Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distance dependent Chinese restaurant process for VHR satellite image oversegmentation

The goal of oversegmentation algorithms is to reduce image dimensionality with minimal loss of information and offer an easy way to use interdependencies of adjacent pixels by partitioning images into groups of superpixels. Unlike natural pictures, it is rather difficult to produce superpixels from very high resolution satellite images due to the complex spatial structures in the images. Distance dependent Chinese restaurant process (ddCRP) can naturally obtain spatial structures of the superpixels through a distance measure and a decay function. Also, ddCRP doesn't need us assign the number of superpixels in advance, because the model could infer the parameter from the observed image data. In this paper, we proposed a new superpixels algorithm based on the distance dependent Chinese restaurant process by combining the spatial distance and the spectral distance to generate superpixels from very high resolution satellite images. The landscape fragmentation and three traditional metrics, i.e., undersegmentation error, boundary recall and achievable segmentation accuracy, are adopted to evaluate the performance of both state of the art oversegmentation methods and the proposed method. The experiments shown that the proposed algorithm outperforms other superpixel methods in nearly every aspects.
The Friendship Journey: Developing Global Understanding in the Middle Grades

The goals of developing a global perspective are consistent with the faith-based val ues of Catholicism. The primary goal is to prepare students academically, morally, and socially to participate in a globalized world that constantly faces new problems. A key component of this is the understanding that other people, who may appear on the surface to be very different from themselves, have differences which have value and similarities which unite us. The purpose of this article is to present one Catholic school’s attempts to prepare its students to meet the challenges of citizenry in an international community and to describe the impact of those efforts. The questions we explored are: (a) Does a student-focused, cultural exchange program enhance American students’ global perspectives? Does a student-focused, cultural exchange opportunity enrich students’ cultural understandings? Findings from this study revealed that students gained an appreciation for diverse cultures through social interaction. While the pre- and post-test survey data revealed some changes in students’ beliefs and attitudes, interviews and observations provided substantial evidence of students’ evolving awareness and respect for other cultures. The tangible connections formed produced young people who have a greater appreciation for our global community.
Assay and Dissolution Methods Development and Validation for Simultaneous Determination of Sofosbuvir and Ledipasvir by RP-HPLC Method in Tablet Dosage Forms

Globally, between 130-150 millions of people have chronic hepatitis C infection. A significant number of those who are chronically infected will develop liver cirrhosis or liver cancer. Approximately 700 000 people die each year from hepatitis C-related liver diseases [1]. Egypt has the largest epidemic of HCV in the world according to the released Egyptian Demographic Health Survey [EDHS] and the overall prevalence (percentage of people) positive for antibody to HCV in Egypt was 14.7% [2]. The current population in Egypt is about 90 millions, thus ≈ 13, 2millions of persons who have been infected with this virus. Gilead Sciences overcome most common related liver diseases by its Great invention (Harvoni). Harvoni (90 mg ledipasvir/400 mg sofosbuvir) approved by United States FDA. It is indicated for the treatment of chronic HCV genotypes 1, 4, 5, and 6 in adults and also indicated for the treatment of chronic HCV in patients co-infected with HIV. Sofosbuvir (SOF); is chemically known as (S)-Isopropyl 2-((S)-(((2R,3R,4R,5R)5-(2,4-dioxo-3,4-dihydropyrimidin-1(2H)-yl)-4-fluoro-3hydroxy-4-methyltetrahydrofuran-2-yl)methoxy)-(phenoxy) phosphorylamino)propanoate. It has a molecular formula of C22H29FN3O9P and a molecular weight of 529.45 (Figure 1).
Reconstruction of Gene Regulatory Networks based on Repairing Sparse Low-rank Matrices

With the growth of high-throughput proteomic data, in particular time series gene expression data from various perturbations, a general question that has arisen is how to organize inherently heterogenous data into meaningful structures. Since biological systems such as breast cancer tumors respond differently to various treatments, little is known about exactly how these gene regulatory networks (GRNs) operate under different stimuli. For example, when we apply a drug-induced perturbation to a target protein, we often only know that the dynamic response of the specific protein may be affected. We do not know by how much, how long and even whether this perturbation affects other proteins or not. Challenges due to the lack of such knowledge not only occur in modeling the dynamics of a GRN but also cause bias or uncertainties in identifying parameters or inferring the GRN structure. This paper describes a new algorithm which enables us to estimate bias error due to the effect of perturbations and correctly identify the common graph structure among biased inferred graph structures. To do this, we retrieve common dynamics of the GRN subject to various perturbations. We refer to the task as “repairing” inspired by “image repairing” in computer vision. The method can automatically correctly repair the common graph structure across perturbed GRNs, even without precise information about the effect of the perturbations. We evaluate the method on synthetic data sets and demonstrate advantages over C-regularized graph inference by advancing our understanding of how these networks respond across different targeted therapies. Also, we demonstrate an application to the DREAM data sets and discuss its implications to experiment design.
PAC-Bayes-Bernstein Inequality for Martingales and its Application to Multiarmed Bandits

We develop a new tool for data-dependent analysis of the exploration-exploitation trade-off in learning under limited feedback. Our tool is based on two main ingredients. The first ingredient is a new concentration inequality that makes it possible to control the concentration of weighted averages of multiple (possibly uncountably many) simultaneously evolving and interdependent martingales. The second ingredient is an application of this inequality to the exploration-exploitation trade-off via importance weighted sampling. We apply the new tool to the stochastic multiarmed bandit problem, however, the main importance of this paper is the development and understanding of the new tool rather than improvement of existing algorithms for stochastic multiarmed bandits. In the follow-up work we demonstrate that the new tool can improve over state-of-the-art in structurally richer problems, such as stochastic multiarmed bandits with side information (Seldin et al., 2011a).
What Is Average and What Is Not Average About Attractive Faces?

We reported in this journal (Langlois & Roggman, 1990) findings showing that attractive faces are those that represent the mathematical average of faces in a population These findings were intriguing because they provided a parsimonious definition of facial attractiveness and because they supported explanations of attractiveness from the point of view of both evolutionary and cognitive-prototype theory Since our 1990 report, several alternative explanations of our findings have been offered In this article, we show that none of these alternatives explains our results adequately
Facial features as personality cues

Two studies examined the effects of the appearance of specific facial features on attributions of personality. In Study 1, photographs of men and women were computer-manipulated to have larger than average or smaller than average eye size, and wider than average or narrower than average eye spacing. In Study 2, eye size and mouth fullness were similarly altered. Although it was found that neither eye spacing nor mouth fullness had any effect on perceptions of the targets' personality or physical characteristics, eye size had strong effects in both studies. Analyses of covariance revealed that the personality trait ratings that varied with eye size were mediated primarily by perceived differences in the targets’ masculinity-femininity and babyfacedness, and to a lesser extent by attractiveness.
A Distributed Portal-Based Platform for Engineering & Construction Supply Chain Interoperability

Collaboration and interoperability plays a very significant role in a construction supply chain. The lack of information sharing and software interoperability hampers coordination and collaboration among project participants, which are crucial to the success of a supply chain. As the Internet becomes ubiquitous and instantaneously accessible, the web services model has emerged as a promising approach to support supply chain collaboration and achieve interoperability. This report discusses a web service framework to connect, invoke and integrate loosely coupled, heterogeneous information sources and software applications. Specifically, web portal technology is leveraged to implement the web services platform and to provide a robust and customizable user interface. The issues of information ownership rights and proprietary privacy may hinder information sharing among companies in a centralized portal system. A decentralized portal network architecture is introduced to promote sharing of information and to enable distributed computing. This report presents the prototype webbased platform, SC Collaborator, that is designed to support data exchange, information sharing and supply chain collaboration. The platform leverages open source technologies and implements the proposed distributed portal network architecture. Two example scenarios are included to demonstrate the potential of the SC Collaborator system in managing information flows in AEC activities and facilitating interoperability.
Phylogenetic analysis of chloroplast matK gene from Zingiberaceae for plant DNA barcoding

MaturaseK gene (MatK) of chloroplast is highly conserved in plant systematics which is involved in Group II intron splicing. The size of the gene is 1500 bp in length, located with in the intron of trnK. In the present study, matK gene from Zingiberaceae was taken for the analysis of variants, parsimony site, patterns, transition/tranversion rates and phylogeny. The family of Zingiberaceae comprises 47 genera with medicinal values. The matK gene sequence have been obtained from genbank and used for the analysis. The sequence alignments were performed by Clustal X, transition/transversion rates were predicted by MEGA and phylogenetic analyses were carried out by PHYLIP package. The result indicates that the Zingiberaceae genus Afromonum, Alpinia, Globba, Curcuma and Zingiber shows polyphylogeny. The overall variants between the species are 24% and transition/transversion rate is 1.54. Phylogenetic tree was designed to identify the ideal regions that could be used for defining the inter and intera-generic relationships. From this study it could be concluded that the matK gene is a good candidate for DNA barcoding of plant family Zingiberaceae.
Participatory Rural Appraisal as an Approach to Environmental Education in Urban Community Gardens

Through the Cornell University Garden Mosaics program, youth learn about ethnic gardening practices in urban community gardens using research methods adapted from Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). We conducted a study to determine whether youth could effectively facilitate PRA activities with gardeners, and to document any social and learning outcomes of the youths' research projects. The PRA activities engaged and promoted positive interactions among educators, youth, and gardeners, particularly where educators felt comfortable facilitating the activities and were able to present the methods to youth and gardeners in familiar terms (e.g. interviews and garden histories). Although youth and educators experienced a number of challenges in facilitating the more hands-on activities (e.g. participatory mapping, drawing diagrams of resource flows), the PRA approach does offer valuable insights for environmental educators whose goals include incorporating ethnic diversity and engaging youth in research leading to community action.
The European Society for Medical Oncology Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS) applied to pivotal phase III randomized-controlled trials of tyrosine kinase inhibitors in first-line for advanced non-small cell lung cancer with activating epidermal growth factor receptor mutations

ABSTRACT Introduction: To examine the magnitude of the clinical benefit from first-line tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with activating epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutations. Areas covered: The present evaluation was restricted to pivotal phase III RCTs in first-line for advanced NSCLC with activating EGFR-mutations. We have subsequently applied the European Society for Medical Oncology—Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS) to the above pivotal phase III RCTs, to derive a relative ranking of the magnitude of clinically meaningful benefit. Our study evaluated 8 phase III RCTs (including 1710 patients). The ESMO-MCBS reached high grade (grade 4) for all TKIs treatments with at least one phase III RCT for each TKI. Expert commentary: Combining pharmacological costs of drugs with the measure of efficacy, afatinib has the lowest difference in costs per month-PFS gained and a comparable high grade of magnitude of clinical benefit.
Teaching Practice Strategies in the Music Studio: A Survey of Applied Music Teachers

Practice is of interest to music teachers and students since it is an essential aspect of motor skill acquisition and performance. The Music Practice In- struction Inventory (MPII) was designed to ascertain the extent to which studio music teachers teach certain practice strategies. The MPII consists of two sections. The first section requests information about the age level of students and. the type of studio setting. The second section contains 26 statements about teaching students to practice, each with a response scale ranging from 5 (Always) to 1 (Never). The MPII was administered to 94 members of the MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) in the USA. Frequencies were tabulated for all data, and means and standard deviations were calculated for responses to the 26 statements. Differences between college teachers' and pre-college teachers' responses were compared via Pearson Chi Square. Most teachers reported that they always or almost always discuss the importance of practice and specific practice techniques with students, but responses to other items varied among different teachers. Results indicate that teachers' approaches to practice are not always consistent with the literature and that practice strategies endorsed by college teachers often differ from those used by teachers of pre-college students.
Age and gender recognition for telephone applications based on GMM supervectors and support vector machines

This paper compares two approaches of automatic age and gender classification with 7 classes. The first approach are Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) with universal background models (UBMs), which is well known for the task of speaker identification/verification. The training is performed by the EM algorithm or MAP adaptation respectively. For the second approach for each speaker of the test and training set a GMM model is trained. The means of each model are extracted and concatenated, which results in a GMM supervector for each speaker. These supervectors are then used in a support vector machine (SVM). Three different kernels were employed for the SVM approach: a polynomial kernel (with different polynomials), an RBF kernel and a linear GMM distance kernel, based on the KL divergence. With the SVM approach we improved the recognition rate to 74% (p < 0.001) and are in the same range as humans.
Assessment of synovitis to predict bone erosions in rheumatoid arthritis

Although rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is traditionally considered as the prototype of destructive arthritis, the course of the disease varies considerably, with some patients experiencing more rapid progression of joint damage and disability than others. Given the increasing availability of treatment targets and options, timely recognition of individual’s outcomes could allow therapeutic allocation according to personalized benefit–risk profiles. Research efforts are thus increasingly focused at discovering predictive markers that could identify patients with aggressive, rapidly progressive disease and poor prognosis. As joint destruction in RA is the result of the cumulative burden of inflammation, variables reflecting the severity of synovitis and its persistence over time might refine our ability to build early prognostic algorithms. The goal of this article is to review the clinical implications of the assessment of synovitis in relation to radiographic outcomes. Traditional and novel assessment tools will be discussed, including clinical measures, imaging techniques and tissue biomarkers. Achievements in the field of synovial tissue analysis and peripheral blood biomarkers of synovitis represent only the first steps of ongoing progress, which still need to be integrated into the phenotypic heterogeneity of RA.
Handlungskontrolldefizite und störungsspezifische Zielintentionen bei der Hyperkinetischen Störung

Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Diesem Beitrag liegt ein handlungspsychologisches Rahmenmodell hyperkinetischer Verhaltensauffalligkeiten zugrunde. Fragestellung: Zwei daraus ableitbare Erklarungsansatze, die hyperkinetisches Verhalten auf storungsspezifische stimulationsbezogene Zielintentionen bzw. auf Handlungskontrolldefizite bei der Abschirmung von Zielintentionen zuruckfuhren, werden experimentell uberpruft. Methode: Dazu bearbeiteten 15 HKS-Kinder und 15 Kontrollkinder einen Continuous Performance Test (CPT-AX). Als anschliesende Zweitaufgabe sollten Tiernamen genannt werden. Zur Variation des Stimulationsgrades bei der CPT-Bearbeitung wurde phasenweise Rockmusik dargeboten. Zur Variation der Abschirmanforderung bei der CPT-Bearbeitung wurden phasenweise Tierdias prasentiert, die auf die spatere Zweitaufgabe bezogen waren. Ergebnisse: Die CPT-Leistung hyperkinetischer Kinder verbesserte sich unter akustischer Stimulation, diejenige unauffalliger Kontrollkinder nicht. Unauffallige Kontro.
A networked-hutong siwei of critiques for critical teacher education

This paper offers a conceptual basis for refashioning the formulation of critical teacher education. It argues that current critical teacher education is uncritically constructed upon key theoretical departures from critical theories. Drawing on Boltanski’s critique of critical theories, the paper examines the ways these theoretical departures limit the structure of critique and therefore impede critical teacher education in its effort to empower educational actors, including students. Specifically, it analyses how critical theories’ justification of the goal of emancipation for educational actors hinges on intellectual inequality, the ignorance-knowledge continuum, and the hierarchical perception of social relations. This paper introduces networked-hutong siwei to reconceptualise critical teacher education that centres on developing teachers’ predispositions and skills to better mobilise and engage the critical capabilities of educational actors.
Challenges in Development of Nanoparticle-Based Therapeutics

In recent years, nanotechnology has been increasingly applied to the area of drug development. Nanoparticle-based therapeutics can confer the ability to overcome biological barriers, effectively deliver hydrophobic drugs and biologics, and preferentially target sites of disease. However, despite these potential advantages, only a relatively small number of nanoparticle-based medicines have been approved for clinical use, with numerous challenges and hurdles at different stages of development. The complexity of nanoparticles as multi-component three dimensional constructs requires careful design and engineering, detailed orthogonal analysis methods, and reproducible scale-up and manufacturing process to achieve a consistent product with the intended physicochemical characteristics, biological behaviors, and pharmacological profiles. The safety and efficacy of nanomedicines can be influenced by minor variations in multiple parameters and need to be carefully examined in preclinical and clinical studies, particularly in context of the biodistribution, targeting to intended sites, and potential immune toxicities. Overall, nanomedicines may present additional development and regulatory considerations compared with conventional medicines, and while there is generally a lack of regulatory standards in the examination of nanoparticle-based medicines as a unique category of therapeutic agents, efforts are being made in this direction. This review summarizes challenges likely to be encountered during the development and approval of nanoparticle-based therapeutics, and discusses potential strategies for drug developers and regulatory agencies to accelerate the growth of this important field.
Communication ethics: Principle and practice

Communication ethics, this paper argues, is a discipline ready for application to communication management and is particularly relevant as we enter an “age of information”. With a moral foundation firmly set in the social and human sciences, communication ethics offers managers a means to face unpredictable futures with greater certainty and purpose. This paper outlines an approach in which all decision making and its communication are understood as having an ethical grounding. Such an application empowers managers to act with integrity across the spectrum of their varied communication roles: through management and internal communications, public affairs and marketing; in advertising, media and publishing, and in the use of information technology. Positioned independently from the professional bodies of communication, an interdisciplinary ethics offers practitioners skills and moral frameworks that can be shared across professions and used to compare and evaluate their practice. This paper concludes by presenting a model of communication ethics that individual managers can use to prescribe a more sensitive and dynamic human‐ethical environment.
The Psychometric Location of Wisdom-Related Performance: Intelligence, Personality, and more?

The present study aims at presenting evidence on the psychometric location of a measure of wisdom-related performance in relation to standard measures of intelligence, personality, and their interface. A sample of 125 men and women heterogeneous with regard to age, years of education, and professional status responded verbally to three wisdom-related dilemmas and completed a psychometric battery of 33 scales (12 tests) involving intelligence, personality, and the personality-intelligence interface. Findings were consistent with predictions. First, 40% of the variance in wisdom-related performance was predicted by measures of intelligence, personality, and their interface, although none of the individual predictors could be considered equivalent to the authors' measure of wisdom-related performance. Second, the personality-intelligence-interface measures provided the largest unique share (15%). Third, wisdom-related performance evinced a fair degree of measurement independence (uniqueness).