Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-Objective Policy Generation for Mobile Robots under Probabilistic Time-Bounded Guarantees

We present a methodology for the generation of mobile robot controllers which offer probabilistic time-bounded guarantees on successful task completion, whilst also trying to satisfy soft goals. The approach is based on a stochastic model of the robot’s environment and action execution times, a set of soft goals, and a formal task specification in co-safe linear temporal logic, which are analysed using multi-objective model checking techniques for Markov decision processes. For efficiency, we propose a novel two-step approach. First, we explore policies on the Pareto front for minimising expected task execution time whilst optimising the achievement of soft goals. Then, we use this to prune a model with more detailed timing information, yielding a time-dependent policy for which more fine-grained probabilistic guarantees can be provided. We illustrate and evaluate the generation of policies on a delivery task in a care home scenario, where the robot also tries to engage in entertainment activities with the patients.
Combining feature selection and feature reduction for protein classification

We use the n-grams descriptors for a protein classification task. As they are automatically generated, we obtain many irrelevant and/or redundant descriptors. In this paper, we evaluate various strategies of feature selection and feature reduction. First, we evaluate separately the efficiency of a filtering feature selection algorithm and a feature reduction on the basis of a singular value decomposition process (SVD). Then, we evaluate the combination of the two approaches i.e. we propose to use a very tolerant filter to select on a univariate basis which attributes to include in the subsequent SVD. We expect that the features extracted from relevant descriptors should allow to build a better classifier. We experiment the various approaches on two non-linear classifiers: a 3-nearest neighbor which is very sensitive to high dimensionality, and a SVM with a RBF kernel function which is well regularized. The results show that the behavior of the approaches depends mainly on the supervised learning characteristics.
Unexpected Lack of Hypersensitivity in LRRK2 Knock-Out Mice to MPTP (1-Methyl-4-Phenyl-1,2,3,6-Tetrahydropyridine)

Mutations in the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) gene are the most common known cause of Parkinson's disease (PD). Whether loss of LRRK2 function accounts for neurodegeneration of dopamine neurons in PD is not known, nor is it known whether LRRK2 kinase activity modulates the susceptibility of dopamine (DA) neurons to the selective dopaminergic toxin, 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). To better understand the role of LRRK2 in DA neuronal survival and its role in the susceptibility of DA neurons to MPTP, we generated LRRK2 knock-out (KO) mice lacking the kinase domain of LRRK2. Here, we show that LRRK2 KO mice are viable and have no major abnormalities and live to adulthood. The dopaminergic system is normal in LRRK2 KO mice as assessed via HPLC for DA and its metabolites and via stereologic assessment of DA neuron number in young and aged mice. Importantly, there is no significant difference in the susceptibility of LRRK2 KO and wild-type mice to MPTP. These results suggest that LRRK2 plays little if any role in the development and survival of DA neurons under physiologic conditions. Thus, PD due to LRRK2 mutations are likely not due to a loss of function. Moreover, LRRK2 is not required for the susceptibility of DA neurons to MPTP.
Rapid Intensification of a Sheared Tropical Storm

Abstract A weak tropical storm (Gabrielle in 2001) experienced a 22-hPa pressure fall in less than 3 h in the presence of 13 m s−1 ambient vertical wind shear. A convective cell developed downshear left of the center and moved cyclonically and inward to the 17-km radius during the period of rapid intensification. This cell had one of the most intense 85-GHz scattering signatures ever observed by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). The cell developed at the downwind end of a band in the storm core. Maximum vorticity in the cell exceeded 2.5 × 10−2 s−1. The cell structure broadly resembled that of a vortical hot tower rather than a supercell. At the time of minimum central pressure, the storm consisted of a strong vortex adjacent to the cell with a radius of maximum winds of about 10 km that exhibited almost no tilt in the vertical. This was surrounded by a broader vortex that tilted approximately left of the ambient shear vector, in a similar direction as the broad precipitation shield. This st.
Robust Stability of Networks of iISS Systems: Construction of Sum-Type Lyapunov Functions

This paper gives a solution to the problem of verifying stability of networks consisting of integral input-to-state stable (iISS) subsystems. The iISS small-gain theorem developed recently has been restricted to interconnections of two subsystems. For large-scale systems, stability criteria relying only on gain-type information that were previously developed address only input-to-state stable (ISS) subsystems. To address the stability problem involving iISS subsystems interconnected in general structure, this paper shows how to construct Lyapunov functions of the network by means of a sum of nonlinearly rescaled individual Lyapunov functions of subsystems under an appropriate small-gain condition.
Assignment , Hierarchies and Upper Tails

This paper examines whether changes in upper tails could explain increases in inequality in recent decades. First, methods are discussed that would determine the relative contributions of educational di¤erentials or variance of outcomes within educational levels to overall inequality. Preliminary analysis suggests that educational di¤erentials could not explain increases in inequality. The paper then examines empirically Pareto upper tails and shows that inequality in upper tails within industries have increased substantially.
Formal auditory training in adult hearing aid users

INTRODUCTION Individuals with sensorineural hearing loss are often able to regain some lost auditory function with the help of hearing aids. However, hearing aids are not able to overcome auditory distortions such as impaired frequency resolution and speech understanding in noisy environments. The coexistence of peripheral hearing loss and a central auditory deficit may contribute to patient dissatisfaction with amplification, even when audiological tests indicate nearly normal hearing thresholds. OBJECTIVE This study was designed to validate the effects of a formal auditory training program in adult hearing aid users with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss. METHODS Fourteen bilateral hearing aid users were divided into two groups: seven who received auditory training and seven who did not. The training program was designed to improve auditory closure, figure-to-ground for verbal and nonverbal sounds and temporal processing (frequency and duration of sounds). Pre- and post-training evaluations included measuring electrophysiological and behavioral auditory processing and administration of the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) self-report scale. RESULTS The post-training evaluation of the experimental group demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in P3 latency, improved performance in some of the behavioral auditory processing tests and higher hearing aid benefit in noisy situations (p-value < 0,05). No changes were noted for the control group (p-value <0,05). CONCLUSION The results demonstrated that auditory training in adult hearing aid users can lead to a reduction in P3 latency, improvements in sound localization, memory for nonverbal sounds in sequence, auditory closure, figure-to-ground for verbal sounds and greater benefits in reverberant and noisy environments.
Automatic creation of countermeasure plan against process delay: creation of countermeasures based on crashing and fast-tracking valve

Success or failure of a software project mainly depends on the management capability of the project manager. Therefore, EVA (Earned Value Analysis) is gaining much attention recently as a method of managing a project in an integrated fashion by introducing a unified metric called EV (Earned Value) and quantitatively measuring and analyzing the cost and schedule of a project. Project managers can use EVA to estimate SEAC (Schedule Estimate At Completion) and EAC (Estimate At Completion). However, since EVA does not include constraints as a factor for assigning human resources, such as the available periods of each person, etc., EVA quite often generates inaccurate estimations for SEAC and EAC. In addition, suppose that a situation arises due to a delay in project progress, in which the deadline cannot be met if the project proceeds as is with no countermeasures adopted. In this case, it is necessary to provide a prospect that indicates whether the project can be completed within the original delivery deadline (i.e., the original delivery deadline can be met) or not if any countermeasures are adopted to recover the process delay. If there is some way to bring the project back to its original schedule and complete it within the assigned time table, it is necessary to be able to present the countermeasure or an actual development plan. However, EVA cannot be used to show such a prospect or present the means to restore the project to its original timeline even if such countermeasures exist. This paper proposes a method to solve these problems and discusses its effectiveness by comparing the authors' approach with that of the EVA.
Relation Discovery from the Semantic Web

Several Semantic Web specific tasks such as ontology learning/extension or ontology matching rely on identifying relations between two given concepts. Scarlet1 is a technique for discovering relations between two given concepts by exploring ontologies available on the Semantic Web as a source of background knowledge. By relying on semantic web search engines such as Watson, Scarlet automatically identifies and combines relevant information from multiple and heterogeneous online ontologies. Scarlet has already been used successfully to support a variety of tasks, but is also available as a stand alone component that can be reused in various other applications. This poster will be accompanied by a demo of Scarlet's functionality available through its Web based user interface.
A SUPER Powerful Method for Genome Wide Association Study

Genome-Wide Association Studies shed light on the identification of genes underlying human diseases and agriculturally important traits. This potential has been shadowed by false positive findings. The Mixed Linear Model (MLM) method is flexible enough to simultaneously incorporate population structure and cryptic relationships to reduce false positives. However, its intensive computational burden is prohibitive in practice, especially for large samples. The newly developed algorithm, FaST-LMM, solved the computational problem, but requires that the number of SNPs be less than the number of individuals to derive a rank-reduced relationship. This restriction potentially leads to less statistical power when compared to using all SNPs. We developed a method to extract a small subset of SNPs and use them in FaST-LMM. This method not only retains the computational advantage of FaST-LMM, but also remarkably increases statistical power even when compared to using the entire set of SNPs. We named the method SUPER (Settlement of MLM Under Progressively Exclusive Relationship) and made it available within an implementation of the GAPIT software package.
Arteriovenous Shunt Visualization in Arteriovenous Malformations with Arterial Spin-Labeling MR Imaging

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: A reliable quantitative technique for measuring arteriovenous (AV) shunt in vascular malformations is not currently available. Here, we evaluated the hypothesis that continuous arterial spin-labeled (CASL) perfusion MR imaging can be used to detect and measure AV shunt in patients with arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). MATERIALS AND METHODS: CASL perfusion MR imaging was performed in 7 patients with AVMs. Semiquantitative AV shunt estimates were generated based on a thresholding strategy by using signal-intensity difference (ΔM) images to avoid potential errors in cerebral blood flow (CBF) calculation related to abnormal transit times and nonphysiologic blood-tissue water exchange in and around the AVMs. The potential for measuring CBF in regions distant from and near the AVM was explored, as was the relationship of CBF changes related to the size of the shunt. RESULTS: In all 7 cases, striking increased intensity was seen on CASL perfusion ΔM maps in the nidus and venous structures draining the AVM. Shunt estimates ranged from 30% to 0.6%. Mean CBF measurements in structures near the AVMs were not significantly different from the contralateral measurements. However, CBF in adjacent ipsilateral white matter increased relative to the contralateral side as the percent shunt increased (P = .02). Cortical gray matter CBF Δ (contralateral-ipsilateral) values demonstrated the same effect, but the correlation was weak and not significant. Thalamic CBF decreased ipsilaterally with increasing percent AV shunt (P = .01), indicating a possible steal effect. Basal ganglia Δ values showed little change in CBF with the size of the AV shunt. CONCLUSION: CASL perfusion MR imaging can demonstrate AV shunting, providing high lesion conspicuity and a novel means for evaluating AVM physiology.
Lemâıtre-Tolman-Bondi solutions for matter-radiation decoupling

A new class of exact solutions of Einstein’s equations is derived providing a physically plausible hydrodynamic description of cosmological matter in the radiation era of the Universe expansion. The solutions are characterized by the LTB metric with dissipative fluid sources, subjected to the following conditions: (i) the nonequilibrium state variables satisfy the equations of state of a mixture of relativistic and non-relativistic ideal gases, where the internal energy of the latter has been neglected, (ii) the particle numbers of the mixture components are independently conserved, (iii) the viscous stress is consistent with the transport equation and entropy balance law of extended irreversible thermodynamics with the coefficient of shear viscosity provided by kinetic theory. The Jeans mass at decoupling is of the same order of magnitude as that of baryon dominated models (i.e. MJ ≈ 1016M⊙).
Learning rank reduced interpolation with principal component analysis

Most iterative optimization algorithms for motion, depth estimation or scene reconstruction, both sparse and dense, rely on a coarse and reliable dense initialization to bootstrap their optimization procedure. This makes techniques important that allow to obtain a dense but still approximative representation of a desired 2D structure (e.g., depth maps, optical flow, disparity maps) from a very sparse measurement of this structure. The method presented here exploits the complete information given by the principal component analysis (PCA), the principal basis and its prior distribution. The method is able to determine a dense reconstruction even if only a very sparse measurement is available. When facing such situations, typically the number of principal components is further reduced which results in a loss of expressiveness of the basis. We overcome this problem and inject prior knowledge in a maximum a posteriori (MAP) approach. We test our approach on the KITTI and the Virtual KITTI dataset and focus on the interpolation of depth maps for driving scenes. The evaluation of the results shows good agreement to the ground truth and is clearly superior to the results of an interpolation by the nearest neighbor method which disregards statistical information.
Hardware for performing hyperpolarized helium imaging on a clinical MR imager

For the past forty years, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been one of the most common methods for obtaining volume images of human organs. However, some organs in the human body, such as the lungs, are resistant to these techniques, due to their lack of protons. In 1994, hyperpolarized noble gas MRI was introduced, and today is viewed as the best solution to the MR imaging dilemma. The different resonance frequencies of proton and helium, however, present an obstacle for hyperpolarized helium imaging. Conventional MR scanners are proton-based and, thus, are incapable of transmitting and receiving at frequencies other than that of proton. Broadband MR scanners, which are capable of transmitting and receiving at a variety of frequencies, are expensive and are not readily available for all nuclei. A heterodyne system is an inexpensive system that can be added to conventional MR systems to enable them to image a variety of nuclei. This system transforms the output of the MR system, at the frequency of proton, to the frequency of the nuclei of interest. The resulting signal obtained from the subject is transformed back to the frequency of proton by the heterodyne system, thereby enabling the MR system to create an image of the subject. With this system, hyperpolarized helium images of human lungs were obtained using a variety of different protocols. This heterodyne system opens up the possibility of new types of imaging, based on nuclei other than proton, on conventional MR scanners.
DNA Vaccines Encoding Viral Glycoproteins Induce Nonspecific Immunity and Mx Protein Synthesis in Fish

ABSTRACT Protective immunity by vaccination with plasmid DNA encoding a viral glycoprotein (G) has long been assumed to result from the induction of a specific immune response. We report here that the initial protection may be due to the induction of alpha/beta interferon, with long-term protection due to a specific response to the encoded viral G. DNA vaccines encoding the Gs of three serologically unrelated fish rhabdoviruses were used to vaccinate rainbow trout against a lethal challenge with infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV). All three vaccines, each encoding the G gene of either IHNV (IHNV-G), snakehead rhabdovirus (SHRV) (SHRV-G), or spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV) (SVCV-G), elicited protective immunity against IHNV. Vaccinated fish were challenged at 30 or 70 days postvaccination with lethal doses of IHNV. At 30 days postvaccination, only 5% of fish that had received any of the G vaccines died, whereas more than 50% of the control fish succumbed to virus challenge. When fish were vaccinated and challenged at 70 days postvaccination, only 12% of the IHNV-G-vaccinated fish died compared to 68% for the SHRV-G- and 76% for the SVCV-G-vaccinated fish. Assays for trout Mx protein, an indicator of alpha/beta interferon induction, showed that only fish vaccinated with a G-containing plasmid produced high levels of Mx protein in the kidneys and liver. Interestingly, at day 7 after virus challenge, all of the fish vaccinated with the IHNV-G plasmid were negative for Mx, but the SHRV-G- and SVCV-G-vaccinated fish still showed detectable levels of Mx. These results suggest that DNA vaccines in fish induce an early, nonspecific antiviral protection mediated by an alpha/beta interferon and, later, a specific immune response.
Socialising through orchestrated video communication

We report on the development of a video communication medium through which groups of people situated in different physical locations can naturally talk to each other, see and hear each other, and engage in social entertaining activities. Participants are free to move within their space and behave in a manner closer to collocated experiences. Essentially, this is implemented as a multi-location, multi-camera, hands-free video conferencing system between groups, with integrated support for entertaining activities. In this paper we focus on automatic orchestration, the reasoning process that applies screen grammar to best support the communication. We present a formal model for representing orchestration rules and discuss initial evaluation results.
Limiting Geometries of Two Circular Maldacena-Wilson Loop Operators

We further analyze a recent perturbative two-loop calculation of the expectation value of two axi-symmetric circular Maldacena-Wilson loops in N = 4 gauge theory. Firstly, it is demonstrated how to adapt the previous calculation of anti-symmetrically oriented circles to the symmetric case. By shrinking one of the circles to zero size we then explicitly work out the first few terms of the local op- erator expansion of the loop. Our calculations explicitly demonstrate that circular Maldacena-Wilson loops are non-BPS observables precisely due to the appearance of unprotected local operators. The latter receive anomalous scaling dimensions from non-ladder diagrams. Finally, we present new insights into a recent conjecture claiming that coincident circular Maldacena-Wilson loops are described by a Gaus- sian matrix model. We report on a novel, supporting two-loop test, but also explain and illustrate why the existing arguments in favor of the conjecture are flawed.
Field Sandbur (Cenchrus pauciflorus) Seeds in the Same Bur Respond Differently to Temperature and Water Potential in Relation to Germination in a Semi-Arid Environment, China

The success of a biological invasion relies on the environment and is closely linked to factors such as water and temperature. Invasive plant species display different seed characteristics, including shape. Field sandbur (Cenchrus pauciflorus) is a globally widespread invasive species capable of adapting to broad environmental conditions. However, its germination response to water and temperature still remains unclear. C. pauciflorus contains two seeds in the same bur that differ in size: big seeds (M) and small seeds (P). Separate greenhouse experiments were conducted under different temperature regimes (0/10°C, 5/15°C, 10/20°C, 15/25°C, 18/28°C, 20/30°C and 25/35°C) and water potentials (-1.50Mpa, -1.00Mpa, -0.75Mpa, -0.50Mpa, -0.25Mpa and 0Mpa) for M and P seeds. The results support the hypothesis that germination of C. pauciflorus is significantly influenced by seed type, temperature and water potential. M and P seeds responded differently to varied alternative temperatures and water potentials. However, M and P seeds were more sensitive to water potential than to temperature. Optimal conditions for M and P seed germination were measured at 25/35°C (night temperature/day temperature) and 20/30°C, respectively. In contrast, the highest germination rate was observed for the 0Mpa of the water potential treatment. Additionally, base temperature (Tbase) and base water potential (Wbase) were lower for M (7.7°C, -1.11Mpa at 10/20°C, and -1.07Mpa at 20/30°C) than for P (9.4°C, -0.92Mpa at 10/20°C, and -0.52Mpa at 20/30°C). These different germination strategies of M and P seeds with respect to temperature and water potential increased overall plant propagation. These results indicate that tropical and subtropical regions water potentials beyond -0.50Mpa (10/20°C) or -1.00Mpa (20/30°C) face a potential risk of C. pauciflorus invasion.
Set-Membership Adaptive Constant Modulus Algorithm with a Generalized Sidelobe Canceler and Dynamic Bounds for Beamforming

In this work, we propose an adaptive set-membership constant modulus (SM-CM) algorithm with a generalized sidelobe canceler (GSC) structure for blind beamforming. We develop a stochastic gradient (SG) type algorithm based on the concept of SM filtering for adaptive implementation. The filter weights are updated only if the constraint cannot be satisfied. In addition, we also propose an extension of two schemes of time-varying bounds for beamforming with a GSC structure and incorporate parameter and interference dependence to characterize the environment which improves the tracking performance of the proposed algorithm in dynamic scenarios. A convergence analysis of the proposed adaptive SM filtering techniques is carried out. Simulation results show that the proposed adaptive SM-CM-GSC algorithm with dynamic bounds achieves superior performance to previously reported methods at a reduced update rate.