similarity scores as feature in the phrase based machine translation system. We propose the use of partial least square regression to learn the bilingual word embedding using compositional distributional semantics. The model outperforms the baseline system which is shown by an increase in BLEU score. We also show the effect of varying the vector dimension and context window for two different approaches of learning word vectors.
Psychiatric disorders and cardiac anxiety in exercising and sedentary coronary artery disease patients: a case-control study

Regular physical exercise has been shown to favorably influence mood and anxiety; however, there are few studies regarding psychiatric aspects of physically active patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). The objective of the present study was to compare the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and cardiac anxiety in sedentary and exercising CAD patients. A total sample of 119 CAD patients (74 men) were enrolled in a case-control study. The subjects were interviewed to identify psychiatric disorders and responded to the Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire. In the exercise group (N = 60), there was a lower prevalence (45 vs 81%; P < 0.001) of at least one psychiatric diagnosis, as well as multiple comorbidities, when compared to the sedentary group (N = 59). Considering the Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire, sedentary patients presented higher scores compared to exercisers (mean ± SEM = 55.8 ± 1.9 vs 37.3 ± 1.6; P < 0.001). In a regression model, to be attending a medically supervised exercise program presented a relevant potential for a 35% reduction in cardiac anxiety. CAD patients regularly attending an exercise program presented less current psychiatric diagnoses and multiple mental-related comorbidities and lower scores of cardiac anxiety. These salutary mental effects add to the already known health benefits of exercise for CAD patients.
The Retirement-Health Nexus: A New Measure of an Old Puzzle

Traditional empirical models of retirement which use a self-assessed health measure have often found that the wage rate has a surprisingly small effect on retirement. Using both a self-reported health measure and one not based on self-report (subsequent mortality experience) in a more general reduced-form joint-demand framework, we test the importance of the interaction effects of health and retirement. Our findings are consistent with a joint determination of health and retirement. The wage elasticity using either health measure is about equal to that found in a single-equation model when a mortality measure is used, but all three elasticities are five times greater than one found using self-reported health in a traditional single-equation model.
Transition of China’s Financial System after the Global Financial Crisis

This study focuses on whether China’s financial system still needs market‐oriented transition after the recent global financial crisis, which suggests financial liberalisation may weaken financial stability. We analyse the structure of the financial system and highlight the fact that the current system is not well configured for dealing with fluctuation. The good economic performance over the crisis is mainly built on the administrative resources deployed that counterbalanced the negative effect of short‐term fluctuation. The high cost of this makes market liberalisation reform imperative. We take the German financial model as an example to indicate how financial liberalisation and stability can coexist under certain conditions.
Interaction between Trehalose and MTHase from Sulfolobus solfataricus Studied by Theoretical Computation and Site-Directed Mutagenesis

Maltooligosyltrehalose trehalohydrolase (MTHase) catalyzes the release of trehalose by cleaving the α-1,4-glucosidic linkage next to the α-1,1-linked terminal disaccharide of maltooligosyltrehalose. Computer simulation using the hydrogen bond analysis, free energy decomposition, and computational alanine scanning were employed to investigate the interaction between maltooligosyltrehalose and the enzyme. The same residues that were chosen for theoretical investigation were also studied by site-directed mutagenesis and enzyme kinetic analysis. The importance of residues determined either experimentally or computed theoretically were in good accord with each other. It was found that residues Y155, D156, and W218 of subsites -2 and -3 of the enzyme might play an important role in interacting with the ligand. The theoretically constructed structure of the enzyme-ligand complex was further validated through an ab initio quantum chemical calculation using the Gaussian09 package. The activation energy computed from this latter study was very similar to those reported in literatures for the same type of hydrolysis reactions.
Kilowhat? A multidisciplinary approach on the development of a home energy management system

To a consumer, knowing how much energy you use is often a question mark. We get our energy bills and more often than not, they are surprisingly high. The coming of the smart grid and more specifically smart metering provides opportunities to create a better awareness on energy use among consumers. This research presents the user-centric development of a home energy management system. The focus of the research is not specifically on the functionalities per se, rather it lies on the inclusion of the energy end-user in the development process. Throughout the development, end-user research provided valuable input for the development of the system. Large quantitative surveys were alternated with small scale in-depth qualitative research. Each step generated the input for the next step in the research process, resulting in a system with functionalities tailored to the end-users needs and wants.
A variational approach for ego-motion estimation and segmentation based on 3D TOF camera

A variational approach for ego-motion estimation and segmentation based on 3D camera is proposed in this paper. The employed sensor is a 3D TOF camera, SR-3000 from Mesa, which can provide intensity and range data at high frame rates. Unlike most other motion-based segmentation algorithm, this approach is performed by joining both segmentation and estimation into an energy functional. The problem is formulated by energy minimization based on level set method and solved by iterating between the estimation and segmentation steps derived from the energy functional. The efficacy of this method is validated by experiments in various indoor environments.
Awareness of Agency : Three Levels of Analysis Problems of Monitoring and Metarepresentational Deficits

Exploring the neural correlates of consciousness presents three kinds of challenges. The first one has to do with the difficult notion of a neural-or of a cerebral-realization of a function. Although everyone agrees that every mental function supervenes on the activity of some part of the brain, some indeterminacy may arise on the kind of supervenience basis that is to be looked for. A common view is that every mental function, even highly modular ones, only operates on the background of other mental functions, or cerebral systems. Therefore when one looks for neural correlates of any particular function, one has to differentiate those neural or brain properties that are identifiable as directly correlated to that function from those that are only indirectly correlated to it. In other words, there are two ways of understanding the neural correlation of a mental state to a cerebral state. In the stronger sense, such a correlation should be both necessary and sufficient. The causal entanglement of cerebral functions makes such a demand implausible. What can be looked for is at most a weaker kind of correlation : only on the background of a normally functioning brain, can some particular neural states be associated with particular mental properties. In the case of interest here, the effort at locating the supervenience basis of consciousness in one definite well-circumscribed center is at odds with the notion that conscious states are information-processing states, using widely distributed data analyses and retrieval. The second challenge consists in specifying what the term "consciousness" is supposed to refer to. As Block (1995) shows convincinly, several different concepts are often confused under this word. Phenomenal consciousness refers to experiential states, like seeing green or feeling a pain. Access-consciousness has to do with the rational control of speech and behavior. While phenomenal states have a non-conceptual content, access-consciousness involves inference, and thus conceptual content. This second challenge is made still more difficult when one realizes that conscious states of both categories (phenomenal and inferential) might be related to a specific function which itself depends both on implicit (unconscious) and on explicit learning, i.e. attention. Attention cannot itself be identified with some conscious state, because if it helps determine which kinds of contents will be made phenomenally salient and inferentially promiscuous, it cannot without circularity be itself triggered by phenomenally and inferentially salient features of incoming or stored data 1. The third challenge consists in …
Visual Attention Based Temporally Weighting Method for Video Hashing

The video hash derived from the temporally representative frame (TRF) has attracted increasing interests recently. A temporally visual weighting (TVW) method based on visual attention is proposed for the generation of TRF in this paper. In the proposed TVW method, the visual attention regions of each frame are obtained by combining the dynamic and static attention models. The temporal weight for each frame is defined as the strength of temporal variation of visual attention regions and the TRF of a video segment can be generated by accumulating the frames by the proposed TVW method. The advantage of the TVW method is proved by the comparison experiments. The video hashes used for comparison are derived from the TRFs, which are generated based on the proposed TVW method and other existing weighting methods respectively. The experimental results show that the TVW method is helpful to enhance the robustness and discrimination of video hash.
From Boutique to Big Box: A Case Study Concerning Teacher Change Transitioning to a Public Montessori Elementary School.

Public Montessori schools have grown in number significantly in the United States. This case study chronicles the journey of teachers as they navigate the tension of balancing the Montessori approach with an accountability Standards model. Although Montessori may be in demand among parents in the nation, exhibited by the increase in public Montessori schools, this approach remains in the niche, or boutique, versus the big box of standards education. In this case study, teachers from a large standards-based school in transition to becoming a public Montessori school answered self-reflective survey questions and were observed in their classrooms to verify their responses. Using this approach, the teachers' practice and reflections were compared and contrasted against the teachers' proclaimed continuum for balancing the dual curriculums of Montessori and Standards-based instruction. Twelve teachers were then interviewed and observed to examine their ability to change. The descriptive feedback from these teachers gave insight into the challenges and successes of implementing complex instructional change. Among significant findings was that some teachers in a short time were able to successfully balance the two curriculum mandates. This study's results revealed that given a complex criteria of support, motivated and experienced teachers could implement this change. This study opens the possibility that under certain circumstances, Montessori boutique education could be replicated in a public Big Box way.
Ricardian Equivalence Revisited: Evidence from OECD countries

Using a theoretical model based on dynamic optimizing agents, we test empirically the Ricardian Equivalence Proposition (REP) for 26 OECD countries. The empirical specification allows us to obtain estimates of the structural parameters of the theoretical model and to test directly the hypothesis implied by the REP. We find that the REP cannot be rejected for 10 out of 26 countries, where 9 of these 10 countries are European.
What are Ontologies Good For? Evaluating Terminological Ontologies in the Framework of Text Graph Classiﬁcation

This paper develops a graph-theoretical model of text representation based on lexical chaining. Other than present approaches to chaining, this model reﬂects the logical document structure of texts as well as semantic relations of their lexical constituents in order to compute text similarity values. By varying the terminological ontology used to induce such relations, a door is opened to systematically evaluate their contribution to text classiﬁcation. This is exempliﬁed by example of GermaNet and the Wikipedia .
X-Ray Emission from the Pre-planetary Nebula Henize 3-1475

We report the first detection of X-ray emission in a pre-planetary nebula, He 3-1475. Pre-planetary nebulae are rare objects in the short transition stage between the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) and planetary nebula evolutionary phases, and He 3-1475, characterized by a remarkable S-shaped chain of optical knots, is one of the most noteworthy members of this class. Observations with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer on board the Chandra X-Ray Observatory show the presence of compact emission coincident with the brightest optical knot in this bipolar object, which is displaced from the central star by 2. ″7 along the polar axis. Model fits to the X-ray spectrum indicate an X-ray temperature and luminosity, respectively, of (4.3-5.7) × 106 K and (4 ± 1.4) × 1031 (D/5 kpc)2 ergs s-1, respectively. Our 3 σ upper limit on the luminosity of compact X-ray emission from the central star in He 3-1475 is ~5 × 1031 (D/5 kpc)2 ergs s-1. The detection of X-rays in He 3-1475 is consistent with models in which fast collimated post-AGB outflows are crucial to the shaping of planetary nebulae; we discuss such models in the context of our observations.
Evaluating the suggestiveness of command names

An important feature of the design of human-computer interfaces is that of command languages: the vocabulary and syntax that allow a user to express commands to the system. If we look at command languages from the standpoint of natural languages, rather than formal ones, then there are three aspects to their user interface. The first is the overall structure of the user-system dialogue—its pragmatics, so to speak (e.g., [3]), which includes issues of contextual reference, presuppositions, and so on. The second aspect of command languages is their syntax (e.g., [1], [4]). The important issue here is the trade-off between consistency of the syntax and its similarity to that of natural language. The third aspect of command languages is their semantics, primarily that of their commands. Most command languages are fairly small, with simple data and control structures, and so their semantics are fairly trivial. More important is the “lexical” semantics of commands and their arguments and parameters. The crucial factor here is the names given to the entities and operations in the system by the command language: if those names are not apt, performance will be impaired just as with poorly designed syntax or dialogue structure. This paper investigates the psycholinguistic aspects of this naming problem.
Semantic reasoning for intelligent emergency response applications

Emergency response applications require the processing of large amounts of data, generated by a diverse set of sensors and devices, in order to provide for an accurate and concise view of the situation at hand. The adoption of semantic technologies allows for the definition of a formal domain model and intelligent data processing and reasoning on this model based on generated device and sensor measurements. This paper presents a novel approach to emergency response applications, such as fire fighting, integrating a formal semantic domain model into an event-based decision support system, which supports reasoning on this model. The developed model consists of several generic ontologies describing concepts and properties which can be applied to diverse context-aware applications. These are extended with emergency response specific ontologies. Additionally, inference on the model performed by a reasoning engine is dynamically synchronized with the rest of the architectural components. This allows to automatically trigger events based on predefined conditions. The proposed ontology and developed reasoning methodology is validated on two scenarios, i.e. (i) the construction of an emergency response incident and corresponding scenario and (ii) monitoring of the state of a fire fighter during an emergency response.
Gut Peptides Are Novel Regulators of Intestinal Lipoprotein Secretion: Experimental and Pharmacological Manipulation of Lipoprotein Metabolism

Individuals with metabolic syndrome and frank type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, partially due to the presence of lipid and lipoprotein abnormalities. In these conditions, the liver and intestine overproduce lipoprotein particles, exacerbating the hyperlipidemia of fasting and postprandial states. Incretin-based, antidiabetes therapies (i.e., glucagon-like peptide [GLP]-1 receptor agonists and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors) have proven efficacy for the treatment of hyperglycemia. Evidence is accumulating that these agents also improve fasting and postprandial lipemia, the latter more significantly than the former. In contrast, the gut-derived peptide GLP-2, cosecreted from intestinal L cells with GLP-1, has recently been demonstrated to enhance intestinal lipoprotein release. Understanding the roles of these emerging regulators of intestinal lipoprotein secretion may offer new insights into the regulation of intestinal lipoprotein assembly and secretion and provide new opportunities for devising novel strategies to attenuate hyperlipidemia, with the potential for cardiovascular disease reduction.