Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survey of 3DUI applications and development challenges

We present a survey of the current generation of 3D user interface (3DUI) applications, their developers, and development issues. 3DUI developing experiences from 71 developers - as well as information about 56 unique 3DUI applications - were collected and analysed. The statistics presented in this paper give a broad view over the 3DUI field and indicate current trends in 3DUI applications, such as the most commonly used hardware and software. Popularity of Kinect and Move controllers are compared as we discuss how entertainment industry can embrace hobbyist innovation. Our results show that reuse of high-level interaction features is rare, even though 3DUI toolkits are widely used; most developers painstakingly implement common features like navigation and object manipulation for each 3DUI application, as opposed to inheriting them from a toolkit. We also introduce criteria for measuring 3DUI development difficulty and two ways of benchmarking 3DUI toolkits, and present example benchmarks using data from our survey.
Langforia: Language Pipelines for Annotating Large Collections of Documents

In this paper, we describe Langforia, a multilingual processing pipeline to annotate texts with multiple layers: formatting, parts of speech, named entities, dependencies, semantic roles, and entity links. Langforia works as a web service, where the server hosts the language processing components and the client, the input and result visualization. To annotate a text or a Wikipedia page, the user chooses an NLP pipeline and enters the text in the interface or selects the page URL. Once processed, the results are returned to the client, where the user can select the annotation layers s/he wants to visualize. We designed Langforia with a specific focus for Wikipedia, although it can process any type of text. Wikipedia has become an essential encyclopedic corpus used in many NLP projects. However, processing articles and visualizing the annotations are nontrivial tasks that require dealing with multiple markup variants, encodings issues, and tool incompatibilities across the language versions. This motivated the development of a new architecture. A demonstration of Langforia is available for six languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, and Swedish at http://vilde.cs. lth.se:9000/ as well as a web API: http://vilde.cs. lth.se:9000/api. Langforia is also provided as a standalone library and is compatible with cluster computing.
Heat of polymerization of dimethacrylate monomers investigated by isothermal DSC measurement.

Heat of polymerization of Bis-GMA-TEDMA monomer mixtures, corresponding to the conceivable constituents of composite resins, was evaluated from the area of exothermic peak in DSC curves, and also the conversions of polymerization were calculated from the ratio of the heat of polymerization for each monomer mixture to an assumed one at 100% conversion. The effects of composition of monomers and environmental atmosphere on the polymerization were examined. The results suggest that increasing amounts of TEDMA in the monomer mixtures increases the length of the inhibition period for oxygen-inhibited polymerization of dimethacrylate monomers, but decreases the porosity of cured resins.
Deterministic dynamic race detection across program versions

Dynamic race detectors operate by analyzing execution traces of programs to detect races in multithreaded programs. As the thread interleavings influence these traces, the sets of races detected across multiple runs of the detector can vary. This non-determinism without any change in program source and input can reduce programmer confidence in using the detector. From an organizational perspective, a defect needs to be reported consistently until it is fixed. Non-determinism complicates the work flow and the problem is further exacerbated with modifications to the program.
A dynamic system approach to speech enhancement using the H∞ filtering algorithm

This paper presents a new approach to speech enhancement based on the H/sub /spl infin// filtering. This approach differs from the traditional modified Wiener/Kalman filtering approach in the following two aspects: (1) no a priori knowledge of the noise source statistics is required, the only assumption made is that noise signals have a finite energy; (2) the estimation criterion for the filter design is to minimize the worst possible amplification of the estimation error signals in terms of the modeling errors and additive noise. Since most additive noise in speech are nonGaussian, this estimation approach is highly robust and more appropriate in practical speech enhancement. The proposed approach is straightforward to implement, as detailed in this paper. Experimental results show consistently superior enhancement performance of the H/sub /spl infin// filtering algorithm over the Kalman filtering counterpart, measured by the global signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Examination of the spectrogram displays for the enhanced speech shows that the H/sub /spl infin// filtering approach tends to be more effective where the assumptions on the noise statistics are less valid.
Nondestructive detection for forecasting the level of acidity and sweetness of apple based on NIR spectroscopy

Apple plays an important role in modern agricultural economic. With the international trade competition and focus of apple consumption has been transferred from appearance quality to internal quality. Currently, people pay more attention to the potential of near infrared spectroscopy in nondestructive detection of fruits. In this paper, we measure the spectrum, sweetness and acidity of apples, use ISOMAP algorithm, BP neural network and GRNN network to conduct sweetness and acidity prediction of apples. Through data analysis, we could know that it is possible to predict the value of sweetness and acidity of apples through fast and nondestructive detection, and the models perform much better in prediction of acidity than that of in sweetness prediction.
Effect of Layered Double Hydroxides (LDHs) on Aging Properties of Bitumen

Layered double hydroxide (LDH) modified bitumen was prepared via melt blending. The effects of LDHs on the physical properties and aging properties of bitumen were studied. The influence of LDHs on the chemical structure of bitumen before and after a thin film oven test (TFOT) and an ultraviolet (UV) radiation test was evaluated by means of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analysis. The results show that with increasing LDH content, the softening point and viscosity of bitumen gradually increase, whereas the ductility and penetration of bitumen decrease. LDHs can improve the ability of bitumen to resist TFOT aging and UV aging, especially when the LDH content is more than 3 wt. %. In the FTIR analysis, it is seen that LDHs can inhibit the oxidation of bitumen during TFOT and UV aging, resulting in smaller carbonyl and sulphoxide contents than in the pristine bitumen.
Video Surveillance for Biometrics: Long-Range Multi-biometric System

The human iris is hypothesized to be the best biometric characteristic in terms of uniqueness and robustness. Iris recognition algorithms developed over the last decade have matured significantly to address population-level cross comparisons. Yet iris acquisition systems remain borderline intrusive and less-friendly for subjects and operators. This paper addresses the issue of strictly-constrained iris acquisition in traditional systems. We highlight the observation that all traditional iris recognition systems impose substantial constraints on subject position and motion during iris acquisition. We further observe that the efforts to relax these constraints for iris acquisition of distant and/or moving subjects fall short of scalable system design. We present a novel iris recognition system for long-range human identification. The system is capable of acquiring face and iris images from multiple humans present anywhere in the capture volume. The iris acquisition system uses multiple cameras with hierarchically-ordered fields of views, a highly precise pan-tilt unit (PTU) and a long focal length zoom lens. The system is driven by innovative algorithms that perform wide-area video surveillance, object detection and tracking, and precision pointing. Experimental results are reported in an indoor environment for multiple subject iris recognition at a distance. Eagle-Eyes is a long-range multi-biometric system that improves on existing iris acquisition approaches in terms of stand-off distance and capture volume through the use of collaborative scene and face tracking.
Scaling relationships in indentation of power-law creep solids using self-similar indenters

We use dimensional analysis to derive scaling relationships for self-similar indenters indenting solids that exhibit power-law creep. We identify the parameter that represents the indentation strain rate. The scaling relationships are applied to several types of indentation creep experiment with constant displacement rate, constant loading rate or constant ratio of loading rate over load. The predictions compare favourably with experimental observations reported in the literature. Finally, a connection is found between creep and 'indentation-size effect' (i.e. changing hardness with indentation depth or load).
The 5′ Untranslated Region of Protein Kinase Cδ Directs Translation by an Internal Ribosome Entry Segment That Is Most Active in Densely Growing Cells and during Apoptosis

ABSTRACT Protein kinase Cδ (PKCδ) is a member of the PKC family of phospholipid-dependent serine/threonine kinases and is involved in cell proliferation, apoptosis, and differentiation. Previous studies have suggested that different PKC isoforms might be translationally regulated. We report here that the 395-nt-long 5′ untranslated region (5′ UTR) of PKCδ is predicted to form very stable secondary structures with free energies (ΔG values) of around −170 kcal/mol. The 5′ UTR of PKCδ can significantly repress luciferase translation in rabbit reticulocyte lysate but does not repress luciferase translation in a number of transiently transfected cell lines. By using a bicistronic luciferase reporter, we show that the 5′ UTR of PKCδ contains a functional internal ribosome entry segment (IRES). The activity of the PKCδ IRES is greatest in densely growing cells and during apoptosis, when total protein synthesis and levels of full-length eukaryotic initiation factor 4G are reduced. However, the IRES activity of the 5′ UTR of PKCδ is not enhanced during serum starvation, another condition shown to inhibit cap-dependent translation, suggesting that its potency is dependent on specific cellular conditions. Accumulating data suggest that PKCδ has a function as proliferating cells reach high density and in early and later events of apoptosis. Our studies suggest a mechanism whereby PKCδ synthesis can be maintained under these conditions when cap-dependent translation is inhibited.
Tissue distribution of marbofloxacin in pigs after a single intramuscular injection

Tissue distribution of marbofloxacin was studied in pigs after a single intramuscular injection at 2.5 mg/kg body weight. Samples of plasma, muscle, liver, kidney, heart, lung, and muscle at the injection site were randomly collected from five pigs at 2, 6, 10, 24, 48, 72, and 96 h after administration. Marbofloxacin concentrations were determined by using high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection and were subjected to non-compartmental analysis to obtain kinetic parameters. The elimination half-life (t1/2λz) of marbofloxacin at the injection site was 22.12 h, while those in kidney, plasma, liver, lung, heart, and muscle were 16.75, 21.48, 21.84, 24.00, 24.45, and 28.91 h, respectively. Areas under the concentration-time curve from 0 h to ∞ (AUC0–∞s) were calculated to be 31.17 h·µg·mL−1 for plasma and 32.97, 33.92, 34.78, 37.58, 42.02, and 98.80 h·µg·g−1 for heart, muscle, lung, liver, kidney, and injection site, respectively. The peak concentration (Cmax) of marbofloxacin was 1.62 µg/mL in plasma and 1.71, 1.74, 1.86, 1.93, 2.45, and 7.64 µg/g in heart, lung, muscle, kidney, liver, and injection site, respectively. The results show that marbofloxacin was fast absorbed, extensively distributed, and slowly eliminated from pigs after a single intramuscular administration.
Midlife vascular risk factor exposure accelerates structural brain aging and cognitive decline

Objective: Our aim was to test the association of vascular risk factor exposure in midlife with progression of MRI markers of brain aging and measures of cognitive decline. Methods: A total of 1,352 participants without dementia from the prospective Framingham Offspring Cohort Study were examined. Multivariable linear and logistic regressions were implemented to study the association of midlife vascular risk factor exposure with longitudinal change in white matter hyperintensity volume (WMHV), total brain volume (TBV), temporal horn volume, logical memory delayed recall, visual reproductions delayed-recall (VR-d), and Trail-Making Test B-A (TrB-A) performance a decade later. Results: Hypertension in midlife was associated with accelerated WMHV progression (p < 0.001) and worsening executive function (TrB-A score; p = 0.012). Midlife diabetes and smoking were associated with a more rapid increase in temporal horn volume, a surrogate marker of accelerated hippocampal atrophy (p = 0.017 and p = 0.008, respectively). Midlife smoking also predicted a more marked decrease in total brain volume (p = 0.025) and increased risk of extensive change in WMHV (odds ratio = 1.58 [95%confidence interval 1.07–2.33], p = 0.021). Obesity in midlife was associated with an increased risk of being in the top quartile of change in executive function (1.39 [1.02–1.88], p = 0.035) and increasing waist-to-hip ratio was associated with marked decline in TBV (10.81 [1.44–81.01], p = 0.021). Longitudinal changes in brain structure were significantly correlated with decline in memory and executive function. Conclusions: Midlife hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and obesity were associated with an increased rate of progression of vascular brain injury, global and hippocampal atrophy, and decline in executive function a decade later.
An Analytical Model of Partial and Thorough Melting in Single-screw Extruders

Abstract Based on the classic Tadmor model, a number of mathematical models have been developed for calculating the melting profile in single-screw machines. The most comprehensive of these is the five-zone model from Lindt. All these models can only be solved by numerical methods. Parallel to this, attempts have been made to find analytical solutions which describe the melting profile with sufficient accuracy. In this report a comprehensive analytical solution for the whole premelting- and melting process on barrel and screw with respect to the power law will be given.
Structure and mechanical properties of thermoplastic polyurethane, based on hyperbranched polyesters

A series of hyperbranched polyurethane (HB-PU) were synthesized using hyperbranched polyester as a precursor. Morphology of these HB-PU films was investigated using atomic force microscopy and wide-angle X-ray diffraction; it's molecular dynamics was studied by dynamic mechanical analysis. FTIR studies showed that hard segments get more aggregated to form domains in the HB-PU block copolymer as hard segment content increases. Such domain formation has a significant influence on the mechanical and thermomechanical properties of HB-PU, such as maximum stress and elongation at break. Especially, maximum stress and elongation at break increased significantly at 25 wt % of hard segment content, and the highest loss tangent was observed at the same composition. Heat of crystallization as measured by differential scanning calorimetry is also dependent on the hard segment content, and the control of hard segment content in PU block copolymers is very important in determining their physical properties. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102: 5266–5273, 2006
Efficacy of a commercial competitive exclusion product against a chicken pathogenic Escherichia coli and E coli 0157:H7

The prevention of caecal colonisation of chicks by a poultry pathogenic Escherichia coli 020:K-:H8 and the human pathogenic E coli 0157:H7 was studied in vivo in four oneweek laboratory trials. Chicks were treated with a competitive exclusion product on the day of hatch and challenged one day later. The poultry pathogenic serotype showed higher levels of caecal colonisation than the human pathogenic serotype, but the protection against both pathogens was highly significant.
Research on Optimization of China’s Urban Indemnificatory Housing Supply

The contradiction between the effective supply and the uncertain demand in housing security system, which is an important part of the urban social security system, has been a major obstacle to urban sustainable development since 1998, and how to effectively deal with it is becoming more and more important. In this paper, the uncertain demand of indemnificatory housing, which was caused by the rapid urbanization, is considered, and the models for indemnificatory housing provision under box constraints, ellipsoid constraints and polyhedral constraints are constructed respectively by using distributional robust optimization, and at the same time, the reliability of optimal models in theory is proved in the form of theorem. In the end, as application of models, the paper takes Beijing as an example, and conducts empirical research on provision of indemnificatory housing during the past five years (2006-2010), which shows the effectiveness of the method.
Femtosecond Tm-Ho codoped double tungstate lasers around 2060 nm

Femtosecond modelocking in Tm,Ho-codoped NaY(WO4)2 and KY(WO4)2 lasers is reported. Transform-limited 191-fs pulses are produced at 2060 nm at a repetition frequency of 144 MHz. Output power exceeds 200 mW during femtosecond pulse generation.
Hacking Wikipedia for Hyponymy Relation Acquisition

This paper describes a method for extracting a large set of hyponymy relations from Wikipedia. The Wikipedia is much more consistently structured than generic HTML documents, and we can extract a large number of hyponymy relations with simple methods. In this work, we managed to extract more than 1.4 × 106 hyponymy relations with 75.3% precision from the Japanese version of the Wikipedia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest machine-readable thesaurus for Japanese. The main contribution of this paper is a method for hyponymy acquisition from hierarchical layouts in Wikipedia. By using a machine learning technique and pattern matching, we were able to extract more than 6.3 × 105 relations from hierarchical layouts in the Japanese Wikipedia, and their precision was 76.4%. The remaining hyponymy relations were acquired by existing methods for extracting relations from definition sentences and category pages. This means that extraction from the hierarchical layouts almost doubled the number of relations extracted.
A generic approach to the formal specification of requirements

A generic approach to the formal specification of system requirements is presented. It is based on a pool of requirement patterns, which are related to design patterns well-known in object-oriented software development. The application of such patterns enhances the reusability and genericity as well as the intelligibility of the formal requirement specification. The approach is instantiated by a tailored real-time temporal logic and by selecting building-automation systems as application domain. With respect to this domain, the pattern discovery and reuse tasks are explained and illustrated and a set of typical requirement patterns is presented. The approach has the potential of reducing the effort to formally specify system requirements.
Serum Dickkopf-1 Level in Postmenopausal Females: Correlation with Bone Mineral Density and Serum Biochemical Markers

Objective. To assess serum level of Dickkopf-1 in postmenopausal females and its correlation with bone mineral density and serum biochemical markers. Methods. Bone densitometry, serum Dickkopf-1, calcium, phosphorus, and alkaline phosphatase were done in sixty postmenopausal females. Patients were divided according to T score into osteoporosis (group I), osteopenia (group II), and normal bone mineral density that served as controls. Results. There was highly significant increase in serum Dickkopf-1 levels in postmenopausal females with abnormal T score versus controls (P < 0.001). Serum DKK-1 levels correlated negatively with both lumbar T score (r = −0.69, P < 0.001) and femur T score (r = −0.64, P < 0.001) and correlated positively with duration of menopause (r = 0.61, P < 0.001), while there was no significant correlation between serum levels of either calcium, phosphorus or alkaline phosphatase, and both serum Dickkopf-1 levels and the level of bone mineral density (P > 0.05). Conclusion. Postmenopausal females may suffer from osteoporosis as evidenced by bone densitometry. Postmenopausal women with significantly increased serum Dickkopf-1 had more significant osteoporosis. Prolonged duration of menopause and increased serum Dickkopf-1 are important risk factors for the development and severity of osteoporosis.
3D Printing Bioceramic Porous Scaffolds with Good Mechanical Property and Cell Affinity

Artificial bone grafting is widely used in current orthopedic surgery for bone defect problems. Unfortunately, surgeons remain unsatisfied with the current commercially available products. One of the major complaints is that these products cannot provide sufficient mechanical strength to support the human skeletal structure. In this study, we aimed to develop a bone scaffold with better mechanical property and good cell affinity by 3D printing (3DP) techniques. A self-developed 3D printer with laser-aided gelling (LAG) process was used to fabricate bioceramic scaffolds with inter-porous structures. To improve the mechanical property of the bioceramic parts after heating, CaCO3 was added to the silica ceramic slurry. CaCO3 was blended into a homogenous SiO2-sol dispersion at weight ratios varying from 0/100 to 5/95 to 9/91 (w/w). Bi-component CaCO3/SiO2-sol was prepared as a biocomposite for the 3DP scaffold. The well-mixed biocomposite was used to fabricate the bioceramic green part using the LAG method. The varied scaffolds were sintered at different temperatures ranging from 900 to 1500°C, and the mechanical property was subsequently analyzed. The scaffolds showed good property with the composite ratio of 5:95 CaCO3:SiO2 at a sintering temperature of 1300°C. The compressive strength was 47 MPa, and the porosity was 34%. The topography of the sintered 3DP bioceramic scaffold was examined by SEM, EDS and XRD. The silica bioceramic presented no cytotoxicity and good MG-63 osteoblast-like cell affinity, demonstrating good biocompatibility. Therefore, the new silica biocomposite is viable for fabricating 3DP bone bioceramics with improved mechanical property and good cell affinity.