Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dolls as props representing users in design: physical qualities and their application

Doll based design constitutes an emerging design approach where users and use is represented via props in the form of dolls and doll play in design sessions. This paper contributes to the development of Doll based design by presenting five central physical qualities of dolls which support the representation of users via dolls in design sessions: manageability, appropriation, human appearance, placeholder and accessories. The aspects have emerged through a grounded theory approach where two workshops have been analysed with respect to how the physicality of dolls supported the representation of users through Doll based design: one workshop utilised ludo pieces to represent users and the other used paper silhouettes of human bodies. Based on the identified physical qualities of dolls, the paper offers practitioners' a guide of how to take the physicality of dolls into consideration during the planning and conduct of Doll based design, in order to support the representation of users via dolls in design sessions.
Acoustics-based phonetic transcription method for proper nouns

This paper focuses on an approach to improve automatic phonetic transcription of proper nouns. The method is based on a two-level iterative process that extract the phonetic variants from the audio signals before filtering the irrelevant variants. The evaluation of the method shows a decreasing of the Word Error Rate (WER) on segments of speech with proper nouns, without affecting negatively the WER on the rest of the corpus (ESTER corpus of French broadcast news). IndexTerms: Speechrecognition, Phonetictranscription, Proper nouns
Distributed real-time control of a spatial robot juggler

The Yale spatial juggler and an emerging set of working principles for the design and implementation of embedded real-time distributed controllers are described. The robot uses a distributed network of transputers to process stereo camera data and control the torque of a three-degree-of-freedom arm to juggle a ball. The juggling algorithm is a direct extension of a novel class of nonlinear feedback controllers, called mirror laws. The algorithm takes the form of a mathematical expression that specifies robot position as a function of the ball's position and velocity. The programming approach, called geometric programming, substitutes event-driven dynamical processes and geometrical transformations for a more syntactically oriented if-then-else approach. <<ETX>>
SEASONAL VARIATION IN SIN NOMBRE VIRUS INFECTIONS IN DEER MICE: PRELIMINARY RESULTS

The proportion of deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) with recently acquired Sin Nombre virus (SNV) infections is an indicator of epizootic intensity and may be key in predicting outbreaks of hantavirus cardio-pulmonary syndrome in humans. We investigated whether incidence of recent infections was related to season, sex, reproductive status, or habitat disturbance. In May and September, 2006, we sampled 912 deer mice at six sites in Utah. We determined SNV antibody prevalence and estimated the number of recent infections with an avidity enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Antibody prevalence in adults (n=735) was 22%, and putative maternal antibody prevalence in juveniles (n=177) was 7%. Sampling period explained a significant amount of the variance in the probability of recent infections, which were two times more common in May versus September. Additionally, prevalence of high-avidity maternal antibodies (i.e., from dams with older infections) in juveniles did not correspond to the antibody avidity patterns in adult females. In May, no juveniles had high-avidity antibodies compared to adult females (49%); in September, avidity could not be measured in juveniles because none were seropositive, despite large sample sizes (n=84) and an 11% seroprevalence in adult females. Based on the results, coupled with those from the literature, we speculate that the majority of new infections may occur predominantly in the spring and that SNV may impair reproductive output of females.
Women’s autonomy in health care decision-making in developing countries: a synthesis of the literature

Autonomy is considered essential for decision-making in a range of health care situations, from health care seeking and utilization to choosing among treatment options. Evidence suggests that women in developing or low-income countries often have limited autonomy and control over their health decisions. A review of the published empirical literature to identify definitions and methods used to measure women’s autonomy in developing countries describe the relationship between women’s autonomy and their health care decision-making, and identify sociodemographic factors that influence women’s autonomy and decision-making regarding health care was carried out. An integrated literature review using two databases (PubMed and Scopus) was performed. Inclusion criteria were 1) publication in English; 2) original articles; 3) investigations on women’s decision-making autonomy for health and health care utilization; and 4) developing country context. Seventeen articles met inclusion criteria, including eleven from South Asia, five from Africa, and one from Central Asia. Most studies used a definition of autonomy that included independence for women to make their own choices and decisions. Study methods differed in that many used study-specific measures, while others used a set of standardized questions from their countries’ national health surveys. Most studies examined women’s autonomy in the context of reproductive health, while neglecting other types of health care utilized by women. Several studies found that factors, including age, education, and income, affect women’s health care decision-making autonomy. Gaps in existing literature regarding women’s autonomy and health care utilization include gaps in the areas of health care that have been measured, the influence of sex roles and social support, and the use of qualitative studies to provide context and nuance.
Novel Index for Invasively Assessing the Coronary Microcirculation

Background—A relatively simple, invasive method for quantitatively assessing the status of the coronary microcirculation independent of the epicardial artery is lacking. Methods and Results—By using a coronary pressure wire and modified software, it is possible to calculate the mean transit time of room-temperature saline injected down a coronary artery. The inverse of the hyperemic mean transit time has been shown to correlate with absolute flow. We hypothesize that distal coronary pressure divided by the inverse of the hyperemic mean transit time provides an index of microcirculatory resistance (IMR) that will correlate with true microcirculatory resistance (TMR), defined as the distal left anterior descending (LAD) pressure divided by hyperemic flow, measured with an external ultrasonic flow probe. A total of 61 measurements were made in 9 Yorkshire swine at baseline and after disruption of the coronary microcirculation, both with and without an epicardial LAD stenosis. The mean IMR (16.9±6.5 U to 25.9±14.4 U, P =0.002) and TMR (0.51±0.14 to 0.79±0.32 mm Hg · mL−1 · min−1, P =0.0001), as well as the % change in IMR (147±66%) and TMR (159±105%, P =NS versus IMR % change), increased significantly and to a similar degree after disruption of the microcirculation. These changes were independent of the status of the epicardial artery. There was a significant correlation between mean IMR and TMR values, as well as between the % change in IMR and % change in TMR. Conclusion—Measuring IMR may provide a simple, quantitative, invasive assessment of the coronary microcirculation.
The effects of change modality on change blindness in pigeons and humans

Our experiment was a cross-species comparative study of change blindness between pigeons and humans in which we used a change detection task for humans and modified it for pigeons. This task was based on the widely used flicker task, in which an individual is presented with two similar displays in alternation and the difference between the two displays must be identified. We hypothesized that a) change detection accuracy would be lower when an inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of 80 ms was present between successive displays than when not, b) when the change was presented fewer times than many times, and c) that accuracy would be lower when a change occurred within a dimension (e.g., a color stimulus changes to a different color), than between dimensions (e.g., a color stimulus changes to a shape). Experiments were conducted on 4 pigeons and 19 humans. Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to analyze the data. The presence of an ISI did not appear to have a significant effect on accuracy for either pigeons or humans. We found a significant effect of repetitions for both species. We found a significant interaction between trial type (ISI, no-ISI) and number of repetitions for humans. In addition, some changes between dimensions appear to be significantly easier to detect than changes within dimensions for both species. These results suggest partial support for the presence of a change blindness effect in both species and that pigeons experience the phenomenon in a similar pattern to humans.
Pulsar Polar Cap Heating and Surface Thermal X-Ray Emission. II. Inverse Compton Radiation Pair Fronts

We investigate the production of electron-positron pairs by inverse Compton scattered (ICS) photons above a pulsar polar cap (PC) and calculate surface heating by returning positrons. This paper is a continuation of our self-consistent treatment of acceleration, pair dynamics, and electric field screening above pulsar PCs. We calculate the altitude of the inverse Compton pair-formation fronts, the flux of returning positrons, and present the heating efficiencies and X-ray luminosities. We revise pulsar death lines implying cessation of pair formation, and present them in surface magnetic field-period space. We find that virtually all known radio pulsars are capable of producing pairs by resonant and nonresonant ICS photons radiated by particles accelerated above the PC in a pure star-centered dipole field, so that our ICS pair death line coincides with empirical radio pulsar death. Our calculations show that ICS pairs are able to screen the accelerating electric field only for high PC surface temperatures and magnetic fields. We argue that such screening at ICS pair fronts occurs locally, slowing but not turning off acceleration of particles until screening can occur at a curvature radiation (CR) pair front at higher altitude. In the case where no screening occurs above the PC surface, we anticipate that the pulsar γ-ray luminosity will be a substantial fraction of its spin-down luminosity. The X-ray luminosity resulting from PC heating by ICS pair fronts is significantly lower than the PC heating luminosity from CR pair fronts, which dominates for most pulsars. PC heating from ICS pair fronts is highest in millisecond pulsars, which cannot produce CR pairs, and may account for observed thermal X-ray components in the spectra of these old pulsars.
N-player medium access game for wireless data dissemination

In this paper we propose a game theoretic medium access strategy for data dissemination in wireless networks. In data dissemination scenarios, where the global target is the spreading of a particular content in a network, the main goal of the wireless nodes is twofold: i) to guarantee a low completion time, and ii) to increase their battery lifetime. Hence, the existence of many active sources in the network implies conflicting situations, since the nodes have to balance a trade-off between proceeding the dissemination and saving energy. To model these conflicts, we introduce a n-player medium access game using energy-based utility functions. Both analytical and simulation results are provided to evaluate our proposed strategy.
Human Reasoning Awareness Quantified by Self-Organizing Map Using Collaborative Decision Making for Multiple Investment Models

Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is one of the concepts of human reasoning awareness, which refers to expert knowledge of the group and its preferences in a dynamic market environment. In this paper, we present a new approach, which is a framework for collaborative decision making, together with expert feelings about market dynamics to deal with multiple models of stock investment portfolios. The framework aims to aggregate collective expert preferences, including of group expert psychology and sensibility, assists a dynamic trading support system and achieve the greatest investment returns. Kansei evaluation uses to quantify trader sensibilities about trading decisions, market conditions with uncertain risks. Collective group psychology and preference of traders are quantified that represent in membership weights. The framework is used to quantify Kansei, quantitative and qualitative data sets, which are visualized by Self-Organizing Map (SOM) in order to select the best alternatives with dynamic solutions for investment. To confirm the model's performance, the proposed approach has been tested and performed well in stock trading for stock investment portfolios. The experiments through case studies show that the new approach, applying Kansei evaluation enhances the capability of investment returns and reduce losses to deal with various financial investment models.
Osteochondritis dissecans of the elbow joint; a clinical study.

The term osteochondritis dissecans is used in this paper to describe an apparently non-infective condition in which a portion of articular cartilage and underlying bone is slowly separated from its bed. The separation, which is at first partial, may be completed with the formation of one or more loose bodies. It is commonly believed that the incidence of osteochondritis dissecans in the knee is very much higher than in any other joint ; according to Conway (1937) the knee is affected in 85 per cent of cases. The British and American literature has only scant and isolated reference to incidence in the elbow joint, where the condition is regarded as somewhat of a rarity (Murphy 1936). Continental writers, on the contrary, have for the past twenty years recognised a higher incidence in the elbow than in the knee (von Staa 1930, Lohr 1929). We believe that in this country the condition is no less common, and our purpose is to record its main features as we have found them in a study of thirty-eight cases.
Infection and Transmission of Rift Valley Fever Viruses Lacking the NSs and/or NSm Genes in Mosquitoes: Potential Role for NSm in Mosquito Infection

Background Rift Valley fever virus is an arthropod-borne human and animal pathogen responsible for large outbreaks of acute and febrile illness throughout Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Reverse genetics technology has been used to develop deletion mutants of the virus that lack the NSs and/or NSm virulence genes and have been shown to be stable, immunogenic and protective against Rift Valley fever virus infection in animals. We assessed the potential for these deletion mutant viruses to infect and be transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, which are the principal vectors for maintenance of the virus in nature and emergence of virus initiating disease outbreaks, and by Culex mosquitoes which are important amplification vectors. Methodology and Principal Findings Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes were fed bloodmeals containing the deletion mutant viruses. Two weeks post-exposure mosquitoes were assayed for infection, dissemination, and transmission. In Ae. aegypti, infection and transmission rates of the NSs deletion virus were similar to wild type virus while dissemination rates were significantly reduced. Infection and dissemination rates for the NSm deletion virus were lower compared to wild type. Virus lacking both NSs and NSm failed to infect Ae. aegypti. In Cx. quinquefasciatus, infection rates for viruses lacking NSm or both NSs and NSm were lower than for wild type virus. Conclusions/Significance In both species, deletion of NSm or both NSs and NSm reduced the infection and transmission potential of the virus. Deletion of both NSs and NSm resulted in the highest level of attenuation of virus replication. Deletion of NSm alone was sufficient to nearly abolish infection in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, indicating an important role for this protein. The double deleted viruses represent an ideal vaccine profile in terms of environmental containment due to lack of ability to efficiently infect and be transmitted by mosquitoes.
Nonparametric Density Estimation using Wavelets

Here the problem of density estimation using wavelets is considered. Nonparametric wavelet density estimators have recently been proposed and seem to outperform classical estimators in representing discontinuities and local oscillations. The purpose of this paper is to give a review of different types of wavelet density estimators proposed in the literature. Properties, comparisons with classical estimators and applications are stressed. Multivariate extensions are considered. Performances of wavelet estimators are analyzed using a family of normal mixture densities and the Old Faithful Geyser dataset.
Strategic Sales Management Guided By Economic Regimes

We present methods to characterize market conditions from historical data, and we describe how this knowledge can be used to make strategic and tactical sales decisions. The methods are based on learning dominant market conditions, such as over-supply or scarcity, from historical data using computational methods to represent the price density function. We show how to use this knowledge, together with real-time observable information, to identify the current dominant market condition and to forecast market changes over a planning horizon. We validate our methods by presenting experimental results in a case study, the Trading Agent Competition for Supply Chain Management.
SP ] 3 0 Ja n 20 03 SPECTRAL BOUNDS ON ORBIFOLD ISOTROPY

An underlying theme in differential geometry is to uncover information about the topology of a Riemannian manifold using its geometric structure. The present investigation carries this theme to the category of Riemannian orbifolds. In particular we ask: If a collection of isospectral orbifolds satisfies a uniform lower bound on Ricci curvature, do orbifolds in the collection have similar topological features? Can we say more if we require the collection to satisfy a uniform lower sectional curvature bound? We will assume throughout that all orbifolds are connected and closed. Our inquiry begins with a review of the fundamentals of doing geometry on orbifolds in Sections 1 through 3. Riemannian orbifolds, first defined by Satake in [Sat56], are spaces that are locally modelled on quotients of Riemannian manifolds by finite groups of isometries. These sections examine topics including the behavior of geodesics on orbifolds, and integration on orbifolds. In Section 4 we see how the geometry of orbifolds with lower curvature bounds can be studied by comparing them to manifolds with constant curvature. This section builds on the work in [Bor93]. The eigenvalue spectrum of the Laplace operator on an orbifold is introduced in Section 5. We confirm that several familiar spectral theory tools from the manifold setting carry over to orbifolds. An orbifold version of Weil’s asymptotic formula from [Far01] is stated, showing that the dimension and volume of an orbifold can be deduced from its spectrum. The last two sections develop the proofs of two affirmative answers to our main questions. In both statements below we assume the orbifolds under consideration are compact and orientable. Main Theorem 1: Let S be a collection of isospectral Riemannian orbifolds that share a uniform lower bound κ(n−1) on Ricci curvature, where κ ∈ R. Then there are only finitely many possible isotropy types, up to isomorphism, for points in an orbifold in S. Main Theorem 2: Let isolS be a collection of isospectral Riemannian orbifolds with only isolated singularities, that share a uniform lower bound κ ∈ R on sectional curvature. Then there is an upper bound on the number of singular points in any orbifold, O, in isolS depending only on Spec(O) and κ.
The Newsletter of the Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems Explaining and Communicating about Developmental Systems: How to Change Representations Editor Chair of the Technical Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems Editorial

Human infants have an extraordinary capability to discover new ways of representing and manipulating knowledge, and a key dimension of development is the progressive transformation of sensorimotor and cognitive representations. Such adaptation of representations provides high flexibility and creativity to humans, and for this reason researchers have also tried to study how analogous mechanisms could be implemented in developing robots. However, how these mechanisms are working in humans, and what are the possible approaches to implement them in machines, are still largely open questions.
Gender Wage Differentials in China ’ s Urban Labour Market

This paper describes and decomposes wage differences between female and male workers. The results indicate that females receive low wages because of unequal pay within sectors, and that the wage gap caused by the difference in sectoral attainment is small. The results also reveal that a lion’s share of the wage differential between females and males is attributable to discrimination rather than to the human capital difference between the genders. Eliminating discriminations against females with a focus on intra-sectoral inequality is crucial for reducing female/male wage differentials.
Re-Annotation Is an Essential Step in Systems Biology Modeling of Functional Genomics Data

One motivation of systems biology research is to understand gene functions and interactions from functional genomics data such as that derived from microarrays. Up-to-date structural and functional annotations of genes are an essential foundation of systems biology modeling. We propose that the first essential step in any systems biology modeling of functional genomics data, especially for species with recently sequenced genomes, is gene structural and functional re-annotation. To demonstrate the impact of such re-annotation, we structurally and functionally re-annotated a microarray developed, and previously used, as a tool for disease research. We quantified the impact of this re-annotation on the array based on the total numbers of structural- and functional-annotations, the Gene Annotation Quality (GAQ) score, and canonical pathway coverage. We next quantified the impact of re-annotation on systems biology modeling using a previously published experiment that used this microarray. We show that re-annotation improves the quantity and quality of structural- and functional-annotations, allows a more comprehensive Gene Ontology based modeling, and improves pathway coverage for both the whole array and a differentially expressed mRNA subset. Our results also demonstrate that re-annotation can result in a different knowledge outcome derived from previous published research findings. We propose that, because of this, re-annotation should be considered to be an essential first step for deriving value from functional genomics data.