Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robot motion evaluation of a musculoskeletal robot by simulation in terms of energy flow in the kinetic chain

Recently, many partner robots which coexist with humans in the human environment have been developed and actively investigated all over the world. For such robots, safety as well as motion ability similar to humans is important in order not to damage humans and the surrounding environment. It is essential for safety of a robot whose actuator power is low. A musculoskeletal robot with a humanlike muscle-skeleton structure gives one possibility for safety. The musculoskeletal robot comprises redundant and relatively low-power actuators (i.e., artificial muscle actuators). Accordingly, only a single actuator cannot produce dangerous power. An important issue in such a robot is how to effectively produce kinetic energy required to perform a desired motion by using the coordination of multiple actuators. Robot motion is caused by energy flow between each body of the robot through the kinetic chain. Therefore, in order to achieve the high motion performance of a robot with low-power actuators, it is important that mechanical energy generated by actuators is appropriately distributed to each body of the robot according to a desired motion. In this paper, we evaluated robot motion using simulation in terms of energy flow in the kinetic chain. The results indicate that the high motion performance of a robot with low-power actuators can be achieved by planning proper motion trajectories.
Hand gesture recognition, prediction, and coding using hidden Markov models

This thesis is a feasibility study to determine whether knowledge of gestures can be used to improve coding for the transmission of hand gestures. We implemented a coding system which uses hidden Markov modeling (HMM) to predict the identity of the ongoing gesture. If a prediction can be made with reasonable certainty, only a gesture ID code is sent. At the receiver, an appropriate hand image is selected from the identified prototype gesture sequence to be the "reconstructed" image. If a prediction cannot be made, the system uses principal component analysis (PCA) to compress and reconstruct the actual hand image. In this case, 50 projection coefficients must be sent. We evaluated the system using two different gestures. We found that when tested on unseen sequences of the two gestures, the system can reconstruct the hand using only the gesture ID code 97.5% of the time. Image sequences reconstructed from the prototype gestures also appear cleaner and more natural than sequences reconstructed using PCA. Thesis Supervisor: Aaron F. Bobick Title: Assistant Professor of Computational Vision m
USING A GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR OPTIMIZATION OF SYNAPTIC WEIGHTS OF NEURAL NETWORKS

In the last few decades the so-called artificial intelligence or soft-computing methods were developed as alternatives to traditional solutions of problems which are difficult to be defined, described or resolved using traditional methods. Our research deals particularly with a neural networks [1, 2]. The behaviour of neural network is determined by a preceding training process. It consists of finding the so–called synaptic weights, which have influence on the response of a neural network, depending on the different components of an input signal. Genetic algorithms (GA) are modern optimization methods based on an analogy with the evolution process. The training of a neural network could be
Image Reconstruction with Time-Resolved Contrast Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Angiography

Contrast enhanced magnetic resonance angiography enables one to visualize the vascular system of the human body. Typically, using conventional measurement techniques, one three-dimensional volume of the vascular system can be measured during the passage of the contrast agent. More recently, medical doctors desire time-information of the blood-flow, or want to scan time-dependent phenomena. To enable this, scan-time has to be shortened. 3D-TRICKS [1] enables such scan-time reduction, however at the cost of a more complex image reconstruction. Last year [2], we introduced a new image reconstruction method incorporating prior knowledge on the time-course, i.e. a gamma-variate function, of the contrast agent through the blood-vessels. This enables improved image reconstruction compared to the method described in [1]. However, this method requires that the entire 3D volume follows the same time-behaviour as the blood in the blood-vessels, or that the non-blood-vessel contribution to the signal-strength is negligible. In in-vivo measurements this assumption appeared to be invalid. In this paper we introduce an improved version of our image reconstruction algorithm. The prior-knowledge is now assumed to be only valid inside the blood-vessels. The fitting procedure described in [2], is now only applied to the blood-vessels using segmentation. In vivo results using this new reconstruction method will be presented. Keywords— Magnetic Resonance Angiography, Contrast Agent, Time-Resolved, Image Reconstruction, Scan-Time Reduction
Technology-Enabled Feedback on Domestic Energy Consumption: Articulating a Set of Design Concerns

This paper presents the technology enabled feedback on domestic energy consumption that promote awareness and lead to energy savings. This explore an activity-centric view of energy consumption in shared spaces, such as offices. While a focus on changed consumption outcomes will ultimately be the key test of a good device, more systematic user experience and design studies, across a range of settings, might provide more confidence that the devices we're designing are both fit to task and will be acceptable as well as usable. The authors articulate a set of design concerns that frame and focus ongoing research into user experience and more effective feedback display designs.
Energy spreading in strongly nonlinear disordered lattices

We study the scaling properties of energy spreading in disordered strongly nonlinear Hamiltonian lattices. Such lattices consist of nonlinearly coupled local linear or nonlinear oscillators, and demonstrate a rather slow, subdiffusive spreading of initially localized wave packets. We use a fractional nonlinear diffusion equation as a heuristic model of this process, and confirm that the scaling predictions resulting from a self-similar solution of this equation are indeed applicable to all studied cases. We show that the spreading in nonlinearly coupled linear oscillators slows down compared to a pure power law, while for nonlinear local oscillators a power law is valid in the whole studied range of parameters.
Hot or not: revealing hidden services by their clock skew

Location-hidden services, as offered by anonymity systems such as Tor, allow servers to be operated under a pseudonym. As Tor is an overlay network, servers hosting hidden services are accessible both directly and over the anonymous channel. Traffic patterns through one channel have observable effects on the other, thus allowing a service's pseudonymous identity and IP address to be linked. One proposed solution to this vulnerability is for Tor nodes to provide fixed quality of service to each connection, regardless of other traffic, thus reducing capacity but resisting such interference attacks. However, even if each connection does not influence the others, total throughput would still affect the load on the CPU, and thus its heat output. Unfortunately for anonymity, the result of temperature on clock skew can be remotely detected through observing timestamps. This attack works because existing abstract models of anonymity-network nodes do not take into account the inevitable imperfections of the hardware they run on. Furthermore, we suggest the same technique could be exploited as a classical covert channel and can even provide geolocation.
A simple, fast and efficient approach to denoisaicking: Joint demosaicking and denoising

In most digital cameras, color images are captured by a sensor overlaid by the Bayer color filter array (CFA). Denoisaicking (joint demosaicking and denoising) consists in reconstructing a color image from the noisy “Bayerized” data output by the sensor. We show that the frequency analysis of the sampling pattern induced by the Bayer CFA provides a simple way to reconstruct the luminance and chrominance channels of the image. The process is reduced to adequate linear filtering operations and denoising of the grayscale luminance image.
Dimension Reduction Based on Modified Maximum Margin Criterion for Tumor Classification

Based on Maximum margin criterion (MMC), a new algorithm, named modified MMC, is proposed for supervised dimensionality reduction in this paper. The algorithm aims at learning a linear transformation, and aims at maximizing the average margin between classes in the projected space. After projecting, the considered pair wise points within the same class are as close as possible, while those between different classes are as far as possible. The performance on two gene expression profiles datasets demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Exploration of Term Dependence in Sentence Retrieval

This paper focuses on the exploration of term dependence in the application of sentence retrieval. The adjacent terms appearing in query are assumed to be related with each other. These assumed dependences among query terms will be further validated for each sentence and sentences, which present strong syntactic relationship among query terms, are considered more relevant. Experimental results have fully demonstrated the promising of the proposed models in improving sentence retrieval effectiveness.
A Visualization Interface for Twitter Timeline Activity

Social media streams are a useful source of current, targeted information, but such a stream can be overwhelming if there are too many sources contributing to it. In order to combat this information overload problem, rather than by filtering the stream, users may be able to more efficiently consume the most impactful content by way of a visualization that emphasizes more recent, popular, relevant, and interesting updates. Such a visualization system should provide means for user control over stream consumption while not excluding any information sources in the stream, allowing users to broaden their source networking without becoming overwhelmed. This paper presents a visualization for the Twitter home timeline that allows users to quickly identify which updates are most likely to be interesting, which updates they have and have not read, and which have been posted most recently. A small-scale pilot study suggests that improvements to the prototype are required before carrying out a larger-scale experiment. The effects of recommendation presentation on subjective measures of recommender accuracy will be studied as future work using this application as a framework.
Pragmatic insurance option pricing

This paper deals with theoretical and practical pricing of non-life insurance contracts within a financial option pricing context. The market-based assumption approach of the option context fits well into the practical nature of non-life insurance pricing and valuation. The fundamental characteristics of most insurance markets, such as the apparent variation in insurer price offers for the same risk in the same market, support the need for a market based approach. The paper outlines insurance and option pricing in a parallel setup. First it takes a complete market approach, focusing on dynamic hedging, no-arbitrage and risk-neutral martingale valuation principles within insurance and options. Secondly it takes an incomplete market view by introducing supply and demand effects via purchasing preferences in the market. Finally the paper discusses market-based insurance price models, parameter estimation techniques and international best practice of insurance pricing. The general purpose of the paper is to describe and unite the headlines of the more or less common insurance and option pricing theory, and hence increase the pragmatic understanding of this theory from a business point of view.
Embryonic Origins of a Motor System:Motor Dendrites Form a Myotopic Mapin Drosophila

The organisational principles of locomotor networks are less well understood than those of many sensory systems, where in-growing axon terminals form a central map of peripheral characteristics. Using the neuromuscular system of the Drosophila embryo as a model and retrograde tracing and genetic methods, we have uncovered principles underlying the organisation of the motor system. We find that dendritic arbors of motor neurons, rather than their cell bodies, are partitioned into domains to form a myotopic map, which represents centrally the distribution of body wall muscles peripherally. While muscles are segmental, the myotopic map is parasegmental in organisation. It forms by an active process of dendritic growth independent of the presence of target muscles, proper differentiation of glial cells, or (in its initial partitioning) competitive interactions between adjacent dendritic domains. The arrangement of motor neuron dendrites into a myotopic map represents a first layer of organisation in the motor system. This is likely to be mirrored, at least in part, by endings of higher-order neurons from central pattern-generating circuits, which converge onto the motor neuron dendrites. These findings will greatly simplify the task of understanding how a locomotor system is assembled. Our results suggest that the cues that organise the myotopic map may be laid down early in development as the embryo subdivides into parasegmental units.
The effects of scarring on face recognition

Chan, Kevin J. M.S., Purdue University, August 2016. The Effects of Scarring on a Face Recognition System. Major Professor: Stephen Elliott. The focus of this research is the effects of scarring on face recognition. Face recognition is a common biometric modality implemented for access control operations such as customs and borders. The recent report from the Special Group on Issues Affecting Facial Recognition and Best Practices for their Mitigation highlighted scarring as one of the emerging challenges. The significance of this problem extends to the ISO/IEC and national agencies are researching to enhance their intelligence capabilities. Data was collected on face images with and without scars, using theatrical special effects to simulate scarring on the face and also from subjects that have developed scarring within their lifetime. A total of 60 subjects participated in this data collection, 30 without scarring of any kind and 30 with preexisting scars. Controlled data on scarring is problematic for face recognition research as scarring has various manifestations among individuals, yet is universal in that all individuals will manifest some degree of scarring. Effect analysis was done with controlled scarring to observe the factor alone, and wild scarring that is encountered during operations for realistic contextualization. Two environments were included in this study, a controlled studio that represented an ideal face capture setting and a mock border control booth simulating an operational use case.
Identical relation of interpolation and decimation in the Linear Canonical Transform domain

The theorems of identical relation for interpolation and decimation in the linear canonical transform (LCT) domain have been proposed in this paper. For improving the efficiency of sampling rate conversion and saving the memory in digital system, we propose two identical relations in sampling rate conversion, one in interpolation and the other one in decimation. The result shows that the two identical relations can properly secure the sampling rate conversion and reduce the operating works significantly. The simulation results are also presented to show the correctness of the proposed theorems. These two identical relations can be widely used in sampling rate conversion in the LCT domain.
Convince a Dozen More and Succeed -- The Influence in Multi-layered Social Networks

Humans utilise multiple communication channels in their social interactions and also information diffusion as well as the spread of influence are practically related with many contexts. Each such context (channel) may represent a different communication method or a different environment of a given person. This facilitates building multiple social networks, that are not independent. They share the same set of nodes connected with many links grounded on different layers - these networks are called multi-layered or multiplex social networks. The influence process may vary in these kinds of social networks depending on the network model, the level of influence for each layer and other factors such as the overlap of nodes and links across layers. In this paper, the influence processes in multi-layered social networks have been analysed showing that for almost all analysed network models, the success in convincing few more individuals may be crucial for the whole influence process. The results revealed that the process is not linear in terms of relation between the number of initially influenced individuals and the total number of influenced nodes. The linear threshold model has been utilized as a base influence model.
Turbo codes with non-primitive component codes

Unlike previous work on turbo codes in which both the feedback and generator polynomials used in the component codes are limited to primitive polynomials, in this paper a comparison of primitive and non-primitive feedback and generator polynomials is given. Simulation results over the AWGN channel show that non-primitive polynomials can achieve better performance at very low SNR. On this basis we comment on the conditions under which non-primitive turbo-codes may give better results than those based on primitive polynomials.
Trends in Endovascular Therapy and Clinical Outcomes Within the Nationwide Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Registry

Background and Purpose— We sought to determine hospital and patient characteristics associated with the use of endovascular therapy for acute ischemic stroke and to analyze trends in clinical outcome. Methods— Data were from Get With The Guidelines-Stroke hospitals from April 1, 2003, to June 30, 2013. We looked at trends in number of hospitals providing endovascular therapy, the use of endovascular therapy in these hospitals and clinical outcomes. We analyzed hospital and patient characteristics associated with endovascular therapy use. Results— Of 1087 hospitals, 454 provided endovascular therapy to ≥1 patient in the study period. From 2003 to 2012, proportion of hospitals providing endovascular therapy increased by 1.6% per year (from 12.9% to 28.9%; P<0.0001), with a modest drop to 23.4% in 2013. Utilization of endovascular therapy increased from 0.7% to 2% (P<0.001) with a modest drop to 1.9% in 2013. The overall rate of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage among endovascular therapy treated patients was 9.7%. In multivariable analyses, patient outcomes after endovascular therapy improved over time, with reductions in in-hospital mortality (29.6% in 2004 to 16.2% in 2013; P=0.002); and from late 2010, reduction in symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (11% in 2010 to 5% in 2013; P<0.0001), increased independent ambulation at discharge (24.5% in 2010 to 33% in 2013; P<0.0001) and discharge home (17.7% in 2010 to 26.1% in 2013; P<0.0001). Trends for these outcomes persist in the analyses adjusted for baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale. Conclusion— The use of endovascular therapy increased modestly nationally from 2003 to 2012 and decreased in 2013. Clinical outcomes improved notably from 2010 to 2013, coincident with more experience and newer thrombectomy devices.
Reactive Power Optimization and Voltage Stability Limit Improvement with TCSC Device through DE algorithm under Most Credible Contingency Condition

Modern power systems are at risks of voltage instability problems due to highly stressed operating conditions caused by increased load de- mand and economical and/or environmental constraints in construction of new transmission lines. This paper proposes a Differential Evolution (DE) algo- rithm based optimal reactive power flow control task incorporating only one type of FACTS device under contingency condition. DE is efficient in explor a- tion through the search space of the problem and easy to implement. Optimal settings of control variables of generator voltages, transf ormer tap settings and location and parameter setting of thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC) is considered for optimal solution for reactive power flow control and the resultant reactive power reserves. Coordinated control of TCSC parameter and control parameters of reactive power dispatch is taken. The effec- tiveness of the proposed work is tested on IEEE-30 Bus test system under most critical line outage contingency condition.
Data Modification Language for Full Support of Temporal Schema Versioning

We propose a language to define data update during schema versioning in a temporal object-oriented database. With this language, a user can express multi-schema modifications involving extensional data from different schema versions at the same time, improving the database environment with temporal and versioning features concerning database modification. We also provide the first steps towards a formal operational semantics for the specification of the basic metadata and database updates.
Effect of Keishibukuryogan on Endothelial Function in Patients with at Least One Component of the Diagnostic Criteria for Metabolic Syndrome: A Controlled Clinical Trial with Crossover Design

We evaluated the effect of keishibukuryogan (KBG; Guizhi-Fuling-Wan), a traditional Japanese (Kampo) formula, on endothelial function assessed by reactive hyperemia peripheral arterial tonometry (Endo-PAT2000) in patients with metabolic syndrome-related factors by controlled clinical trial with crossover design. Ninety-two patients were assigned to group A (first KBG-treatment period, then control period; each lasting 4 weeks, with about one-year interval) or group B (first control, then KBG-treatment). In forty-nine (27, group A; 22, group B) patients completing all tests, the mean value of the natural logarithmic-scaled reactive hyperemia index (L_RHI) increased and those of serum nonesterified fatty acid (NEFA), malondialdehyde, and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 decreased significantly during the KBG-treatment period, but not during the control period, and 4-week changes of L_RHI, NEFA, and malondialdehyde between the 2 periods showed significance. These results suggest that KBG has beneficial effect on endothelial function in patients with metabolic syndrome-related factors.
Economic analysis on the excessive growth of medical costs in China

Currently, China's rapid growth of medical costs has become a hot issue that public concern. The exaggerated medical costs have become the main reason that constrains residents to make use of out-patient services and hospitalization services. According to this, the author makes an analysis on reasons affecting the excessive growth of China's medical costs from the perspective of both the supply and demand side, and puts forward to rational proposals on controlling the excessive growth of China's medical expenses according to this analysis.
Part based Visual Tracking for ISPF Using Independence Test

A B S T R A C T In this paper, a methodology has been proposed to find variations between the frames in visual tracking systems by part-based visual tracking which is optimistic and can overcome high computational cost. Over the decades, Multi-Variant analysis has become a well-known technique for statistical inference systems using multiple observations. All the earlier works, like Incremental Self-Tuning Particle Framework (ISPF), were particle based which classify the poses. In this study, a multi-variant analysis has been done on the particle based image frames to find the misplaced data in each frame. To estimate the part based parameters, least square estimation of maximum likely-hood is applied. The experimental results are conducted on ANOVA test for part based frames.