Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Random-valued Impulse Noise Reduction in Color Image by Using Switching Vector Median Filter with MST-based Noise Detector

This paper describes the noise reduction perfor- mance of a switching vector median filter with a random-valued impulse noise detector for color images. As a random-valued impulse noise detector, a minimum spanning tree (MST)-based method is employed. In the switching vector median filter, the impulse noise detector is employed before filtering, and the detection result is used to judge whether a pixel should be filtered or not. By applying the method to color images, it is expected that the random-valued impulse noise is reduced pointedly while preserving detailed structures such as thin line, sharp corner, and so on. Through some experiments, for color images, the effectiveness of the combination of the switching vector median filter with the MST-based random- valued impulse noise detector is verified. Particularly, the present method is compared to some powerful switching vector median filters which had been proposed so far from a view point that the impulse noise reduction while preserving edges and details of an image is realized or not.
Modular Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for an Early Adolescent With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Comorbid Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

This case report outlines the use of a modular cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) protocol used to treat “Larry,” a 12-year-old male, with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Larry participated in 16 weekly 90-min CBT sessions, following a protocol developed for youth with ASD and anxiety/OCD. Upon completion of the treatment, Larry was remitted of his OCD diagnosis (as defined by a subthreshold score of 3 on the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–4th ed. [DSM-IV]–parent [ADIS]) and demonstrated marked improvements in his top presenting problems (washing hands immediately after touching something, checking tablet for smudges, and being around litter). This case report indicates useful adaptations to traditional CBT for OCD when working with youth with ASD.
Hepatitis B Virus Core Protein Mapping of Homologous Interaction Sites in the

Hepatitis B virus consists of an outer envelope and an inner capsid, or core, that wraps around the smallgenome plus the viral replication enzyme. The icosahedrally symmetric nucleocapsid is assembled from mul-tiple dimeric subunits of a single 183-residue capsid protein, which must therefore contain interfaces for mono-mer dimerization and for dimer multimerization. The atomic structure of the protein is not known, but electronmicroscopy-based image reconstructions suggested a hammerhead shape for the dimer and, very recently, ledto a tentative model for the main chain trace. Here we used a combination of interaction screening techniquesand functional analyses of core protein variants to deﬁne, at the primary sequence level, the regions thatmediate capsid assembly. Both the two-hybrid system and the pepscan technique identiﬁed a strongly inter-acting region I between amino acids (aa) 78 and 117 that probably forms part of the dimer interface.Surprisingly, mutations in this region, in the context of a C-terminally truncated but assembly-competent coreprotein variant, had no detectable effect on assembly. By contrast, mutations in a second region, bordered byaa 113 and 143, markedly inﬂuenced capsid stability, strongly suggesting that this region II is the maincontributor to dimer multimerization. Based on the electron microscopic data, it must therefore be located atthe basal tips of the dimer, experimentally supporting the proposed main chain trace.
Short-term expectations in listed firms: the mitigating impact of large owners

We report empirical evidence on the disciplining ro le f large owners in reducing managerial myopia. Using data from a large Nordic s urvey, we find that companies to a reasonably high degree feel that external pres su for a good result in the shortterm generates a conflict with the company’s long-t erm goals. Concentrated ownership as a corporate governance mechanism can m itigate that pressure: the CEO feels significantly less pressure in the presence o f large (potentially more long-term) shareholder in the firm. Firms subject to a higher pressure undertake more actions to accommodate for the pressure. Again, the impact of a large owner is beneficial, since such firms undertake significantly less often actio ns that are likely to destroy value, such as adjusting their long-term investments or R& D. Finally, we find that financial analysts create the strongest pressure, and CEOs of firms with a higher degree of ownership concentration experience significantly le ss pressure from them.
Reduced Intracellular T-Helper 1 Interferon-Gamma in Blood of Newly Diagnosed Children With Crohn's Disease and Age-Related Changes in Th1/Th2 Cytokine Profiles

Abnormal cytokine production by T-helper 1 (Th1)/T-helper 2 (Th2) lymphocytes has been implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Few studies have examined Th1/Th2 cytokine status in pediatric IBD patients, and results have been inconsistent. We used flow cytometric detection of intracellular IFN-γ/IL-4 cytokine production to investigate CD4+, Th1, and Th2 cells in the peripheral blood of children with untreated, newly diagnosed Crohn's disease (CD) (n = 23) and matched healthy controls (n = 49). Th1 cytokine levels were lower in CD patients compared with controls (p = 0.006) and strongly correlated with levels of albumin and hematocrit (r = 0.51, p = 0.007 and r = 0.35, p = 0.052, respectively). An age-dependent increase in Th1 cells was observed (p < 0.0005); however, no correlation was found between age, clinical end points, %CD4+, or Th2 cell numbers. In conclusion, the Th1 cytokine levels in blood are lower in early onset CD patients than in healthy children and are directly associated with disease-related clinical parameters. In future studies of pediatric IBD patients, it will be critical to consider the effect of age and disease progression on cytokine status in intestinal mucosa and peripheral blood.
On the reduction of false positives in singing voice detection

Motivated by the observation that one of the biggest problems in automatic singing voice detection is the confusion of vocals with other pitch-continuous and pitch-varying instruments, we propose a set of three new audio features designed to reduce the amount of false vocal detections. This is borne out in comparative experiments with three different musical corpora. The resulting singing voice detector appears to be at least on par with more complex state-of-the-art methods. New features and classifier are very light-weight and in principle suitable for on-line use.
In vitro fermentation of B-GOS: impact on faecal bacterial populations and metabolic activity in autistic and non-autistic children

&NA; Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often suffer gastrointestinal problems consistent with imbalances in the gut microbial population. Treatment with antibiotics or pro/prebiotics has been postulated to regulate microbiota and improve gut symptoms, but there is a lack of evidence for such approaches, especially for prebiotics. This study assessed the influence of a prebiotic galactooligosaccharide (B‐GOS) on gut microbial ecology and metabolic function using faecal samples from autistic and non‐autistic children in an in vitro gut model system. Bacteriology was analysed using flow cytometry combined with fluorescence in situ hybridization and metabolic activity by HPLC and 1H‐NMR. Consistent with previous studies, the microbiota of children with ASD contained a higher number of Clostridium spp. and a lower number of bifidobacteria compared with non‐autistic children. B‐GOS administration significantly increased bifidobacterial populations in each compartment of the models, both with autistic and non‐autistic‐derived samples, and lactobacilli in the final vessel of non‐autistic models. In addition, changes in other bacterial population have been seen in particular for Clostridium, Rosburia, Bacteroides, Atopobium, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Sutterella spp. and Veillonellaceae. Furthermore, the addition of B‐GOS to the models significantly altered short‐chain fatty acid production in both groups, and increased ethanol and lactate in autistic children.
Finding Semantically Related Words in Large Corpora Finding Semantically Related Words in Large Corpora

The paper deals with the linguistic problem of fully automatic grouping of semantically related words. We discuss the measures of semantic relatedness of basic word forms and describe the treatment of col-locations. Next we present the procedure of hierarchical clustering of a very large number of semantically related words and give examples of the resulting partitioning of data in the form of dendrogram. Finally we show a form of the output presentation that facilitates the inspection of the resulting word clusters.
Principled Query Processing

This year, the SICS team decided to concentrate on query processing and on the internal topical structure of the query: we have identified this as one of the major bottlenecks for cross-lingual access systems. Previous years, the SICS team has investigated, among other issues, how to translate compounds. Compound translation is non-trivial due to dependencies between compound elements and has been treated in various ways in the treatment of compounding languages such as Swedish. We decided this year to investigate the topical dependencies between query terms, under the hypothesis that the complexity of translating compounds is a special case of the more general case of understanding the respective topicality of query terms. The question under investigation is how much each query term contributes in terms of topicality in the documents of the collection under consideration. If a query term happens to be non-topical or noise, it should be discarded or given a low weight when ranking retrieved documents; if a query term shows high topicality its weight should be boosted. Our base system is used with two different enhancements to test the hypothesis that boosting topically active terms is beneficial for retreival results. Both schemes are based on the analysis of the distributional character of query terms: one using similarity of occurrence context between query terms; the other using the likelihood of individual terms to appear topically in text. These are two different avenues of analysis and will most likely provide different results if pursued further than these initial experiments. The results of the boosting schemes delivered uncontroversially improved results. These results will provide impetus for the further study of translation of complex terms — the question which first prompted this set of experiments in the first place.
Contrasting Photophysiological Characteristics of Phytoplankton Assemblages in the Northern South China Sea

The growth of phytoplankton and thus marine primary productivity depend on photophysiological performance of phytoplankton cells that respond to changing environmental conditions. The South China Sea (SCS) is the largest marginal sea of the western Pacific and plays important roles in modulating regional climate and carbon budget. However, little has been documented on photophysiological characteristics of phytoplankton in the SCS. For the first time, we investigated photophysiological characteristics of phytoplankton assemblages in the northern South China Sea (NSCS) using a real-time in-situ active chlorophyll a fluorometry, covering 4.0 × 105 km2. The functional absorption cross section of photosystem II (PSII) in darkness (σPSII) or under ambient light (σPSII’) (A2 quanta-1) increased from the surface to deeper waters at all the stations during the survey period (29 July to 23 August 2012). While the maximum (Fv/Fm, measured in darkness) or effective (Fq’/Fm’, measured under ambient light) photochemical efficiency of PSII appeared to increase with increasing depth at most stations, it showed inverse relationship with depth in river plume areas. The functional absorption cross section of PSII changes could be attributed to light-adapted genotypic feature due to niche-partition and the alteration of photochemical efficiency of PSII could be attributed to photo-acclimation. The chlorophyll a fluorometry can be taken as an analog to estimate primary productivity, since areas of higher photochemical efficiency of PSII coincided with those of higher primary productivity reported previously in the NSCS.
Genomic Sequence around Butterfly Wing Development Genes: Annotation and Comparative Analysis

Background Analysis of genomic sequence allows characterization of genome content and organization, and access beyond gene-coding regions for identification of functional elements. BAC libraries, where relatively large genomic regions are made readily available, are especially useful for species without a fully sequenced genome and can increase genomic coverage of phylogenetic and biological diversity. For example, no butterfly genome is yet available despite the unique genetic and biological properties of this group, such as diversified wing color patterns. The evolution and development of these patterns is being studied in a few target species, including Bicyclus anynana, where a whole-genome BAC library allows targeted access to large genomic regions. Methodology/Principal Findings We characterize ∼1.3 Mb of genomic sequence around 11 selected genes expressed in B. anynana developing wings. Extensive manual curation of in silico predictions, also making use of a large dataset of expressed genes for this species, identified repetitive elements and protein coding sequence, and highlighted an expansion of Alcohol dehydrogenase genes. Comparative analysis with orthologous regions of the lepidopteran reference genome allowed assessment of conservation of fine-scale synteny (with detection of new inversions and translocations) and of DNA sequence (with detection of high levels of conservation of non-coding regions around some, but not all, developmental genes). Conclusions The general properties and organization of the available B. anynana genomic sequence are similar to the lepidopteran reference, despite the more than 140 MY divergence. Our results lay the groundwork for further studies of new interesting findings in relation to both coding and non-coding sequence: 1) the Alcohol dehydrogenase expansion with higher similarity between the five tandemly-repeated B. anynana paralogs than with the corresponding B. mori orthologs, and 2) the high conservation of non-coding sequence around the genes wingless and Ecdysone receptor, both involved in multiple developmental processes including wing pattern formation.
The poverty of media richness theory: explaining people's choice of electronic mail vs. voice mail

How and why people choose which communication medium to use is an important issue for both behavioral researchers and software product developers. Little is yet known about how and why people in organizations choose amongnewmedia like electronic mail and voice mail, although the availability and use of new media are increasing dramatically. Media richness theory (MRT) is the most prominent, if contested, theory of media choice. It is concerned with identifying the most appropriate medium in terms of “medium richness” for communication situations characterized by equivocality and uncertainty. From this theory, we derived hypotheses about how and why individuals will choose between electronic mail and voice mail and tested them among users of both media in the corporate headquarters of a large company. The data are analysed using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The results fail to support MRT, but they do support alternative explanations of people's media choice behavior. While the concept of media richness is too poor to explain the richness of people's media use behavior, our behavioral findings and explanations should prove useful to those building the next generation of integrated multimedia communication tools.
Joint WCET and Update Activity Minimization for Cyber-Physical Systems

A cyber-physical system (CPS) is a desirable computing platform for many industrial and scientific applications, such as industrial process monitoring, environmental monitoring, chemical processes, and battlefield surveillance. The application of CPSs has two challenges: First, CPSs often include a number of sensor nodes. Update of preloaded code on remote sensor nodes powered by batteries is extremely energy consuming. The code update issue in the energy-sensitive CPS must be carefully considered. Second, CPSs are often real-time embedded systems with real-time properties. Worst-case execution time (WCET) is one of the most important metrics in real-time system design. Whereas existing works only consider one of these two challenges at a time, in this article, a compiler optimization—joint WCET and update-conscious compilation, or WUCC—is proposed to jointly consider WCET and code update for CPSs. The novelty of the proposed approach is that the WCET problem and code update problem are considered concurrently such that a balanced solution with minimal WCET and minimal code difference can be achieved. The experimental results show that the proposed technique can minimize WCET and code difference effectively.
The influence of Nb3Sn strand geometry on filament breakage under bend strain as revealed by metallography

The non-Cu critical current density of Nb3Sn strands has been pushed towards 3000 A mm−2 (12 T, 4.2 K) by increasing the Sn content and reducing the inter-filamentary Cu. We compare the susceptibility to A15 filament breakage (under 0.5% bend strain) of the new high-Jc internal Sn conductor geometries with both high-Jc powder-in-tube (PIT) and low hysteresis loss distributed filament ITER designs. In all but the PIT designs, there was significant filament breakage on the tensile side of the strand cross-section with little if any evidence for cracking on the compressive side. Where there is significant inter-filamentary Cu remaining after reaction the highest frequency of A15 filament breakage is observed at the edges of the filament packs. This suggests that the breakage is most likely to occur where filaments receive less mechanical support from the filament-Cu matrix. In very high Jc strands, where individual Nb filaments coalesce into large A15 tubes during reaction, breakage can occur across the entire sub-element. In the PIT design composite, filament breakage did not occur at 0.5% bend strain. At 0.6% bend strain the PIT filaments cracked in both the tensile and compressive regions.
Developing and improving a statistical machine translation system for English to Setswana : a linguistically-motivated approach

This paper describes the methods that were followed in the development and improvement of a statistical machine translation system for translation from English to Setswana. Setswana is regarded as a resource scarce language and therefore an adequate amount of parallel data is not freely available. The methods created attempt to improve the quality of a machine translation by manipulating the data during processing. The methods include the creation of sentence reordering, term deletion and term replacement rules. The rules were applied to training and testing data in the preand postprocessing stages of development. The systems were compared to one another to detect whether the quality of the machine translation improved. Keywords—statistical machine translation, pre-processing, postprocessing, sentence reordering, English, Setswana, term replacement, term deletion
Agent-based Big Data Analytics in retailing: A case study

The advent of social networks and the Internet of Things have created massive data sets with huge and complex structures. Thus, new technology for storage, analysis, and pattern visualization must be developed for further processing. Such data sets are appropriately termed as “Big Data. ” Big data Analytics is concerned with exposing and visualizing hidden patterns, as well as with analyzing the knowledge that is produced to facilitate decision making. In retailing, analyzing the massive data generated from business transactions is crucial to enhancing the insights of vendors into consumer behaviors and purchases, thus providing them an advantage in decision making. The capability to extract value from big data is a relevant issue, but the process is difficult as the volume and velocity of data increase. As a result, traditional business intelligence methods become inadequate. Consequently, we propose an agent-based paradigm in this study to facilitate the use of Big Data Analytics in retailing. The paradigm exploits agent characteristics such as autonomy, pro-activity, and intelligence in performing data analytics processes. We also review the background of the situation and discuss the characteristics, properties, applications, and challenges of integrating Big Data with multi-agent systems in retailing.
Network coding based cooperative device-to-device communications in the uplink of cellular network

In this paper we introduce an scheme which combines device-to-device communications nodes which act as relays for a cellular user (CU) located on the cell boundary. The proposed system works as an overlay cellular network. The CU having weak channel towards the base station exploits the availability of a pair of wireless terminals intending to communicate directly with each other. These intermediate device-to-device communications users use network coding to forward CUs' information to the base station. In addition, they use the same network coded information for exchange of mutual information between themselves. This strategy not only increases the numbers of concurrent transmissions within the common cell but it also, using the same spectrum, offloads the base station which as a results can serve other demanding users within the cells and improve the overall efficiency of the network. We use outage probability as a performance metric to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme and show that the proposed scheme performs better then space time and repetition coding based cooperative communications.
Analysis of Different Classification Techniques for Two-Class Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy-Based Brain-Computer Interface

We analyse and compare the classification accuracies of six different classifiers for a two-class mental task (mental arithmetic and rest) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals. The signals of the mental arithmetic and rest tasks from the prefrontal cortex region of the brain for seven healthy subjects were acquired using a multichannel continuous-wave imaging system. After removal of the physiological noises, six features were extracted from the oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO) signals. Two- and three-dimensional combinations of those features were used for classification of mental tasks. In the classification, six different modalities, linear discriminant analysis (LDA), quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA), k-nearest neighbour (kNN), the Naïve Bayes approach, support vector machine (SVM), and artificial neural networks (ANN), were utilized. With these classifiers, the average classification accuracies among the seven subjects for the 2- and 3-dimensional combinations of features were 71.6, 90.0, 69.7, 89.8, 89.5, and 91.4% and 79.6, 95.2, 64.5, 94.8, 95.2, and 96.3%, respectively. ANN showed the maximum classification accuracies: 91.4 and 96.3%. In order to validate the results, a statistical significance test was performed, which confirmed that the p values were statistically significant relative to all of the other classifiers (p < 0.005) using HbO signals.