Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
U-Net With Dilated Convolution for Improved Clutter Removal in GPR Images

The clutters are inherent in ground penetrating radar (GPR) investigations which severely affects the performance of subsurface target detection. Therefore, removal of clutter is an essential preprocessing step in GPR survey. Several approaches are existing in literature for this purpose. However, it is quite challenging to remove the clutters for a rough ground surface using conventional methods. In this paper, a dilated convolution based U-Net architecture is proposed to improve the clutter removal performance of GPR B-scan images. The effectiveness of proposed approach over standard U-Net is validated on synthetic as well as laboratory measured data through qualitative and quantitative evaluation.
2 Switch Matrix Slice ( 1 ) Slice ( 0 ) CIN CIN COUT COUT CLB

We first describe the parts of the FPGA architecture that can help us understand how to implement the arithmetic used by the Skein hash function. Fig.1 shows the major components of a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA. The configurable logic block (CLB) is used to implement combinational or sequential logic. A modern FPGA also incorporates certain ASIC circuits for the high-speed I/O and the common logic such as digital signal processing (DSP) of adders/multipliers. In addition, since memory is usually an indispensable component in any digital system, the FPGA chip also includes the block RAM (BRAM). Fig. 1 also illustrates the common digital design components of buffer and clock management tile (CMT).
TDoA and RSS Based Extended Kalman Filter for Indoor Person Localization

Pedestrian localization systems require the knowledge of a users position for manifold applications in indoor and outdoor environments. For this purpose severel methods can be used, such as a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) or Inertial Navigation Systems (INS). Since GNSS are not available in indoor environments or street canyons, in this paper a 802.15. 4a network is used to estimate the pedestrian's position. The used network platform provides the Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA) as well as the Received Signal Strength (RSS). To fuse both measurement types a novel method is implemented which is based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Due to the low accuracy of RSS it is ignored if the TDoA system performs well. But if the TDoA measurements are affected by multipath propagation or other effects the RSS values are used to identify those situations and to correct the estimated position of the user. To evaluate the algorithm experimental results in two different environments are presented.
Households’ WTP for the Reliability of Gas Supply

The security of natural gas supply is an important issue for all EU countries due to the region’s heavy dependence on imported supply sources and in light of energy demand for gas that is continuously increasing. Discussions have emphasised strategies for securing the supply at the macro level, e.g. diversification in supply sources, increase in storage capacity, etc. By contrast, consumers’ demand for the reliability of gas supply is rarely investigated. Hence this study was conducted to examine the economic implications associated with the security of gas supply directly to domestic consumers. Based on the choice experiment approach, household surveys were conducted in France, Italy and the UK. The results confirmed that the degree of the economic impact of a disruption of gas supply to domestic consumers was a function of the duration of a supply disruption and the season in which a supply cut would take place, as well as other preferences of consumers. The willingness to pay to secure per unit of gas consumption, or alternatively the costs of gas unsupplied, was estimated at between €2.65/cubic metre and €41.48/cubic metre across three different European countries.
Probabilistic inferences under emotional stress: How arousal affects decision processes

Many models of decision making neglect emotional states that could affect individuals' cognitive processes. The present work explores the effect of emotional stress on people's cognitive processes when making probabilistic inferences. Two contrasting hypotheses are tested against one another: the uncertainty-reduction and attention-narrowing hypotheses of how emotional stress affects decision making. In the experimental study, emotional stress was induced through the use of highly aversive pictures immediately before each decision. Emotional state was assessed by both subjective (state anxiety, arousal, and pleasantness ratings) and objective (skin conductance) measures. The results show that emotional stress impacts decision making; in particular, emotionally aroused participants seem to have focused on the most important information and selected simpler decision strategies relative to participants in a control condition. The results are in line with the attention-narrowing hypothesis and suggest that emotional stress can impact decision making through limited predecisional information search and the selection of simpler decision strategies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Collaborative philosophical inquiry for schoolchildren: cognitive gains at 2-year follow-up.

BACKGROUND Evidence of maintained gains from thinking skills interventions are rare in the literature even within sectors of education, let alone across sectors. AIMS This study investigated the cognitive effects of collaborative philosophical inquiry at long-term 2-year follow-up, after the participants had transferred to secondary (high) school without experiencing further philosophical inquiry in the interim. SAMPLE Sample attrition was greater in the control than in the experimental group, but 96 experimental and 52 control subjects were available. METHOD Intervened children who engaged in collaborative inquiry for 1 hour per week over 16 months and whose pre-post cognitive gains were reported in Topping and Trickey (2007) were followed up 2 years later, some time after they had transferred from primary to secondary school, again using the Cognitive Abilities Test. RESULTS The significant pre-post cognitive ability gains in the experimental group in primary school were maintained towards the end of their second year of secondary school. Higher achieving pupils were somewhat advantaged in sustaining these gains. The control group showed an insignificant but persistent deterioration in scores from pre- to post-test to follow-up. CONCLUSIONS Given the pattern of sample attrition, the group difference seems likely to be underestimated. The study provides evidence of maintained cognitive gains from collaborative philosophical inquiry, transferred across contexts. Implications for future research, policy and practice are discussed.
ESEfinder: a web resource to identify exonic splicing enhancers

Point mutations frequently cause genetic diseases by disrupting the correct pattern of pre-mRNA splicing. The effect of a point mutation within a coding sequence is traditionally attributed to the deduced change in the corresponding amino acid. However, some point mutations can have much more severe effects on the structure of the encoded protein, for example when they inactivate an exonic splicing enhancer (ESE), thereby resulting in exon skipping. ESEs also appear to be especially important in exons that normally undergo alternative splicing. Different classes of ESE consensus motifs have been described, but they are not always easily identified. ESEfinder (http://exon.cshl.edu/ESE/) is a web-based resource that facilitates rapid analysis of exon sequences to identify putative ESEs responsive to the human SR proteins SF2/ASF, SC35, SRp40 and SRp55, and to predict whether exonic mutations disrupt such elements.
Distinction between the concepts of weight and mass in high school students

Three experiments were designed to test high school students’ intuitive mastery of the concepts of mass and weight. The theoretical framework used is Information Integration Theory. Results indicate that, regardless of age, students possess two distinct concepts corresponding to each of these notions. However, the terms mass and weight are both understood in terms of one concept, that of weight (f of volume, density, gravitation), whereas the term ‘amount of matter’ is clearly related to the concept of mass (f of volume, density).
Data Transmission with Reduced Delay for Distributed Acoustic Sensors

This paper proposes a channel access control scheme fit to dense acoustic sensor nodes in a sensor network, where multiple acoustic sensor nodes within communication range of a cluster head are grouped into clusters. Acoustic sensor nodes in a cluster detect acoustic signals and convert them into electric signals (packets). Detection by acoustic sensors can be executed periodically or randomly. As a result, each acoustic sensor generates its packets (50 bytes each) periodically or randomly over short time intervals (400 ms~4 seconds) and transmits directly to a cluster head (coordinator node). Our approach proposes using a slotted carrier sense multiple access. All acoustic sensor nodes in a cluster are allocated to time slots and the number of allocated sensor nodes to each time slot is uniform. All sensor nodes allocated to a time slot listen for packet transmission from the beginning of the time slot for a duration proportional to their priority. The order of packet transmissions with the acoustic sensor nodes in the time slot is autonomously adjusted according to the history of packet transmissions in the time slot. In simulations, performances of the proposed scheme are demonstrated by the comparisons with other low rate wireless channel access schemes.
Numerical evaluation of implantable hearing devices using a finite element model of human ear considering viscoelastic properties

Finite element method was employed in this study to analyze the change in performance of implantable hearing devices due to the consideration of soft tissues’ viscoelasticity. An integrated finite element model of human ear including the external ear, middle ear and inner ear was first developed via reverse engineering and analyzed by acoustic–structure–fluid coupling. Viscoelastic properties of soft tissues in the middle ear were taken into consideration in this model. The model-derived dynamic responses including middle ear and cochlea functions showed a better agreement with experimental data at high frequencies above 3000 Hz than the Rayleigh-type damping. On this basis, a coupled finite element model consisting of the human ear and a piezoelectric actuator attached to the long process of incus was further constructed. Based on the electromechanical coupling analysis, equivalent sound pressure and power consumption of the actuator corresponding to viscoelasticity and Rayleigh damping were calculated using this model. The analytical results showed that the implant performance of the actuator evaluated using a finite element model considering viscoelastic properties gives a lower output above about 3 kHz than does Rayleigh damping model. Finite element model considering viscoelastic properties was more accurate to numerically evaluate implantable hearing devices.
P-SyncBB: A Privacy Preserving Branch and Bound DCOP Algorithm

Distributed constraint optimization problems enable the representation of many combinatorial problems that are distributed by nature. An important motivation for such problems is to preserve the privacy of the participating agents during the solving process. The present paper introduces a novel privacy-preserving branch and bound algorithm for this purpose. The proposed algorithm, P-SyncBB, preserves constraint, topology and decision privacy. The algorithm requires secure solutions to several multi-party computation problems. Consequently, appropriate novel secure protocols are devised and analyzed. An extensive experimental evaluation on different benchmarks, problem sizes, and constraint densities shows that P-SyncBB exhibits superior performance to other privacy-preserving complete DCOP algorithms.
Assessing Executive Dysfunction in Girls With Fragile X or Turner Syndrome Using the Contingency Naming Test (CNT)

The aim of this study was to examine executive function (EF) skills in girls with fragile X or Turner syndrome, using the Contingency Naming Test (CNT). The CNT is a Stroop-like task involving a 1- or 2-attribute contingency rule. We predicted that girls with fragile X would make errors reflecting poor cognitive flexibility and working memory limitations. We predicted that girls with Turner syndrome would have sufficient cognitive flexibility to perform the CNT accurately, but would have difficulty with verbal inhibition and would thus make more self-corrections than girls in a comparison group. The hypotheses were partially supported: relative to their Full Scale IQ-matched comparison group, girls with fragile X or Turner syndrome were slower on the warm-up naming task; girls with fragile X made more errors on the 1-attribute task, and girls with Turner syndrome were less efficient on both the 1- and 2-attribute tasks, without making more self-corrections. These results support previous findings of executive dysfunction associated with fragile X or Turner syndrome. The results suggest that both low IQ and fragile X status contribute to working memory limitations in girls with fragile X and that EF inefficiency in girls with Turner syndrome is due to both working memory limitations and slower response times.
New Heuristics for Timeline-Based Planning

The timeline-based approach to planning represents an effective alternative to classical planning in complex domains where different types of reasoning are required in parallel. The iLoC domainindependent planning system takes inspiration from both Constraint Programming (CP) and Logic Programming (LP). By solving both planning and scheduling problems in a uniform schema, iLoC is particularly suitable for complex domains arising from real world dynamic scenarios. Despite the planner captures elements that are very relevant for applications, its theory is quite challenging from a computational point of view and its performance are rather weak compared with those of stateof-the-art classical planners, particularly on those domains where such planners, typically, excel. In previous works, a resolution algorithm for the iLoC system has been proposed and enhanced with some (static and dynamic) heuristics that help the solving process. In this paper we propose a first improvement of the data structures underlying the proposed heuristics, producing a more informed heuristic and studying its effectiveness as a solving strategy. We perform tests on different benchmark problems from classical planning domains like the Blocks World to more challenging temporally expressive problems like the Temporal Machine Shop and the Cooking Carbonara problems, showing how the iLoC planner compares with respect to other state-of-the-art planners.
Sentiment Analysis for Dynamic User Preference Inference in Spoken Dialogue Systems

Many current spoken dialogue systems for search are domainspecific and do not take into account the preferences of the user and his opinion about the proposed items. In order to provide a more personalized answer, tailored to the user needs, in this paper we propose a spoken dialogue system where user interests are expressed as scores in modular ontologies and his sentiment about the system propositions is considered. This approach allows for a dynamic and evolving representation of user interests. In fact, in order to improve the performance of the detection mechanism of users preferences, we propose a hybrid model which also makes use of a sentiment analysis module to detect the opinion of the user with respect to the proposition of the system. This allows the system to leverage the degree of user satisfaction and improve the overall recommendation mechanism being more precise about the expressed user interest. An evaluation on a representative set of dialogues is presented and highlights both the validity and the reliability of the proposed preference inference mechanism.
ACTH (Acthar Gel) Reduces Toxic SOD1 Protein Linked to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in Transgenic Mice: A Novel Observation

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease with a complex etiology and pathology that makes the development of new therapies difficult. ACTH has neurotrophic and myotrophic effects, but has not been tested in an ALS mouse model. The G93A-SOD1 mouse model of ALS was used to test the ability of this drug to delay ALS-like symptoms. We showed that within a specific dose range, ACTH significantly postponed the disease onset and paralysis in the mouse model. To our surprise and of greater significance is that ACTH significantly reduced the levels of soluble SOD1 in the spinal cord and CNS tissues of G93A-SOD1 treated mice as well as cultured fibroblasts.
Parallel Processing of 3D Object Recognition by Fusion of 2D Images and LiDAR for Autonomous Driving

At the moment, autonomous driving requires a lot of sensors: cameras, lidar, etc. It takes a lot of time and resources to process all the input data from these sensors. In this paper, we reduce the processing time and resources of lidar and camera data by parallelizing the input data of autonomous vehicles. Cameras mounted on autonomous vehicles are often wide-angle or have multiple angles of view. These multiple camera inputs are flattened and processed in parallel, and then YOLO is used to combine the 3D data from the lidar with the 2D inputs from the camera. By combining cameras from multiple angles and processing them in parallel, except where they overlap, you can reduce the time it would take to process each image serially. This algorithm is also highly scalable as it can be applied to a single camera rather than multiple camera sensors. Experiments were conducted using KITTY and YOLO with labelled 3D lidar data and 2D image data. The FPS is 7.98, which is fast, and the parallel processing reduces the time by about 1.4 times.
An improved gaze tracking technique based on eye model

Aiming at several common drawbacks of existing gaze tracking algorithm which is based on image processing technology: low accuracy, low suitability and high requirement of device, this paper presents an improved gaze tracking method based on the human eye model. The vision scatter model is established by studying the relationship among the center of iris, inner corner of eye and the gaze direction. The model is used for gaze rough estimation. An improved geometric eye model with compensation coefficient is used for gaze precise estimation, and the coefficient depends on the result of rough estimation. The result of experiment shows that the proposed approach has a low average error which is reached 2 ° and good robustness. This approach provides an effective solution for gaze tracking of human-computer interaction under the low pixel condition.
Interleukin 28B Genetic Polymorphisms and Viral Factors Help Identify HCV Genotype-1 Patients who Benefit from 24-Week Pegylated Interferon plus Ribavirin Therapy

Background Interleukin 28B (IL28B) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes and viral factors can predict sustained virological response (SVR) in HCV genotype-1 (HCV-1) patients receiving 48 weeks of pegylated interferon and ribavirin. Whether these factors would identify those patients who can benefit from a shorter duration of therapy remains unclear. Methods Treatment-naive HCV-1 patients (n=662) receiving 24 or 48 weeks of combination therapy were enrolled. Baseline demographic data, HCV viral load, IL28B SNP genotypes (rs8099917), duration of therapy and rapid virological response (RVR) were evaluated to predict SVR. The SVR rates were further stratified by the independent factors and compared. Results The IL28B rs8099917 TT genotype, low baseline viral load (HCV RNA≤600,000 IU/ml), RVR and 48-week therapy independently predicted SVR. In RVR patients with the IL28B rs8099917 TT genotype, the SVR rate of 24-week therapy was comparable to 48-week therapy (95% versus 99%; P=0.21) at low baseline viral load, but was inferior to 48-week therapy (70% versus 97%; P<0.001) at high baseline viral load. In non-RVR patients, the SVR rate of 24-week therapy was inferior to 48-week therapy for those with the IL28B rs8099917 TT genotype but high baseline viral load (23% versus 62%; P<0.001), and those with the IL28B rs8099917 GT/GG genotype but low baseline viral load (0% versus 33%; P=0.02). Conclusions HCV-1 patients simultaneously bearing the IL28B rs8099917 TT genotype, low baseline viral load and RVR can benefit from a shorter duration of combination therapy.
Cognitive Markers In Schizophrenia Prodrome: A Review

Objective: This article aims to review findings from studies conducted in prodromal subjects using cognitive domains as potential markers for predicting psychosis and/or schizophrenia. Methods: A total of 49 studies dealing with prodromal subjects were selected, out of which 9 were Genetic/Family High Risk studies, 1 was a birth cohort, 8 used ultra High Risk (UHR) screening criteria, 4 used Basel Screening Instrument Psychosis scale (BSIP), 2 used the Bonn Scale for the Assessment of Basic Symptoms (BSABS), 2 used the Early Recognition Inventory/Interview for the Retrospective Assessment of the Onset of Schizophrenia (ERIraos), 1 used the Comprehensive Assessment of At Risk Mental States (CAARMS), 10 used the Structured Interview for Prodromal States/Scale of Prodromal Symptoms (SIPS/SOPS) and 11 used a combination of screening instruments. Results: Cognitive precursors such as verbal memory, attention, executive function, working memory, olfactory identification and intelligence have been found to be replicable though not always consistently across studies. There are many differences between the various studies not only in terms of their subjects’ profiles but also regarding the cognitive tests used and the duration of the study. Conclusion: A standardized agreement of the high-risk group criteria and cognitive tests used needs to be put forward. Moreover, the duration of the study investigating Ultra High Risk groups should be of at least one year period. ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 13 (2): July – December 2012: XX XX.
An Efficient Real-Time Disk-Scheduling Framework with Adaptive Quality Guarantee

A multimedia server requires a real-time disk-scheduling algorithm to deliver isochronous data for real-time streams. Traditional disk-scheduling algorithms focus on providing good quality in a best effort manner. In this paper, we propose a novel real-time disk-scheduling algorithm called WRR-SCAN (weighted-round-robin-SCAN) to provide quality guarantees for all in-service streams encoded at variable bit rates and bounded response times for aperiodic jobs. WRR-SCAN divides a real-time stream into guaranteed jobs and optional jobs. The admission control admits a stream as long as its guaranteed jobs are satisfied. Such a decision is made in 0(1) time as WRR-SCAN reserves a fixed weight for each stream. WRR-SCAN incorporates an aggressive policy to dynamically reclaim unused bandwidth during runtime. The reclaimed bandwidth is used to serve optional jobs or more aperiodic jobs. We conducted a set of simulations to compare WRR-SCAN with a set of referred disk-scheduling algorithms. The evaluations are conducted on a commonly used disk simulator with traces from a real multimedia server. The experimental results show that WRR-SCAN provides significantly better quality for real-time streams and yields considerably shorter response times for aperiodic jobs.