Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Attribute-based people search in surveillance environments

We propose a novel framework for searching for people in surveillance environments. Rather than relying on face recognition technology, which is known to be sensitive to typical surveillance conditions such as lighting changes, face pose variation, and low-resolution imagery, we approach the problem in a different way: we search for people based on a parsing of human parts and their attributes, including facial hair, eyewear, clothing color, etc. These attributes can be extracted using detectors learned from large amounts of training data. A complete system that implements our framework is presented. At the interface, the user can specify a set of personal characteristics, and the system then retrieves events that match the provided description. For example, a possible query is “show me the bald people who entered a given building last Saturday wearing a red shirt and sunglasses. ” This capability is useful in several applications, such as finding suspects or missing people. To evaluate the performance of our approach, we present extensive experiments on a set of images collected from the Internet, on infrared imagery, and on two-and-a-half months of video from a real surveillance environment. We are not aware of any similar surveillance system capable of automatically finding people in video based on their fine-grained body parts and attributes.
The Population Genomics of a Fast Evolver: High Levels of Diversity, Functional Constraint, and Molecular Adaptation in the Tunicate Ciona intestinalis

Phylogenomics has revealed the existence of fast-evolving animal phyla in which the amino acid substitution rate, averaged across many proteins, is consistently higher than in other lineages. The reasons for such differences in proteome-wide evolutionary rates are still unknown, largely because only a handful of species offer within-species genomic data from which molecular evolutionary processes can be deduced. In this study, we use next-generation sequencing technologies and individual whole-transcriptome sequencing to gather extensive polymorphism sequence data sets from Ciona intestinalis. Ciona is probably the best-characterized member of the fast-evolving Urochordata group (tunicates), which was recently identified as the sister group of the slow-evolving vertebrates. We introduce and validate a maximum-likelihood framework for single-nucleotide polymorphism and genotype calling, based on high-throughput short-read typing. We report that the C. intestinalis proteome is characterized by a high level of within-species diversity, efficient purifying selection, and a substantial percentage of adaptive amino acid substitutions. We conclude that the increased rate of amino acid sequence evolution in tunicates, when compared with vertebrates, is the consequence of both a 2–6 times higher per-year mutation rate and prevalent adaptive evolution.
An Intergenerational Approach to Transitions to Adulthood: The Importance of History and Biography

In this paper we discuss the importance of taking an historical, intergenerational approach in sociological research. Lives need to be understood in the contexts of particular times and places. The backcloth to our discussion is the contemporary disruption of many young people's life course transitions from education to work in Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean countries but also among some young people in the UK, the main focus of the paper. We discuss two concepts and debates that have attracted attention in social science and the public domain. One concerns the designation of unemployed young people as a ‘lost generation’ and the other relates to assumptions about ‘intergenerational conflicts’. These concepts are prone to ignore the historical specificity of the contexts in which and to which they are applied. They also take those contexts as impervious to political intervention. In short they serve to uphold a rhetoric of inevitability about the present economic, political and public policies relating to young people and intergenerational relations. In order to demonstrate the importance of historical context on young people's transitions to adulthood, using a life course biographical approach we analyse an empirical example of a father and son taken from an intergenerational family study conducted in the UK. In this case we also adopt an historical intergenerational lens to show how young people's transitions are supported by other family generations and are thus not individualised pathways to adulthood.
Separation among Species of Mycobacterium terrae Complex by Lipid Analyses: Comparison with Biochemical Tests and 16S rRNA Sequencing

ABSTRACT Fatty acids, alcohols, and mycolic acid cleavage products were determined for 13 ATCC strains and 24 clinical isolates, which were initially identified by biochemical and growth characteristics as theMycobacterium terrae complex. The clinical isolates were also analyzed by partial sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, which divided them into five genetic entities, M. triviale (three strains), M. terrae (four strains), M. nonchromogenicum sensu stricto (seven strains),Mycobacterium sp. strain MCRO 6 (seven strains), andMycobacterium sp. strain 31958 (one strain). After acidic methanolysis, secondary alcohols were a characteristic feature in all members of the M. terrae complex but M. triviale. In addition to the prominent secondary alcohols, 2-octadecanol and 2-eicosanol, two previously unidentified alcohols, 2-(8,15-dimethyl)docosenol and 2-(8,17-dimethyl)tetracosenol, were detected in M. nonchromogenicum, Mycobacteriumsp. strain MCRO 6, and Mycobacterium sp. strain 31958. Only 2-(8,17-dimethyl)tetracosenol was detected in trace amounts in M. terrae. Genetic differences were associated with differences in phenotypic characteristics, including growth at 42°C and pyrazinamidase production. Based on fatty acid and alcohol composition and biochemical and genetic characteristics, M. nonchromogenicum and Mycobacterium sp. strains MCRO 6 and 31958 were found to be a closely related group, named the M. nonchromogenicum complex. Detected genetic variations associated with phenotypic characteristics may indicate further species separation of this complex. In conclusion, the results of gas-liquid chromatography fatty acid analysis, combined with those of a Tween 80 test, enable identification of the species of the M. terraecomplex and their separation from other nonpigmented slowly growing mycobacteria.
Immunization with an affinity purified protein extract from the adult parasite protects lambs against infection with Haemonchus contortus

Young lambs were immunized with membrane protein extracts from adult Haemonchus contortus which had been enriched for cysteine protease activity using Thiol‐Sepharose chromatography. The resulting extract comprised several peptides including cysteine as well as serine and metallo‐protease activities although the former predominated. A limited number of the peptide components were glycosylated. Following a single challenge infection with the same parasite, vaccinated lambs had substantially reduced faecal egg outputs and final worm burdens (overall means of 77% and 47%, respectively, from three trials) compared with challenge controls. Antibody in sera from vaccinated lambs was almost exclusively bound to the surface of the parasite gut indicating that protection may be mediated by the inhibition of parasite digestion.
Tissue-Specific Expression of Transgenic Secreted ACE in Vasculature Can Restore Normal Kidney Functions, but Not Blood Pressure, of Ace-/- Mice

Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) regulates normal blood pressure and fluid homeostasis through its action in the renin-angiotensin-system (RAS). Ace-/- mice are smaller in size, have low blood pressure and defective kidney structure and functions. All of these defects are cured by transgenic expression of somatic ACE (sACE) in vascular endothelial cells of Ace-/- mice. sACE is expressed on the surface of vascular endothelial cells and undergoes a natural cleavage secretion process to generate a soluble form in the body fluids. Both the tissue-bound and the soluble forms of ACE are enzymatically active, and generate the vasoactive octapeptide Angiotensin II (Ang II) with equal efficiency. To assess the relative physiological roles of the secreted and the cell-bound forms of ACE, we expressed, in the vascular endothelial cells of Ace-/- mice, the ectodomain of sACE, which corresponded to only the secreted form of ACE. Our results demonstrated that the secreted form of ACE could normalize kidney functions and RAS integrity, growth and development of Ace-/- mice, but not their blood pressure. This study clearly demonstrates that the secreted form of ACE cannot replace the tissue-bound ACE for maintaining normal blood pressure; a suitable balance between the tissue-bound and the soluble forms of ACE is essential for maintaining all physiological functions of ACE.
The relationship between irrational beliefs and Perfectionism with marital adjustment

The present paper attempts to determine the relationship between perfectionism and irrational beliefs with marital adjustment. The study is of a descriptive-correlative type. The statistical community is composed of all married students of Kermanshah Islamic Azad University, Department of Science and Research, which among them, a sample of 200 were selected by an accessible sampling method. Data collection instrument includes Frost Multi-Dimensional Perfectionism Scale, ATIB Irrational Belief and Dyadic adjustment Scale (DAS). To analyze data, Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis were used. The study findings indicated that there is a negative and significant relationship between perfectionism and irrational beliefs with marital adjustment. In addition, the regression analysis results indicated that among the predictor variables, the variables namely irrational beliefs,concern over mistakes, doubts about actions and total score of perfectionism have the capacity to predict marital adjustment. Based on the study results, it could be concluded that irrational beliefs and perfectionism play important roles in marital adjustment.
Learning Rules and Their Exceptions

We present in this article a top-down inductive system, ALLiS, for learning linguistic structures. Two difficulties came up during the development of the system: the presence of a significant amount of noise in the data and the presence of exceptions linguistically motivated. It is then a challenge for an inductive system to learn rules from this kind of data. This leads us to add a specific mechanism, refinement, which enables learning rules and their exceptions. In the first part of this article we evaluate the usefulness of this device and show that it improves results when learning linguistic structures.In the second part, we explore how to improve the efficiency of the system by using prior knowledge. Since Natural Language is a strongly structured object, it may be important to investigate whether linguistic knowledge can help to make natural language learning more efficiently and accurately. This article presents some experiments demonstrating that linguistic knowledge improves learning. The system has been applied to the shared task of the CoNLL'00 workshop.
Identification recovery scheme using quick response (QR) code and watermarking technique

In recent years there has been increasing attention towards digital rights . Therefore, this paper proposes a matrix barcode to verify image copyrights. The copyright text, Quick Response code (QR code), and watermarking techniques are used to achieve a hidden identification scheme implementing direct sequence spread spec trum (DSSS) and modulation of the modified code division multiple access (MCDMA) to hide the QR code data. DSSS and MCDMA hash thedata and QR code has a robust feature to prevent external attacks and destruction of the cover image. The QR codes information can be easily extracted by mobile devices. Even if the barcode suffers external damage, a copy of the barcode can be hidden within the image to easily recover the barcode data. Compare to the other scheme, our method has two advantages: 1) the QR code has universal, rapid identification and fault tolerance features, so it is suitable for copyright protection; and 2) using DSSS and MCDMA methods to hide information can provide more security and fault-tolerant features.
Spatial Distortions Induced by Dotted Patterns

Prolonged steady fixation of parallel, radial, or concentric lines positioned close to each other generates phenomena of illusory oscillation, waving, and shimmering. Purkinje reported a first observation of these phenomena almost two centuries ago (review by Wade, 1977 Perception 6 407–433). Here we show that illusory waving and oscillation phenomena arise at first glance when dotted lines are either interposed between continuous lines, or positioned very close to straight edges. Phenomenological and individual observations indicate that dotted and linear patterns are independent sources of different illusory effects: the former of waving, the latter of shimmering/scintillating. The two effects enhance each other when dotted and continuous lines are alternated. Possible accounts of the phenomena are discussed. Waving is likely to originate from the perceived alteration of dot spacing, which in turn gives rise to depth cues and the consequent illusory deviation in depth. Shimmering and scintillating are attributed to imperfect binocular fusion, which can cause phenomena of brightness induction. A theory of the combination of the two illusory effects is put forward.
D-brane propagation in two-dimensional black hole geometries

We study propagation of D0-brane in two-dimensional lorentzian black hole backgrounds by the method of boundary conformal field theory of SL(2,)/U(1) supercoset at level k. Typically, such backgrounds arise as near-horizon geometries of k coincident non-extremal NS5-branes, where 1/k measures curvature of the backgrounds in string unit and hence size of string worldsheet effects. At classical level, string worldsheet effects are suppressed and D0-brane propagation in the lorentzian black hole geometry is simply given by the Wick rotation of D1-brane contour in the euclidean black hole geometry. Taking account of string worldsheet effects, boundary state of the lorentzian D0-brane is formally constructible via Wick rotation from that of the euclidean D1-brane. However, the construction is subject to ambiguities in boundary conditions. We propose exact boundary states describing the D0-brane, and clarify physical interpretations of various boundary states constructed from different boundary conditions. As it falls into the black hole, the D0-brane radiates off to the horizon and to the infinity. From the boundary states constructed, we compute physical observables of such radiative process. We find that part of the radiation to infinity is in effective thermal distribution at the Hawking temperature. We also find that part of the radiation to horizon is in the Hagedorn distribution, dominated by massive, highly non-relativistic closed string states, much like the tachyon matter. Remarkably, such distribution emerges only after string worldsheet effects are taken exactly into account. From these results, we observe that nature of the radiation distribution changes dramatically across the conifold geometry k = 1 (k = 3 for the bosonic case), exposing the `string - black hole transition' therein.
Acquiescence and Resistance in Disconfirming Responses to Polar Questions

Here I examine three forms of disconfirming responses to polar questions in Korean conversation: type-conforming “no” responses, direct nonconforming responses such as repetitions of the question with negation, and nondirect nonconforming responses such as replacements. The use of these forms tends to be different depending on the particular form of question. When questions are in unmarked form with no interrogative endings, indexing a knowing stance, type-conforming responses accept the question and the questioner's epistemic stance. Both direct and nondirect nonconforming responses, by contrast, resist the question's constraints and the knowing stance taken by the questioner. When questions are marked with interrogative endings, encoding an unknowing stance, “no” responses resist the questioner's epistemic stance, treating the matter at hand as already known. Direct nonconforming responses depart from the terms and constraints of the question, whereas nondirect nonconforming responses provide new information addressed to the question's agenda, accepting the questioner's unknowing stance.
Toward a Theory of Social Judgments of Organizations: The Case of Legitimacy, Reputation, and Status

The proposed theory extends research on cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy, reputation, and status by advancing an evaluator's perspective on these concepts as forms of social judgment, each addressing a different evaluator's question about the organization. I describe how evaluators make their social judgments under conditions of bounded rationality and how cognitive and social factors influence this process. The proposed process model of social judgment formation highlights the complex and nondeterministic nature of this process.
Effect of Clothing on the Use of Person Information Categories in First Impressions

The present study investigated the relative strength of perceiver and target person variables on person information categories used in first impressions. Descriptions of four target persons written by fifty-two females were content analyzed according to person information categories. Comparisons were made in amount of overlap in categories used when one perceiver described two target persons (1 on 2) dressed to convey either similar or different professional images, when two perceivers described the same target person (2 on 1) dressed to convey either similar or different professional images, and when two perceivers described two different target persons (2 on 2) dressed to convey either similar or different professional images. No differences in category usage were found for 1 on 2, 2 on 1, and 2 on 2 descriptions. Data were re-analyzed for valence (positive or negative tone) of the overall descriptions. As with category usage, agreement on valence of descriptions was similar for I on 2, 2 on 1, and 2 on 2. Results are discussed in terms of social perception research and methods used by researchers investigating person perceptions.
Animals' emotions: studies in sheep using appraisal theories

Animal welfare concerns stem from recognition of the fact that animals can experience emotions such as pain or joy. Nevertheless, discussion of animal emotions is often considered anthropomorphic, and there is a clear need to use explanatory frameworks to understand animals' emotions. We borrowed appraisal theories developed in cognitive psychology to study sheep emotions. Emotions are viewed as the result of how an individual evaluates a triggering situation, following a sequence of checks, including the relevance of the situation (its suddenness, familiarity, predictability, and intrinsic pleasantness), its implications for the individual (including consistency with the individual's expectations), the potential for control, and both internal and external standards. We assumed that if the outcome of checks has an impact on the animal's emotional responses, then animals do not only show emotional responses but also feel emotions. We showed that sheep use similar checks to those used by humans to evaluate their environment, ie suddenness, familiarity, predictability, consistency with expectations, and control. Furthermore, this evaluation affects their emotional responses (behavioural responses, such as startle, ear postures, and cardiac activity). It is concluded that sheep are able to experience emotions such as fear, anger, rage, despair, boredom, disgust and happiness because they use the same checks involved in such emotions as humans. For instance, despair is triggered by situations which are evaluated as sudden, unfamiliar, unpredictable, discrepant from expectations, and uncontrollable, whereas boredom results from an overly predictable environment, and all these checks have been found to affect emotional responses in sheep. These results have implications for animal welfare: although a completely invariable and totally predictable environment should be avoided to prevent boredom, sudden events should probably be minimised, the animals should be offered the possibility to control their environment, and care should be taken to ensure a degree of predictability concerning the various events.
High prevalence of asthma in preschool children in Southern Brazil: A population‐based study

The prevalence of asthma is increasing in many countries. To measure asthma's prevalence, a sample of 981 children aged 4 years old belonging to a birth cohort from 1993 was studied in Pelotas, a city in southern Brazil. A standardized questionnaire on asthma was given to the children's mothers. Information was also collected on socioeconomic level, housing conditions, genetic factors, nutritional factors, and previous infectious diseases. Current asthma (asthma diagnosed by a doctor during previous 12 months) and current wheeze (presence of wheezing during previous 12 months) were the main outcomes. The prevalence of current asthma was 18.4%, and current wheeze was 21.1%. The data were analyzed by multiple Poisson regression, and the risk factors that remained significant for both “current asthma and current wheeze” were, respectively, nonwhite color (RR = 1.41 and RR = 1.36), low maternal schooling (RR = 1.75 and RR = 1.68 for 0–4 years), history of asthma or allergy in the family (RR = 1.66 and RR = 1.85), and history of rhinitis and eczema in the child (RR = 2.11 and RR = 1.72). Male sex (RR = 1.36) and bronchiolitis (RR = 1.46) were major risk factors only for “current asthma,” while smoking in pregnancy (RR = 1.30) and low birth weight (RR = 1.45) were risk factors only for “current wheeze. ” These results highlight the importance of asthma as a public health problem due to its high prevalence, and support the need of intervention programs against preventable risk factors. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2003; 35:296–301. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.