Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intrinsically motivated reinforcement learning in socio-economic systems: The dynamical analysis

We conduct a theoretical analysis of the effects of intrinsic motivation on learning dynamics. We study a simple example of a single agent adapting to unknown environment; the agent is biased by the desire to take those actions she has little information about. We show that the intrinsic motivation may induce the instability (namely, periodic oscillations) of the learning process that is stable in case of rational agent. Most interestingly, we discover that the opposite effect may arise as well: the cyclic learning dynamics is stabilized by high levels of agent intrinsic motivation. Based on the presented results we argue that the effects of human intrinsic motivation in particular and bounded rationality in general may appear dominant in complex socio-economic systems and therefore deserve much attention in the formal models of such systems.
Design and Development of a Mobile Writing Application for Students With Dysgraphia

Writing plays a vital role in both daily life and academic life. Students begin learning to write in the first years in school and then they use writing skills their whole life. However, some students, such as students with dysgraphia, experience difficulties in writing. The purpose of the chapter is to develop a mobile writing application for students with dysgraphia and to reveal ideas of special education experts, educational technology experts, and classroom education experts, and a teacher about application. A pilot study was conducted with three students with dysgraphia firstly, and necessary revisions were made. After revisions, experts' views were taken. The results indicated that experts reflected positive ideas about mobile writing application for students with dysgraphia. However, the experts suggested some minor revisions for improving the mobile writing application. To sum up, final improvements were made, and a mobile writing application was developed.
Chinese phonological processing for Japanese in Chinese-Japanese bilinguals: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Writing and reading in a second language (L2) is a difficult processing that involves reciprocation between the native language (L1) and second language. In older to investigate the fundamental mechanisms, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to visualize Japanese-Chinese bilinguals' brain activity in phonological processing of Chinese and Japanese words. We utilized fMRI to investigate brain activations in processing Japanese phonological and font size by visual judgment tasks in 15 Japanese subjects. Different activation patterns were observed between phonological and font size judgment processing. We conclude that a group of neural substrates was different for the Chinese-Japanese second language phonological processing.
Uncertain Market Making

This paper argues that market makers’ presence is uncertain over any short time interval, as their operations are subject to shocks and constraints of, e.g., capital, technology, and attention. Such uncertain market making implies a random pricing equilibrium in a noise rational expectations framework. Implications for risk, liquidity, and efficiency are discussed. A structural model captures from data the predicted dispersion of random pricing. In 2014, the estimated dispersion is around 10 times of the average price impact, compared to only 2 times in the early 2000s. The evidence suggests deteriorated short-run order flow pricing efficiency in the U.S. equity market.
An Improved Tikhonov Regularization Method for Conductivity Tomography Imaging

Discretizations of inverse problem lead to systems of linear equations with a highly ill-conditioned coefficient matrix, and in order to compute stable solutions to these systems it is necessary to apply regularization methods. This paper compares our improved Tikhonov regularization algorithm to several existing regularization methods, which are carried out to the theoretical mode, and the results prove that this improved method acquires satisfactory result and is superior to other methods. We make use of this improved technique to a practical mode, and the solution is perfect.
Overexpression of lncRNA H19 enhances carcinogenesis and metastasis of gastric cancer

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play key roles in the progression and metastasis of some carcinomas. We previously showed that the expression of lncRNA H19 (H19) was higher in gastric cancer (GC) tissues than that in paired noncanerous tissues. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, H19/miR-675 knockdown models in the MKN45 cell line and ectopic expression models in the SGC7901 cell line were established, and a co-expression network of H19 was generated to identify target genes by RIP and DLR. The results showed that overexpression of H19 promoted the features of GC including proliferation, migration, invasion and metastasis. An H19 co-expression network identified ISM1 as a binding protein of H19, and its expression was positively correlated with that of H19. CALN1 was identified as a target gene of miR-675 and its expression was negatively correlated with that of miR-675. H19 and MiR-675 function in a similar manner. However, H19 RNA actively binds to ISM1 and miR-675 targets CALN1. These differences suggest that H19 plays other roles besides encoding miR-675 in GC. Our results suggest that the effect of H19 in GC is mediated by the direct upregulation of ISM1 and the indirect suppression of CALN1 expression via miR-675.
Effect of Current Feedback Operational Amplifiers using BJT

The operational amplifier is an extremely efficient and versatile device. Its applications span the broad electronic industry filling requirements for signal conditioning, special transfer functions, analog instrumentation, analog computation, and special systems design. The analog assets of simplicity and precision characterize circuits utilizing operational amplifiers. The aim of the paper is to compare the CFOA implemented using BJT and the Current Feedback Operational Amplifier(CFOA) implemented using CMOS on the basis of Voltage Gain, Input and Output Impedance, Supply Voltage Rejection Ratio (SVRR), Common Mode Rejection Ratio (CMRR) and Slew Rate using Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) simulation.
Computational Core Design of a Wireless Structural Health Monitoring System

Complementing recent advances made in the field of structural health monitoring and damage detection, the concept of a wireless sensing network with distributed computational power is proposed. The fundamental building block of the proposed sensing network is a wireless sensing unit capable of acquiring measurement data, interrogating the data and transmitting the data in real-time to the network. To perform the computationally intensive task of damage detection, an advanced PowerPC computational core is chosen. First, a layer of software comprised of various device driver modules is developed to operate the various hardware subsystems of the wireless sensing unit. Additional software is then designed for embedment that can locally execute a time-series based damage detection algorithm.
Remission in ankylosing spondylitis treated with anti-TNF-α drugs: a national multicentre study.

OBJECTIVE The primary objective of this retrospective study was to investigate the possibility of achieving partial remission (PR) in AS patients treated with anti-TNF-α antagonists, such as adalimumab (ADA), etanercept (ETA) and infliximab (INF), in a real clinical practice setting. Predictors of PR were also evaluated. METHODS A retrospective study was conducted in patients with AS treated with ADA, ETA and INF from 2000 to 2012. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were plotted to determine the rates of PR during the treatment with anti-TNF-α drugs. RESULTS A total of 283 patients with AS were treated with ADA (18.7%), ETA (26.8%) and INF (54.4%) as first anti-TNF-α drugs, with a PR rate of 57.6%. The probability of obtaining PR with ADA, ETA or INF was not significantly different among all anti-TNF-α patients. AS patients treated with a second anti-TNF-α drug had a PR rate of 40.5%, but after switching for lack of response, the probability of obtaining PR with a second anti-TNF-α drug was significantly lower from that of the first anti-TNF-α drug (P = 0.0039). The probability of obtaining PR in patients with enthesitis (P = 0.04) or psoriasis (P = 0.0016) or low levels of CRP (P = 0.0225) was significantly lower compared with that of patients without these manifestations at baseline. CONCLUSION Our real-life study on PR confirmed the effectiveness of ADA, ETA or INF as first or second anti-TNF-α drugs. The presence at baseline of enthesitis or psoriasis or low CRP values yielded a lower probability of obtaining PR.
LASSO Method for Additive Risk Models with High Dimensional Covariates

1 Summary. The additive risk model is a useful alternative to the proportional hazards model. It postulates that the hazard function is the sum of the baseline hazard function and the regression function of covariates. In this article, we investigate estimation in the additive risk model with right censored survival data and high dimensional covariates. A LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) approach is proposed for estimating the regression parameters. We propose using the L 1 boosting algorithm, which is computationally affordable and relatively easy to implement, to compute the LASSO estimates. The V-fold cross validation is applied to select the tuning parameter and the weighted bootstrap is used to estimate the variances of the LASSO estimators. The proposed approach is illustrated with analysis of the PBC clinical data and the DLBCL genomic data. It is shown that this approach can provide interpretable and sparse predictive models with satisfactory predication and classification properties.
Disrupted Timing of Discontinuous But Not Continuous Movements by Cerebellar Lesions

Patients with cerebellar damage are known to exhibit deficits in the temporal control of movements. We report that these deficits are restricted to discontinuous movements. Cerebellar patients exhibited no deficit in temporal variability when producing continuous, rhythmic movements. We hypothesize that the temporal properties of continuous movements are emergent and reflect the operation of other control parameters not associated with the cerebellum. In contrast, discontinuous movements require an explicit representation of the temporal goal, a function of the cerebellum. The requirement for explicit temporal representation provides a parsimonious account of cerebellar involvement in a range of tasks.
Two types of quadruped robots: Bounding and walking

The design, prototype, and experiments of two types of mesoscale, four-legged mobile robots are reported in this paper. The primary characteristic of the robots is that their locomotion is realized by two piezocomposite actuators named LIPCA (Lightweight Piezoceramic Composite curve Actuator). Another significant feature is that the design of robot mechanisms is inspired by the motions of biological creatures, which leads to the two different locomotion gaits of the robots: walking and bounding. Various simulations and experiments show that the bounding robot possesses superiority over the walking one in the ability to move with a load at a fairly high velocity. On the other hand, the walking robot is found to have a clear advantage in terms of the agility of motions and ability of turning. Overall the two prototypes indicate a strong feasibility of building an autonomous legged robot actuated by smart materials.
Multi-path video streaming with redundant frames over a MANET

It has become feasible to stream video across a mobile network ad hoc network (MANET). This paper proposes using the H.264 codec's 'redundant frames' video delivery over multi-paths and compares their performance to Video Redundancy Coding, another multi-path technique. The paper reports that 'redundant frames' result in as much as 10 dB improvement in delivered video quality. An interesting secondary result that emerged from experiments was that for all performance indicators Location-Aided Routing (LAR) provides superior performance to the well-known AODV routing protocol.
A NETWORK CONTROL SYSTEM FOR SCENE ADAPTIVE SEMICONDUCTOR LIGHTING

This paper presents a design for intelligent control system of scene adaptive semiconductor lighting. The new design contains the host computer and the terminal in a control network. The lighting effect patterns are edited by the software on the host computer, then the lighting scene data is transported to the terminal through network. The terminal is a sub-controller based on the embedded system which is consisting of the ARM920T architecture processor and FPGA programmable logic devices, to control the lighting effects of LEDs carried on it with DMX512 signal to realize digital light regulating. The control system can be applied to many kinds of semiconductor landscape lighting, such as the surfaces of buildings and indoor hall spaces, while it can realize remote scenery setting and LED screen real-time playing through combination with the lighting effects editing software in the host computer. It will contribute to the lighting control in the future.
AJAX time machine

Many modern Web pages update parts of their content, and this is often automatic. This allows a 'clean' user-interface and information-rich pages. Keeping up with updates or recovering from mistakes can be a problem, however, as it is often not possible to revert a page to a previous state. This can be particularly problematic for users with poor literacy or cognitive disabilities, the elderly, or for users of assistive technologies. For pages that use these technologies to be truly accessible for all, they must afford users sufficient control over updates, to allow them to read and use the information available before it disappears forever. While applying good practice during page design and implementation can provide this, there are many pages for which information changes too rapidly for the user. We propose to supplement assistive technologies with a Web page 'time machine' that will allow users to review all the states a page has been in, and to step backwards or forwards through these states at their own pace.
Real-time business intelligence in multi-agent adaptive supply networks

The increasing speed and complexity of inter-organisational communication in supply networks requires effective automation. Multi-agent systems have been proposed as a possible solution. However, the information needs of the agent, particularly in responding to any variation from the norm, are similar to a human in the same position. This paper reviews the concepts of business intelligence (BI) and real-time enterprises (RTE) and looks at the need for BI in dynamic information management. A multi-agent framework is described and case-based reasoning investigated as a reasoning paradigm capable of responding to the need for business intelligence. A CBR approach is proposed with key performance indicators defining the case problem and BI operations the case solution.
SVD-based dictionary learning for bearing fault diagnosis

Bearing fault diagnosis is of great importance to maintain the high reliability and long-term safe operation of rotating machinery. The key factor of the processing result is the proper selection of basis, which is also called dictionary in sparse representation. In this paper, a data-driven method for designing dictionaries called singular value decomposition (SVD)-based dictionary learning method is proposed. Combining the K-SVD scheme and the idea of SVD based on hankel-matrix, the proposed method can extract the inherent components of signals, thus realizing the goal of training dictionary. The proposed method is applied to simulated signal and practical application in fault diagnosis of bearings. The processing result demonstrates that the proposed method outperforms the K-SVD method in learning dictionaries from vibration signal of rotating machine.
Web Anomaly Misuse Intrusion Detection Framework for SQL Injection Detection

Databases at the background of e-commerce applications are vulnerable to SQL injection attack which is considered as one of the most dangerous web attacks. In this paper we propose a framework based on misuse and anomaly detection techniques to detect SQL injection attack. The main idea of this framework is to create a profile for legitimate database behavior extracted from applying association rules on XML file containing queries submitted from application to the database. As a second step in the detection process, the structure of the query under observation will be compared against the legitimate queries stored in the XML file thus minimizing false positive alarms. Keywords-SQL injection; association rule; anomaly detection; intrusion detection.
A Novel H∞ Output Feedback Controller Design for LPV Systems with a State-delay

A H∞ control for linear parameter-varying (LPV) systems with a parameter-varying state delay is described. A new parameter-dependent H∞ performance criterion is first established by the introduction of a slack variable, which exhibits a kind of decoupling between Lyapunov functions and system matrices. This kind of decoupling enables us to obtain a more easily tractable condition for analysis and synthesis problems. Then, the corresponding output feedback controller design is investigated upon this new performance criterion, with sufficient conditions obtained for the existence of admissible controllers in terms of parameterized linear matrix inequalities (PLMIs) and a non-convex constraint set. The cone complement linearization idea is employed to convert the controller design into a convex optimization problem. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the feasibility and advantage of the proposed controller design procedure. (Nature and Science, 2004,2(1):53-60).
Social variations in access to hospital care for patients with colorectal, breast, and lung cancer between 1999 and 2006: retrospective analysis of hospital episode statistics

Objectives To determine the extent to which type of hospital admission (emergency compared with elective) and surgical procedure varied by socioeconomic circumstances, age, sex, and year of admission for colorectal, breast, and lung cancer. Design Repeated cross sectional study with data from individual patients, 1 April 1999 to 31 March 2006. Setting Hospital episode statistics (HES) dataset. Participants 564 821 patients aged 50 and over admitted with a diagnosis of colorectal, breast, or lung cancer. Main outcome measures Proportion of patients admitted as emergencies, and the proportion receiving the recommended surgical treatment. Results Patients from deprived areas, older people, and women were more likely to be admitted as emergencies. For example, the adjusted odds ratio for patients with breast cancer in the least compared with most deprived fifth of deprivation was 0.63 (95% confidence interval 0.60 to 0.66) and the adjusted odds ratio for patients with lung cancer aged 80-89 compared with those aged 50-59 was 3.13 (2.93 to 3.34). There were some improvements in disparities between age groups but not for patients living in deprived areas over time. Patients from deprived areas were less likely to receive preferred procedures for rectal, breast, and lung cancer. These findings did not improve with time. For example, 67.4% (3529/5237) of patients in the most deprived fifth of deprivation had anterior resection for rectal cancer compared with 75.5% (4497/5959) of patients in the least deprived fifth (1.34, 1.22 to 1.47). Over half (54.0%, 11 256/20 849) of patients in the most deprived fifth of deprivation had breast conserving surgery compared with 63.7% (18 445/28 960) of patients in the least deprived fifth (1.21, 1.16 to 1.26). Men were less likely than women to undergo anterior resection and lung cancer resection and older people were less likely to receive breast conserving surgery and lung cancer resection. For example, the adjusted odds ratio for lung cancer patients aged 80-89 compared with those aged 50-59 was 0.52 (0.46 to 0.59). Conclusions Despite the implementation of the NHS Cancer Plan, social factors still strongly influence access to and the provision of care.
ON TRIANGULAR AND BAKERS MAPS WITH GOLDEN MEAN AS THE PARAMETER VALUE

We discuss the triangular map and also Baker's map [2], [4] with the parameter ju chosen with the value of the golden mean: (1 + V5)/2 « 1.618. For an arbitrary parameter value in the range 0 < ju < 2, the starting graph (x, /(*)) in the range 0 < x < 1 is a line segment for a triangular map, and two line segments for Baker's map (see Fig. 1 and Fig. 4). We are interested in the graph of / M , where n>\. Since the starting graph contains a set of line segments, the proceeding graphs (x , /(x)) are then obtained from iterates of the beginning line segments in the starting graph. It is therefore important to discuss iterating these two maps on line segments. Since these two maps are piecewise linear maps, it can then be shown that the graph of / w is a composition of line segments (see Fig. 3 and Fig. 6). These two maps are simple for p in the range 0 < ju < 1 because the number of line segments does not increase under the action of mapping; the graph of / w is therefore simple. Yet, they are often complicated in the range ju>l, as the action of mapping on starting line segments will generate more line segments of which the lengths In general are different. The graph of / w Is then a set of line segments with Irregular shape which becomes very complicated when n is large. It is then difficult to determine the graph of / M . However, we can show that when // is chosen with specific values, for instance, the golden mean, the graphs (x, f^\x)) are again simple. There are only a few types of line segments in each graph and, Interestingly, the numbers of line segments of the graphs are those of the Fibonacci numbers. Nature shows that Fibonacci numbers occur quite frequently In various areas; therefore, it is interesting to know that Fibonacci numbers and, In fact, Fibonacci numbers of degree m, can be generated from a simple dynamical system [3]. In this work, we contain some reviews of [3], show the similarity of these two maps when a specific parameter value Is chosen, derive geometrically a well-known identity In Fibonacci numbers, and show that some invariant sequences can be obtained.
Ammonium hydroxide treatment of Aβ produces an aggregate free solution suitable for biophysical and cell culture characterization

Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly. Pathologically it is characterized by the presence of amyloid plaques and neuronal loss within the brain tissue of affected individuals. It is now widely hypothesised that fibrillar structures represent an inert structure. Biophysical and toxicity assays attempting to characterize the formation of both the fibrillar and the intermediate oligomeric structures of Aβ typically involves preparing samples which are largely monomeric; the most common method by which this is achieved is to use the fluorinated organic solvent 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexafluoro-2-propanol (HFIP). Recent evidence has suggested that this method is not 100% effective in producing an aggregate free solution. We show, using dynamic light scattering, size exclusion chromatography and small angle X-ray scattering that this is indeed the case, with HFIP pretreated Aβ peptide solutions displaying an increased proportion of oligomeric and aggregated material and an increased propensity to aggregate. Furthermore we show that an alternative technique, involving treatment with strong alkali results in a much more homogenous solution that is largely monomeric. These techniques for solubilising and controlling the oligomeric state of Aβ are valuable starting points for future biophysical and toxicity assays.