Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of the First Order Wiener Kernel Transform of JPEG Compression with ISO 12233 SFR Measurements

The Volterra and Wiener theories of non-linear systems provide techniques with which to evaluate the behaviour of non-linear systems. It may be shown that the First Order Wiener Kernel Transform may be thought of as being equivalent to the linear portion of the MTF of a system. JPEG compression is such a non-linear system and as such measurement of its MTF has provided significant challenges. The First Order Wiener Kernel Transform of JPEG Compression (Version 6b) is determined under a variety of conditions and compared with SFR curves previously produced using ISO 12233. It is shown that there is agreement between the measurement methods. It is suggested that evaluation of the Wiener Kernel transform provides results that more closely represent the large-scale pictorial frequency response of JPEG compression due to the integration of intra and inter sub-image block effects. Further, that the technique represents an advantage over those previously considered.
Solo/Trio8, a Membrane-Associated Short Isoform of Trio, Modulates Endosome Dynamics andNeurite Elongation

ABSTRACT With DNA microarrays, we identified a gene, termed Solo, that is downregulated in the cerebellum of Purkinje cell degeneration mutant mice. Solo is a mouse homologue of rat Trio8—one of multiple Trio isoforms recently identified in rat brain. Solo/Trio8 contains N-terminal sec14-like and spectrin-like repeat domains followed by a single guanine nucleotide exchange factor 1 (GEF1) domain, but it lacks the C-terminal GEF2, immunoglobulin-like, and kinase domains that are typical of Trio. Solo/Trio8 is predominantly expressed in Purkinje neurons of the mouse brain, and expression begins following birth and increases during Purkinje neuron maturation. We identified a novel C-terminal membrane-anchoring domain in Solo/Trio8 that is required for enhanced green fluorescent protein-Solo/Trio8 localization to early endosomes (positive for both early-endosome antigen 1 [EEA1] and Rab5) in COS-7 cells and primary cultured neurons. Solo/Trio8 overexpression in COS-7 cells augmented the EEA1-positive early-endosome pool, and this effect was abolished via mutation and inactivation of the GEF domain or deletion of the C-terminal membrane-anchoring domain. Moreover, primary cultured neurons transfected with Solo/Trio8 showed increased neurite elongation that was dependent on these domains. These results suggest that Solo/Trio8 acts as an early-endosome-specific upstream activator of Rho family GTPases for neurite elongation of developing Purkinje neurons.
Attachment theory, teacher motivation & pastoral care: a challenge for teachers and academics

The hypothesis that an unconscious need for a corrective emotional experience (CEE) drives the choice to care for others was investigated via attachment style and feelings of anger at students and staff. Data were obtained from 750 pre-service and experienced teachers, including 179 principals, who completed one of two versions of the Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire and reported anger toward students and staff. Significant differences between subgroups in relation to Attachment and Anger were found. Pre-service teachers’ reported the highest levels of attachment insecurity, Principals the lowest. Only secondary teachers reported Anger at Staff and higher Anger at Students frequencies. If initial motivation to teach is predicted by insecure attachment, teacher preparation courses should take this into account.
Translating conversational speech to standard linguistic form

This paper describes the so-called ill-formed nature of spontaneous conversational speech as observed from the study of a 1500-hour corpus of recorded dialogue speech. We note that the structure is quite different from that of more formal speech or writing and propose a Statistical Machine Translation approach for mapping between the spoken and written forms of the language as if they were two entirely separate languages. We further posit that the particular nature of the spoken language is especially well suited for the display of affective states, inter-speaker relationships and discourse management information. In summary, both modes of communication appear to be particularly suited to their pragmatic function, neither is ill-formed, and it appears possible to map automatically between the two. This mapping has applications in speech technology for the processing of conversational speech.
Prediction of Clinical Cardiovascular Events With Carotid Intima-Media Thickness: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background— Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) is increasingly used as a surrogate marker for atherosclerosis. Its use relies on its ability to predict future clinical cardiovascular end points. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of data to examine this association. Methods and Results— Using a prespecified search strategy, we identified 8 relevant studies and compared study design, measurement protocols, and reported data. We identified sources of heterogeneity between studies. The assumption of a linear relationship between IMT and risk was challenged by use of a graphical technique. To obtain a pooled estimate of the relative risk per IMT difference, we performed a meta-analysis based on random effects models. The age- and sex-adjusted overall estimates of the relative risk of myocardial infarction were 1.26 (95% CI, 1.21 to 1.30) per 1–standard deviation common carotid artery IMT difference and 1.15 (95% CI, 1.12 to 1.17) per 0.10-mm common carotid artery IMT difference. The age- and sex-adjusted relative risks of stroke were 1.32 (95% CI, 1.27 to 1.38) per 1–standard deviation common carotid artery IMT difference and 1.18 (95% CI, 1.16 to 1.21) per 0.10-mm common carotid artery IMT difference. Major sources of heterogeneity were age distribution, carotid segment definition, and IMT measurement protocol. The relationship between IMT and risk was nonlinear, but the linear models fitted relatively well for moderate to high IMT values. Conclusions— Carotid IMT is a strong predictor of future vascular events. The relative risk per IMT difference is slightly higher for the end point stroke than for myocardial infarction. In future IMT studies, ultrasound protocols should be aligned with published studies. Data for younger individuals are limited and more studies are required.
Otitis media in the Tgif knockout mouse implicates TGFβ signalling in chronic middle ear inflammatory disease

Otitis media with effusion (OME) is the most common cause of hearing loss in children and tympanostomy to alleviate the condition remains the commonest surgical intervention in children in the developed world. Chronic and recurrent forms of OM are known to have a very significant genetic component, however, until recently little was known of the underlying genes involved. The identification of mouse models of chronic OM has indicated a role of transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) signalling and its impact on responses to hypoxia in the inflamed middle ear. We have, therefore, investigated the role of TGFβ signalling and identified and characterized a new model of chronic OM carrying a mutation in the gene for transforming growth interacting factor 1 (Tgif1). Tgif1 homozygous mutant mice have significantly raised auditory thresholds due to a conductive deafness arising from a chronic effusion starting at around 3 weeks of age. The OM is accompanied by a significant thickening of the middle ear mucosa lining, expansion of mucin-secreting goblet cell populations and raised levels of vascular endothelial growth factor, TNF-α and IL-1β in ear fluids. We also identified downstream effects on TGFβ signalling in middle ear epithelia at the time of development of chronic OM. Both phosphorylated SMAD2 and p21 levels were lowered in the homozygous mutant, demonstrating a suppression of the TGFβ pathway. The identification and characterization of the Tgif mutant supports the role of TGFβ signalling in the development of chronic OM and provides an important candidate gene for genetic studies in the human population.
A robust rank estimation algorithm of group-blind MMSE multiuser detectors for CDMA systems

We propose an adaptive rank-estimation method for the additive white or colored Gaussian noise model. The main contribution of this paper has three parts. (1) We investigate the rank mismatch problem in the group-blind multiuser detector of Wang and Host-Madsen (see IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun., vol.17, p.1971-1984, Nov. 1999), and find that underestimating the rank causes significant performance degradation, whereas, rank overestimation can achieve performance gain in the low signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) region. However, rank overestimation can lead to inaccurate channel estimation, which degrades the detector performance significantly in the high SNR region. (2) We propose a heuristic criterion for initial rank estimation which is robust for nonwhite noise cases. (3) In order to mitigate the rank mismatch problem, we introduce a hypothesis testing criterion for rank and signal subspace decisions, which selects the most probable rank for the group-blind detectors. Simulation results show that the performance of the group-blind detector using this adaptive rank estimation algorithm is comparable to the group-blind with perfect knowledge of the rank, and even better in the low-to-medium SNR region.
Comparison of Tissue Architectural Changes between Radiofrequency Ablation and Cryospray Ablation in Barrett's Esophagus Using Endoscopic Three-Dimensional Optical Coherence Tomography

Two main nonsurgical endoscopic approaches for ablating dysplastic and early cancer lesions in the esophagus have gained popularity, namely, radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and cryospray ablation (CSA). We report a uniquely suited endoscopic and near-microscopic imaging modality, three-dimensional (3D) optical coherence tomography (OCT), to assess and compare the esophagus immediately after RFA and CSA. The maximum depths of architectural changes were measured and compared between the two treatment groups. RFA was observed to induce 230~260 μm depth of architectural changes after each set of ablations over a particular region, while CSA was observed to induce edema-like spongiform changes to ~640 μm depth within the ablated field. The ability to obtain micron-scale depth-resolved images of tissue structural changes following different ablation therapies makes 3D-OCT an ideal tool to assess treatment efficacy. Such information could be potentially used to provide real-time feedback for treatment dosing and to identify regions that need further retreatment.
On the madness of lecturing on gender: a psychoanalytic discussion

This essay comments on the emotional difficulties psychoanalytic discussion introduces to conceptualising the poesis of gender through its reconsideration of the valence of aggression and its development in psychical reality. It returns to the 1936 lectures on the emotional life of gender given by Melanie Klein and Joan Riviere to a public about to go to war. These psychoanalysts are known for representing ‘the mad side’ of gender and consider femininity and masculinity as lending emotional weight to the body and as one source for phantasy material that propels gender’s reach into symbolisation, conflicts, and intersubjectivity. Their views are brought into tension with Winnicott’s reconceptualisation of aggression in gender development. While historical questions on the relation between psychoanalytic theories of gender and the context of World War II are raised, Winnicott turns to a little war in the emotional life of gender to analyse traces of mental pain that its history leaves in its wake. He raises the new problem of the play between internal and external reality and how a one‐sided take on gender as either masculine or feminine as the entire experience and goal of the body forecloses attempts to understand the self’s gender work as both internal conflict and intersubjectivity. Loyalty to one side, or the defence of splitting into good and bad, itself the condition for war, has as one of its roots gender polarity. The madness of lecturing on gender resides in conveying this problem. My contribution leans on psychoanalytic allegory: that a return to historical discussion of psychoanalysis on the problems of representations of gender may allow reflection on our world of war and create elbow room needed to reconceptualise the currency, difficulties, and emotional obstacles repeated in contemporary pedagogical efforts and research.
CheNER: chemical named entity recognizer

Motivation: Chemical named entity recognition is used to automatically identify mentions to chemical compounds in text and is the basis for more elaborate information extraction. However, only a small number of applications are freely available to identify such mentions. Particularly challenging and useful is the identification of International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) chemical compounds, which due to the complex morphology of IUPAC names requires more advanced techniques than that of brand names. Results: We present CheNER, a tool for automated identification of systematic IUPAC chemical mentions. We evaluated different systems using an established literature corpus to show that CheNER has a superior performance in identifying IUPAC names specifically, and that it makes better use of computational resources. Availability and implementation: http://metres.udl. cat/index.php/9-download/4-chener, http://chener.bioinfo. cnio.es/ Contact: miguel.vazquez@cnio.es Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
A systematic review of early modelling studies of Ebola virus disease in West Africa

SUMMARY Phenomenological and mechanistic models are widely used to assist resource planning for pandemics and emerging infections. We conducted a systematic review, to compare methods and outputs of published phenomenological and mechanistic modelling studies pertaining to the 2013–2016 Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemics in four West African countries – Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria. We searched Pubmed, Embase and Scopus databases for relevant English language publications up to December 2015. Of the 874 articles identified, 41 met our inclusion criteria. We evaluated these selected studies based on: the sources of the case data used, and modelling approaches, compartments used, population mixing assumptions, model fitting and calibration approaches, sensitivity analysis used and data bias considerations. We synthesised results of the estimated epidemiological parameters: basic reproductive number (R 0), serial interval, latent period, infectious period and case fatality rate, and examined their relationships. The median of the estimated mean R 0 values were between 1·30 and 1·84 in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Much higher R 0 value of 9·01 was described for Nigeria. We investigated several issues with uncertainty around EVD modes of transmission, and unknown observation biases from early reported case data. We found that epidemic models offered R 0 mean estimates which are country-specific, but these estimates are not associating with the use of several key disease parameters within the plausible ranges. We find simple models generally yielded similar estimates of R 0 compared with more complex models. Models that accounted for data uncertainty issues have offered a higher case forecast compared with actual case observation. Simple model which offers transparency to public health policy makers could play a critical role for advising rapid policy decisions under an epidemic emergency.
A Dynamic Network Layout Visualization Method Based on Structural Similarity

Many real-world networks, including social and computer networks, have complex time-varying characteristics that evolve over time. Such dynamic networks are typically visualized using a sequence of timeslices, each timeslice presents the network topology at a particular time step. It is difficult to preserve the dynamic stability and visual continuity of the timeslices sequence, which allow researchers to interpret the temporal evolution of the network. In this paper, a dynamic network layout visualization method based on structural similarity is proposed to improve the quality of the timeslices. First, using network layout algorithm based on the community structure lay-outs a single timeslice and optimizing the layout through the static network cost function. Then, the new nodes are pre placed and the movement direction of nodes are constrained by a node movement method based on the s structural similarity, which can improve the dynamic stability and visual continuity of the timeslices sequence layout. Experiments show that the proposed method has a smaller layout cost in a single timeslice compared with the traditional dynamic network visualization, and a smaller node moving distance and the degree of structural shape change in the timeslices sequence. Keywords—dynamic network; layout algorithm; network visualization; community structure
Approximate Processing of DIBR Process for 2D to 3D Conversion of Images

: In the present era all portable devices like mobile, camera etc are needed multimedia applications. In current stage those multimedia applications are require more power which is not suitable for these portable devices. Depth image based rendering (DIBR) process is most useful for 2D to 3D conversion application. In present stage 3D technology is highly in demand. Existing DIBR approaches are facing the problem of timing, complicity at algorithm level, power and area at hardware unit. So in this work I will propose a design which will reduce that complexity. Proposed design is based on approximation approach which is tolerable by human eye. Implementation of algorithm will do on Matlab and hardware implementation will be done by using of Verilog at Xilinx 14.1 platform .
Model selection and estimation in the Gaussian graphical model

We propose penalized likelihood methods for estimating the concentration matrix in the Gaussian graphical model. The methods lead to a sparse and shrinkage estimator of the concentration matrix that is positive definite, and thus conduct model selection and estimation simultaneously. The implementation of the methods is nontrivial because of the positive definite constraint on the concentration matrix, but we show that the computation can be done effectively by taking advantage of the efficient maxdet algorithm developed in convex optimization. We propose a BIC -type criterion for the selection of the tuning parameter in the penalized likelihood methods. The connection between our methods and existing methods is illustrated. Simulations and real examples demonstrate the competitive performance of the new methods. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.
Identifying a School Counseling Research Agenda: A Delphi Study

The authors conducted a Delphi study to identify important research questions regarding school counseling. During 3 consecutive rounds of e-mail queries, an expert panel of 21 school counseling educators and practitioners were asked to identify the goals of school counseling research, develop specific research questions, and rate the importance of the questions. The highest rated research questions concerned school counseling interventions that have an impact on academic achievement and the effects of school counseling programs on student outcomes. The panel's final list of 42 research questions can help counselor educators, graduate students, and practitioners develop research projects that most effectively meet the needs of the field.
The role of Yum Cha (Cantonese morning tea) in the integration process among interprovincial migration in China

China’s recent interprovincial migrants are the result of the institutional reform of its hukou system. This research analyses one of the interprovincial migrants’ leisure activities, yum cha, to explore the meaning of leisure for their adaptation and integration to the receiving society. This research aims at two key questions: what access interprovincial migrants obtain from yum cha to social contact and how migrants conceive of this leisure experience. The main findings are based on semi-structural interviews conducted in several restaurants in Guangzhou city. The interpretations of interprovincial migrants’ leisure experience in urban China are concluded into four themes: learning the local dialect and customs; building and maintaining a social group; the reconstruction of individual identity; and the development of a sense of belonging.
Fusion of Support Vector Machines for Classification of Multisensor Data

The classification of multisensor data sets, consisting of multitemporal synthetic aperture radar data and optical imagery, is addressed. The concept is based on the decision fusion of different outputs. Each data source is treated separately and classified by a support vector machine (SVM). Instead of fusing the final classification outputs (i.e., land cover classes), the original outputs of each SVM discriminant function are used in the subsequent fusion process. This fusion is performed by another SVM, which is trained on the a priori outputs. In addition, two voting schemes are applied to create the final classification results. The results are compared with well-known parametric and nonparametric classifier methods, i.e., decision trees, the maximum-likelihood classifier, and classifier ensembles. The proposed SVM-based fusion approach outperforms all other approaches and significantly improves the results of a single SVM, which is trained on the whole multisensor data set.
American Youth Violence: A Cautionary Tale

Violence by young offenders has long been a concern of students of juvenile delinquency. Until the 1980s, juveniles had high rates of committing less serious assaults but accounted for less than 10 percent of homicides, a proportion to which they have since returned. But the late 1980s produced an epidemic of gun homicides by juveniles and young adults, which led in the mid-1990s to warnings about an emerging group of “superpredators” and to fabulously inaccurate predictions of “a coming storm of juvenile violence. ” Just as the rhetoric was reaching its crescendo, youth homicide rates began their largest drop in modern history. Several problematic assumptions underlay the faulty predictions and offer lessons about how to avoid catastrophic errors in the prediction of crime rates. Some of the same problems reappear in more recent scholarly analyses.
Sixty-Five Common Genetic Variants and Prediction of Type 2 Diabetes

We developed a 65 type 2 diabetes (T2D) variant–weighted gene score to examine the impact on T2D risk assessment in a U.K.-based consortium of prospective studies, with subjects initially free from T2D (N = 13,294; 37.3% women; mean age 58.5 [38–99] years). We compared the performance of the gene score with the phenotypically derived Framingham Offspring Study T2D risk model and then the two in combination. Over the median 10 years of follow-up, 804 participants developed T2D. The odds ratio for T2D (top vs. bottom quintiles of gene score) was 2.70 (95% CI 2.12–3.43). With a 10% false-positive rate, the genetic score alone detected 19.9% incident cases, the Framingham risk model 30.7%, and together 37.3%. The respective area under the receiver operator characteristic curves were 0.60 (95% CI 0.58–0.62), 0.75 (95% CI 0.73 to 0.77), and 0.76 (95% CI 0.75 to 0.78). The combined risk score net reclassification improvement (NRI) was 8.1% (5.0 to 11.2; P = 3.31 × 10−7). While BMI stratification into tertiles influenced the NRI (BMI ≤24.5 kg/m2, 27.6% [95% CI 17.7–37.5], P = 4.82 × 10−8; 24.5–27.5 kg/m2, 11.6% [95% CI 5.8–17.4], P = 9.88 × 10−5; >27.5 kg/m2, 2.6% [95% CI −1.4 to 6.6], P = 0.20), age categories did not. The addition of the gene score to a phenotypic risk model leads to a potentially clinically important improvement in discrimination of incident T2D.