Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design and Optimization of Real-Time Texture Analysis Using Sum and Difference Histograms Implemented on an FPGA

This work presents the adequacy of a dense texture analysis algorithm based on sum and difference histograms (SDHs) into a reconfigurable architecture. A deep analysis of the SDHs algorithm helps found a significant reduction in operations, size and access memory which consequently optimize resources, memory and latency time during the implementation. Furthermore, integer arithmetic operations used by SDHs are directly compatible with the FPGA making faster and efficient the implementation. Final architecture constructs 30 dense texture feature images of 640 × 480 pixels per second. Also a performance comparison among three different texture analysis architectures highlights a better trade off in performance, latency, logic elements and memory size of our system. The optimization and the resource saving make the proposed architecture an interesting choice to solve the problem of texture analysis in real time, quite used in artificial vision, autonomous navigation and medical applications.
Get ready to GO! A biologist's guide to the Gene Ontology

The Gene Ontology (GO) project provides a controlled vocabulary to facilitate high-quality functional gene annotation for all species. Genes in biological databases are linked to GO terms, allowing biologists to ask questions about gene function in a manner independent of species. This tutorial provides an introduction for biologists to the GO resources and covers three of the most common methods of querying GO: by individual gene, by gene function and by using a list of genes. [For the sake of brevity, the term 'gene' is used throughout this paper to refer to genes and their products (proteins and RNAs). GO annotations are always based on the characteristics of gene products, even though it may be the gene that is cited in the annotation. ].
ISOTOPIC TITANIUM ABUNDANCES IN LOCAL M DWARFS

Relative abundances of the five stable isotopes of titanium (46Ti to 50Ti) are measured for 11 M dwarfs belonging to the thin disk (four stars), thick disk (three stars), the halo (one star), and either the thick or the thin disk (three stars). Over the metallicity range of the sample (−1< [Fe/H] <0), the isotopic ratios are approximately constant at the solar system ratios. There is no discernible difference between the isotopic ratios for thin and thick disk stars. Isotopic ratios are in fair accord with recent calculations of Galactic chemical evolution despite the fact that such calculations underpredict [Ti/Fe] by about 0.4 dex at all metallicities.
Robust Global Motion Estimation From Mpeg Streamswith a Gradient Based Refinement

In this paper a new robust algorithm for global motion estimation from an MPEG stream is proposed. The approach is to use a hybrid of two previous global motion estimation algorithms in order to improve the accuracy and robustness of the estimate. The first algorithm is a non-parametric technique which uses the block based motion vectors obtained from an MPEG2 stream and which also generates a coarse background segmentation of the frame. The second algorithm is a gradient based technique which estimates the parameters from the image data directly. In this work, an initial estimate for the global motion is obtained using the non-parametric approach. The parameters are then refined using the gradient based estimation and the segmentation field. This hybrid approach shows significant reduction in mean compensation error over the non-parametric approach. The algorithm is then applied to the problem of mosaicking in sports sequences in which the global motion parameters can be used to make a panorama of an entire shot
Literacy in a digital world

The present invention relates to the gear configuration between a pinion and a rack. The pinion forms a plurality of teeth which are received in respective grooves on the rack. The teeth each define a pair of flanks which oppose a pair of surfaces within the groove and the flanks and surfaces substantially define circular arcs. The radius of curvature of the circular arc for the surfaces is slightly larger than the radius of curvature of the circular arc for the flanks. A separating force is generated between the pinion and the rack when rotation of the pinion imparts transverse movement to the rack and the circular arcs of matching surfaces and flanks cooperate to substantially eliminate the separating forces after slight separation between the pinion and the rack.
Finding mobile data under delay constraints with searching costs

A token is hidden in one of several boxes and then the boxes are locked. The probability of placing the token in each of the boxes is known. A searcher is looking for the token by unlocking boxes where each box is associated with an unlocking cost. The searcher conducts its search in rounds and must find the token in a predetermined number of rounds. In each round, the searcher may unlock any set of locked boxes concurrently. The optimization goal is to minimize the expected cost of unlocking boxes until the token is found. The motivation and main application of this game is the task of paging a mobile user (token) who is roaming in a zone of cells (boxes) in a cellular network system. Here, the unlocking costs reflect cell congestions and the placing probabilities represent the likelihood of the user residing in particular cells. Another application is the task of finding some data (token) that may be known to one of the sensors (boxes) of a sensor network. Here, the unlocking costs reflect the energy consumption of querying sensors and the placing probabilities represent the likelihood of the data being found in particular sensors. In general, we call mobile data any entity that has to be searched for. The special case, in which all the boxes have equal unlocking costs has been well studied in recent years and several optimal polynomial time solutions exist. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to study the general problem in which each box may be associated with a different unlocking cost. We first present three special interesting and important cases for which optimal polynomial time algorithms exist: (i) There is no a priori knowledge about the location of the token and therefore all the placing probabilities are the same. (ii) There are no delay constraints so in each round only one box is unlocked. (iii) The token is atypical in the sense that it is more likely to be placed in boxes whose unlocking cost is low. Next, we consider the case of a typical token for which the unlocking cost of any box is proportional to the probability of placing the token in this box. We show that computing the optimal strategy is strongly NP-Hard for any number of unlocking rounds, we provide a PTAS algorithm, and analyze a greedy solution. We propose a natural dynamic programming heuristic that unlocks the boxes in a non-increasing order of the ratio probability over cost. For two rounds, we prove that this strategy is a 1.143-approximation solution for an arbitrary token and a 1.108-approximation for a typical token and that both bounds are tight. For an arbitrary token, we provide a more complicated PTAS
Enhanced Extraction from Huffman Encoded Files

Given a ﬁle T , and the Huﬀman encoding of its elements, we suggest using a pruning technique for Wavelet trees that enables direct access to the i -th element of T by reordering the bits of the compressed ﬁle and using some additional space. When compared to a traditional Wavelet tree for Huﬀman Codes, our diﬀerent reordering of the bits usually requires less additional storage overhead by reducing the need for auxiliary rank structures, while improving processing time for extracting the i -th element of T .
TESTING THE LONG RANGE-DEPENDENCE FOR THE CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPEAN AND THE BALKANS STOCK MARKETS

In this study we tested the existence of long memory in the the return series for major Central Eastern European and Balkans stock markets, using the following statistical methods: Hurst Exponent, GPH method, Andrews and Guggenberger method, Reisen method, Willinger, Taqqu and Teverovsky method and ARFIMA model. The results obtained are mixed. The Hurst Exponent showed the existence of long memory in all indices, except PX. After applying the GPH method, the results showed that BET, ATHEX, SOFIX and CROBEX have a predictable behavior. The ARFIMA model results support the existence of long memory for BUX, SAX and BELEX. The predictable behavior of index returns may suggest that the CEE and Balkans stock markets are not weak form efficient.
Standard Making: a Critical Research Frontier for Information Systems Misq Special Issue Workshop Reflexive Standardization. Interpreting Side-effects and Escalation in Standard- Making

In this paper, we address the general question proposed by the symposium: " What historical or contingent events and factors influence the creation of ICT standards, and in particular, their success or failure? " Based on a case study conducted over a period of two years in a Norwegian hospital on the standardization process of an Electronic Patient Record (EPR), the paper contributes to the current discussion on the conceptualization of standard-making in the field of Information Systems. By drawing upon the concepts of reflexivity (as in Reflexive Modernization as theorized by Beck) and unexpected side-effects, the paper makes two key contributions: firstly, it shows that in complex socio-technical settings, standardization processes may induce side-effects hampering the standardization itself; secondly, in such settings side-effects may be interpreted as apparitions of the reflexive nature of the standardization process. Accordingly, attempts to standardize may reinforce complexity. The research question is addressed by providing an historical and contingent analysis of the dynamics emerging from the case. INTRODUCTION The trend towards establishing larger and tighter information infrastructures for control and rationalization implies efforts of massive standardization and integration (see Weill and Broadbent, 1998; and for a critical perspective see Ciborra et al., 2000). However, as integration becomes tighter and as the infrastructure grows in scope and reach, the complexity also inevitably grows. When previously unconnected systems, elements or networks are being connected, new interdependencies will be introduced. This allows novel consequences and side effects to emerge and to propagate in the network.
Abnormal cortical thickness connectivity persists in childhood absence epilepsy

Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) is a childhood‐onset generalized epilepsy. Recent fMRI studies have suggested that frontal cortex activity occurs before thalamic involvement in epileptic discharges suggesting that frontal cortex may play an important role in childhood absence seizures. Neurocognitive deficits can persist after resolution of the epilepsy. We investigate whether structural connectivity changes are present in the brains of CAE patients in young adulthood.
Reconstructing Urban Scale: New Experiments with the “Provincial Administration of Counties” Reform in China

Since 2005, China has witnessed the emergence of a new form of administrative organization. In contrast with the earlier model of “City Jurisdiction Over Counties,” which placed counties under the jurisdiction of cities, a new pilot program known as “Provincial Administration of Counties” has been launched. This program places counties and county-level cities under the direct administration of provinces, instead of prefecture-level cities. The central state has played a modest role in implementing this pilot program, whereas provincial and county-level governments have taken a more proactive approach. The central government hopes that such a reform can address development imbalances that exist between counties and cities. Meanwhile, provincial governments see the reforms as a way to promote economic development initiatives in counties and county-level cities. However, the implementation of reforms at the local level is not proceeding smoothly. This is mainly due to an asymmetry of power in city-county relations, itself a legacy of earlier economic reforms that created the City Jurisdiction Over Counties system. This asymmetry has prevented urban-rural tensions from being resolved. Instead, such tensions have been shifted downward to the city district level or upward to the regional level.
Cocaine Exposure and Children's Self-Regulation: Indirect Association via Maternal Harshness

Objectives: This study examined the association between prenatal cocaine exposure and children’s self-regulation at 3 years of child age. In addition to direct effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on children’s self-regulation, we hypothesized there would be indirect associations between cocaine exposure and self-regulation via higher maternal harshness and poor autonomic regulation in infancy. Methods: The sample consisted of 216 mother–infant dyads recruited at delivery from local area hospitals (116 cocaine-exposed, 100 non-exposed). Infant autonomic regulation was measured at 7 months of age during an anger/frustration task, maternal harshness was coded from observations of mother–toddler interactions at 2 years of age, and children’s self-regulation was measured at 3 years of age using several laboratory paradigms. Results: Contrary to hypotheses, there were no direct associations between maternal cocaine use during pregnancy and children’s self-regulation. However, results from testing our conceptual model including the indirect effects via maternal harshness or infant parasympathetic regulation indicated that this model fit the data well, χ2 (23) = 34.36, p > 0.05, Comparative Fit Index = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.05. Cocaine using mothers displayed higher intensity of harshness toward their toddlers during lab interactions across a variety of tasks at 2 years of age (β = 0.23, p < 0.05), and higher intensity of harshness at 2 years was predictive of lower self-regulation at 3 years (β = −0.36, p < 0.01). Maternal cocaine use was also predictive of a non-adaptive increase in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) from baseline to the negative affect task, but RSA change in infancy was not predictive of self-regulation at 3 years. Conclusion: Results are supportive of animal models indicating higher aggression among cocaine treated dams, and indicate that higher maternal harshness among cocaine using mothers is predictive of child self-regulatory outcomes in the preschool period.
A Resampling Based Clustering Algorithm for Replicated Gene Expression Data

In gene expression data analysis, clustering is a fruitful exploratory technique to reveal the underlying molecular mechanism by identifying groups of co-expressed genes. To reduce the noise, usually multiple experimental replicates are performed. An integrative analysis of the full replicate data, instead of reducing the data to the mean profile, carries the promise of yielding more precise and robust clusters. In this paper, we propose a novel resampling based clustering algorithm for genes with replicated expression measurements. Assuming those replicates are exchangeable, we formulate the problem in the bootstrap framework, and aim to infer the consensus clustering based on the bootstrap samples of replicates. In our approach, we adopt the mixed effect model to accommodate the heterogeneous variances and implement a quasi-MCMC algorithm to conduct statistical inference. Experiments demonstrate that by taking advantage of the full replicate data, our algorithm produces more reliable clusters and has robust performance in diverse scenarios, especially when the data is subject to multiple sources of variance.
Tracking Object by Combining Particle Filters and SIFT Features

An object tracking algorithm based on the particle filter framework is proposed in this paper for video surveillance applications. The color histogram is combined with a scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptor to represent the likelihood between the candidates and observed objects. They are then incorporated into the particle filter based tracking algorithm in order to achieve more robust and accurate results. As a complement to the similarity in color distribution, a measure of texture similarity is computed in terms of the number of matched SIFT key-points and the distance between two matched points. The use of a SIFT descriptor can enhance the tolerance to scale change, appearance variation, partial occlusion and cluttered background which are very popular in video surveillance practice. Experiments are provided to demonstrate that the performance of the proposed algorithm outperforms that of the traditional particle filter that makes use of the color histogram only.
Systematic Errors and Location Accuracy in Wireless Networks

Wireless systems already provide time delay and signal strength measurements and the future may see antenna arrays that provide directional information. All these may be used for positioning. Although the statistical accuracy of different positioning methods is well studied, the systematic error effects, which arise, for example, from errors in sensor (node) location, network synchronization, or the path loss model, are not. This study fills this gap providing a unified error-propagation-law-based tool to analyze measurement and systematic error effects. The considered positioning systems, which are compared based on the developed framework, are the hyperbolic (time-delay-based), direction finding (DF), received signal strength (RSS), and relative RSS (RRSS) location systems. The obtained analytical results verify our intuitive expectations; the hyperbolic methods are sensitive to errors in network synchronization, RRRS methods to channel modelling errors, whereas DF methods are rather insensitive to systematic errors. However, the bias of DF methods is at its largest if the sensor location error is perpendicular to the line joining the sensor and the source. If the methods are compared based on overall accuracy, hyperbolic methods may be preferred in large sized networks, whereas the DF and RRSS methods may provide better accuracy in small sized networks. However, RRSS systems require a dense network in order to provide reliable results.
An Agent-Based Hybrid System for Microarray Data Analysis

This article reports our experience in agent-based hybrid construction for microarray data analysis. The contributions are twofold: We demonstrate that agent-based approaches are suitable for building hybrid systems in general, and that a genetic ensemble system is appropriate for microarray data analysis in particular. Created using an agent-based framework, this genetic ensemble system for microarray data analysis excels in both sample classification accuracy and gene selection reproducibility.
Do Green Behaviors Earn Social Status?

Do green behaviors earn social status among liberals and conservatives? Although evidence shows that high-status consumers incorporate ecological concerns into their consumption choices, politically polarized views on environmentalism in the United States complicate the relationship between green behaviors and status. A vignette experiment shows that across political ideology, people grant status to green consumption. Results from semistructured interviews suggest that green consumers are seen as wealthy, knowledgeable, and ethical, although these status beliefs vary with political ideology. The findings reveal unlikely common ground between liberal and conservative judgments of green behaviors and indicate that green consumption is an emerging domain for evaluating social status.
Robust Background Acquisition from Dynamic Scene caused by a Moving Camera

A background is a part that does not vary too much or frequently change in an image sequence. Using this assumption, it is presented a background reconstruction algorithm for not only static but also dynamic view in this paper. For generating background, we detect a region that has high correlation coefficient compared within prior pyramid image from the current image. Using detected regions, we calculate movement vector for each region and classify clusters of each pixel belonged in the region based on pixel intensities. Finally we eliminate clusters which have lower weight than threshold, and combine remained clusters for each pixel to generate multiple background clusters. Experimental results show that automatically detected background under camera moving.
Harvesting domain-specific terms using wikipedia

We present a simple but effective method of automatically extracting domain-specific terms using Wikipedia as training data (i.e. self-supervised learning). Our first goal is to show, using human judgments, that Wikipedia categories are domainspecific and thus can replace manually annotated terms. Second, we show that identifying such terms using harvested Wikipedia categories and entities as seeds is reliable when compared to the use of dictionary terms. Our technique facilitates the construction of large semantic resources in multiple domains without requiring manually annotated training data.
Identifying Barriers faced by Ottawa Somali Youth in Accessing Post-secondary and Vocational Opportunities: An Example of Community-Based Participatory Research

In 2016, with funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Seed Grant program, the Somali Centre for Family Services of Ottawa (SCFS) invited the Centre for Studies on Poverty and Social Citizenship (CSPSC) at Carleton University to carry out a needs assessment focusing on the barriers faced by Somali youth in accessing post-secondary education and employment training opportunities. The main objective of the needs assessment was to address social and economic exclusion locally by inviting Somali youth (ages 19-30) from the Ottawa area to participate in focus groups to discuss the barriers they have faced in accessing post-secondary education and employment training programs, and to invite their views on the supports needed to address these barriers. The CSPSC and the SCFS agreed that the research would involve a participatory action research approach where members of the Somali and Muslim Community would participate on an advisory committee, and where youth from the Somali Community would be directly involved in all phases of the research. Five themes were identified during the analysis: Barriers to accessing post-secondary education; Barriers to accessing job placements and training programs; Barriers to securing employment; A need for a Somali-focused employment resource centre; A need for Somali youth mentors.
Understanding and defending against internet infrastructures supporting cybecrime operations

To those who help others. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor Prof. Nick Feamster, for all his support, enthusiasm, and optimism, which have been an invaluable source of inspiration for me. Nick has been a great mentor, who has had an incredible impact on my path. Also, I would like to thank Prof. Roberto Perdisci, for all his support, boundless positive energy, and persistence. I feel extremely fortunate, that I have had the chance to work with him.
The Form is the Substance: Classification of Genres in Text

Categorization of text in IR has traditionally focused on topic. As use of the Internet and e-mail increases, categorization has become a key area of research as users demand methods of prioritizing documents. This work investigates text classification by format style, i.e. "genre", and demonstrates, by complementing topic classification, that it can significantly improve retrieval of information. The paper compares use of presentation features to word features, and the combination thereof, using Naive Bayes, C4.5 and SVM classifiers. Results show use of combined feature sets with SVM yields 92% classification accuracy in sorting seven genres.