Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Four‐sheet structures of dayside field‐aligned currents: Statistical study

The present study investigates the statistical characteristics of four‐sheet structures of large‐scale field‐aligned currents (FACs) observed by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program‐F7 (DMSP‐F7) satellite in the dayside high‐latitude region. A total of 495 four‐FAC‐sheet events were selected from the entire set of DMSP‐F7 magnetometer data. With respect to the polarity of FACs, the selected events are classified into two groups, which are named type M and type W after the shape of a plot of the azimuthal magnetic component. The polarity of the equatorward most FAC is downward for the type M structure, whereas it is upward for the type W structure. Type W and type M events tend to take place in the prenoon and postnoon sectors, respectively, but the transition takes place slightly before noon. The type W structure tends to be observed for negative and positive interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) BY in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively. For a given hemisphere, the favorable sign of IMF BY for the type M structure is opposite to that for the type W structure. It is also found that both types occur more often when the IMF BZ is northward than when it is southward. The four‐sheet structure can be interpreted in terms of two zonal ionospheric convection flows separated in latitude. The equatorward one is a part of the viscous cell and, possibly, also the merging cell, whereas the poleward one is a part of the lobe cell. The direction (of the major cell) of the lobe convection is determined by the sign of IMF BY and is different in different hemispheres, explaining the discovered IMF BY dependence. The preference for northward IMF BZ is consistent with the required development of the lobe convection. It is inferred from the expected polar distribution of FACs that the four‐sheet structure is a superposition of a pair of midday region 0 and region 1 currents and a pair of conventional region 1 and region 2 currents.
Response of seismicity to static and dynamic stress changes induced by the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku‐Oki earthquake

A growing body of evidence indicates that many earthquakes are triggered by static and dynamic stress changes following large earthquakes. However, it has been difficult to differentiate the roles of static and dynamic stress transfer on earthquake triggering. Here we focus on two adjacent seismic clusters aligned E‐W beneath the Hida Mountain Range, central Japan, where spatially uniform static and dynamic stress changes resulted from the Tohoku‐Oki earthquake. The rate of seismicity in the western cluster, detected by the matched filter technique, showed a slight increase after the mainshock, which can be explained by static stress transfer. In contrast, seismicity in the eastern cluster showed a marked increase due to dynamic stress change. The difference in the number of triggered events between these clusters indicates that dynamic stress change is more important than the static one in terms of remote triggering, provided that large‐sized potential earthquake‐nucleation patches are close to failure.
Multiple sclerosis in Finland: incidence trends and differences in relapsing remitting and primary progressive disease courses

Objective: To compare the secular trends and geographical differences in the incidence of relapsing-remitting (RRMS) and primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) in Finland, and to draw inferences about aetiological differences between the two forms of the disease. Methods: New multiple sclerosis cases in southern Uusimaa and the western districts Vaasa and Seinäjoki of Finland in 1979–1993 were verified from hospital records and classified into RRMS and PPMS. Patients met the Poser criteria for definite multiple sclerosis or otherwise satisfied the criteria for PPMS. Disease course was categorised by the same neurologist. Crude and age adjusted incidence in 1979–1993 was estimated. Results: During 1979–1993 the age adjusted incidence was 5.1 per 100 000 person-years in Uusimaa, 5.2 in Vaasa, and 11.6 in Seinäjoki. The rates in Uusimaa remained stable, while a decrease occurred in Vaasa and an increase in Seinäjoki. Between 1979–86 and 1987–93 the incidence of PPMS increased in Seinäjoki from 2.6 to 3.7 per 105 and decreased in Vaasa from 1.9 to 0.2 per 105; the trends were similar for RRMS. Conclusions: There are significant differences in secular trends for multiple sclerosis incidence in Finland by geographical area, but these are similar for PPMS and RRMS. The recent changes point to locally acting environmental factors. The parallel incidence trends for RRMS and PPMS suggest similar environmental triggers for the two clinical presentations of multiple sclerosis.
Using Robots for the Study of Human Social Development

We built a child-like humanoid, Infanoid , and a small creature-like robot, Keepon , by which we investigate human social development, especially of interpersonal communication. The approach we take here includes (1) to implement on the robots psychological models of social development, (2) to observe how human children interact with the robots through various social actions like pointing at and showing objects. These two sides are complementary: ﬁndings from the observation will then be used for upgrading the robots’ structure and function, thus forming an elaboration cycle. This position paper introduces our research project, Epigenetic Robotics , in which we do both implementation and observation in order to provide a promising and productive ﬁeld of synergy for exploring the developmental mechanism of human communication.
Low Delay-Power Product Current-Mode Multiple Valued Logic for Delay-Insensitive Data Transfer Mechanism

Conventional delay-insensitive (DI) data encodings require 2N+1 wires for transferring N-bit. To reduce complexity and power dissipation of wires in designing a large scaled chip, a DI data transfer mechanism based on current-mode multiple valued logic (CMMVL), where N-bit data transfer can be performed with only N+1 wires, is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed data transfer mechanism is validated by comparisons with conventional data transfer mechanisms using dual-rail and 1-of-4 encodings through simulation at the 0.25-μm CMOS technology. Simulation results with wire lengths of 4mm or larger demonstrate that the CMMVL scheme significantly reduces delay-power product values of the dual-rail encoding with data rate of 5MHz or more and the 1-of-4 encoding with data rate of 18MHz or more.
Finding candidate spots for replica servers based on demand fluctuation

Many service providers distribute various kinds of content over the Internet. They often use replica servers to provide stable service. To position them appropriately, service providers must predict the demands for their services and provide computing capacity sufficient for servicing the demands. Unfortunately, predicting demands is difficult because demand for a service usually fluctuates. Our research group is developing ExaPeer, an infrastructure that apportions computing capacity to services running on hundreds or thousands of trusted machines all over the Internet. In this paper, we describe ExaPeer's approach to dynamically selecting candidate spots for replica servers. The runtime system in ExaPeer detects fluctuations in demand and then dynamically selects candidate spots on which replica servers should be placed to best meet the demand. Experimental results demonstrate that the candidate spots selected by ExaPeer work better than manually selected ones even if the scale of demand changes rapidly.
enabling cross-layer optimizations in storage systems with custom metadata

Today, several data-storage systems allow applications to create and manage custom metadata to improve data search and navigability in large scale storage systems. Our thesis is that, besides improving search and navigability, custom metadata can also serve as a two way communication mechanism between applications and the storage layer to enable cross-layer optimizations in a uniform, application-independent and incremental fashion.
Conceptual modeling for XML

XML is a popular format for data representation. As the amount of data represented in XML grows, it is necessary to concentrate on the process of modeling XML schemes of the XML representations. However, modeling the XML schemes on the level of XML schema languages, such as XML Schema, has some drawbacks. A natural idea to improve this situation is to model the XML schemes first on a conceptual level. It is motivated by the world of relational databases where the author also starts modeling the data first on a conceptual level. In this publication the focus lies on conceptual modeling for XML. The author starts with a motivating example to point out to several problems that can arise when using only XML schema languages for modeling XML schemes. It is discussed how modeling the data on conceptual level can help. Also, it is shown that conceptual modeling for XML has some specifics that should be taken into account by a conceptual model for XML. Mainly, this means that it is necessary to separate the conceptual modeling process in two parts. In the main part of the publication, the author introduces his own conceptual model for XML called XSEM that extends the Entity-Relationship model and takes into account the specifics identified in the previous parts of the text. The book is concluded with possible applications of the proposed model and the current and future work in the area.
The rtPA (alteplase) 0- to 6-hour acute stroke trial, part A (A0276g) : results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter study. Thromblytic therapy in acute ischemic stroke study investigators.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The Thrombolytic Therapy in Acute Ischemic Stroke Study, which started in August of 1991, was designed to assess the efficacy and safety of intravenous rtPA (alteplase) in patients with acute (0 to 6 hours) ischemic stroke. In October 1993 enrollment was halted because of Safety Committee (DMSB) concerns. In December 1993 the time window was changed to 0 to 5 hours, and it was decided to restart enrollment as a separate study (part B). We report here the results of the original study (part A), focusing on evaluating the safety and efficacy of rtPA given between 0 and 6 hours after stroke onset. METHODS This investigation was a phase II, placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized study utilizing 0.9 mg/kg IV rtPA or placebo over 1 hour, which was conducted at university and community sites in North America. Except for time to treatment, enrollment criteria were very similar to those of the NINDS rtPA stroke study. Primary efficacy end points were the number of patients with a decrease of 4 or more points on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) at 24 hours and day 30, along with infarct volume at day 30. Secondary end points included mortality and functional recoveries on the Barthel Index and Modified Rankin scale at days 30 and 90. RESULTS A total of 142 patients were enrolled at 42 sites in North America, including 22 <3 hours (15%) and 46 between 5 and 6 hours (32%). The groups were well matched on baseline characteristics, including NIHSS (mean of 13 for both). For the primary end points, a higher percentage of rtPA patients had a 4-point improvement at 24 hours (placebo 21%, rtPA 40%; P=0.02); however, this early effect was reversed by 30 days, with more placebo patients having a 4-point improvement (75%) than patients treated with rtPA (60%, P=0.05). Treatment with rtPA significantly increased the rate of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage within 10 days (11% versus 0%, P<0.01) and mortality at 90 days (23% versus 7%, P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS This study found no significant rtPA benefit on any of the planned efficacy end points at 30 and 90 days in patients treated between 0 and 6 hours after stroke onset. These negative results apply to patients treated after 3 hours, because only 15% of the patients were enrolled before 3 hours. The risk of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage was increased with rtPA treatment, particularly in patients treated between 5 and 6 hours after onset. These results do not support the use of intravenous rtPA for stroke treatment >3 hours after onset.
Mesh Animation Decomposition and Compression

With the development of advanced computer vision and tracking techniques, deformed mesh sequences can be soundly reconstructed by markerless performance capture [De Aguiar et al. 2008b; Vlasic et al. 2008; Vlasic et al. 2009; Stoll et al. 2010], or by motion capture with dense markers [Park and Hodgins 2006; De Aguiar et al. 2007]. With the maturity of these high-quality capture techniques, researchers in computer graphics community have also explored the concept of using example poses (i.e., a sequence of deformed mesh frames) for character skinning, rigging and animation, which has become increasingly practical and useful in entertainment practice. For example, proxy bones (or called bones for simplicity) and corresponding skinning weights can be automatically extracted from a set of example poses [James and Twigg 2005; Kavan et al. 2010; Le and Deng 2012], and the resulting bones and skinning weights can be potentially used for many applications including mesh animation compression, hardware-accelerated skinning animation, collision detection, animation editing, and so on [James and Twigg 2005; Kavan et al. 2010]. Furthermore, different from a set of disconnected proxy bones, a skeletal rigging model can also be automatically extracted from example poses [Schaefer and Yuksel 2007; Hasler et al. 2010; Le and Deng 2014]. Since the skeleton extracted from example poses is compatible with game engines and popular animation software such as Maya and Blender, it can be directly used for various animation editing, compression, and rendering applications, which could help to substantially reduce production cost in industry practice. In linear blend skinning (LBS) model (or cage-based deformation), the deformed position of a surface vertex is inﬂuenced by a set of bones (or control points). Often, the
Linking Images to Semantic Knowledge Base with User-generated Tags

Images account for an important part of Multimedia Linked Open Data, but currently most of the semantic relations between images and other entities are based on manual semantic annotation. With the popularity of image hosting websites, such as Flickr, plentiful tagging information of images makes it possible to automatically generate semantic relations between images and other semantic entities. In this paper, we propose a model for linking images to semantic knowledge base (KB) with user-generated tags of those images, while taking into account topical semantic similarity between tags. The experimental results show that our approach can effectively realize the mentioned aim.
Time Series Modeling with Hidden Variables and Gradient-Based Algorithms

We collect time series from real-world phenomena, such as gene interactions in biology or word frequencies in consecutive news articles. However, these data present us with an incomplete picture, as they result from complex dynamical processes involving unobserved state variables. Research on state-space models is motivated by simultaneously trying to infer hidden state variables from observations, as well as learning the associated dynamic and generative models. To address this problem, I have developed tractable, gradient-based methods for training Dynamic Factor Graphs (DFG) with continuous latent variables. DFGs consist of (potentially highly nonlinear) factors modeling joint probabilities between hidden and observed variables. My hypothesis is that a principled inference of hidden variables is achievable in the energy-based framework, through gradient-based optimization to find the minimum-energy state sequence given observations. This enables higher-order nonlinearities than graphical models. Maximum likelihood learning is done by minimizing the expected energy over training sequences with respect to the factors’ parameters. These alternated inference and parameter updates constitute a deterministic EM-like procedure. Using nonlinear factors such as deep, convolutional networks, DFGs were shown to reconstruct chaotic attractors, to outperform a time series prediction benchmark, and to successfully impute motion capture data in presence of occlusions. In a joint work with the NYU Plant Systems Biology Lab, DFGs have been subsequently employed to the discovery of gene regulation networks by learning the dynamics of mRNA expression levels. DFGs have also been extended into a deep auto-encoder architecture for time-stamped text documents, with word frequencies as inputs. I focused on collections of documents exhibiting temporal structure. Working as dynamic topic models, DFGs could extract latent trajectories from consecutive political speeches; applied to news articles, they achieved state-of-the-art text categorization and retrieval performance. Finally, I used DFGs to evaluate the likelihood of discrete sequences of words in text corpora, relying on dynamics on word embeddings. Collaborating with AT&T Labs Research on a project in speech recognition, we have improved on existing continuous statistical language models by enriching them with word features and long-range topic dependencies.
An exact effective stress law for elastic deformation of rock with fluids

The exact expressions for the effective stress 〈σij〉 and, in particular, pressure 〈P〉 that cause elastic strain of material with pore fluids are, assuming only that Hook's law is valid, 〈σij〉 = σij - αPδij and 〈P〉 = Pc - αPp, where α = 1 - (K/Ks), Pc and Pp are confining and pore pressures, and K and Ks are the bulk moduli of the rock and grain, respectively. The equation for 〈P〉 was first suggested by Geertsma (1957) and by Skempton (1960) on empirical grounds. The expression does not depend directly on porosity, but when pores vanish the effective pressure 〈P〉 equals the confining pressure Pc, because then K=Ks. Thus the strain of a porous solid with pore pressure can be completely determined from the elastic modulus of the solid without pore pressure, if the effective stress law in the equation for 〈σij〉 is used. The exact expression for the effective stress describes quite accurately the measured strains in sandstone and granite samples at confining and pore pressures to 2.5 kb. The results are not applicable to inelastic processes, such as fracture, or elastic processes other than strain.
Near-Optimal BRL using Optimistic Local Transitions

Model-based Bayesian Reinforcement Learning (BRL) allows a sound formalization of the problem of acting optimally while facing an unknown environment, i.e., avoiding the exploration-exploitation dilemma. However, algorithms explicitly addressing BRL suffer from such a combinatorial explosion that a large body of work relies on heuristic algorithms. This paper introduces BOLT, a simple and (almost) deterministic heuristic algorithm for BRL which is optimistic about the transition function. We analyze BOLT's sample complexity, and show that under certain parameters, the algorithm is near-optimal in the Bayesian sense with high probability. Then, experimental results highlight the key differences of this method compared to previous work.
Radar Interferometric Analysis of Mining Induced Surface Subsidence using Permanent Scatterers (45)

A restraining net launching device includes a planar restraining net which is tightly packed into a cylindrical shape having an outside portion. This restraining net, when planar or unfurled, includes a perimeter which is heavier than a remainder of the net. A launcher is provided in which the packed net is loaded, and from which the packed net is launched toward a target when desired. The launcher includes rifling which engages the outside portion of the packed net during launching. A source of propelling gas is used for propelling the tightly packed restraining net out of the launcher during launching. When the launching device is fired, the rifling of the launcher engages the outside portion of the packed restraining net to cause the tightly packed restraining net to rotate about the longitudinal axis and hence to unfurl after exiting the launcher with the heavier perimeter radially outermost.
Drug use, street survival, and risk behaviors among street children in Lahore, Pakistan

There are an estimated 3,500–5,000 street children living on the streets of Lahore, Pakistan. A disproportionate number of these children use drugs and engage in survival sex as coping mechanisms. Since August, 2003, Project Smile provides mobile social and health services to street children 6 days a week in selected neighborhoods. This study utilizes data from Project Smile registration data on the program’s initial clients (n=347). The study aimed to compare current, former, and nondrug users regarding their reasons for living on the streets, survival and coping mechanisms, and reasons for drug initiation. Of the total sample, 17.0% reported never having used drugs, 15.9% reported being former drug users, and 67.1% reported having used drugs in the month before registration. Participants were 96% boys with a median age of 13 years. The median length of living on the streets was 18 months, and 52.7% had ever been arrested by the police. Odd jobs, begging, and pickpocketing were the primary sources of reported income. Forty-eight percent reported ever having engaging in transactional sex, and 40% reported cutting themselves, primarily to cope with their anger. Variables that were significantly correlated with being a current drug user (vs. never) in the presence of other variables included: being 13 years or older [adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=3.0; 95% confidence interval (95% CI)=1.3–7.0]; reporting a daily income ≥Rs60 (AOR=2.7; 95% CI=1.1–6.4); having a history of arrest (AOR=3.3;95% CI=1.3–8.3); wanting to return home (AOR=0.3; 95% CI=0.1–0.8); feeling hatred from the public (AOR=5.1; 95% CI=2.0–12.9); ever exchanging sex for food, shelter, drugs, or money (AOR=3.4; 95% CI=1.3–8.9); and ever having cut themselves (AOR=15.4; 95% CI=3.4–70.7). Drug use is a major coping mechanism among street children in Lahore and is associated with many behaviors. Targeted programs are needed to meet their special needs.
Next-to-next-to-leading order soft gluon corrections in top quark hadroproduction

We calculate next-to-next-to-leading order soft-gluon corrections to top quark total and differential cross sections in hadron colliders. We increase the accuracy of our previous estimates by including additional subleading terms, including next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic and some virtual terms. We show that the kinematics dependence of the cross section vanishes near threshold and is reduced away from it. The factorization and renormalization scale dependence of the cross section is also greatly reduced. We present results for the top quark total cross sections and transverse momentum distributions at the Fermilab Tevatron and the CERN LHC.
Laboratory studies of particle nucleation: Initial results for H2SO4, H2O, and NH3 vapors

Particle formation in the binary H2SO4-H2O vapor system was studied at 295 K in a series of experiments employing a flow reactor. The concentration of H2SO4 was detected by chemical ionization mass spectrometry, and an ultrafine particle condensation nucleus counter was used to count the newly nucleated particles. Results yield a particle formation rate that is approximately proportional to [H2SO4] raised to the eighth power and to [H2O] raised to the fifth power. The power dependencies measured here are significantly different from those determined in previous experimental work, and furthermore, the water dependence is markedly different from that predicted from current theories. The effect of adding ammonia vapor to the binary system was investigated; concentrations of NH3 in the many tens of parts per trillion by volume range were observed to promote dramatically the rate of particle nucleation.