Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of Alternatives to Stochastic Gradient Descent

Even though Gradient Descent has a linear convergence rate, one major drawback of GD is that it requires evaluation of n derivatives at each step where n is the number of training samples. This is very computationally demanding and therefore, for problems with large datasets, it’s almost infeasible to use Gradient Descent. In order to overcome this problem, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) can be used which has the following update rule: ω = ω(t−1) − ηt∇ψit(ω) where it is drawn uniformly random from {1, . , n}. Since E[∇φit(ω)] = 1 n ∑n i=1∇φi(ω), SGD update rule is similar to GD step in expectation. Moreover, as it could be easily seen, SGD step just requires a single derivative evaluation which reduces the computational cost by a factor of n compared to GD. However, a downside of SGD is that despite the fact that it agrees with GD in expectation, it is not the same at each step and this in turn leads to introducing variance. SGD has a sublinear convergence rate. There are a lot of algorithms that aim to reduce this inherent variance of SGD. For instance, as we saw in one of the homework problems, we can vary SGD by evaluating the gradient for a few examples instead of just one so that the gradient approximation has a lower variance. In what follows, I will explore a few of alternatives to SGD which are introduced in [1], [2] and [3].
Universal Representation Learning for Faster Reinforcement Learning

Traditional refinforcement learning (RL) approaches, like Q learning, excel when environment states are provided for training agents. However, many RL applications do not have access to hand-crafted state features and need to work with pixel data. Naively running these images through Q learning, however, performs quite poorly across most environments. Instead, we explored a variety of representation learning methods, based on Contrastive Unsupervised Representation Learning (CURL) [7]
Accelerated Life Tests of Flip-Chips With Solder Bumps Down to 30 μm Diameter

In this study, accelerated life tests with ultra fine-pitch flip-chips with solder bumps down to 30 microns diameter have been performed. Tests commonly used like temperature cycling, high temperature storage, and humidity bias tests are not sufficient for such small packaging feature sizes any more. As solder bump sizes continue to decrease, along with the shrinkage of the solder pads and the scaling of line/space geometries, thermal diffusion has even more impact on reliability and lifetime of the solder connections, and current densities within single solder bumps increase. Therefore, electromigration of flip-chip interconnects is a significant reliability concern, especially when it comes to further miniaturization for high reliability applications. Since electromigration is a function of interconnect sizes and metallurgies, new interconnect developments need to be characterized for electromigration reliability. Flip-chips 10 mm × 10 mm × 0.8 mm in size with a die layout providing a pitch of 100 μm fo.
Interferon Gamma, MHC Class I Regulation and Immunotherapy

The activation of endogenous IFNγ signaling pathway or the administration of recombinant IFNγ increases the expression of MHC-I. MHC-I molecules are core elements for antigen recognition in tumor cells. A better understanding of the regulation of their expression would contribute to counteracting tumor immune escape and enduring permanent tumor rejection. Efficient and functional expression of HLAs dramatically impacts the number of tumor-associated antigens presented to CTL for cell recognition. Many patients diagnosed with various types of cancer have inhibited the IFNγ signaling pathway. This review explores how anomalies associated with IFNγ signaling in tumor cells affect HLA-I expression, current immunotherapies association, and outcome. Globally, MHC-I lesions could be divided into reversible and permanent. Irreversible lesions cannot be recapitulated; hence, the patient will not respond to immunotherapies requiring MHC-I activity. However, gaining precise and systematic molecular knowledge improves tumor stratification, which could help predict which tumors will recover expression of MHC-I. Complementary IFNγ effectors can function as a compensatory mechanism that restores the expression of HLA-I proteins in tumors with deleterious IFNγ pathways. For those non-responsive patients with inactive IFNγ pathways, designing personalized approaches to recover HLA-I expression can make the tumor sensitive to immunotherapy, leading to a better outcome.
Use of liquid natural latex for the manufacture of waterproof canvas fabric

Research on the use of liquid natural latex for waterproof canvas fabric coatings has been carried out by varying the volume of liquid natural latex in 4 levels, namely 0.5 liters, 1.0 liter, 1.5 liters, 2.0 liter, and varying the thickness of the coating material 10 g, 20 g, 30 g so that 12 types of waterproof canvas are obtained. The purpose of this study was to find the right formula in the manufacture of canvas fabric that has the properties of Water Resistance, Adhesion, Tensile Strength, Elongation at Break, and Tear Resistance according to the quality standards of woven fabrics for tents. The results of testing the physical properties of waterproof canvas fabrics as a whole almost meet the quality standards of woven fabrics for tents, except for the results of the waterproof strength test at a layer of 10 g. The best results were obtained in formula III with a coating of 20 g, getting water resistance values of 43.6 mBar, adhesive strength 0.8 kg/cm, tensile strength 88.2 kg and 77.8, elongation at break 40.8% and 20, 3%, Tear strength 21.5 kg and 19.4 kg for warp direction and weft direction.
Spectral Properties of the Soft X-Ray Transient MAXI J0637−430 Using AstroSat

Soft X-ray transients are systems that are detected when they go into an outburst, wherein their X-ray luminosity increases by several orders of magnitude. These outbursts are markers of the poorly understood change in the spectral state of these systems from the low/hard state to the high/soft state. We report the spectral properties of one such soft X-ray transient: MAXI J0637−430, with data from the SXT and LAXPC instruments on board the AstroSat mission. The source was observed for a total of ∼60 ks in two observations on 2019 November 8 and 21 soon after its discovery. Flux-resolved spectral analysis of the source indicates the presence of a multicolor blackbody component arising from the accretion disk and a thermal Comptonization component. The stable low temperature (∼0.55 keV) of the blackbody component points to a cool accretion disk with an inner disk radius of the order of a few hundred kilometers. In addition, we report the presence of a relativistically broadened Gaussian line at 6.4 keV. The disk-dominated flux and photon power-law index of ⪆2 and a constant inner disk radius indicate the source to be in the soft state. From the study we conclude that MAXI J0637−430 is a strong candidate for a black hole X-ray binary.
Application of CRISPR/Cas9 technology to improve the important traits in coffee

Coffee is an essential estate crop that has a tremendous economic impact globally and is cultivated in many countries worldwide. However, due to the long process, the genetic improvement of coffee to develop new varieties through conventional breeding is slow and difficult. In addition, its production is constrained mainly by biotic and abiotic stresses. Therefore, developing superior coffee varieties with tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses and improved quality is vital. The invention of genome editing technology has evolved the technologies in agriculture. CRISPR/Cas9 technology is a genome editing technique that more commonly applied for its simplicity, robustness, and high efficiency, compared to other techniques such as ZFN a nd TALEN. Furthermore, to develop new superior va rieties of coffee, the CRISPR/Cas9 system provides an opportunity to improve by adding desirable traits or removing unwanted characteristics. Therefore, genome editing techniques in coffee breeding can help to increase yield, resistant/tolerant of biotic a nd abiotic, reduce input costs, a nd improve product quality. This article discusses the latest innovations of the CRISPR/Cas9 technique applicable in agriculture and prospectively on genome editing to improve important characters in coffee.
Yield and growth performance of potential sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) hybrid clones

Sugarcane development in Indonesia has been done primarily on dry lands. Therefore developing varieties more suitable to dry-agro-ecological conditions is being attempted as it is easily applicable and economically feasible. This study aimed at assessing the yield of 18 potential sugarcane clones, resulting from crosses with parents which have high productivity. This study used Cenning variety as a control. The research was conducted at Karangploso experimental garden Malang, from October 2019 to September 2020. The research used a randomized block design with four replications. The experimental plot was designed with five rows (5 m length) and rows distance at 110 cm. The evaluation was carried out on the growth and production component. The results showed that genotypes affected the performances of growth and yield characters. All of the clones showed good performances in growth. Clones MLG 18/21/14, MLG 18/42/15 and MLG 18/41/5 had productivity 21.08-34.86 (t/ha) and sucrose content 21.79-38.44 (%) higher than control. The three clones select as promising clones for sugarcane development in dry-agro-ecological land with higher productivity yields.
Social Entrepreneurship from a Chronological Approach: A Path for Change

Social entrepreneurship represents a shift in paradigm, from an economic perspective focused on profit gains, to a broader meaning of value creation, including social welfare in its mission. In this line, social entrepreneurs are supposed to be the actors of change towards a more equally distributed society, in the fostering of social equilibrium. This research shows a how a typology of social entrepreneurship previously highlighted by academia can be understood through the exemplification of a real-life case. Through the case study of a Spanish scientist, social entrepreneurship phenomenon is seen as process consisting of three stages, bricoleur, constructionist and engineer. Thus, instead of understanding social entrepreneurship as a phenomenon that can be classified in different categories, it can be viewed as a chronology of three different phases. These phases are associated to different points of the professional career of the entrepreneur. Therefore, the unit of analysis is the individual, namely, Dr. Mateo. The first stage -social bricolageis characterized by the scarcity of resources. Contrarily, a greater dimension and influence of the social change represents the main feature of the latest stages. Future research avenues should incorporate other units of analysis, complementary to the one presented in this study, in order to get a wider understanding of the reality.
Counter-Strike Self-play AI Agent with Object Detection and Imitation Training

In this project, I’m building an AI agent that can self play the popular first-person-shooter video game Counter-Strike:Global Offensive (CS:GO). The AI agent consists of two neural networks: One is a Yolov5 [1] network used for enemy detection; The other one is a custom deep network used for movement and orientation control. Unlike many other game agents that rely on game API support, this CS:GO agent is trained through supervised learning and imitation training (behavior cloning). The agent plays the game purely based on input game frames. The best performing agent achieved veteran players level of shooting accuracy and learnt notable human player like behaviors in real games
Garbage Harvesting using Deep Learning

Efficient Waste Management and recycling has been big challenge for many nations. our proposed machine learning model provides a way to automatically sort, there by reducing mixing of various categories of garbage at the dumpster which can lead to contamination of recyclable garbage. Transfer learning technique is used with ResNet18 and Resnet50 models which are pretrained on Image-Net[1] Data set. This pre-trained model is trained again with our data set to make predictions into various categories of trash. Instead of just using plain object classification we will also capture various features from the objects like CA CRV redemption, these features can help to improve accuracy further and also help to gain revenue from CRV redemption. our model achieved high test accuracy of 92.36% with resnet50.
Real world 3D object pose estimation and the Sim2Real gap

Training deep neural networks for robotic manipulation such as pick-and-place tasks requires accurate detection and pose estimation of one or multiple objects. Using synthetic data for training deep neural networks for these tasks can efficiently generate substantial custom labeled and annotated datasets; however, synthetic data present what is known as the Sim2Real gap or reality gap where networks trained on only synthetic data do not generalize well to real-world data. We show the programmatic process of generating custom synthetic datasets using Unreal Engine and the NVIDIA Deep learning Dataset Synthesizer (NDDS) to explore the Sim2Real gap in the context of 6-DoF pose estimation of a custom object from a single RGB image. We present qualitative issues when testing real-world integration with an RGB camera in the form of bounding box heat maps, and we then perform a study on synthetic dataset size versus performance, as well as a sensitivity study to explore the Sim2Sim robustness of our model, testing camera perspectives, lighting, object rotation, and environment randomization. We then present next steps and strategies for bridging the reality gap.
Fabrication and Manipulation of Micro- and Nano-Scale Magnetic Particles: Application to Magnetofection, Nanopositioning, and Drug Delivery

LAMAR O. MAIR: Fabrication and Manipulation of Microand Nano-Scale Magnetic Particles: Application to Magnetofection, Nanopositioning, and Drug Delivery. (Under the Direction of Richard Superfine.) Magnetic particles offer scientists a unique opportunity – the ability to apply forces to these particles from a distance by means of a magnetic field gradient. This property becomes increasingly useful for probing and prodding physical processes in the biological world. Because a large fraction of biological materials are nonmagnetic we are able apply forces to the particles which are not felt by the biological samples, unless of course the biomaterials are in some way mechanically coupled to the magnetic particles. This dissertation describes two techniques for creating shapedefined and compositionally flexible magnetic micro/nanoparticles. Both techniques fall into the category of top-down synthesis, making use of templates to pattern and grow particles. The first technique relies on thermal evaporation of metals onto pre-patterned wafers, the resulting metal deposition creating clusters of material atop lithographically defined posts. The technique produces shape-defined particles and allows for user-defined particle composition (resulting materials named Post-Particles). The second technique relies on electrodeposition into the pores of anodized aluminum oxide templates and results in aspect ratio-adjustable magnetic rods with a wide range of diameters. Here I use the technique to create novel nickel-gold Janus nanorods. In this dissertation I apply particles created using these
Real-time guarantees on full-duplex switched ethernet for military applications

This paper is a proposal for a future method of avionics data communication in military aircrafts. The need for this proposal results from the increasing complexity of avionics systems that is pushing the MIL-STD-1553B well beyond the limits of its bandwidth. Among several high speed interconnection technologies, Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet is an attractive candidate to replace the MIL-STD-1553B for advanced military aircraft system interconnection but, unfortunately, it was not originally developed with the aim to deliver real-time communications. Therefore, we have to add new mechanisms over Switched Ethernet to achieve realtime behaviour with bounded delays. In this paper, we describe the most important existent real-time transfer solutions for the classic Ethernet and discuss their possible applicability over Switched Ethernet. Then, we compare their performances and their capacities to handle realtime constraints required by the military applications. A special care is given to the traffic shaping approach which allows to limit the congestions in the switch and to guarantee low delays. We will show in experiments that with the traffic shaping approach with the priority handling, we can achieve deterministic transmission that respect the military application’s requirements.
How Much is Enough? A Connectionist Perspective on the Representation Debate

The paper looks at the tension between the classical assumption that representation is vital for e ective cognition and the relatively recent `reactivist' movement which takes a contrary view. A statistical analysis of cognitive tasks is developed and used to support the argument that purely reactivist approaches cannot hope to deal with anything but the most primitive of domains.
The Dangerous Staircase of Stress

Chronic negative stress may be the start of a progress of illness, that may end in serious troubles for the affected. In this Perspective we highlight the steps in such a progress, what we call a staircase of stress. This underlines the importance of recognition, understanding and therapeutic measures at an early stage of the stress disorders.
Organizational practices promoting employees’ pro-environmental behaviors in a Visegrad Group country: How much does company ownership matter?

Although company ownership (local vs. foreign) has been used as a contingency variable that differentiates companies’ environmental activities and performance, the current understanding of these differences is fragmented. None of the previous studies examined the relationships between company ownership and a complex set of organizational practices which promote employees’ pro-environmental behaviors. The article fills the gap in previous research by analyzing the extent to which a total of 37 organizational practices are used. These practices are divided into technical (20 are related to environmental management) and “soft” (17 are related to HRM policies). For this study, both literature studies and a survey covering 199 companies located in Poland were used. In the theoretical part, the paper presents various typologies of factors that enhance employees’ green behavior, with the focus on organizational practices. There is also a review of studies on environmental sustainability which used company ownership as a variable. The results of the empirical research show that–although in foreign companies environmental issues are increasingly perceived as important or very important–many of the practices which are treated as crucial for developing employees’ eco-friendly behaviors are rarely used in both local and foreign companies. Moreover, company ownership was important in the context of using 88% of the “soft” practices and 50% of the technical practices discussed in the article. The article provides implications for policy and practice, as well as directions for further research.
EEG Spectral Feature Modulations Associated With Fatigue in Robot-Mediated Upper Limb Gross and Fine Motor Interactions

This paper investigates the EEG spectral feature modulations associated with fatigue induced by robot-mediated upper limb gross and fine motor interactions. Twenty healthy participants were randomly assigned to perform a gross motor interaction with HapticMASTER or a fine motor interaction with SCRIPT passive orthosis for 20 min or until volitional fatigue. Relative and ratio band power measures were estimated from the EEG data recorded before and after the robot-mediated interactions. Paired-samples t-tests found a significant increase in the relative alpha band power and a significant decrease in the relative delta band power due to the fatigue induced by the robot-mediated gross and fine motor interactions. The gross motor task also significantly increased the (θ + α)/β and α/β ratio band power measures, whereas the fine motor task increased the relative theta band power. Furthermore, the robot-mediated gross movements mostly changed the EEG activity around the central and parietal brain regions, whereas the fine movements mostly changed the EEG activity around the frontopolar and central brain regions. The subjective ratings suggest that the gross motor task may have induced physical fatigue, whereas the fine motor task may have induced mental fatigue. Therefore, findings affirm that changes to localised brain activity patterns indicate fatigue developed from the robot-mediated interactions. It can also be concluded that the regional differences in the prominent EEG spectral features are most likely due to the differences in the nature of the task (fine/gross motor and distal/proximal upper limb) that may have differently altered an individual's physical and mental fatigue level. The findings could potentially be used in future to detect and moderate fatigue during robot-mediated post-stroke therapies.
Food habits and associated risk factors of depressed patients with cardiovascular disease

The present study was carried out to investigate food habits and associated risk factors of depressed patients with cardiovascular disease in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia. Depressed and healthy females (n = 30 each) and males (n = 30 each) aged 18–65 years were involved in this study. Sociodemographic, anthropometric proxies, and nutritional status were evaluated. Cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c) levels of respondents’ blood were determined. The respondents were varied according to demographic factors and anthropometric proxies. The majority of depressed males had higher values than healthy ones. The student t-test analysis showed that the average daily intake of fat especially saturated fat, by depressed respondents was higher than that of the healthy ones as well as the dietary requirement intake (DRI). The analysis of respondents’ blood showed that the number of depressed females had higher abnormal HDL-c than males, who were observed to have an abnormal level of cholesterol and triglycerides. The correlation of daily nutrient intake and depression duration, depression severity, and age showed that the nutrients responsible for the extension and severity of depression were intake of food rich in dietary fat. Factors including demographics daily nutrient intake appeared to be associated with depression.