Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Time-Lapse High Resolution Seismic Imaging of A Catastrophic Salt Dissolution Sinkhole In Central Kansas

Time-lapse 2-D high-resolution seismic reflection surveys successfully imaged and mapped changes in structural features associated with a sinkhole that formed catastrophically after dissolution of the Permian-age Hutchinson Salt in central Kansas (Figure 1). Symmetric steep sided cone structure defined by reverse faults formed instantaneously continuing over time to gradually enlarge and elongate along normal fault planes. Two orthogonal high-resolution seismic lines were acquired, in 1998 and 2004, to map the upper thousand feet and resolve structural features controlling development subsidence rate preferential dissolution mechanism for fluid movement and to predict future growth. High frequency vibrator and high-resolution seismic methods were used to acquire data from a 204 channel fixed spread. Stations used in 1998 were as close as possible reoccupied on the 2004 survey. Common mid-point stacked sections depict a very disturbed subsurface that has undergone multiple discrete phases of loading, failure, and subsidence. Stress built up in roof rock overlying the salt void until its strength is surpassed when failure, and subsidence occurs (Figure 2 (a), (b), and (c)). Strain associated with layers bridging voids outside the tensional dome appears to be controlled by normal faults. Oilfield disposal practices provided original fluids and pathway that initiated the dissolution process. Currently shallower groundwater fuels the dissolution process with little or no contribution from oil-field brines. Growth appears to be controlled by geologic trends with failure occurring much more plastically during the later years, which initially growth was characterized by rapid brittle
Analysis and Improvement of Makespan and Utilization for MapReduce

A MapReduce cluster is usually shared by multiple users or products, aiming at accelerating their own job. In contrast, the utilization of the cluster is the main concern for the system itself. MapReduce jobs are split into independent tasks during execution. However, in practice, the number of tasks per stage for each job and the system settings are often sub-optimal to support certain workload. As far as we know, few research focused on the impacts of influential factors such as task granularity, slot count and workload, and the performance analysis from the perspectives of each job and system. We construct models to describe the effects of these factors on the performance from both the per-job and system perspectives. Based on the understanding provided by analytical model, we discuss the optimal settings of job and system parameters, then propose a batch scheduling policy instead of FIFO, so as to improve the system utilization and reduce the average job processing time. The simulation results show that the average gap time is reduced by 10% and the mean job make span is improved by 15% when each job is preempted 6 times on average using the batch scheduling policy.
A p38 Substrate-Specific MK2-EGFP Translocation Assay for Identification and Validation of New p38 Inhibitors in Living Cells: A Comprising Alternative for Acquisition of Cellular p38 Inhibition Data

The fundamental role of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) in inflammation underlines their importance as therapeutic targets for various inflammatory medical conditions, including infectious, vascular, neurobiological and autoimmune disease. Although decades of research have yielded several p38 inhibitors, most clinical trials have failed, due to lack of selectivity and efficacy in vivo. This underlines the continuous need to screen for novel structures and chemotypes of p38 inhibitors. Here we report an optimized MK2-EGFP translocation assay in a semi-automated image based High Content Analysis (HCA) system to screen a combinatorial library of 3362 proprietary compounds with extensive variations of chemotypes. By determining the levels of redistribution of MK2-EGFP upon activation of the Rac/p38 pathway in combination with compound treatment, new candidates were identified, which modulate p38 activity in living cells. Based on integrated analysis of TNFα release from human whole blood, biochemical kinase activity assays and JNK3 selectivity testing, we show that this cell based assay reveals a high overlap and predictability for cellular efficacy, selectivity and potency of tested compounds. As a result we disclose a new comprehensive short-list of subtype inhibitors which are functional in the low nanomolar range and might provide the basis for further lead-optimization. In accordance to previous reports, we demonstrate that the MK2-EGFP translocation assay is a suitable primary screening approach for p38-MAPK drug development and provide an attractive labor- and cost saving alternative to other cell based methods including determination of cytokine release from hPBMCs or whole blood.
A Reversible Steganography Suitable for Embedding Small Amounts of Data

A reversible information hiding scheme that is suitable for embedding small amounts of data is proposed in this paper. The secret data are transformed to base-k data stream, and each number is embedded into a pixel pair if the pixels' difference is within a certain range. Referring a pre-determined table, the gray values of the pixel pair are modified so as to carry the secret number. In order to distinguish the secret-carry pairs from no-secret-carry pairs, the differences of the pixel pairs without secret data embedded are expanded by modification of the difference histogram. The proposed information hiding scheme has flexible embedding capacity and low overhead. The peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is greater than those of existing methods that are based on histogram modification when the embedding capacity is low. Experimental results showed that the proposed scheme provides good embedding performances for small amounts of embedded data.
Discourse motivations for pronominal and zero objects across registers in Vera'a

Abstract The choice between pronominal and zero form for objects in the Oceanic language Vera'a is investigated quantitatively in texts from two registers with discourse topics of three different ontological class memberships. Discourse topicality is found to predict best the choice between pronoun and zero, outranking the factors of ontological class membership, antecedent form, and antecedent function. Contrary to current models of referent tracking, antecedent distance does not show any effect at all. It is concluded that (a) discourse structure and activation are not universally the most significant factors in referential choice and (b) ontological class and discourse topicality can be teased apart through appropriate text sampling, and it is the latter that is most significant. This bears important implications for the grammaticalization of object agreement and the typology of differential object marking.
Plasma Polymer-coated on Nanoparticles to Improve Dielectric and Electrical Insulation Properties of Nanocomposites

Polymeric nanocomposites have been shown to possess superior electrical insulation properties compared to traditional filled-resins. However, poor dispersion uniformity and insufficient filler-matrix interaction can adversely affect insulation properties of nanocomposites. In this study, the use of plasma polymerization is proposed to coat poly(ethylene oxide) polymer layers on silica nanoparticles. It is shown that better dispersion is achieved and C-O bonds are created between the surface functional groups of the nanoparticles and the host epoxy polymer. Electrical insulation tests demonstrate that the nanocomposites with plasma polymerized silica nanoparticles feature better resistance against electrical treeing, lower dielectric constant, and also mitigated space charge built-up. Therefore, plasma polymerization offers a promising fabrication technique to further improve the synthesis of nanocomposite dielectrics with superior electrical insulation properties.
Negotiating Sexuality Education with Young People: Ethical Pitfalls and Provocations

Abstract This paper focuses on a nested project within a three-year participatory research project, funded by the Australian Research Council. The project was undertaken in secondary schools across Victoria and South Australia and engaged over 100 students as coresearchers (ages 15–19) in understanding, critiquing, and transforming sexuality education (SE). Data was produced through visual arts and participatory methods and supported by ethnographic techniques (participant observations, focus groups, and guided conversations). In this paper we attempt to expose some of the ethical, methodological and pedagogical processes required when foregrounding young people’s voices in SE. More specifically, to problematize the microethical moments that warrant not only the attention but response of educators and researchers who are open to transforming SE with young people.
Noradrenergic Modulation of Creativity: Evidence from Pupillometry

Creative people regulate their own attentional flexibility and focus in response to creative task demands in a way that favors the emergence of original and effective solutions. So far, not much is known about the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie such abilities. Here, the function of the locus coeruleus noradrenaline (LC-NA) system in creativity was explored using pupillometry. Two studies experimentally tested whether tonic pupil dilation (as a proxy for measuring tonic LC-NA activity) and phasic pupil dilation (as a proxy for measuring phasic LC-NA activity) predicted performance on divergent and convergent thinking using both psychometric (study 1) and real-world creativity tasks (study 2). During divergent thinking, it was consistently found that tonic pupil dilation predicted the generation of original ideas in both creativity tasks, and phasic pupil dilation predicted the generation of effective ideas only in the real-world creativity task. However, during convergent thinking, tonic and phasic pupil dilation did not predict creative task performance in both creativity tasks. Therefore, this study was the first to provide experimental evidence that suggests that tonic and phasic LC-NA activity differentially predict the generation of original and effective ideas during creative tasks that require divergent thinking.
External Operators and Anomalous Dimensions in Soft-Collinear Effective Theory

It has recently been argued that soft-collinear effective theory for processes involving both soft and collinear partons contains a new soft-collinear mode, which can communicate between the soft and collinear sectors of the theory. The formalism incorporating the corresponding fields into the effective Lagrangian is extended to include external current and four-quark operators relevant to weak interactions. An explicit calculation of the anomalous dimensions of these operators reveals that soft-collinear modes are needed for correctly describing the ultraviolet behavior of the effective theory.
Logical ring with ATM block transfer to support connectionless service in ATM

An architecture for ATM networks to provide more reliable transmission to support connectionless and multicast services for short message transmission is introduced in this paper. This architecture suggests to use a logical ring concept to form virtual legacy shared-medium networks in the ATM layer. With the use of ATM cell blocks and a Reed-Solomon code based cell-coding scheme in transmission, the proposed architecture can support multipath-transmission by maximizing the use of left bandwidth so that the packet loss probability can be reduced in a range from several to tens magnitudes compared to existing schemes.
Nonrelativistic Electron-Electron Thermal Bremsstrahlung Gaunt Factor

With the launch of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and XMM-Newton, X-ray astronomy has entered an era of precision science. The precision observational data taken by these satellites require precision basic physics data for their analysis. The present authors have recently published a series of papers in which they have reported the results of the accurate calculations of the electron-ion thermal bremsstrahlung which are particularly suited for the analysis of the high-temperature galaxy clusters. In this paper we will present accurate analytic fitting formulae for the nonrelativistic electron-electron thermal bremsstrahlung Gaunt factor which will be useful for the analysis of the X-ray observational data taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and XMM-Newton. With the publication of the present paper X-ray astronomers will be provided with an accurate thermal bremsstrahlung Gaunt factor which has an overall accuracy better than 1% for the temperature range 6.0
Optimal Torque Control of Synchronous Machines Based on Finite-Element Analysis

Synchronous machines that are optimally designed using finite-element (FE) software, and control of such machines using powerful digital signal processors (DSPs), are commonplace today. With field-orientated control, the maximum-torque-per-ampere control strategy for unsaturated voltage conditions (below the base speed) is well known; the field-weakening strategy, however, could be rather complicated. In this paper, a straightforward torque control strategy for the entire speed range is proposed and demonstrated. Practical implementation of the method is very simple since the calculations are done offline in an automated process and are therefore removed from the load of the DSP. The process relies on machine-specific data from FE analysis and therefore includes nonlinear effects such as saturation and cross coupling. Simulation and practical results for a permanent-magnet and a reluctance synchronous machine show that the torque is controlled effectively in the entire speed range using this generic method.
Alextrac: Affinity learning by exploring temporal reinforcement within association chains

This paper presents a self-supervised approach for learning to associate object detections in a video sequence as often required in tracking-by-detection systems. In this paper we focus on learning an affinity model to estimate the data association cost, which can adapt to different situations by exploiting the sequential nature of video data. We also propose a framework for gathering additional training samples at test time with high variation in visual appearance, naturally inherent in large temporal windows. Reinforcing the model with these difficult samples greatly improves the affinity model compared to standard similarity measures such as cosine similarity. We experimentally demonstrate the efficacy of the resulting affinity model on several multiple object tracking (MOT) benchmark sequences. Using the affinity model alone places this approach in the top 25 state-of-the-art trackers with an average rank of 21.3 across 11 test sequences and an overall multiple object tracking accuracy (MOTA) of 17%. This is considerable as our simple approach only uses the appearance of the detected regions in contrast to other techniques with global optimisation or complex motion models.
An undecimated wavelet transform based enhancement, statistical feature extraction and detection-classification of PD signals [partial discharges]

We address the problem of recognition and retrieval of relatively weak industrial signals such as partial discharges (PD) buried in excessive noise. The major bottleneck being the recognition and suppression of stochastic pulsive interference (PI) which has similar frequency characteristics as the PD pulse. In this paper, we provide techniques to de-noise, detect, estimate and classify the PD signal in a statistical perspective. A multi-resolution analysis based technique is incorporated to discard the huge amount of redundant data in the acquired signal. A scale dependent MMSE based estimator is implemented in the undecimated wavelet transform (UDWT) domain to enhance the noisy signal. We characterize the PD and PI pulses using a statistical model as the first moment of multi variate Gaussian distribution and its parameters are estimated using maximum likelihood (ML) and maximum aposteriori probability (MAP) based techniques. A statistical test, known as the generalized log likelihood ratio test (GLRT), was incorporated to ensure the existence of the pulse. The decision as to whether a pulse is a noise or a desired signal has been made based on a weighted-nearest neighbor methodology.
Polyhydroxylated fullerene nanoparticles attenuate brain infarction and oxidative stress in rat model of ischemic stroke

Oxidative stress is the common underlying mechanism of damage in ischemic stroke. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the possible protective effects of polyhydroxylated fullerene derivatives on brain infarction and oxidative/nitrosative stress in a rat model of ischemic stroke. The experiment was performed by four groups of rats (each; n=12); Sham, Control ischemia, and ischemic treatment groups (Pretreatment and Posttreatment). Brain ischemia was induced by 90 min middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) followed by 24 hours reperfusion. Rats received fullerene nanoparticles at dose of 1 mg/kg 30 min before MCAO and immediately after beginning of reperfusion. Infarct volume, contents of malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione (GSH) and nitrate as well as superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity were assessed 24 hours after termination of MCAO. Brain infarct volume was 310 ± 21 mm3 in control group. Administration of fullerene nanoparticles before and after MCAO significantly decreased the infarct volume by 53 % (145 ± 45 mm3) and 81 % (59 ± 13 mm3), respectively. Ischemia also enhanced MDA and nitrate contents of ischemic hemispheres by 45 % and 25 % , respectively. Fullerene nanoparticles considerably reduced the MDA and nitrate contents of ischemic hemispheres before MCAO by 58 % and 17 % , respectively, and after MCAO by 38 % and 21 % , respectively. Induction of MCAO significantly decreased GSH content (19 % ) and SOD activity (52 % ) of ischemic hemispheres, whereas fullerene nanoparticles increased the GSH content and SOD activity of ischemic hemispheres by 19 % and 52 % before MCAO, respectively, and 21 % and 55 % after MCAO, respectively. Our findings indicate that fullerene nanoparticles, as a potent scavenger of free radicals, protect the brain cells against ischemia/reperfusion injury and inhibit brain oxidative/nitrosative damage.
The Clinical Effects of Aromatherapy Massage on Reducing Pain for the Cancer Patients: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Purpose. Aromatherapy massage is an alternative treatment in reducing the pain of the cancer patients. This study was to investigate whether aromatherapy massage could improve the pain of the cancer patients. Methods. We searched PubMed and Cochrane Library for relevant randomized controlled trials without language limitations between 1 January 1990 and 31 July 2015 with a priori defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The search terms included aromatherapy, essential oil, pain, ache, cancer, tumor, and carcinoma. There were 7 studies which met the selection criteria and 3 studies were eventually included among 63 eligible publications. Results. This meta-analysis included three randomized controlled trials with a total of 278 participants (135 participants in the massage with essential oil group and 143 participants in the control (usual care) group). Compared with the control group, the massage with essential oil group had nonsignificant effect on reducing the pain (standardized mean difference = 0.01; 95% CI [−0.23,0.24]). Conclusion. Aromatherapy massage does not appear to reduce pain of the cancer patients. Further rigorous studies should be conducted with more objective measures.
Racing Bib Number Recognition

We propose an automatic system for racing bib number (RBN) recognition in natural image collections covering running races such as marathons. An RBN is typically a piece of durable paper or cardboard bearing a number as well as the event/sponsor logo. The RBN, usually pinned onto the competitor’s shirt, is used to identify the competitor among thousands of others during the race. Our system receives a set of natural images taken in running sport events and outputs the participants’ RBNs. Today, RBN identification is often done manually, a process made difficult by the sheer number of available photos. This specific application can be studied in the wider context of detecting and recognizing text in natural images of unstructured scenes. Existing methods that fall into this category fail to reliably recognize RBNs, due to the large variability in their appearance, size, and the deformations they undergo. By using the knowledge that the RBN is located on a person’s body, our dedicated system overcomes these challenges and can be applied without any adjustments to images of various running races taken by professional as well as amateur photographers. First, we use a face detector to generate hypotheses regarding the RBN location and scale. We then adapt the stroke width transform (SWT) to detect the location of the tag, which is then processed and fed to a standard optical character recognition (OCR) engine. We evaluate the contributions of each component of our system, and compare its performance to state-of-the-art text detection methods, as well as to a commercially available, state-of-the-art license plate recognition (LPR) system, on three newly collected datasets.
Automatic mispronunciation detection for Mandarin

This paper presents the methods to improve the performance of mispronunciation detection at syllable level for Mandarin from two aspects: proposing scaled log-posterior probability (SLPP) and weighted phone SLPP to get the better measure of pronunciation quality; introducing speaker normalization of speaker adaptive training (SAT) and speaker adaptation of selective maximum likelihood linear regression (SMLLR) to get a better statistical model. Experiments based on a database, consisting of 8000 syllables pronounced by 40 speakers with varied pronunciation proficiency, confirm the promising effectiveness of these strategies by reducing FAR from 41.1% to 31.4% at 90% FRR and 36.0% to 16.3%at 95%FRR.
Design and Analysis of Improved Shortest Path Tree Update for Network Routing

The quick construction of the Shortest Path Tree (SPT) is essential to achieve fast routing speed for an interior network using link state protocols, such as OSPF and IS-IS. Whenever the network topology changes, the old SPT must be updated. In a network with a large number of nodes, the technology with the whole SPT re-computation by traditional static algorithms is very inefﬁcient. It will take tremendous computation time and make routing table instability by unnecessary changes in an existing SPT. In this paper, we propose an improved algorithm for the dynamic SPT update to solve the above problems. The proposed al-gorithm is based on the understanding of the dynamic up-date process to reduce redundancy. Only signiﬁcant edges that contribute to the construction of the new SPT will be considered. The analysis of the algorithm complexity and experimental results shows that our algorithm is much better than any others in the literature.
Spindle-to-cortex communication in cleaving, polyspermic Xenopus eggs

Polyspermic Xenopus eggs and a cytokinesis extract system were used to investigate spindle-to-cortex communication, which positions cleavage furrows. Chromosome passenger complex recruitment to microtubule bundles between asters plays a key role and is positively influenced by microtubule stabilization and proximity to chromatin.