Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust tile-based texture synthesis using texture element

One significant problem in texture synthesis based on ω-tile is that it is not suitable for the synthesis of structural texture. In this paper, we propose a robust approach that can generate an ω-tile set of high-quality regular texture. First, all possible sets of 4, 8 and 16 ω-tiles that meet certain criteria are obtained, and then a fast search algorithm is raised to choose the optimal cutting curve. Secondly, spectrum is used here to discriminate the pattern of different texture. After that, we propose the ω-tile based on texture element to improve the quality of the structural texture synthesis. In contrast to previous approaches, this operation insures efficient and realtime texture synthesis of structural texture. The outcomes of experiments verify the high quality and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Fitness and the selective adaptation of language

The question that is at the centre of this paper is how can we go about explaining the observed constraints on variation across languages — in other words, language universals.1 What makes many of these constraints interesting is that they appear to have ‘evolved’ in that they are adaptive; a point that is made repeatedly in the functionalist literature. What I will argue here, however, is that we should not rush into a biological evolutionary explanation for such universals. Where language is concerned, adaptation may be the result of several different interacting dynamic systems. The order of presentation will be as follows. The next section is an introduction to what it means for something to be adaptive. The following two sections will illustrate this with two processing and typological asymmetries connected with word order and relative clauses. A potential biological explanation will be put forward and rejected in favour of a historical explanation in the next two sections. This alternative explanation will be tested using a computational model of interacting agents using language over several generations. Finally, the implications of this approach for the phylogenetic evolution of language will be sketched in the final section. The novel contribution of this paper is the suggestion that languages evolve historically to be optimal communicative systems, and that the innately specified human language learning mechanisms have evolved in order to learn these systems more efficiently. In other words, human language has not evolved (in the phylogenetic timescale) directly in response to communicative needs, even though the cross-linguistic evidence is that language is well adapted for communication.
Assessing Worry in Children: Psychometric Evaluation of the Indonesian Version of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C)

The Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C) is a well-known 14-items self-report measure of worry in children and adolescents. Previous studies reported favorable psychometric properties in clinical and non-clinical samples, but recommendations given to use the full version or the shortened version of PSWQ-C are inconclusive. As a standardized measure of worry was not available in Indonesia prior to the study, the present study aims to evaluate the Indonesian version of PSWQ-C as a measure of worry on children and to assess worry in a large non-clinical sample of Indonesian children. We conducted forward-backward translation and applied the Indonesian translation of PSWQ-C on 653 children (3 rd to 5 th grades) from four state elementary schools in Semarang city. Furthermore, we also conducted comparison analysis across gender and grades. Principal component analysis resulted in two-factor structure of 14 items as well as a one-factor structure comprised 11 items. The reversed scoring items had poor psychometric qualities. The Indonesian version of 11-items PSWQ-C has satisfactory internal consistency (α = 0.808). Young girls significantly scored higher than boys, but no significant differences were found across grades. The Indonesian version of the 11-item PSWQ-C demonstrated favorable psychometric properties to be applied in the future studies. Intervention to prevent or reduce anxiety and depression in young children should consider gender and grades differences.
Different Brain Mechanisms Mediate Sensitivity to Sensory Consonance and Harmonic Context: Evidence from Auditory Event-Related Brain Potentials

The goal of this study was to analyze the time-course of sensory (bottom-up) and cognitive (top-down) processes that govern musical harmonic expectancy. Eight-chord sequences were presented to 12 musicians and 12 nonmusicians. Expectations for the last chord were manipulated both at the sensory level (i.e., the last chord was sensory consonant or dissonant) and at the cognitive level (the harmonic function of the target was varied by manipulating the harmonic context built up by the first six chords of the sequence). Changes in the harmonic function of the target chord mainly modulate the amplitude of a positive component peaking around 300 msec (P3) after target onset, reflecting top-down influences on the perceptual stages of processing. In contrast, changes in the acoustic structure of the target chord (sensory consonance) mainly modulate the amplitude of a late positive component that develops between 300 and 800 msec after target onset. Most importantly, the effects of sensory consonance and harmonic context on the event-related brain potentials associated with the target chords were found to be independent, thus suggesting that two separate processors contribute to the building up of musical expectancy.
The intersection of social networks in a public service model: A case study.

Examining human interaction networks contributes to an understanding of factors that improve and constrain collaboration. This study examined multiple network levels of information exchanges within a public service model designed to strengthen community partnerships by connecting city services to the neighborhoods. The research setting was the Neighbourhood Integrated Service Teams (NIST) program in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. A literature review related information dimensions to the municipal structure, including social network theory, social network analysis, social capital, transactive memory theory, public goods theory, and the information environment of the public administration setting. The research method involved multiple instruments and included surveys of two bounded populations. First, the membership of the NIST program received a survey asking for identification of up to 20 people they contact for NIST-related work. Second, a network component of the NIST program, 23 community centre coordinators in the Parks and Recreation Department, completed a survey designed to identify their information exchanges relating to regular work responsibilities and the infusion of NIST issues. Additionally, 25 semi-structured interviews with the coordinators and other program members, collection of organization documents, field observation, and feedback sessions provided valuable insight into the complexity of the model. This research contributes to the application of social network theory and analysis in information environments and provides insight for public administrators into the operation of the model and reasons for the program's network effectiveness.
Synchronization of coupled demographic oscillators

Demographic oscillators are individual-based systems exhibiting temporal cycles sustained by the stochastic dynamics of the microscopic interacting particles. We here use the example of coupled predator-prey oscillators to show that synchronization to a common frequency can occur between two such systems, even if they oscillate at different frequencies in the absence of coupling. The power spectra of the separate and the coupled systems are computed within a van Kampen expansion in the inverse system size, and it is found that they exhibit two peaks at separate frequencies at low coupling, but that only one peak is present at large enough coupling strength. We further make predictions on the time behaviour of the phases of the two oscillators, and their phase difference, and confirm the frequency entrainment at sufficiently large coupling. Theoretical results are verified convincingly in numerical simulations.
Spectroscopy of planetary nebulae in M 33

Spectroscopic observations of 48 emission-line objects of M 33 have been obtained with the multi-object, wide field, fibre spectrograph AF2/WYFFOS at the 4.2m WHT telescope (La Palma, Spain). Line intensities and logarithmic extinction, cβ, are presented for 42 objects. Their location in the Sabbadin & D'Odorico diagnostic diagram (H�/(S ii) vs H�/(N ii)) suggests that >70% of the candidates are Planetary Nebulae (PNe). Chemical abundances and nebular physical parameters have been derived for the three of the six PNe where the 4363u (O iii) emission line was measurable. These are disc PNe, located within a galactocentric distance of 4.1 kpc, and, to date, they are the farthest PNe with a direct chemical abundance determination. No discrepancy in the Helium, Oxygen and Argon abundances has been found in comparison with corresponding abundances of PNe in our Galaxy. Only a lower limit to the sulphur abundance has been obtained since we could not detect any (S iii) line. N/H appears to be lower than the Galactic value; some possible explanations for this under-abundance are discussed.
Update Summary Update

We submitted runs from two different systems for the update summary task at TAC 2008. One system used Roget’s Thesaurus to determine semantic relatedness for the purpose of summary construction. The other system employs a variety of heuristics, including an innovative use of the topic headline in the assessment of semantic similarity among sentences. Our submission to the opinion task used only the provided text snippets. Work continues here on a deeper semantic representation. We will also update the SCU-marked corpus with data from the 2008 conference.
Artifact Removal from EEG Signals

Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings are often contaminated with several artifacts.Powerline interference and baseline noise is always present in EEG response of every patient. A number of strategies are available to deal with noise effectively both at the time of EEG recording as well as during preprocessing of recorded data. The aim of the paper is to give an overview of the most common sources of noise and review methods for prevention and removal of noise in EEG recording ,including elimination of noise sources.
Using participatory and visual arts-based methodologies to promote sustainable teaching and learning ecologies: through the eyes of pre- service teachers

The National Framework for Quality Education in Rural Areas (DoE, 2006) draws attention to education in rural ecologies and scrutinises the role of HEIs in developing teachers who understand the diverse contexts and who are able to facilitate quality teaching and learning in such contexts. Drawing from the project ‘New teachers for new times: Visual methodologies for social change in rural education in the age of AIDS’, this article explores how the use of participatory and visual arts-based methodologies at a rural school can lead to sustainable teaching and learning environments that promote transformative and emancipatory classrooms. We draw on the focus group discussions held at the end of each school day as debriefing sessions with the six Intermediate Phase pre-service teachers 4 reflecting on their experiences of professional development and what was learnt about using ‘new’ methodologies in a rural farm school. We argue that when a cohort of pre-service teachers work together with in-service teachers using emancipatory pedagogies in a rural context, classrooms can get transformed into enabling and democratic spaces conducive for teaching and learning for all.
Phase transitions of Traveling Salesperson problems solved with linear programming and cutting planes

The Traveling Salesperson problem asks for the shortest cyclic tour visiting a set of cities given their pairwise distances and belongs to the NP-hard complexity class, which means that with all known algorithms in the worst case instances are not solvable in polynomial time, i.e., the problem is hard. However, this does not mean that there are not subsets of the problem which are easy to solve. To examine numerically transitions from an easy to a hard phase, a random ensemble of cities in the Euclidean plane, given a parameter σ, which governs the hardness, is introduced. Here, a linear programming approach together with suitable cutting planes is applied. Such algorithms operate outside the space of feasible solutions and are often used in practical applications but rarely studied in physics so far. We observe several transitions. To characterize these transitions, scaling assumptions from continuous phase transitions are applied.
Automatic Image Annotation Using Adaptive Color Classification

We describe a system which automatically annotates images with a set of prespecified keywords, based on supervised color classification of pixels intoNprespecified classes using simple pixelwise operations. The conditional distribution of the chrominance components of pixels belonging to each class is modeled by a two-dimensional Gaussian function, where the mean vector and the covariance matrix for each class are estimated from appropriate training sets. Then, a succession of binary hypothesis tests with image-adaptive thresholds has been employed to decide whether each pixel in a given image belongs to one of the predetermined classes. To this effect, a universal decision threshold is first selected for each class based on receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves quantifying the optimum “true positive” vs “false positive” performance on the training set. Then, a new method is introduced for adapting these thresholds to the characteristics of individual input images based on histogram cluster analysis. If a particular pixel is found to belong to more than one class, a maximuma posterioriprobability (MAP) rule is employed to resolve the ambiguity. The performance improvement obtained by the proposed adaptive hypothesis testing approach over using universal decision thresholds is demonstrated by annotating a database of 31 images.
The impact of hypertension on executive functions & speed of processing in geriatric subjects

Introduction: Hypertension is a major contributor to cerebrovascular pathology causing dementia. Visual reaction time gives a better index of the cortical processing of Visual Stimulus. Trail Making Test provides information on visual search, scanning, speed of processing, mental flexibility, and executive functions. Our objective was to compare simple and choice reaction time (SRT & CRT) and trail making scores between hypertensives and normotensives geriatric male subjects. Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 60 Male hypertensives and normotensives aged >60 years, with BP 140/90 mm Hg were considered as hypertensive’s. Computer programme recorded both SRT & CRT using Deary- Liewald Reation Time Tester version 3.10. Trail making test was used as executive function test. Results: Data were analysed using SPSS version- 20, Unpaired t-test showed significant difference in the reaction time scores of normotensives (SRT: M: 366.4 SD: 16.41; CRT: M: 737.6 SD:59.82 ) and hypertensives (SRT: M: 471.4 SD: 21.52 ; CRT: M: 902.4 SD: 55.57). In addition, the executive function showed significant difference between the executive ability of normotensives (TMT-B: M: 97.6, SD: 18.24) and hypertensives (TMT-B: M: 112.24 SD: 20.12). Interpretation and Conclusion: The results showed that the hypertensive elderly males have a lower cognitive performance in comparison to age matched normotensives. Hypertension delays the speed of processing of information in elderly hence they are at higher risk for injuries and its consequences. Keywords: Aged, Executive functions, Hypertension, Reaction Time, Trail making test.
Associations of ChREBP and Global DNA Methylation with Genetic and Environmental Factors in Chinese Healthy Adults

Age, gender, diet, gene and lifestyle have been reported to affect metabolic status and disease susceptibility through epigenetic pathway. But it remains indistinct that which factors account for certain epigenetic modifications. Our aim was to identify the influencing factors on inter-individual DNA methylation variations of carbohydrate response element binding protein (ChREBP) and global genome in peripheral blood leucocytes (PBLs). ChREBP DNA methylation was determined by bisulfite sequencing, and genomic 5mdC contents were quantified by capillary hydrophilic-interaction liquid chromatography/ in-source fragmentation/ tandem mass spectrometry system in about 300 healthy individuals. Eleven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) spanning ChREBP and DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) were genotyped by high resolution melting or PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism. DNMT1 mRNA expression was analyzed by quantitative PCR. We found ChREBP DNA methylation levels were statistically associated with age (Beta (B) = 0.028, p = 0.006) and serum total cholesterol concentrations (TC) (B = 0.815, p = 0.010), independent of sex, concentrations of triglyceride, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), fasting blood glucose and systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, PBLs counts and classifications. The DNMT1 haplotypes were related to ChREBP (odds ratio (OR) = 0.668, p = 0.029) and global (OR = 0.450, p = 0.015) DNA methylation as well as LDL-C, but not DNMT1 expression. However, only the relation to LDL-C was robust to correction for multiple testing (ORFDR = 1.593, pFDR = 0.013). These results indicated that the age and TC were independent influential factors of ChREBP methylation and DNMT1 variants could probably influence LDL-C to further modify ChREBP DNA methylation. Certainly, sequential comprehensive analysis of the interactions between genetic variants and blood lipid levels on ChREBP and global DNA methylation was required.
Bimodal log-linear regression for fusion of audio and visual features

One of the most commonly used audiovisual fusion approaches is feature-level fusion where the audio and visual features are concatenated. Although this approach has been successfully used in several applications, it does not take into account interactions between the features, which can be a problem when one and/or both modalities have noisy features. In this paper, we investigate whether feature fusion based on explicit modelling of interactions between audio and visual features can enhance the performance of the classifier that performs feature fusion using simple concatenation of the audio-visual features. To this end, we propose a log-linear model, named Bimodal Log-linear regression, which accounts for interactions between the features of the two modalities. The performance of the target classifiers is measured in the task of laughter-vs-speech discrimination, since both laughter and speech are naturally audiovisual events. Our experiments on the MAHNOB laughter database suggest that feature fusion based on explicit modelling of interactions between the audio-visual features leads to an improvement of 3\% over the standard feature concatenation approach, when log-linear model is used as the base classifier. Finally, the most and least influential features can be easily identified by observing their interactions.
Spatial Dependence in Linear Regression Models with an Introduction to Spatial Econometrics

On a submarine pipeline laying barge having a pivoted inclined ramp for paying out the pipe string in a single catenary manner, a dampener is provided to reduce the movement of the ramp relative to the barge. Means are also provided to lock the ramp relative to the barge when a new section of pipe is on the ramp. The new sections of pipe are handled by means of cables secured to removable swivel caps on each end and controlled from a single operator's console.
The Miseducation of Latin American Girls: Poor Schooling Makes Pregnancy a Rational Choice

Our interest in understanding the determinants of adolescent childbearing and how adolescent childbearing influences educational trajectories derive from a concern about the inverse relationship between educational outcomes and adolescent fertility. Through in-depth interviews with 118 women, we contrast the educational trajectories of adolescent and adult childbearers in urban neighborhoods in Paraguay and Peru. The findings suggest that adolescents who face obstacles that discourage academic achievement and high aspirations in life are also more likely to bear children.
Value Congruity , Identity and Store Image Formation : A Conceptualization of Consumers ’ Retail Store Choice Behaviour

Marketers have always aimed at improving upon the quality of relationship with consumers. In a retail context the outcome of the relationship with store results into respective association with the store as an object. These are termed as store performance quality, intention of patronage, store related satisfaction and store loyalty. Congruity studies have always conceptualized the store image as its personality. Personality is holistic. Thus the congruity examination calls for measuring store image and self image on the same dimensions. This required the personification of the store. This paper is an attempt to develop a theoretical basis for it.
Ubiquitous human body motion capture using micro-sensors

Traditional vision-based and commercial motion-capture systems acquire human body motion within studio. We present an ubiquitous human limb motion capture system using wearable micro-inertial-sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes. The sensor units are attached to segments of upper limb, and the collected acceleration and angular rate data are transmitted to the PC via USB interface. Motion data are fused by a quaternion-based Kalman filter to reconstruct orientations of body segments in real time. A sensor data-driven layered human motion model is developed for real-time animation. The experimental results show that our system can capture motions and drive the animation in real-time without noticeable drift.