Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-time vehicle tracking in image sequences

We present an algorithm for tracking vehicles through an image sequence. The algorithm is based on matching a model in the image plane to each observed vehicle. The model is based on the characteristic edges of an intensity image of a vehicle. This model is applied to track vehicles through image sequences. We introduce three refinements to a standard model based tracking approach. As a first refinement, we use Kalman filtering to control the position and scale of the models. A multiple hypotheses strategy is suggested to avoid mismatches to local edges with a similar structure as (a part of) the model. As a last refinement we dynamically adapt each model to the vehicle if is being matched to. The refined model is more characteristic for the tracked vehicle and therefore increases the accuracy and robustness of the track. Each of these refinements contributes in their own way to a better overall performance of the tracking algorithm. We show that vehicles can be tracked in real-time with off the shelf processing capabilities and that our method is capable to track objects in ambiguous situations. Experiments based on practical data are presented to underline these conclusions.
Mechanism and color modulation of fungal bioluminescence

Study of fungal bioluminescence mechanisms generates development of a multicolor enzymatic chemiluminescence system. Bioluminescent fungi are spread throughout the globe, but details on their mechanism of light emission are still scarce. Usually, the process involves three key components: an oxidizable luciferin substrate, a luciferase enzyme, and a light emitter, typically oxidized luciferin, and called oxyluciferin. We report the structure of fungal oxyluciferin, investigate the mechanism of fungal bioluminescence, and describe the use of simple synthetic α-pyrones as luciferins to produce multicolor enzymatic chemiluminescence. A high-energy endoperoxide is proposed as an intermediate of the oxidation of the native luciferin to the oxyluciferin, which is a pyruvic acid adduct of caffeic acid. Luciferase promiscuity allows the use of simple α-pyrones as chemiluminescent substrates.
Using Feature Selection Filtering Methods for Binding Site Predictions

Currently the best algorithms for transcription factor binding site prediction are severely limited in accuracy. In previous work we applied classification techniques on predictions from 12 key prediction algorithms. In this paper, we investigate the classification results when 4 feature selection filtering methods are used. They are bi-normal separation, correlation coefficients, F-score and a cross entropy based algorithm. It is found that all 4 filtering methods perform equally well. Moreover, we show that the worst performing algorithms are not detrimental to the overall performance
Transgenic Overexpression of the Type I Isoform of Neuregulin 1 Affects Working Memory and Hippocampal Oscillations but not Long-term Potentiation

Neuregulin 1 (NRG1) is a growth factor involved in neurodevelopment and plasticity. It is a schizophrenia candidate gene, and hippocampal expression of the NRG1 type I isoform is increased in the disorder. We have studied transgenic mice overexpressing NRG1 type I (NRG1tg-type I) and their wild-type littermates and measured hippocampal electrophysiological and behavioral phenotypes. Young NRG1tg-type I mice showed normal memory performance, but in older NRG1tg-type I mice, hippocampus-dependent spatial working memory was selectively impaired. Hippocampal slice preparations from NRG1tg-type I mice exhibited a reduced frequency of carbachol-induced gamma oscillations and an increased tendency to epileptiform activity. Long-term potentiation in NRG1tg-type I mice was normal. The results provide evidence that NRG1 type I impacts on hippocampal function and circuitry. The effects are likely mediated via inhibitory interneurons and may be relevant to the involvement of NRG1 in schizophrenia. However, the findings, in concert with those from other genetic and pharmacological manipulations of NRG1, emphasize the complex and pleiotropic nature of the gene, even with regard to a single isoform.
Complementary processing of haptic information by slowly and rapidly adapting neurons in the trigeminothalamic pathway. Electrophysiology, mathematical modeling and simulations of vibrissae-related neurons

Tonic (slowly adapting) and phasic (rapidly adapting) primary afferents convey complementary aspects of haptic information to the central nervous system: object location and texture the former, shape the latter. Tonic and phasic neural responses are also recorded in all relay stations of the somatosensory pathway, yet it is unknown their role in both, information processing and information transmission to the cortex: we don't know if tonic and phasic neurons process complementary aspects of haptic information and/or if these two types constitute two separate channels that convey complementary aspects of tactile information to the cortex. Here we propose to elucidate these two questions in the fast trigeminal pathway of the rat (PrV-VPM: principal trigeminal nucleus-ventroposteromedial thalamic nucleus). We analyze early and global behavior, latencies and stability of the responses of individual cells in PrV and medial lemniscus under 1–40 Hz stimulation of the whiskers in control and decorticated animals and we use stochastic spiking models and extensive simulations. Our results strongly suggest that in the first relay station of the somatosensory system (PrV): (1) tonic and phasic neurons process complementary aspects of whisker-related tactile information (2) tonic and phasic responses are not originated from two different types of neurons (3) the two responses are generated by the differential action of the somatosensory cortex on a unique type of PrV cell (4) tonic and phasic neurons do not belong to two different channels for the transmission of tactile information to the thalamus (5) trigeminothalamic transmission is exclusively performed by tonically firing neurons and (6) all aspects of haptic information are coded into low-pass, band-pass, and high-pass filtering profiles of tonically firing neurons. Our results are important for both, basic research on neural circuits and information processing, and development of sensory neuroprostheses.
Leaning against the wind : fiscal policy in Latin America and the Caribbean in a historical perspective

Gross domestic product (GDP) in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region fell by 1.0 percent in 2016. In particular, LAC economies are facing important fiscal challenges that have yet to be fully absorbed, as most regional economies ended 2016 with fiscal deficits. This report is focused on the fiscal issues that have emerged in the aftermath of the global economic slowdown that has been the subject of several previous installments of this LAC semiannual macro-report series. As the global economy has slowed down since 2011, the LAC region has faced various challenges, including fiscal pressures especially in commodity-dependent economies ranging from Mexico and Colombia to Trinidad and Tobago. In this context, chapter one examines how rising public sector expenditures were funded and financed since 2000. The second chapter analyzes the cyclical properties of fiscal policy in LAC from a historical perspective.
Backstepping control of DFIG generators for wide-range variable-speed wind turbines

In this paper, we have presented a general study of self excited induction generator used in isolated renewable energy conversion source. Tthe behaviour of generated voltage under variable load, rotor speed and excitation capacitance is presented. Also, we have proposed a robust controller suitable in order to control the terminal DC voltage under different speed and AC load conditions for supplied an isolated DC load. The experimental characteristic curve of the generator and simulation result of proposed control scheme are presented.
Development and validation of comorbidity index in South Korea.

OBJECTIVE This study aims to develop and validate a new comorbidity index using data from hospitalized patients in South Korea. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING Hospital inpatients. STUDY PARTICIPANTS Data from 4677 hospitalized patients aged 40-79 who had admitted in a medical center in Korea between September and December in 1997 were individually linked to national mortality data through December 2007. Among them, 3274 patients (70%) were randomly included in the development data set and the other 1403 patients (30%) in the validation data set. Another 3413 liver cancer patients from the same hospital were used to validate the index. MAIN MEASURE Comorbidity index and mortality risk. RESULTS Based on mortality using stratified Cox regression analyses, comorbidity scores ranging from 1 to 4 were assigned for 20 comorbid conditions. Summation of the scores produced the new comorbidity index (Asan comorbidity index, ACI). C-indices in the Cox regression analyses showed the greatest increase [0.589 (95% confidence interval, 0.568-0.609) in age- and sex-adjusted model; 0.697 (0.678-0.716) in the ACI and 0.664 (0.645-0.684) in the Charlson comorbidity index, respectively] when the ACI was added in the validation models. CONCLUSIONS A newly developed comorbidity index using Korean hospitalized patient data based on the International Classification of Disease, 10th Revision (ICD-10) was valid among both general medical inpatients and liver cancer patients. This index may well be widely used in various health-care settings in Korea where patients' information on health conditions is coded with ICD-10.
Tree bitmap: hardware/software IP lookups with incremental updates

Even with the significant focus on IP address lookup in the published literature as well as focus on this market by commercial semiconductor vendors, there is still a challenge for router architects to find solutions that simultaneously meet 3 criteria: scaling in terms of lookup speeds as well as table sizes, the ability to perform high speed updates, and the ability to fit into the overall memory architecture of an Level 3 forwarding engine or packet processor with low systems cost overhead. In this paper, we describe a scheme that meets all three criteria. By contrast, published and commercial semiconductor solutions meet some but not all of these three criteria.For example, many approaches that provide dense tables have poor update times; others require large amounts of expensive high speed memory dedicated to this application. Many IP address lookup approaches do not take into account the flexibility of ASICs or the structure of modern high speed memory technologies such as RLDRAM[1] and FCRAM[2]. In this paper, we present a family of IP lookup schemes using a data structure that compactly encodes large prefix tables in order to address the criteria listed above. We also present a series of optimizations to the core algorithm that allows the memory access width of the algorithm to be reduced at the cost of memory references or allocated memory. Such flexibility in performance versus density is an important feature for the lookup engine of routers that may be deployed in different networks with varying requirements on address lookup length and table density (e.g. global IPv4 networks, global v6, VPN based v4 networks, MPLS, and IP tunneling encapsulation points).
Differences within the groups of physicians and managers in Dutch hospitals providing leads for intergroup cooperation

Background: Effective cooperation between physicians and managers is difficult to achieve but is an important factor in successfully implementing improvement initiatives in hospitals. Intergroup literature suggests that large differences between groups hinder effective cooperation. - Purposes: Analyze the variation on culture,- stereotype,- and satisfaction scores, within groups of physicians and managers, to identify subgroups that can be focused on when effective cooperation with the other group is needed. - Methodology: We used the GAHP-Questionnaire which assesses the size and content of differences on culture, stereotyping, and satisfaction within and between groups of physicians and managers. The GAHP-questionnaire was sent to all physicians and managers of 46 Dutch general hospitals. Unadjusted and adjusted linear mixed effect models were used to determine significant intragroup differences, related to the demographic characteristics age and gender. For physicians we also analyzed profession, influences of management participation, and type of medical staff organization. For managers we included the hierarchical position. - Findings: The response included in the analyses consisted of 888 physicians (24%) and 280 managers (45%) from 37 hospitals. The Cronbach’s alphas were 0.70 to 0.79. Statistical analysis indicated many differences between the subgroups. Managers have a more homogeneous scoring pattern compared to physicians, though executive managers score the smallest gaps with physicians on relative power. For the physicians we see that the subgroups with characteristics female, medical, and physicians who participate in management more than 25% of their time, have the least differences with manager scores. - Practice implications: This study shows that diversity within the groups of physicians and managers provides leads to identify members of subgroups, who differ less from members of the other group. The results of our study could be used by hospital organizations to prevent staff-management conflicts and to create multidisciplinary teams that are more likely to cooperate effectively. Keywords: intergroup theory, cooperation, physicians, managers, hospital management, quality improvement.
A memory management unit and cache controller for the MARS system

For large caches, the interaction between cache access and address translation affects the machine cycle time and the access time to memory. The physically addressed caches slow down the cache access due to the virtual address translation. The virtually addressed caches is faster, but the synonym problem is difficult to handle. By some software constraints and hardware support, the virtually addressed physically tagged caches can achieve the same speed as traditional virtually addressed cache and solve the synonym problem. The design of delayed miss signal makes the TLB access depart from the critical path of the cache access. A simple method to solve the TLB coherence is implemented in this chip and only a little hardware is required. <<ETX>>
Development of In Vitro-Matured Oocytes from Porcine Preantral Follicles Following Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection

Abstract The objective of this study was to assess fertilization and embryonic development following intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) of oocytes from porcine preantral follicles matured in vitro. Also, another aim was to describe actin filament distribution during fertilization and embryonic development of those oocytes after ICSI as one of the factors assessed. Preantral follicles isolated from prepubertal porcine ovaries were cultured in a system that supports follicular development. After in vitro maturation, the oocytes were fertilized by ICSI or conventional fertilization in vitro (IVF). Actin filaments of the fertilized oocytes and embryos produced by ICSI or IVF were stained by rhodamine-phalloidin and visualized by fluorescence microscopy. ICSI resulted in 64% fertilization of porcine preantral follicle oocytes matured in vitro. Of those, 51% of the fertilized oocytes cleaved and 21% developed to the blastocyst stage. No significant differences in percentages of oocyte fertilization, cleavage, and blastocyst formation were observed between ICSI and IVF (53%, 45% and 16%, respectively). Actin filament distribution during fertilization and embryonic development of ICSI- or IVF-fertilized oocytes from porcine preantral follicles was similar to that of oocytes derived from antral follicles and fertilized by standard IVF. These results indicate that oocytes from porcine preantral follicles matured in vitro following ICSI can undergo fertilization and subsequent embryonic development.
Compressing discrete cosine transform coefficients by modified set partitioning in hierarchical trees

The discrete cosine transform (DCT) is widely used in many practical image/video compression systems because of its compression performance and computational efficiency. We adopt the DCT and the modified set partitioning in hierachical trees (SPIHT) algorithm that was designed initially for encoding the dis- crete wavelet transform (DWT) coefficients to be suitable to encode DCT coefficients. The algorithm represents the DCT coefficients to concentrate signal energy and proposes a combination and dictator to eliminate the correlation in the same level subband for encoding DCT-based images. To further save bits, subbands with significant coefficients are classified into seven types. The coding complexity of the proposed algorithm for DCT coefficients is just close to JPEG but the performance is higher than JPEG2000. Experimental results indicate that the proposed technique improves the quality of the reconstructed image in terms of peak SNR (PSNR) over SPIHT and JPEG2000 at the same bit rate. © 2005 SPIE and
State-ofthe-art of MEMS Technology for Design and Fabrication of Micro-Mirrors

This paper reports on the state-of-the-a rt of technologies for the design and fabrication of MEMS micro-mirrors. We discuss the major design issues, considerations, calculations and restrictions of mi cro mirrors. The materials employed for the reflective surfaces are described along with their properties. The mate rials used for the static and dynamic MEMS micro structur es as well as the different configurations are also prese nt d and summarized. The two most widely used techniques for actuation, namely, Electrostatic and Magnetic are p resented along with the formulas, tables and curves used to design the movable structures. The different options of fa brication processes are presented and discussed. Finally, the applications of micro mirrors are described.
Symbolic modeling of driving behavior based on hierarchical segmentation and formal grammar

This paper presents a new hierarchical segmentation of the observed driving behavioral data based on the multiple levels of abstraction of the underlying dynamics. By synthesizing the ideas of a feature vector definition revealing the dynamical characteristics and an unsupervised clustering technique, the hierarchical segmentation is achieved. The identified mode can be regarded as a kind of symbol in the abstract model of the behavior. Second, the grammatical inference technique is introduced to develop the context-dependent grammar of the behavior, i.e., the symbolic dynamics of the human behavior. In addition, the behavior prediction based on the obtained symbolic model is performed.
EDUTELLA: Searching and Annotating Resources within an RDF-based P2P Network

P2P applications for searching and exchanging information over the Web have become increasingly popular. This has lead to a number of (usually thematically) focused communities, which allow efficient searching within such communities, and which use specific metadata sets to specify the resources stored within the P2P network. By concentrating on domain and application specific formats for metadata and query languages, however, current P2P networks appear to be fragmenting into non-interoperable niche markets. This contribution describes the open source project Edutella which builds upon metadata standards defined for the WWW and aims to provide an RDF-based metadata infrastructure for P2P applications, building on the recently announced JXTA Framework. We describe one basic service (query) and an Edutella application (annotation) within this network, both being built on a common query language exchange format, and specify the main architecture and APIs of the Edutella P2P network.
Effects of ethanol in an experimental model of combined traumatic brain injury and hemorrhagic shock.

OBJECTIVES Given that clinical and laboratory studies suggest that ethanol and hemorrhagic shock (HS) potentiate traumatic brain injury (TBI), the authors studied the effects of ethanol in a model of combined TBI and HS. METHODS A controlled porcine model of combined TBI and HS was evaluated for the effect of ethanol on survival time, hemodynamic function, and cerebral tissue perfusion. Anesthetized swine (17-24 kg) were instrumented, splenectomized, and subjected to fluid percussion TBI with concurrent 25-mL/kg graded hemorrhage over 30 minutes. Two groups were studied: control (n = 11) and ethanol (n = 11). Ethanol, 3.5 g/kg intragastric, was given 100 minutes prior to TBI/HS. Systemic and cerebral physiologic and metabolic parameters were monitored for 2 hours without resuscitation. Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and renal blood flow were measured with dye-labeled microspheres. Data were analyzed with 2-sample t-test and repeated-measures ANOVA. RESULTS Ethanol levels at the time of injury were 162 +/- 68 mg/dL. Average TBI was 2.65 +/- 0.35 atm. Survival time was significantly shorter in the ethanol group (60 +/- 27 min vs 94 +/- 28 min, p = 0.011). The ethanol group had significantly lower mean arterial pressure, cerebral perfusion pressure, and cerebral venous O2 saturation in the postinjury period. Cerebral O2 extraction ratios and cerebral venous lactate levels were significantly higher in the ethanol group. A trend toward lower postinjury rCBF in all brain regions was observed in the ethanol group. CONCLUSION In this TBI/HS model, ethanol administration decreased survival time, impaired the hemodynamic response, and worsened measures of cerebral tissue perfusion.
A portal pressure cut‐off of 15 versus a cut‐off of 20 for prevention of small‐for‐size syndrome in liver transplantation: A comparative study

Portal hypertension has recently been implicated in the pathogenesis of small‐for‐size syndrome (SFSS) in adult‐to‐adult living‐donor liver transplantation (A‐LDLT). The aim of our study is to compare the portal venous pressure (PVP) cut‐off values of 15 mmHg and 20 mmHg in terms of prevention of SFSS in A‐LDLT.
AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF PATERNITY AND TAIL ORNAMENTATION IN THE BARN SWALLOW (HIRUNDO RUSTICA)

Previous studies of the socially monogamous barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) have shown that males that most frequently engage in extrapair copulations and whose partners are least involved in copulations with extrapair males are those with long tail ornaments. In this study, through the use of three highly polymorphic microsatellite markers, we analyze the relationships between length of tail ornaments of male barn swallows and proportion of nestlings fathered in own broods, number of offspring fathered in broods of other pairs, and total number of offspring fathered, using both a correlational and an experimental approach. Consistent with our predictions, we show that males with either naturally long or experimentally elongated tails have higher paternity (proportion of biological offspring in own broods), and they produce more biological offspring during the whole breeding season than males with naturally short or experimentally shortened tails. Males with naturally long tails also had more offspring in extrapair broods than short‐tailed males, but the effect of tail manipulation on the number of offspring fathered in extrapair broods, although being in the predicted direction, was not statistically significant. Cuckolded males that did not fertilize extrapair females had smaller postmanipulation tail length than cuckolders. We conclude that there is a causal, positive relationship between male tail length and paternity. Since female barn swallows have extensive control over copulation partners and heritability of tail length is high, this study shows that female choice is a component of selection for larger male ornaments. Benefits from extrapair fertilizations to females may arise because they acquire “good” genes for sexual attractiveness or high viability for their offspring.