LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Blind image deconvolution: theory and applications

Blind image deconvolution: theory and applications Images are ubiquitous and indispensable in science and everyday life. Mirroring the abilities of our own human visual system, it is natural to display observations of the world in graphical form. Images are obtained in areas 1 2 Blind Image Deconvolution: problem formulation and existing approaches ranging from everyday photography to astronomy, remote sensing, medical imaging, and microscopy. In each case, there is an underlying object or scene we wish to observe; the original or true image is the ideal representation of the observed scene. Yet the observation process is never perfect: there is uncertainty in the measurements , occurring as blur, noise, and other degradations in the recorded images. Digital image restoration aims to recover an estimate of the original image from the degraded observations. The key to being able to solve this ill-posed inverse problem is proper incorporation of prior knowledge about the original image into the restoration process. Classical image restoration seeks an estimate of the true image assuming the blur is known. In contrast, blind image restoration tackles the much more difficult, but realistic, problem where the degradation is unknown. In general, the degradation is nonlinear (including, for example, saturation and quantization) and spatially varying (non uniform motion, imperfect optics); however, for most of the work, it is assumed that the observed image is the output of a Linear Spatially Invariant (LSI) system to which noise is added. Therefore it becomes a Blind Deconvolution (BD) problem, with the unknown blur represented as a Point Spread Function (PSF). Classical restoration has matured since its inception, in the context of space exploration in the 1960s, and numerous techniques can be found in the literature (for recent reviews see [1, 2]). These differ primarily in the prior information about the image they include to perform the restoration task. The earliest algorithms to tackle the BD problem appeared as long ago as the mid-1970s [3, 4], and attempted to identify known patterns in the blur; a small but dedicated effort followed through the late 1980s (see for instance [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]), and a resurgence was seen in the 1990s (see the earlier reviews in [10, 11]). Since then, the area has been extensively explored by the signal processing , astronomical, and optics communities. Many of the BD algorithms have their roots in estimation theory, linear algebra, and numerical analysis. An important question …
A New Fractal Based Printed Slot Antenna for Dual Band Wireless Communication Applications

Different fractal based structures have been widely used in numerous antenna designs for various applications. In this paper, a printed slot antenna has been introduced as a candidate for use in the dual band wireless communication applications. The antenna slot structure is in the form of a Sierpinski gasket of the first iteration. The antenna has been fed with 50Ohm microstrip transmission line, and the slot structure is to be etched on the reverse side of the substrate. Performance evaluation of the proposed antenna design has been carried out using a method of moments based EM simulator, IE3D. Simulation results show that the resulting antenna exhibits an interesting dual frequency resonant behavior making it suitable for dual band communication systems including the dual band WLAN applications. Parametric study has been carried out to explore the effects of antenna parameters on its performance.
The Time-Series Link Prediction Problem with Applications in Communication Surveillance

T ability to predict linkages among data objects is central to many data mining tasks, such as product recommendation and social network analysis. Substantial literature has been devoted to the link prediction problem either as an implicitly embedded problem in specific applications or as a generic data mining task. This literature has mostly adopted a static graph representation where a snapshot of the network is analyzed to predict hidden or future links. However, this representation is only appropriate to investigate whether a certain link will ever occur and does not apply to many applications for which the prediction of the repeated link occurrences are of primary interest (e.g., communication network surveillance). In this paper, we introduce the time-series link prediction problem, taking into consideration temporal evolutions of link occurrences to predict link occurrence probabilities at a particular time. Using Enron e-mail data and high-energy particle physics literature coauthorship data, we have demonstrated that time-series models of single-link occurrences achieve comparable link prediction performance with commonly used static graph link prediction algorithms. Furthermore, a combination of static graph link prediction algorithms and time-series models produced significantly better predictions over static graph link prediction methods, demonstrating the great potential of integrated methods that exploit both interlink structural dependencies and intralink temporal dependencies.
High risk behaviour and fertility desires among heterosexual HIV-positive patients with a serodiscordant partner--two challenging issues.

AIM OF THE STUDY
To evaluate fertility intentions and condom use among HIV-positive persons.


METHODS
Multicentre study based on anonymous data collection (questionnaire).


RESULTS
114 questionnaires providing complete information were evaluated. 45% of HIV-positive women and 38% of HIV-positive men expressed the desire for children. Irrespective of this wish, half the study participants felt that health care providers would not sufficiently address their concerns regarding relationship, sexuality and fertility intentions. In HIV-discordant heterosexual couples, consistent condom use was mentioned by 73% of respondents. Among study participants no significant relationship between HAART, viral load and inconsistent condom use was found. In contrast, information on condom use obtained from the Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS), where the information is obtained by interview, gave higher estimates (88%) of consistent condom use.


CONCLUSIONS
A significant proportion of HIV-infected individuals express a wish for parenthood. Issues related to fertility intentions and sexual relations need to be addressed more frequently by health care providers. Non-anonymous data collection on condom use may underestimate high risk behaviour.
Can we be optimistic about asthma in childhood? A Greek cohort study.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the prevalence and natural course of asthma from childhood to adolescence in a population-based, Greek birth cohort and to identify associated factors.


METHODS
Longitudinal information on asthma symptoms, physician diagnosed and treated, was available for 2133 children at 7 and 18 years of age.


RESULTS
The prevalence of current asthma was 9.0% and 5.0% at 7 and 18 years, respectively. The prevalence of lifetime asthma was 26.3% at 18 years. More than half of the children (58.2%) with early onset asthma were asymptomatic at 7 years and only 7.6% continued to have symptoms during adolescence. However, in 48.2% of those with late onset asthma, symptoms persisted up to 18 years. Logistic regression analyses showed that male gender, family history of atopy, active adolescent smoking and maternal smoking were significantly positively associated with lifetime asthma at 18 years. In addition, smoking during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk for persistence of asthma symptoms at 18 years. Asthma during childhood and active adolescent smoking were positively associated, and daily consumption of fruit and vegetables was negatively associated with current asthma at 18 years of age. Finally, children who were breastfed had a lower risk for lifetime asthma at 7 years.


CONCLUSION
The prevalence of asthma symptoms at 7 and 18 years of age was low throughout Greece. Our results suggest that, among others, nutrition is an important correlate of asthma in Greek children.
A new proof of the bilinear T(1) Theorem

A new simple proof of the bilinear T(1) Theorem in the spirit of the proof of Coifman-Meyer of the celebrated result of David and Journé in the linear case is presented. This new proof is obtained independent of the linear T(1) Theorem by combining recent bilinear square function bounds and a paraproduct construction.
Neurodynamic Techniques Versus "Sham" Therapy in the Treatment of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the efficacy of neurodynamic techniques used as the sole therapeutic component compared with sham therapy in the treatment of mild and moderate carpal tunnel syndromes (CTS).


DESIGN
Single-blinded, randomized placebo-controlled trial.


SETTING
Several medical clinics.


PARTICIPANTS
Volunteer sample of patients (N=250) diagnosed with CTS (n=150).


INTERVENTIONS
Neurodynamic techniques were used in the neurodynamic techniques group, and sham therapy was used in the sham therapy group. In the neurodynamic techniques group, neurodynamic sequences were used, and sliding and tension techniques were also used. In the sham therapy group, no neurodynamic sequences were used, and therapeutic procedures were performed in an intermediate position. Therapy was conducted twice weekly for a total of 20 therapy sessions.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Symptom severity (symptom severity scale) and functional status (functional status scale) of the Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire.


RESULTS
A baseline assessment revealed no intergroup differences in all examined parameters (P>.05). After therapy, there was statistically significant intragroup improvement in nerve conduction study (sensory and motor conduction velocity and motor latency) only for the neurodynamic techniques group (P<.01). After therapy, intragroup statistically significant changes also occurred for the neurodynamic techniques group in pain assessment, 2-point discrimination sense, symptom severity scale, and functional status scale (in all cases P<.01). There were no group differences in assessment of grip and pinch strength (P>.05).


CONCLUSIONS
The use of neurodynamic techniques has a better therapeutic effect than sham therapy in the treatment of mild and moderate forms of CTS.
On Loan Sales , Loan Contracting , and Lending Relationships

Banks are increasingly using secondary loan sales to manage credit risk and diversify their portfolios. However, loan sales fundamentally alter the lending process by separating loan origination from servicing and funding. How do banks reduce agency problems that arise from selling loans? How do loan sales affect lending relationships and borrower’s access to loans? Our analysis suggests that sold loans are structured to reduce buyer-seller agency problems. Sold loans contain additional, more restrictive covenants, particularly when agency problems between buyers and sellers are likely to be more severe, such as when low reputation lenders originate the loan. When loans are sold, borrowers benefit from increased access to private debt capital, both in the present and in the future. This potentially balances the costs of more restrictive covenants and borrowing from additional lenders. Contrary to concerns that that loan selling negatively impacts lending relationships, borrowers whose loans are sold are more likely to retain their lending relationships. We also provide large-sample evidence on the characteristics of borrowers and lenders that affect salability and find evidence consistent with information asymmetry placing limitations on loan selling. * Drucker is from the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. Email: sd2281@columbia.edu. Phone: 212-854-4151. Puri is from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, and NBER. Email: mpuri@duke.edu. Phone: 919-660-7657. We thank Ken Ayotte, Chris Mayer, Anil Shivdasani, and seminar participants at Ohio University and the Washington University in St. Louis Corporate Finance Conference for helpful comments. We acknowledge funding from the FDIC Center for Financial Research.
Creatine supplementation in fibromyalgia: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate the efficacy and safety of creatine supplementation in fibromyalgia patients.


METHODS
A 16-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group trial was conducted. Fibromyalgia patients were randomly assigned to receive either creatine monohydrate or placebo in a double-blind manner. The patients were evaluated at baseline and after 16 weeks. Muscle function, aerobic conditioning, cognitive function, quality of sleep, quality of life, kidney function, and adverse events were assessed. Muscle phosphorylcreatine content was measured through (31) P magnetic resonance spectroscopy.


RESULTS
After the intervention, the creatine group presented higher muscle phosphorylcreatine content when compared with the placebo group (+80.3% versus -2.7%; P = 0.04). Furthermore, the creatine group presented greater muscle strength than the placebo group in the leg press and chest press exercises (+9.8% and +1.2% for creatine versus -0.5% and -7.2% for placebo, respectively; P = 0.02 and P = 0.002, respectively). Isometric strength was greater in the creatine group than in the placebo group (+6.4% versus -3.2%; P = 0.007). However, no general changes were observed in aerobic conditioning, pain, cognitive function, quality of sleep, and quality of life. Food intake remained unaltered and no side effects were reported.


CONCLUSION
Creatine supplementation increased intramuscular phosphorylcreatine content and improved lower- and upper-body muscle function, with minor changes in other fibromyalgia features. These findings introduce creatine supplementation as a useful dietary intervention to improve muscle function in fibromyalgia patients.
Productive figurative communication : Conventional metaphors facilitate the comprehension of related novel metaphors

Three experiments explored whether conceptual mappings in conventional metaphors are productive, by testing whether the comprehension of novel metaphors was facilitated by first reading conceptually related conventional metaphors. The first experiment, a replication and extension of Keysar et al. [Keysar, B., Shen, Y., Glucksberg, S., Horton, W. (2000). Conventional language: How metaphorical is it? Journal of Memory and Language 43, 576–593] (Experiment 2), found no such facilitation; however, in the second experiment, upon re-designing and improving the stimulus materials, facilitation was demonstrated. In a final experiment, this facilitation was shown to be specific to the conceptual mappings involved. The authors argue that metaphor productivity provides a communicative advantage and that this may be sufficient to explain the clustering of metaphors into families noted by Lakoff and Johnson [Lakoff & Johnson, M. (1980a). The metaphorical structure of the human conceptual system. Cognitive Science 4, 195–208]. 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Application of metabolomics to plant genotype discrimination using statistics and machine learning

MOTIVATION
Metabolomics is a post genomic technology which seeks to provide a comprehensive profile of all the metabolites present in a biological sample. This complements the mRNA profiles provided by microarrays, and the protein profiles provided by proteomics. To test the power of metabolome analysis we selected the problem of discrimating between related genotypes of Arabidopsis. Specifically, the problem tackled was to discrimate between two background genotypes (Col0 and C24) and, more significantly, the offspring produced by the crossbreeding of these two lines, the progeny (whose genotypes would differ only in their maternally inherited mitichondia and chloroplasts).


OVERVIEW
A gas chromotography--mass spectrometry (GCMS) profiling protocol was used to identify 433 metabolites in the samples. The metabolomic profiles were compared using descriptive statistics which indicated that key primary metabolites vary more than other metabolites. We then applied neural networks to discriminate between the genotypes. This showed clearly that the two background lines can be discrimated between each other and their progeny, and indicated that the two progeny lines can also be discriminated. We applied Euclidean hierarchical and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to help understand the basis of genotype discrimination. PCA indicated that malic acid and citrate are the two most important metabolites for discriminating between the background lines, and glucose and fructose are two most important metabolites for discriminating between the crosses. These results are consistant with genotype differences in mitochondia and chloroplasts.
Clustering-Based Ensemble Learning for Activity Recognition in Smart Homes

Application of sensor-based technology within activity monitoring systems is becoming a popular technique within the smart environment paradigm. Nevertheless, the use of such an approach generates complex constructs of data, which subsequently requires the use of intricate activity recognition techniques to automatically infer the underlying activity. This paper explores a cluster-based ensemble method as a new solution for the purposes of activity recognition within smart environments. With this approach activities are modelled as collections of clusters built on different subsets of features. A classification process is performed by assigning a new instance to its closest cluster from each collection. Two different sensor data representations have been investigated, namely numeric and binary. Following the evaluation of the proposed methodology it has been demonstrated that the cluster-based ensemble method can be successfully applied as a viable option for activity recognition. Results following exposure to data collected from a range of activities indicated that the ensemble method had the ability to perform with accuracies of 94.2% and 97.5% for numeric and binary data, respectively. These results outperformed a range of single classifiers considered as benchmarks.
Comparative Study on CBIR based by Color Histogram, Gabor and Wavelet Transform

Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR), also known as query by image content (QBIC) Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system helps users to retrieve relevant images based on their contents. Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) technologies provide a method to find images in large databases by using unique descriptors from a trained image. The image descriptors include texture, color, intensity and shape of the object inside an image. In this paper, we compare the several feature extraction techniques viz., Gabor, Wavelet and Histogram over color and texture features applied in a novel way for color image and used for CBIR. The experiments which show that the Gabor filters advice promising results are reported. General Terms Image Processing, CBIR.
Legumes have a greater effect on rhizosphere properties (pH, organic acids and enzyme activity) but a smaller impact on soil P compared to other cover crops

Plants affect phosphorus (P) cycling through uptake and the mobilization of P from several soil pools into soil solution. The effects of seven cover crop species – three legumes (variable morphology), three cereals (variable domestication degree), one mustard (non-mycorrhizal) – on P cycling were compared in a greenhouse experiment. Monocultures and legume-cereal mixtures were grown in an artificial plant growth substrate across three P input treatments (low P, manure, mineral fertilizer) to quantify changes in plant nutrients in aboveground and belowground biomass and properties of the plant growth substrate (pH, organic acids, enzyme activity, P). Legumes had the highest biomass, P uptake, and P mobilization potential (lower pH, higher organic acids and phosphatase activity) but cereals and mixtures mobilized more P than legumes. Biomass allocation to roots varied among species, with no trade-off between allocation to roots and P mobilization potential. Cereals had higher biomass, P uptake and N concentration in mixtures, whereas legumes had a mixed response in mixtures. Phosphorus concentration in the plant growth substrate affected plant growth and nutrient uptake but not P mobilization potential, with few differences between manure and mineral fertilizer. Despite smaller effects on rhizosphere properties compared to legumes, cereals and mixtures had a greater impact on soil P and should affect P cycling more strongly when used as cover crops.
Consent to HIV testing.

The importance of reducing delays in blood transfusion practices for patients who experience life-threatening bleeding is the focus of new research. In a study led by Queen Mary University London (QMUL) and NHS Blood and Transplant, researchers assessed 442 patients who had experienced major trauma haemorrhage as a result of their injuries at 22 hospitals in England and Wales. The researchers found that 36 patients died within the first three hours of admission and 79 died within 24 hours, with mortality continuing to rise even after discharge. Optimal blood transfusion therapy is a high dose of clotting products in conjunction with packed red blood cells during the first hour of arrival at an emergency department. However, the researchers found that only 2% of patients with massive haemorrhage received optimal therapy. There were delays in administration of blood, and platelets and cryoprecipitate were either not given, or transfused well after initial resuscitation, the researchers say. QMUL chair of trauma sciences and trauma surgeon Karim Brohi explains: ‘The rapid and consistent delivery of blood, plasma, platelets and other clotting products to trauma patients is essential to maintain clotting during haemorrhage and has been shown to halve mortality. There is a clear opportunity for clinicians to improve the delivery of blood and clotting products during resuscitation for major haemorrhage.’ Stanworth SJ, Davenport R, Curry N et al (2016) Mortality from trauma haemorrhage and opportunities for improvement in transfusion practice. British Journal of Surgery. doi: 10.1002/bjs.10052
Exposure to electromagnetic fields from smart utility meters in GB; part I) laboratory measurements.

Laboratory measurements of electric fields have been carried out around examples of smart meter devices used in Great Britain. The aim was to quantify exposure of people to radiofrequency signals emitted from smart meter devices operating at 2.4 GHz, and then to compare this with international (ICNIRP) health-related guidelines and with exposures from other telecommunication sources such as mobile phones and Wi-Fi devices. The angular distribution of the electric fields from a sample of 39 smart meter devices was measured in a controlled laboratory environment. The angular direction where the power density was greatest was identified and the equivalent isotropically radiated power was determined in the same direction. Finally, measurements were carried out as a function of distance at the angles where maximum field strengths were recorded around each device. The maximum equivalent power density measured during transmission around smart meter devices at 0.5 m and beyond was 15 mWm-2 , with an estimation of maximum duty factor of only 1%. One outlier device had a maximum power density of 91 mWm-2 . All power density measurements reported in this study were well below the 10 W m-2 ICNIRP reference level for the general public. Bioelectromagnetics. 2017;38:280-294. © 2017 Crown copyright. BIOELECTROMAGNETICS © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.