Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Calibrating Large Scale Vehicle Trajectory Data

An accurate and sufficient vehicle trajectory data set is the basis to many trajectory-based data mining tasks and applications. However, vehicle trajectories sampled by GPS devices are usually at a relatively low sampling rate and contain notable location errors. To address these two problems in GPS trajectory data, we propose WI-matching, the first vehicle trajectory calibration framework to take advantage of road networks topology and geometry information and trajectory historical information in large scale. WI-matching consists of a Weighting-based map matching algorithm and a trajectory Interpolation-based matching algorithm. In our WI-matching framework, we first integrate the vehicle GPS data with digital road networks data, to identify the roads where a vehicle traveled and the vehicle locations along the roads. Then our weighting-based map matching algorithm considers (1) the geometric and topological information of the road networks and (2) the spatiotemporal trajectory information to efficiently and effectively calibrate the GPS data points. Finally, our interpolation algorithm identifies paths between consecutive GPS points, and adds points with estimated vehicle status (location and time stamp) along the paths to construct sufficient vehicle trajectories. We have evaluated our algorithms on a large-scale real life data set in comparison with the state of the art. Our extensive and empirical results indicate that our WI-matching achieves a high accuracy as well as a high efficiency on real-world data which beats the state of the art.
Arable crop disease control, climate change and food security

Global food security is threatened by crop diseases that account for average yield losses of 16%. Climate change is exacerbating threats to food security in much of the world, emphasising the need to increase food production in northern European countries such as the UK. However, to mitigate climate change, crops must be grown so as to minimise greenhouse gas emissions (GHG); results with UK oilseed rape demonstrate how disease control in arable crops can contribute to climate change mitigation. However, work examining impacts of climate change on UK epidemics of winter oilseed rape diseases illustrates unexpected, contrasting impacts of climate change on complex plant-disease interactions. In England, phoma stem canker is expected to become more severe whilst light leaf spot is expected to become less severe. Such work can provide guidance for government and industry planning for adaptation to impacts of climate change on crops to ensure future food security.
Finite Element Modeling of Magnetic Field/Defect Interactions

Defect modeling and the prediction of magnetic field/defect interactions is of importance to the further refinement of electromagnetic methods of defect detection and categorization. Finite element methods are particularly suited to the analysis of field distributions within magnetic structures having complex boundary geometries and nonlinear B-H characteristics. This paper describes operational aspects of the finite element technique and shows how such methods can be applied to the analysis of electromagnetic methods of nondestructive testing, by predicting the magnetic field distribution around a rectangular slot in the surface of a circular ferromagnetic bar carrying an axial magnetisation current.
Physiotherapists' understanding of red flags for back pain.

INTRODUCTION The expanding role of physiotherapists, with increasing use of services such as self-referral, means that demonstrating an ability to understanding and ask red-flag questions appropriately has never been more important. The present study investigated how physiotherapists define common red flags, how they ask red-flag questions, which red flags they routinely record and the importance that therapists attribute to individual red-flags. METHODS In this qualitative study, an online questionnaire survey was circulated to physiotherapists using various UK special interests networks. A total of 98 physiotherapists participated in the study, the majority of whom worked exclusively in the National Health Service. RESULTS In general, clinicians defined red flags for back pain in line with guidelines but there was little consensus on how therapists asked patients about red flags. Questioning often included undefined terminology and therapists not asking some red-flag questions. Additionally, the more recently recognized flags (vague, non-specific lower-leg symptoms; band-like trunk pain; decreased mobility) had less importance attached to them and were recorded less frequently. CONCLUSIONS If only certain red flags are being assessed, this may put patients at risk of having serious spinal pathologies going undetected. Thus, strategies encouraging therapists to ask all red-flag questions may be needed. The importance of the more recently recognized red flags may need to be emphasized to clinicians. Finally, the inconsistent way in which the red-flag questions were asked highlights a potential practical barrier to translating red-flag knowledge into clinical practice. There is a need to build on this work, using in-depth qualitative interviews, to gain a deeper understanding of how therapists understand and apply the red flags commonly used in back pain assessment.
ROCK1 via LIM kinase regulates growth, maturation and actin based functions in mast cells

Understanding mast cell development is essential due to their critical role in regulating immunity and autoimmune diseases. Here, we show how Rho kinases (ROCK) regulate mast cell development and can function as therapeutic targets for treating allergic diseases. Rock1 deficiency results in delayed maturation of bone marrow derived mast cells (BMMCs) in response to IL-3 stimulation and reduced growth in response to stem cell factor (SCF) stimulation. Further, integrin-mediated adhesion and migration, and IgE-mediated degranulation are all impaired in Rock1-deficient BMMCs. To understand the mechanism behind altered mast cell development in Rock1−/− BMMCs, we analyzed the activation of ROCK and its downstream targets including LIM kinase (LIMK). We observed reduced activation of ROCK, LIMK, AKT and ERK1/2 in Rock1-deficient BMMCs in response to SCF stimulation. Further, loss of either Limk1 or Limk2 also demonstrated altered BMMC maturation and growth; combined deletion of both Limk1 and Limk2 resulted in further reduction in BMMC maturation and growth. In passive cutaneous anaphylaxis model, deficiency of Rock1 or treatment with ROCK inhibitor Fasudil protected mice against IgE-mediated challenge. Our results identify ROCK/LIMK pathway as a novel therapeutic target for treating allergic diseases involving mast cells.
Fabrication of inverse opal oxide structures for efficient light harvesting

Artificial opals are self-assembled face centered cubic (fcc) structures of spherically shaped beads, which interesting applications as photonic band gap materials. Inverse opals are photonic crystals consisting of fcc paced voids of a low refractive index material imbedded in a high refractive index material. Such structures has been used to enhance the photocatalytic effect of different materials and motivates further studies to improve the deposition process of the opal templates and their inversion. We state the fabrication method to design and model metal oxide inverse opals. We have successfully created alumina and alumina-titania inverse opals. With the help of simulations, we engineered inverse opals with self-assembly and atomic layer deposition.
Male Carriers of the FMR1 Premutation Show Altered Hippocampal-Prefrontal Function During Memory Encoding

Previous functional MRI (fMRI) studies have shown that fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) fragile X premutation allele carriers (FXPCs) exhibit decreased hippocampal activation during a recall task and lower inferior frontal activation during a working memory task compared to matched controls. The molecular characteristics of FXPCs includes 55–200 CGG trinucleotide expansions, increased FMR1 mRNA levels, and decreased FMRP levels especially at higher repeat sizes. In the current study, we utilized MRI to examine differences in hippocampal volume and function during an encoding task in young male FXPCs. While no decreases in either hippocampal volume or hippocampal activity were observed during the encoding task in FXPCs, FMRP level (measured in blood) correlated with decreases in parahippocampal activation. In addition, activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during correctly encoded trials correlated negatively with mRNA levels. These results, as well as the established biological effects associated with elevated mRNA levels and decreased FMRP levels on dendritic maturation and axonal growth, prompted us to explore functional connectivity between the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and parahippocampal gyrus using a psychophysiological interaction analysis. In FXPCs, the right hippocampus evinced significantly lower connectivity with right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and right parahippocampal gyrus. Furthermore, the weaker connectivity between the right hippocampus and VLPFC was associated with reduced FMRP in the FXPC group. These results suggest that while FXPCs show relatively typical brain response during encoding, faulty connectivity between frontal and hippocampal regions may have subsequent effects on recall and working memory.
Purification and characterization of the raffinose oligosaccharide chain elongation enzyme, galactan : galactan galactosyltransferase (GGT), from Ajuga reptans leaves.

Galactan: galactan galactosyltransferase (GGT), an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of the long-chain raffinose family of oligosaccharides (RFOs) in Ajuga reptans, catalyses the transfer of an alpha-galactosyl residue from one molecule of RFO to another one resulting in the next higher RFO oligomer. This novel galactinol (alpha-galactosyl-myo-inositol)-independent alpha-galactosyltransferase is responsible for the accumulation of long-chain RFOs in vivo. Warm treatment (20 degrees C) of excised leaves resulted in a 34-fold increase of RFO concentration and a 200-fold increase of GGT activity after 28 days. Cold treatment (10 degrees C/3 degrees C day/night) resulted in a 26- and 130-fold increase, respectively. These data support the role of GGT as a key enzyme in the synthesis and accumulation of long-chain RFOs. GGT was purified from leaves in a 4-step procedure which involved fractionated precipitation with ammonium sulphate as well as lectin affinity, anion exchange, and size-exclusion chromatography and resulted in a 200-fold purification. Purified GGT had an isoelectric point of 4.7, a pH optimum around 5, and its transferase reaction displayed saturable concentration dependence for both raffinose (Km = 42 mM) and stachyose (Km = 58 mM). GGT is a glycoprotein with a 10% glycan portion. The native molecular mass was 212 kDa as determined by size-exclusion chromatography. Purified GGT showed one single active band after native PAGE or IEF separation, respectively, which separated into three bands on SDS-PAGE at 48 kDa, 66 kDa, and 60 kDa. The amino acid sequence of four tryptic peptides obtained from the major 48-kDa band showed a high homology to plant alpha-galactosidase (EC 3.2.1.22) sequences. GGT differed, however, in its substrate specificity from alpha-galactosidases; it neither hydrolysed nor transferred alpha-galactosyl-groups from melibiose, galactinol, UDP-galactose, manninotriose, and manninotetrose. Galactinol, sucrose, and galactose inhibited the GGT reaction considerably at 10-50 mM.
Interpreting similarity measures: Bridging the gap between schema matching and data integration

It has been recognized in the literature that the process of schema matching is uncertain. Such uncertainty at the core of data integration needs to be managed correctly to avoid dire consequences. Traditionally, manual intervention was required to make local decisions at the schema matching level to reach a deterministic matching before the rest of the data integration system can use it. Recently, however, researchers have argued for moving to fully-automatic transition of schema matching results into other data integration activities. In this work we discuss what it takes to bridge the gap between automatic schema matching and data integration. We briefly present the modeling of schema matching as an uncertain process, review a sufficient condition for using matcher similarity measure as a measure of schema matching correctness and provide a case study of data integration in peer database management system to demonstrate the benefit of our proposed gap bridging technique.
Influence of afterload on left ventricular radial and longitudinal systolic functions: a two-dimensional strain imaging study.

AIMS This study aimed to assess the influence of afterload alteration on radial (R) and longitudinal (L) left ventricular (LV) systolic regional functions. METHODS AND RESULTS We analysed systolic myocardial function by two-dimensional strain (2D-S) and sonomicrometry (SS) in an experimental pig model of aortic banding. Both radial and longitudinal functions were analysed in six open-chest pigs under various loading conditions: baseline and graded aortic banding (subsequent increase in LV pressure of 10, 20, and 40 mmHg). Both systolic 2D-S(long) and 2D-S(rad) were significantly correlated with SS(long) and SS(rad) (r = 0.63, P < 0.001 and r = 0.65, P < 0.01, respectively). At a low increase in LV afterload, 2D-S(rad) was still preserved whereas 2D-S(long) significantly decreased. When LV afterload was subsequently increased, both 2D-S(rad) and 2D-S(long) significantly decreased. Difference in dependence to wall stress might explain these different behaviours. CONCLUSION 2D-S shows a different response in longitudinal and radial functions to increased afterload. Longitudinal function is early impaired, whereas radial function remains preserved. This finding justifies the combined assessment of both radial and longitudinal regional myocardial functions to characterize myocardial dysfunction and might help to better identify the transition to heart failure in pressure-overload cardiomyopathy.
Performance Analysis and Optimization of One-hop Network Coding in Multi-hop Wireless Networks

In this paper, we analyze the performance of one-hop network coding in multi-hop networks and optimize it by two solutions. One is evaluating cost-delay tradeoff of opportunistic network coding in a two-way relay network with asymmetric arrival rates, we first formulate the variance of the queue into a Markov chain and derive the transition probability and the stable distribution. Then we analyze the average power cost and delay, formulate the optimal power-delay tradeoff, and propose a heuristic discrete solution. We also show that the performance degradation of the proposed discrete solution is limited. Another solution is intelligent overhear to mainly reduce overhead of power consumption. After that, we present numerical results for the cost-delay tradeoff solution and evaluate the result of intelligent overhear by COPE simulation using network simulator ns-2.
FPGA-Accelerated Dehazing by Visible and Near-infrared Image Fusion

Fog and haze can have a dramatic impact on vision systems for land and sea vehicles. The impact of such conditions on infrared images is not as severe as for standard images. By fusing images from two cameras, one ordinary and one near-infrared camera, a complete dehazing system with colour preservation can be achieved. Applying several different algorithms to an image set and evaluating the results, the most suitable image fusion algoritm has been identified. Using an FPGA, a programmable integrated circuit, a crucial part of the algorithm has been implemented. It is capable of producing processed images 30 times faster than a laptop computer. This implementation lays the foundation of a real-time dehazing system and provides a significant part of the full solution. The results show that such a system can be accomplished with an FPGA.
On Dynamic Approximate Shortest Paths for Planar Graphs with Worst-Case Costs

Given a base weighted planar graph Ginput on n nodes and parameters M, e we present a dynamic distance oracle with 1 + e stretch and worst case update and query costs of e--3M4 · poly-log(n). We allow arbitrary edge weight updates as long as the shortest path metric induced by the updated graph has stretch of at most M relative to the shortest path metric of the base graph Ginput. For example, on a planar road network, we can support fast queries and dynamic traffic updates as long as the shortest path from any source to any target (including using arbitrary detours) is between, say, 80 and 3 miles-per-hour. As a warm-up we also prove that graphs of bounded treewidth have exact distance oracles in the dynamic edge model. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first dynamic distance oracle for a non-trivial family of dynamic changes to planar graphs with worst case costs of o(n1/2) both for query and for update operations.
Arena software tutorial

The Arena modeling system from Systems Modeling Corporation is a flexible and powerful tool that allows analysts to creates animated simulation models that accurately represent virtually any system. First released in 1993, Arena employs an object-oriented design for entirely graphical model development. Simulation analysts place graphical objects--called modules-on a layout in order to define system components such as machines, operators, and material handling devices. Arena is built on the SIMAN simulation language. After creating a simulation model graphically, Arena automatically generates the underlying SIMAN model used to perform simulation runs. The graphical modules used by simulation analysts to create models are provided "off-the-shelf" with Arena. These modules can also be custom designed by the end user to produce a modeling environment that is tailored to a specific application area (e.g., welding, cross-dock, etc.) or a specific vertical market (e.g., semiconductor, textiles, etc.). The resulting collection of user-created modules is contained inside an Application Solution Template (AST) that can be shared by any licensed Arena user.
Causal graph-based video segmentation

Among the different methods producing superpixel segmentations of an image, the graph-based approach of Felzenszwalb and Huttenlocher is broadly employed. One of its interesting properties is that the regions are computed in a greedy manner in quasi-linear time by using a minimum spanning tree. The algorithm may be trivially extended to video segmentation by considering a video as a 3D volume, however, this can not be the case for causal segmentation, when subsequent frames are unknown. In a framework exploiting minimum spanning trees all along, we propose an efficient video segmentation approach that computes temporally consistent pixels in a causal manner, filling the need for causal and real time applications.
The role of phone numbers in understanding cyber-crime schemes

Internet and telephones are part of everyone's modern life. Unfortunately, several criminal activities also rely on these technologies to reach their victims. While the use and importance of the Internet has been largely studied, previous work overlooked the role that phone numbers can play in understanding online threats. In this work we aim at determining if leveraging phone numbers analysis can improve our understanding of the underground markets, illegal computer activities, or cyber-crime in general. This knowledge could then be adopted by several defensive mechanisms, including blacklists or advanced spam heuristics. Our results show that, in scam activities, phone numbers remain often more stable over time than email addresses. Using a combination of graph analysis and geographical Home Location Register (HLR) lookups, we identify recurrent cyber-criminal business models and link together scam communities that spread over different countries.
Fabrication of a microlens array using micro-compression molding with an electroformed mold insert

Polymeric microlens arrays, with a diameter of 36–96 μm, a radius of curvature of 20–60 μm and a pitch of 250 μm, were fabricated using micro-compression molding with electroformed mold inserts. We used the reflow method and the electroforming process to make the mother and the metallic mold inserts, respectively. Micro-compression molding with powder polymer was developed to replicate microlenses. The surface profiles, imaging qualities, and surface roughness of the microlenses were measured and analyzed.
A New Multistage Chaos Synchronized System for Secure Communications and Noise Perturbation

In this paper, a global chaos synchronization scheme of three identical systems is investigated. By choosing proper coupling parameters, the states of all the three systems can be synchronized. Then this method was applied to secure communication through chaotic masking, used three coupled identical systems, propose a novel method of chaos encryption, after encrypting in the previous two transmitters, information signal can be recovered exactly at the receiver end . In consideration of interfering Gaussian white noise, the results of encoding and decoding are simulated and analyzed for the multistage chaos synchronized system. Analyzes the characteristics of noise and then presents a de-noising method using wavelet transform. With the Matlab, the effects of signal de-noising could be demonstrated.
Cognitive testing of elderly Chinese people in Singapore: influence of education and age on normative scores.

AIM to establish age- and education-adjusted mean psychometric test scores of cognitively normal elderly Chinese people in Singapore. METHOD 155 community-living, cognitively intact elderly Chinese subjects, stratified according to age and education, were selected from the membership lists of senior citizens' clubs and were administered a neuropsychological assessment battery. The mean test scores were then analysed for correlations with demographic characteristics. RESULTS only education and age were independent variables; gender and language spoken were strongly correlated with education by the chi2 method (P < 10[-5]). Subsequent statistical analysis of education and age on the psychological test scores by the general linear model procedure enabled the formulation of a table of age- and education-adjusted normative cognitive scores. CONCLUSION the derivation of age- and education-adjusted normative scores of a selected neuropsychological assessment battery on elderly Chinese people enables a more accurate diagnosis of dementia to be made and may facilitate better international comparisons of this condition. As our subjects are representative of many others from China, these results may serve not only as a local, but also as a regional, reference source.