Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A numerical testbed for hypotheses of extraterrestrial life and intelligence

Abstract The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has been heavily influenced by solutions to the Drake Equation, which returns an integer value for the number of communicating civilizations resident in the Milky Way, and by the Fermi Paradox, glibly stated as: ‘If they are there, where are they? ’. Both rely on using average values of key parameters, such as the mean signal lifetime of a communicating civilization. A more accurate answer must take into account the distribution of stellar, planetary and biological attributes in the galaxy, as well as the stochastic nature of evolution itself. This paper outlines a method of Monte Carlo realization that does this, and hence allows an estimation of the distribution of key parameters in SETI, as well as allowing a quantification of their errors (and the level of ignorance therein). Furthermore, it provides a means for competing theories of life and intelligence to be compared quantitatively.
Vegetation canopy covers evaluation of arid areas using IRS images

The evaluation of vegetation covers using conventional methods is difficult over arid areas due to several reasons such as lack of the suitable roads to these regions. Moreover, this task is time-consuming. For these reasons, remote sensing has been considered as an economic alternative for conventional field work. In this study, the feasibility of using IRS images in vegetation cover evaluation of rangelands has been investigated. For this purpose, vegetation types of a part of arid rangelands in Semnan province, Iran, was classified using topographic maps. Then required information related to vegetation canopy cover of different types was collected along with two linear 50 meter transactions. At the end, the statistical relationship was assessed between different indices extracted from the multispectral bands and the collected field data was assessed. The results demonstrate the moderate capability of these images to produce vegetation cover map over arid rangelands.
On the role of strong gravity in polarization from scattering of light in relativistic flows

We study linear polarization due to scattering of light on a cloudlet of particles, taking into account the radiation drag and the gravitational pull exerted on them by a central body. The effects of special and general relativity are included by connecting a model of Beloborodov for the local polarization of scattered light with Abramowicz et al. formalism for the particle motion near an ultracompact star. The compactness of the central body and its luminosity are two critical parameters of the model. We discuss the polarization magnitude of photons, which are Thomson-scattered into direct and higher-order images. The importance of the latter is only moderate under typical conditions, but they may give rise to distinct features, which we explore in terms of a toy model. The scattered signal exhibits variations of intensity and of polarization with mutual time-lags depending on the beaming/focusing effects and the light traveltime.
Shift Work and Endocrine Disorders

The objective of this review was to investigate the impact of shift and night work on metabolic processes and the role of alterations in the sleep-wake cycle and feeding times and environmental changes in the occurrence of metabolic disorders. The literature review was performed by searching three electronic databases for relevant studies published in the last 10 years. The methodological quality of each study was assessed, and best-evidence synthesis was applied to draw conclusions. The literature has shown changes in concentrations of melatonin, cortisol, ghrelin, and leptin among shift workers. Melatonin has been implicated for its role in the synthesis and action of insulin. The action of this hormone also regulates the expression of transporter glucose type 4 or triggers phosphorylation of the insulin receptor. Therefore, a reduction in melatonin can be associated with an increase in insulin resistance and a propensity for the development of diabetes. Moreover, shift work can negatively affect sleep and contribute to sedentarism, unhealthy eating habits, and stress. Recent studies on metabolic processes have increasingly revealed their complexity. Physiological changes induced in workers who invert their activity-rest cycle to fulfill work hours include disruptions in metabolic processes.
Neural Consequences of Increasing Body Weight: Evidence from Somatosensory Evoked Potentials and the Frequency-Specificity of Brain Oscillations

Previous studies on the control of human balance suggested that increased pressure under the feet, leading to reduced plantar sole mechanoreceptors sensitivity, increases body sway. Although this suggestion is attracting, it is unclear whether increased plantar sole pressure simply reduces the transmission of plantar sole afferent to the cortex or also alters the sensorimotor integrative mechanisms. Here we used electrical stimulation applied under the sole of the foot to probe the sensorimotor mechanisms processing foot mechanoreceptors. Balance control of healthy individuals was assessed either when wearing a loaded vest or in normal-weight condition. In the Loaded condition, we observed decreased cortical activity over the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) for both an early P50-N90 somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) and for oscillatory brain activity within the gamma band (30–80 Hz). These reductions were interpreted as a disrupted early sensory transmission (i.e., decreased early SEP) leading to a decreased perception of plantar sole sensory information (i.e., decreased gamma band power). These early sensory mechanisms for the Loaded condition were associated with an increase in the late P170-N210 SEP and oscillatory brain activity within the beta band (19–24 Hz). These neural signatures involved areas which are engaged in sensorimotor integrative processes (secondary somatosensory cortex (SII) and right temporoparietal junction). Altered early and late sensory processes may result from the increase pressure on the mechanoreceptors of the foot sole and not from postural instability per se. Indeed, postural instability with normal weight condition did not lead to SEP changes.
Incremental Spherical Linear Interpolation

Animation is often done by setting up a sequence of key orientations, represented by quaternions. The in between orientations are obtained by spherical linear interpolation (SLERP) of the quaternions, which then can be used to rotate the objects. However, SLERP involves the computation of trigonometric functions, which are computationally expensive. Since it is often required that the angle between each quaternion should be the same, we propose that incremental SLERP is used instead. In this paper we demonstrate five different methods for incremental SLERP, whereof one is new, and their pros and cons are discussed.
Heat Shock Proteins in Tendinopathy: Novel Molecular Regulators

Tendon disorders—tendinopathies—are the primary reason for musculoskeletal consultation in primary care and account for up to 30% of rheumatological consultations. Whilst the molecular pathophysiology of tendinopathy remains difficult to interpret the disease process involving repetitive stress, and cellular load provides important mechanistic insight into the area of heat shock proteins which spans many disease processes in the autoimmune community. Heat shock proteins, also called damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), are rapidly released following nonprogrammed cell death, are key effectors of the innate immune system, and critically restore homeostasis by promoting the reconstruction of the effected tissue. Our investigations have highlighted a key role for HSPs in tendion disease which may ultimately affect tissue rescue mechanisms in tendon pathology. This paper aims to provide an overview of the biology of heat shock proteins in soft tissue and how these mediators may be important regulators of inflammatory mediators and matrix regulation in tendinopathy.
Construction and Evaluation of a Novel Internal Positive Control (IPC) for Detection of Coxiella burnetii by PCR

Background: Due to the limitations of the classical methods to detect Coxiella burnetii, direct diagnosis of the pathogen using PCR techniques is still the preferable approach. However, false negative results owing to the presence of PCR inhibitors are troublesome. Objectives: In order to identify the inhibitors during PCR assay, an internal positive control (IPC) was designed based on 16SrRNA gene of C. burnetii. Materials and Methods: In the current study, the initial and ending parts of the target gene in an external positive control plasmid (pTZ57R/T-16S) amplified using internal primers which had a BglII restriction site on the 5´ends. Both PCR products (fragments 1 and 2) were cloned into pTZ57R/T vector. Following BglII enzyme digestion, the two obtained linear plasmids were ligated. The ligation product was transformed into Escherichia coli Top10 Fʹ. Screening of the desired recombinant clone was carried out using colony PCR. Results: The size of the PCR product was equal to the sum of the first and second fragments. Sequencing confirmed the presence of the desire insert (IPC sequence) in recombinant plasmid. Consequently, the IPC fragment was longer than the target gene while both ends had similar attachments to the same primer pair. Conclusions: The results showed that direct fusion of the recombinant plasmids containing the initial and ending parts of the target gene are simple and cost-effective techniques for increasing the length of the fragment and constructing IPC.
Modeling and Control System Design for a UAV Helicopter

We present in this paper a linearized hovering model of a UAV helicopter obtained using the in-flight data generated through a perturbation method. The UAV helicopter is constructed from a radio-controlled helicopter by integrating an onboard system, which includes a data processing unit, a data acquisition system, a wireless communications and all necessary sensors. A flight control law is then designed using a newly developed nonlinear control technique, i.e. the composite nonlinear feedback control. Actual flight testing shows that the design is successful
The Multilevel Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

Over the last three decades, customer experience (CE) has developed from a burgeoning concept to a widely recognized phenomenon in terms of both research and practice. To account for the complexity of consumption decisions, the CE literature encompasses both the rational information processing approach to consumer decision-making and the experiential approach, which includes emotions, feelings and sub-consciousness. The authors classify and examine CE research on two levels. Studies on static CE analyze experiences during touchpoints at one point in time, while studies on dynamic CE assess how experiences evolve over time. Furthermore, both static and dynamic CE research take place from two distinct theoretical perspectives: the organization and the consumer. As both theoretical perspectives essentially deal with the same phenomenon – the organizational perspective with the creation of CEs and the consumer perspective with the perception of customer experiences – there is potential for a productive symbiosis between them. The authors propose that connecting insights from both perspectives can contribute to a better understanding of what constitutes a CE for consumers and how firms can effectively manage it. First, the authors discuss the development of CE and argue that it has evolved into a broad and fragmented ‘umbrella construct’. Second, after distinguishing and defining static and dynamic CE, they systematically evaluate the state of knowledge in both the organizational and consumer perspectives. Finally, they develop an agenda for future research that integrates the consumer perspective into organizational CE research.
Implementation of an embedded hardware of FVRS on FPGA

Nowadays, security is needed in every field for variety of applications. Securing personal information as well as personal verification is becoming a critical key problem because of continuous development in the field of electronics. Due to this fact, the biometric authentication has gaining popularity as it provides a high security and reliable approach for personal authentication. Biometrics is an automated recognition of an individual based on uniqueness of their biological or behavioral characteristics. Currently, there are variety of biometric systems like face, fingerprint and voice. However, these systems have some shortcomings like they can be easily duplicated. Finger vein biometric is advantageous over these biometric systems because it has low forgery rate, aliveness detection as well as stable over long period of time. Researchers in this field shows that Hardware based approach are well suited for developing highly secure system as they results in high performance and also low cost. The proposed work deals with the development of person authentication system based on finger vein patterns, which is implemented in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The paper presents the image processing algorithm and Feature extraction process are implemented in MATLAB. And for final authentication the template matching is carried out on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) for fast recognition. The system is prototyped on Papilio one 500k FPGA board which has Xilinx Spartan 3E chip inside. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated by the time required to verify one input finger vein sample and Precision.
Robust place recognition based on omnidirectional vision and real-time local visual features for mobile robots

Topological localization is especially suitable for human–robot interaction and robot’s high level planning, and it can be realized by visual place recognition. In this paper, bag-of-features, a popular and successful approach in pattern recognition community, is introduced to realize robot topological localization. By combining the real-time local visual features proposed by ourselves for omnidirectional vision and support vector machines, a robust and real-time visual place recognition algorithm based on omnidirectional vision is proposed. The panoramic images from the COLD database were used to perform experiments to determine the best algorithm parameters and the best training condition. The experimental results show that the robot can achieve robust topological localization with high successful rate in real time by using our algorithm. Graphical Abstract
Score Based Biometric Template Selection and Update

A biometric system usually contains two stages: registration and authentication. Most biometric systems capture multiple samples of the same biometric trait at registration. As a result, it is essential to select several samples as templates. This paper proposes two algorithms maximum match scores (MMS) and greedy maximum match scores (GMMS) based on match scores for template selection and update. The proposed algorithms need not involve the specific details about the biometric data. Therefore, they are more flexible and can be used in various biometric systems. The two algorithms are compared with Random and sMDIST on the database of FVC2006DB1A, and the experimental results show that the proposed approaches can improve the accuracy of biometric system efficiently. Based on the maximized score model, we propose two strategies: ONLINE and OFFLINE for templates update. And then we analyze the relationship between them. Preliminary experiments demonstrate that OFFLINE strategy gains better performance.
Temporal Orienting and Alerting – The Same or Different?

Attention helps regulate what to attend to and what to filter out. A warning cue prior to an event can be used to direct attention and improve performance when response to an imperative target is required. Various studies have suggested that warning cues may induce a change in alertness or modulate temporal anticipation of an upcoming event. The current literature presents similar effects for these two functions; hence, effects of a warning cue are sometimes attributed to changes in the state of alertness and in other cases, to voluntary orienting of attention in time. In this article we will discuss whether temporal orienting of attention and alertness are dissociable.
Multiple-Ramp Column-Parallel ADC Architectures for CMOS Image Sensors

This paper presents a CMOS imager with a column-parallel ADC architecture based on a multiple-ramp single-slope (MRSS) ADC. Like the well-known column-level single-slope ADC, an MRSS ADC uses a very simple analog column circuit, which mainly consists of an analog comparator and some switches. A prototype imager using the MRSS ADC architecture was realized in a 0.25 CMOS process. Measurements demonstrate that the conversion speed of an MRSS ADC is 3.3 higher than a single-slope ADC while dissipating only 16% more power. Furthermore, the MRSS ADC can be easily adapted to exhibit a companding characteristic, which exploits the amplitude-dependent nature of the photon shot noise present in imager signals. Measurements show that the resulting multiple-ramp multiple-slope ADC is 25% faster than an MRSS ADC while dissipating the same amount of power.
Terminal trajectories of functional decline in the long-term care setting.

BACKGROUND Little is known about the terminal trajectories of functional decline among long-term care (LTC) residents dying with different diseases. METHODS A retrospective cohort study was performed on 747 individuals aged 65 or older who died between January 1994 and December 2004 in a 675-bed LTC facility in Massachusetts. Three study groups were created: advanced dementia, n = 314 (42%); terminal cancer, n = 63 (8%); and organ failure (congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), n = 370 (50%). Quarterly scores of 7 activities of daily living (ADLs) during the last year of life derived from the Minimum Data Set were compared among the three groups. Each activity was rated from 0 to 4 (higher scores indicate more dependence; total range, 0-28). RESULTS The mean age of all individuals at death was 91 +/- 6 (standard deviation) years. Functional decline was greatest during the last 3 months of life, but this decline was most precipitous in the terminal cancer and organ failure groups compared to the advanced dementia group. The mean change in ADL scores during the last year of life differed among the three groups (p <.001), with the greatest decline in the terminal cancer group (from initial score 13 to final score 25), followed by the organ failure group (13 to 22), and finally, the advanced dementia group (24 to 27). CONCLUSIONS The terminal trajectories of functional decline among LTC residents vary by underlying diseases. An understanding of these trajectories may be useful to clinicians and families caring for LTC residents near the end of life.
Recommending a starting point for a programming task: an initial investigation

When starting a new task, a software developer must typically find one or more starting points amongst many resources (e.g., source code and other files) forming the software system. In this paper, we consider how we might recommend one resource as an initial starting point, saving the developer the effort of having to search or use other means to find the point. Using data from the open source Eclipse Mylyn project, we investigate whether resources considered and changed for other tasks may be used to recommend a starting point for a current task.
Die Kooperation zwischen Betriebsräten und Gewerkschaften als neuralgischer Punkt des Tarifsystems. Eine exemplarische Analyse am Beispiel Ostdeutschlands

Der Beitrag betont die immense Bedeutung einer engen informellen Zusammenarbeit zwischen Betriebsraten und Gewerkschaften fur ein befriedigendes Funktionieren des deut schen Institutionensystems industrieller Beziehungen. Empirisch zeigt sich dieser Zusammen hang in schlagender Weise am ostdeutschen Negativbeispiel erodierender Geltungskraft des Flachentarifvertrags. Im Rahmen einer Typologie der Beziehungsmuster zwischen ostdeut schen Betriebsraten und Gewerkschaften wird belegt, dass nur in einer Minderheit der ost deutschen Betriebe eine arbeitsteilige 'Verschrankung' des Betriebsratsund Gewerkschafts handelns existiert und damit eine stabile Ankopplung an das Tarifsystem; in einer deutlichen Mehrheit der Betriebe finden sich hingegen defizitare Beziehungsmuster der 'Abhangigkeit 'Entkopplung' oder 'DistanzDie empirisch gewonnene Typologie basiert auf Interviews mit tariflichen und betrieblichen Expertinnen der ostdeutschen Metall-, Bauund Chemieindust rie. Die Erkenntnis, wonach die Kooperation zwischen Betriebsraten und Gewerkschaften als neuralgischer Punkt des Tarifsystems aufzufassen ist, ist auch fur die westdeutsche Situation von Bedeutung, da sich auch hier eine schleichende Tendenz zur Entkopplung zwischen be trieblicher und gewerkschaftlicher Regulierungsebene feststellen lasst.
ANN-based maximum power point tracking of photovoltaic system using fuzzy controller

A maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm using fuzzy controller was considered. MPPT method was implemented based on the voltage and reference PV voltage value was obtained from Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-model of PV modules. Therefore, measuring only the PV module voltage is adequate for MPPT operation. Fuzzy controller is used to directly control dc-dc buck converter. The simulation results have been used to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm. The proposed method is compared with conventional perturbation & observation based method. The nonlinearity and adaptiveness of fuzzy controller provided good performance under parameter variations such as solar irradiation.
Modeling Dynamic Multi-Topic Discussions in Online Forums

In the form of topic discussions, users interact with each other to share knowledge and exchange information in online forums. Modeling the evolution of topic discussion reveals how information propagates on Internet and can thus help understand sociological phenomena and improve the performance of applications such as recommendation systems. In this paper, we argue that a user’s participation in topic discussions is motivated by either her friends or her own preferences. Inspired by the theory of information flow, we propose dynamic topic discussion models by mining influential relationships between users and individual preferences. Reply relations of users are exploited to construct the fundamental influential social network. The property of discussed topics and time lapse factor are also considered in our modeling. Furthermore, we propose a novel measure called ParticipationRank to rank users according to how important they are in the social network and to what extent they prefer to participate in the discussion of a certain topic. The experiments show our model can simulate the evolution of topic discussions well and predict the tendency of user’s participation accurately.