Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An efficient scheme for face detection based on contours and feature skin recognition

Human face detection is very useful in many applications such as communications, automatic access control systems, video browsing, security control, verification of credit cards, identifying criminals and so on. This work provides a simple and efficient technique to detect human faces in still images. The new method based on skin color, contour drawing and feature extraction. The features under consideration are eyes, nose and mouth. The technique used to extract facial features developed based on feature location with respect to face dimensions. The proposed algorithm was tested on various images and its performance was found to be good in most cases. Experimental results show that our method of human face detection achieves very encouraging results with good accuracy, great speed and simple computations.
Character-based Decoding in Tree-to-Sequence Attention-based Neural Machine Translation

This paper reports our systems (UT-AKY) submitted in the 3rd Workshop of Asian Translation 2016 (WAT’16) and their results in the English-to-Japanese translation task. Our model is based on the tree-to-sequence Attention-based NMT (ANMT) model proposed by Eriguchi et al. (2016). We submitted two ANMT systems: one with a word-based decoder and the other with a character-based decoder. Experimenting on the English-to-Japanese translation task, we have confirmed that the character-based decoder can cover almost the full vocabulary in the target language and generate translations much faster than the word-based model.
Implementing parallel Cell-DEVS

Cell-DEVS is a formalism intended to model complex physical systems as cell spaces. Cell-DEVS allows to describe cellular models using timing delay constructions, allowing a simple definition of complex timing. The original specifications were extended to permit parallel specification of these models, and an associated simulation mechanism allows their execution. We present implementation issues related to the definition of parallel simulators for Cell-DEVS.
Measuring Employment Success and Occupational Program Satisfaction.

The report presents the findings of the 1998 and 1999 follow-up studies of occupational program graduates from Cabrillo College (California) and of students who left the program before completion. The studies explored the core measures defined by Perkins Act reporting requirements and other measures, including the reasons students chose Cabrillo College and why they left if they did not complete the program, their satisfaction with the program, ideas for improvements, and employment and wage levels. Comparisons were made between completers of a program and leavers, or those who did not complete a program. Over 60% of completers stated their goal was to obtain a vocational certificate or degree as compared to 40% of leavers. Leavers stated lack of time, finances, job changes, and personal matters as top reasons for not continuing. Most respondents reported high satisfaction with all programs. Employment did not significantly differ by completion status. The 1998 survey suggested that completers earned significantly higher incomes than did leavers, but data from 1999 were inconclusive. Program completion, higher program satisfaction, and more variable work hours planned per term increased the probability of working in their field of study. Computer and interpersonal skills were stated as most needed after leaving Cabrillo with much variability by program. (JA) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Measuring Employment Success and Occupational Program Satisfaction Terrence R. Willett, M.S. Researcher Planning and Research Office Cabrillo College 6500 Soquel Dr. Aptos CA 95003 831.477. 5281 tewillett@cabrillo.cc. ca.us Jing Luan, Ph.D. Director of Research Planning and Research Office Cabrillo College 6500 Soquel Dr. Aptos CA 95003 831.477. 5656 jiluan@cabrillo.cc. ca.us U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. BEST COPY AVAILABLE 1 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)
Anxiety, coping, and disability: a test of mediation in a pediatric chronic pain sample.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate pain coping as a mediator of associations between anxiety and functional disability and anxiety and somatic symptoms in adolescents with chronic pain. METHOD Participants (mean age = 14.76 years, range: 12-17 years) included 280 patients (212 girls) with chronic pain who underwent multidisciplinary evaluation at a tertiary pain clinic in a northeast pediatric hospital. Patients completed measures of current pain, anxiety, active, passive, and accommodative pain coping, functional disability, and somatic symptoms. RESULTS Structural equation modeling was employed. The association between anxiety and disability was fully mediated by passive coping. The association between anxiety and somatic symptoms was not mediated by coping. CONCLUSIONS Links between anxiety symptoms and pain-related outcomes in adolescents with chronic pain are complex. Assessing how an adolescent copes with his/her pain provides further understanding of this relationship.
Improving the Quality of Measurement and Evaluation in Quality Improvement Efforts

short of the desired outcome. Efforts to measure, publicize, and reward clinicians and health care organizations for their quality of care have grown exponentially over the last decade. The underlying goal of these efforts is to increase the number of patients treated by high-quality health care providers. Two methods to achieve this goal have received widespread attention. First, convert lowquality providers to high quality; pay-for-performance and quality improvement (QI) efforts are strategies to accomplish this conversion. Second, move market share from low-quality to high-quality providers; public reporting of performance measures is a strategy to achieve this shift. Underpinning all of these efforts is the need for valid quality of care measures. The science of quality measurement is still immature, despite the near exponential growth in quality of care measures. Most quality measurement efforts struggle to find a balance between measures that are scientifically sound yet feasible to implement with the limited resources allocated. Unfortunately, feasibility generally trumps sound science. Ideally, risks and benefits of more versus less rigorous measurement would be explicit and used to guide measurement in QI projects. Unfortunately, the relative risks and benefits are implicit or completely opaque. This contrasts with the more rigorous measurement often used in clinical research. Historically, QI measurement has been less scientifically rigorous than measurement for clinical research. Public reporting of quality of care, both voluntary and mandatory, has made this difference more relevant. Regardless of the label, patients, providers, and payers should have confidence that public statements regarding the quality of care provided are true. In support of QI efforts, we lack explicit methods to evaluate the strength and amount of evidence required for a measure to be included in pay for performance or public reporting and to evaluate the validity of a measure.This article discusses how quality measurement could be informed by the measurement principles for clinical research, explores the strength of evidence required to use a measure in pay for performance, and considers a model to evaluate the validity of quality measures.
When to start dialysis: updated guidance following publication of the Initiating Dialysis Early and Late (IDEAL) study.

This position statement is intended to be used in conjunction with the original 2002 European guideline on when to start dialysis [1]. The original guideline was based on a formal review of all evidence available at the time. The position statement considers mainly the results of the Initiating Dialysis Early and Late (IDEAL) study [2], but it also considers other relevant studies published since 2002. A formal literature review was not undertaken. The position statement has been prepared by a working group whose members were nominated by the European Renal Best Practice (ERBP) advisory board.
On the Measurement of Inequality under Uncertainty

To take into account both ex ante and ex post inequality considerations, one has to deal with inequality and uncertainty simultaneously. Under certainty, much of the literature has focused on "comonotonically linear" indices: functionals that are linear on cones of income profiles that agree on the social ranking of the individuals. This family generalizes both the Gini index and the egalitarian index(minimal income). However, it does not include functionals such as the average of expected-Gini and Gini-of-expectation. In contrast, the family of min-of-means functionals is rich enough for this purpose.
Reputation for reciprocity engages the brain reward center

Brain reward circuitry, including ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex, has been independently implicated in preferences for fair and cooperative outcomes as well as learning of reputations. Using functional MRI (fMRI) and a “trust game” task involving iterative exchanges with fictive partners who acquire different reputations for reciprocity, we measured brain responses in 36 healthy adults when positive actions (entrust investment to partners) yield positive returns (reciprocity) and how these brain responses are modulated by partner reputation for repayment. Here we show that positive reciprocity robustly engages the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex. Moreover, this signal of reciprocity in the ventral striatum appears selectively in response to partners who have consistently returned the investment (e.g., a reputation for reciprocity) and is absent for partners who lack a reputation for reciprocity. These findings elucidate a fundamental brain mechanism, via reward-related neural substrates, by which human cooperative relationships are initiated and sustained.
Fusion-Activated Ca2+ Entry: An “Active Zone” of Elevated Ca2+ during the Postfusion Stage of Lamellar Body Exocytosis in Rat Type II Pneumocytes

Background Ca2+ is essential for vesicle fusion with the plasma membrane in virtually all types of regulated exocytoses. However, in contrast to the well-known effects of a high cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]c) in the prefusion phase, the occurrence and significance of Ca2+ signals in the postfusion phase have not been described before. Methodology/Principal Findings We studied isolated rat alveolar type II cells using previously developed imaging techniques. These cells release pulmonary surfactant, a complex of lipids and proteins, from secretory vesicles (lamellar bodies) in an exceptionally slow, Ca2+- and actin-dependent process. Measurements of fusion pore formation by darkfield scattered light intensity decrease or FM 1-43 fluorescence intensity increase were combined with analysis of [Ca2+]c by ratiometric Fura-2 or Fluo-4 fluorescence measurements. We found that the majority of single lamellar body fusion events were followed by a transient (t1/2 of decay = 3.2 s) rise of localized [Ca2+]c originating at the site of lamellar body fusion. [Ca2+]c increase followed with a delay of ∼0.2–0.5 s (method-dependent) and in the majority of cases this signal propagated throughout the cell (at ∼10 µm/s). Removal of Ca2+ from, or addition of Ni2+ to the extracellular solution, strongly inhibited these [Ca2+]c transients, whereas Ca2+ store depletion with thapsigargin had no effect. Actin-GFP fluorescence around fused LBs increased several seconds after the rise of [Ca2+]c. Both effects were reduced by the non-specific Ca2+ channel blocker SKF96365. Conclusions/Significance Fusion-activated Ca2+ entry (FACE) is a new mechanism that leads to [Ca2+]c transients at the site of vesicle fusion. Substantial evidence from this and previous studies indicates that fusion-activated Ca2+ entry enhances localized surfactant release from type II cells, but it may also play a role for compensatory endocytosis and other cellular functions.
Opioid Receptor Subtype Expression Defines Morphologically Distinct Classes of Hippocampal Interneurons

The inhibition of hippocampal pyramidal cells occurs via inhibitory interneurons making GABAergic synapses on distinct segments of the postsynaptic membrane. In area CA1 of the hippocampus, the activation of mu- and delta-opioid receptors inhibits these interneurons, thereby increasing the excitability of the pyramidal cells. Through the use of selective opioid agonists and biocytin-filled whole-cell electrodes, interneurons possessing somata located within stratum oriens of hippocampal slices were classified according to the location of their primary axon termination and the expression of mu- or delta-opioid receptors. Activation of these opioid receptor subtypes resulted in outward currents in the majority of interneurons, which is consistent with their inhibition. Post hoc morphological analysis revealed that those interneurons heavily innervating the pyramidal cell body layer were much more likely to express mu-opioid receptors, whereas cells with axons ramifying in the pyramidal neuron dendritic layers were more likely to express delta-opioid receptors, as defined by the generation of outward currents. This morphological segregation of interneuron projections suggests that mu receptor activation would diminish GABA release onto pyramidal neuron somata, thereby increasing their excitability and output. Conversely, inhibition of interneurons via delta receptor activation would amplify afferent signaling to pyramidal neuron dendrites by reducing GABAergic inhibition of these structures.
miR-143 or miR-145 overexpression increases cetuximab-mediated antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity in human colon cancer cells

miR-143 and miR-145 are downregulated in colon cancer. Here, we tested the effect of restoring these miRNAs on sensitization to cetuximab in mutant KRAS (HCT116 and SW480) and wild-type KRAS (SW48) colon cancer cells. We evaluated cetuximab-mediated antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) and the modulation of signaling pathways involved in immune effector cell-mediated elimination of cancer cells. Stable miR-143 or miR-145 overexpression increased cell sensitivity to cetuximab, resulting in a significant increase of cetuximab-mediated ADCC independently of KRAS status. Importantly, HCT116 cells overexpressing these miRNAs triggered apoptosis in result of cetuximab-mediated ADCC, effected by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (p < 0.01). This was associated with increased apoptosis and caspase-3/7 activity, and reduced Bcl-2 protein expression (p < 0.01). In addition, caspase inhibition abrogated cetuximab-mediated ADCC in HCT116 cells overexpressing either miR-143 or miR-145 (p < 0.01). Furthermore, Bcl-2 silencing led to high level of cetuximab-mediated ADCC, compared to control siRNA (p < 0.05). Importantly, granzyme B inhibition, abrogated cetuximab-mediated ADCC, reducing caspase-3/7 activity (p < 0.01). Collectively, our data suggests that re-introduction of miR-143 or miR-145 may provide a new approach for development of therapeutic strategies to re-sensitize colon cancer cells to cetuximab by stimulating cetuximab-dependent ADCC to induce cell death.
A New Measure of Herding Behavior: Derivation and Implications

If price and quantity are the fundamental building blocks of any theory of market interactions, the importance of trading volume in understanding the behavior of financial markets is clear. However, while many economic models of financial markets have been developed to explain the behavior of prices -predictability, variability, and information contentfar less attention has been devoted to explaining the behavior of trading volume. In this article, we hope to expand our understanding of trading volume by developing a new measure of herding behavior based on a cross sectional dispersion of volumes betas. We apply our measure to the Toronto stock exchange using monthly data from January 2000 to December 2002. Our findings show that the herd phenomenon consists of three essential components: stationary herding, intentional herding and the feedback herding. Keywords—Herding behavior, market return, trading volume.
Multiple Oscillatory Modes of the Argentine Basin. Part I: Statistical Analysis

Observations of the sea surface height in the Argentine Basin indicate that strong variability occurs on a time scale of 2030 days. The aim of this study is to determine the physical processes responsible for this variability. First, results are presented from two statistical techniques applied to a decade of altimetric data. A complex empirical orthogonal function (CEOF) analysis identifies the recently discovered dipole mode as the dominant mode of variability. A principal oscillation pattern (POP) analysis confirms the existence of this mode, which has a period of 25 days. The second CEOF displays a propagating pattern in the northern Argentine Basin, plus a rotating dipole in the southwest corner. The POP analysis identifies both patterns as individual modes, with periods of 30 and 20 days, respectively. Second, the barotropic normal modes of the Argentine Basin are studied, using a shallow-water model capturing the full bathymetry of the basin. Coherences between the spatial patterns of these modes and altimeter data suggest that several of the basin modes are involved in the observed variability. This analysis implies that the 20-day mode detected by recent bottom-pressure measurements is a true barotropic mode. However, the 25-day variability, as found in altimeter data, cannot be directly attributed to the excitation of a free Rossby basin mode. This study indicates that the results of several apparently conflicting observations of the flow variability in the Argentine Basin can be reconciled by assuming that multiple basin modes are involved.
Handheld Augmented Reality Displays

Augmented Reality (AR) can naturally complement mobile computing on wearable devices by providing an intuitive interface to a three-dimensional information space embedded within physical reality. However, existing AR systems like MARS [1] or Tinmith [2], which require a user to wear a notebook computer in a backpack and a head-mounted display (HMD) are expensive, fragile and inconvenient to wear. Thin-client approaches using a Tablet PC or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) merely as a portable display [3][4] require a dedicated server infrastructure and limit mobility. We believe there is a need for an unconstrained, infrastructureindependent AR display running to fill the gap in situations where traditional backpack systems are too costly and cumbersome, but thin client implementations exhibit inadequate deployability, scalability or interactive behavior. Particular examples include sporadic use over lengthy time spans, in between which devices must be stowed away, mixed indoor/outdoor use in wide-area environments, and massively multi-user application scenarios. This has motivated us to develop a state of the art AR framework targeting lightweight handheld displays.
A STUDY OF THE PLANETARY NEBULA K3-82

In this paper we present Fabry-Pérot high resolution spectroscopy in Hα, Hβ, [O iii], and [N ii], optical low resolution spectroscopy spanning the usable range 4700–6800 Å, along with a broad band direct image in Gunn-red for the planetary nebula (PN) K3-82. K3-82 turned out to be highly symmetrical, seen most probably edge-on. Two point-symmetrical knots appear in the light of Gunn-red. These knots either represent concentrated emission regions or are part of an incomplete equatorial waist of K3-82. Our results for the systemic velocity is –62.4±5 km/s and for the average expansion velocity 30±5 km/s. For the distance we determined a minimum value of 2.5 kpc. The [S ii] ion indicates a very low density within the knots of K3-82.
Predicting Global Stock Returns

Abstract I test for stock return predictability in the largest and most comprehensive data set analyzed so far, using four common forecasting variables: the dividend-price (DP) and earnings-price (EP) ratios, the short interest rate, and the term spread. The data contain over 20,000 monthly observations from 40 international markets, including 24 developed and 16 emerging economies. In addition, I develop new methods for predictive regressions with panel data. Inference based on the standard fixed effects estimator is shown to suffer from severe size distortions in the typical stock return regression, and an alternative robust estimator is proposed. The empirical results indicate that the short interest rate and the term spread are fairly robust predictors of stock returns in developed markets. In contrast, no strong or consistent evidence of predictability is found when considering the EP and DP ratios as predictors.
Hyper-Switch: A Scalable Software Virtual Switching Architecture

In virtualized datacenters, the last hop switching happens inside a server. As the number of virtual machines hosted on the server goes up, the last hop switch can be a performance bottleneck. This paper presents the Hyper-Switch, a highly efficient and scalable software-based network switch for virtualization platforms that support driver domains. It combines the best of the existing I/O virtualization architectures by hosting device drivers in a driver domain to isolate faults and placing the packet switch in the hypervisor for efficiency. In addition, this paper presents several optimizations that enhance performance. They include virtual machine (VM) state-aware batching of packets to mitigate the costs of hypervisor entries and guest notifications, preemptive copying and immediate notification of blocked VMs to reduce packet arrival latency, and, whenever possible, packet processing is dynamically offloaded to idle processor cores. These optimizations enable efficient packet processing, better utilization of the available CPU resources, and higher concurrency. We implemented a Hyper-Switch prototype in the Xen virtualization platform. This prototype's performance was then compared to Xen's default network I/O architecture and KVM's vhost-net architecture. The Hyper-Switch prototype performed better than both, especially for inter-VM network communication. For instance, in one scalability experiment measuring aggregate inter-VM network throughput, the Hyper-Switch achieved a peak of ∼81 Gbps as compared to only ∼31 Gbps under Xen and ∼47 Gbps under KVM.
Development of Laboratory Worksheet with Argument-Driven Inquiry Model to Enhance the Student's Argumentation Skills

Successful investigation in the laboratory was supported by a student worksheet. This study aims to measures the validity and effectiveness of laboratory worksheet on a topic the Excretory Systems in Humans that has been developed based on the Argument-Driven Inquiry Model. The result of the research shows that the laboratory worksheet is proper to use aslearning resource that validity average is 84.25% are considered theoretically feasible and student response average is 96.40% is considered very good. Improvement of argumentation skill is shown with gain scores of 0.43.