Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stochastic Generalized Method of Moments

The generalized method of moments (GMM) is a very popular estimation and inference procedure based on moment conditions. When likelihood-based methods are difficult to implement, one can often derive various moment conditions and construct the GMM objective function. However, minimization of the objective function in the GMM may be challenging, especially over a large parameter space. Due to the special structure of the GMM, we propose a new sampling-based algorithm, the stochastic GMM sampler, which replaces the multivariate minimization problem by a series of conditional sampling procedures. We develop the theoretical properties of the proposed iterative Monte Carlo method, and demonstrate its superior performance over other GMM estimation procedures in simulation studies. As an illustration, we apply the stochastic GMM sampler to a Medfly life longevity study. Supplemental materials for the article are available online.
Investigation of IT Security and Compliance Challenges in Security-as-a-Service for Cloud Computing

The key security challenges and solutions on the cloud have been investigated in this paper with the help of literature reviews and an experimental model created on OPNET that is simulated to produce useful statistics to establish the approach that the cloud computing service providers should take to provide optimal security and compliance. The literatures recommend the concept of Security-as-a-Service using unified threat management (UTM) for ensuring secured services on the cloud. Through the simulation results, this paper has demonstrated that UTM may not be a feasible approach to security implementation as it may become a bottleneck for the application clouds. The fundamental benefits of cloud computing (resources on demand and high elasticity) may be diluted if UTMs do not scale up effectively as per the traffic loads on the application clouds. Moreover, it is not feasible for application clouds to absorb the performance degradation for security and compliance because UTM will not be a total solution for security and compliance. Applications also share the vulnerabilities just like the systems, which will be out of UTM cloud's control.
High-sensitivity hardware Trojan detection using multimodal characterization

Vulnerability of modern integrated circuits (ICs) to hardware Trojans has been increasing considerably due to the globalization of semiconductor design and fabrication processes. The large number of parts and decreased controllability and observability to complex ICs internals make it difficult to efficiently perform Trojan detection using typical structural tests like path latency and leakage power. In this paper, we present new accurate methods for Trojan detection that are based upon post-silicon multimodal thermal and power characterization techniques. Our approach first estimates the detailed post-silicon spatial power consumption using thermal maps of the IC, then applies 2DPCA to extract features of the spatial power consumption, and finally uses statistical tests against the features of authentic ICs to detect the Trojan. To characterize real-world ICs accurately, we perform our experiments in presence of 20% – 40% CMOS process variation. Our results reveal that our new methodology can detect Trojans with 3–4 orders of magnitude smaller power consumptions than the total power usage of the chip, while it scales very well because of the spatial view to the ICs internals by the thermal mapping.
Cost-effectiveness analysis of cataract surgery: a global and regional analysis.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the population health effects, costs and cost effectiveness of selected cataract surgery interventions in areas of the world with different epidemiological profiles. METHODS Effectiveness estimates are based on a review of the literature taking into account factors such as operative failure, complications and patient non-compliance. A population model was applied to follow the lifelong impact on individuals having cataract surgery. Costing estimates are based on primary data collected in 14 epidemiological subregions by regional costing teams and on a literature review. Costings were estimated for different geographical coverage levels using non-linear cost functions. FINDINGS Intra- and extra-capsular cataract surgeries are cost-effective ways to reduce the impact of cataract-blindness. Extra-capsular cataract surgery is more cost-effective than intra-capsular surgery in all regions considered. Providing extra-capsular cataract surgery to 95% of those who need it (95% coverage level) would avert over 3.5 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per year globally. The cost-effectiveness ranges from 57 International dollars (1 dollar) per DALY in the WHO South-East Asia Region where there is high overall child and adult mortality to 1 dollar 2307 per DALY in the WHO Western Pacific Region where there is low overall child and adult mortality. CONCLUSION Extra-capsular surgery for cataracts at a high level of coverage is the most cost-effective way of restoring sight in all epidemiological subregions considered. Analysts from countries within a region are encouraged to further contextualize the results based on their own country's specific parameters.
PIXBAS "Pixel Based Offline Signature Verification"

Many systems are available to verify the signatures in bank cheques. In this paper, we verify the off-line signatures by taking a boundary of the entire signature and do the pixel comparison. Detection process is done after data acquisition and preprocessing. Experimental result shows that 50% of accurate matching with the existing one from the database. Signature is acquired using a scanner.
Improving heuristic search algorithms by means of pruning by dominance. Application to scheduling problems

In this dissertation, we face the Job Shop Scheduling problem by means of state space heuristic search. Our goal was devising new algorithms to reach either optimal schedules for moderate size instances or sub-optimal schedules for larger ones. We considered two different objective functions, designed new heuristics estimations and studied the formal properties of them. The main contribution is the formulation of an efficient pruning method based on dominance relations among states of the search space. This method reduces drastically the effective search space and can be adapted in principle to any regular objective function. The experimental study shows that the proposed method is quite competitive with other state-of-the-art methods in reaching both optimal and sub-optimal schedules.
Effects of molting on the visual acuity of the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus

SUMMARY In crustaceans with compound eyes, the corneal lens of each facet is part of the exoskeleton and thus shed during molting. Here we used an optomotor assay to evaluate the impact of molting on visual acuity (as measured by the minimum resolvable angle, αmin) in the female blue crab, Callinectes sapidus. We found that visual acuity decreases substantially in the days prior to molting and is gradually recovered after molting. Four days prior to molting, αmin was 1.8 deg (N=5), a value approximating the best possible acuity in this species. In the 24 h before ecdysis occurred, αmin increased to 15.0 deg (N=12), corresponding to an eightfold drop in visual acuity. Within 6 days after molting, αmin returned to the pre-molting value. Micrographs of C. sapidus eyes showed that a gap between the corneal lens and the crystalline cone first appeared approximately 5 days prior to shedding and increased in width as the process progressed. This separation was likely responsible for the loss of visual acuity observed in behavioral tests. In blue crabs, mating is limited to the period of the female's pubertal molt, and a reduction in acuity during this time may have an effect on the sensory cues used in female mate choice. The results described here may be broadly applicable to all arthropods that molt and have particular importance for crustaceans that molt multiple times in their lifetime or have mating cycles that are paired with molting.
Passive hand pose recognition in virtual reality

In this Poster we present a hand pose recognition interface based on passive tracking: currently four poses can be detected on both hands, using a small marker set, attached on fingers and on the back of the hands. This user interface is designed to support a natural way of interaction with objects in Virtual Reality, permitting users to quickly switch among selection, translation and rotation commands. The interface described here is part of a multimodal platform where sound parameters can be changed without the use of musical instruments or controllers, but through free hand mesh manipulation.
A multimodal corpus for technology-enhanced learning of violin playing

Learning to play a musical instrument is a difficult task, mostly based on the master-apprentice model. Technologies are rarely employed and are usually restricted to audio and video recording and playback. Nevertheless, multimodal interactive systems can complement actual learning and teaching practice, by offering students guidance during self-study and by helping teachers and students to focus on details that would be otherwise difficult to appreciate from usual audiovisual recordings. This paper introduces a multimodal corpus consisting of the recordings of expert models of success, provided by four professional violin performers. The corpus is publicly available on the repoVizz platform, and includes synchronized audio, video, motion capture, and physiological (EMG) data. It represents the reference archive for the EU-H2020-ICT Project TELMI, an international research project investigating how we learn musical instruments from a pedagogical and scientific perspective and how to develop new interactive, assistive, self-learning, augmented-feedback, and social-aware systems to support musical instrument learning and teaching.
Comparison of stimulus types in visual P300 speller of brain-computer interfaces

This study proposes several categories of stimulus types under the visual oddball speller paradigm with application to brain-computer interface (BCI). Motion (including translation and rotation), zoom in/out, pattern rotation and sharpening types are tested and analysed. Results show that rotation and zooming type could obtain comparative or higher accuracies as well as information transfer rates compared with classic color type. Spatio-temporal distributions of the weighted event related potentials evoked by different stimulus types show respective patterns, and subject specific configuration of stimulus type is suggested.
Using semantic technologies and the OSU ontology for modelling context and activities in multi-sensory surveillance systems

Automatic systems that monitor human behaviour for detecting security problems are a challenge today. Previously, our group defined the Horus framework, which is a modular architecture for the integration of multi-sensor monitoring stages. In this work, structure and technologies required for high-level semantic stages of Horus are proposed, and the associated methodological principles established with the aim of recognising specific behaviours and situations. Our methodology distinguishes three semantic levels of events: low level (compromised with sensors), medium level (compromised with context), and high level (target behaviours). The ontology for surveillance and ubiquitous computing has been used to integrate ontologies from specific domains and together with semantic technologies have facilitated the modelling and implementation of scenes and situations by reusing components. A home context and a supermarket context were modelled following this approach, where three suspicious activities were monitored via different virtual sensors. The experiments demonstrate that our proposals facilitate the rapid prototyping of this kind of systems.
Neural network-based minutiae extraction for fingerprint verification system

Fingerprint is one of the most important biometrics that has been employed for verification systems. Fingerprint is characterized by two fundamental properties; Easy to acquire, and it is unique for each person. This paper presents minutia extraction method based on Neural Network-based. These features can be used in verification systems. The verification process includes four main phases: image acquisition, preprocessing, feature extraction, and pattern matching. The method is applied on a set of fingerprint images and the results show that the average matching accuracy of fingerprints is 91.6%.
SHORTCUT METHODS FOR THE DESIGN OF HETEROAZEOTROPIC DISTILLATION OF MULTICOMPONENT MIXTURES

Shortcut methods are valuable tools in the early stages of chemical process design, where numerous flowsheet alternatives need to be evaluated to determine the most energy-efficient, feasible flowsheet. Various shortcut methods based on tray-to-tray calculation and pinch point analysis for the inspection of feasibility and the determination of the minimum energy demand (MED) for homogeneous nonideal distillation have been published in the literature. Recently, Kraemer et al. presented the feed pinch method (FPM) for heterogeneous azeotropic mixtures of any number of components. While the FPM returns an accurate representation of the MED, it still requires tray-to-tray calculations for one column section and it can only be applied to separations with a feed pinch, i.e. usually direct or indirect splits. In this work, we propose the feed angle method (FAM) which resolves both of these issues as it does not rely on numerous tray-to-tray calculations and can be applied to any kind of sharp split. The FAM is illustrated by ternary and quaternary heteroazeotropic separations with direct, indirect and intermediate splits.
Pulmonary , gastrointestinal and urogenital pharmacology Role of mitochondrial dysfunction in renal fi brosis promoted by hypochlorite-modi fi ed albumin in a remnant kidney model and protective e ff ects of antioxidant peptide SS-31

Oxidative stress aggravates renal fibrosis, a pathway involved in almost all forms of chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, the underlying mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of renal oxidative stress has not been completely elucidated. In this study, we explored the role and mechanism of hypochlorite-modified albumin (HOCl-alb) in mediating oxidative stress and fibrotic response in a remnant-kidney rat model. Five-sixths nephrectomy (5/6 NX) was performed on the rats and then the animals were randomly assigned to intravenous treatment with either vehicle alone, or HOCl-rat serum albumin (RSA) in the presence or absence of SS-31 (administered intraperitoneally). A sham-operation control group was set up concurrently. Compared with the control group, 5/6 NX animals displayed marked mitochondrial (mt) dysfunction, as evidenced by decrease of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), ATP production, mtDNA copy number alterations and manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) activity, release of cytochrome C (Cyto C) from mitochondria to the cytoplasm, and increase of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species in renal tissues. They also displayed increased levels of HOCl-alb in both plasma and renal tissues. These changes were accompanied by accumulation of extracellular matrix, worsened proteinuria, deteriorated renal function, and a marked increase of macrophage infiltration along with up-regulation of monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)−1 and transforming growth factor (TGF)β1 expression. HOCl-alb challenge further exacerbated the above biological effects in 5/6 NX animals, but these adverse effects were prevented by administration of SS-31, a mitochondrial targeted antioxidant peptide. These data suggest that accumulation of HOCl-alb may promote renal inflammation and fibrosis, probably related to mitochondrial oxidative stress and dysfunction and that the mitochondrial targeted peptide SS-31 might be a novel therapy for renal fibrosis and chronic renal failure (CRF).
OptiX: a general purpose ray tracing engine

The NVIDIA® OptiX™ ray tracing engine is a programmable system designed for NVIDIA GPUs and other highly parallel architectures. The OptiX engine builds on the key observation that most ray tracing algorithms can be implemented using a small set of programmable operations. Consequently, the core of OptiX is a domain-specific just-in-time compiler that generates custom ray tracing kernels by combining user-supplied programs for ray generation, material shading, object intersection, and scene traversal. This enables the implementation of a highly diverse set of ray tracing-based algorithms and applications, including interactive rendering, offline rendering, collision detection systems, artificial intelligence queries, and scientific simulations such as sound propagation. OptiX achieves high performance through a compact object model and application of several ray tracing-specific compiler optimizations. For ease of use it exposes a single-ray programming model with full support for recursion and a dynamic dispatch mechanism similar to virtual function calls.
Magnetostratigraphy and paleoclimatic interpretation of a continuous 7.2 Ma Late Cenozoic Eolian sediments from the Chinese Loess Plateau

An almost 300m thick eolian sequence of Late Cenozoic sediments, which includes 162.5m of Quaternary loess‐paleosols and 126m of Late Tertiary eolian Red Clay from the central part of the Chinese Loess Plateau, was investigated to determine the magnetostratigraphy. The results show that eolian dust accumulation, and by inference the related East Asia paleomonsoon, had begun by 7.2Ma. As paleomonsoon are largely controlled by the Tibetan Plateau, this implies that the Plateau had reached some critical elevation by 7.2Ma. The section also documents a rapid increase in eolian dust accumulation in the Late Cenozoic at 3.2Ma that is probably due to the influence of global ice volume on the East Asian monsoon.
Three-dimensional model acquisition using rotational stereo and image focus analysis

We present a digital vision system for acquiring the complete 3D model of an object from multiple views. The system uses image focus analysis to obtain a rough 3D shape of each view of an object and also the corresponding focused image or texture map. The rough 3D shape is used in a rotational stereo algorithm to obtain a more accurate measurement of 3D shape. The rotational stereo involves rotating the object by a small angle to obtain stereo images. It offers some important advantages compared to conventional stereo. A single camera is used instead of two, the stereo matching is easier as the field of view remains the same for the camera (but the object is rotated), and camera calibration is easier since a single stationary camera is used. The 3D shape and the corresponding texture map are measured for 4 views of the object at 90 degree angular intervals. These partial shapes and texture maps are integrated to obtain a complete 360 degree model of the object. The theory and algorithms underlying rotational-stereo and integration of partial 3D models are presented. The system can acquire the 3D model (which includes the 3D shape and the corresponding image texture) of a simple object within a 300mm x 300mm x 300mm volume placed about 600 mm from the camera. The complete model is displayed using a 3D graphics rendering software (Apple's QuickDraw 3D Viewer). Both computational algorithms and experimental results on several objects are presented.
Stability and noises evaluation of Fuzzy/Kalman UAV navigation system

In this paper a new Fuzzy/Kalman navigation system for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is presented. A closed loop velocity Fuzzy navigation system is proposed for stabilizing the UAV in a reference trajectory generated dynamically and for obtaining a forward velocity command. The Kalman's filter (KF) is included in the feedback line of the fuzzy control system to filter the internal noise of the sensors and to evaluate the external noise due to possible perturbations of the nominal motion. The efficiency of the navigation system has been shown through experimental tests in a Matlab environment.
High-available grid services through the use of virtualized clustering

Grid applications comprise several components and web-services that make them highly prone to the occurrence of transient software failures and aging problems. This type of failures often incur in undesired performance levels and unexpected partial crashes. In this paper we present a technique that offers high-availability for Grid services based on concepts like virtualization, clustering and software rejuvenation. To show the effectiveness of our approach, we have conducted some experiments with OGSA-DAI middleware. One of the implementations of OGSA-DAI makes use of use of Apache Axis V1.2. 1, a SOAP implementation that suffers from severe memory leaks. Without changing any bit of the middleware layer we have been able to anticipate most of the problems caused by those leaks and to increase the overall availability of the OGSA-DAI Application Server. Although these results are tightly related with this middleware it should be noted that our technique is neutral and can be applied to any other Grid service that is supposed to be high-available.
Comparison of OMI and ground‐based in situ and MAX‐DOAS measurements of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide in an urban area

[1] In this paper we compare retrieved tropospheric vertical column densities (VCDs) of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) to coincident tropospheric columns retrieved from the Concurrent Multiaxis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (CMAX-DOAS) instrument, installed at the University of Leicester (52.38°N, 1.08°W), and in situ near-surface measurements from chemiluminescence detectors. The results show that tropospheric NO2 columns retrieved from CMAX-DOAS and OMI correlate well (r = 0.64) when cloud clearing has been applied, and only those pixels that sample at least 90% of the Leicester area were included in the analyses. The correlation of OMI tropospheric VCDs with near-surface measurements for cloud-free days in 2005 and 2006 initially showed a strong positive bias in the near-surface NO2 measurements and scattered points. This was interpreted as being due to the satellite footprint of OMI sampling the NO2 sources from the surrounding area of Leicester as well as emissions from the city. A field-of-view (FOV) weighted estimate for the OMI-equivalent urban NO2 was calculated for each coincidence by including background concentrations from a nearby in situ monitor, situated in a rural area. The subsequent agreement between the OMI tropospheric VCDs and FOV weighted near-surface measurements is very good for spring (r = 0.83) and summer (r = 0.64) months. Finally, seasonal and weekly cycles of NO2 are produced which show that OMI may be underestimating the amount of NO2 during the winter months. However, all sets of data show expected weekly cycles, with lower values on a Sunday.
Please Scroll down for Article Ergonomics a Comparison of Tactile, Auditory, and Visual Feedback in a Pointing Task Using a Mouse-type Device

A comparison of tactile, auditory, and visual feedback in a pointing task using a mouse-type device',Ergonomics,38:4,816 — 827 This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.