Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Image Retrieval Using Mean Shift Clustering

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is a widely used technique for retrieving images from large database. But there are many issues with this method regarding its performance. So there is scope to improve the processing. In recent years, different techniques have been implemented to improve the performance of CBIR. The proposed CBIR system uses kernel mean shift clustering, which is density based clustering. It is a nonparametric method and uses pairwise constraints to guide the clustering process. Since, Clustering is the method of an unsupervised classification but it is observed that whenever a small amount of supervision is provided to clustering, it increases the clustering performance significantly. The existing methods, such as k-mean clustering, are sensitive to initialization. Performance of the system will improve in terms of precision and recall. The performance of the proposed system is compared with the existing method. KeywordsSemi-supervised kernel clustering; mean shift clustering; Content based image retrieval; low rank kernel learning
Failure of short-term feed restriction to affect luteinizing hormone and leptin secretion or subcutaneous adipose tissue expression of leptin in the prepuberal gilt

Previously we reported that 24-h fast increased serum non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) concentrations, and decreased leptin pulse frequency, but not mean serum leptin concentrations in the OVX prepuberal gilt. The present study was conducted to determine if short-term feed restriction in the prepuberal gilt would reduce BF gene transcript expression, pulsatile LH secretion and serum leptin concentrations. OVX prepuberal gilts 79 ± 4 kg BW were control fed 3 kg (CF; n = 6) or feed restricted (RST; 33% of CF diet; n = 6) for 8 d to determine the effects of RST on leptin and LH secretion, metabolism, leptin, Ob-rb and transcription factor expression in BF. Blood samples were collected on day 8 and BF on day 9. RST gilts lost BW (-2.5 vs. +8.2 kg; SE = 0.6 kg; P < 0.001) and BF (-3 vs. +2 mm; SE = 1mm; P < 0.02) compared with CF gilts. Postprandial serum T4 concentrations increased (P < 0.04) in CF, but not in RST pigs. Postprandial serum insulin and BHBA concentrations were similar between treatments. A tre.
The Spatial Spectrum of Tangential Skin Displacement Can Encode Tactual Texture

The tactual scanning of five naturalistic textures was recorded with an apparatus that is capable of measuring the tangential interaction force with a high degree of temporal and spatial resolution. The resulting signal showed that the transformation from the geometry of a surface to the force of traction and, hence, to the skin deformation experienced by a finger is a highly nonlinear process. Participants were asked to identify simulated textures reproduced by stimulating their fingers with rapid, imposed lateral skin displacements as a function of net position. They performed the identification task with a high degree of success, yet not perfectly. The fact that the experimental conditions eliminated many aspects of the interaction, including low-frequency finger deformation, distributed information, as well as normal skin movements, shows that the nervous system is able to rely on only two cues: amplitude and spectral information. The examination of the “spatial spectrograms” of the imposed lateral skin displacement revealed that texture could be represented spatially, despite being sensed through time and that these spectrograms were distinctively organized into what could be called “spatial formants. ” This finding led us to speculate that the mechanical properties of the finger enables spatial information to be used for perceptual purposes in humans with no distributed sensing, which is a principle that could be applied to robots.
Investigating Emotional Top Down Modulation of Ambiguous Faces by Single Pulse TMS on Early Visual Cortices

Top-down processing is a mechanism in which memory, context and expectation are used to perceive stimuli. For this study we investigated how emotion content, induced by music mood, influences perception of happy and sad emoticons. Using single pulse TMS we stimulated right occipital face area (rOFA), primary visual cortex (V1) and vertex while subjects performed a face-detection task and listened to happy and sad music. At baseline, incongruent audio-visual pairings decreased performance, demonstrating dependence of emotion while perceiving ambiguous faces. However, performance of face identification decreased during rOFA stimulation regardless of emotional content. No effects were found between Cz and V1 stimulation. These results suggest that while rOFA is important for processing faces regardless of emotion, V1 stimulation had no effect. Our findings suggest that early visual cortex activity may not integrate emotional auditory information with visual information during emotion top-down modulation of faces.
Visual Analysis of Relationships between Heterogeneous Networks and Texts: An Application on the IEEE VIS Publication Dataset

The visual exploration of large and complex network structures remains a challenge for many application fields. Moreover, a growing number of real-world networks is multivariate and often interconnected with each other. Entities in a network may have relationships with elements of other related datasets, which do not necessarily have to be networks themselves, and these relationships may be defined by attributes that can vary greatly. In this work, we propose a comprehensive visual analytics approach that supports researchers to specify and subsequently explore attribute-based relationships across networks, text documents and derived secondary data. Our approach provides an individual search functionality based on keywords and semantically similar terms over the entire text corpus to find related network nodes. For examining these nodes in the interconnected network views, we introduce a new interaction technique, called Hub2Go, which facilitates the navigation by guiding the user to the information of interest. To showcase our system, we use a large text corpus collected from research papers listed in the visualization publication dataset that consists of 2752 documents over a period of 25 years. Here, we analyze relationships between various heterogeneous networks, a bag-of-words index and a word similarity matrix, all derived from the initial corpus and metadata.
Demographic and Health-related Risk Factors of Subclinical Vitamin A Deficiency in Ethiopia

The study was conducted to determine the demographic and health-related risk factors of subclinical vitamin A deficiency in Ethiopia. Blood samples were collected from 996 children in 210 clusters across the nation for analysis of serum retinol. Interviews were conducted with the respective mothers of the 996 children on presumed risk factors of vitamin A deficiency. A higher subclinical vitamin A deficiency was associated with: not receiving vitamin A supplement over the year, having been ill during the two weeks preceding the survey, no or incomplete vaccination, belonging to a mother with high parity, and low levels of awareness of vitamin A. Moreover, being from Muslim household was strongly associated with higher levels of subclinical vitamin A deficiency. Among the risk factors identified, low levels of vaccination, high parity, and low levels of maternal awareness of vitamin A contributed to higher risks of vitamin A deficiency among Muslim children. The findings underscore the need for creation of strengthened awareness of family planning and importance of vitamin A, promotion of vaccination and child health, intensification of vitamin A supplementation, and in-depth investigation on factors contributing to increased vulnerability of Muslim children.
Zinc Supplementation Inhibits Complement Activation in Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the Western world. AMD is a multifactorial disorder but complement-mediated inflammation at the level of the retina plays a pivotal role. Oral zinc supplementation can reduce the progression of AMD but the precise mechanism of this protective effect is as yet unclear. We investigated whether zinc supplementation directly affects the degree of complement activation in AMD and whether there is a relation between serum complement catabolism during zinc administration and the complement factor H (CFH) gene or the Age-Related Maculopathy susceptibility 2 (ARMS2) genotype. In this open-label clinical study, 72 randomly selected AMD patients in various stages of AMD received a daily supplement of 50 mg zinc sulphate and 1 mg cupric sulphate for three months. Serum complement catabolism–defined as the C3d/C3 ratio–was measured at baseline, throughout the three months of supplementation and after discontinuation of zinc administration. Additionally, downstream inhibition of complement catabolism was evaluated by measurement of anaphylatoxin C5a. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of zinc on complement activation in vitro. AMD patients with high levels of complement catabolism at baseline exhibited a steeper decline in serum complement activation (p<0.001) during the three month zinc supplementation period compared to patients with low complement levels. There was no significant association of change in complement catabolism and CFH and ARMS2 genotype. In vitro zinc sulphate directly inhibits complement catabolism in hemolytic assays and membrane attack complex (MAC) deposition on RPE cells. This study provides evidence that daily administration of 50 mg zinc sulphate can inhibit complement catabolism in AMD patients with increased complement activation. This could explain part of the mechanism by which zinc slows AMD progression. Trial Registration The Netherlands National Trial Register NTR2605
STREETS: Game-Theoretic Traffic Patrolling with Exploration and Exploitation

To dissuade reckless driving and mitigate accidents, cities deploy resources to patrol roads. In this paper, we present STREETS, an application developed for the city of Singapore, which models the problem of computing randomized traffic patrol strategies as a defenderattacker Stackelberg game. Previous work on Stackelberg security games has focused extensively on counterterrorism settings. STREETS moves beyond counterterrorism and represents the first use of Stackelberg games for traffic patrolling, in the process providing a novel algorithm for solving such games that addresses three major challenges in modeling and scale-up. First, there exists a high degree of unpredictability in travel times through road networks, which we capture using a Markov Decision Process for planning the patrols of the defender (the police) in the game. Second, modeling all possible police patrols and their interactions with a large number of adversaries (drivers) introduces a significant scalability challenge. To address this challenge we apply a compact game representation in a novel fashion combined with adversary and state sampling. Third, patrol strategies must balance exploitation (minimizing violations) with exploration (maximizing omnipresence), a tradeoff we model by solving a biobjective optimization problem. We present experimental results using real-world traffic data from Singapore. This work is done in collaboration with the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs and is currently being evaluated by the Singapore Police Force.
Degree Distributions in General Random Intersection Graphs

We study a variant of the standard random intersection graph model ($G(n,m,F,H)$) in which random weights are assigned to both vertex types in the bipartite structure. Under certain assumptions on the distributions of these weights, the degree of a vertex is shown to depend on the weight of that particular vertex and on the distribution of the weights of the other vertex type.
A machine learning approach for generating temporal logic classifications of complex model behaviours

Systems biology aims to facilitate the understanding of complex interactions between components in biological systems. Petri nets (PN), and in particular Coloured Petri Nets (CPN) have been demonstrated to be a suitable formalism for modelling biological systems and building computational models over multiple spatial and temporal scales. To explore the complex and high-dimensional solution space over the behaviours generated by such models, we propose a clustering methodology which combines principal component analysis (PCA), distance similarity and density factors through the application of DBScan. To facilitate the interpretation of clustering results and enable further analysis using model checking we apply a pattern mining approach aimed at generating high-level classificatory descriptions of the clusters' behaviour in temporal logic. We illustrate the power of our approach through the analysis of two case studies: multiple knockdown of the Mitogen-activated protein-kinase (MAPK) pathway, and selective knockout of Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) signalling in Drosophila wing.
Generation and Characterization of Antibodies against Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) IgG, IgM, and IgA

Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) immunity is poorly characterized and understood. This gap in knowledge is particularly concerning as Asian elephants are an endangered species threatened by a newly discovered herpesvirus known as elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), which is the leading cause of death for captive Asian elephants born after 1980 in North America. While reliable diagnostic assays have been developed to detect EEHV DNA, serological assays to evaluate elephant anti-EEHV antibody responses are lacking and will be needed for surveillance and epidemiological studies and also for evaluating potential treatments or vaccines against lethal EEHV infection. Previous studies have shown that Asian elephants produce IgG in serum, but they failed to detect IgM and IgA, further hampering development of informative serological assays for this species. To begin to address this issue, we determined the constant region genomic sequence of Asian elephant IgM and obtained some limited protein sequence information for putative serum IgA. The information was used to generate or identify specific commercial antisera reactive against IgM and IgA isotypes. In addition, we generated a monoclonal antibody against Asian elephant IgG. These three reagents were used to demonstrate that all three immunoglobulin isotypes are found in Asian elephant serum and milk and to detect antibody responses following tetanus toxoid booster vaccination or antibodies against a putative EEHV structural protein. The results indicate that these new reagents will be useful for developing sensitive and specific assays to detect and characterize elephant antibody responses for any pathogen or vaccine, including EEHV.
Land cover analysis along semi-arid transects in Asia

Current estimates of land cover and land use are important aspects in understanding the flux of material and energy from terrestrial ecosystems into hydrological and atmospheric components of the earth system. These land use characteristics define the various dimensions of human impacts on ecosystem processes and resource use. The recent availability of global remote sensing data and agricultural census data from various regions of the world, including portions of Asia such as China and Mongolia, now makes it feasible to evaluate differences in the physical environment and land use patterns affecting land cover and land use changes. In addition, recent research involving transects studies along gradients of climate, soil, and land use intensity has been carried out during the past decade to allow more careful regional comparisons. Using the analysis of the Mongolian-North East China Transect (NECT), we can estimate the effect of land cover differences on ecosystem dynamics. The 30 m-Thematic Mapper data provides a way to identify fine scale features of the regional landscape patterns which are not captured by the 1-km AVHRR data. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the scale of land use and cover changes in the Asian region and the biogeochemical implications of these changes. The estimates of land cover and land use can vary depending on the spatial scale of the features represented across the land surface. Both physical and social factors influence the spatial extent these features represent. Therefore, the scale of land use intensification can affect the accuracy of land use area estimations. In particular, those regions of the world where land use practices are implemented via small individual holdings may be underestimated when using coarse scale remote sensing data such as AVHRR, where as the Thematic Mapper satellite data at 30 to 50 m resolution can provide a better estimate of land cover and land use area. The accuracy of the extrapolated fluxes of ecosystem dynamics and biogeochemical cycles are directly proportional to the accuracy associated with the land estimates. We will evaluate the land cover estimates in this region of Asia using these data sources. This region encompasses a broad set of precipitation and temperature regimes and includes characteristics of regional land cover and land use related to grazing systems and grain cultivation.
PROPERTIES OF THE REMNANT CLOCKWISE DISK OF YOUNG STARS IN THE GALACTIC CENTER

We present new kinematic measurements and modeling of a sample of 116 young stars in the central parsec of the Galaxy in order to investigate the properties of the young stellar disk. The measurements were derived from a combination of speckle and laser guide star adaptive optics imaging and integral field spectroscopy from the Keck telescopes. Compared to earlier disk studies, the most important kinematic measurement improvement is in the precision of the accelerations in the plane of the sky, which have a factor of six smaller uncertainties (σ ∼ 10 μas yr−2). We have also added the first radial velocity measurements for eight young stars, increasing the sample at the largest radii (6″–12″) by 25%. We derive the ensemble properties of the observed stars using Monte Carlo simulations of mock data. There is one highly significant kinematic feature (∼20σ), corresponding to the well-known clockwise disk, and no significant feature is detected at the location of the previously claimed counterclockwise disk. The true disk fraction is estimated to be ∼20%, a factor of ∼2.5 lower than previous claims, suggesting that we may be observing the remnant of what used to be a more densely populated stellar disk. The similarity in the kinematic properties of the B stars and the O/WR stars suggests a common star formation event. The intrinsic eccentricity distribution of the disk stars is unimodal, with an average value of 〈e〉 = 0.27 ± 0.07, which we show can be achieved through dynamical relaxation in an initially circular disk with a moderately top-heavy mass function.
Foundations of Precomputed Radiance Transfer

Precomputed Radiance Transfer is a joint name for a class of methods in computer graphics. The aim of these methods is fast rendering of realistic images of virtual scenes under dynamically changing but constrained lighting conditions. The techniques differ from the usual methods of real-time computer graphics in that they also support indirect lighting and non-pointlike light sources. The basic idea behind these methods is to parameterize the distribution of emitted light by a low-dimensional linear space, and to precompute response functions on the scene for each degree-of-freedom in the emission space. Rendering an image of the scene under dynamically changing illumination then proceeds by taking properly weighed sums of the precomputed response functions. This yields interactive and even real-time performance. This thesis presents a mathematical framework for methods of precomputed radiance transfer. Much of the previously published work on the subject may be seen as a special case of the presented framework. Necessary background in both mathematics and realistic image synthesis is included. äitini muistolle Acknowledgments The author thanks Timo Aila for his guidance, discussions, criticism and proofreading; professor Lauri Savioja for support, criticism, and creating a good working spirit; Jan Kautz for discussions and collaboration that led to some of the work reviewed in this thesis; Jussi Räsänen and Janne Kontkanen for discussions and proofreading; Remedy Entertainment, Ltd., for offering an inspiring working environment where the author's interest to the subject was born. Brand and product names appearing in this thesis are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Integrated dual polarized on-chip antenna for mm-wave applications

This publication presents a fully integrated dual polarized on-chip antenna for the frequency range from 155 GHz to 205 GHz. The antenna has been designed and taped-out for the IHP 130μm SiGe BiCMOS technology (SG13). Its size is approx. 1.85mm2. Furthermore, first measurements were done and show a high agreement with the simulations.
The Hardangerfjord Shear Zone in SW Norway and the North Sea: a large-scale low-angle shear zone in the Caledonian crust

The Hardangerfjord Shear Zone is a more than 600 km long low-angle extensional structure that affects the South Norway and North Sea Caledonides. The ductile shear zone, which shows total maximum onshore displacement of the order of 10–15 km, is primarily a basement structure with an associated passive, monoclinal fold structure of the overlying Caledonian nappes. Deep seismic data indicate that the shear zone continues down to the lower crust (20–25 km) at a dip of 22–23°, where it appears to flatten and merge with the general lower-crustal deformation fabric. Onshore, the Hardangerfjord Shear Zone consists of a system of hard-linked ductile shear-zone segments. Brittle faults (the Lœrdal–Gjende fault system) occur in the folded Caledonian allochthons in the NE part of the Hardangerfjord Shear Zone, and reappear in the North Sea. These may represent a high-level brittle response to the Devonian development of the Hardangerfjord Shear Zone, but were reactivated during Permo-Triassic and late Jurassic extensional events. A c. 5 km thick package of seismic reflectors along the Hardangerfjord Shear Zone is presumed to represent a mylonite zone, which is too thick to be formed entirely by 10–15 km of Devonian displacement. Hence the Hardangerfjord Shear Zone is likely to be a Proterozoic shear zone, reactivated during Devonian extension.
Do carbonate reefs form due to fluid seepage

Buried carbonate reefs are favoured hydrocarbon prospecting targets, mainly due to their high porosity and potential for containing large quantities of petroleum. The question of the true relationship between reef structure and the internally trapped fluids (hydrocarbons) is here raised as one of cause - and effect. In other words, which came first, the hydrocarbons or the carbonate reef itself? Modern bioherms and seabed carbonate reefs in, amongst other locations, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, are shown to form in close association with active hydrocarbon seepages. Mainly based on results from ecological studies at deep-ocean vent communities, a new model for carbonate reef formation is promoted: that such reefs form at locations containing high concentrations of bacteria and other microorganisms suspended in the water column as a result of seeping fluids (solutions and gases) that provide some of the energy basis and carbon source for ecosystems independently of photosynthesis. Therefore, on burial and effective sealing (‘capping’), these carbonate reefs become hydrocarbon reservoirs, trapping and accumulating the very minerals on which they - in the first place - were dependent.