Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unsupervised learning of dependencies between local luminance and contrast in natural images

Separate processing of local luminance and contrast in biological visual systems has been argued to be due to the independence of these two properties in natural image data. In this paper we examine spatial, retinotopic channels formed by these two quantities and use Independent Component Analysis to study the possible dependencies between the channels. As a result, oriented, localized bandpass filter pairs are learned, where one filter processes the luminance channel and the other the contrast channel. We study the relationship of the learned filters and their pairings, and show that these are due to dependencies existing between local luminance and contrast. Subsequently, our results suggest that the separate processing of local luminance and contrast can not be attributed to their independence in natural images.
The Views of Teacher Candidates Attending the Pedagogical Formation Program Regarding the Teaching Practice Course.

One of the important aspects that increase the efficiency of learning is well trained teacher. Besides, increasing quality and ensuring permanent learning is undoubtedly dependent on teacher’s effort to achieve these and active participation of student in the teaching process more actively and willingly. This study was conducted to review the views of teacher candidates for the practices they performed at relevant schools in the scope of teaching practice. In the study, it was aimed to determine what teachers have carried out for the teaching process to be more qualified. In the study, six open-ended questions were asked to 26 teacher candidates, working at central district of Tokat province during the spring semester of 2015-2016 academic year, received pedagogical formation, agreed voluntarily respond to the information on the form in pre-interview. The study conducted qualitatively. In the analysis of the data, descriptive analysis technique from qualitative data analysis techniques was used. According to findings, it is seen that participants experienced various problems during teaching practice. The participants found short haul and temporary solutions that they usually developed by themselves to overcome their problems that they experienced. The majority of the participants expressed that they benefited from teaching practice course in the topics of lecturing, addressing, recognizing students, communicating with students, classroom management and attracting attention. The majority of the participants stated that teaching practice satisfied their expectations from this practice. It was found that the participants didn’t have enough knowledge about the practice itself, so their expectations from this practice was low. The fact that participants' expectations were low and they didn’t have enough knowledge about the practice shows that the practice in question satisfied their expectations easier and faster. Regarding the participants' expectations about how teaching practice should be and what it should include; they expect for teaching staff and practice teacher to get more involved with participants and course; the lesson plans to be more planned and functional, the communication of instructors, and practice teachers at school to be better
A Design-for-Diagnosis Technique for SRAM Write Drivers

Diagnosis is becoming a major concern with the rapid development of semiconductor memories. It provides information about the location of manufacturing defects in the memory, and its effectiveness allows a fast yield ramp up. Most of existing diagnosis methods uses a fault dictionary to provide detailed information of fault localization. However, these solutions are most of the time unable to distinguish between all faults, and more importantly often fail to identify the actual faulty block of the memory. Identifying which block of a memory (core- cell array, write drivers, address decoders, pre-charge circuits, etc .) is defective allows saving considerable amount of time during the ramp up phase. In this paper, we propose a very low cost design-for-diagnosis (DfD) solution for identifying faulty write drivers. It consists in verifying logic and analog conditions that guarantee the fault-free behavior of the write driver. The proposed solution allows a fast diagnosis (only three consecutive write operations are needed to fully diagnose the write driver) and induces a low area overhead (about 0.5% for a 512 times 512 SRAM). Beside diagnosis, an additional interest of such a solution is its usefulness during a post-silicon characterization process, where it can be used to extract the main features of write drivers (logic and analog levels on bit lines).
The CosmoBot TM System : Evaluating its Usability in Therapy Sessions with Children Diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy *

* This study was supported by NIH SBIR Phase I (R43 HD042353-01A1). CosmoBotTM System Development and Evaluation has been supported by NSF SBIR Phase I and II grants (DMI-0239183), Department of Education Phase I and II grants (H133S030037), and by the RERC on Telerehabilitation projects (H133E990007, H133E040012). Abstract The CosmoBotTM system has been designed and developed for therapy, education, and play. Children interact with CosmoBotTM, controlling the robot’s movements and audio output, using a variety of gestural sensors and speech recognition, while actively targeting their therapy goals. We evaluated the usability of CosmoBotTM to contribute to physical therapy intervention for upper extremity movements in children with cerebral palsy who are patients of the Outpatient Rehabilitation Program at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital in Cheverly, MD. The results of this study showed that the CosmoBot system provided great motivation for the children during the therapy sessions, was easy for the therapist to set up and use, and alleviated the therapist’s job of trying to engage the children in therapy.
Influence of Oscillating Flow on LDL Transport and Wall Shear Stress in the Normal Aortic Arch

Lipid accumulation in the aortic wall is an important factor in the development of atherosclerosis. The Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) at the surface of the endothelium in relation to Wall Shear Stress (WSS) in the normal human aortic arch under unsteady, normal flow and mass conditions was computationally analysed. Concave sides of the aortic arch exhibit, relatively to the convex ones, elevated LDL levels at the surface of the endothelium for all time steps. At the peak systolic velocity, the LDL level reaches a value 23.0% higher than that at entrance in the ascending-descending aorta region. The corresponding LDL levels at the surface of the endothelium for the near minimum entrance velocity instant reaches 26.0%. During the cardiac cycle, the highest area averaged normalized LDL taken up as compared to the lowest one is 0.69%. WSS plays an important role in the lipid accumulation. Low WSS regions are exposed to high LDL levels at the surface of the endothelium. Regions of elevated LDL levels do not necessarily co-locate to the sites of lowest WSS. The near wall paths of the velocities might be the most important factor for the elevated LDL levels at the surface of the endothelium.
Visceral Adiposity, Not Abdominal Subcutaneous Fat Area, Is Associated With an Increase in Future Insulin Resistance in Japanese Americans

OBJECTIVE—Visceral adiposity is generally considered to play a key role in the metabolic syndrome. We sought to determine whether greater visceral adiposity directly measured by computed tomography (CT) is associated with increased future insulin resistance independent of other adipose depots. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS— We followed 306 nondiabetic Japanese Americans over 10–11 years. Baseline variables included BMI; waist circumference; and abdominal, thoracic, and thigh fat areas measured by CT. Total fat area was estimated by the sum of all of these fat areas. Visceral adiposity was measured as intra-abdominal fat area at the umbilicus level. Total subcutaneous fat area was defined as total fat area minus intra-abdominal fat area. Insulin resistance was evaluated by homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), fasting plasma insulin level, Matsuda index, and area under the oral glucose tolerance test curve (AUC) of insulin. RESULTS— Both baseline intra-abdominal fat area (P = 0.002) and HOMA-IR (P < 0.001) were independently associated with increased HOMA-IR at 10–11 years in a multiple linear regression model after adjustment for abdominal subcutaneous fat area, age, sex, 2-h plasma glucose level, and incremental insulin response. Intra-abdominal fat area remained a significant predictor of increased HOMA-IR at 10–11 years even after adjustment for total subcutaneous fat area, total fat area, BMI, or waist circumference, but no other measure of CT-measured regional or total adiposity was significantly related with HOMA-IR at 10–11 years in models that contained intra-abdominal fat area. Similar results were obtained for predicting future fasting plasma insulin level, Matsuda index, and AUC of insulin. CONCLUSIONS— Greater visceral adiposity is associated with an increase in future insulin resistance.
Regulation of ATM/p53-dependent suppression of myc-induced lymphomas by Wip1 phosphatase

The ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) kinase is a key tumor suppressor that regulates numerous cell cycle checkpoints as well as apoptosis. Here, we report that ATM is a critical player in the regulation of apoptosis and lymphomagenesis in the presence of c-myc. In turn, deletion of the inhibitory ATM phosphatase, Wip1, results in ATM up-regulation and suppression of Eμ-myc–induced B cell lymphomas. Using mouse genetic crosses, we show that the onset of myc-induced lymphomas is dramatically delayed in Wip1-null mice in an ATM- and p53-, but not p38 MAPK– or Arf-, dependent manner. We propose that Wip1 phosphatase is critical for regulating the ATM-mediated tumor surveillance network.
Testing an Evolutionary-Psychological Model of Incest

of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Professor Debra Lieberman. No. of pages in text. (62) Predictive literature on incest has focused extensively on the dynamics of the home environment, but much less attention has been paid to the individual characteristics of offenders and the victims they target. Using the 2015 dataset from the National IncidentBased Reporting System (NIBRS), a national database of criminal offenders maintained by the National Archive of Criminal Data, this dissertation sets out to complement the existing predictive framework by identifying individual characteristics associated with incest. Findings include: males constituted 93% of all biological incest offenders; females constituted 78% of all biological incest victims, the majority of which fell within fertile ages (11-40), while a substantial percentage (46%) were under age 11; forcible cases of biological incest were 4.5 times more frequent than non-forcible cases; the proportion of biological incest cases committed by a stepparent is more than 10 times greater than the proportion of stepparents in the population; incest between a biological mother and her child is the rarest type of incest on a per capita basis, with 1 case of incest occurring for every 470,180 mother-child pairs in the United States; incest between a stepfather and stepchild was the most frequent type, with 1 case occurring for every 3,384 pairs. These findings were largely consistent with an evolutionary-psychological model of incest and
Development of a FPGA-based motion control IC for high-speed gantry-type boring and milling machine tool

Tn this paper, a new FPGA-based motion control IC with embedded DSP core for high-speed gantry-type boring and milling machine tool is proposed to control the two decoupling linear motors. The FPGA-based IC has functions of trajectory generation, decoupling control, adaptive control, closed current loop control, current sensing module, encoder logic, PWM modulation, communication module and analog to digital converter. The complicated control algorithm is implemented in the DSP core by software due to the heavy computation and low sampling frequency control. The fully digital circuits of controllers and function modules are designed in FPGA by hardware owing to the simple computation and high sampling frequency control. The proposed motion control IC is designed to reduce synchronization error of two driving motors of the gantry-type boring and milling machine tool and to improve the accuracy of the system. The mechanical coupling system is decoupled into two separate systems by the decoupling controller, and two driving motors keep the same speed with the adaptive controllers. Current control circuit is designed to process current control and coordinate transformation. Finally, the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed system is verified by some simulation results. With the proposed control IC, driving motors possesses the advantages of good synchronization control performance and robustness to uncertainties.
Regional cerebral glucose utilization reveals widespread abnormalities in the motor system of the rat mutant dystonic

Rats with an inherited movement disorder (dystonic, dt), their phenotypically normal littermates, and normal unrelated controls were studied using a metabolic mapping technique, 2-deoxyglucose autoradiography. This approach was used to identify potential sites of abnormality underlying the movement disorder, as no morphological abnormalities using light and electron microscopic techniques have been identified in this mutation. There was a significant overall glucose utilization (GU) reduction in the dt rats and their littermate controls when they were at rest and not displaying abnormal movements. Conversion of GU values to standard scores showed abnormalities in dt compared with both control groups in the following areas: deep cerebellar nuclei, locus coeruleus, pontine gray, ventrolateral- ventromedial thalamic complex, nucleus of the third nerve, lateral habenula, and basolateral amygdala. Littermates were different from nonlittermates in several regions, including the dentate and red nuclei. A study of relative GU performed in animals displaying dystonic movements also showed abnormalities in the deep cerebellar nuclei and locus coeruleus, and in the red nucleus, external cuneate, and medial septum. Correlations computed for GU in pairs of regions with known anatomical connections suggested that cerebellar, substantia nigra, and basal ganglia efferents may be abnormal. These studies complement existing biochemical and neuropharmacological data which show abnormalities in the cerebellum of the dt rat. Additionally, the function of brain stem and even basal ganglia nuclei is affected in this mutant, perhaps as a consequence of abnormal cerebellar activity. The partial effects in the littermates suggest that abnormalities in only a few regions are not sufficient to produce the movement disorder, and a gene dose effect may exist. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
2 Cosmology in spacevelocity

Most of the calculations done to obtain the value of the cosmological constant use methods of quantum gravity, a theory that has not been established as yet, and a variety of results are usually obtained. The numerical value of the cosmological constant is then supposed to be inserted in the Einstein field equations, hence the evolution of the Universe will depend on the calculated value. Here we present a fundamental approach to the problem. The theory presented here uses a Riemannian four-dimensional presentation of gravitation in which the coordinates are those of Hubble, i.e. distances and velocity rather than space and time. We solve these field equations and show that there are three possibilities for the Universe to expand but only the accelerating Universe is possible. From there we calculate the cosmological constant and find that its value is given by 1.934×10s. This value is in excellent agreement with the measurements obtained by the High-Z Supernova Team and the Supernova Cosmology Project. Finally it is shown that the three-dimensional space of the Universe is Euclidean, as the Boomerang experiment shows.
MOTION PLANNING AND ITS FEEDBACK STABILIZATION FOR UNDERACTUATED SHIPS: VIRTUAL CONSTRAINTS APPROACH

Abstract The paper suggests a method for motion generation and feedback stabilization of a dynamical model of an underactuated ship with 3 degrees of freedom and 2 control inputs with a presence of lumped enviromental forces acting on the model. If the geometrical path for ship motion is given, the method suggests a description of all feasible motions of the model along this path. It is shown how to desing controller to counteract enviromental forces remaining on path.
Of Lion Manes and Human Beards: Some Unusual Effects of the Interaction between Aggression and Sociality

The function of manes in lions has been a topic of scientific interest since Darwin (1871) suggested that it provides protection in intraspecific fights. Recent experimental studies on wild lions have emphasized the role of female selection, but analyses of specific attack behaviors and targets, and the social consequences of manelessness for lions living in very hot climates suggest that male manes may indeed mitigate the outcomes of intraspecific male attack and thus serve a permissive function for multi-male + female groups, facilitating protection of prides against take-overs and infanticide by nomadic males. Humans also have unusual structural protections for the head, face and neck, areas that are especially accessible during intraspecies attack, and highly vulnerable to damage. One of these, the beard, consists of coarse hairs that grow indefinitely, but only for males, and only during and following puberty; suggesting that it, like the lion's mane, may serve as protection in intraspecies male fights. Such structural protections may reflect a specific combination of lethal weaponry and social life-style, particularly when these are developed so rapidly that they are not accompanied by the evolution of complex attack-inhibiting social behaviors.
Quittr: The Design of a Video Game to Support Smoking Cessation

Background Smoking is recognized as the largest, single, preventable cause of death and disease in the developed world. While the majority of smokers report wanting to quit, and many try each year, smokers find it difficult to maintain long-term abstinence. Behavioral support, such as education, advice, goal-setting, and encouragement, is known to be beneficial in improving the likelihood of succeeding in a quit attempt, but it remains difficult to effectively deliver this behavioral support and keep the patient engaged with the process for a sufficient duration. In an attempt to solve this, there have been numerous mobile apps developed, yet engagement and retention have remained key challenges that limit the potential effectiveness of these interventions. Video games have been clearly linked with the effective delivery of health interventions, due to their capacity to increase motivation and engagement of players. Objective The objective of this study is to describe the design and development of a smartphone app that is theory-driven, and which incorporates gaming characteristics in order to promote engagement with content, and thereby help smokers to quit. Methods Game design and development was informed by a taxonomy of motivational affordances for meaningful gamified and persuasive technologies. This taxonomy describes a set of design components that is grounded in well-established psychological theories on motivation. Results This paper reports on the design and development process of Quittr, a mobile app, describing how game design principles, game mechanics, and game elements can be used to embed education and support content, such that the app actually requires the user to access and engage with relevant educational content. The next stage of this research is to conduct a randomized controlled trial to determine whether the additional incentivization game features offer any value in terms of the key metrics of engagement–how much content users are consuming, how many days users are persisting with using the app, and what proportion of users successfully abstain from smoking for 28 days, based on user-reported data and verified against a biochemical baseline using cotinine tests. Conclusions We describe a novel, and theoretically-informed mobile app design approach that has a broad range of potential applications. By using the virtual currency approach, we remove the need for the game to comprehensively integrate the healthy activity as part of its actual play mechanics. This opens up the potential for a wide variety of health problems to be tackled through games where no obvious play mechanic presents itself. The implications of this app are that similar approaches may be of benefit in areas such as managing chronic conditions (diabetes, heart disease, etc), treating substance abuse (alcohol, illicit drugs, etc), diet and exercise, eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating), and various phobias.
THE HEALING EFFECTS OF CRUDE FLAVONOID FROM SCHWENKIA AMERICANA LINN ON ASPIRIN-INDUCED GASTRIC ULCER IN RATS

Schwenkia americana Linn plant has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of different pathologies such as cough, headache, fever, sinusitis, including gastric ulcer. This study investigated the healing effect of crude flavonoid on aspirin-induced gastric ulcer in rats. Thirty-six rats were used for the study. Ulcer was induced in experimental animals in group II to VI with 500mg/kg body weight of aspirin for three days. Group I which served as negative control received normal saline and was not induced. The ulcerated animals were treated with different doses of the crude flavonoid, group III, IV and V were treated with 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg body weight of crude flavonoid respectively for14 days. Group II (ulcerated rats) which served as positive control received water. Group VI received omeprazole 20mg/kg body weight (standard anti-ulcer drug). Preliminary phytochemical screening of the extracted flavonoid confirmed the presence of flavonoid compound containing double bonds, with phenolic hydroxyl groups within its structure. There was a significant (p<0.05) increase in the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and reduced glutathione level in rats treated with different doses of crude flavonoid compared with ulcerated untreated rats (group II). The result shows that crude flavonoid from Schwenkia american improved the healing process of aspirin-induced ulcers in rats.
A Risk Analysis Approach for Biometric Authentication Technology

Current approaches for risk analysis of biometric authentication technology are limited to enrollment and identification/verification processes with biometric algorithms mainly considered as black-boxes, only. This paper presents a systematic approach for a holistic security risk analysis of biometric authentication technology based on the high-level component & process model for integrated security risk analysis of biometric authentication technology, also proposed here. The processes and components used within this model are introduced together with a comprehensive terminology for biometric authentication technology especially developed for the research area of IT security biometrics. Biometric authentication risk matrices are used to show that single possible risk effect classes can be identified. A discussion on the enabled possibilities for risk analysis shows the significant advantage of this integrated approach for holistic security risk analysis of biometric authentication technology in comparison to other approaches.