Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fast Point Cloud Skeleton Extraction via Octree-graph

We present a fast algorithm to implement curve-skeleton extraction from imperfect point sets. The algorithm works directly on the point clouds data without transforming the point cloud object into a volumetric or mesh form, which can be readily extracted qualified skeletons by plenty of mature methods. Specially, we first extract a novel graph called octree-graph from the original point cloud data, then reduce it into a linear skeleton, and simultaneously embed it into the original point cloud. The final skeleton can possess excellent centeredness and topological correctness on a variety of three-dimensional models.
A qualitative and quantitative study of information technology usage and quality of life among older persons in Hong Kong

 Abstract — In this high technology era, rapid developments in information technology (IT) have the potential to transform the lives of older persons. Ageing tends to be associated with reduction in health status and resources, which may lead to adverse challenges to functional independence and social connectedness for older persons. However, the role of IT is becoming ever more influential in our daily living though the digital services such as email, e-banking and e-shopping. Therefore, older persons inevitably come across various IT-related products, especially computers and the Internet, in their everyday lives. Moreover, the quality of life of older persons is important and has been mentioned as an aspect of successful ageing. This study will explore the relationships between IT usage and the quality of life among older persons in order to determine the main reasons why they do or do not use IT and how they learned about IT. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed in this study. An integrated model, which adopted the models and theories of Information system, is formed to investigate the major factors of IT acceptance and quality of life for older persons. The results showed that IT usage may promote social connectedness and improve quality of life for older persons. The research findings will contribute to the improvement of understanding of older persons’well being and attainment of successful ageing, especially in a rapidly ageing society such as Hong Kong.
Investigation of piezoresistive effect in p-type silicon using four point bending method

This paper investigates the characteristics of silicon piezoresistors with various dopin g concentrations and Length/Width dimensions at micro level. The silicon piezoresistors have been produced by conventional fabrication methods. The measurements are conducted on silicon test chips where p-type resistors are fabricated on n type (100) silicon substrates along the <110> direction. A fou r point bending setup has been designed and fabricated for characterizing the piezoresistor sets. The f our point bending setup is used to apply uniform uniaxi al stress along the <110> direction. This experimental result demonstrates a good linear relationship between resistance change and stress applied. The effect of doping concentration on temperature sensitivity is also investigated.
Why Nouns Trump Verbs in Word Learning: New Evidence from Children and Adults in the Human Simulation Paradigm

Despite tremendous cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation in linguistic input, early vocabularies are dominated by nouns. One explanation for this pattern appeals to the conceptual capacity of the learner—nouns predominate because the concepts to which they refer are somehow simpler or more accessible to young learners than the concepts to which verbs refer. Evidence for this viewpoint has come primarily from infants and toddlers. Another explanation appeals to the linguistic requirements underlying word learning—nouns predominate because their acquisition is well-supported by observation, while verbs often depend on additional linguistic information which early word learners are not yet able to utilize. Evidence for this viewpoint has thus far come primarily from adults in the Human Simulation Paradigm (HSP). To bridge this gap, we modified the HSP task to accommodate children. Although children's approach to this task differed markedly from that of adults, their patterns of performance were strikingly similar. Given observation alone, 7-year-olds—like adults—identified nouns more successfully than verbs. When observation was supplemented with linguistic information, 7-year-olds successfully recruited this information to identify verbs. This outcome represents the first empirical demonstration that young children's noun advantage may be attributable, at least in part, to the distinct linguistic requirements underlying the acquisition of nouns and verbs.
Scalable in-memory RDFS closure on billions of triples.

We present an RDFS closure algorithm, specifically designed and implemented on the Cray XMT supercomputer, that obtains inference rates of 13 million inferences per second on the largest system configuration we used. The Cray XMT, with its large global memory (4TB for our experiments), permits the construction of a conceptually straightforward algorithm, fundamentally a series of operations on a shared hash table. Each thread is given a partition of triple data to process, a dedicated copy of the ontology to apply to the data, and a reference to the hash table into which it inserts inferred triples. The global nature of the hash table allows the algorithm to avoid a common obstacle for distributed memory machines: the creation of duplicate triples. On LUBM data sets ranging between 1.3 billion and 5.3 billion triples, we obtain nearly linear speedup except for two portions: file I/O, which can be ameliorated with the additional service nodes, and data structure initialization, which requires nearly constant time for runs involving 32 processors or more.
Obstacle Detection on Heterogeneous Surfaces Using Color and Geometric Cues

Autonomous navigation is one of the most essential capabilities of autonomous robots. In order to navigate autonomously, robots need to detect obstacles. While many approaches achieve good results tackling this problem with lidar sensor devices, vision based approaches are cheaper and richer solutions. This paper presents an algorithm for obstacle detection using a stereo camera pair that overcomes some of the limitations of the existing algorithms and performs better on heterogeneous circumstances. We use both geometric and color based cues in order to improve its robustness. The contributions of the paper are improvements to the state of the art on single and multiple cue obstacle detection algorithms and a new heuristic method for merging its outputs.
Integration Policies in Federal Settings: Assessing the Impact of Exclusionary Citizenship Conceptions on Cantonal Integration Policies

While the surge of radical right parties in western European countries is assumed to yield a restrictive impact on immigrant integration policies, little is known on how exactly such an influence might occur. The situation appears particularly complex at Switzerland's sub-national, canton level. Apart from party influence, exclusionary direct democratic decisions and the broader cultural-linguistic regional background are considered potentially influential factors when it comes to the formulation of cantonal integration policies. The present article aims at disentangling this complexity by assessing the individual impact of the aforementioned factors. By approximating a most similar cases design, Switzerland's pronounced federalism allows for a systematic comparative analysis of the expected effects. The results of the cross-sectional regression analyses strongly corroborate the assumption that exclusionary direct democratic outputs and cultural-linguistic regional background significantly impact on the respective policies, while no evidence could be found for Switzerland's right-populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) having a similar direct impact.
Steady Data Acquiring and Robust Neutral Network Training for Boiler Combustion Optimization

Assuming the measuring parameters obey the Gaussion distribution, this paper proposes a Chi-square distribution based steady data judgment algorithm, which includes two parts, i.e. gross error detection and steady data judgment criterion. In order to overcome the noise’s influence on the result of neutral network training, the paper introduces the RANSAC algorithm into the neutral network training and put forward a RANSAC-BP neutral network training algorithm, which culls noisy data during neutral network training and then retrain the neutral network with noise free data, thus robust to data noises. This algorithm has been validated by a simulation experiment.
Wolbachia modulates Chikungunya replication in Aedes albopictus 1 2 3

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Wolbachia modulates Chikungunya replication in Aedes albopictus. Laurence Mousson, Estelle Martin, Karima Zouache, Yoann Madec, Patrick Mavingui, Anna-Bella Failloux
0 A pr 2 01 9 TT , JT , TJ and String Theory

We calculate the spectrum of a two dimensional CFT on a cylinder, perturbed by a general linear combination of TT , JT and TJ , by utilizing the relation of this problem to certain solvable single trace current-current deformations of the worldsheet theory of strings on AdS3. We show that this spectrum is well behaved (i.e. the energies are real) if and only if the dual bulk geometry is well behaved (i.e. the signature of the bulk spacetime is (1, 2) and there are no closed timelike curves). We also comment on the relations of string theory on AdS3 and its deformations to symmetric product CFT’s, matrix string theory, and a black hole description of highly excited fundamental strings.
Efficient interactive algorithms for file synchronization under general edits

This paper considers the problem of synchronizing of two remotely located data sources, which are mis-synchronized due to deletions, insertions and substitutions (collectively called `edits'). We focus on the following model. There are two distant nodes, with one having a binary sequence X, and the other having Y. Y is an edited version of X, where the editing involves random deletions, insertions, and substitutions, possibly in bursts. The problem is to synchronize Y with X with minimal exchange of information over a noiseless link. The amount of information exchanged is measured in terms of both the average communication rate and the average number of interactive rounds of communication. The goal is to synchronize Y to X, either exactly or within a target Hamming distance. We build on earlier work [1] which introduced an interactive algorithm based on Varshamov-Tenengolts codes to synchronize from insertion and deletion edits (indels). The assumption is that the number of edits is small (o(n) where n is the file size). First, we show how the original algorithm can be modified to work with a limited number of rounds, and quantify the trade-off between the number of rounds and the communication rate. Next, we present an extension of the algorithm to deal with the practically important case where the insertions and deletions occur in (potentially large) bursts. Finally, we show how to synchronize the sources to within a target Hamming distance. This feature can be used to differentiate between substitution and indel edits.
Outsourcing vs insourcing in the human resource supply chain: a comparison of five generic models

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a typology of human resource supply chain (HRSC) models that enable comparison of different models for making more informed strategic HR outsourcing decisions.Design/methodology/approach – In the paper interviews and company documents were used to construct multiple comparative case studies.Findings – The paper finds that five generic HRSC models were identified in two broad categories – two in‐sourcing models (local contracting and HR centralizing) and three outsourcing models (purchasing HR, non‐staffing HR, and staffing HR). Additional findings relate to the redistribution of power and competencies for managing HR within and between organizations.Research limitations/implications – The paper shows that future research should account for different HRSC models to address various dependent variables, especially distribution of power and HR competencies in managing HR supply chains and contribution to firm performance. Future studies on strategic alliances .
Bio-Inspired Algorithms Applied on Microstrip Patch Antennas: a Review

Design of small broadband, multiband and high-directivity microstrip patch antennas (MPAs) is a challenging task for the antenna research community since the classical MPAs do not perform well enough to be used in the real world applications. In this sense, various performance improvement techniques such as stacked patches, air gaps, compact meandering geometries, fractal-shapes and shorting pins are applied to design improved MPAs. Use of bio-inspired algorithms along with these techniques is trending due to their capability of manipulating antenna parameters to achieve optimized performance. Literature presents use of bio-inspired algorithms such as Genetic algorithms (GA), Particle swarm optimization (PSO), Differential evolution (DE), Invasive weed optimization (IWO), Wind driven optimization (WDO) and Ant colony optimization (ACO) on MPAs for performance enhancement. This paper begins with an introduction to MPAs followed by an analysis of the performance improvement techniques. Evolution of bio-inspired algorithms and their applications in the field of MPAs are also presented. Based on the compilation of studies, importance of applying multi-objective bio-inspired algorithms for simultaneous optimization of multiple antenna parameters is emphasized. Further, research voids in the field are revealed and direction is shown to design compact multifunctional MPAs.
An Improved Method for Using Mg II to Estimate Black Hole Masses in Active Galactic Nuclei

We present a method for obtaining accurate black hole (BH) mass estimates from the Mg II emission line in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Employing the large database of AGN measurements from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) presented by Shen et al., we find that AGNs in the redshift range 0.3-0.9, for which a given object can have both Hβ and Mg II line widths measured, display a modest but correctable discrepancy in Mg II-based masses that correlates with the Eddington ratio. We use the SDSS database to estimate the probability distribution of the true (i.e., Hβ-based) mass given a measured Mg II line width. These probability distributions are then applied to the SDSS measurements from Shen et al. across the entire Mg II-accessible redshift range (0.3-2.2). We find that accounting for this residual correlation generally increases the dispersion of Eddington ratios by a small factor (~0.09 dex for the redshift and luminosity bins we consider). We continue to find that the intrinsic distribution of Eddington ratios for luminous AGNs is extremely narrow, 0.3-0.4 dex, as demonstrated by Kollmeier et al. Using the method we describe, Mg II emission lines can be used with confidence to obtain BH mass estimates.
Cytotoxic Effects of Biosynthesized Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles on Murine Cell Lines

The aim of this study is to evaluate the in vitro cytotoxic activity and cellular effects of previously prepared ZnO-NPs on murine cancer cell lines using brown seaweed (Sargassum muticum) aqueous extract. Treated cancer cells with ZnO-NPs for 72 hours demonstrated various levels of cytotoxicity based on calculated IC50 values using MTT assay as follows: 21.7 ± 1.3 μg/mL (4T1), 17.45 ± 1.1 μg/mL (CRL-1451), 11.75 ± 0.8 μg/mL (CT-26), and 5.6 ± 0.55 μg/mL (WEHI-3B), respectively. On the other hand, ZnO-NPs treatments for 72 hours showed no toxicity against normal mouse fibroblast (3T3) cell line. On the other hand, paclitaxel, which imposed an inhibitory effect on WEHI-3B cells with IC50 of 2.25 ± 0.4, 1.17 ± 0.5, and 1.6 ± 0.09 μg/mL after 24, 48, and 72 hours treatment, respectively, was used as positive control. Furthermore, distinct morphological changes were found by utilizing fluorescent dyes; apoptotic population was increased via flowcytometry, while a cell cycle block and stimulation of apoptotic proteins were also observed. Additionally, the present study showed that the caspase activations contributed to ZnO-NPs triggered apoptotic death in WEHI-3 cells. Thus, the nature of biosynthesis and the therapeutic potential of ZnO-NPs could prepare the way for further research on the design of green synthesis therapeutic agents, particularly in nanomedicine, for the treatment of cancer.
Attention to advertising and memory for brands under alcohol intoxication

In an attempt to discover new possibilities for advertising in uncluttered environments marketers have recently begun using ambient advertising in, for instance, bars and pubs. However, advertising in such licensed premises have to deal with the fact that many consumers are under the influence of alcohol while viewing the ad. This paper examines the effect of alcohol intoxication on attention to and memory for advertisements in two experiments. Study 1 used a forced exposure manipulation and revealed increased attention to logos under alcohol intoxication consistent with the psychopharmacological prediction that alcohol intoxication narrows attention to the more salient features in the visual environment. Study 2 used a voluntary exposure manipulation in which ads were embedded in a magazine. The experiment revealed that alcohol intoxication reduces voluntary attention to ads and leads to a significant reduction in memory for the viewed ads. In popular terms consuming one or two beers reduces brand recall from 40 to 36% while being heavily intoxicated further reduces brand recall to 17%.
An NC algorithm for finding a maximal acyclic set in a graph

An acyclic set in an undirected graph <i>G</i> = (<i>V,E</i>) is a set <i>A</i> ⊆ <i>V</i>(<i>G</i>) such that the induced graph on <i>A</i> is acyclic. A maximal acyclic set (MAS) has the further property that no vertex can be added to it without creating a cycle in the induced graph. We present the first NC algorithm that finds an MAS in any graph, running in time <i>O</i>(log<sup>4</sup> <i>n</i>) using <i>O</i>((<i>m</i><sup>2</sup> + <i>n</i>)/log <i>n</i>) processors on a EREW PRAM, answering questions raised by Chen and He. Our NC algorithm for finding an MAS in a graph relies on a novel NC algorithm for finding a maximal forest in a hypergraph which may be of independent interest.
Lek Associates with and Is Activated by Kit in a Small Cell Lung Cancer Cell Line : Inhibition of SCF-mediated Growth by the Src Family Kinase Inhibitor PPI 1

At least 70% of small cell lung cancers (SCLCs) express the Kit receptor tyrosine kinase and its ligand, stem cell factor (SCF). In an effort to define the signal transduction pathways activated In Kit in SCLC, we focused on Src family kinases and, in particular. Lek, a Src-related tyrosine kinase that is expressed in hemopoietic cells and certain tumors, including SCLC. SCF treatment of the H526 cell line induced a physical association between Kit and Lek that, in vitro, was dependent on phosphorylation of the juxtamemhrane domain of Kit. Stimulation of Kit with recombinant SCF resulted in a rapid 3-6-fold increase in the specific activity of Lek. which was similar in magnitude to the activation of Lek resulting from the cross-linking of the T-cell receptor complex of Jurkat cells. Lek activity peaked by 5 min after SCF addition, and the elevated activity persisted for at least 30 min in the presence of SCF, with kinetics similar to the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase. PP1, an inhibitor of Src family kinases with selectivity for Lek, completely inhib ited SCF-mediated growth but had little effect on insulin-like growth factor-I-mediated growth. PPI antagonized both SCF-mediated prolifer ation and inhibition of apoptosis. PPI had no effect on Kit kinase activity but was shown to block total Lek activity by at least 90% by immune complex kinase assay. Low levels of Src, Hck, and Yes were also expressed in the H526 cell line; only Yes showed a consistent increase in specific activity, which was also inhibited by PPI following SCF treatment. These data demonstrate that, in the H526 SCLC cell line. Lek and, possibly. Yes are downstream of Kit in a signal transduction pathway; the inhibition by PPI of SCF-mediated proliferation and inhibition of apoptosis suggests that Src family kinases are intermediates in the signaling pathways that regulate these processes.
Placement of temperature sensors under process variations

Variations occur inevitably in temperature sensor from process variations. To tackle the former variations, a relative temperature sensor is proposed and explored in this paper. It eliminates the process variations in temperature measurement and improves area efficiency. The new temperature sensor is able to provide accurate temperature information. Compared with the absolute temperature sensor where maximum temperature error could be as high as 15°C, our relative temperature sensor shows 4.4°C maximum temperature error with 75% area reduction (m = 8) using 1um wide metal connection, and 3.8°C maximum temperature error with 3% area overhead (m = 8) using 10um wide metal connection, in the best case.
Independent at heart : Persistent association of altitude with ischemic heart disease mortality after consideration of climate , topography and built environment-a longitudinal cohort study

Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute (EBPI), University of Zurich, Hirschengraben 84, 8001 Zurich, Switzerland, Department of Geriatrics, Bern University Hospital, and Spital Netz Bern Ziegler, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern, Finkenhubelweg 11, 3012 Bern, Switzerland, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Socinstrasse 57, 4002 Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
. 00 97 8 v 1 [ gr-q c ] 3 M ar 2 01 5 On the convexity of Relativistic Ideal Magnetohydrodynamics

We analyze the influence of the magnetic field in the convexity properties of the relativistic magnetohydrodynamics system of equations. To this purpose we use the approach of Lax, based on the analysis of the linearly degenerate/genuinely non-linear nature of the characteristic fields. Degenerate and non-degenerate states are discussed separately and the non-relativistic, unmagnetized limits are properly recovered. The characteristic fields corresponding to the material and Alfvén waves are linearly degenerate and, then, not affected by the convexity issue. The analysis of the characteristic fields associated with the magnetosonic waves reveals, however, a dependence of the convexity condition on the magnetic field. The result is expressed in the form of a generalized fundamental derivative written as the sum of two terms. The first one is the generalized fundamental derivative in the case of purely hydrodynamical (relativistic) flow. The second one contains the effects of the magnetic field. The analysis of this term shows that it is always positive leading to the remarkable result that the presence of a magnetic field in the fluid reduces the domain of thermodynamical states for which the EOS is non-convex. PACS numbers: 04.25. D-, 47.11. -j, 47.75. +f, 95.30. Sf Submitted to: Class. Quantum Grav. On the convexity of Relativistic Ideal Magnetohydrodynamics 2