Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distributed cohesive configuration control for swarm robots with boundary information and network sensing

In this paper, we present flocking with cohesive configuration control - motion controllers that allow multiple robots to move through the environment as a coherent group while maintaining connectivity and density invariants. We start with a flocking controller from the literature. First, we produce a boundary force on robots that are on the internal and external boundaries of the configuration. This removes concave regions of the boundary, producing a convex configuration with uniform density. Second, we solve interstitial lattice errors caused by robots clumping too close together by moving them towards the boundary with a clump remover algorithm. Finally, we determine when a configuration is on the verge of disconnecting by identifying local articulation points; regions where the removal of a single robot will change the local topology. When one is detected, we switch modes to a clustering algorithm that draws robots to the vulnerable region. The combination of these algorithms produces a cohesive configuration controller. We verify our resulting controller with simulations from random initial conditions and selected extreme cases. Simulation results show the controller successfully forms a configuration with natural resting density in twelve of trials and maintains connectivity in twelve trials. We also provide real-world experiments to show that proposed algorithms work under low-resolution sensor platforms.
New Linkages for a Complex Inclusive Education: Third World Feminism, Post-Positivist Realism and Disability Studies

Abstract This chapter describes the contribution of Third World feminism for a materially grounded understanding of inclusive education that can make the transnational significance of this field more robust and enduring. The work of Third World feminist scholar, C. T. Mohanty, forms the central focus of the discussion, which develops linkages between the philosophical roots of her teachings and the work of some disability studies scholars. I argue that a historical-materialist understanding of disability is necessary for developing a nuanced theory of inclusive education that confers significance to the element of process. This supports a more expansive conceptualization of inclusive education that can avoid the theory-practice divide which leaves schooling systems around the world at hierarchized locations of ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in realizing its principles.
Granule Neuron Regulation of Purkinje Cell Development: Striking a Balance Between Neurotrophin and Glutamate Signaling

Granule neurons, presynaptic afferents of Purkinje cells, are potent regulators of Purkinje cell development. Purified Purkinje cells survive and differentiate poorly, whereas coculture with granule neurons enhances their survival and dendritic development. Here we investigate the role of neurotrophins in granule–Purkinje cell interactions. BDNF or NT-4 improves, but NT-3 or CNTF reduces, survival of isolated Purkinje cells. When granule neurons are present, however, BDNF or NT-4 treatment leads to Purkinje cell loss. This decrease is overcome by anti-BDNF or TrkB-IgG-blocking reagents or by CNQX, a non-NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist. Furthermore, BDNF increases the spine density on the surviving Purkinje cells. These results suggest that Purkinje cell survival and differentiation are context-dependent and require a balance between neurotrophin- and activity-dependent signaling.
Gesture signals processing for a silent spybot

In the modern era, robots have become an integral part of human life. In a world where humans and robots need to coexist, it is important to evolve more natural and easy communication mechanisms for human-machine interaction. The communication mechanism needs to be `easy' more for humans, than machines. One such mechanism can be developed by using natural gestures of the humans. In this paper, a prototype silent spybot is developed that operates by processing the gesture commands signal. The prototype uses video processing with object tracking algorithm to understand the gesture commands. The spybot is programmed to interpret the gesture command signal and navigate according to hand gestures, sensed by a video camera operating within a short range. The gesture commands can be used for controlling the spybot's functions such as movement of the robot, or other operations of the robot, silently. Performance evaluation is carried out through various environments, with encouraging results. As a possible application, a spy robot that captures images from target places silently and sends the spied data to a host computer, is also demonstrated.
Making social science matter 1: how the local state works in rural Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal

The state in its efforts to meet the needs of the poor has four major functions of governance - developmental, empowermental, protective and disciplinary. This paper, based on fieldwork across the rural areas in three states, probes the Employment Assurance Scheme to understand the state's performance on these parameters as well as aspects of participation, governance and political society. What is revealed is the complexity and divergence of state action - conflicts within and between different agencies of the state, as also the challenges posed to these agencies by civil and political society groups. Also clear is that the participation of the poor in development programmes cannot easily be stepped up in the absence of supporting actors in political society. Part I of the paper presents the initial findings as they relate to the development and empowerment functions of the state. Part II, to be published next week, will develop the argument further through discussion of an 'action research' project that followed on from the authors' 'academic' research.
Highway Rest Areas simultaneous energy optimization and user satisfaction

Highway Rest areas have the opportunity to intelligently handle workload induced by customer arrivals so as to minimize energy consumption. Patterns of vehicle arrivals during the day can be automatically identified and proper action can be taken. Using some aspects of the Smart Meters, Smart Appliances and the Internet of Things, significant energy savings might be accumulated by temporarily switching off, or operating in economy mode if possible, certain appliances. In this case study a rest area featuring a number of electrical appliances is modeled and examined through a simulation. Useful findings are drawn about modes of operation that hit a balance between energy savings and customer service quality. In order to identify these modes of operation a multi-objective optimization problem is formulated and then solved using the genetic algorithm NSGA-II that returns the desired Pareto front. A human operator can then, by critically examining the different modes in the Pareto front, decide which operation mode is best suited for the problem at hand.
DC Position Control System - Determination of Parameters and Significance on System Dynamics

Physical systems used for control applications require proper control methodologies to obtain the desired response. Controller parameters used in such applications have to be tuned properly for obtaining the desired response from the systems. Tuning controller parameters depends on the physical parameters of the systems. Therefore, the physical parameters of the systems have to be known. Number of techniques has been developed for finding the mechanical parameters of motors. But, no straightforward method has been established for estimating the parameters of the load so far. This paper presents a method of determining mechanical parameters viz. moment of inertia and friction coefficient of motor & load. This paper also stresses that load parameters have appreciable effect on the dynamic response of systems and have to be determined. A DC servo position control system is considered for applying the method. Moment of inertia and friction coefficient of the DC servo motor as well as load are determined using the method. It is evident that moment of inertia and friction coefficient can be determined for any load arrangement using the proposed method. Effect of load on the system dynamics is emphasized by considering the PID controller tuning. It is found that PID controller when tuned based on estimated load parameters could yield optimum response. This justifies that load parameters have to be determined for dynamic load variations.
The Role of the Innovation Capitalist in Open Innovation

OVERVIEW: An innovation capitalist can help companies manage the organizational and managerial challenges inherent in sourcing innovation externally. Innovation capitalists are innovation intermediaries; they mediate large firms' interactions with external sources of innovation. In particular, innovation capitalists seek out promising new ideas from independent inventors and other sources, invest in those ideas to transform them into market-ready concepts, and sell (or license) the related intellectual property to large client firms. Drawing on a case study of an innovation capitalist firm that focuses on sourcing ideas and technologies from universities and national labs and placing them in large global technology companies, the article suggests organizational strategies and practices that can enhance the success of open innovation initiatives involving innovation intermediaries.
Effects of High Intensity Training and High Volume Training on Endothelial Microparticles and Angiogenic Growth Factors

Aims Endothelial microparticles (EMP) are complex vesicular structures shed from activated or apoptotic endothelial cells. As endurance exercise affects the endothelium, the objective of the study was to examine levels of EMP and angiogenic growth factors following different endurance exercise protocols. Methods 12 subjects performed 3 different endurance exercise protocols: 1. High volume training (HVT; 130 min at 55% peak power output (PPO); 2. 4×4 min at 95% PPO; 3. 4×30 sec all-out. EMPs were quantified using flow cytometry after staining platelet-poor-plasma. Events positive for Annexin-V and CD31, and negative for CD42b, were classified as EMPs. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), migratory inhibiting factor (MIF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) were determined by ELISA technique. For all these measurements venous blood samples were taken pre, 0′, 30′, 60′ and 180′ after each intervention. Furthermore, in vitro experiments were performed to explore the effect of collected sera on target endothelial functions and MP uptake capacities. Results VEGF and HGF significantly increased after HIT interventions. All three interventions caused a significant decrease in EMP levels post exercise compared to pre values. The sera taken after exercise increased the uptake of EMP in target endothelial cells compared to sera taken under resting conditions, which was shown to be phosphatidylserin-dependent. Increased EMP uptake was associated with an improved protection of target cells against apoptosis. Sera taken prior and after exercise promoted target endothelial cell migration, which was abrogated after inhibition of VEGF. Conclusion Physical exercise leads to decreased EMP levels and promotes a phosphatidylserin-dependent uptake of EMP into target endothelial cells, which is associated with a protection of target cells against apoptosis.
Proposal for Master Thesis in Software Engineering

Background: Quality systems like ISO 9000:2000 and the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) [4] describe criteria for good processes [10], but they do not describe a particular instantiation for such a process. This instantiation is up to the organisation implementing the quality system and it is a general perception that such an instantiation always creates bureaucracy and paper work. The before mentioned quality systems were developed for large organisations, therefore they seem not to be applicable for small organisations at all. Previous studies [6, 5, 8, e. g. ] have taken this as a starting point to develop quality systems tailored for small organisations. Those studies have for example identified the most crucial problems through industry wide surveys [6, 8, e. g. ] and focused their quality systems around solutions for those problem areas. In this study a small German software company with 35 employees at 2 different locations (Halle and Chemnitz, both Germany) is studied. The company develops a production planning and control system as a software product-line [1]. For each customer an individual version is created in a bespoke project. The company has only very few documented processes, from the quality system point of view the company is immature. Especially the impact of change requests on the whole product-line is not considered and no clear strategy for the development of the whole system exists. For example it can happen, that the same functionality is developed twice for different customers. Also requirements elicitation [3, e. g. ] is considered to be not very effective, because it is too dependent on the ability of the conducting project manager.
Connecting Users with Similar Interests across Multiple Web Services

Most online social networking services provide a feature for users to build groups. The web service has both user profiles describing user interests and behavior data such as browsing contents. It can assist users to join groups by recommending relevant groups. In this paper, we have proposed a novel method to connect users across multiple services based on user-labeled tags. Tags represent interests of a user and have advantages in terms of the privacy, up-to-dateness, and service coverage. We have collected tags from six popular web services. We have analyzed tag usage patterns and observed that the popularity of tags is highly skewed and dependent on the web services. We have also found that frequently used tags of a single user change over time. Through user study, we show that the vector space model combined with intra-personomy normalization is the promising to find other users with similar interests.
Integrating Data from Multiple Repositories to Analyze Patterns of Contribution in FOSS Projects

The majority of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developers are mobile and often use different identities in the projects or communities they participate in. These characteristics not only poses challenges for researchers studying the presence (where) and contributions (how much) of developers across multiple repositories, but may also require special attention when formulating appropriate metrics or indicators for the certification of both the FOSS product and process. In this paper, we present a methodology to study the patterns of contribution of 502 developers in both SVN and mailing lists in 20 GNOME projects. Our findings shows that only a small percentage of developers are contributing to both repositories and this cohort are making more commits than they are posting messages to mailing lists. The implications of these findings for our understanding of the patterns of contribution in FOSS projects and on the quality of the final product are discussed.
Design principles for the enhanced presentation of computer program source text

In order to make computer programs more readable, understandable, appealing, memorable, and maintainable, the presentation of program source text needs to be enhanced over its conventional treatment. Towards this end, we present five basic design principles for enhanced program visualization and a framework for applying these principles to particular programming languages. The framework deals comprehensively with ten fundamental areas that are central to the structure of programming languages. We then use the principles and the framework to develop a novel design for the effective presentation of source text in the C programming language.
Four Loci Explain 83% of Size Variation in the Horse

Horse body size varies greatly due to intense selection within each breed. American Miniatures are less than one meter tall at the withers while Shires and Percherons can exceed two meters. The genetic basis for this variation is not known. We hypothesize that the breed population structure of the horse should simplify efforts to identify genes controlling size. In support of this, here we show with genome-wide association scans (GWAS) that genetic variation at just four loci can explain the great majority of horse size variation. Unlike humans, which are naturally reproducing and possess many genetic variants with weak effects on size, we show that horses, like other domestic mammals, carry just a small number of size loci with alleles of large effect. Furthermore, three of our horse size loci contain the LCORL, HMGA2 and ZFAT genes that have previously been found to control human height. The LCORL/NCAPG locus is also implicated in cattle growth and HMGA2 is associated with dog size. Extreme size diversification is a hallmark of domestication. Our results in the horse, complemented by the prior work in cattle and dog, serve to pinpoint those very few genes that have played major roles in the rapid evolution of size during domestication.
Kinect based system and Artificial Neural Networks classifiers for physiotherapy assessment

This paper describes the development of a health monitoring platform for physiotherapy patients, particularly focused on the ones suffering from stroke disease. Using the Kinect sensor, the presented system intends to provide technical data about the patients that could help therapists during physiotherapy assessments. For helping quantifying the patients' performance, a mechanism for human poses and gestures recognition was built using a sequence of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). Furthermore, through remote physiotherapy our system helps ensuring the continuity of the treatments outside the clinics and a considerable cost reduction.
Revisiting old friends: is CoDel really achieving what RED cannot?

We use ns-2 simulations to compare RED's gentle_ mode to CoDel in terms of their ability to reduce the latency for various TCP variants. We use a common dumbbell topol- ogy with Pareto background traffic, and measure the packet delays and transmission time of a 10 MB FTP transfer. In our scenarios, we find that CoDel reduces the latency by 87%, but RED still manages to reduce it by 75%. However, the use of CoDel results in a transmission time 42% longer than when using RED. In light of its maturity, we therefore argue that RED could be considered as a good candidate to tackle Bufferbloat.
Preface : A Reflection of the Past , Present and Future of E-Government Research

Government and industry e-commerce agendas have become more closely linked in recent times and more people are now less tolerant of poor, impersonal service in the public sector as they become aware of the power of the web and experience good service in the private sector. With the advancement of Information and Communication Technologies, electronic government (e-government) has emerged as an effective means of delivering government services to citizens. It is in every government’s interest to make their public services more efficient and available in order to gain citizens’ trust, which has often eluded many governments and political leaders in modern society. While e-government has already established itself as the primary enabler for transforming the way government services are offered to citizens in developed countries, it is now beginning to show promising results in many developing countries. This article offers a reflective account of the key research themes that have emerged in the last few years in the International Journal of Electronic Government Research and in the wider published domain. The article suggests that e-government research has evolved from initially focusing on strategy and implementation issues to later examining adoption and diffusion of services from a citizen perspective, followed by exploring technical complexities of implementation and finally to the current studies of transformational government.
Study of dentate gyrus granule cells of female rats neonatally treated with sex hormones

This study was designed to determine whether adult neurogenesis occurs in the dentate gyrus of rats, and to explore the possibility that this process is regulated by the activation of sex hormones. The proliferation of hippocampal dentate gyrus granule cells was investigated using 80 nC; 3H thymidine incorporation in the first group andin the second grouph 80 μCi3H - thymidine and 1mg estrogene dipropionae. We proved the existence of a stronger proliferation of granule cells in SGZ GD in female rats. The third group of newborn female Wistar rats was treated at 4 and 8 a days of ageold with a single dose of 2 mg of testosterone propionate. We proved the existence of minor damages of granule cells in SGZ GD. In the fourth group treated at 15 days of age, a single dose of 4 mg testosterone propionate and sacrificed when 60 days old, we proved the existence of minor damages of granular cells in SGZ GD. Our results suggest a differential effect of sex hormones on dentate gyrus granule cells proliferation through early life in rats.
4G terminals: how are we going to design them?

Fourth-generation wireless communication systems (4G) have totally different requirements than what front-end designers have been coping with up to now. Designs must be targeted to multi-mode and reconfigurability, leading to the concept of a "software-defined radio". A large part of such a radio will be integrated into a complex SoC, where the substrate noise coupling problem must be solved. However, for an optimal implementation of the complete system, including PA, RF filters and antenna, different technologies must be combined in a single package, merging the worlds of microwave 's-parameter' designers and IC 'spice' designers. Design and simulation environments efficiently combining the assets of both are needed. At the same time, optimized mixed-signal radio architecture including digital compensation techniques that overcome the limitations and inaccuracies of the analog front-end must be developed. Again, efficiently designing and simulating such mixed analog/digital architectures requires an optimized tool capable of combining RF simulation techniques with digital system model simulation.