Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ieee Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems the Benefits of Dense Stereo for Pedestrian Detection

—This paper presents a novel pedestrian detection system for intelligent vehicles. We propose the use of dense stereo for both the generation of regions of interest and pedestrian classification. Dense stereo allows the dynamic estimation of camera parameters and the road profile, which, in turn, provides strong scene constraints on possible pedestrian locations. For classification , we extract spatial features (gradient orientation histograms) directly from dense depth and intensity images. Both modalities are represented in terms of individual feature spaces, in which discriminative classifiers (linear support vector machines) are learned. We refrain from the construction of a joint feature space but instead employ a fusion of depth and intensity on the classifier level. Our experiments involve challenging image data captured in complex urban environments (i.e., undulating roads and speed bumps). Our results show a performance improvement by up to a factor of 7.5 at the classification level and up to a factor of 5 at the tracking level (reduction in false alarms at constant detection rates) over a system with static scene constraints and intensity-only classification.
Noise Analysis for Comparator-Based Circuits

Noise analysis for comparator-based circuits is presented. The goal is to gain insight into the different sources of noise in these circuits for design purposes. After the general analysis techniques are established, they are applied to different noise sources in the comparator-based switched-capacitor pipeline analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The results show that the noise from the virtual ground threshold detection comparator dominates the overall ADC noise performance. The noise from the charging current can also be significant, depending on the size of the capacitors used, but the contribution was small in the prototype. The other noise sources have contributions comparable to those in op-amp-based designs, and their effects can be managed through appropriate design. In the prototype, folded flicker noise was found to be a significant contributor to the broadband noise because the flicker noise of the comparator extends beyond the Nyquist rate of the converter.
Acute Restriction of Nocturnal Sleep in Children

Sleep, performance, and sleepiness were evaluated in nine (6 girls, 3 boys) children (ages 11 to 13.2 yr.) with a view toward determining whether children are more sensitive to sleep restriction than adults. In this 3-day study (immediately preceded by 3 adaptive days), sleep was permitted for 10 hr. on the baseline and recovery night, and for 4 hr. on a single restricted night. Effects of sleep restriction and subsequent recovery on nocturnal sleep parameters were very comparable to results seen in adult subjects. No significant effects of the procedure were seen in performance on abbreviated versions of the Wilkinson Addition Test and Williams Word Memory Test or on a listening attention task. Multiple sleep latency tests showed a significant increase with daytime sleepiness following sleep restriction, which persisted into the morning following recovery sleep. Children appear to be able to tolerate a single night of restricted sleep, although they do not recover as rapidly as adult subjects.
Telling Feminist Truths: Research and Writing About Feminist Organizing

Ways of re-thinking problems and doing research on organizing are suggested by the post-structuralist insight that existing discourses simultaneously circumscribe what we do and say, and provide contradictions which disrupt dominant ways of doing and speaking. This article examines some data collected by the author with women organizers in an attempt to demonstrate some moments where such circumscription and disruption occur.
Consumer acceptance for green tea by consumers in the United States, Korea and Thailand.

ABSTRACT Green tea consumption has been common in some countries for centuries, but in others, it is just finding popularity. The objectives of this study were to (1) determine the liking of green tea by consumers in three countries: Korea, where green tea is commonly consumed; Thailand, an Asian country where green tea is generally consumed in a cold form; and the U.S.A. , a country where green tea is not commonly consumed, and (2) identify the attributes which appear to influence consumers' liking. The liking of green tea varied depending on the country and the consumer segment. Korean consumers generally liked the green tea samples with various green flavors and moderate bitterness, although a few of the Korean consumer segments liked samples with other flavor profiles. Most of the U.S. consumers liked the tea samples that had brown, fruity or sweet aromatic flavors with little or no green flavors. Thai consumers preferred tea samples with fruity flavors and no green flavor. Regardless of the consumers' origin, the green tea samples with the highest bitterness were disliked. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The current research suggests that familiarity plays a role in tea acceptance. However, various flavor profiles may be acceptable to consumers who are from different countries and are familiar with other flavors of green tea. This suggests that although familiarity plays a role in consumers' acceptance, other factors also contribute to liking. This study has particular implications for the selection of mass-marketed green teas.
Physical Activity and Psychological Well-Being

The 'feel-good' effect of physical activity is widely reported among participants. Physical Activity and Psychological Well-Being represents a research consensus on the relationship between physical activity and aspects of mental health, providing an overview of the case for the role of exercise in the promotion of psychological well-being. Topics covered include: * anxiety and stress * depression * mood and emotion * self-perceptions and self-esteem * cognitive functioning and ageing * psychological dysfunction This book is invaluable reading for students and researchers working in the exercise, sport and health sciences, and for health and clinical psychologists. It is also a foundation text for health promotion and health service professionals, particularly those working in the area of mental health.
Rejection sensitivity levels with respect to attachment styles, gender, and parenting styles: A study with Turkish students

The effects of attachment styles of a group of university students on their rejection sensitivity levels in relation to gender, and parenting styles were investigated. Instruments used were the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (Downey & Feldman, 1996), and the Relationship Scales Questionnaire (Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994). To analyze data, F statistics, t test, regression analysis, and correlation analysis were employed. Rejection sensitivity levels of female students who had fearful attachment styles and of students who experienced authoritarian parenting styles were found to be significantly higher than those of others. Effect of attachment styles on rejection sensitivity and relationship between rejection sensitivity and attachment styles were both found to be significant.
Reduction of exacerbation frequency in patients with COPD after participation in a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program

Background Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is an important treatment option for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients and might contribute to a reduction in exacerbation and exacerbation-related hospitalization rate. Methods In this prospective study, all COPD patients that completed a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program (PRP) between June 2006 and December 2012 were included. Self-reported exacerbation and hospitalization frequency 1 year before PR was retrospectively recorded. During the year following PR, exacerbation and hospitalization frequency was recorded with questionnaires. Results For 343 patients, complete information on exacerbation and hospitalization rate was obtained. The mean number of exacerbations decreased significantly after participating in a PRP by 1.37 exacerbations/year (95% confidence interval 1.029 to 1.717) from 4.56±3.26 exacerbations in the year preceding PR to 3.18±2.53 in the year following PR (P<0.0005). The number of hospitalizations due to exacerbations decreased significantly by 0.68 hospitalizations/year (95% confidence interval 0.467 to 0.903) from 1.48±1.84 in the year preceding PR to 0.80±1.31 hospitalizations/year in the year following PR (P<0.0005). The proportion of patients with a frequent exacerbation type (more than two exacerbations/year) was reduced by 24%. Multivariate regression analysis to explore determinants that might predict reduction in exacerbation frequency or change in exacerbation pattern did not reveal clinically useful predictors, although patients with more exacerbations before PR had the highest potential for reduction. Conclusion In a large population of severely impaired COPD patients with high exacerbation rates, a significant reduction in exacerbation and hospitalization frequency was observed after participation in a comprehensive PRP.
Finite Dierence Approximation for Stochastic Optimal Stopping Problems with Delays

This paper considers the computational issue of the optimal stopping problem for the stochastic functional differential equation treated in [6] The finite difference method developed by Barles and Souganidis [3] is used to obtain a numerical approximation for the viscosity solution of the infinite dimensional Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman variational inequality (HJBVI) associated with the optimal stopping problem. The convergence results are then established.
Conditioned Medium from Listeria innocua Stimulates Emergence from a Resting State: Not a Response to E. coli Quorum Sensing Autoinducer AI‐2

The lag phase of the bacterial growth curve is an important determinant in speeding the detection of pathogens. It is affected by many factors including the prevailing growth environment and inoculum size, as well as specific signal molecules. The elucidation of growth‐regulating signal molecules is further facilitated by culturing cells in defined growth media. In this study, a defined medium capable of supporting growth of Listeria innocua at similar levels as obtained using a complex brain heart infusion (BHI) media was developed. Further, the effects of conditioned medium (CM) on population lag time of L. innocuawas investigated using a rapid parallel approach (with an automated microtiter plate reader). Importantly, the lag phase was shortened by up to ∼50% by the addition of CM from L. innocua cultures obtained late in the exponential phase. Finally, while L. innocua were found to secrete bacterial signaling autoinducer, AI‐2, tests using Escherichia coli based CM having a 90‐fold difference in AI‐2 level suggested that the observed decrease in lag phase was not due to E. coli‐derived AI‐2 and was instead due to elements specific to L. innocua. These findings indicate secreted signal molecules may be found in CM that speed detection of L. innocua.
CamRay: Camera Arrays Support Remote Collaboration on Wall-Sized Displays

Remote collaboration across wall-sized displays creates a key challenge: how to support audio-video communication among users as they move in front of the display. We present CamRay, a platform that uses camera arrays embedded in wall-sized displays to capture video of users and present it on remote displays according to the users' positions. We investigate two settings: in Follow-Remote, the position of the video window follows the position of the remote user; in Follow-Local, the video window always appears in front of the local user. We report the results of a controlled experiment showing that with Follow-Remote, participants are faster, use more deictic instructions, interpret them more accurately, and use fewer words. However, some participants preferred the virtual face-to-face created by Follow-Local when checking for their partners' understanding. We conclude with design recommendations to support remote collaboration across wall-sized displays.
ECOLOGICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION OF KABHANTI PERFORMED BY MUNA COMMUNITY IN MUNA REGENCY, SOUTH EAST SULAWESI

Kabhanti is one of the oral traditions performed by Muna community. It is performed as part of the traditional ceremony adhered to by Muna community as an amusement and a means of presenting ideas and ideologies, and bequeathing the values which are useful to human life. Specifically, this present study was intended to describe the forms of ecological representation of Kabhanti performed by Muna community, to reveal the ideology it contains, and to interpret the ecological meanings it contains. The theory of ecolingistics, the theory of ideology, and the theory of semiotics were eclectically used in the present study. Qualitative method was used and the data were descriptively and interpretatively analyzed. The present study was conducted at Watumela Village and Latugho Village, Lawa District, Muna Regency. The data were collected through participatory observation, in-depth interview, the informants’ personal experience, and documentary study. The results of the study showed that ecologically the kabhanti performed by Muna community represented natural environment and human environment. All the ecological lexical items and the human ecological lexical items in such a performance reflected the existence of Muna people in their lives. It contained environmental, educational, social and developmental ideologies. The meanings of ecological representation in this present study included the meaning of environment, the meaning of cultural endurance, the meaning of identity, and the meaning of solidarity.
Effects of fish oil and starch added to a diet containing sunflower-seed oil on dairy goat performance, milk fatty acid composition and in vivo Δ9-desaturation of [13C]vaccenic acid

The potential benefits on human health have prompted an interest in developing nutritional strategies for specifically increasing rumenic acid (RA) in ruminant milk. The aims of the present study were to (i) compare two dietary treatments with lipid supplements on milk yield and composition, (ii) measure the in vivo Δ9-desaturation of vaccenic acid (VA) to RA using 13C-labelled VA and (iii) determine the effect of the dietary treatments on this variable. Treatments were 90 g sunflower-seed oil (SO) per d or 60 g sunflower-seed oil and 30 g fish oil per d plus additional starch (SFO), in a grassland hay-based diet given to eight Alpine goats in a 2 × 2 cross-over design with 21 d experimental periods. Milk yield and composition were similar between treatments. Goats fed SFO had higher milk 6 : 0–16 : 0 concentration, lower milk ΣC18 concentrations and showed no effect on milk VA and RA, compared with SO. At the end of the experiment, intravenous injection of 1·5 g [13C]VA followed by measurements of milk lipid 13C enrichment showed that in vivo 31·7 and 31·6 % of VA was Δ9-desaturated into milk RA in the caprine with the SO and SFO treatments, respectively. The expression of genes encoding for Δ9-desaturase (or stearoyl-CoA desaturase; SCD1, SCD5) in mammary tissues and four milk Δ9-desaturation ratios were similar between treatments. In conclusion, the present study provides the first estimates of in vivo endogenous synthesis of RA (63–73 % of milk RA) from VA in goats, and shows no difference between the two lipid supplements compared.
Running with the Red Queen: Host-Parasite Coevolution Selects for Biparental Sex

Outcrossing provides better survival than self-fertilization during coevolution between a host and its parasite. Most organisms reproduce through outcrossing, even though it comes with substantial costs. The Red Queen hypothesis proposes that selection from coevolving pathogens facilitates the persistence of outcrossing despite these costs. We used experimental coevolution to test the Red Queen hypothesis and found that coevolution with a bacterial pathogen (Serratia marcescens) resulted in significantly more outcrossing in mixed mating experimental populations of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Furthermore, we found that coevolution with the pathogen rapidly drove obligately selfing populations to extinction, whereas outcrossing populations persisted through reciprocal coevolution. Thus, consistent with the Red Queen hypothesis, coevolving pathogens can select for biparental sex.
Development of a graphene oxide-based assay for the sequence-specific detection of double-stranded DNA molecules

Graphene oxide (GO) is a promising material for the development of cost-effective detection systems. In this work, we have devised a simple and rapid GO-based method for the sequence-specific identification of DNA molecules generated by PCR amplification. The csp genes of Escherichia coli, which share a high degree of sequence identity, were selected as paradigm DNA templates. All tested csp genes were amplified with unlabelled primers, which can be rapidly removed at the end of the PCR taking advantage of the preferential binding to GO of single-stranded versus duplex DNA molecules. The amplified DNAs (targets) were heat-denatured and hybridized to a fluorescently-labelled single strand oligonucleotide (probe), which recognizes a region of the target DNAs displaying sequence variability. This interaction is extremely specific, taking place with high efficiency only when target and probe show perfect or near perfect matching. Upon GO addition, the unbound fraction of the probe was captured and its fluorescence quenched by the GO’s molecular properties. On the other hand, the probe-target complexes remained in solution and emitted a fluorescent signal whose intensity was related to their degree of complementarity.
Multichannel Spatial Clustering for Robust Far-Field Automatic Speech Recognition in Mismatched Conditions

Recent automatic speech recognition (ASR) results are quite good when the training data is matched to the test data, but much worse when they differ in some important regard, like the number and arrangement of microphones or differences in reverberation and noise conditions. This paper proposes an unsupervised spatial clustering approach to microphone array processing that can overcome such train-test mismatches. This approach, known as Model-based EM Source Separation and Localization (MESSL), clusters spectrogram points based on the relative differences in phase and level between pairs of microphones. Here it is used for the first time to drive minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamforming in several ways. We compare it to a standard delay-and-sum beamformer on the CHiME-3 noisy test set (real recordings), using each system as a pre-processor for the same recognizer trained on the AMI meeting corpus. We find that the spatial clustering front end reduces word error rates by between 9.9 and 17.1% relative to the baseline.
B-cell epitopes as a screening instrument for persistent cow's milk allergy.

BACKGROUND Cow's milk is one of the most common causes of food allergy in the first years of life. We recently defined IgE-binding epitopes of all 6 major cow's milk proteins (alpha(s1)-, alpha(s2)-, beta-, and kappa-casein; alpha-lactalbumin; and beta-lactoglobulin) and had some evidence suggesting that IgE antibodies from patients with persistent cow's milk allergy (CMA) recognize different epitopes on cow's milk proteins than do those from patients who were likely to outgrow their allergy. OBJECTIVE In this study we sought to assess whether recognition of IgE antibodies of certain epitopes of cow's milk proteins would clearly separate the patients with life-long CMA from those who will become clinically tolerant to cow's milk. METHODS According to the known IgE-binding regions of cow's milk proteins, 25 decapeptides of alpha(s1)-casein, alpha(s2)-casein, kappa-casein, alpha-lactalbumin, and beta-lactoglobulin, comprising the core epitopes, were synthesized on a cellulose-derivatized membrane. Sera from 10 patients with persistent CMA and 10 patients who subsequently outgrew their milk allergy were used to investigate the differences in epitope recognition. RESULTS Five IgE-binding epitopes (2 on alpha(s1)-casein, 1 on alpha(s2)-casein, and 2 on kappa-casein) were not recognized by any of the patients with transient CMA but showed binding by the majority of the patients with persistent allergy. The presence of IgE antibodies against at least 1 of 3 epitopes (amino acid [AA] 123-132 on alpha(s1)-casein, AA 171-180 on alpha(s2)-casein, and AA 155-164 on kappa-casein) identified all patients with persistent CMA. CONCLUSIONS The presence of IgE antibodies to distinct allergenic epitopes of cow's milk proteins can be used as a marker of persistent CMA. Prospective studies are needed to investigate the usefulness of these informative epitopes in predicting life-long CMA in young children.
DragLocks: handling temporal ambiguities in direct manipulation video navigation

Direct manipulation video navigation (DMVN) systems allow to navigate inside video scenes by spatially manipulating objects in the video. Problems arise when dealing with temporal ambiguities where a time span is projected onto a single point in image space, e.g., when objects stop moving. Existing DMVN systems deal with these cases by either disabling navigation on the paused object or by allowing jumps in the timeline. Both of these workarounds are undesirable as they introduce inconsistency or provoke loss of context. We analyze current practices regarding temporal ambiguities and introduce two new methods to visualize and navigate object pauses. User tests show that the new approaches are better suited for navigation in scenes containing temporal ambiguities and are rated higher in terms of user satisfaction.
Racism and bullying in rural primary schools: protecting White identities post Macpherson

This article examines how two primary schools in rural England with overwhelmingly White populations (of students and teachers) dealt with incidents of racist bullying in relation to their race equality policies. The data are drawn from in-depth interviews with parents, head teachers and teachers. The article draws on the work of Foucault to argue that students are situated in a ‘historical moment’ in which schools acknowledge racism formally and publicly, but this does not reflect their informal, private practices. Consequently, whilst systems are established that could respond to racist bullying, in practice these do not necessarily emerge in the school. A local discourse emerges that counters suggestions of racism by pointing to the existence of anti-racist systems and describing racism as something distanced geographically and historically from rural settings. White identities are both privileged and protected by this process whilst non-White students are disadvantaged.
Factional stories: Creating a methodological space for collaborative reflection and inquiry in music education research

Stories have been one means by which qualitative researchers have attempted to engage participants and construct, analyze and present data or findings in a meaningful way. In this article, I look at the impetus for, and potentials of crafting and sharing researcher-written factional stories with research participants as a means to generate rich, meaningful data, and facilitate collaborative inquiry. Factional stories may be understood as a bricolage of previously collected data, analyses and fictive elements, combining research participants’ and researcher voices and presented as a short, first-person story. Through the use of factional stories in my own research study as illustration, I examine how factional stories may create a methodological space, within which participants and researcher may collaboratively construct meaning and engage in reflection, negotiation and inquiry. This article suggests that as a heuristic methodological tool, factional stories may be a particularly appropriate methodological means to attend to the complexity so often characteristic of teaching and learning music.