Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep Correlation Feature Learning for Face Verification in the Wild

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) commonly uses the softmax loss function as the supervision signal. In order to enhance the discriminative power of the deeply learned features, this letter proposes a new supervision signal, called correlation loss, for face verification task. Specifically, the correlation loss encourages the large correlation between the deep feature vectors and their corresponding weight vectors in softmax loss. With the joint supervision of softmax loss and correlation loss, the deep correlation feature learning (DCFL) network can learn the deep features with both the interclass separability and the intraclass compactness, which are highly discriminative for face verification. More importantly, by applying the weight vector of softmax function as the class prototype, the proposed correlation loss function is easy to be optimized during the backpropatation of CNN. Finally, the DCFL method achieves 99.55% and 96.06% face verification accuracy using a 64-layer ResNet on the labeled face in-the-Wild (LFW) and you-tube face (YTF) benchmark, respectively.
Dynamic index coding gain over a complete bi-directional side information graph

Dynamic Index coding as a generalization of the traditional index coding problem, deals with transmission of some dynamic data flows in the presence of side information. For a dynamic index coding system, the set of average flow rates for which the system can be stable is named Code-Constraint Capacity region. In this paper, we identify the code-constraint capacity region for a dynamic index coding problem with complete bi-directional side information graph. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of Dynamic Index Coding Gain to quantify the improvement resulted from the dynamic index coding with respect to uncoded transmissions. We also provide some corollaries about system performance metrics such as delay and average number of queued packets. In addition, we show how time-sharing method may reduce transmission delay.
Analysis of the keyframe animation and motion capture case studies

Traditionally animation is produced by drawing illusion of movement created by photographing a series of individual drawings on successive frames on film. Greenberg (1997) explains, "Animation is a deliberately interpreted "illusion of life. " It has been practiced for the last 70 years in both drawn and stop motion animation, and as such, is not an attempt to mimic human and animal life exactly. " According to the historical timeline, there are many forms of animation that have been introduced. This includes cel animation, clay animation, stop frame animation, three dimensional (3D) computer animation and virtual reality. With the rapid growth of this industry, various types of techniques, methodologies and computer technologies have been developed, for instance the keyframe animation, non-linear animation, motion capture, procedural animation and etc. Generally there are two popular methods in producing computer animation; keyframe animation and motion capture. Both have their own adherents. The authors believe that this research is important to reveal the actual process and its advantages/disadvantages for animation production. The findings and discussions would be useful for production guidelines, especially in making decision to choose the right method.
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Promotes Long-Term Memory Formation through Its Role in Working Memory Organization

Results from neuroimaging studies have shown that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) implements processes critical for organizing items in working memory (WM). Based on its role in WM, we hypothesized that the DLPFC should contribute to long-term memory (LTM) formation by strengthening associations among items that are organized in WM. We conducted an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to test this hypothesis by investigating prefrontal activity during performance of two different WM tasks: on “rehearse” trials, participants actively maintained triplets of words during a brief delay, whereas on “reorder” trials, participants actively organized each triplet during the delay. After scanning, subjects performed an LTM test on words presented during both WM conditions. Behavioral results showed that WM processing in the reorder condition enhanced LTM by strengthening inter-item associations. fMRI results showed that DLPFC activity specifically during reorder trials was predictive of subsequent LTM. In contrast, activity in the posterior ventrolateral prefrontal cortex was predictive of LTM for words studied on both reorder and rehearse trials. These results support the view that the DLPFC contributes to LTM formation through its role in organization of information in WM.
I/O Characteristics and Implications of Big Data Processing on Virtualized Environments

In this paper, I/O characteristics of data-intensive appli cations running on virtualized environments are explored. It is observed that virtual machines have a tendency to request I/Os in a bursty manner. Also, I/Os are triggered by several virtual machines at the same time. These concurrent and bursty I/Os cause the interference among virtual machines such as frequent context switches and long seek distances, which eventually deteriorates I/O performance significantly. To overcome this problem, a novel bu rstiness-aware I/O scheduler is proposed, which consists of three components: burstiness detector, coarse-grained dispatcher and st arvation handler. The key idea of the proposed scheduler is detecting bursty virtual machines on-line and allowing a detected machine to consume most of disk bandwidth exclusively for a given time quantum to reduce the interference. In addition, it provides long-term fa irness while avoiding starvation. Performance evaluation based on implementation shows that the proposed scheduler can improve the execution time and I/O throughput of the three real workloads by decreasing the number of context switches and seek distances.
Evaluation of somnolence in Parkinson’s disease: Comparison with age- and sex-matched controls

Abstract—The authors found a significantly higher prevalence of daytime somnolence in 201 patients with PD compared with 214 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects (Epworth Sleepiness Scale score 5.6 vs 4.6). The prevalence of “sleep attacks” (SA) was about seven times higher in patients with PD than in control subjects (13.9% vs 1.9%;p < 0.0005). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that a higher dose of levodopa and longer duration of disease significantly predicted for SA in patients with PD. Epworth Sleepiness Scale scores of ≥10 had 71.4% sensitivity and 88.4% specificity for SA.
Dynamic Performance Improvement of AC/DC Converter Using Model Predictive Direct Power Control With Finite Control Set

This paper presents a control scheme for the dynamic performance improvement of an AC/DC converter using the model predictive direct power control (MPDPC) with a duty cycle. In the MPDPC, the active and reactive power is simultaneously controlled with a single cost function. If either of the two control targets has a large power variation, the control weight is concentrated on one side, which causes mutual interference. Because of such mutual interference, the control dynamics of the AC/DC converter deteriorates. Due to the control weight being concentrated on one side using the single cost function, even if the control dynamics of the other side decreases, the dynamic performance of the system is improved by reconfiguring the cost function that has the weighting factor to minimize the decline of the system dynamics that is caused by the mutual interference. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is verified by comparing its results with those of the conventional MPDPC. The results are obtained through the simulations and experiments.
Physiological Analysis of Middle‐Aged and Old Former Athletes: Comparison with Still Active Athletes of the Same Ages

Blood lipids, red cell volume, heart volume, dynamic spirometry, electrocardiograms made at rest and during exercise, and maximal oxygen uptake were determined in 29 former athletes 45 to 70 years old. The subjects had been very successful competitors in endurance events before the age of 30, but for at least 10 years preceding this study had been sedentary.Maximal oxygen uptake averaged 40 ml/kg/min which is 20% higher than that of sedentary middle-aged men but 25% lower than that of still active athletes of the same ages. Vital capacity, forced expiratory volume, and maximal voluntary ventilation showed normal values. Heart volume was large in relation to maximal oxygen uptake and was of the same magnitude as in still active athletes. Red cell volume was also large in relation to maximal oxygen uptake, but normal in relation to the body weight. Cholesterol in serum averaged 260 mg/100 ml. Values for neutral fat averaged 1.6 mM, which was higher than that for still active athletes.In the athletes still active, the frequency of S-T changes was as common as in unselected healthy old men but in the former athletes the frequency was reduced. This was also true for the frequency of right bundle-branch block, ST-junction elevation and high T waves.
Stable multiway circuit partitioning for ECO

We propose a new stable multiway partitioning algorithm, where stability is defined as an additional quality of a partitioning solution. The stability of a partitioning algorithm is an important criterion for a partitioning based placement to achieve timing closure through the repetition of the placement procedure. Given a previous partitioning result P* on an original netlist hypergraph H* and a partially modified netlist hypergraph H, a new cost function with similarity factor is defined to produce a new partition P on H which is similar to the original partition P*. The proposed algorithm is the first approach that quantifies the degree of similarity of a current partition to the original partition using similarity cost. Our goal is to build a new partition in a relatively short run time, whose cut quality is not much degraded from that of the original partition P* while it preserves as much of the previous groupings in P* as possible. The proposed partitioner is especially beneficial to engineering change order (ECO) applications, where partial modifications of a netlist are handled by the incremental methodology in a design iteration cycle. Our approach helps ECO placers maximize the incremental capability since the portions to be re-placed are minimized. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves a high quality partition comparable to a state-of-the-art multilevel partitioner hMetis, while many portions of the groupings in the previous partition are preserved in the current partition. The tradeoff between similarity and cut quality with respect to a varying similarity coefficient is also shown.
Understanding the Adult Learner Life Story Research and the Adult Secondary Student Experience

This thesis is a qualitative study that uses life story research methods and grounded theory to investigate the perceptions of three adult high school students on their lives, with particular focus on family, community, and childhood and adolescent educational experiences. The participants were also interviewed about their interactions with and interests in art and art education. The study was conducted over a period of one month, during which time each participant was interviewed once for approximately two hours. The interviews were audio-recorded, and the data was collected and analyzed as per the grounded theory method. The emerging themes which highlighted factors affecting participant academic success and school involvement at the adolescent high school level were: familial/home stability, guidance, stimulation and teaching practices, and stigmatization with regards to both race and teen pregnancy. Keywords: Art Education, Adult Education, At-risk youth, Drop-out, High school, Life Story research, Student-directed teaching, Culturally relevant pedagogy, Teaching practices, Race, Teen Pregnancy
A depth recovery algorithm for using the maximum likelihood estimation

The depth data is commonly used for the 3-D scene reconstruction. In this paper, we study the depth recovery for depth acquisition of active sensors using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). It is observed that the depth missing problem is serious existing for the irregular object. The number of the depth missing increase as the irregular for object becomes more complicated due to the depth acquisition depending on the light ray reflecting from the object surface. Under the depth acquisition principle, we mathematically derive the analytical functions to recover the missed depth. Based on the analytical functions, the missed depth can be recovered from the neighbouring depth up to a certain reconstruction quality of 3-D scene. Finally, experimental results are presented to testify the missed depth can be effectively recovered by MLE algorithm.
Imatinib with cisplatin in recurrent and/or metastatic salivary adenoidcystic carcinoma - response assessed by FDG-PET scanning.

5604 Background: Adenoidcystic carcinoma (ACC) of salivary glands is characterised by slow growth, systemic metastases and poor response to conventional chemotherapy. 80 - 90% of ACC demonstrate c-kit positivity such that treatment with imatinib is conceptually attractive. Patient experience reported on the ACC website suggests that imatinib may stabilise disease. 3-dimensional synergy analysis has been performed at this centre for both ACC primary cultures and squamous carcinoma cell lines. Mild synergy between cisplatin and imatinib was found in 2 of 3 cell lines as well as in ACC culture. Consequently we chose imatinib with cisplatin for phase II study in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic ACC. METHODS 14 patients (aged 29 - 77) with ACC have entered the study. Imatinib was used alone in an initial dose of 800mg daily for 2 months with response assessed using both FDG-PET and conventional imaging. Patients then received the combination of daily imatinib (in a reduced dose) with cisplatin 80mg/m2 at monthly intervals. Depending on responses and toxicity, patients then continued on maintenance imatinib. RESULTS Of 12 evaluable patients, 2 developed progressive disease on imatinib alone and left the study. 5 of 10 receiving the combination of imatinib and cisplatin have shown reductions in tumour size with 1 of these 5 constituting a partial response. The remaining 5 patients have stable disease, albeit with short follow-up. FDG-PET was useful in assessing response and discriminating between imatinib and cisplatin in terms of their relative contribution to clinical outcome. Toxicity from the imatinib-cisplatin combination (median 5 cycles) included one grade 4 thrombocytopenia, one grade 3 anaemia and three grade 3 neutropenia. Non-haematological toxicities included one grade 3 hyponatremia, two grade 3 fatigue and one grade 3 oedema. CONCLUSIONS The combination of imatinib (400mg daily) and cisplatin (80mg/m2) shows useful activity in ACC, Because of slow growth and response characteristics as well as a tendency to cystic degeneration as a response within 'stable' disease, FDG-PET is helpful in assessing response. No significant financial relationships to disclose.
Design of quantum-dot cellular automata circuits using cut-set retiming

As a potential alternative to CMOS technology, QCA provides an interesting paradigm in both communication and computation. However, QCA's unique four-phase clocking scheme and timing constraints present serious timing issues for interconnection and feedback. In this work, a cut-set retiming design procedure is proposed to resolve these QCA timing issues. The proposed design procedure can accommodate QCA's unique characteristics by performing delay-transfer and time-scaling to reallocate the existing delays so as to achieve efficient clocking zone assignment. Cut-set retiming makes it possible to effectively design relatively complex QCA circuits that include feedback. It utilizes the similar characteristics of synchronization, deep pipelines and local interconnections common to both QCA and systolic architectures. As a case study, a systolic Montgomery modular multiplier is designed to illustrate the procedure. Furthermore, a nonsystolic architecture, an S27 benchmark circuit, is designed and compared with previous designs. The comparison shows that the cut-set retiming method achieves a more efficient design, with a reduction of 22%, 44%, and 46% in terms of cell count, area, and latency, respectively.
Parkinsonism Differentiates Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus from Its Mimics.

BACKGROUND Parkinsonism is frequent in neurological conditions affecting gait and cognition, such as idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) and iNPH mimics, but its discriminating value between these two groups is still unidentified. OBJECTIVE This study aims to compare the prevalence of parkinsonism between iNPH and iNPH mimics and its discriminating value. METHODS Among 141 patients with suspicion of iNPH (75.7±7.1 years; 31.2% women), seventy-nine presented a possible or probable iNPH according to standardized diagnostic criteria and the remaining sixty-two were classified as iNPH mimics. Presence of parkinsonism and other seminal clinical symptoms of iNPH were systematically evaluated by a board-certified neurologist. Covariates include age, gender, comorbidities, and white matter disease burden using the age-related white matter changes scale. Logistic regressions were used to assess the association between parkinsonism and diagnostic groups. RESULTS Parkinsonism was present in 40.3% of iNPH mimics and 20.3% of iNPH (p-value: 0.015). The presence of parkinsonism, but not iNPH symptoms, was associated with the diagnosis of mimics in the adjusted model (adjusted odds ratio: 2.28; 95% CI: 1.06-4.93), even when age-related white matter changes were accounted for. CONCLUSION Compared to iNPH, the increased prevalence of parkinsonism in patients with iNPH mimics in the absence of significant white matter disease suggest an underlying neurodegenerative mechanism.
Antimirov and Mosses's Rewrite System Revisited

Antimirov and Mosses proposed a rewrite system for deciding the equivalence of two (extended) regular expressions. In this paper we present a functional approach to that method, prove its correctness, and give some experimental comparative results. Besides an improved version of Antimirov and Mosses's algorithm, we present a version using partial derivatives. Our preliminary results lead to the conclusion that, indeed, these methods are feasible and, generally, faster than the classical methods.
GeoDBLP: Geo-Tagging DBLP for Mining the Sociology of Computer Science

Many collective human activities have been shown to exhibit universal patterns. However, the possibility of universal patterns across timing events of researcher migration has barely been explored at global scale. Here, we show that timing events of migration within different countries exhibit remarkable similarities. Specifically, we look at the distribution governing the data of researcher migration inferred from the web. Compiling the data in itself represents a significant advance in the field of quantitative analysis of migration patterns. Official and commercial records are often access restricted, incompatible between countries, and especially not registered across researchers. Instead, we introduce GeoDBLP where we propagate geographical seed locations retrieved from the web across the DBLP database of 1,080,958 authors and 1,894,758 papers. But perhaps more important is that we are able to find statistical patterns and create models that explain the migration of researchers. For instance, we show that the science job market can be treated as a Poisson process with individual propensities to migrate following a log-normal distribution over the researcher's career stage. That is, although jobs enter the market constantly, researchers are generally not "memoryless" but have to care greatly about their next move. The propensity to make k>1 migrations, however, follows a gamma distribution suggesting that migration at later career stages is "memoryless". This aligns well but actually goes beyond scientometric models typically postulated based on small case studies. On a very large, transnational scale, we establish the first general regularities that should have major implications on strategies for education and research worldwide.
Genetic-Fuzzy Data Mining With Divide-and-Conquer Strategy

Data mining is most commonly used in attempts to induce association rules from transaction data. Most previous studies focused on binary-valued transaction data. Transaction data in real-world applications, however, usually consist of quantitative values. This paper, thus, proposes a fuzzy data-mining algorithm for extracting both association rules and membership functions from quantitative transactions. A genetic algorithm (GA)-based framework for finding membership functions suitable for mining problems is proposed. The fitness of each set of membership functions is evaluated by the fuzzy-supports of the linguistic terms in the large 1-itemsets and by the suitability of the derived membership functions. The evaluation by the fuzzy supports of large 1-itemsets is much faster than that when considering all itemsets or interesting association rules. It can also help divide-and-conquer the derivation process of the membership functions for different items. The proposed GA framework, thus, maintains multiple populations, each for one item's membership functions. The final best sets of membership functions in all the populations are then gathered together to be used for mining fuzzy association rules. Experiments are conducted to analyze different fitness functions and set different fitness functions and setting different supports and confidences. Experiments are also conducted to compare the proposed algorithm, the one with uniform fuzzy partition, and the existing one without divide-and-conquer, with results validating the performance of the proposed algorithm.
Exploring the applicability of equine blood to bloodstain pattern analysis

Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) is the forensic application of the interpretation of distinct patterns which blood exhibits during a bloodletting incident, providing key evidence with its ability to map the sequence of events. Here, we explore the use of equine blood and investigate its suitability within the field of BPA. Blood is a complex fluid, and finding a suitable safe substitute to human blood that encompasses all of its characteristics has been the focus of many investigations. Animal blood has been concluded as the closest and therefore the most suitable alternate. However, it seems that currently only porcine blood is most prominently utilised. In this study, equine blood was investigated, using two different anti-clotting methods, where blood impacts were explored over a typical range of varying impact velocities upon a selection of commonly encountered surfaces. Key BPA parameters, such as the diameters of the resulting bloodstains, number of spines and area of origin were measured, which were subsequently applied into previously derived BPA equations. We find that defibrinated equine blood is a suitable alternative and offers the same conclusive outcomes to human blood. This gives bloodstain pattern investigators and researchers an additional choice of blood which can be of benefit when certain bloods are difficult to attain or when the activity involves the usage of a large quantity of blood. Additionally we explore the effect on BPA of aged blood, which revealed a significant decrease in stain diameter of up to 12.78 % when blood has been left for 57 days. A shelf life of no more than 12 days is recommended when blood is refrigerated at 4℃.