Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seamless browsing of visual contents in shared learning environments

This paper presents a new interaction technique for browsing large visual information bases in a collaborative environment. The ATELIER project deals with learning environments for architecture and interaction design students. Since students' attitude is to collect large amounts of data, pictures and videos in particular, an important issue is how to keep information organized according to intuitive criteria has been seriously taken into account. This paper shows how we managed to align different approaches for browsing large image sets and describes the interfaces used to seamlessly switch from one view to another. We also implemented search facilities based both on color layout and on keywords taken from an ontology. Integration was achieved by means of physical handles, i.e., barcodes
Dual SCR with low-and-constant parasitic capacitance for ESD protection in 5-GHz RF integrated circuits

Silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) had been reported with good electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness and low parasitic capacitance. In this work, SCR devices were investigated to have low and constant capacitance for on-chip ESD protection in RF ICs. The test devices had been verified in a 65-nm fully-silicided CMOS process. The SCR devices can pass 8-kV human-body-model (HBM) ESD tests, and the parasitic capacitance at 5 GHz kept at ∼135 fF with only 3-fF variation as the input voltage swung from VSS to VDD. Thus, the ESD protection design with SCR devices is very suitable for RF ESD applications.
Association between stressful life events and exacerbation in multiple sclerosis: a meta-analysis

Abstract Objective To quantify the association between stressful life events and exacerbations of multiple sclerosis. Data sources PubMed, PsychInfo, and Psychological Abstracts searched for empirical papers from 1965 to February 2003 with terms “stress”, “trauma”, and “multiple sclerosis”. Review methods Three investigators independently reviewed papers for inclusion/exclusion criteria and extracted the relevant data, including methods, sample statistics, and outcomes. Results Of 20 studies identified, 14 were included. The meta-analysis showed a significant increase in risk of exacerbation in multiple sclerosis after stressful life events, with a weighted average effect size of d = 0.53 (95% confidence interval 0.40 to 0.65), P < 0.0001. The studies were homogenous, q = 16.62, p = 0.22, i2 = 21.8%. Neither sampling nor study methods had any effect on study outcomes. Conclusions There is a consistent association between stressful life events and subsequent exacerbation in multiple sclerosis. However these data do not allow the linking of specific stressors to exacerbations nor should they be used to infer that patients are responsible for their exacerbations. Investigation of the psychological, neuroendocrine, and immune mediators of stressful life events on exacerbation may lead to new behavioural and pharmacological strategies targeting potential links between stress and exacerbation.
Real-time acoustic source separation based on Kalman filter

Deterministic techniques are based on the source-directions and multipath characteristics of the reverberant environment for different source signals. However, searching for the desired directions of the time-block sequence of an acoustic signal is time consuming, and existing deterministic methods rarely consider the motion properties of the acoustic source. In this paper, a real-time acoustic source separation based on a Kalman filter is proposed. First, the convolutive mixture signals captured by the coincident array geometry are formulated, and the basic principles of acoustic source separation based on intensity vector statistics are introduced. Then, a dynamic source-direction prediction method for real-time blind source separation based on a Kalman filter is proposed to predict the directions of a time sequential signal. Finally, extensive experiments are performed with three-source convolutive mixtures of speech in English and Chinese, whose direction varies in linear and nonlinear motions. The signal-to-distortion and signal-to-interference of the separated signals are calculated, and the experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed method.
Gauge/Gravity Duality and Strongly Coupled Light-Front Dynamics

We find a correspondence between semiclassical gauge theories quantized on the light-front and a dual gravity model in anti-de Sitter (AdS) space, thus providing an initial approximation to QCD in its strongly coupled regime. This correspondence ‐ light-front holography ‐ leads to a light-front Hamiltonian and relativistic bound-state wave equations in terms of an invariant impact variable z which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron at equal light-front time. Light-front holography also allows a precise mapping of transition amplitudes from AdS to physical space-time. In contrast with the usual AdS/QCD framework, the internal structure of hadrons is explicitly introduced in the gauge/gravity correspondence and the angular momentum of the constituents plays a key role. We also discuss how to introduce higher Fock-states in the correspondence as well as their relevance for describing the detailed structure of space and time-like form factors.
Schwann Cells Metabolize Extracellular 2′,3′-cAMP to 2′-AMP

The 3′,5′-cAMP–adenosine pathway (3′,5′-cAMP→5′-AMP→adenosine) and the 2′,3′-cAMP–adenosine pathway (2′,3′-cAMP→2′-AMP/3′-AMP→adenosine) are active in the brain. Oligodendrocytes participate in the brain 2′,3′-cAMP–adenosine pathway via their robust expression of 2′,3′-cyclic nucleotide 3′-phosphodiesterase (CNPase; converts 2′,3′-cAMP to 2′-AMP). Because Schwann cells also express CNPase, it is conceivable that the 2′,3′-cAMP–adenosine pathway exists in the peripheral nervous system. To test this and to compare the 2′,3′-cAMP–adenosine pathway to the 3′,5′-cAMP–adenosine pathway in Schwann cells, we examined the metabolism of 2′,3′-cAMP, 2′-AMP, 3′-AMP, 3′,5′-cAMP, and 5′-AMP in primary rat Schwann cells in culture. Addition of 2′,3′-cAMP (3, 10, and 30 µM) to Schwann cells increased levels of 2′-AMP in the medium from 0.006 ± 0.002 to 21 ± 2, 70 ± 3, and 187 ± 10 nM/µg protein, respectively; in contrast, Schwann cells had little ability to convert 2′,3′-cAMP to 3′-AMP or 3′,5′-cAMP to either 3′-AMP or 5′-AMP. Although Schwann cells slightly converted 2′,3′-cAMP and 2′-AMP to adenosine, they did so at very modest rates (e.g., 5- and 3-fold, respectively, more slowly compared with our previously reported studies in oligodendrocytes). Using transected myelinated rat sciatic nerves in culture medium, we observed a time-related increase in endogenous intracellular 2′,3′-cAMP and extracellular 2′-AMP. These findings indicate that Schwann cells do not have a robust 3′,5′-cAMP–adenosine pathway but do have a 2′,3′-cAMP–adenosine pathway; however, because the pathway mostly involves 2′-AMP formation rather than 3′-AMP, and because the conversion of 2′-AMP to adenosine is slow, metabolism of 2′,3′-cAMP mostly results in the accumulation of 2′-AMP. Accumulation of 2′-AMP in peripheral nerves postinjury could have pathophysiological consequences.
Surface TLR2 and TLR4 Expression on Mature Rat Mast Cells Can Be Affected by Some Bacterial Components and Proinflammatory Cytokines

The aim of our study was to determine whether some bacterial components as well as some proinflammatory cytokines can affect surface mast cell levels. By the use of flow cytometry technique, we documented that freshly isolated mature rat peritoneal mast cells do express surface TLR2 and TLR4 protein, but not CD14 molecules, and respond to stimulation with TLR2 and TLR4 ligands by cysteinyl leukotriene generation. The level of TLR2 protein is modulated by PGN and CCL5 treatment, but not by LPS, LAM, TNF, or IL-6. Surface mast cell TLR4 expression is affected by LPS, LAM, IL-6, and CCL5. Considering that TLR-mediated activation conditions not only engaged these cells in antibacterial defense and development of inflammation but also might influence allergic processes, our observations that surface TLR2 and TLR4 expression can be regulated both bacterial components and proinflammatory cytokines seem to be very intriguing and importance.
Optimal Regulation: The Economic Theory of Natural Monopoly

Optimal Regulation addresses the central issue of regulatory economics - how to regulate firms in a way that induces them to produce and price "optimally. " It synthesizes the major findings of an extensive theoretical literature on what constitutes optimality in various situations and which regulatory mechanisms can be used to achieve it. It is the first text to provide a unified, modern, and nontechnical treatment of the field. The book includes models for regulating optimal output, tariffs, and surplus subsidy schemes, and presents all of the material graphically, with clear explanations of often highly technical topics. Kenneth E. Train is Associate Adjunct Professor in the Department of Economics and Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also Principal of the firm Cambridge Systematics. Topics include: The cost structure of natural monopoly (economies of scale and scope). Characterization of first and second-best optimality. Surplus subsidy schemes for attaining first-best optimality. Ramsey prices and the Vogelsang-Finsinger mechanism for attaining them. Time-ofuse (TOU) prices and Riordan's mechanisms for attaining the optimal TOU prices' Multipart and self-selecting tariffs, and Sibley's method for using self-selecting tariffs to achieve optimality. The Averch-Johnson model of how rate-of-return regulation induces inefficiencies. Analysis of regulation based on the firm's return on Output, costs, or sales. Price-cap regulation. Regulatory treatment of uncertainty and its impact on the firm's behavior. Methods of attaining optimality without direct regulation (contestability, auctioning the monopoly franchise).
The University of Birmingham ( Live System ) Reconsolidation and extinction of an appetitive pavlovian memory

Publisher Rights Statement: NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, [VOL. 104, 2013] DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.nlm. 2013.04. 009.
CONTENT INTERNALISM ABOUT INDEXICAL THOUGHT

Properly understood, content internalism is the thesis that any difference between the representational contents of two individuals’ mental states reduces to a difference in those individuals’ intrinsic properties. Some of the strongest arguments against internalism turn on the possibility for two “doppelgangers” – perfect physical and phenomenal duplicates – to differ with respect to the contents of those of their mental states that they can express using terms such as “I,” “here,” and “now. ” In this paper, I grant the stated possibility, but deny that it poses any threat to internalism. Despite their similarities, doppelgangers differ in some of their intrinsic properties, and it is to such intrinsic differences that differences of indexical
Nonmethane hydrocarbons in the rural southeast United States national parks

Measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were made at three rural sites in the southeast U.S. national parks: Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky; Cove Mountain, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee; and Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. In 1995 the three locations were sampling sites for the Southern Oxidants Study (SOS) Nashville Intensive, and the measurements of VOCs for Shenandoah were also made under contract with the National Park Service. Starting in 1996, the National Park Service added the other two parks to the monitoring contract. Hydrocarbon measurements made during June through September for the years 1995, 1996, and 1997 were analyzed in this study. Source classification techniques based on correlation coefficient, chemical reactivity, and ratioing were developed and applied to these data. The results show that anthropogenic VOCs from automobile exhaust appeared to be dominant at Mammoth Cave National Park, and at Cove Mountain, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but other sources were also important at Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park. Correlation and ratio analysis based on chemical reactivity provides a basis for source-receptor relationship. The most abundant ambient VOCs varied both in concentration and order depending on park and year, but the following VOCs appeared on the top 10 list for all three sites: isoprene (6.3 to 18.4 ppbv), propane (2.1 to 12.9 ppbv), isopentane (1.3 to 5.7 ppbv), and toluene (1.0 to 7.2 ppbv). Isoprene is naturally emitted by vegetation, and the others are produced mainly by fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes. Propylene-equivalent concentrations were calculated to account for differences in reaction rates between the hydroxyl radical and individual hydrocarbons, and to thereby estimate their relative contributions to ozone formation.
Global Memory Management in Client-Server DBMS Architectures

Earlier performance studies of client-server database systems have investigated algorithms for caching locks and data at client worhxtations to reafuce latency and offload the server. These studies have been restricted to algorithms in which d&abase pages that were not in the local client buffer pool or the server buffer pool were read in from disk. In this paper we investigate a technique that allows client page requests to be serviced by other clients, thus treating the entire system as a single memory hierarchy. We also present techniques for efficiently exploiting this global memory hierarchy by reducing the replication of pages between client and server buffer pools. Global memory management algorithms that employ various combinalions of these techniques are then described, and the performance tradeoffs among the algorithms we investigated under a range of workloads and system conjiguratio~ using a simulation model.
Business cycle accounting for Portugal

This article analyzes the sources of business cycle fl uctuations in Portugal using the business cycle accounting methodology developed by Chari et al., (2007). In this approach, various types of distortions are represented as “wedges” in standard equilibrium relationships. This allows a quantitative assessment of the relative importance of those wedges. It is found that distortions affecting total factor productivity play a key role in explaining the behavior of output from 1998 through 2012.
Econometric analysis of exchange rates in East Asia

This study is concerned with the behaviour of exchange rate movements focusing specifically on purchasing power parity (PPP) and the non-stationarity of real exchange rates, for a number of East Asian currencies during their recent floating periods. As one of the most important building blocks in international economies, PPP forms a core component of several models of exchange rate determination, and it is the most intensively tested hypothesis in open-economy macroeconomics. Nevertheless, in contrast to the relative abundance of research on the currencies of industrialised countries, very few studies on East Asian currencies have been carried out, leaving an important gap in the literature. Using recent advances in time series analysis, the results reveal for the East Asian countries that there existed long-run comovement between the nominal exchange rate and domestic and foreign price levels, but that the strict PPP condition claimed by the theory did not hold. This implied that any deviation from the PPP equilibrium was permanent and that there was little tendency for the real exchange rate to be mean reverting. Further investigation suggested that the real exchange rate was cointegrated with fundamentals, with most of the variables entering the cointegration vector significantly, suggesting that the movements of real exchange rate were driven by these factors. Investigating the dynamic paths of the real exchange rate and the long-run relationship (cointegrating relationship) in response to exogenous shocks also revealed that the real exchange rates did not revert to their pre-shock equilibrium, but that the long-run relationship did. It took, normally three to five years, for the real exchange rate to reach and settle down to a new equilibrium and even if the effect of shocks on the long-run relationship was transitory, the speed of convergence to the equilibrium was slow. The results also showed that the effects of shocks vary from one country to another. This meant that there was no universal panacea to deal with fluctuations in real exchange rates, as they were influenced by a country's natural endowment, stage in industrialisation, as well as monetary and exchange policies.
A Board Implementation for Fast APA Acoustic Echo Canceller Using ADSP-21065L DSP

In this article we present a board developed to test algorithms for real-time digital audio signals. Some algorithms have been implemented for the acoustic echo cancellation (AEC). The proposed system can be used during hands free audio conversations in a full-duplex communication. Moreover, the system is able to operate both in personal mode (one to one) and in conference mode (many to many)
Optimal Capital Income Taxation with Endogenous Human Capital Formation

This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on capital and labor incomes in a life-cycle model of human capital investment, financial savings, and labor supply with heterogenous individuals. A dual income tax with positive marginal tax rates on not only labor but also capital income is optimal. The key function of the tax on capital income is to reduce labor tax distortions on human capital accumulation. The optimal capital income tax is relatively lower than the labor income tax if: i) savings are relatively elastic compared to investment in human capital; ii) substitution between inputs in human capital formation is difficult; iii) most investments in human capital are verifiable and can be subsidized. Numerical calculations suggest that marginal taxes on capital income are substantially positive and roughly equal to marginal tax rates labor incomes.
A rapid method for discovering covert communication through spam emails

Recently, email spam is noticed as a covert communication platform for criminals. Yet, discovering incriminating information from spam emails is one of the most tedious tasks due to characteristics of email spam. In this paper, we proposed a systematic content-based analysis method to discover suspicious messages in the spam folder. It is applied to the initial stage of investigation, in which investigator often have little information on the collection of spam emails. Experimental results suggest that the proposed method is able to identify potential evidence by analyzing keywords, URL links, named entities etc. Furthermore, a modified text visualization technique is employed to refine and display analysis results.
A Simple , but Challenging , Model of Computational Design Creativity Evaluation

This paper presents a simple model of computational design creativity evaluation, presenting its components with rationale. Components are linked to recent research. The model assumes that the product, not the process, is being evaluated, and that evaluation is done by comparison with descriptions of existing products using a set of aspects that each suggest creativity. Not every evaluation will use all of the components. The model can be used to guide or assess design creativity research.
Automatic Drive of Limb Motor Plasticity

The ability to perform accurate limb movements may require learning mechanisms that continually tune the motor system. In the current study, we isolate a form of pure limb motor plasticity. Participants reached to targets that were turned off just after the onset of an initial eye movement, reappearing at a new location at the end of the reaching movement. In contrast to classical prism or virtual reality paradigms, our task eliminated sensory adaptation by always maintaining a congruency between the seen and felt limb position. We also minimized awareness and potential adaptation processes on the basis of volitional strategies by progressively increasing the size of the target perturbations. In this manner, our adaptation procedure mimicked conditions used to study saccadic adaptation. The results indicated that adaptation under these conditions led to a robust after-effect that generalized to a large range of movements within the workspace. This fully natural, nonim-posed generalization of adaptation is not expressed in a spatial coordinate system, but more likely in a joint-centered coordinate space.
Towards Preserving Model Coverage and Structural Code Coverage

Embedded systems are often used in safety-critical environments. Thus, thorough testing of them is mandatory. To achieve a required structural code-coverage criteria it is beneficial to derive the test data at a higher program-representation level than machine code. Higher program-representation levels include, beside the source-code level, languages of domain-specific modeling environments with automatic code generation. For a testing framework with automatic generation of test data this will enable high retargetability of the framework. In this article we address the challenge of ensuring that the structural code coverage achieved at a higher program representation level is preserved during the code generations and code transformations down to machine code. We define the formal properties that have to be fullfilled by a code transformation to guarantee preservation of structural code coverage. Based on these properties we discuss how to preserve code coverage achieved at source-code level. Additionally, we discuss how structural code coverage at model level could be preserved. The results presented in this article are aimed toward the integration of support for preserving structural code coverage into compilers and code generators.
Optimal Constrained Field Focusing for Hyperthermia Cancer Therapy: a Feasibility Assessment on Realistic Phantoms

Microwave hyperthermia is a non-invasive treatment for cancer which exploits a selective heating of tissues induced through focused electromagnetic flelds. In order to improve the treatment's e-ciency, while minimizing side efiects, it is necessary to achieve a constrained focusing of the fleld radiated by the sources. To address this issue, in this paper we present an innovative and computationally efiective approach to the fleld focusing for hyperthermia. The proposed method, after establishing the number of sources to be used, determines the excitations of the given set of sources such to produce a maximum fleld in a given region of space, subject to a completely arbitrary mask for the fleld amplitude in all other regions. As the approach relies on a formulation of the problem in terms of convex programming, it is able to achieve the globally optimal solution without the adoption of computationally intensive global optimization procedures. A preliminary assessment of feasibility is given on hyperthermia therapy of breast cancer by means of numerical examples run on realistic 2D phantoms of female breast.