Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
POMDP based manipulation planning in object composition space

Service robots in domestic environments need the ability to manipulate objects without good prior models in order to cope with the variability of such environments. When multiple measurements can be acquired around an isolated object, standard approaches work satisfactorily as the generated 3-D models can often be used for successful manipulation. However, in cluttered scenes with multiple unknown objects, the segmentation of objects, also known as object discovery in perception research [1], [2], [3], [4], becomes a major problem. Typically, the problem is to decide which of the segments in an oversegmented scene belong to the same object. This is challenging especially because objects can be partially occluded by others. Because of this uncertainty, earlier work has concentrated on finding the best manipulation action based on the most likely composition. Contrary to earlier work, we 1) utilize a probability distribution over object compositions in decision making, 2) take advantage of object composition information provided by robot actions, 3) take into account the effect of different competing object hypotheses on the actual task to be performed. We cast the manipulation planning problem as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) [5] which plans over possible hypotheses of object compositions. The POMDP model chooses the action that maximizes the long-term expected task specific utility, and while doing so, considers the value of informative actions and the effect of different object hypotheses on the completion of the task. By considering a temporally evolving system, the robot can infer from past grasp attempts the likelihood of object hypotheses. Our approach [6] combines earlier ideas of interactive perception [7], [8], [9], [10], [11] and learned composition priors [3], [4] in a planning under uncertainty framework.
The concept of possibility based on human cognition

An axiomatic definition for possibility measure without “maxitivity” operator is proposed in this work. It has a psychology foundation of human cognition of possibility, is consistent with the conditional probability interpretation of possibility. Possibility measure defined this way obeys to a disjunctive operator of arithmetic mean and a conjunctive operator of product, which offers a different perspective on the understanding of possibility and should promote the cross prosperity of probability and possibility.
Bifurcation Analysis and Qualitative Optimization of Models in Molecular Cell Biology with Applications to the Circadian Clock

Circadian rhythms are the endogenous, roughly 24-hour rhythms that coordinate an organism’s interaction with its cycling environment. The molecular mechanism underlying this physiological process is a cell-autonomous oscillator comprised of a complex regulatory network of interacting DNA, RNA and proteins that is surprisingly conserved across many different species. It is not a trivial task to understand how the positive and negative feedback loops interact to generate an oscillator capable of a) maintaining a 24-hour rhythm in constant conditions; b) entraining to external light and temperature signals; c) responding to pulses of light in a rather particular, predictable manner; and d) compensating itself so that the period is relatively constant over a large range of temperatures, even for mutations that affect the basal period of oscillation. Mathematical modeling is a useful tool for dealing with such complexity, because it gives us an object that can be quickly probed and tested in lieu of the experiment or actual biological system. If we do a good job designing the model, it will help us to understand the biology better by predicting the outcome of future experiments. The difficulty lies in properly designing a model, a task that is made even more difficult by an acute lack of quantitative data. Thankfully, our qualitative understanding of a particular phenomenon, i.e. the observed physiology of the cell, can often be directly related to certain mathematical structures. Bifurcation analysis gives us a glimpse of these structures, and we can use these glimpses to build our models with greater confidence. In this dissertation, I will discuss the particular problem of the circadian clock and describe a number of new methods and tools related to bifurcation analysis. These tools can effectively be applied during the modeling process to build detailed models of biological regulatory with greater ease.
The Integration of Task and Data Parallel Skeletons

We describe a skeletal parallel programming library which integrates task and data parallel constructs within an API for C++. Traditional skeletal requirements for higher orderness and polymorphism are achieved through exploitation of operator overloading and templates, while the underlying parallelism is provided by MPI. We present a case study describing two algorithms for the travelling salesman problem.
An MAV Localization and Mapping System Based on Dual Realsense Cameras

Online localization and mapping in unknown environment is essential for Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). Both accuracy and robustness are required in the realtime applications. In this paper, we present a dual camera system to estimate the pose of an MAV and generate an obstacle map for navigation. The recently released light-weight Intel Realsense depth cameras are utilized to build the system, one is forward-facing and the other is downwardfacing. The downward-facing camera provides a high-frequency (60hz) velocity measurement while the forward-facing camera computes a low-frequency (10hz) position measurement. Experiments demonstrate the good performance of our proposed system.
Changes in the factor of safety within the superstructure of a dicot tree.

The objective of this study was to determine whether the factor of safety for mechanical stability varied among stems differing in size and age within the superstructure of a large dicot tree. Two factors of safety were selected for study: the quotient of the critical buckling height and the actual length of stems, Hcrit/L, and the quotient of the modulus of rupture (the force per unit area required to break a stem) and the working stress (the force per unit area resulting from the biomass measured distal to a stem), M(R)/σ(w). These two dimensionless safety factors were determined for a total of 420 shoot segments comprising much of the aboveground biomass of a Robinia pseudoacacia (Fabaceae) tree measuring 18.7 m in height and 1347 kg in mass, and 0.46 m in diameter (40 yr old) at 1.2 m from the ground.An S-shaped trend was observed when each of the two factors of safety was plotted as a function of stem age. Each factor decreased from a local maximum for the most distal (peripheral) stems in the canopy to a local minimum value for stems ∼10 yr old; each factor increased again to another local maximum for stems 11-18 yr old, and then decreased steadily toward the base of the trunk. This trend was the result of the allometric relationships among stem diameter, length, biomass, and material properties (stiffness and strength) with respect to stem age. Although they were disproportionately more slender than their older counterparts, peripheral stems were sufficiently stiff and strong to sustain the stresses resulting from their weight and that of foliage without deflecting under these loads, yet they were sufficiently flexible to easily bend and thereby presumably provide a mechanism to reduce the drag forces acting on the entire tree. In contrast, the internally imposed mechanical forces acting on progressively older stems increased at a greater rate than the observed rate of increase in stem stiffness, strength, or diameter. The probability of mechanical failure, which must be considered from a demographic perspective (i.e., an age-dependent phenomenon), thus increased from older branches to the base of the trunk. Reports of similar allometric trends based on interspecific comparisons among diverse dicot species comply with the allometry observed for the R. pseudoacacia tree and suggest that the S-shaped trend for the factor of safety holds for stems differing in age drawn from individual trees and for the trunks of conspecifics differing in age drawn from a dense population.
Hybrid chalcogenide microstructured optical fiber for mid-infrared soliton self-frequency shift

A hybrid AsSe<sub>2</sub>-As<sub>2</sub>S<sub>5</sub> microstructured optical fiber is fabricated by the rod-in-tube drawing technique. Soliton self-frequency shift with a soliton center wavelength from ~2.986 to 3.419 μm is observed at the pump wavelength of ~2.8 μm.
Consensus statement on the diagnosis and treatment of children with idiopathic short stature: a summary of the Growth Hormone Research Society, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Workshop.

OBJECTIVE Our objective was to summarize important advances in the management of children with idiopathic short stature (ISS). PARTICIPANTS Participants were 32 invited leaders in the field. EVIDENCE Evidence was obtained by extensive literature review and from clinical experience. CONSENSUS Participants reviewed discussion summaries, voted, and reached a majority decision on each document section. CONCLUSIONS ISS is defined auxologically by a height below -2 sd score (SDS) without findings of disease as evident by a complete evaluation by a pediatric endocrinologist including stimulated GH levels. Magnetic resonance imaging is not necessary in patients with ISS. ISS may be a risk factor for psychosocial problems, but true psychopathology is rare. In the United States and seven other countries, the regulatory authorities approved GH treatment (at doses up to 53 microg/kg.d) for children shorter than -2.25 SDS, whereas in other countries, lower cutoffs are proposed. Aromatase inhibition increases predicted adult height in males with ISS, but adult-height data are not available. Psychological counseling is worthwhile to consider instead of or as an adjunct to hormone treatment. The predicted height may be inaccurate and is not an absolute criterion for GH treatment decisions. The shorter the child, the more consideration should be given to GH. Successful first-year response to GH treatment includes an increase in height SDS of more than 0.3-0.5. The mean increase in adult height in children with ISS attributable to GH therapy (average duration of 4-7 yr) is 3.5-7.5 cm. Responses are highly variable. IGF-I levels may be helpful in assessing compliance and GH sensitivity; levels that are consistently elevated (>2.5 SDS) should prompt consideration of GH dose reduction. GH therapy for children with ISS has a similar safety profile to other GH indications.
An adaptive neighborhood-based multi-parent crossover operator for real-coded genetic algorithms

In this paper, we propose the adaptive neighborhood-based multi-parent cross-over operator (ANMX), a novel search operator for real-coded genetic algorithms, which generates offspring by the linear non-convex combination of several relative-parents, each of which is uniformly sampled in the respective neighborhoods of randomly selected parents in the population. ANMX is a general variation operator in essence, for it not only takes on the form of a multi-parent crossover operator but also implicitly has some of the characteristics of a mutation operator. To enhance the efficiency, we introduce a mechanism for adapting the range of neighborhoods according to the evolutionary progress. Numerical experiments using a suite of test functions, which are widely studied in the field of evolutionary computation, show good search ability of the proposed operator for functions with multimodality and/or epistasis.
A patient with dementia with Lewy bodies and codon 232 mutation of PRNP

The authors describe a patient who had a point mutation at codon 232 of the prion protein gene, resulting in the substitution of methionine for arginine (M232R). The patient developed dementia and died 6 years after its onset. Autopsy revealed dementia with Lewy bodies, not Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Although the M232R mutation has been reported to cause Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, findings in our patient suggest that not all patients presenting progressive dementia with M232R mutation have Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.
WPCC: A novel web proxy cache cluster

In order to enhance the web proxy cache cluster's performance, a new novel web proxy cache cluster-WPCC is presented. WPCC divides all back ends into two groups: group A and group B. Group A takes charge for hit requests and group B takes charge for miss requests. WPCC uses different load balancing strategy in different back end group. Back end can be migrated from one back end group to another when load imbalance between back end groups happens. Simulations results show WPCC can achieve outstanding performance than existing web proxy cache clusters.
When Not Saying NO Does Not Mean Yes: Psychophysiological Factors Involved in Date Rape

To understand how a woman who does not want to be a willing sexual partner can at times acquiesce and not fight the date rape predator, the neurobiology of our responses to threat needs to be understood. Under situations of extreme threat, instead of responding just to danger signals with only the options to fight or flee, we also retain in our nervous system a primitive immobilization response that may reflexively be expressed when our body detects life threat. This primitive defense system is shared not only with other mammals, but also with reptiles, such as the turtle, that immobilize as a primary defensive strategy. The brain makes the decision without awareness, and the relative risks of stimuli are interpreted to be safe, dangerous, or life threatening. The polyvagal theory proposed by Stephen Porges may explain why many rape victims do not actively resist. According to the theory, the act of not responding is an immobilization fear response to life threat, which may be wrongly interpreted by the a.
8‐isoprostane increases scavenger receptor A and matrix metalloproteinase activity in THP‐1 macrophages, resulting in long‐lived foam cells

Background Oxidative stress is a key factor in atherogenesis, in which it is closely associated with the inflammation and formation of bioactive lipids. Although 8‐isoprostane is regarded as a reliable marker of oxidative stress in vivo, the pathogenic role of this F2‐isoprostane in atherogenesis is far from clear. Based on the important role of foam cells in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis we hereby examined the ability of 8‐isoprostane to modulate oxidized (ox)LDL‐induced foam cell formation and the function of these cells, particularly focusing on the effect on matrix degradation.
Design of rampart slot array antenna in integrated 850GHz photonic transmitter

In this paper, we demonstrate a novel design of CPW-fed rampart slot array for 850GHz photonic transmitter application. In our design, the photonic transmitter consists of a DC bias pad, a CPW low-pass filter and a CPW-fed rampart slot array antenna connected to a metal-semiconductor-metal traveling-wave photo-detector (MSM-TWPD). This device is fabricated on GaAs substrate and placed on a piece of glass, being advantageous for the integration with the excited edge-coupled laser beam. The high-gain design has potentially wide-range application such as short-distance wireless communication and material identification.
Alcohol policy as a public health issue. Reconsidering an old concept and its relevance for mental health

Alcohol problems have been experienced by individuals and peoples since those pre-historic times when a man invented alcoholic beverages. Nevertheless, throughout millennia and centuries drinking used to be a part of human history bringing not only harm but also numerous benefits to drinkers and their communities. In a long social history of alcohol, its position in cultures, perceptions of associated problems as well as public responses changed considerably and ranged from strictly prohibitive to fully permissive ones (for review see Barrows et al., 1987). Also drinking patterns and consumption levels greatly varied constituting long waves of alcohol consumption (Room, 1991). Those waves, however, not always corresponded with fluctuations in public response or public policy on alcohol (Moskalewicz, 1999, Moskalewicz & Simpura, 2000). Last fifty years witnessed a high tide of alcohol consumption in majority of industrialised countries that cumulated around the late 1970s and has been followed by levelling-off or declining trends in 1980s. The transition period, instead of further homogenisation, produced divergent patterns: further decline Western Europe and rapid growth in its Eastern parts. Those significant changes in alcohol consumption were accompanied by changing prevalence of problems associated with drinking. Public policy on alcohol also underwent substantial variations adopting different concepts and interpretations of a nature and source of alcohol problems. In the following sections of this paper an attempt will be made to trace pre-dominant
4‐Hydroxynonenal, a lipid peroxidation byproduct of spinal cord injury, is cytotoxic for oligodendrocyte progenitors and inhibits their responsiveness to PDGF

Oligodendroglial reactions to compression injury of spinal cord include apoptosis, secondary demyelination, and remyelination failure. Within hours after contusion, the membrane lipid peroxidation (MLP) byproduct, 4‐hydroxynonenal (HNE), increases rapidly in gray matter and thereafter in white matter tracts beyond the initial lesion level. Considering that HNE is a mediator and marker of neuronal MLP toxicity in various neurodegenerative conditions, the present study examined its effect on the regeneration potential of oligodendrocyte progenitors, as defined by their capacity to survive, proliferate and migrate in primary culture. Treatment of oligodendroblasts with HNE evoked a time‐ and dose‐dependent cytotoxicity resembling apoptosis at aldehyde concentrations known to be produced by neurons and achieved in tissue undergoing peroxidative injury. In addition, sublethal concentrations of HNE inhibited the mitogenic and chemotactic responses of more immature progenitors to platelet‐derived growth factor. These effects appear to be mediated in part by the formation of HNE adducts with progenitor proteins located within the plasma membrane and cytoplasmic compartments. Our data are the first to show that HNE can have direct, deleterious effects on oligodendrocyte precursors. The present study also suggests a mechanism by which the striking accumulation of HNE in white matter tracts surrounding the site of spinal cord compression injury and in other ischemic‐hypoxic insults associated with MLP could suppress the potential regenerative response of endogenous oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Microsc. Res. Tech. 52:709–718, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Novel clamp circuits for IC power supply protection

Biased and terminated p-n-p transistor chains are made from floating n-wells in p-substrate CMOS and used for power supply ESD clamps. The p-n-p gain may allow a compact termination circuit to be used, resulting in a stand-alone clamp. Bipolar p-n-p action accounts for unwanted low-voltage conduction as well as for very desirable clamping of power supply overvoltages. Bias networks are used to prevent excessive leakage at high temperature. These devices are becoming crucial to success in ESD product testing of CMOS integrated circuits.
Toward Cloud-based Classification and Annotation Support

Manually annotating content-based categories to existing documents is a time-consuming task for human domain experts. In order to ease this effort, automated text categorization is used. This paper evaluates the state of the art in cloud-based text categorization and proposes an architecture for flexible cloud-based classification and annotation support, leveraging the advantages provided by cloud-based architectures.
Reply to Banderet-Uglioni et al.

TO THE EDITOR—We thank BanderetUglioni and colleagues for their comments, which support the contention in our article that, in the absence of definitive data such as from randomized trials, we will have to draw conclusions about these rare but serious diseases from wellconducted observational studies [1, 2]. In observational studies, the limitations of power related to the number of cases, and the inability to measure and/or include in the analysis all factors that might influence the outcome, make it difficult to draw causal inferences. This is what happened in our study, and we made it clear that we did not want to risk overinterpretation of our data by attempting to control for too many of these factors. We are unclear about which treatment recommendations the authors may have had issues with, because the treatment modalities supported, particularly clindamycin, are currently widely recommended in these infections. We disagree that a 2000fold increase in risk for disease among household contacts does not support, as
Proliferation and significance of clinically relevant β‐lactamases

Inactivation of β‐lactam antibiotics by β‐lactamases in bacterial infections is associated with some of the most serious infectious disease issues that are currently encountered. The evolution of unique β‐lactamases has resulted in more than 1,300 distinct enzymes that have been identified in natural clinical isolates. Of these enzymes, the most deleterious β‐lactamases are the extended‐spectrum β‐lactamases, or ESBLs, that hydrolyze most penicillins and cephalosporins, and the carbapenemases that may inactivate all β‐lactam classes of drugs. The most prominent ESBLs worldwide are the CTX‐M‐14 and CTX‐M‐15 enzymes. Among enzyme families, the TEM and OXA β‐lactamases exhibit the greatest number of variants. The broad groups of carbapenemases are particularly treacherous, especially the KPC serine carbapenemases and the NDM family of metallo‐β‐lactamases, both of which appear in multidrug‐resistant Gram‐negative pathogens that are often resistant to most classes of antibiotics. Although new β‐lactamase inhibitor combinations are being investigated as a means of controlling infections caused by these organisms, additional approaches are sorely needed.
Effect of local macrophage depletion on cellular immunity and tolerance evoked by corneal allografts

Purpose. To determine whether local macrophage depletion, via administration of clodronate liposomes, alters delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) responses and induction of anterior chamber associated immune deviation (ACAID) after corneal allotransplantation. Methods. Clodronate liposome-treated and untreated rats received orthotopic corneal allografts and were tested for DTH responses and induction of ACAID towards donor antigens. Also in subconjunctivally treated and untreated rats, DTH responses were measured after subcutaneous immunization or induction of ACAID with allogeneic spleen cells. Results. Subconjunctival injected clodronate liposomes prevented grafted rats from developing donor-specific DTH as well as ACAID. By contrast, subconjunctivally injected clodronate liposomes had no effect on donor-specific DTH responses after systemic immunization or on the induction of ACAID with allogeneic cells. Conclusions. Depletion of macrophages at the time of corneal allografting seems to render the grafts immunologically invisible to the recipients. This could explain why these grafts survive “indefinitely” without any other form of therapy.