Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-time hyperspectral processing for automatic nonferrous material sorting

The application of hyperspectral sensors in the develop- ment of machine vision solutions has become increasingly popular as the spectral characteristics of the imaged materials are better mod- eled in the hyperspectral domain than in the standard trichromatic red, green, blue data. While there is no doubt that the availability of detailed spectral information is opportune as it opens the possibility to construct robust image descriptors, it also raises a substantial chal- lenge when this high-dimensional data is used in the development of real-time machine vision systems. To alleviate the computational demand, often decorrelation techniques are commonly applied prior to feature extraction. While this approach has reduced to some extent the size of the spectral descriptor, data decorrelation alone proved insufficient in attaining real-time classification. This fact is particularly apparent when pixel-wise image descriptors are not sufficiently robust to model the spectral characteristics of the imaged materials, a case when the spatial information (or textural properties) also has to be included in the classification process. The integration of spectral and spatial information entails a substantial computational cost, and as a result the prospects of real-time opera- tion for the developed machine vision system are compromised. To answer this requirement, in this paper we have reengineered the approach behind the integration of the spectral and spatial information in the material classification process to allow the real-time sorting of the nonferrous fractions that are contained in the waste of electric and electronic equipment scrap. © 2012 SPIE and IS&T. (DOI: 10.1117/ 1.JEI.21.1.013018)
A Terradynamics of Legged Locomotion on Granular Media

Walking on Sand Studies of objects moving through air or water have provided detailed models for designing objects with better flow dynamics. Examples include aircraft fins and wings, robots used as underwater probes, and even swimsuits to enhance swimmers' competitiveness. Much less is known about the mechanics of moving objects on or in materials that themselves have non-uniform dynamics. For example, when walking on a granular medium like sand, the moving leg and foot may penetrate to varying depths with small changes in material properties. Li et al. (p. 1408; see the Perspective by Hunt) study this system and develop a model for predicting the motion of legged bodies on granular media for a range of leg shapes and motion speeds. Factors that complicate the motion include leg shape and size and movement direction, as well as the size shape, and uniformity of the granular material. A model is developed to predict terrestrial animal locomotion on granular materials, where the terrain moves when stressed. [Also see Perspective by Hunt] The theories of aero- and hydrodynamics predict animal movement and device design in air and water through the computation of lift, drag, and thrust forces. Although models of terrestrial legged locomotion have focused on interactions with solid ground, many animals move on substrates that flow in response to intrusion. However, locomotor-ground interaction models on such flowable ground are often unavailable. We developed a force model for arbitrarily-shaped legs and bodies moving freely in granular media, and used this “terradynamics” to predict a small legged robot’s locomotion on granular media using various leg shapes and stride frequencies. Our study reveals a complex but generic dependence of stresses in granular media on intruder depth, orientation, and movement direction and gives insight into the effects of leg morphology and kinematics on movement.
Realizing 4-manifolds as achiral Lefschetz fibrations

We show that any 4-manifold, after surgery on a curve, admits an achiral Lefschetz fibration. In particular, if X is a simply connected 4-manifold we show that X#S × S and X#Se ×S both admit achiral Lefschetz fibrations. We also show these surgered manifolds admit near-symplectic structures and prove more generally that achiral Lefschetz fibrations with sections have near-symplectic structures. As a corollary to our proof we obtain an alternate proof of Gompf’s result on the existence of symplectic structures on Lefschetz pencils.
Quantifying Privacy Choices with Experimental Economics

The importance of personal privacy to Internet users has been extensively researched using a variety of survey techniques. The limitations of survey research are well-known and exist in part because there are no positive or negative consequences to responses provided by survey participants. Experimental economics is widely accepted by economists and others as an investigative technique that can provide measures of economic choice-making that are substantially more accurate than those provided by surveys. This paper describes our preliminary efforts at applying the techniques of experimental economics to provide a foundation for estimating the values that consumers place on privacy and various forms of security, such as encryption and HIPAA. In the activities described, experiment participants are graduate and undergraduate students currently seeking jobs. Preliminary results from two pilot experiments suggest that a complete set of experimental measures of choice-making will provide valuable quantification of behavior in Internet privacy/security space. These results also show that online job seekers place great value on security measures, both legislative and technical, that make identity theft much less likely.
Physical training improves endothelial function in patients with chronic heart failure.

BACKGROUND Chronic heart failure is associated with endothelial dysfunction including impaired endothelium-mediated, flow-dependent dilation (FDD). Since endothelial function is thought to play an important role in coordinating tissue perfusion and modulating arterial compliance, interventions to improve endothelial dysfunction are imperative. METHODS AND RESULTS To assess the potential of physical training to restore FDD, 12 patients with chronic heart failure were studied and compared with FDD of 7 age-matched normal subjects. With a recently developed high-resolution ultrasound system, diameters of radial artery were measured at rest, during reactive hyperemia (with increased flow causing endothelium-mediated dilation), and during sodium nitroprusside, causing endothelium-independent dilation. Determination of FDD was repeated after intra-arterial infusion of NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA, 7 mumol/min) to inhibit endothelial synthesis and release of nitric oxide. The protocol was performed at baseline, after 4 weeks of daily handgrip training, and 6 weeks after cessation of the training program. FDD was impaired in heart failure patients compared with normal subjects. L-NMMA attenuated FDD, indicating that the endothelial release of nitric oxide is involved in FDD. Physical training restored FDD in patients with heart failure. In particular, the portion of FDD inhibited by L-NMMA (representing FDD mediated by nitric oxide) was significantly higher after physical training (8-minute occlusion: 8.0 +/- 1% versus 5.4 +/- 0.9%; P < .05; normal subjects: 9.2 +/- 1%). CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that physical training restores FDD in patients with chronic heart failure, possibly by enhanced endothelial release of nitric oxide.
The Neural Basis for Category-Specific Knowledge: An fMRI Study

Functional neuroimaging studies of healthy adults have associated different categories of knowledge with distinct activation patterns. The basis for these recruitment patterns has been controversial, due in part to the limited range of categories that has been studied. We used fMRI to monitor regional cortical recruitment patterns while subjects were exposed to printed names of Animals, Implements, and Abstract nouns. Both Implements and Abstract nouns were related to recruitment of left posterolateral temporal cortex and left prefrontal cortex, and Abstract nouns additionally recruited posterolateral temporal and prefrontal regions of the right hemisphere. Animals were associated with activation of ventral-medial occipital cortex in the left hemisphere at a level that approaches significance. These findings are not consistent with the "sensory-motor" model proposed to explain the neural representation of word knowledge. We suggest instead a neural model of semantic memory that reflects the processes common to understanding Implements and Abstract nouns and a selective sensitivity, possibly evolving from adaptive pressures, to the overlapping, intercorrelated visual characteristics of Animals.
Health‐Promoting Behaviors Of African American Women

Limited information exists concerning health behaviors of African American women. The purposes of this study were to describe health-promoting lifestyle behaviors among a sample of 187 African American women and to compare finding to other published reports on the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP) instrument. Subscales with the highest means in this study were interpersonal support and self-actualization. However, when compared to reports of HPLP scores for other groups, total HPLP and subscale scores of women in this study were generally lower. Readability and applicability of the HPLP instrument may affect its validity and reliability in a diverse sample.
Mito-nuclear co-evolution: the positive and negative sides of functional ancient mutations

Most cell functions are carried out by interacting factors, thus underlying the functional importance of genetic interactions between genes, termed epistasis. Epistasis could be under strong selective pressures especially in conditions where the mutation rate of one of the interacting partners notably differs from the other. Accordingly, the order of magnitude higher mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutation rate as compared to the nuclear DNA (nDNA) of all tested animals, should influence systems involving mitochondrial-nuclear (mito-nuclear) interactions. Such is the case of the energy producing oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and mitochondrial translational machineries which are comprised of factors encoded by both the mtDNA and the nDNA. Additionally, the mitochondrial RNA transcription and mtDNA replication systems are operated by nDNA-encoded proteins that bind mtDNA regulatory elements. As these systems are central to cell life there is strong selection toward mito-nuclear co-evolution to maintain their function. However, it is unclear whether (A) mito-nuclear co-evolution befalls only to retain mitochondrial functions during evolution or, also, (B) serves as an adaptive tool to adjust for the evolving energetic demands as species’ complexity increases. As the first step to answer these questions we discuss evidence of both negative and adaptive (positive) selection acting on the mtDNA and nDNA-encoded genes and the effect of both types of selection on mito-nuclear interacting factors. Emphasis is given to the crucial role of recurrent ancient (nodal) mutations in such selective events. We apply this point-of-view to the three available types of mito-nuclear co-evolution: protein–protein (within the OXPHOS system), protein-RNA (mainly within the mitochondrial ribosome), and protein-DNA (at the mitochondrial replication and transcription machineries).
Taxes Versus Quotas for a Stock Pollutant

We compare the effects of taxes and quotas for an environmental problem where the regulator and polluter have asymmetric information about abatement costs, and environmental damage depends on pollution stock. An increase in the slope of the marginal abatement cost curve, or a decrease in the slope of the marginal damage curve, favors taxes. An increase in the discount rate or the stock decay rate favors tax usage. Taxes dominate quotas if the length of a period during which decisions are constant is sufficiently small. An empirical illustration suggests that taxes dominate quotas for the control of greenhouse gasses.
Empirical properties of asset returns: stylized facts and statistical issues

We present a set of stylized empirical facts emerging from the statistical analysis of price variations in various types of financial markets. We first discuss some general issues common to all statistical studies of financial time series. Various statistical properties of asset returns are then described: distributional properties, tail properties and extreme fluctuations, pathwise regularity, linear and nonlinear dependence of returns in time and across stocks. Our description emphasizes properties common to a wide variety of markets and instruments. We then show how these statistical properties invalidate many of the common statistical approaches used to study financial data sets and examine some of the statistical problems encountered in each case.
Damage evaluation for the dispersed microdefects with the aid of M-integral

A unified method of evaluating the dispersed microdefects’ equivalent damage area/volume is innovatively proposed by using the M-integral. The corresponding damage evolution rate and fatigue driving force is preliminarily studied for the dispersed microdefects. First, the analytical expression of M-integral is deduced by using the Lagrangian energy density function (Λ), and the corresponding physical meaning of the M-integral is elucidated as the change of the total potential energy due to the damage evolution. Second, the actual damage area/volume induced by underlying dispersed microdefects are assumed equivalent to the area/volume of an individual circular/spherical void while the corresponding values of the M-integral for both cases are equal. As examples, the equivalent damage area associated with the M-integral for a series of representative defect(s) configurations is calculated, including the singular defect (void, crack, and ellipse) and the interactive defects (two voids, two cracks, one void, and one crack). The influences of the defects interaction effect and distribution on the damage level are analyzed quantitatively. Finally, the present method of damage evaluation is proposed to predict fatigue problems of the dispersed defects. A unified fatigue damage evolution law for the dispersed microdefects is preliminarily defined, and a protocol to experimentally measure the damage evolution rate is proposed. The present research will be beneficial to the damage tolerance design and lifetime prediction of engineering structures with dispersed microdefects.
The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database's 10th year anniversary: update 2015

Ten years ago, the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD; http://ctdbase.org/) was developed out of a need to formalize, harmonize and centralize the information on numerous genes and proteins responding to environmental toxic agents across diverse species. CTD's initial approach was to facilitate comparisons of nucleotide and protein sequences of toxicologically significant genes by curating these sequences and electronically annotating them with chemical terms from their associated references. Since then, however, CTD has vastly expanded its scope to robustly represent a triad of chemical–gene, chemical–disease and gene–disease interactions that are manually curated from the scientific literature by professional biocurators using controlled vocabularies, ontologies and structured notation. Today, CTD includes 24 million toxicogenomic connections relating chemicals/drugs, genes/proteins, diseases, taxa, phenotypes, Gene Ontology annotations, pathways and interaction modules. In this 10th year anniversary update, we outline the evolution of CTD, including our increased data content, new ‘Pathway View’ visualization tool, enhanced curation practices, pilot chemical–phenotype results and impending exposure data set. The prototype database originally described in our first report has transformed into a sophisticated resource used actively today to help scientists develop and test hypotheses about the etiologies of environmentally influenced diseases.
Zames-Falb Multipliers for Quadratic Programming

In constrained linear model predictive control, a quadratic program must be solved on-line at each control step, and this constitutes a nonlinearity. If zero is a feasible point for this quadratic program then the resultant nonlinearity is sector bounded. We show that if the nonlinearity is static then it is also monotone and slope restricted; hence, we show the existence of Zames-Falb multipliers for such a nonlinearity. The multipliers may be used in a general and versatile analysis of the robust stability of input constrained model predictive control.
Simultaneous Spectrophotometric Determination of Hg^2+, Pb^2+, and Cu^2+ by Zn(dmit) Using the Multivariate Calibration Method

This work investigates the applicability of the anionic complex [NBu_4]_2[Zn(1,3-dithiol-2-tione-4,5-dithiolate)_2] on the simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of transition metals. Principal Component Regression was used in the data analysis. This method was used to determine Hg^2+, Cu^2+ and Pb^2+ in water solution, at t = 0, 20 and 60 min of reaction. The root mean square errors (rms) for Hg^2+, Cu^2+, Pb^2+ were 1.92 × 10^–7, 1.89 × 10^–7 and 9.35 × 10^–8 for t = 0 min, 1.79 × 10^–7, 2.1 × 10^–7 and 2.22 × 10^–7 for t = 20 min and 1.22 × 10^–7, 1.31 × 10^–7 and 1.10 × 10^–7 for t = 60 min, respectively. Results showed the viability of the method in determining concentrations of metallic ions in aqueous medium with high spectral overlap. It is an efficient alternative method for exploring the kinetic behavior of multi-components systems of interest in physicochemical research.
Formation of mineral phases in self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) of porous TiNi alloy

The complex structural-phase composition, morphology and elemental composition of surface and nonmetallics in porous TiNi compounds produced by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) in a flow reactor in the layer-by-layer combustion mode were analyzed. The samples were investigated using light microscopy (LM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The findings indicate that in addition to the TiNi and Ti2Ni intermetallic constituents, the pore’s surface contains numerous Ti4Ni2(O,N,C) nanocrystalline oxycarbonitrides, spinels, polysilicates, and residual amorphous phases. The elemental composition of the surface and crystalline inclusions is investigated by the EDS method. LM, SEM, TEM, and EDS instrumental examination revealed the entire surface comprising a continuous shell of intermetallic superficial bulb-shaped structures, as well as crystalline inclusions of polysilicates and spinels in the intergranular peritectic phase. Prominent morphology was confirmed to appear throughout the pore’s surface owing to the interaction of the peritectic liquid (PL) with reaction gases. The epitaxial, nanocrystalline strata of intermetallic oxycarbonitrides were shown to have the intricate nature. Reaction gases chemisorbed by the PL are responsible for the continuous and dense substrate, which ultrafine structure modulates a high corrosion resistance. On the contrary, the sparse and foamy overlay resulted from a convective transfer of the PL by reaction gases facilitates in vivo bio-integration of the alloy. Overall, this sheds light on and may be more indicative of the complex role of superficial strata and nonmetallic crystals in enhanced biocompatibility of the unwrought porous TiNi alloy.
Collaborative Intent Prediction with Real-Time Contextual Data

Intelligent personal assistants on mobile devices such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft Cortana are increasingly important. Instead of passively reacting to queries, they provide users with brand new proactive experiences that aim to offer the right information at the right time. It is, therefore, crucial for personal assistants to understand users’ intent, that is, what information users need now. Intent is closely related to context. Various contextual signals, including spatio-temporal information and users’ activities, can signify users’ intent. It is, however, challenging to model the correlation between intent and context. Intent and context are highly dynamic and often sequentially correlated. Contextual signals are usually sparse, heterogeneous, and not simultaneously available. We propose an innovative collaborative nowcasting model to jointly address all these issues. The model effectively addresses the complex sequential and concurring correlation between context and intent and recognizes users’ real-time intent with continuously arrived contextual signals. We extensively evaluate the proposed model with real-world data sets from a commercial personal assistant. The results validate the effectiveness the proposed model, and demonstrate its capability of handling the real-time flow of contextual signals. The studied problem and model also provide inspiring implications for new paradigms of recommendation on mobile intelligent devices.
Pain recognition and intensity rating based on Comparative Learning

Automatic pain recognition can improve medical treatment, especially when the patient is not able to utter on his pain experience. Facial expressions with their intensities and dynamics contain valuable information for recognising pain. We propose a concept for distinguishing facial expressions of pain from others and assessing the pain expression intensity. It is based on a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier and a function model for intensity rating. The intensity model is trained using Comparative Learning, a new technique that simplifies labelling of the data. Using a database of 3D posed pain sequences we show the suitability of the concept to recognise pain expressions, distinguish different intensities and spot even slight intensity changes in its temporal context.
Cocaine-Associated Seizures and Incidence of Status Epilepticus

Objectives: Acute complications from cocaine abuse are commonly treated in the emergency department (ED); one of the most consequential is status epilepticus. The incidence of this complication is not clearly defined in the prior literature on cocaine-associated sequelae. We evaluated the incidence of status epilepticus in patients with seizures secondary to suspected cocaine use. Methods: We performed a retrospective multi-center study of patients with seizures resulting from cocaine use. We identified study subjects at 15 hospitals by record review and conducted a computer-assisted records search to identify patients with seizures for each institution over a four-year period. We selected subjects from this group on the basis of cocaine use and determined the occurrence of status epilepticus among them. Data were collected on each subject using a standardized data collection form. Results: We evaluated 43 patients in the ED for cocaine-associated seizures. Their age range was 17 to 54, with a mean age was 31 years; 53% were male. Of 43 patients, 42 experienced a single tonic-clonic seizure and one developed status epilepticus. All patients had either a history of cocaine use or positive urine drug screen for cocaine. Conclusion: Despite reported cases of status epilepticus with cocaine-induced seizures, the incidence of this complication was unclear based on prior literature. This study shows that most cocaine-associated seizures are self-limited.