Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Grasping 3D Deformable Objects via Reinforcement Learning: A Benchmark and Evaluation

—Robotic manipulation of deformable objects is a challenging task that has been tackled with a variety of approaches. However, due to the highly difficult task of modeling the dynamics of deformable objects in a fast and accurate way, many real-world use cases remain unsolved. Recent advances in data-driven approaches like reinforcement learning (RL) promise that these methods push forward the envelope of feasibility in the field of deformable object manipulation. Despite the growing interest in this field, data-driven approaches mainly focus on the manipulation of 1D and 2D deformable objects like ropes and cloth. In this work, we present the benchmark DeformableGym to facilitate the evaluation of RL methods for grasping 3D deformable objects. We use a set of simulated benchmark environments to evaluate existing model-free state-of-the-art algorithms and investigate the main challenges and potential pitfalls of applying them in this challenging setting.
Computer Models of Musical Creativity

In this original and provocative study of computational creativity in music, David Cope asks whether computer programs can effectively model creativity -- and whether computer programs themselves can create. Defining musical creativity, and distinguishing it from creativity in other arts, Cope presents a series of experimental models that illustrate salient features of musical creativity. He makes the case that musical creativity results from a process that he calls inductive association, and he contends that such a computational process can in fact produce music creatively. Drawing on the work of many other scholars and musicians -- including Douglas Hofstadter, Margaret Boden, Selmer Bringsjord, and Kathleen Lennon -- Cope departs from the views expressed by most with his contentions that computer programs can create and that those who do not believe this have probably defined creativity so narrowly that even humans could not be said to create. After examining the foundations of creativity and musical creativity, Cope describes a number of possible models for computationally imitating human creativity in music. He discusses such issues as recombinance and pattern matching, allusions, learning, inference, analogy, musical hierarchy, and influence, and finds that these experimental models solve only selected aspects of creativity. He then describes a model that integrates these different aspects -- an inductive-association computational process that can create music. Cope's writing style is lively and nontechnical; the reader needs neither knowledge of computer programming nor specialized computer hardware or software to follow the text. The computer programs discussed in the text, along with MP3 versions of all the musical examples, are available at the author's website, http://arts.ucsc. edu/faculty/cope.
Local Probing of Mesoscopic Physics of Ferroelectric Domain Walls

Domain wall dynamics in ferroic materials underpins functionality of data storage and information technology devices. Using localized electric field of a scanning probe microscopy tip, we experimentally demonstrate a surprisingly rich range of polarization reversal behaviors in the vicinity of the initially flat 180\deg ferroelectric domain wall. The nucleation bias is found to increase by an order of magnitude from a 2D nucleus at the wall to 3D nucleus in the bulk. The wall is thus significantly ferroelectrically softer than the bulk. The wall profoundly affects switching on length scales of the order of micrometers. The mechanism of correlated switching is analyzed using analytical theory and phase-field modeling. The long-range effect is ascribed to wall bending under the influence of a tip bias well below the bulk nucleation field and placed many micrometers away from the wall. These studies provide an experimental link between the macroscopic and mesoscopic physics of domain walls and atomistic models of nucleation.
Sensory Integration Therapy and Auditory Integration Therapy

The goal of sensory integration therapy (SIT) is to improve how the brain processes and adapts to sensory information, as opposed to teaching specific skills. Therapy usually involves activities that provide vestibular, proprioceptive, and tactile stimuli, which are selected to match specific sensory processing deficits of the child. For example, swings are commonly used to incorporate vestibular input, while trapeze bars and large foam pillows or mats may be used to stimulate somatosensory pathways of proprioception and deep touch. Tactile reception may be addressed through a variety of activities and surface textures involving light touch.
Application and Expansion of Virus-Induced Gene Silencing for Functional Studies in Vegetables

Increased consumption of vegetables has been recommended worldwide as a part of a healthy diet; therefore, determining gene function among breeding materials is crucial for vegetable improvement to meet the sustainable development of new vegetable varieties. However, genetic transformation is time-consuming and laborious, which limits the exploration of gene function for various vegetable crops. Virus-Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) can perform large-scale and rapid gene silencing in plants due to a reduction in the experimental period and its independence from the stable genetic transformation, providing an excellent opportunity for functional research. VIGS can accelerate model plant research and make it easier to analyze gene function and validation in vegetable crops. Moreover, with the advent of technologies such as virus-mediated heterologous protein expression and the development of CRISPR/Cas9 technology, virus-mediated genetic tools have ushered in a new era in genetics and crop improvement. This study summarizes recent achievements in VIGS and Virus-Induced Gene Editing (VIGE) in vegetables. We also identify several challenges in the current state of VIGS technology in vegetables, serving as a guide for future research.
The Sequential and Systemic Administration of BMP-2 and SDF-1α Nanocapsules for Promoting Osteoporotic Fracture Healing

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the use of the nanocapsule sequential delivery of BMP-2 and SDF-1α through the peripheral circulatory system to promote the healing of osteoporotic fractures. Methods: Based on increased vascular permeability in the early hematoma environment around the fracture and the presence of a large number of matrix metalloproteinase MMPs in the inflammatory environment, we designed MMP-sensitive nanocapsules which were formed viain situ free-radical polymerization on the surface of grow factors with 2-(methacryloyloxy) ethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) and the bisacryloylated VPLGVRTK peptide. The antiphagic effect and biological activity of the growth factors for the nanomicrocapsule delivery system were tested by cell experiments. The 36 SD rats with an osteoporotic fracture model were randomly divided into six groups (A, B, C, D, E, and F). In this paper, the nanocapsules loaded with BMP-2 and SDF-1 are represented as n (BMP-2) and n (SDF-1α). In the six groups, the following different combinations of growth factors were injected into the bone defect site on days 1 and 3 after bone defect surgery: in group A, n (SDF-1α) combined with n (SDF-1α); in group B, n (BMP-2) combined with n (BMP-2); in group C, n (SDF-1α) + n (BMP-2) combined with n (SDF-1α) + n (BMP-2); in group D, n (SDF-1α) combined with n (BMP-2); in group E, n (BMP-2) combined with n (SDF-1α); in group F, nanocapsules without growth factor were used as the control group. Micro-CT was used to observe the effect of n(BMP-2) and n(SDF-1α) sequential delivery inearly healing in osteoporotic fractures. Finally, in this study, we evaluated the safety of the nanocapsules delivery system by detecting ectopic osteogenesis and inflammatory responses in animals. Results: Nanocapsules have low toxicity and protect the integrity and biological activity of growth factors. The results confirmed that nanocapsules could still be effectively targeted to the fracture site on days 1, 3, and 7 after intravenous administration. Growth factors encapsulated in nanocapsules have better bone repair results than natural growth factors. In particular, groups C and D had the best bone repair results than other groups.In vivo experiments confirmed that nanocapsules did not cause significant ectopic osteogenesis and inflammation. Conclusion: The results confirmed that the special vascular permeability and inflammatory factor microenvironment of the fracture site could be used to deliver two growth factors with a synergistic effect through venous circulation, which could better promote the healing process of osteoporotic fracture.
Investigation of relationships between learner background, linguistic progression and score gain on IELTS

This project investigated to what extent IELTS test performances (i.e., overall test scores, speaking section scores, and linguistic constructs of speaking) changed over a period of three months. It further examined how learner background variables affected linguistic progress and band score gains on the IELTS. Fifty-two Korean students, enrolled in IELTS preparation classes, participated in the study. Participants’ proficiency levels were determined by their in-house placement test scores (i.e., roughly 16 beginners, 17 intermediate and 19 advanced). After participants completed the pre-test survey, they took the pre-arranged official IELTS test. Participants’ hours of study and target language use information was collected weekly. The post-survey and online interviews were conducted at the end of the three-month period right after the official IELTS post-test. The individual long-run speaking responses from the preand posttests were used for speech analysis (i.e., pronunciation and lexico-grammatical features) to examine their linguistic gains over time. The results showed that students made various progress in English over the three-month period with an average gain of slightly less than half a band (.3), and with the most score gain in the writing skill and the least score gain in the speaking skill. Approximately 60% of the participants gained . 5 or 1 band scores. In particular, hours of study and level of proficiency predicted the band score gains most potently. Together with the amount of target language, the background variables explained 34% of variance in the score gains. Fluency features revealed the most significant improvement over time, but complex relationships were found between learner background characteristics and speech construct changes. The findings offer useful implications for the development of language testing and assessment as well as curriculum planning.
Soil and vegetation conditions in small valleys at Southern coast of Bellsund, Spitsbergen

Soil-plant conditions in selected valleys typical for Bellsund Region are varying from hardly favourable (Skilvika), to favourable (Calypsostranda) and medium (Lyellstranda). Plant growth and development of a soil cover are favoured by grain size composition (loamy sands and light loams), quick warming-up of a soil, relative stability of a ground, location and shape of valleys, etc. Unfavourable soil-plant conditions result from too light or too heavy grain size composition, considerable dynamics of ground mechanical features and high com­ pactness of a soil. Varying contents of carbonates and alkaline reaction (except for almost neutral reaction in organic horizons) were typical for the studied soils. Thickness of humus horizons as well as contents of organic C vary at the three studied sites. Significant is high concentration of easily available Ca and Mg, sometimes also of Na. K e y w o r d s : Arctic, Spitsbergen, valleys, soil and vegetation conditions.
Relationships between development of plant communities and habitats in the landscapes of river valley

Relationship between plant communities and habitat conditions in the natural mire valley landscape was examined in the Narew River mire valley, within the borders of the Narew National Park, in the north-eastern part of Poland. In the 37 sampling points in forests, sedge and reed communities, the soil and groundwater samples were taken and the species composition was recorded in 1996 -1997. In every sampling point water table was measured additionally. The Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) was performed, by means of computer program CANOCO, to examine the unimodal relationships between plant species and environmental variables. Species composition of studied communities is related mainly to natural processes which depends on dynamics of floods, fluctuations of the surface water and groundwater levels, and its nutrient richness. Geochemical processes are mainly affected by hydrological conditions of habitats in various locations in mire valley landscape.
Neuroaesthetics: A Concise Review of the Evidence Aimed at Aesthetically Sensible Design

In recent years, advancing technology and growing interest in neuromarketing and neurobranding have led to foundational research that facilitates a better understanding of consumers’ affective responses and unconscious information processing. However, the areas of aesthetics and design have remained largely unaffected by such advances and implications. The purpose of this study is to present a systematic review of the neuroscientific evidence aimed at sensible design for design and marketing researchers interested in exploring neuroaesthetics, an interdisciplinary area by nature. Sciencedirect, EBSCO, and the Google Scholar database were searched in February 2014 to select and review previous studies of aesthetics involving neuroscience. Twenty-eight studies were reviewed and divided into two categories: reward system and emotion. In addition to discussions on previous approaches, future research directions focusing on the process of aesthetic judgments (e.g., design elements, marketing stimuli) are proposed.
A qualitative exploration of barriers to medication adherence among patients with uncontrolled diabetes in Qatar: integrating perspectives of patients and health care providers

Purpose To develop an in-depth understanding of the barriers to medication adherence among patients with uncontrolled diabetes attending primary health care (PHC) centers in Qatar by exploring and integrating patients’ and health care providers’ perspectives. Participants and methods A descriptive qualitative methodology was used in this study. A trained researcher conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews at two PHC centers. Patients with uncontrolled diabetes (with varied sociodemographic characteristics) and their respective health care providers (physicians, pharmacists, nurses, dieticians, and others) were purposively selected from the two PHC centers. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic content analysis. Results Thirty interviews (14 patients and 16 health care providers) were conducted. A number of barriers to medication adherence were identified and classified broadly under three main themes: 1) patient-related factors, which included patients’ individual characteristics and patients’ perception, attitude, and behavior; 2) patient–provider factors, which included communication and having multiple health care providers caring for the patient; and 3) societal and environmental factors, which included social pressure and traveling to visit friends and relatives. Conclusion Patients with uncontrolled diabetes face multiple barriers to medication adherence. Similar themes emerged from both patients and their care providers. This research highlights the need for concerted multidimensional efforts and series of interventions to overcome these barriers. One vital intervention is expanding the scope of pharmacists’ role within the PHC centers through providing medication reconciliation, patient-tailored medication counseling, and medicines use review, which may improve treatment outcomes among patients with diabetes.
An Algorithm Measuring Urban Building Heights by Combining the PS-InSAR Technique and Two-Stage Programming Approach Framework

Urban building heights offer critical information in studying urbanization. An approach with adequate accuracy is of significant interest. Spaceborne interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) techniques and multibaseline (MB) InSAR observations can be an alternative to fill the interest. Since the MB InSAR observations are achieved through multitemporal SAR observations with different baselines, temporal decorrelation is unavoidable, affecting most existing MB-based phase unwrapping (PU) approaches. Also, the quality of the derived heights depends on a PU approach. Thus, by combing the permanent scatterers (PS) InSAR technique and the two-stage programming approach (TSPA) framework, we proposed an algorithm to estimate urban building heights with the multitemporal SAR observations, calling it the PS-TSPA algorithm. It takes advantage of the global phase gradient information used in the single baseline PU approaches, not considering the phase continuity assumption. The algorithm should be robust to the temporal decorrelation or noise effect. With the time series of 17 TerraSAR-X data, we estimated building heights in the southern urban area of Chengdu, China. The derived building heights were satisfactory overall and assessed by in situ measurements. In comparison, the Tomo-PS method estimated the heights in the same area and with the same SAR data. Quantitative analyses indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the Tomo-PS method. Finally, with routine SAR observations and SAR data downloadable through the Internet, the PS-TSPA algorithm can be inexpensive in estimating urban building heights with reasonable accuracy.
BioNet: A Biologically-Inspired Network for Face Recognition

Recently, whether and how cutting-edge Neuroscience findings can inspire Artificial Intelligence (AI) confuse both communities and draw much discussion. As one of the most critical fields in AI, Computer Vision (CV) also pays much attention to the discussion. To show our ideas and experimental evidence to the discussion, we focus on one of the most broadly researched topics both in Neuroscience and CV fields, i.e., Face Recognition (FR). Neuroscience studies show that face attributes are essential to the human face-recognizing system. How the attributes contribute also be explained by the Neuroscience community. Even though a few CV works improved the FR performance with attribute enhancement, none of them are inspired by the human face-recognizing mechanism nor boosted performance significantly. To show our idea experimentally, we model the biological characteristics of the human face-recognizing system with classical Convolutional Neural Network Operators (CNN Ops) purposely. We name the proposed Biologically-inspired Network as BioNet. Our BioNet consists of two cascade sub-networks, i.e., the Visual Cortex Network (VCN) and the Inferotemporal Cortex Network (ICN). The VCN is modeled with a classical CNN backbone. The proposed ICN comprises three biologically-inspired modules, i.e., the Cortex Functional Compartmentalization, the Compartment Response Transform, and the Response Intensity Modulation. The experiments prove that: 1) The cutting-edge findings about the human face-recognizing system can further boost the CNN-based FR network. 2) With the biological mechanism, both identity-related attributes (e.g., gender) and identity-unrelated attributes (e.g., expression) can benefit the deep FR models. Surprisingly, the identity-unrelated ones contribute even more than the identity-related ones. 3) The proposed BioNet significantly boosts state-of-the-art on standard FR benchmark datasets. For example, BioNet boosts IJB-B@ 1 e-6 from 52.12% to 68.28% and MegaFace from 98.74% to 99.19%. The source code is released in11https://github.com/pengyuLPY/BioNet.git.
Natural Ecosystems I. The Rocky Mountains

This assessment of climate-change effects on Rocky Mountain terrestrial ecosystems is prepare from information generated by a workshop focused on terrestrial systems of the Rocky Mountains, and held in Boulder, CO, on 29-30 September 2000 at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It is a compilation of this workshop's discussion along with material from earlier workshops.
Nonlocal total variation based dynamic PET image reconstruction with low-rank constraints

Faced with the low signal-to-noise ratio of measurements due to the short data acquisition time between adjacent frames, reconstruction techniques for dynamic positron emission tomography (dPET) images have been under development for decades. In this paper, a novel reconstruction method of dPET is presented. We first enforce a joint low-rank model to simultaneously exploit the spatiotemporal priors. Considering that PET images suffer from noise actually, a nonlocal total variation (TV) constraint is incorporated in the low-rank framework because it is able to preserve fine structures and remove the staircase effect by using image redundancies. We solve the objective function by using the augmented Lagrangian multiplier method with variable splitting. We then validate the effectiveness of the proposed method with Monte Carlo-simulated datasets and real patient data. The proposed approach gives superior reconstruction results compared with the maximum likelihood-expectation maximization and low-rank TV methods.
A Two–Parameter Model of Snow–Avalanche Motion

Abstract Voellmy’s (1955) method for computing the run-out distance of a snow avalanche includes an unsatisfactory feature: the a priori selection of a midslope reference where the avalanche is assumed to begin decelerating from a computed steady velocity. There is no objective criterion for selecting this reference, and yet the choice critically determines the computed stopping position of the avalanche. As an alternative, a differential equation is derived in this paper on the premise that the only logical reference is the starting position of the avalanche. The equation is solved numerically for paths of complex geometry. Solutions are based on two parameters: a coefficient of friction μ; and a ratio of avalanche mass–to–drag, M⁄D. These are analogous to the two parameters in Voellmy’s model, μ and ξH. Velocity and run-out distance data are needed to estimate μ and M⁄D to useful precision. The mathematical properties of two–parameter models are explored, and it is shown that some difficulties arise since similar results are predicted by dissimilar pairs of μ and M⁄D.