Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modeling and Controlling Friendliness for An Interactive Museum Robot

Advances in robotic technologies have enabled interactive robots to utilize humanlike social behaviors to interact with people in public places such as museums. While these behaviors have shown promise in engaging people, they have been designed and applied to users uniformly. Humans, however, behave differently according to their relationships with others. Behavioral changes, from neutral to friendly, contribute to the development of interpersonal relationships. Friendliness, in particular, plays an important role in the early development of a relationship. In this work, we explore how an interactive robot might nonverbally express a variety of friendly behaviors in a museum scenario. Four behavioral variables—response time, approach speed, individual distance, and attentiveness—contributing to perceived friendliness were modeled and implemented for the interactive museum robot. The results of our study showed that people perceived the differences in the designed robot behaviors and related those differences to the friendliness of the robot to varying degrees. This work serves as a building block toward the development of human-robot relationships and has implications on designing friendly behaviors for interactive robots.
A Review of the Empirical Literature on Meaningful Work: Progress and Research Agenda

Meaningful work is a topic of importance in core domains of human resource development (HRD) such as employee engagement, motivation, and personal development. However, there is little consensus over what comprises meaningful work or concerning the antecedent and outcome factors associated with meaningfulness. Prior theorizing has tended to conflate conceptual and empirical arguments, and hence, we lack clear insight into factors related to employees’ experience of meaningfulness. To address these gaps, we undertook an analysis of the empirical literature relating to meaningful work. In all, 71 studies met the inclusion criteria. We focused on the question, “What is the empirical evidence base concerning meaningful work, and how can this inform theory and practice in HRD? ” The synthesis revealed dominant trends alongside significant gaps in understanding. We highlight the practical implications of our analysis for the HRD field and propose avenues for future research on meaningfulness within HRD.
Visual Tracking Using Closed-Worlds

A new approach to tracking weakly modeled objects in a semantically rich domain is presented. We refer to our method as closed-world tracking. A closed-world is a space-time region of an image sequence in which the complete taxonomy of objects is known and in which all pixels can be explained as belonging to one of those objects. Given object information (and additional contex-tual information if available) context-specic features can be dynamically selected as the basis for tracking. A context-speciic feature is one that has been chosen based upon the context to maximize the chance of successful tracking between frames. Our work is motivated by the goal of video annotation { the semi-automatic generation of symbolic descriptions of action taking place in a dynamic scene. Common tracking techniques such as correlation, adaptive-templates, and de-formable models typically fail in situations where it is diicult to syntactically isolate an object (e.g. background subtraction), where the shape of an object may change dramatically from frame to frame, and where the behavior of an object is not smooth or predictable. We test our algorithm in the \football domain," a real video-annotation domain currently being annotated manually. We describe how closed-world analysis and context-speciic tracking can be applied to tracking football players and present the details of our implementation. We include tracking results based on hundreds of images that demonstrate the wide range of tracking situations the algorithm will successfully handle as well as a few examples of where the algorithm fails. 1 The problem In preparation for the playoo game next week, the head coach asks the Video Athletic Coordinator (VAC) for some compilation tapes. The tapes should contain every ooensive play over the last three years in which the ball is within the red zone, it is 2nd or 3rd down, there is more than 5 yards to go, and the team executed a either a sweep or a trap running play. The VAC types the necessary information into the computer, and a short while later hands the coach the separate computer-edited tapes he asked for. Video annotation is the task of generating descriptions of video sequences that can be used for indexing, retrieval, and summarization. It is diierent than conventional image understanding in that one is primarily interested in what is happening in a scene, as opposed to what is in the scene. Though the scenario above takes place today at universities with …
Managing Geospatial Linked Data in the GeoKnow Project

Within the GeoKnow project, various tools are developed and integrated which aim to simplify managing geospatial Linked Data on the web. In this article, we summarize the state of the art and describe the status of open geospatial data on the web. We continue by presenting the Linked Data Stack as technical underpinning of GeoKnow and give a first presentation of the platform providing a light-weight integration of those tools.
Comparative Study of Maximum Power Point Tracking Algorithms with DC-DC Converters for Solar PV System

This paper focuses on the comparative study of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm. It has been analysed with different combination of DC-DC converters. Due to poor efficiency of Photo voltaic (PV) systems some MPPT methods are proposed. All MPPT methods follow the same goal that is maximizing the PV system output power by tracking the maximum power on every operating condition. In this paper maximum power point tracking techniques (Incremental conductance, and perturb and observe) for photovoltaic systems were introduced to maximize the produced energy. These techniques vary in many aspects as: simplicity, convergence speed, digital or analogical implementation, sensors required, cost, range of effectiveness, and in other aspects. Incremental conductance algorithm is used to track the MPP because it performs precise control under rapidly changing atmospheric conditions.
3+1 formulation of non-ideal hydrodynamics

The equations governing dissipative relativistic hydrodynamics are formulated within the 3+1 approach for arbitrary spacetimes. Dissipation is accounted for by applying the theory of extended causal thermodynamics (IsraelStewart theory). This description eliminates the causality violating infinite signal speeds present in the conventional NavierStokes equation. The set of equations is specified to the astrophysically relevant case of stationary axisymmetric vacuum spacetimes, including the Kerr metric. The equations are also given in a simplified form suitable for applications where inertia due to the dissipative contributions is negligible.
Addiction and self-control

We explore the implications of self-control problems – formalized as a time-inconsistent taste for immediate gratification – for the consumption of harmful addictive products. We also examine the implications of whether a person is sophisticated – aware of future self-control problems – or naive – unaware of future self-control problems. Self-control problems make a person prone to over-consume addictive products, and in all environments a naive person does so. In stationary environments, where the temptation to consume depends on past consumption but not the specific date, sophistication exacerbates the tendency to get addicted. But in more realistic environments, where the temptation to consume varies over the course of a lifetime or from day to day, sophistication can make addiction less likely. Two models that allow the taste for immediate gratification itself to vary over time further suggest that sophistication can make addiction less likely. Finally, in part to emphasize the severe consequences for welfare analysis of completely ignoring self-control problems, we illustrate how the ‘‘incremental’’ nature of addictive activities can lead a person with relatively mild self-control problems to hurt herself severely.
A probabilistic mental model for estimating disruption

Adaptive software systems are intended to modify their appearance, performance or functionality to the needs and preferences of different users. A key bottleneck in building effective adaptive systems is accounting for the cost of disruption to a user's mental model of the application caused by the system's adaptive behaviour. In this work, we propose a probabilistic approach to modeling the cost of disruption. This allows an adaptive system to tradeoff disruption cost with expected savings (or other benefits) induced by a potential adaptation in a principled, decision-theoretic fashion. We conducted two experiments with 48 participants to learn model parameters in an adaptive menu selection environment. We demonstrate the utility of our approach in simulation and usability studies. Usability results with 8 participants suggest that our approach is competitive with other adaptive menus w.r. t. task performance, while providing the ability to reduce disruption and adapt to user preferences.
DYNAMIC AUCTIONS

Many important economic problems have been studied with the tools of auction theory and mechanism design more generally. Much of the literature, however, studies a static, one-time decision. In many problems of interest, more than a single decision needs to be made; rather, a sequence of decisions needs to be made. These decisions often depend crucially on the dynamic aspects of the environment. For example, in the classical airline revenue management problem, an airline must decide how to price seats on a flight in response to its changing inventory as well as to the evolution of the customer base. A search engine must choose how to allocate its advertising inventory in response to changing search queries and advertiser budgets. Network capacity (either bandwidth or computational resources) needs to be dynamically reallocated in response to the arrival of new computational tasks of varying priority. Private and public procurement agencies must decide how to assign new contracts in response to the changing experiences, competencies, and availabilities of contractors. The theory of auctions and mechanism design has been extremely successful in tackling a wide variety of problems. Unfortunately, solutions to static problems often do not translate directly to dynamic settings. Consider, for instance, the standard secondprice auction for a single object with private values. Buyers are asked to submit bids for
Optical packet networks : enabling innovative switching technologies

Large scale computer networks require fast and reliable data links in order to support growing web applications. As the number of interconnected servers and storage media increases, optical communications and routing technologies become interesting because of the high speed and small footprint of optical fiber links. Furthermore, optical packet switched networks (OPSN) provide increased flexibility in network management. Future networks are envisaged to be wavelength dependent routing, therefore OPSN will exploit tunable wavelength converters (WC) to enable contention resolution, reduce wavelength blocking in wavelength routing and switching, and provide dynamic wavelength assignment. Optical transmitters based on multi-wavelength sources are presented as an attrative solution compared to a set of single distributed feedback lasers in terms of cost, footprint and power consumption. Wavelength converters should support high bit rates and a variety of signal formats, have fast setup time, moderate input power levels and high optical signal-to-noise ratio at the output. Several wavelength conversion technologies have been demonstrated. The use of four wave mixing (FWM) in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) provides low input power levels, acceptable conversion efficiency and the possibility of photonic integration. SOAs therefore offer excellent trade-offs compared to other solutions. To achieve wide wavelength coverage and integrability, we use a dual pump scheme exploiting four-wave mixing in semiconductor optical amplifiers. For phase stability, we use a quantum-dash mode-locked laser (QD-MLL) as a multi-wavelength source for the dual pumps, with tunability provided by the frequency selective filter. We investigate the proposed wavelength converter and compare its performance of wavelength conversion for different non-return-to-zero (NRZ) intensity and phase modulation formats at different bit rates (10 and 40 Gbit/s). Bit error rate, conversion efficiency and optical signal-to-noise ratio measurements are reported. We demonstrate the possibility of tightly packed payload and label wavelength conversion at very high data baud rate over wide tuning range with good conversion efficiency. Our demonstration concentrates on conversion performance, hence continuous payload and label signals were used without gating into packets. Bit error measurements for both payload and label were performed.
Spisy: the Stereo Panoramic Imaging System

Ho-Chao Huang and Yi-Ping Hung Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC Email: jet@iis.sinica. edu.tw, hung@iis.sinica. edu.tw Abstract In this paper we propose the stereo panoramic imaging system, the SPISY, which can automatically generate stereo panoramas for virtual reality systems. Comparing with our previous version of stereo panoramic imaging system, the PSI-II[1], three new features are been added in the SPISY. The three new features are the disparity morphing, the aperture moderation and the view hopping. The disparity morphing compensates the image distortion caused by the moving of the camera. The aperture moderation generates balancedexposure views. The view hopping technique lets uses walk from one view node to another, and see the intermediate views during the walking path. By using these techniques, the SPISY can easily provide realistic 360-degree panoramic stereo views for image-based VR systems.
The use of the ketogenic diet in the treatment of epileptic encephalopathies

Epileptic encephalopathies(EE) are severe conditions characterized by paroxysmal activity on the electroencephalogram (EEG) that is often aggressive, seizures that are commonly multi-form and intractable, and severe cognitive and behavioral disturbances that present or worsen after the onset of epilepsy. The ketogenic diet (KD) has been shown to be effective in the treatment of refractory epileptic encephalopathies, and has been suggested as an early treatment option in very young children. Although the experience is often anecdotal and mostly consists of case reports and case series, the aim of this study was to present our own experience and an overview of the current literature on the diet in patients with EE. Some encephalopathies, such as epilepsy with myoclonic and atonic seizures, West syndrome, Dravet syndrome, or Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, are well recognized and known to have a good response to the ketogenic diet, while others are more rare or only recently identified, such as epilepsy with focal migrating seizures in infancy, febrile infection-related epilepsy syndrome, or myclonic status in non-progressive encephalopathy, about which little is known and the KD is only tried in sporadic cases. EE are typically refractory to the antiepileptic drugs and the KD should be considered earlier in the therapeutic scheme of these severe epileptic syndromes. The KD including the oral formula may be considered in all pediatric patients with EE even in infancy.
Wedge decomposition analysis: Application to SRES and post-SRES scenarios

We introduce a general methodology for displaying the gross assumptions behind any carbon emissions trajectory, relative to a reference trajectory, and we apply this methodology to a limited number of IPCC SRES scenarios [1]. These scenarios have been used widely for climate change analysis. We examine four scenarios (A1B, A2, B1, B2) together with three paired “post-SRES” scenarios [2, 3] that achieve CO2 stabilization at 550 ppm by 2100. Our analysis is guided by the concept of the “stabilization wedge” introduced in a recent paper by Pacala and Socolow [4], which measures the quantitative contributions of specific technologies and strategies over the next 50 years in units of 1 GtC/yr reductions in 2050. We find that autonomous carbon-emissions reduction activity in the SRES scenarios account for a large number of “virtual” wedges, ranging from 8 to 35 in 2050. Roughly half of the virtual wedges in each scenario is due to energy efficiency improvements and structural change in the economy; most of the remaining half is due to high penetrations of non-fossil energy technologies. Post-SRES scenarios require only 2 to 4 “real” wedges in 2050, accounted for largely by greater non-fossil energy, greater energy efficiency, and CO2 sequestration. Our results reveal that the SRES and post-SRES scenarios share a number of common assumptions. In particular we find that the baseline development path, i.e., the number of virtual wedges and “autonomous” trends in absence of any climate policies, play a central role in determining the mitigation effort needed for achieving climate stabilization.
Role of TRPM2 Channel in Mediating H2O2-Induced Ca2+ Entry and Endothelial Hyperpermeability

Oxidative stress through the production of oxygen metabolites such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) increases vascular endothelial permeability. H2O2 stimulates ADP-ribose formation, which in turn opens transient receptor potential melastatin (TRPM)2 channels. Here, in endothelial cells, we demonstrate transcript and protein expression of TRPM2, a Ca2+-permeable, nonselective cation channel. We further show the importance of TRPM2 expression in signaling of increased endothelial permeability by oxidative stress. Exposure of endothelial cell monolayers to sublytic concentrations of H2O2 induced a cationic current measured by patch-clamp recording and Ca2+ entry detected by intracellular fura-2 fluorescence. H2O2 in a concentration-dependent manner also decreased trans-monolayer transendothelial electrical resistance for 3 hours (with maximal effect seen at 300 &mgr;mol/L H2O2), indicating opening of interendothelial junctions. The cationic current, Ca2+ entry, and transendothelial electrical resistance decrease elicited by H2O2 were inhibited by siRNA depleting TRPM2 or antibody blocking of TRPM2. H2O2 responses were attenuated by overexpression of the dominant-negative splice variant of TRPM2 or inhibition of ADP-ribose formation. Overexpression of the full-length TRPM2 enhanced H2O2-mediated Ca2+ entry, cationic current, and the transendothelial electrical resistance decrease. Thus, TRPM2 mediates H2O2-induced increase in endothelial permeability through the activation of Ca2+ entry via TRPM2. TRPM2 represents a novel therapeutic target directed against oxidant-induced endothelial barrier disruption.
Hedging Performance and Multiscale Relationships in the German Electricity Spot and Futures Markets

We explore optimal hedge ratios and hedging effectiveness for the German electricity market. Given the increasing attention that wavelets received in the financial market, we concentrate on the investigation of the relationship, covariance/coherence evolution and hedge ratio analysis, on a time-frequency-scale approach (discrete and continuous), between electricity spot and futures. Simpler approaches are also used for comparison purposes like the naive, OLS and the dynamic multivariate GARCH model in order to account for risk reduction through hedging. Results allow us to conclude that: dynamic hedging strategies provide higher variance reductions in terms of hedging effectiveness; there is poor correlation among spot and futures, not being homogeneous across scales, which condition the effectiveness of the hedging strategy; the long-horizon hedge ratio does not converge to its long run equilibrium of one. Wavelets poor fit in variance reduction is attributed to low coherence and to statistical relationships between spot and futures electricity series. The instability found in various aspects of market comovements may imply serious limitations to the investor’s ability to exploit potential benefits from hedging with futures contracts in electricity markets. Moreover, much variation in the contemporaneous relationship among spot and futures may highlight inadequacy in assuming (short-term) relationships in both markets, which might account for the difficulty in achieving profitable active trading.
Measuring Inclusion in Political Life: A Framework for Analysis

Power-sharing, which purports to be an inclusive form of governance, has become an increasingly common mechanism for managing identity-based conflict. Yet, critics have claimed that such arrangements prioritize conflict-related issues and, as a result, marginalize identities not associated with the conflict. How ought inclusion be measured? Extending an analytical framework first developed by Yvonne Galligan and Sara Clavero to measure gender democracy in Europe, this article compares the extent of inclusion of women and minority ethnic identities in the Kosovo Assembly, which has institutional mechanisms guaranteeing the representation of both of those identities, and the Northern Ireland Assembly, which does not.
Licensing of Generic Medicines: Are There Any Challenges Left? A Pharmaceutical Regulatory Perspective

Abstract When an innovative product (innovator) is not covered anymore by intellectual property rights, cheaper equivalent medicinal products (generic products) may be marketed and used in clinical practice. The regulation of generic products is well-established, and is primarily based on standard rules for quality, therapeutic equivalence requirements (the latter in most instances proven through a bioequivalence study), and safety data for the innovator. The extensive experience from bringing generic products to the market over the last decades allows the conclusion that they are well-accepted and provide a useful alternative option for cost-effective pharmacotherapy. While supporting this conclusion, there are a number of issues to be considered during the assessment of a generic product application. Six scenarios are described in total, from an efficacy and a safety perspective, where potential concerns with the current regulatory standards could arise in the approval of generic products. We also propose solutions to these scenarios in order to foster debate on these issues.
Computational Cut-Ups: The Influence of Dada

abstract:Can a tool designed to detect dogs detect Dada? We apply a cutting-edge image analysis tool, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), to a collection of page images from modernist journals. This process radically deforms the images from cultural artifacts into lists of numbers. We determine whether the tool can distinguish Dada from other non-Dada avant-garde works, and in the process learn something about the cohesiveness of Dada as a visual form. We can also analyze the "mistakes" made in classifying Dada to search for the visual influence of Dada as a movement.