Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of the SJTU Unfoldable Robotic System (SURS) for Single Port Laparoscopy

Single-port laparoscopy (SPL) has attracted continuous attention in the past decade due to the potential of generating better surgical outcomes than the traditional multiport laparoscopy. In order to ease the challenging surgical manipulation tasks using manual tools in SPL, several robotic systems were constructed to provide surgeons an intuitive way to operate. With possible improvements identified, the SJTU unfoldable robotic system (SURS) for SPL is developed for improved system specifications. The SURS can be deployed into abdomen through a φ12-mm port in its folded configuration and can then be unfolded for dual-arm surgical interventions with onboard 3-D visual guidance. A few key design concepts which lead to the specification improvements are elaborated. The design descriptions, kinematics modeling, actuation compensations, and experimental characterizations are detailed to demonstrate the potentials of the SURS.
Object color preferences

In this article, we investigate how context influ- ences color preferences by comparing preferences for ''contextless'' colored squares with preferences for colors of a variety of objects (e.g., walls, couches, and T-shirts). In experiment 1, we find that hue preferences for context- less squares generalize relatively well to hue preferences for imagined objects, with the substantial differences being in the saturation and lightness dimensions. In experiments 2 and 3, we find that object color preferences are relatively invariant when the objects are (a) imagined to be the color that is presented as a small square, (b) depicted as colored images of objects, and (c) viewed as actual physical objects. In experiment 4, we investigate the possibility that object color preferences are related to the degree to which colors help objects fulfill particular functions or outcomes. We also discuss relations between our results and previous theories of color prefer- ence. 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 00, 000 - 000, 2012; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary. com). DOI 10.1002/col.21756
Credible Monetary Policy in an Infinite Horizon Model: Recursive Approaches

Abstract This paper develops recursive methods to study optimal and time consistent policy in dynamic models. We analyze a version of Calvo's 1978 monetary model and show that its time consistent outcomes can be completely characterized as the largest fixed point of either of two operators. Recursive application of these operators provides a computing algorithm which always converges to the set of time consistent outcomes. Finally, we obtain valuable information about the nature of time consistent outcomes: It is discovered, in particular, that all such outcomes are Markovian. The methods obtained are intuitive and should be useful for many applications.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: E61; E52; C61.
A novel approach for modeling user's short-term interests, based on user queries

In this paper is presented a novel approach for modeling user short-term interests, based on user queries. The proposed user model is represented by a weighted semantic network, composed of nodes and arcs. This semantic network can be used to express relations between query terms submitted by a user in his searches. Our approach is rooted on the idea that there are relations between topics of user’s interests, which can be measured and used to provide a search context. We propose an approach for modeling user’s interests, based on data taken from his previous queries. We aim to identify relations between topics of user’s interests in a set of successive queries. The search personalization features of ShareTec digital library are also presented and the implementation of the proposed model is outlined.
Logic and the Simulation of Interaction and Reasoning : Logic , Computer Games , and Narrative

Our aim is to use the logic of public announcements and more generally dynamic epistemic logics as a logic of speech acts. To that end we start from a simple multimodal logic of beliefs and goals (without common belief), and add public announcements. We suppose that announcements do not modify goals. We then consider several variants of speech acts of assertive and directive force and provide a modeling in terms of speech acts.
BASIC PROPERTIES OF MAGNETIC SHAPE MEMORY ACTUATORS

Magnetically controlled shape memory materials are a new w ay to p roduce motion and force. The material changes s hape in a magnetic field. Shape c hanges are e ven l0 p ercent and response time is less than a millisecond. Usual applications of the material are ac tuators that produce linear motion. In this article several magnetic shape memory actuators are presented and their properties and advantages are discussed.
Active processing in visuo-spatial working memory

The findings of recent research have motivated a theoretical distinction between active and passive components of visuo-spatial working memory, but investigation of the active component has been inhibited by the absence of appropriate experimental tasks. We propose a new experimental procedure involving the mental reconstruction of pictures of objects from fragmented pieces. The results allow one to identify variables affecting the active elaboration of visuo-spatial material, and they support a capacity theory of active visuo-spatial processing. The roles of mental rotation, visual complexity, and processing load are evaluated. Furthermore, this procedure is proposed as a tool to investigate the architecture of visuo-spatial working memory and the relationship between peripheral modality-specific and central amodal processes.
Source and system features for speaker recognition using AANN models

We study the effectiveness of the features extracted from the source and system components of the speech production process for the purpose of speaker recognition. The source and system components are derived using linear prediction (LP) analysis of short segments of speech. The source component is the LP residual derived from the signal, and the system component is a set of weighted linear prediction cepstral coefficients. The features are captured implicitly by a feedforward autoassociative neural network (AANN). Two separate speaker models are derived by training two AANN models using feature vectors corresponding to source and system components. A speaker recognition system for 20 speakers is built and tested using both the models to evaluate the performance of source and system features. The study demonstrates the complementary nature of the two components.
Hypoxia-Induced Stroke Tolerance in the Mouse Is Mediated by Erythropoietin

Background and Purpose— Cellular response to hypoxia is mainly controlled by hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1). The HIF-1 target gene erythropoietin (EPO) has been described as neuroprotective. Thus, we hypothesize EPO to be an essential mediator of protection in hypoxic preconditioning. Methods— We randomized Sv129 mice into groups for different pretreatments, different hypoxia-ischemia intervals, or different durations of ischemia. For hypoxic preconditioning, the animals were exposed to a hypoxic gas mixture (8% O2 and 92% N2) for 30, 60, 180, 300, or 360 minutes. At 0, 24, 48, 72, or 144 hours later, we performed middle cerebral artery occlusion and allowed reperfusion after 30, 45, 60, or 120 minutes, or occlusion was left to be permanent. We studied EPO gene expression in brain tissue with a real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and measured HIF-1 DNA-binding activity with an electrophoretic mobility shift assay. To block endogenously produced EPO, we instilled soluble EPO receptor into the cerebral ventricle. Results— Hypoxic preconditioning for 180 or 300 minutes induced relative tolerance to transient focal cerebral ischemia, as evidenced by a reduction of infarct volumes to 75% or 54% of the control, respectively. Hypoxic pretreatment was effective only when applied 48 or 72 hours before middle cerebral artery occlusion. Sixty minutes after hypoxia, we found a marked activation of HIF-1 DNA-binding activity and a 7-fold induction of EPO transcription. Infusion of soluble EPO receptor significantly reduced the protective effect of hypoxic pretreatment by 40%. Conclusions— Endogenously produced EPO is an essential mediator of ischemic preconditioning.
Crime and Public Transportation: A Case Study of Ottawa’s O-Train System

Abstract: L’étude suivante cherche à éclaircir le phénomène de crime dans les systèmes de transport en commun. Nous utilisons une étude de cas, le O-Train à Ottawa, pour déterminer si la présente d’une station de O-Train prédit le crime dans le quartier environnant. Des données sur le crime ont été obtenues du service de police d’Ottawa de janvier 2006 à décembre 2006 afin d’aider à identifier le regroupement potentiel d’infractions à proximité des stations de O-Train. Des mesures géospatiales (p. ex. l’indice I de Moran) ont été utilisées pour déterminer si certaines infractions étaient plus présentes dans des zones où se trouvait une station de O-Train, puis nous utilisons cette variable ré-ponse dans une analyse de régression logistique. Nos résultats démontrent que la présence d’une station de O-Train est liée à une croissance en vol de vé-hicule, mais pas en vol qualifié ou en cambriolage commercial. Abstract: The following research seeks to provide insight into the phenomenon of crime and public transit systems. We utilize a case study, the O-Train in Ottawa, to determine whether the presence of an O-Train station predicts crime in the surrounding neighbourhood. Crime data were obtained from the Ottawa Police Service between January 2006 and December 2006 to help identify potential clustering of offences in close proximity to the O-Train stations. Geo-spatial measures (e.g., local Moran’s I) were used to help determine whether certain offences were more prominent in areas that hosted an O-Train station, and we then used this outcome variable in a logistic regression. Our results show that the presence of an O-Train station is related to an increase in theft of vehicle, but not to robbery or commercial burglary.
Implementing CHC to Counter Shoulder Surfing Attack in PassPoint - Style Graphical Passwords

Implementing CHC to Counter Shoulder Surfing Attack in PassPoint – Style Graphical Passwords M. Joshuva Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, East Godavari, A.P., INDIA Email: m.jashua@gmail.com T. Sudha Rani Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, East Godavari, A.P., INDIA Email: sudha.mahi84@gmail.com M. Samuel John Department of Computer Applications, V.R. Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada, INDIA Email: write2samuel@gmail.com
The Invisible Value of Information Systems: Reputation Building in an Online P2P Lending System

Technological advancements in web-based information systems in the last decade has given rise to Web 2.0 market mechanisms, where individuals take up active roles and their participation is key to survival of these markets. Many of these markets lean heavily towards C2C transactions where consumers act as buyers, sellers and even independent experts. Participants in these markets act based on their perception of trustworthiness or reputation of other parties and the risks involved in the associated transactions. We use data from a peer-to-peer lending community to empirically investigate the role of information systems in alleviating adverse selection through information availability in a market where information asymmetry poses the greatest threat. We focus on borrowers and posit that due to the repeated nature of transactions in the online P2P system, borrowers develop a form of identity, the borrower’s reputation. A borrower’s reputation is the collective perception of the lenders about the borrower and a signal of the trustworthiness of the borrower. We set up a simultaneous equation model of outcomes of interest and a latent class model of reputation that affects the outcomes and is affected by them. Reputation is modeled as a discrete variable with three states, and we use the novel approach of latent instrumental variable modeling to deal with endogeneity. We estimate the model using Bayesian MCMC, compare alternative models, and discuss the impact of the state of reputation on the outcomes through the different reputation-specific coefficients of the models. We show that accounting for reputation improves the explanatory power of the model, and therefore provide a way to empirically model the evolution and impact of reputation in online platforms where repeated transactions are performed. (Peer-to-Peer Lending, Reputation, Latent Instrumental Variable Modeling, Latent Class Model, Hidden Markov Model, Bayesian Analysis)
System-level modeling of a Reconfigurable System on Chip for wireless sensor networks applications

This paper presents the system-level modeling of a Reconfigurable System on Chip (RSoC) that is being currently developed in our institution. Although there is a wide range of possible applications, our system is initially aiming fruit monitoring system. The proposed RSoC contains a 32-bit RISC microprocessor, reconfigurable structures, analog and digital interfaces, an RF transceiver and an Active Pixel Sensor (APS) matrix whose function will consist basically on image acquisition. The modeling at a high level of abstraction has been used lately in the design and verification of SoCs due to the rising complexity of such systems. Virtual platforms using SystemC description language at Transaction-Level Modeling (TLM) allow efficient simulations including software and hardware. In this work, a preliminary evaluation of a system-level description of the RSoC is carried out. A JPEG compression algorithm was mapped and implemented as a case study to test the accuracy of the model. Future implementations will include the description of an RF transceiver and the communication between two RSoCs.
Towards Dynamic , Relevance-Driven Exception Resolution in Composite Web Services

Web services have become the leading technology for application-toapplication (A2A) communication over distributed and heterogeneous environments. Both academia and industry have strived to enable useful service collaborations among distributed systems without any human intervention. Web service composition can be used to this end, to achieve business automation within one company or realize business-to-business (B2B) integration of heterogeneous software and cross-organizational computing systems. Service composition pro-vides added value, when a web service composition itself becomes a higher level composite web service. However, as business processes are long-lasting transactions, exceptions may often occur, necessitating the replacement of a service component which has been made unavailable, hindering the completion of some business process. In this paper we present an exception resolving approach based on discovering replacement components that are functionally equivalent, taking also into account criteria for qualitative substitutability. The proposed solution introduces the Service Relevance and Replacement Framework (SRRF) which undertakes exception handling.
Risks, Challenges and Issues in a Possible Scrum and COBIT Marriage

Today's turbulent business environment is compelling software development providers to face several challenges. As a response to this case, adoption of Scrum methods is increasing. COBIT, on the other side, has domination in information technology (IT) and is a de-facto standard providing an IT governance model with international set of generally accepted IT control objectives. Considered the coverage of Scrum and COBIT (version 4.1 in this case), a coexistence of them in a same organization has a possibility of emergence for organizations that want to use Scrum in their COBIT environments. While a rationalized, engineering-based approach has dominated software development almost since its inception and has a co-occurrence and similarities with COBIT, melting COBIT and Scrum in an organization is very new and can be an intriguing subject. This study holds the aim of shedding light on organizations by focusing on the identification of risks, challenges and issues of Scrum implementation within a COBIT environment. This study works as a risk map for organizations that have opportunity to tailor COBIT. It also exhibits a list of challenges for organizations that must fully comply with COBIT framework.
Research on gait-based human identification

Gait recognition refers to automatic identification of individual based on his/her style of walking. This paper proposes a gait recognition method based on Continuous Hidden Markov Model with Mixture of Gaussians (G-CHMM). First, a Gaussian mix model is initialized for training image sequence with K-means algorithm, and then training the HMM parameters using Baum-Welch algorithm. These gait feature sequences can be trained and obtains a Continuous HMM for every person; therefore, every person's gait sequence can be represented by the 7 key frames and HMM. The experiments, utilizing CASIA gait databases, present a comparatively correction identification ratio and a comparatively robustness when the bodily angle varying.
Mortality in Anesthesia: A Systematic Review

This systematic review of the Brazilian and worldwide literature aims to evaluate the incidence and causes of perioperative and anesthesia-related mortality. Studies were identified by searching the Medline and Scielo databases, followed by a manual search for relevant articles. Our review includes studies published between 1954 and 2007. Each publication was reviewed to identify author(s), study period, data source, perioperative mortality rates, and anesthesia-related mortality rates. Thirty-three trials were assessed. Brazilian and worldwide studies demonstrated a similar decline in anesthesia-related mortality rates, which amounted to fewer than 1 death per 10,000 anesthetics in the past two decades. Perioperative mortality rates also decreased during this period, with fewer than 20 deaths per 10,000 anesthetics in developed countries. Brazilian studies showed higher perioperative mortality rates, from 19 to 51 deaths per 10,000 anesthetics. The majority of perioperative deaths occurred in neonates, children under one year, elderly patients, males, patients of ASA III physical status or poorer, emergency surgeries, during general anesthesia, and cardiac surgery followed by thoracic, vascular, gastroenterologic, pediatric and orthopedic surgeries. The main causes of anesthesia-related mortality were problems with airway management and cardiocirculatory events related to anesthesia and drug administration. Our systematic review of the literature shows that perioperative mortality rates are higher in Brazil than in developed countries, while anesthesia-related mortality rates are similar in Brazil and in developed countries. Most cases of anesthesia-related mortality are associated with cardiocirculatory and airway events. These data may be useful in developing strategies to prevent anesthesia-related deaths.
Towards a chromatic pupillometry protocol for assessing melanopsin-driven post-illumination pupil response in basic science and clinical investigations

The pupillary light reflex (PLR) is mediated by intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglions cells (ipRGCs), a sub-group of retinal ganglion cells that contain photopigment melanopsin. Melanopsin activation drives a sustained pupil constriction after the offset of light stimulus, this so-called post-illumination pupil response (PIPR) is an in vivo index of melanopsin-driven ipRGC photoactivity. PIPR can be assessed by chromatic pupillometry, but consensus on a standardized PIPR testing protocol has not been reached yet. The purpose of this thesis is to develop an optimized PIPR testing methodology, and to use it to investigate clinical and basic science questions related to melanopsin and ipRGCs. Based on previous pilot work on full-field chromatic pupillometry, a new and repeatable method was developed to measure PIPR induced by hemifield, central-field and full-field light stimulation. This chromatic pupillometry system was then used to investigate a series of basic science and clinical questions related to melanopsin
Linear precoder designs for interference alignment in constant MIMO interference channels

In this paper, interference alignment (IA) achieved from one side is considered in the K-user constant multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference channel (IC). Different from most existing algorithms which need alternating between the transmitter and receiver, our algorithm runs at transmitters only, thereby avoiding vast information exchanged between the transmitter and receiver. The essential aim of IA is overlapping the interference subspaces and maximizing the dimensionality of interference-free subspaces reserved for the desired signals. Based on this, we design the precoders by the steepest descent algorithm at transmitters only to minimize the spatial distance between different interference subspaces. Different interference subspaces are overlapping when the spatial distance between them is small enough. The simulation results illustrate that compared with existing alternating algorithm, the performance of the proposed one-sided algorithm does not degrade in a proper system, moreover, in a improper system, the proposed algorithm achieves better performance. Furthermore, compared with “Least Squares” and “One-sided Algorithm” which are existing one-sided approaches for IA, the proposed algorithm is more robust dealing with different systems.
HER2-positive breast cancer patients receiving trastuzumab treatment obtain prognosis comparable with that of HER2-negative breast cancer patients

Purpose The efficacy of trastuzumab in Chinese breast cancer (BC) patients has rarely been reported. This study was designed to compare the clinical outcomes of HER2-positive BC patients receiving or not receiving trastuzumab treatment and HER2-negative BC patients. Patients and methods This study involved three groups of patients. The first group was 115 human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive BC patients treated with trastuzumab who were enrolled at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between January 2002 and July 2010; the second group was a matched control group of 115 HER2-positive patients who did not receive trastuzumab treatment; the third group was a matched group of 115 HER2-negative patients who received conventional therapy in the adjuvant setting. The primary endpoint was 3-year and 5-year disease-free survival (3-DFS and 5-DFS, respectively). The Kaplan–Meier method, log-rank test, and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression model were used for survival analysis. The differences in survival rates among the three groups were also analyzed according to two different periods: 2002–2006 and 2007–2010. Results The median duration of follow-up was 36 months (range, 12–111 months). The 3-DFS rates in the HER2-negative group, the HER2-positive group who received trastuzumab treatment, and the HER2-positive group who did not receive trastuzumab treatment were 82.6%, 89.6%, and 67.0%, respectively. The 3-DFS rate for the total study population was statistically significant (P < 0.001). Further analysis indicated a statistically significant difference in 3-DFS between either of the first two groups and the third group (P < 0.01), but the difference between the first two groups was not statistically significant (P = 0.157). Among the three groups, the 3-DFS rates during 2002–2006 did not have a significant difference compared with that during 2007–2010. Conclusion This study has further confirmed the efficacy of trastuzumab for HER2-positive operable BC in Chinese patients. It has also demonstrated that the 3-DFS and 5-DFS rates between HER2-positive patients receiving trastuzumab treatment and HER2-negative patients are comparable.