Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sparse-based estimators improvement in case of Basis mismatch

Compressed sensing theory promises to sample sparse signals using a limited number of samples. It also resolves the problem of under-determined systems of linear equations when the unknown vector is sparse. Those promising applications induced a growing interest for this field in the past decade. In compressed sensing, the sparse signal estimation is performed using the knowledge of the dictionary used to sample the signal. However, dictionary mismatch often occurs in practical applications, in which case the estimation algorithm uses an uncertain dictionary knowledge. This mismatch introduces an estimation bias even when the noise is low and the support (i.e. location of non-zero amplitudes) is perfectly estimated. In this paper we consider that the dictionary suffers from a structured mismatch, this type of error being of particular interest in sparse estimation applications. We propose the Bias-Correction Estimator (BiCE) post-processing step which enhances the non-zero amplitude estimation of any sparse-based estimator in the presence of a structured dictionary mismatch. We give the theoretical Bayesian Mean Square Error of the proposed estimator and show its statistical efficiency in the low noise variance regime.
Dynamic Model of Facial Expression Recognition based on Eigen-face Approach

Abstract —Emotions are best way of communicating information; and sometimes it carry more information than words. Recently, there has been a huge interest in automatic recognition of human emotion because of its wide spread application in security, surveillance, marketing, advertisement, and human-computer interaction. To communicate with a computer in a natural way, it will be desirable to use more natural modes of human communication based on voice, gestures and facial expressions. In this paper, a holistic approach for facial expression recognition is proposed which captures the variation in facial features in temporal domain and classifies the sequence of images in different emotions. The proposed method uses Haar-like features to detect face in an image. The dimensionality of the eigenspace is reduced using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). By projecting the subsequent face images into principal eigen directions, the variation pattern of the obtained weight vector is modeled to classify it into different emotions. Owing to the variations of expressions for different people and its intensity, a person specific method for emotion recognition is followed. Using the gray scale images of the frontal face, the system is able to classify four basic emotions such as happiness, sadness, surprise, and anger.
Toward Building Adaptive User's Psycho-Physiological Maps of Emotions using Bio-Sensors

We present a method applied to the emotional subjective ex- perience of the user for extracting emotional semantic information from Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) physiological signals (skin conduc- tance and heart rate) sensed via bio-sensors. We present a physiologically- inspired data structure based on intra-individual rule extraction used to reach an interpretation of the physiological measure closely related to the user own emotional experience.
Child Speech Recognition in Human-Robot Interaction: Evaluations and Recommendations

An increasing number of human-robot interaction (HRI) studies are now taking place in applied settings with children. These interactions often hinge on verbal interaction to effectively achieve their goals. Great advances have been made in adult speech recognition and it is often assumed that these advances will carry over to the HRI domain and to interactions with children. In this paper, we evaluate a number of automatic speech recognition (ASR) engines under a variety of conditions, inspired by real-world social HRI conditions. Using the data collected we demonstrate that there is still much work to be done in ASR for child speech, with interactions relying solely on this modality still out of reach. However, we also make recommendations for child-robot interaction design in order to maximise the capability that does currently exist.
Harmonicity of Gibbs measures

In this paper we extend the construction of random walks with a prescribed Poisson boundary to the case of measures in the class of a generalized Gibbs state. The price for dropping the $\alpha$-quasiconformal assumptions is that we must restrict our attention to CAT($-\kappa$) groups. Apart from the new estimates required, we prove a new approximation scheme to provide a positive basis for positive functions in a metric measure space.
Towards an Empirical Subcategorization of Multiword Expressions

The subcategorization of multiword expressions (MWEs) is still problematic because of the great variability of their phenomenology. This article presents an attempt to categorize Italian nominal MWEs on the basis of their syntactic and semantic behaviour by considering features that can be tested on corpora. Our analysis shows how these features can lead to a differentiation of the expressions in two groups which correspond to the intuitive notions of multiword units and lexical collocations.
Visual Saliency Detection and its Application to Image Retrieval

People perceive any kind of information with different level of attention and involvement. It is due to the way how our brain functions, redundancy and importance of the perceived data. This work deals with visual information, in particular with images. Image analysis and processing is often requires running computationally expensive algorithms. The knowledge of which part of an image is important over other parts allows for reduction of data to be processed. Besides computational cost a broad variety of applications, including image compression, quality assessment, adaptive content display and rendering, can benefit from this kind of information. The development of an accurate visual importance estimation method may bring a useful tool for image processing domain and that is the main goal for this work. In the following two novel approaches to saliency detection are presented. In comparison to previous works in this field the proposed approaches tackles saliency estimation on the object-wise level. In addition, one of the proposed approach solves saliency detection problem through modelling 3-D spatial relationships between objects in a scene. Moreover, a novel idea of the application of saliency to diversification of image retrieval results is presented.
Dynamic scalability and contention prediction in public infrastructure using Internet application profiling

Recently, the advance of cloud computing services has attracted many customers to host their Internet applications in the cloud. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is on top of these services where it gives more control over the provisioned resources. The control is based on online monitoring of specific metrics (e.g., CPU, Memory, and Network). Despite the fact that these metrics guide resources provisioning, the lack of understanding application behavior can lead to wrong decisions. Moreover, current monitored metrics alone do not help in resources contention prediction, which is very common in shared infrastructures like IaaS. Nevertheless, the architecture of Internet applications, as multi-tier systems, makes contention prediction more complex while its influence can migrate from one tier to another. In this paper, we propose a pro-active global controller not only for dynamic resources provisioning, but also for predicting and eliminating contentions in multi-tier applications. Our technique combines monitored metrics, which are provided by current IaaS providers, with models that are built depending on the Internet applications profiling. The fitness of the monitored metrics to the application model is used for contention prediction. We examined our technique using RUBiS benchmark. The results express the efficiency of the developed algorithms in maintaining Internet applications performance even in shared infrastructures.
Chronic Lead Exposure Increases Blood Pressure and Myocardial Contractility in Rats

We investigated the cardiovascular effects of lead exposure, emphasising its direct action on myocardial contractility. Male Wistar rats were sorted randomly into two groups: control (Ct) and treatment with 100 ppm of lead (Pb) in the drinking water. Blood pressure (BP) was measured weekly. At the end of the treatment period, the animals were anaesthetised and haemodynamic parameters and contractility of the left ventricular papillary muscles were recorded. Blood and tissue samples were properly stored for further biochemical investigations. Statistical analyses were considered to be significant at p<0.05. The lead concentrations in the blood reached approximately 13 µg/dL, while the bone was the site of the highest deposition of this metal. BP in the Pb-treated group was higher from the first week of lead exposure and remained at the same level over the next four weeks. Haemodynamic evaluations revealed increases in systolic (Ct: 96±3.79 vs. Pb: 116±1.37 mmHg) and diastolic blood pressure (Ct: 60±2.93 vs. Pb: 70±3.38 mmHg), left ventricular systolic pressure (Ct: 104±5.85 vs. Pb: 120±2.51 mmHg) and heart rate (Ct: 307±10 vs. Pb: 348±16 bpm). Lead treatment did not alter the force and time derivatives of the force of left ventricular papillary muscles that were contracting isometrically. However, our results are suggestive of changes in the kinetics of calcium (Ca++) in cardiomyocytes increased transarcolemmal Ca++ influx, low Ca++ uptake by the sarcoplasmic reticulum and high extrusion by the sarcolemma. Altogether, these results show that despite the increased Ca++ influx that was induced by lead exposure, the myocytes had regulatory mechanisms that prevented increases in force, as evidenced in vivo by the increased systolic ventricular pressure.
Managing the student experience in English higher education: Differing responses to market pressures

This paper reports on recent research aimed at assessing how the management of the undergraduate student experience in English higher education is changing in the light of the new tuition fee regime introduced in 2012, as well as other government policies aimed at creating market-type pressures within the higher education sector. A distinction was observed between the research-intensive universities studied – defined here as institutions where research income comprised 20 per cent or more of total turnover, with correspondingly strong positions in published research-based rankings – and universities largely dependent on income from teaching, with weaker market positions. Broadly speaking, the latter group were responding to market pressures by centralizing services, standardizing procedures, and strengthening management controls over teaching processes. The research-intensive universities tended to work within existing institutional cultures to respond to students' needs. Organizational change here usually took the form of creating more coherent functional groupings of student services, rather than comprehensive reorganizations. It appears to us that these different responses to a changed environment point to the creation of two distinct English university types, one strongly managerial with 'student as customer' orientations, and a smaller group with less centralized, more collegial cultures.
Serological Evidence of Brucellosis in Goats in Kaduna North Senatorial District of Kaduna State, Nigeria

A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the current status of Brucella antibodies in goats in Kaduna North Senatorial District of Kaduna State, Nigeria. A total of 442 serum samples (31 bucks and 411 does) were screened using Rose Bengal plate test (RBPT), serum agglutination test with ethylene diaminetetraacetic acid (SAT-EDTA), and lateral flow assay (LFA). Results. The prevalence of Brucella antibodies was found to be 25.8%, 11.1%, and 2.5% using RBPT, SAT-EDTA, and LFA, respectively. The prevalence in bucks was 32.3%, 3.2%, and 0.0% and 17.5%, 12.4%, and 3.9% in does using RBPT, SAT-EDTA, and LFA, respectively. The prevalence rates for goats less than one year of age using the tests were 1.5%, 0.0%, and 0.0%. While for those within the age bracket of one to three years, the rates were 19.4%, 10.5%, and 3.5%, respectively. The corresponding values for goats above 3 years of age were 34.2%, 15.2%, and 1.8%, respectively. The prevalence of brucellosis in goats in the study area is high which poses a threat to the development of the livestock industry and is of important zoonotic implications in Nigeria.
Exploiting the temporal dimension in QoS-aware multicast routing

We investigate the temporal dimension in dynamic QoS-based multicast routing in order to improve significantly the performance of previous spatial protocols. We describe the design of a new protocol named T-TBP, which is extended from a previously proposed protocol, TBP, that uses a ticket-based directed search framework (see Chen S., and Nahrstedt, K., IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol.17, no.18, 1999). T-TBP exploits the temporal dimension based on a path residuum mechanism to improve performance in tree cost and success ratio of member joins in a highly dynamic environment. It caches previous search information and may make adjustments to an existing multicast tree to improve the quality of the resulting multicast tree. Through extensive simulation, our proposal is demonstrated to achieve superior performance to the original protocol. Most notably, it is able to construct lower-cost trees with only a minor increase in control overhead when network load is light, and to improve the success rate for finding the feasible path when network load is heavy.
Sensorless current sharing in digitally controlled multiphase buck DC-DC converters

This paper describes a current sharing technique for digitally controlled multiphase buck DC-DC converters. The effective duty cycle mismatches and resistance mismatches are digitally compensated to achieve equal current sharing without sensing currents. Effects of various non-idealities on the current sharing performance are discussed. Experimental results are shown for a four-phase synchronous buck converter with 9V input voltage, and 1.5 V, 0–1.5A output.
Decentralization of particle filters using arbitrary state decomposition

In this paper, a new particle filter (PF) which we refer to as the decentralized PF (DPF) is proposed. By first decomposing the state into two parts, the DPF splits the filtering problem into two nested sub-problems and then handles the two nested sub-problems using PFs. The DPF has an advantage over the regular PF that the DPF can increase the level of parallelism of the PF. In particular, part of the resampling in the DPF bears a parallel structure and thus can be implemented in parallel. The parallel structure of the DPF is created by decomposing the state space, differing from the parallel structure of the distributed PFs which is created by dividing the sample space. This difference results in a couple of unique features of the DPF in contrast with the existing distributed PFs. Simulation results from a numerical example indicates that the DPF has a potential to achieve the same level of performance as the regular PF, in a shorter execution time.
PtdIns 3-Kinase Orchestrates Autophagosome Formation in Yeast

Eukaryotic cells can massively transport their own cytoplasmic contents into a lytic compartment, the vacuole/lysosome, for recycling through a conserved system called autophagy. The key process in autophagy is the sequestration of cytoplasmic contents within a double-membrane structure, the autophagosome. Autophagosome formation requires the elaborate cooperation of Atg (autophagy-related) proteins and lipid molecules. Phosphorylation of phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) by a PtdIns 3-kinase, Vps34, is a key step in coordinating Atg proteins and lipid molecules. Vps34 forms two distinct protein complexes, only one of which is involved in generating autophagic membranes. Upon induction of autophagy, PtdIns(3)P, the enzymatic product of PtdIns 3-kinase, is massively transported into the lumen of the vacuole via autophagy. PtdIns(3)P is enriched on the inner membrane of the autophagosome. PtdIns(3)P recruits the Atg18−Atg2 complex and presumably other Atg proteins to autophagic membranes, thereby coordinating lipid molecules and Atg proteins.
Applications drive secure lightpath creation across heterogeneous domains

We realize an open, programmable paradigm for application-driven network control by way of a novel network plane - the "service plane" - layered above legacy networks. The service plane bridges domains, establishes trust, and exposes control to credited users/applications while preventing unauthorized access and resource theft. The authentication, authorization, and accounting subsystem and the dynamic resource allocation controller are the two defining building blocks of our service plane. In concert, they act upon an interconnection request or a restoration request according to application requirements, security credentials, and domain-resident policy. We have experimented with such service plane in an optical, large-scale testbed featuring two hubs (NetherLight in Amsterdam, StarLight in Chicago) and attached network clouds, each representing an independent domain. The dynamic interconnection of the heterogeneous domains occurred at Layer 1. The interconnections ultimately resulted in an optical end-to-end path (lightpath) for use by the requesting grid application.
SENSE-SATION: An extensible platform for integration of phones into the Web

The “Web of Things” vision promotes the integration of smart devices into web, using web technologies and protocols as underlying interaction mechanisms with smart devices. Technically many phones include various sensors and provide a large-scale sensing platform. To make this functionality available to a large number of (web) developers our research aims at easing the creation of applications that use mobile context data (e.g., movement data). We present a sensing platform for mobile devices, called SENSE-SATION, which gathers and stores available information on a mobile phone and makes this information directly accessible via RESTful web services — locally and remotely. By using a concept of virtual sensors, the platform supports the full development process, from the initial idea via adapting/extending the platform to incremental development of virtual sensors and applications via Web 2.0 controls. Hence, (web) developers can create arbitrary context-aware applications that make use of mobile hardware capabilities without touching mobile phone programming at all. In this paper we discuss the design issues and provide case studies to describe how this platform can empower the development of social, context-aware applications.
Trust and the Taxman : a Study of the Irish Revenue ’ s Website Service Quality

This paper describes an ongoing study into the quality of service provided by the Irish Revenue Commisioners’ on-line tax filing and collection system. The Irish Revenue On-Line Service (ROS) site has won several awards. In this study, a version of the widely used SERVQUAL measuring instrument, adapted for use with on-line services, has been modified for the specific case of ROS. The theory behind this instrument is set out, the particular problems of evaluating revenue collecting on-line are examined and the rationale for this approach is explained. Keywords; e-government, taxation, on-line, quality of service, SERVQUAL
Kinematic Analysis of a Macro–Micro Redundantly Actuated Parallel Manipulator

In this paper the kinematic and Jacobian analysis of a macro–micro parallel manipulator is studied in detail. The manipulator architecture is a simplified planar version adopted from the structure of the Large Adaptive Reflector (LAR), the Canadian design of the next generation of giant radio telescopes. This structure is composed of two parallel and redundantly actuated manipulators at the macro and micro level, which both are cable-driven. Inverse and forward kinematic analysis of this structure is presented in this paper. Furthermore, the Jacobian matrices of the manipulator at the macro and micro level are derived, and a thorough singularity and sensitivity analysis of the system is presented. The kinematic and Jacobian analysis of the macro–micro structure is extremely important to optimally design the geometry and characteristics of the LAR structure. The optimal location of the base and moving platform attachment points in both macro and micro manipulators, singularity avoidance of the system in nominal and extreme maneuvers, and geometries that result in high dexterity measures in the design are among the few characteristics that can be further investigated from the results reported in this paper. Furthermore, the availability of the extra degrees of freedom in a macro–micro structure can result in higher dexterity provided that this redundancy is properly utilized. In this paper, this redundancy is used to generate an optimal trajectory for the macro–micro manipulator, in which the Jacobian matrices derived in this analysis are used in a quadratic programming approach to minimize performance indices like minimal micro manipulator motion or singularity avoidance criterion.
Simulation and experiment of adaptive optics in 2.5Gbps atmospheric laser communication

A numerical simulation and an experiment on adaptive optics (AO) in 2.5Gbps laser communication system are introduced in this paper. The simulation results show that the signal fading is mitigated at a large part with AO correction. The experiment results show that the average bit-error-rate (BER) is 6 × 10-3 without AO correction. The average BER will be reduced to 1 × 10-4 with AO tip-tilt correction. And there is no bit-error in 120s with AO high order correction.
An improving feasibility and performance of multilevel inverter using battery balancing unit

The single phase multilevel inverter with a battery balance unit strategy is presented. Every input of inverters which are in system is directly connected to battery. And the output of all batteries that is unification of all batteries voltage can controlled battery voltage to fulfil battery balancing intent. In this topology the inverter is design as well as fulfilled to operate as a battery balancing discharging system, which have ability to in accrue a stored energy of the renewable energy sources. In this topology multilevel inverter with selective harmonic elimination also implementation which minimizes the total harmonics distortion (THD). Finally, the proposed system to verify the viability alike advantage with SIMULINK/MATLAB. The simulation results are adduce that the existing multilevel inverter alike selective harmonic elimination. The battery-balancing discharge function can also ejected the harmonic content from proposed system and ameliorate the battery unbalancing issue forcible as per requirement.