Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multimodal Interfaces to Mobile Terminals – A Design-For-All Approach

Multimodal human-computer user interfaces are able to combine different input signals, extract the combined meaning from them, find requested information and present the response in the most appropriate format. Hence, a multimodal human-computer interface offers the users an opportunity to choose the most natural interaction pattern for the actual application and context of use. If the preferred mode fails in a certain context or task, users may switch to a more appropriate mode or they can combine modalities. Around thirty years ago Bolt presented the “Put That There” concept demonstrator, which processed speech in parallel with manual pointing during object manipulation (Bolt, 1980). Since then major advances have been made in automatic speech recognition (ASR) algorithms and natural language processing (NLP), in handwriting and gesture recognition, as well as in speed, processing power and memory capacity of computers. Today’s multimodal systems are capable of recognizing and combining a wide variety of signals such as speech, touch, manual gestures, gaze tracking, facial expressions, head and body movements. The response can be presented by e.g. facial animation in the form of human-like presentation agents on the screen in a multimedia system. These advanced systems need various sensors and a lot of processing power and memory. They are therefore best suited for interaction with computers and in kiosk applications, as demonstrated in e.g. (Oviatt, 2000); (Gustafson et al., 2000); (Wahlster, 2001); (Beskow, et al. 2002); (Karpov, 2006); (Smartkom, 2007). Modern mobile terminals are now portable computers where the traditional audio user interfaces, microphones and speakers, are accompanied with touch screens, cameras, accelerometers and gyroscopes etc. These enriched user interfaces combined with the ever increasing capacity of processors, access to mobile networks with increasing bandwidths and functionality as global positioning system (GPS) and near field communication (NFC) will make mobile terminals well suited for developing user-friendly multimodal interfaces in the years to come. However, the multimodal functionality on mobile terminals is still restricted to two input modes: speech (audio) and touch, and two output modes: audio and vision. This type of multimodality, sometimes called tap & talk (or point & speak), is essentially
Expressive Law: Framing or Equilibrium Selection?

Besides deterring people, laws may affect behavior by changing preferences or beliefs. A law may elicit intrinsic motivation by framing an act as wrong. Alternatively, it may coordinate the behavior of different people by changing their beliefs about what others will do. We investigate framing and coordination effects experimentally in prisoner's dilemma, "crowding" and coordination games. We simulate a law by imposing a probabilistic penalty on one of the choices. In the prisoner's dilemma and the crowding game, announcing the penalty had no effect. In the coordination game, announcing the penalty caused behavior to jump to the Pareto-superior equilibrium.
On the refinements of a polyhedral subdivision

Let pi: P --> Q be an affine projection map between two polytopes P and Q. Billera and Sturmfels introduced in 1992 the concept of polyhedral subdivisions of Q induced by pi (or pi-induced) and the fiber polytope of the projection: a polytope Sygma(P,pi) of dimension dim(P)-dim(Q) whose faces are in correspondence with the coherent pi-induced subdivisions (or pi-coherent subdivisions). In this paper we investigate the structure of the poset of pi-induced refinements of a pi-induced subdivision. In particular, we define the refinement polytope associated to any pi-induced subdivision S, which is a generalization of the fiber polytope and shares most of its properties. As applications to the theory we prove that if a point configuration has non-regular subdivisions then it has non-regular triangulations and we provide simple proofs of the existence of non-regular subdivisions for many particular point configurations.
Modern concurrency abstractions for C#

Polyphonic C<sup>♯</sup> is an extension of the C<sup>♯</sup> language with new asynchronous concurrency constructs, based on the join calculus. We describe the design and implementation of the language and give examples of its use in addressing a range of concurrent programming problems.
Travelling Simplifications and Urban Political Ecologies

There is an increasing ascendency and importance placed on ‘ecological thinking’ when reflecting on cities. Last year the Cities and Biodiversity Outlook (CBO, 2012) was launched, promising a “global assessment of the links between urbanization, biodiversity, and ecosystem services” with a foreword by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commending the study to “all who have a stake in creating ecologically sustainable urbanization for the benefit of humanity and the planet. ” In New York this October there was a launch of a new volume on ecosystem services, with a foreword by Pavan Sukhdev, prominent spokesperson of ecosystems economics perspectives and former head of UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative. The book, Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities – A Global Assessment, takes stock of recent developments and pushes for further expansion of ecosystem services. These are clear signs that in the intersection, real and imagined, of an unprecedented ecological crisis and rapid urbanization, the goal to reach sustainable development has placed ecologists, their methods, theories and preoccupations at centre stage. This has a background in understandable and noble ambitions among environmentally concerned scientists and activists to locate ecological knowledge more centrally in planning and decision-making and in allowing for economic valuations to speak more effectively to power. This paper is an attempt to speak to these phenomena and an intervention, however brief and preliminary, into a discussion which is on the rise as the science politics of these methodologies and discourses. Over the years a number of quantitative, often metrics based, approaches have been developed to reach this goal of. In this paper I will focus in particular on a set of tools or indicators from ‘ecological planning’— especially ecosystem services— and whether and how they are made to travel (successfully or not). What are the histories of such travels in earlier transfer of knowledge and technologies, or in ecosystem and species between continents? Are these new ecological economics constructs in any way part of some broader phenomenon? What are their preferred pathways? Who carry them around the world, and what institutional and other settings are there to receive them in new urban settings, and what effects might such travels have produced in those places where new ecological planning tools have become accommodated? This includes questions on how they privilege certain expertise (and de-privileges other kinds
Using corpus information to improve MT quality

The paper presents activities to improve the quality of a rule-based MT system, using corpus information. If focuses on the area of dictionary, and shows how, and to which extent, corpus-based information can improve the system quality in the different areas of dictionary development. It deals with two main sources of errors: missing entries / translations, and wrong selections of one out of several possible translations.
Physical Damping in IDA-PBC Controlled Underactuated Mechanical Systems

Energy shaping and passivity-based control designs have proven to be effective in solving control problems for tinderactttated mechanical systems. In recent works, interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control (IDA-PEC) has been successfully applied to open-loop conservative models, that is, with no physical damping (e.g. friction) present. In a number of cases, in particular when IDA-PBC control only involves potential energy shaping, the actual presence of physical damping will not compromise the achieved closed-loop stability. However, when IDA-PBC control also includes the shaping of the kinetic energy, closed-loop stability or even passivity for the model without physical damping may be lost if physical damping is present. This raises two fundamental questions. First, in which cases is the IDA-PBC controlled system designed on the basis of the undamped model still stable and passive when physical damping is present? Second, if this is not the case, when is it possible to redesign the IDA-PBC control law for the undamped systems such that stability and passivity are regained? This paper provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such a control redesign for a particular choice of the closed-loop energy function. Furthermore, if these conditions are satisfied then two methods for redesign arc presented, which can be chosen depending on the problem structure and the parameter uncertainties. Finally, even in the cases where the addition of physical damping does not hamper the stability properties of the IDA-PBC design based on the undamped model, we show that the aforementioned redesign is still useful in order to reduce the mathematical complexity in exponential and asymptotic stability analysis.
Isosmotic volume reabsorption in rat proximal tubule

A theoretical model incorporation both active and passive forces has been developed for fluid reabsorption from split oil droplets in rat intermediate and late proximal tubule. Of necessity, simplifying assumptions have been introduced; we have assumed that the epithelium can be treated as a single membrane and that the membrane "effective" HCO3 permeability is near zero. Based on this model with its underlying assumptions, the following conclusions are drawn. Regardless of the presence or absence of active NaCl transport, fluid reabsorption from the split oil droplet is isosmotic. The reabsorbate osmolarity can be affected by changes in tubular permeability parameters and applied forces but is not readily altered from an osmolarity essentially equal to that of plasma. In a split droplet, isosmotic flow need not be a special consequence of active Na transport, is not the result of a particular set of permeability properties, and is not merely a trivial consequence of a very high hydraulic conductivity; isosmotic flow can be obtained with hydraulic conductivity nearly an order of magnitude lower than that previously measured in the rat proximal convoluted tubule. Isosmotic reabsorption is, in part, the result of the interdependence of salt and water flows, their changing in parallel, and thus their ratio, the reabsorbate concentration being relatively invariant. Active NaCl transport can cause osmotic water flow by reducing the luminal fluid osmolarity. In the presence of passive forces the luminal fluid can be hypertonic to plasma, and active NaCl transport can still exert its osmotic effect on volume flow. There are two passive forces for volume flow: the Cl gradient and the difference in effective osmotic pressure; they have an approximately equivalent effect on volume flow. Experimentally, we have measured volume changes in a droplet made hyperosmotic by the addition of 50 mM NaCl; the experimental results are predicted reasonably well by our theoretical model.
Measles virus interactions with cellular receptors: Consequences for viral pathogenesis

Although CNS complications occuring early and late after acute measles are a serious problem and often fatal, the transient immunosuppression lasting for several weeks after the rash is the major cause of measles-related morbidity and mortality worldwide. This review is focused on the interactions of measles virus (MV) with cellular receptors on neural and lymphoid cells which are important elements in viral pathogenesis. First, the cognate MV receptors, CD46 and CD150, are important components of viral tropism by mediating binding and entry. Second, however, additional unknown cellular surface molecules may (independently of viral uptake) after interaction with the MV glycoprotein complex act as signaling molecules and thereby modulate cellular survival, proliferation, and specific functions.
F-BAR Proteins of the Syndapin Family Shape the Plasma Membrane and Are Crucial for Neuromorphogenesis

Coordinated functions of the actin cytoskeleton and microtubules, which require careful control in time and space, are indispensable for the drastic alterations of neuronal morphology during neuromorphogenesis and neuronal network formation. Actin filament formation driven by the Arp2/3 complex and its activator neural Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (N-WASP) is important for proper axon development. The underlying molecular mechanisms for targeting to and specific activation of N-WASP at the neuronal plasma membrane, however, have thus far remained elusive. We show that syndapin I is critical for proper neuromorphogenesis and hereby uses N-WASP as a cytoskeletal effector. Upon N-WASP binding, syndapins release N-WASP autoinhibition. Syndapins hereby cooperate with Cdc42 and phosphatidyl-inositol-(4,5)-bisphosphate. Syndapins furthermore specifically bind to phosphatidylserine-containing membranes via their extended F-BAR domain. Dissecting the syndapin functions actin nucleation and direct membrane binding in vivo, we demonstrate that both functions are physiologically relevant and required. Constitutive plasma membrane-targeting experiments in vivo indicate that specifically actin nucleation at the cell cortex is triggered by syndapins. Consistent with syndapins steering N-WASP as downstream effector for cortical actin nucleation, syndapin-induced neuronal arborization is N-WASP and Cdc42 dependent. The functions of syndapin–N-WASP complexes in neuromorphogenesis were revealed by loss-of-function studies. Knockdown of syndapin I leads to impaired axon development and especially phenocopies the aberrant axon branching observed upon N-WASP and Arp2/3 complex deficiency. In contrast, proper length control involves another N-WASP-binding protein, Abp1. Our data thus reveal that syndapin I is crucial for neuromorphogenesis and that different N-WASP activators ensure fine control of N-WASP activity and have distinct functions during neuronal network formation.
A Compact Delay-Locked Loop for Multi-Phase Non-Overlapping Clock Generation

This paper presents the design, layout, and simulation results for a compact, low-power, low-jitter, delay-locked loop for multi-phase non-overlapping clock generation. A 500 nm CMOS process is used for the design with the total layout size being 810 μm x 95 μm. The operating frequency range is 20 – 100 MHz. The output clock jitter with 400 mV peak-to-peak noise on VDD is 250 ps at 100 MHz. The DLL’s outputs consist of eight phases of true and complement, non-overlapping, clock signals (32 total clock signals) buffered to drive standard 8-MOSFET-1-Capacitor switched capacitor circuits. The power dissipation is under 20 mW from a 5 V power supply.
Chapter 7. Language attitudes and linguistic skills in young heritage speakers of Russian in Germany

Abstract The present study analyzes attitudes of young second generation migrants towards Russian as their first language and considers the correlation between attitudes and linguistic skills in Russian. First, attitudinal factors obtained from a questionnaire are analyzed according to the three-component model of attitudes. One main finding is that a loyal and emotional relationship towards Russian was exhibited by the 44 adolescent participants. Second, subjective and objective data for language skills (self assessments and test data) in Russian are presented. Finally, the interplay between the attitudinal factors and language skills is analyzed using Principal Component Analysis. Two main factors are identified: Firstly, the appreciation of Russian as a cultural value and secondly, the importance of Russian as a means of communication between peers. While self-assessments of competence in Russian are correlated to the first and speech rate to the second factor, morphological competence is correlated to both factors.
Dissection of Craniofacial Development Using Zebrafish

The zebrafish, Danio rerio, is a small, freshwater teleost that only began to be used as a vertebrate genetic model by the late George Streisinger in the early 1980s. The strengths of the zebrafish complement genetic studies in mice and embryological studies in avians. Its advantages include high fecundity, externally fertilized eggs and transparent embryos that can be easily manipulated, inexpensive maintenance, and the fact that large-scale mutagenesis screens can be performed. Here we review studies that have used the zebrafish as a model for craniofacial development. Lineage studies in zebrafish have defined the origins of the cranial skeleton at the single-cell level and followed the morphogenetic behaviors of these cells in skeletal condensations. Furthermore, genes identified by random mutational screening have now revealed genetic pathways controlling patterning of the jaw and other pharyngeal arches, as well as the midline of the skull, that are conserved between fish and humans. We discuss the potential impact of specialized mutagenesis screens and the future applications of this versatile, vertebrate developmental model system in the molecular dissection of craniofacial development.
Ras inhibition enhances autophagy, which partially protects cells from death

Autophagy, a process of regulated turnover of cellular constituents, is essential for normal growth control but may be defective under pathological conditions. The Ras/PI3K/mTOR signaling pathway negatively regulates autophagy. Ras signaling has been documented in a large number of human cancers. In this in-vitro study we examined the effect of the Ras inhibitor Salirasib (S-trans, trans-farnesylthiosalicylic acid; FTS) on autophagy induction and cell viability. We show that Ras inhibition by FTS induced autophagy in several cell lines, including mouse embryonic fibroblasts and the human cancer cell lines HeLa, HCT-116 and DLD-1. The autophagy induced by FTS seems to inhibit the cell death induced by FTS, since in the absence of autophagy the death of FTS-treated cells was enhanced. Therefore, inhibition of autophagy may promote the inhibition of tumor cell growth and the cell death mediated by FTS.
Masculinity as homophobia: Fear, shame and silence in the construction of gender identity.

In this article, I explore this social and historical construction of both hegemonic masculinity and alternate masculinities, with an eye toward offering a new theoretical model of American manhood. To accomplish this I first uncover some of the hidden gender meanings in classical statements of social and political philosophy, so that I can anchor the emergence of contemporary manhood in specific historical and social contexts. I then spell out the ways in which this version of masculinity emerged in the United States, by tracing both psychoanalytic developmental sequences and a historical trajectory in the development of marketplace relationships.
Nonmonotonic Databases and Epistemic Queries

The approach to database query evaluation developed by Levesque and Reiter treats databases as first order theories, and queries as formulas of the language which includes, in addition to the language of the database, an epistemic modal operator. In this epistemic query language, one can express questions not only about the external world described by the database, but also about the database itself-- about what the database knows. On the other hand, epistemic formulas are used in knowledge representation for the purpose of expressing defaults. Autoepistemic logic is the best known epistemic nonmonotonic formalism; the logic of grounded knowledge, proposed recently by Lin and Shoham, is another such system. This paper brings these two directions of research together. We describe a new version of the Lin/Shoham logic, similar in spirit to the Levesque/Reiter theory of epistemic queries. Using this formalism, we can give meaning to epistemic queries in the context of nonmonotonic databases, including logic programs with negation as failure.
Performance Evaluation of Network-Parallel Data Storage

This paper presents a unique storage architecture that utilizes the multiplicity of storage nodes in LAN and WAN network environments to achieve high reliability, high-performance, scalability, and cost effectiveness. The paper discusses the NetSTOR engine as a storage framework that can be utilized and tuned by its applications. The paper presents performance evaluation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the NetSTOR approach in achieving better response time, higher overall system throughput and perfect scalability.
A novel algorithm for sensing the digital signal in cognitive radio: Maximizing the spectrum utilization using the Bayesian approach

The proposed literature presents the novel framework to maximize the utilization of spectrum in cognitive radio networks. In order to achieve the higher spectrum utilization we propose an optical Bayesian detector for spectrum sensing to achieve higher spectrum utilization in cognitive radio networks. We derive the optimal detector structure for MPSK modulated primary signals with known order over AWGN channels and give its corresponding suboptimal detectors in both low and high SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) regimes. Through approximations, it is found that, in low SNR regime, for MPSK (M>2) signals, the suboptimal detector is the energy detector, while for BPSK signals the suboptimal detector is the energy detection on the real part. The performance analysis of proposed framework is expressed in terms of probabilities of detection and false alarm, and selection of detection threshold and number of samples. The simulations have shown that Bayesian detector has a performance similar to the energy detector in low SNR regime, but has better performance in high SNR regime in terms of spectrum utilization and secondary users’ throughput.
Human autoantibodies that react with both cell nuclei and plasma membranes display specificity for the octamer of histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4 in high salt

Sera of some patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and related diseases contain a polyclonal antibody population (cross-reactive antinuclear antibodies [X-ANA]) that react specifically with both core mononucleosomes and plasma membranes of viable nucleated cells. Native mononucleosomes and nucleosome cores assembled from long DNA and the inner histones were indistinguishable in terms of inhibition of binding of X-ANA to nuclei of tissue sections and to polynucleosomes on the walls of plastic tubes. In contrast, mononucleosomes selectively depleted of histones H2A and H2B did not inhibit these reactions. A method was developed for isolation of X-ANA from serum that took advantage of the dual specificity of these antibodies. Immunosedimentation in sucrose density gradients revealed that 125I- labeled Fab' fragments of highly pure X-ANA formed complexes with the inner histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4 in 2 M NaCL, but not in 0.15 M salt. These results indicate that X-ANA recognize an epitope of the inner histone in 2 M salt, and that in 0.15 M NaCL this epitope is not formed unless the histones interact with DNA to generate a nucleosome structure. Furthermore, in light of the previous demonstration that the epitope is destroyed by trypsin, it may be localized in the N-terminal region of histone H2A or H2B.