Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Registration of multiple point sets

Registering 3D point sets subject to rigid body motion is a common problem in computer vision. The optimal transformation is usually specified to be the minimum of a weighted least squares cost. The case of 2 point sets has been solved by several authors using analytic methods such as SVD. In this paper we present a numerical method for solving the problem when there are more than 2 point sets. Although of general applicability the new method is particularly aimed at the multiview surface registration problem. To date almost all authors have registered only two point sets at a time. This approach discards information and we show in quantitative terms the errors caused.
Discussion Papers in Accounting and Finance Dividends , Earnings , the Payout Ratio and Returns : A Century of Evidence from the US and UK

This paper investigates the relationship between real earnings growth, real dividend growth, the dividend payout ratio and real stock returns in the US and UK between 1900-2001. We find a positive relationship in the UK between the payout ratio and subsequent real earnings growth contrary to conventional theory, though consistent with the US evidence presented by Arnott and Asness (2003). By contrast, a negative relationship was observed between the payout ratio and real dividend growth in the UK, although US results offered only limited support for this finding. Overall, we find the payout ratio is negatively related to real returns in the UK.
A Survey of 557 GHz Water Vapor Emission in the NGC 1333 Molecular Cloud

Using NASA's Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS), we have examined the production of water in quiescent and shocked molecular gas through a survey of the 556.936 GHz 110-101 transition of ortho-H2O in the NGC 1333 molecular core. These observations reveal broad emission lines associated with the IRAS 2, IRAS 4, IRAS 7, and HH 7-11 outflows. Toward three positions we detect narrow (Δv ~ 2-3 km s-1) emission lines clearly associated with the ambient gas. The SWAS observations, with a resolution of ~4', are supplemented with observations from the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) and by an unbiased survey of a ~17′ × 15′ area, with ~50'' resolution, in the low-J transitions of CO, 13CO, C18O, N2H+, CH3OH, and SiO. Using these combined data sets, with consistent assumptions, we find beam-averaged ortho-H2O abundances of greater than 10-6 relative to H2 for all four outflows. A comparison of SWAS and ISO water data is consistent with nondissociative shock models, provided the majority of the ortho-H2O (110-101) emission arises from cool postshock material with enhanced abundances. In the ambient gas the ortho-H2O abundance is found to lie between 0.1 × 10-7 and 1 × 10-7 relative to H2 and is enhanced when compared to cold prestellar molecular cores. A comparison of the water emission with tracers of dense condensations and shock chemistry finds no clear correlation. However, the water emission appears to be associated with the presence of luminous external heating sources that power the reflection nebula and the photodissociation region (PDR). Simple PDR models are capable of reproducing the water and high-J 13CO emission, suggesting that a PDR may account for the excitation of water in low-density undepleted gas, as suggested by Spaans & van Dishoeck.
Prevalence and Predictors of Tuberculosis Coinfection among HIV-Seropositive Patients Attending the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Northern Nigeria

Background The HIV/AIDS epidemic has been accompanied by a severe epidemic of tuberculosis (TB), although the prevalence of coinfection is largely unknown, especially in developing countries, including Nigeria. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and predictors of TB coinfection among HIV-seropositive Nigerians. Methods The case files of HIV/AIDS patients attending Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Nigeria from January to December 2006 were reviewed. Results A total of 1320 HIV/AIDS patients had complete records and were reviewed, among which 138 (10.5%) were coinfected with TB (95% CI, 8.9% to 12.2%). Pulmonary TB was diagnosed in 103 (74.6%) patients, among whom only 18 (17.5%) were sputum-positive. Fifty (36.2%) coinfected patients had some type of extrapulmonary TB (EPTB); 15 had both pulmonary TB and EPTB. Among the 35 patients with EPTB only, 20 (57.1%) had abdominal TB, 5 (14.3%) had TB adenitis, 5 (14.3%) had spinal TB, 3 (8.6%) were being monitored for tuberculous meningitis, and 1 (2.9%) each had renal TB and tuberculous adrenalitis. The highest prevalence of TB, 13.7% (n = 28), was seen among patients aged 41–50 years. TB coinfection was significantly associated with marital status, WHO clinical stage, and CD4 count. Marital status (OR, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.28–3.59; P = 0.04), WHO clinical stage at presentation (4.81; 1.42–8.34; P = 0.001), and baseline CD4 count (2.71; 1.51–6.21; P = 0.02) remained significant predictors after adjustment for confounding. Conclusions The moderately high prevalence of TB among HIV-seropositive patients underscores the urgent need for strategies that lead to rapid identification and treatment of coinfection with active or latent TB.
Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's Values Orientation Theor y

People's attitudes are based on the relatively few, stable values they hold. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's (1961) Values Orientation Theory proposes that all human societies must answer a limited number of universal problems, that the value-based solutions are limited in number and universally known, but that different cultures have different preferences among them. Suggested questions include humans' relations with time, nature and each other, as well as basic human motives and the nature of human nature. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck suggested alternate answers to all five, developed culture-specific measures of each, and described the value orientation profiles of five SW USA cultural groups. Their theory has since been tested in many other cultures, and used to help negotiating ethnic groups understand one another, and to examine the inter-generational value changes caused by migration. Other theories of universal values (Rokeach, Hofstede, Schwartz) have produced value concepts sufficiently similar to suggest that a truly universal set of human values does exist and that cross-cultural psychologists are close to discovering what they are. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu. edu/orpc/vol4/iss4/3
Expression of an Epitope-Tagged Virulence Protein in Rickettsia parkeri Using Transposon Insertion

Despite recent advances in our ability to genetically manipulate Rickettsia, little has been done to employ genetic tools to study the expression and localization of Rickettsia virulence proteins. Using a mariner-based Himar1 transposition system, we expressed an epitope-tagged variant of the actin polymerizing protein RickA under the control of its native promoter in Rickettsia parkeri, allowing the detection of RickA using commercially-available antibodies. Native RickA and epitope-tagged RickA exhibited similar levels of expression and were specifically localized to bacteria. To further facilitate protein expression in Rickettsia, we also developed a plasmid for Rickettsia insertion and expression (pRIE), containing a variant Himar1 transposon with enhanced flexibility for gene insertion, and used it to generate R. parkeri strains expressing diverse fluorescent proteins. Expression of epitope-tagged proteins in Rickettsia will expand our ability to assess the regulation and function of important virulence factors.
Networked Control Synthesis Using Time Delay Approach: State Feedback Case

Networked Control Systems (NCS) is a control system in which the sensors, controllers, and the actuators are connected via communication network. The use of communication network will lead to intermittent losses or delays of the information and may decrease the performance and cause instability. This paper presents the design of H∞ state feedback controller for NCS. The NCS is modelled as a time delay system. Two network features are considered: signal transmission delay and data packet dropout. Our objective is focused on the design of state feedback controller which guarantee asymptotic stability of the closed-loop systems. The proposed methods are given in the terms of Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI). Finally, we consider an unstable system for numerical example. It is shown that the state feedback controller proposed here make the closed-loop system stable with or without input disturbance.
Low-complexity calculating scheme of feedback information for receiver in EBSTBC

Extended balanced space-time block coding (EBSTBC) is able to achieve large coding gain and guarantee full diversity for any number of transmit antennas. However, the calculation of feedback information at the receiver employs exhaustive searching scheme which is at a high complexity. In this work, a low-complexity calculating scheme of feedback information is proposed for the receiver in EBSTBC systems. The scheme firstly choose the coding matrix according to the channel state information (CSI), and the value of extension parameters for achieving maximum coding gain are decided, then the two parts of the information are sent to the transmitter as the feedback information. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the calculating complexity of feedback information is greatly decreased, and almost the same reliability performance is achieved as the former scheme.
OR PART OF THE FOLLOWING SOURCE ) : Type article Title On the interpretation of removable interactions : a survey of the field 33 years after Loftus

In a classic 1978 Memory & Cognition article, Geoff Loftus explained why noncrossover interactions are removable. These removable interactions are tied to the scale of measurement for the dependent variable and therefore do not allow unambiguous conclusions about latent psychological processes. In the present article, we present concrete examples of how this insight helps prevent experimental psychologists from drawing incorrect conclusions about the effects of forgetting and aging. In addition, we extend the Loftus classification scheme for interactions to include those on the cusp between removable and nonremovable. Finally, we use various methods (i.e., a study of citation histories, a questionnaire for psychology students and faculty members, an analysis of statistical textbooks, and a review of articles published in the 2008 issue of Psychology and Aging) to show that experimental psychologists have remained generally unaware of the concept of removable interactions. We conclude that there is more to interactions in a 2 × 2 design than meets the eye.
Exploration of communication networks from the Enron email corpus

The Enron email corpus is appealing to researchers because it is a) a large scale email collection from b) a real organization c) over a period of 3.5 years. In this paper we contribute to the initial investigation of the Enron email dataset from a social network analytic perspective. We report on how we enhanced and refined the Enron corpus with respect to relational data and how we extracted communication networks from it. We apply various network analytic techniques in order to explore structural properties of the networks in Enron and to identify key players across time. Our initial results indicate that during the Enron crisis the network had been denser, more centralized and more connected than during normal times. Our data also suggests that during the crisis the communication among Enron’s employees had been more diverse with respect to people’s formal positions, and that top executives had formed a tight clique with mutual support and highly brokered interactions with the rest of organization. The insights gained with the analyses we perform and propose are of potential further benefit for modeling the development of crisis scenarios in organizations and the investigation of indicators of failure.
A Dynamic Fault Tolerant Routing Protocol for Prolonging the Lifetime of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are being extensively used for various applications. WSNs consist of a large number of small nodes with sensing, computation, and wireless communication capabilities. Sensor nodes are typically resource deficient with energy being the most critical of all the resources. Efficient use of energy resources in sensor nodes can extend the lifetime of WSNs. The main purpose of such networks is to gather information from the environments and deliver the same to the applications. Thus routing in WSNs is a demanding task. Multihop routing is always better as it has many advantages over the single hop networks. It not only reduces the congestion but also leads to better utilization of energy resources as individual nodes can operate with low transmission power. Any routing protocol has to ensure that data can always be routed from source to sink. The work in this paper aims at designing a multilevel fault tolerant routing protocol that extends the network lifetime. It is also consistent over data transmission even when a sensor node runs out of energy; thus maintains network connectivity. In our proposed work when a sensor node runs out of energy it finds a suitable alternative path to sink node by establishing a new connection dynamically with the nodes within its range. The alternative path increases the data transmission accuracy between source nodes to its respective sink node. Simulation studies of the proposed routing protocol have been carried out using Castalia simulator, and its performance has been compared with that of flooding and directed diffusion. The simulation results show that the proposed approach has lower energy consumption and data packet delivery delay, and higher delivery ratio. Keywords—Wireless Sensor Networks, multilevel routing protocol, reliable data transfer, energy efficient network connectivity.
Hair-color modeling and head detection

A method based on hair-color modeling to detect human head in color images was proposed. The presented algorithm compared the performance of four different chrominance spaces for the distribution of hair color and built a human hair color model in YCbCr space. A Gaussian mixture density model was used to describe the distribution of hair color and segmentation threshold value in Cb-Cr plate is obtained though parameter estimation using Expectation-Maximization algorithm. By combining chrominance information with other features of head, color segmentation and subsequent detection of human head detection have been performed in two-dimensional static images. Experimental results show that the presented method can detect human head in complex background effectively and provide a new approach of human head detection.
ECG score predicts those with the greatest percentage of perfusion defects due to acute pulmonary thromboembolic disease.

BACKGROUND More aggressive management may be warranted for patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE) and the greatest pulmonary vascular obstruction. We hypothesized that a scoring system based on the ECG might identify such patients. METHODS Consecutive patients investigated for PE at Christchurch Hospital between 1997 and 2002 with high-probability ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) scan findings were studied. The ECG obtained closest to and within 48 h of the scan was scored by two independent observers, and the mean ECG score was calculated. V/Q scan findings were categorized into those with < 30%, 30 to 50%, and > 50% perfusion defect by two independent observers experienced in V/Q interpretation. A consensus score was taken when disagreement occurred. RESULTS Two hundred twenty-nine patients were included in the study. The interobserver agreement for ECG score was 0.96 (Cronbach alpha) and V/Q score was 0.55 (kappa). The ECG predicted those with the greatest amount of perfusion defects. Mean ECG score was 2.6 (SD 2.8) in patients with < 30% perfusion defect, 3.2 (SD 2.9) in patients with 30 to 50% perfusion defect, and 5.3 (SD 3.7) in patients with > 50% perfusion defect. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for ECG score and those with > 50% perfusion defect was 0.71 (SE 0.04). An ECG score of > or = 3 predicted those with > 50% perfusion defect with a sensitivity of 70% (95% confidence interval [CI], 59 to 81%), and a specificity of 59% (95% CI, 51 to 67%). CONCLUSION An ECG score, simple to derive, predicts those with the greatest percentage of perfusion defect. Using the ECG for management warrants prospective evaluation.
HMM BASED SPEECH RECOGNITION OF CONTINUOUS THAI DIGITS

Progress on speech recognition of Thai digit strings is presented in this paper. HTK 3.0 was chosen to implement the HMM-based speech recognizer. MFCCs and their delta and delta-delta terms were used as speech features. Several set of HMM parameters were investigated. Two kinds of word searching methods were tried. Recognition accuracy of 98.7% on test data was achieved with a fixed length word network when ignoring silence in performance calculation.
Analyzing Powers for Forward p↑ + p → π0 + X at STAR

Preliminary results of the analyzing power for the production of forward, high‐energy π0 mesons from collisions of transversely polarized protons at s = 200GeV from STAR are presented. The kinematic ranges covered by the data are xF ≈ 0.2 – 0.6 and pT ≈ 1 – 3GeV/c. The analyzing power at s = 200GeV is found to be comparable to that observed at s = 20GeV.
EyeGrip: Detecting Targets in a Series of Uni-directional Moving Objects Using Optokinetic Nystagmus Eye Movements

EyeGrip proposes a novel and yet simple technique of analysing eye movements for automatically detecting the user's objects of interest in a sequence of visual stimuli moving horizontally or vertically in front of the user's view. We assess the viability of this technique in a scenario where the user looks at a sequence of images moving horizontally on the display while the user's eye movements are tracked by an eye tracker. We conducted an experiment that shows the performance of the proposed approach. We also investigated the influence of the speed and maximum number of visible images in the screen, on the accuracy of EyeGrip. Based on the experiment results, we propose guidelines for designing EyeGrip-based interfaces. EyeGrip can be considered as an implicit gaze interaction technique with potential use in broad range of applications such as large screens, mobile devices and eyewear computers. In this paper, we demonstrate the rich capabilities of EyeGrip with two example applications: 1) a mind reading game, and 2) a picture selection system. Our study shows that by selecting an appropriate speed and maximum number of visible images in the screen the proposed method can be used in a fast scrolling task where the system accurately (87%) detects the moving images that are visually appealing to the user, stops the scrolling and brings the item(s) of interest back to the screen.
‘In-line attack’ conformational effect plays a modest role in an enzyme-catalyzed RNA cleavage: a free energy simulation study

Since the proposal of ‘in-line attack’ conformation as a possibly important intermediate in RNA cleavage, its structure has been captured in various protein and RNA enzymes; these structures strengthen the belief that this conformation plays an essential role in the catalysis of RNA cleavage. As generally discussed, this intermediate structure can be involved in energy barrier reduction in two possible ways, e.g. through either conformational effect or electrostatic effect. In order to quantitatively elucidate the contribution of conformational effect in this type of enzyme catalysis, free energy simulations were performed on the RNA structures both in a splicing endonuclease complex and in the aqueous solution. Our free energy simulation results revealed that the ‘in-line attack’ conformational effect plays a modest role in facilitating the reaction rate enhancement (∼12-fold) compared with the overall 1012-fold rate increase. The close agreement between the present computational estimation and an experimental measurement on the spontaneous RNA cleavage in an in vitro evolved ATP aptamer motives us to realize that the conformation distribution of an enzyme substrate prior to rather than after its binding determines the upper bound of the rate enhancement ability through the conformational strategy.
BiTeS: a BDD based test pattern generator for strong robust path delay faults

This paper presents an algorithm for generation of test patterns for strong robust path delay faults, i.e. tests that propagate the fault along a single path and additionally are hazard free. The algorithm uses Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) for the computation and representation of the test sets. It has been implemented as the program BiTeS. The implementation is very simple, since only BDD operations must be carried out. BiTeS computes the complete set of patterns that lead to a test instead of a single test. Thus, methods for test set compaction can easily be applied. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the e ciency of BiTeS.
Collaborating Cognitive and Sub-Cognitive Processes for the Simulation of Human Decision Making

One of the difficulties in simulating human decision-making is the requirement to model the wide range of human behaviour from knowledge-based, through rule-based to skill-based. The beliefs-desires-intentions (BDI) model of rational agency has proved very successful in developing computer generated forces for simulation, but with limited complexity. In this paper a model of human cognition is presented that separates the skill-based and knowledge-based components in an effort to overcome some of these challenges. We use a BDI model as the provider of the knowledgebased component and machine learning to provide the skill-based is given. This split has some cognitive plausibility but is also computationally feasible – a fact demonstrated through the development of a proof-of-concept technology demonstrator. The model shows potential in easing the task of the software engineer and in the creation of psychologically credible models of human behaviour for use in simulation.
On the solution of large scale channel assignment problem in broadband satellite communication

This paper first introduces the broadband multimedia communication satellite idea and the concept of channel assignment. It briefly reviews the history of channel assignment research and mathematically formulates the problem. Classical and neural network methods are applied to the solution of the problem. Simulations of both methods show that neural network method is better in dealing with real world channel assignment problem as that encountered in our satellite system. Finally is the conclusion on how to improve performance and other satellite channel assignment related issues.
New Worklife Estimates Reflect Changing Profile of Labor Force.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has developed a new set of working life tables based on labor force patterns observed in 1977 . On the basis of these patterns, the Bureau estimates that the average man 16 years of age can expect to spend 38.5 years in the labor force while a typical woman of that age can expect 27.7 years of labor force involvement. Patterns of lifetime labor force attachment for both men and women are constantly changing. Comparisons of labor force participation rates from year to year suggest evolving patterns of labor force entry and withdrawal, as well as significant changes in economic activity at midlife. However, it is difficult to identify the current "lifetime pattern of labor force involvement" from these rates alone. Working life tables were developed to isolate such lifetime patterns . The results of the model are synthetic. That is, they summarize the behavior of all age groups in the population during a given year, rather than trace the history of any one group through its lifetime . The tables estimate how frequently members of a population would enter and leave the labor force, and how long the average person would remain economically active, if