Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Rockin'Mouse: integral 3D manipulation on a plane

A novel input device called the Rockin’Mouse is described and evaluated. The Rockin’Mouse is a four degree-of-freedom input device that has the same shape as a regular mouse except that the bottom of the Rockin’Mouse is rounded so that it can be tilted. This tilting can be used to control two extra degrees of freedom, thus making it suitable for manipulation in 3D environments. Like the regular mouse, the Rockin’Mouse can sense planar position and perform all the usual functions. However, in a 3D scene a regular mouse can only operate on 2 dimensions at a time and therefore manipulation in 3D requires a way to switch between dimensions. With the Rockin’Mouse, however, all the dimensions can be simultaneously controlled. In this paper we describe our design rationale behind the Rockin’Mouse, and present an experiment which compares the Rockin’Mouse to the standard mouse in a typical 3D interaction task. Our results indicate that the Rockin’Mouse is 30% faster and is a promising device for both 2D and 3D interaction.
Recruitment of an Area Involved in Eye Movements During Mental Arithmetic

Addition to the Right, Subtraction to the Left High-level cognitive achievements, such as writing and mathematics, have appeared relatively recently in the evolutionary record in comparison to low-level skills, such as the perception of bright-dark boundaries. The latter have been demonstrated to arise from the coding properties of neurons in visual cortical centers, but what do the former map onto? Knops et al. (p. 1583, published online 7 May) provide evidence that addition and subtraction are encoded within the same cortical region that is responsible for eye movements to the right and left, such that the neural activity associated with addition could be distinguished from that associated with subtraction by a computational classifier trained to discriminate between rightward and leftward eye movements. Addition and subtraction are encoded in the same part of the brain that is responsible for eye movements and spatial attention. Throughout the history of mathematics, concepts of number and space have been tightly intertwined. We tested the hypothesis that cortical circuits for spatial attention contribute to mental arithmetic in humans. We trained a multivariate classifier algorithm to infer the direction of an eye movement, left or right, from the brain activation measured in the posterior parietal cortex. Without further training, the classifier then generalized to an arithmetic task. Its left versus right classification could be used to sort out subtraction versus addition trials, whether performed with symbols or with sets of dots. These findings are consistent with the suggestion that mental arithmetic co-opts parietal circuitry associated with spatial coding.
Saving the ‘disappearing islands’: Climate change governance, Pacific island states and cosmopolitan dispositions

The ‘disappearing islands’ is a distinct idea that emerged out of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report to describe the vulnerability of small island states in the Pacific to sea-level rise as a result of climate change. In this article I deploy the ‘disappearing islands’ to map the complex politics of climate change governance. Through various governmental rationalities the ‘disappearing islands’ are operationalized as proof of climate catastrophe; as a means of concretizing climate science's statistical abstractions and as a signifier of the urgency and uneven impacts of global climate change. Drawing on focus group research from the Australian Research Council Linkage project Hot science, global citizens: The agency of the museum sector in climate change interventions, I juxtapose these multifarious governmental perspectives with the views of ordinary citizens in Australia and the United States in relation to the fate of the disappearing islands as a result of developed world consumption choices and carbon-burning practices. I conclude that rhetorical gestures made towards mobilizing a moral and ethical ecological citizenry charged with the responsibility of saving the ‘disappearing islands’ are too simplistic and more difficult to achieve than imagined.
A new Bayesian Network approach to Reliability modelling

We present a new, effective and flexible event-based hybrid BN modelling method for reliability assessment that scales up to large, complex dynamic systems. By incorporating a recent powerful approximate inference algorithm for hybrid BNs, involving dynamically discretising the domain of all continuous variables, approximated solutions for both static and dynamic constructs are obtained simultaneously rendering unnecessary the use of modularisation techniques. Continuous and discrete nodes can be included in the model to represent the continuous failure times of system components and discrete reliabilities of the system (or any subsystem) for a given target requirement, respectively. Unlike other approaches (which tend to be restricted to using exponential distributions), our new approach is able to solve any configuration of static and dynamic gates with general parametric or empirical time-to-failure distributions, without recourse to numerical integration techniques or simulation methods. Furthermore, the diagnostic analysis capabilities of the BN combined with the dynamic discretisation algorithm allow also to obtain estimates of the parameterised marginal failure distribution (for the root nodes), either using available raw failure data or as prior information according to expert knowledge. No exact expression for the marginal is needed and no conditional probability tables need to be completed. Our BN framework allows a compact representation of the eventdependent failure behaviours characteristic of fault-tolerant systems, avoiding the state space explosion problem of the Markov Chain based approaches. Our BN framework is mathematically sound and at the same time simple enough to allow the interaction with domain experts and decision makers. Sensitivity, uncertainty, diagnosis, common cause failures, and warranty analysis can also be easily performed within this framework.
Energy Efficient Prefetching and Caching (Awarded Best Paper!)

Traditional disk management strategies--prefetching and caching in particular--are designed to maximize performance. In mobile systems they conflict with strategies that attempt to save energy by powering down the disk when it is idle. We present new rules for prefetching and caching that maximize power-down opportunities (without performance loss) by creating an access pattern characterized by intense bursts of activity separated by long idle times. We also describe an automatic system that monitors past application behavior in order to generate appropriate prefetching hints, and a general system of kernel enhancements that coordinate I/O activity across all running applications. We have implemented our system in the Linux kernel, and have measured its performance and energy consumption via physical instrumentation of a running laptop. We describe our implementation and present quantitative results. For workloads including a mix of sequential access to large files (multimedia), concurrent access to large numbers of files (compilation), and random access to large files (speech recognition), we report disk energy savings of 60-80%, with negligible loss in throughput or interactive responsiveness.
CASA: context-aware scalable authentication

We introduce context-aware scalable authentication (CASA) as a way of balancing security and usability for authentication. Our core idea is to choose an appropriate form of active authentication (e.g., typing a PIN) based on the combination of multiple passive factors (e.g., a user's current location) for authentication. We provide a probabilistic framework for dynamically selecting an active authentication scheme that satisfies a specified security requirement given passive factors. We also present the results of three user studies evaluating the feasibility and users' receptiveness of our concept. Our results suggest that location data has good potential as a passive factor, and that users can reduce up to 68% of active authentications when using an implementation of CASA, compared to always using fixed active authentication. Furthermore, our participants, including those who do not using any security mechanisms on their phones, were very positive about CASA and amenable to using it on their phones.
Cyclosporin A-insensitive Permeability Transition in Brain Mitochondria

The mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP) may operate as a physiological Ca2+ release mechanism and also contribute to mitochondrial deenergization and release of proapoptotic proteins after pathological stress, e.g. ischemia/reperfusion. Brain mitochondria exhibit unique PTP characteristics, including relative resistance to inhibition by cyclosporin A. In this study, we report that 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate blocks Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release in isolated, non-synaptosomal rat brain mitochondria in the presence of physiological concentrations of ATP and Mg2+. Ca2+ release was not mediated by the mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+ exchanger or by reversal of the uniporter responsible for energy-dependent Ca2+ uptake. Loss of mitochondrial Ca2+ was accompanied by release of cytochrome c and pyridine nucleotides, indicating an increase in permeability of both the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes. Under these conditions, Ca2+-induced opening of the PTP was not blocked by cyclosporin A, antioxidants, or inhibitors of phospholipase A2 or nitric-oxide synthase but was abolished by pretreatment with bongkrekic acid. These findings indicate that in the presence of adenine nucleotides and Mg2+,Ca2+-induced PTP in non-synaptosomal brain mitochondria exhibits a unique pattern of sensitivity to inhibitors and is particularly responsive to 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate.
The Samaritan's Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid

What's wrong with foreign aid? Many policymakers, aid practitioners, and scholars have called into question its ability to increase economic growth, alleviate poverty, or promote social development. At the macro level, only tenuous links between development aid and improved living conditions have been found. At the micro level, only a few programs outlast donor support and even fewer appear to achieve lasting improvements. The authors of this book argue that much of aid's failure is related to the institutions that structure its delivery. These institutions govern the complex relationships between the main actors in the aid delivery system and often generate a series of perverse incentives that promote inefficient and unsustainable outcomes. In their analysis, the authors apply the theoretical insights of the new institutional economics to several settings. First, they investigate the institutions of Sida, the Swedish aid agency, to analyze how that aid agency's institutions can produce incentives inimical to desired outcomes, contrary to the desires of its own staff. Second, the authors use cases from India, a country with low aid dependence, and Zambia, a country with high aid dependence, to explore how institutions on the ground in recipient countries also mediate the effectiveness of aid. Throughout the book, the authors offer suggestions about how to improve aid's effectiveness. These suggestions include how to structure evaluations in order to improve outcomes, how to employ agency staff to gain from their on-the-ground experience, and how to engage stakeholders as "owners" in the design, resource mobilization, learning, and evaluation processes of development assistance programs. Contributors to this volume - Krister Andersson, Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change, Indiana University Matthew R. Auer, Associate Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Roy Gardner, Professor of Economics, Indiana University Clark C. Gibson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California Elinor Ostrom, Professor of Government, Indiana University Sujai Shivakumar, National Research Council, Washington D.C. Christopher J. Waller, Chair of Economics, University of Notre Dame
Efficacy and safety of long-term use of hydroxyurea in young patients with essential thrombocythemia and a high risk of thrombosis.

The optimal treatment of young patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET) at high risk of thrombohemorrhagic complications is uncertain. Storen and Tefferi[1][1] recently reported on the long-term use of anagrelide, a platelet-lowering agent without myelosuppressive activity. In a population of 35
Aligned Hierarchies: A Multi-Scale Structure-Based Representation for Music-Based Data Streams

We introduce aligned hierarchies , a low-dimensional representation for music-based data streams, such as recordings of songs or digitized representations of scores. The aligned hierarchies encode all hierarchical decompositions of repeated elements from a high-dimensional and noisy music-based data stream into one object. These aligned hierarchies can be embedded into a classiﬁcation space with a natural notion of distance. We construct the aligned hierarchies by ﬁnding, encoding, and synthesizing all repeated structure present in a music-based data stream. For a data set of digitized scores, we conducted experiments addressing the ﬁngerprint task that achieved perfect precision-recall values. These experiments provide an initial proof of concept for the aligned hierarchies addressing MIR tasks.
EspJ Is a Prophage-Carried Type III Effector Protein of Attaching and Effacing Pathogens That Modulates Infection Dynamics

ABSTRACT Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, enteropathogenic E. coli, and Citrobacter rodentium are highly adapted enteropathogens that successfully colonize their host's gastrointestinal tract via the formation of attaching and effacing (A/E) lesions. These pathogens utilize a type III secretion system (TTSS) apparatus, encoded by the locus of enterocyte effacement, to translocate bacterial effector proteins into epithelial cells. Here, we report the identification of EspJ (E. coli-secreted protein J), a translocated TTSS effector that is carried on the 5′ end of the cryptic prophage CP-933U. Infection of epithelial cells in culture revealed that EspJ is not required for A/E lesion activity in vivo and ex vivo. However, in vivo studies performed with mice demonstrated that EspJ possesses properties that influence the dynamics of clearance of the pathogen from the host's intestinal tract, suggesting a role in host survival and pathogen transmission.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in Finland: Prevalence and Risk Factors

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Finland, the current prevalence of COPD is unknown. This population-based study aimed to assess the prevalence of COPD in Finland in adults 21–70 years of age by using internationally accepted criteria for COPD, and to evaluate risk factors for COPD. A random sample (n = 959) of questionnaire responders was invited to participate in a clinical study, which included a structured interview, skin-prick tests, and spirometry. Complete data were received from 683 subjects. According to the criteria of the British Thoracic Society and the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, the prevalence of COPD was 5.4% and 9.4% respectively. The risk of COPD increased significantly with age, amount of smoking, and family history of obstructive airways disease, but not with skin-prick positive allergy, recreational skiing, or outdoor work. The smoking-adjusted risk of clinically relevant COPD did not differ significantly between men and women. Among subjects with a smoking history of more than 40 pack-years, the prevalence of COPD was over 50%. Early start age of smoking was a strong risk factor.
On the geometry of classifying spaces and horizontal slices

We study the local properties of the moduli space of a polarized Calabi-Yau manifold. Let U be a neighborhood of the moduli space. Then we know the universal covering space V of U is a smooth manifold. Suppose D is the classifying space of a polarized Calabi-Yau manifold with the automorphism group G. Then we prove that the map from V to D induced by the period map is a pluriharmonic map. We also give a Kahler metric on V, which is called the Hodge metric. We prove that the Ricci curvature of the Hodge metric is negative away from zero. We also proved the nonexistence of the Kahler metric on the classifying space of a Calabi-Yau threefold which is invariant under a cocompact lattice of G. 1. Introduction. Let (X, ) be a polarized simply connected Calabi-Yau manifold. That is, X is a simply connected compact Kahler manifold of dimension n with zero first Chern class and is aKform of X such that ( ) H 2 (X, Z). In this paper, we study the local properties of the moduli space of the polarized Calabi-Yau manifold (X, ). By definition is the parameter space of the complex structures over X for the fixed polarization ( ); is a quasi-projective variety by a theorem of Viehweg (17). Suppose X is a Calabi-Yau manifold. Let N =d im H 1 (X, TX) =0
Biological control of aflatoxin contamination of crops

Aflatoxins produced primarily by two closely related fungi, Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus, are mutagenic and carcinogenic in animals and humans. Of many approaches investigated to manage aflatoxin contamination, biological control method has shown great promise. Numerous organisms, including bacteria, yeasts and nontoxigenic fungal strains of A. flavus and A. parasiticus, have been tested for their ability in controlling aflatoxin contamination. Great successes in reducing aflatoxin contamination have been achieved by application of nontoxigenic strains of A. flavus and A. parasiticus in fields of cotton, peanut, maize and pistachio. The nontoxigenic strains applied to soil occupy the same niches as the natural occurring toxigenic strains. They, therefore, are capable of competing and displacing toxigenic strains. In this paper, we review recent development in biological control of aflatoxin contamination.
Google fusion tables: web-centered data management and collaboration

It has long been observed that database management systems focus on traditional business applications, and that few people use a database management system outside their workplace. Many have wondered what it will take to enable the use of data management technology by a broader class of users and for a much wider range of applications. Google Fusion Tables represents an initial answer to the question of how data management functionality that focused on enabling new users and applications would look in today's computing environment. This paper characterizes such users and applications and highlights the resulting principles, such as seamless Web integration, emphasis on ease of use, and incentives for data sharing, that underlie the design of Fusion Tables. We describe key novel features, such as the support for data acquisition, collaboration, visualization, and web-publishing.
H2 gain scheduling control for rational LPV systems using the descriptor framework

This paper provides new LMI-based conditions for the design of H2 gain scheduled controllers for rational linear parameter varying systems (LPV). Such systems are equivalently recast as affine descriptor LPV systems. Based on this, new sufficient LMI-based conditions for H2 performance analysis are proposed. These conditions can be turned to a finite set of LMIs and allow the use of parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions. Accordingly, new LMI conditions for the H2 gain scheduled controller synthesis problem are given. A numerical example highlights the effectiveness of the proposed conditions.
Time Frequency Duality of Time-of-Flight Range Cameras for Resolving Multi-path Interference

Time-of-Flight (ToF) range cameras measure the depth from the camera to the objects in the field of view. This is achieved by illuminating the scene with amplitude modulated light and measuring the phase shift in the modulation envelope between the out going and reflected light. ToF cameras suffer from measurement errors when multiple propagation paths exist from the light source to the pixel. Previous work has resolved this error by taking measurements at different modulation frequencies. Other previous work has used the properties of a binary sequence as the modulation waveform to resolve the multiple propagation paths. In this work the advantages of taking measurements with each method are investigated. There is an improved jitter performance and measurement linearity with using binary sequences, while decreased variance in the phase with a frequency sweep. We present a transform between sampling with a binary sequence and sampling with multiple frequencies and show that they are equivalent and a transform exists between them. The results of resolving multi-path interference are compared between each method and its transform.
Problem of coherence in modern optoelectronics and relaxed optics

The problem of coherence in modern optoelectronics (MOE) and Relaxed Optics (RO) is discussed. Classical and quantum conceptions of coherence are analyzed. Problem of coherence in RO is represented as problem of creation and change of coherent structures. Other problems of coherence breakdown, including phase coherence, and here applications in MOE and RO are discussed too.
Criteria for Assessing Critical Adult Education Research

Critical educational science is an emerging adult education research orientation that preserves while at the same time supersedes empirical-analytic and intrepretive research traditions. This supersession/preservation is explored through an examination of the philosophical foundations of each. Based on this analysis, criteria are proposed for assessing critical adult education research projects and questions are raised regarding the reporting of this research.
Therapeutic Value of Equine-Human Bonding in Recovery from Trauma

ABSTRACT Although most human-animal bond research has focused on relationships between humans and pets, animals have been used for therapeutic purposes in a variety of settings. Therapeutic riding programs have demonstrated a positive impact on quality of life for people with disabilities. Equine-facilitated psychotherapy is a promising approach to address self-esteem, depression, and other emotional or psychological problems. Restoration of the trauma victim's capacity for recovery hinges on provision of safety and development of trust, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. Thus, recovery from trauma represents an ideal context for exploring the therapeutic impact of equine–human relationships. The six participants in this study recognized that their pre-existing relationships with horses were therapeutic during recovering from trauma, defined as sufficient to have caused significant change in the participant's life. Semi-structured interviews and video-tapes of horse–rider interaction were used to describe the nature of the equine–human bond and its contribution to recovery from trauma. The equine–human bonds described by participants have parallels both with important elements of therapeutic alliances between professionals and clients and with the positive impact of relationship factors on client outcome.