Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Over-tube apparatus for increasing the capabilities of an articulated robotic probe

This video elaborates on a new active and controllable over-tube addition to the highly articulated robotic probe; the HARP. This over-tube allows the current HARP mechanism to double its overall length and allows it to perform more complex tasks. We explain the design concept of the current HARP and the novel over-tube mechanism and show two proof-of-concept experiments demonstrating the use of the active over-tube.
Distributed estimation and tracking for radio environment mapping

We study distributed estimation and tracking for radio environment mapping (REM). Comparing to existing REM using centralized methods, we provide a distributed solution eliminating the central station for map construction. Based on the random field model of the REM with shadow fading effects, we adopt consensus-based Kalman filter to estimate and track the temporal dynamic REM variation. The unknown parameters of REM temporal dynamics are estimated by a distributed Expectation Maximization algorithm that is incorporated with Kalman filtering. Our approach features distributed Kalman filtering with unknown system dynamics, and achieves dynamic REM recovery without localizing the transmitter. Simulation results show satisfactory performances of the proposed method where spatial correlated shadowing effects are successfully recovered.
Finite-element analysis of the frequency response of a metallic cantilever coupled with piezoelectric transducer

This paper is devoted to modeling the dynamic response of an electromechanical system consisting of a piezoelectric transducer glued on part of the upper surface of a metallic cantilever. The piezo works both as vibration sensor and as actuator, and the system is the basis of many vibration-control devices of current interest. A three-dimensional (3D) finite-element method (FEM) model that reproduces the physical system is proposed, and its advantages with respect to an analytical approach and to one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) FEM models are discussed. In sensor mode, the frequency response in terms of the voltage at the electrodes is drawn; while in actuator mode, the frequency response of acceleration and displacement at the free end of the cantilever is calculated. The 3D model has been verified through the comparison with the results from the experiment carried out at the University of L'Aquila, Italy. Furthermore, experimental inaccessible quantities such as stresses at the piezo-cantilever interface are computed in both modes as a preliminary step in the study of delamination phenomena and their impact on the performance of the system in vibration-control applications.
Surfing on artistic documents with visually assisted tagging

This paper describes a complete architecture for the interactive exploration and annotation of artistic collections. In particular the focus is on Renaissance illuminated manuscripts, which typically contain thousands of pictures, used to comment or embellish the manuscript Gothic text. The final aim is to create a human centered multimedia application allowing the non practitioners to enjoy these masterpieces and expert users to share their knowledge. The system is composed by a modern user interface for browsing, surfing and querying, an automatic segmentation module, to ease the initial picture extraction task, and a similarity based retrieval engine, used to provide visually assisted tagging capabilities. A relevance feedback procedure is included to further refine the results. Experiments are reported regarding the adopted visual features based on covariance matrices and the Mean Shift Feature Space Warping relevance feedback. Finally some hints on the user interface for museum installations are discussed.
Projection of an Immunological Self Shadow Within the Thymus by the Aire Protein

Humans expressing a defective form of the transcription factor AIRE (autoimmune regulator) develop multiorgan autoimmune disease. We used aire- deficient mice to test the hypothesis that this transcription factor regulates autoimmunity by promoting the ectopic expression of peripheral tissue– restricted antigens in medullary epithelial cells of the thymus. This hypothesis proved correct. The mutant animals exhibited a defined profile of autoimmune diseases that depended on the absence of aire in stromal cells of the thymus. Aire-deficient thymic medullary epithelial cells showed a specific reduction in ectopic transcription of genes encoding peripheral antigens. These findings highlight the importance of thymically imposed “central” tolerance in controlling autoimmunity.
Photometric redshifts in the Hubble Deep Fields: evolution of extinction and the star formation rate

Photometric redshifts are studied with a template approach using data from the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) North and South. The problem of aliasing in photometric redshift estimates is investigated in some detail and found not to be a significant problem if at least four photometric bands are available. The performance of the approach presented here appears to exceed that of others in the literature. The rms accuracy of the photometric redshifts is 9.6 per cent in (1 + z), with a 1.5 per cent chance of a significant alias when four or more photometric bands are used. With reasonable restrictions, it is possible to determine the dust extinction as well as the photometric redshift, provided five or more photometric bands are available. An important result is that evolution of (A V (z)) with redshift is seen, with higher values than locally at z = 0.5-1.5, and lower values at z > 2. This is consistent with current models for the star formation history of the Universe. Deconvolving the ultraviolet-to-infrared (UV-to-IR) spectral energy distributions (seds) into an old-star and young-star component allows the determination of M * and M * for each galaxy, as well as z p h o t and A V , provided that infrared photometric bands are available. The expected trend of b = M * /M * t 0 increasing to the past is seen. There is, however, a great deal of scatter in the relation between b and sed type, showing that the recent star formation history is not very well correlated with the long-term history of a galaxy. The 2800-A luminosity function and star formation rate are calculated for a large sample of HDF-N (2490) and HDF-S (28 719) galaxies, using photometric redshifts, for the redshift range 0.2-5. The star formation rates agree reasonably well with those from a variety of other UV, Ha, IR and submillimetre estimates, and with star formation histories used to model optical, IR and submillimetre source counts.
Kernel Enhanced Informative Gabor Features for Face Recognition

A discriminative and robust feature -Kernel enhanced informative Gabor feature is proposed in this paper for face recognition. Mutual information is applied to select a set of informative and non-redundant Gabor features, which are then further enhanced by Kernel methods for recognition. When compared with an approach using the downsampled Gabor features, our methods introduce advantages on computation, memory cost and accuracy. The proposed method has also been fully tested on the FERET database according to the evaluation protocol, significant improvements on the test set is observed. Compared with the classical Gabor feature extraction approach using complex convolution process, our method requires less than 4ms to retrieve a few hundreds of features. Due to the substantially reduced feature dimension, only 4 seconds are required to recognize 200 face images.
Deciphering Interplay between Salmonella Invasion Effectors

Bacterial pathogens have evolved a specialized type III secretion system (T3SS) to translocate virulence effector proteins directly into eukaryotic target cells. Salmonellae deploy effectors that trigger localized actin reorganization to force their own entry into non-phagocytic host cells. Six effectors (SipC, SipA, SopE/2, SopB, SptP) can individually manipulate actin dynamics at the plasma membrane, which acts as a ‘signaling hub’ during Salmonella invasion. The extent of crosstalk between these spatially coincident effectors remains unknown. Here we describe trans and cis binary entry effector interplay (BENEFIT) screens that systematically examine functional associations between effectors following their delivery into the host cell. The results reveal extensive ordered synergistic and antagonistic relationships and their relative potency, and illuminate an unexpectedly sophisticated signaling network evolved through longstanding pathogen–host interaction.
A Variation-Aware TED-Based Approach for Nano-CMOS RTL Leakage Optimization

— As the CMOS technology scales down to nanometer regime the process variations have profound effect on circuit attributes. Meeting timing and power constraints under such process variations in nano−CMOS circuit design is becoming increasingly difficult. A shifting from worst-case based analysis and optimization to statistical or probability based analysis and optimization at every level of circuit abstraction has happened. This paper presents a Taylor Expansion Diagram (TED) based approach for statistical optimization during high-level synthesis (HLS). A variation-aware simultaneous scheduling and resource binding algorithm is proposed which maximizes the power yield under timing yield and performance constraint. For this purpose, a multiple-oxide thickness (multi −T ox ) library at 45nm CMOS is characterized under process variation. The delay and power distribution of different functional units are accurately analyzed. The proposed variation-aware algorithm uses those components for generating low-power register-transfer level (RTL) descriptions under a given timing yield and performance constraint. The experimental results show significant improvement as high as 95% on leakage power yield under given constraints.
Distribution functions of selection combiner output in equally correlated Rayleigh, Rician, and Nakagami-m fading channels

We develop a novel approach to derive the cumulative distribution functions (cdfs) of the selection-combining (SC) output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in equally correlated Rayleigh, Ricean, and Nakagami-m fading channels. We show that a set of equally correlated channel gains can be transformed into a set of conditionally independent channel gains. Single-fold integral expressions are, therefore, derived for the cdfs of the SC output SNR. Infinite series representations of the output cdfs are also provided. New expressions are applied to analyze the average error rate, the outage probability, and the output statistics of SC. Numerical and simulation results that illustrate the effect of fading correlation on the performance of L-branch SC in equally correlated fading channels are provided.
Salary Disparities Between Male and Female Head Coaches: An Investigation of the NCAA Power Five Conferences

Coaching salaries within intercollegiate athletics have increased tremendously over the past decade. This has led to continued and increased criticisms of current gender constructs within the NCAA and specifically the way in which coaches are compensated. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether gender was a significant predictor of compensation for basketball coaches of men's and women's programs at the Division I level, while also assessing a variety of revenue and productivity variables. Results indicated that gender was not a statistically significant predictor of compensation. Rather, a host of revenue-specific variables were found to be the primary drivers of compensation for both male and female coaches.
Debugging User Conceptions of Interpretation Processes

The use of high level declarative languages has been advocated since they allow problems to be expressed in terms of their domain facts, leaving details of execution to the language interpreter. While this is a significant advantage, it is frequently difficult to learn the procedural constraints imposed by the interpreter. Thus, declarative failures may arise from misunderstanding the implicit procedural content of a program. This paper argues for a constructive approach to identifying poor understanding of procedural interpretation, and presents a prototype diagnostic system for Prolog.
Proxy-based sliding mode control for accurate and safe position control

High-gain PID position control, which is widely used with industrial robots, involves some risks in cases of abnormal events, such as unexpected environment contacts and temporal power failures. This paper proposes a new position control method to achieve both accurate, responsive tracking during normal operation and smooth, overdamped recovery from a large positional error after abnormal events. The proposed method, which we call proxy-based sliding mode control, is a modified version of sliding mode control adapted to discrete-time systems, and also is an extension of PID control. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated through experiments
The nature of the X-ray flash of August 24 2005 Photometric evidence for an on-axis z = 0.83 burst with continuous energy injection and an associated supernova?

Aims. Our aim is to investigate the nature of the X-Ray Flash (XRF) of August 24, 2005. Methods. We present comprehensive photometric R -band observations of the fading optical afterglow of XRF 050824, from 11 min to 104 days after the burst. In addition we present observations taken during the first day in the $\it BRIK$ bands and two epochs of spectroscopy. We also analyse available X-ray data. Results. The R -band lightcurve of the afterglow resembles the lightcurves of long duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), i.e., a power-law, albeit with a rather shallow slope of $\alpha=0.6$ ($F_{\nu} \propto t^{-\alpha}$). Our late R -band images reveal the host galaxy. The rest-frame B -band luminosity is ~$0.5~L^{*}$. The star-formation rate as determined from the [O II] emission line is ~$1.8~M_{\odot}$ yr -1 . When accounting for the host contribution, the slope is $\alpha=0.65$ ± 0.01 and a break in the lightcurve is suggested. A potential lightcurve bump at 2 weeks can be interpreted as a supernova only if this is a supernova with a fast rise and a fast decay. However, the overall fit still shows excess scatter in the lightcurve in the form of wiggles and bumps. The flat lightcurves in the optical and X-rays could be explained by a continuous energy injection scenario, with an on-axis viewing angle and a wide jet opening angle ($\theta_j \ga {10}^\circ$). If the energy injections are episodic this could potentially help explain the bumps and wiggles. Spectroscopy of the afterglow gives a redshift of $z=0.828$ ± 0.005 from both absorption and emission lines. The spectral energy distribution (SED) of the afterglow has a power-law ($F_{\nu} \propto \nu ^{-\beta}$) shape with slope ${\beta}=0.56$ ± 0.04. This can be compared to the X-ray spectral index which is ${\beta_{\rm X}}=1.0$ ± 0.1. The curvature of the SED constrains the dust reddening towards the burst to $A_{\rm v}<0.5$ mag.
Novel Hierarchical Fall Detection Algorithm Using a Multiphase Fall Model

Falls are the primary cause of accidents for the elderly in the living environment. Reducing hazards in the living environment and performing exercises for training balance and muscles are the common strategies for fall prevention. However, falls cannot be avoided completely; fall detection provides an alarm that can decrease injuries or death caused by the lack of rescue. The automatic fall detection system has opportunities to provide real-time emergency alarms for improving the safety and quality of home healthcare services. Two common technical challenges are also tackled in order to provide a reliable fall detection algorithm, including variability and ambiguity. We propose a novel hierarchical fall detection algorithm involving threshold-based and knowledge-based approaches to detect a fall event. The threshold-based approach efficiently supports the detection and identification of fall events from continuous sensor data. A multiphase fall model is utilized, including free fall, impact, and rest phases for the knowledge-based approach, which identifies fall events and has the potential to deal with the aforementioned technical challenges of a fall detection system. Seven kinds of falls and seven types of daily activities arranged in an experiment are used to explore the performance of the proposed fall detection algorithm. The overall performances of the sensitivity, specificity, precision, and accuracy using a knowledge-based algorithm are 99.79%, 98.74%, 99.05% and 99.33%, respectively. The results show that the proposed novel hierarchical fall detection algorithm can cope with the variability and ambiguity of the technical challenges and fulfill the reliability, adaptability, and flexibility requirements of an automatic fall detection system with respect to the individual differences.
Sphere eversions and realization of mappings

P. M. Akhmetiev used a controlled version of the stable Hopf invariant to show that any (continuous) map N → M between stably parallelizable compact n-manifolds, n 6 1, 2, 3, 7, is realizable in R 2n , i.e. the composition of f with an embedding M ⊂ R 2n is C 0 -approximable by embeddings. It has been long believed that any degree 2 map S 3 → S 3 , obtained by capping off at infinity a time-symmetric (e.g. Shapiro’s) sphere eversion S 2 ×I → R 3 , was non-realizable in R 6 . We show that there
Run-length variability of two-stage multiple comparisons with the best for steady-state simulations and its implications for choosing first-stage run lengths

We analyze the asymptotic behavior of two-stage procedures for multiple comparisons with the best (MCB) for comparing the steady-state means of alternative systems using simulation. The two procedures we consider differ in how they estimate the variance parameters of the alternatives in the first stage. One procedure uses a consistent estimator, and the other employs an estimator based on one of Schruben¿s standardized time series (STS) methods. While both methods lead to mean total run lengths that are of the same asymptotic order of magnitude, the limiting variability of the run lengths is strictly smaller for the method based on a consistent variance estimator. We also provide some analysis showing how to choose the first-stage run length.
Preface Learning Management Systems: an Overview

Over the last two decades, the landscape of higher education changed considerably, with more and more resources spent on technology supporting both face-to-face and distance learning educational models. This trend is influenced, to a large extent, by the tremendous growth of online learning, due to the unique role played by computer-related technologies for online course delivery and associated activities including technical support. Nowadays, online courses are offered not only by 'pure' online educational institutions but also by traditional schools. According to the research by Allen and Seaman (2008) prepared for the recent Sloan Report, in the United States more than " twenty percent of all U.S. higher education students … [or] over 3.9 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2007 term; a 12-percent increase over the number reported the previous year " (p. 1). Moreover, distance learning courses are currently being offered not only to incoming college students and adult learners but also to K-12 students, increasingly covering practically all population groups from children to mature adults. We can expect that the recent economic downturn in the United States (and across the globe) will make a further positive impact on online enrollment due to rising fuel costs and rapid occupational shifts in the job market. It is important to emphasize that the term distance learning can be applied either to pure online course offerings, where 100 percent of course content is delivered online, or to courses with only some of the content delivered online. The latter include blended or hybrid courses as well as traditional courses supported by Web-based content. Thus, there is no universal consensus on the use of terminology related to online forms of course delivery. For example, the Sloan Report quoted above considers online courses as " those in which at least 80 percent of the course content is delivered online " (p. 4). While courses supported by online content can rely on commonly used multiple Web-enabled technologies , such as e-mail and instant messaging for communication between instructors and students or static Web content for displaying syllabi and course announcements, all Web-based and Web-supported forms of course delivery increasingly use specialized educational technologies called learning management systems (LMS) or course management systems (CMS). These technologies are widely used not only for 'online' course delivery but also for computerized support of traditional courses, as more and more students expect at least …
Head Pose Estimation Using Sparse Representation

This paper proposes a novel method using sparse representation to improve the performance of head pose estimation. Sparse Representation Classifier (SRC) has been applied in face recognition and the related problem. In this paper, we first argue that SRC is efficient in head pose estimation. Then we propose the Block based Spare Representation Classifier (BSRC) method to reduce the influence of the background in the multi-view face images. The motivation of BSRC is that since the face shapes are different for the discretional head poses, the background in the multi-view face image is difficult to be eliminated by the traditional ways, such as feature extraction. As a result, the features of the multi-view face contain the noise of the background, which caused the descend of the performance of head pose estimation. In this paper, a face region is transformed into many images with the different blocks are discarded based on the assume that the block maybe the background at the specifically pose. By this way, there is an image in which the influence of the background can be reduced greatly. Specifically, SRC is applied on each image and the final class label of the input face region is decided by maximizing of Sparsity Concentration Index~(SCI). The experimental results on the head pose database show the effectiveness of BSRC.
Analysis and Design of I/Q Charge-Sharing Band-Pass-Filter for Superheterodyne Receivers

A complex quadrature charge-sharing (CS) technique is proposed to implement a discrete-time band-pass filter (BPF) with a programmable bandwidth of 20-100 MHz. The BPF is part of a cellular superheterodyne receiver and completely determines the receiver frequency selectivity. It operates at the full sampling rate of up to 5.2 GHz corresponding to the 1.2 GHz RF input frequency, thus making it free from any aliasing or replicas in its transfer function. Furthermore, the advantage of CS-BPF over other band-pass filters such as N-path, active-RC, Gm-C, and biquad is described. A mathematical noise analysis of the CS-BPF and the comparison of simulations and calculations are presented. The entire 65 nm CMOS receiver, which does not include a front-end LNTA for test reasons, achieves a total gain of 35 dB, IRN of 1.5 nV/√(Hz), out-of-band IIP3 of +10 dBm. It consumes 24 mA at 1.2 V power supply.