title: A Comparative Study Between Novel Witricity and Traditional Inductive Magnetic Coupling in Wireless Charging

abstract: A non-radiative energy transformer, commonly referred as Witricity and based on `strong coupling' between two coils which are separated physically by medium-range distances, is proposed to realize efficient wireless energy transfer. The distance between the resonators can be larger than the characteristic sizes of each resonator. Non-radiative energy transfer between the first resonator and the second resonator is facilitated through the coupling of their resonant-field evanescent tails. The proposed system operates as traditional inductive magnetic coupling devices when the operating frequencies are not the resonant frequency. Corresponding finite element analysis (FEA) and experiments have been carried out to facilitate quantitative comparison. Compared with typical magnetic inductive coupling energy transmission devices, the efficiency of the proposed system is much higher. This investigation indicates that it is feasible to use wireless energy transfer technology to recharge batteries, particularly in implant devices.


title: Automatic linearization of nonlinear skinning

abstract: Linear blending is a very popular skinning technique for virtual characters, even though it does not always generate realistic deformations. Recently, nonlinear blending techniques (such as dual quaternions) have been proposed in order to improve upon the deformation quality of linear skinning. The trade-off consists of the increased vertex deformation time and the necessity to redesign parts of the 3D engine. In this paper, we demonstrate that any nonlinear skinning technique can be approximated to an arbitrary degree of accuracy by linear skinning, using just a few samples of the nonlinear blending function (virtual bones). We propose an algorithm to compute this linear approximation in an automatic fashion, requiring little or no interaction with the user. This enables us to retain linear skinning at the core of our 3D engine without compromising the visual quality or character setup costs.


title: Effects of different matrix representations and connectivity measures on habitat network assessments

abstract: Assessing landscape connectivity is important to understand the ecology of landscapes and to evaluate alternative conservation strategies. The question is though, how to quantify connectivity appropriately, especially when the information available about the suitability of the matrix surrounding habitat is limited. Our goal here was to investigate the effects of matrix representation on assessments of the connectivity among habitat patches and of the relative importance of individual patches for the connectivity within a habitat network. We evaluated a set of 50 × 50 km2 test areas in the Carpathian Mountains and considered three different matrix representations (binary, categorical and continuous) using two types of connections among habitat patches (shortest lines and least-cost paths). We compared connections, and the importance of patches, based on (1) isolation, (2) incidence-functional, and (3) graph measures. Our results showed that matrix representation can greatly affect assessments of connections (i.e., connection length, effective distance, and spatial location), but not patch prioritization. Although patch importance was not much affected by matrix representation, it was influenced by the connectivity measure and its parameterization. We found the biggest differences in the case of the integral index of connectivity and equally weighted patches, but no consistent pattern in response to changing dispersal distance. Connectivity assessments in more fragmented landscapes were more sensitive to the selection of matrix representation. Although we recommend using continuous matrix representation whenever possible, our results indicated that simpler matrix representations can be also used as a proxy to delineate those patches that are important for overall connectivity, but not to identify connections among habitat patches.


title: Solution blow spinning: A new method to produce micro- and nanofibers from polymer solutions

abstract: A solution blow spinning technique was developed using elements of both electrospinning and melt blowing technologies as an alternative method for making non-woven webs of micro- and nanofibers with diameters comparable with those made by the electrospinning process with the advantage of having a fiber production rate (measured by the polymer injection rate) several times higher. The diameters of fibers produced ranged from 40 nm for poly(lactic acid) to several micrometers for poly(methyl methacrylate). This solution blow spinning method uses a syringe pump to deliver a polymer solution to an apparatus consisting of concentric nozzles whereby the polymer solution is pumped through the inner nozzle while a constant, high velocity gas flow is sustained through the outer nozzle. Analysis of the process showed that pressure difference and shearing at the gas/solution interface jettisoned multiple strands of polymer solution towards a collector. During flight, the solvent component of the strands rapidly evaporates forming a web of micro and nanofibers. The effect of injection rate, gas flow pressure, polymer concentration, working distance, and protrusion distance of the inner nozzle was investigated. Polymer type and concentration had a greater effect on fiber diameter than the other parameters tested. Injection rate, gas flow pressure, and working distance affected fiber production rate and/or fiber morphology. Fibers were easily formed into yarns of micro- and nanofibers or non-woven films that could be applied directly onto biological tissue or collected in sheets on a rotating drum. Indeed, virtually any type of target could be used for fiber collection.


title: On the Efficacy of a Fused CPU+GPU Processor (or APU) for Parallel Computing

abstract: The graphics processing unit (GPU) has made significant strides as an accelerator in parallel computing. However, because the GPU has resided out on PCIe as a discrete device, the performance of GPU applications can be bottlenecked by data transfers between the CPU and GPU over PCIe. Emerging heterogeneous computing architectures that "fuse" the functionality of the CPU and GPU, e.g., AMD Fusion and Intel Knights Ferry, hold the promise of addressing the PCIe bottleneck. In this paper, we empirically characterize and analyze the efficacy of AMD Fusion, an architecture that combines general-purposex86 cores and programmable accelerator cores on the same silicon die. We characterize its performance via a set of micro-benchmarks (e.g., PCIe data transfer), kernel benchmarks(e.g., reduction), and actual applications (e.g., molecular dynamics). Depending on the benchmark, our results show that Fusion produces a 1.7 to 6.0-fold improvement in the data-transfer time, when compared to a discrete GPU. In turn, this improvement in data-transfer performance can significantly enhance application performance. For example, running a reduction benchmark on AMD Fusion with its mere 80 GPU cores improves performance by 3.5-fold over the discrete AMD Radeon HD 5870 GPU with its 1600 more powerful GPU cores.


title: A novel broadband high power coaxial-to-CPW directional coupler

abstract: A new class of broadband Coaxial-to-CPW (Copla-nar Waveguide) directional couplers for high power applications is studied. The new coupler overcomes the drawbacks of mi-crostrip, stripline, and coaxial couplers and allows simple and low cost mechanical construction. In this paper we present the design, simulation and implementation of a broadband (3GHz to 11GHz) directional coupler with directivity of more than 20dB over the whole band. Simulation results using the HFSS software demonstrate good agreement with experimental results.


title: Fast L_1-L_2 Minimization via a Proximal Operator

abstract: This paper aims to develop new and fast algorithms for recovering a sparse vector from a small number of measurements, which is a fundamental problem in the field of compressive sensing (CS). Currently, CS favors incoherent systems, in which any two measurements are as little correlated as possible. In reality, however, many problems are coherent, and conventional methods such as \(L_1\) minimization do not work well. Recently, the difference of the \(L_1\) and \(L_2\) norms, denoted as \(L_1\)–\(L_2\), is shown to have superior performance over the classic \(L_1\) method, but it is computationally expensive. We derive an analytical solution for the proximal operator of the \(L_1\)–\(L_2\) metric, and it makes some fast \(L_1\) solvers such as forward–backward splitting (FBS) and alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) applicable for \(L_1\)–\(L_2\). We describe in details how to incorporate the proximal operator into FBS and ADMM and show that the resulting algorithms are convergent under mild conditions. Both algorithms are shown to be much more efficient than the original implementation of \(L_1\)–\(L_2\) based on a difference-of-convex approach in the numerical experiments.


title: Real time car parking system using image processing

abstract: Car parking lots are an important object class in many traffic and civilian applications. With the problems of increasing urban traffic congestion and the ever increasing shortage of space, these car parking lots are needed to be well equipped with automatic parking Information and Guidance systems. Goals of intelligent parking lot management include counting the number of parked cars, and identifying the available location. This work proposes a new system for providing parking information and guidance using image processing. The proposed system includes counting the number of parked vehicles, and identifying the stalls available. The system detects cars through images instead of using electronic sensors embedded on the floor. A camera is installed at the entry point of the parking lot. It will capture image sequences. Setting image of a car as reference image, the captured images are sequentially matched using image matching. For this purpose edge detection has been carried out using Prewitt edge detection operator and according to percentage of matching guidance and information is provided to the incoming driver.


title: Behavioral Telemonitoring of the Elderly at Home: Detection of Nycthemeral Rhythms Drifts from Location Data

abstract: Supporting ageing in place and staying at home, delaying institutionalization, lightening the caregivers' burden, improving the elderly quality of life are as many expectations that TeleHealthCare aims at coming up to. This paper proposes a method for Telemonitoring to detect abnormal changes in behavior which may lead to an early entrance in dependency. This method allows to detect and quantify a possible nycthemeral shift in daily routine. Such a disorder is common with elderly but in severe cases, it may be a marker of pathological behavior. Particularly, in individuals with Alzheimer disease, it appears to be an indicator for more rapid decline. In all the cases, the detection of a disruption in the activity circadian clock needs a follow-up visit. The method introduced is fast and cost-effective in computation. It measures the dissimilarity between sequences of activity using a variant of the Hamming distance traditionally used in information theory. Then results are interpreted according to the circular Gumbel distribution. This method is illustrated through a longitudinal study of the successive locations of an elderly woman within her own flat. In this preliminary work, the records were captured by passive infrared sensors placed in each room allowing only the detection of elementary activities of daily living. The method was tested by varying the timebox width of the study (i. e. the duration of the watched activities) and in a second time by distinguishing the day of the week. In both cases, it provides interesting insights into the behavior and the daily routine of the watched person as well as deviations from this routine. Important deviations will trigger alarms to alert the care providers. Diagnosing early abnormal behaviors is crucial for the person management and treatment effectiveness and consequently his/her maintaining at home.


title: pubmed.mineR: An R package with text-mining algorithms to analyse PubMed abstracts

abstract: The PubMed literature database is a valuable source of information for scientific research. It is rich in biomedical literature with more than 24 million citations. Data-mining of voluminous literature is a challenging task. Although several text-mining algorithms have been developed in recent years with focus on data visualization, they have limitations such as speed, are rigid and are not available in the open source. We have developed an R package, pubmed.mineR, wherein we have combined the advantages of existing algorithms, overcome their limitations, and offer user flexibility and link with other packages in Bioconductor and the Comprehensive R Network (CRAN) in order to expand the user capabilities for executing multifaceted approaches. Three case studies are presented, namely, 'Evolving role of diabetes educators', 'Cancer risk assessment' and 'Dynamic concepts on disease and comorbidity' to illustrate the use of pubmed.mineR. The package generally runs fast with small elapsed times in regular workstations even on large corpus sizes and with compute intensive functions. The pubmed.mineR is available at http://cran.rproject. org/web/packages/pubmed.mineR.


title: Male‐to‐Female Genital Reassignment Surgery: A Retrospective Review of Surgical Technique and Complications in 60 Patients

abstract: Abstract Background Patients with male‐to‐female gender dysphoria (GD) require multidisciplinary assessment and management. Nowadays, more and more patients decide to undergo genital reassignment surgery (GRS) to have aesthetic and functional external female genitalia. Different techniques of this procedure have been described. Orchiectomy, penile disassembly, creation of a neovaginal cavity, repositioning of urethral meatus, and clitorolabioplasty may be identified as the five major steps in all of these techniques. Methods We conducted a retrospective study of 60 patients who underwent genital reassignment procedure for male‐to‐female GD at our department between November 2008 and August 2013 with a minimum follow‐up of 1 year. Data were collected on surgical technique, postoperative dilations protocol, complications, and functional and aesthetic outcomes. We describe and critically evaluate the surgical technique used in our department. Results Follow‐up ranged from 14 to 46 months. Two patients developed late neovaginal stricture, and two patients experienced rectovaginal fistulae (one required surgical revision with dermal porcine graft placement). Minor complications occurred in 13 patients and included urethral stenosis, partial wound dehiscence, and minor bleeding. Secondary aesthetic revision surgery was performed in 13 cases. Conclusions GRS can provide good functional and aesthetic outcomes in patients with male‐to‐female GD. However, despite a careful planning and meticulous surgical technique, secondary procedures are frequently required to improve the function and appearance of the neovagina. Raigosa M, Avvedimento S, Yoon TS, Cruz‐ Gimeno J, Rodriguez G, and F ontdevila J. Male‐to‐female genital reassignment surgery: A retrospective review of surgical technique and complications in 60 patients. J Sex Med 2015;12:1837–1845.


title: Learning Explanations from Language Data

abstract: PatternAttribution is a recent method, introduced in the vision domain, that explains classifications of deep neural networks. We demonstrate that it also generates meaningful interpretations in the language domain.


title: Antenna Requirements for Software Defined and Cognitive Radios

abstract: Antenna requirements for software defined radio (SDR) and cognitive radio (CR) systems are reviewed and the resulting challenges are discussed. Both concepts imply capabilities for operation over very wide bandwidths, of the order of one decade in some cases. This then becomes the main challenge for antenna designers. However, as the concepts evolve, some systems will work over limited bandwidths and existing or extended bandwidth antennas will be used. In the Paper the concepts are explained. As bandwidth is a major concern, the fundamental limits of performance are restated. For handheld radio antenna bandwidth and efficiency at low frequencies is the main problem. Both in the terrestrial fixed infrastructure and in space communication the difficulty of designing very wideband arrays to give the pattern control necessary for interference minimization is significant. In defence applications external handset antennas are seen to be necessary and extension to very wide bandwidths is also seen to be challenging. It is concluded that there is steady progress towards the realization of both SDR and CR, and this is throwing up very significant antenna challenges.


title: Metamaterial-Based Antennas

abstract: Metamaterials are materials typically engineered with novel or artificial structures to produce electromagnetic properties that are unusual or difficult to obtain in nature. Because of their promise to provide engineerable permittivity, permeability, and index of refraction, metamaterials have drawn broad interest and have led to possible utilization in many electromagnetic applications from the microwave to optical regime, especially for the radiated-wave devices. This paper presents a detailed review upon the most recent research efforts associated with those metamaterial-based small antennas. They are discussed and classified in several different categories such as the antennas based on dispersion engineering, metaresonators, and metamaterial loadings. Some practical difficulties or limitations for the development of metamaterial-based small antennas are pointed out and the possible approaches to resolve these problems are also illustrated. A wide variety of antenna examples are included to facilitate the understanding for general readers.


title: Role of perfusion machines in the setting of clinical liver transplantation: A qualitative systematic review

abstract: Growing enthusiasm around machine perfusion (MP) in clinical liver transplantation (LT) may be the preamble for standardized practice to expand the donors' pool. The present systematic review investigated all the liver transplantations performed using grafts treated with MP. A systematic review of 309 papers was performed. Eventually, 27 articles were enrolled for the study. A total number of 173 cases were reported. Only 12 cohort studies were identified: the remaining ones were case reports or case series. Hypothermic machine perfusion was performed in 102 (59.0%), normothermic machine perfusion in 65 (37.6%), and controlled oxygenated rewarming in the remaining 6 (3.4%) cases. Donor characteristics, evaluation of graft quality, and endpoints were not homogeneous among the studies. Overall, post-LT results were excellent, with 1.2 and 4.0% of patients experienced primary non-function and ischemic-type biliary lesions, respectively. ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSION ::: Until now, no study exists that addresses the role of MP in selecting liver grafts available for LT. All the published studies mainly focused on the feasibility and safety of this new technology. Further research investigating the selection process of marginal donors is required.


title: Human pelvis motions when walking and when riding a therapeutic horse

abstract: Abstract A prevailing rationale for equine assisted therapies is that the motion of a horse can provide sensory stimulus and movement patterns that mimic those of natural human activities such as walking. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively measure and compare human pelvis motions when walking to those when riding a horse. Six able-bodied children (inexperienced riders, 8–12 years old) participated in over-ground trials of self-paced walking and leader-paced riding on four different horses. Five kinematic measures were extracted from three-dimensional pelvis motion data: anteroposterior, superoinferior, and mediolateral translations, list angle about the anteroposterior axis, and twist angle about the superoinferior axis. There was generally as much or more variability in motion range observed between riding on the different horses as between riding and walking. Pelvis trajectories exhibited many similar features between walking and riding, including distorted lemniscate patterns in the transverse and frontal planes. In the sagittal plane the pelvis trajectory during walking exhibited a somewhat circular pattern whereas during riding it exhibited a more diagonal pattern. This study shows that riding on a horse can generate movement patterns in the human pelvis that emulate many, but not all, characteristics of those during natural walking.


title: Conflict monitoring and decision making: Reconciling two perspectives on anterior cingulate function

abstract: According to one influential account, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) serves to monitor for conflicts in information processing. According to another influential account, the ACC monitors action outcomes and guides decision making. Both of these perspectives are supported by an abundance of data, making it untenable to reject one view in favor of the other. Instead, the apparent challenge is to discover how the two perspectives might fit together within a larger account. In the present article, we consider the prospects for such a reconciliation. Juxtaposing the conflict-monitoring and decision-making accounts suggests an extension of the conflict-monitoring theory, by which conflict would act as a teaching signal driving a form of avoidance learning. The effect of this mechanism would be to bias behavioral decision making toward cognitively efficient tasks and strategies. We discuss evidence favoring this proposal and present an initial computational model, which lays the foundation for further development.


title: Fog server deployment considering network topology and flow state in local area networks

abstract: Fog computing can reduce service response time and dramatically reduce network traffic. To take advantage of fog computing, a fog server must be deployed on the network device near the user to handle the service. However, there has been little research on where to deploy the fog server. In fact, there are so many things to consider in deploying fog servers. In this paper, we analyze the challenges when IoT and fog computing are combined. Then, we describe the fog server deployment algorithm considering the data movement distance and computing resource in fog computing environment, and see how it is deployed by simple example. Finally, we verified through experiment that the proposed fog server deployment algorithm can reduce service response time and overall network traffic.


title: Semi-supervised Deep Continuous Learning

abstract: Our research focuses on a new data flow architecture in neural network training called Continuous Neural Network Learning (CNNL) whose main objective is the reduction of data required to train a neural network. In real-world applications, much of the raw data used in deep learning algorithms do not have a large labeled datasets readily available for training. CNNL seeks to allow for more efficient neural network implementations by significantly reducing the necessary size of the labeled dataset and secondarily decreasing the processing and training time required to achieve reasonable accuracy. Not only is a CNNL system shown to be able to achieve impressive results with little tuning on standardized datasets, but the initialization is as low as 150 images. While this research only the first step and requires further refinement for real world application, it proves the potential for a CNNL system.


title: When Does Model-Based Control Pay Off?

abstract: Many accounts of decision making and reinforcement learning posit the existence of two distinct systems that control choice: a fast, automatic system and a slow, deliberative system. Recent research formalizes this distinction by mapping these systems to “model-free” and “model-based” strategies in reinforcement learning. Model-free strategies are computationally cheap, but sometimes inaccurate, because action values can be accessed by inspecting a look-up table constructed through trial-and-error. In contrast, model-based strategies compute action values through planning in a causal model of the environment, which is more accurate but also more cognitively demanding. It is assumed that this trade-off between accuracy and computational demand plays an important role in the arbitration between the two strategies, but we show that the hallmark task for dissociating model-free and model-based strategies, as well as several related variants, do not embody such a trade-off. We describe five factors that reduce the effectiveness of the model-based strategy on these tasks by reducing its accuracy in estimating reward outcomes and decreasing the importance of its choices. Based on these observations, we describe a version of the task that formally and empirically obtains an accuracy-demand trade-off between model-free and model-based strategies. Moreover, we show that human participants spontaneously increase their reliance on model-based control on this task, compared to the original paradigm. Our novel task and our computational analyses may prove important in subsequent empirical investigations of how humans balance accuracy and demand.


title: Synthesizing realistic facial expressions from photographs

abstract: We present new techniques for creating photorealistic textured 3D facial models from photographs of a human subject, and for creating smooth transitions between different facial expressions by morphing between these different models. Starting from several uncalibrated views of a human subject, we employ a user-assisted technique to recover the camera poses corresponding to the views as well as the 3D coordinates of a sparse set of chosen locations on the subject's face. A scattered data interpolation technique is then used to deform a generic face mesh to fit the particular geometry of the subject's face. Having recovered the camera poses and the facial geometry, we extract from the input images one or more texture maps for the model. This process is repeated for several facial expressions of a particular subject. To generate transitions between these facial expressions we use 3D shape morphing between the corresponding face models, while at the same time blending the corresponding textures. Using our technique, we have been able to generate highly realistic face models and natural looking animations.


title: First report of leaf blight disease of Gloriosa superba L. caused by Alternaria alternata (Fr.) Keissler in India

abstract: Leaf blight disease was found on Gloriosa superba L. (Liliaceae), an endangered, herbaceous, perennial, climbing lily that produces colchicine, in West Bengal, India in 2004. Small brownish spots on leaves developed into concentric rings, which eventually darkened and coalesced to blight the entire leaf. The causal fungus was morphologically identified as Alternaria alternata (Fr.) Keissler. This is the first record of A. alternata on G. superba.


title: In situ CAD capture

abstract: We present an interactive system to capture CAD-like 3D models of indoor scenes, on a mobile device. To overcome sensory and computational limitations of the mobile platform, we employ an in situ, semi-automated approach and harness the user's high-level knowledge of the scene to assist the reconstruction and modeling algorithms. The modeling proceeds in two stages: (1) The user captures the 3D shape and dimensions of the room. (2) The user then uses voice commands and an augmented reality sketching interface to insert objects of interest, such as furniture, artwork, doors and windows. Our system recognizes the sketches and add a corresponding 3D model into the scene at the appropriate location. The key contributions of this work are the design of a multi-modal user interface to effectively capture the user's semantic understanding of the scene and the underlying algorithms that process the input to produce useful reconstructions.


Talisman: commodity realtime 3D graphics for the PC


title: Incentive Compatibility of Bitcoin Mining Pool Reward Functions

abstract: In this paper we introduce a game-theoretic model for reward functions in Bitcoin mining pools. Our model consists only of an unordered history of reported shares and gives participating miners the strategy choices of either reporting or delaying when they discover a share or full solution. We defined a precise condition for incentive compatibility to ensure miners strategy choices optimize the welfare of the pool as a whole. With this definition we show that proportional mining rewards are not incentive compatible in this model. We introduce and analyze a novel reward function which is incentive compatible in this model. Finally we show that the popular reward function pay-per-last-N-shares is also incentive compatible in a more general model.


title: A Theoretical Framework of a BIM-Based Multi-Disciplinary Collaboration Platform

abstract: Most complex projects in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industries involve multi-disciplinary collaboration and the exchange of large building data set. Traditionally, the collaboration efforts across the disciplines have been based on the frequent exchange of 2D drawings and documents. However, during the past decade, the widespread adoption of object-oriented Computer-aided Design (CAD) tools has generated more interests in Building Information Modelling (BIM). A number of BIM-compliant applications such as analysis tools, model checkers and facility management applications are being developed. This paper develops a theoretical framework of technical requirements for using BIM-server as a multi-disciplinary collaboration platform. The methodologies that are used to develop the framework include focus group interviews (FGIs) with representatives from the diverse AEC disciplines, a case study of an Architectural project using a state-of-the-art BIM-server, and a critical review and analysis of current collaboration platforms that are available to the AEC industries. This paper concludes that greater emphasis should be placed on supporting technical requirements to facilitate technology management and implementation across disciplines. Their implications for user-centric technology development in design and construction industry are also discussed.


title: Understanding the impact of lossy compressions on IoT smart farm analytics

abstract: As the volume of data collected by various IoT stations increases, Big Data management and analytics becomes a huge challenge for IoT applications. Although Big Data can potentially benefit from data compression techniques, the chances are that compression will reduce a negligible amount of data such that it would not worth the effort. The insight of this paper is that only lossy compression can unleash the power of compression to IoT because, compared with its counterpart (lossless one), it can significantly reduce the data volume by taking advantages of spatiotemporal patterns. However, lossy compression faces the challenge of compressing too much data thus losing the data fidelity, which might affect the quality of analytics outcomes. To understand the impact of lossy compression on IoT data management and analytics, we evaluate several classification algorithms on agricultural sensor data reconstructed based on energy concentration. Specifically, we applied three transformation based lossy compression mechanisms to five real-world sensor data from IoT weather stations. Our experimental results indicate that there is a distinctive relationship between energy concentration on the transformed coefficients and compression ratio as well as the amount of error introduced. While we observe a general trend where the higher energy concentration the lower compression and error rates, we also observe that the impact on classification accuracy varies among data sets and algorithms we evaluated.


title: Recasting Gradient-Based Meta-Learning as Hierarchical Bayes

abstract: Meta-learning allows an intelligent agent to leverage prior learning episodes as a basis for quickly improving performance on a novel task. Bayesian hierarchical modeling provides a theoretical framework for formalizing meta-learning as inference for a set of parameters that are shared across tasks. Here, we reformulate the model-agnostic meta-learning algorithm (MAML) of Finn et al. (2017) as a method for probabilistic inference in a hierarchical Bayesian model. In contrast to prior methods for meta-learning via hierarchical Bayes, MAML is naturally applicable to complex function approximators through its use of a scalable gradient descent procedure for posterior inference. Furthermore, the identification of MAML as hierarchical Bayes provides a way to understand the algorithm's operation as a meta-learning procedure, as well as an opportunity to make use of computational strategies for efficient inference. We use this opportunity to propose an improvement to the MAML algorithm that makes use of techniques from approximate inference and curvature estimation.


title: Learning by Demonstration for Motion Planning of Upper-Limb Exoskeletons

abstract: The reference joint position of upper-limb exoskeletons is typically obtained by means of Cartesian motion planners and inverse kinematics algorithms with the inverse Jacobian; this approach allows exploiting the available Degrees of Freedom (i.e. DoFs) of the robot kinematic chain to achieve the desired end-effector pose; however, if used to operate non-redundant exoskeletons, it does not ensure that anthropomorphic criteria are satisfied in the whole human-robot workspace. This paper proposes a motion planning system, based on Learning by Demonstration, for upper-limb exoskeletons that allow successfully assisting patients during Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) in unstructured environment, while ensuring that anthropomorphic criteria are satisfied in the whole human-robot workspace. The motion planning system combines Learning by Demonstration with the computation of Dynamic Motion Primitives and machine learning techniques to construct task- and patient-specific joint trajectories based on the learnt trajectories. System validation was carried out in simulation and in a real setting with a 4-DoF upper-limb exoskeleton, a 5-DoF wrist-hand exoskeleton and four patients with Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy. Validation was addressed to (i) compare the performance of the proposed motion planning with traditional methods; (ii) assess the generalization capabilities of the proposed method with respect to the environment variability. Three ADLs were chosen to validate the system: drinking, pouring and lifting a light sphere. The achieved results showed a 100% success rate in the task fulfillment, with a high level of generalization with respect to the environment variability. Moreover, an anthropomorphic configuration of the exoskeleton is always ensured.


title: Maturity Models in Information Systems Research: Literature Search and Analysis

abstract: This article collects and analyzes seventy-six maturity model articles that have been published in leading Information Systems (IS) journals and conference proceedings during the past fifteen years. We study the IS literature on maturity models from three different perspectives: a research perspective, which is particularly relevant for scholars who are interested in the design and adoption of maturity models; a publication perspective, which reflects the interests of authors and reviewers of maturity model articles; and a practitioner‟s perspective, which is especially relevant for maturity model users and consultants. The results are interesting in several respects. From the research perspective, the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is the most dominant foundation of past IS research on maturity models. In contrast, theories on the design and adoption of maturity models are distinctly rare in our sample. The publication outlets that are considered feature quantitative and qualitative empirical research alike, but―with a decreasing number―purely conceptual research as well. Of late, past maturity model research can mainly be located in the area of IT and organizations, while the formerly very popular domain of IS development is of less interest today. As for the publication perspective, we find that the level of publication activity in the field has generally been increasing over the last fifteen years, with North American and European researchers dominating the academic discussion. Finally, with regard to the practitioner‟s perspective, we compile advice on the practical application of maturity models from a critical analysis of the literature. It is hoped that the results can stimulate and guide future research in the field and inform the development and usage of theoretically sound maturity models in practice.


title: Multipliers With Approximate 4–2 Compressors and Error Recovery Modules

abstract: Approximate multiplication is a common operation used in approximate computing methods for high performance and low power computing. Power-efficient circuits for approximate multiplication can be realized with an approximate 4–2 compressor. This letter presents a novel design that uses a modification of a previous approximate 4–2 compressor design and adds an error recovery module. The proposed design, even with the additional error recovery module, is more accurate, requires less hardware, and consumes less power than previously proposed 4–2 compressor-based approximate multiplier designs.


title: Understanding user's query intent with wikipedia

abstract: Understanding the intent behind a user's query can help search engine to automatically route the query to some corresponding vertical search engines to obtain particularly relevant contents, thus, greatly improving user satisfaction. There are three major challenges to the query intent classification problem: (1) Intent representation; (2) Domain coverage and (3) Semantic interpretation. Current approaches to predict the user's intent mainly utilize machine learning techniques. However, it is difficult and often requires many human efforts to meet all these challenges by the statistical machine learning approaches. In this paper, we propose a general methodology to the problem of query intent classification. With very little human effort, our method can discover large quantities of intent concepts by leveraging Wikipedia, one of the best human knowledge base. The Wikipedia concepts are used as the intent representation space, thus, each intent domain is represented as a set of Wikipedia articles and categories. The intent of any input query is identified through mapping the query into the Wikipedia representation space. Compared with previous approaches, our proposed method can achieve much better coverage to classify queries in an intent domain even through the number of seed intent examples is very small. Moreover, the method is very general and can be easily applied to various intent domains. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method in three different applications, i.e., travel, job, and person name. In each of the three cases, only a couple of seed intent queries are provided. We perform the quantitative evaluations in comparison with two baseline methods, and the experimental results shows that our method significantly outperforms other methods in each intent domain.


title: A comparison of join algorithms for log processing in MaPreduce

abstract: The MapReduce framework is increasingly being used to analyze large volumes of data. One important type of data analysis done with MapReduce is log processing, in which a click-stream or an event log is filtered, aggregated, or mined for patterns. As part of this analysis, the log often needs to be joined with reference data such as information about users. Although there have been many studies examining join algorithms in parallel and distributed DBMSs, the MapReduce framework is cumbersome for joins. MapReduce programmers often use simple but inefficient algorithms to perform joins. In this paper, we describe crucial implementation details of a number of well-known join strategies in MapReduce, and present a comprehensive experimental comparison of these join techniques on a 100-node Hadoop cluster. Our results provide insights that are unique to the MapReduce platform and offer guidance on when to use a particular join algorithm on this platform.


title: [Goals, requirements and prerequisites of teleradiology. An assessment of current status].

abstract: Specific radiological requirements have to be considered for the realization of telemedicine. In this article the goals and requirements for an extensive introduction of teleradiology will be defined from the radiological user's point of view. Necessary medical, legal and professional prerequisites for teleradiology are presented. Essential requirements, such as data security, maintenance of personal rights and standardization, must be realized. Application-specific requirements, e.g. quality and extent of teleradiological functions, as well as technological alternatives, are discussed. Each project must be carefully planned in relation to one's own needs, extent of functions and system selection. Topics, such as acknowledgement of electronic documentation, reimbursement of teleradiology and liability, must be clarified. Legal advice and the observance of quality guidelines are recommended.


title: Social engineering in information assurance curricula

abstract: With the increasing use of security technology, technical attacks should become more difficult leading attackers to employ social engineering as a means to obtaining unauthorized access to information. Therefore, social engineering is a potentially dangerous threat to information security. Fortunately, a number of countermeasures have been proposed to defend against it. These countermeasures include implementing policy, providing end-user and key personnel education, and performing security audits. However, most current prominent information assurance curricula do not directly address social engineering and only indirectly address the countermeasures. Amending these curricula to include social engineering as a topic may help students be better prepared for encountering social engineering threats.


title: A performance study of anomaly detection using entropy method

abstract: An experiment to study the entropy method for an anomaly detection system has been performed. The study has been conducted using real data generated from the distributed sensor networks at the Intel Berkeley Research Laboratory. The experimental results were compared with the elliptical method and has been analyzed in two dimensional data sets acquired from temperature and humidity sensors across 52 micro controllers. Using the binary classification to determine the upper and lower boundaries for each series of sensors, it has been shown that the entropy method are able to detect more number of out ranging sensor nodes than the elliptical methods. It can be argued that the better result was mainly due to the lack of elliptical approach which is requiring certain correlation between two sensor series, while in the entropy approach each sensor series is treated independently. This is very important in the current case where both sensor series are not correlated each other.


title: Automatically repairing event sequence-based GUI test suites for regression testing

abstract: Although graphical user interfaces (GUIs) constitute a large part of the software being developed today and are typically created using rapid prototyping, there are no effective regression testing techniques for GUIs. The needs of GUI regression testing differ from those of traditional software. When the structure of a GUI is modified, test cases from the original GUI's suite are either reusable or unusable on the modified GUI. Because GUI test case generation is expensive, our goal is to make the unusable test cases usable, thereby helping to retain the suite's event coverage. The idea of reusing these unusable (obsolete) test cases has not been explored before. This article shows that a large number of test cases become unusable for GUIs. It presents a new GUI regression testing technique that first automatically determines the usable and unusable test cases from a test suite after a GUI modification, then determines the unusable test cases that can be repaired so that they can execute on the modified GUI, and finally uses repairing transformations to repair the test cases. This regression testing technique along with four repairing transformations has been implemented. An empirical study for four open-source applications demonstrates that (1) this approach is effective in that many of the test cases can be repaired, and is practical in terms of its time performance, (2) certain types of test cases are more prone to becoming unusable, and (3) certain types of “dominator” events, when modified, make a large number of test cases unusable.


title: A Hybrid Chinese Spelling Correction Using Language Model and Statistical Machine Translation with Reranking

abstract: We describe the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) spelling check system in the shared task. Our system contains three components: a word segmentation based language model to generate correction candidates; a statistical machine translation model to provide correction candidates and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier to rerank the candidates provided by the previous two components. The experimental results show that the kbest language model and the statistical machine translation model could generate almost all the correction candidates, while the precision is very low. However, using the SVM classifier to rerank the candidates, we could obtain higher precision with a little recall dropping. To address the low resource problem of the Chinese spelling check, we generate 2 million artificial training data by simply replacing the character in the provided training sentence with the character in the confusion set.


title: Incremental conductance MPPT method for PV systems

abstract: This paper presents incremental conductance method for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) using DC-DC cuk converter. Comprehensive analysis and simulation of KC85T solar module and equivalent electric circuit are provided while effects of various environmental conditions on the PV module behavior is investigated. In order to fully understand the PV module working specifications fundamental characteristics of PV cells are discussed. Block diagram model of a PV module was developed in Simulink for plotting the curves. KC85T solar module is used in simulations and results indicate speed and accuracy of the proposed system.


Unsupervised does not mean uninterpretable : the case for word sense induction and disambiguation


title: Philippine currency paper bill counterfeit detection through image processing using Canny Edge Technology

abstract: Image edge information is essentially one of the most significant information in an image, which can describe the target outline, its relative position within the target area, and other important information. Edge detection is one of the most important process in image processing, and the detection results directly affects the image analysis. Traditional edge detection algorithms are accomplished through detecting the maximum value of the first derivative or zero crossing of the second derivative. Though it seems the representative first order differential operators have known advantages like simple computation, speed and ease of implementation, they are more sensitive to noise and their detection effect are not perfect in most engineering application. Schemes for counterfeit detection has been continuously evolving through various techniques and algorithms run on machines and devices. This paper presents image enhancement and image sensing through the use of Canny Edge Technology. Moreover, counterfeit detection on selected Philippine banknotes was achieved by incorporating a distinct security feature known as Optically Variable Device (OVD) patch, as an improvement to the traditional three-way detection of bills (watermark, security thread, see-through marks)A MATLAB GUI program was developed that acquired and processed the image through Canny Edge Technology. The Canny Edge algorithm proved a robust method in detecting fake bills through OVD security features, revealing statistically significant detection proportion under a 5% level of significant for the four cases under test.


title: Effect of thickness anisotropy on degenerate modes in oxide micro-hemispherical shell resonators

abstract: The effect of thickness anisotropy on the degenerate elliptical resonance modes of micro-hemispherical shell resonators (μHSRs) created using the thermal oxidation process is investigated. This anisotropy arises from the variation in wet thermal oxide growth according to the exposed crystal planes of the single-crystal-silicon hemispherical mold used to generate the μHSRs. It is shown that, despite the presence of thickness anisotropy, the degenerate resonance modes of oxide μHSRs can exhibit zero intrinsic frequency split depending on the particular resonance mode and symmetry of the thickness anisotropy imparted from the underlying silicon wafer. Measured results verified by simultaneous electrical excitation on the 0° and 45° axes demonstrate less than 94 Hz intrinsic m=3 frequency split for a 1240 μm oxide μHSR (limited by measurement conditions), which is to the authors' knowledge the smallest as-fabricated frequency split reported to date for any μHSR.


title: Design of Traffic Lights Controlling System Based on PLC and Configuration Technology

abstract: A kind of traffic lights controlling system by using PLC was designed, and the automatic control of the traffic lights was performed by software. In the system, the original relay wiring was replaced by the program, and the hardware and software resources of PLC were used reasonably. The normally running and emergency transport were introduced in detail, and that the emergencies from the east-west and from the south-north can interlock. The traffic lights signal system was displayed with two seven-segment digital tubes in countdown order; meanwhile the wiring of hardware and PLC ladder diagram was discussed in details. The remote monitoring system of traffic lights at the crossroads was designed with configuration software MCGS, which monitored traffic lights in real-time and improved the reliability greatly. At the same time, we can change the states of the traffic lights by the configuration picture.


title: Attuning notification design to user goals and attention costs

abstract: Why is the attentive user interface paradigm important for human-computer interaction? The human attention system is so sensitive to various methods of notification that traditional design involves too much compromise and guesswork.


title: SurvExpress: An Online Biomarker Validation Tool and Database for Cancer Gene Expression Data Using Survival Analysis

abstract: Validation of multi-gene biomarkers for clinical outcomes is one of the most important issues for cancer prognosis. An important source of information for virtual validation is the high number of available cancer datasets. Nevertheless, assessing the prognostic performance of a gene expression signature along datasets is a difficult task for Biologists and Physicians and also time-consuming for Statisticians and Bioinformaticians. Therefore, to facilitate performance comparisons and validations of survival biomarkers for cancer outcomes, we developed SurvExpress, a cancer-wide gene expression database with clinical outcomes and a web-based tool that provides survival analysis and risk assessment of cancer datasets. The main input of SurvExpress is only the biomarker gene list. We generated a cancer database collecting more than 20,000 samples and 130 datasets with censored clinical information covering tumors over 20 tissues. We implemented a web interface to perform biomarker validation and comparisons in this database, where a multivariate survival analysis can be accomplished in about one minute. We show the utility and simplicity of SurvExpress in two biomarker applications for breast and lung cancer. Compared to other tools, SurvExpress is the largest, most versatile, and quickest free tool available. SurvExpress web can be accessed in http://bioinformatica.mty.itesm.mx/SurvExpress (a tutorial is included). The website was implemented in JSP, JavaScript, MySQL, and R.


title: The Sensory Environment and Participation of Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

abstract: Sensory processing is recognized as impacting participation for preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Little research exists to examine the impact of the sensory environment on the participation patterns of children with ASD, specifically from a contextual standpoint. The researchers in this study examined the viewpoint of teachers and occupational therapists on the sensory-related environmental barriers to participation within the preschool context. Qualitative descriptive methodology was used for data collection and analysis. Thirteen preschool teachers and occupational therapists were interviewed. Sensory aspects of the environment both inhibited and enhanced participation. Physical and temporal components of the environment are identified as being the most influential. Modifications of the environment are identified as increasing participation. It is important to consider the sensory aspects of the environment, in addition to the sensory processing patterns of the person in assessmen...


title: A review of trends and limitations in hydrogel-rapid prototyping for tissue engineering.

abstract: The combined potential of hydrogels and rapid prototyping technologies has been an exciting route in developing tissue engineering scaffolds for the past decade. Hydrogels represent to be an interesting starting material for soft, and lately also for hard tissue regeneration. Their application enables the encapsulation of cells and therefore an increase of the seeding efficiency of the fabricated structures. Rapid prototyping techniques on the other hand, have become an elegant tool for the production of scaffolds with the purpose of cell seeding and/or cell encapsulation. By means of rapid prototyping, one can design a fully interconnected 3-dimensional structure with pre-determined dimensions and porosity. Despite this benefit, some of the rapid prototyping techniques are not or less suitable for the generation of hydrogel scaffolds. In this review, we therefore give an overview on the different rapid prototyping techniques suitable for the processing of hydrogel materials. A primary distinction will be made between (i) laser-based, (ii) nozzle-based, and (iii) printer-based systems. Special attention will be addressed to current trends and limitations regarding the respective techniques. Each of these techniques will be further discussed in terms of the different hydrogel materials used so far. One major drawback when working with hydrogels is the lack of mechanical strength. Therefore, maintaining and improving the mechanical integrity of the processed scaffolds has become a key issue regarding 3-dimensional hydrogel structures. This limitation can either be overcome during or after processing the scaffolds, depending on the applied technology and materials.


Direct Manipulation in Virtual Reality for Scientific Visualization


title: 40 Years of Studying RNA Import into Mitochondria: From Basic Mechanisms to Gene Therapy Strategies

abstract: Mitochondria of many living species internalize nuclear DNA-encoded ribonucleic acids. The pools of imported RNA molecules, as well as fine mechanisms of these processes, are highly species-specific. To date, baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are the best studied in this regard. Moreover, the processes of yeast RNA mitochondrial import have been the basis of modeling several gene therapy strategies aimed to palliate negative effects of pathogenic mutations in human mitochondrial DNA. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge about the molecular events taking place in course of yeast RNA import into mitochondria. Also, we describe how this process can be used for compensation of pathogenic mutations in mitochondrial genomes of humans.


title: Pictures Speak Louder than Words: Motivations for Using Instagram

abstract: Abstract While Instagram, the rising photo-sharing social networking service, has received increasing attention from scholars and practitioners, little is known about the social and psychological factors that lead consumers to become fanatics of this app. To provide a baseline understanding of Instagram users, the current study aims to uncover the structural dimensions of consumers' motives for using Instagram and to explore the relationships between identified motivations and key attitudinal and behavioral intention variables. A comprehensive survey was developed in which a total of 212 Instagram users evaluated their motivation, primary activities, use intention, and attitude regarding Instagram. The results suggest that Instagram users have five primary social and psychological motives: social interaction, archiving, self-expression, escapism, and peeking. The implications of this study's findings are discussed.


title: TC: Throughput centric successive cancellation decoder hardware implementation for polar codes

abstract: This paper presents a hardware architecture of fast simplified successive cancellation (fast-SSC) algorithm for polar codes, which significantly reduces the decoding latency and dramatically increases the throughput. Algorithmically, fast-SSC algorithm suffers from the fact that its decoder scheduling and the consequent architecture depends on the code rate; this is a challenge for rate-compatible system. However, by exploiting the homogeneousness between the decoding processes of fast constituent polar codes and regular polar codes, the presented design is compatible with any rate. The scheduling plan and the intendedly designed process core are also described. Results show that, compared with the state-of-art decoder, proposed design can achieve at least 60% latency reduction for the codes with length N = 1024. By using Nangate FreePDK 45nm process, proposed design can reach throughput up to 5.81 Gbps and 2.01 Gbps for (1024, 870) and (1024, 512) polar code, respectively.


title: SDN-Based Data Transfer Security for Internet of Things

abstract: The exponential growth of devices connected to the network has resulted in the development of new Internet of Things (IoT) applications and online services, which may have diverse and dynamic requirements on received quality. Although, the emerging software-defined networking (SDN) approach can be leveraged for the IoT environment, to dynamically achieve differentiated quality levels for different IoT tasks in very heterogeneous wireless networking scenarios, the open interfaces in SDN introduces new network attacks, which may make SDN-based IoT malfunctioned. The challenges lies in securely using SDN for IoT systems. To address this challenge, we design a SDN-based data transfer security model middlebox-guard (M-G). M-G aims at reducing network latency, and properly manage dataflow to ensure the network run safely. First, according to different security policies, middleboxes related to the defined secure policies, are placed at the most appropriate locations, using dataflow abstraction and a heuristic algorithm. Next, to avoid any middlebox becoming a hotspot, an offline integer linear program (ILP) pruning algorithm is proposed in M-G, to tackle switch volume constraints. In addition, an online linear program (LP) formulation is come up to handle load balance. Finally, secure mechanisms are proposed to handle different attacks. And network routing is solved flexibly, through dataflow management protocol, which are formulated via combining tunnels and tags. Experimental results demonstrate that this model can improve security performance and manage dataflow effectively in SDN-based IoT system.


title: 5G Ultra-Dense Cellular Networks

abstract: Traditional ultra-dense wireless networks are recommended as a complement for cellular networks and are deployed in partial areas, such as hotspot and indoor scenarios. Based on the massive multiple-input multi-output antennas and the millimeter wave communication technologies, the 5G ultra-dense cellular network is proposed to deploy in overall cellular scenarios. Moreover, a distribution network architecture is presented for 5G ultra-dense cellular networks. Furthermore, the backhaul network capacity and the backhaul energy efficiency of ultra-dense cellular networks are investigated to answer an important question, that is, how much densification can be deployed for 5G ultra-dense cellular networks. Simulation results reveal that there exist densification limits for 5G ultra-dense cellular networks with backhaul network capacity and backhaul energy efficiency constraints.


title: What about False Insights? Deconstructing the Aha! Experience along Its Multiple Dimensions for Correct and Incorrect Solutions Separately

abstract: The subjective Aha! experience that problem solvers often report when they find a solution has been taken as a marker for insight. If Aha! is closely linked to insightful solution processes based on representational change, then theoretically, an Aha! should only be experienced when the correct solution is found. However, little work has explored whether the Aha! experience can also accompany incorrect solutions (“false insights”). Similarly, although the Aha! experience is not a unitary construct, little work has explored the different dimensions that have been proposed as its constituents. To address these gaps in the literature, 70 participants were presented with a set of difficult problems (37 magic tricks), and rated each of their solutions for Aha! as well as with regard to Suddenness in the emergence of the solution, Certainty of being correct, Surprise, Pleasure, Relief, and Drive. Solution times were also used as predictors for the Aha! experience. This study reports three main findings: First, false insights exist. Second, the Aha! experience is multidimensional and consists of the key components Pleasure, Suddenness and Certainty. Third, although Aha! experiences for correct and incorrect solutions share these three common dimensions, they are also experienced differently with regard to magnitude and quality, with correct solutions emerging faster, leading to stronger Aha! experiences, and higher ratings of Pleasure, Suddenness, and Certainty. Solution correctness proffered a slightly different emotional coloring to the Aha! experience, with the additional perception of Relief for correct solutions, and Surprise for incorrect ones. These results cast some doubt on the assumption that the occurrence of an Aha! experience can serve as a definitive signal that a true insight (an insightful solution based on representational change) has taken place. On the other hand, the quantitative and qualitative differences in the experience of correct and incorrect solutions demonstrate that the Aha! experience is not a mere epiphenomenon. Strong Aha! experiences are clearly, but not exclusively linked to true insight.


title: Classification and feature selection for craniosynostosis

abstract: Craniosynostosis is the premature fusion of the bones of the calvaria resulting in abnormal skull shapes that can be associated with increased intracranial pressure. The goal of this work is to analyze the various 3D skull shapes that manifest in isolated single suture craniosynostosis. A logistic regression is used to identify different types of synostosis and quantify the differences. Due to the high-dimensionality of the feature data, a sophisticated feature selection technique is required to avoid overfitting and to improve the classification accuracy on the unseen data. In addition, feature selection allows the identification of surface areas that contribute to the major skull deformations that characterize isolated synostosis. We applied three sparse feature selection methods: L1 regularization (lasso [9]), fused lasso ([10]) and a novel regularization method we have developed called the clustering lasso (cLasso). L1 regularized logistic regression locates important surface points, and the fused lasso groups these points into regions. The cLasso was designed to assign similar weights to groups of correlated shape features. Experimental results indicated that the regularized logistic regression models achieve a significantly lower misclassification rate than unregularized logistic regression.


title: How do job characteristics contribute to burnout? Exploring the distinct mediating roles of perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness

abstract: This study aimed to better understand the psychological mechanisms, referred to in the job demands–resources model as the energetic and motivational processes, that can explain relationships between job demands (role overload and ambiguity), job resources (job control and social support), and burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment). Drawing on self-determination theory, we examined whether psychological resources (perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness) act as specific mediators between particular job demands and burnout as well as between job resources and burnout. Participants were 356 school board employees. Results of the structural equation analyses provide support for our hypothesized model, which proposes that certain job demands and resources are involved in both the energetic and motivational processes—given their relationships with psychological resources—and that they distinctively predict burnout components. Implications for burnout research and management practices are discussed.


title: Automatic irrigation system based on wireless network

abstract: Considering the characteristic of irrigation in the rural area of China, this paper brings forward new devices based on wireless network, that are GSM (Global System Mobile) network and radio communication. Three levels are included in the system: the PC control platform or common cell phone for surveillance, the controller and the action unit. Simple GSM modules are available in the PC control platform and the controller. Orders can be sent from the PC control platform or cell phone to the controller and the information such as temperature, soil moisture and air humidity sampled by the controller can also be sent to the PC platform or cell phone by GSM message. Emitter and receiver of short-wave radio are embedded in the controller and the action unit respectively. Radio communication works between the controller and the action units. Database of spot information sampled can be analyzed and browsed by friendly interface in PC. The devices have been installed in some farms of Mentougou district in Beijing, capital of China, and Xinjiang, northwest of China.


title: DDOS Mitigation Cloud-Based Service

abstract: Cloud computing has evolved over the last decade from a simple storage service for more complex ones, offering software as a service (SaaS), platforms as a service (PaaS) and most recently security as a service (SECaaS). The work presented in this paper is a response to: (1) the resource constraints in physical security devices such as firewalls or IPS/IDS, that can no more counter advanced DDOS attacks, (2) The expensive cost, management complexity and the requirement of high amount of resources on existing DDOS mitigation tools to verify the traffic. We propose a new architecture of a cloud based firewalling service using resources offered by the Cloud and characterized by: a low financial cost, high availability, reliability, self scaling and easy managing. In order to improve the efficiency of our proposal to face DDOS attacks, we deploy, configure and test our mitigation service using Network Function Virtualization technology (NFV) and other virtualization capabilities. We also detail some result and point out future work.


The Functional Arm Scale for Throwers (FAST)—Part II: Reliability and Validity of an Upper Extremity Region-Specific and Population-Specific Patient-Reported Outcome Scale for Throwing Athletes


title: HEART RATE DETECTION USING HILBERT TRANSFORM

abstract: The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a well known method that can be used to measure Heart Rate Variability (HRV). This paper describes a procedure for processing electrocardiog ram signals (ECG) to detect Heart Rate Variability (HRV). In recent years, there have been wide-ranging studies on Heart rate variab ility in ECG signals and analysis of Respiratory Si nus Arrhythmia (RSA). Normally the Heart rate variability is studied base d on cycle length variability, heart period variabi lity, RR variability and RR interval tachogram. The HRV provides information ab out the sympathetic-parasympathetic autonomic stabi lity and consequently about the risk of unpredicted cardiac death. The he art beats in ECG signal are detected by detecting R -Peaks in ECG signals and used to determine useful information about the vari ous cardiac abnormalities. The temporal locations o f the R-wave are identified as the locations of the QRS complexes. In the presence of poor signal-to-noise ratios or pathological sig nals and wrong placement of ECG electrodes, the QRS complex may be missed or fa lsely detected and may lead to poor results in calc ulating heart beat in turn inter-beat intervals. We have studied the effects o f number of common elements of QRS detection method s using MIT/BIH arrhythmia database and devised a simple and effective method. In this method, first the ECG signal is preprocess ed using band-pass filter; later the Hilbert Transform is applied on filtered ECG si gnal to enhance the presence of QRS complexes, to d etect R-Peaks by setting a threshold and finally the RR-intervals are calcul ated to determine Heart Rate. We have implemented o ur method using MATLAB on ECG signal which is obtained from MIT/BIH arrhythmi a database. Our MATLAB implementation results in t he detection of QRS complexes in ECG signal, locate the R-Peaks, comput es Heart Rate (HR) by calculating RR-internal and pof HR signal to show the information about HRV.


title: An efficient method of computing static single assignment form

abstract: In optimizing compilers, data structure choices directly influence the power and efficiency of practical program optimization. A poor choice of data structure can inhibit optimization or slow compilation to the point where advanced optimization features become undesirable. Recently, static single assignment form and the control dependence graph have been proposed to represent data flow and control flow properties of programs. Each of these previously unrelated techniques lends efficiency and power to a useful class of program optimizations. Although both of these structures are attractive, the difficulty of their construction and their potential size have discouraged their use. We present a new algorithm that efficiently computes these data structures for arbitrary control flow graph We also give analytical and experimental evidence that they are usually {\em linear} in the size of the original program. This paper thus presents strong evidence that these structures can be of {\em practical} use in optimization.


title: Spell Checking in Spanish: The Case of Diacritic Accents

abstract: This article presents the problem of diacritic restoration (or diacritization) in the context of spell-checking, with the focus on an orthographically rich language such as Spanish. We argue that despite the large volume of work published on the topic of diacritization, currently available spell-checking tools have still not found a proper solution to the problem in those cases where both forms of a word are listed in the checker’s dictionary. This is the case, for instance, when a word form exists with and without diacritics, such as continuo ‘continuous’ and continu´ ‘he/she/it continued’, or when different diacritics make other word distinctions, as in contin´ uo ‘I continue’. We propose a very simple solution based on a word bigram model derived from correctly typed Spanish texts and evaluate the ability of this model to restore diacritics in artificial as well as real errors. The case of diacritics is only meant to be an example of the possible applications for this idea, yet we believe that the same method could be applied to other kinds of orthographic or even grammatical errors. Moreover, given that no explicit linguistic knowledge is required, the proposed model can be used with other languages provided that a large normative corpus is available.


title: Security Challenges and Approaches in Online Social Networks: A Survey

abstract: Summary Social Networks (SN) Sites are becoming very popular and the number of users is increasing rapidly. However, with that increase there is also an increase in the security threats which affect the users’ privacy, identity and confidentiality. Different research groups highlighted the security threats in SN and attempted to offer some solutions to these issues. In this paper we survey several examples of this research and highlight the approaches. All the models we surveyed were focusing on protecting users’ information yet they failed to cover other important issues. For example, none of the mechanisms provided the users with control over what others can reveal about them; and encryption of images is still not achieved properly. Generally having higher security measures will affect the system’s performance in terms of speed and response time. However, this trade-off was not discussed or addressed in any of the models we surveyed.


title: Internet use and online safety in adults with Williams syndrome

abstract: BACKGROUND: Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) increasingly have access to the Internet. Whilst Internet access increases opportunities for social connection for individuals with IDD, it also may increase risk of victimisation. Adults with Williams syndrome (WS), who display an extreme pro-social drive to engage with both familiar and unfamiliar people, might be especially vulnerable to online victimisation. This study first explores how often and why individuals with WS use the Internet and social networking sites. Next, the online vulnerability of individuals with WS is assessed through responses to hypothetical scenarios of potentially dangerous online interactions. METHOD: Twenty-eight young adults with WS (mean age = 27.7 years) and their parents completed questionnaires about their Internet and social networking use and parental oversight. Participants with WS then responded to hypothetical scenarios assessing their likelihood to take social and non-social risks online. RESULTS: Most participants with WS frequently use the Internet and the majority visit social networking sites every day or almost every day, with little parental supervision or oversight. Individuals with WS interact with both known and unknown individuals through social networking sites. Participants are more likely to agree to engage in socially risky behaviours compared to risky behaviours that are not social in nature when online. For example, participants were more likely to agree to meet an 'online friend' in person than they were to give their bank account information for winning a 'contest'. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with WS, who are a socially vulnerable group in the real world, display behaviours that could also lead to victimisation online as well. As the Internet continues to become more accessible, more research is needed to increase online safety of individuals with WS and other IDDs. Implications for intervention and future research are discussed.© 2016 MENCAP and International Association of the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Language: en


OPINION Circadian rhythms and sleep in bipolar disorder: implications for pathophysiology and treatment


title: Adaptive Logarithmic Mapping For Displaying High Contrast Scenes

abstract: We propose a fast, high quality tone mapping technique to display high contrast images on devices with limited dynamic range of luminance values. The method is based on logarithmic compression of luminance values, imitating the human response to light. A bias power function is introduced to adaptively vary logarithmic bases, resulting in good preservation of details and contrast. To improve contrast in dark areas, changes to the gamma correction procedure are proposed. Our adaptive logarithmic mapping technique is capable of producing perceptually tuned images with high dynamic content and works at interactive speed. We demonstrate a successful application of our tone mapping technique with a high dynamic range video player enabling to adjust optimal viewing conditions for any kind of display while taking into account user preference concerning brightness, contrast compression, and detail reproduction.


title: Blender: upgrading tenant-based data center networking

abstract: This paper presents Blender, a framework that enables network operators to improve tenant performance by tailoring the network's behavior to tenant needs. Tenants may upgrade their provisioned portion of the network with specific features, such as multi-path routing, isolation, and failure recovery, without modifying hosted application code. Network operators may differentiate themselves based on upgrades they offer, creating new upgrades via a light-weight programming interface. Blender safely executes multiple tenants' selections simultaneously across a shared network infrastructure. We show that the Blender model can express and extend recently proposed network functionality on existing SDN networks. We use an OpenFlow-based prototype to quantify Blender's performance and potential for deployment at scale.


title: BEYOND BUDGETING AND AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT OF AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAMS

abstract: Around the same time as the emergence of agile methods as a formalized concept, the management accounting literature introduced the concept of Beyond Budgeting as a performance management model for changing business environments. Both concepts share many similarities with both having a distinctly agile or adaptive perspective. The Beyond Budgeting model promises to enable companies to keep pace with changing business environments, quickly create and adapt strategy and empower people throughout the organization to make effective changes. This research in progress paper attempts to develop the Beyond Budgeting model within the context of agile software development teams. The twelve Beyond Budgeting principles are discussed and a research framework is presented. This framework is being used in two case studies to investigate the organizational issues and challenges that affect the performance of agile software


title: The Role of Relational Information Processes and Technology Use in Customer Relationship Management

abstract: Abstract Drawing on the relationship marketing and market information processing literature streams, the authors conceptualize and measure relational information processes, or organizational routines that are critical for customer relationship management (CRM). The authors examine the key drivers and outcome of relational information processes and the role of technology in implementing CRM using data collected from a diverse sample of firms. The results show that relational information processes play a vital role in enhancing an organization's customer relationship performance. By moderating the influence of relational information processes on customer relationship performance, technology used for CRM performs an important and supportive role. The study provides insights into why the use of CRM technology might not always deliver the expected customer relationship performance outcome.


title: The International Journal of Virtual Reality, 2006, 5(2):45-50 Age Invaders: Inter-generational Mixed Reality Family Game

abstract: This paper introduces Age Invaders (AI), a novel interactive inter-generation social-physical game which allows the elderly to play harmoniously together with children in physical space while parents can participate in the game play in real time remotely through the internet.


title: A Compact Dual Circularly Polarized Microstrip Patch Array With Interlaced Sequentially Rotated Feed

abstract: This communication presents a microstrip patch array, using sequentially rotated feed networks to achieve dual circular polarization in the same band. By interlacing the microstrip patches of adjacent $2 \times 2$ subarrays, the element spacing is minimized to avoid the challenging grating lobe issue. In this manner, the number of radiating elements is reduced from the conventional 4N to $2N + 2$ , where $N$ is the number of $2 \times 2$ subarrays. The array is implemented on a two-layer substrate, with the upper layer hosting the microstrip patch array and the sequentially rotated networks, and the lower layer hosting the power dividers, sharing a common ground plane in the middle. To validate this novel configuration, a prototype is fabricated and measured. It achieves both $\vert S11\vert dB and axial ratio < 3 dB bandwidth of 12.5% (4.95–5.61 GHz) for right-hand circular polarization and 14.7% (5.05–5.85 GHz) for left-hand circular polarization. The isolation between the orthogonal circularly polarized ports is about 12 dB in band.


title: of Achievement Emotions: An Integrative Approach to Emotions in Education

abstract: Publisher Summary ::: This chapter presents an overview of the assumptions and corollaries of the control-value theory of achievement emotions, as well as some of its implications for educational practice. The control-value theory provides a theoretical framework making it possible to integrate constructs and assumptions from a variety of theoretical approaches to emotions in education and to achievement emotions more generally. Empirically, many facets of the theory have consistently been corroborated in qualitative and quantitative investigations. However, the assumptions provided by the theory on how to design emotionally sound learning environments for students, and occupational environments for teachers, have yet to be tested in empirical intervention studies. There is evidence that educational interventions can reduce students' test anxiety. The control-value theory implies that shaping educational environments in adequate ways can help to change achievement emotions other than anxiety as well. Future research should systematically explore measures to help both students and teachers to develop adaptive achievement emotions, prevent maladaptive emotions, and use their emotions in productive and healthy ways.


title: Additive manufacturing and mechanical characterization of graded porosity scaffolds designed based on triply periodic minimal surface architectures.

abstract: Since the advent of additive manufacturing techniques, triply periodic minimal surfaces have emerged as a novel tool for designing porous scaffolds. Whereas scaffolds are expected to provide multifunctional performance, spatially changing pore patterns have been a promising approach to integrate mechanical characteristics of different architectures into a unique scaffold. Smooth morphological variations are also frequently seen in nature particularly in bone and cartilage structures and can be inspiring for designing of artificial tissues. In this study, we carried out experimental and numerical procedures to uncover the mechanical properties and deformation mechanisms of linearly graded porosity scaffolds for two different mathematically defined pore structures. Among TPMS-based scaffolds, P and D surfaces were subjected to gradient modeling to explore the mechanical responses for stretching and bending dominated deformations, respectively. Moreover, the results were compared to their corresponding uniform porosity structures. Mechanical properties were found to be by far greater for the stretching dominated structure (P-Surface). For bending dominated architecture (D-Surface), although there was no global fracture for uniform structures, graded structure showed a brittle fracture at 0.08 strain. A layer by layer deformation mechanism for stretching dominated structure was observed. For bending dominated scaffolds, deformation was accompanied by development of 45° shearing bands. Finite element simulations were also performed and the results showed a good agreement with the experimental observations.


title: A Black-Box Construction of Non-malleable Encryption from Semantically Secure Encryption

abstract: We show how to transform any semantically secure encryption scheme into a non-malleable one, with a black-box construction that achieves a quasi-linear blow-up in the size of the ciphertext. This improves upon the previous non-black-box construction of Pass, Shelat and Vaikuntanathan (Crypto '06). Our construction also extends readily to guarantee non-malleability under a bounded-CCA2 attack, thereby simultaneously improving on both results in the work of Cramer et al. (Asiacrypt '07). Our construction departs from the oft-used paradigm of re-encrypting the same message with different keys and then proving consistency of encryption. Instead, we encrypt an encoding of the message; the encoding is based on an error-correcting code with certain properties of reconstruction and secrecy from partial views, satisfied, e.g., by a Reed---Solomon code.


title: Improved Color QR Codes for Real Time Applications with High Embedding Capacity

abstract: QR code is a special type of barcode that can encode information like numbers, letters, and any other characters. The capacity of a given QR code depends on the version and error correction level, as also the data type which are encoded. A QR code framework for mobile phone applications by exploiting the spectral diversity afforded by the cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) print colorant channels commonly used for color printing and the complementary red (R), green (G), and blue (B) channels, which captures the color images had been proposed. Specifically, this spectral diversity to realize a three- fold increase in the data rate by encoding independent data the C, Y, and M channels and decoding the data from the complementary R, G, and B channels. In most cases Reed- Solomon error correction codes will be used for generating error correction codeword"s and also to increase the interference cancellation rate. Experimental results will show that the proposed framework successfully overcomes both single and burst errors and also providing a low bit error rate and a high decoding rate for each of the colorant channels when used with a corresponding error correction scheme. Finally proposed system was successfully synthesized using QUARTUS II EDA tools.


Tears or Fears? Comparing Gender Stereotypes about Movie Preferences to Actual Preferences


title: An integrated framework on mining logs files for computing system management

abstract: Traditional approaches to system management have been largely based on domain experts through a knowledge acquisition process that translates domain knowledge into operating rules and policies. This has been well known and experienced as a cumbersome, labor intensive, and error prone process. In addition, this process is difficult to keep up with the rapidly changing environments. In this paper, we will describe our research efforts on establishing an integrated framework for mining system log files for automatic management. In particular, we apply text mining techniques to categorize messages in log files into common situations, improve categorization accuracy by considering the temporal characteristics of log messages, develop temporal mining techniques to discover the relationships between different events, and utilize visualization tools to evaluate and validate the interesting temporal patterns for system management.


title: Seperability of four-class motor imagery data using independent components analysis.

abstract: This paper compares different ICA preprocessing algorithms on cross-validated training data as well as on unseen test data. The EEG data were recorded from 22 electrodes placed over the whole scalp during motor imagery tasks consisting of four different classes, namely the imagination of right hand, left hand, foot and tongue movements. Two sessions on different days were recorded for eight subjects. Three different independent components analysis (ICA) algorithms (Infomax, FastICA and SOBI) were studied and compared to common spatial patterns (CSP), Laplacian derivations and standard bipolar derivations, which are other well-known preprocessing methods. Among the ICA algorithms, the best performance was achieved by Infomax when using all 22 components as well as for the selected 6 components. However, the performance of Laplacian derivations was comparable with Infomax for both cross-validated and unseen data. The overall best four-class classification accuracies (between 33% and 84%) were obtained with CSP. For the cross-validated training data, CSP performed slightly better than Infomax, whereas for unseen test data, CSP yielded significantly better classification results than Infomax in one of the sessions.


title: Generative Moment Matching Networks

abstract: We consider the problem of learning deep generative models from data. We formulate a method that generates an independent sample via a single feedforward pass through a multilayer perceptron, as in the recently proposed generative adversarial networks (Goodfellow et al., 2014). Training a generative adversarial network, however, requires careful optimization of a difficult minimax program. Instead, we utilize a technique from statistical hypothesis testing known as maximum mean discrepancy (MMD), which leads to a simple objective that can be interpreted as matching all orders of statistics between a dataset and samples from the model, and can be trained by backpropagation. We further boost the performance of this approach by combining our generative network with an auto-encoder network, using MMD to learn to generate codes that can then be decoded to produce samples. We show that the combination of these techniques yields excellent generative models compared to baseline approaches as measured on MNIST and the Toronto Face Database.


title: Three-Dimensional Beamforming: A new enabling technology for 5G wireless networks

abstract: It is anticipated that the mobile data traffic will grow 1,000 times higher from 2010 to 2020 with a rate of roughly a factor of two per year [1]. This increasing demand for data in next-generation mobile broadband networks will lead to many challenges for system engineers and service providers. To address these issues and meet the stringent demands in coming years, innovative and practical solutions should be identified that are able to provide higher spectral efficiency, better performance, and broader coverage. Next generations of wireless cellular networks, which are known as fifth generation (5G) or beyond fourth generation (B4G) wireless networks, are expected to produce higher data rates for mobile subscribers in the order of tens of gigabits per second (Gbit/s) and support a wide range of services. Despite the absence of official standards for the 5G, the data rate of 1?Gbit/s per user anywhere for 5G mobile networks is expected to be deployed beyond 2020.


title: Understanding user revisions when using information system features: adaptive system use and triggers

abstract: Post-adoptive system use is often characterized by cycles of adaptation, in which people actively revise how they use information systems. This paper investigates how and why individual users revise their system use at the feature level. A new concept, adaptive system use (ASU), is conceptualized as a user's revisions of which and how system features are used. This research identifies four specific ASU behaviors that collectively describe how people revise their use of system features. A model of ASU is developed based on Louis and Sutton's (1991) research on how people switch to active thinking from automatic thinking. The model specifies three antecedents of ASU (novel situations, discrepancies, and deliberate initiatives) and two moderators (personal innovativeness in IT and facilitating conditions). An empirical study of 253 Microsoft Office users largely supported the research model. The findings suggest that triggers--including novel situations, discrepancies, and deliberate initiatives--are a significant impetus to ASU. This research also confirms moderating effects of personal innovativeness in IT. The findings also show the relationships among triggers: in addition to their direct impact on ASU, novel situations and deliberate initiatives exert their influence on ASU indirectly by giving rise to discrepancies in system use. Moreover, a cluster analysis identifies three heterogeneous triggering conditions and reveals that people engage in different ASU behaviors under different triggering conditions.


title: Orthogonal Connector Routing

abstract: Orthogonal connectors are used in a variety of common network diagrams. Most interactive diagram editors provide orthogonal connectors with some form of automatic connector routing. However, these tools use ad-hoc heuristics that can lead to strange routes and even routes that pass through other objects. We present an algorithm for computing optimal object-avoiding orthogonal connector routings where the route minimizes a monotonic function of the connector length and number of bends. The algorithm is efficient and can calculate connector routings fast enough to reroute connectors during interaction.


title: Restoring Agency to the Human Actor

abstract: A cursory read of the social psychological literature suggests that when people find themselves in strong situations, they fail to display agency. The early classic studies of conformity, obedience, and bystander intervention, for example, are renowned for showing that when challenged by strong situational pressures, participants acquiesced—even if it meant abandoning their moral principles or disregarding their own sensory data. Later studies of learned helplessness, ego depletion, and stereotype threat echoed this “power of the situation” theme, demonstrating that exposure to (or the expectation of) a frustrating or unpleasant experience suppressed subsequent efforts to actualize goals and abilities. Although this work has provided many valuable insights into the influence of situational pressures, it has been used to buttress an unbalanced and misleading portrait of human agency. This portrait fails to recognize that situations are not invariably enemies of agency. Instead, strong situational forces of...


title: Haploidy in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.): a critical review

abstract: Results on the induction of haploidy in tomato via both gynogenesis and microspore embryogenesis in vitro are far from satisfactory. The number of reports available on the gynogenic induction via in vitro non-fertilized ovary culture, wide hybridization and the use of irradiated pollen are limited. The main reason for this may be the difficulty experienced in working with this species. Therefore, many failed attempts have not been reported. Non-fertilized ovary culture and wide hybridization using Solanum sisymbriifolium Lam. as the male parent seem to be promising (Bal and Abak, Pak J Biol Sci 6:745–749, 2003a, b). Further efforts in this line may improve results obtained earlier. Several reports (Gresshoff and Doy, Planta 107:161–170, 1972; Sharp et al., Planta 104:357–361, 1972; Zamir et al., Plant Sci Lett 17:353–361, 1980; Chlyah and Taarji, Proc. Int. Symp. Plant tissue and cell culture application to crop improvement. 24–29 Sept. 1984; Jaramillo and Summers, J Amer Soc Hort Sci 115:1047–1050, 1990, HortScience 26:915–916, 1991; Summers et al., HortScience 27:838–840, 1992) are available on anther culture of tomato but a working protocol is yet to be developed. For the induction of anther callus, anthers carrying microspores at the meiotic stages appear to be the most responsive. However, the callus and the regenerants obtained were mainly of somatic origin. Somatic tissues of tomato anthers carrying the meiotic stages are highly responsive to tissue culture manipulations in comparison to anther tissues of the later stages. Therefore, reports on the induction of callus from anthers carrying early microspore stages should be met with caution. If culturing young anthers is of any help then it may be that the anther tissues are nursing the microspores and bringing them to the responsive uninucleate stage. Following the first report by Sharp et al. (Planta 104:357–361, 1972) on the induction of microspore embryogenesis, using a modified version of the microspore culture, reports concentrated only on anther culture (reviewed by Chlyah et al., Haploids in crop improvement I. Biotechnology in agriculture and forestry 12. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1990). Based on findings reported by Yinnan et al. (J Agric Biotechnol, http://www.cau.edu.cn/ agrocbi/periodical/ nyswjsxb/ nysw99/ nysw9901/ 990115.htm, 1999) and Bal and Abak (Biotechnol Biotechnol Equip 19:35–42, 2005) on the induction of symmetrical division of microspore nuclei from uninucleate microspores, the formation of multicellular structures and globular embryos, it is likely that the future of tomato haploidy lies in the technique of isolated microspore culture.


title: Hardware implementation of Montgomery's modular multiplication algorithm

abstract: Hardware is described for implementing the fast modular multiplication algorithm developed by P.L. Montgomery (1985). Comparison with previous techniques shows that this algorithm is up to twice as fast as the best currently available and is more suitable for alternative architectures. The gain in speed arises from the faster clock that results from simpler combinational logic. >