Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Natural use profiles for the pen: an empirical exploration of pressure, tilt, and azimuth

Inherent pen input modalities such as tip pressure, tilt and azimuth (PTA) have been extensively used as additional input channels in pen-based interactions. We conducted a study to investigate the natural use profiles of PTA, which describes the features of PTA in the course of normal pen use such as writing and drawing. First, the study reveals the ranges of PTA in normal pen use, which can distinguish pen events accidently occurring in normal drawing and writing from those used for mode switch. The natural use profiles also show that azimuth is least likely to cause false pen mode switching while tip pressure is most likely to cause false pen mode switching. Second, the study reveals correlations among various modalities, indicating that pressure plus azimuth is superior to other pairs for dual-modality control.
On the equivalence of database restructurings involving object identifiers (extended abstract)

The equivalence problem is studied for programs specifying queries and database restructurings in models using object identity. We use the family of ILOG langauges, which captures essential features of several data restructuring languages in the theoretical and applied literature, ~OG uses a mechanism based on Skolem frmct ors for ‘inventing” object identifiers (O IDS). Two notions of equivalence are articulated: under ezposed equivalence the Skolem terms forming new OIDS are exposed; under obscured equivalence these terms are “replaced” with “new”, uninterpreted OD)S. In general, e.g., if either negation or recursion is present, both forms of equivalence are undecidable. In the case of nrecILO G, which can be viewed as unions of conjunctive queries with OID creation, exposed equivalence is decidable. The decidability of obscured equivalence for nrecILOG remains open, but it is shown here to be decidable for a broad class of progr-, and for an additional special case. *This research supported in part by NSF grant IRI.8719875. Research by the tirst author also supported in part by NSF grant INT-8817874 and a grant born AT&T. Part of the research by the second author was performed while visiting the Computer Science Department of the University of Southern C alifomia. He was supported ifi part by Science Foundation Grant # 02760298 of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan, and a grad from Obase Consortium. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. Masatoshi Yoshikawa Department of Information and Communication Sciences Kyoto Sangyo University Kamigamo, Kits-ku, Kyoto 603 Japan yosikawa@kyot o-su.ac. jp
Barriers to Acceptance of Provider-Initiated Testing and Counseling among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Shenyang, China: A Cross-Sectional Study

A high prevalence of HIV infection is present among men who have sex with men (MSM) in China, but many people living with HIV or AIDS (PLWHs) are unaware of their HIV infection status. Provider-initiated HIV testing and counseling (PITC) is a streamlined model that can significantly enhance HIV detection and detect infections earlier. However, PITC has not yet been widely applied, and no studies have been conducted on MSM's attitudes towards PITC in China. In this study, a total of 438 MSM were recruited in Shenyang city. A multivariate logistic regression model showed that certain conditions made MSM more accepting of PITC: those who had attended VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) more than three times (odds ratio [OR]: 2.95, 95% CI: 1.36–6.37), those who considered PITC beneficial for family and friends (OR: 1.91, 95% CI: 1.25–2.92), those who obtained HIV/AIDS knowledge from brochures (OR: 2.52, 95% CI: 1.64–3.87), those who obtained HIV/AIDS knowledge from the Internet (OR: 1.66, 95% CI: 1.07–2.58), and those who were highly aware of their own risk of being infected with HIV (OR: 2.84, 95% CI: 1.37–5.91). To improve acceptance of PITC among MSM in China, stronger efforts are needed to lower the psychosocial barriers to receiving PITC, to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, and to encourage the extension of HIV testing.
Robust adaptive fuzzy filters output feedback control of strict-feedback nonlinear systems

Robust adaptive fuzzy filters output feedback control of strict-feedback nonlinear systems In this paper, an adaptive fuzzy robust output feedback control approach is proposed for a class of single input single output (SISO) strict-feedback nonlinear systems without measurements of states. The nonlinear systems addressed in this paper are assumed to possess unstructured uncertainties, unmodeled dynamics and dynamic disturbances, where the unstructured uncertainties are not linearly parameterized, and no prior knowledge of their bounds is available. In recursive design, fuzzy logic systems are used to approximate unstructured uncertainties, and K-filters are designed to estimate unmeasured states. By combining backstepping design and a small-gain theorem, a stable adaptive fuzzy output feedback control scheme is developed. It is proven that the proposed adaptive fuzzy control approach can guarantee the all the signals in the closed-loop system are uniformly ultimately bounded, and the output of the controlled system converges to a small neighborhood of the origin. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated by a simulation example and some comparisons.
Genomic rearrangement screening of the BRCA1 from seventy Iranian high-risk breast cancer families

Background: The second leading cause of cancer deaths in women is breast cancer. Germline mutations in susceptibility breast cancer gene BRCA1 increase the lifetime risk of breast cancer. Eighty-one large genomic rearrangements (LGRs) have been reported up to date in BRCA1 gene, and evaluation of these rearrangements helps with precise risk assessment in high-risk individuals. In this study, we have investigated LGRs in BRCA1 among Iranian high-risk breast cancer families. Materials and Methods: Seventy patients with breast cancer who were identified negative for point mutations or small deletions/insertions of BRCA1 gene were selected. Deletions and duplications of BRCA1 gene were evaluated using multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA). Results: Two deletions, deletion of exons 1A/1B-2 and exon 24, were detected in two patients with breast cancer. The former alteration was found in a woman with a strong family history of breast cancer while the latter one was detected in a woman with early onset of breast cancer. Conclusion: Although our data confirm that LGRs in BRCA1 comprise a relatively small proportion of mutations in hereditary breast cancer in the Iranian population, MLPA analysis might be considered for screening of LGRs in high-risk individuals. It is worth to note that our results are consistent with previous studies in various Asian and European countries.
Control of Exocytosis by Synaptotagmins and Otoferlin in Auditory Hair Cells

In pre-hearing mice, vesicle exocytosis at cochlear inner hair cell (IHC) ribbon synapses is triggered by spontaneous Ca2+ spikes. At the onset of hearing, IHC exocytosis is then exclusively driven by graded potentials, and is characterized by higher Ca2+ efficiency and improved synchronization of vesicular release. The molecular players involved in this transition are still unknown. Here we addressed the involvement of synaptotagmins and otoferlin as putative Ca2+ sensors in IHC exocytosis during postnatal maturation of the cochlea. Using cell capacitance measurements, we showed that Ca2+-evoked exocytosis in mouse IHCs switches from an otoferlin-independent to an otoferlin-dependent mechanism at postnatal day 4. During this early exocytotic period, several synaptotagmins (Syts), including Syt1, Syt2 and Syt7, were detected in IHCs. The exocytotic response as well as the release of the readily releasable vesicle pool (RRP) was, however, unchanged in newborn mutant mice lacking Syt1, Syt2 or Syt7 (Syt1−/−, Syt2−/− and Syt7−/− mice). We only found a defect in RRP recovery in Syt1−/− mice which was apparent as a strongly reduced response to repetitive stimulations. In post-hearing Syt2−/− and Syt7−/− mutant mice, IHC synaptic exocytosis was unaffected. The transient expression of Syt1 and Syt2, which were no longer detected in IHCs after the onset of hearing, indicates that these two most common Ca2+-sensors in CNS synapses are not involved in mature IHCs. We suggest that otoferlin underlies highly efficient Ca2+-dependent membrane-membrane fusion, a process likely essential to increase the probability and synchrony of vesicle fusion events at the mature IHC ribbon synapse.
The Georgetown Consortium Project: Interventions for Student Learning Abroad

The Georgetown Consortium Project derived from Georgetown University's Office of International Programs along with several partner institutions. The large-scale and multi-year study was developed to understand components about U.S. student learning abroad. Of the three broad conclusions, the study revealed significant relationships between independent variables representing learner characteristics and program features and the intercultural and target language learning of students abroad. This article presents an analysis that concentrates on this conclusion. The relationships between student learning and certain independent variables support the argument that students learn most effectively abroad given proactive learning interventions.
Prevention of denial of service attacks and selfishness in mobile ad hoc networks

Countermeasures against denial of service attacks and node misbehaviour are mandatory requirements in MANET. Essential network operations assuring basic connectivity can be heavily jeopardized by nodes that do not properly execute their share of the network operations. We suggest a security mechanism based on a collaborative monitoring technique that prevents active and passive denial of service attacks by enforcing node cooperation. This mechanism can be smoothly extended to basic network functions with little impact on existing protocols. We also investigate on some attacks scenarios in order to analyze the robustness of the proposed security scheme.
Fault M onitor ing and Restoration in Optical WDM Networ ks

Fault M onitor ing and Restoration in Optical WDM Networ ks Jian Wang, Laxman Sahasrabuddhe and Biswanath Mukher jee + Department of Applied Science, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA SBC, 2600 Camino Ramon, San Ramon, CA 94583, USA Department of Computer Science, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA + Correspondance Author: Tel: +1-530-752-5129, Fax: +1-530-752-4767, Email: jnwang@ucdavis.edu
Fast‐Rate Capable Electrode Material with Higher Energy Density than LiFePO4: 4.2V LiVPO4F Synthesized by Scalable Single‐Step Solid‐State Reaction

Use of compounds that contain fluorine (F) as electrode materials in lithium ion batteries has been considered, but synthesizing single‐phase samples of these compounds is a difficult task. Here, it is demonstrated that a simple scalable single‐step solid‐state process with additional fluorine source can obtain highly pure LiVPO4F. The resulting material with submicron particles achieves very high rate capability ≈100 mAh g−1 at 60 C‐rate (1‐min discharge) and even at 200 C‐rate (18 s discharge). It retains superior capacity, ≈120 mAh g−1 at 10 C charge/10 C discharge rate (6‐min) for 500 cycles with >95% retention efficiency. Furthermore, LiVPO4F shows low polarization even at high rates leading to higher operating potential >3.45 V (≈3.6 V at 60 C‐rate), so it achieves high energy density. It is demonstrated for the first time that highly pure LiVPO4F can achieve high power capability comparable to LiFePO4 and much higher energy density (≈521 Wh g−1 at 20 C‐rate) than LiFePO4 even without nanostructured particles. LiVPO4F can be a real substitute of LiFePO4.
Models of the Morphology, Kinematics, and Star Formation History of the Prototypical Collisional Starburst System NGC 7714/7715 = ARP 284

We present new N-body, hydrodynamical simulations of the interaction between the starburst galaxy NGC 7714 and its poststarburst companion NGC 7715, focusing on the formation of the collisional features, including (1) the gas-rich star-forming bridge, (2) the large gaseous loop (and stellar tails) to the west of the system, (3) the very extended H I tail to the west and north of NGC 7714, and (4) the partial stellar ring in NGC 7714. Our simulations confirm the results of earlier work that an off-center inclined collision between two disk galaxies is almost certainly responsible for the peculiar morphologies of this system. However, we have explored a wider set of initial galaxy and collisional encounter parameters than previously and have found a relatively narrow range of parameters that reproduce all the major morphologies of this system. The simulations suggest specific mechanisms for the development of several unusual structures. We find that the complex gas bridge has up to four distinct components, with gas contributed from two sides of NGC 7715, as well as from NGC 7714. The observed gas-star offset in this bridge is accounted for in the simulations by the dissipative evolution of the gas. The models suggest that the most recently formed gas bridge component from NGC 7715 is interacting with gas from an older component. This interaction may have stimulated the band of star formation on the north side of the bridge. The models also indicate that the low surface brightness H I tail to the far west of NGC 7714 is the end of the NGC 7715 countertail, curved behind the two galaxies. The sensitivity of the tidal structures to collision parameters is demonstrated by comparisons between models with slightly different parameter values. Comparison of model and observational (H I) kinematics provides an important check that the morphological matches are not merely fortuitous. Line-of-sight velocity and dispersion fields from the model are found to match those of the observations reasonably well at current resolutions. Spectral evolutionary models of the NGC 7714 core by Lançon et al. suggest the possibility of multiple starbursts in the last 300 Myr. Our hydrodynamic models suggest that bursts could be triggered by induced ringlike waves and a postcollision buildup of gas in the core of the galaxy.
Segregated receive and relay scheme for communication in wireless sensor networks

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a set of self-powered sensor nodes. These nodes are deployed in infrastructure less mode to collect the useful information from the environment and transmit it to the sink node. The significance of Wireless Sensor Networks has been evidenced in many applications like military areas, health monitoring and observation of earthquake etc. However, WSN has also some limitations including limited energy supply that leads to shorter life time of the network. Although numerous techniques have been proposed to improve the life time of sensor nodes, yet the large energy requirements for communication activities is still a serious issue. In this work, Segregated Receive and Relay (SRR) based routing scheme has been proposed to increase the lifetime of WSN. To achieve the purpose, relay nodes have been introduced in interior regions of the network area. The results confirm that proposed scheme significantly reduce the energy consumed by interior region nodes, which proves the usefulness of the proposed scheme in prolonging WSN lifetime.
Networks between markets and hierarchical structures: an agent based simulation framework

A remarkable amount of economic literature brings to our attention the fact that market is not the only result of the behaviour of agents, as we can find other forms of contact and communication. Many of them are determined by proximity conditions in some kind of space: in this paper we pay a particular attention to relational space, determined by the relationships between individuals or between firms.
{ 4 , 5 } is not coverable – a counterexample to Kaiser-Škrekovski conjecture

For a subset A of the set of positive integers, a graph G is called A-coverable if G has a cycle (a subgraph in which all vertex has even degree) which intersects all edge-cuts T in G with |T | ∈ A, and A is said to be coverable if all graph is A-coverable. As a possible approach to Dominating cycle conjecture, in [Cycles intersecting edge-cuts of prescribed sizes, SIAM J. Discrete Math. 22 (2008) 861– 874], Kaiser and Škrekovski conjectured that N+ 3 is coverable, where N+ 3 = {4, 5, 6, · · · }. In this paper, we disprove Kaiser and Škrekovski’s conjecture by showing that there exist infinitely many graphs which are not {4, 5}-coverable.
Detecting Eyes and Lips Using Neural Networks and SURF Features

In this chapter, the authors elaborate on the facial image segmentation and the detection of eyes and lips using two neural networks. The first neural network is applied to segment skin-colors and the second to detect facial features. As for input vectors, for the second network the authors apply speed-up robust features (SURF) that are not subject to scale and brightness variations. The authors carried out the detection of eyes and lips on two well-known facial feature databases, Caltech. and PICS. Caltech gave a success rate of 92.4% and 92.2% for left and right eyes and 85% for lips, whereas the PCIS database gave 96.9% and 95.3% for left and right eyes and 97.3% for lips. Using videos captured in real environment, among all videos, the authors achieved an average detection rate of 94.7% for the right eye and 95.5% for the left eye with a 86.9% rate for the lips DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-429-1.ch018
Resource Usage Protocols for Iterators

We discuss usage protocols for iterator objects that prevent concurrent modifications of the underlying collection while iterators are in progress. We formalize these protocols in Java-like object interfaces, enriched with separation logic contracts. We present examples of iterator clients and proofs that they adhere to the iterator protocol, as well as examples of iterator implementations and proofs that they implement the iterator interface.
A collaborative framework for privacy protection in online social networks

With the wide use of online social networks (OSNs), the problem of data privacy has attracted much attention. Several approaches have been proposed to address this issue. One of privacy management approaches for OSN leverages a key management technique to enable a user to simply post encrypted contents so that only users who can satisfy the associate security policy can derive the key to access the data. However, the key management policies of existing schemes may grant access to unaurhorized users and cannot efficiently determine authorized users. In this paper, we propose a collaborative framework which enforces access control for OSN through an innovative key management focused on communities. This framework introduces a community key management based on a new group-oriented convergence cryptosystem, as well as provides an efficient privacy preservation needed in a private OSN. To prove the feasibility of our approach, we also discuss a proof-of-concept implementation of our framework. Experimental results show that our construction can achieve the identified design goals for OSNs with the acceptable performance.
Do Mutual Funds Differ in Performance ? Evidence from Canadian Equity Funds

Mutual funds have experienced phenomenal growth in recent years. There are many reasons behind this development. Most important, mutual funds offer investors an opportunity to diversify their investment, a privilege which, up until very recently, was available only to large and institutional investors. Frequently firms selling mutual funds try to appeal to potential investors by advertising their three-year, five-year and even ten-year rates of return. To mutual fund investors, this sort of advertisement can be quite misleading. The period averages of this type mask the peaks and valleys in performance. A fund’s unit price, for instance, can quadruple in one year only to be followed by several years of marginal or even negative growth. Even in a situation like this, the fund can enjoy an exceptionally high period average. A more realistic picture of the fund’s performance is given by its year-to-year performance. This is not all, mutual fund firms very often claim to have scored better than others in the business. Some even go to the extent of claiming that they have outperformed the market. Not surprisingly, as the mutual fund business becomes more competitive, claims of superior performance are increasingly being made to attract clients. Notwithstanding the advantages of investing in mutual funds, claims of superior performance go counter to the efficient market hypothesis.1 According to this hypothesis, prices always fully reflect the intrinsic value of the underlying assets. Since each agent has ready access to all relevant information, no agent can do better than others in picking winners or predicting the market. A version of this efficient market hypothesis is contained in the theory of the random walks.2 The random walks theory recognizes that neither information gathering nor information processing is a perfect science. Thus, at any given point in time, price may diverge from the intrinsic value of an asset. But, because of randomness in the behaviour of prices, no agent can systematically benefit from following any rule or strategy. It also means that competition will ultimately equalize the marginal benefit of security research or stockpicking and the marginal cost of the research.3 One implication of an efficient market is that firms should pay less attention to analyzing securities or guessing the market and more to reducing the transaction costs and improving the service. The main objective of this article is to statistically test the validity of the claim of superior performance by the mutual fund firms. For reasons explained later, we have limited our analysis to funds specializing in Canadian equities. Since claims of superior performance are almost always made on the grounds of superior management, a one-factor analysis of variance has been chosen as the appropriate methodology. Section one presents some basic statistics pertaining to Canadian equity funds. The results of the analysis of variance tests are given in section two. Section three concludes.
Linking Recognition Accuracy and User Experience in an Affective Feedback Loop

In an affective feedback loop, the computer maps various measurements to affective variables such as enjoyment, then adapts its behavior based on the recognized affects. The affect recognition is never perfect, and its accuracy (percentage of times the correct affective state is recognized) depends on many factors. However, it is unclear how this accuracy relates to the overall user experience. As recognition accuracy is difficult to control in a real affective feedback loop, we describe a method of simulating recognition accuracy in a game where difficulty is increased or decreased after each round. The game was played by 261 participants at different simulated recognition accuracies. Participants reported their satisfaction with the recognition algorithm as well as their overall game experience. We observed that in such a game, the affective feedback loop must adapt game difficulty with an accuracy of at least 80 percent to be accepted by users. Furthermore, users who do not enjoy the game are likely to stop playing it rather than continue playing and report low enjoyment. However, the acceptable recognition accuracy may not generalize to other contexts, and studies of affect recognition accuracies in other applications are needed.