Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Techniques for Improved Rate-Distortion Optimized Video Streaming

We present techniques recently developed by our research group at Stanford University to improve the performance of existing algorithms for rate-distortion optimized video streaming. In rate-distortion optimized streaming, media packet transmissions are controlled in a way that gives an optimal tradeoff between the expected bit-rate that will be required for the transmissions and the expected media reconstruction distortion that will result. In one of the techniques that we present here, performance is improved by incorporating richer, more reliable feedback information. In another, multiple arrival deadlines are considered for media packets. A third technique utilizes an improved statistical model characterizing packet delay and loss. Another seeks to minimize congestion when media is streamed over abottleneck link.
Incentives for Cooperation in Peer-to-Peer Networks

To model this problem, we use the Evolutionary Prisoner’s Dilemma (EPD) [3] to capture the tension between individual and social utility. In the situations that EPD characterizes, cooperation requires repetition and reputation. Both techniques increase familiarity between entities (either directly or indirectly), thereby reducing the probability of interactions with strangers and consequently enhancing cooperation. The context of P2P applications, however, imposes new challenges. First, the large scale of these systems makes it less likely that repeat interactions will occur with the same entity. Second, reputation assumes that players maintain persistent identities, but the existance of zero-cost identities in many P2P systems allows entities to continuously change identities. Both of these issues increase the probability of interacting with a stranger.
A parallel particle method for solving the EEG source localization forward problem

We present a parallel mesh-free particle method to solve the EEG forward problem in brain source localization. The method is based on discretization-corrected PSE operators and is entirely mesh-free. This allows the flexible representation of complex geometries and accurate solution of the forward problem inside and around them. We present the method and its parallel implementation, and we validate and benchmark it on a test problem for which the exact solution is known.
World Muslim Population : 1950 – 2020

—The purpose of this manuscript is to present a reliable estimate of the Muslim population and its percentage in each country throughout the world from 1950 to 2020. This data is summarized to be a reference for other studies and discussions related to the Muslim population. The presented data show that the percentage of the World Muslim population with respect to the total World population has increased
Improving the Translation of Discourse Markers for Chinese into English

Discourse markers (DMs) are ubiquitous cohesive devices used to connect what is said or written. However, across languages there is divergence in their usage, placement, and frequency, which is considered to be a major problem for machine translation (MT). This paper presents an overview of a proposed thesis, exploring the difficulties around DMs in MT, with a focus on Chinese and English. The thesis will examine two main areas: modelling cohesive devices within sentences and modelling discourse relations (DRs) across sentences. Initial experiments have shown promising results for building a prediction model that uses linguistically inspired features to help improve word alignments with respect to the implicit use of cohesive devices, which in turn leads to improved hierarchical phrasebased MT.
3D Face Recognition Based on Pose Correction Using Euler Angle Method

Face recognition is one of the biometric method, to identification of given face image using main features of the face. 3D face recognition approach handles the challenges of 2D face recognition such as pose, illumination, expression, etc in a better way. The exploration of 3D face recognition is widely used for security at many places like airport, organizations, crime detection etc. uncontrolled condition of real-world biometric applications is pose which is a great challenge to any face recognition approach. Such pose variations can cause extensive occlusions, resulting in missing data. This work presents 3D face recognition method which is invariant to pose. The method handles pose correction problem with rotation matrix based on Euler angle. Further dimensionality of face image is reduced by the principal component analysis and the recognition is done by the Euclidean distance algorithm. we used GAVAB 3D face database for simulation and measured performance like Recognition rate, False acceptance rate (FAR), False rejection rate (FRR) and Equal error rate (EER) are used to evaluate performance of the method. We have achieved 1.12 % improvement in Recognition rate and 0.15% improvement in equal error rate for probes with neutral and non-neutral, respectively.
Better experiences with quality of care predict well-being of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the Netherlands

Objective This study was conducted to (1) identify improvements in care quality and well-being of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the Netherlands and (2) investigate the longitudinal relationship between these factors. Methods This longitudinal study was conducted among patients diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease enrolled in the Kennemer Lucht care programme in the Netherlands. Biomarker data (lung capacity) were collected at patients’ health care practices in 2012. Complete case analysis was conducted, and the multiple imputation technique allowed us to report pooled results from imputed datasets. Results Surveys were filled out by 548/1303 (42%) patients at T0 (2012) and 569/996 (57%) remaining participants at T1. Quality of care improved significantly (p < 0.05). Analyses adjusted for well-being at T0, age, educational level, marital status, gender, lung function and health behaviours showed that patients’ assessments of the quality of chronic care delivery at T0 (p < 0.01) and changes therein (p < 0.001) predicted patients’ well-being at T1. Conclusion These results clearly show that the quality of care and changes therein are important for the well-being of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the primary care setting. Practice implications To improve quality of care for chronically ill patients, multicomponent interventions may be needed.
Application architecture considerations for cloud platforms

The adoption of cloud computing has steadily increased over the past few years, but still this field is young and lacks mature standards and accumulated experience. Developing applications targeted for cloud deployment is not quite same as a traditional application deployment scenario. Appearance of many different vendor-specific application development platforms and frameworks has made the task of designing applications for cloud difficult. In this work we introduce two primary application design approaches for the cloud: cloud-aware application design and cloud-agnostic application design. We compare these two approaches w.r. t the traditional non-cloud approach to determine the impact on various non-functional quality attributes of the applications.
Character Recognition Using Matlab's Neural Network Toolbox

Recognition of Handwritten text has been one of the active and challenging areas of research in the field of image processing and pattern recognition. It has numerous applications which include, reading aid for blind, bank cheques and conversion of any hand written document into structural text form. In this paper we focus on recognition of English alphabet in a given scanned text document with the help of Neural Networks. Using Mat labNeural Network toolbox, we tried to recognize handwritten characters by projecting them on different sized grids. The first step is image acquisition which acquires the scanned image followed by noise filtering, smoothing and normalization of scanned image, rendering image suitable for segmentation where image is decomposed into sub images. Feature Extraction improves recognition rate and misclassification. We use character extraction and edge detection algorithm for training the neural network to classify and recognize the handwritten characters.
Blue- and Green-Absorbing Visual Pigments ofDrosophila: Ectopic Expression and Physiological Characterization of the R8 Photoreceptor Cell-Specific Rh5 and Rh6 Rhodopsins

Color discrimination requires the input of different photoreceptor cells that are sensitive to different wavelengths of light. TheDrosophila visual system contains multiple classes of photoreceptor cells that differ in anatomical location, synaptic connections, and spectral sensitivity. The Rh5 and Rh6 opsins are expressed in nonoverlapping sets of R8 cells and are the onlyDrosophila visual pigments that remain uncharacterized. In this study, we ectopically expressed Rh5 and Rh6 in the major class of photoreceptor cells (R1–R6) and show them to be biologically active in their new environment. The expression of either Rh5 or Rh6 in “blind” ninaE17 mutant flies, which lack the gene encoding the visual pigment of the R1–R6 cells, fully rescues the light response. Electrophysiological analysis showed that the maximal spectral sensitivity of the R1–R6 cells is shifted to 437 or 508 nm when Rh5 or Rh6, respectively, is expressed in these cells. These spectral sensitivities are in excellent agreement with intracellular recordings of the R8p and R8y cells measured inCalliphora and Musca. Spectrophotometric analyses of Rh5 and Rh6 in vivo by microspectrophotometry, and of detergent-extracted pigments in vitro, showed that Rh5 is reversibly photoconverted to a stable metarhodopsin (λmax = 494 nm), whereas Rh6 appears to be photoconverted to a metarhodopsin (λmax = 468 nm) that is less thermally stable. Phylogenetically, Rh5 belongs to a group of short-wavelength-absorbing invertebrate visual pigments, whereas Rh6 is related to a group of long-wavelength-absorbing pigments and is the first member of this class to be functionally characterized.
The Impact of Deregulation of Audit Markets on Audit Fees

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of certain aspects of regulation and the structure of the audit market on audit fees. New Zealand deregulated advertising by audit firms effective January 1, 1986 and allowed direct solicitation of potential audit clients effective January 1, 1992. We develop a series of models to predict audit fees and then tested whether significant changes in the nature of the models or the prediction residuals occurred at the times of deregulation or thereafter. In general, we observe a general upward drift in fees (in constant dollar terms) from 1970 to 1987, followed by a large jump in 1988 and a fall-off after 1990. An analysis of residuals from the prediction models provides evidence that advertising did not lead to significantly lower fees, but solicitation was followed by significant declines in fees. Using a pooled sample from all years and including dummy variables for the years of the deregulatory events being examined, we found that advertising was associated with a reduction in fees for larger clients of the larger audit firms, and an increase for smaller clients. Solicitation was followed by a decrease in fees for clients of the Big 8/6/5.
Cloud Overlapping Detection Algorithm Using Solar and IR Wavelengths with GOES Data Over ARM/SGP Site

One of the most perplexing problems in satellite cloud remote sensing is the overlapping of cloud layers. Although most techniques assume a one layer cloud system in a given retrieval of cloud properties, many observations are affected by radiation from more than one cloud layer. As such, cloud overlap can cause errors in the retrieval of many properties including cloud height, optical depth, phase, and particle size. A variety of methods have been developed to identify overlapped clouds in a given satellite imager pixel. Baum et al used CO2 slicing and a spatial coherence method to demonstrate a possible analysis method for nighttime detection of multilayered clouds. Jin and Rossow also used a multispectral CO2 slicing technique for a global analysis of overlapped cloud amount. Lin et al. used a combination infrared (IR), visible (VIS), and microwave data to detect overlapped clouds over water. Recently, Baum and Spinhirne proposed a 1.6 and 11 micron bispectral threshold method. While all of these methods have made progress in solving this stubborn problem none have yet proven satisfactory for continuous and consistent monitoring of multilayer cloud systems. It is clear that detection of overlapping clouds from passive instruments such as satellite radiometers is in an immature stage of development and requires additional research. Overlapped cloud systems also affect the retrievals of cloud properties over the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) domains and hence should be identified as accurately as possible. To reach this goal, it is necessary to determine which information can be exploited for detecting multilayered clouds from operational meteorological satellite data used by ARM. This paper examines the potential information available in spectral data available on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) imager and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) used over the ARM Program's Southern Great Plains (SGP), and North Slope of Alaska (NSA) sites to study the capability of detecting overlapping clouds.
Developing a Dynamic Materialized View Index for Efficiently Discovering Usable Views for Progressive Queries

Numerous data intensive applications demand the efficient processing of a new type of query, which is called a progressive query (PQ). A PQ consists of a set of unpredictable but inter-related step-queries (SQ) that are specified by its user in a sequence of steps. A conventional DBMS was not designed to efficiently process such PQs. In our earlier work, we introduced a materialized view based approach for efficiently processing PQs, where the focus was on selecting promising views for materialization. The problem of how to efficiently find usable views from the materialized set in order to answer the SQs for a PQ remains open. In this paper, we present a new index technique, called the Dynamic Materialized View Index (DMVI), to rapidly discover usable views for answering a given SQ. The structure of the proposed index is a special ordered tree where the SQ domain tables are used as search keys and some bitmaps are kept at the leaf nodes for refined filtering. A two-level priority rule is adopted to order domain tables in the tree, which facilitates the efficient maintenance of the tree by taking into account the dynamic characteristics of various types of materialized views for PQs. The bitmap encoding methods and the strategies/algorithms to construct, search, and maintain the DMVI are suggested. The extensive experimental results demonstrate that our index technique is quite promising in improving the performance of the materialized view based query processing approach for PQs
A Gene Panel, Including LRP12, Is Frequently Hypermethylated in Major Types of B-Cell Lymphoma

Epigenetic modifications and DNA methylation in particular, have been recognized as important mechanisms to alter gene expression in malignant cells. Here, we identified candidate genes which were upregulated after an epigenetic treatment of B-cell lymphoma cell lines (Burkitt's lymphoma, BL; Follicular lymphoma, FL; Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, DLBCL activated B-cell like, ABC; and germinal center like, GCB) and simultaneously expressed at low levels in samples from lymphoma patients. Qualitative methylation analysis of 24 candidate genes in cell lines revealed five methylated genes (BMP7, BMPER, CDH1, DUSP4 and LRP12), which were further subjected to quantitative methylation analysis in clinical samples from 59 lymphoma patients (BL, FL, DLBCL ABC and GCB; and primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, PMBL). The genes LRP12 and CDH1 showed the highest methylation frequencies (94% and 92%, respectively). BMPER (58%), DUSP4 (32%) and BMP7 (22%), were also frequently methylated in patient samples. Importantly, all gene promoters were unmethylated in various control samples (CD19+ peripheral blood B cells, peripheral blood mononuclear cells and tonsils) as well as in follicular hyperplasia samples, underscoring a high specificity. The combination of LRP12 and CDH1 methylation could successfully discriminate between the vast majority of the lymphoma and control samples, emphasized by receiver operating characteristic analysis with a c-statistic of 0.999. These two genes represent promising epigenetic markers which may be suitable for monitoring of B-cell lymphoma.
Location Discovery Using Data-Driven Statistical Error Modeling

We have developed statistical error modeling techniques for acoustic signal detection-based ranging measurements in the framework of wireless ad-hoc sensor networks (WASNs). The models are used as the basis for solving the location discovery problem in sensor networks. We first demonstrate that the major difficulty in location discovery is how to treat errors by proving the location discovery in presence of noisy measurements is a NP-complete problem, even in onedimensional space. Consequently, we formulate the location discovery as an instance of nonlinear function minimization that optimizes each of the empirically derived statistical error models. The minimization problem is then solved using a conjugate gradient-based nonlinear function optimization solver. We validate the efficiency of the approach by conducting comprehensive experiments on both deployed and simulated WASNs. The results indicate that the statistical model-based approach significantly improves the location accuracy compared with the approaches using the traditional optimization objectives. In addition, the localized version of our location discovery algorithm is capable of finding competitive solutions using significantly lower communication cost.
A NOTE ON LENS SPACE SURGERIES: ORDERS OF FUNDAMENTAL GROUPS VERSUS SEIFERT GENERA

Let K be a non-trivial knot in the 3-sphere with a lens space surgery and L(p, q) a lens space obtained by a Dehn surgery on K. We study a relationship between the order p of the fundamental group of L(p, q) and the Seifert genus g of K. Considering certain infinite families of knots with lens space surgeries, the following estimation is suggested as a conjecture: $2g+\frac{2\sqrt{40g+1}}{5}+\frac{3}{5}\le |p|\le 3g+3$ except for (g, p) = (5, 19).
The Role of Phosphorylated CREB in the Preferential Recruitment of Immature Dentate Granule Neurons into Learning and Memory Circuitry

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iii LIST OF FIGURES . vi LIST OF TABLES . vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . viii 1.0. GENERAL INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1. Learning and Memory . 1 1.2. Neurogenesis: A Historical Perspective . 2 1.3. The Neurogenic Brain . 4 1.4. Functional Consequence of Hippocampal Neurogenesis . 7 1.5. Unique Physiological Properties of Newly Generated Dentate Granule Neurons . 11 1.6. Accelerated Functional Integration of 4-8 Week Old Dentate Granule Neurons . 12 1.7. Role of CREB in Intrinsic Neuronal Excitability. 13 1.8. Memory Allocation as a Competitive Process: Role of CREB and Intrinsic Neuronal Excitability . 14 1.9. CREB and the Preferential Recruitment of 4-8 week Old Dentate Granule Neurons into Memory Circuitry . 16 1.10. Current Experiment . 17 2.0. METHODS . 17 2.1. Subjects . 17 2.2. BrdU Administration . 18 2.3. Water Maze Procedure . 18 2.4. Tissue Preparation . 20 2.5. BrdU+pCREB Double-Label Immunofluorescence . 21 2.6. Quantification . 22 3.0. RESULTS . 23 3.1. Water Maze Results . 23 3.2. BrdU+pCREB Immunofluorescence . 26
Along-strike changes in Himalayan thrust geometry: Topographic and tectonic discontinuities in western Nepal

© 2015 Geological Society of America. Geodetic and seismologic studies support a tectonic model for the central Himalaya wherein ~2 cm/yr of Indo-Asian convergence is accommodated along the primary decollement under the range, the Main Himalayan thrust. A steeper midcrustal ramp in the Main Himalayan thrust is commonly invoked as driving rapid rock uplift along a range-parallel band in the Greater Himalaya. This tectonic model, developed primarily from studies in central Nepal, is commonly assumed to project along strike with little lateral variation in Main Himalayan thrust geometry or associated rock uplift patterns. Here, we synthesize multiple lines of evidence for a major discontinuity in the Main Himalayan thrust in western Nepal. Analysis of topography and seismicity indicates that west of ~82.5°E, the single band of steep topography and seismicity along the Main Himalayan thrust ramp in central Nepal bifurcates around a high-elevation, low-relief landscape, resulting in a two-step topographic front along an ~150 km segment of the central Himalaya. Although multiple models could explain this bifurcation, the full suite of data appears to be most consistent with a northward bend to the Main Himalayan thrust ramp and activation of a young duplex horse to the south. This poorly documented segmentation of the Main Himalayan thrust has important implications for the seismogenic potential of the western Nepal seismic gap and for models of the ongoing evolution of the orogen.
Migmatite gneiss of the Jættedal complex, Liverpool Land, East Greenland: protracted high‐T metamorphism in the overriding plate of the Caledonian orogen

The Greenland Caledonides (GC) formed in the overriding Laurentian plate during the closure of the Iapetus Ocean and the subduction of Baltica, and offer a unique opportunity to study metamorphic patterns, regional structures and the kinematic evolution of the overriding plate of a continental collision. We present new metamorphic petrology and coupled zircon geochronology and geochemistry data from the Jættedal complex in southern Liverpool Land to document the thermal evolution of the orogenic core of the southern GC. Pelitic migmatite gneisses from the Jættedal complex document metamorphic conditions of 850–730 °C at pressures of 11–9.5 kbar. Zircon from these samples yields Archean–Mesoproterozoic detrital cores with positive heavy rare earth element (HREE) slopes, and 440–425 Ma rims with flat HREE slopes are interpreted to date the timing of prograde pelite anatexis. Intercalated mafic assemblages record metamorphic conditions of 860–820 °C at 12–10 kbar. Zircon from mafic gneisses contains cores with ages of c. 458 Ma with positive HREE slopes and 413–411 Ma rims with flat HREE slopes that are interpreted to record the timing of original mafic dyke intrusion and subsequent partial melting respectively. When placed in the context of correlative rocks from the southern GC, these results suggest the development of a thermally weakened lower to middle crust in the Caledonian overriding plate that spanned >200 km perpendicular to orogenic strike during the Silurian. The existing data further suggest Silurian syn‐orogenic channel flow and exhumation occurred at the thrust front, while protracted high‐T metamorphism continued in the orogenic core. These patterns highlight variations in the thermal and rheologic structure of the Caledonian overriding plate along orogenic strike, and have implications for the development and exhumation of high‐ and ultrahigh‐pressure terranes.