Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-Disassembling Robots Pebbles : New Results and Ideas for Self-Assembly of 3 D Structures

We present our newest algorithms, results, and future plans for the robotic pebble system show in Figure 1 which is capable of forming shapes through uniform selfassembly followed by selective self-disassembly. In gener al, programmable matter systems are composed of small, intelligent modules able to form a variety of macroscale objects in response to external commands or stimuli. Our system is composed of 12mm cubic autonomous robotic pebbles, (first presented in [1]), capable of bonding and communicating with their neighbors. Starting from a loose collection of disjoint modules, we hope to show that our system, with the assistance of external stochastic forces, is capable of sel fassembling into a uniform crystalline structure. Once this initial block of material is formed, the system is able to self-disassemble to form complex 2D shapes. Like geologic forces compact sediment into blocks of sandstone and a sculptor removes the extra stone to reveal a statue underneath, our system forms an initial uniform grid of modules and then subtracts the unnecessary modules to form a goal structure.
Quantifying workload dependent reliability in embedded processors

With nearly three decades of continued CMOS scaling, the devices have now been pushed to their physical and reliability limits. Scaling to sub-20nm technology nodes changes the nature of reliability effects from abrupt functional problems to progressive degradation of the performance characteristics of devices and system components. The impact of unreliability results in time-dependent variability, directly translating into design uncertainty in manufactured chips. Further, application workloads can significantly affect the overall system reliability. In this work, we have analyzed aging effects on various design hierarchies of an embedded processor in 28nm running real-world applications. We have also quantified the dependencies of aging effects on switching-activity and power-state of workloads. Implementation results show that the processor timing degradation can vary from 2% to 11%, depending on the workload.
Recognizing affection for a touch-based interaction with a humanoid robot

In order to facilitate integration into domestic and public environments, companion robots can seek to communicate in a familiar, “socially intelligent” manner, recognizing typical behaviors which people direct toward them. One important type of behavior to recognize is the displaying and seeking of affection, which is fundamentally associated with the modality of touch. This paper identifies how people communicate affection through touching a humanoid robot appearance, and reports on the development of a recognition system exploring the modalities of touch and vision. Results of evaluation indicate the proposed system can recognize people's affectionate behavior in the designated context.
Genetic Elucidation of Nitric Oxide Signaling in Incompatible Plant-Pathogen Interactions[w]

Recent experiments indicate that nitric oxide (NO) plays a pivotal role in disease resistance and several other physiological processes in plants. However, most of the current information about the function of NO in plants is based on pharmacological studies, and additional approaches are therefore required to ascertain the role of NO as an important signaling molecule in plants. We have expressed a bacterial nitric oxide dioxygenase (NOD) in Arabidopsis plants and/or avirulent Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato to study incompatible plant-pathogen interactions impaired in NO signaling. NOD expression in transgenic Arabidopsis resulted in decreased NO levels in planta and attenuated a pathogen-induced NO burst. Moreover, NOD expression in plant cells had very similar effects on plant defenses compared to NOD expression in avirulent Pseudomonas. The defense responses most affected by NO reduction during the incompatible interaction were decreased H2O2 levels during the oxidative burst and a blockage of Phe ammonia lyase expression, the key enzyme in the general phenylpropanoid pathway. Expression of the NOD furthermore blocked UV light-induced Phe ammonia lyase and chalcone synthase gene expression, indicating a general signaling function of NO in the activation of the phenylpropanoid pathway. NO possibly functions in incompatible plant-pathogen interactions by inhibiting the plant antioxidative machinery, and thereby ensuring locally prolonged H2O2 levels. Additionally, albeit to a lesser extent, we observed decreases in salicylic acid production, a diminished development of hypersensitive cell death, and a delay in pathogenesis-related protein 1 expression during these NO-deficient plant-pathogen interactions. Therefore, this genetic approach confirms that NO is an important regulatory component in the signaling network of plant defense responses.
Cross-Mapping Events in miRNAs Reveal Potential miRNA-Mimics and Evolutionary Implications

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have important roles in various biological processes. miRNA cross-mapping is a prevalent phenomenon where miRNA sequence originating from one genomic region is mapped to another location. To have a better understanding of this phenomenon in the human genome, we performed a detailed analysis in this paper using public miRNA high-throughput sequencing data and all known human miRNAs. We observed widespread cross-mapping events between miRNA precursors (pre-miRNAs), other non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) and the opposite strands of pre-miRNAs by analyzing the high-throughput sequencing data. Computational analysis on all known human miRNAs also confirmed that many of them could be involved in cross-mapping events. The processing or decay of both ncRNAs and pre-miRNA opposite strand transcripts may contribute to miRNA enrichment, although some might be miRNA-mimics due to miRNA mis-annotation. Comparing to canonical miRNAs, miRNAs involved in cross-mapping events between pre-miRNAs and other ncRNAs normally had shorter lengths (17–19 nt), lower prediction scores and were classified as pseudo miRNA precursors. Notably, 4.9% of all human miRNAs could be accurately mapped to the opposite strands of pre-miRNAs, which showed that both strands of the same genomic region had the potential to produce mature miRNAs and simultaneously implied some potential miRNA precursors. We proposed that the cross-mapping events are more complex than we previously thought. Sequence similarity between other ncRNAs and pre-miRNAs and the specific stem-loop structures of pre-miRNAs may provide evolutionary implications.
Technological Intensity and Patterns in Slovenian Merchandise Trade

This paper analyses the technological intensity of industries classified by technology levels (low-technology, medium-low-technology, medium-high-technology and high-technology) and patterns in Slovenian merchandise trade developments between and within industries in the post-independence years since 1992. Merchandise trade flows by industries are rather homogeneous in the extent of a decline in the external trade integration measured by intra-industry trade indices and in the presence of relative trade advantages. More considerable differences are found in trade structures and trade quality using the ratio of export to import unit values. In exports we confirm the climbing-up technological development approach, including the jump-up in the medium-high-technology industries in the non-EU-15 markets. Medium-low- and medium-high-technology industries experienced greater price competitiveness in trade with the EU-15 countries. High-technology industries and to a lesser extent low-technology industries experienced a greater competitiveness in the EU-15 internal and external trade. These similarities and differences imply implications for industries with different technological intensity, which are associated with trade and policy shifts before and after the accession of Slovenia to the EU.
Uniform controllability of a transport equation in zero diffusion-dispersion limit

In this paper, we consider the controllability of a transport equation perturbed by small diffusion and dispersion terms. We prove that for a sufficiently large time, the cost of the null-controllability tends to zero exponentially as the perturbation vanishes. For small times, on the contrary, we prove that this cost grows exponentially.
Optimal path finding in direction, location, and time dependent environments

This article examines optimal path finding problems where cost function and constraints are direction, location, and time dependent. Recent advancements in sensor and data‐processing technology facilitate the collection of detailed real‐time information about the environment surrounding a ground vehicle, an airplane, or a naval vessel. We present a navigation model that makes use of such information. We relax a number of assumptions from existing literature on path‐finding problems and create an accurate, yet tractable, model suitable for implementation for a large class of problems. We present a dynamic programming model which integrates our earlier results for direction‐dependent, time and space homogeneous environment, and consequently, improves its accuracy, efficiency, and run‐time. The proposed path finding model also addresses limited information about the surrounding environment, control‐feasibility of the considered paths, such as sharpest feasible turns a vehicle can make, and computational demands of a time‐dependent environment. To demonstrate the applicability and performance of our path‐finding algorithm, computational experiments for a short‐range ship routing in dynamic wave‐field problem are presented. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2012
Transcription factor Emx2 controls stereociliary bundle orientation of sensory hair cells

The asymmetric location of stereociliary bundle (hair bundle) on the apical surface of mechanosensory hair cells (HCs) dictates the direction in which a given HC can respond to cues such as sound, head movements, and water pressure. Notably, vestibular sensory organs of the inner ear, the maculae, exhibit a line of polarity reversal (LPR) across which, hair bundles are polarized in a mirror-image pattern. Similarly, HCs in neuromasts of the zebrafish lateral line system are generated as pairs, and two sibling HCs develop opposite hair bundle orientations. Within these sensory organs, expression of the transcription factor Emx2 is restricted to only one side of the LPR in the maculae or one of the two sibling HCs in neuromasts. Emx2 mediates hair bundle polarity reversal in these restricted subsets of HCs and generates the mirror-image pattern of the sensory organs. Downstream effectors of Emx2 control bundle polarity cell-autonomously via heterotrimeric G proteins. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.23661. 001
A New Theory of Forecasting

This paper argues that forecast estimators should minimise the loss function in a statistical, rather than deterministic, way. We introduce two new elements into the classical econometric analysis: a subjective guess on the variable to be forecasted and a probability reflecting the confidence associated to it. We then propose a new forecast estimator based on a test of whether the first derivatives of the loss function evaluated at the subjective guess are statistically different from zero. We show that the classical estimator is a special case of this new estimator, and that in general the two estimators are asymptotically equivalent. We illustrate the implications of this new theory with a simple simulation, an application to GDP forecast and an example of mean-variance portfolio selection. JEL Classification: C13, C53, G11
Progesterone inhibits protein kinase A (PKA) in Xenopus oocytes: demonstration of endogenous PKA activities using an expressed substrate

3′-5′ cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)-dependent protein kinase, PKA, is thought to be a key enzyme that controls prophase arrest in vertebrate oocytes. It has long been established that overexpression of the catalytic subunit of PKA inhibits hormone-induced frog oocyte maturation whereas overexpression of the regulatory subunits induces hormone-independent oocyte maturation. However, the activities of endogenous oocyte PKA, or its regulation by the maturation-inducing hormone progesterone, have never been directly demonstrated in frog oocytes. We have developed a novel expressed substrate for PKA in live oocytes by constructing a fusion protein containing an N-terminal myristylation sequence (derived from the Src tyrosine kinase) followed by an antigenic epitope tag and a substrate motif (the C-terminal cytoplasmic domain of β2 adrenergic receptor). Following mRNA injection, the phosphorylation status of the substrate was determined by two-dimensional electrophoresis followed by epitope immunoblotting, or alternatively by SDS-PAGE followed by immunoblotting using antibodies specifically recognizing the PKA-phosphorylated form of the substrate. In prophase oocytes, the expressed protein, myr-HA-β2AR-C, was fully phosphorylated on a single PKA site (Ser346 of human β2 adrenergic receptor). Within one hour of the addition of progesterone, the PKA site became mostly dephosphorylated. No re-phosphorylation of the PKA site, and therefore no reactivation of PKA, was observed throughout the entire maturation process. To demonstrate the generality of this PKA substrate, we analyzed its phosphorylation status in COS-7 cells following transfection. We show that dibutyryl cAMP rapidly stimulates phosphorylation of the PKA site. These results represent the first biochemical demonstration of regulation of endogenous Xenopus oocyte PKA by progesterone. Furthermore, myr-HA-β2AR-C should be widely adaptable as an in vivo PKA activity indicator.
Privacy Preserving Generalized Coherent Rule Mining

In coherent rule mining, an association rule should only be reported when there is enough interest gain claimed during inference analysis in the data. Coherent rule mining algorithm contemplated by Sim et al (11) discovers interesting patterns based on the logical evidences in the data irrespective of how frequent they are. The discovery of coherent rules does not require user to preset a minimum support threshold. The authors proposed a generalized coherent rule mining algorithm which discovers all possible interesting patterns for the given transactional dataset. The pruning process is introduced to speed up the generation of coherent patterns by removing candidate itemsets that may not become coherent itemsets. The authors also developed a novel privacy preserving algorithm for coherent rule mining framework. Coherent rule mining discovers both frequent and infrequent interesting patterns. Hence it is a new task to hide sensitive coherent itemsets. The traditional privacy preserving algorithms are not applicable for coherent itemsets. The objective of the proposed framework is to obtain a balance between privacy preserving and discovery of information.
Practitioners Views on Web Development : An Industrial Survey by Semi-Structured Interviews

Several companies with experience in web development were interviewed about aspects of software engineering (SE) when developing Web applications. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to investigate their development processes, quality assurance (including metrics used) and tool support. The interviews are a first stage of empirical assessment. Among research observations identified are the lack of methods, activities and artefacts to reflect hypermedia characteristics (structure, content and navigation) of web applications. Another finding highlights the difficulties and lack of rigour when planning web-based applications because of the novelty of this type of application. In general, quality is assessed in an ad-hoc manner, without following any process or guidelines. Equally, reuse is also carried out in an ad-hoc manner and sometimes components are developed from scratch because developers do not trust the quality of the components or the sources. Last but not least, there is a lack of quantitative feedback to quality improvements of both processes and products related to web development. Future work will investigate some of the issues raised from the interviews. Investigations will consist of evaluating different hypermedia methods and processes to model Web applications (e.g., extending UML) by means of sound quality models such as ISO9216, ISO15504, etc. Further, our approach will incorporate quality metrics in the development processes by which could be automated and analysed to estimate and enhance quality characteristics of the software process itself and those of the product.
Supplier Evasion of a Buyer ’ s Audit : Implications for Auditing and Compliance with Labor and Environmental Standards

Deadly factory fires. Illegal pollution. Injured workers. Many brands have recently been tarnished by publicity of suppliers’ labor and environmental violations, and have responded by increasing their auditing efforts. Anecdotal evidence suggests that “hiding”—supplier efforts to pass an audit through deception or corruption—is prevalent. Under that condition, we show analytically that increasing auditing backfires by increasing hiding effort and reducing a supplier’s effort to comply with labor and environmental standards. Similarly, increasing a supplier’s margin (by paying a higher price or providing training that improves its productivity) promotes hiding and reduces compliance effort. Increasing effort by NGOs to publicly expose violations also does so. To promote compliance, NGOs and buyers should instead collaborate to make hiding more costly and difficult for suppliers. More generally, we provide guidance for a buyer on how the optimal level of auditing varies with a supplier’s hiding and compliance capabilities, both firms’ contribution margins, the likelihood that an NGO will publicize a violation, and other salient aspects of the business environment.
A critical evaluation of gestural stiffness estimations in speech production based on a linear second-order model.

PURPOSE Linear second-order models have often been used to investigate properties of speech production. However, these models are inaccurate approximations of the speech apparatus. This study aims at assessing how reliably stiffness can be estimated from kinematics with these models. METHOD Articulatory movements were collected for 9 speakers of German during the production of reiterant CVCV words at varying speech rates. Velocity peaks, movement amplitudes, and gesture durations were measured. In the context of an undamped model, 2 stiffness estimations were compared that should theoretically yield the same result. In the context of a damped model, gestural stiffness and damping were calculated for each gesture. RESULTS Numerous cases were found in which stiffness estimations based on the undamped model contradicted each other. Less than 80% of the data were found to be compatible with the properties of the damped model. Stiffness tends to decrease with gestural duration. However, it is associated with a large, unrealistic damping dispersion, making stiffness estimations from kinematic data to a large extent unreliable. CONCLUSION Any conclusions about speech control based on stiffness estimations using linear second-order models should therefore be considered with caution.
Fault Tolerant Control for Quadrotor via Backstepping Approach

Different from the previous work for quadrotor which mostly discusses application of different controllers to quadrotor control under normal flight conditions, this paper introduces a new design strategy which considers fault tolerant capability of the quadrotor control problems. By utilizing Passive Fault Tolerant Control Systems (PFTCS) concept with backstepping control approach, the trajectory tracking control of the quadrotor UAV has been achieved and simulation results have shown the effectiveness of the proposed backstepping control with higher controller gains when different levels of actuator faults occur in the quadrotor UAV.
Granularity Metrics for Web Services

Many publications discuss the design of fine-or coarse-grained web services without defining what granularity exactly means. However, this is important to know since the service granularity influence e.g. the reusability or the composition effort of web services and thus the resulting development, maintenance and composition costs of a service realization. Therefore, we present different metrics to evaluate and compare the granularity of various service realizations of a process where each metric represents a different perspective on service granularity. In addition, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these metrics and argue, that usually the combination of the metrics allows a reasonable measurement of service granularity. Furthermore, we illustrate that the proposed metrics may constitute a first step towards the evaluation of the total costs of various service realizations. The application of the metrics as well as the discussion of the practical benefits is illustrated by a real world case.
miR-497 expression, function and clinical application in cancer

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that inhibit gene expression by binding to the 3′ untranslated region (3′-UTR) of their target mRNAs. Recent studies show that miR-497 plays an important role in various cancers. Here, we summarize the existing studies of miR-497 as following: (1) miR-497 expression in cancer; (2) regulation mechanisms of miR-497 expression; (3) function of miR-497 in cancer; (4) direct targets of miR-497; (5) Clinical applications of miR-497. Recent analyses verify that miR-497 mainly suppresses tumors; however, it also acts as an oncogene in several cancers. Increasing evidence indicates that miR-497 can serve as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker and is a promising therapeutic target for future clinical applications.
Enabling Dominance Resistance in Visualisable Distance-Based Many-Objective Problems

The results when optimising most multi- and many-objective problems are difficult to visualise, often requiring sophisticated approaches for compressing information into planar or 3D representations, which can be difficult to decipher. Given this, distance-based test problems are attractive: they can be constructed such that the designs naturally lie on the plane, and the Pareto set elements easy to identify. As such, distance-based problems have gained in popularity as a way to visualise the distribution of designs maintained by different optimisers. Some taxing problem aspects (many-to-one mappings and multi-modality) have been embedded into planar distance-based test problems, although the full range of problem characteristics which exist in other test problem frameworks (deceptive fronts, degeneracy, etc.) have not. Here we present an augmentation to the distance-based test problem formulation which induces dominance resistance regions, which are otherwise missing from these test problems. We illustrate the performance of two popular optimisers on test problems generated from this framework, and highlight particular problems with evolutionary search that can manifest due to the problem characteristics.