Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parallel processing of remotely sensed hyperspectral imagery: full‐pixel versus mixed‐pixel classification

The rapid development of space and computer technologies allows for the possibility to store huge amounts of remotely sensed image data, collected using airborne and satellite instruments. In particular, NASA is continuously gathering high‐dimensional image data with Earth observing hyperspectral sensors such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's airborne visible–infrared imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS), which measures reflected radiation in hundreds of narrow spectral bands at different wavelength channels for the same area on the surface of the Earth. The development of fast techniques for transforming massive amounts of hyperspectral data into scientific understanding is critical for space‐based Earth science and planetary exploration. Despite the growing interest in hyperspectral imaging research, only a few efforts have been devoted to the design of parallel implementations in the literature, and detailed comparisons of standardized parallel hyperspectral algorithms are currently unavailable. This paper compares several existing and new parallel processing techniques for pure and mixed‐pixel classification in hyperspectral imagery. The distinction of pure versus mixed‐pixel analysis is linked to the considered application domain, and results from the very rich spectral information available from hyperspectral instruments. In some cases, such information allows image analysts to overcome the constraints imposed by limited spatial resolution. In most cases, however, the spectral bands collected by hyperspectral instruments have high statistical correlation, and efficient parallel techniques are required to reduce the dimensionality of the data while retaining the spectral information that allows for the separation of the classes. In order to address this issue, this paper also develops a new parallel feature extraction algorithm that integrates the spatial and spectral information. The proposed technique is evaluated (from the viewpoint of both classification accuracy and parallel performance) and compared with other parallel techniques for dimensionality reduction and classification in the context of three representative application case studies: urban characterization, land‐cover classification in agriculture, and mapping of geological features, using AVIRIS data sets with detailed ground‐truth. Parallel performance is assessed using Thunderhead, a massively parallel Beowulf cluster at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The detailed cross‐validation of parallel algorithms conducted in this work may specifically help image analysts in selection of parallel algorithms for specific applications. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Capital Investment, Innovative Capacity, and Stock Returns

We study the dynamic implications of capital investment in innovative capacity (IC) on future stock returns, investment, and profitability by modeling the unique effects of IC investment on uncertain option generation/exercise and postexercise revenue. The model highlights the diverse effects of IC investment on expected returns in different postinvestment regimes and yields the novel prediction that, under the neoclassical assumption of nonincreasing revenue returns, IC investment is positively related to subsequent cumulative stock returns with a lag. The model also predicts a positive effect of IC investment on future investment and profitability. We find strong empirical support for these predictions.
Cu-INDUCED CHANGES IN CHLOROPLAST LIPIDS AND PHOTOSYSTEM 2 ACTIVITY IN BARLEY PLANTS

Acad. M. Popov Institute of Plant Physiology, Acad. G. Bonchev St., Bl.21, 1113,Sofia, BulgariaReceived October 1, 2003Summary. Twenty-day-old barley plants ( Hordeum vulgare L., cv. CE9704)grown as a sand culture were treated 10 days with increasing concentrationsof Cu 10, 15 and 20mg/kg sand. Lipid peroxidation, thylakoidal fatty acid con-tent and composition as well as photosynthetic electron transport and chloro-phyll fluorescence were studied. It was established that excess Cu enhancedlipid peroxidation processes and decreased total fatty acids content as well asunsaturation level of the thylakoids. These negative effects had a great unfa-vourable impact on photosynthetic performance which resulted in both lowerphotosynthetic electron transport activities and efficiency of light utilisation.Key words : barley, copper, lipid peroxidation, ethylene production, photosyn-thetic electron transport, chlorophyll a fluorescenceAbbreviations: OEC – oxygen evolving complex; DCPIP – 2,6-dichloro-phenolindo-phenol; DPC – 1,5-diphenyl-carbohydrazide; MDA – malondial-dehyde; TBA – 2-thiobarbituric acid; F
Saliency Detection Via Similar Image Retrieval

This letter proposes a novel saliency detection framework by propagating saliency of similar images retrieved from large and diverse Internet image collections to boost saliency detection performance effectively. For the input image, a group of similar images is retrieved based on the saliency weighted color histograms and the Gist descriptor from Internet image collections. Then, a pixel-level correspondence process between images is performed to guide the saliency propagation from the retrieved images. Both initial saliency map and correspondence saliency map are exploited to select the training samples by using the graph cut-based segmentation. Finally, the training samples are input into a set of weak classifiers to learn the boosted classifier for generating the boosted saliency map, which is integrated with the initial saliency map to generate the final saliency map. Experimental results on two public image datasets demonstrate that the proposed model can achieve the better saliency detection performance than the state-of-the-art single-image saliency models and co-saliency models.
Inter-organizational conflicts

While inter-personal conflicts have attracted much attention from scholars and practitioners over the last two decades, our understanding of inter-organizational conflicts remains limited. This paper critically assesses current literature on inter-organizational conflicts. We first discuss the specific features of conflicts at the inter-organizational level. Second, we provide an overview of both qualitative and quantitative research conducted in the field. Third, we make suggestions for future research on inter-organizational conflicts. We specifically suggest opportunities to develop theoretical bridges with other streams of literature and to build multi-level models of conflict management. We then discuss important empirical issues associated with doing research on conflicts between organizations and provide recommendations to overcome these challenges.
Making reform happen in education

This chapter discusses factors that influence education reform. It starts by describing the features of the education sector that are shared with other areas of public policy and those features that set education apart. This is followed by three case studies that examine in detail the implementation of education reforms in Denmark, Finland and Portugal. The final section draws on both the case studies and the larger literature on policy reform to identify some conclusions about what drives – or impedes – the implementation of education reform.
A New Gait Representation for Human Identification: Mass Vector

Gait is a new biometric aimed to recognize individuals by the way they walk. Gait recognition has recently an increasing interest from researchers due to several advantages. In this paper, we have proposed a new representation for human gait recognition which is called as mass vector. The mass vector along a given row is defined as the number of pixels with a nonzero value in a given row of the binarized silhouette of a walking person. Sequences of temporally ordered mass vector are used to represent a gait of an individual. We use the dynamic time-warping (DTW) approach for matching so that non-linear time normalization may be used to deal with the naturally-occurring changes in walking speed. Experimental results show that mass vector has a high discriminative power for gait recognition. The recognition rate is around 96.25% in a canonical viewing angle in NLPR gait database by using mass vector. Our proposed system outperforms previous works.
Effects of innovation types on firm performance: An empirical study on Pakistan's manufacturing sector

The main purpose of this study is to explore the effects of innovation types including product, process, marketing and organizational innovation on different aspects of firm performance such as innovative, production, marketing and financial performance in Pakistani manufacturing companies. Data were collected through survey questionnaires from 150 respondents mainly from production, R&D and marketing departments of manufacturing companies. With the help of SPSS, data were analyzed by factor, reliability, correlation, and regression analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovation types on firm performance. Theoretical and managerial implications along with limitations for future research have also been discussed.
Special Interests and Financial Liberalization: The Case of Mexico

Financial liberalization is often believed to enhance economic growth. Yet in many cases a few powerful incumbents seem to capture most of the gains from the reform. In this paper, I construct a model with endogenous formation of special interest groups that could reap most of the benefits of financial liberalization. In particular, these groups lobby to limit entry by other firms, while taking advantage of improved borrowing opportunities. I then use the model to study the Mexican financial liberalization of 1988. Analysis of firm-level panel data on manufacturing plants reveals patterns suggested by the model. Specifically, large firms in more concentrated or more corrupt sectors benefit more from liberalization. In addition, domestically owned firms gain more than firms with foreign ownership. I also propose a new way to measure corruption at the industry level based on the Mexican 10% profit sharing rule.
Plasticity of Blood- and Lymphatic Endothelial Cells and Marker Identification

The distinction between lymphatic and blood vessels is biologically fundamental. Here we wanted to rigorously analyze the universal applicability of vascular markers and characteristics of the two widely used vascular model systems human microvascular endothelial cell line-1 (HMEC-1) and telomerase-immortalized microvascular endothelial cell line (TIME). Therefore we studied the protein expression and functional properties of the endothelial cell lines HMEC-1 and TIME by flow cytometry and in vitro flow assays. We then performed microarray analyses of the gene expression in these two cell lines and compared them to primary endothelial cells. Using bioinformatics we then defined 39 new, more universal, endothelial-type specific markers from 47 primary endothelial microarray datasets and validated them using immunohistochemistry with normal and pathological tissues. We surprisingly found that both HMEC-1 and TIME are hybrid blood- and lymphatic cells. In addition, we discovered great discrepancies in the previous identifications of blood- and lymphatic endothelium-specific genes. Hence we identified and validated new, universally applicable vascular markers. Summarizing, the hybrid blood-lymphatic endothelial phenotype of HMEC-1 and TIME is indicative of plasticity in the gene expression of immortalized endothelial cell lines. Moreover, we identified new, stable, vessel-type specific markers for blood- and lymphatic endothelium, useful for basic research and clinical diagnostics.
An Empirical Study of The Impacts of Market Capitalization upon the Long-Term Performance of the Russian IPO

This research paper aimed at analyzing the long-run performance of Russian Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). Long-term performance after 5 years was determined by noting the degree to which stocks under study had under-or over-performed. The sample consists of monthly data regarding IPOs within the Russian Federation from 2007 to 2011 and was gathered from a range of published sources. It was found that there was long-term over-performance within the sample studied. Additionally, it was found that the causative factor responsible for the biggest impact on Russian IPOs observed was market capitalization.
Target Discovery: Using MUSIC with Optimized Angle-of-Arrival and Signal-Time-of-Flight

In this paper, the proposed target discovery system with optimized Angle-of-Arrival (AOA) enhances the potential of commodity WiFi access point to locate a target within tens of centimeter. However, with the change of environment the trickiest issue in indoor localization is, to identify the phase of the received signal with different angle-of-arrival in multiple paths. In this paper, an inimitable algorithm has been anticipated for estimating the angle-of-arrival and signal-time-of-flight (STOF) with a basic principle, but different in phase approach. The proposed algorithm pronounces the performance of the estimation procedure, which can be enhanced by conveying values for each path. Reliant on how conceivable the precise path is the direct path. The simulation work demonstrates that Target Discovery Using MUSIC (TDUM) with Optimized Angle-of-Arrival (AOA) is comparable to state-of-the-art localization systems, which uses four to five access points with high stability of indoor positioning system. The predictable results show a comparable efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Overtraining, regularization and searching for a minimum, with application to neural networks

In this paper we discuss the role of criterion minimization as a means for parameter estimation. Most traditional methods, such as maximum likelihood and prediction error identification are based on these principles. However, somewhat surprisingly, it turns out that it is not always ‘optimal’ to try to find the absolute minimum point of the criterion. The reason is that ‘stopped minimization’ (where the iterations have been terminated before the absolute minimum has been reached) has more or less identical properties as using regularization (adding a parametric penalty term). Regularization is known to have beneficial effects on the variance of the parameter estimates and it reduces the ‘variance contribution’ of the misfit. This also explains the concept of ‘overtraining’ in neural nets. How does one know when to terminate the iterations then? A useful criterion would be to stop iterations when the criterion function applied to a validation data set no longer decreases. However, in this paper, we show th.
Lower Health-Related Quality of Life in Polytrauma Patients

AbstractAlthough trauma-associated mortality has fallen in recent decades, and medical care has continued to improve in many fields, the quality of life after experiencing polytrauma has attracted little attention in the literature. This group of patients suffer from persisting physical disabilities. Moreover, they experience long-term social, emotional, and psychological effects that limit/lower considerably their quality of life.We analyzed retrospective data on 147 polytraumatized patients by administering written questionnaires and conducting face-to-face interviews 6 ± 0.8 years after the trauma in consideration of the following validated scores: Glasgow Outcome Scale, European Quality of Life Score, Short Form-36, Trauma Outcome Profile, and Beck Depressions Inventory II.Our analysis of these results reveals that polytraumatized patients suffer from persistent pain and functional disabilities after >5 years. We also observed changes in their socioeconomic situation, as well as psychological after-effects.The rehabilitation of this particular group of patients should not only address their physical disabilities. The psychological after-effects of trauma must be acknowledged and addressed for an even longer period of time.
Isolated bilateral macrodontia of mandibular second premolars: A case report

Isolated bilateral macrodontia of mandibular second premolars is an extremely rare dental anomaly with only 5 cases reported to date. This case report presents clinical and radiographic findings of isolated bilateral macrodontia in a 12-year-old child. The patient was referred to the clinic with local crowding of mandibular posterior teeth. Radiographic findings revealed the presence of impacted macrodont mandibular second premolars and their distinct morphological appearance, characterized by large, multitubercular, molariform crowns, and tapering, single roots. Following surgical removal of the impacted premolars, orthodontic therapy was initiated to correct the malocclusion. Along with the features and treatment of this rare anomaly, this case report also illustrates the benefits, in terms of treatment planning and surgical technique, of supplementing conventional radiography with cone-beam computed tomography to localize the macrodont premolars and accurately establish their relationship with the neighboring roots and anatomic structures.
On monetary policy rules for the euro area

In this paper a New Keynesian model is described and partially estimated for the euro area. The model is then used to analyze the stabilizing properties of alternative monetary policy rules for the euro area: instrument (Taylor-type) rules and targeting rules. Our main finding is that if instrument rules are designed optimally they behave similarly to targeting rules both in terms of performance and robustness. This result is obtained for a variety of ECB preferences on stabilizing inflation, the output gap, and the nominal interest rate. Furthermore, the rule quasi-equivalence is also obtained if the ECB objective function is based on welfare maximization.
The Purpose of Financial Reporting: The Case for Coherence in the Conceptual Framework and Standards

type="main"> This paper proposes a basis for progress in the development of the conceptual framework (CF) as a foundation for developing accounting standards. This topic has gained increased prominence following the IASB's (2013) release of its Review of the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (RCFFR) proposing changes to the CF. In this paper the broad socio-economic environment is seen as determining the primary purpose of General Purpose Financial Reporting (GPFR), which, in turn, establishes the high-level properties of a CF suitable to meet that primary purpose. This is to support market stability and efficiency through the provision of an account of the financial position and performance of an entity that accords with economic reality. The case is made that the primary purpose of a CF is to provide the principles for the development of accounting standards that will result in GPFR that is useful. This requires theoretical coherence. The CF should drive the standards and if standards depart from the CF principles, such departures should be justified. This proposal is consistent with the position adopted in the RCFFR. However, in contrast to the RCFFR, this paper accents the purposive approach and links the formation of standards directly to the CF. This approach implies that standards are subordinate to CF principles; therefore compliance with standards should not provide a basis for compromising the faithful representation of economic reality. From the purpose identified for GPFR, the paper argues for a default presumption in favour of Fair Value Accounting, a retreat from the asset/liability approach, and a re-casting of the income statement to focus on operational flows.
Investigating the expression of metabotropic glutamate receptors in trigeminal ganglion neurons and satellite glial cells: implications for craniofacial pain

Abstract Context/objective: Previous studies have demonstrated that various subtypes of the metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) are expressed in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) of the peripheral nervous system (PNS), implicating that glutamate potentially contributes to sensory transmission through these receptors. While mGluR expression has been investigated largely in the DRG, the present study focused on mGluR expression on neurons and satellite glial cells (SGCs) of the trigeminal ganglion (TG). Materials and methods: To address the presence of mGluRs in rat TG neurons and their corresponding SGCs, the trigeminal ganglia from six adult male Wistar rats were isolated and immunohistochemistry and immunocytochemistry were performed. The expression of mGluR1α-, mGluR2/3- and mGluR8 on TG neurons and SGCs was investigated in tissue slices and isolated cells. Results: 35.1 ± 6.0% of the TG neurons were positive for mGluR1α, whereas 39.9 ± 7.7% and 55.5 ± 6.3% were positive for mGluR2/3 and mGluR8, respectively. Immunoreactive neurons expressing mGluRs were mainly medium- to large sized, with a smaller population of small-sized neurons showing immunoreactivity. The SGCs showed immunoreactivity toward mGluR1α and mGluR8, but not mGluR2/3, both in the tissue and in isolated cells. Conclusions: Findings from the present study showed that trigeminal neurons express mGluR1α, mGluR2/3 and mGluR8, while SGCs only express mGluR1α and mGluR8. This novel evidence may advance investigations on a possible role of mGluRs in relation to trigeminal pain transmission within the craniofacial region.
Ethics – Research, Engineering Design …They’re All the Same Aren’t They?

This paper considers how and to what extent product design ethics is understood by professionals in design practice and undergraduate students of product and engineering design and how, if at all, design ethics differ from engineering and/or research ethics. This paper reports on a study carried out at Bournemouth University with undergraduate students of Engineering Design and Product Design and with design professionals via the Institution of Engineering Designers. As part of their final year project work all undergraduate students at Bournemouth University are required to comply with the Bournemouth University Research Ethics Code of Practice [9] which means that students are aware of ethical principles in general and the study explored the extent to which students understand them in relation to design. The study also used the ‘LinkedIn’ discussion forum to get the perspective of design practitioners. The paper concludes that designers do seem to share a broadly common understanding of design ethics and that the main difference with design ethics is in the scope, complexity and the human interface. A definition of product design ethics is presented and the essence of a Statement of Principles for product design ethics proposed.
A Psychological Contract Perspective on R&D Alliance Projects: Learning from a Close-to-Failing Case

Abstract: The aim of this article is to illustrate how the process model for collaborative ventures (Arino and de la Torre, 1998) and psychological contract theory could function as analytical frameworks for investigations of RD (ii) that the concept of psychological contracts presents an alternative perspective when describing collaboration in RD (iii) that critical incidents is a common denominator in both theoretical approaches; and (iv) that, in contrast to transactional contracts, relational psychological contracts relate to a successful outcome. The managerial implication of the study is that, either manifested as points for contract re-negotiation (process-oriented alliance theory) or as violations (psychological contract theory), critical incidents are vital to manage in order to secure a successful outcome of the alliance.