Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Depth-Projection-Map-Based Bag of Contour Fragments for Robust Hand Gesture Recognition

This paper presents a novel and robust descriptor, depth-projection-map-based bag of contour fragments, which is applied to extraction of hand shape and structure information from depth maps. Our method projects depth maps onto three orthogonal planes to generate the depth projection maps. Then, the bag of contour fragment descriptors are extracted from the three depth projection maps and concatenated as a final shape representation of the original depth data. A support vector machine with a linear kernel is used as a shape classifier. The proposed description method is evaluated on three public datasets, as well as a new and more challenging dataset for hand gesture recognition. Results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms the previous methods on all tested datasets for both static digit recognition and letter gesture recognition. For the challenging HUST-ASL dataset, in particular, the proposed method improves on the previous state-of-the-art methods from 40.1% to 64.6%.
Detecting and tracking moving objects from a mobile platform using a laser range scanner

In the field of computer vision, the detection and tracking of moving objects from a moving observer is a complex and computationally demanding task. Using a laser range scanner instead of a camera, the problem can be simplified dramatically. An algorithm that identifies range readings in areas that was detected earlier as free is described. This is done without incorporating any gridmaps that are inherently memory and computationally consuming. The algorithm is robust from the real-time test in a furnished living room. It is able to track a moving person walking around, while consuming only about 2% of the available processing power.
On Hybrid Cooperation in Underlay Cognitive Radio Networks

Cooperative communication is a promising strategy to enhance the performance of a communication network as it helps to improve the coverage area and the outage performance. However, such enhancement comes at the expense of increased resource utilization, which is undesirable; more so in the case of opportunistic wireless systems such as cognitive radio networks. In order to balance the performance gains from cooperative communication against the possible over-utilization of resources, we propose and analyze an adaptive-cooperation technique for underlay cognitive radio networks, termed as hybrid-cooperation. Under the proposed cooperation scheme, secondary users in a cognitive radio network cooperate adaptively to enhance the spectral efficiency and the error performance of the network. The bit error rate, the spectral efficiency and the outage performance of the network under the proposed hybrid cooperation scheme with amplify-and-forward relaying are analyzed in this paper, and compared against conventional cooperation technique. Findings of the analytical performance analyses are further validated numerically through selected computer-based Monte-Carlo simulations. The proposed scheme is found to achieve significantly better performance in terms of the spectral efficiency and the bit error rate, compared to the conventional amplify-and-forward cooperation scheme.
A serological survey of leptospiral antibodies in dogs in New Zealand

Abstract AIM: To investigate the prevalence of titres to four endemic leptospiral serovars in dog sera from the lower half of the North Island, and the South Island of New Zealand submitted to diagnostic laboratories, and to explore the association between the prevalence of seropositive samples to leptospirosis and breed group, age group and sex. METHODS: Serum samples from 655 dogs residing in the central and lower North Island and from the South Island of New Zealand were sourced from the Massey University Veterinary Teaching Hospital and from submissions to New Zealand Veterinary Pathology in 2005. They were screened by the Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT) against Leptospira interrogans serovars Copenhageni and Pomona and L. borgpetersenii serovars Hardjo and Ballum. Titres greater or equal to 96 were considered positive. Variables investigated for their association with the prevalence of seropositive samples to leptospirosis included serovar, breed, North vs. South Island, age and sex. RESULTS: Positive MAT titres to Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni were found in 10.3 % of dogs (95% CI=8.1–12.9), and were more common than positive titres to other leptospiral serovars. Small breeds did not have a lower prevalence of Copenhageni titres than other breeds. Positive titres to Leptospira borgpetersenii serovar Hardjo were associated with breeds of dogs used as farm working dogs. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of positive leptospiral titres between dogs from the North or South Islands. Dogs greater than 12 years of age were less likely to have positive titres to Leptospira than younger dogs. No association was found between positive titres and sex. CONCLUSIONS: Breeds of dogs used as farm working were at greater risk of exposure to Leptospira borgpetersenii serovar Hardjo. Small breeds did not have a lower risk of seropositivity to Copenhageni than farm working breeds. Further study should be undertaken to confirm the prevalence of positive titres to leptospirosis in farm dogs and dogs resident in the South Island. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The risk of dogs being exposed to Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni, and requirement for vaccination against serovar Copenhageni, cannot be determined by geographical location or breed group. Vaccination against Leptospira borgpetersenii serovar Hardjo is likely to be beneficial in working dogs.
The Role of Intermediaries in Collaborative Innovation Projects

This paper aims at explaining how intermediaries influence collaborative innovation projects, suggesting a conceptual-theoretical framework about intermediaries’ roles and practices. The qualitative research was developed through the case study of the Orange Service Call and Reward project performed by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) for Orange Labs, the R&D arm of Orange telecom brand in the United Kingdom. The analyses show that the intermediaries influenced most of the critical elements of the innovation project, apart from research activities that were not applicable in the case.
Export Tightening, Competition, and Firm Innovation: Evidence from the Renminbi Appreciation

This paper investigates how firm innovation reacts to changes in competitive pressure in the export market. We use the exchange rate appreciation of the renminbi during 2005â€“2007 as a natural experiment and exploit its differential impact on Chinese manufacturing firms with different export exposure. The appreciation reduced exports and imposed greater competitive pressure on exporters relative to nonâ€ exporters. In response, exporters increased innovation activities more than nonâ€ exporters. Using a differenceâ€ inâ€ difference approach, we find that the research and development expenditure of exporters increased by 11% more than that of nonâ€ exporters during the appreciation period, and the new product development of exporters increased by nearly 1.5 times more than that of nonâ€ exporters. These results highlight the important role of competition in providing incentives for firm innovation.
Is OntoWiki useful as Collaborative Working Tool for Engineers?

In this work we examined whether OntoWiki 1 can be used as collaborative working tool for engineers. We used a specific domain related ontology PROTARES (PROject TAsks RESources) 2 , created in our previous work on collaboration modelling (Softic et al. 2013) from a real world use case, to adapt OntoWiki for the case study. With this example we want to test to which extent, semantically driven customized applications can support monitoring, reflection and decision making in engineering collaboration scenario.
Flow cytometric method for the assessment of the minimal inhibitory concentrations of antibacterial agents to Mycoplasma agalactiae

In this study, flow cytometry was evaluated for the determination of the minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of seven antibacterial agents (enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, streptomycin, chloramphenicol, oxytetracycline, and tylosin) on Mycoplasma (M.) agalactiae. Flow cytometry was able to detect M. agalactiae inhibition from 6 h postincubation, although it seems that definitive MIC values determined by flow cytometry were only possible at 12‐h postincubation. However, the results obtained by the traditional method were only obtained at 24 h, when a visible change in the medium had occurred. At 24 h, both methods gave the same result for six antibacterial agents (enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, streptomycin, chloramphenicol, and oxytetracycline); whereas flow cytometry gave slightly higher MIC for tylosin. This was attributed to the fact that the M. agalactiae growth that had occurred in the tubes containing tylosin was not enough to visibly change the color of the medium. Futhermore, flow cytometry detected that inhibitory concentrations of oxytetracycline, chloramphenicol, and tylosin as judged at 24 h were not able to inhibit the M. agalactiae growth after 48 h. MIC values of enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin were sufficient only to maintain the total counts per milliliter throughout the time matched samples, whereas higher concentrations of theses antibacterial agents reduced the total counts per milliliter over the course of the experiment. The main advantage of the flow cytometric method is that MIC results for M. agalactiae can be obtained in a shorter time than is possible with the traditional method. The method presented makes identification of resistant populations of M. agalactiae possible and, unlike the traditional method, allows the effect of each antibacterial agent to be determined in real‐time at the single‐cell level. © 2006 International Society for Analytical Cytology
The BNS Lower Bound for Multi-Party Protocols in Nearly Optimal

We present a multi-party protocol which computes the Generalized Inner Product (GIP) function, introduced by Babai et al. (1989, in "Proceedings, 21st ACM STOC," pp. 1-11). Our protocol shows that the lower bound for the multi-party communication complexity of the GIP function, given by Babai et al., cannot be improved significantly.
MRP (ABCC) Transporters-Mediated Efflux of Anti-HIV Drugs, Saquinavir and Zidovudine, from Human Endothelial Cells

The constituents of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) include HIV-1 protease inhibitors (HPIs) and nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). Endothelial cell (EC) barriers, especially the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) suppresses the entry of HAART drugs to subendothelial HIV-1 reservoirs. The ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter family members, multidrug resistant-1 (MDR-1) and multidrug resistance-associated proteins (MRPs) can efflux both HPIs and NRTIs from intracellular compartments. Using brain derived ECs from non-human sources, previous studies suggested a dominant role for MDR-1 in HAART efflux from the BBB. However, due to species variations in ABC-transporter expression, drug-efflux functions using human brain ECs need to be investigated. Furthermore, roles of ABC-transporters in drug-efflux from systemic EC barriers need to be studied. We monitored the expression of ABC-transporters in primary human ECs obtained from brain (HBMVECs), aorta (HAECs), pulmonary-artery (HPAECs), dermal-microvessel (HDMVECs) and umbilical vein (HUVECs). Gene expression for MDR-1 and MRPs (MRP-1 to MRP-5) were analyzed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Drug efflux functions were determined by calcein retention assays. Intracellular accumulation of both 3H-saqui-navir (an HPI) and 3H-zidovudine (an NRTI) were also monitored in HAECs and HBMVECs. Both assays were carried out in presence of verapamil (20–60 μM) or MK-571 (12.5–50 μM) inhibitors of MDR-1 and MRPs, respectively in presence of verapamil or MK-571. The HBMVECs expressed higher levels of MRPs than MDR-1 and only MK-571 significantly (P < 0.01) suppressed calcein efflux from these cells. However, both HAECs and HPAECs showed MDR-1 and MRP expression and calcein efflux was inhibited by both verapamil and MK-571. Both inhibitors suppressed 3H-saqubinavir efflux from HAECs, but only MK-571 suppressed saquinavir efflux from HBMVECs. In both ECs, 3H-zidovudine efflux was only suppressed by MK-571. Thus, primary human ECs, especially brain derived ECs, predominantly express MRPs and their specific inhibition may enhance HAART efficacy in subendothelial HIV-1 reservoirs.
Playing with the Future: Library Engagement and Change

Libraries, as authoritative custodians and providers of information, are facing a number of challenges as they are trying to adjust to the new information environment. Some challenges arise from major paradigm shifts in recent decades relating to the understanding of the nature of information processes and conceptions of authority. Engagement through serious play is proposed as a way of dealing with discrepancies between traditional roles and contemporary demands, enabling experimentation and exploration of future roles. Two organisational projects from the University of Technology, Sydney Library are used as examples to demonstrate how playful engagement can be applied to planning for the library of the future. Insights from the two projects and literature point towards serious play as a promising approach to library innovation and change.
Scene text detection using sparse stroke information and MLP

In this article, we present a novel set of features for detection of text in images of natural scenes using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) classifier. An estimate of the uniformity in stroke thickness is one of our features and we obtain the same using only a subset of the distance transform values of the concerned region. Estimation of the uniformity in stroke thickness on the basis of sparse sampling of the distance transform values is a novel approach. Another feature is the distance between the foreground and background colors computed in a perceptually uniform and illumination-invariant color space. Remaining features include two ratios of anti-parallel edge gradient orientations, a regularity measure between the skeletal representation and Canny edgemap of the object, average edge gradient magnitude, variation in the foreground gray levels and five others. Here, we present the results of the proposed approach on the ICDAR 2003 database and another database of scene images consisting of text of Indian scripts.
A Highly Reliable Physical Unclonable Function Based on 2T Voltage Reference and Diode-Clamped Comparator

In this paper, we present a novel physical unclonable function (PUF) structure based on 2T voltage reference and diode-clamped comparator. The proposed PUF implementation includes an array of the aforesaid 2T voltage references with same transistor size and layout design. Meanwhile, the output voltage variation mainly caused by the CMOS process variation can be well-extracted by the adopted diode-clamped comparator to generate a digital bit stream (256 bit) with excellent randomness. By utilizing the sub-threshold 2T voltage reference's superior stability to the environmental variations (e.g. operating temperature, supply voltage), the proposed implementation exhibits ultra-high reliability against wide-range operating temperature and supply voltage. This design is validated by our extensive post-layout simulations based on 65nm standard CMOS process, the average reliability is reported to be 99.88% and 99.37% for the operating temperature ranging from −40°C to 120°C and the supply voltage ranging from 0.8V to 1.8V, respectively. In addition, the overall power consumption is reduced to 3. 1µW at a throughput of 10 Mb/s. Moreover, the superior unpredictability (i.e. randomness) of this design is verified by passing both the auto-correlation test and NIST randomness test.
Perceptions of Females in Virginia Regarding the Personal and Professional Factors Impacting Their Career Paths to the Superintendency

Females currently represent the largest number of teachers in the United States but yet they represent the smallest number of superintendents (Miller, 2009). While female students and educators are increasing, few of them have attained the superintendency positions within school divisions (Hopkins, 2012). This phenomenon was examined in the Commonwealth of Virginia through a mixed methods study, which provided an understanding of the career development experiences of female superintendents in public K-12 school divisions. The researcher utilized Schein’s career anchor theory (1990), which examined the personal and professional values and dimensions that influence career choices. Results of the study found that attaining the superintendency among female leaders has not been primarily influenced by career anchors, but rather by their own commitment and dedication to public service. While the main barrier for females to achieve the superintendent’s position was related to familial roles, they coping mechanisms of these include emulating the abilities of males or employing the nurturing qualities of females. The study recommends that school boards should design and implement policies that provide an enabling working environment for rising female leaders. Further, educational leadership organizations may explore establishing affinity groups to improve networking among education professionals with diverse genders and cultures.
Sexual abuse and lifetime diagnosis of psychiatric disorders: systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE To systematically assess the evidence for an association between sexual abuse and a lifetime diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. PATIENTS AND METHODS We performed a comprehensive search (from January 1980-December 2008, all age groups, any language, any population) of 9 databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Current Contents, PsycINFO, ACP Journal Club, CCTR, CDSR, and DARE. Controlled vocabulary supplemented with keywords was used to define the concept areas of sexual abuse and psychiatric disorders and was limited to epidemiological studies. Six independent reviewers extracted descriptive, quality, and outcome data from eligible longitudinal studies. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were pooled across studies by using the random-effects model. The I(2) statistic was used to assess heterogeneity. RESULTS The search yielded 37 eligible studies, 17 case-control and 20 cohort, with 3,162,318 participants. There was a statistically significant association between sexual abuse and a lifetime diagnosis of anxiety disorder (OR, 3.09; 95% CI, 2.43-3.94), depression (OR, 2.66; 95% CI, 2.14-3.30), eating disorders (OR, 2.72; 95% CI, 2.04-3.63), posttraumatic stress disorder (OR, 2.34; 95% CI, 1.59-3.43), sleep disorders (OR, 16.17; 95% CI, 2.06-126.76), and suicide attempts (OR, 4.14; 95% CI, 2.98-5.76). Associations persisted regardless of the victim's sex or the age at which abuse occurred. There was no statistically significant association between sexual abuse and a diagnosis of schizophrenia or somatoform disorders. No longitudinal studies that assessed bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder were found. Associations between sexual abuse and depression, eating disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder were strengthened by a history of rape. CONCLUSION A history of sexual abuse is associated with an increased risk of a lifetime diagnosis of multiple psychiatric disorders.
Time Well Spent: An Economic Analysis of Daylight Saving Time Legislation

Several nations implemented daylight saving time legislation in the last century, including the United States. The United States briefly experimented with year-round daylight saving time twice - during World War II and the energy crises in the 1970s. Agency studies and Congressional hearings from the 1970s show several benefits of year-round daylight saving time, along with potential disadvantages. These studies are dated, and much has changed in the last 30 years. While Congressional efforts to extend daylight saving time in 2007 have again focused on the energy savings this legislation would produce, far more meaningful benefits have been largely ignored. This Article collects and analyzes modern research on daylight saving time, concluding that year-round daylight saving time would save hundreds of lives annually by decreasing motor vehicle and pedestrian fatalities. Furthermore, extra light in the evening hours reduces criminal activity and results in energy savings from decreased peak electricity demand. Finally, year-round daylight saving time would eliminate the negative effects caused by the current Spring and Fall time changes. These advantages significantly outweigh the potential costs of daylight saving during winter months. The time has come for Congress to enact year-round daylight saving time legislation - each year we wait costs hundreds of American lives and millions of dollars.
Estimation of the efficacy of chemo-radiotherapy on tumor regression in the patients with laryngeal cancer via computerized tomography using the Cavalieri method

Abstract Conclusion: Calculating tumor volume using the Cavalieri method in laryngeal tumors before and after treatment may be useful to optimize the treatment and to minimize the side-effects of radiotherapy. Purpose: This study aimed to estimate the pre-treatment and post-treatment tumor volumes of the patients to whom radiotherapy or radio-chemotherapy was applied as a treatment using Cavalieri’s Principle as a stereological method and to assess tumor regression rates in the patients with Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (LSCC) statistically. Materials and method: Sixteen patients (eight patients with stage T3 and eight patients with stage T4) diagnosed with LCCC bearing the appropriate characteristics to criteria in the otorhinolaryngology clinic were included. Patients had computerized tomography (CT) scans in the axial plane before treatment and 2 months after the treatment. Pre-treatment and post-treatment tumor volumes on CT images were calculated using Cavalieri’s principle as a stereological method and then compared. Findings: Average tumor volumes in patients with stage T3 before and after treatment were 10.12 ± 3.58 cm3 and 1.33 ± 1.74 cm3, respectively (p = 0.008). These volumes were 11.92 ± 4.61 cm3 and 2.17 ± 2.34 cm3 (p = 0.008) for patients with stage T4, respectively. Post-treatment tumor volumes were statistically reduced compared to pre-treatment volumes in all stages.