Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Single ion implantation for single donor devices using Geiger mode detectors

Electronic devices that are designed to use the properties of single atoms such as donors or defects have become a reality with recent demonstrations of donor spectroscopy, single photon emission sources, and magnetic imaging using defect centers in diamond. Ion implantation, an industry standard for atom placement in materials, requires augmentation for single ion capability including a method for detecting a single ion arrival. Integrating single ion detection techniques with the single donor device construction region allows single ion arrival to be assured. Improving detector sensitivity is linked to improving control over the straggle of the ion as well as providing more flexibility in lay-out integration with the active region of the single donor device construction zone by allowing ion sensing at potentially greater distances. Using a remotely located passively gated single ion Geiger mode avalanche diode (SIGMA) detector we have demonstrated 100% detection efficiency at a distance of >75 µm from the center of the collecting junction. This detection efficiency is achieved with sensitivity to ∼600 or fewer electron–hole pairs produced by the implanted ion. Ion detectors with this sensitivity and integrated with a thin dielectric, for example a 5 nm gate oxide, using low energy Sb implantation would have an end of range straggle of <2.5 nm. Significant reduction in false count probability is, furthermore, achieved by modifying the ion beam set-up to allow for cryogenic operation of the SIGMA detector. Using a detection window of 230 ns at 1 Hz, the probability of a false count was measured as ∼10−1 and 10−4 for operation temperatures of ∼300 K and ∼77 K, respectively. Low temperature operation and reduced false, ‘dark’, counts are critical to achieving high confidence in single ion arrival. For the device performance in this work, the confidence is calculated as a probability of >98% for counting one and only one ion for a false count probability of 10−4 at an average ion number per gated window of 0.015.
Memory-Based Shallow Parsing

We present a memory-based learning (MBL) approach to shallow parsing in which POS tagging, chunking, and identification of syntactic relations are formulated as memory-based modules. The experiments reported in this paper show competitive results, the F-value for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) treebank is: 93.8% for NP chunking, 94.7% for VP chunking, 77.1% for subject detection and 79.0% for object detection.
Capital humain, financement de la recherche, fécondité et croissance économique

Cette these fait l'objet de quatre chapitres. Dans le premier, nous formalisons l'idee de l'existence d'une interdependance entre la connaissance et le capital humain. Dans le deuxieme, nous apportons des eclaircissements sur le calcul de la valeur sociale d'une innovation, l'identification des distorsions qui empechent l'equilibre decentralise d'etre optimal, enfin, sur les facteurs qui induisent des investissements insuffisants dans le secteur de la recherche. Dans le chapitre 3, nous discutons de l'evolution des technologies de l'information et de la communication et de celle du droit de la propriete intellectuelle qui l'a suivie. Nous expliquons la nature de l'evolution de la pratique juridique, en mettant l'accent sur l'influence des evolutions technologiques ; puis, nous presentons un cadre d'analyse economique permettant de tenir compte de ces observations. Enfin, dans le chapitre 4, nous etudions les choix de fecondite des individus dans une economie ou le progres technologique est endogene. Dans notre analyse, le niveau de la croissance par tete peut etre positivement, negativement ou non correle avec la part des ressources allouees au secteur de la recherche.
Comparison of sources of exit fluence variation for IMRT

The fluence exiting a patient during beam delivery can be used as treatment delivery quality assurance, either by direct comparison with expected exit fluences or by backprojection to reconstruct the patient dose. Multiple possible sources of measured exit fluence deviations exist, including changes in the beam delivery and changes in the patient anatomy. The purpose of this work is to compare the deviations caused by these sources. Machine delivery-related variability is measured by acquiring multiple dosimetric portal images (DPIs) of several test fields without a patient/phantom in the field over a time period of 2 months. Patient anatomy-related sources of fluence variability are simulated by computing transmission DPIs for a prostate patient using the same incident fluence for 11 different computed tomography (CT) images of the patient anatomy. The standard deviation (SD) and maximum deviation of the exit fluence, averaged over 5 mm × 5 mm square areas, is calculated for each test set. Machine delivery fluence SDs as large as 1% are observed for a sample patient field and as large as 2.5% for a picket-fence dMLC test field. Simulations indicate that day-to-day patient anatomy variations induce exit fluence SDs as large as 3.5%. The largest observed machine delivery deviations are 4% for the sample patient field and 7% for the picket-fence field, while the largest difference for the patient anatomy-related source is 8.5%. Since daily changes in patient anatomy can result in substantial exit fluence deviations, care should be taken when applying fluence back-projection to ensure that such deviations are properly attributed to their source.
Erythrocytes deliver Tat to interferon‐γ‐treated human dendritic cells for efficient initiation of specific type 1 immune responses in vitro

Dendritic cells (DC) can represent an important target for vaccine development against viral infections. Here, we studied whether interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ) could improve the functions of DC and analyzed human red blood cells (RBC) as a delivery system for Tat protein. Monocyte‐derived DC were cultured in human serum and matured with monocyte‐conditioned medium (MCM) in the presence or not of IFN‐γ. Tat was conjugated to RBC (RBC‐Tat) through avidin‐biotin bridges. Stimulation of DC with IFN‐γ increased the release of interleukin (IL)‐12 and tumor necrosis factor‐α and inhibited the production of IL‐10. Moreover, IFN‐γ‐treated DC up‐regulated the release of CXCL10 (IP‐10) markedly and reduced the secretion of CCL17 TARC significantly, attracting preferentially T‐helper (Th)1 and Th2 cells, respectively. DC internalized RBC‐Tat efficiently. Compared with DC pulsed with soluble Tat, DC incubated with RBC‐Tat elicited specific CD4+ and CD8+ T‐cell responses at a much lower antigen dose. DC matured in the presence of MCM were more effective than immature DC in inducing T‐cell proliferation and IFN‐γ release. Finally, immature and mature DC exposed to IFN‐γ were better stimulators of allogeneic T cells and induced a higher IFN‐γ production from Tat‐specific CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In conclusion, erythrocytes appear an effective tool for antigen delivery into DC, and IFN‐γ could be used advantageously for augmenting the ability of DC to induce type 1 immune responses.
MicroRNA-127 Post-Transcriptionally Downregulates Sept7 and Suppresses Cell Growth in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cells

Background/Aims: Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common cancers worldwide. It has been suggested that microRNAs, a class of small regulatory RNAs, are associated with tumorigenesis by targeting the mRNAs of hundreds of genes that modulate a variety of biological processes, including cellular differentiation, apoptosis, metabolism, and proliferation. Methods/Results: we analyzed the expression levels of mir-127 in 33 HCC and non-cancerous tissues using qRT-PCR. MiR-127 is downregulated in 69.7% of HCC tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues, but its expression level is not correlated with the TNM stage, AFP level, or age. In vitro, miR-127 can arrest Huh7 at the G2/M phase and inhibit Huh7 cell proliferation. In an in vivo xenograft model, the overexpression of miR-127 can inhibit Huh7 cell tumorigenicity. The luciferase reporter and western blot results confirm that miR-127 downregulates Sept7 expression by targeting its 3'UTR. Furthermore, the knockdown of Sept7 has the same effect on cell proliferation as the overexpression of miR-127 in Huh7 cells. Conclusion: miR-127 plays a tumor-suppressor role and can serve as a potential diagnostic biomarker for HCC.
Design and analysis of series elasticity in closed-loop actuator force control

Series elastic actuators have a spring intentionally placed at the actuator output. Measuring the spring strain gives an accurate measurement for closed-loop actuator force control. The low spring stiffness allows for high control gain while maintaining actuator stability. This gives series elastic actuators many desirable properties including high bandwidth at moderate force amplitudes, low output impedance, large dynamic range, internal error rejection and tolerance to shock loading. However, as a consequence of the elasticity, the large force bandwidth capabilities of the actuator are reduced when operating at power saturation limits. Series elasticity is examined with three models. First, it is generalized by using a minimal actuator model. This mathematical model consists of an ideal velocity source actuator, linear spring and proportional controller. Series elasticity is then demonstrated in two case studies of physical actuator systems. The first is a linear hydraulic piston with a servo valve and the second is an electric motor with a geared linear transmission. Both case studies have a linear spring and low complexity control systems. The case studies are analyzed mathematically and verified with physical hardware. A series elastic actuator under simple closed-loop control is physically equivalent to a second order system. This means that an equivalent mass defined by the control system and physical parameters, is effectively in series with the physical spring connected to the actuator load. Nondimensional analysis of the dynamics clarifies important parametric relationships into a few key dimensionless groups and aids understanding when trying to scale the actuators. The physical equivalent abstractions and non-dimensional dynamic equations help in the development of guidelines for choosing a proper spring stiffness given required force, speed and power requirements for the actuator. Thesis Supervisor: Gill A. Pratt Title: Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
OF-SMED: An optimal foreground detection method in surveillance system for traffic monitoring

Foreground detection is a key procedure in video analysis such as object detection and tracking. Several foreground detection techniques and edge detectors have been developed until now but the problem is, usually it is difficult to obtain an optimal foreground due to weather, light, shadow and clutter interference. Background subtract is a common method in foreground detection. In background subtract noise appears at fixed place, when it is used to deal with long image sequence there may be much accumulate error in the foreground. In OF (Optical Flow) noise appears randomly and this covers long distance over long period of time. Optical flow cannot get rid of the light influences which result in background noises. To overcome this SMED (Separable Morphological Edge Detector) is used. SMED has robustness to light changing and even slight movement in the video sequence. This paper proposes a new foreground detection approach called OF and SMED which is more accurate in foreground detection and elimination of noises is very high. This approach is useful for efficient crowd and traffic monitoring, user friendly, highly automatic intelligent, computationally efficient system.
Risk-sharing or risk-taking ? Hedging , margins and incentives ∗

We develop an incentive-based theory of margins in the context of a tradeoff between the benefits of hedging in terms of enhanced risk-sharing and its costs in terms of financial instability. We model hedging as the design of a contract between a protection buyer, seeking to reduce his risk exposure, and a protection seller. If the seller learns that the hedge is likely to be loss-making for her even though actual losses have not materialized yet, her incentives to control the risk of her other positions (balance sheet risk) diminish. The seller’s risk-taking incentives limit hedging and generate endogenous counterparty risk. Margins improve incentives to control balance sheet risk and thus enhance the scope of hedging. ∗We would like to thank our discussants Ulf Axelson, Sugato Bhattacharyya, Bruce Carlin, Simon Gervais and seminar participants at the NBER Summer Institute, the 3rd Conference of the Paul Woolley Centre for the Study of Capital Market Dysfunctionality (LSE), the Carefin conference “Matching Stability and Performance” (Bocconi), the 6th MTS Conference on Financial Markets (London), the CEPR ESSFM meeting (Gerzensee), the Conference on Government Intervention and Moral Hazard in the Financial Sector (Bank of Norway), the Bank of Canada, Queen’s University, University Paris X, the University of Minho and the ECB. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the European Central Bank or the Eurosystem. †Toulouse School of Economics, email: biais@cict.fr ‡European Central Bank, Financial Research Division, email: florian.heider@ecb.int §European Central Bank, Financial Research Division, email: marie.hoerova@ecb.int
Performance of Graphene Mediated Saturable Absorber on Stable Mode-Locked Fiber Lasers Employing Different Nano-Dispersants

High-performance stable mode-locked fiber lasers (MLFLs) employing nano-composite polymer-graphene saturable absorber (SA) are demonstrated. The graphene layers were dispersed by two different dispersants including fluorinated MICA clay (MICA) and poly(oxyethylene)-segmented imide (POEM). Using the SA made by graphene dispersed in MICA with thickness and concentration product (TCP) of 36 (μ m*wt%), the MLFLs exhibited pulsewidth, 3-dB spectral bandwidth, and modulation depth (MD) of 393±14 fs, 6.6 nm, and 2.57%, respectively. By contrast, the graphene dispersed in POEM provides a TCP of 38 (μm*wt%) to make the MLFLs deliver pulsewidth, 3-dB spectral bandwidth, and MD of 442±32 fs, 5.9 nm, and 1.70%, respectively. In comparison, the graphene SA dispersed by MICA performs a better MLFL pulse quality and uniformity than that dispersed by POEM. Both MLFLs with SAs fabricated by graphene/MICA and graphene/POEM reveal shortened pulsewidth and enhanced MD as the TCP increases. This observation indicates that the TCP and MD serve as key parameters for characterizing the MLFL pulsewidth. In this study, the nano-MICA dispersant is used for the first time to fabricate the graphene-polymer based SA film and has demonstrated highly stable and uniform ML pulse laser output. Judicious selection of dispersants for dispersing graphene in a homogeneous state is essential for enhancing the MLFL performance. This stable and uniform mode-locked pulse formation by employing the novel graphene-mediated SA has proven the high performance MLFLs that potentially applicable for a myriad of low-cost nano-devices.
Driver Modeling for Detection and Assessment of Driver Distraction: Examples from the UTDrive Test Bed

Vehicle technologies have advanced significantly over the past 20 years, especially with respect to novel in-vehicle systems for route navigation, information access, infotainment, and connected vehicle advancements for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) connectivity and communications. While there is great interest in migrating to fully automated, self-driving vehicles, factors such as technology performance, cost barriers, public safety, insurance issues, legal implications, and government regulations suggest it is more likely that the first step in the progression will be multifunctional vehicles. Today, embedded controllers as well as a variety of sensors and high-performance computing in present-day cars allow for a smooth transition from complete human control toward semisupervised or assisted control, then to fully automated vehicles. Next-generation vehicles will need to be more active in assessing driver awareness, vehicle capabilities, and traffic and environmental settings, plus how these factors come together to determine a collaborative safe and effective driver-vehicle engagement for vehicle operation. This article reviews a range of issues pertaining to driver modeling for the detection and assessment of distraction. Examples from the UTDrive project are used whenever possible, along with a comparison to existing research programs. The areas addressed include 1) understanding driver behavior and distraction, 2) maneuver recognition and distraction analysis, 3) glance behavior and visual tracking, and 4) mobile platform advancements for in-vehicle data collection and human-machine interface. This article highlights challenges in achieving effective modeling, detection, and assessment of driver distraction using both UTDrive instrumented vehicle data and naturalistic driving data
Joint Structural Learning to Rank with Deep Linear Feature Learning

Multimedia information retrieval usually involves two key modules including effective feature representation and ranking model construction. Most existing approaches are incapable of well modeling the inherent correlations and interactions between them, resulting in the loss of the latent consensus structure information. To alleviate this problem, we propose a learning to rank approach that simultaneously obtains a set of deep linear features and constructs structure-aware ranking models in a joint learning framework. Specifically, the deep linear feature learning corresponds to a series of matrix factorization tasks in a hierarchical manner, while the learning-to-rank part concentrates on building a ranking model that effectively encodes the intrinsic ranking information by structural SVM learning. Through a joint learning mechanism, the two parts are mutually reinforced in our approach, and meanwhile their underlying interaction relationships are implicitly reflected by solving an alternating optimization problem. Due to the intrinsic correlations among different queries (i.e., similar queries for similar ranking lists), we further formulate the learning-to-rank problem as a multi-task problem, which is associated with a set of mutually related query-specific learning-to-rank subproblems. For computational efficiency and scalability, we design a MapReduce-based parallelization approach to speed up the learning processes. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency, effectiveness, and scalability of the proposed approach in multimedia information retrieval.
The Effects of Task Fluency and Concurrent Reinforcement Schedules on Student Choice Allocation between Math Tasks.

Students may avoid working on difficult tasks because it takes them longer to complete those tasks, which results in a delay to reinforcement. Research studies show that reinforcer and response dimensions can be manipulated within a concurrent operants framework to bias choice allocation toward more difficult tasks. The current study extends previous literature on concurrent choice assessments by examining the effects of reinforcement schedules and fluency interventions on the choice allocation between low and high effort math tasks. The study was conducted with 4 second graders in an elementary school. The choice assessment conducted prior to fluency training (Phase 1) examined the effects of enriching the reinforcement schedule for the high effort tasks on student choice. During fluency training (Phase 2), strategies to increase fluency rates on high effort tasks were implemented. The choice assessment following fluency training (Phase 3) examined changes in choice pattern when the same choice alternatives were available as in Phase 1. A concurrent schedules with reversal design was used to identify student response allocation to tasks under different reinforcement conditions during the choice assessments. The fluency training phase was conducted as a case study design. The three important findings of this study were: (a) Prior to fluency training, the 4 students allocated more time to low effort tasks when equal reinforcement was provided for both types of math tasks; the students then shifted to high effort tasks as the reinforcement schedule was enriched for these tasks; (b) fluency training strategies were effective in increasing the rate at which high effort tasks were accurately completed; and (c) all 4 students shifted more quickly to high effort tasks following fluency training. Implications for educators are discussed.
Beneficial effects of enriched environment on adolescent rats from stressed pregnancies

The capacity of an early environmental intervention to normalize the behavioural and immunological dysfunctions produced by a stressed pregnancy was investigated. Pregnant Sprague‐Dawley rats underwent three 45‐min sessions per day of prenatal restraint stress (PS) on gestation days 11–21, and their offspring were assigned to either an enriched‐environment or standard living cages throughout adolescence [postnatal days (pnd) 22–43]. Juvenile rats from stressed pregnancies had a prominent depression of affiliative/playful behaviour and of basal circulating CD4 T lymphocytes, CD8 T lymphocytes and T4/T8 ratio. They also showed increased emotionality and spleen and brain frontal cortex levels of pro‐inflammatory interleoukin‐1β (IL‐1β) cytokine. A more marked response to cyclophosphamide (CPA: two 2 mg/kg IP injections) induced immunosuppression was also found in prenatal stressed rats. Enriched housing increased the amount of time adolescent PS rats spent in positive species‐typical behaviours (i.e. play behaviour), reduced emotionality and reverted most of immunological alterations. In addition to its effects in PS rats, enriched housing increased anti‐inflammatory IL‐2 and reduced pro‐inflammatory IL‐1β production by activated splenocytes, also producing a marked alleviation of CPA‐induced immune depression. In the brain, enriched housing increased IL‐1β values in hypothalamus, while slightly normalizing these values in the frontal cortex from PS rats. This is a first indication that an environmental intervention, such as enriched housing, during adolescence can beneficially affect basal immune parameters and rats response to both early stress and drug‐induced immunosuppression.
A Symmetry Theorem in the Positron Theory

In the positron theory considerable interest attaches to the consideration of processes in which the occurrence of electrons and positrons is transitory only, such as the scattering of light by a Coulomb field (Delbruck), and the scattering of light by light (Euler and Kockel). Calculations of such effects can frequently be simplified on account of cancellations brought about by the distribution s symmetry between electrons and positrons. An abstract proof is here presented for the theorem which predicts the appearance of such cancellations in the general case. Certain modifications are found to be required when interactions other than the usual electric forces are introduced.
The grammar of sense: Using part-of-speech tags as a first step in semantic disambiguation

This paper describes two experiments: one exploring the amount of information relevant to sense disambiguation contained in the part-of-speech field of entries in a Machine Readable Dictionary (MRD); the other, more practical, experiment attempts sense disambiguation of all content words in a text assigning MRD homographs as sense tags using only part-of-speech information. We have implemented a simple sense tagger which successfully tags 94% of words using this method. A plan to extend this work and implement an improved sense tagger is included.