Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel augmented graph approach for estimation in localisation and mapping

Paul Robert Thompson Doctor of Philosophy The University of Sydney March, 2009 A Novel Augmented Graph Approach for Estimation in Localisation and Mapping This thesis proposes the use of the augmented system form a generalisation of the information form representing both observations and states. In conjunction with this, this thesis proposes a novel graph representation for the estimation problem together with a graph based linear direct solving algorithm. The augmented system form is a mathematical description of the estimation problem showing the states and observations. The augmented system form allows a more general range of factorisation orders among the observations and states, which is essential for constraints and is beneficial for sparsity and numerical reasons. The proposed graph structure is a novel sparse data structure providing more symmetric access and faster traversal and modification operations than the compressedsparse-column (CSC) sparse matrix format. The graph structure was developed as a fundamental underlying structure for the formulation of sparse estimation problems. This graph-theoretic representation replaces conventional sparse matrix representations for the estimation states, observations and their interconnections. This thesis contributes a new implementation of the indefinite LDL factorisation algorithm based entirely in the graph structure. This direct solving algorithm was developed in order to exploit the above new approaches of this thesis. The factorisation operations consist of accessing adjacencies and modifying the graph edges. The developed solving algorithm demonstrates the significant differences in the form and approach of the graph-embedded algorithm compared to a conventional matrix implementation. The contributions proposed in this thesis improve estimation methods by providing novel mathematical data structures used to represent states, observations and the sparse links between them. These offer improved flexibility and capabilities which are exploited in the solving algorithm. The contributions constitute a new framework for the development of future online and incremental solving, data association and analysis algorithms for online, large scale localisation and mapping.
The transition of stroke survivors from hospital to home: understanding work and design opportunities

A growing body of HCI research explores designs to support rehabilitation after stroke. While rehabilitation is a major part of a stroke survivor's recovery, it is not the only part that could benefit from HCI work. This paper aims to provide a rich understanding of the work required by stroke survivors and their caregivers when they leave hospital and transition back to the home environment. We conducted a thematic analysis of 318 posts in an Australian online community. The findings highlight the breadth of work on top of rehabilitation and other efforts to manage the impact of their stroke. The outcome of stroke can affect everyday life work, from household chores to transportation to managing relationships. Stroke survivors also engage in biographical work in an attempt to reconstruct their personal narrative. Based on these findings we discuss opportunities for design: managing fatigue, intimate relationships, reflection, and forming a narrative. We hope that these opportunities will encourage HCI work to support people with chronic conditions in their transition back home.
Coherent synthesis of optical multilevel signals by electrooptic digital-to-analog conversion using multiparallel modulator

This paper presents an electrooptic vector digital-to-analog converter (EO-DAC) for coherent synthesis of optical multilevel signals, such as quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM) signals. For generation of an optical multilevel/QAM signal, the inphase (I) and quadrature (Q) components of a carrier lightwave should be orthogonally modulated in multi-levels. Conventionally, inphase-quadrature (IQ) orthogonal modulators have been utilized for this purpose. In the scheme, however, the symbol rate available for multilevel/QAM signals is limited, and it is difficult to obtain a clear constellation because of the difficulty involved in handling with electrical multilevel signals. The EO-DAC employing multiparallel modulator, described in this paper, can be used to synthesize multilevel signals through the combination of binary data streams. Using this proposed technology, multilevel signals can be coherently synthesized at a high bit rate, and clearer constellations can be obtained. Further, because of its flexibility, and versatility, the EO-DAC can be used for the several types of multilevel modulation formats. In this paper, we describe the EO synthesis of optical multilevel signals especially focusing on the method based on the EO-DAC, along with comparisons with other conventional methods.
Are we ready for it? Health systems preparedness and capacity towards climate change-induced health risks: perspectives of health professionals in Ghana

ABSTRACT Health systems and infrastructure have been suggested to be overwhelmed by the large-scale public health risks from climate change. With weak health systems, the impact is estimated to be far greater in developing countries, which are already over-burdened with poor health outcomes. Yet, there is limited knowledge about the preparedness and capacities of health institutions and professionals in developing countries to respond to climate change health risks. Drawing from the World Health Organization’s framework on health system capacities, effective response and emergency preparedness, and using mixed methods research design, we examined capacities and preparedness of public health professionals in Ghana to manage climate change-health risks and emergencies. Qualitative interviews (n = 20) and quantitative surveys (n = 99) were conducted with health professionals in Savelugu-Nanton and Ada East Districts in Ghana. The study found that, capacity and preparedness of health professionals and institutions to respond to climate change related health emergencies were weak in the study districts. Based on our findings, we recommend the development and implementation of a comprehensive policy on climate change and health to build capacities of health institutions and professionals, improve climate change health research, and increase funding to climate change programmes and activities in local communities.
SAR Image Despeckling Using Bayesian Nonlocal Means Filter With Sigma Preselection

Bayesian nonlocal (NL) (BNL) means filter, as an extension of the NL means algorithm, provides a general framework for image denoising when dealing with different noise. However, this approach makes a strong assumption that image patch itself provides a good approximation on the true parameter, which leads to the bias problem particularly under serious speckle noise. Another disadvantage of the BNL filter is that the commonly used patch preselection method cannot effectively exclude the outliers. In this letter, a new form of the BNL filter is presented for the purpose of synthetic aperture radar image despeckling, which incorporates the technique of sigma filter to cope with the bias problem. In addition, pixel preselection is adopted based on the refined sigma range, which greatly contributes to the preservation of the image details such as edges, texture, and the strong reflective scatters. Experimental results illustrate that the proposed BNL filter reaches the state-of-the-art performance on both the visual quality and evaluation indexes.
Diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis infections in asymptomatic men and women by PCR assay

A PCR assay was evaluated for its ability to detect genital chlamydial infection in asymptomatic men and women. Urethral swab specimens were collected from 472 men for culture and PCR assay, and first-void urine (FVU) specimens were collected from 379 of these men for enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and PCR assay. Cervical swab specimens were collected from 242 women for culture, EIA, and PCR assay. Patients were considered infected if they were culture positive or positive by PCR with both plasmid- and major outer membrane protein-based primers. By using this extended "gold standard," the prevalence of infection in this population was 7.6% for men and 7.9% for women. For men, the sensitivities of urethral swab specimen culture and PCR and FVU specimen EIA and PCR were 61, 72, 55, and 91%, respectively. All assays had specificities of > or = 99.8%. The positive and negative predictive values for PCR testing of FVU specimens were 100 and 99.4%, respectively, compared with values of 96.3 and 97.8%, respectively, for PCR of urethral swab specimens. The sensitivities of cervical swab specimen culture and PCR testing were 42 and 90%, respectively, with corresponding specificities of 100 and 99.3%. All cervical swabs were negative by EIA. Molecular techniques such as PCR assays are valuable tools for the detection of symptomatic genital chlamydial infection. In particular, PCR assays of FVU specimens from men offer a highly sensitive, noninvasive screening tool that will likely improve patient compliance for diagnostic testing.
Baseline Biomarkers for Outcome of Melanoma Patients Treated with Pembrolizumab

Purpose: Biomarkers for outcome after immune-checkpoint blockade are strongly needed as these may influence individual treatment selection or sequence. We aimed to identify baseline factors associated with overall survival (OS) after pembrolizumab treatment in melanoma patients. Experimental Design: Serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), routine blood count parameters, and clinical characteristics were investigated in 616 patients. Endpoints were OS and best overall response following pembrolizumab treatment. Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox regression were applied for survival analysis. Results: Relative eosinophil count (REC) ≥1.5%, relative lymphocyte count (RLC) ≥17.5%, ≤2.5-fold elevation of LDH, and the absence of metastasis other than soft-tissue/lung were associated with favorable OS in the discovery (n = 177) and the confirmation (n = 182) cohort and had independent positive impact (all P < 0.001). Their independent role was subsequently confirmed in the validation cohort (n = 257; all P < 0.01). The number of favorable factors was strongly associated with prognosis. One-year OS probabilities of 83.9% versus 14.7% and response rates of 58.3% versus 3.3% were observed in patients with four of four compared to those with none of four favorable baseline factors present, respectively. Conclusions: High REC and RLC, low LDH, and absence of metastasis other than soft-tissue/lung are independent baseline characteristics associated with favorable OS of patients with melanoma treated with pembrolizumab. Presence of four favorable factors in combination identifies a subgroup with excellent prognosis. In contrast, patients with no favorable factors present have a poor prognosis, despite pembrolizumab, and additional treatment advances are still needed. A potential predictive impact needs to be further investigated. Clin Cancer Res; 22(22); 5487–96. ©2016 AACR.
Differential Requirements of Cellular and Humoral Immune Responses for Fv2-Associated Resistance to Erythroleukemia and for Regulation of Retrovirus-Induced Myeloid Leukemia Development

ABSTRACT To assess the possible contribution of host immune responses to the exertion of Fv2-associated resistance to Friend virus (FV)-induced disease development, we inoculated C57BL/6 (B6) mice that lacked various subsets of lymphocytes with FV containing no lactate dehydrogenase-elevating virus. Fv2 r B6 mice lacking CD4+ T cells developed early polycythemia and fatal erythroleukemia, while B6 mice lacking CD8+ T cells remained resistant. Erythroid progenitor cells infected with spleen focus-forming virus (SFFV) were eliminated, and no polycythemia was observed in B cell-deficient B6 mice, but they later developed myeloid leukemia associated with oligoclonal integration of ecotropic Friend murine leukemia virus. Additional depletion of natural killer and/or CD8+ T cells from B cell-deficient B6 mice resulted in the expansion of SFFV proviruses and the development of polycythemia, indicating that SFFV-infected erythroid cells are not only restricted in their growth but are actively eliminated in Fv2 r mice through cellular immune responses.
University of Groningen A File Based Visualization of Software Evolution

Software Configuration Management systems are important instruments for supporting development of large software projects. They accumulate large amounts of evolution data that can be used for process accounting and auditing. We study how visualization can help developers and managers to get insight in this unstructured history information. To this end, we propose several new techniques for visual mining of software evolution. Central to our approach is a file-based evolution visualization, where each project is shown as a set of horizontal stripes depicting files along the time axis. We propose several mechanisms for interactively building layouts in this display, and for correlating the evolution with the results of various software metrics. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach on reallife data sets.
Full Video Processing for Mobile Audio-Visual Identity Verification

This paper describes a bi-modal biometric verification system based on voice and face modalities, which takes advantage of the full video processing instead of using still-images. The bi-modal system is evaluated on the MOBIO corpus and results show a relative improvement of performance by nearly 10% when the whole video is used. The fusion between face and speaker verification systems, using linear logistic regression weights, gives a relative improvement of performance that varies between 30% and 60% comparing to the best uni-modal system. Proof-of-concept iPad application is developed based on the proposed bi-modal system.
Experimental study of the thermodynamics of an interacting trapped Bose-Einstein condensed gas

We have investigated experimentally the finite-temperatureproperties of a Bose-Einstein condensed cloud of $^{87}$Rb atomsin a harmonic trap. Focusing primarily on condensed fraction andexpansion energy, we measure unambiguous deviations from ideal-gasthermodynamics, and obtain good agreement with a Hartree-Fockdescription of the mixed cloud. Our results offer for the firsttime clear evidence of the mutual interaction between thecondensed and thermal components. To probe the low-temperatureregion unaccessible to the usual time-of-flight technique, we usecoherent Bragg scattering as a filtering technique for thecondensate. This allows us to separate spatially the condensedand normal components in time of flight, and to measure reliablytemperatures as low as $0.2~T_{\\rm c}^0$ and thermal fractions aslow as 10\\%. Finally, we observe evidence for thelimitations of the usual image analysis procedure, pointing out tothe need for a more elaborate model of the expansion of the mixedcloud.
What makes a species a priority for nature conservation?

Prioritizing species for nature conservation should follow objective ecologically and biogeographically meaningful selection criteria. In this study, we test an approach to prioritize butterfly species for nature conservation considering the following parameters: (1) geographical distribution and endemicity, (2) vulnerability and (3) ecological specialization. Following these criteria, we identified 51 species of conservation priority out of the 403 European species assessed, that is 12.7%. This list of species and those included in the annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) had only four species in common. The species selected by both approaches differed significantly in their traits considering their distribution and ecological specialization with the annexes of the EU Habitats Directive including many species that are neither range‐restricted nor have their core distribution within Europe, and furthermore many not threatened ecological generalists. Our results suggest that species prioritization for nature conservation should follow objective criteria, such as distribution and ecological specialization.
The Gut Microbiome and Pre-systemic Metabolism: Current State and Evolving Research

The evolution of the complex metabolic interaction between intestinal microbiota in the human gut with its host is multidimensional. Our understanding of this complex interaction has evolved in the past years either with the use of more sophisticated analytical techniques or by reported adverse drug effects that have been associated with intestinal drug metabolism such as with sorivudine. The composition of the intestinal microbiome is initially determined by environmental and genetic factors although external influences as well as host immune reactions provide for adjustment of the delicate balance in both health and disease conditions. The metabolism of drugs by both intestinal bacteria and further by enterocytes leading to their systemic absorption deserves further attention and may provide valuable insights into pre-systemic drug metabolism, delivery, and toxicity. A better understanding of the metabolic pathways may aid in the drug development and toxicity evaluation process.
Decentralized Supervisory Control of Discrete Event Systems: Using Multi-Decision Control as an Alternative to Inference-Based Control

Some years ago, a decentralized architecture, qualified as inference-based, has been developed for supervisory control of discrete event systems. One of its essential principles is to associate ambiguity levels to local decisions. More recently, a decentralized control architecture, qualified as multi-decision, has been developed. Its main principle is to use several decentralized control architectures in parallel. So far, multi-decision control has been mostly studied as a solution to generalize inference-based control, by using several inference-based architectures in parallel. In the present study, we regard multi-decision control with a different perspective. Instead of using multi-decision control to generalize inference-based control, we will rather use it as an alternative to inference-based control. More precisely, our objective is to avoid using inference-based architectures, by using instead several simpler architectures running in parallel.
Time scales of the flux creep in superconductors.

We have studied both theoretically and experimentally flux-creep dynamics in superconductors. A theoretical analysis of nonlinear flux diffusion shows that the relaxation of the electric field proves to be similar for different models of thermally activated flux creep, whereas the long-time decay of the magnetic moment M(t) can be essentially model dependent. A proposed scaling analysis indicates that the short-time decay of M(t) in the subcritical region j${\mathit{j}}_{\mathit{c}}$ is universal and consists of two stages. The initial nonlogarithmic stage is due to a transient redistribution of magnetic flux over the sample cross section, the duration of this stage ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{0}$ being entirely determined by macroscopic quantities, such as sample sizes, flux creep rate ${\mathit{M}}_{1}$(T,B)=dM/d lnt, and magnetic ramp rate B${\mathrm{\ifmmode \dot{}\else \. {}\fi{}}}_{\mathit{e}}$=dB/dt. The second stage corresponds to the approximately logarithmic relaxation M(t)=${\mathit{M}}_{\mathit{c}}$-${\mathit{M}}_{1}$ln(t/${\mathit{t}}_{0}$), with ${\mathit{t}}_{0}$ being a macroscopic time constant that also depends on sample sizes, ${\mathit{M}}_{1}$(T,B), and the voltage criterion ${\mathit{E}}_{\mathit{c}}$ at which the critical current density ${\mathit{j}}_{\mathit{c}}$ is defined.
Ultrasonic Wireless Communication Through Metal Barriers

Ultrasound can be used as a carrier to realize wireless communication to and from a metal-enclosed space, which has the characteristics such as immunity to the electromagnetic shielding effect and non-destructive penetration of metal obstacles. This paper firstly reviews the previous studies in the field of ultrasonic wireless communication through metal barriers, and summarizes their achievements and the existing problems. Secondly, an overview of the research methods involved in studying the characteristic of acoustic-electric channel is presented, and the principles are introduced for the actual measurement method, equivalent circuit method, ABCD parameter method, finite element analysis method and time-domain finite difference method. Then, an overview of the communication algorithms are presented such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), single-carrier frequency domain equalization and multiple input multiple output OFDM. Finally, the potential future study are proposed in light of the trend of development and unsolved problems.
Identification of Mycoplasma pneumoniae proteins associated with hemadsorption and virulence

Twenty-two mutants of Mycoplasma pneumoniae spontaneously deficient in hemadsorption were isolated. Examination of mutant protein profiles by one- and two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis permitted the grouping of these mutants into four classes. The largest class of mutants was deficient in four high-molecular-weight proteins (215,000, 210,000, 190,000, and 140,000). A second class of mutants lacked three proteins previously designated A, B, and C (72,000, 85,000, and 37,000, respectively). A single mutant, in addition to lacking proteins A, B, and C, was missing a fourth protein of 165,000 molecular weight. The remaining mutants exhibited protein profiles apparently identical to that of the wild-type strain. All mutant strains attached to the respiratory epithelium of hamster tracheal rings in vitro at reduced levels; however, mutants lacking proteins A, B, and C recognized only neuraminidase-insensitive receptors. None of the mutants tested produced detectable pneumonia in intranasally inoculated hamsters, although one mutant class demonstrated low-level survival in vivo.
Mammary gland segmentation using intensity correction for brightness attenuation in breast ultrasound image

This paper presents a method of segmenting mammary gland tissue for breast ultrasound images. In order to improve the quality of diagnoses for breast ultrasound screening, Computer Aided Detection (CADe) systems have been developed by a number of researchers. However, such systems suffer in terms of making many false positives for non-mammary gland tissue where no cancer exists. Accordingly, it is necessary to accurately determine the area of mammary gland tissue within ultrasound images for CADe systems. In this study, we propose a method of segmenting mammary gland tissue from ultrasound images for breasts. Within ultrasound images, brightness is attenuated as ultrasound waves move from the ultrasound probe to internal tissue. Accordingly, we correct intensity (brightness) using zero-phase component analysis (ZCA) whitening in order to reduce such brightness attenuation. Moreover, we apply a Conditional Random Field (CRF) which can render as smooth the region boundary of ultrasound images. The results of an experiment, conducted with five target patients to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods, demonstrate that the method is capable of segmenting mammary gland tissue from breast ultrasound images.