Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The improved two-dimensional Gabor filter based interest objects detection

Saliency using natural statistics model has a good effect on obtaining the region of interest. However, it still has limitations such as insufficient image contrast, inability to cope with local information and so on. In order to overcome these challenges, an improved algorithm based on the two-dimensional Gabor filter and color maps is proposed. The two-dimensional Gabor filter has a close approach to simple receptive fields in human striate cortex. It is used to tackle the problem mentioned above. Experiments have demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for interest objects detection.
Use of plasma biomarkers at exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

IMPACT This study explores the use of measuring plasma biomarkers at exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), providing insight into the underlying pathogenesis of these important events. RATIONALE The use of measuring C-reactive protein (CRP) to confirm exacerbation, or to assess exacerbation severity, in COPD is unclear. Furthermore, it is not known whether there may be more useful systemic biomarkers. OBJECTIVE To assess the use of plasma biomarkers in confirming exacerbation and predicting exacerbation severity. METHODS We assessed 36 biomarkers in 90 paired baseline and exacerbation plasma samples from 90 patients with COPD. The diagnosis of exacerbation fulfilled both health care use and symptom-based criteria. Biomarker concentrations were related to clinical indices of exacerbation severity. Interrelationships between biomarkers were examined to gain information on mechanisms of systemic inflammation at exacerbation of COPD. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS To confirm the diagnosis of exacerbation, the most selective biomarker was CRP. However, this was neither sufficiently sensitive nor specific alone (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC], 0.73; 95% confidence interval, 0.66-0.80). The combination of CRP with any one increased major exacerbation symptom recorded by the patient on that day (dyspnea, sputum volume, or sputum purulence) significantly increased the AUC to 0.88 (95% confidence interval, 0.82-0.93; p<0.0001). There were no significant relationships between biomarker concentrations and clinical indices of exacerbation severity. Interrelationships between biomarkers suggest that the acute-phase response is related, separately, to monocytic and lymphocytic-neutrophilic pathways. CONCLUSIONS Plasma CRP concentration, in the presence of a major exacerbation symptom, is useful in the confirmation of COPD exacerbation. Systemic biomarkers were not helpful in predicting exacerbation severity. The acute-phase response at exacerbation was most strongly related to indices of monocyte function.
Author's Personal Copy Theoretical Computer Science Pure Exploration in Finitely-armed and Continuous-armed Bandits

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t We consider the framework of stochastic multi-armed bandit problems and study the possibilities and limitations of forecasters that perform an on-line exploration of the arms. These forecasters are assessed in terms of their simple regret, a regret notion that captures the fact that exploration is only constrained by the number of available rounds (not necessarily known in advance), in contrast to the case when the cumulative regret is considered and when exploitation needs to be performed at the same time. We believe that this performance criterion is suited to situations when the cost of pulling an arm is expressed in terms of resources rather than rewards. We discuss the links between the simple and the cumulative regret. One of the main results in the case of a finite number of arms is a general lower bound on the simple regret of a forecaster in terms of its cumulative regret: the smaller the latter, the larger the former. Keeping this result in mind, we then exhibit upper bounds on the simple regret of some forecasters. The paper ends with a study devoted to continuous-armed bandit problems; we show that the simple regret can be minimized with respect to a family of probability distributions if and only if the cumulative regret can be minimized for it. Based on this equivalence, we are able to prove that the separable metric spaces are exactly the metric spaces on which these regrets can be minimized with respect to the family of all probability distributions with continuous mean-payoff functions. Learning processes usually face an exploration versus exploitation dilemma, since they have to get information on the environment (exploration) to be able to take good actions (exploitation). A key example is the multi-armed bandit problem [19], a sequential decision problem where, at each stage, the forecaster has to pull one out of K given stochastic arms and gets a reward drawn at random according to the distribution of the chosen arm. The usual assessment criterion of a forecaster is given by its cumulative regret, the sum of differences between the expected reward of the best arm and the obtained …
Fast Hidden Markov Model Map-Matching for Sparse and Noisy Trajectories

The problem of map-matching sparse and noisy GPS trajectories to road networks has gained increasing importance in recent years. A common state-of-the-art solution to this problem relies on a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to identify the most plausible road sequence for a given trajectory. While this approach has been shown to work well on sparse and noisy data, the algorithm has a high computational complexity and becomes slow when working with large trajectories and extended search radii. We propose an optimization to the original approach which significantly reduces the number of state transitions that need to be evaluated in order to identify the correct solution. In experiments with publicly available benchmark data, the proposed optimization yields nearly identical map-matching results as the original algorithm, but reduces the algorithm runtime by up to 45%. We demonstrate that the effects of our optimization become more pronounced when dealing with larger problem spaces and indicate how our approach can be combined with other recent optimizations to further reduce the overall algorithm runtime.
The Nature of Theory in Information Systems

The aim of this research essay is to examine the structural nature of theory in Information Systems. Despite the importance of theory, questions relating to its form and structure are neglected in comparison with questions relating to epistemology. The essay addresses issues of causality, explanation, prediction, and generalization that underlie an understanding of theory. A taxonomy is proposed that classifies information systems theories with respect to the manner in which four central goals are addressed: analysis, explanation, prediction, and prescription. Five interrelated types of theory are distinguished: (1) theory for analyzing, (2) theory for explaining, (3) theory for predicting, (4) theory for explaining and predicting, and (5) theory for design and action. Examples illustrate the nature of each theory type. The applicability of the taxonomy is demonstrated by classifying a sample of journal articles. The paper contributes by showing that multiple views of theory exist and by exposing the assumptions underlying different viewpoints. In addition, it is suggested that the type of theory under development can influence the choice of an epistemological approach. Support is given for the legitimacy and value of each theory type. The building of integrated bodies of theory that encompass all theory types is advocated.
Influence of WC–20Co–1Ni coating by HVOF on lifespan of the downhole drilling motors

Downhole drilling motor is one of the equipment used for drilling and they perform the task of directional drilling. The rotor of these motors is made of 17-4 PH steel, which is generally coated with hard chromium. In this study, the feasibility of replacing hard chromium with WC–20Co–1Ni using a high velocity oxygen fuel system was examined. The result of the metallurgical and mechanical examination showed that changing of the coating to WC–20Co–1Ni improved the wear performance and increased the lifespan of the rotor. In addition, the chemical resistance to corrosion due to the influence of the corrosive gases in the hole on the rotor improved significantly. Finally, substitution of the hard chromium coating with the WC–20Co–1Ni caused an increase in the lifespan and performance of the downhole motor in extreme environmental conditions of the drilling formations, which led to economic savings in amendment and maintenance costs.
Flows in metal foams using Immersed Boundary Method

Porous media are nowadays common in many thermal or mechanical engineering applications such as heat exchangers. A recent example of such porous media used in engineering is metal foams. These foams increase thermal transfer thanks to their enhanced exchange surface (high surface to volume ratio) while staying light-weighted. However, due to the complexity of the geometry of these foams the flow characterisation at the pore-level is challenging. In addition, turbulence might also play an important role inside the porous metal foams and affect both the fluid flow and particle transport. The aim of this paper is to investigate the suitability of Immersed Boundary (IB) method for the simulation of flows in metal foams. For that purpose, the IB approach is compared against a standard CFD solver based on a Body-Fitted (BF) grid and against experimental data. First a flow around a cylinder from Reynolds numbers (Re) = 20 up to 700 is considered to compare present BF and IB results against experimental results. The simulations on different pore shapes are also performed, as the geometry gets closer to a real metal foam implying a better prediction of the different velocity profiles and fluctuations.
Low-Dose Oxygen Enhances Macrophage-Derived Bacterial Clearance following Cigarette Smoke Exposure

Background. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common, smoking-related lung disease. Patients with COPD frequently suffer disease exacerbations induced by bacterial respiratory infections, suggestive of impaired innate immunity. Low-dose oxygen is a mainstay of therapy during COPD exacerbations; yet we understand little about whether oxygen can modulate the effects of cigarette smoke on lung immunity. Methods. Wild-type mice were exposed to cigarette smoke for 5 weeks, followed by intratracheal instillation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAO1) and 21% or 35–40% oxygen. After two days, lungs were harvested for PAO1 CFUs, and bronchoalveolar fluid was sampled for inflammatory markers. In culture, macrophages were exposed to cigarette smoke and oxygen (40%) for 24 hours and then incubated with PAO1, followed by quantification of bacterial phagocytosis and inflammatory markers. Results. Mice exposed to 35–40% oxygen after cigarette smoke and PAO1 had improved survival and reduced lung CFUs and inflammation. Macrophages from these mice expressed less TNF-α and more scavenger receptors. In culture, macrophages exposed to cigarette smoke and oxygen also demonstrated decreased TNF-α secretion and enhanced phagocytosis of PAO1 bacteria. Conclusions. Our findings demonstrate a novel, protective role for low-dose oxygen following cigarette smoke and bacteria exposure that may be mediated by enhanced macrophage phagocytosis.
Extragingival pyogenic granuloma associated with medication: Report of an unusual case

Pyogenic granuloma (PG) is a well-known benign non-neoplastic overgrowth. It is a response to mild irritation and might be related to hormonal factors and certain kinds of drugs. PG preferentially affects the gingiva, but can be found extragingivally with varying clinical features. The most common treatment is surgical excision. This article describes a case of extragingival PG occurring on the tongue with unusual presentation, with emphasis on non-surgical treatment. Since surgical management had not been successful, an alternative approach was taken. We illustrated how the lesion was successfully treated with a series of intralesional corticosteroid injections.
Current Strategies and Advances Materials for the Treatment of Injured Meniscus

The lack of meniscal tissue increases the risk of early cartilage degeneration. Classic treatment includes suturing and partial menscectomies, total meniscectomies being abandoned. Modern treatments are based on the implantation of special scaffolds that replace some of the lost meniscal tissue. This paper reviews the basic principles of modern treatment of the menisci and it includes a retrospective study, in which a total of 10 patients (7 men and 3 women, mean age: 28.28 (21-38)) were enrolled. All patients had previous surgery and were subjected to arthroscopic treatment with a biodegradable scaffold (Actifit®). They received KOOS (Knee Injury and Ostheoarthritis Outcome Score), Lysholm and Tegner score. The Tegner score was not very useful in determining the success or failure of the surgery. The Lysholm and KOOS score results improved at the 1-year follow-up. The results of the scores that the patients filled out, showed an improvement in their preoperatively knee related problems. The Actifit® scaffold is safe and effective in treating meniscal defects.
Temporal winner-take-all networks: a time-based mechanism for fast selection in neural networks

Winner-take-all (WTA) networks frequently appear in neural network models. They are primarily used for decision making and selection. As an alternative to the conventional activation-based winner-take-all mechanisms (AWTA), we present a time-based temporal-winner-take-all mechanism with O(n) space complexity and roughly O(log n) time complexity. The mechanism exploits systematic and stochastic differences between time delays within different units and connections. The TWTA and the AWTA networks are shown to be logically equivalent, but the TWTA mechanism may be more suitable than the latter for various selection tasks, especially the selection of an arbitrary unit from a set (e.g., as in unit recruitment). TWTA avoids various problems with conventional WTA, notably the difficulty of making it converge rapidly over a large range of conditions. Here we report a probabilistic analysis of the TWTA mechanism along with experimental data obtained from numerous massively parallel simulations of the TWTA mechanism on the connection machine.
Image Processing for Visual Navigation of Mobile Robot using Fluorescent Tubes

This paper presents an image processing method for an autonomous mobile robot indoor navigation system using fluorescent lights. The self-localization of the vehicle is done by detecting the position and orientation of fluorescent tubes located above it’s desired path thanks to a camera pointing to the ceiling. A map of the lights based on odometry data is built in advance by the robot guided by an operator. During the teaching of the environment, the robot performs autonomously lights detection and adds appropriate information for each landmark to the lights’ map it is building. Then a graphic user interface is used to define the trajectory the robot must follow with respect to the lights. While the robot is moving, an image processing algorithm similar to the one used during the teaching step is used in order to compare the position and orientation of the detected lights to the map values, which enables the vehicle to cancel odometry errors.
Low-Rankness Transfer for Realistic Denoising

Current state-of-the-art denoising methods, such as non-local low-rank approaches, have shown to give impressive results. They are, however, mainly tuned to work with uniform Gaussian noise corruption and known variance, which is far from the real noise scenario. In fact, noise level estimation is already a challenging problem and denoising methods are quite sensitive to this parameter. Moreover, these methods are based on shrinkage models that are too simple to reflect reality, which results in over-smoothing of important structures, such as small-scale text and textures. We propose in this paper a new approach for more realistic image restoration based on the concept of low-rankness transfer. Given a training clean/noisy image pair, our method learns a mapping between the non-local noisy singular values and the optimal values for denoising to be transfered to a new noisy input. One single image is enough for training the model and can be adapted to the noisy input by taking a correlated image. Experiments conducted on synthetic and real camera noise show that the proposed method leads to an important improvement both visually and in terms of PSNR/SSIM.
Optimization of Business Processes in Service Oriented Architecture

This paper describes a method for the implementation and optimization of business processes in a service oriented architecture (SOA). A process specification is created by business people, and expressed in Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). The specification is then translated into Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), and used by technical people as a reference process, which is subject to a series of transformations that change the internal process structure in order to improve the quality of the process execution. The behavior of each transformed process is verified automatically against the behavior of the reference process. The verification mechanism is based on a mapping from BPEL to Language of Temporal Ordering Specification (LOTOS), followed by a comparison of the trace set that is generated using a program dependence graph of the reference process and the trace set of the transformed one. When the design goals have been reached, the transformed BPEL process can be executed on a target SOA environment using a BPEL engine.
PDBTM: Protein Data Bank of transmembrane proteins after 8 years

The PDBTM database (available at http://pdbtm.enzim.hu), the first comprehensive and up-to-date transmembrane protein selection of the Protein Data Bank, was launched in 2004. The database was created and has been continuously updated by the TMDET algorithm that is able to distinguish between transmembrane and non-transmembrane proteins using their 3D atomic coordinates only. The TMDET algorithm can locate the spatial positions of transmembrane proteins in lipid bilayer as well. During the last 8 years not only the size of the PDBTM database has been steadily growing from ∼400 to 1700 entries but also new structural elements have been identified, in addition to the well-known α-helical bundle and β-barrel structures. Numerous ‘exotic’ transmembrane protein structures have been solved since the first release, which has made it necessary to define these new structural elements, such as membrane loops or interfacial helices in the database. This article reports the new features of the PDBTM database that have been added since its first release, and our current efforts to keep the database up-to-date and easy to use so that it may continue to serve as a fundamental resource for the scientific community.
TimeBlocks: mom, can i have another block of time?

Time is a difficult concept for parents to communicate with young children. We developed TimeBlocks, a novel tangible, playful object to facilitate communication about concepts of time with young children. TimeBlocks consists of a set of cubic blocks that function as a physical progress bar. Parents and children can physically manipulate the blocks to represent the concept of time. We evaluated TimeBlocks through a field study in which six families tried TimeBlocks for four days at their homes. The results indicate that TimeBlocks played a useful role in facilitating the often challenging task of time-related communication between parents and children. We also report on a range of observed insightful novel uses of TimeBlocks in our study1.
Terlipressin, a provasopressin drug exhibits direct vasoconstrictor properties: Consequences on heart perfusion and performance*

Objective:Terlipressin has been proposed as an alternative treatment to catecholamines to restore blood pressure in septic shock. Terlipressin is considered as a vasopressin prodrug capable of releasing small but sustained amounts of [Lysine8] vasopressin (LVP) and to provide prolonged biological effect. However, terlipressin may act as a direct vasopressor beyond its conversion into LVP. We investigated terlipressin direct vasoconstrictive properties and consequences on myocardial perfusion and performance. Design:Experimental studies. Settings:National Research Institute Laboratories. Subjects:Rat aorta and heart, human uterine artery. Interventions:Studies of vasoconstriction on isolated vascular rings obtained either from rat aorta or human uterine artery, and of coronary flow, ventricular performance, and heart rhythm on rat hearts using a modified Langendorff heart apparatus. Measurements and Main Results:Terlipressin induced a rapid, saturable, and dose-dependent contraction of rat aortas and human uterine arteries. Although the maximal terlipressin-induced vasoconstriction observed on rat arteries was weaker than LVP, or arginine-vasopressin, pharmacologic properties on human arteries, such as full agonism and strong maximal effect (900% of the maximal response obtained with phenylephrine), suggest a high potential of terlipressin to directly vasoconstrict human vessels. Similarly, terlipressin induced a saturable and dose-dependent vasoconstriction of coronary arteries that was reversible and antagonized by selective V1a antagonists. Maximum rates of left ventricle pressure rise (dP/dtmax) and fall (dP/dtmin) decreased both only in proportion to the decrease in coronary flow. Conclusions:Besides long lasting effect through slow conversion into LVP, terlipressin is a fast acting vasopressor peptide per se that has an impact on coronary circulation and myocardial function.
Analysing content and patterns of interaction for improving the learning design of networked learning environments

Learning Analytics constitutes a key tool for supporting Learning Design and teacher-led inquiry into student learning. In this paper, we demonstrate how a Social Learning Analytics toolkit can combine social network analysis and content analysis for supporting a global and formal teacher inquiry. This toolkit not only supports teachers in improving the organisation of the learning process but also generates important input to improve the students' reflection on their own learning. Our examples show how combinations of different levels of analysis can provide deep insight in the learning process. We report a JOUR study that exemplifies the main features of our approach and the kind of outcomes that can be obtained. Commenting and rating processes on videos are analysed based on user traces from a social learning platform. Finally, we point out implications on the learning design for networked learning environments in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]