Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Illumination and Pose Invariant Face Recognition: A Technical Review

Face recognition being the most important biometric trait it still faces many challenges, like pose variation, illumination variation etc. When such variations are present in both pose and illumination, all the algorithms are greatly affected by these variations and their performance gets degraded. In this paper we are presenting a detail survey on 2D face recognition under such uncontrolled conditions. Here we have explored different techniques proposed for illumination and pose problem in addition with the classifiers that have been successfully used for face recognition in general. The objective of this review paper is to summarize and compare some of the well-known methods for better understanding of reader.
Active Harmony: Towards Automated Performance Tuning

In this paper, we present the Active Harmony automated runtime tuning system. We describe the interface used by programs to make applications tunable. We present the Library Specification Layer which helps program library developers expose multiple variations of the same API using different algorithms.The Library Specification Language helps to select the most appropriate program library to tune the overall performance. We also present the optimization algorithm used to adjust parameters in the application and the libraries. Finally, we present results that show how the system is able to tune several real applications. The automated tuning system is able to tune the application parameers to within a few percent of the best value after evaluating only 11 out of over 1,700 possible configurations.
Sodium 4-nitrophenolate 4-nitrophenol dihydrate crystal: a new herringbone structure for quadratic nonlinear optics

Sodium 4-nitrophenolate 4-nitrophenol dihydrate is a new nonlinear optical crystal of C2 monoclinic symmetry composed of two distinct organic chromophores of respective calculated molecular hyperpolarisabilities β xxx =18.2×10 –30 and 5.2×10 –30 esu. The chromophores are organised in herringbone motifs along inorganic chains of NaO6 edge shared octahedra. A short H-bond network assembles the herringbone motifs. A remarkable feature is the unique proton shared between the two chromophores respecting the twofold symmetry. The structure is isotypic with that of the magnesium bis(4-nitrophenolate) dihydrate. Structural analogies with other known metal nitrophenolates are pointed out and the nonlinear optical efficiency is discussed.
The effects of viewing- and illumination geometry on settlement type classification of quickbird images

Image texture features extracted from high-resolution remotely sensed images over urban areas have shown promise in their ability to distinguish different settlement classes. Without any explicit mechanism to counter the effects of variable illumination- and viewing geometries, these features may not generalize well in multi-date applications such as change detection. This paper presents the results of a small study of the effects of unwanted variability on low-income settlement classification performance in the Soweto residential area of the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. Somewhat surprisingly, the Gray-Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) features were found to perform better than Local Binary Pattern (LBP) features on combined spatial and temporal generalization tasks, although the LBP features offered better performance on spatial-only generalization problems.
Detection of Low-velocity Impact Damage in Composite Plates using Lamb Waves

A first approach to a rapid and cost-effective health monitoring system for composite structures is presented. Relatively small piezoceramic patches have been selected for the generation and reception of the fundamental anti-symmetric Lamb mode, A 0. The patches were distributed in a linear array in order for larger areas to be inspected. The propagation of Lamb waves was studied using Finite Element analysis and the optimal number and spacing of the transmitters was determined. Impact damage was successfully detected in multidirectional carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) laminates using a very simple experimental set-up.
Thin layer chromatographic fraction of root extract of Polygonum hydropiper induces vaginal epithelial cell maturation in adult ovariectomized albino rat

Dry root powder of Polygonum hydropiper is traditionally used as an antifertility agent by women of north east India. The effect of crude root extract of P. hydropiper on reproductive performance of female albino rat was reported earlier from this laboratory. In the present investigation, attempt was made to find estrogenic effect, if any, of thin layer chromatographic fraction of the crude extract. To achieve the goal, methanolic crude extract was fractionated in thin layer chromatography (TLC). Estradiol-17β was used as the reference compound to identify the estrogenic compound in the crude root extract. The effect of TLC fraction was studied on the vaginal epithelial cell maturation in adult ovariectomized (OVX) rats and uterine histology of OVX and ovary-intact females. The TLC fraction was administered (sc) to adult OVX females at a dose of 5mg/kg/ day for 18 days. Estradiol-17β was injected as reference compound. Vaginal smears were stained with Giemsa's to observe the cell types. Rats were sacrificed by cervical dislocation at the end of the treatment and the uterine epithelium was subjected to histological analysis. The TLC fraction treated OVX females showed characteristic epithelial cell types (parabasal, intermediate, superficial and cornified) in the smear. Histological evidence revealed increased proliferation of the endometrial surface epithelium in the TLC fraction treated females. The results reveal that TLC fraction of root extract of Polygonum hydropiper contains compound(s) which has functional similarities with E2 and ovarian estrogen in female albino rats.
Quantitative Analysis of Liver Protein Expression During Hibernation in the Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel*S

Mammals that enter deep hibernation experience extreme reductions in body temperature and in metabolic, respiratory, and heart rates for several weeks at a time. Survival of these extremes likely entails a highly regulated network of tissue- and time-specific gene expression patterns that remain largely unknown. To date, studies to identify differentially-expressed genes have employed a candidate gene approach or in a few cases broader unbiased screens at the RNA level. Here we use a proteomic approach to compare and identify differentially expressed liver proteins from two seasonal stages in the golden-mantled ground squirrel (summer and entrance into torpor) using two-dimensional gels followed by MS/MS. Eighty-four two-dimensional gel spots were found that quantitatively alter with the hibernation season, 68 of which gave unambiguous identifications based on similarity to sequences in the available mammalian database. Based on what is known of these proteins from prior research, they are involved in a variety of cellular processes including protein turnover, detoxification, purine biosynthesis, gluconeogenesis, lipid metabolism and mobility, ketone body formation, cell structure, and redox balance. A number of the enzymes found to change seasonally are known to be either rate-limiting or first enzymes in a metabolic pathway, indicating key roles in metabolic control. Functional roles are proposed to explain the changes seen in protein levels and their potential influence on the phenotype of hibernation.
The effect of methylphenidate treatment on suspiciousness in children with ADHD alone or comorbid with ODD

Abstract Objective: To assess the level of the suspiciousness in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comorbid oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in comparison to ADHD alone and the response of suspiciousness symptoms to methylphenidate (MPH) treatment. Methods: In this open-label comparative study, children with DSM-IV-TR ADHD, aged 8–18 years, with (N = 30) or without (N = 30) ODD received MPH treatment for 12 weeks. The severity of ODD symptoms was assessed by the Kiddie–Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia. The severity of ADHD symptoms was assessed by the ADHD-Rating-Scale-IV and suspiciousness was assessed at baseline and at endpoint by a scale designed especially for assessment of suspiciousness and named Suspiciousness Rating Scale (SRS). Results: Significant reductions in SRS scores were detected in both groups following MPH treatment (before and after: p = .0012 and p = .0273, respectively). Only in the ADHD/ODD group a significant correlation was found between the rate of improvement in ADHD, as assessed by the ADHD–RS, and the reduction in suspiciousness, as assessed by the SRS (Spearman r = 0.48, p = .0066). Conclusions: In addition to the beneficial effect of MPH treatment on ADHD and ODD symptoms it also diminishes suspiciousness. However, due to the small sample size further studies are needed to confirm the present results.
APOBEC3 Deletion is Associated with Breast Cancer Risk in a Sample of Southeast Iranian Population

Breast Cancer (BC) is considered as one of the most important causes of death worldwide. Previous studies showed that apolipoprotein B mRNA- editing catalytic polypeptide-like 3 (APOBEC3) gene deletion significantly increased the risk of BC risk in Chinese and European women. The present study aimed to assess the possible impact of APOBEC3 deletion and the risk of BC in a sample of Iranian population. The APOBEC3 insertion/deletion (I/D) was analyzed in a case- control study including 262 BC patients and 217 healthy women. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to genotype the variant in APOBEC3 gene. The findings of this study showed that I/D as well as I/D+D/D genotype increased the risk of BC (OR= 1.57, 95% CI= 1.07- 2.31, p= 0.025 and OR= 1.50, 95% CI= 1.03- 2.19, p= 0.037, respectively) in comparison with I/I genotype. In conclusion, our findings suggest that APOBEC3 deletion polymorphism increased the risk of BC in an Iranian population in the southeast of Iran.
Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of Yttrium-90 PET/CT Imaging

Yttrium-90 is known to have a low positron emission decay of 32 ppm that may allow for personalized dosimetry of liver cancer therapy with 90Y labeled microspheres. The aim of this work was to image and quantify 90Y so that accurate predictions of the absorbed dose can be made. The measurements were performed within the QUEST study (University of Sydney, and Sirtex Medical, Australia). A NEMA IEC body phantom containing 6 fillable spheres (10–37 mm ∅) was used to measure the 90Y distribution with a Biograph mCT PET/CT (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) with time-of-flight (TOF) acquisition. A sphere to background ratio of 8∶1, with a total 90Y activity of 3 GBq was used. Measurements were performed for one week (0, 3, 5 and 7 d). he acquisition protocol consisted of 30 min-2 bed positions and 120 min-single bed position. mages were reconstructed with 3D ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) and point spread function (PSF) for iteration numbers of 1–12 with 21 (TOF) and 24 (non-TOF) subsets and CT based attenuation and scatter correction. Convergence of algorithms and activity recovery was assessed based on regions-of-interest (ROI) analysis of the background (100 voxels), spheres (4 voxels) and the central low density insert (25 voxels). For the largest sphere, the recovery coefficient (RC) values for the 30 min –2-bed position, 30 min-single bed and 120 min-single bed were 1.12±0.20, 1.14±0.13, 0.97±0.07 respectively. For the smaller diameter spheres, the PSF algorithm with TOF and single bed acquisition provided a comparatively better activity recovery. Quantification of Y-90 using Biograph mCT PET/CT is possible with a reasonable accuracy, the limitations being the size of the lesion and the activity concentration present. At this stage, based on our study, it seems advantageous to use different protocols depending on the size of the lesion.
In defence of exercise stress tests for the diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension

Exercise stress tests have been used for the diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension since the introduction of the haemodynamic definition of the disease in the 1950s. Paul Wood reasoned on the pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) equation to show that pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) can increase as a result of resistance but also because of flow and/or left atrial pressure.1 One of his patients with borderline pulmonary hypertension on mitral stenosis and severe exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension is illustrated in figure 1. Right heart catheterisation studies in normal subjects showed that the average slope of the PAP–cardiac output relationship is 1 mm Hg/l per minute in young adults and increases to 2.5 mm Hg/l per minute after six to eight decades of life, and that left atrial pressure is transmitted upstream to PAP in an approximately 1:1 ratio.2 Cardiac output-associated high PAP may thus be amplified by an increased PVR due to pulmonary arteriolar remodelling, reflecting lung disease, and/or by upstream transmission of an increased pulmonary outflow pressure, reflecting left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. Figure 1 Pulmonary artery pressure (PA) and left atrial pressure (PCV) in a patient with mitral stenosis at rest and at exercise, reported by Paul Wood.1 Exercise was associated with an increase in cardiac output (not shown) and parallel increases in PA and PCV. What are the limits of normal? Pulmonary hypertension was traditionally defined by a PAP higher than …
Edge Detectors Based on Nonlinear Filters

A class of edge detectors is proposed which is obtained from the difference of the outputs of two nonlinear filters. The nonlinear filters used are based on nonlinear means (which contain homomorphic filters) or order statistic (which contain median filters). The performance of these edge detectors in the presence of noise is evaluated and is compared to the performance of well established edge detectors. Their computational requirements are described and some examples are presented.
Exploiting the High Predictive Power of Multi-class Subgroups

Subgroup discovery aims at finding subsets of a population whose class distribution is significantly different from the overall distribution. A number of multi-class subgroup discovery methods has been previously investigated, proposed and implemented in the CN2-MSD system. When a decision tree learner was applied using the induced subgroups as features, it led to the construction of accurate and compact predictive models, demonstrating the usefulness of the subgroups. In this paper we show that, given a significant, sufficient and diverse set of subgroups, no further learning phase is required to build a good predictive model. Our systematic study bridges the gap between rule learning and decision tree modelling by proposing a method which uses the training information associated with the subgroups to form a simple tree-based probability estimator and ranker, RankFree-MSD, without the need for an additional learning phase. Furthermore, we propose an efficient subgroup pruning algorithm, RankFree-Pruning, that prunes unimportant subgroups from the subgroup tree in order to reduce the number of subgroups and the size of the tree without decreasing predictive performance. Despite the simplicity of our approach we experimentally show that its predictive performance in general is comparable to other decision tree and rule learners over 10 multi-class UCI data sets.
Relationship of host immune status to tumor cell arrest, distribution, and survival in experimental metastasis

The kinetics of initial arrest in organs, distribution, survival, and fate of 125Iiododeoxyuridine‐labeled B16 melanoma tumor cells injected intravenously into normal, tumor‐sensitized and immune manipulated syngeneic and allogeneic mice were investigated. Groups of animals were killed at intervals ranging from two minutes to 14 days after intravenous tumor cell injection. Lungs, liver, spleen and blood were collected from each animal and processed so that radioactivity associated with DNA of tumor cells viable at the time of sacrifice could be monitored. The following conclusions can be made: initial tumor cell arrest in organs is influenced by the host immune status but it does not correlate with the survival kinetics or development into tumors. The same tumor, which was rejected in mice after a subcutaneous tumor challenge, grew in the lungs after intravenous injection. Therefore, rejection of a subcutaneous challenge as the sole criterion of host immunity to neoplasms should be questioned. Allogeneic animals are not appropriate for use as a model system for the study of experimental metastasis. Animals sensitized to a tumor exhibit kinetic patterns of tumor cell arrest and survival that differ from normal syngeneic hosts. Cancer 40:46–55, 1977.
Maternal passive smoking during pregnancy and foetal developmental toxicity. Part 2: histological changes

1 Evidence has been accumulating on the growth suppressing effects of maternal passive smoking on foetus. Reviewing all literature released during the last two decades and screening for all possible variables such as previous smoking history, maternal age and weight gain, parity and length of gestation, placental weight, and diet, we found no reason to doubt the role of passive smoking during pregnancy in the induction of growth retardation. However, no literature indicates whether these birthweight deficits might hint at other possible hidden abnormalities in tissues. To verify this question, we performed an experiment on rats. 2 We have already reported that pups born to rats with previous exposure to cigarette' sidestream smoke during pregnancy showed a significant and dosedependent growth retardation.1 Those pregnant rats were exposed each in a 150 dm3 glass chamber to diluted sidestream smoke of either 1, 2, 3 or 4 commercial blond filter brand cigarettes during either first, second or third week of pregnancy. We have selected a part of each group of pups at random and examined for possible histological changes of lung, liver, stomach, kidney and intestinal tissues. 3 Compared to controls, lung tissues of newborns of smoke exposed mothers showed an enhanced incidence of apoptosis, mesenchymal changes, and hyperplasia of bronchial muscles. Pronounced abnormal changes in haematopoiesis and proliferation of bile duct cells were the most variations from norm observed in liver tissues of exposed pups. Immature glomeruli of kidney, epithelhypoplasia of stomach, and hypoplasia of intestinal villi were common among newborns of exposed mothers than among controls. 4 These results indicate that passive smoking upon pregnancy causes abnormal morphological changes in internal tissues of newborns. At present, we can draw no conclusion as to whether these histological changes will result in functional malformations or possibly late effects, although they should be expected.
Mesoderm movement and fate during avian gastrulation and neurulation

Quail/chick transplantation chimeras were constructed during stages of gastrulation and neurulation to follow the subsequent movement and fate of cells of the primitive streak. All grafts were placed solely within the confines of the primitive streak to prevent confusion between cells that had not yet ingressed and those that had already ingressed, and transplanted cells were distinguished from host cells on the basis of a naturally occurring cell marker. Pathways of movement of ingressing cells corresponded to their level of residence within the primitive streak. Cells residing within Hensen's node (the cranial end of the primitive streak) initially migrated mainly cranially, remaining on or near the midline, and then extended caudally along the midline as regression of Hensen's node occurred. Cells residing within the nodus posterior (the caudal end of the primitive streak) migrated caudally. Cells residing at levels of the primitive streak between Hensen's node and the nodus posterior typically migrated bilaterally, confirming that such cells had not already ingressed prior to their transplantation (in which case, they would have migrated unilaterally). Subsets of these cells residing at progressively more caudal levels of the primitive streak migrated incrementally more laterally. Hensen's node contributed cells to the gut endoderm, head mesenchyme, notochord, and median hinge‐point (MHP) cells of the neural tube (future floor plate). At younger stages (i.e., stages 3a, 3b) Hensen's node contributed cells to principally the foregut endoderm and head mesenchyme, where‐as at older stages (i.e., stages 3c, 3d, 4), it contributed cells to principally the notochord and MHP region. The remaining segments of the cranial half of the primitive streak contributed cells to the various mesodermal subdivisions of the embryo, and the lengths of the segments forming these subdivisions were estimated. The most cranial level of the streak (directly behind Hensen's node) contributed cells to the most medial mesodermal subdivisions (head mesenchyme, somites) and consecutively more caudal levels of the streak contributed cells to sequentially more lateral mesodermal subdivisions (intermediate mesoderm, lateral plate mesoderm). The caudal half of the primitive streak contributed cells to the extraembryonic mesoderm, with the nodus posterior contributing cells to the most caudal extraembryonic mesoderm, including the blood islands. Our results confirm and extend the previous avian prospective fate maps, increasing our understanding of the movement and fate of cells of the gastrula and neurula stages. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Adaptation of deep neural network acoustic models using factorised i-vectors

Copyright © 2014 ISCA. The use of deep neural networks (DNNs) in a hybrid configuration is becoming increasingly popular and successful for speech recognition. One issue with these systems is how to efficiently adapt them to reflect an individual speaker or noise condition. Recently speaker i-vectors have been successfully used as an additional input feature for unsupervised speaker adaptation. In this work the use of i-vectors for adaptation is extended to incorporate acoustic factorisation. In particular, separate i-vectors are computed to represent speaker and acoustic environment. By ensuring "orthogonality" between the individual factor representations it is possible to represent a wide range of speaker and environment pairs by simply combining i-vectors from a particular speaker and a particular environment. In this paper the i-vectors are viewed as the weights of a cluster adaptive training (CAT) system, where the underlying models are GMMs rather than HMMs. This allows the factorisation approaches developed for CAT to be directly applied. Initial experiments were conducted on a noise distorted version of the WSJ corpus. Compared to standard speaker-based i-vector adaptation, factorised i-vectors showed performance gains.
Effects from the pyramidal tract on spinal reflex arcs.

The effect of stimulation of the sensorimotor cortex on spinal reflex arcs was investigated in cats with intracellular recording from motoneurones and with conditioning of monosynaptic reflexes. Stimulation of cortex enhances the following synaptic actions in motoneurones: Ia inhibitory, Ib reciprocal, FRA reciprocal, FRA inhibitory to flexor and cutaneous excitatory to extensor motoneurones. The effects are mediated by the pyramidal tract which presumably exerts an excitatory action on interneurones of reflex arcs. Stronger stimulation of cortex evokes synaptic actions in motoneurones with excitatory action dominating in flexor and inhibitory in extensor motoneurones. There was frequently evidence of mixed excitatory and inhibitory effects in extensor motoneurones and inhibitory action in flexor motoneurones was also found. It is suggested that these actions on motoneurones are due mainly to activation of interneurones of spinal reflex arcs.