Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring and reducing the Euclidean-space effects of robotic joint failures

Robotic joint failures are directly characterized and measured in joint space. A locking failure, for example, is one for which a joint cannot move, and it gives an error equal to the desired value minus the locked value. This article extends the joint-space characterization to Euclidean space by measuring the failure effect. The approach is based on a rudimentary measure of point error that can be defined to be distance or path length. It is used to form comprehensive measures through weighted integration over Euclidean-space regions. For kinematically redundant manipulators, minimizing the measures using the redundancy is a method to induce failure tolerance. This can be applied both before a failure to reduce the likelihood of collision-induced damage and after a failure to reduce end-effector error. Examples for both cases are given.
Resilience and vagal tone predict cardiac recovery from acute social stress

Previous studies showed that heart period decreases during and recovers after an acute stress. We investigated if individual predispositions and emotional priming influence heart period recovery after a speech stress task. Psychometric scales and resting cardiac vagal tone were used to measure individual traits. The presentation of a sequence of either pleasant or unpleasant pictures, as emotional primers, preceded the speech stress. Heart period was measured throughout the experiment. Stress induced tachycardia irrespective of emotional priming or traits. In the recovery period, participants with higher resting cardiac vagal tone or presenting higher resilience significantly reduced the heart acceleration. Furthermore, these traits interacted synergistically in the promotion of the recovery of heart period. Pleasant priming also improved recovery for participants with lower negative affect. In conclusion, the stress recovery measured through heart period seemed dependent upon individual predispositions and emotional priming. These findings further strengthen previous observations on the association between greater cardiac vagal tone and the ability to regulate emotion.
Applications of Public Deliberation: Themes Emerging fromTwelve Personal Experiences Emanating from National Issues Forums Training

In order to learn about post-training efforts in public deliberation in Oklahoma, a study was conducted with individuals who had completed a two-day course to become conveners, moderators, and recorders of deliberative forums. In Phase Two of the study (the qualitative portion), twelve individuals participated in in-depth personal interviews to describe a personal experience of significance related to public deliberation. The audio-recorded interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Five themes emerged from the data analysis: variety of settings; examination of benefits and consequences; use of guidelines and forum rules; common ground for the public good; and deliberative leadership. Study findings reinforced the use of some methodologies used in the two-day course and led to recommendations for post-course training and mentoring.
Assessing recovery and disability after physical trauma: the Pediatric Injury Functional Outcome Scale.

OBJECTIVE To establish reliability and validity of the Pediatric Injury Functional Outcome Scale (PIFOS), a brief injury-specific rating scale covering motor, self-care, communication, social-emotional, cognition, physical, and academic areas. METHODS In a prospective longitudinal study, the PIFOS structured interview was administered to parents of children 3-15 years of age at 3 and 12 months after hospitalization for traumatic brain injury (TBI) or orthopedic injury (OI). RESULTS The total score had good internal consistency (α = .90-.93) and inter-rater reliability (α = .90) and correlated significantly with injury severity and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Generalized linear modeling showed the PIFOS was sensitive to the type and severity of injury, showed specific initial and persisting difficulties following TBI and OI, and was responsive to change during the first year after injury. Both groups had residual difficulties with coordination, emotionality, social participation, and discomfort. CONCLUSION The PIFOS is useful in examining recovery in natural history and intervention studies.
An efficient motion vector coding scheme based on minimum bitrate prediction

Motion vector coding efficiency is becoming an important issue in low bitrate video coding because of its increasing relative bit portion. This work presents a new motion vector coding technique based on minimum bitrate prediction. In the proposed scheme, a predicted motion vector is chosen from the three causal neighboring motion vectors so that it can produce a minimum bitrate in motion vector difference coding. Then the prediction error, or motion vector difference (MVD), and the mode information (MODE) for determining the predicted motion vector at a decoder are coded and transmitted in order. Sending bits for the MVD ahead of bits for the MODE, the scheme can minimize the bit amount for the MODE by taking advantage of the fact that the minimum bitrate predictor is used for motion vector prediction. Adaptively combining this minimum bitrate prediction scheme with the conventional model-based prediction scheme, more efficient motion vector coding can be achieved. The proposed scheme improves the coding efficiency noticeably for various video sequences.
Compressed sensing radar - new concepts of incoherent continuous wave transmissions

The most of the conventional SAR, ISAR or other kind of high resolution radars are today based on Linear Frequency Modulation (LFM) transmissions, where the range resolution is directly proportional to the used radio-frequency band and the pulse compression procedure is based on the Matched Filter (MF) theory. This traditional approach can be highly limited to the transmitted signal bandwidth, today extremely dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum availability. This paper demonstrates that incoherent transmissions can be focused using the CS reconstruction theory, erasing the need of a pulse compression stage, based on MF, and a required receiver analog-to-digital conversion bandwidth reduction. These kind of transmissions can be useful for anti-jamming transmissions, needing lower power, if compared between conventional based high resolution radars.
Labels and the Nature of Special Education: We Need to Face Realities.

To be taken seriously, proposals for education reform must be must be grounded in realities. One of these realities is that labels are indispensable in special education. Another is that special education is needed, even if general education is excellent. Most proposals for educational reform will be disastrous even if only one of their assumptions fails to acknowledge reality. We must demand that proposals to reform education that are not reality-oriented be stopped.
Chinese text sentiment analysis based on improved Convolutional Neural Networks

Convolutional neural networks(CNN) has achieved fairly good results in the field of computer vision. In recent years, with the rapid development of deep learning, more and more researchers tried to apply CNN to the field of Natural Language Processing(NLP). This paper uses CNN model to analyze the sentiment of Chinese text, and improves the structure of basic CNN, adjusts different parameters to carry out multiple sets of parallel experiments at the same time. The result is that dual-channel network model is more accurate than the single channel model, and the accuracy are 93.4% and 92.7% respectively where the word vector comes from character-level and word-level. Which shows it is feasible to apply CNN to the field of Chinese sentiment analysis. For Chinese text, the effect that word vector based on the character-level is much better than that based on word-level. And the dual-channel CNN model provides a new idea for the further exploration in the field of NLP.
Assessing the understandability of a data warehouse logical model using a decision-tree approach

In recent years, Data Warehouses have become essential for researchers and organizations due to their ability to model the near future. For making strategic decisions, the information stored in a data warehouse must be of good quality. The information quality of a data warehouse can be enhanced by determining the data-model quality used for developing the data warehouse. Multidimensional models have been widely accepted as the foundation of data-modeling. Therefore, we believe that improving multi-dimensional model quality could improve the data warehouse quality. Several quality features (such as understandability, simplicity, maintainability, analyzability, coupling, cohesion etc.) have been defined by researchers for measuring the quality of data models. To judge Multidimensional model quality, metrics can be used as they provide a way for evaluating quality in an objective and consistent manner. A few researchers have proposed metrics for the data warehouse multidimensional model. Though, along with the proposal of metrics, they must be validated (theoretically and empirically) to prove their reliability and practical usefulness. This paper focuses on empirical validation of data warehouse logical model metrics using the data-mining machine-learning technique known as decision tree analysis. The results obtained indicate that a few of the proposed metrics are useful in judging the quality of the multidimensional logical model in terms of understandability.
Mutational Analysis of Plant Cap-Binding Protein eIF4E Reveals Key Amino Acids Involved in Biochemical Functions and Potyvirus Infection

ABSTRACT The eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) (the cap-binding protein) is involved in natural resistance against several potyviruses in plants. In lettuce, the recessive resistance genes mo11 and mo12 against Lettuce mosaic virus (LMV) are alleles coding for forms of eIF4E unable, or less effective, to support virus accumulation. A recombinant LMV expressing the eIF4E of a susceptible lettuce variety from its genome was able to produce symptoms in mo11 or mo12 varieties. In order to identify the eIF4E amino acid residues necessary for viral infection, we constructed recombinant LMV expressing eIF4E with point mutations affecting various amino acids and compared the abilities of these eIF4E mutants to complement LMV infection in resistant plants. Three types of mutations were produced in order to affect different biochemical functions of eIF4E: cap binding, eIF4G binding, and putative interaction with other virus or host proteins. Several mutations severely reduced the ability of eIF4E to complement LMV accumulation in a resistant host and impeded essential eIF4E functions in yeast. However, the ability of eIF4E to bind a cap analogue or to fully interact with eIF4G appeared unlinked to LMV infection. In addition to providing a functional mutational map of a plant eIF4E, this suggests that the role of eIF4E in the LMV cycle might be distinct from its physiological function in cellular mRNA translation.
Cerebral Vein and Dural Sinus Thrombosis in Elderly Patients

Backgound and Purpose— The clinical features and prognosis of cerebral vein and dural sinus thrombosis (CVT) in elderly patients have not been previously described. Methods— In a multicenter prospective observational study, we compared clinical and imaging features, risk factors, and outcome of adult patients aged <65 (young and middle-aged patients) and ≥65 years (elderly patients). Results— A total of 624 adult patients with CVT were registered and followed-up for a median of 16 months. Fifty-one (8.2%) were aged ≥65 years. Presentation as an isolated intracranial hypertension syndrome was less frequent in elderly patients (4/51 versus 139/573, P=0.008), whereas depressed consciousness (17 versus 97, P=0.005), and mental status changes (22 versus 115, P=0.001) were more frequent in the elderly. The prognosis of elderly patients was considerably worse than that of younger patients, as only 49% of elderly patients made a complete recovery (versus 82% in younger patients), whereas 27% died and 22% were dependent at the end of follow-up (versus 7 and 2% respectively in younger patients). Carcinoma (5 cases) was more frequent as a risk factor for CVT in elderly patients (P=0.017). During follow-up, elderly patients were more likely to experience thrombotic events (HR=4.8, 95% CI=1.9 to 11.9) and were less likely to experience severe headaches (HR=0.2, 95% CI=0.02, 0.97). Conclusions— Elderly patients with CVT have a distinctive clinical presentation: isolated intracranial hypertension is uncommon, whereas mental status and alertness disturbances are common. The prognosis of CVT is worse in elderly patients.
Inhibition of the glucocorticoid receptor results in an enhanced miR-99a/100-mediated radiation response in stem-like cells from human prostate cancers

Radiation therapy is a major primary treatment option for both localized early stage prostate cancer, and for advanced, regionally un-resectable, cancer. However, around 30% of patients still experience biochemical recurrence after radiation therapy within 10 years. Thus, identification of better biomarkers and new targets are urgently required to improve current therapeutic strategies. The miR-99 family has been shown to play an important role in the regulation of the DNA damage response, via targeting of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling factors, SMARCA5 and SMARCD1 in cell line models. In the present study, we have demonstrated that low expression of miR-99a and miR-100 is present in cell populations which are relatively radiation insensitive, for example in prostate cancer stem cells and in castration-resistant prostate cancer. Additionally, treatment of cells with the synthetic glucocorticoid, Dexamethasone resulted in decreased miR-99a and 100 expression, suggesting a new mechanism of miR-99a and 100 regulation in androgen-independent prostate cells. Strikingly, treatment of prostate cells with the glucocorticoid receptor inhibitor, Mifepristone was found to sensitize prostate cells to radiation by increasing the levels of miR-99a and miR-100. These results qualify the miR99 family as markers of radiation sensitivity and as potential therapeutic targets to improve efficiency of radiotherapy.
The Effect of Viewing Eccentricity on Enumeration

Visual acuity and contrast sensitivity progressively diminish with increasing viewing eccentricity. Here we evaluated how visual enumeration is affected by visual eccentricity, and whether subitizing capacity, the accurate enumeration of a small number (∼3) of items, decreases with more eccentric viewing. Participants enumerated gratings whose (1) stimulus size was constant across eccentricity, and (2) whose stimulus size scaled by a cortical magnification factor across eccentricity. While we found that enumeration accuracy and precision decreased with increasing eccentricity, cortical magnification scaling of size neutralized the deleterious effects of increasing eccentricity. We found that size scaling did not affect subitizing capacities, which were nearly constant across all eccentricities. We also found that size scaling modulated the variation coefficients, a normalized metric of enumeration precision, defined as the standard deviation divided by the mean response. Our results show that the inaccuracy and imprecision associated with increasing viewing eccentricity is due to limitations in spatial resolution. Moreover, our results also support the notion that the precise number system is restricted to small numerosities (represented by the subitizing limit), while the approximate number system extends across both small and large numerosities (indexed by variation coefficients) at large eccentricities.
OCIS Public Goods Tool Development

There has recently been an increase in interest amongst policy-makers in the question of whether farming provides a “public good” beyond the simple production of food, which justifies support from, for instance, EU agricultural policy. Benefits such as an improved environment or better water quality can be perceived to be public goods. It is the provision of these sorts of benefits which may be used in the future to justify continued support of the agricultural sector through subsidies. Given the current level of interest in this topic Natural England, with the approval of Defra, through OCIS (Organic Conversion Information Service), wished to create a tool which could be used by an advisor or an informed land owner to assess the public good provided by a/their farm. Thus, the OCIS Public Good Tool was developed.
Evaluation of non-functional characteristics of web-based systems modeled and designed using aspect- oriented technology by aspectual software architecture analysis method (ASAAM)

Despite the importance and well-known status of non-functional requirements in the success of Web applications in the field of Web Engineering, they do not receive much attention. In many cases, these requirements remain pending, unconsidered, un-analyzed and undesigned after determining in the requirements engineering phase until completing application implementation. The aim of the present study is to model and analysis the non- functional requirements in designing Web applications. This will be done to ensure providing an architecture which supports the necessary quality characteristics of these applications. To realize the nature of these requirements, we focused on a large industrial case study which is a Web-based organizational application. It was observed that the majority of non-functional requirements in the Web applications architecture are intersecting concerns which should be modeled separately. However, this issue has not received necessary attention. Finally, the proposed architecture has been presented and evaluated. (Davood Karimzadganmoghadam, Davood Vahdat, Mohammad Pira, Reza Asgarimoghadam. Evaluation of non- functional characteristics of web-based systems modeled and designed using aspect-oriented technology by aspectual software architecture analysis method (ASAAM). Life Sci J 2012;9(4):2480-2486). (ISSN: 1097- 8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 366
Probabilistic dance performance alignment by fusion of multimodal features

This paper presents a probabilistic framework for the multimodal alignment of dance movements. The approach is based on a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and considers different feature functions, each corresponding to a particular modality, namely motion features, extracted from depth maps, and audio features, extracted from audio recordings of dancers' steps. We show that this approach allows performing accurate dancer alignment, while constituting a general framework for various multimodal alignment tasks.
Case studies of see-through augmentation in mixed reality project

This paper introduces two case studies of augmented reality (AR) system, which use see-through HMDs. The rst case is a collaborative AR system called ARHockey that requires real-time interactive operations, moderate registration accuracy, and a relatively small registration area. The players can hit a virtual puck with physical mallets in a shared physical game eld. The other case study is the MR Living Room where participants can visually simulate the location of virtual furniture and articles in the physically half-equipped living room. The registration is more crucial in this case because of the requirement of visual simulation. As well as the system congurations of both systems, the details of registration algorithms implemented are described.
Evaluation of tooth-touch sound and expiration based mouse device for disabled persons

This paper presents an evaluation of a mouse interface device using tooth-touch sound and expiration signals, which we developed as a pointing device for disabled persons. Our device enabled disabled persons to operate a personal computer easily using a mouse driven by their tooth-touch and expiration. It also had superior features, being easy to handle, light weight, user-friendly and inexpensive to make. The performance of our device was evaluated using Fitts' law, which estimated the comparative usability of the pointing device against that of a conventional ball-type mouse. Finally, we designed a rounding-type menu to improve the input efficiency of the device and apply it in a TV controller. We then compared the input velocity of our device against that of a conventional mouse.
Digital Control of a PWM Switching Amplifier with Global Feedback

A digitally controlled class-D amplifier using global feedback is presented. The output signal of the amplifier is sampled using a sigma-delta analogue-to-digital converter. A novel compensation strategy is used to minimize distortion resulting from ripple feedback of the output signal. An evaluation system, based on a Field Programmable Gate Array, was developed and an experimental evaluation was performed. State-ofthe-art performance was achieved.
‘Imagined guilt’ vs ‘recollected guilt’: implications for fMRI

Abstract Guilt is thought to maintain social harmony by motivating reparation. This study compared two methodologies commonly used to identify the neural correlates of guilt. The first, imagined guilt, requires participants to read hypothetical scenarios and then imagine themselves as the protagonist. The second, recollected guilt, requires participants to reflect on times they personally experienced guilt. In the fMRI scanner, participants were presented with guilt/neutral memories and guilt/neutral hypothetical scenarios. Contrasts confirmed a priori predictions that guilt memories, relative to guilt scenarios, were associated with significantly greater activity in regions associated with affect [anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), Caudate, Insula, orbital frontal cortex (OFC)] and social cognition [temporal pole (TP), precuneus). Similarly, results indicated that guilt memories, relative to neutral memories, were also associated with greater activity in affective (ACC, amygdala, Insula, OFC) and social cognition (mPFC, TP, precuneus, temporo-parietal junction) regions. There were no significant differences between guilt hypothetical scenarios and neutral hypothetical scenarios in either affective or social cognition regions. The importance of distinguishing between different guilt inductions inside the scanner is discussed. We offer explanations of our results and discuss ideas for future research.
RootCap: Touch Detection on Multi-electrodes using Single-line Connected Capacitive Sensing

In designing interactive products, it is important for designers to test the product's usability by manufacturing its shape and interface iteratively through rapid prototyping. The goal of our research is to provide the designers with an additional touch sensing method for rapid prototyping interactive products with flat, curved, or flexible surface. In this paper, we present RootCap, a capacitive touch sensing method that can detect a touch on a multi-electrode input surface while maintaining the characteristics of a single-line connection. The key concept behind realizing this goal is the imposition of unique capacitance on each electrode (including the capacitor connected to the touch electrode) branching from the single-line connection. Moreover, we developed a technique for creating a capacitor by printing silver nanoparticle ink on both sides of a sheet of paper, supporting designers in the creation of a multi-electrode input surface, on which each electrode has a unique capacitance.