Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of Training Set and Iterative Back Projection on Example-based Super-resolution

Example-based super-resolution has become increasingly popular over the last few years for its ability to defeat the restriction of classical multi-frame approach. In this paper we present the influence of training set on example based method. A difficulty with example-based methods is that they require storing and searching large databases. Additionally, it is not guaranteed that the database contains the true high-resolution details which may cause “illusion” effect. Furthermore, this database requires being large enough to prepare good results which make learning or searching computationally more requesting. The contribution of this paper involves the two following areas: different method of generating training set from training images and different structure of training patches. Additionally, we apply Iterative back projection as a post-processing technique. It can be seen from the experimental result that increasing the number of the training set doesn’t have much significant influence on PSNR and MSE. Also, it can be seen when the training set contains high resolution image or part of it, PSNR increases 2.7db and the MSE decreases 2.8. By using Iterative back projection, PSNR increases 0.8db and MSE decreases 0.65 compared to proposed algorithm in [8] and also improves visual quality of enlarged images. Keywords-super-resolution; example-based; iterative back projection.
Binding of herpes simplex virus-1 US11 to specific RNA sequences

Herpes simplex virus-1 US11 is a RNA-binding protein with a novel RNA-binding domain. US11 has been reported to exhibit sequence- and conformation-specific RNA-binding, but the sequences and conformations important for binding are not known. US11 has also been described as a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-binding protein. To investigate the US11–RNA interaction, we performed in vitro selection of RNA aptamers that bind US11 from a RNA library consisting of >1014 80 base sequences which differ in a 30 base randomized region. US11 bound specifically to selected aptamers with an affinity of 70 nM. Analysis of 23 selected sequences revealed a strong consensus sequence. The US11 RNA-binding domain and ≤46 bases of selected RNA containing the consensus sequence were each sufficient for binding. US11 binding protected the consensus motif from hydroxyl radical cleavage. RNase digestions of a selected aptamer revealed regions of both single-stranded RNA and dsRNA. We observed that US11 bound two different dsRNAs in a sequence non-specific manner, but with lower affinity than it bound selected aptamers. The results define a relatively short specific sequence that binds US11 with high affinity and indicate that dsRNA alone does not confer high-affinity binding.
Suffix Tree for a Sliding Window: An Overview

The suffix tree is a very powerful data structure developed originally for string matching and string searching. It has found many applications over the time and some of them belong into the data compression field. Many of these applications need a suffix tree built for a sliding window and t here exist two clever algorithms by Fiala and Greene and by Larsson that make this possible. However, as we show both approaches have flawed proofs. We remedy this situation both by explaining a simple alternative algorithm and giving a correct proof.
Critical information in coordinating defense of interconnected power systems

The vulnerability of critical infrastructures has become a key-concern in recent years. The faults (in particular as consequences of malicious attacks) may be both ¿physical¿, regarding system components, and ¿cyber¿, regarding information/communication system. Simultaneous attacks to different components, both physical and cyber, may be possible. In this context the identification and rank of the critical information of a given interconnected power system is of the utmost importance. In this paper we propose a game model, based on the socially rational multi-agent system and fictitious play characteristics, that can be used to represent the post-fault decision-making process of interconnected system operators (SO) by integrating the physical model and impact of information. The model allows for the ranking of the critical information and for the determination of network re-enforcements to reduce the impacts of critical information. The proposed model and methods are applied to a 34-buses test system for illustrative purposes.
Computing upper bounds to error probability of soft-decision decoding of Reed-Solomon codes based on the ordered statistics algorithm

This correspondence presents performance analysis of symbol-level soft-decision decoding of q-ary maximum-distance-separable (MDS) codes based on the ordered statistics algorithm. The method we present is inspired by the one recently proposed by Agrawal and Vardy (2000), who approximately evaluate the performance of generalized minimum-distance decoding. The correspondence shows that in our context, the method allows us to compute the exact value of the probability that the transmitted codeword is not one of the candidate codewords. This leads to a close upper bound on the performance of the decoding algorithm. Application of the ordered statistics algorithm to MDS codes is not new. Nevertheless, its advantages seem not to be fully explored. We show an example where the decoding algorithm is applied to singly extended 16-ary Reed-Solomon (RS) codes in a 128-dimensional multilevel coded-modulation scheme that approaches the sphere lower bound within 0.5 dB at the word error probability of 10/sup -4/ with manageable decoding complexity.
The duration, magnitude and compartmentalization of ERK MAP kinase activity: mechanisms for providing signaling specificity

ERK MAP kinase signaling plays a pivotal role in diverse cellular functions, including cell proliferation, differentiation, migration and survival. One of the central questions concerning this signaling is how activation of the same protein kinase, ERK, elicits distinct cellular outcomes. Recent progress has demonstrated that differences in the duration, magnitude and subcellular compartmentalization of ERK activity generate variations in signaling output that regulate cell fate decisions. Furthermore, several molecules have been identified as spatial, temporal or strength-controlling regulators of ERK activity. Signaling by various extracellular stimuli thus could be modulated by these regulators to give qualitative and quantitative differences in ERK activity, which are then interpreted by the cells as determinants for appropriate responses.
Polarized monolayers formed by epithelial cells on a permeable and translucent support

An epithelial cell line (MDCK) was used to prepare monolayers which, in vitro, develop properties of transporting epithelia. Monolayers were formed by plating cells at high densities (10(6) cells/cm2) on collagen- coated nylon cloth disks to saturate the area available for attachment, thus avoiding the need for cell division. An electrical resistance developed within 4-6 h after plating and achieved a steady-state value of 104 +/- 1.8 omega-cm2 after 24 h. Mature monolayers were morphologically and functionally polarized. They contained junctional complexes composed of desmosomes and tight junctions with properties similar to those of "leaky" epithelia. Monolayers were capable of maintaining a spontaneous electrical potential sensitive to amiloride, produced a net water flux from the apical to basal side, and discriminated between Na+ and Cl- ions. The MDCK permeability barrier behaves as a "thin" membrane with negatively charged sites. It has: (a) a linear conductance/concentration relationship; (b) an asymmetric instantaneous current/voltage relationship; (c) a reduced ability to discriminate between Na+ and Cl- caused by lowering the pH; and (d) a characteristic pattern of ionic selectivity which suggests that the negatively charged sites are highly hydrates and of medium field strength. Measurements of Na+ permeability of electrical and tracer methods ruled out exchange diffusion as a mechanism for ion permeation and the lack of current saturation in the I/deltapsi curves does not support the involvement of carriers. The discrimination between Na+ and Cl- was severely but reversibly decreased at low pH, suggesting that Na+-specific channels which exclude Cl- contain acidic groups dissociated at neutral pH. Bound Ca++ ions are involved in maintaining the integrity of the junctions in MDCK monolayers as was shown by a reversible drop of resistance and opening of the junctions in Ca++-free medium containing EGTA. Several other epithelial cell lines are capable of developing a significant resistance under the conditions used to obtain MDCK monolayers.
Gene Expression Profile for Predicting Survival in Advanced-Stage Serous Ovarian Cancer Across Two Independent Datasets

Background Advanced-stage ovarian cancer patients are generally treated with platinum/taxane-based chemotherapy after primary debulking surgery. However, there is a wide range of outcomes for individual patients. Therefore, the clinicopathological factors alone are insufficient for predicting prognosis. Our aim is to identify a progression-free survival (PFS)-related molecular profile for predicting survival of patients with advanced-stage serous ovarian cancer. Methodology/Principal Findings Advanced-stage serous ovarian cancer tissues from 110 Japanese patients who underwent primary surgery and platinum/taxane-based chemotherapy were profiled using oligonucleotide microarrays. We selected 88 PFS-related genes by a univariate Cox model (p<0.01) and generated the prognostic index based on 88 PFS-related genes after adjustment of regression coefficients of the respective genes by ridge regression Cox model using 10-fold cross-validation. The prognostic index was independently associated with PFS time compared to other clinical factors in multivariate analysis [hazard ratio (HR), 3.72; 95% confidence interval (CI), 2.66–5.43; p<0.0001]. In an external dataset, multivariate analysis revealed that this prognostic index was significantly correlated with PFS time (HR, 1.54; 95% CI, 1.20–1.98; p = 0.0008). Furthermore, the correlation between the prognostic index and overall survival time was confirmed in the two independent external datasets (log rank test, p = 0.0010 and 0.0008). Conclusions/Significance The prognostic ability of our index based on the 88-gene expression profile in ridge regression Cox hazard model was shown to be independent of other clinical factors in predicting cancer prognosis across two distinct datasets. Further study will be necessary to improve predictive accuracy of the prognostic index toward clinical application for evaluation of the risk of recurrence in patients with advanced-stage serous ovarian cancer.
Some trouble with repair: Conversations between children with cochlear implants and hearing peers

This article investigates differences in pragmatic abilities between children who have cochlear implants and their hearing peers. Recordings of 10-minute conversations between 10 children with cochlear implants (children with age-equivalent language scores) and a hearing peer were transcribed. Conversation analysis provides insights into interactional troubles not evident in broader measures of number of turns, requests for clarification, topic initiation and so on used in earlier studies. How the children go about repair proves of particular interest; other-initiated repair that prompts the speaker to repeat the prior utterance is, not surprisingly, more commonly produced by the children who have cochlear implants. The key contribution of this article, however, is to detail examples where children with cochlear implants choose not to initiate repair of an error made by their hearing friend. The discussion not only highlights the interactional cost of initiating repair, but also demonstrates that not doing repair can cause a breakdown in conversation.
Improvement in the V-Model

The V-model represents a software development process (also applicable to hardware development) which may be considered an extension of the waterfall model. Instead of moving dow n in a linear w ay, the process steps are bent upwards after the coding phase, to form the typical V shape. The V-Model demonstrates the relationship between each phase of the development life cycle and its associated phase of testing. The horizontal and vertical axes represents time or project completeness (left-to-right) and level of abstraction (coarsest-grain abstraction uppermost), respectively. This model depends on verif ication and validation phase Software Testing is the most important phase of the Software Development Life Cycle. On most software projects testing activities consume at least 30 percent of the project effort. On safety critical applications, software testing can consume between 50 to 80percent of project effort. Software testing is essential to ensure software quality. Schedule is always running tight during the software system development, thereafter reducing efforts of performing software testing management. In such a situation, improving sof tware quality becomes an impossible mission It is our belief that software industry needs new approaches to promote software testing management. The article discussed the model that already existed, further excavates the parallelism betw een test stages and maintenance test stages and tries to propose a improved V model. This model makes the software testing pass through the each stage of software development cycle.
Accretion disc origin of the Earth's water

Earth's water is conventionally believed to be delivered by comets or wet asteroids after the Earth formed. However, their elemental and isotopic properties are inconsistent with those of the Earth. It was thus proposed that water was introduced by adsorption onto grains in the accretion disc prior to planetary growth, with bonding energies so high as to be stable under high-temperature conditions. Here, we show both by laboratory experiments and numerical simulations that water adsorbs dissociatively on the olivine {100} surface at the temperature (approx. 500–1500 K) and water pressure (approx. 10−8 bar) expected for the accretion disc, leaving an OH adlayer that is stable at least up to 900 K. This may result in the formation of many Earth oceans, provided that a viable mechanism to produce water from hydroxyl exists. This adsorption process must occur in all disc environments around young stars. The inevitable conclusion is that water should be prevalent on terrestrial planets in the habitable zone around other stars.
Mobile Sentiment Analysis

Mobile devices play a significant part in a user’s communication methods and much data that they read and write is received and sent via mobile phones, for instance SMS messages, e-mails, Twitter tweets and social media networking feeds. One of the main goals is to make people aware of how much negative and positive content they read and write via their mobile phones. Existing sentiment analysis applications perform sentiment analysis on downloaded data from mobile phones or use an application installed on another computer to perform the analysis. The sentiment analysis described in this paper is to be performed locally on the mobile phone enabling immediate and private analysis of personal messages and social media contents, allowing the users to be able to reason about their mood and stress level that may be affected by what they had been receiving. Experimental results showed the effectiveness of the proposed system on Android smartphones with varying computational capabilities.
Dynamic Pricing Strategies in the Presence of Demand Shifts

Many factors introduce the prospect of changes in the demand environment that a firm faces, with the specifics of such changes not necessarily known in advance. If and when realized, such changes affect the delicate balance between demand and supply and thus current prices should account for these future possibilities. We study the dynamic pricing problem of a retailer facing the prospect of a change in the demand function during a finite selling season with no inventory replenishment opportunity. In particular, the time of the change and the postchange demand function are unknown upfront, and we focus on the fundamental trade-off between collecting revenues from current demand and doing so for postchange demand, with the capacity constraint introducing the main tension. We develop a formulation that allows for isolating the role of dynamic pricing in balancing inventory consumption throughout the horizon. We establish that, in many settings, optimal pricing policies follow a monotone path up to the change in demand. We show how one may compare upfront the attractiveness of pre- and postchange demand conditions and how such a comparison depends on the problem primitives. We further analyze the impact of the model inputs on the optimal policy and its structure, ranging from the impact of model parameter changes to the impact of different representations of uncertainty about future demand.
A Lower Bound for Cumulative Self-Similar Processes and Burst Assembly Algorithms

In this paper, we introduce a probabilistic lower bound for the amount of work arrived for self-similar processes. The obtained bound is accurate and tight. In the optical burst switching context, using the developed lower bound we obtained an analytical expression for the minimum burst length generated by a timer-based burst assembly algorithm, the maximum delay imposed by a burstlength-based burst assembly algorithm and project constraints of a mixed timer/burstlength-based burst assembly algorithm when the incoming traffic is self-similar. Our results are very useful when designing optical burst switching networks and analyzing the performance of burst assembly algorithms at the presence of self-similarity.
Model-Checking Real-Time Properties of an Auto Flight Control System Function

We relate an experiment in modeling and verification of a part of an avionic function. The problem addressed is the correctness of a temporal condition enabling the detection of a range of faults in the implementation of the function. Using the Fiacre/Tina verification toolset, we produced a formal model abstracting the function, and confirmed by model-checking that the condition determined analytically is indeed correct. The modelling issues ensuring tractability of the model are discussed.
A Focus on Engagement: Defining, Measuring, and Nurturing a Key Pillar of AACSB Standards

ABSTRACT The 2013 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Standards emphasize three “pillars” upon which schools accredited by the association must regularly demonstrate quality improvement, namely, impact, innovation, and engagement. Focusing on the last of these, our article examines the concept of engagement through both a content analysis of the 2013 AACSB Standards and an empirical study exploring different types of course-level engagement within an undergraduate business course (measured using the Student Course Engagement Questionnaire; Handelsman, Briggs, Sullivan, & Towler, 2005). The results of our content analysis of the 2013 AACSB Standards underscore the focus placed on engagement within the AACSB documentation. However, it is also noted that the definition of engagement within the AACSB Standards is somewhat vague. The findings of our empirical study (N = 142) suggest that students were engaged in the course and that three of the four types of engagement measured (skills, participation/interaction, and performance engagement) were positively correlated with final performance in the course.
Trustworthy Embedded Systems 2 Technology and Science 2.1 Research and Potential Impact

This report presents the research agenda for NICTA's ERTOS team for the four years from October 2009. It builds on the successful seL4, L4.verified and CAmkES projects to take an ambitious next step towards truly trustworthy real-world systems. Specifically, it aims to provide strong dependability guarantees for systems built from trusted and untrusted (including legacy) components, and comprising millions of lines of code. 1 Summary The Problem. Complex embedded systems consist of millions of lines of code and components of varying quality, but have high-assurance requirements for the whole system. The Approach. Leveraging our unique position with a verified kernel and a strong FM/OS team, we will develop a platform and method that integrate with current development processes to achieve whole-system guarantees with minimal formal methods involvement for the developer. The Outcome. We will be able to build systems with millions of lines of code affordably, with strong, formal whole-system guarantees. The Outputs. We will create tools for implementing high assurance systems, formal models and methods for analysing them, and a set of critical trusted OS components to build on. Path to Impact. Partnering with OKL and defence we will focus initially on the defence vertical market while exploring further market possibilities during the course of the project. Candidates are avionics, bio-medical, SCADA and automotive sectors. The ERTOS-2 project aims to solve the problem of building complex embedded software systems with millions of lines of code, while at the same time providing formal guarantees of critical safety and security properties. Formal verification is one of the main differentiating factors of this project, but the research challenges involved to make such systems practical and feasible include far more. In particular, we propose to attack cross-cutting OS research concerns that are vital in the embedded systems application area. These include multi-core processors, energy consumption, providing temporal isolation, trusted OS components, and microkernel-based system architectures. Industry and consumers increasingly rely on modern embedded systems to perform critical tasks such as controlling medical devices, mobile phones, industrial plants, Internet infrastructure, automobiles, and aeroplanes. These systems are a complex combination of hardware and software, with the software typically accounting for a significant (and frequently dominant) fraction of the overall functionality, complexity and development cost. The software in these systems is huge: the size of the software in a typical 3G smart phone is on the order of 5–7 million lines of code (loc); in support …
High-Frequency Induction Hardening with Controlled Capacitors-Discharge Pulse-Operation Processes

Induction hardening processes with power pulses obtained by means of capacitors-discharge high-frequency generators are discussed. The process is characterized by high-power densities and heating times on the order of some tens or hundreds of milliseconds together with cooling rates obtained by self-quenching without the use of auxiliary means. The possibility of obtaining the most favorable transient temperature distribution in the workpieces by controlling the shape of the pulses and therefore the variable time rate energy supply is examined. The influence of shape of pulses and discharge circuit's electrical parameters on the heating and cooling transients has been analyzed by a thermal model which allows prediction of the depths of hardening. Measurements from hardening tests carried out on steel samples varying the pulse shapes are given in support of the calculation results.
Passive Location to Moving Emitter Using DOA and Its Rate of Change

The theory of passive location to moving emitter on the ground using DOA (direction of arrival) and its rate of change is described. Expression of observability is obtained by Jacobi matrix and conditions of observability under different relative motion states are discussed. A location algorithm which involves DOA and its rate of change based on MGEKF (Modified Gain Extended Kalman Filter) is put forward, and comparisons with the location algorithm only using DOA and other classic algorithms------EKF ------ are also given respectively according to simulation results.