Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality of Experience (QoE) Evaluation of Locomotion Methods on Desktop Virtual Reality: Comfort, Effort and Enjoyment

Virtual reality (VR) has become popular for such remote activities as virtual conferences and education owing to the COVID-19. While wearing a head-mounted display (HMD) can immerse users in a 3D environment, operating a desktop setting where users have a mouse and keyboard at their disposal, i.e. , desktop VR, is more accessible and has a lower barrier to use. One of the crucial components of desktop VR is how to explore a virtual environment. In a desktop setting, there are generally three options of navigation: 1) teleportation that moves a character instantaneously via a mouse click, 2) keyboard control that manually controls the movement of a character, and 3) auto-walking that moves a character around automatically. Although the three methods are designed with their own benefits, from the perspective of users’ perception, there is still a lack of systematic investigation on their quality of experience (QoE). In this position paper, we conducted a between-subject study with 36 participants to evaluate the three methods based on comfort, effort, and enjoyment. Compared with previous evaluations, we focus more on users’ subjective feelings on navigating in an experience-oriented visit to a desktop VR space. Our study results provide design suggestions for navigation on desktop VR. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI) . Additional
Theoretical and experimental studies of surface waves on solid–fluid interfaces when the value of the fluid sound velocity is located between the shear and the longitudinal ones in the solid

The existence of two surface waves propagating on a plane solid–fluid interface is demonstrated when the value of the fluid sound velocity is located between the shear and the longitudinal ones in the solid. First, the Scholte–Stoneley dispersion equation is studied analytically and numerically to find the roots corresponding to the Stoneley and the Rayleigh waves. The anatomy of each one is then described with the formalism of the evanescent plane waves: both waves are unleaky. Finally, the results are confirmed experimentally by measuring the times of flight on a Plexiglas–water interface and on a PVC–water interface.
Statistical Inference with Data-Dependent Treatment Allocation Rules

Abstract In comparing two treatments with dichotomous responses, the randomized play-the-winner rule (Wei and Durham 1978) tends to assign more study subjects to the better treatment. For ethical reasons, this property is desirable for studies on human subjects. The randomized play-the-winner rule, which is a modification of Zelen's play-the-winner rule (Zelen 1969), is not deterministic and is less vulnerable to experimental bias than other adaptive designs. Recently, this design has been used in a trial to evaluate extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for treating newborns with respiratory failures at the University of Michigan. In this article, exact conditional, exact unconditional, and approximate confidence intervals for the treatment difference are studied from a frequentist point of view with the randomized play-the-winner rule. For small and moderate-sized trials, the exact unconditional procedures perform much better than the conditional ones because of the adaptive nature of the designs.
Quantifying the Value of Preferences and Potential Erosion Losses

The multilateral trade system rests on the principle of non-discrimination. The most-favored-nation (MFN) clause embodied in Article I of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was the defining principle for a system that emerged in the post-World War II era largely in reaction to the folly of protectionism and managed trade that contributed to the global economic depression of the 1930s. From its origins, however, the GATT allowed for exemptions from the MFN rule in the case of reciprocal preferential trade agreements. It also permits granting unilateral (non-reciprocal) preferences to developing countries.
Pacific based on a deep-learning model

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are one of the most severe meteorological disasters, making rapid 10 and accurate track forecasts crucial for disaster prevention and mitigation. Because TC tracks are 11 affected by various factors (the steering flow, thermal structure of the underlying surface, and 12 atmospheric circulation), their trajectories present highly complex nonlinear behavior. Deep learning 13 has many advantages in simulating nonlinear systems. In this paper, we explore the movement of TCs 14 in the Northwest Pacific from 1979 to 2021 based on deep-learning technology, divided into training 15 (1979–2014), validation (2015–2018), and test sets (2019–2021), and create 6–72 h TC track forecasts. 16 Only historical trajectory data are used as input for evaluating the forecasts of the three recurrent neural 17 networks utilized: recurrent neural network (RNN), long short-term memory (LSTM), and gated 18 recurrent unit (GRU) models. The GRU approach performed best; to further improve forecast accuracy, 19 a model combining GRU and a convolutional neural network (CNN) called GRU_CNN is proposed to 20 capture the characteristics varying with time. By adding reanalysis data of the steering flow, 21 sea-surface temperatures, and geopotential height around the cyclone, we can extract sufficient 22 information on the historical trajectory features and three-dimensional spatial features. The results 23 show that GRU_CNN outperforms other deep-learning models without CNN layers. Furthermore, by 24 analyzing three additional environmental factors through control experiments, it can be concluded that 25 the historical steering flow of TCs plays a key role, especially for short-term predictions within 24 h, 26 while sea-surface temperatures and geopotential height can gradually improve the 24–72-h forecast. 27 2 The average distance errors at 6 h and 12 h are 17.22 km and 43.90 km, respectively. Compared with 28 the 6-h and 12-h forecast results (27.57km and 59.09km) of the Central Meteorological Observatory, 29 the model proposed herein is suitable for short-term forecasting of TC tracks. 30
An escape probability treatment of doublet resonance lines in expanding stellar winds

When stellar winds have expansion velocities greater than the velocity separation between doublet line transitions, the line source function of the component with the longer wavelength depends on nonlocal values of the other component's source function. By using the Sobolev approximation and escape probability methods, the nonlocal radiative coupling for the case of spherically symmetric outflow with a monotonically increasing velocity can be solved explicitly and efficiently. This case is directly applicable to the doublet P Cygni type profiles observed in the ultraviolet spectra of O and B stars and leads to an improved determination of the line strengths. The nonlocal coupling also modifies the radiative forces that act on the mass outflow. Examples of how the nonlocal radiative coupling changes the line source functions, the line profiles, and the radiative forces are presented.
A two-phase method for controlling Erlang-failure processes with high reliability

Monitoring a failure process and measuring its performance are important issues for complex nonrepairable and repairable systems. For a highly reliable process, traditional methods for reliability monitoring and performance measuring become inapplicable. This paper proposes a new two-phase controlling method for monitoring and measuring an Erlang-failure process (EFP). In the first-phase controlling method, a control chart is used to monitor the EFP condition. When special causes of variation have been removed from the EFP and all of the failure times plotted on the control chart lie within the control limits, the EFP is considered to be in control. However, the in-control EFP still likely carries out bad or out-of-lifetime-specification conditions. Thus, its lifetime-specification limit is taken into consideration as the second-phase controlling method for measuring the in-control EFP performance. We propose a lifetime-capability index. Its value has a one-to-one corresponding relationship with the lifetime-conforming rate, which indicates the lifetime performance of this EFP. Without collecting additional data efforts, in-control data gathered from the control chart in the first phase is employed to estimate the lifetime-capability index. To realize main lifetime-capability of the EFP impacting on downstream customers, the lower confidence bound of the estimate of the lifetime-capability index, capturing its minimum lifetime capability, is considered. The advantage of this two-phase method for controlling the failure processes can motivate the manufacturer to develop a reliability-monitoring technique, establish an adequate reliability improvement program and implement an appropriate analysis to ensure its lifetime performance meeting the customers requirement.
Interstate 24 MOTION open road testbed

We describe the I-24 MOTION open road testbed led by the Tennessee Department of Transportation on Interstate 24 near Nashville, TN. The purpose of the testbed is to provide an open road experimental facility for testing traﬃc management and automated vehicle technologies in real freeway traﬃc. The testbed consists of pole-mounted 4K resolution video cameras providing uninterrupted coverage of the roadway. Video data is processed in real time into vehicle trajectories for all vehicles passing through the testbed. The current length of the testbed is approximately 1600 feet and upon its completion will stretch 6 miles. Testbed speciﬁcations, hardware, and design decisions are discussed, as well as the future of the testbed construction
Physiological Alterations in Swallowing in Elderly People: A Systematic Review

M any changes in swallowing function occur in the elderly, age-related swallowing alterations are well-researched and frequently identify people above sixty as older people. The effect of age on swallowing should be clarified to improve. Understanding the impact of age on swallowing has implications for differentiating between swallowing difficulties associated with ageing and those associated with specific medical conditions. Older folks are living longer and in better health than ever before, with many living past 85 years of age. To effectively address swallowing issues in elderly patients, doctors must comprehend healthy swallowing modifications in the "oldest old". This systematic review compiled and evaluated papers that used instrumental evaluation to look at alterations in swallowing in persons over 85. Participants over 85 who were in good health were required for participation. Studies that focused on oral functioning and anatomy were prohibited . Two thousand two hundred thirty-six (2236) papers from investigations up to 2018 were gathered from Scopus, Embase, CINAHL, Medline, and BIOSIS. Because the oldest old were not enrolled, 86% of investigations examining age-related swallowing alterations were disregarded after data screening. Thirteen articles passed the PRISMA assessment and were considered. These were then examined for quality, bias, and data extractions. The primary quantitative abnormalities in swallowing associated with ageing were an increase in the swallow onset delays, bolus transit times. Identify of the ‘normal’ for swallowing in elderly is important to clinical and instrumental swallow examinations and to inform interventions that might effect on the person’s life. Fewer papers found elevated residue
Scaling Procedures for Specifying Color Appearance

The world around us is often brightly colored. For various reasons it may be necessary to specify these colors precisely. One way is to describe each color in terms of the mixture of three primaries needed to match it. But this tells us only about equivalences and not about appearance. Furthermore, colorimetric matches remain stable even though appearances can change drastically with viewing conditions (1;2). We propose that hue and saturation scaling can be used to specify appearance precisely and reliably. The general techniques have been described earlier (3-5). We have examined several methodological variants to find one that is easily and reliably used, obtained "standard" functions from large groups of subjects under a variety of viewing conditions, and have tested the applicability of the technique with untrained observers. We have also used multidimensional scaling (MDS) (6;7) to derive uniform appearance diagrams (UAD) from the scaling data; from these spaces we have derived discrimination functions.
L p -norm of the LMS algorithm for bilinear forms with ˛ -stable processes

In this paper, a novel bilinear algorithm is proposed for multiple-input–single-output (MISO) system identiﬁcation, which is based on a modiﬁed L p -norm cost function with fractional lower order statistics. To model the MISO system, we employ the bilinear form (BF) which is deﬁned with respect to the impulse responses of a spatiotemporal model. Considering the non-Gaussian behavior in practical MISO system with BF, α -stable distribution, whose density function decays in the tails less rapidly than the Gaussian density function, is used to model the interference noise. As an added contribution, we extend the least mean p th power (LMP) and normalized LMP (NLMP) algorithms to BF, resulting in the LMP-BF and NLMP-BF algorithms. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Wavevector and spin reorientation in MnSi

A mean-field theory of spin-density-wave wavevector and polarisation vector rotation induced by the application of a magnetic field to MnSi in its spin-density-wave phase, and a prediction of the associated spin reorientation phase transitions, is presented. The dependences of the Neel temperature and the homogeneous magnetisation on applied magnetic field strength and orientation are studied, as is the staggered susceptibility which diverges at the spin orientation phase transition.
Low-energy electron scattering by H2S molecules: elastic, rotational and vibrational excitation

Cross sections for elastic scattering, rotational excitation and vibrational excitation are reported for e-H2S scattering in the energy range 0.5-10 eV. Calculations have been carried out using the adiabatic fixed-nuclei approach. For vibration the symmetric stretch and bending modes have been considered within the nuclear impulse approximation. The fixed-nuclei scattering amplitudes have been determined for an electron-molecule interaction comprising: (i) a static potential derived from molecular ground-state near-Hartree-Fock functions; (ii) an exchange term in the free electron gas Hara-type approximation; (iii) a parameter-free polarisation potential. The convergence problems associated with scattering by a polar molecule are treated by the angular transformation approximation of Collins and Norcross (1978). The elastic and rotationally summed cross sections exhibit three distinct scattering regions: a threshold peak dominated by the A1 scattering state; an enhancement at about 2 eV due to the B2 scattering state-it is possible to extract the resonance parameters Er=2.22 eV and Gamma =1.31 eV; and a broader enhancement around 6-8 eV mainly due to A1 scattering. The B2 resonance is also responsible for a large enhancement in the vibrational cross sections at 2-3 eV. The shape of the rotationally summed and vibrational results are in good agreement with the experimental data of Rohr (1978).
The method of moving asymptotes—a new method for structural optimization

A new method for non-linear programming in general and structural optimization in particular is presented. In each step of the iterative process, a strictly convex approximating subproblem is generated and solved. The generation of these subproblems is controlled by so called ‘moving asymptotes’, which may both stabilize and speed up the convergence of the general process.
Detecting small surface vibrations by passive electro-optical illumination

We have performed research to understand the feasibility of using signals received by EOIR sensors to detect small vibrations in surfaces illuminated by sunlight. The vibration models consider buildings with vibrating roofs, as well as ground vibrations due to buried structures. For the surface buildings, we investigated two approaches. One involved treating the roof as an elastic medium subject to deformation resulting in a PDE whose solution describes the fluctuation in the surface’s normal direction vector. The second approach treated the roof as a rigid mass subject to motion in six degrees of freedom, while modeling the dynamics of the building’s frame, and tuning the parameters to result in resonant frequencies similar to real buildings (~3-7 Hz). We applied the appropriate physical models of reflected and scattered light to various surfaces, specular (insulator or conductor), rough but still reflective, or diffusely scattering (Lambertian). Matlab code was developed to perform numerical simulations of any system configuration described above and easily add new models. The main engine of the code is a signal calculator and analyzer that sums the total intensity of received light over a “scene” with a variety of surface materials, orientations, polarization (if any), and other parameters. A resulting signal versus time is generated that may be analyzed in order to: 1) optimize sensitivity, or 2) detect the vibration signature of a structure of interest. The results of this study will enable scientists/engineers to optimize signal detection, possibly from space, for passive exploitation of scattered light modulated by vibrating surfaces.
Nanowave devices for terahertz acoustic phonons

The emergence of the area of nanophononics requires the development of terahertz (THz) acoustic devices with tailored properties. We describe nonperiodic planar nanostructures with specific THz phononic response and superior performance. We show that improved devices based on GaAs and AlAs layers can be designed using an optimization Nelder-Mead simplex method, and grown with state-of-the-art molecular beam epitaxy. We also demonstrate that high-resolution Raman scattering provides a powerful tool to characterize these devices. We illustrate the concept with results on acoustic THz edge and color filters.
Thermo-induced electromagnetic coupling in gold/polymer hybrid plasmonic structures probed by surface enhanced Raman scattering

This work describes the design of a new plasmonic device made of gold nanoparticles separated from a gold film through a thermoresponsive polymer layer. This organic polymer responds to temperature variations by conformational changes (with a characteristic temperature called the lower critical solution temperature, LCST) and is therefore able to vary the distance between the gold nanoparticles and the gold film. The optical properties of these stimulable substrates were probed by Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering spectroscopy (SERS) using methylene blue (MB) as a molecular probe. We show that an increase of the external temperature reversibly induces a significant enhancement of the MB SERS signal. This was attributed to a stronger interaction between the gold nanoparticles and the gold substrate. The temperature-responsive plasmonic devices developed in this work thus provide a dynamic SERS platform, with thermally switchable electromagnetic coupling between the gold nanoparticles and the gold surface.
Stability of Boiling on Annular Fin Surfaces

A theoretical investigation was conducted to understand the stability of boiling on annular fin surfaces with different boundary conditions. Lyapunov's function was derived for boiling on annular fin surfaces; its characteristics near the steady distribution are particularly investigated. With no pre-assumed functional form for the temperature perturbation to be imposed to the boiling system, a general stability analysis was established by optimizing Lyapunov's function. The steady temperature distribution with isothermal or isoflux condition was obtained numerically, and the boiling heat transfer characteristic was noted to be dependent of the fin configuration and boundary conditions. Annular fin surfaces can significantly benefit the heat transfer, and the fins with small inner radii have better performance of base heat flux or temperature. The most unstable mode and maximum eigenvalue were employed to describe the boiling stability under various boundary conditions, and characteristics of the obtained maximum eigenvalue very well match with those of the boiling heat transfer on annular fin surfaces.
Numerical Investigation of a Radial Microchannel Heat Exchanger with Varying Cross-Sectional Channels

This paper investigates the heat transfer performance of a radial microchannel heat exchanger with varying cross-sectional-area channels. The thermal performance of axially varying cross-sectional-area channels is compared with uniform cross-sectional-area channels. The first model is a one-dimensional thermal-resistance based model, and the second model is a three-dimensional conjugate computational fluid dynamics analysis using FLUENT software. The heat sink has a footprint area of 3.5 cm 2 and the fluid flows radially inward. The inlet aspect ratio is varied from 0.4 to 1.0, and the outlet aspect ratio is fixed at 0.5. Inclusion of axial conduction effects are found to be imperative for accurate modeling of a radial configuration using the one-dimensional thermal-resistance model. The analysis shows that when constrained by a fixed channel-outlet area, increasing the channel-inlet area will improve the thermal performance. At low pumping powers, the present scheme is found to have thermal performance that is equivalent to or better than the performances with other experimentally and numerically investigated microchannel heat sink designs.
Delay‐dependent state estimation for discrete Markovian jump neural networks with time‐varying delay

The state estimation problem is discussed for discrete Markovian jump neural networks with time‐varying delays in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach. The considered transition probabilities are assumed to be time‐variant and partially unknown. The aim of the state estimation problem is to design a state estimator to estimate the neuron states and ensure the stochastic stability of the error‐state system. A delay‐dependent sufficient condition for the existence of the desired state estimator is proposed. An explicit expression of the desired estimator is also given. A numerical example is introduced to show the effectiveness of the given result.