Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual ISU: locomotion interface for immersive VR gaming in seated position

This paper describes a new locomotion interface suitable for immersive virtual reality (VR) gaming in a seated position. In the proposed approach, the user can roam in virtual space while sitting on the Virtual Intuitive Striding Unit (ISU). This device is equipped with pressure sensors in a seat cushion. The sensors detect the user's leg and body movements to estimate walking direction and speed. With Virtual ISU, sensors are not attached to the user's body or the floor and can be used various people, including the elderly and physically handicapped.
The Effects of Homicides and Economics on Human and Social Biology: A Mental Health Challenge for a Society?

Introduction : Violence, particularly homicide, continue to plague Jamaica making it one of the countries with the highest murder rate worldwide with escalating violent espisodes which contribute to the leading cause of death among young males. Yet, homicide is not listed among the major causes of deaths in Jamaica and left out among the non-communicable diseases causing deaths. Objective : The aims of this research is to narrow the gap in the literature by evaluating from an empirical viewpoint the effects of homicides on human and social biology of theliving from a mental health perspective. Materials and methods : The data for this study were taken from various Jamaica Government Publications including the Demographic Statistics, which provided data on mortality, population, and deaths. Jamaica Constabulary Force and Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica (ESSJ) provided the data for murders; gross domestic product per capita (i.e., GDP per capita) and suicide. Data were recorded, stored and retrieved using the Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows, Version 21.0. The level of significance that is used to determine statistical significance is less than 5% (0.05) at the 2-tailed level of significance. Ordinary least square (OLS) regressions were used to determine models or factors of health-care seeking behaviour. Stepwise regression was also used to the contribution of each variable leading to the final model. Results : Homicide is strongly correlated with health demands (r xy = 0.681). Of the five variables entered in the OLS regression, three emerged as factors of health-care seeking behaviour (i.e., self-reported physical illness, exchange rate and lninflation rate). This explained 83.6% of the variance in the dependent variable. Of the three factors, only one was positively correlated with dependent variable and the other two were inversely correlated with HSB. A very strong direct statistical correlation existed between the exchange rate and HSB (r xy = 0.832, P < 0.0001) with the other factors being held constant. Conclusion: Homicide must be included in human and social biology, mental health and demographic discourse as it accounts for premature deaths, psychiatric disorders and social disruptions.
On the Consistency of Ratings and Bond Market Yields

We study the consistency of the credit-risk orderings implicit in ratings and bond market yields. By analyzing errors in term structure estimates for bonds with particular ratings, we show that for significant periods, a quarter of some categories of high credit quality bonds are rated in a manner that is inconsistent with their pricing. Adjusting for economic determinants of spreads (tax, liquidity and risk premiums) and allowing for the dynamic adjustment of ratings and spreads largely eliminates the inconsistencies, however. Keywords: Credit Spreads, Risky Debt Yields, Term Structure
Structural design and simulation of crossing obstacle of a robot with wheel-legs

In order to improve the ground mobile robotpsilas ground adaptability and obstacle crossing capability, a wheel-legs structure was designed in the mobile robot by imitating the configuration of insectspsila legs. This wheel-legs structure was improved. On this basis the mechanical structure and control systems of the wheel-leg robots were designed. Aiming at the obstacle crossing performance in unstructured environment, we had some related analysis and used the ADAMS (automatic dynamic analysis of mechanical systems) to simulate the robotpsila movement. Compared with wheel-leg structure, we simulated the obstacle crossing performance of the leg structure robot. The simulations showed that the wheel-leg structure robotpsila capacity of crossing obstacle is better than the leg structure one. The robot with wheel-leg structure can climb over a certain weight and this verified that this structure is feasible and is capacity of crossing obstacle. The torque and power of the drive motor were simulated and verified to ensure that the motor can meet the performance requirements. The prototype robotpsila movement and the experiment of crossing obstacle verified that the design simulation and analysis of the wheel-leg robot are correct.
Perceived Organizational Climate and Turnover Intention of Employees in the Hotel Industry

Employee turnover is a perennial problem in the hotel industry. Finding the cause and addressing it is very important for the business to be successful. This study looks at the influence of organizational climate on turnover intentions of hotel employees from an Asian based hotel. A survey method was used to collect the data. The research instrument was a structured questionnaire. The study found that rewards, responsibility, standards, conformity and leadership have significant negative relationship with turnover intention. The best predictor of turnover intention was reward which explained 86.8% of the variations in turnover intention followed by standards which explained 4.5% of the variations. The finding from this study contributes to the existing literature and provides managers with an understanding of the organizational climate factors that affect turnover among employees of the hospitality industry.
"Yoking-proofs" for RFID tags

RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags are small, inexpensive microchips capable of transmitting unique identifiers wirelessly over a short distance. Thanks to their utility in automating supply-chain logistics, RFID tags promise eventually to supplant the optical barcode as a means of identifying goods. We propose the concept of a yoking-proof, namely a proof that a pair of RFID tags has been scanned simultaneously. Our particular aim is to permit tags to generate a proof that is verifiable off-line by a trusted entity, even when readers are potentially untrusted. We suggest that such proofs are a useful tool for maintaining integrity in supply chains, particularly as RFID data will commonly flow across multiple, loosely affiliated organizations.
Lebesgue-Sampling-Based Optimal Control Problems With Time Aggregation

We formulate the Lebesgue-sampling-based optimal control problem. We show that the problem can be solved by the time aggregation approach in Markov decision processes (MDP) theory. Policy-iteration-based and reinforcement-learning-based methods are developed for the optimal policies. Both analytical solutions and sample-path-based algorithms are given. Compared to the periodic-sampling scheme, the Lebesgue sampling scheme improves system performance.
On Agent Programming Language Support for Rational Communication

It is generally thought that agents in a multiagent sys-tem should be capable of communicating in a high-level, speech acts-based, agent communication language (ACL), for instance FIPA ACL . Many agent programming languages (APLs) such as Jack , JASON , JADE , etc., support communication in such ACLs, i.e., the production and reception/processing of ACL messages. They also support the speciﬁcation of complex behaviors for agents, typically by allowing the deﬁnition of a library of hierarchical plans that are selected and executed at run time based on external or internal events. However, rational communication requires more than the ability to send and receive ACL messages ; the agent should understand the semantics and pragmatics of the associated communication acts. Without this, agents can only interact when they follow rigid protocols, which is difﬁ-cult in open systems. Most APLs do not support any of this. In this paper, we argue that this is a serious deﬁ-ciency that needs to be addressed and discuss the requirements for this. There is one tool that does support the processing of FIPA ACL message semantics and pragmatics, the JADE Semantic Add-On (JSA) . But, JSA provides only limited support for the speciﬁcation of complex agent behaviors. To gain a better understanding of the problem, we explore how one could combine JSA -like semantics and pragmatics processing capabilities with the complex behavior speciﬁcation capabilities of a typical APL.
Understanding prediction-based partial redundant threading for low-overhead, high- coverage fault tolerance

Redundant threading architectures duplicate all instructions to detect and possibly recover from transient faults. Several lighter weight Partial Redundant Threading (PRT) architectures have been proposed recently. (i) Opportunistic Fault Tolerance duplicates instructions only during periods of poor single-thread performance. (ii) ReStore does not explicitly duplicate instructions and instead exploits mispredictions among highly confident branch predictions as symptoms of faults. (iii) Slipstream creates a reduced alternate thread by replacing many instructions with highly confident predictions. We explore PRT as a possible direction for achieving the fault tolerance of full duplication with the performance of single-thread execution. Opportunistic and ReStore yield partial coverage since they are restricted to using only partial duplication or only confident predictions, respectively. Previous analysis of Slipstream fault tolerance was cursory and concluded that only duplicated instructions are covered. In this paper, we attempt to better understand Slipstream's fault tolerance, conjecturing that the mixture of partial duplication and confident predictions actually closely approximates the coverage of full duplication. A thorough dissection of prediction scenarios confirms that faults in nearly 100% of instructions are detectable. Fewer than 0.1% of faulty instructions are not detectable due to coincident faults and mispredictions. Next we show that the current recovery implementation fails to leverage excellent detection capability, since recovery sometimes initiates belatedly, after already retiring a detected faulty instruction. We propose and evaluate a suite of simple microarchitectural alterations to recovery and checking. Using the best alterations, Slipstream can recover from faults in 99% of instructions, compared to only 78% of instructions without alterations. Both results are much higher than predicted by past research, which claims coverage for only duplicated instructions, or 65% of instructions. On an 8-issue SMT processor, Slipstream performs within 1.3% of single-thread execution whereas full duplication slows performance by 14%. A key byproduct of this paper is a novel analysis framework in which every dynamic instruction is considered to be hypothetically faulty, thus not requiring explicit fault injection. Fault coverage is measured in terms of the fraction of candidate faulty instructions that are directly or indirectly detectable before.
Unsupervised Induction of Signed Social Networks from Content and Structure

We present an unsupervised model for inducing signed social networks from the content exchanged across network edges. Inference in this model solves three problems simultaneously: (1) identifying the sign of each edge; (2) characterizing the distribution over content for each edge type; (3) estimating weights for triadic features that map to theoretical models such as structural balance. We apply this model to the problem of inducing the social function of address terms, such as 'Madame', 'comrade', and 'dude'. On a dataset of movie scripts, our system obtains a coherent clustering of address terms, while at the same time making intuitively plausible judgments of the formality of social relations in each film. As an additional contribution, we provide a bootstrapping technique for identifying and tagging address terms in dialogue.
A Distributed Telecontrol Net System of Saltern Bittern Pumping Based on Low Voltage PLCC

A distributed control net based on low voltage PLCC (Power Line Carrier Communication) transceiver PL2101 was built. Measures of advancing communication reliability such as fast routing lookup configuration, net identification code and CRC code were excogitated, so the net can watch 255 field bittern pumps within 2 kilometer at 500 bps with no transmission repeaters. The paper discusses the network topology, routing algorithm and data frames, presents hardware & software design of the field controller used in a saltern bittern pumping system.
Acceptance or challenge?: Psychological treatments for depressive symptoms in patients with diabetes

Diabetes kan een grote invloed hebben op vele gebieden van het leven. Daardoor ervaren mensen met diabetes relatief vaak stress, somberheid en minder plezier in activiteiten. Deze depressieve klachten kunnen wederom een negatief effect hebben op de gezondheid en diabetes-zelfzorg. Daarom is het van belang om effectieve behandelingen te identificeren. Psychologische interventies zoals Mindfulness-Based Cognitieve Therapie (MBCT) en Cognitieve Gedragstherapie (CGT) zijn hierbij veelbelovend. Er is weinig bekend over de acceptatie en effectiviteit van individuele MBCT, terwijl hier in de praktijk wel vraag naar is. In dit proefschrift werd gekeken of individuele MBCT en individuele CGT behulpzaam zijn voor diabetespatienten met depressieve klachten en voor wie welke behandeling het beste werkt. We hebben gevonden dat de meeste mensen heel tevreden waren over de individuele begeleiding. Daarnaast toonden de resultaten aan dat zowel individuele MBCT als individuele CGT effectief zijn in het verminderen van depressieve klachten, angst en diabetes-gerelateerde stress en ook in het verbeteren van welzijn, zowel op de korte als de lange termijn. Beide behandelingen zijn geschikt voor een brede doelgroep, alleen mensen die al eerder psychologische behandeling hadden, of bij aanvang hoge diabetes-gerelateerde stress beleefden, bleken minder baat te hebben bij de behandelingen. Daarnaast lijken mensen met een lage opleiding en mensen met een angstige hechtingstijl, dus die bang zijn voor afwijzing in relaties, meer profijt te hebben bij CGT dan bij MBCT. Samenvattend kan worden gesteld dat zowel individuele MBCT als ook individuele CGT goed werken voor diabetespatienten die last hebben van depressieve klachten.
Fetal testosterone exposure and its relationship to the development of language and cerebral laterality

Fetal testosterone exposure has been suggested to underlie aspects of postnatal development. However, due to the inherent difficulty in obtaining biological samples of prenatal sex steroid concentrations, most research to date has been conducted using approximate measures (e.g. second-to-fourth digit ratio: 2D:4D) or measures that result in small, selected samples (e.g. amniotic fluid). The initial aim of this thesis was to examine whether umbilical cord blood collected at birth provides a suitable method to examine the effects of early hormone exposure on postnatal human development. Review of the existing literature suggested that cord blood is a useful and meaningful measure of late gestation sex steroid concentrations, given appropriate analytical techniques are employed. Therefore, we utilised testosterone concentrations in cord blood to examine aspects of postnatal development that are thought to be influenced by prenatal testosterone exposure. The second aim of this thesis was to examine whether cord testosterone levels are related to early language development. It has been suggested that high prenatal testosterone exposure is related to delayed language development in early childhood. We investigated this in large samples of males (n = 197) and females (n = 176). Consistent with previous literature, at 2 years, females had significantly greater expressive vocabulary than males, as reported by parents. Importantly, cord testosterone concentrations significantly negatively predicted vocabulary size in males, but not females. These findings indicate that higher circulating fetal testosterone concentrations at birth may contribute to slower early development of language in males. The third aim of the thesis was to investigate the relationship between fetal testosterone exposure and cerebral lateralisation of cognitive functions. Atypical language lateralisation has been linked to language impairment, and it is thought to be influenced by prenatal testosterone exposure. Two competing theories address the influence of fetal testosterone on laterality: one proposing that exposure to high concentrations of fetal testosterone is related to atypical lateralisation (Geschwind and Galaburda hypothesis) and the other proposing that high concentrations of fetal testosterone exaggerate the typical lateralisation pattern (Witelson’s callosal hypothesis). We initially investigated the relationship between fetal testosterone and cerebral laterality using a surrogate measure of prenatal testosterone exposure (2D:4D) and a functional imaging technique (functional Transcranial Doppler (fTCD)) to measure cerebral laterality in a sample of adults (49 male; 43 female). No relationship was found between digit ratio and lateralisation for language production or visuospatial memory, indicating that fetal testosterone exposure is not related to the development of cerebral laterality in males or females. However, digit ratio is
NoC Based Interconnection of OpenRISC Processors

Present day System-On-Chip (SoC) devices are made of hundreds of cores to be able to handle the complex functionality implemented in modern day devices. Intercommunication requirements for SoCs made of hundreds of cores will not be feasible using a single shared bus or a hierarchy of buses due to their poor scalability with system size and sharing of the bandwidth between all the cores. To overcome these problems of scalability and complexity, Network-on-Chip (NoC) has been proposed as a promising replacement for buses and dedicated interconnections. Our project aims at the design and verification of a 2x2 Mesh Topology based NoC system in a multicore environment built using OpenRISC OR1200 processors. This report presents the project objectives; previous work and motivation for the project; design and verification methodology; performance evaluation methodology and the results obtained from RTL simulations.
EblacZ tumor dormancy in bone marrow and lymph nodes: active control of proliferating tumor cells by CD8+ immune T cells.

A well-defined lacZ gene tagged DBA/2 lymphoma (EblacZ) was used to examine the role of host immune responses in controlling tumor dissemination and persistence, as well as metastasis. In s.c. and intra-ear pinna-inoculated mice, low numbers of EblacZ cells homed to the bone marrow and lymph nodes. The frequency of bone marrow-residing tumor cells did not change with the growth of primary tumor or with multiple inoculations of tumor cells. The bone marrow-residing tumor cells expressed the proliferation-associated Ki67 antigen and expanded upon CD8+ depletion. In contrast, inoculation of nu/nu or severe combined immunodeficiency mice or of immune-suppressed DBA/2 mice led to the rapid outgrowth of EblacZ cells in the bone marrow and their metastasis to other organs. Transfer of bone marrow from EblacZ immunized MHC congenic or syngeneic DBA/2 donors, but not from naive donors, protected s.c. -inoculated DBA/2 mice. Protection was abrogated by in vitro depletion of CD8+ T cells prior to transfer of bone marrow. These experiments show that bone marrow and lymph nodes are privileged sites where potentially lethal tumor cells are controlled in a dormant state by the immune system. Metastasis may be a consequence of the breakdown of this immune control.
Defective Learning in Mutants of the Drosophila Gene for a Regulatory Subunit of cAMP-Dependent Protein Kinase

Disruptions of a Drosophila gene encoding a regulatory subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase homologous to mammalian RIβ (dPKA-RI) were targeted to the first (noncoding) exon of dPKA-RI via site-selected P element mutagenesis. Flies homozygous for either of two mutant alleles showed specific defects in olfactory learning but not in subsequent memory decay. In contrast, olfactory acuity and shock reactivity, component behaviors required for normal odor avoidance learning, were normal in these mutants. Northern and Western blot analyses of mRNA and protein extracted from adult heads have revealed a complex lesion of the PKA-RI locus, including expression of a novel product and over- or underexpression of wild-type products in mutants. Western blot analysis revealed reductions in RI protein in mutants. PKA activity in the absence of exogenous cAMP also was significantly higher than normal in homogenates from mutant adult heads. These two mutant alleles failed to complement each other for each of these phenotypic defects, eliminating second-site mutations as a possible explanation. These results establish a role for an RI regulatory subunit of PKA in Pavlovian olfactory conditioning.
Visual attention with contextual saliencies of a scene

This paper presents an examination of the possible competition and cooperation that may take place in human visual attention, between the bottom-up saliencies incurred by photometric signatures and the top-down saliencies incurred by the primary context of a scene. It is found that the strength of the primary context of a scene represents a dominant guiding factor for determining the visual fixations for attention: in the case where there exists a strong context in a scene, the objects and/or regions that are tightly coupled with the context dominate for defining the saliencies that guide fixations for attention. It appears that, in human visual perception, a higher priority is assigned to the efficient understanding of a visual context than the direct response to photometric saliencies not supported by the context. The claims described above are derived from the experimental verification of the following conjectures: 1) There is a tendency for the bottom-up saliencies to be more significant when the context of the scenes observed is either weak or nonexistent. 2) For the scene of a strong context, the top-down context saliencies such as the objects and regions that are associated with understanding the present context tend to dominate over the bottom-up saliencies. 3) When the scene of a strong context includes both positive and negative saliencies, where the positive/negative contextual saliencies are referred to here as those saliencies significant for understanding the context yet well-expected/unexpected for the given context in terms of the prior knowledge, the negative saliencies are assigned a higher priority than the positive saliencies for attention.