Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reconocimiento en tiempo real de gestos manuales a partir de vídeos capturados con cámara de profundidad

The use of hand gestures o ers an alternative to the commonly used human computer interfaces, providing a more intuitive way of navigating among menus and multimedia applications. This project presents the evolution of a system for hand gesture recognition devoted to control windows applications. Starting from the images captured by a time-ofight camera (TOF, a camera that produces images with an intensity level inversely proportional to the depth of the objects observed) the system performs hand segmentation as well as a low-level extraction of potentially relevant features which are related to the morphological representation of the hand silhouette. Classi cation based on these features discriminates between a set of possible Static Hand Postures (SHPs) which results, combined with the estimated motion pattern of the hand, in the recognition of Dynamic Hand Gestures (DHGs). The whole system works in real-time, allowing practical interaction between user and application.
Burnout, Motivation, and Self-Handicapping in Collegiate Club Athletes

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among burnout, motivation, and self-handicapping in collegiate club athletes. Male and female collegiate club athletes (N = 67; ages 18-29) from two sports (rugby and volleyball) at a Midwestern University completed a battery of questionnaires at one time point that included a demographics questionnaire, the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ), Sport Motivation Scale – 2 (SMS-2), and SelfHandicapping Scale (SHS). Results of independent t-tests and one-way ANOVAs revealed that there were no significant gender or sport differences in athletic burnout, motivation, and selfhandicapping. The data from both genders and sport teams was then collapsed into a single sample for further data analysis. Bivariate correlations were used to examine the relationship between each of the variables and a stepwise multiple regression was used to determine whether burnout and motivation were significant predictors of self-handicapping. Results of bivariate correlations found that factors of athletic burnout were positively correlated with amotivation, emotional/physical exhaustion (r = .357), reduced sense of accomplishment (r = .349), sport devaluation (r = .410), global sport index (r = .497). Bivariate correlations also found that factors of athletic burnout were also negatively correlated with intrinsic motivation, sport devaluation (r = -.464), global burnout index (r = -.410). Correlation results showed that athletes with higher trait self-handicapping reported higher reduced sense of accomplishment (r = .379) and global burnout index levels (r = .303). Additionally, stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that self-handicapping scores may be predicted by subscales of burnout and motivation (R2 = .238, R2adj = .214, F(2,64) = 9.98, p < . 001). The results of this study suggest that athletes with high levels of athletic burnout and extrinsic forms of motivation may lead athletes to engage in selfhandicapping strategies. Overall, this study showed that there are significant relationships between the variables of athletic burnout, motivation, and self-handicapping.
Provable Security for PKI Schemes

PKI provides a critical foundation to applied cryptographic protocols. However, there are no rigorous security specifications for PKI, and therefore, no PKI schemes were proven secure. This is problematic considering the extensive reliance on PKI, the multiple failures of PKI systems, and the fact that some proposed and deployed PKI schemes have complex design and advanced goals. The lack of specifications and proofs for PKI schemes means that applied cryptographic systems that use PKI are analyzed by adopting overly simplified models of the PKI, often, simply assuming secure public keys. We present game-based security specifications for PKI schemes, and prove the security of the two most important and widely deployed schemes: PKIX and Certificate Transparency (CT), both based on version 3 of the X.509 standard, and using the (standard) CRL revocation mechanism. The proof shows a reduction from an adversary that ‘wins’ the PKI-specifications game to an adversary that ‘wins’ against the underlying signature scheme or hash function. This is the first reduction-based definition and proof of security for a realistic PKI scheme.
Examensarbete CMOS Power Amplifier for IEEE 802 . 11 g / n standard ( 2 . 4 GHz ) in 65 nm process

Today, the mobile communication systems can be found everywhere due to the low cost and high degree integration level which is achievable with CMOS. The user can use a number of applications using only one device. The transmitter is one of the main blocks in communication systems for transmitting the signal, where the RF power a mplifier (PA) amplifies the RF signal to the r equired output power so that signal can reach the r eceiver. Nowadays mostly transmitter employs such modulation schemes which have high data rate and to amplify such signals, a linear PA is required. The efficiency of the PA should also be high, so that it can provide high output power to load without consuming much power itself. This thesis work describes the “CMOS Power Amplifier for IEEE 802.11g/n standard (2.4GHz) in 65nm process”. The PA is a two stage amplifier biased in Class AB mode with LC type input matching. The inter-stage matching is carried out by the RF choke of the driver stage and the input capacitance of the power stage. The output of the PA is power matched to the load. A linearizing technique is implemented to make PA more linear. The simulation results shows that the designed PA gives 1dB compression point of +23.36dBm, a gain of 26.82dB, a power added efficiency of 30%, a linear current of 122.30mA providing 18dBm power to load and saturated output power of 24.45dBm.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS ' LINGUALITY , PERSONALITY , AND THEIR GENERAL ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

Awareness of learners' individual differences and personalities has motivated many scholars to explore any possible significant effects of them on learning a second language, specifically in the area of EFL learning. More over; bilingualism and its affection on 2nd language learning have been concerned as great interests among recent studies. In the current study, the researchers sought the possible relationship between Iranian EFL learners' linguality (Turkish & Persian), personality, their general English proficiency. By means of Transparency test; to make the subjects homogenous; a background questionnaire; to determine the subjects linguality; and the Big Five Personality Traits questionnaire; to specify the learners' personality types; 79 subjects were polled from 284 participants. To unravel the significant effect of independent variables, the two-way ANOVA test was used. The obtained results showed that although the mean score of the emotional learners and the consciousness ones more than their counter parts, none of the five personalities could strongly predict the learners GEP (general English proficiency) level regarding their linguality. All in all, no significant relationship was found between personality, linguality, and GEP. Nevertheless, the mean score of bilingual learners was more than monolingual ones.
The Influence of Social Presence on MOOC Learners’ Performance

The Influence of Social Presence on MOOC Learners’ Performance Heeryung Choi Cognitive Science Program School of Humanities The Graduate School Seoul National University Collaborative learning has been offered as a realistic solution to decrease isolated feeling of MOOC learners. However, such effort was only applied before or after lecture video session, i.e., discussion board, peer assessment and face-to-face chatting. Therefore, learners who do not join such activities cannot help but staying in the feeling of isolation. Therefore, this study investigate how offering social presence during watching videos influences learners. In particular, this study will focus on social presence of peers, considering the massiveness and openness of MOOCs. In light of the view, through experiment suggesting social presence during watching videos, this
Understanding Visual Information with Compound Eye Camera

The compound eye, which is the eye structure of insects, has many advantages such as a large field of view, low aberrations, and an infinite depth of field. In this paper, we introduce a new hardware platform that mimics the eye structure of insects and propose some applications using the proposed platform. Specifically, we propose objectness estimation scheme and semantic segmentation scheme, which are important problems in computer vision, based on the compound images. In the objectness estimation task, we achieved the accuracy of 77.14% on a combined data set of PASCAL VOC 2012 and COCO-Stuff 10K data sets, and in the case of semantic segmentation, we achieved the mean IU of 0.432 on the simulated COCO-Stuff 10K data set.
Interception of moving objects with a robotic arm in a simulated environment

The problem of catching a moving object can be divided into two sub problems. First, the object must be perceived and its path must be estimated in order for movements to be calculated that would result in successfully catching the object in the future. The second sub-problem is to find a catching configuration. This paper focuses primarily on the second problem of finding an acceptable configuration. Simple models that simulate sensor inaccuracy and randomness are used to closely simulate real environments, and regression models are used to estimate the object’s path in these simulated real environments. Since multiple end configurations are acceptable as the goal, we introduce a new concept called a multi-goal RRT, a modified version of Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRTs), which grows towards multiple goals simultaneously. This approach was implemented in an attempt to have the RRT grow toward several predicted path nodes. The multi-goal RRT was compared against a regular RRT. The results show promise for the application of Multi-goal in a real-world setting.
Digital Discrimination

This chapter focuses on a particular normative concern associated with machine decision-making that has attracted considerable attention in policy debate—the problem of bias in algorithmic systems, which gives rise to various forms of ‘digital discrimination’. Digital discrimination entails treating individuals unfairly, unethically, or just differently based on their personal data that is automatically processed by an algorithm. Digital discrimination often reproduces the existing instances of discrimination in the offline world by either inheriting the biases of prior decision-makers, or simply reflecting widespread prejudices in society. The chapter highlights various forms and sources of digital discrimination, pointing to a rich and growing body of technical research seeking to develop technical responses aimed at correcting for, or otherwise removing, these sources of bias.
Supplementary Material for Imperceptible , Robust , and Targeted Adversarial Examples for Automatic Speech Recognition

In order to compute the frequency masking threshold of an input signal x(n), where 0 ≤ n ≤ N , we need to first identify the maskers. There are two different classes of maskers: tonal and nontonal maskers, where nontonal maskers have stronger masking effects compared to tonal maskers. Here we simply treat all the maskers as tonal ones to make sure the threshold that we compute can always mask out the noise. The normalized PSD estimate of the tonal maskers p̄x (k) must meet three criteria. First, they must be local maxima in the spectrum, satisfying:
Language Corpora as Data Base and Verification Tool for Cognitive Linguistic Research

The work presents a corpus analysis carried out within the framework of cognitive linguistics. The application of corpus analysis in the study of language representation of a sociocultural phenomenon was chosen in relation to the objectives to verify a hypothesis about the phenomenon’s stereotypic and symbolic nature and to trace its evolution in culture. The paper gives a general classification of corpora, briefly describes the corpus approach and corpus-application techniques in cognitive linguistics research. Our study of sociocultural stereotypes as reflected in the corpora data is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the lexical representation of stereotypes. The results are formalized in distribution patterns and frequency tables showing categorical features of these stereotypes and the alterations in its cognitive structure since its emergence. The acquired results and implemented hybrid approach to the study of cognitive characteristics of linguistically represented stereotypes might provide important support for researchers interested in studying the cognitive nature of linguistic phenomena.
An Automated Retrieval Method of Geo-spatial Event Information Based on Ontology

An automated retrieval method of geographic event information is proposed.It is based on ontology instead of the words key in traditional geographic information retrieval to make match and inquire The geographic event is regarded as the tie in the method.Therefore,users only need to know the elementary information of geographic event and can extract intellectually the information associated with geographic event from a large spatial information database with personalized support.So,the retrieval information can be made by users automatically with simplified information access,information organization and applied model of software.And finally,the retrieval efficiency can be enhanced.
Dysfunction in Familial Alzheimer ’ s Disease-Linked APPswe / PS 1 E 9 Transgenic Mice

Sylvia E. Perez,1 Orly Lazarov,2 James B. Koprich,1 Er-Yun Chen,1 Virginia Rodriguez-Menendez,3 Jack W. Lipton,1 Sangram S. Sisodia,2 and Elliott J. Mufson1 1Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois 60612, 2Department of Neurobiology, Pharmacology, and Physiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, and 3Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Technologies, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20052 Monza (MI), Italy
Linear Phase or Spectral Factor Prototype Filters to Pseudo-QMF Bank Design

A new approach to design M-Channel pseudo-Quadrature Mirror Filter (QMF) cosine-modulated filter bank is formulated using the Spectral Fact orization Approach to pseudo-QMF desi gn. The new approach is derived fully and the overall distortion and the aliasing transfer functions are presented. Compared with Spectral Factorization Approach, the proposed techni que yields filter banks with lower reconstructio n errors. Se veral examples and measur es are i ncluded in order to compare both methods. Key-Words:pseudo-QMF filter bank,overall distortion transfer function,aliasing function CSCC'99 Proc.pp.1611-1614
A Structural Learning Algorithm Based on Covering Algorithm and Its Application in Stock Forecasting

Covering algorithms are very useful learning methods of neural networks, and their computing complexity is lower than that of the learning method based on search mechanism or programming based learning algorithm Covering algorithms not only are applied to deal with vast data set but also provide a new constructive learning method of neural networks However, they are based on the assumption that all of the training samples are accurate and the instance that some of the training samples are not accurate is not discussed If the methods are applied to no accurate data directly, the result is not satisfactory Discussed in this paper is the problem of forecasting time series where there are some no accurate data The covering algorithm improved and the definitions of covering intensity and no acknowledge sample are introduced The improved covering algorithm is called a structural learning algorithm (SLA) SLA is applied to forecasting a time series which is composed of Shanghai's stock integrating index, and the satisfying results are achieved It is expected that SLA will have wide applications
Postmaterialist Science : An Empirical and Experiential Approach

Consciousness and spirituality are inherently experiential processes. The defi nition of “spirituality” ranges from (1) personal opinions regarding the meaning of life and being part of something greater, through (2) experiences of transcendental states and oneness, to (3) beliefs regarding the existence of spirit, life after death, reincarnation, angels and guides, and some sort of omnipresent infi nite intelligence and power. Academic psychology has typically taken a materialistic view toward consciousness and spirituality; both are interpreted as neurobiological processes shaped by genetics and developmental and cultural factors. However, as reviewed in this chapter, contemporary consciousness research provides emerging proof-of-concept evidence suggesting that (1) mind is separate from brain, (2) spirit and soul are comparable to energy and information that persist in the vacuum of space, (3) people can receive intuitive information that is accurate and useful in their individual and collective lives, and (4) physical and psychological health can be fostered by active loving spiritual processes. The evidence points toward the emergence of a postmaterialist paradigm in psychology and science in general.
Layer rotation: a surprisingly simple indicator of generalization in deep networks?

Our work presents extensive empirical evidence that layer rotation, i.e. the evolution across training of the cosine distance between each layer's weight vector and its initialization, constitutes an impressively consistent indicator of generalization performance. In particular, larger cosine distances between final and initial weights of each layer consistently translate into better generalization performance of the final model. Interestingly, this relation admits a network independent optimum: training procedures during which all layers' weights reach a cosine distance of 1 from their initialization consistently outperform other configurations -by up to 30% test accuracy. Moreover, we show that layer rotations are easily monitored and controlled (helpful for hyperparameter tuning) and potentially provide a unified framework to explain the impact of learning rate tuning, weight decay, learning rate warmups and adaptive gradient methods on generalization and training speed. In an attempt to explain the surprising properties of layer rotation, we show on a 1-layer MLP trained on MNIST that layer rotation correlates with the degree to which features of intermediate layers have been trained.
A Multisensor Bathtub Pillow and Beat-to-Beat Heart Rate Estimator for Biofeedback Applications

Personal healthcare plays an increasingly important role in managing the challenges of an aging society. It requires affordable, reliable and smart medical devices for domestic applications. Moreover, the current trend among healthy individuals towards smartwatches and fitness tracking devices shows an additional demand for vital sign estimation at home. In this paper, a multisensor bathtub pillow for biofeedback applications in combination with a beat-to-beat heart rate estimator is presented. The pillow combines low-cost optical and mechanical sensors to measure cardiac activity. The interval estimation algorithm is based on the signal’s self-similarity and is capable of fusing information from multimodal cardiac signals. In a proof-of-concept study with two volunteers an average absolute interval estimation error of 25.1 ms at a coverage of 96 % compared to a reference ECG is achieved.
The relationship of perceived stress and lifestyle choices among Filipino adolescents

Tel. : ‭+8210-8606-0434‭ Stress-related problems associated with lifestyle are increasing among Filipino adolescents. Middle school and high school students have been identified as the most vulnerable groups being linked to incidence of chronic diseases and high risk of engagement to negative behaviors. This study aimed to (1) identify the perceived stress between male and female subjects, (2) identify the lifestyle choices between male and female subjects, and (3) determine the relationship of perceived stress and lifestyle choices among adolescents in the Philippines. Standardized questionnaires were used in conducting this study and subjects included 504 adolescents from grade eighth (N=286) and tenth (N=218) students of Sta. Lucia High School. The between group analyses revealed a significant relationship of perceived stress to lifestyle choices of the Filipino adolescents. The results showed that females have a lower perceived stress and chose healthier lifestyle than males. In regression analyses, the correlations between perceived stress and lifestyle choices have significance in the positive items of Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) as the dependent variables of Healthy Lifestyle Personal Control questionnaire (HLPCQ). Female subjects were able to significantly control and manage perceived stress even when exposed to various stressors compared to their male counterparts as well as having healthier lifestyle choices. Perceived stress level of Filipino adolescents has a significant relation to their lifestyle choices. Findings of the study highlight the need to develop and have a proper implementation of school-based healthy lifestyle programs and prevention measures among adolescents.
An evaluation of the amount of credit obtained by rural farmers and its determinants from the microfinance banks in Kogi State , Nigeria

*Corresponding author. E-mail: abulamatthew@yahoo.com Tel. : +2348035103965 The main objective of this study is to evaluate the amount of credit obtain by rural farmers and its determinants from the Microfinance Banks in Kogi State, Nigeria. A multi stage sampling technique was used to select 240 beneficiaries (respondents) from the four agricultural zones in Kogi State namely: Ayetoro-Gbedde Zone, Anyigba Zone, Koton-Karifi Zone, and Alloma Zone. Structured questionnaire was administered on them to collect-data. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents while multiple regressions was used to quantitatively determine the factors that influence the amount of credit obtained by the farmers in the state. Empirical results revealed that, Annual Household Income, Interest Rate Charge and Volume of Loan Repayment influence the amount of loan obtained and were significant at(p=0.01 or p=0.05) . 79.2% of the respondents were male and above 45years of age. Analyses reveal that the literacy level was above average with the mean years spent in school to be 13years and the mean household size of 8 persons. The mean year of experience of respondents was 24.50years. The percentage of the amount of loan granted from the amount of loan requested was 62.43%.
High-Level Features for Multimodal Deception Detection in Videos

Deception (the action of deliberately cause someone to believe something that is not true) can have many different repercussions in daily life. However, deception detection is an inherently complex task for humans. Due to this, not only there is uncertainty on which features should be used as cues for automatic deception detection, but labeled data is scarce. In this paper, we explore typical features that can be extracted from videos for affective computing and study their performance for deception detection in videos. Additionally, we perform a study of different multimodal fusion methods meant to improve the results obtained by using the different sets of extracted features separately, including a novel set of methods based on boosting. For this study, high level features are extracted with open automatic tools for the visual, acoustical and textual modalities, respectively. Experiments are conducted using a real-life trial dataset for deception detection, as well as a novel Mexican deception detection dataset using Spanish as the spoken language.