Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What The Statistics Of Natural Images Tell Us About Visual Coding

Why does the mammalian visual system represent information as it does? If we assume that visual systems have evolved to cope with the natural environment then we might expect the coding properties of the visual system to be related to the statistical structure of our environment. Indeed, images of the natural environment do not have random statistics. The first-order statistics (e.g., distribution of pixel values) and second-order statistics (e.g., power spectra) of natural images have been discussed previously and they bear important relations to visual coding. Statistics higher than second-order are difficult to measure but provide crucial information about the image. For example, it can be shown that the lines and edges found in natural images are a function of these higher-order statistics. In this paper, these higher-order statistics will be discussed in relation to the coding properties of the mammalian visual system. It is suggested that the spatial parameters of the cortical 'filters' (e.g., bandwidths of simple and complex cells) are closely related to these higher-order statistics. In particular, it will be shown that the spatial non-linearities shown by cortical complex cells provide the early visual system with the information required to learn about these statistics.
Goal Commitment Mediates the Relationship between Expected Positive Consequences of Goal Attainment and Effort

Expected positive consequences are predictors of effort expenditure in goal pursuit (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). However, there are indications that this relationship is moderated (Locke & Latham, 1990) or mediated by commitment. A sample of 388 university students was adminis- trated questionnaires in order to measure goal commitment, effort and positive expected goal attainment consequences. The results suggest that goal commitment is not a moderator of the relationship between positive expected goal attainment consequences and exerted effort but rather mediates the relationship. The findings outline that expected consequences in terms of cost-benefit analysis as another type of expectations are associated with effort, too.
Relationships between tissue properties and operational parameters of a dental handpiece during simulated cavity preparation

A preliminary study was conducted on the development of an intelligent dental handpiece with functionality to detect subtle changes in mechanical properties of tooth tissue during milling. Such equipment would be able to adopt changes in cutting parameters and make real-time measurements to avoid tooth tissue damage caused by overexertion and overextension of the cutting tool. A modified dental handpiece, instrumented with strain gauges, microphone, displacement sensor, and air pressure sensor, was mounted to a linear movement table and used to mill three to four cavities in >50 bovine teeth. Extracted sound frequency and density were analyzed along with force, air pressure, and displacement for correlations and trends. Experimental results showed a high correlation (coefficient close to 0.7) between the feed force, the rotational frequency, and the averaged gray scale. These results could form the basis of a feedback control system to improve the safety of dental cutting procedures. This article is written in memory of Dr Hongyan Sun, who passed away in 2011 at a young age of 37.
From Persuasion to Deliberation: Do Experiences of Online Political Persuasion Facilitate Dialogic Openness?

Research has long considered the role interpersonal persuasion plays in shaping how citizens form their political opinions and cast their votes. Yet few studies have examined how experiences with online persuasion might influence broader deliberative orientations. We propose the “Persuasion-Openness” model, in which both attempting and being the target of online political persuasion encourage individuals to engage in online cross-cutting discussion with those who hold differing political views. These more deliberative exchanges are in turn associated with increased “dialogic openness”—a broader orientation toward political dialog. We test this model using original panel survey data collected during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Findings show that both types of persuasion experiences can indirectly lead to dialogic openness, by stimulating online cross-cutting discussion. However, the mediated pathway for those targeted for online persuasion is only significant in online environments with low levels of attitude-challenging information.
Explaining the cost of European space and military projects

There has been much controversy in the literature on several issues underlying the construction of parametric software development cost models. For example, it has been argued whether (dis)economies of scale exist in software production, what functional form should be assumed between effort and product size, whether COCOMO factors were useful, and whether the COCOMO factors are independent. Answers to such questions should help software organizations define suitable data collection programs and well-specified cost models. We use a data set collected by the European Space Agency to perform such an investigation. To ensure a certain degree of consistency in our data, we focus our analysis on a set of space and military projects that represent an important application domain and the largest subset in the database. These projects have been performed, however, by a variety of organizations. First, our results indicate that two functional forms are plausible between effort and product size: linear and log-linear. This also means that different project subpopulations are likely to follow different functional forms. Second, besides product size, the strongest factor influencing cost appears to be team size. Larger teams result in substantially lower productivity, which is interesting considering this attribute is rarely collected in software engineering cost databases. Third, although some COCOMO factors appear to be useful and significant covariates, they play a minor role in explaining project effort.
An Improved Method for Removal of Azo Dye Orange II from Textile Effluent Using Albumin as Sorbent

Azo dyes are generally resistant to biodegradation due to their complex structures. Acid orange II is one of the most widely used dyes in the textile industry. The influence of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in different concentrations, pH, and time of contact on Orange II was investigated using kinetics and adsorption-isotherm experiments. The results showed that the maximum colour removed from dye/albumin was 99.50% and that a stable dye-protein complex had been formed at pH 3.5 and in a proportion of 1:3 (v/v), respectively. The synthetic effluent did not show toxicity to the microcrustacean Artemia salina, and showed a CL50 equal to 97 µg/mL to azo dye orange II. Additionally, the methodology was effective in removing the maximum of orange II using BSA by adsorption at pH 3.5 which mainly attracted ions to the azo dye during the adsorption process. This suggests that this form of treatment is economical and easy to use which potentially could lead to bovine serum albumin being used as a sorbent for azo dyes.
High throughput architecture for H.264/AVC motion compensation sample interpolator for HDTV

This work presents a new sample interpolator architecture for the motion compensation in H.264/AVC. The proposed solution saves hardware resources through a simplified filters organization, still reaching the needed throughput to real time decoding of HDTV 1920x1080 bi-predictive H.264/AVC video sequences. The new luma interpolator organization uses 4 vertical and 8 horizontal FIR filters and 4 bilinear filters. The chroma interpolator was designed using simplified multipliers. The target technology is Standard-cell implementation using TSMC 0.18 µm.
Bat algorithm: literature review and applications

Bat algorithm BA is a bio-inspired algorithm developed by Xin-She Yang in 2010 and BA has been found to be very efficient. As a result, the literature has expanded significantly in the last three years. This paper provides a timely review of the bat algorithm and its new variants. A wide range of diverse applications and case studies are also reviewed and summarised briefly here. In addition, we also discuss the essence of an algorithm and the links between algorithms and self-organisation. Further research topics are also discussed.
Qos-Aware Automatic Composition of Web Services Using AI Planners

Web services provide a new way of distributed computing that achieve the interoperability between heterogeneous applications through platform and language independent interfaces. As the number of available Web services in a system increases, it becomes more difficult to find the specific service that can perform the task at hand. There may also be no single service capable of performing that task, but a combination of existing services may provide the capability. One of the main focuses of Web services is the ability to easily combine existing components to create compositions that provide novel functionalities which were not directly available from the existing services. In this paper a new approach for composing Web services based on requested quality of services is provided. The presented procedure exploits numeric function supporting planners to build the composition. It also provides the facility to generate compositions of Web services by using existing PDDL based planners.
Demand-Based Option Pricing ∗ Nicolae Gârleanu †

We model demand-pressure effects on option prices. The model shows that demand pressure in one option contract increases its price by an amount proportional to the variance of the unhedgeable part of the option. Similarly, the demand pressure increases the price of any other option by an amount proportional to the covariance of the unhedgeable parts of the two options. Empirically, we identify aggregate positions of dealers and end users using a unique dataset, and show that demand-pressure effects make a contribution to well-known optionpricing puzzles. Indeed, time-series tests show that demand helps explain the overall expensiveness and skew patterns of index options, and cross-sectional ∗ We are grateful for helpful comments from David Bates, Nick Bollen, Oleg Bondarenko, Menachem Brenner, Andrea Buraschi, Josh Coval, Domenico Cuoco, Apoorva Koticha, Sophie Ni, Jun Pan, Neil Pearson, Josh White, and especially from Steve Figlewski, as well as from seminar participants at the Caesarea Center Conference, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth University, Harvard University, HEC Lausanne, the 2005 Inquire Europe Conference, London Business School, the 2005 NBER Behavioral Finance Conference, the 2005 NBER Universities Research Conference, the NYU-ISE Conference on the Transformation of Option Trading, New York University, Nomura Securities, Oxford University, Stockholm Institute of Financial Research, Texas A&M University, the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Vienna, and the 2005 WFA Meetings. Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Centre of Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 3620 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, email: garleanu@wharton.upenn.edu, URL: http://finance.wharton.upenn.edu/∼garleanu/. New York University, Centre of Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 44 West Fourth Street, Suite 9-190, New York, NY 10012-1126, email: lpederse@stern.nyu.edu, URL: http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/∼lpederse/. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 340 Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820, email: poteshma@uiuc.edu, URL: http://www.business. uiuc.edu/poteshma.
The growth of concentration fluctuations in dilute dispersions of orientable and deformable particles under sedimentation

Theory and numerical simulations are used to investigate the concentration fluctuations and the microstructure in dilute sedimenting suspensions of orientable and deformable particles at zero Reynolds number. The case of orientable particles is studied using prolate and oblate spheroids, while viscous droplets in the small deformation regime illustrate the effects of deformability. An efficient method based on a point-particle approximation and on smooth localized force representations is implemented to simulate full-scale suspensions with both periodic and slip boundaries, where the latter are used to qualitatively reproduce the effects of horizontal walls. The concentration instability predicted theoretically for suspensions of spheroids is captured in the simulations, and we find that including horizontal walls provides a mechanism for wavenumber selection, in contrast to periodic systems in which the longest wavelength set by the size of the container dominates. A theoretical model for the case of slightly deformable particles is developed, and a linear stability analysis shows that such suspensions are also unstable to concentration fluctuations under sedimentation. In the absence of diffusion, the model predicts that density fluctuations are equally unstable at all wavelengths, but we show that diffusion, whether Brownian or hydrodynamic, should damp high-wavenumber fluctuations. Simulations are also performed for deformable particles, and again an instability is observed that shows a similar mechanism for the wavenumber selection in finite containers. Our results demonstrate that all sedimentation processes of orientable or deformable particles are subject to spontaneous concentration inhomogeneities, which control the sedimentation rates in these systems.
Hybridization of Differential Evolution using Hill Climbing to solve Constrained Optimization Problems

Differential Evolution (DE) is a powerful metaheuristic method used to numerically optimize functions or multidimensional problems not solved by traditional methods of global optimization. In turn, if boundary conditions are added, constraint handling techniques should be need. To improve DE’s performance, algorithms of local search are a good alternative. Hybridization of Differential Evolution and Hill Climbing are presented in this paper. The obtained results show similar or superior quality to those achieved by methods already tested.
COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS

The present study is the second is a series of three papers devoted to issues in the measurement of productivity and productivity growth. The contributions of the present paper are three. First, it introduces a new approach to measuring industrial productivity based on income-side data that are published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The data are internally consistent in that both inputs and outputs are income-side measures of value added, whereas the usual productivity measures combine expenditure-side output measures with income-side input measures. Second, because of interest in the “new economy,” we have also constructed a set of new-economy accounts. For the purpose of this study, we define the new economy as machinery, electric equipment, telephone and telegraph, and software. Finally, because of concerns about poor deflation in the current output measures, this study constructs a new output concept called “well-measured output,” which includes only those sectors for which output is relatively well measured. We present a brief summary of the behavior of the alternative measures.
Comparison of Three Statistical Classification Techniques for Maser Identification

Abstract We applied three statistical classification techniques—linear discriminant analysis (LDA), logistic regression, and random forests—to three astronomical datasets associated with searches for interstellar masers. We compared the performance of these methods in identifying whether specific mid-infrared or millimetre continuum sources are likely to have associated interstellar masers. We also discuss the interpretability of the results of each classification technique. Non-parametric methods have the potential to make accurate predictions when there are complex relationships between critical parameters. We found that for the small datasets the parametric methods logistic regression and LDA performed best, for the largest dataset the non-parametric method of random forests performed with comparable accuracy to parametric techniques, rather than any significant improvement. This suggests that at least for the specific examples investigated here accuracy of the predictions obtained is not being limited by the use of parametric models. We also found that for LDA, transformation of the data to match a normal distribution led to a significant improvement in accuracy. The different classification techniques had significant overlap in their predictions; further astronomical observations will enable the accuracy of these predictions to be tested.
FPGA implementation of image morphological decomposition with reconstruction

The paper presents a novel algorithm for the computation of the image decomposition using a morphological filter with reconstruction. Real time operation in a FPGA implementation was the main design objective. The focus of the study was the optimization of the silicon area and sample frame throughput to meet the real time constraint. The new reconstruction algorithm and its hardware implementation as proposed is shown to be independent on structural element size and that it results in a predictable time frame operation. A mixed schematic and VHDL/Verilog description of the decomposition filters was synthesized and results show far higher speed performance compared with solutions found in recent literature. The performance of the architecture is proven to exceed real time conditions of operation and fit into medium size FPGA.
Discourse and the study of organization: Toward a structurational perspective

Existing approaches to organizational discourse, which we label as 'managerialist', 'interpretive' and 'critical', either privilege agency at the expense of structure or the other way around. This tension reflects that between approaches to discourse in the social sciences more generally but is sharper in the organizational context, where discourse is typically temporally and contextually specific and imbued with attributions of instrumental intent. As the basis for a more sophisticated understanding of organizational discourse, we draw on the work of Giddens to develop a structurational conceptualization in which discourse is viewed as a duality of communicative actions and structural properties, recursively linked through the modality of actors' interpretive schemes. We conclude by exploring some of the theoretical implications of this conceptualization and its consequences for the methodology of organizational discourse analysis.abs>
Multiangle observations of Arctic clouds from FIRE ACE: June 3, 1998, case study

In May and June 1998 the Airborne Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (AirMISR) participated in the FIRE Arctic Cloud Experiment (ACE). AirMISR is an airborne instrument for obtaining multiangle imagery similar to that of the satellite-borne MISR instrument. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the data collected on June 3, 1998. In particular, AirMISR radiance measurements are compared with measurements made by two other instruments, the Cloud Absorption Radiometer (CAR) and the MODIS airborne simulator (MAS), as well as to plane-parallel radiative transfer simulations. It is found that the AirMISR radiance measurements and albedo estimates compare favorably both with the other instruments and with the radiative transfer simulations. In addition to radiance and albedo, the multiangle AirMISR data can be used to obtain estimates of cloud top height using stereoimaging techniques. Comparison of AirMISR retrieved cloud top height (using the complete MISR-based stereoimaging approach) shows excellent agreement with the measurements from the airborne Cloud Lidar System (CLS) and ground-based millimeter-wave cloud radar.
On the End of a Quantum Mechanical Romance

Comparatively recent advances in quantum measurement theory suggest that the decades-old flirtation between quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind is about to end. Various approaches to what I have elsewhere dubbed 'interactive decoherence' promise to remove the conscious observer from the phenomenon of state vector reduction. The mechanisms whereby decoherence occurs suggest, on the one hand, that consciousness per se has no role in explaining the outcomes of quantum events and, on the other, that perhaps apart from questions about the very lowest level properties of minds' instantiating hardware or wetware, the unique features of quantum mechanics are utterly irrelevant to the philosophy of mind. Here we explore a better account of interactive decoherence than I have offered elsewhere, make explicit the argument for irrelevance, and address some unanswered questions and an interesting objection against the formulation of decoherence on which our discussion is based.
Effective growth of boron nitride nanotubes by thermal chemical vapor deposition

Effective growth of multiwalled boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) has been obtained by thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD). This is achieved by a growth vapor trapping approach as guided by the theory of nucleation. Our results enable the growth of BNNTs in a conventional horizontal tube furnace within an hour at 1200 °C. We found that these BNNTs have an absorption band edge of 5.9 eV, approaching that of single h-BN crystals, which are promising for future nanoscale deep-UV light emitting devices.
Ensembled artificial neural networks for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma classification

In order to classify two types of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), which are the germinal-center type (GCB) and the activated B-cell type (ABC), non-medical methods (i.e. engineering method such as ensembled artificial neural networks (EANN)) were applied to do quantitative analysis. Sensitivity analysis (SA) for EANN was carried out to evaluate the significance ranking of the miRNAs and finally selected 5 most important miRNAs. Besides, classical linear and logistic regression models were developed for comparison with EANN classification results. Their results were both evidently worse than EANN model. This study proves that each lymphoma type has a distinctive pattern of miRNAs expression. EANN model achieved successful results. Specially, the 5 selected important miRNAs will be helpful for further study.
Unsupervised segmentation of surface defects

A segmentation scheme to detect surface defects is proposed. An unsupervised neural network, the self-organizing map, is used to estimate the distribution of fault-free samples. An unknown sample is classified as a defect if it differs enough from this estimated distribution. A new scheme for determining this difference is suggested. The scheme makes use of the Voronoi set of each map unit and defines a new rule for finding the best-matching map unit. The proposed scheme is general in the sense that it can be applied to fault detection of different types of surfaces.
Adoption of active learning in a lecture-based engineering class

Three years ago, the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT expanded its repertoire of active learning strategies and assessment tools with the introduction of muddiest-point-in-the-lecture cards, electronic response systems, concept tests, peer coaching, course web pages, and web-based course evaluations. This paper focuses on the change process of integrating these active learning strategies into a traditional lecture-based multidisciplinary course, called unified engineering. The description of the evolution of active learning in unified engineering is intended to underscore the motivation and incentives required for bringing about the change, and the support needed for sustaining and disseminating active learning approaches among the instructors.