Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Threedimensional Tracking using Object Defocus - In Twodimensional Scanning Electron Microscope Images

This paper proposes a tracking algorithm for the extraction of threedimensional position data from SEM images. An algorithm based on active contours with region-based minimization is chosen as basis for twodimensional tracking. This algorithm is then augmented by the incorporation of defocus analysis to estimate the out-of-focus displacement of the object. To solve the ambiguity of the out-of-focus displacement, the astigmatism of the SEM images is used. The separate calculation of variances for the rows and columns of the image enables a successful direction estimation. With the information on the direction, the out-of-focus displacement and the working distance of the acquired image, the distance of the object to the electron gun can be calculated. In combination with the twodimensional part of the tracking, a full threedimensional coordinate set is generated. The approach is tested and evaluated using a positioning setup and the principal feasibility is shown.
Exploring Geostatistical Methods to Improve the Altimetry Accuracies of Digital Elevation Models

This article explores computational geostatistical methods to improve the accuracy of the altimetry attribute of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). The geostatistical procedures, ordinary kriging, kriging with external drift and cokriging, are used to obtain uncertainty representations related to altimetry predictions. The data modeling is performed from existing DEMs, mainly available for free in the internet, and additional high accurate set of 3D sample points. Although the freeware DEMs are dense and generally have good spatial distributions, the accuracy of their altimetry information might not be suitable for many applications. A way of mitigating this problem is to combine the available DEM data along with additional information, coming from reliable sources and having better quality, in the data modeling processes. Generally, high accurate altimetry data are collected, often with a higher cost, in field works at specific points located inside the spatial region of interest. In short, this work aims to integrate spatial elevation information from different through geostatistical methods to obtain better quality DEMs. The methods addressed in this research work were applied to a case study in a Brazilian southeast geographical region.
Private finance initiative in use

This chapter reviews the performance of the ‘Private Finance Initiative’ (PFI) in terms of service operation. Since its implementation in 1992, several PFI schemes have now gone into their operational phase, so an examination of the quality of service provided under PFI from the perspective of the users would now seem appropriate. When a PFI scheme is proposed it is usually possible to indicate what the expected benefits will be. However, practical realities do not sometimes match projections. Although user groups are often involved in the planning and provision of facilities under PFI, the truest test of satisfaction is to evaluate the perceptions of actual users or beneficiaries of services. Interviews with stakeholders are used to evaluate the feelings of users concerning the efficacy of services and facilities under PFI schemes. To facilitate this evaluation, the PFI concept and process is first introduced, drawing from theory. Readers who are familiar with PFI may thus wish to skip this section. The second half of the chapter describes a recent survey and looks at the performance of some PFI schemes, in the health and leisure sectors.
Success or failure of chronic pain rehabilitation: the importance of good interaction – a qualitative study under patients and professionals

Abstract Aim: The aim of this study was to explore which factors are associated with a successful treatment outcome in chronic pain patients and professionals participating in a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program, with a specific focus on the patient–professional interaction. Methods: Patients (n = 16) and professionals (n = 10) were interviewed and/or observed. The transcribed interviews and observations were analyzed and themes were described. Results: Patients with a positive treatment outcome came to a shared understanding of their pain with their professional, demonstrated new learned behavior and were able to continue their learning process at home. Patients with a negative treatment outcome did not reach a shared understanding of their pain with their professional, were not able to change their behavior and wanted more help to achieve this. Both patient groups experienced organizational barriers within the treatment process. Factors associated with a high quality of patient–professional interaction included the patient experience of being taken seriously, the involvement of the professional with the patient, a clear explanation of the pain, and an open interaction between patient and professional. Conclusion: This study provides insight into factors which were related to a positively or negatively experienced outcome of pain rehabilitation. A good match within the patient–professional interaction seems essential. Implications of Rehabilitation Within chronic pain rehabilitation good didactic skills and a client-centered attitude of the professional may be helpful in order to make the patient feel being taken seriously. An assessment of the patient’s learning style might lead to a better fit of the patient education and training according to an individual’s learning style. Relapse might be prevented by paying special attention to the integration of new behavior within important life areas as work and sports.
Primary Analysis and Design of The Intellectualized Emergency Repair Decision Support System

For sufficing the demand of the group equipment battlefield damage assessment, the development research of intellectualized emergency repair decision support system is required. In this paper, the function characteristic of the system is analyzed firstly. Then, by the further analysis, the traditional technique method is considered that has some limitations. In this way, the innovative method which based on case-based reasoning technique is created. Then, the basic idea of the case-based reasoning is discussed, the main model of the case-based reasoning is analysed. Following that, the components of each module in the system are introduced. The corresponding functions of each module are elaborated and detail drawing of the reasoning flow is described. Then, the key reasoning arithmetic is discussed. It include the template retire arithmetic, the nearest-neighbor retrieve arithmetic and the mix arithmetic. At last, from the points of views of technology and use, the system application pattern is demonstrated.
Rapid Analysis of Mitochondrial DNA Depletion by Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization and Immunocytochemistry: Potential Strategies for HIV Therapeutic Monitoring

Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) have been a mainstay in the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus since the introduction of azidothymidine (AZT) in 1987. However, none of the current therapies can completely eradicate the virus, necessitating long-term use of anti-retroviral drugs to prevent viral re-growth. One of the side effects associated with long-term use of NRTIs is mitochondrial toxicity stemming from inhibition of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymerase γ, which leads to mtDNA depletion and consequently to mitochondrial dysfunction. Here we report the use of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunocytochemistry (ICC) to monitor mtDNA depletion in cultured fibroblasts treated with the NRTI 2',3'-dideoxycytidine (ddC). These techniques are amenable to both microscopy and flow cytometry, allowing analysis of populations of cells on a single-cell basis. We show that, as mtDNA depletion progresses, a mosaic population develops, with some cells being depleted of and others retaining mtDNA. These techniques could be useful as potential therapeutic monitors to indicate when NRTI therapy should be interrupted to prevent mitochondrial toxicity and could aid in the development of less toxic NRTIs by providing an assay suitable for pharmacodynamic evaluation of candidate molecules.
A Survey Of Counterfeit Product Detection

:The modern global development of a product or technology always comes with risk factors such as counterfeiting and duplication, which can affect the company's name, company revenue and consumer health. Finding the authenticity of a product is the biggest challenge. Counterfeit and duplicate products are causing a major downturn in the world market. Thus product makers are targeting huge losses and benefits. India and other countries are fighting such counterfeit and counterfeit products. In this situation, the reliability of products such as barcode and QR code is rarely used. This technique also sometimes fails. The analytics presented in this study show that modern technology to detect counterfeit products and ensure the reliability of a product. Therefore, what technical methods are used to determine the reliability and reliability of a product is described.
Evaluation of Promoter Hypermethylation Detection in Body Fluids as a Screening/Diagnosis Tool for Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Purpose: To evaluate aberrant promoter hypermethylation of candidate tumor suppressor genes as a means to detect epigenetic alterations specific to solid tumors, including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Experimental Design: Using promoter regions identified via a candidate gene and discovery approach, we evaluated the ability of an expanded panel of CpG-rich promoters known to be differentially hypermethylated in HNSCC in detection of promoter hypermethylation in serum and salivary rinses associated with HNSCC. We did preliminary evaluation via quantitative methylation-specific PCR (Q-MSP) using a panel of 21 genes in a limited cohort of patients with HNSCC and normal controls. Using sensitivity and specificity for individual markers as criteria, we selected panels of eight and six genes, respectively, for use in salivary rinse and serum detection and tested these in an expanded cohort including up to 211 patients with HNSCC and 527 normal controls. Results: Marker panels in salivary rinses showed improved detection when compared with single markers, including a panel with 35% sensitivity and 90% specificity and a panel with 85% sensitivity and 30% specificity. A similar pattern was noted in serum panels, including a panel with 84.5% specificity with 50.0% sensitivity and a panel with sensitivity of 81.0% with specificity of 43.5%. We also noted that serum and salivary rinse compartments showed a differential pattern of methylation in normal subjects that influenced the utility of individual markers. Conclusions: Q-MSP detection of HNSCC in serum and salivary rinses using multiple targets offers improved performance when compared with single markers. Compartment-specific methylation in normal subjects affects the utility of Q-MSP detection strategies.
Investor Sophistication and Asset Prices

We show that geographical variation in the level of investor sophistication influences local asset prices. Investors in less sophisticated regions exhibit stronger trading correlations, and correspondingly, the returns of firms headquartered in less sophisticated areas are more strongly correlated, especially when local economic conditions are unusually bad or good. Further, we show that local economic conditions have a greater ability to predict local stock returns in U.S. states with less sophisticated retail investors. This evidence of predictability is stronger in regions with strong local bias. A trading strategy that exploits the predictive ability of local economic indicators earns 5-7% higher risk-adjusted returns in U.S. regions with less sophisticated investors. These asset pricing results are driven by the sophistication of actual local investors, and not by the characteristics of the broader local population. Our results disappear when we use population-wide measures of sophistication. Collectively, these results provide evidence of investor sophistication-induced segmentation in U.S. capital markets.
ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING BY CHINESE FIRMS INVESTING ABROAD

Since the early 1990s, there has been an upsurge in outward FDI by emerging market firms (Luo & Tung, 2007; UNCTAD, 2008). In the United States, for example, Mexican building materials company CEMEX acquired the Balcones plant in 1994; Chinese white-goods manufacturer Haier Group set up a wholly-owned factory making mini-refrigerators in 2000; Chinese firm Lenovo acquired IBM’s personal computer business in 2005; and Indian Tata Group acquired Eight O'Clock Coffee in 2006. Whether and how the multinational firms from emerging markets will become globally competitive are of great interest to scholars from many disciplines.
Analysis of China's primary wood products market - sawnwood and plywood

of China Forestry Development Report 2004. 2004 [In Chinese]. Available online at: http://nw.yanlingagri. gov.cn/asp/detail.asp? id=2 Adams, M. and Ma, H. O. 2002. China’s Plywood Industry Takes off. ITTO (International Tropical Timber Organization) Tropical Forest Update 12/3, pp. 18-19. Available online at: http://www.itto. or.jp/live/Live_Server/180/tfu.2002. 03(18-19). e.pdf Adhikari, R. and Yang, Y. 2002. What Will WTO Membership Mean for China and Its Trading Partners? Finance Development (A Quarterly Magazine of the IMF), Volume 39, Number 3. Available online at: http://www.imf. org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2002/09/adhikari.htm Agricultural Economics. 2006. World Trade, World Markets and Policy. Available online at: http://www.staff. ncl.ac. uk/david.harvey/ACE2006/Principles/WorldTrade.html Annen, K. 2008. ADF Test. Available online at: http://www.web-reg.de/adf_addin. html Armington, P. S. 1969. A Theory of Demand for Products Distinguished by Place of Production. IMF Staff Papers (16), pp. 159-178
The Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit

Thoroughly designed, open-source toolkits emerge to boost progress in medical imaging. The Insight Toolkit (ITK) provides this for the algorithmic scope of medical imaging, especially for segmentation and registration. But medical imaging algorithms have to be clinically applied to be useful, which additionally requires visualization and interaction. The Visualization Toolkit (VTK) has powerful visualization capabilities, but only low-level support for interaction. In this paper, we present the Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit (MITK). The goal of MITK is to significantly reduce the effort required to construct specifically tailored, interactive applications for medical image analysis. MITK allows an easy combination of algorithms developed by ITK with visualizations created by VTK and extends these two toolkits with those features, which are outside the scope of both. MITK adds support for complex interactions with multiple states as well as undo-capabilities, a very important prerequisite for convenient user interfaces. Furthermore, MITK facilitates the realization of multiple, different views of the same data (as a multiplanar reconstruction and a 3D rendering) and supports the visualization of 3D+t data, whereas VTK is only designed to create one kind of view of 2D or 3D data. MITK reuses virtually everything from ITK and VTK. Thus, it is not at all a competitor to ITK or VTK, but an extension, which eases the combination of both and adds the features required for interactive, convenient to use medical imaging software. MITK is an open-source project (www.mitk.org).
Social Interactions in Adolescent Television Viewing

OBJECTIVE To examine whether social interactions influence the television viewing choices of adolescents in grades 7 through 12. DESIGN Data from a nationally representative cross-sectional survey were used to examine the association between individual-level and school-level television choices. An instrumental variables approach was used to solve the simultaneity problem found in models that examine the association between individual and aggregate choices. SETTING In-home interviews in the United States collected in 1996. PARTICIPANTS A sample of 4532 students in grades 7 through 12 in 132 US public and private schools who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). MAIN EXPOSURE The reported television viewing choices of an individual's schoolmates. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE The number of hours of television individuals reported viewing in a week. RESULTS The number of hours of television that adolescents report viewing per week was associated with their peers' reported hours of television viewing. Adjusted for other covariates, a 1-hour increase in average school-level television viewing was associated with an increase in almost half an hour of television viewing at the individual level. CONCLUSIONS Evidence suggests that social interactions within schools influence the hours of television that adolescents report viewing. This finding is important for both future attempts at modeling the determinants of adolescent television viewing and suggestions for future policy interventions. The presence of social interactions implies that interventions that affect the social norms of television viewing within schools could also change individual television viewing. In reducing the number of hours of television watched, these interventions could also positively affect adolescent obesity, emotional problems, and academic achievement.
Comparing opinions and attitudes of organic and non-organic farmers towards organic rice farming system in north-eastern Thailand.

Organic farming is becoming popular in Southeast Asia as part of sustainable agriculture systems. This study aims to compare the opinions and attitudes towards organic farming systems by organic rice farmers (OF) and non-organic rice farmers (NOF) in Surin province, north-eastern Thailand. The comparison was drawn from opinions of OF and NOF interviewees who are engaged in jasmine rice farming. The data presented were based on information collected from 100 OF interviewees and 100 NOF interviewees. The interviews enabled us to compare their attitudes towards organic farming based on four aspects, namely: organic farming knowledge, environment, marketing, and costs and benefits. Comparisons were made not only of socio-economic indicators, but also their opinions. Chi-square and t-test were employed to quantify correlations in this study. It was found that there was a correlation of attitudes of both OF and NOF interviewees in the four aspects examined. Additionally, educational level, farm holding and extensionworker contact affected opinions and attitudes of OF interviewees. Among NOF interviewees, their farming experiences affected their attitude towards organic farming.
Fully hardwired illumination invariant face recognition engine and FPGA implementation

Face recognition system plays an important role in many applications such as surveillance, biometrics and security. In this paper, we present a FPGA implementation of real-time face recognition engine consists of face detection, eye detection and feature extraction/verification module. We apply Self-Quotient Image (SQI) to reduce illumination effect. Haar-AdaBoost trained classifiers are applied for face and eye detection. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) are used for face recognition. The complete system is implemented in a Xilinx Virtex-7 device. Experimental result shows that our face recognition system operates over 30 fps at 50MHz frequency for real-time applications.
Music Video Viewing as a Marker of Driving After the Consumption of Alcohol

This study has two main objectives. First, it is examined whether the frequent exposure to music video viewing is associated with driving after the consumption of alcohol. Second, it is examined which theoretical framework, a combination of Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior or the Problem Behavior Theory, is suited best to explain this relationship. Participants were 426 Flemish adolescents who took part in a two-wave panel survey (2006–2008) about media use, risk-taking attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. In line with Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, the results showed that adolescents’ music video viewing is a significant marker of later risky driving behavior and that this relationship is mediated through their attitudes and intentions. No support was found for the hypothesis that music video viewing is part of a cluster of problem behaviors (Problem Behavior Theory). Thus, the results of this study seem to indicate that a combination of Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior provides a more useful framework for explaining the relationship between music video viewing and driving after the consumption of alcohol. The implications for prevention and the study's limitations are discussed.
Mutation analysis of the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene in northwest Spanish patients with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and sporadic colorectal cancer

Germline mutations in the tumor‐suppresor APC gene are associated with hereditary familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and somatic mutations are common in sporadic colorectal cancer. In this study, we report the identification of three novel germline mutations: 1682‐1683insA, 3252‐3253insAT, 3544A>T and a new somatic mutation 4130‐4131delTT, all giving rise to truncated APC proteins. The majority of the mutations we found originate a truncated APC protein and cause the FAP phenotype. However, special attention must be given to the missense mutations Asp1822Val and Ser2621Cys since their segregation with the FAP phenotype is questionable. In our FAP families we did not find any genetical alterations at codon 1309, being this mutation the most frequent reported in APC. Differences in the recurrence of pathological mutations in APC could exist among populations. However, epidemiological studies must be performed to confirm this hypothesis. Hum Mutat 18:355, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Printing Quasi-1D Nanomaterials for Large-Area Flexible UV Photodetectors

Quasi-1D ZnO nanowire (NW) is one of the most promising materials for sensing applications because of its high surface to volume ratio and high sensitivity to external stimulus. Due to their low dimension nature, the NWs are also excellent candidates for flexible electronics. In this work, we used a printing method to achieve highly aligned ZnO NWs on polyimide substrate for flexible UV photodetector application. The as-fabricated devices shows high photo to dark current ratio up to 106 and exhibits a stable performance under extensive mechanical bending tests up to 1000 cycles. This work is believed to advance the research on large area flexible electronics.
Combining Hierarchical and Associative Gene Ontology Relations With Textual Evidence in Estimating Gene and Gene Product Similarity

Two approaches have recently emerged where the similarity between two genes or gene products is obtained by comparing Gene Ontology (GO) annotations associated with the genes or gene products. One approach captures GO-based similarity in terms of hierarchical relations within each gene subontology, while the other relies on associative relations across the three gene subontologies. We propose a novel methodology where the two approaches can be merged and enriched by textual evidence extracted from biomedical literature with ensuing benefits in coverage and stronger correlation with sequence-based similarity