Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust 3D Head Tracking Using Camera Pose Estimation

In this paper, we present a robust method to recover 3D position and orientation (pose) of a moving head using a single stationary camera. Head pose is recovered via a camera pose estimation formulation. 3D feature points (artificial or natural occurring) are acquired from the head prior to tracking and used as a model. Pose is estimated by solving a robust version of "Perspective n Point" problem. The proposed algorithm can handle self occlusions, outliers and recover from tracking failures. Results were validated by simultaneous tracking using our system and an accurate magnetic field 3D measuring device. Our contribution is a system that is not restricted to track only human heads, and is accurate enough to be used as a measuring device. To demonstrate the applicability of our method, three types of heads (human, barn owl, chameleon) were tracked in a series of biological experiments
Bin-Picking based on Harmonic Shape Contexts and Graph-Based Matching

In this work we address the general bin-picking problem where 3D data is available. We apply harmonic shape contexts (HSC) features since these are invariant to translation, scale, and 3D rotation. Each object is divided into a number of sub-models each represented by a number of HSC features. These are compared with HSC features extracted in the current data using a graph-based scheme. Results show that the approach is somewhat sensitive to noise, but works in presence of occlusion
How family caregivers' medical and moral assumptions influence decision making for patients in the vegetative state: a qualitative interview study

Background Decisions on limiting life-sustaining treatment for patients in the vegetative state (VS) are emotionally and morally challenging. In Germany, doctors have to discuss, together with the legal surrogate (often a family member), whether the proposed treatment is in accordance with the patient's will. However, it is unknown whether family members of the patient in the VS actually base their decisions on the patient's wishes. Objective To examine the role of advance directives, orally expressed wishes, or the presumed will of patients in a VS for family caregivers' decisions on life-sustaining treatment. Methods and sample A qualitative interview study with 14 next of kin of patients in a VS in a long-term care setting was conducted; 13 participants were the patient's legal surrogates. Interviews were analysed according to qualitative content analysis. Results The majority of family caregivers said that they were aware of aforementioned wishes of the patient that could be applied to the VS condition, but did not base their decisions primarily on these wishes. They gave three reasons for this: (a) the expectation of clinical improvement, (b) the caregivers' definition of life-sustaining treatments and (c) the moral obligation not to harm the patient. If the patient's wishes were not known or not revealed, the caregivers interpreted a will to live into the patient's survival and non-verbal behaviour. Conclusions Whether or not prior treatment wishes of patients in a VS are respected depends on their applicability, and also on the medical assumptions and moral attitudes of the surrogates. We recommend repeated communication, support for the caregivers and advance care planning.
Fracture and Yield Strengths of Composition B and TNT as a Function of Processing Conditions and Composition

Abstract : The uniaxial compressive strength and the yield strength as determined by confined triaxial compression (uniaxial strain) of Composition B were found to be increased by changes in processing conditions and composition. In addition, Young's modulus (slope of the linear portion of the stress versus strain curve) was also increased by the same changes. The uniaxial compressive strength and modulus were also found to depend on the position in the cast from which samples were taken for some casts. The results to date suggest that these effects are due primarily to changes in porosity and further that the changes in porosity are due to changes in processing conditions. Therefore, significant increases in strength and modulus may be accomplished by changes in processing conditions. The differences in the strengths of Composition B and TNT are also considered.
Comparative neurovirulence in lentiviral infections: The roles of viral molecular diversity and select proteases

All lentiviruses infect the brain, causing chronic neurological disease in their respective hosts. To examine the relationship(s) between lentivirus molecular diversity and the development of neurological disease, we examined in vitro and in vivo models of lentivirus neurovirulence using different recombinant viruses derived from human (HIV-1) and feline (FIV) immunodeficiency viruses. Both in vitro and in vivo studies of FIV neurovirulence showed that the FIV envelope derived from a neurovirulent strain was a principal determinant of neuropathogenesis, although systemic immunosuppression was also an integral feature of FIV neurovirulence. Studies of HIV-1 envelope sequences derived from brain or blood indicate that molecular diversity is greater in viruses from patients with HIV-associated dementia (HAD), compared to nondemented individuals. Moreover, the hypervariable V3 domain of HIVgp120, regardless of the HIV-1 clade from which it was derived, was an important region for mediating neurotoxicity in vitro but the level of viral replication did not influence neurotoxicity. For both the HIV-1 and FIV envelopes and HIV-1 Tat, induction of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 in macrophages was a consistent finding. Neurotoxicity caused by supernatants from HIV-infected or transfected macrophages, containing MMP-2, was greater than direct neurotoxicity levels caused by direct exposure of neurons to virus in assays of total neuronal death, but not in assays of neuronal apoptosis. Proteinase-activated receptor (PAR)-1 and its ligand thrombin were also induced during HIV infection, chiefly on astrocytes. PAR-1 activation resulted in gliosis and neurobehavioral changes in an animal model and resulted in N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor-mediated neuronal death. These findings suggest that the lentivirus envelope, which is a domain of extensive molecular diversity in brain-derived lentivirus isolates, directly influences neuropathogenesis through the activation of select proteases, underscoring the importance of concentrating on individual viral genes and proteases in the development of neuroprotective agents for HIV-related neurological disease.
Computationally Efficient Calculations of Target Performance of the Normalized Matched Filter Detector for Hydrocoustic Signals

Detection of hydroacoustic transmissions is a key enabling technology in applications such as depth measurements, detection of objects, and undersea mapping. To cope with the long channel delay spread and the low signal-to-noise ratio, hydroacoustic signals are constructed with a large time-bandwidth product, $N$. A promising detector for hydroacoustic signals is the normalized matched filter (NMF). For the NMF, the detection threshold depends only on $N$, thereby obviating the need to estimate the characteristics of the sea ambient noise which are time-varying and hard to estimate. While previous works analyzed the characteristics of the normalized matched filter (NMF), for hydroacoustic signals with large $N$ values the expressions available are computationally complicated to evaluate. Specifically for hydroacoustic signals of large $N$ values, this paper presents approximations for the probability distribution of the NMF. These approximations are found extremely accurate in numerical simulations. We also outline a computationally efficient method to calculate the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) which is required to determine the detection threshold. Results from an experiment conducted in the Mediterranean sea at depth of 900~m agree with the analysis.
Induction of the autolytic system of Escherichia coli by specific insertion of bacteriophage MS2 lysis protein into the bacterial cell envelope

Bacterial lysis induced by the expression of the cloned lysis gene of the RNA bacteriophage MS2 in Escherichia coli was shown to be under the same regulatory control mechanisms as penicillin-induced lysis. It was controlled by the stringent response and showed the phenomenon of tolerance when E. coli was grown at pH 5. Changes in the fine structure of the murein were found to be the earliest physiological changes in the cell, taking place 10 min before the onset of cellular lysis and inhibition of murein synthesis. Both the average length of the glycan strands and, with a time lag, the degree of cross-linkage were altered, indicating that a lytic transglycosylase and a DD-endopeptidase had been triggered. After extensive separation of the membranes by isopycnic sucrose gradient centrifugation, the lysis protein was present predominantly in the cytoplasmic membrane and in a fraction of intermediate density and, to a lesser degree, in the outer membrane, irrespective of the conditions of growth. However, only under lysis-permissive conditions could a 17% increase in the number of adhesion sites between the inner and outer membranes be observed. Thus, a casual relationship between lysis and the formation of lysis protein-induced adhesion sites seems to exist.
Apolipoprotein B (ApoB) Retention in Atherosclerotic Intracranial Arteries

Low (LDL) and very low (VLDL) lipoproteins density retained in grossly normal and atherosclerotic human intracranial arteries have been quantitated using an electro-immunoassay directed against apolipoprotein B (apoB), the major protein of these two lipoprotein fractions. Buffer-homogenales of grossly normal arteries contained apoB amounts ranging from < 0.04 to 1.58 Mg/mg tissue dry weight, while those of atherosclerotic plaques gave values ranging from 0.80 to 3.9 ng per mg tissue dry weight. These results were consistent with immunofluorescence studies localizing apoB in these arteries. Plaques also contained a remaining fraction of tightly-bound apoB as evidenced by positive immunofluorescence in sections of pellets from buffer homogenates. This was in contrast to the negative results from grossly normal arteries. These results would suggest that retention of apoB by intracranial arteries correlates positively with vessel lesions. Arterial apoB is present in both grossly normal regions and plaques in a loosely-bound form, possibly representing intact lipoprotein. ApoB is also present in a tightlybound form in plaques.
Learning Hierarchical Spectral–Spatial Features for Hyperspectral Image Classification

This paper proposes a spectral-spatial feature learning (SSFL) method to obtain robust features of hyperspectral images (HSIs). It combines the spectral feature learning and spatial feature learning in a hierarchical fashion. Stacking a set of SSFL units, a deep hierarchical model called the spectral-spatial networks (SSN) is further proposed for HSI classification. SSN can exploit both discriminative spectral and spatial information simultaneously. Specifically, SSN learns useful high-level features by alternating between spectral and spatial feature learning operations. Then, kernel-based extreme learning machine (KELM), a shallow neural network, is embedded in SSN to classify image pixels. Extensive experiments are performed on two benchmark HSI datasets to verify the effectiveness of SSN. Compared with state-of-the-art methods, SSN with a deep hierarchical architecture obtains higher classification accuracy in terms of the overall accuracy, average accuracy, and kappa (κ) coefficient of agreement, especially when the number of the training samples is small.
Generalised Wishart Processes

We introduce a stochastic process with Wishart marginals: the generalised Wishart process (GWP). It is a collection of positive semi-definite random matrices indexed by any arbitrary dependent variable. We use it to model dynamic (e.g. time varying) covariance matrices. Unlike existing models, it can capture a diverse class of covariance structures, it can easily handle missing data, the dependent variable can readily include covariates other than time, and it scales well with dimension; there is no need for free parameters, and optional parameters are easy to interpret. We describe how to construct the GWP, introduce general procedures for inference and predictions, and show that it outperforms its main competitor, multivariate GARCH, even on financial data that especially suits GARCH. We also show how to predict the mean of a multivariate process while accounting for dynamic correlations.
Robust Acoustic ECHO Control using a Simple ECHO Path Model

In handsfree tele or video conferencing acoustic echoes arise due to the coupling between the loudspeaker and microphone. Usually an acoustic echo canceler (AEC) is used for eliminating the undesired echoes. The weaknesses of AEC are that it is relatively complex and that it is not robust against non-linearities occurring when using low-end components such as small loudspeakers. We are describing an algorithm which models the acoustic echo path by means of an overall delay and a coloration effect filter. The echo is removed by means of short-time spectral modification. The algorithm design aims at low computational complexity and high robustness. The effect of echo path changes and non-linearities on the performance of this algorithm are investigated
Improving drag-and-drop on wall-size displays

On wall-size displays with pen or touch input, users can have difficulties reaching display contents located too high, too low, or too far away. Drag-and-drop interactions can be further complicated by bezels separating individual display units. Researchers have proposed a variety of interaction techniques to address this issue, such as extending the user's reach (e.g., push-and-throw) and bringing potential targets to the user (drag-and-pop). In this paper, we introduce a new technique called push-and-pop that combines the strengths of push-and-throw and drag-and-pop. We present two user studies comparing six different techniques designed for extending drag-and-drop to wall-size displays. In both studies, participants were able to file icons on a wall-size display fastest when using the push-and-pop interface.
Correlating Stimulus-Specific Adaptation of Cortical Neurons and Local Field Potentials in the Awake Rat

Changes in the sensory environment are good indicators for behaviorally relevant events and strong triggers for the reallocation of attention. In the auditory domain, violations of a pattern of repetitive stimuli precipitate in the event-related potentials as mismatch negativity (MMN). Stimulus-specific adaptation (SSA) of single neurons in the auditory cortex has been proposed to be the cellular substrate of MMN (Nelken and Ulanovsky, 2007). However, until now, the existence of SSA in the awake auditory cortex has not been shown. In the present study, we recorded single and multiunits in parallel with evoked local field potentials (eLFPs) in the primary auditory cortex of the awake rat. Both neurons and eLFPs in the awake animal adapted in a stimulus-specific manner, and SSA was controlled by stimulus probability and frequency separation. SSA of isolated units was significant during the first stimulus-evoked “on” response but not in the following inhibition and rebound of activity. The eLFPs exhibited SSA in the first negative deflection and, to a lesser degree, in a slower positive deflection but no MMN. Spike adaptation correlated closely with adaptation of the fast negative deflection but not the positive deflection. Therefore, we conclude that single neurons in the auditory cortex of the awake rat adapt in a stimulus-specific manner and contribute to corresponding changes in eLFP but do not generate a late deviant response component directly equivalent to the human MMN. Nevertheless, the described effect may reflect a certain part of the process needed for sound discrimination.
Network-Based Stochastic Semisupervised Learning

Semisupervised learning is a machine learning approach that is able to employ both labeled and unlabeled samples in the training process. In this paper, we propose a semisupervised data classification model based on a combined random-preferential walk of particles in a network (graph) constructed from the input dataset. The particles of the same class cooperate among themselves, while the particles of different classes compete with each other to propagate class labels to the whole network. A rigorous model definition is provided via a nonlinear stochastic dynamical system and a mathematical analysis of its behavior is carried out. A numerical validation presented in this paper confirms the theoretical predictions. An interesting feature brought by the competitive-cooperative mechanism is that the proposed model can achieve good classification rates while exhibiting low computational complexity order in comparison to other network-based semisupervised algorithms. Computer simulations conducted on synthetic and real-world datasets reveal the effectiveness of the model.
Continuous Query-Based Syndication : Distributed , Expressive Messaging for the IoT

Applications in the Internet of Things exist at a confluence of semantically isolated networks over buildings, physical spaces, cloud services, smart appliances and mobile and wearable devices. The utility of these applications is in their ability to capture capabilities of new families of smart, networked devices and integrate them with existing networks surrounding people, things and places. We present a novel publish-subscribe mechanism—continuous query-based syndication (CQBS)—that allows subscribers to richly describe the set of resources they require and maintain a consistent view of relevant data sources even as they change over time. We implement a highly available, distributed CQBS broker that uses a replicated coordinator to provide simple failover for embedded clients. Through benchmarks, we demonstrate that the system maintains reasonable 95 percentile latencies of under 10ms even under load.
¢-TSR: a description of spatial relationships between objects for image retrieval ⁄

This article presents ¢-TSR, a new image content representation exploiting the spatial relationships existing between its objects of interest. This approach provides two types of descriptions: with ¢-TSR3D, images are represented by geometric relationships between triplets of objects using triangle angles, while ¢-TSR5D enriches ¢-TSR3D by exploiting the orientation of the objects. The approach is generalized to polygonal spatial relationships, from triplets to tuples of objects. All these descriptions are invariant to translation, 2D rotation, scale and ∞ip. A semi-local representation of the relationships is also proposed, making the description robust to viewpoint changes, if required by the application. ¢-TSR can be applied not only to symbolic images (where objects are represented by labels or icons) but also to contents represented by low-level visual features such as interest points. In this work, we evaluate ¢-TSR for image and sub-image retrieval under the query-by-example paradigm, on contents represented with interest points in a bag-offeatures representation. We show that ¢-TSR improves two state-of-the-art approaches, in terms of quality of retrieval as well as of execution time. The experiments also highlight its efiectiveness and scalability against large image databases.
Seasonal budgets of reactive nitrogen species and ozone over the United States, and export fluxes to the global atmosphere

A three-dimensional, continental-scale photochemical model is used to investigate seasonal budgets of 03 and NO3. species (including NOx and its oxidation products) in the boundary layer over the United States and to estimate the export of these species from the U.S. boundary layer to the global atmosphere. Model results are evaluated with year-round observations for 03, CO, and NO, species at nonurban sites. A seasonal transition from NO, to hydrocarbon-limited conditions for 03 production over the eastern United States is found to take place in the fall, with the reverse transition taking place in the spring. The mean NOx/NOy molar ratio in the U.S. boundary layer in the model ranges from 0.2 in summer to 0.6 in winter, in accord with observations, and reflecting largely the seasonal variation in the chemical lifetime of NOx. Formation of hydroxy organic nitrates during oxidation of isoprene, followed by decomposition of these nitrates to HNO 3, is estimated to account for 30% of the chemical sink of NOx in the U.S. boundary layer in summer. Model results indicate that peroxyacylnitrates (PANs) are most abundant in the U.S. boundary layer in spring (25% of total NO3.), reflecting a combination of active photochemistry and low temperatures. About 20% of the NOx emitted from fossil fuel combustion in the United States in the model is exported out of the U.S. boundary layer as NOx or PANs (15% in summer, 25% in winter). This export responds less than proportionally to changes in NOx emissions in summer, but more than proportionally in winter. The annual mean export of NOx and PANs from the U.S. boundary layer is estimated to be 1.4 Tg N yr - , representing an important source of NOx on the scale of the northern hemisphere troposphere. The eventual 03 production in the global troposphere due to the exported NOx and PANs is estimated to be twice as large, on an annual basis, as the direct export of 03 pollution from the U.S. boundary layer. Fossil fuel combustion in the United States is estimated to account for about 10% of the total source of 03 in the northern hemisphere troposphere on an annual basis.
The Treatment of Ties in AP Correlation

The Kendall tau and AP correlation coefficients are very commonly use to compare two rankings over the same set of items. Even though Kendall tau was originally defined assuming that there are no ties in the rankings, two alternative versions were soon developed to account for ties in two different scenarios: measure the accuracy of an observer with respect to a true and objective ranking, and measure the agreement between two observers in the absence of a true ranking. These two variants prove useful in cases where ties are possible in either ranking, and may indeed result in very different scores. AP correlation was devised to incorporate a top-heaviness component into Kendall tau, penalizing more heavily if differences occur between items at the top of the rankings, making it a very compelling coefficient in Information Retrieval settings. However, the treatment of ties in AP correlation remains an open problem. In this paper we fill this gap, providing closed analytical formulations of AP correlation under the two scenarios of ties contemplated in Kendall tau. In addition, we developed an R package that implements these coefficients.