Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improvised Salient Object Detection and Manipulation

In case of salient subject recognition, computer algorithms have been heavily relied on scanning of images from top-left to bottom-right systematically and apply brute-force when attempting to locate objects of interest. Thus, the process turns out to be quite time consuming. Here a novel approach and a simple solution to the above problem is discussed. In this paper, we implement an approach to object manipulation and detection through segmentation map, which would help to desaturate or, in other words, wash out the background of the image. Evaluation for the performance is carried out using the Jaccard index against the well-known Ground-truth target box technique.
Prolactin Modulates TRPV1 in Female Rat Trigeminal Sensory Neurons

Sex dependency in pain perception is well documented and is thought to be attributable to the effect of reproductive hormones on nociceptive processing. In the present study, we evaluated whether estradiol alters gene transcription in the trigeminal ganglia (TG) of ovariectomized rats (OVX). These experiments demonstrated a dramatic (40-fold) upregulation of prolactin (PRL) expression in TG by 17-β-estradiol (E2). PRL expression was restricted to TG neurons and was highly overlapped with transient potential receptor vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) (∼90%) in TG. Additionally, PRL is released from neurons during stimulation. Both forms of PRL receptors (PRLRs), short and long, were also present in TG neurons. Moreover, expression of the long PRLRs was under control of estradiol. We next evaluated the novel hypothesis that PRL acts as a neuromodulator of sensory neurons. PRL pretreatment significantly enhanced capsaicin-evoked inward currents, calcium influx, and immunoreactive calcitonin gene-related peptide release from cultured TG neurons. This PRL modulation of capsaicin responses was abolished by withdrawal of E2 from TG cultures. Biochemical analysis demonstrated that PRL increased (>50%) phosphorylation levels of TRPV1 in TG. In a behavioral test, PRL pretreatment significantly potentiated capsaicin-evoked nocifensive behavior in female rats at proestrous and in OVX rats after E2 treatment. The in vivo potentiating effect of PRL on capsaicin responses was also dependent on E2. Collectively, these data demonstrate that PRL is a novel modulator of sensory neurons tightly regulated by E2. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that PRL could contribute to the development of certain pain disorders, possibly including those modulated by estrogen.
COCOMO evaluation and tailoring

This paper gives the results of our efforts to evaluate and tailor a software cost estimation model called COCOMO.1 The precise data for the analysis was collected from the records of 33 completed projects. We evaluate the original COCOMO model, which overestimates the efforts required to develop software in our environment. Then we tailor the model according to the COCOMO tailoring methodology. To increase the precision and stability of the tailored model, we delete some unnecessary cost drivers in a heuristic manner with the aid of nonparametric statistical method. As a result, we can greatly improve the model. Finally we suggest a method to tailor the COCOMO effort multipliers. We believe we maintain the same direction as the originator's philosophy, and that our efforts can contribute to the progress of the COCOMO tailoring methodology.
Are Individual Differences in Reading Speed Related to Extrafoveal Visual Acuity and Crowding?

Readers differ considerably in their speed of self-paced reading. One factor known to influence fixation durations in reading is the preprocessing of words in parafoveal vision. Here we investigated whether individual differences in reading speed or the amount of information extracted from upcoming words (the preview benefit) can be explained by basic differences in extrafoveal vision—i.e., the ability to recognize peripheral letters with or without the presence of flanking letters. Forty participants were given an adaptive test to determine their eccentricity thresholds for the identification of letters presented either in isolation (extrafoveal acuity) or flanked by other letters (crowded letter recognition). In a separate eye-tracking experiment, the same participants read lists of words from left to right, while the preview of the upcoming words was manipulated with the gaze-contingent moving window technique. Relationships between dependent measures were analyzed on the observational level and with linear mixed models. We obtained highly reliable estimates both for extrafoveal letter identification (acuity and crowding) and measures of reading speed (overall reading speed, size of preview benefit). Reading speed was higher in participants with larger uncrowded windows. However, the strength of this relationship was moderate and it was only observed if other sources of variance in reading speed (e.g., the occurrence of regressive saccades) were eliminated. Moreover, the size of the preview benefit—an important factor in normal reading—was larger in participants with better extrafoveal acuity. Together, these results indicate a significant albeit moderate contribution of extrafoveal vision to individual differences in reading speed.
Heavy Metals Concentrations of Surface Dust from e-Waste Recycling and Its Human Health Implications in Southeast China

The recycling of printed circuit boards in Guiyu, China, a village intensely involved in e-waste processing, may present a signiﬁcant environmental and human health risk. To evaluate the extent of heavy metals (Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn) contamination from printed circuit board recycling, surface
Importance of direct and indirect triggered seismicity in the ETAS model of seismicity

Using the simple ETAS branching model of seismicity, which assumes that each earthquake can trigger other earthquakes, we quantify the role played by the cascade of triggered seismicity in controlling the rate of aftershock decay as well as the overall level of seismicity in the presence of a constant external seismicity source. We show that, in this model, the fraction of earthquakes in the population that are aftershocks is equal to the fraction of aftershocks that are indirectly triggered and is given by the average number of triggered events per earthquake. Previous observations that a significant fraction of earthquakes are triggered earthquakes therefore imply that most aftershocks are indirectly triggered by the mainshock.
Effect of enforced expression of human bcl-2 on Japanese encephalitis virus-induced apoptosis in cultured cells

Infection by Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), a mosquito-borne flavivirus, causes acute encephalitis in humans and induces severe cytopathic effects in different types of cultured cells. This study attempted to determine whether apoptosis contributes to virus-induced cell death in a culture system by characterizing JEV lytic infection in baby hamster kidney BHK-21 cells, murine neuroblastoma N18 cells, and human neuronal progenitor NT2 cells. According to our results, the replication of JEV, and not the UV-inactivated virions per se, triggered apoptosis in these cell lines, as evidenced by nuclear condensation, DNA fragmentation ladder, and in situ end labeling of DNA strand breaks with terminal transferase (terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling assay). Different strains of JEV, regardless of whether they are neurovirulent to mice, could induce apoptosis of the infected cells. In addition, enforced expression of the human protooncogene bcl-2 in BHK-21 cells, which did not influence virus production, appeared to delay the process of JEV-induced apoptosis, despite the fact that most infected cells were inevitably killed after prolonged cultures. However, Bcl-2 proteins expressed in N18 cells failed to block JEV-induced apoptosis, although they did prevent Sindbis virus-induced apoptosis from occurring in the same cells. This finding suggests that these two viruses may utilize similar but not identical mechanisms to kill their infected cells. The results presented here thus demonstrate that apoptosis can be a general mechanism for JEV-induced cell death and that enforced bcl-2 expression may be inadequate in protecting all cell types from JEV-induced apoptosis in cell cultures.
Relation between microRNAs and Apoptosis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

AIM: To determine the relation between serum microRNAs and apoptotic markers as regards development of HCC to understand the underlying mechanism of HCV related hepatocarcinogenesis. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 65 serum samples (25 samples from controls, 20 samples from hepatitis and 20 samples from HCC patients) were collected for miRNAs (mir 21, mir 199-a, and mir 155) detection. Human Programmed cell death protein-4 (PDCD-4) and Human Cytochrome-C (CYT-C) were determined. RESULTS: miRNAs 21 and 155 were over expressed in sera of patients with HCC compared to patients with chronic hepatitis (p < 0.0001). While serum means values of miR 199a was significantly decreased among HCC group patients when compared to patients with chronic hepatitis (p < 0.0001). The serum levels of PCDC4 and CYTC were increased in patients with HCC when compared to chronic hepatitis patients. They were also increased in patients with chronic hepatitis when compared to controls (p < 0.05, significant). There was direct correlations between apoptotic markers and oncomirs miRNAs 21 and 155 while apoptotic markers were inversely correlated with miRNA 199-a. CONCLUSION: Both microRNAs and apoptotic markers have roles in HCC pathogenesis. It seems that oncogenic microRNAs induce liver carcinogenesis in HCV patients irrespective of suppression of apoptosis.
Logo recognition using geometric invariants

The problem of logo recognition is of great interest in the document domain, especially for databases, because of its potential for identifying the source of the document and its generality as a recognition problem. By recognizing the logo, one obtains semantic information about the document, which may be useful in deciding whether or not to analyze the textual components. A multi-level stages approach to logo recognition which uses global invariants to prune the database and local affine invariants to obtain a more refined match is presented. An invariant signature which can be used for matching under a variety of transformations is obtained. The authors provide a method of computing Euclidean invariants and show how to extend them to capture similarity, affine, and projective invariants when necessary. They implement feature detection, feature extraction, and local invariant algorithms and successfully demonstrate the approach on a small database. <<ETX>>
Obfuscation Techniques for Mobile Agent code confidentiality

Mobile code, typically mobile agent applications, promises many advantages and is suitable to many different types of applications. However, the main hindrance to the advancement of mobile agent technology is security issues such as mobile agent code confidentiality. Existing security mechanisms for mobile agent technology basically allow for protection against code and data integrity changes by using for instance digitally signed mobile agents. However, no viable mechanism for protecting access to the code of the agent from malicious hosts on which the agent arrives. Mobile cryptography which is proposed as the only solution to code confidentiality is too expensive to implement. In this paper, an implementation of code obfuscation has been proposed to provide code confidentiality. Code obfuscation is currently being used in many other fields e.g. software piracy prevention. Thus it is believed that while some more foolproof techniques are devised for code protection against unauthorized access, obfuscation techniques can provide some security. We thus investigate the use of three different obfuscation techniques on java mobile agent code for security.
Quantum scalar fields in the half-line. A heat kernel/zeta function approach

In this paper we shall study vacuum fluctuations of a single scalar field with Dirichlet boundary conditions in a finite but very long line. The spectral heat kernel, the heat partition function and the spectral zeta function are calculated in terms of Riemann Theta functions, the error function, and hypergeometric PFQ functions.
A pilot study of a wearable apnoea detection device

Rationale Current techniques for monitoring patients for apnoea suffer from significant limitations. These include insufficient availability to meet diagnostic needs, cost, accuracy of results in the presence of artefacts and difficulty of use in unsupervised conditions. Objectives We created and clinically tested a novel miniature medical device that targets overcoming these limitations. Methods We studied 20 healthy control participants and 10 patients who had been referred for sleep apnoea diagnosis. The performances of the new system and also of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved SOMNO clinical system, conventionally used for sleep apnoea diagnosis were evaluated under the same conditions. Both systems were tested during a normal night of sleep in controls and patients. Their performances were quantified in terms of detection of apnoea and hypopnoea in individual 10 s epochs, which were compared with scoring of signals by a blinded clinician. Main results For spontaneous apnoeas during natural sleep and considering the clinician scorer as the gold standard, the new wearable apnoea detection device had 88.6% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity. In comparison the SOMNO system had 14.3% sensitivity and 99.3% specificity. The novel device had been specifically designed to detect apnoea, but if apnoea and hypopnoea during sleep were both considered in the assessment, the sensitivity and specificity were 77.1% and 99.7%, respectively, versus 54% and 98.5%, respectively, for the SOMNO. Conclusions The performance of the novel device compares very well to the scoring by an experienced clinician even in the presence of breathing artefacts, in this small pilot study. This can potentially make it a real solution for apnoea home monitoring.
Nanopositioning System With Force Feedback for High-Performance Tracking and Vibration Control

In this study, the actuator load force of a nanopositioning stage is utilized as a feedback variable to achieve both tracking and damping. The transfer function from the applied actuator voltage to the measured load force exhibits a zero-pole ordering that greatly simplifies the design and implementation of a tracking and damping controller. Exceptional tracking and damping performance can be achieved with a simple integral controller. Other outstanding characteristics include guaranteed stability and insensitivity to changes in resonance frequency. Experimental results on a high-speed nanopositioner demonstrate an increase in the closed-loop bandwidth from 210 Hz (with an integral controller) to 2.07 kHz (with a force-feedback control). Gain margin is simultaneously improved from 5 dB to infinity.
Towards (perceived) latency minimisation in audio-conferencing systems over application-level multicast

We propose a design for a scalable and dynamically adaptive application-level multicast (ALM) routing protocol, designed specifically for audio conferencing systems over the Internet. Currently proposed ALM protocols try to optimise receiver-delay for the whole group of participating nodes as the overlay-network is built and during overlay-network maintenance, which, when using standard packet flooding, can result in a number of the participants experiencing unacceptably-high latencies, unsuitable for real-time audio communication; whereas we propose to dynamically prioritise routing for those participants who are currently in conversation (i.e. those who require the lowest latencies in order to react to conversational cues) and allow higher latencies for participants who simply listen to the conversation without taking an active part in it at that particular moment in time. Thus, we aim to provide low perceived latency for all of the audio-conference participants without any support from the underlying network.
Formulas vs. circuits for small distance connectivity

We give the first super-polynomial separation in the power of bounded-depth boolean formulas vs. circuits. Specifically, we consider the problem Distance k(n) Connectivity, which asks whether two specified nodes in a graph of size n are connected by a path of length at most k(n). This problem is solvable (by the recursive doubling technique) on circuits of depth O(log k) and size O(kn3). In contrast, we show that solving this problem on formulas of depth log n/(log log n)O(1) requires size nΩ(log k) for all k(n) ≤ log log n. As corollaries: (i) It follows that polynomial-size circuits for Distance k(n) Connectivity require depth Ω(log k) for all k(n) ≤ log log n. This matches the upper bound from recursive doubling and improves a previous Ω(log log k) lower bound of Beame, Impagliazzo and Pitassi [BIP98]. (ii) We get a tight lower bound of sΩ(d) on the size required to simulate size-s depth-d circuits by depth-d formulas for all s(n) = nO(1) and d(n) ≤ log log log n. No lower bound better than sΩ(1) was previously known for any d(n) ≮ O(1). Our proof technique is centered on a new notion of pathset complexity, which roughly speaking measures the minimum cost of constructing a set of (partial) paths in a universe of size n via the operations of union and relational join, subject to certain density constraints. Half of our proof shows that bounded-depth formulas solving Distance k(n) Connectivity imply upper bounds on pathset complexity. The other half is a combinatorial lower bound on pathset complexity.
A Survey of Reconfigurable Architectures

new architecture type that is recently evolving is the reconfigurable architecture which combines the benefits of ASIPs (Application Specific Instruction Set Processors) and FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays). Reconfigurable computing combines software flexibility with high performance hardware. FPGAs are generally employed to construct a reconfigurable block as it provides an instant time- to-market advantage. Reconfigurable devices like FPGA offers improved computational efficiency as compared to traditional processor architectures. Reconfigurable block in these architectures provides the required flexibility for a large variety of embedded applications. Design space exploration of reconfigurable block involves a wide range of alternatives like logic block granularity in FPGA, interconnect topology, etc. The goal of this paper is to explore the reconfigurable architectures. KeywordsArchitectures, FPGA, FGRA, CGRA.
Energy Behavior of Java Applications from the Memory Perspective

With the anticipated dramatic growth of computing devices for mobile and embedded environments, energy conscious hardware and software design has taken center-stage together with performance. At the same time, there is an increasing need to provide a portable and seamless software environment for application development and interoperability. This paper takes an important step in the confluence of these two emerging trends, by examining the energy behavior of the memory system in the execution of Java applications. It is crucial to understand and optimize the energy behavior of the memory system since instructions referencing memory can contribute to a large fraction of the energy consumption when executing Java applications. Using an off-the-shelf JVM, a validated memory energy model, and a detailed simulator, this paper presents a characterization of the energy consumption by the cache and main memory when executing the SPEC JVM98 benchmarks in the JIT and interpreter modes. The energy consumption is profiled for the different hard-ware components (instruction cache, data cache, memory) and software components (class loading, garbage collection, dynamic compilation). The results from such a characterization are useful to the hardware designer for cache organizations and architectural enhancements for reducing energy consumption. They are also useful to the application and runtime system designer to identify energy bottlenecks, and for code restructuring or algorithm redesign to alleviate these bottlenecks.
Near-duplicate web page detection by enhanced TDW and simHash technique

Internet is one of the imperative explosion in communication and information retrieval. This massive development of web prompts host millions of web pages in heterogeneous platform. Due to the lack of a standard mechanism to guarantee the nonexistence of a web page before hosting them in the server leads to increases the near duplicate pages in the internet. These near duplicate content can exist either by intentional or accidental. The issue of finding near-duplicate web pages has been a subject of research in the database and web-scan groups for a few years. Since most winning content mining strategies received term-based methodologies, they all experience an issues of word synonym and substantial number of comparison. In this paper we propose a method, which deal with the detection of near and duplicate web pages detection by using an extended term document weighting scheme, sentence level features and simHash technique. The existence of these near and duplicate web pages causes the problems that range from network band width utilization, storage cost, reduce the performance of search engines by duplicated content indexing and increase load on a remote host.
Reassessment of the prognostic value of the International Prognostic Index and the revised International Prognostic Index in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: A multicentre study

The International Prognostic Index (IPI) is a widely accepted model that is used to predict the prognosis of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who are treated using chemotherapy. However, the prognostic value of the IPI has been a focal point of debate in the immunochemotherapy era. The aim of this study was to reassess the value of the IPI and revised IPI (R-IPI) in a Chinese population. A multicentre retrospective analysis of DLBCL patients who were treated with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone (CHOP)-like chemotherapy alone or chemotherapy plus rituximab (R-CHOP-like) was performed. The prognostic values of IPI and R-IPI at the time of diagnosis with respect to overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were evaluated. Among the 438 patients in the study, 241 received a CHOP-like regimen and 197 patients received an R-CHOP-like regimen. Although the IPI remained predictive for the CHOP-like group, it failed to distinguish between the various prognostic categories in the R-CHOP-like group. Notably, redistribution of the IPI factors into R-IPI factors identified three discrete prognostic groups with significantly different outcomes in both the CHOP-like and R-CHOP-like groups. In the R-CHOP-like group, these three risk groups, very good, good and poor, had distinctly different 3-year PFS rates of 96, 84.3 and 67.5% (P=0.001), and 3-year OS rates of 96, 87.6 and 71.1% (P=0.003), respectively. Our study demonstrates the power of the R-IPI as a simplified and more clinically relevant predictor of disease outcome than the standard IPI in DLBCL populations in the rituximab era. Therefore, the R-IPI merits further study in a larger population-based prospective study.