Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Local Statistical Features of Dual Tree Complex Wavelet Transform on Parallelogram Image Structure for Face Recognition with Single Sample

In this paper, we propose a novel face recognition method based on local appearance feature extraction using dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT). It provides a local multiscale description of images with good directional selectivity and invariance to shifts and in-plane rotations. In the dual-tree implementation, two parallel discrete wavelet transform (DWT) with different lowpass and highpass filters in different scales were used. The linear combination of subbands generated by two parallel DWT is used to generate 6 different directional subbands with complex coefficients. It is insensitive to illumination variations and facial expression changes. 2-D dual-tree complex wavelet transform is less redundant and computationally efficient. The local DT-CWT coefficients are used to extract the facial features which improve the face recognition with small sample size in less computation. The local features based methods have been successfully applied to face recognition and achieved state-of-the-art performance. Normally most of the local appearance based methods the facial features are extracted from several local regions and concatenated into an enhanced feature vector as a face descriptor. In this approach we divide the face into several (m× m) non-overlapped parallelogram blocks instead of square or rectangle blocks. The local mean, standard deviation and energy of complex wavelet coefficients are used to describe the face image. Experiments, on two well-known databases, namely, Yale and ORL databases, shows the Local DT-CWT approach performs well on illumination, expression and perspective variant faces with single sample compared to PCA and global DT-CWT. Furthermore, in addition to the consistent and promising classification performances, our proposed Local DT-CWT based method has a really low computational complexity.
Identifying influential user communities on the social network

Nowadays social network services have been popularly used in electronic commerce systems. Users on the social network can develop different relationships based on their common interests and activities. In order to promote the business, it is interesting to explore hidden relationships among users developed on the social network. Such knowledge can be used to locate target users for different advertisements and to provide effective product recommendations. In this paper, we define and study a novel community detection problem that is to discover the hidden community structure in large social networks based on their common interests. We observe that the users typically pay more attention to those users who share similar interests, which enable a way to partition the users into different communities according to their common interests. We propose two algorithms to detect influential communities using common interests in large social networks efficiently and effectively. We conduct our experimental evaluation using a data set from Epinions, which demonstrates that our method achieves 4–11.8% accuracy improvement over the state-of-the-art method.
Defeasible Modalities

Nonmonotonic logics are usually characterized by the presence of some notion of ‘conditional’ that fails monotonicity. Research on nonmonotonic logics is therefore largely concerned with the defeasibility of argument forms and the associated normality (or abnormality) of its constituents. In contrast, defeasible modes of inference aim to formalize the defeasible aspects of modal notions such as actions, obligations and knowledge. In this work we enrich the standard possible worlds semantics with a preference ordering on worlds in Kripke models. The resulting family of modal logics allow for the elegant expression of defeasible modalities. We also propose a tableau calculus which is sound and complete with respect to our preferential semantics.
Planetary Biology--Paleontological, Geological, and Molecular Histories of Life

The history of life on Earth is chronicled in the geological strata, the fossil record, and the genomes of contemporary organisms. When examined together, these records help identify metabolic and regulatory pathways, annotate protein sequences, and identify animal models to develop new drugs, among other features of scientific and biomedical interest. Together, planetary analysis of genome and proteome databases is providing an enhanced understanding of how life interacts with the biosphere and adapts to global change.
Is Stack Overflow Overflowing With Questions and Tags

Programming question and answer (Q&A) websites, such as Quora, Stack Overflow, and Yahoo! Answer etc. helps us to understand the programming concepts easily and quickly in a way that has been tested and applied by many software developers. Stack Overflow is one of the most frequently used programming Q&A website where the questions and answers posted are presently analyzed manually, which requires a huge amount of time and resource. To save the effort, we present a topic modeling based technique to analyze the words of the original texts to discover the themes that run through them. We also propose a method to automate the process of reviewing the quality of questions on Stack Overflow dataset in order to avoid ballooning the stack overflow with insignificant questions. The proposed method also recommends the appropriate tags for the new post, which averts the creation of unnecessary tags on Stack Overflow.
Fabrication, Optical Modeling, and Color Characterization of Semitransparent Bulk‐Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells in an Inverted Structure

Semitransparent inverted organic photodiodes are fabricated with a Baytron PH500 ethylene‐glycol layer/silver grid as the top electrode. Reasonable performances are obtained under both rear‐ and front‐side illumination and efficiencies up to 2% are achieved. Some light is shed on visual prospects through optical simulations for a semitransparent device of poly(3‐hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and the C60 derivative 1‐(3‐methoxycarbonyl)propyl‐1‐phenyl[6,6]C71 (PC70BM) in the inverted structure. These calculations allow the maximum efficiency achievable to be predicted for semitransparent cells based on P3HT:PC70BM versus the transparency perception for a human eye. The simulations suggest that low‐bandgap materials such as poly[2,6‐(4,4‐bis‐(2‐ethylhexyl)‐4H‐cyclopenta[2,1‐b;3,4‐b′]dithiophene)‐alt‐4,7‐(2,1,3‐benzothiadiazole)] (PCPDTBT) have a better potential for semitransparent devices. In addition, the color range recognized by the human eye is predicted by the optical simulation for some semitransparent devices including different active layers.
"R eview paper"Mechanical reliability of alloy-based electrode materials for rechargeable Li-ion batteries †

L ithium alloys with metallic or semi-metallic elements are attractive candidate materials for the next-generation high-capacity re- chargeable Li-ion battery anodes, due to their large specific and volumetric capacities. The key challenge in the application of these mate- rials has been the very large volume changes, and the associated stress buildup and failure during insertion and extraction of lithium. While such stress buildup bears resemblance to the process of thermo-stress development, a phenomenon relatively well-understood, the physics involved in these alloy-based electrodes is much more complex in nature, more challenging to address, and richer in the variety of influencing factors. The reasons not only lie in the fact that the mechanical deformations are much larger, but also arise from the fact that the processes entail interactions among mass diffusion, chemical reactions, non-linear plastic flow and material property evolutions. In this paper, we present a review of some of the fundamental issues and the latest research related to the mechanical reliability of such alloy-based anode materials, with a focus on Li/Si, a material with the highest known theoretical energy storage capacity. The review primarily concerns continuum-level analyses, with relevant experimental data and atomistic-level results as input.
Aberrant ZNF 423 impedes B cell differentiation and is linked to adverse outcome of ETV 6-RUNX 1 negative B precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia

The Rockefeller University Press $30.00 J. Exp. Med. 2013 www.jem. org/cgi/doi/10.1084/jem.20130497 Cite by DOI: 10.1084/jem.20130497 of 6 The acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common malignancy of childhood. The underlying disease mechanisms leading to overt leukemia are still incompletely understood, including the maturation arrest as a hallmark of the leukemic phenotype. Various structural and numerical chromosomal aberrations have been identified, some of which are being used in risk stratification, such as ETV6-RUNX1 or BCR-ABL1 rearrangements of the mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL) gene, hypodiploidy, and hyperdiploidy (Pui et al., 2004; Mullighan et al., 2009). These chromosomal aberrations are considered to be the primary event in disease development, followed by a broad range of secondary mutational events. Among those aberrations, deficiencies in transcriptional regulators of B lymphopoiesis (PAX5, EBF-1, and IKZF1) have been identified that cause a differentiation arrest in lymphopoietic progenitors (Pui et al., 2004; Mullighan et al., 2007, 2009; Zhang et al., 2011). The most frequently affected factor in lymphoid development is PAX5, which is involved in 32% of B cell precursor ALL, but whose mutation status is not linked to disease outcome (Mullighan et al., 2007). Genetic alterations of IKZF1 are less frequent, but correlate with poor outcome and CORRESPONDENCE Martin A. Horstmann: horstman@uke.de
Beat Critic: Beat Tracking Octave Error Identification By Metrical Profile Analysis

Computational models of beat tracking of musical audio have been well explored, however, such systems often make “octave errors”, identifying the beat period at double or half the beat rate than that actually recorded in the music. A method is described to detect if octave errors have occurred in beat tracking. Following an initial beat tracking estimation, a feature vector of metrical profile separated by spectral subbands is computed. A measure of subbeat quaver (1/8th note) alternation is used to compare half time and double time measures against the initial beat track estimation and indicate a likely octave error. This error estimate can then be used to re-estimate the beat rate. The performance of the approach is evaluated against the RWC database, showing successful identification of octave errors for an existing beat tracker. Using the octave error detector together with the existing beat tracking model improved beat tracking by reducing octave errors to 43% of the previous error rate.
Effective auto encoder for unsupervised sparse representation

Advisor Date DEDICATION To my family for their endless support and encouragement. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This MS thesis work is a story of several people working together towards a common goal. I would like to show my gratitude to my MS advisor Dr. Xue-wen Chen, who is the mastermind behind all of the work. His advice surely helped me along the way. I am also very thankful to my fellow colleagues in our Big Data and Business Analytics Group who helped me so much through my whole MS life. Without their support and help, I could not have accomplished this project. I have to specially mention Dr. Melih S. Aslan, who guided me as a mentor and spent a lot of time answering my silly questions. I have to mention the name of my friend Sumukhi Chandrashekar, Itauma Itauma and Robert Taniru here, as they always were with me and provided mental support. Also I would like to acknowledge the support of all my family and friends. Without the love and encouragement of my parents, this accomplishment could have never been possible. Last but not least, I would like to dedicate this effort to my husband, without whom this would not have been a reality. I will always cherish the conversations we held about this thesis work and its possibilities beyond academic boundaries.
Quantum Dot Composite Radiation Detectors

Inspired by experimental high-energy physics experiments, the first radiation detectors in positron emission tomography (PET), computer tomography (CT), and gamma-cameras were built of scintillators combined with vacuum phototubes (e.g., photomultipliers, photodiodes). Fifty years later, the scintillators/photomultiplier approach has matured, but still has intrinsic limitations. Vacuum phototubes are relatively bulky. Photomultipliers require high voltage (e.g., 0.5-2.5 kV). Vacuum phototubes are delicate because of fragile glass or quartz windows (a requisite for light to enter the vacuum tube) and fine-gap electrode structures (e.g., dynodes, grid and anode) suspended within the vacuum. Photocathodes can be irreversibly damaged if the photomultiplier is powered under normal lighting conditions. Most types of vacuum photodetectors are sensitive to external magnetic fields and therefore require magnetic shielding for certain environments (e.g., inside Magnetic Resonance Imaging systems). Vacuum phototube aging is often another challenge, because over time, vacuum inside photomultipliers tube degrades, resulting in performance degradation (e.g., increasing noise). Today, the scintillator/vacuum phototube combination is being replaced by the scintillator/solid state photomultiplier combination (e.g., Multi-Pixel Photon Counter by Hamamatsu or Silicon Photomultipliers by SensL). Solid state photomultipliers address some of the limitations of vacuum phototubes. For example, solid state photodetectors have small size, do not require high voltage, are more robust mechanically, and are compatible with strong magnetic fields. However, they bring new challenges: higher noise and very high sensitivity to temperature and supply voltage variations. Even more importantly, solid state photodetectors do not address main challenges in radiation detection (e.g., the need for better sensitivity and better energy and spatial resolution), because the approach still depends on the same scintillators and thus involves a multistep process for converting radiation to signal: using scintillators to convert radiation to visible light, then transporting the light into the photodetector, which finally converts light into electrical signals. A better alternative is the use of direct-conversion radiation detectors.
IMMUNOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF DIALYSIS RETENTATES FROM PENICILLIN

Retentates from benzylpenicillin preparations marketed in Canada were used in immunological studies in order to determine if they were immunogenic in experimental animals with respect to anaphylactic antibody production. The retentates obtained consisted mainly of penicillin polymers. Impurities of protein nature were either insignificant or absent. The penicillin polymers were found to be non-immunogenic in Albino Wistar rats, Wistar Furth rats and Hartley guinea pigs. Furthermore, they were unable to effect positive PCA tests in rats passively sensitized to the penicilloyl determinant.
High ALK Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Expression Supersedes ALK Mutation as a Determining Factor of an Unfavorable Phenotype in Primary Neuroblastoma

Purpose: Genomic alterations of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene have been postulated to contribute to neuroblastoma pathogenesis. This study aimed to determine the interrelation of ALK mutations, ALK expression levels, and clinical phenotype in primary neuroblastoma. Experimental Design: The genomic ALK status and global gene expression patterns were examined in 263 primary neuroblastomas. Allele-specific ALK expression was determined by cDNA cloning and sequencing. Associations of genomic ALK alterations and ALK expression levels with clinical phenotypes and transcriptomic profiles were compared. Results: Nonsynonymous point mutations of ALK were detected in 21 of 263 neuroblastomas (8%). Tumors with ALK mutations exhibited about 2-fold elevated median ALK mRNA levels in comparison with tumors with wild-type (WT) ALK. Unexpectedly, the WT allele was preferentially expressed in 12 of 21 mutated tumors. Whereas survival of patients with ALK mutated tumors was significantly worse as compared with the entire cohort of WT ALK patients, it was similarly poor in patients with WT ALK tumors in which ALK expression was as high as in ALK mutated neuroblastomas. Global gene expression patterns of tumors with ALK mutations or with high-level WT ALK expression were highly similar, and suggested that ALK may be involved in cellular proliferation in primary neuroblastoma. Conclusions: Primary neuroblastomas with mutated ALK exhibit high ALK expression levels and strongly resemble neuroblastomas with elevated WT ALK expression levels in both their clinical and molecular phenotypes. These data suggest that high levels of mutated and WT ALK mediate similar molecular functions that may contribute to a malignant phenotype in primary neuroblastoma. Clin Cancer Res; 17(15); 5082–92. ©2011 AACR.
Chronic Ethanol and Triglyceride Turnover in White Adipose Tissue in Rats

Chronic ethanol consumption disrupts whole-body lipid metabolism. Here we tested the hypothesis that regulation of triglyceride homeostasis in adipose tissue is vulnerable to long-term ethanol exposure. After chronic ethanol feeding, total body fat content as well as the quantity of epididymal adipose tissue of male Wistar rats was decreased compared with pair-fed controls. Integrated rates of in vivo triglyceride turnover in epididymal adipose tissue were measured using 2H2O as a tracer. Triglyceride turnover in adipose tissue was increased due to a 2.3-fold increase in triglyceride degradation in ethanol-fed rats compared with pair-fed controls with no effect of ethanol on triglyceride synthesis. Because increased lipolysis accompanied by the release of free fatty acids into the circulation is associated with insulin resistance and liver injury, we focused on determining the mechanisms for increased lipolysis in adipose tissue after chronic ethanol feeding. Chronic ethanol feeding suppressed β-adrenergic receptor-stimulated lipolysis in both in vivo and ex vivo assays; thus, enhanced triglyceride degradation during ethanol feeding was not due to increased β-adrenergic-mediated lipolysis. Instead, chronic ethanol feeding markedly impaired insulin-mediated suppression of lipolysis in conscious rats during a hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp as well as in adipocytes isolated from epididymal and subcutaneous adipose tissue. These data demonstrate for the first time that chronic ethanol feeding increased the rate of triglyceride degradation in adipose tissue. Furthermore, this enhanced rate of lipolysis was due to a suppression of the anti-lipolytic effects of insulin in adipocytes after chronic ethanol feeding.
Modes of response to environmental change and the elusive empirical evidence for bet hedging

Uncertainty is a problem not only in human decision-making, but is a prevalent quality of natural environments and thus requires evolutionary response. Unpredictable natural selection is expected to result in the evolution of bet-hedging strategies, which are adaptations to long-term fluctuating selection. Despite a recent surge of interest in bet hedging, its study remains mired in conceptual and practical difficulties, compounded by confusion over what constitutes evidence for its existence. Here, I attempt to resolve misunderstandings about bet hedging and its relationship with other modes of response to environmental change, identify the challenges inherent to its study and assess the state of existing empirical evidence. The variety and distribution of plausible bet-hedging traits found across 16 phyla in over 100 studies suggest their ubiquity. Thus, bet hedging should be considered a specific mode of response to environmental change. However, the distribution of bet-hedging studies across evidence categories—defined according to potential strength—is heavily skewed towards weaker categories, underscoring the need for direct appraisals of the adaptive significance of putative bet-hedging traits in nature.
A critique of ANSI SQL isolation levels

ANSI SQL-92 [MS, ANSI] defines Isolation Levels in terms of phenomena: Dirty Reads, Non-Repeatable Reads, and Phantoms. This paper shows that these phenomena and the ANSI SQL definitions fail to properly characterize several popular isolation levels, including the standard locking implementations of the levels covered. Ambiguity in the statement of the phenomena is investigated and a more formal statement is arrived at; in addition new phenomena that better characterize isolation types are introduced. Finally, an important multiversion isolation type, called Snapshot Isolation, is defined.
Neuronal Ca2+ Sensor-1/Frequenin Functions in an Autocrine Pathway Regulating Ca2+ Channels in Bovine Adrenal Chromaffin Cells*

NCS-1/frequenin belongs to a family of EF-hand-containing Ca2+ sensors expressed mainly in neurons. Overexpression of NCS-1/frequenin has been shown to stimulate neurotransmitter release but little else is known of its cellular roles. We have constructed an EF-hand mutant, NCS-1(E120Q), as a likely dominant inhibitor of cellular NCS-1 function. Recombinant NCS-1(E120Q) showed an impaired Ca2+-dependent conformational change but could still bind to cellular proteins. Transient expression of this mutant, but not NCS-1, in bovine adrenal chromaffin cells increased non-L-type Ca2+ channel currents. Cells expressing NCS-1(E120Q) no longer responded effectively to the removal of autocrine purinergic/opioid inhibition of Ca2+ currents but still showed voltage-dependent facilitation. These data are consistent with the existence of both voltage-dependent and voltage-independent pathways for Ca2+ channel inhibition in chromaffin cells. Our results suggest a novel function for NCS-1 specific for the voltage-independent autocrine pathway that negatively regulates non-L-type Ca2+ channels in chromaffin cells.
Transparent Reality: Using Eye Gaze Focus Depth as Interaction Modality

We present a novel, eye gaze based interaction technique, using focus depth as an input modality for virtual reality (VR) applications. We also show custom hardware prototype implementation. Comparing the focus depth based interaction to a scroll wheel interface, we find no statistically significant difference in performance (the focus depth works slightly better) and a subjective preference of the users in a user study with 10 participants playing a simple VR game. This indicates that it is a suitable interface modality that should be further explored. Finally, we give some application scenarios and guidelines for using focus depth interactions in VR applications.
Average Performance of Heuristics for Satisfiability

Distribution-free tight lower bounds on the average performance ratio for random search, for a greedy heuristic and for a probabilistic greedy heuristic are derived for an optimization version of satisfiability. On average, the random solution is never worse than $\frac{1}{2}$ of the optimal, regardless of the data-generating distribution. The lower bound on the average greedy solution is at least $\frac{1}{2}$ of the optimal, and this bound increases with the probability of the greedy heuristic selecting the optimal at each step. In the probabilistic greedy heuristic, probabilities are introduced into the search strategy so that a decrease in the probability of finding the optimal solution occurs only if the nonoptimal solution becomes closer to the optimal. Across problem instances, and regardless of the distribution giving rise to data, the minimum average value of the solutions identified by the robabilistic greedy heuristic is no less than $\frac{2}{3}$ of the optimal.