Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Image Mosaicing: An Approach Based on FFT

- In this paper, correlation-based scheme is used which operates in the Fourier domain for finding the transformed coordinates (translational and rotational parameters) and use them for Image Mosaicing . In many clinical studies, it is highly desirable to acquire images as whole sections whilst retaining a microscopic resolution. A usual approach of this is to create a composite image by appropriately overlapping individual images acquired at high magnification under a microscope. In view of this it has been calculated the translational parameters and proposed an algorithm for finding angle of rotation using Fourier Shift approach. Finally it shows merging of two images . This algorithm can be applied to all types of light microscopy imaging.
Multi-Antenna Wireless Powered Communication With Energy Beamforming

The newly emerging wireless powered communication networks (WPCNs) have recently drawn significant attention, where radio signals are used to power wireless terminals for information transmission. In this paper, we study a WPCN where one multi-antenna access point (AP) coordinates energy transfer and information transfer to/from a set of single-antenna users. A harvest-then-transmit protocol is assumed where the AP first broadcasts wireless power to all users via energy beamforming in the downlink (DL), and then, the users send their independent information to the AP simultaneously in the uplink (UL) using their harvested energy. To optimize the users' throughput and yet guarantee their rate fairness, we maximize the minimum throughput among all users by a joint design of the DL-UL time allocation, the DL energy beamforming, and the UL transmit power allocation, as well as receive beamforming. We solve this nonconvex problem optimally by two steps. First, we fix the DL-UL time allocation and obtain the optimal DL energy beamforming, UL power allocation, and receive beamforming to maximize the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio of all users. This problem is shown to be still nonconvex; however, we convert it equivalently to a spectral radius minimization problem, which can be solved efficiently by applying the alternating optimization based on the nonnegative matrix theory. Then, the optimal time allocation is found by a one-dimensional search to maximize the minimum rate of all users. Furthermore, two suboptimal designs of lower complexity are also proposed, and their throughput performance is compared against that of the optimal solution.
September 2001 Is Timing Everything ? Investigating U . S . Monetary Policy with Interest-Rate Rules

This paper develops a detailed simulation model for the Federal Funds Rate; the model is used to isolate different sources of interest-rate persistence. Interest-rate smoothing and policy inertia have been proposed as explanations for the well-documented serial correlation in the Federal Funds Rate and its target. This research, however, examines the importance of time aggregation and the Federal Reserve’s response to persistent shocks. Results from Monte Carlo experiments demonstrate it is time aggregation that generates interest-rate persistence and not partial adjustment. Careful modeling of how the central bank implements policy in practice is essential for estimating interest-rate rules because policy makers face restrictions on both information availability and how often policy rates can be changed. This paper accounts for these limitations by assembling a unique data set that includes information available to policy makers at Federal Open Market Committee meetings. This data is used in ordered probit and least squares estimation of the Fed’s policy rule that controls for time aggregation. These estimates are used to test two competing hypotheses: that the Fed partially adjusts its target versus the Rudebusch (2001) proposal that the Fed faces autocorrelated shocks. The empirical results presented here cast doubt on the Fed’s smoothing interest rates, instead the evidence suggests that the Fed responds to persistent shocks. Kristin A. Van Gaasbeck Department of Economics University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 Phone: (530) 752 3034 FAX: (530) 754 8073 e-mail: kavan@ucdavis.edu ∗I would like to thank Oscar Jorda, Kevin Salyer, and Kevin Hoover for many helpful comments and invaluable advice. I am grateful to the participants of the Macroeconomics Workshop at the University of California, Davis for useful feedback.
Robust quality management for differentiated imprecise data services

Several applications, such as Web services and e-commerce, are operating in open environments where the workload characteristics, such as the load applied on the system and the worst-case execution times, are inaccurate or even not known in advance. This implies that transactions submitted to a real-time database cannot be subject to exact schedulability analysis given the lack of a priori knowledge of the workload. In this paper we propose an approach, based on feedback control, for managing the quality of service of real-time databases that provide imprecise and differentiated services, given inaccurate workload characteristics. For each service class, the database operator specifies the quality of service requirements by explicitly declaring the precision requirements of the data and the results of the transactions. The performance evaluation shows that our approach provides reliable quality of service even in the face of varying load and inaccurate execution time estimates.
Intensional profiles and different kinds of human minds. “Case studies” about Hungarian imperative-like sentence types

The paper offers such description of some imperative-like sentence types in potential well-formed Hungarian utterances which includes a parallel representation of the linguistically encoded intensional profiles of the sentence types and actual information states in potential interlocutors’ minds. In our representational dynamic pragmasemantics framework ReALIS, we demonstrate the intensional profiles of the five basic and two “finetuned” sentence types as members of a system enabling addressers’ of utterances to express their beliefs, desires and intentions concerning the propositional content of the given utterances as well as the addressees’ and other people’s certain beliefs, desires and intentions (concerning the propositional content, too, or each other’s thoughts). We also provide “case studies” in which actual beliefs, desires and intentions in potential interlocutors’ minds are compared to the linguistically encoded intensional profiles of Hungarian imperativelike sentence types. In this context, the listener’s task is to calculate the speaker’s intentions (and hidden motives) on the basis of the mismatches that this comparison reveals. The paper concludes with an insight into our attempts to model the mind of individuals living with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This latter subproject is relevant since our framework provides solutions to pragmaticosemantic phenomena “at the cost” of undertaking the complex task of actually representing the structure of the human mind itself – which is not impossible but requires an adequate decision of the level of abstraction and the components to be used.
General transfer matrix formalism to calculate DNA–protein–drug binding in gene regulation: application to OR operator of phage λ

The transfer matrix methodology is proposed as a systematic tool for the statistical–mechanical description of DNA–protein–drug binding involved in gene regulation. We show that a genetic system of several cis-regulatory modules is calculable using this method, considering explicitly the site-overlapping, competitive, cooperative binding of regulatory proteins, their multilayer assembly and DNA looping. In the methodological section, the matrix models are solved for the basic types of short- and long-range interactions between DNA-bound proteins, drugs and nucleosomes. We apply the matrix method to gene regulation at the OR operator of phage λ. The transfer matrix formalism allowed the description of the λ-switch at a single-nucleotide resolution, taking into account the effects of a range of inter-protein distances. Our calculations confirm previously established roles of the contact CI–Cro–RNAP interactions. Concerning long-range interactions, we show that while the DNA loop between the OR and OL operators is important at the lysogenic CI concentrations, the interference between the adjacent promoters PR and PRM becomes more important at small CI concentrations. A large change in the expression pattern may arise in this regime due to anticooperative interactions between DNA-bound RNA polymerases. The applicability of the matrix method to more complex systems is discussed.
Building personal digital photograph libraries: an approach with ontology-based MPEG-7 Dozen Dimensional Digital Content architecture

The current trend of image retrieval is to incorporate the image visual features used in content based image retrieval (CBIR) and semantics annotations used in metadata based image retrieval to enhance retrieval performance. Because of the pervasive of consumer imaging devices, building personal digital photograph libraries became an increasingly interested domain. Personal digital photograph collections have specific characteristics compare to general purpose image databases. Hence, annotation architecture specially designed for that plays an important role in building an interoperable data repository for future indexing, browsing and retrieving purposes. We propose a MPEG-7 based multimedia content description architecture, Dozen Dimensional Digital Content (DDDC), which annotates multimedia data with twelve main attributes regarding its semantic representation. In addition, we also proposed a machine-understandable "spatial and temporal based ontology" representation for the above DDDC semantics description to enable semiautomatic annotation process
Assessing the use of ad-hoc routing protocols in Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

Although, traditionally, mobility has not been supported in Wireless Sensor Networks, many applications in these environments need to interact with each other in highly dynamic scenarios, where configurations can vary from static to dynamic. Sensors phenomena, observers and even the network itself can present different levels of mobility. This mobility in Wireless Sensor Networks can be adopted through different methods based on the characteristics of their elements. This paper applies, compares and evaluates energy parameters in mobile Wireless Sensor Networks using traditional IP ad-hoc protocols.
Incremental-relaying cooperative networks using dual transmit diversity with AF technique

A new incremental-relaying cooperative-diversity technique with a simple dual transmit diversity and amplify-and-forward scheme is presented. Closed-form expressions for the the bit error rate and the signal to noise ratio outage probability are derived using binary phase shift keying modulation scheme over independent non-identical Rayleigh fading channels. The results show that the simple space time block coding scheme with the incremental-relaying cooperative diversity outperforms the regular incremental cooperative diversity when the same transmit power is used.
Electrochemical Investigation of a Microbial Solar Cell Reveals a Nonphotosynthetic Biocathode Catalyst

ABSTRACT Microbial solar cells (MSCs) are microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that generate their own oxidant and/or fuel through photosynthetic reactions. Here, we present electrochemical analyses and biofilm 16S rRNA gene profiling of biocathodes of sediment/seawater-based MSCs inoculated from the biocathode of a previously described sediment/seawater-based MSC. Electrochemical analyses indicate that for these second-generation MSC biocathodes, catalytic activity diminishes over time if illumination is provided during growth, whereas it remains relatively stable if growth occurs in the dark. For both illuminated and dark MSC biocathodes, cyclic voltammetry reveals a catalytic-current–potential dependency consistent with heterogeneous electron transfer mediated by an insoluble microbial redox cofactor, which was conserved following enrichment of the dark MSC biocathode using a three-electrode configuration. 16S rRNA gene profiling showed Gammaproteobacteria, most closely related to Marinobacter spp. , predominated in the enriched biocathode. The enriched biocathode biofilm is easily cultured on graphite cathodes, forms a multimicrobe-thick biofilm (up to 8.2 μm), and does not lose catalytic activity after exchanges of the reactor medium. Moreover, the consortium can be grown on cathodes with only inorganic carbon provided as the carbon source, which may be exploited for proposed bioelectrochemical systems for electrosynthesis of organic carbon from carbon dioxide. These results support a scheme where two distinct communities of organisms develop within MSC biocathodes: one that is photosynthetically active and one that catalyzes reduction of O2 by the cathode, where the former partially inhibits the latter. The relationship between the two communities must be further explored to fully realize the potential for MSC applications.
Parametric introductions

Aspect-oriented software development allows the programmer to identify and treat separately concerns that, subsequently, can be woven to different target applications. For this, aspect-oriented languages like AspectJ and Hyper/J provide mechanisms for defining and composing such crosscutting concerns. An introduction is a mechanism for defining certain static crosscutting concerns, i.e., concerns that affect the type of the application they are woven to. This paper discusses the implementations of introductions in AspectJ and Hyper/J and reveals their limitations by presenting typical examples of static crosscutting code that cannot be handled adequately by them. To solve these deficiencies we will present the concept of parametric introduction, which are introductions that rely on parameters that are evaluated during weavetime.
An IFRS compliant balance sheet metamodel

This paper proposes a balance sheet metamodel using Model Driven Architecture (MDA) methodology. In order to do that, we use the international financial reporting standard (IFRS) as a good starting point owing to its wider adoption across countries in preparing balance sheet. The balance sheet is summary of financial position of a financial entity such as credit institutions. The reason for applying MDA in developing balance sheet metamodel is twofold: to automate transfer and sharing knowledge of regulations of capital adequacy of credit institutions and to make a clear difference between conceptual and concrete modeling of regulations of capital adequacy of credit institutions.
Why is GDP growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones ?

Why is GDP growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? We identify four possible reasons: (i) poor countries specialize in more volatile sectors; (ii) poor countries specialize in fewer sectors; (iii) poor countries experience more frequent and more severe aggregate shocks (e.g. from macroeconomic policy); and (iv) poor countries' macroeconomic fluctuations are more highly correlated with the shocks of the sectors they specialize in. We show how to decompose volatility into these four sources, quantify their contribution to aggregate volatility, and study how they relate to the stage of development. We document the following regularities. First, as countries develop, their productive structure moves from more volatile to less volatile sectors. Second, the level of specialization declines with development at early stages, and slowly increases at later stages of development. Third, the volatility of country-specific macroeconomic shocks falls with development. Fourth, the covariance between sector-specific and country-specific shocks does not vary systematically with the level of development. We argue that many theories linking volatility and development are not consistent with these findings and suggest new directions for future theoretical work.
REAL-TIME HAZARD ANALYSIS FOR EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING

4SUMMARY Earthquake Early Warning Systems (EEWS), based on real-time prediction of ground motion or structural response measures, may play a role in reducing vulnerability and/or exposition of buildings and lifelines. In fact, recently seismologists developed efficient methods for rapid estimation of event features by means of limited information of the P-waves. Then, when an event is occurring, probabilistic distributions of magnitude and source-to-site distance are available and the prediction of the ground motion at the site, conditioned to the seismic network measures, may be performed in analogy with the Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA). Consequently the structural performance may be obtained by the Probabilistic Seismic Demand Analysis (PSDA), and used for real-time risk management purposes. However, such prediction is performed in very uncertain conditions which have to be taken into proper account to limit false and missed alarms. In the present study, real-time risk analysis for early warning purposes is discussed. The magnitude estimation is performed via the Bayesian approach, while the earthquake localization is based on the Voronoi cells. To test the procedure it was applied, by simulation, to the EEWS under development in the Campanian region (southern Italy). The results lead to the conclusion that the PSHA, conditioned to the EEWS, correctly predicts the hazard at the site and that the false/missed alarm probabilities may be controlled by set up of an appropriate decisional rule and alarm threshold.
A Multi-Functional Software Environment for Modeling Complex Missions and Devising Adaptive Organizations

Abstract : This paper presents a software environment that uses the authors' comprehensive modeling and design methodology for representing complex missions and synthesizing the concomitant adaptive organizational structures for different sets of design objectives. The tool box provides a step-by-step visualization of modeling a complex mission and building an "optimal" organization that achieves superior performance while satisfying organizational constraints. In addition, the software environment allows one to perform a comparative analysis of different organizations for various (user-defined) performance measures, and to quantify the robustness of a given organizational design. The methodology incorporates algorithms for optimizing resource allocation, mission scheduling, information management, balancing decision-making workload, and maximizing controllability of mission processing by the resulting organizational hierarchy. The software environment is illustrated via an example. The methodology and tools presented allow for automation of the modeling and design process. Herein, they constitute valuable instruments for scientific research in the area of organizational decision-making and human team behavior.
PERSPECTIVES ON CONSUMERS’ RESPONSE TO CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

This study presents a review of literature on consumers' perception and responses towards the perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) of companies, with a view to provide additional insight into the phenomenon.The study is essentially a review of existing literature, which entails the identification, review and synthesis of existing studies on the phenomenon.The review of previous studies on the subject matter reveals that there is no general consensus on the findings regarding consumers'perceptions and response to CSR. The findings from previous studies have been equivocal and largely inconclusive as to whether consumers reward companies CSR efforts with positive responses.The research is basically a review and synthesis of previously conducted studies, and no new data was collected. The findings and conclusions of this study have practical implications for research on the topic of consumers' perceptions and response to perceived social responsible behavior of companies. Essentially, the findings point to the fact that the field of study relating to how the consumers perceive and respond to CSR remains a fertile ground from research to enable management theorists and practitioners get a better understanding of the phenomenon. The study highlights some important reasons for the mixed findings in previous studies, and further points to the need for researchers to adopt varied methodologies/approaches when conducting researches on how consumers perceive and respond to CSR in contextually different environments.
Role of Pseudomonas aeruginosa pili in acute pulmonary infection

The role of piliation in the development and course of acute pulmonary infection was examined using infant BALB/cByJ mice inoculated by intranasal instillation of isogenic Pil+ and Pil- mutants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA1244, PAK, and PAO1. The piliated strains caused more cases of pneumonia, bacteremia, and mortality than the nonpiliated strains (chi-square analysis, alpha = 0.001). The piliated strains were more often associated with severe diffuse pneumonias, while the nonpiliated organisms resulted in less severe, focal pneumonias, although these differences did not achieve statistical significance. Purified pilin protein used to inoculate the mice resulted in local inflammatory changes. The nonpiliated strain PA1244-NP was as virulent as the piliated strain PAO1, suggesting that expression of other virulence factors are also important in the development of acute pneumonia. This infant mouse model of pulmonary infection appears to be a useful system for the analysis of P. aeruginosa virulence factors involved in the pathogenesis of pneumonia.
Determining the Higgs boson self-coupling at hadron colliders

Inclusive Standard Model Higgs boson pair production at hadron colliders has the capability to determine the Higgs boson self-coupling, . W e present a detailed analysis of the gg ! HH ! (W + W )(W + W ) ! (jj‘)(jj‘ 0 ) and gg ! HH ! (W + W )(W + W ) ! (jj‘)(‘ 0 ‘ 00 )( ‘; ‘ 0 ;‘ 00 = e; ) signal channels, and the relevant background processes, for the CERN Large Hadron Collider, and a future Very Large Hadron Collider operating at a center-of-mass energy of 200 TeV. We also derive quantitative sensitivity limits for . We nd that it should be possible at the LHC with design luminosity to establish that the Standard Model Higgs boson has a non-zero self-coupling and that =SM can be restricted to a range of 0 { 3.8 at 95% condence level (CL) if its mass is between 150 and 200 GeV. At a 200 TeV collider with an integrated luminosity of 300 fb 1 , can be determined with an accuracy of 8 25% at 95% CL in the same mass range.