Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An introduction to entanglement measures

We review the theory of entanglement measures, concentrating mostly on the finite dimensional two-party case. Topics covered include: single-copy and asymptotic entanglement manipulation; the entanglement of formation; the entanglement cost; the distillable entanglement; the relative entropic measures; the squashed entanglement; log-negativity; the robustness monotones; the greatest cross-norm; uniqueness and extremality theorems. Infinite dimensional systems and multi-party settings will be discussed and an exteneive list of open research questione will be presented.
Using Health Information Technology to Reach Patients in Underserved Communities: A Pilot Study to Help Close the Gap with Health Disparities

Introduction: In the current era of medical education and curriculum reform, medical schools across the United States are launching innovative approaches to teaching students in order to improve patient outcomes and increase patient safety. One such innovation is the use information technology (IT) that can be used to disseminate health information, especially for patients with limited access to care. Strategies for using health IT to enhance communication between providers and patients in low-income communities can be incorporated into undergraduate medical education (UME) curriculum. Methods: A pilot study was conducted to determine if IT could serve as an effective means of communication with patients at a free clinic where 100% of the patients are uninsured; the clinic is located in an urban setting and primarily serves Latinos, the working poor, and the homeless. An anonymous survey was administered to patients to assess rates of IT ownership, general IT use, and IT use for health and medical information. Results: The majority of study participants owned a cell phone (92%); one-third used their cell phone to access health or medical information (38%). Most study participants reported using the Internet (72%), and two-thirds had used the Internet to obtain health and medical information (64%). Conclusion: Given the difficulties faced by low income and medically underserved communities in accessing healthcare services, the use of IT tools may improve their’ access to health information in ways that could enhance patient knowledge and self-management, and perhaps positively impact health outcomes. Therefore, it is essential to incorporate use of IT tools in training for medical students and residents to enhance communication with patients in underserved communities.
Nasal Valve Surgery

Nasal obstruction can be due to internal and external valve problems that can be seen before and after rhinoplasty. The main scope of this article is to concentrate on surgical solutions to these problems. To overcome nasal obstruction at the internal valve, spreader grafts, spreader flaps, upper lateral splay graft, butterfly graft, flaring suture, M-plasty, Z-plasty, and suspension sutures have been described. The management of the external valve problems is possible by using lateral crural dissection and repositioning, lateral crural strut grafts, alar battens, lateral crural turn-in flap, alar rim grafts, and various other methods. It is not easy to decide which techniques would work best in every case. After a thorough examination and analysis, the underlying cause of the nasal obstruction can be understood, and one or multiple procedures can be chosen according to each individual problem.
Will I bother here? - A robot anticipating its influence on pedestrian walking comfort

A robot working among pedestrians can attract crowds of people around it, and consequentially become a bothersome entity causing congestion in narrow spaces. To address this problem, our idea is to endow the robot with capability to understand humans' crowding phenomena. The proposed mechanism consists of three underlying models: a model of pedestrian flow, a model of pedestrian interaction, and a model of walking comfort. Combining these models a robot is able to simulate hypothetical situations where it navigates between pedestrians, and anticipate the degree to which this would affect the pedestrians' walking comfort. This idea is implemented in a friendly-patrolling scenario. During planning, the robot simulates the interaction with pedestrian crowd and determines the best path to roam. The result of a field experiment demonstrated that with the proposed method the pedestrians around the robot perceived better walking comfort than pedestrians around the robot that only maximized its exposure.
Regional Tourism Demand Forecasting with Machine Learning Models: Gaussian Process Regression vs. Neural Network Models in a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Setting

This study presents a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) approach for multi-step-ahead time series prediction with a Gaussian process regression (GPR) model. We assess the forecasting performance of the GPR model with respect to several neural network architectures. The MIMO setting allows modelling the cross-correlations between all regions simultaneously. We find that the radial basis function (RBF) network outperforms the GPR model, especially for long-term forecast horizons. As the memory of the models increases, the forecasting performance of the GPR improves, suggesting the convenience of designing a model selection criteria in order to estimate the optimal number of lags used for concatenation.
Evolving sensor environments with visual attention: An experimental exploration

The research community is experiencing nowadays a significant growth in the amount of sensor data made available to several practical applications, particularly those dealing with visual information. The availability of large datasets poses critical challenges for the selection of only relevant features to allow their timely use and interpretation. The recent years marked an increasing interest in algorithms inspired from biological human vision as an alternative source of ideas for the development of computational resources to deal with large datasets. In particular, computational models of visual attention have been shown to significantly improve the speed of scene understanding and object recognition by attending only the regions of interest and distributing the resources where they are required. This paper explores the use and gauges the performance of visual attention mechanisms for identifying an optimal feature set that ensures the identification and classification of objects in images, in two different scenarios. The first scenario addresses the issue of the identification of different categories of vehicles from multiple viewpoints in a controlled environment, with a relatively known background. The other scenario explores the capabilities of an improved visual attention model for the identification of buildings in satellite imaging, characterized by large variations in content and characteristics and by a cluttered background.
Nest Predation and Circulating Corticosterone Levels within and among Species

Abstract. Variation in the risk of predation to offspring can influence the expression of reproductive strategies both within and among species. Appropriate expression of reproductive strategies in environments that differ in predation risk can have clear advantages for fitness. Although adult-predation risk appears to influence glucocorticosteroid levels, leading to changes in behavioral and life-history strategies, the influence of offspring-predation risk on adult glucocorticosteroid levels remains unclear. We compared total baseline corticosterone concentrations in Gray-headed Juncos (Junco hyemalis dorsalis) nesting on plots with and without experimentally reduced risk of nest predation. Despite differences in risk between treatments, we failed to find differences in total baseline corticosterone concentrations. When we examined corticosterone concentrations across a suite of sympatric species, however, higher risk of nest predation correlated with higher total baseline corticosterone levels. As found previously, total baseline corticosterone was negatively correlated with body condition and positively correlated with date of sampling. However, we also found that corticosterone levels increased seasonally, independent of stage of breeding. Nest predation can alter the expression of birds' reproductive strategies, but our findings suggest that total baseline corticosterone is not the physiological mechanism regulating these responses.
Comparison of monoclonal antibody delivery to intracranial glioma xenografts by intravenous and intracarotid administration.

Monoclonal antibody 81C6, which is directed against a human gliomamesenchymal extracellular matrix antigen, was used to evaluate the potential advantage of intracarotid (i.c.) administration versus i.v. delivery to D-54 MG human glioma intracranial xenografts in immunosuppressed rats. Two approaches were taken. In paired-label analysis, 125I-labeled 81C6 and 131I-labeled isotype control antibody were given to separate groups of animals by either the i.v. or i.c. route. Biodistribution measurements as a function of time were analyzed in terms of the percentage of injected dose/g of tissue and localization indices. No significant difference (P greater than 0.19 to P greater than 0.56) was demonstrated between the i.v. and i.c. routes. To control for the large localization variation inherent in the animal model used, an alternative experimental design, paired-injection analysis, was performed in which 125I- and 131I-labeled 81C6 were simultaneously administered by the i.c. and i.v. routes to the same animal. Significantly higher levels of percentage of dose/g of tissue and localization ratios (P less than 0.05 to P less than 0.005) were shown from Day 1 to Day 3 for 81C6 given i.c. Approximately 20% more antibody was delivered to the D-54 MG intracranial tumor by the i.c. route during the experimental period of 5 days. No difference in the levels of normal tissue exposure between the two routes of administration was seen. These data suggest an advantage exists for whole monoclonal antibody given i.c. and that, theoretically, a greater advantage may be present for smaller molecules such as Fab and F(ab')2 fragments.
ESSAYS ON CONSUMPTION : TOP-DOWN MOTIVATIONAL PROCESSES IN FOOD CONSUMPTION

Acknowledgements My dissertation would not have been possible without the support from my advisors, colleagues, friends, and family members, who provided invaluable guidance, support, advice, and encouragement. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them. I am greatly indebted to my advisor, Joachim Vosgerau. His excellent guidance, support, and encouragement always kept me on track and gave me confidence to overcome many obstacles in the course of my research career. I feel incredibly privileged to have him as my advisor and hope that I can be a wonderful advisor and mentor like him to my future students. I would like to express my great gratitude to my co-advisor, Carey Morewedge. Without his sharp insights, guidance, and support, my dissertation would not haven been possible. His passion and unwavering support has kept me motivated and inspired during this journey. I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Jeff Galak and Chris Janiszewski. Their discussion, insightful comments, and feedback have been absolutely invaluable.
User-friendly bottleneck detection algorithm

It is very difficult to identify the location of bottlenecks when there is deterioration of Quality of Service (QoS) because current Internet service is the complicate structure which is provided through a number of ISP. This paper proposes bottleneck detection algorithm which can detect the bottleneck point easily and efficiently even though there is no prior knowledge of the network connection status. The execution procedure of the proposed algorithm can be largely divided into two phases. In the first phase, the proposed algorithm finds the choke point which is suspected to be the bottleneck point using Recursive Packet Train (RPT). In second phase, it identifies the bottleneck point by monitoring packet process time of the detected choke point. For this, this paper proposes two methods. The first method monitors packet process time of the choke point utilizing timestamp option. This method has the advantage which can monitor the bottleneck point without increasing network load because it uses passive monitoring approach using the IP header part of the data packet of the actual users. But agent should be run in all of servers and clients. The second method monitors packet process time of the choke point utilizing ICMP packet. This method is possible to detect the bottleneck point by running agent solely in client without running agent of servers because ICMP packet which is sent to the senders to report the problems found while processing IP packet in routers.
Vibration exposure of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) reinforced silica (sio2): comparison of different source of silica (sio2) as filler

Application of vibration absorber in devices yields protection to the device and the operator from unpleasant and disturbing vibration. The study aims to highlight the characteristics of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) reinforced with Silica (SiO2) and the capability of the polymer composites as vibration absorber. Two different sources of SiO2 were investigated i.e commercially available SiO2 (CS) and SiO2 as-derived from rice husk ash (RHS), which were included as the filler in form of particulate to PDMS matrices. PDMS filled SiO2 (CS and RHS) of 2 to 6 wt% SiO2 panels were fabricated via the compression technique. The panels were characterized through elemental analyses as to confirm the compositions of SiO2, morphological analyses, volume and density analyses as well as vibration properties analyses. It was confirmed that the addition of SiO2 (both CS and RHS) at 2 to 6 wt% improved the vibration reduction and provided good vibration exposure time of grinder applications. Moreover, PDMS-RHS composite panel was proven to adopt better vibrational reduction properties than PDMS-CS composite panel.
Transcription and redox enzyme activities: comparison of equilibrium and disequilibrium levels in the three-spined stickleback

Evolutionary and acclimatory responses require functional variability, but in contrast with mRNA and protein abundance data, most physiological measurements cannot be obtained in a high-throughput manner. Consequently, one must either rely on high-throughput transcriptomic or proteomic data with only predicted functional information, or accept the limitation that most physiological measurements can give fewer data than those provided by transcriptomics or proteomics. We evaluated how transcriptional and redox enzyme activity data agreed with regard to population differentiation (i.e. a system in steady state in which any time lag between transcription, translation and post-translational effects would be irrelevant) and in response to an acute 6°C increase in temperature (i.e. a disequilibrium state wherein translation could not have caught up with transcription) in the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Transcriptional and enzyme activity data corresponded well with regard to population differentiation, but less so with regard to acute temperature increase. The data thus suggest that transcriptional and functional measurements can lead to similar conclusions when a biological system is in a steady state. The responses to acute changes must, as has been demonstrated earlier, be based on changes in cellular conditions or properties of existing proteins without significant de novo synthesis of new gene products.
From the Cover : Micromechanical control of cell – cell interactions

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Age-Related Changes in Sensorimotor Temporal Binding

The causal relationship between a voluntary movement and a sensory event is crucial for experiencing agency. Sensory events must occur within a certain delay from a voluntary movement to be perceived as self-generated. Therefore, temporal sensitivity, i.e., the ability to discriminate temporal asynchronies between motor and sensory events, is important for sensorimotor binding. Moreover, differences in the physical propagation of external stimuli can sometimes challenge sensorimotor binding, generating illusory asynchrony. To overcome this problem, the brain adjusts the perceptual timing of sensory and motor events. This mechanism, named sensorimotor recalibration, helps keeping causality judgments accurate. As humans age, the broad decline in sensory and motor processing may reduce temporal sensitivity, and compromise sensorimotor recalibration. In the current study, we investigated the effect of aging on sensorimotor temporal binding by measuring changes in both temporal sensitivity and recalibration. Young and elderly adults were exposed to a prolonged physical delay between a voluntary movement (a keypress) and its perceptual consequence (a visual stimulus). Before and after this exposure, participants performed a sensorimotor temporal order judgment (TOJ) task. As expected, elderly adults showed reduced sensorimotor recalibration and sensitivity as compared to young adults, suggesting that aging affects sensorimotor temporal binding.
Procrastination as a Self-Handicap for Men and Women: A Task-Avoidance Strategy in a Laboratory Setting ☆

Abstract Procrastination (the lack of time spent practicing before an upcoming target task) may be conceptualized as a behavioral self-handicap. In two studies, participants (Study 1, 40 women and 19 men; Study 2, 48 women and 40 men) rated themselves on a measure of chronic procrastination in a general testing session. When participants reported individually to a laboratory, they were told that their performance on a math task would be measured. However, participants were allowed to practice the task or engage in other, fun activities (e.g., playing with a video game or working on a puzzle) for 15 min; hence, “procrastinate” at practicing. Participants in the first study spent an average of 9 of 15 min (60% of the time) procrastinating by working on all activities except practicing math problems. In the second study, where the exact same math task was identified as a fun game, chronic procrastinators did not practice less than nonprocrastinators, suggesting that procrastination (lack of practice) occurs as a behavioral self-handicap. In both studies, when the task was identified as an important evaluation of cognitive skills, chronic procrastinators compared to nonprocrastinators spent more time on the fun, alternative tasks and less time preparing for the evaluation. Procrastination by lack of practicing on a task occurred only when the task was identified as evaluative, not when the identical task was labeled as a fun or pleasurable activity.
Social Interaction Feature for Mobile TV Services Based On Cloud Move

The rapidly increasing power of personal mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) is providing much richer contents and social interactions to users on the move. This trend however is throttled by the limited battery lifetime of mobile devices and unstable wireless connectivity, making the highest possible quality of service experienced by mobile users not feasible. The recent cloud computing technology, with its rich resources to compensate for the limitations of mobile devices and connections, can potentially provide an ideal platform to support the desired mobile services. Tough challenges arise on how to effectively exploit cloud resources to facilitate mobile services, especially those with stringent interaction delay requirements. In this paper, we propose the design of a Cloud-based, novel Mobile sOcial tV system (CloudMoV) . The system effectively utilizes both PaaS (Platform-as-a -Service) and IaaS (Infrastructureasa-Ser-vice) cloud services to offer the living-room experience of video watching to a group of disparate mobile users who can interact socially while sharing the video. To guarantee good streaming quality as experienced by the mobile users with time-varying wire-less connectivity, we employ a surrogate for each user in the IaaS cloud for video downloading and social exchanges on behalf of the user. The surrogate performs efficient stream transcoding that matches the current connectivity quality of the mobile user. Given the battery life as a key performance bottleneck, we advocate the use of burst transmission from the surrogates to the mobile users, and carefully decide the burst size which can lead to high energy efficiency and streaming quality. Social interactions among the users, in terms of spontaneous textual exchanges, are effectively achieved by efficient designs of data storage with BigTable and dynamic handling of large volumes of concurrent messages in a typical PaaS cloud. These various designs for flexible transcoding capabilities, battery efficiency of mobile devices and spontaneous social interactivity together provide an ideal platform for mobile social TV services. We have implemented CloudMoV on Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine and verified its superior performance based on real-world experiments.
Transparent proxies for java futures

A proxy object is a surrogate or placeholder that controls access to another target object. Proxies can be used to support distributed programming, lazy or parallel evaluation, access control, and other simple forms of behavioral reflection. However, wrapper proxies (like futures or suspensions for yet-to-be-computed results) can require significant code changes to be used in statically-typed languages, while proxies more generally can inadvertently violate assumptions of transparency, resulting in subtle bugs. To solve these problems, we have designed and implemented a simple framework for proxy programming that employs a static analysis based on qualifier inference, but with additional novelties. Code for using wrapper proxies is automatically introduced via a classfile-to-classfile transformation, and potential violations of transparency are signaled to the programmer. We have formalized our analysis and proven it sound. Our framework has a variety of applications, including support for asynchronous method calls returning futures. Experimental results demonstrate the benefits of our framework: programmers are relieved of managing and/or checking proxy usage, analysis times are reasonably fast, overheads introduced by added dynamic checks are negligible, and performance improvements can be significant. For example, changing two lines in a simple RMI-based peer-to-peer application and then using our framework resulted in a large performance gain.
Rapid morphological exploration with the Poppy humanoid platform

In this paper we discuss the motivation and challenges raised by the desire to consider the morphology as an experimental variable on real robotic platforms as well as allowing reproducibility and diffusion in the scientific community. In this context, we present an alternative design and production methodology that we have applied to the conception of Poppy, the first complete 3D printed open-source and open-hardware humanoid robot. Robust and accessible, it allows exploring quickly and easily the fabrication, the programming and the experimentation of various robotic morphologies. Both hardware and software are open-source, and a web platform allows interdisciplinary contributions, sharing and collaborations. Finally we conduct an experiment to explore the impact of four different foot morphologies on the robot's dynamic when it makes a footstep. We show that such experimentation can easily be achieved and shared in couple of days at almost no cost.