Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A lip localization method based on HSV transformation in smart phone environment

Lip detection is the major and important step in the lip-reading system. In this paper, a novel method is proposed. Firstly, since the combination of YCbCr and HSV color model has a good segmentation power on skin color, we used this scheme to avoid the interference of background in the original images. Then, we use Hough transform to locate the eyeballs which are close to the circular after the face is detected. In the third step, a new approach is proposed to extract the lips based on the transformation of HSV color model. More specifically, the width of lip area is obtained by the distribution relationship between eyes and mouth. For the height of lip, threshold processing and gray-level integration projection are analyzed to extract the whole lip area, whether the mouth is open or closed. Extensive experiments show that the proposed method can rapidly and accurately extract the lip area, without the influence of lip shapes, light conditions and backgrounds. Therefore, this procedure can be effectively integrated into the lip-reading system.
Research on Risky Value of the Brain Surgery Route Planning System

Neurosurgical Route Planning System is an important application of The Computer-Assisted Surgery. Its aim is to show the two or three dimensional image of brain directly and surgeon selects important tissues and avoids these tissues by his experience. Surgeon will gain an optimum route from cut to tumor. From this route, surgeon can reduce the risk of surgical operation and make operation faster, more accurately and more safely.
Visual Working Memory Capacity Does Not Modulate the Feature-Based Information Filtering in Visual Working Memory

Background The limited capacity of visual working memory (VWM) requires us to select the task relevant information and filter out the irrelevant information efficiently. Previous studies showed that the individual differences in VWM capacity dramatically influenced the way we filtered out the distracters displayed in distinct spatial-locations: low-capacity individuals were poorer at filtering them out than the high-capacity ones. However, when the target and distracting information pertain to the same object (i.e., multiple-featured object), whether the VWM capacity modulates the feature-based filtering remains unknown. Methodology/Principal Findings We explored this issue mainly based on one of our recent studies, in which we asked the participants to remember three colors of colored-shapes or colored-landolt-Cs while using two types of task irrelevant information. We found that the irrelevant high-discriminable information could not be filtered out during the extraction of VWM but the irrelevant fine-grained information could be. We added 8 extra participants to the original 16 participants and then split the overall 24 participants into low- and high-VWM capacity groups. We found that regardless of the VWM capacity, the irrelevant high-discriminable information was selected into VWM, whereas the irrelevant fine-grained information was filtered out. The latter finding was further corroborated in a second experiment in which the participants were required to remember one colored-landolt-C and a more strict control was exerted over the VWM capacity. Conclusions/Significance We conclude that VWM capacity did not modulate the feature-based filtering in VWM.
Roles of extensins in cotyledon primordium formation and shoot apical meristem activity in Nicotiana tabacum

Extensins are cell wall basic glycoproteins with a polypeptide backbone that is extremely rich in hydroxyproline. In this paper, the function of extensins in embryo development was studied in Nicotiana tabacum. By using Western blot and immunohistochemistry, the extensin JIM20 epitopes were found to express in different developmental stages of embryos, and specifically in the top of the embryo proper (EP) and the suspensor of the late globular embryos. In order to clarify the functions of extensins, a potent hydroxyproline synthesis inhibitor, 3,4-dehydro-L-proline (3,4-DHP), was used in ovule and embryo culture. The results showed that the addition of 3,4-DHP caused abnormal embryos with single, asymmetry and supernumerary cotyledon primordia, and continuous culture led to cotyledon defects in the germinated seedlings. Histological sections showed that the shoot apical meristem (SAM) of the abnormal seedlings was dissimilar from the controls, especially in the seedlings with cup-shaped cotyledons. Furthermore, the vasculature of the abnormal cotyledons was in an out-of-order format and contained at least two main veins. Finally, both the hydroxyproline assay and fluorescent immunolocalization confirmed that 3,4-DHP treatment reduced the level of extensins in the cultured ovules and embryos. These results indicate that extensins may play important roles in the cotyledon primordium formation, SAM activity, and vasculature differentiation during embryo development.
Instant Recovery for Main Memory Databases

With the emergence of new hardware technologies, new opportunities arise and existing database architectures have to be rethought to fully exploit them. In particular, recovery mechanisms of current main-memory database systems are tuned to efficiently work on block-oriented, high-latency storage devices. These devices create a bottleneck during transaction processing. In this paper, we investigate the opportunities given by the upcoming Storage Class Memory (SCM) technology for database system recovery mechanisms. In contrast to traditional block-oriented devices, SCM is byte-addressable and offers a latency close to that of DRAM. We propose a novel main-memory database architecture that directly operates in SCM, eliminates the need for logging mechanisms, and provides a way to trade recovery time with the overall query performance. We implemented these concepts in our prototype SOFORT. Our evaluation shows that we are able to achieve instant recovery of the DBMS while removing the need for transaction rollbacks after failure.
Independence and Interdependence Values in Changing Societies: A Three-Generation Comparative Study in Estonia, Germany, and Russia

Independent and interdependent self-construal values of three generations and the intergenerational similarity of self-construal was compared in three countries. The participants were 837 adolescents, their mothers (227 from Russia, 311 from Germany, and 299 from Estonia) and 293 maternal grandmothers. In Germany, all three generations displayed higher scores on independence than participants from other countries. Russian participants had higher scores on interdependence compared to participants from other countries. Adolescents scored significantly higher on the interdependent self-construal than the two older generations, and higher than the mothers’ generation on the independent self-construal. Grandmothers’ self-construal was related to mothers’ in all three countries. In Germany and Estonia, mothers’ interdependent self-construal was related to adolescents’ interdependent self-construal. Grandmothers’ (but not mothers’) independent self-construal predicted adolescents’ independent self-construal. The results are discussed in light of the Family Change Theory and the different roles the participants have.
Global budgets of atmospheric glyoxal and methylglyoxal, and implications for formation of secondary organic aerosols

[1] We construct global budgets of atmospheric glyoxal and methylglyoxal with the goal of quantifying their potential for global secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation via irreversible uptake by aqueous aerosols and clouds. We conduct a detailed simulation of glyoxal and methylglyoxal in the GEOS-Chem global 3-D chemical transport model including our best knowledge of source and sink processes. Our resulting best estimates of the global sources of glyoxal and methylglyoxal are 45 Tg a−1 and 140 Tg a−1, respectively. Oxidation of biogenic isoprene contributes globally 47% of glyoxal and 79% of methylglyoxal. The second most important precursors are acetylene (mostly anthropogenic) for glyoxal and acetone (mostly biogenic) for methylglyoxal. Both acetylene and acetone have long lifetimes and provide a source of dicarbonyls in the free troposphere. Atmospheric lifetimes of glyoxal and methylglyoxal in the model are 2.9 h and 1.6 h, respectively, mostly determined by photolysis. Simulated dicarbonyl concentrations in continental surface air at northern midlatitudes are in the range 10–100 ppt, consistent with in situ measurements. On a global scale, the highest concentrations are over biomass burning regions, in agreement with glyoxal column observations from the SCIAMACHY satellite instrument. SCIAMACHY and a few ship cruises also suggest a large marine source of dicarbonyls missing from our model. The global source of SOA from the irreversible uptake of dicarbonyls in GEOS-Chem is 11 Tg C a−1, including 2.6 Tg C a−1 from glyoxal and 8 Tg C a−1 from methylglyoxal; 90% of this source takes place in clouds. The magnitude of the global SOA source from dicarbonyls is comparable to that computed in GEOS-Chem from the standard mechanism involving reversible partitioning of semivolatile products from the oxidation of monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, isoprene, and aromatics.
Dissipative structures in a nonlinear dynamo

This article considers magnetic field generation by a fluid flow in a system referred to as the Archontis dynamo: a steady nonlinear MHD state is driven by a prescribed body force. The field and flow become almost equal and dissipation is concentrated in cigar-like structures centred on straight-line separatrices. Numerical scaling laws for energy and dissipation are given that extend previous calculations to smaller diffusivities. The symmetries of the dynamo are set out, together with their implications for the structure of field and flow along the separatrices. The scaling of the cigar-like dissipative regions, as the square root of the diffusivities, is explained by approximations near the separatrices. Rigorous results on the existence and smoothness of solutions to the steady, forced MHD equations are given.
A wireless sensor node processor with digital baseband based on adaptive threshold adjustment for emotional lighting system

In this paper, we present a wireless sensor node processor for emotional lighting system. Proposed wireless sensor node processor consists of an 8-bit embedded microcontroller, media access control (MAC) accelerator and digital baseband based on adaptive threshold adjustment (ATA) for enhancing the pseudo noise (PN) code acquisition. We fabricate a wireless sensor node processor using 0.18 mum CMOS technology and organize wireless sensor network for emotional lighting system. These results show it can be successfully applied in wireless sensor networks for further emotional consumer applications
OPTIMAL DESIGN OF TRUSS STRUCTURES WITH FREQUENCY CONSTRAINTS USING INTERIOR POINT TRUST REGION METHOD

Nowadays, in the industrial environment of simulation-based design, optimization has been widely applied. This article illustrates that how truss structural frequency optimization problems is being solved by interior point trust region method (IPTRM). As a possible way, primal-dual interior point method could optimize the structure by multiple centrality modifications with trust region subproblems. Through these series of correction, the algorithm’s convergence has been improved progressively. Moreover, IPTRM verifies the classical truss structures with the conclusion that it is more reliable and efficiency than any other algorithm when meet the certainly accuracy level, especially, when time is the constraint, IPTRM seems to be the superior solution for large optimization problems.
The Moderated Mediation Effect of Work-Value among the Personality and Organizational Commitment in Airline Employees

From a perspective that individual personality characteristics determine organizational behavior and outcome, the role of airline employees with a premise of emotional exchange with customers has a significantly important value. As explanatory variables on organizational commitment, personality characteristics and emotional labor of employees were established in this study. As a result, it examined the effects of emotional labor of employees according to their personality characteristics on organizational commitment.
Nuisance Attribute Projection in the Logarithm Domain for Face Recognition under Severe Illumination Changes

Illumination induced appearance changes represent one of the open challenges in automated face recognition systems still significantly influencing their performance. Several techniques have been presented in the literature to cope with this problem; however, a universal solution remains to be found. In this paper we present a novel normalization scheme based on the nuisance attribute projection (NAP), which tries to remove the effects of illumination by projecting away multiple dimensions of a low dimensional illumination subspace. The technique is assessed in identification experiments performed on the YaleB database, where an average rank one recognition rate of 99.6% is obtained on the test image sets. Comparative results with state-of-the-art techniques also show the competitiveness of the proposed technique.
Medial Prefrontal Cortex Activity Is Predictive for Hyperalgesia and Pharmacological Antihyperalgesia

Sodium channel blockers are known for reducing pain and hyperalgesia. In the present study we investigated changes in cerebral processing of secondary mechanical hyperalgesia induced by pharmacological modulation with systemic lidocaine. An experimental electrical pain model was used in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging. After induction of pin-prick hyperalgesia lidocaine or placebo was administered systemically using a double-blinded design. A 2 × 2 factorial analysis was performed. The factors were (1) sensitization to pain (levels: pin-prick hyperalgesia and normal pin-prick pain) and (2) pharmacological modulation (levels: lidocaine and placebo). A main effect of (1) sensitization was found in bilateral secondary somatosensory cortex (S2), insula, anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), parietal association cortex (PA), thalamus and contralateral midbrain. A main effect of (2) pharmacological modulation was found in bilateral S2, insula, ACC, mPFC, dlPFC, PA, midbrain and contralateral primary motor cortex, and thalamus. Interaction of pharmacological modulation and sensitization to pin-prick pain with activity increase during hyperalgesia and placebo was found in mPFC, posterior cingulate gyrus and thalamus. However, only activity in mPFC was inversely correlated to area of hyperalgesia during placebo and antihyperalgesic treatment effect. Furthermore, the difference of mPFC activity during hyperalgesia and placebo versus hyperalgesia and lidocaine correlated inversely with the change of the weighted hyperalgesic area (as a factor of area and rated pain intensity). We conclude that activity in mPFC correlates inversely with individual extent of central hyperalgesia and predicts individual pharmacological antihyperalgesic treatment response.
The disordered Fermi‐liquid fixed point and its instabilities

The concept of a disordered Fermi‐liquid fixed point is introduced and used to understand various properties of disordered metals within a unifying framework. Corrections to scaling near this fixed point give what are commonly called weak‐localization effects. Various instabilities of the disordered Fermi‐liquid phase are discussed. These include two distinct types of superconducting‐to‐normal‐metal quantum phase transitions. First, the quantum phase transition from a disordered metal to a conventional superconductor in bulk materials is considered. Second, a quantum phase transition in two dimensions from metallic‐like behavior to a novel type of disorder induced, spin‐triplet, even‐parity, superconductivity is treated. The paper is concluded with a discussion of the nature of the ground state of two‐dimensional, disordered electron systems.
Gaussian Robust Classification

Supervised learning is all about the ability to generalize knowledge. Specifically, the goal of the learning is to train a classifier using training data, in such a way that it will be capable of classifying new unseen data correctly. In order to acheive this goal, it is important to carefully design the learner, so it will not overfit the training data. The later can is done usually by adding a regularization term. The statistical learning theory explains the success of this method by claiming that it restricts the complexity of the learned model. This explanation, however, is rather abstract and does not have a geometric intuition. The generalization error of a classifier may be thought of as correlated with its robustness to perturbations of the data: a classifier that copes with disturbance is expected to generalize well. Indeed, Xu et al. [2009] have shown that the SVM formulation is equivalent to a robust optimization (RO) formulation, in which an adversary displaces the training and testing points within a ball of pre-determined radius. In this work we explore a different kind of robustness, namely changing each data point with a Gaussian cloud centered at the sample. Loss is evaluated as the expectation of an underlying loss function on the cloud. This setup fits the fact that in many applications, the data is sampled along with noise. We develop an RO framework, in which the adversary chooses the covariance of the noise. In our algorithm named GURU, the tuning parameter is a spectral bound on the noise, thus it can be estimated using physical or applicative considerations. Our experiments show that this framework performs as well as SVM and even slightly better in some cases. Generalizations for Mercer kernels and for the multiclass case are presented as well. We also show that our framework may be further generalized, using the technique of convex perspective functions.
Embedded Electronics Systems for Training Support Vector Machines

Training support vector machines (SVMs) requires efficient architectures, endowed with agile memory handling and specific computational features. Such a process is often supported by embedded implementations on dedicated machinery, for example in applications requiring on-line training abilities. The paper presents a general approach to the efficient implementation of SVM training on digital signal processor (DSP) devices. The methodology optimizes efficiency by a twofold approach: first, it suitably adjusts an established, effective training algorithm for large data sets; secondly, it reformulates the algorithm to best exploit the computational features of DSP devices and boost efficiency accordingly. Experimental results tackle the training problem of SVMs by using a high-end DSP architecture on real-world benchmarks, and confirm both the effectiveness and the general validity of the approach.
Sensing fork and persuasive game for improving eating behavior

We present a fork-type sensing device called the Sensing Fork that detects the eating behavior of children (food choice and eating actions), and a smartphone game to address children's eating problems based on their eating behavior. This paper describes the design and implementation of the Sensing Fork prototype and a play-based eating game called Hungry Panda 2, which works with the Sensing Fork. This game focuses on motivating children to eat all kinds of food on their table.
Female secondary school principals

This study examines two female principals in upper secondary schools and the development of their professional identities, focusing on schools in Sweden and Texas, USA. The study is part of a larger international research project with global conversations about what successful leadership means, and asks: in what ways do female secondary school principals’ professional identities inform equity issues in leadership with implications for recruitment, hiring, and evaluation practices? Using a feminist post-structural discourse analysis, the findings revealed that even when successful, female leaders in upper secondary schools can be evaluated negatively. These considerations relate to the way in which female principals are recruited, hired, and weighed when appraised, where their contributions may not be fully incorporated to establish equitable processes and procedures to sustain their success in educational leadership.
A generic P2P architecture for anonymous services

Peer-to-peer systems exhibit, due to their decentralized structure, interesting anonymity properties and are therefore often used as a supporting service for anonymous applications. Unfortunately, there is currently no overall framework that captures the various peer-to-peer models and their specific features to guide the development of anonymous applications. This paper presents a generic and flexible architecture for peer-to-peer systems that separates applications and supporting services. The architecture is structured in different layers and each layer comprises a set of generic and reusable building blocks. To demonstrate the power of the architecture, we have implemented an anonymous chat application on top of the architecture.
Prostate cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in men and is a major cause of mortality in the most of countries

Prostate cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in men and is a major cause of mortality in the most of countries. In many diagnostic and treatment procedures for prostate disease accurate detection of prostate boundaries in transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) images is required. This is a challenging and difficult task due to weak prostate boundaries, speckle noise and the short range of gray levels. In this paper a novel method for automatic prostate segmentation in TRUS images is presented. This method involves preprocessing (edge preserving noise reduction and smoothing) and prostate segmentation. The speckle reduction has been achieved by using stick filter and top-hat transform has been implemented for smoothing. A feed forward neural network and local binary pattern together have been use to find a point inside prostate object. Finally the boundary of prostate is extracted by the inside point and an active contour algorithm. A numbers of experiments are conducted to validate this method and results showed that this new algorithm extracted the prostate boundary with MSE less than 4.6% relative to boundary provided manually by physicians. Keywords—Prostate segmentation, stick filter, neural network, active contour.
Seeing-As in the Light of Vision Science

I will discuss the issue of what we see, using the framework of Tyler Burge’s wonderful and monumental book Origins of Objectivity (Burge 2010). On Burge’s view, every percept is constituted by a “perceptual attributive” (that represents an attribute) and a singular element (that represents an individual). The format of a percept is map-like or iconic, and could be symbolized as “That F”. The most basic perceptual judgments and beliefs are conceptualized and propositionalized versions of percepts in which the attributive need not be bound to a time and place. What are the actual perceptual attributives? Vision science picks out a small set of basic low level attributives that are products of sensory transduction and are causally involved in the production of other visual attributives: shape, spatial relations (including position and size), geometrical motion, texture, brightness and color. Burge discusses a higher level attributive for objects (“integrated body”) and considers that there may be some higher level attributives for some biologically important properties like food, danger and shelter. However, he notes (and I agree) that probably there are no culture-specific higher level attributives for teacups and recessions (p. 101). Terminological note: I will abbreviate the list of low level environmental attributives with “color, shape and texture” and I will refer to all attributives that are not low level as “high level”.