Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the basins of attraction of tapping mode atomic force microscopy with capillary force interactions

We numerically explore the nonlinear dynamics of the oscillating cantilever tip in tapping mode atomic force microscopy. The cantilever dynamics are determined by complex force interactions between the sample surface and the oscillating cantilever tip which are dominated by attractive, adhesive, and repulsive contributions depending on the instantaneous position of the cantilever. We use a model proposed by Zitzler et al that includes a capillary force interaction due to the thin film of water that covers all surfaces as a result of ambient humidity. As the cantilever approaches the surface a meniscus is formed and as the cantilever retracts this water layer forms a neck and eventually breaks. This introduces hysteresis since the formation of the meniscus and the breaking of the water neck occur at different spatial locations during an oscillation of the cantilever. Using forward-time simulation with event handling techniques tailored for situations with rapid changes in force interactions we find three classes of steady-state dynamics: (i) a branch of solutions with periodic dynamics and large amplitude of oscillation; (ii) a branch of solutions with periodic dynamics and small amplitude of oscillation; (iii) windows of irregular aperiodic dynamics. We quantify the global basins of attraction for these solutions by performing a large set of numerical simulations over a wide range of initial conditions. Our findings provide a useful framework for further studies interested in controlling these dynamics. © 2007 ASME
Food Insecurity and Social Capital Among Middle School Students

This study examines the relationship between social capital, poverty, limited food accessibility, and food insecurity among fifth to seventh graders (N = 317), ages 10 to 14, attending a middle school in Northwest Arkansas. Using survey data that overcomes methodological limitations of previous research on youth food insecurity, we answer the following questions: Does social capital have a direct impact on youth food insecurity? And, does social capital buffer the influence of negative circumstances on youth food insecurity? The broader theoretical question asks “In places where there is an abundance of natural, economic, and technological resources, what stands in the way of consistent access to food for everyone? ” Regression analysis finds that various indicators of social capital have a significant relationship with food insecurity even after controlling for multiple sociodemographic and circumstantial factors. In addition, significant moderating effects reveal the unique capability of two-parent households to buffer the impact of poverty and limited accessibility.
Querying and Updating the File

We show how structured data stored in files can benefit from standard database technology and in particular be queried and updated using database languages. We introduce the notion of structuring schema which consists of a grammar annotated with database programs and of a database schema. We study the translation from structured strings to databases, and the converse. We adapt optimization techniques from relational databases to our context.
Using embodied audio-visual interaction to promote social encounters around large media façades

In this paper we describe the design of a large-scale interactive light and music intervention on a corporate high rise building and its surrounding urban area. Designing for interaction with media façades has traditionally posed challenges regarding proxemics, scale of the augmented architecture and placement of interactive spaces. With the increasing availability and affordability of interactive technologies, factors such as playability and tangibility are assumed not only to be present but also to enable richer collective experiences. We propose a new approach for interaction with large media façades employing embodied audio-visual interaction at the floor level. That way, the floor level serves as proxy for interacting with the media façade whilst facilitating social encounters. We discuss aspects considered during different phases of the project development and derive principles for connecting zones of proxemics, promoting encounters by distributing the performance, designing for urban activation and isolating implementation concerns.
Generating Templates of Entity Summaries with an Entity-Aspect Model and Pattern Mining

In this paper, we propose a novel approach to automatic generation of summary templates from given collections of summary articles. This kind of summary templates can be useful in various applications. We first develop an entity-aspect LDA model to simultaneously cluster both sentences and words into aspects. We then apply frequent subtree pattern mining on the dependency parse trees of the clustered and labeled sentences to discover sentence patterns that well represent the aspects. Key features of our method include automatic grouping of semantically related sentence patterns and automatic identification of template slots that need to be filled in. We apply our method on five Wikipedia entity categories and compare our method with two baseline methods. Both quantitative evaluation based on human judgment and qualitative comparison demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of our method.
L’abandon en formation à distance

Cette contribution questionne l’abandon des apprenants en formation ouverte a distance (FOAD) au prisme de la dimension socioaffective, c’est-a-dire de l’ensemble des sentiments et emotions vehicules dans et par les relations sociales entre les acteurs du dispositif de formation (enseignants, autres apprenants, proches), et de la dimension motivationnelle. Il s’agira de comprendre comment, en depit de l’eventuelle solitude que peut induire l’isolement en formation a distance, les apprenants perseverent jusqu’au terme de leur parcours, notamment grâce a autrui, ou au contraire sont contraints a l’abandon. La question de la motivation initiale ayant conduit a l’inscription en formation sera egalement abordee. Ce phenomene sera etudie a partir d’une enquete realisee en deux temps (en debut et en cours de formation) aupres de 490 apprenants a distance, permettant notamment de voir en quoi les ecarts entre attentes et vecu de la FOAD sont d’eventuels facteurs d’abandon. Nous proposerons in fine d’etablir une liste de profils « a risque », a fort potentiel d’abandon.
Longitudinally Independent Matching and Arbitrary Wave Patterning Using $\varepsilon$ -Near-Zero Channels

We experimentally verify the unusual radiation properties of sources placed inside and in the neighborhood of effective ε-near-zero narrow (ENZ) channels. By utilizing the unique properties of a narrow waveguide channel operated at cutoff, a static-like uniformly enhanced electric field distribution can be induced at microwave frequencies over long distances. First, we show how this field uniformity provides a mechanism for position-invariant impedance matching for localized sources placed within the channel, enabling a unique coaxial-to-waveguide matching highly invariant to discontinuities. We then extend these concepts to sources placed outside the ENZ channels, realizing a microwave lens with unique radiation patterning properties. The realized ENZ lens is experimentally demonstrated under several excitation conditions, highlighting the possibility of tailoring the impinging wavefront with large flexibility.
InfoXtract location normalization: a hybrid approach to geographic references in information extraction

Ambiguity is very high for location names. For example, there are 23 cities named 'Buffalo' in the U.S. Based on our previous work, this paper presents a refined hybrid approach to geographic references using our information extraction engine InfoXtract. The InfoXtract location normalization module consists of local pattern matching and discourse co-occurrence analysis as well as default senses. Multiple knowledge sources are used in a number of ways: (i) pattern matching driven by local context, (ii) maximum spanning tree search for discourse analysis, and (iii) applying default sense heuristics and extracting default senses from the web. The results are benchmarked with 96% accuracy on our test collections that consist of both news articles and tourist guides. The performance contribution for each component of the module is also benchmarked and discussed.
A Novel Sensor Web System for Tracking and Surveillance

Current sensor network technology for detection and tracking are focused solely in terms of static networks and suffers from device specific inadequacies such as lack of coverage, power and fault tolerance. Failing nodes result in coverage loss or breakage in connectivity and hence there is a pressing need for a robust system. In this work a unique sensor network is fielded that uses multiple frequencies and transmit powers to improve coverage. A novel approach to track a sensor node is also presented. Simulation data is compared to experimental results for validation.
iSocialMash: Convergence of social networks and services composition on a mashup framework

Facilitated by advanced Web technologies, service mashups are currently popular for composing new value-added applications. Mashup developers might often struggle to locate the relevant and appropriate services to satisfy their dynamic and personalized requirements. This paper proposes the concept of iSocialMash, a framework that assists the rapid, on-demand and intuitive composition of service mashups, by leveraging social networks. There two key observations guiding the development of iSocialMash. On the one hand, social networks can capture both common interests and personal preferences of different users in the same or similar application contexts; they might use similar candidate services and glue them together in similar manner. On the other hand, social networks can identify potential value-added composition of mashups; different users might have complementary collaboration opportunities for newly emergent goals. iSocialMash exploits the successful experiences of social networks to provide users with useful composition recommendations (such as missing or potentially proper services as well as connections between them). Capturing such composition knowledge, the users are presented by a set of ranked recommendations from which they can choose for their personalized needs. In iSocialMash, the data model leverages the social tagging to enrich the semantics and simplify the presentation and extraction of composition knowledge. We model the composition knowledge into some mashup patterns to accommodate different social networks interactions, and generate on-the-fly recommendations according to user personal requirements. We also experimentally evaluate the efficiency of our approach and present the current status of the prototype.
Distinguishing Pedestrians Facing to the Front and the Side by Gait Observation

In this paper, we propose a method to distinguish pedestrians facing to the front and the side by using a low resolution and quality surveillance image sequence. In the past, there have been many methods to estimate the head orientation of a pedestrian. However, because all these methods use facial texture information to achieve the goal, it is difficult to apply the methods to a low resolution and quality image sequence that does not include enough information. Therefore, we focus on the gait change of a pedestrian, which can be acquired even from a low-resolution silhouette sequence. Experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method by using low-resolution image sequences of over one hundred subjects.
Glucose-Stimulated Calcium Dynamics in Islets of Langerhans in Acute Mouse Pancreas Tissue Slices

In endocrine cells within islets of Langerhans calcium ions couple cell stimulation to hormone secretion. Since the advent of modern fluorimetry, numerous in vitro studies employing primarily isolated mouse islets have investigated the effects of various secretagogues on cytoplasmic calcium, predominantly in insulin-secreting beta cells. Due to technical limitations, insights of these studies are inherently limited to a rather small subpopulation of outermost cells. The results also seem to depend on various factors, like culture conditions and duration, and are not always easily reconcilable with findings in vivo. The main controversies regard the types of calcium oscillations, presence of calcium waves, and the level of synchronized activity. Here, we set out to combine the in situ acute mouse pancreas tissue slice preparation with noninvasive fluorescent calcium labeling and subsequent confocal laser scanning microscopy to shed new light on the existing controversies utilizing an innovative approach enabling the characterization of responses in many cells from all layers of islets. Our experiments reproducibly showed stable fast calcium oscillations on a sustained plateau rather than slow oscillations as the predominant type of response in acute tissue slices, and that calcium waves are the mechanistic substrate for synchronization of oscillations. We also found indirect evidence that even a large amplitude calcium signal was not sufficient and that metabolic activation was necessary to ensure cell synchronization upon stimulation with glucose. Our novel method helped resolve existing controversies and showed the potential to help answer important physiological questions, making it one of the methods of choice for the foreseeable future.
Security and Composability of Randomness Expansion from Bell Inequalities

The nonlocal behavior of quantum mechanics can be used to generate guaranteed fresh randomness from an untrusted device that consists of two nonsignalling components; since the generation process requires some initial fresh randomness to act as a catalyst, one also speaks of randomness expansion. R. Colbeck and A. Kent [J. Phys. A 44, 095305 (2011)] proposed the first method for generating randomness from untrusted devices, but without providing a rigorous analysis. This was addressed subsequently by S. Pironio et al. [Nature (London) 464, 1021 (2010)], who aimed at deriving a lower bound on the min-entropy of the data extracted from an untrusted device based only on the observed nonlocal behavior of the device. Although that article succeeded in developing important tools for reaching the stated goal, the proof itself contained a bug, and the given formal claim on the guaranteed amount of min-entropy needs to be revisited. In this paper we build on the tools provided by Pironio et al. and obtain a meaningful lower bound on the min-entropy of the data produced by an untrusted device based on the observed nonlocal behavior of the device. Our main result confirms the essence of the (improperly formulated) claims of Pironio et al. and puts them on solid ground. We also address the question of composability and show that different untrusted devices can be composed in an alternating manner under the assumption that they are not entangled. This enables superpolynomial randomness expansion based on two untrusted yet unentangled devices.
Life cycle stage and water depth affect flooding-induced adventitious root formation in the terrestrial species Solanum dulcamara.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Flooding can occur at any stage of the life cycle of a plant, but often adaptive responses of plants are only studied at a single developmental stage. It may be anticipated that juvenile plants may respond differently from mature plants, as the amount of stored resources may differ and morphological changes can be constrained. Moreover, different water depths may require different strategies to cope with the flooding stress, the expression of which may also depend on developmental stage. This study investigated whether flooding-induced adventitious root formation and plant growth were affected by flooding depth in Solanum dulcamara plants at different developmental stages. METHODS Juvenile plants without pre-formed adventitious root primordia and mature plants with primordia were subjected to shallow flooding or deep flooding for 5 weeks. Plant growth and the timing of adventitious root formation were monitored during the flooding treatments. KEY RESULTS Adventitious root formation in response to shallow flooding was significantly constrained in juvenile S. dulcamara plants compared with mature plants, and was delayed by deep flooding compared with shallow flooding. Complete submergence suppressed adventitious root formation until up to 2 weeks after shoots restored contact with the atmosphere. Independent of developmental stage, a strong positive correlation was found between adventitious root formation and total biomass accumulation during shallow flooding. CONCLUSIONS The potential to deploy an escape strategy (i.e. adventitious root formation) may change throughout a plant's life cycle, and is largely dependent on flooding depth. Adaptive responses at a given stage of the life cycle thus do not necessarily predict how the plant responds to flooding in another growth stage. As variation in adventitious root formation also correlates with finally attained biomass, this variation may form the basis for variation in resistance to shallow flooding among plants.
Secure Server Switching System

Protective measures for server invasions should not solely focus on events before an invasion occur. Recording and monitoring successful server invasions with endless streams of security mechanisms should be employed attentively to reduce the loss of data due to successful intrusion attacks on any system. Overlooking this will inevitably lead to detrimental data loss and stray away from the key issue of limiting the time an unauthorized user has on the system. This paper presents an implementation of embedded system technology developed in a host control module group in which the entire server achieves coordinated group allocation of resources combined with a larger number of group hosts designed to meet demand. The proposed security server switching system redundancy to prevent system failures, errors, and interruptions, accompanied with the ever so important theory of fault-tolerance for grace degradation purposes.
Human-computer Interaction Using Real Time 3d Hand Tracking

This paper describes a real time system for human computer interaction through gesture recognition and three-dimensional hand tracking. We use one camera that is focused at the user's hand, with an attached small rigid dark square. The system can recognize in real time the gesture and track the hand in three dimensions. The system uses a SIMD real time image processing board for low and intermediate level image processing operations.
VANET topology based routing protocols & performance of AODV, DSR routing protocols in random waypoint scenarios

Vehicular Ad-hoc Network is a new technology in the modern era and due to road accident daily occurrence which has taken enormous attention in the recent years. Because of rapid topology changing and frequent disconnection makes it difficult to design an efficient routing protocol for routing data among vehicles, called V2V or vehicle to vehicle communication and vehicle to road side infrastructure, called V2I. To design of an efficient routing protocol has taken significant attention because existing routing protocols for VANET are not efficient to meet every traffic scenarios. For this reason it is very necessary to identify which protocol is better. By using simulation of protocols we can understand existing routing protocols behavior. In this research paper, we focus on VANET topology based routing protocols and also measure the performance of two on-demand routing protocols AODV & DSR in random waypoint scenario.
A calculation method of the distribution of cluster heads for balancing energy consumption in multi-hop heterogeneous networks

In the multi-hop wireless sensor networks, heterogeneous and clustered, energy consumption of nodes are usually unbalanced. To solve it, a calculation method of the distribution of cluster heads is proposed in our paper. Based on the theory of load-balanced, cluster heads in the networks are located to different regions according to their energy consumption. Certainly, the cluster heads nearby the base station, which consume energy excessively for relaying a mass of data, are denser than those in other areas. Therefore, the energy consumption of whole network would be balanced and subsequently, the lifetime of networks would be prolonged. The results of simulation experiments finally validate the correctness and effectiveness of this method.
Performance Modeling of Distributed Object-Oriented Database Systems

A simulation model has been designed to evaluate the performance of distributed object-oriented database systems. By adjusting parameters, a variety of different hardware configurations and workloads can be represented. The model has been used to study a number of performance issues relating to ORION-2, a distributed object-oriented database system being developed by the Advanced Computer Architecture Program at MCC. Experiments show that the central server or the local area network can be a performance bottleneck.
The Aging Investor: Insights from Neuroeconomics

Individuals in most industrialized countries have to make investment decisions throughout their adult life span to save for their retirement. These decisions substantially affect their living standards in old age. Research on cognitive aging has already demonstrated several changes in cognitive functions (e.g., processing speed) that likely influence investment decisions. This review brings together research on behavioral and neural aspects of financial decision making and aging to advance knowledge on age-related changes in financial decision making. The dopaminergic system plays a key role in financial decision making, both in financial decisions from description and financial decisions from experience. Importantly, both dopaminergic neuromodulation and financial decision making change during healthy aging. Especially when the parameters of the return distribution have to be learned from experience, older adults show a different and suboptimal choice behavior compared to younger adults. Based on these observations we suggest ways to circumvent the age-related bias in financial decision making to improve older adultsâ€™ wealth.
Chemoresistance to doxorubicin induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition via upregulation of transforming growth factor β signaling in HCT116 colon cancer cells

Doxorubicin (Dox) is a commonly used chemotherapeutic drug in human colon cancer. However, it becomes increasingly ineffective with tumor progression, the underlying mechanism of which remains to be elucidated. Emerging evidence has led to the identification of an association between chemoresistance and the acquisition of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cancer. However, it remains to be elucidated whether this process is involved in the development of resistance to Dox in colon cancer. In HCT116 human colon cancer cells treated with Dox (50 nmol/l), EMT was induced, and transforming growth factor (TGF)β signaling and multi-drug resistant plasma membrane glycoprotein levels were significantly increased. By contrast, silencing of Smad4, using stable RNA interference, inhibited TGFβ signaling, reversed the process of EMT and markedly increased the sensitivity of HCT116 cells to Dox. The results of the present study suggested that the combination of Dox with the downregulation of TGFβ signaling may be a potential novel therapeutic strategy with which to overcome chemoresistance during colon cancer chemotherapy.