Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatically extracting salient regions in natural images

Salient regions extraction plays an important role in image analysis and processing, and it is widely used in image compression, coding, content-based image retrieve and so on. The use of salient regions can improve the efficiency of image processing and reduce the computational complexity. An approach for salient regions extraction in natural image is proposed in this paper. By analyzing the phase spectra of different color feature maps in different scales in frequency domain, the corresponding saliency map is constructed in spatial domain. Based on the saliency map and visual attention mechanism, the salient regions in an image are extracted. This approach has been tested on many natrual images. Experiment results and quantitative and qualitative analysis have been presented in this paper. The proposed results show that this algorithm can extract salient regions consistent with human vision and has effective results in compution speed and antinoise ability.
THE THERMAL EVOLUTION OF ICES IN THE ENVIRONMENTS OF NEWLY FORMED STARS: THE CO2 DIAGNOSTIC

Archival data from the Infrared Spectrometer of the Spitzer Space Telescope are used to study the 15 μm absorption feature of solid CO2 toward 28 young stellar objects (YSOs) of approximately solar mass. Fits to the absorption profile using laboratory spectra enable categorization according to the degree of thermal processing of the ice matrix that contains the CO2. The majority of YSOs in our sample (20 out of 28) are found to be consistent with a combination of polar (H2O-rich) and nonpolar (CO-rich) ices at low temperature; the remainder exhibit profile structure consistent with partial crystallization as the result of significant heating. Ice-phase column densities of CO2 are determined and compared with those of other species. Lines of sight with crystallization signatures in their spectra are found to be systematically deficient in solid-phase CO, as expected if CO is being sublimated in regions where the ices are heated to crystallization temperatures. Significant variation is found in the CO2 abundance with respect to both H2O (the dominant ice constituent) and total dust column (quantified by the extinction, AV). YSOs in our sample display typically higher CO2 concentrations (independent of evidence for thermal processing) in comparison to quiescent regions of the prototypical cold molecular cloud. This suggests that enhanced CO2 production is driven by photochemical reactions in proximity to some YSOs, and that photoprocessing and thermal processing may occur independently.
ZhiWo: activity tagging and recognition system for personal lifelogs

With the increasing use of mobile devices as personal recording, communication and sensing tools, extracting the semantics of life activities through sensed data (photos, accelerometer, GPS etc.) is gaining widespread public awareness. A person who engages in long-term personal sensing is engaging in a process of lifelogging. Lifelogging typically involves using a range of (wearable) sensors to capture raw data, to segment into discrete activities, to annotate and subsequently to make accessible by search or browsing tools. In this paper, we present an intuitive lifelog activity recording and management system called ZhiWo. By using a supervised machine learning approach, sensed data collected by mobile devices are automatically classified into different types of daily human activities and these activities are interpreted as life activity retrieval units for personal archives.
The Set Test as an Aid to the Detection of Dementia in Old People

Screening examinations are widely advocated for the early detection of disease in the elderly (Williamson et al., 1964; Lowther, McLeod and Williamson, 1970; Williams et al., 1972; Richardson, 1964; Anderson and Cowan, 1955; Isaacs, Livingstone and Neville, 1972). There have been several successful experiments in the use of health visitors and district nurses in the initial interview (Burns, 1969; Hodes, 1971; McNabola, 1970; Williamson et al., 1966).
Cognitive behavior therapy for generalized anxiety disorder among older adults in primary care: a randomized clinical trial.

CONTEXT Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) can be effective for late-life generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), but only pilot studies have been conducted in primary care, where older adults most often seek treatment. OBJECTIVE To examine effects of CBT relative to enhanced usual care (EUC) in older adults with GAD in primary care. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Randomized clinical trial recruiting 134 older adults (mean age, 66.9 years) from March 2004 to August 2006 in 2 primary care settings. Treatment was provided for 3 months; assessments were conducted at baseline, posttreatment (3 months), and over 12 months of follow-up, with assessments at 6, 9, 12, and 15 months. INTERVENTION Cognitive behavior therapy (n = 70) conducted in the primary care clinics. Treatment included education and awareness, motivational interviewing, relaxation training, cognitive therapy, exposure, problem-solving skills training, and behavioral sleep management. Patients assigned to receive EUC (n = 64) received biweekly telephone calls to ensure patient safety and provide minimal support. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Primary outcomes included worry severity (Penn State Worry Questionnaire) and GAD severity (GAD Severity Scale). Secondary outcomes included anxiety ratings (Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory), coexistent depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory II), and physical/mental health quality of life (12-Item Short Form Health Survey). RESULTS Cognitive behavior therapy compared with EUC significantly improved worry severity (45.6 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 43.4-47.8] vs 54.4 [95% CI, 51.4-57.3], respectively; P < .001), depressive symptoms (10.2 [95% CI, 8.5-11.9] vs 12.8 [95% CI, 10.5-15.1], P = .02), and general mental health (49.6 [95% CI, 47.4-51.8] vs 45.3 [95% CI, 42.6-47.9], P = .008). There was no difference in GAD severity in patients receiving CBT vs those receiving EUC (8.6 [95% CI, 7.7-9.5] vs 9.9 [95% CI, 8.7-11.1], P = .19). In intention-to-treat analyses, response rates defined according to worry severity were higher following CBT compared with EUC at 3 months (40.0% [28/70] vs 21.9% [14/64], P = .02). CONCLUSIONS Compared with EUC, CBT resulted in greater improvement in worry severity, depressive symptoms, and general mental health for older patients with GAD in primary care. However, a measure of GAD severity did not indicate greater improvement with CBT. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00308724.
Statistical Modeling and ML Parameter Estimation of Complex SAR Imagery

Accurate statistical models for the complex pixels forming fine-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are needed for several engineering applications, including coherent signal detection in SAR clutter, automatic target recognition, and automatic SAR RCS calibration without calibration targets. We derive the maximum likelihood estimator for the parameters of a complex generalized Gaussian distribution and show that it can be efficiently computed. Applying this to fine-resolution SAR images representing a wide variety of scene contents, we show that this model very accurately captures both the central regions and tails of the data distribution.
Lithium chloride promotes the odontoblast differentiation of hair follicle neural crest cells by activating Wnt/β‐catenin signaling

The Wnt/β‐catenin signalling pathway contributes to the maintenance of pluripotency and partial reprogramming of stem cells. Postnatal neural crest cells (NCCs) can differentiate into odontoblast‐like cells due to their multi‐potential property, but further endeavors need to be made to promote odontogenic differentiation of hair follicle neural crest cells (hfNCCs). This study investigated whether the Wnt pathway activator lithium chloride (LiCl) promotes odontoblast differentiation of hfNCCs. Change of proliferation, β‐catenin and pluripotency markers of hfNCCs were examined after treatment with LiCl. An in vitro odontoblast differentiation model of hfNCCs was built using dental cell conditioned media (DC‐CM). The effects of LiCl on odontoblast differentiation of hfNCCs showed that proliferation and expression of β‐catenin in the cytosolic and nuclear compartments were increased in the LiCl‐treated hfNCCs, and the pluripotency marks, Oct4, Klf4, Sox2 and Nanog, were more highly expressed in the LiCl‐treated group than in the control group. The odontoblast markers such as DSP, DMP1 and Runx2, could be detected in hfNCCs induced by DC‐CM, but in LiCl ‐treated group all three markers had stronger expression. Expression of β‐catenin in the nuclear of LiCl‐treated hfNCCs induced by DC‐CM was higher than in the other groups. The data indicate that the Wnt pathway activator LiCl can promote proliferation and odontoblast differentiation of hfNCCs, and chemical approaches are of benefit in obtaining more desirable seed cell types for cell‐based therapies.
Improving a novel image-processing based method for automatic detection, extraction and characterization of marine mammal tonal calls by means of a segmentation process based on learning machines

Marine mammal monitoring is becoming increasingly important for the detection, localization and identification of specific species of marine mammals. It permits the compilation of information that helps researchers to learn about marine mammal habits and communication skills. Furthermore, knowlegde of the presence of marine mammals in certain areas facilitates the protection of these animals. In this paper, it is proposed a new segmentation method of the marine mammal tonal calls based on the training of a learning machine. In particular, a MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) has been trained by means of the Optimally Pruned Extreme Learning Machine (OP-ELM). The suggested approach is able to detect the information from a spectrogram in an automatic way. The proposed method has been tested with real signals and the results are very promising.
Team Work, Respect for People, Outcome Orientation, Innovation, Stability and Attention to Details in Determining Employees' Organizational Commitment

Employees Organizational Commitment (OCB) has received much attention in the past decade as scholars have recognized its significant effect on the success of organizations. The current research aims at enriching our understanding of commitment in the private university setting by identifying the main factors that may promote this behaviour among private university lecturers. Specifically, the research objectives are to analyse the effect of Team Work, Respect for People, Outcome Orientation, Innovation, Stability and Attention to Details to Employees Organizational Commitment of private university lecturers. The research was conducted on sampling of 91 respondents in South Kalimantan Province Indonesia with regression analysis design. The results indicate that all variables under investigation significantly contribute to the development of organizational commitment bringing the implication to the management that these variables must be considered when formulating human resources management strategy.
Toxicity of Moist Snuff and Impact on Various Stages of Darkling Beetles ( Tenebrio molitor )

insecticide. Variable amounts of nicotine are found in tobacco products, and depend on brand and product type. Studies show that nicotine in cigarettes account for approximately 1.21 mg to 2.16 mg per cigarette (Keithly, Cullen, & Land, 2004). For the purposes of this study, the focus is on moist snuff. Among the amalgam of chemicals, nicotine has been found in concentrations ranging from 0.59 percent up to 3.35 percent of snuff products per container (Tilashalski, Rodu, & Mayfield, 1994). Once nicotine is consumed in the form of moist snuff, it quickly enters the bloodstream through mucus membranes lining the mouth (LeVert, 2007), and acts on the brain as well as other organs within seconds (Naff, 2007). Tobacco products have been studied in great depths and are known to have adverse health effects on infants when consumed by expecting mothers. These effects include, but are not limited to, low birth weight and spontaneous abortion. In Toxicity of Moist Snuff and Impact on Various Stages of Darkling Beetles (Tenebrio molitor)
The effect of dietary inclusion of meat and bone meal on the performance of laying hens at old age

The effect of the inclusion of meat and bone meal (MBM) in the diet of old laying hens on their egg production and the quality of their eggs was investigated. Meat and bone meal containing a high concentration of ash and a low concentration of crude protein was included at levels of 2.0, 4.0 and 6.0% in the diets and fed for 20 weeks. Forced moulted 84-week old laying hens (Brown-Nick) were divided randomly into four treatment groups of 120 hens each. The inclusion of 2.0% MBM to the layer diet increased hen-day egg production significantly, whereas inclusion in excess of 2.0% MBM had no additional beneficial effect on egg production. However, the inclusion of dietary MBM at all three levels depressed egg weight. There were no significant effects of dietary treatments on egg weight, feed intake and feed conversion ratio of the hens. The specific gravity of the eggs from hens fed the control diet was significantly lower than from those receiving the diets containing 2.0 and 4.0% MBM. The Haugh Unit value of eggs in the 6.0% MBM treatment was significantly higher than the other treatments. There were no significant effects of MBM inclusion on yolk colour score, yolk height, eggshell thickness, eggshell weight and eggshell strength. However, MBM inclusion in a diet had a significant beneficial effect on eggshell quality. The eggshell ratios of the 2.0, 4.0 and 6.0% MBM treatments were significantly higher than in the control diet, while the cracked/broken egg ratio was significantly lower. In conclusion, inclusion of MBM containing a high ash and low crude protein content to conventional maize-soya bean diet improved egg production performance of laying hens. The dicalcium phosphate level in the diet could also be reduced without any adverse effects on egg production and egg quality.
Task Performance and Skills in IR 4.0: The Moderating Effect of Attitude

In the advent of artificial intelligence, internet of things, self- driving vehicles, nanotechnology, renewable energy, quantum computing, and biotechnology has taken centre stage. New markets will emerge, partly or wholly displacing others that will require new skill sets for employment and transform how and where people work. Thus, the skills required in both old and new occupations are bound to change in a specific working environment and transform how and where people work. The objective of this study is to examine the moderating impact of attitude (ATT) on skills (SK) and task performance fraud risk assessment (TPFRA) of professional accountants conceptually. This study possesses the capacity to impact the ethical, legal, regulatory, and institutional framework. Furthermore, the study possesses the abilities to persuade the efficient and effective policy formulations and enhance capacity building of the workforce in the public sector. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this may perhaps be the first conceptual study on the accountant's attitude as an indispensable capability requirement for skills and task performance fraud risk assessment in the specific working environment.
Seeking Legitimacy Through CSR: Evidence from Controversial Industries

Controversial industry sectors, such as alcohol, gambling, tobacco, and firearms, have suffered organizational legitimacy problems for a long period of time around the world. This paper examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities reduce the level of risk for firms in controversial industry sectors in an attempt to seek organizational legitimacy. We argue that managers in controversial industries are motivated to actively engage in risk management to combat negative publicity and gain organizational legitimacy. Using data covering 32 countries, this study finds that both the systematic and total risk for firms in controversial industry sectors are generally higher than those for firms in conventional industry sectors due to their harmful image. We then show that controversial industry firms’ engagement in CSR initiatives and policies has a substantial risk-decreasing effect, and that might increase the probability of obtaining and maintaining the social license to operate. The documented effect of CSR on firm risk, however, is more pronounced for firms in Europe and North America than in the Asia-Pacific region, suggesting differential CSR-risk association in different region. These results are significant and robust even after potential endogeneity problems are mitigated. We interpret that our results are supportive of the “harmful image”, “social license to operate” and “differential recognition” explanations.
Gestion des stocks et des magasins : Pratiques des méthodes logistiques adaptées en lean manufacturing

Une saine gestion des stocks doit etre profitable a l'entreprise, tout en permettant la satisfaction maximale de ses clients et de ses fournisseurs. Cette gestion efficace des stocks est facilitee par une bonne organisation des entrepots et plate-formes. Elle doit ainsi assurer la performance de la supply chain, chaine logistique par la maitrise des zones de stockage. Ce livre est donc un tout-en-un adapte aux besoins du marche. Dans les PME la personne en charge de la gestion du stock s'occupe egalement des magasins. Dans les grandes entreprises, il s'agit de deux fonctions distinctes, mais la personne en charge des magasins ne peut s'organiser et etre performante sans utiliser les concepts de la gestion des stocks.
EFFICIENCY OF INDONESIA’S MUTUAL FUNDS DURING 2007-2011 BY USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS (DEA)

The purpose of this research was to assess the efficiency of mutual funds in Indonesia during the period 2007 to 2011. To measure their efficiencies, the output-input data consisting of a panel of 105 mutual funds that consisted of 29 equity mutual funds, 38 balanced mutual funds and 39 fixed mutual funds were empirically examined based on the most commonly used non-parametric approach, namely, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The study found that based on the average score in during 2007 – 2011 performance of equity mutual fund Commonwealth Life Investra Equity had the highest index score, meanwhile Trimegah trim capital was the lowest, performance of balanced mutual fund Reksa Dana CIMB-principal Dollar had the highest index score, meanwhile first State Indonesian Multistrategy was the lowest. Performance of equity mutual fund Brent Dana Tetap had the highest index score, meanwhile stable debenture fund had the lowest one.
Theoretical investigation and experimental verification of compact folded substrate integrated waveguide

The folded substrate integrated waveguide (FSIW) is a more compact structure over the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW); it has almost same propagation characteristics as the SIW with 50% size reduction. The formulas of propagation and cutoff characteristics of the FSIW are derived for the first time. Good agreement is observed between the numerical simulation and the calculation results from our formulas. The measured results of prototypes are found to agree with the numerical simulation results, further demonstrating the validity of the theoretical analyses.
The Effects of Land use Change on Hydrological Responses in the Choke Mountain Range (Ethiopia) - A new Approach Addressing Land Use Dynamics in the Model SWAT

Land use change (LUC) is a very important issue considering global dynamics and their responses to environmental and socio-economic drivers. Especially in fast changing developing countries, it is a scientific challenge to predict land use changes and their effects on water availability, flood risk and erosion rates. To address these issues, catchment models must be able to deal with land use dynamics. Unfortunately, many models handle land use in a static state way. The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of dynamic land use implementation into SWAT (“Soil and Water Assessment Tool”) by developing the supportive tool “Land use Update and Soil Assessment” (LUPSA) and to improve the overall SWAT abilities to handle LUC. A catchment in the Choke Mountain Range (Ethiopia) was selected as test case where significant land use change occurred during the last decades. These dynamics were addressed by 5 land use maps based on interpretation of aerial photographs and satellite imageries, while several years of climate and discharge data were available. The available data for the test application were carefully analyzed and found to be limited in quantity and quality. LUPSA was applied to feed the SWAT model for the period of 1973 to 2003 with yearly land use updates. The annual LUC varied between -6% and +360% for different classes. The impact of land dynamics on the hydrological response was observed and shown at the daily discharge, the total annual runoff and the peakflow. Also a higher proportion of low flow rates was found and caused more water stress. Considering the high uncertainties, SWAT was not able to produce reliable results due to the bad data quality. Nevertheless, the implementation of land cover dynamics in SWAT led to a significant change in the model outputs and demonstrated improved capabilities to handle their impacts on water resources. Further model testing is strongly recommended.
Development of epidermal growth factor-polycaprolactone nanofiber mesh and bead for wound healing

The biocompatible PCL2b200 nanofibre mesh and beads containing epidermal growth factor (EGF) were fabricated separately by using our developed electrospinning and electrospray process for the tissue regeneration applications. The drug release behaviours of two fabricated EGF nano-scaffolds were characterized for 448 hours. The EGF nanofibre mesh performed the quicker released speed and higher release amount than beads. Due to the influence of released EGF, nanofibre mesh also reveals a better proliferation and cell viability than beads that was proved by using the MTT assay.
ERK5 Activates NF-κB in Leukemic T Cells and Is Essential for Their Growth In Vivo1

MAPK cascades play a central role in the cellular response to the environment. The pathway involving the MAPK ERK5 mediates growth factor- and stress-induced intracellular signaling that controls proliferation or survival depending upon the cell context. In this study, we show that reducing ERK5 levels with a specific small hairpin RNA 5 (shERK5) reduced cell viability, sensitized cells to death receptor-induced apoptosis, and blocked the palliative effects of phorbol ester in anti-Fas Ab-treated cells. shERK5 decreased nuclear accumulation of the NF-κB p65 subunit, and conversely, ectopic activation of ERK5 led to constitutive nuclear localization of p65 and increased its ability to trans activate specific reporter genes. Finally, the T lymphoma cell line EL-4, upon expression of shERK5, proliferated in vitro, but failed to induce s.c. tumors in mice. Our results suggest that ERK5 is essential for survival of leukemic T cells in vivo, and thus represents a promising target for therapeutic intervention in this type of malignancy.