Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep Image Compositing

In image editing, the most common task is pasting objects from one image to the other and then eventually adjusting the manifestation of the foreground object with the background object. This task is called image compositing. But image compositing is a challenging problem which requires professional editing skills and a considerable amount of time. Not only these professionals are expensive to hire, but the tools (like Adobe Photoshop) used for doing such tasks are also expensive to purchase making the overall task of image compositing difficult for people without this skillset. In this work we aim to cater to this problem by making composite images look realistic. To achieve this, we are using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANS). By training the network with a diverse range of filters applied to the images and special loss functions, the model is able to decode the color histogram of foreground and background part of the image and also learns to blend the foreground object with the background. The hue and saturation values of the image plays an important role as discussed in this paper. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that uses GANs for that task of image compositing. Currently, there is no benchmark dataset available for image compositing. So we created the dataset and will also make the dataset publicly available for benchmarking. Experimental results on this dataset show that our method outperforms all current state-of-the-art methods.
Manually Written or Generated Tests?: A Study with Developers and Maintenance Tasks

Software testing is an important part of software development. In addition to finding faults in the code, good tests should help developers to correct faults and be easily updated in case of modifications due to code changes. Automatically generated tests can save time and may lead to higher code coverage. However, these tests may be less readable and not based on realistic scenarios. Few pieces of research have been done to evaluate whether automatically generated tests are maintainable and support developers when maintaining code. To further investigate this issue, we perform an empirical study with 20 real developers to compare how they perform maintenance tasks with automatically generated (Evosuite or Randoop) and manually-written test cases. Our results indicate that automatically generated tests can be a great help for identifying faults during maintenance. Also, we found that all strategies were similar at helping to produce correct bug fixes and with similar efficiency. Therefore, we can say that developers may integrate generated test suites into the project at any stage.
Determination of total and speciated arsenicin rice by ion chromatography and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

A method is presented for arsenic speciation analysis in rice using ion chromatography coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Several procedures for the extraction of arsenic species from rice were investigated and compared. Treatment of the samples with 2 M trifluoroacetic acid for 6 h at 100°C provided good extraction efficiency. Fortification recoveries were 83, 88, 100, and 93% for arsenite (100 ng As g−1), arsenate (100 ng As g−1), methylarsonic acid (MMA, 50 ng As g−1), and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA, 200 ng As g−1), respectively. The arsenate fortification recovery was calculated using the sum of the increase in arsenate and arsenite concentrations because arsenate was partially reduced to arsenite during the extraction process. Thus the sum of their concentrations is reported in this method as total inorganic arsenic. The sum of the arsenic species determined in NIST SRM 1568a rice flour (0.27 µg g−1 As), compared well with the certified total arsenic value (0.29 µg g−1 As). The speciation results obtained for 5 samples of long grain rice and one sample of wild rice are compared with total arsenic concentrations as determined by ICP-MS. The total arsenic concentrations ranged from 0.11 to 0.34 mg kg−1. The sum of the arsenic species extracted and determined by IC-ICP-MS ranged from 84 to 99% of the measured total arsenic concentrations. Inorganic arsenic accounted for 11–91% of the arsenic detected while DMA accounted for most of the remaining arsenic in the samples.
Salivary peptide human neutrophil defensin1–3 and its relationship with early childhood caries

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the relationship of the level of salivary peptides human neutrophil defensin (HNP) 1–3 in children with and without early childhood caries (ECC). Materials and Methods: This in vitro study was conducted among 86 children of age 3–6 years who were divided into two groups: Group 1 – children with ECC (n = 43) and Group 2 – children without ECC (n = 43). Saliva samples were collected, and salivary peptide HNP1–3 levels were analyzed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The data collected were subjected to appropriate statistical analysis. Independent sample t-test was used to compare the mean salivary peptide levels of HNP1–3 in children with and without ECC. One-way ANOVA was used for intragroup comparison of the mean peptide levels between the ages. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean age of the children in Group 1 and Group 2 was 5.12 ± 0.851 and 4.88 ± 0.879 years, respectively. A statistically significant decrease was seen in salivary peptide HNP1–3 levels in children with ECC (1.44 ng/ml) when compared to children without ECC (6.04 ng/ml) with P < 0.001. There were no statistically significant differences in the gender- and age-based comparisons. Conclusion: A decrease in salivary peptide HNP1–3 levels might be a biological factor for predisposition to ECC and hence can be used as a predictive and a preventive tool in caries prevention.
C-arm fluoroscopic-guided subarachnoid block in a super morbidly obese patient

1. Patijn J, Mekhail N, Hayek S, Lataster A, van Kleef M, Zundert JV. Meralgia paresthetica. Pain Pract 2011;11:302-8. 2. Shin HJ, Kim YH, Lee HW. Meralgia paresthetica-like symptoms following epidural analgesia after total knee arthroplasty. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 2014;58:1276-9. 3. Lee SH, Shin KJ, Gil YC, Ha TJ, Koh KS, Song WC. Anatomy of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve relevant to clinical findings in meralgia paresthetica. Muscle Nerve 2017;55:646-50. 4. Chung KH, Lee JY, Ko TK, Park CH, Chun DH, Yang HJ, et al. Meralgia paresthetica affecting parturient women who underwent cesarean section. Korean J Anesthesiol 2010;59(Suppl):S86-9. 5. Omichi Y, Tonogai I, Kaji S, Sangawa T, Sairyo K. Meralgia paresthetica caused by entrapment of the lateral femoral subcutaneous nerve at the fascia lata of the thigh: A case report and literature review. J Med Invest 2015;62:248-50. How to cite this article: Kulkarni R, Maniar A, Mandhal L, Stephen M. Meralgia paraesthetica following total knee arthroplasty. Indian J Anaesth 2020;64:1074-5. © 2020 Indian Journal of Anaesthesia | Published by Wolters Kluwer Medknow This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
Shock front dynamics in the pulsed laser deposition of YBa2Cu3O7−x

The pulsed laser deposition of YBa2Cu3O7−x targets by excimer laser at fluences of 4–10 J cm−2 in low pressure oxygen backgrounds yields emissive plumes with kinetic energies of 50–200 eV, driving the formation of a shock front with Mach numbers of M = 10–50. The propagation of the shock front is independent of atomic species and adequately characterized by the Sedov–Taylor shock model if the dimensionality of the plume is allowed to deviate from ideal spherical expansion. The ideal efficiency of energy conversion from laser pulse to shock expansion is nearly unity at 1 Torr, but decreases rapidly at lower pressures, where the plume expands beyond the laser footprint during ablation. The low oxygen background pressures, 100–1000 mTorr, typically employed for the production of superconducting films is sufficient for the generation of a strong shock front with shock thickness of 5 mm to less than 0.4 mm, but too low to develop three-dimensional flow. Indeed, dimensionality of the expansion ranges from n = 0.8 to 2.4 over the background oxygen pressure range of 25–1000 mTorr. Shock strength is proportional to the Mach number and inversely dependent on pressure, indicating a thickness limited to approximately the collision mean free path.
Enhancing Personalized Document Ranking using Social Information

1. RESEARCH OVERVIEW Social networks (like Facebook and MySpace), collaborative bookmarking systems (like Bibsonomy, Delicious, and CiteULike) and Microblog systems like twitter, offer services such as sharing, commenting, tagging, publishing, rating, retweeting and discussing, that make users increasingly active. Hence, users are more and more connected. Given the tremendous amount of information, witch is generated by these platforms, there is a need to an Information Retrieval (IR) system to automatically answer user’s queries. However, IR system, in this case should take into account additional criteria, such as user’s social networks, user’s interests, user’s preferences, etc. In other words, the classical IR systems should be personalized. In personalized information retrieval, the search process considers a user’s model that covers user’s interest, behavior and history. Commonly, users models are build trough user’s query logs [10], user’s posts (such as tweets, blogs and comments) [15], user’s tags and bookmarking [1, 12, 16]. Consequently, a user is represented by a profile. The user profile is then used in IR system in two main scenarios, “query expansion” [3, 4, 7], or document “re-ranking”[6, 8, 9,
Effects of a Small Amount of Added Elements on the Ductility of a Cu-8 mass%Sn Alloy at Elevated Temperatures

Etude entre 573 K et 1073 K de la ductilite a chaud de l'alliage Cu-8% poids Sn contenant 0,1% B-0,1% Mg ou 0,1% P. Entre 673 et 873 K les alliages montrent une faible ductilite accompagne d'une rupture intergranulaire. L'augmentation de ductilite a temperature superieure a 873 K s'accompagne d'une rupture transgranulaire. Influence d'une recristallisation dynamique
NARCISSUS

NARCISSUS is an experimental video and series of large format prints created using the Kinect sensor and Processing 2.0. The works explore the nature of love and tension in the line. The ambiguity of perspective in 3D imagery makes it appear as if the main character in the piece is both lover and loved at the same time, reinforcing the idea of a passionate need that cannot be fulfilled. This work is inspired by a 1976 drawing of Colombian artist Luis Caballero, who died of AIDS in 1995, whose work was a painfully ecstatic, homo-erotic portrait of a generation that was just coming out of the closet. Almost 40 years later, we find ourselves in a Lipovetskian era, where narcissism appears to counterbalance the erotic angst. The actor's performance is altered due to the usage of technologies that question the traditional role of the video camera's single point of view.
Preparation of Surface-Imprinted Polymer Magnetic Nanoparticles with Miniemulsion Polymerization for Recognition of Salicylic Acid

Molecular surface-imprinted polymers nanoparticles encapsulating magnetite modified with oleic acid, for recognition of salicylic acid was prepared by three-step miniemulsion polymerization. The important factors including polymerization process, solvents, miniemulsifying approaches, and co-stabilizer have been investigated to obtain magnetic molecular imprinting polymers (MMIPs) nanoparticles (NPs) with high saturation magnetization (Ms), regular morphology, and good monodispersion. The results showed that the amount of magnetite encapsulated in MMIPs NPs was 43.4 wt% and Ms was 33.584 emu/g. Thus, MMIPs NPs could be separated easily within 2 minutes by an external magnetic field. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) showed MMIPs NPs were of regular sphere with core-shell structure, where magnetite NPs were uniformly encapsulated in homogeneous polymer shells. The average diameter of MMIPs NPs was 98 nm with RSD of 6.6%. Good recognition and high loading of target molecule were achieved by MMIPs NPs in batch rebinding tests.
Modeling effectiveness of testing strategies to prevent COVID-19 in nursing homes —United States, 2020

Background: SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in nursing homes can be large with high case fatality. Identifying asymptomatic individuals early through serial testing is recommended to control COVID-19 in nursing homes, both in response to an outbreak ("outbreak testing" of residents and healthcare personnel) and in facilities without outbreaks ("non-outbreak testing" of healthcare personnel). The effectiveness of outbreak testing and isolation with or without non-outbreak testing was evaluated. Methods: Using published SARS-CoV-2 transmission parameters, the fraction of SARS-CoV-2 transmissions prevented through serial testing (weekly, every three days, or daily) and isolation of asymptomatic persons compared to symptom-based testing and isolation was evaluated through mathematical modeling using a Reed-Frost model to estimate the percentage of cases prevented through either outbreak testing alone or outbreak plus non-outbreak testing. The potential effect of simultaneous decreases (by 10%) in the effectiveness of isolating infected individuals when instituting testing strategies was also evaluated. Results: Modeling suggests that outbreak testing could prevent 54% (weekly testing with 48-hour test turnaround) to 92% (daily testing with immediate results and 50% relative sensitivity) of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Adding non-outbreak testing could prevent up to an additional 8% of SARS-CoV-2 infections (depending on test frequency and turnaround time). However, added benefits of non-outbreak testing were mostly negated if accompanied by decreases in infection control practice. Conclusions: When combined with high-quality infection control practices, outbreak testing could be an effective approach to preventing COVID-19 in nursing homes, particularly if optimized through increased test frequency and use of tests with rapid turnaround.
THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL ON NURSING PERFORMANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF MEDICAL TOURISM IN MALAYSIA

The rising importance of medical tourism to a country’s economic growth has necessitated the need for healthcare employees particularly those from the private sector to always perform at their best level. Since nurses represent the largest workforce component in healthcare, their performance would have a salient impact on international patients’ perception of service quality and satisfaction. Psychological capital has been identified as a contributor to employee job performance. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of four psychological capital dimensions (self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism) on nurses’ job performance (task performance and contextual performance). Statistical analysis using Partial Least Squares (PLS) conducted on the questionnaire data from 639 staff nurses working in private hospitals in Malaysia revealed that all psychological capital dimensions except for resilience have positive effects on the two forms of job performance. Finally, finding implications, limitations, future research suggestions and conclusion are proffered.
Why isn’t Uber a worker cooperative? On the (im)possibility of self-management in the platform economy

We develop a simple model of a worker-managed (WM) via-app labour platform firm, through which a homogenous service is provided to customers on-demand, with the costs of organizing and monitoring the workers being constant across different sizes of the business. We show that WM platforms may be viable when the initial cost of the platform and the cost of external capital for financially constrained workers are lower and in environments characterized by high revenues and positive network externalities. Moreover, when capital-managed (CM) platform owners retain an overhead commission below a certain critical threshold, workers are better off as employees in a CM firm. These findings are shown to fit available anecdotal evidence revealing that WM platforms are confined to activities related to on-line trade of ethical goods and artistic products, where demand bunching effects matter significantly. On the other side, where network effects are milder and overhead commissions are set strategically by CM firms, as in the peer-to-peer transportation sector, WM via-app platforms are virtually absent.
Urban Wage Premium in a Labor Market with Informality

Few studies analyze how the urban wage premium is different for informal workers, and their results are controversial. This paper aims to clarify the reason for this mixed evidence, evaluating how workers’ heterogeneity in terms of labor contract - formal or informal - and occupational position - as wage-earner or self-employed - may impact the magnitude and direction of the UWP estimates. We address this investigation by analyzing the Brazilian labor market using the PNADC (IBGE) longitudinal database for the period from 2012 to 2019. The results show that formal workers present an increasing UWP according to the urban scale, as seen in many previous studies for developed or developing countries. In its turn, informal workers UWP is double the formal ones but is reduced in denser areas. Thus, our study shows previous UWP studies that focus only on formal workers could underestimate the magnitude of this premium for the whole labor market and that disregarding the groups of workers hides the complexity inherent of their insertion in the large urban labor markets. Also, different estimations highlight some mechanisms on the UWP explanation, such as sorting and matching. These results add new insights to the UWP in Brazil, signaling the importance of analyzing the whole labor market.
Hindmarsh–Rose Neuron Model using Two-Coupled Biological Networks Without Digital Multipliers

: The efficient modeling, simulation, and implementation of biological neural networks are key objectives of the neuromorphic research field, leading to potential applications, such as assisting the search for new solutions to cure brain diseases, improved performance of robots, and the fundamental study of neural network behavior. This brief proposes modified biological Hindmarsh–Rose (HR) neuron model that is more suited for efficient implementation on digital platforms. Simulation results show that the model can reproduce the desired behaviors of the neuron. The proposed model is investigated, in terms of digital implementation feasibility and cost, targeting a low-cost hardware implementation. Hardware implementation on a field-programmable gate array shows that the modified model mimics the biological behavior of different types of neurons, with higher performance and considerably lowers hardware overhead cost compared with the original HR model.
Unchaining the trade: Beyond the direct benefits of gum Arabic value chain in Sudan

Market or value chain analysis is an important tool to aid understanding of the flow of traded non-timber forest products (NTFPs), from local harvesters or producers to the final consumers, as well as the relative distribution of benefits at each stage. However, there is little consideration of the flow of benefits to external actors supplying goods and services to the chain actors as well as exploration of how widely the economic and development benefits of NTFP trade permeate. As an illustration, the study examined the gum Arabic value chain in East Darfur, Sudan. Snowball sampling was used to select market chain and external actors who were then interviewed using semi-structured questionnaires. Four different sets of chain actors were identified and their income distribution was assessed. It has been estimated that there are approximately 2,000 external actors who supply goods or services to the market chain actors. For many of these the income from supplying the gum Arabic chain actors is their most important source of cash income, and for some, it is their only source. This study therefore indicates that much work on NTFP incomes and value chains has overlooked this wider constituency, and therefore underestimated the importance of NTFP trade in local and regional economies.
Discretion and Destruction: Promotions, Performance, and Patronage in the Royal Navy ∗

How eﬀective is discretion for selecting leaders? We collect new data on the performance of more than 5,800 naval oﬃcers serving in the 18th century Royal Navy. Oﬃcers fast-tracked for promotion at the discretion of the Admiralty performed markedly better than those “passed over” – the Navy picked future winners. Selection was particularly eﬀective for oﬃcers connected to the Admiralty through family ties. Instead of favoritism, we ﬁnd that family ties and discretion allowed the eﬀective use of private information. Keeping out the “wrong” connected oﬃcers while fast-tracking the high-performing ones was a key driver of superior selection. ∗ We thank Douglas Allen, Abhay Aneja, Charles Angelucci, Sascha Becker, Oriana Bandiera, Ernesto Dal B´o, Fred Finan, Anderson Frey, Ruixue Jia, Danielle Li, Jin Li, Peter Leeson, Nicholas Rodger, Laura Schechter, Edoardo Teso, Matthias Thoenig, Harald Uhlig, and Noam Yuchtman for helpful discussions. Seminar au-diences at the Association for Comparative Economic Studies (ACES), Kellogg-Harvard PED Conference, Hongkong University, Monash, UZH Faculty Lunch, U Lausanne, U Stellenbosch, the Swiss Economic Association, Tsinghua University PBCSF, the BGSE Summer Forum, and the UC Berkeley Economic History seminar provided valuable feedback. Noah Sutter, Caitlyn Schwartz, and Haoran Gao provided excellent research assistance.
Bilateral J-Curve between Slovakia and its major trading partners

Abstract. The primary purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of exchange rate on bilateral trade flows between Slovakia and its seven major trading partners. Devaluation or depreciation of a currency worsens the trade balance before improving it, resulting in a J-curve pattern. This paper investigates J-curve phenomenon using quarterly time series data over the period 1997:1 to 2010:4. In this paper is applied the Johansen cointegration test to analyse the long run relationship between exchange rate and trade balance. Short term effects and the related J-curve effect is explored by estimating error correction model and by assessing the impulse response function of the trade balance on the exchange rate shock. The results reveal that the trade balance between Slovakia and its trading partners does not support the J-curve phenomenon in all cases. The J-curve phenomenon was revealed in case of Hungary and partially in Czech Republic, in case of Austria S-curve pattern was found, in other cases, the coefficient estimates follow any specific pattern in response to currency depreciation.
Attitudinal Effects of Stimulus Co-Occurrence and Stimulus Relations: Range and Limits of Intentional Control

Research suggests that evaluations of an object can be simultaneously influenced by (a) the mere co-occurrence of the object with a pleasant or unpleasant stimulus (e.g., mere co-occurrence of object A and negative event B) and (b) the object’s particular relation to the co-occurring stimulus (e.g., object A starts vs. stops negative event B). Using a multinomial modeling approach to disentangle the two kinds of influences on choice decisions, three experiments investigated whether learners can intentionally control the relative impact of stimulus co-occurrence and stimulus relations. An integrative analysis of the data from the three experiments (N = 1,154) indicate that incentivized instructions to counteract effects of stimulus co-occurrence by focusing on stimulus relations increased the impact of stimulus relations without affecting the impact of stimulus co-occurrence. Implications for evaluative learning, intentional control, and public policy are discussed.