Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning to predict the behaviour of deformable objects through and for robotic interaction

Every day environments contain a great variety of deformable objects and it is not possible to program a robot in advance to know about their characteristic behaviours. For this reason, robots have been highly successful in manoeuvring deformable objects mainly in the industrial sector, where the types of interactions are predictable and highly restricted, but research in everyday environments remains largely unexplored. The contributions of this thesis are: i) the application of an elastic/plastic mass-spring method to model and predict the behaviour of deformable objects manipulated by a robot; ii) the automatic calibration of the parameters of the model, using images of real objects as ground truth; iii) the use of piece-wise regression curves to predict the reaction forces, and iv) the use of the output of this force prediction model as input for the mass-spring model which in turn predicts object deformations; v) the use of the obtained models to solve a material classification problem, where the robot must recognise a material based on interaction with it.
IgG Immune Complex‐Binding in Macrophages From Arthritis‐Susceptible and Arthritis‐Resistant Mice Following Collagen Type II Immunization

Occupancy of Fc gamma receptors (FcγR) by immune complexes (IC) induces secretion of various inflammatory mediators and cytokines. Therefore, knowledge of the FcR function is fundamental for understanding inflammatory processes. Here, we report an alteration in the FcR function in collagen‐induced arthritis (CIA). The FcγR‐binding activity of peritoneal macrophages from arthritis‐susceptible DBA/1 mice following collagen type II (CII)/CFA immunization was assessed by Fc rosetting of SRBC opsonized with different IgG subclasses. A progressive reduction of IgG1 IC‐binding was observed after immunization, and by the time of arthritis onset, the IgG1 IC‐binding was abolished. Binding of IgG2a or IgG2b IC, however, was not affected. The blocked IgG1 IC‐binding was reversed by a prior mild acid wash of the CIA macrophages, indicating receptor occupancy as the cause of the blocked binding. The impaired IgG1 IC‐binding was associated with arthritis development, as macrophages from CII/CFA‐immunized, arthritis‐resistant SWR mice or DBA/1 mice, immunized with CFA alone, did not show this effect. Normal DBA/1 macrophages, blocked with a monoclonal antibody to FcγRIIB/FcγRIII, and macrophages from FcγRIII‐deficient mice did not bind IgG1 IC, indicating FcγRIII as responsible for IgG1 IC‐binding. Our data suggest that an increased degree of saturation of FcγRIII precedes the development of CIA, which is reflected by a reduced IgG1 IC‐binding in macrophages of CII/CFA‐immunized DBA/1 mice.
Business Ethics in Germany – Problems, Concepts, and Functions

Der Beitrag untersucht die Frage, warum Unternehmensethik bisher kein Standardthema in Forschung und Lehre der deutschsprachigen Betriebswirtschaftslehre ist. Dabei fuehrt er die Anfaenge dieser Entwicklung auf die Erfahrungen waehrend der Diktatur bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges zurueck. Anschliessend wurde die Disziplin bis in die 1980er Jahre von Max Webers Konzept einer wertfreien Wissenschaft bestimmt. Seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre wurden eine Reihe unternehmensethischer Positionen und Konzepte entwickelt, die jedoch nicht zu einer breiten Akzeptanz des Faches fuehrten. Daher wird alternativ das Konzept einer Analytischen Unternehmensethik entwickelt, das nach logischen, empirischen sowie normativen Dimensionen unternehmensethischer Fragestellungen unterscheidet.
Differential effects of cAMP and serotonin on membrane current, action-potential duration, and excitability in somata of pleural sensory neurons of Aplysia.

1. In somata of sensory neurons in the pleural ganglia of Aplysia californica, serotonin (5-HT) modulates at least three K+ currents: the S K+ current (IK,S), a slow component of the Ca2(+)-activated K+ current (IK,Ca), and the delayed or voltage-dependent K+ current (IK,V). The modulation of IK,S and the slow component of IK,Ca by 5-HT has been shown previously to be mediated via adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP). To determine whether the modulation of IK,V by 5-HT also is mediated via cAMP, we used two-electrode voltage-clamp techniques to compare the modulation of membrane current by cAMP and 5-HT. 2. Current responses were elicited by brief (200 ms) voltage-clamp pulses before and after the bath application of analogues of cAMP. At all voltage-clamp potentials examined (-40-30 mV), analogues of cAMP reduced the amplitude of the current response. The properties of the cAMP-sensitive component of membrane current were revealed by computer subtraction of current responses elicited in the presence of the analogue of cAMP from current responses elicited before application of the analogue. The characteristics of the resulting cAMP difference current (IcAMP) suggested that cAMP modulated a component of membrane current that was relatively voltage independent, did not inactivate, and was active over a wide range of membrane potentials. In addition, the current-voltage (I-V) relationship of the cAMP difference current had a positive slope. These properties of the cAMP difference current were consistent with those of IK,S but did not indicate that IK,V was modulated by cAMP. 3. The cAMP-independent modulation of membrane current by 5-HT was examined by eliciting current responses first in the presence of an analogue of cAMP and again after the addition of 5-HT to the bath, which still contained the analogue. The presence of the analogue of cAMP occluded further modulation of IK,S by 5-HT. However, the analogue of cAMP did not occlude the modulation of IK,V by 5-HT. This cAMP-independent effect of 5-HT on membrane current was revealed by computer subtraction of current responses elicited in the presence of 5-HT from current responses elicited before the application of 5-HT (the analogue of cAMP was present throughout). The resulting cAMP-independent 5-HT difference current (I5-HT) was highly voltage dependent, had complex kinetics, and its I-V relationship had a negative slope at membrane potentials above 0 mV. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Analog and digital circuit design in 65 nm CMOS: end of the road?

This introductory embedded tutorial gives an overview of the design problems at hand when designing integrated electronic systems in nanometer-scale CMOS technologies. First, some general problems that affect circuit design are addressed, such as the increased leakage and variability with scaling technologies. Next, the impact of this on digital circuit design and embedded memories is discussed. Finally, problems bothering embedded analog circuits are presented, such as reducing supply voltages, poor design productivity and signal integrity troubles. Addressing these problems will determine whether the design road ends at CMOS technology marker "65 nm " or not.
Ethics in Thucydides: The Ancient Simplicity

Ethics in Thucydides uses the historian's account of the resolution at Corcyra as the basis for determining a moral or ethical perspective in Thucydides'History. Various scenes, speeches, and narrative descriptions are analyzed in relation to ethical vocabulary, their conformity to an ethical perspective, and the way in which they promote an ethical outcome. Ethics in Thucydides is ground-breaking because up to this point, scholars have not persuasively argued that ethics played a role in History. Williams' work is an extensive analysis which also considers Thucydides in relation to his predecessors and contemporaries.
IMAGE AND VIDEO SUPER-RESOLUTION VIA SPATIALLY ADAPTIVE BLOCK-MATCHING FILTERING

In our recent work [6], we proposed an algorithm for image upsampling based on alternation of two procedures: spatially adaptive Þltering in image domain and projection on the observationconstrained subspace in a wavelet domain. The nonlocal BlockMatching 3-D (BM3D) Þlter was used to suppress ringing and reconstruct missing detail coefÞcients. Here we generalize this method in two aspects. First, we reformulate observation model and reconstruction algorithm from wavelets to a general class of scaling transforms, and second, we extend applicability from single image upsampling to image and video super-resolution. Experimental results demonstrate signiÞcant improvement over the upsampling method [6] and an overall performance on the level of the best existing super-resolution methods.
Leakage Current Reduction in VLSI Systems

There is a growing need to analyze and optimize the stand-by component of power in digital circuits designed for portable and battery-powered applications. Since these circuits remain in stand-by (or sleep) mode significantly longer than in active mode, their stand-by current, and not their active switching current, determines their battery life. Hence, stringent specifications are being placed on the stand-by (or leakage) current drawn by such devices. As the power supply voltage is reduced, the threshold voltage of transistors is scaled down to maintain a constant switching speed. Since reducing the threshold voltage increases the leakage of a device exponentially, leakage current has become a dominant factor in the design of VLSI circuits. In this paper, we describe a method that uses simultaneous dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) and adaptive body biasing (ABB) to reduce the total power consumption of a processor under dynamic computational workloads. Analytical models of the leakage current, dynamic power, and frequency as a function of supply voltage and body bias are derived and verified with SPICE simulation. Given these models, we show how to derive an analytical expression for the optimal trade-off between supply voltage and body bias, given a required clock frequency and duration of operation. The proposed method is then applied to a processor and is compared with DVS alone for workloads obtained using real-time monitoring of processor utilization for four typical applications.
Differential diagnosis of deep gluteal pain in a female runner with pelvic involvement: a case report.

BACKGROUND Gluteal injuries, proximal hamstring injuries, and pelvic floor disorders have been reported in the literature among runners. Some suggest that hip, pelvis, and/or groin injuries occur in 3.3% to 11.5% of long distance runners. The purpose of this case report is to describe the differential diagnosis and treatment approach for a patient presenting with combined hip and pelvic pain. CASE DESCRIPTION A 45-year-old female distance runner was referred to physical therapy for proximal hamstring pain that had been present for several months. This pain limited her ability to tolerate sitting and caused her to cease running. Examination of the patient's lumbar spine, pelvis, and lower extremity led to the initial differential diagnosis of hamstring syndrome and ischiogluteal bursitis. The patient's primary symptoms improved during the initial four visits, which focused on education, pain management, trunk stabilization and gluteus maximus strengthening, however pelvic pain persisted. Further examination led to a secondary diagnosis of pelvic floor hypertonic disorder. Interventions to address the pelvic floor led to resolution of symptoms and return to running. OUTCOMES Pain level on the Visual Analog Scale decreased from 7/10 to 1/10 over the course of treatment. The patient was able to return to full sport activity and improved sitting tolerance to greater then two hours without significant discomfort. DISCUSSION This case suggests the interdependence of lumbopelvic and lower extremity kinematics in complaints of hamstring, posterior thigh and pelvic floor disorders. This case highlights the importance of a thorough examination as well as the need to consider a regional interdependence of the pelvic floor and lower quarter when treating individuals with proximal hamstring pain. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Level 4.
p16 Positive Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma:An Entity With a Favorable Prognosis Regardless of Tumor HPV Status

BackgroundIn the human papillomavirus (HPV) era, the best way to assess oropharyngeal squamous carcinomas (SCC) for risk stratification is not clear. Many recommend use of both p16 immunohistochemistry and HPV in situ hybridization (ISH). A significant minority of tumors are p16 positive and HPV ISH negative, the significance of which is unclear. MethodsTwo hundred thirty-nine oropharyngeal SCC were tested by immunohistochemistry for p16 and by ISH for high-risk HPV. For p16 positive, HPV ISH negative cases, PCR was conducted for HPV. The findings were correlated with pathologic and clinical findings. ResultsOf the 239 cases, 187 (78%) were positive for p16. Of these, 139 (74%) were positive for HPV by ISH. Of the remaining 48 cases, 45 had material for PCR. Nineteen were positive for HPV, leaving a group of 26 p16 positive and HPV undetectable SCCs. In the p16 positive cohort, there was no difference in survival between HPV ISH positive and negative cases. Comparing the HPV ISH positive and HPV ISH and PCR negative SCC, there was again no difference in survival. p16 positive, HPV negative SCC still had significantly better survival than p16 negative SCC in univariate and multivariate analysis. ConclusionsOutcomes for p16 positive, HPV negative oropharyngeal SCC are not significantly different from p16 positive, HPV positive tumors and are significantly better than for p16 negative tumors. These results suggest that p16 immunohistochemistry alone is the best test to use for risk stratification in oropharyngeal SCC.
An integer programming formulation to identify the sparse network architecture governing differentiation of embryonic stem cells

MOTIVATION Primary purpose of modeling gene regulatory networks for developmental process is to reveal pathways governing the cellular differentiation to specific phenotypes. Knowledge of differentiation network will enable generation of desired cell fates by careful alteration of the governing network by adequate manipulation of cellular environment. RESULTS We have developed a novel integer programming-based approach to reconstruct the underlying regulatory architecture of differentiating embryonic stem cells from discrete temporal gene expression data. The network reconstruction problem is formulated using inherent features of biological networks: (i) that of cascade architecture which enables treatment of the entire complex network as a set of interconnected modules and (ii) that of sparsity of interconnection between the transcription factors. The developed framework is applied to the system of embryonic stem cells differentiating towards pancreatic lineage. Experimentally determined expression profile dynamics of relevant transcription factors serve as the input to the network identification algorithm. The developed formulation accurately captures many of the known regulatory modes involved in pancreatic differentiation. The predictive capacity of the model is tested by simulating an in silico potential pathway of subsequent differentiation. The predicted pathway is experimentally verified by concurrent differentiation experiments. Experimental results agree well with model predictions, thereby illustrating the predictive accuracy of the proposed algorithm. CONTACT ipb1@pitt.edu SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
WHO ARE THE SMARTPHONE USERS?: Identifying user groups with apps usage behaviors

Understanding smartphone users is fundamental for creating better smartphones, improving the smartphone usage experience, and generating generalizable and reproducible research. However, smartphone manufacturers and most of the mobile computing research community make a simplifying assumption that all smartphone users are similar or, at best, constitute a small number of user types, based on their behaviors. Manufacturers design phones for the broadest audience and hope they work for all users. Researchers mostly analyze data from smartphone-based user studies and report results without accounting for the many diff erent groups of people that make up the user base of smartphones. We challenge these elementary characterizations of smartphone users and show evidence of the existence of a much more diverse set of users. We analyzed one month of application usage from 106,762 Android users and discovered 382 distinct types of users based on their application usage behaviors, using our own two-step clustering and feature ranking selection approach, and gave a meaningful label to the users in each cluster, such as Screen Checkers and Young Parents. Our results have profound implications on the reproducibility and reliability of mobile computing studies, design and development of applications, determination of which apps should be pre-installed on a smartphone and, in general, on the smartphone usage experience for diff erent types of users.
BIONETS : a New Vision of Opportunistic Networks

Most wireless networks are built around an infrastructure, where all communications are routed through base stations that act as gateways between the wireless and wired network. However, there may be situations in which it is impossible or not economically viable to build such an infrastructure. In these cases, a collection of wireless mobile nodes could self-organize into a temporary ad hoc network, leveraging nodes mobility to provide system-wide information dissemination. The goal of the BIONETS project (BIOlogically-inspired autonomic NETworks and Services) is to provide a biologicallyinspired open networking paradigm for the creation, dissemination, execution, and evolution of autonomic services, able to adapt to the surrounding environment and user needs, to evolve without direct human supervision, and able to deal with large-scale networks of heterogeneous nodes ranging from small, cheap devices to more complex network nodes. In this paper, we review the most innovative aspects of the research activities carried out by the BIONETS project consortium, focusing in particular on two novel information dissemination strategies.
Human Random Generation and Its Applications

Human Random Generation (HURG) is a psychological test meant to detect the degree of mental fatigue, or the level of concentration of individual subject, by testing the flexibility of thinking, without relying on any equipment(Wagenaar, 1977). In early days, HURG was practiced in clinical psychology in order to detect advanced level of schizophrenia. Later, the development of powerful computers made us possible to detect subtle irregularity hidden in HURG taken from normal subjects. We have been studying the possibility of utilizing HURG for self-detection of dementia at early stage, by using various information theoretical techniques over several years including the pattern classification by means of hidden Markov model (HMM), correlation dimension frequently used to identify chaotic time series, and selection of index suitable to characterize short sequences. In this paper, we report our recent progress in developing a novel method of HURG by using the pattern recognition and the randomness measured in the data taken from the Inverse-Ten-Key on the mobile phone keyboards (MPK).
Touching the invisible: Localizing ultrasonic haptic cues

While mid-air gestures offer new possibilities to interact with or around devices, some situations, such as interacting with applications, playing games or navigating, may require visual attention to be focused on a main task. Ultrasonic haptic feedback can provide 3D spatial haptic cues that do not demand visual attention for these contexts. In this paper, we present an initial study of active exploration of ultrasonic haptic virtual points that investigates the spatial localization with and without the use of the visual modality. Our results show that, when providing haptic feedback giving the location of a widget, users perform 50% more accurately compared to providing visual feedback alone. When provided with a haptic location of a widget alone, users are more than 30% more accurate than when given a visual location. When aware of the location of the haptic feedback, active exploration decreased the minimum recommended widget size from 2cm2 to 1cm2 when compared to passive exploration from previous studies. Our results will allow designers to create better mid-air interactions using this new form of haptic feedback.
Sex-Related Difference in Nitric Oxide Metabolites Levels after Nephroprotectant Supplementation Administration against Cisplatin-Induced Nephrotoxicity in Wistar Rat Model: The Role of Vitamin E, Erythropoietin, or N-Acetylcysteine

Background. Nitric oxide (NO) concentration in serum is altered by cisplatin (CP), and NO influences CP-induced nephrotoxicity. The effect of nephroprotectant agent supplementation (vitamin E, human recombinant erythropoietin (EPO), or n-acetylcysteine (NAC)) on the NO metabolites levels after CP administration in the two genders was determined. Methods. Sixty-four adult Wistar rats were randomly divided into 10 groups. Male and female rats in different groups received vehicle (saline), CP (7 mg/kg) alone, CP plus EPO (100 IU/kg), CP plus vitamin E (250 mg/kg), and CP plus NAC (600 mg/kg). CP was administrated as a single dose, but the supplementations were given for a period of 7 days. Results. In male rats, the serum levels of total NO metabolites (NOx) and nitrite were increased significantly (P < 0.05) by CP. However, vitamin E significantly reduced the serum levels of these metabolites, which was increased by administration of CP (P < 0.05), and such findings were not observed for female rats. The EPO or NAC did not influence NO metabolites neither in male rats nor in female rats. Conclusion. Although vitamin E, EPO, and NAC are reported to be nephroprotectant agents against CP-induced nephrotoxicity, only vitamin E could reduce the level of all NO metabolites only in male rats.
Minimum-energy state guided physical design for Nanomagnet Logic

Nanomagnet Logic (NML) accomplishes computation through magnetic dipole-dipole interactions. It has the potential for low-power dissipation, radiation hardness and non-volatility. NML circuits have been designed to process and move information via nearest neighbor, device-to-device coupling. However, the resultant layouts often fail to function correctly. This paper reveals an important cause of such failures showing that a robust NML layout must take into account not only nearest neighbor, but also the next nearest neighbor couplings. A new design method is then introduced to address this issue that leverages the minimum-energy states of an NML circuit to guide the layout process. Case studies show that the new method is efficient and effective in arriving at correct NML layouts.
Developing Precision Medicine in a Global World

Advances in understanding the biology of cancer, as well as advances in diagnostic technologies, such as the advent of affordable high-resolution DNA sequencing, have had a major impact on the approach to identification of specific alterations in a given patient's cancer that could be used as a basis for treatment selection, and hence the development of companion diagnostics. Although there are now several examples of successful development of companion diagnostics that allow identification of patients who will achieve the greatest benefit from a new therapeutic, the path to coapproval of a diagnostic test along with a new therapeutic is complex and often inefficient. This review and the accompanying articles examine the current state of companion diagnostic development in the United States and Europe from academic, industry, regulatory, and economic perspectives. See all articles in this CCR Focus section, “The Precision Medicine Conundrum: Approaches to Companion Diagnostic Co-development. ” Clin Cancer Res; 20(6); 1419–27. ©2014 AACR.