Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intermediate Desired Value Approach for Task Transition of Robots in Kinematic Control

The task-based control framework is well established for its ability to generate complex behavior in versatile robots. When executing multiple complex tasks, continuous and stable transition among these tasks is one of the most important issues. In this paper, the problem of task transition is discussed to achieve continuous transitions between arbitrary tasks effectively. Instead of modifying the control laws, the design of intermediate desired values to be realized by existing controllers is proposed. The proposed approach can deal with arbitrary task sets, with or without priorities, for insertion and removal, and with priority rearrangement for hierarchical sets of tasks. The solution is generic and can be used for any type of transition. Two examples of uses include a time-driven transition to execute a given task schedule and a transition depending on the robot configuration to perform joint-limit avoidance behaviors. The performance of the algorithm is verified in simulations and on a physical robot.
Représentations du système de justice criminelle : Essai de typologie

IMAGE OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM TYPOLOGY STUDYThe present crisis in criminal justice — in France as in many other countries — shows two remarkable characteristics. On the one hand, the crisis is universal and is one that concerns the function assigned or credited to this system of criminal justice in society ; this places the system's image in some doubt in various sectors of society. On the other hand, this crisis defies all attempts at partial reform. Many schools of criminal policy have tried them in vain. Criminology has begun to rediscover that the science of crime and of the criminal — the progression from concept to commission of the act — also involves the reaction of society to the criminal phenomenon. But only too often, this progression is regarded as a poorly specified interaction, quite commonplace, or as a breakdown in simple technology. Only an integrated scientific approach — inclusive of the concept of the social image — can say something new and decisive in such a situation.This study belongs to one of the many research projects which the scientific programme of the S.E. P.C. is organizing, that devoted to the image of criminal justice in society.A questionnaire was distributed to a sample population in France, limited in size, but sufficient to validate the anticipated analysis (200). Each person was chosen according to several criteria (sex, age, socio-professional category, place of residence) in order to make sure of the presence of all the characteristics anticipated. The ecological variable was controlled by interviewing persons in four sectors of the 15th arrondissement of Paris (wealthy older district, middle class older district, renovated wealthy district, renovated middle class national housing), in the suburbs of Paris (Bobigny cottages and Bobigny national housing), at Epinal and in the region of Auch.The authors established a hypothesis according to which the organization of the dependent variable rests on a typology of conformism.The authors thought that the dimension of conformism was complex and tried to outline its components. According to their results, there is a resistance to change. It seems to be closely linked — even though in a wide variety of circumstances — with an optimism/pessimism dimension (where manicheism seems to be identified as one of the circumstances). To tell the truth, the authors do not know if resistance to change and optimism/pessimism are two autonomous, albeit connected dimensions, or two components of conformism. They will come back to this in future studies. They conclude by saying that conformism is clearly related to the image of criminal justice.
The Rise of the Regional State in Economic Governance: ‘Partnerships for Prosperity’ Or New Scales of State Power?

In recent debates on the regulation and governance of contemporary capitalism and its territorial form, there is an emerging consensus that successful economic development is contingent on a movement away from the nation-state and policy interventions at the national scale toward subnational institutional frameworks and supports. In effect, both an ‘institutional turn’ and a ‘scalar turn’ appear to be occurring, through which the heterogeneity of economic growth may be explored. The author scrutinises these claims by examining what is becoming known as ‘new regionalist’ orthodoxy in economic development. This orthodoxy is particularly powerful because its concerns for resolving economic and democratic deficit by harnessing the regional scale are supported by academics, politicians, and policymakers alike. Focusing on England's Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), a radical initiative in regional economic governance, the author argues for a need to rethink the nation-state and the processes through which its intervention is being scaled. RDAs have been given a remit to enhance economic and social development, but rather than their providing decentralised ‘partnerships for prosperity’, a number of contradictions and tensions are revealed. These indicate that England's own brand of new regionalism is heavily steered by political fiat and central government dictate. To inform new regionalist debates, the author consequently argues that a new (regional) scale of state power is emerging and RDAs are forming part of a political strategy aimed at rescaling, instead of resolving, an economic and democratic deficit. The author concludes by calling for a closer engagement in political – economic geography between state theory, crisis theory, and the scaling of state power and suggests a need to formulate a fourth-cut theory of crisis.
Town walls, walled towns and tourism: paradoxes and paradigms

The paradoxical relationship between tourists and town walls is examined in the wider context of the walled town tourism. Such towns may be paradigm cases for historic towns as attractions for heritage, urban and cultural tourism among the ‘flows and scapes’ of delocated global tourism. Widely distributed across the ‘old’ world and extant even in the ‘new’, town walls can be seen as the grim barriers between contested identities or as the emblems of the peaceful security of the town within. The paper draws on material gathered as part of a European Interreg IIIc network project – ‘ARCHWAY’. Walled towns and related monuments represent nearly 20% of the 890-strong 2009 world heritage list and half the ‘ARCHWAY’ towns have world heritage status or aspirations. To meet the economic and urban planning challenges, walled towns have developed a range of options for success in, or for surviving, tourism. Examples from across Europe and beyond are critically appraised in the light of the literature of historic and heritage town tourism. As historic towns with obvious signs of past conflict, walled towns point the way to examining urban heritage tourism with de-romanticised vision.
What difference does it make?

English The article explores the privatization of social work in both England and Canada. Although differences persist in the structural organization of social services in both countries, it is argued that such disparities are increasingly blurred by radical market reforms of the social work labour process (among other changes). French Cet article étudie la privatisation du travail social en Angleterre et au Canada. Même s'il subsiste des différences quant à l'organisation des services sociaux dans ces deux pays, cette étude soutient que ces différences s'estompent de plus en plus en raison des réformes de marché radicales qui s'opèrent notamment en ce qui concerne le traitement de la main-d'œuvre en travail social. Spanish Se explora la privatización en Inglaterra y Canadá. Aunque perduran las diferencias respecto a la organización estructural de los servicios sociales en ambos países, se arguye que tales diferencias se oscurecen cada vez más por las reformas radicales derivadas del mercado de los procesos laborales del trabajo social (entre otros cambios).
Toward Sustainable Open Education Resources: A Perspective From the Global South

Abstract One of the emerging issues in educational discourse today is the development and use of Open Education Resources (OER) and their potential in expanding access and improving the quality of education, particularly in developing countries where there is a dearth of quality materials. This article seeks to contribute to the debate on OER. It critically examines the experiences of the Commonwealth of Learning in the creation and dissemination of OER and identifies lessons learned. It also suggests concrete ways in which various stakeholders can contribute to the sustainability of OER.
Prolonged Fasting Identifies Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Dysfunction as Consequence Rather Than Cause of Human Insulin Resistance

OBJECTIVE Type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance have been associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, but it is debated whether this is a primary factor in the pathogenesis of the disease. To test the concept that mitochondrial dysfunction is secondary to the development of insulin resistance, we employed the unique model of prolonged fasting in humans. Prolonged fasting is a physiologic condition in which muscular insulin resistance develops in the presence of increased free fatty acid (FFA) levels, increased fat oxidation and low glucose and insulin levels. It is therefore anticipated that skeletal muscle mitochondrial function is maintained to accommodate increased fat oxidation unless factors secondary to insulin resistance exert negative effects on mitochondrial function. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS While in a respiration chamber, twelve healthy males were subjected to a 60 h fast and a 60 h normal fed condition in a randomized crossover design. Afterward, insulin sensitivity was assessed using a hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp, and mitochondrial function was quantified ex vivo in permeabilized muscle fibers using high-resolution respirometry. RESULTS Indeed, FFA levels were increased approximately ninefold after 60 h of fasting in healthy male subjects, leading to elevated intramuscular lipid levels and decreased muscular insulin sensitivity. Despite an increase in whole-body fat oxidation, we observed an overall reduction in both coupled state 3 respiration and maximally uncoupled respiration in permeabilized skeletal muscle fibers, which could not be explained by changes in mitochondrial density. CONCLUSIONS These findings confirm that the insulin-resistant state has secondary negative effects on mitochondrial function. Given the low insulin and glucose levels after prolonged fasting, hyperglycemia and insulin action per se can be excluded as underlying mechanisms, pointing toward elevated plasma FFA and/or intramuscular fat accumulation as possible causes for the observed reduction in mitochondrial capacity.
The waxing and waning of the social self: Assimilation and contrast in social comparison.

Past research has revealed that social comparisons often lead to contrast effects in self-evaluation ( such that people who encounter a highly talented person come to feel less talented by comparison). In this report, however, it is argued that when people possess confidently held self-views in a particular area, they are unlikely to engage in explicit social comparisons with close others. Instead, they assume that because birds of feather flock together, the strengths and weaknesses of their close relationship partners reflect directly (rather than comparatively) on themselves. A cross-sectional survey, a prospective survey, and a quasi-experiment all supported this idea. The implications of these findings for social comparison and for self-regulation are discussed.
Selective Expression of the 21-Kilodalton Tyrosine-Phosphorylated Form of TCR ζ Promotes the Emergence of T Cells with Autoreactive Potential 1

T cells undergo negative selection in the thymus to eliminate potentially autoreactive cells. The signals generated through the αβ TCR following receptor interactions with peptide/MHC complexes in the thymus control these selection processes. Following receptor ligation, a fraction of the TCR ζ subunit appears as two distinct tyrosine-phosphorylated forms of 21 and 23 kDa (p21 and p23). Previous data have reported elevated levels of p21 in some murine models of autoimmunity. We have examined the contributions of both the p21 and p23 to T cell negative selection in the HY TCR-transgenic system using ITAM-substituted TCR ζ and CD3 ε transgenic mice. Expression of just p21, in the absence of p23, partially impairs negative selection of self-reactive HY-specific T cells. This results in the emergence of potentially autoreactive peripheral T cells and an elevated population of CD11b+B220+ B cells in the spleen. These data clearly identify a specific and unique role for p21 during negative selection.
Insights into the issue in IPv6 adoption: A view from the Chinese IPv6 Application mix

Although IPv6 has been standardized more than 15 years ago, its deployment is still very limited. China has been strongly pushing IPv6, especially due to its limited IPv4 address space. In this paper, we describe measurements from a large Chinese academic network, serving a significant population of IPv6 hosts. We show that despite its expected strength, China is struggling as much as the western world to increase the share of IPv6 traffic. To understand the reasons behind this, we examine the IPv6 applicative ecosystem. We observe a significant IPv6 traffic growth over the past 3 years, with P2P file transfers responsible for more than 80% of the IPv6 traffic, compared with only 15% for IPv4 traffic. Checking the top websites for IPv6 explains the dominance of P2P, with popular P2P trackers appearing systematically among the top visited sites, followed by Chinese popular services (e.g., Tencent), as well as surprisingly popular third‐party analytics including Google. Finally, we compare the throughput of IPv6 and IPv4 flows. We find that a larger share of IPv4 flows get a high‐throughput compared with IPv6 flows, despite IPv6 traffic not being rate limited. We explain this through the limited amount of HTTP traffic in IPv6 and the presence of Web caches in IPv4. Our findings highlight the main issue in IPv6 adoption, that is, the lack of commercial content, which biases the geographic pattern and flow throughput of IPv6 traffic. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rates and risk factors for sexual violence among an ethnically diverse sample of adolescents.

OBJECTIVES To investigate the occurrence of rape/attempted rape and verbal sexual coercion among an ethnically diverse adolescent population and to evaluate whether unique risk factors existed for victims of either type of forced sexual experience. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey assessing sexual violence within the past 12 months, behaviors that occurred on each subject's most recent date, and the occurrence of unwanted sexual experiences on any dates in the past year and details about that date. Subjects identified as experiencing either rape/attempted rape or verbal sexual coercion were compared with nonvictims using bivariate and multivariate analyses. SETTING Urban adolescent health care facility. PARTICIPANTS Female adolescents and young adults (n = 689) between the ages of 14 and 23 years who presented for care and met the eligibility criteria. RESULTS Approximately 30% of young women reported having an unwanted sexual experience in the past year. The risk of rape/attempted rape was increased by past mild to moderate (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 4.27) or severe (AOR = 15.24) physical aggression by the dating partner; date-specific behaviors, including decreased level of romantic involvement (AOR = 0.63 per point decline) and going to the perpetrator's house to be alone (AOR = 3.01); past sexual victimization as an adolescent (AOR = 4.70); and lower levels of self-reported ethnic identity (AOR = 1.07 per point decline). More important, alcohol use by the victim or perpetrator was unrelated to an increased risk of rape/attempted rape. The risk of verbal sexual coercion was increased by past mild to moderate (AOR = 4.38) or severe (AOR = 13.79) verbal aggression from the dating partner; date-specific behaviors, including decreased level of romantic involvement (AOR = 0.70 per point decline) and greater number of past dates (AOR = 7.53); going to the perpetrator's house to be alone (AOR = 3.52); past sexual victimization as an adolescent (AOR = 9.83); pressures to use alcohol (AOR = 9.49); the victim not drinking alcohol during the date (AOR = 14.38); and increasing age discrepancy between victim and perpetrator (AOR = 1.23 per year increase). CONCLUSIONS Approximately 1 in 4 urban young women reported having experienced verbal sexual coercion or rape/attempted rape by a date or acquaintance in the past year. Distinct risk profiles for rape/attempted rape and verbal sexual coercion were identified when compared with those who did not report any victimization.
Blood flow to uteri of sows during the estrous cycle and early pregnancy: local effect of the conceptus on the uterine blood supply.

Uterine blood flow (UBF) of 6 sows was monitored throughout an estrous cycle and the first 30 days of pregnancy using electromagnetic blood flow probes. Probes were placed around both uterine arteries of each sow on Day 12, 13 or 14 of the estrous cycle (first day of estrus = Day 0). The UBF (mI/mm) was recorded twice daily for 15 mm at 0700 and 1600 h. Values were averaged over both 15 mm periods on each day for each artery and considered an estimate of UBF. Blood flow to uteri of nonpregnant sows was highest from Day -5 to estrus and this was followed by a gradual decline during the remainder of the estrous cycle. The pattern of blood flow to uteri of the sows during early pregnancy was similar to that observed during the previous estrous cycle until Day 11 after mating. On Days 12 and 13 of pregnancy, UBF increased (P<0.0l) 3-fold to 4-fold. No corresponding increase in UBF was observed in nonpregnant sows during this 2 day period. By Day 14 of pregnancy, UBF had returned to a level slightly higher than that observed on Day 11, remained relatively constant from Day 14 to 19, then increased (P<0.O1) dramatically to Day 30. A second study was conducted using 7 sows made unilaterally pregnant on Day 2 postmsting (first day of mating = Day 0). Fertilized ova were flushed from one oviduct and the ipsilateral uterine horn was ligated at the uterine body with silk sutures (nongravid horn). Blood flow probes were placed around both uterine arteries and UBF was recorded twice daily. Sows were slaughtered on Day 16 postmating. Five of the 7 sows had embryos and/or embryonic tissue in the nonligated uterine horn (gravid horn) at slaughter. Sows in which embryonic tissue was found had higher (P<0.05) blood flow to the gravid compared with the nongravid uterine horn on Days 12 and 13 of pregnancy. Corpora lutes on the ovary ipsilateral to a gravid uterine horn had higher (P<0.05) progesterone concentrations (± SEM) than did corpora lutes on the contralateral ovary (5.45 ± 1.69 vs 2.07 ± 0.49 Mg/g luteal tissue).
Diverse methods to monitoring volcanic deformation based on SAR interferometry

In this paper, different methods for the detection of the deformation signal with SAR data based on persistent scatterer interferomety (PSI) are described. Two test sites have been selected. For experimental purposes, two corner reflectors (CRs) were installed in the Fogo volcano. The location, phase as well as intensity of corner reflectors were analyzed with 11 TerraSAR-X stripmap (TSX-SM) data. For algorithmic development and validation, four stacks of TerraSAR-X high resolution spotlight (TSX-HSL) data from the Stromboli volcano have been acquired and used for PSI processing. The PSI results of deformation and topography update are fused by using point matching method with Iterative Closest Point (ICP). This research is a part of the German volcano monitoring project Exupèry, Work Package 2: ‘Space based observation techniques’ [1].
Hidden Markov model segmentation of hydrological and enviromental time series

Motivated by Hubert's segmentation procedure we discuss the application of hidden Markov models (HMM) to the segmentation of hydrological and enviromental time series. We use a HMM algorithm which segments time series of several hundred terms in a few seconds and is computationally feasible for even longer time series. The segmentation algorithm computes the Maximum Likelihood segmentation by use of an expectation / maximization iteration. We rigorously prove algorithm convergence and use numerical experiments, involving temperature and river discharge time series, to show that the algorithm usually converges to the globally optimal segmentation. The relation of the proposed algorithm to Hubert's segmentation procedure is also discussed.
Determinants of Growth in Consumption of Rural Household in Bangladesh: A Regression Analysis

The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of growth in consumption of rural households in Bangladesh in the post-liberalisation era. Using data from both primary and secondary sources, the study applied the ordinary least square (OLS) regression models to assess the determinants. It also used both economic and non-economic characteristics (endowments) simultaneously for considering their joint effects on determinants. The study found that non-farm household dummy was the largest positive determinant of household consumption followed by household land area in 2010. Conversely, net buyer dummy variable was the largest negative determinant followed by rice price in the same year. Food consumption was the largest determinant of growth in household consumption followed by household land area in 1985-86. Rice consumption was the largest negative determinant of growth in consumption in 1985-86 but was the largest positive determinant in 2005. This study argues that agricultural trade liberalisation contributed to an increase in rice production and consumption, leading to higher growth in household consumption in the post-liberalisation era. Three difference variables – changes in share of income from agriculture, business-commerce, and house rent – were the positive determinants of growth in both 1985-86 and 2005. However, income-from-rice and change-in-income-from-rice were not statistically significant. This analysis suggests that it was not the rice income but income from other sources were responsible for the growth in household consumption in both 1985-86 2005. The study suggests that while agricultural trade liberalisation positively impacted on rice production, resulting from technological transformation and leading to a substantial decrease in both producer and consumer prices of rice, farm households were not benefited much from rice income in determining consumption growth (welfare). This might be attributed to a greater decrease in the producer price than that in the consumer price. This study argues that some farmers may shift from rice to other agricultural or non-farm activities, thus jeopardising the country‟s food security and self-sufficiency efforts in food grain production. Therefore, it is crucial to formulate government policies to support farm households in the form of income transfer such as tax reduction and production subsidy in order to avoid food security and macroeconomic instability, resulting from high food prices due to a shortage of rice production.