title: DroidBarrier: know what is executing on your android

abstract: Many Android vulnerabilities share a root cause of malicious unauthorized applications executing without user's consent. In this paper, we propose the use of a technique called process authentication for Android applications to overcome the shortcomings of current Android security practices. We demonstrate the process authentication model for Android by designing and implementing our runtime authentication and detection system referred to as DroidBarrier. Our malware analysis shows that DroidBarrier is capable of detecting real Android malware at the time of creating independent processes. A


title: Ontology Learning in the Deep

abstract: Recent developments in the area of deep learning have been proved extremely beneficial for several natural language processing tasks, such as sentiment analysis, question answering, and machine translation. In this paper we exploit such advances by tailoring the ontology learning problem as a transductive reasoning task that learns to convert knowledge from natural language to a logic-based specification. More precisely, using a sample of definitory sentences generated starting by a synthetic grammar, we trained Recurrent Neural Network RNN based architectures to extract OWL formulae from text. In addition to the low feature engineering costs, our system shows good generalisation capabilities over the lexicon and the syntactic structure. The encouraging results obtained in the paper provide a first evidence of the potential of deep learning techniques towards long term ontology learning challenges such as improving domain independence, reducing engineering costs, and dealing with variable language forms.


title: Fixation-identification in dynamic scenes: comparing an automated algorithm to manual coding

abstract: Video-based eye trackers produce an output video showing where a subject is looking, the subject's point-of-regard (POR), for each frame of a video of the scene. Fixation-identification algorithms simplify the long list of POR data into a more manageable set of data, especially for further analysis, by grouping PORs into fixations. Most current fixation-identification algorithms assume that the POR data are defined in static two-dimensional scene images and only use these raw POR data to identify fixations. The applicability of these algorithms to gaze data in dynamic scene videos is largely unexplored. We implemented a simple velocity-based, duration-sensitive fixation-identification algorithm and compared its performance to results obtained by three experienced users manually coding the eye tracking data displayed within the scene video such that these manual coders had knowledge of the scene motion. We performed this comparison for eye tracking data collected during two different tasks involving different types of scene motion. These two tasks included a subject walking around a building for about 100 seconds (Task 1) and a seated subject viewing a computer animation (approximately 90 seconds long, Task 2). It took our manual coders on average 75 minutes (stdev = 28) and 80 minutes (17) to code results from the first and second tasks, respectively. The automatic fixation-identification algorithm, implemented in MATLAB and run on an Apple 2.16 GHz MacBook, produced results in 0.26 seconds for Task 1 and 0.21 seconds for Task 2. For the first task (walking), the average percent difference among the three human manual coders was 9% (3.5) and the average percent difference between the automatically generated results and the three coders was 11% (2.0). For the second task (animation), the average percent difference among the three human coders was 4% (0.75) and the average percent difference between the automatically generated results and the three coders was 5% (0.9).


title: Hypoglycemic Potential of Aqueous Extract of Moringa oleifera Leaf and In Vivo GC-MS Metabolomics

abstract: Moringa oleifera Lam. (family; Moringaceae), commonly known as drumstick, have been used for centuries as a part of the Ayurvedic system for several diseases without having any scientific data. Demineralized water was used to prepare aqueous extract by maceration for 24 h and complete metabolic profiling was performed using GC-MS and HPLC. Hypoglycemic properties of extract have been tested on carbohydrate digesting enzyme activity, yeast cell uptake, muscle glucose uptake, and intestinal glucose absorption. Type 2 diabetes was induced by feeding high-fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks and a single injection of streptozotocin (STZ, 45 mg/kg body weight, intraperitoneally) was used for the induction of type 1 diabetes. Aqueous extract of M. oleifera leaf was given orally at a dose of 100 mg/kg to STZ-induced rats and 200 mg/kg in HFD mice for 3 weeks after diabetes induction. Aqueous extract remarkably inhibited the activity of α-amylase and α-glucosidase and it displayed improved antioxidant capacity, glucose tolerance and rate of glucose uptake in yeast cell. In STZ-induced diabetic rats, it produces a maximum fall up to 47.86% in acute effect whereas, in chronic effect, it was 44.5% as compared to control. The fasting blood glucose, lipid profile, liver marker enzyme level were significantly (p < 0.05) restored in both HFD and STZ experimental model. Multivariate principal component analysis on polar and lipophilic metabolites revealed clear distinctions in the metabolite pattern in extract and in blood after its oral administration. Thus, the aqueous extract can be used as phytopharmaceuticals for the management of diabetes by using as adjuvants or alone.


title: The Point of Triangulation

abstract: Purpose: To explore various types of triangulation strategies and to indicate when different types of triangulation should be used in research. ::: ::: Methods: Reviews included literature on triangulation and multimethod strategies published since 1960 and research books specifically focusing on triangulation. ::: ::: Findings: Triangulation is the combination of at least two or more theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, data sources, investigators, or data analysis methods. The intent of using triangulation is to decrease, negate, or counterbalance the deficiency of a single strategy, thereby increasing the ability to interpret the findings. ::: ::: Conclusions: The use of triangulation strategies does not strengthen a flawed study. Researchers should use triangulation if it can contribute to understanding the phenomenon; however, they must be able to articulate why the strategy is being used and how it might enhance the study.


title: What Do We Want Them to Want to Do

abstract: A significant body of research in psychology demonstrates how extrinsic rewards undermine intrinsic motivation of students. The conceptual weakness of the notion of intrinsic motivation makes the research findings at least suspect, and for sure excessively generalized. The research is often used to argue against compensating students for their academic work. It contributed to expansion of false beliefs about the possibility of significant increase of intrinsic learning motivation. These beliefs are grounded in several false assumptions: 1. The assumption of abundant curiosity; or a belief that children are all motivated to learn everything that is offered to them. It is false, because children’s indiscriminate curiosity inevitably focuses on a more narrow set of interests as the person’s identity develops. 2. The assumption that intrinsic motivation can be easily invoked, drawn to the surface. This assumption does not find support in experience. Moreover, education is different from entertainment in terms of objectives, so adding entertainment value to curriculum tends to diminish its educational value. 3. The main argument against extrinsic rewards is that if those are taken away, activity stops. But this argument is tautological: the definition of extrinsic rewards is that they create motives extrinsic to the person’s interest in the activity. The fact that the desired activity stops after withdrawing the rewards is simply another way of defining what extrinsic motivation is, not an argument against it. 4. And finally, proponents of intrinsic motivation believe it can be extended to every activity. However, this is impossible, because having an interest or preference in one activity implies less interest or preference for another activity. Interest is selective, and is used by people to establish their identities. Therefore, some children will not like school learning simply because they are different from those children who do. The utopian thinking predictably has an effect opposite to its intention, namely, the strengthening of administrative and legal coercion in education. The solution seems to be to offer a number of extrinsic rewards for children to motivate their learning, without the fear that it will somehow destroy their intrinsic love of knowledge. In the near future, we need to rethink schools as places where children receive something tangible in exchange for their effort in learning the curriculum. For some, it is the belonging to the school community, for other, an opportunity to engage in activities that are truly


title: Flexible Piezoelectric Tactile Sensor Array for Dynamic Three-Axis Force Measurement

abstract: A new flexible piezoelectric tactile sensor array based on polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film is proposed for measuring three-axis dynamic contact force distribution. The array consists of six tactile units arranged as a 3 × 2 matrix with spacing 8 mm between neighbor units. In each unit, a PVDF film is sandwiched between four square-shaped upper electrodes and one square-shaped lower electrode, forming four piezoelectric capacitors. A truncated pyramid bump is located above the four piezoelectric capacitors to improve force transmission. A three-axis contact force transmitted from the top of the bump will lead to the four piezoelectric capacitors underneath undergoing different charge changes, from which the normal and shear components of the force can be calculated. A series of dynamic tests have been carried out by exerting sinusoidal forces with amplitudes ranging from 0 to 0.5 N in the x-axis, 0 to 0.5 N in the y-axis, and 0 to 1.5 N in the z-axis, separately. The tactile units show good sensitivities with 14.93, 14.92, and 6.62 pC/N in the x-, y-, and z-axes, respectively. They can work with good linearity, relatively low coupling effect, high repeatability, and acceptable frequency response in the range of 5–400 Hz to both normal and shear load. In addition, dynamic three-axis force measurement has been conducted for all of the tactile units. The average errors between the applied and calculated forces are 10.68% ± 6.84%. Furthermore, the sensor array can be easily integrated onto a curved surface, such as robotic and prosthetic hands, due to its excellent flexibility.


title: Pareto frontier learning with expensive correlated objectives

abstract: There has been a surge of research interest in developing tools and analysis for Bayesian optimization, the task of finding the global maximizer of an unknown, expensive function through sequential evaluation using Bayesian decision theory. However, many interesting problems involve optimizing multiple, expensive to evaluate objectives simultaneously, and relatively little research has addressed this setting from a Bayesian theoretic standpoint. A prevailing choice when tackling this problem, is to model the multiple objectives as being independent, typically for ease of computation. In practice, objectives are correlated to some extent. In this work, we incorporate the modelling of intertask correlations, developing an approximation to overcome intractable integrals. We illustrate the power of modelling dependencies between objectives on a range of synthetic and real world multi-objective optimization problems.


title: The Role of Volition in Organizational Learning: The Case of Automotive Product Recalls

abstract: What is the role of volition in organizational learning? Do firms learn better in response to internal procedures or external mandates? Existing literature provides conflicting answers to this question, with some theories suggesting that volition is important for learning because autonomy increases commitment and problem analyses, whereas external mandates tend to produce defensive reactions that are not coupled to the organization in any useful way. Yet, other theories suggest that mandate is important for learning because external pressures act as jolts that help overcome organizational inertia, resulting in deep exploration of problems to prevent future surprises. We investigate this issue in the context of automakers learning from voluntary versus involuntary product recalls. Using data on all recalls experienced by automakers that sold passenger cars in the United States during the 1966-1999 period, we follow the learning-curve tradition in investigating the effects of voluntary and involuntary recalls on subsequent recall rates. We find that voluntary recalls result in more learning than mandated recalls when learning is measured as a reduction in subsequent involuntary recalls. This effect is at least partly because of shallower learning processes that result from involuntary recalls. The effect of volition, however, is different for generalist and specialist automakers. The results of this study suggest an important, yet understudied, determinant of the rate and effectiveness of learning--volition. The results also add to our knowledge of the different learning processes of generalist and specialist organizations.


title: Picking on the family: Disrupting android malware triage by forcing misclassification

abstract: Machine learning classification algorithms are widely applied to different malware analysis problems because of their proven abilities to learn from examples and perform relatively well with little human input. Use cases include the labelling of malicious samples according to families during triage of suspected malware. However, automated algorithms are vulnerable to attacks. An attacker could carefully manipulate the sample to force the algorithm to produce a particular output. In this paper we discuss one such attack on Android malware classifiers. We design and implement a prototype tool, called IagoDroid, that takes as input a malware sample and a target family, and modifies the sample to cause it to be classified as belonging to this family while preserving its original semantics. Our technique relies on a search process that generates variants of the original sample without modifying their semantics. We tested IagoDroid against RevealDroid, a recent, open source, Android malware classifier based on a variety of static features. IagoDroid successfully forces misclassification for 28 of the 29 representative malware families present in the DREBIN dataset. Remarkably, it does so by modifying just a single feature of the original malware. On average, it finds the first evasive sample in the first search iteration, and converges to a 100% evasive population within 4 iterations. Finally, we introduce RevealDroid*, a more robust classifier that implements several techniques proposed in other adversarial learning domains. Our experiments suggest that RevealDroid* can correctly detect up to 99% of the variants generated by IagoDroid.


title: Caffeine Awareness in Children: Insights from a Pilot Study.

abstract: STUDY OBJECTIVES ::: Caffeine, a commonly consumed psychoactive substance, can have significant effects on sleep. Caffeine intake among children is increasing, mainly in the form of sodas. However, adolescent caffeine consumers may lack knowledge about the caffeine content in common beverages. If true, this very fact may hamper the assessment of the effects of caffeine consumption on sleep in children if such assessments are a priori dependent on responders being able to reliably distinguish between caffeinated and noncaffeinated beverages. This preliminary study investigated adolescents' caffeine knowledge and intake at a Cleveland-area public middle school. ::: ::: ::: METHODS ::: Seventh- and eighth-grade students were surveyed using: (1) the Caffeine Literacy and Sleep Study (CLASS), a 15-question pilot instrument designed to assess caffeine knowledge and intake by type, quantity and timing, as well as sleep habits; and (2) the Cleveland Adolescent Sleepiness Questionnaire (CASQ), a validated survey measuring excessive daytime sleepiness in adolescents. These questionnaires were distributed and collected during a specified class period. ::: ::: ::: RESULTS ::: Of the 635 seventh- and eighth-grade students who attended school on the day of the study, 555 (87%) participated. Lack of knowledge about caffeine content of particular drinks was noted in seventh and eighth graders of both sexes with nearly 29% unaware that their favorite drinks contain caffeine and more than 50% unable to correctly identify the drinks with the most caffeine. A low percentage of students correctly identified light-colored sodas lacking caffeine: 7-Up (24.1%), Sierra Mist (38.9%), ginger ale (39.8%), Sprite (39.8%), and Fresca (53.7%). The percentages of students correctly identifying caffeinated light-colored beverages were: Arizona Green Tea (43.5%), Mello Yellow (50.9%), and A&W cream soda (67.6%). However, Mountain Dew was correctly identified by most (93.5%) as caffeinated. ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSIONS ::: Students were not consistently able to identify caffeine content or lack thereof in some common beverages. The results of this pilot study show that caffeine literacy in adolescents warrants further investigation and educational intervention.


title: A Improved PrefixSpan algorithm for sequential pattern mining

abstract: Aiming at the problem of constructing huge amounts of projected databases in PrefixSpan algorithm, this paper proposes an Improved PrefixSpan algorithm for Mining Sequential Patterns, called BLSPM algorithm (based on bi-level Sequential Patterns Mining). The algorithm use duplicated projection and certain specific sequential patterns pruning, reduce the scale of projected databases and the runtime of scanning projected databases, thus, the efficiency of algorithm could be raised up greatly, and all needed sequential patterns are obtained. Experiment results shows that BLSPM algorithm is more efficient than PrefixSpan algorithm in large databases.


title: A Framework for Enhanced Timeline Analysis in Digital Forensics

abstract: Nowadays, with the growing number of storage devices and increasing popularity of digital hand-held devices on the Internet of Things (iThings), performing a digital forensic analysis is becoming gradually more problematic especially on the future generation Internet. One of the common solutions is the creation of computer activity timelines. This paper describes the existing tools and practices of timeline analysis with the conclusion that there is a need for a solid timeline analysis tool. Thus, it studies an existing but discontinued project (Zeitline), presents its features and shortcomings, and develops new capabilities to overcome these limitations. Finally, there is a discussion over the project's successes and failures, and an outline of its potential future improvements.


QuAADD : A Quick Access Routing Algorithm using Distance and Direction of Nodes in MANET


title: Narcissism and the narcissistic personality disorder: A comparison of the theories of Kernberg and Kohut

abstract: Narcissism has been a perennial topic for psychoanalytic papers since Freud's 'On narcissism : An introduction' (1914). The understanding of this field has recently been greatly furthered by the analytical writings of Kernberg and Kohut despite, or perhaps because of, their glaring disagreements. Despite such theoretical advances, clinical theory has far outpaced clinical practice. This paper provides a clarification of the characteristics, diagnosis and development of the narcissistic personality disorder and draws out the differing treatment implications, at various levels of psychological intensity, of the two theories discussed. Carrilio (1981, p. 107) observes how in recent years: ' . . .mental health professionals have been increasingly confronted with individuals who do not fit into traditional categories. They manifest a range of impulsive behaviour, feelings of emptiness, isolation, alienation and rootlessness, which may be seen as manifestations of narcissism'. During the last 15 years or so, there has been, within psychoanalytic circles, an intense preoccupation with the theoretical and clinical aspects of narcissistic phenomena. This may partly be accounted for by an increased understanding of the child 's earliest years, exemplified by the observational studies of Mahler et al. (1975), and because narcissistic phenomena are no longer dismissed as defences against Oedipal difficulties which traditionally constituted the focus of psychoanalysis. The American Psychiatric Association's (1980) introduction of the diagnostic category of the narscissistic personality disorder (NPD) in their Diagnostic Manual (DSM-111) finally gave formal psychiatric recognition to the importance of the concept of narcissism in mental disorders. Within a general framework of the concept of narcissism, this paper examines the NPD and relates it to various treatment approaches. The term narcissistic patient is used as shorthand for a patient with a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). On narcissism


title: A High-Speed Current-Mode Data Driver With Push-Pull Transient Current Feedforward for Full-HD AMOLED Displays

abstract: A push-pull transient current feedforward driver is designed to have a complete push-pull function and loop gain control that enhances the data current drivability. The sink and source current capability of the proposed driver makes it insensitive to the initial voltage levels on the data lines and provides a reduced settling time. The gain control in the positive feedback loop offers a fast settling time without ringing over the complete range of pixel drive currents. The data driver exhibits a settling time of better than 6 μs for drive currents from 20 nA to 5 μA into an equivalent full-HD AMOLED display panel parasitic load of 4 kΩ series resistance and 90 pF shunt capacitance. The driver consumes a static current of 4.5 μA/channel.


title: A Fully Implanted Intramuscular Bipolar Myoelectric Signal Recording Electrode

abstract: Objectives ::: To develop a fully-implanted, intramuscular, bipolar, myoelectric signal recording electrode (IM-MES) for functional electrical stimulation (FES), prosthetic myoelectric control, and other permanently implantable systems.


title: Electrical simulations of series and parallel PV arc-faults

abstract: Arcing in PV systems has caused multiple residential and commercial rooftop fires. The National Electrical Code® (NEC) added section 690.11 to mitigate this danger by requiring arc-fault circuit interrupters (AFCI). Currently, the requirement is only for series arc-faults, but to fully protect PV installations from arc-fault-generated fires, parallel arc-faults must also be mitigated effectively. In order to de-energize a parallel arc-fault without module-level disconnects, the type of arc-fault must be identified so that proper action can be taken (e.g., opening the array for a series arc-fault and shorting for a parallel arc-fault). In this work, we investigate the electrical behavior of the PV system during series and parallel arc-faults to (a) understand the arcing power available from different faults, (b) identify electrical characteristics that differentiate the two fault types, and (c) determine the location of the fault based on current or voltage of the faulted array. This information can be used to improve arc-fault detector speed and functionality.


The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Routing and Trajectory Optimisation Problem


title: Security and Privacy Challenges in Cloud Computing Environments

abstract: Cloud computing is an evolving paradigm with tremendous momentum, but its unique aspects exacerbate security and privacy challenges. This article explores the roadblocks and solutions to providing a trustworthy cloud computing environment.


title: An exhaustive review of automatic music transcription techniques: Survey of music transcription techniques

abstract: The main objective of this paper is to review the technologies and models used in the Automatic music transcription system. Music Information Retrieval is a key problem in the field of music signal analysis and this can be achieved with the use of music transcription systems. It has proven to be a very difficult issue because of the complex and deliberately overlapped spectral structure of musical harmonies. Generally, the music transcription systems branched as automatic and semi-automatic approaches based on the user interventions needed in the transcription system. Among these we give a close view of the automatic music transcription systems. Different models and techniques were proposed so far in the automatic music transcription systems. However the performance of the systems derived till now not completely matched to the performance of a human expert. In this paper we go through the techniques used previously for the music transcription and discuss the limitations with them. Also, we give some directions for the enhancement of the music transcription system and this can be useful for the researches to develop fully automatic music transcription system.


title: Survey and analysis on cognitive condition on quality control of blood samples for clinical nurses

abstract: Objective To study the cognitive level of quality control on blood samples for clinical nurses.Method Investigate 176 nurses in this hospital by self-designed questionnaire on quality control of blood samples.Result Cognitive level of quality control on blood samples for nurses is not satisfying.Only 11.93% of them acquire update knowledge on quality control of blood samples through continuing education.Conclusion Cognitive condition on quality control of blood samples for clinical nurses is not satisfying.Training on related knowledge through various ways and cooperation between all departments should be developed to improve clinical nurses cognitive level.


title: Higher-Order Pooling of CNN Features via Kernel Linearization for Action Recognition

abstract: Most successful deep learning algorithms for action recognition extend models designed for image-based tasks such as object recognition to video. Such extensions are typically trained for actions on single video frames or very short clips, and then their predictions from sliding-windows over the video sequence are pooled for recognizing the action at the sequence level. Usually this pooling step uses the first-order statistics of frame-level action predictions. In this paper, we explore the advantages of using higherorder correlations, specifically, we introduce Higher-order Kernel (HOK) descriptors generated from the late fusion of CNN classifier scores from all the frames in a sequence. To generate these descriptors, we use the idea of kernel linearization. Specifically, a similarity kernel matrix, which captures the temporal evolution of deep classifier scores, is first linearized into kernel feature maps. The HOK descriptors are then generated from the higher-order cooccurrences of these feature maps, and are then used as input to a video-level classifier. We provide experiments on two fine-grained action recognition datasets, and show that our scheme leads to state-of-the-art results.


title: Crazyswarm: A large nano-quadcopter swarm

abstract: We define a system architecture for a large swarm of miniature quadcopters flying in dense formation indoors. The large number of small vehicles motivates novel design choices for state estimation and communication. For state estimation, we develop a method to reliably track many small rigid bodies with identical motion-capture marker arrangements. Our communication infrastructure uses compressed one-way data flow and supports a large number of vehicles per radio. We achieve reliable flight with accurate tracking (< 2 cm mean position error) by implementing the majority of computation onboard, including sensor fusion, control, and some trajectory planning. We provide various examples and empirically determine latency and tracking performance for swarms with up to 49 vehicles.


title: Mobile Robot Path Planning with Randomly Moving Obstacles and Goal

abstract: This article presents the dynamic path planning for a mobile robot to track a randomly moving goal with avoidance of multiple randomly moving obstacles. The main feature of the developed scheme is its capability of dealing with the situation that the paths of both the goal and the obstacles are unknown a priori to the mobile robot. A new mathematical approach that is based on the concepts of 3-D geometry is proposed to generate the path of the mobile robot. The mobile robot decides its path in real time to avoid the randomly moving obstacles and to track the randomly moving goal. The developed scheme results in faster decision-making for successful goal tracking. 3-D simulations using MATLAB validate the developed scheme. Index Terms-mobile robot, path planning, randomly moving obstacles, obstacle avoidance, randomly moving goal


Influence diagram of physiological and environmental factors affecting heart rate variability: an extended literature overview


title: Plate-laminated-waveguide corporate-feed 45-degree linearly-polarized aperture array antenna in the 60 GHz-band

abstract: In order to achieve a wide bandwidth characteristic of high gain, high efficiency and low side lobe level, a plate-laminated-waveguide corporate-feed 45-degree linearly-polarized aperture array antenna is proposed. A 4-element sub-array is designed for a 256-element array. The 256-element array is fabricated by diffusion bonding of etched thin copper plates in the 60 GHz-band. About 70 % antenna efficiency with more than 32 dBi is achieved over 5 GHz.


title: Motion-vector clustering for traffic speed detection from UAV video

abstract: A novel method for detecting the average speed of traffic from non-stationary aerial video is presented. The method first extracts interest points from a pair of frames and performs interest point tracking with an optical flow algorithm. The output of the optical flow is a set of motion vectors which are k-means clustered in velocity space. The centers of the clusters correspond to the average velocities of traffic and the background, and are used to determine the speed of traffic relative to the background. The proposed method is tested on a 70-frame test sequence of UAV aerial video, and achieves an average error for speed estimates of less than 12%.


title: Dual-orthogonal polarized Vivaldi antenna for ultra wideband applications

abstract: This paper presents a design of a dual polarized Vivaldi antenna. The problems that were met during the design of such an antenna are depicted and proper solutions are described. The prototype of the proposed antenna is introduced and finally the full characterization of the dual polarized antenna is given. Since UWB is originally a time domain based technique, a time domain characterization of the antenna is also included.


title: Efficient pavement crack detection and classification

abstract: Each year, millions of dollars are invested on road maintenance and reparation all over the world. In order to minimize costs, one of the main aspects is the early detection of those flaws. Different types of cracks require different types of repairs; therefore, not only a crack detection is required but a crack type classification. Also, the earlier the crack is detected, the cheaper the reparation is. Once the images are captured, several processes are applied in order to extract the main characteristics for emphasizing the cracks (logarithmic transformation, bilateral filter, Canny algorithm, and a morphological filter). After image preprocessing, a decision tree heuristic algorithm is applied to finally classify the image. This work obtained an average of 88% of success detecting cracks and an 80% of success detecting the type of the crack. It could be implemented in a vehicle traveling as fast as 130 kmh or 81 mph.


title: A Single-Phase Transformerless Inverter With Charge Pump Circuit Concept for Grid-Tied PV Applications

abstract: This paper proposes a new single-phase transformerless photovoltaic (PV) inverter for grid-tied PV systems. The topology is derived from the concept of a charge pump circuit in order to eliminate the leakage current. It is composed of four power switches, two diodes, two capacitors, and an LCL output filter. The neutral of the grid is directly connected to the negative polarity of the PV panel that creates a constant common mode voltage and zero leakage current. The charge pump circuit generates the negative output voltage of the proposed inverter during the negative cycle. A proportional resonant control strategy is used to control the injected current. The main benefits of the proposed inverter are: 1) the neutral of the grid is directly connected to the negative terminal of the PV panel, so the leakage current is eliminated; 2) its compact size; 3) low cost; 4) the used dc voltage of the proposed inverter is the same as the full-bridge inverter (unlike neutral point clamped (NPC), active NPC, and half-bridge inverters); 5) flexible grounding configuration; 6) capability of reactive power flow; and 7) high efficiency. A complete description of the operating principle and analysis of the proposed inverter are presented. Experimental results are presented to confirm both the theoretical analysis and the concept of the proposed inverter. The obtained results clearly validate the performance of the proposed inverter and its practical application in grid-tied PV systems.


title: Reconstruction after Anterior Chest Wall Keloid Resection Using Internal Mammary Artery Perforator Propeller Flaps

abstract: It is difficult to completely resect huge anterior chest wall keloids and then close the wound directly. We report here our retrospective analysis of our case series of patients with such keloids who underwent reconstruction with internal mammary artery perforator (IMAP) pedicled propeller flaps and then received postoperative high-dose-rate superficial brachytherapy. ::: ::: ::: METHODS ::: All consecutive patients with large/severe keloids on the anterior chest wall who underwent keloid resection followed by reconstruction with IMAP-pedicled propeller flaps and then high-dose-rate superficial brachytherapy in our academic hospital were identified. All cases were followed for >18 months. Donor site position, perforator pedicle, flap size, angle of flap rotation, complications, and recurrence were documented. ::: ::: ::: RESULTS ::: There were nine men and one woman. The average age was 37.9 years. The average follow-up duration was 28.7 months. The largest flap was 16 × 4 cm. The dominant perforators of the internal mammary artery were located in the sixth (n = 2), seventh (n = 5), eighth (n = 1), and ninth (n = 2) intercostal spaces. Twelve months after surgery, patients reported marked relief from keloid-associated pain and itching, except in two patients who underwent partial keloid resection; their remaining keloids were still troublesome but after conservative therapies, including steroid ointments/plasters, the keloids gradually ameliorated. Eighteen months after surgery, there was no keloid recurrence or new development of keloids on the donor site. ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSIONS ::: IMAP-pedicled propeller flaps transfer skin tension from the anterior chest wall to the abdomen. Our series suggests that this approach combined with radiation therapy can control keloid recurrence.


title: Review Article Nutrition knowledge and food consumption: can nutrition knowledge change food behaviour?

abstract: The status and explanatory role of nutrition knowledge is uncertain in public health nutrition. Much of the uncertainty about this area has been generated by conceptual confusion about the nature of knowledge and behaviours, and, nutrition knowledge and food behaviours in particular. So the paper describes several key concepts in some detail. The main argument is that 'nutrition knowledge' is a necessary but not sufficient factor for changes in consumers' food behaviours. Several classes of food behaviours and their causation are discussed. They are influenced by a number of environmental and intra-individual factors, including motivations. The interplay between motivational factors and information processing is important for nutrition promoters as is the distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge. Consideration of the domains of nutrition knowledge shows that their utility is likely to be related to consumers' and nutritionists' particular goals and viewpoints. A brief survey of the recent literature shows that the evidence for the influence of nutrition knowledge on food behaviours is mixed. Nevertheless, recent work suggests that nutrition knowledge may play a small but pivotal role in the adoption of healthier food habits. The implications of this overview for public health nutrition are: (i) We need to pay greater attention to the development of children's and adults' knowledge frameworks (schema building); (ii) There is a need for a renewed proactive role for the education sector; (iii) We need to take account of consumers' personal food goals and their acquisition of procedural knowledge which will enable them to attain their goals; (iv) Finally, much more research into the ways people learn and use food-related knowledge is required in the form of experimental interventions and longitudinal studies.


title: Interference alignment and cancellation

abstract: The throughput of existing MIMO LANs is limited by the number of antennas on the AP. This paper shows how to overcome this limit. It presents interference alignment and cancellation (IAC), a new approach for decoding concurrent sender-receiver pairs in MIMO networks. IAC synthesizes two signal processing techniques, interference alignment and interference cancellation, showing that the combination applies to scenarios where neither interference alignment nor cancellation applies alone. We show analytically that IAC almost doubles the throughput of MIMO LANs. We also implement IAC in GNU-Radio, and experimentally demonstrate that for 2x2 MIMO LANs, IAC increases the average throughput by 1.5x on the downlink and 2x on the uplink.


title: An incremental recognition method for online handwritten mathematical expressions

abstract: This paper presents an incremental recognition method for online handwritten mathematical expressions (MEs), which is used for busy recognition interface (recognition while writing) without large waiting time. We employ local processing strategy and focus on recent strokes. For the latest stroke, we perform segmentation, recognition and update of Cocke-Younger-Kasami (CYK) table. We also reuse the segmentation and recognition candidates in the previous processes. Moreover, using multi-thread reduces the waiting time. Experiments on our data set show the effectiveness of the incremental method not only in small waiting time but also keeping almost the same recognition rate of the batch recognition method without significant decrease. We also propose the combination of the two methods which succeeds the advantages of the both.


title: Automating functional tests using Selenium

abstract: Ever in search of a silver bullet for automated functional testing for Web applications, many folks have turned to Selenium. Selenium is an open-source project for in-browser testing, originally developed by ThoughtWorks and now boasting an active community of developers and users. One of Selenium's stated goals is to become the de facto open-source replacement for proprietary tools such as WinRunner. Of particular interest to the agile community is that it offers the possibility of test-first design of Web applications, red-green signals for customer acceptance tests, and an automated regression test bed for the Web tier. This experience report describes the standard environment for testing with Selenium, as well as modifications we performed to incorporate our script pages into a wiki. It includes lessons we learned about continuous integration, script writing, and using the Selenium Recorder (renamed IDE). We also discuss how long it took to write and maintain the scripts in the iterative development environment, how close we came to covering all of the functional requirements with tests, how often the tests should be (and were) run, and whether additional automated functional testing below the GUI layer was still necessary and/or appropriate. While no silver bullet, Selenium has become a valuable addition to our agile testing toolkit, and is used on the majority of our Web application projects. It promises to become even more valuable as it gains widespread adoption and continues to be actively developed.


title: A Low Temperature Sensitivity Switched-Capacitor Current Reference

abstract: A current reference with low temperature sensitivity based on a switched-capacitor technique has been developed. The implementation is targeted for a 0.18µ µ µ µ CMOS process. HSPICE simulations using level 49 models valid over a wide temperature range were used to verify the design. The simulation results predict variations of less than 0.029% over a temperature range of -40 ° ° ° °C to 125 °C. .


title: Real-time multitasking in Arduino

abstract: This work-in-progress paper presents an extension to the Arduino framework that introduces multitasking support. This allows to have more concurrent tasks instead of the single cyclic execution provided by the standard Arduino framework. The extension is implemented by integrating in a seamless way the ERIKA opensource Real-Time OS, maintaining the simplicity of the programming paradigm typical of the Arduino framework.


title: Generalized window factor analysis for selective analysis of the target component in real samples with complex matrices

abstract: Abstract In chromatographic analysis of multicomponent real samples, peak overlapping, high level of noise and background are frequently encountered, making the qualitative and quantitative analysis difficult or even impossible. In this work, an algorithm named as generalized window factor analysis (GWFA) was proposed for quantitative analysis of the target components in the samples with complex matrices by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The theory and calculation of GWFA are just similar with the conventional window factor analysis (WFA), but the “window” is defined as the selected channels (mass-to-charge ratios) in the mass spectral dimension of the data matrix, instead of a continuous region in chromatographic dimension along the retention time. Therefore, the generalized window for a target component can be easily determined with the help of the mass spectrum. Then, the calculated mass spectrum can be obtained with the window and quantitative determination can be achieved with the help of the standard. Both simulated and experimental data were investigated with the proposed method. Whether or not a peak shift occurs during the test, accurate results were obtained from the overlapping GC–MS signals with high level of noise and background.


title: Mobile learning adoption from informal into formal: an extended TAM model to measure mobile acceptance among teachers

abstract: Mobile learning is currently spreading from the informal education field to the formal one. In this process, teacher involvement occupies a central role, and in order to ensure it is necessary to know the factors that lead to the acceptance of these technologies. The technology acceptance model (TAM) constitutes a suitable tool that has been frequently used when it comes to study the adoption process of information systems (SI) in educational and non-educational contexts. The present communication proposes an extended TAM model with constructs from other theories, designed for the evaluation of the acceptance of the mobile technologies by the teaching body.


title: Normal ranges of fetal nasal bone length during the second trimester in an Iranian population.

abstract: OBJECTIVE ::: To provide a normal reference range for nasal bone length (NBL) during the second trimester of pregnancy in an Iranian population. ::: ::: ::: METHODS ::: This cross-sectional study was performed on 3201 fetuses at 15 to 28 weeks of gestational age (GA). Both singleton and twin fetuses were evaluated. The relationship between NBL and GA was determined and percentile values for each gestational week were provided. ::: ::: ::: RESULTS ::: NBL measurement was obtained in 98% of singleton and 96% of twin fetuses. There was a linear relationship between GA and NBL both in singleton (R(2) = 0.62) and in twin (R(2) = 0.74) fetuses. There was no significant difference between twins regarding NBL (p = 0.18). ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSION ::: We have provided the normal reference range for NBL during the second trimester in an Iranian population. NBL in singleton and twin fetuses is similar and there is no significant difference between twins regarding NBL.


An Efficient Temporally-Constrained Probabilistic Model for Multiple-Instrument Music Transcription


title: Brief report: emotion regulation and respiratory sinus arrhythmia in autism spectrum disorder.

abstract: Emotion regulation (ER) may be an important transdiagnostic factor for understanding mental and behavioral health given its association with several psychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, there is limited research on ER in ASD, particularly using biomarkers such as respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). The aim of the current study was to examine RSA among school-aged children with ASD in relation to symptoms of anxiety, executive functioning, and adaptive socialization skills. Results showed decreased RSA in children with ASD (relative to typically developing controls), reflecting decreased parasympathetic nervous system activity. In addition, decreased RSA was associated with increased symptoms of anxiety and lower socialization skills. These findings emphasize the need for interventions targeting emotional and arousal regulation in ASD.


title: An Emergency-Demand-Response Based Under Speed Load Shedding Scheme to Improve Short-Term Voltage Stability

abstract: The dynamics of load, especially induction motors, are the driving force for short-term voltage stability (STVS) problems. In this paper, the equivalent rotation speed of motors is identified online and its recovery time is estimated next to realize an emergency-demand-response (EDR) based under speed load shedding (USLS) scheme to improve STVS. The proposed scheme consists of an EDR program and two regular stages (RSs). In the EDR program, contracted load is used as a fast-response resource rather than the last defense. The estimated recovery time (ERT) is used as the triggering signal for the EDR program. In the RSs, the amount of load to be shed at each bus is determined according to the assigned weights based on ERTs. Case studies on a practical power system in China Southern Power Grid have validated the performance of the proposed USLS scheme under various contingency scenarios. The utilization of EDR resources and the adaptive distribution of shedding amount in RSs guarantee faster voltage recovery. Therefore, USLS offers a new and more effective approach compared with existing under voltage load shedding to improve STVS.


title: Towards Changes in Information Security Education

abstract: Information Security Education Overview Non-availability of skilled staff has been identified as the third most significant cause of the failure of users of information technology to ensure the security of their physical assets and information (Furnell & Clarke, 2005). Organizations employing ISA professionals generally base their assessment of an individual's skill level on the following indicators: * Academic qualifications leading to a diploma and/or degree. * Professional Certifications (CISSP, SSCP, CISA, GISEC, etc.). * Vendor-Specific Certifications (MCSE, CCSP, Comp TIA, Security +, TISIA, etc.). Professional and vendor certifications in Information Security validate competencies and skills, but they are not replacing experience or education. While academic qualifications support broad knowledge and skills in general, professional certifications may be effective in a limited area of operations. Academic programs exposing the students to theoretical concepts and problem solving experience are critical for preparing graduates for jobs in the information security. The critical importance of information security curriculum at universities was stressed in (Irvine, Chin, & Fruickle, 1998) as follows: An educational system that cultivates an appropriate knowledge of computer security will increase the likelihood that the next generation of Information Technology (IT) workers will have the background needed to design and develop systems that are engineered to be reliable and secure. Many educational institutions defined the educational model and curricula based on standards and guidelines promoted by government or other organizations, resulting in numerous ISA education models and curricula. Despite a variety of ISA curricula and diverse educational models, universities often fail to graduate students with skills demanded by employers. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the issues and suggest changes in the curricula to ensure that undergraduates and graduates have gained required skills after completing their studies. We primarily focus on Information Security curricula issues in US, and outline a few distinctions from other parts of the world. We recognize that the international aspects of the Information Security curricula are too broad for a single paper to cover comprehensively. The remainder of the paper is organized in sections that review the ISA programs in US and evaluate the quality of academic information security programs including the requirements for an effective information security curricula implementation as well as future directions for more responsive curricula. In this paper, we suggest the actions that should make the ISA curricula in the universities responsive to the needs of the general population and the industry in which graduates with ISA skills and specialization will be employed. Information Security Education in US The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Security Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Committee (NSTISSC), along with others, contributed to the guidelines for training and education. In addition, ISO 17799 Information Security Management standard of 2000 with additions in 2002 includes requirements for Information security education and training. NSTISSC directive established the requirement for all federal agencies to develop and implement education, training, and awareness programs for national security systems. The required knowledge areas known as Common Body Knowledge (CBK) were defined by International Systems Security Certification Consortium [(ISC).sup.2]. However, the focus is on practical, low level skills which are identified in various standards. In addition, Electronic Develop-A-Curriculum (EDACUM) program supports the development of a curriculum based on NSTISSI standards. Some colleges and universities have been certified to meet one or more NSTISSI standards. …


title: Between conjecture and memento: shaping a collective emotional perception of the future

abstract: Large scale surveys of public mood are costly and often impractical to perform. However, the web is awash with material indicative of public mood such as blogs, emails, and web queries. Inexpensive content analysis on such extensive corpora can be used to assess public mood fluctuations. The work presented here is concerned with the analysis of the public mood towards the future. Using an extension of the Profile of Mood States questionnaire, we have extracted mood indicators from 10,741 emails submitted in 2006 to futureme.org, a web service that allows its users to send themselves emails to be delivered at a later date. Our results indicate long-term optimism toward the future, but medium-term apprehension and confusion.


title: Source connectivity analysis with MEG and EEG.

abstract: Interactions between functionally specialized brain regions are crucial for normal brain func- tion. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) are techniques suited to cap- ture these interactions, because they provide whole head measurements of brain activity in the millisec- ond range. More than one sensor picks up the activity of an underlying source. This field spread severely limits the utility of connectivity measures computed directly between sensor recordings. Con- sequentially, neuronal interactions should be studied on the level of the reconstructed sources. This ar- ticle reviews several methods that have been applied to investigate interactions between brain regions in source space. We will mainly focus on the different measures used to quantify connectivity, and on the different strategies adopted to identify regions of interest. Despite various successful accounts of MEG and EEG source connectivity, caution with respect to the interpretation of the results is still war- ranted. This is due to the fact that effects of field spread can never be completely abolished in source space. However, in this very exciting and developing field of research this cautionary note should not discourage researchers from further investigation into the connectivity between neuronal sources. Hum Brain Mapp 30:1857-1865, 2009. V C 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


Structures of the Knee Injuries to the Medial Collateral Ligament and Associated Medial


title: Framing Public Discussion of Gay Civil Unions

abstract: Although the framing of public opinion has often been conceptualized as a collective and so cial process, experimental studies of framing have typically examined only individual, psychological responses to alternative message frames. In this research we employ for the first time group conversations as the unit of analysis (following Gamson 1992) in an experimental study of framing effects. Two hundred and thirty-five American citizens in 50 groups (17 homo- geneously conservative groups, 15 homogeneously liberal groups, and 18 heterogeneous groups) discussed whether or not gay and lesbian partnerships should be legally recognized. Groups were randomly assigned to one of two framing conditions (a "homosexual marriage/ special rights" frame or a "civil unio n/equal rights" frame). Results indi- cated framing effects that were, in all cases, contingent on the ideologi- cal leanings of the group. The "marriage" frame tended to polarize group discussions along ideological lines. Both liberal and conservative groups appeared to find their opponents' frame more provocative, responding to them with a larger number of statements and expressing greater ambivalence than when reacting to more hospitable frames. Political conversation is a central feature of democratic life (Barber 1984; Dewey 1927; Tarde (1899) 1989). In talking through their ideas, people are able to sort out various considerations and to learn, in the process, what they think about shared concerns (Gutmann and Thompson 1996; Kuhn 1991).


title: Hidden Markov measure field models for image segmentation

abstract: Parametric image segmentation consists of finding a label field that defines a partition of an image into a set of nonoverlapping regions and the parameters of the models that describe the variation of some property within each region. A new Bayesian formulation for the solution of this problem is presented, based on the key idea of using a doubly stochastic prior model for the label field, which allows one to find exact optimal estimators for both this field and the model parameters by the minimization of a differentiable function. An efficient minimization algorithm and comparisons with existing methods on synthetic images are presented, as well as examples of realistic applications to the segmentation of Magnetic Resonance volumes and to motion segmentation.


title: Adaptive online scheduling in storm

abstract: Today we are witnessing a dramatic shift toward a data-driven economy, where the ability to efficiently and timely analyze huge amounts of data marks the difference between industrial success stories and catastrophic failures. In this scenario Storm, an open source distributed realtime computation system, represents a disruptive technology that is quickly gaining the favor of big players like Twitter and Groupon. A Storm application is modeled as a topology, i.e. a graph where nodes are operators and edges represent data flows among such operators. A key aspect in tuning Storm performance lies in the strategy used to deploy a topology, i.e. how Storm schedules the execution of each topology component on the available computing infrastructure. In this paper we propose two advanced generic schedulers for Storm that provide improved performance for a wide range of application topologies. The first scheduler works offline by analyzing the topology structure and adapting the deployment to it; the second scheduler enhance the previous approach by continuously monitoring system performance and rescheduling the deployment at run-time to improve overall performance. Experimental results show that these algorithms can produce schedules that achieve significantly better performances compared to those produced by Storm's default scheduler.


title: The particle swarm optimization algorithm: convergence analysis and parameter selection

abstract: The particle swarm optimization algorithm is analyzed using standard results from the dynamic system theory. Graphical parameter selection guidelines are derived. The exploration-exploitation tradeoff is discussed and illustrated. Examples of performance on benchmark functions superior to previously published results are given.


title: Rethinking learning analytics adoption through complexity leadership theory

abstract: Despite strong interest in learning analytics (LA), adoption at a large-scale organizational level continues to be problematic. This may in part be due to the lack of acknowledgement of existing conceptual LA models to operationalize how key adoption dimensions interact to inform the realities of the implementation process. This paper proposes the framing of LA adoption in complexity leadership theory (CLT) to study the overarching system dynamics. The framing is empirically validated in a study analysing interviews with senior staff in Australian universities (n=32). The results were coded for several adoption dimensions including leadership, governance, staff development, and culture. The coded data were then analysed with latent class analysis. The results identified two classes of universities that either i) followed an instrumental approach to adoption - typically top-down leadership, large scale project with high technology focus yet demonstrating limited staff uptake; or ii) were characterized as emergent innovators - bottom up, strong consultation process, but with subsequent challenges in communicating and scaling up innovations. The results suggest there is a need to broaden the focus of research in LA adoption models to move on from small-scale course/program levels to a more holistic and complex organizational level.


title: The Spatial Orienting paradigm: How to design and interpret spatial attention experiments

abstract: This paper is conceived as a guide that will describe the very well known Spatial Orienting paradigm, used to explore attentional processes in healthy individuals as well as in people suffering from psychiatric disorders and brain-damaged patients. The paradigm was developed in the late 1970s, and since then, it has been used in thousands of attentional studies. In this review, we attempt to describe, the paradigm for the naif reader, and explain in detail when is it used, which variables are usually manipulated, how to interpret its results, and how can it be adapted to different populations and methodologies. The main goal of this review is to provide a practical guide to researchers who have never used the paradigm that will help them design their experiments, as a function of their theoretical and experimental needs. We also focus on how to adapt the paradigm to different technologies (such as event-related potentials, functional resonance imaging, or transcranial magnetic stimulation), and to different populations by presenting an example of its use in brain-damaged patients.


title: Reusing trace buffers to enhance cache performance

abstract: With the increasing complexity of modern Systems-on-Chip, the possibility of functional errors escaping design verification is growing. Post-silicon validation targets the discovery of these errors in early hardware prototypes. Due to limited visibility and observability, dedicated design-for-debug (DFD) hardware such as trace buffers are inserted to aid post-silicon validation. In spite of its benefit, such hardware incurs area overheads, which impose size limitations. However, the overhead could be overcome if the area dedicated to DFD could be reused in-field. In this work, we present a novel method for reusing an existing trace buffer as a victim cache of a processor to enhance performance. The trace buffer storage space is reused for the victim cache, with a small additional controller logic. Experimental results on several benchmarks and trace buffer sizes show that the proposed approach can enhance the average performance by up to 8.3% over a baseline architecture. We also propose a strategy for dynamic power management of the structure, to enable saving energy with negligible impact on performance.


title: Improving retention and graduate recruitment through immersive research experiences for undergraduates

abstract: Research experiences for undergraduates are considered an effective means for increasing student retention and encouraging undergraduate students to continue on to graduate school. However, managing a cohort of undergraduate researchers, with varying skill levels, can be daunting for faculty advisors. We have developed a program to engage students in research and outreach in visualization, virtual reality, networked robotics, and interactive games. Our program immerses students into the life of a lab, employing a situated learning approach that includes tiered mentoring and collaboration to enable students at all levels to contribute to research. Students work in research teams comprised of other undergraduates, graduate students and faculty, and participate in professional development and social gatherings within the larger cohort. Results from our first two years indicate this approach is manageable and effective for increasing students' ability and desire to conduct research.


title: FHM$$+$$: Faster High-Utility Itemset Mining Using Length Upper-Bound Reduction

abstract: High-utility itemset (HUI) mining is a popular data mining task, consisting of enumerating all groups of items that yield a high profit in a customer transaction database. However, an important issue with traditional HUI mining algorithms is that they tend to find itemsets having many items. But those itemsets are often rare, and thus may be less interesting than smaller itemsets for users. In this paper, we address this issue by presenting a novel algorithm named FHM\(+\) for mining HUIs, while considering length constraints. To discover HUIs efficiently with length constraints, FHM\(+\) introduces the concept of Length Upper-Bound Reduction (LUR), and two novel upper-bounds on the utility of itemsets. An extensive experimental evaluation shows that length constraints are effective at reducing the number of patterns, and the novel upper-bounds can greatly decrease the execution time, and memory usage for HUI mining.


A skip list for multicore


title: Gait Pattern Recognition Using Accelerometers

abstract: Motion ability is one of the most important human properties, including gait as a basis of human transitional movement. Gait, as a biometric for recognizing human identities, can be non-intrusively captured signals using wearable or portable smart devices. In this study gait patterns is collected using a wireless platform of two sensors located at chest and right ankle of the subjects. Then the raw data has undergone some preprocessing methods and segmented into 5 seconds windows. Some time and frequency domain features is extracted and the performance evaluated by 5 different classifiers. Decision Tree (with all features) and K-Nearest Neighbors (with 10 selected features) classifiers reached 99.4% and 100% respectively.


title: An Architecture for Embodied Conversational Characters

abstract: In this paper we describe the computational and architectural requirements for systems which support real-time multimodal interaction with an embodied conversational character. We argue that the three primary design drivers are real-time multithreaded entrainment, processing of both interactional and propositional information, and an approach based on a functional understanding of human face-to-face conversation. We then present an architecture which meets these requirements and an initial conversational character that we have developed who is capable of increasingly sophisticated multimodal input and output in a limited


title: Stochastic policy gradient reinforcement learning on a simple 3D biped

abstract: We present a learning system which is able to quickly and reliably acquire a robust feedback control policy for 3D dynamic walking from a blank-slate using only trials implemented on our physical robot. The robot begins walking within a minute and learning converges in approximately 20 minutes. This success can be attributed to the mechanics of our robot, which are modeled after a passive dynamic walker, and to a dramatic reduction in the dimensionality of the learning problem. We reduce the dimensionality by designing a robot with only 6 internal degrees of freedom and 4 actuators, by decomposing the control system in the frontal and sagittal planes, and by formulating the learning problem on the discrete return map dynamics. We apply a stochastic policy gradient algorithm to this reduced problem and decrease the variance of the update using a state-based estimate of the expected cost. This optimized learning system works quickly enough that the robot is able to continually adapt to the terrain as it walks.


title: k-Top Scoring Pair Algorithm for feature selection in SVM with applications to microarray data classification

abstract: Top Scoring Pair (TSP) and its ensemble counterpart, k-Top Scoring Pair (k-TSP), were recently introduced as competitive options for solving classification problems of microarray data. However, support vector machine (SVM) which was compared with these approaches is not equipped with feature or variable selection mechanism while TSP itself is a kind of variable selection algorithm. Moreover, an ensemble of SVMs should also be considered as a possible competitor to k-TSP. In this work, we conducted a fair comparison between TSP and SVM-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) as the feature selection method for SVM. We also compared k-TSP with two ensemble methods using SVM as their base classifier. Results on ten public domain microarray data indicated that TSP family classifiers serve as good feature selection schemes which may be combined effectively with other classification methods.


title: Planar asymmetric dual-mode filters based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW)

abstract: Substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) can be used to implement high Q waveguide components with the same process as planar circuits. In this paper an inline and a folded three-pole dual-mode filters with asymmetric transmission response based on SIW are presented. These two filters, consisting of a TE/sub 102/-TE/sub 301/ dual-mode cavity and a TE/sub 101/ mode cavity, are centered at around 9.85 GHz with a transmission zero on the left of the passband and the right of the passband, respectively. A linear microstrip taper was used to implement the transition between microstrip and SIW. The measurement results agree with simulation results.


title: Normative Hearing Threshold Levels in Koreans with Normal Tympanic Membranes and Estimated Prevalence of Hearing Loss

abstract: OBJECTIVES ::: We investigated the normative data on the hearing threshold levels of Koreans with normal tympanic membranes and the prevalence of hearing loss (HL) and nonserviceable hearing using the data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (KNHANES) during 2010-2012. ::: ::: ::: METHODS ::: Data obtained from 16,673 participants ≥12-year-of-age with normal tympanic membranes who completed audiometric testing. We defined HL as the pure tone average (PTA) >25 dB hearing level at 500, 1,000, 2,000, and 3,000 Hz and non-serviceable hearing as PTA >40 dB hearing level. ::: ::: ::: RESULTS ::: The hearing levels at some frequencies (0.5, 3, and 6 kHz) did not differ in between the 10's and 20's, but the hearing thresholds at all frequencies increased gradually from the 30's. The hearing thresholds were higher in men than in women at high frequencies (3, 4, and 6 kHz) in the 30's and older. The prevalence of HL in either ear was 16.5% (estimates of 5.9 million), from 2.4% in the 10's up to 75.4% in the 70's and older. The prevalence of nonserviceable hearing in either ear was 6.8% (estimates of 2.5 million) and that of bilateral nonserviceable hearing was 2.5% (estimates of 0.9 million). ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSION ::: Hearing loss aggravated from the 30's at all frequencies and men showed poorer hearing levels than women at high frequencies. Hearing loss was a common condition and the prevalence of non-serviceable hearing in either ear, which needs hearing rehabilitation to help social communication, was 6.8%. Normative pure tone thresholds at each frequency can be used as referent values when counseling patients complaining of hearing loss.


title: Combining strengths of circuit-based and CNF-based algorithms for a high-performance SAT solver

abstract: We propose satisfiability checking (SAT) techniques that lead to a consistent performance improvement of up to 3/spl times/ over state-of-the-art SAT solvers like Chaff on important problem domains in VLSI CAD. We observe that in circuit oriented applications like ATPG and verification, different software engineering techniques are required for the portions of the formula corresponding to learnt clauses compared to the original formula. We demonstrate that by employing the same innovations as in advanced CNF-based SAT solvers, but in a hybrid approach where these two portions of the formula are represented differently and processed separately, it is possible to obtain the consistently highest performing SAT solver for circuit oriented problem domains. We also present controlled experiments to highlight where these gains come from. Once it is established that the hybrid approach is faster, it becomes possible to apply low overhead circuit-based heuristics that would be unavailable in the CNF domain for greater speedup.


title: Hacking smart parking meters

abstract: The world around us is increasingly connected through the Internet of Things (IoT) using wireless technologies such as Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks (LR-WPANs) and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). As reported by local media around Australia and other countries, on-street parking spot sensors and meters are one of the more recent additions to the IoT. This paper investigates the security of these smart parking meters and defines possible attacks.


title: When training and test sets are different: characterising learning transfer

abstract: In this chapter, a number of common forms of dataset shift are introduced, and each is related to a particular form of causal probabilistic model. Examples are given for the different types of shift, and some corresponding modelling approaches. By characterising dataset shift in this way, there is potential for the development of models which capture the specific types of variations, combine different modes of variation, or do model selection to assess whether dataset shift is an issue in particular circumstances. As an example of how such models can be developed, an illustration is provided for one approach to adapting Gaussian process methods for a particular type of dataset shift called Mixture Component Shift.


PROSPECTS OF COMPUTER VISION AUTOMATED GRADING AND SORTING SYSTEMS IN AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD PRODUCTS FOR QUALITY EVALUATION


title: A Comparison of Physical Education Students’ Motivation Using Polish and Turkish Versions of the Academic Motivation Scale

abstract: Abstract Motivation is an important phenomenon in the realm of education, particularly in the university fields connected with physical education and sport, where it is necessary to accommodate and balance intellectual abilities and physical fitness. The present study tested motivation levels among university students in the fields connected with physical education and sport in Poland and Turkey. It was based on the Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985), namely intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation which impact human behaviour. The Academic Motivation Scale was used (Vallerand et al., 1992). The aims of the study were twofold, first, to crossculturally validate Polish and Turkish versions of the Academic Motivation Scale and second, to identify and compare the motivation to study depending on nationality and gender. Both Polish and Turkish versions of the questionnaire were validated and converted to a four-factorial structure. The findings indicated that Polish and Turkish students’ motivation especially differed in amotivation and intrinsic motivation to know and experience stimulation. Moreover, Turkish female students proved to be at the lowest estimate of amotivation.


title: Ego depletion: is the active self a limited resource

abstract: Choice, active response, self-regulation, and other volition may all draw on a common inner resource. In Experiment 1, people who forced themselves to eat radishes instead of tempting chocolates subsequently quit faster on unsolvable puzzles than people who had not had to exert self-control over eating. In Experiment 2, making a meaningful personal choice to perform attitude-relevant behavior caused a similar decrement in persistence. In Experiment 3, suppressing emotion led to a subsequent drop in performance of solvable anagrams. In Experiment 4, an initial task requiring high self-regulation made people more passive (i.e., more prone to favor the passive-response option). These results suggest that the self's capacity for active volition is limited and that a range of seemingly different, unrelated acts share a common resource. Many crucial functions of the self involve volition: making choices and decisions, taking responsibility, initiating and inhibiting behavior, and making plans of action and carrying out those plans. The self exerts control over itself and over the external world. To be sure, not all human behavior involves planful or deliberate control by the self, and, in fact, recent work has shown that a great deal of human behavior is influenced by automatic or nonconscious processes (see Bargh, 1994, 1997). But undoubtedly some portion involves deliberate, conscious, controlled responses by the self, and that portion may be dispro-' portionately important to the long-term health, happiness, and success of the individual. Even if it were shown that 95% of behavior consisted of lawful, predictable responses to situational stimuli by automatic processes, psychology could not afford to ignore the remaining 5%. As an analogy, cars are probably driven straight ahead at least 95% of the time, but ignoring the other 5% (such as by building cars without steering wheels) would seriously compromise the car's ability to reach most destinations. By the same token, the relatively few active, controlling choices by the self greatly increase the self's chances of achieving its goals. And if those few "steering" choices by the self are important, then so is whatever internal structure of the self is responsible for it. In the present investigation we were concerned with this controlling aspect of the self. Specifically, we tested hypotheses of ego depletion, as a way of learning about the self's executive function. The core idea behind ego depletion is that the self's acts of volition draw on some limited resource, akin to strength or energy and that, therefore, one act of volition will have a detrimental impact on subsequent volition. We sought to show that a preliminary act of self-control in the form of resisting temptation (Experiment 1 ) or a preliminary act of choice and responsibility (Experiment 2) would undermine self-regulation in a subsequent, unrelated domain, namely persistence at a difficult and frustrating task. We then sought to verify that the effects of ego depletion are indeed maladaptive and detrimental to performance (Experiment 3). Last, we undertook to show that ego depletion resulting from acts of self-control would interfere with subsequent decision making by making people more passive (Experiment 4).


title: Constructive Research and Info-Computational Knowledge Generation

abstract: It is usual when writing on research methodology in dissertations and thesis work within Software Engineering to refer to Empirical Methods, Grounded Theory and Action Research. Analysis of Constructive Research Methods which are fundamental for all knowledge production and especially for concept formation, modeling and the use of artifacts is seldom given, so the relevant first-hand knowledge is missing. This article argues for introducing of the analysis of Constructive Research Methods, as crucial for understanding of research process and knowledge production. The paper provides characterization of the Constructive Research Method and its relations to Action Research and Grounded Theory. Illustrative examples from Software Engineering, Cognitive Science and Brain Simulation are presented. Finally, foundations of Constructive Research are analyzed within the framework of Info-Computationalism.


Effect of Local Dynamic Stability of a Ploydyne Cam with Translated Follower on Lyapunov Exponent Parameter Over a Range of Speeds


title: Motors, Switches, and Contacts in the Replisome

abstract: Replisomes are the protein assemblies that replicate DNA. They function as molecular motors to catalyze template-mediated polymerization of nucleotides, unwinding of DNA, the synthesis of RNA primers, and the assembly of proteins on DNA. The replisome of bacteriophage T7 contains a minimum of proteins, thus facilitating its study. This review describes the molecular motors and coordination of their activities, with emphasis on the T7 replisome. Nucleotide selection, movement of the polymerase, binding of the processivity factor, unwinding of DNA, and RNA primer synthesis all require conformational changes and protein contacts. Lagging-strand synthesis is mediated via a replication loop whose formation and resolution is dictated by switches to yield Okazaki fragments of discrete size. Both strands are synthesized at identical rates, controlled by a molecular brake that halts leading-strand synthesis during primer synthesis. The helicase serves as a reservoir for polymerases that can initiate DNA synthesis at the replication fork. We comment on the differences in other systems where applicable.


title: MOSFET-Based Pulse Power Supply for Bacterial Transformation

abstract: In this paper, a MOSFET-based pulsed power supply capable of supplying square pulses of up to 3000 V and widths from nanoseconds to milliseconds is presented and used for an investigation into electroporation-mediated delivery of a plasmid DNA molecule into the pathogenic bacterium Escherichia coli O157:H7. It was concluded that increasing the electric field strength and pulse amplitude resulted in an increase in the number of transformants. However, increasing the number of pulses had the effect of reducing the number of transformants. In all the experiments, the number of cells that were inactivated by the exposure to the pulsed electric field were also measured.


title: Web Application Security: Threats, Countermeasures, and Pitfalls

abstract: Penetration testing is a crucial defense against common web application security threats such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks. A proposed web vulnerability scanner automatically generates test data with combinative evasion techniques, significantly expanding test coverage and revealing more vulnerabilities.


title: An effective Pedestrian Dead Reckoning algorithm using a unified heading error model

abstract: Nowadays, navigation is an important application in mobile phones. However, locating a mobile user anytime anywhere is still a demanding task, because the GPS signal is easily corrupted or unavailable in urban canyons and indoor environments. Integrating GPS and self-contained dead reckoning sensors is an autonomous method to obtain a seamless positioning solution by means of Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) algorithms. A low-cost Multi-Sensor Positioning (MSP) platform has been developed by the Finnish Geodetic Institute, which includes a GPS receiver, a 2-axis digital compass and a 3-axis accelerometer. To construct a trajectory in GPS degraded environments, step length and the heading of each step are two key issues in PDR. In this paper, three typical estimation models of step length are presented and compared to demonstrate that in most cases, step length is not as critical as the determination of heading. Therefore, a unified heading error model is proposed, which includes all predictable errors from the navigation platform and the pedestrian's walking behavior, and applies to calibrating 2-axis magnetic compasses without tedious and complicated calibration procedures. Then the corresponding PDR algorithm is introduced, which integrates the step length estimated from a nonlinear model and the heading compensated by the unified model suggested through an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Several tests were conducted to validate the effectiveness of the heading error model and evaluate the positioning performance of this PDR algorithm. The results demonstrated that the heading error model is applicable for calibrating the 2-axis compass, and based on the PDR algorithm, the typical positioning performance of MSP can reach an accuracy of below 1.5% of the travelled distance during 10 minutes of continuous walking when GPS outages occur.


title: Effect of Chlorogenic Acid on Melanogenesis of B16 Melanoma Cells

abstract: Chlorogenic acid (CGA), the ester formed between caffeic acid and l-quinic acid, is a widespread phenolic compound. It is part of the human diet, found in foods such as coffee, apples, pears, etc. CGA is also was widely used in cosmetics, but the effects of CGA on melanogenesis are unknown. In this study, we analyzed the effects of CGA on cell proliferation, melanin content and tyrosinase of B16 murine melanoma cells. Additionally, the enzymatic reactions of CGA in B16 melanoma cells lytic solution were detected by UV spectrophotometry. Results showed CGA at 30 and 60 μM significantly suppresses cell proliferation. 8-MOP at 100 μM significantly promotes cell proliferation, but CGA can counter this. Incubated for 24 h, CGA (500 μM) improves melanogenesis while suppressing tyrosinase activity in B16 melanoma cells or 8-methoxypsoralen (8-MOP) co-incubated B16 melanoma cells. After 12 h, B16 melanoma cell treatment with CGA leads to an increase in melanin accumulation, however, after 48 h there is a decrease in melanin production which correlates broadly with a decrease in tyrosinase activity. CGA incubated with lytic solution 24 h turned brown at 37 °C. The formation of new products (with a maximum absorption at 295 nm) is associated with reduction of CGA (maximum absorption at 326 nm). Therefore, CGA has its two sidesroles in melanogenesis of B16 melanoma cells. CGA is a likely a substrate of melanin, but the metabolic product(s) of CGA may suppress melanogenesis in B16 melanoma cells by inhibiting tyrosinase activity.


title: Software-Based Resolver-to-Digital Conversion Using a DSP

abstract: A simple and cost-effective software-based resolver-to-digital converter using a digital signal processor is presented. The proposed method incorporates software generation of the resolver carrier using a digital filter for synchronous demodulation of the resolver outputs in such a way that there is a substantial savings on hardware like the costly carrier oscillator and associated digital and analog circuits for amplitude demodulators. In addition, because the method does not cause any time delay, the dynamics of the servo control using the scheme are not affected. Furthermore, the method enables the determination of the angle for a complete 360deg shaft rotation with reasonable accuracy using a lookup table that contains entries of only up to 45deg. Computer simulations and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed scheme.


title: Nuglets: a Virtual Currency to Stimulate Cooperation in Self-Organized Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

abstract: In mobile ad hoc networks, it is usually assumed that all the nodes belong to the same authority; therefore, they are expected to cooperate in order to support the basic functions of the network such as routing. In this paper, we consider the case in which each node is its own authority and tries to maximize the benefits it gets from the network. In order to stimulate cooperation, we introduce a virtual currency and detail the way it can be protected against theft and forgery. We show that this mechanism fulfills our expectations without significantly decreasing the performance of the network.


title: Spectrum Sensing Techniques For Cognitive Radio Networks

abstract: In this chapter, we present the state of the art of the spectrum sensing techniques for cognitive radio networks as well and their comparisons. The rest of the chapter is organized as below: Section I.1, Section I.2, and Section I.3 present the spectrum management problem and the cognitive radio cycle as well as the compressive sensing solution; Section II.1 describes the spectrum sensing model; Section II.2 presents the existing spectrum sensing techniques, including energy, autocorrelation, Euclidian distance, wavelet, and matched filter based sensing. Finally, a conclusion is given at the end of the chapter.


title: KidCAD: digitally remixing toys through tangible tools

abstract: Children have great facility in the physical world, and can skillfully model in clay and draw expressive illustrations. Traditional digital modeling tools have focused on mouse, keyboard and stylus input. These tools may be complicated and difficult for young users to easily and quickly create exciting designs. We seek to bring physical interaction to digital modeling, to allow users to use existing physical objects as tangible building blocks for new designs. We introduce KidCAD a digital clay interface for children to remix toys. KidCAD allows children to imprint 2.5D shapes from physical objects into their digital models by deforming a malleable gel input device, deForm. Users can mashup existing objects, edit and sculpt or draw new designs on a 2.5D canvas using physical objects, hands and tools as well as 2D touch gestures. We report on a preliminary user study with 13 children, ages 7 to 10, which provides feedback for our design and helps guide future work in tangible modeling for children.


title: Progress towards an Intelligent Beehive: Building an Intelligent Environment to Promote the Well-Being of Honeybees

abstract: Honeybees are not only important for their production of honey but also, and more fundamentally, they are almost certainly the most effective pollinators of crops. However, there is strong evidence that the honeybee is under threat. Various factors, including parasites, bacterial and fungal infections and pesticides have been suggested as causes of this. In this project, we aim to promote bee well-being by encouraging bees to live more naturally, and propose an "intelligent beehive", equipped with an array of appropriate sensors, to allow the continuous monitoring of conditions in the hive in a non-invasive manner. In this paper, we discuss the issues surrounding bee welfare and decline, present our innovative hive designs and some preliminary results and analysis, concluding with future work we plan to carry out, collecting a analysing data from a range of hives equipped with a much broader range of sensors, including a discussion of our equipment and methodologies.


title: Innovative ANP model to prioritization of PV/T systems based on cost and efficiency approaches: With a case study for Asia

abstract: Abstract Photovoltaic thermal system (PV/T) is one of the promising technologies in renewable energy field. It uses sunlight and simultaneously produces electricity and hot fluid for thermal applications. PV/T system is composed of different elements that can affect both efficiency and cost of the system. A designer can introduce various systems with different combinations of elements. In this paper a multi-attribute decision making (MADM) model is designed to determine influence of each element type on the efficiency and cost. A multilevel network is developed and analytical network process (ANP) is employed. Two main criteria are system efficiency and initial cost of production. The efficiency criterion has 7 sub-criteria and any of them has some sub-sub-criteria. There are also sub-sub-sub-criteria level in some parts of the network. Importance of cost to efficiency depends on the decision maker's demands, so it has been assumed that their importance is equal. All the other network data has been gathered from relevant scientific references. The demonstrated model introduces a screening tool to choose among different PV/T systems. Eleven PV/T systems constructed in Asia are considered as alternatives and the best of them and an ideal alternative are introduced.


title: Cosine Normalization: Using Cosine Similarity Instead of Dot Product in Neural Networks

abstract: Traditionally, multi-layer neural networks use dot product between the output vector of previous layer and the incoming weight vector as the input to activation function. The result of dot product is unbounded, thus increases the risk of large variance. Large variance of neuron makes the model sensitive to the change of input distribution, thus results in poor generalization, and aggravates the internal covariate shift which slows down the training. To bound dot product and decrease the variance, we propose to use cosine similarity or centered cosine similarity (Pearson Correlation Coefficient) instead of dot product in neural networks, which we call cosine normalization. We compare cosine normalization with batch, weight and layer normalization in fully-connected neural networks as well as convolutional networks on the data sets of MNIST, 20NEWS GROUP, CIFAR-10/100 and SVHN. Experiments show that cosine normalization achieves better performance than other normalization techniques.


title: Eye-Movement Analysis: A New Tool for Evaluating the Design of Visually Administered Instruments (Paper and Web)

abstract: A data collection instrument that a respondent selfcompletes through the visual channel, such as on paper or over the Web, is visually administered. Although insightful in many ways, traditional methods of evaluating questionnaires, such as cognitive interviewing, usability testing, and experimentation may be insufficient when it comes to evaluating the design of visually administered questionnaires because these methods cannot directly identify information respondents perceive or the precise order in which they observe the information (Redline et al 1998). In this paper, we present the results of a study that was conducted to explore whether eye-movement analysis might prove a promising new tool for evaluating the design of visually administered questionnaires. Eye tracking hardware and software, which were originally developed in the Systems Engineering Department of the University of Virginia for use with computer monitors, were adapted to track the eye movements of respondents answering three versions of a paper questionnaire. These versions were chosen for study because differences in the design of their branching instructions were hypothesized to affect eye-movements, which in turn may affect the accuracy of following the branching instructions (Redline and Dillman Forthcoming).


title: Annotation: from paper books to the digital library

abstract: Readers annotate paper books as a routine part of their engagement with the materials; it is a useful practice, manifested through a wide variety of markings made in service of very different purposes. This paper examines the practice of annotation in a particular situation: the markings students make in university-level textbooks. The study focuses on the form and function of these annotations, and their status within a community of fellow textbook readers. Using this study as a basis, I discuss issues and implications for the design of annotation tools for a digital library setting.


title: Hard and Easy Distributions of SAT Problems

abstract: We report results from large-scale experiments in satisfiability testing. As has been observed by others, testing the satisfiability of random formulas often appears surprisingly easy. Here we show that by using the right distribution of instances, and appropriate parameter values, it is possible to generate random formulas that are hard, that is, for which satisfiability testing is quite difficult. Our results provide a benchmark for the evaluation of satisfiability-testing procedures.


title: Immersive and Collaborative Data Visualization Using Virtual Reality Platforms

abstract: Effective data visualization is a key part of the discovery process in the era of “big data”. It is the bridge between the quantitative content of the data and human intuition, and thus an essential component of the scientific path from data into knowledge and understanding. Visualization is also essential in the data mining process, directing the choice of the applicable algorithms, and in helping to identify and remove bad data from the analysis. However, a high complexity or a high dimensionality of modern data sets represents a critical obstacle. How do we visualize interesting structures and patterns that may exist in hyper-dimensional data spaces? A better understanding of how we can perceive and interact with multidimensional information poses some deep questions in the field of cognition technology and human-computer interaction. To this effect, we are exploring the use of immersive virtual reality platforms for scientific data visualization, both as software and inexpensive commodity hardware. These potentially powerful and innovative tools for multi-dimensional data visualization can also provide an easy and natural path to a collaborative data visualization and exploration, where scientists can interact with their data and their colleagues in the same visual space. Immersion provides benefits beyond the traditional “desktop” visualization tools: it leads to a demonstrably better perception of a datascape geometry, more intuitive data understanding, and a better retention of the perceived relationships in the data.


title: Integrated circuits for data transmission over twisted-pair channels

abstract: This tutorial paper discusses typical architectures and future challenges in designing integrated circuits for data transmission over twisted-pair wire channels. To highlight the various architectural approaches, two main applications are addressed-HDSL and fast-Ethernet. Following a discussion of twisted-pair cable modelling, common building blocks and possible trade-offs are described. Finally, future challenges facing integrated circuit designers are presented.


title: Confused Johnny: When Automatic Encryption Leads to Confusion and Mistakes

abstract: A common approach to designing usable security is to hide as many security details as possible from the user to reduce the amount of information and actions a user must encounter. This paper gives an overview of Pwm (Private Webmail), our secure webmail system that uses security overlays to integrate tightly with existing webmail services like Gmail. Pwm's security is mostly transparent, including automatic key management and automatic encryption. We describe a series of Pwm user studies indicating that while nearly all users can use the system without any prior training, the security details are so transparent that a small percentage of users mistakenly sent out unencrypted messages and some users are unsure whether they should trust Pwm. We then conducted user studies with an alternative prototype to Pwm that uses manual encryption. Surprisingly users were accepting of the extra steps of cutting and pasting ciphertext themselves. They avoided mistakes and had more trust in the system with manual encryption. Our results suggest that designers may want to reconsider manual encryption as a way to reduce transparency and foster greater trust.


title: Reconciling reinforcement learning models with behavioral extinction and renewal: Implications for addiction, relapse, and problem gambling

abstract: Because learned associations are quickly renewed following extinction, the extinction process must include processes other than unlearning. However, reinforcement learning models, such as the temporal difference reinforcement learning (TDRL) model, treat extinction as an unlearning of associated value and are thus unable to capture renewal. TDRL models are based on the hypothesis that dopamine carries a reward prediction error signal; these models predict reward by driving that reward error to zero. The authors construct a TDRL model that can accommodate extinction and renewal through two simple processes: (a) a TDRL process that learns the value of situation–action pairs and (b) a situation recognition process that categorizes the observed cues into situations. This model has implications for dysfunctional states, including relapse after addiction and problem gambling.