Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discriminant basis for object classification

This paper presents a technique to obtain a discriminant basis set in an unsupervised way. A non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is applied over a set of color newspapers to obtain a reduced space considering only positive constraints. This method is compared with the well-known principal component analysis (PCA), obtaining promising results in the task of representing independent behaviors of the input data. With this methodology, we are able to find an ordered list of the basis functions, with it being possible to select some of them for a further discriminant task. Moreover the method can also be applied to the task of automatically extracting object classes from a set of objects.
A Novel Approach to Unsupervised Change Detection Based on a Semisupervised SVM and a Similarity Measure

This paper presents a novel approach to unsupervised change detection in multispectral remote-sensing images. The proposed approach aims at extracting the change information by jointly analyzing the spectral channels of multitemporal images in the original feature space without any training data. This is accomplished by using a selective Bayesian thresholding for deriving a pseudotraining set that is necessary for initializing an adequately defined binary semisupervised support vector machine classifier. Starting from these initial seeds, the performs change detection in the original multitemporal feature space by gradually considering unlabeled patterns in the definition of the decision boundary between changed and unchanged pixels according to a semisupervised learning algorithm. This algorithm models the full complexity of the change-detection problem, which is only partially represented from the seed pixels included in the pseudotraining set. The values of the classifier parameters are then defined according to a novel unsupervised model-selection technique based on a similarity measure between change-detection maps obtained with different settings. Experimental results obtained on different multispectral remote-sensing images confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Dynamic interaction graphs with probabilistic edge decay

A large scale network of social interactions, such as mentions in Twitter, can often be modeled as a “dynamic interaction graph” in which new interactions (edges) are continually added over time. Existing systems for extracting timely insights from such graphs are based on either a cumulative “snapshot” model or a “sliding window” model. The former model does not sufficiently emphasize recent interactions. The latter model abruptly forgets past interactions, leading to discontinuities in which, e.g., the graph analysis completely ignores historically important influencers who have temporarily gone dormant. We introduce TIDE, a distributed system for analyzing dynamic graphs that employs a new “probabilistic edge decay” (PED) model. In this model, the graph analysis algorithm of interest is applied at each time step to one or more graphs obtained as samples from the current “snapshot” graph that comprises all interactions that have occurred so far. The probability that a given edge of the snapshot graph is included in a sample decays over time according to a user specified decay function. The PED model allows controlled trade-offs between recency and continuity, and allows existing analysis algorithms for static graphs to be applied to dynamic graphs essentially without change. For the important class of exponential decay functions, we provide efficient methods that leverage past samples to incrementally generate new samples as time advances. We also exploit the large degree of overlap between samples to reduce memory consumption from O(N) to O(logN) when maintaining N sample graphs. Finally, we provide bulk-execution methods for applying graph algorithms to multiple sample graphs simultaneously without requiring any changes to existing graph-processing APIs. Experiments on a real Twitter dataset demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our TIDE prototype, which is built on top of the Spark distributed computing framework.
Soccer, Servitude and Sub-cultural Identity: Football Traineeship and Masculine Construction

This case study analysis of Youth Traineeship within English Professional Football attempts to uncover the fundamental features of masculine construction within the lives of a specific cohort of male trainees aged 16-19. Locating the lifestyle behaviours of these individuals as the focal point of discussion, ethnographic evidence is presented via which professional football is identified as a key site for the demonstration and reinforcement of traditional working-class masculine values. Outlining the existence of a range of trainee masculinities, the article concludes that individual identities were shaped and constructed in accordance with a series of 'official' and 'unofficial' institutional norms, values and assumptions, many of which proffered contradictory messages.
Cloning and Molecular Characterization of HbCOI1 from Hevea brasiliensis

The full-length cDNA encoding a coronatine insensitive-1 (COI1) protein, designated HbCOI1, was isolated for the first time from Hevea brasiliensis by the rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) method. HbCOI1 contained a 2,187 bp open reading frame encoding 597 amino acids. The deduced HbCOI1 protein, which showed high identity to COI1 protein of other plant species, was predicted to possess F-box and LRRs domains. The promoter region of HbCOI1 was isolated by the PCR-based DNA walking method. TATA box and other core configurations were found in the promoter. Several sequences similar to the eukaryotic cis regulatory element were found in the 5′-untranslated region (UTR) proximal 5′ flanking sequence of HbCOI1. Southern blot analysis indicated that the HbCOI1 is present as a single copy in Hevea brasiliensis. Transcription pattern analysis revealed that HbCOI1 had high transcription in laticifer, low in barks and leaf. Transcription of HbCOI1 in latex was induced by jasmonate and tapping.
An Approach for Detecting and Distinguishing Errors versus Attacks in Sensor Networks

Distributed sensor networks are highly prone to accidental errors and malicious activities, owing to their limited resources and tight interaction with the environment. Yet only a few studies have analyzed and coped with the effects of corrupted sensor data. This paper contributes with the proposal of an on-the-fly statistical technique that can detect and distinguish faulty data from malicious data in a distributed sensor network. Detecting faults and attacks is essential to ensure the correct semantic of the network, while distinguishing faults from attacks is necessary to initiate a correct recovery action. The approach uses hidden Markov models (HMMs) to capture the error/attack-free dynamics of the environment and the dynamics of error/attack data. It then performs a structural analysis of these HMMs to determine the type of error/attack affecting sensor observations. The methodology is demonstrated with real data traces collected over one month of observation from motes deployed on the Great Duck Island
Biometric hash based on statistical features of online signatures

Presents an approach to generating biometric hash values based on statistical features in online signature signals. Whilst the output of typical online signature verification systems are threshold-based true-false decisions, based on a comparison between test sample signals and sets of reference signals, our system responds to a signature input with a biometric hash vector, which is calculated based on an individual interval matrix. Especially for applications, which require key management strategies, hash values are of great interest, as keys can be derived directly from the hash value, whereas a verification decision can only grant or refuse access to a stored key. Further, our approach does not require storage of templates for reference signatures, thus increases the security of the system. In our prototype implementation, the generated biometric hash values are calculated on a pen-based PDA and used for key generation for a future secure data communication between a PDA and a server by encryption. First tests show that the system is actuality able to generate stable biometric hash values of the users and although the system was exposed to skilled forgeries, no test person was able to reproduce another subject's hash vector.
Diminishing Returns or Compounding Benefits of Air Pollution Control? The Case of NOx and Ozone.

UNLABELLED A common measure used in air quality benefit-cost assessment is marginal benefit (MB), or the monetized societal benefit of reducing 1 ton of emissions. Traditional depictions of MB for criteria air pollutants are such that each additional ton of emission reduction incurs less benefit than the previous ton. Using adjoint sensitivity analysis in a state-of-the-art air quality model, we estimate MBs for NOx emitted from mobile and point sources, characterized based on the estimated ozone-related premature mortality in the U.S. POPULATION Our findings indicate that nation-wide emission reductions in the U.S. significantly increase NOx MBs for all sources, without exception. We estimate that MBs for NOx emitted from mobile sources increase by 1.5 and 2.5 times, on average, for 40% and 80% reductions in anthropogenic emissions across the U.S. Our results indicate a strictly concave damage function and compounding benefits of progressively lower levels of NOx emissions, providing economic incentive for higher levels of abatement than were previously advisible. These findings suggest that the traditional perception of a convex damage function and decreasing MB with abatement may not hold true for secondary pollutants such as O3.
Fault-tolerant H∞ control for active suspension vehicle systems with actuator faults

This paper investigates the problem of fault-tolerant H∞ control for a class of quarter-car active suspension systems with actuator faults. The corresponding state-space form is established via taking into account the active suspension system performance: namely, ride comfort, road holding, suspension deflection, and maximum actuator force limitation for control strategy. Different from the traditional actuator model, in this paper, the actuator failures are modelled as random variables governed by a homogeneous Markov chain. A fault-tolerant H∞ controller is designed such that the resulting control system is reliable since it has the capability of guaranteeing asymptotic stability and H∞ performance, and simultaneously satisfying the constraint performance in the scenarios of three types of actuator failures. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller design methodology.
Diversity of Domain V of 23S rRNA Gene Sequence in Different Enterococcus Species

ABSTRACT The highly conserved central loop of domain V of 23S RNA (nucleotides 2042 to 2628; Escherichia coli numbering) is implicated in peptidyltransferase activity and represents one of the target sites for macrolide, lincosamide, and streptogramin B antibiotics. DNA encoding domain V (590 bp) of several species ofEnterococcus was amplified by PCR. Twenty enterococcal isolates were tested, including Enterococcus faecium (six isolates), Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus avium, Enterococcus durans, Enterococcus gallinarum, Enterococcus casseliflavus (two isolates of each), and Enterococcus raffinosus, Enterococcus mundtii, Enterococcus malodoratus, andEnterococcus hirae (one isolate of each). For all isolates, species identification by biochemical testing was corroborated by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The sequence of domain V of the 23S rRNA gene from E. faecium and E. faecalis differed from those of all other enterococci. The domain V sequences of E. durans and E. hirae were identical. This was also true for E. gallinarum and E. casseliflavus. E. avium differed from E. casseliflavus by 23 bases, from E. durans by 16 bases, and from E. malodoratus by 2 bases. E. avium differed fromE. raffinosus by one base. Despite the fact that domain V is considered to be highly conserved, substantial differences were identified between several enterococcal species.
Toward flexible speech recognition-recent progress at Tokyo Institute of Technology

This paper describes the progress at Tokyo Institute of Technology and the author's perspectives for making speech recognition systems more flexible at both the acoustic and linguistic processing levels. Specifically, it describes a broadcast news transcription system, multimodal human-computer interface, neural-network-based HMM adaptation for noisy speech, online incremental speaker adaptation combined with automatic speaker-change detection, message-driven speech recognition and understanding, a Japanese national project on spontaneous speech corpus and processing technology, and speech summarization. For processing spontaneous speech, paradigm shift from speech recognition to understanding where underlying messages of the speaker are extracted will be indispensable, instead of transcribing all the spoken words. Building a large corpus of spontaneous speech to construct reliable acoustic and linguistic models is also crucial. Due principally to the technology of making computers smaller, more powerful and cheaper, the ubiquitous and wearable computing era is expected to come into being in the initial years of the 21st century. In such an environment, speech recognition will be widely used as one of the principal methods of human-computer interaction.
SIMILARnet: Simultaneous Intelligent Localization and Recognition Network

Global Average Pooling (GAP) [4] has been used previously to generate class activation for image classification tasks. The motivation behind SIMILARnet comes from the fact that the convolutional filters possess position information of the essential features and hence, combination of the feature maps could help us locate the class instances in an image. We propose a biologically inspired model that is free of differential connections and doesn't require separate training thereby reducing computation overhead. Our novel architecture generates promising results and unlike existing methods, the model is not sensitive to the input image size, thus promising wider application. Codes for the experiment and illustrations can be found at: this https URL .
A Research Note concerning Practical Problem‐Solving Ability as a Predictor of Performance in Auditing Tasks

The ability to recognize when there is a variety of solutions to a particular situation has been shown to be important to success in the accounting profession (Baril et al. 1998). Recently, a measure of ability has been developed in psychology that focuses on “practical” problemsolving ability (PPSA) (Devolder 1993). From a theoretical standpoint, relatively little is known about the association between ability and performance in accounting tasks. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate if PPSA predicts performance on two important auditing tasks, internal‐control‐evaluation and analytical procedures. Participants in this study (66 auditors and 78 accounting students) assessed vignettes of real‐world financial problems and provided solutions to these problems. Participants also solved an analytical procedures and internal‐control‐evaluation task. The results suggest that PPSA was useful in predicting the performance of both accounting students and experienced auditors on both analytical procedur.
Structured Enrichment (SE) with Couples and Families.

The historical background of Structured Enrichment (SE) with couples and families is linked to the need for educational, preventive intervention models that are ethical, realistically relevant, cost-efficient, useful, versatile, and easily tested. The nature and process of SE are also related to its diagnostic, preventive, paratherapeutic, propaedeutic/didactic, and research functions. Four major representative functions are summarized briefly to indicate the testability of SE. The future of SE is considered in terms of further research on comparative usefulness, expansion to clinical populations, and the testing of component skills.
From vision to reality: managing tensions in the development and implementation of an international collaborative partnership programme for institutional change and sustainable development in inclusive education

The aim of this article is to consider the practical implications of international collaborative partnerships between and within higher education institutions (HEIs) in terms of the development of an international programme in Special Needs Education as well as its implementation. We first look at the heavy institutional demands set within national boundaries and their associated quality assurance procedures. We argue that contextualising these demands within wider international and European demands creates unforeseen challenges for the participants both institutionally and individually. Secondly, the paper focuses on the programme's response to a dilemma – how do we internationalise (working in European Union HEIs)? Thirdly, attention is paid to how fundamental tensions around internationalisation of the curriculum and knowledge-sharing and the extent to which this is being managed at the Consortium of the three universities involved.
Why are leaves hydraulically vulnerable?

© 2016 The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology. As plant tissues dehydrate, water transport efficiency declines, a process typically attributed to air obstruction (embolism) in the xylem. Trifilo et al. (pages 5029-5039) dissect leaf hydraulic vulnerability and show that both xylem and living tissues may be important. If confirmed and clarified, an important role for outsidexylem hydraulic decline will change our understanding of how plants transport water and control biosphere carbon and water fluxes.
The new regional geography in English and French-speaking countries

Confronted with realities too complex to be subsumed under mere generic models, geographers are rediscovering the study of the specific. Indeed, the analysis of the recent evolution of geography indicates that after a period devoted almost entirely to the study of geographical systems and, more recently, to the unmasking of social structures in space, geography is beginning to see those systems and structures as localized and to reexamine the specificity of places. Geographical studies of the specific inner forces acting to promote the individuality of regions are each year more numerous. And many scholars mainly associated with nomothetic thinking are now producing regional geography. Their renewed interest in the specific resurrects some of the traditional concerns of regional studies and thus can be interpreted as a return to chorology. However, we shall argue here, along with Claval (1984), Nonn (1984), Johnston (1984, 1985) and Gregory (1986a), that the regional geography practised since the mid-1970s is a new one. Its emergence may be seen as a response to recent developments in social theory, notably the reacknowledgement of the role of ’agency’ within the ’structure’, as well as to changing societal goals, of which the enhancement of diversity is not the least. The argument will be based on a review of both previous interpretations of traditional regional geography and its more contemporary expressions, and of major contributions theoretical and empirical to the geographical study of specific regions in the last 10 years. Our aim is to show the significance of today’s regional geography as an intellectual
Investigations of Auditory Filters Based Excitation Patterns for Assessment of Noise Induced Hearing Loss

Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) as one of major avoidable occupational related health issues has been studied for decades. To assess NIHL, the excitation pattern (EP) has been considered as one of mechanisms to estimate movements of basilar membrane (BM) in cochlea. In this study, two auditory filters, dual resonance nonlinear (DRNL) filter and rounded-exponential (ROEX) filter, have been applied to create two EPs, referring as the velocity EP and the loudness EP, respectively. Two noise hazard metrics are also proposed based on the developed EPs to evaluate hazardous levels caused by different types of noise. Moreover, Gaussian noise and pure-tone noise have been simulated to evaluate performances of the developed EPs and noise metrics. The results show that both developed EPs can reflect the responses of BM to different types of noise. For Gaussian noise, there is a frequency shift between the velocity EP and the loudness EP. For pure-tone noise, both EPs can reflect the frequencies of input noise accurately. The results suggest that both EPs can be potentially used for assessment of NIHL.
“Danger is Lurking Everywhere, Even in Parts of a Jigsaw Puzzle”: Anxiety-related Threat Perception Abnormalities in Children: Their Assessment with Projective Material

Abstract The present study examined the relationship between anxiety and depression, on the one hand, and reduced evidence for danger (RED) bias and other threat perception abnormalities, on the other hand. A nonclinical sample of school children (N = 138) completed a brief measure of childhood anxiety and depression symptoms and were then exposed to a series of pictures taken from projective tests. Results showed that (a) anxiety was accompanied by RED bias and other threat perception abnormalities, (b) depression was less convincingly associated with such cognitive distortions, and (c) anxiety-related threat perception abnormalities were not merely the result of a stronger tendency to give affirmative responses. The role of threat perception abnormalities in the pathogenesis of childhood anxiety as well as the clinical implications of these cognitive phenomena are briefly discussed.
An Evaluation of Stratified Sampling of Microarchitecture Simulations

Recent research advocates applying sampling to accelerate microarchitecture simulation. Simple random sampling offers accurate performance estimates (with a high quantifiable confidence) by taking a large number (e.g., 10,000) of short performance measurements over the full length of a benchmark. Simple random sampling does not exploit the often repetitive behaviors of benchmarks, collecting many redundant measurements. By identifying repetitive behaviors, we can apply stratified random sampling to achieve the same confidence as simple random sampling with far fewer measurements. Our oracle limit study of optimal stratified sampling of SPEC2K benchmarks demonstrates an opportunity to reduce required measurement by 43x over simple random sampling. Using our oracle results as a basis for comparison, we evaluate two practical approaches for selecting strata, program phase detection and IPC profiling. Program phase detection is attractive because it is microarchitec- ture independent, while IPC profiling directly minimizes stratum variance, therefore minimizing sample size. Unfortunately, our results indicate that: (1) program phase stratification falls far short of optimal opportunity, (2) IPC profiling requires expensive microarchitecture- specific analysis, and (3) both methods require large sampling unit sizes to make strata selection feasible, offsetting reductions in sample size. We conclude that, without better stratification approaches, stratified sampling does not provide a clear advantage over simple random sampling.