Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Way We Get Bio-Inspired : A Critical Analysis

Research initiatives on both sides of the Atlantic try to utilize the operational principles of organisms and brains to develop biologically inspired, artificial cognitive systems. This paper describes the way bio-inspiration is normally gained. Key features of the standard method applied in the cognitive and brain sciences, i.e. decompositional analysis, are reviewed. The claim is discussed that non-decomposability is not an intrinsic property of complex systems but is only in our eyes, due to insufficient mathematical techniques. Using Robert Rosen’s modeling relation, the scientific analysis method itself is made a subject of discussion. It is concluded that the fundamental assumption of cognitive science, i.e., complex cognitive systems are decomposable, must be abandoned. Implications for investigations of organisms and behavior as well as for engineering artificial cognitive systems are discussed.
ELECTRO-RHEOLOGICALLY BASED CONTROL SYSTEM OF A COILING FUNCTION FOR A TENTACLE ARM

− The paper focuses on the control problem of a tentacle robot that performs the coil function of the grasping. First, the dynamic model of a tentacle arm with continuum elements produced by flexible composite materials in conjunction with activecontrollable electro-rheological fluids is analyzed. Secondly, both problems, i.e. the position control and the force control are approached. The difficulties determined by the complexity of the non-linear integral-differential equations are avoided by using a very basic energy relationship of this system. Energybased control laws are introduced for the position control problem. A force control method is proposed, namely the DSMC method in which the evolution of the system on the switching line by the ER fluid viscosity is controlled. Numerical simulation is also presented.
The foundation of Evolutionary Petri Nets

Evolutionary Computation (EC) mimics evolution processes to solve burdensome computational problems, like the design, optimization and reverse engineering of complex systems, and its effectiveness is tied to a proper formalization of the candidate solutions. Petri Net (PN) formalism is extensively exploited for the modeling, simulation and analysis of the structural and behavioral properties of complex systems. Here we introduce a novel evolutionary algorithm inspired by EC, the Evolutionary Petri Net (EPN), which is based on an extended class of PNs, called Resizable Petri Net (RPN), provided with two genetic operators: mutation and crossover. RPN includes the new concept of hidden places and transitions, that are used by the genetic operators for the optimization of PN-based models. We present a potential application of EPNs to face one of the most challenging problems in Systems Biology, the reverse engineering of biochemical reaction networks.
Collision-free formation control of two-wheeled vehicles based on triangular LQ optimal regulator

This paper considers a formation control problem of two-wheeled vehicles. We first design a base controller based on the structured linear quadratic optimal regulator. The resulting optimal control gain is a lower triangular matrix; thus, agents communicate with each other in a top-down manner. However, vehicles may collide with each other under this control law since it is linear. To avoid collision of vehicles, we design a potential function by deforming the quadratic form of the stabilizing solution of the Riccati equation. The gradient of the potential function gives a control law that guarantees collision avoidance. The control law coincides with the optimal control law if vehicles are far from each other. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is confirmed by numerical simulation.
The Economic Risks of Being a Housewife

To be a housewife is to be a member of a peculiar occupationone with characteristics quite different from all others. The nature of the duties to be performed, the form of the pay, the methods of supervision, the tenure system, the "marketplace" in which "workers" find "jobs," and the physical hazards are all so different from conditions found in other occupations that one tends not to think of a housewife as belonging to an occupation in the usual sense. Yet being a housewife certainly meets the American Heritage Dictionary's definition of an occupation, as "an activity that serves as one's regular source of livelihood. " In fact, to be a housewife is to be a member of the largest single occupation in the U. S. economy. Thus, it is certainly both legitimate and interesting to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the housewife's source of livelihood with those of other sources of livelihood. Few economists have studied the economic aspects of being a housewife. Gary Becker's economium to the advantages of the division of labor among spouses addresses some of the issues, but its perspective seems to be that of a male member of a "traditional" family. More recently, Marianne Ferber and Bonnie Birnbaum, as well as Clair (Vickrey) Brown have made contributions in which the interests of each family member are recognized as distinct. ' In this paper, I focus on the economic risks of the housewife occupation, which are shown to be very high relative to those of other occupations.
Chloroplast DNA Copy Number Changes during Plant Development in Organelle DNA Polymerase Mutants

Chloroplast genome copy number is very high in leaf tissue, with upwards of 10,000 or more copies of the chloroplast DNA (ctDNA) per leaf cell. This is often promoted as a major advantage for engineering the plastid genome, as it provides high gene copy number and thus is expected to result in high expression of foreign proteins from integrated genes. However, it is also known that ctDNA copy number and ctDNA integrity decrease as cells age. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) allows measurement of organelle DNA levels relative to a nuclear gene target. We have used this approach to determine changes in copy number of ctDNA relative to the nuclear genome at different ages of Arabidopsis plant growth and in organellar DNA polymerase mutants. The mutant plant lines have T-DNA insertions in genes encoding the two organelle localized DNA polymerases (PolIA and PolIB). Each of these mutant lines exhibits some delay in plant growth and development as compared to wild-type plants, with the PolIB plants having a more pronounced delay. Both mutant lines develop to maturity and produce viable seeds. Mutants for both proteins were observed to have a reduction in ctDNA and mtDNA copy number relative to wild type plants at all time points as measured by qPCR. Both DNA polymerase mutants had a fairly similar decrease in ctDNA copy number, while the PolIB mutant had a greater effect of reduction in mtDNA levels. However, despite similar decreases in genome copy number, RT-PCR analysis of PolIA mutants show that PolIB expression remains unchanged, suggesting that PolIA may not be essential to plant survival. Furthermore, genotypic analysis of plants from heterozygous parents display a strong pressure to maintain two functioning copies of PolIB. These results indicate that the two DNA polymerases are both important in ctDNA replication, and they are not fully redundant to each other, suggesting each has a specific function in plant organelles.
Progress in camera-based document image analysis

The increasing availability of high performance, low priced, portable digital imaging devices has created a tremendous opportunity for supplementing traditional scanning for document image acquisition. Digital cameras attached to cellular phones, PDAs, or as standalone still or video devices are highly mobile and easy to use; they can capture images of any kind of document including very thick books, historical pages too fragile to touch, and text in scenes; and they are much more versatile than desktop scanners. Should robust solutions to the analysis of documents captured with such devices become available, there is clearly a demand from many domains. Traditional scanner-based document analysis techniques provide us with a good reference and starting point, but they cannot be used directly on camera-captured images. Camera captured images can suffer from low resolution, blur, and perspective distortion, as well as complex layout and interaction of the content and background. In this paper we present a survey of application domains, technical challenges and solutions for recognizing documents captured by digital cameras. We begin by describing typical imaging devices and the imaging process. We discuss document analysis from a single camera-captured image as well as multiple frames and highlight some sample applications under development and feasible ideas for future development.
Ambulatory blood pressure and tubulointerstitial injury in patients with IgA nephropathy

Background Few studies have been conducted to assess the ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in IgA nephropathy (IgAN) patients. This study aimed to determine the relationships between ABP and renal histopathological findings assessed using the Oxford classification (OC) and the Japanese classification (JC), which have recently established histopathological criteria for IgAN. Methods This cross-sectional study included biopsy-diagnosed IgAN patients, in whom both a renal biopsy and ABP measurement were performed. The histopathological findings were assessed using the OC and the JC and were analyzed in relation to the ABP. Results A total of 111 IgAN patients were included. The score of interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy (T score) using the OC was a significantly associated factor with both the daytime and nighttime ABP values. In contrast, the other histopathological scores, including mesangial hypercellularity, endocapillary hypercellularity and segmental glomerulosclerosis, did not show significant associations with the ABP. The histological grade (H-grade) using the JC, which was based on the sum of injured glomeruli, was associated with the daytime ABP, but not with the nighttime ABP. The associations between the T score using the OC (%) and the daytime and nighttime ABP values were independent of age, gender, renal function, proteinuria and the use of antihypertensive medications, whereas the H-grade using the JC (%) did not show significant associations after adjusting for these clinical parameters. Conclusions These results suggest that the T score using the OC is the most relevant renal histopathological parameter associated with abnormalities of circadian blood pressure in IgAN patients.
Statically-Scoped Exceptions: a Typed Foundation for Aspect-Oriented Error Handling

Aspect-oriented programming systems such as AspectJ provide mechanisms for modularizing crosscutting error-handling concerns. However, AspectJ’s advice does not integrate well with Java’s checked exception mechanism. Furthermore, conventional exception-handling facilities such as AspectJ’s share the problem of accidental exception capture due to the dynamic nature of exception-handling semantics. We propose statically-scoped exceptions as an alternative mechanism for error-handling. In our system, a thrown exception is caught by the nearest lexically-enclosing exception handler, rather than the nearest handler on the call stack. Using static scoping allows us to achieve better modularization, as with AspectJ, and also precudes the problem of exception capture. We provide a static type system that tracks exceptions precisely and ensures that statically-scoped exceptions cannot be misused to cause continuationlike behavior. We hope that our system will serve as a foundation for error handling mechanisms that combine good modularization with strong static reasoning about errors. public class Visitor { public void visitClass(Class o) { try { // method visitor code. } catch (ArchJavaError e) { e.setNode(o); ErrorHandler.print(e); } } public void visitMethod(Method o) { try { // method visitor code. } catch (ArchJavaError e) { e.setNode(o); ErrorHandler.print(e); } } public void visitLiteral(Literal o) { try { // literal visitor code. } catch (ArchJavaError e) { e.setNode(o); ErrorHandler.print(e); } } . } Figure 1: In this visitor code, taken from the ArchJava compiler, each visit method performs a task such as typechecking on a part of the abstract syntax tree. The visitor code uses exceptions to report typechecking errors; these exceptions must be caught and reported at the end of each visit function before recovering so that typechecking can continue.
Exploratory study on concurrent interaction in co-located collaboration

We present an exploratory lab study that provides observations and measures about the usage of interaction devices in co-located cooperative work situations at a tabletop display. We designed our experiment with the aim of providing a context for the collaboration that shares as many characteristics of real life as possible. Twenty-two participants were instructed to perform a shared goal task. They worked in co-located pairs on solving three sets of two jigsaw puzzles concurrently. They were allowed to use any combination of direct and indirect input device, i.e., touch and mouse, to achieve the goal. Additionally, a hidden task was imposed on the participants in the second and third puzzle task: They had to discover that pieces were mixed up between the two displayed puzzles. The role of the hidden task was to trigger spontaneous transitions from individual to collaborative work. Our observations focused on the participants' selection and usage of input devices during the task execution. Our study revealed amongst others that participants stuck to their preferred input device even when they got more engaged in coordination and communication with their partner. Our findings are based on log data, questionnaire data and video recordings.
Telemonitoring for assisted living residences: the medical specialists' view.

Telemonitoring is regarded as a means to maintain a relatively high quality of life for independently living elderly. This paper discusses a requirements study of a system to, foremost, telemonitor activities of daily living (ADL) of the elderly. The study utilizes literature and in-depth interviews with medical specialists. From the interview results can be concluded that, besides from elderly’s own input, monitoring different aspects of movement, food consumption and sleep pattern are regarded as most beneficial to the medical specialists.
Survey for Transiting Extrasolar Planets in Stellar Systems. IV. Variables in the Field of NGC 1245

The Survey for Transiting Extrasolar Planets in Stellar Systems (STEPSS) project is a search for planetary transits in open clusters. In this paper we analyze the STEPSS observations of the open cluster NGC 1245 to determine the variable-star content of the cluster. Out of 6787 stars observed with V < 22, of which ∼870 are cluster members, we find 14 stars with clear intrinsic variability that are potential cluster members and 29 clear variables that are not cluster members. None of these variables have been previously identified. We present light curves, finder charts, and stellar/photometric data on these variable objects. Several of the interacting binaries have estimated distances consistent with the cluster distance determined from isochrone fits to the color-magnitude diagram. Four stars at the main-sequence turnoff of the cluster have light curves consistent with γ Doradus variability. If these γ Doradus candidates are confirmed, they represent the oldest and coolest members of this class of variable discovered to date.
European Union Negotiations : Processes, Networks and Institutions

IntroductionPart One: The EU as a Negotiation Arena 1. Negotiations in Networks 2. Consolidating 'Unobjectionable' Norms: Negotiating Norm Spread in the EU 3. Negotiating Transparency: The Role of Institutions 4. Difficult and Easy Reform Negotiations in the EU: Agriculture and Competition 5. Compliance Bargaining 6. Negotiations in EU Committees Part Two: The EU as a Negotiating Actor in the International Arena 7. The EU as an International Negotiator 8. The EU in Multilateral Trade Negotiations: The Anatomy of a Three-Level Game 9. The Role of the External Environment for EU 'Actorness' 10. The EU and the United States: The Politics of Bi-Multilateral Negotiations 11. Lome and Cotonou: Asymmetric Negotiations and the Impact of Norms 12. Breaking the Waves? The EU's Enlargement Negotiations with EFTA and Central and Eastern Europe Conclusion
Isolation amplifier for high voltage measurement using a resonant control loop

Some papers describe a novel pulse width modulation, which makes enter converter's current control loop in a resonant mode and permits an accurate tracking of the reference. Here, we investigate an analog high voltage measurement board, which implements an isolation amplifier using this modulation strategy. Thus, the isolation amplifier involves an analog-to-digital converter whose operating mode depends on this modulation technique. Then, a linear model of the encoder-decoder is found. The results demonstrate its excellent performances
Text Categorization Using Neural Networks Initialized with Decision Trees

Text categorization - the assignment of natural language documents to one or more predefined categories based on their semantic content - is an important component in many information organization and management tasks. Performance of neural networks learning is known to be sensitive to the initial weights and architecture. This paper discusses the use multilayer neural network initialization with decision tree classifier for improving text categorization accuracy. Decision tree from root node until a final leave is used for initialization of each single unit. Growing decision trees with increasingly larger amounts of training data will result in larger decision tree sizes. As a result, the neural networks constructed from these decision trees are often larger and more complex than necessary. Appropriate choice of certainty factor is able to produce trees that are essentially constant in size in the face of increasingly larger training sets. Experimental results support the conclusion that error based pruning can be used to produce appropriately sized trees, which are directly mapped to optimal neural network architecture with good accuracy. The experimental evaluation demonstrates this approach provides better classification accuracy with Reuters-21578 corpus, one of the standard benchmarks for text categorization tasks. We present results comparing the accuracy of this approach with multilayer neural network initialized with traditional random method and decision tree classifiers.
Improvements on Classification by Tolerating NoData Values - Application to a Hybrid Classifier to Discriminate Mediterranean Vegetation with a Detailed Legend Using Multitemporal Series of Images

Natural and crop vegetation phenologic data become indispensable when creating thematically and geographically detailed maps through satellite images classification. Several date acquisition is necessary to achieve this cartography. However, the presence of clouds, shadows, snow, etc, is usual when many different dates are used and that fact implies an important loss in classifiable surface. This work presents a hybrid classifier designed to deal with the common problems appeared in the classification of Mediterranean vegetation. Specifically, IsoMM, the first phase of the hybrid methodology, is an unsupervised classifier that allows a better use of temporal series thanks to a particular treatment of no data values (or missing values) in the images. This methodology has been applied to a Mediterranean forestry zone with a legend of eleven categories and has been compared to a Maximum Likelihood classifier. The presented improvements allow classifying more surface than a common no data treatment strategy (whether unsupervised, maximum likelihood classification or the extraction of a problematic date) and achieving high accuracy level.
Early = Earliest ?

Early query answering is the core issue of memory efficient query evaluation on data streams. The idea is to select and reject answer candidates as early as possible on the stream, so that they do not have to be stored in main memory. Since earliest query answering is unfeasible for XPath, as first noticed by Benedikt, Jeffrey and Ley-Wild in 2008, most existing streaming algorithms for XPath approximate it in some early manner, while focussing on high time efficiency. Such approximations, however, spoil all theoretical guarantees on memory efficiency. In this paper, we prove that earliest query answering is indeed feasible for positive Forward XPath queries, which have neither unsatisfiable nor valid subqueries. The core insight is that a variant of Colmerauer’s independence property can be proven for the corresponding fragment of the FXP tree logic. Based on this independence property, we can show that the early query answering algorithm from [13], which is based on a compiler from FXP to early nested word automata, is indeed earliest for all positive FXP0 queries with neither unsatisfiable nor valid subformulas. Furthermore, this algorithm outperforms most previous algorithms for XPath evaluation on XML streams in time efficiency and coverage, as shown elsewhere.
Fuzzy-clustering-based algorithm for circuit partitioning in standard cell placement

The technique of circuit partitioning has been applied to standard cell placement for many years. A fuzzy-clustering-based algorithm is proposed to obtain a better two-way area-constrained partitioning for a partitioning-oriented standard cell placement. The proposed algorithm has tested several industrial circuit benchmarks, and the experimental results have shown that the algorithm obtains a better partitioning than the traditional F-M algorithm.
Oxidant metabolism in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The development and progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have been associated with increased oxidative stress or reduced antioxidant resources. Several indicators of oxidative stress, such as hydrogen peroxide exhalation, lipid peroxidation products and degraded proteins, are indeed elevated in COPD patients. As a result, the antioxidant capacity decreases in COPD patients. The fall in antioxidant capacity of blood from COPD patients should not only be regarded as a reflection of the occurrence of oxidative stress but also as evidence that oxidative stress spreads out to the circulation and can therefore generate a systemic effect. COPD is linked to weight loss and in particular to loss in fatfree mass by skeletal muscle wasting. This systemic effect can be mediated by both oxidative stress and oxidative stressmediated processes like apoptosis and inflammation. Furthermore, COPD is a predisposition for lung cancer through several mechanisms including oxidative stress and oxidative stressmediated processes such as inflammation and disruption of genomic integrity. Current therapeutic interventions against the farreaching consequences of the systemic oxidative stress in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are not yet optimised. A diet designed to reduce chronic metabolic stress might form an effective therapeutic strategy in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.