Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multifeature Dictionary Learning for Collaborative Representation Classification of Hyperspectral Imagery

Recently, multifeature learning in collaborative representation classification (CRC) for hyperspectral images has generated promising performance. In this paper, two novel multifeature learning algorithms that update dictionary directly and indirectly are proposed. In order to offer the complementarity of multifeature, four different types of features—global feature (i.e., Gabor feature), local feature (i.e., local binary pattern), shape feature (i.e., extended multiattribute profiles), and spectral feature—are adopted in this paper. Under the hypothesis that most of the features should share the same coding pattern in CRC, this paper proposes to learn proper dictionaries for each feature until obtaining stable codes in a linear classifier. Furthermore, to avoid the explicit mapping of infinite-dimensional dictionaries in a nonlinear kernelized classifier, an indirect approach to construct the transformation matrix from original dictionaries to learn new dictionaries is developed. Three real hyperspectral images acquired from different sensors are adopted for performance evaluation. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed methods can provide superior performance compared with those of the state-of-the-art classifiers.
CPCR: Contact-prediction clustering-based routing in large-scale urban Delay Tolerant Networks

Routing in Public Transport Networks is particularly challenging due to the high mobility, rapidly changing topology. Though clustering of nodes can aid forwarding decision in these Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs), centralized clustering cannot adapt to large scale DTNs for the temporary connections. Moreover, it is critical to choose proper clustering metrics. In this paper, we propose a contact-predict clustering-based routing algorithm, CPCR, for large-scale urban DTNs. This algorithm computes the probability for each node pair and cluster nodes into higher contact-strength clusters using nodal local contact information in a distributed way. Depending on the clusters, intra-cluster and inter-cluster routing strategies will be adopted. Extensive simulations indicate that CPCR maintains relatively stable clusters and enhances the routing performance. The results demonstrate that clustering-based routing algorithm is rational and promising for large-scale urban DTNs.
FTIR AND DSC STUDIES OF MECHANICALLY DEFORMED β-PVDF FILMS

Films of semicrystalline poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) in the β-phase were studied by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The main goal of this study was to improve the understanding of the structural changes that occur in β-PVDF during a mechanical deformation process. FTIR spectroscopy was used to examine the structural variations as a function of strain. DSC data allowed measurement of the melting temperatures and enthalpies of the material before and after deformation, providing information about the changes in the crystalline fraction. After the molecular vibrations were assigned to the corresponding vibrational modes, we investigated the energy and intensity variations of these vibrations at different deformations. A reorientation of the chains from perpendicular to parallel to the stress direction was observed to occur in the plastic region. During the deformation, a decrease in the degree of crystallinity of the material was observed, but the thickness of the lamellae did not change significantly.
Handheld photoacoustic tomography probe built using optical-fiber parallel acoustic delay lines

Abstract. The development of the first miniaturized parallel acoustic delay line (PADL) probe for handheld photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is reported. Using fused-silica optical fibers with low acoustic attenuation, we constructed two arrays of eight PADLs. Precision laser micromachining was conducted to produce robust and accurate mechanical support and alignment structures for the PADLs, with minimal acoustic distortion and interchannel coupling. The 16 optical-fiber PADLs, each with a different time delay, were arranged to form one input port and two output ports. A handheld PADL probe was constructed using two single-element transducers and two data acquisition channels (equal to a channel reduction ratio of 8∶1). Photoacoustic (PA) images of a black-ink target embedded in an optically scattering phantom were successfully acquired. After traveling through the PADLs, the eight channels of differently time-delayed PA signals reached each single-element ultrasonic transducer in a designated nonoverlapping time series, allowing clear signal separation for PA image reconstruction. Our results show that the PADL technique and the handheld probe can potentially enable real-time PAT, while significantly reducing the complexity and cost of the ultrasound receiver system.
Information interaction in molecular medicine: integrated use of multiple channels

Task-based information access is a significant context for studying information interaction and for developing information retrieval (IR) systems. Molecular medicine (MM) is an information-intensive and rapidly growing task domain, which aims at providing new approaches to the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of various diseases. The development of bioinformatics databases and tools has led to an extremely distributed information environment. There are numerous generic and domain-specific tools and databases available for online information access. This renders MM as a fruitful context for research in task-based IR. The present paper examines empirically task-based information access in MM and analyzes task processes as contexts of information access and interaction, integrated use of resources in information access and the limitations of (simple server-side) log analysis in understanding information access, retrieval sessions in particular. We shed light on the complexity of the between-systems interaction. The findings suggest that the system development should not be done in isolation as there is considerable interaction between them in real world use. We also classify system-level strategies of information access integration that can be used to reduce the amount of manual system integration by task performers.
Pathological Gamblers and a Non-Psychiatric Control Group Taking Gender Differences into Account

Abstract The current study aimed to identify personality traits, emotional states and adjustment variables in a sample of pathological gamblers as compared to a non-gambling control group taking gender differences into account. The sample for this study consisted of 206 subjects (103 pathological gamblers and 103 non-psychiatric subjects from the general population matched for age and gender). Pathological gamblers had a lower educational level and a family history of alcohol abuse higher than non-gamblers. In turn, female gamblers were affected by unemployment and a lower socioeconomic status more often than female non-gamblers. Pathological gamblers were more anxious and impulsive and suffered from a poorer self-esteem than non-gamblers. Likewise, pathological gamblers had a greater history of other Axis I psychiatric disorders and were more often affected by anxiety and depression symptoms and showed a more problematic adjustment to everyday life than non-gamblers. Alcohol abuse was not higher in pathological gamblers than in non-gamblers, but, when gender was taken into account, male gamblers were more affected by alcohol abuse than male non-gamblers. Importantly 68.6% of female gamblers versus 9.8% of control group women reported being victims of intimate partner violence. These findings can be used to specifically inform prevention and intervention efforts.
ON THE THERMALLY ACTIVATED MECHANISM OF PRISMATIC SLIP IN MAGNESIUM SINGLE CRYSTALS. Technical Report No. 7

The effect of strain and strain rate on the critical resolved shear stress for prismatic slip in specially oriented single magnesium crystals was determined over a range of temperatures to identify the thermally activated strain-rate controlling dislocation process. Below about 450 deg K prismatic slip was preceded by twinning and fracturing. Above 450 deg K extensive prismatic slip was obtained followed by fracturing. Neither the Peierls' mechanism nor the dislocation intersection mechanism can account for the observations. The data are in excellent agreement with the dictates of Friedel's theory for cross-slip to the prismatic plane. (auth)
The Determinants and Consequences of the Placement of Government Programs in Indonesia

Most estimates of the consequences of public programs rely on the cross-sectional association between region-specific programs and program outcomes. Such estimates assume that the spatial distribution of programs is random. This article reports estimates of the effects of public programs on basic human capital indicators and the biases in conventional cross-sectional estimates of program effects due to non-random program placement. The estimates are obtained from pooled observations on human capital outcomes, socioeconomic variables, and program coverage at the kecamatan (subdistrict) level. The observations are based on successive sets of Indonesian cross-sectional household and administrative data during 1976-86. The determinants of the spatial allocation of programs in Indonesia in 1976-86 are also estimated. The empirical results indicate that the presence of grade and middle schools in villages has a significant positive effect on the school attendance rates of teenagers. The presence of health clinics in villages also positively affects the schooling of females ages 10-18. However, no evidence is found of any significant effects of the presence of family planning and health programs on either the survival rates of children or on cumulative fertility. The estimates also suggest that the use of cross-sectional data results in substantial biases in the estimates of program effects because of the evident nonrandom spatial allocation of public programs.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Manhattan , New York City , After the September 11 th Terrorist

Estimates of acute mental health symptoms in the general population after disasters are scarce. We assessed the prevalence and correlates of acute posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in residents of Manhattan 5–8 weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. We used random-digit dialing to contact a representative sample of adults living in Manhattan below 110th Street. Participants were interviewed about prior life events, personal characteristics, exposure to the events of September 11th, and psychological symptoms after the attack. Among 988 eligible adults, 19.3% reported symptoms consistent with PTSD at some point in their life, and 8.8% reported symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of current (within the past 30 days) PTSD. Overall, 57.8% of respondents reported at least one PTSD symptom in the past month. The most common past-month symptoms were intrusive memories (27.4%) and insomnia (24.5%). Predictors of current PTSD in a multivariable model were residence below Canal Street, low social support, life stressors 12 months prior to September 11th, perievent panic attack, losing possessions in the attacks, and involvement in the rescue efforts. These findings can help guide resource planning for future disasters in densely populated urban areas.
Dental Plaques: Microbial Community of the Oral Cavity

Dental plaques are the biofilms or the microbial population associated with the oral cavity and is responsible for several clinical conditions that affect the host system. Despite the fact that, the oral micro flora offer certain benefit to the host by offering protection to the epithelial cell from damage and enhances the digestion of some substrates, their harmful consequences cannot be denied. The oral cavity dwells over 700 different species of bacteria and is described as one of the most intricate ecosystem. Though majority of them are considered as commensally, some of them are responsible for oral infections ranging from cavities to periodontal diseases and gum related infections. The current review attempts to provide a better understanding of these bacterial communities of the oral cavity. The review provides the insights on dental plaque in general followed by the formation of these dental plaques and the stages involved in the growth and maturation of these dental biofilms. A wide range of micro flora is associated with dental plaques and the review has Attempted to list out the bacterial community at the respective clinical condition and their classification based on their location and stage of infection. The components and the consequences of the dental biofilms have addressed. The review also attempts to disclose the significance of molecular biological methods in improving the identification and characterization of the oral microbial community and has also focused on the possible treatment for dental plaques.
A new criterion for package integrity under solder reflow conditions

Moisture-induced package cracking during the solder reflow process is a critical reliability problem with plastic integrated circuit (IC) packaging. Such cracking, typically referred to as popcorning, occurs from the evaporation and expansion of moisture absorbed by the hygroscopic epoxy molding compound (EMC). Although the device may still test functionally good after assembly, the cracks introduce a path for ionic contaminants to infiltrate into the package and cause corrosion-induced failures. The following mechanism is proposed. Moisture in the outer and hotter portion of the EMC vaporizes first, while most of the moisture in the inner and cooler portion of the EMC remains in the liquid phase. Some localized hydrostatic pressure can become positive, generating subsequently high pressure that can initiate and propagate cracks. This paper reports the effects of the localized vaporization, which is a major albeit still neglected loading mode contributing to popcorning failures. For simplicity, only two-dimensional modeling problems are investigated in this phase of the study. Numerous moisture-induced cracking experimental data are examined to provide correlation with the proposed failure criterion. Among the parameters studied are package form factors, die-to-die pad ratio, molding compounds, moisture content, and heating profiles.
Prenatal Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon, Adiposity, Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor (PPAR) γ Methylation in Offspring, Grand-Offspring Mice

Rationale Greater levels of prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) have been associated with childhood obesity in epidemiological studies. However, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Objectives We hypothesized that prenatal PAH over-exposure during gestation would lead to weight gain and increased fat mass in offspring and grand-offspring mice. Further, we hypothesized that altered adipose gene expression and DNA methylation in genes important to adipocyte differentiation would be affected. Materials and Methods Pregnant dams were exposed to a nebulized PAH mixture versus negative control aerosol 5 days a week, for 3 weeks. Body weight was recorded from postnatal day (PND) 21 through PND60. Body composition, adipose cell size, gene expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) γ, CCAAT/enhancer-binding proteins (C/EBP) α, cyclooxygenase (Cox)-2, fatty acid synthase (FAS) and adiponectin, and DNA methylation of PPAR γ, were assayed in both the offspring and grand-offspring adipose tissue. Findings Offspring of dams exposed to greater PAH during gestation had increased weight, fat mass, as well as higher gene expression of PPAR γ, C/EBP α, Cox2, FAS and adiponectin and lower DNA methylation of PPAR γ. Similar differences in phenotype and DNA methylation extended through the grand-offspring mice. Conclusions Greater prenatal PAH exposure was associated with increased weight, fat mass, adipose gene expression and epigenetic changes in progeny.
Strain-tuning of single semiconductor quantum dots

Strain-tuning of single semiconductor quantum dots Polarization entangled photon pairs on demand are considered to be an important building block of quantum communication technology. It has been demonstrated that semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), which exhibit a certain spatial symmetry, can be used as a triggered, on-chip source of polarization entangled photon pairs. Due to limitations of the growth, the as-grown QDs usually do not exhibit the required symmetry, making the availability of post-growth tuning techniques essential. In this work first the QD-morphology of hundreds of QDs is correlated with the optical emission of neutral excitons confined in GaAs/AlGaAs QDs. It is presented how elastic anisotropic stress can be used to partially restore the symmetry of self-assembled GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/GaAs QDs, making them as candidate sources of entangled photon pairs. As a consequence of the tuning of the QD-anisotropy we observe a rotation of the polarization of the emitted light. The joint modification of polarization orientation and QD anisotropy can be described by an anticrossing of the so-called bright excitonic states. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that anisotropic stress can be used to tune the purity of the hole states of the QDs by modifying the degree of heavy and light hole mixing. This ability might be interesting for applications using the hole spin as a so-called quantum bit.
The Impact of National Culture on Sustainability Reporting: A Cross Country Analysis

This study investigates the influence of culture on governance, social and environmental sustainability across 59 countries. Hofstede's culture dimensions have been used as a measure of culture, RobecoSAM sustainability measure is used as a proxy for governance, social and environmental sustainability reporting. The results reveal the countries that are characterized by high power distance, masculinity, low individualism and long-term orientation are supposed to be less interested in sustainability reporting. To increase the sustainability reporting, it is essential for the government and decision-makers to give more focus to the culture as an important driver of sustainability.
Tensile Strength of Concrete Masonry

Sixty-three masonry disks were tested under splitting loads having different orientations from the bed joint direction. The influences of mortar type, grout strength, and bed joint reinforcement were studied. The results show that the tensile strength characteristics of either ungrouted or grouted masonry vary with the stress orientation that indicates the inherent anisotropic nature of masonry as a composite material. The contribution of grouting varies substantially with the stress orientation. It has a maximum contribution under tension stress normal to the bed joint whereas it has a negligible contribution under tension stress parallel to the bed joint. The mortar type had little influence on the tensile strength. The bed joint reinforcement only contributes to the capacity under tension stresses parallel to the bed joint.
Comparison of Helmet Therapy and Counter Positioning for Deformational Plagiocephaly

Objective To compare effectiveness on correcting cranial and ear asymmetry between helmet therapy and counter positioning for deformational plagiocephaly (DP). Methods Retrospective data of children diagnosed with DP who visited our clinic from November 2010 to October 2012 were reviewed. Subjects ≤10 months of age who showed ≥10 mm of diagonal difference were included for analysis. For DP treatment, information on both helmet therapy and counter positioning was given and either of the two was chosen by each family. Head circumference, cranial asymmetry measurements including diagonal difference, cranial vault asymmetry index, radial symmetry index, and ear shift were obtained by 3-dimensional head-surface laser scan at the time of initiation and termination of therapy. Results Twenty-seven subjects were included: 21 had helmet therapy and 6 underwent counter positioning. There was no significant difference of baseline characteristics, head circumferences and cranial asymmetry measurements at the initiation of therapy. The mean duration of therapy was 4.30±1.27 months in the helmet therapy group and 4.08±0.95 months in the counter positioning group (p=0.770). While cranial asymmetry measurements improved in both groups, significantly more improvement was observed with helmet therapy. There was no significant difference of the head circumference growth between the two groups at the end of therapy. Conclusion Helmet therapy resulted in more favorable outcomes in correcting cranial and ear asymmetry than counter positioning on moderate to severe DP without compromising head growth.
Accurate and scalable social recommendation using mixed-membership stochastic block models

Significance Recommendation systems are designed to predict users’ preferences and provide them with recommendations for items such as books or movies that suit their needs. Recent developments show that some probabilistic models for user preferences yield better predictions than latent feature models such as matrix factorization. However, it has not been possible to use them in real-world datasets because they are not computationally efficient. We have developed a rigorous probabilistic model that outperforms leading approaches for recommendation and whose parameters can be fitted efficiently with an algorithm whose running time scales linearly with the size of the dataset. This model and inference algorithm open the door to more approaches to recommendation and to other problems where matrix factorization is currently used. With increasing amounts of information available, modeling and predicting user preferences—for books or articles, for example—are becoming more important. We present a collaborative filtering model, with an associated scalable algorithm, that makes accurate predictions of users’ ratings. Like previous approaches, we assume that there are groups of users and of items and that the rating a user gives an item is determined by their respective group memberships. However, we allow each user and each item to belong simultaneously to mixtures of different groups and, unlike many popular approaches such as matrix factorization, we do not assume that users in each group prefer a single group of items. In particular, we do not assume that ratings depend linearly on a measure of similarity, but allow probability distributions of ratings to depend freely on the user’s and item’s groups. The resulting overlapping groups and predicted ratings can be inferred with an expectation-maximization algorithm whose running time scales linearly with the number of observed ratings. Our approach enables us to predict user preferences in large datasets and is considerably more accurate than the current algorithms for such large datasets.
Geometric edge barrier in the Shubnikov phase of type II superconductors

In type-II superconductors the magnetic response can be irreversible for two different reasons: vortex pinning and barriers to flux penetration. Even without bulk pinning and in the absence of a microscopic Bean–Livingston surface barrier for vortex penetration, superconductors of nonellipsoidal shape can exhibit a large geometric barrier for flux penetration. This edge barrier and the resulting irreversible magnetization loops and flux-density profiles are computed from continuum electrodynamics for superconductor strips and disks of constant thickness, both without and with bulk pinning. Expressions are given for the field of first flux entry Hen and for the reversibility field Hrev above which the pin-free magnetization becomes reversible. Both fields are proportional to the lower critical field Hc1 but otherwise depend only on the specimen shape. These results for rectangular cross section are compared with the well-known reversible magnetic behavior of ideal ellipsoids.