Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The DARWARS Tactical Language Training System

The DARWARS Tactical Language Training System (TLTS) helps learners acquire basic communicative skills in foreign languages and cultures. Learners practice their communication skills in a simulated village, where they must develop rapport with the local people, who in term will help them accomplish missions such as post-war reconstruction. Each learner is accompanied by a virtual aide who can provide assistance and guidance if needed, tailored to each learner's individual skills. The aide can also act as a virtual tutor as part of an intelligent tutoring system, giving the learner feedback on their performance. Learners communicate via a multimodal interface, which permits them to speak and choose gestures on behalf of their character in the simulation. The system employs video game technologies and design techniques, in order to motivate and engage learners. A version for Levantine Arabic has been developed, and versions for other languages are in the process of being developed. A first version is scheduled to be transitioned into use by US Special Forces in late 2004. The TLTS project has developed and integrated several advanced technologies, including speech recognition tailored for learner speech, motivational tutorial dialog, learner modeling, and multi-agent social simulations. The virtual aide in the game is implemented as a pedagogical agent, able to interact with learners at a motivational and social level as well as a cognitive level. Character behavior in the game is controlled by the Psychsim cognitive modeling system, that models the motivations of social agents. Multi-user authoring tools enable linguists, instructional designers, and simulation developers to collaborate in the specification and construction of lessons and simulations in multiple languages. The TLTS is part of the DARWARS Training Superiority program developing new technologies for military training.
A 10T Non-precharge Two-Port SRAM Reducing Readout Power for Video Processing

We propose a low-power non-precharge-type two-port SRAM for video processing that exploits statistical similarity in images. To minimize the charge/discharge power on a read bitline, the proposed memory cell (MC) has ten transistors (10T), comprised of the conventional 6T MC, a readout inverter and a transmission gate for a read port. In addition, to incorporate three wordlines, we propose a shared wordline structure, with which the vertical cell size of the 10T MC is fitted to the same size as the conventional 8T MC. Since the readout inverter fully charges/discharges a read bitline, there is no precharge circuit on the read bitline. Thus, power is not consumed by precharging, but is consumed only when a readout datum is changed. This feature is suitable to video processing since image data have spatial correlation and similar data are read out in consecutive cycles. As well as the power reduction, the prechargeless structure shortens a cycle time by 38% compared with the conventional SRAM, because it does not require a precharge period. This, in turn, demonstrates that the proposed SRAM operates at a lower voltage, which achieves further power reduction. Compared to the conventional 8T SRAM, the proposed SRAM reduces a charge/discharge possibility to 19% (81% saving) on the bitlines. As the measurement result, we confirmed that the proposed 64-kb video memory in a 90-nm process achieves an 85% power saving on the read bitline, when considered as an H.264 reconstructed image memory. The area overhead is 14.4%.
A statistical trend analysis of revised Dobson total ozone data over the northern hemisphere

A seasonal trend analysis of Dobson total ozone data that have been critically reevaluated and revised is performed for 29 northern hemisphere stations located between 19°N and 64°N latitude using data through 1986. The trend model considered for these data allows for a different linear trend for each month of the year, so that the seasonal as well as the latitudinal and regional nature of the total ozone trend behavior can be examined. The trend model also incorporates the 10.7-cm solar flux series and the 50-hPa equatorial zonal wind series as additional explanatory factors for solar and quasi-biennial oscillation induced ozone variations. Regression random effects models are then used for the individual station seasonal trend estimates to obtain trend estimates as a function of latitude for different seasons of the year. The results of this seasonal trend analysis indicate significantly more negative trends during the winter months (December-March) than during the summer months (May–August), notably at higher latitudes, with the trends in winter becoming more negative with increasing latitude. The trends in the winter are estimated to be of the order of −1.2%, −2.1%, and −3.0% per decade for latitudes 35°N, 45°N, and 55°N, respectively, while trends during the summer are of the order of −0.6% per decade with no distinct pattern as a function of latitude. The year-round or annual trend over all latitudes is estimated to be about −0.84±0.82% per decade. The trends are found to display some regional variation, with trends in Japan being considerably less negative than those in North America and Europe. Sensitivity studies are also performed to investigate the effects on ozone trend estimates due to certain factors such as abnormal ozone behavior in 1983 and 1985, the use of ozone data prior to 1965, and nuclear weapons testing in the early 1960s. The seasonal trend analysis is also performed using published (unrevised) Dobson data. Trend results based on published data are on average less negative than trends from revised Dobson data for European stations, by about 1.0% per decade across all seasons, with only small average differences for stations in North America and Japan.
Provably Optimal Algorithms for Generalized Linear Contextual Bandits

Contextual bandits are widely used in Internet services from news recommendation to advertising. Generalized linear models (logistical regression in particular) have demonstrated stronger performance than linear models in many applications. However, most theoretical analyses on contextual bandits so far are on linear bandits. In this work, we propose an upper confidence bound based algorithm for generalized linear contextual bandits, which achieves an \tilde{O}(\sqrt{dT}) regret over T rounds with d dimensional feature vectors. This regret matches the minimax lower bound, up to logarithmic terms, and improves on the best previous result by a \sqrt{d} factor, assuming the number of arms is fixed. A key component in our analysis is to establish a new, sharp finite-sample confidence bound for maximum-likelihood estimates in generalized linear models, which may be of independent interest. We also analyze a simpler upper confidence bound algorithm, which is useful in practice, and prove it to have optimal regret for the certain cases.
FIMO: scanning for occurrences of a given motif

Summary: A motif is a short DNA or protein sequence that contributes to the biological function of the sequence in which it resides. Over the past several decades, many computational methods have been described for identifying, characterizing and searching with sequence motifs. Critical to nearly any motif-based sequence analysis pipeline is the ability to scan a sequence database for occurrences of a given motif described by a position-specific frequency matrix. Results: We describe Find Individual Motif Occurrences (FIMO), a software tool for scanning DNA or protein sequences with motifs described as position-specific scoring matrices. The program computes a log-likelihood ratio score for each position in a given sequence database, uses established dynamic programming methods to convert this score to a P-value and then applies false discovery rate analysis to estimate a q-value for each position in the given sequence. FIMO provides output in a variety of formats, including HTML, XML and several Santa Cruz Genome Browser formats. The program is efficient, allowing for the scanning of DNA sequences at a rate of 3.5 Mb/s on a single CPU. Availability and Implementation: FIMO is part of the MEME Suite software toolkit. A web server and source code are available at http://meme.sdsc. edu. Contact: t.bailey@imb.uq. edu.au; t.bailey@imb.uq. edu.au Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Aggregation and the PPP Puzzle in a sticky price model

We study the purchasing power parity (PPP) puzzle in a multi-sector, two country sticky price model. Across sectors, rms di¤er in the extent of price stickiness, in accordance with recent microeconomic evidence on price setting in various countries. Combined with local currency pricing, this leads sectoral real exchange rates to have heterogeneous dynamics. We show analytically that in such a heterogeneous economy deviations of the real exchange rate from PPP are more volatile and persistent than in a counterfactual one-sector world economy that features the same average frequency of price changes, and is otherwise identical to the multi-sector world economy. When calibrated to match the recent microeconomic evidence on the frequency of price changes, the model produces a half-life of deviations from PPP of 45 months. In contrast, the half-life of such deviations in the counterfactual one-sector economy is only slightly above one year. We provide a decomposition of this di¤erence in persistence and nd that over 90% of the gap is due to the fact that the counterfactual one-sector model is misspeci ed. An aggregation e¤ect that arises in the heterogeneous economy accounts for the remaining fraction. As a by-product, our results help clarify the PPP Strikes Back debate(Imbs et al. 2005a,b and Chen and Engel 2005). JEL classi cation codes: F3, F41, E0
Hydrological and soil geochemical controls of the abundance and fractionation patterns of rare earth elements in a periodically acidic Boreal stream

The concentrations and shale-normalized patterns of rare earth elements (REEs) were determined along the main stem of a medium-sized Boreal stream (catchment area, 107 km2), to which areas covered with acid sulphate soils, developed in sulphide-bearing marine sediments, drain. In the upper reaches (headwater), where there are no acid sulphate soils, the REE concentrations were low at all sampling events (e.g. Nd=1.0 to 1.3 μg l−1) and the shale-normalized profiles were characterized by peaked middle-REE enrichment (centred on gadolinium) with a secondary maximum at ytterbium (Yb)/lutetium (Lu). Downstream there was an increase in the REE concentrations caused by leaching of acid sulphate soils which increase in abundance towards the basin outlet. The strongest downstream increase occurred at high-water flow in autumn (Nd concentrations up to 53 μg l−1) and the weakest during baseflow conditions (Nd=2–7 μg l−1). Downstream, at elevated REE concentrations, there was a depletion of the heavy REEs caused by: preferential scavenging (and thus removal) of the heavy REEs by oxy-hydroxides contained in the source soil; preferential complexation of the light and middle REEs by the dissolved SO42−; and/or the existence of a source mineral (in the acid sulphate soils) depleted in the heavy REEs. In two tributaries and a first-order stream sampled on a single occasion, the REE features were consistent with those along the main stem. In a subsurface drainpipe, also sampled once, there was, however, a convex REE-fractionation pattern characterized by a stronger depletion from gadolinium (Gd) to lanthanum (La)- than from Gd to Lu. The origin of this pattern, which seems to be of minor importance in the REE-enriched waters in the catchment, remains unexplained.
Bipedal Locomotion with Nonlinear Model Predictive Control: Online Gait Generation using Whole-Body Dynamics

—The ability to generate dynamic walking in real-time for bipedal robots with compliance and underactuation has the potential to enable locomotion in complex and un-structured environments. Yet, the high-dimensional nature of bipedal robots has limited the use of full-order rigid body dynamics to gaits which are synthesized ofﬂine and then tracked online, e.g., via whole-body controllers. In this work we develop an online nonlinear model predictive control approach that leverages the full-order dynamics to realize diverse walking behaviors. Additionally, this approach can be coupled with gaits synthesized ofﬂine via a terminal cost that enables a shorter prediction horizon; this makes rapid online re-planning feasible and bridges the gap between online reactive control and ofﬂine gait planning. We demonstrate the proposed method on the planar robot AMBER-3M, both in simulation and on hardware.
Self-discovery of motor primitives and learning grasp affordances

Human infants practice their initial, seemingly random arm movements for transforming them into voluntary reaching and grasping actions. With the developing perceptual abilities, infants further explore their environment using the behavior repertoire they have developed, and learn causality relations in the form of affordances, which they use for goal satisfaction and motor planning. This study proposes and implements a developmental progression on a robotic system mimicking the aforementioned infant development stages: An anthropomorphic robot hand with one basic action of swing-hand and the palmar reflex (i.e. the enclosure of the fingers upon contact) at its disposal, executes swing-hand action targeted to a salient object with different hand speeds. During the executions, it monitors the changes in its sensors, automatically forming behavior primitives such as `grasp', `hit', `carry-object' and `drop' by segmenting and differentiating the initial swing-hand action. The study then focuses on one of these behaviors, namely grasping, and shows how further practice allows the robot to learn affordances of more complex objects, which can be further used to make plans to achieve desired goals using the discovered behavior repertoire.
WHU-NERCMS at TRECVID2016: Instance Search Task

This report introduces our work at the instance search task of TRECVID 2016. This year INS task asks systems to retrieve speciﬁc persons in speciﬁc locations. For the new task, the key points include: (1) We exploit eﬀective face recognition method, which detect faces by a scale-adaptive deconvolutional regression network and then recognize detection results by a deep embedding network. (2) We search for speciﬁc scene from both of local view (hand-crafted system) and global view (deep learning system). (3) We omit a large amount of unrelated shots, such as outdoor scenes, non-face shots and some previous groundtruth shots. (4) We adjust the score of missed low-score shots among adjacent high-score shots. Based on these improvements, our team acquires promising results.
Estimating land cover effects on evapotranspiration with remote sensing: a case study in Ethiopian Rift Valley

Abstract A methodology for the analysis of land surface control on evapotranspiration and heat fluxes is presented, based on the assimilation of remotely sensed data. The method is suitable for application in areas with limited data availability since only standard micro-meteorological measurements and land surface temperature maps are required, while no a priori information about land cover is required. The land cover effect on the heat exchange is inferred from the assimilation in terms of heat transfer coef-ficients. The methodology has been applied in the Ethiopian Rift Valley where desertification processes are progressing at a high rate in association with remarkable temperatures recorded in the last decades. Measurements of radiation, temperature and wind profiles were taken in a field campaign. The land surface temperature maps were obtained from NOAA-AVHRR. The results show reasonable estimates of the retrieved surface fluxes and spatial patterns of heat transfer coefficients consistent with those of land cover and vegetation.
Variational Inference and Model Selection with Generalized Evidence Bounds

From a pragmatic perspective: In practice, under-fitted samples are often more problematic than those over-fitted samples. As such, one may consider introducing some re-weighting mechanism, or something equivalent (as we did implicitly in the present work), to encourage the model to focus more on the low evidence samples. From a mathematical perspective: Existing evidence bounds are almost exclusively based on the Jensen inequality, which implies the variational gap can be improved with a less convex transform. From a physical perspective: Many physical systems respect the maximal entropy principle, that the most probable system state is the one with the highest entropy (largest uncertainty) under the constrains. Intuitively, a system with a more balance likelihood configuration yields higher entropy. Generalized Evidence Lower Bounds (GLBO)
Ionospheric signatures of a plasmaspheric plume over Europe

Previously, ionospheric signatures of plasmaspheric plumes were reported only at the North American longitude sector. This led to the hypothesis that the geomagnetic field configuration at those longitudes played a vital role in the observation of plasmaspheric plume signatures only over the American continent. Combining ground‐based GPS total electron content (TEC), EISCAT incoherent scattering radar (ISR), and DMSP F15 ion drift meter observations we have observed greatly elevated density over the European continent during storm recovery phase on 12 September 2005. The TEC seen over Europe has a tongue of enhanced ionization extending to higher latitudes, which is identical to the plasmaspheric plume signatures that have been often observed over North America. Therefore, our observations clearly demonstrate that ionospheric signatures of plasmaspheric plumes are not limited to the North American sector and suggest that they may be observed at any longitude as long as a dense array of instruments are available to identify these signatures.
Variable-length channel coding with noisy feedback

SUMMARY It is known that perfect noiseless feedback can be used to improve the reliability of communication systems. We show how to make those gains robust to noise on the feedback link. We focus on feedback links that are themselves discrete memoryless channels. We demonstrate that Forney’s erasure-decoding exponent is achievable given any positive-capacity feedback channel. We also demonstrate that as the desired rate of communication approaches the capacity of the forward channel, the Burnashev upper bound on the reliability function is achievable given any positive-capacity noisy feedback channel. Finally, we demonstrate that our scheme dominates the erasure-decoding exponent at all rates and, for instance, at zero rate can achieve up to three-quarters of Burnashev’s ze ro-rate reliability. This implies that in a shared medium, to maximize the reliability function some degrees of freedom should be allocated to feedback. Copyright c 2008 AEI, first published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A comprehensive global 5 min resolution land-use data set for the year 2000 consistent with national census data

This article presents a medium resolution land use data set (5 arc min, c. 10 × 10 km) for the year 2000 that reproduces national land use statistics for cropland and forestry at the country level. We distinguish five land use classes displayed as percent-per-gridcell layers: cropland, grazing, forestry, urban and infrastructure areas, and areas without land use. For each gridcell, the sum of these five layers is 100%; that is, the Earth's total land area is allocated to these five classes. Spatial patterns are derived from available thematic maps and reconciled with national extents from census data. Statistical comparisons of the resulting maps with MODIS and CORINE data demonstrate the reliability of our data set; remaining discrepancies can be largely explained by the conceptual difference between land use and land cover. The data set presented here is aimed to support the systematic integration of socio-economic and ecological data in integrated analyses of the coupled global land system. The data set can be downloaded at http://www.iff. ac.at/socec/.
A Rayleigh wave back‐projection method applied to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake

We study the rupture process of the 2011 Tohoku megathrust by analyzing 384 regional strong‐motion records using a novel back‐projection method for Rayleigh waves with periods between 13 and 100 s. The proposed approach is based on isolating the signal at the selected period with a continuous wavelet transform, and generating the stack using arrival times predicted from detailed fundamental mode Rayleigh wave group velocity maps. We verify the method by back‐projecting synthetic time series representing a point source off the coast of Tohoku, which we generate with a 3D finite difference method and a mesh based on the Japan Integrated Velocity Structure Model. Application of the method to K‐NET/KiK‐net records of theMw9.1 Tohoku earthquake reveals several Rayleigh wave emitters, which we attribute to different stages of rupture. Stage 1 is characterized by slow rupture down‐dip from the hypocenter. The onset of stage 2 is marked by energetic Rayleigh waves emitted from the region between the JMA hypocenter and the trench within 60 s after hypocentral time. During stage 3 the rupture propagates bilaterally towards the north and south at rupture velocities between 3 and 3.5 km · s−1, reaching Iwate‐oki 65 s and Ibaraki‐oki 105 s after nucleation. In contrast to short‐period back‐projections from teleseismic P‐waves, which place radiation sources below the Honshu coastline, Rayleigh wave emitters identified from our long‐period back‐projection are located 50–100 km west of the trench. This result supports the interpretation of frequency‐dependent seismic wave radiation as suggested in previous studies.
Efficiently Supporting Hierarchy and Data Updates in DNA Storage

We propose a novel and ﬂexible DNA-storage architecture that provides the notion of hierarchy among the objects tagged with the same primer pair and enables efﬁcient data updates. In contrast to prior work, in our architecture a pair of PCR primers of length 20 does not deﬁne a single object, but an independent storage partition , which is internally managed in an independent way with its own index structure. We make the observation that, while the number of mutually compatible primer pairs is limited, the internal address space available to any pair of primers (i.e., partition) is virtually unlimited. We expose and leverage the ﬂexibility with which this address space can be managed to provide rich and functional storage semantics, such as hierarchical data organization and efﬁcient and ﬂexible implementations of data updates. Furthermore, to leverage the full power of the preﬁx-based nature of PCR addressing, we deﬁne a methodology for transforming an arbitrary indexing scheme into a PCR-compatible equivalent. This allows us to run PCR with primers that can be variably extended to include a desired part of the index, and thus narrow down the scope of the reaction to retrieve a speciﬁc object (e.g., ﬁle or directory) within the partition with high precision. Our wetlab evaluation demonstrates the practicality of the proposed ideas and shows 140x reduction in sequencing cost retrieval of smaller objects within the partition.