Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Discriminative Model for Understanding Natural Language Route Directions

To be useful teammates to human partners, robots must be able to follow spoken instructions given in natural language. However, determining the correct sequence of actions in response to a set of spoken instructions is a complex decision-making problem. There is a "semantic gap" between the high-level symbolic models of the world that people use, and the low-level models of geometry, state dynamics, and perceptions that robots use. In this paper, we show how this gap can be bridged by inferring the best sequence of actions from a linguistic description and environmental features. This work improves upon previous work in three ways. First, by using a conditional random field (CRF), we learn the relative weight of environmental and linguistic features, enabling the system to learn the meanings of words and reducing the modeling effort in learning how to follow commands. Second, a number of long-range features are added, which help the system to use additional structure in the problem. Finally, given a natural language command, we infer both the referred path and landmark directly, thereby requiring the algorithm to pick a landmark by which it should navigate. The CRF is demonstrated to have 15% error on a held-out dataset, when compared with 39% error for a Markov random field (MRF). Finally, by analyzing the additional annotations necessary for this work, we find that natural language route directions map sequentially onto the corresponding path and landmarks 99.6% of the time. In addition, the size of the referred landmark varies from 0m 2 to 1964m 2 and the length of the referred path varies from 0 m to 40.83 m .
Industry Self-Regulation Without Sanctions: The Chemical Industry's Responsible Care Program

Industry self-regulation, the voluntary association of firms to control their collective action, has been proposed as a complement to government regulation. Proponents argue that the establishment of such structures may institutionalize environmental improvement, while critics suggest that without explicit sanctions such structures will fall victim to opportunistic behavior. In a study of the Chemical Manufacturer Association’s Responsible Care program we investigate the predictions of these two contradictory perspectives. Our findings highlight the potential for opportunism to overcome the isomorphic pressures of even powerful self-regulatory institutions and suggest that effective industry self-regulation is difficult to maintain without explicit sanctions.
A study of the size of pen-input character boxes for PDAs

The ultimate goal of our study is to determine the optimal size of pen-input boxes on handheld devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) into which users can most efficiently write alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric characters. We define an optimal size as including the following characteristics: high performance and high subjective ratings (e.g. including ease of writing and minimum degree of fatigue). Character input box sizes for handwriting on PDAs differ according to the software application for which they are to be used. PDA screens and their character input boxes are very small making character input relatively difficult. However, obvious limitations must be placed on the size of input boxes so that the information domain, for example, is not dwarfed. Therefore, it is essential to determine the optimal size of the character boxes of PDA screens. We attempt to experimentally determine the optimal size from two viewpoints: character kinds and character shapes, based on two experiments. The results, which were assessed by the rate of character recognition, the number of strokes protruding outside the character box, and also by subjective ratings, show that the optimal size of character boxes for inputting alphanumeric characters is approximately 1.09 /spl times/ 1.66 - 1.44 /spl times/ 1.44 cm, and for Hiragana & Katakana and Kanji & Kana the optimal size is 1.44 /spl times/ 1.44 cm. These results are useful for designers to determine the size of handwritten character boxes in both recognition and non-recognition situations.
Does play pay? The production and conversion of physical capital by sports coaches and outdoor leaders in the UK

Anecdotal evidence suggests that a relationship exists between one’s involvement in sport and one’s opportunities to negotiate access to some sport leadership roles, yet this relationship remains under-explored in the literature. The current study attempts to resolve this omission by examining the experiences of women sports coaches and outdoor leaders. More specifically, the study draws on the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu and his concepts of physical, economic, social and symbolic capital, to examine how individuals’ sporting involvement has helped them negotiate access to sports leadership positions. In-depth interviews were carried out with 20 women coaches and 15 outdoor leaders. During the interviews, the women were asked to describe their early experiences of sport and to account for their initial, and continued, involvement in sport or the outdoors. Analysis of the data revealed that the women’s physical capital facilitated their access to a range of sports leadership roles. Further examination of the data indicated that the development and conversion of physical capital was dynamically intertwined with the development of other forms of capital and structured within patriarchal and capitalist social relations.
Crosswalk Detection Based on MSER and ERANSAC

Crosswalks detection and location in traffic scenes plays an important role in the Intelligent Transportation Management System (ITMS). In this paper, we propose a new novel and robust approach for the detection and location of crosswalks, which is based on Maximally Stable Extremal Regions (MSER) and extended Random Sample Consensus (ERANSAC). Specially, first, the method with temporal median of background extraction is applied to traffic monitoring videos so that the foreground has a less disturbance for crosswalks detection and location. Second, we use a method of MSER to extract crosswalk features in the image. Last, we invent the ERANSAC to pick out crosswalk features extracted by MSER to detect and locate crosswalk and indicate the position of crosswalk in the image. Compared to the existing detection methods, the proposed method based on MSER can efficiently extract crosswalk regions under various illumination conditions, which can avoid the selection of thresholds according to the current environment situation and greatly improve the system flexibility and robustness. The ERANSAC can determine the distance between candidate samples and get the principle components by the way of eliminating the non-crosswalk regions. Promising experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed method has a high detection rate at extremely false alarm and is robust to the different crosswalk angle and various illuminations.
Architectural Review: Evolution of Embedded Digital Signal Processors

— Digital Signal Processing is one of the most powerful technologies that will shape science and engineering in the twenty-first century. Revolutionary changes have already been made in a broad range of fields: communications, medical imaging, radar & sonar, high fidelity music reproduction, and oil prospecting, to name just a few. Each of these areas has developed a deep DSP technology, with its own algorithms, mathematics, and specialized techniques. This combination of breath and depth makes it impossible for any one individual to master all of the DSP technology that has been developed. This paper starts our journey into the world of Digital Signal processing by describing the dramatic effect that DSP has made in several diverse fields. The revolution has begun. The number and variety of products that include some form of digital signal processing has grown dramatically over the last five years. The products use a variety of hardware approaches to implement DSP, ranging from the use of off-the-shelf microprocessors to field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to custom integrated circuits (ICs). Programmable “DSP processors,” a class of microprocessors optimized for DSP, are a popular solution for several reasons. In comparison to fixed-function solutions, they have the advantage of potentially being reprogrammed in the field, allowing product upgrades or fixes. And in comparison to other types of microprocessors, DSP processors often have an advantage in terms of speed, cost, and energy efficiency. In this article, we trace the evolution of DSP processors, from early architectures to current state-of-the-art devices. We highlight some of the key differences among architectures, and compare their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we discuss the growing class of general purpose processors that have been enhanced to address the needs of DSP applications.
Deterministic Models for Microarray Gene Expression Profiles

Microarray Gene Profile studies can assess the global patterns of thousands of genes under different varying conditions. It provides important insights about the underlying genetic causes for diseases, ultimately allowing the development of modern chemical entities as medical-kit drug candidates. The informatics analysis and integration of microarray gene expression pattern are difficult for understanding or interpretation of gene array features. In this paper, we discuss the deterministic computational analysis of: the identification of differentially expressed genes using statistical methods, the discovery of gene clusters, and the classification of biological samples using standard clustering and classification approaches.
Addendum to Pentapods with Mobility 2

In a foregoing publication the authors studied pentapods with mobility 2, where neither all platform anchor points nor all base anchor points are located on a line. It turned out that the given classification is incomplete. This addendum is devoted to the discussion of the missing cases resulting in additional solutions already known to Duporcq.
Dependability modeling for multiprocessors

A tutorial on dependability and performance-related dependability models for multiprocessors is presented. Multiprocessors are classified as having shared-memory or distributed-memory architectures, and some fundamental dependability modeling concepts. Reliability models based on four types of reliability evaluation techniques (terminal, multiterminal, task-based, and network reliability) are examined. The status of research efforts on performance-related dependability is discussed, and the models' effectiveness is illustrated with a few numerical examples. A brief survey of software packages for dependability computation in included. <<ETX>>
Mre11 ATLD17/18 mutation retains Tel1/ATM activity but blocks DNA double-strand break repair

The Mre11 complex (Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1 or MRN) binds double-strand breaks where it interacts with CtIP/Ctp1/Sae2 and ATM/Tel1 to preserve genome stability through its functions in homology-directed repair, checkpoint signaling and telomere maintenance. Here, we combine biochemical, structural and in vivo functional studies to uncover key properties of Mre11-W243R, a mutation identified in two pediatric cancer patients with enhanced ataxia telangiectasia-like disorder. Purified human Mre11-W243R retains nuclease and DNA binding activities in vitro. X-ray crystallography of Pyrococcus furiosus Mre11 indicates that an analogous mutation leaves the overall Mre11 three-dimensional structure and nuclease sites intact but disorders surface loops expected to regulate DNA and Rad50 interactions. The equivalent W248R allele in fission yeast allows Mre11 to form an MRN complex that efficiently binds double-strand breaks, activates Tel1/ATM and maintains telomeres; yet, it causes hypersensitivity to ionizing radiation and collapsed replication forks, increased Rad52 foci, defective Chk1 signaling and meiotic failure. W248R differs from other ataxia telangiectasia-like disorder analog alleles by the reduced stability of its interaction with Rad50 in cell lysates. Collective results suggest a separation-of-function mutation that disturbs interactions amongst the MRN subunits and Ctp1 required for DNA end processing in vivo but maintains interactions sufficient for Tel1/ATM checkpoint and telomere maintenance functions.
Formal execution semantics for asynchronous constructs of AADL

The Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) has been widely accepted to support the development process of Distributed Real-time and Embedded (DRE) systems and ease the tension of analyzing the systems' non-functional properties. The AADL standard prescribes the dispatching and scheduling semantics for the thread components in the system using natural language. The lack of formal semantics limits the possibility to perform formal verification of AADL specifications. The main contribution of this paper is a mapping from a substantial asynchronous subset of AADL into the TASM language, allowing us to perform resource consumption and schedulability analysis of AADL models. A small case study is presented as a validation of the usefulness of this work.
CEO Compensation and Board Structure – Rejoinder

In their reply to our critique, Chhaochharia and Grinstein (2012) suggest that (i) Apple is a prime example of how board regulations affect CEO pay and should therefore not be excluded from the study, and (ii) their original results are robust to excluding the outliers when extending the pre-event sample period from 2000 to 2002 back to 1996. In this rejoinder, we (i) dispute that Apple is a fitting example to illustrate the causal effect of board independence on CEO pay, (ii) caution against drawing conclusions about the robustness of the results from the new regression results in the reply (e.g., due to lack of relevance, sample selection issues, and more outlier effects), and (iii) argue that important omissions in the reply cast further doubt on the conclusions advocated by CG. In a nutshell, the existing evidence simply does not support the view that mandated board independence helps rein in executive compensation.
Effective Containment of Shared-Memory Application Extensions

Users are relying increasingly on untrusted software in their daily activities such as viewing documents and images, listening to music, watching video, communicating with others, playing games, and so on. This factor has prompted research in securing untrusted software, but much of this research has been focused on standalone applications, and hence don’t address the emerging trends towards shared-memory plug-ins and modules. Extensions such as browser plug-ins can access all of the memory of their host application. In addition, they can interact with their host application using application-specific as well as system-wide APIs consisting of thousands of functions. These factors make it very difficult to distinguish the actions of the extension from its host application, thus complicating efforts to selectively contain such extensions. Previous work has proposed to address this problem by limiting memory sharing, and by using small security-aware APIs, but they are cumbersome to apply to powerful extensions such as those used in browsers. In contrast, we develop a new approach that can distinguish operations made by the extension from those of its host. It enables policies that were originally developed for stand-alone untrusted applications to be applied more or less directly to plugins providing equivalent functionality. Underlying our approach is a fine-grained taint-tracking technique for binaries that uses sophisticated analysis and optimization techniques to achieve significantly better performance over previous works.
Game Theory Lecture Notes by Chapter 32. the Shapley Value

Note: This is a only a draft version, so there could be flaws. If you find any errors, please do send email to hari@csa.iisc. ernet.in. A more thorough version would be available soon in this space. The Shapley value is a popular solution concept in cooperative game theory that provides a unique allocation to a set of players in a coalitional game. Like the Nash bargaining solution, the Shapley value is based on a set of axioms that decide the allocation to a player based on the player's marginal contribution. In this chapter, we present the Shapley axioms and prove the existence and uniqueness of the Shapley value. Given a coalitional game, the core may be empty or may be very large. This certainly causes difficulties in getting sharp predictions for the game. The Shapley value is a solution concept which is motivated by the need to have a solution concept that would predict a unique expected payoff allocation for every given coalitional game. The Shapley value concept was proposed using an axiomatic approach by Shapley in 1953, as a part of his doctoral dissertation at the Princeton University. Given a game in coalitional form (N, v), the Shapley value is denoted by φ(v) = (φ 1 (v),. , φ n (v)) where φ i (v) is the expected payoff to player i. The Shapley value tries to capture how coalitional competitive forces influence the possible outcomes of a game. It describes a reasonable or fair way of dividing the gains from cooperation given the strategic realities captured by the characteristic function. It is a descriptive, normative solution concept. Let (N, v) be a game in coalitional form. Let π be a permutation on the set N. Let (N, πv) be the coalitional game such that πv({π(i) : i ∈ C}) = v(C) ∀C ⊆ N This means that the role of any player i ∈ N , in the game (N, v) is essentially the same as the role of player π(i) in (N, πv).
Discussion of “ Complexity and Monetary Policy ” ∗

In the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of working with Don Kohn at the Federal Reserve Board in the Division of Monetary Affairs. It was an exciting time, in part because of a fascinating synergy between much of the practical monetary policy analysis that was being conducted and the contemporaneous academic and central bank monetary policy research. Policy questions are often considered simultaneously by central bankers and researchers, but at that time, the convergence seemed to be even greater than usual. In particular, the evaluation and use of simple interest rate monetary policy rules burgeoned during that time in both real-world policy discussions and research papers. Since that early start, a large amount of research has examined simple policy rules in estimated macroeconomic models with explicit loss functions. Continuing in this tradition, Athanasios Orphanides and Volker Wieland have written an interesting paper that evaluates the robustness of simple interest rate monetary policy rules in different macroeconometric models. Their paper is distinguished
Citation counts for research evaluation : standards of good practice for analyzing bibliometric data and presenting and interpreting results

With the ready accessibility of bibliometric data and the availability of ready-to-use tools for generating bibliometric indicators for evaluation purposes, there is the danger of inappropriate use. Here we present standards of good practice for analyzing bibliometric data and presenting and interpreting the results. Comparisons drawn between research groups as to research performance are valid only if (1) the scientific impact of the research groups or their publications are looked at by using box plots, Lorenz curves, and Gini coefficients to represent distribution characteristics of data (in other words, going beyond the usual arithmetic mean value), (2) different reference standards are used to assess the impact of research groups, and the appropriateness of the reference standards undergoes critical examination, and (3) statistical analyses comparing citation counts take into consideration that citations are a function of many influencing factors besides scientific quality.
Segmentation of nodular medulloblastoma using Random Walker and Hierarchical Normalized Cuts

Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common brain tumor in children. Recent studies have demonstrated a relationship between specific signaling pathway abnormalities, a tendency to more favorable outcomes, and a histopathological feature: nodular growth patterns. In this work we present a new segmentation scheme which requires minimal user interaction to segment nodules on MB histopathological sections. Our segmentation scheme consists of two steps: (1) color reduction using Hierarchical Normalized Cuts (HNCut), (2) Random Walker (RW) segmentation within the reduced HNCut color space. Across a cohort of 18 nodular MB images, our integrated HNCut and RW scheme yielded nodule segmentations with a Dice coefficient of 83:55 ± 12:4% and Predictive Positive Value (PPV) of 93:71 ± 9:0%.
Conflict of interest between borrowers and lenders in credit co- operatives: the case of German co-operative banks

Over the last few decades, the co-operative banking sector in Germany has steadily increased its market share at the expense of other types of banks. This outcome is surprising from the standpoint of traditional economic thinking about co-operatives, which suggests that they are most appropriate for "backward" economies. We develop a model of co-operative banks that highlights the dual role ofmembers as borrowers and lenders. We show that a shift in the median (hence pivotal) member of the co-operative from predominantly a borrower orientation toward a lender orientation causes the co-operative bank to shift its policy from underpricing credit toward the provision ofcompetitively priced credit and deposit services. Together with a nationwide supporting infrastructure to capture scale and scope economies (the Verbund), the market-oriented policy of German co-operative banks today allows them to compete successfully with other banking groups.
Impact of Organizational Innovation on Product & Process Innovation

The purpose of this paper was to test the effect of organizational innovation on product and process innovation (while controlling for endogeneity). Our hypothesis was that organizational innovation should have a signiﬁcant and positive impact on technical (product or process) innovation. We control for endogeneity by using a Poisson estimator that accommodates a binary endogenous regressor. We test 10 potential instruments using a battery of test criteria and settle on ﬁve. All results are presented using the ﬁve instruments to avoid expectation bias. In general, we ﬁnd that organizational innovation does impact technical innovation positively. With the 2009 data we ﬁnd that the mean of the average treatment effect for product innovation is roughly 1.7 times that of process innovation. For the 2009–2012 data we ﬁnd that the impact on product innovation is roughly 1.5 times that of process innovation. For the 2012 data, we had anomalous results for process innovation, such that organizational innovation reduced the number of process innovations by 2.3 per year. In terms of Canadian government policy, the results lend support to the view that technical innovation is not the only innovation that matters. The right policy mix may encourage ﬁrms to experiment with and adopt more organizational innovations to enhance technical innovation.Published: Economics of Innovation and New TechnologyFirst published online: 13 July, 2016DOI: 10.1080/10438599.2016. 1204779