Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BUILDING RECONSTRUCTION FROM INSAR DATA BY DETAIL ANALYSIS OF PHASE PROFILES

The improved ground resolution of state-of-the-art synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors suggests utilizing SAR data for the analysis of urban scenes. In high resolution SAR data of built-up areas, especially bright lines are a distinctive building feature. They are often caused by double reflection between ground and building wall.The appearance of such features depends on the illumination geometry, therefore the location of different building walls can be inferred from multi-aspect SAR imagery. Previous studies showed that especially the fusion of orthogonal viewing directions is beneficial with respect to the generation of rectangular building footprints. However, a comparison with cadastral data revealed that the footprints were often oversized. As a consequence, the building height estimates were too low, due to the presence of ground pixels inside the footprint hypotheses. This problem can be solved by investigation of interferometric phase profiles of layover and building roof areas.For this reason an algorithm was implemented to simulate interferometric phase data by taking into account that a mixture of several backscatterers may contribute to the phase value of a single range cell. These simulations are based on intermediate 3D reconstruction results (i.e. building hypotheses). For this purpose, the geo-position of the building hypotheses and the sensor geometry have to be taken into account. By comparison between real and simulated phase profiles contradictions between the reconstruction hypotheses and the measured InSAR data become obvious. These contradictions steer the iterative improvement of building footprint and height estimate. The assessment of the final building reconstruction results uses cadastral building footprints as 2D information and a LIDAR DSM as 3D ground truth data.The approach is demonstrated on a multi-aspect high-resolution InSAR data set with a spatial resolution of about 38 cm in range and 16 cm in azimuth direction. The building inventory in the considered region is characterized by a residential area with groups of flatand gable-roofed buildings.
PAIRWISE MARKOV MODEL APPLIED TO UNSUPERVISED IMAGE SEPARATION

The paper deals with blind separation and recovery of a noisy mixture of two binary signals on two sensors. Such a model can be applied in the context of recovery of scanned documents subject to show-through and bleed-through effects. The problem can be considered as a blind source separation one. Due to a complex noise and data structure, it is tackled from the more general approach of Bayesian restoration. The data is assumed to follow a Pairwise Markov Chain model: it generalizes Hidden Markov Chain models but it still allows one to calculate the a posteriori distributions of the data. The Expectation-Maximization (EM) and Iterative Conditional Estimation (ICE) methods are considered for parameter estimation, yielding an unsupervised processing. Finally, simulations show the interest of our approach on simulated and real data.
Attenuated Salmonella Targets Prodrug Activating Enzyme Carboxypeptidase G2 to Mouse Melanoma and Human Breast and Colon Carcinomas for Effective Suicide Gene Therapy

Purpose: We engineered the oncolytic Salmonella typhimurium–derived bacterium VNP20009 as a vector to target delivery to tumors of the prodrug-activating enzyme carboxypeptidase G2 (CPG2) and to show enhanced antitumor efficacy on administration of different prodrugs. Experimental Design: We characterized CPG2 expression in vectors by immunoblotting, immunofluorescence, and enzyme activity. We assessed prodrug activation by high-performance liquid chromatography. Target human tumor cell and bacterial vector cell cytotoxicity was measured by flow cytometry and colony-forming assays. Therapy was shown in two human tumor xenografts and one mouse allograft with postmortem analysis of bacterial and CPG2 concentration in the tumors. Results: CPG2 is expressed within the bacterial periplasm. It activates prodrugs and induces cytotoxicity in human tumor cells but not in host bacteria. Following systemic administration, bacteria multiply within xenografts reaching 2 × 107/g to 2 × 108/g at 40 days postinoculation. The concentration of CPG2 in these tumors increases steadily to therapeutic levels of 1 to 6 units/g. The bacteria alone reduce the growth of the tumors. Subsequent administration of prodrugs further reduces significantly the growth of the xenografts. Conclusions: The bacteria multiply within tumors, resulting in a selective expression of CPG2. The CPG2-expressing bacteria alone reduce the growth of tumors. However, in the presence of prodrugs activated by CPG2, this oncolytic effect is greatly increased. We conclude that bacterial oncolytic therapy, combined with CPG2-mediated prodrug activation, has great potential in the treatment of a range of cancers.
Word intelligibility testing and TTS system improvement

An approach of word intelligibility evaluation and diagnose of an embedded English TTS system for improvement is presented. The TTS engine is based on the concatenation of variable-length speech units. Multi-Syllable Word Test (MSWT) word corpus is designed for the evaluation. Letter to sound, syllable boundary, prosodie satisfactory, concatenation smoothness, compression distortion as well as the isolated word intelligibility as a whole is tested. Diagnostic analysis cycle is conducted to give the guideline of improving the system. Testing strategy, testing material design, testing tool design and testing procedure are described. Discussion is given. The approach can be applied to different languages and can be adopted for filternate TTS approaches such as HTS.
Non-perturbative SQCD Superpotentials from String Instantons

The Affleck-Dine-Seiberg instanton generated superpotential for SQCD with Nf = Nc−1 flavours is explicitly derived from a local model of engineered intersecting D6-branes with a single E2-instanton. This computation extends also to symplectic gauge groups with Nf = Nc flavours.
Relation of suicide ideation to shame,alexithymia and perceived social support in college students from Gansu Province

Objective:To explore the relation of suicide ideation to shame,alexithymia and perceived social support in college students of Gansu Province.Methods:Totally 898 grade two and grade three college students(459 males,439 females) from 8 colleges in Gansu Province were surveyed with the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation-Chinese Version(BSI-CV) for suicide ideation,the Experience of Shame Scale(ESS) for shame sense,twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale(TAS-20) for alexithymia,Perceived Social Support Scale(PSSS) for social support.Results:The rate of suicidal ideation among these students was 21.94%(197/898). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that personality factor of shame[OR = 1.08,95%CI:1.05- 1.11]and family support of perceived social support[OR = 0.93,95%CI:0.90- 0.96]were independently associated with suicidal ideation.Conclusion:It suggests that the suicide ideation may be related to shame sense,alexithymia,and social support in college students from Gansu Province,which should be considered to put into the intervention system for college students' suicide.
Citebase Search: Autonomous Citation Database for e-Print Archives

Citebase is a culmination of the Opcit Project and the Open Archives Initiative. The Opcit Project's aim to citation-link arXiv.org was coupled with the interoperability of the OAI to develop a cross-archive search engine with the ability to harvest, parse, and link research paper bibliographies. These citation links create a classic citation database which is used to generate citation analysis and navigation over the e-print literature. Citebase is now linked from arXiv.org, alongside SLAC/SPIRES, and is integrated with e-Prints.org repositories using Paracite.
Deep hierarchical parsing for semantic segmentation

This paper proposes a learning-based approach to scene parsing inspired by the deep Recursive Context Propagation Network (RCPN). RCPN is a deep feed-forward neural network that utilizes the contextual information from the entire image, through bottom-up followed by top-down context propagation via random binary parse trees. This improves the feature representation of every super-pixel in the image for better classification into semantic categories. We analyze RCPN and propose two novel contributions to further improve the model. We first analyze the learning of RCPN parameters and discover the presence of bypass error paths in the computation graph of RCPN that can hinder contextual propagation. We propose to tackle this problem by including the classification loss of the internal nodes of the random parse trees in the original RCPN loss function. Secondly, we use an MRF on the parse tree nodes to model the hierarchical dependency present in the output. Both modifications provide performance boosts over the original RCPN and the new system achieves state-of-the-art performance on Stanford Background, SIFT-Flow and Daimler urban datasets.
Mechanisms of Intra-Organisational Knowledge Transfer : The Case of a Global Technology Firm

This paper develops three mechanisms to facilitate knowledge transfer within a global technology firm. Documentation helps to codify knowledge and make it less ambiguous. Technology is used as an interactive media to spread the message codified whereas a face-to-face community develops social ties among different business units among the firm. After monitoring the impact of each mechanism we discuss the need for adaptation and the factors influencing this adaptation. The results give rise to the prevalent role of the manager of the business unit whose action affects both the properties of the unit and the relationships with other units.
A Case Study on Programming Intelligent Swarm Robots Using Pyro Environment and Player/Stage Simulator

A set of robots which shows an intelligent behavior as a whole is called swarm robots. Programming real swarm robots needs a lot of financial cost because many robot hardware systems should be purchased to test the implemented swarm intelligence. In this paper, we report a case study on programming swarm intelligence to control a set of robots using Pyro. Pyro (Python Robotics) is a Python based programming environment to provide a common platform for controlling robots. In practice, Pyro is normally operates on top of a simulator such as Player/Stage. This paper reports the experience on programming swarm robots searching for target objects in a maze. The swarm robots implemented can successfully move the target objects in a maze to the home location, where the robots started from.
Video as Method

This book argues that one of the greatest strengths of choosing video for both qualitative and quantitative research is its flexible and almost multi-perspectival potential for gathering, analyzing, writing up and disseminating the research findings. The rise of visual methods has not always ensured that researchers know how best to use video as distinct from other visual methods, nor how to disseminate their findings and video artifacts. Understanding the rich potential of video as method (and not just as a tool) is a process inextricably linked to epistemological, design, analysis, and dissemination choices. This new volume provides researchers with a guide to understanding, writing up, and evaluating video-based research, and the rapid proliferation of approaches, uses, and designs now available. In the face of large datasets and the great range of types and uses of video as an effective research tool, many researchers struggle to know how best to represent both video-based methodologies and research findings. By drawing on the literature from such diverse fields as developmental psychology, sociology, medicine and nursing, social sciences including cultural studies, and mathematics and science education, this text leads readers through a range of ways of using video from research design to dissemination, using detailed case studies from these varied disciplines. Innovative exemplars of new video practice are provided in each chapter, with practical approach instructions as readers are stepped through the chapter topics in a methodical fashion that mirrors the research journey.
Quantitative Proteomic Profiling of Early and Late Responses to Salicylic Acid in Cucumber Leaves

Salicylic acid (SA) is an important phytohormone that plays vital regulatory roles in plant growth, development, and stress responses. However, studies on the molecular mechanism of SA, especially during the early SA responses, are lagging behind. In this study, we initiated a comprehensive isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ)-based proteomic analysis to explore the early and late SA-responsive proteins in leaves of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) seedlings. Upon SA application through the roots, endogenous SA accumulated in cucumber leaves. By assaying the changes in marker gene expression and photosynthetic rate, we collected samples at 12 h and 72 h post treatment (hpt) to profile the early and late SA responsiveness, respectively. The iTRAQ assay followed by tandem mass spectrometry revealed 135 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) at 12 hpt and 301 DEPs at 72 hpt. The functional categories for these SA-responsive proteins included in a variety of biochemical processes, including photosynthesis, redox homeostasis, carbohydrate and energy metabolism, lipid metabolism, transport, protein folding and modification, proteolysis, cell wall organization, and the secondary phenylpropanoid pathway. Conclusively, based on the abundant changes of these DEPs, together with their putative functions, we proposed a possible SA-responsive protein network. It appears that SA could elicit reactive oxygen species (ROS) production via enhancing the photosynthetic electron transferring, and then confer some growth-promoting and stress-priming effects on cells during the late phase, including enhanced photosynthesis and ROS scavenging, altered carbon metabolic flux for the biosynthesis of amino acids and nucleotides, and cell wall reorganization. Overall, the present iTRAQ assay provides higher proteome coverage and deepened our understanding of the molecular basis of SA-responses.
G-CSF rescues the memory impairment of animal models of Alzheimer's disease

Most of the current clinical treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) are largely symptomatic and can have serious side effects. We have tested the feasibility of using the granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), which is known to mobilize hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from the bone marrow into the peripheral blood, as a therapeutic agent for AD. Subcutaneous administration of G-CSF into two different β-amyloid (Aβ)–induced AD mouse models substantially rescued their cognitive/memory functions. The rescue was accompanied by the accumulation of 5-bromo-2′deoxyuridine–positive HSCs, as well as local neurogenesis surrounding the Aβ aggregates. Furthermore, the level of acetylcholine in the brains of Tg2576 mice was considerably enhanced upon G-CSF treatment. We suggest that G-CSF, a drug already extensively used for treating chemotherapy-induced neutropenia, should be pursued as a novel, noninvasive therapeutic agent for the treatment of AD.
A Comprehensive Method for Predicting Fatal Liver Failure of Patients With Liver Cancer Resection

AbstractThere are many methods to assess liver function, but none of them has been verified as fully effective. The purpose of this study is to establish a comprehensive method evaluating perioperative liver reserve function (LRF) in patients with primary liver cancer (PLC). In this study, 310 PLC patients who underwent liver resection were included. The cohort was divided into a training set (n = 235) and a validation set (n = 75). The factors affecting postoperative liver dysfunction (POLD) during preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods were confirmed by logistic regression analysis. The equation for calculating the preoperative liver functional evaluation index (PLFEI) was established; the cutoff value of PLFEI determined through analysis by receiver-operating characteristic curve was used to predict postoperative liver function.The data showed that body mass index, international normalized ratio, indocyanine green (ICG) retention rate at 15 minutes (ICGR15), ICG elimination rate, standard remnant liver volume (SRLV), operative bleeding volume (OBV), blood transfusion volume, and operative time were statistically different (all P < 0.05) between 2 groups of patients with and without POLD. The relationship among PLFEI, ICGR15, OBV, and SRLV is expressed as an equation of “PLFEI = 0.181 × ICGR15 + 0.001 × OBV − 0.008 × SRLV. ” The cutoff value of PLFEI to predict POLD was −2.16 whose sensitivity and specificity were 90.3% and 73.5%, respectively. However, when predicting fatal liver failure (FLF), the cutoff value of PLFEI was switched to −1.97 whose sensitivity and specificity were 100% and 68.8%, respectively.PLFEI will be a more comprehensive, sensitive, and accurate index assessing perioperative LRF in liver cancer patients who receive liver resection. And keeping PLFEI <−1.97 is a safety margin for preventing FLF in PLC patients who underwent liver resection.
POSTER: Towards Compiler-Assisted Taint Tracking on the Android Runtime (ART)

Dynamic analysis and taint tracking on Android was typically implemented by instrumenting the Dalvik Virtual Machine. However, the new Android Runtime (ART) introduced in Android 5 replaces the interpreter with an on-device compiler suite. Therefore as of Android 5, the applicability of interpreter instrumentation-based approaches like TaintDroid is limited to Android versions up to 4.4 Kitkat. In this poster, we present ongoing work on re-enabling taint tracking for apps by instrumenting the Optimizing backend, used by the new ART compiler suite for code generation. As Android now compiles apps ahead-of-time from dex bytecode to platform specific native code on the device itself, an instrumented compiler provides the opportunity to emit additional instructions that enable the actual taint tracking. The result is a custom compiler that takes arbitrary app APKs and transforms them into self-taint tracking native code, executable by the Android Runtime.
HPC selection of models of DNA substitution

Statistical model selection has become an essential step for the estimation of phylogenies from DNA sequence alignments. The program jModelTest offers different strategies to identify best-fit models for the data at hand, but for large DNA alignments, this task can demand vast computational resources. This paper presents a High Performance Computing (HPC) adaptation of jModelTest for shared memory multi-core systems and distributed memory cluster platforms. The performance evaluation of this HPC version on a shared memory system and on a cluster shows significant performance advantages, with speedups up to 39. This could represent a reduction in the execution time of some analyses from almost one day to half an hour.
EVIDENCE FOR RNA IN THE HEAVY BODIES OF SEA URCHIN EGGS

Ultrastructural studies on sea urchin eggs (Afzelius, 1957 ; Harris, 1967, 1969; Verhey and Moyer, 1967 ; Bal et al., 1968) have revealed certain cytoplasmic bodies, called heavy bodies, which originate from the egg nucleus. These structures are aggregations of approximately 150 A electron-opaque granules surrounded by annulate lamellae . It has been suggested that heavy bodies are cytoplasmic sites of stored nuclear developmental information . Harris (1967, 1969) has postulated that heavy bodies might be the site of ribosome-bound or inactive messenger RNA. Bal et al . (1968) have suggested that annulate lamellae might contain the information needed for the synthesis of ribosomes ; therefore the heavy bodies would be packets of newly synthesized ribosomes . Other functions postulated for the annulate lamellae which might also involve heavy bodies are storage of materials for the initiation of cleavage furrow formation (Tilney and Marsland, 1969) or for membrane synthesis during embryogenesis (Anderson, 1969) . The postulated functions for heavy bodies have been based entirely on electron microscope observations of their formation and behavior in both the unfertilized and fertilized egg and on Afzelius's (1957) observation of an intense basophilic staining reaction (presumably due to RNA) corresponding to the position of heavy bodies in centrifuged sea urchin eggs . Since heavy bodies have not been isolated from homogenates of sea urchin eggs, no direct biochemical analyses have been conducted . Information concerning the chemical composition of heavy bodies, and especially the presence of RNA, has now been obtained by employing cytochemical techniques and is presented here .
Viscous propulsion in active transversely isotropic media

Taylor’s swimming sheet is a classical model of microscale propulsion and pumping. Many biological fluids and substances are fibrous, having a preferred direction in their microstructure; for example, cervical mucus is formed of polymer molecules which create an oriented fibrous network. Moreover, suspensions of elongated motile cells produce a form of active oriented matter. To understand how these effects modify viscous propulsion, we extend Taylor’s classical model of small-amplitude zero-Reynolds-number propulsion of a ‘swimming sheet’ via the transversely isotropic fluid model of Ericksen, which is linear in strain rate and possesses a distinguished direction. The energetic costs of swimming are significantly altered by all rheological parameters and the initial fibre angle. Propulsion in a passive transversely isotropic fluid produces an enhanced mean rate of working, independent of the initial fibre orientation, with an approximately linear dependence of the energetic cost on the extensional and shear enhancements to the viscosity caused by fibres. In this regime, the mean swimming velocity is unchanged from the Newtonian case. The effect of the constant term in Ericksen’s model for the stress, which can be identified as a fibre tension or alternatively a stresslet characterising an active fluid, is also considered. This stress introduces an angular dependence and dramatically changes the streamlines and flow field; fibres aligned with the swimming direction increase the energetic demands of the sheet. The constant fibre stress may result in a reversal of the mean swimming velocity and a negative mean rate of working if it is sufficiently large relative to the other rheological parameters.
Memory-Efficient Clustering Algorithms for Microarray Gene Expression Data

1 Human Genome Center, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan 2 Department of Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan 3 Bioinformatics Center, Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Uji, Kyoto 6110011, Japan 4 Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Columbia University, 1130 St Nicholas Avenue, New York, NY 10032, USA
One Size Fits None: The Importance of Detector Parameterization

The parameterization of an administrator's intrusion detection system (IDS) is as crucial as the IDS itself. The difference between sufficient and insufficient parameterization can be the difference between a detected and undetected attack. This work focuses on identifying a methodical process for IDS parameterization. Such a process provides administrators of intrusion detection systems with the knowhow of selecting suitable parameters for the effective operation of their detector. The process stresses the importance of altering parameters for individual applications. Parameterization experiments are employed on two different open source IDSs, namely Stide and pH, and tested against three real world vulnerabilities. The results show the interesting trends that are observed during the experiments.