pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Find it: an assistant home agent

Cognitive impaired population face with innumerable problems in their
daily life. Surprisingly, they are not provided with any help to perform those tasks
for which they have difficulties. As a consequence, it is necessary to develop systems
that allow those people to live independently and autonomously. Living in a
technological era, people could take advantage of the available technology, being
provided with some solutions to their needs. This paper presents a platform that assists
users with remembering where their possessions are. Mainly, an object recognition
process together with an intelligent scheduling applications are integrated in
an Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environment
Geo-localization system for people with cognitive disabilities

Technology is present in almost every simple aspect of the people’s daily
life. As an instance, let us refer to the smartphone. This device is usually equipped
with a GPS module which may be used as an orientation system, if it carries the right
functionalities. The problem is that these applications may be complex to operate
and may not be within the bounds of everybody.
Therefore, the main goal here is to develop an orientation system that may help
people with cognitive disabilities in their day-to-day journeys, when the caregivers
are absent. On the other hand, to keep paid helpers aware of the current location of
the disable people, it will be also considered a localization system. Knowing their
current locations, caregivers may engage in others activities without neglecting their
prime work, and, at the same time, turning people with cognitive disabilities more
independent.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012)ERDF - European Regional Development
Funds through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness)
project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980
(PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012)
Server to mobile device communication: A case study

When we want to implement a client-server applications we must consider
the mobile devices limitations. So, in this paper we discuss what can be the
more reliable way to exchange information between a server and an Android mobile
application, since it is important for users to have an application that really works
in a responsive way and preferably without any errors. In this discussion two data
transfer protocols (Socket and HTTP) and to serialize data three different data structure
formats (XML, JSON and Protocol Buffers) were tested using some metrics to
evaluate which is the most practical and fast to use
Ambient sensorization for the furtherance of sustainability

Energy efficiency is regarded as an important objective in a world of limited resources. The sustainable use of energy is necessary for the continuity
of life styles that do not jeopardize the future. Nevertheless, due to poor information about the impact of human actions on the environment, it is hard to
promote and warn for sustainability. This work focuses on the use of ambient intelligence as a mean to constantly revise sustainability indicators in a way
they may be used for user awareness and recommendation systems within communities. The approach in this research makes use of sustainable indicators
monitored through ambient sensors which enable user accountability concerning their actions inside each environment. Also, it is possible to compare the effect of user actions in the environment, enabling decision making based on such comparison factors
Dynamically improving collective environments through mood induction procedures

In our daily living, the environment surrounding us in uences
us as much or more than we in uence it. Whether it is a domestic,
leisure or working environment, its conditions will certainly have short
and long-term e ects on aspects such as stress, mood or fatigue, which
will in turn in uence indicators such as productivity, quality of work,
quality of life, personal/group performance or even health. In this paper
a dynamic environment is proposed that, based on the behavioural
analysis of its users, will adapt its conditions to improve particular indicators.
This will result in better working environments, with an impact
on the quality of the work produced.ERDF - European Regional Development Fund
through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness)Fundação para a Ciência e a
Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project
FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012)
Keystrokes and clicks : measuring stress on e-learning students

In traditional learning, teachers can easily get an insight into how their
students work and learn and how they interact in the classroom. However, in
online learning, it is more difficult for teachers to see how individual students
behave. With the enormous growing of e-learning platforms, as complementary or
even primary tool to support learning in organizations, monitoring students’
success factors becomes a crucial issue. In this paper we focus on the importance
of stress in the learning process. Stress detection in an E-learning environment is
an important and crucial factor to success. Estimating, in a non-invasive way, the
students’ levels of stress, and taking measures to deal with it, is then the goal of
this paper. Moodle, by being one of the most used e-learning platforms is used to
test the log tool referred in this work
Assignment of novel functions to Helicobacter pylori 26695’s genome

Helicobacter pylori is a pathogenic bacterium that colonizes the human epithelia, causing duodenal and gastric ulcers as well as gastric cancer. The genome of H. pylori 26695 has been sequenced and annotated. In addition, two genome-scale metabolic models have been developed. In order to maintain accurate and relevant information on coding sequences (CDS) and to retrieve new information, the assignment of new functions to Helicobacter pylori 26695’s genes was performed. The use of software tools, on-line databases and an annotation pipeline for inspecting each gene allowed the attribution of validated E.C. numbers to metabolic genes, and the assignment of 177 new functions to the CDS of this bacterium. This information provides relevant biological information for the scientific community dealing with this organism and can be used as the basis for a new metabolic model reconstruction
Convergence of the two-point function of the stationary TASEP

We consider the two-point function of the totally asymmetric simple exclusion
process with stationary initial conditions. The two-point function can be
expressed as the discrete Laplacian of the variance of the associated height
function. The limit of the distribution function of the appropriately scaled
height function was obtained previously by Ferrari and Spohn. In this paper we
show that the convergence can be improved to the convergence of moments. This
implies the convergence of the two-point function in a weak sense along the
near-characteristic direction as time tends to infinity, thereby confirming the
conjecture in the paper of Ferrari and Spohn.Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, 2 figures; Minor correction
A Nested Variational Time Discretization for Parametric Anisotropic
  Willmore Flow

A variational time discretization of anisotropic Willmore flow combined with
a spatial discretization via piecewise affine finite elements is presented.
Here, both the energy and the metric underlying the gradient flow are
anisotropic, which in particular ensures that Wulff shapes are invariant up to
scaling under the gradient flow. In each time step of the gradient flow a
nested optimization problem has to be solved. Thereby, an outer variational
problem reflects the time discretization of the actual Willmore flow and
involves an approximate anisotropic $L^2$-distance between two consecutive time
steps and a fully implicit approximation of the anisotropic Willmore energy.
The anisotropic mean curvature needed to evaluate the energy integrand is
replaced by the time discrete, approximate speed from an inner, fully implicit
variational scheme for anisotropic mean curvature motion. To solve the nested
optimization problem a Newton method for the associated Lagrangian is applied.
Computational results for the evolution of curves underline the robustness of
the new scheme, in particular with respect to large time steps.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
A concurrent tuple set architecture for call level interfaces

Call Level Interfaces (CLI) are low level API aimed at providing services to connect two main components in database applications: client applications and relational databases. Among their functionalities, the ability to manage data retrieved from databases is emphasized. The retrieved data is kept in local memory structures that may be permanently connected to the host database. Client applications, beyond the ability to read their contents, may also execute Insert, Update and Delete actions over the local memory structures, following specific protocols. These protocols are row (tuple) oriented and, while being executed, cannot be preempted to start another protocol. This restriction leads to several difficulties when applications need to deal with several tuples at a time. The most paradigmatic case is the impossibility to cope with concurrent environments where several threads need to access to the same local memory structure instance, each one pointing to a different tuple and executing its particular protocol. To overcome the aforementioned fragility, a Concurrent Tuple Set Architecture (CTSA) is proposed to manage local memory structures. A performance assessment of a Java component based on JDBC (CLI) is also carried out and compared with a common approach. The main outcome of this research is the evidence that in concurrent environments, components relying on the CTSA may significantly improve the overall performance when compared with solutions based on standard JDBC API
Intelligent web based on mathematic theory. Case study : service composition validation via distributed compiler and graph theory

This paper discusses a model for verifying service composition by building a distributed semi-compiler of service process. In this talk, we introduce a technique that solves the service composition problems such as infinite loops,deadlock and replicate use of the service. Specifically, the client needs to build a composite service by invoking other services but without knowing the exact design of these loosely coupled services. The proposed Distributed Global Service Compiler, by this article, results dynamically from the business process of each service. As a normal compiler cannot detect loops, we apply a graph theory algorithm, a Depth First Search, on the deduced result taken from business process files
Evaluating spatial characteristics of upper-limb movements from EMG signals

Stroke is a major cause of disability, usually causing hemiplegic damage on the motor abilities of the patient. Stroke rehabilitation seeks restoring normal motion on the affected limb. However, ‘normality’ of movements is usually assessed by clinical and functional tests, without considering how the motor system responds to therapy. We hypothesized that electromyographic (EMG) recordings could provide useful information for evaluating the outcome of rehabilitation from a neuromuscular perspective. Four healthy subjects were asked to perform 14 different functional movements simulating the action of reaching over a table. Each movement was defined according to the starting and target positions that the subject had to connect using linear trajectories. Bipolar recordings of EMG signals were taken from biceps and triceps muscles, and spectral and temporal characteristics were extracted for each movement. Using pattern recognition techniques we found that only two EMG channels were sufficient to accurately determine the spatial characteristics of motor activity: movement direction, length and execution zone. Our results suggest that muscles may fire in a patterned way depending on the specific characteristics of the movement and that EMG signals may codify such detailed information. These findings may be of great value to quantitatively assess poststroke rehabilitation and to compare the neuromuscular activity of the affected and unaffected limbs, from a physiological perspective. Furthermore, disturbed movements could be characterized in terms of the muscle function to identify, which is the spatial characteristic that fails, e.g. movement direction, and guide personalized rehabilitation to enhance the training of such characteristic.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft
Spontaneous Speech and Emotional Response modeling based on One-class classifier oriented to Alzheimer Disease diagnosis

The purpose of our project is to contribute to earlier diagnosis of AD and better estimates of its severity by using automatic analysis performed through new biomarkers extracted from non-invasive intelligent methods. The methods selected in this case are speech biomarkers oriented to Sponta-neous Speech and Emotional Response Analysis. Thus the main goal of the present work is feature search in Spontaneous Speech oriented to pre-clinical evaluation for the definition of test for AD diagnosis by One-class classifier. One-class classifi-cation problem differs from multi-class classifier in one essen-tial aspect. In one-class classification it is assumed that only information of one of the classes, the target class, is available. In this work we explore the problem of imbalanced datasets that is particularly crucial in applications where the goal is to maximize recognition of the minority class as in medical diag-nosis. The use of information about outlier and Fractal Dimen-sion features improves the system performance
Complexity of epileptiform activity in a neuronal network and pharmacological intervention

Neuronal outputs are complex signals of dynamically integrated excitatory and inhibitory components. Decreased synaptic inhibition in a neuronal network increases excitability and multiple spiking in neurons. Synchronized multiple spiking among a neuronal population further generates rhythmic field potentials and this epileptiform activity can propagate in the brain and cause seizures. Pharmacological interventions that reduce rhythmicity of epileptiform activity may have antiepileptic potentials. We evaluated the Lempel-Ziv (LZ) complexity for identifying rhythmicity in population spikes recorded in granule cells of the murine dentate gyrus in vitro. Blocking synaptic inhibition by the GABAA receptor antagonist, bicuculline, caused epileptiform population spikes, and we found that the LZ complexity of the signal was significantly reduced. Moreover, the GABAB receptor agonist, baclofen, reduced the amplitude of the epileptiform population spike and we found that it increased LZ complexity. The results show that LZ complexity is sensitive to pharmacological interventions that apparently alter rhythmicity of neuronal outputs by desynchronizing neuronal population firing. This novel approach in neuronal signal processing may be used to identify new antiepileptic targets. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
Lempel-Ziv complexity analysis of local field potentials in different vigilance states with different coarse-graining techniques

Analysis of electrophysiological signals recorded from the brain with Lempel-Ziv (LZ) complexity, a measure based on coarse-graining of the signal, can provide valuable insights into understanding brain activity. LZ complexity of local field potential signals recorded from the neocortex of 11 adult male Wistar-Kyoto rats in different vigilance states - waking, non-rapid-eye movement (NREM) and REM sleep - was estimated with different coarse-graining techniques (median, LZCm, and k-means, LZCkm). Furthermore, surrogate data were used to test the hypothesis that LZ complexity results reveal effects accounted for by temporal structure of the signal, rather than merely its frequency content. LZ complexity values were significantly lower in NREM sleep as compared to waking and REM sleep, for both real and surrogate signals. LZCkm and LZCm values were similar, although in NREM sleep the values deviated in some epochs, where signals also differed significantly in terms of temporal structure and spectral content. Thus, the interpretation of LZ complexity results should take into account the specific algorithm used to coarse-grain the signal. Moreover, the occurrence of high amplitude slow waves during NREM sleep determines LZ complexity to a large extent, but characteristics such as the temporal sequence of slow waves or cross-frequency interactions might also play a role. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
Evaluation of Laplacian diaphragm electromyographic recordings in a static inspiratory maneuver

Diaphragm electromyography (EMGdi) provides important information on diaphragm activity, to detect neuromuscular disorders of the most important muscle in the breathing inspiratory phase. EMGdi is habitually recorded using needles or esophageal catheters, with the implication of being invasive for patients. Surface electrodes offer an alternative for the non-invasive assessment of diaphragm activity. Ag/AgCl surface disc electrodes are used in monopolar or bipolar configuration to record EMGdi signals. On the other hand, Laplacian surface potential can be estimated by signal recording through active concentric ring electrodes. This kind of recording could reduce physiological interferences, increase the spatial selectivity and reduce orientation problems in the electrode location. The aim of this work is to compare EMGdi signals recorded simultaneously with disc electrodes in bipolar configuration and a Laplacian ring electrode over chest wall. EMGdi signal was recorded in one healthy subject during a breath hold maneuver and a static inspiratory maneuver based on Mueller’s technique. In order to estimate the covered frequency range and the degree of noise contamination in both bipolar and Laplacian EMGdi signals, the cumulative percentage of the power spectrum and the signal to noise ratio in sub-bands were determined. Furthermore, diaphragm fatigue was evaluated by means of amplitude and frequency parameters. Our findings suggest that Laplacian EMGdi recording covers a broader frequency range although with higher noise contamination compared to bipolar EMGdi recording. Finally, in Laplacian recording fatigue indexes showed a clearer trend for muscle fatigue detection and also a reduced cardiac interference, providing an alternative to bipolar recording for diaphragm fatigue studies.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft
Cancellation of cardiac interference in diaphragm EMG signals using an estimate of ECG reference signal

The analysis of the electromyographic signal of the diaphragm muscle (EMGdi) can provide important information in order to evaluate the respiratory muscular function. However, EMGdi signals are usually contaminated by the electrocardiographic (ECG) signal. An adaptive noise cancellation (ANC) based on event-synchronous cancellation can be used to reduce the ECG interference in the recorded EMGdi activity. In this paper, it is proposed an ANC scheme for cancelling the ECG interference in EMGdi signals using only the EMGdi signal (without acquiring the ECG signal). In this case the detection of the QRS complex has been performed directly in the EMGdi signal, and the ANC algorithm must be robust to false or missing QRS detections. Furthermore, an automatic criterion to select the adaptive constant of the LMS algorithm has been proposed (µ). The µ constant is selected automatically so that the canceling signal energy equals the energy of the reference signal (which is an estimation of the ECG interference present in the EMGdi signal). This approach optimizes the tradeoff between cancellation of ECG interference and attenuation of EMG component. A number of weights equivalent of a time window that contains several QRS complexes is selected in order to make the algorithm robust to QRS detection errors.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft
A data-globe and immersive virtual reality environment for upper limb rehabilitation after spinal cord injury

While a number of virtual data-gloves have been used in stroke, there is little evidence about their use in spinal cord injury (SCI). A pilot clinical experience with nine SCI subjects was performed comparing two groups: one carried out a virtual rehabilitation training based on the use of a data glove, CyberTouch combined with traditional rehabilitation, during 30 minutes a day twice a week along two weeks; while the other made only conventional rehabilitation. Furthermore, two functional indexes were developed in order to assess the patient’s performance of the sessions: normalized trajectory lengths and repeatability. While differences between groups were not statistically significant, the data-glove group seemed to obtain better results in the muscle balance and functional parameters, and in the dexterity, coordination and fine grip tests. Related to the indexes that we implemented, normalized trajectory lengths and repeatability, every patient showed an improvement in at least one of the indexes, either along Y-axis trajectory or Z-axis trajectory. This study might be a step in investigating new ways of treatments and objective measures in order to obtain more accurate data about the patient’s evolution, allowing the clinicians to develop rehabilitation treatments, adapted to the abilities and needs of the patients
Effect of residual stress on spallation of NiCrBSi coating

The impact induced spallation characteristics of two specimens with NiCrBSi coating developed by different treatments are investigated. Two typical spallation patterns corresponding to the two kinds of specimens are observed. Theoretical analysis indicates that the difference in spallation characteristics is due to the residual stress. The initial stress states for the two kinds of specimens are investigated. The outcomes verify that the compressive residual stress within the coating will lead to large buckling region of the coating upon impact
Life Cycle Cost through Reliability

This work presents a novel approach using dependability of sub-assemblies to compute the life cycle cost of complex products (i.e. products that are technologically more complex than average or have a higher life expectancy) This work is composed of two parts, first a retrospective on life cycle cost and its challenges, then a description of the approach using reliability as the key element. This approach combines the usage of already well-known components or sub-assemblies alongside new, innovative ones in order to compute the life cycle cost of the system. This work is currently conducted as a PhD thesis and as industrial support