Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A multi-scale model integrating multiple features for vehicle detection

In traffic video surveillance systems, vehicles with various distances from the camera have different sizes, resolutions, and angles in traffic images. The common multi-scale method, which scales one vehicle template or the input image for detecting vehicles with different sizes, may fail to detect vehicles with various distances from the camera due to the change of the resolution and angle. To deal with this problem, we have proposed a multi-scale model including multiple templates with different scales and features. Our method includes two steps: constructing the multi-scale model and its probability model, and detecting vehicles from traffic images. In the first step, the multi-scale model is constructed by using three templates T1, T2, T3 which represent vehicles with the short, medium, and long distance from the camera respectively. Each template contains one or some combination of sketch, texture, flatness, and color. In the second step, the three templates are applied for vehicle detection by using the template matching with local maximization operations. The main innovation of this paper is that the combination of multi-template and multi-scale method is applied to detect vehicles with various distances from the camera. To test our method, we have done several experiments on various traffic conditions. The experimental results show that our method effectively copes with vehicles with various distances from the camera and provides the detailed vehicle information after vehicle detection. Moreover, our method adapts to various weather conditions, slight pose variance, and slight occlusion.
A Critical Survey of Reusability Aspects for Component-Based Systems

The last decade has shown that object-oriented concept by itself is not that powerful to cope with the rapidly changing requirements of ongoing applications. Component-based systems achieve flexibility by clearly separating the stable parts of systems (i.e. the components) from the specification of their composition. In order to realize the reuse of components effectively in CBSD, it is required to measure the reusability of components. However, due to the black-box nature of components where the source code of these components are not available, it is difficult to use conventional metrics in Component-based Development as these metrics require analysis of source codes. In this paper, we survey few existing component-based reusability metrics. These metrics give a border view of component’s understandability, adaptability, and portability. It also describes the analysis, in terms of quality factors related to reusability, contained in an approach that aids significantly in assessing existing components for reusability. Keywords—Components, Customizability, Reusability, and Observability.
Phase-mismatch-free and data efficient approach to natural sounding harmonic concatenative speech synthesis

This paper proposes our innovative approach to speech signal representation and generation in the harmonic/noise based speech synthesis. The problem with harmonic/noise synthesis arises when it is required to achieve the high-quality synthesis on the low-resource devices. It is because of the necessity to manipulate a large speech unit databases and unavailability of a method for an efficient phase data representation. The other implementations with artificial phases (linear, minimal, zeroed, etc.) produce the synthesized speech with unsatisfactory quality. In proposed approach we use phase data derived from real speech signals to reach natural sounding synthesis. We choose, so-called, representative phase vectors, that are only stored to the speech unit database. We reached a dramatic reduction of demands for the database storage space. It corresponds with the rate (number of voiced speech units):(number of voiced speech frames) stored in the database. Our proposed method also ensures the phase coherence in the synthesized speech signal automatically.
A Post-Mortem Empirical Investigation of the Popularity and Distribution of Malware Files in the Contemporary Web-Facing Internet

This short empirical paper investigates a snapshot of about two million files from a continuously updated big data collection maintained by F-Secure for security intelligence purposes. By further augmenting the snapshot with open data covering about a half of a million files, the paper examines two questions: (a) what is the shape of a probability distribution characterizing the relative share of malware files to all files distributed from web-facing Internet domains, and (b) what is the distribution shaping the popularity of malware files? A bimodal distribution is proposed as an answer to the former question, while a graph theoretical definition for the popularity concept indicates a long-tailed, extreme value distribution. With these two questions – and the answers thereto, the paper contributes to the attempts to understand large-scale characteristics of malware at the grand population level – at the level of the whole Internet.
Defining Metrics for Autonomous Controllers Assessment

Intelligent systems capabilities are increasing and its application to robotics has become largely popular. Some literature has been produced about autonomous controllers for robotics, demonstrating that they can face a variety of domains. However, we can observe that the experiments performed lack of a common scientific methodology. Generally, isolated case studies are presented, without providing enough details to enable other researchers to replicate or to compare their works with the previous results in the field. The aim of this work is to contribute defining and operationalizing a framework for plan-based controllers assessment. Such effort is supported on a set of generally applicable metrics to entail evaluation of different aspects of robotics controllers. Besides these metrics, we have used OGATE, a domain independent tool that automatically carries on with controller assessments. Then, following a well-defined methodology, we are able to generate reproducible benchmarks, providing objective evidences of the experiments performed. To test our framework, we have used two plan-based controllers on the same robotic problem and platform. Results show that we are able to extract relevant data, allowing comparison of different autonomous controllers.
Campaigning and contestation: Comments on politicians’ Facebook pages during the 2011 Danish general election campaign

This article is a critical study of the Facebook pages of politicians as public spheres using Dahlberg’s notion of contestation. A method is implemented inspired by qualitative content analysis and including focus groups in order to study citizen comments on eight main political candidates’ Facebook pages during the 2011 Danish election campaign. An analytical framework is presented that conceptualizes the particular platform as a dinner party, with a dinner table, a host, and the invited guests. The dinner party exhibits the interplay between these elements and how they limit the option of contesting the dominating discourse in favor of a supportive marketing logic.
Clustering gene expression patterns

Recent advances in biotechnology allow researchers to measure expression levels for thousands of genes simultaneously, across different conditions and over time. Analysis of data produced by such experiments offers potential insight into gene function and regulatory mechanisms. A key step in the analysis of gene expression data is the detection of groups of genes that manifest similar expression patterns. The corresponding algorithmic problem is to cluster multicondition gene expression patterns. In this paper we describe a novel clustering algorithm that was developed for analysis of gene expression data. We define an appropriate stochastic error model on the input, and prove that under the conditions of the model, the algorithm recovers the cluster structure with high probability. The running time of the algorithm on an n-gene dataset is O[n2[log(n)]c]. We also present a practical heuristic based on the same algorithmic ideas. The heuristic was implemented and its performance is demonstrated on simulated data and on real gene expression data, with very promising results.
Experimental Investigation of the Cd-Pr Phase Diagram

The complete Cd-Pr equilibrium phase diagram was investigated with a combination of powder-XRD, SEM and DTA. All intermetallic compounds within this system, already reported in literature, could be confirmed: CdPr, Cd2Pr, Cd3Pr, Cd45Pr11, Cd58Pr13, Cd6Pr and Cd11Pr. The corresponding phase boundaries were determined at distinct temperatures. The homogeneity range of the high-temperature allotropic modification of Pr could be determined precisely and a limited solubility of 22.1 at. % Cd was derived. Additionally, single-crystal X-ray diffraction was employed to investigate structural details of Cd2Pr; it is isotypic to the AlB2-type structure with a z value of the Cd site of 0.5. DTA results of alloys located in the adjacent two-phase fields of Cd2Pr suggested a phase transformation between 893 and 930°C. For the phase Cd3Pr it was found that the lattice parameter a changes linearly with increasing Cd content, following Vegard’s rule. The corresponding defect mechanism could be evaluated from structural data collected with single-crystal XRD. Introduction of a significant amount of vacancies on the Pr site and the reduction in symmetry of one Cd position (8c to 32f) resulted in a noticeable decrease of all R-values.
A Low-level Geographic Information System for coastal zone management, with applications to Brunei Darussalam: Part I: The concept and its design elements

This contribution is the first part of a four-part series documenting the development of B:RUN, a software program which reads data for common spreadsheets and presents them as low-resolution maps of slates and processes. The program emerged from a need which arose during a project in Brunei Darussalam for a 'low level' approach for researchers to communicate findings as efficiently and expeditiously as possible. Part I provides a overview of the concept and design elements of B:RUN. Part II will highlight results of the economics components of the program evaluating different fishing regimes, sailing distances from ports and fleet operating costs. Environmental aspects will be presented in Part III in the form of overlay maps. Part IV will summarize the implications of B:RUN results to coastal and fishery resources management in Brunei Darussalam and show how this approach can be adapted to other coastlines and used as a teaching and training tool. The following three parts will be published in future editions of Naga, the ICLARM Quarterly. The program is available through ICLARM.
Perception of Physical Stability of Asymmetrical Three-Dimensional Objects

Visual estimation of object stability is an ecologically important judgment that allows observers to predict the physical behavior of objects. A natural method that has been used in previous work to measure perceived object stability is the estimation of perceived “critical angle” – the angle at which an object appears equally likely to fall over versus return to its upright stable position. For an asymmetric object, however, the critical angle is not a single value, but varies with the direction in which the object is tilted. The current study addressed two questions: (1) Can observers reliably track the change in critical angle as a function of tilt direction? (2) How do they visually estimate the overall stability of an object, given the different critical angles in various directions? To address these questions, we employed two experimental tasks using simple asymmetric 3D objects (skewed conical frustums): settings of critical angle in different directions relative to the intrinsic skew of the 3D object (Experiment 1), and stability matching across 3D objects with different shapes (Experiments 2 & 3). Our results showed that (1) Observers can perceptually track the varying critical angle in different directions quite well; and (2) Their estimates of overall object stability are strongly biased toward the minimum critical angle (i.e., the critical angle in the least stable direction). Moreover, the fact that observers can reliably match perceived object stability across different 3D shapes suggests that perceived stability is likely to be represented along a single dimension.
Evaluation of a New Body Composition Phantom for Quality Control and Cross‐Calibration of DXA Devices.

This study evaluated a new body composition phantom and its use for quality control and cross-calibration of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) instruments for measurements of body composition. We imaged the variable composition phantom (Lunar, Madison, WI) on eight different DXA devices. Deviations of up to 7% fat were observed when we compared the percent fat values measured by the different devices with the nominal values provided by the manufacturer. Absolute precision error of percent fat measurements for the phantom ranged from 0.6 to 0.8%. The phantom's percent fat values were also compared with whole body composition measurements from 130 female and male volunteers. The phantom detected differences in percent fat values that were similar to those found by comparing in vivo measurements with values from different DXA scanner models from the same manufacturer. When comparing different models of scanners from different manufacturers, such as the Hologic QDR-4500 and the Lunar DPX-IQ, the phantom showed a different relationship than was seen for patients. Therefore, corrections or comparisons based on the phantom data alone would be incorrect. In conclusion, the Lunar variable composition phantom is capable of accurately measuring the fat calibration of DXA devices and may be suitable for cross-sectional cross-calibration between scanners from the same manufacturer; however, for comparison of DXA scanners from different manufacturers, in vivo cross-calibration is still the only accurate method. The phantom may be used in longitudinal quality control to verify an instrument's temporal stability.
Effects of Honey and Its Mechanisms of Action on the Development and Progression of Cancer

Honey is a natural product known for its varied biological or pharmacological activities—ranging from anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antibacterial, antihypertensive to hypoglycemic effects. This review article focuses on the role of honey in modulating the development and progression of tumors or cancers. It reviews available evidence (some of which is very recent) with regards to the antimetastatic, antiproliferative and anticancer effects of honey in various forms of cancer. These effects of honey have been thoroughly investigated in certain cancers such as breast, liver and colorectal cancer cell lines. In contrast, limited but promising data are available for other forms of cancers including prostate, bladder, endometrial, kidney, skin, cervical, oral and bone cancer cells. The article also underscores the various possible mechanisms by which honey may inhibit growth and proliferation of tumors or cancers. These include regulation of cell cycle, activation of mitochondrial pathway, induction of mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization, induction of apoptosis, modulation of oxidative stress, amelioration of inflammation, modulation of insulin signaling and inhibition of angiogenesis. Honey is highly cytotoxic against tumor or cancer cells while it is non-cytotoxic to normal cells. The data indicate that honey can inhibit carcinogenesis by modulating the molecular processes of initiation, promotion, and progression stages. Thus, it may serve as a potential and promising anticancer agent which warrants further experimental and clinical studies.
Selective DF relaying for mobile satellite broadcasting

This paper addresses mobile terminal (MT) relaying in order to improve the performance of mobile satellite broadcasting. It considers selective decode-and-forward (SDF) relaying with BICM-OFDM air interface. The BER upper bound was derived for the threshold-based SDF relaying in Rician fading channels. The suboptimal SNR threshold was then obtained by minimising this analytical upper bound. This scheme is compared in simulation with a conventional CRC and set threshold schemes. It is shown that the proposed suboptimal-SNR threshold scheme gives up to 1 dB performance gain compared to the conventional CRC-based scheme in the moderate Eb/No range (i.e., 2 dB < Eb/No < 8 dB). The proposed scheme also significantly outperforms the set threshold schemes (0 dB and 10 dB thresholds). The proposed and CRC-based schemes both offer around 2 dB performance improvement in comparison to the single link for a typical Eb/No of 10 dB.
An energy stored quasi-Z source cascaded multilevel inverter based photovoltaic power generation system

This paper proposes an energy stored quasi-Z source (qZS) cascaded multilevel inverter (ES-qZS-CMI) based photovoltaic (PV) power generation system. The system combines advantages of both the qZS inverter and the cascaded multilevel inverter; moreover, the system uses a battery in each module to balance the stochastic fluctuations of PV power injected to the grid. This paper also proposes an effective control scheme for the ES-qZS-CMI based PV system, using which the system can achieve the distributed maximum power point track (MPPT) for each PV panel, balance the power between different modules, and provide the desired power for the grid. Simulation and experimental results verify the proposed system and the control scheme.
Enhanced Expression of NGF Receptors in Multiple Sclerosis Lesions

The receptor for nerve growth factor (NGF) comprises a 75-kDa (NGFRp75) and a tyrosine kinase A (TrkA) subunit. In view of conflicting opinions on the identity of glial targets of NGF in human central nervous system (CNS), we examined the cellular distribution of both NGF receptor subunits in normal CNS and in chronic multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions. For this, we compared the pattern of recognition of 2 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and a polyclonal antiserum to NGFRp75. Only the 2 mAbs specifically recognized NGFRp75, while the polyclonal antiserum showed widespread reactivity. In normal CNS and silent MS lesions, immunohistochemistry with anti-NGFRp75 mAbs and for TrkA revealed perivascular cell reactivity. At the edge of chronic active MS lesions, selective NGFRp75 staining was prominent on reactive astrocytes, while throughout the lesion, NGFRp75 was expressed on microglia/macrophages. The vast majority of mature or precursor oligodendrocytes did not express NGFRp75. Both NGF receptors were co-expressed on a subset of inflammatory cells. Immunoreactivity for NGFRp75 on glial and immune cells did not correlate with the distribution of apoptotic figures, as detected by TUNEL. Thus, expression of NGF receptors in active MS lesions suggests a role for NGF in regulating the autoimmune response at both immune and glial cell levels.
Mining Software Repositories to Assist Developers and Support Managers

Software repositories (such as source control repositories) contain a wealth of valuable information regarding the evolutionary history of a software project. This paper presents approaches and tools which mine and transform static record keeping software repositories to active repositories used by researchers to gain empirically based understanding of software development, and by practitioners to predict, plan and understand various aspects of their project. Our work is validated empirically using data based on over 60 years of development history for several open source projects
A New Hedonic Regression for Real Estate Prices Applied to the Singapore Residential Market

This paper develops a new hedonic method for constructing a real estate price index that utilizes all transaction price information that encompasses both single-sale and repeat-sale properties. The new method is less prone to specification errors than standard hedonic methods and uses all available data. Like the Case-Shiller repeat-sales method, the new method has the advantage of being computationally efficient. In an empirical analysis of the methodology, we fit the model to all transaction prices for private residential property holdings in Singapore between Q1 1995 and Q2 2014, covering several periods of major price fluctuation and changes in government macroprudential policy. Two new indices are created, one from all transaction prices and one from single-sales prices. The indices are compared with the S&P/Case-Shiller index. The result shows that the new indices slightly outperform the S&P/Case-Shiller index in predicting the price of single-sales homes out-of-sample. However, they underperform the S&P/Case-Shiller index in predicting the price of repeat-sales homes out-of-sample. The empirical findings indicate that specification bias can be more substantial than the sample selection bias when constructing a real estate price index. In a further empirical application, the recursive method of Phillips, Shi and Yu (2014) is used to detect explosive periods in real estate prices of Singapore. The results confirm the existence of an explosive period from Q4 2006 to Q1 2008. No explosive period is found after 2009, suggesting that the ten successive rounds of cooling measures implemented by the Singapore government have been effective in changing price dynamics and preventing a subsequent outbreak of explosive behavior in the Singapore real estate market.
Stationary target detection using the objectvideo surveillance system

Detecting stationary objects, such as an abandoned baggage or a parked vehicle is crucial in a wide range of video surveillance and monitoring applications. ObjectVideo, the leader in intelligent video software has been deploying commercial products to address these problems for the last 5 years. The ObjectVideo VEW and OnBoard system addresses these problems using an array of algorithms optimized for various scenario types and can be selected dynamically. This paper describes the key challenges and algorithms, and presents results on the standard i-LIDS dataset.
Brain Gray Matter Atrophy after Spinal Cord Injury: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

The aim of this study was to explore possible changes in whole brain gray matter volume (GMV) after spinal cord injury (SCI) using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), and to study their associations with the injury duration, severity, and clinical variables. In total, 21 patients with SCI (10 with complete and 11 with incomplete SCI) and 21 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. The 3D high-resolution T1-weighted structural images of all subjects were obtained using a 3.0 Tesla MRI system. Disease duration and American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Scale scores were also obtained from each patient. Voxel-based morphometry analysis was carried out to investigate the differences in GMV between patients with SCI and HCs, and between the SCI sub-groups. Associations between GMV and clinical variables were also analyzed. Compared with HCs, patients with SCI showed significant GMV decrease in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral anterior insular cortex, bilateral orbital frontal cortex (OFC), and right superior temporal gyrus. No significant difference in GMV in these areas was found either between the complete and incomplete SCI sub-groups, or between the sub-acute (duration <1 year) and chronic (duration >1 year) sub-groups. Finally, the GMV of the right OFC was correlated with the clinical motor scores of left extremities in not only all SCI patients, but especially the CSCI subgroup. In the sub-acute subgroup, we found a significant positive correlation between the dACC GMV and the total clinical motor scores, and a significant negative correlation between right OFC GMV and the injury duration. These findings indicate that SCI can cause remote atrophy of brain gray matter, especially in the salient network. In general, the duration and severity of SCI may be not associated with the degree of brain atrophy in total SCI patients, but there may be associations between them in subgroups.