Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Edge-Adaptive Interpolation Algorithm for Super-Resolution Reconstruction

This paper proposes an edge-adaptive interpolation algorithm for Super-resolution reconstruction. The objective is to recover high-resolution image from low-resolution image. At first, from a low-resolution image, a high-resolution image is formed by bilinear interpolation and its edges are detected. Then, the edge of the original high-resolution image is refined by two approaches: the first is based on the geometric duality between the low-resolution covariance and the high-resolution covariance while the second is based on its local structure feature. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms three traditional linear interpolation methods to improve the interpolation effect for super-resolution reconstruction.
Emerging Markets Spreads and Global Financial Conditions

In this article, we analyse how much of the reduction in emerging markets spreads can be ascribed to specific factors - linked to the improvement in the 'fundamentals' of a given country - rather than to common factors - linked to global liquidity conditions and agentsi? ½ degree of risk aversion. By means of factor analysis, we find that a single common factor is able to explain a large part of the co-variation in emerging market economies spreads observed in the last four years; on its turn, this common factor might be traced back mainly to financial markets volatility. Due to the particularly benign global financial conditions in recent years, spreads seem to have declined to levels lower than those warranted by improved fundamentals. As a consequence, EMEs do remain vulnerable to sudden shift in financial market conditions.
Functional Definition of Outer Membrane Proteins Involved in Preprotein Import into Mitochondria[W]

The role of plant mitochondrial outer membrane proteins in the process of preprotein import was investigated, as some of the principal components characterized in yeast have been shown to be absent or evolutionarily distinct in plants. Three outer membrane proteins of Arabidopsis thaliana mitochondria were studied: TOM20 (translocase of the outer mitochondrial membrane), METAXIN, and mtOM64 (outer mitochondrial membrane protein of 64 kD). A single functional Arabidopsis TOM20 gene is sufficient to produce a normal multisubunit translocase of the outer membrane complex. Simultaneous inactivation of two of the three TOM20 genes changed the rate of import for some precursor proteins, revealing limited isoform subfunctionalization. Inactivation of all three TOM20 genes resulted in severely reduced rates of import for some but not all precursor proteins. The outer membrane protein METAXIN was characterized to play a role in the import of mitochondrial precursor proteins and likely plays a role in the assembly of β-barrel proteins into the outer membrane. An outer mitochondrial membrane protein of 64 kD (mtOM64) with high sequence similarity to a chloroplast import receptor was shown to interact with a variety of precursor proteins. All three proteins have domains exposed to the cytosol and interacted with a variety of precursor proteins, as determined by pull-down and yeast two-hybrid interaction assays. Furthermore, inactivation of one resulted in protein abundance changes in the others, suggesting functional redundancy. Thus, it is proposed that all three components directly interact with precursor proteins to participate in early stages of mitochondrial protein import.
Binary Lottery Payoffs: Do They Control Risk Aversion?

Considerable evidence has accumulated which shows that the choice behavior of individuals exhibits systematic departures from expected utility maximization. The focus of the paper is to develop some measures of the extent to which utility maximization nevertheless remains a useful approximation. We do this by considering the extent to which individual choice behavior can be controlled, in the manner predicted by expected utility theory, by experimental designs which employ binary lottery payoffs in the manner of Roth and Malouf (1979) and Berg et al. (1986). The results of this study suggest that the gross features of risk preference can be reliably implemented, albeit with a non-negligible amount of error. Some errors were found to be systematic and can be attributed to subjects who did not know how to calculate the expected probbility of winning the prize in a compound binary lottery. The knowledge of compound lotteries also played the role in determinint which funcitonal forms are easier to induce.
Efficient Method for Computing Leaky Modes in Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Waveguides

An accurate and efficient numerical method is developed for computing leaky modes of two-dimensional photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides corresponding to line defects surrounded by finite PhCs. The method reformulates the eigenvalue problem on a single edge of the defect cell and uses exact boundary conditions at the edges of the surrounding PhC. Unlike previous works for leaky modes, perfectly matched layers or other absorbing boundary conditions are avoided.
The Standard Model: how far can it go and how can we tell?

The Standard Model of particle physics encapsulates our current best understanding of physics at the smallest distances and highest energies. It incorporates quantum electrodynamics (the quantized version of Maxwell’s electromagnetism) and the weak and strong interactions, and has survived unmodified for decades, save for the inclusion of non-zero neutrino masses after the observation of neutrino oscillations in the late 1990s. It describes a vast array of data over a wide range of energy scales. I review a selection of these successes, including the remarkably successful prediction of a new scalar boson, a qualitatively new kind of object observed in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider. New calculational techniques and experimental advances challenge the Standard Model across an ever-wider range of phenomena, now extending significantly above the electroweak symmetry breaking scale. I will outline some of the consequences of these new challenges, and briefly discuss what is still to be found. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Unifying physics and technology in light of Maxwell's equations’.
Energy-efficient path planning for fully propelled AUVs in congested coastal waters

To navigate safely in littoral waters with complex currents and busy shipping activities, it is crucial to have small autonomous vehicle with full propulsion capability. Such systems typically have limited endurance. We therefore investigate the feasibility of improving their endurance using current-aware path planning algorithms that allow active propulsion to move the vehicle into favorable currents or to avoid obstacles. The strategy adopted is to minimize the use of propulsion while leveraging favorable currents as much as possible. We perform simulations using environmental data and operational constraints of autonomous vehicles. The current field is assumed to be time-invariant over the period of the mission. Simulation results for 40 randomly generated source-destination pairs in Singapore Strait are presented. The performance is quantified by comparing the energy consumption of the path generated against the shortest distance path. Simulation results show that we are able to save 30-90% energy if the vehicles are allowed to drift along with the current. When the minimum speed of the vehicle is constrained to 2.5 knots, the energy savings could range from a few percent to more than 50%, depending on the currents along the route. The expected energy saving is the largest when the vehicle is allowed to operate at speeds comparable to water current while the savings diminish when the vehicle is required to operate at higher speed.
Customer Participation in the Service Industry: A Theoretical Discussion and its Application

The inseparability of production and consumption means customer should participate in the delivery process when service is performed. Customer participation not only influences the productive efficiency and service quality, but also influences the participant's satisfaction to the company. This paper tries to integrate the opinions based on companies and customers, and discusses its intrinsic mechanism of customer participation and its application. In general, participant process, participant degree and psychological factors are the primary factors that customer participation impacts on customer's satisfaction. Nevertheless, increased customer participation does not necessarily result in higher perceived quality and satisfaction or greater repurchase. The design of participant detail plays a key role in the enhancement of customer's satisfaction. Furthermore, customers with different self-regulatory states are distinguishing in their general satisfied levels with participant courses. As a conclusion, we consider effective management on customer participation must be implemented to avoid its negative influence and exert its active function, such as positive service communication, reasonable design and training of customer participation and attractive customer participation.
Metamodel for Service Design and Service Innovation: Integrating Service Activities, Service Systems, and Value Constellations

This paper presents a metamodel that addresses service system design and innovation by traversing and integrating three essential layers, service activities, service systems, and value constellations. The metamodel's approach to service systems as service-in-operation is an alternative to another currently used approach that views service systems as systems of economic exchange. The metamodel addresses service science topics including basic concepts of service science, design thinking for service systems, decomposition within service systems, and integration of IT service architecture with customer services. This paper's contributions to service science include clarifications concerning concepts such as service, service system, customer, product/service, coproduction and cocreation of value, actor roles, resources, symmetrical treatment of automated and non-automated service systems, and the relationship between service-dominant logic and service systems. Many articles have discussed these topics individually. Few, if any, have tied them together using an integrated metamodel.
A review of the status and use of validation procedures for heuristics used in forest planning

While there exist clear methods for validating and ensuring the quality of solutions generated by forest planning heuristic techniques, the use of these methods in the literature varies from one situation to the next. Based on our experience developing and using heuristic forest planning techniques, we describe six levels of heuristic validation that are currently in use, ranging from no validation (Level 1) on one end of the spectrum, to the comparison of heuristic technique solutions with an exact solution obtained using mathematical programming methods (Level 6) on the other end. The reasons why authors may choose or reviewers may require levels of validation are proposed. We do not believe that all research papers should be subjected to the highest level of validation, but suggest that authors of papers on forest planning techniques and reviewers associated with peer-reviewed journals try to place the level of validation within the larger scientific context, then determine an appropriate level of validation. Admittedly, this is problematic for review decisions, given the fact that reviewers may differ in opinion of what is appropriate. Four brief cases are provided to help one think through these issues. Ultimately, we hope that this discussion will lead to a reasoned approach for the use of validation processes in conjunction with the presentation of heuristic techniques, rather than the current ad-hoc process that, on one hand, relies on the valuable and careful thoughts of the reviewers, yet on the other hand, may be uneven in application. MCFNS-1:26-37.
Effect of habitat area and isolation on fragmented animal populations

Habitat destruction has driven many once-contiguous animal populations into remnant patches of varying size and isolation. The underlying framework for the conservation of fragmented populations is founded on the principles of island biogeography, wherein the probability of species occurrence in habitat patches varies as a function of patch size and isolation. Despite decades of research, the general importance of patch area and isolation as predictors of species occupancy in fragmented terrestrial systems remains unknown because of a lack of quantitative synthesis. Here, we compile occupancy data from 1,015 bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, and invertebrate population networks on 6 continents and show that patch area and isolation are surprisingly poor predictors of occupancy for most species. We examine factors such as improper scaling and biases in species representation as explanations and find that the type of land cover separating patches most strongly affects the sensitivity of species to patch area and isolation. Our results indicate that patch area and isolation are indeed important factors affecting the occupancy of many species, but properties of the intervening matrix should not be ignored. Improving matrix quality may lead to higher conservation returns than manipulating the size and configuration of remnant patches for many of the species that persist in the aftermath of habitat destruction.
Development and initial testing of a general-purpose, MR-compatible, manually-actuated manipulator for image-guided interventions

A novel MR-compatible manually-actuated robotic manipulation device has been developed. It is a general-purpose system that provides access to the patient inside a closed-cylindrical MRI scanner. It allows the performance of various minimally-invasive interventions, such as biopsies and local drug deliveries, using real-time images for guidance and monitoring. The design of the system is described and the prototype constructed is presented together with initial MRI phantom testing on needle targeting. The characteristics and potential of manual actuation in MR-compatible robotic systems are examined.
America becoming : racial trends and their consequences

The 20th Century has been marked by enormous change in terms of how we define race. In large part, we have thrown out the antiquated notions of the 1800s, giving way to a more realistic, sociocultural view of the world. The United States is, perhaps more than any other industrialized country, distinguished by the size and diversity of its racial and ethnic minority populations. Current trends promise that these features will endure. Fifty years from now, there will most likely be no single majority group in the United States. How will we fare as a nation when race-based issues such as immigration, job opportunities, and affirmative action are already so contentious today? In America Becoming, leading scholars and commentators explore past and current trends among African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans in the context of a white majority. This volume presents the most up-to-date findings and analysis on racial and social dynamics, with recommendations for ongoing research. It examines compelling issues in the field of race relations, including: * Race and ethnicity in criminal justice. * Demographic and social trends for Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. * Trends in minority-owned businesses. * Wealth, welfare, and racial stratification. * Residential segregation and the meaning of "neighborhood. " * Disparities in educational test scores among races and ethnicities. * Health and development for minority children, adolescents, and adults. * Race and ethnicity in the labor market, including the role of minorities in America's military. * Immigration and the dynamics of race and ethnicity. * The changing meaning of race. * Changing racial attitudes. This collection of papers, compiled and edited by distinguished leaders in the behavioral and social sciences, represents the most current literature in the field. Volume 1 covers demographic trends, immigration, racial attitudes, and the geography of opportunity. Volume 2 deals with the criminal justice system, the labor market, welfare, and health trends. Both books will be of great interest to educators, scholars, researchers, students, social scientists, and policymakers.
No Overt Effects of a 6-Week Exergame Training on Sensorimotor and Cognitive Function in Older Adults. A Preliminary Investigation

Several studies investigating the relationship between physical activity and cognition showed that exercise interventions might have beneficial effects on working memory, executive functions as well as motor fitness in old adults. Recently, movement based video games (exergames) have been introduced to have the capability to improve cognitive function in older adults. Healthy aging is associated with a loss of cognitive, as well as sensorimotor functions. During exergaming, participants are required to perform physical activities while being simultaneously surrounded by a cognitively challenging environment. However, only little is known about the impact of exergame training interventions on a broad range of motor, sensory, and cognitive skills. Therefore, the present study aims at investigating the effects of an exergame training over 6 weeks on cognitive, motor, and sensory functions in healthy old participants. For this purpose, 30 neurologically healthy older adults were randomly assigned to either an experimental (ETG, n = 15, 1 h training, twice a week) or a control group (NTG, n = 15, no training). Several cognitive tests were performed before and after exergaming in order to capture potential training-induced effects on processing speed as well as on executive functions. To measure the impact of exergaming on sensorimotor performance, a test battery consisting of pinch and grip force of the hand, tactile acuity, eye-hand coordination, flexibility, reaction time, coordination, and static balance were additionally performed. While we observed significant improvements in the trained exergame (mainly in tasks that required a high load of coordinative abilities), these gains did not result in differential performance improvements when comparing ETG and NTG. The only exergaming-induced difference was a superior behavioral gain in fine motor skills of the left hand in ETG compared to NTG. In an exploratory analysis, within-group comparison revealed improvements in sensorimotor and cognitive tasks (ETG) while NTG only showed an improvement in a static balance test. Taken together, the present study indicates that even though exergames might improve gaming performance, our behavioral assessment was probably not sensitive enough to capture exergaming-induced improvements. Hence, we suggest to use more tailored outcome measures in future studies to assess potential exergaming-induced changes.
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS, CONSUMPTION, AND HOUSEHOLD PROVISIONING STRATEGIES: MAYA ECONOMY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE KIUIC POLITY, YUCATÁN, MÉXICO

OF DISSERTATION EXCHANGE MECHANISMS, CONSUMPTION, AND HOUSEHOLD PROVISIONING STRATEGIES: MAYA ECONOMY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE KIUIC POLITY, YUCATÁN, MÉXICO This project examines household exchange systems in the ancient Maya polity of Kiuic, located in the Puuc Hills of northwestern Yucatán, México. Comparisons of variation in domestic artifact assemblages are used to evaluate household participation in exchange networks organized around three kinds of distribution: (1) non-market horizontal exchange among social equals; (2) vertical exchange across socioeconomic ranks; and (3) market exchange, in which price rather than rank structures access to goods. Intensive analyses of ceramic morphology, mineralogy, and chemical composition will document attribute variation within household artifact assemblages, and comparisons of the degrees to which households share overlapping ranges of variation will be used to indicate participation in exchange networks. By considering the socioeconomic rank of the households involved in exchange, horizontal, vertical, and market exchanges can be differentiated. The analyses will consider ceramic assemblages dating to the Late and Terminal Classic periods (6001000 A.D.) of Kiuic’s occupation. During this time, this polity, like others in the Puuc region, experienced a dramatic florescence and eventual decline. The role of economic systems, and any manipulation of these systems for political economic processes, has not been addressed in previous studies of the Puuc florescence.
Transture: Continuing a Touch Gesture on a Small Screen into the Air

In order to cope with usability problems of touch gestures caused by the small touchscreen size of a smartwatch, we propose a concept, named Transture, which relaxes the spatial constraints of touch gestures on the small screen by allowing them to continue beyond the screen border into the air. We designed three Transture examples for panning, zooming, and menu. We conducted a preliminary user study to verify its feasibility and collect design issues for improving Transture designs for future work.
Real-time video content analysis: QoS-aware application composition and parallel processing

Real-Time content-based access to live video data requires content analysis applications that are able to process video streams in real-time and with an acceptable error rate. Statements such as this express quality of service (QoS) requirements. In general, control of the QoS provided can be achieved by sacrificing application quality in one QoS dimension for better quality in another, or by controlling the allocation of processing resources to the application. However, controlling QoS in video content analysis is particularly difficult, not only because main QoS dimensions like accuracy are nonadditive, but also because both the communication- and the processing-resource requirements are challenging.This article presents techniques for QoS-aware composition of applications for real-time video content analysis, based on dynamic Bayesian networks. The aim of QoS-aware composition is to determine application deployment configurations which satisfy a given set of QoS requirements. Our approach consists of: (1) an algorithm for QoS-aware selection of configurations of feature extractor and classification algorithms which balances requirements for timeliness and accuracy against available processing resources, (2) a distributed content-based publish/subscribe system which provides application scalability at multiple logical levels of distribution, and (3) scalable solutions for video streaming, filtering/transformation, feature extraction, and classification.We evaluate our approach based on experiments with an implementation of a real-time motion vector based object-tracking application. The evaluation shows that the application largely behaves as expected when resource availability and selections of configurations of feature extractor and classification algorithms vary. The evaluation also shows that increasing QoS requirements can be met by allocating additional CPUs for parallel processing, with only minor overhead.