Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interactive Image Restoration Using Inpainting and Denoising

Digital in painting is the technique of filling in the missing regions of an image using information from the surrounding area in a visually indistinguishable way. In this paper, we try to improve the Exemplar based method by manipulating the values of various parameters like patch size, shape and size of the mask. We present an analysis of the impact of various geometric parameters on the quality of in painted images. Image denoising refers to the removal of unwanted noise from the images. In most cases, the images which need to be in painted are noisy, which makes it necessary to eliminate noise and fill in the missing regions from neighboring pixels. Therefore, filling in of missing regions and removal of noise are the two very important topics in image processing. This paper also addresses the issue of performing both in painting and denoising simultaneously using two different approaches: pipelined approach and interleaved approach. The effectiveness of these approaches is demonstrated with a number of results on various images.
Family and youth factors associated with health beliefs and health outcomes in youth with type 1 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To examine the association of family organization with metabolic control in adolescents with type 1 diabetes through the mechanisms of family self-efficacy for diabetes and disease management. METHOD Data from the baseline assessment of a longitudinal RCT were used, wherein 257 adolescent-parent dyads (adolescents aged 11-14) each completed the family organization subscale of the Family Environment Scale, the self-efficacy for Diabetes Self-Management Scale, the Diabetes Behavior Rating Scale, and 2 24-hr diabetes interviews. RESULTS Structural equation modeling showed greater family organization was associated indirectly with better disease management behaviors via greater family self-efficacy (β = .38, p < .001). Greater self-efficacy was indirectly associated with better metabolic control via better disease management both concurrently (β = -.37, p < .001) and prospectively (β = -.26, p < .001). The full model indicates more family organization is indirectly associated with better metabolic control concurrently and prospectively through greater self-efficacy and better disease management (β = -.13, p < .001). CONCLUSIONS Understanding the mechanisms by which family organization is associated with metabolic control provides insight into possible avenues of prevention/intervention for better diabetes management.
Competition and pass-through on international markets: Firm-level evidence from VAT shocks

We exploit French customs’ firm-level data to study how exporters pass a change in the VAT rate of one importing country through their prices. Looking at this reaction is of interest beyond a mere fiscal incidence analysis: VAT shocks provide instruments to identifying the extent of mark-up adjustment in exporting firms’ reaction to macroeconomic shocks. Indeed, and by contrast with more usual shocks, typically exchange rate fluctuations, variations in VAT rates leave the marginal cost of exporters unchanged. For a sample covering exportations to the Euro-area over the 1996-2005 period our estimates show that, on average, markups contract by 50% of the VAT hike one year after the shock, implying a pass-through to final prices of 50% of the shock as well. We furthermore exploit the individual dimension of the data to show that the extent of mark-up adjustment varies across firms and markets. More precisely it depends on the market power of an exporter, as measured by its relative market share, and competition on a given market, as measured by standard concentration indexes. These evidences are in line with a model featuring variable elasticity of demand and heterogeneous firms.
Soluble HIV-1 Env trimers in adjuvant elicit potent and diverse functional B cell responses in primates

Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) against the HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins (Envs) have proven difficult to elicit by immunization. Therefore, to identify effective Env neutralization targets, efforts are underway to define the specificities of bNAbs in chronically infected individuals. For a prophylactic vaccine, it is equally important to define the immunogenic properties of the heavily glycosylated Env in healthy primates devoid of confounding HIV-induced pathogenic factors. We used rhesus macaques to investigate the magnitude and kinetics of B cell responses stimulated by Env trimers in adjuvant. Robust Env-specific memory B cell responses and high titers of circulating antibodies developed after trimer inoculation. Subsequent immunizations resulted in significant expansion of Env-specific IgG-producing plasma cell populations and circulating Abs that displayed increasing avidity and neutralization capacity. The neutralizing activity elicited with the regimen used was, in most aspects, superior to that elicited by a regimen based on monomeric Env immunization in humans. Despite the potency and breadth of the trimer-elicited response, protection against heterologous rectal simian-HIV (SHIV) challenge was modest, illustrating the challenge of eliciting sufficient titers of cross-reactive protective NAbs in mucosal sites. These data provide important information for the design and evaluation of vaccines aimed at stimulating protective HIV-1 immune responses in humans.
The construction of the tourist gaze in English textbooks in South Korea: exploring the tensions between internationalisation and nationalisation

ABSTRACT This study investigates how larger ideological tensions related to internationalisation and nationalisation are manifested in local education systems, especially in English textbooks. We begin this exploration with a review of the School Curriculum of the Republic of Korea. Using three textbooks as cases; we examine how they reflect and manage the tensions presented in the Curriculum. We argue that these tensions are managed through the construction of a tourist gaze, which is both directed inwards, in the construction of Koreanness, and outwards, in the construction of a global citizen. Through the medium of English, learners are both tourists, viewing their own culture from the perspective of the ‘other,’ while they are being prepared to be ‘tour guides,’ learning how to explain this perspective to the ‘other’ in the other's language, English. When focused outwards, the tourist gaze constructs representations of foreign cultures because it is through learning English that Korean learners become global citizens and are able to connect to ‘others,’ to make friends, and to travel the world. We conclude with considerations of ways to go beyond the tourist gaze, as teachers and learners use the tensions in more constructive ways – namely, to develop critical cultural competence.
Improving Statistical Machine Translation Using Bayesian Word Alignment and Gibbs Sampling

We present a Bayesian approach to word alignment inference in IBM Models 1 and 2. In the original approach, word translation probabilities (i.e., model parameters) are estimated using the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. In the proposed approach, they are random variables with a prior and are integrated out during inference. We use Gibbs sampling to infer the word alignment posteriors. The inferred word alignments are compared against EM and variational Bayes (VB) inference in terms of their end-to-end translation performance on several language pairs and types of corpora up to 15 million sentence pairs. We show that Bayesian inference outperforms both EM and VB in the majority of test cases. Further analysis reveals that the proposed method effectively addresses the high-fertility rare word problem in EM and unaligned rare word problem in VB, achieves higher agreement and vocabulary coverage rates than both, and leads to smaller phrase tables.
Institute for Mathematical Physics a Remark on Eisenstein Series a Remark on Eisenstein Series

The theory of Eisenstein series is fundamental for the spectral theory of automorphic forms. It was first developed by Selberg, and was completed by Langlands ([Lan76]; see also [MW95]). There are several known proofs for the meromorphic continuation of Eisenstein series (apart from very special cases of Eisenstein series which can be expressed in terms of Tate integrals). In all these proofs it is convenient, if not essential, to assume (in the number field case) that the inducing section is K-finite, to ensure finite dimensionality. However, the analytic properties of Eisenstein series are closely tied to, and at any rate controlled by, those of the intertwining operators. The latter decompose into local intertwining operators. In the archimedean case, a lot is known about the local intertwining operators and no K-finiteness assumption on the section is necessary. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the analytic properties of Eisenstein series for a general smooth section follow from that of K-finite sections. The modest goal of this short note is to carry this out (using the meromorphic continuation of K-finite Eisenstein series as a black box). In fact, by the automatic continuity theorem of Casselman and Wallach ([Wall92, Ch. 11]), at each regular point the Eisenstein series can be extended to smooth sections. This by itself does not suffice to prove meromorphic continuation unless one knows some local uniformity (in the spectral parameter) for the modulus of continuity of the Eisenstein series as a map from the induced representation to the space of automorphic forms. The point is that such uniformity, at least for cuspidal Eisen-stein series, is provided by the Maass-Selberg relations together with the properties of the intertwining operators at the archimedean places. As for Eisenstein series induced from other discrete spectrum, their properties can be deduced from those of cuspidal Eisenstein series by Langlands' general theory. We remark however, that there is still an important difference between the analytic properties of K-finite Eisen-stein series and smooth ones. The former are meromorphic functions of finite order ([Mül00]), while the latter need not be, already for SL 2. Indeed, even the matrix coefficients of the archimedean intertwining operators (which appear in the constant terms of Eisenstein series) are not necessarily of finite order (cf. [GL06, Remark 1 on p. 625]). Acknowledgement. I would like to thank Hervé Jacquet and Nolan Wallach for encouraging me to write this note and for their …
Chinese Keyword Extraction Using Semantically Weighted Network

The complex network theory is widely used in the field of keyword extraction. Through analyzing the insufficient of keyword extraction algorithms using traditional complex network, this paper proposes a new method to extract Chinese keyword based on semantically weighted network. On the basis of K-nearest neighbor coupling network, we build semantically weighted network according to the co-occurrence frequency and semantic similarity of the words in the text. We calculate the betweenness value, clustering coefficient variation and shortest path variation of the word node in the network to obtain the comprehensive eigenvalue of each word. According to the size of comprehensive eigenvalue, we extract text keyword. The experimental results show that the keywords extracted by this method can reflect the theme of the text better, and the accuracy has been significantly improved.
Registering multisensor datasets from a robotic inspection platform

In this paper we present a new method for the registration of multiple sensors applied to a mobile robotic inspection platform. Our main technical challenge is automating the integration process for various multimodal inputs, such as depth maps, and multi-spectral images. This task is approached through a unified framework based on a new registration criterion that can be employed for both 3D and 2D datasets. The system embedding this technology reconstructs 3D models of scenes and objects that are inspected by an autonomous platform in high security areas. The models are processed and rendered with corresponding multi-spectral textures, which greatly enhances both human and machine identification of threat objects.
Late to the Party: On the Prolonged Partisan Socialization Process of Second-Generation Americans

Abstract This article posits that the key to understanding the low levels of political involvement within contemporary immigrant communities, such as Asian and Latino communities, requires a closer examination of the partisan socialization process of the native-born children of immigrants. This article finds that many native-born children of immigrants, otherwise known as second-generation Americans, experience what I call a “prolonged partisan socialization process. ” In the absence of parental partisan transmission, many second-generation Americans are left to find their own path to partisan attainment. The consequences of this are that many second-generation Americans eventually come to find their partisan identity outside of the home and much later in life. These findings disrupt the traditional partisan attainment story, which assumes that partisanship is the product of a process of socialization led by parents. Accounting for this prolonged socialization process provides significant insight into why partisan identification, and by extension political participation, among many second-generation Americans, such as Latinos and Asians appears muted. Therefore, while it will likely take some time for many within these contemporary immigrant communities to reach “partisan maturity,” we should not mistake the prolonged socialization process to mean that these individuals are destined to be politically disengaged.
5′-AMP-activated Protein Kinase Controls Insulin-containing Secretory Vesicle Dynamics*

Changes in 5′-AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity have recently been implicated in the control of insulin secretion by glucose (da Silva Xavier, G., Leclerc, I., Varadi, A., Tsuboi, T., Moule, S. K., and Rutter, G. A. (2003) Biochem. J. 371, 761–774). Here, we examine the possibility that activation of AMPK may regulate distal steps in insulin secretion, including vesicle movement and fusion with the plasma membrane. Vesicle dynamics were imaged in single pancreatic MIN6 β-cells expressing lumen-targeted pH-insensitive yellow fluorescent protein, neuropeptide Y.Venus, or monomeric red fluorescent protein by total internal reflection fluorescence and Nipkow disc confocal microscopy. Overexpression of a truncated, constitutively active form of AMPK (AMPKα1, 1–312, T172D; AMPK CA), inhibited glucose-stimulated (30 versus 3.0 mm) vesicle movements, and decreased the number of vesicles docked or fusing at the plasma membrane, while having no effect on the kinetics of individual secretory events. Expression of the activated form of AMPK also prevented dispersal of the cortical actin network at high glucose concentrations. Monitored in permeabilized cells, where the effects of AMPK CA on glucose metabolism and ATP synthesis were bypassed, AMPK CA inhibited Ca2+ and ATP-induced insulin secretion, and decreased ATP-dependent vesicle movements. These findings suggest that components of the vesicle transport network, including vesicle-associated motor proteins, may be targets of AMPK in β-cells, dephosphorylation of which is required for vesicle mobilization at elevated glucose concentrations.
Text-To-Speech Intelligibility Across Speech Rates

A web-based listening test measured intelligibility across speech rate of 8 TTS systems and of a linearly timecompressed human speech reference voice. The synthesis systems included 2 independent representatives of each of the following 4 synthesis methods: formant, diphone concatenation, unit selection concatenation, and HMM. For each TTS system, a female and a male American English voice were tested. Semantically unpredictable sentences were presented at 6 speech rates from 200 to 450 words per minute. In an open response format, listeners typed what they heard. Listener transcriptions were automatically scored at the word level, and a normalized edit distance per speech rate was calculated for each of 355 listeners. There were significant differences among the TTS systems. The 2 unit selection TTS systems were the most intelligible across speech rates; one was equivalent to human speech. Listeners‟ native language, TTS familiarity, and audio equipment were also significant factors.
Co-operative Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive Radio systems over fading channels

Spectrum Sensing is the fundamental and essential operation in Cognitive Radio (CR) to find the unused frequency bands. To detect the unused spectrum, different types of detectors are used. Energy detector is one of the popular sensing methods because it doesn't need any information regarding transmitted signal. When Cognitive Radio user undergoes fading effect, detection of primary user is very less. So for detecting primary user (PU) more precisely, the CR users co-operate among each other by sharing their information. So we use Co-operative Spectrum Sensing technique which incorporate more number of users, to increase probability of detection. This paper recapitulates the performance comparison of energy detector over different fading channels like (Nakagami-m, Rayleigh, Rician, Weibull channel) and hard decision fusion techniques for Cognitive users. The performance is assessed by means of Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves. It is clearly observed that Probability of detection increases with the co-operation of more number of secondary users and Weibull fading channel has better detection performance than any other fading channels and also we investigate the effect of SNR over Probability of detection.
Susceptibility to Social Engineering in Social Networking Sites: The Case of Facebook

Past research has suggested that social engineering poses the most significant security risk. Recent studies have suggested that social networking sites (SNSs) are the most common source of social engineering attacks. The risk of social engineering attacks in SNSs is associated with the difficulty of making accurate judgments regarding source credibility in the virtual environment of SNSs. In this paper, we quantitatively investigate source credibility dimensions in terms of social engineering on Facebook, as well as the source characteristics that influence Facebook users to judge an attacker as credible, therefore making them susceptible to victimization. Moreover, in order to predict users’ susceptibility to social engineering victimization based on their demographics, we investigate the effectiveness of source characteristics on different demographic groups by measuring the consent intentions and behavior responses of users to social engineering requests using a role-play experiment.
A framework for throughput and energy efficiency in mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper, we propose a general framework to evaluate and compare both throughput and energy efficiency of mobile ad hoc networks. This framework is built upon a probabilistic, energy-aware, calculus for the analysis of broadcast, unicast and multicast wireless communications. The results of our analyses can be used to replace a network component with a more efficient one — with respect to different metrics like throughput and energy consumption — while maintaining connectivity. As an application, we evaluate two well-known automatic repeat request (ARQ)-based error control protocols: stop-and-wait (SW) and go-back-N (GBN).
Learning Probabilistic Awareness Models for Detecting Abnormalities in Vehicle Motions

This paper proposes a method to detect abnormal motions in real vehicle situations based on trajectory data. Our approach uses a Gaussian process (GP) regression that facilitates to approximate expected vehicle’s movements over a whole environment based on sparse observed data. The main contribution of this paper consists in decomposing the GP regression into spatial zones, where quasi-constant velocity models are valid. Such obtained models are employed to build a set of Kalman filters that encode observed vehicle’s dynamics. This paper shows how proposed filters enable the online identification of abnormal motions. Detected abnormalities can be modeled and learned incrementally, automatically by intelligent systems. The proposed methodology is tested on real data produced by a vehicle that interacts with pedestrians in a closed environment. Automatic detection of abnormal motions benefits the traffic scene understanding and facilitates to close the gap between human driving and autonomous vehicle awareness.
A Novel Message Passing Based MIMO-OFDM Data Detector with a Progressive Parallel ICI Canceller

A joint design of message passing MIMO data detector/decoder with progressive parallel inter-carrier interference canceller (PPIC) based on factor graph for OFDM-based wireless communication systems is proposed. By exchanging messages both in space domain and frequency domain, the proposed algorithm can suppress inter-antenna interferences and cancel inter-carrier interferences iteratively and progressively. With a proper designed message passing schedule and random interleaver, the short cycle problem is solved. Computer simulations show that the performance of the proposed message passing MIMO detector outperforms MMSE-SIC MIMO detector. The performances of PPIC, both in perfect channel estimation and imperfect channel estimation cases, are compared with the standard PIC architecture and the ICI self-canceller. The proposed PPIC is superior to PIC both in computational complexity and system architecture. The parallel structure of PPIC is similar to a systolic array. The proposed algorithm potentially leads to a very-high-speed detector/decoder. It is very suitable for VLSI implementation and it is a potential candidate for data detection/decoding in future high data rate, high mobility, wireless MIMO-OFDM communication systems.
Teaching Politeness of Using Slang in Speaking: Analysis of Conversations in Tuesdays with Morrie

Slang language is commonly used in American society in their daily life communication. However, teachers are still hesitant to teach slang in their speaking class, because slang language is assumed as impolite language. Most of the teachers don’t realize that even slang language can be used in polite conversation. This paper is intended to show some analysis on some conversations in the movie entitle ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ which are assumed as the representation of social language for American. The focus of the analysis is the use of slang in polite conversations. The analysis will be based on the identification of a communicative event along with three dimensions called field, tenor, and mode. The significance of the study is to clarify teachers’ understanding toward slang language that can be assumed as a politeness, so the teachers will not hesitate to teach slang language to their students in speaking class. Furthermore, through this analysis, the students will know why, when, where, and how to use slang politely in their daily life conversation.