Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Situative Space Tracking within Smart Environments

This paper describes our efforts in modeling and tracking a human agent’s situation based on their possibilities to perceive and act upon objects (both physical and virtual) within smart environments. A Situative Space Model is proposed. WLAN signal-strength-based situative space tracking system that positions objects within individual situative spaces (without tracking their absolute positions) distributed across multiple modalities like vision, audio, and touch is presented. As a proof-of-concept, a preliminary evaluation of the tracking system was performed by two subjects within a living-laboratory smart home environment where a global tracking precision of 83.4% and a recall of 88.6% were obtained.
Isolation, characterization and identification of actinomycetes from agriculture soils at Semongok, Sarawak

A total of 62 isolates of actinomycetes were isolated from 7 soil samples collected from Agriculture Research Center Semongok, Sarawak. All 62 isolates exhibited a range of colony colours (dark grey, grey, dark brown, brownish, whitish and yellowish white). All the isolates were later purified and subjected to a few enzymatic screening. Results indicate that, 48, 46 and 41 isolates showed the ability to secrete cellulase, lipase and protease respectively. All 62 isolates were then subjected to antimicrobial test using selected phytopathogens as test strains and it was observed that 3, 25, 35 and 37 of the isolates showed antagonistic reaction with Fusarium palmivora, Bacillus subtilis, Pantoae dipersa and Ralstonia solanacearum respectively. Six of the most promising isolates were selected and identified using their 16S rRNA sequence. All six isolates were identified as Streptomycetes spp. Further study into the utilization of the actinomycetes for agriculture industry will be done to fully utilize these potential microbes for sustainable agriculture.
Improvement in Survival and Cardiac Metabolism After Gene Transfer of Sarcoplasmic Reticulum Ca2+-ATPase in a Rat Model of Heart Failure

Background—In heart failure, sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA2a) activity is decreased, resulting in abnormal calcium handling and contractile dysfunction. We have previously shown that increasing SERCA2a expression by gene transfer improves ventricular function in a rat model of heart failure created by ascending aortic constriction. Methods and Results—In this study, we tested the effects of gene transfer of SERCA2a on survival, left ventricular (LV) volumes, and metabolism. By 26 to 27 weeks after aortic banding, all animals developed heart failure (as documented by >25% decrease in fractional shortening) and were randomized to receive either an adenovirus carrying the SERCA2a gene (Ad.SERCA2a) or control virus (Ad.&bgr;gal-GFP) by use of a catheter-based technique. Sham-operated rats, uninfected or infected with either Ad. &bgr;gal-GFP or Ad.SERCA2a, served as controls. Four weeks after gene transfer, survival in rats with heart failure treated with Ad. &bgr;gal-GFP was 9%, compared with 63% in rats receiving Ad.SERCA2a. LV volumes were significantly increased in heart failure (0.64±0.05 versus 0.35±0.03 mL, P <0.02). Overexpression of SERCA2a normalized LV volumes (0.46±0.07 mL) in the failing hearts. 31P NMR analysis showed a reduced ratio of phosphocreatine to ATP content in failing+Ad. &bgr;gal-GFP compared with sham+Ad. &bgr;gal-GFP (0.82±0.13 versus 1.38±0.14, P <0.01). Overexpression of SERCA2a in failing hearts improved the phosphocreatine/ATP ratio (1.23±0.28). Conclusions—In this study, we show that unlike inotropic agents that improve contractile function at the expense of increased mortality and worsening metabolism, gene transfer of SERCA2a improves survival and the energy potential in failing hearts.
The influence of the area opaca on the development of the young chick embryo.

The area opaca of the chick blastoderm is generally regarded as being merely the primordium of the yolk sac. Thus it might be expected that during the early stages of development its role would be essentially to grow and to differentiate, rather than to exert any influence on the development of the area pellucida. Such a view would be supported by the fact that pieces of the area pellucida can differentiate in the absence of the area opaca if they are isolated on the chorioallantoic membrane (Rawles, 1936) or in vitro (de Haan, 1964). There are, however, reasons for enquiring whether the area opaca does exert some influence on the area pellucida. The first is that New (1959) has demonstrated that the blastoderm is normally under tension, and that this tension is produced by the peripheral cells of the area opaca which adhere to the inner surface of the vitelline membrane.
Frequency and Phase-Angle Estimation Using Ordinary Least Squares

The extensive use of grid-connected power electronics converters in the most different conditions, e.g., grid voltage quality, power level and grid codes, requires a robust synchronization method in order to properly feed other converter controllers with reliable and exact information, namely the phase-angle and the magnitude of the grid voltage. The grid phase-angle is a vital variable used in almost any single- or three-phase converter. The paper proposes a synchronizer based on the Least Squares approach: using the sampled grid voltages to fit a straight line corresponding to the grid phase-angle estimation. An extensive set of simulation results, including comparative results with three other methods, covering steady state and transient conditions, is provided and demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed method. Also, a set of experimental results, obtained with a field programmable gate array platform, complements the validation of the synchronizer and its very good performance in all conditions.
Synaesthetic Photisms Influence Visual Perception

When C, a digit-color synaesthete, views black digits, she reports that each digit elicits a highly specific color (a photism), which is experienced as though the color was externally projected onto the digit. We evaluated this claim by assessing whether C's photisms influenced her ability to perceive visually presented digits. C identified and localized target digits presented against backgrounds that were either congruent or incongruent with the color of her photism for the digits. The results showed that C was poorer at identifying and localizing digits on congruent than incongruent trials. Such differences in performance between congruent and incongruent trials were not found with nonsynaesthete control participants. These results suggest that C's colored photisms influence her perception of black digits. We propose a model in which color information influences the perception of digits through reentrant pathways in the visual system.
Intermediate phenotypes in schizophrenia: a selective review

Studies aiming to identify susceptibility genes for schizophrenia and other complex psychiatric disorders are faced with the confounds of subjective clinical criteria, commonly occurring phenocopies, significant between-subject variability of candidate traits, and the likelihood of allelic and locus heterogeneity that has been shown to define the genetics of other complex human brain and somatic disorders. Additionally, research aimed at identification of the molecular origins of schizophrenia must also deal with the confounding nature of the human brain. Unlike organs with a few common cellular phenotypes, transcriptomes, and proteomes, individual neurons are often distinct from one another in all of these respects. In this review, we present recent work testing the assumption that studies of genetic susceptibility in complex polygenic disorders such as schizophrenia might be enhanced by the identification of intermediate phenotypes related to more fundamental aspects of brain development and function. Progress in the identification of meaningful intermediate phenotypes in schizophrenia has been made possible by the advent of newer methods in cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, and the use of combined multimodal techniques.
Mask estimation based on sound localisation for missing data speech recognition

This paper describes a perceptually motivated computational auditory scene analysis (CASA) system that combines sound separation according to spatial location with 'missing data' techniques for robust speech recognition in noise. Missing data time-frequency masks are produced using cross-correlation to estimate interaural time difference (ITD) and hence spatial azimuth; this is used to determine which regions of the signal constitute reliable evidence of the target speech signal. Three experiments are performed that compare the effects of different reverberation surfaces, localisation methods and azimuth separations on recognition accuracy, together with the effects of two post-processing techniques (morphological operations and supervised learning) for improving mask estimation. Both post-processing techniques greatly improve performance; the best performance occurs using a learned mapping.
Object-oriented information extraction and application in high-resolution remote sensing image

High-resolution satellite images offer abundance information of the earth surface for remote sensing applications. The information includes geometry 、 texture and attribute characteristic. The pixel-based image classification can't satisfy high-resolution satellite image's classification precision and produce large data redundancy. Object-oriented information extraction not only depends on spectrum character, but also uses geometry and structure information. It can provide an accessible and truly revolutionary approach. Using Beijing Quickbird high-resolution image and object-oriented classification with the eCognition software, we accomplish the cultures' precise classification. The test areas have five culture types including water, vegetation, road, building and bare lands. We use nearest neighbor classification and appraise the overall classification accuracy. The average of five species reaches 0.90. All of maximum is 1. The standard deviation is less than 0.11. The overall accuracy can reach 95.47%. This method offers a new technology for high-resolution satellite images' available applications in remote sensing culture classification.
Forecast Optimality Tests in the Presence of Instabilities

This paper proposes forecast optimality tests that can be used in unstable environments. They include tests for forecast unbiasedness, efficiency, encompassing, serial uncorrelation, and, in general, regression-based tests of forecasting ability. The proposed tests are applied to evaluate the rationality of the Federal Reserve Greenbook forecasts as well as a variety of survey-based private forecasts. In addition, we consider whether Money Market Services forecasts are rational. Our robust tests suggest more empirical evidence against forecast rationality than previously found but con firm that the Federal Reserve has additional information about current and future states of the economy relative to market participants.
Fast and memory-efficient GPU implementations of krylov subspace methods for efficient power grid analysis

Power grid analysis for modern LSI is computationally challenging in terms of both runtime and memory usage. In this paper, we implement Krylov subspace based linear circuit solvers on a graphics processing unit (GPU) to realize fast power grid analysis. Efficiencies of memory space and access performance are pursued by improving a data structure that stores elements of large sparse matrices. Experimental results on benchmark circuits show that the proposed data structures are more suitable than widely used compressed sparse row (CSR) format and our GPU implementations can achieve up to 17x speedup over CPU implementations.
The nucleus is irreversibly shaped by motion of cell boundaries in cancer and non‐cancer cells

Actomyosin stress fibers impinge on the nucleus and can exert compressive forces on it. These compressive forces have been proposed to elongate nuclei in fibroblasts, and lead to abnormally shaped nuclei in cancer cells. In these models, the elongated or flattened nuclear shape is proposed to store elastic energy. However, we found that deformed shapes of nuclei are unchanged even after removal of the cell with micro‐dissection, both for smooth, elongated nuclei in fibroblasts and abnormally shaped nuclei in breast cancer cells. The lack of shape relaxation implies that the nuclear shape in spread cells does not store any elastic energy, and the cellular stresses that deform the nucleus are dissipative, not static. During cell spreading, the deviation of the nucleus from a convex shape increased in MDA‐MB‐231 cancer cells, but decreased in MCF‐10A cells. Tracking changes of nuclear and cellular shape on micropatterned substrata revealed that fibroblast nuclei deform only during deformations in cell shape and only in the direction of nearby moving cell boundaries. We propose that motion of cell boundaries exert a stress on the nucleus, which allows the nucleus to mimic cell shape. The lack of elastic energy in the nuclear shape suggests that nuclear shape changes in cells occur at constant surface area and volume.
How should “ambidexterity” be estimated?

Weak and absent hand preferences have often been associated with developmental disorders or with cognitive functioning in the typical population. The results of different studies in this area, however, are not always coherent. One likely reason for discrepancies in findings is the diversity of cut-offs used to define ambidexterity and mixed right- and mixed left-handedness. Establishing and applying a common criterion would constitute an important step on the way to producing systematically comparable results. We thus decided to try to identify criteria for classifying individuals ambidextrous, mixed right- or left-handed or strong right- or left-handed. For that purpose, we first administered a handedness questionnaire to 716 individuals and performed multiple correspondence analyses to define handedness groups. Twenty-four participants were categorized as ambidextrous (3.3%), as opposed to mixed (29.2%) and strong (56%) right-handers, and to mixed (9.1%) and strong (2.4%) left-handers. We then compared this categorization with laterality index (LI)-based categories using different cut-offs and found that it was most correlated with LI cut-offs at −90, −30, +30 and +90, successively delimiting strong left-handedness, mixed left-handedness, ambidexterity (−30 to +30), mixed right-handedness and strong right-handedness. The characteristics of ambidextrous and lateralized individuals are also compared.
What makes the Difference? Basic Characteristics of Configuration

This paper focuses on configuration as a process that iteratively applies commonly known reasoning techniques and creates an incrementally growing configuration description. This approach emphasizes the synthesis aspect of configuration, which continuously acquires requirements and computes their effects on a configuration in a cyclic way. We provide the definitions of needed ingredients as there are partial configuration, configuration decision, and reasoning for computing entailments of made configuration decisions. These ingredients are the basis for implementations of configuration systems that follow these approach.
Family History of Cancer and Associated Risk of Developing Neuroendocrine Tumors: A Case-Control Study

Background: Carcinoids are rare neuroendocrine tumors (NET). Familial clusterings of NETs are rarely reported, except for a small proportion associated with multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 1. We evaluated the effect of positive family history of NET as well as other cancers on the development of NETs arising at five different locations. Methods: We conducted a retrospective, hospital-based, case-control study involving 740 patients with histologically confirmed NETs and 924 healthy controls. Information on family history of cancer was collected, and unconditional logistic regression analysis was used to determine adjusted odds ratios (AOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: The authors observed a significant relationship between first-degree relatives with cancers and the development of NETs arising at the small intestine, stomach, lung, and pancreas; AORs (95% CI) were 1.6 (1.1-2.4), 2.5 (1.1-6.3), 2.6 (1.5-4.5), and 1.8 (1.1-3.1), respectively. A first-degree family history of esophageal cancer was significantly associated with pancreatic NETs; AOR, 5.6 (95% CI, 1.1-29.6). There was a 70% and 130% increased risk of developing small intestinal NETs among subjects with family histories of colorectal cancer and prostate cancer, respectively. Moreover, individuals with a family history of lung cancer had a 2-fold increase in risk of developing pulmonary NETs. Conclusions: Having a first-degree relative with any cancer in general, and NET in particular, was a risk factor for NETs. The elevated risk of developing NETs extended to individuals with a family history of other cancers (not NETs) among first-degree relatives. These results suggested that risk of NETs may be partially explained by genetic factors. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(4):959–65)
Identifying Merge-Beneficial Software Kernels for Hardware Implementation

Data-mining over software can reveal similar patterns on software code. This can give important insights for the design of hardware cores, especially considering the benefits of the merge of software kernels and their implementation as a single hardware core. However, software codes have characteristics that make inadequate the direct use of typical data mining tools, mainly related to their large number of samples and the imprecise definition of code features for mining. Those characteristics affect negatively the performance of the most known data mining methods. To solve this problem, we propose in this paper the use of three techniques: the Normalized Compression Distance, the Neighbor Joining, and the Fast Newman algorithm. We combine these three techniques and propose a new approach for data mining of code repositories (DAMICORE). DAMICORE works with different types of code representations. Experiments reveal DAMICORE can indicate important software similarities at source code level. Specifically, merging soft-ware kernels identified by DAMICORE results in FPGA cores with size smaller than the overall hardware size needed when implementing a core for each kernel.
A new criterion to linear consensus protocols over time-varying directed networks

In this paper we present a result which modifies Moreau's theorem [1] on linear consensus problem over time-varying directed networks. Our result uses integral connectivity on varying-length intervals to characterize the consensus criterion and conditionally allows the Laplacian matrix to be unbounded. Some examples are given to show the details of the result.
Structural design and mechanical performance analysis of dual-stator brushless doubly-fed generator

Brushless doubly-fed generator (BDFG) has a good application prospect on the wind power generation field. In order to improve the power density, a new type of dual-stator brushless doubly-fed generator (BDFG) with magnetic-barrier rotor is presented in this paper. The overall structure design method and mechanical performance of DSBDFG is put forward and analyzed. In this paper, the stress analysis is carried out on the magnetic ring, the stationary shaft, end cover and chassis, and is determined its reasonable size and thickness, in order to achieve the purpose of stress analysis of this motor.
Building Fuzzy Classifiers with Pairwise Multiclass Support Vector Machines

In this paper, we make a proposal to build a classifier with fuzzy outputs with multiclass Support Vector Machines (SVMs). This allows us to widen the applicability of this kind of powerful and soundly founded classifiers. We consider the pairwise multiclass version and investigate dierent alternatives for the aggregation process. A number of experiments have been carried out to establish the validity and performance of this approach.
Costs of Foraging Predispose Animals to Obesity-Related Mortality when Food Is Constantly Abundant

Obesity is an important medical problem affecting humans and animals in the developed world, but the evolutionary origins of the behaviours that cause obesity are poorly understood. The potential role of occasional gluts of food in determining fat-storage strategies for avoiding mortality have been overlooked, even though animals experienced such conditions in the recent evolutionary past and may follow the same strategies in the modern environment. Humans, domestic, and captive animals in the developed world are exposed to a surplus of calorie-rich food, conditions characterised as ‘constant-glut’. Here, we use a mathematical model to demonstrate that obesity-related mortality from poor health in a constant-glut environment should equal the average mortality rate in the ‘pre-modern’ environment when predation risk was more closely linked with foraging. It should therefore not be surprising that animals exposed to abundant food often over-eat to the point of ill-health. Our work suggests that individuals tend to defend a given excessive level of reserves because this level was adaptive when gluts were short-lived. The model predicts that mortality rate in constant-glut conditions can increase as the assumed health cost of being overweight decreases, meaning that any adaptation that reduced such health costs would have counter-intuitively led to an increase in mortality in the modern environment. Taken together, these results imply that efforts to reduce the incidence of obesity that are focussed on altering individual behaviour are likely to be ineffective because modern, constant-glut conditions trigger previously adaptive behavioural responses.
Spray-Coated Liquid Metal Reflectors for Transparent Hydrogel Atomic Force Microscope Cantilevers

This letter reports optical-lever detection with spray-coated liquid metal reflectors for transparent hydrogel atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers. Eutectic gallium-indium (EGaIn) filled in an air brush was locally sprayed over poly(ethylene) glycol-diacrylate (PEG-DA) AFM cantilevers with a shadow mask. Oxygen plasma treatment for bare hydrogel cantilevers prior to the EGaIn spray was shown to improve the wetting characteristics between EGaIn and PEG-DA, thus enabled relatively thin coating of ~800 nm within ~100 ms. PEG-DA AFM cantilevers coated with EGaIn were underwent mechanical characterization, and were employed for AFM imaging in both air and deionized (DI) water. Except the reflectivity degraded down to 40% of the initial value after 1-h dwell in DI water, their overall performance was comparable with those of PEG-DA AFM cantilevers with solid metal reflectors.
A fast response and highly sensitivity relative humidity sensor with polymer-coated micro-nano fiber Bragg grating

In this paper, we proposed a new approach to measured humidity by polymer-coated micro-nano Bragg grating. The FBG was written in a 21.85-μm –diameter micro-nano fiber by 244-nm UV laser. Humidity changed the force that acting on the micro-nano fiber, thus the bandwidth of the reflection spectra was introduced and humidity measurement was therefore realized. When the humidity increased, the linearity value was 99 % and the bandwidth changed 0.00312 nm/%. The linearity is 97% and 98% in the stages of humidity reduction in 90 to 65 %RH and 65 to 30 %RH, respectively.