Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Who is Afraid of the Humanoid? Investigating Cultural Differences in the Acceptance of Robots

Are robots perceived in the same manner in the West and in Japan? This article presents a preliminary exploration of several aspects of the Japanese culture and a survey of the most important myths and novels involving artificial beings in Western literature. Through this analysis, the article tries to shed light on particular cultural features that may account for contemporary differences in our behavior towards humanoids.
Virtual Trellis Routing : how Regular Structures can ease Network Layer operations

The main characteristic of Ad Hoc and Sensor networks (the dynamic presence of nodes without any existing infrastructure) implies that the topological information contained in the IP address can no longer reflect the position of a node in the network. Many solutions are being proposed to improve classical routing but they seldom scale in such environments. This paper proposes a new approach to revise the location-identification couple contained in the IP address. We propose the use of a Virtual Regular Structure as a topological location space to address the desired properties such as robustness or multi-paths. Our approach explores an implementation based on trellis graphs in place of trees. We show that the construction of the optimal structure is an NP-Complete problem, but propose a heuristic and evaluate its performance via simulations. We also analyze the robustness of the proposed approach with regards to the transient presence of nodes.
Push recovery for NAO humanoid robot

This paper presents the ankle, hip, and ankle-hip strategies in frontal plane for NAO humanoid robot. A humanoid is an unstable robotic mechanical system and the main and primary task of each humanoid is to maintain its balance. Moreover, NAO humanoid robot has 25 degrees-of-freedom with brushless DC actuators. The main challenges in the context of balancing of NAO humanoid are the high complexity of the robot and applying joint torque control approaches for NAO humanoid which is a position controlled robot. In this paper, for recovery and prediction the robot from external push, as the main contribution, the virtual leg model is proposed. The control objective is absorbing the external push and then recover the robot to its original configuration. PD controller is used to achieve the control objective. The performance and usage of these strategies and the model is validated by Webots. For each case study, an impulsive force is applied to NAO's torso with various magnitudes. The performance and validation of the proposed push recovery schemes are verified in the simulation. Moreover, the same results are obtained from the practical implementation of these strategies on NAO H25 humanoid robot.
Performance Analysis of Remote File System Access over High Bandwidth Local Network

We study the performance of ﬁle servers, comparing NFS implementation in Linux to our experimental lightweight system called ORFA. The aim is to ﬁnd out NFS bottlenecks in the case of high bandwidth local network. Using a simple protocol without cache allow us to get best performance from the underlying communication subsystem. Our user-level implementation avoids several kernel-level constraints and thus provides better performance than NFS. Moreover we explore several optimization techniques to reduce the server overhead which usually is the bottleneck.
THE IMPACT OF URBAN LAND TAXATION: THE PITTSBURGH EXPERIENCE

In 1979-80, the city of Pittsburgh restructured its property tax system by raising the rate on land to more than five times the rate on structures. This paper explores the impact of this tax reform on the economic development of the city. Following some background on the theory of land taxation and Pittsburgh's historical setting, the paper presents an empirical analysis of the impact of the tax reform. Pittsburgh experienced in the 1980s a dramatic increase in building activity, far in excess of other cities in the region. The analysis suggests that, while a shortage of commercial space was a primary driving force behind the expansion, the reliance on increased land taxation played an important supporting role by enabling the city to avoid rate increases in other taxes that could have impeded development.
Articular cartilage repair: procedures versus products

This review discusses the current perspectives and practices regarding the treatment of articular cartilage injury. Specifically, the authors have delineated and examined articular cartilage repair techniques as either surgical procedures or manufactured products. Although both methodologies are used to treat articular cartilage injury, there are obvious advantages and disadvantages to the application of both, with the literature providing few recommendations on the most suitable regimen for the patient and surgeon. In recent times, cell-based tissue engineering products, predominantly autologous chondrocyte implantation, have been the subject of much research and have become clinically popular. Herein, we review the most used procedures and products in cartilage repair, compare and contrast their outcomes, and evaluate the issues that must be overcome in order to improve patient efficacy in the future.
The promise of spatial transcriptomics for neuroscience in the era of molecular cell typing

The stereotyped spatial architecture of the brain is both beautiful and fundamentally related to its function, extending from gross morphology to individual neuron types, where soma position, dendritic architecture, and axonal projections determine their roles in functional circuitry. Our understanding of the cell types that make up the brain is rapidly accelerating, driven in particular by recent advances in single-cell transcriptomics. However, understanding brain function, development, and disease will require linking molecular cell types to morphological, physiological, and behavioral correlates. Emerging spatially resolved transcriptomic methods promise to fill this gap by localizing molecularly defined cell types in tissues, with simultaneous detection of morphology, activity, or connectivity. Here, we review the requirements for spatial transcriptomic methods toward these goals, consider the challenges ahead, and describe promising applications.
Geographical Information System(GIS) based Agricultural Drought Assessment: A Knowledge Based Methodology

Agricultural drought is considered to be one of the man's worst natural enemy. Its beginning is subtle, its progress is insidious and its effect can be devastating. In a country like India, drought is considered to be a major factor of uncertainty due to vagarious of monsoon. Once there was not effective drought assessment and monitoring system, but now remote sensing plays an important role and the facilities like Geographic Information System(GIS) facilitate effective drought assessment and monitoring. The methodology list out an assessment and monitoring procedure for Agricultural drought for a given district. Interpretation of satellite based vegetation index(VI) with their ground parameter through GIS. For this study different maps viz, Landuse map, Soil map, Mandal/Municipal map, Hydrogeological map and data's viz Rainfall, Ground water levels, Major Crop sown details, Source wise irrigation details need to be collected, digitised and entered in the database. From the created database agricultural landuse area should be extracted and VI need to be generated. This generated Vegetative Index and the available fortnightly Rainfall data of couple of years from the current years assessment should be plotted against time(fortnightly interval) for the selected mandals/municipalities constituting different crops, soil and rainfall distribution. Based on the normal crop performance of previous years, the relative drought assessment for the current year should be made, and the drought severity level is obtained. The results may isolate few from the selected mandals/municipalities which may fall under mild/moderated drought level.
Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States

CONTEXT. Youth worldwide play violent video games many hours per week. Previous research suggests that such exposure can increase physical aggression. OBJECTIVE. We tested whether high exposure to violent video games increases physical aggression over time in both high- (United States) and low- (Japan) violence cultures. We hypothesized that the amount of exposure to violent video games early in a school year would predict changes in physical aggressiveness assessed later in the school year, even after statistically controlling for gender and previous physical aggressiveness. DESIGN. In 3 independent samples, participants’ video game habits and physically aggressive behavior tendencies were assessed at 2 points in time, separated by 3 to 6 months. PARTICIPANTS. One sample consisted of 181 Japanese junior high students ranging in age from 12 to 15 years. A second Japanese sample consisted of 1050 students ranging in age from 13 to 18 years. The third sample consisted of 364 United States 3rd-, 4th-, and 5th-graders ranging in age from 9 to 12 years. RESULTS. Habitual violent video game play early in the school year predicted later aggression, even after controlling for gender and previous aggressiveness in each sample. Those who played a lot of violent video games became relatively more physically aggressive. Multisample structure equation modeling revealed that this longitudinal effect was of a similar magnitude in the United States and Japan for similar-aged youth and was smaller (but still significant) in the sample that included older youth. CONCLUSIONS. These longitudinal results confirm earlier experimental and cross-sectional studies that had suggested that playing violent video games is a significant risk factor for later physically aggressive behavior and that this violent video game effect on youth generalizes across very different cultures. As a whole, the research strongly suggests reducing the exposure of youth to this risk factor.
Drug Name Recognition: Approaches and Resources

Drug name recognition (DNR), which seeks to recognize drug mentions in unstructured medical texts and classify them into pre-defined categories, is a fundamental task of medical information extraction, and is a key component of many medical relation extraction systems and applications. A large number of efforts have been devoted to DNR, and great progress has been made in DNR in the last several decades. We present here a comprehensive review of studies on DNR from various aspects such as the challenges of DNR, the existing approaches and resources for DNR, and possible directions.
Contrôle des ressources dans les cartes à microprocesseur – papier d ’ intention –

Les cartes à puces ont évolué vers le concept de cartes ouvertes. Ce sont des cartes où l’on peut charger des applications après qu’elles aient été émises (distribuées à leur porteur). De nombreux travaux ont consisté à sécuriser le code mobile qui pouvait être chargé dans la carte [18, 26] afin d’assurer l’intégrité et la confidentialité des données. Cependant, établir des garanties plus larges comme le contrôle des ressources ou le temps réel reste une question ouverte. Nous étudions ici les concepts de qualité de service (disponibilité, déni de service) liés aux systèmes extensibles dans le domaine de la carte à puces.
In Vitro Effect of Apigenin and Danshen in Tibial Dyschondroplasia through Inhibition of Hsp90 and VEGF Expressions in Avian Growth Plate Cells

Tibial dyschondroplasia (TD) is one of the common skeletal abnormalities in fast growing birds causing major economic losses to avian industry. It is characterized by non-vascularized, un-mineralized and non-viable cartilage in tibial growth plate that fails to form bone. The aim of this study was to check the in-vitro effect of apigenin and danshen on heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expressions in avian growth plate cells treated with sub-lethal concentration of thiram. Initially, chondrocytes from chicken growth plates were isolated on cultured medium with and without various concentration of thiram to find out sub-lethal dose. Then, to check the effect of apigenin and danshen, the chondrocytes were treated first with sub-lethal (2.5 µM) concentration of thiram and then with different doses (10, 20, 40, and 80 µM) of apigenin and danshen. The mRNA expressions level of Hsp90 and VEGF genes were evaluated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The .
A vectorial image classification method based on neighborhood weighted Gaussian mixture model

The CT uroscan contains three to four time-spaced acquisitions of the same patient. Registration of these acquisitions forms a vectorial volume, which contains a more complete anatomical information. In order to outline the anatomical structures, multi-dimensional classification is necessary for analyzing this vectorial volume. Because of the partial volume effect (PVE), probability distributions are assigned to the different material types within this vectorial volume instead of a definite material distribution. Gaussian mixture model is often used in probability classification problems to model such distributions, but it relies only on the intensity distributions, which will lead a misclassification on the boundaries and inhomogeneous regions with noises. In order to solve this problem, a neighborhood weighted Gaussian mixture model is proposed in this paper. Expectation Maximization algorithm is used as optimization method. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed method can get a better classification result and less affected by the noise.
NOVOBIOCIN-TETRATHIONATE BROTH: A MEDIUM OF IMPROVED SELECTIVITY FOR THE ISOLATION OF SALMONELLAE FROM FAECES

The selective cultivation of bacteria by incorporating chemicals in the media depends on supplying a substance which either stimulates the growth of the species to be isolated or inhibits unwanted species. Tetrathionate is a good selector of Salmonellae in faeces culture, and is believed to act in both ways. Tetrathionate reducers, such as Salmonellae, flourish in broth containing it, whereas a high concentration of tetrathionate inhibits many other faecal organisms (Knox, Gell, and Pollock, 1943). Unfortunately, however, members of the Proteus group are powerful tetrathionate reducers, and when they
The Vitamin A–Redox Hypothesis: A Biochemical Basis for Honest Signaling via Carotenoid Pigmentation

Trade-offs in resource allocation have been widely stated as the means by which the honesty of ornamental traits is maintained, but an alternative to this resource trade-off hypothesis is that production of ornamentation is linked to the biochemical efficiency of vital cellular processes. Carotenoids are antioxidants, potentially tying carotenoid-based coloration to the oxidative state of an organism, and some carotenoids are also precursors for vitamin A, which regulates numerous cellular processes. We present a biochemical model for regulation of ornamental coloration based on interdependencies of carotenoid and retinoid biochemistry. We propose that vitamin A regulatory mechanisms, redox systems, and carotenoid pigmentation pathways link carotenoid coloration to oxidative state and to a host of important aspects of performance, such as immune function. The activity of β-carotene ketolase, which catalyzes the oxidation of yellow carotenoids into red carotenoids, is responsive to the states of vitamin A pools and redox systems such that coloration is a direct reflection of the physiological state of an animal. According to the vitamin A–redox hypothesis, feather coloration is associated with a range of performance measures because performance emerges from functionality of the same basic cellular processes that regulate pigmentation. We present the vitamin A–redox hypothesis as a testable alternative hypothesis to the resource trade-off hypothesis for the maintenance of honesty of carotenoid pigmentation.
A geometric approach to approximate continuous k-median query

We revisit the classic k-median problem in continuous distributed model. The rapid advance in electronic miniaturization, wireless communication and position technologies makes a significant contribution to pervasive applications of continuous distributed model. Data sets acquired in continuous distributed model are automatically and continuously updated, or even distributed over a wide area in typical cases. The sequence of k-median at each time stamp in the continuous distributed model forms a k-median series, which is called continuous k-median. Our main idea is to transform continuous k-median problem to continuous k-median query, which applies a selection operation on continuous k-median. Because the result of this selection is a subset of k-median series, time and communication efficiency in the continuous distributed model can be achieved. The continuous k-median query provides an insightful structure of data sets along time dimension and widely applied in various cases such as location-based services, sensor network monitor, and etc. In this paper, the time-efficiency of continuous k-median query in a central paradigm is first studied where an efficient indicator function is designed to suppress unnecessary re-evaluations. Then, communication-efficiency of continuous k-median query is addressed in a distributed paradigm where a geometric approach is applied to suppress unnecessary communications between nodes. Our approach to continuous k-median query distinguishes itself in two aspects. First, the indicator function is built on the aggregation distribution of data sets instead of prevailing safe region of individuals and time-efficiency can therefore be achieved. Second, a geometric approach is explored so that a single local node can trigger a re-valuation and therefore communication-efficiency can be obtained. Experiments are done to empirically demonstrate the time and communication efficiency of our approach on various data sets.
Analysis and optimization of substrate noise coupling in single-chip RF transceiver design

The relentless move toward single chip integration of RF, analog and digital blocks results in significant noise coupling effects that can degrade performance and hence, should be controlled. In this paper, we propose a practical methodology that uses a suite of commercial tools in combination with a high-speed extractor based on an innovative semi-analytical method to deal with noise coupling problems, and enable RF designers to achieve first silicon-success for their chips. The integration of the methodology in a typical RF design flow is illustrated and its successful application to achieve a single-chip integration of a transceiver is demonstrated.
Bunching with a self-levelling feller-buncher on steep terrain for efficient yarder extraction

A research trial was conducted in Victoria, Australia, to evaluate a self-levelling feller-buncher on steep terrain and its potential to improve the overall productivity of steep terrain cable logging. The production study was conducted for a mechanized harvesting system using a Valmet 445 EXL self-levelling tracked feller-buncher and a Madill 124 swing yarder while operating in a clear fell plantation. This study quantified the equipment productivity of steep slope harvesting in a 33 year-old Pinus radiata D. Don (radiata pine) plantation. Mechanized felling was an integral part of this operation, although there were areas of motor-manually felled trees due to terrain and stream restrictions. Thus the difference in productivity of the yarder for bunched and unbunched trees was quantified. For an average piece size of 0.8 m 3 , a productivity of 138 m 3 /PMH was predicted for the feller-buncher. Bunching substantially improved the productivity of the swing yarder. Mean volume per cycle for the swing yarder was 1.9 m 3 for bunched trees versus 1.3 m 3 for unbunched trees. For a yarding distance range between 150 and 240 metres, bunching increased the productivity by 25%. These results show the potential of self-levelling feller-bunchers in cable logging operations and suggest that research into mechanised felling be directed towards acquiring more information on the performance of steep terrain feller-bunchers in larger trees sizes, and under other slope and soil conditions in Australia.
Electrochemical Characterization Of Zinc-Rich Epoxy Primer-Cnt Nanocoating / Steel Interface In Co2 Saturated Under Different Flow Conditions

The internal susceptibility and corrosion of pipelines has widely been minimized by the use of inhibitors which mitigate and control degradation effects due to flow conditions and to aggressive environments created inside the pipeline. However, environmental hazard might constitute a problem due to the chemical substances forming the inhibitors. A very specific application of pipeline integrity occurs in offshore facilities for oil recovery production where a mixture of pressurized water-CO2 is injected to almost depleted oil wells in order to enhance recovery. As CO2 injection is very common in marine environments, the effect of chloride ions is added to the corrosive variables of the system is considered. Environmental aggressiveness is set due to a paired effect of environmental conditions: the formation of carbonic acid in the water-CO2 mixture and the presence of chloride ions as part of the marine environment. Here we aimed to electrochemically characterize a zinc-rich epoxy nanocoating primer (ZREP), as well as a composite variation incorporating carbon nanotubes (CNT-ZREP), on an API X52 pipeline grade steel substrate. A rotating cylinder electrode (RCE) was used to incorporate the flow regime and equivalent shear stress conditions. The selected electrolyte for testing was
The Bending Strength of the Porcelain with the Substitution of Quartz by Palm Oil Fuel Ash

In this study the use of a treated palm oil fuel ash (POFA) as a substitute material in producing an improved porcelain ceramic has been presented. The POFA was grounded in a ball mill until the median particle size was reduced to about 50 μm. The POFA was heated at a temperature of 600 oC for 1.5 h in an electric furnace. It was used to substitute quartz in porcelain body from 0 wt% to 25 wt%. The mixed powder was pressed into pellets at pressure of 31 MPa, 61 MPa, 91 MPa and 121 MPa. All the pellets were sintered at a temperature of 1100 oC for 2 h soaking time. It was found out among other things that the bending strength of the samples increases with increase in substitution and also with the increase in mould presure. With a value of 45 MPa the bending strength of the samples containing 15 wt% sintered at a temperature of 1100 oC were higher than the standard porcelain. This could be attributed to compaction and sharp microstructural changes.