Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust Object Tracking Using Joint Color-Texture Histogram

A novel object tracking algorithm is presented in this paper by using the joint color-texture histogram to represent a target and then applying it to the mean shift framework. Apart from the conventional color histogram features, the texture features of the object are also extracted by using the local binary pattern (LBP) technique to represent the object. The major uniform LBP patterns are exploited to form a mask for joint color-texture feature selection. Compared with the traditional color histogram based algorithms that use the whole target region for tracking, the proposed algorithm extracts effectively the edge and corner features in the target region, which characterize better and represent more robustly the target. The experimental results validate that the proposed method improves greatly the tracking accuracy and efficiency with fewer mean shift iterations than standard mean shift tracking. It can robustly track the target under complex scenes, such as similar target and background appearance, o.
Climate, intrinsic water-use efficiency and tree growth over the past 150 years in humid subtropical China

Influence of long-term changes in climate and CO2 concentration on intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE), defined as the ratio between net photosynthesis (A) and leaf conductance (g), and tree growth remain not fully revealed in humid subtropical China, which is distinct from other arid subtropical areas with dense coverage of broadleaf forests. This study presented the first tree-ring stable carbon isotope (δ13C) and iWUE series of Pinus massoniana from 1865 to 2013 in Fujian province, humid subtropical China, and the first tree-ring width standard chronology during the period of 1836–2013 for the Niumulin Nature Reserve (NML). Tree-ring width growth was limited by precipitation in July-August (r = 0.40, p < 0.01). The tree-ring carbon isotope discrimination (Δ13C) was mainly controlled by the sunshine hours (r = -0.66, p < 0.001) and relative humidity (r = 0.58, p < 0.001) in September-October, a season with rapid latewood formation in this area. The iWUE increased by 42.6% and the atmospheric CO2 concentration (ca) explained 92.6% of the iWUE variance over the last 150 years. The steady increase in iWUE suggests an active response with a proportional increase in intercellular CO2 concentration (ci) in response to increase in ca. The contribution of iWUE to tree growth in the study region is not conspicuous, which points to influences of other factors such as climate.
From where we stand: unsettling geographical knowledges in the classroom

This piece reflects on the challenging process of implementing decolonial theory and practice in designing and co-teaching an introductory human geography course. We share these reflections in dialogue with others striving to unsettle colonial and racist knowledge production. Our main objective is to encourage geographers to learn from Indigenous movements for decolonisation and self-determination, as we work to unsettle geographical knowledges through our teaching.
Multi-beam effects on backscatter and its saturation in experiments with conditions relevant to ignitiona)

To optimize the coupling to indirect drive targets in the National Ignition Campaign (NIC) at the National Ignition Facility [E. Moses et al., Phys. Plasmas 16, 041006 (2009)], a model of stimulated scattering produced by multiple laser beams is used. The model has shown that scatter of the 351 nm beams can be significantly enhanced over single beam predictions in ignition relevant targets by the interaction of the multiple crossing beams with a millimeter scale length, 2.5 keV, 0.02−0.05 × critical density, plasma. The model uses a suite of simulation capabilities and its key aspects are benchmarked with experiments at smaller laser facilities. The model has also influenced the design of the initial targets used for NIC by showing that both the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) can be reduced by the reduction of the plasma density in the beam intersection volume that is caused by an increase in the diameter of the laser entrance hole (LEH). In this model, a linea.
Coherence Optimization and Best Complex Antipodal Spherical Codes

Vector sets with optimal coherence according to the Welch bound cannot exist for all pairs of dimension and cardinality. If such an optimal vector set exists, it is an equiangular tight frame and represents the solution to a Grassmannian line packing problem. Best Complex Antipodal Spherical Codes (BCASCs) are the best vector sets with respect to the coherence. By extending methods used to find best spherical codes in the real-valued Euclidean space, the proposed approach aims to find BCASCs, and thereby, a complex-valued vector set with minimal coherence. There are many applications demanding vector sets with low coherence. Examples are not limited to several techniques in wireless communication or to the field of compressed sensing. Within this contribution, existing analytical and numerical approaches for coherence optimization of complex-valued vector spaces are summarized and compared to the proposed approach. The numerically obtained coherence values improve previously reported results. The drawback of increased computational effort is addressed and a faster approximation is proposed which may be an alternative for time critical cases.
Negative Sampling Improves Hypernymy Extraction Based on Projection Learning

We present a new approach to extraction of hypernyms based on projection learning and word embeddings. In contrast to classification-based approaches, projection-based methods require no candidate hyponym-hypernym pairs. While it is natural to use both positive and negative training examples in supervised relation extraction, the impact of positive examples on hypernym prediction was not studied so far. In this paper, we show that explicit negative examples used for regularization of the model significantly improve performance compared to the state-of-the-art approach of Fu et al. (2014) on three datasets from different languages.
Causal Theories of Actions Revisited

It has been argued that causal rules are necessary for representing both implicit side-effects of actions and action qualifications, and there have been a number different approaches for representing causal rules in the area of formal theoriesof actions. These different approaches in general agree on rules without cycles. However, they differ on causal rules with mutual cyclic dependencies, both in terms of how these rules are supposed to be represented and their semantics. In this paper we show that by adding one more minimization to Lin's circumscriptive causal theory in the situation calculus, we can have a uniform representation of causal rules including those with cyclic dependencies. We also demonstrate that sometimes causal rules can be compiled into logically equivalent successor state axioms even in the presence of cyclical dependencies between fluents.
Salmonella Type III Secretion-Associated Protein InvE Controls Translocation of Effector Proteins into Host Cells

ABSTRACT Salmonella enterica encodes a type III secretion system (TTSS) within a pathogenicity island located at centisome 63 (SPI-1), which is essential for its pathogenicity. This system mediates the transfer of a battery of bacterial proteins into the host cell with the capacity to modulate cellular functions. The transfer process is dependent on the function of protein translocases SipB, SipC, and SipD. We report here that Salmonella protein InvE, which is also encoded within SPI-1, is essential for the translocation of bacterial proteins into host cells. An S. enterica serovar Typhimurium mutant carrying a loss-of-function mutation in invE shows reduced secretion of SipB, SipC, and SipD while exhibiting increased secretion of other TTSS effector proteins. We also demonstrate that InvE interacts with a protein complex formed by SipB, SipC, and their cognate chaperone, SicA. We propose that InvE controls protein translocation by regulating the function of the Sip protein translocases.
Production of Laccase by Cochliobolus sp. Isolated from Plastic Dumped Soils and Their Ability to Degrade Low Molecular Weight PVC

One of the utmost man-made problems faced today has been the ever-increasing plastic waste filling the world. It accounts for an estimated 20–30% (by volume) of municipal solid waste in landfill sites worldwide. Research on plastic biodegradation has been steadily growing over the past four decades. Several fungi have been identified that produce enzymes capable of plastic degradation in various laboratory conditions. This paper presents a study that determined the ability of fungi to degrade low molecular weight polyvinyl chloride (PVC) by the enzyme laccase. We have isolated a fungal species, Cochliobolus sp. , from plastic dumped soils and they were cultured on Czapek Dox Agar slants at 30°C. The effectiveness of this fungal species on the degradation of commercial low molecular weight polyvinyl chloride (PVC) was studied under laboratory conditions. Significant differences were observed from the FTIR, GC-MS, and SEM results in between control and Cochliobolus sp. treated PVC.
Partisan heart and/or rational mind? Party identification, political knowledge and electoral turnout

This paper aims at analysing the relationship between positive and negative party identification and political knowledge, as well as their interplay in regard to electoral turnout. The data from the Serbian 2012 post-election public opinion survey on the nationally representative probability-based sample of voting age citizens were used (N = 1568). The data show that political knowledge is significantly and positively correlated both with positive and negative party identification. Citizens who are more knowledgeable and positively identified are also more likely to vote. However, it is shown that the influence of political knowledge on electoral turnout is moderated only by positive party identification. Political knowledge significantly predicts turnout only in the group of citizens without positive party identification. Being negatively identified with a political party does not modify the relationship between political knowledge and turnout. The results are discussed in terms of the Michigan model of party identification and cognitive mobilisation thesis. The roles of affective and cognitive motivation in electoral participation are additionally stressed and debated.
Pulmonary involvement in rheumatoid arthritis: evaluation by radiography and spirometry *

Abstract Objective: To determine whether simple diagnostic methods can yield relevant disease information in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: Patients with RA were randomly selected for inclusion in a cross-sectional study involving clinical evaluation of pulmonary function, including pulse oximetry (determination of SpO2, at rest), chest X-ray, and spirometry. Results: A total of 246 RA patients underwent complete assessments. Half of the patients in our sample reported a history of smoking. Spirometry was abnormal in 30% of the patients; the chest X-ray was abnormal in 45%; and the SpO2 was abnormal in 13%. Normal chest X-ray, spirometry, and SpO2 were observed simultaneously in only 41% of the RA patients. A history of smoking was associated with abnormal spirometry findings, including evidence of obstructive or restrictive lung disease, and with abnormal chest X-ray findings, as well as with an interstitial pattern on the chest X-ray. Comparing the patients in whom all test results were normal (n = 101) with those in whom abnormal test results were obtained (n = 145), we found a statistically significant difference between the two groups, in terms of age and smoking status. Notably, there were signs of airway disease in nearly half of the patients with minimal or no history of tobacco smoke exposure. Conclusions: Pulmonary involvement in RA can be identified through the use of a combination of diagnostic methods that are simple, safe, and inexpensive. Our results lead us to suggest that RA patients with signs of lung involvement should be screened for lung abnormalities, even if presenting with no respiratory symptoms.
Astronomical image representation by the curvelet transform

We outline digital implementations of two newly developed multiscale representation systems, namely, the ridgelet and curvelet transforms. We apply these digital transforms to the problem of restoring an image from noisy data and compare our results with those obtained via well established methods based on the thresholding of wavelet coefficients. We show that the curvelet transform allows us also to well enhance elongated features contained in the data. Finally, we describe the Morphological Component Analysis, which consists in separating features in an image which do not present the same morphological characteristics. A range of examples illustrates the results.
Fast and Faithful Geometric Algorithm for Detecting Crest Lines on Meshes

A new geometry-based finite difference method for a fast and reliable detection of perceptually salient curvature extrema on surfaces approximated by dense triangle meshes is proposed. The foundations of the method are two simple curvature and curvature derivative formulas overlooked in modern differential geometry textbooks and seemingly new observation about inversion-invariant local surface-based differential forms.
Crowdedness Mediates the Effect of Social Identification on Positive Emotion in a Crowd: A Survey of Two Crowd Events

Exposure to crowding is said to be aversive, yet people also seek out and enjoy crowded situations. We surveyed participants at two crowd events to test the prediction of self-categorization theory that variable emotional responses to crowding are a function of social identification with the crowd. In data collected from participants who attended a crowded outdoor music event (n = 48), identification with the crowd predicted feeling less crowded; and there was an indirect effect of identification with the crowd on positive emotion through feeling less crowded. Identification with the crowd also moderated the relation between feeling less crowded and positive emotion. In data collected at a demonstration march (n = 112), identification with the crowd predicted central (most dense) location in the crowd; and there was an indirect effect of identification with the crowd on positive emotion through central location in the crowd. Positive emotion in the crowd also increased over the duration of the crowd event. These findings are in line with the predictions of self-categorization theory. They are inconsistent with approaches that suggest that crowding is inherently aversive; and they cannot easily be explained through the concept of ‘personal space’.
THE ROLE OF SOMATOSTATIN-EXPRESSING INTERNEURONS IN ANTERIOR PIRIFORM CORTEX

At first approximation, the anterior piriform cortex (APC) appears to be a homogenous structure in terms of connectivity and sensory processing. Feedforward excitatory afferent input innervates the APC uniformly throughout the cortex, as does the local recurrent excitatory input. Odors are represented by a distributed ensemble of neurons spread throughout the APC, showing no obvious columnar structure or topography. Still, this supposed homogeneity belies the abundant diversity of inhibitory processes that may underlie sensory processing of the piriform cortex. Unfortunately, current understanding of inhibitory interneurons and their function is fairly coarse, limiting our ability to model olfactory processing. Our research was focused on clarifying the quality of inhibition in anterior piriform cortex, specifically focusing on Layer 3 somatostatin-expressing interneurons, which mediate recurrent, feedback inhibition. We first characterized the types of inhibition seen in the APC and their potential functions. Using electrical stimulation of APC fiber tracts, we measured the relative balance of feedforward and recurrent excitation and inhibition onto the three major classes of excitatory cells in piriform cortex to understand the relative roles for each type of input onto piriform principal cells. Then, we characterized the electrophysiological and functional properties of interneurons in APC, including somatostatin cells, to better understand the diversity of cells in olfactory cortex. Finally, we were interested in the role of inhibition in mediating principal cell activity. To do this, we used a novel technology - Targeted Recombination of Active Populations (TRAP) - to molecularly label active neurons during exploration of a novel odor environment. We found that neurons responding to an odor are not distributed uniformly across the APC, but rather on a gradient along the rostrocaudal axis. Using optogenetics, we found a spatial bias of inhibition onto pyramidal cells that corroborated the TRAP data, as well as discovering a subclass of interneurons that receive an opposing rostrocaudal bias of inhibition - suggesting a possible role for disinhibition in sensory processing. We determined that somatostatin cells are poised to mediate asymmetric inhibition onto interneurons, and therefore asymmetric disinhibition onto pyramidal cells.
A Two-level Path Planning Method for On-road Autonomous Driving

We present a real-time path planning method for on-road autonomous driving. This method utilizes a two-level hierarchy consisting of on-road behavior planning and online path generating to achieve feasible paths for autonomous vehicle in dynamic on-road environment which is characterized by lots of structured information and flat terrain. An on-road behavior planning technique is used to transform the uncertain path planning problem into several determined sub-ones. Then, the online path planning algorithm is applied to solve these sub-problems. This method contains three major components: anytime behavioral replanning, online path planning and mitigation strategy for time lag due to an agent system with asynchronous multi-sensor. We evaluate the proposed method on the KUAFU-1, an autonomous vehicle prototype modified by ourselves. Experimental results show that the proposed method can successfully provide real-time feasible paths in various on-road traffic sceneries.
A Simple-to-Implement Method for Cutting a Mesh Model by a Hand-Drawn Stroke

In the field of Computational Geometry, the design of 3D models using hand drawn strokes has been well-studied in recent years as a way to improve user interfaces. When using hand-drawn strokes to design 3D models, an algo-rithm for cutting a model by a stroke is required. Previous algorithms have concentrated on precision and are expensive to implement. This paper gives priority to simplicity and robustness rather than precision. Firstly, mesh vertices near to the stroke are moved so that they lie on the stroke, to avoid numerical error. Then the stroke is simplified so that it crosses a triangle at most two times. With this approach, the number of patterns of triangle division that a system has to implement is reduced to only three. This reduces the time a developer must take to implement a cut operation for a sketching interface.
Remapped visual masking 2 3 4 School of Psychology , AQ 1 University of Aberdeen , UK

11 Cells in saccade control areas respond if a saccade is about to bring a target into their receptive fields (J. R. Duhamel, C. L. 12 Colby, & M. R. Goldberg, 1992). This remapping process should shift the retinal location from which attention selects target 13 information (P. Cavanagh, A. R. Hunt, S. R. Afraz, & M. Rolfs, 2010). We examined this attention shift in a masking experiment 14 where target and mask were presented just before an eye movement. In a control condition with no eye movement, masks 15 interfered with target identification only when they spatially overlapped. Just before a saccade, however, a mask overlapping 16 the target had less effect, whereas a mask placed in the target’s remapped location was quite effective. The remapped location 17 is the retinal position the target will have after the upcoming saccade, which corresponds to neither the retinotopic nor 18 spatiotopic location of the target before the saccade. Both effects are consistent with a pre-saccadic shift in the location from 19 which attention selects target information. In the case of retinally aligned target and mask, the shift of attention away from the 20 target location reduces masking, but when the mask appears at the target’s remapped location, attention’s shift to that location 21 brings in mask information that interferes with the target identification. 22
Fingering instability in buoyancy-driven fluid-filled cracks

The stability of buoyancy-driven propagation of a fluid-filled crack through an elastic solid is studied using a combination of theory and experiments. For the theory, the lubrication approximation is introduced for fluid flow, and the surrounding solid is described by linear elasticity. Solutions are then constructed for a planar fluid front driven by either constant flux or constant volume propagating down a pre-cut conduit. As the thickness of the pre-cut conduit approaches zero, it is shown how these fronts converge to zero-toughness fracture solutions with a genuine crack tip. The linear stability of the planar solutions towards transverse, finger-like perturbations is then examined. Instabilities are detected that are analogous to those operating in the surface-tension-driven fingering of advancing fluid contact lines. Experiments are conducted using a block of gelatin for the solid and golden syrup for the fluid. Again, planar cracks initiated by emplacing the syrup above a shallow cut on the surface of the gelatin develop transverse, finger-like structures as they descend. Potential geological applications are discussed.
Using Biosocial Criminology to Understand and Improve Treatment Outcomes

Research has extensively cataloged the types of interventions that prevent and treat antisocial behavior across the life course. Despite our knowledge of which interventions “work,” there is a limited understanding of why these practices are effective and who does (or does not) benefit from traditional evidence-based practices (EBPs). The current study reviews the literature on the biopsychological mechanisms and moderators of EBPs across the life course, and it provides recommendations to clinicians and program developers based on these findings. The literature typically shows that EBPs may reduce antisocial behavior because these programs alter clients’ biological systems responsible for stress response and self-regulation. Similarly, individuals who receive fewer benefits from EBPs have weaker stress responses, difficulty processing punishment, increased reward sensitivity, and problems with attention, self-regulation, and cognitive flexibility. The implications of these findings are discussed for each stage of the life course.