Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Shadow free segmentation in still images using local density measure

Over the last decades several approaches were introduced to deal with cast shadows in background subtraction applications. However, very few algorithms exist that address the same problem for still images. In this paper we propose a figure ground segmentation algorithm to segment objects in still images affected by shadows. Instead of modeling the shadow directly in the segmentation process our approach works actively by first segmenting an object and then testing the resulting boundary for the presence of shadows and resegmenting again with modified segmentation parameters. In order to get better shadow boundary detection results we introduce a novel image preprocessing technique based on the notion of the image density map. This map improves the illumination invariance of classical filter-bank based texture description methods. We demonstrate that this texture feature improves shadow detection results. The resulting segmentation algorithm achieves good results on a new figure ground segmentation dataset with challenging illumination conditions.
Adaptive residual mapping for an efficient extension layer coding in two-layer HDR video coding

In the absence of a commercial High Dynamic Range (HDR) distribution pipeline, two-layer backward-compatible HDR video coding is a viable solution for the imminent transition from Low Dynamic Range (LDR) to HDR content transmission. However, the performance of a two-layer coding solution is governed by the extension layer coding performance. In this paper, we propose an improved two-layer backward-compatible HDR video coding solution based on an adaptive residual mapping for the extension layer, keeping in view the performance of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) being used to code this information. The proposed solution outperforms the reference method achieving averaged PU-PSNR improvements of up to 5.05 dB. The proposed method also shows potential of achieving the same HDR quality as the single layer coding solution with a minimum bitrate overhead and acceptable LDR quality in the base layer.
Evaluation of in vitro-in vivo correlation and anticonvulsive effect of carbamazepine after cogrinding with microcrystalline cellulose.

PURPOSE Carbamazepine is a poor water soluble drug and its bioavailability is limited by dissolution rate. Dissolution, serum concentration and anticonvulsive effect of the drug have been evaluated after cogrinding with microcrystalline cellulose. A cogrinding technique was used to increase the dissolution, serum concentrations and anticonvulsive effect of the drug. A novel deconvolution technique of in vitro in vivo correlation was evaluated. METHODS The drug coground with microcrystalline cellulose, the corresponding physical mixture, unground and ground drug powder were subjected to dissolution measurement. Coground and unground drug serum concentrations were investigated in rabbits. Also the anticonvulsive effects of the latter preparations were assessed in mice. For elucidation of observed in vitro and in vivo differences FT-IR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction patterns and DSC thermograms of the preparations were studied. RESULTS The dissolution of the coground was the highest (percent dissolved in the first 20 minutes, %D20', was 97.5). The unground drug powder exhibited the lowest dissolution (%D20'=40). The difference was reflected in their corresponding area under the mean serum concentration curves between 0-16 hr (118.96 vs 54.17 microg x hr/ml) as well as protection abilities against strychnine and electrically induced seizures. The onset of tonic seizures induced by strychnine was increased between 40-140% in the case of the coground system depending on dose and time of carbamazepine administration. CONCLUSION Cogrinding was an effective technique in increasing carbamazepine dissolution due to reduced crystallinity as seen in X-ray pattern, enhanced wettability and decreased particle size, which in turn resulted in increased serum concentrations and its anticonvulsive effect. A novel simple deconvolusion technique not requiring intravenous data denoted as the double reciprocal area method was used to establish correlation between in vitro and in vivo parameters.
A new feature for automatic aneurysm detection

We propose a new feature that can be used to automatically detect cerebral aneurysms in angiographic images. It combines both low-level and high-level features to a feature indicating aneurysms. The feature is used in a system for aneurysm detection in two types of magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) images and computed tomography angiography (CTA) images. The method was tested on 66 angiographic data sets containing aneurysm and non-aneurysm cases. We show that the newly introduced incorporation of the location based feature improves the detection quality. We achieve a sensitivity higher than 93% for all modalities with an average false positive rate varying from 8.8 to 20.9 per data set, depending on the modality.
Semantic Network based Semantic Search of Religious Repository

In this paper Semantic Network of religious repository is created and tested. For a scholar, this is really hard to get information about a specific concept, a person or a historical event in entire religious domain at once since it may be repeated in many verses and in various aspects. This comprehensive software tool helps in creating a Customized Semantic Network (CSN), doing a customized semantic search (CSS) against any word or concept, a parser and a customized story builder. By using this software one can get all relevant information about any religious entity from Holy Quran, Ahadith, Bible etc. Moreover, this tool provides the mechanism to add more religious literature that has a specific format. Two different translations of Holy Quran (by Pickthall and Yusuf Ali), an Ahadith book (Sahih Bukhari) and Bible (King James) are added in the tool for testing the algorithm. General Terms Semantic Network, Automatic Text Categorization
Melatonin Treatment Reduces Oxidative Damage and Normalizes Plasma Pro-Inflammatory Cytokines in Patients Suffering from Charcot-Marie-Tooth Neuropathy: A Pilot Study in Three Children

Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy (CMT) is a motor and sensory neuropathy comprising a heterogeneous group of inherited diseases. The CMT1A phenotype is predominant in the 70% of CMT patients, with nerve conduction velocity reduction and hypertrophic demyelination. These patients have elevated oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. Currently, there is no effective cure for CMT; herein, we investigated whether melatonin treatment may reduce the inflammatory and oxidative damage in CMT1A patients. Three patients, aged 8–10 years, were treated with melatonin (60 mg at 21:00 h plus 10 mg at 09:00 h), and plasma levels of lipid peroxidation (LPO), nitrites (NOx), IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, TNF-α, INF-γ, oxidized to reduced glutathione (GSSG/GSH) ratio, and the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione-S transferase (GST), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and reductase (GRd), were determined in erythrocytes at 3 and 6 months of treatment. Healthy age- and sex-matched subjects were used as controls. The results showed increased activities of SOD, GST, GPx, and GRd in CMT1A patients, which were reduced at 3 and 6 months of treatment. The GSSG/GSH ratio significantly increased in the patients, returning to control values after melatonin treatment. The inflammatory process was confirmed by the elevation of all proinflammatory cytokines measured, which were also normalized by melatonin. LPO and NOx, which also were elevated in the patients, were normalized by melatonin. The results document beneficial effects of the use of melatonin in CMT1A patients to reduce the hyperoxidative and inflammatory condition, which may correlate with a reduction of the degenerative process.
Androgen Receptor Gene Knockout Male Mice Exhibit Impaired Cardiac Growth and Exacerbation of Angiotensin II-induced Cardiac Fibrosis*

Androgen has anabolic effects on cardiac myocytes and has been shown to enhance left ventricular enlargement and function. However, the physiological and patho-physiological roles of androgen in cardiac growth and cardiac stress-induced remodeling remains unclear. We aimed to clarify whether the androgen-nuclear androgen receptor (AR) system contributes to the cardiac growth and angiotensin II (Ang II)-stimulated cardiac remodeling by using systemic AR-null male mice. AR knock-out (ARKO) male mice, at 25 weeks of age, and age-matched wild-type (WT) male mice were treated with or without Ang II stimulation (2.0 mg/kg/day) for 2 weeks. ARKO mice with or without Ang II stimulation showed a significant reduction in the heart-to-body weight ratio compared with those of WT mice. In addition, echocardiographic analysis demonstrated impairments of both the concentric hypertrophic response and left ventricular function in Ang II-stimulated ARKO mice. Western blot analysis of the myocardium revealed that activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK) 1/2 and ERK5 by Ang II stimulation were lower in ARKO mice than those of WT mice. Ang II stimulation caused more prominent cardiac fibrosis in ARKO mice than in WT mice with enhanced expression of types I and III collagen and transforming growth factor-β1 genes and with increased Smad2 activation. These results suggest that, in male mice, the androgen-AR system participates in normal cardiac growth and modulates cardiac adaptive hypertrophy and fibrosis during the process of cardiac remodeling under hypertrophic stress.
The challenges and benefits of analyzing feedback comments in surveys: Lessons from a cross-national online survey of small-scale cannabis growers

It is common practice in survey questionnaires to include a general open and non-directive feedback question at the end, but the analysis of this type of data is rarely discussed in the methodological literature. While these open-ended comments can be useful, most researchers fail to report on this issue. The aim of this article is to illustrate and reflect upon the benefits and challenges of analyzing responses to open-ended feedback questions. The article describes the experiences of coding and analyzing data generated through a feedback question at the end of an international online survey with small-scale cannabis cultivators carried out by the Global Cannabis Cultivation Research Consortium. After describing the design and dataset of the web survey, the analytical approach and coding frame are presented. The analytical strategies chosen in this study illustrate the diversity and complexity of feedback comments which pose methodological challenges to researchers wishing to use them for data analyses. In this article, three types of feedback comments (political/policy comments, general comments of positive and negative appreciation, and methodological comments) are used to illustrate the difficulties and advantages of analyzing this type of data. The advantages of analyzing feedback comments are well known, but they seem to be rarely exploited. General feedback questions at the end of surveys are typically non-directive. If researchers want to use these data for research and analyses, they need a clear strategy. They ought to give enough thought to why they are including this type of question, and develop an analytical strategy at the design stage of the study.
A Telephone- and Text Message-Based Telemedicine Concept for Patients with Mental Health Disorders: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: A telemedicine care concept based on telephone contacts and individualized text messages was developed for patients with mental disorders to continue treatment after therapy in a psychiatric day hospital. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the telemedicine interventions. Methods: The study had a 3-armed, randomized design with 2 intervention arms (intervention 1: telephone contacts; intervention 2: telephone contacts and short text messages; both took place over a period of 6 months and in addition to usual care), and a control group with usual care. Primary outcomes were 18-item Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-18) scores for anxiety, depression and somatization. All participants were recruited from psychiatric day hospitals. The study was registered in the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00000662). Results: 113 participants were analyzed 6 months after starting the intervention. The average BSI-18 anxiety score after 6 months was -2.04 points lower in intervention group 2 than in the control group (p value: 0.042). The difference in BSI depression score between these two groups was marginally significant (p value: 0.1), with an average treatment effect of -1.73. In an exploratory sensitivity analysis restricted to the 75% of patients with the highest symptom scores at baseline, intervention group 1 yielded a significant effect for anxiety and depression compared to the control group (p = 0.036 and 0.046, respectively). Conclusions: Telemedicine provides a novel option in psychiatric ambulatory care with statistically significant effects on anxiety. A positive tendency was observed for depression, especially in cases with higher symptom load at baseline.
Working Memory Load for Faces Modulates P300, N170, and N250r

We used event-related potential (ERP) methodology to examine neural activity associated with visual working memory (WM) for faces. There were two main goals. First, to extend previous findings of P300 load modulation to WM for faces. Second, to examine whether N170 and N250r are also influenced by WM load. Between one and four unfamiliar faces were simultaneously presented for memory encoding. After a 1-sec delay, a target face appeared, and participants had to judge whether this face was part of the previous face array. P300 amplitude decreased as WM load increased, and this P300 suppression was observed at both encoding and retrieval. WM load was also found to modulate other ERPs. The amplitude of the N170 elicited by the target face decreased with load, and this N170 decrease leveled off at load 2, reflecting the behavioral WM capacity of around two faces. In addition, the N250r, observed as an ERP difference for target faces that were present in the encoding array relative to target faces that were absent, was also reduced for higher WM loads. These findings extend previous work by showing that P300 modulation by WM load also occurs for faces. Furthermore, we show, for the first time, that WM load affects the N250r and the early visual N170 component. This suggests that higher visual areas play an important role in WM for faces.
Information Security: Lessons from Behavioural Economics

Psychological and sociological factors constrain economic decision-making in many contexts including the online world. In particular, uncertainty limits the optimising behaviour which is often the focus of economic models and so people will be forced to rely on simpler decision-making rules when managing information online. Behavioural economics and economic psychology emphasise that people will make many mistakes in processing information and planning for the future and these mistakes will also distort learning processes. Emotions and visceral factors will play a key role not only affecting people’s actions and choices but also the connection between information, learning and choices. All these forces will have wide-ranging implications for information security management and this paper summarises some of the key insights and policy lessons for infor-
Occurrence of postmortem myoliquefactive kudoosis in Atlantic mackerel, Scomber scombrus L., from the North Sea.

Members of the myxosporean genus Kudoa occur in various marine teleosts worldwide. Several species are of concern to the fishery and aquaculture industries as they may produce unsightly cysts in the fish host's musculature or are associated with postmortem myoliquefaction of the fish muscle, commonly referred to as 'soft flesh'. This study describes the occurrence and effects on a host of a Kudoa species in Atlantic mackerel, Scomber scombrus, from the northern North Sea. Generalized postmortem myoliquefaction associated with Kudoa sp. occurred in 0.8% of the examined fish, i.e. 11 of 1339 mackerel developed 'soft flesh'. There was a significant difference in the prevalence of myoliquefaction between medium sized (400-600 g) and large mackerel (>600 g). The prevalence reached 8.9% in the latter host size group. No subclinical infections of Kudoa sp. were detected when examining fresh muscle (n = 103) and blood (n = 165) samples for spores using light microscopy. Affected mackerel developed generalized myoliquefaction after 38-56 h post-catch. No inflammatory host response was associated with the presence of plasmodia within single body muscle fibres of 'soft flesh' affected fish. Based on comparison of myxospore dimensions and analysis of the nuclear small subunit (SSU) ribosomal DNA, the present Kudoa species is assigned to Kudoa thyrsites. However, due to the species' apparently very wide geographical distribution and host range, its varying effect on different fish host species, together with the still unknown life cycle of Kudoa spp. , the taxonomic status of K. thyrsites appears not to be fully resolved.
Sequential Matching Model for End-to-end Multi-turn Response Selection

Multi-turn conversation understanding is an important challenge for building intelligent dialogue systems, and end-to-end multi-turn response selection is one of the major tasks. Previous state-of-the-art models used hierarchy-based (utterance-level and token-level) neural networks to explicitly model the interactions among the different turns’ utterances for context modeling. In this paper, we demonstrate that the potentials of sequential matching approaches have not yet been fully exploited in the past for multi-turn response selection. We investigate a sequential matching model based only on chain sequence for multi-turn response selection. The proposed model outperforms all previous models, including previous state-of-the-art hierarchy-based models, and achieves new state-of-the-art performances on two large-scale public multi-turn response selection benchmark datasets.
Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering SPECIFIC ION EFFECTS ON THE INTERFACIAL TENSION OF WATER / HYDROCARBON SYSTEMS

Specific ion effects – also known as Hofmeister effects – are ubiquitous in several areas of chemistry, chemical engineering and biology. The interfacial tension corresponds to the energy per unit of area at the interface. Thus, the presence of different salts in different concentrations changes the interfacial tension of a system containing an aqueous phase. This effect can be explained based on the concentration profile of different ions in the vicinity of the interface. In order to study this effect we measured the surface tension of aqueous electrolyte solutions and the interfacial tension of various systems containing hydrocarbons and different aqueous electrolyte solutions as a function of the ionic strength of the aqueous phase. We classify the tested ions for their ability to alter the interfacial tension of each system. These data provide valuable information that can be related to the stability of the corresponding emulsions, since the ions with higher capability of increasing the interfacial tension tend to be more effective in destabilizing the corresponding emulsion.
Effects of switching between anti-TNF therapies on HAQ response in patients who do not respond to their first anti-TNF drug

Objectives. Small studies have shown an improvement in disease activity in patients with RA who have switched between anti-TNF therapies for reasons of inefficacy. However, it is not clear whether switching improves longer term outcomes, such as disability. This analysis compares changes in HAQ scores 1 yr following lack of response to a first anti-TNF based on subsequent treatment during that year. Methods. Analysis was limited to RA patients with inefficacy to a first anti-TNF based on (i) clinician opinion and/or (ii) disease activity score in 28 joints and had an HAQ measured at time of non-response and 12 months later. Patients were classified into three groups based on treatment during the next 12 months: (i) continued anti-TNF despite non-response; (ii) stopped anti-TNF with no further biologics; and (iii) switched to a second anti-TNF. Mean improvement in HAQ was compared among the groups using multivariable linear regression models. Results. As of July 2006, 868 patients met the inclusion for this analysis. Four hundred and seventy-nine patients stopped anti-TNF of whom 331 switched to a second anti-TNF. Three hundred and eighty-nine continued treatment. Patients who continued and those who switched had improvements in HAQ over the 12 months, unlike patients who discontinued all biologic therapy. The best improvement was seen in those who switched [adjusted mean improvement in HAQ 0.15 (95% CI 0.26, 0.05)]. Conclusion. There is a significant improvement in HAQ in patients who switch to a second anti-TNF, providing an effective next choice of therapy for some patients who fail to respond to their first anti-TNF.
Using TF-IDF n-gram and Word Embedding Cluster Ensembles for Author Profiling

This paper presents our approach and results for the 2017 PAN Author Profiling Shared Task. Language-specific corpora were provided for four langauges: Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Arabic. Each corpus consisted of tweets authored by a number of Twitter users labeled with their gender and the specific variant of their language which was used in the documents (e.g. Brazilian or European Portuguese). The task was to develop a system to infer the same attributes for unseen Twitter users. Our system employs an ensemble of two probabilistic classifiers: a Logistic regression classifier trained on TF-IDF transformed n-grams and a Gaussian Process classifier trained on word embedding clusters derived for an additional, external corpus of tweets.
Magnetic Solitons in Optical Lattice

In this chapter, we discuss the magnetic solitons achieved in atomic spinor Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) confined within optical lattice. Spinor BECs at each lattice site behave like spin magnets and can interact with each other through the static magnetic dipole-dipole interaction (MDDI), due to which the magnetic soliton may exist in blue-detuned optical lattice. By imposing an external laser field into the lattice or loading atoms in a red-detuned optical lattice, the light-induced dipole-dipole interaction (LDDI) can produce new magnetic solitons. The long-range couplings induced by the MDDI and ODDI play a dominant role in the spin dynamics in an optical lattice. Compared with spin chain in solid material, the nearest-neighbor approximation, next-nearest-neighbor approximation, and long-range case are discussed, respectively.
Metabolic pathways and fermentative production of L‐aspartate family amino acids

The L‐aspartate family amino acids (AFAAs), L‐threonine, L‐lysine, L‐methionine and L‐isoleucine have recently been of much interest due to their wide spectrum of applications including food additives, components of cosmetics and therapeutic agents, and animal feed additives. Among them, L‐threonine, L‐lysine and L‐methionine are three major amino acids produced currently throughout the world. Recent advances in systems metabolic engineering, which combine various high‐throughput omics technologies and computational analysis, are now facilitating development of microbial strains efficiently producing AFAAs. Thus, a thorough understanding of the metabolic and regulatory mechanisms of the biosynthesis of these amino acids is urgently needed for designing system‐wide metabolic engineering strategies. Here we review the details of AFAA biosynthetic pathways, regulations involved, and export and transport systems, and provide general strategies for successful metabolic engineering along with relevant examples. Finally, perspectives of systems metabolic engineering for developing AFAA overproducers are suggested with selected exemplary studies.