Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A generic framework for efficient subspace clustering of high-dimensional data

Subspace clustering has been investigated extensively since traditional clustering algorithms often fail to detect meaningful clusters in high-dimensional data spaces. Many recently proposed subspace clustering methods suffer from two severe problems: First, the algorithms typically scale exponentially with the data dimensionality and/or the subspace dimensionality of the clusters. Second, for performance reasons, many algorithms use a global density threshold for clustering, which is quite questionable since clusters in subspaces of significantly different dimensionality will most likely exhibit significantly varying densities. In this paper, we propose a generic framework to overcome these limitations. Our framework is based on an efficient filter-refinement architecture that scales at most quadratic w.r. t. the data dimensionality and the dimensionality of the subspace clusters. It can be applied to any clustering notions including notions that are based on a local density threshold. A broad experimental evaluation on synthetic and real-world data empirically shows that our method achieves a significant gain of runtime and quality in comparison to state-of-the-art subspace clustering algorithms.
ADMM algorithm for demosaicking deblurring denoising

The paper is concerned with the problem of demosaicking, deblurring and denoising a color image in the same time. The global model of the acquisition chain for a color image contains these three effects, then doing restoration in the same time as demosaicking make sense. We propose to take into account for correlation of spectral bands (R,G,B colors) by minimizing a criterion written in a nearly decorrelated basis. Then we adapt the Alternating Direction Multipliers Minimozation (ADMM) method to get the solution.
Happily (n)ever after: the cruel optimism of Disney’s romantic ideal

Abstract Drawing on Ahmed’s articulation of the performativity of affect, we analyze how Disney love, as it is constructed in Disney Princess films, acts pedagogically as a “happy object” that orients the happiness of women toward the acquisition of love. We assert that the happiness we derive from loving Disney is a form of what Berlant calls “cruel optimism,” in which we become attached to fantasies of happiness and fulfillment that are unsustainable and detrimental. The cruel optimism we learn from Disney Princess films manifests as an incitement to pursue an impossible ideal of romantic love, or what Heise calls a bridal fiction, that reinforces the supremacy of a white heteropatriarchal family ideal and keeps us attached to “compromised conditions of possibility” that limit female agency and impede social progress.
A Content-Based Approach to Medical Image Database Retrieval

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) makes use of image features, such as color and texture, to index images with minimal human intervention. Content-based image retrieval can be used to locate medical images in large databases. This chapter introduces a content-based approach to medical image retrieval. Fundamentals of the key components of content-based image retrieval systems are introduced first to give an overview of this area. A case study, which describes the methodology of a CBIR system for retrieving digital mammogram database, is then presented. This chapter is intended to disseminate the knowledge of the CBIR approach to the applications of medical image management and to attract greater interest from various research communities to rapidly advance research in this field.
Identification of Verb-Particle Constructions in English

We propose different syntax-based methods for automatically identifying verb-particle constructions in English. The methods are based on the Deterministic Finitestate Automaton (DFA), Hidden Markov Model(HMM), and Synchronous ContextFree Grammar (SCFG). Our experiments show that the methods could result in F-score 83.3% over our manually annotated test-set consisting of Wikipedia articles and British National Corpus (BNC).
The Instrument for Assessing the Performance of Science Process Skills Based on Nature of Science (NOS)

Abstract: This study seeks to (1) reveal the feasibility of an instrument used for assessing the performance of science process skills; (2) describe the assessment results of student’s science process skills; (3) find out the practicality of the instrument to measure student’sscience process skills. This research and development adopted 4D model and non-test instruments. The results of the study are: (1) the instrument for performance assessment,which is in the form of observation sheet, is valid and reliable to measure science process skills; (2) the assessment reveals that students have average prediction and inferential skills, good experiment, measurement and communication skills, and very good observationskills; (3) the instrument has high practicality for measuring student’s science process skills. Keywords: instrument, performance assessment, science process skills, science learning,research and development INSTRUMEN PENILAIAN KINERJA KETERAMPILAN PROSES SAINS SESUAINATURE OF SCIENCE (NOS) Abstrak: Penelitian bertujuan untuk: (1) mengetahui kelayakan instrumen penilaian kinerja keterampilan proses sains hasil pengembangan, (2) mendeskripsikan hasil pengukuran keterampilan proses sains peserta didik, (3) mengetahui kepraktisan instrumen penilaian kinerja untuk mengukur keterampilan proses sains peserta didik. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode research and development (R&D) yang mengadaptasi model penelitian pengembangan 4-D dan pengembangan instrumen nontes. Teknik analisis data yang digunakan melalui analisis V aiken untuk mencari validitas instrumen, inter-rater reliability untuk mencari reliabitas, dan mengkonversi skor keterampilan proses dan angket respon. Hasil penelitian ini adalah: (1) penilaian kinerja keterampilan proses sains peserta didik dalam bentuk lembar observasi dinyatakan valid dan reliabel, (2) hasil pengukuran keterampilan proses sains peserta didik yaitu keterampilan prediksi dan inferensi dengan kategori cukup, keterampilan eksperimen, pengukuran, komunikasi tergolong baik, dan keterampilan observasi sangat baik, (3) instrumen penilaian kinerja yang dikembangkan memiliki respon keterpakaian dengan kategori sangat baik untuk mengukur keterampilan proses sains peserta didik. Kata Kunci: instrument,penilaian kinerja,keterampilan proses sains, pembelajaran IPA, pemnelitian & pengembangan
An Evaluation of Detriments and Ramifications Associated with Substance Abuse among Out-of-school Youths of Rural Areas in South Africa

Abstract Globally, substance abuse by youths in rural areas appears to hinder all efforts to reduce the prevalence of this social ill. The objective of this paper is to raise debates and discourses on the underpinnings of drug abuse among the out-of-school youths and suggest solutions or newer perspectives to tackle the quagmire. The experimental design of this paper is of a quantitative approach. Principal observation from the findings show that out-of-school youths in rural areas seem to end up resorting to drug abuse for solace and comfort due to factors such as lack of resources and employment opportunities, ignorance on the detriments of drug abuse and lack of recreation. In a nutshell countries should bolster health and well-being of rural communities through investments in rural drug prevention programmes in rural schools, extracurricular and recreational activities in rural areas and monitoring and evaluation of the programmes.
Angular Momentum Evolution of Young Stars: Toward a Synthesis of Observations, Theory, and Modeling

The aim of this AAS Topical Session was to update the community on the current state of knowledge about the angular momentum evolution of young stars. For newcomers to the subject, the session was intended to provide an introduction and general overview and to highlight emerging issues. For experienced workers in this field, the session provided an opportunity for synthesizing recent developments in observations, theory, and modeling of rotation of young stars and for identifying promising new research directions.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University at DUC2005

This paper discusses the query-based multidocument summarization techniques implemented by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University at DUC 2005. The summarization system is built under the framework of MEAD. In addition to borrow the features provided by MEAD for text summarization, including centroid and sentence length etc., we also introduce the entity-based, pattern-based, termbased and semantic-based features in particular for query relevance judgment. This is our first time to participate in DUC. However, the evaluation results are encouraging. Our system ranks competitively in DUC 2005, especially in ROUGE evaluations.
Data-Driven Online Decision Making for Autonomous Manipulation

One of the main challenges in autonomous manipulation is to generate appropriate multi-modal reference trajectories that enable feedback controllers to compute control commands that compensate for unmodeled perturbations and therefore to achieve the task at hand. We propose a data-driven approach to incrementally acquire reference signals from experience and decide online when and to which successive behavior to switch, ensuring successful task execution. We reformulate this online decision making problem as a pair of related classification problems. Both process the current sensor readings, composed from multiple sensor modalities, in real-time (at 30 Hz). Our approach exploits that movement generation can dictate sensor feedback. Thus, enforcing stereotypical behavior will yield stereotypical sensory events which can be accumulated and stored along with the movement plan. Such movement primitives, augmented with sensor experience, are called Associative Skill Memories (ASMs). Sensor experience consists of (real) sensors, including haptic, auditory information and visual information, as well as additional (virtual) features. We show that our approach can be used to teach dexterous tasks, e.g. a bimanual manipulation task on a real platform that requires precise manipulation of relatively small objects. Task execution is robust against perturbation and sensor noise, because our method decides online whether or not to switch to alternative ASMs due to unexpected sensory signals.
Design of Stego-Linearizer in HPA Linearization

Predistortion is a well know method used in the linearization process of high power amplifier. In this paper, a stegnographic approach has been introduced during the digital predistortion. The proposed stego predistorter gives double advantage over conventional LUT predistorter 1. Reduction of bit error rate 2. Secret data transferred between sender and receiver. The work has been implemented in OFDM environment using Matlab software.
The Social Psychology of the Black Lives Matter Meme and Movement

Since the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a string of publicized police killings of unarmed Black men and women has brought sustained attention to the issue of racial bias in the United States. Recent Department of Justice investigations and an expanding set of social science research have added to the empirical evidence that these publicized incidents are emblematic of systemic racism in the application of the law. The Black Lives Matter meme and movement are prominent responses to racism that have animated intense interest and support, especially among African Americans. We summarize recent social science research on Black Lives Matter. As a first step toward understanding the social psychology of the meme and the movement, we apply the dynamic dual-pathway model of protest to Black Lives Matter. Examinations of the dynamics of real-world movements such as Black Lives Matter may enrich psychology conceptually, methodologically, and practically.
SUM: Spectrum Utilization Maximization in Energy-Constrained Cooperative Cognitive Radio Networks

Cooperative cognitive radio networks (CCRNs) enable secondary users (SUs) to access primary resource by cooperation with active primary users (PUs). For the cooperation-generated resource, existing schemes in CCRNs allocate the resource only to the relay SUs. However, this may lead to inefficient spectrum utilization, when the relay SUs have poor channel condition or little traffic load for their own secondary transmissions. In this paper, considering user diversity in secondary networks, we focus on network-level throughput optimization for secondary networks, by allowing all SUs to optimally share the cooperation-generated period. Besides, considering the energy constraint on SUs, we formulate the resource allocation problem from long-term perspective, to reflect the time-varying change of user diversity in channel condition, traffic load and energy amount. We present an online SUM scheme to solve the long-term optimization problem. Although a mixed-integer and non-convex problem is involved in the SUM scheme, we transform the problem into multiple convex subproblems, and then optimally solve it with low computational complexity. Extensive simulations show that the proposed SUM scheme significantly outperforms the existing schemes.
Spatial Attention to Social Cues is not a Monolithic Process

Social stimuli are a highly salient source of information, and seem to possess unique qualities that set them apart from other well-known categories. One characteristic is their ability to elicit spatial orienting, whereby directional stimuli like eyegaze and pointing gestures act as exogenous cues that trigger automatic shifts of attention that are difficult to inhibit. This effect has been extended to non-social stimuli, like arrows, leading to some uncertainty regarding whether spatial orienting is specialized for social cues. Using a standard spatial cueing paradigm, we found evidence that both a pointing hand and arrow are effective cues, but that the hand is encoded more quickly, leading to overall faster responses. We then extended the paradigm to include multiple cues in order to evaluate congruent vs. incongruent cues. Our results indicate that faster encoding of the social cue leads to downstream effects on the allocation of attention resulting in faster orienting.
Psychosocial adaptation to visual impairment and its relationship to depressive affect in older adults with age-related macular degeneration.

PURPOSE In this study we examined psychosocial adaptation to vision loss and its relationship to depressive symptomatology in legally blind older adults with age-related macular degeneration (ARMD). DESIGN AND METHODS The 144 study participants were outpatients of a large regional vision clinic that specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of ARMD in older adults. They were administered a battery of cognitive and psychological screening instruments including the Adaptation to Vision Loss Scale, the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire, and the short form of the Geriatric Depression Scale. RESULTS A principal components analysis of the Adaptation to Vision Loss Scale identified three distinct adaptation factors, namely, acceptance of vision loss, negative impact on relationships, and attitudes toward compensation. Of these, acceptance of vision loss and attitudes toward compensation were positively associated with depressive affect. In addition, self-reported use of outpatient rehabilitative services was less frequent in those reporting greater depressive symptomatology. IMPLICATIONS These findings support the contention that depressive symptomatology as measured by self-report in older adults with ARMD is mediated by one's perceived sense of individual control as it relates to intrapersonal factors underlying adaptation to profound vision loss in old age caused by ARMD.
An Improved Method of Removing Gaussian Noise for a Gray Scale Image using Multiresolution Technique

This paper proposes a new image denoising algorithm using wavelets. It utilizes the pertinence of the neighbor wavelet coefficients by using the block thresholding scheme. Proposed enjoys a number of advantages over the other conventional image denoising methods. The aim of this paper is to investigate a multiresolution technique and the corresponding thresholding methods for image denoising. Consideration may also be given to applying some enhancement techniques to the existing methods so as to achieve both noise reduction and feature preservation. The noise acceptance and rejections rates have been computed for the existing techniques and the newly developed technique. The proposed technique provides better results with the soft thresholding and block thresholding based on parameters, MSE and PSNR General Terms
A two-step genetic algorithm for mapping task graphs to a network on chip architecture

Network on Chip (NoC) is a new paradigm for designing core based System on Chip which supports high degree of reusability and is scalable. In this paper we describe an efficient two-step genetic algorithm that has been used to build a tool for mapping an application, described by a parameterized task graph, on to a NoC architecture with a two dimensional mesh of switches as a communication backbone. The computational resources in NoC consist of a set of heterogeneous IP cores. Our algorithm finds a mapping of the vertices of the task graph to available cores so that the overall execution time of the task graph is minimized. We have developed a NoC architecture specific communication delay model to estimate the execution time. Our algorithm is able to handle large task graphs and provide near optimal mapping in a few minutes on a PC platform. Our tool also provides facilities for specifying NoC architecture, generation and viewing synthetic task graphs and viewing the progress of the genetic algorithm as it converges to a solution.
Characterization of an apically derived epithelial membrane glycoprotein from bovine milk, which is expressed in capillary endothelia in diverse tissues

A glycoprotein (PAS IV) of apparent Mr 76,000 was purified from bovine milk-fat-globule membrane and partially characterized. PAS IV contained mannose, galactose, and sialic acid as principal sugars (approximately 5.3% total carbohydrate [wt/wt]) and existed in milk in at least four isoelectric variants. The glycoprotein appeared to be an integral membrane protein by several criteria. PAS IV was recovered in the detergent phase of Triton X-114 extracts of milk-fat-globule membrane at room temperature. When bound to membrane, PAS IV was resistant to digestion by a number of proteinases, although after solubilization with non-ionic detergents, the protein was readily degraded. Amino acid analysis of the purified protein revealed a high percentage of amino acids with nonpolar residues. The location of PAS IV was determined in bovine tissues by using immunofluorescence techniques. In mammary tissue, PAS IV was located on both the apical surfaces of secretory epithelial cells and endothelial cells of capillaries. This glycoprotein was also detected in endothelial cells of heart, liver, spleen, pancreas, salivary gland, and small intestine. In addition to mammary epithelial cells, PAS IV was also located in certain other epithelial cells, most notably the bronchiolar epithelial cells of lung. The potential usefulness of this protein as a specific marker of capillary endothelial cells in certain tissues is discussed.
Characterization of Genetic Determinants That Modulate Candida albicans Filamentation in the Presence of Bacteria

In the human body, fungi and bacteria share many niches where the close contact of these organisms maintains a balance among the microbial population. However, when this microbial balance is disrupted, as with antibiotic treatment, other bacteria or fungi can grow uninhibited. C. albicans is the most common opportunistic fungal pathogen affecting humans and can uniquely control its morphogenesis between yeast, pseudohyphal, and hyphal forms. Numerous studies have shown that C. albicans interactions with bacteria can impact its ability to undergo morphogenesis; however, the genetics that govern this morphological control via these bacterial interactions are still relatively unknown. To aid in the understanding of the cross-kingdom interactions of C. albicans with bacteria and the impact on morphology we utilized a haploinsufficiency based C. albicans mutant screen to test for the ability of C. albicans to produce hyphae in the presence of three bacterial species (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus). Of the 18,144 mutant strains tested, 295 mutants produced hyphae in the presence of all three bacterial species. The 295 mutants identified 132 points of insertion, which included identified/predicted genes, major repeat sequences, and a number of non-coding/unannotated transcripts. One gene, CDR4, displayed increased expression when co-cultured with S. aureus, but not E. coli or P. aeruginosa. Our data demonstrates the ability to use a large scale library screen to identify genes involved in Candida -bacterial interactions and provides the foundation for comprehending the genetic pathways relating to bacterial control of C. albicans morphogenesis.
Ex Post and Ex Ante Analysis of Provisional Data

In this paper we suggest a framework to assess the degree of reliability of provisional estimates as forecasts of final data, and we reexamine the question of the most appropriate way in which available data should be used for ex ante forecasting in the presence of a data revision process. Various desirable properties for provisional data are suggested, as well as procedures for testing them, taking into account the possible nonstationarity of economic variables. For illustration, the methodology is applied to assess the quality of the US M1 data production process and to derive a conditional model whose performance in forecasting is then tested against other alternatives based on simple transformations of provisional data or of past final data.
Static Analysis Driven Cache Performance Testing

Real-time, embedded software are constrained by several non-functional requirements, such as timing. With the ever increasing performance gap between the processor and the main memory, the performance of memory subsystems often pose a significant bottleneck in achieving the desired performance for a real-time, embedded software. Cache memory plays a key role in reducing the performance gap between a processor and main memory. Therefore, analyzing the cache behaviour of a program is critical for validating the performance of an embedded software. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to automatically generate test inputs that expose the cache performance issues to the developer. Each such test scenario points to the specific parts of a program that exhibit anomalous cache behaviour along with a set of test inputs that lead to such undesirable cache behaviour. We build a framework that leverages the concepts of both static cache analysis and dynamic test generation to systematically compute the cache-performance stressing test inputs. Our framework computes a test-suite which does not contain any false positives. This means that each element in the test-suite points to a real cache performance issue. Moreover, our test generation framework provides an assurance of the test coverage via a well-formed coverage metric. We have implemented our entire framework using Chronos worst case execution time (WCET) analyzer and LLVM compiler infrastructure. Several experiments suggest that our test generation framework quickly converges towards generating cache-performance stressing test cases. We also show the application of our generated test-suite in design space exploration and cache performance optimization.