Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reclaiming Microinteractions for People with Motor Disabilities

A variety of diseases, injuries and medical conditions can lead to motor impairments in people of all ages. These motor impairments can take the form of, for example, paralysis, muscle weakness or spacticity, or difficulty speaking, swallowing or breathing. Any of these can result in difficulty performing many everyday tasks such as bathing, dressing, eating, housework, any many other things people do every day. Many of these tasks can be considered microinteractions. Using current assistive technology there is nothing micro about microinteractions. Even with state of the art systems, the overhead of turning on the lights is the same as that of composing an email: for a wheelchair user with a computer on his or her chair, before even starting the actual task, the user must navigate to an icon for the appropriate application, and find the right section of the application, and finally begin the actual task. This can be quite taxing when one simply wants to turn on the lights. Indeed, the inherent microness of such interactions suggests that they should be treated differently than other tasks. Microinteractions are formally defined as interactions with a device taking less than four seconds to complete [1]. This threshold was determined in relation to use of mobile devices in situations where a user’s attention is divided among multiple activities [2]. Oulasvirta et al. found that interactions with mobile devices tended to happen in four to eight second bursts, and reccomend that interactions be designed to take less than five seconds [3]. In the context of mobile microinteractions, common examples are checking the weather, reading a text message, or performing a quick calculation. More broadly, microinteractions out in the world are activities like flipping a lightswitch or changing the channel on a TV. Because the focus here is not on interaction with mobile devices, the four second cutoff will be eschewed in favor of an informal definition only requiring that the interactions be short. Microinteractions can be segmented into two phases: access, and usage [1]. For the task of using assistive technology to turn on a light, the access involves opening the application for interacting with the automation system and navigating to the proper location within the interface. The usage phase is simply pressing the correct button. This breakdown enables evaluating interactions based on their access time to usage time ratio, and can inform interaction design influencing
A Randomized Comparative Effectiveness Trial of Two Court‐Connected Programs for High‐Conflict Families

Parents who experience great amounts of legal conflict as they dissolve their relationship and arrive at their parenting arrangements require an outsize proportion of courts’ time and resources. Additionally, there is overwhelming evidence that conflict has a deleterious effect on their children. We partnered with the family court to conduct a study comparing the effectiveness of two programs for families deemed by their judge to be high conflict and thereby mandated to a program. Both involved one 3-hour session; the existing program, Parent Conflict Resolution (PCR), used exhortational lecture and video; the newly designed experimental program, Family Transitions Guide (FTG), based on motivational interviewing, employed exercises attempting to get parents to decide for themselves what they needed to do for the sake of their children. Parents were assigned at random to one of the two programs (the literature often terms this a randomized clinical trial) and were interviewed just before it began and 9 months later, as was a child. Results showed that child's report of their own well-being was significantly improved by FTG as compared to PCR and that these effects were mediated by children feeling less caught in the middle. On several variables, parent report showed that parents in PCR as compared to FTG felt decreased problems in co-parenting and less interparental conflict, although the effects were not consistent across mother and father report. There was also evidence of diminished legal conflict over 9 months in FTG as compared to PCR.
Larval Mosquito Habitat Utilization and Community Dynamics of Aedes albopictus and Aedes japonicus (Diptera: Culicidae)

ABSTRACT Aedes albopictus (Skuse) and Ae. japonicus (Theobald) are important container-inhabiting mosquitoes that transmit disease agents, outcompete native species, and continue to expand their range in the United States. Both species deposit eggs in natural and artificial containers and thrive in peridomestic environments. The goal of our study was to examine the types and characteristics of containers that are most productive for these species in the northeastern United States. In total, 306 containers were sampled in urban, suburban, and rural areas of New Jersey. Multiple biotic and abiotic factors were recorded in an attempt to identify variables associated with the productivity of each species. Based on pupal abundance and density of container types, results showed that tires, trash cans, and planter dishes were the most important containers for Ae. albopictus, while planter dishes were the most important containers for Ae. japonicus. Container color (black and gray), material (rubber), and type (tires) were correlated with species presence for Ae. albopictus and Ae. japonicus. These factors may play a role in the selection of oviposition sites by female mosquitoes or in the survival of their progeny. Differences in species composition and abundance were detected between areas classified as urban, suburban, and rural. In urban and suburban areas, Ae. albopictus was more abundant in container habitats than Ae. japonicus; however, Ae. japonicus was more abundant in rural areas, and when water temperatures were below 14°C Our results suggest many variables can influence the presence of Ae. albopictus and Ae. japonicus in container habitats in northeastern United States.
A Framework for Semantic-based Similarity Measures for ELH-Concepts

Similarity measures for concepts written in Description Logics (DLs) are often devised based on the syntax of concepts or simply by adjusting them to a set of instance data. These measures do not take the semantics of the concepts into account and can thus lead to unintuitive results. It even remains unclear how these measures behave if applied to new domains or new sets of instance data. In this paper we develop a framework for similarity measures for ELHconcept descriptions based on the semantics of the DL ELH. We show that our framework ensures that the measures resulting from instantiations fulfill fundamental properties, such as equivalence invariance, yet the framework provides the flexibility to adjust measures to specifics of the modelled domain.
Inspection and authentication of color security deterrents with multiple imaging devices

© Inspection and authentication of color security deterrents with multiple imaging devices Jason S. Aronoff, Steven J. Simske HP Laboratories HPL-2010-8 Payload density, grayscale pre-compensation, authentication The use of 2D color barcodes is quickly becoming commonplace on printed packaging and labels. The color barcode allows for a higher data density in comparison to its 1D or 2D black and white counterparts. However, with the introduction of color, a new set of imaging problems is introduced in reading the color symbol. Color requires the use of higher quality image capture devices as well as the associated bandwidth when the captured image is analyzed or sent to a central repository for authentication. In this paper we introduce a novel approach to color manipulation which enables two modalities of reading; color and grayscale. This approach adjusts the printed color set such that it is visually distinct in grayscale while still retaining a reasonable resemblance to the original colors. We examine the robustness of this approach using the color tile deterrent and printing and authenticating samples using several printers and a range of deterrent sizes. In cases where symbol size negatively impacts read accuracy we propose an alternate approach which allows for improved reading while still retaining a reasonable payload density. When properly deployed, our approach can complement any color barcode technology by allowing for dual authentication. External Posting Date: January 21, 2010 [Fulltext] Approved for External Publication Internal Posting Date: January 21, 2010 [Fulltext] Published and presented at Optical Document Security 2010, San Francisco. January 20-22, 2010 Copyright Optical Document Security 2010. Inspection and authentication of color security deterrents with multiple imaging devices Jason S. Aronoff and Steven J. Simske Hewlett Packard Labs, 3404 E. Harmony Road, Fort Collins, CO, USA 80528
MMSE-based lattice-reduction for near-ML detection of MIMO systems

Recently the use of lattice-reduction for signal detection in multiple antenna systems has been proposed. In this paper, we adopt these lattice-reduction aided schemes to the MMSE criterion. We show that an obvious way to do this is suboptimum and propose an alternative method based on an extended system model. In conjunction with simple successive interference cancellation this scheme almost reaches the performance of maximum-likelihood detection. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the application of sorted QR decomposition (SQRD) as a initialization step can significantly reduce the computational effort associated with lattice-reduction. Thus, the new algorithm clearly outperforms existing methods with comparable complexity.
Electronic Reprint Applied Crystallography Abstractions, Algorithms and Data Structures for Structural Bioinformatics in Pycogent Applied Crystallography Abstractions, Algorithms and Data Structures for Structural Bioinformatics in Pycogent

Author(s) of this paper may load this reprint on their own web site or institutional repository provided that this cover page is retained. Republication of this article or its storage in electronic databases other than as specified above is not permitted without prior permission in writing from the IUCr. Many research topics in condensed matter research, materials science and the life sciences make use of crystallographic methods to study crystalline and non-crystalline matter with neutrons, X-rays and electrons. Articles published in the Journal of Applied Crystallography focus on these methods and their use in identifying structural and diffusion-controlled phase transformations, structure–property relationships, structural changes of defects, interfaces and surfaces, etc. Developments of instrumentation and crystallographic apparatus, theory and interpretation, numerical analysis and other related subjects are also covered. The journal is the primary place where crystallographic computer program information is published. To facilitate flexible and efficient structural bioinformatics analyses, new functionality for three-dimensional structure processing and analysis has been introduced into PyCogent – a popular feature-rich framework for sequence-based bioinformatics, but one which has lacked equally powerful tools for handling stuctural/coordinate-based data. Extensible Python modules have been developed, which provide object-oriented abstractions (based on a hierarchical representation of macromolecules), efficient data structures (e.g. kD-trees), fast implementations of common algorithms (e.g. surface-area calculations), read/ write support for Protein Data Bank-related file formats and wrappers for external command-line applications (e.g. Stride). Integration of this code into PyCogent is symbiotic, allowing sequence-based work to benefit from structure-derived data and, reciprocally, enabling structural studies to leverage PyCogent's versatile tools for phylogenetic and evolutionary analyses.
Your System Is Secure? Prove It!

Computer security is an old problem which has lost none of its relevance — as is evidenced by the annual Security issue of ;login:. The systems research community has increased its attention to security issues in recent years, as can be seen by an increasing number of security-related papers published in the mainstream systems conferences SOSP, OSDI, and USENIX. However, the focus is primarily on desktop and server systems. I have argued two years ago in this place that security of embedded systems, whether mobile phones, smart cards, or automobiles, is a looming problem of even bigger proportions, yet there does not seem to be a great sense of urgency about it. Although there are embedded operating-system (OS) vendors working on certifying their offerings to some of the highest security standards, those systems do not seem to be aimed at, or even suitable for, mobile wireless devices.
Hierarchical Topic Structuring: From Dense Segmentation to Topically Focused Fragments via Burst Analysis

Topic segmentation traditionally relies on lexical cohesion measured through word re-occurrences to output a dense segmen-tation, either linear or hierarchical. In this paper, a novel organization of the topical structure of textual content is proposed. Rather than searching for topic shifts to yield dense segmentation, we propose an algorithm to extract topically focused fragments organized in a hierarchical manner. This is achieved by leveraging the temporal distribution of word re-occurrences, searching for bursts, to skirt the limits imposed by a global counting of lexical re-occurrences within segments. Comparison to a reference dense segmentation on varied datasets indicates that we can achieve a better topic focus while retrieving all of the important aspects of a text.
Maiorana-McFarland Functions with High Second-Order Nonlinearity

The second–order nonlinearity, and the best quadratic approximations, of Boolean functions are studied in this paper. We prove that cubic functions within the Maiorana–McFarland class achieve very high second order nonlinearity, which is close to an upper bound that was recently proved by Carlet et al., and much higher than the second order nonlinearity obtained by other known constructions. The structure of the cubic Boolean functions considered allows the efficient computation of (a subset of) their best quadratic approximations.
Astrocytes protect neurons from hydrogen peroxide toxicity

Recent reports indicate that neurons are particularly sensitive to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The present study was undertaken to investigate the putative role of astrocytes in the modulation of the neurotoxic effect of H2O2. The exposure to H2O2 of cultured striatal neurons from mouse embryos induced a concentration-dependent (10–1000 microM) cell death as estimated 24 hr later. Two methods were used to estimate neuronal survival: the 3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5- diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay or an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with antibodies directed against an antigen located in neurons (microtubule-associated protein-2). The neurotoxic effect of H2O2 on neurons cocultured with astrocytes was strongly attenuated compared with that observed on a pure population of neurons seeded at the same density. Moreover, the protective effect of astrocytes depended on the astrocytes/neurons ratio, a significant neuroprotection being detectable for 1 astrocyte to 20 neurons. Catalase seems to be the main hydrogen peroxidase activity involved in the neuroprotective effect of astrocytes. Indeed, in the culture conditions used, this enzymatic activity was enriched in this cell type compared with neurons; its inhibition, and not that of glutathione peroxidase, reduced the disappearance rate of the oxidant. On the contrary, glutathione peroxidase appeared to be the main enzymatic activity involved in the neuronal defense against H2O2 toxicity. Therefore, astrocytes could delay neuronal death in pathological situations in which H2O2 has been, at least partially, demonstrated to be involved.
Motion-Based Perceptual User Interface

Perceptual user interface takes advantage of human perceptual capabilities in order to present semantical information in native and natural ways. In this paper, we present a novel approach to provide users with an accelerometer-based interface for interactively controlling not only functions or devices in digital environments but virtual characters in game-like scenarios. A general approach suitable for both PC and mobile platforms is proposed. Its core techniques include automatic generation and preprocessing of training samples and proper setup of machine learning models. Three sample applications are given: gesture-controlled lantern slide system with Wii Remote, gesture recognition system to make phone calls on Nokia N95, and performance-driven motion choreographing system with Xsens MTx. Experimental results show that the recognition rate is over 95% which is quite acceptable for gesture interaction systems.
Aortic Valve Replacement Using Continuous Suture Technique in Patients with Aortic Valve Disease

Background The continuous suture (CS) technique has several advantages as a method for simple, fast, and secure aortic valve replacement (AVR). We used a simple CS technique without the use of a pledget for AVR and evaluated the surgical outcomes. Materials and Methods Between October 2007 and 2012, 123 patients with aortic valve disease underwent AVR alone (n=28) or with other concomitant cardiac procedures (n=95), such as mitral, tricuspid, or aortic surgery. The patients were divided into two groups: the interrupted suture (IS) group (n=47), in which the conventional IS technique was used, and the CS group (n=76), in which the simple CS technique was used. Results There were two hospital deaths (1.6%), which were not related to the suture technique. There were no significant differences in cardiopulmonary bypass time or aortic cross-clamp time between the two groups for AVR alone or AVR with concomitant cardiac procedures. In the IS group, two patients had prosthetic endocarditis and one patient experienced significant perivalvular leak. These patients underwent reoperations. In the CS group, there were no complications related to the surgery. Postoperatively, the two groups had similar aortic valve gradients. Conclusion The simple CS method is useful and secure for AVR in patients with aortic valve disease, and it may minimize surgical complications, as neither pledgets nor braided sutures are used.
Dynamic Request Management Algorithms for Web-Based Services in Cloud Computing

Providers of Web-based services can take advantage of many convenient features of cloud computing infrastructures, but they still have to implement request management algorithms that are able to face sudden peaks of requests. We consider distributed algorithms implemented by front-end servers to dispatch and redirect requests among application servers. Current solutions based on load-blind algorithms, or considering just server load and thresholds are inadequate to cope with the demand patterns reaching modern Internet application servers. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a request management algorithm, namely Performance Gain Prediction, that combines several pieces of information (server load, computational cost of a request, user session migration and redirection delay) to predict whether the redirection of a request to another server may result in a shorter response time. To the best of our knowledge, no other study combines information about infrastructure status, user request characteristics and redirection overhead for dynamic request management in cloud computing. Our results show that the proposed algorithm is able to reduce the response time with respect to existing request management algorithms operating on the basis of thresholds.
Feature Dependency in Benefit Maximization: A Case Study in the Evaluation of Bank Loan Applications

In most of the real-world domains, benefit and costs of classifications can be dependent on the characteristics of individual examples. In such cases, there is no static benefit matrix available in the domain and each classification benefit is calculated separately. This situation, called feature dependency, is evaluated in the framework of our newly proposed classification algorithm Benefit Maximizing classifier with Feature Intervals (BMFI) that uses feature projection based knowledge representation. This new approach has been evaluated over bank loan applications and experimental results are presented.
A New and Fast Method for Preventive Control Selection in Voltage Stability Analysis

A new method for selection of the most effective controls to prevent voltage instability in electrical power systems is developed in this paper. The proposed method is fast and suitable for real time operation. It is based on a sensitivity analysis of both a maximum loadability estimate (which is obtained via Look-Ahead method) and the load flow solution with respect to the selected controls. These sensitivities are calculated without computing the maximum loadability points, which significantly speeds-up the analysis. The method was successfully tested in a reduced model of the south-southeast Brazilian system composed of 107 buses.
Metropolitan Spectrum Survey in Bogota Colombia

This paper describes the details and results of a spectrum occupancy measurement campaign that took place in Bogota (Colombia) from March to June 2012. The scope of the study includes all frequency bands ranging from 54 MHz to 6 GHz. Measurements are sorted according to different bands and services so as to provide a clear insight into the typical duty cycles associated to different technologies. Results suggest that current spectrum utilization remains remarkably low even in busy metropolitan areas in capital cities (namely an outdoor metropolitan environment).
Temperature-aware dynamic voltage scaling for near-threshold computing

Power/energy reduction is of uttermost importance for applications with stringent power/energy budget such as ultra-low power and energy-harvested systems. Aggressive voltage scaling and in particular Near-Threshold Computing (NTC) is a promising approach to reduce the power and energy consumption. However, reducing the supply voltage leads to drastic performance variation induced by process and runtime variation. Temperature variation is one of the major sources of performance variation. In this paper, we study the impact of temperature variation on the circuit behavior at near threshold region and show that the ambient temperature has a huge impact on the metrics such as circuit delay, power and energy consumption. We also propose a low-cost, ambient temperature-aware voltage scaling technique to reduce the unnecessary energy overhead caused by temperature variation. Simulation results show that our proposed approach reduces the energy consumption by more than 3X.