Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
m+pSpaces: virtual workspaces in the spatially-aware mobile environment

We introduce spatially-aware virtual workspaces for the mobile environment. The notion of virtual workspaces was initially conceived to alleviate mental workload in desktop environments with limited display real-estate. Using spatial properties of mobile devices, we translate this approach and illustrate that mobile virtual workspaces greatly improve task performance for mobile devices. In a first study, we compare our spatially-aware prototype (mSpaces) to existing context switching methods for navigating amongst multiple tasks in the mobile environment. We show that users are faster, make more accurate decisions and require less mental and physical effort when using spatially-aware prototypes. We furthermore prototype pSpaces and m+pSpaces, two spatially-aware systems equipped with pico-projectors as auxiliary displays to provide dual-display capability to the handheld device. A final study reveals advantages of each of the different configurations and functionalities when comparing all three prototypes. Drawing on these findings, we identify design considerations to create, manipulate and manage spatially-aware virtual workspaces in the mobile environment.
Generation of a Novel Nucleic Acid-Based Reporter System To Detect Phenotypic Susceptibility to Antibiotics in Mycobacterium tuberculosis

ABSTRACT We designed, constructed, and evaluated a prototype novel reporter system comprised of two functional cassettes: (i) the SP6 RNA polymerase gene under transcriptional control of a promoter active in mycobacteria and (ii) the consensus SP6 polymerase promoter that directs expression of an otherwise unexpressed sequence. We incorporated the reporter system into a mycobacteriophage for delivery into viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and introduction led to synthesis of an SP6 polymerase-dependent surrogate marker RNA that we detected by reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR). The reporter confirmed the susceptibility profile of both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant M. tuberculosis strains exposed to first-line antitubercular drugs and required as little as 16 h of exposure to antibacterial agents targeting bacterial metabolic processes to accurately read the reaction. The reporter system translated the bacterial phenotype into a language interpretable by rapid and sensitive nucleic acid detection. As a phenotypic assay that works only on viable M. tuberculosis, it could be used to rapidly assess resistance to any drug, including drugs for which the mechanism of resistance is unknown or which result from many potential known (and unknown) genetic alterations. IMPORTANCE The ability to detect antibiotic resistance of slow-growing bacteria (i.e., Mycobacterium tuberculosis) is hampered by two factors, the time to detection (weeks to months) and the resistance mechanism (unknown for many drugs), delaying the appropriate treatment of patients with drug-resistant or multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). The novel technique described in this article uses a unique surrogate nucleic acid marker produced by phage that infects M. tuberculosis to record phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility in less than a day. The ability to detect antibiotic resistance of slow-growing bacteria (i.e., Mycobacterium tuberculosis) is hampered by two factors, the time to detection (weeks to months) and the resistance mechanism (unknown for many drugs), delaying the appropriate treatment of patients with drug-resistant or multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). The novel technique described in this article uses a unique surrogate nucleic acid marker produced by phage that infects M. tuberculosis to record phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility in less than a day.
Differences in Document Retrieval and Entity Retrieval : Finding Support Documents with a Learning to Rank Approach

Entity retrieval finds the relevant results for a user’s information needs at a finer unit called ―entity‖. In the entity retrieval, people usually work in this way: find a small set of support documents which contain answer entities, and then further detect the answer entities in this set. In most cases, people treat the support document findings as the conventional document retrieval problem. That is, support documents are relevant documents. In this work, we indicate support documents and relevant documents, although similar, have important differences. Further, we propose a learning to rank approach to find support documents. The results show that the learning to rank method runs significantly better than the baseline systems which treat the support document finding as a conventional document retrieval problem.
Accurate registration of paired macular and nasal digital retinal images : a potential aid to diabetic retinopathy screening

The National Screening Committee recommends paired macular and nasal digital retinal images for diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening. Employment of trained retinopathy graders is a significant cost, and two images per eye increases grading time. Software to mosaic images is available but does not perform accurate registration or take account of the spherical nature of the retinal surface or optical distortions. Clinically significant data could potentially be hidden in the inaccurate overlap area. The aim was to devise and evaluate a system to accurately combine macular and nasal images into one composite image. Software was developed to register paired images by translation followed by warping to deal with spherical and optical distortions. The warping technique involves the application of thin-plate splines. To evaluate the system, twenty pairs of colour macular and nasal images were selected from a DR screening program. Blood vessels traversing image joins were classified by an experienced clinician. Linear transformation alone does not provide accurate registration of overlapping retinal images. The novel approach of using thin-plate splines accounts for the spherical retinal surface and optical distortions to produce accurate registration.
Data Record Image Name Desc Price Note Desc Note Data Record Image Desc Desc Name

1  Abstract— There are various kinds of valuable semantic information about real-world entities embedded in web pages and databases. Extracting and integrating these entity information from the Web is of great significance. Comparing to traditional information extraction problems, web entity extraction needs to solve several new challenges to fully take advantage of the unique characteristic of the Web. In this paper, we introduce our recent work on statistical extraction of structured entities, named entities, entity facts and relations from Web. We also briefly introduce iKnoweb, an interactive knowledge mining framework for entity information integration. We will use two novel web applications, Microsoft Academic Search (aka Libra) and EntityCube, as working examples.
Maternal serum human placental growth hormone at 11 to 13 weeks in trisomy 21 and trisomy 18 pregnancies

To investigate the maternal serum concentration of human placental growth hormone (hPGH) in trisomy 21 and trisomy 18 pregnancies at 11 to 13 weeks of gestation and to examine the possible association between fetal nuchal translucency (NT) thickness and maternal serum free beta‐human chorionic gonadotrophin (β‐hCG) and pregnancy‐associated plasma protein‐A (PAPP‐A).
An optimization-based error calculation for statistical power estimation of CMOS logic circuits

We present a statistical power estimation method where the estimation time and accuracy can be balanced by assigning smaller errors to the nodes with higher power dissipation and higher errors to the nodes with lower power dissipation. To calculate the error rates for individual nodes, a quadratic programming based problem is formulated which incorporates the distribution data of all individual node switching activities. Also, an iterative statistical power estimation system is presented. Finally, we demonstrate experimental results which show drastic reduction in the number of simulation patterns compared to previous methods.
Comparative Direct Analysis of Type Ia Supernova Spectra. I. SN 1994D

As the first step in a comprehensive, comparative, direct analysis of the spectra of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), we use the parameterized supernova synthetic‐spectrum code SYNOW to interpret 26 spectra of the well‐observed SN 1994D. Our results are consistent with the traditional view that the composition structure (element abundance fractions versus ejection velocity) is radially stratified. We find that resonance‐scattering features due to permitted lines of Ca ii, Na i, and Fe ii persist to more than 100 days after explosion. The fitting parameters for SN 1994D, together with those to be determined for other SNe Ia, will provide an internally consistent quantification of the spectroscopic diversity among SNe Ia and shed light on how the various manifestations of observational diversity are related to their physical causes.
A Novel Topology of Variable Gain Distributed Amplifier in 0 . 13 μm CMOS Technology for UWB Applications

We present a new design of CMOS variable gain distributed amplifier (VGDA) by using a new topology of gain cell and a preamplifier circuit. In order to improve the gain, the proposed gain cell has modified cascade structure with optimized bulk source bias. Variable gain is made in the Preamplifier circuit. This section also increases the gain. Another significant advantage is that the noise level of VGDA has reduced. For this architecture, number of stages calculated in optimum mode and achieved third stages. The main advantage of this circuit is gain control with high range, and best input/output impedance matching in all of range and throughout the entire bandwidth. High flatness gain (in optimum mode) and low noise with best reverse isolation over the entire bandwidth up to 10 GHz are the other features of the proposed VGDA, which makes the VGDA to be more stable. The complete designed circuit was simulated in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufactory Company (TSMC) O.13 mm CMOS technology. The simulated provide a gain control range of 39 dB, from -10 dB to +29 dB, 29.4 dB as flat gain in optimum mode, 2.93 dB as the noise figure average across the bandwidth. Reverse isolation is better than –45.8 dB across the bandwidth, the input/output return loss is better than -10 dB and 61 mW total dc power consumption.
Big Brother is Watching You—But in a Good Way

In any modern desktop environment the glyph compositor-where raw text information is combined with font information and other attributes to render rasterized component images-is part of the software's core functionality. In this paper we present work that shows it is computationally feasible to apply full-text indexing in real-time to the live stream of glyph compositor operations generated by a user's interaction with their desktop environment. By embedding indexing functionality at such a level, we effectively get to “see” (and more importantly remember) all the text that is drawn on the user's screen. With elements reminiscent of the Memex, we illustrate the technique in use through a personal digital library we have developed that enriches (through text-searching and context) the user's desktop experience by letting them go back in time to view information that had previously been displayed. We achieved this by augmenting our dynamically updated text index with time-stamped snapshots of the desktop. By recording the (x, y) positions of the text at the time it is rendered, the snapshots have a semi-live feel, whereby text can be selected for copy-and-paste operations for further use. Moreover, windows-even if they were hidden behind others at the time the text was rendered-can be brought to the front and their text accessed.
A support vector based approach for classification beyond the learned label space in data streams

Most of the supervised classification algorithms are proposed to classify newly seen instances based on their learned label space. However, in the case of data streams, concept-evolution is inevitable. In this paper we propose a support vector based approach for classification beyond the learned label space in data streams with regard to other challenges in data streams like concept-drift and infinite-length. We maintain the boundaries of observed classes through the stream by utilizing a support vector based method (SVDD). Newly arrived instances located outside these boundaries will be analyzed by constructing neighborhood graph to detect the emergence of a class beyond the learned label space (novel class). Our method is more accurate to model intricate-shape class boundaries than existing method since it utilizes support vector data description method. Dynamically maintaining boundaries by shrinking, enlarging and merging spheres in the kernel space, helps our method to adapt both dramatic and gradual changes of underlying distribution of data, and also be more memory efficient than the existing methods. Conducted experiments on both real and synthetic benchmark data sets show the superiority of the proposed method over the state-of-the-art methods in this area.
D ec 2 01 5 ETH-Hardness for Symmetric Signaling in Zero-Sum Games

We prove that, assuming the exponential time hypothesis, finding an ǫ-approximately optimal symmetric signaling scheme in a two-player zero-sum game requires quasi-polynomial time (n). This is tight by [6] and resolves an open question of Dughmi [10]. We also prove that finding a multiplicative approximation is NP-hard.
SketchingWithHands: 3D Sketching Handheld Products with First-Person Hand Posture

We present SketchingWithHands, a 3D sketching system that incorporates a hand-tracking sensor. The system enables product designers to easily capture desired hand postures from a first-person point of view at any time and to use the captured hand information to explore handheld product concepts by 3D sketching while keeping the proper scale and usage of the products. Based on the analysis of design practices and drawing skills in the art and design literature, we suggest novel ideas for efficiently acquiring hand postures (palm-pinning widget, front and center mirrors, responsive spangles), for quickly creating and easily adjusting sketch planes (modified tick-triggered, orientable and shiftable sketch planes), for appropriately starting 3D sketching products with hand information (hand skeleton, grip axis), and for practically increasing user throughput (intensifier, rough and precise erasers)---all of which are coherently and consistently integrated in our system. A user test by ten industrial design students and an in-depth discussion show that our system is both useful and usable in designing handheld products.
Floating Car Data Based Taxi Operation Characteristics Analysis in Beijing

The urban floating car data (FCD) collection system is usually constructed base on the taxi dispatch system, and the taxies are service as the floating car. Thus, the floating car data (FCD) collected from the system also include the operation information and status information of taxies. This paper proposed several Floating Car Data based indexes and analysis models for taxi operation. Taking Beijing as a case study, the paper analyzed the parameters including travel mileage, virtual mileage ratio, time-space distribution on the road-network and the labor intensity of drivers. Then, several important parameters about the taxi operation in Beijing were concluded in this research. These data can provide useful data support for the taxi dispatching management, taxi stop planning, Vehicles deployment and general decision making for the management of taxi industry.
Effect of Vitamin B 12 Treatment on Haptocorrin

Background: Haptocorrin (HC) carries the major part of circulating cobalamin, but whether HC is altered on treatment with vitamin B12 remains unknown. Methods: Our study included 3 populations: a population of vegan men (n 174; vegan population), of whom 63 were treated daily with 5 mg of oral vitamin B12 for 3 months; a group of patients with a previous methylmalonic acid (MMA) concentration >0.4 mol/L (n 140; population with suspected deficiency), of which 69 were treated with weekly vitamin B12 injections (1 mg) for 4 weeks; and a subgroup of participants in a vitamin B intervention study (n 88; nondeficient population), of whom 45 were treated daily with 0.4 mg of oral vitamin B12 for 3 months. Total HC and holoHC were measured by ELISA. Cobalamin was measured by an intrinsic factor (IF)-based assay. Samples were collected at baseline and 3 months after start of treatment. Results: Compared with baseline results for the 3 study populations, total HC and holoHC increased 30 pmol/L for every 100 pmol/L increase in cobalamin. After treatment with vitamin B12, holoHC (P <0.0001) and total HC (P <0.0001) increased significantly in the vegan population. Only holoHC increased in the population with suspected deficiency (P <0.0001), whereas no alteration was observed in the nondeficient population. Conclusions: The HC concentration is decreased in severely cobalamin-deficient individuals and increases on treatment. The concentration of cobalamin also relates significantly to the HC concentration in nondeficient individuals. © 2006 American Association for Clinical Chemistry
An Intellectual Capital Performance Evaluation Based on Fuzzy Linguistic

In a knowledge era, intellectual capital has become a determinant resource for enterprise to retain and improve competitive advantage. Because the nature of intellectual capital is abstract, intangible, and difficult to measure, it becomes a challenge for business managers to evaluate intellectual capital performance effectively. Therefore, this paper proposes a suitable model for intellectual capital performance evaluation by combining 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic approach with multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) method. It is feasible to manipulate the processes of evaluation integration and avoid the information loss effectively. Based on the proposed model, its feasibility is demonstrated by the result of intellectual capital performance evaluation for a high-technology company in Taiwan.
Saliency detection based on integration of boundary and soft-segmentation

Detection of the visual salient regions is a challenging and significant problem in computer vision. In this paper, we propose a boundary based prior map and a soft-segmentation based convex hull to improve the saliency detection. First, we present to utilize the boundary information to obtain the coarse prior map. Then a convex hull improved by soft-segmentation is proposed to form the observation likelihood map. Finally, the Bayes formula is applied to combine these two maps. Experiments on a publicly available database show that our augmented framework performs favorably against the state-of-the-art algorithms.
Medical Informatics System with Wireless Sensor Network-enabled for Hospitals

The inventions and feature-improvements of smaller, more robust wireless, wearable vital sign sensors have made possible the deployment of such devices in a hospital environment setup to assist in managing patients' information. Emergency medical care, triage, and intensive care can all benefit from continuous vital sign monitoring, especially immediate notification of patient deterioration. Sensor data can be integrated into electronic patient care records and retrieved for later analysis. This paper describes the design of a medical informatics system that utilises the benefits of wireless sensor networks. Oracle® Healthcare Transaction Base (HTB) serves as the platform for integration, development and operation in a typical hospital medical informatics system. A workflow engine is proposed to interface between the wireless sensor networks and the HTB. This system will provide the flexibility and expandability to integrate sensor-nodes of different purposes, which are used to collect patient's vital data; such as heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, electrocardiograph (ECG), motion, and patient location.
Demultiplexed detection of ultrafast optical signal using interferometric cross-correlation technique

A novel demultiplexing method using the interferometric cross-correlative technique is described and experimentally demonstrated for detecting ultrahigh-speed optical signals. In the proposed technique, cross correlation between the local pulse is observed through the first-order mixing of lightwaves to detect the existence of signal pulses. The only factor limiting the bit rate is the pulse width of the local oscillator's light: the responses of all other phenomena including detector's electrical circuits do not affect the maximum signal detection speed. Several characteristic of the detection method are clarified through the theoretical investigation. In an experiment, the demultiplexed detection of a 25 Gb/s pulse train is successfully demonstrated, for the first time to the author's knowledge, using the proposed method.
Functional and histopathological improvement of the post-infarcted rat heart upon myoblast cell grafting and relaxin therapy

Although the myocardium contains progenitor cells potentially capable of regenerating tissue upon lethal ischaemic injury, their actual role in post‐infarction heart healing is negligible. Therefore, transplantation of extra‐cardiac stem cells is a promising therapeutic approach for post‐infarction heart dysfunction. Paracrine cardiotropic factors released by the grafted cells, such as the cardiotropic hormone relaxin (RLX), may beneficially influence remodelling of recipient hearts. The current study was designed to address whether grafting of mouse C2C12 myoblasts, genetically engineered to express green fluorescent protein (C2C12/GFP) or GFP and RLX (C2C12/RLX), are capable of improving long‐term heart remodelling in a rat model of surgically induced chronic myocardial infarction. One month after myocardial infarction, rats were treated with either culture medium (controls), or C2C12/GFP cells, or C2C12/RLX cells plus exogenous RLX, or exogenous RLX alone. The therapeutic effects were monitored for 2 further months. Cell transplantation and exogenous RLX improved the main echocardiographic parameters of cardiac function, increased myocardial viability (assessed by positron emission tomography), decreased cardiac sclerosis and myocardial cell apoptosis and increased microvascular density in the post‐infarction scar tissue. These effects were maximal upon treatment with C2C12/RLX plus exogenous RLX. These functional and histopathological findings provide further experimental evidence that myoblast cell grafting can improve myocardial performance and survival during post‐infarction heart remodelling and dysfunction. Further, this study provides a proof‐of‐principle to the novel concept that genetically engineered grafted cells can be effectively employed as cell‐based vehicles for the local delivery of therapeutic cardiotropic substances, such as RLX, capable of improving adverse heart remodelling.
Image recovery using sparse reconstruction based texture refinement

We present a robust algorithm for spatial recovery of missing region in images. The algorithm consists of two stages: sparse modeling and patch based refinement. We note that a model based image recovery might not be able to reconstruct the richness or details in a signal unless the signal truly fits that model. We show that the reconstruction using a sparse model provides enough information about the inherent features present in the unknown area, using which, a patch based refinement process can replicate the structure and the natural texture from the surrounding available samples. The developed algorithm is tested on a variety of image characteristics. Significant objective and subjective gains are observed compared to the state-of-the-art.