Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application of Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration as a Proxy for Estimating the Energy Expenditure of Grazing Farm Animals: Relationship with Heart Rate

Estimating the energy expenditure of farm animals at pasture is important for efficient animal management. In recent years, an alternative technique for estimating energy expenditure by measuring body acceleration has been widely performed in wildlife and human studies, but the availability of the technique in farm animals has not yet been examined. In the present study, we tested the potential use of an acceleration index, overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA), as a new proxy for estimating the energy expenditure of grazing farm animals (cattle, goats and sheep) at pasture with the simultaneous evaluation of a conventional proxy, heart rate. Body accelerations in three axes and heart rate for cows (n = 8, two breeds), goats (n = 6) and sheep (n = 5) were recorded, and the effect of ODBA calculated from the body accelerations on heart rate was analyzed. In addition, the effects of the two other activity indices, the number of steps and vectorial dynamic body acceleration (VeDBA), on heart rate were also investigated. The results of the comparison among three activity indices indicated that ODBA was the best predictor for heart rate. Although the relationship between ODBA and heart rate was different between the groups of species and breeds and between individuals (P<0.01), the difference could be explained by different body weights; a common equation could be established by correcting the body weights (M: kg): heart rate (beats/min) = 147.263∙M -0.141 + 889.640∙M -0.179∙ODBA (g). Combining this equation with the previously reported energy expenditure per heartbeat, we estimated the energy expenditure of the tested animals, and the results indicated that ODBA is a good proxy for estimating the energy expenditure of grazing farm animals across species and breeds. The utility and simplicity of the procedure with acceleration loggers could make the accelerometry technique a worthwhile option in field research and commercial farm use.
Simple Spans in Deaf Signers and Hearing Non-Signers

Short-term memory is traditionally assessed by digit span tests. Deaf signers (DS) have repeatedly been reported to perform at lower levels on this test than hearing non-signers (NH [3]), despite equal performance on more complex working memory tasks and other cognitive tasks. Hearing signers have also been shown to perform at lower levels when they are tested on sign language compared to spoken language,suggesting that the differences between DS and HN are dependent on language rather than on deafness per se [4,7]. Sign languages are the natural mode of communication for many deaf persons and are fully fledged languages that can be described using the same terminology as spoken language [8]. That means that sign languages have phonology, morphology, syntax and prosody as well as their own grammar and vocabulary. However, there are some differences between spoken and signed languages that might influence short-term memory. Four commonly proposed explanations for these differences are (1) articulation rate, (2) phonological similarity effects, (3) differences in sensory memory traces and (4) temporal order effects: It has been suggested that short-term memory is restricted to the amount of words that can be articulated within two seconds [2]. Given that individual signs take longer to articulate than individual spoken words, this might affect rehearsal rate. According to the phonological similarity effect, items that are phonologically similar encode similar traces in the phonological loop, giving rise to
Changes in Plasma Inhibin A Levels During Sexual Maturation in the Female Chicken and the Effects of Active Immunization Against Inhibin α-Subunit on Reproductive Hormone Profiles and Ovarian Function1

Abstract Inhibins and activins are firmly implicated in the control of pituitary FSH secretion and ovarian follicular development in mammals. As in mammals, inhibin A and activin A are expressed in the preovulatory follicles of birds, and a defined ovulation cycle for inhibin A has recently been demonstrated in the laying hen. To investigate further the role of inhibin-related proteins in developing pullets, circulating concentrations of inhibin A, inhibin B, total immunoreactive inhibin α-subunit (ir-α), activin A, LH, FSH, and progesterone were measured from the juvenile state through to sexual maturity in 22 birds. In the 11 birds assigned to control groups, plasma inhibin A levels were low from 7 to 13 wk of age rising about threefold to a peak at Week 19 after which levels fell slightly to a plateau level characteristic of adult hens. Plasma inhibin A levels were negatively correlated with FSH (r = −0.33; P < 0.001) and positively correlated with progesterone (r = 0.67; P < 0.001) and ir-α (r = 0.53; P < 0.001). Plasma ir-α levels were much higher than inhibin A levels although the relative differences varied with age. Plasma levels of inhibin B and activin A were below assay detection limits at all times. The remaining group of 11 birds was actively immunized (IMM) against a synthetic chicken inhibin α-subunit peptide (amino acids 1–26). The IMM generated circulating antibodies that bound native bovine inhibin A but altered neither plasma FSH nor progesterone levels relative to control birds at any stage of development nor the timing of first oviposition in week 19. Apart from a transient decline 1 wk after primary IMM, plasma LH concentrations did not differ from controls. Comparison of the numbers and size-class distribution of ovarian follicles at 29 wk showed an approximate twofold increase in the number of 8- to 9.9-mm-diameter follicles (control; 1.82 ± 0.44 vs. IMM; 3.91 ± 0.89; P < 0.05), a size class that corresponds to follicles that have just joined the preovulatory hierarchy. The numbers of growing follicles in other size-classes and the sizes of hierarchical F1–F7 follicles were not altered by IMM. However, the number of postovulatory follicles increased (control 3.73 ± 0.20 vs. IMM 5.55 ± 0.28; P < 0.01), and significantly more (P < 0.02) immunized hens laid two eggs within a 24-h period on at least one occasion (control 1 of 11 vs. IMM 9 of 11). The IMM increased (P < 0.05) activin A content of F1 and F2 theca layers and decreased (P < 0.05) activin A content in F3 and F4 granulosa layers, raising the possibility of a local intraovarian role of activin in mediating the response to IMM. These findings support a role for inhibin A in regulating the entry of follicles into the preovulatory hierarchy in the chicken, although further studies are required to establish the mechanism by which inhibin IMM increases the rate of follicle selection and ovulation without raising plasma FSH.
The Analysis of Engineering Drawings using Robot Mapping Techniques

Engineering drawings provide a significant challenge to image analysis. The goal is to take a scanned engineering drawing image and produce an interpretation of the contents in terms of characters, digits, arrows, line segments, dimensions, etc. These can then be incorporated into a legacy system re-engineering process (e.g., image analysis must provide parameter values for manufacturing features like counterbore holes, etc.). We propose to treat the problem in two steps: (1) determine a good set of feasible points which constitute the markings on the page, and (2) subsequently treat these as a 2D floor plan that is explored by tiny mobile agents that navigate through the drawing and produce a map. The trajectories followed by the agents allow a segmentation of the image into basic geometric units: line segments, end points, branch points, etc. This method is attractive because a large set of robust techniques have been developed. Moreover, learning techniques may be employed to determine characteristic features of the line drawing data. The thesis of this work is that mobile robot mapping techniques can be used to achieve accurate and robust segmentations of engineering drawing images.
CrowdUX: A Case for Using Widespread and Lightweight Tools in the Quest for UX

User studies and expert reviews are established methods for evaluating usability and user experience (UX) in user-centered design. However, practitioners often struggle to integrate these often time-consuming and costly methods in their design processes. As technological products and services are becoming increasingly mobile, their contexts of use are increasingly diverse and less predictable. While this changing context is hard to capture in lab studies, the same mobile technologies also provide possibilities for new study methods. In this paper we advocate lightweight mobile tools for crowdsourcing UX feedback. In cooperation with a design agency, we built two apps that allow users to express feedback with text, ratings and pictures whenever using a product. The second app assigns feedback to categories, while the first does not. In a case study we compared the quantity, relevance, and nature of the feedback collected with both UX evaluation apps to traditional evaluation methods. The feedback collected with the apps was considered highly useful by designers and provided more user stories and context than traditional evaluations.
Speed estimation based on multiple kernel learning

Traffic state identification is one of the core missions of Intelligent Transportation Systems. In order to correctly identify the state of traffic flow, the traffic speed must be obtained accurately. In Shanghai, most of the industrial loop detectors (ILDs) are installed in a single loop way. These ILDs can only detect the parameters of flow, saturation, etc., but the speed can not be detected. If the relationship between the traffic flow and speed can be mined accurately, we can obtain the speed using the flow data directly. The purpose of this study is to use multiple kernel support vector regression (MKL-SVR) algorithm to model the relationship between the traffic speed and flow, then estimate the speed accurately. Extensive experiments have been performed to evaluate the performances of the four algorithms: polynomial fitting algorithm, BP neural networks, SVR and MKL-SVR. The experimental results show that MKL-SVR has the best and most robust performances.
Cyberbullying, anxiety, depression and stress among adolescents

6. References During adolescence, violence using new technologies is one of the major causes of discomfort experiences felled by young people, involving not only teenagers but also educators, parents and other professionals affected by this phenomenon: cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is an aggressive intentional act carried out by a group/individual, using electronic forms of contact against a victim who cannot easily defend him/herself (Smith et al., 2008). It elicits depression, anxiety and stress that affect victims and perpetrators (Cetin et al., 2012), since their roles are less defined on online environments (Park, Na & Kim, 2014).
Waveform allocation for a MIMO radar network using potential games

We propose a game theoretic waveform allocation algorithm for a MIMO radar network, where the radars are grouped into clusters. Using potential games, the clusters which are the players of the game, are able to choose a set of orthogonal waveforms from a set of available waveforms, that will result in optimum performance for the radars in the clusters. The simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the game theoretic waveform selection as compared to a scheme that selects waveforms randomly.
InfVis - Platform-Independent Visual Data Mining of Multidimensional Chemical Data Sets

The tremendous increase of chemical data sets, both in size and number, and the simultaneous desire to speed up the drug discovery process has resulted in an increasing need for a new generation of computational tools that assist in the extraction of information from data and allow for rapid and in-depth data mining. During recent years, visual data mining has become an important tool within the life sciences and drug discovery area with the potential to help avoiding data analysis from turning into a bottleneck. In this paper, we present InfVis, a platform-independent visual data mining tool for chemists, who usually only have little experience with classical data mining tools, for the visualization, exploration, and analysis of multivariate data sets. InfVis represents multidimensional data sets by using intuitive 3D glyph information visualization techniques. Interactive and dynamic tools such as dynamic query devices allow real-time, interactive data set manipulations and support the user in the identification of relationships and patterns. InfVis has been implemented in Java and Java3D and can be run on a broad range of platforms and operating systems. It can also be embedded as an applet in Web-based interfaces. We will present in this paper examples detailing the analysis of a reaction database that demonstrate how InfVis assists chemists in identifying and extracting hidden information.
Prevalence of tics in schoolchildren and association with placement in special education

Background: Based on the knowledge that Tourette’s syndrome (TS) is associated with several clinical features that can impair school function and growing evidence that the disorder is much more common than previously thought, the authors hypothesized that TS and related tic disorders would be associated with school problems in the childhood population at large. Methods: Direct, blinded (to educational placement) interviews of 1,596 schoolchildren in Monroe County, Rochester, NY, were conducted. Results: Twenty-seven percent of 341 students classified as receiving special education (SpEd) had tics compared with 19.7% (p = 0.008) of 1,255 students in regular classroom programs (RegEd). The weighted prevalence estimates for tics were 23.4% in SpEd and 18.5% in RegEd. A higher percentage of students in SpEd (7.0%) met diagnostic criteria for TS than students in RegEd (3.8%; p = 0.01). Conclusions: Although possibly influenced by selection bias, our results indicate that tic disorders are common in children and are highly associated with school dysfunction. Tics may represent an identifiable sign of an underlying brain developmental disorder that contributes to academic difficulties.
Improving SIMD efficiency for parallel Monte Carlo light transport on the GPU

Monte Carlo Light Transport algorithms such as Path Tracing (PT), Bi-Directional Path Tracing (BDPT) and Metropolis Light Transport (MLT) make use of random walks to sample light transport paths. When parallelizing these algorithms on the GPU the stochastic termination of random walks results in an uneven workload between samples, which reduces SIMD efficiency. In this paper we propose to combine stream compaction and sample regeneration to keep SIMD efficiency high during random walk construction, in spite of stochastic termination. Furthermore, for BDPT and MLT, we propose to evaluate all bidirectional connections of a sample in parallel in order to balance the workload between GPU threads and improve SIMD efficiency during sample evaluation. We present efficient parallel GPU-only implementations for PT, BDPT, and MLT in CUDA. We show that our GPU implementations outperform similar CPU implementations by an order of magnitude.
Improved Automatic Speech Recognition system by using compressed sensing signal reconstruction based on L0 and L1 estimation algorithms

This paper presents a way of improving the recognition rate of a typical Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system by integrating the l1 - least absolute deviation (LAD) algorithm and the l0 - least square (LS) algorithm in a framework designed to selectively use them based on the level of impulse noise present in speech signal. We present the overall architecture of the model, as well as experimental results and compare our enhanced noise-robust HMM-based ASR system with state-of-the-art proving the improvements brought by this approach as well as future directions of research.
Piecewise polynomial regression trees

A nonparametric function estimation method called SUPPORT ("Smoo- thed and Unsmoothed Piecewise-Polynomial Regression Trees'') is described. The estimate is typically made up of several pieces, each piece being obtained by fitting a polynomial regression to the observations in a subregion of the data space. Partitioning is carried out recursively as in a tree-structured method. If the estimate is required to be smooth, the polynomial pieces may be glued together by means of weighted averaging. The smoothed estimate is thus obtained in three steps. In the first step, the regressor space is recursively partitioned until the data in each piece are adequately fitted by a polynomial of a fixed order. Partitioning is guided by analysis of the distributions of residuals and cross-validation estimates of prediction mean square error. In the second step, the data within a neighborhood of each partition are fitted by a polynomial. The final estimate of the regression function is obtained by averaging the polynomial pieces, using smooth weight functions each of which diminishes rapidly to zero outside its associated partition. Estimates of derivatives of the regression function may be obtained by similar averaging of the derivatives of the polynomial pieces. The advantages of the proposed estimate are that it possesses a smooth analytic form, is as many times differentiable as the family of weight functions are, and has a decision tree representation. The asymptotic properties of the smoothed and unsmoothed estimates are explored under appropriate regularity conditions. Examples comparing the accuracy of SUPPORT to other methods are given.
Preconditions of hemostasis in trauma: a review. The influence of acidosis, hypocalcemia, anemia, and hypothermia on functional hemostasis in trauma.

BACKGROUND Beside the often discussed topics of consumption and dilution coagulopathy, additional perioperative impairments of coagulation are caused by acidosis, hypocalcemia, anemia, hypothermia, and combinations. METHODS Reviewing current literature, cutoff values of these parameters become obvious at which therapy should commence. RESULTS A notable impairment of hemostasis arises at a pH < or = 7.1. Similar effects are caused by a BE of -12.5 or less. Thus, in case of severe bleeding, buffering toward physiologic pH values is recommended, especially with massive transfusions of older RBCCs displaying exhausted red blood cell buffer systems. It completes the optimization of the volume homeostasis to ensure an adequate tissue perfusion. Combining beneficial cardiovascular and coagulation effects, the level for ionized calcium concentration should be held > or = 0.9 mmol/L. From the hemostatic point of view, the optimal Hct is higher than the one required for oxygenation. Even without a "classical" transfusion trigger, the therapy of acute, persistent bleeding should aim at reaching an Hct > or = 30%. A core temperature of < or = 34 degrees C causes a decisive impairment of hemostasis. A controlled hypotensive fluid resuscitation should aim at reaching a mean arterial pressure of > or = 65 mm Hg (possibly higher for cerebral trauma). Prevention and later aggressive therapy of hypothermia by exclusive infusion of warmed fluids and the use of warming devices are prerequisites for the cure of traumatic coagulopathy. Combined appearance of single preconditions cause additive impairments of the coagulation system. CONCLUSIONS The prevention and timely correction, especially of the combination acidosis plus hypothermia, is crucial for the treatment of hemorrhagic coagulopathy.
Cost Effective Acknowledgement Mechanism for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network

In this paper, we proposed Cost Effective Acknowledgement (CEA) method which was based on Multiple Acknowledgement (MA) [1] method and proposed by Smart Block Medium Access Control (SBMAC) [2]. The proposed method can reply the information of transmission error states of all Senders within smaller storage space. Especially, the number of transmission and the frame length was minimized to reduce transmission error. The performance of the proposed method and conventional methods such as Normal Multiple Acknowledgement (NMA) and Selective Multiple Acknowledgement (SMA) method [3] was calculated and compared with each other. The calculation results showed the best performance in case of the proposed method.
An integrative methodology for the quality of life measurement in urban places based on the accomplishment of human needs

Quality of Life (QoL) approaches and studies have broadly raised the interest of scientists during the last years. With more than half of the world population now living in cities, defining and measuring QoL in urban contexts can be particularly helpful in urban design and planning processes. In this article, a method of measuring QoL for urban places based on the accomplishment of the basic human needs is proposed. Retrieved from Max-Neef’s Human-Scale Development Paradigm (Max-Neef, Elizalde, & Hopenhayn, 1991), human needs correspond to the domains of study of the suggested method. QoL is perceived as a multi-faceted concept and in this sense it should be studied in its completeness by employing an integrative approach. In order to do that, and after choosing a place as a case study, a survey must be constructed corresponding to the subjective part of the analysis. The matching of the different survey’s questions to each need is the outcome of two consecutive processes: a first qualitative one, involving both local communities and/or expert groups, and a second quantitative one involving the definition of weights among those questions which affect the same need. Complementarily, objective indicators must be added representing the objective part of the analysis. The final comparison between subjective and objective data will give the integrative result. In summary, this method defines a simple tool which can be used to quantify and evaluate current levels of QoL for places and to define more holistic urban quality indexes in order to improve decision making processes, policies and plans. At the same time it can be seen as a tool to enhance bottom-up approaches and processes of urban analysis with the aim to create more liveable places for the citizens.
An Update on Deductive Synthesis and Repair in the Leon Tool

We report our progress in scaling deductive synthesis and repair of recursive functional Scala programs in the Leon tool. We describe new techniques, including a more precise mechanism for encoding the space of meaningful candidate programs. Our techniques increase the scope of synthesis by expanding the space of programs we can synthesize and by reducing the synthesis time in many cases. As a new example, we present a run-length encoding function for a list of values, which Leon can now automatically synthesize from specification consisting of the decoding function and the local minimality property of the encoded value.
Analysis of Leakage Current Reduction Techniques in SRAM Cell in 90nm CMOS Technology

Limited energy consumption in multimedia requires very low power circuits. In this paper we focused on leakage current minimization in single static random access memory (SRAM) cell in 90nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The leakage current mainly consists of sub threshold leakage current and gate leakage current in 90nm CMOS technology. So minimizing the sub threshold leakage current and gate leakage current is most important aspect in low power memory design. This work presents a technique based on dual threshold voltage (Vt), dual gate oxide thickness (tox) and dual power supply (Vdd) assignment together to minimize gate leakage and sub threshold current of SRAM cell.Simulation results using 90nm CMOS technology show that this technique can reduce the total leakage current dissipation of a single SRAM cell by more than 75% with less delay penalty.