Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards skin polarization characterization using polarimetric technique

Measurement of optical properties of skin is an expanding and growing field of research. Recent studies have shown that the biological tissue, especially skin, changes the polarization state of the incident light. Using this property will enable the study of abnormalities and diseases that alter not only the light intensity but also its polarization state. In this paper we report an experimental study for measuring changes of polarization state of the light scattered from a phantom similar to a sample model of scattering skin. Using the notation of Stokes vector for the polarized light and Mueller matrix for the sample with its polarization properties, we have shown that some elements of the matrix were particularly sensitive to the changes of the polarization-altering physical properties of the scatterers within the phantom.
Ultrastructure of lepromatous nerves. Neural pathogenesis in leprosy.

That all leprosy is neural leprosy (17) and is so from its very inception (21) is now well-established (8. 24). Affecting as it does some 15 million patients, with a quarter of them presenting disabilities and deformities, leprosy constitutes the single largest peripheral nerve disorder (7, 9) . Of the two polar types of leprosy, tuberculoid and lepromatous, it is the latter type with its astronomical number of Mycobacterium lepra.e which is suitable for studying hostparasite relations in ,the presence of deficient immunity in man. In contrast to this, very few bacilli are seen in the tuberculoid type, probably due to host resistance operating through cell-mediated immunity which appears to contain the infection (38) . Earlier histologic work, spread over a hundred years as reviewed elsewhere (6,24), has clearly established an essential feature of the disease to be involvement of the peripheral nervous system, and the affinity of M. Zeprae for peripheral nerves ( 22) and Schwann cells in particular (7,24, 44) , 'and the sparing of the central nervous system. While there is no dearth of histological studies on peripheral nerves in leprosy using the light microscope, the same is not true for ultrastructural studies employing the electron microscope (EM). The latter approach is expected to throw further light on the neural pathogenesis in leprosy. In the last few years, however, using electron microscopy, Nishiura and his colleagues (25. 20, 27) have reported M. Zeprae in axons, in Schwann cells of the cords of Biingner, in lepra cells in the endoneuri.urn and have also described bacterial microenvironment and regeneration ofaxons
Learning grasp stability based on tactile data and HMMs

In this paper, the problem of learning grasp stability in robotic object grasping based on tactile measurements is studied. Although grasp stability modeling and estimation has been studied for a long time, there are few robots today able of demonstrating extensive grasping skills. The main contribution of the work presented here is an investigation of probabilistic modeling for inferring grasp stability based on learning from examples. The main objective is classification of a grasp as stable or unstable before applying further actions on it, e.g. lifting. The problem cannot be solved by visual sensing which is typically used to execute an initial robot hand positioning with respect to the object. The output of the classification system can trigger a regrasping step if an unstable grasp is identified. An off-line learning process is implemented and used for reasoning about grasp stability for a three-fingered robotic hand using Hidden Markov models. To evaluate the proposed method, experiments are performed both in simulation and on a real robot system.
Detection of Bangla Fake News using MNB and SVM Classifier

Fake or fraudulent news is coming into existence in large numbers for various political and commercial causes, which has become common in internet community. People can easily get tainted by any of these fraudulent news for their falsified words that have tremendous effects on the offline community. Therefore interest has increased in research on this topic. Notable work on the identification of false news in English texts as well as other languages except a few in Bangla Language has been carried out. Our work demonstrates the experimental investigation of detecting fake news from Bangla social media, as this area still requires a lot of concentrate. We have utilized two supervised machine learning techniques throughout this research study, Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Multinomial Naive Bayes (MNB) classifiers to recognize Bangla fake news. Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency Vectorizer and CountVectorizer has been used as feature extraction. Our suggested system recognizes fake news according to polarity of the related post. Eventually, our research suggests SVM with linear kernel gives a 96.64 percent accuracy overperforming MNB with a 93.32 percent accuracy.
Use of a regional, relict landscape to measure vertical deformation of the eastern Tibetan Plateau

[1] Field work and topography analysis show that remnant, local areas of a low-relief landscape or erosion surfaces are geographically continuous across the southeastern Tibetan Plateau margin. We correlate these remnant surfaces as a paleolandscape that formed at low elevation. Remnants of this paleolandscape are preserved because incision of the fluvial system has been largely limited to major rivers and principal tributaries and has not yet progressed throughout the entire fluvial network. The incomplete adjustment of the fluvial system signals initiation of rapid bedrock incision into a developing plateau margin, and erosional denudation is concentrated in the major river channels. This interpretation contradicts earlier notions that low-gradient, regional topography is the product of regional elevation reduction by intense landscape dissection due to the presence of several large southeast flowing rivers. The modern altitude of the reconstructed paleolandscape (or “relict landscape”) constrains the vertical displacement of the plateau surface in response to crustal thickening and subsequent erosion during the lateral growth of the Tibetan Plateau. Regional preservation of the relict landscape is consistent with minor surface disruption by late Cenozoic thrust faults and folds and supports a model of distributed lower crustal thickening. Because significant erosion is limited to narrow river gorges, an increase in the plateau elevation due to isostatic rebound is minor. Therefore we propose that the modern elevation of the relict landscape reflects isostatically compensated thickening of the lower crust.
A Mechatronic Platform, The Aldebaran Robotics Humanoid Robot

For several years, humanoid robotic has an important place in the research area. But nowadays, humanoid robots are everywhere: movies, advertising, toy. The world seems to be ready for biped robot. In this paper, a new mechatronic platform is introduced: the Aldebaran robotics' humanoid robot. The firm is developing an entertainment robot in the same range than the AIBO robot: a companion robot. The process of mechanical prototyping, actuator designation, electronic architecture and first computing design are presented in this document
Characterization of allergens and airborne fungi in low and middle-income homes of primary school children in Durban, South Africa.

BACKGROUND The South Durban Health Study (SDHS) is a population-based study that examined the relationship between exposure to ambient air pollutants and respiratory disease among school children with high prevalence of asthma who resided in two purposely selected communities in north and south Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. METHODS From the SDHS participants, a subgroup of 135 families was selected for investigation of household characteristics potentially related to respiratory health. In these households, a walkthrough investigation was conducted, and settled dust and air samples were collected for allergen and fungal measurements using standardized techniques. RESULTS Asp f1 allergen was detected in all homes, and Bla g1 allergen was detected in half of the homes. House dust allergens, Der f1 and Der p1 exceeded concentrations associated with risk of sensitization and exacerbation of asthma in 3% and 13%, respectively, of the sampled homes, while Bla g1 exceeded guidance values in 13% of the homes. Although airborne fungal concentrations in sleep areas and indoors were lower than outdoor concentrations, they exceeded 1,000 CFU/m(3) in 29% of the homes. Multivariate analyses identified several home characteristics that were predictors of airborne fungal concentrations, including moisture, ventilation, floor type, and bedding type. Airborne fungal concentrations were similar indoors and outdoors, which likely reduced the significance of housing and indoor factors as determinants of indoor concentrations. CONCLUSION Allergen concentrations were highly variable in homes, and a portion of the variability can be attributed to easily recognized conditions.
Trance State Effects and Imagery Vividness Before and During a Hypnotic Assessment: A Preliminary Study

Abstract This preliminary study explored the relationship between imagery vividness before and during a hypnotic phenomenological assessment procedure, the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory–Hypnotic Assessment Procedure (PCI–HAP), while also assessing trance (hypnoidal) state effects and several other variables. The PCI–HAP allows the assessment of trance state effects associated with hypnotism to be quantified and statistically assessed. The 102 subjects completed the PCI–HAP along with several other questionnaire items. Correlational and regression analyses suggested that imagery vividness during hypnotism (hypnotic imagoic suggestibility) was predicted by combined imagery vividness before hypnotism and trance (altered) state effects during hypnotism. When measuring several additional variables, imagery vividness during hypnotism was found to be a function of self-reported hypnotic depth and additional other variables. The usefulness of these results for better understanding imagery vividness before and during hypnotism is discussed.
Familial aggregation of Parkinson disease: a comparative study of early-onset and late-onset disease.

CONTEXT It is unclear whether late-onset Parkinson disease (PD), which is the most typical and most common form of the disease, has a familial component. Evidence for familial aggregation is key to whether research should focus on gene discovery or search for environmental factors. OBJECTIVE To investigate familial aggregation of early-onset and late-onset PD separately. METHODS Using survival methods, age-specific risk of PD was calculated and compared for 525 parents and siblings of 117 patients with early-onset PD, 1642 parents and siblings of 343 patients with late-onset PD, and 522 parents and siblings of 114 controls. The index patients were ascertained from a movement disorder clinic. Spouses and friends served as controls. RESULTS Compared with the relatives of controls, age-specific risk of PD was increased 7.76-fold in the relatives of patients with early-onset disease (P<.001) and 2.95-fold in the relatives of those with late-onset disease (P =.02). CONCLUSIONS Late-onset PD has a significant familial component. The magnitude of recurrence risk to relatives suggests a genetic etiology, without ruling out the possibility of a coexisting environmental component.
A coding theorem for a class of unknown channels

We consider the problem of communication over a channel which is selected 1) in a fashion unknown to the communicator, 2) as a function of past history, 3) from a given set of discrete memoryless channels, and 4) for the purpose of maximizing the degradation in performance. An upperbound on error probability insurable with block coding is obtained which exponentially approaches zero with block length for rates less than capacity. Techniques for the communicator to achieve these results are considered. The design of relatively simple communication techniques for channels with memory and jammed channels are discussed.
A new measure of children's optimism and pessimism: the youth life orientation test.

BACKGROUND Optimism and pessimism are positive and negative expectations linked with well-being in adults. Research on the importance of optimism and pessimism in children is limited by the lack of a developmentally appropriate measure of children's expectations. METHOD Based upon the Life Orientation Test-Revised (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994), the Youth Life Orientation Test (YLOT) is a sixteen-item self-report measure of children's optimism and pessimism. RESULTS Reliability and validity of the YLOT was found with 204 3rd-6th graders. Optimism also predicted fewer child-reported depressive symptoms and parent-reported behavior problems assessed three months later. Pessimism predicted more child-reported anxiety symptoms and parent-reported social and academic deficits.
No-reference quality assessment of tone mapped High Dynamic Range (HDR) images using transfer learning

We present a transfer learning framework for no-reference image quality assessment (NRIQA) of tonemapped High Dynamic Range (HDR) images. This work is motivated by the observation that quality assessment databases in general, and HDR image databases in particular are “small” relative to the typical requirements for training deep neural networks. Transfer learning based approaches have been successful in such scenarios where learning from a related but larger database is transferred to the smaller database. Specifically, we propose a framework where the successful AlexNet is used to extract image features. This is followed by the application of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to reduce the dimensionality of the feature vector (from 4096 to 400), given the small database size. A linear regression model is then fit to Mean Opinion Scores (MOS) using L2 regularization to prevent overfitting. We demonstrate state-of-the-art performance of the proposed approach on the ESPL-LIVE database.
Denied Inclusion for Prejudiced Women

Women are subject of stereotypical discrimination that disables their agency for action. Women with intellectual disabilities are double discriminated compared to non-disabled women and live in a stage of denied relationships in community. This article argues that the situation of women with disabilities is worsened by the lack of social network that limits the access to relationship. The research has made use of qualitative methodology to analyse the characteristics of the social networks that facilitate the social integration and community participation for women with intellectual disabilities. The semi-structured interviews yielded information about the aspects of social networks that enhance effective participation and boost wellbeing for women with intellectual disabilities. The research revealed that women with intellectual disabilities lack the social relationship and social network support for independent living. Disabled women’ opportunities for social inclusion and relationship are limited by environmental factors that decrease participation. Environmental agents influence social exclusion and deny women the basic structure for social relationships. Environmental aspects address behavioural adjustment which compensates for the shortcomings of intellectual functioning, by affecting the ability of women with intellectual disabilities to better cooperate with environment. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014. v3n1p129
Le coworking, un dispositif pour sortir de l’isolement ?

BOBOC Anca, BOUCHAREB Kevin, DERUELLE Valerie et METZGER Jean-Luc Metzger. « Le coworking : un dispositif pour sortir de l’isolement ? ». In SociologieS [en ligne], Theories et recherches, mis en ligne le 10 novembre 2014. Dans cet article, nous nous interessons a deux processus contemporains rarement rapproches. En effet, d’un cote, les entreprises et les administrations publiques connaissent en leur sein des processus de changement recurrents qui conduisent certains salaries a se retrouver .
Hybrid Acoustic Modelling of Historic Spaces Using Blender

Historic spaces provide a challenge in terms of achieving accurate acoustic modelling and auralisation due to the large volumes typically involved, implying significant computational overhead, uncertainty in terms of the construction materials’ properties, and translating this into appropriate physically based boundary conditions. Hybrid acoustic modeling approaches seek to solve the computational problem through complementary assimilation of various modeling paradigms. SonicRender is such a hybrid acoustic modelling tool, based around the Blender open source 3D graphics development platform. Finite Difference Time Domain and ray tracing methods are used, with the FDTD method constrained to low-frequencies enabling the simulation of wave characteristics at manageable compu- tational cost. Efficient rendering of spectrally complete RIRs are produced by combining results from geometric and band-limited numerical simulations. In this study, SonicRender is applied to recreate the acoustic of a site of historical and architectural importance: the National Centre for Early Music, York, UK. A series of acoustic measurements have been made through utilisation of the Exponential Swept Sine method for one source location and multiple receiver locations. As such, objective acoustic data is used to test the validity of SonicRender as an acoustic simulation tool through comparison of recorded and simulated room acoustic metrics. Conclusions are drawn on the future potential for using such hybrid acoustic modeling methods in similar challenging application areas.
Regulatory T Cells in Hepatic Immune Tolerance and Autoimmune Liver Diseases

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) have a profound ability to control immune responses. A majority of Tregs are derived from the thymus; yet a substantial Treg fraction is derived from the periphery. The liver seems to be an important source of peripherally derived Tregs. Indeed, the liver's well-known ability to induce immune tolerance is at least partly based on hepatic Treg generation. With recently developed tools to deliver antigens to tolerance-inducing liver cells, it is now possible to harness liver-derived Tregs for specific control of unwanted immune responses. Indeed, the selective delivery of autoantigens to liver sinusoidal endothelial cells could induce autoantigen-specific Tregs in vivo, providing effective treatment of autoimmune disease. Owing to the fundamental role Tregs play in controlling immune responses, an impairment of Tregs seems to be a plausible explanation for the development of autoimmune diseases, for example, in the liver. However, the actual role of Treg impairment in autoimmune liver diseases, such as autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), remains controversial. Major obstacles for clarifying the role of Tregs in autoimmune liver diseases are related to the difficulty to identify human Tregs unambiguously and to the difficulty to identify those Tregs and effector T cells that specifically recognize disease-driving autoantigens. However, even if AIH turned out to be a disease that is not driven by Treg impairment, Treg-based therapies for autoimmune liver diseases might still be effective, provided the Tregs for therapeutic use recognize the relevant antigens.
IQ MT A Framework for Automatic Machine Translation Evaluation based on Human Likeness Technical Manual 2 . 0

This report1 presents a description and tutorial on the IQMT2 package for Machine Translation Evaluation based on ‘Human Likeness’. IQMT intends to offer a common workbench on which MT evaluation metrics can be robustly utilized and combined for the purpose of MT system development. Current version includes a rich set of metrics operating at different linguistic levels (lexical, shallow syntactic, syntactic, and shallow semantic). The work reported has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, projects ALIADO (TIC-2002-04447-C02) and R2D2 (TIC-2003-7180), and by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, projects OpenMT (TIN2006-15307-C03-02) and TRANGRAM (TIN2004-07925-C03-02). IQMT stands for Inside Qarla Machine Translation Evaluation Framework.
Characterization of Recombinant and Brain Neuropsin, a Plasticity-related Serine Protease*

Activity-dependent changes in neuropsin gene expression in the hippocampus implies an involvement of neuropsin in neural plasticity. Since the deduced amino acid sequence of the gene contained the complete triplet (His-Asp-Ser) of the serine protease domain, the protein was postulated to have proteolytic activity. Recombinant full-length neuropsin produced in the baculovirus/insect cell system was enzymatically inactive but was readily converted to active enzyme by endoprotease processing. The activational processing of prototype neuropsin involved the specific cleavage of the Lys32-Ile33 bond near its N terminus. Native neuropsin that was purified with a purity of 1,100-fold from mouse brain had enzymatic characteristics identical to those of active-type recombinant neuropsin. Both brain and recombinant neuropsin had amidolytic activities cleaving Arg-X and Lys-X bonds in the synthetic chromogenic substrates, and the highest specific activity was found against Boc-Val-Pro-Arg-4-methylcoumaryl-7-amide. The active-type recombinant neuropsin effectively cleaved fibronectin, an extracellular matrix protein. Taken together, these results indicate that this protease, which is enzymatically novel, has significant limbic effects by changing the extracellular matrix environment.
Mesencephalic astrocyte‐derived neurotrophic factor reduces ischemic brain injury and promotes behavioral recovery in rats

Mesencephalic astrocyte‐derived neurotrophic factor (MANF), also known as arginine‐rich, mutated in early stage of tumors (ARMET), is a secreted protein that reduces endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Previous studies have shown that MANF mRNA expression and protein levels are increased in the cerebral cortex after brain ischemia, a condition that induces ER stress. The function of MANF during brain ischemia is still not known. The purpose of this study was to examine the protective effect of MANF after ischemic brain injury. Recombinant human MANF was administrated locally to the cerebral cortex before a 60‐min middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo) in adult rats. Triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining indicated that pretreatment with MANF significantly reduced the volume of infarction at 2 days after MCAo. MANF also attenuated TUNEL labeling, a marker of cell necrosis/apoptosis, in the ischemic cortex. Animals receiving MANF pretreatment demonstrated a decrease in body asymmetry and neurological score as well as an increase in locomotor activity after MCAo. Taken together, these data suggest that MANF has neuroprotective effects against cerebral ischemia, possibly through the inhibition of cell necrosis/apoptosis in cerebral cortex. J. Comp. Neurol. 515:116–124, 2009. Published 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Vision-Guided Control Algorithms for Micro Aerial Vehicles

Abstract This study presents an image analysis method used in the vision guided control system for Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). The paper describes a hypothetical model of a MAV located in the GPS-denied unknown environment, somewhere indoors. The model keeps moving autonomously following ‘the track’ marked with corners and other feature points recorded with a monocular camera pointed at the far end of a corridor and slightly tilted down at the angle β (20° - 30°). The flight stability and control are provided with an on-board autopilot that maintains zero pitch and roll angles and constant altitude. The image analysis has been based on the real-time computer vision library - OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision library - http://opencv.willowgarage.com).