Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Visual Realism of Synthesized Imagery

Traditionally, computer graphics has been concerned with producing imagery that is as physically accurate as possible. But accurate physical simulation of geometry, lighting, and material properties of a visual scene can be cumbersome and time consuming. At the same time, human vision is far from accurate, which offers an enormous opportunity to create imagery at a reduced computational cost as well as with less reliance on human modelers. As a result, a recent trend is toward accepting perceptual plausibility instead of physical accuracy as a guiding principle in the design of modeling and rendering systems. This requires us to understand visual realism, which involves both learning statistical regularities of the world, for instance, by employing huge amounts of data, as well as human's visual perception of it. This paper addresses issues related to understanding realism, presents several applications, and discusses what this interesting approach may lead to in the future.
Study of Some Key Issues for Applying LES to Real Engineering Problems

Most of nature and industry flows are turbulence. There are three kinds of numerical simulation methods for turbulent flows (Lesieur 1990; Pope 2000; Sagaut 2000, 2006): direct numerical simulation (DNS), Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS) and large eddy simulation (LES). DNS is a straightforward way to simulate turbulent flows. Full Navier-Stokes equations are discretized and solved numerically without any model, empirical parameter or approximation. Theoretically speaking, results of DNS exactly reflect the real flow and the whole range of turbulence scales are computed. With DNS, people can compute and visualize any quantity of interest, including some that are too difficult or impossible to be measured by experiments. But as we all know the computation cost is very high. For high Reynolds number flow, even modern computer technology can not satisfy the computation requirement. In RANS, the flow quantities are decomposed into two parts: the average or mean term and the fluctuating term by applying Reynolds averaging. The effect of the fluctuating quantities on the mean flow quantities is described by the so called Reynolds stress tensor, which is must be modelled in terms of the mean velocities. Typical models can be grouped loosely into three categories: algebraic models, one-equation models and two-equation models. RANS is simple and robust. It is widely used in engineering problem. The general limitation of RANS is the fact that the model must represent a very wide range of scales. While the small scales tend to be universal, and depend on viscosity, the larger scales depend largely on flow condition and boundaries. So there is no one universal model for all flows. For different flows, the model must be modified to obtain good results. Another issue is that usually a time averaging is adopted in RANS. So RANS has difficult to handle unsteady flows. In LES, a filter is applied to separate the large scales from small scales. Then only the large, energy carrying scales (or called resolved scales) of turbulence are computed exactly by solving the governing equations. While the small, fluctuating scales are modelled, which is also called subgrid scales (SGS). Compared to RANS, LES has several advantages: 1) LES can capture the large scales directly which are the main energy container of turbulence and response for the momentum and energy transfer. 2) The dissipation of turbulence energy is believed to be done by small scales. Since small scales are thought to be homogenous,
Replication fork regression in vitro by the Werner syndrome protein (WRN): Holliday junction formation, the effect of leading arm structure and a potential role for WRN exonuclease activity

The premature aging and cancer-prone disease Werner syndrome stems from loss of WRN protein function. WRN deficiency causes replication abnormalities, sensitivity to certain genotoxic agents, genomic instability and early replicative senescence in primary fibroblasts. As a RecQ helicase family member, WRN is a DNA-dependent ATPase and unwinding enzyme, but also possesses strand annealing and exonuclease activities. RecQ helicases are postulated to participate in pathways responding to replication blockage, pathways possibly initiated by fork regression. In this study, a series of model replication fork substrates were used to examine the fork regression capability of WRN. Our results demonstrate that WRN catalyzes fork regression and Holliday junction formation. This process is an ATP-dependent reaction that is particularly efficient on forks containing single-stranded gaps of at least 11–13 nt on the leading arm at the fork junction. Importantly, WRN exonuclease activity, by digesting the leading daughter strand, enhances regression of forks with smaller gaps on the leading arm, thus creating an optimal structure for regression. Our results suggest that the multiple activities of WRN cooperate to promote replication fork regression. These findings, along with the established cellular consequences of WRN deficiency, strongly support a role for WRN in regression of blocked replication forks.
Assessment: Collaborating with Children to Assess Writing Objectively.

AUTHOR Essex, Christopher, Comp.; Smith, Carl B. , Ed. TITLE Creative Writing in the Elementary School. Hot Topic Guide 57. INSTITUTION ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication, Bloomington, IN. SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED)', Washington, DC. PUB DATE Mar 95 CONTRACT RR93002011 NOTE 68p. ; All of the articles and book chapters included in this, and any other, Hot Topic Guide are reprinted with the express permission of their copyright holders. Distance Education/ERIC-REC, Indiana University, Smith Research Center, Suite 150, 2805 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47408-2698 ($15, prepaid, using Mastercard, Visa, or check made payable to ERIC/REC). Information Analyses ERIC Clearinghouse Products (071) Guides Non-Classroom Use (055) AVAILABLE FROM
DoF analysis in a two-layered heterogeneous wireless interference network

Degrees of freedom (DoF) is studied in the downlink of a heterogenous wireless network modeled as a two-layered interference network. The first layer of the interference network is the backhaul layer between macro base stations (MBs) and small cell base stations (SBs), which is modeled as a Wyner type linear network. The second layer is the transmission layer between SBs and mobile terminals (MTs), which is modeled as a linear Wyner LT network. The SBs are assumed to be half-duplex, thus restricting the per user degrees of freedom (puDoF) in the system to 1/2. It is established that the optimal puDoF of 1/2 can be achieved in the linear network with sufficient number of antennas using only interference avoidance schemes. For the case of higher connectivity in the transmission layer, it is shown that the optimal puDoF is achieved by sending an appropriate linear combination to the SB to zero-force interference at the intended user. These results are also extended to a more realistic hexagonal cellular model.
Testing for Structural Instability in Moment Restriction Models: An Info-Metric Approach

In this paper, we develop an info-metric framework for testing hypotheses about structural instability in nonlinear, dynamic models estimated from the information in population moment conditions. Our methods are designed to distinguish between three states of the world: (i) the model is structurally stable in the sense that the population moment condition holds at the same parameter value throughout the sample; (ii) the model parameters change at some point in the sample but otherwise the model is correctly specified; and (iii) the model exhibits more general forms of instability than a single shift in the parameters. An advantage of the info-metric approach is that the null hypotheses concerned are formulated in terms of distances between various choices of probability measures constrained to satisfy (i) and (ii), and the empirical measure of the sample. Under the alternative hypotheses considered, the model is assumed to exhibit structural instability at a single point in the sample, referred to as the break point; our analysis allows for the break point to be either fixed a priori or treated as occuring at some unknown point within a certain fraction of the sample. We propose various test statistics that can be thought of as sample analogs of the distances described above, and derive their limiting distributions under the appropriate null hypothesis. The limiting distributions of our statistics are nonstandard but coincide with various distributions that arise in the literature on structural instability testing within the Generalized Method of Moments framework. A small simulation study illustrates the finite sample performance of our test statistics.
Phase separation and liquid crystallization of complementary sequences in mixtures of nanoDNA oligomers

Using optical microscopy, we have studied the phase behavior of mixtures of 12- to 22-bp-long nanoDNA oligomers. The mixtures are chosen such that only a fraction of the sample is composed of mutually complementary sequences, and hence the solutions are effectively mixtures of single-stranded and double-stranded (duplex) oligomers. When the concentrations are large enough, such mixtures phase-separate via the nucleation of duplex-rich liquid crystalline domains from an isotropic background rich in single strands. We find that the phase separation is approximately complete, thus corresponding to a spontaneous purification of duplexes from the single-strand oligos. We interpret this behavior as the combined result of the energy gain from the end-to-end stacking of duplexes and of depletion-type attractive interactions favoring the segregation of the more rigid duplexes from the flexible single strands. This form of spontaneous partitioning of complementary nDNA offers a route to purification of short duplex oligomers and, if in the presence of ligation, could provide a mode of positive feedback for the preferential synthesis of longer complementary oligomers, a mechanism of possible relevance in prebiotic environments.
Exploring the Influences of Elementary School Students＇ Learning Motivation on Web-Based Collaborative Learning

The purpose of this study is to explore the influences of students’ learning motivation on Web-based collaborative learning. This study conducted learning materials of Web pages about science and collaborative learning, a motivation questionnaire and interviews were used for data collection. Eighty Grade 5 students and a science teacher were recruited in this study. The controlled group involved 40 students who need to learn the dissolve concept on the Web pages, and complete the homework which was assigned by the Web pages by themselves. The experimental group involved the other 40 students and every four students were grouped in a team. The experimental group students not only need to learn the dissolve concept on Web pages, but also need to complete the homework which was assigned by the Web pages with team members. Besides, the experimental group students need to present their homework to other teams and provide feedbacks and suggestions to other teams. The results showed that experimental group significantly promoted their science learning motivation by using Web-based collaborative learning.
Voluntary Increase in Latissimus Dorsi Muscle Activity During the Lat Pull-Down Following Expert Instruction

Snyder, BJ and Leech, JR. Voluntary increase in latissimus dorsi muscle activity during the lat pull-down following expert instruction. J Strength Cond Res 23(8): 2204-2209, 2009-It has been observed anecdotally that while performing the multijoint lat pull-down exercise, novice strength trainers often rely on the elbow flexors to complete the movement rather than fully utilizing the relevant back muscles such as the latissimus dorsi (LD) and teres major (TM). The primary aim of the study was to determine whether specific technique instruction could result in a voluntary increase in LD and TM electromyographic (EMG) activity with a concurrent decrease in the activity of the biceps brachii (BB) during the front wide-grip lat pull-down exercise. Eight women with little or no background in strength training were asked to perform lat pull-down exercise with only basic instruction, performing 2 sets of 3 repetitions at 30% max. After a brief rest, subjects then performed the same 2 sets of 3 repetitions following verbal technique instruction on how to emphasize the latissimus while de-emphasizing the biceps. EMG activity of the LD, TM, and BB were recorded, converted to root mean square, and normalized to the maximum isometric EMG (NrmsEMG). A significant increase was seen in Nrms EMG in the LD (p = 0.005) from the average of preinstruction NrmsEMG to the average of postinstruction NrmsEMG. No significant differences were observed between pre- and postinstruction muscle activity in the BB or TM. The results show that untrained individuals can voluntarily increase the activity of a specified muscle group during the performance of a multijoint resistance exercise, but the increase probably does not represent “isolation” of the muscle group through voluntary reduction of activity in complementary agonist muscles.
Depression in Mormon Women

DEPRESSION IS A COMMON PROBLEM in Western societies; various studies have reported that between 3.2 and 9.3 percent of the population suffers from clinical depression. Women seem to be at least two times more likely to suffer from depression than men. Among the factors related to depression in women are allocation to a homemaker's role at the expense of a career outside the home, little perceived support from husbands, large families, young children in the home, lack of education, and low income. Many Latter-day Saint women in the United States share at least some of these characteristics, and at least two reports have cited Mormon women as being especially susceptible to depression because of perceived pressure to be perfect, expectations of large families at the expense of other interests, and a traditional male-dominated homemaker's role in the face of a changing social system (Burgoyne and Burgoyne 1977; Degn 1979; Johnson 1979; Warenski 1978, 98). To date, most of the evidence has come from anecdotes by therapists who have treated depressed Mormon women. To clarify this issue, we designed a study to estimate the prevalence of depression among married Mormon women in Utah. We also designed the study to help determine if the factors affecting LDS women were similar to factors found in other depressed female populations. We used a random-digit phone dialing procedure in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area to identify both LDS and non-LDS women who were married, Caucasian, Englishspeaking, and whose children were all fourteen or younger.
Geographic distribution of genetic variation among native and introduced populations of Chinese tallow tree, Triadica sebifera (Euphorbiaceae).

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Invasive plants often display genetically determined variation in patterns of growth and resource allocation between native and introduced genotypes, as well as among genotypes within different regions of the introduced range. We examined patterns of genetic variation within and among native and introduced populations of the tetraploid Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera, Euphorbiaceae) to determine whether nonselective evolutionary processes or the introduction history could contribute to previously observed phenotypic differences between native and introduced populations as well as among introduced populations. METHODS We used six microsatellite markers to study 12 native populations in China, 51 introduced populations in the southeastern USA, and one introduced population in Australia. KEY RESULTS Genetic diversity was greater within and among native populations than introduced populations. Within the southeastern USA, populations in Georgia and South Carolina differed substantially in their genetic composition and had greater genetic diversity than the rest of the southeastern USA. Greater genetic similarity between some populations in the native range and introduced range indicate a common provenance for Georgia and South Carolina populations that could have come from any of several western or southern Chinese populations and a different provenance for other southeastern USA populations and the Australian population, which were most similar to more northeastern Chinese populations. CONCLUSIONS Differences among introduced populations in potentially adaptive traits (e.g., herbivore tolerance, herbivore resistance, growth rates) may result in part from the introduction history, in particular from differences present among source populations in the native range.
A comparison of augmenting central serotonin and noradrenaline function in healthy subjects: implications for studies on the neurochemistry of anxiety

Biochemical and psychophysiological effects of augmenting serotonergic and noradrenergic function were compared in 12 normal volunteers. Fluvoxamine (100 mg), a serotonin (5-HT) re-uptake inhibitor, maprotiline (75 mg), a noradrenaline re-uptake inhibitor, and placebo were given for 7 days each to each subject. Subjects were tested pre-drug on days 1, 4 and 8 of each treatment. Catecholamines in 24 h urine, 'platelet-rich' plasma 5-HT and hormones, EEG, auditory evoked response, skin conductance, and bodily and psychological responses were monitored. Augmentation of central 5-HT by fluvoxamine was demonstrated by the decrease of 5-HT plasma levels. Fluvoxamine also reduced urinary dopamine, indicating a decrease in dopamine metabolism in response to augmentation of 5-HT function. Decrease in pulse rate, loss of appetite and a mild arousing effect were also detected with administration of fluvoxamine. Thus, further investigations on the neuro chemistry of anxiety disorders should include the study of mechanisms of interaction of neurotransmitters.
Learning users' interests by quality classification in market-based recommender systems

Recommender systems are widely used to cope with the problem of information overload and, to date, many recommendation methods have been developed. However, no one technique is best for all users in all situations. To combat this, we have previously developed a market-based recommender system that allows multiple agents (each representing a different recommendation method or system) to compete with one another to present their best recommendations to the user. In our system, the marketplace encourages good recommendations by rewarding the corresponding agents who supplied them according to the users' ratings of their suggestions. Moreover, we have theoretically shown how our system incites the agents to bid in a manner that ensures only the best recommendations are presented. To do this effectively in practice, however, each agent needs to be able to classify its recommendations into different internal quality levels, learn the users' interests for these different levels, and then adapt its bidding behavior for the various levels accordingly. To this end, in this paper, we develop a reinforcement learning and Boltzmann exploration strategy that the recommending agents can exploit for these tasks. We then demonstrate that this strategy does indeed help the agents to effectively obtain information about the users' interests which, in turn, speeds up the market convergence and enables the system to rapidly highlight the best recommendations.
Analysis of cantilever characteristics in designing electromagnetic generator

Vibration energy harvesting is one of potential renewable energy that may replace conventional chemical battery as energy source for powering wireless micro-system. One of the vibration energy harvester designs makes use of Faraday's law of induction which is electromagnetic method. This type micro-generator generally consists of cantilever, magnets and coils. The generator uses two magnets arranged on the top and bottom at the end of cantilever while another end is fixed. The coils are placed beside two sides of the magnets. This paper presents an analysis of the cantilever by varying the physical dimension of the cantilever such as length, thickness and width. The analysis includes the resonant frequency of the cantilever and also the deflection under damping ratio. There is small difference between ANSYS simulation and theoretical calculation, which is about 1.4%. The adjustment of the length of cantilever provides the largest range of tuning frequency among the above mention parameters.
Probabilistic Winner-Take-All Learning Algorithm for Radial-Basis-Function Neural Classifiers

This paper proposes a new adaptive competitive learning algorithm called the probabilistic winner-take-all. The algorithm is based on a learning scheme developed by Agrawala within the statistical pattern recognition literature (Agrawala 1970). Its name stems from the fact that for a given input pattern once each competitor computes the probability of being the one that generated this pattern, the computed probabilities are utilized to probabilistically choose a winner. Then, only this winner is permitted to learn. The learning rule of the algorithm is derived for three different cases. Its properties are discussed and compared to those of two other competitive learning algorithms, namely the standard winner-take-all and the maximum-likelihood soft competition. Experimental comparison is also given. When all three algorithms are used to train the hidden layer of radial-basis-function classifiers, experiments indicate that classifiers trained with the probabilistic winner-take-all outperform those trained with the other two algorithms.