Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep Network Flow for Multi-Object Tracking Anonymous CVPR submission

Multi-object tracking is an important computer vision problem with a wide range of applications like action recognition, video analysis, surveillance or autonomous driving. A predominant approach is to first find potential object instances in the video with an object detector and then to associate the bounding boxes over time to form trajectories. Many association approaches can be formulated as a linear program, including the popularly used network flows. Defining good cost functions is crucial for the success of this tracking formulation. However, previous work uses either well defined but hand-crafted functions, learns cost functions only for parts of the variables or is limited to linear cost functions. In this work, we propose a novel formulation to learn arbitrarily parameterized but differentiable cost functions for all variables jointly. We use bi-level optimization to minimize a loss defined on the solution of the linear program. Our experiments demonstrate that we are able to successfully learn all cost functions for the association problem in an end-to-end fashion, which outperform hand-crafted costs in all settings. The integration and combination of various sources of inputs becomes easy and the cost functions can be learned entirely from data, alleviating the tedious work of hand-designing costs. Finally, we show comparable results to the state-of-the-art in multiobject tracking on two public benchmarks.
2 AF C *-algebras as Lindenbaum algebras of ∞-valued logic

In the algebraic treatment of quantum statistical systems, the claim “Nature does not have ideals” is sometimes used to convey the idea that the C*-algebras describing natural systems are simple, i.e., they do not have nontrivial homomorphic images. Using our interpretation of AF C*-algebras as algebras of Lukasiewicz calculus, in a previous paper the claim was shown to be incompatible with the existence of a Gödel incomplete AF C*-algebra for a quantum physical system existing in nature. In this note we survey recent developments on Gödel incompleteness and decidability issues for AF C*-algebras. Key-words: MV-algebra. AF C*-algebra. Gödel incompleteness. Lukasiewicz calculus. Many-valued logic. Decision problem. ————————————– ∗2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary: 06D35, 46L80. Secondary: 06F20, 03D15, 03B50. Manuscrito Rev. Int. Fil. , Campinas, v. 28, n. 2, p. 547-558, jul.-dez. 2005.
Childhood Blood Pressure as a Predictor of Arterial Stiffness in Young Adults: The Bogalusa Heart Study

Abstract—Increased arterial stiffness is an independent predictor of cardiovascular disease and mortality in middle-aged and older adults. However, limited data are available regarding the relationship of arterial stiffness in young adults with risk factors measured in childhood, adulthood, or as a cumulative burden from childhood to adulthood. This aspect was examined in a sample of 835 black and white young adults (72% whites, 44% men) aged 24 to 44 years who had at least 4 measurements of traditional risk factors over an average follow-up period of 26.5 years since childhood. Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) measured by a simple automatic oscillometric technique was used as an index of arterial stiffness. The cumulative burden of risk factors since childhood was measured as area under the curve divided by follow-up years. In young adults, the baPWV was higher in males versus females (P <0.001) and blacks versus whites (P <0.001). In multiple regression analyses, independent predictors of baPWV in young adults were systolic blood pressure in childhood; systolic blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and smoking in adulthood; and cumulative burden of systolic blood pressure and triglycerides and duration of smoking years from childhood. Thus, systolic blood pressure beginning in childhood is a consistent predictor of arterial stiffness in free-living, asymptomatic young adults. These findings underscore the importance of childhood blood pressure in the evolution of arterial stiffness and the need for beginning preventive cardiology early in life.
Circadian Dysregulation in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The circadian system plays a critical role in regulating human homeostasis and circadian misalignement has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several chronic diseases including autism spectrum disorder. In recent years there have been several investigations focusing on circadian physiological and behavioral rhythms in individuals with autism spectrum disorder, namely sleep patterns and hormonal variations, and their findings have significantly contributed to our understanding of autism-related neurophysiological processes. In addition, exogenous melatonin has been thoroughly investigated as a potential treatment compound targeting autism-related sleep and behavioral disturbances. Although the majority of relevant studies have been conducted in adolescents and adults, the presence of circadian dysregulation in young children with autism is attracting a growing scientific interest. Given that the earliest behavioral markers of the disorder become evident from the first years of life, focusing on toddlers and preschoolers might provide useful insights on autism’s mysteries. In this context, in the current review we attempted to critically summarize all findings regarding circadian rhythmicity in young children with autism spectrum disorder, emphasize most important and recent advances in the field and provide directions for future research.
Knowledge and Utilization of Contraception among Women Attending Antenatal Care Unit at Specialist Hospital Sokoto State , Nigeria

Contraceptive utilization is a key component of the Sustainable Development Goal agenda and a major contributor to national health. In spite of the importance of contraceptive uptake among couples of reproductive age, meeting the reproductive health rights of women remains an issue due to multi-faceted obstacles within complex environments. The issues which impact women’s reproductive health rights in relation to contraception relate to availability, accessibility, affordability, literacy, tradition, and culture. This study describe the knowledge and utilization of contraceptives among women accessing family planning services at a Specialist hospital, Sokoto-Nigeria. A cross sectional study was used. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from 352 respondents who were conveniently sampled at Specialist hospital, Sokoto-Nigeria. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 for the descriptive data to meet the study objectives. The result of the study indicated that out of the 352 respondents, 214 ( 60.8%) had low knowledge on contraceptives, 58(16.5%) had moderate level of knowledge and 80 (22.7%) had higher level of knowledge. Respondents who had ever used contraceptives were 274 (77.8%). Most respondents 273(77.6%) were currently using contraceptives while 56 (15.9%) indicated otherwise. Notably, 229 (65.1%) of the respondents were ready to use contraceptives in the future. The study concluded that, women in sokoto have low knowledge about contraceptives. established to address personal, economic and socio-cultural barriers to family planning services and women’s right to family planning choices.
Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, China

Frequency of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis in Pakistan increased from 1.5% in 2006 to 4.5% in 2009 (p<0.01). To understand the epidemiology, we genotyped selected strains by using spoligotyping, mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units–variable number of tandem repeats, and IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis.
Technical Report No . 20 THE EFFECT OF PREVIOUS CONTEXT ON READING INDIVIDUAL

The aim of this study was to determine whether a general or specific context facilitation mechanism should be incorporated into information processing models of reading. General facilitation models, such as the logogen (Morton, 1969) and spreading activation (Collins & Loftus, 1975) models, claim that a context can facilitate recognition of any word that is related to it. Specific facilitation models claim that a context will facilitate recognition of only those words that are highly expected on the basis of the context. That is, specific models predict facilitation for a subset of those words for which facilitation is predicted by general models. Three experimental procedures were used. The first required a lexical decision (word or nonword? ) about a test item that was sometimes preceded by a context (a sentence with the final word deleted, e.g., The cup was placed on the). There were three types of test words: (1) words highly expected on the basis of the context, such as table for the above example (set E); (2) words related to the expected words, such as chair (set R): and (3) words unrelated to the expected words, such as floor (set U). The last two types of words were equated for how well they completed the sentence frames. Lexical decision times for the three word types without context did not differ significantly. With context, the decision was much faster for the E set than for the other two. This would be predicted by both types of models. The more important finding is that with context decision time for the R set was significantly less than for the UJ set. This would be predicted by general models, but not by specific models. However, this finding does not eliminate the possibility that general and specific mechanisms operate in conjunction.
Stabilizing bit rate conditions for a scalar continuous time linear system with bounded processing delay and bounded process noise

This paper considers the input-to-state stability of a scalar continuous-time linear control system whose feedback information is transmitted through digital communication networks. It shows that when a packet is transmitted, not only the bits inside that packet but also the transmission time instant of that packet carries information. Scheduling transmission time instants of packets can be viewed as a type of temporal quantization of sampling time instants and effectively transmit state information. Due to processing delay, there is unavoidable non-zero difference between the sampling time instant of a packet and its corresponding transmission time instant, which is called “timing error” and determines the amount of information carried by this temporal quantization. By quantitatively analyzing the effects of timing error on the input-to-state stability of the concerned system, this paper provides some stabilizing bit rate conditions. These conditions are only up to the system matrix and the timing error, and are free of bounded process noise. Through event-triggering schemes, we realize these conditions which may require much lower bit rates to stabilize a scalar continuous-time linear system than the periodic sampling schemes. Simulations confirm the effectiveness of the obtained bit rate conditions.
Timeliness of financial reporting in emerging capital markets:Evidence from Turkey

Timely financial reporting is an essential ingredient for a well-functioning capital market. The objectives of this study are two-fold. First, to measure the extend of timeliness in a developing country, Turkey. Second, to establish the impact of both company specific and audit related factors on timeliness of financial reporting in Turkey. This study reports on the results of an empirical investigation of the timeliness of financial reports by 211 non-financial companies listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The descriptive analysis indicates that 59% of the companies that prepares separate financial statements and 66% of the companies that prepares consolidated financial statements release their financial statements less than the maximum time allowed after the financial yearend. 28% of the companies that prepares separate financial statements and 16% of the companies that prepares consolidated financial statements exceeded the regulatory deadline. The multivariate regression analysis indicates that both sign of income, audit opinion, auditor firm and industry affect timeliness. The findings indicate that the companies that report net income, that have standard audit opinion, and that are operating in manufacturing industry release their financial statements earlier. On the other hand, it is found that the companies that are audited by big four audit firms are late reporters.
Liberalization, Endogenous Institutions, and Growth : A Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Reforms in Africa, Asia, and Europe

Thirty years ago, a vast share of low-and middle-income countries was heavily state controlled. The liberalizations of the 1980s and 1990s had greatly different effects on growth in countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. A comparative framework is used to document these differences, and a model is developed to formally analyze how liberalization affects production and income distribution when the institutions that govern production and exchange are also affected. Hypotheses are derived for how endogenous institutional adjustments affect the growth response to liberalization. These insights motivate a series of explanations for the differences in performance across regions and commodities following liberalization.
Structural Credit Risk Models: A Review

Dans la première partie, nous présentons les principaux modèles structurels, leurs hypothèses sous-jacentes, à commencer par les modèles à défaut exogènes et les développements subséquents qui ont mené aux modèles de défaut endogènes, ainsi que l’intégration des procédures de faillite, les décisions de structure de capital et les décisions de défaut stratégiques et d’autres développements. La deuxième partie est consacrée aux recherches empiriques. Ces travaux empiriques peuvent être classés en trois groupes. Le premier examine la capacité de différents modèles structurels à expliquer les écarts de crédit. Le deuxième groupe évalue la performance de ces modèles dans la prévision des défauts. Finalement, certains travaux utilisent les modèles structurels pour étudier la relation entre le risque de crédit de l’entreprise et la performance boursière de ses actions. Assurances et gestion des risques, vol. 80(1), avril 2012, 53-93 Insurance and Risk Management, vol. 80(1), April 2012, 53-93
Automatic Analysis of Typical and Atypical Encoding of Spontaneous Emotion in the Voice of Children

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) present significant difficulties to understand and express emotions. Systems have thus been proposed to provide objective measurements of acoustic features used by children suffering from ASD to encode emotion in speech. However, only a few studies have exploited such systems to compare different groups of children in their ability to express emotions, and even less have focused on the analysis of spontaneous emotion. In this contribution, we provide insights by extensive evaluations carried out on a new database of spontaneous speech inducing three emotion categories of valence (positive, neutral, and negative). We evaluate the potential of using an automatic recognition system to differentiate groups of children, i.e., pervasive developmental disorders, pervasive developmental disorders not-otherwise specified, specific language impairments, and typically developing, in their abilities to express spontaneous emotion in a common unconstrained task. Results show that all groups of children can be differentiated directly (diagnosis recognition) and indirectly (emotion recognition) by the proposed system.
TLR9 stimulation drives naïve B cells to proliferate and to attain enhanced antigen presenting function

Mechanisms that regulate naïve B cell proliferation and function are incompletely defined. In this study, we test the hypothesis that naïve B cell expansion, survival and ability to present antigen to T lymphocytes can be directly modulated by Toll‐like receptor (TLR) agonists. In the absence of B cell receptor stimulation, CpG oligonucleotide, a TLR9 agonist, was particularly efficient in inducing naïve B cell proliferation and survival. Although the expanded naïve B cells did not mature into CD27+ or IgG+ memory B cells, these cells did differentiate into IgM‐secreting cells with increased surface expression of HLA‐DR, CD40 and CD80. This was associated with an increased potential for these B cells to activate allogeneic T cells. We propose that the activation and expansion of naïve B cells induced by TLR9 agonists could enhance the potential of these cells to interact with cognate antigens and facilitate cell‐mediated immune responses.
A diffusible factor involved in MAP‐kinase ERK2‐regulated development of Dictyostelium

Mitogen‐activated protein (MAP)‐kinase extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK2) is essential for regulation of the intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) level in Dictyostelium. The mutant lacking ERK2, erk2‐null, is arrested at the pre‐aggregation stage, but develops into a fruiting body in a mixed population of wild‐type and mutant cells. This fact implies that wild‐type cells provide a certain factor that is missing in erk2‐null. It was clarified that both wild‐type strains KAx3 and Ax2 secreted a diffusible factor that enables erk2‐null to develop. The fruiting body formed from erk2‐null cells was smaller than that formed by the wild‐type cells and consisted of a small sorus supported by a slender stalk with a single row of vacuolated stalk cells. The resulting spores were able to germinate and multiply on a bacterial lawn, but they were unable to develop unless the factor was provided. After 8 h of starvation, wild‐type cells started to secrete the factor, which had a molecular mass of less than 3 kDa and was heat stable. The effect of this factor could not be mimicked by either cAMP or folate. Adenylyl cyclase A and cell surface cAMP receptors cAR1 and cAR3 were all indispensable components for the factor to function. Considering the molecular mass and the mode of action, this factor could be a novel one. Possible targets of this factor are discussed in terms of cAMP‐dependent protein kinase activation.
Neural coding of attention and attentional set shifting in the rat medial prefrontal cortex

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
BRAND EXPERIENCE – HOW IT RELATES TO BRAND PERSONALITY, CONSUMER SATISFACTION AND CONSUMER LOYALTY. AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ADIDAS BRAND

Brand experience has attracted a lot of attention in the Marketing practice. With consumers seeking not only functional benefits of a brand but also emotional experiences, brand experience theory attempts to provide answers on how brand experience can be measured and how it effects consumer behavior. Th is article examines the relationship between Brakus et al.’s (2009) four brand experience dimensions – sensory, aff ective, intellectual and behavioral – and customer satisfaction and loyalty for the Adidas brand. The authors conducted empirical research during December 2012 and January 2013 through an online questionnaire. The model of Brakus et al. (2009) could be only partially verifi ed: The findings show that the brand experience items developed by Brakus et al. (2009) may encompass some short-comings that returns biased results. Severe deviations were discovered in the factor analysis especially for the behavioral and intellectual dimension of the brand experience scale. However, the empirical results support the claim that brand experience has a significant positive correlation with brand personality, consumer satisfaction, and consumer loyalty. In addition, a significant correlation between brand personality with consumer loyalty and consumer satisfaction could have also been validated.
Analysis and optimization of power-gated ICs with multiple power gating configurations

Power gating is an efficient technique for reducing leakage power in electronic devices by disconnecting blocks idle for long periods of time from the power supply. Disconnecting gated blocks causes changes in densities of currents flowing through a grid. Even in DC conditions, current densities in some grid branches may increase for some gating configurations to the extent of violating electromigration (EM) constraints. Tlie existing DC methods for grid sizing optimize the grid area under voltage drop (IR) and EM constraints for one configuration of circuit blocks connected to the grid. We show that these methods cannot be directly applied for optimizing power-gated grids. We analyze the effects of EM and IR voltage drop in power grids with multiple power gating configurations. Based on our analyses, we develop a grid sizing algorithm to satisfy all reliability constraints for all feasible gating configurations. Our experimental results indicate that a grid initially sized for alt blocks present may be modified to fulfill EM and IR constraints for multiple gating schedules with only a small area increase.
Compression and Recovery in Cell-free Cloud Radio Access Network

Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is an evolved network architecture for future mobile communication systems. It aims to provide higher spectral efficiency, lower energy consumption and reduced cost of operations and maintenance for the network, which will enable the operators to not only satisfy growing user demands, but provide new services and applications. However, the huge load on the fronthaul network which connects the baseband unit (BBU) and a large number of remote radio heads (RRHs) is a significant challenge. To improve the fronthaul performance, a data compression and recovery scheme based on compressive sensing is proposed in this thesis. First, the theory of compressive sensing is studied, including the essential principles, standard compressive sensing model, potential measurement matrices, etc. Several popular recovery algorithms in compressive sensing are demonstrated in detail. Secondly, a compression and recovery scheme is proposed for the uplink of a cell-free C-RAN system. In the proposed scheme, compressive sensing is applied by exploiting the sparsity of user data. In particular, the multi-access fading in this system is incorporated into the formulation of the compressive sensing model. The aggregated measurement matrix which contains both the channel matrix and the fronthaul compression matrix is shown to satisfy the restricted isometry property (RIP) condition. Furthermore, two different recovery algorithms, basis pursuit denoising (BPDN) and sparsity adaptive matching pursuit (SAMP), are used respectively for estimating the sparse signals. The major advantage is that they do not require the sparsity of user data as a prior information during the process of signal recovery. It allows easy applications in many practical scenarios where the number of non-zero elements of the signals is not available. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme can efficiently alleviate the heavy burden on the fronthaul network, and meanwhile provide stable signal recovery for this system.