Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Shape Classification Using the Inner-Distance

Part structure and articulation are of fundamental importance in computer and human vision. We propose using the inner-distance to build shape descriptors that are robust to articulation and capture part structure. The inner-distance is defined as the length of the shortest path between landmark points within the shape silhouette. We show that it is articulation insensitive and more effective at capturing part structures than the Euclidean distance. This suggests that the inner-distance can be used as a replacement for the Euclidean distance to build more accurate descriptors for complex shapes, especially for those with articulated parts. In addition, texture information along the shortest path can be used to further improve shape classification. With this idea, we propose three approaches to using the inner-distance. The first method combines the inner-distance and multidimensional scaling (MDS) to build articulation invariant signatures for articulated shapes. The second method uses the inner-distance to build a new shape descriptor based on shape contexts. The third one extends the second one by considering the texture information along shortest paths. The proposed approaches have been tested on a variety of shape databases, including an articulated shape data set, MPEG7 CE-Shape-1, Kimia silhouettes, the ETH-80 data set, two leaf data sets, and a human motion silhouette data set. In all the experiments, our methods demonstrate effective performance compared with other algorithms
Acculturation of prospective German physical education teachers

Studies of prospective physical education teachers’ (PPETs’) acculturation have been useful in terms of facilitating the development of effective physical education teacher education (PETE) programmes because they provide teacher education faculty with a description of incoming recruits’ values and beliefs and an understanding of how these values and beliefs are shaped. Research exclusively focused on the acculturation of PPETs is, however, scarce. Research on pre-service and in-service physical education (PE) teachers that has included an acculturation component has mostly been completed in the United States. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to examine the acculturation of 10 German PPETs. The two research questions we attempted to answer were: (a) “What were the PPETs’ values, beliefs, and perspectives regarding PE? ” and (b) “What factors shaped these values, beliefs and perspectives? ” Data were collected using three types of interviewing. Analysis involved coding and categorizing data with analytic induction and constant comparison and reducing them to meaningful themes. Findings revealed that eight PPETs had well-developed and comparatively sophisticated conservative teaching orientations primarily focused on teaching traditional German sports. Two PPETs had more progressive teaching orientations in that they favored teaching a wider range of content and were more focused on health-related fitness. The key subsidiary attractors to a career in PE for this group of PPETs were remaining connected to sport and working with young people. Three factors that shaped the PPETs’ values and beliefs were similar to those revealed in previous research. These were family and friends, the apprenticeship of observation, and youth sport. The people and institutions that comprised these factors, however, operated in different modes within the German context. In addition, PPETs’ career choices were solidified by their experiences of teaching, coaching, and officiating, and the type of teaching orientation they possessed reflected the timing of these choices. The study also revealed that the PPETs entered PETE with a solid foundation of beliefs, values and perspectives regarding PE on which faculty could build. Findings also suggested, however, that German PETE faculty may have to deconstruct their charges’ conservative teaching orientations to some extent in order to create space in which to teach them new instructional models. The most important implication of this study for PETE in other countries is that the PPETs’ teaching orientations resulted primarily from a system that did not pit curricular PE against extracurricular sport.
Exotic Dance: An Exploratory Study of Disordered Eating, Substance Abuse, and Disembodiment

The current investigation measured rates of disordered eating and substance abuse among exotic dancers, evaluated the relationship between these rates and measures of embodiment, as well as the influence of club-type on these patterns. Of the seventy-five (75) female exotic dancer participants, ages 18-39 from across Ontario, 35% (n=26) were found to endorse disordered eating behaviour, 57% (n=43) were high risk for alcohol abuse, 63% (n=47) were high risk for drug abuse, and 20% (n=15) were found to be high risk for all three. Cluster analysis revealed two separate club-types: 1). Positive Club Environment; 2). Negative Club Environment. Significant relationships were found between all measures of embodiment and disordered eating. Level of body connectedness was negatively correlated with risk for alcohol abuse. While no relationship was found between club type and substance abuse or disordered eating, significant relationships were found between club type and all measures of embodiment.
Dissociative Versus Associative Responses to Social Identity Threat: The Role of Consumer Self-Construal

The current research examines the conditions under which consumers demonstrate associative versus dissociative responses to identity-linked products as a consequence of a social identity threat. Across four studies, the authors test the notion that reactions to social identity threat may be moderated by self-construal by examining subcultural differences in ethnic background, priming self-construal, and investigating cross-national differences in cultural background. Those with more independent self-construals tend to avoid identity-linked products when that identity is threatened versus not threatened. Those with more interdependent self-construals, in contrast, demonstrate more positive preferences for identity-linked products when that aspect of social identity is threatened. These effects arise because, while independents are motivated to restore positive self-worth when a social identity is threatened, interdependents access a repertoire of social identities to fulfill belongingness needs when threatened.
Neuropeptide Y in normal eating and in genetic and dietary-induced obesity

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is one the most potent orexigenic peptides found in the brain. It stimulates food intake with a preferential effect on carbohydrate intake. It decreases latency to eat, increases motivation to eat and delays satiety by augmenting meal size. The effects on feeding are mediated through at least two receptors, the Y1 and Y5 receptors. The NPY system for feeding regulation is mostly located in the hypothalamus. It is formed of the arcuate nucleus (ARC), where the peptide is synthesized, and the paraventricular (PVN), dorsomedial (DMN) and ventromedial (VMN) nuclei and perifornical area where it is active. This activity is modulated by the hindbrain and limbic structures. It is dependent on energy availability, e.g. upregulation with food deprivation or restriction, and return to baseline with refeeding. It is also sensitive to diet composition with variable effects of carbohydrates and fats. Leptin signalling and glucose sensing which are directly linked to diet type are the most important factors involved in its regulation. Absence of leptin signalling in obesity models due to gene mutation either at the receptor level, as in the Zucker rat, the Koletsky rat or the db/db mouse, or at the peptide level, as in ob/ob mouse, is associated with increased mRNA abundance, peptide content and/or release in the ARC or PVN. Other genetic obesity models, such as the Otsuka–Long–Evans–Tokushima Fatty rat, the agouti mouse or the tubby mouse, are characterized by a diminution in NPY expression in the ARC nucleus and by a significant increase in the DMN. Further studies are necessary to determine the exact role of NPY in these latter models. Long-term exposure to high-fat or high-energy palatable diets leads to the development of adiposity and is associated with a decrease in hypothalamic NPY content or expression, consistent with the existence of a counter-regulatory mechanism to diminish energy intake and limit obesity development. On the other hand, an overactive NPY system (increased mRNA expression in the ARC associated with an upregulation of the receptors) is characteristic of rats or rodent strains sensitive to dietary-induced obesity. Finally, NPY appears to play an important role in body weight and feeding regulation, and while it does not constitute the only target for drug treatment of obesity, it may nevertheless provide a useful target in conjunction with others.
Impact of Information Technology on Mathematics Education - A Slovenian Experience

This paper deals with the effects of integration of information technology in mathematics education. For this purpose we study the effects information technology has on both the content of mathematical courses as well as the way of presentation of the content. We find out that the content and educational goals should not be changed radically as the main purpose of mathematics is to enhance the mind of the students. On the other hand, information technology can have both, various positive and also negative effects on the way these goals are achieved. As we know, with the Internet it is easier to include practical examples and project work and therefore the usefulness of the course increases. With the increase in its usefulness, as perceived by the students, other positive effects (such as reduction of needed effort and better clarity) can also be achieved. These findings are confirmed with the data gathered from various surveys. We focus specially on mathematical education for non-technical students in Slovenia, but the results can be extended to other countries as well.
Multiple Description Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering for Robust Wireless Video Transmission

Multiple description coding (MDC) is used to improve the error resilience of video transmitted over unreliable wireless networks. However, MDC does not address two other important challenges associated with robust video transmission: adaptation to bandwidth variations and receiver capabilities. We propose a new scheme for MDC, using wavelet based interframe coding schemes, that results in highly efficient and error resilient bitstreams, that are also spatio-temporal-SNR scalable to allow for easy adaptation to network and device variations. We use the inherent ability of lifting based motion compensated temporal filtering schemes to recover missing information, and partition the resulting bitstreams so that the video may be transmitted over multiple channels. We vary the amount of redundancy introduced through this partitioning to increase the robustness to packet-losses, and present video quality results under different loss scenarios and bandwidth conditions. Evaluation over a large set of network conditions showed that the proposed MDC significantly outperforms previously reported MDC schemes in terms of resilience and coding efficiency, while having the additional advantage of being adaptive to bandwidth variations and device characteristics.
A Flexible Approach to Secure and Fair Document Exchange

This paper presents a novel protocol for achieving secure and fair document exchange among multiparties. The protocol has the following characteristics: it employs no trusted (third) party when a majority of the parties involved behave honestly; it adopts a technique for integrity and originality verification of messages without use of either asymmetric (public key) or symmetric (conventional) encryption; and it maximises the use of hash and polynomial functions. In comparison with existing protocols, this new protocol has a number of advantages such as better flexibility and reliability. The protocol is also assessed with respect to a set of requirements such as atomicity and assurance.
Three-year longitudinal study of perceptions of competence and well-being among youth exposed to disasters

ABSTRACT This article examines perceptions of competence/well-being over time and linkages to exposure to natural disaster experiences and stress associated with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in youth. A multi-wave naturalistic design was used to follow N = 3,399 students, ages 8–18 years who were evaluated for perceptions of competence/well-being, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, hurricane exposure experiences, and stress related to the oil spill at three time points across three years. Examination of longitudinal trajectories of competence/well-being revealed growth within youth over time. Age predicted trajectories of competence/well-being, such that older youth had higher ratings of competence/well-being; however, with higher oil spill stress, older youth experienced declines in competence/well-being post-oil spill. There was a negative association between PTSD symptoms and competence/well-being. Findings suggest that perceptions of competence/well-being may be compromised by exposure to disasters, but if maintained may serve as a protective factor.
Three laws of feedback systems: entropy rate never decreases, generalized Bode integral, absolute lower bound in variance minimization, Gaussianity-whiteness measure (joint Shannon-Wiener entropy), Gaussianing-whitening control, and beyond

This paper aims at obtaining universal laws and absolute lower bounds of feedback systems using information theory. The feedback system setup is that with causal plants and causal controllers. Three laws (entropy rate never decreases, generalized Bode integral, and absolute lower bound in variance minimization) are obtained, which are in entropy domain, frequency domain, and time domain, respectively. Those laws characterize the fundamental limitations of such systems imposed by the feedback mechanism. Two new notions, negentropy rate and Gaussianity-whiteness measure (joint Shannon-Wiener entropy), are proposed to facilitate the analysis. Topics such as whiteness-Gaussianity-variance decomposition, Gaussianing-whitening control (the maximum Gaussianity-whiteness measure principle), whitening control (spectrum/spectral flattening control), generalized Bode plot, and so on are also discussed. The special case of linear time-invariant feedback systems is considered in the end.
Fuzzy LP-SVMs for Multiclass Problems

In this paper, we propose fuzzy linear programming sup- port vector machines (LP-SVMs) that resolve unclassifiable regions for multiclass problems. Namely, in the directions orthogonal to the deci- sion functions obtained by training the LP-SVM, we define membership functions. Then by the minimum or average operation for these mem- bership functions we define a membership function for each class. We evaluate one-against-all and pairwise fuzzy LP-SVMs for some bench- mark data sets and demonstrate the superiority of our fuzzy LP-SVMs over conventional LP-SVMs.
Species‐specificity of the cohesin‐dockerin interaction between Clostridium thermocellum and Clostridium cellulolyticum: Prediction of specificity determinants of the dockerin domain

The cross‐species specificity of the cohesin–dockerin interaction, which defines the incorporation of the enzymatic subunits into the cellulosome complex, has been investigated. Cohesin‐containing segments from the cellulosomes of two different species, Clostridium thermocellum and Clostridium cellulolyticum, were allowed to interact with cellulosomal (dockerin‐containing) enzymes from each species. In both cases, the cohesin domain of one bacterium interacted with enzymes from its own cellulosome in a calcium‐dependent manner, but the same cohesin failed to recognize enzymes from the other species. Thus, in the case of these two bacteria, the cohesin–dockerin interaction seems to be species‐specific. Based on intra‐ and cross‐species sequence comparisons among the different dockerins together with their known specificities, we tender a prediction as to the amino‐acid residues critical to recognition of the cohesins. The suspected residues were narrowed down to only four, which comprise a repeated pair located within the calcium‐binding motif of two duplicated sequences, characteristic of the dockerin domain. According to the proposed model, these four residues do not participate in the binding of calcium per se; instead, they appear to serve as recognition codes in promoting interaction with the cohesin surface. Proteins 29:517–527, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Under Consideration for Publication in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming Concurrent Goal-based Execution of Constraint Handling Rules

We introduce a systematic, concurrent execution scheme for Constraint Handling Rules (CHR) based on a previously proposed sequential goal-based CHR semantics. We establish strong correspondence results to the abstract CHR semantics, thus guaranteeing that any answer in the concurrent, goal-based CHR semantics is reproducible in the abstract CHR semantics. Our work provides the foundation to obtain efficient, parallel CHR execution schemes.
Detection of Cracks and Corrosion for Automated Vessels Visual Inspection

Vessel maintenance entails periodic visual inspections of internal and external parts of the vessel hull in order to detect cracks and corroded areas. Typically, this is done by trained surveyors at great cost. Clearly, assisting them during the inspection process by means of a fleet of robots capable of defect detection would decrease the inspection cost. In this paper, two algorithms are presented for visual detection of the aforementioned two kinds of defects. On the one hand, the crack detector is based on a percolation process that exploits the morphological properties of cracks in steel surfaces. On the other hand, the corrosion detector follows a supervised classification approach taking profit from the spatial distribution of color in rusty areas. Both algorithms have shown successful rates of detection with close to real-time performance.
Genome sequence of an industrial microorganism Streptomyces avermitilis: Deducing the ability of producing secondary metabolites

Streptomyces avermitilis is a soil bacterium that carries out not only a complex morphological differentiation but also the production of secondary metabolites, one of which, avermectin, is commercially important in human and veterinary medicine. The major interest in this genus Streptomyces is the diversity of its production of secondary metabolites as an industrial microorganism. A major factor in its prominence as a producer of the variety of secondary metabolites is its possession of several metabolic pathways for biosynthesis. Here we report sequence analysis of S. avermitilis, covering 99% of its genome. At least 8.7 million base pairs exist in the linear chromosome; this is the largest bacterial genome sequence, and it provides insights into the intrinsic diversity of the production of the secondary metabolites of Streptomyces. Twenty-five kinds of secondary metabolite gene clusters were found in the genome of S. avermitilis. Four of them are concerned with the biosyntheses of melanin pigments, in which two clusters encode tyrosinase and its cofactor, another two encode an ochronotic pigment derived from homogentiginic acid, and another polyketide-derived melanin. The gene clusters for carotenoid and siderophore biosyntheses are composed of seven and five genes, respectively. There are eight kinds of gene clusters for type-I polyketide compound biosyntheses, and two clusters are involved in the biosyntheses of type-II polyketide-derived compounds. Furthermore, a polyketide synthase that resembles phloroglucinol synthase was detected. Eight clusters are involved in the biosyntheses of peptide compounds that are synthesized by nonribosomal peptide synthetases. These secondary metabolite clusters are widely located in the genome but half of them are near both ends of the genome. The total length of these clusters occupies about 6.4% of the genome.
Interferometric Mapping of Magnetic Fields in Star-forming Regions. II. NGC 2024 FIR 5

We present the first interferometric polarization maps of the NGC 2024 FIR 5 molecular core, obtained with the BIMA array at approximately 2'' resolution. We measure an average position angle of -60° ± 6° in the main core of FIR 5 and 54° ± 9° in the eastern wing of FIR 5. The morphology of the polarization angles in the main core of FIR 5 suggests that the field lines are parabolic, with a symmetry axis approximately parallel to the major axis of the putative disk in FIR 5, which is consistent with the theoretical scenario that the gravitational collapse pulled the field lines into an hourglass shape. The polarization percentage decreases toward regions with high intensity and close to the center of the core, suggesting that the dust alignment efficiency may decrease at high density. The plane-of-sky field strength can be estimated with the modified Chandrasekhar-Fermi formula, and the small dispersion of the polarization angles in FIR 5 suggests that the magnetic field is strong (≳2 mG) and perhaps dominates the turbulent motions in the core.
Systematic Endobronchial Ultrasound-guided Mediastinal Staging Versus Positron Emission Tomography for Comprehensive Mediastinal Staging in NSCLC Before Radical Radiotherapy of Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

AbstractDespite known limitations of positron emission tomography (PET) for mediastinal staging of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), radiation treatment fields are generally based on PET-identified disease extent. However, no studies have examined the accuracy of FDG-PET/CT on a per-node basis in patients being considered for curative-intent radiotherapy in NSCLC.In a prospective trial, patients with NSCLC being considered for definitive thoracic radiotherapy (± systemic chemotherapy) underwent minimally invasive systematic mediastinal evaluation with endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) following noninvasive staging with integrated PET-CT.Thirty patients underwent EBUS-TBNA, with TBNA performed from a mean 2.5 lymph node (LN) stations per patient (median 3, range 1–5). Discordant findings between PET-CT and EBUS-TBNA were observed in 10 patients (33%, 95% CI 19%–51%). PET-occult LN metastases were demonstrated by EBUS in 4 patients, whereas a lesser extent of mediastinal involvement, compared with FDG-PET, was demonstrated by EBUS in 6 patients, including 2 patients downstaged from cN3 to pN2. LNs upstaged by EBUS were significantly smaller than nodes downstaged by EBUS, 7.5 mm (range 7–9) versus 12 mm (range 6–21), P = 0.005. A significant proportion of patients considered for definitive radiotherapy (+/-chemotherapy) undergoing systematic mediastinal evaluation with EBUS-TBNA in this study have an extent of mediastinal NSCLC involvement discordant with that indicated by PET-CT. Systematic EBUS-TBNA may aid in defining the extent of mediastinal involvement in NSCLC patients undergoing radiotherapy. Systematic EBUS-TBNA has the potential to contribute significantly to radiotherapy planning and delivery, by either identifying occult nodal metastases, or demonstrating FDG-avid LNs to be disease-free.