Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Causality Internship Topic

Uncovering and leveraging causal relations in complex systems are landmark tasks for advancing machine learning towards artificial intelligence. For the digital advertising application that includes an extremely large number of variables with potentially changing relations over time these problems reach new levels of challenge. We propose to research in this internship one of two potential topics: i) evaluating and scaling up existing causal discovery algorithms ii) learning to act for causal impact by optimizing counter-factual losses. 1 Causal Discovery Topic A recent trend in the Machine Learning community is to move beyond purely statistical learning to solve general tasks [1]. If we consider for instance the object recognition task a purely statistical model would optimize e.g. maximum likelihood as a proxy. This line of work is limited in essence and beyond the choice of a particular model by the reliance on correlations. A glaring failure of such models is when objects are presented in an unusual context: a cow on a beach is easily misclassified due to the absence of its usual environment (grass, fences etc). On the other side a causal discovery approach would uncover the causal relations between the presence of objects in an image [3] and learn that the presence of grass is not causing the presence of cows. Conversely, presence of a car can be learned to cause presence of tires but not vice-versa. Such relationships would be immune to distribution shifts and should be preferred for robust modeling. The advertising application is a particularly challenging instance of this problem with potentially huge causal graphs constituted of user interaction with products and ads over extended periods of time. Approaches to causal discovery usually encompass two families of methods: i) conditional independence tests ii) restricted model fitting [5]. In the first instance one usually starts by estimating a skeleton for the causal graph using conditional independence tests, then uses different assumptions to orient ∗contact address: e.diemert@criteo.com
Piezoelectret foam–based vibration energy harvesting

The use of energy harvesting to provide power to low-power electronic devices has the potential to create autonomous, self-powered electronics. This article presents the investigation of a novel material for vibration-based energy harvesting. Piezoelectret foam, a lead-free, polymer-based electret material exhibiting piezoelectric-like properties, is investigated for low-power energy generation. An overview of the fabrication and operation of piezoelectret foams is first given. Mechanical testing is then performed, where anisotropy in the principal length directions is found along with Young’s moduli between 0.5 and 1 GPa and tensile strengths from 35 to 70 MPa. Dynamic electromechanical characterization is performed in order to measure the piezoelectric d 33 coefficient of the foam over a wide frequency range. The d 33 coefficient is found to be relatively constant at around 175 pC/N from 10 Hz to 1 kHz. Finally, the foam is evaluated as an energy harvesting material by first developing an electromechanical model to predict the voltage response during excitation, then performing dynamic experimentation to measure the voltage frequency response with comparisons to modeling predictions for a set of electrical loads, and finally conducting energy harvesting experimentation in which the foam is used to charge a capacitor. Harmonic excitation of a pre-tensioned 15.2 cm × 15.2 cm sample at 60 Hz and displacement of ± 73 µm yields an average power of 6.0 µW delivered to a 1 mF storage capacitor. The capacitor is charged to 4.67 V in 30 min, proving the ability of piezoelectret foam to supply power to small electronic components.
Determinants of firms marketing strategies on consumers' loyalty intention toward online stores

In order to expand virtual retailing market, it is important to consider consumer-level opinion toward online stores and its relation to market-level measures of performance, such as marketing strategies, channel brand impression and customer online store loyalty intention. In this research, three online stores are selected as the research targets. A questionnaire survey is conducted to verify the determinant effects of firms marketing strategies and channel brand impression on loyalty intention toward online stores among consumers using second-order structural equation modeling (SEM) methods. The findings of this study suggest that online stores to the following: first, intensify emotional appeal in their advertising strategy; second, sell international brand products in the context of a brand alliance strategy; and third, develop channel brand impression helpful to the online store loyalty intention of consumers. Key words: Pricing, brand impression, online store, structural equation modeling.
Recent Advances in Nutritional Sciences Soy-Based Formulae and Infant Growth and Development : A Review 1 , 2

Soy-based infant formulae, initially developed for infants who were lactose intolerant or allergic to cow’s milk–based formulae, now account for >25% of the infant formulae sold in the United States. Formulations have changed over the years to improve digestibility, the stability and availability of minerals, and protein quality. Recent concerns have been raised regarding the phytoestrogenic isoflavone content of soy-based formulae. A systematic review of the literature was conducted to evaluate various measures of infant health and development in clinical studies comparing modern soy-based formulae with other diets and to document areas in which further research seems warranted. Results suggest that modern soy-based formulae support normal growth and nutritional status in healthy term infants in y 1 of life. However, there are very limited data on sexual and reproductive development or outcomes such as immune function, visual acuity/cognitive development and thyroid function. Available data do not provide evidence of meaningful differences in timing of maturation, sexual development or fertility in adolescents or adults. Nonetheless, given evidence suggesting that early exposure to soy and/or isoflavones might have long-term effects, further research following infants fed soy-based formulae into adulthood is warranted. J. Nutr. 132: 2127–2130, 2002.
Preparation of a Natural Candy from Date (Phoenix dactyliferaL.), Olive (Olea europaeaL.), and Carob (Ceratonia siliquaL.) Fruits

Until the early 1960s, the traditional recipe “Arkouy” from the mixture of carob (Ceratonia siliquaL.) powder and olive (Olea europaeaL.) oil represented a sought-after food product in some localities of the Kabylian region (Northeastern Algeria). The present work attempted to improve this traditional recipe to obtain a natural candy from date (Phoenix dactyliferaL.), olive (Olea europaeaL.), and carob (Ceratonia siliquaL.) fruits. For this, different formulations with various proportions of the date paste, olive paste, and carob powder were obtained using a constrained mixture design (proportion of date paste ≥ 0.7). The hardness and total color difference in the CIELab system were adopted as dependent variables. For comparison purpose, the local commercial candy “Caprice” was taken as reference. In addition, the two formulations containing the three basic ingredients were analyzed for the overall acceptability, reducing power, and thermal analysis. At first approximation, it can be said that the formulation containing 75% date paste, 20% carob powder, and 5% olive paste ensures a balance between the target values of texture and color. The obtained candy can be used as a dietary supplement for all categories of consumers, especially patients with swallowing difficulties.
Inverter Control Scheme with the Function of Current and Voltage Harmonics Composite Suppression and the Application Analysis of Micro-Grid

An improved controller design method for an inverter operating with extra functions to suppress current harmonics or voltage harmonics is proposed. When at least two of this-type inverters are operating in a micro-grid, they can collaboratively bear current harmonics and voltage harmonics suppression tasks respectively. This would benefit the micro-grid further wide applications. In this paper, firstly, the principles of harmonics comprehensive suppression are analyzed. Then, two kinds of inverter controllers with different harmonics suppression purposes are designed. Finally, the effectiveness of the above control strategies is verified by Matlab/Simulink simulation results. The total harmonic distortion (THD) values of current and voltage are obviously reduced when these two inverters are connected in parallel with the micro-grid.
Multiplying and detecting propagating microwave photons using inelastic Cooper-pair tunneling

The interaction between propagating microwave fields and Cooper-pair tunneling across a DC-voltage-biased Josephson junction can be highly nonlinear. We show theoretically that this nonlinearity can be used to convert an incoming single microwave photon into an outgoing n-photon Fock state in a different mode. In this process, the electrostatic energy released in a Cooper-pair tunneling event is transferred to the outgoing Fock state, providing energy gain. The created multiphoton Fock state is frequency entangled and highly bunched. The conversion can be made reflectionless (impedance matched) so that all incoming photons are converted to n-photon states. With realistic parameters, multiplication ratios n > 2 can be reached. By two consecutive multiplications, the outgoing Fock-state number can get sufficiently large to accurately discriminate it from vacuum with linear postamplification and power measurement. Therefore, this amplification scheme can be used as a single-photon detector without dead time.
La diferenciacion glial de la retina del pollo y su papel en el desarrollo de las conexiones nerviosas

Se realiza un estudio de la diferenciacion morfologica de la celula de muller en la retina del pollo con ayuda del metodo de golgi. Desde el comienzo de su diferenciacion la celula de muller desarrolla espiculas y expansiones laterales.A partir del 16-17 dias de incubacion la morfologia que poseen las celulas de muller es igual a la que ofrecen las formas adultas distinguiendose tres tipos: tipo i celulas de muller de ramificacion interna difusa; tipo ii celulas de muller de ramificacion interna rala o escasa; tipo iii celulas de muller del tipo i y ii pero con prolongaciones accesorias. La microscopia electronica aporta datos interesantes: sobre la distribucion de microtubulos y microfilamentos en relacion con los tipos celulares y formacion de vesiculas a partir de invaginaciones de la membrana plasmatica. Tambien se describen axones mielinicos cuyas cubiertas de revestimiento asociamos con las expansiones radiales que las celulas de muller emiten a nivel de la capa de fibras del nervio optico. Ademas de las celulas de muller se hace un estudio de otras celulas gliales en la retina papila y nervio optico del pollo.
Multifunctional PDMS tips fabricated by polymer casting of KOH etched pyramidal pits

This master thesis is conducted as a part of the PhD research of Hugo Perez and Friedjof Heuck. In this work a method is proposed and tested to remove nanometer-sized particles from, for example, mask-blanks used in EUVL. The working principle of the removal tool – let us call it a nano-swiffer – are the adhesion forces of a PDMS pyramid. This pyramid is fabricated by vacuum casting and the advantage of this is the use of moulds, such that in an economical way multiple pyramids can be made. One mould consists of thousands recessed pyramids resulting in a stamp with a negative copy of these pyramids. The goal of this master thesis is to design and fabricate a silicon mould, and with this mould fabricate and inspect the PDMS stamp. Stamps with different mechanical properties are produced – by changing the process parameters of the fabrication process of PDMS – in order to find the best properties to remove contamination. The influences of the different process parameters are inspected and discussed. Furthermore, several inspection methods and its equipment are discussed. Finally, AFM is chosen as inspection method to inspect the radius of the apex of pyramids and its stiffness. This decision is based on the results gathered during practical hands-on. The results of the inspections shows that after each casting traces of PDMS are left behind in the mould, resulting in descending radiuses of the apex. A recommendation to this problem is proposed in the manner of a release layer. The analyses of data acquired with the stiffness measurements shows that an increase in curing agent in the composition of PDMS results in an higher stiffness. Further, by accident, an increase in stiffness is noted as older the PDMS gets. This process is called aging. This could be important if a soft pyramid is needed; within a week, the stiffness is increased by 20%. In addition, the influence of the curing temperature is observed and the conclusion is that by an increase in curing temperature, an increase in stiffness is noted; PDMS cured at 120° C had a 51% higher stiffness than PDMS cured at room temperature. A setup for bonding a PDMS pyramid to an AFM-cantilever is made, but unfortunately, there were some pitfalls. It turned out that cutting out individual pyramids was fairly cumbersome. Interaction forces made it very hard to handle the pyramids such that it was pointing the right direction. On the other hand, the oxygen plasma bonding process was successful. Due to the troublesome cutting process, the final cleaning setup could not be tested such that useful conclusions could be drawn. Alternative, more complicated cutting processes are proposed, like focussed ion beam.
Active Manipulation of ECM Stiffness

The mechanical properties of the microstructures surrounding cells influence the behavior of cells in differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis, etc. The stiffness of the extra-cellular microenvironment has been shown to be one such mechanical property [1][2]. Studies reported in the literature concerning the stiffness of the extracellular microenvironment mainly sought to understand the scientific principles and mechanisms underlying its effect on cell-environment interaction [3]. This paper describes an approach that achieves such manipulation, and reports experimental results that demonstrate the effectiveness of this proposed approach. © 2011 ASME
Comparative Study on Feature Extraction and Classifier Techniques for Speaker Recognition

In the real world when we hear a voice through a telephone or at an entry way out of sight we identify the person through the sound of their voice. It is based on the expectation that the sound of one's voice is sufficient for a hearer to recognize the speaker. This is considered to be a challenge for speaker recognition. Voice biometrics use the features of a person's voice to ascertain their identity like human listeners. Speaker recognition is the best known commercialized form of voice biometrics. Speaker recognition is a process that verify a person's claim of his/her identity using the features extracted from their voice. The speech signal carries information about the speaker, the message to be conveyed, and language emotion and so on. In this paper we have presented a study on speaker recognition and various feature extraction and classifier techniques. First section gives an introduction to speaker recognition. The next section provide a brief description about the key terms that is used in speaker recognition and then discusses the different feature extraction techniques and classifier techniques for speaker recognition.
Relative Humidity Fiber Sensor Based on Multimode Interferometer Coated with Agarose-Gel

In this work, a relative humidity (RH) sensor based on a structure with multimode interference is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The multimode sensor is fabricated by fusion splicing a coreless fiber section to a single mode fiber. A hydrophilic agarose gel is coated on the coreless fiber, using the dip coating technique. By changing the surrounding RH, the refractive index of the coated agarose gel will change, causing a wavelength shift of the peak in the reflection spectra. For RH variations in the range between 60.0%RH and 98.5%RH, the sensor presents a maximum sensitivity of 44.2 pm/%RH, and taking in consideration the interrogation system, a resolution of 0.5%RH is acquired. This sensor has a great potential in real time RH monitoring and can be of interest for applications where a control of high levels of relative humidity is required.
Electronic Parking System for Singapore

An Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system was introduced in 1998 in Singapore to reduce the traffic congestion in the city area, almost all vehicles in Singapore are equipped with onboard equipment called in-vehicle unit (IU). Using these in-vehicle units and the technologies based on the ERP system, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has developed an Electronic Parking System (EPS) that enables settlement of parking fees without parking tickets and cash. In order to keep the compatibilities of current car park system, antennas were made smaller and compact, processing systems were integrated and devices for calculating the fees were developed, the device for calculating the fee was called charging unit (CHU). In order to meet the various needs of the car park owners and to allow free setting of the parking fee, the devices are designed. The introduction of EPS in Singapore has brought about an unprecedented realization of the application using the same onboard equipment in both EPS and ERP systems (application fields).
Advising and Instructing Reinforcement Learning Agents with LTL and Automata

Introduction Reinforcement learning (RL) involves an agent learning through interaction with an environment how to behave so as to maximize the expected cumulative reward (Sutton and Barto 1998). Typically, the environment is modelled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). A reinforcement learning agent learns a policy, a mapping from states to actions. In a recent series of papers (Toro Icarte et al. 2018a; 2018b; 2018c), my coauthors and I have investigated ways in which linear temporal logic (LTL) and related formalisms can be incorporated into reinforcement learning algorithms, either to specify tasks for the agent or to guide the learning process. The remaining two sections describe each of these two research directions in turn.
Inferring Depth Maps from 2-Dimensional Laser Ranging Data in a Simulated Environment

Depth estimation plays a key role in mobile robotics for applications including scene understanding, navigation and mapping. Recently, deep learning methods have proven effective in estimating depth maps from a combination of different sources such as 3D LiDAR or RGB images. However, they face two challenges; the lack of dense ground truth data and the depth input sparsity which ranges from 4-10% pixel density on an input image. This thesis explores the feasibility of inferring a full depth map from extremely sparse 2D LiDAR measurements via neural network. To address the lack of ground truth data, a simulation tool is created for data gathering. The results show that from our sparse input of 0.024% pixel density on input images, the tested network infers shapes but struggles with blurry boundaries on objects.
The Role of Cluster Intermediaries for KIBS’ Resources and Innovation

Knowledge‐intensive business services (KIBS) help manufacturing firms boost their innovation activities, yet the question of which kinds of resources and intermediaries KIBS need for their own innovation activities remains largely unstudied. The current article investigates whether clustered KIBS might need an intermediary to access innovation resources, by studying the effects of network administrative organizations (NAOs) on KIBS’ resources for innovation. Using a survey of 53 KIBS in a French cluster, the authors find that NAOs directly affect both KIBS’ internal and external resources for innovation. They also study the intermediary effect of NAOs on KIBS’ absorptive capacity and provide recommendations for public policy to boost clustered KIBS’ innovation intensity.
A thin all-elastomeric capacitive pressure sensor array based on micro-contact printed elastic conductors

We present a highly elastic capacitive pressure sensor array based on a thin all-elastomeric platform suitable for being integrated onto surfaces with a complex curvature like human skin. The proposed skin-like sensors are simply fabricated by a combination of soft-lithographic replication and contact printing based micro-patterning of a conductive elastomeric ink (carbon nanotube (CNT)-doped polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)) in a precise and cost-effective manner. The electrical responses of the devices are highly linear, reliable, and reversible when subjected to pressure and tensile strain. Moreover, the devices are mechanically robust enough to be operated stably under various elastic deformations without any structural failure or degradation in performance. In addition, we show that the sensors have possibilities for being employed practically as artificial skins by demonstrating devices that can detect different types of human motions (finger bending and gripping) and spatial pressure distributions generated by the stamps with different protrusion patterns.
Comparison of Average Energy Slope Estimation Formulas for One-dimensional Steady Gradually Varied Flow

Abstract To find the steady flow water surface profile, it is possible to use Bernoulli’s equation, which is a discrete form of the differential energy equation. Such an approach requires the average energy slope between cross-sections to be estimated. In the literature, many methods are proposed for estimating the average energy slope in this case, such as the arithmetic mean, resulting in the standard step method, the harmonic mean and the geometric mean. Also hydraulic averaging by means of conveyance is commonly used. In this study, water surface profiles numerically computed using different formulas for expressing the average slope were compared with exact analytical solutions of the differential energy equation. Maximum relative and mean square errors between numerical and analytical solutions were used as measures of the quality of numerical models. Experiments showed that all methods gave solutions useful for practical engineering purposes. For every method, the numerical solution was very close to the analytical one. However, from the numerical viewpoint, the differences between the methods were significant, as the errors differed up to two orders of magnitude.
Spectrum Property Rights Versus a Commons Model: Exploitation of Mesh Networks

This paper combines models and ideas from radio-engineering literature and economics to address the need for regulation of spectrum allocation in a commons scenario. It discusses under what conditions a laissez-faire policy towards spectrum usage would engender the inefficiencies of a spectrum com- mons allocation regime; to overcome such potential inefficiency, centralised allocation or a formal market for spectrum (with well-defined property rights) is required.