Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
1 The Effect of Temporal Gradient of Vegetation 2 Indices on Early-Season Wheat Area Estimation 3 Using Random Forest Classification 4

The early-season area estimation of the winter wheat crop as a strategic product is 13 important for decision makers. Classification of multi-temporal images is an approach which is 14 affected by many factors like appropriate training sample size, proper frequency and acquisition 15 times, vegetation indices (VIs) type, temporal gradient of spectral bands and VIs, appropriate 16 classifier and missed values because of cloudy conditions. This paper addresses the impact of 17 appropriate frequency and acquisition times and VIs type along with the spectral and VI gradient 18 on random forest (RF) classifier when missed values exist in multi-temporal images. To investigate 19 the appropriate temporal resolution for image acquisition, the study area was selected on an 20 overlapping area between two LDCM paths. In our developed method, the miss values of cloudy 21 bands for each pixel are retrieved by the mean of k-nearest ordinary pixels. Then the multi-temporal 22 image analysis is performed by considering different scenarios provided by decision makers in 23 terms of desired crop types that should be extracted at early-season in the study areas. The 24 classification results obtained by the RF decrease by 1.6% when temporally missed values retrieved 25 by the proposed method, which is an acceptable result. Moreover, the experimental results 26 demonstrated that if temporal resolution of Landsat 8 increased to one week the classification task 27 can be conducted earlier with almost better results in terms of OA and kappa. The impact of 28 incorporating VIs along with the temporal gradients of spectral bands and VIs as new features in 29 RF demonstrated that the OA and Kappa are improved 3.1% and 6.6%, respectively. Furthermore, 30 the obtained result showed that if only one image from seasonal changes of crops is available, the 31 temporal gradient of VIs and spectral bands play the main role to discriminate remarkably wheat 32 from barley. The experiments also demonstrated that if both wheat and barley merge to a single 33 class the crop area can be estimated two months earlier with 97.1 and 93.5 in terms of OA and kappa, 34 respectively. 35
Community-based group aquatic programme for individuals with multiple sclerosis: a pilot study

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of providing a community-based aquatic exercise programme and to examine the effects of a group aquatic exercise programme in individuals with multiple sclerosis. This study illustrates the implementation of a multidisciplinary community-based programme in a university community wellness centre coordinated with a local advocacy group. Method. Eleven subjects with multiple sclerosis participated in a 5-week community-based aquatic exercise programme. Aquatic exercises were held twice weekly for 60 minutes and included aerobic exercises, strength training, flexibility exercises, balance training and walking activities. The 10-Metre Walk test, the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), the ‘Timed Up and Go’ (TUG) test, grip strength and the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale were used to assess motor function. Results. Analysis of the scores demonstrated improved gait speed, BBS, TUG test and grip strength. The average attendance of the training sessions was good (88%), and no incidence of injuries, no incidence of falls and no adverse effects related to the exercise programme were reported. All participants reported that they enjoyed the programme, and they had improved after the training. Conclusions. A community-based aquatic exercise programme is feasible and resulted in improvement in motor functions of individuals with multiple sclerosis. These findings indicate that an aquatic training programme is appropriate and beneficial for individuals with multiple sclerosis and should be considered to augment the rehabilitation of those individuals. This programme may provide a viable model for a community-based wellness programme for people with disability including individuals with multiple sclerosis.
Inverse Kinematics - Cyclic Coordinate Descent (CCD)

This article examines the popular inverse kinematic (IK) method known as cyclic coordinate descent (CCD) and its viability for creating and controlling highly articulated characters (e.g., humans and insects). The reason CCD is so popular is that it is a computationally fast, algorithmically simple, and straight-forward technique for generating IK solutions that can run at interactive frame rates. Whereas it can be relatively clear-cut to construct an IK system using CCD, we address a number of engineering solutions necessary to make the CCD technique a viable and practical method for character-based environments, such as games. We discuss implementation details, limitations (e.g., angle limits, performance tips, convergence problems, oscillation issues, and comfort factors), and their applicability to articulated configurations. Whereas a plain implementation may focus only on a single-linked chained IK problem and disregard multiple connected hierarchical goals (e.g., articulated characters), we examine.
The Raincouver Scene Parsing Benchmark for Self-Driving in Adverse Weather and at Night

Self-driving vehicles have the potential to transform the way we travel. Their development is at a pivotal point, as a growing number of industrial and academic research organizations are bringing these technologies into controlled but real-world settings. An essential capability of a self-driving vehicle is environment understanding: Where are the pedestrians, the other vehicles, and the drivable space? In computer and robot vision, the task of identifying semantic categories at a per pixel level is known as scene parsing or semantic segmentation. While much progress has been made in scene parsing in recent years, current datasets for training and benchmarking scene parsing algorithms focus on nominal driving conditions: fair weather and mostly daytime lighting. To complement the standard benchmarks, we introduce the Raincouver scene parsing benchmark, which to our knowledge is the first scene parsing benchmark to focus on challenging rainy driving conditions, during the day, at dusk, and at night. Our dataset comprises half an hour of driving video captured on the roads of Vancouver, Canada, and 326 frames with hand-annotated pixelwise semantic labels.
Ecosystem services and community based coral reef management institutions in post blast-fi shing Indonesia

Depending upon the institutional framework, coral reef ecosystems and local economic development can be synergistic. When managed properly through local institutions, coral reef systems can deliver ecosystem services that create livelihoods and increase local prosperity in dependent communities. This study compares two community-based reef management institutions. One is located in a community with a reef struggling to recover from destructive fishing, the other in a community that has experienced a remarkable recovery. Using mixed methods, long-form interviews, and surveys of reef tourism stakeholders, this uses institutional characteristics to predict reef quality. Certain institutional components hypothesized to predict reef quality did not; these include universal membership requirements for reef stakeholders, stakeholder familiarity with leadership and hierarchies, and transparent decisionmaking and implementation of management policy. This means that one size fits all prescriptions for local reef management institutions should be viewed with caution. Instead, the success of management institutions may depend upon both the path toward economic development, access to technology that facilitates coral recovery, and communication of conservation strategies to tourist visitors. & 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Oxidative Stress Attenuates Lipid Synthesis and Increases Mitochondrial Fatty Acid Oxidation in Hepatoma Cells Infected with Hepatitis C Virus*

Cytopathic effects are currently believed to contribute to hepatitis C virus (HCV)-induced liver injury and are readily observed in Huh7.5 cells infected with the JFH-1 HCV strain, manifesting as apoptosis highly correlated with growth arrest. Reactive oxygen species, which are induced by HCV infection, have recently emerged as activators of AMP-activated protein kinase. The net effect is ATP conservation via on/off switching of metabolic pathways that produce/consume ATP. Depending on the scenario, this can have either pro-survival or pro-apoptotic effects. We demonstrate reactive oxygen species-mediated activation of AMP-activated kinase in Huh7.5 cells during HCV (JFH-1)-induced growth arrest. Metabolic labeling experiments provided direct evidence that lipid synthesis is attenuated, and β-oxidation is enhanced in these cells. A striking increase in nuclear peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α, which plays a dominant role in the expression of β-oxidation genes after ligand-induced activation, was also observed, and we provide evidence that peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α is constitutively activated in these cells. The combination of attenuated lipid synthesis and enhanced β-oxidation is not conducive to lipid accumulation, yet cellular lipids still accumulated during this stage of infection. Notably, the serum in the culture media was the only available source for polyunsaturated fatty acids, which were elevated (2-fold) in the infected cells, implicating altered lipid import/export pathways in these cells. This study also provided the first in vivo evidence for enhanced β-oxidation during HCV infection because HCV-infected SCID/Alb-uPA mice accumulated higher plasma ketones while fasting than did control mice. Overall, this study highlights the reprogramming of hepatocellular lipid metabolism and bioenergetics during HCV infection, which are predicted to impact both the HCV life cycle and pathogenesis.
Percutaneous Vertebroplasty

Percutaneous vertebroplasty (PV) is a safe and effective treatment for relieving pain in patients complaining of severe back pain induced by osteoporotic or neoplastic compression fractures. The success rate exceeds 90% and the complication rate is lower than 1%. Most of the complications are transient. The classic indication for PV is severe, persistent, and incapacitating focal back pain not responding to standard medical therapy and related to one or more collapsed vertebral bodies of 4 to 12 weeks duration.
An Empirical Investigation of Factors Predicting the Adoption and Use of Local E-government Services: A Conceptual Framework

Local e-government is the application of appropriate Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) at the local government level to improve the administration and provision of local government services to local residents. The purpose of this conceptual framework is to explore the determinants influencing the intention to adopt and use local e-government services. This research will also to seek to differentiate between informational and transactional local e-government services and to examine factors influencing local residents to desire to use either transactional or informational local e-government or both. Factors such as Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Computer Self-efficacy, Perceived Service Quality, Demographic Factors, Trust in Local Government, Trust in the Internet and Perceived Risk will be investigated. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) will be used as the theoretical framework for this study. A well-structured research questionnaire instrument would be developed and administered to 1,000 potential respondents at four different local government jurisdictions in Ghana. The data gathered would be captured and analyzed with SPSS while a further detailed analysis would be conducted using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method.
Physical and Sexual Assault of Women With Disabilities

North Carolina women were surveyed to examine whether women’s disability status was associated with their risk of being assaulted within the past year. Women’s violence experiences were classified into three groups: no violence, physical assault only (without sexual assault), and sexual assault (with or without physical assault). Multivariable analysis revealed that women with disabilities were not significantly more likely than women without disabilities to have experienced physical assault alone within the past year (odds ratio [OR] = 1.18, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] = 0.62 to 2.27); however, women with disabilities had more than 4 times the odds of experiencing sexual assault in the past year compared to women without disabilities (OR = 4.89, 95% CI = 2.21 to 10.83).
Simultaneous Stochastic Approximation for the spectroscopic reconstruction of neutron distributions

Various aspects of the neutron spectroscopy problem are studied in this research. Theoretically, the neutron emission problem transforms into a limited angle Radon transform problem. In order to solve this ill posed problem, various algorithms are tested spanning two different techniques; algebraic reconstruction as well as Monte-Carlo methods. The developed algorithms are Stochastic Gradient Approximation (SGA) method, Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (SPSA) method, and Time of Flight (TOF) method.
Measurement of differential and actual recombination parameters on crystalline silicon wafers [solar cells]

In this paper, for the first time, measurements of differential and actual recombination parameters on crystalline silicon wafers are directly compared. In order to determine the differential bulk lifetime and the differential surface recombination velocity (SRV), small-signal light-biased microwave-detected photoconductance decay (MW-PCD) and modulated free-carrier absorption (MFCA) measurements are performed. The results obtained by these widespread techniques are compared with quasi-steady-state photoconductance (QSSPC) measurements, which directly determine the actual recombination parameters. On high-resistivity (1000 /spl Omega/cm) float-zone (FZ) n-type silicon at high injection levels, it is shown that the differentially measured Auger lifetime is a factor of three smaller than the actual Auger lifetime. This finding is in excellent agreement with the theory derived in this work. Thermally oxidized low-resistivity (/spl sim/1 /spl Omega/cm) p-Si wafers serve as an experimental vehicle to compare the differential and the actual injection-level dependent SRV of the Si-SiO/sub 2/ interface under low-injection conditions. Using two different integration procedures, the actual SRV is calculated from the differentially measured quantity. The actual SRV measured by the QSSPC technique is found to match perfectly the actual SRV obtained by integration.
Quick-Start for TCP and IP

This document specifies an optional Quick-Start mechanism for transport protocols, in cooperation with routers, to determine an allowed sending rate at the start and, at times, in the middle of a data transfer (e.g., after an idle period). While Quick-Start is designed to be used by a range of transport protocols, in this document we only specify its use with TCP. Quick-Start is designed to allow connections to use higher sending rates when there is significant unused bandwidth along the path, and the sender and all of the routers along the path approve the Quick-Start Request. This document describes many paths where Quick-Start Requests would not be approved. These paths include all paths containing routers, IP tunnels, MPLS paths, and the like that do not support Quick- Start. These paths also include paths with routers or middleboxes that drop packets containing IP options. Quick-Start Requests could be difficult to approve over paths that include multi-access layer- two networks. This document also describes environments where the Quick-Start process could fail with false positives, with the sender incorrectly assuming that the Quick-Start Request had been approved by all of the routers along the path. As a result of these concerns, and as a result of the difficulties and seeming absence of motivation for routers, such as core routers to deploy Quick-Start, Quick-Start is being proposed as a mechanism that could be of use in controlled environments, and not as a mechanism that would be intended or appropriate for ubiquitous deployment in the global Internet. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.
Treatment-seeking behaviors and attitudes survey among women at risk for perinatal depression or anxiety.

OBJECTIVE To identify treatment preferences, help-seeking steps, and responses from social support persons among women at risk for perinatal depression or anxiety. DESIGN Prospective descriptive survey of women at risk for depression or anxiety. SETTING Private hospital in central Ohio. PARTICIPANTS From an original sample of 220 women recruited between the third trimester of pregnancy and 2 months postpartum, we selected 36 women reporting clinically significant levels of depressive or anxious symptoms to complete a telephone survey. An additional 17 family members were surveyed as identified social support persons. METHODS Two telephone interviews including survey and open-ended responses were administered to participants approximately 6 weeks apart. Social support persons also received survey interviews assessing their opinions about the participants' mood changes. RESULTS More participants reported consulting friends and family about symptoms (83%) than consulting health care professionals (50%). However, most participants and their social support persons disagreed about the primary illness cause (66%). Approximately two thirds of participants recalled receipt of depression screening and feedback, but far fewer received referral or treatment via pharmacotherapy (36.1%) or psychotherapy (16.7%). CONCLUSION Findings suggest screening and referral can be enhanced through expanding perinatal mental health education to target social support persons as they are often consulted by women when determining whether depression exists or should be treated. Further, a more active, personalized referral processes should be used routinely in addition to screening and education to facilitate appropriate treatment.
IT and relationship learning in networks as drivers of green innovation and customer capital: evidence from the automobile sector

Purpose Despite the positive effects of customer capital (CC), questions remain over how managers enable CC growth by applying their skills and capabilities through managerial actions and strategies, such as developing information technology (IT) capability, fostering relationship learning (RL) activities and developing green innovation performance (GIP) with clients. These questions are especially pertinent in small and medium-sized enterprises and automotive industry companies that operate through supply chains, where knowledge about customers is likely to result from personal contact between customers and organisational members. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which these managerial actions were more likely to lead to the successful creation of CC. Design/methodology/approach Using the partial least squares technique, this paper studies how these three managerial actions impact on CC. To do so, data from 140 companies in the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector have been used. Findings The findings support the influence of RL on both GIP and CC. RL is a key managerial action in exploiting customer information and knowledge advantages, enabling firms to structure and reconfigure resources to produce new ways to compete and to satisfy stakeholders. In addition, results show that GIP is a determinant of CC because of its contribution to achieving sustainable competitive advantage, with GIP performing a mediating role in the relationship between RL and CC. A second contribution shows that IT is not in itself able to yield a competitive advantage, thereby validating the existence of complementary or co-focused strategic assets such as RL and GIP, which enhance IT’s influence on CC. Research limitations/implications The authors were unable to explore the subtleties of the processes over time. Future research should include a longitudinal study. Practical implications This study considers RL an essential factor in achieving both GIP and CC. Consequently, managers should seek to build strong RL cultures. In addition, this study shows that IT is not in itself able to yield a competitive advantage, thereby validating the existence of complementary or co-focused strategic assets such as RL and GIP. Originality/value No study has ever examined these three antecedent variables (IT, RL and GIP) together, with the aim to examine their effects on CC.
An overview of lithuanian internet media n-gram corpus

This paper describes construction and properties of the open 70 million words Lithuanian Internet media n-gram corpus. Due to copyright limitations often contemporary media based resources availability is restricted, while n-grams corpora (e.g., Google N-gram viewer/corpus) solve the problem. Lithuanian language is under-resourced, hence n-gram corpus of Lithuanian media is designed to contribute to publicly available ready-to-use lexical resources. In this paper we report corpus construction procedure, preprocessing, corpus statistics and possible areas of application. Keywords—corpus; Internet media; Lithuanian, n-grams
Family members facilitating community re-integration and return to productivity following traumatic brain injury – motivations, roles and challenges

Abstract Purpose: This study explores the experiences of family members in supporting community re-integration and return to productive occupations of the traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor in order to: (i) describe family members’ supportive roles, (ii) determine challenges family members experience in supporting the TBI survivor; and (iii) identify supports that family members require to maintain and enhance their roles. Methods: This qualitative descriptive study involved 14 interviews with immediate family members of TBI survivors. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Family members expressed strong motivation and engaged in six key roles to support TBI survivors: researcher, case manager, advocate, coach, activities of daily living (ADL)/instrumental ADLs and emotional supporter. Personal and family stressors and challenges navigating the health care system were perceived as challenges in meeting demands of their supportive roles. Stigma also presented a barrier to successful community and vocational re-integration. Subsequently, family members desired more education related to the functional implications of TBI, to be connected to health care and community resources, and sought a greater family-centred care approach. Conclusions: Family members require on-going counseling and community supports to prevent burnout and allow for their continued engagement in their supportive roles. Further education on how to navigate the health care system, access community programs and rights to workplace accommodation is also warranted. Implications for Rehabilitation Family members are strongly motivated to support survivors’ return to productive occupation following a traumatic brain injury, but require counseling and community support to enable their on-going engagement and prevent burnout. Family members can be further empowered through the implementation of family-centred care. Family members requested further education on the long-term functional implications of TBI, how to navigate the health care system, how to access community programs and workers’ rights to workplace accommodations.