Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modi W cation of planned actions

To elucidate the time course and processes underlying pre-movement modiWcation of planned actions, participants prepared to make an action at a time of their own choosing within a speciWed temporal window. In some conditions, participants prepared to make a single right index Wnger key press, whereas in others, they prepared to make a sequence of two key presses consisting of a right index Wnger key press followed by a right middle Wnger key press. On a proportion of trials, their internal preparation was interrupted by an auditory tone, in response to which they made either: the same action as they were intending, a diVerent action requiring an additional eVector (i.e. switch from preparing a single right index Wnger key press to executing a right index, middle Wnger sequence), or a diVerent action requiring one less eVector (i.e. switch from preparing a right index, middle Wnger sequence to executing a right index Wnger key press). For unmodiWed actions, switching from an internally generated to an externally triggered mode of response production produced a signiWcant reaction time cost (RT cost) for both single and sequential actions, with the cost for single actions being signiWcantly greater than that for sequential actions. Given that the RT cost did not increase as the complexity of the actions increased it is unlikely that the source of the cost is related to motor execution processes, and it is suggested that it may arise at a higher level cognitive stage of processing. In addition, reaction times to produce modiWed actions were signiWcantly greater than those to produce unmodiWed actions. Finally, it took signiWcantly longer to produce modiWed actions requiring one less eVector than to produce modiWed actions requiring one more eVector. We suggest that two time-consuming processes are involved in switching between internally generated and externally triggered actions that are modiWed or unmodiWed: a trigger switch cost when the same action has to be produced in response to an external trigger as opposed to an internal trigger, and a switch cost reXecting changes in the pattern of executed motor commands when modiWcation is necessary. It is suggested that such processes may be mediated by regions of the frontal lobes.
Parts-based object recognition seeded by frequency-tuned saliency for child detection in active safety

This paper proposes a novel system for automatically detecting children from a color monocular back-up camera, as part of a back-up warning device in passenger vehicles. We presented the use of an attentional mechansim that focuses compute-intensive bounding-box classifiers on a subset of all possible bounding-box solutions to enable real-time performance of 248ms per frame with negligible reduction in performance. The attentional mechanism called Attention to Children which consists of a window generation and verification cascade of based on Frequency-Tuned Saliency, Variational-Optical-Flow Obstacle Detection and finally a parts-based classifier. We also presented a method of reducing much of the cascade classifier evaluations by judicious sampling of the bounding-box solution space. The result is a reduction in the number of windows evaluated down to 439 from more than 12K windows in traditional sliding window techniques, a 97% reduction in the number of windows. The verification stages leading up to the parts-based classifier further reduces the number of windows to half. Together with a parallel processing and pipelining, the final processing time was 248ms per frame.
New Visual Cryptography Algorithm For Colored Image

Visual Cryptography is a special encryption technique to hide information in images, which divide secret image into multiple layers. Each layer holds some information. The receiver aligns the layers and the secret information is revealed by human vision without any complex computation. The proposed algorithm is for color image, that presents a system which takes four pictures as an input and generates three images which correspond to three of the four input pictures. The decoding requires only selecting some subset of these 3 images, making transparencies of them, and stacking them on top of each other, so the forth picture is reconstructed by printing the three output images onto transparencies and stacking them together. The reconstructed image achieved in same size with original secret image.
A MUMPS-based Relational Data Base system (MRDB)

A relational database management system has been implemented in the MUMPS language using a binary tree structure for storage of relations. Several examples are given to illustrate the available functions and commands. Some details of the data structure are given, and tradeoffs discussed. The system was intended for teaching and research and no attempt was made to optimize performance. Nevertheless, timing measurements are presented to show that the use of a MUMPS-like tree structure for relational database system implementation can yield performance which varies with the size of the operand relations in a manner similar to previously reported relational database implementations.
A Glycosphingolipid Binding Domain Controls Trafficking and Activity of the Mammalian Notch Ligand Delta-Like 1

The activity of Notch ligands is tightly regulated by trafficking events occurring both before and after ligand-receptor interaction. In particular endocytosis and recycling have been shown to be required for full signaling activity of the ligands before they encounter the Notch receptor. However little is known about the precise endocytic processes that contribute to ligand internalization. Here we demonstrate that endocytosis contributes to Dll1 signaling activity by preserving the ligand from shedding and degradation. We further show that the glycosphingolipid-binding motif originally identified in Drosophila Notch ligands is conserved in mammals and is necessary for Dll1 internalization. Mutation of its conserved tryptophan residue results in a Dll1 molecule which is rapidly inactivated by shedding and degradation, does not recycle to the cell surface and does not activate Notch signaling. Finally, silencing in the signal-sending cells of glucosylceramide synthase, the enzyme implicated in the initial phase of glycosphingolipid synthesis, down-regulates Notch activation. Our data indicate that glycosphingolipids, by interacting with Dll1, may act as functional co-factors to promote its biological activity.
A max-min principle for the ground state of the Dirac-Fock functional

In this paper, we prove that, when the ne structure constant is small enough, the energy of the \ground state" of the Dirac-Fock model can be obtained by a nonlinear max-min principle. 1. The Dirac-Fock model. In 6] we proved that solutions of Dirac-Fock equations converge, in a certain sense, towards solutions of the Hartree-Fock equations when the speed of light tends to innnity. This limiting process allowed us to deene a notion of ground state for the Dirac-Fock equations, valid when the ne structure constant is small enough. In the present paper we show, as a consequence of our results in 6], that the energy of this ground state can be deened as a max-min level. We hope that this new characterization will Membre de l'Institut universitaire de France. Partially supported by the A.C. I. blanche \Mod eles math ematiques pour la chimie quantique atomique et mol eculaire".
The sensitivity of a global ocean model to wind forcing: A test using sea level and wind observations from satellites and operational wind analysis

Investigated in this study is the response of a global ocean general circulation model to forcing provided by two wind products: operational analysis at 1000 mb from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP); observations made by the ERS‐1 radar scatterometer. The sea level simulated by the model using the two wind fields is compared to the observations made by the TOPEX/POSEIDON radar altimeter for a period of two years. The focus of the analysis is placed on the large‐scale ocean variabilities at mid and high latitudes. The sea level simulations resulting from the ERS‐1 wind are found to be closer to the TOPEX/POSEIDON observations over most of the global oceans. However, after being scaled down in wind stress by 50%, the NCEP wind becomes consistent with the ERS‐1 wind in driving the ocean model to simulate the seasonal and intraseasonal sea level variabilities. The sensitivity of the model to wind forcing at the investigated scales is particularly pronounced in the Southern Ocean, where the sea level variabilities are primarily caused by large‐scale barotropic motions driven by wind. Other areas of appreciable sensitivity to wind forcing include the western and central North Pacific, the western subtropical South Pacific and the South Indian Ocean. The result of the study has demonstrated the sensitivity of a widely‐used ocean model to the quality of wind forcing, as well as the synergistic use of two satellite sensors in the study of ocean dynamics.
The Fixpoint-Iteration Algorithm for Parity Games

It is known that the model checking problem for the modal mu-calculus reduces to the problem of solving a parity game and vice-versa. The latter is realised by the Walukiewicz formulas which are satisfied by a node in a parity game iff player 0 wins the game from this node. Thus, they define her winning region, and any model checking algorithm for the modal mu-calculus, suitably specialised to the Walukiewicz formulas, yields an algorithm for solving parity games. In this paper we study the effect of employing the most straight-forward mu-calculus model checking algorithm: fixpoint iteration. This is also one of the few algorithms, if not the only one, that were not originally devised for parity game solving already. While an empirical study quickly shows that this does not yield an algorithm that works well in practice, it is interesting from a theoretical point for two reasons: first, it is exponential on virtually all families of games that were designed as lower bounds for very particular algorithms suggesting that fixpoint iteration is connected to all those. Second, fixpoint iteration does not compute positional winning strategies. Note that the Walukiewicz formulas only define winning regions; some additional work is needed in order to make this algorithm compute winning strategies. We show that these are particular exponential-space strategies which we call eventually-positional, and we show how positional ones can be extracted from them.
Human Capital Policies : What they Can and Cannot Do for Productivity and Poverty Reduction in Latin America

Duryea, Suzanne. Human capital policies : what they can and cannot do for productivity and poverty reduction in Latin America / by Suzanne Duryea, Carmen Pagés. The views and interpretations in this document are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank, or to any individual acting on its behalf. The Research Department (RES) produces the Latin American Economic Policies Newsletter, as well as working papers and books, on diverse economic issues. To obtain a complete list of RES publications, and read or download them please visit our web site at: Abstract Raising labor productivity is recognized as a critical factor for increasing economic growth and reducing poverty levels in Latin America. Low levels of education continue to be singled out as the main obstacle to higher productivity in the region. We examine the scope for education to lift labor incomes above poverty levels in Latin America and find that in many countries education, by itself, has a positive, but limited, potential to increase wages above a minimum level. In general, the prospects are dim because progress in raising average schooling levels has been slow even under the best historical scenarios. We also examine whether the apparent failure of education can be explained by low wage returns to schooling, and poor underlying conditions. We find that investments in education continue to have important payoffs but poor underlying conditions explain the modest prospect for the role of education in the short run. This leads us to consider what additional policies should be pursued in order to ensure higher productivity for workers in the region.
TOSPIE2: tiny operating system plug-in for energy estimation

TinyOS2 (TOS2) is the state of the art operating system for wireless sensor network (WSN) programming. There are a number of testbeds and simulation tools for checking functional correctness and a few integrated development environments (IDEs) that support graphical user interface (GUI) and power profiling of WSN simulation as well. All these systems and environments are tailored towards design optimization of WSNs subject to functional correctness and energy conservation. Unfortunately, all these approaches lack self-contained support for energy harvesting systems (EHSs) which is the state of the art technique for tackling the energy conservation problem. Here, we present the design and implementation of a self-contained X-in-the-loop approach. TOSPIE2 is an Eclipse plug-in that integrates TOS2 installation and compilation support, power profiles and EHS efficiency in simulation and measurement.
A First Look at Certification Authority Authorization (CAA)

Shaken by severe compromises, the Web’s Public Key Infrastructure has seen the addition of several security mechanisms over recent years. One such mechanism is the Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) DNS record, that gives domain name holders control over which Certification Authorities (CAs) may issue certificates for their domain. First defined in RFC 6844, adoption by the CA/B forum mandates that CAs validate CAA records as of September 8, 2017. The success of CAA hinges on the behavior of three actors: CAs, domain name holders, and DNS operators. We empirically study their behavior, and observe that CAs exhibit patchy adherence in issuance experiments, domain name holders configure CAA records in encouraging but error-prone ways, and only six of the 31 largest DNS operators enable customers to add CAA records. Furthermore, using historic CAA data, we uncover anomalies for already-issued certificates. We disseminated our results in the community. This has already led to specific improvements at several CAs and revocation of mis-issued certificates. Furthermore, in this work, we suggest ways to improve the security impact of CAA. To foster further improvements and to practice reproducible research, we share raw data and analysis tools.
Analyzing the landscape of a graph based hyper-heuristic for timetabling problems

Hyper-heuristics can be thought of as "heuristics to choose heuristics". They are concerned with adaptively finding solution methods, rather than directly producing a solution for the particular problem at hand. Hence, an important feature of hyper-heuristics is that they operate on a search space of heuristics rather than directly on a search space of problem solutions. A motivating aim is to build systems which are fundamentally more generic than is possible today. Understanding the structure of these heuristic search spaces is therefore, a research direction worth exploring. In this paper, we use the notion of fitness landscapes in the context of constructive hyper-heuristics. We conduct a landscape analysis on a heuristic search space conformed by sequences of graph coloring heuristics for timetabling. Our study reveals that these landscapes have a high level of neutrality and positional bias. Furthermore, although rugged, they have the encouraging feature of a globally convex or big valley structure, which indicates that an optimal solution would not be isolated but surrounded by many local minima. We suggest that using search methodologies that explicitly exploit these features may enhance the performance of constructive hyper-heuristics.
Robust extraction of face candidate through segmentation and conditional merging in skin area

In the face detection, using skin color information can reduce the search range for a face candidate. However, in a complex scene, the face detection based on using skin color failed when it deals with skin color area including similar color background, overlapping faces and factual face divided into multi areas. The aim of this work is focus on robust extraction of face candidate for face detection system. Firstly, the areas of skin in the input image are detected by the skin color classifier, holes filter, and morphological operations. Secondly, it uses image segmentation technique to divide a skin area into the homogeneous regions. Finally, it extracts a valid face candidate from the segments in the area by using conditional merging with the aspect ratio of frontal face. The proposed face candidate extraction method is applied to a face detection system and tested on various color images. The experimental result shows that the face detection rate of our proposed method is higher than other face candidate extraction methods in the same face detection system.
Controlling Mixture Component Overlap for Clustering Algorithms Evaluation 1

This paper presents two algorithms for generating artificial mixtures of univariate normal densities with controlled component overlap. Such mixtures are used basically as test benchmarks for the evaluation of clustering algorithms. Although the algorithms are different, they are based on the same definition. Both algo- rithms use formal methods to ensure the generation of "non totally overlapped" mixtures, in contrast to algo- rithms in the literature which generally use ad-hoc methods to control the overlap. For this purpose, the overlap is assumed to affect only two adjacent components of the mixture. Three configurations are defined: the "max- imum overlap" beyond which two components are considered to be totally merged, the "minimum overlap" beyond which two components are considered "nonoverlapped", and the "rate of overlap", denoted by λ (0 < λ ≤ 1), which defines a given overlap between the maximum and the minimum. Both algorithms presented in this paper are, then, designed to generate mixtures that control these overlap configurations. The first algorithm uses the width of components to control the overlap, while the second uses the mean. The first algorithm allows a better control over the boundaries of the generated mixture, but involves complex relations. It has been used to generate unidimensional mixtures to approximate image histograms. The second algorithm involves less complex relations, and allows one to control the rate of overlap. The reason for controlling the rate of overlap is to generate artificial mixtures constituting a given degree of difficulty. Indeed, the greater the rate of overlap, the more complex the mixture. Both algorithms allow the generation of mixtures with any number of compo- nents.
Music, Health, Technology and Design

Contents ------ Foreword / Natasha Barrett. - Editor’s foreword. - Designing four generations of ‘Musicking Tangibles’ / Birgitta Cappelen and Anders-Petter Andersson. - Vocal and tangible interaction in RHYME / Anders-Petter Andersson and Birgitta Cappelen. - An interactive technology for health: New possibilities for the field of music and health and for music therapy? A case study of two children with disabilities playing with ‘ORFI’ / Karette Stensaeth and Even Ruud. - Potentials and challenges in interactive and musical collaborations involving children with disparate disabilities. A comparison study of how Petronella, with Down syndrome, and Dylan, with autism, interact with the musical and interactive tangible ‘WAVE’ / Karette Stensaeth. - ‘Come sing, dance and relax with me! ’. Exploring interactive ‘health musicking’ between a girl with disabilities and her family playing with ‘REFLECT’ (A case study) / Karette Stensaeth. - ‘FIELD AND AGENT’: Health and characteristic dualities in the co-creative, interactive and musical tangibles in the RHYME project / Ingelill Eide. - Health affordances of the RHYME artefacts / Even Ruud. - PARTICIPATION: A combined perspective on the concept from the fields of informatics and music and health / Karette Stensaeth, Harald Holone, and Jo Herstad. - From experimental music technology to clinical tool / Alexander Refsum Jensenius. - Technology and clinical improvisation – from production and playback to analysis and interpretation / Jaakko Erkkila, Esa Ala-Ruona, and Olivier Lartillot. - Using electronic and digital technologies in music therapy: the implications of gender and age for therapists and the people with whom they work / Wendy L. Magee. - Author information
Blind speech separation based on undecimated wavelet packet-perceptual filterbanks and independent component analysis

In this paper, we address the problem of blind separation of speech mixtures. We propose a new blind speech separation system, which integrates a perceptual filterbank and independent component analysis (ICA) and using kurtosis criterion. The perceptual filterbank was designed by adjusting undecimated wavelet packet decomposition (UWPD) tree in order to accord to critical band characteristics of psycho-acoustic model. Our proposed technique consists on transforming the observations signals into an adequate representation using UWPD and Kurtosis maximization criterion in a new preprocessing step in order to increase the non-Gaussianity which is a pre-requirement for ICA. Experiments were carried out with the instantaneous mixture of two speech sources using two sensors. The obtained results show that the proposed method gives a considerable improvement when compared with FastICA and other techniques.
Asian American Public Relations Practitioners' Perspectives on Diversity

ABSTRACT Shifting demographics in the United States imply growing diversity in the marketplace and create unprecedented demand for professionals capable of communicating strategically with diverse publics. In spite of diversity efforts in mass communication, public relations faces difficulties in attracting ethnic minorities. This study explores this lack of diversity through the lens of Asian American public relations practitioners in the United States, a population that is underrepresented in the field of public relations despite being the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. In-depth interviews with Asian American practitioners reveal a perceived lack of diversity in public relations, attributed to lack of interest in public relations within Asian American communities, limited knowledge about the industry and opportunities for ethnic minorities, family influence to pursue other professions, and cultural expectations for Asian American professionals to attain leadership roles, which are scarce for ethnic minorities in public relations. Based on these findings, we recommend educating Asian American communities about the management function of public relations, framing it as a social science with emphasis on research and strategic planning, and increasing recruitment of Asian American students in public relations education to provide them with training and education necessary to succeed in the field.